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Author Topic: The Marenos Crisis (complete: 2015-01-31)  (Read 51155 times)

Histidine

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Re: The Marenos Crisis (ch.9 2014-11-14)
« Reply #30 on: November 14, 2014, 07:20:52 AM »

Chapter 9
Spoiler
The restaurant turned out to be a small family establishment named The Olive Tree, sitting unobtrusively between a florist and a grocery store. It was small and rather crowded, with several tables and chairs spilling out of the main dining area into the walkways outside, but it was also bright, inviting and not totally unhygienic, the light orange paint of the walls and the hardwood grain of the tables catching the eye.

Sybitz started to step inside, when Kauffman shoved past her and walked in, methodically surveying the customers and staff alike. He even took a moment to look inside the bathroom before motioning for his captain to come in, satisfied that no-one in the place was obviously a lurking assassin.

They were fortunate enough to find two vacant tables in the back, spaced some distance apart. Archer and Sybitz took one off to the side, the League officer settling on a cushioned seat against the wall with her companion opposite her, while Kauffman took a place where he could watch the pirate skipper and the entrance at the same time.

Lunch for the two women was the chef’s special - pasta with chunks of the algal vegetable substitute (this one was carrots and lettuce) and soy-and-yeast-based pseudomeat that had become ubiquitous in the less prosperous areas of Domain space even before the Collapse. Artemis’s bodyguard ordered something vaguely resembling what the denizens of Old Earth would have recognized as a kebab, eating with his right hand while leaving the left free to grab the gun under his jacket at a moment’s notice.

Conversation was the kind of semi-awkward small talk that two people make when they know just enough about each other to realize how little they have in common, but it was there nevertheless. Archer spoke of experiences as a child with a single mother in a modestly well-off neighbourhood; Sybitz made passing references to being bounced around foster homes, avoiding mention of any siblings. They briefly discussed Archer’s naval service, from her Academy courses to her most recent promotion to Captain; by tacit agreement, they stayed away from the topic of Sybitz’s own career, and Artemis saw no reason to bring up the events of Saghalien. The pirate skipper did talk about her travels across the Sector, visiting all manner of strange and interesting worlds; Archer, who had rarely been stationed outside the League’s core or its most forward bases, listened with rapt interest to rich depictions of the giant trees of Krig and the Hundred Valleys of Harappa.

They were halfway through the meal, Sybitz wondering if she should mention the time she fled the Corvus system one step ahead of the Hegemony system defense fleet, when she noticed the three men walking in, subtle bulges visible under their jackets. They were looking left and right, clearly scanning the crowd like Sergeant Kauffman had - and were doing it nowhere as subtly. Though she carefully avoided looking directly at any of them for more than a couple of seconds, there was no missing the way the one on the right elbowed his companion, the corners of his mouth curling at the moment he saw the orange-haired woman sharing a table with her.

She glanced over her shoulder at the League NCO. His eyes went to the men settling down at their own table, then to her, and they nodded briefly at each other. Good. He’d seen the threat too… and it was obvious from their mannerisms that they hadn’t realized just who he was. If they had, they would never have positioned themselves so that two of them had their backs facing his way.

Unfortunately, the fact that they weren’t acting immediately suggested they were waiting on backup. Indeed, one of them was already apparently texting on his phone, and she had no idea how many more people might be coming. And the rear exit was on the other side of the room.

Damn, damn, damn.

She turned back to her lunch companion, and her eyes were hard. “Artemis,” she said in a low voice, using her given name for the first time. “Don’t look now, but I think those three goons are here for you.”

“What?” Her eyes nearly darted over to where they were seated, and it was only at the last moment that she stopped. “I…”

“Listen.” Sybitz leaned forward, placing a hand on Archer’s. “I’m going to go over to the counter and pay. When I’m done, walk casually towards the service door and go out the rear exit. If they try to jump you then, me and your bodyguard should be able to take them out - else, apologize to the staff and leave for the station’s central areas as soon as possible. He’ll probably follow you; either way, I’m leaving out the front door. If I make it, we’ll meet up again at the dock. Got that?”

The captain nodded after only a brief hesitation, and Sybitz eased her chair back, glancing as idly as she could seem at the front of the restaurant. Alright, take it easy, she thought, trying to keep her diaphragm stable as she stood up slowly and started walking. It’s just nine and a half meters to the counter. We’ll stick to the script, get out of here without incident, and before we know it we’ll be back on the…

She suddenly found herself diving into a crouch, barely registering the shriek of the teenage girl whose lunch she’d knocked over, as the closest of the men swiveled in his chair and drew his gun. Damn it!, a part of her cursed as she hit the tiled floor, taking cover behind the round hardwood table. I didn’t expect them to be ready so quickly - I expected to have time to get out of here without a firefight in a public area -

But the rest of her was focused solely on the pistol grip in her palm and the targets before her.



The first would-be assassin had already brought his heavy pistol halfway around when Sergeant David Kauffman blew his cerebellum out with a three-round burst. The Marine quickly took aim and fired again, two more beads cleaving the target’s throat, and then Sybitz put a single shot cleanly through the third pirate’s skull.

Through the din of the wailing patrons, she could hear the angry shouts of more men outside, and stifled a curse. She shot a quick glance at Archer, who was on the ground herself, drawing her own handgun from its thigh holster. Their eyes met for a moment, but anything either of them might have said was cut off by a sharp burst of fire and the shattering of glass at the front of the restaurant.

The killers didn’t seem to much care if they piled up the bodies of bystanders, and several diners fell over in screaming, bloody messes as carbines sprayed indiscriminately into the crowd. The survivors dove to the ground, more than a few of them whimpering in terror under the sharp cracks of the hypersonic rounds, and the gunmen charged with the fury of a wounded beast as the paths to their target cleared.

Unfortunately, it had also cleared the lines of fire for the defenders.

The first three pirates to clear the perimeter died within two seconds of doing so. Sybitz took the first one out with a double-tap that struck him dead center in chest and forehead; Kauffman fired five shots, hit four times and brought down two more hostiles;. A fourth assailant actually managed to get a round off, and she let out a sharp hiss of pain as the hit drove splinters from the table into her exposed cheek, but for that she was much better off than he ended up; the Marine spat a curse in Yiddish, and another burst from his gun shredded his foe’s chest. Archer still hadn’t pulled the trigger even once.

Enraged howls came from the remaining street thugs outside, as what should have been an easy hit job turned into a bloodbath - for them. Unwilling to be lured into the jaws of the trap as their hastier comrades had been, they stayed outside, taking cover of their own, and poured a hail of fire into the ruined dining area of The Olive Tree.

Now I know why Tina always carries at least two automatics with her everywhere, Sybitz muttered mentally as she went flat on the deck. There must be at least half a dozen of them still out there, and who knows how many more still coming. And we don’t even have enough ammo for our own light weapons to pull off anything resembling suppressive fire, which would at least let us make a break for it. It’s probably too much to hope for the cavalry to reach us in time, too. Then again...

Two red-ringed grey spherules came sailing in through the broken window, and she saw just enough of them for her blood to run cold. If they went off in this confined space -

But Kauffman was already bolting out of cover, emptying his gun at the sheltered opponents as he dove for the closer grenade. With remarkable dexterity he picked it up and threw it back at its senders in a single smooth motion; it might still kill any civilians out there who hadn’t dispersed, but it wouldn’t be the massacre that would inevitably result if it detonated indoors, and it’d also clear some of the perpetrators in a fitting show of irony.

There was no time to do the same for the other grenade. Even as a pair of railgun rounds carved through his thigh and kidney, he jumped on it, landing just as it went off.

Sybitz felt herself go deaf with the ear-rupturing explosions that painted the walls crimson with the blood and entrails of what had just moments ago been live human beings. Despite the now-deceased sergeant’s best efforts, three civilians (and one of the pirates) had been killed in the blasts, and almost everyone else in and around the now-ruined restaurant was dazed at best. She shook her dusty head, trying to clear the ringing from her ears, and picked herself up from the ground.

“Come on, let’s go,” she shouted at Archer, loud enough to hear herself. “We’ll die if we stay here.”

The older woman just stared tremblingly up at her with dazed eyes, either not hearing or not comprehending, and Adela snarled. “Now, damn it!” She ran over and grabbed her wrist, yanked her sharply to her feet, and dragged her towards the rear exit. Fortunately Artemis had enough presence of mind to start moving on her own by the time they reached the service door, and they burst out into the alley running. More shouts came to her right, and Sybitz stifled a curse as three more gunmen came into view. Well, that decided which way to run, at least.

They took off, the pirate skipper turned bodyguard squeezing off a shot back down the alley every now and then to slow their pursuers down, and emerged onto a larger street. Passersby yelled and swore as they were shoved roughly aside, at least one man landing face-first in a plate of stall falafels, and several heads of cabbage ended up rolling all over the deck when a flatbed trolley swerved just in time to avoid the fleeing duo.

At the end of the road was a dilapidated swivelling double door, and Sybitz barreled through it - only to find herself losing her footing and tumbling through the air as the gravity let go. Only Archer quickly grabbing her ankle with one hand, holding on to the doorframe with the other, kept her from sailing uncontrollably through the high-ceilinged chamber that had once been a park.

She grimaced. The killers were gaining fast, and trying to air-swim forty meters across the room would leave them sitting ducks for rifle fire. Even if it didn’t, she couldn’t really justify endangering the youths gliding about the chamber, engaged in one of the few recreational activities available on Mazic.

“Over here!” a boy’s voice called out, and her head snapped around to see the child beggar from earlier, peeking out from a door to a nearby maintenance tunnel. Unexpected as his appearance was, she hesitated for only a moment, then kicked off from the nearest bulkhead and flew straight in, Archer closed behind.

Zero-G freerunning had been one of her favourite pastimes in her youth, and she felt the familiar rush of adrenaline as she followed their unexpected ally along the passageway. In the narrow confines of the tunnel with its sharp twists and turns, the three of them were able to rebound off walls with ease, speeding down the path in great leaps.The only surprise was another of the pirates somehow appearing in front of them, opening the door at the end. But in doing so he stumbled just as Sybitz had, and before he could recover she had brought her legs forward and kicked him hard in the face. Three of his teeth were knocked out as he slammed back against the bulkhead, slumping like a rag doll.

She landed cleanly on the deck with its refreshingly functional gravity, clearing the way just in time for the kid and then Archer behind her to similarly land without ending up in a tangled pile of limbs. “You can still run?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Archer panted. “For now, at least.”

Which would be great if we had some way of knowing we weren’t just running around in circles. Or headlong towards their hideout. If the cops don’t get here fast…

But the footfalls of their pursuers were already echoing down the corridor behind them, so there was nothing to it except to run some more.

They exited the utility tunnel into a presently deserted loading dock near one of the station’s rail lines, crates stacked in little tarp-covered clusters around the deck. Shots zipped past them as they sprinted across the cavernous chamber, skipping along the floor and punching little holes in plastic boxes, and Sybitz fervently hoped none of them would connect before they cleared the exit. Just twenty meters more… fifteen… ten!

A horrible scream rang in her ears as the kid fell to the deck, blood gushing from his lower leg where the bullet had ricocheted off the deck and hit it. Behind her, Archer was already braking abruptly, and Sybitz screeched to a halt as well even as more iron beads pinged against the carbide ceramic tiles.



Though she was no doctor, it was clear to Artemis that the boy - she regretted never having asked his name - was hurt, and badly. White fragments of bone glistened amidst the morass of torn muscle and sinew, soaked in blood, and she knew that without prompt medical attention - possibly better than anything Mazic could offer - he would die sooner or later.

She also knew that if she stayed to cover him, she would probably accomplish nothing except to perish herself. That even if she somehow held them off long enough for help to arrive, there was no guarantee that he would survive. That the only sensible thing to do now was to run, and mourn for him later.

“Captain…” Sybitz began.

Archer flung herself against the cover of a crate, pistol at the ready.

“What are you doing?!” the pirate said screechingly, but even to herself it sounded hollow. The first pursuers were in sight now, and she ducked into safety herself, resisting the temptation to let out a long string of curses. “You owe me big time for this,” she muttered instead to no-one in particular.

One of the attackers popped out from behind a hoverlifter, ready to lay down suppression while his companions flanked their prey, but Artemis Archer was already leaning out from her own cover, pistol levelled in a two-handed grip. Her hands were perfectly steady, her aim was true as the goddess of her namesake, and her shot went straight between his eyes.

Even as her previous target fell to the deck, she sighted another target, this one sprinting to the side, dashing to cover. He was fast, but not fast enough, and his left temple burst in a spray of bone and soft tissue.

She aimed again, fired again. And again. And again…

The incoming rifle round struck her just below the right shoulder, her yellow cardigan splotched bright red with arterial blood, and she fell mutely backwards, hitting the deck with a thud. The pistol slipped out of her slender fingers, and her arm refused to move properly to pick it up again.

The sharp noises of the continued gunfire and the yells and snarls of the surviving combatants rang in her ears, combining into an indistinguishable cacophony. She tried to roll over, to grab the gun with her good hand, but each motion seemed more difficult than the last. Through her blurry vision she could see the last of the killers gaining, closing in for the coup de grâce, and she felt so very weak…

It was then that she heard the loud burst of a rifle from behind her, and saw the torso of the closest pirate explode. The heavy footfalls of armored infantry approached as she slumped back down, and then Janusz Koniecpolski was standing over her, assault weapon blazing away. Another Marine bent down to face her, saying something she could no longer make out, and the last thing she felt was the hypospray against her neck before the sedative-induced darkness overtook her.
[close]



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Yep, ArkAngel called it :D
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ArkAngel

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Re: The Marenos Crisis (ch.9 2014-11-14)
« Reply #31 on: November 14, 2014, 10:07:03 PM »

I like the chapter. It was put together rather well. Also, the poor kid.  :( Would be kind of neat if he made a repearance later considering archer attempted to save him.
Chapter 9

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Yep, ArkAngel called it :D
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I knew it!  8)
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"Yes... Yes I -am- sending you, alone, unarmed, against the might of the Hegemony defense fleet.  Not to worry - watching how they obliterate your puny frigate will be most... enlightening.  I shall dissect their tactics and emerge victorious!  Any questions? Then get to your ship, you launch in 5."

Histidine

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Re: The Marenos Crisis (ch.10 & 11: 2014-11-30)
« Reply #32 on: November 29, 2014, 09:24:22 AM »

These two new chapters are rather related, so I'm putting them both up at once. Some sentimental stuff in this one; critique is welcome as always.

Chapter 10
Spoiler
The first thing Archer saw when she opened her eyes again was the pale green ceiling of the Valiant’s sick bay, the brilliant overhead lamps stinging her eyes. She blinked briefly before trying to prop herself up on her hands, only to wince as the pain bloomed in her right shoulder. A glance down gave her the sight of her right arm secured in a sling, the upper half immobilized against her body. Her left arm was fine, aside from the IV going into her wrist.

“Easy there, skipper,” a voice in an accent which an Old Earth linguist might have identified as tracing to England’s Home Counties, and she turned to see a dark figure shrouded in a white lab coat, tablet in hand as he walked over.

“How’s the kid?” she asked.

“Better than he looks. That bullet shattered a good chunk of his tibia, and it was remarkably challenging to stitch the pieces back together, but it’s ultimately nothing a little medipaste can’t handle. We were able to fashion a pair of crutches from the ship’s stores, too. His name is Mir, by the way.” He looked at her as she sat up awkwardly. “You, on the other hand… your pectoral muscle took it badly, and shoulder joint is pretty much ruined. I did what I could, but we’ll have to get to a proper hospital before you’ll be able to use your arm again.”

“I see.” She looked crestfallenly at her arm, flexing the fingers. “Do I at least get to move around, or are you making me stay in your bed?”

“You should be able to go about your duties as usual; just don’t overexert yourself. I’d prefer for you to get some rest for a few days at least, however. Commander Jaitley can hold down the fort for you for a bit.”

“Okay. How long was I out, anyway?”

“Eleven hours and,” he glanced at his tablet, “twenty-three minutes. That reminds me; I’ll want you to stay for a few hours after this, but right now I suppose you shouldn’t keep your visitors waiting.”



“Captain,” Ashok Jaitley said as he entered the room with Janusz Koniecpolski and came to her bedside.

“Commander.” She nodded in greeting, sitting up, then glanced uneasily at the Marine. “Major…”

“Thank Commander Battuta,” Koniecpolski said. “She’s the one who spotted the spinal maintenance artery on the station schematics that let us preposition the squad and let it move at forty klicks an hour when the shooting started.” He frowned slightly. “As for the I-told-you-sos, we’ll save those for later.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, exhaling sharply. “Alright. Report.”

