Magnet Omnibus I (Lacuna) by David Adams

Author:David Adams
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: David Adams
Published: 2014-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

Hanger Bay

1400 hours

“Oh chabibi, what did they do to you.”

Shaba looked like someone had murdered her puppy. Piggyback, her noble steed, was an ugly warfighter at the best of times; now it looked even more misshapen than usual. A long cylinder had been welded to the front and the loading ramp had been jammed open then sealed. It looked, to my mind, like an angry toad sticking out its tongue to catch a fly. It even had turrets for warts.

“How do we even get on board?” I asked. “Through the airlock, I guess?”

She wasn’t even listening. “How am I supposed to fly with that thing? That hunk of shit has got to weigh fifteen, twenty tonnes. It’s going to shift the centre of gravity too far forward. The reactionless drive isn’t balanced for this. I’ll have to retrim.” She gave a long, exasperated sigh, gesturing towards the ship with both hands. “This is aircraft gore. We are looking at the corpse of a beautiful airframe.”

“It’s not that bad,” I said. “Besides. We’ll get the engineers to restore the loading ramp when we’re done with this op.”

“Ergh. You can’t give my baby plastic surgery, I won’t allow it.”

I squinted in her direction. “Sometimes I worry about you.”

Shaba walked around the ship, dazed. She ran a hand along the hull of the airlock as though sceptical it were real. One by one the flight crew assembled behind me, watching her.

Major Scott arrived, two dozen marines in tow. They wore a different uniform instead of the Task Force Resolution ones, and different from Major Scott. I didn’t recognise it. One of them wheeled a tall drum with a yellow chemical symbol upon it. The rest had the large automatic grenade launches the Chinese had developed to deal with the Toralii, with a missile tube over their back.

“Lieutenant Williams.” She nodded my way. “Are we ready to go?”

“Yes ma’am,” I said, “as soon as we can figure out how to get aboard.”

I got a dark look for that comment, but I smiled through it, as though it were unintentional. “I see,” she said, “it is a complex puzzle. Fortunately, I am here to assist you.” Her boots clicked as she walked over the flight deck, towards the front of the long airlock, and pressed the thick red button on the side. The doors slid open. She turned back to me. “Any questions?”

“What are those?” I pointed to the tubes the marines had over their backs.

“Anti-armour rockets,” said Scott.

"Anti-armour rockets? What for?"

She looked at me like I might be crazy. "Killing… armour?"

"Good answer."

“Any more questions?”

“No ma’am.”

“Good.” Scott nodded to her soldiers. They filed in through the open airlock, then we went in after them. The cylindrical airlock lead to the cargo area, which had been retrofitted with rows of steel seats. I didn’t like how cramped it was, full of marines, and I was glad when I was able to move through to the CSO’s seat.

When I saw it, though, I just stopped. This was where Gutterball had been shot.

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