“Hardsuits?”
“No, I don’t think that’s necessary. Thermopylae should have a docking boom. Pressure sleeves, ARC vests, CORE helmets.”
“Lieutenant,” Teo said.
“What?”
“That first freighter that came through? Looks like she’s chickening out. She’s accelerating back toward Thermopylae.”
Wyatt watched the tactical. Mozambique now followed a trajectory to return to Proxima Centauri.
“Get me Holland.”
A moment later, William Tell was on the comm. Wyatt cleared his throat. “You see what’s happening, Captain?”
“Yes. They’re spooked.” A moment later, he added, “I don’t blame them. So am I.”
“I understand, Captain. That’s why we’re here. Be advised, we’re going to detach our Javelin and board Thermopylae. We’ll see if we can start to unravel the lack of traffic management here. I appreciate the ride.”
“Good luck, Lieutenant. I’ll speak for my whole crew in saying that we’d really like to go home after we deliver our cargo—”
A different, harsher voice broke over the comm and interrupted their discussion.
“All vessels, you have entered a controlled area. Power down all reactionless drives and await further instructions. Freighter Mozambique, change your vector to one-one-three by forty-seven immediately or you will be fired upon.”
7
Thermopylae Gate
Alpha Centauri A
13 February 2272
Wyatt turned to Laramie. “Get buckled in.”
“Aye, aye,” she said. She threw him a strange look as she headed aft. Wyatt wondered if she was concerned more about the hostile threat, or the decisions he was about to make.
Teo scanned the telemetry on the holo monitor. “There, six o’clock high. She was hiding past line of sight.”
“Who’s hiding?”
He switched the monitor to the optical feed. The computer adjusted the zoom until they saw the unmistakable profile of a RESIT Fast Attack ship. Normally these spacecraft performed high-velocity interdiction of smuggler and pirate vessels. Why would one be guarding the quantum gate?
The deadly vessel slid through the void like a shark circling its prey.
“Do you have an ID on them?” Wyatt asked.
The copilot was already directing the onboard computer to profile the spacecraft. “DEFCOM says it’s FA-476 Razor,” the copilot said. “Part of Dagger team. Assigned to Jackal Company, on the Crusader.”
“And any sign of that troop carrier?”
“No.”
Wyatt wasn’t sure what to think of that. Fast Attack didn’t typically go into deep space without their accompanying cruiser.
“Is Mozambique changing course?”
“No. They’re still accelerating,” Teo said. He shook his head in disbelief. “Jesus. There’s no nav signal from Thermopylae. She doesn’t have anything to lock in his vector. Mozambique’s just eyeballing it.”
Wyatt felt the blood drain from his face. Maneuvering a freighter hundreds of meters long through an incomprehensibly expensive quantum gate was best left to computers. If the Mozambique’s captain misjudged the angles, there wouldn’t be another transit window for a long, long time.
“She’ll be at the gate in six minutes,” Teo said.
The words had barely left his lips when a red warning light strobed on the control panel.
“Weapons launch,” the copilot said. “Anti-ship. Looks like a drone package.”
The optical sensors tracked an oblong capsule rapidly closing the distance between Razor and Mozambique. A few seconds later, the capsule crashed into the hull.
“Hit. Right near the bridge, I think.”
Wyatt closed his eyes and said a silent prayer.
“Lieutenant, do you want to talk to Holland? He’s going bonkers on the other channel.”
“Okay. Open it back up.”
“—hell is going on, guys? Did your boys just shoot up that other ship? Are you listening to me in that little tin can of yours?”
“Captain,” Wyatt said. “I hear you. Take a breath.”
“What just happened over there? We picked up some kind of projectile launch.”
“What happened is that Fast Attack shot a boarding drone into that freighter, and it probably just finished killing the bridge crew. Now it’s going to plug in and take over navigation.”
The comm fell momentarily silent.
Teo changed the holo monitor back to tactical. Sure enough, the Mozambique began to change course away from Thermopylae and moved toward the vector assigned by Razor.
