Starship Liberator Page 11

  “You won’t be laughing soon, pissant,” said Neekers. The two behind chuckled, but Skorza remained silent, apparently puzzled by Loco’s antics.

  He’s not entirely unwary, Derek thought. He’s learned caution from me, but not respect. Why was Skorza so stupid, risking his career, even his freedom, to take revenge on a kid that just wanted to be left alone to train?

  But Carla—Miss Engels—had said that people like Skorza were so rotten inside, so lacking in self-worth they covered themselves in layers of false bravado. If you peeled back a layer and exposed the corruption there, they couldn’t stand it. They had to try to destroy any who revealed their weakness.

  So this situation didn’t surprise him at all.

  Loco kept laughing and posturing for at least fifteen seconds longer than made sense. His odd behavior slowed the Firsties down, made them pause and wonder what the hell was going on, exactly as Derek intended.

  “So, you’re a coward,” said Derek conversationally. “You can’t beat me in a fair fight, so you want to gang up on me again. But I’m not alone this time.”

  Skorza’s lip curled. “Your monkey here won’t save you. It just means we have two shitheads to finish off.”

  “Finish off? Why, whatever do you mean, Cadet First Skorza?”

  Lips pulled back from the older boy’s teeth, though his expression couldn’t be called a smile. “I mean, for some reason you two are going to go exploring in the ore tunnels and fall down a long rock shaft. I’m sure your bodies will be found within the next few months. Then we’re gonna pull a train on your girlfriend.”

  “You’re going to kill us, and then rape Cadet Engels?” Derek enunciated his words. “Is that what you mean?”

  Suspicion crossed Skorza’s face for a moment, while Neekers replied, “Yeah, rats, that’s what we mean, and nobody will be able to prove a thing.”

  Derek nodded to Loco. “Got it?”

  “Got it.” Loco let loose a high-pitched yodeling yell.

  Sub-Fourthies swarmed out of the corridors, front and back, at least twenty cadets. They caught the Firsties by surprise and seized them, five or six on each.

  Skorza fought, knocking down three before Derek stepped forward and kicked his feet out from under him with a blurring leg sweep. The rest piled on the Firstie and held him immobile.

  Derek squatted to look in Skorza’s face. He held out his hand to the side and Loco placed a thumbnail recorder into it. Derek keyed the playback to let everyone hear the audio of what had gone on, what Skorza and Neekers had said.

  “That’s not admissible,” Skorza said with a sneer. “You could have faked that.”

  “Us? Fourthies? We don’t have access to equipment to fake audio so perfectly, and this will stand up to any analysis, I’m sure. But, I don’t think it will come to a court of law. An Honor Board will believe it, and you’ll be out on the street, even if you don’t get sent to a penal station.”

  Skorza strained at his captors, craning his corded neck upward. “Then I’ll wait for you as long as it takes, shitbird. You’ll never be able to sleep soundly, or any of your friends either. My family’s connected.”

  Derek tipped his head back and closed his eyes in resignation. A saying came to him, something he’d read: Once I was a child. I thought as a child and I spoke as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

  “Your family? Skorza, let me tell you about family. Mine and Loco’s were slaughtered right in front of us in a Hok attack two weeks before we got here. Now all we have is each other. Us, and these sub-Fourthies, and a few good people at Academy like Carla Engels. Those are my family now. You sure you want to threaten them?”

  “We’ll crush you, Straker. Command’s pussy little wonder-kid and his butt-buddy, and all the rest of you squirming punks, you hear me?” Skorza swiveled his head around and struggled. “You’re all dead! Fucking dead, if you don’t let me go!”

  Derek nodded. “You know what, Skorza? I believe you mean exactly what you say. So here’s the deal. You get one more chance to take me. If you can, I’ll drop this audio record in the recycler, and you win.”

  Skorza’s face turned crafty. “And if not?”

  Deliberately, Derek worked up a gob of spittle and launched it at Skorza’s left eye. The older boy jerked, but couldn’t avoid it entirely, and the mess ran down his cheek. Derek said nothing, merely allowed his mouth to twitch as if in a smile, though his heart was pounding.

