The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles #4, Retribution (12 page)

Jason took a deep breathe to calm himself
.“
Ken I know you want to give the Admiral all the support you can but she would be the first too frown on excessive risk. We can help her but we need to be creative to reduce that risk
.
”

The image of Commander Kirkland shifted
.“
Sir, if I may suggest a more creative solution
?
”

“
Go ahead
.
”

“
What if we use our orbital position to take out their fighters with ground-facing beam weapons
?
”

“
Atmospheric variances is going to make precision targeting difficul
t,
” Jason observed thoughtfully.

“
True sir but if you think more in terms of a hammer than a scalpel it could wor
k,
” Ken added.

“
Tell me what yo
u’
re thinking, Commander
,
”

Ke
n’
s holographic image turned and he waved someone off screen to join him. Chief Wroblewski stepped up.

“
Commodore, at the end of the day, we are dealing with aircraft. The operative word bein
g‘
ai
r’
. We do
n’
t need to actually hit them with our energy weapons as much as we need to disrupt the air they are flying through
.
”

“
Go o
n,
” Jason prompted.

,
”
If we fire a plasma beam in the general vicinity of our targets we can create a charged field that will respond very nicely to a modulated maser beam. If we modulate it correctly we can setup up disruptive vibrations in the atmosphere that will shake the teeth out of any pilot foolish enough to try and fly through it. Targeting systems will be disrupted. Flight control systems will be overwhelmed. Combat effectiveness will be destroyed
.
”

Ken picked up the conversation
.“
We may not be able to take them on head to head but we can still basically disrupt and deny the Syndicate fighters access to the airspace over all major engagement areas
.
”

***

Chairman Snatch Bait sat in the central command chair on the bridge of the MS Typhoon. The Conqueror-class dreadnaught was moments from exiting the hyperfield conduit that spanned the two universes. The immediate area surrounding the exit terminus called Sagittarius A.

SgrA was actually a complex roiling mass dominated by a supermassive black hole and the shattered remains of the innumerable star systems that had been consumed by it. The actual exit terminus was the better part of sixty light minutes above the event horizon. The actual position was a function of local Higgs field densities or some such blather one of the junior engineers had tried to tell him as he toured Engineering earlier in the day.

He could
n’
t care less about the physics involved in trans-universal hyperjumps. He simply wanted to know the factors contributing to a healthy return on investment. If it impacted the ROI, it was relevan
t
… if it did
n’
t he did
n’
t need nor want to know about it. Snatch Bait made a note to dock the enginee
r’
s pay for wasting his time. Perhaps he would suggest the chief engineer assign the young guppy to scrub the exterior hull after they exited the terminus. It would afford the fool a chance to see the source of his foolishness up close. The chairman did
n’
t know it but in this rare instance his wrath would serve him well.

Chapter Te
n
– Mayhem...

Private Anthony Stone swore inside his
Stark
combat suit. The Mark Six was showing the effects of the rough treatment it had received over the last day and a half. He had been cut off from the rest of his squad by a building that had chosen an inopportune time to fall on him. Had he not been wearing the Mark Six he would most certainly be dead. As it was it had taken him hours to work his way through a series of underground utility tunnels. His squad leader knew he was alive and kicking but he and the boys were busy in a bear fight of their own. He had been told to make his way clear and then rejoin the squad.

That had been several hours ago. It had seemed like such a good idea. Work his way around the rubble until he could get back to the others. The problem was the enemy kept dropping mortars on his position. He finally thought he had a reasonable path available that would get him back to his squad when all hell broke loose. He had been reporting to his squad leader that he had them in sight and was heading toward them when some sort of blockbuster bomb was dropped about a quarter click in front of him. The next thing he knew his Mark Six was flying backward about five hundred meters. When it finally hit something solid in the form of a partially standing apartment building he was still a good sixty or seventy meters off the ground. The slide down the side of the building just added insult to injury.

These
Stark
suits were designed to take a beating but this was pushing things a bit. As far as he knew his team had been in the middle of the blast zone. He was no longer able to raise them on comm . To make matters worse a line of track vehicles was entering the city from the west. He had spotted them with the built-in binoculars that were one of the few remaining systems on his Mark Six that still worked. He had climbed a massive rumble pile to get a better view of the area his squad leader had occupied just moments before. The area in question was a large flatten pit. Thermal imaging was no use as the entire area was a puddle of molten metal and stone. If his squad had been anywhere near that zon
e
… and he knew they wer
e
… they were unquestionably in the arms of the Creator now.

Several loud explosions occurred overhead and he glanced up. A GCP support shuttle was taking fire from one of those damn dragonflies. He considered taking a pot shot at the attacker but at this type of range it would be the wildest sort of luck if he could hit the dragonfly and even if he did he doubted the fighter would even notice the effort.

It looked the shuttle was going down somewhere near the spaceport. He checked his energy reserves. He was down to forty percent on his primaries. It was then that he noticed the spare power unit duct-taped to his right shoulder was missing. Doubtless it had be blown off during one of the numerous attempts made over the last few hours to separate his head from his shoulders.

