Tales from the Service: Tyrant in the Mist

2947-07-30 – Tales from the Service: Tyrant in the Mist 

This week, Nojus and I crossed to the Maribel system. Though I dispatch this feed item from my bunk aboard a personnel carrier, we got our first proper look at the ship we’ll be embedded aboard, the battleship Saint-Lô. We will dock at the fleet service station and transfer aboard Saint-Lô in about five shifts, give or take any wait for berthing availability at the station. 

Our ship is hardly the newest hull in the fleet; she was laid down only a few years after the end of the Terran-Rattanai War. In fact, I did some research – the average age of the hulls in the Fifth Fleet’s heavy core is fifty-three years. Most of these ships are older than I am – and some of them, including ours, are even older than Nojus! 

Despite their age, the battlewagons of Fifth Fleet are all freshly modernized, carrying the best weaponry and defensive systems available anywhere. Most of the fleet units, and all of its heavy elements, have been refitted in the last five years. 

Several of you have submitted similar accounts to that of Price posted last week. Interestingly enough, some of the more detailed examples are dated months ago. The pattern is the same – a mysterious person with visible counter-human alterations (usually head implants) infiltrates a civilian (or mercenary) installation or vessel, commits sabotage, and escapes. Nanotechnological weaponry is used in most stories, and in some it is used in spaces with nanoparticle alarms, only triggering the alarms when the weaponry is used. 

The sabotage committed is varied – ships are crippled, manufacturing is halted, nutrient slurry fouled, computers corrupted, and so on. It seems almost entirely random, almost as if the Ladeonists – I can think of no other likely culprit for this activity, even if this type of agent is a new innovation for them – have been quietly testing the infrastructure of the Frontier in preparation for a major uprising here. 

Our Naval Intelligence representatives are interested in this trend, as am I; your submissions have been shared with them, and I am sifting through looking for one or two stellar examples to post in this space.  

This week’s account comes from a destroyer skipper whose cabin adjoined mine in transit. She had just returned from an action on the far side of the Gap which didn’t go her way, but it never could have. Most of the bridge crew survived to be picked up from the ruined ship by a service vessel which arrived just after the Sagittarians departed, but the rest of the crew was lost. 

Mirjam paced back and forth in the narrow center aisle of the destroyer’s bridge, wondering what was taking her scouting launches so long. Both had been deployed from their parasite cradles to scout the complex, dense ring system around an unnamed planet, and both had lost comms contact shortly after entering the rings. The sensor techs had showed her a report that detailed the high iron content of the ring debris, explaining the loss of signal, but their graphs didn’t make Mirjam feel any more at ease. 

If Mirjam had been able to exercise her better judgement, she would have bypassed the ringed planet, spectacular though it was. Her little destroyer and its thirty-three crew – six of them now somewhere out there in the scouts – was way out ahead of the squadron, which was itself one of only two small groups trying to patrol Confederated holdings on the far side of the vast, empty Sagittarius Gap. She had never felt more alone. Orders were orders, however, and hers were to examine every part of the system that might house an enemy listening-post. 

The two scouts – little more than stripped-down Magpie gunships with extra sensor gear bolted on – were far from unarmed, even if they were not meant as strike platforms. Theoretically, they could handle anything small enough to hide easily in the rings, and outrun anything bigger. Mirjam, of course, didn’t trust theory to hold up at the bleeding edge of things. The Sagittarians were still the masters of the Sagittarius Frontier, and they didn’t have any intention of letting something so immaterial as a theory dictate their defeat. 

“Contact!” One of the sensor techs announced. “One small ship breaking free of the rings.” The smart-glass panel at the front of the bridge highlighted the spot and zoomed in on a reflective speck. It was moving fast – too fast for the situation to be routine. 

“Ours?” 

“Affirmative. IFF exchanged. They want a direct line to the bridge.” 

Mirjam nodded. “Put them through.” 

A moment later, the bridge overhead speakers crackled to life. “Skipper, we need to get the hell out of here!” 

Even as he shouted, two more specks burst free of the ring dust, pursuing the scout ship. On the magnified display, Mirjam saw faint clouds of glowing railshot spray from the scout’s turret, trying to dissuade its pursuers. 

The panic in the pilot’s voice and the presence of Sagittarian strike ships confirmed Mirjam’s worst fears. The tiny, agile attack launches had very limited endurance; their base or ship was nearby. “Battle-stations. Cover them and get me a course for the grav limit.” 

