Odyssey One 5: Warrior King (15 page)

They’d put off turnover far longer than they should have, trying to get to the inner moon of the gas giant that much faster, but now they had to stop or the ship was going to buzz right on by.

“Reactors are spiking! We’re losing reactor mass, sir. Still stable, but dropping fast,” Miram announced from where she was monitoring the reports from maintenance and damage control.

“Space warp at one hundred twenty percent over flank,” Lieutenant Kinder declared. “We’re twisting local space into a pretzel, but it’s holding steady, sir.”

At that level of warping, Eric knew that the ship itself was in danger of being affected by the gravity fields they were projecting. If they lost control of the warp, it might cross the ship’s hull, and if that happened, there was a major chance that the
Odysseus
would tear itself apart.

A long, low keening sound echoing through the ship’s hull punctuated that thought.

Eric shook his head slowly but didn’t waver from his focus. The small inner moon of the gas giant wasn’t so small anymore, and the satellite was growing
very
quickly as they closed on it.

An alarm sounded, startling Eric as he twisted around. “What is it?”

“We’re being actively tracked,” Ensign Sams blurted. “Coming from the gas giant. I . . . I didn’t see them . . .”

“Damn,” Eric growled through clenched teeth, pitching his voice low enough not to carry.

Of all the things he could have done, of all the times he could have chosen, he just had to send his chief helmsman
and
his chief tactical officer off on a checkout flight right before encountering a combat situation. Eric couldn’t blame Sams for missing the other pocket destroyers, not much anyway. He should have kept up on them himself.

“Light them up,” he ordered. “Full power, all active scanners. I want them having FLKs after this.”

FLKs, or funny-looking kids, was an old Blue Navy joke about what would happen if you ever seriously pissed off an Aegis destroyer back in the prewar days. The Aegis had a massive radar array, the AN/SPY-1, with a total power output of six megawatts. More than enough to mess up your DNA, as the joke went.

Six megawatts was insignificant compared to the power of the
Odysseus
’ primary array.

“If they turn off, let them go,” Eric said. “If not . . . fry them where they fly.”

►►►

PC Parasite
Eight

► The hit was so powerful that it actually disrupted power to nonessential systems, throwing the command deck of the parasite craft into shadows briefly before backup power was rerouted from secure lines.

“We have been targeted, Subaltern.”

Hora Manau snorted. “Obviously.”

“They have not fired, Subaltern.”

“No,
that
was a warning,” Hora said into the open. “There was no need to hit us that hard just to acquire a weapon lock. They’re telling us that we are too small to bother with, unless we push the issue.”

The deck was filled with a long silence.

“W-what do we do, Subaltern?”

“Our duty. Signal
Three
, lock all weapons on the target, and prepare to fire. Inform
Five
that they are likely to have company very soon.”

►►►

AEV
Odysseus

► “Live weapons in the clear, Captain!” Sams announced. “We’ve taken laser strikes, and there are missiles inbound.”

“Weapons free. Smoke them,” Eric ordered coldly.

“Aye Captain.”

The command went out from tactical straight to the aft transition cannons, and they swiveled around to the rear as the
Odysseus
hurtled onward. Two of the three barreled cannons adjusted minutely before they discharged.

Quietly.

Without fanfare or a blaze of flame and smoke.

Instantly, several light-seconds away, two parasite cruisers vanished in nuclear fire.

“Targets serviced.”

“Send trajectories of the missiles to point defense stations, then put scanners forward and stay on target,” Eric said. “We have people in the cold.”

“Aye aye, Captain.”

►►►

Moon Surface

► A small boulder exploded ahead of them, and Steph drove Milla to the ground, rolling behind another as the shrapnel rained down around them.

“Laser!” she gasped.

“Yup.” Steph rolled clear of her and brought his rifle up to rest on the barrel. “High powered too. Reminds me of your people’s stuff before the Drasin.”

Milla shot a glance at him, mostly hidden behind her visor. “Our hand weapons were designed to be nonlethal against people.
That
was not.”

Steph paused, looking at her briefly before focusing back over the sights of his rifle. “Nonlethal
lasers
? How the hell did you manage that?”

