The Kestral Voyages: My Life, After Berserker

by Steven Lyle Jordan

  “Sarander to bridge!” he called out. “Pod away!”

  “I have it!” Kestral answered, her fingers working over her board. “I read it’s decoy signature, operating as planned. Pod is assuming solar slingshot trajectory,” she said for Mark’s benefit. “Ten seconds to climb.”

  “We’re ready,” Mark replied. “Standing by.”

  Again, Kestral ticked off the seconds on her board. “Execute climb in four… three… two… one… now!”

  “Hang on!” Mark cried as his fingers danced over the controls. At once, the ship groaned, and Kestral felt at least thrice her weight push down upon her. Mark struggled to keep his hands steady as he worked, something Kestral could appreciate, considering she was holding on to the sides of the ops console with both hands. Somewhere behind them, a faint sound could be heard, rising in crescendo and insistence… it was Mary’s engines, screaming in exertion.

  In the cargo bay, crates started shifting about, pulling against the restraining webbing that held most of them in place. The few that were not appropriately tied down, began to slide towards the stern of the ship, some of them catching on some obstruction on the deck and tumbling loudly away. Tirri took turns watching her board, and the crates around her, while Sarander hung onto a wall strut near the now-departed escape pod’s empty bay. His neck craned upward as he listened to the ship’s engines wailing away, but he dared not try to reach them during their climb… it would mean a twenty-meter fall, into the stern bulkheads. He was helpless to do anything but wait for perihelion.

  On the bridge, Kestral and Mark now had the distinct feeling that they were lying on their backs… the gravity and inertial balancers had been overwhelmed by the force of their climb and the gravity of the star. Mary still protested, now about being stood on her tail along with her other complaints. But Kestral could see that other readings were starting to recover, the ship winning the fight against the star as she pulled directly away from it.

  “Perihelion in twenty seconds,” Mark stated. “Are we still on plan A?”

  “Yes, we are,” Kestral nodded. “Fifty degree port rotation upon perihelion, and re-insertion at nineteen degrees.”

  “Aye aye, Captain.”

  Kestral and Mark exchanged glances, and after a moment, smiled at each other. They did not have to speak between them: They were both feeling the exhilaration that came from pushing the envelope of possibility, and working as a team to overcome all obstacles; the singular feeling they’d both had, on occasion, as Rangers.

  Then, the Mary seemed to lose all momentum. Mark quickly turned back to his console, rapidly tapping out course adjustments. Kestral could not be sure, but she had the distinct impression that Mark had executed a backwards loop and a barrel roll, bringing Mary about to face the Abignon star. For a moment, the ship felt perfectly weightless. Almost all motion and vibration ceased, and the sudden loss of background noise left them feeling cut off from external sensation, much like being at the eye of a hurricane.

  ~

  The moment the ship began to lighten, Sarander detached himself from the support strut and heaved at the nearest access ladder. He could already feel the ship’s gravity shifting from stern, back to normal… and soon, he knew, to the bow. “Tirri!” he shouted as he climbed. “Those loose crates are coming back!”

  Tirri swiveled her head at the pile of heavy crates astern, which were already shifting their weight at the lessening of gravity, and which were poised to tumble directly into the cargo console where she stood. The feathers on the nape of her neck stood on end. “Oh, crap,” she muttered.

  ~

  Then, the Mary began to fall forward at a sickening rate of acceleration. As the vibration and rumbling began in the ship anew, Mark bellowed, “Hold on to something!”

  Kestral was glad there was no forward port to stare at: Even if it wasn’t absolutely blinding, the sight of boring straight into a star was not something any human really wanted to see. She felt her heart racing, and her breath was caught in her throat, the beginnings of a mild panic setting in. Ship’s gravity was rapidly shifting forward, until she felt sure she was about to pitch over the console and land headlong onto the bulkhead directly in front of Mark.

  She squeezed her fingers into the sides of the ops console, until she was sure they would begin to break off at the ends, one by one. But the pain gave her something to focus on, something besides the incredible folly of deliberately falling at a star.

