"Enemy hull quadrant K12-h88b," came a call, routed directly through to the commander by the Buzzers monitoring fleet communications. They too knew this was the information the commander would be craving.
The commander adjusted and focused his display. The spaceship jumped in size, again and again till it filled the monitor, then jumped in size again till the hull section in the call, K12-h88b, was in focus.
"Yes," the commander screeched, "by the slick carapace of the hive queen, damage, and on the first shot."
The commander's view port showed the armor of the alien spaceship marred by a welt that looked like a boil, but a boil that had burst and was shedding debris. The Drifter spaceship was already rolling to turn the damaged area away from Chill Spider. The damage was exactly where their scientists had guessed the engines might be, the target given to the captain of Chill Spider.
"Great shooting," he murmured, "Great shooting."
***
Inside the Drifter spaceship, Knave, Altia and Jay were almost thrown from their feet. They all heard a metallic clang, like a giant had bashed the side of the spaceship with a spanner.
"What was that?" Jay asked.
"This escape unit is under attack by forces who wish to impede your escape," a voice came wafting from the ceiling somewhere.
It sounded like Rort, but at the same time unlike Rort.
"Escape unit?" Altia said.
"Yes," the voice said, "I have been designed to facilitate your escape and to return you to your homes."
"Designed?" Altia said.
"More importantly," Knave interrupted, "You said we were under attack."
"That is correct," the voice said, unperturbed and mechanical, "by powerful vessels that seem intent on disabling or destroying this escape unit."
***
The commander watched as Dread Blade swung into position behind the target, joining Chill Spider in the attack. Dread Blade had an entirely different armament, but no less devastating if used correctly. There was a single mass driver running the entire length of its back, covered by a tunnel of armor and heat sinks, like the spine of a skinned fish. The muzzle armor folded flat to reveal a maw big enough to land a shuttle in. There was a suggestion of a blur, a hint of a flash, and the muzzle armor closed. A giant wad of mass had been sent hurtling at the Drifter spaceship, causing an intense splash of blue to form on its shields. More damage could be seen on the engine armor of the target. The commander squealed in delight. The cowardly fools weren't even fighting back.
Chapter 20
––––––––
The three of them, Knave, Altia, and Jay, were shaken again.
"Another attack," the voice said.
"We can't keep on taking damage," Knave yelled, "we have to do something."
"Yes," the mechanical voice said, "we have to escape this situation and deliver you home."
"This is crazy," Altia said, "Who are you?"
"I am Yort," the voice said.
"And," Jay asked, "why are you keeping us imprisoned?"
"You are not imprisoned," Yort said, "The force wall on the entrance to the room is simply to retain atmosphere during airlock operations. Please feel free to exit this chamber and wander about the spaceship to your hearts' content. When you step through the barrier, it will conform to your contours and let you pass."
"We're not prisoners?" Knave said, "That's good."
"I don't intend to wander about," Altia said, "But I would like to go someplace where I can see what's going on."
"Just follow the line," Yort said.
A glowing line stitched across the floor as the ship was shaken by another attack. The line went to the energy barrier across the hexagonal doorway, and disappeared as it went through. Altia followed it to the energy barrier stepped into it and was swallowed up as it slithered around her form as though she were entering a body of water, but one with a vertical surface, not a horizontal one. Knave followed seconds after, followed at a more leisurely pace by Jay.
The line led along dimly lit corridors, which also had the hexagonal configuration of the doorway. There were a lot of apertures leading off from the corridors, all hexagonal.
"Whoever the Drifters were," Knave said, "They had better eyes than us. Who can see anything in this gloom?"
"If my new sensors are anything to judge by," Jay said, “they could see a lot better than your normal human eyes."
Altia disappeared round a sharp bend in the corridor, and Knave and the robot both hurried to catch up. They couldn’t perceive any hint of motion within the spaceship, or any acceleration or maneuvering, only the regular impacts of attacks, which felt to Knave as if they were getting worse.
"Are we actually moving?" Knave asked, "Or are we just lying in their guns?"
"We are moving at upper segment four acceleration," Yort answered.
"I do not know what that means," they could hear Altia saying as they caught up to her.
"It is difficult to translate," Yort explained, its growl of a voice sounding almost apologetic, "Your culture does not posses a technology that would enable a direct comparison."
The line they were following went through a hexagonal doorway that seemed larger than most of the others.
"Is this it?" Knave asked.
"This is it," Yort confirmed.
They all entered together, into a space that opened out to three times the height of the relatively cramped corridor. There were three acceleration couches.
"Designed for our escape," Altia murmured when she saw them.
There was also a huge view screen, which the couches were oriented towards. The screen was showing some kind of strange gold and bronze pattern that looked like spiderweb strands splitting and joining incessantly at ninety degree angles. Above the screen, there were innumerable technological devices hanging from the ceiling, like a collection of metallic and misshapen bats. To reach each elevated acceleration couch there was a little set of steps, giving each couch, on its separate pedestal, a commanding view of the space.
