De Silva entered the Bridge to wait for the combat operation to begin. The NAV was at the plotter stroking a very affectionate Ghost, who was kneading her chest. He had her full attention. It was understandable. There wasn’t much to do. There were no other ships active, no radio communications, and only one derelict to keep watch of. He was glad that the cat was helping her at the watch.
“How are things?”
“Fine,” she said. “We’re collecting a great deal of astronomical data. This system is in a heavy bombardment cycle which will greatly alter the surface composition of Delta Hydri planetoids over the next few hundred thousand years. Orbits are very unstable. We’re fortunate to not be in the main axis of rotation. Even still, radar suggests that we will take appreciable wear on the whipple shield.”
He nodded, wondering if the planetary information they were collecting would also be valuable to their buyer.
“I’ve got all the major planetary bodies mapped out,” she said. “TURING is collecting atmospheric and emissions spectrography on the ones where we will make a close approach. Normally this information would be worth something to the company – not much, but a little. We can’t even tell anyone about it though.” She leaned down and Ghost began to rub his head against hers. “Ghost is helping me though. Aren’t you boy?”
He could hear Ghost’s vibrant purring as he approached the plotter. He stroked the cat together with her. “Well, as long as we make our contract buyer happy.” He walked up to the front of the ship, looking out of the bridge windows. Inspecting them. No potting. “Are you spending the watch all by yourself?” Ghost was great company but couldn’t assist her with supervising the ship.
“No, Samoylova is performing some maintenance in the computer core.” She picked up Ghost and took a seat in one of the consoles at the front of the bridge. He seemed just as content in her arms and happily licked her face.
He smiled at the two of them remembering solitary watches of his own with Ghost as his company. Ghost seemed to intuitively know that the bridge watch was often boring, and he was affectionate and energetic up here. But he was glad that Samoylova would be around periodically. Human company was needed.
He silently looked out the window. He was feeling better and better about the mission. The earlier anomalous reading was likely a fluke, because there was no sign of a ship. The only thing left to do was to remind the crew that they had to be ready for anything. And that need would soon be taken care of.
He relished moments like this out in the far expanse of space. This was freedom – pure and whole in a way that most of humanity never experienced. Most were afraid to, but not him. He had always heard that he could do anything he wanted. Many had told him this in admiration and expected him to do great things. Others told him that in resentment, as if he owed them some debt for his ability.
He regarded neither, and he did this work because it’s what he truly loved. Out here there was more of God and less of the sin of man. And he could live a holy life as he saw it. But soon their business plan would change and the Nineveh would spend more time amongst ports, and industry, and commerce, and sin.
He needed to make this change though for his crew. There were immediate benefits – he would see more of his wife and children. He could be a husband and father in a way that he had not been before. But, as the derelict drew nearer, he thought more and more about those words he was always told. You can do anything you want.
He had chosen a life with a large degree of solitude, a life for himself and not for God. He had kept a small church but had not grown it as he should. As he could. He thought now that he belonged back within the heart of man’s civilization. That was where he could make the needed difference. That’s where he could best use his gifts.
He would keep the Nineveh family together. He had every intention of preserving this band of believers. He would strengthen it. He had made progress on introducing Stocky to Christ. And although he realized that his infatuation with Patterson strongly motivated him, the Word was getting through. The real challenge was planting a seed of the Holy Spirit in Chandna.
Help me with Chandna, Lord. He’s been good to us. Show him your grace.
With a little urging from the Lord, he reasoned, Chandna might attend a few services. Peer pressure would help some. But peer pressure alone would not suffice. He had known enough science types to know that they rarely had a mind to God. Somehow, he had to reach his heart. Not an easy task with someone with so little feelings. He curiously wondered how Chandna’s wife managed to create a spark in his heart.
