"I think so." Aurore manipulated the sensor data. "No. Make that two."
"Transponder signals?"
I overlaid the sensor information on the main screen, combining it with the system map. The star was highlighted, surrounded by the glowing orbital paths of the planets and brighter tracks showing the location of the station and Kunan. Our position was at the center of the volume, while off to our starboard at long range two dots flashed red, with the designation "No-ID."
"I don't like this." Logan rubbed his jaw. "Light 'em up, Joe. Just in case."
I flipped several controls, arming the weapons and point-defense systems, then opened the ship-wide comms. "All hands, battle stations. Strap down for high-g and unpredictable maneuvers."
Logan looked at Aurore. "Anything?"
"Picking up transponder IDs." She hesitated. "They're showing Atoll designation numbers. No names, only serial numbers."
"Atoll ships? That's crazy, why would—" He turned to Hernandez. "Get downstairs and make sure your people are ready, and send McDole up here. If she doesn't want to come, bring her."
The ID information transferred to the screen and tagged the two distant ships. They were AF-11 type cruisers—the same as the Yukawa. "Definitely returning Atoll IDs, and from what other data we have so far they match the profile," I said. "But they don't look like they're collecting for the Red Cross."
"Any orbital information?" Logan said, his eyes fixed on the screen.
"Too soon," Aurore said.
"Comm lag?"
I checked the distance. "Four minutes round trip."
"Send a signal."
He faced the main optical pick-up, and I opened a transmission. "Unidentified Atoll ships, this is Captain Twofeathers of the USN Shokasta. We are searching for a missing vessel and plan to dock with Learmonth Base. We are on a peaceful mission, but we are armed. Please inform us of your intentions."
"Anything on their trajectory yet?" Logan said.
"Still too early. One may be heading toward us, the other to the station." Aurore slammed her hand into the console. "I need more data."
"This doesn't make any sense. Why would the Atolls send two warships here?" I stared at the system map. "Are they after us or the PAC station? They might not like us much, but the PAC is their main terrestrial supplier."
"Could the PAC be responsible for the loss of the Wright Atoll?" Aurore's words were almost a whisper. "Are we getting caught up in a war between them and the Atolls?"
"If that were the case, they'd be responsible for the Sacagawea and the RD-627." Logan tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. "The PAC is ultra-competitive and desperate, but they're not crazy enough to start a war with everyone."
McDole hastily strapped herself into the starboard seat. I hadn't seen her since she'd slapped me, and she looked tired, but her face was a mask showing no emotion.
"There are Atoll ships out there?" she said, her voice flat.
"We think so," I said. "They're showing Atoll transponder IDs but no names and appear to be AF-11 cruisers."
McDole's eyes widened. "Can you put me through to them?"
"Broadcast only," I said. "Response time four minutes."
She nodded, and I opened the transmission again.
"This is Commander McDole of the Atoll Defense Force onboard the USN Shokasta. I order you to identify yourselves and make your intentions known. This is a special order—Priority One. Override all other orders. Identification Code: Papa Foxtrot Whiskey Delta Golf Kilo Juliet Five One One Nine."
I cut the transmission, and silence filled the control room like a sack full of marshmallows in a half-liter cup.
Logan pointed to the screen. "Any idea who they are, Commander?"
McDole shook her head. "We have no ships operating out here that I know of. And we don't have many AF-11s. Two running together like this is... curious."
The clock was ticking for a possible response, and I felt increasingly nervous. "Is there anything we should know about their capabilities? Armaments, defensive systems?"
"They can be configured in many different ways." McDole lifted her hand up to forestall any objections. "I'm not being awkward or hiding anything. I don't know how these particular ones have been loaded."
The transmission indicator lit up. I glanced at the timer. It couldn't be the Atoll ships—not enough time had passed. I played the transmission on a secondary screen. A long-faced man appeared, smiling like he'd found his long-lost teddy bear.
