Starship Eternal (War Eternal Book 1) (25 page)

"I know, but-"

"I said shut it."

Cormac lowered his eyes. "Yes, sir."

Millie turned her attention to Ilanka. "Yes, Rain?"

"I just wanted to publicly welcome Ares to the squad, especially as my wingmate." She turned her head to look Mitchell in the eye. "It's an honor to fly with you, Captain."

"Thank you," Mitchell said.

"Yes, Captain, welcome to the Riggers," Millie said. "Here's to good hunting on your first mission with us."

The response from the gathered crew was uniform. "Riggers! Riigg-aaah," they all cried as one. Mitchell noticed even Anderson joined in.
 

It seemed maybe there was something to the so-called team-building exercise after all.

"I hate this part," Ilanka said.

Mitchell tilted his head over to where she was sitting, strapped into the cockpit of the Piranha. He raised his hand up so she could see him waving at her from his own position in the cockpit of the S-17.
 

"If we're lucky, we'll get to spend a nice evening hanging from the launcher."

Millie had decided the two pilots would be running hot, which meant that the fighters had been hooked up to the ship's launch system and suspended from the ceiling, facing straight down towards the bay doors. The air and gravity had already been removed from the space. If their services were needed, the hanger doors would open and the launcher would give them a solid push forward, a small boost before they fired their own thrusters and cleared into space. The position and the strategic placement of a mechanical false ceiling had also served to hide the fighters from the Federation inspectors that boarded the ship to assess the cargo of ore.

"We've cleared inspection," Millie said, her voice echoing in his mind through the p-rat. All of the crew had been outfitted with the updated software, and the new encryption scheme that Mitchell could only hope the enemy, any enemy, couldn't crack. "Sunny, your team will disembark in five."

Mitchell had managed to catch a little bit of the scuttlebutt that was surrounding the mission in the three hours between the briefing and the moment they dropped out of FTL. He had learned that Sunny was First Sergeant Sang Yi, a former Army Special Forces sniper, and that the blonde was Private Caleb Smith, Mouth, her voice and lover. It seemed that for as much of a stone-cold killer the woman was, she had terrible social anxiety whenever she wasn't running a mission.

Their plan was to have the two soldiers, plus two others in their assault group, go on leave from the ship, armed with carbonate blades that would avoid detection from both frisking and scanning. They would make their way to the Federation Plaza - the hotel where heads of state always stayed. Once they were there, they would use a scanner that Watson had surgically implanted into Mouth's calf and connected to the neural implant to scan for the Chancellor, using readings that had been provided by intelligence.
 

When they found him, they would have to improvise on how to reach and capture him, most likely trying to infiltrate his security team, or take control of his transportation. If that failed and they were caught, Shank's team would be dispatched to raise havoc on the station and give the ghosts the distraction they needed to attempt a retreat. The fighters would be launched to cover an attack on the Schism. Once everyone was back on board, the Schism would tear away from its moorings, back off a little bit, and launch its two warheads at the station. Surviving that would be questionable, because they had to keep close range to fire inside the shield web. They were banking on the hope that either their own shields were enough to deflect the resulting force, or that they would be able to disable the web and get far, far way from the dock.

It was the best plan possible for an impossible mission that was only half a step above suicide. Like Millie had said, the members of the Riggers knew the alternative. Project Black existed to try to execute on bold, stupid ideas, and so far they had somehow come away intact.

"I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't shown up," Ilanka said. "This mission is crazy enough, and to be running support on my own? Bezumnyy."

The whole idea was that they wouldn't be needed. If they were, things were already beyond desperate.

A tone sounded in his mind. "Sunny, you have a go," Millie said. Mitchell hadn't expected to have a line into the full squad communications, and was surprised to find that she had grouped him in.

"Roger, Captain," Mouth replied. "Wish us luck."

"Good luck. Good hunting." A new tone sounded, the channel switching. "Shank, is your team in position?"

"Ready and waiting with itchy trigger fingers," Shank said.

Another change in tone.

"Rain?"

"Reactors are online, all systems are nominal."

"Are you having fun yet, Ares?" Millie said.

"I'm hoping I won't have the chance to, ma'am."

The comm switched off, leaving Mitchell in complete silence. He kept his eyes on the helmet's display, which was showing him a map of the star system, the station, and all of the ships both parked at it and orbiting nearby. The dock could hold forty large starships at a time, and it was currently filled with a mixture of traders and military. Frontier Federation military. There were another two dozen or so ships within sensor range, mostly transports and merchants.

It was the cruiser that worried him. The other military vessels were smaller frigates and patrollers - armed and dangerous, but not nearly as much.

"So Rain," Mitchell said, trying to break the silence and ease some of the thick tension. "What squadron did you fly with, before you landed here?"

"The Black Knights," Ilanka replied. "I'm surprised you didn't guess."

The mech was a Knight.
 

"Did you steal it?" Mitchell asked.
 

Ilanka laughed. "No. The Captain requisitioned it for me. I have A-plus rating on it. She's been my baby for almost ten years."

"Have you seen a lot of combat?"

