Dyson's Drop (19 page)

The two laps, which Anneke joined in on, ironed out the kinks and got her blood pumping. She ran through their mission once again and at the end held up her hand for silence. ‘There’s one more thing you have to promise me.’ She gazed at each of them solemnly. ‘Expect the unexpected. This is Dyson’s Drop. It’s been in known space for barely twenty years. There’s more that we don’t know about it than we do.’

‘What you expectin’, Cap’n? Spooks?’

Anneke remembered the Orbital Engineering Platform. ‘That, and worse. Okay everybody, it’s T-minus one hour and counting. Into the shuttles.’ The squad broke into three groups and filed into the waiting shuttles. Anneke got a call on her helmet radio. ‘Captain Heller, are your troops ready to deploy?’ The voice belonged to Colonel Moto, who was overseeing the operation.

‘Yes, sir. We’re loaded for bear.’ Whatever that meant.

‘Proceed when ready, Captain.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And Captain, good luck!’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Anneke checked on her squad, tightening a few straps in a paternal (or was it maternal?) way. She wished them all good fortune and long life, then took the helm of the
Chasti!J,
the lead shuttle.

Some time later, the
Chastiry
came out of
n-space
directly above Dyson’s Drop. By then the attack had already begun, though it was a feint, designed to get her people in under the wire.

As soon as they appeared in normal space, Anneke pushed her shuttle into a steep dive, plunging down towards the planet’s artificial surface.

In scant minutes they were within twenty klicks. The shuttle’s sensors portrayed the shifting field harmonics of the defensive grid around the planet on a screen above Anneke’s head. The attack on the far side was designed to draw power from the grid and open ‘eyes’ in the wall.

As the
Chastity
dropped lower and lower, Anneke kept looking for an eye, but none was visible. In another second or two, she’d have to slow up or crash headlong into the field. The impact would be the same as crashing into ferroconcrete.

Her co-pilot, a man named Kuder, eyed her nervously. ‘We’re goin’ pretty fast, Captain. Could be time to slow a little.’

Anneke ignored him. Her instincts told her otherwise. She knew to the kilowatt how much power the attack on the far side was drawing. The field had to collapse at this point. Behind her, the other two shuttles hurtled in her wake without slowing. In a part of her brain, she was proud of them. They trusted her.

‘We’re gonna crash, Captain!’ Kuder said suddenly, his voice breaking in fear.

Then the eye opened, like a great iris. The
Chastity
shot through, followed by the other two shuttles; then the eye closed behind them as the fields shifted yet again.

Beside her, Kuder breathed out, managing a grin. ‘You’re a piece of work, Captain, no mistake.’ Anneke knew he would recount this tale to the crew and that her standing with them would rise even higher.

‘Check on the crew,’ she ordered. Kuder pinged each squadie, getting a ping back. Meanwhile, Anneke brought the
Chastity
in lower, ducking down into a huge canyon between high metallic walls, dotted with windows and viewing balconies. The other two shuttles did not follow. They had separate missions. Only one shuttle needed to be successful.

Calculated redundancy.

Anneke dived further into the canyon. The lower she got the safer they were from crossfire, and the closer to the habitat wall on the other side.

But this did not stop longitudinal fire. Suddenly a spread of green dots, pulse beams from head on, was coming right at them. Anneke’s reflexes responded instantly, throwing the ship into a twist, ejecting chaff at the same moment. ‘Tactical!’ she yelled.

‘Run some interference here, will you?’

‘Yes, sir!’ The woman at the tactical station manipulated the
Chastity’s
own fields, using them to interfere with surrounding fields, causing confusion for the gunners up ahead (whether AI or human), but also strengthening them at the likely points of contact.

Anneke continued to weave as unpredictably as possible. An AI watching this would sooner or later find patterns in her manoeuvring. Humans were pattern-making animals, even when trying not to be.

‘How far to target?’

‘Three klicks, sir.’

Suddenly, they took a broadside hit. The ship rocked and metal screeched. Anneke heard a furious hissing nearby. She turned to Kuder, but realised with a gasp he was dead, half his face missing. Somebody had taken a shot at them, catching them behind the reinforced fields. Damn.

The shuttle started bucking and tumbling.

‘Vacuum drill everybody!’ shouted Anneke as she activated her suit field. They had, she figured, one chance in twenty of making it down alive.

BLACK had a bad feeling. He gazed out the view screen at the array of ships riding in orbit, waiting for the planetary shields to drop, and paced.

‘What’s taking so long?’ he muttered.

‘They are still operating within mission parameters,’ the Envoy said.

Black turned to Colonel Moto. ‘Was that energy spike within mission parameters?’

‘We don’t know if one of the shuttles has crashed, sir,’ said the Colonel. ‘In any case, there are two others.’

Black closed his eyes briefly. ‘Why is it that perfectly intelligent people feel the need to state the obvious?’ Moto pressed his lips into a thin line.
Good,
thought Black.
Shut the.fool up.
Black had enough on his mind without having to listen to the yammering of underlings.

Heller and his team were in communications blackout, a product of the intense shielding around the planetoid, so there was no way to get an update. Or was there? He eyed the Envoy. The alien had in-built sensors Black knew little about.

‘Are you getting anything?’ he asked.

The Envoy eyed him, unreadable as ever.

‘Whispers.’

Black sighed. ‘And what do the
whispers
say?’

‘They say we should leave this place while we can.’ Black stared at him. That was the last thing he’d expected to hear. ‘Can you identify the source?’

‘They are not those kind of whispers.’

‘Then for God’s sake, what kind are they?’

‘The voices of the dead.’

Black snorted, then realised the Envoy was being perfectly serious. ‘Tell me you’re joking.’

