Relic Hunted (Crax War Chronicles #2)

by Terry W. Ervin II

  I expressed my sentiment of impending doom. “Twenty minutes until the freighter closes to maximum range for its tri-beam lasers.”

  As if to one-up me on the Impending Doom Scale, McAllister said, “Thirty-nine minutes until condensed space travel can be initiated.”

  That was our death sentence. Even if for some reason we survived unmolested for thirty-nine minutes, despite the high condensation factor of our cascading atomic engine, the anemic acceleration provided by our auxiliary thrust engines meant an effective speed of less than six times the speed of light. Far slower than outdated Chicher ships. Almost an eight year journey to reach Earth.

  Message rockets. We had one and McAllister ordered Marguerite to enter all relevant data and recordings available, for what it was worth. It was something I expected McAllister to do herself.

  We’d launch the rocket in the next few minutes so the fighters couldn’t intercept and destroy it. Such rockets carried their own cascading atomic engines, and could easily outdistance and escape what was pursuing us. I’d seen such rockets used as a weapon, but our pursuers were alert to our every move and wouldn’t be caught unprepared. Ultimately the data would prove more valuable than the potential destruction of a fighter or two, or even the outside chance of crippling an armed freighter.

  I didn’t think anyone aboard our ship would elect the escape pod. I wondered if Simms had. Then I thought…I might if it offered me an opportunity to kill just one more Capital Galactic loyalist. One more traitor to Humanity.

  “Nothing I can see of value,” Tahgs reported. She’d gone to check on what Capital Galactic had stowed on the ship. “Enough food for three to last for one year. Sufficient cold sleep injections for twelve crew members.”

  I didn’t know what she hoped to find that would help us in a running space battle. “McAllister.” I adjusted my belt and seated position before asking over my com-set. “Any way to pack the escape pod with metallic hydrogen fuel?”

  “Logical train of thought, Keesay. I don’t have the equipment to siphon it off or a container to place it in. Then there’s the lack of a detonator. I lack adequate time despite the fact that I could scrounge the necessary components.”

  “That was bordering on a complement,” McAllister.

  She laughed. “Only because I have a superior idea, Relic. And it’s infinitely more straightforward, but virtually impossible to accomplish. Unless you factor in someone as brilliant and desperately ruthless as me.”

  Chapter 49

  We ran, they gained.

  “Tahgs,” I asked. “Does this ship have a name?”

  “What?” she asked. “Shouldn’t you be focused on something important like shooting those Capital Galactic fighters?”

  “They’re not in range yet, Tahgs. I can’t climb out to see if someone painted it on the hull.” I checked my targeting scanner. Ninety seconds. “You’re an administrative specialist. I figured it’d be easy for you to find, rather than me to muck around the files to find out. That, might distract me—and you if I mess something up.”

  “That might be accurate,” she said. “But answer me this. Why?”

  “Just want to know where I’m going to die,” I said. “The Capella system, but on what ship.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  Marguerite cut in, saying, “Gravel Box A. The other half I imagine was Gravel Box B. Not much of a name, but I can think of worse.”

  “Thanks, Marguerite.”

  “Thank you, Specialist Keesay, for your part in effecting my freedom, even if temporary. Janice told me about you.”

  I started to reply with, “You’re welcome,” but she cut me off.

  “I want to say this while there’s time, Specialist Keesay. I am not only thankful, but respect you. If we’d met under other circumstances, before my capture and imprisonment, I would have dismissed you as an individual of minimal importance. Yet, despite what Capital Galactic did to me, and to Gerard…the warden’s genetic manipulation, it didn’t cause you to hesitate. To discount my value. I’m ashamed to say, I might not have—no, I wouldn’t have done the same.”

  “I’m no saint,” I cut in, watching the fighters approach the edge of engagement range. “I’ve done more wrong, wronged more people than I care to count.”

  Marguerite laughed. “Janice told me a little about you. No, you’re not perfect, maybe not always a gentleman. But as we are soon fated to die, may I claim you among my friends?”

