The Bruce Monroe had left orbit about Glenlyon’s primary world, making a freighter’s slow, lumbering path to the jump point for Jatayu. Saber had escorted the Bruce Monroe all the way to the jump point. According to the plans briefed to everyone, the destroyer would leave the freighter there, Saber remaining at Glenlyon to protect the star system.
Leigh Camagan, traveling on the Bruce Monroe under a false identity, had chafed at being unable to talk with Rob Geary during the journey to the jump point. She hoped he was both asserting himself as commanding officer and beginning to make changes to the way the former Earth Fleet crew reacted to the challenges of combat. Saber had carried out every maneuver with precision and skill, but then the Earth Fleet–trained crews had always displayed that.
Right up until Claymore had been destroyed at Jatayu. What would be waiting at Jatayu this time when the Bruce Monroe arrived on its own?
At least the freighter’s trip through jump space was exactly the same length as it would be for a far more maneuverable ship like Saber. Jump space didn’t care how fast a ship could accelerate in normal space. No matter what their velocity when they entered jump (and at the moment the jump drives only worked if ships were traveling at point zero six speed or less) everything in jump space moved at the same pace from jump point to jump point, for reasons that remained unexplained by science. And everyone in jump space experienced the same feelings of discomfort that got worse as the period in jump space went on. Itches that weren’t itches, and a growing sensation that your own skin no longer fit right. There were horrible stories about what had happened to the crews of ships that had spent too long in jump space. Most of them were probably made up, but whenever Leigh was in jump space she found herself believing all of them.
All of which was why it was both a relief and a tense moment as, after days of travel, the Bruce Monroe left jump space at Jatayu again.
This time no warships awaited the arrival of the freighter. But one was patrolling several light minutes away, and soon altered vector to intercept the Bruce Monroe.
“He’s a Buccaneer Class cutter,” the Bruce Monroe’s captain announced to the dozen passengers. The captain didn’t look happy, but he kept his voice and his body language calm and firm to avoid feeding any fears. “We can’t outrun him. We’ll comply with their orders, pay their ‘transit fees,’ and hopefully get cleared to continue on to Kosatka.”
Soon enough a message arrived from the warship. Maintain your current vector, await the cutter’s arrival, and be prepared to be boarded by an inspection team. Also be prepared to pay a transit fee to Scatha, a fee whose cost had tripled since the last attempt to pass through Jatayu.
The inspection team that boarded the freighter was armed with both hand weapons and swaggering attitudes that practically begged for someone among the freighter’s crew or passengers to give them an excuse for using those weapons.
But the crew of the Bruce Monroe and the passengers were all too smart or too scared to give the inspectors an opportunity for violence. When told to line up for screening, Leigh Camagan joined the others meekly enough. She watched the freighter’s small supply of alcoholic beverages being carried off. “Taxes were not paid on that liquor, so it’s contraband and is being confiscated,” the officer in charge of the inspection announced as if hoping that someone would object. When no one did, he started going down the line of passengers, checking their travel documents as well as the contents of their personal comm pads and universal wallets.
He reached Leigh and looked her up and down, leaning close to physically intimidate her. She thought the officer from Scatha had the attitude of a school bully who has achieved a lifelong dream of being able to apply those talents in his job. “Identification!”
Leigh Camagan tried to project nervousness underlain by fright, just the sort of reaction a bully would glory in, as she handed him her identification.
He squinted at the results that popped up on his pad. “Alice Mary Norton. Librarian.” The officer seemed to find that highly amusing. “Hey, she’s a librarian!”
“She knows what sort of trash you’ve been reading,” one of the other members of Scatha’s boarding party warned with a mocking grin.
“Yeah. You chasing down some overdue hardcopy books, Mary Alice?”
“I’m going back to Earth. I’m going to look at the wildflowers when I get there,” Leigh Camagan said. “I miss them.” Every word of which was true. Her decade of political experience had taught Leigh that telling a misleading truth instead of lying about the real reason for something always came across as much more sincere.
It also helped fool interrogation apps.
The officer glanced at his pad, apparently saw nothing to concern him, then stuck out his hand again. “Universal wallet.”
“Yes, sir,” Leigh Camagan said like the meek librarian she was supposed to be. She brought out the small, slim rectangular box and held it before her.
“Access code!” the Scathan bully demanded.
Letting her hand shake a bit with a show of fear, Leigh punched in the code that would let the officer’s pad read her wallet.