“First, the what: an orchestrated attempt to kill you, the captain of the League cruiser PLS Valiant, that went very, very wrong for all involved. We count at least fifteen perpetrators dead, along with nine innocent bystanders. Another four were injured, and the word is that at least one of them won’t make it. As for the who, most of the attempted assassins were killed, but we did manage to get confirmation from the two survivors we caught that they were from the Black Hatchet. The one who planned this little charlie foxtrot is already dead, but the orders came from high up. How high, we don’t know yet.” He cleared his throat. “The why seems obvious enough.”

“And the how?”

“That’s the difficult part. No-one except you knew where you were going ahead of time, and that was before Ms. Sybitz apparently detained you and took you elsewhere. Which was a rather interesting incident in itself, by the way.”

She straightened. “You suspect her, then?”

Jaitley shook his head. “We did, initially. So far as we’ve been able to determine, however, she had no foreknowledge whatsoever of the assassination attempt and simply got caught up in the incident. In fact, the way she tells it, she’s one of the reasons you’re alive right now. We’re keeping an eye on her all the same, but it’s mostly a formality.”

“For them to find you and move in so promptly,” Koniecpolski said, “suggests they were able to track you part of the way from the station to the Olive Tree, but lost you before the end and had to do an old-fashioned sweep. This would require posting lookouts at every metro station, in sufficient numbers to deal with the crowds,” his face hardened, “and/or access to the station’s surveillance system.”

“In other words,” Jaitley said, “it’s possible that the pirates have either suborned Mazic’s computer systems - or its authorities. Neither is a pleasing thought.”

“I still say we should go down to the Administration Office and demand some answers,” Koniecpolski growled, facing the other man.

“And I’ve already said that we can’t do that without hard evidence,” the exec shot back. “And even if we did, let’s not assume they’re willingly collaborating with pirates. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but these people don’t have much in the way of refusing any offers some group like the Hatchet may make.”

“Now that you mention it, how did the Mazic authorities respond to the shootout?” Archer asked.

He gave a small, almost imperceptible shrug. “By the time their police arrived, we were just about ready to evacuate you back to the Valiant. They weren’t particularly hostile or anything; Janusz here feels they were just upset that someone else had to clean up their mess for them. As for official statements… they said that they’re really, really, really sorry about it... and everyone would be much happier if we’d leave as soon as possible.”

She sighed. “I can agree with that.” She rubbed her wounded right shoulder for a bit, then straightened. “Alright, schedule an e-conference before we leave the station. I think we should get underway on our patrol route as soon as possible.”

“One more thing,” Koniecpolski said, his expression grim. “There’ll be a ceremony for Kauffman at 1500 today. We’ve made no statement beyond the fact that he’s KIA, but the rumor mill has already done its work.”

Artemis tensed, a distinct chill running down her spine as he continued. “I won’t tell you what to do, but as one CO to another, I think you should be the one to explained how he died.”



After they’d left, Archer remained sitting on the bed, breathing heavily. Her mind was busy working out what to say at the address - flailing about trying to do that, rather - when the door opened and she looked up… and scowled. “Who let you on my ship?” she demanded.

“Is this how you treat someone who comes to visit you in the hospital?” Adela Sybitz said. “Suddenly I don’t feel so bad about not bringing you flowers.” She gave the captain an infuriating smirk, then shrugged as she sat down in the nearest chair. “Actually, I never left. Your Marine major hauled me abroad the same time they brought you in. Luckily I was able to convince him I wasn’t really behind the whole “try to kill you” plot.” Smiling: “Nice ship, by the way. It even has running showers and everything!”

Artemis glared at her for a moment, then slumped back down on the hospital bed. “...I suppose if it weren’t for you, I’d be dead,” she said after a while. “So, um… thanks.”

“Ah, don’t mention it,” Sybitz said, waving a hand. “For all you know, I just did it because I wanted a high-ranking League officer to owe me some really big favors. How’s the arm?”

“A little sore, but it’s alright. Well, except for the part where I can’t move the upper part at all. Harvey - Surgeon Commander Lister - tells me they can fix my shoulder back home, at least.” She looked away sadly. “Can’t say the same for Sergeant Kauffman.”

“Yeah,” the pirate said slowly. “He died a hero and all, but that never really makes it any better.” Archer looked at her, and she gave a thin smile. “Trust me, I know from experience.”

The other woman started to speak, but then just shook her head. “You’re going back to your ship, then?” she asked after a while.

“Hopefully soon, yeah. I’ve got to get back and get the Reckless ready for our next jaunt. We’re still headed to Memphis, then Thrace, right?”

“Indeed.” She sighed. “Hopefully we’ll find Ibarra’s man and get to the bottom of this before even more people get killed.”

“Sorry, Captain,” Adela said. “But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my years in the Sector, it’s never that easy.”



The dimly lit briefing hall was already full when Archer entered, the Valiant’s Marine platoon and a number of others seated on row after row of folding chairs. Several dozen pairs of eyes tracked her as she walked unsteadily to the podium, and if none of their gazes were outright hostile, few were filled with anything other than wariness, even mistrust.

She looked over the audience once before gripping the old-fashioned mic with her good hand, trying her best to hide the tremor in her hands. “Good… afternoon, everyone,” she started, each word coming out sounding stiff and unnatural even to her. “It is my regretful duty to announce today that twenty-seven hours ago, on 13 June 207, Sergeant David Kauffman of Second Squad was killed in the line of duty.”

The room went deathly silent, and she swallowed before continuing.

“I’m sure you know of the circulating rumors concerning the circumstances of his death… but now I will tell you what really happened. Kauffman was escorting me to a local restaurant, on the orders of Major Koniecpolski. We were accompanied by… our associate, Adela Sybitz. While there, we were attacked by a group of gunmen identified as members of the Black Hatchet. The sergeant engaged the assailants, killing several of them, and then jumped on a grenade they had thrown into the building. His sacrifice saved the lives of several civilians and bought us valuable time to escape.”

“Some of you may have heard that the major had originally insisted that I be accompanied by a Marine fireteam at all times while off the ship, and that it was only because of my insistence that I be allowed to take liberty alone that he agreed to reduce this to a single man. It’s true,” she said softly, her voice quavering with guilt. “I bear responsibility for David Kauffman’s death, not only as the captain of this ship, but on a personal level as well.”

“I’m sorry, everyone. I…”

Under the harsh glare of the spotlight above, their uneasy stares were like stakes pinning her to the bulkhead, and her face was ashen. What do I say to them? That a good man is dead because I put my personal enjoyment ahead of my duty? Because I disregarded Janusz’s advice out of pure selfishness? That I’ve just proven myself totally unfit for command? That if I say I’m really, really sorry, I’m sure Kauffman will come back to life?

“It’s not your fault,” a small voice called out.

All other heads in the room snapped around to the source - Mir, the street urchin, hobbling down the aisle with his crutches. “It’s not your fault,” he repeated. “You didn’t ask for those bad men to try to kill you. They did it because you were stopping them from hurting other people. Besides, you shouldn’t have to be stuck on your ship. You should be able to go out and have fun like everyone else.”

Everyone else was staring at him, as well, and no-one said so much as a single word for a quarter of a minute. “Ah, hell,” one of the Marines finally muttered. “Kid’s got a point.”

Artemis and the boy gazed at each other, oak and cyan connecting, and she found herself lifting her hand to wipe a stray, solitary tear from her cheek. “...Thank you, Mir,” she said softly.
[close]



Chapter 11
Spoiler
“So, how do you like it?” Ashok Jaitley asked.

He was seated across a table draped in white linen from his captain in his day cabin, cleaning their plates of the parboiled biryani. The meat was a synthetic substitute as usual, but the pepper, cinnamon, onions and cabbage were all real, practically the same varieties that had once been grown on Earth.

“It’s pretty good,” Archer said, setting down her spoon and dipping a chapati into a tub of ghee before nibbling on it. “You really cooked all this yourself?”

“Indeed.” He looked just a little prideful for a moment. “If you’re curious, I bought up the vegetables at Mazic, and took the rice and meat from the ship’s stocks. As for the spices, let’s just say I bring a stash along with me on deployment just for occasions like this.”

“Nice.” She studied him briefly, and the corners of her mouth twitched in amusement. “Does Kiranjeet know you’re cooking a private dinner for another woman?”

“She trusts me completely,” he responded gently. “And I’ve never given her a reason to do otherwise.”

“I see.”

She rested her chin on her hand, looking a little wistfully at his dusky features when his eyes were turned elsewhere. It was too bad that he was already taken, really… he was a kindly sort, and not bad looking. An efficient and conscientious worker, too. Perhaps if…

Down, girl, she told herself sharply. The last thing you need at this time is to be completely undermining the crew’s discipline - and ruining a marriage - by having an affair with your exec. And you didn’t sign up for the Navy to meet all the charming hunks - or babes, for that matter - in uniform. Sure, it’s too bad that the only person outside your chain of command around here that you know well enough to have a relationship with is Adela Sybitz, but…

Shuddering, she squelched that thought even faster than she had the first one.

“So, why did you invite me over, anyway?”

“Several reasons. First, it just feels better to share a meal with someone.” He motioned at the table between them. “Food has been a way to bond people since time immemorial, even before our forebears left the soil of Old Earth. Don’t you agree, Captain?”

“I can see that, alright. But I don’t suppose you chose to have your bonding with me, one-on-one, on a whim.”

“True.” He smiled a little. “The second reason is simply as a treat for you after you caught up in what happened on Mazic. Consider it a consolation for your injuries, a saying of thanks that you’re still with us, and a get-well-soon wish, all in one.”

She returned his smile. “Thanks.”

They looked at each other for a few more moments, then he sobered, resting his palms on the table. “Lastly, I… I suppose I just wanted to give you a chance to talk. See if there’s anything you need to get off your shoulders.”

“I…” She paused. “I, um, appreciate the concern, but what makes you think I have a problem?”

“That shootout down in the station. I don’t think you’ve ever been in a situation like that before.” Jaitley shook his head. “It was brutal enough, seeing the photos afterwards. I can’t say I can imagine what it was like to actually be in the thick of it.”

Archer looked down at her empty plate. “Yeah, it was pretty awful. Sometimes, when I close my eyes, the gunfire, the screams, the explosions… I can still hear them.” And this isn’t the first time, either, she considered saying, but decided against it. She liked and trusted her exec, but she still wasn’t ready to tell him just yet. She still wasn’t ready to tell anyone.

“How’s the ship taking Kauffman’s death?” she asked instead.

“It could be worse.” He looked her squarely in the eye. “All of us knew the risks when we signed up, of course, but it isn’t until someone actually doesn’t make it that the point is truly made. But we’ll pull through, Captain. Especially after the kid - Mir - spoke on your behalf.” His expression was genial, even fatherly, now. “He practically became the crew's best friend as soon as he woke up.”

“Good to hear.”

She set down the half-eaten bread, sighing softly. “You know, I’ve been thinking. Just yesterday, I was freaking out over how to explain what happened to the sergeant, while almost a dozen innocent civilians who never signed up to be shot at were also killed in that incident. All because of me. And I don’t even know any of their names.” Her eyes drifted to the bulkhead to the side. “For that matter, we’ve been killing lots of people ourselves with each pirate ship we’ve blown up. Sure, we’re entirely in the legal right to punch them out, and a lot of them are really awful people, but does that mean they deserve summary execution?”

“The pirates in Marenos have killed thousands of innocents in the past few cycles themselves,” Jaitley reminded her. “And then there are all the livelihoods their actions have ruined. For that matter, you’ve given most of them the chance to surrender and face a fair trial, and they refused. Consider that as well.”

“Yeah, but still…” Archer sighed again, long and drawn out. “It was so much easier, back when I was just one of the junior officers. Then, I needed only worry about doing my own job, and could let all the moral responsibility fall on someone else’s shoulders. Now I’m the captain, and it all comes down to my decisions now. Every life and death around here is on my head, whether directly or otherwise.”

She slumped on the table, resting her head on her arm. “Look at me. Hundreds of people are dying every single day here in Marenos, and here I am moping about how guilty I feel.”

“That’s part of what makes you a good person,” he told her gently. “The other part is making an effort to change it. And that’s what you’re doing - what we’re doing together.”

Despite herself, she smiled at him. “Thanks, Ash. I knew there’s a reason I keep you around.”

He actually chuckled a little at that. “Always glad to be of service. Now, why don’t you tell me...”



After dinner, Artemis headed for the observation deck. Nominally intended for taking visual observations by eye in the event of battle damage to the ship’s optical sensors, it saw far more use as a hangout for off-duty crew, enjoying a chat and a drink while enjoying the view.

She wasn’t surprised when the door slid open to reveal someone else was already there - it was rather more unusual that there was only one person present. What was unexpected was the identity of the guest seated on the couch, his crutches propped up nearby. The transfixing sight of Mazic half-lit by its sun hung in the distance, an orb blue, green, yellow and white, and he took no notice of her entry or her walking over.

“Hi, Mir,” she said, leaning on the armrest, and he looked up at her in surprise. “Like the view from up here?”

“Yeah,” he said after a while, before turning back to the sights. “I’ve never seen a planet from space before. It’s... beautiful.”

“It's gorgeous. Dreamy, even. Sometimes I like to come here and just stare out the window and feel my troubles drifting away to the stars.” She smiled. “Mind if I sit here?”

“Sure,” he answered simply, and she settled next to him, the two of them gazing out contentedly at the stars beyond.

“Thanks again for sticking up for me,” she said after a while. “I really appreciate it.”

He shrugged slightly. “You risked your life to save mine. I wanted to repay you somehow.”

“You wouldn’t have been shot at all if it weren’t for me, you know.”

“I chose to help you,” he said seriously, looking up at her again. “Just like you chose to help me.”

“Mm, I suppose you could put it that way.” She leaned back, putting a hand on his shoulder. “So, what are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know,” he sighed, looking away. “I don’t want to go back to Mazic.”

“It’s your home. Don’t you want to stay here instead of moving someplace you don’t know at all?”

He shook his head. “No. Home is somewhere you can have a bed to sleep in and people don’t try to beat you every day.” His eyes met hers again. “I want to go to the League. Maybe there I can have a good meal every day and go to school and do something good for people. Like you.”

It’s not that simple, Mir, not even in the League, Archer wanted to say, but couldn’t bear to step on his dreams. “Alright, when this is over, we’ll take you there and see about finding a home for you,” she said instead. “But after that, we’ll come back together to Mazic and fix it up. Make it a place worth living in. What do you say?”

“I…” he stared at her. “Really? You mean it?”

“Better than that. I promise.”

He bowed his head for a few moments, then reached into his pocket. “Here,” he said, taking her hand and placing something in it. “I think you should have this.”

She opened her hand, and her eyes went wide as the silver commemorative coin David Kauffman had given him sat shimmering in her palm. “With this,” he whispered, “you’ll always remember your promise. Won’t you?“

For several more seconds Artemis Archer stared at the small, shiny disc in her hand, her teal eyes glistening. Then she closed her fingers and smiled at him. “Yes,” she said softly. “I will.”



When Sybitz returned to the bridge of her ship, Dragunova was waiting for her. “So!” the redheaded pirate said sharply, jabbing an accusing finger at her senior partner. “As if selling our services to the highest bidder wasn’t enough backstabbing for you. I hear you’ve started cozying up to that League hussy.”

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” Adela told her serenely as she settled into her chair, leaned back and crossed her legs.

“You don’t love me any more. You haven’t even bought me a new gun in cycles.”

“Tina, I bought you a gun once, and that was for your fifth anniversary on the crew.”

“Exactly!” Dragunova turned to glare at the third person in the room. “What, no smartass comments, Lozzy?”

“Huh?” He looked up from his console. “Oh, sorry. I was busy going over some data me and the Valiant’s tac officer collated on the pirate attacks around here. I think I’m seeing an interesting trend.”

“Indeed?” Sybitz sat up. “What did you find?”

Sequeira rubbed his chin. “Just this. By the best estimates I could find, Quasar Industries accounts for twenty-seven percent of the commercial traffic in the Marenos subsector. Yet of the hundred and thirty-two ships lost to pirates here in the past three months, only seven were registered to QI.”

“Mm. So they have better escorts,” she said. “Or, for that matter, they could be making up so much of the commerce simply because the pirates are pushing everyone else out.”

He shook his head. “I thought of that too. So we filtered out all the attacks that weren’t on a convoy with an escort-freighter tonnage ratio of at least 0.4.” His brow furrowed. “Even so, Quasar accounts for less than a sixth of the losses. Of course, there are still confounders we haven’t controlled for, and our sample size is under fifteen, but…”

“...still, it’s interesting,” she commented. “Alright, have your friend buck it up to Captain Archer and see what she thinks. Maybe you’re on to something after all.”



The entire Board of Directors of Quasar Industries Limited stared at Kenneth Skilleton from across the conference table, and he stared back at them.

Worthless hypocrites, he thought sullenly, trying (and failing, badly) to keep the resentment out of his expression. They don’t give a damn about all the things going on in the company which they don’t want people knowing about, as long as they can pretend that they don’t know a thing about it either. But one leak into the public news channels, and they’re falling all over themselves trying to string up a scapegoat!