The alarm didn’t wait for the bridge crew to process the order; it began wailing immediately. “The other scout will never make it-” 

“If they’re still alive, they know the protocol.” Leaving three spacers to drift stealthily in a hostile system until Navy forces returned cut Mirjam to the core, but she knew what she had to do. The scouts were outfitted for just such a situation, after all. 

The hum of the destroyer’s drive changed pitch, and the view in front of the bridge heeled over at a wild angle as the navigation systems plotted the most direct course to the edge of the planet’s grav shadow. The inset displaying the fleeing scout remained, however, and Mirjam watched the little ship trace wild arcs of evasive action to prevent the Sagittarian pursuers from drawing close enough for a kill-shot. The high-power energy beams used by the alien strike craft had limited range, but a direct hit could easily rip a gunship in half. 

As Mirjam watched her three compatriots fight for their lives, several more Sagittarian launches burst from the ring cloud at top speed. These angled not toward the fleeing scout, but directly toward Mirjam’s destroyer. 

“Screens! Point defense!” Mirjam knew her ship couldn’t fend off more than a few of the attackers at once, and that they were far faster than her ship. The destroyer’s only hope was to widen the distance between itself and whatever hanger they had launched from. “Emergency acceleration. Damage control to standby.” 

As the crew scrambled to fulfill her orders, Mirjam heard the rattle of railgun fire as the banks of weapons near the bridge opened up. Streams of glowing projectiles spewed forth to put up a hedge of death between the Sagittarians and their prey. It would only slow them down, but perhaps it would make the difference. 

“New drive signature on the boards.” 

The officer’s calm announcement plunged Mirjam’s cautious hope into the depths of despair. “Damn. Get it on the display.” 

Another inset appeared next to the view of the embattled scout, this time showing an innocuous part of the dusty ring. Just as she was beginning to think the report might be in error, Mirjam saw the predator’s prow of a Tyrant cruiser push its way free of the dust, its bluish armor-plate marred by clinging debris. A dozen or more motes – more strike ships – poured forth around it. “How the hell did they-” 

Mirjam never heard the rest of her subordinate’s question. Where Sagittarian strike-launches had only short-ranged weapons, a Tyrant did not. The powerful energy beam that killed Mirjam’s ship crossed the distance between them at the speed of light and tore its bowels open in the space between words. There was a crash and the rush of escaping air, and Mirjam’s world went dark. 

Details

Tales from the Service: A Stowaway Saboteur

2947-07-23 – Tales from the Service: A Stowaway Saboteur

Nojus and I will be leaving Håkøya for Maribel before the next post appears in this space. Once there, we will complete final certification (even Nojus has to go through a few of the cert-courses this time) and find out where the Navy will assign us.  

I must admit I’ll be sorry to see this system disappear behind a drive-wake. It’s quaint in so many ways, but its charming combination of modern, extensive orbital infrastructure and bucolic nature-preserve planetary surface with few natural hazards has grown on me. I’ll admit, I was certain when I shipped out of Planet at Centauri that no other place would ever feel like home – at Håkøya I found out rather quickly that I was wrong. 

One final note about the place before we get to this week’s entry. Though Hakoya contains the third-largest orbital service docks on the Coreward Frontier and so far since declaration of hostilities has been vastly over-garrisoned by the Fifth Fleet, the population has been uneasy since the foiled Ladeonist incursion several weeks ago. A segment of the population has concluded that once the fleet sorties out to hunt the perhaps dozen Tyrant ships raiding the Frontier, the system will be left exposed, easy prey for an attack. 

The reason for these fears is simple – most of the system’s orbital infrastructure is civilian, with almost no permanent naval defenses. The Navy cannot afford to make a fortress of every colony system in range of Sagittarian raiding expeditions, especially with only a few weeks since hostilities formally began. Still, I sympathize with Håkøyan concerns along these lines, which I’m sure are echoed in many other colonial outposts throughout the region. I see no way to make everyone happy. 

Today’s entry was submitted by someone we’ll call Price, the chief of security aboard a small mercenary carrier currently in the Strand on contract with one of the system authorities. Because of the nature of the events described and their relation to ongoing intelligence matters, I cannot give Price’s real name, the name of his ship, or the system in which this story took place. Suffice to say that the incident described resulted in sabotage to the mercenary carrier sufficient to lay it up in the service dock for two weeks.

The stowaway glared through the gravitic shear-barrier of her brig cell, and Price stared back, waiting for her to talk. He was perfectly happy to sit all shift waiting; it would give him an excuse to leave the Captain’s precious new reporting regimen unfulfilled for one more T-day. A few more, and she would be forced to abandon the cumbersome scheme and return to the previous records arrangement, which operated mainly on fabrication and strained trust. 

