by Olson, Ry
^Copy that, Major.^ She paused. ^How am I going to know if you’re still alive in there?^
Martin started to reply then stopped before continuing. ^I guess you really won’t know. When I’m in, keep working the Koth. If he gets within five thousand meters of me and I don’t fire get the hell out of here, and likewise if I don’t see anything for fifteen minutes, or the pulses disappear, I’ll bail.^
^Sounds like a plan, Major. Good luck.^
^Thanks Lieutenant, and you watch yourself. This guy is dangerous.^ He looked at Prowler. “Take us in fella, and if it’s too hot in there get us right back out.” Instantly the displays turned to hash and noise. Martin blew out a sigh. This is worse than I thought it would be. A display on the side of the console showed to periodic sweeps of the energy weapon. The pulses were ugly, but within the design tolerance of the ship. “Ok, fella. If you see anything big fire and get us the hell outta’ here as soon as the missile clears the chute. He may not be able to see us but he’ll sure as hell see the missile coming out of the cloud and probably blow this area to bits if the missile doesn’t knock him out.” So now we wait. Martin leaned back in his seat trying to relax, idly watching his displays.
. . .
What does she think she’s doing . . . and where in the bloody hell is Martin? Briton pondered as he watched the feeds from the surveillance ships. He initiated a hardlink to Martin, there was no response. An icy knot formed in his gut. He tried again, and again got not response. He contacted the missile frigate warborg with a voice only hardlink.
^Yes, Commander.^ The Lieutenant replied instantly.
^Lieutenant Hayes, what happened to Mar . . . Major Morgan?^
^He’s in that field of ionized gas, Commander.^ Her reply was unsteady reflecting the fight she was in. ^Damn, he almost got me that time. This is getting more interesting by the second.^ She grated.
Briton raised his eyebrows. The Koth energy field was still making regular sweeps, but now the axis of the sweeps was changing at random intervals making it impossible to predict the interval of the sweep at any given point. They’re learning, was his sour thought. ^Is he all right?^
^I think so, I can’t communicate with him either, Sir.^ She hesitated for a moment skittering through a couple feints. ^I’ve just got to lure this bastard close enough for the Major to fire his class three.^
Briton said nothing for a few seconds as he watched his Lieutenant fight her very lopsided cat and mouse battle. He closed his eyes with a sigh. God, be careful young lady. The plan’s a little harebrained and you’re too good to get your self killed in a forlorn fight. He studied the area where they were battling to see if there was anything he could do, he gritted his teeth with a start and rubbed his temples. ^Lieutenant, you’re about to drift through a debris field.^ If you can call passing through with a relative velocity of a thousand meters a second drifting.
^I see it, Sir . . . but the Major can’t.^ She hesitated for a second, ^and he’s not going to leave the ion field until we’re through it.^
Marvelous, just marvelous. That ion field may stop the Koth weapon, but it’s no protection from a piece of debris you can’t see coming. ^Will he come out if the Koth leaves, I imagine he can see the energy weapon passes?^
^That’s the plan sir,^ she sighed.
Briton puckered his lips as they entered the edge of the debris field. ^Break it off, Lieutenant.^
^Give me a few more seconds Commander,^ Lieutenant Hayes snickered. ^I think I just came up with a way to show this turkey a little leg. Wish me luck.^
A little leg? Whaaa . . .
. . .
The waiting was killing Martin as he watched the digital clock on his console tick off the seconds. The only thing he could sense were the regular sweeps of the Koth weapon. He sat up with a start when their cadence changed and became irregular. “I don’t like this.” He muttered to Prowler. The clock had ticked off ninety seconds since he entered the ion field.
Prowler hissed and his tail stub lashed. Martin watched the replay of a fist sized piece of something flashing through the ion field just a few meters from his ship. “That was too close for comfort.” A few seconds later something a lot bigger streaked through the haze a couple hundred meters away. “What the hell was . . . oh shit we’re going through a debris field. Prowler, if the energy pulses stop for more than five seconds get us out of here.”
Prowler blinked and gave him a lazy mewl.
