Star Raider

by Vaughn Heppner

  “I’ll have Greco meet the Lithian there.”

  “That will suffice,” Acton said.

  After Tanner shut off the comm, he concentrated on what he was doing. The laser had missed because he’d shut down the fusion drive at just the right time. Likely, the cruiser had advanced sensors. But the enemy was still a long way off. It was time to start silent running, trying to drift and sneak away to the hyperdrive zone.

  He pressed a switch.

  On the main screen, he watched the torpedo launch from the tube. He applauded whatever Acton had done, because the torpedo matched their velocity but only slightly changed its trajectory.

  While it was still in visual range, Tanner watched antenna and other instruments emerge from the decoy. Shortly after that, it began to emit signals, matching that put out by the Dark Star.

  Tanner typed fast on his controls. By the time the Coalition missile reached them…yes, the decoy and the ship would have enough separation. By the time the missile reached the decoy, if it went after the decoy, its blast wouldn’t hurt the raider that killed the decoy.

  There were too many ifs to this, though. Were they about to die or did Acton know his craft? One more decoy would push the odds in their favor, giving them a thirty-three percent chance of dying instead of a fifty-fifty chance.

  The trip had hardly begun and it had already turned into the worst voyage of Tanner’s life.

  -20-

  The next several hours proved tedious and tiring as Tanner remained at the controls. The cruiser tried hailing them. Tanner refused to acknowledge them for the simple reason that it would fix their position.

  The enemy missile no longer raced at seventy gravities. It coasted now, having built up tremendous velocity.

  The hailing became more urgent.

  “Maybe they want us to surrender,” Greco said. The apeman sat beside Tanner in the control room.

  Tanner shrugged. His eyes had become red-rimmed from a lack of sleep.

  “Let me spell you, boss. You look terrible. Go get some sleep.”

  “Soon,” Tanner said.

  Greco shook his head. “When you say it like that soon means three days from now. Come on, boss. How does being half-awake help you at a time like this?”

  “It doesn’t, but I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. So, I might as well be up here making the right decisions.”

  “Not that many to make at this point,” Greco pointed out.

  Tanner fiddled with the controls. “Oh-oh,” he said, indicating the sensor screen.

  Greco leaned forward. “The missile has increased gravities again, building fast. Look at that, 50 G’s. That thing has legs.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of,” Tanner said. “At fifty G’s…” His fingers flew over a keypad. He cursed under his breath at what he saw. With the latest acceleration, the missile would reach them even sooner.

  “Bad?” Greco asked.

  “Not if you like radiation poisoning,” Tanner said.

  “Better have everyone wear a suit then.”

  Tanner kept staring at the screen. If the missile went after the decoy but reached it soon enough, the blast would reach them with hurtful results.

  “Suits won’t be enough?” Greco asked.

  “Maybe for you,” Tanner said.

  Greco nodded. “My race will survive long after the rest of you have passed on.”

  Tanner glanced at the apeman before returning to staring at the numbers. With the increased velocity, there wasn’t going to be enough separation between the decoy and the raider—even if the enemy missile went for the decoy. They should soon know the missile’s target.

  “Radiation pills, suits and lying in the shield room should protect us from a near miss,” Greco said.

  “Look at the numbers,” Tanner said.

  Greco leaned forward to give the numbers a glance. He hooted sadly after scanning it. “That’s bad, boss.”

  The next thirty minutes seemed to take forever. Tanner rubbed his eyes constantly. He made a calculation and slouched back as if he’d suddenly lost strength.

  “What is it now?” Greco asked.

  “We’re not going to have to worry about radiation suits.”

  “That’s good news, right?”

  “No. The missile is heading for us instead of the decoy.”

  “Oh,” Greco said. After a moment, he added, “Lord Acton failed to produce a miracle.”

  “Maybe.”

  “What else could it be?”

  “When we were transporting the decoy, I caused it to hit the deck in the corridor. I might have broken an interior circuit that caused something to go wrong.”

