Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire

From SSDC, Inc.

Written by: Scott Tulleners

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His opponent advanced a half step and dropped the hand guard of his fencing blade slightly. Ivan mimicked the drop. If he did it correctly, it would look unintent…

His opponent took the bait. Launching himself forward in a fast advance-lunge, he extended his epee for an attack to the top of Ivan’s arm.

Ivan followed the pattern he had set in previous touches and retreated half a step. He began a clockwise circular parry designed to sweep his opponent’s blade to the outside of his body. As expected, his opponent was ready and circled his blade clockwise also. Partway through his parry, Ivan lifted his hand slightly, exposing the bottom of his forearm. As his opponent dropped his hand to thrust at Ivan’s exposed forearm, Ivan dropped his hand guard to protect his forearm, advanced half a step, and finger-whipped his blade so that it would bend over his opponent’s hand guard. His intention was to use his hand guard to block the attack on the bottom of his forearm and simultaneously whip his blade over his opponent’s guard and onto his forearm.

He wasn’t quite fast enough. Both lights glowed as the scoring box buzzed.

Ivan muttered a Russian curse under his breath. The practice dummy stopped and retreated to the en garde line to wait for him to continue. Turning to the training screen, Ivan commanded, ‘Display the action with a focus on the forearms.’

The wall-mounted screen opened with a smaller screen in the upper left corner. As the wide angle began to play in the smaller screen, the larger screen zoomed in on Ivan’s forearm. Ivan watched intently, replaying the action several times.

Ivan was a hair taller than average height with the wiry build of a martial artist. He stayed in shape with a daily calisthenics routine and in condition with martial arts and fencing practice. The first two were practical, but the fencing was strictly for fun.

He was not a handsome man. His square face and prominent forehead gave him a rather brutish look. Ivan kept his thick black hair cropped close and used depilatory creams to keep his jaw clean-shaven. The slight fold of his eyes suggested that one of the Golobitski’s had taken an Asian wife, but his pale skin suggested that was relatively far back.

His usually spotless fencing whites were wet with perspiration. This session had been one of the most intense he had experienced since he had trained for the Hartford Junior Olympics. The shipboard practice dummies were wonderful training tools. They could be set to repeat specific actions or to a freeform setting that allowed the training room computer to direct it to a scaled level of skill. The flexibility of the system was incredible. The Black Star Space Lines had obviously spent a lot of money on the star liner to make it that way.

Ivan had walked in a few days ago to see a human doing unarmed combat with one of the Ram Python models. As he had watched, he had come to the conclusion that the muscular man had to be enhanced in some way. The contest was not as unequal as it might have seemed. The human was highly skilled, and a vicious, dirty fighter who knew quite a bit about the physiology of the big lizards. He had certainly used pressure points and nerve strikes to his advantage. What had impressed Ivan almost as much was that the training dummy had reacted realistically to the man’s attacks.

After watching him, Ivan modified his training regimen to finish his practices on the highest skill level. It was hard on the ego, since the dummy almost always got the touch, but he was getting more double-touches, and occasionally he would get a single light in his favor. That was always heartening since it meant he was getting better.

Ivan was replaying the action for the fifth time in slow motion when he sensed someone approaching him from behind. He turned to see a tall, aging Eridani striding toward him. The warrior moved with a silent grace that told of his prowess, even if Ivan had not known that the length of his long red hair signified great deeds accomplished.

The swordsaint’s plain black armor was spotless, and so far as Ivan could see, unscarred. A lock of braided gray hair with a shiny bead hung from his belt. The unornamented swordhilt protruding over his right shoulder appeared to be well used, but what was visible of the unreflective gray metal of the blade was free of nicks. It fit what he knew of the warrior race. The Eridani provided only the best equipment for their revered heroes.

The Eridani stopped in front of Ivan and gazed down at him impassively. He stood at least a head taller and was much stockier. Ivan knew he was severely out-classed if it came to combat.

Ivan felt his shoulders tense. Inhaling deeply, he tried to relax. Sometimes it took a few seconds for him to do so.

He hoped that he had not unknowingly affronted the warrior’s honor. The last thing he wanted was to get involved in another honor duel. He had done that once in a weapons practice his old platoon had conducted. He had won that duel, but that victory had caused a large amount strife in his unit. The Eridani were almost always vain about their fighting prowess, and having a ‘mudig’ human beat one of them was a grave embarrassment. The Eridani had a rather violent way of resolving embarrassing situations. It was all so pointless. He was a soldier, but he favored diplomacy over violence when it came to personal relationships.

As Ivan released his breath slowly, he tried to release all tension. It only partially worked

The deep lines of the Eridani’s face softened as he smiled. It was a curious expression, almost as much a predatory baring of the teeth as anything, but there was a studious lack of hostility or threat in the warrior’s posture. For an Eridani, a willingness to learn human customs was a rarity. An Orion friend had once told Ivan that it was a learned expression intended to help them deal with humans effectively. Randy Andy had added with a smirk that the Eridani used a more pointed way of relating to Orions.

He had gone on to explain that the Eridani used a different facial expression as their equivalent of a smile. It had something to do with their eyes. Ivan had never actually befriended one of the proud warriors to know exactly what it looked like.

‘You have repeated the same action thirty times. Why?’ The Eridani’s deep voice was almost gentle.

‘I haven’t perfected this counter-attack yet, ‘Ivan told him. ‘It’s a counter-attack that I can’t always rely on, so I’m going to work on it until I can repeat it successfully.’

‘What will you do then?’

‘I’ll add something else to work on. Sticking to the basics is the only way I’ll get better.’

The Eridani studied him intently. ‘It is rare that humans show such dedication to excellence. They do not have the devotion to duty to practice in such a manner.’

Ivan shrugged. ‘Maybe not to duty, but I have quite a few friends who work hard to develop their skills to the highest level possible.’ It wasn’t wise to blatantly contradict a warrior of Eridine. ‘Some of the others in my fencing club back home practice for three and four hours a day. I only have time to practice for about an hour and a half.’

The Eridani seemed content with the answer. ‘I have not seen that in humans before. I am pleased to learn of this. It gives me hope for your species.’

Puzzled, Ivan asked, ‘Hope?’

After observing him carefully for a few seconds, the Warrior of Eridine replied, ‘I fear the destruction of your people, for war comes.’

In a third class cabin one deck down, Deron Kline, or Dee to his friends, sat at his computer terminal. Interlacing his fingers, he turned his hands palm-out to crack his knuckles. Leaning back in his chair, he put his hands behind his head and glanced up at his companion.

‘All right Lieutenant. Just give the word,’ he told his companion smugly, ‘and we own this liner.’

Deron heard a faint whir of servos as Lt. Brandon Rudeski shifted his weight and looked down at Deron. He could see the Lieutenant nod through his armored visor as he told Deron, ‘Do it.’

Deron paused to enjoy the moment. In a few seconds, he would pit his skill against the some of the better cyber-jockeys and computer security systems in the Alliance. The back door he had secreted in the Black Star Space Lines software upgrade appeared flawless. It should be. He had spent almost three years developing it. Even so, something could always go wrong. When you added code to anything as ponderous as a system upgrade package, you could never be sure how it was going to work. The anticipation made his pulse race to think of it.

He decided to savor the feeling of nervous anticipation for an instant longer. The slight twitch deep in his belly was a welcome sensation. Deron lived for the excitement of that moment just before he broke into a system. For him, it was the proverbial moment of truth when he would discover whether his preparation was successful, or whether he was going to be caught. It was a heady draught.

Beside him, Rudeski shifted impatiently. He would not want to wait for very much longer.

In the past, Deron had waited as long as ten minutes to trigger his work. The nervous pleasure he took in the knowledge that long months, years in this case, of effort might fall apart in a matter of seconds made him eager to prolong that moment of anticipation. There was a point where he knew he had to trigger it, or he might lose the courage to do so. That instant just before he lost confidence was when he truly felt alive.

Before this, his work had always put only his own life in jeopardy. Now, Rudeski’s team was counting on him to work his magic. If he failed to foresee and overcome some obstacle, Hicks, or Kaash, or possibly Odo could be injured, killed, or captured and executed. His stomach gave an uneasy twist at the thought of failing his friends. The moment had finally come. Without moving a finger, Deron gave the mental command through his neural interface.

For that single instant measured in centuries, nothing happened. Then he got the command console image. Deron smiled broadly. The three years he had spent planning, splicing, and programming paid off as the carefully tailored code initiated.

He was quite proud of his work. As things stood now, if they tried to trace his work, they would find only what he wanted them to find. He had gone undercover as a Black Star Space Lines contract employee about a year ago to allow him to use the most recent software upgrade to spread his code throughout their network. It took a few, simple, innocent commands to trigger the whole thing and allow him to take control of the Anterion Class Star liner Oberon’s Dream.

He glanced smugly up at the Lt. ‘This ship is yours.’

Throughout the ship, the anti-hijacking devices initiated and the passengers slowly fell into an induced slumber. Some, like the Eridani and Python races, fought it before succumbing. Others, like the Misha, Fott, and Furbles, curled up and went to sleep immediately. Most of the other races were somewhere between the two.

Two members of Rudeski’s commando team converged on the first class suite assigned to one Rollo Royce. When they got there, they picked their way through the partiers in his suite seeking a match for the genetic signature on their bio-scanners.

A few centimeters on the short side of average, Winton Hicks was wiry rather than muscular. He was not a particularly memorable man. It was a trait he put to use effectively as the team’s infiltration specialist. Rumor among Rudeski’s Reavers had it that the team’s last refit was the result of a jaunt he took through the Balshrom facility on Torvalin. Neither he nor Rudeski would say anything about it, but a generous shipment of replacement hardware had mysteriously been delivered to a public storage facility where the team had picked it up.

Winton Hicks opened the door to the bedchamber. The bio-scanner indicated that an Orion male and a pair of human women were under the covers on the bed. He pulled back the sheets enough to expose a limp, masculine foot and tapped it with the wand of the scanner. The small ‘scanner’s screen blanked for an instant as it compared the genetic signature of the Orion with the signature contained in it’s memory. It finally came back with a match.

‘Isaac. He’s in here.’

Winton slung his thermatic and began to pull the lanky Orion from the limp embrace of the ladies he was frolicking with. Somehow they had twined themselves into the bed sheets. After struggling for a few seconds to unwind the Orion from his attractive playmates, he called to his teammate, ‘Hey Isaac, could you give me a hand? This guy is wrapped in pretty tight.’

His companion, a large minotaur-like Jezzadaic Priest was waving one of his many talismans around the parlor of the suite. The tall Jezzadaic lumbered his way to the bedchamber and gently unrolled the trio before pulling the unconscious women away from their hedonistic quarry. Slinging the Orion over his armored shoulder, Isaacithalonirdam made his way to the door. Shaking his head in amusement at the ease with which his friend had accomplished the task, Hicks followed.

‘M’friend, you make this easy.’

Isaac nodded ponderously. ‘Strength and size, properly used, can be a great asset, but patience is always needed for the proper application of these traits. Time and time again I am amazed that your species has managed to bring any project to completion. Human impatience is surely one of the…

Winton followed Isaac through the door. The big Jezzadaic continued talking as they moved down the expensively decorated hall toward the elevator. Winton made the necessary noises of agreement as they walked. Isaac was an excellent medic. His medical care was well worth putting up with his long-winded observations.

They turned a corner. At the far intersection, Winton could see Jean Luc, the team’s Ram Python, waiting patiently in front of the elevator. He was covering corridors in all three directions. As they moved toward him, Jean Luc shifted his thud gun to cover them.

They were halfway down the hall when the big lizard thumped his tail-mounted battle mace once on the deck in recognition. As Jean Luc shifted his aim away from them, Winton exhaled in relief. Being in the field of fire of a high-end omega weapon always made him jumpy, even in the hands of a professional like Jean Luc.

Jean Luc cocked his head to the side the way he always did when listening to orders. Nodding once, Jean Luc hefted his thud gun easily in one hand as he motioned with the other.

‘Come. Come. Hurry, Rudeski say ‘Hurry.’

Isaac and Winton walked faster.

As they got to where Jean Luc stood guard, the elevator doors opened and the three commandoes stepped in.

As the doors slid open on the engineering deck, Jean Luc moved out first, careful to be sure that the intersection and connecting corridors were clear. The delta wave generators placed in strategic points of the ship were supposed to knock all beings out, but Rudeski’s Reavers had not gotten their reputation by being sloppy.

Isaac took the middle position as they moved toward the engineering command bay. The doors slid open and they entered. They moved among the consoles toward the Auxiliary Bridge that was in the center of the room.

Enclosed completely in glasteel, the Auxiliary Bridge was designed to allow a skeleton crew to run the ship even if the engineering bay had to be opened to space. It had rations and water storage, and even a small space where a cot could be set up. All systems could be monitored or run from there. Shortly after Rudeski had given Deron the order to take control of the liner, he and Deron had moved to the Auxiliary Bridge.

Deron looked up as they walked in.

‘The ship’s security log mentioned a party. How bad?’

Winton Hicks looked distastefully at the peacefully slumbering Orion on Isaac’s shoulder.

‘Bad.’