"This is Lieutenant Matsudo, commanding Learmonth Base. Welcome to Learmonth, Shokasta. It would be a pleasure to have you and your crew come aboard." He spoke with a refined accent that reminded me of an old-style British actor. "We're rather starved of visitors out here, so your visit is a pleasant surprise. It will be some time before you get here, I see. Once in easier communication range, we can agree the—"
Matsudo had paused his broadcast, and it didn't take much to guess why. "Looks like he cut off transmission. No idea why."
"Could they have been attacked already?" Logan asked.
"Not unless the Atoll ships have some kind of faster-than-light weapon."
"We don't," McDole said. "That would be impossible."
The transmission light flashed again, and Matsudo reappeared.
"Captain Chandra on the PTN Kunan has informed me that two more ships have entered the Learmonth system. Are these vessels with you? This is all highly irregular. The station isn't equipped to deal with large numbers of visitors.
"As a precautionary measure, the Kunan is going to make its way to a neutral stand-off position. I'm sure you will understand. I look forward to an explanation for your presence."
Matsudo and Chandra weren't fools. They'd recognized the potential threat and were taking action to strengthen their defensive options and minimize their risks. "Why would the Atolls attack the PAC?" I turned to McDole.
"We wouldn't. We don't start hostilities. We're not aggressive," she said, coldly.
"Tell that to Dan's shipmates," I snapped. "Those are Atoll ships, aren't they?"
"Circumstances have changed. At that point, we felt we needed to act to preserve peace for our communities. Now Earth has the Jump drive, there's no point in continuing hostilities." McDole's gaze was fixed on the screen. "And if we're the aggressors, who destroyed Wright Atoll?"
"We have to assume they're hostile for now." Logan nodded. "Send a signal to the station."
My hand hovered over the controls. "The cruisers will pick it up as well."
"I'm counting on it," Logan growled.
He waited for a moment. "Lieutenant Matsudo, this is Captain Twofeathers on the Shokasta. We have detected signatures from the other ships suggesting they are Atoll vessels. They are not related to our mission, and we have no information on their intent. We have a high-ranking Atoll official on board who has ordered them to stand down, but they have not yet acknowledged. We're ready to render assistance to both your station and the Kunan as required. We will, of course, defend ourselves from any belligerent acts. To this end, we will make a small Jump to place our ship between Learmonth base and the other vessels."
Logan gripped the arms of his seat. "Do it, Joe. Damn the risk."
I switched to the Jump controls, programming a position roughly equidistant between the station and the closing Atoll ships. It was difficult to set up a clean transition, and I had to tweak the destination to balance the space-time curvature. I hoped that would minimize any potential difficulties, but it was far from certain. We could as easily disappear into oblivion for all I knew. When finished, I fed the data to Aurore for a sanity check.
It didn't take her long to work through my solution. "Looks as good as it can be, Joe."
Logan nodded, and I activated a ship-wide broadcast. "Jump in thirty. Hang on—this one might be rough."
The engines built to peak energy, and when the countdown hit zero the Jump engaged. My stomach felt like it had wrapped itself around a high-speed gear, and a shoc
k of purple-blackness ripped through my brain. I might have yelled, but my senses were so overwhelmed that I couldn't be sure. When my eyesight returned, bright streaks of distortion streamed from the edge of my field of view, adding to the wave of nausea that almost doubled me over in pain.
My hands shook as I reached for the controls to check our position. After confirming it, my head had cleared enough to attempt speech. "Everyone okay?"
McDole didn't respond, and I look across at her. She was hunched over in her seat, her body racked with spasms.
I reached for my harness buckle. "McDole?"
She drew in a wet breath. "M'okay..."
I turned to the controls. "We're right between the ships and the station."
Aurore's voice was shaky. "The Kunan is moving away from the station. It looks like they're heading for a defensive position."
Logan turned around to face McDole. "Is there anything else you'd like to try before I give the order to fire, Commander?"
Tears gleamed on McDole's cheeks. "They're not answering to my orders. Take whatever action you feel necessary."
"They're your ships." Logan held his hands open, palms up.
