Waterloo guild series bo.., p.1
Waterloo (Guild Series Book 3), page 1
Copyright © 2020 Tim Rangnow
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-952412-04-2
Cover design: Christopher Doll
Published By: Vagabond Publishing
Printed in the United States of America
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty One
Twenty Two
Twenty Three
Twenty Four
Twenty Five
Twenty Six
Twenty Seven
Twenty Eight
Twenty Nine
Thirty
Thirty One
Thirty Two
Thirty Three
Thirty Four
Thirty Five
Thirty Six
Thirty Seven
Thirty eight
Acknowledgements
About The Author
Guild Series
One
Magdalena Richtaus, Mags to anyone who didn’t enjoy being punched, was sitting at a console in Engineering. She was scrolling through reports from everyone who reported to her, waiting impatiently for the first battle with the Syndicate fleet to begin. She had served aboard Coalition frigates for almost twenty years, working her way up to senior lieutenant, and this would be only the second real clash of her career.
The first, a short skirmish over Earth, hadn’t gone so well for her. She kept tightening the fist of her bioprosthetic left arm, a reminder of that day. Mags was trying to get accustomed to the feel of the artificial nerves running into her shoulder. After a few weeks of therapy, she’d been so sick of sitting around the medical bay that she told the doctors to put her back on duty. If not for the impending confrontation, she felt sure they would have argued and kept her in their care for another week or two.
A report came up on the screen, sent from Ensign Avila on the bridge. Mags couldn’t stop a proud smile from flashing across her face. When her young protégé had received the field promotion, it had felt as if years of her own work were being validated with approval from the captain. Knowing Natalia was posted to the bridge for the duration of the fleet battle gave her a sense of strong pride, and also a relief at knowing one of the best was keeping a watch over things up there.
“Lieutenant?” a tinny voice said over the comms earpiece she wore.
“Go ahead.”
“Chief wants someone to check on railgun emplacement three. Looks like the controls are a little sticky over there.”
“Copy, I’ll send a couple of people over.” She ran a finger down the duty roster and found two familiar names. “Nunes and Cho, hustle to railgun three. It sounds like we have some controls that aren’t responding as needed.”
“Yes, lieutenant,” a pair of voices said. Mags had no doubts that the two had found some dark corner somewhere out of the way. It was a poorly hidden secret in Engineering that they’d been getting closer than the brass liked coworkers to be. She’d have to adjust the shift schedules, keep them apart during work hours as much as she could. It was hard to deny that the pair worked very well together, though.
While waiting for the next request or update to come in, she pulled up camera feeds from the bow of the Waterloo. Since the frigate was carrying the Fleet Admiral, they were at the vanguard of the Coalition fleet. Her view was unobstructed, filled with thousands of stars as they traveled farther from Earth. The only items out of place in the picture were the seven rapidly growing ships.
The Syndicate cruiser, Indomitable, made the frigates surrounding it look like freight shuttles. It was still hard for her to wrap her mind around the fact that the corporate leaders of the Syndicate had built something so massive. On top of that, they had managed to hide the existence of the behemoth for more than seven years, constructing it in untraveled portions of the asteroid belt.
Mags had a chuckle as she thought of the reprimands and lectures the boys and girls in Intelligence had to be suffering through. When the Navy first saw the message from a Transport Guild captain warning of the existence of the cruiser, Intelligence had immediately responded with internal memos to all senior officers denying the possibility of such a thing.
Captain Andrews had shown her the communiqué during one of their shared meals. After serving on the same ships for two thirds of her career, the two had become close friends. The captain had been hesitant to question the denial of the cruiser’s existence, but Mags had known too many Intelligence officers to put stock in something that was released so quickly. Her bullshit meter had been telling her not to believe this memo, especially.
Now they were staring down the barrel, with the cruiser half an hour away from the Waterloo, and Intelligence had long since tried to cover up their snafu. The current battle plan had been created with their input, and the Fleet Admiral seemed to accept every suggestion that had come from the so-called experts in Geneva.
A chime on the comms broke into her thoughts, and she pressed a button on her console to answer the request. “Richtaus.”
“Lieutenant, I think we found the problem with number three.” Nunes sounded uncertain as she spoke. “An actuator is reporting all kinds of errors, and Cho thinks we’ll have to head outside if we want to attempt repairs.”
Mags sighed and looked again at the enemy ships. They were close enough now that she could make out individual details on the cruiser. There were lumps and bumps on the hull that she felt sure were weapon emplacements. Many more than were on her frigate.
“It’ll have to wait until after the battle, Nunes. Make sure you do everything possible from inside the ship to get that railgun working as best you can. Then head back to your stations.”