Seeing the curious look on his friend’s face, Hicks explained, ‘Sodom and Gomorrah.’

Dee shook his head, snorted ‘Orions,’ and went back to monitoring the security sensors.

Rudeski told Isaac to check him for escape tools, put the prisoner in restraints, and to take him to the star liner’s holding chamber.

Hicks asked Lt. Rudeski, ‘Do you need me for anything?’

The Lt. shook his head. ‘We’re on course. We should make the rendezvous with the HaRuthasha in about 16 hours. The passengers and crew will be out until we transfer, so if you want to stand down, you can. If I need you, I’ll call you.’

With a nod, Hicks started to sit down in the seat next to Dee. He stopped as his armor was bumped from beneath. Hicks stood and glared at the apparently empty seat.

‘Darn it Odo, you could have warned me.’

Over the commo link, the diminutive Mutzachan replied dryly, ‘You could have asked.’

Moving to the chair on the other side of Dee, Hicks sat down.

‘Did it go as you planned?’

Dee grinned smugly. ‘Yep. I waltzed right in and took it over. It worked just like I planned it. Seamless.’ His grin widened. ‘I’m really excited about pulling this off. This is the highlight of my career so far. I can monitor everything on this ship. The automatic systems are designed to take care of everything anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal to change our course.’

He continued, ‘It was actually more challenging to go back through and make it appear that the tampering had been from the suite of our Orion friend there. I ‘erased’ any signs of tampering of course.’ With a smirk Dee added, ‘If it works as I believe it should, investigators will suspect Jade triggered an old slicing program. It was one I got from a former associate of mine. I’d love to see the look on their faces as they realize it’s a time bomb from about 5 years ago. It was cutting edge at the time, but now only highly effective. The authorities should still recognize DoorMat’s fingerprint though.’ Dee shook his head sadly. ‘They worked hard enough to set things up so they could shoot him without a trial.’

Winton put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Dee.’ He leaned back into his seat. ‘It sounds like you’ve done a lot of work to throw off any pursuit.’

With an uncharacteristically modest shrug, Dee acknowledged, ‘I’ve done what I can. I don’t think anyone but one of their better cyber jockey’s could track what I’ve done.’ His expression brightened. ‘If they can, then they will be a real challenge to beat.’ He grinned. ‘I know. I sound like a total geek.’

‘Yep,’ Winton agreed with an indulgent grin, ‘That you do.’ Dee could be an egotistical pain, but he was also one of the best slicers Winton had ever seen. He was somewhat sheltered, even after almost six months with the Reavers, but he pulled his own weight and more. Their current op would have been impossible without the little cyber-jockey.

Dee interlaced his fingers and put his hands behind his head. ‘Well, I am. But think how much more difficult this operation would have been if I had not been able to work my magic.’

Lt Rudeski interrupted, ‘Have we heard from the ‘Ruth yet?’

Deron turned the chair. ‘Nope. I don’t think we should until we are about ten hours out.’

The Lt. nodded. ’Thanks.’ He turned back to the screen he was observing.

On the Transicruiser HaRuthasha, Captain Lizbet Serento hit the intercom. ‘Ralouf, report.’

‘Not much to report down here.’ The Orion drawled. ‘We’re still working to figure out why our long-range sensors kicked out. The hardware seems to be working fine. I can’t detect anything that would cause a problem. The only other option that I can see is outside jamming of some sort.’

He paused, half-expecting an explosion, but that would not come. Ralouf had known Lizbet Serento for over six years and had a pretty good idea of how she was likely to react. Still, he occasionally expected her to blow up like the late Captain Sorothras.

She didn’t surprise him. Her voice was studiously tension-free as she stated, ‘Nothing’s wrong? Keep on it, will you?’

‘Sure thing Boss Lady.’

As he cut the connection, he yelled to his assistant. ‘Razelprhing, kick it up a touch. If we don’t figure out what’s wrong with the sensors, we’re going to be in for it hot.’

The Goola Goola grimaced and turned back to his station. He began speaking to the console in a low voice. Ralouf watched him for a second before turning back to his own station. The space dwarf was mad as a hatter, but the best engineer he had seen in over thirty years experience on an engineering deck. He had an instinctive sense for troubleshooting a problem. Admittedly, his tendency to ask the equipment what was going wrong with it and to continue the conversation as though it were responding was disconcerting, but if Razelprhing couldn’t track an issue, then there was definitely something else going on.

That concerned him. They were supposed to make the rendezvous with the liner Oberon’s Dream in fourteen hours, and their long-range sensors were not working properly. Anytime a ship lost its sensors, it was always a problem, but losing their sensors for no perceptible reason was a real cause for concern. This was increased because their Imperator transicruiser was specially equipped for infiltration and stealth. The loss of their sensors took away the ship’s primary purpose and strength.

If their mission had not been so critical, it might not have been so serious, but their orders came directly from the Fat Man himself, so it was top priority. Ralouf nodded to himself. Yes, there was a definite cause for concern.

In the HaRuthasha’s ready room, the alert klaxon sounded. Anne Bishop grabbed her flight helmet and tossed her wingman’s to him. Rudy Degenered had been sleeping on the couch when the alert sounded, but he woke quickly and with the presence of mind to grab the tossed helmet as he stood to run for the flight deck.

They ran out onto the narrow catwalk that led to their cockpits. The Imperator transicruiser was not large enough for a proper flight deck, so instead it had been modified to allow for a pair of snub fighters to be docked back to back in the main cargo hold. The cockpits faced each other across the meter wide catwalk. It had taken Anne and Rudy about twenty minutes to figure out how to enter their slightly offset, sideways cockpits without falling out or getting in each other’s way. Ralouf, the chief engineer, had welded a pair of handholds to the catwalk handrail to make it easier to climb into their cockpits. Rudy, a relatively stocky and clumsy man, used the handhold to support himself as he climbed the side rails of the catwalk into his cockpit. Anne mounted her cockpit with the grace of a gymnast, using the handholds to swing herself lightly into her seat.

As Rudy and Anne strapped in, their flight mechanics came up to help them run their final flight checks. Captain Serento’s regular drills had allowed the launch crew to develop a high degree of speed and precision. Within two and a half minutes, they had gone through the initial flight procedures, used the remote sensors mounted on the walls of the fighter cradles to inspect the fighters, and were closing the canopies.

The flight mechanics exited the flight deck, cut the gravity, and evacuated the atmosphere. Anne and Rudy tightened their seat restraints the rest of the way and waited. Rudy went back into the semi-drowse that he was accustomed to wait for a launch. Anne was too high-strung to do anything like that, and waited impatiently for the launch or recall order. She was hoping it wouldn’t come to a launch on this mission. That would mean something had gone wrong. There was too much riding on its successful completion.

On the Oberon’s Dream, Deron called, ‘I have the HaRuthasha on sensors.’

Lt. Rudeski spun and walked over to look over his shoulder. ‘The ‘Ruth is visible and Captain Serento has not hailed us yet?’

‘Nope, not a word,’ Deron told him. ‘I can see she’s locked, cocked, and ready to rock, but I’ve not noticed anything that might indicate that she knows we’re here. Her intercept course is actually a bit off. I can correct, but it’ll add about an extra half hour before we can get to her.

The Lt. paused for a minute before nodded. ‘Do it.’

Deron gave the necessary commands. ‘It is done.’

Captain Serento turned again to her Misha Navigator/Tactical Officer. Eualo sat with his head resting on his hands. He had been in his race’s peculiar precognitive dream/sleep for about an hour. She was getting nervous watching him. Whenever he was out that long, usually that meant something big was about to break.

A glance at the ship’s status display showed all the systems were operating efficiently, but she knew the sensors weren’t working right. Somehow, she had the feeling there was some preparation she was overlooking. Ralouf was running diagnostics on all the systems to be sure they were in peak condition, and she had her snub fighters ready to launch. Her turrets were manned, and the ship was locked down for combat. Until Eualo awakened or the sensors displayed some information, there really was nothing more she could do.

The intercom whispered ‘Engineering.’

Serento keyed her mic. ‘Serento.’

Ralouf sounded worried. His usual drawl was clipped, and his tone was worried.

‘Lizbet, we have a problem. Razelprhing just ran a detailed check on the long-range sensor suite, and it appears that our problem is gone. We’re off-course, but the Oberon’s Dream has modified it’s course. We should intercept her in about two hours.’

A glance at the main screen showed nothing. Serento told him so.

‘I know. That’s my concern. I see Oberon’s Dream clearly. I also see something else, or rather the absence of something. I’m not sure what it is. If it’s jamming like I suspect, then it’s a very subtle form of it. I can’t put my finger on it, but I just have a feeling that…’

The rest of his comment was drowned out as Eualo shrieked. His normally transparent skin became a milky white. He began struggling to get out of his chair, but his seat restraints held him in place. Serento hit the quick release on her seat and stood just outside arms reach.

‘Eualo. Eualo.’

At the sound of her voice, the diminutive Misha calmed. He sat looking around his Tac/Nav panel wide-eyed, sharply drawing in his breath every couple of seconds.

Gently, Serento told him, ‘Eualo, you’re safe.’

His skin slowly regained its customary transparence. He shook his head. His normally soft voice was husky with fear.

‘No, we are not. We are going directly into harm’s way.’

He looked directly into her eyes. His normally nearly transparent eyes were clouded with white.

‘I saw the HaRuthasha take multiple weapons hits and explode.’

Serento was startled by that. She asked, ‘Who did it?’

Eualo closed his eyes. After concentrating for a few seconds, he replied softly, ‘I believe it was Arachnids.’

‘What actions led to our destruction?

Eualo paused for a second before he shook his head. ‘I am not sure. I believe we launched the fighters and maneuvered to protect the civilian liner.’

He shut his eyes and inhaled deeply. Serento was pleased to notice his breathing was deep and slow again. A minute later his eyes snapped open.

‘I just realized why we would die to protect people who hate us.’ He looked directly into her eyes. She noticed they were beginning to cloud again. ‘Michael Bernel is on that Liner. It is to protect the future of the Rebellion.’

Serento was taken aback. The Fat Man should have been en-route to Mars, not traipsing around in the boonies of the Andromeda galaxy. ‘You’re sure?’

Eualo nodded. ‘I did not recognize him, but I do remember why we were attacking an Arachnid ship instead of fleeing.’

‘And it was to protect The Fat Man?’

‘Yes.’

Pensive, Serento pursed her lips. After a minute of going through her options, she walked back to her command chair and strapped back in. Keying the intercom, she keyed the intercom to the fighters.

‘Rudy, Anne.’

Rudy responded. ‘Here.’

‘I need you to launch and…’

Eualo signaled that he needed to talk to her.

‘Just a second.’

Serento swiveled her command chair to face the tiny Misha.

‘Yes?’

Eualo shook his head. ‘We need to keep the fighters here. When the Arachnids come, we need them with us to provide a defense for the liner. The tactic we used, and the only one I could think of, was to accelerate on an intercept course, launch the fighters powered down, and then engage the Arachnid. We maneuvered on a course that would allow the fighters to intercept the Arachnid ship. We will have to sacrifice ourselves to allow them an attack run.’

‘I don’t like the sound of that. There has to be a better way.’ Serento bit her lip. ‘In the meantime we’ll have to contact the liner in another way.’

She keyed to intercom. ‘Rudy, Anne, False alarm. You can relax again, but be ready. Eualo thinks we’re in for a rough ride.’

Serento keyed Engineering.

The Orion’s drawl was back. ‘Ralouf here.’

‘I need to contact the Oberon’s Dream without risking anyone intercepting the message.’

Ralouf didn’t reply immediately. Serento could picture him running through a variety of scenarios in his mind. The Orion was…creative.

‘I assume you’re holding the fighters back for a reason, but I could modify a message drone to home in on the liner instead of base in a few minutes.’

Serento smiled. ‘Do it. I need to be sure that they get my message as soon as possible.’

‘They’ll get it.’ Ralouf told her confidently.

‘Good,’ Serento replied. She cut the line.

She turned back toward the Misha.

‘Now, we have some planning to do. I want to know exactly what you remember. I’m going to get Ratoloth in here to take command and we’re going to figure out how to keep the Fat Man AND ourselves alive.’

---

On the Oberon’s Dream, Deron sat up suddenly. ‘Lieutenant. I think we may have a situation.’

Rudeski got up from the chair he had dozed off in.

‘What is it?’

Deron pointed to the sensor screen. ‘I’m picking up something approaching us. It’ll pass close by, but it isn’t maneuvering to attack. The computer believes it’s a message drone.’

‘How long is it until it is at its closest point?’

Deron shrugged. ‘We should pass by in about 15 minutes. I’ll be able to get a better look then.’

With a nod, Rudeski replied, ‘Let me know if it does anything.’

Deron sighed and held his tongue. Sometimes he got tired of the military types restating the obvious. He grinned despite himself. Then there were all the times that the reminders saved his life. All in all, he could live with it.

A few minutes later, Cy Bergan walked in. Cy was a tall, lanky man with sharp, angular features that Deron always thought resembled a weasel. He had a biting wit and delighted in targeting Deron. Cy leaned his laser rifle/grenade launcher combo against the navigation console and sat down.

‘Just for the record,’ he announced to no one in particular, ‘This liner is just begging to be looted.’