Not that he had any basis for throwing stones, he might have admitted to himself in one of his more honest moments. After all, that was his fallback plan now that things that gotten blown into the open, with someone further down the line - say, General Manager Lain - as his sacrificial goat. Unfortunately, Jennifer was dozens of light-years away on Duval, and he was right here in the boardroom where these two-faced piranhas who styled themselves corporate directors could get at him.

He squelched the urge - again - to snarl at the wallscreen that had displayed the footage they’d just seen. The grisly details of what had happened in the streets of Pynchet had been displayed in gut-wrenching high definition, and virtually all of the people present here had verbally expressed their shock at the bloody violence the reporter had seen fit to show in all its uncensored glory. With two or three of them, it had even been out of genuine horror and revulsion at the slaughter, rather than the fact that it was being associated with them.

“Now, Mr. Skilleton,” Chairman Gideon de Fortier said grimly, “perhaps you’d like to explain what happened here.”

The CEO leaned forward on the table, taking a couple of seconds to compose himself before he began speaking. “At first glance,” he said, carefully keeping his tone even, “the footage shows civilian protesters, including striking Quasar employees, being gunned down in the street by Sekos security forces. However, the report is one-sided and omits several pertinent facts. For one,” a neutral observer might have marvelled - or express repugnance - at the way he got it out with a straight face, “it fails to mention that the demonstrators were acting unlawfully in holding their disorganized, uncontrolled rally in front of the Presidential Palace. Further, it is amply documented that the so-called peaceful demonstrators were armed, and it was they who initiated violence against the city police monitoring the event. Clearly –”

“That’s well and all,” Rhee Tae-yeon interrupted, “but the fact remains that their version of the story is out there, and ours isn’t.” She scowled at her fellows around the table. “Have you heard what they’re calling it? ‘The Sekos Incident’ is the mildest of it; the more sensationalist newsies -” by which she meant the ones who weren’t on the corporate payroll or otherwise inclined towards apologia on behalf of the Sector’s megacorporations and their state allies, though none of them were going to mention that, “are using names like ‘Black Thursday’ and ‘May Massacre.’ This is an unprecedented PR disaster, and somehow I doubt,” she shot a sour look at Skilleton, “that saying ‘but they were breaking the law!’ is going to cut the mustard with the general public.”

“I don’t mean to sound callous,” he began, “but –”

“A plasma cannon!” Lamar Swanson barked, dropping his hard fists on the table. “They used a plasma cannon on civilians, Ken!”

Skilleton started to retort hotly, but Fortier cut in. “People, please!” he said, raising both hands. “We can bicker all day about what has happened, but it’s happened all the same, and a shouting match isn’t going to change that. What we need to worry about now his how to fix it. Clear?”

The other three people calmed down, though only Swanson had the decency to look abashed, and Fortier nodded. “Better. Now, I wish we could say the disapproval of the man in the street was all we had to deal with, but unfortunately what happened in Sekos has attracted the attention of the major powers. Lamar?

“The League Assembly has put the incident on its official debate agenda for this week,” Swanson said. “And while ordinarily nobody takes League resolutions seriously for a moment,” no-one dared laugh, “we believe there is significant support for formal economic sanctions against Quasar. The Westernese and Madeira senior delegates are already pushing to table such a motion; word on the grapevine is that Yesod will soon be joining them, in which case” he looked at the frightened faces around him, “we could be looking at triple tariffs on all our traffic into their space.”

“And that’s not all,” Rhee added. “I’ve received word that the Hegemon Administratum is looking at cancelling half of our supply contracts as a “reprimand” for our “disgraceful conduct.” With no payment of penalty fees either, needless to say. Even disregarding the direct revenue loss, I shan’t describe how unlikely any further business with the Hegemony is in such an event.”

“In short, we need to be seen publicly taking remedial action, however meaningless it may be in the long run,” the chairman said. “This is your mess, Kenneth. How do you propose we fix it?”

Skilleton forced himself not to scowl at the other man. “Your mess”, indeed. Gideon was normally in his corner against Swanson and his holier-than-thou faction (such as it was) on the Board, but it was clear that he had no qualms about throwing his CEO to the wolves if they got hungry enough. *** rolls downhill, after all, and it was just too bad that this time around even his lofty position wasn’t quite close enough to the top.

“Very well,” he said after a while. “While we can’t control what the legitimate government of Sekos does, it would certainly appear that a formal investigation into any involvement we had with the incident is warranted. None of us want it to be said that we were in any way complicit with a massacre of civilians, especially of our own employees.” He paused, taking a gulp from the carafe of water in front of him as he considered his next words.

“It is possible, though unlikely, that there was indeed participation by the local company branch office in this unlawful act, without our knowledge here at headquarters. Given the gravity of the situation, I think it would be best if I personally travelled to Duval to oversee an inquiry into this matter. I would like to assure the board,” he held his hands out, palms facing each other, “that no expense will be spared in dealing with any wrongdoing within our company.”

Alright, they’re taking the bait, he thought with the closest thing to relief he’d been able to feel for the past day as murmurs went around the conference table. They have to, it’s their only out. Now all he needed to do was high-tail it over to the Sekos system, letting the others bear the public relations fallout in his few months of absence, and do whatever on-site damage control was called for. Including letting Lain take the fall for him, if de Fortier decided that an example had to be made of someone. Serves her right for *** up and letting this be exposed, anyway!

And there was that other thing that needed dealing with too. Even as he continued talking, his face as smooth as ever, he scowled inwardly. Why couldn’t the universe cooperate with him, just this once?
[close]
« Last Edit: May 06, 2017, 10:17:15 AM by Histidine »
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Chaos Farseer

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Re: The Marenos Crisis (ch.10 & 11: 2014-11-30)
« Reply #33 on: November 29, 2014, 11:06:11 AM »

“Ah, hell,” one of the Marines finally muttered. “Kid’s got a point.”
:)
Thank you Mir, for cheering everyone up a bit.

“we could be looking at triple tariffs on all our traffic into their space.”
JEEZ. 90% Tariffs? That's harsh!

Everything looks like it's coming together. I'd really like to see where this goes.
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Histidine

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Re: The Marenos Crisis (ch.12 & 13: 2014-12-14)
« Reply #34 on: December 14, 2014, 12:09:20 AM »

Another double chapter. Let's get the last bits of exposition out of the way!

Chapter 12
Spoiler
“...so get off your worthless, overpaid ass and get this convoy moving already! I don’t want to hear any more of your excuses!”

Security Commander Suren Matayev bit his tongue and slowly, forcefully throttled his anger. It would be incredibly satisfying to tell the pompous, self-important, pig-ignorant ass of a CEO just where to stick his attempts to micromanage the people who actually knew how to do their jobs and whose only lowly purpose in life was to keep his useless, polished skin intact. Unfortunately, it would also scarcely qualify as a career-enhancing move.

“Yes, sir,” he said instead, in as deferential and self-deprecatory a tone as he could convince his own dignity to permit him. “I’m sorry, sir. With your leave, I’ll get to expediting our departure immediately.”

“See that you do, for your own sake, Commander,” the man on the comm display said huffily. “Goodbye.”

The holo-image vanished, and Matayev exhaled sharply, running a hand through his shoulder-length black hair. Even now that his boss was out of sight and out of earshot, it wouldn’t do for him as a starship CO to launch promptly into a rant about the various failings of his superiors. Or even to fantasize about using his six-foot, ninety-kilogram build to slowly crush the life out of that ***’s windpipe. Appearances had to be maintained, after all.

Fortunately for them, his subordinates were less so constrained.

“Jeez, what peed in his breakfast cereal before crawling up his ass to die?!” Geraldine Cheah, his first officer, snapped. “He makes it sound like it’s our fault the media is kicking his ass over this incident in Sekos and making this trip necessary in the first place!”

“Eh.” The skipper shrugged noncommittally, as if trying to cast himself as the voice of the glass-half-full faction. “Beats sitting on station twiddling our thumbs, at least. Think of it as a working vacation.”

She snorted. “Sure. And then we get there and he finds some excuse to keep us all cooped up in our ships without shore leave, under the guise of maintaining security patrols. While he, of course, gets to enjoy every Potemkin village tourist resort they keep in the system. See if he doesn’t.”

“You should be grateful, you know,” Matayev told her mildly. “At least you’ll be cooped up on a Falcon-class light cruiser, unlike those poor sods in the frigates we’re taking along.”

“Perhaps. But that just proves my point, doesn’t it? If there was any justice in this universe, Mr. Bigshot Chief Executive would be on a lowly frigate himself instead of that ultra-opulent yacht he’s got.” She was scowling, now. “Waste of a perfectly good ship, if you ask me.”

He chuckled a little, then sighed as he brought up the optical view of the ship in question on his display. The QIS Overseer was an Apogee-class cruiser turned armed super-yacht, the drone bay and survey equipment removed to make room for upgraded engines and a accommodation and recreation suite that would turn some posh core world hotels green with envy. Of course, Quasar could have gotten the same thing for cheaper with an off-the-shelf luxury liner from somewhere, but it would have lacked the intimidation factor of the heavy plasma cannon mounted on the front.

Well, that’s a bit unfair, he conceded. In this post-Domain world, having a big gun to… discourage people who might do you harm comes in very handy indeed. And as for speed, it won’t help when you have to let your escorts keep up with you, anyway.

He looked wistfully at the display again. The Skylark was his pride and joy, and he wouldn’t have traded her for a hundred Expansion Epoch cruisers, yet it was nice to look at that firepower and know it was on your side. It was a shame about the Most Important passenger on board was soiling it with his presence, but such was life.

I wonder how Tess’s putting up with him?, he thought wryly, then gave himself a small shake. “Alright, that’s enough chatter,” he said. “Gerry, get ready to move as soon as the missiles are loaded. We don’t want to keep His Highness waiting any longer.”



The back alleys of Pynchet’s East Quarter were shrouded in darkness, grim and foreboding as always. Even the main streets were punctuated only occasionally by flickering white streetlights, aged well beyond their intended lifespan. People walking by would sometimes gaze resentfully at the buildings in the city that did have fully working, brand-new lights, like the Quasar rare metals processor just half a kilometer away.

Hard-soled boots crunched on gravel behind the rundown stores, as a man walked past the stench from the urine-stained drains and the rat-infested piles of garbage. He kept his head bowed, the brim of his tattered hat masking his face; while it was unlikely that even the panopticonic network of security cameras reached into every twist and turn of the sprawling alleyways, this was a habit he’d long cultivated. Not that his pose here was particularly noteworthy in itself; it didn’t take long living in Sekos for a man’s desire to look upwards to be beaten out of him.

He rounded a corner and came to a beige plastic door, standing uncomfortably under a harsh yellow spotlight. His raised fist rapped twice against the hard surface, and several seconds later a man’s muffled voice came from inside.

“Felipe? Is that you?”

The door opened, and a greying, heavyset man in a dirty smock looked at him. “Didn’t expect to see you here,” the proprietor said. “You want to come in?”

“No, not now.” His visitor stared grimly. “I’m calling in Jacquerie.”

The other man’s jaw went slack. “Felipe… I don’t think that’s…”

“Don’t you dare cut me off on this, Takashi,” Felipe snarled under his breath, anger trumping furtiveness. “ Not after that day. Half of our group lost at least one direct family member. My son is in an unmarked grave somewhere, because he did what I was too afraid to do.” In a jagged voice, now: “Well, no more. I’ve had enough. We’ve all had enough. And if you don’t give me what we need on this now, if you still insist on sitting on your hands until the fancy media attention dies away and everyone forgets how he died... we’ll just stake it out on our own. We’ll be heard one way or another, so help us God.”

“Whoa, easy,” Takashi said, holding up his hands. “Look, I know you’re all *** off as hell, but…” Seeing the murderous expression of his visitor, he hurriedly went on: “Okay, okay! Just… just give me a few days, alright? We still haven’t gotten the last cleaning kit here yet, but I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you,” the other man said, in a more normal tone. “That’s all I ask.”

“Alright. Truth is... I know none of us can really understand how you must be feeling, but we understand what you gotta do. And when the time comes, we’ll back you on this” He reached out, putting a large hand on a hard shoulder. “Remember, a day of advance notice so we can pick up Maria.”

“Of course.” Felipe looked down at his feet. “And… thank you, again.”

Takashi smiled briefly, despite himself. “Least I could do. And now, I think you’d better get going.”

The door closed, and the visitor vanished into the darkness once more.



“We had a deal, Holk!”

“I’m sorry,” Manza Holk said, making a show of sipping from his glass of red wine. “I’m afraid I’m at a loss as to what you’re referring to.”

Their fleets were at the arranged rendezvous point in hyperspace, just 10,000 km apart by local reference. Though they were still too far apart for any one trigger-happy frigate skipper to actually cause an incident (while being close enough to eliminate any undesirable transmission lags), there was no mistaking the palpable tension in this meeting. Only Holk seemed unaffected by it.

“Don’t play games with me, pirate!” Skilleton barked. “Five million tons of freight - including an entire disassembled autofactory with UACs - disappeared! Are you really going to tell me you had nothing to do with it?!”

“And the basis of your accusation here is…?” the other man answered calmly. “I’m hardly the only pirate in the subsector, you know. For that matter, It’s a big, dangerous sector, and accidents happen all the time.”

His eyes inched to the other person on the split screen, on board the Omen-class frigate carefully placed to catch the comm laser the Overseer thought it was beaming straight to the Doomfist. In contrast with the pale-skinned, clean-shaven, immaculately tailored Skilleton, this tanned man was dressed casually, with a goatee that Holk felt went very poorly with his eyeshadow and braid.  So be it. He hadn’t hired the best former Tri-Tachyon cyberwarfare specialist he could find for his fashion sense.

I wonder if Mr. Corporate Executive here knows what he’s set himself up for?

“Forty seconds,” the hacker said, and Holk turned back to the person he was supposedly having a one-on-one conversation with.

“- the ability to hit a convoy of that size,” Skilleton was going on. “For that matter, none of them would even dare operate on that route! There is no other group that could have done this, only the Hatchet! And don’t give me any of that ‘accident’ crap!”

“You make too many assumptions, Mr. Executive. For one, if your ships were indeed carrying an autofac, someone who was able to discern this fact would easily be sufficiently tempted by greed to accept the risk of an attack on the convoy. And given all the high-tech ships and weapons you’ve been handing out like candy, half the two-bit bands around here could easily scrape together enough firepower to make the attempt.” He shrugged. “What can I say? We pirates are a fractious, insubordinate lot at the best of times.”

The CEO’s face turned a dramatic shade of puce. “Listen here, you -”

“Of course, if you do discover the identity of the actual perpetrator, I can help you… deal with them appropriately.” Holk reclined in his chair. “It’ll cost you, of course.”

“Don’t you dare trifle with me, Holk,” Skilleton snarled. “If it weren’t for me, you’d still be a pissant little pirate chieftain in the back of nowhere. I’ll have you show respect to your betters.”

“Indeed? Forgive me, but while I don’t wish to cast aspersions on your boundless magnanimity, I was not under the impression that your contributions were intended as an act of generosity. Or did you charge them to Quasar’s CSR budget? I must admit, that would be quite amusing.”

Shut up!” If he had something to throw at the screen, he would have; as it was, he simply slammed his fists on the console.

“Mm. It does seem as if further discussion of this topic is moot at this point.” The pirate glanced at his tech pet, and nodded almost imperceptibly at the thumbs up. “Very well, then. If there is nothing else, I’m sure we both have errands to run. See you around, Mr. Skilleton.”

Kenneth Skilleton started spluttering indignantly, but Holk terminated the connection before he could find the words. One image vanished from his display, the other expanding to fill the remaining space, and he smiled. “Very good, Mr. Gibson. Now let’s see what we’ve picked up, shall we?”

He brought up another screen, and started browsing through a long list of files. Shortly thereafter, his brow furrowed, and he began stroking his chin thoughtfully.

“My, my… a detailed itinerary?” he murmured to himself. “This raises certain interesting possibilities indeed.” He stared at it for a while longer, then looked up. “Rigo, prepare a message for Pollaxe. Notify them that their operation is suspended and they are to assist Tomahawk instead. We’ll have another mission of our own that week.” And Kenny boy isn’t going to like it one bit, oh yes.
[close]



Chapter 13
Spoiler
Like many other stations catering to those who prefer not to advertise their presence, Port Ikonia around the planet of Catal in Thrace featured enclosed docking bays that offered privacy from casual snooping for a fee. These were generally meant to accommodate destroyer-sized vessels, but with a little clever maneuvering it was possible to squeeze a cruiser into one.

Hypothetically. As was tested when a loud, bone-jarring crunch echoed through the hallways of the PLS Valiant while it tried to reverse into one such bay.

“Bruno!” Archer snapped.

“It’s not my fault, Captain!” Chief Petty Officer Divila said defensively from the helm. “It’s geometry! Bay’s too narrow and ship’s too wide!”

