Riding the Red Horse (20 page)

“Why would a Church ship be hanging out here?” asked Igor, the XO. “They only have three.”

Armadillo
frowned from a screen at the end of the mess table. “Some bishops have been very vocal about their opposition to my creation. They call me soulless, an abomination. Perhaps they are interested in my activities.”

“If they have been here all along, then they expected us to come in. Seems like everyone else wants to hide in the unclaimed planet rings, too,” Samper observed.

“So much for being unpredictable, Captain,” the AI said. “I've been thinking about who’s out there. Based on last known locations, travel times, drive parameters, and configurations, and now this latest data, I have a few educated guesses.”

“Do tell.”

“If this was a Church setup, then a minelayer would be from New Spain. If Beta is a frigate, would be a German
Sheppard
-class ship, probably the
Wiesbaden
, and Alpha, the camouflaged ship, would be the military salvage tug
George
. Bright arrival Charlie is likely the cruiser
Yangtze
. The gunships look like Russian freelancers.”

“And Delta is a clueless prospector.”

“Something civilian, anyhow. But there is one problem with the analysis. No, two.
Yangtze
is accompanied by
Pearl
ninety four percent of the time, and the
Wiesbaden
is usually followed around by the
Homburg
. We haven’t seen them.”

“I have yet to hear of any German-Chinese actions that didn’t involve opposite sides,” the XO noted, drawing nods around the table. “But a big Chinese electronics contract was voided over the Selene project, and a German company was originally chosen to build the carbon nanotube fiber for the hull. It was canceled over fraud allegations. Both of those caused some major political headaches.”

“But ever since the Chinese started cracking down on the Christian dissident movement, the Church has been hostile to China,” Igor objected. “Why invite them?”

“And why a Spanish minelayer?” the weapons officer asked.

“The Cardinal Bishop of Ostia is from New Spain,” Captain Harrison replied slowly, as he considered the ship's suggestions. “I think the only way out is through them.” He looked around the table and his eyes settled on the Marine lieutenant, Scintan. “How many men to take the
San Clemente
, Lieutenant?”

“Take a Church ship?” he asked, surprised. “Depends. Ground it, take it whole, kill them all, or totally destroyed?”

“Taken whole, preferably. Grounded or out of action otherwise. I’d like to get into the computer if at all possible.”

The solidly built young man scratched the short cropped hair on the back of his head a moment. “Four tanks, six squads with APCs, an extra suit of powered armor, and nuke authorization. Twice that if I can’t get any backup on call because you expect to be busy elsewhere.”

Captain Harrison nodded curtly. “Get Louis to start getting it together. Be ready to disembark in a half hour.” Turning to the others at the table, he paused thoughtfully before starting. “So, here’s what I think we can do to confuse the situation….”

“Clear shot in thirty seconds,” Samper reported. “Still no movement…Looks good. Impact will be in one hour, twenty one minutes. Firing…now!” An odd resonating
ping
vibrated through the twenty thousand-ton hull as the BFR fired at one hundred kilometers per second, launching a 42 gigajoule projectile across the rings toward the three gunships. “Recharging will take a while. All other systems ready.”

The suit of powered battle armor walks in the slow and gentle gliding leap of extremely low gravity over the rim of the crater and toward the
San Clemente
, clutching a small makeshift white flag of truce. The seconds tick by as it arcs slowly across the expanse of rough crater floor toward the ship. The suit is about halfway to the ship when two turrets swing down from aiming high, firing lasers and a dozen railgun slugs each, blasting the titanium and carbon fiber armor to smithereens. Instantly, eight grav tanks and a half-dozen grav APCs bounce above the crater rim, firing as they clear it, taking out turrets, launch tubes, and punching high velocity holes through the relatively thin cruiser hull armor aiming to disable the drive cores. The few rounds the surprised cruiser manage to get off destroys one of the APCs, but in moments the exchange is over, the cruiser’s primary armaments and drives are disabled, leaving no time to launch fighters to make use of the smaller ships independent weapons.

