Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework (61 page)

Ayan’s comm warned her that there was a
priority call coming in. “Yes, Lieutenant Davi?”

“Some boneheads are letting about twenty
armed Carthans through our West gate,” he replied. He could hear
him running. “Remmy and I are on our way to head them off and get
details. From what I hear they’ve got an arrest warrant for
you.”

“What?” Ayan was furious. She turned to
Slick. “Do most of your pilots carry sidearms?”

“Aye, standard part of the uniform thanks to
Ronin’s rule book,” Slick replied. “Trouble?”

“We have an armed party of Carthans who want
to put me under arrest. My guards are in the bunker,” Ayan
explained.

“Hup!” Slick barked so loudly that Ayan
jumped. He had everyone’s attention in a heartbeat, however. “Eyes
here! I need volunteer ground shooters for a guard detail. Some
Carthans are on their way here and they want to arrest our
commander. She doesn’t feel like going for a walk this morning,
she’d rather spend a bit more time with us Skyguards, so let’s make
her feel welcome.”

Every technician and fighter pilot, armed or
unarmed scrambled. She was surrounded by two dozen people in
yellow, orange, blue, and black vacsuits. Most of them had
sidearms, the rest held dangerous tools as though they were ready
to put them to grisly purpose. Several others manned the five
nearest fighters. To her amazement, the machines could walk on four
of their thruster pods, and the main bodies could swivel so they
pointed like manned gunnery pods.

“You can’t beat walker mode for making
grounded fighters useful,” Slick said.

Alaka, his son, and several members of
security were on their way from different points inside the hangar
by the time Remmy and Lieutenant Davi accompanied the large group
of armoured Carthans into the hangar. Their leaders were wide-eyed
the moment the five fighters shifted on their thruster pod feet and
pointed all their weapons at the group.

“Excuse me,” Remmy said, as he made quick
tracks away from the Carthan group. “I’ll just be somewhere
else.”

After stopping for a moment, the major
leading the group continued forward. “Your entourage stays right
where they are, you can come forward,” Ayan shouted.

“Or?”

Slick cleared his throat and regarded her
with a raised eyebrow.

Ayan shrugged and nodded, a signal he
interpreted as permission to handle the threat portion of the
encounter.

“Or my fighters slag your guards and
everyone else cleans up what’s still moving in the crater,” Slick
said.

“You wouldn’t dare,” the major replied. “It
would be the end of everything here.”

“If my commander’s right, the Carthans are
about to get their asses handed to them by the Order of Eden, so
I’m not worried.”

The major looked unsure of himself as he
straightened his dress jacket. He signaled his people to remain
where they were with a gesture. The chains running across his chest
jingled in the quiet hangar as he walked on alone. When he was face
to face with one of Ayan’s guardians, a small woman in an orange
vacsuit holding a powerful plasma torch, he stopped. “Ayan Rice the
Second, I have a warrant for your arrest under the charges of grand
theft, conspiracy, murder, and smuggling. You are to accompany me
to Greydock, where you will be placed in detention until your
trial. You may select counsel to accompany you.”

Ayan gently pressed her way to the front of
the crowd protecting her and flashed a smile at the man serving the
arrest warrant. “What’s your name, Major?”

“Frederick Yardley, Ma’am,” he replied.

“It’s a miracle that someone let you into
our compound, Major Yardley,” Ayan said. “But since you’re here,
I’m willing to invite you and your men to stay, because in a few
minutes the Carthan Fleet is about to engage the Order of
Eden.”

“I’m afraid I must decline,” the major
replied. “My orders are to place you under arrest and safely escort
you to Greydock.”

“Let’s put your orders aside for a moment
and talk to each other like two people responsible for the safety
of a number of men and women. No one told you an invasion was
expected, did they?” Ayan said.

Major Yardley looked even more unsure of
himself, taking a moment to glance at Ayan’s guardians before
answering. “No. The fleet has been busy with readiness drills for
hours, but that’s all I heard.”

