Duty, Honor or Death: The Corps Sticks
Copyright 2011 by Ronald Edwin Wintrick
“Senator?” Questioned the pretty, maple skinned Officer in the dress uniform of the Secret Service Branch of the Federated Space Corps, as she leaned in through the open hatchway of the Senator's Study.
The Study itself was a study in opulent décor. Rich, dark paneling adorned the walls. Handcrafted leather furnishings. Gold and brass fittings, trim, all polished to shining brilliance. Even the desk at which the Senator sat was an exquisite piece of modern carpentry, constructed by a master artificer (and all the more extraordinary in these days of computerized manufacture). Merely the trappings of the Office, however. In fact, the Senator was slightly embarrassed by the wealth of the setting, such extravagance being new to him. He was a man who normally lived quite modestly.
The Study was part of the accommodations of the heavily armed and armored Secret Service Yacht Benefactor, which was detailed for his personal use. Newly elected Senator Markis Baldwin was a rich man in his own right, but Benefactor and her use represented wealth well beyond his normal means. Seeing Baldwin look up, the woman took another step forward to stand directly inside the hatchway.
“Yes, what is it?” Baldwin asked, glad for the interruption from the computer screen and the reams of data he had been studying since yesterday and whose surface he had barely scratched. He wassomehow supposed to thoroughly understand all of it, the whole lot, as the base essentials of his new position, before he arrived at Peshar. Peshar was the Planetary Seat of Government for the entire Federation, and where he would be living for at least the next four years. Peshar was 814 Light Years distant, but it was a journey of only thirty-four days. Thirty-four days and two hundred and seventeen Worm Hole Jumps. And his mind was already overloaded.
“We are nearing Bali, Sir. You asked to be informed when we drew near.” Colonel Rebecca Collins, his personal aide, bodyguard (the idea had at first amused him) and direct Military Liaison, said professionally. Also, though unsolicited, Rebecca, Colonel Collins, had made it clear that her duties could extend beyond the Office, beyond the professional, if he should so desire. Merely a part of her assigned activities, no more and no less. He had kindly thanked her, but had firmly said 'no'.
Though no prude and no longer married, his wife Belinda had divorced him three years previously, claiming that all he was interested in was his work, he found himself balking at the concept of sex as a perk of his Office.
Baldwin had been unaware of such extra perks inherent in the Office before he had run for it, and he wasn't sure he liked their significance now that he was aware of them, he was the rare honest politician, but that was entirely the jurisdiction of the Federated Space Corps, who were an entity nearly separate from the government itself, because even though they took their orders from the Senate and the President, their internal policies and procedures were not open to political debate. They ran their own house.
“Thank you, Colonel.” Baldwin said, trying to keep his eyes from straying from her face to her figure, which didn't necessarily help, because she was much more than merely pretty. She was genuinely stunning.
Temporarily failing, his eye traveled along the line of her figure. Her dark blue uniform was skin tight and the military style skirt allowed for a generous showing of her muscular legs, a product of continual exercise, no doubt, Baldwin thought. The blaster on her hip only acted to accentuate her look; she seemed a barbarian princess transported miraculously to modern times.
Her look and pure physical presence were deceiving, however. Though she was a Class A Security Technician, about which Baldwin only understood that it meant she was highly trained and dangerous, she was also intelligent and educated. This was her first posting after completing her educational process, which had been a long and very thorough one; he had been led to understand. She was the whole package.
“The best view will be from the Bridge. If you'd like to accompany me forward, I can show you the way.” Colonel Collins said. Her hands were locked behind her back at Parade Rest. Her spine was ram-rod straight. Yet she seemed quite comfortable. At ease. Though only classified as an Armed Yacht, Benefactor was of immense proportions. As he had learned after first boarding her, it was easy to get lost within her. It was the first thing he had done.
“Suits me.” Baldwin said. He shut down his computer and stood up to follow. She did an about-face and stepped out smartly ahead of him down the corridor outside his Study.
The corridor was close and confining, it boasted barely enough room for two wide-shouldered men to pass one another, contrasting the large and luxurious accommodations like his Study and Suite of rooms. Military ships were seldom if ever designed with large corridors, crew quarters, or anything else that was unnecessary. It was simply a waste of good space.
Baldwin found himself having a hard time keeping his eyes from straying below her shoulder level as he followed her. He was sure she was aware the effect she had on him, if the attitude she was putting into her walk was any sure indication. Was it possible he was imagining it? He did not think so.
Baldwin was forty-two Standards, but he could still be affected powerfully by the sight of a lithe, confident, attractive female. He hoped he would never grow too old for that. Yet he felt like a foolish schoolboy, the way she affected him, and all he had to do, if he wanted her, was to say so, but that was what made it so wrong.
As Special Prosecutor for Capital Crimes on Sarvan, his home-world and their point of origin on this voyage, 814 Light Years was a voyage under any conditions, in Baldwin's opinion, he had prosecuted all the worst cases worldwide; the rapes, murders, violent robberies, and lately a whole plethora of crimes reclassified into that category by an overzealous Planetary Congress.
Those who he had convicted he had sent here to Bali, the nearest of the Prison Colony Worlds. He'd sent tens of thousands; he was without mercy when it came time for the criminal to receive the reward he or she had so justly earned. That he was also the person who had decided the accused's innocence or guilt, the Judicial System had done away with juries and trials was beside the point. He had always tried to be impartial, but he had never shirked his duty, either. If he had thought them guilty, he had judged them and they were gone.
Baldwin couldn't say exactly what had prompted him to request that Benefactor make a stop here on its way out-system. He'd never seen a Prison Planet, this was actually his first trip off-world, ever, but that wasn't it. He didn't owe those he had sent here anything. They had earned what they had gotten. He didn't care about them, even though the circumstances into which he had sent them, both women and men, must have been stupendously horrible. No, none of that. It was that he owed his new life to these people. He had made his name a household item by prosecuting and sending them all here. A large enough name that when he ran for the Senate of Worlds, every planet sent a representative to the governing body that was the Federation of Human Worlds; he won Sarvan by a landslide. There was no more powerful position outside the Senate than the Presidency itself. Even the honest man feels the affinity for power such positions bring.
The visit to Bali was, well, his salute to these people, without whom he would not be where he was today. He was not embarrassed to admit it.
Colonel Collins led on while Baldwin considered the depth of his guilt. He had tried to be certain that he never sent an innocent man, or woman, to Bali, but might not it have been possible, that in his desire to make a name for himself as a tough Prosecutor, and thereby to deter criminals before they committed their crimes, as well, that he may have been overzealous a time or two, himself? He thought it entirely possible. More than likely, really. One had to be tough, though!
Well. A sentence to Bali, or any other of the Prison Planet Colony Worlds, was not necessarily a death sentence. Little is actually known about the inner workings of these places, though that was changing now that a great many had Reunified, but it was surmised that fresh internees were probably very much in demand; for labor, breeding purposes, and for the knowledge they brought, though it would likely be very different from world to world, or even from one place to the next on individual worlds. Almost all of the modern fiction writers based their novels and characters on the unknowns of the Prison Colony World settings these days. Baldwin had read a few of them himself.
When they arrived at Level 7, Benefactor was a total of 14 levels, Baldwin immediately recognized the heavy Security Hatchway at the end of the corridor. The Bridge lay behind that hatchway, he'd been there yesterday, after he first boarded, when he had given instructions to pass by Bali. The guard detail outside the sealed hatchway made it hard to miss.
Apparently the Space Corps took few risks, Baldwin thought, though who they thought might infiltrate an armed ship in-flight, then carry out a further assault on her Bridge, Baldwin couldn't rightly imagine. The risk, though negligible, must exist, or be thought to exist, because the two soldiers standing at attention looked deadly serious. The blast rifles in their hands did not detract from the image, either.
There was no joking around or banter as they approached, as he half expected. The thought had never crossed his mind before, but seeing the Space Corps about its business made him realize just how ill trained and unprofessional the Civil Authorities back on Sarvan were. If they had been trained to be as serious about their profession, that of catching criminals and preventing crime, as were the Space Corps about their business, Sarvan might be a nearly crime free world. As a Senator, Baldwin thought that there would be much he could do to rectify the situation, and would be doing, once he reached Peshar and was able to begin having an influence.
The two Troopers never so much as blinked as they approached, no flicker of eyes, no movement of body at all, to indicate an awareness of them as they came to a halt in front of them, but the flash of green light that struck their eyes, retinal scan, left no doubt that whoever was behind the armored hatchway had observed their approach.
With no other sign of acknowledgment, the Bridge Access Hatchway dilated open, just like the pupil of the human eye. Baldwin had no idea how the technology worked, only that it had something to do with the molecular redistribution of atoms, in other words, it could not be forced open when sealed, because there really was nothing there but a solid wall when it was not open. Collins led Baldwin inside and the hatchway sealed noiselessly behind them.
The Bridge also was startlingly in contrast to the close corridors leading up to it. Large and spacious. Luxurious accommodations at the many computerized consoles, most of which were empty. Those which were not vacant were occupied by the clean-cut men and women of the Space Corps Service, in their tailored blue uniforms that fit like second skins but allowed total range of free motion, made of some type of super elastic polymers. Though the uniforms covered everything but the women’s' legs, it left almost nothing to the imagination.
The walls, ceiling and floor were the most stunning aspect of the Bridge, however. Baldwin appeared to be standing on nothing, absolutely nothing. The floor, walls and ceiling carried the actual present image of the environment around them, the environment outside the walls of the ship. Of space. He was standing on the star-studded blackness of empty space. Despite his familiarity with the system from yesterday, it was still more than a bit disconcerting.
“I hope you're not subject to vertigo?” The Captain said. At least Baldwin guessed that he was the Captain, judging by the epaulettes on his shoulders. This was his first meeting with the Captain, who had been off duty and asleep yesterday when Baldwin had boarded. The ship had been in the Second's hands at the time. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to salute the Captain or shake his hand, but the man didn't seem to be expecting either, so he didn't worry about it.
"I hadn't any previous difficulties with it." Baldwin said.
"That can change here." The Captain said with a smile that was white teeth set off by the darkness of his face. Not the darkest man Baldwin had ever seen, but one of them, in a race that was now nearly totally homogenized into that of one color and of mostly one physical appearance, of a light brown or maple that was a derivative of a mix of all of the previous main races of mankind. People of extremes, either dark or light, were far and in between. Race issues were a thing of the long gone past.
"I can see how that could be possible." Baldwin said. To his visual senses, there was no reason for him not to float off into space, or for the Bridge to maintain its atmospheric integrity.
"We approach Bali." The Captain now said, glancing around. Ahead of Benefactor, judging forward to be the direction the crew was facing, a tiny brown world had appeared and was gradually enlarging, indicating a rapid velocity. Very rapid!
"What was your interest here?" The Captain asked as he glanced back. "Should we plan for an extended visit?"
"I have that authority?" Baldwin asked dubiously, a little surprised. He had known that Benefactor had been put at his disposal, but hadn't been sure to what extent that had meant. The Captain proceeded to explain;
"Benefactor and her crew are completely at your disposal, Senator. You want to vaporize Bali, you just say the word, I have to obey, but I wouldn't recommend such a course, not unless you can count on the rest of the Senate backing such an action. I have seen crazier things, though."
"That wasn't exactly what I had in mind." Baldwin admitted. "I only wanted to view it, and only for a moment or two, actually. I kind of thought I owed it to all the people I sent here."
The Captain seemed to take this statement at face value and no more and waved a hand toward the rapidly approaching world;
"Well there she is. It's a pretty place. Seems a waste to have filled her with a bunch of convicts. If it was up to me I wouldn't have been so lenient!"
"There's many who feel the opposite." Baldwin said. "That we're already much too harsh."
"What do you feel, Senator?" The Captain asked.
