Harbinger

by Charles R Case

  Hon followed the Aether shots with another volley. This time, instead of firing one after the other, he shot all three at once, and spread them in a triangular pattern like a shotgun blast.

  The Vitas were fast, but the ship couldn’t quite get clear of the wider pattern Hon had put out, and one of the slugs clipped the bow, sending a spray of super-heated hull splashing into the blackness of space.

  The small ship, however, didn’t seem to notice, and continued to fire at them relentlessly.

  Another barrage of particle beams blasted into Sara’s newly reformed shield and tore it apart with unnerving ease. The Raven bucked, and a groan of stressed metal rang throughout the ship.

  The little ship was all over them, only a few hundred meters out, which made tracking difficult for the big gauss and Aether cannons. The battle had only been going for ten seconds, and already the Vitas had scored several hits.

  “Why are the PDCs not firing?” Sara asked, realizing the buzzing sound of their close defense weapons was absent.

  “The sensors are having trouble picking out the enemy ship from the background radiation, ma’am. We only have a firing solution because you are able to manually select it,” Hon reported, sending out a third shot with the gauss cannons, this time using two of the tri barrel turrets in the shotgun strategy.

  The Vitas either got lucky in its sudden change in direction, or it saw the shot coming. Either way, the gauss rounds went wide, and the Vitas came in close to rake at the ship once again with its unbelievably powerful particle beams.

  Sara gritted her teeth and dumped as much Aether as she could into the shields, making them glow brightly with golden light as the Vitas’s beams slammed into the Raven for the third time. The shields dimmed with each blast, but Sara kept pushing as her well began to dry.

  She gritted her teeth and grunted, “Cora, get us out of here.”

  “I need a destination,” she said quickly.

  “Just go. It doesn’t need to be accurate,” Sara urged, as her eye began to twitch under the constant barrage from the small vessel. It was as if it could sense that she was struggling, and pressed its attack even more.

  “Okay, hang on, everyone,” Cora advised.

  The shots from the ship were too powerful, and coming one on top of the other in a relentless drive to punch through Sara’s barrier. The blasts were dealing more damage than she could compensate for, and the shields began to fail.

  “Three,” Cora began counting, and Sara nearly shouted with frustration. She had wanted Cora to jump the ship, not warp away again.

  The shield was orange, turning to red fast.

  “Two.”

  Sara began to feel light-headed from the strain, and she could feel with each blast that the shield was going to fail at any moment.

  Then, to her horror, a hole burned through.

  “One,” Cora said, but it was too late.

  A beam punched through and lanced into the Raven, sending a shudder through the ship. The lights began to flicker, but the pounding had stopped, and Sara could feel that all the Aether she was still pouring into the shields were actually strengthening them, not just prolonging their beating.

  She blinked a few times, trying to determine where the other ship had gone, then she noticed the two suns no longer loomed in the holo projector. The projection was familiar, however.

  “Are we back in the Teifen system?” she asked aloud, pulling her Aether back, but leaving the regenerated shields in place.

  “Yes. I wasn’t sure it would work without an exact location, so I used our last position in this system as a guide point,” Cora said excitedly.

  “What did you do?” Sara asked, still not sure how they were so far from their original position.

  “It was a trick the core showed me. It combines the warp spellform and the jump spellform. Basically, it lets me make a warp thread and then jump through it, instead of traveling along it.”

  “You’re saying you can jump us instantly anywhere we can warp to?” Sara asked to clarify.

  “Not anywhere. Even with my larger Aether well, I just don’t have the power to jump us extreme distances. What we just did was a bit like burning all the fuel in the tank on one fast, short trip, instead of the fuel efficient method of cruising along in warp,” Cora responded.

  “How was that ship tracking us? We changed direction halfway through the journey, that should have thrown it off,” Sara asked the bridge at large.

  “I’m not sure, ma’am,” Connors said, looking up from his console. “As far as we and the Elif know, there is no way to trace a warp thread. We just know that the thread can only travel in a straight line.”

  “Actually, I think I may be able to change trajectory slightly while in warp, but it would take a lot of power,” Cora said, then seemed to realize this was not the time to theorize about her new powers. “But Connors is right. As far as we know, there is no way to trace a warp thread.”

  Sara made a fist and slapped it into her open palm, making Alister grip her shoulder tighter. “Well, it looks like these Vitas have figured it out, which means we need to get out of here either by using gravitic drives, or jumping out of the system before warping away. Otherwise, we can never go home, because that damn ship is going to follow us forever.”

  “Whatever we’re going to do, we are going to have to wait,” Cora said, her voice becoming concerned. “The ship took quite a bit of damage right as we jumped, losing a number of the amplifiers on the hull. I can’t jump us until those are repaired, and I can’t cloak us, either. We have flight controls, but the finer adjustments on the gravitic drives are fried.”

  “Not to mention the two holes in our hull,” Grimms said, looking at the damage report. “The nanobots will take a few hours to repair everything. And before you ask, if we repair the amplifiers first, we would have jump and cloak capabilities in forty minutes. However, with the hull breaches, our structural integrity is down——if we get hit in one or two strategic places, the ship will collapse under the stress of maneuvering. Honestly, it was two of the worst places for us to get hit.”

