Act of War Read online

  ACT OF WAR

  R.L.GIDDINGS

  ©rlgiddings

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  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY THREE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Elsbeth Morton felt like she was going to die.

  Things were happening all around her but she hardly noticed. All she could think about was trying to control the wave of nausea which threatened to overwhelm her every time she tried to lift her head.

  The lights were coming on one by one and it was cold. In the background she could hear the low drone of machinery.

  She was in some sort of cryo-pod, that much was obvious, but for the life of her she couldn’t think how she’d come to be there. Not that that particularly concerned her. Her long term memory seemed fine and she was confident that the rest would kick in soon enough. She knew who she was, at least: a Surgeon Captain in the USDC. She also knew that she was currently serving aboard the Confederation ship, Mantis.

  But that was where it started to get confusing.

  Because this wasn’t the Mantis. No, this was a much newer ship. It had that new ship smell about it. The lay-out of the ceiling and walls was nothing like the interior of any ship she’d served on before – much more spacious than anything she was used to. All the straight lines and right angles she was familiar with replaced by soft curves and asymmetrical designs.

  The realisation was slow in coming but, when it did finally arrive, she felt as though she’d been gut punched.

  Oh my God, I’m on a Yakutian ship.

  Something had gone horribly wrong.

  She tried to pull herself upright but her arms felt weak and wobbly. Her neck struggled even to lift her head. It took a huge effort of will just to sit up, but somehow she managed it.

  Definitely a cryo-pod then. The amniotic fluid pooling around her feet was still warm, the clothes she was wearing seeming to have fused to her skin. She lightly fingered the front of her jacket only to find that it came away in soft, supple gobs of fabric. If the fluid was capable of liquefying her uniform there was no telling what it might have done to her lungs.

  The cot next to hers was empty. Either her companion had already been revived or she’d been traveling alone.

  How long had she been here?

  She pushed the thought away, some part of her training kicking in. Her body was already under a great deal of stress from being resuscitated, there was no point worrying about things she couldn’t control.

  That sounded like good advice. She tried to recall where she’d heard it. Then it came to her.

  It had been part of a presentation she had made. If she really tried, she was pretty sure she’d be able remember the whole thing, in its entirety. But before that, there was something much more pressing to deal with.

  And with that, she bent over the side of the pod and vomited over the floor.

  Once she was finished, she sat back shakily. A thin sheen of sweat covered her body but she felt better for having purged herself. There were other cryo-pods out there. She’d only got a glimpse of them but she was certain that’s what they were. Rows of them. Pristine and white, sitting there like pealed eggs.

  She thought that, given enough time, she might be able to summon the strength to go and explore them.

  *

  Morton must have dozed off after that because, when next she looked, the whole place was suddenly buzzing. A number of burly nurses – all male – were moving methodically amongst the cryo-pods. After a while, one of them came over and stood next to her. He appeared to be talking to himself. If she hadn’t known that he was speaking Yakutian, his heritage would have become obvious the moment she caught sight of his implants. Smooth white plugs and discs were affixed directly to his face and neck. They seemed fairly benign by Yakutian standards but the sight of them still made her feel queasy.

  The nurse handed her a glass of what appeared to be water and urged her to drink it.

  She hesitated initially but then, realising how dry her throat was, she swallowed it down. If the Yakutians had wanted to murder her then why go to the trouble of resuscitating her in the first place?

  Why not just murder her in her pod?

  When she’d finished, she held up the empty glass.

  “More?” her voice sounded scratchy.

  He took it from her, not seeming to understand.

  She had a number of questions but, as the nurse didn’t seem to speak English, and her Coptic was pretty near non-existent, she supposed that they were going to have to wait.

  Once the nurse had left she sat up a little, turning to survey her surroundings. The water had helped clear her head a little. The pod next to her was empty but beyond that was another containing two young men. One of the men had yet to stir but his companion, though deathly pale, was attempting to sit up.

  She wondered whether she looked as bad as he did. She supposed that she must do. Probably worse considering her age.

  She briefly introduced herself. He was a Junior Spacer named Peele.

  Peele had a much clearer recollection of events than she did. He and his colleague had been on deck six of the Mantis when the order to evacuate had come through, but when she pressed him for possible reasons for the evacuation he just gave a dismal shrug.

  “I assume this is the enemy ship,” she said.

  “The Serrayu,” Peele clarified. “I guess. No idea what happens now, though. What do you think?”

  “I imagine they’re going to try and question us, though it’s anyone’s guess what form that’ll take.”

