Human, page 17
part #1 of Humanity Ascendant Series
T he thief is in the house!” Rimush exulted.
“And now we just wait for him to grab the valuables first,” Mishak muttered. He needed Eth to succeed in his plan if they were going to have a chance, but he wasn’t sure he liked all that success would entail. Sighing, he gestured to the captain who gave the order to start moving in.
And their small fleet, the only chance to preserve the family’s power, began falling toward Heiropolis Prime.
I think I’m picking up a faint return off one of our sister ships,” Oliv advised. “Looks like they’re moving closer to our target.”
“Good,” Eth said with more restraint than he thought he possessed. If the other scouts had gone after the wrong targets, the chances of success would be drastically reduced and the costs of victory greatly increased. Oliv’s news had come as a massive relief.
His head came up, frowning at the sudden impression of alarm and then he felt the confirmation through Oliv a heartbeat before she spoke.
“Reading spikes in all targets!”
Eth grabbed a stanchion. “Ed, standby to take us in!”
He didn’t need to hear it from Oliv when the enemy fired on the orbital patrols. He could see the brilliant plumes of plasma ejecting from the front of the attackers. “Now, Ed! Get us in there as fast as you can!”
He kept his eyes open as he watched the sickeningly fast approach to the targeted cruiser, but he was sorely tempted to squeeze them shut and pretend they weren’t a minor course-correction away from a spectacular death.
The inertial dampening was so well adjusted by now that he could have pretended nothing terrifying was happening but, if the two pilots could stand it, then so could he.
The enemy hull now filled their entire view and it was only a matter of heartbeats before they swung around and came to an abrupt stop at one of the open spaces in the enemy hull that revealed a companionway inside.
The energy shield protecting the cruiser was designed to let any friendly craft through and, thankfully, Uktannu had been unable to switch his fleet’s alignment indicators, given his need to catch the local defenses off-guard.
Eth reached up and pulled down a short assault rifle from its mag-clamp on one of the overhead supports. “Line up!” he shouted, feeling more at home by the minute.
This was what he was made for. It was on a ship in space, but it was infantry combat and his Humans were very good at it.
He checked his ammunition loadout. He’d checked it before sticking the weapon onto the support and he’d pulled it down at least twice since then to check it. The rituals of a man waiting for combat to begin…
He touched a finger to the grenade dispenser on his chest and a holographic window appeared in front of his left eye, showing a full load of stun, smoke and flechette grenades. He resisted the urge to look down again at the readout on his assault rifle.
He breathed a sigh of release as his helmet snapped shut. The wait was finally over.
In front of his team, a section of Your Last Chance’s hull flowed out of the way, showing them an empty corridor leading to the center of the enemy cruiser. Free now to channel his nervous energy into action, he moved forward, leading them into a ship that probably didn’t even know it was being boarded.
The Quailu weren’t complete strangers to the concept of boarding actions, but then they didn’t tend to get close enough in combat to make it feasible. By the time a warship was that close to an enemy it would have had to run a gauntlet of missile and railgun fire that would probably have reduced the attacker to a cloud of nanites and central core fragments.
They sometimes ran drills in which their fierce resistance always ended up repelling the ‘boarders’ but they didn’t carry troops specifically for the task.
And this ship wouldn’t even know it was carrying professional, enemy infantry until the first crewmen started dying.
They moved down the corridor toward the centerline. Ten meters away from the central companionway running from bow to stern, Eth noticed a shadow appear in the open, far end of the transverse corridor. One of their scout-ships preparing to land more troops.
He held up a hand, signaling for his team to take up defensive positions at the main intersection.
Noa and Oliv moved up to the corners bordering on the central, fore and aft companionway and, when Ed and Glen touched their shoulders, they swung their weapons around to aim down the central hallway; Noa facing aft and Oliv facing forward. Ed and Glen flowed past them, crossing the hall to take up similar positions, while Eth led the remaining four across to link up with the crew from the other scout-ship.
