by Mark Wandrey
“They’ll run for Karma,” the captain mumbled to himself. “They’ll think it’s safe there. Well, I’ll show them. You don’t shoot up a Maki squadron and jump into the high branches without expecting Guardian Forest to come after you for payback!” The XO clung to his command console and watched the captain nervously. “Hundreds dead, the very idea!”
The DCC tried to finish his evaluation. A shield generator was down, he noted, destroyed. They could overlap the field, so that wasn’t a problem. However, hull damage was registered in Section Nine, Deck 11, but there were no internal indications of secondary damage, and that was troubling. There was almost no armor there. The Human’s damnable 100-megawatt lasers should have punched right through. What was he missing?
“Your determination?” the XO requested of him.
“I cannot be sure all vital systems are functioning,” the DCC replied. “I need to get a damage control party to Deck 11 to evaluate a hull impact.”
“There isn’t anything essential on that deck,” the XO commented.
The DCC agreed, in principle, but why wasn’t the internal system reporting the damage? “No, but—”
“Enough,” the captain snapped. “If nothing is damaged, order an emergency gate activation and take us to Karma!” The helmsman programmed the course and engineers spun up all five power plants in preparation. As power flowed, nothing went red on the DCC’s status board. He slid his incisors against each other, yet remained silent. “Helm,” the captain ordered, “get us underway!”
Five minutes later the Ardent Grove came about and ignited her fusion torches, pushing her nearly half million-ton bulk toward the stargate. As they maneuvered, the surviving interceptors raced to attach to the hull. One was damaged by a stray laser shot and couldn’t join up. Its five-man crew watched as their mothership prepared to leave the system.
“A trio of frigates from the main fleet are in route to take over our duties here,” the Ardent Grove’s XO told the interceptor’s crew. “You will be picked up in a day. We must pursue these treacherous Winged Hussars and enact revenge for our comrades!”
The commander of the interceptor wished them well as the stargate activated, and the battleship pushed through the event horizon.
Less than a second after entering hyperspace, the DCC knew the transition had been a terrible mistake. Power feeds which ran the energy hungry hyperspace nodes should have drawn their expected power load upon entering. Before the ship entered hyperspace via a stargate, the power was just a potential and was not being consumed. As soon as the ship transitioned, the load hit the system to keep them in hyperspace. One entire bank of shunts showed no load, and the rest of the banks drew much more than expected.
“Oh, elder gods,” he hissed in despair.
“Hyperspace field is unstable!” the navigator screeched.
“What?” the commander asked.
“Nodes are overloaded,” the DCC said, “a bank was damaged during the battle.” It was the weapons damage he couldn’t account for. One of the nodes must have been hit, and the energy caused a chain reaction. Somehow it took out the monitoring computer too. What were the odds?
“Emergency power to all other nodes,” the navigator pleaded, and power was routed.
The hyperspace nodes functioned as a web of hyperspatial anchors, keeping the ship in hyperspace as it was drawn toward its destination. It was like sliding down a zipline, only you had to have each hand and foot hooked to the line or you risked falling off. Without almost a quarter of their hyperspace nodes, the strain on the remaining banks was immense. In seconds, the extreme power demand caused the electrical bus overtemp alarms to sound. The power feeds were overloading.
“Attempting to route power through backup—” the DCC started to say, but the emergency overload breakers on another bank of nodes tripped. There was a sickening moment of acceleration—acceleration with no direction—and he felt like he was being torn apart in every direction. He started to scream, and Ardent Grove’s hyperspace generators failed. The ship fell out of hyperspace only 20 seconds after entering it, and the huge Maki battleship went…elsewhere.
* * * * *
Chapter 15
ECS Coronado
82 Eridani System
After 170 hours in hyperspace, the clock ran down to zero, and the Coronado transitioned to normal space. It wasn’t as bad as going into hyperspace; instead, it was more like a moment of disorientation and a feeling of falling, and they were surrounded by stars again.
“Welcome to 82 Eridani,” Captain Holland said over the intercom.
The star system of 82 Eridani was found to have planets that might be inhabitable by Humans back in 2011, well over 100 years ago. Shortly after Earth joined the Galactic Union and got access to the Cartography Guild’s catalog of stars, it was found to have a stargate but was not inhabited. Humans had long thought it was the closest, best world for Human habitation, so a ship was sent there when one became available. They quickly found out why no aliens ever settled the world.
Rick’s first visit to another star system was less than fun. A lot less than fun, truth be told. 82 Eridani was home to one habitable world, though it was only barely habitable. The weather was like being in a perpetual hurricane, and sunlight never completely reached the surface. It had been colonized 80 years ago by Muslims using the remnants of their once vast oil wealth. The world lease from the Cartography Guild had been a steal. Though almost uninhabitable, it provided an abundance of metals and petrochemicals.
They’d spent four days on New Mecca, as the planet was called, but Rick only went to town once. The city observed strict Sharia law, which meant no tobacco, no alcohol, and no women. You couldn’t even look at them. The hotel he stayed in had walls ten feet tall, and only men could work there. He had heard stories from other visitors that the New Meccan’s were building an army to ensure they would be left alone. He indulged their desire and returned to the ship the next morning.
