Multiverse 7 Snippet 4

 Sitrep:

So, I just finished act 1 yesterday. I'm going to switch gears today to do the homework for it before sending it off to the Betas. :)

In other news I just received MV7 from Goodlifeguide. I'll be publishing it today or tomorrow!

I also sent the original Bootstrap Colony to Goodlifeguide so she can get a jump on the formatting for print. That has me nervous.

I'm still struggling with the back cover artwork.

On to the final snippet!

 

The following story is from Scamp, a follow up to the Federation story in MV6! Boy it was fun to write! 😄

 

Eos XVIII, Sigma Sector

 

The Meridian class prowler, Batmobile, checked in again with the natives as they made their final approach and settled into orbit. They were masquerading as a small tramp freighter and were essentially on fumes. The captain had decided on stopping at the planet over the other two stops in the cluster because they had not visited it yet. There had also been recent unknown ion trail traffic to the other stops so she’d skipped through SG5-235 rather than stopping and potentially getting caught.

It had meant they were running low on fuel though, and after a year of traveling from Beta sector, the crew could use some fresh provisions and a relief to bulkhead fever. But there were inherent dangers in lowering their guard.

They had found the hidden spy satellite and the AI had downloaded the dump of data. The skipper and AI were still processing it. That didn’t matter to the rest of the crew at the moment since the last ship had departed the star system just under a year ago. They had a job to do, secure fuel and provisions; otherwise, they were going to be stuck in the star system for a long time.

The colony was in a cul-de-sac star system. Named for Eos, Greek god of the dawn, it had a large ocean with some unusual properties. That and a desire for a change in diet had helped the skipper chose their destination.

The mission was tricky; they were supposed to maintain their cover in what was suspected to be a pirate allied star system.

Nothing that team members of the Special Warfare Group couldn’t handle of course.

===#===

Chief Petty Officer Joe Thomson checked the shuttle status as they came out of LOS. So far so good, now he needed to get the hull temperature down so they could move on to the next phase of the plan.

He glanced at the camera feed in the rear. It was filled with trade goods and two of his teammates. He glanced to the copilot seat where Petty Officer Randy Guetta was going through the usual routine with the shuttle’s systems.

Because they were essentially in pirate space, most of the nonhuman team members were used for support in situations like this. Those that did get dropped had to hang back out of sight and therefore out of mind. They usually shrugged it off.

“Drop in three mikes fourteen seconds from … mark,” he announced over the PA.

He got two acknowledgments and then sent a brief SITREP to the ship upstairs. He then took the yoke and began a series of S turns to bleed off some of their excess speed and thermal energy.

===#===

Mayor Lyle Tenaka was on hand for the landing. Sheriff Jim Santos was off doing a patrol with his deputies, something about an owl bear raiding a chicken coop at Crawlies. He’d look into it later.

He had let the commissioner know about the arrival. Commissioner Fenrir Malforth had been appointed by the pirate Empress to oversee trade with the planet. He was officially there as her representative. There had been a cave-in at one of the mines after the rains so he’d stopped there before coming to town.

Given that the rains had washed out some of the roads, he might be delayed a day or more. He hoped so at any rate. The commissioner was a cold bastard. Scary, he thought with a wince. He was also paranoid about the visiting tramp freighter for some reason.

They occasionally did see a civilian freighter or used to until the regular traffic with the pirates. He suspected that they had run off most of the civilian traffic or caught it before the Feds had shown up in the star system. So far he’d only seen three visits by their ships, all cruisers. None had stayed longer than a week. The last had been two years ago.

They were looking for the pirate’s main base. He wasn’t sure he wanted them to find it. At the moment, trading with the pirates was lucrative. It was actual trade too, not tribute, which explained why he was reluctant to mention it to anyone, especially outsiders.

He checked the weather and grunted. He expected a series of storms to roll in by the end of the week as usual. He was pretty sure the ship would want to leave by then so the trade should be short and sweet.

===#===

As soon as they were below fifteen thousand meters, the chief went into a series of S turns to seemingly bleed off speed. Which he was doing but he had another purpose for the maneuvers.

When the hull was safe enough, the rear hatch opened and Sully and Sia waddled out. Sully went over the ramp as the light turned green, Sia a beat behind him. A line attached to the tiger drew a package out with her.

They dropped below the shuttle and the ramp closed. Chief Thompson and PO Randy Guetta remained at the controls of the shuttle. They returned to the normal mission profile as the sniper team popped their chutes and then performed a water insertion below them.

===#===

Sully kept his hands crossed in front of himself and his body straight as a pencil as he dropped out of his chute and into the cold salt water. Plasma from their reentry had made things hot initially, but the cold dip was a shock to his system.

Both SEALs had used a single-use small deflector to ward off the heat and plasma but they’d still felt a bit of it. They’d had to be well clear of the wake of the shuttle before they could deploy their chutes. It wasn’t quite a classic HALO drop but it felt like it.

The package that had been attached to Sia deployed after bobbing back to the surface. It inflated into a rib, an inflatable small boat.

“Hurry up before the damn sharks come to investigate the splashing,” Sully grumbled. PO Ben Sully was a Neochimp and the team’s best sniper. He was, however, a typical chimp and therefore hated water.

It was amazing though what one could put up with if you were dedicated enough. He managed to get into the rib and rolled to the side to make room for his much larger partner.

“No claws,” he warned.

“Teach your mother to suck eggs,” PO Sia Clarkson, the Neotiger engineer and spotter growled. She was there to handle the communications for the sniper team as well. She clambered into the boat just as a fin broke the surface.

“Screw you,” she growled at the fish, holding up a one finger salute as Sully got the small motor going. She oriented on the coast with her implants and pointed in the direction they had to go. “Six kilometers that way,” she said.

“Copy that,” Sully said.

They secured their gear and then the quiet motor roared to full power. They laid flat on the rib’s sides as the boat headed inland.

===#===

Scamp was grateful to be awake, so grateful he tried his best to be as helpful as possible around the ship.

He had been given basic civilian implants with a jack during his physical exam. He knew that they could track him on the ship and off. It was not used when they played hide and seek though. He was particularly good at that game, whether he was seeking or hiding. The SEALs were a bit chagrined to know he could smell them out even with their implants.

He had been awake for two months and was growing up a bit. The chief said he was maturing, which he attributed to regular schooling and his time on the ship.

He was allowed to be awake while in port as long as he stayed out of the way and did his chores and schoolwork. He was determined to become a SEAL when they finally reached the Federation. He even worked out in the small exercise room and had passed a basic firearms safety and marksmanship class.

He had a series of chores to do. Everyone had chores, so he wisely didn’t complain. His included checking ship systems, watering the plants and caring for them, cleaning, and doing chores in the galley. He was too young and not an official member of the crew so he couldn’t stand watch. Not that he didn’t sit in a few times.

They did occasionally tease him about nodding off. They were right and he was embarrassed but took it in good stride most times, including the pranks some of the SEALs occasionally pulled on him when he did take a nap.

He did like that the chores rotated and that he could and did get back at the SEALs who pranked him on occasion. They had a wicked sense of humor and enjoyed a good joke, even when they were the butt of it. He’d also learned to not complain about being occasionally singled out.

He rounded a corner and dipped into the storage room off the tiny sickbay. The lights came on automatically.

He noted the cyborg woman in the stasis pod. He stared at her for a long moment before he turned, made a check on his tablet, and then scampered off.

===#===