Maelstrom Strand

by Rick Partlow

  “If that missile hits us,” Tara noted, as if he hadn’t already thought of it, “we’re dead.”

  “Is the damn gun working still?” he asked, eyes going back and forth between the two of them. “Can it still work while the field is all wonky?”

  “Not full power,” Terrin gave him the answer he hadn’t wanted but had definitely expected.

  “Well, try it anyway,” he told Tara. “We’re close enough, we just have to damage the thing’s guidance and get out of its way!”

  Close…yeah, we’re closer than I ever wanted to be to a ship-killer missile.

  It was clearly visible in the optical view, an evil, black wedge shape against the day side of the planet, the flare of its fusion drive backlighting it. It was two hundred megatons of death and they were nearly naked.

  “Firing again,” Tara said, a hopeless note in her usually defiant voice.

  They were hit again, harder this time, shaking the ship like the biggest dog in the universe had sank its teeth into them, but they got the shot away first. The pale blue tendril of the particle beam was barely visible, fainter than usual, but there was a definite reaction when it struck the ship killer. Metal flared away, heated to a gas, a jet of white plasma gushing out from the side of the missile.

  Hope burned in Kammy’s chest. They’d hit the fuel supply, igniting the metallic hydrogen pellets. The push wasn’t much, but it was enough to send the missile off course, and they were too close for it to correct in time. It had been accelerating at twenty gravities for minutes now, and to turn around and curve back to them would take just as much thrust and even more time.

  Saved by physics yet again. Thank you, Mithra. Or Katy’s Jesus. Or his great-grandmother’s gods, Maui and Pele and Ku. Don’t want to leave anyone out.

  “The drive field is weakening,” Terrin warned.

  Kammy thought he heard Donner Osceola’s voice in his ear, whispering with his cynical growl, “Don’t be thanking anyone just yet.”

  “How far are we from the picket ship?” he asked.

  “Shit Kammy,” Tara drawled, “another thirty seconds, we’ll be smelling what he had for dinner!”

  “Target him with everything we got. Lasers, coilguns, missiles, I don’t care how unlikely it is to take him down, keep firing and fire the damn main gun, too, even if it’s weakened.”

  “Doing it,” she acknowledged. “But what about the cruiser and that laser?”

  “We get in close enough, he won’t be able to use the laser.”

  That’s the plan, anyway.

  The computer simulated the outgoing laser and the hail of tungsten slugs pouring from the coilguns but didn’t need to provide special effects for the missiles flashing away on solid-fuel rockets that only outpaced them because the drive had been weakened. It wasn’t much, mostly designed for anti-missile use, though it wouldn’t have scratched the paint on the ship killer. It certainly wasn’t going to destroy a picket ship, but it kept them occupied, made them waste their main laser on the missiles and coilgun rounds, forced them to power up their deflectors.

  They were too close now for the cruiser to use the laser, so damned close to the atmosphere he felt as if he could a roll a window down and take a whiff.

  “Drive field status?” He hadn’t meant to bark the question, but everything felt wrong. He’d gotten too used to the new technology making him feel invulnerable and here he was getting his ass kicked and it was starting to piss him off.

  “Back up to seventy percent,” Terrin said, sounding enthusiastic about it. Kammy supposed that meant something good, but he just knew enough science to captain a ship.

  “Bergh, I want you to take us so close to that asshole’s starboard flank we rub bumpers.”

  Bergh was a professional, and not just a professional spacer like Kammy or Tara. He was Spartan Navy and he did what his captain told him no matter how bugnuts he thought it was.

  “Everybody strap in,” Terrin advised. His eyes were wide and Kammy thought he knew what they were trying to do.

  Kammy tightened his harness, just in case. They were so close to the picket ship, he could read the stencil across the side. SS Skjold it said, and he assumed that meant something nautical in whatever language they’d gotten it from. Then the drive field touched the Skjold and something tried very hard to throw him through the opposite bulkhead.