"The bridge," Knave said.
"The bridge," Yort said.
It was unclear from the tone whether the alien intelligence was confirming a guess or just adopting Knave's term. Knave took the central couch, Altia took the couch nearest the door and Jay took the couch on the other side. It was only after he had ascended the central couch that Knave noticed it was a little higher than the others.
"Is this the captain's chair?" he asked.
Nobody answered because the ship was shaken by the biggest impact yet, making them glad they were safely held by the acceleration couches.
"Show us what is going on," Altia ordered.
The strange abstract spiderweb patterns disappeared from the screen, replaced by a view of a Buzzer spaceship. Gun ports rippled open and closed along its flanks and they were shaken again by a crunching impact. In the open space between the couches and the screen, a hologram appeared. It was hard to interpret at first, but then, in a flash, Altia realized what it represented.
"The blue symbol is this spaceship,” she said, “the two red symbols are the major threats, with additional swarms of orange lesser threats. The other stuff, the green stuff, is planets, asteroids and such like."
"Got it," said Knave.
"There are a lot of lesser threats," Jay said.
Their seats were rocked again as incoming fire overloaded and then penetrated their shields, much reduced in power, but enough to throw them around.
"See that line connecting the enemy ship to ours for an instant," Altia said, "That is an attack."
"But where is our return fire," Knave said, confused, "I don't see it."
"Me neither," Altia said, "There is no outgoing fire being rendered in the hologram, and I don't see any impacts on the video feeds of the enemy spaceships over there on the screen."
"Hello," Jay said, "Yort, what's going on? Why aren't we returning fire?"
"This operation was envisaged by my creator as a rescu
e mission. It was thought, as far as I can guess the thought processes that went into my design, that the mission could be achieved with a high probability of success without returning fire."
"By the powers," Knave yelled, exasperated.
"Do we even have guns?" Altia asked.
"The term, guns, is vague," Yort said, evasively.
"Come on," yelled Knave, "Work with us here. I've never met a ship's computer that was happy about taking damage. Just tell us if there are any guns on board."
"There are offensive systems," Yort said, "Both beam weapons and missiles."
"Okay," Jay said, "line up those beam weapons and let's cut them up like salami."
"I was not created with the subroutines necessary for offensive action," Yort said.
"That's just great," Jay growled, the growl made more emphatic by his strange alien voice.
"I have what looks like some kind of targeting system here," Altia said.
"Yes," Yort said, "every command position is provided with manual controls for firing, navigation and various other functions."
"It looks a little complex," Altia said, “and the language used in the readouts is a little unfamiliar..."
Knave knew she was thinking out loud as she attempted the impossible task of figuring out Drifter targeting systems, and he didn't want to distract her, but he was so tense he couldn't hold his tongue.
"Come on," he yelled, "By the powers, just pull the cursed trigger. Don't worry about friendly fire, there aren't any friendlies out there."
Altia put her fingers onto the console, and the hieroglyphics carved there lit up. She felt her interface symbols throbbing on her chest. On the controls, the symbols nearest her fingers glowed the strongest, as if heated from within by volcanic flames, while those furthest away were the dimmest.
"Okay," she said, "It's responding."
They were rocked by another impact, at least as bone-crushing as the previous one.
"I don't see any outgoing fire," Jay murmured.
"Selecting weapon system," Altia said, "Their names are more poetic than descriptive, unfortunately."
"Anything," Knave said, "Fire anything."
"Here goes with serpent's sting."
There was a strange, high-pitched discharge sound, and a slight recoil. It felt as though they had gone over a little bump in the road. In the tactical hologram, pencil thin, red lines of force slid towards the target, the largest enemy spaceship. The spaceship on the screen reacted immediately, its screens flaring and armor being torn away in loose chunks to expose decks and systems beneath. Flame fountained out of the exposed decks and there were secondary explosions.
"Yes," Altia hissed in triumph.
The target's weapons ports rippled open, undeterred, unleashing powerful beams of energy. But this time Knave didn't feel the crushing impact of weapons hits and damage.
"I think we threw off their aim," Knave whooped.
"Just keep hitting that button," Jay said, "Let's give them a taste of their own medicine."
***
The commander hissed as he saw the Drifter spaceship at last return fire. A turret on the spaceship's back that had been lying flat against the hull, inert, suddenly jumped to attention, zeroed in on Chill Spider and fired two beams of intense red energy. The shields of the Buzzer spaceship where completely overwhelmed, and the damage it took was severe. It was an impressive display of the power of the alien spaceship’s weapons. It would be a windfall to be able to disable and board the Drifter ship, and have those weapons at his disposal so they could be reverse engineered by the science hives. But capturing the spaceship as a prize was far from a certain outcome.
