The Knockabouts

by DK Williamson

  “If I’m wrong here, we’re dead. Ho, start pecking at his shields, just enough to see if we can get a reading on what we’re dealing with. Feed the info to Ned’s station.”

  “Affirmative, Captain. Low power and low rate of fire as before.”

  The dance continued, Lance and Quellen arcing on courses through the rocks, beams crossing the distance between them at every opportunity, the occasional small rock flaring off shields. One constant was Teller’s destination, the big rock that grew closer every second.

  After several minutes, Rattray spoke. “You’re making this a challenge, Skellum.”

  Teller smiled as he keyed the transmit button. “You sound worried.”

  “Not in the least. You’re the one that should be worried.” The edge was back in Rattray’s voice. “I’m gaining on you every second. Only your shields are keeping you alive. You have nothing weapons, but good shields, and that’s all you have. Those big engines aren’t much help here, are they? Once I get your shield’s spectrum change deciphered, it’s over.”

  Jessop let out a quiet, “ha,” and shook his head in disgust. “He’s not even looking at the information his systems are providing. He’s hit us enough times that his sensors and scanners should be singing to him. They’re telling him we have level five emitters and his laser system isn’t going to be able to match or catch up to the spectrum changes. He’ll have to overwhelm the shields, and to do that he needs more power.”

  “And that means he must divert power from the thrusters or shields?” Ursula said.

  Ned glanced to his left, impressed by her question. “Or both.”

  “And that makes him slower or more vulnerable.”

  “Exactly. It also makes his weaponry more likely to harm us… and it is powerful enough to do that.”

  Ursula nodded. “So we’re gambling.”

  “Right,” Teller said over his shoulder.

  “Create the best odds and roll the dice,” Urs said.

  “Cards on the table.”

  Ursula nodded and smiled. “And life without risk isn’t life. But I’d really like to get back to risking things other than… my life. This is becoming routine.”

  “We’re working on it, and they haven’t beat us yet.”

  “No witty retort this time?” Rattray mocked.

  “You’re awfully chatty for a cold-hearted killer,” Teller replied.

  Rattray laughed. “It’s a lonely task, this occupation of mine. Sometimes it’s nice to speak to people in passing. Besides, I can fly and talk at the same time. Used to fly fighters. Not my first time doing this.”

  Teller guffawed before he keyed the transmit button. “Fighter pilot, huh? Arrogant, puffed-up adolescents they say.”

  “They don’t know what they’re talking about,” came a testy response. “You might as well stop pecking at me with your beams, you’re not getting in.”

  Teller smiled. “Irritating isn’t it… kinda like you.”

  “He’s not varying his shields,” Jessop said. “He wants all the power he can spare for his thrusters. He also needs juice for the laser. I surmise he won’t vary until we start threatening their integrity.”

  Teller laughed. “When we do, it’ll be all the way and happen too fast for him to do anything about it. Until then, keep pecking, Ho. Just make sure you don’t do anything that makes him think we’re a threat.”

  Jessop looked at the data on his screens and was concerned. “How long? He’s still closing.”

  “Yes. I need him closer. He said there weren’t any wildcards in this game. He’ll find out there is. The hard way.”

  “The large mass we’ve been headed toward?”

  “He’ll be blind while we make our play. By the time he figures it out, it will be too late.”

  “You’re running out of room, Skellum,” Rattray said in an arrogant tone. “Running out of time. One little mistake and you’re mine.”

  Teller said nothing, dividing his attention between the view from the command deck transparencies and the display panels showing him readouts of the time and distance to the large mass ahead and the bounty-killer behind. Data was important, but instinct was the deciding factor for Teller. Get it wrong and Johnny-rat scorches us or we splatter ourselves on a rock or two. Story of your life, he thought. “How ‘bout we do it right,” he muttered under his breath.

