by Daniel Gibbs
If she did it wrong, none of this would happen, and the startup battery's charge might grow too low to be used again.
"Inshallah," she breathed quietly before pulling the lever.
For a moment, there was nothing, and with it, the terror of having failed.
Then, machinery came to life, a low thrum filling the holds. The nearby monitor on the fusion drive reactor came to life, showing readouts from the reactor itself. The fuel entered, and the fusion process was already underway. Plasma byproduct fed into the thrust system, and the resulting energy was flowing into the rest of the ship.
Samina laughed in excitement. She'd done it! Chief Khánh would be so proud.
Then the G-force slammed into her and knocked her into the reactor housing, hard. Pain shot through her ribs and belly. She let out a cry of pain and struggled to push herself away, with little success.
Despite it all, she was still smiling.
Light poured through the dark bridge as the control displays lit up. Cera noted the fusion drive was already on and triggered the release on the outlet for the plasma. "We're burnin' out of here!" she crowed.
Tia and Piper had just enough time to steady themselves before the G-forces hit, the Shadow Wolf's secret drive now alive and pushing them at high burn away from the incoming League ship. "Well done, kid," Tia murmured to herself while she felt her bones start to turn into jelly.
"2.5Gs and climbing!" Piper noted. "The inertial compensators don't have full power!"
"Doesn't matter! Cera, burn us until you're about to black out, then throttle back!"
"Aye, ma'am!" Cera shouted. From experience, she knew her G tolerances were higher than the others. Odds were she'd be the last one conscious.
The sudden G-forces arrived, just as Yanik's gun stopped firing. The timing was perfect for him, even as it drove him into the wall.
Because it did the same to the League boarding team.
One moment they were trying to return fire from the airlock they were pinned within, the next they were being hit by over 2Gs of acceleration. The sudden shock left them debilitated for a crucial moment.
From his place in the upper port gun turret, Vidia was in the best place to take the sudden G-forces, as the turret seat was built with crash couch functionality. It was still a wrenching experience, and it took him a couple of seconds to recover himself.
A couple of seconds in which power flowed into the gun turret.
The indicators told him the weapon wasn't at full power. The shots would only be at twenty percent standard power, far too low to penetrate a starfighter's deflectors.
But more than enough to blow up an unshielded shuttle.
Vidia used the controls to turn the ball turret to face the shuttle. He prayed silently for forgiveness from God for the lives he was about to snuff out before his finger tensed on the trigger. The sapphire pulses, weaker than usual, zipped across the handful of meters and ripped through the League ship without mercy. The shuttle didn't explode so much as fall apart, all but a small piece of it still moored to the airlock.
God save your poor souls.
The destruction of the shuttle did nothing to harm Yanik. The sudden exposure of the deck to vacuum, however, led to the usual problem such posed to a ship with an internal atmosphere: violent decompression. A sudden force gripped him and ripped him from the bar he was holding. The same pulled the League boarders, living and dead, through the airlock and into space.
Yanik had only a couple seconds to react. Instead of fighting the pull, he let it bring him to the airlock door. At the last moment, his tail, defying the limitations of the suit he was in, whipped out and wrapped around the nearby zero-G guidebar. It was a painful experience to say the least, such that he expected to find out he'd dislocated his tail. But it saved him from being sucked into space, and his grip on his favored weapon kept it from being lost to the void.
With one arm holding the cannon, the other lashed out toward the airlock controls. Yanik's hand smashed against the panel with such force, he worried he'd broken it.
There was a bit of a whining whirr, the inner airlock door slid closed. The vacuum ceased to pull on him, and Yanik was able to find his footing.
His tail still hurt, though.
The moment the rear engines of the Shadow Wolf lit up, Commander Zhung knew something was not going according to plan. She barely had enough time to ask for a report before the flashes of light led to the clear loss of the first boarding shuttle to make it.
The second, just twenty or so seconds away from latching on to the starboard side when this began, suddenly found itself burning toward the rear of the cargo ship. The pilot adjusted, confused, and more concerned with avoiding a collision, but it meant nothing, as the sudden acceleration of the Shadow Wolf meant it was soon pulling away from the shuttle.
"Shuttle Alpha destroyed," Saratov reported. "There's decompression; it's pulled out some of our people."
"Task Shuttle Beta to pick them up," Zhung ordered. "Engines to full burn! Tactical, fire the EMP gun again!"
"Charging for another shot!"
Deveaux's expression was grim. "Their drives are too fast. We'd need someone from Zervakos' squadron to catch up to them."
"We won't need that if we disable them again. Their second drive will go down this time. Saratov, as soon as you can…"
"Firing in ten seconds!" he promised.
"You may hit our shuttles," Deveaux warned. "If they collide with each other in their formation, even with their engines dead…"
"...then we will remember their sacrifices in the name of Society," Zhung answered coldly. She would not be diverted from the foe Admiral Hartford sent her to take. "Fire when ready!"
Pieter was ready when the fusion drive reactor came to life. He had everything set up to restore power to the control systems, communications, maneuvering thrusters, sensors, and the ship's lighting, as well as what power could be spared for the inertial compensators and, given the enemy shuttle hooked to the ship, the anti-fighter guns.
