Chapter completed below the ------------------------
Steve
Hagman stepped over the unconscious communications officer to implement Law’s command.
“Black Hart onscreen Sire.”
He tapped in his security code to transfer communications to the security station.
The giant Teladi Elephant Transporter was plunging in past the northern gate from the concealing depths of interplanetary space, tail first, main drive flaring like a new star as it dumped speed.
Law waited while it coasted to rest near his shipyard construction site, clamping his jaw against the rage building inside him.
Force! He should have shot him on the spot and gutted his woman before his dying eyes.
Law pounded a fist into his chair arm, careful to not hit the small control panel. Despite his restraint he could feel fear in the air, see it in the frozen postures of the command crew, even in his old servant sitting stiffly at the security station. That he could escape so easily and then wreak such havoc, even with the aid of saboteurs, it was a humiliation beyond words, a bitter, burning bile rising in his gorge.
It was if the universe had spun a demon from his karma, named it Force and turned it loose. Karma versus Will, that would be an interesting contest he thought.
Will.
“Get me Captain Hart.”
His long-serving commander appeared instantly in the main viewer, his cropped grey hair had been shaven down to stubble, giving his gaunt face an even more deaths-head appearance.
“Admiral.”
“Captain Hart. Force has escaped, sabotaging my internal communications and sensors and no doubt we have taken many casualties. Send all available troops to secure the docking bays and sweep the station immediately. What is your strength?”
Hart whispered to someone off-screen.
“Two hundred, two-seven-seven if I strip down to a skeleton crew Admiral,” he reported. “Is Operation Annexation cancelled? Zero-G assault training went extremely well and the men are thirsting for Boron blood.”
“There have been some unexpected diplomatic developments Captain, but the elimination of Force will do much to correct that, consider this a postponement. Deploy your troops as you see fit, but kill Force. He is a distressingly resourceful opponent as you can see from the damage to the bay doors. He will try and steal a ship so shoot down any launching without an IFF cleared by Hagman, and take control of the combat Air Patrol and Laser tower defences just in case our systems are penetrated further. Understood?”
“Understood completely Admiral,” Hart answered. “The man would have to be a magician to make it past all our defences. Launch Standby 1 to 5,” he ordered off-screen.
Law stared into the screen long enough for sweat to begin to bead Hart’s shaved skull.
“Do not underestimate Force, he makes a habit of coming back from the grave and half my security teams are probably dead.”
“With all due respect to Hagman, Admiral,” Hart replied with a thin smile, “The real soldiers are with me! Consider Force dead.”
“When I see a corpse Captain. Out.”
Hagman cut the channel.
“I have pilots standing by to launch Sire.”
“Do it,” Law ordered. “If you can get them the word.”
“Fighter control systems remain operational,” Hagman answered carefully. “We can still communicate with ships, even if docked.”
“Then get all fighters launched, get all ships launched, deny Force an exit strategy. And transfer defence command to Hart.”
As the first troop-laden Vultures launched from the Black Heart, Hagman handed the defence systems over to the TL and relayed orders to the pilots sitting in their ships on standby, instructing one to verbally convey the scramble orders to all available pilots.
He transmitted each IFF to the Black Hart as they called in and launched, threading carefully through the jagged teeth of the damaged outer doors.
As the first troop transport wove through a shoal of launching fighters towards the docking port, Max was forcing open the heavy cargo bay doors with stim-driven strength, his heart racing under the strain.
Ignoring the human stench he raced along the row of cages, twisting constantly to check his tail. Already he could hear disciplined shouts echoing down the facing corridor and there was almost no time to feel anything other than the drug-fuelled rage that allowed him to kill with emotional impunity, like in a training sim, without any stray civilians.
He heard her scream before he saw her, crouched cowering behind a man in a civilian flight suit, who snarled defiance.
“Do it you coward, but damn well look me in the eye when you do!”
It took Max’s brain a clashing second to shift gear and recognise the veteran transport pilot behind the bruises, and another for him to realise his own face shield was down.
“Gann?” Max cried. “Tyre, it’s me, are you okay, have they hurt you?”
Her face was shock-white as she lifted it from Gann’s shoulder, numbed blankness melting to disbelief. Her mouth moved soundlessly.