  That was what it felt like, when he was slammed against his harness and the compartment swam around him as if the entire universe was spinning, and he was fairly certain he’d killed them all. And then it ended as abruptly as it had begun, it ceased and they were still and the ship was apparently facing in the opposite direction and unmoving, or at least only moving as fast as gravitation was pulling it.

  “Where the hell did he go?” Tara asked, staring at the sensor display.

  “Check the atmosphere,” Kammy suggested, hoping he was right.

  “Holy shit,” she said.

  “Is that a good ‘holy shit’ this time?” Terrin wondered.

  Tara pinched her fingers against the touch screen and the optical telescope zoomed down into Nereus’ atmosphere, showing a comet streaking groundward, trailing glowing white fire. Kammy barked a laugh.

  “I knew it! I knew that would work!”

  “You did?” Terrin asked, face pale, eyes full of doubt. “Because I kind of thought the field would implode and we’d wind up atomized.”

  “Well shit, Terry,” Kammy said, blowing out a heavy sigh, “I’m glad you didn’t tell me that. Is the field still up?”

  “It’s propagating.” There was wonder in his eyes, as if he’d believed they’d broken the ship. “It should be at full strength in a couple minutes.”

  “Good. Where’s the cruiser?”

  “I got her,” Tara said, pulling up part of the screen to show him the tail end of a fusion drive, burning hard away from them. “He’s decelerating hard, burning off the gee load he built up. I think he’s going to pull back out and assess the situation, maybe ask for further instructions.” She smirked. “All that military bullshit for running away because he thinks we’ll kick his ass.”

  “Let him run,” Kammy decided. “Our job’s not to chase him down, it’s to clear out the area. Phillips,” he said to their new communications officer, “let them know downstairs our part of the fight’s over. It’s all up to them now.”

  17

  Get that damned door open!” Lyta Randell yelled over her shoulder, then winced as a 6mm round ricocheted off the wall beside her head, sending out a spray of stone chips.

  She put her cheek back against the stock of her carbine and hunted for a target. The Starkad Marines down the hallway were trying to stick their heads around the corner at random intervals, putting a burst downrange and then ducking back. They were trying to pin Lyta and her Rangers down, no doubt hoping to hold them in place until reinforcements arrived, which was exactly what she was hoping to avoid.

  The toe of a combat boot stuck out from around the corner, just a small mistake, someone shifting their weight in preparation to lean out and fire a burst. The target was only a few centimeters long and fifteen meters away, only exposed long enough for her to fire a single round. The end of the boot jerked backward, leaving a trail of blood and a high-pitched scream warbled back over the kettle-drum echo of gunfire. The unfortunate Starkad Marine pitched forward, landing on his left shoulder. He apparently hadn’t had time to find his helmet, not that it would have saved him at this range, and his eyes were wide and white and terrified.

  Lyta tried to remember a time when she’d hesitated to pull the trigger, a time before this had all become so easy. She was sure there had once been a version of Lyta Randell who’d been innocent, who’d been horrified at the idea of killing someone, but she couldn’t recall that woman, couldn’t remember ever being so young. She shot the enemy trooper in the head, ignoring him afterwards, her eyes only open to threats.

  “I got it!” Glover crowed.

  She risked a loo
k back and saw the Ranger NCO yanking at the heavy, centimeters-thick metal of the cell door, his electronic cracking module still affixed to the ID plate on the wall, blinking a cheerful green to confirm that it had accomplished its task. The door opened reluctantly and one of the other Rangers jumped in to help Glover push it aside. Lyta was past them in a single, long stride, pausing only for a moment to let her eyes adjust. The chamber was dark, gloomier than the dimly-lit hallway, the only light from a narrow window letting in the cloud-wreathed glow of the double moons. A chill dampness filled the air and the stone floor was precariously slick beneath her boots and her jaw clenched at the thought that General Constantine had spent months living in this hellhole.

  He was huddled in the corner. It took her a moment to spot him, crouching in the shadows, hands hooked into claws as if getting ready to pounce. His hair was down to his shoulders, his beard long and grey and tangled, and his eyes gleamed with feral rage in the faint moonlight. She heard a low growl coming from his throat and thought for a long, sickening moment he might try to attack her.

