Gunship (44 page)

“Soft seal confirmed,” Chang reported.

Duv acknowledged and cued up his exit plans. He had built several depending on the type of opposition they might face and whether they were pursued or not. He slid the execute commands for each onto his HUD and then looked out into the void as the station continued to turn. In the distance, he saw a small glint of light reflect off of several objects floating in the asteroid field.

“What the hell is that?” he mused, sliding across to the navigator’s board. He pulled up that area of space and zoomed the section, then zoomed it again. There, sitting half-hidden in the shadows of the floating rocks, were around thirty AOC fleet vessels. They appeared to be waiting for something.

“Chang, how’s it going down there?” Duv asked softly, watching the HUD.

“It would go better if you would stop talking to me! This hull is thicker than I thought, and the cutter is burning through plasma fast.”

“I would really appreciate it if you could go a bit faster,” Duv said in the same soft, even, calm voice.

At that, Chang paused. “What’s wrong?”

“We have at least a squadron of AOC fleet hanging out in the asteroid field right now just past the station. I don’t think they are the friendly kind either.”

Chang doubled his efforts, muttering to himself, “When men plan, the Gods laugh.”

He loaded another plasma core and began making the second cut through the hull.

Tiny finished her cuts as the first whining sounds began to echo in the shafts. It sounded like the drone of angry hornets in the distance, a lot of them. She paused as Reilly and Marek looked around at the noise.

“What’s that buzzing?” Ty mumbled.

Tiny looked back at Reilly and Marek. “Trouble. We need to go now.”

“Well, that’s going to be kind of hard. We still have one more hull to breach to even break out of here,” Reilly noted.

Tiny turned to Marek. “Get the sergeant up here.” She deftly maneuvered the cut metal plate out of the ceiling. The air was frigid in the space above, the metal of the outer hull doing little in the way of providing insulation to the station. Marek struggled with Ty’s weight in the small space as Tiny clambered into the area between the hulls.

“Are you trying to get us killed?” Reilly whispered. “If that soft seal isn’t set right when Chang breaks through, we could all get pulled into space, which is a problem, because if you recall we don’t have any exposure suits!”

Tiny turned, shooting a ferocious glare at the captain. “You hear that noise? That is the sound of some very nasty bots coming to kill us. If we are in this shaft when they arrive, we will be turned into ground meat. So I’d rather risk a possible bad seal than certain death down here.” Tiny grabbed Ty and hauled him up into the interior hull, dragging him slowly while she duck-walked backwards with her handheld. Finally, she saw the light of the plasma cutter breaking through the outer hull a few meters away. Meanwhile, Marek nervously looked down the shaft behind them as the droning noise started to get louder.

“All due respect, ma’am, but I’m in favor of taking my chances with the Gunny on this one,” Marek said as he aimed his blaster into the darkened shaft behind them. Reilly watched with him, training the blaster Tiny handed her over his shoulder at the humming blackness.

Tiny slid back out and motioned Marek to climb up with Ty. “As soon as the Gunny is through, push the Sergeant and yourself up into the accessway. There is a chance you may suffer some exposure, but you will survive it as long as you’re within the accessway, even if it breaks loose.”

Tiny motioned at Reilly to follow them up. The captain started to go, then looked back at Tiny.

“And while we’re all hiding up there, what are you going to be doing?” Reilly asked suspiciously.

“I’m going to be drawing fire and buying you time.” The Gaiden smiled forcefully.

“All right.” Reilly stepped up next to Tiny, who looked at her, annoyed.

“You are in no shape to deal with security bots,” Tiny stated. “I can handle this myself.”

“I’m sure you can.” Reilly smiled grimly, still unmoving.

Tiny shook her head and shoved the plate back into the hole she had cut as Marek started to protest. “Take Ty and go. We will find another way off and meet you at the rally point.” She sealed them in.

“Are you always this hard-headed, Captain?”

“Always. So get used to it.”

The droning grew louder as the metal in the shaft began to vibrate.

“Stay low and shoot at the part that is lit up. They will come in waves. The first ones to reach us are a recon element. They will transmit to the others to get them to swarm on our location.”

“So you’ve dealt with these before?” Reilly asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, I take it as a good sign, then, since you’re still alive.”

The Gaiden looked at her briefly. “That’s only because there were five others in front of me when they swarmed. I was the only one to make it out.”

“Oh. So we just need to find five other people to put out in front. Great,” Reilly said sarcastically.

Tiny looked at her and suddenly grinned. “I like the way you think—follow me!”