Ayan found herself considering how much she
really believed in the predictions of Roman and the Victory
Machine. He’d presented her with a strange mixture of visions.
Some, like the invasion of Port Rush, she didn’t want to see come
true. Others, like the vision of her children and a much improved
Tamber, she desperately hoped for. No vision was perfect. She found
herself craving more clarity, but the time had come. She either
believed and presented her faith or safeguarded against the
possibility that nothing would happen, minimized the loss of
confidence her people could have in her.

The sacrifice Roman made in getting the
Victory Machine’s predictions to her was enough to eliminate almost
all her doubt. He wouldn’t have sacrificed his life needlessly, and
he wouldn’t have used his last breaths to lie.

“I have a proposal,” Ayan said quietly. She
was smiling at him, doing her level best to sound inviting. “I
doubt your senior officers will care if you take half an hour to
arrest me, so why don’t you wait thirty minutes? If I’m right, the
Carthan Fleet will be under attack, and the safest place for you
and your people will be right here, under the best energy shield
this side of Greydock. If I’m wrong, I’ll go with you and we’ll
take care of these invalid charges. Do we have a deal?”

“That’ll do, but I can’t let you out of my
sight,” he replied.

“Fine, but your men stay out of the way. Set
them up outside this hangar, to the side. We have work to do and
we’re running out of time.”

He nodded.

“Good, I’m going to the central command of
our compound now. Pass your orders quickly, there isn’t much time,”
Ayan said.

He turned and started to march back to his
people with a steady grace. Watching his slow retreat made her
hackles raise. “Oi!” she barked, “I said quickly!”

“Camp out at the waypoint I’m marking on
your Strategic Overlay,” he shouted to his troops as he crossed the
distance, making the decision not to wait until he was within easy
earshot.

“Thank you, Wing Commander,” Ayan said to
Slick. “I like the name of your wing, by the way, the Skyguard.
Wish I had time to properly introduce myself.”

“You don’t,” Slick said. “We understand. I
see you’ve got about five squads coming through the door, so I
think they can handle the guarding from here.”

“I think so,” Ayan agreed. She marched
towards the hangar doors quickly, meeting Major Yardley and two
armed guards on the way.

“I’m bringing-“

“Two guards. Fine. They get in the way and
I’ll shoot them myself, then I’ll do you,” Ayan said as she walked.
“This is an invasion, Major. You fight me, you’re the enemy, and
I’m a trained soldier. My enemies don’t get second chances.”

Victor Davis heard the last and couldn’t
help but grin at her. “The first time we let you roam around
unprotected since I was assigned and you almost get arrested,” he
said.

“Are they gathered?” Ayan asked.

“All on top of the new bunker, aye.”

“Good, here we go.” She broke into a run,
followed by five squads of soldiers and the major with his escort
of two. She noticed his armed troop carrier, a thirty five metre
long ship hovering outside the shield. “You’re going to want that
inside the shield when the first strikes hit. I’m not lowering the
shield for anything after this show gets started,” she said.

“Ma’am?” the Carthan major asked.

“Are you stupid or deaf?” Ayan asked. “That
troop carrier is going to be destroyed if it just hovers there
beside our shield. Get it inside, there’s room right beside our
hangar on an old platform.”

Major Yardley made no move to send orders to
his transport by the time Ayan arrived at the new bunker. Ayan took
one last look around from the centre of their compound before
paying attention to the people inside.

The gate looked abandoned. For the first
time in days there wasn’t a lineup of people waiting to leave or
enter. Their energy shield was up. They had two arches that allowed
them to turn the shield on and off in large doorway sized patches.
They’d used the main airlocks from an old freighter they’d picked
apart while rebuilding the Samson.

Their new combat bunker was actually a pair
of large converted underground fuel tanks. The filling ports had
been enlarged to accommodate an antigrav lift. The whole thing was
covered by a salvaged habitat pod that was brought down from the
Triton the day before. It was unbelievably easy to set up; Ayan
only discovered its existence after they were finished putting it
in place and anchoring it. It was like everything else on the
Triton: armoured, sturdy, and built by masters.

“You stay here,” she told the Major.

“You stay here,” Victor repeated to him with
a smile. If he weren’t holding a heavy rifle across his chest, the
expression might have been seen as inviting.

