Assault on Ambrose Station: A Seth Donovan Novel (33 page)

54.

With a shuddering lurch, the rail car started. Harris let out a girlish yelp that started us all laughing, but it was clear that the car would do the job. Its speed ramped up and soon we were travelling at incredible speeds through the rail tunnel.

What’s our first stop?
I texted Ormund.

The closest route up to the habitat is 743 kilometres along the rail. Placing a waypoint on your overlay.

What’s there?

Hopefully, not much. When you get within a click of the hub, you should probably get off the cart and go by foot.

No, we’ve added extra armour to the chassis. Geko did a good job. If there are Ghantri, I want to hit them fast. We’re setting up a gravity shield in the carriage and using Rhondel’s M4 reactor to power it for extra protection.

What about their node? If they get off a call…

We have enough juice left in the reactor to boost the power of a scrambler, should be enough to blanket the area with static. Won’t last long, but it will be enough for a few minutes. More than long enough to locate the node and hijack it. Can you isolate the hubs schematic for us to use? I’m going to plan this out with the gang.

Sure, you’ll have it in a few seconds.

How are things out there?

Cold. We have minimal life support working, just enough to scrub our air and stop us from freezing. We are all in suits anyway, just in case. Don’t want to create too much of a power signature for the ships around here to notice.

Are you armed?

I am, so is Sorenson and Withers.

The enlisted?

Yeah, they’re not marines but they’ve had basic weapons training.

That’s not going to matter much if they do notice you. They might just blow up the module.

They might not. They might just try and get inside to salvage whatever still works here.

Think the three of you can hold off a salvage crew?

Elias has a side arm, and Zoe says you gave her some training.

Ha. She lied.

I figured. She’s unarmed at the moment.

They busy?

Yeah, tracking the Astral Spider with these sensor systems they brought on-board. Working out the kinks in the stealth module. Doing real well, by the sound of it.

When do they intercept the Dreaming?

About two and half hours.

Shit. Just as we get to the hub.

Timing, right?

When I had the cut away of the hub, I used my nanites to project its image into the cart. Everyone gathered around it and examined it from all angles. It was similar in layout to the last hub we were at, although this was significantly bigger, with a track changing circular turntable. We could see at least five structures, although their function eluded me.

“At least one of them will be a security station, like before.” offered Harris.

“This looks fairly central to many of the rail spokes,” said Artemis, “I’m betting this has a couple of maintenance hangers in it. See where those short tracks go after the turntable?”

“They’re large, open structures.” I mused, “They could house a lot of Ghantri.”

“Maybe Ormund is right,” said Kekkin, “Maybe we go in slow.”

I rubbed my chin. “What have we got in heavy ordinance?”

Renthal grinned at me while reaching for one of the equipment cases we had been lugging around. Opening it up, he drew forth a box roughly forty centimetres square and half that high.

“This is the DonCrest Automated Weapons Division’s GE-29 Auto-Mortar.” he explained, as if reading from a brochure, “It fires at six rounds per second, up to three-hundred and fifty metres range. Payload is a hardlight encapsulated gravity pulse that will flatten anything softer than terrestrial softwood. It has auto-targeting, auto-firing with three modes of operation. Targeting priority is controlled by a military grade DonCrest proprietary AI Core.”

“A gravity pulse?” I asked.

“Er…”

“Similar to thudguns,” hissed Carro, “Localized space-time distortions.”

“Drawbacks?”

Renthal carried on, “They have a limited tactical shelf life. Once they’re deployed they tend to run out of juice fairly fast. About ten minutes. You won’t get a full ten minutes of firing out of them, though.”

“Why not?”

“When the enemy sees what happens to their comrades they usually hit the deck and head for the nearest foxhole or cover. If they do fire continuously, expect them to run flat in about two minutes. You’re going to have one hell of a pile of mutilated corpses if it does.”

“Anything else?”

“Human forgets minimum range.” chided Kekkin.

“Oh yeah, won’t fire on anything closer than eighty metres.”

“That’s a fairly large area around us. Is that a design issue or a safety margin?