"They may be our designs, but that doesn't mean they're under our control. If they were commanded by ADF officers, I would know about it. Your duty is to protect your ship. I understand that."
"We're in missile range," I said. "It's extreme."
"Target both ships." Logan waited until I confirmed. "Fire."
My hand moved to press the button but never got there.
"Wait!" Aurore stabbed at her controls. "They're gone."
"They Jumped?" Logan said.
"I'm not sure." Aurore flipped through the sensor data. "They must have."
"Could they have recharged their Jump drives in that time?" I looked at McDole.
"I can't answer that," she said.
"Can't or won't?" barked Logan.
His tone told me he wouldn't have believed either. I kept my eyes fixed to the sensor information. The ships could have Jumped to another system, or perhaps they'd taken a strategic risk like we had and moved in closer. A few seconds later I saw a blip, but before the system could make any sense out of the data, it was gone.
"Never seen anything like that," Aurore said. "Sensor glitch?"
After another short delay, I saw another pulse. "Right... and there's its twin brother."
I waited and spotted another spike of seemingly random data from the sensors. I filtered out the best location estimates of each burst and threw them on screen. They formed a line carving ever nearer to us.
"Are they doing micro-Jumps to close on us?" My voice came out more of a whisper than I intended.
"Micro-Jumps?" Logan turned to me. "How can that—"
The lighting flashed red several times, and a warning siren cut him off. "Incoming missiles detected," I shouted.
"The Atoll ships are behind us," Aurora called out.
"Emergency maneuvers," said Logan.
I triggered a pre-programmed sequence of jinking movements designed to break a missile lock or make it difficult for ballistic weapons to track. The room spun and twisted around us as the CASTOR system triggered. I fought to keep my eyes on the screens, but the movements made it almost impossible.
Aurore's voice warbled unsteadily over the siren. "The missiles are heading for the station."
"Target the ships and fire," Logan ordered.
They were inside our weapons range now, and I launched missiles at both, followed by a stream of railgun fire. We had a slim chance of hitting them, but hopefully it would distract them if nothing else.
A faint vibration ran through the ship as the missiles launched and streaked toward their targets. The location of the missiles tracked on the screen. The scale of the display was so large they seemed to crawl, even though they were traveling at thousands of kilometers a second and still accelerating.
McDole took a sharp breath. "They are not Atoll ships. We would never fire on a research facility."
"The evidence doesn't support your claim." Logan kept his voice low and level. "Perhaps you should wait in your quarters, Commander."
I paused the ship's crazy movements. "You have five minutes."
"Am I to consider myself under arrest?" McDole unlocked her harness and stood awkwardly.
Logan didn't look around. "You're our guest. And for the purposes of this encounter a civilian. I'd hate to have things get discourteous."
McDole sniffed then turned abruptly and left.
"They've fired again," Aurore said. "Tracking shows two separate volleys. One targeted on us, one on the Kunan."
"Point defense is tracking." I watched the timer. McDole had three more minutes. "Holding position."
I killed the warnings, and a throbbing silence filled the control room. It was a risk, not re-engaging the avoidance routine, but if I triggered it before McDole was strapped in, she'd be dead on the next maneuver. A trickle of sweat ran down my temple and neck, soaking into my shirt collar. Logan stared at the large screen showing the incoming weapons tracks, the muscles in his neck as taut as cables.
The comm system beeped. "Secure."
It was McDole, and I slapped the buttons to restart the evasive maneuvers. The ship bucked, and my neck cricked from leaning forward. Lights flashed as the point defense system triggered, spraying a cloud of railgun rounds and small interceptor missiles to screen us from the incoming missiles.
"They're gone again," Aurore said.
I couldn't believe the enemy ships could recharge that fast. And the idea that they had such large power reserves made almost as little sense. Whoever they were, they were more than a step ahead of us. And I didn't think the PAC was in a better position to fight them.
I focused on the sensor displays, fighting to keep my eyes steady despite the roller coaster motions. "They're at long range again. Looks like they're going for the Kunan."
