by D. M. Pruden
“I tried to read them, but the stuff amounted to gobbledegook.”
“Seriously?”
“I don’t mean any offence, Cora. I’m just not current on supraluminal physics.”
“Well, as XO, the cap’n expects you to be familiar with every system of the ship.”
“That was a lot easier before you installed all of these new Glenatat upgrades.”
“I’ll send you some supplemental notes to study this evening.”
He sat on the deck and took a long gulp from his water bottle. He was stripped down to his undershirt and his trim physique glistened with perspiration.
“Why is it so friggin’ hot down here?” he asked.
“A side effect of having to improvise with some of the materials we were forced to use. Ng is installing a heat sink for this part of engineering, but it’s taking him some time.”
“He’s another one of the raiders Pavlovich recruited?”
“Yes, and he’s not inexperienced, but...”
“What is it, Cora?”
“I sometimes miss having a body. There’s nothing like doing the work myself, feeling the ship’s operation through the floor plating. Now, even though I can access all her systems, it just isn’t the same.”
Hayden frowned and stared at his drink. “I regret this happened to you.”
“For the last time, it isn’t your fault. Please don’t do that to yourself, or to me.”
“Sorry.”
Despite her words, he knew better. If not for his plan that doomed not only the confederation, but also Scimitar, she might still be the sweet girl he met ten years before.
“It’s not as bad as you think being linked to the ship. You should pay me a visit in here some time.”
“Is that possible?”
“Sure, using a simple VR interlink.”
“I would like that.”
“It’s a date, then. I’ll set it up and let you know when everything is ready,” she said. After a pause, she added, “You’re sure Stella won’t mind you visiting me?”
The question caught him off guard. He had no idea how she would interpret him spending time with Cora in her reality, or if she would even care.
“I’m sure she’ll be fine with it,” he said.
“Okay, but just to be sure, I’ll chat with her about it—girl to girl.”
He smiled and was about to respond when the alert klaxon sounded.
“What’s happening?”
“Long-range sensors picked up a group of ships approaching,” she said. “You should get to the bridge.”
Grabbing his shirt, he dashed to the engineering hatch then bolted through the corridors toward the command centre.
***
Kaine’s arrival on the bridge resurrected a host of emotions he thought were behind him. The familiar adrenaline rush and flurry of focused activity brought it all back. It was something he’d missed.
“Kaine!” said Pavlovich from his command chair. “We’re a bit light on crew. Man the tactical station.”
“Aye, sir,” he replied as he advanced to the console. He was relieved to see its basic interface had not been modified. After taking a few seconds to digest the readings, he announced, “Three—no, four ships bearing down on our position. Distance, five hundred thousand kilometres.”
Pavlovich nodded then addressed the air around him. “Okay, Cora, there’s been enough down time to fix things. Get us moving.”
“They’ve caught us with our pants down, Cap’n. Ng is bringing our fusion reactors online.”
“How long?”
“We need twelve minutes.”
“Shit!” Pavlovich turned to scowl in Hayden’s direction but continued speaking with Cora. “Do what you can. Those bogies will be on us in...?” He raised his eyebrows to Kaine in expectation.
“Twenty minutes,” he replied.
“Cora? Ten minutes before they lock weapons on us. Move your virtual ass.”
“Excuse me, Captain, but who do you expect to be targeting us?” asked Hayden.
“Goddamn raiders, that’s who.”
“With that kind of ordnance? Since when?”
“You were isolated for too long. A lot can happen in ten years. These guys aren’t based in this system. They’re from Hip 84051.”
“That still doesn’t explain how they got their hands on missiles.”
“Look, Kaine, I would love to give you a history lesson of what’s gone on for the past decade, but we’re a bit busy at the moment. Get your ass down to engineering and help Cora and Ng heat up the engines.”
Hayden swallowed his other questions and headed for the hatchway. As he opened the door, Pavlovich called back to him. “While you’re at it, see what the hell is keeping Gunney. I need him up here, pronto, in case that isn’t obvious.”
Kaine closed the door behind him and ran down the corridor. The armoury was on the way, and that was where he expected to find the cyborg.
Halfway there, he encountered him, clanking his way toward the bridge.
“The captain needs you, ASAP.”
“Of course he does, but I won’t be of much use. Our rail gun ordnance is depleted, and our X-ray lasers are offline.”
“What about the Glenatat weapons?”
He raised one eyebrow. “Same story.”
“Right. Get to your tactical alcove. By the time you arrive, the guns should be hot.”
Hayden turned and continued toward engineering.
On arrival, he found a small man hovering over the primary monitoring console. Ng looked up, desperation on his face. “One of the plasma injectors on engine two is malfunctioning.”
“Get the other engines online,” shouted Hayden.
“I can’t, the magnetic coupler is down on one and four.”
“What about three?”
“She’s running, but most of her power is being used to maintain the artificial gravity and reinforce the hull plating.”
“When did that change?”
Cora’s voice answered in his ear jack. “It was a necessary compromise to get the new superluminal drive online.”