“Good grief Max, you scared the life from me, waving that bloody thing in my face! She’s okay, just a little frightened. Get us out of here!” Gann shouted as Max stood frozen.
“Come on Max, we’re in a trap here,” Xela urged.
He unholstered a blaster, turned down the power and shot the lock.
Gann passed her through the cage door, taking the pistol from Max’s unresisting hand and they hugged for a wordless, desperate moment that overwhelmed him with the whole-body shock realisation that he was really in love. He hadn’t known that he realised, really known it until he held her and now he knew through some touch telepathy, the feeling was mutual and it was more exhilarating than anything he had experienced, a head rush of joy intermingled with fear.
“Max, move it now!” Xela yelled in his ear. The rasp of Gann’s weapon reinforced her imperative. Reflexively Max turned and fired down the line of cages out through the semi-opened blast doors. The plasma boiled through the three crouching soldiers.
“Take Tyre and watch our six, you know how to use these?” Max thrust a clutch of grenades into his hands and handed her back to Gann.
“I can walk,” she said through tears of over-powering relief, “and shoot.”
She took the other blaster from his belt.
“And I pitched for the All-City.” Gann primed a grenade as Max ran to the bay entrance.
“Launch bays,” he ordered, sweeping both directions. Xela flashed the level map onto his HUD, highlighting two small platforms. “Maintenance bays, something will be working. Probably.”
The nearest was on the outer ring, about a third of the circumference around. The network of cross-spoked concentric corridors offered any number of routes through but all converging onto three directions to one entrance. Left, right, ahead.
Ahead was too risky, any defenders would have a clear line of fire so Max picked a route to come in from the left, taking advantage of the slim protection of the curve of the outer corridor bulkheads. With Gann watching constantly over his shoulder and Tyre staggering with growing strength between them, Max dashed from junction to junction, covering the group as they scrambled across.
Halfway, laser fire ripped over his head as he crouched and snatched a scouting look around an intersection.
“Squad Two circle round!” someone snapped as Max ducked back.
“Six men, body-armour, professionals,” Max reported concisely. “And a portable shield generator,” he added at Xela’s prompting.
Damn! The portable generator would slow them but the sustained fire required to bring it down would leave the attacker exposed and these soldiers seemed professionals, unlikely to miss a clear shot.
“Back, back!”
Max grabbed Tyre’s arm and dragged her the way they’d come, Gann running ahead to the next junction.
A silver sphere bounced into their corridor. In a running dive Max pulled her to the floor and rolled with her cradled in one arm, following Gann into the cover of a cross corridor as the grenade exploded, sending a plume of super-hot particles searing past his heels.
“More of the bastards,” Gann warned. It sounded like at least two more groups were converging, leaving only the way back to the pens clear. Max was moving on instinct now, riding the surging peak of stim-fuelled confidence, rolling back into the corridor to play dead, action without thought.
He burned two men off at the ankles as they scouted towards the sprawled, blood stained body and they fell screaming through the plasma stream, limbs burned from armoured torsos. His fire flared blinding over the shield protecting the other four crouching soldiers and Gann’s expertly lobbed bomb bounced off the ceiling and exploded with a stunning flash behind them. Gann shot the shield generator as they rushed past the unconscious men, the sound of close pursuit pounding on their heels lending them extra speed.
Two more, fierce, running fire-fights left them as far from the bays as ever.
“Damn,” Gann leaned heavily on a bulkhead, sucking down air with great rasping breaths, his face puce beneath the royal blue bruises. Tyre looked little better. “How many more of these bastards?”
“Can’t stop, this way,” Max urged, picking a new route through on the HUD. They stumbled on, at least one team pounding in their wake and each junction echoing with the shouts of others. These were properly equipped assault troops, body armour, squad shield generators and their own active communications net and the waning influence of the stims could no longer quite keep doubts at bay.
“Open to suggestions Zee,” he muttered, using one of the last of his grenades to recon a junction by fire. They dashed across, past two unconscious forms, Gann scooping up a plasma rifle and a half-open med kit.
“The crawl-ways?”
“These guys will be in those,” Max said, “We’d be trapped. Likewise in any compartment and they’re probably monitoring access.”
Max held back their pursuers with a burst that drained a full power clip, ripping a huge, melting gap in a bulkhead. He snapped in another clip and tossed the empty up a different corridor as he hurried after Gann and Tyre.
