by Rupert Segar
Where have you been? Art asked
“When you were recaptured, I was trapped inside the sensor maintenance grid. But I managed to escape.”
The bubble of curly gold wisps evaporated. Art could see many officers on the bridge had turned off their crash fields. Most of the aides looked dazed but they were all engrossed with their consoles. The bottom deck of the hologram was littered with red tags, indicating damaged vessels. The Emperor lowered his crash field, looked at the hologram and scowled at Garth.
A claxon rang out two short blasts and an amplified voice boomed across the bridge.
“Warning: an unidentified vessel has emerged from the anomaly. Collision course.”
“Display,” shouted Garth.
The holograms flicked to a new view. The middle layer showed the planet, the anomaly and Orion. Streaking from the anomaly was a small ship; the dotted red trajectory line ran right through the centre of the flagship.”
“Ion cannon firing, all missile bays loaded, flux mines and gravity bombs ready,. Nothing will reach us,” said the Admiral clearly trying to boost the confidence of his shaken staff.
The top layer of the wedding cake holographic display flickered and changed. Art gasped in surprise. There, in close, up was the ship. Not five stories tall and over 400 metre long, but the ship as it was, more or less, when Art had first flown it. Slithers of silvered mirror were being cocooned about the craft.
+
On board the alien ship, Yelena and Lea, both wearing space suits, sat side by side at the main console.
“Ion beams reflected. They’re about to lose their cannon, all fifteen of them,” said Lea. “And they’re preparing to fire scores of missiles at us.”
“Some people just never learn,” said Yelena smiling.
The spinning holographic sphere at Yelena’s left shoulder stopped rotating and reversed its spin.
“Unfortunately, Yelena, they are preparing to deploy flux mines and gravity shear devices,” said the slightly mechanical voice. “Either of which could slow our progress considerably. They also represent a considerable danger.”
“I though you said you had a plan,” shouted Becky from the circular table. A filament cable ran from the table to the alien control device in front of Becky.
“I did have a plan,” said the voice emanating from the sphere. “It just doesn’t appear to be working at the moment.”
That’s the first time I have ever heard the ship express any doubt, thought Yelena. “You really choose your moment, ship!”
+
On the bridge of the flag ship, Art was gripped by the engagement but engrossed in an internal conversation. Voice inside his head was explaining how it had infiltrated some of the computer systems on board.
You said navigation, weapons, engineering and the rest were all kept securely apart from one another, said Art.
“Yes, but security is their weakness. If you remember, Colonel Garth appeared in the maintenance sensorium. The Empire’s preoccupation with security means officers like Garth can project images to any part of the ship and can interrogate any system.”
That’s how they keep check on everything. That’s how they found me in sensor control. But how is that their Achilles’ heel?
“I am not sure who Achilles is but let me explain. Remember, the Emperor kicked Dr Izal when you were unable to say anything about the ship? The Emperor was a security projection but he could kick the doctor. To do so, he would have to be able to feel his projection making contact with the doctor’s posterior. The projections are all interactive! That is their weakness.”
Look, you’re going to have to spell this out for me.
“First, I created some minor irregularities in the sensor maintenance system. Then, when a security guard came to see what was wrong, I used the interactive feedback link to infiltrate the security projection grid. Now, I can get anywhere. I have wormed my way into engineering and I’m working on access to power and weapons.”
“In the meantime, Art, you may want to hold onto your seat,” said the voice as the lights went out.
In the dark, Art felt his stomach flip over as his body began to rise from his chair. He gripped the arms tighter. The gravity gradient had been inverted. The lights came back on to reveal about twenty officers flailing in the air, tumbling towards the ceiling. Zero gravity training was normal in the navy but few of the aides had been prepared for the sudden loss of their force field harnesses combined with the change in the direction of gravity, albeit that the upward acceleration was considerably less than the 0.8 g, which was ship standard. The airborne officers were even less prepared when ship standard gravity was abruptly restored. They plummeted down at 0.8 g. many landing on top of colleagues who had managed to hold onto consoles or couches. Amidst the shouts and groans, the lights went off again leaving only the emergency bulbs dimly glowing.
“Time for you to leave,” said the voice in Art’s head.
Nearby, one of the Emperor’s guards had fallen to the floor still clutching his laser carbine. As Art tried to step round him, the marine groggily raised the barrel of his gun. A swift kick to the head and the guard was unconscious. Art looked around in the gloom. The Emperor had managed to keep in his seat. The other four marines were staggering towards their monarch. The Admiral was sprawled over a desk clutching his head. Colonel Garth had blood on his face. Good, thought Art, as he headed down the exit ramp.
A dog faced man with a squashed nose gritted his uneven teeth, untied his makeshift seat belt and followed towards the exit.
+
Art remembered being in the dark in the Quintox Library and being led out of the building by the pod. The instructions had been clear, concise and decisive. But now the voice in his head was unsure and seemed incapable of making decisions. Instead, Art was offered options, told where stairwells and lift shafts were located and asked what he wanted to do.
“Do you want somewhere to hide to await rescue? Or do you want an escape pod or shuttle bay?”