“They don’t pay librarians much, huh? There’s an individual transit fee, too. Authorize it!”
The “transit fee” charge that popped up on Leigh Camagan’s wallet amounted to nearly half of the unimpressive sum available. “Sir, please—”
“Are you resisting?” the officer asked as two of the other inspectors stepped forward eagerly.
“No, sir.” Leigh tapped the approval.
The officer moved on to the next passenger. She closed the wallet access and waited, guessing that the inspection team was waiting for someone to ask if they could sit down or leave and thereby make themselves a target for more harassment.
She’d have to thank Ninja for doing such an excellent job on her identification documents and her wallet. “They’ll ask for your passwords and codes,” Ninja had explained. “This pad isn’t your pad, but it’s loaded with lots of stuff that makes it look appropriate for your fake identity. Enter this code in your wallet and all they’ll see is a shell with not much money in it. Enter this other code and you’ll have access to the actual wallet with the Glenlyon government account that’ll pay for new ships.”
And then Ninja had refused payment. “Get through the blockade, get help for us, and save Rob’s butt. That’s what I want out of this.”
“If it can be done,” Leigh had promised, “I will.”
The officer from the Scathan cutter was shaking down the last passenger when his comm pad beeped and someone began talking loudly enough for Leigh to hear. “A destroyer just arrived in system! Get back here now!”
Annoyed, the officer tapped the pad. “That’ll be one of ours. What’s his ID?”
“He came in at the jump point from Glenlyon, and he’s broadcasting a Glenlyon ID!”
Cursing, the officer and his team raced off the freighter’s crew deck and through the access tube to the cutter.
Leigh and everyone else waited, unmoving, until the air lock cycled closed.
The moment that happened the captain of the Bruce Monroe ran to the freighter’s control deck, Leigh close behind. “Is that Saber?” the captain gasped.
She looked at the information displayed below the contact. “This says she’s Saber.”
“What are they doing here?”
Leigh felt a smile on her lips. “Surprising a lot of people, it seems.”
Morale aboard Saber was shaky at best. Everyone followed orders, every task got done, but Rob could tell that the officers and crew lacked confidence. The shock of Claymore’s loss had hit them hard. The inactivity as Commander Teosig kept the ship in orbit afterward had let the shock settle in. “They’re ready to lose,” Mele had told him. “One hit and they’ll fold.”
“What do you recommend?”
“Do something,” Mele said. “Anything.”
He’d come up with something, an action that had led Mele to comment that she hadn’t meant doing anything really stupid.
He didn’t think this was really stupid. Hopefully, he was right about that.
The reaction of the crew of Saber as Rob ordered the ship to the jump point hours after the Bruce Monroe had departed both worried him and convinced him that he was doing the right thing. Shock vied with what looked too much like fear even though the crew carried out their orders with the usual practiced skill.
Rob had made sure that Lieutenant Commander Vicki Shen was on the bridge when he gave the order. If someone was going to challenge his authority and his orders, he wanted it done to his face. But even though Shen looked as surprised as the others, she said nothing.
He activated the ship’s general announcing system. “This is the captain.” That still felt weird to say, bringing back both fond and disturbing memories of his time on Squall. “We’re going to jump, arriving long enough after the arrival of the Bruce Monroe to surprise anyone waiting at Jatayu. If the odds are bad, we’ll distract the enemy forces enough to help the Bruce Monroe get through the star system before we jump back here. If the odds are good, we’re going to start making them pay for Claymore. Regardless of exactly what happens, we’ll disrupt the enemy’s plans.”
Rob paused, trying to remember the rest of the speech he had carefully rehearsed in his mind. “No matter what we find at Jatayu, I know Saber and her crew will be able to handle it. Before this is over, Scatha is going to find out the hard way not to mess with the kind of crew Saber is fortunate enough to have, and your friends on Claymore are going to be avenged.”
Ending the speech, Rob turned to look at Shen. “I’m sorry I couldn’t brief you on this beforehand. Let’s go talk.”
Once in his stateroom, Shen declined his offer to take a seat, her expression as stiff as her words. “Since the captain lacks confidence in me—”
“Let’s not finish that,” Rob said. “I do have confidence in you. I’m sorry I couldn’t brief you beforehand, but only two other people in Glenlyon knew we were going to Jatayu. One of them was Council President Chisholm, who ordered me not to tell anyone else until we headed for the jump point.”
Shen frowned, but her posture relaxed a bit. “What’s our objective, sir? We’re supposed to defend this star system.”
