by Evan Currie
Misrem noted that the mass and configuration specifications matched an Imperial cruiser reasonably closely, aside from the material specifications of their hull armor. Oddly, their hulls did not read as the standard Oather energy defensive ceramics. It didn’t read as anything she recognized, to be precise.
“Bolah,” she said, looking over to where her senior scanner officer was standing. “What do you make of the hull and armor composition?”
The officer scowled. “I have been trying to work that out since we got the scans. The odd part is that it does not match any of the scans from the battle, Navarch. It is like whatever they are using is refracting off part of our scans. Not enough to make them difficult to detect, obviously, but it is playing with our analysis software. I think they’re using a refractory coating on their standard ceramic armor, but we are going to need to capture samples to be certain.”
Misrem let out a slow breath, thoughtfully considering that.
“I will see to it that you get the samples you need,” she said after a moment. “Until that time, however, continue to try to break the puzzle from this side of things. I would prefer the most information possible before we engage this time.”
“Yes Navarch. I have analysis running even now, though I do not expect anything revelatory from it. This will be a matter of gaining ground by a hair’s breadth, I fear, but we will gain ground.”
“Understood. Thank you,” she said, calling up another aspect of the report. “Why have their space-warp specifications been flagged?”
“The report references their wake, Navarch,” Bolah told her lightly. “Specifically, when we tried to track their wake back to determine the origin vector, we lost the signal just outside the stellar-abyssal limit. It is almost like they were . . . sitting out there for some reason, waiting for something. Either that or they have substantially improved their drive efficiency in the deep abyss.”
She checked that information quickly, noting the scanner records, and immediately frowned and reread it in detail. Bolah waited patiently for her to finish without saying a word. Finally, Misrem looked up, perplexed.
“They must have been sitting out there,” she admitted. “No one can mask a warp wake that effectively, but why?”
Bolah sighed, shaking his head. “That is the question I have not been able to answer. One might almost think they were laying a trap for us, but in that case, why expose themselves? I have not been able to devise a satisfactory explanation.”
“More puzzles, more questions,” Misrem grumbled, irritated by it all. “It is like these are not the Oathers at all. Something has changed them in ways I do not believe is entirely traceable to the Drasin incursion.”
“Yes Navarch.”
“Very well,” she said, “we will continue to—”
A soft alarm cut her off and brought Misrem to her feet as Bolah spun back to his station.
“What is it?”
The scanner officer didn’t answer instantly, and it was her turn to wait as patiently as she could manage. When needed, Misrem could be a very patient woman.
“The ship is breaking orbit,” he said. “Low acceleration, falling behind the planet as it orbits. Course . . . uncertain.”
“Watch them,” she said, tapping out an order on her station. “All ships, all stations, secure to best stealth. Enemy vessel is on the move.”
► “Stand by for system scan. We will be here a few hours,” Drey announced to the ship, “so please refrain from accessing any FTL communications for the duration. Interference will just make our current task more difficult.”
Going unspoken was that he had, in fact, locked down the ship’s FTL transmission systems. He could have left it at that, of course, but it was just polite to phrase things as a request even if there was no choice in the matter.
“System scan starting, Captain.”
“Thank you, Hela,” he said, settling into his station and trying to make himself comfortable as he watched the scan details filter back in.
The planets, of course, were the easiest to pick up. They appeared on the Tetanna’s new model of the system almost instantly. Not even a blind man could have missed the gravity fields of planetary objects.
Slowly, other things began to fill in, varying with distance and mass as the computer located, tracked, and analyzed all possible vectors. Asteroid-sized objects close to the ship showed up next, and the compiled list expanded slowly outward toward deep space, beyond the influence of the local sun.
Several hours into the scan, Hela walked over to where Drey was trying not to sleep while on duty. System surveys were among the more important yet incredibly boring parts of the job when you were in fleet.
“Outer system anomaly,” she said as she approached, catching his attention.
“What sort?” Drey asked, shifting so he could examine the latest data they had acquired.
“Mostly some odd elements of the comet shield are out of their predicted places.”
“Oh.”
That was a bit of a letdown. Comet fragments in the extreme outer system were always shifting around and pitching one another out of their orbits. Once in a while, they even collided, causing even greater variations. A system survey could usually predict them fairly well, using a statistical model, but there were always outliers.
“Very well. Focus on the anomalies for a more intensive scan,” he ordered. “Try to locate what knocked them out of the predicted paths and determine if any of them are likely to be a threat to the colony.”
“Yes Captain.”
► Misrem swore as the ship they were surveilling began conducting a system-wide survey. She was glad that she’d had her ships stand down to their best stealth, but it was still going to be a nerve-racking experience as they waited to see if they’d been detected.
In the meantime, however, there was at least one thing they could do.
“Use their scanner energy to improve our system survey,” she ordered.
“Yes Navarch.”
