Lin and Hitoshi have just finished the reactor pre-startup checklists when James notices something is wrong. Perseus’s space traffic controller has been steadily rerouting people over to Sector Control. Beckman picks up on it too and magnifies Perseus from his tactical station. Most of Perseus’s exterior lights are out, and the few visible interior lights are red.
Beckman brings up the ship’s electromagnetic profile. “I think they lost power. Looks like their reactor’s down.”
James keys coms. “Perseus, Bernard’s Promise, do you require assistance?”
Everyone is stepping on everyone else’s transmissions, and coms are just a mess. At least two ships are drifting into the restricted space, and Perseus is trying to warn them off.
The space controller responds to them. “Bernard’s Promise, Perseus, abort operations. Contact Sector Control for clearance out of restricted space.”
James acknowledges. He flips the com back to Sarah and Willow. “Sarah, there’s been some sort of power failure on the Perseus. It’s a mess up here right now, and they’re kicking us out. Willow, can you see if any of your contacts know…”
Beckman interrupts. “Perseus is maneuvering.” On the bridge screen, vectors overlay Perseus’s projected flight path. “Looks like she’s going for the two ships she was warning off.”
James is alarmed. “Let’s see them.”
Their tactical display brackets and labels the two ships as Agatha Maeve and Harper’s Folly. Both ships have darker, bulkier hulls than expected for commercial haulers. As James is contemplating that, Promise’s tactical software chirps an urgent alarm as a dozen reticles highlight panels on the two ships.
“They’re opening gun ports,” Beckman says. “They’ve got Seeker cannons.”
“Oh, shit,” James says.
Perseus opens fire with its kinetic weapons. Four dashed lines of glowing blue slugs spray out from the battlecruiser’s nose and streak towards the Maeve. Nearly simultaneously, the Maeve fires upon the Perseus, a half-dozen lines of phosphorescent green rounds overlapping Perseus’s barrage. The ships target each other’s slugs, and the rounds crackle like fireworks where they meet, some making it through the onslaught and blossoming into fireballs on the opposing ship’s hull. The Maeve is now maneuvering and on a trajectory that puts it between Perseus and Promise. Hunter’s Folly mirrors it, flying in its shadow.
Willow is still inset on the screen watching from ground control. She’s stunned, her hand in front of her mouth.
Even Beckman takes a second to process the situation. “Charge the lasers,” he says. “James, charge the lasers.”
“Reactor’s not up,” James replies.
“Umbilical’s good for a couple of shots.”
James nods, and Beckman reaches for the fire control. A shrill alert sounds from tactical, and both men snap their heads up. Harper’s Folly has now opened fire, a line of green rounds stretching out like fingers reaching towards Promise. Impact in six seconds.
James mashes the intercom. “Brace for impact!”
The Seeker rounds arc up like missiles, bending their trajectories and streaking above Promise’s hull, smashing into the shipyard. Each hit is a detonation that shakes the entire ship, rumbling James and Beckman at their stations.
Everything on the bridge goes pitch black, only the lights of the men’s EV suits illuminating their consoles.
“Batteries,” James says.
A second later, the consoles reboot, and the bridge lights flicker back on. The main screen fades back in just in time to see the next volley of Seekers rushing towards Promise.
James hits the speaker again. “Everyone, hold on!”
The glowing green rounds converge on Promise’s starboard side and explode upon impact, smashing the console against James’s arms. Some part of Promise rips apart in a deafening roar of screeching metal. On the bridge screen, an expanding cloud of orange sparks fans out like fireworks from the ship’s starboard side.
James yells, “Get any juice into the weapons?”
Beckman is tapping furiously. “Trying.”
Harper’s Folly’s cannons strobe again, and another arc of shooting stars fly towards Promise.
“Brace again!” Beckman shouts.
The rounds slam into something just aft of them as a half-dozen green streaks perforate the bridge, leaving sparks suspended along their trajectories like after-images. James’s console cracks and spiders as something punches him hard in the shoulder, knocking the wind out of him as it snaps his harness and spins him against his chair. As he bobs there, half clipped-in to his seat, he watches the zero-gee flames on the starboard wall rollick around the cavities left by the rounds. The numbness in his shoulder fades and is replaced by searing pain. As he reaches for his shoulder, a loud beeping buzzes in his headset. Suit breach. O2 alert. Blood undulates in spinning globs at his side, and he feels like he’s been shot.
