by Evan Currie
“Recall the destroyers to their previous course,” she ordered.
“Yes Navarch.”
The destroyer element shifted course again, matching her cruisers on their path to the planet as she settled back to wait and see what her opponent’s next move would be.
It didn’t take long to find out.
“The enemy vessel has returned to its previous course.”
Misrem smiled very slightly.
Offering me a tempting target, she thought. Moving back, now that he knew that she had ships that could shift to intercept along that vector, was a clear challenge. He was, in effect, making a rather rude gesture at her on his way by.
Arrogant pup.
► What am I doing?
Drey couldn’t believe the idiocy of his actions. He should have just bolted for the outer system and transitioned back to Colonial Space.
Instead, here he was, playing games with a superior force like some kind of idiot.
There was no way he could inflict any serious damage on the enemy, that was obvious, but some part of him couldn’t just run without doing something.
“Load the transition cannons,” he ordered quietly, then realized no one had heard him. He repeated himself, louder.
“Captain?” Hela looked over at him. “The effectiveness of the cannons against a field warp drive system, to say nothing of the singularity core, has been reported as severely limited.”
“I am aware,” Drey answered. “Prepare the cannons anyway.”
“Yes Captain.”
Orders given, Drew turned his focus to the files he had on the weapons the Terrans had invented from their clearly twisted brains. The cannons were an obvious extension of their transition drive technology and had proved incredibly effective against the Drasin during the last days of the invasion of their homeworld.
He had seen the records of those weapons and what they could do, and Drey considered the theory behind them to be almost beyond his imagining. The idea of a weapon system with a potential range of near infinity, with no effective delay between firing the weapon and its contact with the target was terrifying.
But the coherence of the tachyon stream used to transmit the weapons could be compromised by a gravity well. Not surprising, perhaps, but a rather large weakness when dealing with ships that belonged to this Empire or the Priminae and now the Terrans as well. Between the gravity wells used to propel their ships and the singularity cores used to power them, it was a matter of luck and little else if you managed to pick a target that resulted in your weapons landing intact and armed.
There were ways to factor for the effects of a gravity well, however, if you understood the fundamentals of the forces you were playing with.
He calculated quickly, basing his numbers on the core of his own ship. The Empire seemed to use vessels that were derived from the Priminae cruiser design, or, perhaps more likely, both the Empire and the Priminae had access to similar source designs.
For the moment that was a curiosity, one he would like to look into when he had time.
He finished his calculations, then switched his interface over to another section and took command of the fire control system.
“Fire control to my station,” Drey announced, just to keep his people from getting too jumpy. “I need accurate targeting data, Hela. Active scans.”
“Yes Captain,” she said nervously. “Scanning station! Active scans, military narrow band. Locate and vector the enemy ships as close as you can.”
“Yes Commander.” The scanner officer nodded. “Scanning.”
► “Real-time scanning, Navarch. They’re acquiring targeting data.”
Misrem raised an eyebrow. “At this range? They might as well also fire on the Imperial capital from here.”
It would be a minor miracle for a laser to strike one of her ships if fired from such a range, but even if it did, it would have long since been attenuated by range and particulate matter absorbing its energy.
She scowled a little, but elected to take precautions just in case.
“Widen our formation,” she ordered.
Spacing her ships out would reduce the chance of a lucky hit even more, and just moving at all would force the enemy to recalculate based on their new vectors. By the time a laser could traverse the range involved, she would make a point of moving again just to be safe.
► Drey’s hands were shaking as he entered the last coordinates for his plan, noting that the enemy commander had moved formation. Clearly, they weren’t taking any chances, because he doubted he would have bothered in their place. No conventional weapon, not even special atomics, would have any significant effect from the range he was currently facing.
The range was dropping incredibly fast, however, so perhaps it was merely good planning on the other’s side of things. He didn’t know, really.
He wasn’t working with a remotely conventional weapon, however, and that meant he had something of an advantage. He hoped.
“Forward cannon . . . firing,” Drey announced as he keyed in the final command to execute his orders.
The weapon didn’t shake the Tetanna’s hull. It didn’t report in any noticeable way even, but on command, the vessel fired one of the deadliest weapons in known space.
Drey was already calculating the next shot before the sequence finished.
► The navarch was scowling openly as she looked over the converging vectors. The Oather ship was a long way out and shortly would reach the point at which she no longer would have any chance of intercept, even by dispatching her destroyers at their maximum vector and acceleration. Misrem knew she was still going to take that chance, but was debating the precise timing.
She was about to issue the order when a sharp report of static from the scanning station caused her to glance over.
“What was that?” she asked as she walked to the station.
“Unknown,” the scanner officer said, shaking his head. “Burst of noise in the real-time range. It would have been unnoticed because of the enemy scanners in the same range, but it was powerful.”
“Origin?”
