The proximity detonator in each bomblet went active. “Fifteen seconds.”
“Spatial anomalies detected in front of all six Outlaws,” Operations said with a startled voice. “What the―” There was a long, tense pause as Operations struggled with baffling sensor data. “Outlaws have disappeared. They went right into those anomalies and now they’re gone. Wait . . . new anomalies are forming. Outlaws have reappeared, and . . . they’re more than fifty MKs closer to us. Uh, don’t know how, but the data indicates they went into one anomaly and popped out from another.”
Mitterrand gulped. Somehow the alien ships had jumped over fifty million kilometers closer to Nighthawk, doing so in a fraction of a second. So they had figured out a way to negate the scatterpacks―simply jump over them. Damn . . . they’re learning how to fight us.
“Those anomalies must be their method of FTL transit,” Helm theorized. “Somehow they’re able to create stable wormholes and travel through them.”
With their targets gone, the scatterpack bomblets drifted onward into deep space. Meanwhile the six alien warships sped closer. Blisters began to form on their jade-like hulls.
The combat AI calculated that incoming fire was imminent, triggering the immediate deployment of countermeasures to disrupt the enemy’s aim. A decoy drone about the size of a Penetrator missile burst from Nighthawk. At first it headed straight ahead but then gently arced up and away to the starboard side. Carrying sophisticated gear, the AIM-9 Specter drone mimicked the electronic signature of a Lynx-class destroyer. The drone also spewed a wake of positively charged ions indicative of engines at high thrust. It even utilized a gravimetric thumper to amplify its own “footprints,” fooling gravwake detectors. To enemy sensors, the Specter drone would appear as a destroyer accelerating hard toward deep space. The aliens should target it instead of Nighthawk.
The bridge lights had also gone out, plus Mitterrand felt lighter. Gravity drop of two-thirds, she guessed, perhaps more. Engineering confirmed what she already presumed. “Stealth mode in effect. Cloak is up with full camo gain.”
Twenty-five microseconds after the drone had launched, the AI initiated a ship-wide, powered-down state. Both reactors were cut to just 6% capacity with all non-essential systems switched off. Even internal ship grav and life support had been reduced to 20% standard―yet another reason why crew members were strapped into combat recliners during battle stations. The stealth cloak came on simultaneously, wrapping the destroyer in a dark energy field that absorbed incoming scanner pulses.
Nighthawk had just become a ghost on the electromagnetic spectrum.
The tach scanners and all weapon systems had also powered down, as the telltale crackle and hiss of their strong emissions would almost certainly give away Nighthawk’s location. Given the destroyer was outnumbered six-to-one by far larger warships, their chances in a slug-it-out fight were slim. Better to rely on stealth until the rescue team returned.
Message broadcasts to the non-communicative aliens had also stopped, as they, too, would give away Nighthawk’s position. At this point, Mitterrand considered it doubtful they’d get a response, anyway. She understood these aliens might not have vocal chords with which to speak, or perhaps couldn’t hear, or, possibly, like the warlike K’klacken, they simply had no interest in what others had to say. Most likely, the aliens were just so “alien” compared to humans, it might take years, maybe decades, for xenolinguists to crack the communication barrier, assuming a mutual understanding was even possible.
“Energy levels on all Outlaws are spiking,” Tactical announced. “AI projects incoming weapon fire.”
The Specter drone began weaving an evasive course, jinking left and then right in a random pattern with up and down jogs added in. The alien warships fired in unison, targeting the drone and its deceptive emissions. A massive barrage of 144 brilliant-purple explosions burst all around it, several of the blasts coming close.
Tactical let out an inadvertent whistle. “Explosive strength of those blasts almost eight megatonnes. They’re nonnuclear, compressed energy warheads like those Outlaw One hit us with, but much more powerful.”
“Astrophysics analysis suggests the alien weapon is a wormhole cannon,” Engineering reported. “Warheads are propelled through stable wormholes, detonating at their target almost instantaneously.”
“Can we collapse the wormholes?” Mitterrand asked.
