Deep Magic - First Collection

by Jeff Wheeler

  “You must have interesting cargo to come all the way out here,” she said.

  After a lengthy pause, the Alcaltan freighter replied, “It is like home out here.”

  Hitomi made a noncommittal statement as though nothing was amiss, but the rest of the bridge held its collective breath, the air so still that the silence was only broken by Hitomi’s inane chatter.

  This was our transport!

  “I’ve got target locks down the length of the lead cruiser,” said Peter. “Their distortion field will probably knock out the first volley, but we’ll have a second before they can redirect.”

  “Should I continue approach, or turn the ship?” asked Manuel.

  Peter shook his head. “Don’t turn until after we fire the first two volleys.”

  “We can’t use the side cannons from this position though.”

  “If we turn, they’re going to notice we’re up to something. We’ll lose any chance of surprise!” Peter swung in my direction. “Alexa, do I have permission to power up the weapons?”

  I gave a stiff nod. “Do it.”

  Hitomi continued to speak over the comm as though nothing was amiss, but I could tell something had changed in the demeanor of the freighter. It sounded eerily like hope, and if it was clear enough for a pidgin speaker like me, it must be blazingly obvious to the patrol.

  A harsh voice cut in demanding to know why our weapons systems were online.

  Hitomi insightfully pointed out that the Alcaltan patrol already had their weapons up, and we were only trying to help.

  They probably wouldn’t be able to recognize that our cannons were directed at them at such a distance, but our weapons coming up at the same time as the transport was getting optimistic wasn’t a good sign.

  “Weapons charged!” said Peter.

  All the moisture went out of my mouth. “Fire.”

  A wave of long-range Fulmi-class missiles launched from half our forward cannons, then a moment later, the second round fired from the other half. The high-energy exhaust cones of the first wave made for the ideal smokescreen for the second. It was a tactic we had developed late in the war in an attempt to overcome the Alcaltans’ distortion technology. Their command of gravity allowed them to warp space at points around their ship, diverting the direction of the missiles and causing them to miss.

  Common sense said the Alcaltan cruiser would shunt the oncoming missiles at its flank above or behind it, so they wouldn’t endanger the other ships in its patrol group or accidentally shoot down the transport. Once the hidden second wave of missiles closed in on the Alcaltan cruiser, they would execute a burn to redirect themselves around to the front of the ship, bypassing the warped space before the Alcaltans could see the new threat and set up a second gravity well. It should be a solid hit. Peter had done this before on the Bloodborne as Nathan’s junior.

  “Five minutes until impact,” said Peter.

  “Any reaction from the Alcaltans?” I asked.

  “The targeted cruiser is changing its heading,” said Valerie. “The other cruiser and the corvette are still in pursuit of the transport.”

  Manuel muttered a curse.

  “They’ve cut the line,” said Hitomi. “I can’t raise the freighter anymore.”

  I grimaced. “It’s not going to be able to outrun them.”

  “The targeted cruiser has returned fire!” said Valerie. “They’ve got better propulsion than us. We’re looking at ten to twenty missiles in three minutes!”

  “Distortion field is ready,” said Peter. “I have gravity-well creation set to staccato just in case they try our own tactic on us.”

  “That’s risking a hit! We’re a frigate, not a dreadnought.”

  He grunted and shifted in his seat. “We should be able to take one or two hits without compromising the hull, but we won’t want to risk an unprotected second wave. I’d rather take a fifty-fifty chance of minor damage than a ten percent chance at a fatal hole in the hull.”

  “Nathan wouldn’t go for that,” said Valerie, but she shot her glance at me rather than Peter.

  When I did not immediately reply, Hitomi asked, “What should we do?”

  And I realized that I needed to be the one to answer that. The cruiser we had shot at was turning to engage. It had been traveling lengthwise to us, allowing the use of its more numerous side cannons, so it if was turning, that could only mean that it had a fixed main cannon it wished to engage. I thought of the Bloodborne’s own implosion cannon, and a chill settled around me. The cruiser should be too small for such a weapon, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be lethal.