“Hold on,” Jaitley said, before his captain could retort. He punched a few keys on his console. “Engineering, this is the XO. We’ve just collided with something. Get us a damage assessment and options. Clear.”

Half a minute later, the response came in, and he piped it to the captain’s display as well. “We’ve got a camera on the damage,” Rollyn Bracket said, her concerned expression inset in the video feed. “Looks like the port missile rack hit a maintenance catwalk. It’s slightly dented, but the diagnostic checks out. Can’t say the same for the structure, though.” Indeed, the cheap alloys had crumpled like tissue paper. “We could burn the rest of it off with one of the PD lasers,” she tapped the tips of her index fingers together rhythmically, “but the owners might not like that very much.”

“No point cancelling our reservation now,” Archer muttered. “Get the obstruction out of the way. If they complain, tell them to send the bill to the League.”

“Can’t,” Jaitley said. “We’re supposedly the independent mercenary vessel ISS Fortuna, remember?”

“Ah. Right.” Artemis throttled a scowl. “Guess it’s coming out of our discretionary fund, then. What’s left of it after a month of Sybitz cleaning us out.”

“You could always fire her, you know.”

“I think I might.” She shook her head. “But for now, I’d just like to get our ship docked nice and clean.”

Clearing the catwalk took another minute, and the Eagle eased the rest of the way into the bay without further incident. Fortunately the docking tubes were able to handle the ship’s twenty-degree tilt on her long axis, although actually using them would be an awkward proposition.

“Seal is green,” Jaitley reported. “But after what happened back in Algre, I don’t think any of us are in any real hurry to take some shore leave.” He looked at Archer. “I guess we may as well see about scheduling that secure interview with the commissioner.”



“Good afternoon, Madam Commissioner,” Archer said pleasantly to the plump woman on the conference room viewscreen.

“Good afternoon… Captain Archer.” Seeing the other woman’s eyes widen ever so slightly, Defense Commissioner Sezen Tevetoglu laughed. “Come now, Captain! Do you think our agents don’t make it a point of paying attention to such things? How do you think you got a piece of my always-too-busy schedule so easily?” Another laugh. “Oh, don’t look so down. We’re good at keeping our friends’ secrets, you know.”

Archer stared at her for a while, then exhaled slowly. “Alright, you got me. In that case, let’s skip the formalities and get to business, shall we?”

“Of course. What can we do for the League today, Captain?”

“We’re looking for a pirate leader named Dmitar Krešimirovic,” Archer said, leaning forward and resting her good forearm on the table. “I was wondering if you could slip us some help on that subject.”

“Ah, him.” Tevetoglu’s face turned sour for a moment. “May I ask what you want with Mr. Krešimirovic?”

“I’m sure you’ve noticed the recent, inexplicable upswing in the subsector’s pirate activity these past several months, Commissioner. We have reason to believe the pirates are receiving material support from an outside power, and our information suggests Krešimirovic may be able to… shed some light on this matter, shall we say.” Her eyebrows inched up. “Will there be a problem, Ms. Tevetoglu?”

“‘Problem’ would be one way to put it, yes.” The older woman grimaced. “Say better than our boy Dmitar and others like him have single-handedly thrown the Republic of Catal into its first recession in thirty-five cycles. My own son’s shuttle export business was pretty much ruined by the fact that half our cargoes never even show up at their destinations. And of course, the interstellars like Quasar have been more than happy to buy up the remaining scraps for a pittance.” Shaking her head: “It’s gotten to the point where he actually dares to show up in person on our turf. In fact, we’re actually monitoring him on the planet’s surface right now.”

Archer straightened abruptly in her chair, staring at Tevetoglu. “Shouldn’t you be arresting him right this instant?”

“We could,” the Commissioner said grimly. “And then what? Krešimirovic’s a loose cannon at the best of times, and the rest of his gang takes their cue from him. If we busted him, they might well launch a massive reprisal against us the next day, and with all the reinforcements they’ve been getting, they could hurt us pretty badly. Sure, they’d probably get trashed too… leaving someone even worse - like the Hatchet - to move in. Or maybe they leave the boss to his fate, and someone less inclined to substitute brutality for competence takes over the Claws.”

She paused, staring at her desk, then sighed. “Even then, we once decided it’d be worth the attempt. So a few months back, we tried to grab him as he was leaving Port Ikonia.”

“What happened?”

“It was a set-up,” Tevetoglu said flatly. “The team walked into an ambush. We lost seven good officers that day, and four civilians were killed as well. Thirteen other people were injured. And then, just for good measure, Inspector-General Stoichkov’s air car exploded with his entire family inside two weeks later.”

“Dear god,” Archer whispered, then shook her head. “I take it helping us is out of the question, then?”

“I don’t know.” She rubbed her forehead, pushing her muddy brown bangs out of the way, and straightened in her chair. “I… can’t help you officially, not without the Prime Minister’s approval and especially not until we’ve rooted out all the moles in the force. Unofficially…” she placed her hands on her desk, staring into the camera, “I can arrange for you to tail our mutual friend, if you promise not to do anything that might conceivably be traced back to us. In fact, if it’s at all possible, I’d strongly prefer it if he never realizes anything happened at all. Can you do that?”

“We’ll do our best, Commissioner. Subtle’s the word.”

“I’m glad you understand. Very well, I hope to get back to you in a few hours. In the meantime,” she put on a charming smile, “would you like to see the sights? I can arrange for a tour of the most popular destinations in Bospora for you and your officers.”

“Um.” Archer winced, a hand involuntarily going to her wounded shoulder. “Well, I… appreciate the offer, but I have a lot of paperwork to catch up on right now.” She grinned awkwardly. “Perhaps some other time I’ll be able to enjoy your hospitality.”

“I see. Well then, take care, Captain. Tevetoglu, clear.”



“Well, here we are,” Diata Mukendi murmured, hands behind her back as she stood studying the display of the station two light-minutes away from them. “Anything on their defenses, Matty?”

“Two frigates and an Enforcer-class destroyer are maintaining orbit with the station,” the Medusa’s AI said. “There is also a patrol with a Hammerhead, a Vigilance and a Shepherd directly ahead and closing, range two point seven light seconds. Five more frigates, two destroyers and a light cruiser are present elsewhere in the system, but none can arrive at the target sooner than two hours from their present position.”

“This will be fun,” Giulio Pizzati chuckled from the tactical officer’s station, and Mukendi turned to him with a raised eyebrow.

“Fun, Mr. Pizzati?”

“Yeah. A pitiful backwater-planet patrol against our might?” His grin was sadistic as always, she noted sourly. “It’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel.”

“I’ll remind you not to take our opposition for granted at a time like this, Mr. Pizzati,” she said in a frostbiting tone. “Or would you like me to arrange your transfer to Adze Squadron?”

He winced at that, and she let him squirm under her glare for a few seconds before turning back to the master display. Good. Better for his gung-ho overconfidence to be corrected by embarrassment in front of his peers now than by Darwin’s laws later.

Mattock Squadron wasn’t the most heavily armed unit in the Black Hatchet, but it was the most disciplined - and not just by pirate standards, either. Mukendi kept her crew on a tight leash, and some of the rowdier crew had initially protested her leadership style. Openly, too, for a day or two - before she broke them, or disposed of them. Thereafter, the complaints were confined to muttering over card games or when alone.

But her methods got results, and the subsequent distribution of the loot among the crew quickly ended even the mutterings.

She studied the astrogation chart again. At the moment, ISS Razor’s Edge - no, it was DMS Razor’s Edge now, she reminded herself - and her escorts were pretending to be a legitimate mercenary fleet, en route to this quiet planet for resupply and possibly a little recreation. This would (hopefully) keep the locals from getting too suspicious and drawing in their dispersed units, until the attack started and the station picket was crushed decisively. Assuming everything went to plan, she ought to wipe them with no losses.

If.

The most likely way this could go wrong, she thought as she ran her fingers through her cornrows, was for the station team to get hit by some delay or other and miss their schedule. Or conversely (and worse), go out of control and launch the attack prematurely before Mattock could get in position. Which would just be typical of them. Most of Trojan Force was nothing more than common thugs and murderers, and the mercenaries leading them were almost worse.

I just hope we can get there in time and rein them in before they get too carried away. I am not going down in the history books as a mass murderer.

Diata Mukendi cherished no illusions about who and what she was. She’d joined the Hatchet because it was the best game in town, and she’d been playing it too long to start feeling pangs of conscience about all that she’d done now. But that didn’t mean she had to like the butchery that went all too often with piracy in this subsector, and even if Holk himself was perfectly happy to turn a blind eye to it, she wasn’t.

“Alright, Matty,” she said, sitting down in the captain’s chair. “Order all units to proceed to Point Alpha. Fifteen minutes of advance notice should suffice for Trojan, and I want us right on top of that picket when it kicks off.”



“What a rundown place,” Loz Sequeira muttered as he and Sybitz parked and secured their rented hoverbikes in an alley the edge of the abandoned industrial complex. “I wonder what they could possibly be doing all the way out here?”

“If we knew the answer, we wouldn’t be here,” Adela said. “Come on, we don’t want to miss the show.”

The derelict warehouses and factories stood silently all around, coats of paint ranging from bright red to soft beige slowly flaking off. One of the nearby buildings still bore the scars from a police raid on a drug lab not two weeks ago. The general drabness was punctuated only by rows of slowly wilting palm trees and the patches of grass eking out a tenacious existence beneath their fronds.

Sybitz peeked around the corner with the microcamera Archer’s Marines had loaned her. The gravtruck Krešimirovic had brought here was parked on a pad just outside one of the storage buildings, a guard leaning casually against it. There was no sign of anyone else.

“Another person on the other side of the building, by the west entrance,” Dragunova’s voice came in through her earpiece. “I think she’s just a chauffeur, though. Mohawk Pirate and his friends are just inside the entrance. No electronic traces except on their persons.”

“Understood,” Sybitz murmured, and gave the scene another look-over. The durachrome wire fence offered no concealment, but if they slipped around to the side bay where the now-empty cargo containers were piled on the grounds…



“Brand new T7 security drones, assembled right here on Catal,” the bearded man in a dark blue business suit said with a smile. His name was Hasyim Ismail, and his employer had given him the rather unenviable job of managing the pirate leader standing before him now. “Nanocomposite armor of up to twelve centimeters on the chest, 8.6 millimetre tribarrel capable of ten thousand rounds per minute, and can move at forty kilometres an hour on flat unpaved ground. I’m sure you’ll be pleased with them.”

“Maybe.” Krešimirovic looked at him suspiciously. “But I seem to recall being promised eighteen bots, and t’would seem there are but twelve here.”

“Well, yes. Unfortunately, the transport carrying the parts was lost on its way to the subsector, and we’ve had to scale back local assembly. Don’t worry, we’ll have them ready for you as soon as possible.”

“That wasn’t t’ agreement,” the pirate growled.

“The deal still stands, Mr. Krešimirovic,” Ismail said evenly. “You’ll get the rest of your droids when they get here. For now, twelve is still an ample amount of firepower in any boarding operation you might face.”

“I need all eighteen, and I need them now. T’is is not negotiable.”

“Mr.  Krešimirovic, you know we can’t-”

“Enough excuses!” he barked. Muscles flexed under the pale skin, and the two bodyguards on each side were already moving their hands to their weapons. “I know you have them. Hand them over. Now.”



The guard was pausing to check his rifle when Adela Sybitz slipped behind him, stunner in hand. He heard her approaching only at the last moment, and had just started to turn when she grabbed his shoulder and jammed the metal prongs against his carotid. He writhed with the involuntary spasms of the violent electric discharge for two whole seconds before she released the trigger and lowered his unconscious body to the ground beside the truck.

“I thought we weren’t leaving any fingerprints,” Sequeira said as he came to a stop beside her.

“Beats being seen and shot at with no cover,” she shot back. “Now be quiet, we’re missing the conversation as it is.”

She moved back to the wall of the building, inching her way towards the wide open entrance. The shouting was indistinctly audible even from here, and she frowned slightly as the camera showed her a situation that was clearly escalating to a standoff.

“Loz,” she whispered, reaching for her own automatic, “I don’t think fingerprints are going to matter any more in a moment.”



“Be reasonable, Dmitar,” the corporate representative said as pacifically as he could, holding his hands out. “I’d like to help you, really. But I can’t give you what I don’t have.”

“Then what good are you to me?!” Krešimirovic snarled, and Ismail felt cold sweat beading on his forehead as he recalled that item in the newest intel report on the Claws of Adria. It was only rumors, but they’d mentioned something about the pirate developing a methamphetamine habit… was this what he was seeing? Or had he simply always been the swaggering thug he seemed to be?

The guns were drawn and pointed now, and he found himself wishing he had a way to easily activate the bots and have them deal with this. He’d known there would be some trouble when they came up short with the delivery; in fact, there were only any bots to give Krešimirovic at all because they'd skimmed from a legitimate order (and that client was also having nasty words with the company, no doubt). But to react with this… this petulant tantrum, like a five year old who’s just been told that no, he couldn’t have any more candy?!

Of course, most five-year-olds aren’t allowed to have guns...

“I…”

The next two seconds went by in a flash. There was a deafening roar reverberating in the warehouse, savaging at his eardrums as someone fired an old-fashioned chemical-powered handgun. And then another, and another, and another. By the time he realized what was happening, he and Krešimirovic were the only ones still standing, four bleeding corpses surrounding them.

And the pirate was armed, and he was not.

He could only stare, wide-eyed, at the sight of the enraged criminal leveling the gun, squeezing the trigger…

And then Krešimirovic’s head shattered in a burst of grey, red and pink before his eyes, the supersonic crack audible a split second later.



“Tina!” Sybitz hissed over the comm.

“You were too slow,” Dragunova snapped. “Now hurry up before we lose both of them.”

That much, at least, she couldn’t dispute. She swung around the corner, gun drawn, and pointed it straight at the only man still alive in that mess. “Hold still, Mr. Necktie,” she said firmly, as Sequeira came up beside her with his own sidearm. “You’re doing pretty well so far at this not-dying thing, and it would be a shame if you messed it up at this point.”

He just stared slack-jawed at her for a second or two, and then his limo driver came in from the back door. The woman took one look at the scene, then at Loz Sequeira pointing his gun at her, and disappeared around the corner with almost cartoonish haste. Ismail bolted after her, and got almost four meters before Dragunova’s sniper rifle fired again and blew out his knee joint. He fell to the ground with a scream, scrabbling at the plasticrete floor as the two newcomers walked up to him.

Sybitz turned him over with her foot, her gaze intent as he trembled beneath her. “My, my. That’s a nasty wound you’ve got there. Does it hurt?”

“W-What are you talking about?” He sucked in a sharp breath between his teeth, clutching his ruined knee with bloody hands. “Of… of course it hurts!”

“Good. Now, I have a lot of questions for you, but for now I’ll stop the pain if you answer just one of them. Who do you work for that’s paying off pirates like Krešimirovic in the subsector?” He stared up at her, and she gave him a fangs-bared smile. “You have ten seconds to decide.”

For half of that time he stared sullenly up at her, then finally sighed, slumping back on the ground. “Ah, what’s the use. Quasar. Quasar Industries.”



“You’re serious?” Artemis Archer stared incredulously at her comm screen, then shook her head. “Sorry, stupid question. It’s just… I never expected something quite this brazen from anyone, even the most amoral dictatorship or interstellar corporation.”

“Yeah,” Sybitz said. “I kind of suspected something like this all along, but to have actual confirmation… According to Mr. Ismail, this whole project was the idea of the CEO, Kenneth Skilleton, done off the books. Apparently his idea was to ruin his competitors and weaken the national economies around here in order to extort things like trade concessions and such.” She frowned. “Judging from what we’ve seen around these parts, it seems to have worked quite well too.”

“Dear God,” the captain whispered. “It’s terrible… terrible, yet effective. No wonder none of the system governments here stood a chance. And on top of that massacre in Duval...”

“A real piece of work, alright. The question now is: what do we do about it?”

“I… I’m not sure. A revelation this big is going to involve a lot of discussions that are way above my pay grade.” Archer rubbed her forehead. “I figure we’re going to go public with this sooner or later, though.”

“And then what? All we have for evidence is the word of one relatively low-level corporate flunky, hardly enough for a conviction. And even if it was, I don’t think the League is going to try serving arrest warrants on the management an independent corporation not based in its territory. Nor are you going to declare war on it. Sure, you could probably still hurt them in other ways, but nothing compared to what that scumbag deserves.” Sybitz clenched her jaw for a few seconds, then took a deep breath. “Sorry. I know it’s not your fault. It’s just that…”

“...that seeing that guy get off practically scot-free for pillaging a dozen systems out of unbridled greed really sticks in your side. I know.” Archer flashed her a thin smile. “I understand. Still, I’m sure we can figure something out-”

The priority signal flashed on her console, and she turned to look at her comm officer. “Sorry, ma’am,” Lieutenant Gray said. “It’s a priority message from Commissioner Tevetoglu.”

