Outsystem (Aeon 14) (33 page)

The
Marines all saluted and dispersed to the grid locations that Kowalski laid out.

Simon’s comment came over the broad channel on the engineer’s net.


Tanis replied.

<
Well, we’ve been thinking that anything that would emit the MDC beam would have to be pretty obvious; it would need a large waveform guide, either ES or physical, and there are only so many configurations for those. The most obvious ones would be the main comm hookups for the
Intrepid
, but they’re not rated for nearly enough power and would trip and/or fry long before you could emit this type of wave from them.>

is
the
Intrepid.>
That possibility had never even occurred to her
. <
How could the ship
be the weapon?>
s are essentially, as you know, is really the base of any MDC. The
Intrepid
has the most powerful one ever created.>
Intrepid
’s
ramscoop to create an MDC field effect on itself?>
Intrepid.>
<
Lose/lose for us and win/win for Strang,>
Tanis said.

Intrepid
doesn’t dock, I’m betting that this thing will still make the ship direct an MDC field at the ring.>

Tanis’s tone was somber.

Tanis passed the information to the Marines and followed after Dvorak and Trist who were making their way across the dock toward the comm shack. If what they were dealing with really was just a trigger and it was using the waveguides to generate some sort of cohesion beam then it was even more likely that the answer was in the comm gear.

She hopped on a hover heading to the far end of the dock and brought up the records for the comm shack. Sure enough, a service entry was logged last month, a full twenty weeks before any scheduled maintenance—with no record of malfunction being filed.

“Seems a bit suspicious,” Tanis muttered to herself. She passed the information to Trist and Dvorak along with the details of the repair job. The chance of the info about logged repair being related to the actual work done was slim, but it was a place to start. The hover dropped her off near the comm shack and Tanis kept an eye peeled for anything suspicious as she entered the room.

All ship to station net traffic would pass through the equipment i
n the shack and since this dock was reserved for larger ships, a lot of systems were crammed in the twenty-meter-long space. After a moment’s search Tanis found Trist and Dvorak already hunched over consoles.

Not wanting to interrupt them, she turned and examined the room, looking for the largest conduit which would likely be connected to the trigger device. Several large plasma lines ran out of the room and onto the dock. Tanis followed them and saw that they terminated at an array of beam emitters and receivers.

They were mounted to a column that ran down from the dock’s ceiling. The design allowed them to rotate and slide into the best position to make a Link with a docked ship.

Tanis pulled up the specs, matching each device in the array to the design blueprints. As expected, something was not right. One emitter looked like a G1 TR3, but was not.

“Aha!” Tanis realized that her vocal proclamation wasn’t all that helpful.


Simon asked.

Tanis put a visual of the added component on the tactical and engineering nets. Lively debate ensued between Dvorak, Trist, the engineers and several of the AI.

Tanis took the moment to review the arrival time of the
Intrepid.
It was getting close; within thirty minutes they would be making the seal. The outer hatches had already opened and the atmosphere on the dock was being held in by an ES field. If she looked carefully at the mass of local traffic through the opening it was possible to see a pattern clearing to allow the colony ship through.

Tanis said.

<
We need to tell everyone not to dock, and clear the ring while we’re at it,>
Lieutenant Simon said.
Intrepid
to absorb the effect it’s going to bounce back off that ES shield and nail the ring.>
MDC, it’s just a trigger beam. What will it do to the ring?>
Simon paused, and she could see calculations being done on the engineers’ net.


Trist exclaimed.

<
More than almost worse,>
Simon responded
.
The connection was severed. Tanis poked her head into the comm shack and looked at Dvorak and Trist.

“I’m cut too; we’ve lost all Link to any nets outside of this dock,” Trist said.

“I’ve got no external wireless connections,” Dvorak added.

Tanis looked up to see one/two running toward the comm shack. “Taylor. Someone’s dampened the dock. Check outside and see if you can get—” The whine of railguns coming from the dock’s entrance interrupted her.

“Aw fuck,” Private Weber cursed. “Never a dull moment with you around, Major.”