Martin settled back in his seat chewing on his lower lip in nervous frustration. Without warning his ship spun and fired the missile, before it really registered what happened they had jumped clear.
. . .
^. . . sucking, pillow biting, Koth loving, rat bastard.^
Martin blinked in surprise at the Lieutenant’s tirade. ^Ummm, I take it we didn’t get him? Come on over and fill me in, I missed it.^
A tall woman appeared on the yacht with classic Mediterranean appearance, long black hair and very tan with stunning green eyes. She was livid, stalking around the bridge waving her arms in the air, basically ignoring Martin and Prowler. “You had him Major, you had the son-of-a-bitch dead to rights. But no, that sleaze-wad Murphy just couldn’t stand it and had to stick his pecker in the works . . .”
Martin and Prowler just looked each other in the eye, at least she wasn’t yelling at them . . . yet.
24: Dopplegänger
“What a piece of bad luck.” Briton muttered, as he watched the holodisplay of Martin’s failed attack.
The other three mumbled in agreement.
“At least he didn’t get away clean.” Reese’s low rumble filled the silence, “pretty much ruined his day, I think.”
“Hmmph . . . yeah, but the bastard did get away.” Lieutenant Alysis Hayes’ green eyes sparked as she resettled into the luxurious seat on Martin’s yacht bridge. “We’ll be seeing that son-of-a-bitch again.”
“I reckon you’re right,” Reese smiled, then chuckled. “But I don’t think it’s going to be any time too soon.”
Briton eyed the Lieutenant. “I suspect Reese is correct, and it’s no reflection on you. You more than did your part Lieutenant. That ion blast from the wreckage did a lot of damage, probably more than we realize.”
Martin gave a low laugh. “I don’t think anyone knows what the overall effect of having half a strike fighter blown to ions and blasted into a ship at near light speeds by a one kiloton pseudo-nuke would be.”
Reese smiled. “Think it made their lights flicker?”
“Hell, I hope it makes the shit heads glow in the dark.” Hayes grumped.
“If it happened just a couple hundred meters closer . . .” Briton shook his head and heaved a sigh.
Martin scratched Prowler between the ears. “It may have worked out for the best. Prowler ran some time analysis and came up with some very disturbing results. During the twenty seven hundred meters where the Koth could see the missile, there’s a ninety percent probability they could have jumped clear.”
“That son-of-a-bitch was quick,” Hayes grated. “I can attest to that first hand.”
“That derelict fighter may have been a blessing in disguise.” Martin sighed. “And there’s more,” He had their complete attention.
A second holodisplay materialized along side the first. A moment later a Koth killer ship appeared in the display.
“This is the ship that Brian and I ran into.” Martin nodded toward the second display. The ship that evaded his missile came up on the original display. The ships in the two displays slowly rotated in unison. “At first I thought they had added gun turrets to the first ship and that’s what the Lieutenant and I were facing yesterday. It fits the Koth profile of changing something in response to our tactics and the turrets would be a quick effective fix. Those turrets would have made Brian’s suicidal run impossible.”
Lieutenant Hayes raised an eyebrow with an unasked question.
“It’s a long sad story, I’ll fill you in later Lieutenant.” Briton gave the
girl a sad smile. “Continue, Major.”
“But look at the superstructure. This gnawed at my subconscious all last night, until finally I realized it wasn’t the same ship.”
“Oh my God,” Reese sputtered. “You mean there’s two of the dang things?”
Briton paled noticeably. “. . . or more.”
“Son-of-a-bitch,” Hayes hissed. “This is just peachy, we still don’t have any effective way to fight these things.” She seemed to sag a little. “Let’s face it, my tincan was pretty much useless.”
“Not that you didn’t give it one hell of a try, Alysis.” Martin consoled the grousing Lieutenant. “The hypervels just weren’t up to the task.”
The other two men nodded in glum agreement.
Reese sucked his teeth, “I wonder how long it will take the boys over in fleet intelligence to figure out this little tidbit.”
“Oh, I’m sure they’ll see it soon enough.” Martin snickered. “They just haven’t been as up close and personal with these guys as I have.”