Another crack signaled the other side of their boulder popping as a laser superheated the stone and vaporized the liquid contained within.

Milla ducked. “Do we really have time to explain photon lattice theory right now?”

“No, probably not,” Steph admitted as he settled a little and took a couple deep breaths. “They’ve got us zeroed in. Check around. See any cover we could retreat to?”

Milla did as he asked, but shook her head. “Nothing close.”

“I didn’t think so,” Steph said. “Okay, have you been taking tactical courses?”

“Some, but not open combat. Nothing like this.”

“Welcome to real-world combat 101,” Steph said. “Unfortunately, we’re going to have to skip the beginner stuff and move straight to the advanced course. Withdrawal under fire—definitely advanced-placement courses here.”

Milla nodded, surprising herself somewhat because she wasn’t shaking. “What do I do?”

“Find a boulder you can cover behind,” he told her, cutting her off when she tried to repeat what she’d said earlier. “I know there aren’t any close. Just do it.”

Milla cast about, looking for the largest, and closest, boulder she could find. They were strewn over the plateau in haphazard fashion, like some giant had left its toys lying out after a particularly enthusiastic game night. She found one that looked large enough and was hopefully not too far away.

“Okay, I have one.”

“Good,” Steph said. “When I open fire, you run.”

“But . . .”

“You
run
!” he snapped. “Get to cover, then you do what I tell you to do. Okay?”

Milla jerked her head up and down. “Okay.”

“Get ready.” Steph took a breath, settling his rifle down and dropping the fire selector over to burst mode. “Run.”

The rifle barked, sending three high-velocity rounds downrange and bucking back into Steph’s shoulder. He didn’t bother trying to see if he’d hit anyone. That wasn’t the point. Instead, he just shifted and fired another burst.

This wasn’t his preferred battle rifle, but rather a lightweight, medium-caliber weapon loaded with high-velocity, low-mass rounds. Not particularly lethal, but the rifle did pack a lot of bullets in each magazine.

The first burst dug into the ash around the pursuing troops, and they reacted predictably, diving for cover as best they could even as the second burst kicked up more ash and dirt. Steph fired a third burst before Milla signaled him.

“I am behind cover.”

He dropped back, leaning against the boulder. “Good. Now, listen carefully . . . Put your weapon into burst mode . . .”

“Done.”

“Okay, now set up, pick a grouping of the enemy troops . . .
away
from my position,” Steph said. “That part is
really
important, okay?”

“I normally handle shipboard weapon batteries, Stephan,” she told him dryly. “I believe that I
am
familiar with the concept of minimizing collateral damage.”

“Ah . . . right. Okay, fire when you’re ready, and don’t stop until I get to cover,” he said.

“Roger, as your people like to say.”

Steph tensed to run as the first burst roared through the thin atmosphere.

►►►

► Moro Kav, the troop commander on the ground, huffed as he pushed dust and ash out of his faceplate and risked looking up from where he’d dived into the dirt.

“Burn them down!” he bellowed, leveling his pulse gun ahead of him and firing as best he could, half-buried in volcanic ash.

His squad responded, slowly at first, but in a few seconds the terrain was lit up with trace from the pulse discharges, most of which were not just missing wide but
far
wide as fire from their targets continued to slap into the ash around them. Moro caught a glimpse of a figure running all out, but before he could do much more, the target dived behind a large boulder and was out of sight.

“Get to cover!” he ordered his troops, crawling through the shin-deep ash toward the rocky terrain concealing their targets.

He knew that he had to get his men under cover before they could effectively start countering the target’s strategy. The line of rock ahead of them should serve his needs, he figured, but there was no doubt in Moro’s mind that this mission had just gotten dirty and was going to stay that way.

►►►

► A withdrawal under fire was, perhaps, one of the most difficult tactical maneuvers to execute correctly, largely because even if you did it right, the risk was extremely high that you still weren’t going to nail it. That was the problem with the enemy: sometimes they didn’t cooperate by doing what you expected of them. Bastards just
live
to make life hard on you, don’t you know?

So Steph was mildly surprised, yet quite pleased, not to have been boiled to a goopy smear on the rock by a stray laser as he slid around a boulder and into cover. He rolled over, got his rifle out ahead of him, and settled the stock onto his shoulder while calling Milla on the comm.