  Point of no return.

  It passed. Derek saw it in Skorza’s eyes.

  “Fine, jerkwad. Let’s do it.”

  Derek stepped back, lifted his hands and motioned for the pile of sub-Fourthies to let Skorza go.

  The Firstie scrambled to his feet and took a stance, circling warily. “You’re not going to get in a lucky strike like last time, rat. You might be fast, but you’re not that fast.”

  “You talk a lot for a coward.”

  Skorza jabbed and feinted, testing, not to be goaded this time.

  Derek leaned back slightly, moving and dodging easily.

  Jab, feint, jab. A low kick, no commitment. More jabs and feints.

  Derek stayed out of the way. He’d never felt so calm and ready, so at peace with what he had to do, so “in the zone.” He’d felt this way in mechsuit VR sometimes, but never in real hand-to-hand.

  Until today.

  “Come on, chickenshit,” Skorza snarled. “Make a move.”

  “You have to move on me, Cadet First. I have the recording. All I have to do is stand here and listen to these sub-Fourthies laugh at you.” At this cue the younger cadets broke out in jeers and hoots of delight.

  In a sudden explosion of motion, Skorza unleashed a combination, left-right-left, then a whirl of low kicks and body punches, all conservative and undercommitted.

  Derek continued to dodge, not striking back. He found Skorza’s care interesting. It showed his opponent was cooler and more self-disciplined than he’d expected. But, if he’d really been cool and self-disciplined, he’d have declined the fight entirely.

  Or maybe not. Maybe he saw it as his only way out. To convince him of that had been Derek’s hope.

  Derek’s concentration deepened. In his perception, Skorza’s motions slowed down, became almost lazy. Whatever made Derek’s physiology what it was, the thing that gave him his body’s advantage, allowed him to analyze the larger boy’s style and ability.

  His technique really was good. Skorza should have been proud of his skill. He could have acted as a mentor of younger cadets rather than a terrorizer. But now that he’d declared his evil intentions, in Derek’s mind he’d become an enemy of everything good, beyond redemption.

  The refrain from Mechsuiter Roundup went through his head. I defend the Good from the Evil that seeks to destroy it. I place my body, my weapons and my mechsuit between the Dark and the Light. I shall not yield.

  Skorza finally committed to a full-power combination, ending with a reverse elbow strike that would have broken bricks had it landed. Derek stepped in, set his hip beneath his opponent’s and caught Skorza’s wrists. Then he clenched his core, bending to draw Skorza out of balance and throw him, violently.

  A purely defensive maneuver would have released hold of Skorza’s arms and let him sprawl heavily against the metal bulkhead. However, with deadly intent and utter lack of emotion, Derek instead snapped the bigger boy’s body in an arc, maintaining control of his trajectory so Skorza’s head impacted the crysteel with a sickening crunch. When Derek let go, Cadet First Skorza lay on the deck, his skull stove in and his neck bent at an unnatural angle.

  Everyone stared for a moment, stunned to silence.

  “Loco, run and call for the medics,” Derek said, not taking his eyes off his handiwork. He’d killed Skorza, goaded him into this fight and murdered him deliberately, and he refused to look away from what he’d done.

  Deep down, a small, unclean part of him rejoiced, and he felt ashamed. But that didn’t last long. There’d
been no other way. He had to protect the others from Skorza. The older boy had made heinous, unforgivable threats against Carla, and against all his friends.

  Against his family.

  He’d had to do it. There’d been no other choice.

  Hadn’t there?

  No. Derek refused to feel guilty about anything except his own petty, unworthy glee. But that was a price he could live with. What’s done is done, he thought.

  Twenty minutes later, before the medics had finished with Skorza, he slipped away and accosted Cadet Engels as she finished a class. He shut the door when only he and she remained.

  “It’s done,” he said. “You’ll hear about it soon, but I wanted to tell you myself.”

  “What’s done?”

  “Skorza.”

  “Done… what’s done?”

  “I killed him.”

