The Mammoth Book of SF Wars (44 page)

It took Otte, Jemayel and Jan to build the devices necessary. Sarendy’s requested station wasn’t a standard item for a recon boat, and there were few spare parts aboard The Rock. Judicious cannibalization and improvisation yielded an effective, albeit ugly, set-up. Additional gear was used to build an offensive electronic suite, and some of it had obviously been stolen from other ships. As promised, Otte left, but not before trying desperately to convince them he was as necessary as Jemayel. He failed, but not for lack of determination.

4J23 departed immediately. The time left was useful for rehearsal and training, and those were best done without distractions. The short crew strapped in as Costlow cleared with Station Control, detached the umbilical, thereby cutting them off from communication, the boat being under transmission silence, and powered away.

It would avoid awkward goodbyes, also.

Meka began laying out gear for herself and Jan. They each would take their duty weapons. Jan had a demolition charge large enough for the structure in question. She took extra explosives and ammo. Both would carry their short swords, not so much from need but because it was traditional. They both needed oxy bottles. He’d wear her manoeuvring harness; she had a sled designed for clandestine missions. They had enough oxy mix, barely, to last them two days. That was tantalizingly close to enough for a pickup, but still short. A boat might conceivably get into the vicinity in time, but rescue operations took time. If they could run this mission in the open … but of course, they couldn’t.

Costlow spent the time getting trajectories from the navigation system. He needed to pass by two stations whose locations were approximate, get near the
London
, which was in a powered station orbit around the jump point, observe, plan an approach, execute the approach to stay unseen, and arrive at a precise point at an exact time with sufficient fuel for terminal manoeuvres. Very terminal. He consulted with Sarendy as to detection equipment ranges and apertures to help plot his path. Jemayel tended the engines, life support, and astronautics. None of them spoke much.

Jan had little to do until his departure. He spent it moping, getting angry, and finally beating on the combat practice dummy for hours, twisting in microgravity. When Meka called him over to explain the gear, he was more than eager to just get things over with.

She showed him the mass of gear and began to go through it. He checked everything off with her. Weapons and gear needed little explanation. He was familiar with the technical details of her manoeuvring harness and the munitions fuses even though he’d never used them. The briefing would be far too short a distraction.

“We’ll synch our chronos,” Meka said.

“Goddess, don’t give me a clock,” Jan begged, shaking his head. “If I have to watch it count down, I’ll be a basket case. Just put me there with some stuff to read and let me go.” He spoke loudly, eyes wide, because the stress was getting to him.

“You need one in case the auto system fails,” Meka said. “You’re getting a triple load of ammo. It seems unlikely, but if anyone shows up to stop you—”

“Then I hold them off as long as I can.”

“Right,” Meka agreed.

Costlow showed the plotted course in a 3D, and asked, “We let you off here. Are you sure you can manoeuvre well enough for that distance?”

Shrugging, Jan replied, “End result is the same for me either way, but I’m sure. I do a lot of EVA. Unlike some people, I like it.”

“Bite me, bro,” Meka replied and laughed, too loud from stress. She had always
hated
long EVA, and that’s what this was. She was assembling a pile of gear including her powered sled, two oxy bottles, the basic demolition blocks from everyone’s standard gear plus her own larger pack, weapons and stuff the others wouldn’t recognize. Her actions were trained, expert and only a little shaky from tension. She’d done long trips in the dark before, and survived, but that didn’t make it fun. She had her sled for this one, Jan was making a far shorter infiltration, and the boat wasn’t her concern. She prepped everything, had Jan and Jemayel double check, and went through exercises to calm herself. Those didn’t work for Jan.

With less than four hours until his departure, Jan sat staring at the bulkhead of the day cabin. His bunk was folded, and his few effects sealed in a locker. He’d recorded a message and written instructions, all of which made things rather final. He didn’t feel thoroughly terrified yet, but did feel rather numb. Rest was impossible. He nodded briefly to Sarendy as she swam in, and tried not to dwell on her. It was all too easy to think of justifications to break the fraternization ban. He didn’t need rejection or complications now, and the sympathy ploy was the only approach he could think of. It wouldn’t work, as she was in the same boat as he, quite literally.

