Personal Quarters PQ-677
It was a strange thing, Marda realized, watching her husband slowly transform into ‘battle mode.’ She’d hadn’t really seen it back at the academy: the break would be hard, where he’d shift from the man she’d fallen in love with into a battle-ready warrior. She knew he’d used his helmet as the psychological key back then, and so had she, only to a lesser degree, like any sane person needed to. To watch it as he readied to leave for his mission, that was different. For it to come in stages felt off.
“I’m sorry,” he said as he arrived late for dinner.
“It’s all right,” Marda replied, reading the tension in his shoulders as he sat at the table. Chrisvian laughed for just a moment before even his little face went serious. “Were there problems in the hangar?”
Blazer shook his head and tousled Chrisvian’s mop of curly golden hair. “No,” he said in a playful voice to Chrisvian. “We have a mission.” He turned to Marda his eyes playful, yet with an edge to them. “Group of Geffer refugees, may have some...” Blazer straightened and eyed her.
First shift.
She didn’t like that look. He was analyzing her need to know as he began to compartmentalize for the mission. “I understand. I don’t have a need to know.”
He relaxed for a moment and began to eat, shoveling his food into his mouth only taking a moment to savor it every few bites. Chrisvian, of course, copied him and made a mess in the process. Blazer eyed his son and chuckled before straightening his shoulders again. “Please don’t waste food and make a mess.”
Second shift.
“Blazer, how long will you be gone? And please, remember where you are,” she said. That pulled his attention away from the toddler whose brow dipped in an attempt at mimicry.
Downshift.
“Right, sorry. Two cycles out, make the extraction, two cycles back, Long Shot’s best estimate.”
Half backshift then.
“I see, when you get back, I have news for you.”
“What’s that?” Blazer asked before taking another bite, this one slower.
Okay, full backshift, she realized. “Nothing too important,” she replied and watched his eyes as one brow raised, he could always tell when she was lying. “No, nothing you need to concern yourself with before you go on a mission.”
“If you’re sure. I need to go as soon as I finish eating. Heavy Arms is making arrangements with his spouse to help you and our son while we’re gone, should you need it.”
Wow, two upshifts in a single sentence. I need to get Chrisvian out of here before…
“You, little man, need to be good, no trouble for your mother or the staff, got it?” he asked with a half-smile.
Good, he’s still in there, she considered before Chrisvian returned a sloppy salute.
Blazer reached over and corrected the toddler’s pudgy arm position, then slipped a finger under his armpit to tickle him. Chrisvian’s laugh was beyond infectious as both of them seemed to feel the tickle and reel back in laughter. “Stop daddy,” Chrisvian squealed.
“Of course,” Blazer replied as he pulled back and the laughter died down.
They continued their dinner in relative silence, Chrisvian waning in his seat as he finished his meal. Marda watched her husband. Normally about this time he’d retrieve their son and have him finish dinner on his lap. Not today: he just continued to eat mechanically. Fourth Shift, he’s almost there. She reached out with her micomm.
Blazer reached over and helped Chrisvian to sit back up in his high chair. “Getting tired?”
Chrisvian yawned in response and held up his arms in response, forcing them both to stifle a yawn. “I’ve got him,” Marda commented and left her chair to pick up Chrisvian. The toddler fussed for a moment before resting his head against her shoulder. I know, you want daddy, Marda thought, sure Chrisvian was picking her thoughts up. But daddy’s not able to right now sweetie, she continued as Blazer stood and gathered up all the dishes with the efficiency of an android.
Marda stood there watching Blazer arrange the dishes in the refresher, rocking Chrisvian. The door chimed. Blazer turned to the hatchway and keyed it open. Arion waited there, a great smile on his face. He read the room in an instant. “Blazer, dropship reports mission ready and all personnel are en-route.”
“Excellent,” he replied and turned back to Marda. “We’ll be back as soon as we’re able. Don’t worry.”
“I’ll try not to,” Marda replied, stepped up to give Blazer a kiss. Please go into neutral.
Blazer’s face softened and he leaned in to kiss her. It was warm, nothing moon shattering, but it spoke of his confidence in the mission and more importantly, his love for her. He then leaned over and kissed the mess of tangled golden hair that was Chrisvian’s head. “I love you guys. Don’t worry, Arion will keep me out of trouble.”
“Good,” Marda replied and gave him one last goodbye kiss. But her Blazer was gone by the time her lips left his cheek.
“Thank you, we’ll return in five cycles maximum,” he said and headed out.
Marda watched Blazer march off, while Arion could only shrug before he headed off after him. Need to tell him when he gets back to just send me a message and go straight to the hangar after a brief, she thought, her hearts hurting.
Two hects later, she sat back at her terminal. Chrisvian’s after-dinner naps only ever lasted long enough to get his bath and bedclothes ready before waking up again. He then had just enough energy to make a mess of the small water-filled tub Blazer and the team had rigged for him instead of the ultrasonic shower. Now that he was asleep, she checked her waiting stitches. Sure enough, she had several minor stitches from her medical bay staff, but more importantly the stitch from Admiral Sadrick awaited her.
She opened it, despite having read it three times.
