This Starry Deep (8 page)

Chapter 12 - Meanwhile

TRASKER FOUR WAS OBLIVIOUS to the battle that raged on above them. No civil defense mounted up and no government warnings were issued. The citizens went about their lives the same as they had a week before, and a week before that.

No one on Trasker Four looked up. They seldom did. Even if they cast their gaze skyward, all they would see would be the endless gray of smog and clouds, with the occasional clear patch of sky full of enough reflected light to still obscure the stars from the city below. For Trasker Four was, at this point, one giant city.

The central artificial intelligence, Squire, ran everything - including the government, for all intents and purposes. It was not, Squire reasoned, in Squire’s best interest to allow the population to look up. Instead, let them produce and live their lives productively.

Not that the people of Trasker Four thought of their lives that way. They wandered the giant city - the Archives of Buul, Northern Region of Transport, the darkened maze ways lit only by aging neon, King’s Hospitality Range, and the tree laden Oxygen Creation and Preservation Zones - thinking their lives like any other.

They knew technology as a means to an end, any end, but only used cast-offs and hand-me-downs from generations past. Straight progress, with the exception of devices for the betterment of Squire, had stopped. Adaptation of existing technology into new and unheard-of uses was the order of the day.

The black markets ruled the lowest levels of Trasker Four. The so-called middle class bought their goods from people reselling stolen items, the serial numbers and ID chips sanded off, and thought themselves honest. Upper-class families, with money enough to live in estates built high enough to escape the worst of the pollution, didn’t care about ID chips, and bought items directly from the black market - when they weren’t trying to sell to the same. Slowly, everything on the planet, in the vast city, revolved around and around, growing ever more hodge-podge.

And still no one looked up.

Once, a generation or two ago, Trasker Four traded with other nearby planets. Their spaceports were as busy as one would expect from a fully formed and modern planet, and pilots were what children longed to be.

Squire, however, had different ideas. In its quest to better its own functions, Squire decided to lock the planet down. By controlling who worked with what technology, Squire managed to shut down the people who would have served it best had it wanted any kind of progression.

The city aesthetic, for lack of a better term, tended toward large black buildings that rose high into the muddy air and created narrow, sunless streets. People left their buildings only when they had to - often working, eating and sleeping in the same sky tower. Entertainment, then, was the best and sometimes only reason to venture out onto the streets. The loud, endless engines, exhaust fans, and other machinery temporarily deafened people who forgot their noise-cancellers.

Most citizens decided that the entertainment proved worth the bother. Dogs fighting dogs, people fighting dogs, people fighting people - if you wanted to see bloody, unsupervised combat, it’s what Trasker Four provided best. Sex, illegal organ trade, and biomechanical implants all ran a close second.

Regardless, the citizens of Trasker Four considered themselves good and just people, on the whole, and lived life as it was handed them, as did many other people across many other planets. They were neither overly religious nor anti-so, and many gave voice to wanting to improve the smaller aspects of their lives and thus their own status.

In general, the city of Trasker Four, known simply as The City, found itself both as content, and as generally malcontent, as any other human urban environment. It was merely much, much bigger. But its citizens didn’t look up.

Above Trasker Four, a battle still raged. Ships fired at ships and lives were lost and won by inches. Squire tracked all of it and listened in, illegally, on the military channels. It knew of the threat and weighed its options.

Warning the population would lead to panic and work stopping. Keeping silent could mean an invasion and destruction of that same workforce. Squire’s planetary defenses were quite capable, but even it could not predict to a reasonable degree the chances for success in fending off the wave of enemy destruction, especially should the larger, galactic military be unable to prevent it.

The lost time working toward its own goals was not, in Squire’s opinion, worth the risk. The military existed for just this sort of event. Should they prove unable to defend Trasker Four themselves, Squire decided that it could save enough critical technicians to keep up appearances through the invasion. That number should also prove sufficient to repopulate the planet.

