Hunted (Space Rogue Book 2)

by Jay Toney

  I opened the ship's logbook. It was made with real paper pages, bound together inside of a leather cover. Its title, "Persephone," was printed with gilt lettering and included the date of its christening. So far, I hadn't entered any entries on its pages. It was my duty to log the ship's personnel, their assignments, and any significant events like the hidden base on one of the moons orbiting Nueva Zelanda and the places we visited. I stared at the blank pages trying to will the words onto the pages. It didn't work. All of the information, excluding disciplining Tanya and Natasha, were stored in the ship's database. Natasha kept a record of everything that happened aboard the starship. Maybe I could convince her to maintain the events in the journal.

  "Captain, our jump capacitors are fully charged. The Valley Forge reports that they are ready to enter hyperspace."

  I set the log book on my lap. "Set our course for the Coria system and transfer coordinates to the Valley Forge. Synchronize our ships and jump when ready."

  The Coria system was a little further away, just shy of eight light years. Our trip through hyperspace would take nearly eight days. "All bridge crew stand down. Report back to the bridge two hours before entry into real space.

  Natty, you have the controls."

  ****

  "Computer, activate holographic simulation Challenge #5."

  "The simulation is ready."

  "I thought you said we were going to workout together in a gym. This simulation doesn't look like any gymnasium I ever saw."

  "I didn't say it was a gym and this is a workout, trust me. Besides, it's a lot more fun than using exercise equipment. Amber and I have been doing this for years. She and I will go first to show you how it is done. Then you and Natty follow us."

  "It should be a breeze. I'm sure we can do anything the two of you can, but better."

  "Then I'll make it more interesting.

  Computer deactivate all safety protocols. Set gravity to one standard gravity."

  "A full gravity, you've got to be kidding?"

  "Amber and I usually do our workout at 1.25 gravities, but this is your first time. I wanted to go easy on you. If you want, I can increase the gravity to a level you are more comfortable with?"

  "I think one gravity will be enough. I wouldn't want Natty and me to make you and Amber look bad."

  "Then let's get started." Jewel led the way to three sets of parallel bars. The first bar was a few inches past her reach. She hopped up and grabbed the bar and started swinging her body. When she built up enough momentum, she let go of the bar and flew through the air to the second bar, barely catching it. It was positioned two feet higher than the first bar. The last set of bars was the same distance, 10 feet, and also two feet higher than the bar she was holding onto. Her swing had her going ventricle. She stopped at the top of the swing, then lowered her body to the top of the bar. She stood on the top bar and leaped across the distance to the third bar. Jewel caught the bar, swung twice and dismounted, landing on a platform two meters above the height of the floor.

  Amber followed her friend, using the same method. "Your next, Natty."

  "I think I will just watch. Synthetic people do not need to exercise. Our muscle tone and fitness comes from good design, not work."

  "Coward," Tanya taunted her partner.

  I was no gymnast. Instead of swinging from bar to bar, I climbed on top, carefully balancing myself while standing, and jumped. Pain surged through my left shoulder when I caught the bar, but I still managed to climb to the top for my leap to the elevated platform. My landing wasn't as neat as Jewel's or Amber's. I fell and rolled twice before stopping and getting to my feet. "What's next?"

  Jewel climbed the rungs fastened to the side of a tower. It wasn't a high climb, only a little over four meters. There was a small platform for her to stand on at the top of the rungs. Just within reach of her was a metal ring, suspended by a chain. Twenty rings were spaced two meters apart ending with a final triangular ring attached to a skate mounted to a track. The track curved around the room and came to a stop six meters from a platform.

  Below the rings and track was mud. Even though it was a hologram, the soil would act, feel, and taste like the real thing; it was also a long way down.

  Jewel grabbed the first ring and swung grasping and swinging from ring to ring. She had to swing a couple of times to build enough momentum to reach the final ring. When she did, the skate released. Jewel held onto the ring with both hands as it curved around the track. When it came to an end and stopped, Jewel used the momentum from the ride around the track to cross the distance to the landing platform. The hologram reset and Amber followed Jewel.

  I climbed the tower and grasped the first ring. I swung from ring to ring for the first ten rings, then missed the eleventh ring. I tried swinging to rebuild my momentum, but my arms were tiring from holding my body weight. There was no way I could regain my momentum. I was too fatigued; I had to let go of the ring. Landing in the mud was humiliating. Worse, wading through the mud pit was exhausting, and when I climbed out of the mud pit, filth completely covered me. "Computer, remove the mud from my body."

  "Unable to comply until the end of the simulation."

  "Let me out of here."

  "Unable to comply until the end of the simulation." I was trapped in here with those two loons and would have to finish the challenges. Natty laughed. I climbed onto the platform where my friends waited.

  "Okay. What now?"

  "Now we advance to the next level."

  "How many levels are there?"

  "Just four.

  Computer advance to level 2."