Hayes turned to Briton. “Do you have any pull with the R and D troops.”
He answered her with a non-committal shrug. “Maybe . . . if the idea is sound.”
She gave a tight smile. “The hypervels didn’t work for squat.” She heaved a sigh and stared at Briton. “I want a gun . . . a big fucking gun. Not in a turret, it can take up the whole damn ship. I’ll aim it by pointing my ship, like it would be possible to miss that fat ass bastard from a couple thousand meters. Piece of shit!” She was gnashing her teeth and waving her arms all over when she finished.
Briton studied the Lieutenant with reserved neutrality, but Reese’s head rolled back in laughter. Martin gave the girl a toothy smile as she blushed a slightly over her outburst.
“A gunfighter,” Reese chided Hayes. “You want to be an’ old fashioned, wild west quick draw gunfighter.” He finished with a huge lopsided smile.
She winked and answered Reese with a nasty grin. “Sure, why not?”
“Why not, indeed.” Briton commented quietly, his eyes lost in thought.[7]
25: Vanished
Martin shook himself awake at the insistence of the incoming message alert on the Command channel. “Major Morgan reporting.” He responded, shaking out the rest of the cobwebs.
Admiral Chin’s face appeared in the vidphone. “Major . . . oh sorry to wake you.” She smiled.
“It’s ok. What can I do for you, ma’am?”
“I’ve got a situation here, Major. What’s your current location?”
Martin nodded at Prowler and the AI sent an encrypted burst giving the current location.
Admiral Chin looked off screen for a moment. “Good, you’re by far the closest asset. Major, we’ve lost contact with a forward scout group.”
He heard her type out a sequence even though she never looked away. Prowler gave a soft chirrup and set of coordinates appeared on a side display. Martin glanced at the screen. “I’m a day away, Admiral.”
“That’s what I estimated, but that puts you a full day closer than anybody else. Check it out Major . . . and report directly back to me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Martin nodded.
Admiral Chin’s expression softened. “And thanks, Major.”
Martin winked. “Major Morgan out.” Her still smiling face disappeared from the display.
He scratched the top of Prowler’s head. “I knew it was too good to last.” Martin sighed. “Well, at least it was quiet for a couple weeks. Take us there fella.” Prowler just looked up and blinked a couple times, Martin ‘felt’ his ship change course.
. . .
Martin studied the loose collage of dead ships it had taken him a day to get to and another eight hours to track down. “No, Admiral. Everything’s dead, I get nothing, not even a light bulb.”
Admiral Chin sagged in the display. “Damn, no warning, no distress beacons . . . and apparently no survivors.” The pain on her face was palatable. “Was it one of their killer’s?”
“Yes ma’am, there’s still a little ionic residue from the weapon.” Martin fought back an impulse to reach out and comfort those sad eyes burning in the vidphone display.
“Very well, Major. It’ll take a recovery group a few days to get there. I see no reason for you to stay in the area. Thank you for checking.”
“Admiral, I think I’m going to poke around here for a while.” Martin shook his head with pinched lips. “Something just doesn’t seem Kosher, but I just can’t figure out what.”
“Very well Major, please report when you leave the area.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” Martin responded and the sad face faded out. “Let’s go in for a closer look,” he sighed at Prowler. “But you get us the hell outta’ there if you so much as hear a mouse fart.” The cat looked up for a moment then continued grooming.
. . .
“This is too weird.” Martin muttered unconsciously as he studied the ships in the destroyed fleet. Everything was about what he expected except for the small tactical fighter base ship. All the launch bay doors had been blown off . . . with surgical precision. The ships in the bays were untouched. In the twelve bays there were four manned strike fighters, four manned light fighters and the other four were empty. “Prowler, I need to go in and take a closer look. I’m going to eject, you take Star Panther out a hundred LK and go silent. If you see anything let me know and if it looks like I can’t get back you take whatever information you get and go back to fleet. Understand?”
Prowler’s whiskers bristled and his tail stub lashed a couple times then shook for a second. Otherwise he just stared at Martin.
