Hidden (Two Democracies: Revolution Book 4) Read online

  Hidden

  Two Democracies: Revolution

  Book 4

  by Alasdair Shaw

  Copyright © 2017 Alasdair C Shaw

  All rights reserved.

  This book was written and published in the UK.

  First published 2017

  Also by Alasdair Shaw

  Two Democracies: Justice

  Duty – a short story (in The Officer anthology)

  Two Democracies: Revolution

  Repulse – a short story (in The Newcomer anthology)

  Independence – a short story

  Liberty – a novel

  Prejudice – a novelette

  Duty – a short story (in The Officer anthology)

  Equality – a novel

  Hidden – a novella

  Fraternity – a novel

  Unity – a novel

  Contents

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  Fraternity

  Also by the Author

  1

  The glittering methane snow squeaked beneath her feet. Every few steps, she broke through the crust and sank up to her knee in the powder below. Ice fringed the visor of her helmet and clung to her suit. Yet again, she cursed the frigid moon and the events that had brought her here.

  Her boot slipped on a patch of solid ice and she stopped to regain her balance. Suppressing a shiver, she glanced up at the planet hanging overhead, its night side covered with traceries of blue phosphorescence. There were volcanoes on that planet, little havens of warmth, possibly even life.

  A change in the sky ahead caught her attention, and she frowned. Great clouds billowed over the horizon, rushing towards her. She shifted the weight of the makeshift sack she carried and picked up her pace, but she knew she wouldn’t make it in time.

  Minutes later, the first gusts of the storm swept around her, turning the view into a sleeting mess of white. An incessant howl drowned out even the whirring of the fans in her helmet. Crouching on one knee, her back to the wind, she wiped snow off the control panel on her forearm. A few taps, and an orange beacon lit in her visor’s display. With a growl, she pushed herself up onto her feet and trudged onwards, leaning into the wind and clutching her sack under one arm.

  After an age following the beacon, a stark angular shape broke through the blizzard. Rime coated one side of the object, and it was mostly buried in snow, but there was no mistaking it for anything natural. It took her a few moments to locate a slender pole sticking out of the snow to one side. She dropped to her knees and dug with her hands, breaking through into a tunnel. Kicking and scrabbling, she slid into the hole. The wind cut out, leaving her in blissful peace. Summoning up reserves of strength, she shovelled snow back to block the entrance. On her hands and knees, she crawled through the icy, blue passage until she came to a ladder. She pushed the sack through the metal hatch at the top then hauled herself up after it. With leaden arms, she cranked shut the hatch, then collapsed on the floor. The snow caking her suit evaporated and warmth seeped into her bones. Only the loud hissing of the airlock cycling stopped her falling asleep there and then.

  A beep and a green light announced that the air was good. She sat up and cracked the seal on her collar, the lingering odour of methane that swept in no longer triggering a gag reflex as it had the first few times she’d made these trips. Both hands lifted the helmet off her head, and she shook free her turquoise hair. She reached out and flipped the sack open. A smile cracked her azure lips as she pulled out handfuls of cables.

  #

  Flight Decurion Seivers checked the emergency power feed as she entered the empty crew-room. The reserves were far too low, but at least the trickle to the AI core was still enough. If Percy was still in there, he’d be OK. Her own life support wouldn’t last more than another few days, however.

  A glance back to check her suit was recharging in its alcove, and she sealed the corridor that doubled as an airlock. As had become custom, she stroked the head of the Hail Mary that stood on its tripod just inside the hatch. The small nuclear warhead was configured to give off an immense electromagnetic pulse that would easily be pinpointed from space. The nickname came from marines who saw them as a last resort signal for help before being overrun.

  She crossed the room, studiously avoiding looking at the sleeping quarters aft, and crouched underneath a patched-up section of the hull. As she removed an access panel at floor-level, she shuddered, remembering those first few hours after landing, welding any spare bits of metal she could find over the holes made by Nameric railgun rounds.

  Seivers removed a torch clipped to the panel and slipped it onto her head before lying back and pulling herself into the tiny chamber beyond. As one of the primary power distribution hubs, the walls had once been covered in an ordered chaos of cables and routing boxes. A massive overload during the battle had changed that, though at least the loss of atmosphere had prevented a major fire. Blackened shapes revealed where Seivers had stripped out the charred remains. Here and there, a serviceable component from some minor system stood out, repurposed to get basic life support going again.

  She pulled the cables out of her sack. Finding the weapons pod, with its trove of intact components, had been the biggest break she’d had in the weeks she’d been marooned on this desolate moon. There was debris spread in a long line where she’d come down, mostly junk, but the weapons pod had broken off shortly after atmospheric insertion.

  Seivers shook her head to try to clear some of the exhaustion and ran her finger along the wiring diagram she’d sketched on the bulkhead. Gingerly, she connected several cables to a routing box, then to ports on the opposite wall. They hung across the chamber, too short to follow the neat routes of their predecessors round the edges. Three times she checked the connections against the diagram before throwing the switch.

