Randolph Lalonde - Spinward Fringe Broadcast 08 - Renegades (11 page)

“It’s about time,”
Joyboy said as his ready indicator turned green in Minh-Chu’s
peripheral vision.

Minh-Chu watched the
counter drop, second by second, as he verified that the fighter’s
control systems were synced up properly. They were finally using the
augmented interface built into the Earth Defence Force designed
fighters. They still had their hands on manual controls, but more
than half of the fighters’ responses were keyed by readings taken
straight from the pilots’ brain functions. Samurai Squadron was the
first to fully utilize the deadly quick systems after their software
was restored and locked, so it couldn’t be hacked unless someone
was sitting inside the cockpit.

The mission counter
descended down to ten seconds, and Minh-Chu noticed that the
Warlord’s main engines still weren’t powered up, and the Torano
wasn’t on scanners. “Everyone check your tactical,” Minh-Chu
said. “The Torano hasn’t departed the station on time.”

He deactivated the
mission counter. It was up to them to watch for the emergence of the
Torano or its escort. Minh-Chu performed a focused scan in the
direction of the space station, so far away it couldn’t be seen by
the naked eye. The quality of his results was a reflection of a
focused scan at long distance – they were incomplete and difficult
to read.

“I’ve got it,”
Singe said. “Sent it to your screens.”

The profile of the
Torano appeared on Minh-Chu’s tactical scanner, just on the other
side of the sprawling Zalor drift station. A second later, the
transponder information appeared with it. “They timed their
departure with a solar radiation spike,” Joyboy said. “This is
one smart freighter captain.”

“Watch for those
modified shuttles,” Minh-Chu said. “Spread out and close on the
Torano, full burn. Singe, stay back far enough to cover us with
Joyboy and Uppity.”

“Aye, watching for
the uglies.”

“Torano, this is the
Warlord,” Minh-Chu overheard. Jake was handling the communications
with the Torano himself. “I have your crewman, and will execute him
as a Regent Galactic conspirator unless you surrender your ship and
cargo. You have ten seconds to respond.”

“Warlord, this is
Torano Command,” replied someone aboard the Torano. “My duty to
the Regent Galactic Corporation supersedes my obligation to my
daughter’s idiot husband. You picked a lemon for a hostage,
Captain, and I’ll be on my way.”

“Coming up on the
station,” Dent said from where he covered Minh-Chu’s right side
in a Ramiel Fighter.

Zalor station seemed
endless, stretching off into the distance in a seemingly haphazard
shape. Large panels collecting light and accumulating energy from
gravity reached out from a jagged centre that housed hundreds of
docking bays, thousands of mooring points, and thousands of interior
compartments. The magnetic field surrounding the station forced
Minh-Chu’s shields to auto-adjust. “Wait, go around,” he said
as he realized what the Turano was doing by leading them through the
field.

The enemy ship’s
dorsal and rear shell cannons fired, blasting several of the
station’s power collection panels into thousands of tiny pieces.
Suddenly, the lead ships in Minh-Chu’s wing were flying through a
field of hardened debris. His ship registered several impacts but
didn’t take any serious damage.

“Cockpit strike!”
Dent announced. “I have a control malfunction, trying to
recalibrate.”

Minh-Chu checked Dent’s
condition and nodded to himself. Several chunks of cockpit shielding
broke free in the impact, but Dent’s suit saved him. His Ramiel
fighter had a severe vulnerability with its cockpit compromised. “I
need you to drop back on this one, Dent.”

“Ronin, I just got my
controls recalibrated, I’m still in this,” Dent replied.

“We don’t fly
around with busted cockpit armour unless we have to. Head for cover,”
Minh-Chu replied.

“Aye, sorry,” Dent
replied. His fighter broke off and his position was taken by Tempest.

“I’ve got two
uglies on my scanners,” Minh-Chu said as they appeared on his
tactical display. An instant later, his system reported that all his
pilots looked at the new enemies and understood what they were thanks
to the mental tracking systems built into their fighters. “You’re
headed straight for them, Dent.”

“I know, evading,”
he replied.

