Randolph Lalonde - Spinward Fringe Broadcast 08 - Renegades (56 page)

A Loaner

Ashley and Minh-Chu’s
quarters aboard the Warlord were sparse and surprisingly neat. Alice
had a feeling that the tidiness was thanks to Minh-Chu’s influence.
He’d spent years in Freeground Infantry, something she kept meaning
to ask him about. From where she lay on a slim cot, it was clear that
for everything there was a place, and all things were in their place.
It made the small two-person cabin seem a little bigger.

Most of the bulkhead
above the double bed was painted with a display coating, and Alice
stared at the twinkling image of a night sky. Ashley slept below it.
She’d been the best of friends through the last couple of days, as
Alice cried a river of tears, ranted about how no one would let her
shuttle to the destroyer to see her father, and gave in to despair
more than once. With one eye on the ship’s status, Ashley supported
her through it all. Alice was grateful, and a little embarrassed.

There was nothing they
could do but hope that her father would be saved aboard the Triton;
no one could do anything for him with the technology they had aboard
the Warlord. Not even Alice could regenerate him. As she had been
told time and time again, if even a few anti-framework nanobots
survived, she could end up in the same state as her father, or worse.

She didn’t know why
she woke up in the middle of the third watch, but Alice didn’t mind
so much. Ashley groaned and rolled over, still deep in sleep. Alice
watched her as she huffed, mumbled, “Gonna get stuck, Zoe,” then
settled down.

Alice snickered and
started to close her eyes when her comm unit buzzed and blinked
bright red. She scrambled to answer the emergency call. “What’s
up? I’m off shift.”

“Third watch, I
know,” Remmy said, “But there’s something crawling around on
the Warlord’s hull, I’ve linked you up with the scanners of the
Sunny Shifter so you can see our readings.”

“Threat identify,”
Alice whispered at her command and control unit. It executed one of
her old pieces of software and highlighted four faint heat
signatures. “They’re under camouflage, it’s matching the hull.”

“Hey, where’d you
get that program?” Remmy asked.

“It’s a really old
plugin for Freeground sensors I adapted to our comms. They stopped
installing it before your time because people were using it instead
of their own analytical tools. I’ll pass it on later.”

“Great, we’ll have
to swap code sometime,” Remmy replied. “I’m going to pass this
on to Warlord Command.”

“Don’t bother,
Frost is off-duty and half my team is up right now anyway. We’re
due for a walk.”

“A walk?”

“Yup, just what I
need to clear my head, a stroll along the hull inside a nice wide
wormhole,” Alice said, flashing a toothy grin.

“Who ya talkin’
to?” Ashley asked, half asleep.

“Just going to
stretch my legs, I’ll be right back,” Alice told her soothingly.

“Mmm-kay,” Ashley
said as she lay back down.

Alice dragged her kit
and her armour into the hall and got dressed hurriedly. A pair of
technicians rounded the corner and immediately averted their eyes.
“Oh, God, I’ve worn smaller bathing suits,” Alice said, rolling
her eyes.

“What?” Remmy
asked.

“Couple night techs
caught me before I got my suit on. Caught me in my undies, nothing to
get excited about,” Alice replied. “I’m surprised your comm
doesn’t have a wider focus, your profile log definitely reveals a
tendency for peeking. I’m sure one of those techs could replay that
glimpse for you.” She knew her attempt at teasing him as revenge
for getting her out of bed was clumsy, but according to his wide-eyed
reaction, it was working.

“Holy hell, are you
trying to get me slagged? You know who your father is, right?”
Remmy said. There was a moment’s pause. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t
mean to remind you, or get you thinking about-”

“Don’t worry about
it,” Alice replied. “I’m lucky, there’s still hope. He’s
still alive.”

“Exactly,” Remmy
said, grinning a little too broadly for it not to be forced. “And
he’d cave my head in if he heard a rumour that I was flirting with
his daughter.”

“You’re flirting
with Alice?” asked a shrill, shocked female voice from somewhere
behind Remmy.

“No,” Remmy
replied, “I live strictly in Alice’s friend zone, let it be known
that there was never any flirting! Actually, don’t say anything at
all about the topic of flirting or flirtatiousness in general, mum on
the presence or absence of flirting with anyone.”

