The Guardians of Sol (32 page)

"How likely is it that HQ has come to the same conclusions?" I wondered. I might need to send her conclusions up the chain of command.

"I am hardly the only smart AI in the Corps. The Sentinel and his planners likely have the assistance of at least two with greater processing power than me. Additionally, any first tier Swordmaster should be able to draw the same conclusions. They would just take a little longer."

"I won't worry about it then." The Io countdown chimed a scant second before the shuttle lurched into motion.

"Alright gentleman," our pilot began. He was annoyingly chipper. "On our flight today you can see the little known rings of Jupiter on our right. Our destination is the enemy vessel so large it is positively begging to be squashed by the wrath of a jealous God. Our scenic route will take us past an idyllic void filled with dueling fighters and battleships. Pay special attention to the lovely radiation bloom at two o'clock by thirty degrees above the horizon. Flight time will be about fifteen minutes. Refreshments will not be served. Sorry."

I was hooked into the external sensors of the shuttle like I had been at Venus. It was a nice change to be flying
at
something instead of away. Guardian Corps fighters had engaged the enemy fighter screen several minutes ago. Mostly they were still skirmishing as destroyers and frigates maneuvered into position to support each other. I wondered how exactly the battle would change once enemy command began getting reports of hull breaches in their flagship.

An enemy fighter flashed by under our shuttle. Close enough that I probably could have seen the pilot in the cockpit if I'd been paying attention. The Cerberus fighter chasing it passed over our shuttle close enough that its backwash threatened to light us up on sensors. I swore automatically, but our pilot went on narrating our surroundings in a benign, almost bored, monotone that kept me calm. I couldn't wait to get something a little sturdier under my feet again. The shuttles of our assault force wended their way through the enemy formation. The gigantic flagship kept getting more gigantic.

"Any idea where the command deck might be on that thing?" I inquired of my AI.

"I can no longer access Guardian databases due to electronic warfare countermeasures being used by both sides. I also do not have the free active memory to store the
Chiron
's schematics and perform at optimal combat levels." She paused. "Another problem to fix after this battle."

"Add it to the list." I think that we had come up with six or seven simple but critical problems that needed attention. Later.

That flagship loomed closer, and closer. Impact. The assault shuttle shredded through the hull and the powerful hydraulics at the tip tore a hole large enough for two Castigars to charge through at one time. The other four shuttles from Io impacted at other points nearby in the hull. Hopefully the force from Ganymede was making their entrance at the same time. Shot-put's team led the way, shields and weapons up. Hard Edge squad followed them through. Then Haywire's team. Then Flunky squad. My team held the rear. There were a few unarmored Centurions that looked like they had asphyxiated after impact. A few more were such bloody messes that Shot-put's team must have put them down.

Unlike Guardian ships or the few Centurion ships that I knew about, the flagship's decks were designed vertically with the floors facing the engine instead of having it at one end. The gravitic vertigo going from the alignment of the shuttle to the alignment of the ship as I dropped from one to the other was more annoying than an orbital drop, though mercilessly shorter.

"Rommy, do me some math. Each deck is about four meters high. Estimate at least one meter of structure between decks. How many decks are we looking forward to searching?"

"The bottom and top hundred meters are likely to be inhospitable for our targets as well. Approximately five hundred and sixty decks. Fortunately this design means that each deck is significantly smaller than they would be in more conventional designs. Search time is likely to be limited to ten or fifteen minutes each."

"Great." I did some thinking for myself for once, using one of the focusing techniques from the second tier that I had just begun to learn in the last few weeks. The flagship had no obvious command structures. It was likely that the command deck was somewhere in the forward third of the superstructure. The core of the back two thirds was more than likely taken up by the engines, particle accelerators, and generators needed by any interstellar ship. "Rommy, approximately which deck are we on?"

"If we assume that the closest hospitable deck by the engine outputs is deck five-sixty then we should be somewhere around deck four hundred."