Strong hands are on his back. When he looks over his shoulder, Beckman is there. “James, are you with me?”
“I’m hit,” James says through gritted teeth.
Beckman fetches the emergency kit from under the seat. His combat suit has a few powdery-white scrapes. “Shrapnel. You’ve got a suit breach.”
James tries to focus as Beckman examines the wound. Slowing his breathing, he says, “Everyone, report.”
Hitoshi sounds scared on coms. “We’re here, and we’re okay. What’s happening?”
“I’m going to stop the bleeding now,” Beckman says. “Hold still. This is going to hurt like hell.” When he sprays the foam into James’s wound, hurt like hell turns out to be an understatement. For a long moment, James is blinded by pain and focuses on not passing out. As Beckman layers on the suit sealant, James’s O2 alarm stabilizes.
Ananke speaks on coms. “We’re running on battery power. The first strike disabled the shipyard and external power. The second destroyed our shuttle and the starboard airlock. The last destroyed the starboard laser emitter.”
“We need the reactor up,” James says, breathing heavily.
“We’re on it,” Hitoshi replies.
“And the engines. We can run them on batteries,” James says. “We’ve got to configure the ship for armor.”
“We can’t,” Lin says. “When they took out the ring, the moorings failed closed. The nacelles are clamped into the pylons.”
James looks back at the bridge screen. Harper’s Folly has ceased fire, but Maeve and Perseus are still exchanging volleys.
Beckman leans over James and quickly taps a few commands on his console. Firing arcs overlay Promise, showing the reach of its lasers. There is a large dead zone that the starboard emitter used to cover. Maeve and Harper’s are both in the deadzone.
“We can’t hit them,” Beckman says, “not unless we can maneuver. If they wanted us gone, they could’ve killed us with hits to the reactor. They want something else.”
From the cockpit of Birk’s shuttle on Harper’s Folly, the pyrotechnic exchange between the Agatha Maeve and Perseus shimmers greens and reds through the cabin. Fires crackle along the Maeve’s heavily armored flank like gunpowder sprinkled into a flame.
Dammit, Ryder, Birk thinks, you screwed up, and Perseus still has enough power for her kinetics. At least you got the mains. They’d planned for this contingency, though, and Maeve is now doing her part. On Ryder’s tactical display, Agatha Maeve matches course with Harper’s Folly, shielding it from Perseus’s guns. When the firing arcs from Perseus turn from yellow to green along his shuttle’s planned flight path, Birk says, “We’re good. Go!”
Jorg taps the pilot’s controls, and something jolts from under their shuttle, the stars drifting outside the cockpit as they disengage from Harper’s Folly. Thrusters fire beneath them an instant before the main engines kick in.
Birk’s chair presses against his back as Harper’s Folly’s hull slides away underneath them. Five kilometers ahead, metal debris drifts in a sparkling cloud around the shipyard. Birk m
agnifies it. Fires pulse along the battle wounds on the LEO4 construction ring and Promise’s starboard. Large chunks of the shredded Pintail spin in the wreckage field outside Promise’s airlock, and interior ship lights are visible through the gaping hole where the airlock used to be. Birk targets it and the navcon overlays flight vectors.
“Shuttle One, clear,” Jorg says over coms.
Folly’s commander says, “Shuttle Two, launch.”
“Shuttle Two, clear,” another voice replies.
Birk checks his gun and watches the tactical. Perseus is still maneuvering, and Maeve tries to compensate. As it does, their firing arc flickers from green back to yellow. The second shuttle has launched and has its own line-of-sight to Perseus. Its firing arc changes back to red. “Perseus is moving, and we’re falling out of the dead zone!”
“Adjusting,” Jorg says.
Perseus flashes red on tactical, and a reticle swirls around their two shuttles. “They’re locking onto us!”