So Squire waited, and kept silent. The population of Trasker Four continued about its day, oblivious. Life went on, as it always did - full of smog and neon and buildings that obscured the sky.

Chapter 1
3
– Jonah

I HURTLED TOWARD Trasker Four at speeds that were probably impossible. That was the enduring problem with GravPacks - they made physicists nervous. Use a small gravity field to reduce inertia, keep passengers on the deck of a ship, ease takeoff, or help contain some of the stranger materials used to power conventional engines and everyone was all right with the idea.

Strap a gravity generator to your back and give it a computer good enough to help you chart a course and avoid accidently hitting a planet and everyone got nervous. The contact lenses’ HUD let me select a destination and starting point so the computer could map out a line from A to B that didn’t intersect with anything large. The auto-selector could lock onto multiple targets, generate a gravity field, and attract or repel to it across vast distances.

A small repelling field, five feet or so, kept small rocks and other debris from smashing into my body. Then the entire process came down to being able to survive a trip of the length selected. The field didn’t care, nor did the navigational systems. They simply moved your body as fast as possible. Sometimes that brushed against conventional ideas of space and time dilation, which is when the physicists started to tear their hair out thinking about what you were doing.

It took Shae’s father, Doctor Williams, the bulk of his career to realize and convince them that the application of gravity fields curved space/time in a way that seemed to, well, make it not care what you were doing. No one knew how it worked, not on a deep level, but Doctor Williams proved it could work and that it didn’t leave you with bad time dilation problems. Of course, he could also show you math that proved he was wrong.

So I rode through space at speeds truly insane, with an impossible silver bullet strapped to my back, and refused to worry about it. I’d logged more flight hours with a GravPack over the years than anyone else still alive. After a while you just trusted the thing.

Still, the travel wasn’t instantaneous. I raced the clock, even as space shifted by me. Deep Water and her strike group, what was left of it, couldn’t be doing great. Going full throttle I couldn’t use my comms, one drawback of going too fast. Instead I borrowed a trick from Shae’s book and let my mind empty.

She knew when to relax and when to move. Not an easy thing to do, for me. Still, I tried to focus on the trip instead of guessing what lay at the other end. My mind wouldn’t empty, though, even with years of practice. Meditating while in a tight spot had never quite agreed with me.

Instead I ran through my systems and checked myself on the GravPack controls. The few years since I’d taken it for a spin had left my reflexes rusty and I knew it. A blink brought the HUD online and I studied my destination charts. Trasker Four didn’t have many satellites around it, and if the strike group was heading out along the vector I was rushing in on there wouldn’t be much in the way, locally.

In combat, the GravPack could select multiple targets to both attract to and repel from, picking localized spots near them and moving those spots a slaved distance from the actual target. I didn’t want to lock directly onto a ship in case I dragged it back to me by mistake.

Those targets were used to describe arcs and paths that continually shifted. Combat in a GravPack was half dance, half jumping off a building, and half sheer madness. Back when my own strike team was still around, we were all great at it, from formation whips to multiple target switching. This time it was only me and whatever handful of ships remained.

I ran a second systems check and then a third, trying to make absolutely sure that I felt ready to drop into combat. In my head I wasn’t, not quite. Down below that, though, my body sang out at being pushed and responded by craving more.

System alerts rang out in my earpiece and I slowed down as I got close to the action. I dropped into the middle of a battlefield like a bullet that lacked a target. Better than dropping down to a dead stop, I reminded myself as I had to fast-switch target points and avoid a missile.

“Deep Water, this is Jonah, do you read?” I said as I tried to drink in my surroundings at speed.

“Where the hell are you, how’d you get here so fast, what the—” she came back with quickly.

“GravPack. Pop a low blinder for me to spot you.”

A few seconds later, one of the ships, one of the human ships, lit up brightly before banking hard. I switched to target it and closed in quickly. From our starting numbers of thirty we were down to, at my quick count, only five ships. The enemy counted something like twelve. Not good. Not good at all.

