Relentless (Fleet Ops Book 3), page 11
Junlo Salvage Ship
“What a piece of shit,” Moonboy offered as they sailed down toward the Junlo ship.
“You should hear what they say about you,” offered Steam.
Jake was glad for this little incursion of just Oneiri Team. As much as he was glad for their integration into the Providence mech team, he was happy they could still keep their own identity.
That had been the plan all along, of course. But Jake was allowing himself to get paranoid, especially when his team was so gung-ho about his counterpart on the Providence. This was a chance to remind the team what they could do on their own.
“Mo, Steam, take point. Zeph and I will cover you. Moonboy and Frog, cover our six. I don’t know what we’re going to see in here, so stay sharp.”
“Did we get any weapons signatures?” Steam asked.
“Nothing big enough to ping the sensor sweep,” Zeph said.
The team had landed on the hull of the Junlo ship without so much as a peep from inside. There were no hull armaments at all. It was all pretty strange and unsettling. To be fair, the giant Stomach ships of the Brood had no external armaments, but then again, it was almost certain they were formed of some kind of organic material that was impervious to the vacuum of space.
But these were practical ships, with construction more similar to Milky Way species than the Yin or the Scions. And yet, they had no external weapons. No cannons. No gun mounts. The hull was thick and well-reinforced, but patchwork.
The ships were old, and clearly meant to come in after the fighting was done. Essentially, the space equivalent of scavengers.
“I see the main bay entry,” said Steam.
They’d been able to scan the ship on approach thanks to the lack of weapons to worry about. Because they’d been able to watch the ship at work in its salvage operations, it was easy to figure out where the ingress points were. And the giant sleds they used for the work were much larger than the mechs, so where they could go, the mechs surely could follow.
“In we go,” Jake said. “Covering formation.”
They lined up quickly in groups of twos and landed on the hull with heavy thuds. Just in case they didn’t know we were here.
The main bay hatch was closed, but Steam had found a secondary hatch with an interior chamber just off the main. After a quick check, she concluded that it would protect them from a decompression event. She pulled out her welding torch and went to work on it. Within half a minute, her mech eased the thick hatch door and a good amount of the hull away and tossed them into space, and she and Moe were inside.
“No atmosphere in here,” Steam said.
“Can you open the main bay doors or do you want us to follow you in?” Jake asked.
The answer came with a grunt a few seconds later. With a violent shimmy that seemed to make the entire side of the ship shake violently, the enormous blast doors that enclosed the main docking bay of the ship began to open.
Red flashing lights seemed to be part of a default program to let crews inside the bay know the doors were opening. Jake wondered if the doors were programmed to stay closed if the dock was pressurized, and he got his answer when he found Steam standing at the base of the big hatch closest to where the rest of Oneiri was waiting.
Jake and Zeph entered first, pointing their huge mech arms out with the hands twisted down to give the autocannons on their forearms clear vantage to fire. Behind them, the last of the team entered. Whiskers came last alongside Frog, the two quietest members of the team.
“Not automated,” she said. “No computer system. It’s just good old mechanical levering. Once I started it in motion—” She nodded toward a complex series of pulley systems that ran along the top of the docking bay. “—it was opening one way or the other.”
“This thing really is a shithole,” Moe said as she studied the controls on the far wall. Jake assumed they were meant to allow access to a set of internal hatches that would let them into the ship proper.
He took a moment to look around the docking bay. It wasn’t often that he felt small in one of the enormous MIMAS mechs, but this was such a moment.
The mechs were dwarfed by the enormous hold. It had to take up two thirds of the ship. Perhaps more. It dawned on him that the ships were nothing more than cargo holds with the rudimentary needs of a starship built around the outside.
There were three huge sleds lined up along the side of the hold. They were little more than flatbeds with anti-gravity boosters on the bottom, a tiny control room in front, and an enormous space to move just about anything in the known universe that would fit on it. Just one of the sleds would easily carry all the mechs in Oneiri Team.
But it wasn’t the sleds that were the most imposing thing in the enormous hangar.
“Look at all this shit!” Moonboy said.
“How are we going to work through that?” Frog added.
In the center of the hangar was a pile of what could only be called technological trash. Gadgets and gizmos and junk piled well above the heads of the mechs. A trio of openings disappeared into the pile. Jake realized that the openings had once been open-top corridors that went back into the maze of junk, but as the pile had grown, the tops had fallen together and formed what looked more like caves with tall openings.
He felt claustrophobic just looking at it. It seemed a perfect place to get crushed.
“We aren’t working through any of it,” Jake said.
“Thank God for that,” Moe murmured.
“We just have to secure this location. There are smarter people than us that will look through all this—” Jake almost said shit. “—material.”
“Where the hell is everybody?” Frog asked. “We were briefed to expect resistance from the Junlo, but this is a big fat nothing so far.”
“What have I told you about asking for trouble?” Moonboy asked.
“This place is creepy,” Zeph put in.
Jake cleared his throat. “Let’s see if we can find the CIC. Once we’ve secured that, we can make our way back into the ship.”
