by Wayne Basta
“Rookie mistake,” Maarkean said as he fired the engines for another full-power blast. “Transfer shield power to the rear.”
“But the fighters are still in front of us.”
“Not for long.”
Firing several shots at the fighters as they approached, Maarkean knew he was not going to hit anything, but he hoped it might interfere enough to prevent the fighters from getting good shots in on them. He felt a few shots hit them, and then they were past the group. Climbing toward the freighter, Maarkean tried to get a lock on Fighter Four.
As he got within weapon range, Maarkean was tempted to unload on the fighter in front of him, but they were close enough now that any missed shots would hit the massive freighter. The fighter was already firing its weapons into the freighter’s engine section. Deciding he had little choice, Maarkean fired several short bursts from the turret. None would be strong enough to penetrate even the weakened shields of the fighter, but with luck, they would cause him to veer off his attack run.
The fighter continued climbing toward the freighter and firing. Almost all of its shots were hitting the freighter’s aft engine section. The freighter’s shields and hull should be able to withstand quite a few shots, but Maarkean had no idea what shape the shields were in. Taking careful aim, he stopped his suppressing fire and lined up a good shot. After several frustrating seconds, he managed to match Fighter Four’s maneuvers and unleashed a long burst of fire.
Fighter Four exploded before them, and Maarkean pulled the ship up at a sharp angle to avoid the wreckage. It was only then that he noticed they had been taking fire from the rear. He cursed himself for his mistake. He had been so focused on his target that he had not noticed them coming in from behind. What he had viewed as a rookie mistake, going after a target alone and ignoring the rest of the battle, he had just committed himself.
“How we doing?” Maarkean asked, trying to sound confident.
“Aft shields at fifty percent. Most of the power was transferred from the fore shields, so they are at thirty percent,” Lahkaba replied. “We took some hull damage, but it does not appear to be anything vital. One piece of good news: Fighter One is flying in formation but has not fired anything. I think we took out their weapons on that first pass.”
“Good – one less thing shooting at us,” Maarkean said.
The remorse he had felt earlier when they had engaged the first two fighters was no longer bothering him. When it had been a one-sided fight, he had had time to consider what he was doing. Now, the odds were against them and these fighters were trying to shoot down a defenseless transport: a transport that hopefully had his sister aboard. It was a subtle distinction, but Maarkean was now able to view these fighters solely as enemies.
“Now we finish this.”
Chapter Eight
As Saracasi helped to put Asirzi down onto the makeshift bed, the ship suddenly rocked, and she nearly dropped her friend. Her first thought was that the inertial dampeners had failed, but she dismissed that idea immediately. Had those failed, she would be a puddle of goo on the aft wall, rather than struggling to stay upright. She concluded it must have been weapon fire. The inertial dampeners compensated for the ship’s acceleration and movement, but they were not designed to counteract unexpected outside influences.
Stepping away from the bed, she looked to the Ronid doctor, Noti Istru. He took her place beside the bed and examined Asirzi. It had been fortunate that they had found at least one doctor amongst the group of prisoners.
It was even more fortunate that the doctor was Noti, as he had been put in the prison for running a clinic that treated all species. Alliance law forbade the treatment of any species except one’s own. They claimed it was to prevent any tragedies from occurring because the doctor was not familiar with the biology of the patient. The truth was that many Terran and Braz doctors did not study the physiology of other species, while most other doctors did.
Noti began running a scanner over Asirzi. Their fortune had continued with the discovery of medical supplies. The ship did not include a real infirmary, but the crew common area did contain some medical supplies and was designed to be used as an emergency medical suite. Despite Zeric’s order to take people only to the crew quarters, with that discovery they had diverted to the common area.
Lohcja was standing, holding his arm, on the other side of the room. Lying beside him, barely breathing, was Pasha. Several others who had been injured in the fighting were sitting around the room. There were a few more people moving about who had some medical experience or who had volunteered to help.