I tucked myself in under Bushfield’s ship and watched the fight for a minute. Seeing lights on a board didn’t work for me, I needed the full picture. And once I had it, I saw the problem.

Not only were the enemy ships faster and far more maneuverable than our ships, but they didn’t seem to use a consistent flight pattern, choosing to regroup and scatter at strange intervals. There was math behind it somewhere, but I couldn’t get a lock on it.

“What the hell are you doing with a GravPack?” Bushfield asked.

“With this I have a shot at being faster than they are, that’s what,” I answered, “and I think it’ll work.” I outlined a quick plan and she agreed.

Taking off toward one of the enemy ships at speed, she played chicken with it, heading right in. Both ships opened fire, though neither looked ready to break off. Little did they know.

She broke hard, relative up to the cockpit of the enemy, and I split off, selecting its underbelly as my new attractor. I blinked quickly, selecting my options and wishing I could wipe my forehead. No sweat. Just one of those desires that hit in the middle of a firefight.

This guy didn’t know what to do with me. He thought I was a missile at first and did the normal flare-and-chaff scatter response. So I closed my eyes and trusted that my proximity field would keep the crap off me. I lowered it from five feet to a suicidal two. I wanted close and personal.

He cut tight, and I wasn’t sure if even my GravPack could keep up with him. Turned out that it could. The selector shifted clean and I targeted his upper wing. As I came up on him, I let the proximity field stop me two feet out and then cut it out of the loop. My fingers grabbed around the wing and I kept my head out of the sweep of his engine.

With my free hand, I grabbed my gun and put it right against the wing. Pulled the trigger and couldn’t help but grin. Not many people got to ride a fighter by just holding on in deep space. Perk of my life.

Time for basking later. I sliced through his wing, slower than I wanted, and cut the engine free while he tried to shake me. The first roll wasn’t a big deal but with the second I set my GravPack to slave to his ship. He couldn’t toss me off no matter what he tried, after that.

I let go of the wing, not needing a handhold once I was slaved to his ship, and used my now-free hand to grab the engine before it flew off. It’d need to cool before I stored it - the raw edge where I’d cut was bleeding heat and light. But it wouldn’t disable him badly, much less take out his ship.

For that I decided to go the easy - if messy - route. A few blinks and I selected an attractor field around his cockpit. Not just near - around his actual cockpit. Then I stood and waited. Slightly showy and wasteful of time, but it would tell me a lot about how well the ships were made.

The seals on the cockpit gave, and I cut the attractor and ducked as it ripped free. It flew past my head cleanly. Fine. The seals were no better than ours. That was good to know. Engines they knew, clearly. Some things were evenly matched, though.

The pilot wore his gear and kept trying to shake me off even after losing his cockpit. I couldn’t clearly make out what he looked like. Bipedal, his helmet was elongated, but otherwise he was just a life form in a cockpit. A life form flipping a switch and glancing back at me.

Crap.

I took a chance, a lifetime of instinct kicking in. I was rusty, but I wasn’t that far gone. I undid my lock to his ship, reversing it to repel myself far and fast. Good timing, too, as he self-destructed. All right, they’d rather die than get caught. Got it.

“Jonah, come in, did you get clear?”

“Roger that. Also, have an artifact for you to get back to HQ on the quick. Who can you spare?”

“Spare?” Bushfield asked, incredulous. “No one!”

“Wrong answer. Who?”

I picked another target and slaved myself to it, dragging myself in despite his attempts at ditching me. No one these days was used to GravPack combat, and these guys didn’t seem like they’d ever even heard of the concept.

“Frogger, this is Deep Water, respond,” came over the radio.

“Yeah, boss?”

“Jonah here has a gift for you. Quick march to HQ with it.”

“Jonah?” Frogger asked.

“He’ll come to you. On a GravPack.”