Lt. Rudeski looked up sharply from the sensor screen he was observing.

Cy popped his helmet visor open and grinned. ‘Got your attention didn’t I, Lieutenant?’ He shook his head. ‘Nah, everyone’s still sleeping like babies. There were a few that had injuries from falls and stuff, but Isaac is working on them. We got the rest resting a bit more comfortably. Everyone’s in a cabin, but…’ His grin widened, ‘We couldn’t resist having some fun with it. We put a couple of the Orions in with the ugliest females we could find.’ He chuckled. ‘You should see the Sye-man we left the one guy with. I figure that will be a story to hear.’

Deron made a face. ‘That’s disgusting.’

Cy smirked, ‘You should have seen the one we were going to save for you.’

Rudeski interrupted. ‘Enough. No more jokes, Private. The Rebellion has a bad enough reputation without adding to it with stupid jokes. Do you remember where you put these beings?’

‘Lieutenant,’ Cy complained, ‘don’t tell me you’re going to have us separate them. It was enough of a pain to move them the first time.’

With a shrug, Rudeski told him, ‘You shouldn’t play games when you’re on a mission.’

Deron interrupted to say, ‘Lieutenant, the computer has ID’ed the contact as a message drone. Shall I initiate retrieval operations?’

Rudeski nodded.

Deron gave the command and turned back to see Cy walking back toward the door. Cy’s muttering faded as he shut his visor. Deron shook his head in bewilderment. He had been working with the team for about six months, and for some reason, Cy had taken an instant dislike to him. That animosity had never diminished his effectiveness as a team member, but it could be annoying.

Deron looked up at the Lt. ‘It’s decoding the message…Done. It’s from the ‘Ruth. I’ll put it on the screen over there.’ He pointed to one of the auxiliary displays.

Rudeski thanked Deron as he sat down to review the message. After a few minutes, he turned in his seat.

‘Deron, can you bring up the passenger roster?’

Deron gave the command and routed the roster to Rudeski’s screen. ‘Done. What’s up Lieutenant?’

Rudeski gave him a tight smile. ‘We are about to get a visit from the Arachnids, and Michael Bernel is on board.’

On the HaRuthasha, Ralouf and Razelprhing were finishing the final cuts on a sheet of hull armor. The Captain had apparently had another one of her occasional flashes of brilliance. She had them making flechettes from hull plates. Ralouf kept a number of odd-sized sections on hand in case they came in handy for some odd project of his, but he still didn’t quite believe they were going to try what she was suggesting. She was crunching the numbers even as they worked, trying to see whether she could really pull it off. It was an unlikely plan, but it sounded like it had potential. Of course Rudy and Anne didn’t like the modifications to their fighters, but that was fine. They wouldn’t gripe so much if it worked. A visit by an Arachnid patrol ship was definitely a cause for desperate measures.

The HaRuthasha was severely out-classed by the standard Moranath Arachnid patrol ship. The ‘Ruth just didn’t have the armor or weapons to slug it out. The ‘Ruth did have an advantage in its slightly stronger flux shields, and hopefully in the surprise of having a fighter complement.

The plan was for the ‘Ruth to do a hot burn to build up velocity, release the powered-down fighters, and then maneuver to engage the patrol ship and lure it into the fighters’ flight path. Once the fighters were within range, they would power up, ‘fire’ the flechette bundles using compressed air and then begin strafing and missile attacks. In the meantime, the ‘Ruth would be drawing the patrol ship’s attention and doing as much damage as it could. There were quite a few risks with this, but it was the best plan Serento and Eualo could come up with given the situation.

One common weakness in Arachnid patrol ships was their relatively weak flux shields. Arachnids built powerful flux shield generators into their capital ships, but preferred to rely on speed and maneuverability to protect their patrol ships. This may have worked against other forces the Arachnids had faced, but given the high degree of cooperation espoused by Alliance and especially Human fleet doctrine, it often left the Arachnids at a disadvantage.

To help offset this, later Arachnid designs had included the addition of a directional flux shield that was used to block attacks from the patrol ship’s strongest opponents. This worked well when used against a single opponent like a transicruiser, but Serento was counting on the powered down fighters to be her trump card. By giving the patrol ship something to focus on, she hoped to give Rudy and Anne a single pass on the weakly protected sides or stern of the Arachnid ship. They were going to release the flechettes from pods strapped to their fighters. Inertia would turn the hull armor flechettes into high-speed projectiles. Serento’s belief was that the impact of the flechettes would either weaken or knock out the patrol ship’s flux shields, leaving it exposed for missile and beam strikes. It wasn’t an elegant solution, certainly. Rudy and Anne couldn’t help but wince with every turn of the wrench as they helped their flight mechanics strap the hastily-fabricated flechette pods to their fighter’s wings. It hurt them to deface their sleek FireCats like that, but it was worth it if it offered them a fighting chance to avert the fate Eualo saw.

Rudeski assembled his team in the engineering bay. He started without preamble.

‘I just heard from the ‘Ruth. Eualo had one of his precognitive flashes and saw the ‘Ruth destroyed by an Arachnid patrol ship.’

He paused as Cy interrupted him. ‘Isn’t that just great. We’re on a stinking sky scow and we have Arachnids coming to visit. Fantastic.’

Bishop snarled, ‘Let’em come. We took’em in Styvesk and we’ll take’em here.’ He smirked at Deron, who was still sitting at the control console. ‘Think you can handle an infestation, boy?’

Deron glanced over at him serenely. ‘I believe I can. It wouldn’t be my first encounter with the bugs.’

Cy snorted. ‘Yeah. Right.’ He added to no one in particular, ‘The newbie’s going to get us all killed.’

Rudeski commanded, ‘Enough.’ He glared at the two of them before continuing.

‘The other thing Captain Serento told us is that Michael Bernel is on this ship.’

That got everyone’s attention.

Bardish-ican, the team’s pulse gunner asked, ‘On this ship?’

When Rudeski nodded, the Eridani continued, ‘What is the plan to get him to safety?’

‘We have to find him first.' Rudeski told him. 'As always, he is traveling incognito. Deron and I have a basic search plan, but if anyone has any ideas, let me know.’

‘To further complicate things, the ‘Ruth’ is having sensor problems so she isn’t even able to tell us whether the bug ship is nearby.’

Isaac, the minotaur-like Jezzadaic priest rumbled, ‘What is our window to get him to the HaRuthasha and get away with enough time to allow the ‘Dream escape?’

Rudeski replied, ‘We have to find him at least an hour before the Arachnids arrive. If we find him in time, the Oberon’s Dream should be able to get away also. If we can’t find him, then we have to fight the bugs.’

‘In the event we can’t find him in time, Captain Serento has a plan that is risky, but may provide us the time to get away. The problem is she’ll have to fight the bug ship.’

He looked at each of them in turn as he continued. ‘I don’t think I have to tell you the ‘Ruth’s chances of survival in combat against even a bug patrol ship.’

He nodded toward Deron. ‘Deron believes he has narrowed down Michael’s location to a number of cabins. Deron has downloaded the search plan.’

Rudeski glanced at Deron. After a second, Deron nodded.

Rudeski continued. ‘The first step is to check his cabin. If he is not there, then we have to start searching.’

Rowan asked, ‘How are we going to recognize him? He is always disguised.’ The big man nodded toward Kaash. ‘Our feline friend there can smell him perhaps, but I suspect Cy, Bishop, and I won’t have a snowball’s chance of identifying him.’

Deron spoke up. ‘I’ve downloaded his stats into your bio-scanners. There are fifteen human males on board that roughly fit his profile. The best we can do is to keep track of where we find each of the possible candidates. Remember, he always has bodyguards. We need to get them too, and we have no way of knowing who or what race they may be.’ He admitted, ‘This is going to be difficult, but no different than some of the other Search and Rescue ops I understand you’ve done.’

Rudeski ordered, ‘Break into your teams and get started. I’ll let you know as things develop. The ‘Ruth should be within shuttle range within about half an hour, so we don’t have much time.’

The team of commandoes moved quickly and silently from the room.

---

Two hours later, the team still had not found Michael Bernel. They had located the fifteen human males, and none of them was the Fat Man. Deron was getting frustrated.

‘This is ridiculous,’ he griped to Odo. ‘I’ve been using the ship’s security systems to try to find him for the last two hours, and I STILL can’t find him. No wonder he drives the Alliance crazy. We’re his friends and we can’t find him.’

The short Mutzachan merely grunted. He found this human fascinating. When he had a puzzle to solve, he tended to complain bitterly about whatever he was working on, but his mannerisms and facial expressions invariably seemed to fall into the category humans referred to as ‘cheerful.’ Odo had also noticed that the closer he came to a solution, the more he complained.

Odo relaxed. Just for fun, he did some swift mental calculations based on previous observations he had made of the small human’s mental problem-solving process, and came up with a 93.5374682% chance the human was going to find Michael Bernel in the next five minutes. As Deron began explaining his next search criteria, Odo opened a channel to the rest of the team and began taking bets.

It was exactly 3.356 minutes later that Deron yelled ‘I’ve got him. He’s…’

He paused. His eyes widened. ‘Oh frackencrack.’

Deron turned toward the console where the Lt. was reviewing passenger information and bellowed, ‘We’ve got company. I just picked up an Arachnid Moranath Patrol Ship heading straight for us. It’s moving extremely fast. We have about fifteen minutes before it’s within weapons range.’ He glanced back at the console, but he was monitoring the systems with his neural interface rather than his eyes.

Under his breathe, he commented, ‘I wonder how they got so close so quickly?’

Rudeski snapped, ‘Get Serento on the comm.’

An instant later, Captain Serento’s face appeared on the main screen. From the camera angle, she was using the forward cockpit camera. Behind her, Eualo was wide-awake and furiously typing away on the tactical console.

Rudeski forced a calm into his voice. He HATED being in space combat. There was no cover in the void.

‘We’ve found Michael Bernel, but we haven’t gotten to him yet. We’ll provide what long-range fire-support we can.’

Serento glanced to the right. Turning back, she shook her head.

‘Negative. Get clear. We’ll squash this bug for you. Just get Michael clear.’

She hit a button on her left console.

‘I’ve just uploaded the course you need to take for the rendezvous with the Aru-anidan. Get moving. We’re going to be too busy to worry about you.’

Rudeski nodded. He fought the urge to clench his fists. He HATED watching friends go to their deaths without being able to do anything. He was about to comment that the ‘Ruth was severely outclassed and that the Oberon’s Dream turrets might help, but he held back. She was the expert. It was unlikely that he could tell her something she didn’t already know.

Serento leaned forward slightly to hit another button. Rudeski glanced at the sensor screen. The HaRuthasha was accelerating swiftly toward the Arachnid ship.

‘It’s going to be dicey, but Eualo and I think we have a bit of a surprise prepared for our Arachnid friends. Just get moving.’

Rudeski clenched his fists, but his voice was calm as he replied, ‘Good hunting Captain. Tear off a chunk or three for us.’

Lizbet Serento bared her teeth in a forced smile. ‘Thanks Lieutenant. We’ll do that.’ She glanced toward the left and hit a pair of buttons. ‘Prepare to launch fighters.’

Glancing back at the camera, she said, ‘Good luck to you, Lieutenant. Deron has the coordinates for the next rendezvous. Get moving.’

On the screen, Rudeski saw missile fire from the Arachnid. He saw no information on whether it hit.

‘May your shots run true, and your foe’s astray, Lizbet.’

The first Arachnid missiles set the threat sensors off shortly after Serento got off the comm, but Eualo destroyed them with precision laser shots from the anti-missile system. Serento executed a short burn to avoid the debris. The flux shields would have held, but she didn’t want to risk any unnecessary shield damage. The shields would be pounded soon enough.

The HaRuthasha was responding a bit quicker than usual. Having the fighters clear reduced it’s mass noticeably. That gave Serento more hope that they might just pull this off.

She checked the projected path of Rudy and Anne’s fighters. The Arachnid was still out of range of the fighters. Eualo suggested a trio of possible evasion patterns designed to lead the bug ship into the fighters’ optimal firing position. Two of them offered the fighters a good deflection shot at the bug’s side, but the third and most dangerous of the three gave Anne and Rudy a head-on shot. There were two difficulties with this. The first was making sure the HaRuthasha didn’t collide with the fighters as they coasted into attack range. The other was figuring out a way to maneuver so that the heavy directional shield generated by the patrol ship would not be facing the fighters when they took their shot.

Motioning for Ratoloth, her Executive Officer, to take control of the ship, she began plotting course adjustments. She had never tangled with a Moranath before, but the design was in common use, so she had a reasonable amount of information on Arachnid tactics and the performance estimates of the ship. After doing some figuring on potential trajectories based on the bug and her transicruiser’s performance profiles, she came up with what she believed was a valid solution. There was no way to contact the fighters without giving away both their position and existence. She would have to play it by ear. Fortunately, both Rudy and Anne had been flying with her for a bit over two years and she was sure they would trust her enough not to panic when it appeared that the HaRuthasha was on a collision course with them.

