Battlecruiser Alamo: Malware Blues

by Richard Tongue

   Turning back to the door, Harper slammed a datakey inside, running a test program. She felt strange, empty inside, as behind her Tramiel started to deactivate fail-safes, breaking connections, throwing the device solely onto its limited internal power. A finished design would have protection against such acts, warning measures and fail-safes, but this was just an experimental model, a prototype. No refinements, just brutal, harsh destruction.

   “You have six minutes.” She glanced at her datapad, adding, “We just lost life support in this section.”

   “Futile at best,” Tramiel said. “There’s more than enough air in the room to last us for the rest of our lives.” He barked a laugh, then gestured at a side compartment. “I need Toolkit Seven from in there, bottom rack. Two more disconnections, and we start the countdown.”

   “Got it,” she said, walking into the room. She knelt down, frowned, and was about to turn back when the door slammed shut, sealing her out of the storage bay. “Commodore, what the hell?”

   “You’ll find an escape pod on the far side of the room,” he said. “Isolated to this section, in case we had to destroy the ship in an emergency.”

   “Get in here, then, and we’ll use it.”

   Shaking his head, he replied, “It’ll be chancy enough for you to get out of the blast radius, but that’s not what I was thinking of.” Waving up a datapad, he said, “The debris field will smash Alamo into pieces. You’ve got to get clear of the jamming field and warn them.”

   “Not alone,” she said. “You don’t have to do this.”

   “Inside you will find a datapad with my dying testimony. You’ll find a lot of interesting names on there, of scientists and corporations. I’d take a long look at both.” He smiled, and said, “Despite my reputation, sometimes I’m not as naive as I seem. It occurred to me that someone might try and double-cross us, so I kept copious records. I think you’re best qualified to handle what remains of my legacy.”

   “Tell them yourself,” she said, pulling out an access hatch. “I can have this door open in thirty seconds.”

   “Lieutenant Harper, I order you to take to the escape pods.”

   “Those rules don’t apply, not here.”

   “Lieutenant Harper, I said, that is an order!”

   She paused, nodded, and said, “Very well, Commodore. If that’s the way you want it.” Turning to the pod, she added, “Under other circumstances, sir, I might have gone along with you. On your mission through the Cabal.”

   “Liar,” he replied, before adding, “Nevertheless, I appreciate the thought. Now stop wasting time and get the hell out of here!”

   Reluctantly, she turned from the door, easily spotting the hidden hatch on the wall. With the touch of a button, it slid open, revealing a small chamber beyond, a single couch surrounded by controls. Jumping in, she tapped in a sequence, and as the door closed, a voice echoed from behind her.

   “Alert. Alert. Bomb sequence activated. Bomb sequence activated. Escape shutdown is in effect.”

   She looked around, briefly panicking, but the hatch slid shut, and with a loud report as the explosive bolts fired, the pod detached from the hull, the thrusters slowly kicking her away from Wyvern, out into free space, before ramping up the acceleration as it reached a safe distance. The capsule looked very different from the standard design, tougher, stronger, faster. Another stolen prototype. Glancing back, she expected to see more points of light separating from the hull, others making their escape from the doomed ship.

   Nothing. Not a trace. Surely they wouldn’t bet their lives on trying to break through a door, with an armed man waiting on the other side, ready to gun down anyone who tried. Then it dawned on her. Somehow, the Commodore had disabled all the other escape pods. The shuttles too, no doubt. Either he had decided that there was no-one left on the ship worth saving, himself included, or he was trying to give her the best possible chance to escape. Or both.

   She glanced down at the sensor, watching as the pod blasted to a safe distance, curving to one side in a bid to get out of the way of the likely shrapnel effects. Around Wyvern, everything would be dead for tens of thousands of miles, and looking at the current course plot, Alamo was heading right into that hell. Whoever had programmed the pod’s computer had made it well clear of the dangers, and the thrusters were carefully guiding in a safe course away, heading well clear of the planetoid.