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Stocky studied the awkward, twisting machinery layout within Aux Sys Two as he went to meet up with his Aggressor team. The main airlocks were in the Aux System Gates, and so these Gates were designed to withstand a hostile boarding action. The Gate was one open chamber and all of the machinery within it was inside individual enclosures to withstand small arms fire. This gave it an unusual look. The many internal machinery compartments, twisting ductwork, and floating decks had an unsettling appearance. But they would provide hiding opportunities.
He went to the dressout station for the personnel access airlock in Aux Sys Two and met his team. He smelled a slight sulfurous, offensive odor from a human fart in the Gate. His team was in dressout, slowly putting on their skinsuit attire for the drill while engaging in frivolous conversation. Nieves was blocking the door with her butt pointing outward. She was probably the culprit, but the others didn’t appear to notice. He stayed silent, not wanting to embarrass her.
He waited outside the entrance. He considered whispering for Nieves to move. Although he held seniority to her in position, she had been aboard the ship longer than him and she was human. He reasoned that she was higher on the ladder on most matters. And it would only take them a moment to notice him.
She soon moved out of the way, and he came in giving them each an attentive nod before closing the door behind him. He hoped they would soon be more mindful of their surroundings. Then again, the other team would probably be as bad as them. Humans lived up to a low bar. He remembered one heaping pile of worthless flesh telling him that it was important to set low standards so it would be easy to exceed expectations. Thankfully, nobody on this ship appeared that lazy and base.
Everything was a simulation. The helmets and skinsuits they wore were covered with tiny sensors to register a laser hit. Their tactical visors could sweep through the spectrum, and they would obscure vision for flashbangs and smoke grenades. Some physical contact was allowed. They could knock defenders down or tackle them. He would have to be careful about doing that. He could easily hurt them even with the (slight) padding that the skinsuits provided. The rules were quite generous to the defenders. He couldn’t smash them in a fistfight, and he couldn’t locate them with smell.
“We’re outnumbered, but we have three advantages that an actual hostile boarding party wouldn’t have. One, we can start the evolution without warning. Two, we know the layout of the ship. Three, we know that most of the crew will be concentrated in Hab and Command.
We have some disadvantages too. They know we’re going to do it sometime on this watch and they know how we’re armed. And our comms won’t work once we separate. We’ll have to move with precision to succeed. Let’s go over responsibilities one last time. Patterson.”
“I set one proximity near the airlock to Sci-Med and then I take a spot to cover either access.”
“Do you already have a spot chosen?”
“Yes.”
He allowed that answer to be sufficient since it was only an initial location. They would need to stay mobile once the conflict started. “Nieves.”
“I cover the access to Propulsion Two.”
“Garvey.”
“I help Patterson with the gate access doors and then I come back to kill lighting panel A2LP16 to cut their visibility. Then I go where there’s the most heat. And you?”
“I’ll breach into Propulsion Two and I’ll kill lighting panel P2LP13 if I have time. Then I climb high up in the machinery, out of sight. I’ll take out some opposition if there’s an opportunity, but my goal is to get around them and into Habitation.”
“In ten minutes we all advance toward Command,” they said in unison.
He liked the confidence in their voices. They appeared ready. “Holly has the Bridge watch and, I figure, the Captain will stay up there too. The others don’t have the advanced notice needed to properly mobilize. They’ll come at us in small groups. If we move quick and don’t miss our shots then we might not become outnumbered. I think I know how to confuse them.”
They seemed hopeful for that possibility. They went into the airlock single file. He held out a wide U-shaped magnetic tool that they had made earlier in the day for forcing open the doors. They would work as a sort of handlebar. “Remember that the interior doors have been adjusted to free slip at fifty-two kilos of force.” He looked at Patterson. “It may not sound like much, but it’ll be an awkward lift. Don’t…”
Patterson seductively rocked her shoulders. “My back is made for carrying weight,” she said, smiling. “I’ll be fine.”
He nodded while his eyes were drawn to her breasts. He quickly looked away and composed himself because this wasn’t the time. “Just leave it fixed to the door if you can’t break the magnetic force.” He turned and placed his hand close to the access panel for manually opening the airlock hatch.