Perseus opens fire, and blue streaks shoot past Maeve, spraying like a firehose towards shuttle two. As they impact the shuttle’s aft, explosions rock the craft, and it spins sideways, breaking in two. Bodies and condensing atmosphere spill out of the tumbling wreckage. Birk pulls back, his eyebrows arching high. The blue line continues swinging towards Birk’s shuttle.
Jorg redlines the engines, and the gees compress Birk, the stars panning as Jorg pulls them back into the green zone. When Birk looks at the tactical display, the dot of their shuttle slides back into the safety arc as the beads of Perseus’s rounds remain in the yellow. In the corner of his eye, Perseus’s blue rounds streak past his shuttle, falling away to the right. They’re back in Perseus’s deadzone.
“Shuttle Three, hold for reposition,” Folly says.
Birk’s glance darts to Sunghoo, who looks like he’s seen his ghost, and he exhales a deep breath.
6
Shortcuts
At Hayden-Pratt’s ground control, there is a stunned silence as the roomful of people watch the events unfold in real time. The external feeds went down when the ring went down, and now they only have Promise’s bridge feed running. Willow has multiple channels open to her U.N. and State Department contacts.
“Yes, I know that,” Willow’s saying to someone. “How soon until they get there?” She holds a hand to her forehead. “They don’t have twenty minutes.”
Sarah is breathing hard, staring intently at the screen. Promise’s orbit has it over the Pacific Ocean. This is the problem with space — the distances are just too big. It’s the whole reason they developed Riggs. Her eyebrows furl. It’s the reason they created Riggs. She waves her hand to catch Willow’s attention. “Willow, take over.”
Willow’s on the phone, and she snaps her head up. “What…where are you going?”
“To do something about this.” With that, she bolts out of the room and runs down the hall to the omnilift, punches in Development Bay Three, and swipes open her phone. “Josh, I need flight clearances from here to LEO4 in two minutes. And I need U.N. Regulatory clearance for a Nightcrawler jump.”
Josh sounds shaken. “I don’t…I don’t think I can get that.”
“Do your best. Get Willow to help with the U.N. part,” she says, swiping closed the connection.
The lift stops, and she charges into the Nightcrawler’s bay. In an instant, she’s in the cockpit. As it powers up, she keys her access code, and the hangar doors whirl open, spilling in harsh early-morning sunlight. The engines hum awake. She brings up the navcon and quickly connects her flight points.
Willow Parker rings on her phone. Sarah accepts. “Willow, what’s the situation look like now?”
“Sarah, you can’t go up there.”
Sarah flicks the switches for the pulse cannons and forward emitter. “Yes, I can. I need an update on the situation.”
“It’s a military engagement. You’re going to get killed.”
The cabin pressurizes with a hiss, popping her ears. “Argue later. Sitrep now.”
Willow hesitates. “One of the ships launched two shuttles. Perseus destroyed one. The other is maneuvering to dock with Promise. Looks like they’re trying to board.”
“Let the U.N. know I’m coming so they don’t shoot me.” Sarah realizes she’s in stress mode and barking orders. She softens it up by adding, “Please.”
Glancing around quickly, she checks that the hangar is clear, then sets her hand on the thruster control. The Nightcrawler lifts off, tilts forward, and glides into the sunlight outside of the development hangar. Warm asphalt stretches from the apron to taxiway.
Sarah keys the ground control mic. “Nightcrawler Delta Three Echo taking the active.”
“Sarah, please, stop,” Willow says.
You know you’re just like James, Will had said to her once.
“This is what James would do and you know it,” Sarah says. “I’m going.”
“Sarah—“
Sarah closes the com and taxis onto the runway. As she edges the throttle forward, the runway streaks by in a blur of gray asphalt and white paint, then she’s pitching up vertically like a fighter jet at an airshow. The gees stack up, pushing her deep into her seat, and she focuses on her tensing to keep the blood rushing to her head. As the Nightcrawler pierces the clouds, she’s pulling five gees, her vision narrowed to a black-and-white tunnel, and she’s gasping shallow, rapid breaths. Flames sputter dazzling greens and golds as a plasma cone forms over her ship’s nose. As the blue sky fades away, the flames fizzle and die, replaced by inky black space awash in stars. The Nightcrawler groans as it adjusts to its new environment.