“Jesus Christ,” Holland said. “What should we do?”
Teo turned around and looked at Wyatt, obviously wondering the same thing.
Wyatt shrugged. “You should shut down your drive system like they said.”
***
Over the next ninety minutes, Razor herded the freighters onto a course that would take them further into the system. The Mozambique, now under remote guidance, remained behind for what Wyatt presumed would be a boarding and cleanup exercise. Wyatt had only been party to one drone launch in his entire career, and it had been a last-ditch response to a hostage situation. The way the Razor had so quickly used the weapon sent chills down his spine.
He decided to brief Laramie on what she’d missed.
“So they blew away the crew?” she asked.
“Yeah. Razor gave one warning. Then, whack.”
“They shouldn’t have made for Thermopylae without nav guidance.”
Wyatt squinted. “Laramie, they murdered an entire flight crew.”
“I get that, LT,” Laramie said. “But hear me out. If the freighter was even a fraction of a degree off, they could have taken out the whole gate. Firing energy weapons wouldn’t change the trajectory. What if the captain of the Razor thought he didn’t have any other choice?”
Wyatt tried to visualize the people he knew, acting under similar circumstances. “I don’t think that’s what’s going on here, Laramie.”
“How so?”
“Razor set up a surprise ambush. These freighters aren’t pirates, they’re legitimate, legal shipping vessels. This isn’t what RESIT does. Something’s not right.”
“Okay. Then what’s next?” She floated near a cargo net full of rations boxes, a reminder that they could be looking at an extended length of time in space.
Wyatt poked his head back into the flight deck hatch. “Teo, if we detached, how long could we remain undetected?”
“This close to a RESIT vessel? Probably not long. We’ve got stealth paneling, but their sensors will be good enough to find us. And if they didn’t, they’d see us when we did an engine burn—which we’d have to do unless you just want to end up wherever the freighters are going.”
Wyatt folded his arms and thought.
“Lieutenant,” Teo continued, “I’m not necessarily advocating for this, but any thoughts on declaring ourselves to Razor? Normal protocol would be to establish communication with another RESIT team.”
“Protocol doesn’t include murdering the crew of that freighter. No. I’m not ready to show our cards yet.”
Laramie nodded in agreement. “Thank God for common sense, LT.”
“Funny. I’m not sure you’ve accused me of that before.”
“Why would I? You’re an officer.”
Wyatt thought some more. “Okay. We’ll stay attached to William Tell for now. That means we’re headed to Juliet. How long before we make orbit?”
Teo did some quick calculations. “At current acceleration, assuming a midpoint turn and burn, about six days.”
“Okay. Keep us dark and let me know if anything pops up.” Wyatt stowed his CORE helmet. “Laramie, tell the guys to settle in, it’s going to be a while.”
“You got it, boss. Where are you going?”
“Aboard the Tell, to tell Holland what’s going on and keep him from wigging out.”
William Tel
l maintained a constant acceleration that provided artificial gravity for the transit over the next several days. Most of the troopers remained on the Javelin and cleaned weapons, maintained personal equipment, or worked out with elastic bands attached to the fuselage. Wyatt moved back and forth between the ships and kept them briefed with what little information they picked up from the sensors. He had less luck controlling gossip about Juliet, particularly with Carlos.
“Laramie, you’re from Piper’s World—what are we in for?” Carlos asked.
“Don’t call it that.”
“Call it what?”
“That word. It’s Juliet.”
“What’s the big deal?”
The fire in the staff sergeant’s eyes should have been a warning. “The big deal is it’s Juliet. Get it straight.”
“But isn’t Piper the one in the surveyor logs?”
“That man,” Laramie said, “may have technically been involved. But it’s Juliet. Don’t let anyone from Juliet hear you say the other. Including me.”
“Okay, already,” Carlos said. He held up his hands in capitulation and backed away.
The crew chief leaned forward from his chair outside the flight deck and whispered to Wyatt, “Lieutenant. What was that all about?”