Ayan took the lift down and emerged into the
bunker. “Our people did this all in one day and one night,” she
said to Oz as he approached her, offering her a hand to step down.
“Shelters, a bunker, and a decently organized defensive
position.”

“The miracle is all an illusion,” Oz
replied. He walked her over to a makeshift table where they’d
placed a few comm units that served as computers and
holoprojectors. “I’ve been training the soldiers here for over a
month, and we’ve known how to set all the equipment we got from the
Enforcer for weeks. All they needed was the order, and they knew
exactly what to do. You should know, you trained with us.”

“Mostly for the physical training, I missed
most of the emergency drills and info sessions,” she replied. Ayan
nodded at the group gathered around the table and the few
technicians she could see. Jenny and several other officers
directed their soldiers to help shore up the physical barricades
within their settlement’s shields. The walls they began erecting
weeks ago were made of scrap panels welded together, strong enough
to stop most individuals, but they were trying to reinforce it to
withstand real punishment, just in case the shield encompassing
their entire settlement went down. It stood five metres tall at the
lowest point, and almost nine at the tallest. Thin plating was easy
to find, it was the armour they always had difficulty with.

“Everyone deserves a lot of credit anyway,”
Ayan said. “How’s our shield?”

“Better,” Oz said. “With a fusion chain from
the Triton,” he pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the
carefully piled and braced mini-fusion reactors at one end of the
bunker, “we have reserve power and enough juice to repel orbital
strikes. The Carthans have been calling every half hour ever since
we turned it on. It’s like no one told them there’s something
coming.”

“I’ve contacted Patrizia Salustri, Ugo
Dallego, and everyone else I can call a leader on Tamber and I’ve
been put off. No one believes there’s an attack coming.”

“Oi, that’s not true,” Captain Ruby Sima
said as she came out from behind a pillar with large capacitor pods
strapped to it. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have brought my ship in under
your shiny new shield.”

“Thank you for lending a hand,” Ayan said.
“I was surprised, to be honest.”

“I’ve got valuables on this rock, two
warehouses I’m willing to talk about, and no time to move a thing.
Did you get any idea from your encounter that tells you who’ll win
this?”

“We can make Tamber into something amazing
if we don’t abandon this moon, or her people,” Ayan replied. “We
just have to fight for it.”

“Some positive thinking,” Ruby said. “I’ll
go along with that, trapped here anyway. Just wondering why you
sent your best boy away with his shiny new ship if you knew this
was coming.”

Ayan knew the question would come up, and
dreaded it. “He had work to do somewhere else, I wish I could tell
you more.”

“So do I,” Ruby said. “I’m going back up top
to make sure the Lord Neptune’s in order. I want my firepower ready
just in case we find something in the sky to shoot at.”

“You will,” Ayan said. “And thank you
again.”

“Are you staying down here, Ma’am?” Sergeant
Jenny Machad asked.

“I’ll be going up top. I want to see for
myself what happens when the timer hits zero,” Ayan replied.

“Well, I’m going up top to help my unit,”
Jenny said. She moved around behind Ayan and started strapping a
heavy rifle from Triton’s emergency armoury to the commander’s
back.

“I think there are other people who’ll need
that more than me. Besides, I’ve got all the firepower I’ll need
here,” Ayan protested, patting her sidearm.

“You’re sending half your guards off, so I’m
going to make sure I know you’re well armed,” she replied.

“Well, I’ll say thank you for now,
Sergeant.”

“You’re welcome, for now,” she replied.
“Heading up top.”

She made sure the Weary Traveller, a ship
that they were slowly repairing, had been moved and saw that it
was. There were three technicians erecting a portable shelter
there, and she was immediately furious. “These three,” she pointed
at the hologram hovering above the table. “Get them moved and mark
their records with one count of insubordination. I’ll deal with
them later, personally.”

Everyone watched silently as she stepped
away from the table and headed for one of the two lifting
platforms. “I don’t care if half of you don’t believe what I’m
telling you about what’ll happen today, they’ll believe it just
fine when they’re crushed by a drop pod.”