“Ah.” Archer turned back to her screen. “Sorry, Adela,” she barely even noticed she’d just used the other woman’s given name, “but I’ve got to take this call.” She pressed a button on her console, and the original image shrank into an inset in the corner as another face appeared. “Can I help you, Commissioner?”

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything, Captain,” Sezen Tevetoglu said in a disturbed voice, “but we have a serious situation here.”
[close]



Author's notes
Spoiler
Big Revelation!™

Out of curiosity: Do you think it came out of left field? Was it properly foreshadowed? Or too obvious? Let me know :)
[close]
« Last Edit: September 06, 2017, 07:26:22 AM by Histidine »
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: The Marenos Crisis (ch.12 & 13: 2014-12-14)
« Reply #35 on: December 14, 2014, 10:06:41 AM »

FU** YEAH, more Marenos Crisis!
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SafariJohn

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Re: The Marenos Crisis (ch.12 & 13: 2014-12-14)
« Reply #36 on: December 15, 2014, 10:12:16 AM »

Two of the names are throwing question marks in place of letters.

Teveto?lu
Krešimirovi?
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Re: The Marenos Crisis (ch.12 & 13: 2014-12-14)
« Reply #37 on: December 16, 2014, 04:31:59 AM »

Two of the names are throwing question marks in place of letters.

Teveto?lu
Krešimirovi?
Oh dear. Seems the forum is messing up the Unicode somehow?

Test:
Spoiler
(all of these work fine in preview)
?
š
?
??
??
[close]
... okay, bug report time. I'll fix the fic later maybe, dunno. (EDIT: there we go)
« Last Edit: December 17, 2014, 04:38:30 AM by Histidine »
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Re: The Marenos Crisis (ch.14 & 15: 2015-01-04)
« Reply #38 on: January 04, 2015, 02:13:35 AM »

Sorry for the lack of updates, everyone! I, uhh, went on a Space Rangers HD binge... (you should play it BTW, it's a great open world space game)

To make up for it, here's yet another double chapter - includes the story's largest battle scene by text length yet. Enjoy!



Chapter 14
Spoiler
The first shots were fired at the security station on Level 3, East District, at 1427 hours local time.

Officer Orhan Asik was on guard duty at the loading bay, leaning against a section of wall between the big red blast doors and watching people go by about their business. Truth be told, he wasn’t really paying attention to them; it was a rare day when anything more serious than pickpocketing or shoplifting happened around here. Sure, there was the occasional armed robbery, but no-one in their right mind would commit it next to the police station, would they?  Instead he let his mind wander to other things, like what to get for his son’s birthday next week.

He did take note of the four men that came down the street together, each of them wearing a jacket or a longcoat. Such a number of people together was atypical, as was their clothing… but they walked past without anything in particular happening, so he didn’t think too much of it.

Until they reached the edge of his patrol position and wheeled around, and he only had a second to glimpse the rail-carbines they’d produced before his torso was perforated by a hail of metal.

Another officer came bursting out the door, alarmed by the sound, and was rewarded for his troubles with a pair of three-millimeter capsules blowing out his carotid and part of a vertebra. Two of the attackers ran forward under the cover of their fellows’ guns, one of them already pulling out a pair of grenades. A single frag went flying through the doorway into the walkway adjoining the cargo-filled bay, and two more cops who had been running towards the scene of the crime were swiftly blown into unrecognizable chunks of gore. The gas grenade that followed was almost anticlimatic, but it did serve to keep anyone else from doing further reckless charges.

While this was going on, the other man was producing a small box-shaped object from his bag. It took a few button presses to activate the device and set the timer, and he hurled it through the door as well before all four of them scattered.

The fuel-air explosion that followed fifteen seconds later killed thirteen people and destroyed three police hoverbikes, four crateloads of various spare parts, two repair bots and an entire armory of equipment. Yet by then it was already becoming a footnote to the chaos unfolding elsewhere on Port Ikonia.



Even all the way here in Private Docking Bay 02, Supakorn Ngamsan could hear - and feel - the explosions thundering in the west commercial district. It was an old, familiar sound, one that the broad-torsoed man with the close-cropped grey hair had heard many times before in the service of the Hegemony Marine Corps. But that was cycles ago, before the reports of brutality concerning his battalion had came to the attention of the JAG. Only his distinguished combat record had kept the repercussions from being more severe than a dishonorable discharge, but his career was over all the same.

So be it. He’d found a much more lucrative avenue for his talents.

He flexed his neck muscles, then walked out the Buffalo’s cargo hold as the loading ramp unfolded before him. Only one of the vac-suited technicians in the bay noticed him; the others were still staring in the direction of the bombings. The woman was gaping at him - hard to blame her, really, nobody had mentioned anything about the freighter being filled with heavily armed men in coal-black power armor accompanied by mobile gun platforms.

“Hey-”

He levelled his infantry tribarrel and sawed her in half with a burst of armor-piercing darts. Rifle fire did for the other workers, all of them dead before they could even think of warning those outside.

“Get the other bays locked down now,” Supakorn said firmly to the other mercs and pirates following him. “We’re proceeding straight to the command center.”



“Trojan reports the operation has commenced,” Matty’s dispassionate voice came over the comm. “Estimate 95% probability he will have disabled or seized the station’s defences within 23.74 minutes.”

“So it begins,” Diata Mukendi murmured. Her thoughts were only peripherally on the chaos surely unfolding on Port Ikonia now; at present, her eyes were on the tactical display, showing the understrength patrol that had come out to inspect her fleet. “Think they’ll abort and run back, or figure they can’t do anything about whatever’s going on back there and proceed with the inspection?”

“Insufficient data. But irrelevant. They cannot avoid action given the current geometry.”

“Mm.” She watched steadily as the Catal ships continued approaching for their scan - they were now scarcely six thousand kilometers away. Just a little closer, and…

Now!

The icons seemed to freeze on her plot as the inhibitor kicked in, tearing the patrol’s vessels out of the spacetime bubbles that let them cross interplanetary distances within days. It couldn’t have been entirely unexpected; the reason they were attempting to perform the inspection in the first place was because such a large combat fleet in this relatively undeveloped subsector was naturally suspicious, after all. But what they had been expecting didn’t matter, not against such an imbalance of firepower.

Mattock Squadron’s two Thunder wings swept over the patrol frigates as they tried to flee, disabling their engines long before they could escape the trap. The Shepherd’s drones swarmed over its attackers, slicing at them with mining lasers, and one fighter was destroyed outright and another forced to limp away with half its avionics turned to slag. But in their distraction, they failed to notice the true threat - not that they could have stopped it even if they had. An Afflictor unphased beneath the drone tender, and two antimatter bolts blew the latter into oblivion.

The Razor’s Edge pursued the Hammerhead, closing the distance with sharp flashes of its phase skimmer.  Finding itself cornered, the prey raised its shield and turned to face its foe, unwilling to go down without a fight. But such a decrepit warship, with its fractured armor and defective flux grid, was no match for a fully functional Medusa. Light autocannons chewed away at the older vessel’s shields before it could bring its front-facing weapons to bear, and Giulio Pizzati’s eyes blazed with evil glee as a blast from two mining blasters sent his target into overload.

From there, it was simply a matter of pounding away at the defenseless ship. By the time it recovered, two Brawlers had come up to add their medium guns to the funeral pyre, and the explosion that consumed the ship seven seconds later spat out a lifeless wreck in its place. Moments later the last patrol ship died, the Vigilance’s thin hull gutted by a pair of Harpoon missiles, those internal circuits that had not been melted in the explosions now fused and burnt out by ion cannon fire.

“Well executed, everyone,” Mukendi said simply, quietly. “All units, reform on me and advance.”



“What have we got?” Archer’s voice was tense as she leaned on the conference table, sky blue irises gazing at the render of Port Ikonia’s whorled spindle form in the center.

“Main force of unknown size advancing south from the private bays, headed for the central area,” Koniecpolski said, highlighting the route on the schematic with a crimson line. “There was a Buffalo in that one bay and a Tarsus in the other, which suggests an outsized company or so. Call it maybe two fifty to three hundred hostiles. Based on the surveillance feed we got before it was shot out, about a quarter of them will be armored, and they have at least one MWP, likely more.”

He looked grimly at the other Marines who’d joined him, the Captain, and Commander Jaitley around the table - Lieutenant Park, First Sergeant Mokhtar, and all four of his squad leaders. All of them could do the math; all of them knew they were outnumbered five-to-one - at least - and caught badly out of position at that. Some of them probably wouldn’t be coming back tonight.

“We can assume they intend to secure the space elevator and Central Security,” Commissioner Teveto?lu said, her worried face displayed on the wallscreen to the side. “This will keep us from moving reinforcements through there, and give them control of Ikonia’s guns. And with that fleet closing in…”

“I assume you have a Plan B,” one of the NCOs muttered.

“We’ve got a pair of Valkyries with Marines prepping for liftoff now; ETA twenty-five minutes. If they can unload, the invaders will be completely outmatched and will have no choice but to surrender. But if the fleet or the station’s guns gets to them…”

Archer traced a pattern on her console, and the station map scaled down to make room for a display of the space around the planet. “So in space, we’re looking at one Medusa, two Brawlers, one Afflictor, and one Gemini with at least two fighter wings embarked. And to oppose them, we have one Enforcer (D) and two Monitors.” She frowned. “Can your forces hold Ikonia’s defense controls, Commissioner?”

“I’m afraid not, Captain. We should be able to put the system in lockdown for a while, but…”

“I see.” Her face was hard. “In that case, Major, I want your platoon disembarked immediately. Once they’re all off, the Valiant will perform an emergency undocking and move out to meet the enemy outside the range of Ikonia’s guns, stopping just long enough to destroy their docked freighters.” The planet view disappeared, and the station schematic returned to its full size. “What’s your plan for dealing with the ground threat?”


“If they’re headed for the centre of the station, then that’s where we’re going as well.” Koniecpolski highlighted a fresh path on the schematic. “The platoon will move straight towards Security Central till we reach the east spindle access, then squads three and four will peel off to seize the elevator. The rest of us will continue on to the previous objective.”

“They’ve got a head start, but without power armor the bulk of their force will be slower than ours. They’ll probably still get to the elevator before we do, but we should be able to relieve Security Central before it’s overrun. It’s overlooking the inner boulevard and can fire on them as they approach; we’ll have to hope that gives the defenders the edge they need. What kind of defenses can your people muster at Central, Commissioner?”

“A few security bots, and some automated gun emplacements. You have to understand, Major, that we’re not a military force. We never expected to stand off something like this.”

“Can’t be helped now. What about your special response teams?”

She shook her head. “Most of them were dispatched to the terror attacks around the station before we realised what was going on. We’re recalling the ones that aren’t engaged right now, but…”

“If they get there, they get there.” He looked around at the table again. “Alright, time’s short. If anyone has anything to say, do it now.”

Sergeant Mokhtar raised a hand. “If we use heavy weapons inside the high-density areas, we’ll cause a lot of damage. Rules of engagement?”

The major thought for a while, then grunted. “If you encounter armored units, go ahead and turn them into kielbasa. Else, don’t fire any plasma cannons or missiles until I tell you to. Clear?”

“Clear.”

“Alright, then. We’ve all got places to be, so let’s get suited and get this ball rolling.”



As Archer left the conference room, a corner of her mind remembered to be grateful that Sybitz had turned down her offer of detaching a squad as backup for the Krešimirovi? raid. “Putting your armored heavies anywhere on the planet, much less having them follow me around, is at the very least going to make everyone suspicious once the witnesses start circulating. They could even blow my cover outright.” She grimaced. “As it is, half the subsector probably knows I’m a turncoat. I don’t think I’ll be able to ply my trade ‘round these parts after this.”

Well, thank goodness, Archer had carefully avoided muttering.

“Anyway, thanks for the offer, but we need subtlety for this, not firepower. Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” Adela smiled. “If all goes well, we’ll get your info and nobody will realise anything even happened.”

Which was how they’d successfully uncovered the Quasar plot, and she now had four whole squads of Marines to deal with this crisis instead of three. Thank god for little silver linings.

Now it only remained to be seen if they would live to make anything out of it.



“All units disembarked,” Mokhtar’s voice came in through the armor’s comm system. “A minute to assemble and we’ll be on our way.”

“Good,” Koniecpolski said. “Report when we’re ready and Captain Archer can take her ship out of here.”

He looked at the Marines in their mottled green armor forming up in neat ranks, the four-legged Mobile Weapons Platforms coming up behind with a whirr. Hardly parade-perfect, but parade-perfect was pretty much at the bottom of the list of things they needed right now.

Great. I’m a “major” in charge of a single platoon, about to lead them against five-to-one odds, with the knowledge that if we fail a whole planetary government is getting overthrown. Even with our superior training and equipment - thank goodness cruiser-embarked platoons come with a full set of power armor - this is going to be one hell of a fight. The recruiter sure as hell didn’t say anything about this.

“Man, if this works,” one of the privates said, tapping his plate shield, “I’m proposing to Commander Bracket right away. Don’t care if she’s a Navy puke.”

“Me too,” a female - and definitely heterosexual - corporal chimed in.

Koniecpolski suppressed a smile, examining his own shield. It was a simple sheet of multilayered composite armor for a starship, shaped into an elongated hexagon in the Valiant’s machine shop and attached with a clamp to the off-shoulder of his power armor. With it, he could be assured of protection from small arms kinetics and even (theoretically) light anti-armor single warheads across up to ninety degrees, and still fire his rifle two-handed. It might just save a few lives when First and Second Squads came charging down the boulevard with nary any cover.

“Well, in that case,” he said, “we’ll just have to make sure we all live to make it to the wedding, don’t we?”
[close]
« Last Edit: August 20, 2017, 05:04:36 AM by Histidine »
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Histidine

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Re: The Marenos Crisis (ch.14 & 15: 2015-01-04)
« Reply #39 on: January 04, 2015, 02:16:06 AM »

Chapter 15
Spoiler
“Marine platoon has left the bay,” Jaitley reported. “All civilians have been evacuated. We’re ready to go.”

“Alright.” Artemis Archer looked at Chief Divila at the helm, her expression carved from stone. “Burn it, Bruno. No need to worry about accidents this time.”

“With pleasure. Fasten your seat belts, people.”

Two seconds to warm up the main thrusters and maneuvering jets, and then the PLS Valiant shot out of the bay in a screaming pillar of flame, scorching every exposed surface behind it. She swung around the station, coming to a halt outside Bays 2 and 3, and HVDs and phase beams fired ruthlessly at the ships docked within.

With no maneuvering possible and no shields to interdict the incoming fire, the result was a foregone conclusion. The freighters inside went up in massive fireballs, blasting their cradles into so much debris and burning everything in the vicinity. The bulkheads actually held - they were built to survive precisely such a disaster as this one - but in every other aspect, the only thing the port authorities would ever be doing with the docking bays again would be collecting the insurance on them.

The Eagle was already speeding off, ready to challenge the foes still ahead.



Deus!” Giulio Pizzati exclaimed as the computer displayed the thermal imagery of the explosion ripping out a chunk of Ikonia’s whorl. “Was that Trojan?”

“Possible but uncertain,” Matty answered. “However, it may be related to the cruiser-sized vessel leaving the station.”

“What is it?” Diata Mukendi said stiffly, her arms tensing as she leaned forward in her seat.

“Identifying… Eagle-class,” and she felt her blood run cold. “Transponder identifies it as the PLS Valiant.



The two security guards outside the central elevator shaft crumpled to the deck in a bloody heap, and Suparkorn Ngamsan watched as his mercs stepped over the corpses. Their light ballistic armor had never been intended to stop tribarrels or heavy infantry lasers, and the attack had reached them before they could finish evacuating the civilians from the area.

A couple of the pirates mowed down the stragglers, laughing at their screams; it was strictly unnecessary, gratuitous murder, but Supakorn wasn’t about to stop them. The heavy steel-cored blast doors had been sealed just ahead of them, but a combat engineer was already walking forward with breaching charges, sticking them to the grey surfaces. Four of them were attached in a rectangle before he ran back, the others promptly taking cover behind walls and around corners.

“Fire in the hole!”

The industrial-grade blast door was tough, but the seismic charges had been designed specifically to deal with such as it. They tore half a dozen large chunks out of it, the smallest the size of a ground car’s engine block, and sent them hurtling into the waiting area beyond. Into the breach went a pair of tracked MWPs, to be met with a hail of rifle fire. Ferrous capsules pinged and flattened against the hard armor as more of the security personnel desperately tried to stop the advance of those who had invaded their home city.

A few short bursts of MG fire dealt with that nuisance, and the armored mercs followed their robotic allies into the breach, seeking out the space elevator’s control center.



“Contact,” someone said over the comm net, and Koniecpolski jerked his rifle around to bear on the targets highlighted on his display. Two of the terror cell operatives were crouching near a wall beside the burnt-out husk of what had once been a clinic, taking pot-shots at a police officer. The cop’s incapacitated partner was lying in a pool of blood nearby, a bullet having punched clean through her left kidney.

