apparently has a few more surprises tucked away under the service
panels of this ship."
"There is something else," said Pakkpekatt. "Look at the message
size."
Hammax squinted. "That's heavy lifting."
"It has to be a mistake. We should send back a verify request," said
Taisden. "Confirm the originating station, packet size, router. Or
request a redirect to our own hypercomm transceiver."
"There is a simpler way to satisfy our curiosity," said Pakkpekatt. "I
would like the bridge to myself for a few moments. Colonel Hammax, I
believe you Were headed aft?"
Hammax nodded. "I'll be skinned up in five to ten," he said, turning
away and ducking through the hatchway.
"I'll check in with Pleck," Taisden said, climbing out of his couch.
"Page me on the observation deck."
Even though he was alone, Pakkpekatt covered his right hand with his
left as he entered his authorization code and switched the viewer to
privacy mode as he read the notice.
COLONEL PAKKPEKATT
ACTIVATION OF FAIR LADY'S P' W' ECK COMPLEMENT RECORDED HERE.
SINCERELY HOPE THIS PRESAGES RESTORATION OF PEACEABLE RELATIONS WITH
HOST WORLD AND DIPLOMATIC RECOVERY OF EXPEDITION.
PENDING DISPATCh1 CONTAINS LETTERS OF INTRODUCTION, RECENTLY ACQUIRED
AT GREAT EXPENSE. TRUST THEY WILL OPEN DOORS FOR YOU.
It bore an apparently authentic Fleet Intelligence watermark and seal
but was unsigned.
General Calrissian's friends, Pakkpekatt thought. They should not know
that I am in this ship, but they do, and they are still looking after
him.
He drummed his thumb-claws on his temples as he considered his
response. 'Letters of introduction' can only mean the Qella genetic
code--assistance that I requested through proper channels, which was
denied when the task force was recalled.
There was no real choice before him. With a few light touches on the
display, Pakkpekatt entered his send authorization and returned a
clear-to-transmit message to his unknown benefactor, noting the ship
time as he did. At their present distance, the transit lag for a
round-trip to Coruscant should be something more than forty minutes.
If the reply came back too
soon or too late, he would know what meaning to give it.
"Colonel Hammax, are you ready?" Pakkpekatt called over the comm
system.
"Going through my weapons check now, Colonel."
"Very well. Agent Taisden, please return to the bridge. Agent Pleck,
please assist Colonel Hammax at the airlock. Colonel, during the
flyaround, did you identify where you would like to make your entry?"
"Those open ports on the far side looked to be as good a place as any,"
Hammax said. "I'm going to use a ring charge to cut in, and I can put
some hull between myself and the blowback."
"Very well," Pakkpekatt said, taking the yacht's maneuvering yoke in
hand. "I'll notify you when we are in position."
Colonel Hammax did not stay aboard the hulk of the cruiser for long. A
mere fifteen minutes after he disappeared into the maw of launching
port eight, he reappeared at the opening of launching port four.
Raising his right hand in a wave, Hammax squeezed the thruster controls
with his left and started across the hundred meters separating Gorath
and Lady Luck as they drifted together through space.
Though Hammax's foray suit had voice, holo, and biomedical comm systems
in both open and conductive modes, Pakkpekatt had directed him to
observe strict comm silence unless confronted by a threat, and Hammax
had done so. So his early return was the object of sudden and intense
curiosity. Pleck and Pakkpekatt watched from the flight deck and
Taisden from the observation deck as Hammax jetted toward the yacht,
knowing only that it was impossible under any conditions to thoroughly
search a 450-meter-long warship so quickly.
"He looks okay," said Taisden. "Maybe he had some equipment problem.
Or maybe he got lucky and found what he was looking for right off."
"If Colonel Hammax had found what he was looking for, he would be
returning with two body bags," Pakkpekatt said, tracking the
spacesuited figure with the laser cannon.
"You're going to make him nervous, doing that," Taisden observed.
"Good. That will help him understand that I am," said Pakkpekatt. "Go
back to the airlock and hold Colonel Hammax there with the overrides
until I have satisfied myself."
As soon as the outer lock closed, Hammax broke his silence, using his
suit's conductive transmitter. "Colonel, she's well gutted.
Definitely Prakith, though."
Taisden startled at that. "A long way out for a Prakith ship--a long
way out. Are you sure?"
"I could still read the blazons on bulkheads here and there. Colonel,
it's a derelict. Nothing's functional, and there are no signs of
life--a lot of bodies, but none of 'em are going to get any more
use."
"Was there any sign of Calrissian?"