"Thank you." I told her. That meant there was a way into engineering close by. Hopefully someone else would take advantage of that. We still had our orders and I was more oriented now. "Alright, let's start heading up. We have maybe three hundred decks to cover before we're liable to get to anyone important. Somebody find me some stairs or another way that doesn't require us to face the lifts."

The other Castigars spread out. Each of the teams were covering each other's backs. Flunky team 3 found an access hatch to the Centurion version of the Jeffries tubes, but good luck fitting a Castigar in one of those.

"Anyone see any of those floor hatches we found in that other ship?"

I got a bunch of negative replies. I swore. It relieved a bit of stress. Without stairs or those floor hatches we might be stuck on this floor. The enemy would be able to stop or reroute any lifts I might try to use so those were out of the question. I doubted that we could even make use of the lifts like we did before since the flagship had full power and could use the lift boxes as massive and high velocity bludgeons against us.

"Find a computer terminal for me," Rommy whispered in my ear. "The samples of Centurion code we have should enable me to at least find you a way or two up. If we're lucky I might even be able to lock down the lift system."

"If we're lucky?"

"The enemy might have an AI or two of their own running security and processing. I only have basic electronic warfare programming. If I run into a security AI I will need to break off access immediately before I am subverted or destroyed."

"I don't want to risk you like that, Rommy. Push comes to shove we'll just burn holes through each deck until we get to the target."

"Thank you, sir. I'll begin structural analysis for weak points or emergency-"

"Castle," one of the B company team leaders interrupted her. "I think we found something. Please advise."

The sergeant piped his video feed to my HUD and I studied what he sent me. It looked like one of the emergency hatches that Rommy had promised to look for. I told the sergeant as much. Structural analysis suggested that stairs or a ramp to other levels lay on the other side. The hatch probably wouldn't open while the hall was open to vacuum.

"Voodoo, Squatter. Go grab the patch kit from the shuttle. Then tell the pilot to get ready to pull out."

The pair moved out and made the stomach churning leap through the differing gravities. A few minutes later they came back out with a fat canvas pack in Squatter's hand. I gave the word to the pilot and she carefully backed out of the breach. She would head back to Io to refuel and wait for further orders. The edges of the hull were already oozing towards each other. Intriguing. Something I'm sure Rachel and Ruiz would love to analyze. But the process was so slow it would be at least an hour before the breach was sealed that way and we couldn't remain trapped that long. If nothing else the enemy was sure to send troops of their own to investigate the hull breach. Squatter and Voodoo used the adhesive and a particularly strong and dense sheet of some polymer to speed the process. A minute later I was standing by the emergency hatch as the pressure equalized and the light cycled green.

The stairs were large enough and sturdy enough to support a bunch of men in heavy armor in a hurry. That was considerate of the enemy. The next two levels were locked out, suggesting that other shuttles had 'landed' there. We found another locked level four or five levels above those. That one cycled green just as my rearguard passed it. We added another two squads to our number. Apparently their third squad was risking the lifts. I wished them luck. We made it to the estimated deck three hundred when we hit our first major resistance. Honestly, it surprised me that the response took that long.

The stair hatches on three oh one and two ninety-eight opened just as a grenade bounced down from two ninety-seven. The flashbang forced the guys upfront to switch completely over to thermals to save their eyes, whether they wanted that or not. The disorientation was just enough to cost them their lives. The two men from Hard Edge at the front still lasted the few seconds the men behind them needed to properly respond. The other two men from that team leapt forward up the stairs to hold off the enemy coming down from there. The Flunky team behind them automatically pushed forward to hold off the breach from two ninety-eight. Haywire's team was holding the rear on the three oh one landing, and was doing the best. Instead of merely keeping the Centurions at bay, the Specials' superior equipment let them scythe through their opponents. The shatter hammers were particularly vicious in close quarters.