“Defense doesn’t have to be a passive thing. Hitting enemy warships at Jatayu without warning will disrupt whatever they’re planning.”
“What if they’re waiting for us?”
The unspoken part being like they were for Claymore.
Rob grimaced, trying to figure out how to say it nicely and finally deciding to be blunt. “Commodore Hopkins practically told Scatha exactly when Claymore would arrive at Jatayu. He took weeks to prepare and let detailed information about his plans be known.”
“There was a reason for that!” Shen protested. “To ensure that Scatha knew we were coming so they’d back down. The Commodore wanted to ensure there wouldn’t be any accidental exchange of fire.”
“Really?” Rob shook his head. “I guess that might have worked if Scatha hadn’t chosen to start shooting again. Why was the Commodore so certain that Scatha would back down?”
“Deconfliction, sir. It’s a necessary element . . . it was a necessary element for offensive operations in a situation short of war, giving the opponent a chance to back down before fire is exchanged.”
It made sense, in a way, if you assumed that your opponent was as interested in avoiding hostilities as you were. Or if avoiding hostilities was a high enough priority to sacrifice ships and people for if the assumptions were wrong. And Commodore Hopkins’s assumptions had been badly wrong.
Emphasizing that now to Vicki Shen would serve no purpose, Rob knew. “Here’s what’s important this time. Scatha won’t have time to learn we jumped and get word to Jatayu before we arrive. It’s physically impossible. We’re going to be the ones pulling a surprise. Here’s what I need from you. Confidence. Let everyone else aboard see that you’re concerned about what might be at Jatayu but certain that we can handle it. The officers and crew don’t entirely trust me yet. But you’re one of them.”
Shen nodded slowly, her expression worried. “I’ll have to fake the confidence.”
Rob smiled. “I was an ensign once. Just like you were. And every ensign has to learn how to look confident even when they have no idea how things are going to work out. Right?”
She smiled back at him. “I won’t have to fake confidence in the crew. They’ll do what we ask of them.”
“I have no doubt of that,” Rob said. He didn’t have to fake that statement, either.
Which is why Saber arrived at Jatayu, the entire crew at full alert, shields at maximum strength and weapons prepared, Mele Darcy and her five-Marine detachment also at ready. After the initial shock at Rob’s ordering them to the jump point, morale had noticeably improved aboard Saber. But if two destroyers were waiting anywhere near the jump exit, it would take a lot more than morale to inflict any damage on the enemy and still get away without taking hits.
“Leaving jump space.”
He felt the familiar shock of returning to normal space, the confusion and blurry vision that always accompanied the drop out of jump space, the moments of fearing that Saber was about to suffer the same fate as Claymore.
An alert sounded, but it wasn’t the urgent shrill warning of imminent danger.
“Only one warship is in Jatayu Star System,” Lieutenant Cameron reported. “A Buccaneer Class cutter currently alongside the freighter Bruce Monroe. Cutter is broadcasting Scatha registry. Distance two light minutes.”
“Get me an intercept vector,” Rob ordered, feeling a leap of elation that the odds had turned out to be very much in Saber’s favor.
“We’re going for him, sir?” Cameron asked.
“Hell, yes, we’re going for him. Comms, give me a link to send him a message.”
“Aye, sir. Ready, sir.”
Rob took a couple of slow breaths, wanting his voice to sound not just steady but also full of confidence. “Scathan cutter, this is the Glenlyon warship Saber. You will lower your shields, power down all weapons, and prepare to be boarded. Failure to surrender will result in our use of all necessary force. Commander Geary, out.”
“Here’s the intercept, sir,” Cameron said.
The curving path through space arced from where Saber was, slightly above and to port of the cutter’s current location, to where the cutter would be when Saber got there. “Execute intercept course,” Rob ordered. “Come starboard zero zero three degrees, down zero one degrees. Accelerate to point zero eight light speed.” That would be pushing even a destroyer like Saber but would achieve an intercept in about thirty minutes, well worth it to give the cutter the least possible time to run.
Saber trembled as her main propulsion cut in at full power and maneuvering thrusters pushed her around slightly to aim for the intercept.
“It’s been two minutes. He should be seeing us now, Captain,” Ensign Reichert reported from the weapons station, her eyes fixed on her displays.
It would be at least two more minutes before Geary would see the cutter’s reaction. Maybe longer if the cutter’s crew dithered before deciding what to do.