"No," said Hammax. "I checked both brigs--there were five bodies
between them, none of them human. I also checked the bridge and the
maintenance shop--no droids of any kind in either location."
"Why did you terminate your search? A Strike- class cruiser has two
hundred fifty-eight compartments."
"Colonel, with the conditions over there, I wasn't going to find out
any more in an hour than I did in fifteen ticks," Hammax said. "I
thought the best thing was to come back and leave it up to you whether
to commit the time to take it further. If you want all two hundred
fifty-eight compartments searched, I'll turn around and get started on
it."
"Is it your report, then, that Calrissian's party is not aboard the
cruiser?"
"I can't tell you with absolute certainty that the general wasn't
aboard when the balloon went up," said Hammax. "But in my opinion,
it'd take a forensic sal
vage team the better part of a week to be any more certain. Your call."
"Stand by, Colonel Hammax." Pakkpekatt rubbed his temple crests as he
checked the comm queue. The "Fleet Intelligence" dispatch was still
spooling into Lady Luck's comm buffers, pouring in at 94 percent
efficiency of the highest available error-checking transfer rate. But
even at that rate, the counters predicted it would take another
twenty-three minutes to complete the transfer.
"All stations, conference," Pakkpekatt said.
"Hammax here."
"Taisden here."
"Pleck ready."
"It is my belief that the most probable scenario to explain our
findings is that this vessel was destroyed by the vagabond by means of
a weapon not previously seen. The vagabond is likely to have been
damaged in the confrontation, prompting Calrissian to recall his
yacht.
Concur or dispute."
"Concur," said Pleck, "I concur," Hammax and Taisden said
simultaneously.
"Proposition: The degree of damage sustained will dictate the current
location of the vagabond. If not seriously damaged, she will have
jumped ou
t. If seriously damaged, she will have moved off in
realspace, perhaps to make repairs. If mortally damaged, she may still
be present as an undetected debris field."
Pleck and Hammax agreed.
"Or she may have tried to jump out and broken up in the process, in
which case there might be very little debris to find," said Taisden.
"Yes," said Pakkpekatt. "Disposition: We will remain at this location
while we conduct a maximum-aperture deep scan for the vagabond, and
until we examine the debris field more closely. Colonel Hammax, stand
by for possible debris recovery operations.
Agent Taisden, please return to the second seat to supervise the deep
scan."
As Taisden reached the flight deck Pakkpekatt was turning the bow of
Lady Luck away from the cruiser.
"You said there was a possible body?"
"Let me locate it for you," said Taisden, reconfigur-ing the
displays.
"Twelve hundred meters, bearing two-one-zero, plus four-four,
relative.
A lot of smaller stuff between us and it, though."
Pakkpekatt responded by reactivating the particle shields so that they
could shoulder aside any debris in their path. "Please begin your
scan."
"That'll scatter the field," Taisden said. "Standard recovery protocol
calls for deflectors only, with particle shields at zero."
"I know that," said Pakkpekatt. "But this is not a junker, Agent
Taisden, and we are not scavengers." He pushed the yoke forward, and
Lady Luck eased away from the shattered cruiser. Within a minute, it
had entered the cloud of debris.
The "body" proved tO be a curious object--a rough-surfaced sphere two
meters across, carbon-scorched over one third of its surface and
encrusted with a thin layer of fragile, long-crystal ice.
Pleck had come forward to the flight deck for a closer look. "Could it
be some sort of escape pod?" he asked. "I've heard that spaceliners
used to be equipped with something like the ferry bags S-and-R units
use--you know, not much more than a soft-sided ball with a rebreather,
so you can move people off a disabled ship without having to try to get
them into spacesuits."
Taisden shook his head. "I'm still on passive sensing only, but the
thing looks solid to me. If the colonel will let me strobe it--" "No,"
said Pakkpekatt.
"Colonel, if it's something interesting, let me go out and get it,"
said Hammax. "At two meters, I should be able to bring it in through
the cargo airlock."
"No," said Pakkpekatt. "I do not want it inside this ship. But I do
want to know what it is made of. If it is not part of the cruiser, it
may be part of the vagabond."
"You say it's iced over?" asked Hammax.
"To a depth of approximately one centimeter," said Taisden,
recalibrating his displays for fine detail.
"Sounds like draw-frost," said Hammax. "You only get that on
biologicals, and only for a little while, until the remains are
desiccated or deep-frozen. See, the pressure differential pulls the
water in the epidermal layers toward the surface, but it starts
freezing on the skin before it can evaporate. The residual body heat
can keep things pumping for a while, but eventually the ice evaporates,
too, one molecule at a time."