“Got it, lieutenant.”
The comm chimed once to tell her the call had disconnected. Just in time, since her new arm was starting to tingle. The doctors had warned her the nerves would go through periods of numbness and tingling as her body adapted. She walked around the room for a bit, swinging the bioprosthetic and stretching it out. She looked at the display on her console each time she passed by, to make sure she didn’t miss any incoming requests.
On the fifth trip around the room, she saw a message come in from Ensign Avila on the bridge. Mags dropped back into the chair and pulled it forward on the rail to look at the display. She frowned as she read the message, her teeth hurting from how hard she was clenching them by the end.
intruders on bridge take control three dead get ship out of battlefield can’t guns on friendly
Mags realized that she was gripping the edge of the desk with her prosthetic, and looked down to see the plastic surface dented under the silvery gray fingers. She forced herself to release the grip, and started to type at the keyboard implanted in the console. Years of military discipline told her to get confirmation from above first.
But she knew Natalia, had worked beside the woman for years and trained her. The only person she trusted more on the Waterloo was the captain himself. She sent a connection request to Captain Andrews, and waited for fifteen seconds. The request refused to go through, which only confirmed Natalia’s message in her mind. Andrews had never turned off his comms in all the years they had served together. He especially wouldn’t have done so right before the largest fleet confrontation in history.
Mags pulled up the Engineering menus, looking through the commands that had been sent through from the bridge before Natalia’s message went out. The deck beneath her feet had already started to thrum with increased intensity as the frigate’s engines flared. Natalia obviously didn’t want to risk injury to the crew, but needed to get the ship away from the battle quickly. Ramping up to a four G acceleration burn would have them passing through the enemy fleet within minutes, away from where they could cause harm to the other Coalition frigates.
The Chief was storming over moments after the ship started to speed up. “Richtaus, what the hell is going on in here? Someone just initiated a hard burn.”
Mags was waving him over to look at the message Natalia had sent when four soldiers in matte black armor burst into the room from the corridor beyond. The suits flowed over their bodies like bumpy organic skins, leading to sleek helmets that gave them an alien appearance. It struck a chord of fear when she saw them turn in her direction.
“You will cease acceleration now,” the lead soldier said in a grating electronically altered voice, deadly weapon pointing at the chief engineer.
“Okay, I’m doing it,” he spluttered, stepping quickly to Mags’ terminal. He tapped at the screen for several seconds, cycling through menus. Multiple attempts to abort the commands sent from the bridge resulted in flashing red screens and cursing. “What the hell is going on here?” he breathed just loud enough for the lieutenant to
A quiet hiss was the only warning, and Mags felt blood splatter across her face as the Chief yelled out in pain and slumped to the ground. He was holding an arm over his stomach, blood welling up from under the cobalt uniform. Mags turned in anger to see four weapons all pointed in her direction now.
“Stop the engines,” the modulated voice said.
“I can’t! The commands were initiated on the bridge. It’ll take the captain’s command codes to override them while the systems are locked down.”
The soldier’s helmet turned a few inches to the side, and Mags guessed that the intruders were talking to each other. She dropped from her chair to kneel beside the chief engineer, trying to get a look at the bullet wound. The man’s face was pale, and he was sweating intensely. His eyes were staring up at her, not focusing as they should. She hoped he was just in shock.
A hand grabbed her good arm, yanking her away. “Take us to the engine room, and tell everyone to do as we tell them. Otherwise, there will be more people like him.” The weapon motioned toward the man slumped on the floor.
Mags felt rage boiling up from within, but worked hard to keep it contained as she led the black-clad soldiers through her domain and into the main engine room. A dozen people were racing around the room, yelling out questions to each other as they tried to figure out why the ship was still accelerating away from the battle. She could feel herself growing heavier with each step, and years of experience told her that the Waterloo was passing two G’s already.
One of the engineering crew turned to see her, and his face lit up thinking that an officer had come to tell them what to do. A moment later he saw the soldiers, and his face went slack. The second person to see them reacted differently, screaming out in surprised fear and drawing the attention of everyone else.
Mags raised her hands, and shouted out to be heard. “These Syndicate bastards shot the Chief. Do what they say, or they’ll kill us all.” As she spoke, she was examining the enemy soldiers. They were well trained, and had spread out immediately after entering the large engine room. With their placement, they could keep every person in the room covered by at least two weapons, while being too far apart for an effective counterattack.
The crew were all herded into one corner of the room, forced to sit with their backs against a curving bulkhead. Two of the intruders kept weapons trained on them, while the other two walked around the room placing explosives in nooks and crannies. Mags could tell from the placement that these soldiers had received at least a rudimentary engineering education. The charges were set where they would do a significant amount of damage. If all of them were set off, she felt sure the reactor would go critical and tear the frigate apart.