“I’ll go see if I can help on the bridge,” Saracasi said quickly. With one final look at Asirzi, she dashed out of the room toward the stairs.
Saracasi had to admit the truth to herself. Injuries and the sight of blood made her uncomfortable. Memories long suppressed threatened to come back to her. Once she was out of the room, she focused herself again and headed toward to the bridge.
While dashing up the stairs, the ship rocked several times, almost causing her to fall. Gripping the handrail, she climbed at a slower but steadier pace. When she emerged onto the cavernous bridge, it took her a moment to see anyone. She was led by the sound of shouting.
“How are we holding up?”
“I don’t know! I think the one firing on us stopped.”
She recognized Zeric at the fore of the bridge in the helm position and a Terran female at another console. The woman was almost hysterical. She could sympathize, as she was not quite sure how she had managed to keep herself together so far.
“Need any help?” she asked.
The woman almost jumped out of her seat, and Zeric spared a quick glance back at her. “I told you to keep everyone down below.”
“We are,” Saracasi said crossly. “I’ve flown with Maarkean for years and studied starship construction at university. Now do you want my help or not?”
“Thank the heavens,” Zeric said. “Yes! I need to know if those shots we took did any major damage.”
“Right,” Saracasi said. She turned and examined the consoles in the rear bridge section. Most were controls for mining operations, but she found a set of engineering consoles next to environmental systems.
It took a moment to acquaint herself with the interface, but it was not long before she was able to bring up a diagnostic system. She ran a primary systems check and an analysis of the affected area. Fire had been concentrated on the after port engine section. While the diagnostic was running, she transferred shield power from other sections to shore up the depleted layer.
“It looks good. Primary systems appear to be undamaged. Looks like we took some hull damage, but it didn’t penetrate the outer hull.”
“Excellent,” Zeric called back, sounding relieved. “You know how to plot a hyperspace jump?”
“Of course,” Saracasi replied. She began moving back toward the front of the ship.
“Good. Meyka, go back and finish your calculations of our air usage. We need to know how long we have before we suffocate.”
The Terran woman got up from the operations station, looking very relieved. It did not appear to bother her that she was being kicked off her station. Saracasi couldn’t blame her. She would hate doing this if she didn’t already know how.
Taking Meyka’s place, she brought up the navigational computer. “Where are we going?”
“Kol,” Zeric said.
“That makes sense,” Saracasi replied as she began plotting a course. There was an abandoned outpost in one of the massive deserts of Kol that she and Maarkean had discovered. It had served as a safe haven on a few occasions. The planet was sparsely populated, especially the desert region, but the outpost had access to an underground water source. The previous occupants had also installed a greenhouse with that water, so it served as an oasis in the wastes.
As she started the calculation, she remembered Maarkean’s insistence on setting a false course every time they left the Black Market. While it wa
s impossible to track anything in hyperspace, if you knew the direction a ship was going when it entered, you could extrapolate its intended destination. She had always thought he was being paranoid. That had been before they had been hijacked and were being pursued by Alliance fighters. She began recalculating for another destination.
“I’m setting a course for the middle of nowhere so they can’t track us to Kol,” Saracasi told Zeric, and then called back to Meyka, “I need to know how long we’ll last so I don’t delay us too much.”
Meyka acknowledged, and Saracasi shifted her attention to the sensor display. She saw the Cutty Sark engaged with three Alliance fighters. Wreckage from at least one other fighter was also evident. Despite herself, she was impressed. She had heard that Maarkean was a good pilot from some of his old squadron buddies, and she had seen him fly many times, but she had never seen him in combat.
“We’re far enough away from the planet to engage the hyperdrive,” Zeric said.
Meyka shook her head, indicating that the calculations weren’t done.
“We’ll just have to hope we can make it,” Saracasi said.