"Maybe it is a body, then," said Pleck. "Just not a human one.
Colonel?"
Pakkpekatt glanced at the counter on the comm display. "Very well,
Colonel Hammax. See if you can move it to the fantail observation
deck. I believe there are cargo tie-downs there, and we will not have
to concern ourselves with turning the cargo deck into a hy-pothermic
cooler--" "Hold everything," Taisden said, sitting forward sharply and
frowning at the displays. "I have a deep-scan contact alarm. Colonel
Pakkpekatt, there's something coming in fast."
"You are acquiring Colonel Hammax's bad habits," said Pakkpekatt with a
hiss. "What sort of contact?"
Taisden shook his head. "She's bow-on to us and still a long way
out--nine hundred thousand kilometers," he said. "It'll be a little
while, even for this rig."
He paused, tapping the console with his fingertips. "On the other
hand, if she's related to the late Prakith cruiser behind us, she's
probably coming in with her don't-shoot-me lights on."
"Combat transponder," Pleck said. "Yes. Scan for it in the high
forties--that's pretty common for Imperial-class designs, and I don't
think the Prakith are likely candidates for a lot of field
modifications."
"I've got it--forty-four two, for future reference.
Uncoded, but in Prak." Then he grunted. "Looks like General
Calrissian went for all the options when he bought this yacht. The
system's giving me an on-the-fly translation--ha!"
"What?"
Despite the seriousness of the moment, Taisden was briefly consumed by
a spell of deep, closed-mouth chuckles. "We are heading for a
rendezvous with, and I quote verbatim, 'The gallant and eternally
vigilant patrol destroyer Tobay of the Grand Imperial Navy of the
Constitutional Protectorate of Prakith, in grateful and loyal service
to His Glory, the potent and courageous governor for life, Foga
Brill."" "And you thought your section commander had unreasonable
expectations," Pleck said, clapping Taisden on the shoulder. "Do you
think the Prakith navy holds public fawning competitions?"
Pakkpekatt parsed the puffery for the one detail that mattered to
him.
"Patrol destroyer, Imperial Adz- class. Primary armament three class-D
quad laser cannon batteries, three class-B dual ion cannon
batteries."
"Sounds like we definitely don't want to be here when they arrive,"
said Hammax. "Colonel, do you still want me to go after the
floater?"
Pakkpekatt looked to Taisden. "How long?"
"Not quite six minutes, though she'll have to start knocking her speed
down pretty soon. Call it eight."
"Not enough time, Colonel Hammax," said Pakkpekatt. "Come back
inside.
I need you to take over weapons control."
"Pardon me, Colonel," Taisden said.
"What is it?"
"Colonel, this other ship coming in may not be ignorant enough to think
that we're the ones who rearranged the furniture on the cruiser, but
they're sure as sweat going to be curious about what we know. I
strongly recommend we jump out before they get anywhere near here."
"Recommendation noted," said Pakkpekatt.
"However, inasmuch as we are currently receiving a mission-critical
dispatch from Fleet Intelligence, we will
not be able to jump out for another"he leaned forward to read the
display--"ten minutes."
Pleck and Taisden exchanged glances. "Anyone know the top speed of an
Adz-class patrol destroyer?"
"Point-five-five," said Pakkpekatt.
"And this yacht?"
"Unknown to me," said Pakkpekatt. "Agent Tais-den, tell me when the
contact's velocity changes."
"We could hide in the scan shadow of the cruiser," Pleck said.
"I intend to
," said Pakkpekatt, handling the yoke with a light touch
that nudged the yacht sideways to port. "'But I won't be able to do so
for long."
"They might come in more slowly if they see us," said Taisden. "We
only need a couple of minutes."
Hammax appeared at the hatchway, finger-combing his helmet-matted
hair.
"Patrol destroyer carries six fighters," he pointed out. "They can
have it both ways--send the fighters in hot after us, and take a nice
safe, slow approach to the wreck."
"Anyone know what kind of fighters the Prakith have?" Pleck asked,
frowning. No one answered him.
"Contact is decelerating," said Taisden. "Looks like she's spotted the
wreck. Colonel, the wreck's going to eclipse the contact in a few
seconds."
"Tell me when."
"Coming up--damn. Fighter launch, two birds."
"Excellent," said Pakkpekatt, pushing the yacht's throttles forward to
the limit. The sudden acceleration knocked Hammax back into the
THE BLACK FLEET CRISIS #3 - TYRANTS_TEST Page 23
