Indomitable, p.6
Indomitable, page 6
“I’m sure the Fleet Admiral and his staff have been working on strategies to counter the Syndicate ships when they get closer. We just won’t know what that is until it happens.”
Erik was grumbling discontentedly as Mira poked her head into the room. “Cap, got a message for you from Luna. It came in with Guild recognition codes. It has the highest encryption I’ve ever seen.”
“Coming,” he said, rising to put his cup in the sanitizer and leave the others to continue their discussion. Following Mira to the control center, he tried to force the frustration of apparent Coalition inaction from his mind. He slid into his command chair and the holo display flickered to life in front of him showing the message queued up for his authorization codes. Typing them in with deft strokes, he watched the screen flash as the message opened. President Meyers, head of the Transport Guild, appeared on screen.
Erik felt a spike of elation. Dex had shared her concerns about Meyers being in Geneva during the bombings, and it was good to see that the man had made it through. He knew that Dex must be glad of the enormous weight off her shoulders.
“Captain Frost, I know Dexterity expressed her concerns for me after the Geneva bombings. I was in between the government center and transport hub, spared the worst of both explosions. I’ll have a few bumps and bruises to remind me of the event for a while longer, but I made it through okay.
Excellent work getting one of those Syndicate railguns installed on your ship. I’m sure we can get the second mounted with the help of the Luna shipyards at a later date. As you may know, I have been in contact with the Coalition government to coordinate our efforts against the Syndicate threat.” Erik had to shake his head and smile in bemusement at how the man fell into political speech even in a private message, using words that seemingly downplayed the danger they were facing.
“The prime minister and I are in agreement that our fleets will work better together rather than facing the incoming cruiser alone. To that end, I have acquired permission and funding to arm all of our freighters with light railguns, and will be starting to get them into the shipyards for retrofitting as slips become available. I’d like the Vagabond to change course to meet with a ship that is returning from the colony on Hygeia, the Tamerlane. Escort her to Luna, and then join the combined fleet of Coalition frigates and Guild freighters. Our latest estimates show that you should arrive ahead of the Syndicate cruiser if it continues on course to stop at Mars before proceeding to Earth.
“Thank you again for providing warnings of the existence of the cruiser, Captain Frost. The system owes you a debt that I hope we are able to pay when this is all resolved.” With those words, the screen went black and the message closed. Coordinates were thrown up on the screen for the recommended rendezvous point with the Tamerlane, and Erik ran a few projections on the course needed to meet the other freighter. If he could push both ships a little harder, they should still arrive on Luna around the same projected day of their current course, but he had already been pushing the Vagabond harder than he liked. They still had weak hull plates on the bow, with every hard burn putting pressure on them.
Transferring the coordinates to the main display, he rose and walked over to lean on the pilot’s console. “We’ve been requested to re-route to those coordinates to meet with another freighter, and then escort them to Luna. Do what you can to try and shave some time off the detour.”
“Will do, cap. Does this mean we’re going to miss the action?”
“Not if I can help it. Sounds like the government has decided to let the Syndicate have their way with Mars. I don’t agree with that decision at all, but with the positioning of the planets that will add a few weeks to their trip and allow us to shoot past and reach Luna before they can.”
“There’s a couple of hundred scientists on Mars, along with a hundred more people on the Deimos outpost. They’re just going to let those people get killed without raising a finger?”
Erik shrugged angrily. “The prime minister is going to have a lot to answer for when this is all done, assuming the Syndicate doesn’t succeed in their plans.”
Shaking her head in disbelief, Mira started running course adjustment calculations and Erik left the control room to walk to his cabin. He wanted privacy for the next message he planned to send. Sitting at the small desk near his bunk, he turned on the display and started recording.
“Dex, I just got the message from Meyers. It’s good to see him, and I know you have to be overjoyed that he survived the attacks in Geneva.” He sighed heavily. “Any word from your sources about the research I forwarded from Robert? He sounded like he was close to a breakthrough before Interamnia was destroyed, and now that we have several people looking into it I was hoping they could get over whatever hurdles he encountered. That new power source could give us a real boost against the Syndicate fleet in a few months when it approaches Earth and Luna. Make sure you take care of yourself, Dex. Don’t push yourself too hard.”
Tapping a few buttons, Erik encrypted the message and sent it to the Luna relays. He leaned back in his chair and reflected on how chaotic the system had gotten over the last six weeks since his escape from the Indomitable. He felt better knowing his ship had a heavy railgun mounted above the hastily repaired bow, but wished they had been able to get the second onto the belly of the ship.
Fynn said that mounting the gun there would require cutting into the hull and rerouting a lot of conduits, which couldn’t be done while the ship was hurrying to get back to Luna. Considering that the Syndicate container had only included several dozen depleted uranium rounds to use in the railguns, he knew that a second weapon would be of very limited benefit until they could get a larger stock of ammunition.