He also reserved quite a bit of power to help kick-start the fusion reactions in the main cores, and most importantly, enough to bring the deflectors online. Since this meant inferior performance in the inertial compensators, he was already braced for the G-forces that resulted from the fusion drive's operation.
Brigitte, also forewarned, clung on to one of the bars for zero-G movement. "The fuse replacement on the deflectors is good!" she shouted.
From her place, Miri glanced up. The G-forces were effectively pinning her against the Lawrence drive. Of the three, she was in the least comfortable position. "I'm not done here yet," she admitted.
"I didn't expect you to be." Despite the intense G-forces, Pieter managed to trigger his commlink. Given the situation, however, he missed the direct line key and hit the open call one, effectively transmitting to everyone on the ship. "Bridge, we have deflector power if we need it!"
"Understood!"
"And we'll need it," Oskar said. "It looks like they're charging a weapon for another shot."
Tia heard that. "Cera, evasive maneuvers! Piper, deflectors!"
"Aye!" both women shouted.
They both went to work, and not a moment too soon, as a crackling burst of electromagnetic energy erupted from their foe and raced across the void for the Shadow Wolf.
35
The electromagnetic pulse crackled through space like a deadly bolt of lightning. And it was deadly, in its own way, deadly to electronics and power systems.
Such was what the League shuttles between the Hathaway Clipper and the Shadow Wolf learned. The pulse rippled through all but one of them and, like that, they were helplessly crippled, dead engines and lights, their crews unable to even call for help as they moved on through the void from the speed they'd already attained.
The pulse played over the Shadow Wolf's stern as it maneuvered "downward" relative to the shot, and was held back by the blue tinge of a deflector shield.
On the brid
ge of her stolen ship, Commander Zhung watched, heart plunging into her stomach, as the powerful drives of the independent ship continued to burn and gradually increase the distance from her vessel. She snarled in fury. "Fire again!"
"Fifteen seconds until recharge complete," Saratov said, his tone apologetic. "The device wasn't made for rapid firing—"
"Then fire when it is ready!" she demanded, her heart pounding now. Success in the mission was so close, so close, and these damned individualist spacers were not going to get away from her!
For a moment, Tia was afraid they were doomed, as the lights dimmed and the controls blipped on and off. Then the effect dissipated, and everything seemed to be working.
"It looks like the deflectors absorbed it," Piper said. ”I think we took a glancing blow."
Tia swallowed. "So, if it's a direct hit…?"
Piper shook her head. "I don't think the deflectors will stop it. They're not getting enough power for full effectiveness."
"Right. Cera…"
"Ye don't need t' ask, Tia," Cera said. "I'll give th' sassenachs a fancy show, let 'em try t' hit us."
Tia nodded and settled into the chair. The ship was moving, but they still needed to get away before the Leaguers called for help.
After another ten seconds, Piper cried out, "They're firing again!"
Cera said nothing. Her hands as they manipulated the controls did all of the necessary talking for her. This time, there wasn't even a flicker. "Ha!" Cera shouted, her tone defiant. "Gettin' soft, Leaguers, shootin' up innocent spacers is nae as fun when they've got a fusion drive!"
"How long until we're out of that thing's range?" Tia asked, her voice strained.
Piper didn't dare turn her head from her screen for fear of never getting it back into position. "Going by relative acceleration rates and current distant, I'd say another minute at least. At their firing rate, they'll get at least three more shots at us, maybe four."
Henry's voice boomed over the commlink. "Status?"
"They're shooting their EMP weapon at us, but the deflectors managed to absorb a glancing hit." Tia shook her head. "We're dead if they get a direct hit."
"Then let's make sure they don't. What about the boarders?"
"Vidia took care of their shuttle," Piper said. "And Yanik's sealed the airlock. I'm still showing what's left of their shuttle attached to us. The extra mass is negligible."
"We'll clear it later."
Pieter's voice cut in a moment later. "Just to remind you ladies, I can't resume working on things until you bring the damn G-forces back down to something reasonable!"
"We're still trying to get out of their range. Stand by."
"Incoming!"
The next shot missed as well, much to Tia's relief. Three more to go…
Zhung watched the distance to the Shadow Wolf grow and felt deep, yawning despair in her. Battle after battle with the Coalition, and she'd come out alive through determination and adherence to proper Social discipline. She'd earned her place in this operation. But she could lose it all if she had to report failure like this to Admiral Hartford. "I want full power on the drives!" she shouted.
"We're already at a hundred percent," Deveaux said.
"Then make it more!"
"It may not be possible. These civilian models…"
Zhung ignored him and keyed her intercom. "Attention engineering, I want the drives pushed past one hundred percent. Do whatever you must. Anything less is a failure of social discipline and will be punished accordingly!"
Saratov fired again several seconds later. This shot came closer than the others, again grazing the civilian hauler's deflectors, but to no avail.
"Drives up to one hundred five percent. One hundred ten percent." Lieutenant Lewis shook his head. "Commander, they're still out-accelerating us."
