by B. V. Larson
Kwon came stomping into the control center. “Not too bad, boss. You think they’ll send more bugs?”
“You sound like you hope they do.”
He bellowed with laughter, releasing tension. “So what?”
I shook my head and turned to Galen. “Any Demon ships moving this way?”
“Our sensors are spotty, but we don’t see any right now.”
I activated my ansible. “Valiant? Any enemy heading for us?”
“Not at this moment, Captain, but they are still busy with similar operations. They appear to be doing their best to take as many prisoners as they can.”
I wondered why. “Thanks. Give me Hansen.”
“Hansen here.”
“Status report.”
“We’re lurking out here, repairing damage as ordered. Valiant is near full effectiveness, but Stalker is in pretty bad shape. Marvin has disappeared, turned off his transponder and I can’t find him even with active sensors.”
He said this bitterly, and I knew why. The robot could have helped a lot with the repairs.
“Do your best. I’ll set my suit to keep trying Marvin.”
“The Demons are still in action,” Hansen went on. “They’re mopping up everything off the planet’s surface, taking thousands of prisoners, especially from the bases on the moon.”
“Stand by.” I turned to Galen. “Have the Demons ever taken prisoners before?”
“A few now and again, but not in large numbers and always among the lower orders. The truth is that we’ve never lost a battle before, so this is all new to us.”
“Hansen, any ideas about why they’re taking prisoners?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“Are they repairing their ships?”
A pause. “Yes,” he said, “they seem to be concentrating on the assault carriers. That makes no sense…”
“Then it must mean something. How far out are the Whales?”
“Over a day away, still.”
I chewed my lip. “I have an idea. I’ll get back with you. Riggs out.” To Cybele, I said, “Bring up a simulation of the strategic situation showing the Ketan fleet inbound and the Demons here.”
“It won’t be accurate in terms of ship numbers and types.”
“Doesn’t matter. Model it based on what you know of the Ketans, and you can use one assault carrier to represent the Demons.”
A few minutes later, her large screen displayed a graphic of the area and she said, “Ready.”
“Calculate how soon a Demon ship would have to begin fleeing in order to get away clean and curve around to head for home as fast as possible.”
Cybele’s long fingers flickered over her console. It seemed to me these people could move their fingers faster than a human could. The picture changed, lines showing courses. “Here are three solutions. They represent the earliest, latest, and optimal cases.”
“Why three?”
“Because the time the Demon ship gains by leaving sooner is closely matched by the advantage it loses by not waiting for the Ketan fleet to slow.”
I saw what she meant. As they decelerated, the Whales were making it harder and harder for themselves to catch up to any Demon ships that decided to flee.
Cybele went on, “The optimum solution is to begin acceleration in approximately ten hours, at an angle to the approaching Ketans, on a course that will dive toward our central stars and use their gravity to slingshot around, returning to Tartarus.”
“Do you have the acceleration parameters for Valiant and Stalker?”
Cybele gave me an appraising look. “Of course, Captain. We’re intelligence specialists. It’s our job to know everything.”
I ignored her flirtation as best I could. “Work out solutions for those two ships to intercept the Demons’ predicted path—earliest, latest and optimum.”
After a moment, she came up with answers. “The earliest is the optimum, which would mean leaving right away, assuming our predictions are true. Your ships have a decided speed advantage over the Demons, and so can easily catch them, given the long journey back to Tartarus. This does not take into account any damage your ships might still have.”
This eased my mind. “Okay. I think I know what’s going on. Hansen, you listening?”
“Here, sir.”
“The Demons are repairing their assault carriers because they’re the only ones with enough room for thousands of prisoners. They’ll probably use hibernation drugs and stack them like cordwood for transport home. I expect they’ll give those ships all available fuel and any Demon crew they want to save, too.”
“They want the people? Why?”
“Slaves. Breeding stock. Experimentation. Who knows? The Demons just set the Elladans back a decade or more. Their next fleet will be stronger, I’d predict. Their strategy almost worked and they know it.”
“We’ll have to destroy the ships.”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. “At least we have a long window to do it. Three months, Cybele says.”
“Who’s Cybele?”
“The Elladan tech down here,” I said casually.
Hansen snorted. He knew me too well. “Don’t worry, I’ll cover for you.”
“There’s nothing to cover for,” I snapped.
“Hey, no problem. Oh, damn.”
“What?”
“Six Demon ships have broken off. They’re moving toward you.”
-23-
“Crap,” I muttered.
I’d hoped the Demons would leave us alone for a while. But that just wasn’t going to happen. They were sending another six ships to try to dig us out.
“We could launch a missile strike,” Hansen said on the ansible in my helmet.
“How are we set for missiles?”
My XO paused. “Not too well. We’ve only got thirty-three in the stockpile. But we could send in the Daggers along with them on a fast pass, swing them around and recover them later. That would present no risk to Valiant.”
“What do the simulations say about likelihood of success?”