If they encountered a Syndicate frigate alone, they would stand no chance and would be lucky to get off a few shots. But if they could join a small fleet of freighters carrying light railguns, then they could match up against a frigate or two and help in a fight alongside the Coalition fleet. It was his only hope to fight back and try to get some measure of revenge for the deaths of the Murphys and everyone else on Interamnia. He just didn’t know if it would be enough to assuage the guilt he felt for kickstarting the cruiser on its mission.
Nine
Tuya banged her head against the bulkhead she was leaning on, roaring in frustration. For two months she’d been stuck aboard the Indomitable, and for six of those weeks she’d known where her brother was being held but been unable to reach him. She watched shift changes for days, passed by in the early morning hours when few people could claim not to be tired near the end of an overnight shift, and even engaged one Marine in a bit of conversation. She could find no gaps in the security that she’d be able to exploit on her own, and the frustration was getting to her more and more every day.
She had managed to get a tablet, finding a crate of them in a dusty storage room that was obviously forgotten somewhere along the way. It was loaded up with old software, at least six months out of date, but allowed her to access the cruiser’s network and pull down censored news reports that were vetted and approved for viewing by the crew. Most of the reports and videos were propaganda pieces. One was blaming the Coalition for food shortages in one part of the Syndicate’s Asian territory, while another story praised citizens in South America for exceeding production goals for their sector.
Reports about the bombings on Earth had been almost gleeful. The thousands of deaths were trumpeted as cosmic justice against the people who’d been trying for so long to stop the Syndicate from reaching their full potential. Government officials talked to reporters about how the Coalition’s inability to protect their citizens was a sign of their weakness and ineptitude. The head of the Military Committee made light of the deaths. She said it was the fault of the Coalition security forces for growing lax over the years and failing to provide proper training that would allow their personnel to identify and trace such threats.
After the attack on Monaco, the trillionaire owner of a technology company who was a member of the ruling Executive Committee held a press conference. He announced that a handful of victims had been Syndicate citizens. He railed at the Coalition leadership for failing to identify the bomber or bombers in the two weeks since the first attack, and put the blame for his citizens’ deaths squarely on the Coalition leadership. The one thing everyone refused to do was take credit for the attacks, or even intimate that the Syndicate might be behind them.
Tuya couldn’t see news reports from within the Coalition, so she had no idea what the true casualty counts might be or where their investigations might have taken them so far. Her only consolation was that her parents, living in northern Mongolia and close to the border between the two superpowers, were far from heavily populated areas that provided tempting targets for such a terror campaign. Thinking of her parents only made her realize how much she missed them, and how little hope she had of escaping the Indomitable to ever see them again.
Shaking off the melancholy and frustration, Tuya tried to formulate a new plan. If she couldn’t find a gap in the security to exploit, perhaps there was another course of action that would allow her to get to her brother. She knew the Syndicate frigates were growing nearer, and had seen the alerts on her tablet about preparing to receive reinforcements. Conceivably there could be a way to take advantage of the influx of new people to the ship. When there were strange faces all around, one more would be easy to miss.
Resolved to a course of action, she set about polishing the stolen Marine armor to a glossy black shine. Walking the halls with armor in less than perfect condition would be a sure way to attract attention that she didn’t want. Strapping on the pieces once she was done, she pulled up duty rosters on the tablet and created a mental map of the best route to her destination.
Pulling the helmet over her head, Tuya exited the storage closet that had been her latest home for a few days and strode down the corridor. It was the second hour of the morning, and the hallways were barren. Most of the people awake at this time were on duty throughout the ship, minimizing the possibility of running into anyone not rushing to get a job done.
Marines usually patrolled the ship in pairs. Walking alone in the armor was a constant risk even now that they often patrolled alone due to the reduced number of troops available for each shift. She had stuck with wearing the armor only because of the helmet visor that kept all but her mouth obscured, and the armor plating that made it harder for observers to guess her size. There were cameras throughout the ship’s corridors, but few of them were monitored on a consistent basis.
The number of Marines on board was far below the required number for a ship this size, especially after she and the others had killed almost a dozen during the Vagabond’s escape. Because of that, those who were on duty were often so overworked that they tended to snap and assault crew members who stepped out of line. That led to few of the crew feeling a desire to pay close attention when they saw a Marine walking down the hallway for fear of drawing her ire.
It took more than an hour to reach her destination, traveling several miles through corridors and stairwells on a roundabout path that was designed to keep her away from busy areas of the ship. Entering the small engineering sub-station near the main hangar and docking bay, Tuya made a quick survey of the room and verified that she was alone. She crossed to the storage lockers, and shoved aside tools and diagnostic kits until she found what she had been searching for. Crumpled at the bottom of one of the lockers was a grease-covered red jumpsuit, the name patch on the chest faded and stained from dozens of shifts. She felt sure that whoever it belonged to wouldn’t miss the garment, and shoved the wadded jumpsuit under her chest armor where it could rest unseen.
Tuya pulled a few tools from the locker, and a small portable diagnostic scanning device that looked well used. She knew older items were missed less frequently, and if someone did go looking they would probably be glad to take the opportunity to requisition a newer replacement. Secreting the tools and scanner under her armor, she tried to return the lockers to the condition they had been in prior to her search, and then closed them tightly.