  It would’ve been easy to just say, ‘Sure,’ and move on, but it wouldn’t have been true. “I’m sorry, Marguerite, but no. I don’t know you and you really don’t know me. I will say that I already name you a comrade-in-arms against Capital Galactic. Against the Crax, the enemy. A defender of humanity. That means more to me—”

  Marguerite interrupted me again, speaking over me. I relented, as it was an intense concern for her. More so than for me. I had very few friends, and it’d always be that way. And with thirty seconds until an unwinnable combat…one pulse laser on a sluggish front end of a tug versus a dozen colony fighters and an armored freighter armed with military grade tri-beam lasers.

  “Thank you, that means a lot, to me. Should we survive—”

  It was McAllister’s turn to interrupt. “Message rocket launched. Therapy time is over, boys and girls. Hostilities are about to commence.”

  She was right. The fighters began long range firing, not at us but at the message rocket accelerating away at a twenty degree angle from us. One Vic formation broke away to pursue it, miniscule chance that they had. The armed freighter opened up with a pair of tri-beams at the rocket. At their current distance, a shot wouldn’t do more than flash burn the Gravel Box’s hull, unable to inflict any real damage. It’d be enough, however, to damage the message rocket and allow the fighters to catch up and finish it off.

  The freighter missed, but came closer than I expected. Maybe luck. More likely they’d installed military grade targeting sensors in conjunction with their lasers. The anticipated rate of our demise just accelerated.

  “Fifteen seconds,” I warned. Before I got the chance to open up, the remaining fighters that weren’t chasing the message rocket formed into two Vic formations. One Vic slowed and paced us, just out of range. One broke right. The message rocket chasing Vic that had broken left gave up their chase. “Keep running straight,” I ordered.

  Tahgs and Marguerite’s sensors would’ve spotted their maneuver. Instead of closing on our six to take pot shots at our thrust engines, they’d come at us from different directions.

  Marguerite sighed. “The end is delayed.”

  I watched my targeting screen. It wouldn’t be long. Actually it’d work out so that the freighter’s lasers would be in range about the same time the fighters had position on our two, ten and six o’clock positions. That didn’t really matter. They were just there to keep us from escaping. The armed freighter could reach us long before then.

  Tahgs called out over the com-system, “They’re calling on us to give up and surrender.”

  It must’ve been over a different channel. It didn’t matter. I laughed while McAllister asked, “Do you need me to provide the words for our reply?”

  “Why not let the Chicher speak for everyone?” I interjected. “Having to translate will add an extra layer of annoyance.”

  “The runner you sent me looks angry enough,” McAllister said. “They’re conferring on what to say.”

  “Stand by, Cheval de Travail,” Tahgs said, presumably to the enemy freighter’s captain.

  Then the Chicher’s chattering punctuated by guttural squeaks went over the system, transmitted to the Cheval de Travail, presumably the closing armed freighter.

  Tahgs or McAllister sent the translation across our system. “Remove the fecal globs from your corpse molars so that we, the mirrors of the orb that crosses the sky, may comprehend the addled mutterings you create.”

  It must’ve taken the armed freighter’s crew a little longer to translate, or for the ca
ptain to interpret the meaning and respond. After a ten second wait, the arrogant woman replied on all channels, including mine, “Renegades and prison escapees, it is my intention to retrieve Capital Galactic’s stolen property. The condition in which you emerge from the inevitable result is upon your heads.”

  I couldn’t help myself, whether my gear was set to transmit or not. “Nemo me impune lacessit.”

  After a pause, the captain said, “Ah, the infamous Specialist Keesay. It is my understanding that upon recapture, you will be turned over to a certain Gar Crax Elite of the officer class. Utter your drivel of impunity to him.”

  I knew who she was referring to. The armored Crax warrior who’d dismissed me too soon after shooting me, and lost his foot when I shoved a micro explosive between his armored toes.

  “I take it then, Captain, that your allies provide their wounded with prosthetic limbs?” The question came from McAllister. She’d provided me with the micro explosive prior to my emergence from the secret Umbelgarri breeding ground to face two elite Crax and an accompanying squad of Stegmar warriors. From her vantage, she’d seen me kill one Crax before being brought down by the second.