Zhung cursed the day the Coalition came up with the damn fusion drive. "Lieutenant Saratov, hit them."
"I'm doing my best, but their pilot is quite skilled," Saratov protested.
When he fired again, the shot was a near-hit, not quite managing to touch the other ship's deflectors. "I calculate that we only have a chance for two more shots before they are out of effective range," Saratov said.
With cold fury in her voice, Zhung said, "Lieutenant, if you miss, I will have you arrested as a saboteur and denounced to the Security Directorate, do you understand?"
Saratov nodded grimly. Zhung's threat didn't just mean his execution, but the forced separation and re-socialization of his family—parents, siblings, spouse, children—under the logic that he tainted them with anti-Social attitudes.
"Commander, I've contacted Captain Zervakos," said Deveaux. "A vessel is going to jump to our position, ETA five minutes. We're ordered to maintain contact."
Zhung nodded quietly at that. She watched in utter frustration as another shot crossed the distance and completely missed, this time due to the last-minute maneuver by the Shadow Wolf that pulled away from the shot's track.
"They're approaching maximum effective range on the EMP cannon," Lewis warned. "Engines are holding at one hundred twenty percent, but we're not gaining."
In the following seconds, An Rong Zhung existed in a state of hope and fear that came from knowing her future was entirely out of her hands. There was nothing she could do to influence the outcome in her favor. No trick left, no scheme, no idea. Saratov would either hit or he would miss. That would be that for her. Her career would be saved, or she would be ruined. Years of effort, lost, without any hope of recovery.
She was utterly, completely helpless, and like all people in her position, she watched and hoped for the best.
"Shooting!"
Saratov triggered the weapon. The device triggered the EMP burst. For Zhung, time seemed to slow to a crawl, enough for her to make out the subtle waves of the EMP pulse as it raced across the distance near to the speed of light. The Shadow Wolf seemed to bank on the screen, pulling away to starboard as the shoot looked to spear it right across the center.
There was an impact. Blue light flared. Hope filled Zhung in that split second, hope that the pulse struck strongly enough to overwhelm the deflectors of the other ship, to cripple it again, to make this entire effort worthwhile. Her eyes focused on the drives of the other ship, and she watched in growing horror as they didn't die out.
Several seconds of silence passed. Saratov shook his head. "Commander, I'm sorry. The target just moved beyond two hundred and fifty thousand kilometers. They're no longer in effective range."
Zhung said nothing. She quietly slumped into her chair, knowing it was lost. Even if Zervakos' frigate made the intercept, she would be considered a failure. Slowly, quietly, she started to laugh at it all. Her mind buckled and failed under the knowledge that all of her work could be lost due to the fortune of others. That she had no control over her fate, no matter how hard she fought, no matter how well she did. Decades of selfless service to Society for nothing. She would be dismissed as a failure and possible saboteur merely on the grounds of one failure. That was what it was like when you lacked the connections to protect you from failure.
Her laughter grew until it was, by the standards of others, crazed. She would continue to laugh for some time afterward, in fact, even after Deveaux had her forcefully taken to the brig.
"They've stopped firing," Piper said when twenty seconds passed since the last shot. "I guess we're out of range."
"Cera, reduce burn until we're at 1.5Gs," Tia said. Cera obeyed immediately, and the strain on everyone died down. "Engineering, do what you can. Get the Lawrence drive back up immediately."
"Doing so now."
Henry came over the comms. "Everything's all right down here, although, Oskar, you'll need to look over our new Engineer's Mate. I'm betting she's got some bruises from those Gs."
"As soon as I can, Captain," Oskar promised.
Over the next few minutes, silence reigned. It was good, as silence was needed to settle their thoughts and nerves. Even compare
d to the Tash'vakal, this was a close call to beat all close calls. We can't keep living like this, Tia pondered between button presses. Nobody can. It's too much fear. It reminded her of being young and living as a revolutionary on Hestia, one eligible for arrest and forced labor just for having a party card. Half of the joy for the revolution, when it was attempted, was doing something concrete about that fear. It was a harsh lesson in how fears aren't always deceptions but a healthy understanding of the risks in a situation.
Piper looked up from her board. "Wormhole, we've got a wormhole forming, seventy-five thousand kilometers zero-seven-seven mark positive two-zero-four.”
Great, more bad news. Tia gripped the chair arms and asked, "Do we have ID?"
"One moment." As Piper examined her station, Tia could already imagine the answer. A League warship, fast enough to chase them down and catch them for they could jump out. All of that tension and work for nothing.
"It looks like a modified destroyer, combat-capable, definitely not regular military or League," Piper said. "We're getting an incoming signal."
"Put them on."
The voice that spoke was thickly accented. "Vessel Shadow Wolf, I am Piotr Sergeevich Tokarev of the Morozova. You are carrying a woman who called herself Karla Lupa. You will hand her over to us."
Tia recognized the name. Pirates, as if the situation wasn't already bad enough. "Why?" she asked.
"Because she is an agent of the League who framed us!" came the aggrieved reply. "We've been looking for her for days to find out more about her masters' plot! Now turn her over, or we will come and take her!"