Three squads of four men launch themselves out from behind their APC, flying gracefully across the harsh landscape toward the battered ship, making minor adjustments mid-flight with their space-armor retros. Two squads aim for the underside, fore and aft, the third lands with a clang next to an airlock hatch. One of the middle squad marines flips up a cover next to the hatch and places his helmet against the com pad where contact sound conduction would carry to the pickup. He pushes the button and introduces himself. “Knock-knock, Assholes! Didn’t your daddy ever teach you to be sure of your target before you open fire? You wasted a perfectly good, though empty, suit of armor! Marine Corporal Mellow-Harsher of the ship
Armadillo
. Open and surrender or we make our own door.”

After a long minute, the light clicks green. The corporal grabs the handle, turns it, and pulls then pushes the door to swing inward, while his squad-mates cover the door with their weapons. Using the weapon’s camera optic on his HUD they see nobody inside. Two of the marines clamber gracefully in. One of them covers the airlock interior cameras, the other then carefully attaches a lunchbox-sized item on the overhead with a piece of duct tape because the magnetic strip found no ferrous metal to attract. He nods to the squad leader, then touches helmets. “Got a signal” he reports. They exit and close the hatch, then wait.

On the HUD in each helmet a small video link displays a camera view from the device they secured, showing the inner door of the airlock. The hatch opens and a grenade is hurled inside, followed by two rifle muzzles spraying around the inside of the airlock. “Rough neighborhood” the Corporal observes. A moment later the hatch opens the rest of the way. “Blow it.” The camera view disappears as the signal is lost, the mine attached to the camera spraying inward with a thousand tiny metal balls, shredding the light spacesuits of the men who were firing a moment before. “We can play that game, too.”

Fore and aft, the other two teams set off their ring charges, blasting their own entrance into the cruiser, inner air pressure blowing the debris away against the rock below. The grav APCs add a few selective shots into critical areas, their lighter weapons limiting the damage to systems that needed to be disabled more thoroughly while the marines clear their areas.

On
Armadillo
’s bridge, a screen showed the smiling face of 2nd Lieutenant Kashvili reporting back. “Data cores secured. Privates Danes and Vargas injured, nothing critical, but we’ll send them back with the hardware. Minimal resistance, just enthusiastic amateurs who appear to know and hate
Armadillo
personally, calling her a tool of Satan. We had to shoot about fifty of them before most of them understood the situation, but we’re still digging out a few hard cases. Loose words clearly indicated this is a setup; they’ve been here a week. Got about a hundred dead aboard, two hundred prisoners; just letting them try to patch the ship up, keep it airtight. What now, Captain?”

Harrison acknowledged the report with a grunt and a satisfied nod. “Secure the ship and armor. Let us know if any new intelligence specifics come up. Spherical LP/OPs, passive only. Keep the APCs and troops, send back six of the tanks, camo the other two. Hole ‘em and hunker if things go completely non-linear. We’ll be back for you when we’re done out there.”

“Roger that.” The young man’s face disappeared from the screen.

“No obvious signs of ships moving since the initial attack, Captain,” the AI informed him. “They either have not noticed, or are biding their time.”

“Cat and mouse, then. With some very big mice.” He turned to the other man in the doorway, who was wearing lighter space armor like the rest of the shipboard crew. “Are we sure on those transponder codes?”

The chief engineer nodded confidently. “Damn straight. If Ship’s even partially right about who’s out there, once the Whistlers start squawking, everyone will wonder whose fleet set up whom.”

“OK, then. As soon as the armor and returning men are secured aboard, get things spun up and ready, make sure nothing has changed, then start the first one.”

The status readouts throughout the bridge were mostly green, and the tactical display was quiet. An icon appeared and started blinking amid a dense patch of the ring’s rocks,
Pearl
, then disappeared. Then A second icon lit up.
Yangtze
. “Do we have a clear shot?”

“Affirmative,” Samper muttered, focusing intently on moving orbital debris between them, “for about another six seconds.”

“Laze the
Yangtze
at two thirds power in four, nine beams.”

Samper smiled. “Matching the
Homburg
’s weapon pattern…now.” Status lights on his board lit up, and a moment later the
Yangtze
’s icon changed as the ship disappeared from direct observation.

“All beams target the mine layer, full power.”

“Aimed and ready, sir.”

