Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework (68 page)

Jake glanced at the slim forty metre long
ship. Her engines were built in little bulges down the length of
her hull. It was a manoeuvrable ship with more armour than he would
have expected from a vessel her size. He looked up the profile of
the missiles Wheeler had just launched at them and cringed.
“Ronin,” Jake addressed. “They’re firing shield breakers. They’re
small, but they emit a pulse before striking an enemy shield that
works like an EMP against a section of shielding before
hitting.”

“Gotcha, expensive little buggers, gotta
knock ‘em out,” Ronin said.

Jake watched as Ronin’s small fighter group
used the Warlord as cover, peeking out, draining their energy
weapon batteries then retreating for a few seconds while they
recharged. It was a safe manoeuvre, especially since one shield
breaker missile could do serious damage to an Uriel fighter.

The Ferryman let the next volley loose,
opening a set of panels running the length of the ship as
thirty-five projectiles fired. Minh’s fighters thrust out from
behind the Warlord, firing automated countermeasure gun pods and a
couple of missiles of their own at the cluster of deadly
projectiles.

At the last instant, Ashley rotated the main
thrusters of the Warlord and flared them as hard as the controls
would allow, pushing many of the remaining missiles away, or
forcing them to detonate early.

“Scattered hits,” Angela announced. “No
significant damage.”

“Counter launch!” Captain Valent
ordered.

Nine missile mines were hurled from the
bottom of the Warlord’s hull. They burst into hundreds of
micro-missiles that sought out the Ferryman.

“Ashley, roll us over into position on the
other side of the Ferryman,” Jake ordered. “Frost, get ready to
launch the other half of our mines and reload the first half as
fast as you can.”

As Captain Valance expected, the Ferryman’s
countermeasures, mini-cannons firing flack, shredded most of their
initial launch before they could reach their target.

“Captain Valance,” came Captain Wheeler’s
voice over the communicator. It was a one-way message, intended to
begin a dialogue. “Why would you even bother fighting a boarding
action in that antique? We can settle our scores without the messy
collateral damage.”

“We built her like an antique because we
couldn’t find better parts,” Frost said under his breath.

Jake shot him a withering look over his
shoulder and said; “When we’re within a kilometer, launch the
second load. Get the quad set warmed up.”

“Aye, Captain,” Frost said.

Captain Valent watched the display. Ashley
was having difficulty getting into position; the Ferryman’s pilot
was probably under instructions to keep her away from extreme close
range. He opened a channel to Wheeler. “It’s Captain Valent now,
and I’m looking forward to marking your broken hull as a
navigational hazard and moving on. This is already over, Wheeler.
Surrender or die,” Captain Valent said before jamming the
Ferryman’s frequency.

Ashley was finally getting the Warlord close
to the Ferryman, and their opponent’s shields were no longer
keeping up with the punishment the Uriels and the Warlord’s guns
were meting out. “Ronin, shred their aft dorsal section,” he
ordered.

In seconds the Uriels were in position,
unleashing a torrent of micro-missiles and gunfire on the
upper-rear section of the Ferryman. A burst of fire and light
erupted from the rear of the enemy ship and Pisser’s fighter
exploded into pieces. Ronin and Joyboy thrust away from that
section of the ship and fired from a greater distance, staying
evasive.

Captain Valent didn’t let the loss faze him
- there would be time for mourning later. A full volley of missile
strikes erupted against the Warlord’s hull. Sections of hull
plating were heated to the point of being soft, they lost three
main launcher barrels, and others were warped. Two crewmembers were
obliterated, five more were being medicated into stasis.

“Fire barrels eleven through seventeen,”
Jake said, knowing the others either weren’t loaded yet, were
warped by the heat, or damaged beyond use.

“Roll out, Ashley,” Captain Valent ordered,
but she was already rolling the ship and thrusting away, so the
Warlord would fall in behind their enemy, with her undamaged fore
section pointing straight at the Ferryman.

The mines burst apart, freeing hundreds of
mini-missiles that had less than two kilometres to travel before
impacting on the rear section of the Ferryman. Countermeasures
destroyed a third of the projectiles before they hit their target,
but the rest struck home.