  “General Constantine,” she said loudly and firmly, taking a step toward him, trying to bring her face into what little light there was. “It’s me, Lyta. We’re here to break you out.”

  He slowly rose to his full height, eyes seeming to finally focus on her.

  “It’s another trick,” he declared. His voice was rough, raspy, unmodulated, as if he weren’t used to speaking. “It’s just you Starkad bastards trying to break me again.”

  She’d considered the prospect he might not believe it was them, thought long and hard during the voyage about how she might convince him. It was why she hadn’t worn a helmet despite the risk, knowing he’d need to see her face.

  “Maybe it is,” she conceded, shrugging as if the thought wasn’t concerning. “But you won’t find out unless you play it through.”

  She had her hand on the dart launcher she’d brought along with them, just in case, but the words seemed to penetrate, and he nodded slowly.

  “All right. At least it’ll pass the time.”

  “Stay behind me, sir,” she instructed him. “Glover, you ride the General’s six and eat a bullet for him if it comes to that, clear?”

  Glover’s face was pale beneath the rim of his helmet, but he nodded.

  There was still intermittent fire coming from down the hallways and she’d frankly had enough of it. She pulled an antipersonnel grenade from her vest, twisting the arming dial to three seconds and pulling out the safety pin.

  “Grenade!” she yelled before bouncing it off the far wall and around the corner.

  She draped herself over General Constantine, putting her body armor between him and the blast, tucking her head down just before the concussion hit. Pressure contracted her sinuses and pressed at her chest, but no fragments made it around the corner. Suppressed carbines barked as her platoon rushed the enemy positions, but they faded quickly.

  “Clear!” Lt. Grant called back to her.

  She grabbed General Constantine by the arm, a stab of shock going through her at how thin and frail the arm felt in her hand, and pulled him with her, heading for the emergency stairwell. The elevators were a no-go, not least because they’d planted charges on the rails in the shaft ten minutes ago. The real professionals, people like Colonel Laurent, would go for the stairs anyway, but she wanted to make sure they only had to watch for threats from one direction.

  They’d passed by interrogation centers, medical labs and monitoring rooms and the part of her that had worked intelligence for so many years wanted to burst in and grab whatever data they could recover, but that wasn’t the mission. What data Starkad had managed to get was burned. The objective was the man.

  “Go! Go! Go!” she urged the squad on point, motioning for the stairwell door, unmarked and set back in a dark corner of the cell block.

  The squad split off into two teams through the door, half moving up to cover their approach and the rest heading down, with Lyta, General Constantine and Sgt. Glover behind them while the squad she’d taken into the cell block followed. Another fire team was covering the approaches at the ground floor, and the last was still—she hoped—at the loading dock.

  “Sgt. Todd,” she said into her throat mic, “do you read?”

  “You’re five by five, ma’am.”

  Lyta hissed out a sigh of relief the woman was still alive and kicking, not least because it meant Franny was still safe.

  “Keep your eyes open. We’re heading down.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Todd acknowledged. “My eyes haven’t closed yet.”

  Francesca Hayden knew there was no reason to keep trying to break into the security monitoring system, that Lyta and the others would be back at the loading dock any minute, but it gave her something to do. And anything was better than sitting around watching George Easton breathe and waiting for someone to come try to kill them.

  George was asleep, or unconscious. She wasn’t a doctor or a medic, so she didn’t know which. She kept checking to make sure he was still breathing, that he wasn’t bleeding again, but there was nothing else she could do for him. This, though, she could do. The Starkad Intelligence encryption system was tough, the toughest she’d seen. It made cracking the codes to access the systems of the destroyer seem like a cakewalk and she was sure she’d run out of time before she got in…and then, suddenly, she was. She had an even dozen cracking programs stored in her ‘link and it had, of course, been the twelfth and last that did the trick.