  ~

  Tirri yelped when the first webbing line snapped and whipped across the deck. The loss of that line was just enough to allow the crates to shift about, putting their weight upon the center of the rest of the webbing. If the webbing failed now, it would be as if the crates were falling straight down, onto her head. Tirri had little choice now.

  She bolted for the cargo bay doors.

  ~

  Mary roared. Mark’s face was a mask of desperate concentration, his eyes wide and wild behind the goggles, his lips pursed in concentration. One hand gripped the side of the console for support, while the other worked his controls. Over the ship’s protestations, Mark had to shout, “Pulling out of dive! Re-insertion at… ten degrees!” His hands stabbed about, tactilely shouting at Mary’s controls. “Fourteen degrees!”

  Kestral watched her board and measured Mary’s progress. They were pulling out of their climb, but not fast enough.

  “Sixteen degrees!”

  “We need nineteen degrees!” Kestral cried.

  “Sarander!” Mark bellowed. “I need power!”

  They heard no response from the intercom. Mark and Kestral looked at each other, and shouted in unison, “Sarander!”

  ~

  Sarander had gained the engine room deck, and raced forward to the engine room hatch. Unfortunately, the Mary was now pitching down and racing at the star, and Sarander found that the deck he was racing along was now pitching downward at a wild angle. He was practically falling forward at breakneck speed.

  When he knew he could not run any longer, he simply jumped upward… or in this case, outward. Sarander pitched downward, arching over the now-almost-vertical deck, and he twisted himself about to face the engine room hatch. He snapped out his hands as he reached the hatch, barely snagging his fingers on its edge. His grip held, and his body slammed into the bulkhead, the impact forcing a painful bleat out of him. Still, he hung there, gritting his teeth against the pain in his arms, the lack of breath in his lungs, and the stars exploding behind his eyelids.

  ~

  Tirri heard the second webbing line snap, a split-second after she moved. Then three more, so close together that they almost sounded like one. The crates plummeted at her.

  Tirri focused on the door, and ran for all she was worth. She was fast… as a rule, all Avians were endowed with quick reflexes, one of the genetic alterations done to adapt them to their homeworld. Any unaltered human would have been proud to be able to move as fast as she had, from a standing stop.

  But she wasn’t sure it would be fast enough.

  As she approached the bay door, she realized quickly that she would not get the door open in time to avoid being crushed. Already, loose atronics components from the crates they had left open were reaching the bulkhead, forcing Tirri to break stride to avoid them. If more loose components fell in her way—

  And in a flash, she realized she might have a chance. Eyes wide, she risked a glance at the falling wall of crates. When she saw what she was looking for, she took one step to re-orient herself, and leapt.

  ~

  Somewhere, Sarander heard a voice calling out to him from seemingly everywhere at once. He barely recognized his own name, along with a string of other words that made no sense to him. But he used it to bring focus back to his world, and slowly opened his eyes. He still hung at a crazy angle against the ship’s bulkhead, one foot barely able to reach the almost vertical floor now next to him. He instinctively used that foot to gain a toehold, and with a groan that rivaled that of the ship it
self, used it to pull himself upward to the edge of the engine room hatch.

  He levered himself over the hatch and fairly tumbled in, losing his hold on the hatch almost immediately. Fortunately, the bulkhead wall was fairly close to the hatch, and he only slid a few meters before slamming back-first into a console. He yelped in pain again, and it took a moment before he could orient himself.

  Again, he heard his name. “Sarander!”

  Focus came more quickly this time. It was the intercom… Kestral and Mark, shouting at him from the bridge. Sarander turned himself over, as he was practically kneeling on the control consoles against the forward bulkhead, and scanned his readouts. The ship’s systems were already past most of the redlines, but it was clearly not enough. At their present attack angle, Mary would soon plunge into the star, ending their first job together rather definitely.