“I got this,” came the calm voice of one of the fireteam leaders, and a rifle grenade darted from the side to just behind the target. The explosion that followed was small, but more than sufficient to do the job.

There were no more hostiles in the immediate vicinity, but gunfire and explosions were still audible in the distance ahead, and the major tensed at the thought of the corpses that were no doubt awaiting. He avoided looking at the charred and bullet-ridden bodies of civilians strewn about in this very corridor, instead watching one of First Squad’s medics as he tended to the wounded officer.

“Thanks,” the other officer said, still shaking a little.

“Any more hostiles up ahead?”

“Not until the elevator,” he said, accepting a water canteen from one of the other Marines. “But from the radio chatter, the main force has already reached the Inner Loop. I don’t think our guys will be able to hold out for long.” Not all the weariness on his face, Koniecpolski knew, was from the gunbattle he’d just been in. “Please, hurry.”

“We will. Anyone there we can talk to?”

“Captain Kostadinov’s coordinating the defence. You can reach him on wideband at 140.85.”

“Understood.” Koniecpolski signalled the others with a jerk of his head. “Double time, people. Those boys and girls out there are counting on the cavalry, and that’s us.” As he fell in behind First Squad, the spidery form of the MWP blazing a trail ahead, he thought: I just hope their faith isn’t misplaced.



“Incoming comm, sir!” one of the men reported sharply.

Hristo Kostadinov tossed the rifle magazine in his hand to another officer and got up from the open ammunition crate to walk to the communicator on the plastic table in the middle of the room. “Captain Kostadinov, Special Response Unit,” he said simply to the image of the hard-faced, clean-shaven man. “You are?”

“Major Koniecpolski, League Marine Corps. I’ve got a platoon coming to relieve you.” The noise of gunfire rang in the room, but the security officer continued listening to the crisp, clear bass on the speakers. “It sounds like you’re heavily engaged down there. How long can you hold out?”

“Like this?” He shook his head. “Place no bets on longer than five minutes. Definitely not ten. And the offer of assistance is appreciated, but one platoon seems… insufficient against what we face.” He didn’t mention the oddity of a major commanding a single platoon.

The Marine frowned slightly, almost imperceptibly, for a moment. “Right,” Koniecpolski said, smoothing his expression. “But I think we’ll surprise you with what we can do against impossible odds. What are your numbers?”

“Three security bots still functioning, but they’re bringing up more heavy weapons. About half the turret grid is up, plus forty or so people who can use a gun.”

“Got it. Is there any information you can provide to help us equalise the field a little?”

Kostadinov started to say something, but was interrupted by a rumbling explosion that shook the building and several unsecured objects toppling to the floor. He righted himself, then went on as if nothing happened. “Their lead elements…”



“Flank attack! Flank attack –”

Supakorn almost whipped his head around at the pirate’s exclamation on the comm net. Several indistinct noises followed, then a scream, and the transmission went dead.

He grunted in disapproval, bringing up the feed from one of the MWPs. The two miniature armored vehicles accompanying the elevator detachment were already turning around to deal with the newly emerged threat. They’d just gotten to the east elevator access when the blast doors opened - whoever the attackers where, they’d apparently managed to bypass the controls - and smoke grenades burst into thick grey clouds.

Then the power-suited figures came rushing through the fog, and he stiffened in shock. Even if he hadn’t recognized the color instantly, there was no mistaking the insignia on their breastplates.

League Marines!? Here?!

The MWPs opened fire immediately, their heavy ballistics cleaving through even the thick ballistic plates of their opponents, and the first two hostiles went down. Then the green glow of an infantry plasma bolt lit up the smoke a split second before it struck one of the vehicles dead center, and Supakorn stifled a curse as the feed went blank.

“Order Platoon Three back to secure the elevator,” he told his lieutenant. “The rest of us will proceed as planned.” If those incompetents can’t deal with this on their own, they can expect no aid, he did not add. That much was already understood, in this line of work.



The Edge’s phase skimmer activated less than a dozen milliseconds before the lead HVD round struck its shield, and Mukendi gritted her teeth. Another skip backwards and one of the Brawlers shifting to cover it, and the Medusa’s badly strained flux capacitors were finally able to vent.

She’d fought some tough opponents before, but this Eagle was something else entirely. She turned with far more grace than any ship her size had a right to, and when she fired it was rare indeed that she missed. Not even the squadron’s Afflictor could get behind her to threaten her unshielded engines, especially not with the Catal Space Force’s Monitor covering her six and that insufferable Gladius wing buzzing about. And there was no way she was going to take a destroyer and three frigates against an escorted cruiser in a head-on fight.

Jujitsu has overloaded!” Pizzati barked suddenly, and the pirate captain stifled a snarl as she saw the traces of ballistic fire streaking towards the frigate on her ship’s port. “Harpoons incoming!”

She started to bark an order, but Matty was already moving the ship to cover their smaller ally with its point defense lasers, and she shook herself. It must be awfully nice to be an AI, the thought wandered through her mind even as she watched the lasers - thankfully - catch all the incoming missiles short of their target. No jittery nerves, no stunned delays in reacting to threats, no sense of hopelessness…

But not even Matty’s cybernetic reflexes and wit could overcome the disparity of firepower in this slugging match, and she curled her fingers into a pair of fists. Then her hands were flying over her console, mapping out an attack pattern, and she punched the key to submit.

“All units, attack plan has been uploaded and designated as Gamma,” she spoke into the comm. “Execute on my mark.”

The four combat ships and two fighter wings of Mattock Squadron drew back for several seconds, staring down their foes… then drove forward simultaneously, converging on the CSS Oz.

Caught by surprise, the aged destroyer by the Eagle’s starboard side found itself facing a blistering hail of concentrated fire. Phase beams, flak cannons and PD lasers cut many of the incoming Thunders to shreds, but enough of them survived to loop around fire their ion cannons and Harpoon missiles at point-blank range. The Enforcer could not possibly shield against threats from so many directions at once, and circuits fused and hull plates shattered under the battering. Then the Afflictor was in attack range, twin, antimatter blasters discharging, and the Oz’s engines burst into crew-roasting flames.

But even as the Razor’s Edge closed in to finish it off, the Valiant was there, lunging ahead on maneuvering jets to interpose herself between predator and prey. The cruiser turned her righteous fury on her high-tech foe, and with a few of the Gladii breaking off their hunting the surviving enemy fighters to use their machine guns on a larger target, even the Medusa’s deep flux banks withered under the strain. It took a few seconds for the skimmer to recharge and make good its hasty retreat; a few long seconds during which huge, air-bleeding gashes were torn into its bow.

“Tch,” was all Mukendi said as she watched the wounded but still living Enforcer huddle closer to its companions for protection.



The Inner Loop was two wide road analogues, separated by a row of trees, with a tramway running down the middle of each road. The deckhead rose five storeys above, suspended lights shining brightly to match the midday on the dirt-bound city beneath the station. With the sudden pirate attack, the transit service had stopped and the crowds normally thronging the area had scattered in fright, often leaving their belongings scattered about.

“There they are,” Mokhtar murmured, as Koniecpolski looked through the recon drone’s feed and frowned. The defenders of Security Central were dug in fairly well, and they had a good number of heavy weapons, but the incoming volume of fire was far greater than their own. He suppressed a wince at the sight of the rocket streaking from the right, cutting a fiery path through the air till it struck the fourth floor, and a human body fell through the plume of smoke to hit the deck.

“Now’s our chance to hit them from the flank,” he said, zooming out a bit. “Rafe, what’s your status?”

“We’re driving them back, but they’re putting up a hell of a fight,” Third Squad’s staff sergeant reported. “I’ve already got three men down, and they’re starting to break out the heavy weapons.”

“But you can take the objective.”

The pause was brief, less than half a second. “Yes, sir. We’ll break them.”

“Copy. See you at the debriefing.”

The major turned back to his own looming battle, and his face was solid granite. “Leapfrog by squads to one hundred meters, then section full charge. Last fireteam from each squad and MWPs will suppress. Squad leaders, confirm.”

“First Squad confirms.”

“Second Squad confirms.”

He nodded, even though he knew no-one could see it. Rifle in hand, he raised his right arm high, then brought it down to point straight forward in a chopping motion. “Section, forward!”

First Squad charged ahead, exoskeletal “muscles” propelling them on the hard deck around the curve at thirty-six kilometers an hour. As the flank elements of the enemy force turned to face them, they came to a screeching halt, dropped behind their shields, and opened fire.

The mag-rounds zipped back and forth, but Janusz Koniecpolski’s men were largely safe behind their metallic barriers. Even those high-power rounds that would normally have penetrated either their shields or armor could not get through both at once, slowed and deflected as they were. In contrast, the pirates and mercs without power armor went down in bloody rows - as did those who did, once the plasma rifles and mechs’ light cannons got to them.

But for every enemy who fell, two more seemed to take his place, and one of his Marines stumbled, then fell as two burst lasers cut loose on her at once. Cursing, Koniecpolski dropped his rifle and drew a smoke grenade. It went flying forty meters along with two others, and the burning beams were suddenly scattered and decohered into harmlessness by the reflective particles. Second Squad was already running up and past them, forming a line just behind the smoke as blind-fired projectiles flew in both directions.

The clouds dispersed… and revealed no less than three tracked MWPs coming to the front of the invaders’ line, accompanied by at least two mercs with infantry missile launchers and one with the multi-launch armor-mounted version. The Trojan line was briefly punctuated by thick clouds of backblast and smoke, before the the League’s own, heavier mechs and the two missile-armed Marines of Second Squad answered with their own launches.

Point defense lasers did their best, but they couldn’t possibly catch them all. Of the twelve incoming warheads, four were stopped short of their targets, and two went wide and struck empty ground, the high-grade armor power armor protecting the Marines from the worst of the blast and fragmentation. The other six ripped through the squad, and one of the MWPs went down, collapsing in a leggy pile of scrap as its hull took a direct hit.

But their missiles were fire-and-forget, and sped on without a care as to what brutal fate had befallen their masters.

The heavy machine guns on the older pirate/mercenary MWPs were workable as an anti-missile defense, but they turned too slowly and their software was too primitive for them to be truly effective. They got but three of the ten incoming projectiles, and then the darts dove into the mess and fully repaid the carnage their victims had just before inflicted on others.

More of the League’s missiles had gotten through, the pirates and mercs were generally less well-armored, and they were more tightly packed. Warhead detonations and secondary explosions tore through them in a murderous orgy, gouging and pulping their formation, and even among their mechanical subordinates, only one survived for a First Squad plasma gunner to disable with a shot to the turret.

Those of what had once been an oversized platoon that could still run, did so. Most of them were no longer in a condition to do so.

Koniecpolski and the others came running up, killing any of the invaders still shooting at them, and then he brought up his armor’s optical magnification and stifled a snarl. A section of hostiles led by armored mercs was bursting through the front gate of Security Central, running past the crippled hulk of a patrol bot, and the surviving pirates were coming up to hold the rear. The objective was still a hundred and forty meters away.

“They’re inside,” Mokhtar hissed. “If we don’t catch them...”

Koniecpolski looked over his armored shoulder at First Squad, still largely intact, and the battered remnants of Second Squad. “Macklin, Nzuji, Wu, form on me and the spider. Rest of you, cover us.”

“Sir,” Corporal Wu began, “I don’t think that’s –”

“No time, soldier,” the major said firmly, taking a moment to reload his rifle. “With their perimeter breached, it’s up to us now to stop them before they get hold of the station’s guns. Move!”

And he took off down the boulevard at a dead run.



“They’re inside!”

Kostadinov looked up from his console just in time to see the officer who’d said that tumble backwards in a trail of crimson droplets, the projectile punching through her left lung before burying itself in the ceiling.

He looked around sourly at the dusty, pocked, bloody room around him. Of the seven people who’d originally piled in here, two were dead, and Inspector Ceylan might soon be joining them. Another officer was bent over him, dressing his wounds in a far more methodological manner than should have been possible under the circumstances. At least the cracks of mag-rounds striking the windowsill and the walls had stopped, probably because there was no-one left shooting at the pirates still outside.

“Battery Control must be protected.” He picked up a well-used carbine from table. “Mardin, with me. Turan, Bagryana, stay here, try to rally survivors.”

He didn’t even wait for their acknowledgements before speeding out of the room, praying he’d get there in time.



As Major (Acting) Janusz Koniecpolski rushed forward through the sleeting mag-rifle fire, the traditions of distant ancestors long left behind on Earth seemed to follow him. True, there were many differences. Despite being a career soldier, Koniecpolski had never been big on military tradition; his power armor was a poor aesthetic match for a good warhorse; and if someone had suggested attaching huge wooden wings to his gear to make intimidating noises, he would have politely recommended a good rehabilitation center.

It didn’t matter. At that moment, charging into the teeth of the foe, he was every bit the hussar of old.

The fifteen seconds it took for him and his impromptu fireteam to cross the distance seemed like forever to the other troops covering him, but they held somehow. Rifle, tribarrel, autocannon and plasma fire drove more than one would-be killer back - or down - for that precious quarter minute, and then Koniecpolski was in their lines. He vaulted over the still-burning husk of a destroyed MWP, one-handed mag-rifle fire perforating a pirate’s torso, and knocked out another with a shield bash that sent the hapless gunman flying into a wall.

The three handpicked marines had fallen in, now, and capsules and 40 mm grenades dispersed the stragglers quickly. With no time to dig in, the rearguard for the invaders’ entry team was neutralized in short order, and the major and his men went in as their mech parked itself outside the compound entrance, keeping any would-be pursuers at bay.



The two halves of the plastic double door flew open with a pair of sharp kicks, and armored mercs poured through the gap into the foyer. They responded to the low-power handgun shots bouncing off their armor with staccato rifle bursts and a single HE grenade, and Suparkorn Ngamsan’s tribarrel blew apart a security droid on the other end of the room.

Despite the flawless outcome of the exchange, he clenched his jaw in frustration. Ahead, between him and the control center for the station’s guns, he faced only the Ikonia security force’s desk jockeys and criminal investigation types. Good enough men and women at what they did, but no match for his war-bloodied mercs in a tooth-and-claw fight. But behind him and closing fast were the League Marines, tearing through their opposition like demons from the darkest afterworld.

How? It shouldn’t have been possible! A single platoon, however good, overcoming an entire heavily armed company?

But it was happening, all the same, and he had no choice but to deal with it. If he could take the control room and dig in till Mattock arrived and forced the station to surrender, he could still come out on top. He still had enough troops to hold the League back until then, and…

Actually, where was Mattock? They should have been surrounding Port Ikonia by now.

But that, too, was out of his control, and so he focused on the task in front of him. The lead fireteam was going around a corner now, and screams filled the corridor ahead as they hosed it with iron. In two seconds more they were moving again, the ex-Hegemony officer taking only a brief moment to double-check the floor plans the Hatchet mole had secured. Just five turns and two stairs down more, and all that would be left to do would be to breach the security door. That task they had more than enough firepower for.

A series of thumping explosions came down the hallway behind them, and Supakorn felt the urge to start running. The pirate “company” lacked the proper command & control net he’d have access to back with the Hegemony, so he’d only know how well the rearguard was doing when or if they reported in, but he suspected the answer wasn’t a pleasant one.

Regardless, there was nothing to do but keep moving. He just wished he’d brought some area-denial charges along.



The corridor was clear, except for yet more dead bodies and pools of blood. Koniecpolski tightened his grip on his rifle as he followed Sergeant Macklin past the perforated plastiglass office partitions, eyes wide open for the ambush he half-expected. But none came, and the only sound other than their footfalls was the gunfire further ahead.

The NCO burst past a double door into a cafeteria, then snarled as his shield caught a full burst of rifle fire. A laser struck his right torso, the vaporizing composite staggering him with explosive force, and he stumbled as more hits struck the shield.

But then Specialist Nzuji brought up her grenade launcher and squeezed the trigger four times. She didn’t have a direct line of sight, but she didn’t need one. Four plasma grenades went flying into the room, and none of the airbursts triggered more than five meters from at least one of the armored mercs engaging them. Any unprotected human would have been killed instantly; as it was, both the hostiles were sent reeling, nanocomposite “skin” fusing and deforming under the sudden fiery heat.

Koniecpolski rushed into the now-burning cafeteria, jumping over a molten puddle of what had once been floor tiles, and sent a table flying into one of the mercenaries. There was no time to take prisoners; he stepped over the man who’d been knocked to the ground, and fired a three-round burst straight through his visor, clenching his jaw only slightly as the translucent material was smeared with thick splotches of bright red.

There was another series of shots off nearby to his side, and the other red indicator on his display vanished as well. “Macklin?” he asked, still looking ahead for fresh threats rather than back.

“Armor’s compromised. My rifle’s broke, too.” The sergeant shuffled his feet. “Wish I could move the shield to the other side.”