“Sir?” Lieutenant Cameron asked. “That’s the same class ship as your former command, Squall, right?”
“That’s right,” Rob said. “I know everything that ship can do. And everything it can’t do.” But thinking of Squall made him recall his last fight, and Danielle Martel, who had died defending a world that still shied away from acknowledging her contribution to the victory.
To distract himself from those thoughts, Rob called back to where Mele waited with her newly minted Marines. “Captain Darcy, we’re facing a Buccaneer Class cutter. Standard crew size twenty-four. The one we captured from Scatha three years ago only had about twenty in the crew.”
Mele’s voice, usually cheerful, sounded deadly calm as she replied. “Understand we’ll probably face approximately twenty hostiles if we conduct a boarding operation. Do you have any estimate as to the likelihood we’ll be needed?”
“We should know in a couple of minutes,” Rob replied. “The cutter was alongside the Bruce Monroe when we arrived.”
“They might turn it into a hostage situation,” Mele warned. “If they think of that.”
Rob hadn’t considered that possibility. What if the cutter’s crew took hostage the passengers and crew of the freighter? How much could he risk the lives of those men and women in the pursuit of that cutter? “Let’s hope they don’t think of that,” Rob finally said.
Rob finally saw signs that the cutter was reacting more than five minutes after Saber had arrived at Jatayu. “Is he pulling in his boarding tube?”
“Yes, sir,” Ensign Reichert confirmed.
“Contact the Bruce Monroe. I want to know if they’re all right and if the cutter took any hostages with them.”
A minute and a half ago, the cutter had begun pulling away from the freighter, lighting off its main propulsion to accelerate on a course away from Saber.
“Captain, it looks like he’s heading for the jump point for Kosatka,” Lieutenant Cameron said.
“Give me an updated intercept vector,” Rob ordered.
Catching a ship or planet or satellite on a fixed vector or orbit through space was a little complicated but about as simple as anything in space could be. The math got more complex when what you wanted to catch was accelerating.
“Captain? Can we assume standard acceleration profiles for the cutter?”
“Standard or worse than that,” Rob said. “After we captured Squall, she needed a lot of work to get her equipment in shape.”
“Revised intercept ready, Captain.”
Rob checked it out. “Very well. Execute revised intercept.”
“Captain,” Ensign Reichert said, “request targeting priority.”
“Propulsion and weaponry if fire control can hit them. But just about any hit on that cutter will strike something important,” Rob said.
He had a strange sensation as Saber swooped toward her fleeing prey. Something like this had happened three years ago at Glenlyon. Only he had been commanding the cutter, trying to figure out how to both survive and defeat a destroyer that outmaneuvered and outgunned his own ship. Now he was on the superior warship, and it was the other crew that was trying to figure out how to survive.
Rob wondered why that moment of empathy didn’t bother him, then he remembered how many aboard the Squall had died because of Scatha, and that recently half the crew of Claymore had also been killed. Glenlyon didn’t want to fight. Scatha did, and the people Scatha had hired to crew its warships weren’t worried about whether or not they were aggressors. Crews who hadn’t worried about opening fire on Claymore without warning. Instead of sympathy for their plight, Rob felt a grim satisfaction in knowing that this time it was Scatha’s people who were in trouble.
Saber’s automated systems took that moment to pop up a checklist on Rob’s display. Engaging Lesser Warship In Overtaking Maneuver. “I thought we cleaned these checklists out of the systems.” He searched in vain for a “close” command. “How do I get rid of it?”
Lieutenant Cameron sounded apologetic. “You can’t, sir. It stays up until every item is checked.”
“Can’t I just check everything now?”
“No, sir. It’s tied in to the ship’s systems so it knows if you’ve done something or not.”
“How did you guys ever get anything done?” Rob complained as he moved the checklist as far to one side of the display as it would go.
“Getting things done wasn’t the point, sir,” Cameron said. “Filling out the checklist right was what counted.”
Lieutenant Commander Shen called up from engineering. “Captain Geary, the cutter is only putting out about seventy-five percent of what should be his maximum acceleration. It looks like that’s the best he can do.”
Rob smiled at hearing that the already sluggish Buccaneer was further handicapped by main propulsion that wasn’t able to operate at full strength. “Thank you,” Rob said. “Lieutenant Cameron, update the intercept using seventy-five percent maximum for the cutter.”
“Fifteen minutes to intercept on revised vector,” Ensign Reichert reported, an undercurrent of excitement in her voice.