The stowaway, as usual for the sort of off-books personnel the mercenary crew smuggled aboard, was wearing an outfit that left little to the imagination, and an attitude which dared Price to imagine what little was concealed. She was probably no older than twenty-five T-years, slightly built and with a top-heavy curviness Price had never seen except as a product of cheap bodysculpt procedures. Perhaps one of the crew or rig-jocks had paid her for her services, or perhaps she had been won over by the novelty of skulking about on a ship-of-war while it patrolled the system, but more likely, she had come aboard half-conscious, high as a satellite on whatever drug cocktail fueled the system’s party scene. 

If it weren’t for the implants, Price would have left the interrogation to one of the new security men as a test of their professionalism, to see whether they were distracted or easily flustered by sexual persuasion. Jutting from the girl’s right forehead just above the eyebrow and arcing back to vanish into her gaudily-dyed hair, an odd implant covered in blinking lights erupted grotesquely from her pale skin. Tweaker degeneracy was something Price had thought he’d seen the last of when the ship had left the Silver Strand – and he knew better than to speculate what function a bargain-priced whore would want in brain implants. 

Minutes ticked by, and still the girl glared, almost unmoving. Most of the girls the ship’s raucous compliment sneaked aboard panicked and ratted out their benefactors the moment they hit the brig; this one had the grit or prior experience to keep calm. Price had to admire her nerve, but he had no intention of rewarding it. 

They had sat unmoving for nearly an hour when Casper walked in, as always cradling a cup of coffee. The pilot’s flight suit was more grease-stained than usual, suggesting he had come from the launch maintenance bays. “Hey, Price. Heard you caught another chew-toy, a real freak.” 

Price arched one eyebrow, but didn’t answer or get up. He was busy. 

Casper walked along the small cell-block until he stood behind the security chief, then was silent for several seconds as he surveyed the scantily-clad prisoner. “Brain-tweaker. Shame, she could’ve been a sweet piece of-” 

“Casper, either fess up to bringing her aboard or get out of my brig.” Casper was the most common cause of unauthorized female personnel being discovered aboard the ship, and they both knew he was the prime suspect for this one. His low standards in women, even by mercenary rig-jock standards, had been the butt of half the crew’s repertoire of jokes ever since Price had come aboard. 

“Aww, Chief, this one’s not me.” Casper’s whinging protest brought a reflexive scowl to Price’s face. “I mean, yeah I’d have given her a go planetside, but-” 

“Not yours? Then out.” Price pointed, keeping his eyes on the calmly patient prisoner. 

“Maybe you should let me talk to her. I have a-” 

“Out.” Price held his pointing finger until the coffee-toting mercenary made a harrumphing noise and flounced out of the brig. 

“He’d have given me a pass and been turned down.” The girl in the cell tossed her head in the direction Casper had vanished. “But he probably gets that a lot.” 

Price frowned in confusion. The gravitic shear sealing the cell was supposed to be sound-isolating. Microphone arrays in the cell piped any sound inside out to the corridor, but the prisoner should not have been able to hear Casper. 

Breaking into a sly smile, she reached up to brush her lips with two fingers. “Lip reading. Pretty easy to pick up if you’ve got a little patience.” 

“I see.” Price didn’t bother to engage the microphone outside the cell; if she was telling the truth, she didn’t need it. 

“As fun as this is, you’ve got to have better things to do, Chief.” The girl lay back on the cell’s narrow bunk, arching her back and peeking out of the corner of her eye to see if he noticed. “I’ve got nothing for you anyway. My name’s Paz and I don’t remember even coming aboard, much less with who.” 

“Drugged?” This time, Price keyed the button which would carry his voice into the cell. 

“Oh, I don’t doubt I decided to let someone help me aboard.” Paz closed her eyes and shivered with remembered pleasure. “Last thing I remember is buying a three-day supply of Annuska. You’ve got to try that stuff some time, Chief.” 

“I really don’t.” Price stood up. “That’ll be all, Ms. Paz.” 

“Will it?” The girl sat back up. “You’re just going to leave me here until this tub limps back to the spaceport?” 

“Only because it’s less paperwork than putting you out the airlock.” Price turned away, wondering whether the drug charges or the criminal punishment for unlicensed implant usage would keep her in prison longer. 

“If you say so. See you later, Chief.” 

Price returned to the security office and spent the last half of his shift consciously avoiding the captain’s new paperwork with a number of low-priority tasks. When the second-shift security officer came to relieve him, he wasted no time clocking out and retiring to his cabin, where the last third of a gripping datasphere novel had waited for him all day. 