"They hit the station," Aurore said. "Looks like several missiles got through its defenses."
It wasn't too surprising. As a scientific establishment, Learmonth was likely equipped with minimal defenses. Who'd spend a fortune to defend a bunch of research scientists in the middle of nowhere?
"Survivors?" Logan whispered.
"Impossible to say." Aurore glanced across at him. "Unlikely."
"You got anything, Joe?" he said.
"Looks like they've damaged the Kunan too. I'm picking up uncontrolled energy leaks." I filtered the data to focus on the PAC ship. "They're showing an energy surge—could be about to blow. Or maybe Jump."
"The Atoll ships have Jumped again. They're closing on the Kunan." Aurore's voice became a rough croak. "And they've fired."
It was two against one—the PAC ship didn't stand a chance. I hoped they were on a build to a Jump—otherwise, they were dead. The screen flashed red with warnings, and I changed displays. The Atoll ships were within weapons range of us again.
"Incoming!" shouted Aurore.
I activated the next Jump, not knowing if we'd make it or not. The counter clicked up on screen and ticked down as the Casimir generators built to maximum power. The defense systems kicked in again, and volley after volley of railgun rounds blasted out at the missiles accelerating toward us.
"Prepare to Jump!" I yelled into the comm system.
The last seconds ticked down, the ship lurched, and the lights went out.
Chapter Eighteen
"What happened?" Logan was floating next to me, shaking my arm. "You okay?"
"I triggered the Jump." It felt like I'd plowed into a minor planet head-first, but I seemed to be in one piece. "How's Aurore?"
"Shook up, but she'll live." Logan had made it to his feet. "Where did we Jump?"
"The navigation was programmed for our next scheduled stop, GJ 1116." I brought up the display. "It'll take a while to confirm that."
Several warning lights flashed, and I shook my head to clear the fog. "We've got some hull breaches. Small, but we
're venting atmosphere." I unbuckled my belt, grabbed a comm-set, and twisted out of my chair. "I'll need help."
"Check our location if you can." Logan kissed Aurore then pushed off to follow me.
The ship's outer hull had an impact-resistant shell, and inside that was a lining made up of layers of ballistic fluid and the new Astrogel. The gel was a heavier duty version of the VacSeal routinely used to close holes in an emergency but was built-in. If we had a hole so large the gel couldn't seal it automatically, we needed to get on it pronto.
The gel also provided conductive resistance, allowing us to trace the punctured areas. We tracked one to McDole's quarters, and I hesitated before entering. The door inched open when I pushed it, but I wasn't relishing what we might find.
The hole was less than the width of my finger, but to have produced that much damage through all the protective layers meant a substantial hit on the outside. I blasted it with a spray of VacSeal and slapped on a patch to be doubly sure.
McDole was strapped to her couch with a large red mark on her forehead. It couldn't have been from whatever had penetrated the ship, or there'd have been nothing left of her skull. I guessed something loose had hit her, though it wasn't obvious what that might have been. She was unconscious, her breathing ragged and unsteady.
As we moved her, Logan tapped his comm-set. "Sullivan, we need you in the MedBay, right away."
We were almost there when a reply sounded in my ear. It was Hernandez. "Sullivan didn't make it."
I swore. "Anyone else who can help?"
A moment later he answered. "We've all got first aid. That's it."
"Okay, we've got it," Logan said.
We both had basic emergency training, but she didn't need two of us. I pointed down the corridor. "There's one more hole. Can you take care of McDole?"
"Sure. Go."
I helped him swing her in the door for the MedBay and headed toward the reactor area where the next leak was.
I wondered if Sullivan, like McDole, had been hit by something loose, or had he not been strapped in? Either way, it wasn't the glorious end to his first space outing he'd been hoping for. I hoped McDole wouldn't end up the same way. If she died, it would be harder to explain than Dante trying to talk his way out of hell. But more than that, I liked her despite our differences.
Transformation Protocol Page 20
