by Greg Dragon
She waited until her rockets cooled, then brought out a pair of magnetic soles. Putting them on was more challenging than flight, and it took a focused effort not to lose her grip. This was a difficult test of flexibility and focus, with Cilas in her ear trying to reach her on the comms. She was finally able to get one on and planted that foot on the hull. Catching her breath, she used both her hands to adjust the remaining boot.
“Tutt,” she shouted into her comms. “Open a private channel and update the lieutenant on our plan. Copy? I need to focus, or I will die, and the comms is driving me insane.”
“Copy that, team lead. I’ll let the XO know as well.”
Helga started her walk across the hull. It was slow and methodical, but easier now that she didn’t have to concern herself about the shields. She worried for time; what if the overzealous master-at-arms donned EVA suits to arrest her? Would they listen to reason? Certainly not from her, a half-alien warfighter who just spent time with the psych.
For all she knew, they already assumed that she’d rigged the explosives and was now trying to escape using her PAS. The thought was ridiculous: where would she go in a Powered Armor Suit? Fuel and oxygen were in limited supply, and she would need a ship to escape in.
When she reached the hull outside of Aurora, she saw that there was a porthole above the hatch for trash. She crept up next to it and knelt on the hull, crawling about it like a spider, before inching forward to peer inside.
It was dark, but the PAS’s helmet assisted her vision, revealing the outline of several spacers, most seated on the floor. But one—the only one armed—was pacing about.
Helga stood up and took a breath, taking a moment to stare up and out into space. It was a brief appreciation for the tremendous universe, and she needed a moment before committing to what she had to do.
“Tutt,” she said, “start working that door. There’s only one target, and he has hostages. One or two of them may be dead. With you on the door, he’ll be distracted, and I can slip in to neutralize him.”
“We’ve started the breach, ma’am, and the lieutenant knows the plan. I have four Marines here with me, and it should take us ten minutes to pull down that door.”
Helga made to reply, but she hesitated. While Quentin was talking, she had taken another look up at the stars, and that was when she noticed that there was a space where none was present. It was a motley of white blips inside that inky soup, but for one area where it seemed as if a mass of nothing obscured them.
Pulling out her sidearm, Helga aimed and shot at the empty space. She watched the projectile slip past the shields to travel off into the distance, but then it struck something that rippled like water on the surface. Her heart fell to the hull, and she began to shake, frozen in fear as she stared out at the blackness. She managed to fumble at her wrist-comms, locating Genevieve Aria on the Rendron’s bridge.
“Ensign Ate,” came a reply. “This is Lieutenant Aria. How may I assist?”
“I need Captain Sho,” Helga said, impatiently. “We have an invisible mass outside near mother. I think something may have slipped past our trackers.”
“Something like what, Helga?” Genevieve whispered, as if trying not to be heard by anyone else.
“I’m outside of the Rendron. Spacewalking, and there appears to be something cloaked outside of Aurora deck. I think we’ve been invaded. The ship is near where the explosions went off.”
The comms went dead, and Helga walked over to the airlock, checked on her timer, and saw that it was about to open. “Ate?” came Genevieve’s voice after a minute. “The captain is asking that you get back inside. He has been alerted, and we have fighters launching to find the cloaked ship, but he wants you back on board in case we need to jump.”
“Got it,” Helga said, then checked back with Tutt, who confirmed that they were almost through the door. “Nighthawks, be careful,” she said. “I don’t think this is sabotage from a member of our crew. Listen, there’s a cloaked ship out here, close enough for me to hit it with my pistol, and with a mass about the size of an assault ship or a smaller dreadnought. We may have been boarded through the same airlock that I told you about.”
“Is it a lizard?” Cilas said. She had forgotten he was there, and she bit back the need to scold him for rushing back to take the reins. But could she blame him, considering her poor attempt at leading? She who left her team to spacewalk and face the saboteur by herself?