When the cabin door slid open, Price knew something was amiss immediately, but it took him several crucial seconds to realize why. By the time he realized the probable source of the odd scent in the air, he had already taken three steps inside, and it was too late to avoid the figure which erupted from the shadows and knocked him over. Before he could reach for his sidearm, the tip of a blade pricked his neck just beside the jugular artery. 

“Easy, Chief.” The throaty, jaunty voice was that of the stowaway tweaker Paz, and the lithe, soft figure which draped itself over his body to take his pistol could only be hers. “I’m not here to hurt anyone. I just need your comms code to call a lift.” 

Price tried to arch his neck away from the knife, but Paz kept its tip resting on his skin. “No.” He eventually replied. He had no idea how she’d escaped the brig without raising the alarm. 

The girl made a clicking noise with her tongue, and the lights on her implant all began to glow green. “Just no? No bargaining? What sort of mercenary are you?” 

Price scowled, but refused to answer the question. He was technically an employee of the mercenary company; his pay was steady and he got no contract bonuses because ship security had nothing to do with combat contracts. Paz, of course, wouldn’t care about any of that. 

“Would’ve been a lot more fun for both of us.” Paz held up Price’s gun, and to his horror it melted into metallic sludge in her hand. “Arms over your chest, big guy.” 

Price grudgingly complied, trying not to panic. He’d seen nano-disassembly routines before, but a swarm dense enough to dissolve a handgun in two seconds couldn’t be safe for human contact. Too much could go wrong. How could Paz direct such a sophisticated nanotechnological system so easily? 

As the young woman pressed the putty-like nanotech slurry to Price’s arms, he made the connection with her implant. A direct neural link to a nanotech control system – that was wildly illegal in any jurisdiction, even on the Frontier. Despite appearances, Paz was no mere bargain-price whore. “Who are you?” 

The remnants of the gun spun out into a spiderweb of filaments that bound Price’s arms securely in place, which anchored themselves to the deck. As this ad-hoc restraint system tightened, Paz withdrew her knife and leaned in close until her full lips hovered just above his. “Just a bad dream, Chief. Could have been a good one, though.” 

Price shook his head. “You wish.” 

“What can I say? I like leaving a good impression.” Paz got off Price and hunted through his pockets until she found his comm scrambler, and he struggled uselessly against the restraint-web she had made out of his gun. He stopped short of suggesting that the device was useless without his biometric signature; perhaps she wouldn’t realize that until he’d freed himself to raise the alarm. 

“All I need.” Paz pocketed the scrambler and stood up. “Room comms are disabled for two more hours, so get comfortable. It’s been fun, Chief.” 

With that, she hopped over Price, keyed open the door, and vanished into the corridor. Though he expected an alarm to sound any moment when someone else detected her escape or she tried to use his scrambler, none ever did.

Details

Tales from the Service: The View From Headquarters

2947-07-16 - Tales from the Service: The View From Headquarters

Today's entry is not a narrative account. Two experts from Admiral Zahariev's intelligence apparatus came to visit us as I am completing my various certification courses, and sat down for an unedited interview where we discussed (as was prearranged) what Naval Intelligence knows about our enemy and the situation here on the Frontier. The full audio of the interview will be available on our datasphere hub. Nojus wishes to preface this piece with a warning that he thinks the Colonel was being less forthcoming than she claimed to be at the beginning of the interview. That would not shock me, but I haven't the slightest idea what is making him suspicious.

The four persons involved in this interview are as follows.

D.L.C. - Duncan Chaudhri is a junior editor and wartime head field reporter for Cosmic Background.

N.T.B. - Nojus Brand is a long-time explorer, datasphere personality, and wartime field reporter for Cosmic Background.

C.S.D. - Colonel Carolina Durand is the Naval Intelligence attaché to Admiral Zahariev. Despite the name, no apparent relation to Simona Durand, Cosmic Background’s Naval Intelligence liaison on Planet at Centauri. 

H.G.H. - Dr. Hartwin Hirsch is a Naval Intelligence technological research analyst at Maribel Naval Laborarory.

[D.L.C.] Thank you for agreeing to sit down with us for a full interview, Colonel Durant. And thank you for bringing Dr. Hirsch all the way from Maribel. 

[H.G.H.] It was no trouble. 

[C.S.D.] It was more than a favor, Mr. Chaudhri. Your coverage helps the war effort. The more the average Frontier homesteader knows about our enemies, the better we can all be prepared. 

[D.L.C.] You are aware that the transcript of this conversation will be published unedited to our text feed? 

