The next six weeks were largely uneventful as Amir had quickly shoved his young lieutenant into chaperone duty and busied himself in reviewing training reports, disciplinary hearing reports, and whatever other reports he could use as an excuse to avoid the princess. Still inevitably there were times he had to speak to her and preparing her for disembarkment was another. Transfer to an orbital without rather than a planetside one always required a degree of zero - G training as ships docked at each orbitals hub where the spin was too weak to simulate gravity. Anyway, it was a task he sadly had concluded couldn’t be left to the Lieutenant and his dismal zero G training assessments. And to delegate to a Sergeant would be deemed a grave insult to a member of the Honourable, so he, Amir, was going to have to bloody do it.
The Zero G room was situated just under engineering as they needed easy access to it to fabricate some of the ships more specialised components. It consisted of a white padded room where the magnetic coils embedded in the floor that generated the simulated gravity extended only a foot or so into the room. Hand holds and tethers littered the room, the latter twitching slightly in the gentle breeze of the air regulator unit in one corner of the room. The princess arrived twenty minutes late accompanied by the two marines he’d detailed that morning into guard duty. The Lieutenant had wisely scarpered to avoid being invited to display his less than impressive zero G skills. At least she’d turned up in the loaned flight suit he’d sent her the night before; he was in his battle dress rated for zero G but not vacuum, but sod it being blown out of a ship in vacuum rated dress just delayed your inevitable demise to until your rebreather decided to give out.
“Good afternoon, my lady,” he said, making the correct formal bow he was required to give her the first time he addressed her each day.
“Ah Captain Choudary,” to her begrudged credit she had eventually discovered his correct form of address, “I am at your disposal. Please instruct me on how to manoeuvre in zero gravity environments.”
“Well my lady there are two key rules to remember - don’t push off too hard, it makes it harder to aim accurately, which brings us onto rule two; once you’re moving your direction is set until you hit something solid. So plan where you want to go and take your time to get it right.
“Sounds simple enough, and what pray do I have to do to get a certification?”
“For a Landsman’s rating, which is all you need as a civilian, I just need to see you move from the door and back again manoeuvring across at least four sides of the room including the door side.”
“Is that it Captain, surely not?”
“That’s it my lady, but it is not as simple as it looks.” This might turn out to be an amusing afternoon after all thought Amir suppressing a grin. As he thought this the lights dimmed once before going back to full brightness. “Ah we have successfully exited the slip my lady, we should now be just outside the without’s defence perimeter - no one wants an unhappy accident with a trigger happy defence AI - but we will be within it in minutes.”
“Thank you for the security update,” she replied witheringly, “but I’d rather get on with this training if you please.”
“Ok well, from the doorway, I’ll aim for that tether over there,” Amir began demonstrating how he set himself up pointing out how he arranged his arms and legs before gently pushing off and gliding sedately to the tether.
“Right now your turn,” he said, watching the girl copy his movements with unexpected accuracy and slowly push herself off towards him. As she glided towards him the ship suddenly rocked and moments later the harsh red lights of an alert signalled.
“What the fuck is going on,” shouted the princess.
“Come on, I’ll find out,” Amir replied, pushing off towards the wall tablet grabbing the princess out of the air on the way. Quickly placing a tether in the princess’ hands he started hammering on the wall tablet furiously to get a situation report. “We’re under attack and they’ve taken out our field generator,” he informed her quickly before tapping in his tannoy override code; that they’d taken out the field generator could only mean one thing.
“Marines to quarters, marines to quarters, prepare to repel boarders, prepare to repel boarders. Fire team two report to the Zero G room. Captain Choudary out.”
“Boarders?” exclaimed the princess.
“It’s the only reason an enemy would target the field generator of an unsuspecting ship rather than one of the more explodable parts,” Amir replied as he downloaded a route from the zero G room to the shuttle bay. “I’m going to secure you in one of the shuttles, so we can make a run for the without’s defence zone if we need to.” The problem was the only route viable was through main engineering - which was sure to be where the boarders would head first, to take out the slip drive and ensure that they couldn’t get away.
As he was thinking about that, whilst loading a round into the chamber of his assault rifle, one of the sergeants arrived with five other men in tow. “Sergeant,” Amir ordered, “We are likely to be boarded imminently. Our task is to escort the Honourable Lady to the shuttle bay, secure the bay and prepare for an emergency evacuation. Unfortunately, the only viable route to the shuttle bay is via main engineering so unless we move quickly we’re likely to encounter hostile contact.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the Sergeant before he turned to his men and ordered them into the relevant tactical formation. A good sergeant was better than three Lieutenants Amir reflected as he watched the marines fall back on their drills and start to perfectly exercise corridor movement, better than they did in training.