They’d not been able to do a complete survey themselves, being limited to only passive scans since they didn’t want to tip off the Oather colony. Since the ship was being kind enough to send out plenty of reflecting energy and they knew the ship’s origin point with certainty, they could use the enemy scans for their own benefit.
Beyond that, all she and her group could do was wait and hope they would remain undetected.
That hope died when, after a few hours of standard scans, her ship was suddenly hit with a high-density, localized scanning beam that set off every alarm on board as it clearly exceeded the vessel’s detection threshold.
“Power to all engines!” she yelled. “Get the battle group online and moving!”
“Course, Navarch?”
The ship was beginning to hum around her, coming to life in a way that seemed like it charged her as she walked the command deck over to the navigations station.
“Give me an intercept course for the planet.”
“Yes Navarch.”
Her second approached. “The planet, Navarch? It is a minor world, of no value to us.”
“To us, no,” she agreed, “but it might be to that ship. If they are smart, they will run, and we will not be able to catch them. But perhaps we can bring them in close enough to deal with them if we threaten their world.”
Her second nodded, understanding. “If I may, then, Navarch?”
She gestured to him, and he turned to the communications and signals station.
“Flood the hyper spectrum with enough energy to prevent them from sending signals out,” he ordered.
“Yes Commander.”
He turned back. “We will lose at least two ships from our immediate order of battle to maintain this long enough, but if your intent is to eliminate them before they can contact their core worlds . . .”
Misrem smiled tightly. “Indeed. Thank you, Commander.”
“Your service, Navarch,” he said with a slight bow at the hip.
The ships of
the battle group were appearing now on their passive scans as they brought their drives to active status and prepared to move.
“Not quite how I intended to announce our presence,” she said, sighing. “But so be it. Take us out.”
► “Drive signatures!”
Drey twisted in his seat, eyes widening as Hela’s call rolled across the command deck.
“Identification?” he demanded, hoping that they were Priminae or Terran drives.
“None yet, Captain,” Hela said with a shake of her head. “They were sitting quiet in the comet shield, sir. I do not believe they are anyone we would know.”
He pursed his lips. “Damn. I want our FTL communications back up, now!”
“All hyper frequencies are being flooded with enough energy to disrupt signals, Captain,” the signals officer said, turning back. “We will not be able to transmit from within the system.”
“Damn them to the eternal abyss,” Drey hissed. “Power to all systems, focus our scanners, and get a count on the enemy.”
“Yes Captain.”
The Tetanna hummed as her system potential was brought fully online, with military power being directed to scanners and weapons as the ship prepared herself for a fight.
The bridge, which had been running at a third of normal operational staff, now began to fill with officers running to their stations. Alarms continued to sound.
“Initial count coming in, Captain,” Hela said, looking up with a stricken look on her face.
Drey knew that he probably didn’t want to know, but he asked anyway.
“How bad is it?”
“Forty drive signals now, possibly more,” she said. “We read at least ten as cruisers. The others are uncertain.”
“Log it all,” he ordered. “Give me a course to the edge of the system, best speed.”
“Yes Captain.”
Drey was well aware that against such a force he had no chance, not even with the added weapons they’d acquired from the Terrans in exchange for the ships they had built to free their world from the Drasin. His duty was clear, and whatever his thoughts, he had to run.
“They are moving, Captain,” Hela said. “Dropping in system at high acceleration.”
“Intercept course?” he asked, leaning back. They had to know that they couldn’t catch him.
“Yes, sir, but not for us. They’re heading for the colony world.”
Drey froze.
The colony had no defenses. The inhabitants had planned an orbital system, but none of the necessary surface-based installations had been completed yet, so they hadn’t brought it. The people below were sitting targets, waiting to be picked off.
He didn’t know what to do.
► “The enemy ship has not yet moved, Navarch.”
Misrem was surprised at that. She’d expected the quarry either to head for the planet to cut the Imperials off or, if the commander was remotely intelligent, to have turned and bolted for the other side of the system as quickly as the ship’s gravity wells could propel it.
“Stay the course,” she said, eyes narrowing.
She had time before she would have to make a choice about whether to try to intercept the Oather vessel or continue to the planet. Both were close enough and along similar vectors that she could alter course quite late with only a minimal loss of time either way.
But she might be missing something.
“Increase system surveillance. Look for any reinforcements they might have,” she ordered.
She was likely being paranoid, but her previous experiences in Oather territory had made her wary of a repeat. They hadn’t seen any other ships when they arrived, but the atypical hesitance of the Oather ship had made her recall the earlier scans and what they had shown when she tried to track the vessel’s entry vector to determine a likely system of origin. For some reason, they had just been sitting out there before making themselves known.
That was bad enough, but if one group had done it, well, then it was possible that someone else was out there too.
Her battle group should be enough to deal with anything that might be patrolling a minor colony system like this, but if Misrem detected anything, she would have to try to eliminate any vessels that might report her presence and the composition of her force.
