Artemis Files 0.5: Lexington (5 page)

“All hands, all hands, brace for scooping operations in
ten minutes. Duty roster, secure internal hatches and rig for atmospheric turbulence.”

He listened as the voice repeated itself, alerting the ship
of the pending atmosphere dive into a Gas Giant to scoop for hydrogen and refine into fuel. They were in an intermediary system between the Britannic Kingdom and the Independent States of America, one that could be called a no man’s land between the two domains. Cleansed of life during the Great War against the Genalts, the system’s main world was nothing but a barren wasteland teeming with biological agents still hostile to normal humans.

The Core Sector had several worlds like this, but on the Frontier and further out in the Hinterlands there were dozens in each subsector. The Genalts had waged a scorched-earth war against humanity, ensuring that any world they left would be unusable and dangerous for anyone coming after them. In the Core Sector, instead of
just using biological agents, the Genalts had also used different means to fight their wars, including widespread logic bombs and EMP weapons to destroy datastores and records. It was often said, this was the main contributor to the Long Night and de-civilisation of humanity for almost a thousand years after the war finally ended.

Over the last century, while the Core Sector worlds
regrew into star-faring domains and formed alliances in a race to control the sector, a time known as the Reformation Wars, Britannia had emerged as one of the dominant powers. With allies from the Independent States of America, itself an offshoot from a larger American domain, the two had become closer diplomatically and through their military. Combined, the kingdom and the ISA struggled to resist all attempts by the United Systems Empire to control the sector.

The Ukies, as the United Systems Empire was known, had developed from a coalition of worlds forming into a kingdom, pulling together worlds with similar cultures and ideology, and now the main threat to peace
within the region. The Ukies had a very different culture to most of the others in the Core Sector, deriving from scattered tribes and peoples of Turkic or Middle-Asian origin upon old Earth, they absorbed new worlds into their empire and forced them to adopt the rigid laws and rules that were an anathema to the ideals of democracy and freedom upheld by the Britannic Kingdom and ISA.

There were many other cultures and domains making up the realms of known space, he’d even been to some of them like the Merovingian Kingdom and Sitari Union, but this would be the first time he went to the free American worlds.
The Indies had fought a war of succession from the Federal States about one hundred years ago, and with the support of the Britannic Kingdom gained their freedom from the totalitarian domain. As with much of the rest of the Core Sector, the Indies and the Feds continued on-again, off-again wars since their succession.

While he watched out the window as the bright purple and red hues of the Gas Giant grew ever closer, he smiled at the recollection of some of his earlier cruises and visits to other domains.
It was one of the elements that had kept him serving in the navy all these years, enjoying the opportunity to see new worlds and different cultures. There was also the flying, and he had to admit that was one of the major reasons too, even if he was only flying the older
Swordfish
class Torpedo Attack Boats.

Watching out the window, he smiled at the view. If it
weren’t for the navy, he wouldn’t see sights like this all the time. Civilian travel was expensive and traditionally reserved for the very rich, although that seemed to be changing these days in the kingdom with budget merchants and transport services beginning to appear. Out in the Hinterlands and the Frontier, he knew it was still a rarity for starships on some worlds, just like his briefing flex and the comments from Farquhar or the Doc had illustrated.

The Packet Boat was about to dive into the Gas Giant’s upper atmosphere, scooping hydrogen to replenish the tanks for the final set of transitions into Indie space. Diving for fuel was a common enough occurrence in naval vessels, almost all faced it as a normal activity, and although there were Fleet Support Units and Tankers that f
ollowed battlegroups and fleets to assist in fuel replenishment; Packet Boats and independent vessels didn’t have such a luxury.

Beneath the ship on the ventral surfaces, wide scoops would be opening to gather the
heavy atmosphere, pulling it into the tanks to be refined and purified and then used to fuel the powerplant and drives. For a ship of this size and tankage, it would be several hours of a very uncomfortable and bumpy plunge through the atmosphere. The inertial compensators would buffer most of the turbulence effects, but there were always pockets of atmosphere or localised storms that seemed to make any ship undergoing in-the-wild scooping give it’s crew a time that made amusement park rides pale in comparison.

Without a duty station on the Packet Boat, and as nothing but a piece of cargo for the crew to deliver, he was confined to his single berth cabin and strapped into the bunk, waiting for the wild ride to start. His eyes remained fixed on the window, taking in the view as the Gas Giant obscured the view of everything else. At any moment,
it would start and those not used to this process would discover new reasons to hate space travel.

Wearing one of the generic black combat skins Farquhar also wore, he laid back and double-checked the seals. It
could be closed for protection in vacuum or hostile environments, and with the ship about to throw itself into the upper atmosphere of the Gas Giant, he was glad for it. He would have preferred his flight suit, but this was the next best thing.

The
tight fitting, tailored combat skins were designed for stealth operations rather than direct combat and he couldn’t imagine getting used to the skin, not after wearing a flight suit for so many years. The combat skins were made of similar material to the flight suit, with hard-woven malex fibres offering protection against slug throwers and energy weapons, while the dark chameleon skin would reduce any infrared and thermal signature, allowing him to blend into background shadows whenever it was activated and he was on the ground undertaking a special mission.

There were other types of combat skins available, some
lighter and thinner versions on the civilian market, while others were reinforced and given additional protection so they could be worn in normal combat operations. More commonly, Marines used combat skins as an underlying layer beneath combat armour, the thick, padded suit that was worn by the frontline forces of the kingdom. He had been told that he’d even be given several sessions in the use and equipping of combat armour, in case he ever needed to field it while serving on this deployment.