They moved silently through the corridors towards the lift to take them up a deck to engineering. As they approached the lift three more impacts rocked the ship. A siren sounded warning of the hull breaches. “We’re about to go hot,” Amir shouted at his men. Those impacts could only have been boarding torpedoes. At last, Amir saw the ship's main lights dim as the Whittington’s heavy duty laser batteries finally opened up on their attackers. “Quick everyone into the lift, we need to make it through main engineering before they do.”
On his smartwatch contact reports started coming through from his fire teams quartered to repel boarders. He looked at the casualty figures and his Lieutenant was one of them. His marines were dropping like flies, these weren’t pirates, this was a military incursion. Tapping again on his smartwatch he patched into the quarterdeck communication relay. “Captain Hernandez, this is Mr Choudary. I’m afraid I can no longer guarantee the security of the vessel. My men are being overwhelmed. The Lieutenant of Marines is dead. I don’t think this is a pirate attack, the level of effectiveness suggests an overwhelming military incursion.”
“Mt Choudary, this is Desai. Acknowledged. We believe this is a black flag operation. All hands have been deployed to repel boarders.” The bells signalling a beat to quarters rang out. Amir reflected that eventually the crew’s numbers would win out but that casualties would be catastrophic. Immediately as they exited the lift they saw the corridors had become crowded with ratings dashing out of their quarters and posts with hastily drawn side arms and not a fucking clue how to fight a corridor battle. In the distance he heard the crack of a side arm being discharged immediately followed by a short rasp of an assault rifle. “Clear the way,” he shouted at the ratings rushing past him as the tactical formation of his men collapsed amongst the disarray, “Sod the tactics now - get to engineering as quickly as possible.” He broke into a sprint dragging the princess along by the hand as his men also started running. Another rattle of automatic weapons fire started up noticeably closer than the last one had sounded. Up ahead he could finally see engineering, he picked up the pace and banged his security override into the lock on the bay doors.
“Friendly, don’t shoot,” he shouted as the doors slid open, hoping Chloe would remember his voice, as he leapt through the doors ushering the last of his marines inside before punching in the lock code on the main bay doors. Behind him Chief Liu poked her head up from behind a makeshift barricade manned by her and a handful of ratings.
“Fancy seeing you here Mr Choudary,” she said sardonically.
“Just passing through Ms Liu,” he quipped back, “taking the honourable lady to her carriage.” Pausing reflecting this wasn’t the time for banter, “they’ll be at those doors in minutes. You guys ready to slip?”
“The reactor needs another twenty minutes to re-charge,” replied the Chief Engineer grimly.
“I don’t think you have that,” he said. No sooner had he said that when the door started to glow.
“Get down!” he yelled, that confirmed it; no pirate would have military grade thermo-charges, he thought, even as the door behind him exploded ripping through the engineering bay. As his vision and hearing returned, he instinctively leapt behind the barricade towing the princess with him just as a hail of bullets cut down half his fire team who had been slower getting into cover. “Engineering breached, urgent reinforcement required,” he yelled futilely into the still open comms channel to the quarter deck. Not waiting for a reply he unloaded an entire clip from his assault rifle towards the doorway just as his surviving marines also opened up. He looked around as he reloaded, the princess had turned deathly pale as she gazed at the wounded and dying sailors and marines that now littered the bay and the sight of black clad, fully tactically armoured, soldiers clambering over the bodies littering the doorway. Beside her Chloe was pulling herself back up to a kneeling position but Amir could see a large stomach wound bleeding through her uniform. Then he saw it. Shit, he thought, behind him the pilot pod had been ripped right open and an emaciated naked girl, tiny, with thin curly hair straggling down to nearly her waist, had spilled out onto the floor and was vomiting out some strange fluid; gasping for breath. Quickly turning back to the doorway as bullets started to fly again he saw an enemy soldier draw a flashbang from a bandolier strapped across his chest. Instinctively Amir shouldered his rifle and fired off another clip at the soldier’s chest. The grenades detonated with a hideous bang sending another wave of shrapnel across the engineering bay but also wiping out the enemy fire team.
“Quick, barricade the door,” he yelled but to his horror neither marines or sailors responded; they had all been cut down.
“Well we’re really screwed now,” said Chloe.
“What do you mean?” the princess piped.
