Shadows Against the Empire

by Ralph Vaughan

  Hand gasped.

  “That’s no turbulence, not in space,” Folkestone yelled. “We are under attack!”

  Chapter 15

  Folkestone and Hand reached the bridge on the double and found a scene of controlled chaos. Captain Wax was snapping out orders, both to his bridge crew and through his speaking tubes, with the rapidity of a Gattling.

  “We are under attack by marauders,” Wax reported. “Two pirate ships.”

  As if to underscore the Captain’s words, one of the manta-shaped aethercraft passed close ahead of the Princess of Mars, its wing-guns strafing the upper hull. The explosive pellets did no real harm but the detonations resounded like the beating of savage drums. A bolt of electricity shot out from two brass globes near the bow, but the manta-shaped attacker evaded it easily; streams of pellets erupted from port and starboard guns, but they caused little damage to the ebony-hulled craft. As the pirate moved off, another swept in across the star-field.

  “I have issued a distress signal over the aether-radio, but…” He shook his head. “Communication with aether-waves is of course instantaneous, but the closest help is at least thirty minutes off.”

  “Armament, Captain?” Folkestone asked.

  Wax shook his head. “Projectile guns fore and aft; static projector at the bow. We are outgunned.”

  “No demands for safe passage fees?” Hand asked. “No call to allow boarding?”

  “None!” Wax paused to snap orders to various members of his crew, then continued: “Those blighters mean to cripple us, board us, take want they want, and leave us to die. Not exactly what Black Ray is known for – those are his ships.”

  “Black Ray?” Hand cast a quick glance at the incoming ship. “He’s a rogue, but he’s always been…”

  “He seems to have developed another business stratagem,” Wax said. “We have something he wants, and he means to have it.”

  Hand looked to Folkestone, and Folkestone nodded.

  “Captain, do you have any fighter craft berthed aboard?” Folkestone asked.

  “The Princess is neither an aether-liner nor a warcraft, just cargo and passengers,” Wax answered.

  They were interrupted by the sudden arrival of Lady Cynthia on the bridge. This time, Wax did not protest, and one look told her everything she needed to know.

  “All we have are maintenance ships,” Wax continued. “Small, fast, one-manned, but no armament, just riveters for repairs and cutting torches.”

  “They will do!” Folkestone snapped. “Follow me, Sergeant.”

  “Do you think Black Ray is in this plot?” Hand murmured as they exited the bridge.

  “I’m quite certain of it, Sergeant,” Folkestone replied. “The plotters have learned of the documents we carry and do not want them to reach Mars.”

  “Rivet guns, sir? Cutting torches?”

  “Come on, Sergeant, where is your spirit of adventure?” Folkestone said. “It will be fun…like that time on Vesta.”

  Hand frowned. “You and I seem to remember Vesta quite differently, sir.”

  Back on the bridge, Captain Wax continued to issue rapid-shot orders almost faster than his crew could make course changes or engage the enemy.

  “Those two are brave lads,” he said to Lady Cynthia, “but I fear this is going to be the last run of the Princess of Mars. But she will not go down like a lamb, I swear!”

  “Is there anything I can do to help, Captain?” she asked.

  He shook his head heavily. “Pray.”

  “If only you had more than just the two maintenance ships.”

  “Two? Nay, the Princess carries three.”

  “Three?”

  “Aye.”

  “Thank you, Captain.”

  Wait, now! Where do you think you…” But he was already talking to empty air. He shook his head. “She is a spirited lass, that one, but three mosquitoes will not give any more hurt to a mad bull than will two.”

  Though Hand had no problem getting into his craft, the much larger Folkestone had to practically be jammed into the pit. It was very small, with minimal repulsors for manoeuvring, but it was the oversized aether-engine that took up the most space. Since most repairs to an aethership outside a spacedock or aetheryard were effected in flight, the maintenance ships had to move faster than the ship they serviced, thus they were maintenance ships designed around an engine, with a pilot stuffed in as an afterthought.

  “Sergeant Hand, you’re a lucky man,” Folkestone muttered.

