Duty, Honour, Love

Turning her mind back to her task Karasena brought her image intensifiers from a lanyard on her chest up to her helmet and sighted through them. Instantly the distance jumped in to closer view. Then she saw the Terran ship at first a distant speck that grew rapidly into vision. The ship was like a spear it had that shape. A long spear tapering from a broad base to a sharp tip a sharp and deadly tip. She had read up on its specs as soon as relay four had ID’d it. The forward section had held the main one thousand-millimetre railgun and either side of that missile tubes although the Terrans called the torpedoes. It was also armed with a number of smaller thirty millimetre point defence railguns capable of ripping armoured troops to pieces if they were deployed.

Karasena hastily dropped her intensifiers and raised her weapon sighting down it scope. “It’s coming fast,” she stuttered in a panicked breath.

“Breath,” Dee said to her over their private comms channel.

Karasena calmed down the Terran ship was skimming over the waves getting larger each passing second. Just when she thought it was about to skip overhead it cut it engines and bounced over the sea heading directly for them. “Shit!” she swore and fell flat.

There was a tremendous roar as it fired its forward thrusters and hit the surface of the water with a splash. Water surged up the beach towards their positions for a moment Karasena thought they would be swamped by a mini tsunami but the surge only washed up two thirds of the distance. Karasena was glad of the width of the beach. The ship swept up the beach sending water and sand flying with a horrendous grinding sound that her helmet’s sound filters were hard pressed to stifle.

She took a deep breath and calmed herself down and training took over and she waited her weapon ready, noticing Dee and the rest of her detachment do the same.

The Terran ship lay there unmoving the only sound from it was the noise it made as it settled onto the beach. One thing that relieved Karasena was the angle the ship had finished up in its main weapon was pointing up at angle. High enough that if it fired the likely hood of it hitting anything was extremely remote. The missile tubes were a different matter they could be remote guided and had atomic warheads. It was why she had set up the MARs they would shoot down any missile the Terrans fired.

An hour passed Karasena worried about what the Terrans were planning. Dee was too far away to read any of their minds. They were well in to the second hour after landing new worries surfaced in Karasena’s mind. Were all the crew aboard dead? She was about to signal her soldiers to move in when she spotted movement from the Terran ship. A figure dropped from under the hull followed by another. Karasena sighted down her AR 32. The targeting sensor on her sights picking out the dirty and dishevelled uniforms of two officers. The others in the group from the ship where dressed in green coveralls the Terran equivalent of Confederacy skinnies. All had sidearms strapped to their waists Karasena noted they had no heavier weapons. There seemed to be what to her eyes seemed like a heated discussion between the two officers before the taller male stepped forward the other officer trailing behind. She could see that the tall male was a captain while shorter female was a lieutenant. They walked up the beach heading for the old road.

Karasena sighted down her weapon. “Fire on my command,” she ordered her soldiers over the comms reluctantly she didn’t want this to end up in a blood bath. The heavily armed and armoured Confederacy soldiers would slaughter their lightly armed and unarmoured opponents.

Suddenly beside her Dee rose out of concealment her weapon lowered forcing Karasena and the rest of the detachment to follow suit. Before she had a chance to question Dee on her actions Dee spoke.

“Agree,” Dee said over their private comms channels.

“What?” Karasena asked confused.

Before Dee had a chance to reply the leading Terran officer spoke his words echoing loud across the beach. Karasena was shocked not by his words but by purity of the Galactic he spoke. He spoke the language as if he had spoken it all his life. Most Terrans Karasena had encountered spoke with the trace of an accent even those who had spent a long time in the Confederacy. Terran officer waited for her response his arm raised away from his body and away from the sidearm at his side.

“Surrender,” Karasena finally replied.

“We’ll surrender but I have terms,” the Terran said to her and dropped one hand to the belt his sidearm was strapped to. With one swift movement he unloosened his belt and dropped his sidearm into the sand.

“Agree to his terms,” Dee interrupted completely sidetracking Karasena’s train of thought.

“Your terms,” Karasena said tersely to the Terran officer exasperated.

“I have a number of wounded some critical I want them evaced to a med centre.”

“Very well,” Karasena had expected him to give her a list of outrageous demands but what he had asked for was within her power to grant. Unbidden she began to like this Terran it was something she wouldn’t have thought herself doing. He clearly cared about his crew. Most of the other Terrans living on Erikino were decent people helpful and friendly and it looked this Terran might be the same. But she had a job to do and these Terrans were the enemy. Besides she had Dee with her if the Terrans were running false then she would know.

She clicked her comms channel over and called in the med shuttles from Hawthorn thankful that she had put in the request before coming out here. She had envisioned using them for her own forces so she had them on standby.

“I’ve got some medical shuttles inbound,” she said to him. “They’ll be here in ten minutes.”

The Terran saluted the odd across the chest thing they did. “Thank you ma’am but you’ll have to excuse me our comms aren’t working and I need to get my wounded out.” He turned and spoke to the other officer in Terran. “Number One get the wounded out critical first.”

“Yes sir,” Jane replied with a formal salute. As ever the realist she knew the situation here was precarious.

Karasena watched the female officer stomp off clearly unhappy about the situation unlike the other officer she still had her weapon at her side. “Dee?” she asked on the private channel.

“Exactly as he says,” Dee reassured her.