by A. D. Bloom
"Target confirmed," said Clack as the bug dove and rolled between the detection zones of two surveillance proxies to bring them in on a new line so they could approach the freighter from the rear where there were no cargo bays to fill and no longboats hovering. "Interrogative: mines ready?"
"They're ready." She brought up the control console in her helmet and drew lines from the four mines to the sections where they'd attach themselves. Then, she waited for the confirmations from the crude AIs in the mines. Down in the boat's shielded bay, the half-meter long mines silently marked their target. She said, "I'm putting two on that freighter and two on the Voracious."
"Freighter first." Ein Kai Kesik's excited micro-twitches increased as they flew under the keelside of Fancy Randall's fleet. Engine flares from passing longboats threatened to reveal them, but the energy shunts on the tiny craft's hull sucked up the light so that none of it bounced back. They sucked up the NAV radar the longboats used for collision avoidance, too, so the bug kept well out of the small crafts' paths.
As they closed the last kilometers of vacuum, even Dana felt the thrill of it. It didn't matter how many times you did it. Running stealthed and approaching an enemy ship that's buzzing with activity made the heart beat fast. Sweat crossed her palms inside her gloves.
"Trust Ein Kai Kesik," said the bug as he pulled the craft 'up' and made a line for the ship's engines, cutting close to more traffic than Dana could possibly be comfortable with. In seconds, the keelside of the freighter's dual exhaust vectoring assembly grew from a pair of dark shapes on the stern end of the hull to a pair of belt-iron and composite cliffs on either side of the boat where the Shediri engineer parked them with a satisfied hiss. "Interrogative: paid by hour?"
"Deploying two," she said. Dana felt the vibrations as the shielded bay doors opened and two of the mines puffed their way to the nearby hull of Fancy Randall's loading freighter. She watched a proxy view in dual frames as the dyad landed softly and clamped down to begin the drilling and threading that would hold them in place so stubbornly. "Let's go; those things make me nervous. Take me to Voracious."
"Closing bay."
The bug timed it well, dropping the sneak craft down below the flotilla again and bring them in on an almost direct line at the underside of Randall's 400-meter heavy cruiser. The railgun turrets sat inactive and all the small, fast-tracking defensive guns that could shred them pointed straight up like they only did when powered down. The ship was practically asleep. All activity seemed directed to moving cargo between her escorts and the freighter.
"Where do you want the mines?" said the bug.
"Between the engines again. It's hard to get at when you're moving and it's a real pain to cut a chunk of hull away there without taking something valuable with it." The space between the cruiser's four vectoring assemblies was big enough to fly through with ease. "Open the bay doors. Don't stop. I'll loose the mines as we pass. I've told them where to go."
Once again, she felt the bay open and got a confirmation that her mines had landed to burrow into the hull of the Voracious. "Close that bay and take us over the top side of the ship. Watch out for arrays."
"Bridge now?"
"Bridge now," she confirmed as Clack steered them on an s-curve between a pair of midships railgun blocks. "Old 288s," she said as they fell away behind. "Single shot. Complicated fire-control if you want a decent spread. Good to remember."
"50 meters to command tower."
"Up the port side, the shaded side. Ride it all the way up to the top and the bridge."
Dana got herself a fine look at the skin of the armor on the way. That ship didn't have much in the way of scars. In a few places, the small-bore particle beams of some Xihute vessel had caught them. One patched area along with the less-patched spatter-damaged areas around it suggested a penetration from a railgun round of decent size. "They must vent atmo for combat," she said. "Otherwise that hit would have blown off the ship's whole belly and roasted three decks."
Clack rotated the boat so that their cockpit canopy faced the windows of the' bridge, but when they reached the line of diamond-pane windows and looked in, she saw only two officers. "Anchor shift," she said. "Never seen one with only two people. Get ready to shut down the stealth."
"Batteries at 7%."
"Don't worry; we won't have to creep out of here. Kill power to the energy shunts and take us visible in 3...2...1..."
