The Voyage Home

by D. J. Holmes

  The map of subspace around Lady Luck looked very different to normal space. Lady Luck was currently sitting in normal space at the very edge of the Tyrilla Storm. No one knew quite what the Tyrilla Storm was. However, its effects where readily apparent. Though it wasn’t visible in normal space, in subspace the Tyrilla Storm looked like a whirling maelstrom of gravitational eddies. No ship in history, not even an Elder ship, had entered into subspace within the Tyrilla Storm and survived. Every ship had exploded on contact.

  There were many other smaller subspace storms spread throughout the known galaxy that likewise prevented ships from traversing that area of sub space. However, none were comparable to the Tyrilla Storm. Though it couldn’t be detected in normal space, it spanned a length of over a thousand light years in subspace and its height completely dissected the Milky Way galaxy. At its widest, the storm spanned over forty light years, yet its narrowest was far less.

  The Tyrilla Storm cut off the Elder Homeworlds from almost one third of the planets they oversaw in the Orion Arm of the galaxy. To circumnavigate the Tyrilla Storm would take a ship up to a month in subspace. To travel through the storm at its narrowest point in normal space took only a couple of weeks. It could have been quicker using a Dyson bubble to exceed the speed of light in normal space but for some unknown reason, the Tyrilla storm interfered with the bubble as well. As a result, the four narrowest points in the storm between the rest of Elder space and the Orion arm of the galaxy were heavily used by ships from the hundreds of planets the Elder Empire controlled. Normally they were patrolled by Elder frigates but Draxler had obtained some information suggesting one of the frigates had been recalled back to the Elder Homeworlds.

  In normal space, it looked like Lady Luck was in the middle of nowhere. However, on the map of subspace she was sitting within the Tyrilla Storm, right on the edge of where ships coming from the Elder Homeworlds would appear as they travelled through the storm. Exactly where Draxler wanted her to be.

  “I’m detecting something,” one of Draxler’s cronies reported from his position at Lady Luck’s sensor station.

  Sarah saw what the pirate was talking about. There were a number of faint contacts about eight light hours away from the pirate ship.

  “What do you make of them?” Draxler demanded.

  “I can’t be sure yet,” she replied. “It certainly looks like a convoy but I can’t determine what type of ships they are.”

  “Update me as soon as you do,” Draxler demanded.

  Sarah was left to herself as she studied the contacts as they became clearer and clearer on Lady Luck’s sensors. “It looks like six freighters,” she said as soon as she was confident in her information. “Two of them fall into the super heavy class, the other four are light freighters.”

  “Perfect,” Draxler said. Sarah could hear the lust in his voice. Capturing even one of the light freighters would bring in enough credits to keep Draxler and his crew happy for months. A super heavy freighter could set him up for life. This was why they were here. Draxler had been making a name for himself in the nearby sectors. This would put him on another level.

  Sarah fell back into silence. The convoy of freighters was heading directly towards Lady Luck. Powered down and in normal space, Lady Luck was almost impossible for the freighters to detect. An Elder ship, or a warship from one of their Protector Worlds, would detect Lady Luck once they got close enough. As the freighters wouldn’t have such sophisticated sensors they were effectively blind.

  “We’re going to become famous,” Draxler said. “No one has attacked a convoy within ten light-years of the Tyrilla Storm. Lady Luck is going to go down in history.”

  Sarah tried to drown out the laughter and shouts of jubilation coming from the other pirates. She felt filthy being a part of what they were doing. She cared nothing for going down in history. It was true, she hated the Elders. Yet, the likelihood that any Elders would be on those freighters was very slim. Likely they were ships from some Tier Three colony or even a Protector World. Their deaths would be meaningless.

  Before meeting Divar, Sarah would have been very happy to kill someone from a Protector World. However, after hearing his story she now realized they too were little more than slaves to the Elders. Yes, no doubt many of their leaders were willing servants of the Elders, nevertheless, the people themselves were no better off than many of the other colonies directly controlled by the Elders.

  Divar had been a weapons officer on a patrol frigate from his homeworld of Xenos. Xenos was a Protector World. They had begun life as a Tier Two colony but after many centuries of faithful service to the Elders they had been promoted to a Tier three and then to a Protector World. Protector Worlds were given a great degree of self-autonomy. They were also tasked with overseeing other Tier One and Two colonies that were nearby. Being allowed to construct their own war fleet to keep their neighboring colonies in check, Protector Worlds were hated by many of the citizens of Tier One and Tier two colonies. Divar had been captured by Draxler after he and two other pirate ships had attacked a convoy from Xenos. Recognizing Divar’s skill as a weapons expert, Draxler had enslaved him. Sarah was sorry Divar had lost his home and his family, but she was at least happy that she had one friend on board Lady Luck.

  “We’ll be in weapons range of the first freighter in five minutes,” Divar said.

  “You know what to do pilot?” Draxler said in a threatening tone.

