Attack ships, p.9
Attack Ships, page 9
part #2 of Starwing Elite Series
"I missed you, Corwin," she said to me. Then she walked up and wrapped her arms around my back. Before I could say anything, she'd slid one tongue in my ear.
I pulled her away before Rin, the only other person in the ready room, could say anything. "I missed you too, Precious," I told her. "But today Rin misses you more. No go be with him, he's not had the chance to spend time with you."
I turned around to see Rin behind me with a very angry look on his face. He'd looked forward to spending the evening with Precious and didn't appreciate me stealing his glory.
I pried her hands off me and walked Precious over to Rin. With great care, I placed one of her small hands in that of Rin's.
"Precious, dear," I told her while I kept one eye on Rin, "You are not supposed to touch anyone but your assignment when the evening shift begins. Unless you don't have an assignment or have duty. Right now, your duty is to Rin." I saw her frown, but only sensed confusion in her mind.
"Did Captain not explain the meaning of your pledge?" I asked her.
"She did," Precious told me. "But you were out there and down on the planet's surface. I worried about you."
I stepped back. The building rage inside Rin started to subside. There are few things as dangerous in this universe as a man who doesn't have sex when he planned for it. Captain had told me that several times.
"Rin asked me about you," I told Precious. "He's looked forward to spending some time with his new packmate. Do you understand that?"
I felt a bit more comprehension from her this time. A few things began to congeal in her mind. Perhaps if I worked harder, there would be more that I could do to make this better for both. I needed to use all of my personal charm.
"Rin," I told him. "Thank you for watching my six today."
Rin was speechless. As an older man, I got some degree of respect from him, although we were supposed to be brothers in the pack. Precious almost had an orgasm on the spot, I could feel the tingle she transmitted to me. And then she did the most amazing thing. Precious turned and looked at Rin the same way she'd regarded me the moment the door opened. I could feel that tingle ramp up. I needed to get out of there. She was using her powers to smooth over his reaction to the breach in tradition, and it was working.
She had her arms around Rin the moment I left. I could feel the heat from Rin's desire for Precious. The jealousy and anger she'd caused by showing affection to me was repurposed into pure, unadulterated lust for the woman he was with.
Mission accomplished.
"I'm proud of you," Captain told me when I entered her quarters. I didn't have to knock this time, she was waiting for me with the door open.
"Proud that Tank and I sat in that damn shuttle on the surface of the planetoid and did nothing?" I asked her. She shut the door behind me.
"No," Captain said as she took of her robe. "Proud of what you did with Precious and Rin. I watched it all on the camera feed." Of course, all the public areas in the ship were under an audiovisual feed that she could access at any time.
"You could have made a mess out of things, as is your standard operating procedure," Captain told me as she began to take my jump suit off. I decided to go with it.
"But you solved what started out as a big problem," she continued and took the jump suit off me. I stepped out of the leggings. Next, she began to pull down my shorts that I wore under it. Captain was down on her knees, a day I never thought would come in this ship.
"It made me excited to see you give Precious over to Rin." Captain kissed one shin as I stepped out of the shorts. She tossed them in to the corner.
"I know you like Precious a lot," Captain said as she clasped her right hand over my expanded member. "I know you wanted her tonight, but you had her last night and It's not right you get her two nights in a row. Not with plenty of men on this ship who've wanted to know when their turn would come with her, and once her results come back she'll be expected to breed."
She led me over to her bed and pushed me on the cushion. In an instant, Captain was on top of me. She was wet. Tonight, neither of us would need enhancement.
“Precious is learning a lot and it's part of my job to make sure she fits into the pack," I felt her lower herself on me and moan.
"The Udie navy took some heavy loses out there," she told me later. "I don't want to go into it, but they didn't score the final punch on the cartels they wanted to last week. Things went down on that planetoid much better than they did anywhere else. But you have to admit, it was the pirate's that took down that drug lab."
No one would admit the pirates were responsible for the bulk of the action, or ready to acknowledge how absolutely insane it was for their captain to order a warship of that size to enter the atmosphere of a planet and engage as if it was just another starfighter. I was sure of that.
"I see you’re ready again," she told me. "We’ll talk later."
A few hours afterwards, we had a chance to converse. "The Grand Marshall talked to me last night," Captain informed me. "There's another one of those Black Mirror drug labs not far from us. As luck would have it, it's on Delios Prime, the planet where everyone lives in this disgusting system."
I didn't know much about this stellar system. When I knew was from a quick scan of the available data in the ship. Most of the files don't tell you what you want to know. You have to read them with care and pick out the real story behind the facts. The local crime rates are helpful, but sometimes the planetary government wants to soften them in some areas and increase them in others. It can be helpful to massage to figures if you're applying for aid from the central council or trying to drum up the world as a tourist attraction. I'd learned to find the story behind the story.
Captain told me was what I expected. "The place is a mess," she explained. "They never had much money down there and the cartels were able to show them some serious coin so that the local lawmen would look the other way while they built huge drug labs for that crap. They hid what it was under all manner of innocent sounding names. Pretty soon, the local politicians were in the pockets of the drug lords. The drug trade made them so much money they could afford to hire the best mercs they could find. It's how they were able to turn the ones around who were supposed to work with us. Those scum only fight for the highest bidder."
