Cyber Dreams - 6.41 Ready Stations
“I’m not much for combat flying, if I’m honest—did plenty of transport jobs in hot zones, and I didn’t mind unloading on that facility down on Mars, but, well, I never been too good at quick maneuvers under high Gs. You reckon we’ll hit anything much over two Gs?” Chevy spoke with a slight drawl, and sometimes Juliet had a hard time making sense of words he strung together, but she got the gist of it.
“Two? Better get comfy in that couch, Chevy, ‘cause we’re gonna be pushing a hell of a lot more than that if I have to deal with more than one or two interceptors.”
Chevy gripped the armrests of the copilot seat with one hand while rubbing the stubble on his chin with the other. He wore a bright red flight suit but hadn’t put his helmet on yet; they still had almost an hour before their final, hard deceleration burn. “But just for, like, a second or two, right?”
“You’re joking, right? You saw the flight plan Athena sent over, yeah? We’ll burn at nearly four Gs for fifteen minutes, and that’s just to put us into Ceres-space.”
“Right, no, I get that,” Chevy sighed, “I mean, like, in the dogfights. I heard interceptor pilots talking about hitting eleven Gs doing some maneuvers, and, well—shit, I’m not sure I can handle that kinda—”
“Relax, Chevy. This is a gunship, and we’ve gotta think about our engineer, too. Speaking of whom, I have to go talk to her. Watch the stick for a few minutes, will ya?” Juliet unbuckled and slipped out of the pilot’s acceleration couch, amazed by how easily she could move in the new body armor Athena had given her. It was airtight, or it would be when she donned the helmet, and though it wasn’t powered like her old combat armor, it had more durable plating that Athena said was rated for high-caliber rifle fire.
Beneath the matte-black, light-absorbing plates were two layers of flexible nanoweave membranes. The membranes were designed to absorb shocks via a layer of nanite-rich gel. The nanites, supposedly, could rapidly repair rents in the membranes—even if she took hits in the vacuum of space, the suit wouldn’t lose integrity. The helmet was great, too. Juliet appreciated the comfortable gel lining, and the outer shell was made of the same stuff as her armored plates, even the visor, which was entirely opaque. Her visuals would be provided via a series of cameras, feeding her AUI a three-hundred-sixty-degree panoramic view.
Juliet’s magnetic soles click-clomped on the decking as she made her way back to the engineering ready room. There, she found Aya, wearing armor similar to her own, pulling panels and checking components. “Ready?”
“Um, ready, but nervous. I mean, I know this ship inside and out. I just kinda wish Bennet was here with us.”
“I know, but—”
“But we need him in the Atlas suit so he can take out the station’s automated defense turrets,” she sighed.
“I mean, we need someone in the suit doing that, and, yeah, I guess he got the job. Anyway, we really need those turrets knocked offline, Aya. The Atlas is small enough and, with its booster rockets, fast enough to get in close ahead of us. If he doesn’t take ‘em out, Tanaka, Leo, Charlie, and all their mercs could get killed before we even get to the station.”
Aya nodded. “Not to mention us.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t know why we don’t just use the rail gun to pop that ‘ark’ ship from range. We could put an end to this whole thing—”
Juliet cut her off, sighing as she gently tugged one of her friend’s short, pink braids. “Aya, you heard the briefing. You know—”
It was Aya’s turn to cut her off. “I know, I know. If we blow the ark ship, the whole station could go, which could then fall directly into the Ceres dome, which, according to Athena, could result in hundreds of thousands of deaths. I still just want to blow the damn thing up. Who builds something so fragile?”
“Yeah.” Juliet shrugged. She’d had the same question, and Angel had tried to explain to her that Ceres had been greatly expanded after the war; it was, basically, an industrial city built up by dozens of corporations. The factories and shipyards tacked on, outside the dome, were owned and operated by competing interests. It wasn’t designed as a military base, and so had some inherent fragility. “I just hope Athena’s right about the resistance we’re going to face. She seems confident that her contacts will be able to convince most of the nearby corps to stay out of the fight as long as we don’t, you know, start trying to blow up an ark ship parked in the middle of a shipyard.”
Aya giggled. “Fine! We won’t fire the rail gun at the ark ship. I mean, if you forget about all the risk to innocent people, you’ve gotta admit it would be cool, though.”