“Come back here,” she said, gesturing with a hand. She turned and swam for her intel bay.

As he followed her in, she closed the hatch and dogged it. It was dimly lit by one emergency lamp, there being no need for its use at this time, and there was just enough room for the two of them inside the radius of couches and terminals set against the shell. While his brain tried to shift gears, she grabbed him by the shoulders and mashed her mouth against his while reaching to open her shipsuit. Both their hands fumbled for a few seconds, then his stopped and drew back while hers continued questing.

“Mehlnee,” he muttered around her kiss. She drew her full lips back a bare few millimetres, and he continued, “I appreciate this … but it won’t help me deal with … this.”

“It helps me,” she replied, voice breathy, and wrapped herself more tightly around him. Her lips danced over his throat and he decided not to argue with her logic. His hands were on the sinuous curves of her golden-skinned hips, and long-held fantasies solidified into reality. Frantic, unrequited lust made thought impossible, and that was a good thing right then.

Jan was first out. He doffed his shipsuit and donned his hard vacsuit, intended for short duration EVA maintenance and not the best for this mission. It was what he had, though. Meka’s assault harness fitted snugly over it and would provide thrust. Three bottles rode his back, two oxy-helium, one nitrogen for the harness. His rifle and clips were along the right bottle, and his comm on his wrist, programmed with everything he needed. Strapped to his chest was a large, bulky pack with over 20 kilos of modern military hyperexplosive. It would be more than enough for the station in question.

Melanie and Meka checked him over and helped him into the bay. The other two were busy on the flight deck. Ignoring his sister’s presence, Melanie kissed him hard and deeply. He kissed back, shaking, wanting to leave before the whole situation caused him to go insane. Meka waited until Sarendy was done, then clutched him briefly. “Good luck,” she said.

“Good hunting,” he replied.

Behind him he heard, “Oh, I will,” as the hatch closed.

Jan stared out the open bay into cold black space with cold, bright pinpoints of light. “God and Goddess, I don’t want to do this,” he muttered. His stomach boiled and churned, and he wished he’d filled his water bottle with straight alcohol. Even the double dose of tranquilizers was not enough to keep him calm.

A light winked once, twice, then a third time, and he jumped out briskly, feeling the harness shove him in a braking manoeuvre. He was immediately thankful for the suit’s plumbing, and his brain went numb.
I’m dead now
, was all he could think.

The station Jan was attacking would note the passage of the anomaly that was the boat as well as it could, and report later. Meka’s target was more complicated. It was crewed, and they would react if they saw her. She’d have to ride her sled for some distance and most of a day, and try to time it for a covert approach. That might be the hardest part of this mission.

In the maintenance bay, she strapped herself to her sled and had Jemayel check her over. With a final thumbs-up and a lingering hug, she turned to her controls and counted seconds down to her launch.

The boat passed through the volume as stealthed as possible, oriented so the bay opened away from the station’s sensors. There were no emissions, only the operating radiation and a bare hint of the powerplant. Her braking thrust was hidden by the mass of the boat, and should be almost invisible at this distance. That should put her right on top of the station at Earth clock 11.30 the next day, when the crew would hopefully be at lunch.

Once the vibration and heavy gees tapered off, she checked her instruments and took a trank. It would be a long wait, and very eerie in complete silence and blackness.

And now I’m dead
, she thought.

* * *

Sarendy reported when they were outside the known range of the station, and Costlow waited a planned extra hour before bringing up the plant and engines. He wanted to be lost in background noise.

The thrust built steadily in a rumbling hiss through the frame. Most of the impulse would be used now, with only enough left for margin and manoeuvres. That would simplify the approach by minimizing emissions then. The velocity increased to a level the boat had rarely used, and he nodded to his remaining crew as they completed the manoeuvre. Now they had to wait.

“Anyone for a game of chess?” he asked.