Leaving the room, she tried to ignore the lumpy feeling of the wadded jumpsuit pushing against her breasts, pulling on the armor now and then in an attempt to shift the garment into a more comfortable position.
There was a tense moment as she saw a Marine patrol approaching down a long corridor. She considered ducking through a nearby door, but knew that would draw suspicion. Instead, she took advantage of her earlier movements and started to cough loudly. Continuing to pull and push on the chest plate, she added in a pained moan as the patrol got closer and coughed louder.
“You need to get that checked out,” one of the Marines said, as the pair stopped. One of their helmets was lowered, and she realized that the extra padding from the jumpsuit pushed out her chest armor and made her bust look larger.
“Yeah, on the way to medical now,” Tuya replied hoarsely, trying to disguise her voice as much as possible.
“We’re headed to the bar on deck 18 after shift, if you want to stop in,” the second Marine said, with a leering smile barely visible under the faceplate of the helmet.
“Maybe, have to see what the doc says.” She waved and walked on, holding her breath and listening as hard as she could to see if they would follow or continue on their patrol.
“That had to be Saunders. She’s the only one with tits that big.” The words were barely audible as the patrol turned and continued in the opposite direction.
Tuya snarled and clenched her hands, wishing she could have slapped the irritating smile from the Marine’s face and taught them both to respect the women they served with. It also made her nervous to think that her cover might be blown. If they asked this Saunders person about her throat, or mentioned meeting in the corridor, then a denial would lead them to wonder who she could have been since no one else apparently matched her very padded build.
She reflected that this might be the last time it would be safe to walk the halls in Marine armor, since they may all be on higher alert looking for an explanation of who the patrol met. Her only hope was that the men would get drunk after shift and forget all about it, or that their possible report would be dismissed when no one could be found to corroborate it.
Checking the map on her tablet, she found a long stretch of empty cabins that had not yet been allocated for the soon-to-arrive additions. She traveled up two decks and across to the port side of the cruiser without seeing another person, and entered one of the cabins. Like every other cabin she’d spent time in over the last few months, it looked almost exactly the same as the room she had been imprisoned in with her friends. That imprisonment had lasted less than a day for her, but she knew that she would never forget the helpless feeling. It had been that more than anything else that drove her to hold out in the abusive interrogation, and over the last two months as she worked to free her brother from his cell.
Stripping out of the armor pieces, she stuffed them into a drawer and examined the jumpsuit she had stolen. It was made for someone half a head taller and a couple of dozen pounds heavier, but luckily the basic crew of every ship in the system preferred wearing loose garments as a way to reinforce that they weren’t as confined by rules as the tightly uniformed military officers and troops they had to serve with.
Tossing the stained jumpsuit into the sanitizer, she took the opportunity to peel off the biosuit that she’d been wearing for most of the last two months and add it in, as well. Feeling free now that the skintight suit was no longer constricting her, Tuya entered the shower and spent half an hour getting spritzed with hot water from the dozens of jets and luxuriating in the cleanliness of rubbing fresh smelling soap over her arms, legs, and torso. She washed her hair for the first time in weeks, relishing the feel of her fingers running through the black locks that were now long enough to fall below her shoulders.
Clean and refreshed, she wrapped herself in a soft towel and threw herself onto one of the bunks in the room. She tried to remember how many nights she’d spent on a mattress during her extended stay on the cruiser, and could only decide it had been few enough to count on one hand. Hiding in storage rooms was always a safer option, with a very low risk of having someone enter unexpectedly to prepare the room for use. She silently thanked whoever left the jumpsuit in the locker for not bothering to clean it first, giving her the excuse to spend some in a cabin.
Lying on her back, Tuya closed her eyes and listened to the throb of the ship around her. The constant firing of the ion thrusters as the cruiser pushed itself farther into the system generated a steady hum that had become comforting to her. It reminded her of the rattling old claptrap of a freighter she had spent four years living on, wonderful thoughts that soothed her and sent her into happy dreams of days spent with a crew that had felt like family.
Ten
Erik watched as the Tamerlane approached, growing larger in the view from the bow cameras. The two freighters were on courses that would bring them within fifty kilometers of each other for the remainder of the journey to Luna. He had met the captain of the other Guild ship a few times when their paths crossed, and while the man was haughty and imperious he could also be generous and charitable with his friends.
“Frost,” the other captain said curtly when he answered the communications request from the Vagabond. “Looks like that old trash hauler of yours has grown a horn.”
Erik chuckled in agreement. “A horn that’s ready to gore some Syndicate ships. How are you doing, Farouk?”
“We were doing very good until this urgent summons back to Luna. I was just loading up a couple of cargo pods to deliver out to the mining colony on Davida. That would have put us in the green for this trip to the belt. Now I’ll be carrying them around to no purpose and no pay.” The large black eyebrows drew in over chocolate brown eyes, a line of frustration forming between them.