Dana could only imagine what the greasy-haired man sitting in the command chair thought when the sneak craft seemed to surface out of the murky dim to fill the port windows of the bridge. The mouth fell open a little wider. The eyes didn't change much though. He seemed mildly surprised, but unimpressed. Training for this, they'd pulled the same stunt on the crew of one of the smugglers' ships and those old spacers nearly jumped out of their skins. She didn't understand why Randall's man was so calm, but maybe a lack of panic would make this easier.
The bug consulted the EM warfare console. "Voracious local comms is channel 422."
She gestured to patch her mic through and waved at the two men on the bridge. The one at the OPS console looked at the one in the chair and then back to the window before she spoke. "I'm Dana Sellis. I'm here to see Fancy Randall."
The man in the command chair thumbed for comms, said something she couldn't discern, and then looked back to her.
"I've put mines on your ships," she said. "If you've just told someone to shoot at us, then you should know I'm perfectly willing to detonate those mines and destroy your vessels." He spoke again into internal comms before she heard the pop and beep on the line that told her he'd patched his mic in.
"Fancy Randall isn't here now." No further explanation came as she stared at him through the windows of Voracious' bridge.
"Well, where is he?"
"He's off doing fancy things."
"What did you say?"
"You heard me. When the ships are here at anchor, Fancy Randall is off doing fancy things like reading great plays all by himself and drinking fine wines and admiring beautiful women in person. He lives the pirate life with style. He's on his way now. He'll be with you shortly."
"Did you mention the mines?"
He nodded.
"You're not actually in charge of the ship, are you?" she said. "You don't seem like a sailor."
"No. I work in the brig. I just sit here in this chair when the ship is at anchor and call Mr. Muccha, the XO, if there's a problem." She looked closer then at the man over the OPS console. He wasn't working it. He was cleaning it with a rag and a can of killz-all.
"I see," said Dana.
"Fancy Randall says this and watching the brig are the only two jobs I'm good for. And boarding parties."
"And how exactly did you become a pirate?"
"I was lifted from a prison transport on the way to Otherworld." He shrugged.
"What were you in for?"
"Triple murder."
"I see."
"She wouldn't listen. You look a little like her."
"Do I?"
"Yes, you do."
Nothing about Fancy Randall could be called merciful save his timing. The doors of the lift opened at the rear of the bridge and revealed him. He wore a belted jacket made for lounging and matching pants. Both draped as if they were expensive and had been tailored to fit him. He smiled broadly as he stepped onto the bridge. "Commander Dana Sellis," he said. "What a lovely surprise. Have you grown weary of Ram Devlin? Did you and your bug friend there come to join us?"
At that moment, the lift doors on the starboard side of the bridge opened. The three men inside didn't even look at Dana, her boat, or Fancy Randall as they strode across the bridge to the NAV, OPS, and tactical stations. None of them had shaved in some time. They looked like lean and hungry spacers with more than a few drinks in them, but they moved with purpose, not wasting any motion as they worked the consoles to get their captain a comprehensive sitrep.
"We don't know where the mines are yet," said the one she
took for the XO at tactical. "We're working on it."
"Very good, Mr. Muccha. Keep me informed."
"Quite a fancy crew you've got, Randall."
"The dock watch is as sharp as it needs to be. The rest of my crew like Mr. Bertrand and Mr. Ho who arrived shortly after me," he shot a glance at them over his shoulder, "...are all veterans of the Imperium Wars like most of your crews. The difference, of course, is that yours have nothing to do and mine are quite busy right now packaging and transferring the lovely Xihute cargo we brought back from Canopus, thank you very much. Did my man invite you in?"
"He did," she lied. "I declined."
"How marvelously appropriate that you should sneak your way here, now, to me! Not more than a day ago I let Ram Devlin know I could take whatever he had, and now you come. Allow me to invite you in. I've got a lovely bottle breathing itself smooth right now."
"I've placed limpet mines on your hauler full of our booty and Voracious as well. Does that seem appropriate?"
