Attack Ships, page 14
part #2 of Starwing Elite Series
“My assessment as well,” I let her know. “We’re here to clean up any mess before it gets out of control. Appears the marines have landed beyond the perimeter of the pirate ship. Don’t know what’s going to happen next because they still have those nukes and cannons.”
We found out later that Queen Dredge tried to detonate the nukes before the ship landed as one final act. The triggers on all three nuclear devices were damaged thanks to our chain cannon salvos and none of them went off. Had she used them before Tank and I strafed her ship, the blast would’ve eliminated the countryside and city. She would’ve gone out in one nuclear blaze of glory and taken part of the planet with her.
At which point the real death hunt would begin. Everyone vaguely related to Dredge or the crew would be tracked down and killed. Mobs would burn any place that sold her a bit to eat. By the time it all ended, the UDF government would be in shambles. Law and order would be a memory in this part of the galaxy.
“Some fun news,” I heard Alyx speak over her audio. “The pirate queen, that Dredge character, wants to surrender to the UDF.” I breathed easy as this was the best outcome. A massive assault on her ship would cost many lives. Even if they managed to take out the Thunder Horse with a direct strike from orbit, there was always the danger of secondary explosions and radiation from those nukes she had on board.
“Good," I replied. "At least something did go right today.”
“One problem,” Alyx countered. “And you will love it.”
“Hit me,” I ordered her. I didn’t like the direction of this.
“She will only surrender to you. Any attempt at taking the ship that doesn’t involve you; she’ll blow the entire Thunder Horse and its load of nuclear weapons. She’d told the UDF forces that she can’t get those nukes to detonate the way they were supposed to, but her women are about to fix that little problem.”
“Why the hell would she surrender only to me? Did Dredge give out my name or did she confuse it with Captain?” I shook my head in amazement.
“She specifically said she would only surrender to Corwin Hardrain,” Alyx told me. “She transmitted the terms of her surrender to the local UDF Marine commander five standard minutes ago. Captain says you and Tank are to land a reasonable distance from the nearest UDF battalion near her ship. They were in the process of moving around her location when the message came through. It’s authentic. She knew a few things about the local situation to confirm her identity. They won’t say what she knew, only that it made all the difference in treating the demand as real or fake.” I could only imagine what she had on the UDF. It might account for why they weren’t more aggressive about taking her out. Spending the lives of their marines had never appeared to be a concern of theirs before. There had to be more reasons than several nuclear weapons on board that ship.
“Alright,” I sent to Alyx. "Tell Captain I’m bringing this FAS down. I’ll let Tank know about the situation and then we’ll both have wisdom.”
I sent Tank the order from Captain. At first, he couldn’t believe it either.
“She wants to surrender to you?” he gasped. “Are you alright with this? Anything could happen when you approach that ship.”
“I trust her,” I replied to Tank. “Probably shouldn’t, but I do, at least in this. If it avoids a nuclear holocaust down there, I’ll do it. We can worry about why she wanted to surrender to me later.”
The rest of my crew were no less incredulous when I told them. Orlando found a contact on the ground and located a place to bring both ships down, but I could tell he didn’t like the idea. “That bitch is crazy, boss,” he let me know over the audio.
“You should take one of us with you when you go to her ship,” Medoro agreed.
Tran was silent, but I could feel the concern emanate from him.
We landed in a small clearing outside the vast farmer’s field where the Thunder Horse crash landed. It was the early morning on Delios when I had Orlando bring us down into the small expanse marked out for the FAS.
I worried all the way down, as the airspace control the UDF Navy was supposed to enjoy might not be as firm as they claimed. All it would take was one hidden missile post they didn’t know about and we’d be eliminated from the sky. I tried hard not to think about Shelly as we made entry into the gravitational pull of Delios. We made another pass over the ground before I was certain it was safe. The UDF ground crew had marked out a landing zone for us near their own troop ships. I waited until they had one for Tank’s crew as well before I gave Orlando the order to take us down.
The plasma jets fired and rolled the ship into landing position as we made our way to the surface. I watched the forest around use rise up and greet us. The greenery on the screens matched what I remembered from the quick information I’d read about the place. Settled generations ago and terraformed to make it habitable for the immigrants from Old Earth, Delios was a planet the UDF wouldn’t relinquish without a fight. The cartels might control the government and the mercenaries their iron fists, much less these rumored Black Mirror cults, but the UDF Navy was ready to reclaim this planet by any means necessary.
I felt the ship ease down to the bare ground and sag under the weight of the gravitational pull of the planet. Now we could feel the full effects of the standard weight. This wasn’t the careful controlled gravity that we had inside the mothership. I watched on the screens as the others struggled against the additional tug of the planet.
“Whew," I heard Orlando sigh as he took off his helmet. “This is the real stuff. I’ll be glad to be free of it. Stars and stones, people live in this all the time?”
“They've lived here all their lives,” I informed him as I climbed down the rungs from my conning tower. “Keep it in mind. The Udies are fighting against people who are used to it. I’m sure they’ve learned to compensate with muscle mass.” I let my words sink in as everyone else removed their helms.
