Indomitable, p.12
Indomitable, page 12
A week after the Mars takeover and two days after the colonist executions, she was watching a live feed of the Coalition Parliament as all three houses met in the same large chamber to vote on a bill. It denounced the Syndicate actions and approved offensive and defensive maneuvers by the Fleet Admiral and Marine Commandant. The vote had been going on for hours, with seemingly every one of the five thousand members of the combined houses wanting to stand and give a speech trumpeting their support for the bill. A few tried to call for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, but howls and catcalls silenced them quickly.
“It’s finally going to happen,” Janet said, sitting on the floor at her feet. “We’re going to fight back at last.”
“About time, too!” someone called from nearby. “You can’t let someone keep punching you and hope they’ll just get tired of it. You have to punch back.”
Nat listened as others chimed in to support the opinion. She felt the same desire to make a move against their opponent, to stop sitting around as if hoping the danger would pass without intervention, but she also felt fear and nervousness. Her sister was on Luna, still refusing to leave Aldrin dome to return to their home on Earth. To compound that, all passenger shuttles were being suspended between the home world and her moon, stranding anyone still on Luna.
The fleet of freighters waited in orbit around the moon, and she knew the Transport Guild would work tirelessly to evacuate as many people as they could. But she also knew that most of them were tied up getting railguns mounted to assist the Coalition frigates in the fight when the Syndicate ships approached Earth. Many of the people there had been born and grown up in Aldrin, and they refused to leave their home for fear of being lost on a planet that was often no more than a blue and green disk in the sky above.
Her reverie was broken as a young ensign rushed into the room. “Attention! Attention! Ship-wide announcement will begin in twenty-three minutes. Please be ready to return to your posts if your commanding officers call you in. Twenty-three minutes!” With those words, the ensign ran out to continue delivering the message. Nat pulled her tablet from where it had slid between the cushion and arm of the chair, and saw a red flash for the urgent message indicator. The same information was displayed there, with a timer counting down. She knew the announcement would be big if they were working so hard to make sure everyone was aware of it.
“Let’s get back,” she said, nudging Janet with a slippered foot. The two of them rose and said goodbyes to the people around them, walking somberly through the corridors to their cabin. Once inside, both women automatically started pulling off their comfortably loose shirts and pants to get dressed in their jumpsuit and uniform respectively. They went through the motions in total silence, as if afraid to speak and bring bad thoughts to life.
At the very moment the counter on Nat’s tablet hit zero, the ship comm trilled loudly. “Waterloo, this is Fleet Admiral Holgerson. I am sure many of you have heard the news, but the houses of Parliament voted almost unanimously today to allow action against the Syndicate in retaliation for their heinous attacks against Coalition citizens off world. To that end, at the conclusion of this announcement every frigate in the Navy will be activated. All hands will report to their divisions immediately and prepare for action.”
The comms trilled again, and Nat and Janet were left looking at each other in bewilderment. “Are we really doing this?” Janet asked.
“Looks like it, but what exactly are we doing?”
They were interrupted by another ship-wide announcement, the captain ordering everyone to their stations. Outside of the cabin, they headed in opposite directions down the packed corridor. Nat ran as quickly as she could, darting around other people in the crowded passages as everyone tried to make their way to different parts of the frigate. She made it to her Engineering department in twice the amount of time it took walking there at the start of a normal shift. The room was packed with people milling around, a dozen conversations filling the air at once.
Several minutes later, Lieutenant Richtaus appeared above them as she stood on a bench and called out for quiet. The call was repeated around the room a few times until the talking and murmuring died away.
“I know you have a lot of questions,” Mags called out loudly so everyone could hear. “I don’t have many answers for you. All I can tell you at this moment is that the high and mighty at the top of the ranks are finally getting off their asses and doing something about these Syndicate bastards.” A cheer broke out at the words, and the room was filled with loud support for half a minute.
“The captain has ordered everyone to remain at their stations until the all clear sounds or you’re sent elsewhere by your commanding officers. Try to stay out of each other’s way, and do what you can to get some work done while you’re here. If I have more news, I’ll share it.”
Nat watched the lieutenant disappear into the crowd again, and looked around. No one was doing any work, just chatting with the people around them as they all tried to get another nugget of information that they didn’t already know. Suddenly, she felt the deck begin to vibrate beneath her feet, and felt the center of gravity shift a few inches as the frigate increased the power to her engines and changed course.
“Can you believe this?” a voice asked at her elbow, and she turned to see Mags standing beside her. “There was no reason to call everyone out to their stations, just to have them stand around talking.”
“It must be important,” Nat replied. “Maybe we’re finally going to try and head off the Syndicate fleet.”
The lieutenant was shaking her head before the words were out. “If that’s the case, they would have sent off-duty personnel to their cabins to get into gel beds for a hard burn. This extra bit of thrust is just enough to send us around the planet faster.”
The words clicked together in her head, and Nat grunted. “Huh, maybe that’s exactly what we’re doing. There are two Syndicate frigates still hovering over their capital.”
