Renegade (50 page)

“Alo and hacksaws,” said Erik. “Same thing.”

Rennes frowned. “Same thing?”

Erik nodded. “We ran into hacksaws a week back. The Major killed them. We had some dead ones on board. Or they were dead — until we pulled up alongside that alo cruiser in hub dock. And the damn things came back to life.”

Renne’s eyes went wide. It was a little dramatised for effect, but Erik was beyond caring. “HQ killed your Captain?”

“And pinned it on me,” Erik agreed. “They had me in custody. The Major busted me out single-handedly. Pantillo told her what was going on, and her alone. If you’ve ever met her, or know anyone who has, you’ll know she’s everything they say.”

Rennes shook his head. “She’s more. I served with her on Ryda. She’s exceptional.”

“Yes she is.” Erik took a deep breath. “And she’s going to die if you don’t let me get back to
Phoenix
.”

Rennes stared for a moment longer. “I was there,” Dale added from behind. Erik did not turn to look, but he could see at least two rifles swinging that way, as Dale stepped from cover. “I helped get the Major out after she busted the LC out of custody. It’s all true, every word. I still live for Fleet every day, but not even Fleet Admirals can fuck with Fleet marines.

“Lieutenant Dale,” said Rennes. “Been a long time.”

“Yes sir.”

Rennes took a deep breath, and stood aside. “Go,” he said. “Before I change my mind.”

“Major,” said Erik, with a hard stare. “Spread it around. And watch your back. Marines know that there’s no higher cause than the guy next to you, but these fuckers in charge, they think they’ve found one. And they will bury the lot of us to achieve it.”

He looked back as the marines behind him moved, but Private Yu had Carponi on his shoulder, and waved him on ahead. With
Mercury
’s marines here too, Hoffen security wouldn’t try anything more — probably they’d pulled back in relief, under the impression that Major Rennes would handle it for them. Erik fell in behind the forward guard, and they jogged through
Mercury
’s position. Cautious
Mercury
marines watched them with rifles partly lowered, perhaps uncertain exactly what was going on. Erik recalled Captain Ritish up in the hub, and wondered what would happen between her and Major Rennes after this. What Rennes had just done was treasonous, and Fleet could have him shot. But kill
another
marine company commander? One who though not nearly as famous among civilians, was just as respected among the marines who mattered most? That could get very tangled for High Command, very fast.

PH-4 made a hard dock with a crash of grapples through the concourse floor just as they reached the berth. This time Erik led, cycling the inner door, then onto the ladder and slid to make it fast, all the way down to the outer door above PH-4’s dorsal hatch. Above the other marines copied — Yu and Carponi would be last, unable to balance on the ladder with them all piled into the tube and waiting for the inner door to close again so they could open the outer.

“Clear!” came the yell from high up the tube, and Erik cycled the door below, a faint pop of the ears as air pressure equalised, then the shuttle’s dorsal hatch opened and Erik slid straight in and scrambled out of hatch access, down a level to the cockpit and stuck his head in on Lieutenant Toguchi in the pilot’s seat. Outside the main view, the huge, curving underside of Hoffen’s outer rim, studded with newly arrived shuttles, some leaving even now, other grapples left empty. Beyond that, more ship traffic than Erik had seen before in his life. Ships swarming, ships spinning, rotating, dodging, thrusting.

“Holy fuck,” he said.

“No shit,” said Toguchi, flipping switches and trimming engines. “Get everyone buckled in tight back there, it’s a real mess. Got three freighters on the rim threatening to fire up jump engines, two on Hoffen-A, one on Hoffen-B. Everyone’s getting the hell out while they still can, Fleet’s threatening to blast those who don’t comply with direction.”

“Which will give us a nice big cloud of debris as well,” said Erik. “Hostile contacts?”

“Not yet,” said Toguchi. “But it’s early.” Something exploded to one side. “Fuck. Lee?”

“Cruiser
Far Reach
just fired on a freighter,” said Ensign Lee from the front seat up the narrow cockpit. “Big hit, lots of debris. No idea why… there’s five hundred different conversations going at once on different channels, lots of possible threats, lots of wires crossed.”

“Damn, look at that com chatter spike,” said Toguchi, and flipped channels. “Lieutenant Dale, how we doing?”

“
One minute,”
said Dale. “
Locking down our wounded.”

