The Gate at the Grey Wolf Star (Perseus Gate Book 1) Read online

  “Just don’t shoot me,” Finaeus said as he took the position and leveled his rifle at the airlock door.”

  “We’ve practiced this a lot,” Cheeky said as she ran down to a crate on the far side of the airlock—left there for just this reason.

  “Sera had you drilling, did she?” Finaeus asked.

  Cheeky smiled as she took aim on the airlock. “All the time. Cargo’s made us keep it up too.”

  Sabrina advised.

  Cheeky said.

  Sabrina said.

  Cheeky saw a five-second-countdown appear over her vision. She braced against the wall and clenched her teeth, forcing herself to take deep breaths and ignore the possibility that they could be her last.

  The timer hit zero and the doors slid open.

  She pulled up the corridor’s camera feeds and saw seven soldiers in medium-powered armor—tough stuff, but still slim enough to get through a freighter’s passageways and hatches.

  Cheeky counted slowly, waiting for the first of the Transcend soldiers to move into the passageway—something they appeared hesitant to do—all too aware that they weren’t the ones who had opened the door.

  Piya said.

  Cheeky replied.

  Sera had always told them that the best thing to do if someone got into your airlock, was not to let them out. The ideal scenario option was to drop a concussive blast into the lock while they were cycling it.

  To that end, each airlock on Sabrina had murder holes in the overhead and bulkheads that would drop conc grenades on unsuspecting intruders, but these soldiers weren’t some gang on a run-down station. Their first order of business had been to set up a grav shield that would protect them from just such an attack.

  Now, if she were in their shoes—something that Sera had also trained them on—she would be tossing something unpleasant out in to the corridor right smartly.

  On cue, two of the soldiers tossed a pair of grenades into the passageway, aiming for Cheeky and Finaeus’s positions.

  Except the grenades didn’t enter the corridor.

  The instant the enemy soldiers released the grenades, a stasis shield snapped down over the airlock entrance and the explosives bounced back inside.

  Sabrina called out, and Cheeky crouched low behind her crate.

  The concussive blast roared out into the corridor and rattled Cheeky’s teeth.

  Sabrina said.

  Finaeus grunted.

  The smoked cleared out of the airlock, and Cheeky saw that two soldiers were down, and three appeared disoriented with weapons lowered.

  The final two were still in position at the edges of the airlock, ready to line up shots.

  Sabrina warned.

  “Shit!” Cheeky exclaimed, and ducked back as a pulse blast slammed into her crate. Luckily, the thing wasn’t just an empty box, but a dense grav shield.

  A grav shield that reflected the man’s pulse back onto him.

  “We’re gonna be a tough nut to crack!” Cheeky called out. “Why don’t you little ‘Scenders just go back home and tell mom and dad that we can’t come out to play.”

  “You can’t hold out forever,” one of the soldiers called back. “Surrender now and save yourself a world of trouble.”

  “No chance,” Cheeky called back. “What you didn’t count on is how much I like trouble.” She completed the statement by blowing a kiss.

  Finaeus asked.

  Cheeky replied.

  More concussive shots came out of the airlock. Cheeky and Finaeus returned fire, sticking to the x-ray lasers—kinetics were out of the question without clear targets.

  Finaeus said to Sabrina.

  Sabrina said.

  Finaeus replied as he took another shot at one of the Transcend soldiers that had leaned just a bit too far out of the airlock.

  Sabrina said.

  Cheeky said.

  Finaeus exclaimed.

  Cheeky asked.

 

 

  Trever said.

  Cheeky asked

  Nance replied with a rueful laugh.

  Cheeky said.

  Trever interrupted.

  <’Kay, Fin, on the count of three, we rush ‘em. Sabrina, do the gravity thing,> Cheeky said.

  Piya said.

  Cheeky didn’t reply, but the next time the Transcend soldiers pulled back into cover, she jumped out from behind her cover and charged toward the airlock.

  As they rushed forward, Sabrina reversed the grav systems in the lock and down became up.

  The unconscious soldiers fell to the overhead, as did two of the conscious ones. The final two had their boots mag-locked to the deck, but suddenly found themselves hanging from the ceiling.

  Cheeky fired a short burst of kinetic rounds at the pelvis of the one closest to her—almost always the weakest spot—while Finaeus fired center-mass at the other.

  The rounds cracked, then penetrated their armor. Cheeky fired a few more rounds into the soldiers lying on the airlock’s overhead for good measure.