Engineering didn’t answer right away, mulling it over. “Maybe, if we can generate a distortion field around the ship. But we’d have to drop the shields to do it.”
So much for that idea. Mitterrand watched the holosphere as the blue dot representing the Specter drone zigzagged back and forth. Suddenly, purple star-blooms erupted all around it, obscuring the blue dot from view. Once the blasts faded away, the drone was gone.
Mitterrand waited nervously, wondering what would happen next. Did the aliens believe Nighthawk was destroyed? Could the drone’s obliteration deceive them thus?
“Everyone cross your fingers,” she whispered.
For the next ten minutes, the alien warships continued to move closer but held their fire. Nighthawk had become eerily silent, the crew afraid to make the slightest noise. They only needed to stay hidden until the rescue team returned. After that, they’d bolt for safety.
“Incoming!” Tactical shouted.
All six Outlaws fired, and Mitterrand felt hard shudders as blasts thumped against their force shields. Some fell short, others went long, but the alien warships had already bracketed Nighthawk with their first salvo. Not good. Mitterrand knew it would only get worse.
In response, the combat AI sent another Specter drone streaking out and away to the port side. Five seconds later another burst from its launcher, racing aft. To the aliens, one target had just become three.
The drones wove elaborate evasive courses as they accelerated away, zigzagging back and forth, jinking up and down at random intervals. They would dodge enemy fire as long as they could.
The Outlaws responded by firing at all three targets. One drone was destroyed, the other took slight damage and continued on, while Nighthawk was pummeled by over forty blasts.
Thirty seconds later, the alien warships fired again, splitting their barrage between the last drone and Nighthawk. Sharp vibrations rippled through Mitterrand’s combat recliner.
The last drone was blown apart, leaving just one target for the alien warships. Silent until now, the Quasar jammer suddenly came on, sending deafening waves of white-noise distortion out into space. Enemy scanners should now be blinded as if staring at a midday sun. Indeed, all six Outlaws ceased fire, but it was a short respite. Just a few minutes later they sent another barrage at Nighthawk, apparently able to pierce the cloud of white-noise static.
Ca-Whoom! Mitterrand hung on tight as the bridge shook. They were running out of time, but she was determined to rescue those platform workers. She would not―could not―leave prisoners in alien hands, or tentacles, or insectoid grippers, or whatever they had that served as such. But as captain her overriding priority was the safety of her ship and crew. “Where’s that rescue team?”
“They encountered heavy resistance,” Tactical responded. “But all human survivors have reached the assault ram. The rescue team is currently en route to the platform AI. ETA to Nighthawk, twenty-five minutes.”
Mitterrand winced. That was not the answer she wanted to hear.
Ca-Wang! Explosions rocked the destroyer from all sides.
“Multiple direct hits,” Tactical warned. “They have our position locked in now.”
The destroyer were sitting motionless, and the targeting of the alien ships proved remarkably accurate. Thirty seconds later another barrage came zooming in, throwing Mitterrand sideways against the straps of her recliner.
“Shields are starting to buckle,” Engineering warned. “Request authorization to push reactors into the red.”
“Authorization granted.” Mitterrand instantly replied.
Bot
h annihilation reactors were pushed to 135% of their rated operational limit, safety indicators going deep into the red as extra power was sent to the shields. Midship, damage-control robots rushed in to spray flame retardants on fires that had broken out in the crew quarters and mess hall. The lifeboats were prepped for an emergency evacuation.
Ca-Whoom! Another salvo exploded against Nighthawk’s shields, shaking the destroyer from one end to the other.
“Shield strength down to eighty-four percent,” Engineering reported.
Thirty seconds later, Nighthawk shuddered violently as more of the eight-megatonne explosions slammed against the shields.
Strategy Officer Gareck broke in on a priority line. “Captain, we can’t sit here and take this pounding. We must retreat.”
Mitterrand had already reached the same conclusion. “Helm, get us out of here. Any direction you think best. Move!”
Nighthawk’s graviton engines lit up, propelling the destroyer forward with ever-increasing speed.
