The Hunters of Vermin

by H. Paul Honsinger

  ALSO, WHAT YOU DID TO YOUNG ROBICHAUX SHOWS THAT YOU LACK HONOR.

  TO THE VAAACH, THE LACK OF HONOR IN THE UNION HEART MEANS MORE THAN THE LACK OF WAR-WORTH IN THE UNION NAVY. MOTHERLESS AND FATHERLESS, THE YOUNG ROBICHAUX HAD ONLY YOUR NAVY TO REAR HIM, KEEP HIM SAFE, AND SHOW HIM THE WAYS OF HIS FATHERS BEFORE HIM. THESE ARE DEEP FOOTPRINTS. THOSE WHO STAND IN THEM ARE CALLED TO HONOR.

  THAT CALL FELL ON DEAF EARS. HORNMEYER SENT THIS HALF TRAINED, HALF GROWN LOWER BRANCH HANGER INTO A SWARM OF YOUR MOST DEADLY FOES. HE WOULD HAVE BEEN THE KRAG’S WARM MEAT HAD THE VAAACH NOT SAVED HIM. NOW YOU ASK US TO PUT ROBICHAUX BACK IN THE VERY HANDS THAT THREW HIM INTO THE VERMINS’ FEEDING CIRCLE.

  NO.

  HUMANS, YOUR GREAT DISHONOR MEANS YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO ASK THIS OF US. FURTHER, IT FREES ROBICHAUX FROM ANY OATH OR WORD-TROTH HE GAVE TO YOU. HE OWES US HIS LIFE. HE OWES YOU NOTHING. UNDER OUR LAW WE HAVE THE RIGHT AND THE HONOR-BOND TO KEEP HIM WITH US AND TEACH HIM AS WE SEE FIT.

  COMMODORE LOUIS G. HORNMEYER, THE UNION SPACE NAVY, AND ALL HUMANS HAVE EARNED THE VAAACH’S SCORN. YOUR FEET DO NOT FOLLOW THE PATH OF HONOR. YOUR HEARTS DO NOT CARRY THE TRUTHS OF THE HUNTER. YOUR EYES DO NOT SEE THE SHAPE OF WISDOM. WE HAVE FOUND NO TRAIL THAT LEADS TO HUMANS LEARNING THESE THINGS. WE SEE NO SIGN THAT YOU WILL FIND THE WAY.

  BUT, MANY WAYS ARE HIDDEN. EVEN THE MOST KEEN-EYED HUNTER CAN SEE THEM ONLY WHEN THE LEAVES FALL OR WHEN THE WATER IN THE STREAMS IS LOWEST IN THE DRY HEAT OF SUMMER. SOMETIMES, A FLOOD OR LANDSLIDE OPENS A WAY WHERE THERE WAS NO WAY BEFORE. SO, IT MAY BE THAT YOU HUMANS FIND A WAY WHERE THE VAAACH NOW SEE NONE.

  BUT THERE ARE GREAT FIRES IN FAR FORESTS OF WHICH YOU DO NOT KNOW. THERE ARE THINGS THE VAAACH MUST DO NOW THAT SHAPE WHAT WILL COME FOR US AND FOR YOU FOR MANY AGES. SO IT IS THAT THE VAAACH MUST KNOW NOW: ARE YOU CHILDREN OF THE APES STRONG-WILLED AND STOUT-HEARTED ENOUGH TO FOLLOW THE WAY WHEN YOU FIND IT? IF YOU FIND IT.

  WE CAN NOT WAIT FOR THE FALLING OF THE LEAVES. WE CAN NOT WAIT FOR THE DRYING OF THE STREAMS. WE CAN NOT WAIT FOR THE CHANGING OF THE LAND.

  WE WILL LEARN THUS--WE WILL SEND YOUNG ROBICHAUX TO THE HUNTERS OF VERMIN WHERE THE VAAACH WILL ATTEMPT TO TEACH HIM THE WAY. IF HE LEARNS THESE THINGS WELL AND TRUE, HE WILL LIVE AND MAY GO WHERE HE WILLS. IF HE GOES BACK TO YOU, YOU SHOULD LEARN FROM HIM WHAT HE WILL HAVE LEARNED FROM US.

  IF HE DOES NOT LEARN THE WAY WELL AND TRUE, HE WILL DIE. THE VAAACH WILL BEAR HIS SMALL BODY WITH HONOR BACK TO HIS HOME WORLD TO LIE WITH THE BONES OF HIS FATHERS.

