Conflict: The Pythan War, Invasion

by DK Williamson

  “None,” Tark said. “Help if you can, stay the fuck out of the way if you can’t. Got me?”

  Turner canted his head. “All right… skipper,” he said.

  Tark glared at the entire group, then looked at Turner once again. “A piece of advice, steer clear of redheaded women, they’re bad luck.”

  Turner gestured at Drama. “She’s on your crew.”

  “I know. I also got one and a half ex-wives, both of’em redheads. Trust me, I know.”

  Tark looked up the ladder to the hatch and keyed his communications control. “Control deck, we good on the seal?”

  “Roger, boss. All green on the board, equalized, sterilized, and pasteurized,” Polo replied. “Cassiopeia’s skipper said he’d be waiting for you at the hatch.”

  Tark looked at the people around him. “Stand by.”

  He climbed the ladder and keyed the controls next to the hatch, then undogged the mechanical latches and slid the lid sideways in its mount.

  He looked down at Brownie. “Ten meters looks like, a slight incline to the hatch on Cassiopeia. Get the ramp and the foot bridge.”

  Within minutes, the team from the Franklin crossed to the hatch on Cassiopeia. Brownie pulled a metal bar from his belt and banged on the hatch. Almost immediately they could hear the noises from Cassiopeia’s crew operating the mechanisms to unlock the opening.

  The hatch opened with the tiniest hiss as the two spaces equalized. A uniformed crewman from the Cassiopeia stepped aside and Tark saw a man that had to be the skipper.

  Captain Carey’s uniform was festooned with gold braid, like an admiral of some planetside tin pot navy. Carey saw Tark’s derisive look as he stepped through the hatch.

  “Never mind the uniform, Mr. Tarkaris. It’s company policy. They think it impresses the passengers. We are glad to see you.”

  Carey’s comment made Tark felt better about the situation.

  “This is Brownie,” Tark said with a gesture over his shoulder. “Repair Chief. Get him and his people to the problem and they’ll get to work. My Rescue Chief can help with any sick or injured you may have.”

  The Cassiopeia’s engineer led Brownie’s crew away, a crewman lead Alphabet’s crew elsewhere, while Carey led Tark to the captain’s quarters.

  On the way Tark pulled a paper form from a pocket and passed it to Carey.

  “A physical copy of the NO CURE—NO PAY,” Tark said.

  The contract was officially called a Recovery Open Form, or ROF, but was usually referred to as a NO CURE—NO PAY because that phrase was scrolled across the heading of the form. Those words said it all. In a nutshell, it meant a salvor could not claim any recompense unless the endangered vehicle were safely recovered, and if the vehicle was recovered, the ship’s owner, senior crew, and underwriters, would be liable to pay a salvage award commensurate with the value of the vehicle and its contents. This value was determined at a Coalition Space Committee hearing held months after a salvage.

  The ROF was not the only agreement that applied to space salvage, there were numerous clauses and acts that a salvor could declare, but the ROF was what made salvage companies feasible, and profitable, provided the salvors involved were competent.

  Once inside the captain’s cabin Carey said, “Is there something going on? When the Dancer’s crew left, they did so with some urgency.”

  “There is a Pythan ship inbound from the asteroid field, that’s why,” Tark replied. “We need to get out of here before it arrives.”

  Carey pursed his lips, lost in thought. “They’ve pushed this far into Coalition space then. What if repairs are not complete before the Pythan vehicle arrives?”

  “That depends on the Pythans. Hopefully we make the nav lane before they get here, but if that doesn’t happen… well our options are limited.”

  “Will you leave if you find you can’t complete repairs before they arrive?”

  “I doubt it. Salvors are reluctant to give up. We’re a resourceful bunch, trust me, we’ll come up with something.”

  When Tark was finished on the Cassiopeia, he returned to Franklin to coordinate the rescue efforts.

  When Tark arrived on the control deck, Polo said, “Brownie has traffic, Tark.”

  Brownie’s voice came over his headset. “I got good news, news, and bad news, boss.”

  “Good first,” Tark said as he dropped into the command seat.