“I’m not sure,” was all she could manage as she grabbed a rung of the ladder near the hatch. The timer went off, and the hatch flew open violently, shooting out several blocks of trash and corpses wrapped in foil. Helga waited for it to clear, then positioned herself to enter. As a child she had done this several times, so she knew to wait for the compactor to rise before trying to climb inside.
There was nothing quite as frightening as crawling into that hatch only for the system to think that one of the blocks was stuck. It would trigger a blast of energy to clear the disposal, and if Helga was inside, she’d be launched well beyond the interior of the Rendron’s shields. She waited the thirty seconds it took to do its checks, then pulled herself inside quickly.
Helga was much bigger now than when she was a cadet, but there was still room enough for her to fit inside the shaft. She pulled off her magnetic soles and placed them inside her pack, then grabbed the edges and pulsed her boots to accelerate her entrance. She barely made it inside before the door slammed shut and sealed.
That was a hair too close, she thought, swallowing against the beating of her heart. She popped open a panel, untwisted a set of wires, then cut and reattached them as they sparked their objection at her tampering. When she had finished doing this practiced exercise, she stared into the darkness until she saw the airlock come open, granting her access to the compactor.
Thank you, Helga whispered to no one in particular, and replaced the wires before closing the lid. She took her time inching forward, crawling through the shaft. When she reached the compactor, instinct kicked in, and she maneuvered her way around a set of gears.
There was a small grate at the end, which she knew came up below the galley’s big table. It was meant for fluid runoffs and looked about as disgusting as she expected. Sliding below it, she eased it open with the barrel of her pistol, then pulled herself up to a seating position to have a look inside.
Laid out in front of her was a master-at-arms, staring into nothing with his mouth hanging open. The man was dead, and so was his partner, who lay across his lap limply, his one open eye a vacant glass. Helga couldn’t stand it as she waited for the invader to come into sight, so she did as she was trained to do, and patiently breathed to calm herself.
When he finally emerged, he was walking towards the door. As suspected, it was a Geralos commando, dressed in black, with a breathing apparatus strapped across his mouth. In his hand was a detonator, and he stared at the door, waiting for it to open. He’s going to blow himself up, Helga thought, and it will rupture the hull and suck everyone out. She had no choice; she had to act, so she sat up and positioned herself to make the crucial shot.
Squeeze the trigger, don’t pull it, she thought, repeating this mantra in her mind. She aimed for his neck, expecting the lift from her pistol to carry the bullet to his head. She squeezed the trigger halfway, feeling the tension as she secured her aim, then committed to the shot. To her surprise, there was no lift, but the bullet struck home, tearing through the Geralos’s throat, severing the spine below his head.
He was dead before he hit the deck, but Helga kept on firing to make sure. She growled in triumph as she climbed out of her hiding place, still firing into his form, and when she saw that he wasn’t moving, she kicked him in the head. Loud cheers went up all around her, frightening her since she had forgotten that there was an audience to her work.
There were four in all, three Vestalian males and a female. One of the males was a cadet who hadn’t stopped staring at her from the time she emerged from the deck. Next t
o them lay six corpses, one with a hole in her head.
Helga re-holstered her weapon, removed her helmet, and sat heavily on one of the vacant chairs. “Help is coming through that door,” she reassured them, then took some time to catch her breath. After a minute she felt composed enough to talk, so she pulled on her helmet and opened a channel to the rest of the Nighthawks.
When the door came down, several Marines walked in, geared and ready for a fight they were not going to get. A pair of Cel-tocs followed, each trailed by a hover bed to transport the injured, and then there was Quentin Tutt, who rushed over to Helga when he saw her seated.
“Are you injured, Ate?” he said, looking concerned, but before she could answer, she heard Raileo’s unique whistle. Pushing herself up to her feet, Helga jabbed Quentin’s chest to let him know she was good. Behind him, she saw what the young Nighthawk was whistling about. He was crouched over the Geralos, examining his vitals.