Wyatt looked at him, again surprised by the chief’s greenness. “Do you know who Duncan Piper was?”
“Sure. You learn about him in school. He was the Longshot captain for Alpha A.”
“Did you know he went crazy and slaughtered his crew once they got here?”
“Oh.” The crew chief blinked. “I don’t remember that part.”
“Yeah. Piper was, what, twenty-eight years old when Longshot left? With three other crew that were probably even younger. The original idea of Longshot was to get the quantum gate to its destination, then once it was installed, use it to get back to Earth. Only that never happened. It took NASA a decade of tinkering to finally activate the gate remotely.” Wyatt reflected on how tempers already seemed a bit short inside the Javelin. “I suppose sixty years in a tin can push anyone over the edge.”
“But why is Staff Sergeant McCoy angry?”
“Julietans get touchy around the idea of their founder turning into a murderer. The reference Carlos made, calling Juliet ‘Piper’s World,’ would be taken as an insult. A bad one.”
The chief peered down the fuselage at Laramie, who was now cleaning her Vector with unnecessary emphasis. He nodded to himself. “Juliet it is.”
The days clicked by. Wyatt periodically watched the cockpit window as their destination grew from a tiny dot to something much more recognizable. At first glance, Juliet looked a lot like Earth—green and blue, white clouds swirling through the atmosphere, rendered by Alpha Centauri A in a color palette like that of Sol. Gradually, the differences emerged. Oceans covered significantly less of the surface and allowed the continents to dominate with their browns and greens. The massive ice caps extended further from the poles, a testimony to the cooler climate. And once a day, the shadow of the moon Romeo crept across the surface with a significantly smaller footprint than that of Luna.
The sixth day had the William Tell commit to a final deceleration burst that inserted them into orbit around Juliet. Wyatt climbed through the flight deck hatch once again to review options.
“We’re on approach to Gateway Station,” Teo said. “I bet Razor means for us to dock.”
Wyatt thought this might be coming, and he already knew what his response would be. “They’ll send a boarding party. I don’t think that moves our mission forward, do you, Teo?”
“No, sir, the brig does not move our mission forward.”
“All right. Let’s go groundside. We’ll see what intel we can gather down there. Prep for atmospheric entry.”
“Roger.” Teo started to cinch the safety harness of his pilot chair. “We’ll need William Tell to roll so we have some visual cover. I’ll coordinate with Holland.”
As the comm chatter went back and forth, Wyatt strapped into his own seat and switched on the tactical display on his holo monitor. They needed to make this as subtle as possible. Razor lurked behind them, a predator ready to pounce on the first animal to stumble.
“Docking ring is unlocked,” Captain Holland said from the freighter’s bridge. “You can separate at any time. Good luck, guys. Don’t forget about us.”
“Roger, Tell. We won’t. Godspeed,” Wyatt said into his microphone.
Teo’s hands wrapped around the Javelin controls. “This is Savage Echo One, begin roll in three, two, one, mark.”
Wyatt’s stomach resisted the new momentum as the freighter rotated along the long axis. Then the fuselage shuddered, and the Javelin’s thrusters pushed them gently away.
“Docking boom is clear,” Teo said. “Fifty meters apart.”
Wyatt’s eyes burned a hole into the holo monitor. Razor couldn’t see them at the moment, but neither could Wyatt see Razor. The measure of their success would be purely from inductive reasoning.
Teo spoke again on the comm. “Two hundred meters. Anyone notice us yet?”
“Not yet,” Dave said from the copilot seat. “Keep your wingtip to him.”
“Copy that.”
The clock ticked on. At twenty klicks, Teo changed their vector to track toward a landing zone outside Juliet’s capital city, Venice.
Wyatt saw a chevron for Razor appear on the tactical as the angles and distances played out.
“How long until atmosphere?” Wyatt asked.
“Ten minutes,” Teo said. “Deceleration in two.”
