McKnight made her way to his side, where she checked his bloody scalp and was apparently convinced the wound was not too serious. Meanwhile, Shiyuan migrated the tactical projection over to his own workstation before furiously working to analyze the projected positions of the various Imperial warships which drew nearer to firing range with each passing second.
“Shiyuan...” McKnight urged, prompting Jarrett's eyes to flick down to the chronometer in the lower corner of his screen. He was only mildly surprised to find that twelve minutes had passed in the proverbial blink of an eye. He was no stranger to the 'lost time' effect when he was focused on a particularly daunting virtual task—which is precisely what the job before him was.
“Not yet,” he said tersely, his fingers never faltering as he swiped algorithms across his display, editing and combining them into what he hoped would be a half-serviceable fire control program based on Traian's tactical simulation data.
He could have gotten lost in the torrent of questions at the edges of his mind, most of which dealt with Traian's inexplicable condition and apparent confidence in his ability to predict the future. It would have been far too easy to do the 'normal' thing and become overwhelmed by the moment.
Thankfully, Shiyuan had known for decades that he was anything but normal.
Five more minutes passed before he finally ran his fire control program through a quick series of tests. The tests were the best he could come up with—and were loosely based on an ancient space warfare game engine, Children of a Dead Earth—but after six thousand simulations he was confident their successful retreat likelihood was well over sixty percent.
It was the best they were going to get.
“The program is ready,” he declared, turning to McKnight for confirmation.
“Do it,” she nodded, “then help me get him into the grav car.”
Shiyuan uploaded the program to the base's communications arrays, which forwarded the revised fire control protocols for all of the defensive systems which supported the moon base. He received confirmation eighty two seconds later that the revisions had been made, and that the system would utilize his new program when the time came.
“It's done,” he said, standing back from the workstation, taking a long look at it, and finally deactivating the interface. He turned his back on the system—which was easily the most powerful of its type that he had ever directly interfaced with, and had certainly cost an astronomical sum to construct and maintain—and helped McKnight place the unconscious Traian on the grav cart.
Seconds later, they were speeding off down the tunnel toward the series of shafts which would take them to the location where Traian said Nazoraios—and the others—awaited.
Chapter XXXII: The Closing Window
“Seals engaged,” Tremblay declared as soon as McKnight, Traian, and Shiyuan had boarded their escape vehicle—which was nothing more than a cramped cabin with eight seats, a short-range jump drive, and an ultra-low-tech life support system with twenty hours' capacity, wrapped in a meter-thick cylinder of Duralloy armor. “Lifting off,” he said, and the craft began to surge upward in the perfect launch tube which had remained dormant for over a century, according to the scans he had performed.
All of the seats in the craft were situated like those in an archaic rocket, and Tremblay noted with no small satisfaction that McKnight and Shiyuan struggled to gain their seats before the gee forces became too strong for them to drag themselves into their seats. They eventually succeeded, strapping themselves in and in the case of McKnight, shooting a venomous look Tremblay's way.
“So good of you to join us, Captain,” Bellucci purred, her pitch-perfect voice easily cutting through the low thrum suffusing the craft's cabin.
“Sorry to interrupt the joyous reunion,” Tremblay cut in harshly, “but without Shiyuan at the controls is there any chance we make the hyper limit?”
“We've got better odds than a coin flip,” McKnight replied frostily.
Tremblay bit back the dozen scathing rebukes that badly wanted to roll off his tongue, instead opting for an even-toned, “This is too important to leave to chance, Captain.”
“Oh, drop a pair, Tremblay,” she retorted, prompting Nazoraios to issue a short, throaty laugh before she continued, “you played and you lost; act like a man for once in your Demon-blasted life and move on without sniveling like a spoiled toddler who lost his favorite blanket to the recyclers.”
Through the mirror to his right Tremblay saw Senator Bellucci's mouth quirk into a bemused grin—a grin which came at his expense.
“Sucking out on the last card doesn't mean you played the hand correctly,” Tremblay said sourly, unwilling to let it go just yet.
“I'd rather be lucky than good,” McKnight shot back. “Good thing for everyone present that I appear to be both.”
“Hear, hear,” Shiyuan agreed.
The shuttle—or whatever it was rightly called, being a vehicle that defied conventional classification—continued to increase its speed as it made its sixth pass through the unthinkably long, circular passage where it continued to accelerate on the maglev built into the passage itself. A quick check of the velocity indicator suggested they would only need to make another three circuits before they would be ready to break away from the moon and make for the hyper limit.
Like an old-style locomotive conduction system, when the final circuit was made Tremblay initiated a switch mechanism that altered a segment of the maglev's track to shunt them into a surface-bound tunnel rather than continuing on through the subterranean acceleration loop.
The moment of truth came and went too fast for him to register, but thankfully no mechanical failures presented themselves as the shuttle switched seamlessly from the loop to the surface-bound tunnel, and shortly thereafter the heavily-armored craft leapt upward from the moon's surface and streaked toward the hyper limit.
