Seeker-class DropShip Wilderghast
Inbound Vector
Zion, Tikonov Commonality, Capellan Confederation
3 January 3153 Wilderghast’s mess hall had seen better days. The pale blue-gray paint on its walls and ceiling was cracked and flakes of it were regularly accumulating in the air filters. The treadplates on the floor were scuffed, scratched, and stained by events and accidents nobody could recall anymore. The various round tables, bolted to the floor, has barely any edging left that was intact, and one or two had been replaced entirely by scrapwood that hardly matched and occasionally added its splinters to the air filters as well. The light covers were yellowed, and the kitchen area was covered in grease and oil splatters, while some of the grill surfaces had been abandoned for years now. Some of the dinnerware and appliances had been replaced, resulting in a generally mismatched collection of plates and drinking bulbs in the cupboards, and equipment that wasn’t necessarily optimized for the work stations they were mounted on. A few of the microwaves and flash-friers, moved to the dining area, beside the condiment stations and the fridge units few people bothered to clean anymore, were well used and sometimes gave off worrying smells when used.
And yet, it was the still hangout of choice for most of the crew and passengers aboard ship—when they weren’t fiddling about in their quarters, tinkering in the ’Mech bays, or just plain hiding from sight anywhere else.
Near one corner of the dining area, Sergo Pavlovish Mikoyan sat at one of the round tables with his feet on an empty chair beside him, and a smirk on his face. On the table before him was an empty foil wrapper that used to contain a protein bar and a plastic thermos half-filled with tea that bordered on tap water. In his hand was a compad with a hairline crack in its display and permanent grunge on its well-worn keys.
Across from him, Malcom Jeong and Carlos Villavega were hunched forward, doing their level best to lower their voices and not look back as they heard the mess hatch open behind them.
“So, you think you can do it?” Carlos asked.
“
Please, Jee!” Sergo said with a flourish of his left hand, only three fingers of which existed past their first knuckle. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”
“It’s not you we doubt,” said Malcolm at a near mumble. “It’s whether or not the locals can deliver.”
Sergo made a non-committal shrug. “Well, the pure Himalayan blackberries
might be hard to come by, but I already looked into the local growers for the other stuff and confirmed some suppliers with stock on-hand.”
Malcolm sighed. “Well, if not Himalayan, I’ll settle for Evergreen, or hybrids—just none of that thornless stuff.”
“You’re still a weird guy, Mal,” Sergo said as he tapped a few noted into his pad, then looked up to the man who just seemed to
appear at Malcolm’s side, and who set his cracked ceramic sipping mug down on the table with a soft
thunk that made Carlos jump to self-conscious alert.
“Hope you also remember we’ll need an extra pallet or two of duct tape, toilet paper, and cording now, Sergo.”
Sergeant Shayde Danse wasn’t an imposing man, nor was he a forty-four-kilo weakling. He was just…Shayde. He was the kind of everyman who could vanish into a crowd without anyone noticing, even if they were actively looking for him. But he had a way of startling people by suddenly being there if they weren’t watching out for him. Sergo, of course, had noticed him the moment he came into the room and beelined for its one working coffee station.
Carlos, for his part, recovered from his initial surprise quickly enough. “Oh, are you still on about
that?”
“Yes, come now, ’Dancer” Sergo added. “It was a great celebration! New Year’s Eve and turnover all at once? How often does that happen?”
“And we were welcoming the Year of the Snake,” Malcolm chimed in, “to honor our new CapCon friends, of course!”
“Hrmph,” Shayde grunted. “Too bad the Capellan New Year is actually next month, huh?”
“Eh!” Malcolm said with a dismissive wave. “Details!”
“You do have to admit it lightened the mood at the time,” Carlos said with a smirk.
“Well, yeah,” Shayde admitted. “But you weren’t the ones who had to listen to Scowly’s passive-aggressive complaints about the waste of supplies. Or about the bits of your hand-made confetti and streamers he’s still finding all over the ’Mech bays.”
Carlos and Malcolm shared a fist bump. “Yeah, maybe we did get a bit carried away.”
“
We?” Malcolm repeated. “Man, you had me thinking I was the only one making those party favors!”
“I’m reasonably sure I said that I was making them. Honest mistake.”
“Suuure,” Malcolm drawled.
“That’s my story and I’m sticking to it,” Carlos said as took a sip from his water flask.
“Do you jokers ever think you may be lucky the Cap bought it when he did?” Shayde asked.
Carlos nearly choked on his water. “
Ouch, man!” he exclaimed after a short coughing fit.
“Yeah,” Malcolm said. “Too soon, Sarge!”
“I’m sure they don’t, my sour old friend,” Sergo told Shayde. “Unlike
some folks at this table, the Cap had a sense of humor, even
before his morning black-with-four-sugars.”
Shayde scowled as he looked woefully down at his mug. “Just black now,” he said with a sigh. “Prep station’s been out of sugar since last night…”
Malcolm arched an eyebrow. “Shit, really?”