He swore softly to himself as he began a slow jog toward the spaceport. Maybe he could join up with any survivors from that shuttle.

***

Honey adjusted the opacity of the forward view screen. The
Honey Dipper
was parked in a shuttle bay onboard WhimPy-101. The timing of their arrival had been unfortunate. They had landed on the WhimPy to replenish their supply of various munitions. Like all GCP pinnaces, the
Honey Dipper
could manufacture her own munitions using fabrication and construction nanites however that required raw materials. Given the large number of aggressive Modos ships in the system and their desire to fire on anything that had a GCP Ident-code, leaving the protective shell of the WhimPy with the
Honey Dippy
no longer seemed a good idea, especially when there was no effective way to do it while still cloaked. The microsecond the WhimPy lowered a window in its shields the surrounding ships opened fire on the window. This was known because it was exactly what Ricky had tried the moment he heard Cat was in trouble on the plane
t’
s surface.

Honey turned back to face her pilot and captain, Ricky Valen
.“
We really do
n’
t have a choice
.
”

“
I know tha
t,
” he griped sourly
.“
That does
n’
t mean
I’
m happy about it
.
”

“
The GCP second fleet will be here in six hours. She can hold on that long
.
”

“
Sh
e’
ll have to
,
” he said, with resignation.

***

Cat crawled out of the wrecked shuttle. Lieutenant Kristi and Commander LeAnder  were   both in medical stasis. The landing had not been as soft as she had been hoping. The last twenty meters were the roughest. They had clipped a bit of wreckage on the way in which resulted in an uncontrolled tumble as the ill-fated shuttle impacted with the ground of a public garden just outside the space port. Ca
t’
s Heshe nanites protected her but the others were not so lucky.

Commander LeAnder had remained conscious despite a broken arm and cracked rib. He had initially insisted on joining her in exploring their immediate vicinity but Ca
t’
s medical scanner discovered a life-threatening cranial aneurism in the marine. His medical condition was too precarious to continue. Cat ordered him to stand down. She administered specially designed medical nanites to both officers that induced a state of medical stasis. Once done she placed a protective security shield over them. They would be safe until they were rescued or until the shield
s
’ power supply failed in a couple of weeks.

While exploring outside the shuttle, Cat adjusted the optics in her eyes to enhance her distance vision. She scanned the surrounding area with her eyes while asking her internal AI to do the same with its systems. She spotted nothing but her internal sensors noted the location of several pockets of huddling civilians. At the extreme range of her systems she picked up a Mark Six making its way toward the crash site. Whoever it was, he or she was making no attempt to hide their movements. That either meant there were no Modos ground forces in the area or this particular soldier had a reason to be in a hurry.

She continued to scan the area while he approached. Reaching a hand forward she grabbed the side of a crushed ground transport. A mass of silver nanites flowed out of her hand and enveloped the wrecked vehicle. As soon as the silver mass touched metal the flow reversed and began to coat first Ca
t’
s arm and then her entire body. As this happened the ruined transport began to shrivel and shrink.

Once her entire body was coated Cat removed her hand from the wreckage. The Heshe construction and fabrication nanites continued their work. The shiny surface that had initially coated Ca
t’
s entire form began to take on a matte finish as tens of thousands of minute hyperfield emitters began to distribute themselves across the surface of her second skin.

These emitters provided active camouflage as well as shielding from both kinetic and beam weapons. Nanites embedded in the mesh of the second skin actively transported purified air and moisture across its surface. Other nanites responded to changes in the alignment of her arms and legs. Instantly they shifted the surrounding material to allow free and unencumbered movement.

To Cat, the suit felt like she was wearing a light jumper and not several hundred pounds of metal. It was far more effective than the Mark Six combat suits worn by the marines but it required a Heshe-grade encounter unit like the AI embedded in Cat in order to deploy and control it.

Once the initial configuration was complete Cat instructed the shield emitters on her face to make the second skin transparent. She had learned from previous experience that most people found the appearance of a formfitting metallic skin covering her mouth and eyes somewhat disconcerting.

The soldier she had been watching advance toward her position dipped below her line of sight. She decided to move in his general direction.

“
Ca
l
,
” she called to her embedded AI.

“
Yes, Cat
?
”

“
Keep a continuous scan of the surrounding area going. I do
n’
t want any nasty surprises
.
”

“
Already on it, Admiral. There are several dozen armored track vehicles moving in this direction from the northeast. There is sporadic weapons fire from the west and the young man who you were observing earlier has managed to fall in a hole
.
”

***

Debbu groaned again. The metal beam that had been part of the underground parking garag
e’
s roof still pinned his hind flipper. There was now a hole in the ceiling that allowed light from the street above to filter down. A mortar round had punched a hole in the ceiling just as Debbu was making his way to his electric sled. The beam fell trapping him. That had been a day ago.