“I want one of those.” Janice said immediately over com as she watched on her radar image as the bolts of energy denoted by trajectories traced on her fire screen easily cut through about a kilometers-span of dust and debris to reach back to the fighters closing to the stern. Those fighters were still distant as Marc raced Last Chance recklessly through the field though it wouldn’t take the more nimble pursuers long to catch them. Then Bren’s repeating-cannon started making them vanish from her screen as at the same time her screen filled with real-time cannon-fire trajectories all vying with one another for room on her screen. The new cannon could put out a staccato stream of destructive energy!
“This is a waste of time.” Melanie said as she ceased firing her plasma cannon. The plasma cannons made it more difficult for the fighters to close the gap but the three plasma cannons were wholly unequal to the task of fighting squadrons of fighter-ships. It was a waste of time because with an awe that was hard to quell she watched as the entire force of fighters were eliminated almost out of hand.
I didn’t have the time to look back at Tanya’s face to gauge her reaction to the new weapon. I was busy racing us through the concourse of flying debris on radar image alone. It was displayed on the forward screen where the usual visual feed would display but apparently the visual feed was going to remain blacked out as long as Tanya continued to fire the cannon. I was fully aware of what would happen if I let those fighters catch us. In a momentary millisecond lull I did manage to make the time to glance at my scan screen to see that most of the fighters were already gone. I could imagine the look on Tanya’s face at that moment without having to see it. I didn’t have to look back to see how she was doing because the fighters were vanishing from scan. We had not outraced them. Last Chance could not outrun a fighter in normal space under any circumstances and especially not in an asteroid-field. The weapon was far more powerful than I had dreamed possible and the sweet song of vengeance coursed thrumming through my veins at the thought of the further murder to come. I immediately cut acceleration and re-engaged the auto-pilot. It immediately slowed us to a safe velocity as Tanya meticulously made every one of those fighters vanish as if they had never been.
“I want to see what this will do to a Katon Destroyer.” Tanya said the moment there were no more red blips and therefore no more killing to do. When there was murder to be done you could count on Tanya to see it through thoroughly.
“Just like in the game.” Bren said.
“I want to see it.” Tanya said pointedly to me.
It looked like Tanya was going to get her chance to see it in action against a Katon Destroyer because suddenly I wanted to see it in action against a Katon Destroyer. I’d played Bren’s simulation to familiarize myself with the operation of my new weapon and it had ripped those simulated Katon Destroyers apart in the game with ease. Even a photon cannon wouldn’t have been able to reach through the dust at that distance to destroy those fighters the way this weapon could, much less be able to target them so easily- hadn’t they been surprised- and I was eager to teach the Katons their next new lesson. They seemed to have an unlimited ability to continue making the same mistake over and over again. I also wanted the super-computer which would turn Last Chance into a trans-metal dream ship and Bren wasn’t going to be able to build that anytime in the near future with the pathetic facilities aboard Last Chance.
That meant we were leaving. “Your wish is my command.” I told Tanya as I typed in the commands and the auto-pilot began to bring us around, although of course it would be a week or more to get back out again but I had lots of Old Home and now the responsibility was Tanya’s. I got up to depart the Bridge planning to get a good start when Tanya interrupted my departure;
“Where are you going?” She asked me sweetly as she opened up her new toy again, this time pouring it directly out in front of us as the auto-pilot brought us about true to retrace our path.
“Pour it on.” Bren said with his own smile, for the first time I could remember looking forward to conflict- it was that mad scientist smile.
“Oh you want to die right away.” I said thinking of those bottles of Old Home and the week I now wouldn’t be able to spend drinking before I died. The bloodlust was on Tanya and she wanted to fight now. That meant we were fighting now. I strapped myself back into my pilot’s seat with a sigh of despondency as I thought about how little time it was going to take to get out of the asteroid-field with Tanya clearing the entire path. “Have you considered that they’re going to know where we’re coming out?” I asked as a last hope. I shouldn’t have bothered.
“Of course.” Tanya said. “It’s all part of the plan.”
I could only stare.
Tanya cleared the path long before we reached the edge of the asteroid-field and realizing suddenly that I had a second option I did the smart thing and warped us out of there.
“You bastard!” Tanya snarled as I accelerated down her path and she realized what I was going to do. Too late we vanished into warp and our troubles were suddenly behind us.
“Screw you.” I said as I got up. I was sure I had the biggest smile on my face that I had ever worn- not only was I going to get to live but I had definitely won the point. The Old Home was waiting.
Chapter 11
“We’re not alone.” Tanya said over com as the amber liquor flowed into the glass, bottle in right hand, glass in left and saliva flowing. “You are not going to believe this Marc. You’re really going to want to see this.”
“Oh my God!” I heard Bren in the background of the Bridge before Tanya deactivated com.
