by Bobby Adair
Concentrating on the big picture outside, I wrap a cocoon of deflective grav around the whole cruiser. It's weak, because I don't have enough power for all of it, and the ship is changing orientation so rapidly I can't keep the field on only the side facing the cruisers.
Thankfully, they’re still firing in the direction we were headed before we bounced grav fields off the cruiser we just passed. Now, we’re spinning off in another direction, and two-megatons of Trog cruiser is careening toward the other five.
As I see it happen, Phil blasts the Turd II straight through the lead cruiser’s main bay, in one side and out the other, right behind the reactors. It’s a clean shot, but the momentum transfer from the collision is violent enough to send it spinning into one of the other cruisers in the formation.
“Run for it!” I call to Phil over the comm as I see Goliath-size ships colliding behind me or throwing out powerful deflective fields to save themselves from damage. Through it all, the still-firing railguns are sending slugs in every direction.
Punjari is working on righting our ship.
“As soon as we’re pointed away from them,” I tell him, “give it all the power you can.”
“Forty-three percent,” says Reactor Lady, thankfully, still at her station. “Forty-four.”
I release more power from the deflective shields as we’re generally heading away from the attackers, so I have less hull area to defend.
Our cruiser is accelerating and stabilizing.
“I didn’t think that would work,” says Punjari.
“It didn’t,” I tell him. “Not like I hoped it would.”
“We left them in disarray,” says Punjari. “We have the time to get away.”
“Nav Guy,” I call, “I need a new intercept estimate.”
“Working on it,” he answers. “None of their courses or speeds is constant.”
“What did you want to happen?” asks Punjari, steadying the ship now.
“I wanted to nudge that cruiser hard enough with our grav field so it lost control long enough to hit another of their ships, but it seems we got the worst end of the momentum exchange.”
“Because we vented the atmosphere,” says Punjari, “to lighten our ship so we could accelerate faster.”
Doh.
I knew that.
I just didn’t know it intuitively enough to make the right call.
I comm to Phil. “Did you make it through alright?”
“Perfect,” says Phil. “Lenox is a fearless pilot.”
“No doubt. Are you setting up to bubble out?”
“Coming around for another run.”
“Phil, dammit.” I sigh loudly. “Escape while you can.”
“You need more time or you won’t make it.”
“We’re working our plan,” I tell him.
“If we can distract them with one more attack,” he tells me, “you guys should have enough time to escape.”
“Don’t be a hero.”
“Gotta plot this next strike. Gotta go.”
Chapter 51
The farther we move away from the squadron of cruisers, the more I feel like a coward.
“Forty-eight percent.”
“Thanks,” I tell Reactor Lady, though I’m trying to see Phil’s attack develop through the blue flare of our drive array.
“Come on, baby,” says Punjari, urging our cruiser to move faster.
Madsen is rounding up the wounded, those who didn’t have their suit grav set high enough when the action started. One has a fractured arm, another a sprained ankle, and a third a broken collarbone.
“Radar,” I ask, “what’s our relative velocity with the Trog ships?”
“Twenty-seven k,” she answers.
That drastically cuts the impact velocity of any railgun slugs they have aimed at us. Good. I shunt more power out of our rear-facing shields to feed the main drive array. “How are we doing on those bubble jump solutions?”
“Ready to go at sixty-percent,” Bubble Jump Guy tells me.
“No fudging?” I ask.
“Sixty is the best we can do.”
I turn to Radar, “I need to know as soon as the Trogs reverse course and start closing again.”
“No estimates, yet,” she tells me. “They’re still preoccupied with Phil’s ship. They’re evading.”
“No second impact yet?” I ask.
“No.”
“Soon?”
“It looks like another twenty seconds if Phil doesn’t miss.”
“How fast?” I ask. “Will they shoot right through or get lodged inside?”
"They're traveling about the same speed as they were on the last collision."
If they hit the cruiser in the hangar bay, they’ll survive. In the dense bow or stern barracks, or even through one of the reactors, traveling at that speed might obliterate the Turd II. “Madsen,” I call, “there’s a war room or conference room or something through that door at the back of the bridge. Take the wounded in there and make them comfortable.”
“They have an infirmary in the rear of the ship,” he tells me. “In the Trog section. Their physiology isn’t all that different from ours.”
“The rear section of the ship is still sealed,” says Internal Systems.
“We could get them out of their suits,” says Madsen.
“Anyone with medical training?” I ask the group.
We get a volunteer from one of the unoccupied engineers. Not a doctor, but a medic in the reserve force.
“Do it,” I tell Madsen. “Leave us a few shooters here, take whoever else you need.” I don’t expect trouble. We’ve been working on the ship for three days and haven’t seen a live Trog. I just hate being surprised.
“Impact,” says Radar.
“And?” I ask.
“Straight through,” she answers.
I comm to Phil. “Hey.”
“Busy right now.”
“They’re being pounded by railgun fire,” says Radar.
“Bubble jump, Phil. Do it, now!”
The comm goes dead.