  “Two minutes until impact,” said Valerie.

  “Three for ours,” said Peter.

  Staccato creation would be no good against a main cannon. A grav cannon would be capable of powering through all but the strongest of gravity wells. The staccato defense was like slapping willy-nilly at the missiles. It allowed the space distortion to be done quickly by making smaller wells with little strength behind them, so it was capable of reacting fast enough to catch a stealth wave, but also risked not being powerful enough to divert any one missile.

  “Commander!” This time it was Manuel.

  “One minute,” said Valerie.

  Hitomi echoed her countdown, broadcasting to the rest of the ship and calling all crews to secure themselves.

  “Change it!” I said, turning to Peter. “Change the distortion to full!” I could see him hesitate and shouted, “They’re firing the main cannon!”

  He was on it before the last word came out of my mouth.

  “Impact in twenty seconds,” said Valerie.

  “Distortion set,” said Peter. “We’d better hope they don’t have a stealth wave.”

  “Ten seconds!”

  “Don’t forget to secure yourself too, Commander,” said Hitomi.

  I’d forgotten, and I quickly snapped on my harness.

  If there was only one wave of missiles, they would be shunted aside by the well and we would feel nothing. But if there was a stealth wave . . .

  “Missiles deflected—”

  Peter did not have a chance to finish before we felt the impact of the stealth wave rocket up from below us. The lights flickered as we teetered in our seats. Then a second impact rippled through us, turning stomachs and making more than one of us hold our heads from nausea. The distortion field had dampened the full force of the main cannon.

  “Heads up,” said Valerie. “I’m registering heat from their main cannon. They’re going to give us another shot.”

  “And this time they’ll time it better with the missiles,” said Peter.

  Die by a rain of missiles or die by the main cannon. We couldn’t divert everything.

  “Damage reports are coming in,” said Hitomi. “Internal teams have sealed the bulkheads to the damaged areas. It looks like we’ve only lost—”

  “The corvette has changed course to engage. The other cruiser has almost caught up to the transport,” said Valerie.

  The lights flickered again.

  “Lost what?” I asked Hitomi.

  Before she could reply, the comm to the engine room lit up and Caleb’s sweaty face peered up from the screen by my station.

  “Alexa,” he said, “we’ve got a problem. That hit took out some of the wiring to the ship. We’re trying to reroute as much as we can to take the load off the damaged areas, but we’re looking at several local power failures.”

  “Which systems were affected?”

  “Gravity control. That’s the biggest one. The grav drive itself is fine, but we’re going to have to throttle it to make sure it doesn’t short out. We’re doing everything we can to make a workaround possible, but you’re going to have to be extremely careful—”

  “We’re dead,” said Peter. “If we have to throttle the grav drive, we’re not going to be able to run the distortion generator at full.”

  No. We can’t be. Not yet.

  “Missiles incoming,” said Valerie.
“Three minutes. Main cannon hasn’t fired yet, but it’s safe to say it’s being timed to arrive at the same moment.”

  Peter shook his head. “I don’t know what I can do. I can put up a well for the main cannon at the last second to avoid straining the electrical grid, but it won’t be very strong. It’s still better than nothing . . .”

  “Cut artificial gravity to the ship,” I said. “Countdown in one minute.”

  Caleb had left the comm open, and he barked an affirmative.

  Hitomi broadcast the warning to the rest of the ship.

  “You’ll have your power, Peter.”

  “Commander,” said Valerie, “the corvette has opened fire as well!”

  We couldn’t do this. There was just too much. I could hear the different countdowns, to loss of gravity, to impact, all of it a gray haze. What was I doing there? And then I felt my stomach lift and my hair rise. Gravity was gone. We had only seconds left, then the missiles hit.