  Sarander began crawling about on hands and knees, making adjustments to his boards at a pace that only someone who knew the ship intimately could have approached. Then he slapped at a large, orange plate, releasing the automatic inhibitors that were designed to prevent a meltdown in the engines.

  And he shouted, “Give it all she’s got!”

  ~

  Kestral and Mark felt the difference in the Mary’s power output, as well as a new harmonic in the chorus of noise that had become their entire world.

  “Give it all she’s got!”

  Mark responded to Sarander’s voice by stabbing at the controls again, as Kestral watched their course. “Seventeen degrees!” Mark called out quickly, the lines on his face beginning to un-knot themselves. “Eighteen degrees!”

  “Come on… come on…” Kestral watched the navigational display, as their terminal course slowly altered itself. Bit by bit, the curve of their trajectory opened, flattened, widened, until suddenly, it did not touch the Abignon star, but prescribed a clean arc around it.

  “Nineteen degrees!” Mark cried triumphantly.

  “Increasing velocity… approaching slingshot point,” Kestral reported. “I’m activating the second decoy signal now.” She looked at Mark. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

  ~

  On board the Raian ship, the bridge was silent. Officers watched their sensor stations, while K’silk watched all of them, and his own navigation board.

  “First Officer! I have a contact!”

  K’silk turned to the officer’s station. “Report.”

  “It is the Oan freighter, breaking orbit from around the star.” The Second Officer converged on his station to examine the readings. “We have a positive track on its course for the first planet of the system.”

  “Interception course,” K’silk ordered. “Lock sensors and targeting systems on the freighter.”

  The L’t’meriad came about and began to accelerate. The helm officer reported, “We will be within interception range within ten measures.”

  K’silk said, “Good. Bring the weapons online—”

  “First Officer,” the Second Officer interrupted. “Something is wrong with this reading.”

  “Wrong?” K’silk left the command station and approached the sensory station. “What is wrong?”

  The Second Officer pointed a bony finger at the monitors, indicating reading figures and broken graphs. “Here… here… and here, First Officer. There is a signal from another type of craft. It only happens intermittently, but when it does, it replaces the signal from the freighter.”

  “Replaces? What do you mean?”

  The Second Officer turned to K’silk. “From this distance, our sensors record specific readings of power outputs and spectral profiles, which our systems recognize as belonging to a particular type of ship. These readings,” he pointed to the more regular signal, “are those of an Oan freighter. However, these new signals that occasionally appear are from a much smaller craft. Perhaps a shuttle or an emergency landing craft.”

  K’silk examined the readings. “Is the lesser signal regular?”

  “No, First Officer,” the sensory officer replied. “It seems to come forth irregularly, and only for minute periods at a time.”

  K’silk examined the screen, and looked to his Second Officer. “If one reading irregularly appears behind the other…”

  “A feint,” the Second Officer finished for him. “They are using one signal to mask the other.”

  “Officers!” K’silk snapped. “Reset sensors! Scan for another craft, immediately!”

  It took only a few moments before one of the sensor officers called out: “First Officer! I have a new contact!”

  K’silk and his second officer rushed to the sensor station. “I read a small craft, First Officer, breaking from the star’s orbit at a fifty degree inclination from the first reading’s orbit. The size of a shuttle or—”

  “No, wait!” The Second Officer pointed at the readings. “There! And there! An irregular reading of a much larger craft.”

  “Masked by the overriding reading of a small craft,” K’silk confirmed. “Another feint. That is the true freighter!” He wheeled on his helm officer. A glance at his readings confirmed that they were heading away from the new reading rapidly. “Can we still intercept?”

  “It will be close,” the helm officer stated.

  “Change course!” K’silk ordered. “Maximum burn! We must intercept the freighter!”

  The Second Officer approached him, as the L’t’meriad came about again. “Is there a chance that the shuttle… the first reading… might carry the Oan expert?”

  “There is,” K’silk acknowledged. “However, an Oan shuttle does not have as great a speed or range of the freighter. It is more likely that the expert is still with them, and that they hoped to escape detection through their ruse. And if the expert is in the shuttle, we will still have plenty of time to intercept it, once we have destroyed the freighter. They have doomed him either way.”

