'Chief Vercelli, launch our three birds,' Oz ordered.
'Aye. Punting in five seconds.'
The asteroid grouping and their three planetoids were far beneath, and Oz couldn't help but suck air in through his teeth at the sight of the monolithic fireballs as they closed in. 'Can we land on this trajectory?'
'It's fine,' Panloo's navigator barked over his shoulder. 'We'll have to accelerate at the last moment so we strike our landing coordinates properly.'
'Don't let the computer do all the work, recheck your course as you plot,' Oz ordered.
'Easy big guy, I think he's got it,' Jason reassured with a whisper.
Oz watched as the tactical display switched to short range. Their long range sensors couldn't read through the cloud. The Uriel fighters launched and made haste to the opposite edge of the cloud. More information on the cluster of asteroids moving beneath the Triton was becoming available. The final course was plotted for them to land on the flattest space available on the rear of one of the largest flaming cosmic bodies and he immediately started rechecking the navigator's calculations. 'If you think we're in bad shape now, imagine what a minor misjudgement could do to us.'
'I know, but you've got to trust your staff. I've seen this helm team's scores, they're good.'
Oz finished rechecking the calculations and nodded. 'The math is solid, I'll give him that.'
'All guns, cease fire,' Agameg ordered calmly from the tactical station.
The Triton’s railguns stopped firing as she manoeuvred through a layer of agitated, flaming dust. The lumbering carrier moved behind the broadest asteroid. It was just ahead, and several members of the bridge staff braced themselves as the main thrusters fired hard to regain enough speed to make contact.
The front of the ship was pointed directly at their landing site. It loomed closer and closer until Panloo finally stopped accelerating and rotated the large carrier so her heavy landing struts were in position to make contact.
Oz clamped his jaw shut as he watched the ship drift off course slightly.
'We could dose you with something, calm you down a bit maybe?' Jason whispered, smiling impishly.
Oz shot him a stern look then returned his focus to the navigational data displayed on the centre bulkhead. The representation of what was going on around the Triton bathed the bridge in flickering red as the faux window displays showed the view of flaming particles all around the ship and the asteroid they followed. They drifted gently back on course, the distance reading changed from kilometres to meters. Their speed reset so it was relative to the asteroid, not to the field, and Oz couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief as it switched from hundreds of kilometres per second to sixty three kilometres per hour.
With a low, thrumming sound the Triton’s undercarriage touched the asteroid and Panloo's navigator engaged the drills and clamps that would secure them to the asteroids surface.
Oz glanced to Agameg and checked the compositional readings of the asteroid for himself. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the issyrian doing the same in just as much of a rush. 'It's not going to work,' he stated plainly.
'We're drilling thirty meters in, we'll be secure,' reassured Panloo's copilot.
Oz checked the readings for himself and saw how loosely packed that side of the asteroid was. 'Get ready to maintain a drift Panloo. Those makeshift moorings won't hold us. Stop drilling.'
'They'll hold.'
'If you drill and kick up debris when the mooring posts shift the repair teams might not survive it. Stop. That's an order.'
Panloo's navigator irritably shut down the undercarriage drilling systems and started reversing them slowly. 'Funny, I've never seen you in the sim doing my job,' he muttered.
'You just lost your leisure materializer rations for a week.' Oz growled.
Panloo's navigator whirled in his seat. 'I can't help that the slug handling tactical can't remember to run a topographical analysis before we touch down! You should know better than to put a shifter in charge of weaponry and combat sensors!'
'Stow the attitude, mister. We're not discussing his performance. Report to me after your shift.'
'What? Why?'
'If you have a problem with a member of my staff you have a problem with me, and I settle my problems off the bridge. Now do your duty, navigator,' Oz ordered flatly from the command seat.
Everyone busied themselves, no one wanted to be caught gaping. Agameg couldn't help but let a smile creep across his thin lips.
'Tim's lucky you're here,' Jason whispered, nodding at the copilot as he turned back towards his control. 'Jake would have taken his station and shot him.'
'You think?'
'He doesn't tolerate racism.'
'Neither do I.'
'He enjoys shooting people a lot more and he finished the nav qualifier for the Triton last week.'
'Good point.' Oz finished double checking the ship's status and cleared his throat. 'All right, we're going to concentrate on repairs. Double shifts and double quick. Chief Grady, how are our chances of getting those main thrusters installed?'
'It's not a good idea,' Liam Grady's hologram answered.
'What problems can we expect when you're finished?'
'We're sure to get contamination in several key parts of the system. That could lead to sudden power drops, overheating in parts of the assembly and accelerated internal corrosion.'
'But you can burn some of the debris out of the thrusters and service them from the inside once they're installed, right?'
Liam's nodding holographic avatar appeared in the tertiary command seat. 'I'll get the teams working. They'll be in place within the hour and connected in less than two. We'll be servicing those thruster pods for weeks though.'
'You know if there was another way-'
'I know, we need speed if we're going to get clear of those battlecruisers. I'll update you with our progress in an hour. All repair and maintenance teams have been dispatched.'
'Good. Let's get patched up so we can make a run for it.'
Chapter 6
“This system is corrupt. Permissions have been rewritten.” The various displays throughout Regent Tower spat back at anyone trying to access any information or function. Analysts across the city attempted to combat the aggressive digital entity as it spread like a drop of ink in water.
The bright sea of light that was New Versailles flickered and quaked as autonomous functions were retasked and shut down for purposes that were known to only the originator of the infection, Gabriel Meunez.
The traffic lanes crisscrossing the sky halted, leaving millions hovering. Impatient night commuters tried to break their lanes, to make their way around the hundreds of kilometres of still traffic only to be incinerated by orbital defence platforms.
For the first time in decades a battle ship descended from orbit and docked with the very top of Regent Tower. The long combat vessel made the smooth, cleanly designed building look lopsided and top heavy, as though it had grown an undesirable, geometrically out of place appendage. Not a single shot was fired at the invader as it cast its narrow shadow over the city below.
There were no shock troopers heralding his arrival. There was no need to damage the buildings exterior or interior. Gabriel walked down the debarkation hall from his ship straight into the upper docking centre.
Synthetic valets decorated with red vests and ties painted on their torsos watched Gabriel as he passed and took positions behind. Their blue and green eyes gleamed, as though they were eager, searching for something.