“Captain,” the comms watch said, “the Bruce Monroe reports all crew and passengers are safe aboard her. The boarding party from the cutter left in a panic when they saw our arrival.”
“Has there been any response from the cutter?”
“No, Captain.”
Rob touched his comm link command. “Scathan warship, this is the Glenlyon destroyer Saber demanding that you surrender. Cease accelerating, drop your shields, and power down all weapons. If you do not comply immediately, we will use all necessary force. Acknowledge this message. Commander Geary, over.”
Five more minutes passed, Saber racing past and slightly above the Bruce Monroe as the freighter plodded along toward the jump point for Kosatka.
“What is that cutter doing?” Cameron wondered. “The Scathans know we’ll catch them.”
“They might be hoping that help will show up from the Kosatka jump point,” Rob said. “Or they might be planning to wait until we make one firing run and go on past them, before they turn and try to make the jump point for Glenlyon.”
“But we’re faster and more maneuverable. We’ll catch them again before they can do that.”
Rob nodded, feeling a tightness inside born of tension and the knowledge that his orders would soon result in more deaths. “Right. They don’t have any good options except surrender, and they’re not doing that.”
Another five minutes.
“Target is changing aspect,” Ensign Reichert reported. “He’s cut his main propulsion.”
That was expected. Standard tactics in space as the moment of combat approached was to swing the ship around so the bow, with the strongest armor and shields, was facing the enemy. With the main propulsion off, the cutter would continue moving backward at an extremely high rate of speed while also turned toward the oncoming threat of Saber. But something didn’t look quite right.
“He made that move a little early,” Rob said. “How’s his bow lined up? Is he going to face us straight on at intercept?”
A moment passed while Lieutenant Cameron checked on his own and consulted with some enlisted specialists. “No, sir. Not straight on. He’ll be several degrees off.”
“What vector is he pointing toward?”
Another pause. “The jump point to Glenlyon.”
“Three minutes to intercept,” Reichert warned.
“Put the maneuvering systems on automatic adjustment for the intercept,” Rob ordered. “Bias them toward assuming the cutter will begin braking velocity just before we reach him.”
The former Earth Fleet officers might not be used to improvising in response to events, but they were very good at what they did. Rob saw control screens flashing past before his watch standers as they entered the changes. “Weapons are ready as ordered, Captain,” Ensign Reichert reported.
“Confirm that weapons are set to fire on automatic,” Rob said.
“Confirmed,” Ensign Reichert replied. “All weapons on automatic. One minute to intercept.”
“He’s lit off his main propulsion again!” Cameron warned a moment later.
The cutter, its propulsion facing in the direction the ship was going, was now using it to brake its velocity, suddenly altering the point of intercept. Humans would have had trouble calculating the changes and making the necessary inputs to Saber’s own maneuvering systems, but with everything on automatic the destroyer changed her own course swiftly enough to counter the enemy move.
The moment of combat came and went in a tiny fraction of a second, Saber’s two grapeshot launchers and three pulse particle cannons firing at a target that was there and gone far too swiftly for human reflexes to have reacted in time. Rob glared at the checklist that had placed itself in the center of his display again, shoving the checklist to one side a second time so he could see what was going on. “Give me another vector to intercept,” he ordered while waiting for Saber’s sensors to report on the outcome of the exchange of fire.
“Two hits on our forward shields,” Reichert said. “No penetration, no damage. We knocked down his forward shields and got some hits, damage unknown.”
“Change course up two six zero degrees,” Rob ordered. “Port zero two degrees.”
Saber began a long, wide curve upward through space to reverse course and come back at the cutter.
Cameron shook his head. “The cutter is still killing velocity before it’ll be able to accelerate toward the jump point. When we hit him again he’ll be almost at a dead stop. His forward shields aren’t rebuilding. We might have knocked them out.”
Rob tapped his comm controls again. “Scathan warship, your situation is hopeless. Broadcast your surrender, drop your remaining shields, and power down your weapons.”
No response came.
“Listen up, everyone,” Rob told the bridge crew. “I was in a hopeless situation commanding a ship like that and managed to cripple my opponent. Don’t ease up, don’t get overconfident, don’t give him a chance to surprise us. Let’s see how much damage we can do this time.” He called back to Mele again. “If we can do enough damage on this run, I might try a boarding operation so we can capture it. That cutter isn’t much, but he is a warship.”
Twenty minutes later Saber tore past the cutter again, which this time didn’t maneuver to face the attack with its unshielded bow. Instead, Saber was able to target the weaker shields at the stern of the cutter.