The confrontation was balanced on a knife edge. He could see the damage they had already inflicted, and he judged it to be in or near the regions of the engines, but the spaceship was drawing away. It was a shade faster than even his best ships and the combat had already left most of the swarm behind. Only the Chill Spider and Dread Blade were still in firing range, and they were extending from medium range to long range as he watched. The target was robust, but it was not impervious to damage. It's armor had been breached in several places and there was now no way it could turn to present an undamaged aspect to its pursuers.
"Just one or two more good hits," the commander growled, "that's all it will take, and that treasure trove of technology will be mine."
The Drifter spaceship fired again and Chill Spider took another devastating helping of damage. The commander could see their formation lights flickering and knew that power disturbances on a scale large enough to cause that were never good news. The Chill Spider had two engines and the drive plume of the one on the side hit by the Drifter spaceship dimmed.
The spaceship started to veer of course, suddenly presented with the choice between lowering speed or going in big circles as the undamaged engine continued to operate at full force, powering them into a turn that the damaged engine was unable to stop.
The Drifter spaceship had now slipped all of its pursuers, apart from the last, the Dread Blade, and the commander could see that the target was extending its FTL drive vanes, and their tips were already glowing as they sought to grab hold of the fabric of space and warp it to form a tunnel.
"We're running out of time," the commander yelled.
The captain of the Dread Blade seemed to realize this too, the armor on the spinal mass driver left gaping open to save fractions of seconds in cycling the weapon and increase their rate of fire. The commander saw one more devastating hit on the fleeing target, armor sent flying in rings of dislodged material by the sheer force of the impact, and then it was gone.
"Destroyed?" the commander wondered aloud.
That last impact had been huge. But there wasn't enough debris for that. The enemy had achieved warp speed and were now simply gone. The commander slammed his claws into a nearby console, sending sparks flying as the unit disintegrated under the force of his blow. The commander hadn't done that for a long time. It hadn't felt tested like this in a long time. Destroying humans had become routine, a duty and a chore, over the years of service he had given to the Buzzer hives, but now that might just be changing. There might just be a new challenge to confront out there. The Buzzer commander, the old warrior, smiled.
"Interesting times," it said.
***
Knave slumped in his command couch, Altia took her fingers off the weapons systems, and Jay slowly turned his head to look at them.
"I think we've lost them," the robot said.
"I think you're right," Knave said.
"Now what?" Altia asked.
"Now," said Yort, "You will be returned to your homes, starting with Knave, followed by Altia and then Jay. Then the mission will be completed and I will return to a waiting state."
"Hey," Jay said, "How come I'm last."
"The order was determined by my designer." Yort said.
"How long will it take," Knave asked, "Do I have time for a shower?"
Altia laughed, while Jay looked on, slightly confused. Yort ignored any hint of sarcasm in what Knave had said, and answered as best it could.
"There is insufficient information to base an estimate of journey time on," Yort said, "First you must provide information about the place that is your home."
"My home," Knave said, his voice low, "was the Galaxy Dog, a dropship carrier that not even its captain loved."
"What is the location of this spaceship?" Yort asked, gently.
"It has been destroyed."
"But my purpose is to return you home."
"Then you have a problem," Knave said, grimly.
"I will compute a solution," Yort said, "You have time enough to take a shower, to eat and rest. I must consider many factors before I can satisfactorily answer the paradox of how to return you to a home that does not exist."
The voice went silent and the view screen was once again covered in the strange web-like pattern of bronze and gold strands.
Knave, Altia and
Jay would be aboard the spaceship for a week before Yort spoke again.
Chapter 21
––––––––
There was a room for each of them, large, alien and majestic, but Knave, Altia and Jay spent a lot of time in a recreation area that they had discovered. It was located at the heart of the spaceship with four hexagonal doors that allowed quick access to the rest of the spaceship. Some incongruous alien copies of human food synthesizers were located in the room and there were comfortable, upholstered places to sit.
It was surreal, after so much action, so much stress, to have nothing to do. Altia decided her first project would be new clothes. She had persuaded the spaceship to produce some within half a day. The clothes were all in shades of bronze and gold, but Altia said she'd work on that, try to come up with more colorful designs. She never did though, she'd moved onto her next project.
Knave couldn't really help her with her projects so he spent a lot of time wandering the corridors of the spaceship. As he walked, he started building up a mental picture of the ship, and he found it all endlessly fascinating. Knave's favorite area was a place he named the observation deck. He could sit on a comfortable couch, one of three in the room, and look out through a big hexagonal window. Compared to the usual view of the heavens, seen from a planet, it was a kaleidoscope of motion. He watched as the stars parallaxed and shifted position. The spaceship often flew through systems, which seemed risky to Knave, but what did he know, he was sure Yort knew what he was doing. He watched unperturbed as planets zoomed to fill the window and then receded in less than a second. He also saw the spaceship overtake flaming comets and detour round the plumes of ejecta sent out by black holes. He was sitting on the observation deck, watching space go by, when Yort spoke again.
Galaxy Dog Page 22