“Ah,” Mags said, a smile blossoming. “Yes, that would explain it. I hope that’s where we’re going, to get some revenge for the people they’ve killed.” The lieutenant was in a bubbly mood as she pushed through the crowd, heading for the grouping of officers deeper in Engineering.
A man who was in her shift appeared. “Do you really think that’s what we’re doing?” he asked quietly. The prospect didn’t seem to give him any joy at all.
Nat shrugged, thinking of her parents and glad they were living in a place far from any important government centers. “Where else would we be going right after Parliament approved an aggressive move forward?”
“Then… that means the ship is about to go into battle. Doesn’t that worry you?”
“I spent over a month hooking up thousands of new systems for the Waterloo. They just upgraded all our railguns and torpedo launchers, even added on a few more railguns for good measure. I’d say we’re more than an even match for any Syndicate frigate.” She could see that his expression hadn’t lost any of the worry. “Don’t forget that we have eight frigates in orbit to their two.”
“Ground-based attack,” was his simple reply, as he turned to walk away with slumped shoulders. She’d forgotten about the danger of weapons fired from the planet below, but that was mostly because they were highly ineffective against ships in orbit. The technology had been developed thirty years before, at the start of hostilities between the two superpowers, and when it quickly became a cold war with each side maintaining the status quo to prevent one from growing more powerful than the other, those old technologies weren’t updated as much as they should have been. As a result, a single frigate could operate with near autonomy in orbit unless an enemy frigate was in the area.
Missiles fired from the surface were a greater threat than ground-to-air railguns, and even then the distances involved provided more than enough warning for the frigates to shoot down or confuse the missiles before they got close to the ship. Small computer-controlled machine guns were mounted in dozens of places across the hull, capable of firing thousands of rounds each minute to guard against attacks from the ground as well as torpedo strikes from another ship or the rare fighter attacks.
Lieutenant Richtaus appeared beside her again, a gleeful grin on the older woman’s face. “You were right. We’re targeting the Syndicate frigates.” Even as she spoke, they felt the deck throb beneath their feet as railguns began to fire. “The admiral wants them both disabled or destroyed, while the other half of the fleet is carrying Marines to Luna to storm Armstrong and take over both domes.”
Nat knew she should share the woman’s joy at the news, but she still felt the same listless numbness that had been her only emotion since hearing of the deaths of the Deimos colonists. There was a faint concern for her sister, a moment where she hoped that the violence in the lunar domes would not get out of hand.
When the ship was hit by a railgun round several decks above, she and a dozen others were thrown to the ground from the jerking suddenness of halted momentum. Nat scrambled to her feet, and grabbed up a diagnostic and tool kit. She raced away to help repair the damage, patching the smashed hull and bulkheads hit by the round. The sound of railguns and torpedo tubes spitting out their lethal discharges became a constant noise around her as she worked throughout the battle.
Eighteen
Cupping her soft cheek in his hand, Erik leaned down to kiss Dex. Her lips were soft against his, their bodies pressing together as she wrapped both arms around his neck and pulled him close. The kiss went on for what felt like hours, and he wished he could have days or weeks more.
“Get a room, lovebirds,” Mira called teasingly as she pushed past to enter the docking tube that led to the Vagabond. After three days spent on Luna, the repairs and upgrades were complete and the freighter was ready to clear the pad for another ship to descend from orbit. There were five other ships already on docking platforms in varying stages of shipyard work, all the workers and resources having been pulled away to complete his ship faster than anyone would ever have thought possible.
Three days on Luna, busy days filled with meetings in the Guildhall and working alongside his crew and the shipyard technicians to ensure that work done on the Vagabond was completed to Fynn’s satisfaction. Nights filled with laughter and nervous joy, as he met with Dex as much as possible outside of their busy work schedules, sharing meals and drinks and kisses.
The night before, his last on Luna until after the coming battle with the Syndicate fleet, she had led him onto a rooftop garden. Hydroponic pillars created columns of greenery around them, as they spread out a blanket and lay looking up at Earth rotating above them. They made love beneath the spinning planet, sharing all of themselves. It was a memory he would hold forever.
“You need to go,” Dex said through a smile as they broke apart.
“They could manage without me,” Erik joked, leaning in to kiss her again.
Laughing, Dex put a hand on his chest and pushed him away. “I’m sure they could, but you’d miss your ship more than you’ll miss me.” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and then stepped back. “Fly well, Erik, and come back to me when it’s over.”
He stroked a hand along her cheek one more time, drinking in the sight and feel of her while he could. “I’ll see you soon, Dex. I promise you that.” Forcing himself to turn away, he stepped through the hatch into the tube and walked quickly through it to enter the freighter’s airlock. He turned back to wave one last time as the airlock doors irised closed and the docking tube disconnected with a puff of air.
Turning reluctantly after he watched Dex walk away, Erik made his way through the corridors of the ship. The work on the hull was virtually undetectable from inside the ship, aside from a smell of ozone left behind from all the welding of new hull plating. Isaac had spent the last two days on the ship, running wiring and coding programs to control the new railgun on the belly of the ship. Jen had found excuses to be aboard at the same time, to the amusement of the others. They’d lost a bit of space in the cargo bay to make room for the gun mounts, but the Vagabond was now ready to rain depleted uranium on the Syndicate cruiser.