Beams of orange-yellow
light erupted from the enemy fighters as he rotated his ship so his
damaged cockpit was facing away from the enemy. The shuttles’
destructive beams swept over the surface of the much smaller Ramiel
fighter, reducing Dent’s shields to twelve percent and ripping
through one of his engine pods before he could find cover behind one
of the station’s docking terminals. “Holy hell, that is some
serious firepower,” Dent said, chuckling nervously. “Okay, one
engine pod down, some other minor damage, but I’m okay. My scanners
got a snapshot of their systems – looks like a small antimatter
reactor powers each ship. Wish I could help out more, but I’ll be
over here licking my wounds.”

“Nice work, Dent. All
fighters, direct main power to shields and switch to explosive
rounds,” Minh-Chu ordered. The uglies, twelve-man transit shuttles
with shield plating and several particle beams, were on course to
cover the Turano’s rear. Rods began extending out from the sides of
the ugly shuttles, and it only took a moment for Minh-Chu to realize
what they were. “They’re getting ready to put up some serious
shielding, I’m opening fire.”

“Ronin, intelligence
suggests we won’t have more players on the field, and the station
is only sending us the standard warning,” Singe said. “Permission
to move in and engage?”

Minh-Chu and his two
accompanying wingmen passed behind a large segment of the station and
he held his answer as he listened to the communicator. “Warlord to
Turano,” Jake addressed. “You tested me.” The channel closed.
The Warlord was moving on to the next phase of their plan; Minh-Chu
and the Samurai wing had to hurry.

“Come in on their
starboard side,” Minh-Chu said as he reversed thrust. Tempest and
Quack, to his left and right, did the same, and they held position
behind one of the station’s main docking segments. “We need you
to distract them so they don’t have us dead-to-rights as soon as we
break cover.”

“Aye, on it,” Singe
said.

A small surge of
atmosphere burst from one of the Warlord’s fore airlocks, and
Minh-Chu’s sensors marked a new rescue target on screen.

“Did the Warlord just
airlock someone?” asked Joyboy.

“He’s alive, in an
emergency evac bag,” Singe said. Minh-Chu was glad she was
explaining the situation, because he was still staring at his
tactical readouts in disbelief. “Looks like our captain chose a
wise compromise – he didn’t kill his hostage, but he’s given
our target something new to worry about – a son-in-law adrift in
space.”

The Warlord’s engines
flared as it changed course, moving away from the jettisoned hostage
at speed and towards the Torano. “Samurai Squadron,” Captain
Valent addressed. “Slag those shuttles.” The Warlord cloaked and
completely disappeared from scanners.

Dirty Tricks

It was the first time
anyone on the Council had to take a recess so they could get
themselves together. The mess Liam left behind politically and
emotionally frustrated Ayan more than she would have liked to admit.
In the wake of their tame break up months before, it was difficult to
stay positive, and she caught herself looking at the negative side of
things, and fighting a situation instead of thinking her way through
it. Her failure to make her relationship with Liam Grady work had
left a lingering anger, and she wasn’t herself. Ayan buried herself
in work, and pushed people away until, one day, she broke down and
retreated to the Triton. Her old friend, Commander Terry Ozark
McPatrick, or Oz for short, was the one who pointed out that Lacey
was already in place as her immediate subordinate, but Ayan largely
ignored her until then.

Without a whiff of ego
or bitterness at being disregarded, Lacey stepped in thanks to Oz’s
re-invitation, and became Ayan’s true right hand in all things.
After a few weeks, the two women spent most days together from
breakfast to the late evening. The negativity that plagued Ayan
abated with the frustration she felt at drifting apart from Liam. She
once again strove to accept what she couldn’t change and
concentrated on the good she could do every minute of every day.

In the months since
their real collaboration started, Ayan maintained her position on the
Council, took a commanding spot with the new Rangers, and she was
constantly grateful to have Lacey at her side. She expressed how
thankful she was often, and Lacey brushed it off. She was where she
wanted to be, never bored, and even on the worst days she admired
Ayan’s coping abilities.

That was why it was
difficult for Lacey to watch the scene Liam Grady, not a habitual
grandstander, put on for the Council and anyone who had access to the
recordings of the proceedings in the chamber, which was everyone.
Lacey watched as Ayan paced the small open space between padded seats
against the walls in a small waiting room adjacent to the Council
chambers. “There are so many things I could have said, but I
settled on ‘goodbye.’” Ayan shrugged helplessly.