The craft was moving far faster than it had any right to move, and against his instincts he left the ship's auxiliary drives offline while the shuttle sped away from the surface of the moon. With the drive unit active, they would be ludicrously easy to spot by any of the sensors currently sweeping from one side of the system to the other. But without the exhaust from the engines, it would be much more difficult to locate them.
Difficult, but not impossible, Tremblay thought grimly. His best projections had put the odds of their successful egress from the Imperials' zone of control at 91%, but those numbers had not factored in whatever lash-up Shiyuan had been convinced to erect in the base's fire control systems—they'd been based on the original system working or, barring that, the operator himself remaining behind to operate the system manually.
He watched as their shuttle's icon approached a pair of incoming Destroyers, neither of which appeared to have taken note of their presence. It was inevitable that the Imperial warships would eventually locate the heavily-armored escape craft, but even when they did there were a number of moves Tremblay could make that would assist in their evasion.
His tactical screen lit up with a flurry of activity, as the moon's turbo-laser array tore into a Cruiser twenty degrees to the stellar north of the two Destroyers. Tremblay gritted his teeth for several seconds until the readout showed that the Cruiser had been seriously damaged by the thirty eight coordinated turbo-laser strikes. The shuttle's sensors were completely passive, but even they showed the Cruiser's acceleration drop to essentially nothing for over a minute before it resumed its previous course at a markedly reduced speed.
The Imperial warships' counter-fire against those thirty eight turbo-lasers was more difficult to assess. Four specific explosions registered on the shuttle's sensors, signaling the total destruction of at least that many pop-up turbo-laser mounts. But another thirteen high-energy signatures suggested the same fate might have befallen that many more pop-up turrets.
The shuttle's trajectory continued to carry it away from the moon base while, predictably, a quartet of adjacent Imperial warships moved to support the w
ounded Cruiser. The move was subtle—Imperial commanders were loathe to leap headfirst into anything resembling a trap or feint, which the opening salvo generally was—but meaningful as a second Cruiser and a Battleship, along with two more Destroyers, moved to provide overlapping fire arcs on the first Cruiser's position.
Tremblay felt mild disappointment at being unable to participate more directly in the battle, but ultimately that disappointment was outweighed by his satisfaction at playing his part in the conflict to come.
Don't get ahead of yourself, Raffy, he thought grimly. We're not at the hyper limit yet.
Another barrage of fire erupted from the moon's surface, destroying the first Cruiser outright and damaging one of the inbound Destroyers badly enough that it took several minutes before it resumed its previous supporting posture. But while the first salvo might have cost the moon base's defensive arsenal a dozen or more pop-up turrets, this second salvo saw no fewer than twenty five pop-ups get scrubbed by the perfectly-coordinated counter-fire of the Imperial warships.
Rather than pull back from the deadly turbo-laser fire authored by the moon base, the oncoming warships—in classic Imperial fashion—doubled down and diverted another three ships to the sudden gap in their formation. Having already sniped at least thirty turbo-lasers from the surface of the moon, the Imperial commander had likely deduced that the base's defensive complement was limited to the turbo-lasers. Coupled with their improved counter-fire success following the second barrage, the Imps seemed convinced that the first shot had not, in fact, been a feint.
Just as he began to wonder whether or not Jarrett had done his job correctly, his fears were allayed by a massive volley of fire from the opposite face of the moon. A pair of Destroyers was snuffed out, and a Cruiser badly damaged, by the concerted efforts of a hundred and thirty turbo-lasers firing in unison.
The Imperial commander, however, committed even further to closing the gap in the destroyed Cruiser's position—just as he should have.
“Say what you want about them,” Tremblay said grimly as the counter-fire's effectiveness was made clear when dozens of pop-up turrets exploded on the far side of the moon, “but Imps are no slouches when it comes to military tactics.”
“Nobody ever accused them of being less than ruthless,” McKnight said with a scowl, which was either directed at his seeming praise or at the Imps' effectiveness in scrubbing another fifty turbo-lasers from the moon's surface.
Tremblay's focus, however, was on the Battleship which had nearly closed the gap created by the first Cruiser's destruction. He knew that particular ship was the real target of Shiyuan's attack, and that once it was scrubbed from the board their path to the hyper limit would be as clear as it would get.
Right on cue, the poles of the moon blossomed with energy signatures as six dozen torpedoes were launched in rapid succession. Another wave soon followed, with half as many torpedoes following the first volley before the Imperial guns managed to scrub the torpedo launchers from the board.
Racing toward the Battleship, more than a hundred torpedoes with identical energy and acceleration profiles—profiles which suggested each was a Liberator torpedo, one of the most powerful weapons ever to be built by humans—shot past the shuttle's position en route to their target.
Turbo-lasers stabbed out erratically, sniping a handful of torpedoes in the first few seconds. But then the accuracy of the Imps' weapons plummeted as Shiyuan's jamming field went into effect. The Imps would have little difficulty in neutralizing that field by targeting the individual generators, but that would take time.
Time the Battleship did not have.
The jammer generators went down one by one, and another dozen torpedoes were sniped by the nearest warships, but over eight torpedoes made collision range with the Battleship before at least half of them slammed into its shields in perfect unison with the moon base's final turbo-laser salvo.