Pressing the activation sequence for the hyperdrive, she prepared for the nausea that came when they first shifted out of realspace. Several seconds went by, and nothing happened. Trying the activation sequence again had the same result. She let out an uncharacteristic curse.
“Hyperdrive’s not working.”
“I thought you said we didn’t take any damage?” Zeric asked.
“We didn’t. It’s just not working. Didn’t show up on the diagnostics either. For some reason, it’s marked as a secondary system,” Saracasi said, getting back up from the operations station. She hesitated, then went back to the controls and opened the ship-wide comm.
“Chavatwor, grab anyone familiar with starship engineering and meet me in the ship’s engineering compartment. Also, anyone familiar with starship operations, come up to the bridge.”
She shut off the comm and then spoke to Zeric as she dashed back toward the stairs. “Don’t argue. You need help up here. Just keep flying away, and we’ll try to figure out what’s wrong with the hyperdrive.”
Not waiting for a response, Saracasi dashed down the stairs.
“Must take after her brother,” Zeric thought again as Saracasi barked out orders and then left the bridge.
Zeric continued flying the ship away from the planet. The short-range sensor display he had access to showed the three fighters and the Cutty Sark slowly falling further behind them. All four ships had far better acceleration than the freighter did. They would all fall behind and then would attempt to make a dash toward the freighter. The Cutty Sark would reengage them, and the dogfight would resume. They were spending more time fighting each other than accelerating toward the freighter, so as long as that kept up, they remained out of weapon range.
Several minutes went by like that, while Zeric fervently wanted to know what else was out there. Finally deciding it was safe enough to leave the ship flying straight, he moved over to the operations station. What he saw made him curse. Another six fighters were on course toward them. And behind the fighters was a corvette.
By Zeric’s calculation, at their speed, it would be some time before any of the new ships were able to catch up to them. But the six fighters would be on top of the Cutty Sark in a matter of minutes. When he told Meyka, she said what he was thinking: “That was the plan, wasn’t it? If we got caught, they would hold the Alliance off?”
Zeric didn’t think of himself as unusually perceptive, but he clearly heard the reluctance in her voice. Oddly, he felt that same reluctance. Maarkean and Lahkaba had been friends of convenience. It had been Maarkean’s plan in the first place. If they continued on their course, he, and his friends, would get away.
The sounds of new voices interrupted his thinking. A Camari, a Kowwok, a Notha and a Terran were standing at the top of the stairs. They were looking around as if they weren’t sure what they were supposed to do.
“What are you doing here?” Zeric asked, with more snap to his question than he intended.
“We heard you needed help up here from anyone with any experience,” the Kowwok said. “We’ve all had some experience with starships.”
At first he had been annoyed at Saracasi’s call, but now he silently thanked her. “What kind of experience?”
The Kowwok answered by gesturing to the red rubbery-skinned Camari and then the brown-furred Notha. “Ceno here flew bulk transports, and Isaxo says he grew up around ships. My wife, Jasmaine,” he said, gesturing to the Terran woman, “and I worked on mining freighters such as this. We never worked on the bridge, though.”
Wife, Zeric thought. That explained why the Alliance had locked them up; they weren’t partial to interspecies mating. He then dismissed it. “What did you do?”
“We operated the mining lasers.”
Zeric eyes lit up as a sudden idea occurred to him. Despite it being the best chance for his health, he did not like the idea of running. A strange sense of guilt over it had been battling with the knowledge there wasn’t anything he could do to change the situation. Now things might be different.
“All right, you, Ceno, was it? Take the helm and get us turned around. You, Isaxo, take ops and guide him toward a collection of Alliance fighters that are engaging a courier ship behind us. You, what was your name?”
“Chungum.”
“You and your wife follow me,” Zeric said, heading toward the bridge stairs.
As Zeric started to leave, the bulbous eyestalks of the Camari, Ceno, followed him and he reached out to Zeric with his clammy hand, “Wait, you want me to turn the ship around and head toward Alliance fighters?”