  “You mean they’re going to interrogate us?”

  From his demeanour, it was clear that he wanted to know whether the Yakutians intended to torture them. While Morton very much doubted that that would be the case, she couldn’t completely rule it out either. In the end, she chose simply not to comment.

  Instead she said, “What about your friend? What’s wrong with him?”

  “This guy?” he indicated the limp figure in the pod next to him. “Barely know him. We were in too much of a rush to get off the ship.”

  “Ok. Nonetheless, he doesn’t look well. Not well at all. Is he even breathing?”

  With a huge effort, Peele leant across and laid his hand on the other man’s chest.

  “You know, I don’t think he is.”

  From some
where, Morton summoned the strength to get to her feet. Despite a brief bout of dizziness, she managed to make it over to where the young man was lying. She checked for signs of a pulse but failed to find one.

  “Help me get him onto the floor.”

  “What for?”

  “I can’t do CPR with him lying in here.”

  He was too slippery to get a good hold of but, with Peele’s help, she was able to drag him onto the side of the cryo-pod. But as they attempted to draw his legs over the lower lip, he slipped from their grasp and hit the floor like a freshly landed cod. The impact was enough to get him breathing again and the pair worked to roll him over onto his back.

  She checked again for a pulse, the cool nutrient gel which covered his body making it difficult to get a decent contact. When she finally did locate one it was in his thigh - thin and reedy.

  She sat back on her haunches, hugely relieved. She didn’t think she had it in her for the full rigours of CPR. She was considering rolling him onto his side in order to stabilise his breathing, when a pair of nurses came over and started remonstrating with her in Coptic. One of the men pulled her roughly to her feet. They seemed suspicious of her but Morton was too far gone by that stage to actually care.

  They frog-marched her out of the holding room and down a dimly lit corridor which ended in a nondescript grey door.

  Inside, the room was sparsely decorated with a nurse sitting at a table and a row of chairs against one wall. They indicated for her to sit down and she gladly complied. Leaving the nurse to keep an eye on her, the other two left.

  Five minutes later they re-appeared with a more senior officer. The man looked to be about the same age as her son, if he’d still been alive. From his uniform, he looked to be some kind of medical administrator. This was an advantage she could exploit. She knew how these people worked – they always looked for the most expedient solution to any problem.

  He stood directly in front of her, hands clasped at his waist.

  “Why did you attack the other prisoner?” he wanted to know.

  Attack? So that was what this was all about.

  “I didn’t attack him, I was trying to save his life.”

  He gave her a critical look. “You have a medical background?”

  Morton took a breath and tried to think what he saw when he looked at her. Covered in gel as she was, she probably didn’t look much like a senior officer. She was going to have to put his mind at rest on that front if they were going to proceed any further.

  “I’m Doctor Elsbeth Morton: acting Captain-Surgeon on the USDC Mantis. I’m sure you have a comparable rank over here.”

  The man seemed to zone-out for a second and then he was back. No doubt consulting the feed from his implants. She might not be able to see them but they were there somewhere.

  “Captain-Surgeon,” he seemed encouraged by this. “You must forgive my nurses, they were concerned for your crewmate’s well-being.”

  “Of course,” Morton made the effort to sit more upright but resisted the urge to run a hand through her hair. “You must be very busy with so many evacuees to process. Perhaps I could have a word with your head of medical team practice. I may be of some help.”

  “In what sense?”

  “I could help check over the rest of my crewmates. I’m sure that your medical teams must have their hands full.”

  “No, not at all, we’re coping extremely well, thank you.”

  That wasn’t the impression she’d got from the holding centre but it wouldn’t do to contradict him.

  “But there were hundreds of people on the Mantis,” she struggled to remember the exact figure. It was like searching through a deck of cards looking for the ace of spades. It had to be there somewhere. “They’re all going to need a medical assessment.”

  “That may be the case although we’re somewhat limited in the number of prisoners we are currently able to accommodate.”

  Prisoners. That term again.

  “Really? And how many can you accommodate?”

  “No more than forty five. We’re almost at that point now.”

  Morton couldn’t believe what she was hearing. There had to be at least four hundred crew members on the Mantis, though the true number still evaded her.

  “But what about the others?” she said, eager to keep any sense of condemnation from her voice. “You can’t just abandon them.”

  “As I said, we have a limited capacity. We’d like to do more but necessity prevents us.”