“I know you don’t like it fella, but I gotta do it.” With that he ejected his container from the ship. Martin felt a pang as his ship faded. He fought down a surge of panic as the memory of another time he was out in only his container edged into his consciousness. That was then, and this is now. Get over it! He shook himself out mentally and headed for the small fighter base.
A couple minutes later he crept into one of the empty launch bays. An icy knot of dread formed in his gut as he studied the ship tie down latches. These weren’t released . . . they were cut! His skin crawled with the feeling someone, or something, was watching him as he left the bay. Once clear he micro-jumped several LT from the derelict fleet not taking the time to enter his ship.
. . .
Admiral Chinn absently tapped the connect button on the secure channel when it beeped, not looking up from the report she was dissecting. “Admiral Chinn.”
“Cindy, . . . were there any warborgs in the group?”
Cindy! Now who the hell . . . The thought was cut short when she looked at the display with Martin’s pale, haggard face and haunted eyes. “What?” She asked dumbly, not noticing as the display tablet slipped from her fingers, falling to the desk with a soft thump. “Martin, are you ok?”
“I’m ok, were there any warborgs in this group?”
She typed a quick sequence on a display on her desk. “What’s happened Martin . . . are you going to be all right?” The requested information lit up her display. “Yes, there were four warborg strikes in the group. Why?”
“Oh God, the Koth took them, Admiral.”
“What do you mean the Koth took them?” Chinn tried to push back the sludgy surreal muck that suddenly seemed to be overwhelming her mind. “Took them where?”
“I don’t know, away, back to their base . . . I don’t know. They’re just gone.” Martin took a deep breath to steady himself. “They were cut away from their release bindings in the bays and taken . . . only the warborgs. They left the manned ships behind.”
“My God, Martin, can you link to Briton?”
“No ma’am, I’m too far from anything to act as a repeater in the subspace net. Too much bandwidth.” Martin answered quietly, settling down now that he had someone to talk to.
“Ok, hang on.” Chinn forced a smile and tapped out a sequence that would connect to Briton over a secure channel and
transmit a recording of her and Martin’s communication. In a matter of seconds Briton’s face lit up a second display.
“Admiral, Major.” Briton greeted the other two. “Talk to me Martin. I know there’s more or you wouldn’t be this rattled.” Commander Briton had an epiphany. “You think those warborgs were taken alive!”
“Yes Commander, I do. There isn’t near the level of damage that we’ve seen from the other killer ship attacks, that’s what was bothering me initially. Just enough to knock out the ships and kill any unprotected personnel.”
Admiral Chinn sucked in a breath at this new revelation. “Why do you think the warborgs would survive when nothing else, including the other cyborgs didn’t?”
Briton answered for him. “The warborgs were in a hardened base ship, in their own individual hardened warcraft, each living in hardened container. They had three layers of protection while everyone else had one, or at the most two.”
Martin was more himself after sharing the burden. “And there’s one more odd thing, Sir’s. I looked over one of the manned fighters on the way out.” He mentally took a deep breath. “Aside from power circuits being blown the ship was fine.”
“Are you telling us that those warborgs were almost fully operational when they were taken?” Admiral Chinn sputtered. “Who in their right mind would want to hijack four warborgs that could possibly come back on line in the middle of everything?” Her puzzled smile sagged. “This is a new ball game gentleman. The Koth have never taken prisoners before.”
Martin studied his senior officers for a moment. “Something is changing, not with us, with them. Something I think is of dire importance to us . . . that we may never know about until it’s too late.”
26: Troubled Times
Martin repeatedly pressed the two buttons with his tongue in glazed panic as another wave of agony passed through him, a feeling like his intestines were slowly being shredded with red hot rakes. The buttons did nothing and the two Koth studying him made some notes with detached interest. Another wave of pain ripped through him and he screamed in silent torment as he focused on the open container and mutilated brain matter next to him through blurred sensors. Why couldn’t I have been that lucky? The thought was a tattered remnant of sanity as he ‘felt’ his bladder swell and rupture.