Zeric brushed past him, saying, “Yes. That ship they are fighting is about to get overwhelmed. The only reason you’re not in that prison anymore is her pilot. We’re going back to help.”
Relief filled Maarkean as he watched the blast from his turret penetrate the shield of the Alliance fighter and a cloud of fast-freezing gas billow out. He wasn’t sure if he hit the oxygen supply or deuterium canisters, but either way, it took the fighter out of the engagement. The pilot wouldn’t be able to go far without air or fuel.
He didn’t let himself enjoy the victory for long. Turning quickly, he barely got out of the way of a blast that might have done the same thing to him. Despite there only being one fighter with working weapons now, there were still two targets.
Maarkean took the ship into a corkscrew maneuver, and then he pulled the ship to face back up from where they had come, expecting to see the two fighters in pursuit. To his surprise, he saw nothing. Throwing the ship into an evasive maneuver, expecting an attack from anywhere, he called out to Lahkaba.
“Where did they go?”
“They’re falling back, headed toward the planet,” Lahkaba answered. “But I wouldn’t celebrate yet. They’ve got friends. Six fighters coming in fast. They’ve got a different signature than the last set. There is also a larger ship a couple minutes behind them.”
“Let me see.”
Lahkaba transferred the data readings to Maarkean’s display. Once he saw it, his short-lived celebration evaporated. “Those are SSF-19’s. Space superiority fighters. They are designed for combat out here. Those other ships were probably low on fuel, which is why they’re bugging out. I’m not positive, but based on the speed, that big ship looks like a corvette.”
“Which should we be more worried about?”
“Both,” Maarkean replied. “Corvettes are slower than we are, but not by much. They don’t have many big guns, but they don’t need them. They’re designed as fast anti-fighter screens.”
“Can we run?”
“We can try,” Maarkean said, turning the ship away from the incoming fighters.
Gunning the engines for all they could manage, they shot away from the planet. The Cutty Sark had good acceleration for a transport ship, as it was designed to travel quickly to deliver small but necessary
cargo, but the incoming fighters had already been traveling at a high speed. Checking the math, he knew right away the fighters would reach them before they could get their speed high enough.
“Better start the hyperspace calculation. We can’t take on six ships, and they’ll be on us soon.”
Lahkaba nodded, and Maarkean asked a follow-up question. “What’s the status of the freighter? Have they jumped yet?”
“No. They’ve actually turned around and are headed for us.”
“What?” Maarkean exclaimed. The freighter had had more than enough time to activate their hyperdrive. As long as they were here, he couldn’t risk jumping to hyperspace. Not for the first time, he regretted the loss of the comm.
“The freighter’s sending out a message.”
“I thought you said the comm was down.”
“It is. We can’t transmit, but it appears we can receive.”
“Let’s hear it.”
Lahkaba activated the ship’s speakers.
“Attention, Alliance fighters. This is the escaped prisoners from Olan Detention Center. Our hyperdrive is non-operational, and we are short on air. We are turning around and wish to surrender. Please hold your fire. The pursuing courier ship Cutty Sark has lost communication abilities. Hold your fire, and they will surrender as well.”
Maarkean and Lahkaba both slumped back in their chairs. All of this had been for nothing. The entire operation was going to end in defeat. That one fighter that had been able to fire on the freighter had probably knocked out the hyperdrive. Despite all of the other successes and failures, that one failure was going to cost them everything.
“Hold your course, freighter, and prepare to be escorted back to the planet. Cutty Sark, power down your weapons and do the same. You will not get another warning.”
Quietly, Lahkaba asked, “Should we do it? Or should we go down fighting?”
“What? No, of course not,” Maarkean said, exasperated. “We’re not going to go out in some foolish blaze of glory. If it would allow the freighter to get away, maybe. But you heard them. Their hyperdrive is out. There’s no place for them to go. There are no other habitable planets in this system. If we die, they still get caught.”