“You bastards!” I snarled as I slammed my glass on my desk and headed up to the Bridge. “What is it?” I demanded as I arrived. Bren and Tanya were both standing over the warp-scan imager with looks that were hard to describe. Shock and fear on Bren’s face and something akin to surprise on Tanya’s. I walked over to look in the screen when they both ignored me, not really thinking I would be able to see anything in the imager but in that I was terribly, terribly wrong. I recognized something clearly in the warp-scan imager for the very first time at that very moment- it was impossible not to recognize.
“Good God save us all.” I said as I immediately recognized the outline of a Kievor Trade Station following us in warp on the warp-scan imager- plain as day. Planets did not travel in warp so there was very little question about what I was looking at.
“We haven’t been good.” Bren said. “I wouldn’t go asking Him for any help.”
“Jump in the pilot’s seat and drop us out of warp now, dear.” I said with a laugh, because for sure now I was going to be able to have my drink. I turned to go but Bren interrupted me;
“They’re catching up.” Bren said. “They’re using a different type of warp engine and it’s only a matter of time.”
“They are catching up.” Tanya affirmed with that funny look on her face again as if for the very first time in her life she was positive she had reached the end of it. I knew what she was thinking because I was thinking the same exact thing; we were fucked.
“Traveling in warp for another ten years really wouldn’t have been all that bad.” I told Tanya as I stood there as if transfixed to the deck. “There’s no escaping this time.” I said and truly believed it.
“We can’t let them catch us in warp.” Bren said.
“I kind of figured that.” I snarled as I regained the ability to move and leapt for my pilot’s seat. “How long do we have?” I asked as I began harnessing in.
“About five minutes.” Bren said as he watched the Station quickly growing in size behind them. There was no way to run a scan while in warp but he didn’t need a scan’s precise measurements to see that it was growing. “Give or take.”
“That’s also about what I figured.” I said. The Kievor wanted me and there was nothing in the wide expansive Universe that was going to stop them this time. We had drawn our last cards.
“It was good knowing you.” Tanya said as she got in
to her gunner’s seat, though what she thought she was going to do against a Kievor Trade Station with her new weapon- powerful though it may have been against human fighter ships- was something I didn’t bother asking her. The Kievor Trade Stations also employed some type of gravity drive as their form of propulsion and despite their bulk could move about a million times faster than Last Chance in normal space. Now Last Chance would have to drop out of warp and back into normal space or they were going to catch us. By this point I was fairly certain I understood what the ramifications of that would be. The Kievor were not chasing us merely because they wanted a friendly chat. I could not allow them to catch us in warp because I was positive I did not want to find out what would happen if that happened. However, once Last Chance did drop out of warp the Station would catch us immediately. It was jumping from the frying pan into the fire but if we stayed in the frying pan we were cooked.
“It was good knowing you.” I responded, absolutely positive it was over though still thinking. It had often been said of me that I was too smart for my own good but in this case all the conniving in the Universe wasn’t going to get me out of the trouble that being too smart for my own good had gotten me into yet one more time. I wouldn't be finished until the vacuum of space had sucked the breath from my body but I doubted any of my tricks would do a bit of good. In fact I couldn’t think of a single maneuver that would do any good at all. This was the Kievor we were talking about and a worse enemy I could never have imagined. It was said that a person was defined by their enemies and if so I had gained the highest peaks of that particular attainment- for whatever it was worth. There could be no worse enemy than the Kievor themselves yet for the life of me I still couldn’t remember how I had gotten myself here. These things just kind of happened to me and now the time of reckoning was here. “Departing warp in two minutes. It was good knowing all of you.” I announced over com as I calmed my nerves. I’d flown into many battles sure it was the end, but I had never been as sure as I was now. There was no scenario I could imagine where survival was even a potential factor of the equation. I estimated that we had a zero percent chance of surviving- and those were the long odds. The Kievor were going to kill us and end the footnote in history titled Marc Deveroux.
I activated the count-down timer as I made the announcement and thought about the bottle of Old Home I had left sitting open on my desk- but it was now far too late for such thoughts and I blanked my mind and prepared to do what I did best- one last time.
Chapter 12
“They probably just want to return those credits we forgot to withdraw.” I told Bren and Tanya as I prepared to exit warp. “That Kievor honesty sure is something else.”
“The Kievor aren’t noted for their quickness at pointing out accounting errors,” Bren said, somehow speaking calmly, “especially when it’s in their favor.”
“Wouldn’t that be a funny twist of fate?” Tanya said as she faced her own demons as calmly as the rest. It was that kind of a moment. “The Katons fucked up again and the Kievor are here personally to finish it once and for all. Simple enough to understand, even for someone such as yourself.” She was speaking to me of course.
“What’s funny is how the rest of you got me into this and now it’s my fault.” I said trying to crack one last joke, but it fell flat as that final moment drew closer.
“Everything’s your fault Marc and it always has been.” Tanya said so seriously that I actually had to look back at her to see if she was joking. Her face was as serious as her words.
