Stars in the Sand (2 page)

 “
Shuttle, ah,” she looked around, not even sure which of the craft she had climbed into in her haste, “Two, ready for launch.”

 “
One hundred and thirty seconds for preflight,” Caine’s voice said. “Guess that has to be a new record. You are clear for launch.”

 Glancing back at the passenger compartment, she saw half a dozen people strapped down, all of them armed with weapons she sincerely hoped they knew how to use. No time to wait for anyone else to climb in; she flicked a switch to close the passenger hatch, checked to make sure that all the seals were green, then pulled a lever to lower the shuttle through the elevator airlock into free space. Ready or not, here they came.

Chapter 2

 Cooper sat on the hangar deck, watching the crew bustle about at they prepared for the transition to normal space, the maintenance technicians working on the shuttles – all of which still showed signs of damage from the battle they had flown through. Only one of them was marked ‘Alamo’; the remainder still carried the livery of Hercules. Under normal circumstances, they would have been repainted as soon as they had been transferred from one ship to another, but somehow, no-one had the heart to do it given the circumstances.

 His girlfriend, Senior Spaceman Barbara Bradley, climbed out of one of the shuttles, having an argument with one of the maintenance technicians, and her vitriol gave him a brief smile. He hadn’t had much to be happy about of late; he looked down at the stump where his left hand once was, a souvenir from the attempted Cabal boarding action on Alamo. The battle that had cost him the last remnants of his once proud platoon.

 He was the only Espatier left on the ship, the others dead or captured, and as soon as they got back home again, he would be out as well. The regulations were quite clear on that; no combat trooper would be permitted to serve with an artificial hand. When he got it fitted – once there was fabrication capacity on the ship to manufacture it – his new hand would work almost as well as the old one. Almost, but not well enough. The Captain had offered to transfer him to the regular fleet, where the physical requirements were far less rigid, but it didn’t seem right. It wasn’t the uniform he’d wanted to wear.

 Suddenly, his chain of thought was broken by sirens and alarms. Somehow he had managed to miss the ship’s return to normal space, but he couldn’t miss the crew being called to action stations. The technicians switched from lethargy to frenzy as they hurried to prepare the shuttles for launch, and Barbara was called into a quick huddle with the Deck Chief along with the other pilots, raised voices suggesting that something special was taking place.

 The elevator doors opened, and Lieutenant Orlova raced out, sprinting for the nearest shuttle, pushing one of of the pilots out of the way in a frantic bid to get space-borne. People began to file in off the deck, weapons being passed around, and he stood up, running over to the technician handing them around, a life support technician named Manning.

 “
What the hell’s going on?”

 “
Don’t know. Some sort of boarding action…” The rest of the technician’s words were drowned out by the sirens as one of the shuttles slid down from the deck, on its way, presumably, to the enemy vessel. Not waiting for the rest of the story, Cooper snatched a pistol from the pile on the deck and raced for Barbara’s shuttle, only to crash into an unfamiliar officer wearing a Sub-Lieutenant’s uniform.

 “
Where are you going, Corporal?” he said.

 “
To do my job, sir,” Cooper replied.

 Shaking his head, he said, “Not as you are, you’re not.”

 “
Sir, you’ve giving guns to food technicians and sensor staff. Even with one hand I’m better at fighting than they are, and I certainly know a damn sight more about small-unit tactics and boarding actions.” More sirens sounded, the second shuttle heading on its way. “Can we have this argument in the shuttle, sir?”

 Glancing across at the other shuttle, the officer’s attention was distracted for just long enough for Cooper to sprint over to the crew airlock and scramble in, Barbara reaching out a hand to pull him into the cockpit. She gestured down at the co-pilot’s seat and he slid into the couch, then cursed as he tried to pull the harness on with a hand he no longer possessed. With an effort, he strapped himself in, as the shuttle began to descend into its elevator airlock.

 “
Where are we going?”

