Into the Black: Odyssey One (34 page)

Rael had no quarrel with the Captain of the vessel; certainly he had nothing but respect for the man’s abilities, as well as those of the people under his command.

However, neither did he have any liking for an unidentified ship, holding high orbit over his world.

Especially not one that was capable of defeating a Drasin Cruiser, in a close range exchange.

Unfortunately, he found himself in a situation where he had little control, and less choice, over such things.

For the moment.

Rael looked at the threat board for a moment and ducked his head to look at a different display.

Soon.

Very soon.

*****

A body floated past the crewman as he pulled open the hatch to the forward laser control room, limbs floating freely as the iced eyes stared sightlessly.

“Oh fuc!” The crewman fell back, gagging in his helmet as he tried to keep from vomiting, more from the shock of the scene than anything else.

This time CPO Corrin didn’t say anything to reprimand the crewman she just moved forward and dragged the body out of the way.

“This is why pressure suits are required during alerts,” she growled over the net, turning the body over and shoving it unceremoniously into another room. “And they don’t do you any fuckin’ good, if you don’t seal the helmet. Now find that fucking breech.”

The men nodded, swimming forward, eyeing the debris path.

Anything that hadn’t been locked down had been torn up by the decompression, throwing papers and smaller items through the rushing air and right to the source of the breech.

Of course, as it turned out, it wouldn’t have been all that hard to find, anyway.

Crewman Jacynck slid over to the four foot hole burned through the hull, passing his safety line back to his closest companion, then slowly slid out into the black. He looked up along the front of the heavily armored ‘bow’ of the Odyssey, then twisted and looked back down.

“Well, Chief…,” his voice came dryly back over the comm, “I don’t think that we’re gonna be able to slap a quick-patch on this and call it a day.”

Corrin snorted and waved to the other two, “bring up the torch and start patching that up temporarily… I’ll tell DC the bad news.”

*****

Ensign Lamont nodded, acknowledging the report, and turned half around, “we’re going to need at least three hours to reseal the forward weapons stations. Another three, if you want the armor repaired too, Sir.”

Eric Weston nodded, tapping a command into his screen, “how are the ’Angels doing?”

*****

The Havoc Missiles had just dropped from the internal pylons, when Stephanus launched every countermeasure in his fighter’s stock.

Flares, dazzlers, EM screamers, and old fashion chaff erupted out from the fighter, as the two missiles were briefly vulnerable to interception. This confused the Drasin’s sensors for a split second, as the Havoc Cee-Emm fields firmed up and their rocket motors kicked into full burn.

Both missiles slammed into the fighter two and an half seconds later, hitting like the hammer of God.

As the fighter vanished in a cloud of expanding debris, Stephanus pivoted his fighter in place and slammed the throttle forward as he sought out the next furball.

He was halfway there when, his conclusion was proven beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Two previously competent, though predictable, pilots slammed into each other in the middle of a tight maneuver, their communication obviously cut by the loss of the Flight Leader. In a few moments, the remaining fighters were mopped up, by the superior flying of the Archangels.

“Good call, Boss man!” Brute called over the tac-net as Stephanus slid into position between him and Racer.

“Thanks, Brute,” Steph said, checking his HUD. “Where’s the big boy?”

Across the few meters that separated them, Stephanus could see Brute nod his head in the distance. “Looks like he wants to play with the Cap, Boss man.”

“Damn it!” Steph snarled, “Roll call!”

*****

“Archangel Squadron reports that the enemy cruiser has slipped past them, Captain.” Waters said grimly. “Commander Michaels intends to intercept.”

“Belay that,” Weston told him, looking at the course projections. “Tell him to take a least time return course. The Archangel’s can get here an hour ahead of them. We’ll meet him together.”

“Aye Sir,” Waters replied, keying into the channel.

“Sir,” Lamont half turned. “We don’t have the lower flight deck at the moment. Sir. Rescue crews are still pulling survivors out of there, and there’s an eighteen-meter slash right up the trap.”