   “Harper to Alamo, come in Alamo,” she said, strapping on a headset. “Harper to Alamo. Harper to Alamo, come in, urgent.” She looked across at the telltales, all the readings green. “Alamo, Alamo, answer me. Come in, please!”

   Jamming. It had to be. Kline deciding that if he was going to die, Alamo and her crew was going to die with him. Glancing down at the thruster controls, she smiled. The computer had been carefully eking out the fuel, making it last as long as possible. She could always throw it all into one desperate kick.

   The acceleration threw her back into the couch, tossing the capsule into a new orbit, rapidly building up speed. She looked down at the sensor display, picking up a trio of shuttles, one of them heading towards Wyvern, the others about to dock. As the thrust faded, she looked down at the orbit projection, and smiled. It seemed rather fitting, strangely.

   “Harper to Alamo. Do you read me?”

   “This is Alamo,” Weitzman replied through a heavy crackle. “Stand by for Alamo Actual.”

   “Make it quick,” she said.

   “I’m here, Harper. What’s happening?”

   “In about three and a half minutes, a one-point-one kilogram antimatter bomb is going to detonate aboard Wyvern. You’ve got to get well clear of the blast radius or the shrapnel will get you.” Glancing down, she said, “Crunch the figures. You’re looking at three, four gigatons.”

   Looking at her controls, she continued, “I’m not sure if you can track me, but I’ll be pretty much back where I started when the blast goes off. I’m opening up a data feed to you now, and I want you to get all the information back to Captain Winter as soon as you make it home. Attached is an explanation to you about what happened.”

   “Hang tight. We’re…”

   “Save yourselves, Maggie. I knew what I was risking. You’ve got a little over two hundred seconds to save that ship of yours. Get to it. Harper out.”

   Leaning back in her chair, she started the data download, throwing in as much encryption as she could manage with the bandwidth. Not that it mattered too much. Orlova would make sure it was kept safe, and there was no-one else around here to listen. She couldn't send everything, not even close, but enough information to send a few hundred people to trial. Not a bad legacy for her. Or Tramiel, for that matter.

   Reaching under the chair, she found a small hip flash, mostly full, and popped open the top, taking an experimental swig, then a deeper one. The Commodore might have many flaws, but she wasn’t going to question his taste in whiskey. Tapping a control, she threw the sensor display onto the main monitor, leaving another locked onto Wyvern. With a faint tone, the download completed, and her mission with it.

   Now all she had to do was sit back and wait for the fireworks to begin. It promised to be a show she would never forget. She took another swig, and began her short vigil, Wyvern slowly beginning to grow larger as she caught up with it. Three minutes and counting.

  Chapter 24

   The shuttle rose to the level of the deck, Salazar opening the hatch before the clamps had locked into place, swinging out of the cockpit. Behind him, Cooper was yelling something, but he ran across the hangar to Bradley, a datapad in her hand. There was smoke coming out of two of the air vents, beginning to build along the ceiling, an acrid smell filling the air.

   “Is Orbital One ready?” he asked.

   “Just about, but Pavel…”

   “Gabe will explain everything. Get me up.”

   Without a further word, he dashed towards the stubby transfer vehicl
e, jumping through the hatch and into the cockpit with a single bound. An unfamiliar blonde was sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, who turned to him with a start as he slid into the couch. Before she could say anything, he worked the hatch shut, throwing a series of switches to activate the manual override, sending the shuttle dropping through the decks.

   “Cut all checks,” he said. “Go for ignition.”

   “Who are you?”

   “Sub-Lieutenant Pavel Salazar. Sorry there wasn’t time for you to get out, but I’m in a hurry. Get on the countermeasure systems and plot me a cause to intercept Grant.”

   “Bradley to Orbital One,” a voice said. “Come in.”

   “Barbara, unless you’re about to tell me that the ship is about to blow up…”

   “In just over three minutes. We’ve only got intermittent contact with the bridge. You’re going to be on your own out there, and if we can’t get the power grid fixed, probably permanently.”

   “That’s for Quinn and his crew to handle,” Salazar replied. “Grant’s out there, and I’ve got to go and get him.”

   “Picking up two targets,” his co-pilot said. “My name’s Scott, by the way.”