  THE RAGE OF THE VAAACH IS GREAT AT THE WRONGS DONE TO THIS YOUNG ONE. BUT, THE UNION WILL NOT FEEL THE FULL STING OF OUR WRATH.

  YET.

  IT IS BETTER THAT THE SPEAR AND CLUB WIELDING RABBLE YOU CALL THE “UNION SPACE NAVY” DO AS THEY HAVE DONE. KILL THE VERMIN KRAG. THESE CREATURES ARE NOT FIT EVEN AS MEAT FOR THE VAAACH, BUT THEY ARE WELL-WORTHY FOES FOR HUMANS. GO FORTH AND KILL KRAG. KILL MANY KRAG.

  AND WALK NOT NEAR THE TREES OF OUR ANGER, LEST WE DARKEN YOUR SKIES WITH OUR SHIPS DEALING BOOMING THUNDER AND SWIFT DEATH TO THOSE WHO DWELL BELOW.

  ABOUT THIS, SPEAK TO US NO FURTHER. THERE IS NOTHING MORE TO BE SAID.

  MESSAGE ENDS.

  *****************************************

  6. THE HARDASS MOTHERFUCKERS DON’T MINCE WORDS. I’D HATE TO HAVE ONE AS A DRILL INSTRUCTOR. THEY SURE AS SHEEP SHIT DON’T LIKE ME MUCH. IT APPEARS WE DON’T STAND MUCH CHANCE OF BEING ABLE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT YOUR SITUATION RIGHT NOW. BUT REMEMBER, EVERY ONE OF MY OFFICERS HAS VALUE TO ME. EVEN A SORRY ASS FUCKUP LIKE YOU. AS LONG AS I HAVE ANY SAY IN THE MATTER, WE WILL NEVER STOP TRYING TO BRING YOU HOME.

  NEVER.

  I SUGGEST HOWEVER THAT YOU RESIGN YOURSELF TO THE POSSIBILITY THAT, IF YOU COME HOME, IT IS MORE LIKELY TO BE DUE TO YOUR EFFORTS THAN TO OURS. IN ANY EVENT, I THINK IT LIKELY THAT YOUR RETURN WILL NOT COME SOON.

  7. THE VAAACH MESSAGE LEAVES ME LITTLE CHOICE BUT TO ISSUE THE FOLLOWING ORDERS, ALL EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY:

  8. YOU ARE HEREBY DETACHED FROM SQUADRON FRS-1885 AND RELIEVED OF ALL OTHER PREVIOUSLY-ASSIGNED DUTIES;

  9. BY THE AUTHORITY VESTED IN ME UNDER THE EMERGENCY MILITARY POWERS ACT OF 2281 AND THE UNION ARTICLES OF WAR OF 2283, I APPOINT YOU AS THE UNION NAVAL LIAISON AND EXCHANGE OFFICER ASSIGNED TO THE VAAACH SOVEREIGNTY, WITH ALL THE RIGHTS, POWERS, AND PRIVILEGES APPERTAINING THERETO, WHILE REMAINING UNDER THE COMMAND, AUTHORITY, AND DIRECTION OF COMMANDER OPERATIONAL AREA I, TASK FORCE 84-3 ORANGE (I.E., YOUR ASS STILL BELONGS TO ME).

  10. WHILE ACTING IN THAT CAPACITY, YOU ARE DIRECTED TO PARTICIPATE IN SUCH EDUCATION AND TRAINING AS THE VAAACH MAY SEE FIT TO PROVIDE TO YOU. YOU ARE FURTHER ORDERED TO COOPERATE WITH AND TREAT AS YOUR DULY APPOINTED UNION NAVAL SUPERIORS ANY PERSONNEL WHOM THE PROPERLY AUTHORIZED VAAACH MAY APPOINT OVER YOU, PROVIDED THAT YOU ARE IN NO WAY DIRECTED HEREIN OR AUTHORIZED TO VIOLATE YOUR OFFICER’S OATH OR TO ENGAGE IN ANY ACTION OR FAILURE TO ACT CONTRARY TO THE INTERESTS OF THE UNION OR THE UNION SPACE NAVY;

  11. NOTWITHSTANDING THE FOREGOING, YOU ARE TO RETURN WITH YOUR VESSEL TO UNION SPACE AS SOON AS PRACTICABLE BY ANY MEANS AT YOUR DISPOSAL, INCLUDING DECEPTION, DECEIT, GUILE, THEFT, FRAUD, MANIPULATION, OUTRIGHT LIES, ESCAPE, AND ANY OTHER VARIETY OF THAT SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED COONASS SHIT THAT YOU ALWAYS SEEM TO COME UP WITH WHEN NEEDED TO SAVE YOUR SLIPPERY HIDE.

