Authors: Tony Gonzales
Perspective worked the other way as well.
When brought aboard, he was impressed with the ship’s great size, or so it felt within the belly of one instead of through a targeting solution.
His power as a capsuleer distorted his sense of scale.
These ships were enormous—and at “just” five hundred meters from bow to stern, a Drake-class battlecruiser wasn’t remotely as large as even the smallest capital ship.
Winding their way through the labyrinthine bulkheads and compartments, Korvin took notice of the hallways lined with containment seals at regular intervals, each designed to isolate damaged sections from the rest of the ship.
He couldn’t imagine the horror of being trapped behind one, locked behind just a few centimeters of durasteel waiting for the ship to break apart.
He passed by dozens, if not a hundred or more, of the
Morse
crew.
He forced himself to look them all in the eye, to see if he recognized any.
The guilt he felt for his many victims had never been greater.
“Does that thing hurt?”
Captain Varitec asked.
“What?”
Korvin asked.
He realized he’d been running his hand over his neuro-interface socket.
“Oh.
Most of the time I don’t even know it’s there.”
“I’m sure,” Jonas said, folding his arms.
In the dim lighting, his expression seemed very serious.
“Care to share your thoughts about this colony?”
“Right,” Korvin said, clearing his throat.
Blake, the redheaded weapons officer, was staring dreamily at him.
“There’s one shield generator, well maintained, ranked somewhere in the six-thousand-gigajoule range, though I don’t think they have enough power to run it longer than a few minutes.
I see three SS missile batteries, Minmatar Stackfires by the looks of it.”
He paused to make sure everyone was keeping up.
Miles, the engineering officer, didn’t seem to be paying attention at all.
“They have a Cloudburst point-defense system, but I don’t think it’s operational,” Korvin continued.
Waving his hand, imagery of the installation zoomed in toward a trapezoid-like structure, which had dark holes scattered across it.
“This phased-array tracking radar is damaged, so unless they’re getting telemetry from satellites or friendly ships, the Cloudbursts are useless.”
“What about the Stackfires?”
Jonas asked.
“Some models have area-of-effect capabilities to neutralize guided munitions, but they’re useless against plasma or beams,” Korvin answered.
“Colonies this size usually arm at least one of their batteries with antiship warheads.
The rest are fire-and-forget.”
“So how’ve they lasted this long?”
Jonas asked.
“The Imperial Navy ought to be able to direct bombardments wherever it wants to.”
“That’s not true,” Blake said, surprising the whole bridge.
“Core Freedom is next to a mountain range that runs perpendicular to the planet’s rotation.
That takes away prograde firing solutions.”
“Correct,” Korvin said, raising an eyebrow.
“Ships have to drop below five hundred kilometers to use bombardment weapons, even lower to use them with any precision.
The approach is nicknamed ‘the gauntlet,’ because a ship’s orbit altitude, vector, and speed are predictable, leaving it extremely vulnerable to ground and space defenses.”
“That’s an easy firing solution,” Jonas noted.
“It sure is,” Korvin said.
“The mountains take away a western approach, because the ship would have to be almost directly above the target to strike with any precision.
That’s not to say it can’t be done, but the Stackfires would probably murder them.”
“I see,” Jonas said.
“What about polar or retrograde approaches?”
“Same risks,” Korvin answered.
“As long as they know what you’re trying to bombard, they can put ordnance in your flight path.
And the only way for ships to direct accurate ground fire is to get right on top.”
Blake exhaled a loud sigh, looking directly at Korvin.
* * *
“THE INJURIES HERE,”
Mack asked.
“Please tell me about them.”
“Well, all the usual battlefield carnage,” Gable started, “but the worst of it is psyche trauma.
Lately these men have faced Kameira Special Forces—genetically engineered Minmatars created by the Amarrians.
They begin their attack with a PSYKLAD strike—”
“What’s that?”
“It stands for Psychotic Kinesis, Light Artillery Delivery,” General Kintreb interrupted.
“Drug-tipped shells that make soldiers hallucinate.
With the Kameiras attacking, the stuff makes our men think they’re being attacked by their own families.
It is one nasty mindfuck.
I’ve seen soldiers try to ‘defend’ Kameiras by shooting each other.”
“Why this,” Mack asked, “and not explosive weapons?”
“They use those too,” Gable said.
“PSYKLAD is just for crushing morale.”
The group was standing outside the ward now, in the shade cast by the dilapidated mass driver structure looming overhead.
Military transports raced by, carting civilians from their barracks to relieve the previous shift.
Off to their right, an old MTAC marched to the corner of the ward and stopped, rotating its torso in slow 120-degree arcs.
Puffs of fine silt from where the machine walked settled slowly to the ground.
“How you treat survivors of this attack?”
Mack asked.
“I erase their memories,” Gable said.
“General Kintreb was able to procure advanced Khanid tech that’s especially proficient at it.”
“Khanid?”
Mack asked.
“Never mind,” General Kintreb said.
“Mack, you’re asking a lot of questions I didn’t expect,” Gable asked.
“Do you mind if I ask you one?”
“Of course not.”
“Please tell me about your team.”
“Lots of experience,” Mack said.
“Combined hundreds of years in warfare.
Empyrean War gives Legion much business.