“Smooth,” Alice
remarked with a smirk as she sealed the front of her armour. She sent
orders for the nearest security personnel to meet her down the
hallway.

“Yeah, I run an
orderly operation,” Remmy replied, to which there were a few
chuckles and guffaws in the background. “Seriously though, Frost
has to know about this. I’m signalling him.”

“I’m just about
ready to go and my team is meeting me near the damaged section. It’s
on the same level I’m on now.”

“Wait until you have
his orders on it,” Remmy said. “He may want to take care of this
himself.”

“The captain is out
of commission and the first officer isn’t aboard. I’m head of
security,” Alice said as she checked her rifle and started walking
down the corridor. “I technically outrank him when it comes to
incursions.”

“You don’t outrank
an acting captain!” Remmy whispered urgently. “Oh, God, he hasn’t
answered yet. How do you ignore vibrations, a bright, flashing light,
and an alarm that sounds like a screaming rim weasel?”

Alice met three of her
team at the first intersecting corridor. They fell in step with her
as she spoke to Remmy. “Well, then I definitely have to take
action. I’ll tell you how it turns out later.”

“Wait! Take a right
two doors down into that bunkroom, there’s an Order Knight’s
heavy rifle in the net above my bunk,” Remmy said.

“Oh, Remmy, you
shouldn’t have,” Alice said with a grin.

“If you’re going
out there anyway, you may as well take enough firepower to give a
gunship second thoughts.”

Alice rushed to the
hatch and looked inside. She scanned around the bunkroom reserved for
Remmy’s Ranger team and found the weapon. “Got it,” she said as
she rushed to it.

“Okay, now it has to
power up, just press the-“

“Found it,” Alice
said as she opened a dented control cover, pressed a button, and
closed it again. “I helped write the book on this gun, remember?”

“Right, forgot you’re
a gun nut,” Remmy replied.

Alice’s suit helped
her balance the rifle against her shoulder as it ran through its
start up diagnostic. “How’d you get this? I kept on requesting
one but no one would answer me.”

“It was a gift for
busting the last Order bunker on Tamber,” Remmy said.

“Okay, looks like
everything’s ready to go. Thanks loads,” Alice said. She was just
about to close the channel but realized something. “Oh, and Remmy?”

“Yeah?”

“You cheered me up. I
had my cry and my ranting with Ash, but you got me smiling, thank
you.”

“You’re about to go
into mortal danger for which you are barely trained. Wait for Frost
to respond.”

“Don’t spoil it,”
Alice said before closing the channel.

“Nice weapon,” one
of her officers said as she emerged from the Ranger bunkroom.

“Thanks,” Alice
said. “It’s a loaner.”

“Last time I gave a
girl anything that cool I almost married her,” said Havernash.

“Thankfully this is
just a loaner, no crazy strings attached,” Alice said.

“Marriage is not a
crazy string,” he replied.

“Depends on who you
get tied to,” Alice replied. The rest of her team was waiting
beneath one of the main dorsal airlocks.

“So, what’s up?”
asked Havernash.

“Sensors report that
there’s something moving on the hull, we’re going to go outside
and look around,” Alice replied.

“Alice, what are you
doing?” Stephanie asked her over her communicator.

“Checking some sensor
readings,” Alice said as she entered the airlock with two of her
best. “The Edxi corvette that made a close pass on us right at the
end probably dropped a few people off. No way of knowing what they’re
doing for sure unless we get out there; the sensors are too damaged
in that section to see anything.”

“Wait until we’re
out of the wormhole,” Stephanie said.

“I bet that’s what
they’re waiting for, too,” Alice said. “Besides, it’s not
your call. You’re not aboard, and you left me in charge of
counter-incursion.” She placed her hand on the hull plating above
her and waited for her command and control unit to start updating the
state of the Warlord’s damaged section.

“As first officer,
it’s my call,” Stephanie protested.

“If you just put me
on counter-incursion because you didn’t think anything would happen
on the Warlord and you wanted to make me feel better, then you’re
in for a surprise. I take this job seriously, and I’m going to make
sure nothing happens to the Warlord. If Frost had any concerns about
who was left in charge of internal security, then he wouldn’t sleep
so soundly. Remmy already sent him a notice.” Alice checked the
results of her more detailed scan and saw that there were vibrations
and hull stress that could only indicate one thing. “Okay, my
suit’s picking up something from direct contact with the hull. Our
uninvited passengers are starting to cut into the sections of the
hull where we’re sensor dead. There are already three cuts where a
good kick will make a hole big enough for entry. Still think we can
wait for another day?”

