Dreadnought (Lost Colonies Trilogy Book 2)

by B. V. Larson

  Holding my peace with difficulty, I sat quietly while Zye sat down and looked at the Ambassador.

  “The bridge the Stroj took goes to Beta,” she said. “I’ve managed to interpret the maps that the Connatic shared with us. They were encoded oddly, with a different coordinate system, but the results are clear.”

  “Beta?” I asked. “That’s odd. Why would they do that? Surely your people’s navy would destroy them.”

  She looked at me, and I saw a sadness in her eyes. “They would if they were able. But since the Stroj chose that route, I can only assume they can’t stop the pirates.”

  “Grim news,” Grantholm said. “Beta was counted as a possible ally of Earth’s. I hope you’re wrong.”

  “Me too,” Zye said.

  We continued the discussion, but in the end, Grantholm prevailed. She was technically in command of the mission overall, and in the current situation I couldn’t convince even myself we were under immediate threat.

  As far as I could tell, she only wanted to press on in order to return home with a more dramatic series of accomplishments. I railed against her orders, but it was hopeless. Unless I was willing to toss my own aunt into the brig and declare myself a mutineer, I had no choice but to accept her directives.

  We adjourned and moved to our posts on the command deck. The ship thrummed and the repaired engines pushed us gently away from the station.

  The Connatic wished me well on the main screen, and I returned her salute. I was keenly aware of a few smirks shared by my crewmen, but I pretended not to notice. Let them think what they may, she and I were both doing what we thought was best for our commands.

  We gathered speed without incident as we crossed the star system until we reached the point where the Stroj ships had vanished. By that time, I’d carefully reviewed the information Zye had decoded. If this bridge did lead to the Beta home system, the implications were both clear and alarming.

  We entered hyperspace smoothly, wondering what we’d find beyond.

  A few hundred hours later, we found our way out of the maze of hyperspace. The star maps given to us by the Connatic helped with the mapping process, but as hyperspace was typically unstable, they weren’t perfect. This time, the intervening region seemed to be in flux. The points we’d left behind us varied greatly, and we were a full twenty-nine degrees off our original course when we managed to solve the curve and find our way out.

  At last, we located the exit. It was with some relief we found ourselves in a new region of normal space. Prolonged periods spent in hyperspace—or nonexistence, as some physicists insisted was the case—never allowed a crew to rest easy. The accounts from the past explorers of Earth had been very clear on that point. There’d even been recorded stories of crews becoming hopelessly lost and going mad with fear and grief before escaping through the end-point of a bridge. When such lost souls finally wended their way back to our part of the universe, the survivors were never able to serve effectively again.

  Such thoughts also led to the ominous knowledge that many exploratory missions were never heard from again. Fully fourteen percent of “blue-jumps”, as they were called, never returned home.

  Even some of the jumps directly out of Earth had been labeled as deadly, and no one had ever figured out exactly where they led. They were like the blank regions on ancient maps, the equivalent of seafaring cartography that imagined a sharp edge to the world, with ravenous monsters waiting just beyond.

  With some trepidation, we examined our surroundings.

  “Gravimetrics?” I demanded.

  “Good readings so far,” Yamada said cautiously. “There’s no black hole, no high-radiation giant. Looks like we’ll survive our first hour, sir.”

  I turned to Durris, who was working up a closer analysis of the data. He wasn’t looking for planetary bodies or stellar ones, he was looking for ships, mines and missiles.

  “First Officer, will we survive?”

  “As far as I can tell, sir,” he said.

  Sighs of relief swept the command deck.

  “We’ve come out pretty far from the central sun,” Durris continued. “We’ll have to fly a long time to get to the rocky inner planets—assuming that’s where we’re headed.”

  “First, tell me if the star charts the Connatic provided us with are correct. Is this the Beta home system, or not?”

  Durris hesitated, going over the data and comparing measurements to our past records.