  Sara considered that for a second. “You think they knew where to hit us? That they were trying to cut us up?”

  Grimms frowned. “I wasn’t thinking that, because the precision it would take is beyond what I thought possible, but now that you say it…” He trailed off, raising an eyebrow at the damage report in his hands. “It’s possible.”

  “What if we don’t repair the breach completely, but instead just reinforce the ship’s frame, then focus on the amplifiers?” Sara asked, trying to find the compromise.

  “We can have a rough framework up in twenty minutes, and we can actually use crew to set the pieces, so the nanobots can focus on the amplifiers instead of building the struts from scratch,” Grimms said, a plan formulating as he said it. “We can have the work done in an hour or less,” he said, looking to Sara for her approval.

  She gave him a nod. “Do it. Connors, take us in close to one of the larger pieces of debris. Let’s see if we can’t use it as a barrier between us and that little bastard. If we can keep them on the far side of it, that should buy us some time.”

  “Aye, ma’am,” Connors said, setting a course for a large chunk of what was once a Teifen destroyer.

  “I need ideas, people. How do we fight this thing?” Sara asked, opening the floor for discussion.

  Hon cleared his throat. “I might have something, ma’am.”

  24

  Sara kept having to remind herself to breathe as she watched the surrounding space for any sign of the Vitas ship.

  I have never felt that kind of power. It had an odd flavor, as if the damage the particle beam did to the shields was higher than what it did to the ship itself. And our Aetheric cannon didn’t seem to faze their ship much at all, Sara thought as she bit her lip and searched the debris-strewn space around them. Could they have the tech to dampen the effects of Aether? How are they able to travel faster than light with
out it?

  “Ma’am, the supports are in place, and the nanobots are moving in to finish up the job. The crew should be out of there in ten minutes or less,” Grimms reported from beside the holo table.

  “Thank you, Commander,” Sara said, coming out of her thoughts. “How are the amplifiers coming along?”

  “Another thirty minutes, and we will have full functionality, ma’am.”

  Sara nodded and nervously cracked her knuckles. We’re not out of the woods just yet, but I can at least see some light through the canopy.

  “Have we gotten word from the Catagain?” she asked Mezner.

  “No, ma’am. They should be getting our message any time, now. It will be another twenty minutes before we hear back from them, though,” the ensign said with a shake of her head.

  Sara blew out a breath, once again catching herself holding it in nervousness. She decided to mentally go over their plan of attack one more time.

  The Raven was currently tucked behind the aft end of a destroyed Teifen carrier. They were keeping themselves on the opposite side of the huge piece of starship from where they had warp-jumped into the system. Sara’s thinking was that if the Vitas were following their warp thread, they should come in on the same trajectory. This time, she had ordered the sensors to be on full blast, and Cora was washing the area with Aetheric waves to detect everything within a light year. They wanted to gather as much information as possible; who knew what advantage it might bring in the future.

  The plan was simple. As soon as they saw the Vitas warp in, the Raven would jump in behind it and let loose a volley of gauss rounds, then immediately jump back behind the destroyer’s wreckage. They would keep jumping in and out of the battle, hopefully keeping the enemy off balance.

  They had noticed that the Vitas didn’t seem to have any weapons besides their light-based beams, and hoped to use their jump ability to keep the enemy at a distance, where their light-speed weapons would be easier to dodge.

  That was the plan, anyway. Sara didn’t have much time to second guess her decisions.

  “I have a positive ID, ma’am. They came in on the same coordinates as us, plus or minus seventy-five meters,” Mezner reported.

  Sara jumped into action. Sending a bit more power to the shields, she swiped a position behind the small ship. “Cora, jump.”

  The view changed from the hunk of slowly spinning metal and composite of the carrier to the small, oddly shaped aft section of the Vitas craft.

  “Hon,” the captain said, but she didn’t need to tell him twice, as he let loose with twelve gauss rounds at point-blank range. “Jump,” she commanded her sister again, and the spinning piece of debris returned to dominate their view.

  Grimms gave a thin smile, leaning over the holo table. “At least one direct hit, ma’am. The Vitas are spinning with the impact. They appear to have some substantial damage to their engine array.”

  “Good, let’s do it again,” she said firmly, her confidence coming back.

  They jumped, and the small ship appeared just as Hon let loose with another volley. This time, the Vitas ship spun on its axis so fast that Sara thought it was from the impact. However, when the slugs continued past the untouched ship, she could see that it had spun in order to dodge their incoming fire.

  She could see the blaster cannons covering the ship begin to glow with building energy for a counterattack, but Cora jumped them away before it could get the shots off. On the holo display, she watched the spray of particle beams fly off into the void.

  “What the hell? How did they know we were there?” she asked with a frown.

  “I think it learned from our last attack, ma’am,” Hon said, checking to make sure the cannons were reloading.

  “They’re headed this way,” Mezner reported.