Wyatt forced himself to take steady breaths. Not that Razor was necessarily looking, but the odds of detection grew higher the longer the Javelin flew on its own. He prayed they could get down to the surface of Juliet and hopefully figure out what was going on up in the space around it.
“Time to hit the brakes,” Teo said. “Three, two, one, mark.”
Rocket nozzles fired and the Javelin jerked aft with a deceleration far more jarring than the reactionless drives of interplanetary spacecraft. Wyatt’s stomach did a strange little twist. For a moment, he thought he might need a sickness bag.
The chevron indicating Razor’s position suddenly turned orange.
“Uh-oh,” the copilot said.
Wyatt watched the screen with utmost intensity. “Did he see us?”
A pause. “Stand by. I might have to—”
BOOM.
The Javelin lurched forward into an uncontrolled tumble. Warning indicators blared furiously from the flight deck.
“Energy weapon hit, aft,” the copilot said, his voice perversely calm. “They hit the deep-space booster. Power loss in main lines. Venting gas.”
Teo had both hands struggling with their joysticks. “I’m losing control. Wyatt, we need to eject the booster or we’re done—”
“Eject it.”
“Dave, eject booster on my mark.” He waited a moment as their orientation spun closer toward the rotation he wanted. “And ... mark.”
Noises reverberated through the fuselage as the deep-space booster detached. The tumbling slowly stopped. But without the booster, Wyatt knew they were looking at a one-way ticket to the planet surface. The Javelin wouldn’t have the fuel necessary to climb back into orbit.
Once again, he was making calls that committed their fate. He thought of Father Bradley and said a silent prayer to God. Please give me the strength to handle what is needed.
Laramie shouted at him and he looked down the fuselage. She made a yanking motion toward her chin to don his CORE helmet.
“Time from last shot?” Teo asked.
The copilot swiped through the telemetry. “Twenty-one seconds.”
“Got it.” The Javelin lunged forward.
“Teo?” Wyatt said, his voice constricted by the sudden acceleration.
“Running for atmo, Lieutenant.” His tone was so cool, he could have been talking about tying shoelaces. “We have to do a ballistic entry. There are th
irty seconds before he can fire again, and I’m not waiting.”
At least God hadn’t forgotten that capacitors needed time to recharge.
Wyatt pulled on his helmet. The blanket of atmosphere would diffuse the accuracy—and lethality—of a second laser blast from the Fast Attack. But re-entry the way Teo intended meant a steep descent angle with a damaged vehicle. They very well could end their lives without the help of Razor.
8
Juliet Orbit
Alpha Centauri A
20 February 2272
It started with wisps of color outside the cockpit glass. Intermittent flashes of light became increasingly steady as friction turned atmosphere into plasma. The momentary weightlessness from orbit gave way to a gradual heaviness that complemented the blast furnace outside the hull, barely a meter away from Wyatt’s head.
“We’re too steep,” the copilot warned.
“Roger. Just watch the temp.”
Oppressive silence blanketed the cabin as the glow in front of the canopy became a steady orange. The smooth ride belied the danger. One mistake here and they’d be burned to a cinder before any of them had a chance to realize they were dead.
“It’s getting warm back here,” a voice called from the trooper bay.
The copilot checked the holo monitor. “Aft belly panel is reading fourteen hundred C.”
“The laser blast must have gotten part of it,” Teo said. “I’ll try to shield it.”
Wyatt blinked. He felt the sweat sting his eye sockets even though the neural stubs in his helmet bypassed his natural sight.
Indeterminable minutes passed. Teo pitched and banked as they descended at twenty times the speed of sound.
“Aft belly panel holding steady. Eighteen-three-forty.”
“Copy.”
Tension switched to terror when they broke the sound barrier.
The sound of shrieking wind enveloped the cabin as the flight computer fought to maintain control. The Javelin bucked like an angry animal trying to throw its rider. Four engines quickly added their howl to the symphony with a teeth-grinding buzz.
Escape Velocity (The Quantum War Book 1) Page 5