  12. TO THE GREAT MISFORTUNE OF THE UNION SPACE NAVY, AND PERHAPS OF THE ENTIRE GALAXY, CODE NAV. REG. 14:877(A)(2)(g)(iii) Rev. 28 May 2304) CLEARLY SPECIFIES A MINIMUM RANK OF O-2 FOR ALL NAVAL PERSONNEL “ACTING IN ANY LIAISON AND EXCHANGE CAPACITY BETWEEN THE UNION SPACE NAVY AND ANOTHER SOVEREIGN POLITICAL ENTITY.” DUMBASS REAR ECHELON MOTHERFUCKERS--HOW THE HELL DO THEY EXPECT ME TO RUN A GODDAMN COMBAT COMMAND WHILE HAVING TO COMPLY WITH ALL THESE IMBECILE PICAYUNE REGULATIONS INTERFERING WITH THE DETAILS OF WHAT I DO, WHO I PROMOTE, AND WHETHER I GO FROM FRONT TO BACK OR BACK TO FRONT WHEN I WIPE MY HUGE HAIRY ASS? SO, CONTRARY TO MY JUDGMENT AND ANY GOOD SENSE, EFFECTIVE AS OF THE DATE AND TIME HEREOF, YOU ARE CIG TO LIEUTENANT (JUNIOR GRADE), UNION SPACE NAVY (MAY GOD HELP US ALL!). DON’T GET USED TO THE SILVER BAR OR THE EXTRA SKINNY STRIPE. EXPECT TO BE BUSTED TO ENSIGN AT THE EARLIEST POSSIBLE MILLISECOND.

  13. REMEMBER TO KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN, YOUR MOUTH SHUT, YOUR HEAD SCREWED ON STRAIGHT, AND YOUR THUMB OUT OF YOUR ASS. DO THESE THINGS AND THERE IS EVERY CHANCE YOU’LL DO AS WELL OR BETTER IN THE CRAZY-ASS SITUATION IN WHICH YOU FIND YOURSELF THAN ANY OTHER JUNIOR OFFICER IN THE FLEET. I’M A BETTING MAN, AS YOU KNOW, AND I WOULD PUT REAL MONEY DOWN THAT YOU WILL SOMEHOW FIND A WAY TO GET BACK HERE ALIVE BEFORE THE END OF THE YEAR. AS A MATTER OF FACT, I ALREADY HAVE.

  14. GOOD LUCK AND GODSPEED. --HORNMEYER SENDS

  Chapter 2

  01:31 Zulu Hours, 10 July 2304

  Max could feel consciousness slipping away, as though the very light of his being were fading out of existence to be subsumed in a vast, eternal blackness. He knew he was about to die and he knew that there was nothing he could do to stop the darkness from enveloping him. Yet, with every separate subatomic particle of his being, he strove to avoid it. That eternal goodnight called to him, but he refused to go into it, gentle or otherwise.

  Rather, he raged, raged against the dying of the light.

  No. No. No. NO!!! You Vaaach bastards might be able to kill me, but there’s no way in hell I accept death. I refuse to surrender. I refuse to give in to your power to kill me. I defy death and I defy you. Can you hear me, you sorry Vaaach motherfuckers? I. Defy. You. Can you read my mind? No? Then read my lips.

  With a supreme effort of will, just as his vision went completely black, Max looked right into the lens of the cockpit video camera and managed to croak out what he was sure would be his last words spoken in this life. He hoped the Vaaach could make them out.

  “Fuck you, assholes.”

  The last spark of Max’s awareness began to flicker. Even the cacophony that had been assaulting his ears in the last few minutes seemed to fall silent as the part of his brain capable of hearing it shut down. Having fought to the very last, Max felt the darkness and the
silence wrench the last spark of consciousness from his failing grasp.

  And there was nothing.

  GASP!