  After a few seconds watching the cables, expecting a spark or a tendril of smoke to reveal another blow to her progress, she pushed herself back out into the crew-room. A tap on the nearest control panel revealed the power flows. Seivers stared at the display, waiting for it to refresh. The screen flickered. She whooped and thrust two fists in the air. Power was flowing into the reserves, not out of them. Only a tiny amount, but reversing the decline was enough to celebrate. When the storm passed and the sun came out, the hull would be able to absorb energy at a much greater rate. She let the glow of success sink in. The heating and air scrubbers would continue to function. She’d given herself another three weeks to find a way off the moon. Three weeks before her rations ran out.

  She deserved a treat. With legs suddenly leaden, she dragged herself to her cabin and collapsed into her cot without setting an alarm. She was asleep within seconds.

  #

  Seivers woke with a start. She blinked, trying to work out what had roused her.

  Beep.

  She frowned; the noise was familiar but she couldn’t place it. If it had been something dangerous, it would have been a clear alarm, but this was a gentle, albeit insistent, prod.

  Beep.

  The noise came from the terminal across the cabin. A soft red light glowed in the corner.

  Realisation dawned and she leapt out of bed. There were messages in her queue. The power levels must have risen enough to enable the comms array. Breathless, she scanned through the headers. If there was a ship in orbit...

  Her heart sank. There was no ship. The messages were mostly unopened ones from before the battle. There was one from today, an automated status update from the distress buoy they’d dropped when the battle started. At least it was still there. If any friendly ships broadcast their IFF in the system, it would let them know about the attack on the convoy. Legion ships should have started retracing the convoy’s route when they realised it was overdue.

  Something stirred in her exhaustion-fogged mind. Something was wrong about the message. She concentrated, trying to get it to surface.

  It shouldn’t be there. There shouldn’t be a message from the buoy. It only transmits when it’s queried, to prevent enemy ships locating it.

  She tapped through menus, pulling up the strike-fighter’s comms log. A query had been sent when the system initialised. She made sure no more were scheduled then collapsed back onto her cot. If the buoy picked up the transmission, then if there were still Nameric ships in the system, they could have done too. Would being picked up by the enemy be better or worse than dying here?

  2

  Captain Lusimi strode onto the bridge of the Iron Fox. “What’ve you got for me, Lieutenant?”

  The watch officer tapped a few commands into his console and data appeared on the main screen, overlaying the image of the planet below. “I think we’ve found the last ship.”

  Lusimi studied the information from a scout drone. “Looks like you might be right, Gartch. Thank you, I’ll take it from here.”

  Gartch stood and made way for the captain to occupy the command chair. “You have the bridge.”

  Lusimi logged in. “I have the bridge.”

  The enemy had trespassed on a Protected System. The law said they must all be hunted down to prevent word of what’s there spreading. For hundreds of years, his people had defended the ancient sites, prevented all intrusions. This enemy was the strongest they’d ever met.
By the Guardians, even that little mossie of a ship had stung them badly. The Protector had been angry at the captains who’d turned back to help, losing track of one of the enemy freighters in the process, but Lusimi was secretly grateful, even though it hadn’t ultimately been necessary. If you couldn’t rely on your comrades out here in the black, there was no hope. Besides, they had the freighter now.

  “Action stations,” he announced.

  Minutes later, the enemy’s location came into view round the curve of the large moon. The other captains, and the commodore, were still probing the gas giant. Lusimi had gambled on the freighter hiding on a moon. The gamble had paid off, and a hundred creds for each member of his crew would shortly be owed.

  “Active scan. Get me a target lock.”

  “Aye, Captain,” replied the sensor officer. A ping echoed around the bridge, a warning that the sensors were emitting.

  “Got them.” The sensor officer marked a location on the moon’s surface.

  Lusimi sighed. The distortion canon wouldn’t be effective with the target in contact with such a large mass. “Single volley on main railguns... Fire.”

  The destroyer shuddered as hefty steel slugs were flung out. Moments later, the enemy ship disappeared under a series of flashes.

  An alert sounded. “Missiles inbound,” said the sensor officer.

  “Initiating point defence,” responded the tactical officer. A curtain of golden sparkles appeared in front of the missiles.

  “Fire another railgun volley,” said Lusimi, watching the incoming missiles. One made it through the flak.

  “Brace,” called the tactical officer on ship-wide, a second before a thud announced the impact.

  “Damage report?”

  “They got a thruster assembly, Captain. No major injuries.”

  The railgun volley hit home.

  “Their power’s offline, Sir, but their reactor’s intact. Should we hit them again?”

  Lusimi smiled. The enemy had been totally outclassed, but any battle where he didn’t lose anyone was a win he’d take. “No. Let them take the honourable path.”

  “Aye, Sir.”

  The seconds ticked by. Lusimi eyed the clock, less than a minute left before the Iron Fox passed over the horizon. Perhaps the enemy ship wasn’t that badly damaged. Perhaps they were playing dead until he lost sight of them.

  “Engage the safety on one missile. Fire it at the target.”