“Yes!” Ensign Reichert cried, immediately flinching apologetically as she realized she’d shouted. “His aft shields collapsed,” she continued in calmer tones. “We scored several hits. Estimate he is now at less than twenty-five percent propulsion. Correction, his main propulsion has just failed.”
“Any damage to us?” Rob asked.
“No, sir! He only scored one hit on our shields.”
Unable to maneuver, his shields down, the cutter was helpless. Rob called the enemy warship a third time. “Scathan warship, broadcast your surrender immediately or we will continue our attack.”
What if the cutter didn’t surrender? Rob wondered as he waited for a reply. Order Mele to try to capture the cutter? Or continue to pound the cutter until it either surrendered or was destroyed? With its propulsion badly damaged, getting that cutter back to Glenlyon after it was captured might be very difficult.
His thoughts were interrupted by a report from his engineering watch stander. “Captain, we’re getting fluctuating readings from the cutter’s power core.”
“Is he doing a shutdown?” Rob asked.
“No, sir. It’s jumping up and down as if . . . sir, I know how crazy this sounds but it’s as if someone was trying to control the power core manually rather than using automated systems, overcorrecting each time.”
“The Buccaneer cutters use an obsolete, bug-prone operating system. Scatha was using manual controls on Squall’s power core before we captured her,” Rob said.
“Sir? If that’s what’s going on, they’re losing control and that power core is going to blow real soon!”
“He’s launched his lifeboat!” Cameron called out.
“He’s approaching overload, Captain!”
The image of the Scathan warship on Rob’s display disappeared, replaced by an expanding ball of dust and debris that had once been a human warship. The wave of death engulfed the fleeing lifeboat, tearing it apart, just as if the cutter had been a ship on an ocean dragging its crew down with it as it sank.
A moment of stunned silence on Saber shattered as cheers resounded through the ship.
Rob let them cheer. He’d given the cutter’s crew every chance he could.
And Claymore had been partially avenged.
Close to a day later, Saber slid close to the small facility that Scatha had left orbiting Jatayu as a sign of Scatha’s claim to the star. Scatha hadn’t wasted any money on the structure, which consisted of a bunch of various-sized drum-shaped cylinders with rounded edges linked together, the largest big enough to serve as a small warehouse for parts and supplies and the smaller ones plainly intended to serve as living quarters for a small crew.
Mele Darcy stood in the open air lock hatch as Saber came to a halt relative to the facility. The outfit she wore was a toughened survival suit rather than a set of armor designed for use on ships, but in her hands was a pulse rifle as good as anything she’d carried in Franklin’s Marines. With her stood the five newly minted Marines who had seemed best able to handle things after the short period of training so far.
Mele wished she could have had Gunny Moon with her, but he had been needed far more to stay at Glenlyon training the other new Marines.
“Let’s go,” Mele broadcast to her Marines, leaping outward first. The universe spun about her, an infinity of dark with endless stars and galaxies, but her eyes stayed locked on the hatch to the facility. There hadn’t been any replies to demands that the facility surrender, so there was no telling what kind of reception was waiting on the other side of that hatch.
She flew through emptiness, a weapon in her hands, her heart pounding with anticipation and excitement, feeling for those seconds as if she had bought a ticket on the best, scariest ride humanity had ever built.
Mele cushioned her landing with her arms, coming to a gentle halt against the facility. To her left the other five Marines landed, two hard enough that they almost bounced back off into space despite the cling of their gecko gloves.
“Get it open, Giddings,” Mele ordered her one-man hack-and-crack team. As Corporal V. T. “Glitch” Giddings moved next to the hatch’s exterior controls, Mele pushed herself out to arm’s length from the side of the facility, holding on with one hand while her other aimed her rifle at the air lock hatch. That let her both guard against anyone waiting in the air lock and watch the progress of breaking in. This was her first chance to see how Giddings did in an operational setting and to be certain that his nickname referred to the things he could do on purpose to the enemy and not to things he could inadvertently cause in friendly software systems.
Giddings bent to work but almost immediately paused. “Captain, it’s not locked.” He reached for the controls.
“Wait!” Mele ordered. “That’s either very good or very bad. Get to one side of the hatch before you hit the enter command, out of the line of fire from it just in case there’s a booby trap inside. The rest of you brace yourselves.” She pulled herself next to the facility, waiting anxiously as Giddings pressed the enter control.