  Greco thought about that. “You’ll have to tell Acton and launch the second decoy.”

  Tanner glanced at Greco. A second later, the centurion shook his head, growling to himself. He slapped an intra-ship comm switch.

  “Captain Tanner?” Acton asked.

  “We have to launch the second decoy.”

  Acton shook his head. “If the first failed to—”

  “I might have broken it on the way to the torpedo room.”

  Acton became still, his eyes fixed on Tanner. “That must have happened when you caused my Lithian to fall unconscious.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Tell me what you did.”

  “Does it matter now?” Tanner asked.

  Acton waited several heartbeats. “It matters,” he said at last.

  Part of Tanner wanted to argue. The stupidity of wasting any more time convinced him that telling the truth would be better. So he told Acton exactly what had happened, how he’d searched the back of the Lithian’s head.

  “Simian curiosity,” Acton hissed under his breath. “Always, your kind touches what it shouldn’t. It will be the death of my mission, the end of—”

  Acton straightened. “Yes, launch the second decoy without delay. It may already be too late, though.” The man brooded before saying, “Listen carefully. Here is what we’ll have to do…”

  Tanner listened to the man talk before signing off. Soon thereafter, he launched the second decoy. It acted much as the first had.

  “I have to time this just right,” Tanner said. He set up the controls—

  The ship accelerated at 0.65 G’s. At the same time, the same strength of thrust caused the second decoy to separate from them. The two objects veered away from each other fast, at a greater angle than the first decoy had done.

  “Three, two, one…zero,” Tanner said, shutting off the ship’s thruster.

  “What’s the Coalition missile doing?” Greco asked.

  Tanner hunched over the scope, watching, waiting and mentally urging the enemy missile to follow the second decoy. Maybe the corridor bump hadn’t done anything to the first decoy. That would mean Coalition electronics was more powerful than Acton’s gear.

  “Yes!” Tanner said. “The missile has changed heading. It’s going after the decoy.” He ran some rapid calculations. “Well—”

  “Look, boss,” Greco said. “The missile has increased velocity again.”

  Tanner studied the screen. “The commander over there must have come to the same conclusion I did. If the missile arrives soon enough, the blast will hurt us either way. They’re making the right choice.”

  “Seems like it’s time to for us to swallow the pills and don the suits,” Greco said.

  “I think you’re right.”

  ***

  The insulated bay was a tight fit. Worse, it lacked room for the Lithians. Each of the regular-sized people took a blue radiation pill, put on an insulated spacesuit and carefully fitted into a cubicle. Lastly, Tanner pressed a switch. A heavy insulated plate slid into place over them.

  The Dark Star ran on automated. According to Acton, the Lithians had returned to their room and gone into hibernation mode.

  “I wish there was something more I could do for them,” Tanner said from his cubicle.

  “Do not concern yourself,” Acto
n said through a suit-comm. “Each of them should survive long enough to complete their task on Planet Zero.”

  “Where?” asked Tanner.

  “Planet Zero,” Acton said. “Surely, that should stir your simian curiosity to a fever pitch. During our confinement together, you will undoubtedly desire to know more. But I will tell you no more. You will have to wait, Centurion. And waiting, as I have discovered in my travels, is the worst torment to inflict on one of your kind.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Tanner asked. “Are you saying you’re not human?”

  “Your reasoning capacity is quite limited,” Acton said.

  “That doesn’t answer the question.”

  “Nor does the question bear answering. I am fully human; more so than your first mate.”

  Tanner inhaled, ready to launch into a heated reply.

  “Leave it, boss. I’m used to it.”

  “I meant no insult to you, apeman,” Acton said.

  “Maybe we should try to sleep,” Greco said. “We’re stuck here lying next to each other. Arguing and fighting isn’t going to help us.”

  “Fine,” Tanner said.

  The others seemed to agree, as no one commented during the next hour.

  “The missile is nearing its detonation range,” Acton informed them later.