I look aft, but still see little but blue. “Phil?”
“He jumped,” says Radar.
“You sure?” I ask, hoping to God the Turd II didn’t take a few rounds through the reactor. “Debris?”
“No,” she tells me. “No ship debris. It just disappeared.”
A tremendous weight falls off my shoulders. Now I only have one ship to worry about. Being honest with myself, my friends are safe. That’s the relief.
“Fifty-percent.”
Chapter 52
Our race with the Trogs settles into long minutes with nothing changing. After the adrenaline-jacked first attack, it seems like boredom as we all hang on each announcement from Reactor Lady.
“Fifty-four percent,” she says.
Radar says, "They've turned three cruisers this way, and they're accelerating."
“The other three,” I ask, “all too damaged to chase?”
“No way to tell,” she says. “They could be playing it safe. One could be hanging back to take survivors off the other two, but none seemed to have been completely disabled by Phil’s attack.”
“I didn’t think so either.”
“Don’t forget what we did,” says Punjari.
I’m not sure we had much more than a disruptive effect, yet I don’t say that. “How many g’s are we pulling?”
“Effectively two point six,” says Nav.
“Shouldn’t it be just over two?” asks Internal Systems. It's simple math, a Trog cruiser should max at four g's thrust at sub-light speeds. Half-power should yield half-thrust.
“Because we dumped the atmosphere,” says Nav. “Our drive array has a lot less mass to push.”
“Two point six.” I like that. “Radar, now that those cruisers are up and running, let me know once they’re moving as fast as we are.” I glance over at Punjari. “T
hat’s when we need to start worrying again. We need to come up with our next evasive maneuver before they overtake us.”
“They might not,” says Punjari. “They’re charging hard now, but they’ll back off at some point. If they intercept at full speed again, they’re smart enough to know we’ll hit the brakes and they’ll overshoot, turning the advantage to us. In slowing down as they close in, they’ll increase the intercept time.”
“They have to know,” I guess, “that we’re underpowered at the moment. Otherwise, why wouldn’t we jump, right?”
“Agreed,” says Punjari. “So they think they’ll only get one more chance at us.”
“You’re right.” I turn to Nav. “Can you estimate an intercept time taking their deceleration into account?”
“I can give you a guesstimate,” he says. “You’ll have to reroute more of our power to the rear shields the closer they get, right? I’ll have to adjust for that.”
“Of course,” I tell him. “I’ll do my best to keep it to a minimum.”
“Give me a minute.”
I look at Reactor Lady, silently urging another update out of her. That's when another inspiration hits me. "Punjari, can any of your people manage this ship’s targeting systems?"
“We haven’t done anything to upgrade the fire control systems,” he tells me. “We’d planned to remove all the railguns to reduce weight for the trip to the colonies.”
“Unfortunate.”
“We can’t shoot it out against three Trog cruisers,” he tells me. “We don’t have the crew to reload the weapons.”
“That’s not what I was thinking,” I tell him. “I was primarily hoping to sprinkle our path with railgun slugs so our pursuers would have to divert power to their forward shields.”
“So they couldn’t accelerate as fast,” says Punjari, as he gets it. “The holds are filled with loose slugs that—”
I realize just as he does. “We probably blew most of those out with the atmosphere when we opened all the airlocks.”
“What else have we got?” I ask, as I glance around the bridge, open to any suggestions.
“I think,” says Nav, looking up from the furious work he’s been doing at his station, “the Trogs will intercept us when we hit fifty-eight percent power.”
“In what?” I ask, “Three or four minutes?”
“About that,” he says. “If they’d only waited another minute or two before starting the pursuit.”
I don’t like if-only musings. I turn my attention back to Punjari. “What do you think? Maybe we spin the ship again, a last-minute sort of thing, punch everything we have into the drive array and try to nudge them again?”
“I don’t think it’ll work a second time,” says Punjari.
Radar says, “They just matched our speed. And they’re spreading out as they come.”
“So much for the idea of nudging,” says Punjari.
“Fifty-five percent,” says Reactor Girl, just as something flashes blue, way out in front of us.
I try to make it out, but I know it’s a ship coming out of bubble.
I shunt power to the forward shields and curse. I didn't think the Grays had the ability to perform a micro-jump. Not on purpose, anyway. "How many of those ships are still behind us?"
“Six,” says Radar.
“Reinforcements?” asks Punjari. “For us?”
A voice crackles over the comm. “Dylan, can you hear me?” It’s Phil.
“Phil?” I ask. “Is that you?”
“Keep coming,” he says. “Right at us.”
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Buying you some time. We’ll push past you as close as we dare and give those Trogs something to think about for a minute. Maybe give you the chance to finally get away. You are trying, aren’t you?”
“Are you trying to be funny, Phil?”
“Maybe a little.”
“Phil,” I say, “I take back all the bad things I ever said about you.”
“The Trogs have stopped accelerating,” says Radar.
Even I can see the bloom of their powerful deflective shields. They’re maxing power output to protect themselves from the Turd II. I can practically feel the return of hope in the people around me.