“Well, at the moment we’ve got four hostiles bearing down on us, and Pavlovich believes they’re about to fire nukes.”
“I warned him it might come down to this,” she said.
“Cora, we need to get this tub moving, or at least get some power to Gunney’s weapons. If we can fix the injector...”
“There are no spares, but we can maybe retrofit the secondary one from the old jump engine...or, you can.”
“Me?”
“Ng’s good, but he hasn’t logged enough hours with these babies. You helped me pull them apart when the Glenatat refitted us.”
“That was a long time ago, Cora.”
“Well, I can’t do it, so you get the job. I’ll talk you through it.”
“I thought you were coaching Ng?”
“I’m doing several simultaneous things. None of it makes up for not having a body, though.”
“Okay, fine. How long will it take?”
“More than we have,” she said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Down the Rabbit Hole
VIOLENT SHAKING KNOCKED Hayden from his feet. He cursed as his supporting hand slipped and his head hit the access opening.
“The ship’s taking a beating,” he said as he repositioned himself and resumed his work.
“The Glenatat hull modifications are holding,” said Cora. “We can take a lot more hits before the armour fails.”
“How are the radiation readings?”
“Everything is normal. Pay attention! You don’t want to bend the stabilizer when you remove it.”
“I know, I know—”
Pavlovich’s voice replaced Cora’s in his ear jack. “What in the seven hells is going on down there?”
“Almost finished, Cap’n. The XO is doing a great job.”
“Can he do it faster?”
“Got it!” announced Kaine a
s he gingerly extracted the injector from the access hatch.
“Give it to Ng. I can talk him through the next step. You should get back to the bridge.”
Pavlovich was in his earpiece again. “How much longer, Engineer?”
“Two minutes, Cap’n. Then there will be plenty of power for the lasers.”
“What about getting the ship moving?”
“That will take another ten, tops.”
“Damn it, Cora!”
The abrupt silence over the ear jack told Kaine that Pavlovich had terminated the connection.
He was out of breath by the time he arrived at the command centre. He noted that Stella occupied one of the acceleration couches and was safely strapped in. Her jaw was set and her attention locked on the tactical readout cluster. She seemed less vulnerable than he remembered her the last time they were aboard Scimitar. He wondered if her practise at shutting out the emotions around her was paying off.
“Gunney,” said Pavlovich, “Cora tells me there is ten percent power to the forward X-ray laser battery.”
“Bloody well about time,” grumbled the cyborg, “but I need a hell of a lot more than that.”
“Make use of what there is, Gunnery Officer.” He turned to Hayden. “Good work, Kaine. Now take over on the sensors and give me some options.”
The lights dimmed, and he felt a fluctuation in the gravity plating as power was drawn to fire Scimitar’s weapons. He relieved the crewman at the sensor station and took a moment to study the readout.
“Damage to the engineering section of the lead ship. They are breaking off. Two of the remaining vessels are altering course. I believe they want to flank us, Captain.”
“Cora! Where are my engines? We’re sitting ducks here. If they board us, we’re screwed.”
“Number two is now at eighty percent, Cap’n.”
“At least we can manoeuvre,” said Pavlovich. “Helm, take evasive action. Navigation, plot us a course out of here.”
“I doubt that will do us much good, Captain,” said Hayden. “Without more than one operational engine, we can’t outrun these ships and defend ourselves at the same time.”
“I’m open to suggestions, Kaine.”
He clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth. The options were limited, and even their enhanced armour couldn’t take an indefinite pounding. If the raiders didn’t intend to destroy Scimitar, it was only a matter of time before their skiffs would attempt to dock. No Rangers were aboard, and there were not enough people to fight off boarding parties at all possible access points.
Pavlovich turned to Stella, but before he could ask her anything, she glared at him. “No! Absolutely not.”
The captain turned up his lip and grumbled, “A fat lot of good having an empathic psychic aboard if she won’t use her talent on the bad guys.”
She ignored Pavlovich’s provocation. Finally, when he seemed to realize she did not plan to change her mind, he hit the comm switch at his elbow.
“Cora, how much juice is left in the Super-L engine?”
“We consumed most of our fuel on the last jump. There isn’t enough to get us all the way to Pictor Prime.”
“Well, how far can it get us?”
“About a thousand AUs from the central planet.”
“We’ll make do. Fire it up.”
There was a brief hesitation before she responded. “Aye, Cap’n. It’ll take about ten minutes.”
“I’ll give you six.” Pavlovich slammed his fist on the button.
The ship vibrated as a missile exploded on the hull.
“Maintain current heading, Helm. They don’t have much of a bite any more.”
“They must’ve used up their big ones,” said Kaine.
“They only want to herd us in a particular direction. If they wanted to hurt us, they would be firing up their rail guns.”
“Which begs the question, why do raiders possess fleet technology? At least two of those ships are UEF corvettes.”
“Former UEF. I told you; a lot happened.”