Tiny began to move as quickly as she could through the shaft, with Reilly following behind her. When they reached the cross-shaft, she paused as the third charge in the shaft behind them erupted. That would slow the bots down briefly.

“This shaft is narrow. Can you walk it?” she asked Reilly.

Reilly nodded. Tiny balanced her back against the wall and then began to slide and walk her way down the shaft. Reilly did the same above her until they came even with a vent that streamed light from the station interior. Tiny popped the screen off and then pulled herself through, rolling into the corridor and coming up with her blaster at the ready. One of Welch’s men was in the corridor and turned at the noise as Tiny brought her blaster up hard, rapping his chin to drop him. Then she took out the nearby camera. Reilly sank into a crouch as Tiny waved her on down the corridor.

“The key is getting to an area with people. The bots will follow us down the shaft, but they may not be smart enough to discern the difference between us and other people. If they aren’t sure of the target, they should go to containment mode and just start stunning everything in sight. Unless they belong to Alton, and then I’m sure they will just kill everything in sight.” Tiny could imagine the gun dealer’s sociopathic glee while watching a bunch of bots grind the nearest humans into raw meat on his vids.

“We need to get to the bay.” Reilly looked down the next corridor and nodded for Tiny to cross while she covered her.

“We had to blow up the Tether ship in order to distract Alton and Welch. It bought us some time and kept my cover intact, but I’m not sure how long that will last once they see us together. I won’t be able to beat all the cameras.”

“Well then, don’t,” Reilly grinned. “You’re a bounty hunter, right? And I’m your captive!”

Tiny smiled her strange little smile. “That just might work!”

As they came up to the next set of halls, Reilly jammed her blaster into the back of her pants and put her hands behind her head as Tiny force-marched her, blaster to her head, in front of the cameras while ensuring her body hid the blaster at Reilly’s back.

The cargo bay was one floor down and over. Once they had cleared the large camera bank at the nexus of corridors, they both went tactical again and hurried towards the bay.

—————

Marek listened as the bots passed below them, sounding like the roar of a miniature jet engine in the enclosed space. The droning had just begun to fade in the distance when the outer hull crashed in, flooding the space with light. Marek grabbed Ty and dragged him upwards into the bright space, blinking as Chang jumped back, startled by their sudden appearance. He quickly recovered and helped to pull Ty in.

Ty briefly came to and squinted in the light. He recognized Chang and grabbed his arm.

“Gunny, you got to help me! My legs are numb and I can’t feel my ass. Is it there? Did that maniac cut it off or something? Why won’t anyone tell me what’s going on?” Ty’s voice was panicky and his eyes wild.

The whole thing would have been funny if it weren’t so serious. Chang tried to calm Ty down and reassure him, but it was no use. He finally had to grab the med kit down from the wall and inject Ty with a doper to knock him out. Marek helped Chang load Ty onto a gurney in the cargo bay.

“Where’s the Captain?” he asked, concerned by Ty’s condition as he lifted his eyelids and looked at his battered head and face. The injuries were serious, and Chang knew the erratic behavior could mean Ty’s brain was swelling from the repeated beatings. They had to get him up to the med center, and soon. He turned to close up the ship.

“They sent bots into the ventilation shafts. The Captain and Tiny left to draw them off.” Marek pulled Ty’s gurney to one side as Chang began to retract the accessway. “They’ll meet us at the rally point.”

Chang nodded and hit the comms button just as the ship lurched sideways. They both staggered, holding onto Ty, and looked at each other as Chang jammed the comms button. “Duv, what was that?”

“Gunny, I’m pretty sure they know we’re here now. I have a number of AOC vessels headed our way, and they are trying to locate us with laser shot.” Duv sounded calm, but Chang understood that to mean they were in big trouble.

“Then get us out of here. Tiny and the Captain are going to meet us at the rally point.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice!” Duv put the Dark Angel into gear and moved off of the space station at a clip.

The AOC vessels seemed to be turning with him as he moved, but that was impossible with the stealth system on. Unless…

Duv ran a quick scan. There. What he had thought was a laser shot was actually a net. The net had lodged onto the back end of the Dark Angel and was trailing in their wake.

Duv hit comms again. “Uh, I could really use you guys on the guns, like now!”

Chang and Marek looked at each other and then strapped Ty to the deck. As much as he needed medical attention, it would do him no good if they all were dead. They took off for the gunner pods on either side of the ship as Duv began to jink and dive, trying to dislodge the net while avoiding incoming rounds.