  On the holo display, Sara saw a barrage of blasts coming toward the hunk of destroyer they were hiding behind. The Vitas were still a few light seconds away, so the fireworks didn’t start until they were nearly a quarter of the way to the Raven‘s hiding spot. Then the hunk of starship in front of them began to spin and glow with the particle beam impacts; it was obvious that it was not going to last very long.

  “Jump here,” Sara said much more calmly than she felt as she marked a spot on her display.

  Cora jumped them immediately, and the view changed again as they popped up behind a second, smaller section of derelict ship. They had jumped to a spot behind the Vitas, forcing them to slow down and turn to come at them again, hopefully buying some time.

  “Hon, load up the gauss cannons with the warhead slugs. I have another idea.”

  Sara mentally asked Alister for a spellform of special design, and the cat raised his eyebrows as he understood what she wanted to do.

  “It’ll work,” she told him. “It doesn’t need to hold the blast, just get it started,” she coaxed.

  He tilted his head then gave a nod.

  She could see that the Vitas ship had spun on its axis again. It quickly overcame its lost momentum and started accelerating toward the Raven. Even though there were several light seconds between them, the Vitas began firing bolts to take out their cover.

  Sara marked the spot she wanted.

  “Jump,” she said, then, while keeping their ship’s shields in her mind, began powering the second spellform Alister gave her.

  As soon as they appeared behind the Vitas, it began to spin around to face them.

  “Fire!” Sara ordered, powering up the new form.

  Twelve highly explosive slugs shot out at the Vitas, and, like she had predicted, it dodged slightly, but only enough to not be hit directly.

  However, behind the enemy ship, a thin shield came glowing to life. It was shaped like a large, shallow bowl, and the open top was facing the Raven and the incoming slugs.

  Sara only sent minimal power into the shield shape, but even then, the draw on her well was nearly overwhelming.

  As the slugs approached the Vitas ship, it opened fire with everything it had. Light speed was slow when compared to the vastness of space, but it was still faster than gauss rounds, and the Raven needed to hold position while Sara’s plan played out.

  At nearly the same time, the enemy particle beams slammed into the Raven, and the gauss slugs exploded against the bowl-shaped shield, redirecting the blast back at the Vitas and enveloping it in fire, plasma, and shrapnel.

  The two shields Sara was powering both took tremendous hits, but she needed both to survive, so she slammed everything she had into them.

  The Raven was peppered with hundreds of blasts, and the shields quickly burned down to an angry red, finally failing toward the aft section. Several particle beams blasted through the hull, and one lucky shot slammed through the engine room, puncturing two of the reactors.

  The ship shuddered and groaned, while electrical systems overloaded and blew fuses throughout the major systems.

  Sara caught a glimpse of the Vitas ship spinning out of the blast, and was satisfied to see that the engines were dark, and there was a cloud of debris floating around the craft. It looked dead, but before she could confirm that, the view screen and her viewing bubble both went dark.

  25

  The Raven listed to the side, her starboard gravity manipulators damaged beyond use until the nanites could do their work. Power was out in the fore sections of the ship, including the bridge, which was running on battery backup for the time being. The only light came from the various consoles, and the holo projector in the center of the room.

  “Ma’am, we only have enough back-up power for one volley of gauss rounds,” Hon reported.

  “Life support is out on decks three and four. We still have not received word from the Catagain, ma’am,” Mezner added.

  Sara wiped a trickle of blood from the place on her brow where she had hit her head on the control ring in the last bombardment. She blinked a few times to clear her vision, and saw Grimms raise an eyebrow in concern.

  “I’m okay. Just need a second,”
she said to him, turning to the holo projector to take in the situation.

  Their last attack had done as much or more damage to the alien ship as it had done to them. The ugly thing spun slowly on its vertical axis, and a small cloud of debris was forming around the dark ship. There were no signs of venting gas, which surprised her, considering the state it seemed to be in. The Raven had lost pressure in at least two places, the last she checked.

  “Mezner, what are the bits I’m seeing gathering around the aliens? Parts of their ship? They seem too uniform.” She zoomed the projection in, noting the similarities in a lot of the spinning pieces that were spreading from the damaged ship.

  Mezner began flipping through readouts, taking a close look before saying, “The objects have nearly identical mass and shape, but I’m not picking up any lifeforms in them, if they are escape pods of some kind.”

  “They could be weapons,” Grimms noted.

  “They could be, but why not shoot them at us? Cora, what are you seeing?” Sara asked the open air.

  There was no reply.

  “Cora?” she asked again, slightly panicky.

  Still nothing.

  She punched in a channel on her command ring. “Caroline? Teichek, do you read me? What’s wrong with Cora?”

  There was a brief moment of silence, then Caroline Green came on the line. Sara could hear alarms in the background, and people moving about. “Sorry, ma’am. It’s pretty hectic down here. What can I do for you?”

  “Why am I not getting a response from Cora?” she asked.

  “Uh, let me check on something,” Caroline said, then muted the comm.

  Sara waited, and watched the spreading debris with growing concern. The fact that so many of the objects were the same was a sign it was some sort of maneuver, but she couldn’t determine the goal.