While the rest of them had been talking, Steam had continued to review the wall panel that Moe had first flagged. “This thing is manual as manual can be. No AI to speak of. No computer systems.”
“Have you located the CIC?” Jake asked.
“Yup.”
“Then lead the—”
“Look out!”
Jake instantly crouched at the warning. It had come from Moonboy. If they were still in their proper entry formation, Jake would know right where Moonboy was, but they’d spread out and lost formation as they began to pass through the huge hold.
That was on Jake. He should have held the team together. Now he had no idea if Moonboy was behind him or ahead of him, or somewhere else entirely. “What are you seeing, Moonboy?”
“The sleds!”
Jake watched as all three sleds simultaneously disengaged from the bulkhead and started to turn lazily in the direction of his mech.
Then he detected a flicker of movement, and focused on the base of the furthest sled. Just under the anti-grav bubble of distorted air he saw the shape of a small bipedal creature running for just a moment before it disappeared into a trap door in the floor of the bay.
“I just saw one of our Junlo friends,” he said. “Making its way along the far sled.”
“Two more came out of that far entrance into that junk pile,” Zeph said. She had stayed close to Jake, and they were now standing more or less back to back.
“I think they set the sleds loose,” Steam said. “Mo, move!” Steam called before she was almost crushed by one of the sleds as it spun around wildly. “Jake!”
He spun and found himself at eye level with the thick side of the sled that had been nearest him. It swung around, and would have decapitated him if he hadn’t executed a duck and roll. But he couldn’t hop up to his feet. He had to land flat on the ground as the sled moved over him, the anti-grav thrust bubble causing all his instruments to temporarily go haywire. He twisted himself and managed to pull his arms tight and roll his way out from under the sled to get to the far side of the bay.
“What the hell,” Zeph said. “Those assholes are going to ruin their own ship.”
Indeed, two of the sleds had already hit each other, and then collided with the far blast doors that were now shut again.
But the doors didn’t budge. “No,” Jake said. “We’re OK. These things are massive, but this ship is built for it. It can handle the sleds until we can secure them again. Mo, help me and Zeph get on this one that tried to take my head off and see if we can shut it off. Everybody be careful not to be crushed by the damn things.”
Jake had just started to consider how to climb onto the spinning sled when he heard Moonboy say, “Shit, shit, shit!”
“Can you calm the hell down?” Frog said. “We’re fine. They’re barely moving.”
“No it’s not that, asshole. Look!”
Jake spun around. Moonboy was pointing, and Jake followed his arm to the far side of the huge pile of gizmos and junk.
Finally, he saw what was happening.
“Everybody get clear of the pile!”
One of the sleds was turning lazily right into the side of the pile. And now that Jake saw where it was going to hit, he realized the weak structure of the junk on that side was supported by just a single pile of material that had already partially collapsed. He had a strong feeling the impact of the multi-ton sled would cut the support in half. And in his mind’s eye, he could see the entire pile crashing down and filling the cargo bay with debris from end to end.
Even if the mechs wouldn’t be crushed, they’d be immobilized.
“Mo, tell me you got a way out of here!”
“Follow me!”
Jake turned toward the far bulkhead where she stood, and that was when he saw two more of the Junlo sitting in an opening in the deck, sticking their strange, fat heads out like little whack-a-moles. His mech was way too big to fit inside the hole.
The Junlo were clearly conniving. They’d quickly figured out a way to get an advantage over the hulking mechs.
“This whole place might be booby-trapped,” he shouted to Steam as she was hustling the others through another large blast door at the far end of the cargo bay. It was big—big enough to accommodate one of the smaller anti-grav sleds. Clearly this was a staging door to take materials from the cargo hold farther into the ship, possibly to some secondary refining area.
Not that it mattered at this point.
A huge crash behind Jake made him run faster while instinctively looking back. Where the sled had smashed into the pile of gadgets, it had perfectly collapsed the rest of the pile on that side.
In slow motion, Jake watched as the pile began to collapse to that side; then more and more of it followed, like an avalanche.
With astounding speed, the rest of the pile collapsed as well, as if some internal supports had suddenly given way, and in spectacular fashion the top of the pile collapsed inward while the sides exploded outward.
Jake felt through the mech dream the sensation of air on his back as he ran the last dozen steps and leaped into the hatch just as Steam slammed it shut.
The bulkhead behind him shook with a violent collision, and for a moment they all stared as it bowed outward. If it gave, they were all dead.
Thankfully, it held.
“What the actual hell!” Zeph said.
Jake spun around, taking in the rest of the smaller loading bay they were in now. “Everybody check for anything like a booby trap.”
“How do you check for that?” Moonboy said. “If it’s a good trap, we won’t see it.”
“Then look for bad ones,” Frog said.
After several seconds of looking around, they saw nothing. But when they reached the hatch in the opposite bulkhead, Steam growled. “It’s locked down.”
“Can you override it?”
“It’s not electrical. They must have something heavy set against the other side, or they ripped down the pulley system that operates the hatch. Either way, it’s not going to open.”
“Is there another way to the CIC?”
“I’ll check,” Steam said. “But this is going to be a pain in the ass.”