“Grab one of these guy’s guns - if they still work - and bring up the rear. Wu, take point.”

“Aye, sir.”

They piled into and went down the stairwell off to the side, Koniecpolski frowning at the noise they were making. They’d gotten lucky with that last ambush, but fortune plays no favorites, and there were only four of them to lose.

He didn’t have a communicator that could reach the Valiant, and had no way of knowing how the battle in space was going; for all he knew the enemy had punched through and was closing in on Ikonia right this moment. Which meant they had to seize the station’s guns, one way or another.

“Kostadinov, what’s your status?”

“Inside Battery Control,” the harsh response came. “They’re outside. Doors secure, but I think they plan to breach…”

They’d almost gotten down the needed two floors when connection was abruptly terminated and the stairwell rumbled, a loud explosion sending shockwaves through the walls. “We’d better hurry,” he murmured.



Unexpectedly enough for the invaders, two of the men in the control room was not only not disabled by the breaching charge blowing the double door in, but sturdy and disciplined enough to fire their weapons at the intruders. One was using a mag-carbine, and at this close range even the relatively lightweight weapon was more than capable of sending tungsten AP rounds through the point man’s torso armor. He fell forward, power suit hitting the deck with an unceremonious thud.

The other defender’s scattergun wasn’t quite able to match that feat, but its lighter flechettes did carve through his target’s thin joint armor. Even from behind the helmet, the merc’s scream as three-millimeter darts shredded his right elbow was clearly audible.

Another burst from the carbine sent the third man through sprawling, but not before he triggered his own weapon. The rifle bullets went through the security officer’s unpowered body armor and the flesh and bone behind it, and he fell back in a dying heap. The fourth attacker followed up swiftly, killing the other man - and an unarmed technician behind him - with a pair of skull-shattering rounds, and then they shot up two more people - street cops who hadn’t been trained to stand up to a door exploding in their faces.

Supakorn walked in the large room, took one look at the the red warning signs flashing on the holo-screens, then turned to the control techs cowering under their desks and glared. “I want someone to help unlock and reprogram the system. You have three seconds to volunteer.”

They just stared at him, unmoving, till the three seconds were up. Half a second later, there was a cacophony of screams as one of them was shredded into a bloody carcass by a hundred tribarrel rounds.

“Two seconds.”

“I’ll do it,” one whispered hoarsely. “J-Just stop shooting.”

The mercenary leader nodded, and one of the armored figures stepped forward to help as the operator timidly crawled out from under the console.



“Four tangos,” Wu reported crisply, sweeping the microcam across the room. “All in armor, and one has a tribarrel. Could probably punch through any cover in there. And they’ve got at least one hostage.”

“Explosives are precluded, anyway. We need the controls intact.”

“Suggestions?”

“Two of them are facing away from us, and the third appears to be wounded,” Nzuji said. “Subtlety’d be wasted on this one. We’d better hurry, too; I think they’ve unlocked the controls.”

“Direct breach, then.” Koniecpolski started a five-second countdown. “Macklin, swap with Nzuji, then stay out here and cover our six. Rest of us, pick targets.”

The icon of his chosen mark turned green, and two others went blue. The milliseconds zipped past in flashing red digits, and he tightened the grip on his gun…
 
Wu was first through the door, mag-rifle snarling as he sent a fistful of tungsten through the nearest merc’s face and throat. The major was right behind him, aiming at the tribarrel-armed one near the centre of the room, but his rounds went flying overhead as the target ducked with remarkable speed. The distraction gave time for the merc further behind him to dive for cover as well, and Koniecpolski hissed even as he continued rushing forward.

Behind him was the sharp crack of a bullet striking hard alloy, and then the barking retort of railgun fire; the target indicator dropped to the floor and vanished momentarily after. Panicked cries of the would-be hostages filled his audio pickups, the sole standing civilian dropping to the floor and curling up in a whimpering pile, but he had other things on his mind.

The tribarrel gunner was wheeling around the corner, and his weapon sprayed lead at four thousand rounds a minute. The major heard Nzuji shriek in pain as her pavise was perforated, bullets cleaving through holes left by their earlier compatriots, and felt a punch in the gut as her indicator flashed to the orange of incapacitation.

Then the bastard was hidden again as Wu’s volley clawed at the plastic workstation, even as the other surviving merc blind-fired at Koniecpolski from behind cover. Fortunately he was able to bring his shield around to catch the supersonic capsules, and a fresh burst from the other Marine drove the hostile back down.

A vaulting leap over the console brought him on top of the enemy gunner, knocking the armored figure to the ground. He swiftly turned and killed the other tango with a burst to center mass, but then found himself falling as the one beneath him grabbed his leg with both hands and jerked it sideways with a full-body rolling motion. They separated quickly and stumbled to their feet, the Marine swinging his rifle around.

The merc grabbed the weapon’s barrel with one hand and shoved it aside, sending the triggered burst into the nearby wall, and seized the shield with the other. A sharp push sent his League opponent spinning, sprawling on the floor, and he leapt on the vulnerable Marine.

Koniecpolski flipped over just in time to catch his adversary’s arm, the monomolecular tip of the wristblade just inches away from his vulnerable throat. They grappled violently in a throwback to the oldest, crudest contests of strength between men, armored kneecaps driving into bodies with all the force their exoskeletal actuators could muster, voices each a snarl of hate and fury…

Until Corporal Wu Xunjian wheeled around the consoles at the other side of the room, rifle at the ready, and turned Suparkorn Ngamsan’s cerebellum into so much jelly with a well-placed squeeze of the trigger.



It took several seconds for the ferrous shell from the heavy gauss cannon atop Ikonia’s to cross the several thousand across space to where Mattock Squadron had driven back the station’s defenders. It took but a split second more for it to vanish in a blinding flash and a shower of sparks on the shield of the Razor’s Edge.

“Please tell me that was friendly fire,” Diata Mukendi grated as flux warning alarms rang out on the bridge.

“Negative.” Matty’s tone as he engaged the phase skimmer and sidestepped the following shot was as emphatetic as it was possible for the AI to be. “They have fired three shots now, with each trajectory intersecting our position at time of fire to within 16.2 centimeters. Barring an IFF system or target identification failure, prior probability of this is estimated at under six point four percent.”

“And we still haven’t been able to contact Trojan.”

“Yes. Additionally, the response force from Catal’s surface is now two point seven minutes out from Ikonia.”

She let out a long, drawn-out sigh. The enemy fleet was pulling back further, under the umbrella of their fixed guns, and she dared not follow them - not that it would have mattered much anyway, without Trojan’s troops in control of Ikonia. She’d had her chance to kill them and break through, and she’d blown it. Holk would not be pleased. He might understand, but he wouldn’t be pleased.

“Get us out of here, Matty. Our mission is over.”



The overhead spinal lights of the Inner Loop illuminated the ghastly scene at the makeshift hospital/morgue set up in front of Security Central, rows and rows of wounded  lying on white cots. The security officers who were still on their feet - there weren’t many of them, now - stood about awkwardly beside the armored golems of the Catal planetary army, keeping back the crowds of weeping families.

Captain Artemis Archer followed her lead bodyguard - one of her Marines, still in armor, as he gently but firmly parted the sea of people in their path. Her fingertips were oddly numb, and she couldn’t suppress a slight shiver at the low moans of the many patients or the persistent odor of antiseptic in the air.

The people she was looking for were off to one side, at a small wooden desk. “Captain,” a weary-looking Sezen Tevetoglu said, not even getting out of her chair. Janusz Koniecpolski was standing beside her, still in his armor but sans helmet, his face seeming to have aged far beyond his thirty-one years.

“Casualties?”

“We’re still counting the bodies,” she said morosely. “About seventy-two of the port’s security personnel are confirmed dead, along with sixteen of your Marines. We’ve got 213 civilian deaths so far, along with 167 of the invaders. Another hundred and two surrendered, and we’re treating some four-hundred-odd people from all groups for injuries.” She glanced, crestfallen, at the battered tower that had once housed Port Ikonia’s peacekeepers. “I suspect we’ll have a lot more work for the undertakers by next morning.”

Artemis closed her sky blue eyes for several moments, breathing slowly. She opened them again, her gaze sweeping across the victims of today’s events in the camp as doctors and medics frantically swarmed over them, and her face was a mask of iron when she turned back to look at the Commissioner.

“Kenneth Skilleton has a lot to answer for.”
[close]
« Last Edit: August 20, 2017, 05:12:50 AM by Histidine »
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SafariJohn

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Re: The Marenos Crisis (ch.14 & 15: 2015-01-04)
« Reply #40 on: January 05, 2015, 07:49:47 AM »

That ground combat was very well written.
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ArkAngel

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Re: The Marenos Crisis (ch.14 & 15: 2015-01-04)
« Reply #41 on: January 05, 2015, 10:09:24 PM »

As Hartlord said, very well written indeed. Was not expecting the attack on the station before I read the chapters. It was quite entertaining.
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"Yes... Yes I -am- sending you, alone, unarmed, against the might of the Hegemony defense fleet.  Not to worry - watching how they obliterate your puny frigate will be most... enlightening.  I shall dissect their tactics and emerge victorious!  Any questions? Then get to your ship, you launch in 5."

Histidine

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Re: The Marenos Crisis (ch.14 & 15: 2015-01-04)
« Reply #42 on: January 06, 2015, 06:26:14 AM »

I realised I haven't said this enough (or at all...?) before, so: thank you, everyone, for all the positive responses :) It's always good to know that one is on the right track.

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SafariJohn

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Re: The Marenos Crisis (ch.14 & 15: 2015-01-04)
« Reply #43 on: January 06, 2015, 07:02:55 AM »

I realised I haven't said this enough (or at all...?) before, so: thank you, everyone, for all the positive responses :) It's always good to know that one is on the right track.


No it's not! You haven't posted another chapter yet! :P ;D ;)
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Histidine

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Re: The Marenos Crisis (ch.16: 2015-01-18)
« Reply #44 on: January 18, 2015, 05:47:14 AM »

EDIT: Added a bit more scenery description
EDIT2: Added a new scene; correction to another

I realised I haven't said this enough (or at all...?) before, so: thank you, everyone, for all the positive responses :) It's always good to know that one is on the right track.
No it's not! You haven't posted another chapter yet! :P ;D ;)
Hah, you got me there :D Okay, here you go:


Chapter 16
Spoiler
Leaning on the conference table two days later, staring at the flashing red icons on the astrographic plot, Artemis Archer decided she didn’t like it one bit. To be sure, she’d known the details already, but seeing everything represented like this really drove home how bad it was… and how much worse it could get still.

“This is the confirmed list?” Rollyn Bracket whispered.

“As far as ‘confirmed’ goes, yes,” Ashok Jaitley said. “Memphis, Yunan, Algre and Ibers are all under the control of this… mysterious new entity. Secille is still holding out, but it’s under siege and likely won’t last much longer. It’s probably only a matter of time before most of the other systems go down as well.”

“Do we know who ‘they’ are?” Ross Diamond asked.

Archer shook her head. “No-one outside knows for sure; they’re keeping a tight lid on the occupied systems, and we haven’t heard a peep out of any station or planet once it fell under their control. But I doubt it’s a coincidence that their territory appears to be centered on Vaas.”

Hanna Battuta nodded. “You believe we are seeing the birth of a pirate empire.”

“And given the association we’ve discovered between Quasar Industries and the pirates, all sorts of worrisome possibilities spring to mind.” The captain’s expression was grim. “Whatever it is, it’s likely going to be more than we can handle ourselves.”

“So what’s the plan?” That was the displayed head of Adela Sybitz on a two-dimensional display screen; a few of the Valiant’s officers had expressed surprise at her being invited to this meeting, but none of them had really objected. There were just too many other things to be worried about.

“We should proceed immediately to Carda and reinforce it,” Jaitley said. “They aren’t technically a League associate member yet, but the diplomatic repercussions if it falls are undesirable all the same. Further, the safety of the Persean mission and citizens there need to be safeguarded. Navy reinforcements have likely already been requested, and we can link up with them for the counteroffensive.”

Archer looked at him. “Sensible. But I’m also worried about Quasar’s role in this. It’d be good if we did some more digging into them. Might be helpful if we could use Sekos’s military against the pirates, too.”

“Captain,” the XO said evenly, “if this is a Quasar plot to take over the subsector, walking right into their headquarters sounds contraindicated. And even if it isn’t, I’m not sure this is the best use of our time.”

“Carda will be fine on its own, Ash. They’ve got a pretty strong navy, and while the couple of destroyers we’ve got on station won’t add much power on their own, I doubt the pirates are willing to cross swords with the League just yet.” She tapped her console. “What we need the most right now is good intel. I think we’ve all had enough of fighting blind like this. Besides,” her face tightened, “once the smoke clears, Quasar’s probably going to destroy any evidence of their involvement. I want to stop them before they do, and I want to see the murderous scum responsible for this nailed to the wall.”

There were a few glances by the attendees at each other, but no-one voiced an objection. In fact, a collective murmur of approval went around the table.

“What about Catal?” Diamond put in. “Is it safe for us to leave them on their own here?”

“They’ve recalled all their fleet units and are holding their civilian ships in port. Commissioner Tevetoglu assures me that they’ll be able to stand off any force that isn’t significantly stronger than the one we fought off.” She frowned. “It’ll be hard on their trade for a while, but things should recover quite nicely when the pirate issue is dealt with once and for all.”

Her captainly gaze went around the table once more. “Anything else needs bringing up?” No-one said anything, and she nodded. “In that case, I’ll write out the message informing Fleet Command of our findings and intentions after this. In the meantime, how are our supply stocks?”



“Is this really necessary?” Loz Sequeira couldn’t help but stare at the bots removing the rocket launchers on the Armed & Reckless’s wingtips, their companions waiting nearby to fit the replacements.

“We’ve still got more than enough close-in firepower to gut any ship our size,” Sybitz answered beside him, her hands clasped behind her back. “What we’re lacking is a way to punch out the big boys when we need it, and this is just the solution to that. Besides, we can use the space freed up by the rocket magazines for more capacitors.”

“I don’t know,” he murmured. “Still seems like overkill to me.”

Five meters away, Valentina Dragunova scoffed, not even looking up from the maintenance console. “There is no such thing. There is only ‘open fire’ and ‘reload.’”

“Do you really have to quote that silly book every other hour?”

“Maybe if you’d try reading it, you’d be less of an embarrassing weakling!”

The conversation only got louder from there, and Sybitz had to cover her mouth with a fist to mask her chuckle. You guys, she thought, shaking her head. Up above, she saw the bots now moving on to the task of installing the new weapons - two Reaper-class torpedoes, shining scarlet in the light of the docking bay.

I just hope it doesn’t come down to actually firing them, a small voice whispered in the back of her mind, but she set it aside.



The face in the mirror never looked so sickly, Jennifer Lain reflected with a sigh.

In broad terms, it actually hadn’t changed at all. Generally smooth contours highlighted by the shoulder-length straight blonde hair, light brown irises, and typically sized and shaped nose, chin and lips, the last of which was colored a light shade of red as usual. It took a close observation to see the little hints like the fraying strands of yellow, the slight darkening under the haunted-looking eyes.

She turned away from the dresser, briefly closing her eyes. It’s nothing, really. I just can’t sleep, that’s all.

Yeah, can’t sleep. Wonder why that is.

She’d told herself she was only doing her job, that the one responsible for all this was CEO Skilleton, but that didn’t make it any easier. And if it did become easier… then what? She turned her head, glanced at her reflection again, then jerked away with a shudder at the piercing gaze that met her.

Briefly she wondered if Skilleton actually realised the full implications of what he’d done. He’d arrived just a few days before, and most of that time was spent hobnobbing with the ruling clique on Duval, so that he had no idea what was actually going on in the streets or the factory floor. Not that his fundamental arrogance or his obsession with his own lofty status would allow him to see what was in front of him even if he did. It was left to her to witness - and deal with - the resentment simmering beneath the surface, the little acts of resistance. The deliberate inefficiencies, the working to rule, the rare instance of minor sabotage.

To be sure, none of it was quite as bad as the open striking had been… yet. Who knew what would happen a month down the road, or a year?

And now there was yet another issue at the processing facility in Pynchet that required her personal attention. Exhaling sharply, she checked to make sure her white blouse and dark brown skirt were straightened out before starting to pack her things.



“Oh, look,” Lieutenant Commander Geraldine Cheah muttered. “Something interesting is happening for a change.”



From a distance, the Sekos system seemed like any other. A single habitable planet with cities bustling on its surface, ringed with satellites of various kinds. A couple of space stations drifted lazily, kept in place by the hi-tensile nanofibre cables of space elevators. Further out from the G3 system primary, asteroid mining operations were scattered about, and a single carefully guarded station siphoned hydrogen from a gas giant.

