By Other Means (27 page)

I think we may be looking at another major redesign, if the Mexico makes it home.

Harrowitz was beginning to see why the alien ships had been designed as they were, actually, if his guess was right at least. It didn’t help him just then, however, so he shelved those thoughts and focused back on the moment.

Come on kid. Kick this bastard’s ass.

*****

Parker was sweating as he worked, and none of it was coming from the temperature of the ship around him.

The alien had figured out what he was up to, and in turn reversed his own assault. That forced Parker to react to keep the waves from reinforcing each other and jump starting the core again, which in turn played into another move to try and blow the whole mess wide open.

Major Aida’s advance warning was invaluable, but Parker knew that he’d be trapped. The alien had him in a pattern, one that he didn’t dare break out of, but one that made his actions predictable. He didn’t know how, but he was sure that at some point the alien would take advantage of that and all he could hope to do was not be too slow on the draw when the moment came.

“Sir, the Jump Drive is beginning to heat up.”

That was another problem.

The drive mechanism hadn’t been designed for this sort of long term combat in mind, defensive or otherwise. It was used to punch through a weak point in the gravity of the universe, letting the ship transition to non-space where little rules like relativity didn’t apply. That was a momentary application of power, not this continuous fight.

“Keep me updated,” Parker said.

Not that there was anything else he could say or do, the state of the jump drive was out of his control and it wasn’t like he could stop using it. It would do them no good to save the drive from overheating only to implode the whole ship into the core.

*****

Sorilla paced back from the windows, hammering her hand into the shield as she stopped near where the Lucian was working. “Any progress?”

“In the few instants since you asked last?” He asked dryly, “No.”

“I called for breaching tools…”

“This shield is designed to withstand direct impacts from Ross gravity weapons,” Kriss responded, “it’ll hold up to anything you’d be willing to use inside the hull of your own vessel.”

Sorilla swore, “I’m
not
losing another ship.”

Kriss spared her a glance, “No, you’re certainly not. If this ship goes, we all go with it. Now calm yourself and continue to communicate with the counter efforts your people are working on. They are the ones keeping us alive right now.”

Sorilla hammered the shield again, but turned and walked back to the window. She could feel the power of the shifting waves of gravity as they moved around her position. Standing in the eye of the storm meant that she had a place to stand, true, but she could also see all the damage being wrought.

Another spike caused her to instantly link to Parker, “Incoming, Parker. Strong one, three degrees off the last.”

“Roger. Got it…”

Sorilla watched as all the loose tools and debris once again jumped up from the deck in a parody of a rolling ocean wave, flying into formation just outside. Beyond that another wave could be seen by the debris is had picked up, and likely a third beyond it.

Sorilla didn’t know what the rest of the ship looked like, but Engineering was going to need a lot of deck scrubbing when this was over.
Assuming there’s a deck left to scrub.

She felt another spike, “He’s shifting again… No! Wait! Parker, he’s doubling down!”

*****

Parker swore as Aida’s warning came too late, he’d already begun the counter to his opponent’s expected move only to be surprised by the change. The power he’d sent from the jump drives had, instead of canceling out the next set of waves, reinforced the current one.

“Shit! Move! Get out of here!” He waved his free hand, screaming at his two aides as he kept working.

“What about you?”

“Get the hell out!” Parker snarled, “
NOW!
”

They ran as the wave tore the catwalk off the wall behind him, bolting for the corridor beyond. Parker knew the enemy’s game now, but it was too late. He didn’t look back as the windows unto the Engineering section shattered, the glass being sucked out into the massive wave he’d accidentally helped create.

“Aida, get cover!” He screamed over the sounds around him. “Get cover!”

Typhoon winds and the unearthly groan of metal surrounded him as he finished the last equation and slammed his hand down on the command key just instants before he and his gear were sucked right out of the room.

*****

“Parker! Parker!” Sorilla screamed, eyes wide as she watched the catwalk literally torn to shreds and pulled into the wave.

The glass went next as she jumped back, Parker’s voice screaming at her over the Comm.

She did as he bade, grabbing Kriss and hauling him down behind the alien shield. The hurricane winds tore at them as they covered, but she could look away as she spotted a human form pulled into the maelstrom.

“Parker?”

Sorilla felt the sudden surge fill the area, the pull of gravity suddenly balancing out and a silence descended. She half rose, brushing off the efforts of the Lucian to hold her down. The silence now was unearthly, Sorilla felt like she had to be imagining it, but she couldn’t look away from the figure out in the wave.

Oddly, she’d never met the man face to face, but she’d spoken to him several times over the last few days when she contacted engineering to complain about the errant gravity source. She recognized him, though, from his jacket. He was looking back at her, or so she thought. It was hard to tell in the mess that was floating out there.

Sorilla grabbed for the cable and carabineer clip held in her armor, heading for the window to try and pull him back when a thunderous clap tore through her sensors and she was thrown back by the shockwave that tore through the room. The shielded device in the center of the room literally jumped off the deck, something internal slamming it about.

She hit the wall hard enough to dent the metal, a splatter of blood and flesh slapping her at the same time as the figure she’d been intent on ceased to exist as the Mexico’s jump drive reversed the wave amplitude and tore the entire standing wave pattern apart.

Along with everything caught inside it.

Sorilla slid to the deck, stunned by the blast, but her instincts wouldn’t let her do what her mind and body begged for. She rolled over and stumbled to her feet, barely able to stand. She staggered over to where the Lucian was laying, noting that he was moving and seemed to be breathing.

Tough bastards.

For now, that would do. She had something else to settle.

The shield was laying on its side now, blown over by some internal force… or at least an internally located one. Sorilla reached it and shoved with all her strength until it rolled over to reveal the ruptured access door.