“Alright, your turn. Wait for me to open fire, then run like all hell is chasing you.”

“You mean it isn’t?”

Milla’s voice was a little weak, but the humor told him she was still hanging in there.

Steph didn’t reply. He just picked a target and took a breath. He wasn’t a bad shot, but firing bursts at this range with a medium-caliber weapon took a premier marksman to reliably hit a target. Luckily, he didn’t need a hit. A near miss was almost as good.

Maybe even better. A hit would put one man down, maybe scare the others. It might also piss them off, and angry troops were more apt to take risks. Steph didn’t want them taking risks.

The burst ricocheted off the stone. He could imagine the whine slicing the air around the enemy, and the men went to ground just as predictably. Steph put two more bursts downrange while Milla ran. Then he let his eyes flick upward.

Of course, the real problem wasn’t the guys on the ground. The true nemesis was the floating fortress following along behind them like a dutiful dog, just waiting to be let off the leash. The ship was another reason not to start chewing up their pursuers. Steph didn’t want to know what would happen if the commander of that beast decided pursuit wasn’t worth the cost.

“I am covered,” Milla said, panting a little.

“I’m ready. Fire when ready.”

►►►

► Moro had had about as much of this mess as he was willing to endure.

His quarries were good. Not great, but good. They were calm, disciplined, and making good use of their available resources. Thankfully, they didn’t have many resources to make use of. Otherwise, he suspected that they wouldn’t be settling for delaying tactics.

“
Five
, Tav on call.”

“We hear you. What do you need, Tav?” the communications officer on the parasite responded.

“Drop a second squad behind their position. I’m going to spread my team downslope to cut off their escape to the sides,” he said.

“Understood . . . Ground command . . . ?”

“What is it?”

“What about upslope?” the comm officer asked.

“
Five
handles upslope.”

There was a long silence before the comm came back.

“Subaltern confirms.”

Moro didn’t bother responding. He’d given orders, and he had orders.

“Alright, spread half the team downslope. Start driving them back and up. We’ll wear them down before
Five
closes the lock.”

CHAPTER 14

► “Shit.”

Steph wasn’t really the swearing type, but this was a situation where he was more than willing to make an exception.

“What is wrong?” Milla asked from her cover, a boulder five meters or so away.

“They’re getting smarter,” he said over the radio link as the frigate broke position and flew overhead. “And it looks like they want us alive.”

“That is . . . good? Yes?” Milla sounded like she wished she were more certain.

“I wish I knew, but if they wanted to talk all friendly like, they could have just opened a comm link from the start.” Steph sighed. “Doesn’t matter. At this point, I’m going to make them sweat for their supper.”

There was a long pause before Milla said anything. “You are joking, yes? You do not really think they intend to eat us?”

Steph rasped out a laugh, coughing as he tried to hold the mask tighter to his face. “No, I don’t think they intend to eat us. It’s possible, I suppose, but that was just a figure of speech.”

“Of course.”

He laughed harder at the obvious relief in her voice.

Milla was quiet for a moment, then snapped a little sulkily, “It was not that funny, Stephan!”

“Yes, it was,” he gasped, still laughing.

His giggles finally petered out as he slumped against the boulder he was taking cover behind, holding the oxygen mask to his face and taking deep drags. He figured he had twenty minutes of air left at this level of activity—not that he would be able to keep up this level of activity for that long.

The adrenaline high coming off the crash was burning out, and he was pretty sure he’d bruised if not outright cracked a couple ribs. With the toxic atmosphere burning his exposed skin, and wisps of it leaking in to do the same to his lungs, Steph figured he was running on the ragged edge already. Twenty minutes would be pushing it, no question.

He risked a glance around the boulder, noting that the pursuit team was spreading down the slope and still closing on their location. The deep hum of the frigate was close, and he could see more men hitting the ground. Milla and Steph had only one direction left to go now, up the slope of the volcano. They would run out of stone and boulders in maybe a couple hundred meters and then be slogging through ash with no cover.

“Stephan? What do we do?” Milla asked him.