   “Pleased to meet you. Enemy shuttle?”

   “Looks like an escape pod, but it’s on a damn strange course. We’d have to burn like hell to get to it.”

   “That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Bradley said. “Harper’s on that pod, and unless you can get to her, she’s going to die in about three minutes. Wyvern’s going to explode with the force of a three gigaton bomb. No time to explain the details.” There was a brief pause, and she said, “You’re clear for ignition. Got to go. Good luck.”

   The transfer shuttle dropped away from Alamo, and without waiting, Salazar fired the main engines, running the throttle to full. He glanced across at the sensor display for a half-second, then fired the thrusters to bring them around, swinging the shuttle towards Harper’s pod.

   “Give me an intercept course, best-speed.” Tapping a control, he said, “Salazar to Grant. What’s the story?”

   “What are you doing out here?”

   “I wanted a breath of fresh air.”

   An alarm went off in the background, and Grant said, “I just got two missiles launched, heading for Alamo. I’m going to try and head them off.”

   Shaking his head, Salazar said, “You can’t have any countermeasures left, and you won’t be able to hack them. Vector to intercept Harper’s pod, and we’ll handle the missiles.”

   “That’s a negative, Orbital One. I don’t have anything like the fuel left for the job. Go get Harper, and before you argue again, consider that to be an order. I’ll handle the missiles. Grant out.”

   “Damn him,” Salazar said. “You got that course for me yet?”

   Scott nodded, and replied, “Computed and laid in.”

   Hitting a series of controls, Salazar brought the shuttle in line with the trajectory track, a series of amber lights flashing on, warnings that the planned maneuver was going to take the shuttle onto a dangerous trajectory with a supply of fuel that would be under safe limits.

   “It’s the best I can do,” Scott said, shaking her head. “If we had a few minutes longer…”

   “We don’t. Let it ride. These calculations are pretty damn conservative. We’ll be fine.” Glancing across at a monitor, he said, “Estimated time to target is ninety-five seconds. See if you can contact the pod.”

   “Orbital One to Escape Pod,” Scott said, tapping a button on her panel. “Orbital One to Escape Pod, do you read me?”

   “Kat, is that you? Why are you still on Alamo?” Harper asked,

   Salazar looked at Scott, noticed for the first time that he was sitting next to a junior officer he’d never seen before, and asked, “Who are you, anyway?”

   With a sigh, she said, “I’m Katherine Scott. Sub-Lieutenant and presumed traitor.”

   “Traitor?” Harper said. “That’s not how it happened!”

   “Threat warning!” Salazar said. “We’ll have to deal with this later. Wyvern is vectoring towards us, and they’ll be within particle beam range in forty-five seconds.” Looking up at a panel, he said, “Five seconds for dock and transfer, and three more to get the hell out of the way.”

   “Let me go,” Harper said. “I’m not recoverable.”

   “Like bloody hell,” Salazar said. “I’m tired of everyone telling me what can and can’t be done. Shut up, ma’am, and prepare for the fastest damn transfer in history. I’ll just have to dock on the first try. Scott, whoever you are, get the clamps ready and engaged, and prepare the lateral thrusters. If I have to brute-force it, I will.”

   Ignoring the babble of protests from all around him, voices from the pod, from Alamo, and from the seat next to him, he focused all his attention on the docking camera. The computer would get him to within a few meters, but would take far too long to complete the maneuver. With the touch of a button, he engaged manual controls, his finger on the slender lever that controlled the fine thrusters.

   During the Academy, this had been a game, trying certain maneuvers on manual control, attempting to beat the computer. He’d been pretty good at it, back then, but at the back of his mind was the knowledge that to get the clamps into position in less than a second would be a class record. By quite a margin. Still, he was a better pilot now than he had been then.

   Warning alerts started to sound as the braking thrust fired, curving them into the same orbit as the pod. A fuel alarm rang across the cabin, Scott having the sense of mind to immediately turn it off, but he barely registered it. His world consisted of a pair of cross-hairs, a circular hatch, and a quartet of thrusters.