She sensed the HaRuthasha made a minor course correction. Ratoloth had modified the evasion pattern she had set up. She glanced over at her Exec. The gaunt Ikrini moistened his thin lips. His skin was gray with tension and he was breathing heavily. He kept his attention focused between the sensor screen and ship’s condition monitor.

‘We play a dangerous game.’ His voice was breathy with stress. He was an excellent pilot and executive officer, but even now, after working with him for a year and a half, she still grew concerned that the stress was going to overwhelm him. He had always come through though, so she had never seen a reason to replace him. But seeing him like this awakened the old concerns.

With a nod, she replied, ‘Long odds require desperate measures. I didn’t see any choice.’

He gave one of his peculiar barking ‘laughs.’ ‘I certainly see none.’ He paused. ‘Shields down to seventy-eight percent. We’re holding up well, but if we keep this up, we won’t be around to act as bait for Rudy and Anne.’

Serento merely nodded. She was reviewing the Arachnid ship’s maneuvers, hoping to get a better idea of how the ship’s captain thought. Any insight into her enemy’s mind that she could glean could mean a few more minutes of survival, and a few minutes of survival could mean the difference between victory and death.

On the liner, the battle looked very placid and peaceful. A pair of contacts slowly moved around the screen. The range was too great to be able to determine damage, and without the fighters, there was no radio traffic to monitor. They could only guess what was going on.

Deron noticed Rudeski’s clenched right hand would relax slightly every time the ‘Ruth changed course. That meant the ship had not been disabled or destroyed. The fight was pretty unequal, but the ‘Ruth had lasted for hours.

Several of the other commandoes were watching also. Odo, as Deron’s bodyguard, was there, of course, and visible for a change. The little Mutzachan was entertaining himself by draining the energy out of a battery and then charging it again. Rowan and Hicks were there, and Kaash, the Cizerack scout. The others had other duties to attend to. Isaac was dealing with a few of the minor wounds and bruises that occurred when the sleep-induced passengers fell down. Jean Luc was assisting Cy in undoing their practical joke. Bishop was patrolling the ship with Bardish-ican.

After they had awakened him and apprised him of the situation, Michael Bernel had decided to retire to his cabin to work. His trio of bodyguards, two Humans and an Orion, went with him. He left instructions to call him if there were any serious developments.

Over six and a half hours had passed before they saw two more contacts appear. After a minute, they heard Rudy calling the ‘Ruth to coordinate attacks. As Serento replied, they heard the crackle of consoles shorting out and the hiss of fire-retardant being sprayed. The Lt. finally realized that he was clenching his hand and forced himself to relax. He glanced around to see if anyone else had noticed it, and caught Deron watching him. Rudeski’s eyes widened. Deron smiled sadly and shook his head gently. He wasn’t going to say anything to anyone. It was hard to watch their friends dying.

Finally, after one exchange of weapons fire, they heard a whoop of triumph. The patrol ship began to tumble.

Immediately, Rudeski keyed the mic.

‘Oberon’s Dream to Eagle. Oberon’s Dream to Eagle. Come in Eagle.’

Anne replied, ‘This is Raptor Two. Eagle is drifting. We lost her a few minutes ago. Raptor One is maneuvering to render assistance.’

Rudeski turned to Deron.

‘How long will it take to get there? We need to help them.’

Deron made some computations.

‘We can be there in about three hours. The battle actually followed along behind us.’

‘Bring us around then,’ Rudeski told him.

With a smile, Deron nodded. ‘As ordered. I’ve already set our course. We’re set for flank speed.’ He yawned. As he checked the time through his neural interface, he exclaimed, ‘Wow. I’ve been on for over twenty-five hours.’

Rudeski glanced at his chronometer. ‘Go ahead and take a quick nap. I’ll have someone bring in a cot for you.’

Deron nodded his thanks. When Cy came in with a cot, he ignored Cy’s comments and collapsed on it.

Two and a half hours later, Rudeski awakened Deron with a steaming cup of coffee. Nodding his thanks, Deron asked woozily, ‘What did I miss?’

‘Nothing,’ Rudeski told him.

A bit more alert after his first sip of coffee, Deron ran through the systems to update himself on the ship’s status. Everything was green.

He glanced at Rudeski and asked, ‘How are the damage control operations going on the ‘Ruth?’

Rudeski shook his head. ‘Not well. The HaRuthasha is a total loss. Captain Serento and Razelprhing are injured, and Rudy’s flight mechanic, Steyvetski, was killed. They got off lightly for fighting a Moranath. It’s amazing they survived.’

Deron nodded. ‘Well, one positive is we’ll have the services of actual spacers instead of a cyber jockey using tricked-out skillware. That will be a definite plus. The other thing is we can get Serento and Razelprhing into the liner’s medical bay.’ He paused as he accessed the liner’s records. ’You know, we may want to wake up the Zen doctor. According to his record, he’s extremely skilled and has received some excellent ratings.’

Rudeski agreed. He called Cy and Rowan to put on one of the delta-blockers on the doctor and take him to medical if he was not already there.

The rescue operation took another two hours and required Rudy and Anne to land their fighters in the star liner’s small-craft bay and fly over to the HaRuthasha with one of the liner’s skiffs. They had some difficulty docking and getting the wounded and dead aboard, but after some work they were successful.

They got Serento and Razelprhing to the infirmary as Deron transferred command of the liner to Ratoloth and Eualo. They destroyed the remains of the HaRuthasha as they passed by.

At Rudeski’s request, they passed by the debris of the Arachnid ship to scan it quickly and mark its trajectory before moving on to a hastily scheduled rendezvous with the Aru-anidan, a rebel freighter.

With the ‘Ruth’s crew on the bridge, Deron decided to get some more sleep, and after clearing it with Rudeski, he headed for an empty cabin in third class. As he walked down the corridor, he ran through a systems check. Everything was on green.

He passed by Bardish-ican and Bishop as they made their rounds. Bishop grinned nastily as he saw Deron rubbing his eyes.

‘Getting tired little boy? Can’t play with the real warriors?’

Bardish-ican told the Kizanti, ‘He does his duty.’

Ignoring them, Deron walked past. He appreciated Bardish-ican speaking in his defense, but Bishop’s pettiness had begun to annoy him. Deron had decided soon after he had joined the Reavers that he would not let Bishop and Cy’s unfriendliness get to him, but sometimes, and especially when he was tired, it was hard to walk away.

The Kizanti sneered. ‘And barely that. He’s weak for a human. We should have allowed that Phentari to eat him on LVT358.’

As they turned the corner he had just passed, Deron heard the Eridani begin to lecture Bishop on the demands that honor placed on them to defend a member of the team. Their voices faded and he was alone in the corridor.

He was passing the training room when he heard a low thump of something heavy hitting the bulkhead inside. Curious, Deron used his neural interface to call up the training room security cameras.

At first he saw nothing. The lights were out to conserve power. Then as he shifted through the spectrum to infrared, he saw six multi-colored centauroid forms staggering around in the training room. A seventh was slowly dropping to the deck in a mist of warm red liquid. Deron could see the cool blue-green of the deck through a large hole in its torso. A spray of warm red liquid had splashed the centauroid and wall behind it. A cool blue, metallic object splotched with red had embedded itself in the wall at the center of the warm, red spray. A number of cool blue cases surrounded the Arachnids.

It took Deron a second to process what he saw. Then it registered with him. There were Arachnids on the ship.

For an instant, disbelief froze him in place. They should have been dead. Their ship was lifeless. It was dead in space. He had seen the sensor readings himself.

Deron felt his lungs constrict. A single Arachnid warrior was said to be the equal of four Alliance soldiers. The bugs had better equipment, and their physical size gave them great strength when compared to the average human. Deron was smaller than average. He always had been. His advantage had always been his mind. In any computer system ever created, he was their master. This was the real world. He was totally helpless before them.

He was turning to run when he thought about the civilians on the ship. They were unconscious and unable to defend themselves because of him. He couldn’t run. For their sakes he couldn’t run. He forced his panic down.

Deron checked the training room sensors again. One of the bugs was moving toward the door with some sort of cool blue metallic object in its hands. The others had started getting gear from one of several large octagonal cargo bins that they had brought with them.

Forcing himself to be calm, Deron gave the command to lock the doors of the training room. After double-checking to be sure the inside door controls were disabled, he commed the Auxiliary Bridge.

‘Rudeski, this is.’ His words came out in a high-pitched rush. With conscious effort, Deron forced himself to speak calmly.

‘…This is Deron. We have seven arachnids locked in the training room. One may be injured. I don’t have any further information yet. I can’t tell whether they are armored or armed. I believe they just got here, and that they are just now arming, but I’m not certain.’

Rudeski swore and cut the connection. A few seconds later, Deron heard booted feet running up from the adjacent corridor. Deron stepped off to the side. He heard the feet stop and an instant later, Bishop charged around the corner with his laser rifle ready. Bardish-ican followed with his pulse cannon.

Bishop hissed, ‘Down idiot. Arachnids are in the training room.’ and body-checked Deron into the wall as he ran past.

Angrily, Deron snarled, ‘Bishop, you jerk.’ He gently rubbed the sore spot on his chest where Bishop had hit him. It would bruise nicely in a bit. ‘I sealed the door. They would have to burn through to get out.’

He could hear several more pairs of booted feet running. A few seconds later, Jean Luc, Hicks, and Rowan with Odo trailing behind ran around the corner at the far end of the corridor. They charged down the corridor, split up and took positions on either side of the door. Jean Luc, Rowan, and Bardish-ican were on one side, and, Bishop, Odo, and Hicks were on the other. The first two, Bardish-ican and Hicks, pulled grenades.

Hicks glanced at Dee. ‘Can you tell us what they are doing?’

Deron accessed the security system. Five of the bugs were opening the canisters that surrounded them. They began pulling out unrecognizable objects. For an instant, he couldn’t tell exactly what they were doing, but then he saw one of them pull on what appeared to be a wire exoskeleton. It touched its wrist and its heat signature shifted down to a light blue as it was covered by the extension of panels from the exoskeleton. The sixth he saw had taken cover behind one of the cargo canisters and had its weapon aimed at the door.

As the newly armored bug pulled on its helmet, one of the others secured a body-mounted disintegrator pod to its armor. Deron saw the bug turn its head and the weapons pod tracked in the direction of its gaze.

A Ram Python training dummy was lying on the ground by the cargo canisters. The armored bug noticed it and strode toward it. A hard kick sent the training dummy flying to smash against the door. As the dummy hit the door, the bug skewered it with disintegrator fire.

The thump as the dummy hit made the commandoes outside jump.

‘What’s going on in there,’ Rowan hissed.

Deron replied. ‘Most of them are unarmored, but they appear to be arming.’

He scanned the training room again. He ignored Bishop’s snarled order to open the doors. Sudden inspiration hit him as he saw some of the training dummies standing in their charging pods.

‘Give me a quick second,’ he assured them, ‘and I’ll unlock the doors.’

He accessed the ship’s computer. The training system was inactive, but he brought it up. The training dummies were off-line, but with one exception, they were functioning at top condition. Black Star took good care of their equipment.

It took an additional precious second, but he accessed the training programs. The majority of the training dummies did not have weapons. That didn’t matter. He removed the safeties, and then put the skill and strength levels to maximum. He engaged the teamwork option and raised it to maximum, and removed the no-kill restraints. Finally, he set the system to attack all non-bipedal targets.

Deron smiled with self-satisfaction. ‘All right guys, I’ve set the target dummies to help. Don’t shoot them. They’re on your side.’

All the commandoes but Hicks looked startled. Rowan blurted, ‘What?’

Deron replied impatiently, ‘Just don’t shoot the target dummies, okay? I’ll give the signal.’

‘Three.’

With a mental command, he turned on the zero-g training mode. Three of the arachnids left the ground.

‘Two.’

‘One.’

He set the artificial gravity on maximum for an instant. All the arachnids staggered in the sudden three gees, and the three floating bugs hit hard.

Resetting the gravity to standard, he flashed the lights to their brightest setting for an instant before setting them to normal.

‘Go.’

The doors slid open. Bardish-ican and Hicks threw their grenades. Deron watched through the sensors as the grenades landed near the cargo canisters. The armored bug chittered and all the bugs dropped.

A second later, the twin explosions shook the deck slightly and the commandoes surged into the room. They spread out along the wall on both sides of the door and opened fire. Four of the five armed Arachnids rose from the cover of the cases and returned fire. The fifth stayed low and continued to pull on one of the armor exoskeletons. It pulled on its helmet before rising to join in the defense. The last Arachnid, unarmed and unarmored, hunkered down to use its fellows for cover.

Jean Luc was moving to take cover behind a weight bench when he was caught in a web shot by one of the Arachnids. Three of the six bugs began to fire at him. The other commandoes fired fast and hard to keep the Arachnids’ heads down, but the Arachnid armor was good enough that the two armored bugs were willing to take a few hits to get the kill.

The big Ram Python bellowed in impotent anger as multiple disintegrator shots chewed into his armor. The web held him, but as his rage grew, he strained against the sticky fibers and broke free.

Deron was startled to see Jean Luc reach over his back to holster his thud gun and pull his Naj free. He had never seen a Ram react with anything resembling sense when berserk. Bellowing as he brandished his huge ax, the big lizard charged the Arachnids.