“Oh hell, this ain’t looking too good!” Marek noted from his pod as he looked back at the electric net flaring behind them.

“Thanks, I already figured that out for myself!” Duv noted as several of the larger ships launched fighters in their direction. If he couldn’t shake that net, they would all be cannon fodder in a matter of seconds.

Suddenly, another Dark Angel jumped into view and engaged the nearest fighters, then whipped around and blasted the net off of their backside. Before Duv could even blink, it was gone again. A second Dark Angel jumped in and fired on the space station guns that had just been trained on their position. The station erupted in a ball of fire as several ships jumped clear of the cargo bay and disappeared into space. That Dark Angel disappeared and another gunship jumped in, struck a target, and jumped out again.

Duv stared in amazement, while Marek whooped delightedly.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about! Looks like the old bird came through for us after all! Here comes the cavalry!”

“Don’t get too excited yet,” Chang advised. “Cavalry or not, we’ve got some serious force heading our way.”

They all looked back out into the black as a large fleet of AOC ships materialized and began to launch fighters in their direction.

“We’re going to need to break through that barricade of vessels over there in order to jump. The stealth system was damaged, causing it to fluctuate, so they will be able to pick us up intermittently as we move. I can’t jump inside of the asteroid field, too much interference, and it looks like they deployed jammers around this side.” Duv flipped the bird to manual. “Time to earn that paycheck. Load ’em up! We’re going hunting, Death Adders!”

Chang and Marek spun up their guns with grim determination. Marek hollered out, “Guns spun and ready to hunt!”

“Then let’s do this.” Duv launched the ship into the battle and pulled a spiral rise to give them the high ground, then began diving down on their targets.

—————

Seth walked along the berthing area. He had stolen a set of tac-gear on his way and now looked very much the part of a young Gaiden. He had acquired some weapons as well, so by the time he arrived at the gunship bay, anyone seeing him would think he was heading out on a serious mission. Which he was.

A master chief sat at the registry desk and looked up when Seth approached.

“Can I help you?”

Seth sized him up, then leaned in to the window. “I have been authorized the release of a gunship for an operational mission. This is an emergency request approved by Commander Zain.”

The man blinked briefly, then nodded. “I will need an authorization code.”

Seth rattled one off that he had pawned from the mainframe Zain had accessed before leaving the medical wing. The master chief confirmed the number was good and pointed Seth to dock 13. A Dark Angel sat ready to go, and he quickly got on board, ran the checks, then signaled for the moorings to be released as the tenders guided him out. Seth monitored the security channels, but all was quiet. They hadn’t realized he was gone yet. Once he cleared the tunnels, he entered the coordinates for the solar system nearest Crazy Ray’s station and then plotted the journeys. He checked the plots twice and then initiated the flight sequence, hearing the thrumming of the engines as the system spun up to jump.

Seth turned to the computers. He only had part of the information he knew he would need if he was to get Duv and the crew home safely. He used the electronic warfare system to hack into one of the city mainframes. Zain’s folders were in a protected region of the database, but thanks to his new uploads, the encryption on these was not even a challenge. He quickly broke in and began looking for what he needed. There. He opened a daily intelligence folder from last week and then another that was labeled Project Desolate Warrior. The holoscreen filled with data pertaining to Welch and what was currently known about his operations. Seth quickly gathered everything he needed. If Zain’s information was correct, the opposition would be overwhelming. Thirty AOC warships sat nearby Alton’s space station, and one cruiser was docked. That had to be Welch. Captain Callum was right. Even in stealth mode, Duv couldn’t hope to escape all of those ships alone. A second gunship would help, but even then it would be a tough battle. If only he had a few more ships. Seth tried to think of tactics he could use to balance the fight in their favor. He seemed to remember a story Duv had once told the crew about spoofing alien ships by moding the gunship frequency to make them think that the ISU forces had a lot more gunships than they really did. The Vhax had turned tail and run, believing that a squad of gunships was attacking instead of just Duv’s bird.

Seth picked up his head. That was it! He would have to modulate the ship’s frequency in order to make it appear to be several gunships instead of just one. This way he could anchor the Dark Angel to a jump coordinate outside the asteroid field, where there was no interference, and then plot jumps in and out to strike targets to open up an avenue of escape for Duv. Any enemy ships would think that the Commander had sent in a support unit to break them out. They would think a larger force of gunships was involved, and that would slow them down, since they wouldn’t how many they were dealing with. Conventional fleet tactics would be to launch fighters and use their long-range guns unless directly threatened. If he was fast enough, he could render those tactics ineffective.