[C.S.D.] Your techs were quite clear about that, yes. 

[D.L.C.] Full disclosure is an odd policy for Naval Intelligence to adopt, if you don’t mind me saying. Usually you guys are slowing stories down rather than bringing them to the datasphere personally. 

[C.S.D.] Yes, that is true. The policies of Naval Intelligence have recently undergone some scrutiny for being overly willing to hide things from the public. Understand we can’t tell you everything we know, and we can’t tell you how we know it, but we have come here to give you and your audience a good idea of what we are up against. 

[N.T.B.] Perhaps we can start with the question everyone’s asking- 

[D.L.C.] Nojus, we talked about- 

[N.T.B.] What do these guys look like? We’ve seen holos of their ships a hundred times, but never a picture of a Sagittarian, alive or dead. 

[C.S.D.] I’m afraid we haven’t captured any. Remember, we have also yet to neutralize one of their Alpha-type warships. 

[D.L.C.] Alpha-type? 

[C.S.D.] The big cruiser-analogues that have been raiding the Coreward Frontier. 

[N.T.B.] A Tyrant. 

[D.L.C.] Of course. 

[H.G.H.] I do detest that nickname, and the hypercast drama from which it comes. But please, Mr. Chaudhri, ask your questions. 

[D.L.C.] Dr. Hirsch, Colonel Durant, perhaps you can give us a quick overview of the forces arrayed against the Fifth Fleet. 

[C.S.D.] I can tell you we don’t think there are many of them, compared to the fleet. We estimate less than forty Alpha-type warships total between both sides of the Gap. The problem for us is, they’re optimized for speed and range, and they seem to be in their element in commerce raiding operations. Nothing we have that can catch them can out-shoot them, and nothing that can out-shoot them can catch them. 

[H.G.H.] Their ships are a very odd design. In some ways, they are our equal or superior, and in others, they seem quaintly primitive. In terms of firepower, they are in between our ship classifications. None of our cruiser classes can fight an Alpha-type on equal footing, but neither can they expect to defeat our fleet heavies in the same one-on-one situation. 

[C.S.D.] Our analysis and simulations suggest that if their entire force engaged the assembled Fifth Fleet, the result would be decidedly in our favor. They seem to know it, too – otherwise, they would be more aggressive around Maribel and Håkøya. 

[N.T.B.] You would think commerce raiders would be smaller. Why build them so big? 

[C.S.D.] We think they were built as a conventional war fleet and have been adapted for range and speed. Perhaps originally they were outfitted to patrol outlying systems after a successful war of conquest. 

[D.L.C.] Interesting theory. Do you think the Sagittarians have a relatively large zone of influence on the far side of the Gap? 

[H.G.H.] We can say for sure that they have at least three sites for building ships, or did when these Alphas were built. We’ve analyzed radioisotope content of debris from all the encounters and found three distinct profiles within their armor composite. 

[N.T.B.] Three systems like our Core Worlds. Maybe as thickly populated as Sol or Centauri. 

[H.G.H.] At least. 

[C.S.D.] Their ships are highly homogeneous, suggesting a rather rapid production timeline and proven design. 

[D.L.C.] What about their weapons? From the spacers I’ve talked to, it sounds like they heavily favor beamed energy technology. 

[H.G.H.] Yes. In most cases, their weapons are of types which we usually consider obsolete after the Terran-Rattanai War. Theirs are more sophisticated than those, but not fundamentally different. It makes sense for a long-range ship to favor beamed energy, obviously. They don’t need a means to secure ammunition. They have been observed to fire guided munitions similar to our capital torpedoes, but the launchers are few in number and not significantly more effective than our own. 

[N.T.B.] And screening projectors? I’ve heard strike pilots swear they flew right through a Tyrant’s screens. 

[H.G.H.] The Alphas do have spatial screening arrays as our own warships do, but all our data indicates that they are installed in a parabolic arrangement rather than an ellipsoidal one. 

[D.L.C.] Hold on. They have screens, but they don’t cover the ship? 

[C.S.D.] Four projector arrays per ship, arranged to point out in all directions. They dedicate an unusual amount of power per ship ton to screening systems, and get far less protection from them than our ships do. That’s why they need those huge armor installations on parts of the hull, but not others. 

[N.T.B.] Even for a critter stupid enough to attack the Confederated Worlds, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. They must do it for a reason. 

[D.L.C.] Nojus- 

[H.G.H.] No, he’s right. We don’t know why they do that, but we do think that it is a choice rather than an inability to configure their arrays the way we do. 

[N.T.B.] But you don’t know why yet, do you?

[C.S.D.] Not yet. 