“Fairly certain it’s for safety. You don’t want to be hitting your own troops with one of these.”

“Tac, think you can tweak that AI? Get it to fire a little closer?”

“It should not be a problem, Seth. Military AI Cores are notoriously dim witted and narrow minded.”

Artemis stifled a chortle.

“No offense, Naga Team. I am sure you are all fairly intelligent. Except Geko.”

Now it was Renthal’s turn to laugh. “Did Tac just crack a joke?”

“Hey!” cried Geko, “I’ll remind you all that we’re hurtling along at nearly three-hundred kilometres an hour on something that this dullard put together.”

“A sobering thought, indeed.” noted Tac.

“Alright,” I interrupted, “Let me know as soon as you have a minimum range below forty metres. This is going to be our shock and awe weapon. Should buy us time to clear out anything close and disembark from the cart. How’s the Friend or Foe capabilities?”

“It syncs with our overlays, won’t fire near any enemy within twelve metres of one of us.”

“So why the safety zone of eighty metres?”

“Redundancy, I guess. The military loves to double up on safety features.”

I shrugged. “Can we designate firing arcs?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem.”

I looked at Kekkin, “What do you think?”

“Power can be conserved if
naga-zak
confines the mortar to set areas. Warrior suggests suppressing both of those hangars.”

“I’m going to turn it on as we swing into the hub, then switch it over to those arcs.”

“Is a good strategy.”

“Fire teams?”

“Harris on overwatch, Renthal and Masters on assault and sweep.”

“What about me?” asked Art.

“Command team.
Naga-zak
, you and warrior get to cover and direct battle.”

“What? No way am I…” she started.

“He’s right, Art.” I said.

“You’re okay with this?” she asked.

“This is going to be a pitched battle. Kekkin and you can stand by in reserve to back up a fire team that needs it. I can survey the fire fight and direct resources as needed.”

“I’m not going to sit around while the guys take a beating, or hand out one. I want in on the action. You know I’m good for it.”

“It’s not a question of your capabilities - it’s a question of where to put you that will cause the most damage. I can’t commit you until I know it’s the right time and place. I can’t do that without more intel.”

“What about me?” asked Rego.

“Normally, I’d have you with Harris.”

“But?”

“I need him as mobile as possible. Instead, I’m going to use you to work the jammers. Scan for any breakthrough signals and see if you can keep ahead of the Jaani for as long as you can. If possible, I want you to try narrow down its location.”

Triptych nodded, “I can work with him, bounce the signal between us and find it faster.”

Rego perked up at the possibility of a challenge, “Actually, that’s not a bad idea. If you stay mobile enough, we can use that Fromstein App we got last time we were in Eridani.”

“Urg. That’s so clunky to use, though.”

“Sounds like you two have got a plan, work it out.” I said, the two put their heads together and started to speak techno-babble.

“Renthal, you’ll have Triptych with you, and Geko. Keep an eye on him and make sure you jump on the objective of hijacking that node as soon as they find it.”

“Roger.”

“Carro’s a good shot,” mentioned Harris, “I’ll take him.”

“Great.” mumbled Masters, “I get the half-handed halfwit.”

“Gee thanks, Corporal.” said Gunther, attempting to flip him the bird with his wounded hand.

“What’s our objective?” asked Masters, ignoring Gunther.

“Search and destroy. Flank anything engaging Renthal’s team. Use grenades, try and draw fire away from Triptych.”

“Where do you need me?” asked Harris.

“Anywhere that looks good for a sniper team?”

“There’s a gantry along this side of the concourse, but it’s fairly far away from the mag rail. Plenty of cover, though. Or this kiosk. It has a wide view of most of the hub.”

“It’s a little exposed…”

“We can lie down on top, plus I’m betting most of the enemy will be busy ducking mortar fire or Renthal and Masters.”

“Too risky, take the gantry. The others can do without sniper fire for a few minutes.”

“Roger.”

“Kekkin, Art, Tac and I will move to this location, secure it and set up two of those recon drones of your’s, Rego. Tac will help you move.”