I waited while Valiant ran the calculations, and then the ship’s voice replied. “The most probable outcome is three Demon ships destroyed, fourteen Daggers lost and all missiles expended.”
“Forget it,” I said. “That doesn’t buy us much extra time, and given the way we’re buttoned up, it hardly matters whether we have three ships or six on our asses. Even if we did take out three of them, they would send more in. The best strategy is to fight hard right here. How are Stalker’s engines?”
“Sixty-eight percent.”
I looked up at Cybele’s screen again. “I think we only have to hold out for about ten hours. That’s when I’m betting the Demons are going to send home their best, least damaged assault carriers full of prisoners. If they don’t have us by then, they won’t ever get us.”
“Yes, but then they’ll just blow your station to fragments. How is that better?” Hansen asked.
“Remember, they have few if any, nuclear warheads left. They might have used all of them in the battle. They’re getting ready to run from the Whales, and they don’t have much time left.”
“They still have their main batteries,” Hansen objected stubbornly.
“Right, but if they’ve failed to dig us out, lasers won’t matter much. They can slag the surface of this base all they want—but I don’t think they’ll bother. Beams take energy, which takes fuel to generate, and they’ll have given every bit of their extra supply to the assault carriers that are running away, leaving just enough to fight a suicidal rearguard action against the Whales in order to cover the escape.”
“That’s a lot of supposition, Captain.”
“But it fits all the facts and past battle simulations that the Whales sent us in their initial intel. Just keep repairing and stand by.”
“Great. Standing by. Hansen out.”
I knew how he felt. Helpless,
constrained by my orders and the need to get our tiny two-ship squadron back in shape. I wondered how many Raptors Kreel had lost in the battle and when lack of crew would begin to degrade Stalker’s effectiveness.
We were being ground down more and more. Just one more battle, I told myself. Then we could rebuild, maybe recruit some Elladans…
And then try to make it home.
“They’re coming,” Galen said.
I consulted the sensor arrays. We’d repaired a few of them, just enough to look around at what was going on out on the surface of this rock.
The dust had cleared, left behind as the rock spun and orbited Ellada. Adjusting the crude instruments, I saw that the enemy ships would be here in a few minutes.
“Galen, use the station’s repeller to get this rock spinning faster.” As a defensive measure, it was best to have the base moving at a higher rate of speed. With luck it would be impossible to land on. Moving around on the base would, however, become more difficult.
“Edging up the rotation—it will take time.”
“Do what you can. Please alter the direction of spin to make the shafts they drilled hard to access.”
“We’ll set up a complex motion that will create two poles at the ends of the axis of rotation,” Galen replied. “I’ll work to adjust those poles to armored areas. That way the current airlocks and breaches will remain under heavy spin.”
I followed that with a model on my screen. Tapping at it, I was soon satisfied.
“Good idea. I’m going to detonate any grenades that swing under the Demon ships as they approach. Kwon, get ready to plant some more. How many do we have?”
“Eleven.”
“Do we have anything else big?”
“Four heavy lasers and four heavy rocket launchers. Those are emplaced to cover the main tunnels.”
“How heavy?”
Kwon shrugged. “Heavy for marines, but nothing that would hurt an armored ship.”
“Okay. Tactical nukes will have to do it. Here they come.”
The lead vessel, a battleship, began firing. Its rolling broadsides dug a dozen shallow trenches in the surface rock. They wised up about two minutes later and began concentrating their firepower onto one spot. A trench appeared in its wake as the station spun gently beneath the concentration of glowing beams. The vaporized rock spewed gas and dust, but the debris dissipated quickly because of the movement of the surface.
The size of the chunks of rock that flew off increased. Centrifugal force grew on our bodies as the station turned faster and faster. The other Demon vessels joined the first, and soon more than thirty lasers blasted at us as they unloaded with their broadsides.
“They don’t seem to be short on fuel, boss,” Kwon said.
“Guess not. Take half a squad with one grenade each and get to airlock six. It’s off the line of their drilling but close enough to plant grenades. Get moving.”
I watched Kwon and his guys move through the base to the airlock. As soon as it had rotated out of sight of the enemy, I told Galen to pop the hatch and sent Kwon out to plant two grenades, separated as widely as possible, just off the predicted line of bombardment.
“You got two minutes to get out, plant those bombs and get back,” I told him.
“No problem, Captain.” He grabbed one grenade and a sidekick Raptor grabbed another. I didn’t bother to argue about him doing it himself.
A few minutes passed, and I began to get antsy.
“Kwon? Drop it and get back,” I insisted.
“The nuke wants to zoom into space. I’m trying to wedge it, but I can’t.”
I realized what he meant. Everything on the spinning surface now wanted to fly upward. “My bad. I should have thought of that before I sent you. Come back in. You can try again in a few minutes.”
Kwon didn’t answer. On camera, I saw his Raptor sidekick turn and bound back toward the airlock, undoubtedly using his suit repeller to stay near the surface, but Kwon stayed where he was as the rotating station carried him inexorably toward the horizon…and the enemy.
“Kwon!”