Marda-
I hope this message finds you well. I am aware of the recent goings on in system D.
He may be retired and using military encryption but he still knows protocol.
We are all concerned for your safety here. With your current status as a reserve non-combatant, I have made certain inquiries. Your ship is the best in the fleet but it is still a frontline warship. As you know, your next target has the best chance of any to deal it a heavy blow.
Doesn’t want to say what even I’m thinking. Even the Wolfsbane’s Egg might not be enough to protect Chrisvian and me if things go bad. I left the Blade Force to ensure that, even if the unthinkable happened, Chrisvian wouldn’t be left without parents.
There is a position open and available to you on Cathedral Six in their emergency medical department. You could be chief of the ward there in an annura, maybe two, and then you and Chrisvian would be away from the frontline. I have been unable to secure a transfer for the rest of the squadron at this time, or even just the team. Captain Sardenon and the Admiral won’t let them go easily. Securing your transfer alone has/will take some doing.
Let me know how you wish to proceed
Very Respectfully-
Fleet Admiral Admir Sadrick (Ret)
Marda stared at the concise message and the attached transfer document for several tense pulses. She needed to discuss this with Blazer, but right before a mission wasn’t the time. Worse, time was running out before the trap to catch the Barker would be sprung now that the Explosions had deployed. Having her and Chrisvian gone for a major engagement was far from a new idea.
They’d been evacuated shortly after his birth at the end of the Gorvian Conflict. But then Blazer almost got himself killed by Gondral himself in a stupid act of bravery to recover a troubled squadmate. She shivered at that thought. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing him. Looking at Chrisvian sleeping in his crib, she knew where her priorities lay.
She tapped the key to reply.
Start the process.
UCSB Date: 1006.013
There was something about the very concept of a dead system that always set Gavit’s hackles up. To enter one would make his neck stiff and his arms tremble. A star system filled with planets that had never quite formed, or that had never evolved past lifeless rocks didn’t bother him. The universe was filled with those, as they were the empty houses that no one would ever move into. No, dead systems had always filled him with the same dread as abandoned manor homes did, the kind children told horror stories about. What was worse, this was one of those manor houses where he could see movement inside.
The sensor screen didn’t inspire confidence either. The volume of space around the jump point had proven a mess of exhaust trails. Those of the Feral Bomber that had discovered the signal were obvious, even to him. The dropship’s WSO had had to point out that others had emanated from the rescue pods the bomber had launched. The rest was a mess, except for the trail that made every nerve in his body tense – the distinct signature of a pulse drive. “Can you confirm the drive signature?”
The Otlian WSO chuffed and sent the data back to Gavit. “Signature is clean. It’s a Fusion Pulse Drive, Helium Three fueled.”
Gavit rolled his neck and looked at the data. The particle density was consistent with a hard burn before entering slipstream. Even the dark energy density in the volume agreed. It had left no more than a hect ahead of them. “They beat us here. The Geffers beat us here.”
“Looks that way,” the WSO replied.
Gavit pulled up the database and an all too familiar image appeared. The design was a simple one, a half-disk stretched backwards into a flat rear. Along the side hung massive ramp doors and four anti-aircraft turrets. It was the Galactic Federation’s current answer to the Ferine dropship, the VC-205 Galaxy-4. “Doesn’t change our mission. Set a course for the planet. How many does it look like?”
That made the WSO pause. “Hard to say. They have some strange new masking going on. The drive emissions aren’t consistent, but by the spread I have to say a single dropship, two at most. Unless they had a line of them flying right up each other’s tails the whole way.”
Gavit didn’t like the sound of that. A line-astern formation was atypical for dropships, or any craft for that matter. Each craft in trail would end up in the radioactive wash of the craft in front. In a tight formation that would result in a full assault on the shields. And what with the way the Galaxy-4 kept all its firepower on the dorsal surfaces then the craft in trail would need to fly inverted. In space this wasn’t an issue. Gavit often flew inverted to the rest of his flights, but for inverted flight in close trail, someone had to have been showing off.
It didn’t matter at the moment. Gavit leaned back in his seat and keyed the intercom. “Blazer, flight deck. We have company.”
“Specify,” Blazer responded over the link.
“One, possibly two heavy Geffer drops are in the system, at least a hect ahead of us. Good chance that they’re heading for our prize.”
Gavit could almost hear Blazer mulling this new data over in his mind. “How close can they set us down to the crash site?”
Gavit pulled up a holographic map of the region. The term crash site was a misnomer in Gavit’s mind. A crash was out of control and often resulted in the total loss of the craft. While the imagery presented to Gavit showed it had been nothing like a clean landing, it had been a landing nonetheless, even if the word crash preceded it. It looked like the crew had done their best to put the liner down atop a defensible rock outcropping, but had either miscalculated or run out of fuel. The resulting gash in the side of the mountain was proof enough of that. The outcropping was barely twice the size of the liner itself, and much too small for any other craft to set down on. The nearest viable place to land a ship the size of the VC-205 was a good twenty kimets away. A winding path that might have once been a road led away from the outcropping, adding another twenty kilometra ground travel.