Sarah gestures at the nav icons, and a graphic of Earth appears ringed by ellipses. She searches for LEO4. A little over four thousand kilometers away and not line-of-sight due to Earth’s curvature. She swipes up the DISPAR screen and enters her decrypt code. The first DISPAR cartridge loads with the ENGAGE icon waiting.
“Okay,” she says, “here’s mud in your eye.” She presses the ENGAGE icon.
The immediate sensation is like have a giant hand reach inside her chest and squeeze her lungs and stomach into a ball, robbing her of air. The Earth and stars stretch and compress as if she were looking through a fish-eye lens, violently rebounding back into place. Everything has shifted, with Earth’s rotation advanced as if someone had hit the fast-forward button. Sarah gasps in air.
Wow. That sucked, she thinks, coughing.
When she examines the navcon, she’s advanced three thousand kilometers and has a thousand-click jump remaining to LEO4. Tactical has line-of-sight now and overlays the ship positions of Agatha Maeve, Harper’s Folly, Perseus, and Promise.
Sarah works quickly, swiping in her approach vectors and targets. She flicks the safeties off her weapons and loads another DISPAR cartridge. When the ENGAGE icon illuminates, she mashes it, the universe yoyoing once again. The Agatha Maeve balloons up underneath her, its guns firing volleys off to her left while Perseus’s rounds streak by and impact on the Maeve’s armor. The Nightcrawler’s HUD targets the Maeve’s guns and Sarah squeezes the trigger. Her pulse cannons flare electric blue and rain lines that blossom into sparks and metal fragments as they register hits on Maeve’s guns. She spins the Nightcrawler and the stars pan left, centering Harper’s Folly. She targets the two aft guns on Folly and unleashes another torrent of pulse fire. When the forward emitter’s CHARGED icon glows ready, she mashes the fire button, and a cherry-red laser sweeps from her nose in an arc across both of Folly’s guns. Glowing slag bursts into the mix of incandescent metal exploding from Folly.
“Surprise, jackasses!” she says.
She banks around the explosion and flies past Harper’s Folly while loading up another DISPAR cartridge. Up ahead, the glow of the first shuttle’s engines swings into view, and she steers towards it, squeezing off another line of pulse fire. Her shots shred its engines, and its lights flicker out. As she turns towards the second shuttle, a shrill tone alerts her that Harper’s
Folly has opened fire on her. Dozens of Seekers streak towards her Nightcrawler. She mashes the DISPAR ENGAGE button, and the stars shrink into oblivion and rocket back out. Sarah gasps in air, breathing hard. When she spins the Nightcrawler around, the Earth is smaller, and the battle is just a speck. She swipes through tactical and preps for another run.
Beckman keys open the armory panel and hands James a pulse rife. Around them, the starboard access hall is heavily damaged, with only the red emergency lights illuminating it. Structural beams are ripped and twisted with cables floating in zero-gee like tentacles. From their spot in the hallway, the wall to EV Prep is gone and replaced by a ten-meter breach. On the other side of the breach, parts of the EV prep floor and three walls extend like a diving platform leading to space. Debris drifts outside, remnants of the shredded Pintail and hull, spinning slowly and colliding. The hallway is an obstacle course of wreckage with some of the metal still glowing, radiating heat that warms James’s face like a sunburn.
Beckman moves to the left of the breach and takes position beside a chunk of the roof. “If we get overwhelmed, fall back by the science lab. Try and keep their fire split.”
“Roger,” James says, opening coms. “How’s it looking, Hitoshi?”
“Reactor just came up, and engines are coming online,” Hitoshi says. “We think we can cut the port engines free of the ring with the port lasers. Still, no way to free the starboard.” He takes a breath. “Boss, we’ve been talking, and we don’t need the engines. We think we should dump everything into charging the Riggs drive.”
“We can jump with the ring holding us?”
“We’ll take part of it with us and trash everything else, but yeah, Ananke can configure for it.”
Outside of the breach, the approaching shuttle is half a click out. “Do what you can,” James says. “We’ll keep ’em busy.”
“Maybe about ten minutes.”
Bernard's Dream: A Hayden's World Novel (Hayden's World Origins Book 8) Page 5