The hatch swung open with the silent grace of objects moving in the void of space. No explosion followed, but that didn’t mean someone or something might not be waiting. Mele unsnapped a carryall bag from her waist and tossed it into the hatch so it would bounce around and set off any motion-activated traps.
Still nothing. Bracing herself, Mele swung inside.
The air lock was bare of anything except the two control pads. The inner hatch and the small display on it to allow an interior view showed no sign of tampering or sabotage. Mele scanned the inner walls, ceiling, and deck of the air lock carefully, finding nothing. The control for the inner door also wasn’t locked.
She was either dealing with a very good trap or opponents so confident they’d grown careless.
“I’m going through first with Yoshida,” Mele told the others. “If nothing explodes, the rest of you follow.”
“What if something does explode?” Giddings asked.
“Once it stops exploding, follow me anyway. And kill whoever set the explosive as a favor to me.” Mele waved Yoshida into the air lock, knowing that she should send someone else in first, that as senior officer she should sit back and supervise the actions of the others. But this was the first combat action of Glenlyon’s Marines, and she was determined not to establish a precedent of officers holding back while they sent others to do the dirty work.
She held her breath as she hit the cycle command, but nothing happened that wasn’t supposed to. The outer hatch closed, air pressure equalized with the interior, and a green light glowed reassuringly above the inner hatch.
Mele popped the inner hatch, paused to see if anything happened, then leapt out of the air lock, planting herself against the far side of the interior passageway, her rifle held ready as she swung it from side to side, seeking targets. Yoshida jumped out as well, his weapon covering one way down the passage so Mele could keep her weapon pointed in the other.
The external mics on her suit picked up the sigh of air as vent fans circulated atmosphere in this part of the facility but no other noises. Was everyone here asleep? That should be impossible. They would have seen the destruction of the cutter and Saber’s approach afterward.
The air lock finished cycling a second time, and her other four Marines came through. “Yoshida, Lamar, come with me. Gamba, take Giddings and Buckland that way. No shooting unless necessary. Commodore Geary wants some live prisoners.”
The rudimentary heads-up display on her modified armor didn’t show much except the relative positions of her group and the other Marines as they moved in opposite directions down the passageway, weapons at ready. They had no information on the layout of this facility, but in one corner of her helmet display a map filled in as they walked, showing where they’d been.
“Dead end, Captain,” Corporal Gamba called over the comm circuit. “Some kind of office with three desks. No one here. None of the desks are powered up.”
“Got it,” Mele replied. “We’re coming up on something.” She swung the muzzle of her rifle ahead of her as she came around a corner into a small rec room. Off to one side was an even smaller kitchen. Spaced around the walls were three closed doors. “The one on the left is yours, Yoshida. Lamar, take the right one. I’ll handle the middle. All at once on three. One, two, three.”
Three doors slammed open under the force of kicks, and three rifles led the way into three rooms.
Three empty rooms.
“Could they be in the nonpressurized sections?” Lamar asked, her voice puzzled.
“We’ll find out,” Mele said. “Giddings, start breaking into the systems here and find out how many people are on this station. Saber is also going to want to know what parts and supplies are stored here for emergency use.”
A quick check found a secondary air lock, which was locked. As Mele was preparing to head into the nonpressurized sections to search them Giddings called her. “Captain Darcy, there’s nobody here.”
“They abandoned it?”
“No, ma’am. There’s a note, I mean, a physical note, stuck on one of the desks saying the facility caretakers were hauled off to help fill out the crew on one of Scatha’s warships.” Giddings sounded like he was having trouble not laughing. “The note has all the log-on codes written on it for whoever showed up next. I think I’m going to be able to get into their files pretty easily.”
“Congratulations,” Mele said, feeling both foolish at assaulting an abandoned facility and relieved that things had gone so well.
Rob Geary sounded happy at the news. “Scatha had to strip the people out of here so they could fill out the crew on one of their ships? That sounds like they’re overextending themselves.”
“As long as they outnumber us,” Mele pointed out, “that’s not much comfort. But, yeah, if we can knock them onto their heels, they’ll have trouble recovering. Corporal Giddings should be sending you files listing what’s on this station.”
“We’re already receiving them. We’ll take off most of the fuel cells and all of the emergency spares stockpiled here. What was that quote about feeding off the enemy?”