I sent John's team to back up the Flunky team on two ninety-eight. The Hard Edge pair was still doing pretty well, and was already being backed up by the rest of their squad. Another team of Flunkies went down to support Haywire. There was only enough room in the stairwell for two men to fight or walk at one time. I suppose that was good for us. It limited the advantage of their numbers. I still wanted to move forward though, so holding the enemy off wasn't quite good enough for me. I began the tight process of moving from the middle of our little column to the front. The initial pair of Hard Edge men had already cycled back and were making minor repairs to their equipment. Good men and solid soldiers – most of the damage was superficial.

Once Hektor and I were in position the Hard Edge team engaging the enemy in the stairwell fell back to the two ninety-eight landing and into that hallway. The enemy rushed forward into a straight right that shredded the man's face and helmet when they met my knuckle blade. Hektor used his shield and a short sword to cut down man after man. I crushed a Centurion's armored ribs in with my own shield. I launched an explosive round from my left gauntlet that bounced off the stairwell wall to explode somewhere out of sight. The surprise lessened the pressure on Hektor and me imperceptibly, but it was enough. We brought our shields up simultaneously and launched ourselves forward. Our thrusters gave us the extra boost we needed to change the flow. The Centurions seemed to panic and retreated up the stairs. My team stepped aside to allow Hard Edge and the two other squads we picked up to pursue the enemy while we caught our breath.

"Good work there, Hektor. Makes me glad I took a chance on you."

"Sheesh, you give your boss a good beating once or twice and he never lets you live it down."

Squatter and Voodoo sniggered. Spirits were good for the moment. My men outside of the stairwell had cleared their levels and were returning. The pressure was off; the tide seemed to be with us. It would be nice to know how the other groups were doing. Pressure off of my five squads might mean too much somewhere else. As long as the target was reached, I assured myself, it would all be worth it.

February 27, 2290. Centurion Flagship,
Battle of Jupiter
.

The ebb and flow of battle is a curious thing. For most of the last hour things had been going our way. The Centurions were making a concerted push to change that. They were attacking from both ends of the stairwell as well as from the three deck portals that my force was passing by. They were pressing us from every side and I was stuck between points of contact. The men knew their business, at least. Haywire and Shot-put's teams were shattering enemy forces at our fore and rear.

"Haywire, get a foothold on the next level up. We'll catch our breath and regroup there. We need a better way to get to the target."

"Yes sir," he replied. A team from Hard Edge and Flunky moved to back my men up.

Some of the Castigars in front of me finally let my team and I shuffle past them and join the melee at the landing. It was fairly gruesome and the bodies made maneuvering even more difficult. There wasn't enough room for shatter hammers. Fortunately, the modifications to my armor made only having enough room for knees and elbows more threatening to my foes than it would be limiting for me. Knuckle blades and momentary spikes of electromagnetically hardened plasma slammed all sensibility and in more than a few cases, life, out of my opponents. My shield did its share of damage as well. Hektor poked is spear past me whenever he had a chance and probably kept me in better shape than I would have been otherwise.

Rommy questioned the wisdom of putting the commanding officer in the middle of harms way. I replied with something less than complimentary. She would make me pay for that later. I also explained about better equipment and my responsibility for the mainline troops' lives. She reiterated her point about my intelligence. Opposition began to crumble at my position. Voodoo and Squatter took over the point. I got reports that the Centurion troopers at all points were pulling back. I called for unit updates as we went for Haywire's beachhead. The news wasn't good. The mainline Castigar squads were hovering around sixty or seventy percent effective strength. We left our dead behind. But then, if we were successful we would be back for them.

I conferred with the other squad captains. "Are any of you going to need a recharge soon?"

"We're all from the first legion," Rick replied in his surprisingly genteel manner. "We’ve been upgraded with same power cores as the Specials."

"Good. Then we'll only take a few minutes to rest on this level," I switched over to a private line with Rommy. "Which deck are we on?"

"On the relative scale established, you are on level one forty-nine. I wish you would give me permission to look for a ship schematic. It would really speed the mission forward."

"I'm considering, Rommy, but you're still too valuable a resource to risk unnecessarily," I looked at the clock. We'd been going practically nonstop for an hour and a half. Almost every foot had been heavily contested. "I wonder how things are going outside."