“Another shot,” said Lee. “That’s… over by Hoffen-B, can’t see that one, someone’s shooting at Fleet I think.”

“Whoa look at this fucker,” Toguchi added. Ahead, a big freighter was rotating hard, nose and tail attitude thrusters blazing blue against the black sky. Her nose was missing station rim by half the length of the ship. “That’s nuts. What the hell’s he doing?” Erik was horrified by Fleet shooting at merchanters, but someone really ought to shoot this idiot on principle.

“
Thirty seconds,”
said Dale down back.

“Better strap in LC.”

Erik slapped Toguchi on the shoulder. “Better you than me, Chunky. Make sure you stick the dismount.”

“All seals on,” said Lee. “Station green, grapples green. Clear on your mark.” As Erik moved quickly to the jumpseat directly behind the cockpit and strapped himself in with several fast, well-practised moves. It was far enough back that he could only hear the pilots on coms.

“
Lieutenant Dale?”

“Five seconds.”
Pause.
“All sealed down back, you are clear to go.”

“PH-4 copies, we are leaving. All hands take hold.”
Wham! as the grapples released, and suddenly gravity was gone, hands and feet lifting to the ceiling, and blood rushing to the face as PH-4 fell away from the rim.
“Thrust on, here we…”

WHAM! with an impact that made the grapple release feel like a tap, and everything was spinning sideways. That force did not let up, and the view up front was spinning madly, stars and station and ships, stars and station and ships… round and round. And then the decompression alarm was howling, an automated voice repeating, “Masks on! Masks on! Masks on!” as Erik scrambled to re-secure his infantry-mask and get the oxygen going…

“
We’re hit!”
Ensign Lee was shouting.
“PH-4 is hit! We are taking fire! Toguchi? Chunky, what the fuck? Chunky!”
Looking back desperately over his shoulder.

Erik saw one of Toguchi’s arms floating free, pulled outward by the centrifugal force. And blood spattering upon the forward screens. “Toguchi’s hit!” Erik announced, and cut his straps. Immediately the force of the spin threw him forward at the back of Toguchi’s seat. “Lieutenant Dale, get up here ASAP and help me remove the pilot!”

“On my way!”

As Erik reached about Toguchi’s limp body, fumbling for straps and getting bloody fingers in the process. “Ensign Lee! Do you have control?” You could fly a combat shuttle from the co-pilot’s seat, but the configuration wasn’t ideal. Also, Ensign Lee was not as good as Lieutenant Toguchi, and that was not ideal either.

“Sir I think we’ve lost an engine! I can’t get the spin to stop!”

“Just leave it Ensign, I’m taking control. If I can’t get Toguchi out, you’ll have to leave your seat.” Click, as the harness finally came away, and Erik dragged at Toguchi’s body… but the centrifugal force pushed him toward the nose, and Erik struggled to find the leverage…

“Here!” said Dale, arriving at his side with a thud, grabbing Toguchi under the shoulders and pulling. Erik fought to get the legs and arms clear of the loose harness, and suddenly he was out. Erik clambered awkwardly in, only now hearing the clear hissing noise from multiple holes along the right side of the cockpit.

“
The seals aren’t closing that leak!”
said Lee.
“We’ll start running out of air in fifteen!”

“Unimportant,” said Erik, getting his arms in the harness and finding the controls, eyes scanning multiple screens that showed red lights on attitude, engines, navigation frantically trying to get his attention as they spun out of control through the busiest shipping anyone had ever seen. “Reroute power to second gen, first is gone. Port engine is dead, run compensation through flightcomp…”

“Flightcomp is not responding.”

“Just have to do it by sight then, hold on.” As Dale reached around him to strap him in, seeing he hadn’t had the time for it. Erik ignored the help, angling starboard engine offset twenty-five degrees, and rear thrust into the emerging direction of spin… he hit thrust, and they thundered, then the starfield began to slow. Trajectory began to emerge from navcomp.

“We are headed straight for that freighter!”

“I see it.” As the straps snapped in and Dale pulled him tight with a hard shove. Erik wanted desperately to ask how Toguchi was, but just didn’t have time. Something else snapped past them, lightning fast. “Manoeuvring!” he yelled and slammed on thrust, half expecting the engines to explode and solve their problems there and then. Instead he got an uneven kick that skidded them forward and sideways at once, and a grunt from Dale as he was flung backward off the chair and hit something down back.