  “Tell me that after we return, sir,” Hand responded.

  They strapped on padded leather flying helmets, locked the crystalline canopies into place, checked the flow of pressurized oxygen from the four narrow brass tubes behind the seat, and were given a three-second countdown by the nervous mechanics trying to keep the aethership from falling to pieces around them.

  The two small maintenance ships dropped into the awful immensity of space. Though they knew they were surrounded by aether there was no comfort to be taken in it – trace oxygen could be extracted from the otherwise undetectable substance by larger ships, but if anything were to happen to their canopies their blood would boil and their lungs would burst.

  “Com-check,” Folkestone said, the words being picked up by the small perforated metal disc sewn into the helmet.

  “Clear,” reported Hand over his aether-radio.

  “No range on the so-called weapons.”

  “Built for speed, sir.”

  “Yes,” Folkestone agreed. “Our best bet, then, is to get in fast and close, harry them, distract them from the Princess.”

  “I’ll take the one coming in, sir,” Hand called.

  “I’ll take the other bugger,” Folkestone said. “Give them hell and then some, Sergeant.”

  “Do my best, sir!”

  “And don’t get killed, Sergeant,” Folkestone called as the ships shot out at tremendous velocity. “Or I’ll have you awarded a medal for heroism posthumously.”

  “I’ll keep that foremost in my mind, sir.”

  As Hand rushed to meet the oncoming marauder, Folkestone engaged his aether-engine at full to catch the other manta-shaped pirate vessel, now sweeping out from having made a strafing run on the Princess of Mars. The sudden acceleration smashed his body into the padded seat and crushed the air from his lungs. He used the repulsors to adjust his trajectory to intercept the other ship. Though the pirate craft was small compared to the bulk of the aethership, it loomed large over Folkestone.

  It had been a few years since Folkestone had last trained in an aether-fighter, but these controls were much simpler.

  He approached in an arc that carried him close to the ebony hull. Pulling up at the last moment, he found himself so close to the enemy, had it not been for the canopy he could have reached out and smacked it. He extended both of the starboard cutting torches, igniting the brilliant flames fuelled by electricity and focussed light. The cutters sliced through the hull like a sabre into soft cheese. Pale gasses gushed into the aether as pipes were severed, and showers of sparks erupted into the silent void.

  The manta-craft abruptly changed course as its crew realised something was amiss, but Folkestone kept even, not pulling away until he had cut a nearly unwavering line from stern to stem. He may not have done the ship any grievous damage, he thought with a grin, but he was certain he had the pirate captain’s attention.

  That certainty was confirmed when several of the guns on the underside of the hull, swivelled in his direction and began firing. But the glowing projectiles only passed harmlessly through the space formerly occupied by the tiny maintenance ship.

  Again pressing the little craft to limits undreamed of by its designers, Folkestone swept past the sleek black aethership even as it was trying to turn about to find him. The maintenance ship hove into view of the ship’s bridge, nothing separating it from those on board but the crystalline window of the bridge itself.

  Smiling, Folkestone tossed the pirates a jaunty salute.
r />   Then he activated his ship’s rivet gun.

  The crystalline substance used for windows and ports on all aetherships may appear to be nothing more than silica glass, but it is very much more durable, produced by descendants of the Medieval Venetian alchemists and artificers who took the material sciences to heights unimagined by their Greek and Roman predecessors. The substance has the ability to resist the slow erosion of the aether at high velocity, and can even withstand impacts with the fist-sized meteorites hurtling through the void. On the other hand, Folkestone thought as the first rivet collided with the crystalline screen, this rivet tool was designed to secure sheets of the hardest metal known to beams of the second-hardest metal known.

  A delicate and deadly network of cracks radiated outward from the point of impact.

  One of the pirate crew yanked a blaster from his holster and took aim at Folkestone.

  Go ahead, you ignorant blighter, Folkestone thought. Shoot!