Steph didn’t have an answer. Honestly, he’d seen enough in his life that he didn’t want to be taken. POWs didn’t get treated well; it didn’t matter
who
took them. He didn’t know who their pursuers were, but the odds seemed good that they were the ones who’d sicced the Drasin on the Priminae.

Steph had sworn a long time earlier that he wouldn’t be a POW, not after the things he’d seen. Some of the stuff that happened to prisoners was . . . it was just unforgivable—and that was the stuff in Confederation camps. The Block had done worse.

He didn’t know these people, but if they had anything to do with the Drasin, they weren’t
nearly
as civilized as the Block.

A hail of gunfire was looking good, but he wasn’t alone—and he wasn’t making that call for someone else.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “They’ve got us cornered. They’re going to drive us up the slope into the ash. We could stay ahead of them for a while, but now it’s really just a matter of time.”

Milla was still for a moment. He couldn’t see much body language through her suit from where he was crouched, but Steph imagined her thoughts easily enough. Most of the same things he was thinking, maybe with a little more optimism.

“So . . . we surrender?” she asked finally.

Or maybe she had a hell of a lot more optimism. He surely wasn’t thinking that.

He’d prefer to end it on the surface of the moon, not clean perhaps, but better than the tender mercies of prison guards. He glanced over at Milla and grimaced under his oxygen mask, indecision eating at him.

Finally, he sighed. “Okay, we’ll . . .”

His and Milla’s radios crackled to life on the common channel.

“
Eagle One
, do you copy?”

Steph bolted almost upright, nearly exposing himself. “
Odysseus
Control?
Eagle
Actual speaking. We’re under fire on the . . . um, planet-facing side of a volcano on the inner moon. Do you copy?”

“Roger,
Eagle
Actual.
Odysseus
is entering orbit of the moon. Marine landers are preparing to launch. Squawk for location fix.”

“Roger, squawk out,” Steph responded, thumbing the control to send a heavy signal across the band, something more easily trackable than the pulsed comm.

“Receiving. Locating. Locked. Marines inbound.”

Steph slumped in place, letting out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.

“Roger that. We’ll keep them occupied if we can,” he said. “Glad you could join the party.”

A new voice entered the conversation, one Steph knew well.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, Stephanos.”

Steph chuckled. “Welcome to my moon, Raziel. It’s a bit of a fixer-upper, but the view is to die for.”

“Let’s hope not.”

►►►

PC Parasite
Five

► Subaltern Penae twisted around as the alarms roared in his ears. “What is it?”

“Proximity alarms, Subaltern! Mass detection, approaching at high velocity!”

“Missiles?”

The scanner tech shook his head. “Not on intersect course. Close, but it’s going to miss us.”

“Give me a visual!” snapped Penae.

“Calculating speed, trajectory . . . on screen!”

Penae stared for a few seconds longer than he probably should have before he managed to comment.

“What the abyss is that thing?” he mumbled.

It was a small craft, clearly not a missile, but of no configuration he’d ever seen in his entire career in the Empire. It was also coming in incredibly hot. Frankly, the ship looked like it was going to slam into the surface.

Suicide attack that missed?

The idea seemed ludicrous, but he’d experienced odder phenomena in his years.

“Subaltern, it’s decelerating hard!”

His eyes flicked to the displays again in time to see the craft hammer on a crushing deceleration, turning its descent into a curving glide path that brought the ship out over the line of troopers strewn across the slope of the volcanic cone.

“Troopers in the air! Troopers on the ground!”

Indeed there were. Men in armor were leaping from the sides of the craft, though it wasn’t slowing at all, using some sort of physical air brake to reduce impact velocity, and landing hard but apparently intact right across his operations area.

“Lasers on that craft. Burn it out of the sky.”

“As you say, Subaltern. Targeting . . . Holy stars of the Empire!”

Penae couldn’t bring himself to chastise his subordinate for the outburst. He’d nearly done as much himself. The instant they’d achieved an active lock on the small craft, a
visible
beam of pure light struck down in front of them like the fire of the gods. Penae had to take a moment to recognize what he was seeing.

“Visible laser?” he mumbled, shocked to the core.

The power needed for that was immense. In fact, only a—

“Reverse screens! Show me the source of the beam!”