  Nothing else was said. During the exchange, we continued to run, the fighters continued racing toward their positions, and the Cheval de Travail closed the distance between us.

  “Something’s happening,” McAllister said. She sounded exasperated. “They must be using Crax technology. Something I’ve never seen.”

  “What is it,” Tahgs asked.

  “Gravity distortion…they must’ve guessed my intent to detonate the cascading atomic engine. I don’t know how they can project that much energy. The cascading engine’s buildup…it’s resetting…locked in perpetual reset. A stabilized antigravity field is out of the question.”

  A few seconds passed. “Argggh! Shutting both systems down.”

  “Why?” asked Tahgs.

  “Because,” I said, having read horror stories of early experiments with cascading atomic engines, “if it goes critical in the wrong configuration, we’ll get caught up in what’ll be a micro black hole. It won’t last long, but to us, with time warped, we’d suffer for what would be decades.”

  “Centuries,” McAllister corrected. “I’m reprogramming thrust engine control. We’ll self-destruct that way.”

  “We’ve lost the chance to take any of them with us,” Marguerite lamented.

  “What are you trying to say?” McAllister said. She must’ve been talking to one of the Chicher. “I believe you’re right.”

  I waited a few breaths before pointing out, “Two minutes until the armed freighter will be in range for her tri-beam lasers.” I shifted in my seat, seeing that the fighters were in position. “She’ll be accurate. Recommend we turn about to protect our thrust engines, if we intend to use them to avoid capture.”

  “One-eighty-degree turn!” McAllister shouted, urgency in her voice. “Full burn. Bring us to a stop!”

  “Enacting turn,” Marguerite said.

  I felt fits of centrifugal force with our gravity plate weakening and then strengthening in undulating waves.

  “We’re losing control of artificial gravity,” Marguerite said. “Shutting it down.”

  “Shut everything down,” McAllister ordered. “Safe mode everything now!”

  I didn’t hesitate to enact McAllister’s order. I shut down power to all active gun systems. I released my buckle and climbed up to open the hatch in case everything included heat and oxygen piped into my exposed turret. “What’s up, McAllister?” I shouted, hoping my voice reached all the way down to forward engineering.

  Looking back through my gunner viewport, even unmagnified, I saw the armed freighter continuing to close.

  McAllister, trailed by the two Chicher stuck her head in the cockpit area. Her freckled face paler than I’d ever seen. I asked her, “What is it?”

  “The Cheval de Travail and fighters are the least of our worries, Keesay. We want to look like one of the pieces of combat debris out there.”

  “Just tell me, McAllister,” I said, floating through the open hatchway. “Tell us. Spit it out.”

  “A wormhole is forming,” she said. “The Shards. They’re returning.”

  Chapter 50

  A few seconds later the Capital Galactic forces recognized their peril. They turned and fled, but sent a few pot shots at us using rear arc turrets. We took a glancing hit, which raised the surface temperature along our ventral section and sent us tumbling.

  Marguerite activated maneuvering thrusters to stabilize our ship, facing the area where McAllister predicted the wormhole would open.

  “Only forty kilometers away,” McAllister said. “Our only hope is that the Shards are interested in the fleeing freighter and fighters and the distant outpost. More than our little boat floating on the doorstep of their intergalactic conduit.”

  McAllister shut down all lighting systems. Tahgs asked her, “They might not take the time to scan us—do they even scan for heat emissions and trails left by expended metallic hydrogen?”

  That seemed a pretty astute question.

  “We never discovered much about them,” McAllister replied. “This will be only the third wormhole emergence observed directly by human eyes.”

  “How long until it appears?” I asked.

  “Without active sensors?” McAllister shrugged and pointed out the pilot’s viewport, a ‘windshield’ that suddenly seemed fragile. “See the distortion?”

  It reminded me of heat rising from a desert road. The stars flickered and wavered in an undulating dance. Pulses like a donut, but with a pinwheel where the donut hole would be.

  “Might want to look away,” McAllister warned, she reached past Tahgs and energized the anti-radiation screen.