  Another pirate, seeing his comrade about to finish what Folkestone had started, smashed the hapless fellow in the face. The man dropped like a dumb poleaxed ox. As his blaster fell, it cut a swath of destruction through instrumentality and flesh.

  Another rivet hit the screen, the gun being designed for power not speed, causing the substance to crack further.

  Folkestone saw rather than heard a desperate order flung across the bridge, but he needed neither hearing nor training as an aether-sailor to know what it was. He throttled down the propulsive thrust of the aether-engine, then, using the port and bow repulsors, quickly pulled back and aside, but not before loosing two more of the deadly rivets at the adversary.

  The pirate vessel hove about suddenly, one black manta-wing sweeping toward the little craft. Though anticipated, the manoeuvre still managed to bring the larger ship into contact with the smaller, clipping the stern of the maintenance ship and sending it tumbling.

  As Folkestone channelled varying amounts of energy to the banks of repulsors to right the craft and to start another run on the pirate, he saw the dwindling form of the Princess of Mars, steadily opening the space between her and the otherwise occupied manta-ships. A series of rapid explosions shook his ship as the recovering pirates brought their guns to bear of the tiny target. One of the port repulsors shattered and some of projectiles dug into the hull, but most hit at a steep angle and glanced away.

  Once again, Folkestone took the battle to the pirates. If he tried now to catch up with the fleeing Princess, the enemy vessel would only follow. The only hope for the aethership’s survival and the safety of the documents he had been tasked to transport to Mars lay in his being able to harry and delay the pirate until the Princess of Mars was beyond pursuit, or until the Royal Space Navy joined the fray. Folkestone looked at the oxygen indicator and realised one of the tubes must have been nicked.

  Perhaps help would arrive in time, he hoped.

  Grimly he bore down on the pirate ship, which was now trying to evade him. This time around, he aimed for the starboard repulsor bank. As before, he swept in close and low, activating the cutting tools with only inches between the two craft. The manta-ship tried to manoeuvre away from him, but he matched it at every point, slicing through the hull, cutting through vital connections.

  As he passed, repulsor after repulsor exploded behind him, and while the aether is, of course, silent, the sound of the shards tinkling against his canopy was quite gratifying.

  With most of the repulsors on the starboard side either gone or malfunctioning, the pirate craft suddenly veered, and it was plain the crew was struggling mightily to maintain any sort of a course. Rather than dropping away, Folkestone moved toward the starboard guns; rather than using the cutter, however, he drove a rivet into the magazine and energy reservoir he knew had to be situated beneath them. As soon as the rivet was away, so was Folkestone. The crack-crack-crack sounds of shrapnel striking against the underside of the maintenance ship told him he had been successful.

  Pushing the port repulsors to full while negatively charging the starboard and engaging the aether-engine to near maximum, Folkestone turned about with enough force to crush the air from his lungs and make his head swim for a moment. Then he brought the ship to such a sudden stop that the restraining straps bit painfully.

  The manta-ship was moving away, listing badly and trailing a cloud of roiling gasses, freezing steam and glowing fragments of the hull. Folkestone smiled grimly at their predicament. At its best speed, the manta-ship was destined to be intercepted long before it ever neared wherever was its lair.

  Unless, of course, its bridge-screen shatters before then, he thought. The aether is a dangerous place.

  Satisfied that the manta-ship was no longer a threat, he then turned his attention to the other marauder, hoping Sergeant Hand had been as successful as had he been. Squinting across the leagues of aether, Folkestone was dismayed that the manta-ship was mostly undamaged even though it was being properly harried to distraction.

  A frown formed on his chiselled features.

  Two maintenance ships were giving the pirate the business.

  Damn that annoying woman! he thought.

  Cutting the aether-engines in at full power, he emptied his lungs before the acceleration crushed the air out.

  It was clear from the manta-ship’s manoeuvres that this one was helmed by a master pilot, much better than the poor sod who had received such a drubbing from Folkestone. While the pirate was unable to molest the aethership further, he was giving Sergeant Hand and that woman a bad time of it.

