The flight of the Hegemonics failed to outdistance the ships of the Chronotic Empire, each of which was now picking out an adversary. The Smasher of Enemies vectored in on a dancing wedge. It was difficult, sometimes, to sort out the flickering images from the wavering curves of the strat as they also showed up on the scope screen, but Aton never lost sight of it entirely. He issued a clipped order to the pilot.
The destroyer plunged forward in a new burst of speed until she overtook the Hegemonic craft and swung around to place herself directly in its path. The pilot rushed the ship back and forth, veering in close to the enemy and setting up a wash of discomfiting strat waves. In answer the Hegemonic darted away and tried to weave a path past the obstacle, but the pilot stuck close.
The beta operator depressed a switch and leaned forward to speak into a microphone. ‘Hello, gunnery. You have contact.’
The tense voice of Sergeant Quelle sounded on the bridge and was relayed by beta ray to his counterpart on the Hegemonic war craft.
‘Stand and fight; stand and fight,’ he ground out in a gravelly tone. ‘Here is our proposed location.’ He repeated his words in the Hegemonic language, while at the same time a string of recorded co-ordinates was beeping out on the beta beam.
After a delay of only seconds came a terse answer: ‘Agreed.’
The two ships sped away on nearly parallel courses, slowly diverging until they were both faint on each other’s scopes.
The front of the bridge ballooned in size as they slowed down. The pilot leaned back, his hands lifting from the controls; the steering-board was now under the control of gunnery.
A curious but necessary tradition of collaboration existed among warring timeships. The self-powered torpedoes they carried, though deployed as a matter of course, were so slow and cumbersome, so much at the mercy of strat disturbances, as to be nearly useless. To be effective a warship needed to employ its heavy-duty beamers.
But because no pure energy could travel in the strat this meant phasing into orthogonal time. A timeship that stayed in its natural medium could neither fire on, nor be fired on by, another timeship. For that reason ships willing to join battle agreed on a rendezvous where each, by leaving the strat, made itself vulnerable to the other.
The tryst (as it was dubbed) had to be both precise and momentary: a point in time without duration. How long a warship lingered beyond that instant in passing time was entirely a matter of discretion, comprising a ratio between estimated survival time and the minimum time needed to locate the enemy and focus weapons upon him. The tendency was towards microseconds, during which each combatant discharged a massive broadside. That, very often, was the end of the battle. A heavily damaged ship would be reluctant to emerge again from the protection of the strat but would try to return home.
All of which explained the crucial importance of the gunnery crew, who made these calculations.
On his desk Captain Aton watched the countdown to emergence in orthogonal time. The suspense was almost unbearable, yet in a way the battle was a non-event – one could not keep track of it in time, since it was all over in a flash. There was only the aftermath, either triumphant or dreadful.
While the minutes and seconds ticked off, the gunnery crew would be priming their comps for those vital microseconds. The battle bracket itself, too small for human consciousness, would be handled by the comps. Afterwards would come the frantic damage assessment by the bridge, reports, if available, on damage inflicted on the enemy, and a decision as to whether or not to offer a second tryst.
Gunnery made an announcement: ‘Entering ortho five seconds from now.’
The whole bridge waited in tense silence.
Then the Smasher of Enemies shook violently, reeled, and swayed as if spinning. Even without studying the damage board closely, Aton could see that something searing had penetrated her vitals.
He glanced up at the scope screen. The Hegemonic ship had reappeared there and was executing a peculiar-looking sideways manoeuvre. Its nearer wall was stained and bubbling.
Gunnery had scored a hit.
Voices came babbling into the bridge. Then, to his surprise, Aton glimpsed a second wedge shape hovering some distance away on the edge of the screen.
Sergeant Quelle’s hoarse voice came through to him on his desk com. ‘They tricked us, Captain! We were fired on by two ships together – caught in between ’em!’
Aton cursed. ‘Evidently a new tactic,’ he said wryly to Quelle. And a treacherous one: this sort of conduct was contrary to the unstated rules of temporal war.