Deron chose that moment to engage the training dummies. He accessed the training computer and issued a directive to avoid the rampaging Jean Luc. He wanted to avoid any damage to the dummies from a friendly, ax-wielding, completely berserk Ram.

The five training dummies resting in their charging cradles rose up and attacked the bugs. In instant later, the other four lying around on the floor stood and ran to engage the bugs. Five of them leaped into the air to deliver high kicks. Three of the jumpers landed on the same Arachnid, knocking it to its knees. It bellowed in outrage as it lashed out against its attackers. It attempted to fire on the training dummies, but the dummies were extremely difficult to hit. At least once, an Arachnid took a shot on one of the training dummies, only to have the targeted dummy sidestep an instant before the bug pulled the trigger. In one case, the dummy slapped the weapon aside, shattering it, and landed a hard kick on the Arachnid’s knee joint. That Arachnid went down a few seconds later with a crushed skull as three of the dummies attacked simultaneously with head kicks.

The commandoes had hunkered down behind whatever cover they could find. Odo was invisible by this point, but every few seconds, his shotgun would roar. Bishop had disappeared completely. Hicks had tipped and taken cover behind a Python-sized weight bench. Rowan was flat on his stomach behind the damaged Ram training dummy. Bardish-ican, disdaining cover, was moving forward to support Jean Luc.

Jean Luc was in a complete frenzy of rage. He was leaping around among the Arachnids, hewing about like a whirling dervish of fury. His great Naj was causing tremendous amounts of damage. What he didn’t chop with his axe, he smashed with his tail-mace. He chopped one Arachnid’s arm off at the elbow, but before he could behead it with his backstroke, another shot him in the back with a disintegrator. He staggered, but completed the swing. The blow didn’t sever the top of the Arachnid’s head, but split it wide open. Smashing the bug to his rear with his tail, Jean Luc jerked his Naj free and whirled, smashing the Arachnid’s weapon aside before closing.

The Arachnid backhanded him with the ruins of its weapon. Jean Luc staggered back. Roaring his defiance and fury, he drew back his Naj for a great two-handed swing. The bug punched at him, but Jean Luc sidestepped and buried his Naj deep enough that he couldn’t withdraw it with a single jerk. Rather than stand still to free the weapon, he left it there and stepped in for a talon and tail combination attack.

From behind, the unarmed Arachnid threw a small disc at his back. It stuck there for an instant. Jean Luc was oblivious to it. He was trading blows with the wounded bug. There was a brief flash, and the big Python shrieked in pain. Blood sprayed all over the Arachnid he was fighting as his chest armor boiled away in a great hole. Jean Luc fell to his knees. Deron winced as Jean Luc gurgled over the comm, trying to bellow his defiance. A kick from the bug he was facing sent him crashing to his back. He did not move.

Jean Luc’s death gave the commandoes new determination. They paired off and began concentrating their fire on individual bugs. As the bugs hunkered down behind their crates, Rowan shifted from his laser carbine to his rotary grenade launcher and fired a full volley of fragmentation grenades at them. The grenades arced toward the center of the clustered containers. Then the unarmed bug stood up, gestured, and the grenades clustered together in mid-air and went sailing back at him.

Rowan froze as the cluster of grenades landed on his back. He couldn’t believe what he had just seen

Hicks saw it also and yelled, ‘Rowan, grenades.’

As Rowan started to roll back through the door, the cluster of grenades lifted into the air on its own and soared back toward the bugs. It exploded partway there. Bardish-ican, who was directly beneath the cluster, was knocked off his feet, but he was back on his feet again in a few seconds.

Over the comm, Deron heard Odo tell Rowan, ‘You owe me, Rowan.’

Rowan rolled out into the corridor, stood shakily, and stepped back against the wall for a breath. Deron couldn’t believe he wasn’t badly injured His armor was cratered by shrapnel and a large gouge on the left side of his helmet marked a bug hand blaster hit. He noticed Deron standing there watching and shouted, ‘Get back to the bridge, you idiot. Tell Rudeski we need backup or we’re going to buy it.’

Readying his laser carbine, Rowan yelled, ‘Cover me guys, I’m coming back in.’

Having seen Jean Luc fall and realizing that Bishop was nowhere to be found, Deron called Rudeski.

The Lieutenant was curt.

‘Report.’

‘It looks like we just lost Jean Luc. I don’t see Bishop anywhere. The bugs are chewing us up pretty badly.’

Rudeski cursed under his breath. Over the general frequency, Deron heard, ‘Reavers, pull back.’

The firefight continued as the commandoes tried to disengage. The unarmed Arachnid suddenly stood to its full height. A nimbus of blue-green light played around its body. Pointing at Bardish-ican, who had taken cover behind one of the nearby training dummy cradles after the grenade exploded, the Arachnid gave a command and beam of blue-green light shot out at him.

The Eridani, anticipating an attack, sidestepped the blast and fired his pulse cannon. The plasma fire was sucked up by the nimbus of light surrounding the Arachnid and for a few brief seconds, added a yellow-white coloration before it was absorbed by the light surrounding the bug.

Deron moved back up the hall and around the corner. Accessing the security systems, he ran a rapid scan of the ship. Everything was fine until he came to a secondary cargo hold. There, in the center of the relatively empty bay, was a second group of arachnids. This group was only four strong, but they were donning armor and weapons.

He locked the cargo doors and contacted Rudeski.

‘We have four more Bugs locked in forward cargo bay six, and these have their armor on. We need to do something. I’ve locked them in, but I think it might be good to actually let them out without letting them know we know they’re there.’

‘We can’t let them link up with the others,’ Rudeski told him.

‘I realize that,’ Deron explained, ‘but if we condition them to go through doors with a certain command, we can monitor them more easily. We can also change the command without warning and delay them.’

Rudeski paused. ‘Do it and keep me informed. Any other dirty tricks you can think of?’

‘Nothing right off hand. The delta generators aren’t affecting them, so I know that isn’t going to work. I’ll keep wracking my brains.

‘Then Rudeski out.’

Deron was struck by another thought. ‘Hey Lieutenant, I also have a translator program that may give us a bit of an edge. I crafted it after researching an Arachnid database I plundered before I joined you guys. I’ll monitor their communications and run them through for you.’ He started the translator and set it up to monitor the Arachnids. ‘Where are you sitting?’ He accessed the security systems in Engineering and routed the information to a secondary monitor on the console where Rudeski was sitting.

‘Got it,’ Rudeski told him. ‘Now get back here. We need to figure things out.’

Deron agreed and began moving toward the lift.

---

In the training room, the situation had gotten more desperate. Odo was down after a matrix duel with the Arachnid Psi-crafter, but while he was unconscious, the Arachnid’s brains were splattered all over the ceiling. Hicks was pulling him out of the training room. Bardish-ican and Rowan were providing covering fire. Bishop still hadn’t reappeared.

Four of the Arachnids were left and they were keeping their heads down. As good as the Arachnid armor was, even it had its limits. Every so often, one of the armored bugs would pop off a few shots, but after the death of their Psi-crafter bug, they all seemed content to allow the commandoes to disengage.

Hicks got Odo outside and then provided covering fire for the other two. Bardish-ican was the last one through the door. As he cleared the door, Hicks slammed the button to shut and lock the door. Over the comm he yelled,

‘Deron, seal that door.’

There was the faintest click from the door as the magnetic locks were activated.

Hicks checked Odo’s condition. The Mutzachan was breathing with difficulty, and his usually grayish skin had an unhealthy pallor.

Bardish-ican called the Lieutenant. and informed him of the situation. Rudeski told him that they were needed on the forward decks. The Eridani acknowledged.

Rowan asked, ‘Deron, Is Isaac on his way? Odo is down.’

‘Yes, he’s just getting off the elevator now. He should be there in about a minute and a half…He’s turning the corner now.’

Hicks glanced down the corridor. The Jezzadaic was lumbering toward them. He was carrying the talisman staff his people called an Atohk in one hand and his medical kit in the other. His camou unit was off, and his gray armor had a few new black char marks. The center of his chest plate had a new gash burned into it.

‘What happened to you?’ Hicks asked. ‘You look like you’ve been in a firefight too.’

Isaac nodded as he bent down to examine Odo. ‘There is a second group of Arachnids on the ship. Bishop and Cy are currently engaged in delaying them on the forward decks.’

Rowan glanced guiltily at Hicks. ‘I guess I should have held my tongue. I should have known Bishop didn’t lose his nerve.’

Hicks exhaled. ‘You merely said what I was thinking. I certainly won’t tell him.’

Isaac rumbled, ‘Nor I. It is understandable that, in a moment of high stress such as you have just experienced, you might say something that another might find offensive. It is the nature of your species.’

Rowan glanced at Hicks and rolled his eyes. ‘Thanks. I appreciate the understanding.’

Isaac missed the sarcasm in his voice. ‘It is only reasonable to overlook such verbal indiscretions, especially if one knows your race’s proclivities.’ He pulled a rod from his belt and touched it to Odo’s forehead. As he muttered under his breath, the rod glowed dimly. Moving it back and forth across Odo’s forehead, he peered intently at the Mutzachan, watching for some obscure sign that his treatment worked.

Hicks stood slowly. With a sigh he told the other two, ‘Well, I’m ready. Let’s get this new bunch of bugs contained.’

They began walking toward the forward hold.

Lt. Brandon Rudeski was running the numbers, and they did not look good. With the four bugs in the training room and the four Bishop and Cy were fighting, the odds were longer than he liked. He had lost Jean Luc to a berserk fury, and while the big Ram had taken his toll, his impetuous attack served no real purpose. It had cut the bug numbers a bit, but Rudeski would have preferred to have Jean Luc alive and bug stomping.

Rudeski didn’t dwell on the fact that they had not been able to recover Jean Luc’s body. The thought of the big Ram going in one of the bug digestive bags to be eaten was particularly upsetting. He would have to do something about that. One possibility would be to have Bishop use his displacement device to hit Jean Luc’s body with a plas grenade. Bishop had actually liked Jean Luc, and he might be willing to do that. If Bishop wouldn’t, Rudeski had to find another way. There was no way he was going to let the bugs feed on Jean Luc.

Jean Luc and Bardish-ican were the team’s heavy-hitters when it came to close combat. Rudeski missed him already, but the situation made it more pronounced. There was always something reassuring about having the big Ram bellowing in a berserker fury as he hacked his way through the enemy.

Rudeski was distracted from his thoughts when Deron exclaimed ‘Crud.’

Deron glanced up from his monitor. ‘Hey Lieutenant, the Fat Man just called. He wants to talk to you. Should I have Kaash disengage and help escort him? He should be able to skirt the fighting if he goes to the second level, but he’ll pass near the training room.’

He paused as he checked the training room sensors. ‘The bugs are not doing anything in there.’ He made a face. ‘They do have Jean Luc’s body in one of their digestion bags.’

Glancing back at the Lieutenant, he asked, ‘What do you want me to do?’

Rudeski started to order Kaash to act as escort, but stopped. Her firepower would be helpful to have against the four armed and armored bugs the rest of his team was fighting. He owed it to his team to provide as much support as possible, but he also owed it to the Rebellion to protect Michael Bernel. He rubbed his eyes. He was developing a headache.

He keyed his com. ‘Kaash, our patron is moving toward the Auxiliary Bridge. Disengage and meet at…’ He paused and glanced at Deron, who finished ‘At intersection 2-113.’ He commented to Rudeski. ‘I’ve engaged the ship’s auto guide to get her there. ’

With a nod, Rudeski acknowledged. ‘Keep an eye on the bugs in the training room. If one of them so much as belches, I want to know.’

‘Will do,’ Deron told him.

Rudeski sat down to wait for the man he and his team had broken their ties with the Galactic Defense Forces to follow.

The door opened a few minutes later and a non-descript human who went by the name Owen walked in. Owen was dressed extremely conservatively in gray slacks and a white shirt. He was a rather skinny man who did not look threatening in the least. When Deron had first met him, he had thought Owen’s large head and car-door ears made him look almost comic, but as with so many things, looks could be deceiving. On Torvalin, Deron had seen Owen kill an armed Eridani bare handed with a series of pressure point strikes. He was sure the man was a cyborg. No one could possibly move with the speed and power Owen did without augmentation.

A second later, their patron stepped into the room.

Michael Bernel was a unremarkable man of average height. The brown suit he was wearing made him look more like a moderately successful businessman than the most wanted and feared leader of the rebellion against the Galactic Alliance. His nom de guerre was The Fat Man, but over twenty years of life on the run had taken its toll. He was extremely thin now. His girth was not the only change caused by the privations of life as a fugitive. His close-cut sandy-brown hair was starting to gray. His face was lined, but those lines disappeared into a wide smile as he saw Rudeski rising to his feet in the Auxiliary Bridge.

He made his way slowly through the engineering consoles to the glasteel-enclosed Auxiliary Bridge. The Fat Man still had a slight limp from an assassination attempt on Torvalin three months before. As he entered the Auxiliary Bridge, Deron watched in amusement as Lieutenant Brandon Rudeski snapped a sharp salute. He had not seen the Lieutenant salute anyone else in the six months he had been with the team.

‘Sir.’

