Vigilante

by Laura E. Reeve

  “Captain Stavros?” Lieutenant Colonel Aquino kept his attention on his navigation and sensors officer.

  “Gotcha!” Stavros turned around to face the command chairs with a triumphant grin. “There is an artificial body out there.”

  “A ship?” Aquino asked.

  “That’s my guess, sir. It’s actively shunting and redirecting EM radiation; that’s true cloaking, if ever I saw it!” Stavros ran her words together in her excitement. “But there’s something wrong with their profile. With that last surge, I managed to catch diffraction off hard corners—perhaps they’ve been damaged.”

  Aquino rotated to exchange a glance with Edones. Both commanders seemed thoughtful.

  “It’s a good bet that’s not our isolationists, given the technology,” Edones said.

  Aquino nodded. “And more mines have to be cleared before the Percival drops in. They’d take damage from a detonation like the one we just handled.”

  There was a quiet pause. Nobody even fidgeted.

  “Comm, prepare to send a tightbeam message to the position that Captain Stavros calculated.” Edones’s voice was so cool and conversational that his order didn’t immediately register with Kozel.

  With a start, the lieutenant acknowledged. “What channel, sir?”

  “Use our standard emergency channel. Send in the clear and use low power, as if we were in local exchange range.”

  Lieutenant Kozel looked horrified. “Unsecured, sir? Even though tightbeam’s directional—”

  “Give me mike control, Lieutenant.”

  Oleander half expected icicles to grow on Lieutenant Kozel’s nose, given Edones’s tone. As it was, the young man’s face did freeze. He gulped and set something on his console, presumably following orders.

  “This is the Bright Crescent, registered with the Armed Forces of the Consortium, calling Knossos-ship. We request assistance, under the Phaistos Protocols.” Edones repeated this twice, precisely enunciating each word.

  What was a Knossos-ship? Why was he broadcasting in the clear? Oleander looked up to see the two noncoms on the control deck exchanging a tense glance.

  “Acknowledged, Bright Crescent-ship. This is Knossos-ship, Warrior Commander speaking.”

  The response on the control deck was immediate and electrifying. Lieutenant Kozel jerked backward, and looked toward Aquino. The younger officers exchanged glances, eyes wide. Everyone recognized the voice as Minoan. Oleander turned to watch the commanders and saw a sight she’d never expected. Colonel Edones’s face was pale and stark. Fear? Lieutenant Colonel Aquino didn’t look any better.

  Aquino whispered, “Holy Avatars of Gaia.”

  “They’ve mobilized a Warrior,” Edones said quietly, a comment probably intended only for Aquino’s ears.

  CHAPTER 21

  No better service can a son give his father than to sacrifice his life for the Cause, our Freedom from the interference of other cultures.

  —The Cause, Qesan Douchet, est. 2073.011 UT, indexed by Heraclitus 24 under Conflict Imperative

  Ariane didn’t know how far off their stern the Aether’s Touch rode. The small second-wave prospector ship didn’t have weapons, unless one considered the rail guns. Every ship that traveled real-space sported at least one set of symmetrical, but independent, rail guns for clearing debris or for moving via momentum transfer. Aether’s Touch had three pairs, of a caliber that she could barely accelerate by forty thousand meters per second squared, which might not get through the Chasma’s active smart armor.

  “It won’t let me program a higher yield.” Emery seemed fascinated with his weapon interface.

  Tahir looked over his shoulder at the console. Ariane noticed that he still held his stunner; he hadn’t relaxed, like Emery, and laid it down.

  “That’s because we’re using test codes. Don’t worry, we’ll still destroy the buoy,” Tahir said.

  “And cause the sun to supernova,” Ariane said. “That’s what happens when a temporal-distortion wave flips out time dimensions at the quantum level.”

  Emery scowled and reached to caress his pistol. “Stay quiet, Major, or you’ll be seeing your retribution early.”

  “Remember, completing her arc will also raise your kismet,” Tahir said. “Don’t listen to her. There won’t be any nova.”