The Warlord was pointing directly at the
Ferryman, nose first. Captain Valent looked to Frost, who nodded.
“They’re hot, sir.”

“Open torpedo tubes and fire the quads,”
Jake said. “Start moving us in the other direction, Ash.”

The hum of the railguns one whole deck
beneath the bridge rattled the floor, and the bridge crew could
feel the vibration of four railgun-assisted torpedo tubes firing
their heavy projectiles. Rockets activated as soon as the torpedoes
were two hundred metres away from the ship, and they made the
distance between the vessels in less than a second. One was thrown
off by countermeasures, missing entirely then detonating too late,
well in front of the Ferrymen.

The other three struck the rear of the enemy
ship. It was impossible to see the munitions in action, but Captain
Valance knew that each torpedo forced a two point eight ton slug
into the rear of the Ferryman followed by hundreds of kilograms of
solid xetima fuel, which would burn without the help of exterior
oxygen; it carried its own. The ruined aft section of the Ferryman
burned hard, as though the three rough entry points became rockets
for several seconds, then flamed out, glowing white and yellow.

“Target weapons,” Captain Valent said,
speaking to the bridge and Ronin. “If you see anything under power,
tear it to shreds.“

“The Ferryman is signalling her surrender,
Sir,” Kadri said.

“First Officer,” Captain Valent said to
Stephanie though his comm. “Get set to board the Ferryman. If there
is resistance, you are to retreat and we’ll slag her from a
distance.”

“Aye, just get me on that ship,” Stephanie
replied.

Captain Valent was just checking on the
sections of the hull that had been superheated and damaged during
the fight and was pleased to see that the energy absorbed from the
engagement was helping the ship to regenerate when something came
up on his alert system. He stood and brought the far side of Kambis
up on the main tactical display at the front of the bridge. “Hail
the Sunspire,” he ordered.

“Right away,” Kadri said. “Freeground
registry, under Captain McPatrick. Response coming in from Doctor
Carl Anderson, formerly of-“

“I know, put him on,” Jake said.

“Jacob,” Doctor Anderson said with a smile.
“You’re on the wrong side of the battlefield.”

Jake’s comm chirped with a notification that
he had a message waiting from Jason Everin. He ignored it for the
moment and replied to Anderson. “What are you doing in this section
of space?” Captain Valent asked.

“Recruiting,” Doctor Anderson said. “If
you’re looking to join the fight over Tamber, I’ll check you in
with our group leader, The BSF Argos.”

“British Security Force,” Captain Valent
said. “You brought the British.”

“We brought the British,” Doctor Anderson
said with a grin. “They have this taken care of for the moment, we
can finish what you’re doing so you can get to Port Rush. A ship
your size may be able to push through the fighter screen protecting
the planet.”

“Why, how bad is it down there?” Jake
asked.

“The Leviathan is resisting, but we’ll take
it down. The planet is where the real war is, I’m afraid. The
Warlord should be small enough to provide effective air cover while
evading, and your people will make a big difference to the Triton
settlement down there if you can drop them on the surface.”

“Understood, can you pick up Wheeler’s ship?
Do you have time?” Jake asked.

“We’ll tractor it in, I’m sure he’ll be glad
to see me again,” Doctor Anderson said.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Captain Valent said as
the communication ended. He checked the message from Jason and
discovered a picture of a young woman with brown-red hair. A
caption said: “Your daughter has been reborn, watch over her.” He
took a closer look and recognized similarities from the hologram
Alice once was as well as the woman she became. “Get me down there
as soon as you see a break in the fighter screen,” Jake said. “We
have work to do on Tamber.”

“So, who’s this operative we have in the
field?” Oz said, rushing to the strategy table in the middle of the
bunker.

“She says she’s Alice, but I really don’t
know,” Ayan replied. She brought up the woman’s status and an
outlined image of her casually jogging down an abandoned alley with
her XO-99 rifle over her shoulder. She was cloaked, and safe for
the time being. “This isn’t the Alice I heard about, as far as I
know. Not even Lewis will talk to her.”