  Teller grinned, somehow managing to enjoy the moment despite the situation. “Hang on everyone. Crunch time approaching. We’re turning on this bastard as soon as we’re out of sight and off his sensors. Ord, get us turned and stabilized on my call, then stand by on the coil gun.”

  “How many shots will we have?”

  “Three, if all goes well. What do you have in mind?”

  “Anti-shield, then solid kinetics.”

  “Load’em. Fire on my call.”

  “His shields still static?” he called to Jessop.

  “Affirmative, Skipper.”

  “Ho, you have Ned’s data?”

  “Affirmative, Captain. Beams set accordingly.”

  “Then put full power fire on his shields. Time your fire to impact with the slugs.”

  “Affirmative, Captain. Coordinated time on target.”

  Teller’s eyes darted across the display panels and controls in front of him showing distances, velocities, courses, stress factors, power management, holographic gun sight, the PEW marked panels lighting up as Ho adjusted the beam weapons, Ord’s giant hands flipping coil gun controls and moving to grasp maneuver thruster controls, and a myriad other bits of action and information passed through his mind. His face tensed, locking into a mask of half smile and half grimace as his right hand grasped the thrust controls.

  “Here we go!” he shouted as he slid ARC Lance hard to port. The huge rock loomed ahead, the dense rock field beyond it now fully visible. A glance at the control panel showed that Rattray was slowing slightly to match Teller’s maneuver. Damnatio, we’re fast now, passed through his mind as he fired reverse thrusters. Fate just tossed a wildcard on the table.

  . . .

  Rattray felt heartened. Never had a bounty made him fly as hard as he had over the last several chrono units. That’s over now, he thought. He’s out of room and will reverse course out of here. They’re mine.

  “You would have made a decent fighter pilot, Skellum,” Rattray broadcast. “Not as good as—” His prey fired reverse thrusters just before going out of sight around the mass ahead. He’s too hot and the rocks ahead scared him! “Got you,” Rattray said over the com channel. His snout wrinkled into a smile.

  . . .

  “Ord, now!” Teller barked as he brought the thruster controls to a neutral state.

  The giant deftly rotated the old strike sloop until she faced in the reverse direction from which she’d just traveled. “Off maneuver, on gun,” he said.

  Teller advanced the thrusters, pushing everyone on the command deck toward the stern, only their seat backs or restraints holding them in place as the Lance shoved hard to stay clear of the rocks behind. Teller made adjustments as he looked through the gun sight and made time calculations.

  “Fire!”

  The subtle high-pitched ringing of hypervelocity slugs passing down the electromagnetic coils sang inside the hull just moments before Quellen slid into view around the massive rock. She nestled on the center dot of Lance’s holographic gun sight as the first slug struck, the slug flashing in an incandescent ball as Quellen’s forward shields were overwhelmed.

  “What the—?” was Rattray’s final message to the universe before two more slugs and a pair of energy beams tore through Quellen, rendering her into wreckage.

  “Got you,” Teller said. He allowed himself a few seconds of satisfaction before he glanced to his left. “Are we going to stay out of the rocks or do I need to punch up the push?”

  “We’ll be fine as is,” Ned replied.

  “Extend the coil gun radiator,” Teller said. “We don’t need the heat building up in h
ere.”

  Ord flipped some controls on his panel and a length of flexible material unwound from a spool along the starboard side of the Lance. With no airflow passing down the length of the long row of coils as would be the case when flying within the atmosphere of a planet, the radiator allowed the heat to dissipate outside the interior of the ship.

  Teller raised his arms above him and stretched. “If no one objects, we’ll take a more leisurely trip out of here.”

  “That worked out well,” Ursula said.

  Ned laughed in relief. “It did, but it was just a variation of what we did on Sessler-Four. Let them underestimate us and the Lance, then turn the tables and blast them at close range.”

  “If it works, don’t complain,” Teller said in mock irritation. “Assumption is one of the most common errors beings make, and I’m the last guy to point that out to someone who is trying to make me a corpse.”