  Zye wasn’t so reluctant to make her declaration. “This is Beta, sir. I can recognize my own sun and the circling litter of planets. It’s strange being home again.”

  I eyed her thoughtfully. She was showing emotion in a way that was rare for her. Rather than a face of stone, or a mask of anger, she was looking wistful. Her eyes were glued to the forward screens, which displayed the central sun in all its glory.

  “Welcome home, Zye,” Rumbold said. “Every spacer knows the feeling well, but I’ve never been away so long as you have.”

  It was a poignant moment, but there was one individual on the command deck who seemed not to notice.

  “Sparhawk?” Lady Grantholm asked. “Why are we sitting out here on the rim of the system? Take us in closer, man.”

  I gave her a glance, then nodded to Durris who plotted a course.

  “Nothing on the scopes,” Zye said, turning back to her work. “No known enemies appear to be waiting for us. There’s nothing out here but comets and asteroids, sir—this system is full of them.”

  The Beta home system was younger than the Solar System and lacked a gas giant of sufficient mass such as Jupiter to clean out all the outer system debris. That was part of what made her home planet so inhospitable. In addition to nasty life forms, a high gravitational pull and raging tides, the planet was frequently bombarded by chunks of matter from space.

  “Have you located Beta?” I asked Durris.

  “Yes sir. Course plotted.”

  “Helm, let’s get underway.”

  Smoothly, we powered away from our entry point and approached the inner planets. The central star blazed and twinkled, being a little less stable than Sol. It wasn’t a flare-throwing inferno like Gliese-32, but it wasn’t a perfectly steady burner, either.

  As we approached over the following day, I came to appreciate how perfect Earth was at providing a stable platform for life. We’d been spoiled by eons of minor storms, balanced temperatures and only the rarest collisions with errant chunks of ice.

  After some twenty hours of steady flight, we were challenged by an incoming message.

  “Unknown ship… you must turn back.”

  The message came in without visuals, but in a way, they weren’t necessary.

  Everyone on the command deck looked at Zye. The voice speaking to us was her voice. There was absolutely no difference in cadence, tone or inflection—which is to say, there was no inflection at all.

  Zye looked back at us for a moment, uncomprehendingly. “You must answer promptly,” she said. “Or they will fire a missile barrage.”

  Lady Grantholm cleared her throat. “Yamada,” she said, “put me in touch with these ruffians.”

  “Transmitting.”

  “Greetings, kind souls of the planet Beta. We are from Earth. We’re on a peaceful mission, and we only wish to explore your system.”

  “Spies are not permitted,” the response came back several long minutes later. We were pretty far out, and each exchange took quite a while to reach the other speaker.

  “But Betas,” Grantholm pressed, “please listen. I’m an Ambassador from Earth. I’m empowered to offer you treaties, including trade between our planets and military assistance.”

  The reply came back somewhat faster this time, as we were approaching them at great speed.

  “There are no Earth ships. Even if there were, we would not agree to any of your proposals. We have no need of military assistance. We have even less desire to trade trinkets with vagabonds.”

  Grantholm looked surp
rised and annoyed. She summed up her next pitch in her mind, took in a deep breath and—

  Before she could say anything, the Betas talked to us again.

  “We’ve analyzed your ship in detail. We’re shocked to recognize it. As we initially believed, you are a band of pirates. You’ve stolen our ship, and no doubt killed her crew. Prepare to be destroyed.”

  Grantholm made a squawking sound. “Please, listen to me,” she begged. “I can explain everything. Don’t start an interplanetary incident without cause. We’re here in the name of peace.”

  “They’ve fired a barrage,” Zye said calmly.

  “She’s right, sir,” Yamada said. “Your orders?”

  She was looking at me. They all were.

  I was back in command of my ship, but under the circumstances, that didn’t please me at all.

  “Get them talking again!” my aunt demanded. She staggered toward Yamada angrily. “I can stop this.”

  Yamada shook her head. “They’ve closed the channel. They’re not accepting our hails. We can’t talk if they don’t want to listen.”