  Tanner snorted and smacked his lips. He couldn’t believe it. He’d actually fallen asleep for a time.

  “Do you happen to know the warhead’s size?” Tanner asked.

  “This one is two megatons,” Acton said.

  “Will the blast radius reach us?”

  “By us, do you mean us in here or the ship in general?”

  “In general,” Tanner said.

  “We will know in another minute,” Acton said.

  They waited in the insulated hold. Tanner took out a hand unit linked to the raider’s sensors. The missile wasn’t visible to teleoptic sight. The decoy showed as a green dot against the background of space. Suddenly, an intense white light appeared in the hand unit’s screen. The white grew, expanding rapidly. Heat, x-rays and gamma rays reached the decoy, destroying it in a flash. The destroying circumference and EMP kept expanding.

  “Here it comes,” Tanner said.

  The gamma rays, X-rays and heat washed over the raider’s armored hull—the raider was too small to boast any kind of force screen. The weakened but still deadly rays swept through the ship. In some places, they burned out systems. In others, they merely irradiated things. The Lithians each received hard dosages of radiation. How much the blue giants could take would be another matter.

  The insulation bay and suits protected the others from the worst radiation. Even so, each person received rads.

  “Anybody feel sick?” Tanner asked.

  “I have an icky feeling on my tongue,” Ursa said.

  “We’ll have to take treatments,” Tanner said. “But I have to tell you: I’ve been hit with worse than this and survived. We’re going to make it.”

  Marcus sighed heavily.

  “It’s time to get up and find out the damage,” Tanner said. “Lord Acton, do you feel well?”

  The Earthman stared at his slate, the blue-glowing light shining on his helmet’s faceplate. “We must hurry,” Acton said. “I detect another ship. It is bearing toward us on an intercept course.”

  “That’s foul luck,” Greco said.

  “What kind of ship?” Tanner asked.

  “I’m uncertain,” Acton said. “I think the blast damaged my sensor box.”

  “That tears it,” Tanner said. “I have to get back to the control room.”

  ***

  Still in his suit, Tanner hunched over the scanner. He saw the other ship easily enough. It came at them from the other side as the Coalition cruiser. It was still many hundreds of thousands of kilometers away but was faster than the cruiser.

  “Is it another Coalition warship?” Greco asked over the suit speaker.

  “Can’t tell that yet,” Tanner said. “I don’t think so, but I can’t be sure.”

  “If it’s not a Coalition ship—” Greco quit talking as the comm light began to blink. “Message from somewhere,” he said needlessly.

  Tanner checked the signal. It came from Calisto Grandee.

  “They ignored us before,” Greco said. “Why would they want to speak to us now?”

  “I’m thinking it’s our turn to ignore them,” Tanner said.

  “What if the call is about Jordan?”

  “Exactly,” Tanner said. “If I don’t talk to them, they can’t threaten me with her, now can they?”

  Greco cocked his helmeted head. “I never thought of it like that.”

  Tanner made some calculations then sat back, thinking. The comm light began to blink again. He checked the heading and realized this one came from the Coalition cruiser.

  “They launched another missile,” Tanner said.

  “I wonder why they don’t fire their laser at us.”

  “We still have a lot of separation from them. It would be a difficult shot at this distance.”

  “But if they wanted us badly enough, they should go ahead and fire,” Greco said.

  Tanner studied the apeman. “Are you suggesting they’re not really trying to kill us, just making it look like they are?”

  “No…” Greco said.

  “What then?”

  “The situation…” Greco waved a space-suited hand. “The situation feels wrong to me.”

  “The Coalition attempts against us feel wrong or Lord Acton actions do?”

  “Lord Acton feels wrong.”

  “I agree. I’d like to know why Acton is way out here. What does he hope to achieve?”

  “Probably the same thing as Marcus and Ursa,” Greco said.

  “You know what I think? Marcus and Ursa are trying to use Acton and Acton is trying to use them. I have a feeling that Acton is doing a better job of it.”