“Glad to oblige.” Tanis tried to contact two/three on the discreet Link that military teams could use at close range.

He put data up on the tactical net showing over a dozen attackers, some wearing heavy armor.

Tanis pulled up a map of the dock and examined it.

Kowalski initiated a local combat net which Tanis extended to Trist before marking two/three’s current position and destination on it. She turned to one/two. “Weber, you stay with Dvorak and Trist. You two try to determine how to disable that thing.” Tanis pointed up at the emitter. “We could just blast it, but who knows what sort of failsafes and detectors it has.”

“Yeah, I’m typically against blowing things up that we don’t understand.” Dvorak’s tone was dry, but Tanis could tell it masked concern.

“The rest of you, we’re moving to position G/4.2. We’ll set up cover for two/three and try to catch whoever this is in our crossfire.”

“I’m guessing that it’s someone who wants to stop us from disabling this little party trick here,” Taylor said.

“Or just someone with amazingly bad timing,” Perez grinned.

“What, like your jokes?” Weber asked.

“This is the second time I’ve been attacked today.” Tanis sighed. “I’m beginning to think some cosmic force wants me dead.”

“I’d bet more on simple human forces wanting you dead…sir,” Perez replied.

Tanis cast him a futile quelling glare and the fireteam moved out, hopping on a hover traveling in roughly the right direction. Tanis stayed back, monitoring two/three as well as Trist and Dvorak’s progress.

Minutes later they were in position, deployed behind several crates containing casings for SC batteries. The casings were molecularly dense and also magnetic; with luck they would deflect
or slow any incoming rail shots.

Two/three had managed to reach their position with no injuries and were returning fire
on the attackers. Their feed of the enemy was on the combat net and Tanis saw they were fighting more of the same heavily-armed men from the conflict on Mars 1. The count came to be under forty enemy.

Tanis said.


Salas commented.


Dvorak cut in.


Tanis asked.

should have already happened—they’ve probably subverted some monitoring systems. I’d bank on at least ten minutes before that’s detected.>

Reddy grunted.

Tanis realized that in
those ten minutes the
Intrepid
would be making its seal. Whoever was orchestrating this party had to be making certain that all appeared outwardly normal on the dock. She thought briefly of the TSF guards and a feeling of guilt assaulted Tanis momentarily. She should have warned the guards there to be on the lookout for trouble. Their names were added to her list.

Tanis steeled herself and addressed the teams.

With h
er nanoprobe net extended, Tanis gathered an aerial survey of the combat zone. Sure enough the attackers were trying to flank the Marines. It’s what she would have done. A quick run through the cargo manifests revealed several things that could be of use. A crate ten meters away contained automated servitors to be used for scrubbing air ducts in environmental processing plants in the colony station. They were equipped with scalpeling lasers that could remove deposits and corrosion with ease. She sent a command to the crate to unseal, and a quorum of nano flew over to activate the servitors.

those blue containers. I’ve put cargo density on the combat net; find a solid something and lay down suppressive fire. I don’t care what you mow through—in fact, destroy as much of their cover as you can.>
Altair and Reddy signaled green on the net and Salas and Arsen lobbed several concussion grenades before opening up with their assault rifles. The action gave their squad mates ample cover to get in the best positions to return fire.

However, the moment they ducked down to reload, the enemy delivered a withering assault with their railguns. Molten plas and steel sprayed out from each impact.

<
Heads up people, those rails are firing plasma at us.>

Perez swore.


Taylor said.

Weber added.

Despite the
Marines’ best efforts, the enemy was advancing. There was only so much they could do against an enemy that outnumbered them four to one and had superior firepower.

Angela replied.

Angela’s avatar grinned.

Tanis got that distracted feeling she experienced whenever Angela was using a
substantial part of her brain to help work through a difficult problem. It was almost like a buzzing going on in the back of her mind, causing segments of code or raw mathematical theorems to flash through the background of her thoughts.

Angela said after a few moments,

A position flashed on the map of the dock.


Tanis sighed.