We stepped outside into the fragrance of a real forest: pine oils, burning grass from where we’d landed, and the yells of command. I thudded down to the ground and looked around.
The first thing I saw was Tank’s FAS descending from the sky. It was a strange thing to see from the ground. I knew what he did but hadn’t viewed it from the surface of a planet in a long time. I watched the blue heat of the plasma jets keep the ship in the air as it made its descent. The real miracle of the current technology was that these things didn’t explode the moment they entered an atmosphere. I stood there and waited for the second FAS to make planet fall. I didn’t move until Tank was safe on the ground. I watched the landing struts sink into the mud of the ground before I turned to the Udie marine who stood next to me.
“Commander Corwin?” he spoke.
I looked again and spotted a very feminine set of eyes below the cap that came with the uniform. She had to be in her twenties. I reminded myself that the UDF Navy wasn’t like us and used women on combat deployments. How they managed to make babies while in the line of fire was something I never did figure out.
“In the flesh soldier,” I told her. I introduced my crew who were on the ground with me.
“I'm to take you to the colonel,” she informed me and extended a hand. “Captain Marta Lewis.” I accepted the hand and reminded myself not to kiss it. They had different customs down here.
“What shall I do about my crew?” I asked her. “And that of the other Fast Attack Ship from the Hard Rain that landed a few minutes ago?”
“We've a spot for them under one of the field tents,” she spoke to me. "They can relax a bit and wait for you.” She pointed at some canvas in the distance. It was a bit hot and humid out there.
The guys nodded and let me know they’d inform the Tank’s crew once they emerged from their ship. I left them as they waited for the other ship to cool. A few of the marine ground crew stood by in case our people needed any assistance.
“We hear from her right after she landed,” Captain Marta told me as we made our way to an observation post where all the UDF brass were sequestered. It worried me a bit they were close to the downed pirate ship since the Thunder Horse carried several nukes. One detonation and most of us would be dead in seconds.
“And you are sure she wants to surrender to me only?” I asked. I still couldn’t believe this was Queen Dredge’s terms.
“It's what she supposedly told the colonel, the young officer informed me. “I know it all sounds crazed, but consider where we are.” I nodded to show I understood her.
Four upper echelon UDF Marine officers were gathered around a bank of screens as we approached. I couldn’t tell what they spoke about, but it sounded like it had to do with a contingency plan if Queen Dredge didn’t hand the ship over to them. There seemed to be some thought that the marines should take it out with a neutron weapon first in case she was bluffing.
“Colonel Green,” Captain Marta spoke as she saluted the superior officer. “This is Corwin from the Order ship. He’s the one the pirate queen spoke about.” Once again, I needed to remember how important it was to shake the hands of these people.
The colonel dismissed the younger officer and drew my attention to one of the many screens in front of him.
He was an old wardog, I could tell that. The colonel was in his late forties and had an iced over expression on his face. I watched as several junior officers pulled themselves out of his way. This was a man you didn’t mess with unless you packed a gun or cold steel.
“Corwin?" He repeated my name.
“It was the one I took,” I replied. He glared at me and returned his attention to the screen in front of us.
“That crazy pirate queen wants to surrender to you. Have you any idea why? Same colony, something like that? I don’t really care why, but if it means ending the standoff and freeing up my men before a nuke goes off or her reactor blows, I’m good.”
“Never met her before. Guess she heard about me.”
“Nice to see that your legend proceeds you,” the colonel snarked. I didn’t want to tell him about how I knew her, or how we’d connected. Such talk was likely to get you put in an insane asylum in the greater UDF. Right now, he needed to trust my judgment and me. If I began to talk about brain transfers of information, he could call the whole thing off as too risky. There were plenty of troops on standby to stage a massive assault. If the pirate women on the Thunder Horse were as hard as I suspected, they'd exact a heavy toll if a boarding action was launched.
“I want you to know that I’d rather hit that ship with everything we have and get the nukes,” the colonel growled. “I think this surrender deal is stupid. I don’t know how you established a relationship with her, but she’ll find some way to use you as a pawn while they make for orbit.”
“I wouldn't trust her either, Colonel,” I spoke to him. “In your situation, I’d think the same thing.”
“So why should I let you go in there?”
“Because that’s your orders. If it doesn’t work out, I'll be dead and you can send your marines to die assaulting that ship.”
“Listen here, space boy,” the colonel snarled as he shoved his face into mine, “If she manages to touch off those nukes, it won’t matter who’s at fault. If she blows them when we could’ve stopped her, many good people will be dead and portions of this planet will be ruined for centuries. Got that?”
I nodded. He was under a lot of stress and I was the only thing that could bring this stalemate to an end.
17
I made my way to the Thunder Horse alone. The colonel offered me the use of an escort, but I didn’t think it a good idea. I hadn’t reached out to Queen Dredge’s mind yet, but I had some idea of what was going through it. If I’d walked up there with someone she didn’t recognize, the deal would be off. We’d tried to contact the Thunder Horse to let her know I was on the way, but Dredge wouldn’t respond. My guess was that she didn’t want to give the UDF Navy any opportunity to change the deal. She gave them a set time I had to be there and it was almost up. By now, she and her women might have the bombs ready.