“That’s Ms Sparrow,” Chloe gestured to the girl writhing on the floor naked and bleeding from dozens of scratches and small wounds. “No pilot, no slip, no getting away.”
“Come on,” Amir, said scooping up Chloe, dropping his rifle to do it; to be honest it wouldn’t do much good now they just needed to get to the shuttle as quickly as they could and make a dash for the defence zone. “Your nanos responding?”
“I think so,” her eyes glazed for a second, “my diagnostics suggest I’ll survive if you can inject me with some extra trauma nanos in the next thirty minutes and seal up the wound externally.”
“They’ll be a med kit in the shuttle,” Amir barked, “come on my lady, we need to move now!” He said starting into another sprint with Chloe on his back.
“Wait!” she cried, “someone get Sparrow.”
“You know we can’t Chloe,” Amir said softly, pausing his sprint again to look back at the girl suffering on the floor.
“We absolutely can, the lady here could carry her, she barely weighs more than a child.”
“Chloe, we can’t, we’d be arrested and probably executed for having unsanctioned physical contact with her.”
“Just leave the filthy thing and let’s go,” shouted the princess.
“You just shut your mouth,” he barked.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Amir, I’m sorry,” Chloe said softly, “but we’re taking her. She’s more human than this one here” She pulled her sidearm out and aimed it directly at his head.
Fuck, this was one crazy crew on this ship, he thought. “Sod it, dead now or dead tomorrow it doesn’t make much difference. Grab the girl,” he barked at the princess, “do it if you want me to get you out of here alive.” Reluctantly he saw the princess drag the other girl onto her feet. The other girl staggered but started to limp forwards hanging onto the princess’ shoulders. The slog through the cramped chaotic corridors towards the shuttle bay seemed to take an age, some of that was Amir barking orders at ratings to try and organise them into defensive lines behind barricades as he retreated. He felt sorry for them, he was probably ordering them to their deaths. None of the barricades they were setting up provided much cover and behind them they’d be easy targets for another grenade. Still he needed to buy some time; if the mayor’s daughter died the whole crew would be on the chopping block anyway. Although, thanks to the emaciated girl they had picked up he was already a deadman - so was the Chief Engineer and the princess - the modified humans treaty was clear the punishment for unsanctioned physical contact with a modified human was death.
Finally he saw the shuttle bay doors up ahead. It was unguarded which was worrying. The marines that should be quartered here must have had to go and reinforce another position. He hammered on the control switch and the bay doors slid open. Inside the ship’s two planetside shuttles stood inert on opposite corners of the bay. Fast, lightly armed and stealthy they might just have a chance of making it out on these. "Shuttle 2", Chloe gasped, normally Amir would have been puzzled at the request but right now he was to panicked to give it much thought; instead he rushed over to shuttle 2. “Quick everyone in,” he shouted as he opened the shuttle doors and dashed into the cockpit and began the start up procedure. “Find the med kit,” he yelled at the princess, even as he booted the shuttle’s engine into life. Picking up the comms unit, he patched into the quarter deck again as the shuttle lifted into the air as he released the magnetic clamps. “Captain Hernandez, this is Mr Choudary. I’m evacuating our guest on shuttle 2 as per my overriding standing orders from the Admiralty along with Chief Liu who is critically wounded.”
“Understood,” the Captain’s voice came back through the shuttle’s speakers, there was a worrying sound of gunfire in the background. “Best of luck Captain of Marines.”
“And to you Captain,” he replied before shutting down the comms unit. One last final check and he ramped the engine up to the maximum safe launching power and they zoomed forward out of the bay, through the low velocity energy field that kept air in but let shuttles out. As soon as they cleared the ship Amir programmed an evasionary flight path into the ship's computer and ramped the engine up to full power. They all lurched as the shuttle’s dampeners failed to shield them from all the effects of such rapid acceleration.
With their course set, for good or ill, he ran over to the princess and snatched the medkit from her hands. He opened it and quickly found a vial of trauma nanobots and a tube of medical glue. Quickly stretching what was left of the skin of Chloe’s abdomen together and liberally applying the glue, then he injected the site with the vial of trauma nanobots. Before finding the morphine and broad spectrum antibiotic bots and injected both of those too for good measure.
“The girl next,” Chloe said woozily, “She’s not got any bots.”
“Seriously?” sighed Amir.
“Seriously, they’re hermetically sealed in their pod and only taken out for diagnostics by the medical team.”
Amir rooted through the medical bag before finding a single vial of general nanobots. Loading it into the syringe driver he loaded up a full dose. “I guess this means she hasn’t got a medical diagnostic implant either then?”