“TURING, begin drill,” Patterson ordered.
Alarms blared and he ripped the access panel off the manual handwheel and rapidly turned it to drive the hinge of the hatch. He made moving a hundred and sixty kilograms of steel and titanium alloys look easy, and he quickly opened the hatch. He wondered to himself why the Company didn’t send another replicant or two on this journey as he darted through the open passage. He heard the others hurriedly exit the airlock after him, but he focused on his own goals.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
He opened the first gate access door using the tool and felt a moment of concern. He had modified the mechanism to slip to avoid damaging the drive motor, but he hadn’t had time to fully test it. He was relieved that the door slid open as intended, and the electric drive disengaged. He wouldn’t have hours of repair work after the drill. Now confident, he raced through the access hall and slung open the access door to Propulsion Two in the same way.
He knew that their monitoring systems would detect that Propulsion Two was breached. But that worked for him. The Propulsion Gates had a unique appearance. Each was a maze of narrow walkways and constricted mezzanines layered within the heavy machinery. Signage for radiation hazards and other dangers were placed all throughout. Here, one could soak up dosage from all the stars and man’s own constructions too. They wore Thermoluminescent Dosimeters to help them track exposure with the goal of minimizing it. He figured that he wouldn’t be here long enough to impact his monthly allotment.
The Defenders would have to carefully search all of the many catwalks, mezzanines, and outboards. Although he was too big to comfortably use most of them, they didn’t know which member of his team was hiding here. They would have to split up and give his team a chance to kill the defenders one at a time.
He raced down the main corridor toward Habitation Gate and then he climbed the ladder to a cramped mezzanine. There, he took a moment to pry open the chosen panel and trip the breakers. Half of the lighting went out and he closed the panel. He climbed on top of the handrails and steadied himself by resting a hand on a nearby pipe support strut. He reached out and grabbed a curved portion of the nearby magnetoplasmadynamic thruster. Stretching, he placed his foot down on a similar support.
He flung himself against the shell of the enormous Lorentz force engine and began to climb up its exterior casing. It was uncomfortably hot. He was thankful that the Nineveh was letting Delta Hydri largely pull it in because it could’ve been worse. He looked around for the best supports and cautiously climbed his way to the top of the gate without taking a pause.
He looked down at the first group of Defenders as they entered. The quadcopter drone they had with them raced straight toward Aux Sys Two. He remained motionless. He was too far away and darkened to see in visible light, and the heat of the machinery would mask him in infrared. Their only chance to spot him was by using motion detection algorithms. He grinned when they began to split up. They hadn’t seen him. And they were becoming very vulnerable.
He recognized Moussa from his size and build. He couldn’t identify the others. Samoylova was the biggest threat, and if he took her out early then his team would likely win. First though, he needed to get closer to Command, and he needed to stay out of sight. He cautiously pulled himself along the machinery, grasping angled steel, piping, and bolts with superhuman strength and grip while a couple defenders scoured the corridors below him.
He couldn’t see most of the Defenders, but neither could they see him. Besides, they were likely engaged with the Aggressor team in Aux Two. He wouldn’t let them overwhelm his team because they were a necessary distraction. He steadied himself by bracing one hand and his feet against equipment and then aimed with his free hand. He killed a Defender on the mezzanine where he had sabotaged the lighting panel. He kept moving, confident that the Defenders would focus on the passageways first. Two more drones came into the Gate and began to search for him. They were angry.
He crossed the Gate to where he was above the door to the accessway to Habitation. He fastened a line to the structures overhead with a magnet and tossed a couple smoke grenades down (estimating the Coriolis effect from rotation) at the accessway and lowered himself down, landing on his feet within the cover. He pulled a door off a nearby locker, breaking all the hinges.