  “Good news is the propulsion system is fine, it’s the controls, and it can be fixed. The problem is Blake’s crew fucked it up and took some of the parts with them. We have a lot of gremlins to chase. Like I said, it’s fixable, but it’s going to take some time.”

  “The bad?”

  “We can’t get it repaired before the Pythans get here.”

  Damn it. How long?”

  “Six hours.”

  “Can you speed it up?”

  “Unless you have a time machine stashed somewhere, Tark, no. I’m a salvor, not a miracle worker.”

  “Can you do something makeshift? Cobble something together, cut some corners?”

  “No cobbles and no corners, boss. We’ll go as fast as we can and maybe the horse will sing.”

  “Dammit,” Tark said. “Well, get to it Brownie. I’ll see if I can find the horse… or a time machine.”

  Two hours later the repairs were proceeding well and Brownie had no revisions to his prediction on how much time it would take to finish.

  Cassiopeia’s drift toward the asteroid field had been stopped, and Franklin was pushing the spaceliner in the direction of the nav lane.

  On Franklin’s command deck the pilot, Bev Davis, leaned around to look back at Tark. “You sure we don’t want to make a run for the nav lane, boss?”

  Tark glared at her. “What do you think, Chimp. You going soft on me?”

  “Don’t get nasty, Tark,” she said with a raise of her hand. “I’m just being good crew, reminding you of your options.”

  “Yeah. I said it before, this is our casualty.”

  “You forget about the Pythans, or do you have a plan?”

  “I’m working on it, but we’re getting this casualty out of here.” If I can just figure out how, he thought.

  Tark leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.

  Polo looked at Chimp and shrugged his shoulders. She cocked her head sideways with a questioning look on her face and went back to looking at her instruments.

  Fifteen minutes later Tark sat upright and said, “I got it!” startling the deck crew.

  “How long till our guests arrive, Duck?” he asked.

  “Forty-eight minutes, boss.”

  “All right. Polo, get Carey on the horn and tell him to meet me at the hatch.”

  Polo signaled an acknowledgement.

  Tark keyed his headset. “Lieutenant Turner!”

  “Here,” the Space Forces officer replied from the Cassiopeia.

  “Meet me at the hatch. I have a job for you,” he said as he rose from his seat.

  “What’cha got, boss?” Chimp asked.

  “I’ll tell you in a bit,” Tark said as he crossed the command deck. “Just keep doing what you’re doing. You’re gonna love it.”

  As Tark passed through the exit hatch, Polo said, “I hate it when he does that.”

  Minutes later Tark crossed the footbridge into Cassiopeia and found Carey and Turner waiting for him. “I have a plan for dealing with the Pythans, but I’m going to need some help.”

  “Whatever you need, skipper,” Lieutenant Turner said.

  “Glad to hear you say that,” Tark said with a smile. “I need you to be a big damned hero.”

  Turner looked confused. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

  Tark chuckled. “I doubt it, soldier boy. It’s simple. Come with me and I’ll explain. You are perfect for the job. What I have in mind is….”

  -(o)-

  “Hailing on all frequencies. This is Pythan Tridentate cutter Joursto. Coalition ship, respond. If no response is
received in ten darls we shall fire upon you,” the speaker said in a heavily accented, but understandable voice.

  Had the Cassiopeia’s observation deck, luxuriously equipped with one of the few windows on the spaceliner, been facing the right direction, an observer would have been able to see the distant Pythan vehicle closing on them.

  “How long is a darl?” Carey asked from the bridge of the Cassiopeia via a tight beamed communications hookup.

  “I don’t know,” Tark said, strapped into the command seat on Franklin’s control deck. “Answer him. Agree to whatever terms they offer.”

  Carey sighed heavily. “I hope you know what you’re doing. You do know what you’re doing, right?”

  “As far as you know.”

  “That’s not the answer I was looking for, Mr. Tarkaris, but perhaps levity is the best medicine right now. Good luck to us all.”

  “Joursto, this is the Cassiopeia. We are not a military vehicle. We are a passenger carrier, a civilian vehicle. We have no drive at this time,” Carey said.