“Nope you’re flying blind, best hope she’s not got any internal bleeding.”
“Here goes,” said Amir as he injected the girl. She immediately screamed. Shit, he thought, grabbing a sedative injection from the medikit he quickly injected her and she relaxed and collapsed into a heap on the floor. Getting up he started to search the shuttle for some sort of equipment store. He needed a uniform, any uniform, but the chances of finding one in a shuttle weren’t great. He had no idea what they’d do if they made it to the without’s defence zone. At least if they thought she was a regular crew they might have an hour or so before a medtech discovered the lack of identity tattoo and discovered the girl. Not much to do about that but it might buy enough time for Amir, Chloe and the princess to high tail it.
“The locker, at the stern two rows down from the top,” Chloe said wearily from the couch he’d settled her in. “There’s a uniform and some other stuff in there, bring them to me.”
Confused, he opened the locker and found a flight suit with a warrant officer’s badge embroidered on the cuff. That wasn’t all there was; there was a tablet, and a tattoo pen in there as well. He turned to Chloe, shocked, “you were planning this?”
“Not like this I wasn’t,” she grinned weakly, “but you’ve met her. Whatever they do to make automatons out of pilots didn’t take with her. She’s as much of a person as you and I.”
“I’m not really here for an ethical debate,” sighed Amir, “just tell me what all this stuff is.”
“A new identity for Warrant Officer Sparrow,” Chloe replied, “hand me the tablet and tattoo gun and take me over to her.” Amir gently lifted Chloe up and carried her and the equipment over to the sedated girl. She looked up at Chloe from her stupor and smiled briefly at her before her eyes glazed over again. “Don’t worry Sparrow, this is going to hurt a little but everything’s going to be ok.” She plugged the tattoo gun into the tablet. Amir noticed all its network connections had been locked down. There was just a single app left on it which Amir didn’t recognise at all. “One of my own inventions,” Chloe offered as she saw him staring, “it’s got loaded on it a concocted service record, educational report and everything else she needs to have a convincing identity.”
“It’ll get found out,” Amir said.
“It won’t,” smiled Chloe, “I’m very good and I’ve been working on this a long time.”
“When were you going to do it?”
“Who knows - was waiting for a good opportunity.”
“What then, it’s easy to track a shuttle?”
“Ditch planet side, on a bread bowl planet so there’d be plenty of food to scavenge, hideout for a while, take it from there.”
“Not much of a plan, you wouldn’t have lasted more than a week.”
“Trust me, I’d have made it work.”
“You’re both mad,” interrupted the princess, “if you had any sense you’d shove her out the airlock right now.”
“She kinda has a point,” he said, shrugging at Chloe, “if anyone finds out what she is we’re all dead, even the Honourable here.”
“No deal, Mr Choudary, she’s under my protection,” Chloe stated as her hand returned to her side holster.
“You probably can’t even lift that thing,” he said back to her, “but don’t worry. We’re all committed now anyway. Eventually someone will collect the Whittington’s black box and the video footage will incriminate us all anyway. The princess and I might be able to argue you coerced us which might spare our necks at least but you’re for the chop Chloe.”
“Well they have to catch me first,” Chloe smiled grimly.
“Yep well two injured women, you’re not going to be the hardest to catch. I suppose I better help you.”
“Well I’m having no part of it,” the princess replied.
“You’re part of it alright, right now Chloe’s plan is all that stands between us and a hefty stretch in jail or worse. You’re part of this whether you like it or not.”
Just then an alert sounded on the shuttle’s console. Amir rushed over, “I think we’ve got company,” he said, looking at the shapes on the radar rapidly approaching. He diverted power to the weapons battery to charge the laser cannon. The fighter ships were gaining rapidly on the shuttle and soon they would be within their weapons’ effective range; far before the shuttle’s own laser cannon’s effective range was met. Amir was despairing they didn’t really stand a chance against two fighters in a shuttle. Just then the comms unit lit up, Amir opened a channel.
“Corporation shuttle,” came a voice, “This is Squadron Leader Marshall of the Walbrook Without orbital defence squadron. We expect to be able to relieve you in 180 seconds. Stick to your current course.”
“This is Captain of Marines Choudary, acknowledged. We have two hostiles on our tail, two wounded crew on board and a guest of high strategic value. I believe her to be the target.”
“Just hang in there Captain, we’ll be with you soon.”
Amir put down the comms unit. “Well, that’s saved our arses for the time being but there’s no chance of sneaking planet side now.”