  “Yes,” Sarah replied dutifully. “Once Divar takes out the first freighter’s engines I’ll get us into range of the rest of the convoy as quickly as possible.”

  “Good,” Draxler snarled. “I don’t want more than two of those freighters getting away from us understood?”

  “Clearly,” Sarah replied, though she had to grind her teeth together to sound obedient.

  “Firing on target one,” Divar said.

  Two x-ray laser beams drilled into the first freighter. Through her interface helmet Sarah could see the explosions. The freighter’s sensor profile diminished as her reactors were destroyed. Seconds later she fell out of formation as she began to drift through space, powerless.

  It took the rest of the freighters several seconds to react. Before they did, Sarah was on the move. She ordered Lady Luck’s engines to full and banked towards the next freighter in the convoy. It was one of the super heavy freighters. Though it may have looked to Draxler that she was flying Lady Luck as efficiently as possible, Sarah was holding back. She knew the longer it took her to give Divar a direct firing line, the more chance the freighters had to escape. The rest of the convoy had scattered. The freighters were accelerating away from Lady Luck in a multitude of directions. The aim was obviously to prevent Lady Luck closing to laser cannon range with them.

  “Firing on target two,” Divar said as Sarah rolled Lady Luck around the large freighter towards where she knew its reactors were housed.

  “I don’t think we’re going to be able to get them all,” Sarah reported after the super heavy freighter was disabled.

  “Just focus on getting us alongside the next target,” Draxler ordered. “Divar, prepare hypervelocity missiles. Any freighter we can’t disable we’re going to destroy. I don’t want our identity getting back to the Elders.”

  “But Captain,” Sarah complained. “There is no profit in killing civilians.”

  “That’s for me to decide slave,” Draxler spat at Sarah.

  “Aaahhh,” Sarah screamed as a wave of pain washed through her body from her collar.

  “You just see to my ship,” Draxler finished.

  With a tingling pain still lingering throughout her body Sarah said nothing. Instead she tried to look as busy as possible.

  “I’m detecting a massive energy spike from one of the freighters,” Lady Luck’s sensor officer shouted, drawing Sarah and Draxler’s attention.

  Shifting her mind’s eye onto the freighter in question, Sarah saw several components shoot from the freighter into space. Then, to her horror, a small sh
ip emerged from within the freighter. Immediately Sarah recognized it.

  “It’s an Elder frigate,” she squealed. “It’s a trap.”

  Sarah threw Lady Luck into a series of evasive maneuvers. Within seconds of it emerging, Lady Luck’s sensors detected a number of heat surges from the Elder frigate. Sarah guessed they were heat blooms from the laser cannons that the frigate was equipped with. Lady Luck had x-ray lasers, Draxler had commandeered them from some patrol cutter he had attacked once. No one knew just what type of laser technology the Elders had. They just knew that no Elder ship had been defeated in combat for more than two and a half millennia.

  “Fire back damn you,” Draxler ordered Divar.

  Sarah only barely aware of Draxler’s command. She knew the Elder ship had some kind of particle beam weapon. If it touched Lady Luck, it would rip right through her energy screen and armor. As a result, she kept jinking and twisting Lady Luck through space as she tried to make it as difficult as possible for the Elder ship to score a hit. Every few seconds, two heat blooms appeared on the Elder ship. Sarah was guessing they were some kind of energy build up before the ship fired its two laser cannons. She was using the blooms to predict when best to send Lady Luck onto a new random trajectory.

  “I can’t get a firm lock,” Divar shouted. Sarah wasn’t sure if it was for her or Draxler’s benefit. Assuming it was for her, she twisted Lady Luck around and lined up her forward x-ray lasers on the Elder ship for less than a second. Divar was quick enough to take the opening he gave her as two laser beams shot from Lady Luck.

  “I got a hit,” Divar shouted.

  Sarah had already seen the two laser beams impact the Elder ship. It had barely been taking any evasive maneuvers. Both beams hit the nose section of the frigate. There was still a thermal bloom coming off the frigate where the lasers had caused two miniature explosions. It seemed like the Elder ship had failed to power up its energy screen. It should have been able to deflect a lot more of the damage away from the frigate’s hull. Even so, though the ship had clearly taken some damage, its speed hadn’t reduced. It was still closing with them.

  A sudden jolt that shook her in her seat reminded Sarah that the frigate was very much in the fight.

  “That was a laser beam,” Divar called out. “Our energy screen is down to sixty percent. We can only take a couple more hits.”

  “Fire the hypervelocity missiles,” Draxler ordered desperately.

  “Prepare the starboard missile tubes,” Sarah shouted to Divar. “Three, two...” Knowing that her life depended on destroying the Elder ship, Sarah used all her skill. She twisted Lady Luck around to momentarily bring four of her six missile tubes to bear on the Elder frigate. Divar launched the missiles towards their target. He followed up with two more x-ray beams.