"I sent them there. Here. A lot of them anyway." Baldwin said, now with a smile on his face. "They earned it."
"My sentiments exactly." The Captain said. "Except just a bit too lenient." The Captain's smile now mirrored Baldwin's own, and he felt a strong kinship with the man.
They stood in silence for a while, watching mutely as Benefactor made her approach. As they neared, Baldwin saw numerous unnatural reflections, flashes of light surrounding Bali that were reflecting the System's Starlight, a bright yellow dwarf, in what were obviously orbital locations.
The number of reflections grew as they neared until it was obvious the world was entirely surrounded by the unnatural objects, which Baldwin guessed correctly to be some sort of satellite relay system. It was hard to estimate how many there were. The satellites themselves must be rotating or moving within their own stationary orbits, because the reflections would flash, then disappear, flash, then disappear, and there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of them all around the world. A twinkling kaleidoscope of lights.
"What are all those for?" Baldwin asked curiously. He could not imagine why a Prison Colony World would need such a comprehensive communications satellite system, but that was what it appeared to be. Didn't make sense.
"Satellite Defensive System." The Captain said. "We can't just have our prisoners walking off anytime they want, you know."
"Walking off?"
"There were rescues in the early days. People who had friends. Recruitment, too."
"Recruitment?" Baldwin said.
"Organized crime." The Captain explained.
"I never thought of that." Baldwin admitted.
"They did." Colonel Collins said, speaking up for the first time in the conversation.
"There's none of that anymore." The Captain said. "The Defensive System is quite effective. Take my word for that."
"I'll bet." Baldwin said, seeing all of those twinkling lights.
"Captain!" Shouted a blue-uniformed crewman from a Console only meters distant from where they were standing, instantly grabbing their attention. The man's hands were flying over his keyboard frantically and he looked extremely agitated. Frightened, almost, Baldwin thought.
"What is it?" The Captain bellowed rushing to the crewman's side, looking over his shoulder at the data the man was manipulating. He looked deadly serious; there was no amusement on his face now.Baldwin couldn't imagine what it meant.
"Sir, our Identification Beacon is malfunctioning! It's not broadcasting!" The crewman said frantically. Somehow, for some reason, beads of sweat had sprung out upon his forehead and lent a heavy counter-point to his agitation. Whatever the problem, Baldwin thought, it was obviously very serious. The Captain's reaction, however, was much more extreme than what Baldwin had anticipated! He screamed;
"Abort course!" Then he spun and lunged for his own elevated Captain's Console/Command Station in the middle of the Bridge, but he was too late!
Baldwin watched horrified as the Satellite Defensive System did its job. Did so effectively, unemotionally, and with destructive thoroughness. Ocher bursts of needle-thin laser pulses speared out, striking Benefactor. Hundreds of them. Like a rain of fire!
The violent energies released upon Benefactor shook her unmercifully under their onslaught. Even her heavy armor was no match for the point-blank range fire of the deadly Defensive Satellites; the armor was peeled from her hull like the lid of a tin can under a massive can opener. The deck under Baldwin's feet leaped at the onslaught, throwing him into the air, then came rushing back up and he smashed headfirst into the Console of the crewman who had warned of the Identification Beacons failure in the first place. He struck hard.
White lightning flashed behind Baldwin's eyes as he struck, while red blood erupted from his temple, where the Console had split him like a soft grape. In the fog of onrushing black unconsciousness, he heard the thunder and rumblings that heralded the death of the ship. Deadly debris rained through the Bridge but somehow missed Baldwin's unconscious form, but of that he was unaware. He was completely unconscious.
Strange as such things went, the hammering explosions of the Satellite Defensive Systems' energy had jarred operational whatever faulty mechanism had caused the Identification Beacon to malfunction in the first place, and now it began sending out its signal to the simple computer minds of the Satellite Defensive System surrounding Bali, and the satellites attack, which should have continued until Benefactor were completely destroyed, suddenly ceased.
Baldwin was unaware. He was gripped within welcome unconsciousness. The now nearly lifeless ship slipped slowly into the upper atmosphere and began sinking toward the world below.
The Captain and most of the crew were dead. A nearby explosion had shattered the nearly indestructible nano-composite framework of the ship, raining five atom thick shards of the material, sharper edged than a shaving razor, throughout the Bridge, with horrendous result; shredding skin, muscle and bone like hamburger in a blender.
Crowded under the same Console on which, first, the crewmen had cried out his warning, and then on which Baldwin had struck his head, Colonel Collins looked out at the death and destruction with cool, evaluating eye.
It was clear to her that the attack had for some reason ended, but she had no idea that it would not soon resume, and she and the Senator were as safe as she could think to make them, partially sheltered by the nano-composite bulk of the crewman's Console itself, which had deflected the rain of debris, thus saving their lives.
The failure of the Bridge lighting system only a moment later left her with even fewer options. She was not completely without options, but needed to review what they were. Time was of the essence.
The sound of hissing atmosphere somewhere not far off was not welcome. The Bridge's atmospheric integrity was no longer sacrosanct. There were probably huge sections of the hull torn away, if the rain of debris which had washed through the Bridge were any sure indication.
Long accustomed to spaceflight, Rebecca felt the pull and influence of the planet below as Benefactor slipped inexorably into her gravitational field, falling towards the surface a hundred and fifty kilometers below.
Benefactor was mangled and ruined. Lives had been lost. All Rebecca could bring herself to think, however, was how utterly and miserably she had failed in her duty.
Chapter 2
Lan Carter hated these windowless Troop Transports more than he hated anything else in life. It was true that he hated war in general, with every gram of his being, but yet he hated these windowless Troop Transports even more. A soldier couldn't see what he was being dropped into, was the whole issue. The Brass didn't want the Infantry Soldier to see what he, or she, was being dropped into, of course, because it only gave them time to become terrified. Terror was nonproductive.
That was fine for the fresh green new-jacks, but he would have liked to be able to see in advance what he was being dumped into, so as to be able to formulate some kind of plan of action.
This was old business for Lan Carter, nor had he been unduly worried the first time the Space Corps had dropped him into hostile alien territory. This was like a slow Sunday afternoon back home on Calafga, a newly Reunified Prison Planet Colony World, and the place of his birth and youth.
Any Prison Colony World could petition for Reunification when they proved to the Federation that they had gained and could maintain a free, Democratic and, nearly, crime free society. It had taken Calafga seven hundred and fifty-six years, Standards, to gain that stability, and now, Reunified, she was becoming nearly as modern and civilized as some of her oldest brethren.
It had been a rocky road for Calafga, with near constant warfare and barbarian warlords the main form of government for most of that time. Communication with the Federation, when communications technology was finally reinvented, brought hope and purpose and the mobilization of the people.
The Army of Liberation, as they had called themselves in their early years, and of whom Lan Carter had become a member, had slowly marched across the planet, annihilating all who stood before them in their grand purpose of Democracy and Reunification. It was the bloodiest and worst time in all of Calafga's bloody years of existence, but it had ended in Reunification and the restoration of civilization for the beleaguered world.
So warfare was all Lan Carter knew. Calafga had no need of him once the last of the resistance was crushed. It often happened that way, that those who had been so necessary so recently were now a liability and a danger to the new, evolved society. Service in the Space Corps, who certainly did need men and women with Lan's particular qualities, was his ticket off Calafga.
A man of Carter's characteristics would have only found troubles in the new society. Under Calafga's new laws, trouble meant a one way ride to a new Prison Planet, one that had not yet been Reunified. That was the last thing Carter wanted, after having fought so hard already on Calafga.
So Carter signed for a ten year hitch in the Space Corps Infantry Division. Ten was the minimum. He was just beginning his fifth year.
The war here on Barcene would be no more than a minor skirmish. The indigenous race which called this place home were a space-faring race, or had been before the Navy Division of the Space Corps had annihilated their small armada, but their technology was thousands of years behind man. The fight would be very one-sided.
One-sided did not mean there would be few or no casualties. It did not mean that at all. The planet would be pacified one alien at a time, until there were no aliens, and then it would become another home for mankind. The Corps did not destroy perfectly viable planets. There would be a lot of casualties. There always were. Always.
The concussion of antiaircraft batteries, though they were firing at vessels which weren't specifically aircraft, rocked the Troop Transport as they flew in. We were traveling at many times the speed of sound. The AGP, Anti-Gravity Propulsion, of these small ships were capable of pulling them at extraordinary speeds, near Light Speed given the room to accelerate, but they were not equipped with Worm Whole Jump capacity, so you did not want to get stranded in one a long way from home, if for instance all the Jump capable ships were destroyed. The Speed of Light is abysmally slow when real Galactic distances are considered, much less Universal distances, as from one Galaxy to another, but for the purposes at hand, in use against a race that had just barely gotten off the surface of their own planet, it was more than sufficient.
The Troop Transport was full of fresh green new-jacks, Lan's term for new recruits on their way into their first battles. They would maintain their freshness for many battles, however many of them survived, that is. This particular Troop Transport held forty, but there were various other sized ships. Smaller was better as far as Lan Carter was concerned; it created more confusion for the enemy and kept the losses of each individual Transport to a manageable minimum.
Despite the speed at which the Transports were flown, or how well they were flown, there was usually the occasional loss, depending on the level of the alien's technology. Larger ships are easier to hit also, and he didn't want to die strapped to a crash seat with no chance to defend himself. Not the way Lan Carter wanted to go.
There were forever and ever new races to be at war with, and mankind seemed to love war more than anything else; man had subjugated many tens of thousands of races to his rule already, had utterly destroyed so many more that it went beyond count, and seemed bent on Universal Conquest!
Lan Carter understood human nature and accepted it. He could care less about Universal Conquest; he was only in it for the ten years, and then retirement. Ten years of active duty was all you had to pull for your full benefits. It amused him every time he saw a new Squad full of fresh, patriotic faces, because he had seen many such and planned to see many more.
They came and they went. They always went. By stretcher or by body-bag. Sometimes there wasn't even enough left of them to fill a sandwich bag. Then more came. More always came. Lured by the idea that in ten years they would be relatively rich, or patriotism, or whatever it was that lured them. Lured them to their deaths.
Lan Carter was looking at thirty-nine fresh green new-jacks who would go the same way they all went. It didn't bother him a bit. Not that Lan was hard or callous, it was simply unavoidable. There was absolutely nothing Lan Carter could do about it.
Several of them were looking at him warily. Even a fresh green new-jack could see that this wasn't his first assignment, just by one look into his hard brown eyes, but the weathered look of his equipment would tell someone who was too blind to see otherwise. It was well used. Broken in. Old! He could have requisitioned new equipment at the beginning of each new campaign, but he liked the broken in equipment he had. It was him. It was comfortable, and he could trust in it.
"Why are you in this new unit?" One of them asked finally, after they could bear it no longer. This was hardly the first time he had been asked this question, nor was it likely to be last.
"This ain't a new unit." Carter replied solemnly, looking the man in the eyes. The new-jack Lieutenant, straight out from some ridiculous military school, where they had wasted two years educating him, turned his head to stare at Lan from where he sat in the rear of the Transport.
"Admiral Sandhar said this was an entirely new Squad! Are you saying he's a liar, soldier?" The Lieutenant demanded.
Lan looked up and met the man's eyes. The Lieutenant was much like so many Lan had seen come and go, over the years. Arrogant with his new command, but basically concerned with the same things they were all concerned with. Lan felt a momentary pity for the man, but quickly put it aside. There was no place for pity here.
"Do you see where these stripes used to be?" Lan asked, nodding to the shoulder facing the Lieutenant, where there were no stripes, but it was evident where the old stitching used to be. He'd been promoted and busted many times.
"Yeah, I most certainly can!" The Lieutenant said scornfully. "It's a disgrace!" The Lieutenant did not yet realize.