“I guess not,” sighed Chloe, “I better get this tattoo drawn up.” She lifted the girl’s left wrist towards her and began tattooing the nano embedded QR code all the Corporation’s population had applied at the end of their education. It contained each person’s entire record of identity, education, conscription assignment, housing allocation and disciplinary record. Amir assumed the data had already been secretly uploaded to the Corporations database by the wily chief engineer. At least he hoped she had done this, the tattoo would be no good without it. After a couple of minutes the chief had finished applying the tattoo.
Meanwhile Amir was studying the shuttle’s limited tactical console - he was relieved to see that according to the tactical computer the without’s defence fighters would reach them just before the hostile fighters got within effective weapons range. Clearly they’d noticed that too as their batteries started opening up hoping for a lucky shot. However, Amir wasn’t too worried - they wanted the princess alive he reckoned.
“Best get that flight suit on her,” he turned towards the princess to say, “but clean her up in the head first.” He watched the princess heft the other girl into the head and the sound of running water start up. Finally, he saw through the cockpit the lights of the without’s defence squadron. He sighed with relief, “I think we’ve made it Chloe, just a short few hours until we get there now. We best wake Sparrow up and see what state she’s in. She barely looks old enough to be a Seaman let alone a Warrant Officer, who knows if she’s even coherent outside a pod and disconnected from the interface.”
“She’ll be ok,” Chloe said, “I’m sure of it.”
“Well let’s see,” Amir said. Twenty minutes or so later a visibly angry princess carried the other girl back into the main cabin. She was cleaned of most of the blood, her wounds scabbing over as the nanobots he’d injected her with got to work. Thank Allah the kit had a vial of them - that was unusual as only the oldest citizens weren’t implanted with a bot replication unit; although perhaps not unexpected if Chloe had prepped this shuttle. In uniform the girl looked slightly more plausible a sailor. She was still short, and far too skinny, but she might just pass as a wounded sailor to anyone not looking too closely. “Let’s wake her up then,” he sighed. Walking over to the medkit he pulled out a stim patch and applied it to Sparrow’s skin.
“Bring her here,” Chloe said, gesturing to the couch she was propped up against. Amir brought her over and put her gently down next to the engineer. Sparrow was starting to stir. “It’s ok Sparrow, you’re safe. It’s Chloe here. You’re safe, Sparrow.”
The girl looked up, her eyes still scrunched shut. “Ms Liu, where am I? It’s so bright.”
“You’re on a shuttle, dear,” Chloe replied, “we’re heading to the orbital”
The girl bolted upright with a speed that surprised Amir. “No Ms Liu, you must terminate me at once you are all in grave danger if you are caught with me outside a pod.”
“At last someone’s talking sense,” said the princess sarcastically.
“No one’s getting terminated,” Chloe said firmly, “we’ll find a way out of this.”
“Will we?” Amir queried, “you’ll be taken to a naval medical facility. If anyone is going to discover the truth it will be when they check her genetic profile. They might do that at once or they might do it whilst she’s in recovery, or they might not bother at all - it’s all up to chance now.”
“Well we’ll just have to get her out before they can then,” Chloe replied testily. “That’s your job Mr Choudary.”
The girl-pilot-whatever she was, had fallen back asleep still exhausted.
“Thanks,” he replied sarcastically.
“What are you going to do with the Honourable?”
“I expect she’ll be debriefed and then sent on her merry way to university,” Amir replied.
“What are you talking about,” the princess asked testily.
“You Lady Ellis,” Amir said turning towards her, “we need to work out how to get you out as well.”
“Out?”
“Out - they’ll catch up with you as quickly as they will us, so if you don’t want to be summarily executed you’re better off with us.”
“Surely they wouldn’t?” she replied, some nervousness finally edging into her voice.
“They’ve done it before. It’s the one time your status counts for nothing I’m afraid.”
“What do you mean?”
“The treaty clearly states the punishment for fraternising with a modified human is death, fifty years imprisonment if you were coerced; that’s the best you can hope for.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“Run, obviously,” sighed Amir, “it’s the only thing we can do now. Run and find some independent settlement without much by the way of security and hide out.”
“You can’t be serious?”
“Deathly, I just need to work out how we’re going to steal the shuttle..”
“How do you propose we’ll navigate the slip,” Chloe asked from where she was comforting Sparrow, “the shuttles are slaved to the Whittington’s interface. Sparrow usually controls them remotely if they have to venture into the slip.”
“I don’t know, we’ll think of something or hitch a lift on a merchantman or anything, I’m pretty much out of ideas now Chloe. We’ll just have to work it out.”