  “Surrender. Now!”

  The two who had taken the initial rounds had already dropped their weapons, and the others—those who could—followed suit.

  “I’m going to open the outer lock, and you ass-hats are going to take your wounded and get the fuck off our ship.”

  Sabrina asked.

 

 

  Cheeky looked at the outer lock—which was securely closed. She could see it plainly.

 

 

  Cheeky suddenly felt very vulnerable, knowing that there could be a whole squad of enemy troops on the other side of the airlock.

  Piya said.

  A second later, the holo disappeared and Cheeky saw two more enemies outside the ship—but within the stasis shield—taking aim. She ducked behind one of the soldiers who still hung—or stood, depending on your point of view—by his mag-locked boots.

  Finaeus wasn’t as fast, and cried out as a pulse blast hit him.

  �
�I’m OK…mostly,” he grunted a moment later.

  Cheeky sprayed rounds out of the airlock door and winced as they bounced off the inside of the stasis shield, some hitting the hull, and others coming back through the airlock. More than one passing far too close to her head.

  Piya admonished.

  Cheeky said privately before calling out, “I’m going to hole every one of your buddies in here if you don’t back the fuck off!”

  “You wouldn’t!” a voice called back from outside the ship.

  “Wanna find out?” Cheeky asked and fired another round out the airlock, this one aimed to bounce off the shield and hit somewhere close to where the speaker’s voice originated.

  “Shit! OK, OK. Let us come in to get our wounded. We’re dropping our weapons.”

  “Deal,” Cheeky replied.

 

 

  Cheeky knew that wasn’t a great solution. The airlock’s inner stasis field’s emitters were vulnerable from inside the airlock, but it would stop any funny business.

  She hoped.

  COLONEL BES

  STELLAR DATE: 07.22.8938 (Adjusted Years)

  LOCATION: Interrogation Room, Gisha Station

  REGION: DSM Ring, Grey Wolf System

  Jessica had just settled into the seat previously held by Admiral Krissy when she heard the door open behind her and Bes’s voice call out.

  “So, still having your chat, Krissy? You know that there’s nothing you can do now.”

  Jessica waited for Bes to step into the room, and smiled at the sound of the door closing behind him. He was alone.

  The colonel reached for the chair beside her, and Jessica rose and spun, driving a fist in the underside of his jaw. Bes’s teeth snapped together, and she hoped a few broke, as he fell backward.

  Unlike Admiral Krissy, Bes was armed and Jessica knew controlling that weapon—or at least getting it out of play—was key. She steeled herself for what would occur when she touched his sidearm, and reached out to grab it.

  Her hand clamped around the weapon’s grip and she cried out as it discharged a shock into her body, though she still managed to wrench it free of its holster.

  By the time she had fallen to the floor, hand still convulsively clenched around the handgun, Cargo was on top of Bes.

  The Grey Division colonel had recovered from Jessica’s initial blow and was holding his own against Cargo. Sabrina’s captain was a tough man, a veteran of a hundred dock-side fights and bar brawls, but Bes was a trained soldier who was also heavily augmented.

  For every solid hit Cargo delivered, Bes delivered two, and from the looks of it, they hurt a lot.

  Jessica asked Iris as she struggled to her feet.

 

  Jessica said as she flexed her right hand. Had she possessed organic skin the weapon’s bio-lock would have severely burned her flesh. As it was, the polymers that made up her epidermis were just a bit melted.

  “Hey, Bes,” she said. “You want me? Come and get me.”

  Bes delivered punch to Cargo’s solar plexus that sent the captain reeling before turning to Jessica.

  “Tougher than you look,” he said.

  “I’ve been around awhile,” she replied. “Picked up a few upgrades along the way.

  “Likewise,” Bes said, and suddenly a lightwand was in his hand.

  Iris said.

 

  Bes came at her high with the lightwand, and she ducked to the side, kicking at his leg. He wasn’t there when her boot lashed out, instead his own foot slammed into her right knee.

  Jessica pivoted just in time to take the blow on the back of the joint, rather than the side, and allowed herself to fall onto her back.

  She pulled her knees to her chest, slammed her hands against the deck and straightened into a handstand that sent her feet into Bes’s neck and face.

  He grunted and fell back as Jessica completed the sinuous maneuver and landed on her feet. She had hoped he would fall and she could deliver a finishing blow, but he still looked ready to go a few more rounds.

  By some miracle, however, Bes had dropped the lightwand and it rolled under the table.