"You see this Squad Emblem?" Lan now asked, pointing to it above where the rank stripes should have been; there was no question except that the emblem was as old as a uniform itself. Both were well-worn. The Lieutenant didn't say a word, it was clear he now understood. To have continued the argument would be to have shown himself an utter fool. Lan looked away and resumed his study of the floor between his two feet; he had no wish for a confrontation with this poor, ignorant tool, because no amount of explaining would change a thing. The man, and the entire Squad beneath him, would survive or die on their own merits. There was nothing Lan could do. It was much too late for all of them. Much.
"What happened to the rest of the Squad?" A woman, a girl, sitting in the middle of the Transport, asked Lan. She was really too young for this, he decided as he looked at her, but then what was a proper age to die? The girl's wide brown eyes said she already knew the answer to her own question, without needing to be told, but wanted to be told anyway. Lan couldn't meet her look and turned away, back to his study of the floor between his two feet.
Carter wasn't a heartless bastard, but at the same time, these new-jacks needed a dose of reality, at least once, before they hit the dirt, and their Fates.
"The last Squad?" Lan said ruthlessly. "Better to ask what's happened to the last thousand Squads!" Then he closed his eyes and began humming a little tune he was fond of, and ignored the heated discussion that spring up amongst the rest of the Squad. Even the Lieutenant was too stunned to restore order.
But he didn't even get to finish his little tune as the Transport drew up and smashed roughly to the ground. He'd been expecting it any moment and was ready. The harness holding him securely in his seat popped away at the same time as the rear hatch; the hatch fell away from the top and slammed to the ground, still hinged at deck level, to create a ramp to the ground outside.
Lan was the first out of the hatch, and the first to hit the ground. He hit running. He was many meters distant, running full speed, before the last of the rest even had their asses out of their seats. The enemy poured fire into the back of the Transport and the other Transports already on the ground, cutting down the Troopers as they tried to flee what had now become mobile deathtraps. Many didn't even make it out of the Transports. Their screams and cries of agony followed Lan as he ran. He did not look back. There was nothing he could do but go forward, take the attack to the enemy, and silence the weapons which were silencing his comrades.
The enemy weapons were flashing ahead like a thousand flashbulbs going off all at once, except for the continuous roar that their combined effect thundered over him in an unending wave of sound. The whine of ricochets sang through the air as the combustion weapon's projectiles rebounded from the skins of the Transports, filling the air with lethal fragments of buzzing, tumbling metal. Humanity had long since given up such outmoded types of weaponry, but their lethal effectiveness could not be denied. He ran for his life.
They'd been dropped into an open area that might have been some sort of a park or Memorial area that was open and exposed. No trees or shrubbery or cover, just close cut-grass, or its equivalent anyway, and them, right in the middle of it. Lan could not think of a worse place to have been put down, exposed as they were to fire from all four sides of the rectangular area around them.
The park was surrounded by a residential area that continued on for as far as Lan could see, the dwellings constructed seemingly without overall pattern or symmetry, just at random, each dwelling as close to its neighbor as it could be while still leaving room to move between them, and that not much in most cases. Where the park ended, the residential area began. Nothing separated the two.
The dwellings themselves were rounded mounds of a concrete like substance that were hardly taller than Lan himself, so it was easy to see how far off into the distance the residential area stretched; seemingly forever, or what seemed to be forever, because nowhere could he see the end of them. Lan guessed they probably lived mostly underground, that the domes were merely the entrances. If that were true, they would have all hell's own time digging them all out! He didn't want to think about that at the moment however, he had plenty else to keep him occupied.
Other Transports were landing all over the park and Space Corps Troopers were returning the enemy fire. The aliens were firing on them from all along the line of demarcation, from atop and beside their dwellings, from the dark holes that must be the dwelling's entrances, from behind embankments of the rough terrain, and walls, and anywhere else they could find partial concealment to fire on the Troopers. As of yet, the Troopers return fire didn't seem to be having much effect. Only the stray projectile passed Lan as he ran; the enemy was concentrating on the massed Troopers sitting so vulnerably in the middle of the park.
Carter had yet to fire his own weapon. He just ran. Legs pumping. Arms that held his blast rifle swinging, while he heard and felt the whine and snap of the projectiles buzzing around him, his goal a series of monuments near the edge of the park that appeared to be statues representing notables of the alien race; probably who the park was a memorial for, Lan guessed.
All Carter knew was that those massive statues were blocking the fire from that direction, so that was the direction he ran. Directly for them. With a last, heroic effort, he dove in amidst the statues, which were a group of aliens standing in a circle, all facing each other, their clawed hands held outstretched in some type of symbolic gesture, and landed rolling, to come up against the base of one of the statues closest to the enemy line, now no more than twenty meters distant.
Behind, between the statues, was visible the mess that was the mass of Corps Troopers who had been dumped so unceremoniously in the park by the Troop Transports, the last of which were now lifting away and heading back to space, where they would be refilled and sent immediately back with the next load of lucky Troopers. Not one had been lost in this emplacement. These alien's weapons were inadequate to the task. They were cutting the Troopers themselves to bits, however, rather effectively.
The Brass cared very little about the loss of individual human life, but was quite careful when it came to valuable equipment, like Troop Transports. More than likely they had concluded that the enemy wouldn't shoot anything really powerful into the heart of its own city, so that had been a deciding factor when choosing this staging area. Of course there were thousands of such staging areas in operation at this point all over the planet. When the Space Corps landed on world, they came deep and they weren't fucking around. Throw enough shit against a wall, and some of it was bound to stick, was their motto, and they were not wrong. The Corps always stuck one way or another. The Space Corps Infantry was the shit.
Carter gave only a moment’s consideration to the mayhem behind, though it crossed his mind that there'd probably be a whole new Squad again at the next drop, before returning his attention to the enemy ahead.
Projectiles were pinging and whining angrily around him as the enemy tried to rout him from the protection of the statues, now that he had been noticed, but the circle of aliens provided him cover from every direction now that he was inside them, sheltering and harboring the enemy. If the aliens the statues represented could only see him now! He threw the butt plate of his blast rifle to his shoulder, leaned around the edge of his protective alien patron, and began firing.
The air sizzled and suddenly smelled of ozone as the white/yellow ball of flame leaped out from the end of his weapon, raced across the intervening distance, and blew a big chunk from the side of a dwelling behind which an enemy was firing. A thunderous clap of light and sound accompanied the blast, and the enemy alien was thrown out into the open between two of the dwellings.
Carter got his first good look at the enemy as the thing kicked convulsively and then lay still in death. A light brown, almost tan, in color. It was neither furred nor scaled, as were many reptiles. It was about half the height of a man. Skinny and weak looking, but that was probably deceptive. A long snout was filled with thin needle-teeth and visible even at this distance, great green eyes that probably saw as well in the dark as he saw in broad daylight.
This entire Carter noticed in the milliseconds time before he jerked back behind the protective statute, and none too soon, as a rain of projectiles drove against his cover and in among the statues, where whining ricochets filled the air with buzzing death. None found a mark. Truly only luck, but better to be here than back out there in the open, where death was coming to the hapless Troopers in stifling waves.
His comrades were finding cover behind the growing piles of those already dead, and were now delivering a pulverizing rain of blaster fire into the enemy's ranks. Carter got off two more well-placed shots before having to duck back again from the deadly fusillade of fire filling his retreat. Lan was the closest of the enemy invaders and suddenly he had all of their attention.
Thudding footsteps behind him brought Carter around in a blur, weapon up and finger poised over the actuator stud, but it was the woman from his own Squad. The girl. The girl who had questioned him aboard the Troop Transport before touchdown.
She raced into the protection of the alien statues and dove to the ground amid an angry burst of enemy fire, rolling up beside Carter's feet, and then she looked up at him from the ground, an expression of uncertainty upon her face.
"You ain't gotta worry what I think." Lan said. "It's them out there you gotta worry about." He nodded towards the enemy line on the other side of the statue.
The girl's eyes followed his movement, but she did not reply. Surprisingly, she had found somewhere the courage to charge across that open area. Under that withering hail of fire! That had taken balls! No question about it, Lan was impressed.
He turned back and snapped two more quick shots around the right edge of the statue, then yanked back as enemy fire rained where he had been, but the girl was no longer behind him; she had moved to the other edge of the statue and was firing out at the enemy. She kept right on firing, despite the return fire, her blast rifle leaping in her hands, against her shoulder, the flames jumping strobe-like from the end of her weapon. Lan jumped at her, grabbed her and yanked her back fiercely!
"You crazy bitch!" Lan screamed in her face. "You ain't gotta be no hero! Heroes get dead! Are you fucking hearing me?" He emphasized his screams with violent shakes that nearly took her off her feet.When Lan relented, she nodded her head up and down vigorously, while staring at him out of wide open petrified eyes. Lan shook his own head, in wonderment, and let her go. She nearly sagged to the ground but caught herself, again giving him that uncertain look.
"Everyone was dying!" She said tremulously, simply unable to hold it in any longer. "I didn't know what else to do. I was the second one out of the Transport. I saw you run here, but the Lieutenant was screaming for everyone to line up, then he was hit, and he was screaming in pain! He was screaming so horribly! A medic gave him a shot and he shut up, and everyone was dying . . .”
"You're alive. That's all that matters." Lan said interrupting her, not unkindly, then he turned to look around the edge of their protective statute but projectiles spanged off the metal of the statue the moment he showed his face and he hastily pulled it back.
The girl had taken her place on her side of the statue again, but was looking over her shoulder at him for a signal. Lan waited for a lull before leaning out to fire again, and heard her weapon firing simultaneously as his own. When he pulled back, after firing twice, she pulled back as well.
The Troopers behind were savaging the enemy line and taking a lot of the heat off them now. Working in sync with one another, Lan and the girl wreaked deadly havoc among the enemy in front, and soon there was a discernible lessening of enemy fire coming their way.
Secretly Lan was very impressed by the girl's performance. She'd been in the middle of the Transport! That she had gotten out second showed great instinctual reactions. Lan suspected she possessed incredible natural instincts, if only she could be kept alive long enough to come to an understanding of them; all of the natural instincts in the Universe weren't enough to keep the inexperienced alive on a new battlefield! Not when your first lesson was usually your last! The ridiculous Boot Camp training these recruits received was entirely inadequate; those who survived in the Corps survived on their own merits, or as in most cases, did not survive at all.
She sure didn't look like much though, Lan decided, glancing at her surreptitiously. Looks can be deceiving, he knew though, and in her case he suspected, entirely deceiving. She looked incapable of fighting her way out of a wet paper sack, much less overcoming hardy reptile defenders fighting for their homes, their land, their families, and their lives. There was little in existence more ferocious than a cornered lizard.
It would be nice Lan decided if the Squad could have one regular besides himself to share his remaining years in the Corps. Was something like that possible? It didn't seem probable, not with the weight of experience to the contrary, but Carter would do what he could to make it happen. It was a first for him, to care; it wasn't the first time he had tried to save someone's life, but it was the first time, in a long time, that he found himself caring.
The weight of experience told him that he should not care, but he did. Was he a fool?
Chapter 3
Even in a hopeless situation there still exists some possibility of success, some chance for salvation, even in the most untenable of circumstances. However, Rebecca had never been in one worse, in all of her conflict ridden life, as that which she found herself within now. And this situation did seem entirely hopeless, but as long as she breathed, could move and think and act, there was always hope.
A green glare erupted in the darkness of the Bridge. It was shining from the cuff light of Rebecca's uniform sleeve. It was but dim and feeble, but it was bright enough to illuminate the wreckage of what had once been the Bridge. It hardly seemed possible that the destruction that lay around her now had, only moments earlier, been the luxuriously accommodated Bridge of Benefactor. It looked like a tornado had struck, smashing everything in its path.