"The Corps were well prepared for this battle. If they need them, reinforcements from the colony fleets would have arrived by now. There is no point worrying about things we cannot control."

"You're right," I admitted. "Unlock my helmet, I could use come rations."

I wasn't the only man taking the chance this lull provided to refuel my body. In a few minutes the men eating now would relieve the men on watch. I was seriously considering letting Rommy rummage around in the enemy systems.

"Someone find me a computer terminal," I ordered. You'd think that it would have occurred to someone to get a proper espionage program loaded up if we were going to be infiltrating an enemy flagship. Something always gets overlooked though. "Rommy, you can run translations for whatever comes on the screen?"

"I can." She didn't sound very happy.

"Good. Let's see how much we can find out the simple way." If that didn't work, then, and only then, would I risk the AI with my wife's voice.

It didn't take long to find a useable terminal in one of the rooms near us. While no one was looking, the enemy sealed off our deck from the stairwells. Even the hatches to the Jeffries tubes were locked, not that we would have bothered. There was too much bulk on even the smallest Castigar armor to fit in one of those.

I don't think that it occurred to them to lock out the computers just yet. Either that was a trap itself, or they figured we still hadn't puzzled out their language. I don't think that it occurred to them that we would have run the samples we found through all of the translation software that had been developed practically since the computer age began. AI and scholars agreed that the written language had a Russo-Latin base with healthy doses of what were likely alien language fragments. The coding for their programming was equally familiar and exotic, but most AIs grasped the mathematical base formula almost immediately…

Rommy helped me heavily with inputting the search terms while displaying translations on my HUD. It took us about fifteen minutes to find the schematics. Rommy saved an image file of everything she thought we might need. The enemy only sent one sortie at us while I was at the terminal. It wasn't a very strong showing. Whoever was in charge of slowing us down seemed to be mostly content to let us stay where we were. We set up a perimeter on the deck to rest and plan.

"Rommy, find me a better way between decks than what we've seen so far. The ship half that ended up in Earth orbit had hidden hatches between decks. If this one has those as well figure out how we can access them."

*****

We had been on the deck for too long. Sitting still for half an hour wasn’t exactly forward progress. I couldn't think of a space engagement that had ever lasted that long in the past. Even the ambush at Mars a few weeks ago had taken less than an hour. Most of that had been clean up operations to destroy smaller Centurion vessels that had tried to run and hide wherever they could. Rommy found the hidden deck hatches on the schematics, but she was still looking for some way to activate them.

While we watched the doors to the lifts, and the sealed doorways to the stairwells, we were busy and nervous watching the ceiling and floor all around us. If anything, knowing about the deck hatches but not knowing about how to use them had upped the general anxiety level. Hard to rest when the enemy could come from almost any direction at any time. What I wouldn't have given for a few decent cipher AI. I felt even more blind than usual. I definitely had a few upgrades in mind for Rommy when we got back to safety.

A floor hatch popped up in the middle of our little 'camp.' Two dozen weapons were immediately leveled at the offending spot of floor. I could see some slight movement below. A snake cam wiggled one way and then the other. A head popped up but not a single projectile flew its way. The head had a friendly IFF tag attached. First legion, second division, C company ninth squad.

"Goddamn am I glad to see you guys. Help me up!" the private rejoiced. We did as he asked. He was followed by another man. And another after that. A section of the force from Ganymede added two more full squads to my responsibility. And they brought a very unexpected surprise with them.

"From what we have seen, Captain," the hulking figure addressed me once he was pulled through the open hatch. "Your force has born the brunt of the enemy response. You have done well."

"That you, Vadasz?" I asked him. He was wearing vacuum-rated armor that looked like it could seal around his muzzle or open to let him speak freely. "How do you know we've born the brunt?"

He lifted up a disembodied radio, probably looted from a Centurion trooper. "My people may not have been as advanced as our attackers when we were conquered, but we learn very quickly."

"That you do. How do you activate the floor hatches?"

"It is simple enough," He replied, and demonstrated on a hidden panel by closing the hatch that his group had come through. "I am surprised none of your men have figured it out themselves."