“Should I add another pallet of that to the list too?” Sergo asked.
“Could you?” said Shayde.
Sergo’s grin widened. “Hehe! Worry not, Shayde. Your friend Sergo has your back!”
“Seriously, though,” Carlos said, “I think—”
The dinging of the ship-wide PA system chose that moment to cut in, drawing all eyes to the dusty speakers above them. “Attention, all Lionheads! Attention all Lionheads!” came the voice they recognized as Aitor Hitomi, one of the Leftover Lions’ ’Mech techs, apparently doing double duty as ship’s comm officer this morning. “Please come to the bridge ASAP. Repeat: all Lionheads, please come to the bridge as soon as possible.”
Shayde shook his head wearily as he rose from the table again. “Duty calls, I guess.”
“If it’s about the other night,” Carlos called after him, “tell ’em you never saw us this morning!”
“No one will buy that!” Shayde called back, and was gone.
****
“Of
course this comes after the turnover…” Hazel grumbled as they listened to the radio chatter, now tuned down low enough for her to be heard over the din. The panic coming over the local airwaves remained palpable even then, coming to the fore every time she or the others stopped talking long enough to take it in.
The Clans were coming for Zion.
Wilderghast’s captain, Benito Wurst, kept his expression stoic, but the way his eyes darted about between the Leftover Lions’ remaining command staff, gathered now around the dull glow of the ship’s charting station, betrayed his uncertainty. “We picked up at least three jump-pulse so far,” he explained calmly. “All coming from aftward. If they’re making a showing at the Zenith at all, it’s hard to believe we’d have missed them.”
“Zenith didn’t have a charge station nearby,” Nils remarked, almost needlessly. “They wanted to be sure they took the one at the nadir.”
“Not that it kept those poor fools from squawking out a warning,” Greg Shabash grumbled. “So, what’s the plan?”
“Way I see it,” the shipmaster said, “they probably haven’t noticed us yet. Just to be sure, we’re gonna burn some lateral thrust to make sure we’re centered in the planet’s shadow. We’re already pointed back toward the Ghost, so it would be easy to pour on the fire and abort our landing—”
“But that leaves us with nothing to show for this trip,” said Dawson. “Beyond tons of spent fuel and all that crap Jeestealer and Blackberries wasted on their ‘party favors,’ that is.”
“You’re thinking we can pull off a landing, shopping, and liftoff without the Third Leaguers catching up to us?” Nils asked, but whether he was being sincere or rhetorical was anyone’s guess.
“The folks down there didn’t start freaking out until about an hour ago,” Dawson said, “and then it was because they got word from the station. Figure the time it took for us to pick up Zion’s reaction to that news, and that’s about, what, six hours since they jumped in. That about right, Ben?”
“Give or take half an hour,” Benito confirmed with a nod.
“That’s six hours of inbound burn, out of a thirteen-day trip. That gives us an eight-day head start. Surely, we can gather everything we need in a week.”
“You’re assuming they don’t plot a second jump in-system,” Nils said. “Cut the response times now that they know the alert’s gone up.”
“Or that they will pick us up, deduce where
our JumpShip is, and pop over for a visit,” Hazel added.
“I think we’d be screwed either way if that were to happen,” Shayne told her.
“Any idea how big a force they’re bringing, Ben?” Nils asked.
“Nothing too solid,” Benito admitted with a heavy sigh. “If they broadcast one of those batchalls of theirs, they didn’t give out any specifics. We can’t even be sure what JumpShip classes showed up here. If it’s, like, a bunch of
Hunters or
Scouts, that would make for a smallish force, which would make sense if we’re a jump or two behind the front, but...”
“But there are just too damned many variables,” Greg said. “It could be a raid, or a full-on assault, depending on how badly they want the system. Zion’s a minor breadbasket for the area, even with all that desert. Cut it off, and neighboring systems start feeling the pinch.”
“What about the forces CapCon has down there?” Hazel asked.
“Last we heard, maybe a Liao Guards regiment and some infantry support,” Dawson said almost absently. “But that’s based on MercNet news from a good five years ago now.”
“Nothing from the local news?” Hazel looked incredulously at Benito.
“This is Liao space, remember?” the shipmaster said. “You think the press is free to talk about troop movements here?”
“What about military channels?”
“There’s chatter, alright, but it’s all scrambled. And I’m not sure us calling the resident CCAF troops here to ask how they’re fixed for troops is a way to get on their good side.” Benito paused for a moment, then added, “In fact, I think we should go radio silent, just in case. I know Sergo has been in touch with some locals to do his thing, but—”
“Say no more,” Nils said. “It’s probably a good idea. Dawson?”
Dawson pondered it for a few moments, then nodded. “Yeah. I think so, too.”
Hazel’s gaze shot between the two lieutenants and the skipper as they fell silent enough for them to all here the latest local news update about the inbound invaders—an update with nothing new to report at all. “So, what’s the plan, then?” she asked at last…