To Alice’s surprise,
Stephanie said, “You’re right. They must have serious camouflage
tech if we’re not seeing what their tools are doing. Be careful,
take as many approaches as you can.”

Alice highlighted a
number of working airlocks and sent her people off in pairs using her
tactical system. They left right away, moving at a run. “I plan on
coming out all at once, full cloaking systems on.”

“Good. Watch your
crossfire,” Stephanie said. “I’ll watch from here, not much
else I can do.”

“Thank you, Ma’am,
I’ll have them scraped off in no time.”

“What do you think
we’ll find out there?” asked Havernash, who she had assigned as
her partner for the excursion.

“Expect the worst,”
Alice replied. “But remember to move away from our airlock as soon
as we come out. They’re going to fire on what they can see, and
this airlock will be it. You ready?”

“Hell yeah, let’s
scrape these hijackers,” he replied.

Alice made sure her
whole team was in position and started a countdown from three on her
command and control unit. She got into position beneath the hatch,
making adjustments so the tip of her loaner rifle didn’t catch on
the edge. She turned her shielding and cloaking systems all the way
up; the system wouldn’t be able to maintain that power level for
more than fourteen minutes, but she hoped they wouldn’t need that
long.

Five airlocks popped
open all at once, and Alice was through hers in a rush, leaping out
and diving to one side. As predicted, the enemy concentrated fire on
all but one of the hatches. Several of her people took massive shield
damage, but they all managed to make it out onto the hull.

The surface of the
warped hull plating was illuminated by ghostly blue and yellow light,
focused by the compression barrier of the wormhole four hundred
metres above. White light flashed behind them intermittently as the
Sunny Shifter’s thrusters fired to match the pace of the Warlord’s
deceleration. To her right and left, Alice could see the Warlord’s
thruster pylons, massive rotary thrusters, pulsing to slow the ship
down. Ahead loomed the first craft to enter the wormhole – the
destroyer, and she wished the defensive gun turrets at the rear of
that ship could help, but they didn’t have the crew aboard to
operate them.

Light flashed to her
right, illuminating her peripheral. Her tactical system indicated
that it was analysing a new type of weapon and that it was also
trying to look up the race of five different types of beings walking
on the damaged section of the hull. There were nine enemies
altogether, and two were already firing.

Alice ducked a fraction
of a second before a self-propelled weapon passed just overhead. An
image of it appeared on her heads-up display as the analysis of the
weapon completed. It was an explosive disc with small thrusters and
beam emitters surrounding its core that projected some kind of cutter
beams. “They haven’t seen us yet, get into position,” said
Alice’s second in command.

“These are Edxi,”
said another. The tension in her voice grated on Alice.

All of her people were
firmly affixed to the hull and were moving towards their nearest
targets, taking aim. Alice was surprised that the creatures didn’t
continue to fire on the open airlocks. Instead, they sent up several
of their seeker discs and returned to work, slowly cutting circular
shapes into the hull of the Warlord. Alice started closing the
distance between her and the nearest Edxian, a three metre tall thing
in carapace-like armour with six upper arms. The ones at the top had
three main sections with long, sharp digits at the end, while the
other arms were smaller, with only two sections each. It walked on
four spider-like legs, unlike any Edxian Alice had known. “Take
aim,” Alice said, slowly unslinging her borrowed heavy rifle and
kneeling only five metres away from the legs of the strange alien in
front of her. Her partner did the same.

“Oh, God,” breathed
one of Alice’s soldiers. “It’s looking right at me.”

“Shoot the legs!”
Alice said a second too late as the Edxian facing one of the soldiers
well behind her fired one of the discs, which flared violently at her
squad member, slicing at his shields with super-heated beams then
exploding violently when it was within a metre of him. He was flung
off the hull of the Warlord towards the compression wall of the
wormhole, and he managed to fire a tether line before he was
destroyed crossing the energy barrier. The Edxian used the line to
find its target and opened fire with a weapon that sent a barrage of
exploding projectiles at Timmerman. His shields and armour only
lasted seconds, and Alice’s tactical system confirmed what she
already knew – he was dead.