President Meyers had even managed to get them a crate with several dozen additional rounds for the guns, though he had been tight lipped about where or how he got them. The news from Mars had put a damper on the growing enthusiasm, but it also steeled the resolve of everyone involved to get the freighters armed and ready for the conflict to come.
Entering the control room, he found Mira at the pilot station communicating with Luna’s AI to get authorization to depart. He strapped into his command chair, closing his eyes to take a few moments to relive his nights with Dex. A smile spread across his lips, and he could almost smell her scent on the air and feel her fingers on his skin.
“Ready to go, cap.” Mira was turned around and staring at him with a wide grin. He had a feeling she’d been talking to him for a few minutes.
“Take us up,” he said, feeling his face turn red. He flicked the switch for the ship’s comms. “Thirty seconds to departure.”
Mira was chuckling at her station as her fingers flew across the screens in front of her. The engines flared to life, and the ship started a subtle vibration that no one aboard registered after so many years of living on ships in flight. “Did you hear about the Parliament vote today?” she asked.
Erik pulled up a news scroll on his display, and saw a line about the vote to approve aggressive action against the Syndicate forces. The votes were being taken and the scroll was updating the results as they came in. “Looks like they’re finally going to do something besides huddle around Earth.”
“Let’s hope we get in on some of that action,” the pilot said wolfishly. “I want to deal some payback for the friends I’ve lost to those evil bastards.”
“I have no doubts they’ll use us, especially now that the freighters are being armed.” Erik pulled up the stats on the retrofits he had received from the Guild. “We’re the seventh to be completed and armed, and by the end of the week there should be four more. Enough of us to more than hold our own against a frigate.”
The Vagabond rose above the two domes, and Erik watched the view from the ventral cameras as the light from the sun reflected off the silvery glass on the top of Aldrin and Armstrong. It was a majestic sight. He couldn’t help but wonder how the people who had managed to build such magnificent structures, capable of holding back the dangers of the vacuum, couldn’t manage to keep from trying to assert dominance over each other.
They were halfway to orbit when there was a bright flash from the camera. The light was intense enough that the view went black for several seconds before coming back up. The docking platforms below were a tangled mess of steel and plastic. A small crater had appeared where the six platforms had been a minute before. The Vagabond shuddered as the shockwave from the blasts passed through the ship, and red warning lights began to flash across the displays as warning tones started to sound insistently.
“What the hell just happened?” Mira yelled.
“I think someone just blew up the docks,” Erik said in stunned disbelief. There was no sign of the dozens of workers who had been swarming over the ships, and he knew that there would have been crew members aboard each freighter helping with the retrofitting work. “Did we take any damage?”
“Only minor impacts to the hull,” she told him, fingers flying across the screens faster than he could track. “If we’d left only a few seconds later, though….”
“Yeah, then we’d have been in real trouble.” The thin atmosphere of the moon had saved them, with the explosion below throwing debris in all directions instead of containing the blast in a solely upward cone. Erik cycled through several alert screens, dismissing them as he resolved any issues or found them to be informational only. By the time the control room was silent again with the last of the alarms being dealt with, the Vagabond was ready to enter orbit around Luna.
A connection request had been flashing on the screen for most of a minute, and he finally had a chance to tap the button to accept the call. Dex appeared, the view around her jerking around as she ran through the streets. “Erik, thank God. Are you okay?”
“We’re fine, just minor damage from debris hitting us from below. What happened?”
“It looks like it could be the same bomber who hit Earth last month. President Meyers got a message only seconds before the bombs went off, some kind of rambling anti-off-world manifesto. I have to go, I’m almost at the Guildhall and we have a lot to deal with. I just wanted to know you were safe.”
He smiled faintly at her, and touched the screen in front of him. “I’m fine, Dex. You stay safe down there. If the bomber hit the docks then it means they’re on Luna.”
“I know,” she said grimly, her jaw clenching. “I’ll contact you when I can.”
The connection closed and the screen returned to a row of status reports. Erik tied into the channel shared between the orbiting freighters, to hear a cacophony of voices as the other eleven ships were all talking at once. He tried to make out the separate conversational threads, but gave up after a few seconds. He knew that one of the ships had been starting a descent to land on the pad that his ship had just vacated, and the rest of the ships seemed to be asking for news or offering wild theories about the explosions.
“Mira, any chance the Coalition is sending out any information or updates? Those were their docks that just got bombed, after all.”
“Nothing on that yet, cap.” Her voice was hesitant, and she paused before throwing up an image on the main holo display at the front of the room. He could see the gentle curve of Earth set against the blackness of space, and several ships with flaring engines making their way around the planet. “Four of the Coalition frigates changed course just a few minutes ago and it looks like they’re on an intercept course with the Syndicate frigates. The remainder of the fleet is burning for Luna, but they started before the explosion so I don’t know what their purpose is.”