  She scrolled past the things she might have found useful half an hour ago, like Marine troop files and mecha arming and storage data and went directly to the base’s security camera monitoring system. There were hundreds of cameras in the base, but most were inactive, emplaced in unoccupied cells or empty wings and she wasted nearly thirty seconds cycling through them before she found the first live one. It was a conference room, or a break room or something with lots of chairs and tables and, in this case, people hiding underneath them. Noncombatants, she assumed, probably medical technicians or maintenance workers.

  I’m a technician and I just killed a guy and I’m sitting here with a rifle over my shoulder.

  It was almost another minute before she found what she was looking for. Lyta Randell and her Rangers were coming down the back stairwell, a line of black-clad figures moving cautiously but quickly. At their center was Nicolai Constantine, though she only knew it through process of elimination. She’d seen the man only months ago and wouldn’t have recognized him now. His face was pale as death, his hair and beard in a wild, grizzled tangle and he’d lost at least ten or fifteen kilograms from a tall, lanky frame that couldn’t spare it. He seemed a walking skeleton and she wondered how much was left of the man they’d all known.

  She followed the Rangers down the steps, making sure there were no Supremacy Marines along their route. She saw nothing and was beginning to wonder if the Marines were huddled under tables alongside the other personnel.

  No, Lyta always says, whatever other failings Starkad Marines might have, they aren’t cowards.

  So, where the hell were they? She’d seen a few dead bodies, but that couldn’t be all of them. Were they outside?

  She risked scrolling away from the view of the back stairwell, past a few unoccupied rooms, past a small garage with two cargo trucks and a ducted-fan helicopter and finally to another staircase. It had to be near the front of the building, the side facing inward toward the landing zone where two Starkad drop-ships still sat, empty and unpowered. As she followed the cameras down from the top floor, she saw them. At least a platoon of Supremacy Marines in full armor were strung out over two floors with a uniformed woman at their lead, already pushing open the door to the ground floor…

  “Sgt. Todd!” Franny yelled, twisting around to where the Ranger NCO was leaning against the interior of the door, waiting for Lyta to arrive. “There are Starkad Marines coming down on a different staircase! They’re behind Lyta and the others!”
r />   Todd didn’t waste time responding to her, just waved acknowledgement.

  “Colonel Randell, this is Sgt. Todd,” the woman said, her voice muffled and barely audible over the wind rushing by the open cargo doors. “Colonel Randell, do you read?”

  She touched something on her left arm and Franny thought she must be switching frequencies.

  “Lt. Grant, this is Sgt. Todd, do you read me?” Lt. Grant, please respond.” She cursed, this time loud and clear even over the background noise. She looked back at Franny. “I think we’re being jammed. They’re trying to cut her off before she can get down here with him. I have to go warn her.” She gestured to one of the other Rangers. “Corporal McCallister, with me. The rest of you, guard the techs.”

  Todd and her corporal sprinted out of the door to the loading dock without hesitation or precaution, leaving the two Rangers glancing at each other doubtfully, as if they would rather have gone with their team leader. Franny wrapped a hand around the pistol grip of her stolen rifle and stood at the edge of the door, staring down an empty hallway and fighting an insane urge to run after them.

  Sweat trickled cold down between Lyta Randell’s shoulder blades and she shuddered at an itch she couldn’t scratch. It was too empty, too clear. This base was too big for there to be so few troops. Something was wrong.

  Not much I can do about it. The damned stairs only go two directions.

  They were finally at the ground floor, though she had to wait a landing up with General Constantine while the squad walking point checked the exit. The stairwell was gloomy and claustrophobic, built from the same stone as the outside wall and lit only by an occasional chemical striplight, the steps moldy and slick under her boots. She’d tried pulling down her night vision goggles, but they robbed her of too much depth perception and she’d nearly slipped twice before deciding to just deal with the dark and keep her balance.

  Constantine hadn’t said a word since he’d left his cell, for which she’d been grateful given how ragged out and close to the edge he’d seemed. But now, waiting on the dim and lonely landing, he turned to her and asked her a question, his voice quiet and full of broken glass.