  Ned smiled. “I’m not complaining. I was just pointing out there was a decided lack of originality.”

  “All right, old man. Next time I’ll do something dazzling.”

  “How about we make this most recent dance the final one and call it an adventure.”

  Teller laughed. “I’m game… now if we could just get the rest of the galaxy to play along.”

  “I assume we’re going to seek out Nikira now?”

  “Unless someone has a better idea.”

  “My ideas seem to end up with people firing missiles at us,” Ursula said.

  Teller smiled at her. “Join the club. We’re flying into the Clarion Confluence. Far too crowded for missile launches.”

  . . . . .

  . . . . .

  13

  Confluence

  . . . . .

  Excerpt from, Cap’n Cosmos’ Guide to it All, the Interstellar Guide for Endeavoring Spacers.

  Cap’n, my teacher says the Clarion Confluence is the most important place in the known galaxy. Is she right? Is that true?

  -P. L. Organa

  A fine couple of questions, PL. Importance can be measured in a lot of ways, most of them subjective. Your questions also raises another point I will address shortly.

  First off, the Clarion Confluence is a candidate for busiest place in the galaxy, which would certainly make it important, but most important? Probably not. If there was an election for the biggest, baddest, weirdest, wildest, bazaar in the known galaxy, the Cap’n would vote for the Clarion Confluence, and that’s saying something. Trust the Cap’n on this, he has seen a lot of weird and wild in his travels.

  The numerous and tightly grouped populated systems in that region of space are the intersection of the three largest human governmental organizations. At the center of it all is the planet Embassage, a candidate for most self-important planet in the known galaxy. A dangerous place, the atmosphere there is rife with conceit, so wear a filtration unit if you ever visit.

  Embassage is where representatives from the Coalition of Planets, The Protectorate, the Syndicate, numerous independent planets and systems, and some non-human regions meet. Those that work there think it is the place where all of humankind’s, yea the galaxy’s, issues and problems are solved through the flapping of gums, the waggling of tongues, and the expelling of hot air. For some it is the where’s where of places and populated by the who’s who of the best and brightest humanity has to offer… don’t believe a word of it.

  The Cap’n suspects your teacher suffers from what the beings of Turfin call Laak’da M’caca, the tendency to push off opinion as fact, a tendency Turfinians view as a disease. Educators commonly suffer from this malady, as do politicians, vid show hosts, entertainers, and many others. There is no known cure, but there is a vaccine to prevent beings like you from contracting the disease. It’s called free thought. Free your mind and your starship will follow. Never accept anything anyone ever tells you as truth. Question everything, verify everything, and that includes what the Cap’n says.

  The Cap’n suggests you encourage your teacher to run for planetary representative. She might win, stopping her attempted contamination of young minds. Ultimately, that’s what the Embassage is, a quarantine zone for Laak’da M’caca carriers… so maybe it is the most important place in our galaxy.

  We just evacuated each other’s minds!

  Addendum - Congratulations to Miz Libby Daws on her election to the Havensham II planetary representative team. Mz. Daws term will preclude her continuing the job as a primary school educator, but her service to her planet and galaxy at large must take precedence. Nice job, P.L. Organa!

  . . .

  “Everyone, have a seat,” Director Sodall said as his staff filed into the office. He was stone-faced, but his eyes burned with anger.

  Julia Nephron could guess why. Hector Priamsen’s stay in the Boddan system had lasted longer than anyone could have predicted. Tasked with coordinating with the military space units and police of Boddan III and Drellich’s World, he had returned less than an hour before, proceeding directly to Sodall’s office upon arrival. Shortly after, the director had called for this meeting. The bearer of bad news, she thought, the look on Hector’s face reinforcing her belief. Just the previous day, all were jubilant. The board of directors accepted that the Spiral Project was no longer viable, tempered by the fact Altairie had suffered little or no damage to its image and with little financial loss. While disappointed in the end result, they felt there was little else that could have been done. In fact, they praised Sodall and his staff for their deft handling of the situation. Now this.