  Jessica delivered a roundhouse kick to his head, which Bes caught with ease. He smirked and pulled on her leg, but Jessica was expecting him to do just that. She swung her other leg up at his head while falling back to the floor once more.

  She managed to lock her ankles behind Bes’s head, and, with every ounce of her strength she launched him over her body and into the bulkhead.

  Jessica turned over to get ready for the next round, when a resounding CRACK filled the room. She saw Cargo standing over the enemy colonel, one of the room’s steel chairs in his hands. Bes was struggling to get up, and Cargo hit him again.

  The man finally went down.

  “You need to dig deep and find your girl-power, Cargo,” Jessica grinned as she gracefully to her feet. “Can’t take on one little tin soldier without resorting to furniture.”

  “More like c-fibre and steel soldier. I think he broke a rib.” Cargo gingerly touched his side. “Yup, definitely broke a rib.”

  Jessica delivered a kick to Bes’s head to make sure he was really out before they hauled him to the table and set him beside Admiral Krissy.

  Iris said.

  “Then let’s not stick around,” Jessica replied.

  “Ideas?” Cargo asked. “There’s going to be at least two guards in the hall, and they won’t be as easy to take down as Bes here.

  “Well, you really can’t pass as Bes, but I might be able to get past the guards as Krissy…”

  “Dream on,” Cargo replied. “Your skin is purple. Even with her clothes and hair color, those guards aren’t going to be fooled for more than a second.”

  Iris mused.

  Jessica looked around the room, which contained only the table, four steel chairs, the rubberized deck, and the four humans.

  “Deck’s kinda tan,” Cargo offered.

  Hank said.

  Jessica said.

  “I’m just going to take a peek out into the hall,” Cargo said. “Something tells me that unless we can hack into their network and fool their sensors, nothing we pull off is going to work.”

  Hank said.

  Cargo walked to the door and waved his hand over the control panel.

  To their surprise it opened. Jessica sent a few nanoprobes out into the corridor and saw the guards standing at attention; neither looked toward the open door.

  She glanced at Cargo, shrugged, and stepped out into the hall. The guards remained stock still, and she picked up a wireless signal from the hackit.

  “The thing made it after all,” she said. “It’s onboard NSAI has a backdoor into their public network. Good thing this place is a civilian station, or I bet that it wouldn’t have managed.”

  “Or the Transcend doesn’t have as much of an edge over you colonists as you’d feared.”

  “Maybe,” Jessica mused. “But it’s been almost five-thousand years. How is it that they are still at a level remotely close to
42nd century Sol?”

  “The place was a crucible,” Cargo offered. “You’ve told stories about how cutthroat and scheming everyone was.”

  “True…. Anyway, we’ve got to find their traffic control center and plant a trigger in the gate control system.”

  Iris said.

  “What?” Jessica asked.

  Hank added.

  Jessica nodded with relief while looking at Iris’s proposed route to the STC. Then she glanced at the two stock-still soldiers in the corridor.

  “I may have an idea.”

  A LITTLE OUTING

  STELLAR DATE: 07.22.8938 (Adjusted Years)

  LOCATION: Sabrina, Docking Bay F34A, Gisha Station

  REGION: DSM Ring, Grey Wolf System

  “That was the exact opposite of fun. I’ve never seen shit used as a weapon quite like that,” Cheeky said as she leaned against a bulkhead. “You sure we’re clear, Sabs?”

 

  “Man…it really stinks down here,” Trevor said.

  “At least they were nice enough to take their dead and wounded with them,” Nance replied. “Corpses in the mix would really take a while to clean up.”

  “I need to get off this deck before I throw up,” Cheeky said, taking slow, shallow breaths as she walked to the ladder.

  “Get cleaned up and get in some light armor, Cheeky,” Finaeus said. “You and I are going out there.”

  “Out where?” Cheeky asked.

  “There,” Finaeus said, gesturing at the hull.

  “In environmental?”

  “No, stop being dense. Outside the ship.”

  Cheeky laughed, and in doing so took a deep breath. “Oh stars, oh, I’m going to hurl.”

  “Don’t!” Nance called out from the entrance to environmental. “I’ve got enough to clean up.”

  “In related news,” Finaeus began, “I think I have an idea about how we can use your ship’s stasis shields to mount a film of the material we use for the Ford-Svaiter mirrors. If it will work, then we won’t have to mount a physical mirror on the ship. We can deploy it with a grav field, and then support it with the stasis shield.”