 “
Later. We’re last off the deck,” Barbara replied, working controls with the proficiency of a master, not wasting any trace of thrust as the shuttle span out into free space. She played the thrusters against each other, then fired the main engine up to – and slightly beyond – the red line, settling back in her couch.

 “
We’re clear. Twenty-nine minutes to contact.”

 “
Now, where are we going?”

 “
Apparently a Cabal freighter was docked at the station, and its commander decided to do the proper and noble thing – flee the system and tell their fleet where we
a
re. Given that we only just managed to get away from the bastards, the Captain decided not to let them, so here we are.”

Shaking his head, Cooper said, “We’re launching a full-scale boarding action with people who have no idea what they are doing?” He smiled, then said, “I think I can guess who is leading this one.”

 “
Lieutenant Orlova’s in the lead shuttle, though I’m going to see if I can beat her to the punch. I think I know these shuttles better than she does. The man you almost knocked to the deck is Sub-Lieutenant Nelyubov, a Hercules hand, and she apparently wanted him for this operation as well.”

 He leaned forward, fiddling with the controls, “Mind if I call her?”

 
“
Nothing else to do for the next half-hour, I guess.”

 “
Lance-Corporal Cooper to Lieutenant Orlova,” he said into the speaker. “Do you read me, Shuttle Two?”

 “
Cooper? What are you doing on board?”

 “
I didn’t get my invitation, so I decided to crash the party, ma’am. I hope you don’t mind.”

 “
Are you crazy? I hate to break it to you, but…”

 “
I can fire a pistol with one hand, ma’am, and probably with more accuracy than most of the people you have on board for this one.
I'm fit and ready for regular duty, and frankly, I'm the best you've got.”

 There was a pause for a moment, then she replied, “Good point, at that. Go and co-ordinate with Sub-Lieutenant Nelyubov, see what you can do to get whoever you have on board ready for a battle.”

 “
Will do, ma’am. Cooper out.” Shutting off the communicator, he glanced over at Barbara with a smile, “Guess they still want me after all.”

 She nodded, then said, “Gabe, I’m not going to do anything stupid like tell you not to go…”

 “
Thanks.”
 
“
...but be careful. Please.”

 “
Always,” he replied. She shook her head with a smile as he made his way through to the rear compartment. Nelyubov was sitting at the back, browsing through a datapad, while five others were sitting on couches, holding their rifles, and failing to conceal their fear. He looked at rank insignia; two of them outranked him, but there were no Petty Officers in the bunch, no NCOs.

 “
Lieutenant Orlova just told me you were on board,” Nelyubov said, looking up from his datapad. “Perhaps you could assist our strike team in getting ready for action.” Frowning, he continued, “I presume you are planning to go on the missi
on
yourself.”

 “
I am, sir.”

 Nodding, he said, “Very well. I will leave you to assess your own capabilities.”

 The youngest, a freckled red-head with ‘Cantrell’ stenciled on her uniform over her left breast, looked up at him, saying, “We’ve all had basic training, Corporal.”

 “
Which covered the use of ship-safe pistols and rifles, maintenance and some time on a firing range, yes?”

 “
You think they’ll put up a fight?” one of the senior crewmen, Heitz, said in a mild accent.

 “
Best to assume they will. That way we are pleasantly surprised if they don’t, rather than taken by surprise if they do.” He looked around the group, trying not to shake his head. They didn’t have the bearing of troopers, were not even a pale imitation of the unit that should be launching this attack.

 “
The first key is to use cover. Take advantage of anything you have, and don’t leave yourself out in the open. Now, your weapons are designed to minimize recoil, but in zero-gravity that isn’t going to mean a damn thing. One shot and you’ll be thrown all over the damn place. Get used to the idea, and make sure you don’t fire your weapon unless you have secured your position.”

 Shaking her head, her hair tossing lightly from side to side, Cantrell said, “We know this, Corporal.”

 With a smile, he replied, “I’m sure you did well enough in your basic training, Spaceman, but I’m also sure that my basic training was twelve times longer than yours. Now, I had to make do with Sergeants rather than Chief Petty Officers, but take it from me, they’re not twelve times dumber.” Cooper became aware that Nelyubov was watching him out of the cover of his eye; he wondered whether he was meeting with approval. Or whether he should care, given that his probable future in the fleet was almost over.