It turned out to be Carol, the warrant officer in command of The Last Thing You’ll Ever See. She flashed a grin at Eth, reminding him that he wasn’t the only one who felt the relief that comes with the end of the long waiting phase.
“We’re still killing whatever tries to resist us, right?” she asked.
“Native or Quailu,” Eth confirmed. “You gonna have any problems with that?”
“Had a long talk with my crew,” she said. “They won’t hesitate. They know we’re playing by a new set of rules.”
“Good.” Eth nodded in Ed’s direction. “Take your crew aft. Clear out whatever you find and take engineering. We’ll go forward and seize the bridge.”
A cold chill ran up his spine as a rail gun shrieked a few decks below them. He shook it off and led his team forward.
They came to the main ramp before encountering anyone. With the entire crew at action stations, there wasn’t a great deal of wandering about going on, but a large work party was moving an ammunition pallet onto the ramp.
Eth and his team cut the native Durians down with a flurry of short bursts, leaving only one Durian and their Quailu petty officer on the far side of the pallet.
The Durian stayed behind cover, being an unarmed rating, but the Quailu, seeing that he faced native Kish troops, stepped boldly out from behind the pallet, drawing his sidearm with a nasty smirk.
“Didn’t think ahead, did you?” he said, lifting his weapon toward Henkenu.
Eth could feel the arrogance of the petty officer. He was Quailu. He was in no danger, aside from a stray round. No native would dare harm a Quailu, regardless of rank or provocation.
And he was going to enjoy executing the impudent Humans, starting with Hendy.
Eth wished he could stop what was happening. The Quailu was going to die but he didn’t realize it yet. His bold decision to come out and kill them all had been somewhat unexpected and he was going to get a shot off before his own wounds could stop him.
Eth’s mind rebelled. This couldn’t happen. The Quailu had to stop.
And so he did.
The enemy petty officer stopped raising his sidearm, a look of confusion quickly changing to fear as he sensed the intent of the Humans. Eight rounds slammed into his torso, throwing him back onto the tangle of dead Durians.
The terror and outrage faded into nothingness and Eth stood there, staring in shock. The Quailu was going to kill Hendy but he stopped. Eth stopped him, just by thinking it.
He snapped out of it as his team flowed past him and up the ramp. He fell in with them, now consciously reaching out to look for trouble ahead. The immediate area seemed to have a few echoes, but he got only faint impressions until he was close enough to carry on a conversation.
Noa was walking backward up the ramp, aiming up at the gallery that overlooked it. He squeezed off a burst. “Got him,” he said laconically.
They left the ramp at the next deck and moved toward the bridge, slowing slightly as they encountered the occasional enemy. There wasn’t even time for the five Quailu they eliminated to feel surprise at their predicament. Eth’s people were showing no compunction at killing members of the master species.
They came to a stop outside the bridge. The enemy had finally realized that they were rapidly losing their crew to a hostile element and they’d set up an armed presence in front of the bridge entrance.
“No flechette grenades,” Eth ordered, sidling up next to where Oliv was pressed against the curved wall, just out of the enemy’s arc of fire. He slid a concussion grenade from the dispenser on his chest. “We’re too close to critical systems here. We’ll stun-and-gun.”
Oliv nodded, holding up her own concussion grenade. “In three, two, one…”
They both leaned out and tossed the small discs toward the knot of enemy crewmen. The brilliant flash and the shockwave were both attenuated by the enemies’ crew suits but it was enough to disorient them.
Eth and Oliv led the team around the curve to find most of their targets aiming more at the floor than at them. Some were even trying to examine their suits, searching for breaches in the mistaken assumption that they’d been attacked with flechette grenades.
Starting with the ones who seemed the most alert, they put them down with precisely controlled bursts and moved to the entry hatch leading into the bridge.
