Fenris – Ranger Headquarters
The briefing room inside the Rangers’ headquarters was arranged like an amphitheater, with rising tiers of stadium seating in an arc around a small semicircular stage. At the front of the stage stood a lectern whose front bore the symbol of the Fenris Rangers; it was flanked by a pair of banners that also bore the Rangers’ symbol, draped from the rafters upstage.
Lit by a bank of overhead lights, it made an impressive showcase for something as mundane as morning roll call. Ranger Chief of Patrol Yivv, or “CP,” as their fellow Rangers referred to them, had spent the better part of ten minutes laying out the organization’s priorities and duty assignments for the day while the assembled Rangers traded jokes under their breath and feigned giving CP their undivided attention. The Rangers heaved a collective sigh of relief as Yivv asked, “If there’s no other business?”
Then Seven ruined the moment. “I have something.”
Yivv squinted against the light shining into their eyes, and after a moment the Bolian zeroed in on the source of the voice. “Deputy Ranger Seven. If you have something to share, please do so via your training officer, Ranger Harper.”
Seven stood to project her voice. “I apologize, Chief, but this is urgent.”
Yivv pointed at the briefing room door and then hooked their hand leftward. “The head is down the hall, third door on the left toward the lifts.”
Sniggers rolled through the Rangers’ ranks, and Seven’s temper began to rise when she realized she was being mocked. Not wanting to be dismissed as irrational, she drew a deep breath and then continued with renewed calm. “I wish to propose an action against General Kohgish, on the grounds that he is a major threat to life and law in this sector.”
Yivv’s reply was thick with condescension. “We all know who and what Kohgish is.”
“Yet you have made no significant effort to halt his tyranny. Why not?”
The chief of patrol visibly bristled at being put on the spot by a first-week recruit. “Your T.O. should explain to you that we’re a law-enforcement agency, not a military. We don’t have the fleet power to make a stand against Kohgish.”
“I’m not suggesting we engage him in direct combat.”
“Then what are you proposing?”
“Depriving him of resources. Specifically, taking back the weather-control network on Soroya IV.” As soon as she said it, she heard a low collective groan from the assembled Rangers.
Yivv shook their head. They looked tired. “Do you really think we haven’t considered it? That we haven’t gamed it out? Run sims? It’s a nonstarter.”
“I disagree.”
From the front row, a male Vulcan Ranger named Tovok spoke up. “CP is correct. Kohgish keeps at least one ship from his fleet in the Soroya system at all times. Any attempt to access the weather network’s main control station will draw an immediate counterstrike.”
Seven addressed her reply to the Vulcan. “Thank you, Ranger Tovok, but I am aware of the disposition of Kohgish’s forces. Because the control station is fully automated, I think it will be possible to overcome Kohgish’s security lockout and turn the system’s defenses against him.”
Tovok shook his head in disagreement. “There would not be enough time. Defeating the lockout and rebooting the system would take at least ten minutes, but Kohgish’s ship is never more than six minutes away.”
“There’s another issue,” Chief Yivv added. “It’s not as if it’s a one-person job. It takes six people, all working in unison, with one person at each of six principal nodes, to retake command of the station. Those nodes are all on the outside of the main platform, completely exposed. Which means whoever’s out there will be an easy target for Kohgish’s snub fighters.”
Seven absorbed the criticisms with the sort of calm that can only be earned by surviving life-or-death crises. “You all make excellent points. But what if I told you I could change the variables in your equations? Would you consider my proposal then?”
That captured the chief’s attention. They moved a bit closer to Seven. “Which variables do you think you can change?”
“I possess expertise with computers far beyond anything you’ve ever known. I can teach you military-grade code injections that will enable us to take command of the station in as little as four minutes. As for the risk of putting a team on the platform, send the copilots of six prowlers, and let their pilots fly a combat patrol around the station until we regain control.”
Yivv perked up, clearly interested in Seven’s idea. “Quite the proposal, Deputy. I presume you’ve given some thought to an exit strategy for the team on the platform?”
“Given the extreme altitude of the weather network, the only viable insertion tactic is a free jump using orbital skydiving suits. Once we’ve liberated the station, we’ll continue the jump to the planet’s surface, and our prowlers can exfiltrate us from there.”
Around the room, where Seven expected to see nods of approval, she saw more Rangers shaking their heads in refusal. Tovok seemed to be trying to keep his tone diplomatic. “Deputy, your plan would utilize at least six prowlers for a single operation, one that has a high risk of multiple Ranger ships being lost in action. Would I be correct in assuming you would also wish to have a corsair as part of your action group?”
“Of course. The corsair would give us vital sensor data and the ability to manage multiple theaters of action throughout the Soroya system, should that prove necessary.”
“Have you failed to notice the dearth of combat-ready prowlers on the flight deck? Or the fact that our situation board shows only six corsairs operational in the entire sector? We simply don’t have the people or the resources, Deputy.”
Seven refused to give up on her idea. “It would be only a brief redeployment.”
Yivv telegraphed their opposition by crossing their arms. “Putting too many Rangers in one place leaves too many other points of interest unmonitored or undefended. Semantics aside, I continue to think an assault on the weather-control station is a job for a military unit, not a law-enforcement agency. Request denied.” They made a point of turning their back on Seven as they asked the other assembled Rangers, “Any other business?… Dismissed.”