  A sudden gasp, urgent to the point of being desperate, yanked Max from the unwelcome oblivion. His first thought was that he couldn’t identify the sound. The first gasp was followed by a second, and a third.

  As Max’s mind lurched into halting motion, vision and hearing rapidly returned. He finally identified the sound as his own breathing. Hardly believing that he still lived, he concentrated on sucking down great, wheezing lungfuls of delicious air. A quick glance at the few working instruments told him that the ship’s descent had shallowed by over fifteen degrees, reducing the G load from a killing twelve times the force of Earth gravity to a merely uncomfortable five.

  Shallowed. Somehow. For reasons unknown.

  Perhaps the tiny gremlins turned their tiny socket wrenches in the other direction.

  And, maybe the Great and Mighty Vaaach don’t want me to die now but prefer me to die ten minutes from now. So much better. I’ll be closer to the ground, so there’s less chance that the fatal internal injuries will be compounded by messy dismemberment. Don’t want to bloody up the nice, pretty little spacecraft, don’t ya’ know. Maybe they want to keep it looking nice for display in the Primitive Spacecraft from Inferior Races Wing of the Vaaach Museum of Science and Technology.

  All that mattered to Max, though, was that he was still alive, breathing and thinking. And fighting to stay that way.

  For the moment.

  The baby elephant on his chest was gone (though the ribs would likely be sore for at least a week), to be replaced by a gang of pissed off gorillas on steroids knocking him randomly in a dozen different directions. He knew that this much shaking could also kill him if it went on too long. Reflexively, Max swept his eyes over the bank of main displays in front of him, most of which were blank. The few that were working showed red.

  But, at that moment, while he could see it happening, one of the most wondrous events Max had ever experienced (other than the one that spared his life a few moments before) happened right in front of his eyes: several of the almost unbroken curtain of red lights on the status board flickered and then changed to green.

  Green! Maybe the Vaaach decided they didn’t want to kill me with G forces. Maybe they want to let me fly this thing.

  And, maybe, they want to watch gleefully while I fly this thing right into the ground so that they can blame my death on my own incompetence rather than their own abject cruelty. No matter how you slice it, if I have to leave this life, I’d rather fly out of it as a pilot than ride out of it as a passenger.

  Max jabbed at the button that was supposed to bring up a master display for ship’s attitude, speed, altitude, and similar information. Amazingly, most of the sub-displays in the master display’s data matrix actually worked.

  Ok. Let’s see what we’ve got.

  Altitude: 16574 meters. ∆ approx.-287 meters per second

  Attitude/orientation (planetary center REFSMMAT):

  N/A due to high rates on all three axes.

  Pitch: ∆ +27 degrees per second

  Yaw: ∆ -22 degrees per second

  Roll: ∆ -31 degrees per second

  Speed: Mach 2.7

  Deviation from level flight: -19.2 degrees

  Tumbling like a knuckle ball and falling like a rock. Just peachy. Maneuvering systems?

  Main sublight drive: inoperative. Cause unknown.

  Maneuvering thrusters: inoperative. Cause unknown.

  Trim thrusters: 1, 2, 5, 6, 8 operative at 23% thrust. Cause for subnominal performance unknown. Trim thrusters 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13 inoperative. Cause unknown

  Atmosphere deflectors: operative at 41%. Cause for subnominal performance unknown.

  Fly by wire: inoperative. Cause unknown.

  Autopilot Mode 1: Inoperative. No sensor input to IMU.

  Autopilot Mode 2: Inoperative. No NAVCOMP input access.

  Most of the systems that a pilot was supposed to use to control the ship were offline. With what he had left, making a controlled, survivable landing would be nearly impossible.

  Nearly.

  For the first time in days, Max smiled. Lieutenant (JG) Max Robichaux might be deficient in his judgment about what females to kiss and when. He might not have the vaguest bloody idea what ass of brass to kiss, how, and when. But at age 16 he already had a reputation as one of the hottest sticks in the Navy and had never scored less than 98% on any piloting skills test or failed to take first place in any flyoff against pilots anywhere near his experience level.

  Maybe rumors of my death have been somewhat exaggerated. Time for me to save my own ass. First priority?

  Easy: stabilize the ship. Apply the “follow your nose” rule which states: “In aerodynamic flight, to make your ship go where you want it to go, you must first be able to make the vehicle’s nose point where you want it to point.”