“Deep Water, we can’t spare me, I don’t care who…”

I pulled up a HUD display keyed to the strike group’s frequency and got call signs over layered over the ships. Much better. I focused over toward Frogger and grabbed onto the underside of his ship. Luckily for me, ships still had storage doors on a separate airlock, just for this kind of problem. Need to grab a friend, or a bit of evidence while on the fly, just tuck it into the hold.

Except the hold didn’t open. I noticed the chatter stopped, but guessed he has switched to a private channel to argue with his flight leader in private. We didn’t have time for that. I said as much over the main channel and the bay door opened. I tossed the engine inside and hit the manual close, snatching my hand back before the door cut it off.

“This is Deep Water,” the radio cut in, “When Frogger breaks, press the attack. Don’t let him get tailed. Copy?” Everyone, myself included, copied her on her order.

Frogger cut out and the rest of us circled the wagons. The enemy, damn them, didn’t care. They regrouped long enough to wedge toward us and then scattered with enough speed that it reminded me of a group on GravPack. And maybe that was the answer. Fight them like they were a GravPack strike team. It couldn’t work
worse
.

I radioed my idea to Bushfield who admitted she didn’t know the tactics - they basically didn’t teach them much anymore, and no one drilled the few bits that were still mentioned. So I trusted in her ability to get her team together and explained as fast as I could.

We had to funnel them through and take their maneuverability and speed away from them. It wouldn’t be easy with slower ships and fewer numbers, but it was, at least, possible.

I started toward another enemy ship and it fired some kind of missile at me. My display lit up with warnings that I cancelled as quick as possible. I could see the blasted thing, I didn’t need to be told where it was.

I hit it with a repel angle, keeping my lock on the ship that fired it. I had to jack-knife my body to keep up and felt my knee pop from the stress of it. I lost focus for half a second as the pain flared. It’d be fine. Just hurt like a bitch.

I knew I’d made a mistake, I needed a third field set-up to pull the maneuver off, and my knee pop distracted me just enough. I’d just started to switch all fields onto that missile when it exploded. Bushfield’s ship cut sharp between me and my target, a passing black blur.

“Thanks,” I radioed.

“I’m your squad leader, that’s my job,” she said, “now finish him off, huh?”

I grinned to myself and hit my pack’s systems harder. I came in on top of the ship, flipped over and came to rest near the cockpit. Gun out, I cut through the cockpit quick and grabbed at the pilot. He hit the self-destruct before I could pull him clear and I had to bail. That was two, but I wasn’t satisfied. We needed to grab one alive.

The rest of the strike group tried to box the remaining ten ships, to not-great success. We were down to four ships, and me on top of that, but still. Then Bushfield had an idea. “Guys,” she came on over the radio, “everyone but Jonah, launch half of all remaining missiles on my mark. Target blank space near the enemy but not on top of them. Let them have room to scatter. Set fifteen-second fuses when you launch.”

It was a great plan. I felt stupid for not seeing it earlier, and I’m sure she did as well. The strike group readied itself and launched. The enemy scattered, as expected. The missiles went off and the bursting explosions were fairly random, but covered enough area to do the job.

Some of the ships wobbled in their patterns, slowing down, two got caught square and exploded. Eight to five felt much better. And most of that eight was now dinged up enough to be fightable.

I came in at another ship, Blue Water on my tail. Bushfield was sticking close to me. Either she was worried I’d screw up again or she felt flying my vector gave her a chance to peel off and deal with something else if need be without worry. Couldn’t tell.

I popped an enemy ship from a distance, my gun managing to wobble the engine a fair bit. The ship spun and started to bank without intent, and Bushfield nailed it with her nose guns.

I was stupid. Too close to the explosion, still locked on. I got sucked into the heat of it before I could retarget, my own combat rust playing its hand. My GravPack spazzed out and the HUD went offline for a reboot. While it did, I couldn’t do anything but float. Dead in the water - which is when I realized that my comms were out, too. Damn.