“Lizard was strapped with enough explosives to punch a hole through that hull,” he said. “I wonder who or what he was waiting on. We got lucky; this was going to be bad. Good kill, by the way, Ate. I couldn’t have done better myself.”
“That first shot was everything. I had to stop him from using that detonator,” she said. “Those things are tough, and I didn’t want to take any chances.”
“I can see,” he said nodding. “He’s been hit over twenty times. I doubt he would have been able to react had your first shot missed.”
Cilas Mec stepped in, followed by the XO Jit Nam, and the pair was bordered by what seemed to be all the MAs on the ship. These black-clad lawmen rushed to collect the deceased, and the chief walked over to Helga to ask her for a report.
For half an hour she sat with him, recounting her investigation, and she stressed to him the need to keep an eye out for more Geralos onboard. “There’s never just one,” she said. “And who knows how they got past our radar. We Nighthawks will be looking; you can bet your boots on that. Right, Lieutenant? But we’re going to need all hands on deck to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
When he was satisfied, he let her go, and she was happy that she didn’t have to go out the way she came. Spacewalking was fun when you had the right equipment, which was a tether, a full oxygen tank, and someone to watch your back. Helga had had none of these things when she made the rescue, and all she wanted now was a shower.
“Ate, I need you out of that armor and in your dress blacks within the next thirty minutes,” Cilas said. “We’re wanted in the captain’s cabin, but you can’t go in there like this. I’ll meet you near the ladderwell at 0:960 Alliance time.”
“How are you feeling?” she said.
“My head’s still swimming, but I’m told it should pass by the end of this cycle.”
Helga nodded and started walking, activating her rockets to allow her to glide. She pumped her heels up and down, causing her boots to pulse, and before long she was zipping through the passageways and the spacers scrambling about.
She felt a presence next to her and turned to see Raileo Lei in his own PAS.
“Someone’s a quick learner,” she said. “Following me home?”
“Doesn’t our hero need an escort?” he said sarcastically, but she didn’t have the energy to laugh.
“We shouldn’t be joking around with that thing sitting outside,” she said, powering down her rockets so that she could actually walk.
Raileo Lei followed her lead, clumsily; he was still learning the suit. “I think the lieutenant is worried that you’ll jump in your Classic and go investigate it yourself, ma’am. He asked me to look out for you, just in case of anything.”
“Knowing me, I guess that’s valid, but you can break off, Lei. My destination is my berth, where I plan to change to meet the captain, as I was commanded. Plus, our aces are enough to expose whatever it is. You don’t have to worry your pretty human head about me.”
“I was thinking about you the other day, Ate,” he said, and she stared at him to see what direction this conversation was going. They were well past the hangar, and she wondered if he had followed her to have a different kind of discussion. She cringed at the thought. While Raileo was a good-looking spacer, she wasn’t interested in him and didn’t want to break his heart.
“You were thinking about me?” she said, growing impatient.
“Well, it came after what you said in the training room a few cycles back. The stuff about xenophobes being everywhere, spreading their rhetoric and whatnot. I was thinking that it wasn’t fair how you of all people have to walk around constantly watching your back. This is supposed to be our home, and I want to know what I can do.”
Helga was at a loss for words. This wasn’t what she’d been expecting from him, but the last thing she needed was a guardian. “I keep thinking that you’re setting me up for a prank, but you’re always looking out for me,” she said. “Ray, I live in fear of just about everyone on this ship, but if anyone was to try something, you’d know because I’d be in the brig. I can never be comfortable here, I’ve come to terms with it, and that’s how it is. Maybe that’s what gives me my edge, but I don’t view Rendron as my home. I have no home.”
“But, that’s not fair,” he said. “And it’s harmful, considering the lizards own the galaxy. Why are we alienating our own up here? That’s what I want to know. We Vestalians should accept all the help we can get, yet one of our best pilots is uncomfortable on her own ship.”