[H.G.H.] We need more data, unfortunately. 

[D.L.C.] Do we know anything about their society? 

[C.S.D.] We can make a few guesses. My xenosociologists think the Sagittarians live in a highly regimented society, and their preference for disruptive commerce raiding over direct combat suggests their stellar empire runs with far less surplus productivity than our own, probably with all lanes leading through their central planet. 

[N.T.B.] How’d the boys come up with that one? 

[C.S.D.] Simple. If they think the best way to bring a rival power to its knees is by cutting the spacelanes, that must be something they recognize could theoretically happen to them. 

[D.L.C.] If their society was as distributed as the cultures of the Colonial Reach, the idea wouldn’t even come into their heads. 

[C.S.D.] That’s the idea. It is only guesswork for the moment. 

[D.L.C.] Why do you think they interest the Ladeonists so much? 

[C.S.D.] We think they’ve been waiting a long time for the right circumstance. The Sagittarian trouble might keep the military and civilian authorities distracted enough for them to make gains. They probably hope the Confederacy will deal with them to buy peace on the other borders until the Sagittarians are dealt with. 

[N.T.B.] Bastards. You don’t think there’s anything they want on the Frontier except trouble? 

[H.G.H.] My opinion is – and it is only an opinion – that this is an opportunistic push for them, nothing more. It’s been almost ten years since the last major Ladeonist uprising. 

[C.S.D.] It might have been that at first, but I have a hunch that they’ve had better luck talking to the Sagittarians than we have. Ladeonist terrorism and Sagittarian raids never seem to sabotage each other. 

[D.L.C.] A concerning thought. 

[N.T.B.] As I said, bastards. 

[D.L.C.] What of their goals in this war? This isn’t about borders; they sent their ships to our side of the Gap. 

[C.S.D.] We have no idea. If it were about borders, you would expect that Terran ships might have found a Sagittarian colony on their side of the Gap. So far, no surveyor or Navy scout has seen a colony. If it was about conquest, they would attempt to annex systems. It’s more likely to be a sort of honor-seeking adventurism, but they don’t rob what they destroy, and they take no trophies. 

[H.G.H.] Based on their behavior, the only possibility I have considered but not discounted is that some human explorer bruised their cultural ego and started some sort of blood feud, but I can’t imagine how that might have happened on such a scale. 

[N.T.B.] Why do we assume their motives will be comprehensible to Terrans at all? 

[H.G.H.] Every empire-building species yet encountered has motivation patterns which Terrans can describe, even if we cannot sympathize with them. Their ships conform to our design aesthetics quite closely, and their machinery design is quite similar to our own line of development. This leads me to conclude that they are more similar to Terran stock than we know. Perhaps more similar even than the Atro’me. 

[C.S.D.] Hartwin, that is not your department. 

[H.G.H.] Sorry, Colonel. 

[N.T.B.] What about- 

[C.S.D.] Unfortunately, that is all the time we have for this interview. 

[D.L.C.] Ah, that’s too bad. Thank you two for joining us, all the same. 

[H.G.H.] A pleasure, Mr. Chaudhri. 

[C.S.D.] Thank you for having us. We must do this again as soon as we have new information to share. 

[D.L.C.] We’d appreciate that, and so would the audience. 

Details

Tales from the Service: Alone In the Dark

2947-07-09 - Tales from the Service: Alone In the Dark

Hello, Cosmic Background audience. You might have noticed that your usual content editor Duncan Chaudhri is not the one posting this item to your ingestion feeds. 

That’s right! Since I’m working on contract with Cosmic Background for the short duration of this little war, I have all the powers that Duncan has over what appears for your entertainment and what doesn’t. I promise that power won’t go to my head... right away. 

As this goes live, I’ll probably watching Duncan bumble about in a vacsuit during his mandatory EVA training. Since I’m already EVA certified, that means I get to sit inside and drink food-processor coffee while he flails around and generally does his best to get himself killed despite the instructors’ best efforts. 

That's enough gossip, though. Before vanishing into his battery of certification training courses, Duncan helped me compose this interesting little story based on an oral account we were given earlier this week. He told me I could put anything I wanted in this forward section, so I did. 

After he left, I went back over it once more to try to make it as gripping as the teller’s original story, but the composition software won’t let me submit that version. It calls most of my changes “errors” that need to be resolved prior to publication. Something about all the proper rules of writing Duncan is so worried about can just suck the animal terror out of the whole thing. He did that to all my stories, too. Still, I did what I could. Like last week’s story, this one comes from a gunship pilot who got up close and personal with a Sagittarian criuser-analogue. Rather than keep using that silly long technical term “cruiser-analogue”, I’m going to call it what Navy Spacers do – they have given this ship-type the nickname “Tyrant” due to their tendency to pick on weak targets and avoid proper engagements. This is apparently a reference to a popular holovid drama which I have not seen.  