More shots snapped by, and something blew up very bright to one side. “Full burn! PH-4 is under fire!” He angled thrust with three-Gs still pressing him back in his chair, somehow manufacturing a turn from unresponsive controls. Nav feed showed them curling around, out and beyond Hoffen-A’s rim, into the heaviest adjacent traffic. At least it would be hard to hit them out here without hitting friendlies.

“PH-4, this is Phoenix,”
came Shahaim’s voice in his ears.
“We’ve identified your incoming fire, it’s a cruiser, UFS Starwind.”

“
Phoenix
, this is the LC,” said Erik through gritted teeth. “Break dock and get farside of that alo bastard alongside you.”

“Yes sir, do you want us to come and pick you up?”

“No, stay close to station or someone will take the opportunity of this chaos to shoot you. Station is cover. Get farside of the alo, watch him at all costs. Then kill that bitch
Starwind
for me.”

“My pleasure sir.”

“Sir,”
said Lee,
“I have Starwind’s position on nav.”
As the plot appeared on the HUD — it was an awful way to fly a shuttle in combat, he didn’t have the helmet visor or the right uplinks and had to look from one side of the cockpit to the other to find everything, wasting precious time. There was a lot of traffic between
Starwind
and them, but it would be folly to assume there was only one Fleet ship aiming for them.

Erik cut thrust, spun them sideways, hit thrust again to take them curling past the side of an escaping freighter, cut and spun once more onto an approach vector past
Phoenix
’s end of the Hoffen-A hub. More grunts from down back as Dale and whoever else were flung about… but Erik hadn’t the time to pay them attention either.

Another shot from
Starwind
— hitting an erratically moving shuttle with damaged engines in heavy traffic was proving hard for its armscomp. Then com crackled again. “
Hey Starwind! Greetings from Phoenix, you fucker.”

And
Starwind
smashed sideways like a car hit by a train at a level crossing, three heavy hits breaking it in multiple ways, then a bright flash and debris raining across the shipping confusion like summer rain. Unbidden, Erik recalled another of the Captain’s lessons, ‘when commanding a vessel in combat, you must never prioritise targets over threats.’ Case in point, Captain, and correct as always.

“And
Phoenix
,” Erik added. “Put a viper warhead through the outer wall of Fleet HQ on the Hoffen rim. Remote fuse, put it to Armscomp control.”

“Aye LC. You want an open channel to HQ?”

You read my mind, Lieutenant Shahaim. “Yes please Lieutenant.”

“Shilu, put the LC through.”
A pause, Erik firing them sideways on course-correction only, already carrying about five times the velocity he should be in this mess.
“LC, you have coms.”

“To Supreme Commander Chankow. Continuing to fire upon
Phoenix
or
Phoenix
support vessels will result in the destruction of Fleet HQ on Hoffen Station. Continuing to lead the attack upon Major Thakur on Faustino will lead to the destruction of Fleet HQ on Hoffen Station. In fact, you piss me off one more time, and I’ll blow you up like we just did
UFS Starwind
. Your choice asshole.”

There would have been about a hundred people on
Starwind
. There were considerably more in Hoffen Fleet HQ. That was sad, but he was becoming increasingly convinced that restraint, in this situation, would only lead to defeat… and the consequences of defeat would be astronomically worse than any damage he could do here. Trace had told him that when the stakes were high, he had to be prepared to do anything to ensure success. Only now was he coming to understand what that meant… and perhaps, why she’d been so insistent on making sure he understood. She’d guessed, no doubt, just how big this could get, and just the scale of opponents he’d face. This fight could not be won by half-measures.

Hoffen-A hub was rushing up, and he spun them awkwardly with what attitude control remained, pointed their tail at
Phoenix
and hit thrust. Everything thundered, and he got a burst of coms as Ensign Lee cycled through contacts — captains and coms operators yelling, directing, threatening. Small ships were leaving the hub, shuttles, insystem haulers, two nearby looked as though they’d had a low-V collision and were spinning apart amidst a spray of debris. He knew the only reason PH-4 was still alive was that most Fleet ships were positioning for angles to hit the three freighters on the rim threatening to cycle their jump engines. But they hadn’t fired yet because they had to hit all three simultaneously, or else the survivor would cycle and kill much of Hoffen Station, and take several million people with it.