The stink of fresh blood nearly overwhelmed her, a natural physiological reaction, but the sight of the shredded, mutilated bodies evoked no feelings within her, either negative or positive. She was familiar with the sight of such, had been inured since an early age.
Forcing herself to ignore the cloying stench, she stood up to survey her new surroundings. What she needed was an operational Control Console, but she doubted she was going to find one. She was confronted with wreckage and destruction on all sides. Nothing left seemed to be operational.
Benefactor was accelerating into the gravity well of the planet. She could feel it clearly through her body. It meant she had little time. The only factor that gave her any hope at all was that the Internal Environmental Gravity was still functioning. The deck under her feet was still down and she appeared to still retain her normal weight. It meant there was still power in the ship, somewhere. It could go at any time however, and once gone would extremely complicate matters.
Complicate being the understatement of the day, Rebecca thought unhappily. If there was almost no chance for survival now, there would be even less then. Less than none. It was not a lot.
Rebecca walked from Console to Console searching for a flicker of functionality on the black Control Panels, squishing through pooling blood and stepping over shredded bodies as she made her way. There was no activity on any of the Control Consoles at all. They were all completely dead.
Not knowing what else to do, and feeling completely helpless, she slammed the Captain's Control Console, in front of which she now stood, with the heel of her hand, then watched in horror as the whole assembly toppled over and fell to the deck with a tremendous crash, having already been partially wrecked by the hail of flying debris.
"The Manual Override . . .”A voice said out of the darkness. The voice was hardly recognizable as human. Death was in the drawn out rasp of the voice, and it's owner knew it. That was there as well. Rebecca felt a terrible empathy for the man, but had no time for such sentiments.
Rebecca scanned the wreckage again, her dim green light playing over the macabre scene, until she located the author of the voice. When she did, she almost wished she had not.
The man had been torn apart and lay in a pile of spilled intestines, gore and more blood than it seemed possible for a human to contain. She'd never seen anyone in such terrible condition yet living. Death would not be long in coming, and it would be a welcome relief.
She hoped, for his sake, that death came before the shock wore off. If it did not, she would put him out of his misery herself.
"What Manual Override?" Rebecca asked. She had to know now, before he died or before it became too late to institute the procedure, whatever process that entailed. For a moment, when he didn't respond, she thought him already gone, but then he spoke;
"In the Engine Room." The man said, looking up at her with eyes that were very much aware of his imminent death. "You . . . must . . .” Then his head lolled to the side and he was dead. Rebecca was running even before his head had finished falling. He had no more to offer.
There was a huge chunk of bulkhead blown away. She went through the opening on the run, thanking whatever providence had created the quick exit; her blaster would have taken a lot of valuable time on the hardened carbon armor of the reinforced Bridge, time she did not now have.
The hiss of leaking atmosphere sounded off on her left somewhere distantly, but not that far. She couldn't feel the breeze that would indicate depleting levels of atmosphere, but it wouldn't take long; Benefactor held a lot atmosphere, but space was much larger and emptier. Benefactor must not have been able to sell seal all the ruptures before she lost power, Rebecca thought. It would surely complicate matters. Matters that were too complicated already.
Rebecca was now faced with two major dilemmas, but Benefactor's plunge would shortly make all other issues immaterial, inconsequential. It was possible that if she could restore power through this Manual Override, whatever that was, that Benefactor could seal her leaks herself. If not, there were spacesuits for emergencies such as these, if she could get to one in time. She wished her training had involved some basics on Starship Operations, but it had not, her training had been specialized; she nor Benefactor had ever been meant to see such a battle. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, she cursed.
She'd been trained to act, however, so that is what she did. Familiar with the layout of the ship at least, if not of its operations, she ran through the wreckage of what had once been nearly a work of art, and which had been reduced to a state of near total destruction, even though her miniscule cuff light barely illuminated her way through the Stygian darkness.
She ran, twisting and turning through the cramped, debris strewn corridors more on instinct than on what her visual senses told her, and soon stood before the sealed hatchway of the Engine (Drive) Room.
There was no response as she approached the heavy Security Hatchway, but she had not really expected one. That would have been too much to ask, and she was not expecting it to be easy.
A sign said; 'Authorized Personnel Only'. Though a Colonel, technically she was not an Authorized Person, and the retinal scan, if it had been functioning, would not have acted to open the hatchway anyway. More than likely it would have signaled a Security Detail. In this case, a non-existent Security Detail, if it had been able to signal in the first place, which it had not.
When her presence caused no reaction, she turned and ran back down the corridor up which she had come. Reaching the T intersection at the branching corridor, she skidded to a halt, noting as she did so the converging gravitational forces now acting on Benefactor, and upon herself, that of the Environmental Gravity Control and that of the inertia caused by the accelerating ship.
Her blaster came out of its holster and appeared in her hand, a blur of speed. Her hand was definitely faster than the eye. She stepped behind the left wall while turning to face back down the corridor. Now all that remained in the corridor was her arm and the blaster held in her hand. Her finger closed on the actuator, and the weapon lurched in her hand, spewing its energy.
Rebecca opened her eyes and looked around the corner. The dim cuff light barely illuminated the end of the corridor, but it was enough to see that the heavy Security Hatchway still barred her way, though it was scorched and appeared slightly buckled. She pulled back behind the corner and fired again, the sizzling concussion as her weapon fired followed by the second, louder explosion when the energy struck the hatchway itself at the end of the corridor.
It still had not breached the hatchway. Angrily she pulled back and double fired her weapon. When she looked again, she was rewarded by the minutest breach in the heavy hatchway, but it looked large enough for her to climb through at least. She wasted no time, and ran to the opening, holstering her blaster on the run.
The jagged gash in the solid wall was still red hot and glowing. Slag glowed on the deck where the wall had been melted. She was very careful not to touch any of it. She'd seen what molten metal, in thiscase it was some kind of carbon composite, but she was no metallurgist and frankly, at the moment, did not give a damn what it was, as long as she did not get any of it on herself, could do to flesh, and it was not pretty! Very carefully, she squeezed through the opening, managing not to burn herself. The heat was palpable on her skin.
More damage greeted her as she squeezed into the Engine Room, but it didn't seem as severe and the huge Drive Unit Housing did not appear to have been affected at all. As the most important section of the entire ship, Rebecca guessed that its Housing would be many atoms thick, and nearly impregnable. She hoped she would not have to blast through it as well. It might not even be possible.
There were the same shredded bodies here as elsewhere, struck down by the rain of flying debris that seemed to have struck everywhere, but they weren't her concern; if any of them survived, the only way she could help them now was by first saving Benefactor.
The possibility that she would be able to do so seemed to be growing less likely as Benefactor continued her plunge, and the converging forces became more evident. She had no idea how much time remained, but it couldn't be much and it was quickly decreasing.
The dim green glow cast by her cuff light did not illuminate much of the vastness of the huge chamber. Its light did not even penetrate the darkness all the way in only one direction. The area was very vast.
The Engine/Drive Unit itself was secure behind its carbon nano-composite housing, a huge box set in the middle of the chamber. The housing was the size of a small office building. The larger containment chamber with all the regulatory computers and Control Consoles was another box, a box within a box within the ship. She was in the outer box, the Controls Chamber.
She had absolutely no idea what she was looking for, and none of the crew who were strewn about seemed to be in any position to tell her. It seemed unprofessional to her that she did not know, even if her duties in no way included the operation of Starships It was a tiny bit of data, or lack thereof, that was about to make all the difference. Wasting no time, she ran along the carbon shielding/housing, flashing the green cuff light along the dull black surface as she ran. If the Override was not on the housing itself, there would not be enough time to find it. It just had to be on the housing. It had to be.
Familiarity with zero and near zero gravity now stood her in good stead as the Environmental Gravity continued to vanish under the inertia of the ships fall. If the Internal Gravity completely disappeared under the differentiation of the inertia to Internal Gravity ratio before she found the Override, the consequences were assured. She would never get to it.
Conversely, if Benefactor were suddenly to lose Internal Gravity, Rebecca would be slapped against the ceiling and spread out like butter on toast. At less than half her normal weight already and steadily decreasing, she continued her frantic search.
Outside, the friction of Benefactor's plunge began burning away the hull. Even carbon nano-composite, hard and heat resistant as it is, had a melting point, and it had reached it.
And then Rebecca's eyes fell on that for which she was searching. Large lettering clearly stated; 'Manual Override: Use Only In Case Of Extreme Ship Malfunction!'
The lever itself was under several non-locking clasps. What position they would've put her in if the damn thing had been locked. Her blaster was hardly designed for fine detail cutting. If anything she would have blown away the whole lever and been worse off than she had been in the first place. Her fingers were already digging at the first catch.
Click. One catch was free. Frantically she scrabbled at the next catch, and broke her fingernail halfway down the cuticle.
She snatched her hand away to shake off the pain, but in mid shake reached right back up to dig at the stiff metal with her middle finger, and the catch released. Click.
The fingernail hadn't broken this time, but had been wrenched slightly free of the skin underneath, sending a new stabbing pain through her hand. Ignoring the pain, she reached up with her left hand and clicked free the last catch with her stronger thumb. The catch clasp fell away and the lever was free to be thrown.
Rebecca reached for the lever itself. Midway there she was thrown violently to the deck as a massive explosion rocked Benefactor, a power overload somewhere. She landed on her left elbow and rolled agonizingly across the deck before she could halt her sliding roll.
The ship slipped nose-down into the atmosphere, canting in its fall now. The force the Environmental Gravity exerted was working against the force of the inertia caused by the rapid acceleration planet-ward; it was like being pushed in two directions at once. The Engine/Drive Unit Housing was now uphill from her position. She would have to run uphill to get to it.
She exploded to her feet and surged forward up the simulated hill that had once been a level deck, running hunched forward to maintain her balance. It was the most difficult twelve-steps she had ever taken, a nearly vertical climb up the slippery surface, her feet sliding at its summit, but she reached the lever, reached up a hand, and yanked it down.
The ship canted further and she was hanging from the lever, the deck now a wall, and the computer banks below now the floor. The blood from the broken nail made her hand slippery on the lever, which had not been designed to be hung from, in any case, and she slipped free.
The distance wasn't far, but she crashed heavily into the wall of computer terminals, and lay wedged at their base, where they met the deck. She struggled but could not move herself under the increasing acceleration of the ship; Benefactor now fell straight towards the planet, like an arrow shot from a massive bow, completely vertical.
The Manual Override was malfunctioning as well, Rebecca could only surmise. As Benefactor continued to accelerate, black unconsciousness crept remorselessly over her as the forces mounted beyond that of the body's ability to cope. In those last moments she realized utter defeat. It was not her own life whose loss she lamented, but her duty; Colonel Rebecca Collins had never failed before, and the failure was . . .
Benefactor wrenched violently under her as the ship activated emergency forces, the AGP Drive activating the energies necessary for its survival. The ship possessed the power and capability of aninstantaneous halt at this minute velocity, but no human inside her would survive, they would be smashed to pulp, so Benefactor had to direct much of her energy inward as well, to Environmental Gravity Controls, and she was unable to halt completely.
Benefactor crashed into the planet. The Prison Planet Colony World Bali. She came down in a thickly forested area in a ball of flame, smoke and debris that was seen for hundreds of kilometers around in every direction.
In her last effort, Benefactor slowed herself enough to salvage those within her, which was her priority above all else, though of all those who had been aboard originally only two yet survived. Swimming in half unconsciousness, all Colonel Collins could think was 'Get the Senator away from Benefactor, get the Senator away!' There would be no mercy for them in the local's hands, and Rebecca could hardly forget what Baldwin had been before his election to the Senate. At the moment, she could think of nothing else.
But it didn't help. She had been battered and abused, and the last, the crash, had been the worst. She fell off into unconsciousness, though it must be admitted, that she fell fighting.