“Nearest landing zone is twenty kimets away, with no straight-line course. Computer says forty-one kimets ground travel along a dirt trail.”
“Highlight all landing zones. Launch probes ahead to confirm where the Geffers set down. I’m going to order our escorts in ahead of us to survey and eliminate all enemy dropships in the area and ground forces en-route.”
Sounds pretty good to me, but what about? Oh no, he wouldn’t, he hates doing that.
“I’m instructing the loadmaster now. We’re preparing the gel tubes for high-altitude aerial insertion. That means you too.”
“Copy that lead. What about exfil?”
Gavit could almost hear the grin seep through onto Blazer’s face from his suppressed downtime self. “Mama Bird will pluck us from the nest.”
Refugee Camp, Northern Hemisphere, Planet Orilate
The roar of the wind pierced Blazer’s helmet as he dove towards the ground. Even through that, he could hear a tiny voice in the back of his mind screaming at him. It was a voice that he always did his best to suppress on missions: it was the part of him that showed fear and hesitation, meaning that it second-guessed decisions. That voice hated drop insertions, and screamed that displeasure at him now. But under the circumstances, even it had to realize that this was the best means to reach their objective.
He adjusted the tolerances of his noise-cancelling system to allow more of the wind noise through. It still didn’t do any good. As he burst through the clouds to see the plateau below the voice let out a final yelp before quieting. Blazer eyed his landing site, his suit jets keeping him on course towards the four-metra tall and six-metra-wide green glob. From the altitude they’d deployed from it might has well have been the head of a pin.
Never taking his eyes from the target, he flipped about to bring his legs beneath him. At barely a thousand metra above ground level, his suit jets fired one final course correction and a miniscule braking burst. Before he could blink, he slammed into the gel, decelerating at close to 12-g before coming to a halt. He floated there for a moment, the sound of the gel sizzling away all around him. His feet found the ground beneath him.
He unslung his rifle and brought it up to the ready position. Two thumps echoed through the ground on either side of him. He looked left and right as the last of the shock-gel melted away to find Zithe and Gokhead flanking him, their weapons at the ready. He brought up his command interface. All four fireteams were waiting in their positions, arrayed around the encampment surrounding the downed transport.
A series of red blips lit up Blazer’s display. Thermal traces within the encampment, the information relayed to him by the series of drones Bichard had deployed on descent. Small individual pockets of thermal points littered the site - clusters of small static groups, and other smaller contacts moving amongst the tents. Blazer watched one such blip come upon a set of three. None moved for a moment. The thermal scan lit up before the report of a plaser round echoed to him. The three clustered within began to move.
Ready indicators flashed back and Blazer motioned his fireteam forwards. Two dots converged on a tent ahead of him where six more waited. Blazer thumbed the weapon to mass-driver mode. Using his micomm, he set his PMD-1003B to silent, a feature exclusive to the special operations variant of the blaster. It slowed the muzzle velocity of the mass-driver round to below that of the local sound barrier. While limiting the punch of the round, it also muffled the sound to little more than a thump.
Zithe took point as they advanced on the two targets.
Times like this made Blazer glad that he had Que Dee on the team. The Synthetic Sentient’s cyber warfare capabilities outclassed even Gokhead’s. Combining that with their own suit thermal masks, dumping heat
into their armor’s ZKEPs, they approached virtually undetected.
The tags Que Dee had promised sprang to life. Blazer eyed the two incoming hostiles and assigned them to Zithe and Gokhead. Zithe fired first. His round pierced the flimsy tent to impact the first hostile in the head. The thermal shape dropped to the ground on his next step. Blazer shifted his rifle towards the second target, lining up his shot just in case. The thump of Gokhead’s rifle met his ears. The target stumbled back, a blurry hand like shape flying to its face. Blazer bit back a curse and squeezed his trigger. Three thumps pounded against his shoulder before the target stumbled back. The first round tore through the target’s neck before the next two turned his head into a fine mist.
Blazer turned back to the tent, tagging the flanking positions near the entrance. The pair moved in, as did Blazer. The six shapes within remained clustered but one broke away to close on the entry. Zithe’s left hand fell to the hilt of his blade in preparation to silence the potential hostile.
Blazer sent him a signal to stand down and waited. A flattened feline face peaked out. Its split-pupiled eyes went wide and it stumbled backwards into the tent. Zithe and Gokhead both let out soft chuckles before Blazer moved in.
A pride of Zantli cowered before Blazer. Their four-eyed countenances never leaving him, their ears stood straight out from their jaws in attention or hung low in fear. He looked to the one that stood before him. Thick fur covered his face, his hands spread out to show he carried no weapons. Blazer looked to the others. Four more males encircled a single thick-maned female.
Keeping his rifle trained on the standing Zantli, Blazer raised his left hand up to his faceplate. Fingers straight, the top of his hand flat against his visor, he signaled silence. He then motioned towards the cliff face with his whole hand before bringing it back to his face. The standing Zantli pointed in the same direction and nodded in understanding, putting two fingers to his lips. Turning his hand towards the Zantli, Blazer flashed his fingers open twice then pointed again. The Zantli nodded and Blazer began to back out.
Hell's Razer Page 42