"It sounds like hypocrisy. Do you plan to destroy what I stole from you after you stole it from the Xihute yourselves? It hardly seems your claim of ownership exceeds the claims made by the guns of my little fleet. Easy come easy go seems to be the rule around here."
She said, "I won't blow the mines. For now. As long as you don't try to run that hauler out of the grinder or kill me. If the signal from this detonator is lost, the mines blow. And don't try to remove the mines when you find them. They're horribly made and very temperamental."
Fancy Randall sighed. "Don't do this, don't do that... What am I supposed to do. What must I do to get you to disarm and remove your mines from my ships?"
"All you have to do is listen to a business proposition. Then say yes."
After she was done showing him the maps marked with the movements of a non-existent Xihute convoy even larger than the last, Randall was the first to acknowledge they could only take them all if Devlin's Privateers joined up with Voracious and her eight escorts for the attack.
Distrust suddenly pinched his gaze as he peered out at her. "We both know you don't like us. Devlin's Privateers are fugitives as well, but you're rebels, part of the Otherworld underground. You think we're common criminals."
"We think you're gangsters actually...less common, but more dangerous."
He said, "It isn't like you people to come to us and ask to work together. Usually you're...what's the word I want? Snobs, yes that's it."
"This will benefit us both. It could turn the tide in more than one system of the Long Front. And once Earth sees the magnitude of the blow we've struck to the Imperium war effort, we'll be in a position to ask for letters of marque. I don't have to tell you about the money in alien intellectual properties and tech."
"Indeed. Even if one isn't a trusting sort, and I'm not, this is too good an opportunity to ignore. Now, would it be too much trouble to ask you to remove the mines from the hulls of my ships as a gesture of good will?"
"I like them where they are."
"And you're quite sure they can't be removed?"
"Don't try it. We're going to need every one of your ships to pull this stunt off."
Chapter 4
ICV Absalom
En route to the Alcyone-Eridani transit
The corsair Absalom, Split Aces, hybrid Ariadne, and the Shediri Ketok set out from where they'd held station around the Doxy. The ungainly tender and the unarmed smugglers gathered around her would be protected from attack by only torpedo mines and a few Shediri fighters. They'd left just enough on patrol to convince anyone watching that the rest of them were still parked somewhere on the Doxy's flight decks.
The largest of the haulers holding station there, 550-meter Marquis Blanc, followed Devlin's Privateers until Hank Devlin got nervous and ordered her to pull ahead so Absalom could guard the rear. If anyone asked, she was there to carry home booty, but the 76 Shediri fighters and crews hiding in her holds made her the most deadly ship they'd sortied for the mission.
The line of privateers didn't leave the Grinder and the Doxy fully unguarded and steam out into open space until one of Split Aces' junks confirmed that Fancy Randall, Voracious, and its eight escorts had all left the Grinder and set out for the Alcyone-Eridani interstellar transit.
"This is Ariadne," said his father's voice in his helmet. "All ships, latch helmets and vent atmo for combat if you haven't already. Conserve the batteries; run visible so they can see us coming up behind them on the way to the transit. That's all for now."
To his right, at the tactical console, Hank's XO shook his ten-eyed head inside his war-painted alien exosuit. The translator said, "No speeches at least."
"Mr. Kik, I'll have you know I like a good speech at the right time."
"Interrogative: you make one now?"
"No, I don't think I will."
Hank had spent enough time around the bugs to hear the genuine surprise in Kik's clicking. He saw the new contact at the same time the translator spoke. "It's a Staas Company breaching ship. Bearing 22 mark 277, 15,700 Ks out. Transponder ID: SCS Easting." Two of the bug's four hands traced the red path that intersected with theirs over the position of the Alcyone-Eridani transit.
At OPS Millet sounded bitter. "How the hell did Randall get Staas Company to divert a goddamn breaching ship?"
"He's showing off," said Hank. "He's got better connections than we have."
"No problems with Staas Company cutters now," Kik Sin's translator offered.
