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  Sacrifice: Titan Games Episode Zero

  Copyright © 2018 Tim Niederriter

  http://mentalcellarpublications.com

  https://dwellerofthedeep.wordpress.com/

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written consent of the author. Unauthorized duplication in any media is a violation of international copyright laws and will be prosecuted.

  Published by Mental Cellar Publications

  Cover Design by Tim Niederriter with original sketch by Juan A. — https://www.flickr.com/photos/panallira/

  This is a work of fiction People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to actual people, places, and events is purely coincidental.

  No giant robots were harmed in the creation of this story.

  For Fred

  See what I did there?

  Shredded metal drifted in curtains outside the launch bay’s viewer. The display flickered with small surges of energy around its terminal. Bad news for Kijin’s teammates, because the disruptions in power madesurveying the wreckage for survivors difficult at best. Of the three mercenary titan’s deployed with the Governing Authority Fleet for the battle to hold Enlee Prime, only one remained, but despite that, Kijin was able to remain calm as he watched the display.

  She did not have the same luxury.

  Lieutenant Tessa Markov held a communication unit’s receiver under her chin, close enough she could speak into it the moment she spotted anyone on the viewer. Half an hour and she’d only used it once. Markov’s company had not been like Kijin’s little squadron, which had consisted of two recruits in standardized units, and him with his upgraded wolfman frame. No, she had flown out with fourteen other pilots, most of them veterans experienced with their titans. Only her personal unit managed to fly back.

  “Shit,” Markov hissed, as the display flickered off again, then reset a second later. She clenched her hand on the comm unit.

  Kijin said nothing, though he was beginning to suspect the damage to the carrier had been worse than first reported. This viewer at least was completely wrecked.

  “Maybe you could try a different viewer,” he said.

  She turned slowly, glaring at him with a steady face still marked by tear-streaks. The yellow hair tied tight behind her head made her gaze even more severe.

  “What did you say to me?”

  “You might have a better chance of finding your people with a different viewer.”

  “This is the only sensor set the captain spared for rescue operations.”

  Kijin nodded, scowling. Evidently, the captain didn’t place much value on the lives of the pilots that could be adrift out there in hard suits or disabled units. She could be right to be cautious and keep scanning for enemies, however, given the force deployed so rapidly during the battle itself.

  Markov turned her glare on the viewer. Her eyes narrowed in profile, then flew wide. She stabbed a finger at the display.

  “There! Do you see that?”

  Kijin leaned forward in his seat. Three shapes, small but definitely humanoid, clung to each other within a ring of smaller debris. Markov glanced at him.

  “Those are my people.”

  He nodded, knowing all well not to question her. The pilots he’d lost in the battle were both vapor by now, their control modules slagged by the inferno unleashed by the fiends’ new heavy weapons. Kijin grimaced as he thought of his wingmen. He wished he wasn’t so certain of their deaths.

  “Well, let’s go get them,” he said.

  “Us?” Markov inclined her head toward him. “You want to help me?”

  “I don’t see how you get to them without me covering you.”

  She hissed in a breath, eyes smoldering with poorly hidden temper.

  “For safety’s sake, please cover my flight path.”

  Kijin smirked.

  “As you like, lieutenant.”

  “Don’t get familiar, mercenary.”

  He shrugged, then stood up. Shifting, he walked through the artificial gravity of the launch bay to get to the port where the wolfman-pattern titan he piloted was docked. Markov went to the port beside his to board her unit’s control pod. The ship angled slightly and the artificial gravity, usually so fluid and responsive, took a fraction of a second to reorient. Kijin’s stomach disagreed with the reminder that this bucket of scrap was not in the same shape it had been when he’d boarded it for transit two weeks ago.

  He sealed his vacuum suit and took the controls of his machine.

  Markov made the request to detach and recover the survivors. The captain granted her request with a curt word. Two pod ports sealed. Two titans sailed free of their moorings.

  Kijin hung back in the wolfman, readying the main cannon on his shoulder. His nanite factory had almost entirely refilled his ordinance in the lull after the massacre the authorities would surely call a battle, never mind how many pilots died pointlessly. Only the physical countermeasures remained unavailable. He glided between floating debris, varying from fragments of small ships and titanic sheets of perforated battle armor.

  Scanners and sensors compensated for the confusion of the wrecks and debris. His replicant core identified each ship and fed them onto his heads-up display. New tech could connect one’s brain directly to the replicant, but given the conversations Kijin had previously attempted with the duplicated intelligence he would prefer the half-mad thing stayed quiet. It did now.

  No matter how tactless and cold, or how strange it conversed, the replicant had once been human. Maybe that was why it let him float through the battlespace, feeling the chill of a cemetery in Tulugan winter creep down his spine. His sensors picked out only a handful of stable heat signatures, the pilots from Markov’s squadron.

  “I’m moving in with the grav sled,” Markov said over their comm system. “Going for pick up.”

  “Roger that. You’re clear so far as I can tell.”

  The communication unit burst into life from a different channel.