Michael motioned for Rudeski to sit. He glanced at Deron and back to Rudeski. Deron caught the slight nod Rudeski gave him. Michael’s smile widening slightly as he walked over to Deron and stuck out his hand. His voice was friendly and pleasant. Not what he would have expected from the man demonized by the Alliance as an insurrectionist, traitor, and baby-killer.

‘Hello. My name is Michael.’

Deron started to stand as he shook Michael’s hand. It was done almost without thought. Michael Bernel was a man who commanded respect from his own strength of character, not from a title or position. With a shake of his head, Michael stopped him.

‘Please don’t stand.’ The glance he cast toward Rudeski was good-natured, but contained a mild rebuke. ‘The good Lieutenant has been saluting me since he and his team joined us on Stoorvall. I don’t believe in ceremony. I’ve asked him not to, but he and his team are most insistent.’

He shook Deron’s hand. His handshake was firm, but not hard. Michael spent the next five minutes asking Deron questions about himself. Deron suspected he was somehow gauging him, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that Michael was sincerely interested in getting to know him. Some of Michael’s questions dealt with the current mission, but many were just friendly questions.

Michael listened attentively to Deron’s answers, and finally asked Rudeski with a note of gentle reproof in his voice, ‘So Brandon, why is it you haven’t told me about Deron’s area of expertise? From your description of Deron, I had the impression he was muscle with a background in security systems. SCRAP can use a man of his skills.’

Deron made eye contact with Rudeski and nodded his thanks. Turning back to Michael, he stated. ‘He was honoring my request. He and his team pulled me out of a corporate torture cell on Tizan a bit over six months ago and I’ve been with them ever since.’

A glance at Rudeski assured Michael it was so. He asked, ‘In the few months you’ve been with Rudeski’s team, you’ve heard of our SCRAP program, haven’t you? We can always use more slicers with your skill. Hacking into the Alliance hyper net is not for the faint of heart.’

With an off-hand shrug, Deron acknowledged he had, adding, ‘These guys broke me out of that Hansen Electronics hellhole. I would rather work with them.’ He nodded back to Rudeski. ‘They needed a cyber jockey, and after the situation on Tizan, I prefer to have serious fire-power to back me up.’ He looked Michael in the eye. ‘I don’t want to leave this team. They’re my family.’

Michael studied him for a second before nodding. ‘Fair enough.’

Turning to Rudeski he commented, ‘Deron has graciously patched me into the system so I was able to monitor the situation.’

He inhaled deeply before he continued. ‘Brandon, I’m sorry about Jean Luc. He was a good soldier. I remember him well. He protected me with his body when the grenades were thrown in through the windows on Torvalin.’ He nodded sympathetically. Deron could tell Michael was trying to control the pain in his own voice. ‘I know how hard it is for you to lose your people. I’ve lost enough of my friends to know. I wish I could tell you the end is in sight, but I can promise you that Jean Luc and the others will not be forgotten. When we beat the Alliance and set up a true republic, Jean Luc, Bryson, and all of our fallen heroes will be remembered properly.’

Rudeski’s jaw clenched as he nodded. Bishop had been extremely insubordinate the last time Deron had seen Rudeski react like that. Deron knew it wasn’t anger this time. He had been around Rudeski enough to know how much he truly loved and cared for the beings of his team.

To cover Rudeski’s discomfort, Michael changed the subject.

‘I understand there is a second group of Arachnids on board. I suspect your team is over-extended. I would like to recommend an alternative if you are interested.’

Lt. Rudeski nodded emphatically. ‘What do you have in mind? I’m looking for any alternatives I can find. As you say, my team is over-extended. I’m going to start losing people to fatigue-related mistakes if I can’t give them some rack time.’ He motioned to Deron. ‘He was monitoring the system for over twenty-four hours. Having Serento’s crew onboard has helped, but I need to give my team some down time to maintain effectiveness.

‘I believe this will help then, ‘Michael told him. ‘There are a number of mercenaries and military personnel onboard. I would recommend that you give them delta wave inhibitors and enlist their help in this fight.’

Rudeski rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Under ordinary circumstances, he would reject this idea out of hand. The last thing he wanted to do was to have his team work with people they didn’t know and with whom they had no real affiliation. Under the present circumstances however, working together to survive the Arachnid attack should be enough of a common goal to make it a possibility.’

He nodded pensively. ‘I’m going to screen the mercs we talk to, but I think we can make it work. My team knows not to say anything about who we really are, but we’ll have to think of a cover story. The extra firepower would definitely be a good idea.’ Rudeski nodded with more conviction. ‘I believe we can make this work. I’ll get right on it.’ Turning to Deron, he started to ask for the roster, but Deron pointed to the computer console Rudeski had been sitting at previously.

‘It’s all there on your screen. I’m checking the luggage register for weapons and armor and referencing the passenger list and personal files for each. I’m flagging the passengers with criminal records, as well as any who might have rebel sympathies.’ He glanced back at Michael. ‘If you have any projects you’d like me to work on, let the Lieutenant know. I’m always open to new challenges.’

The Fat Man thanked him and glanced over at Rudeski. ‘Good hunting Lieutenant. We need to destroy them quickly so they don’t harm any more of the civilians on this liner.’

Rudeski nodded impatiently. ‘My team is well aware that we need to keep civilian casualties down.’ He paused to rub his eyes. His headache was getting worse. ‘I’m sorry sir. You can count on us.’

With a nod, Michael left the Auxiliary Bridge. Deron watched him walk out of the engineering section. Glancing up at Rudeski he commented, ‘Hey Lieutenant, come take a look at this. This is the security footage we just shot.’

Rudeski moved to look over Deron’s shoulder at the screen. He watched as a young Orion man in a kilt-like Bwal and leather jacket nodded to Owen and preceded him out the door.

Deron commented, ‘I don’t know what he’s using, but it’s impressive. No wonder I couldn’t find him. I can see why he gives the Alliance fits.’

Rudeski grunted. He had files to scan.

Deron check on the bugs that Cy and Bishop were fighting. Through the security sensors, he saw five exact duplicates of Bishop exchanging fire with a trio of bugs. Cy was nowhere to be found.

As they pursued the Bishops down a hallway, Deron realized that the doors in the hallway were locked. For an instant, Deron was confused. He hadn’t…then he recognized the ‘feel’ of another slicer in the system. He couldn’t help but smirk.

‘Now that’s interesting,’ he commented under his breath. ‘It looks like one of the bugs is attempting to use the system against us.’ He laced his fingers together and pushed his palms out to crack his knuckles. ‘Let’s see what this guy has got.’

He triggered a trace program to track down the bug slicer, and then gave it notice of his presence by taking control of a door a few paces in front and to the right of Bishop. Then he initiated a mirage program that would allow him to control what the security systems registered.

‘Bishop, cut right.’

The Kizanti changed direction in mid-stride and dove through the opening door. Deron shut the door behind him as disintegrator fire gouged chunks out of the door and wall.

Bishop was breathing heavily as he gasped, ‘Deron, give me coordinates to the corner of the corridor we came from. I want to be behind the corner and out of their sight.’

Deron called up plans of the deck and ran a quick computation on the distance.

‘Bishop, first of all, take cover somewhere in the room. Then when I say, face the door and displace eighteen meters to nine o’clock.’

There was a pause. Then Bishop snapped, ‘Nine o’clock?’ Disbelief edged his voice. ‘Is that the best you can do? This isn’t...’

‘Just do it Bishop. They’re outside the door, and they have a bug slicer trying to override my control.’ Deron chose not to tell him the bug slicer didn’t have a chance. He wanted Bishop moving, not griping or arguing.

With a muffled curse, Bishop took cover in the closet. Deron initiated the mirage program that would convince the bug slicer that Bishop was still in the closet and told Bishop to displace. Deron noted with satisfaction that Bishop displaced to exactly where he had expected him to reappear.

Allowing the bug slicer to wrest control of the lock from him, Deron noted that the bugs were still waiting by the door. Apparently the mirage his system was generating for the bug slicer’s benefit was successful in misleading it. He was pleased to see his program upgrades were working.

He took a sip of coffee as he watched the cabin door open and the bug warriors fire at the closet. Their disintegrators and hand blasters blew great holes in the walls and door. Deron was thankful that the sleeping passengers, an elderly Orion couple, were on the floor behind the bed. Someone, he suspected Cy and Jean Luc, had arranged the sheets and blankets on the floor as though they were still on the bed and placed the couple in them. The Orion couple probably wouldn’t be entirely comfortable when they woke, but they were at least out of the line of fire.

The bugs ceased fire. One of them scanned the room and moved inside, followed by its companion. They found the sleeping passengers immediately of course. The lead warrior moved forward, and at first Deron thought it was going to ignore them. It examined them for an instant before turning away. Deron almost choked on his coffee as the bug warrior suddenly reared up and crushed the heads of the sleeping pair. It flexed its clawed feet as if savoring the feeling of warm blood, flesh, and brain matter before continuing its search of the room.

‘Lieutenant,’ Deron called urgently, ‘The bugs’re killing passengers. We need to do something.’

The snapped profanity that was Rudeski’s acknowledgement spoke eloquently of his frustration.

Fighting back his anger, Deron wracked his brain for a way to make the bugs pay for what they had done. There were times when he hated being so scrawny. The satisfaction he would feel blowing one of the bugs away would be immense.

When it became clear that Bishop was not in the room, the bugs began chittering back and forth. Deron remembered to trigger his translation program a few minutes into the conversation, but he didn’t believe the translator did a good job of translating. According to the translator, they were discussing recipes. He had the feeling he needed to do some more work on the translators.

‘Deron.’ Bishop’s voice was grim. ‘How many are in the room? I heard them firing.’

‘Two,’ Deron replied. ‘The third one is outside keeping an eye out. Where is Cy?’

‘I volunteered to keep these three busy. The Lieutenant has him waking up mercenaries.’ He sounded grimmer than usual. ‘I need help. My rifle isn’t powerful enough to crack their flux shields. They just absorb my fire.’

‘I’ll see what I can do to get some backup for you,’ Deron told him.

Deron checked on Cy’s location. He was the closest. Cy was walking down the corridor toward an Eridani’s room.

‘Cy,’ Deron said, ‘I’m going to wake him up.’

‘Go ahead,’ Cy replied.

Turning off the delta wave generator in the Eridani’s room, he gave a low tone to wake the sleeping SwordSaint.

The aging Eridani was on his feet with paired light swords in hand halfway through the tone. He was tall, with unblemished black armor. While most Eridani had highly stylized armor, his was undecorated. From his belt hung a single dreadlock with a polychromium bead woven into it. His long, red Mohawk flowed down his back, with a few errant strands hanging forward. After assuring himself there were no enemies in the room, he reached up and adjusted the black, atmospheric processor that was molded to his face.

Cy triggered the door chime.

‘Deron,’ Bishop asked, ‘what is it doing now?’

Deron checked back on Bishop. The bug in the corridor was clearly guarding its fellows as it glanced back and forth in both directions.

‘It’s standing watch. What are you going to do?’

There was a snarl in Bishop’s voice as he replied, ‘I’m gonna tie it down a bit. Is the door still open and is the bug still directly in front of the door?’

‘It is…on both counts.’

‘Good. There was a cold satisfaction in Bishop’s voice. ‘When I give you the word, let me know when it looks away.’

Bishop loaded a pair of grenades into the underslung grenade launcher on his laser rifle and asked Deron if he was ready. Deron said he was.

The bug warrior looked in Bishop’s direction. Deron waited. When Deron saw it glance away, he said, ‘Bishop, now.’

Bishop stepped around the corner and opened fire with his laser rifle. The first few shots splashed on the Arachnid’s flux shield, but as the Arachnid turned toward him, he triggered his grenade launcher. The grenade round impacted a few inches away from the Arachnid’s visor and stuck. The air around it took on a purple hue as the parasite round began to drain the bug’s flux shield.

The Arachnid shrieked in what Deron thought seemed like panic and reared up as it attempted to pluck the round from its flux shield. It tapped a control on its wrist and the parasite round fell to the ground. With a swift kick, it sent the round flying.

Bishop, waiting for the bug to drop its flux shield, triggered his grenade launcher and stepped back behind the corner again. The round struck the corridor at the bug’s feet and exploded. A web of sticky metallic tendrils wound themselves around its legs, body, and around everything else in that section of the hall.

Deron checked the room’s security sensors. The Arachnids in the room had apparently heard their companions shriek and started toward the door as the tangler grenade exploded. The tangle of sticky wire did not stick to their flux shields, but they still had difficulty making their way through the tough, sticky fibers that had blown into the room and stuck to walls and furniture.

‘Slick move, Bishop. It looks like they are going to be in there for a few minutes.’

‘Good.’ Bishop growled. ‘I want to take these bugs down and I’m going to need help. I’m running low on grenades. My laser isn’t doing anything. I need Jean Luc and Bardish-ican’s help.‘

Deron checked through the security cameras. Hicks, Rowan, and Bardish-ican were nearly to Bishop’s position. Deron told Bishop help was on the way.