He turned to listen to the damage reports. An energy beam had struck the destroyer’s flank, penetrated its inner armour, and burned a swathe reaching as far as the drive-room. Luckily the damage in the latter was less than total: the drive was still operating, though the orthogonal field that maintained normal time inside the ship while it travelled the strat was weakened.
Next he turned his attention to news of the rest of the battle. About half the Chronotic timeships had so far engaged the enemy. On balance, events seemed to be going their way. Two Hegemonics had already been destroyed.
His lieutenant leaned towards him. ‘It would be risky going into ortho again, Captain.’
Aton nodded, feeling the weight of responsibility. This was more than a skirmish: the existence of the city of Gerread depended on it, as well as the Chronotic control of a whole segment of history.
‘I’m afraid we shall have to take that risk, Lieutenant. Those ships have to be stopped.’
His voice rose. ‘Scanman, there are two enemy vessels in our vicinity. Range them both for gunnery.’
He contemplated how to take on two heavily armed Hegemonics at the same time. Somehow there must be a member of his own squadron without an adversary. Or had the Hegemonics adopted some complex chess-like formation in which their ships all covered one another?
A hint of a shudder passed through his mind at the thought that he might be seeing the first stage of a large, relentlessly unfolding Hegemonic plan.
He was about to speak to Sergeant Quelle again when a sudden movement on the scope screen attracted his attention. Among the wavering lines by which the screen represented the strat an indistinct shape was expanding swiftly.
A moment later the screen itself went blank and at the same time a horrifying explosion tore through the Smasher of Enemies. The destroyer shuddered for a second time. The nose tipped sharply downwards and the bridge caved in.
Before he deserted his desk Captain Aton verified that all com lines to the bridge were dead. Amid a hail of collapsing metal he fled from the room with the rest of his staff, helping them through the disintegrating door and leaving himself last of all.
He knew without any doubt what had happened. The flitting shape on the scope screen had been a strat torpedo which by a hundred-to-one chance had struck home. It was the sort of bad luck no chronman liked to think about.
By the look of things the torp could have hit the destroyer close to the impact point of the earlier Hegemonic energy beam. At any rate it appeared to have exploded inside the inner armour – within the ship herself – and had caused severe structural damage.
In short, the Smasher of Enemies was breaking up.
A frightening, tortured creaking sound came from all directions. Aton glanced around him at the twisted, heaving corridors. He grabbed the arm of his lieutenant.
‘Get to the com room. If the beta transmitters are still functioning try to raise the fleet and request help.’
The lieutenant went off at a lope. Behind him, what was left of the bridge folded up like a tin can in response to the pressures of the ship’s shifting girder frame. Its erstwhile crew moved closer to Aton as if for comfort. Up the corridor came the sound of shouting and a distant, pained groan.
Another, worse danger had occurred to Aton. It was possible that the Smasher of Enemies was now helpless; if so, one or both of the Hegemonic destroyers could move in close enough to fire more torpedoes at poi
nt-blank range. He seized another officer.
‘See if you can get to the torp section. Tell them to fire on the standard pattern, once every two minutes.’
For the moment there was no knowing, of course, if the torp section had even survived the explosion. There was no knowing if any system in the stricken ship was still operational – except that there was obviously still some power flowing: the lights still burned.
Comforter Fegele was on his knees, praying for the survival of the ship – and, Aton thought cynically, of himself. Irreligiously he yanked the priest to his feet.
‘The Lord’s vengeance has fallen on our vessel,’ Fegele babbled. ‘This is the price of heresy.’
Aton pushed him away and pointed to a white-faced young ensign. ‘Vuger, you come with me. The rest of you – get some rescue work organised.’ He spoke harshly, aware that morale was dropping. ‘There are bound to be a number of wounded. I want the situation stabilised for when we’re ready to move.’ With a last glance at Fegele he added, ‘The souls of the dying need your ministrations, Comforter.’