She grabbed it in her armor shod hands and wrenched the now useless shield apart, glaring into the inside.

There were two bodies there, one clearly dead if the arrangement of its limbs were any indication. The other was moving, if barely. Sorilla looked down at the Parithalian and slowly shook her head.

“You’re either the luckiest son of a bitch alive, or the unluckiest,” She said, as she reached in to pull him bodily out. “I think It’d have been better for you if you died.”

Admiral Ruger looked out from the display deck of the Mexico, ignoring the movement of the maintenance crew who were diligently cleaning up the mess and effecting what repairs they could. He didn’t have the heart to tell them that the Mexico was already destined for the forge, there was no way SOLCOM would risk leaving a ship that had endured as much stress as it had in active service.

Despite the loss of yet another ship, at least this time the crew was… for the most part, intact.

There were broken bones aplenty, a few even more serious injuries as well, and a half a handful of deaths beyond the Marines who died in the assault on the enemy controlled positions.

In trade, they’d gotten their peace treaty, with a few concessions for their troubles. Nothing too blatant, but more than they’d expected to get in the deal.

Those weren’t the real prizes, however.

They now had a prisoner, one of the rebels… and the only one to survive, was a Parithalian. The blue skinned alien was pretty badly beat up, but he was breathing… which was more than he deserved in the opinions of several on board. He was too valuable, however, to let die… or to speed along the process.

He was their key to the Alliance.

Interrogation would take time. Weeks at best, maybe years, but with the treaty in place they had time to spend. Possibly the only thing better than the man they now had would have been if they could have coopted, or captured, someone as high as the Ambassador himself.

Of course, it would be a close thing, and Ruger was personally much happier with a dissident. No one knew the cracks and the weak spots in a government better than the people who actively opposed said government. It was also a lot easier to flip a dissident than a loyal official.

*****

Sorilla was sitting in the armory, across from her armor. It had been cleaned off, but she could almost feel the splatter of blood across her bare face. Some things made you wonder if you’d ever get clean, whether they physically touched you or not.

After the loss of Valkyrie she’d been considering retirement, the job wasn’t exactly what she’d signed up for any longer. Sorilla just didn’t know if that was a good thing or not, but she did know that she couldn’t go back to what she’d done before the war.

Training humans to kill humans seemed like such a damned stupid thing to do now.

Of course, she was self-aware enough to realize that there wasn’t nearly as big a difference in training people to kill aliens as some might make out. It was all death and destruction, and she didn’t know any longer if she wanted anything to do with that lifestyle.

The Alliance was filled with people, not blank faced aliens…

Well, aside from the Ross.

Sorilla snorted, the one race out of the bunch that still hadn’t quite made it into her list of ‘people’ were the ones who started the whole mess in the first place. There had to be something ironic or poetic about that, she just didn’t  have the patience to search for meaning in it at the moment.

She was of no illusions about what was going to happen next. She’d played this game before, albeit in the minor leagues.

SOLCOM would take some time, a few months or a few years, but there was no question how they were going to play it.

While the diplo teams continued to push for advantages in the backrooms, SOLCOM would send her… or someone like her… to start giving the Alliance something else to worry about.

The Alliance was weak where it counted, they had divisions that could be widened… flames that could be fueled. She’d done it before and now she was going to do it again.

The hell of it was, Sorilla knew that she was good at it… and she
liked
her job.

De Oppresso Liber
.

To Free The Oppressed.

Sorilla ran her fingers over the silver wings pinned to the beret in her hand, eyes locked on the armor that was blankly staring back at her from the open case it rested in.

She knew that if she looked hard enough, she’d be able to excuse what she was ordered to do. She knew that she could find the oppressed in any nation on Earth with minimal effort. No matter how freedom loving, how civilized, or how open a society was… there would always be those within it who were held down by some portion. It seemed to be a universal law.

Oppression was universal, freedom was never free.

The problem was, Sorilla suspected that she was losing the heart to look now.

Sorilla stood up, crossing the space to the armor and slamming the case shut. It was all just pointless melancholy, she knew what she was going to do when the call came. She would do her job.

It was the only thing she knew, and it was something she was damned good at.

Sorilla just hoped that the next job was something she could feel proud of when it was all said and done. She’d never done anything she believed was wrong, never followed an illegal order, but the line had gotten blurry a few times. She wondered why it was only bothering her now, though?

Her last missions had been clean, pure even. No questions, no moral dilemma, just good guys and bad guys and kicking ass across the galaxy. It was a damn dream come true.

She thought about the few members of the Alliance she now knew by name and put a name to her nightmare.

It was hell when the enemy had a face.

*****

“That could have gone better.”

Kriss grunted from where he was sitting, his bones now on their way to mending but a long way from being hale.

“At least we didn’t start another war,” The Ambassador sighed.

“I believe we may have done much worse,” Sienele said, “While on the Terran ship I took the opportunity to skim their database…”

The Ambassador  turned sharply, shocked, “You did what? If you’d been caught…”

“Yes yes, war, trouble, and all that,” Sienele made a show of looking bored by the prospect. “We learned enough about their computers before to make that a low order risk, and this time their systems weren’t destroyed as they were before.”

“So what did you learn?” Kriss asked, moderately interested.

“I have the location of their colonial worlds and some specifications of their fleet, however I think that they either inserted false data or deliberately kept some data out of the records for this ship,” Sienele said, thinking about it for a moment, “I would have.”

“Oh? What do you feel they held back?”

“The true numbers of their fleet. What I saw was little more than a task force or two,” The spymaster shrugged, “we’ll need to slip long range scouts into the area to confirm the data. No, it was the personnel information that concerned me.”

“What about it?” The Ambassador scowled, wondering what information about the individual Terrans could possibly be more important than fleet intelligence.”