  “Belay pick up, Markov,” said the voice of their ship’s Flight Officer. “Return to the ship at once.”

  “I’m almost there,” answered Markov. “I’m not leaving my people to die here.”

  “You have a new mission lieutenant, fleet command’s orders. You and Sarmiento, get back here at once.”

  “Damn it, sir. I can’t obey that order.”

  “Sarmiento,” said the Flight Officer. “Return to the ship. We have to redeploy your titan at once.”

  “Sorry, sir. I’m losing you. Must be the debris,” said Kijin.

  “Bastard, unreliable mercenary,” said the officer. “This is an order, or have you forgotten who is paying you?”

  Kijin hesitated with his thumb on the thruster controls. The officer had a point. Unlike a GA officer, relieving Kijin of his titan and role in the fight would be far from messy. He swept the cloud of debris around Markov with sensors. A fiend titan detached from a floating sheet of capital ship hull and angled silently toward Markov and her surviving command. Kijin grimaced.

  The enemy titan was a couple of meters over ten high, and also similar in skinny build to a GA machine like Markov’s ghost-pattern and Kijin’s wolfman frame. The main distinction was the darkness in the viewports and the corroded, nearly organic appearance of its armor plating. Worst, Markov was too intent on monitoring her newly-deployed grav sled to notice, and it was too close to risk a shot with his cannon.

  “Consider me fired if you like,” he said, ignored the Flight Officer’s reply.

  He hit the thrusters and the pulse of force drove him on an intercept course toward the fiend. Without a sound thanks to the void of space he drew his titan’s card blade. The weapon unfolded from its boxy hilt until his titan held a six-meter-long sword without a point on its squared end directly centered in Kijin’s vision.

  Angling with a thruster pulse, Kijin engaged the fiend titan. The rusty-looking giant locked its hands into fists as it drifted tantalizingly close to close range with Kijin. One shoulder-mounted turret gun pivoted to aim at the grav sled.

  Kijin realized he was out of deployable ballistic countermeasures. He grunted in annoyance and put on a burst of speed with his thrusters. The fiend’s gauntlet unlocked and it made a grab for his titan’s shoulder, abandoning its aim with the turret. Finally some good luck, Kijin thought.

  He reversed his thrust as quickly as he could, reversing his card blade at the same time. This kind of maneuver could crush a pilot with less experience or an inferior machine. Kijin thanked his upgraded impact compensator. His sword sheered through the fiend unit’s palm, then arm, then chest cavity and into the machine’s control pod.

  Kijin pushed off. His sword carved the titan in half, spilling small motes of atmosphere and fluid from the ruptured pod into space. The machine tumbled away into the wreckage field. Kijin’s sensors informed him all the survivors were on Markov’s grav sled. Her titan took off at a glide, pushing the sled before her. Kijin retreated, continuing to sweep with sensors and keep on guard with his cannon and blade until they returned to the ship.

  The flight officer stood to one side as the GA Captain left the bridge to her second to reprimand, then brief Markov and Kijin. For her part, Tessa Markov kept her expression steady and her gaze on her commander. She should be proud. They may only have two titans left, but six people, all fellow pilots, were still alive thanks to her
quick action. Funny how both of them were to be punished over it. Kijin couldn’t help the hint of a smirk from creeping across his face.

  “Something amusing?” asked the captain.

  “Not at all, sir,” Markov said.

  “I was talking to the mercenary,” the captain said. “Kijin Sarmiento. What do you have to say for your expression?”

  “Captain, with all due respect, I am not used to officers being punished for heroic actions.” As he spoke, Kijin’s smirk slipped. “Please pardon my lack of discipline. My sergeant from basic is probably rolling in his grave.”

  “And yet you continue to make light of things.” The captain shrugged. “Flight Officer Harris reported your insubordination. Markov, consider yourself awaiting a court martial. However, we are short on pilots as well as machines. Yours are the only two titans still operational in our battle group. The enemy knew we would need them, and targeted our titans over other priorities in the last sortie.”

  Markov frowned.

  “Why would they do that, sir?”

  “They may have stolen intelligence as to the presence of our rig extension in this system.”

  Kijin’s brow furrowed right along with Markov’s. The captain nodded. Her nose wrinkled.

  “Even I was not aware of the extension until a few minutes ago. Rig Vertex sent me orders we are to deny the extension to the enemy by any means necessary.”

  “Any means necessary,” muttered Markov, dropping her gaze.

  “I take it you understand what this means. If the enemy gains control of the extension, they can transport their forces to any rig in our network.” The captain shook her head, elegant GA cap shifting on her gray hair. “High command suggests we destroy the extension altogether, but it is also our only way to effectively escape this system given the fiendish fleet’s ability to track our FTL movements.”

  Kijin whistled.

  “We’re in a real bind, then. Sacrifice ourselves and destroy the extension or escape and leave the fiends to invade anywhere they want.”

  “A reasonable summary, Mister Sarmiento.” The captain sighed. “Outside of the GA bridge staff you are the only two people who know our situation, but the fiends will find the extension if we use it to escape.”