  Morton was incensed by the man’s insincerity. They clearly intended to do just enough to avoid any blame on a point of interplanetary law while still coming far short of actually seizing the initiative and helping those involved. In many ways, she shouldn’t have been surprised. As the Yakutians were concerned, the crew of the Mantis represented the enemy. It could only serve their purposes if they allowed hundreds of skilled spacers to perish.

  Fewer opponents to worry about.

  Callous it might be, but their lack of application wouldn’t be enough to justify this as being a war crime. Morton should have been shocked but found that she wasn’t. After all her experiences in the Long War, she was more resigned than anything.

  “I need to speak with the captain,” a shaft of clear thought presented her with his name. “Captain Mahbarat, I believe.”

  The administrator appeared suddenly uneasy. He’d clearly never dealt with such a high ranking female officer before and was struggling to comprehend whether her request was reasonable or not. The Yakutians were sticklers for protocol and perhaps she could turn that to her advantage.

  “I’m afraid Captain Mahbarat is far too busy at the moment.”

  Yet, Morton took inspiration from that momentary hesitation. The fact that he had considered her request at all suggested that there might be something in this.

  “Am I to take it that I am the senior Confederation officer on board?”

  The administrator lapsed into his fugue state before replying. “That is correct.”

  Which meant that, as senior officer, she was party to certain courtesies of rank, one of which was to request a meeting with the senior officer in charge.

  But then another thought came to her.

  “What about Captain Faulkner? Have you had no word from him?”

  “Captain Faulkner?” the administrator smiled, revealing a grim set of metallic teeth. “Haven’t you heard? Well, I suppose not. Captain Faulkner is dead.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Webster screwed up his eyes and tried to concentrate.

  It was an arduous task trying to track down an escape pod in the enormity of space. But now that they’d found it, the pod appeared to be moving away from them, a tiny dot against a totally black backdrop. As they approached it at speed, it would grow alarmingly in size until he found himself scrambling at the last second to make sense of the pod’s orientation. There were only four mooring points on each pod and he could guarantee that no matter what angle they approached from, he would never get a clear shot at any of them.

  The robot arm mounted on the Dardelion’s exterior was extremely nimble but, as with any such mechanism, there was always that brief but discernible delay between what Webster was trying to do with the handles and the nuanced action of the arm itself. And, at the speed they were traveling at, that meant that there would be precious little room for error. If he missed a pod the first time there was little chance he’d get another stab at it.

  So far, he had only managed to miss one but the thought of that still galled him. As their trajectory had carried them past their target, he’d tried to console himself with the thought that perhaps the pod might be picked up by another crew. And he’d almost managed it.

  But that was a lie, and he knew it. The sheer size of the search area meant that the chances of an escape pod being located by another ship were less than twenty percent. And of that twenty percent, only ten percent would be successfully recovered, with those percentages dwindling the longer this
went on.

  He’d been in the operator’s chair for twenty hours straight and was finding it difficult to keep a clear head. So much so, that he’d unplugged the biometric readers in his suit. He imagined that his blood pressure alone was enough to bar him from carrying on and didn’t want to give Silva an excuse to shut him down.

  Not that there was much chance of that. She had more than enough to worry about herself. Silva was currently at the helm working her magic with the ship’s maneuvering thrusters in an attempt to bring the pod into alignment. The irony was that the Dardelion was a survey ship, designed with speed in mind. She wasn’t built to operate at such low speeds and so Silva was doing an incredible job just keeping her headed in the right direction.

  “Payload will be within range in twelve seconds,” Silva’s naturally deep voice resonated calm and control.

  Webster flexed his fingers a number of times before engaging the handles. His forearms had started to cramp up during the last few retrievals and he was anxious to stave off the worst effects until he could take a break.

  Dammit, they were coming in too fast on this one.

  He had to work hard to get the robot arm aligned for the correct orientation. Articulated in four places it should be able to snatch up anything they came across. But the angle of approach was looking to be extremely tight and he didn’t want to mess this one up.

  He spotted an anchor point on the pod’s northernmost edge just as Silva was informing him that he had five seconds to go. Extreme north and extreme south were the most awkward locations as far as the arms were concerned but, he reasoned, if he could see it he should be able to grab it.

  At the very last moment the pod’s spin meant that the bright red of the LED emergency light was angled directly at the camera and he was dazzled momentarily.

  But that was enough.

  Shit.

  In an attempt to compensate, he tried bringing the arm around in a wide arc but found that he couldn’t. He was working against the arm’s normal articulation.

  To make matters worse, the pod clipped the ‘elbow’ joint nudging it off on a slightly different trajectory.