He seemed so genuinely perplexed by our ineptitude that I couldn't get offended. I did get troubled. Our headlong rush upward hadn't served us very well when combined with the general lack of intelligence. I somewhat meant both connotations of the word. While I was mentally kicking myself in the butt for my stupidity Vadasz ambled over to some markings by the nearest stairwell.

"If I remember correctly, we have twenty-five more levels until we will reach the command complex. Our goal will be there."

"Remember? When were you last here?"

"The last time that I was on one of these vessels was perhaps fifteen of your years ago. It was not an enjoyable experience. I was not even aware that this..." He searched for the word. "Dreadnaught was part of the fleet sent to your system until it arrived here. We must go now."

"The floor hatches. Can command lock us out of those like they are everything else?"

"No, they are emergency doors. The only reason they would seal completely would be in the event of complete loss of atmosphere. They will serve us well. We must be careful moving up, however."

"Because they might be waiting for us," I finished. "How many hatches on each level?"

"There is one every ten meters or so. Arranged in two lines at ninety degrees to each other. What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that we spread out and hit four or five hatches at once every level. It'll give the bad guys more to worry about and it'll make it easier for us to breach each deck. It should give a better chance that at least some of us will reach the target."

I let the other squad captains know my plan. Vadasz and each team from my squad were going to take point through each of the hatches. Everyone began spreading out. The enemy commander decided this would be a good time for another sortie. Centurions poured out of all three lifts as well as the three stairwells. Unlike before, my men and I had clear lines of fire. Plasma roared into the crowd. A few grenades were not far behind.

One of the grenades came flying straight back out of the corridor facing me. Rommy adjusted the stream of plasma packets momentarily to knock it out of the air. The explosion was unpleasant, but my visor polarized before it did so my vision was just fine. Something snaked out of the fading smoke. Instinct brought my shield up just in time to keep the thing from doing anything to me.

A figure stepped into plain view. Its armor was lean, well-fitted, and had an obvious bird of prey motif. He started to say something. I didn't bother to listen. I fired at him. The bastard dodged it with a minimum of motion and his golden whip-sword lashed out one more time. I brought my shield into play again. The blade struck a few sparks, and ruined the paint job, but not much else. His body language told me that he was quite surprised. I wasn't completely unfazed myself. I never before had I seen one of those blades stymied. Usually they went through everything like a red-hot knife through warm butter. I gave a small prayer of thanks to whatever divinity felt like listening at that moment.

The outer layer of my shield was composed of a new substance. Chief Ruiz had told me that he'd figured it out using a nano-manufacturing process using industrial nanobots. The material was some kind of crystalline iron evenly run through with carbon nanotubes. It was as hard as diamond and as flexible as the best steel. It made adamantium look like pig iron in comparison.

I popped off a few more shots. All of which were either dodged or blocked. His whip-sword scraped a little metal off of one of my legs and a shoulder when I didn't quite get my shield around in time. The other man suddenly backed into a defensive stance. I felt a large hand rest on my shoulder.

"One of the Ekai. There are more of them in this fleet than I had thought. I have been hunting them," He said all of that eagerly and out loud. The Ekai cringed visibly. "Proceed with your plan, Captain. I will take care of this... prey."

I didn't argue. Vadasz was worth a squad all by himself, and more than likely could defeat at least that many men all by himself. I sent the order to proceed and Castigars started flooding the upper decks. We wouldn't stop until the Centurion Admiral was either dead or in custody. My last view of Vadasz was of him gleefully ripping off the Ekai's sword arm while using the man as a shield against hesitant fire.

I ended up being one of the last men up for my group instead of one of the first. The rest of my team was already on the next deck up. This deck was littered with the bodies of friends and foes. They were mostly foes, thankfully. And none were from my squad. We were only five decks away when I got an alert over my com. The Fuzzy Bunnies were engaging enemy forces outside of the command deck.

"Get a move on, boys!" I cheered. "We don't want to miss the party!"