Three more impacts in fast succession nearly knocked Hayden off of his feet. He checked the readout. “They’re focusing their fire on engineering. They are trying to exploit a weakened section of our armour.”
Pavlovich snarled and hit the comm button. “Cora, the bad guys are starting to scratch the paint. Now would be a good time for us to leave.”
“We’re good to go, Cap’n, but I’m concerned about—”
“Noted, Engineer.”
He addressed the helmsman. “You heard the lady; take us superluminal, NOW!”
The air around Hayden crackled with static electricity. His skin felt like ants crawled over every inch of him. Everything blurred, and the noise of the bridge dropped to a deep, low-frequency roar.
The gravity plating seemed to fail. Though he felt himself floating, a quick glance down assured him he was still firmly connected to the deck. The contents of his stomach insisted they wanted to exit, and he fought hard to keep from vomiting. An oppressive pressure pushed down on his brain. There was no pain, but reaching for his head, he discovered no sensation in his extremities.
Then a chaotic blast of colours enveloped everything, as if a rainbow had exploded around him. Like individual strips of cloth caught in a wind, countless coloured bands flapped aimlessly. Gathered by an invisible force, they were stretched into an ever-thinning ribbon extending off to infinity before him and behind him. He had no sense of acceleration or movement, but the ribbons of light rolled by at an unimaginable speed.
Then it all ended.
Pain erupted behind Hayden’s eyeballs, and his stomach heaved. He doubled over and vomited onto the deck. His still ringing ears heard a couple of other people retching, but when he looked for who it was, he discovered his vision was still foggy.
“Oh, shit,” said Pavlovich, “I don’t think I will ever get used to that.”
Hayden sought him out with his still clearing sight. “What the hell just happened?” he asked.
The captain leaned forward in his command chair as if he was going to be ill. He massaged his temples and said, “We went superluminal. No wonder the bloody Glenatat replaced this tech. This sucks.”
“How far did we travel?”
Parker, the navigator, appeared to be in no condition to answer. Pavlovich struggled to his feet and leaned over the navigation station. “Twenty-three point six light years.”
“That’s insane! We only travelled for a few seconds.”
“It was a lot longer than that. All I know is that I want to puke every time we do this.”
Hayden studied the front holograph, showing a small sun burning against a carpet of stars in the distance. “Where are we?”
“We are most of the way to Pictor Prime, or at least we should be. I think Cora said we could get to within a thousand AU of it, somewhere inside the Oort Cloud.”
Hayden’s eyes widened. “This is incredible! I didn’t believe you when you described the potential of this technology. This could change everything.”
“Yeah, except for one small detail: we’re out of fuel, and if we don’t find some more, this will be the last trip we ever make.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Taking Stock
FOR THE NEXT two hours, the crew repaired the damage from the attack. Hayden moved between stations, inspecting the work and offering advice where he could. He kept thinking about all the gaping holes in Pavlovich’s story.
To him, it made no sense that raiders had the ability to acquire military hardware, or for them to gang up and attack Scimitar without provocation. Why was there no ammunition for the ships’ primary weapon? Then there was the question of how they were found in the vastness of interplanetary space. The only conclusion he could arrive at was that the raiders—or whomever they really were—had been hunting Scimitar.
But why?
The answer, he believed, lay in the behaviour of the attacking fleet. They wanted to capture the ship. He could only conc
lude that somebody else knew of the FTL tech, and he doubted they were the only ones.
Pavlovich was right about one thing: Hayden had been living in seclusion for too long. He had no idea of the political situation between once connected star systems. What friends were now foes? He imagined that most had descended into an eat-or-be-eaten scenario, with multiple factions vying for dominance of the local resources.
As he walked toward the infirmary, Stella emerged. She returned his smile and waited for him.
“That was quite the adventure,” he said. “How are you holding up after all that?”
“I practice my blocking techniques; I was mostly able to shut out the crew’s emotions. It was challenging, but I’m getting better at it. The most difficult time was when we dropped back to normal space.”
“That is something I won’t look forward to again.”
“Pavlovich described for me what it is like, but it didn’t prepare me for the visceral nature of the experience.”
“At least he warned you,” said Hayden. “I had no idea what was coming.”
They both laughed, and her hand brushed against his. His heart jumped into his throat for the instant before she pulled back.
Trying to regain his composure, he said, “What was that episode between you and Pavlovich about?”
A hint of a frown creased her forehead. “When he first recruited me, he tried to get me agree to make my reactive empathic abilities available to him.”
“You mean your ability to disable people through their cerebral LINK.”
“I told him emphatically that I would not do that, because I can’t control it. People could die. I will read emotions during negotiations and such, but under no circumstances will I harm anyone for him.”
“He must realize that you would disable most of his new crew too?”
She shook her head. “Removal of their LINKs was a condition of signing on. He wants to use me as a weapon. I won’t do it.”
“Even if it means our survival?”
“The raiders didn’t intend to kill us. I sensed none of those kinds of emotions from them.”
“You’re evading my question, Stella. What if we are faced with a more deadly situation in the future?”