  Sarah guessed the Elder frigate had learnt from its previous mistake, as soon as Divar fired the lasers, it began a series of random maneuvers. Both laser beams flew harmlessly past their target. The hypervelocity missiles were another matter though. They were capable of tracking the other ship’s maneuvers.

  As if the Elder ship had grown tired of trying to destroy Lady Luck with their own lasers and particle beam, eight hypervelocity missiles shot from the frigate and accelerated towards Lady Luck.

  “We’re done for,” Draxler groaned.

  “Prepare the point defenses,” Sarah shouted to Divar. “We can do this.”

  Secretly she held little hope. No one had ever come up against an Elder warship and lived to tell the tale. Sarah was amazed they had lasted this long. As the eight missiles closed in on Lady Luck, Sarah’s focus was so fixed on them that she lost awareness of what the Elder ship or the fleeing freighters were up to. Frantically, she tried to give Divar the best opportunity to use Lady Luck’s point defense lasers and autocannons to shoot down the missiles.

  When the first one exploded, Divar gave out a shout of triumph. It was short lived however, for the remaining seven missiles began their own evasive maneuvers, making them much harder to target.

  Nevertheless, as Sarah continued to fly Lady Luck as skillfully as she could, Divar managed to shoot down four more missiles. When the missiles were less than twenty seconds away from hitting their ship, Sarah switched to trying to confuse the missiles. With a thought, she took control of Lady Luck’s electronic counter measures and launched a series of drones into space. Then, when the remaining three missiles were just five seconds out she shut down Lady Luck’s main reactors and impulse engines. At the same time, she powered up all five drones and they blasted electromagnetic energy out into space. Using only Lady Luck’s small maneuvering thrusters, Sarah pivoted the pirate ship away from the missiles, presenting as narrow a target to them as she could.

  Her efforts proved somewhat successful. Two of the three remaining Elder missiles either homed in on the drones or overshot Lady Luck. The third wasn’t fooled. It struck Lady Luck amidships. Punching through her armor, the missile penetrated several decks before it exploded. The force ripped through several bulkheads and sent shockwaves right across the ship.

  If one of her own thermonuclear missiles had exploded within her hull, Draxler might have hoped Lady Luck could have kept on fighting. Yet, with whatever warhead was in the Elder missile, there was no such luck. Though Lady Luck was several times larger than the Elder frigate, the Elder missile still blew a massive section of the pirate ship out into space.

  On the bridge, the shockwave from the explosion sent everyone flying around in their command chairs. Several consoles exploded as power surges rippled across the ship. The sensory overload coming into Sarah’s brain through the interface helmet caused her to throw up. Frantically, she ripped off the helmet before it caused her to black out. As she rapidly blinked, Sarah thought the overload of data had damaged her brain. She couldn’t see anything, everything was pitch black. I’ve gone blind, she screamed into herself.

  Chapter 3

  The few seconds of darkness seemed like an eternity to Sarah as the fear she would never see again gripped her. Then Lady Luck’s reserve power capacitors kicked in. Emergency lighting came on around the bridge and several consoles powered up. A flood of relief washed over her. She could see again.

  As Sarah’s eyes adjusted to the low levels of light she saw the bridge was a mess. Several of the pirate crew were lolling in their command chairs, either unconscious or dead. One of the crew was a bloody mess. His station had exploded, sending shrapnel tearing through his body. The only thing holding him upright were the straps keeping him in his chair. If he wasn’t dead already, he soon would be.

  “We’ve been hit,” one of Draxler’s cronies said.

  “You don’t say,” Draxler snarled from his command chair. “Get me a status update.”

  As Sarah turned around she was dismayed to see Draxler looked unhurt. “Get the helmet back on,” he shouted towards her.

  “It’s damaged,” she replied.

  Before Draxler could order her to put it on anyway, one of his crew spoke up. “Both of our reactors are down, and the impulse engines aren’t responding. I don’t think it matters Captain. We’re not going anywhere.”

  “Then what the heck is that Elder ship doing? Why are we still here?” Draxler demanded.

  “Sensors are coming back online now,” one of the bridge crew replied.

  Turning to look at the main view screen, Sarah was shocked by what she saw. She wasn’t the only one, a series of gasps escaped the lips of almost everyone who was still conscious. The Elder frigate was tumbling through space on a random trajectory. A large hole was blown in its side.

  “I hit it,” Divar said, sounding amazed at what he had done.

  Sarah was glad to hear that he was okay, though the shock at seeing a damaged Elder ship overrode all other thoughts.

  “How did it happen?” she asked. “We only fired four missiles at it.”

  “Four Scythian missiles,” Draxler corrected her. “I knew spending a bit extra for those babies would pay off. H
ow soon can we get Lady Luck moving again?” he said, turning to his other crew members. “Who knows how damaged that frigate really is, I don’t want to be around when its masters get it under control again.”

  The thought sent a shiver down Sarah’s spine. She had no idea how they had beaten an Elder ship, but she didn’t want to face it again. If they could get Lady Luck out of here, it couldn’t come too soon.