“I’m glad you were paying attention, sir. Speaking of feeding off the enemy, we’ll empty out the pantry here, too, and the stocks of emergency rations,” Mele said. “They don’t have anything fancy, though. Just a bunch of past-their-expiration-date Earth Fleet rations. Scatha isn’t wasting money on tasty treats for the troops.”
“I’ll have some sailors over there in a few minutes to start hauling stuff off. You can bring your Marines back as soon as you’re done.”
“Yes, sir.” Mele headed for the other side of the facility, where Giddings was seated at one of the workstations as he downloaded every file in the system. Corporal Gamba and Private Buckland were busy searching every drawer and cabinet and nook in the room for anything else of interest. “Any surprises?”
“No, Captain,” Giddings said. “No secret war plans or anything like that. I did find the records of traffic through the system. There were a couple of other warships here, but they jumped out before we arrived.”
“Jumped for where?” Mele demanded, suddenly tense at the thought that the enemy might have launched an attack on Glenlyon at the same time as Saber was heading for Jatayu.
“Way over there,” Giddings said, worried by the tone of her voice. “Not anywhere close to where we came in.”
Mele squinted at the display. “I think that’s the jump point to Kosatka. We’ll let the space squids confirm that. What else is in there?”
“Operating procedures. Maintenance requirements. Communications logs. Not much personal stuff like music or vids or books, though. That’s kind of strange.”
“Scatha doesn’t like its people using official equipment for personal entertainment,” Mele said. “We learned that from the stuff we captured a few years ago. What’s this file?”
“Pictures. Not too many. I guess having a few pictures was okay with Scatha.” Giddings brought up a series of photos. A young man in a chair. An older woman standing by a wall. A child playing outside. The sort of pictures that could have been taken anywhere humanity had settled so far. “Do you think the crew from this facility were on that ship that blew up?” he asked.
“Maybe,” Mele said.
“Why the hell did they do it, Captain?” Buckland asked. “Why start a war?”
“Because someone wanted something that other people had, and people like the crew on this facility were willing to do anything they were told to do.” Mele shook her head at the pictures of people who might never know what had happened to whoever had once valued those photos. “If I buy a one-way ticket into the dark, it’s going to be while I’m fighting to protect people and things I care about. It’s not going to be because some powerful scumbag wants more power and people to push around. How about you guys?”
“It’s been a job,” Corporal Gamba admitted. “Jobs could be hard to come by where I came from. But after a while it became . . . what’s that word? A profession. Like, a special job. I stuck with the unit when we came out here because Glenlyon looked like a place that just wanted to defend itself. And I can do something to help. There’re worse ways to buy that ticket, I guess.”
“A lot worse ways,” Mele said. “We’re going to focus on buying tickets for Scatha’s people, though. While you guys finish up here, I’m going to lead the other three in a careful sweep of the rest of the place for anything that might be hidden. Let me know when you’re done.”
None of them found anything else worth taking. The only other real trace of any of the former occupants was some obscene graffiti scratched by a tool in an unobtrusive spot. “Nice,” Lamar commented in a flat voice.
“Captain?” Yoshida said. “What do we do when those space squids give us a hard time about capturing an empty facility?”
Mele’s answering smile was thin and hard. “Tell them we led the way inside, and we’ll do the same when there are a hundred weapons pointed at us.”
Rob Geary wondered why he felt a little guilty to be plundering the Scathan facility’s small store of emergency supplies. One of the advantages of everybody’s using surplus warships from the same sources was that for the moment everyone was able to use the same fuel cells and spares. But he still felt better when Saber’s supply officer reported with a straight face that the enemy supplies had been “requisitioned in accordance with applicable regulations and procedures.” That sounded a lot better than “looting.”
He knew that his concerns were particularly absurd given what was about to happen to the Scathan orbital facility.
“Senior Chief Daniello requests permission to send the detonation command,” Vicki Shen told Rob.
“Are we outside the blast radius?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Just where did Senior Chief Daniello acquire the knowledge of how to rig fuel cells to detonate?”
“I didn’t ask, Captain,” Shen replied.
“That’s probably wise. Permission granted to detonate,” Rob said.
A few seconds later the remaining fuel cells at the Scathan orbital facility expended all of their energy at once, blowing the facility into dust and fragments that would continue to orbit the star named Jatayu for ages to come.
“I need a meeting with you and Captain Darcy,” Rob told Shen, his eyes on his display where the jump point back to Glenlyon beckoned.
But another jump point kept drawing his attention as well.
He was supposed to take Saber home now.
Doing what he was thinking instead would be insanely risky.
Or would it?