  Max checked to see which of his trim thruster quads was still working. He had one pair for pitch, one pair for roll, and one thruster without a mate for yaw.

  I can work with that.

  After several misses caused by the ship’s wild gyrations, Max managed to get his left index finger to hit the hard-wired key that extended the control yoke. Max pulled up the pilot interface configuration matrix on the command chair arm touchscreen and manually punched in the linkages he needed between his controls and the few working thrusters, his efforts hampered by the ship’s wild gyrations. He tied the pitch thrusters into the yoke’s push/pull axis, the roll thrusters into the yoke’s rotational axis, and the single yaw thruster into one of the yoke’s thumb toggles generally used to fire weapons.

  Now, I null the rates.

  A look at the displays showed Max that his highest spin rate was along the roll axis, so that’s the one he tackled first. He deftly turned the yoke in quick but subtle and precise motions, pulsing the thrusters against the direction of the roll without overcorrecting, until the ship was tumbling only end over end and left to right. Max next applied the same technique to the yoke’s column, pushing and pulling quickly but oh so very slightly until the tumbling slowly came to a stop. Then, he used the single jet tied to the key under his thumb until the ship was in a slow left yaw that he didn’t have a thruster to eliminate. Finally, he rolled the ship 90 degrees so that the slow yaw was now a slow pitch, which he eliminated with the appropriate tug on the yoke column.

  There. Now, instead of falling like a rock and tumbling uncontrollably, I’m just falling like a rock. How’s that for improvement!

  Max was, however, slightly better off than the proverbial rock in that his ship was somewhat narrower forward—where the control and accommodation cabin were located—than aft—where the cargo holds, water and fuel tanks, and engines were found. Max had oriented the ship so that the narrow end was pointed forward so that it would at least be stable as it fell.

  But, in order to save his life, Max had to do more than get his ship to fall in a stable manner. He had to get it to fly.

  Max’s little ship was designed for aerodynamic flight, as long as you didn’t try to maneuver it like an atmosphere fighter or land it in the middle of a hurricane. It wasn’t even particularly difficult. The pilot simply had to select one of the pre-programmed atmosphere deflector boundary shapes (there were different shapes optimized for variations in atmosphere density, as well as for different flight profiles like low speed maneuverability, high speed fly-by or escape, stealthed hovering, etc.) to bend the flow of air around the ship as though it were a solid body the shape of the deflector boundary. In that way, a ship with a decidedly non-aerodynamic shape could fly through a planetary atmosphere as though it were an aircraft designed specifically for atmospheric flight. The fly by wire system would translate the pilot’s control inputs into subtle but effective changes in the shape of the deflector boundary, and the main sublight drive would provide propulsion, so the ship could fly through an atmosphere like an airpl
ane or even a rotorcraft.

  That is, if the atmosphere deflectors, the fly by wire, the main sublight, and the maneuvering thrusters had been functioning nominally instead of at a distinctly sub-par level, in the case of the deflectors and the maneuvering thrusters, or not at all, in the case of the main sublight and the fly by wire. For Max, flying this ship in this atmosphere was like trying to box with one arm tied behind his back, the other one in a cast, a blindfold over his eyes, and scuba fins on his feet. It was a tough way to fight, but Max’s only choices were to fight this way or not at all, which was the equivalent of suicide.

  Max chose to fight.

  He manually configured the atmosphere deflectors, making the most use of the limited deflector output by shaping the boundary layer into the smallest lift-generating shape that enclosed his ship: something like a strip cut across the middle of a thick pancake, about seven times longer than it was wide, slightly wider at one end than the other. The top and bottom of the pancake were subtly curved to generate aerodynamic lift, while the ratio of length to width and the difference in width at the bow and the stern insured that air resistance would orient the ship so that it flew bow first. At only 41% power, the deflectors didn’t generate the kind of hard, sharp boundary layer that Max was used to, but they did create enough of a boundary for limited aerodynamic control.

  Very limited.

  Without fly by wire, though, Max had to steer the ship by linking specific motions of the control yoke to pre-set changes (of his own design) in the shape of the boundary layer, curving it in the desired direction of travel, akin to the way a seal glides through the water. It wasn’t easy, but it was doable. Max had to instruct the computer to create defined sections of the boundary layer that he could deflect into the air flow, like ailerons and a rudder on an airplane, that moved in response his turns, pushes, and pulls on the control yoke.