We did the same thing for the UDF, but coached it in terms as "honor and loyalty" for the pack. The result was the same even if we felt better about it at the end of the day. The Orders were created to fill a need on the outer rim of the UDF. So long as we were useful to the UDF Navy, we could exist as independent tribes. Freedom is never free.
"Which means we'll have to travel to that planet too?" I asked her. "You sure this is a good idea with the damages we took from that collision? Are they going to send us a replacement FAS?"
"Yes, we have to go there," Captain replied. "No, we don't get a new FAS. At least not until this latest mess is over. Did you expect we would?" She was reclined on my chest.
"No," I told her, "I didn't. There seems to be some kind of budget crisis going on down there." I rubbed her shoulder and felt the tension beneath it.
"There's always a budget issue with the Udies. I don’t' think they've ever had the money to supply us the way we were supposed to be supplied. At least this is the song I hear whenever I complain about our needs."
"Speaking of needs," I started to say, but she was already back on top of me, taking care of them.
I took us another three days to reach Delios Prime. I don't know who comes up with the names of these planets, but there was a lack of creativity in the ones used. Delios Prime was the closest one to the star it orbited (named Delios too, of course). It was followed further out by an arid world that had little atmosphere, Delios Beta. The gas giant that orbited furthest out was known as Delios Gama. Like I said, not much in the way of creative thinking for these places.
Captain had Jalilah and Indigo on duty as bridge crew when the Hard Rain entered orbit around the planet. We were forced to take the highest level the Udie navy would assign us, as they wanted their people to get in on the action before anyone else. I noted the presence of a few other Order ships, but not too many.
"If they don't want us to get in on the fight," Jalilah observed from her station. "Why the hell did they demand we come here?" She frowned and checked the cesium level before finding the right coordinates to park us over the planet.
I was on the bridge helping out best I could. Although my primary mission was to command an FAS, there were times when my expertise was needed to help the women who maintained the mothership. Today, my prime duties involved bringing them food. Captain didn't want anyone off the bridge until she knew what the Udie navy planned to do with us, so I was assigned a waiter position. Why they didn't use one of the robotic ones, I never did discover. I think it was a way to make sure the men, who were the off-ship combat specialists, felt connected to the ship. Without such humble assignments, we'd think of our world as combat zones and bedrooms and nothing in between.
"We're about to find out what the navy wants us to do," Captain announced from her chair on the deck. "I have a message coming through from the marshal of our order. Talia, dear, put it up on one of the screens."
Talia's hands flew across her console and a screen materialized in the air. There was a hum and the face of our marshal appeared over us.
She was a bit older than Captain, but not by much. We didn't deal with her often, for some reason. Captain was closer to the Grand Marshal of all the Orders, so we dealt with him most of the time.
Marshal Nae was a woman who held her position for many years. Her own mothership, the Rose Angel, was organized similar to ours in that they maintained a polyamorous society, although with more people. They handled a different part of the frontier, so we seldom interacted with them.
"Attention Hard Rain," she announced. "The UDF Navy has discovered another one of those drug production factories they seem determined to take out." I could tell the veiled sarcasm in her voice. "I need two FAS ships with full crew down on the surface to assist the UDF tactical marines again. I will let your captain decide which two. Coordinates are on the way. That is all." Her image faded.
"She made that clear," I commented. I handed Jelilah a glass of water and returned to my post at the back of the bridge.
"Well, that's fine," Captain fumed. "They haul us out here just for support. At least I don't have to worry about the welfare of the ship. We'll be out of the action unless we're needed."
She turned to me. "Corwin, I want you and Shelly to take your crews down to the surface. Load up the same way you did the last time we made planet fall. I don't want any surprises. Stay out of the crap unless they want you inside it. We need you up here and safe for when I take us back to the frontier."
I nodded. "Permission to leave?" I asked her. "Captain. We have to get both of those FAS ships ready."
"Go," she commanded. "I'll phone Shelly and let him know it's time to go. Good thing she called us at the start of morning shift or you'd lose your assignment for the night." She turned and looked at Jelilah. "Which is this fine woman here. Now get out of here. Be back shortly but in the meantime make this woman happy." Jelilah suppressed a smile. We were used to Captain's manner of speech, but it could be an embarrassment at times.
Shelly and I took our crews down to the surface two hours later. I'd expected something like this when we were ordered over Delios Prime and made certain all the weapons and ammunition were ready to be loaded into the ship. Shelly and Tank did the same, so we were able to get both FAS ships down there quick. Tank was a bit disappointed; he didn't get to leave with the rest of us, but even the marshal knew Captain needed one FAS in reserve.
I watched the blue planet change into a landscape of green fields as we descended from orbit. The drop was quick and the UDF Navy followed us. At least we didn't have to worry about our vulnerability in descent. The navy had complete air superiority, or so they claimed. We were on the ground two hours after we left orbit.
The first thing I thought odd was the lack of any ground forces with us. The screens showed a large building of some kind outside a series of plowed fields. I sat there in the tower and tried to figure out what the point of all of it was.