“Unable to calculate. Just not enough of it to pin down,” he admitted.
“Were we just scanned by another ship?” she demanded tensely, her eyes darting around the screens.
“No chance. That was too short, Navarch, and the signature was completely different from a scanner. I think it was a pulsar,” the scanner officer said.
That would be an oddity, Misrem thought, but not impossible. Still, he was right; she didn’t recognize the signal, and it wasn’t any sort of detection signature. A natural source was most likely, so for the moment, she decided she would accept that deduction.
“Navarch . . .” The communications officer caught her attention.
“What is it?”
“The Kin Amen just registered a radiation leak,” the officer told her. “They are shutting down their reactor conduits while they look for the source.”
Misrem blinked. “How bad a leak?”
“Three decks were irradiated in an instant. It has to be bad.”
She nodded to the communications officer. “Give them permission to drop from formation. I will want a full report later.”
“Yes Navarch,” he said, turning back to relay the message.
Three decks irradiated.
She shook her head. A nasty leak. She hoped that she didn’t lose the whole ship over it. While the Kin was only one of her destroyers, any loss on this operation was to be considered a significant blow. They needed every gun they could fly, at least until they’d worked out the nature of the anomalies in this sector of space.
Misrem turned her focus back to the ongoing game she was playing with the Oather captain.
“Dispatch all other destroyers to intercept the Oather ship, maximum acceleration, best possible vector,” she ordered tensely.
Your move, Misrem thought as she glared at the rapidly closing dot on the screens.
Whatever the
enemy was up to, she would learn it soon enough.
One way or another.
► “Enemy ship is slowing, Captain,” Hela announced, looking over at him with some surprise. “It looks intact, but they’re no longer accelerating.”
He nodded, not looking up.
Drey had been in charge of more than one singularity reactor during his career, not to mention the drive elements that all Priminae and, it seemed, Imperial ships were based on. Knowing how to calculate for gravitic interference was among the most basic skills he’d learned early on. Completely eliminating all the effects of such interference was basically impossible due to a number of variables that he would need access to the enemy computers to properly calculate. But he could do a fair job of ensuring the nuclear shells of the transition cannons at least reintegrated within a few hundred meters of the intended target.
It wouldn’t be enough to ensure that any of the bombs would be functional, sadly, but the level of radiation it would spread around the decks of a vessel would throw every alarm imaginable into screaming action and scare the abyss out of the crew in the process. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure it would do much more than that, and while he was pleased it had worked, he’d been hoping for better.
“Captain! The smaller enemy ships have shifted course. They are maneuvering to intercept us,” Hela announced, scowling at the screens.
“What is wrong?” he asked, recognizing that she was holding something back.
“They’ve accelerated more than I would have expected them capable of,” she admitted. “I am not certain we can entirely evade them.”
“Shift course to evade, best possible vector, full military acceleration,” he ordered instantly, without looking at the data.
Only once they had shifted course did he pull the data up to examine it himself. Drey whistled softly as he saw the acceleration curves on the smaller ships. They were considerably higher than he’d projected, which spoke of a significantly higher power-to-mass ratio than he had thought possible. He ran the numbers and grimaced as he came up with the same results Hela had spotted.
There were only nineteen of them now. The one he had targeted was still on a ballistic course with its drive either shut down or running at minimum power. He didn’t want to bet, however, that the Tetanna could take on nineteen enemy ships, even smaller ones.
Thankfully, they would only be able to get a minimal glancing engagement.
Drey grimaced, irritated at himself, knowing that he’d put his ship in danger because he felt like he had to do something. Now he and his crew would have to live with the decision.
You’re a damn fool, he thought.
► Navarch Misrem noted the converging tracks with satisfaction, a smile on her lips as she crunched the numbers carefully.
They would have a limited engagement period at extreme range, but for several minutes, the Oather ship would indeed be within their range. It would not be enough for a kill with a normal squadron, but with nineteen destroyers all focusing their fire on one target, the odds were much better.
“Adjust our course to back up the destroyer screen,” she ordered.
They wouldn’t be able to intercept the ship themselves under normal circumstances, but if the destroyers got lucky, she wanted to be there to capitalize on the moment.
The planet, for the moment at least, was set aside.
Either way, Misrem was well aware that she would have plenty of time to decide its fate once this encounter was ended. There was no particular need for the Empire to do anything with it, so a passing bombardment would likely be the simplest solution to any potential witnesses. If the ship escaped, then there would be no need to go after witnesses, but perhaps a show of force and determination would be useful.
The next few hours would tell the tale.
CHAPTER 5
Priminae Core World, Ranquil
► Steph wiped his mouth and grimaced in disgust. He picked himself off the floor of his cabin, tossing the unfortunately soiled towel away from him as he walked back into the bathroom he had just left a few seconds—and several dozen light-years—earlier.