Their hunters were everywhere around them now, closing down routes with their portable shield generators and each junction crossing became a head-long gamble with death as the three fugitives dashed firing across. Only surprise and the sheer killing power of the M70 kept them lucky.
“Which way Max?” Gann gasped, squeezing a short staccato burst back along the corridor, forcing two more soldiers to leap back for cover. He didn’t look good, clutching his chest with one hand as he fought his age, the beatings and the stress of the chase for breath. There were more soldiers ahead, at least five pairs of heavy boots pounding on the deck. Max rolled one of his last two grenades, bouncing it around the sharp-angles bend to spray the approach with white-hot metal. Animal screams mixed with cries of ‘men down’ and the distinctive bass hum of a shield generator powering to life.
“Max!” Tyre was already firing back down the corridor at two soldiers advancing at a crouch behind the shimmering static of a force shield wielded by a third, stooping behind them with the generator strapped to his back. Her aim was as good as her wild, desperate look.
He whirled and fired again, another full clip, forcing the attackers to abandon the over-loading shield as it flared to white. Just two power cells remained on his belt and he reduced the fire setting to conserve energy.
“This way!” he yelled, running down the only route open to them.
Both Tyre and Gann had trouble keeping up, her face now wan with shock only adrenaline kept at bay and Gann gasping for every knifing breath.
“Max, next left door, get it open!”
The HUD map showed it was a storage bay with a second exit on the far side. Max punched the lock as he fired along the corridor, catching one of another pack of advancing troops in the chest, knocking him from his feet back into his comrades who scrambled back to safety as Tyre blasted in their general direction.
Gann threw a grenade after them, an explosion, a short, chilling scream and one woman’s voice, crying out for her mother. Cries of ‘medic’ signalled that escape route was already sealed, as was the entrance to the storage bay.
“No, don’t shoot it!” Xela yelled. “Use me!”
Max crouched by the lock holding Xela’s data-padd as Tyre and Gann both kept the pursuing packs pinned back. The lock popped almost instantly and Gann used his last grenade to give them enough time to roll through into the bay. Xela quickly sealed the lock and scrambled the codes.
Already soldiers were pounding on the metal door.
The bay wasn’t large, a dimly lit cube scattered with packing cases, probably little more than eighty square metres in area.
“The other exit,” Max hissed. “Before they think of it.” It would lead them back into the centre of the level, away from the maintenance bays but there was nowhere else to run. “Go!”
“No Max,” Gann gasped, his weathered face creased in pain. “I’m too old for this, my fat arse has been in the seat too long.”
The veteran pilot paused to gulp in air, supporting himself with one hand on a crate. The door was beginning to radiate heat and a red glowing patch appeared above the lock.
“Stupid bastards, they don’t know the layout, think they got us trapped. I’m slowing you down,” he gasped painfully, “You two hide yourselves and I’ll draw them off.”
“No, you can’t!” Tyre cried. “You’ll be killed!”
“And you’re in no condition,” Max added.
“I will be,” Gann answered grimly, unclenching a fist to reveal a stim. “From one of their first aid kits.” He triggered it into his neck.
Tyre was staring at Max, wide eyed with fear.
“He can’t!”
Max instantly processed the options and thrust the M70 into his hands, exchanging it for the plasma rifle.
He grabbed his hand in a warrior salute, which the old pilot returned with a firm grip. Everything was said.
“Go.”
“No!”
Max grabbed Tyre and pulled her into the shadow of a stack of crates, muffling her protests with one hand. He heard Gann open the rear exit almost as the entrance crashed open, melted from its frame. There was an exchange of fire and a truncated scream as Max pressed Tyre’s body motionless with the weight of his own, not daring to breath.
The sound of energy fire echoed away in a stampede of boots on bare metal decking and Max led Tyre, choking back heaving sobs, towards the nearest maintenance bay. Two brisk fire-fights got them through a pair of surprised patrols on the way and a reckless charge through wildly aimed fire from three armed Teladi in mechanics uniforms, followed by seven brutal, snapping seconds of hand-to-hand got them into the bay.