  Yamada turned back to me while Grantholm breathed in whistling gasps. For once, the older woman was speechless.

  “Orders, sir?” Yamada asked me.

  “How long have we got?”

  “Until impact? Several hours, sir.”

  “Good. Time enough to think.”

  Putting on a confident expression, I began reviewing the data.

  -19-

  My aunt walked up to me and put a claw-like hand on my bicep. She whispered in my ear in a harsh tone. “You can’t believe you’re going to get away with this. Not again!”

  I turned to her and nodded. “Unfortunately, it looks like diplomacy has failed this time, Lady.”

  “And you relish that fact, don’t you?” she asked bitterly.

  “Hardly,” I said. “I’ve got no more wish to die than you do. Possibly less.”

  Moving back to the planning tables, I considered my next move. The situation had turned deadly remarkably fast. Before coming to this system, we’d naturally considered the idea that the Betas might not be happy with the fact we were cruising into their system with one of their own lost starships. But we’d always assumed we could talk them out of an immediate attack. Such had proven not to be the case.

  Durris and I put our heads together and crunched numbers. We essentially had two options. We could fight, or we could run. Given that we were supposedly on a diplomatic mission, I decided to take the latter course of action.

  “Let’s run the numbers on a race back to our point of entry,” I said.

  “Already done, sir. We can’t make it. We’re headed in the wrong direction. Reducing speed, turning around and heading back will take too long.”

  “I see. Where else can we retreat?”

  “I’ve been scanning the system and examining the star charts the Connatic provided us. There are several bridges that lead out of this system that we could reach in time.”

  “Are the destinations known?”

  “No. Two, in fact, are listed as terminal—meaning no one has ever come back from them alive. The third goes to a system that the Stroj allegedly occupy.”

  I pondered the options briefly. “What if we ride out their missiles?”

  “That’s not advisable, captain,” Zye interrupted from behind me. I turned to find her standing nearby.

  “Why not?” I demanded. “We’ve suffered strikes before. Defiant’s hull is tougher than any earth-built ship in history.”

  “That’s true, sir,” she said. “But Beta missiles are built for precisely this kind of thing. They’ll have fired hundreds of them, not all of which we can even see yet. They’ll converge and destroy this vessel with gigatons of applied force.”

  Nodding, I went back to the planning table. I tapped the hyperspace bridge Durris had selected.

  “Let’s run for this one. Select the course of your choice and relay it to the helm. I’d suggest you give the widest berth possible to the Beta homeworld.”

  Durris hurried to obey. Wearing a grim expression, I listened while my flight crew performed their duties flawlessly.

  They were doing the work, but I’d been tasked with the hard decisions. Knowing we may all live or die based on the path I’d chosen wasn’t easy, but in this case I didn’t see any other viable options. We couldn’t stop their missiles, much less do battle with the naval forces they were no doubt deploying even now.

  Flying obliquely, we cut a huge arc across the system. This way we didn’t have to stop, turn around and build up momentum again. The missiles tracked us, predicting our path and moving to intercept. We were safe, however, unless something changed. They wouldn’t have enough time to catch us before we reached our escape point and exited the system.

  After the next dozen hours, some of the tension left me. No new threats had appeared. The deadly birds in our wake were now almost directly behind us. They were still gaining, but slowly.

  “Four hours to go, sir,” Yamada said. “Permission to be relieved until we hit the breach into hyperspace again.”

  I nodded to her. “Good idea. We’ll all take a break. Durris, begin rotating the command crew.”

  Leaving the command deck with Yamada at my side, we made our way directly to the mess hall, where we found the remains of a cold dinner waiting for us. We ate in a brooding quiet.

  “It’s not your fault, sir,” Yamada said after a time. “No one could have done any better.”

  “That’s impossible to know for sure, but I appreciate your vote of confidence.”