“What’s our general tactic for this fight?” asked Renthal.

“I won’t lie. In all likelihood, we’ll be heavily outnumbered. Simply surviving will be our top priority. Once we identify enemy positions, we’ll try keep them isolated and neutralise them.”

“Why fight this fight at all then?”

“We need to secure that mag rail wheelhouse. If we can get the turntable to switch us over to this line…” I highlighted an exiting rail line on the hologram, “We should have only one more stop before we hit the habitat section. Also, getting that last node linked to our battlenet is too good an advantage to pass up.”

“From there we go to the surface?”

“Right. We can start out mission properly.”

“Can’t we turn it under fire?” asked Masters.

“Doubtful. We’ll need to find the system controlling it and get Tac into it. Hopefully, we can put enough pressure on the enemy in the opening exchanges that we can locate and secure the controls before the Ghantri reorganise and push back. So I guess we will be trying it under fire.”

“Can’t turn it manually?”

“Not a chance. They weight several tons. Not even your chrome limbs can manage that.”

He grunted at me.

“Leave me in the cart.” said Rego.

“I can’t cover you if we do.”

“The gravity shield should provide enough protection.”

It was true; the gravity shield should work against most of the Ghantri projectiles. Unlike energy shields, gravity shields worked by rapidly pulsing a tight bubble of cycling gravity around the area. When keyed to friendlies, it can switch off momentarily automatically to allow transit through the bubble, but it should deflect solid projectiles, including hardlight, away from their intended targets. It won’t stop them completely, but it will render them inaccurate.

The use of gravity shields always has its drawbacks. For one, they require large amounts of power, making them difficult to use on personnel. They don’t stop shots completely, either, so they’re not one-hundred percent effective. They were better than nothing if you wanted to defend a stationary point, or to mount onto artillery.

“If the Ghantri decide to focus on the rail car, you’re going to be stuck out there.” I said.

“I won’t fire, I’ll just keep my head down and work. When Tac gets into the wheelhouse AI, I can move the cart onto the turntable and wait for the rest of you to get back in. I’m going to be a liability out there, anyway.”

“Human makes sense.” agreed Kekkin.

“Fair enough. Any other suggestions?”

“Use all the sentry drones.” said Triptych.

“All? How many do we have?”

“Only four, but they can be used as distractions and to draw fire from any Ghantri hunkered down. Rego has a remote App on his overlay.”

“Is it going to slow down your overlay to use it?”

“Naw,” he shrugged, “I have a processor implant to handle most drone ops.”

“You’re a useful man.”

“You go alright yourself, sir.”

“All right, sounds like a solid plan, considering we’re just going to wing it once we engage.”

“No plan survives contact with the enemy, anyway.” said Artemis, grinning.

55.

Maxine had had a long day. She was tired, but amped up on the building tension. She had long since given up on sleeping, instead deciding to help out around the ship.
Galaxy knows
, she thought,
the boys could use a hand.
The Dreaming wasn’t exactly undermanned, but everyone had been so busy with the mining and exploring, and then the chase from the asteroid field, that almost none of the planned routine maintenance had been done.

Cuts and Hergo were able to handle most of the propulsion and power issues, but there were dozens of little things that normally Seth would organise that had yet to be delegated.

The final straw for her was when she sauntered down to the mess deck for a meal and found the autochef had run out a nutrients and protein paste. She had fought her initial urge to start yelling at people, then realised she didn’t really have any one to yell at. Crege and Fel were always busy in the command module, Mel had no idea about what was needed on the ship. Cuts and Hergo were always busy in engineering and Denno had hull repair duties.

Just because she was the Captain didn’t mean she didn’t know how to look after her ship. She had rollup her proverbial sleeves and started to work, finding one thing after another to do.

The call with the Astral Spider was brief, mostly just a data packet full of instructions and navigational orders, plus an outline of the plan. Once she’d gone through it, she’d handed it off to her senior officers and gone back to work.

In reality, this was ‘make work’. Something to do while she waited.