“What do we do, lieutenant?” a quiet voice asked beside her.
Mags turned her head slightly to see a man she recognized from the many times she had been in the engine room to talk with the chief engineer. “We wait. I signaled the Marines as soon as I saw these bastards. They should be on the way down already.”
The frigate was approaching three G’s as she spoke. Mags could feel the increased weight pushing down on her. She couldn’t figure out how the Syndicate soldiers were still moving so freely, but she doubted that the ship’s Marines would be able to move as swiftly. If help didn’t arrive soon, the entire frigate would be at the mercy of the menacing intruders.
Two
“Charges are set, corporal. This reactor is a bit different from what we trained with, but I’m confident we can still do the necessary damage.”
Lopez couldn’t stop a smirk every time she heard her new title, even as she berated herself for taking her mind from the mission. “Detonation program A is disable, and B is destroy?”
“Yes, corporal.”
She used eye movements to tell her suit computer to create icons for each option on her main HUD, ensuring that she could trigger the explosives with a quick retinal or verbal command. Aside from the frigate’s increasing speed, her mission had gone exactly as planned.
She opened a channel with the Group One leader. “Lieutenant, engine room is secured and charges are set.”
“Excellent, corporal.” Davis sounded more strained than usual, but anyone who hadn’t worked with the man for most of a year wouldn’t recognize the undertones in his calm voice. “We’ve had a bit of unexpected difficulty on the bridge. It seems that some Coalition officers have the kind of resolve I’m used to seeing in our own ranks.”
“Is that why the engines are pushing hard, sir?”
“Yes. An ensign here initiated the acceleration and locked us out of the system. She won’t be a problem any longer, but the captain and admiral are still refusing to give up their codes.” The channel issued an almost silent static sound that told her the line had been muted.
While she waited, Lopez cast her eyes over the ship’s engineering crew. Her gaze was drawn to the officer they had encountered in the previous room. One of the woman’s hands was silvery gray, a new kind of bioprosthetic that she’d heard about but not seen. She was tempted to force the woman to pull up her long sleeve, to find out how much of her arm had been replaced.
Davis broke into her thoughts as the line went active again. “Lopez, we’ve passed by the Indomitable. Even if we could stop the engines now, we’d be too far away to rejoin the battle. Hold your team there, and maintain control of the engine room.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
Two of her group were ordered to keep watch over the prisoners, while the third was detailed to be on lookout from the previous room. She knew the ship’s Marines would attempt a rescue before the acceleration forces were too strong to resist. The officer probably thought she’d been furtive in signaling them when her group burst in, but she’d recognized the movement.
Their assault suits were built with special stabilizer frames that enabled the squad to move easily under increased gravity forces. Even though her body weighed more than twice as much at this point, Lopez could walk easily and felt little of it. Her team wouldn’t begin to feel the strain until the ship surpassed three G’s. Marine squads aboard the frigate wouldn’t have that advantage, and would have to move quickly if they were going to have any chance of fighting back.
While they waited, Lopez walked around the engine room. She looked into every dark hollow between bulkheads and equipment, searching for anything that might be different from the Syndicate ship plans that she had trained with. It still amazed her how two entities that had grown from different ideologies could build ships that were so functionally similar to each other. Perhaps her instructors had been right, and humanity always recognized the most efficient designs.
“Corporal, I have movement.” The lookout sent his helmet feeds over, showing two full squads of Marines advancing down a corridor. She snickered as she watched their laborious movements. The Marines had taken too long to respond to the request for help. It was just another proof that Coalition forces were inferior to their Syndicate counterparts.
“Gage, with me. Howell, shoot any of these crew if they try to make a move against you.”
She hurried across the engine room, followed by the soldier she’d called for. They took up position to either side of the wide aperture between the two Engineering sections. Lopez pulled up the menu for the recon drones she carried. There were six of them stored in small depressions in her armor. Each was no larger than a fingernail, capable of flight for up to ten minutes before their miniscule batteries were expended.
Two of the drones detached from her suit, filament wings moving so quickly they were almost invisible. The only sound of their passing was a small whisper in the air, impossible to notice under the sound of the engines. A couple of small windows opened on Lopez’s HUD to show the view from the drones as they sped out of the engineering section and along the corridor.
The Marine squads were spread out raggedly, some better able to handle the increasing gravity than others. She sent the drones along branching corridors to ensure that other squads weren’t approaching from another direction. Once she was certain they were facing only two squads, she recalled the drones. By the time they were attached to her suit once more, the computer marked them as expended. Their batteries would need to be recharged before she could use them again.