Once away from New Mecca, the captain obtained a departure window for hyperspace at the stargate and accelerated to three quarters of a G. The crew worked to finish the last necessary maintenance prior to transition, and Rick helped one of the two ship’s mechanical engineers with a hatch that kept sticking closed. Ships often warped and shifted over their lives, and the big airtight hatches the older Earth ships used could be temperamental.
“We usually heat them a little with a laser cutter,” the old mechanic cackled as he ran the laser along the hatch seam. “Once it’s good and hot, we slam the door…” he handed the torch to Rick and slammed the hatch, hard. “And that should do it,” he said. He pulled it back open, and they waited for the metal to cool. The mechanic tested the hatch; it worked perfectly.
“Will it leak?” Rick asked.
“Ship this old, everything leaks. But a tiny air leak on this bulkhead hatch is the least of our worries, if one of the compartments is hulled.” Rick nodded. That made sense. Suddenly a shudder reverberated through the hull, and the thrust faltered.
“What was that?” Rick asked. The ship rocked a bit, indicating the fusion torch thrust angle was varying. The old mechanic’s eyes darted back and forth, his decades of experience in space speaking to his instincts.
“Something hit us,” he said.
“You mean we hit something?” Rick asked.
“No, it hit us. From behind.”
Rick considered. Ships got hit by things in space all the time. Space was big, but with thousands of ships moving around star systems, it was simply a matter of odds. Older spacers joked about it, saying sooner or later everyone caught a rock. But ships also had sensors to watch for things in their paths. They watched ahead because the chance of something hitting them from behind was effectively zero. The ship had an engine and accelerated, rocks didn’t. He shook his head, trying to clear the thought. It wasn’t a hard impact. He thought it through again and came to the same conclusion. Without another thought, Rick ran for the ladder to his quarters.
“Call the captain!” Rick said as he ran by and leaped to the next ladder.
“Why?” the loadmaster asked, trying to hide the incriminating butt.
“We’re being boarded!” Rick yelled as he cleared the next hatch.
He finally reached the crew compartment and dove inside. It took him a minute to drag his duffle bag from the tight little locker he’d been given, more time than he wanted to spend. Finally, it popped free, and Rick tore the zipper open and began yanking out articles. He’d just started to put them on when the alarm sounded.
“Everyone to their emergency stations!” Captain Holland yelled over the PA. “Close all airtight doors.” Even as he finished the order, Rick heard the unmistakable sound of a laser weapon firing. A high-pitched snapping whine, the combination of the charging coils, and the chemical cycling system. Damn, he hated to be right. He ran for the ladder again, but went down this time. He almost collided with the loadmaster coming up.
“Where the hell you going now, boy?” he asked. He’d been about to dog the hatch. “We’re under attack!”
“I know,” Rick said, pushing past him. “They’ll empty the hold of the high value freight and then come for us,” Rick said.
“Who is it?”
“Pirates.” Another laser shot, and a grunting scream from down the hatch. “Move,” Rick said and pushed the old man toward the next ladder up. Two levels above them was the bridge. “When you get to the bridge, tell the captain I need him to do something!” The loadmaster listened to him, eyes wide.
“But,” the loadmaster complained, looking at Rick’s armor and holstered gun.
“No time!” Rick said. He grabbed the side of the ladder in both hands and let go, sliding down to the next level with a squeal of metal against his gloves.
He went past the galley and down to an amidships engineering deck, where he stopped and listened at the hatchway. He heard the sounds of things being broken and a strange growling, purring speech. Confused, he looked down at his ever-present translator, which looked like a small pendant around his neck. An advanced computer, it could translate hundreds of common languages from races all over the Union into English. A tiny red light was flashing on its side. Unrecognized language. Well that’s a pain, he thought. Rick glanced at his watch; he was almost out of time.
He laid down on the deck next to the hatch and slowly poked his head over the side so one eye could see. This was the hatch into the ship’s offices. The purser, who served as the Coronado’s business manager, worked there. He spotted four beings in the room. Holy shit, he thought, we’ve been invaded by Bengal tigers! They wore space combat armor and would have been at home on any battlefield. Their helmets were open, and they spoke to each other. Two of them held efficient-looking laser carbines; the other two were attacking the ship’s safe, which was welded to a structural beam, with a small laser cutter. A few feet away lay the ship’s purser, his body twisted in death, with two smoking holes in his chest. The way he lay, it looked like he was staring right at Rick. It made a shiver go up his spine. One of the aliens with a laser started to turn and check the hatchways. Rick quickly slid back away from the hatch, making sure none of the metal on his combat armor scraped the metal deck.
Rick checked his watch. Damn, no time. Quickly, he drew his Ctech HP-4 and removed the magazine. He reached around to back and pulled another out of his magazine pouch. This one had a flange on the plate that he could feel, even in combat gloves. The pouch held six spares, though only two had the flange. He slid the new magazine into the pistol, put the other special mag into a chest pouch on his left side, and put the one he’d removed from the gun back in the pouch. It was time.