Well equipped, well trained.
Minmatar government knows we can help.”
“Can you protect us from space?”
Gable asked.
“Not always,” Mack said with a frown.
“I assess what troops you need.
Moving them here is challenge.
But we have immortal on team.
He assess protection from space.
Solid record.
Says he can help.”
“An empyrean?”
Gable asked with a shudder.
“Do you trust him?”
Mack looked away and said nothing.
“We all have our reasons to be afraid of them,” she said.
“What’s yours?”
“Not fear,” Mack said.
“Hate.”
“Why do you hate them?”
Mack bent down, scooping up a handful of dust.
“This … where we all come from,” he said, letting it fall between his fingers.
“We become this again someday.
Not them.
No respect for us.
Would kill them all if I could.”
He reached into his pocket and produced a small action figure, which drew puzzled looks.
“Take this,” he said, suddenly appearing deliriously happy.
“It protect me.
Now it protect you.”
She took it carefully, as if it were fragile.
It was just a toy soldier.
Mack was smiling, eagerly nodding as if he’d just handed her a diamond ring.
“Thank you,” she said, placing it in her lab-coat pocket.
The mercenary then became very serious as he turned to General Kintreb.
“General,” Mack said, “we see hangar outposts next.”
* * *
JONAS SUMMONED KORVIN
to his quarters after the briefing was complete.
“The crew seems to have taken a liking to you,” he started.
“One of them, anyway.”
Korvin ignored him, noting the captain’s surroundings instead.
Other than a bed, terminal desk, and an extra chair, it was sparsely decorated, with grayish blue metallic interior.
There were no pictures or other memorabilia, except for a glass trophy case holding a model ship.
A tiny sign on it read
RETFORD
.
“It’s a start,” Korvin said.
“Just keep it professional,” Jonas warned.
“Now I want your opinion, just between you and me.
What does your gut tell you about this op?”
“That Mordu should have turned it down,” Korvin answered frankly.
“This place is lost.”
Jonas grunted.
“That was my assertion as well, but damned if I’m going to say that in front of my crew,” he said, rubbing the stubble on his chin.
“What do you think it’ll take to save Core Freedom?”
“A fleet,” Korvin answered.
“Or better planetary defenses.
It’s a credit to the Valklears they’ve been able to hold on for this long.”
“Makes you think the Amarrians aren’t trying as hard as they could be?”
“Can’t be ruled out.
We’ve never been able to get good intel on them.
But the last reports I’ve seen all say they have their hands full with the Republic Fleet elsewhere.
Dozens of systems are locked in stalemates.”
Jonas leaned back, resting his hands behind his head.
“You know, usually I’m right about certain things,” he said.
“Yeah?”
Korvin asked, trying to sound impressed.
“I feel like we’re being sized up,” Jonas said.
“Like we’re being
watched.
As soon as Mack is finished down there, we’re heading back to HQ to talk it over with the old man.”
“Watched?”
Korvin asked sarcastically.
“Really?
I mean, you mercenaries make friends everywhere you go.
Why would anyone ever want to keep tabs on you?”
“Cute,” Jonas said, just as a projection of the colony appeared.
“But it’s a little more than a gut feeling.”
Korvin watched as the map panned to the right, showing a position about eleven kilometers east of Core Freedom.
The hostile terrain was part of an ancient caldera that was now about twenty-five thousand acres of badlands dotted with rock steppes.
Utterly impassable by foot, the valley itself was teeming with indigenous life-forms that thrived in the area’s ecosystem, all of which was nurtured by underground streams.
The voracious laaknyds, the invasive species introduced accidentally by the Minmatar, were rapidly working their way up the food chain.
“Miles found this while you were lecturing about orbital bombardments,” Jonas said, as two images appeared side by side.
Both were of the exact same plot of land, with superimposed grid lines denoting a resolution of less than a meter.
The second image showed something the first one didn’t.
“Those shots were taken an hour apart,” Jonas said.
“The one on the left is right after we arrived; the second is just a few minutes old.
The computers think there’s a ninety-two percent chance that isn’t a rock pile that just happens to look like a gunship.”
Korvin could tell from the distorted air mass behind the shape and sharp-edged shadow beneath it that the computer was right.
It was a gunship of some sort idling on the surface.
“Amarr?”
he asked.
“I wish it were that simple,” Jonas said, allowing the image to hang in the air.
“We have no idea what that is.
All we do know is that the Valklears weren’t operating in that airspace at that time.”
“Most of that sector is below sea level,” Korvin noted.
“Core Freedom’s radar wouldn’t detect it.”
“Correct, professor,” Jonas said, kicking his feet up on the desk.
“I assigned a LinkSat to that grid but haven’t seen anything since.
Our gunship is staying away from there until we know what it is.”
“You think someone else is interested in Core Freedom?”
Korvin asked.
Jonas shrugged.
“Maybe it’s a privateer who got lost,” he said.
“But with my luck, that’s too optimistic.”
The images disappeared.
“Only you and the officers know about this,” he said.
“Let’s keep it that way.”
“Understood,” Korvin said, motioning toward the trophy case.
“That’s a Lynx-class frigate, right?”
“Yeah, it is,” Jonas said, standing up slowly.