  Emery scowled at the mention of kismet, perhaps feeling he had no reason to fear justice from a higher power, or anyone else, for that matter. Ariane’s opinion differed; she felt Colonel Dokos’s tag against her rib whenever she pressed her elbow to her side. It fueled her anger, but she followed Tahir’s lead and looked down to avoid antagonizing Emery.

  She wondered why Tahir was lying. He acted as if he wanted to detonate this weapon, but she kept ready, watching. What the hell is Tahir doing on this ship, and why did he drag me along?

  “I’ve lowered our deceleration. I’m shutting off the gravity generator. We’ll be near arming position within the hour, so web in.” Julian secured himself with his webbing.

  She made motions to follow suit, awkwardly fiddling with tied hands so the quick-release tabs on her webbing were easily accessible. The isolationists had obviously disabled the safety protocols in the real-space piloting controls, but thank Gaia, Julian was competent enough to ensure they didn’t end up as jelly on the bulkheads.

  After that, everyone was quiet. Julian looked like he was still toughing out nausea. The other two men were probably contemplating their impending, glorious demise. She scowled. Cipher’s attempt on her life had convinced her of one thing: She wasn’t prepared to enter the afterlife. Not yet.

  A call from Abram broke the reverie on the control deck. Since they had FTL comm, Emery answered from his console for a real-time conversation. Tahir floated to a position behind Emery’s chair while Ariane pointedly showed no interest in the conversation.

  “My team on the Pilgrimage reports an AFCAW cruiser has dropped into our minefield. Furthermore, some sort of standoff shield is moving mines.” Abram’s gravelly voice filled the deck and seemed flatter than she remembered. She saw all the men tense up.

  “That’s impossible. They don’t have that kind of technology,” Tahir said.

  “They’re Autonomist. You, Major. Do AFCAW ships have standoff debris shields?” Emery asked. Ariane turned to look at the business end of his flechette pistol.

  “Maybe.” She shrugged, but Emery wagged his pistol and gestured for more information. “If so, it’s experimental.”

  Tahir’s eyes narrowed as he watched her, but he made no comment as he turned back to face the cam-eye. He didn’t believe her, but she realized he didn’t care. Why isn’t he concerned about the AFCAW ship?

  Abram read off the identifier and Emery looked at her. “Are you familiar with that ship, Major?”

  “No.” She lied. There was plenty of information about the Bright Crescent in its public registry. Perhaps they’d take time to initiate a search in ComNet, since they had control of outbound comm.

  “I want to know why they’re capable of using a locked-down buoy.” Abram’s voice was colorless and, from the men’s reaction, she got the feeling that Abram was enraged. Emery and Tahir both began babbling, each protecting his reputation at the detriment of the other.

  “There’re rumors of military override codes, but they won’t be able to drop out,” began Tahir.

  “Tahir should have known this when he looked at the buoy’s status,” Emery said.

  “We needed that controller, but Emery killed him.”

  “How do you know that I didn’t stop him from opening the buoy?”

  “Because you’re so trigger-happy, we won’t know anything now,” Tahir snapped.

  “Weren’t your fancy mines supposed to take care of any incoming ships?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Abram’s words doused the squabble as effectively as a foot grinding out a bug.

  She watched them with her peripheral vision, amazed that Abram could engender so much fear in his son and nephew, e
ven when he was a hundred million kilometers away.

  “Your window for detonation has started,” Abram said. “Your heroism will be remembered forever, your lives given for our freedom.”

  What a pompous ass! Glancing at the FTL swathe that Julian opened, Ariane first checked that Aether’s Touch was off the display, then noticed the Pilgrimage III was moving. On the edge of the diagram, the ship was snuggling behind Sophia I so that it was entirely eclipsed, just as Laomedon currently eclipsed Priamos and Beta Priamos, just as Sophia II was eclipsing the remote science station—

  Abram had planned for temporary protection of the system inhabitants. Sophia I and II, as well as Laomedon, had magnetospheres that could protect against intense solar radiation. Of course, this would work only if the sun didn’t explode. It also meant these idiots were on a critical timetable.

  “The detonation must occur within thirty minutes. I have to deal with a minor outbreak of vigilantism on Beta Priamos, so I’ll be out of touch for a while. I pray for your success, my sons.” Abram signed off after giving a cavalier salute.