“Oh, if we could target the reactors from ten thousand klicks? Hell yeah! You saw the schematics—that thing is massive!” It was true. The “ark ship” that WBD had acquired when they merged with or absorbed—Juliet wasn’t sure which—Ark Industries had been under construction for over a decade and was much larger than the dreadnaught she’d escaped. It wasn’t designed for war, so much of that space was taken up by environmental habitats—a park, a freshwater fishery, even an honest-to-goodness farm. Of course, it also had massive cargo sections, supposedly outfitted with the supplies needed to kick off a human colony. “She’d make a hell of a fireworks show.”
Aya nodded, sighing, “But you guys are right. There are probably lots of people on that ship who know nothing about what’s going on.” She closed up the component panel she’d been inspecting and then turned to look Juliet in the eyes. “Are you nervous, too?” She reached out and tugged on Juliet’s armored chest plate as though ensuring everything fit properly.
“Sure. I’ve flown combat missions with Nick riding shotgun, but this is the first time I’m, like, calling the shots. It’s also the first time I’ve flown this ship in that kind of situation. I mean, outside of a sim.”
Aya tapped the row of access panels beside her with her knuckles. “She’s going to do fine. I can feel it; she wants to keep us safe.”
“You can, can’t you?” Juliet cocked her head to the side and really looked into Aya’s pink irises. They stood out especially brightly under her dark eyebrows. “Feel it, I mean.”
Aya nodded, so her braids bounced. “Yep. I can also tell that you’re a lot more confident than you’re letting on.”
Juliet grinned with one side of her mouth. “Not slipping anything by you, am I? You know, I bet you could do some cool stuff with a psionics lattice.”
Aya’s eyes widened. “Oh! I’d love to be able to see what’s going through Leo’s head!”
Juliet groaned and wrapped her gloved hands around Aya’s neck, mock choking her. Aya stuck her tongue out to the side, making gagging sounds, and Juliet laughed. “You gotta stop thinking about that guy!”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Juliet!” Aya grabbed her wrists. “He’s about to go into battle for you—for everyone. I know you don’t really think he’s a bad guy. You like him! Be honest!”
Juliet sighed and relented, letting go of her friend. “He is a good guy. I know. I hope he comes through it okay. If you want to know the truth, that’s what I’m really worried about—him and Bennet, Alice, Shiro—all the others.” She stared at Aya for another few seconds, and, though neither said anything more, a lot passed between them. Juliet knew Aya trusted her, and it meant a lot that Juliet had admitted to a reluctant approval of Leo, whether or not anything ever happened between them.
“Anyway,” Aya broke the moment and gestured around the ready room. “The components all look good. I’ve got replacement parts on hand for every major system. The cannons are locked and loaded. The main gun is primed and ready to swap ammo to shredder canisters.” She pointed to the access ladder on the left. “I’ve run the route to the central drive and memorized the grip placements in case we’re maneuvering, and the Gs are shifting. Everything’s a go.”
“Okay, awesome. Well, fingers crossed we don’t need you to get out of that acceleration couch, yeah?”
Aya glanced at her station, where her helmet sat on the seat of her couch. “Right. Let’s hope.”
Juliet pointed to the weapons rack on the other side of the rear hatchway. It held two fully automatic combat rifles, two riot shotguns, and four needler pistols loaded with shredders. All the guns had highly plastic, anti-personnel polymer rounds that wouldn’t penetrate the ship’s interior walls or access panels. “If something goes crazy and I get hurt, and we’re adrift or, I dunno, crash-landed on the station, you know what to do, right?”
Aya pulled off a surprisingly sharp salute and nodded. “Yes, Captain! Shoot any creeps who board this vessel without permission!”
Juliet chuckled and punched her lightly on her armored chest plate. “Keep your helmet on!” Then, she turned and went up the central access corridor back to the cockpit. On the way, she subvocalized, “Angel, what’s the status on the other ships?”
“Alice and Shiro are in the Lady Hawk and have taken up their wider wing formation. She’s indicating green, ready to follow your lead.” Juliet grunted acknowledgment. Alice was the more experienced combat pilot, but she was flying the interceptor; it would be her job to protect Juliet’s flanks so she could bring her heavy guns to bear and, hopefully, make quick work of any hostile ships lying in wait for them.