  “You killed him?” Engels’ jaw dropped. “Intentionally?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you insane?”

  Derek activated the thumbnail recorder in playback mode.

  Engels listened, aghast. “He was just running his mouth! He wouldn’t have followed through.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know! He says crap like that all the time!”

  “Said.” The word fell with a thud. “I was protecting you, and Loco, and the other sub-Fourthies. Protecting the weak against the evil oppressors, just like they teach us.”

  “So I’m weak now? I can take care of myself!”

  Derek stumbled over his words. He’d been sure Engels would approve of what he’d done. “I—I thought you’d be proud of me.”

  “Straker, I can’t be proud of this. He was an asshole, but he was a fellow cadet! We don’t turn on our own!”

  “He turned on all of us first.”

  Engels cleared her throat. “He was not your teacher, not your role model. Or was he?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Straker, my father once told me something I’ll never forget. When you fight monsters, don’t become a monster.”

  Derek swayed on his feet, his vision graying. “You think I’m a monster?”

  “I—no, Straker, I don’t. But what you did was…”

  “Monstrous?” Ice crept through Derek’s soul. If Miss Engels—if Carla—rejected what he’d done... he didn’t even know how he’d face that.

  “You can’t ever do anything like this again. Ever. Murdering people isn’t the solution to your problems. And once you start down that road, where does it end?”

  Derek tried to explain. “It’s what they’re training us to be, Miss Engels. Killers.”

  “For war, against evil aliens. Not this way. Not against your own kind.”

  “He wasn’t my kind.” Derek lifted his chin, feeling a cold righteousness sweep through his soul. “Skorza was worse than the Hok. He was a traitor to the Hundred Worlds, hurting other cadets for his own sick pleasure.”

  “Cadet Straker…Derek, give me your word you’ll never do anything like this again.”

  Derek stared at Engels and ice froze his heart. “I can’t do that.”

  Engels turned her back on him. “Then get out. Dismissed.”

  “Aye aye, Miss Engels.” Derek performed a perfect about-face and marched away. When he rounded a corner, his feet became unsteady, and he had to force himself to walk properly.

  Thankfully, he made it to a latrine in time to vomit.

  The subsequent investigation was thorough, but Skorza’s propensities were well known, and Loco’s audio had damned the Cadet First by his stated intentions. Nothing could prove Derek had done anything but defend himself, with tragic results.

  From then on, everyone stayed way the hell out of his way.

  From then on, everyone wanted to be on his good side, but nobody except Loco remained his friend. Not even Miss Engels.

  From then on, Cadet Derek Barnes Straker, mechsuiter-to-be, put away childish things.

  Chapter 12

  Corinth star system, interplanetary space. Present day (2817 A.D., Old Earth reckoning).

  Admiral Braga only allowed Zaxby to fire a single salvo of altered fusion mines through the railguns. There were immediate red-light failures, damaging the tubes, but no catastrophes. Repairs would take time, however.

  The mines moved steadily, stealthily through interplanetary space. Lieutenant Zaxby had calculated multiple vector influences, including the curvature of space-time due to the planet, its moon, the primary, and every other planet in the star system. Other factors included the launching ships’ velocities, the kinetic energy imparted by the railguns, and the probable course of the enemy.

  Combined with inevitable sensor errors, achieving strikes on the pursuing fleet of cruisers would be a triumph of multivariate, multidimensional calculus.

  But did these humans appreciate him? No! They laughed at him merely because he didn’t understand every nuance of their monkey culture, making jokes about canning and eating him, and at every turn telling him to cease his obviously insightful and informative commentary. It was enough to make him swear off aliens and go home to Ruxin.

  Unfortunately for him and every other Ruxin native, his planet had been conquered by the Hok eighty standard years ago. So, Zaxby had swallowed his justifiable pride and once again resolved to put up with these annoying and semi-moronic land-dwellers. After all, they had the warships, and Zaxby greatly desired to eventually liberate his homeworld. If that meant enduring abuse, then so be it.

  “Impact in four minutes,” he announced when he’d finished his calculations.