"Mr. Kik is right. Now, if our opening of the interstellar transit is detected as we leave, they'll see a registered breaching ship in the area and won't think there's pirates about."
"We're not pirates," said Millet.
"Quite right." Hank pointed to the Voracious and the converted gunboats around her. "But they are. In any case, we won't be followed now. It was a good idea no matter how he did it."
Voracious and her escorts arrived first and held station some 15 Ks out from the precise location of the hypermass transit while SCS Easting moved into position. As the ships of Devlin's Privateers followed Ariadne in to hold station just 2 Ks off Fancy Randall's starboard side, the two formations partially merged. Tense seconds passed before he heard voices on comms.
"Ariadne, this is Voracious," said Randall. "Do you like our toy? You probably don't want to contact SCS Easting on comms or leave any trace of our encounter. This is off the books for them and we wouldn't want the nice company men helping us to get in trouble."
"Understood, Voracious. We are standing by."
"Ariadne, we have no countdown from the breaching ship. Be ready to proceed through the membrane and transit at any time. Voracious out."
Hank watched Randall's ship through the port windows for any sign of immediate betrayal. All her turrets were manned, of course, but the torpedo tubes set at midships were closed and unless Millet was asleep at the OPS console, then no targeting beams were painting the hull. Randall would most likely wait to attack until after they'd taken the Xihute convoy. But, of course, there was no convoy.
Ram Devlin would give the signal when it was time. They all knew it would have to be soon after they entered Eridani, before Randall realized the juicy enemy convoy had been a lie.
Millet said, "I haven't had a company ship open the door for me in fourteen years."
Mr. Kik chatter clacked and hissed. "Press your helmet against the window if you want."
Out through the front windows of the bridge the spoked wagon wheel and axle hull of the breaching ship, SCS Easting lit with small discharges. Pooled static traveled over the 375-meter-wide, ring-shaped section of her hull that housed all her capacitors and the five, NS-315 particle emitters required to breach space in the manner learned from the Squids.
Inside the long axle section piercing the ring, stacked reactors ran at redline to pump as much zap into the capacitors as possible. It took a lot of energy to distort the sub-dimension called n-space in the same way that a hypermassive object like a dwarf star migh
t.
Millet said, "The caps are starting to leak now. Just like old times." The lightning storms started out on the ring and crackled over it until they found the spokes that held it. They whip-cracked back and forth and rode the struts like Jacob's ladders straight to the reactor-packed hull. "I always think we're going to die whenever one of those things powers up."
"Shediri method of breaching space superior," boasted Kik Sin.
"But not nearly so spectacular, Mr. Kik. Behold..."
"Discharge is imminent," said Millet.
The lightning storms snapping over Easting culminated in a final fury that lit the sixteen ships behind her bright across their bows. All five of the NS-315 particle emitters mounted on the Easting's 375-meter ring section fired together. The streams collided precisely over the point where the distortions in the sub-dimension known as n-space created by hypermassive objects such as the two adjoining stars, Alcyone and Eridani, nearly intersected to create a tunnel through the sub-dimension. All that was required to bridge them was a larger hypermass distortion that could 'connect' the pre-existing ones. Providing a dwarf star on demand would have been a tall order, but Humanity had a knack for creating violent outbursts of energy and luckily enough, the sub-dimension known as n-space didn't discriminate between the two. Mass and energy were all the same to n-space.
The firing beams from SCS Easting's emitters created a tremendous flash when they first collided. It was enough to trigger the diamond-pane windows to dim to protect the bridge crew.
Where the beams collided, a ball of hellfire grew. "100, 200 meters, 300," counted Millet, and still it expanded. They said it had no color, but Hank had always seen crimson fire, tinged deep purple-blue, like the color of arterial blood. As it waxed past the 500-meter mark, Hank and the rest of his bridge crew watched the flames swirl over the expanding sphere. When it was just over 2 kilometers wide, it ceased to swell, but the emitters on the Easting continued firing until they were sure.
"Critical threshold any second. I can always tell..." said Millet.