They way they were talking, he sometimes felt like he was being sent to the frontline of a warzone as a soldier or marine, rather than an on-going intelligence gathering operation
way out past the frontiers of civilised space. At least there had been no mention of him learning to use powered battle armour, the heaviest protection used by the military for war. He’d learned enough during his time in the navy to know that mastering battle armour would take months, if not years to gain confidence in using it without putting a fist through a starship’s hull or leaping into the top floor of a skyscraper.

An ear piercing ‘whoop-whoop’ siren echoed through the berth, and then he heard the same voice come over the tannoy. “All hands, all hands, brace for scooping operations. Department Heads, standby at your DC station.”

The shudder in the hull began shortly after. First it was felt as a growing vibration, subtle and constant but managed by the inertial compensators to keep excessive g-force under control and maintain the standard one gravity environment aboard the ship. Within minutes, the first of the atmospheric turbulence hit the ship, either as it was passing through a high altitude storm cell, or influenced through the build-up of static charges and drawing a response from the Gas Giant’s weather patterns.

A loud crash echoed from down the corridor, and as his stomach plunged into his throat when they suddenly dropped hundreds or thousands of metres in bare seconds, he braced himself for
a rough ride that seemed to be getting worse. With short, sharp tapping sounds like someone was hammering on the external bulkhead with little hammers, they dropped deeper into the atmosphere and fought against the colossal pressures trying to crush the hull as the scoops pulled in what would soon be filtered and refined into fuel. It was only for five or six minutes, but the shaking and vibration soon stopped and the ride became gentler, no different to a standard cruise in space.

Closing his eyes and realising he was biting his lips, he discovered how much he hated relying upon someone else flying a ship when he was strapped in the back and unable to see what was going on. For a pilot, there was nothing worse than relying on a stranger flying the craft and you no
t being in control. Sighing to himself, he knew he’d have to relax and trust in the skills of whoever was flying the ship, to do otherwise would drive him mad.

With the hours flying past, he knew he should be studying but found this was one of those
rare times where he could escape his routine for just a short time. He’d catch up on the reading once the refuelling had ended, but until then he had no choice but focus on surviving and practicing his meditation skills.

Almost
six hours after starting the scooping operation, the ship finally pulled itself out of the mucky, multi-coloured atmosphere and headed for a high orbit. With the tanks topped up, they would spend the next day refining hydrogen from what had been scooped up and purifying it, until usable by the powerplant turbine and TEL Drive. By this time tomorrow, they would probably be back in TEL Space on the final stages of the voyage to Lexington.

Stifling a yawn, he reached for his comlink to open up the next manual he was tasked to study before he could be trusted to fly his new starship. To his disgust, it was applied theory of TEL Space physics and one of his most hated topics. It was why he had become a TAB pilot, so he wouldn’t have to learn more about engineering and drive physics, but here he was, forced to learn because his life would depend on understanding the theory.

When the siren began whooping again, he was expecting it to announce the refuelling and refining was over so the hands could stand down, but as the words were repeated a second time, he discovered he couldn’t have been further from the truth.

“All hands, this is
the Captain speaking… we’re being given warning shots by a ship firing across our bow. They were hiding in the shadows from one of the Gas Giant moons and appeared on our sensors as we left orbit. They’re ordering us to stand down and prepare for boarding in the name of the United Systems Empire.”

He sat up suddenly in his bunk, dropping the comlink as the words sunk in.

“We’re being ordered to stand down, but I’ll be damned if I let a common privateer take us as a prize. We’re pushing for the grav gradient at max acceleration, and even though they have us boxed in against another of the moons, I’m countering their missiles so far. We’re calling for help and have made contact with an Indie Light Cruiser patrolling the system, except they’re too far away to be much assistance.”

Privateers were the bane of small ships like this, and flagged with a letter of marque giving them a license to act as supernumeraries for the Ukie navy, they were nothing but semi-legalised pirates. With the current system they were in between the ISA and Britannic Kingdom, it would be a prime hunting ground for ships like this to try and capture packet boats or
unescorted merchants.

“All hands, prepare to repel boarders! Chiefs and Department
Heads break open your arms lockers and equip your divisions. The privateer is a Gun-Brig, so be ready on all decks for incoming boarders. Mister Farquhar, please move your charges forward to the forefoot machinery space.”

Unstrapping from the bunk, he leapt down and opened the hatch. Farquhar was directing his other charges down the narrow access way and waved for him to join them
, a gauss rifle slung over his back. Following the others, they made their way down a deck and into the tighter confines of the lower deck, pushing themselves against the walls as crew rushed past carrying carbines, pistols and cutlasses.

Even though he’d been through this same process in his early naval years, it never ceased to amaze him that this must have been what naval
crew did during the ancient ages on Earth, when ships battled under sail on the high seas. Despite being two millennia in the future, history had a weird manner of repeating itself.

Entering the small, dimly lit machinery space he pushed to one side and leaned against the internal bulkh
ead. The other four passengers were people he’d been aware of but never allowed to meet or speak. He watched as they looked around with frustrated expressions. Following them inside, he saw the Doctor holding her hand over her chest as if her heart was pumping at double speed, which considering her career choice, it probably was. Everybody were dressed in combat skins, except one of the men he placed as a Special Forces soldier, standing with a red-faced expression as all eyes fell upon him clad not in a combat skin, just his underclothes.

“Come on, Sammy, let us get out there and help the crew.” One of them uttered to Farquhar, waving his fist at the heavy hatch they’d entered through. “They might need us….”