Even getting down and about with the locals didn’t always reveal the story. Knowing as ever the value of public relations (especially after the May Massacre), the system government was always careful to steer foreign visitors towards the most gilded districts of their stations and cities. Dazzled with all the pomp and splendour Sekos and its patrons could muster in the tourist and commercial areas, it was all too easy to overlook the skeletons in the closet. Unless one was already prejudiced against the local polity, or otherwise inclined to dig a little deeper than that…

“Ugh,” Diamond muttered, briefly taking his eyes off the dossier on his wristcomp to look at the planetary display on the main plot. “I can sense the stench of fascism reeking into the ship already.”

“You don’t approve of the local government, I take it,” Battuta said tonelessly, looking at him from her astrogation console.

“It says here they average thirteen public executions a cycle. Thirteen! What kind of dystopian hellhole even has one?”

“Actually, at least eleven polities in the Sector are known to actively practice it. Another thirty-four are recorded as doing it at least once since the Collapse.” He stared at her, and she lifted a hand. “I’m not saying it isn’t a horrible practice. All I’m saying is that it’s not all that extraordinary.”

“Well then, maybe we need to change the meaning of ‘ordinary’!” Diamond snapped.

“Calm down, Ross,” Archer cut in. “Got a read on those big ships docked at the station yet?”

The lieutenant commander had the grace to look abashed. “Um, sorry, ma’am. Alright… there’s an independent-flagged Atlas doing a transshipment, and a couple of escorted cruisers registered to Quasar Industries. He paused, then sat up abruptly. “Whoa, transponder identifies the Apogee as the QIS Overseer. If the database isn’t mistaken, it’s basically a private yacht for their top executives.”

“That’s… interesting. Does it say who it is?”

“No, ma’am. But I expect we’ll find out soon enough.”



“...so,” the engineer said as he lead the small party through the loading bay, “we were able to resolve the immediate problem with the gangue contamination, but the smelter continued to…”

General Manager Lain heard the words, but her mind was elsewhere. The technicians moving about the machinery around them seemed… unusually tense, for lack of a better descriptor. That was expected to some degree, with an inspection by the highest-ranked Quasar executive permanently stationed in Sekos, and it had only gotten more pronounced since that incident. But this was different somehow. Like they were waiting for something…

“Look out!”

Her head snapped to a pounding noise not far away, and was greeted with the sight of a five-metre utility mech charging at them, a rushing titan of grey and blue. She froze for almost a full second, gears racing in an effort to comprehend the situation, and then one of her bodyguards lifted her up and was spiriting out of the machine’s path.

The other guard drew a heavy gauss pistol, standing his ground as he levelled the weapon in a two-handed grip and fired. Wide-bore capsules struck the thick plastiglass in front of the cockpit over and over, denting and fracturing the material, but the machine didn’t even slow down. It raised both arms and brought them down, and he rolled out of the way a split-second before two meganewtons of hard metal cracked the ground where he stood.

He wheeled around and fired again and again, capsules ricocheting off the mech’s hard body. He didn’t even notice one of the technicians retrieving a gun of her own from a trolley - a much smaller pocket pistol, but scarcely less lethal for its size - till the woman opened fire. The two small-caliber shots that connected didn’t penetrate his low-profile body armor, but they nevertheless struck with bruising force that sent him reeling. She adjusted her aim quickly, before he could turn his gun on her, and put a single round through his left eyebrow.

Fifteen meters away, Lain gasped as her other bodyguard was swiftly dispatched in a bloody mess as well. He’d set her down next to a wall and unholstered his gun, ready to assist his partner, when a dozen flechettes from a scattergun shredded his torso. He was dead before he hit the ground, and yet the man who’d killed him walked over him and blew his face into a bloody ruin for good measure.

More gunfire and screams echoed from elsewhere in the building, and a blanched Jennifer Lain looked up from the ground to see a gaunt, bronzed figure with an automatic rifle advancing towards her. The gun was pointed straight at her collarbone, and she felt a cold sweat beading on her neck as she stared into the man’s hard grey eyes.

“Hello, General Manager,” Felipe Arrastia said in a voice of frozen helium.



“I’m very sorry, Captain,” the 3D image of the pleasantly attractive officer said, “but I can’t possibly arrange a meeting with Director-General Bellerive on such short notice. She’s a very busy woman, you know, especially with all the civil disorder going around these days.”

“I’m not asking for a meeting!” Archer snapped. “I just need a few minutes of comm time!”

“All the same, Captain, the director-general is…” she looked nervously offscreen for a moment, “...preoccupied at the moment. I’m sorry, it’s an issue of national security. If you’d like to leave a message, perhaps we could…”

The League officer let out a long, drawn-out breath. “Fine. You tell your boss to let me speak with her within the next twelve hours, and she stands to collect a sizeable monetary reward for herself. Else, I get what I need some other way and leave, and in six months she faces a tribunal for her involvement in interstellar piracy and crimes against humanity.” Fangs bared: “How about that?”

A carefully manicured hand went up to the woman’s collar. “Surely… you can’t be serious…”

“You damn right I’m serious!” Archer brought her left palm down on the table with an explosive crack. “And my name isn’t Shirley!”

“I’ll… I’ll be sure to inform her, Captain.” She shuddered, her hands shaking. “Just… just give me a minute.”

“Good,” the Valiant’s CO said. “I’ll be waiting. Archer, clear.”

The projector disengaged, and she sighed as she turned back to the schematic of the Quasar station she’d been examining. Any temptation to try a raid, even assuming she didn’t mind any evidence acquired in this manner being summarily thrown out, was instantly depressed by the sight of the torus-shaped structure. It could bring the firepower equivalent of a battleship to bear on any one target, and in what she could only describe as a fit of paranoia, the documentation suggested an entire battalion’s worth of security droids on standby in the station. There was no way she could justify sending her now-understrength Marine platoon into that.

A chime sounded from the communicator, and her finger on the receive button brought up the familiar caramel face of Lieutenant Belle Gray. “Transmission from the Sekos Security Directorate, Captain,” the communications officer said. “It’s coded as high priority.”

“Well, that was quick,” Artemis murmured. “Put them through, Belle.”

This time it was the two-dimensional screen on the wall that flickered to life, and she turned to face it… then paused, eyebrows raised. The broad-shouldered woman in the grey uniform she’d been expecting was there, alright, but a couple of other obvious bigwigs were also present. The heavyset man in the expensive-looking suit at the end of the table was…

“Captain Archer?” he said, in a tone that sounded like it was trying a little too hard to be courteous. “My name is Kenneth Skilleton, and I am CEO of Quasar Industries. We have a situation we would like the Persean League’s assistance in resolving.”

“Situation.” The perfectly neutral, innocuous word was surprisingly sour in her mouth. “Explain.”

“Four hours ago, terrorists took control of an ore processing facility in Pynchet belonging to Quasar Industries, Captain,” Michèle Bellerive put in. “They’ve taken hostages and rigged the compound with explosives. We have them surrounded with no chance of escape, but they’re dug in, and one false move could cause a lot of deaths and cost Quasar a considerable amount of damage.”

And I’m sure that’s the order of your priorities, Archer did not say. “That is concerning, alright. Who are they and what do they want?”

“A group of Quasar employees and planetary dissidents, as we understand it. Their stated demands are, and I quote: reparations of a thousand credits each to the next-of-kin of those killed in the May incident, removal of all Quasar business operations in the Sekos system, and a ship to take the conspirators to a planet of their choosing.” She shook her head. “It goes without saying that neither the government nor CEO Skilleton will in any way accede to any demands by a terrorist organisation.”

“Okay. But I’m certain you can deal with it out of your own resources, and I don’t see how much we could add. Why do you need my help?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Skilleton’s tone was testy. “If the Sekos government - or Quasar Security - is the one to break the terrorists - no matter how much they deserve it - the media windbags will be bloviating for a month about our ‘heavy-handed methods’ and ‘the terrible lengths’ to which we’ve driven them. Whereas if it’s the League that resolves the matter, it’ll be seen as what it is: a police action against a violent extremist group.”

“I see.” Her right hand was safely under the table, and she could clench her fist without anyone noticing. “Now tell me just one thing: why would I agree to this?”

An indignant reaction immediately started boiling around the table, but Director-General Bellerive held her hands out. “Calmly, gentlemen!” she said urgently, shooting a quick glance at Skilleton before turning back to the naval officer. “Please, Captain. I know you may not approve of our government or Quasar Industries, but if this situation isn’t resolved cleanly, a lot of innocents will be killed and our society will be thrown into a state of panic. Everyone is hopeful that we can get the hostages out safely, and the Persean League has a good reputation in the Sector, both militarily and diplomatically. If you were to throw your support behind us, we’re confident of a positive resolution to the situation.”

“Further to that,” Skilleton said, “Quasar Industries possesses a significant degree of wealth and influence, as I’m sure you know. We are prepared to… demonstrate our appreciation in an unambiguous manner should you be successful in this effort.”

Archer’s eyes narrowed at the implied bribe, but she made no comment. “Fine. Suppose I were to offer my assistance on the matter. Are you just asking for a Marine breaching squad, or do I get to talk to them first?”

“It would be most ideal if you could persuade them to surrender, yes,” one of the other men at the table said. “But under no circumstances are you to make any promises on behalf of the Republic of Sekos.”

“Very well, then.” The orange-haired captain throttled the urge to sigh again; wouldn’t do to let it out in front of her audience. “Have one of your officers ready with details to liase with me and my Marine SO. If he can persuade us that this problem of yours merits our attention, I’ll see what I can do. That’s all I’ll commit to for now. Will that be sufficient?”

The people around the table in the dirtside office looked at each other, a few whispers (inaudible - they’d put the transmission on mute) seen going around. Then they looked at her again, and Bellerive nodded. “As you will, Captain. We expect to hear again from you soon. Clear.”

No sooner had the screen cleared than she went ahead and let out that sigh. The villain himself asks for my help. What have you gotten yourself into this time, AA?



Two hours later, she was wearily rubbing her eyes. “Recap the situation for us, Ash,” she said, turning to her XO. “Just to make sure we’re all on the same page.”

“Some time this morning, terrorists infiltrated the Quasar Industries rare earths processor on the outskirts of Pynchet, the capital city of the planet Duval. At 1136 hours local time, during a visit by General Manager Jennifer Lain, Quasar’s seniormost representative in the Sekos system, the gunmen produced weapons and seized the facility. Several security personnel were killed or captured, and Lain and a number of other management types were taken hostage. Most of the workers were allowed to leave, but a few remained in the plant; we believe they’ve thrown in their lot with the terrorists. Further, they’ve rigged the building with a couple hundred kilograms of blasting compound, and are threatening to set it off if the security forces attempt to engage them.”

“The leader,” he continued, “is a senior supervisor at the factory named Felipe Arrastia. Apparently his wife died in prison a decade or so back, and his son was killed in the May Massacre. Most of his cell fit a similar profile, actually. The psych report the government has on him didn’t indicate any abnormalities in particular - he seems like a rather quiet sort, in fact - but he could have been hiding it really well. Right now, though, we can’t assume he’s in fact unwilling to inflict a lot of death and destruction for his cause.”

“The terrorists number perhaps fifteen to twenty, and are all quite heavily armed, with military-grade rifles and at least one plasma lance. It’s unclear how good they actually are with those guns, though. Of course, they’ve still sitting on top of a lot of explosive, and they’ve got respirators to thwart any attempt at incap gas attacks, too. Whoever they are, these guys planned this out well.”

They looked at the display of the plant grounds again. Assaulting the compound through any one of several avenues would be simple enough; they could even airdrop out a shuttle straight through the roof into the building if so desired. Only it wouldn’t do a bit of good; as soon as the hostiles realised they were under attack - or if they had a dead man’s switch - the entire facility and everyone into it would be blown into entrails and debris.

“Truth be told,” Koniecpolski murmured, not taking his eyes off the plot, “I don’t think we’re going to resolve this with the use of force.”

Archer watched him as he made a few marks on his tablet, studying his tight face. “You have something on your mind, Major,” she said after a while. “May as well spill it.”

He jerked his head up at her, then shook it. “Alright, Captain. I’ll be honest: I don’t like people who take hostages and threaten to blow them up, as a rule. But,” his voice carried the tang of curdled milk, “I like doing the dirty work of people like Skilleton and the junta around here even less.”

“Indeed?” She tilted her head, then smiled thinly. “As it happens, I feel the same way. And since, as you’ve just said, we won’t be able to do what they want anyway, I think we can all agree to do it my way instead.”

“And that would be?” Jaitley was suddenly wary.

“I’m going down there in person. I intend to meet with Mr. Arrastia and come to an arrangement with him.”

The objections came at once. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Captain,” the XO said firmly. Koniecpolski was harsher: “Are you out of your mind?”

She met their indignant expressions with a calm blue gaze. “I appreciate your concern, gentlemen, but I’ve made up my mind. I want a shuttle and a Marine squad prepped to go within the hour.”

The major dropped a heavy fist on the table. “Did you forget what happened at Mazic already? Or do you intend to lose the other arm as well?”

“No, I haven’t and I don’t.” He started to say something more, but she raised her hand. “I admit I didn’t display the best judgement back in Algre, Major, but this is necessary. I need to go down there and negotiate with them personally; or how do you think it’ll look if I hide behind one of my subordinates for something like this? Besides, I assure you, Arrastia and his men won’t be a threat to me.”

“We may sympathize with them, Captain,” Jaitley cut in, “but ‘sympathize’ isn’t the same thing as ‘stable’ or ‘safe.’ What makes you so confident?”

“It’s simple.” She looked at Koniecpolski, fighting down a grin as his eyes widened. “Because you’re coming with me, Janusz.”



The shuttle they’d borrowed from the Duval planetary authorities carried Archer, Koniecpolski and two squads of Marines - an intact First Squad, plus what had become Second Squad after the rest of the platoon had been recombined from three battered squads into two full ones. It brought its passengers through a screaming atmospheric reentry to the site of the siege, settling gently on a nearby pad occupied by the figures in urban camo of the Special Intervention Battalion.

The opening hatch made a low hydraulic noise, and Archer had to briefly lift a hand to block out the bright rays of the late afternoon sun. Lowering her gaze, she followed the Major and the lead fireteam down the ramp, the soft taps of her boots on the metal contrasting with the heavy thumping made by the power-armored Marines. They quickly and efficiently formed a perimeter outside the entrance, and she stepped forward to meet the man awaiting them.

“Captain.” Colonel Christos Zorbas was exactly as she’d remembered him from the conference: a rather short, narrow figure between his elite bodyguards, with a face that reminded her a little too much of an Old Earth weasel. It was easy for her to imagine him with rounded glasses resting atop his long nose in an ancient era.

Of course, as she’d known from even the brief dossier on him that NavInt had supplied her, appearances could be deceiving.

Her eyes flickered to his grey-green uniform. It bore quite an impressive collection of awards and decorations, although at that it was nowhere near the cacophony of colors she’d seen festooning the outfits of the more senior military rulers, and she wondered if any of them had any particular meaning. Her own white service uniform had itself an extensive collection of ribbons from her various tours of duty, but she’d brought along only a single medal: the Star of Perseus that had been pinned to her chest after Saghalien.

“Colonel,” she said, carefully masking her distaste as they shook hands. “I take it the arrangements for my entry have already been made?”

“Yes,” he said, a little stiffly, turning to lead her to the factory entrance. “It is most unfortunate that we have been forced to this, really. I believe I speak for most when I say it would be much preferable to be able to move in and wipe out every single one of these violent anarchists. We ought to be sending a clear message to their kind, not tacitly endorsing their murderous methods.”

She remained quiet, but her face hardened, and she had to carefully force her fists to unclench. Yeah, they’re murderous, alright. And how many people have you killed, Colonel? And can you honestly say it was for a more worthwhile cause than theirs?

The party walked past the entry checkpoint. It was normally secured with a heavy iron gate and twin guard posts with automated MGs perched atop the roofs, already a higher level of security than she’d expected from a civilian facility. Now the gate was open, but the entrance had been  barricaded and covered with a crew-served heavy tribarrel and a cannon-armed IFV.

From there it was just a little further on, down the access road - surprisingly pleasing to the eye, she noted, with the pine trees on either side of the paved surface - to to the Security Directorate’s perimeter. Armed soldiers and terrorists stared at each other uneasily over a distance of forty meters, weapons not quite pointed away from the people on the other side.

“You’ll be going on ahead,” Zorbas said, coming to a stop. “We’ve arranged for you to bring two of your Marines along, with their weapons.” He turned to face her, eyes narrow. “The Republic of Sekos would like to remind you that under no circumstances are you to imply that any demands for ransom, safe passage or amnesty will be met. The only acceptable outcome is for Felipe Arrastia and his men to free all the hostages, disarm their bombs, and surrender to face trial before the courts. Is that clear?”

“Of course,” she said, without so much as a nod. Then she turned away, walking towards the foreboding shape of the main complex with Major Koniecpolski and the newly-promoted Sergeant Wu one step behind her.
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