Copyright 2011 by Ronald Edwin Wintrick
“Senator?” Questioned the pretty, maple skinned Officer in the dress uniform of the Secret Service Branch of the Federated Space Corps, as she leaned in through the open hatchway of the Senator's Study.
The Study itself was a study in opulent décor. Rich, dark paneling adorned the walls. Handcrafted leather furnishings. Gold and brass fittings, trim, all polished to shining brilliance. Even the desk at which the Senator sat was an exquisite piece of modern carpentry, constructed by a master artificer (and all the more extraordinary in these days of computerized manufacture). Merely the trappings of the Office, however. In fact, the Senator was slightly embarrassed by the wealth of the setting, such extravagance being new to him. He was a man who normally lived quite modestly.
The Study was part of the accommodations of the heavily armed and armored Secret Service Yacht Benefactor, which was detailed for his personal use. Newly elected Senator Markis Baldwin was a rich man in his own right, but Benefactor and her use represented wealth well beyond his normal means. Seeing Baldwin look up, the woman took another step forward to stand directly inside the hatchway.
“Yes, what is it?” Baldwin asked, glad for the interruption from the computer screen and the reams of data he had been studying since yesterday and whose surface he had barely scratched. He wassomehow supposed to thoroughly understand all of it, the whole lot, as the base essentials of his new position, before he arrived at Peshar. Peshar was the Planetary Seat of Government for the entire Federation, and where he would be living for at least the next four years. Peshar was 814 Light Years distant, but it was a journey of only thirty-four days. Thirty-four days and two hundred and seventeen Worm Hole Jumps. And his mind was already overloaded.
“We are nearing Bali, Sir. You asked to be informed when we drew near.” Colonel Rebecca Collins, his personal aide, bodyguard (the idea had at first amused him) and direct Military Liaison, said professionally. Also, though unsolicited, Rebecca, Colonel Collins, had made it clear that her duties could extend beyond the Office, beyond the professional, if he should so desire. Merely a part of her assigned activities, no more and no less. He had kindly thanked her, but had firmly said 'no'.
Though no prude and no longer married, his wife Belinda had divorced him three years previously, claiming that all he was interested in was his work, he found himself balking at the concept of sex as a perk of his Office.
Baldwin had been unaware of such extra perks inherent in the Office before he had run for it, and he wasn't sure he liked their significance now that he was aware of them, he was the rare honest politician, but that was entirely the jurisdiction of the Federated Space Corps, who were an entity nearly separate from the government itself, because even though they took their orders from the Senate and the President, their internal policies and procedures were not open to political debate. They ran their own house.
“Thank you, Colonel.” Baldwin said, trying to keep his eyes from straying from her face to her figure, which didn't necessarily help, because she was much more than merely pretty. She was genuinely stunning.
Temporarily failing, his eye traveled along the line of her figure. Her dark blue uniform was skin tight and the military style skirt allowed for a generous showing of her muscular legs, a product of continual exercise, no doubt, Baldwin thought. The blaster on her hip only acted to accentuate her look; she seemed a barbarian princess transported miraculously to modern times.
Her look and pure physical presence were deceiving, however. Though she was a Class A Security Technician, about which Baldwin only understood that it meant she was highly trained and dangerous, she was also intelligent and educated. This was her first posting after completing her educational process, which had been a long and very thorough one; he had been led to understand. She was the whole package.
“The best view will be from the Bridge. If you'd like to accompany me forward, I can show you the way.” Colonel Collins said. Her hands were locked behind her back at Parade Rest. Her spine was ram-rod straight. Yet she seemed quite comfortable. At ease. Though only classified as an Armed Yacht, Benefactor was of immense proportions. As he had learned after first boarding her, it was easy to get lost within her. It was the first thing he had done.
“Suits me.” Baldwin said. He shut down his computer and stood up to follow. She did an about-face and stepped out smartly ahead of him down the corridor outside his Study.
The corridor was close and confining, it boasted barely enough room for two wide-shouldered men to pass one another, contrasting the large and luxurious accommodations like his Study and Suite of rooms. Military ships were seldom if ever designed with large corridors, crew quarters, or anything else that was unnecessary. It was simply a waste of good space.
Baldwin found himself having a hard time keeping his eyes from straying below her shoulder level as he followed her. He was sure she was aware the effect she had on him, if the attitude she was putting into her walk was any sure indication. Was it possible he was imagining it? He did not think so.
Baldwin was forty-two Standards, but he could still be affected powerfully by the sight of a lithe, confident, attractive female. He hoped he would never grow too old for that. Yet he felt like a foolish schoolboy, the way she affected him, and all he had to do, if he wanted her, was to say so, but that was what made it so wrong.
As Special Prosecutor for Capital Crimes on Sarvan, his home-world and their point of origin on this voyage, 814 Light Years was a voyage under any conditions, in Baldwin's opinion, he had prosecuted all the worst cases worldwide; the rapes, murders, violent robberies, and lately a whole plethora of crimes reclassified into that category by an overzealous Planetary Congress.
Those who he had convicted he had sent here to Bali, the nearest of the Prison Colony Worlds. He'd sent tens of thousands; he was without mercy when it came time for the criminal to receive the reward he or she had so justly earned. That he was also the person who had decided the accused's innocence or guilt, the Judicial System had done away with juries and trials was beside the point. He had always tried to be impartial, but he had never shirked his duty, either. If he had thought them guilty, he had judged them and they were gone.
Baldwin couldn't say exactly what had prompted him to request that Benefactor make a stop here on its way out-system. He'd never seen a Prison Planet, this was actually his first trip off-world, ever, but that wasn't it. He didn't owe those he had sent here anything. They had earned what they had gotten. He didn't care about them, even though the circumstances into which he had sent them, both women and men, must have been stupendously horrible. No, none of that. It was that he owed his new life to these people. He had made his name a household item by prosecuting and sending them all here. A large enough name that when he ran for the Senate of Worlds, every planet sent a representative to the governing body that was the Federation of Human Worlds; he won Sarvan by a landslide. There was no more powerful position outside the Senate than the Presidency itself. Even the honest man feels the affinity for power such positions bring.
The visit to Bali was, well, his salute to these people, without whom he would not be where he was today. He was not embarrassed to admit it.
Colonel Collins led on while Baldwin considered the depth of his guilt. He had tried to be certain that he never sent an innocent man, or woman, to Bali, but might not it have been possible, that in his desire to make a name for himself as a tough Prosecutor, and thereby to deter criminals before they committed their crimes, as well, that he may have been overzealous a time or two, himself? He thought it entirely possible. More than likely, really. One had to be tough, though!
Well. A sentence to Bali, or any other of the Prison Planet Colony Worlds, was not necessarily a death sentence. Little is actually known about the inner workings of these places, though that was changing now that a great many had Reunified, but it was surmised that fresh internees were probably very much in demand; for labor, breeding purposes, and for the knowledge they brought, though it would likely be very different from world to world, or even from one place to the next on individual worlds. Almost all of the modern fiction writers based their novels and characters on the unknowns of the Prison Colony World settings these days. Baldwin had read a few of them himself.
When they arrived at Level 7, Benefactor was a total of 14 levels, Baldwin immediately recognized the heavy Security Hatchway at the end of the corridor. The Bridge lay behind that hatchway, he'd been there yesterday, after he first boarded, when he had given instructions to pass by Bali. The guard detail outside the sealed hatchway made it hard to miss.
Apparently the Space Corps took few risks, Baldwin thought, though who they thought might infiltrate an armed ship in-flight, then carry out a further assault on her Bridge, Baldwin couldn't rightly imagine. The risk, though negligible, must exist, or be thought to exist, because the two soldiers standing at attention looked deadly serious. The blast rifles in their hands did not detract from the image, either.
There was no joking around or banter as they approached, as he half expected. The thought had never crossed his mind before, but seeing the Space Corps about its business made him realize just how ill trained and unprofessional the Civil Authorities back on Sarvan were. If they had been trained to be as serious about their profession, that of catching criminals and preventing crime, as were the Space Corps about their business, Sarvan might be a nearly crime free world. As a Senator, Baldwin thought that there would be much he could do to rectify the situation, and would be doing, once he reached Peshar and was able to begin having an influence.
The two Troopers never so much as blinked as they approached, no flicker of eyes, no movement of body at all, to indicate an awareness of them as they came to a halt in front of them, but the flash of green light that struck their eyes, retinal scan, left no doubt that whoever was behind the armored hatchway had observed their approach.
With no other sign of acknowledgment, the Bridge Access Hatchway dilated open, just like the pupil of the human eye. Baldwin had no idea how the technology worked, only that it had something to do with the molecular redistribution of atoms, in other words, it could not be forced open when sealed, because there really was nothing there but a solid wall when it was not open. Collins led Baldwin inside and the hatchway sealed noiselessly behind them.
The Bridge also was startlingly in contrast to the close corridors leading up to it. Large and spacious. Luxurious accommodations at the many computerized consoles, most of which were empty. Those which were not vacant were occupied by the clean-cut men and women of the Space Corps Service, in their tailored blue uniforms that fit like second skins but allowed total range of free motion, made of some type of super elastic polymers. Though the uniforms covered everything but the women’s' legs, it left almost nothing to the imagination.
The walls, ceiling and floor were the most stunning aspect of the Bridge, however. Baldwin appeared to be standing on nothing, absolutely nothing. The floor, walls and ceiling carried the actual present image of the environment around them, the environment outside the walls of the ship. Of space. He was standing on the star-studded blackness of empty space. Despite his familiarity with the system from yesterday, it was still more than a bit disconcerting.
“I hope you're not subject to vertigo?” The Captain said. At least Baldwin guessed that he was the Captain, judging by the epaulettes on his shoulders. This was his first meeting with the Captain, who had been off duty and asleep yesterday when Baldwin had boarded. The ship had been in the Second's hands at the time. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to salute the Captain or shake his hand, but the man didn't seem to be expecting either, so he didn't worry about it.
"I hadn't any previous difficulties with it." Baldwin said.
"That can change here." The Captain said with a smile that was white teeth set off by the darkness of his face. Not the darkest man Baldwin had ever seen, but one of them, in a race that was now nearly totally homogenized into that of one color and of mostly one physical appearance, of a light brown or maple that was a derivative of a mix of all of the previous main races of mankind. People of extremes, either dark or light, were far and in between. Race issues were a thing of the long gone past.
"I can see how that could be possible." Baldwin said. To his visual senses, there was no reason for him not to float off into space, or for the Bridge to maintain its atmospheric integrity.
"We approach Bali." The Captain now said, glancing around. Ahead of Benefactor, judging forward to be the direction the crew was facing, a tiny brown world had appeared and was gradually enlarging, indicating a rapid velocity. Very rapid!
"What was your interest here?" The Captain asked as he glanced back. "Should we plan for an extended visit?"
"I have that authority?" Baldwin asked dubiously, a little surprised. He had known that Benefactor had been put at his disposal, but hadn't been sure to what extent that had meant. The Captain proceeded to explain;
"Benefactor and her crew are completely at your disposal, Senator. You want to vaporize Bali, you just say the word, I have to obey, but I wouldn't recommend such a course, not unless you can count on the rest of the Senate backing such an action. I have seen crazier things, though."
"That wasn't exactly what I had in mind." Baldwin admitted. "I only wanted to view it, and only for a moment or two, actually. I kind of thought I owed it to all the people I sent here."
The Captain seemed to take this statement at face value and no more and waved a hand toward the rapidly approaching world;
"Well there she is. It's a pretty place. Seems a waste to have filled her with a bunch of convicts. If it was up to me I wouldn't have been so lenient!"
"There's many who feel the opposite." Baldwin said. "That we're already much too harsh."
"What do you feel, Senator?" The Captain asked.