  The L’t’meriad closed the distance between the two craft rapidly. K’silk watched the readings, which continued to intermittently change to disclose the freighter behind the more persistent reading of the shuttle. “Target all weapons,” he ordered. “Stand by.”

  “Weapons are locked,” an officer confirmed.

  “The freighter has seen us,” the Second Officer abruptly reported. “It is executing evasive maneuvers.”

  “We have them,” K’silk stated. “They cannot outmaneuver us. Close the distance.”

  The Raian ship spent a few minutes in rapid course changes, but as the Oan ship maintained a rough bearing for the first planet in the star, it was not hard to close the distance by increments at each course shift. Finally, a targeting officer announced, “We are within weapons range.”

  “Charge particle cannons,” K’silk ordered. “Confirm lock on target.”

  “Target locked.”

  “Fire cannon.”

  There was no recoil, no bright discharge from the bow of the Raian ship. However, on the various sensory systems, a stream of charged particles were recorded lancing out into the space ahead of them. A brief moment later, a quick, bright flash appeared on the forward screens.

  “Direct hit, First Officer!”

  “We are recording debris, First Officer,” the Second Officer reported from one of the sensor stations. “The freighter is apparently spinning out of control, and breaking up.”

  K’silk first turned to the helm officer. “Approach the debris at a safe angle.” Then he approached the sensory station next to the Second Officer. “Examine the debris. Find the technical expert. I want to make sure his body is obliterated.”

  They approached the site of the drifting debris, and visual screens could identify a cloud of gasses from the explosion. Other readings came in steadily. But after a few moments, the Second Officer began to shift about uncomfortably. “I do not read any bodies.”

  “Then the cannon hit vaporized them all?” K’silk asked. “That is… unusual.”

  “Something more,” the Second Officer said. “These readi
ngs do not seem to coincide with what we would expect to see from the explosion of the freighter. There is…” The Second Officer’s voice trailed off.

  “There is what?” K’silk prompted.

  “There is less of it,” the Second Officer finally replied. “Much less.”

  “What are you talking about?” K’silk rushed forward. “Did they jettison escape pods before we hit it?”

  “No, First Officer,” the Second Officer said, his body becoming jerky and jittery. “I mean that there is much less even than that. The readings of the debris left behind by the explosion… even including the gasses of exploded materials… are approximately equal to that of a small shuttle or escape pod.”

  K’silk jerked once. “But the readings…” His voice trailed off as he examined the sensor screens. Then he jerked again. “No!” he snapped in disbelief. “They were not false! The Oans manipulated their readings to deceive us!”

  He spun upon the helm officer. “Find that other reading! The real freighter!”

  “First Officer!” an officer cried out. “I have the first reading! It has increased speed for the first planet! It is almost within its influence!”

  “Interception course!” K’silk demanded.

  ~

  “That’s it… I’ve lost navigational control on the pod. They’re on to us!” Kestral switched the ops monitors back to sensors. “Mark, if you have any more to give me, now’s the time!”

  “We’re at full now!” Mark protested.

  Kestral examined her monitors. Moamet Jones’ plan to take advantage of their imperfect fake sensor signals, and use a double-bluff to fool the Raians, had worked. Their pursuers had detected the dominant sensor profile of the Mary, plus the intermittent signal Kestral and Jones had rigged up that masqueraded as the sensor profile of the escape pod. It had been Jones’ idea to purposely set the fake signal to broadcast only occasionally, for split seconds at a time. As Jones had surmised, the Raians had detected the intermittent signal and, suspecting a ruse, had made the assumption that the dominant signal—the Mary—was itself a fake, being purposely but imperfectly broadcast over a barely-glimpsed second signal—the pod—and intended to hide the ship’s true nature. Detecting the opposite combination, the intermittent signal of the Mary “underneath” the real profile of the escape pod, had given the Raians the confirmation to their theory. Jones’ plan had worked.