“I would really like to know why any of you crew with me in the first place.” I said though I doubted any of them could really answer that question honestly. Who really understands the motivations of their subconscious impulses? We had made a good run, had triumphed over every enemy, their instincts had been good, but no run could last forever. Time was up and there was no time for anyone to answer if any had felt so inclined. Last Chance exited warp.
As we entered real-space the Kievor Trade Station followed us immediately out of warp. As Last Chance hit real-space and her fusion engine found purchase, slamming me back in my seat at the unaccustomed acceleration of the newly lightened Last Chance, the Kievor Trade Station also emerged from inner-space and showed up on regular scan twelve point four light minutes behind us. Coming out of warp at the same time we had the Kievor Trade Station was far behind us and I slewed Last Chance as we accelerated planning another jump into warp I knew we would never make. I would fight to the end but the end had arrived.
The Trade Station was looming above us. Able to accelerate and decelerate to and from huge velocities in a nanosecond the span separating us had been as nothing. The massive ship was able to move at the same velocities as the lift tubes you would find aboard that ship. Incredible when one thought of the energies involved, that thought oddly crossing my mind when I should have been saying my prayers. I expected instant incineration but suddenly we were trapped in the orange glow of a tractor beam. Last Chance’s fusion flame now found no purchase within the orange glow and the Trade Station immediately began dragging us towards an open bay.
“They do want to give me my credits.” I said surprised I was still alive as I turned to see what Tanya was going to do. When I did and our eyes met Tanya made the decision. I saw it happen, her face hardened appreciably and I knew she was going to fire on the Kievor.
“I won’t be taken alive.” Tanya said as she acted, as the Alartaw cannon fired its first burst- into nothing. A small portal or doorway to somewhere else appeared between us and showed on the main screen scan image- which replaced the visual feeds the moment Tanya fired- as a brilliantly energetic rectangle of unknown properties. Last Chance was unable to scan it. The bolt of Alartaw energy simply vanished into it and disappeared. Possibly on its way to another Universe for all I knew. Then the portal winked away as Tanya continued to fire. She raked the cannon along the side of the impossible to miss target and multiple windows opened along her trail of repeating fire but Tanya somehow got a few of those wild shots through. Then Tanya and the rest of us got our first glimpse of how powerful the Alartaw weapon really was.
The destructive power of the Alartaw weapon was unbelievable. Our nuclear warheads wouldn’t have done half the damage- if the Kievor-made missiles would work against the Kievor and no one thought they would. My main screen scan image gave us a graphic picture of the destructive power of our new weapon as those bolts struck the Station and vaporized massive chunks of the ship that were in volume many times larger than Last Chance herself. I thought of the thousands of beings that would have been killed in each one of those explosions and expected an immediate light show that would put an end forever to the saga of Marc Deveroux, but I didn’t get exactly what I expected.
Several things happened all at once. As the explosions walked across the side of the Station the warp entry proximity alarm sounded and then somehow all power aboard Last Chance was shut down or drained from the ship. I could only guess at the Kievor’s technology but suddenly I was floating within my harness in zero gravity and pitch dark. There is nothing darker than the interior of a dead ship unless maybe possibly the interior of a black hole but the situation for us was much similar. There was nothing I could do without power. “They really do want me back.” I said with the first real hint of trepidation- death was far preferable to capture when taking into account the millennia of endless torture I was sure the Kievor had planned for us. Then Last Chance was buffeted as with a major concussion and power came back, the engine lit and we were once more pushing against the tangible vacuum of space.
Scan was only showing Last Chance alone, no Trade Station, no clue who the new entry had been or where either had gone. Then a scattering of blips ran across my scan screen. As the visual feeds returned I saw white lights blossoming far-off in the vastness and then nothing more. No more blips, no more lights, no more nothing. Last Chance had attained warp velocity and I wasted no time dallying to see who had interrupted our deaths.
Chapter 13
“Are you ever going to sleep?” I asked three days later when I entered the Bridge again to find Tanya still glued to the warp-scan imager. “We do have an automated warp proximity sensor.” I added.
“You’ve mentioned that before,” Tanya said as she looked up, “more times than I care to count.” More times than she cared to hear about, in other words, but no being can say I don’t have a one-track mind. I had expected upon coming on the Bridge this morning to find Tanya with bloodshot eyes and half asleep over her imager- at which point I would be able to gloat over her for wasting her time- but in that I was to be disappointed. She looked as fresh and alert as if she had just had a good sound sleep and three cups of hot-jolt coursing through her veins while I had spent the day yesterday getting extremely intoxicated and felt like death warmed over this morning. She gave me a malicious smile; “Somehow we lost them again though I’ll never understand how. The reasons simply do not matter. There is always a reason but that does not explain anything. There is no logic that can explain how we continue to beat the odds unless the Universe itself is saving you for some later more thorough torture. Now you know why I crew with you. Despite the odds somehow you always slip the noose.”
Chronicles of a Space Mercenary 3: Vengeance Page 4