Still no answer.
“Kwon! They’re going to see you in a few seconds!”
He was standing on the surface. I wasn’t sure how. Maybe he’d found something magnetic to stick his boots to, or he was using repellers for down-force. Widening his stance, he took the grenade he carried by the handle and held it low to the ground near his back foot.
“Kwon! Dammit, man!”
When the Demon ships came into view, he gave a mighty heave and flung the grenade straight toward them. It skimmed along the surface for a moment then, as the station was curved, it left the asteroid and moved to meet the enemy.
As soon as he released the mini-nuke, Kwon turned to leap backward, skimming the ground as he accelerated on his repeller. It took a few seconds for him to overcome the forward motion the ground had imparted, and then he gained distance.
I tore my perception away from him to watch the grenade. The thing must be too small, or maybe it got lost in the clutter of small rocks and gravel constantly cascading off the accelerating station like pinwheel sparks. Seconds ticked by…
I sent the code to blow it as soon as it entered maximum blast radius, afraid that one of the enemy ships would see it and pick it off with a point defense laser. It whited out my vision. When it cleared, several of the Demon vessels showed damage.
They backed up then, which they should have done in the first place, standing off at several miles distance but still close enough to fire lasers with easy accuracy. I guided Kwon back to the open airlock as it came around.
“That was a crazy thing to do,” I told him.
“Yeah, wasn’t it great?”
“If they’d seen you, one ship laser would have left nothing but your boots.”
Kwon only laughed. “Nobody lives forever.”
The Demons resumed their blasting, and now we had nothing that could touch them. “Galen, how long until that trench gets deep enough to hurt?”
After he ran some calculations, the Elladan reported to me with a frown. “In about six hours, the station will begin to come apart from tidal stress due to the damage. I may be able to extend that another two hours by judicious variations in our motion.”
I rubbed my jaw through my faceplate. “I hope they run out of fuel.”
“Hope ain’t a plan, boss. Don’t you always got a plan?” Kwon had been with my dad and me long enough to know that sometimes we didn’t, but never admitted it.
“I do. A piece of one, at least. Just let me think.”
“While you think, I’m gonna sleep, and the Pigs too. Let me know if you need a nap.” Kwon moved to an empty area and lay down on the deck, his suit becoming his bed. I didn’t blame him. We’d been up for more than thirty hours straight, and it was a good time to do it, with nothing but those incessant lasers to threaten us. I noticed two of the Elladans slumped in their chairs as well, and I fought off a wave of sympathetic fatigue.
Stepping out of my suit, I did a few light calisthenics to get my blood pumping and began to pace. What could I do? Assuming Galen got us those eight hours, we were still about two short of when I predicted they would send off their carriers and set up to engage the whales. I sure wished Elladans had shield technology, but even if we’d given it to them when we had first made contact two weeks ago, they wouldn’t have been able to deploy it.
Somehow, I needed to buy us at least two hours, preferably more, as I might be way off in my estimates.
I had no idea how to do it, except by using my ships.
I got back in my suit and was just about to contact them when, finally, I heard a tinny voice in my ear. “Captain Marvin to Cody Riggs.”
“That’s Captain Riggs to you, robot,” I said with an involuntary grin. “Are you monitoring my situation?”
“Yes. My sensor suite is very effective.”
“Then you know we have six t
o eight hours before the station breaks up, and I have only a few shaky ideas on how to live through it, so if you can think of anything, I’d appreciate your input.”
“You want me to save your life?” he asked.
“Yes, if it’s not too damn much trouble.”
“If I do, I believe a Star Force citation would be in order.”
“You want a medal? I already explained I’m not empowered to give medals, but I can put you in for all sorts of them once we get home. And to do that, I have to be alive.”
Marvin’s voice turned pensive. “Perhaps Lieutenant Commander Hansen will fill out the necessary paperwork if you don’t survive…”
“Hansen hates you, Marvin.”
“I consider ‘hate’ to be a strong, often offensive term—”
My voice rose. He was getting to me. “Marvin, with the possible exception of Hoon and me, nobody likes you. If you want to be appreciated, you need to keep helping, and maybe display some emulation of positive human emotion, such as empathy for your fellow Star Force personnel. Being an officer isn’t about making rank, it’s about stepping up and contributing, even if you’re faking the feeling behind your actions.”
“I thought faking is akin to lying, which is usually perceived negatively. Also, I have contributed many positive things to this expedition.”
“And negative things too, Marvin. As far as I’m concerned, you’re not even out of the hole you dug by getting Valiant’s original officers eaten.”
“My intentions were good,” he said after a moment’s hesitation.
“Welcome to the road to hell, Marvin.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Look up the reference in your database.”
A pause. “I see. So how many positive acts do I need to perform before I am ‘out of the hole’?”
“A bunch, Marvin. A whole big, frigging bunch. Now get on it, would you?”
“Roger. Captain Marvin out.”
I couldn’t tell from those few words whether Marvin was motivated or pissed off. He was a machine, after all.