If this reference is important, I’m sure Duncan will explain it next week. 

Kwahja reflexively sucked in a breath as the Magpie’s cockpit disintegrated around him. Buffeted by gouts of escaping and flash-freezing atmosphere, he had only a moment to ponder the spectacular view before the ejection system completed its task, firing him far from the stricken attack boat. 

The deep breath helped little, of course. The emergency bubble helmet which formed around Kwahja’s head sealed in one atmosphere of pressure, and the eight-gee acceleration of ejection forced the hastily-obtained breath from his lungs in any case. When the gunship expldoed behind him, the only indication was the reflected light of the blast against the clearsynth of the helmet. Ejection did not give him any means of maneuver; it served only to preserve his life until a med-evac shuttle could scramble to pick him up. 

“Crew check-in. Iryna, Zalman, you guys make it out?” 

“Affirmative, Lieutenant.” Iryna’s voice was shaky. She was the greenest gunner in the whole squadron, and had never been forced to eject before. 

“I think that broke all my ribs.” Kwahja knew Zalman, a veteran whiner, was all right. If he was actually seriously injured, he would be all business. 

“Good to hear it. Don’t put your beacons on yet.” He didn’t need to explain why. Less than three klicks away, the sinister lines of the Tyrant which had crippled their Magpie cut across the stars. One sweep of the ship’s point defense beams could erase all three of them, if the aliens aboard were feeling particularly cruel. Kwahja had no reason to believe they wouldn’t do it, and every reason to play it safe. 

“Stars around.” The common exclamation likely slipped off Iryna’s tongue without any thought as to how true it was. “We’re just going to sit here and watch?” 

“Yup. Anyone bring any popcorn?” 

“Cut the chatter, Gunner Resnik.” Under normal circumstances, Kwahja tolerated Zalman’s joking and griping to an extreme degree, but the idle comms chatter did present a small risk that the Sagittarians would notice the three stranded human spacers. 

The line subsided into silence, and Kwahja watched without any magnification aid as the remaining four ships in the squadron made another strafing pass along the Tyrant’s hull. The big ship, maneuvering wildly to avoid long range railshot from Mijo Yankov and its two escorting frigates, likely suffered little damage from the light ships’ harassing attack, but the flashes of exploding ordinance still improved the stranded pilot’s mood. At least he hadn’t lost a boat for nothing. 

“Boss, there’s something over here. Moving fast. One of ours?” 

Iryna replied first, in her nervousness not realizing the observation was meant for Kwahja. “We'd see IFF if it was one of ours.” 

“Debris from Deadeye?” The Magpie gunship had earned its nickname from the many off-shift sessions its crew spent in the gunnery simulator. Now it was gone, and the next one would need a new nickname. Kwahja craned his head, but he couldn’t quite turn far enough to look toward where the ejection system had hurled Zalman. “I can’t see from here. Iryna, what about you?”  

“I can see Zalman if I switch to infrared, but I can’t see what he’s talking about.” 

“Let me try that.” The gunner went quiet for a moment. “Yeah, that’s something. No IR signature at all. Whatever it is, it’s awfully small. Going to hit it with a wrist light.” 

Kwahja wasn’t an expert in deep space salvage, but he knew that things which had just finished exploding were supposed to be hot. “Not wreckage, then. Skip the light. Let it pass.” 

The order came too late. Already an inset came to life in the bubble-helmet around Kwahja’s head, showing Zalman’s wrist-mounted microcamera feed. The light came on a second later. The curved, nonreflective object pinned in the middle of the weak beam at first seemed to be an oddly shaped asteroid – a chance encounter in the void, nothing more. 

Then the object rolled, and its lines took on a deadly, sleek shape wreathed in puffs of thruster-gas. “Zalman, get that light off.” 

“Hells! Drone of some kind.” Zalman’s light went off, but the camera feed remained. The flippant tone in his voice was gone. “Think it’s from the Tyrant?” 

Kwahja glanced back at the evasive gyrations of the alien cruiser. The drone’s shape did have a vague aesthetic similarity to the Sagittarian ship. “Could be. Still see it?” 

“Yeah.” Zalman pointed the camera at a black patch of space. As he held it still, stars resolved themselves around a dark silhouette. “Right there. On vector with us.” 