  My harness cut deep into my shoulders as the ship rocked. I don’t know how, but Peter must have pulled a miracle with the gravity well, because we were still alive.

  “More casualties reported,” Hitomi was telling me.

  “One of them mine,” Caleb cut in.

  “Dead?” I asked.

  “Not yet, but she’s got a bad concussion.”

  “Three dead, two critically wounded,” said Hitomi, as if she hadn’t heard Caleb’s interruption.

  “We can’t take another barrage,” said Peter. “I could feel the distortion generator give just as I changed from full to staccato for the stealth wave. The ship’s shedding plating. Too many bulkheads busted, and the forward guns have been heavily damaged.”

  “Then the casualties?” I asked.

  “Mostly my team,” he said.

  Faces flashed before me. Without asking names I couldn’t be exactly sure whom Peter had placed at the forward guns, but it didn’t matter. I knew everyone who had come aboard. They had volunteered because I had a plan, because they wanted to rescue their families as much as I did and they believed I could do it.

  I looked at the scanner display, at the ships heading toward us and the cruiser suddenly on top of the transport. The freighter would never get away unassisted. What would the Captain do?

  “They’re readying a third salvo,” said Valerie.

  Peter raised his head. “This is it.”

  “Manuel,” I said. My voice couldn’t have been more than a whisper, but I felt it thunder on the bridge. “Take us out of here, fast as you can. Peter, whatever shreds of the distortion generator you can get working, use it to cover our rear.”

  “We’re leaving?” croaked Hitomi.

  “We have to,” I said. But no matter how hard I tried to put my family out of my mind, I could not help but picture my mom and brother cowering in that freighter, hoping to be rescued. I’d let them down, and I was sorry, so very sorry.

  But I had other lives depending on me, and they still had a chance to escape.

  “We’re too badly damaged,” I told Hitomi, “and I’m not going to risk the lives of any more crew.”

  “I’ll try to wag our tail as we go,” said Manuel. He would not turn around to face me. “If we’re lucky, the energy cone from our thrusters will smear on their display, make it a little harder for them to target us.”

  The frigate shuddered as the ship turned around.

  “Will we have enough power to get range on pursuers?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” said Caleb. “I’m more concerned about our hull integrity. It looks good enough for flight, but just barely.”

  I could see Varuna before us again, now that we had turned around. If we could duck around the other side, we might be able to earn a breather long enough to escape into deep space.

  “Speeding up,” said Manuel. “We’re gaining distance. The cruiser has changed its heading. It does not appear to be pursuing.”

  “But the corvette is!” said Valerie.

  “That thing’s moving fast. If it wants to fight, it’s gonna catch us.”

  “Peter,” I said, “can we hold against the corvette?”

  He shrugged. “You know what our systems are like.”

  Our display showed the corvette chasing us out of the solar system, closing in. In a fair fight it would be a close match, but it wasn’t fair anymore. Its crew knew we were limping, they might even be contemplating boarding. Did they know who we were?

  This was my fault. If I hadn’t come up with this crazy idea, our families would have continued living on Earth, not free, but at least alive. We wouldn’t have casualties on top of a failed rescue.

  “They’re gonna fire on us at any moment,” said Peter.

  “I know,” I said. We weren’t going to get around Varuna in time. “How are our rear cannons?”

  “Fully functional, but with the distortion generator compromised, I don’t know if we’ll be able to get any gravity wells up again once we let the field down. You can forget staccato.”

  “If we don’t take out this corvette, it’s going to be over for us anyway.”

  I looked at Varuna on the wraparound and then down at the monitors at Peter’s station. There was one reassuring green glow. One hope.

  Peter noted the same thing I saw and said, “I’ll time them. Distortion field coming down. Give me thirty seconds and we’ll be ready to fire.”

  “Manuel,” I said, “stop wagging. Let Peter line up his locks. We’re going to need to make these shots count.”

  “They’ve opened fire,” said Valerie. “Missiles will land in three minutes.”