  The tactical officer raised an eyebrow but followed the order.

  “Sir?” asked Gartch, quietly enough that the others wouldn’t hear.

  The missile streaked towards the grounded enemy ship.

  “It’s a test,” replied Lusimi.

  The missile struck the hull and bounced off.

  “I get it. They didn’t engage their point defence.”

  “Exactly, Lieutenant. It seems they weren’t faking the loss of power.” Lusimi looked at the clock again. If they were going to be honourable, they would have blown their reactor by now. Well, his crew had been trained to fight barbarians as well as civilised enemies. “Deploy warriors to the surface. Move us to a higher orbit, I want more time over target next pass.”

  #

  Lusimi sat transfixed by the screen as his warriors probed deeper and deeper into the enemy vessel. The feeds from the section leaders’ body cams formed a grid of videos as the men advanced.

  “What if they just blow their ship now?” asked Gartch.

  “No-one could be that dishonourable.” But the thought found somewhere to latch onto in his mind. He found himself keeping an eye on the readings coming from the enemy’s reactor.

  A sudden movement on one feed. The motion stopped with the floor taking up most of one side of the image. A warrior fell into view, lying motionless, blood oozing from his neck and chest. Within a couple of seconds, every video feed erupted into rapid movement as the warriors fought off their attackers. A minute later all was calm.

  “Signal from Major Stromb,” called the comms officer.

  “Put him through,” replied Lusimi.

  “They hit us hard and melted away before we could rally,” said Stromb. “The stun transmitter didn’t work. I’ve lost twelve warriors, but if that was their entire complement we still outnumber them three to one.”

  “You don’t think they held back?”

  “They’re good. They wouldn’t have wasted the first strike by not deploying everyone who could fight.”

  “Do you want reinforcements?” Lusimi pushed thoughts of the ridicule he’d get for having to send more warriors to secure a freighter to the back of his mind. Anything he could do to reduce the casualties amongst his men was worth it.

  “Negative. We’ve got the measure of them now...” A shout in the background. “Gotta go. Stromb out.”

  Lusimi stared at the screen. His warriors were moving again, the teams closer, ready to reinforce each other. The lead team was an estimated two hundred metres from the reactor. “Get me an image of the enemy.”

  One of the staff bent over his display for a few seconds before a still image appeared in a corner of the main screen. There was no mistaking him for anything other than an enemy warrior. He wore grey armour from head to toe, angular plates over some sort of rubbery base. He was frozen in mid-step as he crossed the gap, the muzzle flash from his weapon and several spent cartridges suspended in the air. Even in this one snapshot his poise spoke of power and authority.

  “Do we know what the red semicircle on his chest represents? Rank? Tactical grouping? Clan?”

  “No, Sir,” replied the staffer who’d found the image. “But he seems to be one of their elite. There are also these soldiers.”

  Another image appeared next to the first. A man and a woman crouched, firing round corners at the end of a passage. Their uniforms matched the warrior’s in colour, but were clearly inferior. Their only armour appeared to be a waistcoat worn over fabric fatigues.

  “A warrior caste and a servant caste?” suggested the tactical officer.

  Lusimi peered closer. “Possibly.”

  #

  “Captain. Signal from Major Stromb.”

  “Put him through.”

  “The enemy ship is secure, Sir. We have captured some of the defenders.”

  Lusimi’s heart jumped at the thought of prisoners. There was always the possibility of capturing someone who’d been rendered unconscious, but he hadn’t heard of it happening very often. “Well done, Major. ”

  “It seems they ran out of ammunition. The armoured ones took several warriors to subdue.”

  Lusimi frowned. “You mean they were conscious when you took them?”

  “That is correct, Sir. One of the medics did a quick scan, their Mindguards aren’t the same as ours. They don’t seem to have a way to terminate. Savages with no respect for the sanctity of information.”

  Lusimi bristled at the suggestion. “What about the ones without the armour? We’re speculating they’re a servant caste.”

  “I don’t think so, Sir. From where we found them, I suspect they’re the ship’s crew. They were the only ones on the bridge, for instance. They fought well; not like warriors, but they’d obviously been properly trained.”

  Lusimi couldn’t tell if the tone in Stromb’s voice was contempt at a ship’s crew fighting like soldiers, or disgust at the lack of training of their own crews. Of course, in a civilised battle, there was no need for crew to be able to fight. An honourable captain would overload his reactor core long before anyone could board the ship, and there were always warriors to send to fight off the ship.

  “There’s something else you should know, Captain. Is this channel private?”

  Lusimi checked the settings and fitted an earpiece. “It is now. Go ahead.”

  “It’s the cargo. They were carrying drones. They look a lot like ours.”

  “So?” Like every vessel in the fleet, the fighter drones were perfect designs. That the enemy would copy them if they ever escaped an engagement was obvious.

  “There’s no sign of a command link. The processor core seems far too powerful.” Stromb took a breath. “May the Guardians protect me from thinking this, Sir, but I think they were intended to be autonomous.”