“No grenades,” Eth insisted. “The concussion might be enough to input a touch-command on one of the consoles. We don’t want to veer into another ship while we’re trying to take this one.”
They lined up, four on each side of the door but it was secured from the inside. Noa managed to talk the locking mechanism into seeing things their way and the team began pouring inside.
Eth was the third one in and he went left aiming at a crewman with a sidearm who was drawing a bead on Oliv. Before he could fire, she put three rounds into the Quailu’s chest. He wondered, as he put a three round burst into what appeared to be the captain, whether he could stop a Quailu consistently enough for the ability to be reliable in combat.
His eyes grew wide as the last of the enemy bridge crew fell.
Could he do more than simply stopping them in their tracks?
N ot hard to track them.” Rimush stared at the holo display where the attacking force was lit up by the plasma discharge from their railguns.
“How close can you get us?” Mishak asked.
“With all the ionized gases they’re trailing,” Rimush scorned, waving a hand at the display, “we could get close enough for our secondary batteries to engage, assuming they haven’t left a screen behind to look for us.”
That gave Mishak pause for thought. “No,” he finally declared, “this is an all-or-nothing gamble for my uncle. He needs to grab this system as quickly as possible, so he’ll throw every single gun he has at the defenses. Let’s get in as close as we can.”
It wasn’t easy – watching allies get shot at while you snuck in with your guns silent, but he wanted to give his scouts a chance to deliver on Eth’s plan and they wanted it to be very clear that Uktannu had committed to an attack on Heiropolis.
“At least there’ll be no doubt about your uncle’s intentions,” Rimush said, his thoughts falling into the synchronicity that used to bother Mishak far more than it did now.
He sighed, watching the projection of the probable enemy locations, waiting for the cruiser nearest to Eth’s planned location to send a signal.
Something had happened to Eth when he was aboard that Varangian ship, but he was reluctant to discuss it and, even more unsettling, his mind had closed to Mishak and all Quailu.
Mishak had gained a great deal of confidence in his own abilities lately and that had changed his own aversion to Quailu empathy. Did he trust Ethkenu any less now that he couldn’t read his feelings?
He owed the Human for his own transformation. The information gained by his Human team had allowed him to face down a hostile coalition that may well have had the enthusiastic blessings of the Imperial court. More importantly, he’d been able to face down his own father.
He’d rewarded Eth and his entire unit with freedom, strengthening the reciprocal bond between lord and follower so there should be gratitude on both sides. Should he trust him any less just because he couldn’t feel his thoughts?
C arol,” Eth smiled at the holo. “Glad to see you made it to engineering in one piece.”
“Only to find Thane and his boys already here,” she groused. “We’re ok, except for Kan who took a wrench to the head because he didn’t clear behind the comms modulator.”
“How is he?”
“We’ll know when he wakes up,” she said with a shrug. “Did I mention the comms modulator’s in a bad way as well? Full of holes, seeing as how we all cut loose on the Quailu that smacked Kan.”
Eth suppressed the outburst that came immediately to mind, turning to Ed who’d heard the exchange and was now glaring at him from the comms console with an I-told-you-so look on his face.
He usually thought faster when he wasn’t cursing angrily anyway. He looked past Ed to where Henkenu waited at the helm. “We’ll have to send our message back to the fleet without the comms system. Hendy, bring us around so our mains will bear on the nearest enemy cruiser. Oliv, fire as your guns bear and then let ‘em have a salvo of missiles as well.”
T he fleet was close enough now to make out the individual enemy ships rather than just their firing signatures. Mishak’s force remained undetected, though, thanks to the trailing haze of gases that blinded Uktannu’s aft sensors. Mishak realized he was clenching his fists and forced his fingers open.
He was ridiculously conscious now of his hands. They were dangling oddly at his sides and so he stuck them behind his back, forcing his left hand to clasp his right lightly enough not to break any bones.
The very picture of military leadership, he derided himself.