Nearly panicking as he realized he had forgotten the bug slicer in the efforts to help Bishop in his fight, Deron checked on the Arachnid slicer’s progress. He brought up the security sensor in the room the bug had commandeered as its lair. Forcing himself to ignore his anger as he recognized the crushed remains of a family of humans – the crushed infant REALLY hurt - he observed the bug slicer for a minute before checking its progress through the ship’s network.

It was working to worm its way into the ship’s security system and take it over. Grudgingly, Deron had to acknowledge it was at least competent. It had gotten farther than he would have expected. It was too bad its efforts were doomed to failure.

His past experience with bug slicers had not painted them as worthy opponents. He had hacked more than one bug system in recent years. Once you had an idea of how they worked, bug security procedures were elementary at best. After working on the bug systems he accessed, he had written a number of programs to assist him in slicing bug systems, and now he was convinced he could enter any bug system at will. The truth of the matter was, even with the language difference and alien mindset, he had found it more difficult to slice into his elementary school’s network when he was a child then any of the Arachnid systems he had cracked. The impression Deron had from his months of hacking a captured bug system was they prized conformity, which he had come to believe destroyed creativity.

He smirked. That might explain why a skilled slicer, for a bug, like this one was relegated to a mere patrol ship instead of landing a cushy position somewhere else. Stupid bugs didn’t recognize skill, or the closest thing they had to skill, when they saw it.

On a whim, he issued a series of commands. One of the fail-safes he had written into the upgrade patch he had worked on for Black Star activated and kicked the bug slicer out of the system.

Deron brought the security sensors for the bug slicer’s lair back up. He couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight of the bug chittering angrily. It wasn’t until it went to gnaw on the remains of the infant that his anger returned. He was responsible for the death of that family. If he had not given the command that put the passengers and crew to sleep, they might have been able to flee to a safer location.

Issuing a command to lock the door, Deron also disconnected the computer terminal from the ship’s network. Anything that the bug slicer was going to try would only work on the local system. That should frustrate him a bit. The program Deron initiated would simulate all the connections and act as though it were still connected to the ship’s network. Of course the slicer could still decide to burn his way through the door, but that was at least one bug that wasn’t going anywhere for a while.

‘Deron,’ Rudeski asked, ‘where are all the bugs now?

Bringing up the schematic of the liner on the main screen, Deron highlighted the area around the training room, the room where Bishop had trapped the other three, and the bug slicer’s room.

Lieutenant Rudeski looked carefully at the screen for a few minutes. Finally, he turned to Deron.

‘So there are eight left?’

‘Correct,’ Deron told him. ‘There are four holed up in the training room. Then there are the three Bishop hit with the tangle grenade, and there is the one that was trying to hack the system. I’ve locked him in a cabin. He may be able to burn his way out, but he’s pretty much neutralized from the system. We should be able to burn him down at our convenience.’

Rudeski nodded. ‘Good. When we get a chance, I’ll send Bardish-ican and Bishop to dispatch it. For the others, if we can get some help, we should be able to destroy them piecemeal.’

Deron started to agree when the intercom buzzed.

Ratoloth didn’t want for a response before speaking. His voice sounded tight with stress.

‘We have intruders in the shuttle bay. We have intruders in the shuttle bay. Rudy said six Arachnids just appeared. He’s observing them arming and armoring as we speak.’

Rudeski groaned. ‘We can’t take much more. Is he under cover? Can we open the bay to space?’

‘Negative. They’re in the tool room. We would just lose Rudy if we did. They’ve already killed Anne. She got a few shots off. They didn’t have any weapons, so they mobbed her and ripped her to pieces.’

Rudeski paused. After a second of thought, he turned to Deron.

‘Put the tool room on screen, and get a hold of Rudy for me.’

Deron put the connection through and nodded. A second later, the tool room was displayed on the main screen.

The tool room was a relatively large room with wide, high doors. The walls were hung with tools and equipment, most of them unfamiliar. A long counter separated the shuttle bay from the tool room. Several long, built in shelving units were on the far side of the room. In the center of the open area beside a pair of large a-grav sleds, six arachnids were pulling on the last components of their armor. Deron noticed that three of them did not have the back-mounted weapons pods. Two of the bugs without the weapons pods had gray-green armor. The other had armor that matched the blue-green of the standard warrior, but it had navy blue highlights.

Deron commented, ‘I can’t get through to Rudy. I don’t know where he is.’

Rudeski cursed under his breath. ‘That’s just what we need. Lock the door down. Hopefully we can stall them for a few minutes. Keep an eye on them, and if they make any moves, let me know.’

Glancing at Deron, he asked. ‘How are we coming with our sleeping beauties?’

Mentally calling up a list of names, Deron replied, ‘We have six up. Two are Eridani and are already armored and equipped. Cy and Kaash are both talking to the candidates. We’ve already had two who have refused to fight with us. They are out again.’

Shaking his head, Rudeski commented, ‘Stupidity. Oh well, we’ve got at least six reinforcements. Hopefully we’ll get more. We could certainly use the help. Any heavy hitters?’

Deron nodded. ‘We have the Eridani, of course, and a pair of Pythons who are on leave from the Galactic Marines.’ He added, ‘I’m sending Cy to talk to them. I didn’t think sending a Cizerack would be wise.’

Rudeski shook his head. ‘Not a problem with Galactic Marines, but good thinking normally.’

‘The others are all mercenaries who generally aren’t particularly well equipped. They may or may not be good, but I’m no judge of martial skill. Black Star really doesn’t have much specific information on file. I can only guess their experience based on their equipment. We have eleven more to talk to.’

‘Hopefully the rest will be willing. We need any able body willing to carry a weapon. Even a recruit fresh from basic might be able give us an edge.

---

Ivan rubbed his eyes and sat up. He was a trifle stiff. He had been lying on the floor next to a bed. His stomach rumbled. It felt like it had been days since he had eaten. Looking around in confusion, he saw that he was in an unfamiliar cabin. A fluffy, pink bathrobe thrown over the chair by the make-up desk suggested that he was in a woman’s cabin. He was still in his fencing whites, but they had dried. Obviously he had been unconscious for a while. The last thing he remembered was talking to Arash-ican.

Before he could puzzle anything out, the door chime rang and an armored Cizerack walked in.

Inhaling sharply, Ivan forced himself to relax. Tension was never a good thing in a fight. Of course the Cizerack was a natural predator and he had no weapons. Hopefully this contact would be better than his last contact with a Cizerack. The last time, they had hunted him in the forests of Invodale.

The Cizerack’s armor was battered, but obviously fully functional. Its back-mounted weapons pod was inactive. The paired lasers were angled down and the Cizerack was taking pains not to point them at Ivan.

‘I am Kaash.’ The Cizerack’s voice was a low, breathy rumble. ‘You are Ivan Golobitski?’

Cautiously, Ivan rose to his feet.

‘I am. What’s going on?’

The big cat rumbled, ‘I belong to a team of mercenary bounty hunters…’

Ivan stiffened when he heard the word ‘mercenary.’ He didn’t care for mercs. They were the cause of much of the violence that plagued the Alliance. Though the beings of his unit, the Disciples of Horatius, were technically mercenaries, they were highly trained, disciplined, and devoted to eradicating the Arachnid threat. Admission was highly selective and all recruits, regardless of experience, were put through basic training. Part of this was to learn and hone combat skills, but much of the training was spent indoctrinating the recruits in a strict moral code. Many of the Disciples looked on their activities against the Arachnids as a crusade against the evil of the bug infestation. On the other hand, most mercs did whatever they felt necessary to finish a mission. Ivan had heard a rather sick joke that for most mercenaries, mass murder was a hobby.

The big cat continued. ‘…this space liner to capture an Arachnid spy. The ship has been boarded by Arachnids and we need every able-bodied fema…warrior to help us destroy the bugs.’

Though he was tempted to reject the request, Ivan also realized that if there were Arachnids on the ship, they had to be dealt with immediately. He had joined the Disciples of Horatius with the long-term intention of fighting the bugs, but the goal had been to transfer from the recon company to one of the combat battalions after he had a year or two of experience.. Ivan knew he was still too green to consider facing off against the bugs under normal circumstances.

There was also the problem of his armor and weapons. His rifle wasn’t going to touch an armored bug, and his armor wasn’t enough to keep him alive for more than a few seconds in an engagement with Arachnids.

Despite all of these reasons, Ivan knew walking away from this fight was not the right decision. Even without the code of honor stressed by the Disciples, there were the other passengers to consider. There were many families on the liner, and they were not in a position to defend themselves. Ivan had joined the Disciples partly to live up to a family tradition, but also because he wanted to defend the weak and helpless against the Arachnid threat.

The Cizerack was watching him intently, as she would have watched a brogue rat she was stalking. She was crouching slightly, as though she were preparing to spring.

Finally Ivan nodded.

‘Is there any way I can get my weapons and armor?’

The big cat relaxed.

‘Of course. We will get your armor and weapons out of the hold.’

Ivan couldn’t be sure, but from his experience with his late sergeant, who had also been a Cizerack, he thought the big cat sounded pleased. He thought he detected a slight purr in her voice. The situation had to be bad.

The big cat continued. ‘Do you know what hold they are in?’

Ivan shook his head. ‘I did not think to find out when I boarded.’

With a sigh, the cat replied, ‘We will have to find it then. Very well. Follow me.’

She turned and led Ivan into the hall. There were five other beings waiting there. There was a Human, an Orion, an Ashanti, a Phentari, and a Fott.

Ivan looked curiously at what he suspected would be his squad. He wasn’t sure how to view the Fott. A bio-engineered race of redneck bunny rabbits was hard to take seriously. This one looked competent enough, but who could tell with a species that were bio-engineered to go into a frenzy every April over Easter eggs.

He knew from personal experience to respect the Ashanti. The four-armed race had a natural spatial sense and loved games of strategy and tactics. He liked Ashanti. Kwala, an Ashanti from his old squad, had been a loyal friend.

The Phentari he viewed warily. It was shorter than the few other Phentari he had seen, but it was also stockier. An oval, black atmospheric processor covered the mandibles of its mouth and made it look a trifle less intimidating, but not by much. What Ivan had heard about the carnivorous, four-tentacled race was not pleasant. They were reputed to have a taste for human flesh. His grandfather and brother had both commented that Phentari enjoyed causing pain and intimidating other species. His brother Sergei had compared them with a vicious dog. As long as you didn’t show fear, they would usually leave you alone.

The tall, muscular human standing near the Phent didn’t seem to be intimidated in the least. His dark hair was cut short in a crew cut. He was wearing a pair of fatigue pants, combat boots, and a black t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. Ivan recognized him from the gym. He had been practicing hand-to-hand combat with one of the Ram Python-sized training dummies.

The man observed him coolly. Ivan stuck out his hand.

‘I am Ivan Golobitski.’

The man ignored his hand. ‘Crowlye.’

With a hiss from it’s atmospheric processor, the Phentari wrapped a tentacle around Ivan’s forearm. It took effort, but Ivan almost masked his flinch.

‘Good, its flesh is firm.’ Its deep voice had a breathy rasp caused by the atmospheric processor. ‘When it dies, I will eat well.’

Ivan glared at the Phent but said nothing. He didn’t want to risk it hearing any fear in his voice. He could only hope the squeamishness he felt did not show in his face. Its touch had left a slightly oily film on his skin. He had to work to overcome the desire to wash his arm where it had touched him.

The Orion, a lean man of average height dressed in a kilt, white turtleneck sweater, and what appeared to be a pair of pink bunny-slippers pulled over combat boots extended his hand.

‘Rondolph McSweeny is my name. I ask you to forgive my tentacled associate’s ill manners. He has not once eaten human flesh in the ten years I’ve worked with him.’

The Phentari puffed itself up in what Ivan recognized as s a rather successful attempt to make itself more intimidating. In doing so, it brushed against Crowlye. As it turned on him, the man stepped in close and snapped a palm strike into its side.

With a surge of air through its atmospheric processor, the Phentari stumbled backward. Its left leg was strangely wooden and it’s left tentacles hung uselessly.

‘Don’t touch me.’ Crowlye’s voice was even and emotionless. Ivan envied his composure.

Kaash snarled and stepped between them, ‘Stop. I will not permit racial problems. You don’t have to like each other, but we must work together to survive.’ She glared at each of them in turn. ‘We can’t afford to lose.’ She glared at the Phentari. ‘You may be willing to die, but if I suspect that you are going to try to kill any of the rest of us, I will hunt you down and kill you myself.’

The Orion stepped forward. ‘You needn’t worry about Jendaric. He is a stalwart companion. He enjoys troubling the humans in the unit, but you could not ask for a more loyal comrade-in-arms.’

The Phent didn’t turn its head, but it turned one of its eyes around backward to glare at Rondolph before it looked back and hissed at Crowlye. Its voice was strained. ‘I should kill you, human.’

Crowlye smiled contentedly, crossed his arms, and very pointedly turned his back on the Phent.

The Cizerack hurried them to the Auxiliary Bridge in engineering. The Phent had difficulty keeping up. It walked with a pronounced limp.

As they walked into engineering, the first thing Ivan noticed was that several armor and weapons totes had been brought in. The second thing he noticed was a small group of beings who were standing in a loose group. The majority of them were humans and Orions, with the occasional Python and Phentari. A pair of Eridani stood by Arash-ican, who was standing a bit apart. Ivan caught the eye of the aging Eridani, but Arash-ican gave no sign of recognition.