  All but the first challenge in this room were suspended above water. If I fell, at least it would wash off some of the mud that was clinging to my body. "The first challenge is of the mind and body. You need to blank your mind and have faith that you can do it. Take off your shoes. The rest of the challenges are done barefoot."

  Jewel, Amber, and I took off our shoes. "Computer, start the first challenge."

  A bed of hot coals covered the floor in a two-meter wide and six-meter long path that needed to be crossed to get to the second challenge. Jewel closed her eyes, did some deep breathing to calm herself, then walked across the glowing embers. Amber didn't do anything to prepare for the firewalk. She just walked across the hot coals quickly without stopping.

  "You two are crazy!" At least Doc wouldn't be able to accuse me of fighting with blisters and burns on my feet. I took a couple of steps, then hopped which made my feet burn worse by digging deep into the coals, after hesitating for only a fraction of a second I ran. I made it across the fire pit, but not without painful burns on my feet and ankles.

  The next obstacle looked easy it was an inclined tube, rotating slowly. We had to climb the inside of the tube to reach the last challenge on this level, a wall climb.

  Jewel ran across the shallow water in front of the tube, then scrambled up the inside of it to the top. She jumped from the small platform to a rock wall and climbed to the top. Amber followed her. I tried following. It looked easy, but the inside of the tube was wet and slippery from Jewel and Amber. I struggled, by the time I reached the top, I was breathing heavily. I jumped to the rock wall. I was an expert when it came to climbing, but I was wet and exhausted. My fingers were not able to grasp the small cracks in the wall, and my feet couldn't find any toe holds. I fell into the water below me.

  Jewel didn't wait for me to climb out of the water. "Computer, advance to level three."

  There was no mud or water on this level, just bare floor. The challenges didn't look as difficult as the first two levels. The first obstacle was four rotating, round platforms. Each one was slightly elevated and progressively sp
inning faster than the previous ones. Jewel jumped across the two-meter distance separating each disk. She danced on the surface of the last disk, timing her last jump to a landing platform. She waited there for Amber and me to catch up before continuing.

  "I don't like the next part." It was a tangled maze of bare wire with an obvious path to follow through to the end.

  "It doesn't look hard."

  "It's more difficult than it looks. Each wire has an electrical charge of between 50 volts and 200 volts. The voltage changes randomly on each wire. It's low current so that it won't hurt you, but it will give you a shock that smarts."

  "How do you get through the maze without getting shocked?"

  "You can't." Jewel screeched everytime a bare wire touched her skin, but she plowed through the maze as fast as she could. Amber followed but didn't scream nearly as much.

  "I don't see the purpose in doing this." Like a fool, I followed, cursing my whole way through the maze. The last obstacle on this level was simple. It was a series of four panels, typically used as climbing walls. Instead of climbing up the walls, we had to cross the panels to a suspended platform.

  "Computer, advance to level four."

  There was only one challenge on the last level, a twenty-foot tower that had to be climbed from the inside. At the top of the tower, a zip-line extended to the finish line. It took Jewel and Amber ten minutes each to climb the tower and ride down the zip-line. I didn't understand what could take them so long. When I got inside of the tower, I found out. The walls were smooth. There were only three rungs inside of the tower, two below the exit and one above it. To climb the tower I had to lay flat, pressing my palms and feet against the sides. I had to move my hands and feet a few inches, one at a time, holding my weight horizontally while I climbed. It seemed to take forever before my hands contacted the first rung. If it weren't for the zip-line, I would have been stuck on top of the tower until someone was able to climb up and rescue me. My palms and shoulders hurt too much to climb back down.

  "Simulation complete." The program ended, leaving us in a bare white room.

  "Natty, Let's go. I need to get to sickbay. When I get out, I am spending the next three days in bed."

  "What are you going to tell Doc?"

  "This time, the truth. Amber and Jewel did this to me."

  "He will think we were fighting again."

  "Then we will show him proof. Send him a recording of our workout. Mark it urgent."

  When we finally arrived at sickbay, Doc was laughing hysterically. "Tanya, you didn't have to go through so much trouble to visit me, but I am glad that you did. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time."

  "It wasn't funny."

  "It was; I forwarded a copy of your video to everyone aboard the ship so everyone can have a good laugh."

  ****

  Tanya made a shipwide announcement, "Condition yellow, all hands to general quarters!" She was sitting by herself at the communications console. Tanya made a point of telling me she was still too sore from her workout to sit with Jewel and continue her training. I couldn't help but laugh. I watched the hologram Doc sent me. Natasha did some creative editing to the hologram before transmitting it to Doc. It was one of the funniest things I can remember watching on the holovid. I was sure that Tanya hadn't seen it yet. When she did, there would be hell to pay.

  Jewel sat at the helm controls with Natasha. She felt more comfortable with Natasha's avatar teaching her.

  "Captain, my scans show The system is free of any of ships capable of interstellar flight. There is no evidence of recent freighter traffic and shuttle traffic is minimal."

  "Is there any comm traffic?"

  "All comm channels are quiet."