  She shut her eyes, outraged. Abram’s unemotional selfishness was an insult to everyone who would die: the crews on any ships transitioning between real and N-space, the crew of the Bright Crescent, and yes, even these young men Abram tenderly called his sons. How many more would die as the coronal mass ejections and flares dragged on and the entire system had to fend for itself, unable to import food, drugs, or medical personnel and equipment? That’s only if we’re lucky. If not, we all go out in a blazing nova.

  Even accounting for the time-saving efforts of the Minoans, it was tricky business clearing the channel before the Percival dropped. The rail guns on the Bright Crescent didn’t have full coverage, so Oleander had Captain Janda rotate the ship within the tight confines of the safety route the Minoans had established.

  Lieutenant Colonel Aquino authorized symmetrical rail firing, so Janda had an easier job keeping the ship in position. Momentum couldn’t disappear and when a rail gun fired, the momentum from accelerating its ammunition transferred to the ship’s structure. They tried to disperse the force about the structure through the programmable mounting shocks, but the momentum always affected ship position.

  “Rotated off standard lateral axis by thirty degrees.” Janda’s voice came quietly, but clearly, from Oleander’s ear bug.

  “Firing rails one and four,” Oleander said, using her implanted mike and the weapons channel so that she would be heard in the pilot and navigator ear bugs, as well as in the magazine-loading compartments.

  Symmetrical firing of multiple rail guns brutally punished the ship’s framework, but it saved them precious time. The isolationists had screwed up; somebody chose a neat mathematical dispersal of the mines, which allowed her to move mines with two slugs at once and drive them toward their brethren, causing fratricide. So far, their procedure was working, with only a few kilometers to go.

  She tapped the fire command and felt the slight shudder. On the data diagram piped to her console, the targeted mines jerked into movement. Theoretically, the slug caliber they were using shouldn’t trigger the mine proximity fuses, but again, that was theoretical. These were crude mines with old-fashioned chemical propellants. One began moving outward into the minefield, but the other exploded as the slug hit and caused several nearby mines to blow up simultaneously.

  The alarm at the damage assessment console shrilled, making her wince. Albert turned it off almost immediately, calling out in a calm voice that briefly lost its drawl, “Smart armor reduced damage by sixty percent, but we’ve got buckling, possible decompression, at starboard dorsal section sigma.”

  That was the bulkhead of the troop compartment. Oleander paused and looked up at the status board.

  “Decompression confirmed. Evacuation in progress. Damage assessment team arriving. We’ve got two casualties being transported to medical.” The results of her shots, the shots intended to protect their ship, were coming out slowly in fragmented updates from multiple consoles.

  “Lieutenant Oleander? We’re in position for two more shots,” Captain Janda’s voice said quietly from her ear bug.

  “Yes, sir.” She looked forward to the pilot’s seat, but Janda didn’t turn around. The shaved skin on the back of his head was glistening and there were beads of sweat running down to the base of his neck. She was glad she wasn’t the only one drenched in sweat. She adjusted the rail gun angles with trembling fingers.

  “Firing rails two and five.”

  “Medical updated the personnel roster. We’ve got one commando fatality and one pulled off duty,” Chief Serafin said crisply.

  “We’ve moved out-channel another fifty meters, Lieutenant. Fire at will,” Janda said.

  “Firing rails one and four.” She could no longer afford the time to check her results.

  “The Minoans gave us data to fill in our holes. We can’t find the Pilgrimage Three because it’s nearly hidden by Sophia One. Here’s our one-eighty of the solar system using light-speed data.” Captain Stavros was briefing the command chairs. “The Minoans also recorded two ships—”

  “Firing rails two and five.”

  “Far in-system by now. It looks like the Candor Chasma, that’s the State Prince’s retrofitted Gladiator, pursued or accompanied by a small prospecting ship registered as Aether’s Touch. Their trajectory—” Stavros was rapid-firing her words.

  “We’re another fifty meters out-channel, Lieutenant, rotated positive thirty off lateral axis,” Janda said.

  “Firing rails one and four.”