  “We shall see, Coalition ship. A boarding party will be put aboard. Any resistance will be met with force. Maintain course. Any deviation will result in your destruction.”

  “I understand, Joursto. I repeat, we have no drive,” Carey said.

  “I repeat, any deviation shall result in your destruction.” The Pythan said.

  The Pythan vehicle continued closing on Cassiopeia.

  “You’re up, Chimp. Keep the Cass between us and them,” Tark said.

  “I know,” she replied, watching her instruments intently, hands and feet on the controls.

  “The Joursto is an old thing, skipper,” Duck said. “Old tech. Inefficient. I can’t pick out any weapons but beams. No way it’s a frontline ship. If it is, Space Forces will have a damned field day with the Pythans.”

  “Old or not, that thing can kill us with not much effort,” Tark said. “It’s not big enough to be a vehicle for large scale space warfare. I think it’s a scout, no other reason for a vehicle like that to be out here by itself.”

  “Any idea what their sensor and detection capability is, Duck?” Tom-Tom asked.

  “I can’t tell what passive gear they have, but their scans are standard stuff at best. Not nearly up to our standards, way short of Space Forces stuff too.”

  “What can you tell us about the vehicle itself?” Tom-Tom said. “Are we going to be able to do what Tark has planned?”

  “It looks like two banks of engines aft, one port and one starboard with capacitor storage nearby. That’ll be tricky. I can’t tell you if we can latch on where we need to until we get near the Pythan crate. Chimp’ll have to play it by ear.”

  -(o)-

  “You all understand what we’re doing?” Lieutenant Turner said looking over the small group of men positioned in front of him. “We only get one try at this.”

  “The lieutenant is right. Won’t be time to ask questions when the Pythans get on board,” said an older man in the group.

  The man was a retired Land Forces Sergeant Major, named Johnston, one of four ex-Coalition forces personnel on board the Cassiopeia willing to join the group.

  The four ex-military men, and six others, made up a team hastily recruited from Cassiopeia’s crew and passengers to deal with the Pythan boarding party. Among them was a professional boxer, three former football players, a vacationing police officer, and a man who claimed he had been in more barroom brawls than he could count. Based on the scars, the misshapen blob on the man’s face that passed for a nose, and a pair of sledgehammer-like fists, Turner believed him.

  Turner possessed a Space Forces issue sidearm, and distributed weapons taken from the Franklin to the three men Turner felt were the most qualified to wield them. The others would use improvised weapons if necessary.

  A member of the group, one of the former Land Forces members, raised a hand in response to Turner’s question. “Why don’t we take them when they board?” he asked.

  “Because the boarding team will likely contact the Pythan vehicle once they are aboard. If they don’t make that call, the Cassiopeia gets destroyed. Stick to the plan.”

  “All right, sir. I was just wondering. What are those salvagers going to do anyway?”

  “I don’t know exactly, and they are salvors, and salvors save vehicles, or so I am told.”

  “Well, we don’t have much choice, huh?”

  The old sergeant major chuckled. “Sure we do. We can all become Pythans.”

  -(o)-

  The Pythan vehicle neared Cassiopeia and executed a 180 degree pivot, firing the engines to slow its approach.

  At a crawl, the Joursto edged very near the spaceliner, rotating ninety degrees to bring her starboard side to Cassiopeia’s port side.

  “That thing is damned near blind aft,” Duck said. He brought up a display on some of the screens on the sides of the command deck bulkheads. “Look at the readings. See where the bar is elevated? That’s active scans. See the dip here? I’ll bet you a month’s pay that’s the ass end swinging around.”

  “You’re betting all our lives, Duck,” Tom-Tom said.

  “A month’s pay is worth more to me than you bums,” he said with a smile, his eyes darting over the screens in front of him.

  Tark smiled. “It’s likely gonna be our only shot. When the boarding party starts their move onto the Cass, we move. Got it, Chimp?”

  She nodded. “Give the word, Tark, and we go.”

  -(o)-

  “This is Pythan Tridentate cutter Joursto. Coalition ship, we shall board you. Do not resist or you will be destroyed. Do not deviate from your course. Any deviation from your course shall result in destruction.”