Angel continued, “Athena has already increased her deceleration burn as planned, putting some distance between the Furies’ Wing and us.” Juliet nodded as she moved past Chevy to climb back into her pilot’s seat. The Wing was their command operations ship. Athena, Dora, and Frida would be calling shots on the fly, communicating with their assets on Ceres, and coordinating the other ships’ priorities.
“Everything good, Captain?” Chevy asked, grunting as he pulled his bright red, mirror-visored helmet on. Juliet nodded, throwing him a thumbs up. His helmet went with his flight suit, and it was a lot cheaper tech than the armored suits she and Aya were wearing. She knew it wasn’t favoritism—the armor was custom fitted, and Athena hadn’t had the details on all of Books’s people when she’d begun the process.
She returned to her conversation with Angel. “And the Crocodile?” That was the rather unfortunate name of the light corvette that Charles Books and his team had liberated from the WBD Martian base. Tanaka, Leo, Hawkins, Books, his mercenaries, and, of course, Bennet were all aboard the corvette. Athena had hacked WBD’s authentication codes, and the plan—the hope—was for the Crocodile to get close to the WBD facility ahead of the rest of them, pretending to be limping to the nearest friendly facility with wounded personnel. Bennet was meant to launch from the drop bay and, with Athena’s guidance, rocket to the anti-ship cannons in the Atlas suit.
“The Crocodile is maintaining course and will arrive in Ceres-local-space fifteen minutes ahead of us.”
“God, I hate that they have to hang out there for fifteen minutes before Alice and I arrive to back them up.”
“They’re going to slow down to a crawl and continue their distress signals. With luck, they’ll lure a defending ship over. Tanaka and crew will make short work of any boarders. As for the distance, you know they can’t be in formation with us; they’re supposed to be fleeing.”
“Yeah. I know, I know.” Juliet sighed and leaned back in her seat, enjoying how the gel reformed around her with the increased pressure. “Now, remind me why the hell we’re letting Bennet stick his neck out in the Atlas suit, would you?”
Angel sighed, knowing full well she was just being a sounding board to help Juliet settle her nerves and come to grips with the situation. “Because he refused to stay aboard the Wing or the Cherry Blossom. He wanted to fight, Juliet. He’s a capable man, and Athena’s intelligence indicates that the gun installations will be lightly guarded by security personnel, none of whom should have any ordnance capable of harming him in the Atlas combat exoskeleton. He’s far safer with that job than if he dropped with Tanaka and the others.”
“Yeah, especially if the Crocodile starts taking fire. They’ll be heavily outgunned until we arrive.” Juliet knew Tanaka and the other mercenaries had the most dangerous job; they had to storm the WBD shipyard from the main hangar bays—they’d be dropping out of the corvette, using maneuvering jets to fly in an evasive combat formation through a bay that, if everything went right, would be blown wide by one of the Corvette’s torpedoes. It was going to be chaotic and dangerous, and Juliet hadn’t wanted Bennet on that job. “I doubt the Crocodile will make it through this.”
“No, it’s our Trojan horse, and I don’t think Athena expects it to survive. Once the mercenaries deploy, I’m sure any firepower Bennet hasn’t neutralized will focus on it. Still, hopefully, it and the mercenaries will buy us time to neutralize the response ships and board the ark ship.”
Juliet nodded, watching the countdown for the deceleration burn. They had thirty-seven minutes. Athena had acquired schematics for the ark ship and found not one but seven different docking collars that the Cherry Blossom could latch onto. Usually, a hostile docking maneuver would be challenging, but on a stationary vessel docked at port, it shouldn’t be hard at all. Books had argued that everyone should get on the gunship and board the ark ship together, but Athena had taken a different stance, and when everyone heard her reasoning, the votes were in her favor.
Athena was sure that WBD, while understaffed and moving ahead of schedule, would still have a few hundred armed personnel between the shipyard and the Starjumper. If Juliet hoped to get into the heart of the ark ship and secure Gentry and Apollyon, the distraction of a heavy assault on the hangars would be necessary. Tanaka’s team would draw the response teams while Juliet and Alice destroyed the support ships. Once the responding ships were downed, Juliet would pilot the gunship into a docking maneuver and, hopefully, have to deal with much lighter resistance thanks to all the mercenaries’ efforts.