He looked around and saw a Defender wading into the smoke to investigate. He used the door panel as a shield and shot the Defender, who collapsed. The panel deflected retaliatory fire from someone else outside of his view. He used its small grille as a viewing window and glanced quickly down the access passageway. He darted in, firing back into the smoke in Propulsion Two. His heart was pounding. This was the most dangerous point.
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Things did not appear to be going well to Holly from the Bridge. Soliman, Ginting, and Chandna were all reported as KIA. Fuller was wounded. And there was still fighting going on in both Propulsion Two and Aux. Sys. Two. Zhu reported that the situation was desperate. Although there had been no confirmed kills among the Aggressors, Holly reasoned they also had to have taken casualties.
De Silva shook his head as he reviewed the report from the response team. “I’m going to head down there,” he said. “They have to be reinforced in case the Aggressors get behind them.”
She looked at him as if he were out of his mind. She rarely doubted De Silva because he had done and mastered everything. But his intentions didn’t make sense. Robbie was the best marksman on the ship. Even if the Aggressors defeated Zhu’s team – and that now appeared likely – they would be severely mauled by Robbie. It was doubtful that any Aggressors would survive to assault the bridge. But, if they did, the best option would be to work together to fortify the Bridge.
“Are you sure? Even if one of them gets out of there, Robbie is covering Habitation.”
“Robbie won’t be enough,” he said. “I told them to play to win and that is what they’re doing.” He looked her in the eyes. “Keep me informed of all developments – but quietly. Some of them have very good hearing. And take this proximity and place it where it can do some harm if one of them makes it to the bridge.”
She stared at the bomb for a second and then looked over at the door. She took it. She knew that it was a final means to win the game, but if the Bridge was ever breached by a real hostile force the only thing to do would be to scuttle the ship. The Nineveh had a Gate architecture to make it hard to seize by force. But losing Command meant losing everything.
She strolled over to the doorway. Any attacker would certainly have to be looking low. The spin gravity kept people grounded to the decks. She reached up and fixed the bomb to a conduit running across the ceiling. She stepped through the doorway and looked inside and was satisfied. That was about as out of sight as it could get. Her tablet buzzed and she looked down. Her confidence melted.
“Captain, Zhu’s dead.”
“Okay,” he replied.
“They’re reporting that the fighting has died down. They’re searching for surviving Aggressors in the compromised Gates.”
“Okay, I’m setting up with Robbie,” he said.
She returned to her station and sat down. TURING brought up a three-dimensional grid of Propulsion Two and Aux Sys Two on her console displays, and she watched the defenders conducting their search. The report of calm convinced her that the Aggressors had certainly taken casualties in each Gate. But there was at least one aggressor still active in each one. A new alarm caught her attention. “Captain, Habitation has been breached.” They’re spreading out.
“Thanks for the notice,” De Silva said. “We have a makeshift barricade set up. The Aggressors will have to come out in the open to get to Command. Just stay up in the Bridge like I told you. Once we make contact with the enemy, tell the remaining Defenders to double back to Habitation and lay traps to cover their retreat.”
“Aye Captain,” she said. De Silva still sounded confident. But she was now thinking that it may have been a mistake to pair Stocky with Patterson. And she thought she understood how the troublemakers on the Marco Polo felt.
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Stocky crossed the access and opened the door to Habitation, keeping himself behind his shield. The way was clear. He moved in, thrilled that they had made a mistake. Of course, they were certainly waiting for him in a protected location. And he knew that Robbie was the best marksman. The Defenders were still dangerous, but he breathed with increased excitement because he could now win.
Time to give them my surprise.
Stocky struck the accessway bulkhead as hard as he could with his fist. The blow shook the very structure of the ship. The general alarm siren immediately sounded, and he watched every door begin to close and the ventilation system sealed itself. The Nineveh had accelerometers strategically placed throughout to detect dangerous kinetic impacts which could threaten the crew. It would only confuse them momentarily, but that is all he wanted.
He forced open another door on his way to pick up supplies. He threw open a nearby damage control locker and dumped its contents out on the deck. His hands rummaged through its contents and found a suitable air tank on a fire suit. He disconnected it and vented the pressure off while cautiously watching his surroundings.