 “
I’ve fought in these environments before. Anyone want to tell me what the most important thing is?”

 “
Hitting the target,” a tough-faced shuttle technician called Grogan said.

 “
Why?”

 “
Huh?”

 “
Why is it important to hit your target?”

 Cantrell replied with a sneer, “Because you want to kill the enemy?”

 “
Wrong. You need to
hit
your target, Spaceman, because hitting almost anything else is likely to break something important, and at best that means that maintenance technicians like you get to spend hours tidying up the mess. Worst case, we all end up swimming home.”

 “
I thought the guns were low-powered?” Grogan said, glancing down at her rifle.

 “
They are, but that just means you probably won’t cause a hull breach.”

 “
Probably?” Grogan said, her eyes widening.

 With a grin, Cooper continued, “That doesn’t mean that you can’t damage something critical. Quite the reverse – Murphy’s Law is alive and well when it comes to boarding action
s
. You will always destroy the one thing that you can’t do without.”

 “
What are you trying to say?” Cantrell said. “Don’t shoot?”

 “
Only if you are damn sure that you are going to hit what you are aiming at. At least I don’t think that you will be going up against anyone with armor on this battle. It’s unlikely that the transport would be carrying combat troopers – but don’t underestimate your opposition.”

 “
Good advice at any time, Corporal,” Nelyubov added from the rear.

 “
Cooper, I want you up here to pick a docking airlock,” Barbara’s voice echoed through the overhead speakers. He looked over at Nelyubov, who shrugged with a smile.

 “
You’re the expert, Corporal. We might as well use you while you are here.”

He walked into the cabin, sliding down into the couch, a frown on his face. Barbara looked at him, shaking her head.

 “
That bad?”

 “
I just hope none of them gets killed as a result of their ignorance.”

 “
This whole plan is a bit on the desperate side.” She patted her hip, and Cooper saw the unmistakable bulge of a holster, “Don’t worry, I’ll be going along too. I’ve fired a gun in anger before.”

 “
I hope so.” He peered forward at the console, looking over the view of the freighter as the sensors gained resolution. “Where do you want us to go in?”

 “
Our goal is the hendecaspace drive, right?” he said. “As near as possible to their engineering deck.”

 “
We’re not trying anything clever, set up a decoy or anything like that, then?”

 “
The cleverer the plan, the more likely it is to get everyone killed. We’re better off going with something that is likely to work, especially as we only have a matter of minutes to carry it out.”

 “
You’re the expert, Gabe.”

 “
Are we going to be the first ones in?”

 Barbara glanced down at her scanner, then looked back up at him, “We are if I’ve got anything to do about it. Hang on, I’m going to set us up for turnover.”

 As the shuttle turned around, the engines briefly pulsing off as the shuttle pivoted around on its thrusters, Cooper felt his stomach churn. He reached down for the pistol, feeling the weight in his good hand, then placed it back in the holster. Ten minutes to contact. Ten minutes to worry about what they were about to encounter. Ten minutes too many.

Chapter 3

 Orlova stood by the shuttle airlock, bracing for the docking, a rifle held in one hand, her other hovering over the hatch controls. The autopilot was handling the final few seconds of the docking, homing them in to the airlocks Cooper had selected. She allowed herself a quick smile, noting that despite the best efforts of Spaceman Bradley, her shuttle was going to dock first, if only by a handful of seconds.

 “
Brace yourselves,” she said to the waiting, nervous throng behind her. All her hopes were for an easy victory here. At her back was a gaggle of eager amateurs, none of whom had fired a weapon since basic training, and her only consolation was that her opposition was likely facing the same problem. One quick glance at her watch – there were only seven and a half minutes for her to take the drive room and prevent the Ourobor
o
s from jumping out of the system, or Alamo would be forced to fire its missile salvo.