Weston grimaced, “The upper deck?”

“Clear, Sir… but it’s meant for the SAR shuttles and…”

“I know what it’s meant for, Ensign,” he said crisply, turning back to Waters. “Tell the ‘Angels that they’ll have to come in softly. We don’t have any traps for them.”

“Aye Captain.”

“And tell Samuels to get her ass out there to pick up any survivors of the engagement!” Eric growled, pulling his console close again as he started tallying up what they’d lost, against what the last ship in the system still had.

“Aye Captain.”

*****

Major Brinks and Milla Chans touched down on the roof of the tallest scraper the Major could find and he immediately cut the lines and let his ‘chute’ float up and away on its own.

His HUD and suit computer was collating the feeds from all the free ‘chutes’, using them much like the Carnivore drones to provide real time intel from the local hotspots.

Unlike the Carnivore drones though, the ‘chutes’ were neither particularly stealthy, nor were they nearly as good at gathering the intel, as the drones were.

But they were what he had, and he had a lot of them.

“If you can get a hold of anyone, in charge,” Brinks told Milla as he crouched by the lip of the roof and looked down over the battle scene about a kilometer away. “Do it now.”

With that, he turned his focus on the fight below.

*****

Lieutenant Sean Bermont and his team landed ‘on the bounce’, right in the middle of a firefight between three humans and one of the drones.

The drone twitched in their direction, causing the three to scatter, as its weapon drew a line of fire in the obsidian roof of the building, their own guns firing in return.

Bermont rolled under the cover that the locals were using and glanced in their direction as they stared back. For a people under attack, they weren’t exactly as jumpy as he’d have expected.

Though, frankly, they reminded him more of civilians than the military that he’d assumed they were from their weapons and uniforms.

“Stay down,” he ordered them, hoping that the translator wouldn’t give him any problems, then he popped up with the MX-112 levelled at the drone.

The Drasin drone was firing at Curtis as the former Ranger dove across the roof, the beam scorching her side. She fell and rolled to a stop some distance away, as Russell and Bermont both opened fire.

They moved forward, weapons blazing as they did and walked the fire right into the single drone in their sights with short bursts that ripped its carapace apart.

As it tumbled, Bermont waved Russell to Curtis’ side then turned back to the locals.

Corporal Samms, formerly of the United States Army Rangers, crossed the distance between himself and his wounded teammate in a fraction of a second, sliding along the smoothly fused surface of the rooftop, as he dropped to his knees beside the tough lady who had taken enemy fire.

“Jaime!” He muttered, “Come on, girl. You okay?”

When there wasn’t a response he flicked his HUD over to the tactical menu, and then called up her medical stats.

The weapon, the alien monstrosity had used had done one hell of a job along her side, either melting or maybe vaporizing away a large chunk of her armor, and ravaging the flesh underneath.

Russell had to rely on what her armor sensors were telling him though, because the Military armor had automatically sprayed hardening foam over the breach, to plug the gap and apply a coagulant to the wound. Her heart was still beating, which was a relief, but she wasn’t responding.

“Got a problem, L.T.,” he muttered as he linked into her suit pharmacy. “Curtis is out like a light. Heartbeat is strong. You want me to wake her?”

Lieutenant Bermont frowned, glancing over his shoulder for a brief moment. “Negative. Leave her as is for now, recon and secure the area. I want to talk to the locals first then we’ll see what to do about Jaime.”

“Whatever you say, L.T.,” Russell nodded, rising to his feet, more than a little relieved.

The injury she’d suffered wasn’t going to be pleasant, and waking her from it was going to hurt the tough lady…, a lot. The suit wouldn’t dispense painkillers or tranquilizers without either her or a corpsman’s authorization either, so she was going to be in a lot of pain until she woke up enough to order a couple aspirin.

He hefted his rifle and glanced around, quickly deciding on a rectangular block that looked like it was probably an access door, to the scraper they were standing on. He easily hopped the thirty-meter distance, landing on the block and dropping almost instantly to his knees, as the suit’s sensors reached out and began identifying everything in range.