  “What’re you doing?” Tahgs asked.

  “You should be doing like me and looking the other way,” McAllister said.

  “The screens are used to intercept radiation when approaching a stellar mass,” Marguerite said.

  I signaled for the Chicher to face the other way and cover their eyes. “Tahgs, we have to survive the radiation in order to be killed by the Shards.”

  The instant I finished speaking, a flash erupted, like someone shined a spotlight on my eyes, despite being closed and shielded by my hands. It lasted only a fraction of a second. Spots filled my vision, but began to fade within a few breaths.

  The Chichers’ eyes must’ve recovered more quickly as they began chittering. They sounded more excited than fearful.

  My eyes cleared, revealing the Chicher bowing their heads and pointing with one clawed hand while gripping their pack member’s fur with the other.

  The wormhole’s exit reminded me of a black hole, no light emerging, while sparks shimmered along its circular rim. While that was memorable, the enormous planarian-shaped ship that emerged imposed a greater emotional impact. An Umbelgarri heavy cruiser, flanked by a far smaller and boxier human destroyer and a jack-shaped Felgan light cruiser.

  “Tahgs,” I said. “Hail them, quick. Now.”

  “What channel?” she asked, stunned by the sight.

  “Any channel,” I said. “All of them.”

  McAllister was already on it. “Umbelgarri Heavy Cruiser,” she called. “Mayday. Mayday. We are in need of assistance.”

  With racing fingers and voice commands, Marguerite brought the Gravel Box’s systems to life. From my vantage I saw McAllister had selected a directional, narrow beam radio communication.

  “Send to the destroyer,” I said, coming to stand behind Tahgs as the gravity plate powered up.

  “Who do you think is the senior partner out there?” McAllister replied.

  The three vessels, Umbelgarri, Human, and Felgan held station as the wormhole behind them collapsed. All appeared as if the galaxy traversing conduit never existed.

  “We need to tell them what’s happening,” I said. “Before the Capital Galactic loyalists initiate with a raft of lies. They departed
as a combined taskforce to take the fight to the Shards almost two decades ago. They have no idea what’s happening, to humanity—to the Umbelgarri.”

  “They’re sending,” Tahgs said. “I’m calling up Umbelgarri translation files.” After a series of agitated screen taps, she added, “Our ship isn’t equipped with military codes.”

  “Let me see,” I said. While under the Cranaltar, the Umbelgarri directed their thralls to implant the ability to comprehend their splotchy and swirling, mosaic of colors form of communication. I didn’t have the ability to hear the low-frequency pachyderm-like sounds that accompanied the primary color component, the sound adding emotion to the words.

  They asked, ‘What is the source of your distress, unrecognized partial interstellar vessel?’

  “Give me your headset,” I told Tahgs. “Let me speak to them.”

  Janice removed her headset and held it back over her head. McAllister reached for it, but I blocked her with my forearm. “Back off, McAllister.”

  “Relic, this is beyond you.”

  She knew about the Umbelgarri. Had probably interacted with them more, but her first call was a Mayday.

  The Chicher pair must’ve guessed the source of our disagreement. With ears laid back and hands on their holstered machine pistols, they released a guttural trill.

  Seething with annoyance, McAllister said, “Some sort of Relic coalition.” She pointed at me, inches from my face. “Don’t warp-screw this up, Relic.”

  I turned my back on McAllister, slipped on Tahgs’s headset and adjusted the microphone. “Umbelgarri Heavy Cruiser, we are no longer in immediate danger. The retreating armed freighter and colony fighters serve a renegade corporation, Capital Galactic Investment Group. They have sided with the Crax alliance who have gone to war with the Umbelgarri. The Chicher and Humanity have joined the Umbelgarri-Felgan alliance. We are losing. After you departed our galaxy using the wormhole predicted by Dr. Maximar Drizdon Senior, no more Shards appeared. The Carbon Cause prevailed. However, using their advanced knowledge and ability to manipulate gravity, the remaining Shards knocked your home world, the moon, out of its orbit. Sent it careening into the planet it orbited.”