He went scrambling down the twisted ladder towards the drive-room, with Ensign Vuger stepping down hastily above his head. As they went deep into the ship the evidence of the destroyer’s own destruction became even more evident: walls that had bulged, then broken open like paper bags, lines and conduits that spewed everywhere like ravelled string.
But as they reached the bottom of the ladder and picked their way through the wreckage the lights dimmed momentarily and then burned more brightly than before. At the same time a nearby com speaker crackled. Aton mentally congratulated the repair crews; they had lost no time.
He paused by a speaker and managed to get through to gunnery. The voice that answered was not Quelle’s or the gunnery officer’s, but that of an ordinary crewman.
‘We’re blind, sir. And three of our beamers gone.’
‘Where’s Sergeant Quelle?’ Aton demanded.
There was silence. Then, in a strangled voice, the crewman said, ‘Deserted his post, sir.’
Aton left the com and pressed forward, motioning Ensign Vuger to follow.
They stepped over the bodies of two dead crewmen and into a scorched area where smoke drifted and the smell of hot metal was in the air. The bulkhead separating the drive-room from the rest of the ship seemed to have melted and only now had solidified. Within the drive-room itself there was fair calm, despite the destruction that had been wreaked. Aton saw the body of Ensign Lankar, who a short time before had been proudly displaying his knowledge of the time-drive, laid out neatly alongside one wall with several others.
To the searing effects of the Hegemonic energy beam had been added the punishment of the torpedo explosion. A gyro was stuttering and giving off a deep tremoring hum from behind the thick steel casings. Aton understood at once that the situation was very bad.
‘Are we able to move?’ he asked.
A young, officer, saluting hastily, shook his head. ‘No chance, sir. It’s as much as we can do to maintain ship’s field.’
‘What chance of phasing into ortho?’
The other looked doubtful. ‘Perhaps. Do you want us to try?’
‘No,’ said Aton. It would do no good. Even if they managed to escape from the ship, without the requisite equipment to keep them phased most of the crew would be thrown back into the strat after a short period of time. And there was clearly no possibility of cruising to the nearest node, where orthophasing could be made natural and permanent.
So it all depended on someone coming to their rescue.
How was Lieutenant Krish getting on in the com room?
He looked around for a com, found one that worked, and dialled. The com speaker crackled. A voice spoke through faintly, unintelligibly.
And then the floor rose under his feet. There was a whoomph, followed by a noise that vibrated on his eardrums to such an extent that he had the momentary impression of existing inside a deep, solid silence. Flung against the opposite wall, dazed, he watched in fascination as the floor and ceiling strained towards each other with a grating sound that made him think of giant bones breaking.
The blast of the explosion seemed to continue in a prolonged smashing and cracking. The collapse of the already weakened ship’s skeleton – and timeships always suffered a good deal of physical stress in the strat – was accelerating.
Lieutenant Krish crawled towards him and helped him to his feet. ‘Another torpedo,’ Aton said breathlessly. ‘I’m afraid we’re finished.’
The movement of the ceiling towards the deck had ceased for the moment, but he did not think the drive-room would be habitable for long. He staggered to the instrument boards. An engineer joined him and they stared together at the flickering dials.
The engineer hammered his fist on the board in frustration. ‘The ship field is breaking down,’ he declared woodenly.
‘How long will it hold?’
‘I wouldn’t give it another ten minutes.’
Aton went immediately to the com set and dialled a general alert. In a loud, firm voice he announced, ‘This is the captain speaking. Take to the rafts. This is the captain speaking. Take to the rafts.’
He repeated the message several times, then turned to the stricken faces of the surviving drive-room crew. ‘The ranking engineer will stay to do what he can to hold the field steady,’ he ordered. The engineer nodded, and Aton told him, ‘I will relieve you in five to ten minutes. The rest of you, get to a raft.’
Aton already knew that his own life was lost, but that hardly seemed to matter. It was his duty, now, to see that everyone still alive aboard the Smasher of Enemies made it to a life raft.