The display flickered, showing the black of space for a brief moment before a large cruiser with an almost mirrored hull appeared. The gas giant on the horizon was actually reflecting off the hull of the cruiser as it settled into low orbit over the moon. Penae couldn’t see where the beam originated, as there were no molecules that high up to turn to plasma. But the subaltern didn’t need to see the beam to know what he was facing.

They got past the
Piar Cohn.

►►►

AEV
Odysseus

► “Comm open, Captain, broadcasting on Priminae frequencies.”

“Thank you,” Eric said, thumbing the comm open on his end. “This is Captain Eric Stanton Weston of the AEV
Odysseus
. Targeting my Marines is a hostile act. You have one warning. Do it again, and I will
end
your hostilities.
Odysseus
out.”

He turned back to the tactical station. “If they blink, turn them to plasma.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” Sams acknowledged.

Eric glanced back to Miram. “Status on the Marines?”

She snorted softly. “They’re Marines, sir. You know better than most, this is what they live for.”

“We do indeed, Commander.” Eric nodded. “We do indeed.”

►►►

Moon Surface

► Colonel Deirdre Conner tagged three targets on her heads-up display, or HUD, not pausing in her firing, and designated them to her second fire team. “Sergeant, these boys are in my way. See to that, would you?”

“Yes ma’am.”

With fire team two moving to plow the road, Deirdre turned her focus to the objective.

“Commander Michaels, squawk location,” she said. “We’re closing on your locations.”

“Squawk out.” The answer came back almost instantly.

The powerful signal blast couldn’t be missed by a blind man, unlike the compressed burst signals used for communications. Deirdre’s systems locked onto it instantly, and she redirected her squad accordingly.

“Squawk received. We’re almost there, Commander,” she said, her ground-eating strides intended to keep her low to the ground.

“Watch out. These guys are packing Priminae-scale hand lasers,” Steph said. “Even if your armor held up to one of those blasts, the heat would likely cook you in your suit.”

“Understood. I don’t think they’re in any position to resist, but you never know what a cornered rat will do,” Deirdre answered, then switched to squad channels. “Laser protocols, Marines! Pop smoke!”

“Yes ma’am!”

The Marines had carried diffractive smoke canisters, which were capable of spewing out dozens of cubic meters of thick smoke with suspended Mylar particles, since the Drasin invasion. The ploy wasn’t perfect, but it would attenuate lasers effectively enough.

As soon as the smoke filled the battlefield, beams of lasers could be seen visibly slicing the air and lighting it up. The smoke blunted the lasers and redirected some of their energy in random directions. Colonel Conner’s suit switched over to augmented reality vision as visibility went to effectively zero, highlighting her Marines using the IFF—identification, friend or foe—signals from their suits.

The networked computers also worked overtime trying to track laser telemetry using the visible beams in the smoke, giving the squad the locations of enemy forces as they fired.

Battle rifles roared in the smoke, but Deirdre remained focused as she closed on the commander’s location. She vaulted a boulder and skidded to a stop on the other side. She was surprised to find the commander with nothing more than goggles and an oxygen mask to protect him from the moon’s thin atmosphere.

“Are you injured?” she asked, trying unsuccessfully to link to his suit for a medical report.

“Only my pride,” he smirked under the mask, and then started coughing. “And, you know, maybe my body a little.”

She glanced over to where the lieutenant was taking cover nearby. “Lieutenant Chans, your status?”

“Intact.” Milla waved. “Body and suit.”

“Roger that,” Deirdre said. “I can scan your vitals. Hold position. We’re securing the area.”

Milla nodded. “I am going nowhere, Colonel.”

Deirdre checked the commander’s air and clucked. “Almost out of air, Commander. You flyboys like to cut things close.”

“What can I say, Colonel, I live on the edge.”

“I can see that, Commander. Here. I’ve got a spare.” She handed him an oxygen bottle from her rescue pack.

“Thanks,” Steph said and coughed, swapping the bottles.

“Just keep your head down. I’m calling for dustoff shortly.”

“No problem. I’m not going anywhere until the nice flying machine arrives.”

“Flyboys,” Deirdre snorted, looking over the boulder. “Those boys you ticked off are determined—I’ll give them that much.”