‘My species never developed a sense of humour.’ Black sobered instantly. ‘Must’ve been a fun place you came from. So let me get this straight. You’re talking to the dead?’

‘No.’

‘Explain.’

‘The dead are talking to me.’

‘Excuse me. Silly of me to get that wrong.’

‘Your scepticism is puzzling. The Mercator Equations prove the existence of an afterlife, of the continuation of the soul after death.’

As far as Black was concerned, the Mercator Equations - an alien mathematics as strange as the Envoy himself - were highly questionable. But he never got the chance to say so because two things happened at once.

The planetary shields went offiine.

And the two ships alongside Black’s command vessel suddenly ceased to exist. One second they were there, the next they were gone.

Black glanced at the Envoy. The alien bent over the console and ran a scan. ‘They were not destroyed. But I do detect traces of
n-space
radiation.’

Black stared. ‘They transported two entire ships?’

‘It would appear so.’

Black regained his composure. He would have to give some thought to this phenomenon when the mission was over. If Dyson’s scientists could move ships
ton-space,
Black needed to know how. But not right now ...

‘Order the attack.’

‘It is done,’ said the Envoy, straightening from the console.

Within moments, all remaining ships were plunging down towards the planet, taking fire from surface defences - but it could have been much worse. The dependency on protective field harmonics was also a weakness.

A group of ships broke away from the main body to pursue individual objectives. The rest barged through the main hot zone of anti-ship fire, losing only one vessel. They landed at a large industrial docking complex. Black’s schematics told him it was undefended, and recently redundant.

From there, sixteen squads streamed into the industrial bays, cracking through defensive metallic barriers - weapons set on stun. Black had no wish to anger the age-old neutrality of this world. Should it come to a courts-general, he might have to stand before the assembled Federation of Trading Worlds, or before the semi-defunct RIM. He wanted to show good faith in driving off the Myotan privateers, as if doing a galactic favour.

Against the Envoy’s advice, Black was leading a squad. This had a galvanising effect on his squad’s morale and on the entire operation. Few of the troopers, even grizzled old veterans, could remember a high-ranking officer picking up a weapon and joining them in the field. The prestige this gave Black was not lost on him.

To placate the Envoy, he’d added as an afterthought,

‘I’ll try not to get myself killed.’

It was a pointless joke lost on the ever-humourless creature.

Black immediately took his squad of sixty troopers into the east side of the main conurbation on Dyson’s Drop, known as Kobol. The priority mission for his group was to secure Government House, a symbolic move, but one that sometimes brought an early cessation to hostilities. While this was happening, other squads would be interdicting the main Dyson army corps; taking control of the primary transportation Hub, from where all roads, passages, thoroughfares and drop tubes were operated; shutting off power and environmental controls, effectively threatening everyone with asphyxiation; and arresting key government personnel.

Elsewhere, at key stock exchanges in nearby systems, certain economic strategies were being put in place.

Black was hoping for a simple by-the-book victory, but had enough experience to doubt such victories existed in the recent history of warfare.

He was right.

At first, they moved quickly, without hindrance. Seemingly, the surprise attack had been a reasonable success. Even the attack on the shields had not given Dyson’s militia enough time to deploy all defences. Black was pleased, but something nagged him. Too easy. Maybe the Dysonian forces didn’t need to deploy ...

He was digesting this through his brain’s parallel processor when they were hit from both sides at once. Later, he would be suspicious of the timing of this attack, as if someone had been reading his thoughts. Which wasn’t possible. He knew that.

They were moving through a long multi-storey foyer at the double. Sensor readings said the area was clear of potential hostiles. Then a pulse beam lanced down from the mezzanine level above and one of his men fell with a cry.

‘Take cover,’ Black yelled. ‘Return fire!’ All of which made him an instant target.

He snap-rolled aside as a bolt blasted the spot where he’d been standing and tumbled behind a large marble cube.

Then, as if they’d been testing them before now, the real onslaught began. A hail of pulse beams rained down on all sides. Those without cover were hit - though not seriously. Either the armour and personal deflector fields were holding up or the attackers were using stun beams only. How civilised. It meant that the defenders were Dysonians rather than Myotans. Myotans would shoot to kill every time.

They were being pinned down. This meant only one thing.

‘Lay down a suppression fire,’ he ordered Sub-squad B over internal radio. ‘Everyone else, pull back to the courthouse.’

Sub-squad B unloaded an impressive barrage against the attackers above and forward of their position, ionising the air with pulse weapons. The rest made it to the courthouse with only one minor wound. They then defended Sub-squad B’s retreat.

Once all there, Black led them through a rear entrance, taking turns at random to avoid creating discernible patterns for the hunters.

After twenty minutes he’d circled around back onto their original heading. They reached Government House in good time with no further opposition and quickly seized the building, deploying an array of shield defences.

Definitely too easy.

Black sent out a coded
n-space
message to the other squads, indicating the completion of their mission. When finished, he made his way to the northwest corner of the building where a small AI Hub had been found. He was almost there when everything disappeared.

Something was blinking.

A long slow blink.

The next moment he was somewhere else. An unanchored portal, he thought at once. They’ve scooped me up and sent me somewhere. But where?

The walls were made of a white pearly material, vaguely soft to the touch. His sensors could not scan through it. He re-calibrated them to read the open spaces, giving him a local map.

A slow business. When he finally got his answer, he did not like it.

He appeared to be in a maze. Was this a test? A form of torture? There was only one way to find out. Facing a long passageway, he immediately headed down the opposite pathways. After a few moments, he reached an intersection with three new pathways. His sensors didn’t help. There were no distinguishing marks, nothing to rate one path over the others.