Rick slid back to the hatch, pulled himself over and lowered his right side through. Fighting wasn’t like in the movies. You didn’t yell to get the bad guys’ attention, or give them a sporting chance. His hand engaged the gun’s safety points and the laser sight came alive as he aimed. A pulsing spot appeared on the back of the neck of the first cat. He let his breath out and pulled the trigger.
The Ctech HP-4, or high power, was a favorite among Human mercs. It was a relatively-light spun-carbon ceramic which fired a caseless 13mm high velocity bullet. Rick had put thousands of rounds through the weapon since he bought it the day after signing with Mickey Finn. It was a good gun, reliable. Despite being in business for only 50 years, Ctech had become the preeminent firearms manufacturer for mercs on Earth, and exported thousands of guns off-world.
Rick had set the gun for three round bursts. Like all the Ctech caseless series, it loaded propellant a split second before it fired. Bang, bang, bang! The gun barked, and he managed the recoil. The bullets left the barrel at just over 2,500 feet per second. About five inches from the barrel, their three petals discarded and the tiny tungsten-chromium penetrator dart, or sabot, flew free. The penetrators were unspectacular on impact, the specially formed tip punched through the weak neck joint of the combat armor and into the alien’s neck, where the dart flared into a diamond shape. Still traveling almost 1,000 fps, the projectile did massive trauma to a nearly two-inch-wide wound channel before smashing against the inside of the front neck armor and stopping. The penetrators were designed that way, and as such, ideal for shipboard use.
His second shot went high and ricocheted off the base of the helmet, the third punched through a quarter inch below the first and did even more damage. Both penetrating rounds were killing shots, but he’d had no way of knowing that before firing. “Never take just one shot at a target,” his handgun instructor had told him, “when three will make sure.”
Without knowing the results of his first burst, he turned to the second laser-wielding cat and fired again. The alien was already turning and bringing its gun up, uncertain where the threat was, but the booming of the big 13mm Ctech was deafening in the hatchway. Rick’s second burst of three rounds was not nearly as well placed. One sparked off the cat’s helmet, the next was simply absorbed by its shoulder armor, and the last missed the intended target entirely and hit one of the pirates with a laser cutter in the small of the back, penetrating its armor. It yowled like a wounded housecat.
The logical thing to do would have been to pull back under cover. Rick had other plans. Instead, he fell face first through the hatch and prayed his timing was right. There was the snapping whine of a laser being fired, and he glimpsed a beam flash between his legs.
Rick fired another three-round burst as he fell, upside down, gathering speed through the eight-foot-tall deck on his way to the next hatch. He used both hands, not bothering to reach up to cushion his impact. All three shots flashed sparks as the surviving laser wielder spun, bouncing the little darts harmlessly off the heavier front and side armor of his suit.
There was another snapping whine, and he felt agony sear his left thigh a split second before he plummeted through the lower hatchway. He looked up (down) and saw the hatch to the next deck was closed; he was hurtling toward it at breakneck speed.
“Well fuck,” he snarled through teeth clenched against the pain. The entire leg was quivering from the shock of the wound. For some reason, he didn’t think getting shot with a laser would hurt this badly. He looked up and cursed again as he realized the hatch wasn’t coming at him as fast as he thought. In fact, his fall quickly slowed to a stop, and reversed.
“Yes,” he hissed, “way to go Captain Holland!” In those frantic seconds with the loadmaster, Rick had asked him to tell the captain to kill all thrust in exactly two minutes, and then hit the braking rockets for all he was worth. He’d prayed the captain would follow the instructions of the young merc he’d hired as a cargo monkey, and that he would time it right.
As he began to fall back upwards, Rick called on his hours of training and flipped himself so he was facing upright and took the HP-4 in both hands. The injured leg didn’t want to tuck properly, so he compensated as he arrested the spin. He’d fired three bursts of three, which meant he only had eleven rounds left. He needed to make them count. A second later he soared back through the hatch he’d just fallen through.
The aliens weren’t strangers to micro-gravity, but the sudden reverse had caught them off guard. With one dead and another wounded, they were both pissed and surprised. The wounded cat had landed on the roof and was looking right at him when Rick reappeared. It was holding a paw against the small of its back, and when it saw him, it screeched and pointed. Rick wasn’t falling as fast this time, so he took his time and did it right. He put a three-round burst into the alien’s face. The high velocity sabots pulped its head. Eight rounds left. Rick shifted aim as the gun’s recoil bounced his back against the ladder he was falling along.
The laser wielder was rolling on the roof, trying to bring its out of position carbine in line with Rick. The barrel flashed and a beam went somewhere. He was halfway through the room when he fired at the laser-wielding cat. Although Rick’s pistol pointed at the target, he waited until his laser aiming dot tracked up its chest before stroking the trigger. The first two rounds bounced off the chest armor, and the final one went right in the alien’s nose and out the back of its head. Five rounds left.
He looked for the last pirate as he sailed toward the hatch. He found the alien; it shot him in the chest with a laser pistol it had drawn. The snapping whine of the much-smaller weapon seemed almost muffled—the only thing that told him he’d been shot was the searing pain of the melted armor on his right pec.