Art marched on taking turnings at random until he found himself back at the sensor maintenance room. It was empty. Once inside, Art sat back in the chair, his widgets began to whirr.
Right, can you show me what is going on and this time can you stop security spotting where I am?
“Cross connecting all channels from the bridge monitoring stations. Locking out security. Sensorium on.”
Instead of a series of panels showing the maintenances systems, a full navigation web was presented to his senses. The first item was location: Chimera sector. This is where the ship was going, looking for the aliens’ home world, said Art to himself. Did they find the Creators? Art’s inner eye raced across the fleet, nearly every warship was flagged red showing damage. He looked at the icon of the flag ship, Orion, and beyond to the mysterious object orbiting a solitary planet. In between was an icon representing the ship. Other symbols appeared with holotags, they were weapons. It didn’t look good.
Art remembered what it was like being plugged into the ship’s sensorium web; how he only had to glance at an icon for it to become detailed and explicit. The ship would always show him exactly what he needed to see. The web he was now looking at may as well have been scrawled by a distracted child with a crayon.
Can’t you analyse this for me? asked Art
“No, I am only a bundle of heuristic engrams and safety devices, but I am trying to access the bridge hologram directly.”
+
On the bridge, the Admiral and his staff were working in zero gravity. Colonel Garth had physically removed the power couplings to the gravity plates. The officers had lashed themselves to their seats with some of their clothing. It did not look very orderly in a military sense, but it was preferable to being dashed on the ceiling.
“Launch all gravity bombs and flux mines,” ordered the Emperor.
In the middle tier of the hologram wedding cake, the ship was ploughing through a field of inert missiles, sweeping them aside like so many
dead leaves. The flag ship could be seen spitting out mines and bombs in the direction of the approaching aggressor.
“Sire, those who oppose you deserve certain death,” said Colonel Garth. “If the flux mines don’t fry them, the gravity shears will cut them to pieces.”
+
Six decks below, Art was cursing the crude sensorium which merely showed him icons and tags and gave him no idea of what was happening in real space. The icon representing the ship and the tags representing scores of weapons were inching closer every second. The sensorium collapsed.
“Cloning feed from 3D monitor.”
Art almost laughed, with many officers stripped to their vests and tied to their chairs with their jackets or trousers, they looked like pirates. The comedy effect was nearly complete: the Admiral was hobbling about with one leg in a plastiform cast and a green bandage wrapped round his head. All he needs is a parrot on his shoulder, thought Art.
“Why a tropical bird?” asked the voice in his head.
Never mind. Just zoom in on the middle tier of the display. Show me the ship.
The image zoomed in and Art bit his lip. The ship was about to crash into a densely packed zone of mines and bombs. Art doubted the ship could survive. He remembered his training as a military pilot: a flux mine at close quarters would fry every circuit on a vessel; but a gravity bomb, effectively a mini black hole, could bend and distort bulkheads and snap a ship in half.
Art watched in horror as the little alien ship pushed into the volume of space packed with mines and bombs. He held his breath waiting for the inevitable destruction of the ship, his friends and his lover. The sense of déjà vu was too painful to acknowledge. For the second time in less than an hour, he was about to lose everything.
There were several jolts and rumbling from deep within the Orion. What now? Art asked himself.
“Gravity bombs are imploding in the bomb bays. Control of weapons complete,” said the voice in his head.
In the hologram, a series of black tags appeared beside the mines and bombs near the ship. Closer to Orion the tags turned red, where the armaments were exploding.
“Routing … coordinating … consolidating,” said the voice.
“Our communication link is complete,” said a voice with a metallic twang. A black and white, miniature version of the stripy spinning ball appeared in front of Art. “There is someone who wishes to speak to you urgently,” said the familiar voice.
A grainy, flat picture of Yelena’s face materialised beside the spinning ball. “Art, we’re coming. Hold on, darling, we’ll get you out.”
Both images flickered out. A large ham like fist closed around Art wrist. He turned to see a dog faced man with a protruding jaw and squashed nose, grinning broadly.
“You ain’t goin’ nowhere, you runt.”
Chapter 31: Keeping your head
An armoured frigate accompanied by five corvettes shot out of their dock on Orion, the Emperor’s giant flag ship. The corvettes were highly manoeuvrable, heavily armed but only lightly armoured. Their only job was to protect the frigate or be destroyed trying to do so. All six vessels were accelerating towards the stricken fleet, directly away from the tiny alien vessel which was still on a collision course with Orion.
“Looks like the Emperor is making a run for it,” said Lea.
“Is he scared of little ol’ us?” said Yelena. “OK, everyone, we’re decelerating, brace yourself for impact.”
“That should not be necessary, Yelena,” said the voice with a mechanical twang. “I have created an inertial dampening field in the cabin. Entry in four seconds.”
“Do you really think it’s wise to smash into a bomb bay?” said Becky.