For such a tense day, the weather was very good, as far as weather goes. Being a space boy, as the UDF put it, I didn't get much beyond minor fluctuations in recycled air temperature. Storm control hadn’t functioned since the UDF invasion of Delios. With all their resources committed to planetary defense, the government of Delios couldn’t worry about the management of weather patterns. The sun was high in the sky and the humidity low. I walked slow up to the starship and tired not to appear offensive. I knew Dredge could fry me with any number of weapons she had on the Thunder Horse.
The ground was black in several places. It was from where the parts of the ship had burned after Tank and I raked it with shells. I found it a bit hard to believe she’d want to surrender to the likes of me after we’d forced her to land. The back end of the ship had sunk deep into the mud. The gravitational repulsors used to bring it close the surface were damaged beyond repair.
I stopped and smelled the air. So different from what I breathed back on the Hard Rain. Alive and full of the byproducts of things that grew in nature. Things that would kill me if I stayed here too long. We had to undergo examinations every time we returned to the mothership from a trip to a colony planet outside the Starwing Order. Our immune systems can be fragile thanks to a life lived in space, so it paid to be careful.
I located the entrance to it quick. A small ramp was in place below the main fuselage of the Thunder Horse. It led up to small door on the undercarriage. The door had enough room for someone my size to enter. It was open and a faint light shown from within.
I walked up the metal staircase and took my time. This was high. It would’ve been easy to knock me of it to my death. Still, they could’ve killed me earlier.
When I reached the top step, I turned and looked over the trees and to the backfields where the UDF Navy was assembled. Another troop transporter landed and dispatched its eager cargo of enlistees and recruits. I could see our two FAS ships as the stayed idle in the distance. If all went well, we’d go home today. The colonel would deploy his troops elsewhere. Or we’d be all incinerated in a nuclear blast. I sighed and walked through the doorway.
It was a lot colder on the inside. I could feel the air currents from a refrigeration unit pumped across my face. There wasn’t much in the way of illumination. This was an antechamber of some kind and I could barely see until my eyes adjusted to the low light.
But I could hear breathing. I turned and saw Queen Dredge in person for the first time.
I could see the tattoo and scar patterns all over her. She wore a leather harness of some kind, but I knew it was because she lacked one breast from the atrocities done to her. Her teeth were very white and sharp. Her hair was long and rained down her back in a series of braids. She changed some things up this week.
“Corwin?" she asked me. I nodded.
“Queen Dredge?” I asked her. She nodded back.
“Are you ready to surrender?” I had to ask. "I’m not carrying anything on me, just so you know. No weapons or recording devices.”
“Of course not,” she replied back. "Had you done that, I would’ve shot you before you reached the stairs.” She was serious.
“I am ready to surrender,”she spoke, “But only to you and your captain. Come, you will want to see the lovelies we have on board.” She led me down another dim corridor.
We were met by six other women, of various races and sizes.
“Ladies," she announced, “We have a visitor. This is Corwin.” I nodded at them. She turned to her women. “This is Jezebel, Astarte, Dane, Devorah, Menaed, Widow, and Kane.” They all looked at me and tried to figure out why I was the one to whom they surrendered.
I looked to the right and saw some kind of cage with men inside it. They were all naked and huddled into the far corner.
“These are some of our provisions,” she mentioned. I tried not to shudder. “You’ll want them back, I guess.”
I took one step and almost tripped over several cylinders lined up on the floor. I could see wires and tools lying out near them.
“Careful," she laughed. "We almost had those warheads wired up and ready to go. You can send in your people to take care of them. Shall we leave?”
“Seems like a good idea,” I told her. Then I stopped.
“You still haven’t told me why you wanted to surrender to me,” I told her. “I think you owe me an explanation.”
“No I don't,” she snapped. "I see you are not versed on maritime law. I am. Surrendering to you means I’ve surrendered to your captain as well. You will hand me over to her. Your ship now has custody of us until such time as it’s seen fit to turn the Thunder Horse over to the UDF.”
I knew that. Obviously I hadn't forgotten. That's just the sort of detail that would never escape me. Or so I told myself.
We walked down the ramp to the ground. I turned around to make certain her women were behind her. They followed in single file.
In the light of day, they looked different. The way they blinked and shielded their faces from the sky told me none of them had experienced the full light of a sun in a long time. All I knew was that the inside of that ship was dark. I expected what I didn't see was illuminated in a similar fashion.
“Just make sure you keep your hands out where the UDF Marines can see them,” I let Queen Dredge know. “I have no idea how many guns are trained on us at the moment. One stumble and new recruit might open up with a full clip.” I could see movement at the tree line, which let me know they’d not expected for me to return.
I turned around and had a better look at Dredge’s women. All of them wore all manner of crazy medallions and charms from a myriad of religions and cults. The only one they had in common was the lion-headed thing that dangled in a silver chain from each neck. I had no clue what it represented and didn’t care. At the time, all I wanted to do was get us to the UDF lines without our insides splattered across a field.