“Their knowledge of the ship is going to make this a nightmare to secure.”
“Let’s just get to the—”
“GO AWAY,” blared a loud mechanical voice that seemed to bounce off the walls of the smaller containment room. At least, it sounded that way once Jake’s suit translated it. Jake couldn’t identify where the sound came from.
Jake instructed his suit to translate his words into the Scion language. “If you can understand this, whoever you are, we aren’t looking to hurt you. We just want your cooperation.”
GO AWAY,” the voice repeated. “You aren’t welcome here.”
“We just want to discuss what you have in your hold.”
“THIEVES! THAT BELONGS TO US!”
Jake decided not to mention the obvious fact that they had stolen it themselves. “We don’t want to take anything.” That was a lie. “We just want to talk.” Another one. “We don’t want to harm you.” That was true enough.
“YOU WILL NOT HARM US?”
“No.”
“GOOD. THAT WILL MAKE IT EASIER TO HARM YOU.”
The lights went out, and at the same moment tracers from small-arms fire erupted from a small opening along the top of the bulkhead.
The fire was puny. It bounced off the mechs, doing no damage at all. Jake glanced around, seeing that some of his team was already coming out of their defensive crouches.
“Is this really the best these guys can do?” Frog asked.
“Where they have a small gun, somebody might have a bigger one,” Steam said. “Let’s fire up our thrusters and head up there. Maybe we can get through the opening they’re using to fire down on us.”
“But these damn things are so small,” Zeph said. “Who knows if we can fit?”
“One way to find out,” Moe said as she engaged her thrusters.
Jake and the others fired up their own thrusters and headed toward the weapons fire, which was already dying down. The Junlo seemed to pop up and then melt back just as quickly.
Meanwhile, Jake was realizing a painful truth. He was going to have to apprehend and imprison virtually every member of the crew before the ship would be secure.
Chapter 25
Python Air Group
Yin Space
The Junlo ships weren’t powerful, but they were quick, Fesky was beginning to realize.
“They’re going to close the gap fast,” she said. “We’ll want to form up before that.”
She was speaking on the private command line with Sabrina O’Malley. While Fesky was responsible for the point position, O’Malley was responsible for the entire coordinated effort.
“We haven’t seen anything to suggest they have great weapons capabilities,” O’Malley said. “I want to see what they do.”
Fesky didn’t like that plan, but she held her breath for the moment. The idea wasn’t totally unreasonable, and she was still feeling out her relationship with O’Malley.
But the longer they waited, the more of the initiative they gave to their enemy. And she wasn’t out here to let yet another alien race take the initiative.
Yet her options were limited without O’Malley’s support. To suggest that a smaller force break off and try to meet the Junlo was a terrible idea at this point. Their strength remained in their numbers.
“Air wing operations,” said a voice that Fesky knew as the forward operations manager on the Providence. “Be advised of a possible enemy strike.”
“I see it,” O’Malley snapped, sounding annoyed. Probably because the coordination supported just what Fesky had feared, though she didn’t blame O’Malley. Even she hadn’t expected this.
Eight Junlo ships had approached with alarming speed. And they were clearly not slowing down, but also were crucially not deploying any kind of weapons. Instead, they were clustering together, practically begging the fighters to shoot at them. And that was something they were ordered not to do, unless fired upon. Those ships, and in particular their cargo, were critical to the battle group.
“They’re splitting,” Eightball said.
“Shit,” O’Malley said. “They know we won’t shoot them.”
“Perhaps we should,” Fesky said. “There is nothing to suggest which ships have the cargo we want.”
But a moment later, the point was made moot. “They’re firing,” said Lion, the Gold leader since Eightball had joined up with Fesky. Her group was one of the farthest forward of the wing, and sure enough, two of the forward Junlo ships had fired simultaneously on their position. Beams lanced out from both ships.
Lion sent her wing breaking out of the way, and the fighters easily evaded the laser burst. One of the fighters got hit on the starboard side, but it was a glancing blow.
“You OK, Timber?”
“Just a little buzz,” the pilot replied. “Barely anything, really.”
That was the problem with lasers like these. If they didn’t register a direct hit, their impact was severely limited. The fighters really had little to worry about.
But the bigger destroyers and cruisers, on the other hand, had less maneuverability to get away from those lasers. And concentrated fire could do damage, especially considering all the ships in the fleet had damage to their hulls already.
Fesky saw what the Junlo were doing before anyone else. “They’re splitting formation. Four of them are making for the battle group at speed.” At speed was underselling it. The Junlo ships were almost as fast as the Pythons, which was incredible considering their relative size.
“The others are pulling back,” confirmed Lion. “We’ll take them.”
“Belay that,” O’Malley snapped. “If they’re falling back, we don’t care.”
“They’re all falling back except the four heading for the battle group.”
“Damn, they’re fast!”
“All wings, turn to engage those four ships before they get to the battle group.”
The wing turned in unison and began diving for the four ships. But incredibly, they were already within the Providence’s firing range and the big railguns on her hull had opened up, starting to fire on the approaching ships.