  She put her fork down with a clatter and pushed her dish away. “You’re too hard on yourself, William. You’re the best. The smartest captain I’ve ever served under. You’ve always done amazing things with practically no support, no clear path to success.”

  I put up my hand to stop her. “You’re biased. Anyway, we should be getting to our bunks for some rest.”

  She looked me over, and right then for the first time on this mission, I thought she might be entertaining some unsanctioned ideas.

  I cleared my throat and yawned. “Aren’t you tired?”

  “No,” she said. “In fact, I was wondering if you might want some companionship.”

  There it was, out in the open. She wasn’t meeting my eye, but I knew immediately what was going on. I’d been stalked before, even by Yamada. She’d clearly seen my carnal interest in the Connatic, a small woman not so different from herself. Perhaps she figured out I’d given up on Chloe back home, and saw this as an opportunity.

  For a moment, I was tempted, and I didn’t respond right away. After a man gives in once to temptation, the second time was twice as easy, they say.

  Finally, I shook my head sadly. “It wouldn’t be right,” I said, “we’ve got a ship to run. This mission must be executed with the utmost professionalism.”

  “What wouldn’t be right, sir?” she asked.

  Her lips were pinched tightly together, and her eyes were angry. Great.

  “Nothing,” I said quickly, and I got to my feet. I put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I’ll see you back on station in two hours.”

  I walked out of the mess hall. I could feel her eyes on me, but I never glanced back.

  Reaching my cabin, I flopped onto my bunk and stared at the ceiling, thinking about women, Betas and missiles.

  Moments later, or so it seemed, I heard a buzzing sound in my ear. It was my implant.

  “Sir, we have a problem,” Durris’ voice said.

  “On my way.”

  Springing out of the bunk, I staggered to my feet. I was half way across the cabin before I was fully awake. I paused to splash water into my face and then headed out into the main passage.

  I’d planned on a shower and an aspirin before returning to duty, but I could tell that wasn’t going to happen.

  The command deck was humming with activity by the time I got there. I frowned at my first officer.

  �
�You let me sleep? What’s the nature of the emergency?”

  “Sorry sir—the danger wasn’t obvious at first. We thought it was only a blip, a mining ship, maybe. There are so many asteroids and ice chunks out here... It could have been anything.”

  “What could have been anything?”

  He put his hands on his screens and caused a projection to spring up in three dimensions. It hovered over the planning table like an ugly wedge-shaped rock.

  I knew that outline immediately. It matched Defiant—almost. The configuration of the weapons was different, as were the aft sensor arrays.

  “Another Beta battle cruiser,” I observed. “Where is it?”

  “She’s moving to intercept, sir. She must have been on deep patrol out here. She’s matched our speed already, and soon our courses will fully converge. I’d hoped we might be able to outrun her—but it’s not happening.”

  “Of course not,” I said. “The ships are the same. If she’s closer to the hyperspace bridge than we are, then she’ll intercept us.”

  “No sir,” he said quickly. “That’s not what I meant. We’re ahead, and we’ll get there first. But she’s on the same course that we are, and she’s showing no signs of steering away. It’s my belief that she intends to penetrate the barrier and enter the bridge. After that, she’ll attempt to catch us—in hyperspace.”

  I looked at him with wide eyes. “You’re telling me the Betas plan to fight a battle in hyperspace? Are there any precedents?”

  “Not in Earth history. There were a few recorded run-ins with pirates in the old logs, but nothing like two capital ships engaged in an all-out struggle.”

  “Hmm… another first for this ship and her crew. Someday we’ll be asked to give lectures on this situation at the Academy—provided we live, of course.”

  The next hour went by quickly, despite our tension. We’d found a way to escape their missiles, which didn’t have the tech to follow us into hyperspace. The Beta battle cruiser was a different matter entirely.

  Lieutenant Commander Yamada made an appearance as we neared the bridge. She looked disheveled. She glanced at me, but then cast her eyes down to the deck. She hurried to her post and began working the boards.