Zeres Able fell away behind them, the rescue team and platform workers still aboard. Mitterrand despised herself for leaving them stranded like this, but she needed to save her ship. She’d return to get them as soon as reinforcements arrived.
Another mass barrage came zooming in, the blasts exploding where Nighthawk had been just a moment before. Thirty seconds later, more explosions burst in the destroyer’s wake, just missing.
The jammer howled even louder. Nighthawk raced forward, accelerating at maximum thrust. Helm wove an evasive course with some corkscrew maneuvers thrown into the trajectory. This caused the next two salvos to miss as well. The one after that did not.
Nighthawk was enveloped by purple flashes as numerous blasts detonated against the shields. The explosions rattled the destroyer, bucking Mitterrand in her combat recliner. The bridge holosphere flickered for a few seconds and then went out.
“Shields down to thirty percent,” Engineering said with a dread voice.
“Pump all battery reserves into the shields capacitors.” Mitterrand’s mind raced as she considered her remaining options. “Kill grav and life support if you have to, but keep those shields up no matter what.”
The AI configured the jammer to emit tri-wave oscillating emissions in a desperate attempt to throw off the enemy’s aim. It didn’t work.
“Incoming.”
Ca-Wang! The destroyer bounced, and Mitterrand felt her teeth rattle.
“Shields down to five percent. One more salvo like that ends us.”
Mitterrand knew they’d never make it. She needed to save her ship―now! Yet all she could think of was an emergency jump into hyperspace. A suicidal choice given Nighthawk’s proximity to the planet below, as the mass-distortion effects of its gravity well would send the destroyer into the nearest star if they jumped this close. She glanced at the navigation display, cringing at the 92.1% probability estimate of Nighthawk emerging inside Cirtus Beta if the destroyer made a jump into hyper now.
But right now a 7.9% chance of survival was better than no chance at all. “Helm, immediate hy―”
Mitterrand never finished the sentence.
More than a hundred of the eight-megatonne blasts struck Nighthawk, collapsing her shields like popped bubbles and crumpling the armored hull underneath. Overload surges reached all the way down to the reactor room, rupturing the antiproton injector line that fed the number two annihilation chamber. This caused a cataclysmic chain reaction. In the blink of an eye Nighthawk exploded from the inside out, vaporizing from bow to stern as matter and antimatter violently canceled each other from existence.
Zeres Able
When Sergeant Risi heard the wild bursts of static flooding through his comm link he knew right away something terrible had happened. Not until his combat suit filtered out the interference did he learn just how awful that something truly was.
Lieutenant Tesla whispered the news with a soft, solemn tone. “Nighthawk is gone, destroyed. I detect no survivors.”
There was silence for a while, each of the two marines mourning in their own way.
To Risi, it felt like the icy cold breath of Death himself had just blown across the back of his neck. All his shipmates, friends, even those officers he didn’t like so much, all gone . . . each and every one of them. He trembled as if from a chill.
“What now?” he eventually asked.
“Wait for reinforcements to arrive.” Tesla sounded confident. “I have no doubt that Arc Command has significant assets already on the way. Fleet will meet the aliens here with extreme force.”
Risi hoped the lieutenant was right, though he suspected the AI’s bravado was mostly for his benefit to keep morale up. The twenty-eight men and women they’d rescued were safe in the assault ram’s troop compartment, but without Nighthawk they had nowhere to go. Their only option was to wait until help arrived, except that might be weeks away. He didn’t like their chances of holding out until then.
Risi had gotten his sheep to the barn, but alien wolves were all around. It was only a matter of time before they closed in for the kill.
Pi Sequence:
The Great Escape
Argo
Down in the docking bay, the shuttle modifications were finally complete, the L-brackets and boost emitters mounted on the roof in the proper alignment. Test simulations run on the flight analyzer predicted the atypical configuration would adequately suffice to carry the alien pod. As expected, the shuttle would suffer an appreciable decrease in flight performance―a necessary tradeoff. The shuttle’s range was 174 light years, more than enough to get Mercer and Dupree and their extraterrestrial cargo to Sutter’s Cove in the Gorki system. Once there, they’d auction their alien “jewel” to the highest bidder.