With the plan thoroughly reviewed, Juliet closed her eyes, leaned back, and zoned out for a while, listening to one of her playlists reserved for just that purpose. When Athena spoke to her through comms, her countdown to burn was down to sixteen minutes. “Juliet, I have some updates we should talk about.”
Something about Athena’s tone bothered Juliet. “Something’s wrong?”
“There are a few developments. I was confident that my contacts at Ceres could delay or even halt the CCC response forces from intervening in our conflict with WBD, but it seems that at least one of their commanders is refusing orders to stand down.”
“What does that mean for us?”
“It means that, in addition to the three WBD interceptor-class ships, you’ll have an additional heavy fighter and four more interceptors to contend with.”
“Eight? Eight against two, Athena?”
“Eight against four, Juliet. The Crocodile isn’t helpless; I will continue piloting and controlling the guns after Tanaka and the other mercenaries drop. Additionally, I’ll be using my jamming array on the Wing to interfere with their comms and, hopefully, interrupt some of their ships’ systems at critical moments.”
Juliet sighed and slowly began to nod as she imagined the scenario. Athena was a true-AI; she might be doing a lot, but she could handle it. She probably already had parallel processing nodes set up and running on Ceres. For all Juliet knew, her assets could be her, operating via vid calls and synthetic bodies, working to infiltrate the other corps and the Ceres Corporate Consortium. In short, if she said she could handle piloting the Crocodile, then things weren’t so grim; the light corvette had an impressive supply of missiles and torpedoes. “How long? I mean, how long have you been working on Ceres?”
“Since Mexico City. When I realized they’d taken you off-world, I began cultivating my assets on Mars and Ceres.”
“All right, well, thanks for the head’s up.” Juliet reached for her helmet and moved to pull it on but stopped short as Athena continued speaking.
“There’s more. Quite a bit more, I’m afraid.”
Again, her tone got Juliet’s hackles up, and she frowned. “I’m listening.”
“We always knew Gentry and Apollyon would assume that I, at least, would pursue them. They knew these ships were acting against their base. They may not know you survived the Horizon Prophet’s destruction, but they had to know we were heading their way for a reason. Knowing that, we played it up, sending distress messages from the Crocodile.”
“Right. . .”
“Well, I knew they’d scramble to get the Starjumper ready, but I’d hoped we’d have a bit more time. My sources are telling me that an additional fusion reactor has been brought online aboard the vessel. I believe they’re prepping the warp drive.”
“So, how much time will we have?”
“Impossible to tell. It could be that they’re at the early stages and still have components to install. It could be that they’re spooling it up and simply have to wait for Apollyon to calculate the jump.”
“Can you give me a window?”
“Between thirty minutes and thirty days.”
“Dammit, Athena!”
“I know this is frustrating news, but keep things in perspective; we’ve accomplished a great deal. If we’re too late, then we’ll have to think of something else. If, however, you can get aboard that ship and get me into their network, there’s a good chance I’ll be able to infiltrate their systems. Apollyon was never very subtle or clever with security; he’s more of a brute-force thinker.”
Juliet’s earlier conversation with Aya came to mind, and she said, “They can’t jump from inside the hangar, right? If they’re moving, can’t we just start lancing ‘em with the rail gun?”
“We could, but that brings us to the final bit of news.”
“Jesus, Athena! How much bad news do you have?”
“You can tell it’s bad?” She sounded genuinely curious, but Juliet just sighed and closed her eyes. When Athena realized she wasn’t going to answer, she continued, “I finally acquired a copy of the transport manifests from the Ceres Space Station to the WBD shipyard—passengers who were ferried aboard the Starjumper before our actions on Mars when things were moving at a more sedate pace.”
Juliet’s heart dropped. “Who?”
“Please brace yourself, because this will be alarming: Peter Voronov, his niece, and Honey Watkins are aboard.” Juliet’s ears rushed as her blood pressure spiked, and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to wrap her head around Athena’s words. The AI wasn’t finished, though. “I’m also sorry to report that there’s a record of Emma Bianchi boarding the Starjumper under armed escort just four days ago.”