“Aye, but who measures fairness, eh? As boomers without a planet, all we have out here is rage. By we, I mean, Vestalian humans. We come from a planet rich with resources, with our own cultures and traditions beyond ranks and labels. We had cities, we owned lands, and even though we had wars, it was to defend the things we owned. Now, what do we have? I have this pistol … I guess, and a few vids. For a living being, sentient and intelligent beyond most other life forms, we have become no better than rats.”
“Don’t make excuses for them, Ate. I grew up on a hub, and if everything you said was true, then I would be the biggest xenophobe walking. What I care about is this team, and killing lizards until they release our planet. Anyone in the way of that, I consider them my enemy.”
Helga, stopped and raised an open palm then held it up for him to punch it. He placed his fist gently against it, and she reached over and gripped his shoulder. It was an ESO greeting, but in this instance, it was an unspoken thanks for him being a brother and thinking of her.
“If any of these thypes so much as breathe a word about your Casanian heritage, ma’am, you say the word and I’ll happily put my fist through their face. I’m serious; we may not be in the field, but I still have your back.”
“How about we take some of that rage out on the targets at the range?” Helga said.
“From what I saw of your shooting earlier, I doubt you even need it.” He laughed. “Sounds like a plan though. Want to go after your meeting with the captain?”
“Thype, I forgot.” She laughed. “Let’s do it when things settle down.”
10
It turned out that the cloaked ship was indeed Geralos, cloaking both its outer appearance and signature to fool the Rendron. The entire time it drifted near the starship, the ship’s radar mistook it as part of the Inginus. Unlike its twin, the SoulSpur, the infiltrator was still attached to the Rendron getting repairs.
Prior to fleeing to deep space, Inginus had been crippled by a Geralos trace laser, which forced the Rendron to stay above Meluvia, piecing her back together. The second attack—which occurred while the Nighthawks were investigating the dreadnought—had forced all three ships to jump out of the system and settle in this uncharted portion of space. Prior to jumping, the two infiltrators were forced to dock, but once they came out of light speed, Inginus was moved to the exterior, where repairs could resume to her hull.
A smart Geralos commander, seeing this happen, cloaked and came in close to the ship. This kept them undetected, and they remained there, even when the repa
irs were complete. It was brilliant espionage, but Retzo Sho was not impressed, and he ordered his weapons officer to disable the ship, immediately.
First, fighters were launched with orders to expose the cloak, and they did this through a series of bombardment. Thirty strikers and phantoms flew formation around the ship, peppering it with everything from ballistic rounds to energy cannons. The impact of this salvo sent ripples across the surface, and slowly but surely the cloaking failed, and a dreadnought was revealed, raising shields.
Like a prizefighter with the smell of victory in his reach, the Rendron fired a torpedo which all but obliterated their defenses. Several zip-ships emerged in a desperate attempt to save their mother, but the Revenants made quick work of these as the formal squadron finished off the dreadnought’s shields.
Commander Jit Nam, a veteran of a hundred assaults just like this, took the reins and ordered the fighters to return. Minutes later, Rendron unleashed her cannons into the broadside of the Geralos ship, sealing their dock and disabling their FTL drive, which left it crippled and incapable of defending itself.
“Dead in the black,” Helga remarked, as she stared at a terminal outside the captain’s cabin. She wanted to be out there helping the effort, but Cilas had given her a direct order. She had done as she was told and ascended to this deck, but the situation outside diverted her attention. Now she stood in uniform and boots, an unwilling spectator to the show.
The intercom chimed, and she heard the XO’s voice, ordering an assault ship to be prepared. Helga wondered if the Nighthawks would be allowed on board to bring the terror back to the lizards. Her wrist-comms vibrated. She was out of time, so she hurried down the passageway to the captain’s door. She collected herself, inhaling against the anxiety, and knocked lightly before announcing her name.
The first thing she noticed upon entering the large space was just how relaxed the captain was as he sat in the center of his sectional sofa. He was in his uniform but wore no hat, and had his legs crossed with his arms spread out across the back. On another section sat the XO, Jit Nam, and across from him, Cilas Mec.