Normally he wasn’t prone to transition sickness, but this time he hadn’t been on duty during the transit and, being worn from his time in the simulator, had been distracted in the . . . shower, he guessed, when the warning sounded. The hiss of the mist shower had masked the warning enough that he had been caught unaware when he was walking across the room to his closet and the ship transited out of Sol space. As it turned out, his stomach didn’t much like being chucked halfway across the galaxy without warning.
The vomit on his towel and floor would serve as warning to be more aware of his surroundings the next time, he supposed, as he grabbed a fresh towel and a bottle of mouthwash on his way back to the shower booth.
There has to be a better way to do things, he thought, getting cleaned up again as quickly as he could before drying himself off for a second time. Being tossed through the deep void like you’re going through a shredder and being spaced in the process just ain’t dignified.
The transition drive was, unquestionably an amazing technology—no one could deny that—but Steph didn’t know anyone who actually enjoyed the damn thing.
Other than that crazy Canuck, he corrected himself, thinking of a shipmate from the Odyssey.
Bermont had been Special Forces, though, so he didn’t count anyway. It didn’t matter what country they were from; those guys were all touched in the head.
Steph knew that they would be in Ranquil now, and he could feel the slight hum through his feet that everyone swore he was making up, so he knew they were dropping downwell toward the main planet. He flopped on the bed after cleaning up the mess he’d made and briefly hoped that Milla had time to spend at home before they were shipped out again.
It was looking like it would be a long patrol, and no one would be home for some time once they got underway.
He was drifting off when he thought he heard an odd childish giggle in the distance. He shifted, opening his eyes to look around for the source, then shivered before deciding it was just sleep induced. He rolled back over and tried to get back to sleep, this time succeeding without additional auditory imaginings.
► “Commodore, you’re up rather late.”
Eric half turned as Heath approached from his left side, nodding to the commander.
“I just like to watch the star grow,” he said, gesturing to the observation windows.
Heath nodded. “I understand. It’s hypnotic, isn’t it?”
“And inspiring,” he said with a fond smile. “Especially Sol, though I find Earth less comfortable than ever now, so I enjoy watching Sol recede as well.”
She looked at him, seemingly intrigued by that response. “Most people look forward to getting home for leave.”
Eric shrugged. “I don’t know. I love Earth, but I don’t think it’s been home for me since I was given the Odyssey. I like it out here.”
Heath seemed surprised.
“I know,” he said, understanding her look, “but it’s what I feel. The black is cleaner, more honest. Every time I go home, I get pulled deeper into politics, and I’m beginning to be afraid that they’re going to try to promote me to a desk job on Unity.”
He had such disgust in his voice at that prospect that she laughed softly.
“I’m sure you could take a promotional spot instead, if you prefer?” she suggested lightly.
Eric shot his first officer a horrified look. “You are an evil woman, Commander Heath,” he told her in no uncertain terms, focusing again on the distant star that was now separated from the rest of the field, beginning to look like a sun as they approached.
“I do try, sir,” she said with a smile. “I came to see if you were up, because we were hailed by Admiral Tanner shortly after entering the system. I thought you would like to know.”
“Thank you. I’ll send a canned reply, then turn in for a couple of hours. Try to be fresh and awake when we ar
rive.”
“Good luck with that, Commodore.”
He gave Heath a sidelong look, then rolled his eyes. “Get out of here, Commander, before I do something nasty to punish you . . . like give you a promotion, perhaps?”
“Anything but that.” She waved to ward him off, retreating from the deck. “I’ll see you in a few hours, then.”
“You will at that, Commander,” he said as she left.
Eric took another long look at the growing star before he stepped back from the overwatch deck and headed back to his station.
The admiral’s greeting was waiting for him, as the commander had said. He tossed in a quick greeting himself and sent it along before closing the system down and getting to his feet. It was well after midnight, ship’s time, and they’d be putting into Ranquil orbit close to dawn, local time, as scheduled.
He would grab a little sleep and let third watch handle things without the captain looking over their shoulders.
► The Odysseus was a large ship, by any measure.
Built to contain and take advantage of a planetary mass singularity, the ship had odd sweeps and angles that would be out of place in any other design. But for those standing anywhere on the decks, it always felt flat and normal because of those oddities. Gravity was, by design, stable no matter where most people went on the ship despite the relatively steep gradient in the wave design of the singularity’s output.
There were, as always, exceptions. Two points on the Odysseus were able to maintain zero gravity due to the interaction of the ship’s cores, and a handful of other points had varying gravities where the wave interactions of the two cores would interact and either reinforce one another or cancel out.
At the moment, Colonel Deirdre Conner was working out in one of the high-gravity zones. It wasn’t recommended procedure. Even a slight increase to gravity could vastly increase the odds of injury, but she and her Marines had quietly staked out their preferred section of the ship—and its one and half times gravity—as their gym.