True to their well-earned reputation, the Imperials systematically scrubbed the surface of the moon while the Battleship died under the intense fury of fire delivered to it by the torpedo salvo. Not a single escape pod, life boat, or shuttle could be seen in the dead Battleship's vicinity on Tremblay's scanners.
“Say what you want about them...” he said darkly, and this time no pithy rejoinders met his ears.
Then the shuttle lurched to port, and his sensors showed that the nearest Destroyer had established a target lock on their position—an improbability, but certainly not impossible given the relative proximity between their vessels. They were already in medium firing range, and were very nearly into short range, which meant he would need to use every option available to him if they were to survive long enough to reach the hyper limit.
“Hang on!” he barked, waiting only a second before dropping a decoy and engaging the craft's high-powered booster drive. The decoy was comprised primarily by the outer section of the heavily-armored craft's hull, measuring the full length of the cylindrical craft with a full eight inches of duralloy plating. A rig of electronics and active sensor gear completed the illusion, and Tremblay sneered in smug satisfaction as the Destroyer landed a trio of shots on the decoy while they, the real thing, sped away with ever-increasing acceleration. That acceleration pushed their grav-plates to the limit, evidenced by a strained sound as the hull around them twisted and deformed due to micro-fluctuations in the grav-plate system coupled with the incredible strain generated by the boosters.
Another quartet of strikes landed on the decoy before its active sensors went offline, and nearly two minutes passed before the Imps wised up and began sweeping the real shuttle's location with targeted sensor sweeps.
“Blast...” Tremblay growled as the shuttle rocketed past the Battleship's debris field. He had hoped the Imperials would not locate them for another three minutes, but he still had one more trick up his sleeve which he decided to play before the Imps acquired positive target lock.
Much like the previous decoy, Tremblay readied the second such deception—but unlike the first, this section of outer hull continued to speed away from the now-thinly-armored inner section where he and the others sat.
The violent separation of the two remaining sections of the craft caused such an intense wave of vertigo that Tremblay blacked out, and was honestly surprised to find that he had not emptied his stomach when his senses returned to him.
True to form, the Imperials located and hammered away on the second decoy just a few seconds later. One Destroyer and one Cruiser landed strike after strike against it before, finally, it too succumbed to the laws of thermodynamics and was reduced to a cloud of molten duralloy.
Tremblay watched with bated breath as his shuttle continued to drift toward the hyper limit. He had one more booster engine he could engage, but if that Cruiser's guns sighted in on him—and his thinly-armored shuttle—before they made extreme range there was little chance they would survive the ensuing assault.
Beads of sweat formed on his forehead and ran down into his eyes as the shuttle's icon moved steadily further from the Imperial warships. The instant they passed into extreme firing range, Tremblay released a pent-up breath—and was joined by at least two others in the cabin who did likewise.
A few active sensor pings registered on the shuttle's sensors, but none of them managed to provide their Imperial authors with a positive target lock before the shuttle reached the hyper limit.
“Well done,” Senator Bellucci said with insufferable condescension. “It seems we live to fight another day, after all.”
“Can it, Goldie,” Tremblay sneered as he engaged the craft's single-use hyper drive, causing the shuttle to wink out of existence and reappear at the predetermined rendezvous point.
The fun part was now behind them—it was time to get to the real work of undoing the Empire, possibly forever.
Tremblay couldn't wait.
Chapter XXXIII: Unexpected Assistance
Six hours later, the transport which had collected them at the rendezvous—and which
had apparently been secured by Mr. Tremblay and/or Senator Bellucci—arrived at the star system where the 24 was scheduled to be in another hour.
Bellucci had asked McKnight to join her in a private compartment adjoining the transport's bridge, and after more than a little hesitation she had agreed.
“I think you and I have more in common than you might think, Captain McKnight,” Senator Bellucci said after the door closed, her voice dripping with elitist condescension.
“I wouldn't count on it,” McKnight spat.
“I am rarely wrong about these things,” Bellucci said with a haughty laugh before waving dismissively. “But enough with the foreplay: I think you and I can still be of use to one another.”
McKnight cocked her head and smirked, “You're trying to tell me you would have killed me by now if you didn't think I could be of use to you?”
Bellucci mimicked McKnight's cocked head and furrowed her brow, “Is there an echo in here?” Her faux confusion melted away to reveal a sterner visage as she continued, “When I say 'we,' I mean 'we,' Captain. You and I have plans in motion the depths of which the other can only guess; I will not waste your time if you do not waste mine.”
“Fine,” McKnight said with a stoic nod. “What's your offer?”
“Mr. Tremblay tells me you aim for the Gorgon Sectors,” Bellucci said as she sat in a nearby chair, gesturing for McKnight to do likewise in the only other piece of furniture present.
McKnight was tempted to ask how Tremblay knew of her plan to go to the Gorgon Sectors, but snorted when she realized it would have been a simple matter for him to access whatever built-in surveillance systems had been present in the moon base. Those systems would have permitted him to eavesdrop on every conversation he'd wished to overhear—except those conducted in her office, which she'd had swept at the first opportunity and at regular intervals thereafter.
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