  “If we’re lucky,” Ensign Stiles mumbled.

  Stiles was one of Zaxby’s regular detractors. The human was clever enough to keep his insulting commentary below the range of his superiors’ detection, but Zaxby heard him.

  “It’s not a matter of luck, but of extraordinary skill,” Zaxby said. “My superior spatial acuity and facility with mathematics has increased the probability of at least three mine strikes to a near certainty.”

  “Shut up, Zaxby,” Stiles singsonged, and others among the hoi polloi echoed him, suppressing obvious laughter.

  Zaxby shut up. They were all against him. But he was a superior being, and therefore he must rise above adversity. They would thank him when he won this battle for them.

  At least the admiral wasn’t a bad sort. Better than Zaxby’s fellow officers, anyway. Wise leaders always recognized superior ability in their subordinates, his extensive research of history told him.

  “Pass to all ships: plot and target our operating railguns and beams on our pursuers in conventional mode—but do not fire,” Admiral Braga said. “As soon as the mines strike, concentrate attacks on the survivors. Our goal is to hit them hard and force them to break off their pursuit. We’ll also get some free acceleration from shooting backward.”

  “A clever tactic, sir,” Zaxby said.

  “Brown-noser,” Stiles whispered.

  “I don’t have a nose.”

  “That’s because it’s so far up the admiral’s ass it got lost,” Stiles hissed.

  “Cease your monkey screechings, Ensign Stiles, or I shall put you on report.”

  “Go ahead. Nobody cares about what you squids think.”

  Zaxby went back to ignoring the annoying fellow, regretting that he allowed himself to be drawn into such juvenile banter.

  “How many of our railguns survived being misused as launchers?” Admiral Braga asked.

  “Twenty-nine of thirty-two,” replied Zaxby. “Reports indicate two of the three are severely damaged, but one only needs minor repairs.”

  “Not too bad…”

  The admiral eyeballed their boards along with the rest of the cramped bridge crew. Tension was mounting as the mines traveled backward, and the enemy accelerated in an optimum pursuit curve.

  Zaxby watched even more closely because he could read the finer nuances of the intersecting courses. His satisfaction grew as the numbers remained perfectly s
teady. No unexpected curvature of space-time diverted either vector. No unseen fragment of rock pre-detonated a mine, and the Hok commander remained complacent, choosing the most efficient track rather than varying it as a matter of routine. After all, they were far out of effective range.

  Or so they thought. As the countdown reached zero, the crew held its collective breath. Zaxby, as one of the few Ruxins aboard, continued to breathe through his air-gills, his two brachial hearts pumping blood past the membranes, but he experienced a similar thrill of anticipation.

  “One… two… three…” Stiles muttered, and then a cheer rose as a dozen explosions blossomed at once.

  “Fifteen!” Admiral Braga crowed. “Well done, Lieutenant Zaxby! Well done.”

  “Sensors,” Captain Verdura said, “get me a solid assessment of enemy status. Weapons, keep firing.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Zaxby, his tentacles working like a pianist. “Targeting the survivors. Some are evading.”

  “Fifteen solid hits,” said the sensors officer. “Four enemy ships are crippled or destroyed. Eleven are confirmed seriously damaged and out of the fight. Fourteen remain—but we’re pounding them now with more beam and railgun strikes.”

  “Are they returning fire?”

  “Not yet, ma’am. They’re continuing to pursue, with evasion.”

  Verdura stood and hung onto the rail in front of the main holoplate in order to get a better view. “Keep hammering them!”

  “Naturally, Captain,” said Zaxby, expertly coordinating Vigilant’s fire on the enemy.

  He correctly predicted the position of several undamaged enemy cruisers, based on their likely evasive maneuvers, and was rewarded with evidence of excellent strikes.

  At the same time, he passed mandatory corrections to other friendly ships in order to increase the effectiveness of their targeting, using the authority the admiral’s command codes granted him. No doubt this minor breach of protocol would be overlooked, given his singular and exceptional performance today.

  Admiral Braga leaned to stare pointedly in Zaxby’s direction. “Will they catch us?”