  “Permission to speak freely?”

  “Granted, Lieutenant.”

  Markov folded her arms and stared at the captain. Their eyes met.

  “You can’t ask a mercenary to sacrifice his life so the fleet can escape.”

  “An astute observation, Lieutenant Markov.”

  The Flight Officer smirked behind the captain’s back. Markov saw the man’s expression change. Her eyes narrowed and she turned toward him.

  “I know what I have to do, you Flight Officer Harris.”

  “Harris followed my orders to recall you.”

  “Is it also your orders that he wear that smug face while I fly off to my death?”

  Harris gave a derisive snort, almost a laugh.

  “I’m glad you’re being put to use appropriately.”

  “Bastard,” said Markov. “I’ll show you an appropriate use!”

  She stormed to the flight officer. Before Kijin or the captain could intervene, her fist connected with Harris’ jaw. Harris flinched away.

  “You are assaulting a superior officer!” he said, clutching his face where she’d hit him.

  Seething, Markov let the captain lead her away from Harris.

  “Excuse me, captain,” she said. “But if I’m to fly this mission, I wanted to check that off my to-do list.”

  Kijin suppressed a laugh with a hand to his mouth.

  “Tessa,” the captain said with a sigh. “We’re twenty minutes from the extension once the fleet starts moving. Prepare your titan.”

  Kijin’s stomach sank. Going out there alone was worse than a death sentence for Markov. If she failed to destroy the extension it would all be pointless, and the odds of these new fast fiends against a lone titan added up against her.

  “Sir,” said Kijin to the captain. “Please, send me with her.”

  “You’re not in my chain of command any longer, Sarmiento,” said the captain. “As far as I’m concerned you and your titan are dead weight if you stay on this ship.”

  “Then we agree,” he said with a grimace. “I’m almost fully equipped. Don’t look for me or my wolfman on the other side.”

  Markov turned toward him, mouth opening, eyes flashing. Kijin nodded to her. Her brows joined, and she bit her lip.

  The captain motioned to each of them.

  “Get to your titans. Deployment in twenty-two minutes.”

  They waited in the hangar as the fleet retreated to the rig extension with its network connections and portal arrays, but the journey didn’t take long. Five minutes to take off, Markov finally said something to Kijin, her expression as serious as befitted someone preparing for a suicide mission.

  “You don’t have to join me.”

  He shook his head.

  “The mission is to protect the rigs. I can’t let you fly it alone.”

  “Is this about glory?”

  He snorted.

  “I’m a mercenary. You think I care about glory?”

  “Then why? One titan can destroy the extension on its own.”

  “Blow up the extension’s stabilizer and save the GA, right?”

  “Forget saving the GA. Save humanity.”

  He nodded.

  “You focus on saving humanity. I’ll focus on saving you.”

  “Once the extension is gone, we’ll be trapped in-system with the fiends.”

  “Assuming we don’t get out first,” Kijin said. “Ever heard of remote detonators?”

  She snapped her fingers with a laugh, but a second later her expression darkened.

  “Too risky. The fiends could disable them if the bombs take too long to explode.”

  “So we won’t let them take too long.”

  She frowned at him.

  “You have a point. If we use a detonator with a subspace transmitter we could manage it. Does your titan still have its transmitter?”

  Kijin shook his head.

  “I had it removed to reduce the target signature.”

  “Me too,” she said, “but I know where we can get one. There’s plenty of spare parts out there. Come on.” She checked a chronometer, then got to her feet. “Two minutes to go.”

  Kijin stood.

  “Lead the way, lieutenant.”

  “Call me Tess,” she said.

  Two titans slipped out of the launch bays through the clouds of dead nano-drones and debris from destroyed sensors circling the base of the rig extension. At the controls of his wolfman frame, Kijin exhaled a long breath, trying to keep calm. Fiend titans drifted like corpses in a salt sea just outside the range of Kijin's weapons.

  Tess signaled over their private channel that she had located a subspace transponder on the outside of the vacant extension's hull. Without even a skeleton crew to man the portal generators, the gates connecting this extension to every other in GA rig in space would not deactivate normally. The bombs Tess carried on her titan would be enough to shift the portals and destroy their connections to the other extensions.

  On thruster power, Kijin flew alongside Tess, keeping an eye on the two squadrons of encroaching fiend titans. On the far side of the rig from the titans, the first portal flared into life and swallowed the largest ship in the GA fleet near-instantaneously. With that, several thousand lives had been saved, at least, if Kijin and Tess could destroy the extension in time.

  Bloated humanoid shapes of three fiend titans accelerated to intercept his and Tess’ flight path.

  "Tess,” he said, “Go for the transponder. I’m going to lure their first wave off course.”

  “Good hunting, Kijin.”

  “You too.”

  He held his bearing steady a while longer, then gradually shifted course to circle under the bottom of the rig, opposite the portal generators. Tess descended to an abandoned defense satellite near the surface of the extension. Both got so close to the hull, the light of the next portal flaring looked like the diamond ring of a solar eclipse around the edge of the station’s base.