"I sent them there. Here. A lot of them anyway." Baldwin said, now with a smile on his face. "They earned it."
"My sentiments exactly." The Captain said. "Except just a bit too lenient." The Captain's smile now mirrored Baldwin's own, and he felt a strong kinship with the man.
They stood in silence for a while, watching mutely as Benefactor made her approach. As they neared, Baldwin saw numerous unnatural reflections, flashes of light surrounding Bali that were reflecting the System's Starlight, a bright yellow dwarf, in what were obviously orbital locations.
The number of reflections grew as they neared until it was obvious the world was entirely surrounded by the unnatural objects, which Baldwin guessed correctly to be some sort of satellite relay system. It was hard to estimate how many there were. The satellites themselves must be rotating or moving within their own stationary orbits, because the reflections would flash, then disappear, flash, then disappear, and there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of them all around the world. A twinkling kaleidoscope of lights.
"What are all those for?" Baldwin asked curiously. He could not imagine why a Prison Colony World would need such a comprehensive communications satellite system, but that was what it appeared to be. Didn't make sense.
"Satellite Defensive System." The Captain said. "We can't just have our prisoners walking off anytime they want, you know."
"Walking off?"
"There were rescues in the early days. People who had friends. Recruitment, too."
"Recruitment?" Baldwin said.
"Organized crime." The Captain explained.
"I never thought of that." Baldwin admitted.
"They did." Colonel Collins said, speaking up for the first time in the conversation.
"There's none of that anymore." The Captain said. "The Defensive System is quite effective. Take my word for that."
"I'll bet." Baldwin said, seeing all of those twinkling lights.
"Captain!" Shouted a blue-uniformed crewman from a Console only meters distant from where they were standing, instantly grabbing their attention. The man's hands were flying over his keyboard frantically and he looked extremely agitated. Frightened, almost, Baldwin thought.
"What is it?" The Captain bellowed rushing to the crewman's side, looking over his shoulder at the data the man was manipulating. He looked deadly serious; there was no amusement on his face now.Baldwin couldn't imagine what it meant.
"Sir, our Identification Beacon is malfunctioning! It's not broadcasting!" The crewman said frantically. Somehow, for some reason, beads of sweat had sprung out upon his forehead and lent a heavy counter-point to his agitation. Whatever the problem, Baldwin thought, it was obviously very serious. The Captain's reaction, however, was much more extreme than what Baldwin had anticipated! He screamed;
"Abort course!" Then he spun and lunged for his own elevated Captain's Console/Command Station in the middle of the Bridge, but he was too late!
Baldwin watched horrified as the Satellite Defensive System did its job. Did so effectively, unemotionally, and with destructive thoroughness. Ocher bursts of needle-thin laser pulses speared out, striking Benefactor. Hundreds of them. Like a rain of fire!
The violent energies released upon Benefactor shook her unmercifully under their onslaught. Even her heavy armor was no match for the point-blank range fire of the deadly Defensive Satellites; the armor was peeled from her hull like the lid of a tin can under a massive can opener. The deck under Baldwin's feet leaped at the onslaught, throwing him into the air, then came rushing back up and he smashed headfirst into the Console of the crewman who had warned of the Identification Beacons failure in the first place. He struck hard.
White lightning flashed behind Baldwin's eyes as he struck, while red blood erupted from his temple, where the Console had split him like a soft grape. In the fog of onrushing black unconsciousness, he heard the thunder and rumblings that heralded the death of the ship. Deadly debris rained through the Bridge but somehow missed Baldwin's unconscious form, but of that he was unaware. He was completely unconscious.
Strange as such things went, the hammering explosions of the Satellite Defensive Systems' energy had jarred operational whatever faulty mechanism had caused the Identification Beacon to malfunction in the first place, and now it began sending out its signal to the simple computer minds of the Satellite Defensive System surrounding Bali, and the satellites attack, which should have continued until Benefactor were completely destroyed, suddenly ceased.
Baldwin was unaware. He was gripped within welcome unconsciousness. The now nearly lifeless ship slipped slowly into the upper atmosphere and began sinking toward the world below.
The Captain and most of the crew were dead. A nearby explosion had shattered the nearly indestructible nano-composite framework of the ship, raining five atom thick shards of the material, sharper edged than a shaving razor, throughout the Bridge, with horrendous result; shredding skin, muscle and bone like hamburger in a blender.
Crowded under the same Console on which, first, the crewmen had cried out his warning, and then on which Baldwin had struck his head, Colonel Collins looked out at the death and destruction with cool, evaluating eye.
It was clear to her that the attack had for some reason ended, but she had no idea that it would not soon resume, and she and the Senator were as safe as she could think to make them, partially sheltered by the nano-composite bulk of the crewman's Console itself, which had deflected the rain of debris, thus saving their lives.
The failure of the Bridge lighting system only a moment later left her with even fewer options. She was not completely without options, but needed to review what they were. Time was of the essence.
The sound of hissing atmosphere somewhere not far off was not welcome. The Bridge's atmospheric integrity was no longer sacrosanct. There were probably huge sections of the hull torn away, if the rain of debris which had washed through the Bridge were any sure indication.
Long accustomed to spaceflight, Rebecca felt the pull and influence of the planet below as Benefactor slipped inexorably into her gravitational field, falling towards the surface a hundred and fifty kilometers below.
Benefactor was mangled and ruined. Lives had been lost. All Rebecca could bring herself to think, however, was how utterly and miserably she had failed in her duty.
Chapter 2
Lan Carter hated these windowless Troop Transports more than he hated anything else in life. It was true that he hated war in general, with every gram of his being, but yet he hated these windowless Troop Transports even more. A soldier couldn't see what he was being dropped into, was the whole issue. The Brass didn't want the Infantry Soldier to see what he, or she, was being dropped into, of course, because it only gave them time to become terrified. Terror was nonproductive.
That was fine for the fresh green new-jacks, but he would have liked to be able to see in advance what he was being dumped into, so as to be able to formulate some kind of plan of action.
This was old business for Lan Carter, nor had he been unduly worried the first time the Space Corps had dropped him into hostile alien territory. This was like a slow Sunday afternoon back home on Calafga, a newly Reunified Prison Planet Colony World, and the place of his birth and youth.
Any Prison Colony World could petition for Reunification when they proved to the Federation that they had gained and could maintain a free, Democratic and, nearly, crime free society. It had taken Calafga seven hundred and fifty-six years, Standards, to gain that stability, and now, Reunified, she was becoming nearly as modern and civilized as some of her oldest brethren.
It had been a rocky road for Calafga, with near constant warfare and barbarian warlords the main form of government for most of that time. Communication with the Federation, when communications technology was finally reinvented, brought hope and purpose and the mobilization of the people.
The Army of Liberation, as they had called themselves in their early years, and of whom Lan Carter had become a member, had slowly marched across the planet, annihilating all who stood before them in their grand purpose of Democracy and Reunification. It was the bloodiest and worst time in all of Calafga's bloody years of existence, but it had ended in Reunification and the restoration of civilization for the beleaguered world.
So warfare was all Lan Carter knew. Calafga had no need of him once the last of the resistance was crushed. It often happened that way, that those who had been so necessary so recently were now a liability and a danger to the new, evolved society. Service in the Space Corps, who certainly did need men and women with Lan's particular qualities, was his ticket off Calafga.
A man of Carter's characteristics would have only found troubles in the new society. Under Calafga's new laws, trouble meant a one way ride to a new Prison Planet, one that had not yet been Reunified. That was the last thing Carter wanted, after having fought so hard already on Calafga.
So Carter signed for a ten year hitch in the Space Corps Infantry Division. Ten was the minimum. He was just beginning his fifth year.
The war here on Barcene would be no more than a minor skirmish. The indigenous race which called this place home were a space-faring race, or had been before the Navy Division of the Space Corps had annihilated their small armada, but their technology was thousands of years behind man. The fight would be very one-sided.
One-sided did not mean there would be few or no casualties. It did not mean that at all. The planet would be pacified one alien at a time, until there were no aliens, and then it would become another home for mankind. The Corps did not destroy perfectly viable planets. There would be a lot of casualties. There always were. Always.
The concussion of antiaircraft batteries, though they were firing at vessels which weren't specifically aircraft, rocked the Troop Transport as they flew in. We were traveling at many times the speed of sound. The AGP, Anti-Gravity Propulsion, of these small ships were capable of pulling them at extraordinary speeds, near Light Speed given the room to accelerate, but they were not equipped with Worm Whole Jump capacity, so you did not want to get stranded in one a long way from home, if for instance all the Jump capable ships were destroyed. The Speed of Light is abysmally slow when real Galactic distances are considered, much less Universal distances, as from one Galaxy to another, but for the purposes at hand, in use against a race that had just barely gotten off the surface of their own planet, it was more than sufficient.
The Troop Transport was full of fresh green new-jacks, Lan's term for new recruits on their way into their first battles. They would maintain their freshness for many battles, however many of them survived, that is. This particular Troop Transport held forty, but there were various other sized ships. Smaller was better as far as Lan Carter was concerned; it created more confusion for the enemy and kept the losses of each individual Transport to a manageable minimum.
Despite the speed at which the Transports were flown, or how well they were flown, there was usually the occasional loss, depending on the level of the alien's technology. Larger ships are easier to hit also, and he didn't want to die strapped to a crash seat with no chance to defend himself. Not the way Lan Carter wanted to go.
There were forever and ever new races to be at war with, and mankind seemed to love war more than anything else; man had subjugated many tens of thousands of races to his rule already, had utterly destroyed so many more that it went beyond count, and seemed bent on Universal Conquest!
Lan Carter understood human nature and accepted it. He could care less about Universal Conquest; he was only in it for the ten years, and then retirement. Ten years of active duty was all you had to pull for your full benefits. It amused him every time he saw a new Squad full of fresh, patriotic faces, because he had seen many such and planned to see many more.
They came and they went. They always went. By stretcher or by body-bag. Sometimes there wasn't even enough left of them to fill a sandwich bag. Then more came. More always came. Lured by the idea that in ten years they would be relatively rich, or patriotism, or whatever it was that lured them. Lured them to their deaths.
Lan Carter was looking at thirty-nine fresh green new-jacks who would go the same way they all went. It didn't bother him a bit. Not that Lan was hard or callous, it was simply unavoidable. There was absolutely nothing Lan Carter could do about it.
Several of them were looking at him warily. Even a fresh green new-jack could see that this wasn't his first assignment, just by one look into his hard brown eyes, but the weathered look of his equipment would tell someone who was too blind to see otherwise. It was well used. Broken in. Old! He could have requisitioned new equipment at the beginning of each new campaign, but he liked the broken in equipment he had. It was him. It was comfortable, and he could trust in it.
"Why are you in this new unit?" One of them asked finally, after they could bear it no longer. This was hardly the first time he had been asked this question, nor was it likely to be last.
"This ain't a new unit." Carter replied solemnly, looking the man in the eyes. The new-jack Lieutenant, straight out from some ridiculous military school, where they had wasted two years educating him, turned his head to stare at Lan from where he sat in the rear of the Transport.
"Admiral Sandhar said this was an entirely new Squad! Are you saying he's a liar, soldier?" The Lieutenant demanded.
Lan looked up and met the man's eyes. The Lieutenant was much like so many Lan had seen come and go, over the years. Arrogant with his new command, but basically concerned with the same things they were all concerned with. Lan felt a momentary pity for the man, but quickly put it aside. There was no place for pity here.
"Do you see where these stripes used to be?" Lan asked, nodding to the shoulder facing the Lieutenant, where there were no stripes, but it was evident where the old stitching used to be. He'd been promoted and busted many times.
"Yeah, I most certainly can!" The Lieutenant said scornfully. "It's a disgrace!" The Lieutenant did not yet realize.