Rimush grunted in amusement and Mishak could clearly feel, not derision, but commiseration. Of course the captain had been through countless battles and he’d most likely started out his first fight, as captain, in much the same state as Mishak.
Even serving on the bridge at one of the stations wasn’t the same thing. Those crewmen and officers all had something very specific to do and it demanded their full attention.
At a moment like this, Rimush and Mishak were faced with the prospect of battle but with no physical tasks to occupy their hands.
Mishak stepped closer to the holo and pulled out a secondary projection of the cruiser that was closest to the scout-ships and, therefore, the most likely target for boarding. He held his hands on opposite sides and rotated the view, rather than walking around it to get a better feeling for the three-dimensional view.
He almost didn’t notice when the vector display began to change. “It’s turning!” he shouted in surprise.
Rimush cursed. “They spotted us? Must have had a frigate holding back to watch for us.”
Mishak was nodding in agreement but then a huge plume erupted from the cruiser’s bow. “It’s firing on one of the other cruisers,” Mishak said excitedly.
“Why didn’t they signal us?” Rimush groused, then caught himself. “Well, I suppose they just did, didn’t they?”
“Signal weapons-free to the fleet, if you please, Captain,” Mishak ordered. “And also remind them not to fire on our newest cruiser!”
Much of that opening salvo was directed toward the enemy frigates, seeing as they were the most maneuverable class in the action and they’d be far easier to deal with while they were still cruising along in ignorance, firing down-well at the Heiropolitan security forces.
“Have a signal sent to the Heiropolitans when you have a moment, Captain.” Mishak was watching the progress of the outbound weaponry as he spoke. “Advise them that we’re here to assist.”
The missiles began ejecting clouds of cluster-munitions, each with a tiny pitch drive and enough reactant to last for several minutes of target-pursuit. The heavy railgun projectiles, lacking the constant acceleration, would eject the second wave of cluster missiles, using the force of separation to adjust the trajectory of the heavy casings.
F irst target is crippled,” Oliv announced.
“Good,” Eth said, still caught up in the adrenaline rush of infantry combat, though now he was fighting with a ship instead of a combat team. Perhaps that’s not so different.
“Spread the next salvo among the ships we can hit from here,” he ordered, “then, Hendy, I want you to get us in close to that crippled cruiser. Keep her between us and the rest of the enemy forces.”
He could feel Oliv’s desire to concentrate fire on another target but she kept it to herself. “We need to distract them away from their attack on Heiropolis,” he explained. “Knowing one of your ships has taken heavy damage in a fight is easy enough to put aside but knowing your own ship is taking damage from an unexpected flank is far more insistent.
“We want them turning away from their surprise attack and concentrating on us while our fleet comes in on them from behind.”
“Let’s hope our fleet shows a proper sense of urgency,” Noa added quietly.
Eth turned to the damage control station where Noa raised an eyebrow, daring him to challenge his mistrust of the Quailu. “They’re more than happy to let us take all the risks while they sneak up from behind – they’ve only sent us natives. None of their ships are up here. I’m just hoping they don’t plan on sneaking along till they finally get detected.”
Eth didn’t really want to reprimand Noa for voicing a concern that he’d been struggling with as well. Fortunately, he could feel Oliv’s sudden elation. “Of course they’re going to come to our rescue, Noa,” he said, with a mischievous smile.
“Massive wave of cluster-munitions inbound!” Oliv announced. “They’re targeting all ships except ours.”
“This ship is quite valuable to our lord, after all,” he told his engineer, still smiling.
“Firing,” Oliv said. “Dispersed targeting enabled.”
The rail guns howled beneath their feet and the holo displays of the enemy fleet froze in place for a moment while the sensors were temporarily blinded.
“Moving us into cover.” Henkenu’s fingers flew across the navigational display.
The forward motion left most of the ionized gasses behind and the tactical holos jumped ahead to show the latest data.