He took the empty tank with him and carefully crept through Habitation. He shot the ship’s cameras as quickly as he could, but he knew they were still following his whereabouts. The general alarm cutout and he knew that they were aware that the ‘impact’ was a ruse. (There was no atmospheric pressure loss after all). A quadcopter drone fixed on him, and he shot it. Defender reinforcements weren’t coming yet, so his team in Aux Sys Two were still active. He hurried to the accessway to Command.
He knew he had been spotted by Robbie when bright flashes of light came shining in through the grille of the locker door. The Captain and Robbie were behind a hastily erected barricade guarding the accessway to Command Gate. Robbie’s aim had been instantaneous and his precision perfect. But his makeshift shield deflected the shots. He took some in his eyes, for sure. But the part that made it through didn’t seem to be of high enough power to register as a hit on his suit – which had enough smarts programmed into it to know whether something was capable of injury.
It still wasn’t good to take laser pulses in his eyes - even the scaled down training lasers they were using. But he would talk to the doctors later. Right now, he had to endure more fire from them, but on his arm. He carefully felt the weight of the cylinder he had obtained to assess how he needed to throw it. Then he reached across the corner, keeping all but his arm behind cover, and hurled it at Robbie and the barricade.
He was immediately hit by Robbie’s flawless gunfire. This time it was the proper power level, and his suit stiffened to constrict movement and simulate an injury. No matter. He knew he had to take it. The throw still went off fine. And he was rewarded with a deafening crash and the Captain’s screams of shock. He heard objects tumbling and he knew the entire barricade had collapsed.
He awkwardly held his shield in front of him as he stepped out in front of the barricade to face the carnage. His canister-projectile had ruptured from the force of the impact but it left carnage everywhere. The barricade was now a field of rubble.
He shot and ‘killed’ Robbie before the robot could get up. The front of its metal frame was deeply indented from the canister. Then he shot the Captain in both of his legs while stepping through the rubble. Stocky struggled for a moment to wrest the Captain’s gun away using only his good arm. De Silva knew of his intentions and fought to keep him from getting a grip. Stocky still tore it away and then he hurled him against the wall to knock the wind and fight out of him.
The Defenders certainly booby trapped the entrance to the Bridge. The Captain had told him to play to win. That meant the Captain had ordered Holly to do the same. But a proximity charge wouldn’t detonate if he had a living Defender with him. He slung the Captain over his shoulder and haphazardly secured him with his suit’s tether line. Then he used his tool to get through the remaining doors while doing his best to keep his shield in front of him.
Holly unleashed a hail of gunfire once he opened the door to the Bridge. He protected himself with his shield while he opened the door just enough to crawl in low. He crouched down to better hide behind his shields and slowly advanced into the room. She jumped behind the Pilot’s seat when she realized her trap had failed. It easily shielded her in return because of her small size.
You must know you lost.
But he knew he needed to be careful. For a different reason now. The NAV was a tiny, frail human. She could die if he was rough with her like he had been with the Captain.
He patiently approached her to get a good shot. It wasn’t easy while carrying the shield with his ‘injured’ arm and with the Captain slung over his body. But he sensed the panic in her jittery movements and knew he only needed to endure a little more. He tossed his shield into her and then quickly killed her with two shots to the chest while she staggered back in panic. He then lowered the Captain on the deck and shot him in the head.
“Drill complete,” TURING said over shipwide comms, “Aggressor team victory.”
He knelt beside the Captain. “Are you okay, sir?”
De Silva looked back at him with glazed eyes. “I don’t know. I may have a concussion.”
I didn’t want to have to do this.
He carefully lifted him up. “I’ll walk you down to Sci-Med. TURING, tell Patterson and Chandna to get ready to receive injured personnel.” He turned to Holly. “I was ordered to win.”
She stared at him in shock. “We’ll be more careful next time.”