"No one here to greet us?" I head Modero ask.
"Guess not," I said, still unclear as to what the whole plan was on the ground. I looked at the screen next to me.
"Here's Shelly and his guys," spoke as I saw the outline of his FAS drop itself out of the sky. Its thrusters braked the fall as it moved into our direction.
"Why don't you ask him if he's heard anything?" Orlando asked.
I was about to contact Shelly when a guided missile rose up from the fields around us and blasted his FAS into a million parts.
10
I heard my guys swear in about three different languages as the remains of the second FAS fell to the ground in a mass of flames. They exploded the moment the parts reached the ground, setting the grass on fire. I saw the earth shake around them from the impacts.
From the fields, I could see the hostiles emerge. There had to be about thirty of them in armor. The same damn mercenaries we'd tangled with on the planetoid. We'd hoped they’d left to find better work. I watched them advance slowly in the direction of our FAS. They wanted our ship. The only reason we hadn't been blasted out of the sky too was the need to get back into space. Someone knew we were on the way and laid a trap for us.
"Captain!" I screamed into the audio. "Shelly's crew is down. FAS 2 took a direct hit from a missile. I don't think anyone inside survived. We've got hostiles headed our way. Permission requested to get the hell out of here!"
"Negative," I heard her voice. "If they took Shelly I want blood. Dogfight it until I can get the Udie navy on the line."
I watched as more of them came in our direction. Now there were about fifty forms headed in our direction. The front lines dropped to the ground and began to crawl the moment I activated the chain cannon and swung it in their direction. I knew the moment I had Tran open up on them they would return fire. They'd not get my FAS, but in the end, we'd be dead, and the ship reduced to a pile of smoldering scrap. We'd join Shelly's crew in the book of fine deeds that Captain read on every Memory Day. I had no intention of becoming a memory at this time.
I let my mind seek out the mercs. There were all manner of scattered anxieties and fear, but one thing was very clear in their thoughts.
They were low on ammunition and supplies. The mercs didn’t have what they needed to do this job. One thing I did know about mercs, they didn't fight for abstract causes. They were in this for the loot. None of them wanted to die out there.
"Tran," I yelled. "Fire a warning shot over their heads!"
"How about I take that first line out?" He proposed. "They're in range."
"Just do what I said!" I snapped at him.
Tran grumbled and activated the chain cannon.
What I could see inside their heads changed my outlook.
Since, they were low on supplies and ammunition. The mer’s wanted our ship to get the hell out of there. I don't think the mercs knew the carrying capacity of the FAS, but they didn't care. All they could see was a small craft that could make orbit and link up with whoever was supposed to pay them. I doubted any of them knew how to fly an FAS, but desperate people will do desperate things.
"They're still coming," Tran told me as he watched the progress on the motion detector. "The volley slowed them down, but there's enough out there to cause a problem. Stars and stones, they get under the range of my chain cannon, and we might have to open the doors to pick them off. Laser and particle beams won't work in this atmosphere. Missiles might work, but same problem with them inside the range."
I watched as the exterior screens displayed what took place outside the FAS. I could see some of the mercs crawl; others dip below the tall crops of the fields. Some just stood there. I couldn't take off because they might have another one of those missiles that took down Shelly and his men.
In the distance, I could see the remains of Shelly's FAS burn. It sent clouds of black smoke high into the air. I watched the flames blacken the ground. The surface around it appeared pretty dry, which meant that we might be in for a brush fire. A burning field of corn was the least of my worries at the present.
"So what do you want me to do, boss?" Tran asked as he swung both chain cannons around in the direction of the mercs. "I can open up now and eliminate most of them. We might overheat because of the atmosphere, but I'll make those bastards understand we're not going to sit here and roll over. When they see their friends ripped apart and, on the ground, it might change their perspective."
I hesitated.
We could erase them from the zone around the FAS, but what would it accomplish? How did we know that the ones left didn't have worse ordinances? I held off with the order to open fire. I needed to change their minds or kill all of them, as one merc with an RPG could cut our day short.
At least the volley made them cautious. I watched as several units of mercs regrouped and try to figure out what to do next. There was a command structure among them and I speculated it might be possible to pick off the leaders. On the other hand, mercs had a reputation about not caring about who was in charge. They might be able to destroy the FAS without anyone around to instruct them.
The burning form of Shelly's FAS made me wonder why they shot it out of the sky. Did the mercs think this would help them? They had to know it would take more than one FAS to get them all off the surface. I decided that they didn't care. Someone had a missile launcher, saw two unidentified ships on their way down and panicked. Shelly and his men were dead just the same.
"We've got help!" Medoro cried out from beneath me. I turned to look at another screen that pulsed to get my attention.
From around a nearby building came four of the UDF's tactical marine hovercrafts. These were the assault models that had special rotors built into them, so they could travel just far enough off the ground to go over small fields. They weren't supposed to be used in terrains such as the one I was in, but the marines weren't known to abide by rules when it fitted their needs. The hovercrafts were armored up for battle. They were equipped with standard armor piercing shells and rapid-fire cannons that could mow down anything in their path.