  “Are we ready, Peter?” I asked.

  The missiles lit up Valerie’s screen. The corvette crew hadn’t even bothered with a stealth wave from the looks of it. They might have seen our distortion field come down and assumed it would never return. They could have been right. We were wide open.

  “Ready!” he said.

  “Then fire.”

  The ship shuddered with the force of the cannons. Our frigate did not bother with a stealth wave either, because from orbit around Varuna, Peter had triggered our missile pod, the second attack that the corvette would not anticipate.

  “Two minutes to impact,” said Valerie.

  “Distortion field is coming up,” said Peter, but it wasn’t rising fast enough.

  On the holo, I could see two sets of missiles tracking for the corvette, timed to land at the same moment from different directions. It would not be able to block both.

  “I think we got them,” I said. “If we make it out of this, thank you, everyone, and I’m sorry.”

  Valerie’s screen flashed red when the missiles hit us and took out what remained of our electrical systems.

  * * *

  The damage was not fatal, though for hours the ship was completely without power. We looked like a piece of space junk, which was just as well. If either of the cruisers had decided to take a spin back, it would have been over for us.

  Caleb was eventually able to jury-rig something once we no longer had the threat of death hanging over our heads, and he thought it would be enough to get us back to Pyre Rock. On our way, we were met by the Bloodborne, and our sorry frigate pulled into its shadow, accepting the escort home.

  The Captain requested my presence aboard the dreadnought and I took a shuttle over. The halls were largely empty, the crew focused on the execution that Earth broadcast into the depths of space just for us. I could not watch. I was the one who failed, the one who had risked everything and lost our families. I’d almost gotten the crew of the frigate killed. I was no Kellen.

  When I entered the Captain’s office, I found him sitting behind his desk as he had so many times before. He was watching the execution proceedings, but minimized the display with a gesture. I would have remained standing for the dressing down I expected, but instead he motioned for me to take a seat at the round table.

  “You knew we’d fail, didn’t you,” I said. “That’s why the Bloodborne ca
me out to meet us. We aren’t late by any means.”

  My Captain stood and walked over to me. His face was stern and I cringed beneath his gaze.

  “I would not have wasted the schematics on a fool’s errand,” he said. “You know how much those were worth. You sold them yourself.” He looked at me. “I did have some doubts about your success, but there is a difference between doubting and believing in failure. The important thing was your initiative.”

  To my surprise he pulled back the other chair from the table and sat across from me. “Ever since we lost Kellen I’ve been considering who would be best to replace him. It would have to be someone who knows my mind. Someone whom I can trust as an extension of myself. This was your test.”

  “But I lost! And some of my crew even died.”

  My Captain frowned, a shadow cast over his eyes. “How do you think I felt when we lost Kellen? Yes, you failed, but I think that is one of the most important lessons for a captain to learn. Think about what you’ve done in pursuit of this mission. You spoke with the crew. You bartered with the rogue Alcaltans. You commanded a frigate in actual combat and survived. You even took out an enemy ship. Sometimes you have to make choices, and they aren’t the ones that you want, but that is part of what it is to be in command.”

  He paused.

  “Did anyone ever tell you what happened when I first took the Bloodborne to rescue the colonists? The Earth government, afraid of what the Alcaltans would do to us, threatened to kill my family if I went ahead with the rescue.”

  “But . . . you did.”

  He nodded.

  “I had to choose between four lives and four hundred, and either way I would lose. I think you know some of what that’s like now.”

  “Captain, I—”

  “The frigate is yours if you wish to command it. I know morale is low, but don’t hold it against yourself. It was a worthy goal, and remember that every member of the crew who went with you volunteered knowing the danger. You did a fine job under the circumstances, and you now have a tested crew.”

  The frigate? Mine?

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  He regarded me, and I thought I detected a flicker of warmth that hadn’t been there before. “How about picking a name for it?”