  As Folkestone headed in to give his friends a hand, the manta-ship turned and fled, moving hard away from either of the trajectories taken by its fellow freebooter or the Princess of Mars. The three ships started to give chase, then fell back. Fast as they were, the maintenance craft had very limited range and were already in enough of a dilemma as it was.

  Folkestone was rather nonplussed that his decision to join the other two should have had such an effect on the pirate captain, who, from the tactical skills exhibited, might be Black Ray himself. Perhaps the pirate had detected the damage inflicted upon the other ship and feared getting what his mate had received from Folkestone, or perhaps, Folkestone mused, that he would get much worse. For a moment, his chest swelled with jingoistic pride.

  A voice crackled across the aether: “Captain Leo Golding, commanding HMS Vigilant…may we be of service?”

  Folkestone sighed. He knew if he turned about he would see what the pirate captain had seen – a massive space-dreadnought looming from out the aether. Well, had he had the opportunity, he knew he would have given Black Ray what-for, but, considering his own oxygen situation, he was glad for the intervention of the RSN.

  A space-cruiser suddenly flashed past Folkestone, on the trail of the fleeing manta-ship.

  “Captain Golding, this is Captain Robert Folkestone, First Space Dragoons,” he said into the speaking disc. “We are certainly glad for your timely appearance.”

  “Commander Dexter on the Revenge is taking up the pursuit of your friend,” Golding said.

  “There was another ship…” Folkestone started to say.

  “Yes, rather little of it left, I must report,” Golding said. “It refused to heave to for boarding when ordered to do so. Commander Waverly of the Ajax was on the verge of firing a warning shot when…well, it was unclear what happened next, but it appears their bridge-screen blew out, venting all the ship’s atmosphere, and most of the crew.”

  “Yes, sir,” Folkestone said. “That is entirely possible.”

  The aether-radio was silent a long moment.

  “What the bloody hell did you people do to that ship?” the commander of the Vigilant demanded. “Unless I am mistaken, those flipping specks you three are ‘commanding’ are just maintenance craft, no armament at all.”

  “They are indeed that, Captain,” Lady Cynthia chimed in.

  Once again the aether-radio was silent.

  “Captain, Lady Cynthia Barrington-Welles
is also with us,” Folkestone explained. “Her father is…”

  “Oh, I know the Admiral quite well,” Golding interrupted. “And I have heard of her ladyship.”

  I’ll bet you have, Captain, Folkestone thought.

  “Please forgive my language a moment ago,” Golding said rather contritely. “I had no idea your ladyship was…”

  “Quite all right, Captain,” Lady Cynthia assumed him. “My father is quite the ‘old salt’ after all.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” A pause, then: “The three of you manoeuvre to our dock area and berth your…ships. Captain Folkestone, I have been ordered to assist you in any way necessary. After we take you aboard, I will ensure you are reunited with the Princess of Mars so you may resume your journey.”

  “Very much appreciated, Captain, but quite unnecessary,” said Captain Wax’s voice across the aether-waves. “I am returning to retrieve my prodigal children.”

  Folkestone protested: “But, Captain Wax…”

  “I was closely monitoring aether-wave frequencies,” Wax explained. “When I detected chatter between the three RSN ships, I came about. Your craft should be near their limits by now.”

  “Brilliant, Captain!” Folkestone exclaimed, starting to feel a little woozy from the depleted oxygen. “Well timed, more than you can possible know.”

  “Far as I’m concerned,” proclaimed Sergeant Hand, “the sooner we are back on Mars, the better.”

  “Actually, I have been ordered to convey the three of you directly to the London Aetherport,” Captain Wax said. “Bit of a damned nuisance, with my cargoes and all, but you will no doubt enjoy the view from the bridge, Sergeant Hand. High gravity, thick atmosphere, heavy volume of traffic – quite exciting, Sergeant!”

  A faint sound came over all the aether-radios, one which would later be attributed to the vagaries of aether communication, part of the dim cacophony of pops, crackles, hisses, whines, and other less describable background sounds always present in the aether. At the time, however, most listeners thought it sounded very much like a groan of dismay.