She was no stranger to space combat – she had fought dozens of pirates and lowlifes across the Votus-Eridani Network. This was the first time she was going up against a military grade warship, though. Sure, there was the Blade of Xerxes, but that was not something that was resolved with space warfare. This was different.

She had told Garner that her ship and her crew were ready for anything, but losing the Dreaming in the next few days became a very real possibility and her nerves were starting to wear thin. She had confided in Fel, who tried to comfort her by saying she was just missing Donny, Zoe and Tac.

She was elbows deep in the mess deck dishwasher, unplugging and cleaning the filter, when Crege piped her to the command module.

Shit,
she swore to herself,
rendezvous time.

With butterflies in her stomach, she made her way up to Deck 1.

“What’s our status?” she asked as she climbed into her chair and brought her console out of sleep mode. Crege and Fel’negr were already there, of course.

“We’re forty minutes away from RV.” said Fel.

“Manoeuvring fuel reserves at 54%,
kitrak,
” reported Crege, “Argen got number eleven thruster working, human has secured another four percent efficiency from energy shields.”

“Mel should be down in a few minutes. He’s pulling the last of his calibration equipment from the beamer.”

“I just hope it was a good idea letting him tweak our gun, the last thing we need is for it to die on us because he assumed the nuts and bolts would tighten themselves.”

“Captain,” came the gravelly voice of the Votus as he entered the compartment, “reporting that all fasteners have been manually secured on the Class 2 weapon.”

“Right, good.” she said.

“How did you go?” asked Fel, turning in his chair to face him.

“I have tuned the refractometer and adjusted the re-charge circuits. You probably won’t notice the added power across longer range, but your recharge rate has improved by at least fourteen percent.”

“I appreciate it, Mel.” she softened her tone, “I’m sorry about talking you down.”

“Never apologise, Captain. I’m aware of the rapport you share with your crew, the banter is part of how you function. I’ll admit, it had been taxing on me at first but I will not get in the way of how you run your ship. My kind were once much like you younger races, so full of energy and social idioms.”

“The Votus don’t socialise like we do?”

“No.” was all he said. He turned to his console and brought it to life.

Realising she wasn’t getting anything more out of the strange alien, she turned back to her own console. After scanning a few of the readings, she reached for the internal communications controls.

“Cuts, I’m seeing irregularities in the number three tube. Did you look into it for me?”

“Yes, Captain.” came the tinny voice over the compartment’s speakers, “I put it in the report.”

“Haven’t had time to read it.”

“It’s benign. No reduced output or unexpected exotics. The ion chamber just needs a good clean next time we’re in port.”

“Okay, thanks.”

She turned to Melafenaseance, “Are the updated charge rates entered into the fire control AI?”

“They are.”

She swivelled over to Fel, “Can we see the Astral Spider, yet?”

“Negative.”

Next was Crege, “What’s our aspect relative to the Spider’s expected location?”

“She’ll be on our red one-four, thirty-three degrees south. Should warrior angle the comms laser?”

“No, we got nothing more to discuss. Garner’s instructions were clear. Let’s bring up the vectors on all our consoles. Fel?”

“Coming right up, Captain.”

As far as the plan went, it was fairly simplistic. The Ghantri warship bearing down on them was slowly whittling down whatever lead the Dreaming had gained in the last twenty hours. Garner had calculated the exact point when the Calliope class ship was going to close on the Dreaming enough to launch another drone strike. He had assured her he could get the Spider there to intervene. At a predesignated waypoint, they would follow a set of manoeuvres to position the Ghantri ship on an ideal attack vector for the Protectorate to strike.

The initial attack would need to be followed up by several more passes, but the first strike would need to take out most of the ship’s propulsion. Garner had supplied detailed targeting information on priority systems on the Calliope, along with a series of complex vectors needed to get at them. Crege had taken one look at them, grunted and said “No problem.”

“We’re still too slow on charging to make that third shot in time.” she said after going through the plan.

“Warrior has plan to make that shot,
kitrak
.”

“Go ahead.”

“Highlighting turn. Dreaming can make that at thirteen gee. Will shave seven seconds off.”