   “Easy does it,” he said, as the shuttle moved into position underneath the pod. With a series of quick boosts, he pushed up, one last-second kick to the left followed by a series of loud clunks. He sat back in his chair while the lock slid open, Harper dropping down into the passenger space, slamming a control to close the hatch and eject the pod.

   “Engine burn, now!” Salazar ran the throttle to full, not caring about his trajectory. Anywhere was better than his current location, Wyvern bearing down on him, a building energy spike from the particle beams. With a second to spare, they kicked away into a higher orbit, a safe distance from the lumbering scoutship.

   Harper stepped forward, clapping Salazar on the shoulder, and said, “That is precision flying.”

   “Just another day at the office,” he replied. “Sensor tracking, Scott. How’s Grant doing?”

   She looked down, shaking her head, and said, “Two missiles on his tail, gaining ground rapidly. I make intercept in a little under thirty seconds.”

   “New course, then. Let’s go get him. I want to make this two for two.”

   Entering the calculations into the computer, Scott asked Harper, “Do you know me?”

   “Know you? I…”

   “Later!” Salazar said. “We’ll have all the time in the galaxy for your reunion when the job is done and we get back to Alamo. Now, give me that course!”

   “Plotted, laid in,” she said. “Sorry.”

   As the engines fired, Salazar brought up the sensor display once again, watching the last seconds of a masterclass in evasive maneuvers, Grant using every trick in the book, and quite a few others, to gain ground against his enemy. He was curving back towards Wyvern, placing himself on an intercept course, running the engines up as hard as he could to buy time.

   “Clever, clever,” he said. “He’s playing chicken. Gambling that Wyvern will self-destruct its missiles rather than risk taking the hit.”

   “Will it work?”

   “Depends on what sort of guts Wyvern’s commander has. Knowing Commodore Tramiel…”

   “It isn’t him,” Harper said. “Kline will do it, just for the hell of it. He doesn’t have anything left to lose.”

   
For a brief second, it looked as though Grant was going to win his race, kicking his lateral thrusters at the last minute to send him over Wyvern, one of the two missiles slamming into the scout amidships, debris scattering everywhere. The second followed him up, catching him in the rear, sending the shuttle tumbling out of control.

   “Change the course,” Salazar said. “Match it. We’ll dock and get him home.”

   “Grant to Salazar,” the communicator said. “You can’t reach me. Not and get out again. From what Bradley tells me, Wyvern’s going to be a mass of irradiated debris in a little under a minute. You’ve got to get out of there, get to a safe distance, then try and get back to Alamo. If my figures are right, you’ve got the fuel reserve to pull it off.”

   “To hell with that,” Salazar said. “Scott, give me a course.”

   “Done,” she replied.

   “Engaging engines. Hold on, Lieutenant, the cavalry’s on the way.”

   “But the horse is lame, Pavel, and it isn’t going to get to me in time. Not with the load it already has on its back. You can’t make it. There isn’t time for the transfer.”

   “Harper…”

   “That was an escape pod, this is a shuttle, and the cockpit hatch is jammed, the other blocked with debris. Go back.”

   “I’m not leaving you out there to die.”

   “You don’t have a choice. Not unless you want to add three more lives to the count.” He paused, then said, “I still have one more good blast from by topside jets left. I might be able to help you get a smooth ride home. My sensors say Wyvern’s about to get one last salvo up. Bastards don’t know how to die with dignity.”

   Tears running down his cheeks, Salazar said, “I’ll decoy them away after we pick you up.”

   “Fifty seconds to docking,” Scott said. “Detonation in fifty-five.”

   “Not this time, Pavel,” Grant said, his voice soft. “I was wrong about you. You’re a hell of a pilot, and one day, you’re going to be a hell of an officer. I’m not going to waste that for a washed-up stick jockey like me. Have a good life.” He closed the channel, and through watery eyes, Salazar saw Grant execute his final maneuver, slamming his shuttle into the side of Wyvern, knocking out the launch tubes. A pair of brief flashes erupted as the warheads exploded, the crippled scoutship starting to list to the left.