  “Hector brings ill tidings,” Sodall said. “Kindly relay what you told me,” he said without looking at the man.

  Hector cleared his throat. “The reports concerning the demise of Ursula Raik and her group are apparently… premature. News from Hadley system indicates they are alive and their current whereabouts are unknown. A professional tracer pursued them following a shootout onboard Turgis Station and was dispatched during a fight in space not far from there. There are rumblings of Zatto Oblust involvement. The fugitives were last seen making slipspace.”

  “Are we sure it was them?” a staffer asked.

  “The individuals involved match the description, as does their ship.”

  “Maybe it’s just a coincidence. A mix—”

  Sodall’s fist coming down on the table next to him cut off the comment, an act very unlike the director. “Enough,” he said as his face flushed slightly. “This is a probability issue, luck some might call it. It cannot swing their way forever and now is the time to end this, this… vexation. It is obvious they are trying something. Why else would they not flee? Why involve ZOC?”

  Sodall paused and looked over his staff, glaring and breathing heavily through his nose. “Double the previously offered bounty. Dead or alive, I care not. Contract whoever is necessary, mercenaries, tracer agencies, or anyone who can bring this to a rapid conclusion. This must end, and it must end now. Make the galaxy a very small place for those four. Our lives depend on this.”

  . . .

  The Botany Bay emerged from slipspace well away from the outer edge of the Lyrisium system traffic control zone. Given the incredible amount of starship traffic in and outbound, it was the prudent thing to do. Ships inbound, like the temporarily renamed Lance, all vectored toward the entries into the tightly controlled traffic patterns necessary to deal with the countless ships transiting the area. With six heavily populated planets in the Lyrisium alone and a dozen inhabited star systems within two light-years, the task of controlling the comings and goings was immense.

  Ursula was goggle-eyed at the amount of ships she saw through the command deck transparencies. Never in her life had she seen so many starships at once. “How does one keep track of all of this?” she said. Streams of vessels followed arcing courses as directed by the automated control systems.

  “Computers, bots, and specialized Mechs,” Ned replied. “It’s beyond any being—or group of beings for that matter—to keep in order. Tens or
hundreds of thousands of ships going to or from six orbiting planets is a mind-boggling proposition to consider managing. I have a friend that specializes in such systems. According to him, despite all the efforts and tech involved by the controllers in the super-heavy pop systems, it’s the flight crews aboard the ships flying tight and staying in the patterns that prevent disaster.”

  Ursula shook her head in amazement. “I’ve flown in and out of hundreds of high population systems before, but never seen this while on board. You recline in your seat, the flight crew announces the upcoming docking, they let you off with a farewell, and you never think about being in all the traffic you see out of the station viewports. I may become a permanent groundling.”

  The three men laughed.

  “It’ll be hard to explain the flight hours you’ve logged as a starship crewbeing,” Jessop said. “It’ll show up on your work history when you interview for a lubber position.”

  Ord tapped the control panel in front of him. “Lance has your time recorded in your log file.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “No joke,” Teller said. “You’ve got triple digit hours on the counter.”

  “What exactly—?”

  “You’re good crew, that’s what. You take your turn on watch while in slipspace, do your turn at galley and head duty, and you monitor the defense station as your assigned duty position. You’re cool under fire, and you haven’t tried to murder anyone while on board. I’m not kidding about the last bit. Tight spaces can bring out the worst in some, especially when under stress. Ned, Ord, Ho, and me have all done it before this trip. You haven’t and you’ve done a strac job.”

  Ursula blushed. “Well… thank you. I didn’t have much choice however.”

  “Sure you did,” Jessop said. “You could have caved in to the pressure. You could have quit when things got tough. You didn’t. You threw in and helped.” Ned cracked a smile. “Of course if you use any of us as character references, we’ll be forced to tell them about your negotiation tactics… pointing blasters at Zatto reps, that kind of thing.”