Chapter 16

Lambert’s suit sealed with a pneumatic hiss as he jogged across the deck, clutching his opaque helmet under an arm. Engineers and other pilots raced back and forth all around him, the yellow hazard lights built into the walls reflecting off the angular hulls of the ten or so ships crammed into the repair bay.

The Gallipoli only had one of these bays on the whole ship, allowing heavier repairs within the safety of a vacuum. It was nowhere near as spacious as a Balokarid carrier, the other corvettes and fighters lined up with their noses barely touching the engines of the craft in front.

Lambert’s corvette was at the forefront, being the final ship to come back from patrol, taxied just in front of the inner airlock door. He watched a pair of engineers wheeling a trolley with a nine-foot long missile strapped onto it move towards the belly of the ship. The trolley rose on a set of winches, the engineers fixing the missile onto the empty hardpoint there.

“We all set?” Lambert asked one of them, donning his helmet which glued to his collar with another hiss.

“Reupped and reloaded,” one engineer replied, patting the hull of the corvette with a gloved hand. “Command wants all scouts equipped with a belt of stubs, I’ve installed them on belt two on your top PDC. We haven’t got many of them, so don’t miss.”

Sensory Tracking Bugs, or stubs as they were more commonly known, were shaped balls that were a little smaller than a fifty-calibre sniper round. They were capped with shock-absorbent frames that were designed to stick to a surface rather than penetrate through.

Inside each stub was a weak emitter that sent out a signal on a specific frequency. As long as the charge wasn’t discovered or ran out of power, you could track a target indefinitely if you managed to tag a ship.

“We won’t,” Lambert said, the man crisply saluting before taking the trolley by the handle and setting off. Lambert rounded one of the landing gears, jogging up the loading ramp and moving up the stairs inside.

“Welcome aboard, Lieutenant,” Alice said through the shared channel

“The Cap is back,” Carl said, eloquently as ever. “About damn time, too. Been ready to taxi for ten minutes.”

“Had to see Mezul off,” Lambert replied, waving at Carl as he passed the gunner station door, dashing up to the cockpit and strapping himself in. It had turned out that human and Balokarid technology had been compatible, and the two fleets could now share simple radio transmissions, the fleets ready to move as one. Mezul had been recalled to her carrier when they heard the news.

“You and her are gettin’ real friendly, ain’t you?” Carl asked,

Lambert rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, what of it?”

“Nothin’, nothin’ ... What do you think the Cap and Mezul are hangin’ around for, Alice?”

“I’m not sure the Lieutenant would appreciate my conclusions,” the machine murmured, even though it was clear as day to his ears and didn’t need to lower its voice. At least the thing was aware enough not to push Lambert’s buttons.

“Here’s a conclusion,” Lambert started. “Prepare the ship for launch. Carl, retract the turrets and ready the scanners. Alice, clear us for take-off. Let’s get this done.”

“Here we go again,” Carl asked. “At least this time we know our target’s out there.”

“They’ll be thinking the same thing,” Lambert added, his consoles flaring to life as he switched the systems online. As if the ship was waking, the screens warbled with static before displaying the camera feeds, the vector nozzles shooting puffs of air, the main engines whirring as they began to churn out bright blue flames from its twin nozzles.

“We will be sending out another scouting operation,” Captain Anders said during the mission briefing a half hour ago. “Since our position is compromised, we will be escorting the Balokarid fleet to new coordinates we’ll send to your ships once you set out to your designated search sectors. Your objective is to find any UEC targets and assess their capabilities. Hit them with your stubs if you can, but do not engage, discretion is our only ally right now and we can’t afford to lose any of you.”