“It seems like he was
trying to publicly take the blame for what happened between you two,
to take it off your shoulders. I know this isn’t what you want to
hear, but I agree with most of what he said. You just lost two of
your best friends, and after being around you for this long, I know
you need affection in your life. It makes sense that you’d turn to
someone you trust and admire for that. He should have held you at
arms’ length, no matter how ‘magnificent’ you are,” she
couldn’t help but exaggerate ‘magnificent’ it was such an
over-appreciative word, even if Lacey agreed with the praise. “Even
still, that’s all in the past. I know you two said everything you
needed to when you finally broke things off. I don’t think he
deserved anything more than ‘goodbye’ from you.”

“Maybe not.” Ayan
wiped her eyes with a tissue in reflex, but there were no tears left
to mop up. She felt weary and irritated, but her sadness had gone
before long. “I don’t have time to deal with this. The Warlord is
coming back, and they’ll need qualified people. We have to take
care of today’s business and get a volunteer list ready.”

“He has fifty British
Alliance people aboard,” Lacey said. “Won’t he make a deal to
keep them?”

“He’s too proud to
take crewmembers who aren’t completely his. I’d fault him for it,
but his thinking is tactically sound – you don’t take crewmembers
that could have standing orders from another government. Besides,
they’re not allowed to take part in combat action. We need to
accept the Warlord and her crew - it’s the only effective offensive
ship we have right now besides the Clever Dream, and that’s busy
enough.”

“So the Council is
still putting a motion to dissolve our treaty with the Carthans on
the table?” Lacey asked. “I think it’s premature.”

Ayan shook her head.
“We have to, but I know it’s not going to pass with Liam’s
bloody floor show today. I don’t think he meant to make it look
like I was the bad guy in our relationship, but by offering that
drawn out apology in front of everyone, and his subordinate staring
daggers, there’s no way we will get consensus.”

“Another reason why
Haven Shore’s military arm should have remained separate. It’s
not a civilian decision.”

“I know,” Ayan
said. “I still regret agreeing to bring military decisions to the
Council; Victor and I were both wrong, but I’ve seen it work on
Freeground for decades. The Admiralty rarely had to consult
Parliament, but they made sure they were part of most decisions when
they affected the overall politics of the station. We thought it
would work better with a miniature government model here.”

“Gion’s military
was bound by our peacekeeping system,” Lacey said. “It worked
really well during peace time, but we were dependent on the British
Alliance whenever war broke out.”

“And that’s
something I want to get out of as soon as possible,” Ayan replied.
“We have to be self-sufficient or our settlement will never be
viable.”

A knock sounded from
the door and it slid open a moment later, admitting Victor Davis, who
wore a face-splitting grin. “Looks like the Rangers have proven
themselves, and we can relax our military force on the ground and
start re-tasking our teams.”

“Why? What’s
happened?” Ayan asked, realizing at the same time that it could
only mean one thing.

“Remmy took command
of our security forces for the Rangers and turned the fight for the
last Order of Eden garrison on Tamber. He turned the mission around
and just cleared it a few minutes ago. He planted your command flag
before the Carthans got a chance to land a shuttle.”

Ayan was so excited
that she hugged him. He was a little surprised but received her
warmly, like a big brother. “Oh that’s good timing, I needed some
good news. I’ll congratulate the team tomorrow.”

“I don’t want to
rain on your parade, but I don’t think this will get us consensus
in the next room,” Victor said.

“I know, I don’t
think anything will change that,” Ayan replied, “but I think the
situation with the Council will get much worse before it gets better.
I’m going to add something to our agenda today that ought to ruffle
some feathers.”

“Should I change into
full armour?” Victor asked.

“Might not be a bad
idea,” Ayan said, walking past him. Adding something to the agenda
wasn’t a new idea, it was something she had been considering for
weeks and it had to happen eventually, but some members may believe
it was too early. It would be the only way for the government to
continue to function with the new rift opening across the table. She
felt better about what had to happen during session, but neither her
new idea, nor even the news of the Order of Eden garrison, lessened
her growing distaste for Council business.