Read Online COMBAT SALVAGE 2165 by A.D. Bloom - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: A.D. Bloom
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plenty of people were listening.
"When Cozen had me flying at Sirius," she said. "Things got pretty haeney. Ships went down like Tipperary went down more than once. Baentz , Nimrod… Nobody ever knew why it happened. There was never any proof of any enemy ship around when it happened. Nobody ever saw nothing. Accidents," she said. "Had to call it all accidents and bad luck. But the pilots in the 71st, the Spittin’ Cobras… they got stuck on the idea that it was a stealthed Squidy doing it somehow… Some kind of prototype zapping their reactors to overload ‘em maybe…didn’t always work, they said, but the 71st attributed half the mystery reactor problems the big ships had to that thing. They said we never saw it because the stealthed Squidy warship was too smart to show himself when the enemy was superior. Smarter to stay hid. Take the soft kill and get away to do it again. Like some kinda serial killer. 71st called it The Ripper ."
"It’s not afraid to show itself now," he said. "What does that mean?"
When Burn laughed then, it was just a hot breath on her mic. "I’m no alien psychologist, but I think it means Squidy isn’t convinced we’re superior."
*****
Tipperary’s dark hull drifted in open space, growing larger in Tig’s helmet as Rampone flew the knuckledragger mech closer. Tig and Parker rode gorilla-back up on top of the 4-meter machine with the Chief, Wambach and Posjic. Komora flew the other knuckledragger, ferrying Raleigh, Hongston and Ellis. The junks’ pilots had parked 2Ks off the breaching ship’s side, and as the mechs puffed their way across the vacuum to board Tipperary , Algol burned pale and cold and lit them up bright.
Under Tig’s feet, inside the knuckledragger’s chest, Rampone must have seen Komora passing them in the other ‘dragger some 200 meters off to starboard because he put on extra speed. Komora looked like he was on course to land on the ring section, the 375m-diameter, wheel-shaped bow. The other part, the spindle, the axle to the bow’s wheel, was coming up fast in the visor of Tig’s helmet.
When a knuckledragger had all four of its fists on the deck, it looked like a 4m-tall, mechanized, headless gorilla. Horcheese now perched in the center of its shoulders, where its head would be if it had one. "Alright," she said over comms, "Komora and Rampone, I want synced deceleration bursts from those ‘draggers. Rampone, don’t you go bruising my cherries. Take it in slow. Now, both of you give me a three-second burst on my bingo in...3...2...1...Bingo."
Rampone and Komora both hit the brakes. Gas puffed out in the front jets of the mech and billowed into white clouds that flew back into Tig’s visor and then trailed behind them. The mech under him slowed fast, but Tig’s body wanted to keep going forwards. Tig and Parker and the rest of the redsuits held on and tried not to do what Chief Horcheese did.
Chief Horcheese jumped. When the knuckledragger under her slowed, she launched herself at the breaching ship. Once you got used to her eyes, it was easy to forget how much augmentation the Chief had and how much of her was machine. For the first moments of her solo flight, the sight of Operations Chief Evelyn Horcheese rocketing ahead of them as she hurtled towards Tipperary’s steel flanks at 50m/sec was enough to make Tig’s knot pucker with sympathetic fear. It was reflex. If you saw someone in an exosuit coming in for a landing that hot, it didn’t matter whether or not they’d done it on purpose because they were about to get spammed against the hull.
Tig saw her give one gas burst off the slim-jim belt for attitude control. "Landing in 5," she said. Horcheese was a hundred meters ahead of the mech when she hit the hull and landed feet first. She touched down next to the closed doors of the breaching ship’s one small bay and if the force of the landing was any strain on her mechanical legs or her reinforced skeleton, she didn’t show it
"When Cozen had me flying at Sirius," she said. "Things got pretty haeney. Ships went down like Tipperary went down more than once. Baentz , Nimrod… Nobody ever knew why it happened. There was never any proof of any enemy ship around when it happened. Nobody ever saw nothing. Accidents," she said. "Had to call it all accidents and bad luck. But the pilots in the 71st, the Spittin’ Cobras… they got stuck on the idea that it was a stealthed Squidy doing it somehow… Some kind of prototype zapping their reactors to overload ‘em maybe…didn’t always work, they said, but the 71st attributed half the mystery reactor problems the big ships had to that thing. They said we never saw it because the stealthed Squidy warship was too smart to show himself when the enemy was superior. Smarter to stay hid. Take the soft kill and get away to do it again. Like some kinda serial killer. 71st called it The Ripper ."
"It’s not afraid to show itself now," he said. "What does that mean?"
When Burn laughed then, it was just a hot breath on her mic. "I’m no alien psychologist, but I think it means Squidy isn’t convinced we’re superior."
*****
Tipperary’s dark hull drifted in open space, growing larger in Tig’s helmet as Rampone flew the knuckledragger mech closer. Tig and Parker rode gorilla-back up on top of the 4-meter machine with the Chief, Wambach and Posjic. Komora flew the other knuckledragger, ferrying Raleigh, Hongston and Ellis. The junks’ pilots had parked 2Ks off the breaching ship’s side, and as the mechs puffed their way across the vacuum to board Tipperary , Algol burned pale and cold and lit them up bright.
Under Tig’s feet, inside the knuckledragger’s chest, Rampone must have seen Komora passing them in the other ‘dragger some 200 meters off to starboard because he put on extra speed. Komora looked like he was on course to land on the ring section, the 375m-diameter, wheel-shaped bow. The other part, the spindle, the axle to the bow’s wheel, was coming up fast in the visor of Tig’s helmet.
When a knuckledragger had all four of its fists on the deck, it looked like a 4m-tall, mechanized, headless gorilla. Horcheese now perched in the center of its shoulders, where its head would be if it had one. "Alright," she said over comms, "Komora and Rampone, I want synced deceleration bursts from those ‘draggers. Rampone, don’t you go bruising my cherries. Take it in slow. Now, both of you give me a three-second burst on my bingo in...3...2...1...Bingo."
Rampone and Komora both hit the brakes. Gas puffed out in the front jets of the mech and billowed into white clouds that flew back into Tig’s visor and then trailed behind them. The mech under him slowed fast, but Tig’s body wanted to keep going forwards. Tig and Parker and the rest of the redsuits held on and tried not to do what Chief Horcheese did.
Chief Horcheese jumped. When the knuckledragger under her slowed, she launched herself at the breaching ship. Once you got used to her eyes, it was easy to forget how much augmentation the Chief had and how much of her was machine. For the first moments of her solo flight, the sight of Operations Chief Evelyn Horcheese rocketing ahead of them as she hurtled towards Tipperary’s steel flanks at 50m/sec was enough to make Tig’s knot pucker with sympathetic fear. It was reflex. If you saw someone in an exosuit coming in for a landing that hot, it didn’t matter whether or not they’d done it on purpose because they were about to get spammed against the hull.
Tig saw her give one gas burst off the slim-jim belt for attitude control. "Landing in 5," she said. Horcheese was a hundred meters ahead of the mech when she hit the hull and landed feet first. She touched down next to the closed doors of the breaching ship’s one small bay and if the force of the landing was any strain on her mechanical legs or her reinforced skeleton, she didn’t show it
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