“That’s strange,” Oz said, watching the
taller woman in Freeground Sentinel Armour make good time towards
one of the larger pods near the wall. The intelligence flowing from
her passive scanners was high enough resolution to map three
kilometres in each direction. She passed by framework soldiers who
were dressed in basic armour, carrying rifles like they were no
concern. She was cloaked, but her manner was brash. She wasn’t
making the slightest effort to stay out of sight.

“Lewis says her thought patterns are too
different to be recognized as Alice, and he reads her as an
adolescent,” Ayan said.

“All right, that makes sense,” Oz replied.
He checked the Clever Dream’s ownership details and nodded.
“There’s a maturity rating attached to the Clever Dream; if she
doesn’t read two fifteen on whatever this Holmes Scale is, then the
ship AI can’t interact with her unless she’s programmed into the
ship’s crew manifest by an adult.”

“Right, you won’t want a sixteen year old in
command of an armed ship,” Ayan replied. “How are things out
there?”

“We’re drawing some attention, but so far
we’re slowing them down by sniping them in the head. It takes a
couple of minutes for them to regenerate and reprogram as far as we
can tell. We’re worried about two sites out there, pods that are
sitting upright nearby. It looks like they’re building something on
top of them.”

Ayan looked at the holographic map on the
table, then looked to Oz. “You sent her to one.”

“She asked for a target from me directly,”
Oz replied with a shrug. “I told her to investigate, not to
engage.”

“From the looks of it she’s-“ Ayan stopped
at the sight of a new contact registering in orbit. “That’s the
Sunspire,” she said, suppressing excitement. “Other ships are
registering as well.”

They watched the new contact screen populate
with battleships like the BSF Lexington, BSF Brighton, BSF Legacy,
and several others. Two massive carriers, the BSF Shrike and BSF
Argus appeared followed by the LCF Challenger. “That’s a whole lot
of British firepower backed by a Lorander ship,” Oz said. “I guess
we know what the Sunspire was up to.”

“We have communication with the Sunspire,”
said one of the communications officers, a young man who filled the
same position on the Triton.

“Let’s have it,” Ayan said.

Doctor Carl Anderson’s head and shoulders
appeared in front of them. “Ayan, Oz, glad to see you’re still in
one piece.”

“It is so good to see you,” Ayan said. “You
couldn’t know.”

“I can guess. I wish we had time to visit,
but we’re going after the Leviathan’s battle group directly. We’ve
found what we think is Jacob Valance’s new ship, the Warlord. Can
you confirm?”

“Yes, that’s his new ship,” Ayan
replied.

“Good, we’re going to assist and do our best
to get him down to the planet. He might be able to survive the trip
with our cover. I wish I could offer you soldiers from our group,
but we’re gearing up for a boarding action. I’m sending you a data
packet that you’ll want to look at right away. Oz will have the
encryption key, it’s the last updated code from his command.”

“I’ve got that,” Oz replied. “Thank
you.”

“Again, good to see you. We’ll tie this up
out here so we can have a proper visit by sundown,” Doctor Anderson
said.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Ayan said.

The transmission broke up and within seconds
the channel turned red, indicating that it was being blocked. The
data packet got through, however, and Oz opened it with his
code.

Specifications for ammunition types and
grenades made to kill framework beings flooded the table’s
holo-grid. “Send this to the machine shop, and make this ammo
priority one,” Oz told the nearest communications officer.

“EMP enhanced explosive rounds,” Ayan said.
“It’s going to take a while to make these, we should use our last
two industrial materializers.”

“One’s ready to go, it might have an hour
making ammo this dense,” Liam Grady said. “The other was just
repaired, I don’t know how durable it is.”

“We have to arm ourselves properly,” Ayan
said. “Do it, get as many rounds out of them as you can,” she told
Oz.

“Um, guys?” asked Alice through the tactical
comm. “They’ve got major construction going on here, and there’s a
detection field that’s making my stealth system’s alarms go off.
I’m going to have to do this the hard way.”

“Don’t do anything, there’s no point in you
mounting a solo offensive,” Ayan said. “You’ll just get yourself
killed.”

* * *

“Can I get a new operator? You’re all full
of negativity,” Alice said as she climbed higher up on the side of
the old hauler ship that had been brutalized when the troop pod
struck nearby. She took a look around from her higher vantage point
and immediately wished she could help several crews who where
trying to fend off framework soldiers.