Honor Bound

“Roger, Colonel,” Vinnie replied. “I’ll shout if I see anything. Out.”

McKay turned back to Watanabe. “Casualties?”

“Besides Dzvonik and Corporal Ash,” the Sergeant told him, “we lost Lt. Dodd, the platoon leader… he was trying to get to the vehicle to look for survivors and got caught in a secondary explosion. Couple of Fleet techs got killed when the whole thing started, along with Givens.” The last with a sigh. Givens was one of the Alpha team and had been a friend of Watanabe’s. “We also have three members of the shuttle crew unaccounted for, unless they’re on board and didn’t tell anyone. We have five wounded, not counting you; nothing life-threatening but a couple are going to need treatment for burns and broken bones.”

“Commander Villanueva,” McKay turned to the pilot. “Get a hold of whoever’s inside the shuttle, get it opened up and have the medics get the wounded on board, then get powered up and get in the air… I want a patrol up to make sure we don’t have any more enemy inbound, and some air support.”

“Aye, sir,” she nodded, then holstered her pistol and pulled out her ‘link to call the shuttle.

“Sean,” McKay turned back to Watanabe. “Get the Marines organized and run a search in a kilometer radius from here out,” he waved away from the path to the outpost. “If that controller is still here, I want him taken, alive if possible. We…”

His thought was interrupted by a burst of gunfire in the distance, back towards the outpost: the stutter of a submachine gun and the rapid booms of a handgun.

“Vinnie,” McKay keyed his ‘link. “Is that you?”

“Negative,” came the immediate reply. “I heard it, though.”

“Podbyrin,” McKay muttered. “On my six, Sean!”

Not waiting to see if the NCO followed, McKay took off running back into the forest toward the fallen tree and the pit where he’d left the Russian and the Security guard. This time, his adrenaline spike was gone and he was feeling every bit of the exhaustion and fatigue of the last half hour, as well as the pain of his bruised chest. He pushed through it on sheer force of will, knowing he’d pay for it later.

It seemed like it took twice as long to get back to the pit as it had to come the other way, and he snagged his feet on roots and brush over and over, but finally he saw the massive fallen tree looming ahead of him, its bare roots clawing the air in death.

D’mitry Podbyrin sat on the ground with his back against the tree trunk, Jock’s borrowed pistol held loosely in his hand, sobbing quietly. The Tech Sergeant McKay had left to guard him was sprawled half-in and half-out of the pit, the faceplate of his helmet shattered, his face a bloody ruin, his submachine gun at his side. And laid out in front of the pit was a tall, powerfully built Russian in Protectorate battle utilities, his head half blown away by multiple gunshots at point blank range. At his feet was a Protectorate battle rifle and strapped to his back was a transmission unit with a small broadcast dish attached.

McKay came to a halt in front of the former Protectorate Colonel, noting peripherally that Watanabe was moving around to the other side of the pit to check on the Tech Sergeant. “D’mitry,” he said softly, leaning over to put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

“Sergei,” Podbyrin responded, not looking up. McKay blinked, wondering if the little man was hysterical and thought he was someone else. “Lt. Sergei Luzhkof,” he expounded. He looked up, glancing back at the dead Russian officer, agony in his eyes along with the tears. “He was… he was my friend.”

“I know, D’mitry,” McKay nodded, offering him a hand up. “But we have to go.”

The Russian looked up at his hand, sighed deeply and took it, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. “I should have stayed on the ship,” he muttered half to himself.

“Colonel McKay,” Jason heard over his ‘link.

He touched a button on his earpiece and responded, “McKay here.”

“Sir, it’s Commander Villanueva,” the pilot transmitted. “I’m up, and I’ve got contact with the combat patrol shuttles from the Decatur. It’s the ship, sir… it’s under attack.”

Chapter Twelve

Joyce Minishimi had been a starship captain for eight years, had done interdiction patrols against the Belt pirates for two of them and had been in command of the cruiser Bradley during the war with the Protectorate. She commanded a warship with more destructive power at its disposal than any other device built by man. And yet, she realized abruptly as she watched the sensor icons in the command holotank, she had never once been fired upon. The Belt smugglers had always run at the first sign of trouble, realizing they couldn’t outgun a cruiser; and during the war, they had basically ambushed the Protectorate ships in Earth orbit, destroying them before they even realized they were being attacked.

All of that was about to change. She could see three enemy ships inbound in the sensor display, their fusion drives lighting up the black as they exited the orbit of Peboan’s moon. They had been concealed there, powered down and running cold, until less than an hour ago; they’d gone active immediately after she’d received McKay’s warning and powered up the drive field. She whispered a prayer of thanks for that warning, and for the insight that had made McKay give it. Without the drive field up, the Decatur would have been a sitting duck, vulnerable to a sneak attack. One round from a Gauss cannon fired from lunar orbit would have cored her ship like an apple,

“Bogies are accelerating at two g’s,” the Tactical officer announced from his station to her left. He was half- surrounded by holographic displays and she could barely see him, but Commander Gianeto was a solid, dependable officer. The traditional part of her missed the older setup on the Bradley with flat-panel screens that let her look him in the eye when she gave commands. “At our present speed, we’ll be in direct fire range in twenty-two minutes.”

“We’re still at one g acceleration, ma’am,” the Helm reminded her. “Do you want to increase acceleration?” Lt. Witten was on his first cruise, she remembered. Very intelligent young man, but lacking experience.

“No, I think we can stay comfortable for now,” Minishimi shook her head. “Tactical, target all three bogies and launch Shipbusters.”

“Aye, ma’am, launching Shipbusters. Helm, drive field shutoff in ten seconds.”

“Ten seconds to drive field shutoff, aye,” Helm responded.

Gianeto hit a series of controls on his board and on the Decatur‘s starboard weapons pod, three launch ports slid open and three deadly wedge shapes, each the size of an assault shuttle, moved forward into the launch bays. “Missiles are targeted and ready for launch,” Tactical announced. “Commence drive field shutdown.”

“Drive field shutdown commencing,” Witten nodded, powering down the Eysselink generator. The gravimetic field that had been expanding the space-time behind them and contracting it in front ceased and the ship was suddenly in zero gravity.

“Launching three Shipbuster missiles now,” Gianeto declared, touching the three launch controls at once. They could feel the ship lurch as the three huge missiles were shot free of the weapons pod by the electromagnetic launch racks, kicking out several miles from the Decatur before their on-board fusion drives ignited. “Missiles out, you are clear to reinitialize the drive field.”

“Drive field initializing,” Witten said, feeding the generators a trickle of antimatter, beginning the reaction that produced the Eysselink Effect. He stared intently at the display, waiting for the waves of distorted space-time to once again cloak the ship in its protection. “Field initialized, engaging to one gravity analog acceleration.”

Joyce Minishimi breathed a little easier as the apparent gravity returned, a side-effect of the build-up of gravito-inertial energy by the drive. Nothing could touch a ship with the drive field around it, except a sufficiently strong gravitational field or, of course, another Eysselink drive. They knew the Protectorate had pirated a few Eysselink drive ships, but she couldn’t imagine how they could produce the antimatter needed to fuel them.

“Helm,” Minishimi ordered, “take us out past lunar orbit; I want a hundred klicks between us and the closest of their ships when those missiles hit.”

“Aye, Captain,” Witten acknowledged, changing their course.

“Bogies are launching countermeasures,” Gianeto announced. He squinted at the displays with amused disbelief. “Awfully big ones too… Damn, it looks like they’re shooting Shipbusters at our Shipbusters!”