------------------------------------------------
To someone completely unfamiliar with his dour professionalism, Captain Hart seemed to be quietly napping in the centre seat, just occasionally cracking his lids to skim the new Black Heart bridge, supplementing the tactical holo-display built in his minds eye with information from the main view-screen, then closing them to better concentrate on the succinctly voiced data from each bridge officer.
The engineers provided by Director Morn had gutted the Black Heart bridge with uncharacteristic speed and efficiency, replacing it with one based on the design for the new generation of Argon corvettes, being assembled in punctured secrecy in shipyards deep in the home system.
A single view-screen dominated, with Flight and Tactical stations built into a single, long console, directly before it. To the left of the central command chair, on the outer circumference of screens and panels was Security and to the right, Systems. Simple, elegant, and uncluttered by functions easily computerised or delegated to below-deck stations.
“Bayamon clearing launch bay,” Imanckalat grunted from Tactical with natural Paranid taciturnity.
Hart watched it traverse the damaged outer doors through slitted eyes.
“IFF logged, validation received,” Poulson at Security confirmed. “Assigning to Theta Wing.”
There was still a hint of callow youth in her voice, of character not yet fully moulded and it showed her beauty was real, not Skull-reclaimed. Hart liked that, finding life-lived eyes in an unblemished face too dissonant to be arousing. He had no difficulty persuading Law to reassign her to the bridge-crew; she was as skilled in simulations as she was compliant off-duty. And she looked like he imagined his granddaughter would look now.
“Squad Six reporting fugitives now on Level Ten.”
Poulson listened intently to her earpiece.
“Eleven and Thirteen in hot pursuit. Two, no three men down.”
Into her throat mike she whispered new instructions to Squads Nine and Four, vectoring them to funnel the escaped prisoners into the path of Squad Seven.
“Targets eliminated,” she reported, her voice bright with triumph. “No, wait. Make that target, singular.” Confidence faded from her tone as she reached the same conclusion as Hart.
“It’s not Force, it’s some old guy. We’ve been decoyed Captain.”
She lightly emphasised the ‘we’ and was already directing teams to sweep back to the launch bays when Hart snapped the order.
“Stay back and cover my Six,” Max whispered as Xela cracked the maintenance bay lockouts. “Watch my back, for those who don’t speak pilot,” he elaborated with a swift sharp grin. “And when we’re in, seal the door.”
Tyre managed a small smile and gripped the pistol white-knuckle tight in trembling hands. She was slipping over into shock, Max feared, feeling his own euphoric energy and confidence dissipating with the stimulants in his blood.
Max kissed her lightly on the top of her head. “On three, three, two, one.” He forced himself between the doors as they slid slowly open. It was a small platform, some fifteen metres in length, a shelf high above the main bay. Flight Engineers in stained grey coveralls were working feverishly to prep the two Bayamon fighters perched on the lip. Max cut them down with precision bursts leaving just one quaking mechanic working on the closest ship unharmed, along with the pilot, terror-frozen on the ingress ladder.
Max closed at a run, slamming the barrel of his rifle into the gut of the engineer. She doubled over breathless as he dragged the pilot from the ladder, deftly removed his sidearm and pushed him to the floor besides the gasping woman.
“Okay guys, here’s the crack, I’ve had a really bad few days so one sniff of a wrong answer and it’s game-bloody-over for you both. Got it?”
The woman nodded desperately as she wheezed for breath, calculation flashed briefly in the eyes of the Stoertebeker flyer. Max knocked that light out with a sweep of the rifle stock.
“Understand?”
The man nodded as he wiped blood from his lips with the back of his hand.
“Are these ships armed and ready?”
“Ye uhhh yes,” the woman forced out between gasps. “No uhhh missiles in..,” she gestured towards the other Bayamon.
Max held the rifle barrel to the pilot’s forehead and half squeezed the trigger, the weapon hummed its pre-fire sequence.
“Name?”
“Shuman, Arn Shuman, don’t shoot, don’t shoot!”
“You got that Zee?”
“Got it,” she answered in the pilot’s voice.
Max stepped back and altered the rifle settings before stunning them both with two shots. They crumpled to the deck.
“Max!” Tyre screamed over the spitting plasma of her pistol. Reflexively he dived and rolled, coming to a crouch and spraying the opening bay doors, sending three soldiers diving back into the corridor. He took the brief respite to reset his gun to a lethal setting and join Tyre, in the scant cover of a Bayamon thruster nacelle.