Jan watched for the station. It was a black mass against black space, and he was glad to see it occult stars. He’d been afraid the intel was wrong and he was sailing off into space for nothing. Odd to feel relieved to see the approaching cause of one’s death, he thought. It had been a three-hour trip, and he was hungry. He would stay that way for the next day and a half, because his suit was intended for maintenance EVAs only, not infiltration, and had no way to supply food. So much for the condemned’s last meal. Then there was the irony that his boat had IDed this particular piece of equipment, which is why it was on the list, and why he was here.

The occultation grew, and he got ready to manoeuvre for docking, landing, whatever it was called in this case. He switched on the astrogation controls, adjusted his flight towards it, then braked relative. He was tense, lest the reports be inaccurate and the station blast him with a defence array, but nothing happened. He didn’t overshoot, but did approach obliquely and had to correct for touchdown.

There was no one and nothing nearby, which was as expected. He snapped a contact patch out, slapped it to the surface, and attached his line. There were no regular padeyes on the unit.

A short orientation revealed where the power cell was. He planted the standoff over it and slapped it down with another contact patch. When it triggered, the blast would turn a plate of metal beneath it into plasma and punch it through the shell into the power cell. He armed it, and all he had left to do was defend it against what appeared to be nothing, wait until it detonated and die with it. Simple on file. Doing it didn’t seem quite that by the numbers.

At first, he was terrified of being near the charge. He realized it was silly, as it would kill him anyway, and if it didn’t, suffocation would. He compromised between fear and practicality by hiding over the horizon of the small, angled object. It was a bare three metres across, five metres long, and almost featureless except for a docking clamp inset at one end. Its signals were all burst through a translucent one-way window. He longed to tear into it for the sheer joy of discovering if the intel briefs were correct about this model, but that might give him away. He’d sit and wait.

He did have emgee, and a suit, and a tether. He decided to rest floating free. The technique had helped him before when stressed. He stared out at the stars and the distant pointy glare of Iota Persei, their star, and fell into a deep sleep, disturbed by odd dreams.

Meka approached the station gradually. She’d have to leave her sled behind and finish the trip in just her suit to avoid detection. While a bedecked suit would register as maintenance or a refugee with the sensors, the sled would trigger alarms as an approaching threat even if the enemy didn’t have knowledge of the precise design. She made one last correction to her orbit, set the autopilot, pulled the releases, and drifted loose from the frame. Her minuscule lateral velocity should be of negligible effect.

The sled burped gently away on gas jets rather than engines, and would hopefully never be detectable to the station. It was near 08.00 by Earth clock, and another three hours should bring her quite close. That’s when it would become tricky.

First, she’d have to manoeuvre with an improvised thruster. Jan had her harness; she had only a nitrogen bottle and a momentary valve. He’d – hopefully – made his approach with power but no navigation. She had the navigation gear in her helmet, but improvised power. The risks they were taking would cause a safety officer to run gibbering in insanity. On the other hand, they were dead either way.

There was also the substantial risk of the station noting her approach to its crew. They might await her, or send someone to investigate, or shoot her outright. She was betting against the last, but it was just that – a bet. If they met her, it meant a fight. She would win one on one against anybody she faced, but the station might have up to twenty crew. It was effectively a large recon boat with manoeuvring engines, and she didn’t relish a fight within.

Unlike her previous long EVAs, she was relaxed and calm. Perhaps it was experience. Maybe it was the complexity of the task and the associated thought that kept her too busy to worry. Perhaps it was fatalism. As she neared her target, more issues interfered and she dropped all those thoughts.

There were no obvious signs of disturbance as she approached. That meant that if they did see her for what she was, they were at least holding their fire. She checked her weapon again by touch, and began readying her muscles for a fight. If someone met her, she’d go along peacefully to the airlock, then start smashing things and killing on her way inside.

Nothing happened. Either the station’s sensors didn’t see her, or they assumed she was performing maintenance and ignored her. It was good to see the intel was accurate, but it still felt odd that her presence wasn’t even reported. Perhaps it was and they were waiting for her. Dammit, no second guessing.