  Within minutes, the Pythan vehicle had a flexible passageway attached to the Cassiopeia, sealed around a hatch and linking the two vehicles.

  A pounding on the hatch where the Pythans were boarding was clearly audible to Captain Carey and Lieutenant Turner who awaited the signal.

  They opened the hatch and were greeted by a Pythan officer holding a sidearm in his right hand as he held the edge of the opening with his left hand. “I am Commander Munaka. Your ship belongs to the Pythan Tridentate now,” he said in a heavily accented voice as he pulled himself on board the Cassiopeia.

  “I am Captain Carey. This is Turner, one of my officers,” he said gesturing at the Space Forces lieutenant, now wearing a Piedmont Tours uniform.

  Munaka looked at each of them briefly, then turned to the six men who accompanied him and spoke in the Pythan tongue to them.

  A pair of them closed the hatch and resealed it, then took positions at the sealed opening, one on each side.

  “You will lead me to the bridge,” Munaka said curtly.

  “Certainly,” Carey said. “This way, Commander.”

  -(o)-

  “Go, Chimp,” Tark said.

  Chimp smoothly put Franklin into motion, coming around the back of the Cassiopeia, past the engine nozzles to a position directly behind the Joursto.

  “Now we see how sound your theory is, Duck,” Tark said.

  “The Pythans are scanning, but they’re looking at the Cass. Not a damned thing our way,” he replied.

  “Find me a place to latch onto that thing, Duck,” Chimp said.

  “What do you think I’m doing?”

  Duck’s eyes flitted between screens as his fingers manipulated the controls on the arms of his chair.

  “I kinda need to know, Duck. Time and distance are dwindling,” Chimp said, some anxiety and irritation in her voice.

  “I got something, but it’s small. Look at your reference screen.”

  Chimp looked at a screen to her left and nodded. “Got it, between the engine banks. Looks small,” she said eyeing the flat protrusion from the rear of the hull.

  “I told you it was small,” Duck said. “You have a meter of margin. One. For the record, the simulator says you can’t do it.”

  “The simulator doesn’t know me or the Fran
klin very well then.”

  “The walkway is retracting,” Duck said.

  “We’re fine. When that Pythan piece of crap moves, it’ll have a new shadow. We’ll latch on when they get clear and establish a new course.”

  The Pythan cutter used maneuver jets to move away from the Cassiopeia, the Franklin holding a position subjectively just over the engine banks. Wherever the Joursto went, the Franklin matched as if was attached to the Pythan vehicle.

  The Joursto assumed a parallel course to the Cassiopeia 500 meters to the port side.

  “I’m latching,” Chimp said. “Stand by on the lamprey skirt, then we can go to work.”

  “Not until we are reasonably sure Turner has done his part,” Tark said.

  “Yeah, that’s what I meant.”

  Chimp’s hands and feet worked the controls deftly. She virtually never used the robotic assists that were available. Her ability to finesse the Franklin on her own was an impossibility, at least according to the experts. The computer models and simulations confirmed that opinion time and time again, yet she did it routinely. The control chair Chimp sat in required most of the body to be involved. Head, shoulders, buttocks, legs, and most importantly of all, the hands and feet, all working in concert with the Franklin. After observing her skills, the experts eventually changed their assessment and begrudgingly called her ability ‘highly improbable’.

  “We’re there,” Chimp said. “Bond the skirt.”

  Tom-Tom activated the skirt. “Ten seconds. The bond looks solid.”

  “Now we find out if the Pythans know what we are up to,” Tark said.

  -(o)-

  “The bridge, commander,” Carey said as he followed Munaka through the hatch.

  “I shall communicate with Joursto. Make this happen,” the Pythan ordered.

  Carey directed Munaka to a communications console where the Pythan strapped himself in a crew chair while he spoke to his commander on the Joursto.

  Several minutes later, Munaka concluded his business and released the straps on the chair. He pulled himself up and pushed himself across the deck to where Carey and Turner awaited with the Pythan quartet that was accompanying Munaka.