► “Captain,” Hela hissed quietly from his side, startling Drey.
He looked at her sharply, eyes wide and face white.
“Your orders, Captain?” she said slowly, her voice pitched low.
He swallowed, nodding as he looked back at the displays that showed the advancing fleet.
“How long until they reach the planet?” he asked numbly.
“At current acceleration, and assuming they use a military power turnover,” Hela said, frowning, “no more than eight hours.”
He winced.
They were moving fast. Coming in from the comet shield and making that sort of time meant that they were going to be moving at least three times light while deep in system, a maneuver that only a military vessel would even consider trying.
The move meant, unfortunately, that there was no chance of any evacuation from the colony.
He could put the Tetanna between the ships and the colony, but it would be a futile gesture, and Drey knew it. Running felt wrong, however, which left him with a terrifying quandary that he did not know how to resolve.
“Give me a course to the outer system,” he ordered finally, “just outside their interception range.”
“Captain?” Hela asked, confused.
“We have to run,” he said bitterly, “but we do not have to run out the back while they come in the front. Give me the course I asked for, Commander.”
“Yes Captain.”
► The battle group was a little over light-speed and a half, their energy screens flaring with almost constant micro impacts. Everything from dust to small rocks to solar winds and everything in between was slamming into the screens with the energy imparted by the battle group closing at speeds that could turn a stray speck of dust into a weapon of mass destruction.
The gravity sink in front of the ships bent and deflected most of the minor debris, but closing speeds in excess of light meant that the energy of the impacts prevented many particles from being pulled entirely into the trough of their gravity wave. Whatever made it through had to be intercepted by the ship’s energy screens.
The navarch was well aware that staying too long at speeds like this inside a star system could tear up a ship, but she wanted to put her opponent to the test.
So far, she had to admit, she was a little disappointed.
“Oather ship is moving, Navarch.”
“Put their course onscreen,” she ordered, leaning forward. So what sort of captain are you?
She blinked in mild surprise at the course as it appeared. The captain of the Oather vessel had elected to evade her, clearly, but was doing so by closing as near as possible with her ships.
What is this fool hoping to accomplish? she wondered, tilting her head. “Show me the intercept graphs for each of our ship classes.”
As she’d calculated, he was outside the range of her cruisers. Their acceleration curves would bring them within technical range to engage him, but he would have no issue avoiding her lasers. Her destroyers, however, had a little more potential acceleration in them due to the lighter mass of the somewhat smaller ships.
She wouldn’t like to pit a destroyer against a cruiser, particularly one like this that had clearly been altered with unknown technical capabilities, but she had twenty of them.
“Redeploy our destroyer screen to intercept,” Misrem ordered after a moment’s thought. “They are to eliminate the target vessel.”
“Yes Navarch.”
She considered his opening move for several more moments, trying to determine what the enemy was planning. Do they just want to get as close a look at us as possible before fleeing the system? Or is there something more at play here?
► Drey was doing
everything he could to avoid shaking. He realized that everything he’d been trained to do, everything he had prepared himself to do, meant nothing in the face of reality. It left him cold to the core and physically jumping in place as he tried but failed to control his own body.
He was incredibly grateful that everyone was too busy with their instruments to look at him, because if they did, there was no doubt in his mind that even a passing glance would reveal his terror.
“We are reading a contingent on a divergent vector, Captain,” Hela told him. “They . . . they might be able to intercept, sir.”
“What?” Drey looked up, surprised. He’d chosen the course because it should have led them quite close but still outside the range of even the fastest cruisers.
“They appear to be a lighter mass configuration,” she said. “Half a cruiser’s mass, at most.”
Drey frowned. That could do it, but they would have to have equipped those smaller ships with practically the same power generators as a cruiser to give them that kind of acceleration. It’s likely they’ll have weapons to match a cruiser, but not as many emitters, then.
He wasn’t aware of any designs in Central that would fit what he was seeing, but Drey was fairly confident he could predict the vessels’ general capabilities.
“Make sure you get full scans of those ships,” he ordered. “Adjust our course to evade them, minimal arc change.”
“Yes Captain. Minimal arc change.”
“They’re testing us,” he said. “I don’t know what they want to learn, but they’re testing us.”
► “Oather vessel has shifted to evade the destroyers, Navarch. However, they are remaining as close as they can while doing so.”
Misrem frowned, considering the Oather captain’s move.
He is testing me. What does he want to learn?
Her options were clear, and she was certain that she couldn’t realistically hope to force a confrontation here. The Oather captain had made it clear that he wasn’t going to throw away his ship and life in a futile defense of the colony world, but he wasn’t just bolting either. That made her wonder if she couldn’t trick him into a foolish stance and, perhaps, at least get a chunk of his ship to claim as her trophy before he managed to escape her grasp.