Datch put away the tools, securing them in an equipment locker. Dupree helped. Once the alien pod was secured atop the shuttle and they were ready to go, they’d vent the docking bay as a precaution, flushing any and all alien microbes or contaminants into space. When that happened, loose items lying about would become high-speed projectiles flying across the docking bay and out the space door. Experienced spacers habitually stowed anything that might be a risk.
Finished, the two men exchanged nods before going their separate ways. There was no hand shake of congratulations here. In truth, few words had ever been spoken between them. Working together was a necessary task neither man had enjoyed. Both were glad to finally be done with it.
As Datch left the docking bay, Dupree went to the control booth, taking a seat behind the main operations board. From his elevated position in the airtight booth, Dupree had a clear view of the entire bay. After bringing up the proper control screen, he unlocked and opened the storage vault with the alien pod inside. It was still there just like they’d left it. Nothing looked different. Dupree breathed a sigh of relief at this. He had not expected any changes, but the thing was alien. You just never knew sometimes.
Dupree activated a snare beam and delicately lifted the pod, taking every precaution. Once it was half a meter off the floor, he pulled the pod out of the vault and began its ultra-safe 2.5 kph glide across the docking bay. He steered wide of some strapped down storage crates, keeping the pod three meters or so from anything it might bump into. They were so close, and he didn’t want any careless mistakes now.
Ten minutes later, Dupree carefully lowered the pod onto the shuttle. He smiled when it slid flawlessly into the bracket cradle that had been created just for this purpose. Six maintenance robots were sent forth with heavy-lift straps, laying them over the pod in the specified pattern and securing them to the L-brackets. There, all done now; the pod was firmly anchored in place, strapped down tight and ready to go.
Ecstatic, Dupree danced an Irish jig around the control booth, happy as a gambler who’d just hit the jackpot.
Unbeknownst to him, Shepard was also happy about the accomplishment, except in a more refined, silent, AI fashion. The Great Escape could now begin.
In a bunkroom adjacent
to the docking bay, three turtle-shape robots rose from their storage racks and glided to a tool locker that slid open at their approach. Per Shepard’s instructions, the first robot equipped itself with a pulse-drill and a set of small-bore, polycarbonate drill bits. Next into the storage box built into the robot’s turtle-shell back went an assortment of specialized implements designed for fine-detail work. Properly equipped, the robot left the bunkroom, heading to Ritch’s bedroom. The second robot retrieved a different set of tools, snatched a spool of optical conduit plus a half-meter length of steel cable, then it sped off to Shepard. The third robot equipped itself with a welding torch and departed, its task by far the easiest of those Shepard had assigned.
Once these three had left, the remaining nineteen robots in the bunkroom came to life. One by one, they glided over to the tool locker, picked up heavy wrenches, ratchet spanners, or crowbars, anything suitable for use as a weapon. Thus armed, the robots hovered patiently, awaiting further instructions.
Elsewhere in a different bunkroom, another robot gang armed themselves with heavy tools.
So began a cleverly arranged sequence of seemingly random events that should cause the hijackers considerable confusion, enabling Argo’s crew along with the alien known as Stynx to escape amid the chaos.
Up on Argo’s bridge, the moment of truth had arrived. Sinja held out her hand. “Okay, Mercer, give me the detonator.”
Mercer nodded. They had been watching events down in the docking bay, and now with the alien pod securely mounted atop the modified shuttle, it was time to go. Per his deal with Sinja, this was the moment when he gave her the detonator and removed the bomb it detonated down in the hyperdrive controls. Once he did so, however, he’d be completely vulnerable. Everything hinged on Sinja being true to her promise. A foolish wager perhaps, but Mercer had made plenty of those. How boring life would be without them.
He gave the matchbox-sized detonator to Sinja.
The Sphere Imperium: Book Two of the Intentional Contact Trilogy Page 20