“Thirteen gee?” gasped Fel.

“Orlii not worry, will only feel like seven point four gee. Have adjusted stabilisers to 94%.”

“Can you manage that much, for less than half a minute?” asked Max.

The Orlii was pale, but his eyes flashed a crimson colour – determination. “I will, I promise.”

“Where does that change put us further down the plan?”

“There is one issue during timing frame forty-two,” said Mel, “If the starboard sensor has not been neutralised by then, we will be within the threatened arc of the Calliope short range missile system.”

“How many shots will either of us have at that sensor?”

“The targeting AI says three, but the nav AI says there’ll be five.” said Fel, shaking his head, “Tac would have sorted them both out. I think the targeting AI is only counting high probability hits. The nav AI is using all passes, no matter the accuracy.”

“Can we alter the schedule to move the priority of that target up a few notches?” asked Max.

“We can send it to the Spider as soon as they drop cloak, with instructions to auto-update their schedule. But will Garner trust our judgement here?”

Max turned to Melafenaseance, “Will he?”

The Votus closed his eyes for a few moments – a gesture that Max had learned was similar to a human rubbing their chin. “I believe he will.”

“Good enough for me. Prepare the data packet.”

“Compiling it now, Captain.”

“Approaching retroburn point,” reported Crege, “Putting count down on all consoles.”

“Very good.” said Max, “I guess we should close up on stations now.”

She reached for the ship-wide PA controls and spoke into the microphone.

“All hands, secure the ship for action and close up on stations. Everyone in light duties suits. Expect high gee thrust in five minutes, boys.”

Fel started to take deep breaths, blowing the air out of his lungs steadily. Max leaned over and squeezed his shoulder. He nodded back, clearly afraid but with determination clear in the colour of his eyes.

“Good luck, everyone.” she said quietly.

Melafenaseance turned to look at the rest of the command crew, a strange look on his face that Max had never seen before.

“What is it?” she said, suddenly worried.

“A peculiar notion just struck me, Captain.”

“Peculiar how? What have we missed?”

“Do not be alarmed. My kind have been among the stars for countless generations, far longer than you younger races. We’ve reached pinnacles of our technology and advanced far beyond what your meagre alliance has been able to achieve, but I see your potential. Many of the Votus would be happy to sit out their days in the safety of their habitats and planetary homes. Our drive to spread to the stars is limited, to say the least.”

“I understand, there’s little mystery for you Votus out there.”

“That is not the case. We are stagnant, as a culture. Too much emphasis on preserving our ways. Not enough energy spent on improving them. It is one of the reasons I was exiled – I was too vocal about changing the status quo.”

“Regretting speaking out, now?”

“Not at all. I see in you three, the very best of the Protectorate races. The impulsive, action driven Garz’a – ready to do what must be done. The thoughtful and introspective Orlii – providing the wisdom needed for the toughest decisions. The humans, leading the charge into the deep night – brave and adaptive, inspiring the others to be more than they are. This is part of why the Votus agreed to ally with the Protectorate – we live vicariously through you. My culture may be in decline, but so long as yours is strong and bright, so too will we thrive.”

“I suppose that’s as close to a compliment as we’re going to get. You’re welcome, Mel. I know we can be a bit frustrating at times, but it has been a pleasure having you join us. Your knowledge is vast and fascinating. I only wish we had more time to pick your brains.”

He frowned at that. “I’m not sure if that last was an axiom or you truly believe knowledge can be gain by dissecting my brain.”

“The former.”

He snarled, showing the whites of his teeth.

“Is that a smile?”

“I have been practicing in my cabin. Was it sufficient to display my pleasure?”

“Er…keep working on it.”

He nodded, turning back to his console.

“Thirty seconds til burn time,
kitrak
.” reported Crege.

Maxine grabbed the PA mic again. “Hold onto something, boys, Crege’s about to flip us and burn hard. See you on the other side!”

Everyone checked the straps on their crash webbing, nodded good luck to each other and waited as the last few seconds counted down on their consoles.

“Initiating deceleration in three…two…one…”