"You see this Squad Emblem?" Lan now asked, pointing to it above where the rank stripes should have been; there was no question except that the emblem was as old as a uniform itself. Both were well-worn. The Lieutenant didn't say a word, it was clear he now understood. To have continued the argument would be to have shown himself an utter fool. Lan looked away and resumed his study of the floor between his two feet; he had no wish for a confrontation with this poor, ignorant tool, because no amount of explaining would change a thing. The man, and the entire Squad beneath him, would survive or die on their own merits. There was nothing Lan could do. It was much too late for all of them. Much.
"What happened to the rest of the Squad?" A woman, a girl, sitting in the middle of the Transport, asked Lan. She was really too young for this, he decided as he looked at her, but then what was a proper age to die? The girl's wide brown eyes said she already knew the answer to her own question, without needing to be told, but wanted to be told anyway. Lan couldn't meet her look and turned away, back to his study of the floor between his two feet.
Carter wasn't a heartless bastard, but at the same time, these new-jacks needed a dose of reality, at least once, before they hit the dirt, and their Fates.
"The last Squad?" Lan said ruthlessly. "Better to ask what's happened to the last thousand Squads!" Then he closed his eyes and began humming a little tune he was fond of, and ignored the heated discussion that spring up amongst the rest of the Squad. Even the Lieutenant was too stunned to restore order.
But he didn't even get to finish his little tune as the Transport drew up and smashed roughly to the ground. He'd been expecting it any moment and was ready. The harness holding him securely in his seat popped away at the same time as the rear hatch; the hatch fell away from the top and slammed to the ground, still hinged at deck level, to create a ramp to the ground outside.
Lan was the first out of the hatch, and the first to hit the ground. He hit running. He was many meters distant, running full speed, before the last of the rest even had their asses out of their seats. The enemy poured fire into the back of the Transport and the other Transports already on the ground, cutting down the Troopers as they tried to flee what had now become mobile deathtraps. Many didn't even make it out of the Transports. Their screams and cries of agony followed Lan as he ran. He did not look back. There was nothing he could do but go forward, take the attack to the enemy, and silence the weapons which were silencing his comrades.
The enemy weapons were flashing ahead like a thousand flashbulbs going off all at once, except for the continuous roar that their combined effect thundered over him in an unending wave of sound. The whine of ricochets sang through the air as the combustion weapon's projectiles rebounded from the skins of the Transports, filling the air with lethal fragments of buzzing, tumbling metal. Humanity had long since given up such outmoded types of weaponry, but their lethal effectiveness could not be denied. He ran for his life.
They'd been dropped into an open area that might have been some sort of a park or Memorial area that was open and exposed. No trees or shrubbery or cover, just close cut-grass, or its equivalent anyway, and them, right in the middle of it. Lan could not think of a worse place to have been put down, exposed as they were to fire from all four sides of the rectangular area around them.
The park was surrounded by a residential area that continued on for as far as Lan could see, the dwellings constructed seemingly without overall pattern or symmetry, just at random, each dwelling as close to its neighbor as it could be while still leaving room to move between them, and that not much in most cases. Where the park ended, the residential area began. Nothing separated the two.
The dwellings themselves were rounded mounds of a concrete like substance that were hardly taller than Lan himself, so it was easy to see how far off into the distance the residential area stretched; seemingly forever, or what seemed to be forever, because nowhere could he see the end of them. Lan guessed they probably lived mostly underground, that the domes were merely the entrances. If that were true, they would have all hell's own time digging them all out! He didn't want to think about that at the moment however, he had plenty else to keep him occupied.
Other Transports were landing all over the park and Space Corps Troopers were returning the enemy fire. The aliens were firing on them from all along the line of demarcation, from atop and beside their dwellings, from the dark holes that must be the dwelling's entrances, from behind embankments of the rough terrain, and walls, and anywhere else they could find partial concealment to fire on the Troopers. As of yet, the Troopers return fire didn't seem to be having much effect. Only the stray projectile passed Lan as he ran; the enemy was concentrating on the massed Troopers sitting so vulnerably in the middle of the park.
Carter had yet to fire his own weapon. He just ran. Legs pumping. Arms that held his blast rifle swinging, while he heard and felt the whine and snap of the projectiles buzzing around him, his goal a series of monuments near the edge of the park that appeared to be statues representing notables of the alien race; probably who the park was a memorial for, Lan guessed.
All Carter knew was that those massive statues were blocking the fire from that direction, so that was the direction he ran. Directly for them. With a last, heroic effort, he dove in amidst the statues, which were a group of aliens standing in a circle, all facing each other, their clawed hands held outstretched in some type of symbolic gesture, and landed rolling, to come up against the base of one of the statues closest to the enemy line, now no more than twenty meters distant.
Behind, between the statues, was visible the mess that was the mass of Corps Troopers who had been dumped so unceremoniously in the park by the Troop Transports, the last of which were now lifting away and heading back to space, where they would be refilled and sent immediately back with the next load of lucky Troopers. Not one had been lost in this emplacement. These alien's weapons were inadequate to the task. They were cutting the Troopers themselves to bits, however, rather effectively.
The Brass cared very little about the loss of individual human life, but was quite careful when it came to valuable equipment, like Troop Transports. More than likely they had concluded that the enemy wouldn't shoot anything really powerful into the heart of its own city, so that had been a deciding factor when choosing this staging area. Of course there were thousands of such staging areas in operation at this point all over the planet. When the Space Corps landed on world, they came deep and they weren't fucking around. Throw enough shit against a wall, and some of it was bound to stick, was their motto, and they were not wrong. The Corps always stuck one way or another. The Space Corps Infantry was the shit.
Carter gave only a moment’s consideration to the mayhem behind, though it crossed his mind that there'd probably be a whole new Squad again at the next drop, before returning his attention to the enemy ahead.
Projectiles were pinging and whining angrily around him as the enemy tried to rout him from the protection of the statues, now that he had been noticed, but the circle of aliens provided him cover from every direction now that he was inside them, sheltering and harboring the enemy. If the aliens the statues represented could only see him now! He threw the butt plate of his blast rifle to his shoulder, leaned around the edge of his protective alien patron, and began firing.
The air sizzled and suddenly smelled of ozone as the white/yellow ball of flame leaped out from the end of his weapon, raced across the intervening distance, and blew a big chunk from the side of a dwelling behind which an enemy was firing. A thunderous clap of light and sound accompanied the blast, and the enemy alien was thrown out into the open between two of the dwellings.
Carter got his first good look at the enemy as the thing kicked convulsively and then lay still in death. A light brown, almost tan, in color. It was neither furred nor scaled, as were many reptiles. It was about half the height of a man. Skinny and weak looking, but that was probably deceptive. A long snout was filled with thin needle-teeth and visible even at this distance, great green eyes that probably saw as well in the dark as he saw in broad daylight.
This entire Carter noticed in the milliseconds time before he jerked back behind the protective statute, and none too soon, as a rain of projectiles drove against his cover and in among the statues, where whining ricochets filled the air with buzzing death. None found a mark. Truly only luck, but better to be here than back out there in the open, where death was coming to the hapless Troopers in stifling waves.
His comrades were finding cover behind the growing piles of those already dead, and were now delivering a pulverizing rain of blaster fire into the enemy's ranks. Carter got off two more well-placed shots before having to duck back again from the deadly fusillade of fire filling his retreat. Lan was the closest of the enemy invaders and suddenly he had all of their attention.
Thudding footsteps behind him brought Carter around in a blur, weapon up and finger poised over the actuator stud, but it was the woman from his own Squad. The girl. The girl who had questioned him aboard the Troop Transport before touchdown.
She raced into the protection of the alien statues and dove to the ground amid an angry burst of enemy fire, rolling up beside Carter's feet, and then she looked up at him from the ground, an expression of uncertainty upon her face.
"You ain't gotta worry what I think." Lan said. "It's them out there you gotta worry about." He nodded towards the enemy line on the other side of the statue.
The girl's eyes followed his movement, but she did not reply. Surprisingly, she had found somewhere the courage to charge across that open area. Under that withering hail of fire! That had taken balls! No question about it, Lan was impressed.
He turned back and snapped two more quick shots around the right edge of the statue, then yanked back as enemy fire rained where he had been, but the girl was no longer behind him; she had moved to the other edge of the statue and was firing out at the enemy. She kept right on firing, despite the return fire, her blast rifle leaping in her hands, against her shoulder, the flames jumping strobe-like from the end of her weapon. Lan jumped at her, grabbed her and yanked her back fiercely!
"You crazy bitch!" Lan screamed in her face. "You ain't gotta be no hero! Heroes get dead! Are you fucking hearing me?" He emphasized his screams with violent shakes that nearly took her off her feet.When Lan relented, she nodded her head up and down vigorously, while staring at him out of wide open petrified eyes. Lan shook his own head, in wonderment, and let her go. She nearly sagged to the ground but caught herself, again giving him that uncertain look.
"Everyone was dying!" She said tremulously, simply unable to hold it in any longer. "I didn't know what else to do. I was the second one out of the Transport. I saw you run here, but the Lieutenant was screaming for everyone to line up, then he was hit, and he was screaming in pain! He was screaming so horribly! A medic gave him a shot and he shut up, and everyone was dying . . .”
"You're alive. That's all that matters." Lan said interrupting her, not unkindly, then he turned to look around the edge of their protective statute but projectiles spanged off the metal of the statue the moment he showed his face and he hastily pulled it back.
The girl had taken her place on her side of the statue again, but was looking over her shoulder at him for a signal. Lan waited for a lull before leaning out to fire again, and heard her weapon firing simultaneously as his own. When he pulled back, after firing twice, she pulled back as well.
The Troopers behind were savaging the enemy line and taking a lot of the heat off them now. Working in sync with one another, Lan and the girl wreaked deadly havoc among the enemy in front, and soon there was a discernible lessening of enemy fire coming their way.
Secretly Lan was very impressed by the girl's performance. She'd been in the middle of the Transport! That she had gotten out second showed great instinctual reactions. Lan suspected she possessed incredible natural instincts, if only she could be kept alive long enough to come to an understanding of them; all of the natural instincts in the Universe weren't enough to keep the inexperienced alive on a new battlefield! Not when your first lesson was usually your last! The ridiculous Boot Camp training these recruits received was entirely inadequate; those who survived in the Corps survived on their own merits, or as in most cases, did not survive at all.
She sure didn't look like much though, Lan decided, glancing at her surreptitiously. Looks can be deceiving, he knew though, and in her case he suspected, entirely deceiving. She looked incapable of fighting her way out of a wet paper sack, much less overcoming hardy reptile defenders fighting for their homes, their land, their families, and their lives. There was little in existence more ferocious than a cornered lizard.
It would be nice Lan decided if the Squad could have one regular besides himself to share his remaining years in the Corps. Was something like that possible? It didn't seem probable, not with the weight of experience to the contrary, but Carter would do what he could to make it happen. It was a first for him, to care; it wasn't the first time he had tried to save someone's life, but it was the first time, in a long time, that he found himself caring.
The weight of experience told him that he should not care, but he did. Was he a fool?
Chapter 3
Even in a hopeless situation there still exists some possibility of success, some chance for salvation, even in the most untenable of circumstances. However, Rebecca had never been in one worse, in all of her conflict ridden life, as that which she found herself within now. And this situation did seem entirely hopeless, but as long as she breathed, could move and think and act, there was always hope.
A green glare erupted in the darkness of the Bridge. It was shining from the cuff light of Rebecca's uniform sleeve. It was but dim and feeble, but it was bright enough to illuminate the wreckage of what had once been the Bridge. It hardly seemed possible that the destruction that lay around her now had, only moments earlier, been the luxuriously accommodated Bridge of Benefactor. It looked like a tornado had struck, smashing everything in its path.