Behind him, Bermont had turned back to the trio of local ‘soldiers’ that had been pinned down by the soldier drone.

“You guys understand me?” He asked, eyeing them carefully.

They should, from what he had been told. The Commander had told them all in the Pre-mission brief that this was the space lady’s home world, and her dialect should be the best handled of the translation programs they had so far, though his suit memory also held an extensive library from the refugees, as well.

One of the locals, a woman with a statuesque sort of build and very hard eyes nodded slowly, her weapon not
quite
aimed in his direction.

That was fair, after all, his rifle wasn’t
quite
aimed at them.

“Who are you?” She asked him.

“Introductions will have to wait,” Sean told her flatly, his HUD already linked to the others in the Odyssey’s assault force. “We’ve got at least another twenty of those drones inbound on our position and frankly, I don’t think we’ve got enough firepower to hold them off.”

She and her two male companions looked around in sudden nervous fear, but Sean just shrugged and held up a hand.

“They’re not here, quite yet…,” he told her, knowing that the drones he was referring to were currently being distracted by Sniper fire from all sides.

With luck, they might have time to check out the corpse of the one that he and Russell had taken down.

“What I need you to do is pack up your shit… umm gear,” Sean had to backpedal and correct himself when he could tell from the look on their faces that the translator obviously flubbed the word.

Cursing wasn’t something computer programs were generally much good at translating, as a rule.

“Cause when we move, we’ll be moving fast.”

The woman blinked, then shook her head. “We can’t jump like you…”

Sean grinned, though they couldn’t see it, “Don’t worry about that, lady. We’ve got it covered.”

*****

Milla Chans tore open the roof access panel by accident, completely misjudging the strength granted her by the armor she wore and tossed the panel away while blushing slightly under her mirrored visor.

She shook it off while moving down into the building.

The suit she wore was well equipped for communications, but had nothing it its vast repertoire of comm channels, transceivers, amplifiers, and beam comms that would be picked up by the local defence forces.

And those were precisely the people that she had to get in touch with, hopefully before some misunderstanding resulted in the local militias opening fire against the soldiers from the Odyssey.

Chapter 22

“One, this is Five.”

The signal came in, over the command channel as Brinks examined the overhead of the rooftop battle in his HUD. He pushed the schematic aside for a moment and a floating image of Lieutenant Bermont appeared in the lower corner, the soldier’s eyes flicking off to the side as he obviously was dealing with something.

“Five, this is One,” he responded. “Go ahead.”

“We’ve got three locals, plus one injured, for pickup. You have a couple packs to spare?”

“One moment,” the Major said, tapping into the Chute control programs with a flick of his finger. “Have two inbound. ETA, forty-five seconds. I’m showing five drones approaching your immediate position. You’d better pull out.”

“Will do,” Bermont nodded. “I just have one thing to do first.”

“Right,” Brinks confirmed, trusting his man to know what he was doing. “Once you get those locals clear, I’m going to drop a Tee-Bee on your location. So when I say bounce…”

“We hit the sky,” Bermont nodded with a smirk.

Major Brinks frowned slightly, but didn’t bother saying anything else. One of the problems that you encountered when dealing with special operations units, especially when what you had wasn’t a Spec ops Team, but rather, a select gathering of the best Spec Ops individuals, was the fact that they had a, perhaps justifiable, sense of superiority.

And, of course, they were all insane.

He himself excluded, of course.

The soldier smirked a little under his helmet while moving onto the next group.

*****

Lieutenant Erin Mackay listened to the radio chatter from the other teams, letting it run in the background as he and the two soldiers with him moved over to drones they had taken down.

The streets were empty as the proverbial ghost town, but his suit sensors could read the occasional motion source flicker by a window, looking out at the destruction that had rained down in the neighborhood.

The area he had dropped into was obviously a suburb of the city and the buildings here were only twenty or so stories high, not the monstrous buggers that rose against the sky to his back, as he kneeled by the drone he’d shot.