  Another alarm shrilled, quickly silenced. She ground her teeth together and tried to concentrate on her next targets.

  “Explosion near port ventral section lambda. Smart armor reports no structural damage,” Albert said from damage assessment.

  “Firing rails two and five.” Even her fingertips were sweaty, sliding on the surface of the console.

  “Can we catch them?” Aquino asked.

  “At the speeds the Minoans projected, it’d take us almost five hours. If the Percival drops in on schedule, it could catch them in three,” replied Serafin.

  “Moved another fifty meters, Lieutenant,” Janda said, tiny and clear, from her ear bug.

  “Firing rails one and four.”

  “What about missiles?” Edones asked.

  “That’s a civilian ship,” Aquino said.

  “Firing rails two and five.”

  “Don’t care. The Candor Chasma has to be taken out.” Edones’s tone was unyielding.

  “Percival’s dropping into real-space, sir,” Chief Serafin said.

  “This is the last set, Lieutenant. I’ve got us lined up, so fire at will,” Janda said.

  “Firing rails one and four.” Another fine adjustment to aim the slugs correctly; her fingers were still trembling. “Firing rails two and five.”

  “We’re through.Good work,Oleander!”Stavros checked her light-speed data again. “Tell the Percival they’ve got a clear path. I see nothing their smart armor can’t handle.”

  She leaned back in relief, although she couldn’t stop thinking about the commando fatality. Perhaps she shouldn’t have aimed at the center of mass of the mines, perhaps—

  “Lieutenant Oleander, how many Assassinator missiles are we carrying?” Colonel Edones’s voice broke through her thoughts.

  “Sixteen, sir.” She’d memorized the armament loads because the two crews had deliberated this to death. Edones and Hauser had approved the loads, although she didn’t expect them to remember the details.

  Lieutenant Colonel Aquino looked expectantly at Colonel Edones. An O-6, or full bird, had to approve the use of that expensive and controversial missile. On this ship, that meant the mission commander.

  “Load all sixteen, Lieutenant, and program them for the Candor Chasma.” Edones’s voice was heavy and didn’t have its customary crispness. “Captain Janda, take us a hundred kilometers off the arrival channel, any direction. Comm, rela
y to Percival that we’ll be firing missiles as soon as we’ve plotted target positions. Stavros, get Tactical some starting trajectories.”

  The chorus of “Yes, sir” was subdued. Oleander relayed the order to the magazine crews, since the Assassinators weren’t preloaded into missile tubes.

  The Assassinator missile, by itself, got better net-think ratings than most pornographic v-plays. Half of net-think considered the Assassinator to be the surgically safest, albeit most expensive, weapon ever developed. It could withstand extreme gee and boost to point-nine light speed in minutes, not hours, before having to decelerate. The name resulted from missile programming: When an Assassinator decelerated to its final recon point, it would query for, search out, and destroy a specific preprogrammed ship profile. The ship had to be within ten thousand kilometers. The lauded safety of the missile involved a timer that couldn’t go past five UT minutes. If the missile couldn’t find the correct profile within that time, it defaulted to safe and disabled its warhead.

  Detractors of the Assassinator, usually opponents of military spending and members of fiscally conservative political parties, complained that the missile was expensive and ineffective. Military ships had EM countermeasures and physical chaff for confusing and defeating missiles with active targeting or profile assessment.

  Oleander sighed as she watched tube status, where the missiles showed themselves powering up and coming online. Firing an Assassinator at a civilian ship violated plenty of treaties and regulations. It could sink military careers, but in this case, it was Colonel Edones making the decision and she was only following orders.

  The crew at Ura-Guinn only followed orders, and Terrans still call them war criminals. She watched sixteen missile status lights glow ready with a bright, happy green color. The Candor Chasma was a prior-military vessel and its profile was in the Assassinator database. It was the only ship in this system qualified to interface with the TD package and it was in position to trigger the design flaw that would arm the warhead. If the Candor Chasma carried the warhead, it could arm the warhead in less than twenty minutes and neither the Bright Crescent nor the Percival could prevent its detonation. Colonel Edones was taking the single practical action that might, just might, stop another Ura-Guinn from happening.