The stink of fresh blood nearly overwhelmed her, a natural physiological reaction, but the sight of the shredded, mutilated bodies evoked no feelings within her, either negative or positive. She was familiar with the sight of such, had been inured since an early age.
Forcing herself to ignore the cloying stench, she stood up to survey her new surroundings. What she needed was an operational Control Console, but she doubted she was going to find one. She was confronted with wreckage and destruction on all sides. Nothing left seemed to be operational.
Benefactor was accelerating into the gravity well of the planet. She could feel it clearly through her body. It meant she had little time. The only factor that gave her any hope at all was that the Internal Environmental Gravity was still functioning. The deck under her feet was still down and she appeared to still retain her normal weight. It meant there was still power in the ship, somewhere. It could go at any time however, and once gone would extremely complicate matters.
Complicate being the understatement of the day, Rebecca thought unhappily. If there was almost no chance for survival now, there would be even less then. Less than none. It was not a lot.
Rebecca walked from Console to Console searching for a flicker of functionality on the black Control Panels, squishing through pooling blood and stepping over shredded bodies as she made her way. There was no activity on any of the Control Consoles at all. They were all completely dead.
Not knowing what else to do, and feeling completely helpless, she slammed the Captain's Control Console, in front of which she now stood, with the heel of her hand, then watched in horror as the whole assembly toppled over and fell to the deck with a tremendous crash, having already been partially wrecked by the hail of flying debris.
"The Manual Override . . .”A voice said out of the darkness. The voice was hardly recognizable as human. Death was in the drawn out rasp of the voice, and it's owner knew it. That was there as well. Rebecca felt a terrible empathy for the man, but had no time for such sentiments.
Rebecca scanned the wreckage again, her dim green light playing over the macabre scene, until she located the author of the voice. When she did, she almost wished she had not.
The man had been torn apart and lay in a pile of spilled intestines, gore and more blood than it seemed possible for a human to contain. She'd never seen anyone in such terrible condition yet living. Death would not be long in coming, and it would be a welcome relief.
She hoped, for his sake, that death came before the shock wore off. If it did not, she would put him out of his misery herself.
"What Manual Override?" Rebecca asked. She had to know now, before he died or before it became too late to institute the procedure, whatever process that entailed. For a moment, when he didn't respond, she thought him already gone, but then he spoke;
"In the Engine Room." The man said, looking up at her with eyes that were very much aware of his imminent death. "You . . . must . . .” Then his head lolled to the side and he was dead. Rebecca was running even before his head had finished falling. He had no more to offer.
There was a huge chunk of bulkhead blown away. She went through the opening on the run, thanking whatever providence had created the quick exit; her blaster would have taken a lot of valuable time on the hardened carbon armor of the reinforced Bridge, time she did not now have.
The hiss of leaking atmosphere sounded off on her left somewhere distantly, but not that far. She couldn't feel the breeze that would indicate depleting levels of atmosphere, but it wouldn't take long; Benefactor held a lot atmosphere, but space was much larger and emptier. Benefactor must not have been able to sell seal all the ruptures before she lost power, Rebecca thought. It would surely complicate matters. Matters that were too complicated already.
Rebecca was now faced with two major dilemmas, but Benefactor's plunge would shortly make all other issues immaterial, inconsequential. It was possible that if she could restore power through this Manual Override, whatever that was, that Benefactor could seal her leaks herself. If not, there were spacesuits for emergencies such as these, if she could get to one in time. She wished her training had involved some basics on Starship Operations, but it had not, her training had been specialized; she nor Benefactor had ever been meant to see such a battle. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, she cursed.
She'd been trained to act, however, so that is what she did. Familiar with the layout of the ship at least, if not of its operations, she ran through the wreckage of what had once been nearly a work of art, and which had been reduced to a state of near total destruction, even though her miniscule cuff light barely illuminated her way through the Stygian darkness.
She ran, twisting and turning through the cramped, debris strewn corridors more on instinct than on what her visual senses told her, and soon stood before the sealed hatchway of the Engine (Drive) Room.
There was no response as she approached the heavy Security Hatchway, but she had not really expected one. That would have been too much to ask, and she was not expecting it to be easy.
A sign said; 'Authorized Personnel Only'. Though a Colonel, technically she was not an Authorized Person, and the retinal scan, if it had been functioning, would not have acted to open the hatchway anyway. More than likely it would have signaled a Security Detail. In this case, a non-existent Security Detail, if it had been able to signal in the first place, which it had not.
When her presence caused no reaction, she turned and ran back down the corridor up which she had come. Reaching the T intersection at the branching corridor, she skidded to a halt, noting as she did so the converging gravitational forces now acting on Benefactor, and upon herself, that of the Environmental Gravity Control and that of the inertia caused by the accelerating ship.
Her blaster came out of its holster and appeared in her hand, a blur of speed. Her hand was definitely faster than the eye. She stepped behind the left wall while turning to face back down the corridor. Now all that remained in the corridor was her arm and the blaster held in her hand. Her finger closed on the actuator, and the weapon lurched in her hand, spewing its energy.
Rebecca opened her eyes and looked around the corner. The dim cuff light barely illuminated the end of the corridor, but it was enough to see that the heavy Security Hatchway still barred her way, though it was scorched and appeared slightly buckled. She pulled back behind the corner and fired again, the sizzling concussion as her weapon fired followed by the second, louder explosion when the energy struck the hatchway itself at the end of the corridor.
It still had not breached the hatchway. Angrily she pulled back and double fired her weapon. When she looked again, she was rewarded by the minutest breach in the heavy hatchway, but it looked large enough for her to climb through at least. She wasted no time, and ran to the opening, holstering her blaster on the run.
The jagged gash in the solid wall was still red hot and glowing. Slag glowed on the deck where the wall had been melted. She was very careful not to touch any of it. She'd seen what molten metal, in thiscase it was some kind of carbon composite, but she was no metallurgist and frankly, at the moment, did not give a damn what it was, as long as she did not get any of it on herself, could do to flesh, and it was not pretty! Very carefully, she squeezed through the opening, managing not to burn herself. The heat was palpable on her skin.
More damage greeted her as she squeezed into the Engine Room, but it didn't seem as severe and the huge Drive Unit Housing did not appear to have been affected at all. As the most important section of the entire ship, Rebecca guessed that its Housing would be many atoms thick, and nearly impregnable. She hoped she would not have to blast through it as well. It might not even be possible.
There were the same shredded bodies here as elsewhere, struck down by the rain of flying debris that seemed to have struck everywhere, but they weren't her concern; if any of them survived, the only way she could help them now was by first saving Benefactor.
The possibility that she would be able to do so seemed to be growing less likely as Benefactor continued her plunge, and the converging forces became more evident. She had no idea how much time remained, but it couldn't be much and it was quickly decreasing.
The dim green glow cast by her cuff light did not illuminate much of the vastness of the huge chamber. Its light did not even penetrate the darkness all the way in only one direction. The area was very vast.
The Engine/Drive Unit itself was secure behind its carbon nano-composite housing, a huge box set in the middle of the chamber. The housing was the size of a small office building. The larger containment chamber with all the regulatory computers and Control Consoles was another box, a box within a box within the ship. She was in the outer box, the Controls Chamber.
She had absolutely no idea what she was looking for, and none of the crew who were strewn about seemed to be in any position to tell her. It seemed unprofessional to her that she did not know, even if her duties in no way included the operation of Starships It was a tiny bit of data, or lack thereof, that was about to make all the difference. Wasting no time, she ran along the carbon shielding/housing, flashing the green cuff light along the dull black surface as she ran. If the Override was not on the housing itself, there would not be enough time to find it. It just had to be on the housing. It had to be.
Familiarity with zero and near zero gravity now stood her in good stead as the Environmental Gravity continued to vanish under the inertia of the ships fall. If the Internal Gravity completely disappeared under the differentiation of the inertia to Internal Gravity ratio before she found the Override, the consequences were assured. She would never get to it.
Conversely, if Benefactor were suddenly to lose Internal Gravity, Rebecca would be slapped against the ceiling and spread out like butter on toast. At less than half her normal weight already and steadily decreasing, she continued her frantic search.
Outside, the friction of Benefactor's plunge began burning away the hull. Even carbon nano-composite, hard and heat resistant as it is, had a melting point, and it had reached it.
And then Rebecca's eyes fell on that for which she was searching. Large lettering clearly stated; 'Manual Override: Use Only In Case Of Extreme Ship Malfunction!'
The lever itself was under several non-locking clasps. What position they would've put her in if the damn thing had been locked. Her blaster was hardly designed for fine detail cutting. If anything she would have blown away the whole lever and been worse off than she had been in the first place. Her fingers were already digging at the first catch.
Click. One catch was free. Frantically she scrabbled at the next catch, and broke her fingernail halfway down the cuticle.
She snatched her hand away to shake off the pain, but in mid shake reached right back up to dig at the stiff metal with her middle finger, and the catch released. Click.
The fingernail hadn't broken this time, but had been wrenched slightly free of the skin underneath, sending a new stabbing pain through her hand. Ignoring the pain, she reached up with her left hand and clicked free the last catch with her stronger thumb. The catch clasp fell away and the lever was free to be thrown.
Rebecca reached for the lever itself. Midway there she was thrown violently to the deck as a massive explosion rocked Benefactor, a power overload somewhere. She landed on her left elbow and rolled agonizingly across the deck before she could halt her sliding roll.
The ship slipped nose-down into the atmosphere, canting in its fall now. The force the Environmental Gravity exerted was working against the force of the inertia caused by the rapid acceleration planet-ward; it was like being pushed in two directions at once. The Engine/Drive Unit Housing was now uphill from her position. She would have to run uphill to get to it.
She exploded to her feet and surged forward up the simulated hill that had once been a level deck, running hunched forward to maintain her balance. It was the most difficult twelve-steps she had ever taken, a nearly vertical climb up the slippery surface, her feet sliding at its summit, but she reached the lever, reached up a hand, and yanked it down.
The ship canted further and she was hanging from the lever, the deck now a wall, and the computer banks below now the floor. The blood from the broken nail made her hand slippery on the lever, which had not been designed to be hung from, in any case, and she slipped free.
The distance wasn't far, but she crashed heavily into the wall of computer terminals, and lay wedged at their base, where they met the deck. She struggled but could not move herself under the increasing acceleration of the ship; Benefactor now fell straight towards the planet, like an arrow shot from a massive bow, completely vertical.
The Manual Override was malfunctioning as well, Rebecca could only surmise. As Benefactor continued to accelerate, black unconsciousness crept remorselessly over her as the forces mounted beyond that of the body's ability to cope. In those last moments she realized utter defeat. It was not her own life whose loss she lamented, but her duty; Colonel Rebecca Collins had never failed before, and the failure was . . .
Benefactor wrenched violently under her as the ship activated emergency forces, the AGP Drive activating the energies necessary for its survival. The ship possessed the power and capability of aninstantaneous halt at this minute velocity, but no human inside her would survive, they would be smashed to pulp, so Benefactor had to direct much of her energy inward as well, to Environmental Gravity Controls, and she was unable to halt completely.
Benefactor crashed into the planet. The Prison Planet Colony World Bali. She came down in a thickly forested area in a ball of flame, smoke and debris that was seen for hundreds of kilometers around in every direction.
In her last effort, Benefactor slowed herself enough to salvage those within her, which was her priority above all else, though of all those who had been aboard originally only two yet survived. Swimming in half unconsciousness, all Colonel Collins could think was 'Get the Senator away from Benefactor, get the Senator away!' There would be no mercy for them in the local's hands, and Rebecca could hardly forget what Baldwin had been before his election to the Senate. At the moment, she could think of nothing else.
But it didn't help. She had been battered and abused, and the last, the crash, had been the worst. She fell off into unconsciousness, though it must be admitted, that she fell fighting.