“Fire.” Across the weapons console, capacitors discharged, dumping terawatts of energy for microseconds, then began recharging. Almost three seconds later, the tactical display began showing initial damage assessments based on the light from the explosions where beams found targets. “Likely disabled, damage at least fifty percent.” Another stream of results flowed across the screens. “Damage at least eighty percent. Out of action, beyond damage control near certain.”

“Squawk
Homburg
.”

The com specialist nodded, and punched a pre-programmed sequence. The tactical display lit up showing another ship. Moments later, two more transponder icons appeared: one the real
Homburg
, the other reading
Köln
.

“Oops,”
Armadillo
said. “That's not good. Beta isn’t the
Wiesbaden
. It's
Köln
, she's a frigate.”

“Lots of radio traffic now,” specialist Gungey announced from his communications consol. “Some narrow-beam apparently aimed at the
San Clemente
. Some broadband open freq. Sounds like an open com–what-the-hell?”

“BFR impacts gunship rock in three,” Samper reminded the bridge. On a side-screen with a high-res visual of the rock, there is a sudden flash and a cloud of dust appeared as the mass slams into the tiny rock to which the three gunships, blowing it apart. The explosion sends high-velocity rock fragments and plasma from the impact into all three tiny craft, seriously damaging them and sending them spinning, out of control. “Looks like they are out of the equation, now.”

“OK, lift and head for moonlet Bravo.” The pilot works the controls, space-dust surrounding the ship glows, and for the first time in days something like real gravity is felt as the acceleration, anti-grav, and acceleration compensators work high-tech magic. On the tactical screen, indications of a long-range laser duel start lighting up, as ships start firing at others unknown to them, and captains try to sort out who’s who.

Armadillo
accelerates inward toward another moonlet a mere thirty thousand kilometers away, taking a slightly arcing path to avoid a few rocks drifting along, vaporizing others in their path with the tanks’ beam weapons. “Incoming laser fire. Maneuvering,” the AI reports, as beams fired from a half-light second away try to predict her trajectory and intercept her. “Only four megajoule beams. Likely from
Yangtze
.” Another cruiser icon appears on the tactical display, flashing
Pearl
, near the far side of the rings, then another one flashing
Homburg
somewhat closer, as the Whistler rounds squawk, followed briefly by
Kittyhawk
,
Sungari
,
Dresden
,
Taurus
, and
San Gabriel
.

“Firing chaff rounds” Samper reported, as a series of barely audible thuds echo through the ship.

“Everyone moving,” Armadillo said, speaking quickly but blandly. “Another ship detected, far side of moonlet Bravo, big drive signature ramping up, badly regulated. No visuals, no good guesses.”

“Go around the opposite way! See if we can circle close behind them, catch them on the horizon!” Captain Harrison commanded. “Load canister in the tanks. Evacuate the cargo deck, get ready to drop the APCs to act as gunship cluster!” Orders are passed, and the cargo bay becomes a beehive of activity as thin carbon nanotube cables are passed and secured between the dozen remaining APCs on the deck, suits are sealed, and three-man crews and an extra climb aboard the angular armored personnel carriers getting ready to be cast adrift if needed to act as a remote firing platform.

Armadillo
bounces randomly about, altering acceleration vectors to reduce the chance of a laser hit, though a few lucky strikes cause hot spots or damage less robust pieces attached to her armored hull. A weapon pod is holed, destroying two missiles, a tank’s railgun is damaged, and the unknown craft is still lurking behind the moon as they begin reducing velocity and vector around its curve. The tactical display gets more complex as target Alpha lifts off from under her camo; she is clearly not a military tug, but has a number of retrofit weapons attached to it emitting the transponder data for a defunct cruise liner. Likely a pirate.

As they rapidly approach the moonlet,
Armadillo
’s pilot aims to hook around in a low, tight orbit, going the same way the faintly detected ship on the far side appears to be heading, trying to catch it from behind. When they are only one diameter away, Samper empties and dumps two missile pods, the barrage of mixed ordnance going the other way to meet the newcomer head-on, transmitting live video so they can identify the ship and abort if needed. The missiles arc over the nearby horizon. A shape appears on the screen for just a moment before it freezes, the missile sending it destroyed by counter-fire.