"Not as much as you have, I think. Navy doesn't launch many ground assaults these days. I think that's why Millie was able to get it transferred."

"What about the fighter?"

"Purchased in the Rim. It was stolen, just not by us." She laughed again, a hearty, throaty laugh. "I know you were with Greylock. How did you wind up a Space Marine? I think you could have been actor, or model."

"Me? I think my mother might be the only one who would agree with you on that."

"Don't be silly. You have pretty face, nice body. I know. I saw."

Mitchell was glad he was wearing the helmet. She wouldn't be able to look over and see how red his face was getting.
 

"Thanks, I guess. Would you believe I lost a bet?"

"I don't believe you lose very much."

"I did that time. A bet with my younger brother, Steven. I grew up on Earth. The original Earth. In Arizona, the United States. We had these old-fashioned off-road bikes, the kind with wheels instead of repulsers, the ones they make for nostalgia. We picked a spot, and he bet me he could beat me out to it and back. It was over rough terrain, lots of inclines and obstacles. We're lucky we didn't get ourselves killed then and there. Anyway, if I won, he joined the Marines. If he won, I joined."

"So he won?"

"Affirmative. Then he joined the Navy. He commands a destroyer now, a few thousand light years closer to home. Rear Admiral Steven Williams. He's prettier than I am, too."

"Is he married?"

"Are you interested?"

"I might be."
 

It was a joke they both got. Mitchell knew the only way he was getting off this ship was to either die or figure out a way to escape, and he didn't want to escape unless it meant reaching the Goliath. Being here, sitting in a cockpit, ready to die in an attempt to kill a Federation VIP... It was all he had ever really wanted. It was something he was sure he'd lost.

He could only hope the price wasn't as high as M had suggested.

"So anyway," Mitchell said, "I signed up the next day. Took the physical, and then went in over the weekend for the testing."

"Did you score well?"

"Average," Mitchell lied. "How about you?"

"Same. I think I would have done better, but I've never been very good at math."

"I don't even know why they still have that on the test. AI takes care of any calculation we could ever want."

"In event of system failure," Ilanka said in a deep, monotonous voice, mimicking the training streams they had all been forced to watch.

"At which point, you're already unconscious and sucking space," Mitchell said. "God, I hated that series."

Ilanka was laughing heavily, enjoying their banter. Mitchell couldn't help but smile. He was enjoying himself, enjoying loosening them both up and regaining the camaraderie he had lost the day the Greylock, and Ella, had died.

That was the moment everything went to hell.

The tone in his ear was shrill, an emergency signal. A woman's voice followed after.

"Damn trap... They were waiting for us... Son of a bitch... We've been had... Mouth is dead. Coming home."

He didn't recognize the voice. He assumed it had to be Sunny. Her breathing was hard, her anger obvious in her voice.
 

"Shank, get your team out there," Millie said, across the emergency channel.

"Already on the move, Captain," Shank said.

"Ilanka, hanger doors are opening now. Track your targets, buy us some time."

"Roger," Ilanka said. The mirth was gone. She was stone cold.
 

Mitchell felt his heart rate increasing. He watched the display on the helmet. The Federation cruiser had changed color, indicating that its main engines were warming.

A flashing blue light issued a warning, and then the hanger doors began to part beneath them, silent in the vacuum. They opened quickly, faster than was probably safe, likely another modification added by Watson or Singh. As soon as the doors were open enough for them to squeeze through, the launchers fired, releasing them and shoving them ahead.

Mitchell hit the throttle with a thought, pushing the ship forward, careful not to lose course and hit Ilanka on the way out. The Piranha was smaller than the S-17, more narrow and tight, with rounded stubs for wings. It was made for space combat only, so there was no need for a configuration that provided lift.

"The patrollers are the primary targets," Ilanka said. "We won't be able to do much against that cruiser. Stay close to the Schism."

They shot out of the hanger and shifted their vectors, rocketing up and over the top of the salvage ship. Mitchell looked down as they passed, catching a glimpse of the bridge with the cracked viewport and Millie sitting in the captain's chair, her head back and linked to the Schism's CAP-NN.

"We lost Rover," Sunny said. There was a grunt over the comm, and then a man's scream. "They just lost somebody."

"Shank, sitrep," Millie said.

"Clamping bay, ma'am," Shank said. "Pinned down. Security is in full exo. This was one hundred percent trap. They knew we were coming."

"How, damn it?" Millie shouted. Mitchell could hear the frustration and anger in her voice.
 

They were dead. They were all dead. His first mission.

"Sunny, sitrep."

"Trapped between the Federation ambush and the security detail. There's no way through."

"Shit," Millie said. She was losing her cool, fast. "We're going to shred the clamps. Shank, you have sixty seconds to punch through that detail, and then I want you falling back."

"Captain, the inception team is going to be caught."

"Don't you think I know that? There's nothing we can do."

Mitchell winced, his jaw clenching. How had the Federation known they were coming? How could they know anything about them, when only a select few in the Alliance knew the ship existed at all?

"Ares, incoming," Ilanka said.
 

Mitchell checked his display. A patrol ship was rounding the top of the dock, getting into position to open fire.