Seething quietly, Seven watched most of the Rangers file out, many of them on their way to first-shift patrol flights. When everyone else had gone, those who had stayed behind with Seven were Ellory, Jalen, Rana, Lucan, and two other Rangers whom Seven had not yet met. As the group gathered into a huddle, Ellory introduced the new faces, a clean-cut human man and a petite woman with feline features. “Seven, these are Rangers Speirs and Ballard.”
Speirs shook Seven’s hand. “Call me John.” His grip was firm, and he had the confident smile of what Tom Paris had once called a “natural-born rocket jockey.”
Next, Seven shook Ballard’s hand. It was pleasantly soft thanks to a downy layer of fur. The woman had rolled up her shirtsleeves above her elbows, revealing tigerlike stripes on her forearms. She had large, catlike eyes whose irises shimmered an emerald green, and when she smiled, she seemed self-conscious about her fangs. “Hi. My friends call me Trina.”
“Please call me Seven.”
Ellory took back control of the conversation. “We couldn’t round up an entire squadron of prowlers willing to buck the brass if they said ‘no,’ which they have. You’re looking at everyone I could get. With you and Harper, we’ve got four prowlers. Enough to put six people on the control-station platform and keep one prowler flying defense. Now the only question is, when do we want to do this?”
“Right now.” Seven noted the Rangers’ shocked expressions. “The longer we wait, the greater the risk that one or more of our prowlers will be sent out on a call.”
Anxiety put a tremor in Rana’s husky voice. “But you haven’t taught us your military-grade whatever-it-is to speed up the station hack.”
Seven reached inside one of her coat’s pockets and pulled out a fistful of isolinear chips. She handed them out to the others. “These are loaded with encryption-breaking software. When you reach one of the station’s control nodes, plug in one of these. It will do the rest. Then the only thing left to do will be the synchronized initiation of the purge function, to force the station’s main computer to restore itself to its default operating state.”
The Rangers looked at the computer chips in their hands, nodded, and then stuffed them into various pockets for future use.
Lucan muttered, “Suits me. I always hated cramming for tests, anyways.”
Jalen Par pinched the ridges above the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. “Seven, I need to ask you a simple question, and I’d be grateful for a simple answer.”
“Ask.”
“Are you sure this plan is gonna work?”
“Yes.”
Speirs grinned. “Good enough for me!” He gave Jalen a hearty slap on the back and headed for the door. “To hell with the brass—let’s do this.”
“Let’s just hold on a second.”
Harper felt like a swimmer in the grip of a riptide. His first warning sign that something was brewing had been Seven and the other members of her heroic conspiracy arriving on the flight deck dressed in orbital skydiving suits. The second warning sign had been even more obvious: Seven asking him to warm up his prowler and plot a course back to Soroya IV.
He took Seven aside behind his prowler. “Kid, I was at the same roll call as you, and I’m pretty sure I heard the CP nix your plan to free the weather station.”
“He did.”
“Then what’s all this?”
“We’re going anyway. Better to ask forgiveness than permission.”
For a moment he just stared at her in mute frustration. “Kid, the key to that strategy is not asking first, or at all. Once you’ve asked and been told ‘no,’ you don’t get forgiven for bucking orders. If you blow this, it’ll get you a big chicken dinner.”
“A what?”
“B.C.D. Bad conduct discharge. If you’re lucky, CP’ll just eighty-six you. Depending on how wrong your tilt at the orbital windmill goes, you could be looking at jail time.”
“And if my plan succeeds?”
“I haven’t really considered the possibility.”
“Consider it. You heard my plan. Do you think I’ve overlooked something?”
Harper stalled for time by scratching at his bearded chin and clearing his throat. “Well, no. Not exactly. On paper, it’s absolutely cromulent.”
“Then what is your objection?”
“No plan ever survives contact with the enemy—and, as far as I can tell, you have no Plan B. What’re you gonna do out there when everything starts going wrong?”
“If executed correctly, my plan—”
“Forget about correctly. Forget about your plan. Listen to what I’m telling you: People are fallible. Combat is chaotic. We have strict rules of engagement, a duty to use nonlethal force—but our enemies don’t. One mistake up there could get us and the rest of the team killed. Did you account for that?”
He wasn’t sure how he expected Seven to react. He didn’t think she would shrink like a violet, or wither in the face of criticism, but he certainly didn’t expect what she did next. She lifted her chin and actually seemed to get a bit taller. “I am aware of the dangers posed by this mission. I’ve weighed the certain costs of failure against the potential gains of success. Imperiling eight lives to save eight hundred thousand is an acceptable risk-reward ratio.”
Harper hated being out-argued, but he admired the hell out of the way Seven had done it. “Gotta give you credit, kid. You’ve really got a way with math.”
“Then we are in agreement?”
“Not so fast. This ain’t a sim or some kind of logic problem. This is the real world, Seven. And sometimes when you win, it only makes things worse.”
At first she was confused, and then she grew angry. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m worried you think this is a game you can win if you just plug in the right numbers or press the right buttons. I’m even more worried you don’t really understand how things work out here, or what the consequences of your actions might be. You’re dealing with an enemy that has no limits, and only one answer to every setback: revenge.”
Seven spent a moment considering what Harper had said. When she met his gaze once more, he could see that she had only hardened her resolve. “I understand why you might question my grasp of the potential fallout of this mission. But I suspect you wouldn’t second-guess the other Rangers who have committed to it. If you would give them the benefit of the doubt, I ask that you show me the same respect.”
He shook her hand. “Fair enough. Start the preflight while I suit up.” As he trudged toward his locker, he grumbled, “Someone needs to make sure you idiots come back alive.”