“Cover me,” he said, exchanging weapons. “Single shots, just shoot anything that moves!”
She was wholly inexperienced with assault rifles but nodded gamely, hefting it to her shoulder as Max dashed to the second Bayamon, firing as he went.
“Zee, can you hack the auto-pilot, set it as a decoy?”
“Just plug me into the systems maintenance port,” she answered confidently.
Max snapped more blasts through the open bay doors and crawled under the ship. Tyre’s weapon kept a steady cough of covering plasma as he plugged Xela’s padd into the universal data port used to diagnose the Bayamon electronics.
It took her a minute to over-ride the lockouts and replace the auto-pilot program and milli-seconds to instruct it.
“Ready Max, let’s go!”
Firing, Max scrambled back to Tyre’s side just as two crouching soldiers advanced through the door, a third behind them, back bent with the weight of a shield generator. Tyre’s shots shimmered to extinction on the sparkling barrier.
“Back!” Max shouted, grabbing the rifle from her and keeping a constant stream of fire on the soldier’s screen to obscure their vision with the flare of the plasma impact. Return fire burned wildly around them, pocking the Bayamon struts with bubbling pits of melting metal.
Firing with one hand Max triggered the cockpit hatch, the ingress ladder telescoping down.
“Up Tyre, and don’t touch anything!”
Tyre pulled herself up into the cockpit; her arms lent desperation strength by the fire hailing around her. Behind the firing soldiers crouching in the protection of the flaring shield another team was assembling a tripod mounted heavy plasma thrower with brisk efficiency. Max nerved himself to scramble up through the bolts sizzling around them in the seconds remaining before the plasma thrower blew the Bayamon away.
As he launched himself through the air the second Bayamons thrusters flared to life. Hovering, it briskly pivoted and melted the attackers with quadruple burst. The explosion buckled the main doors and the shockwave half carried Max to the ladder. In seconds he was strapped into the single seat and plugging Xela into a universal port. Tyre crouched behind him, trying not to touch anything important in the cramped confines of the cockpit.
“Force is escaping in a Bayamon from Maintenance Bay Two,” Xela called in. “Pilot Shulman launching in pursuit!”
The imitation was pitch perfect in it’s panic.
“IFF logged and propagated,” a gruff male voice responded. “Waste the bastard!”
“Consider it done! Shulman out.”
Max threaded the Bayamon through the damaged outer doors in the wake of the other fighter.
Rogues Revenge Ch 7 pt 4, 27.6.03
Moderators: TheElf, Moderators for English X Forum
Rogues Revenge Ch 7 pt 4, 27.6.03
Last edited by SteveMill on Fri, 27. Jun 03, 15:07, edited 2 times in total.
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Gandalf The White
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Gandalf The White
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Excellent and indeed VERY thrilling!
I agree with Moss, that will be a mission of getting anywhere around there. Good move of Gann's though, that should buy them quite some time.
Looking forward to see how it untangles.
Found two things:
"as he his age, ..." - punctuation? as he, his age, ....
"a good as her wild ..." - as good
I agree with Moss, that will be a mission of getting anywhere around there. Good move of Gann's though, that should buy them quite some time.
Looking forward to see how it untangles.
Found two things:
"as he his age, ..." - punctuation? as he, his age, ....
"a good as her wild ..." - as good
Thanks people, and thanks for the spots K. changes made. Escape plans underway.KiwiNZ wrote:Excellent and indeed VERY thrilling!
I agree with Moss, that will be a mission of getting anywhere around there. Good move of Gann's though, that should buy them quite some time.
Looking forward to see how it untangles.
Found two things:
"as he his age, ..." - punctuation? as he, his age, ....
"a good as her wild ..." - as good
If I wasn't embroiled in other matters you'd have it by now. As it is there will be a delay. I have some written and i'll try and get it worked up to a suitably sized episode ASAP.Oldman wrote:KiwiNZ wrote:bump
I heard that...
Would one say it is now, (to quote a certain author) LATER in the week?
At your convenience of course...Steve
Oldman
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Gandalf The White
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Jasperodus
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Gandalf The White
- Posts: 2185
- Joined: Sat, 9. Nov 02, 12:21