The ship, still rapidly decelerating, entered the gaping and ragged wound of what had been one of the four bomb bays on the flagship. After much of the arsenal in the loading racks had been triggered, an entire section of the outer hull had been blasted into space. Much of the interior of the bay had been warped, twisted and snapped by intense gravity shears, while all the electronics in that part of the ship had been fried by flux wave implosions. With enough space to spare, the small ship shot cleanly past the wreckage and smashed into the far wall. The weakened structure gave way as the alien vessel’s force field gouged a passage into the interior of the flag ship. Finally, the ship ground to a halt.
The iris lock in the side of the small ship flexed open and a pod flew out followed by Yelena and Lea. The pod was different from the ones the two humans had seen before. In fact, none of them were sure whether the pods they had previously encountered were the same one or not. The ship’s ambiguity when talking about identity made certainty impossible. Nevertheless, this pod was definitely new. It was dark red not white and had a thick black disk strapped around its egg shaped waist, from which it launched a volley of dart like projectiles.
“Air seal complete,” said the familiar voice from its new face. “drones launched and Becky is monitoring.”
“Hi, I’ve got them,” said Becky’s voice relayed from the control cabin on the alien ship. “The route to Art is clear, and it’s less than 100 metres, but they’ve set up a force field barricade and it’s crawling with marines.”
In the throne room with its impossibly high vaulted ceilings, Art was kneeling uncomfortably with his hand bound behind his back. Around his neck was an explosive charge the size of a handkerchief. This was attached to a short stick and handle being held by the dog faced man.
“All I gotta do is let go of this here handle,” said the snub nosed goon, “and your head will pop off like a Champaign cork. ‘Cept it would be red wine bubbles not white bubbles shooting all over.”
“Quiet,” ordered Colonel Garth. “The Emperor is calling.”
A field comms unit was on the floor between the Colonel and the twenty marines guarding the barricade. A near full size image of the Emperor flicked into existence. The Colonel knelt before the image.
“Things are critical,” said the ruler of a thousand worlds.
+
The dark red pod hovered at the entrance to the throne room, just ten metres from the force field barricade. Yelena and Lea were either side, just a step behind. They were under fire but the stun rays from the marines’ carbines dispersed harmlessly centimetres from their target. A couple of low impact grenades were launched towards the trio, but the weapons were enveloped in small stasis fields and exploded harmlessly.
“I count about twenty marines with full armour and breathing gear,” said Becky’s voice relayed from the ship. “There’s an officer on a comms link. Art is being held by some thug in civvies. I’m sending some images.”
Yelena and Lea both had visors which allowed them to see the images. Yelena gave a sharp intake of breath. “They’ve got him in a bomb collar.”
“Can’t you deactivate it, pod?” asked Lea.
“No, the device appears to be entirely mechanical, there are no electronics to jam. I could take out the man holding Art.”
“No!” said Yelena. “It’s a dead man’s handle, literally. If he lets go, the bomb goes off. It’s a standard weapon for hostage taking. We’ll have to negotiate.”
+
“Colonel, they have proved themselves to be too resourceful,” said the image of the Emperor flickering above the comms unit on the corridor floor. “The dangers outweigh any potential advantage.”
“But, sire, they have shown themselves weak and caring, they have shown themselves unwilling to take life unnecessarily” said Garth on one knee and head bowed. “We have their pilot. We can force them to accept our terms.”
“We do not risk the Imperial throne. Drastic situations call for drastic measures.”
+
“Becky, take out the marines,” said Nicky, “but don’t touch the office or the thug, particularly not the thug.”
“Got that!” said Becky.
“I presume you can take down the barricade,” said Yelena to the pod. “We’re going in.”
Colonel Garth and his henchman looked on almost paralysed as the barricade dissolved and all twenty of the marines collapsed under a hail of tiny darts. A tall broad shouldered woman came forward stepping between the fallen bodies.
“Please, we want to talk, don’t do anything rash.” said the former Kargol navy, chief engineer. “We’ve only knocked your marines out, they’ll recover. We can negotiate”
Colonel Garth stood and faced Yelena and grinned. “Looks like we all want to keep our heads.”
“Colonel,” said the voice from the comms image, now breaking up with static. “There will be no negotiating.”
“Sire, we are in strong position.”
“Your optimism is commendable, Garth, as is your sacrifice. On leaving Orion, I ordered some of my guard to set the manual self-destruct. Your failure to tackle this very annoying little ship will be the death of you, Colonel.”
At these words, alarm bells and claxons began echoing from all parts of the fleet ship.
“Auto-destruct in thirty seconds and counting …” came a flat voice over the ship’s tannoy system. “All escape modules have been ejected. Twenty five seconds …”
“Do something pod!” said Yelena.
“I am afraid this ship’s fragmented control systems are proving difficult to …” said the mechanical voice.
“Auto-destruct re-set,” said a similar voice over the vessel’s tannoy system although it lacked the mechanical twang. “Auto-destruct in one hundred days.”
Well done, said Art to the voice that was also in his head.
“Kill the pilot!” screamed the Emperor over his comms link.
+
On board his heavily armoured frigate, the ruler of a thousand worlds was in a rage of frustration. Never in all his years as the absolute dictator of an empire covering a sizable chunk of the galaxy had he been so thwarted. He felt impotent.