  It looked like we had a good chance of pulling this heist off. Lately, it seemed like my luck was failing me. Hopefully, my luck was turning around.

  I had the coordinates for the warehouses that were being used to store the treasure. I also had a good idea about what to expect.

  The Alliance was arrogant and overconfident in their ability to control people. They used fear and intimidation, fear of their warships and fear of their control collars. They maintained a large space fleet, but only a small army. Their ground forces were spread thin, and only capable of defending themselves from civil disturbances, not an actual attack by raiders.

  I had a plan. Ordinarily, I would execute the raid with two squadrons of Marauders. We didn't have that many Marauders or pilots. I had ten Marauders, but only a few pilots. That was more than I had available in a long time and I was grateful to Mike for supplying them. The Alliance conscripted all of our pilots and confiscated most of our Marauders for their military. It was hard finding good fighter pilots. The few experienced pilots still alive from the last war were either retired or working as mercenaries. That meant Doc, Natasha, and I would be flying the Marauders.

  If the Alliance stuck with their normal operations, they would have constructed a wall to surround the warehouses their ground forces were protecting. There would be defensive towers with antiaircraft guns, missiles, and energy weapons. It would be our job to take out these towers so our troops could land and finish the ground attack. Then we could confiscate their gold. Our raid would begin as soon as we entered orbit.

  "Captain, my scans show that two destroyers are approaching us. They were hiding in the moon's sensor shadow," Amber said, switching to short range scans (SRS)."

  "Captain, they are Alliance warships. Their transponders identify them as the Jackal and the Raven. The Jackal is hailing us," Tanya reported.

  "Natasha, do we have enough recordings of Captain Thornton's voice in our database to disguise my voice with his vocal patterns?"

  "We do, but our video images are out of date."

  Transfer his voice patterns to the communications console.

  Tanya, answer the Ravens call, audio only."

  "The signal is open."

  "This is Captain Thornton of the warship Ajax. What is the meaning of this intrusion?"

  "Identification is necessary; please switch to visual communications."

  "My visual communications are out. Surely you recognize my ships markings and its transponder signal?"

  "The Ajax is not scheduled to make the pickup, and you are a few days early. Your presence is highly unusual."

  "Problems with the rebel scum have made it necessary to expedite this mission. My ship was one of few ships available for the task."

  I signaled to Jewel to cut communications. "They are not going to buy this deception for long. Natty, be ready to bring our shields up on my signal. Amber, get the electronic countermeasures (ECM) and point defense cannon (PDC) ready.

  "All bulkhead hatches are sealed, and all departments report ready for combat," Kim reported from the bridges engineering station.

  "Jewel, signal the Valley Forge to drop back."

  Our ships continued their course. I hoped that the, we are all one happy family, rouse would fool them for a little while longer.

  "You are not Captain Thornton, and your ship is not the Ajax. Power down and prepare to be boarded!" The captain of the Raven demanded.

  "Everybody engage!"

  Our shields were raised in record time. Our gunners targeted one of the two destroyers and began firing. Amber brought up our ECM and began firing our PDC cannons at the warships. Our PDC was a part of our anti-missile defense system. At close range, they proved to be devastating against our enemies. Natasha fired four missiles at the destroyer.

  The destroyer's crew scrambled to their battle stations. They were caught unprepared for our attack. One of the warships veered off from the battle. The o
ther ship took substantial damage. Return fire splashed on our forward screens. Kim expertly rebalanced the shields keeping them at full strength. The destroyer's PDC destroyed two of our missiles; the other two struck amidships opening its hull to space.

  The damaged destroyer continued firing while its escape pods were jettisoning. The other destroyer turned firing a full salvo of missiles and energy weapons at us. One of the missiles was confused by our ECM and changed course, flying off into space harmlessly.

  "I've got control of two," Amber announced, she changed the target information, redirecting the missiles back to their source. Our PDC fired briefly, destroying the last missile. Natasha fired another volley of missiles, two at each target. Our gunners concentrated their fire at the bridge of the undamaged destroyer.

  The destroyer's Weapons Systems Officer (WSO) tried to regain control of its missiles then tried shooting them down with their PDC. Their PDC would not engage the missiles; their own IFF signal stopped them from locking onto them. The missiles struck the bow of the destroyer, damaging its launch tubes, sensors, and armor plating. Wisps of atmosphere could be seen venting into space.

  Two of Natasha's missiles struck the severely damaged destroyer finishing it off. The explosions from our missiles, followed by secondary explosions from its ammunition, reduced the warship to a lifeless hulk. The remaining starship turned to flee, but it was too late. Natasha's missiles detonated astern destroying its engines, leaving the ship to drift helplessly.

  "Natasha, override the destroyers command functions, power it down to minimum life support."

  "Aye, Captain."

  "Jewel, open a hailing frequency to the Valley Forge."

  "Captain Jenkins is on the main viewscreen standing by.

  "Captain Jenkins, secure the destroyer for towing."

  "What about the prisoners?"