“Should we switch on the beacons and tell them to speed up the evac?” Iryna was doing her best to remain calm, but the appearance of a strange drone was enough to unsettle even a veteran. Kwahja knew she was very close to panic. 

“Negative.” The drone was so close that no rushed evac could reach the trio in time. “Iryna, watch Zalman. Let me know if you see anything on visual or IR.” It galled the pilot that he couldn’t see either of his gunners; the ejection system did not equip a stranded pilot with attitude thrusters. 

“It’s moving again.” Zalman’s fear was almost palpable, and it was easy to guess why. Even an unarmed drone, directed by the inscrutable will of a Sagittarian, could kill a stranded pilot easily. 

“Still don’t see it.” Iryna muttered. 

“He’s getting closer. A hundred meters. Going to try my side-arm. I’m not going out like this.” 

“Zalman, stay calm. It’s probably-” 

“I see it!” Iryna called out. “I have a clear shot from here.” 

“Seventy meters. Damn thing’s coming right at me, but he’s coming slow.” Zalman’s teeth were gritted. “He passes forty, and I open fire. Iryna, you see me shooting, you shoot too.” 

Kwahja knew side-arms would do nearly nothing against even the thin skin of a utility drone. Still, he knew his gunners were right to prepare to shoot the thing – perhaps they would get a lucky shot, or confuse its programming and force it to back off. “Good luck, you two. Sorry I’m angled wrong to help.” 

“Thanks, boss.” Zalman adjusted his camera feed to point at the slowly growing silhouette. “Fifty-five.” 

“I think I see drive exhausts. Going to aim for those.” Iryna was as good a shot with her side-arm as she was with a gunship’s ordinance. If she could hit a weak spot, it might disable the drone. 

“Fifty meters.” 

Kwahja watched helplessly as the shape on the feed drew closer. Zalman, realizing stealth was pointless, flicked his wrist light back on, giving Iryna a better target and Kwahja a better look at the incoming. It was big for a drone, he decided; it reminded him of the skim-racers he’d seen competing in the orbital blood-sport common to some of the colonies of the Reach. Like those tiny ships, the drone had a fluted and fragile look, as if every gram of needless weight had been removed from its hull. The pair of recesses in the prow suggested the thing was armed, but until it opened fire there was no way to be sure. 

“Forty-five. Nice knowing you guys.” The blurry barrel of Zalman’s sidearm intruded on one side of the camera footage. 

“Give him hell, Zalman.” 

The only indication that the incoming drone crossed the forty-meter mark was Zalman’s gun spitting a cloud of red-hot slugs into its nose. A moment later, a second cloud of red motes slammed into its side from Iryna’s weapon. Each hit produced a shower of sparks, but Kwahja had no way of knowing if there was any damage. 

Zalman’s gun fell silent, though its magnetic barrel still glowed. “Dammit. That’s my mag. Going to try to re-” 

The camera feed flashed white, then vanished. At the same instant, Iryna started screaming. If there were words in her voice, Kwahja couldn’t pick them out. 

“Zalman. Zalman!” A quick check of the telemetry from the other two showed Kwahja what he already knew – Zalman Resnik was gone. “Iryna. What happened?” 

The gunner continued screaming. Perhaps she was firing her side-arm and reloading it as fast as she could, or perhaps she was curled into a fetal position in her ejection rig, there was no way to tell. She barely even stopped screaming to take a breath. 

“Iryna. Get a grip. Tell me what happened!” 

It was useless. After another few seconds of screaming, Iryna’s voice rose in an almost pathetic squeak, then the line went dead, along with all her indicators. 

“Iryna. Report!” Even as he sent the message, Kwahja knew that he was alone with the sleek, murderous drone. 

As the seconds ticked by, Kwahja craned his neck around in his bubble helmet, wishing he could rotate enough to see in the direction from which danger was coming. He estimated that it would reach him in less than a minute, and began counting, already checking the battery and magazine of his own pistol.  

At a count of seventy seconds without instant death or the appearance of the drone, Kwahja frowned, but kept counting. Perhaps it was slower than he had anticipated. Sweat trickled down his neck, but there was no way to wipe it away. 

At ninety seconds, he checked the suit’s mission timer to verify that he wasn’t counting too fast. The drone should have found him already. In the distance, the Sagittarian ship had given up its course and was burning an escape course toward the edge of the stellar grav shadow. Perhaps the drone had been recalled? He kept counting. 

At five hundred ninety-one seconds, an all-clear broadcast from Mijo Yankov told him it was safe to switch on his beacon. He kept counting, pistol ready, until the rescue ship arrived. 

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