Punjari looks at me, grinning. “We’re going to make it, aren’t we?”
“Don’t get too happy, too quick,” I tell him.
The Turd II grows impossibly fast out of the distance and passes us by in a blue blur.
“Good luck,” I call after Phil, feeling my anxiety knot up again.
“They’re redirecting fire,” says Radar. “They’re trying to hit Phil’s ship. He’s taking evasive maneuvers.”
“That should buy us the time we need,” says Nav.
“Shift course,” I tell Punjari. “A few points off our current trajectory.”
He does, and asks, “Why?”
“It’ll put us off our axis of travel, and out of the path of the last volley of railgun slugs they fired at us. It means I can cut power to the rear deflectors for a moment and transfer it to the drive array.”
“Thanks,” he says, as the ship jumps forward on the surge.
Behind us, another big grav bloom tells me Phil just bubbled out again, taking the Turd II out of danger.
“That seals it,” says Nav. “There’s no way they can catch us before we hit sixty percent.”
“Fifty-six percent,” says Reactor Girl.
“Be ready to punch the button at sixty,” I tell Bubble Jump Guy. “Let’s not waste this chance.”
Chapter 53
Our escape made, we run through a series of bubble jumps that culminate in a final thirty-seven-hour hop that'll drop us into interstellar space at some random spot Phil passed to our navigator before the battle hit its destructive stride. At eleven hours into the journey, I'm sitting at the grav control console, focusing my concentration aft, examining grav waves flowing out of our drive array. I'm searching for flaws that might expose underlying damage that needs to be repaired.
“How do you think they found us?” asks Punjari.
I open my eyes and see he’s come over to lean on my console. I shrug. “It’s not a question I’ve been thinking much about. I’ve been occupied with running tests on every grav plate and grav control system onboard, looking for battle damage.”
“Anything yet?” asks Punjari.
I shake my head. “Besides the hole in the nose, the ship is in good working order, though I’d suggest as a matter of course, we never power down any of the three reactors to save H again.”
Punjari laughs, because the giddiness of escaping with your life sometimes takes a while to fade. “I concur.”
“How are the injured?”
“I spoke with Madsen an hour ago,” he says. “No one is in danger, however, we need to get them back to the hospital on Iapetus to see a real doctor.”
“We’ll put them on the freighter when we meet up with Bird.”
“We radioed a message to Iapetus during the attack,” says Punjari. “But radio waves travel at the speed of light, which means the signal might just now be arriving.” Punjari examines his d-pad for a moment. Bird was scheduled to take off two hours ago.”
“Phil will have gone back to tell him,” I say. “He’d have bubbled into range, sent the message, and bounced back out. I don’t think you have to worry about Bird. My guess is he’ll show up at the new rendezvous without a scratch.”
“I didn’t have you pegged for an optimist.”
“I’m not. I just know Phil. He’s thorough.”
Punjari sits on one of the narrow stools designed for a Gray, and scoots around to find a comfortable spot. “In earth g, this chair would hurt.”
I don’t disagree.
“Do you think the Grays observed us coming out of bubble at the rendezvous?” asks Punjari. “That far out? Are they that sensitive?”
“I don’t know,
” I say. “Is there another explanation for them finding us?”
“We could have a spy,” says Punjari.
I shake my head. “My people are solid. Given what you Iapetus people have gone through, what most of you have spent your entire lives working toward, I don’t see it.”
“Yet it’s possible,” says Punjari.
“I never figured you for the paranoid type,” I say.
“I’m not, just careful.” He smiles about that.
“I think the most likely explanation is the right one, in this case. The Grays are supersensitive to grav flux. I bet they recognize the bubble signatures of these cruisers as readily as you’d recognize your own mother’s face. I think it’s possible a Gray might notice a cruiser come out of bubble, even from far away, against the background noise of the universe. Hell, probable. Maybe a Trog cruiser was passing by somewhere in the neighborhood, and one of the Grays was out wishing on a star or something and noticed us bubbling out in a place no cruiser was supposed to be. Word probably got back about the salvage crew we helped into the afterlife, and the Grays deduced the rest. I think that's why that squadron showed up."
“So we go farther out this time,” says Punjari.
“I don’t know,” I answer. “We can talk with Nicky about it, but if this doesn’t work out, we’ll try twice as far next time, and even further the next. As long as we keep our reactors cooking, then we should be able to escape at the first sign of trouble. We’ll find a safe distance eventually.”
“Or we go back,” says Punjari. “Schedule a whole series of pickup points five or six light hours out from Iapetus, meet up with the freighters, pick up a load of pods, and bubble out before the Trogs have time to send a squadron out to catch us.”
“If they see us bouncing around the solar system, they’ll start to wonder what we’re up to, don’t you think?”
“They’re an arrogant lot,” says Punjari. “In the absence of an obvious motive, they may choose to believe we’re not smart enough to drive the ship to the destination we want.”
I laugh because he may be right on the money with that strategy.
Punjari smiles and leans on the console.