Before the ortho field failed. An almost impossible job.
The party advanced through the warped corridors, exploring the various departments and pulling survivors from the wreckage. The wounded they helped along or else carried on improvised stretchers. Aton knew that time was fast running out – even discounting yet a third torpedo strike, which, considering the evident helplessness of the vessel, seemed all too distinct a possibility.
When they came near to one of the ship’s six life-raft stations Aton took Lieutenant Krish with him and set off towards the stern. There was no certainty that his order to abandon ship had reached all sections; he decided he would make one swift reconnaissance to ensure that the order was being carried out in a disciplined fashion, then return to the drive-room and take over there, giving the engineer a chance to reach the nearest raft.
Near Section 3 they heard a commotion that sounded even over the loud creaking of the tortured girder frame. Aton drew his beamer, signalling to Krish to do the same. They rounded a corner.
Sergeant Quelle, wearing one of the ship’s only two protective suits, strode resolutely along the corridor. Behind him, like a swarm of bubbles in his wake, the heretics of the Traumatic sect ran in a chattering, terrified crowd.
Even through the suit’s obscuring visor, designed to opaque itself once in the strat, Quelle’s bulbous face displayed his determination to live at all costs. The gleaming brass armour totally encased his body; even if the ship field failed altogether the suit would keep him safe for a short while, maintaining a weak ortho field while its power pack lasted – long enough, in fact, to enable him to reach a life raft.
Aton and Krish straddled the corridor, blocking the Traumatic’s path. ‘Where are you going, Sergeant?’ Aton demanded harshly.
Quelle’s answer was a muffled growl. His followers, of whom he clearly did not regard himself as any kind of leader, clustered around him, eyeing Aton speculatively.
Quelle carried a crowbar with which, Aton guessed, he intended to smash the cage where the raft was kept. Aton fired a warning shot over their heads.
‘Sergeant Quelle deserted his post and has stolen a protective suit. Get out of that suit, Sergeant. You’ll take your turn like all the rest.’
And then, for the third, terrible time, an explosion smashed into the destroyer, h
urling them all sideways. An ear-splitting rending noise told Aton that the stern of the ship was breaking away entirely.
Quelle, with what must have been desperate strength, was the first to recover, brass suit or not. His crowbar swung down on Aton’s head. Encumbered as he was, the blow was clumsy and partly absorbed by Aton’s uniform hat; nevertheless Aton slumped to the floor, barely conscious. Quelle aimed another blow at Lieutenant Krish, missed, then swept hastily on, followed by the mob.
Krish draped his captain’s arm around his own shoulders and hauled him to his feet. ‘Get to the drive-room, Lieutenant,’ Aton mumbled. ‘Relieve the engineer.’
‘It’s too late, sir. Can’t you see what’s happening? The field is already breaking up.’
Aton, fighting to remain aware, saw that he was right. A fog-like flickering was in the air. An almost overpowering vertigo assailed them both, and the walls – in fact everything solid – seemed to spin on themselves endlessly. All these signs were sure indications of an ortho field going bust.
Krish half-carried Aton along the corridor. The lights went out as the power finally failed, then the emergency lighting faithfully came on to replace them, each strip drawing on its own power pack to provide a dimmer, yellow glow.
And then, through everything, Aton heard horrifying screams. His ship was foundering, sinking into the depths of the strat. He was hearing the screams of men who were drowning in the Gulf of Lost Souls.
Like men plunged from air into the sea, these men were being plunged from their natural, rational time and into a medium that no man could experience and stay sane.
After a few yards Aton steadied himself and, though still groggy, disengaged himself from Krish’s support. He leaned weakly against the wall.
‘Leave me here, Lieutenant. Continue … do what you can.’
Krish took his arm again, but Aton drew away.
Barrington Bayley SF Gateway Omnibus: The Soul of the Robot, The Knights of the Limits, The Fall of Chronopolis Page 50