Kaash moved them into the group of beings. Crowlye moved purposefully toward a stocky human with thinning hair dressed casually in a pair of slacks and shirt. The man grinned as he saw Crowlye and they began talking quietly.

Ivan moved closer to them. He was debating on whether or not to join the conversation, but decided against it. Crowlye’s friend seemed pleasant enough. He was talking cheerfully with Crowlye, but there was something standoffish about Crowlye that did not seem open to casual conversation.

Glancing around at the mercenaries that ringed the room, Ivan noticed they seemed to be equipped with a standardized Kodiak armor. That was odd. Most mercenary teams were equipped according to the individual mercenary’s budget and whim. The Jezzadaic Priest standing by the door fit this image more closely. His armor was more battered than the other mercenaries’ suits and was of a completely unfamiliar type. He was leaning on a staff as he watched the crowd of beings closely.

One of them, a hulking Human with Rowan on his name patch, had a vaguely familiar unit emblem emblazoned on his armored left shoulder. Though he wracked his brain, Ivan couldn’t remember where he had seen the unit patch. It was a stylized horseman that he recognized as a saber-wielding Cossack from the Moroccan boots, long zhupan tunic, and red silk cap.

He also realized that the mercenaries, though not actually pointing weapons at anyone, were in positions where they could easily catch the group in a crossfire. With no real cover, if things got ugly, the mercenaries would be able to destroy all of them without a great deal of trouble.

After a few minutes, an armored man stepped out of the Auxiliary Bridge. From the way the mercenaries stood straighter and more alertly, it was immediately obvious that he was the officer. His visor was open, and his face showed great confidence as he surveyed the group standing before him. Ivan immediately thought of his brother Sergei. The man had a determination in his eyes that made Ivan suspect he could beat the Arachnids on resolve alone. Ivan found his confidence heartening.

The officer strode to the front of the group and started speaking.

‘Gentle-beings, I am Lieutenant Brandon Rudeski. My team took this ship to bring down a bug spy.’

There was a few seconds of shock, and then a few voices were raised in protest and disbelief. Ivan heard Crowlye utter a low, highly irreverent profanity. Doltharians were the most hated of the Arachnid minions. Usually they were Alliance citizens who were altered physically and mentally by the Arachnids and placed back in their usual surroundings as spies and saboteurs. They were nasty. Ivan had heard of one rather frail-looking human Doltharian killing a Ram Python in hand-to-hand combat. Others were rumored to have taken multiple pulse cannon hits, any one of which would have slagged a Ram Python, before being brought down. Doltharians were not someone he wanted to mess with.

Rudeski raised his voice to quell the murmuring. ‘During the course of our operation, this ship was attacked by an Arachnid patrol ship. We believe they were attempting to retrieve their agent. Our contact ship destroyed the bug ship, but was destroyed in the process. Through means we have not yet discovered, the bugs have managed to displace three teams onto this liner. They’ve killed several passengers already. We have their positions located, but we are out-gunned and out-numbered.

He paused and made brief eye contact with every sentient in the room as he continued.

‘We need assistance in destroying the bugs. I understand if you would rather not take part in this operation. But,’ he grinned humorlessly, ‘Don’t expect the bugs to play nice because you decide not to help us. To them, we’re all a source of protein and not much more. Are there any questions?’

One of the humans toward the front asked, ‘So what happened? Why and how were we all knocked out?’

Rudeski looked at the man and nodded. ‘Valid question.’ He glanced around at the members of his team who were in the room. ‘I don’t think I have to elaborate when I say Doltharians are not to be trifled with. Rather than risking civilian casualties, we decided we would knock everyone out and collect him while he was unconscious. That would minimize the chance of a confrontation and possible firefight.’

One of the Phentari asked, ‘How. How did you knock us all out?’

Rudeski shook his head. ‘That is classified.

He continued. ‘We’ve already tried to use it on the bugs, but they are unaffected.’ With a grim nod, he added. ‘We’ve already lost one of our team. If it had worked, we would have just disposed of them and gotten back in contact with our comma…patron.’

Crowlye’s friend called out, ‘How many Arachnids are there and what classes are they?

‘We’ve counted seventeen.’ Rudeski told him. ‘We believe at least three of them have been seriously wounded and we know that at least two have been killed. We suspect that one or more of them are bug Psi-crafters. My team’s Mutzachan just killed one in a matrix duel.’

‘Judging from their armor, there are nine warrior types and eight technician types. So far, we’ve only had actual contact with the warrior bugs and the Psi-crafter Odo killed.’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t have any more information than that. The bugs have been operating out of the shuttle bay and training room. They have rendered the sensors in those locations inoperable. One of our pilots was caught in the shuttle bay. He was calling us with information on their activities, but before we could get him out, one of the bugs found him and killed him.’

He glanced around the room. ‘For those of you who don’t know, the bugs carry an enzyme bag that digests any body they come across. This makes it suitable for bug consumption. I’m going to give each of you the same promise I have given my own team. I will do everything in my power to be sure your body will not end up in a bug’s stomach. One of my men dropped a plas grenade on Rudy’s bag so his body wouldn’t be eaten. I will do the same for you. Are there any other questions?’

There was a few seconds of silence as the assembled volunteers mulled over the situation. Then Crowlye called out, ‘Do we get our equipment, or are you going to be providing us with weapons and armor? Unless you have something better to offer, I have my Barrett eighty-two with me and I intend to use it. I am not going bug hunting with some unfamiliar pop gun.’

Over the low rumble of agreement from the others in the group, Rudeski replied. ‘I have a team collecting your gear from the various holds right now. We should have that shortly.’

To the left of Ivan, a trio of beings, two humans and an Orion, seemed extremely relieved. One of the humans, a short, stocky man who had large sections of his face and arms covered in new, pinkish synthetic skin, noticed Ivan observing their reaction and glared at him.

‘What’re you looking at…’ he demanded.

Ivan spread his hands in a studiously unconcerned shrug and focused on Rudeski. He used his peripheral vision to keep an eye on the trio when he heard the man mutter,

‘You’d better look away.’

The man muttered some other things, but Ivan couldn’t hear them. Something told Ivan he was better off that way.

Rudeski continued. ‘For those of you who don’t have weapons or armor, the captain gave us access to the ship’s armory, so we will have access to the ship’s weapons and armored space suits.’

Crowlye’s friend asked, ‘I assume we are going to be dividing up into fire teams? Have you given any thought on how you’re going to make a group as disparate as this into an effective fighting force?’

Rudeski nodded his head. ‘I’ve thought about that, and the best idea I can field is to allow you to divide yourselves into groups. I would prefer to see four to six on a team, but we’ll have to work together on this one. I would suggest seniority based on current rank. However, I am open to suggestions.’

He glanced at everyone in the group. ‘I realize these conditions are far from ideal, but we have to work together or die. One thing I would like to know is who else has had Galactic Defense Forces experience?’

A number of hands went up. Ivan counted eight. Ivan noticed that Crowlye and his friend were among them.

Rudeski continued. ‘Next question. Who here has fought the Arachnids before?’

Three of the hands went down, but four others went up. Both Crowlye and his friend kept their hands up and he made a mental note to try to get on their team. Glancing at the others, he noticed that Rondolph and Jendaric, the Orion and Phentari he had met earlier had raised hand and tentacle. Ivan noted that the Fott’s hand had stayed up. He suspected that Fott had a story worth hearing.

With a grim nod, Rudeski commented, ‘That’s better than I had expected, but not as good as I had hoped. This’ll have to do. Has anyone here worked together before? I don’t want to break up existing teams.’

Rondolph and Jendaric motioned that they were a team. Crowlye and his friend, and the trio Ivan had noticed earlier did likewise. The Python Marines motioned that they were together. The trio of Eridani did the same.

‘Good,’ Rudeski said. ‘Anyone with command experience, armor up and come see me.’ He swept the assembled group with his gaze. His voice did not allow dissent as he added. ‘Since my team took control of this ship, I will retain command authority.’ He added almost as an afterthought, ‘However, I am definitely open to anyone else with command experience stepping up with suggestions and ideas. I would suggest that everyone else join one of these existing teams. I would like to see at least one veteran with Arachnid experience in each group. Aside from that, armor up as your gear comes in and we’ll brief you as we get things figured out. I will be having one of my men come through to find out what your specialties are. I want to know how to use you most effectively.’

He turned and walked back into the Auxiliary Bridge.

The group dispersed and began moving among the armor carrying cases looking for their gear. Ivan started to head toward the gear when he heard Crowlye comment sourly, ‘This is as bad as the situation on VM526.’

Curious, he moved a bit slower to hear the reply.

The other man shook his head. ‘I don’t like it either, but we can’t just do nothing.’ He grinned. ‘You should be happy to have another crack at the bugs. You’ll have a chance to get another souvenir like that paperweight you lost in the attack.’

Ivan missed Crowlye’s response because a pair of what appeared to be ship’s crew in Battle Environment armored space suits escorted a pair of transport-bots into Engineering. They began unloading the armor cases onto the floor. The second case unloaded was his.

Making his way around a pair of the Eridani who were unpacking body-mount pulse cannons, he picked his armor case up and moved off to the side to armor up. He debated the necessity for his IR retardant jumpsuit, but decided to pull it on. The jumpsuit probably wouldn’t be as useful as it had been on his last assignment. It had kept him warm in the sub-zero temperatures of Invodale as well as hiding his IR signature.

He had bought Ceramic armor on the suggestion of his brother Sergei. Combined with his IR retardant jumpsuit, it minimized sensor contacts that relied on metal or infrared sensors. It had been useful on his last assignment when he was being hunted by ultra armor. The Cizerack pilot had been unable to see him, partly because of damage to her sensors, and partly because of the relatively low sensor return inherent in the composition of his armor.

A quick examination showed that the suit was undamaged. It was one of the habits Sergei had impressed upon him with numerous tales of troopers who had gotten into bad situations because they had not inspected their armor. Admittedly, there was often little that could be done in a field situation, but still, knowing that your IFF gear was not functioning or that your chest plate was cracked gave you the chance to avoid further problems.

Ivan put on his armor quickly. It was a process he drilled himself in regularly. That was another piece of Sergei’s advice. He didn’t pull his helmet on, but he did put on one of the sweatbands he now kept in one of his tactical pouches. He had forgotten to bring a sweatband on the Invodale mission, and he had vowed to never allow that to happen again. He had learned the hard way that you can’t fight as efficiently with sweat in your eyes.

When he had double-checked his armor’s fit and integrity, he glanced around. The others around him were armoring, arming, or waiting. Ivan moved toward the weapons crates to search for his rifle, pistols, and knives. After a few minutes of reading the slap tags on the outside of the boxes, he found his crate.

His weapons had been chosen with as much care as his armor and jumpsuit. At Sergei’s suggestion, he had chosen weapons with few metal parts to reduce his magnetic signature. The FN/Fal rifle he carried, an old design with a decent punch, had been completely redesigned with modern composites. His Glock 9 pistol was much the same. His captured Scorpion Model 66 machine pistol had started with a majority of metal parts, but he had been swapping out the metal parts for after-market composites as his budged allowed. The only metal he carried were any grenades issued and the heirloom kindjal knife his grandfather had presented him with when the Disciples of Horatius had accepted him into their ranks.

The presentation of the kinjal was a Golobitski tradition dating back centuries. A Cossack weapon, it had once been a Golobitski rite of passage to liberate one from the Cossack enemy. Now the tradition was for the family patriarch to pass on one of the heirloom kindjals and recount the history of the blade and its past bearers. His grandfather had reforged the blade while Ivan was at basic training. New metal had been added to a blade worn out by years of constant honing and use. It was the same knife his grandfather had carried during the Second Arachnid invasion.

The knife had been refurbished once before. It’s history with the Golobitski family dated to the Second World War on Earth, when it had been used against the Nazi’s at Stalingrad. Ivan’s knowledge of his family history and the history of the blade he carried had given him a renewed determination to survive his first mission. Knowing what Konstantin Golobitski had gone through as he hunted Wehrmacht armor in the rubble of Stalingrad made him realize that there was always a way to beat the enemy.

After checking his rifle and pistols, and seating his kindjal and Gerber fighting knife in their respective sheaths on his back and left leg, he started to make his way to where Crowlye and his friend were adjusting some of the liner’s armored space suits to fit them. A large-bore powder rifle was resting on the table beside Crowlye.

As he approached, Crowlye’s friend glanced up from the vambrace he was fitting, grinned at him in greeting, and looked back down at his vambrace. Crowlye stopped working on his chest plate and watched him impassively. There was no threat in Crowlye’s posture or demeanor, but Ivan could tell he was wary.

Smiling to reassure Crowlye that he intended no ill, Ivan asked,

‘Has anyone else joined your team yet?’

The other man replied without looking up from his adjustments.

‘No.’ He glanced up. ‘I’m Angus MacIverssen, and this is Crowlye.’

‘Ivan Golobitski.’

Angus grinned and nodded toward the field-muted Disciples of Horatius emblem on his shoulder. ‘The Disciples are a good unit. I served with Sir Reginald for about six months on Talmazad. How long