  “Why does his niece stay in her quarters all the time?” Greco asked.

  “Yeah. That’s another thing, and the Lithians, the way Acton calls them beasts and us simians.”

  “You don’t like that?” Greco asked, sounding amused.

  “I guess not.”

  “Welcome to my world, Centurion.”

  Tanner was silent for a time. “Are you sorry you came with me?”

  “No. I always came in order to learn how to make my koholmany. I haven’t had much luck yet, but I’m always collecting data.”

  “Are you sorry your people allied with us on Remus against the Coalition?”

  “Maybe, but maybe we never had a real choice. The weaker cannot dictate to the stronger. The weaker must take what they can get.”

  “You’re not weaker,” Tanner said.

  “Physically, I’m the strongest man aboard ship.”

  “Stronger than Acton?” asked Tanner.

  “I have begun to believe he’s not a man.”

  Tanner inhaled, nodding shortly, ingesting the idea. “Okay. If that’s true, then what is he?”

  Greco grinned, showing his teeth through the faceplate. “If we knew that, maybe we’d know his ultimate plan.”

  Tanner noticed something new on the sensor screen. He tapped the board, made a few adjustments and sat back in thought.

  “The new vessel is a Nostradamus destroyer-class warship,” Tanner said. “It’s racing at us at 5 G’s.”

  “I wonder why?”

  “I bet someone paid the Nostradamus people. My guess is the commander of the Coalition cruiser had discretionary funds. They’re using those funds to try to capture us.”

  “You have a plan, though,” Greco said hopefully.

  “I do indeed. You can listen while I tell the passengers what we’re going to do.”

  ***

  For the next three hours, the Dark Star accelerated near its limit of 3.5 G’s. It was an exhausting strain on everyone. Every few minutes, the craft made the slightest of adjustments. Every twenty minutes, a
laser beam shot past the ship. So far, the Coalition cruiser had missed each time.

  From three hundred thousand kilometers away, an enemy missile burned at seventy gravities, straining to reach them.

  The Nostradamus destroyer continued to race for a collision point with them. That point was at the very beginning of the hyperspace region.

  Lord Acton presently stood behind Tanner and Greco. The so-called Earthman made rapid calculations on his slate. Tanner had no idea how Acton could remain on his feet for so long in 3-plus G’s. He doubted he could do it, and he was much younger.

  “I have it,” Acton said quietly.

  “I still say it’s impossible,” Tanner said. “At the velocity we’re going, this will destroy us, implode the vessel.”

  “Are you ready to accept data?” Acton said.

  Tanner hesitated. What other choice was there? None, he realized. The Coalition, with Nostradamus’ help, had them unless this worked. He recalled Consul Maximus’s last horrible moments aboard the enemy ship.

  Tanner tapped a control. “Ready?” he said, hoarsely.

  Acton tapped his slate, downloading his calculations into the flight computer.

  Tanner wished Jordan was here. She could have set it up so the data didn’t go directly into the computer, but sat in a receivership in case it carried a virus. He had every anti-virus element running. Was Acton trying to take over the ship by a backdoor method?

  Tanner ran the Earthman’s data. “Get a load of this,” he said. “The computer says it should work.”

  “We are out of other options,” Acton said. “Haste is critical. I suggest you engage now.”

  Lord Acton had just given him a program that should allow the raider to enter hyperdrive ten AUs sooner than normal and at a greater velocity than anyone thought possible. Both were incredible breakthroughs. Together, this might be revolutionary. And the Earthman had seemingly done it off the cuff. That was more than weird. It should have been impossible.

  “If we enter hyperspace even one degree off from my calculations,” Acton said. “the raider will implode.”

  “Everybody ready?” Tanner asked.

  Acton put a gloved hand on the back of each seat, bracing himself. “I am ready, Captain.”

  Tanner blew out his breath, squeezed his eyes shut and opened them wide. He rechecked his calculations. Everything should work. If that was true, why did he have to keep blinking sweat out of his eyes?