Across the Great Rift

by Washburn, Scott;

  “Didn’t do so well this time,” said Chapman.

  “No, and more importantly, not very many of the Clorindans had to fire. The bulk of them are still unverified contacts. This is not good.”

  “They’ll be in extreme range in about eight minutes, sir.”

  “Yes. Well, I think it’s time to expend our recon drones. Set them for maximum acceleration and maximum evasive action.”

  “Right away, sir.”

  “And set their course to collide with the asteroid. With any luck, the enemy will think they’re some sort of weapon and go all-out to stop them.”

  “Yes, sir.” Chapman turned to one of the crewmen and began issuing orders. A few moments later two tiny, but distinct, shudders ran through the ship as the drones were launched. Crawford saw that two new icons had appeared on the tactical display. They pulled ahead of Felicity quickly and streaked toward the enemy. Less than a minute later, EMP cannons started firing. More and more of them went off as the wildly gyrating drones evaded the fire, and each time one did, another enemy ship’s location was pinpointed. At the same time, the drones’ sensors were operating at full power, and as the range dropped they spotted even more targets.

  There were an awful lot of them.

  “Hell, looks like they brought everything they had,” muttered Crawford.

  The first drone vanished from the display as it neared the edge of the enemy formation, but the second corkscrewed its way right through and was not disabled until it was nearly past. The picture it had painted was not a pleasant one. A huge mass of enemy vessels was clustering together, directly in Felicity’s path. Over seven hundred confirmed contacts and at least another hundred probables.

  “Uh, sir, we still have time to veer off a bit,” said Chapman, looking a bit pale. “We don’t have to take them all, head-on.”

  “No good,” said Frichette shaking his head. “We need to take out all of these or they’ll stop the lifters from deflecting the asteroid—which is our primary mission, Captain.”

  “Yes, sir, but if they take out us, it won’t make any difference about the lifters.”

  “True. But look how close together those contacts are. Practically elbow to elbow, as it were. I think we may have a way to pare down the odds a bit. Captain Chapman, standby on the torpedoes.”

  “Aye, sir! Ensign McDermott! Prepare for salvo fire on all tubes.” Chapman looked back at Frichette. “I-I think we may need all of them, sir.”

  “Indeed, I think you are correct. Carry on.”

  “Prepare for rapid fire. Mr. McDermott, you may empty the magazines on this one.”

  “Yes, sir!” said the man at the torpedo station. “I’m targeting the greatest concentrations of enemy ships sir.” He flipped a few more switches. “Ready, sir.”

  Chapman looked to Frichette, who nodded. “Torpedoes… Fire!”

  The ship twitched again as four torpedoes were launched from her tubes. Ten seconds later another salvo was launched. And another, and another… Once clear of the ship, the torpedoes’ drives ignited and they leapt away at one hundred gravities.

  “What are we doing?” whispered Regina.

  “Using our torpedoes to whittle them down, I think,” replied Crawford, unable to take his eyes off the screen. The torpedoes were closing on the enemy rapidly—very rapidly.

  “How many torpedoes do we have?”

  “I think we carry about forty.”

  “But there are hundreds of the Clorindans! That’s hardly going to make a dent in…”

  The first torpedoes detonated.

  The tactical display showed the explosions in a similar manner as the EMP cannons—except the icons were much bigger.

  “Oh, God, they’re carrying nukes, aren’t they?” gasped Regina in sudden understanding.

  “Yeah. Pretty big ones, too.”

  “Actually, nuclear explosions in space don’t usually do all that much damage,” said Frichette, his voice toned like he was lecturing students. “With no air to transmit any blast effects, you need to be within a kilometer or so to be hurt by the thermal radiation. Or at least a normal warship does; the Clorindan attack ships are much more lightly built. We… we can kill them at much greater distances. And they’re making it easy for us, bunching up like that.”

  The torpedoes continued to flare on the display. And since each blast lasted for several seconds, the relative motions of the explosions and the targets meant that the kill zones were not simple spheres, but rather long tunnels of destruction, punching through the enemy formation. Dozens, hundreds, of Clorindan ships vanished from the display as they were hammered to junk by heat and radiation.

  Even before the last torpedo detonated, Felicity’s main batteries were firing, adding their energies to those already flaying the enemy fleet. “Looks like the torps got about half of them, sir,” reported Chapman.

  “We didn’t use torpedoes in the first battle,” said Frichette. “They weren’t expecting the nukes. Maintain fire, Captain.”

  “Aye, sir, maintaining fire.” The main batteries continued to pick off enemy ships and a few minutes later the secondaries joined in, and the rate of slaughter increased. About four hundred ships had survived the torpedoes. This quickly became three hundred and then two. But they kept coming.

  “Going to be close, sir,” said Chapman.

  “Concentrate your fire on the ones which will come nearest to us. They’re the most dangerous. Save the others until last.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Clorindans continued to die and Crawford could see that a few of them, around the edges of the gutted formation, were trying to peel off, to get away from the ravenous monster bearing down on them. With their pitifully weak thrusters, they had no hope of escape, all they could do was postpone the inevitable. A handful of their stouter-hearted fellows survived long enough to get off a few shots at extreme range before they died, and Felicity lost a few more sensors and one of the secondary turrets. If that had happened earlier, it might have been disastrous, but by this time it made no difference. The last of the targets blinked off the screen and everyone let out their breath.

  “We made it,” gasped someone, Crawford wasn’t sure who.

  “So we did,” said Frichette. “Well done. But we still have those support ships near the asteroid to deal with.” He swiveled his chair to face Tad. “Mr. Farsvar, those larger ships are the carriers and service ships for the attack craft, correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are they armed?”

  “Uh, they usually are,” said Tad, looking rather uncomfortable. “At least Seyotah ones are. I’d guess these would be the same.”

  “Damn, I was afraid of that. Captain Chapman, please set up a track on those ships. You can open fire when we are in range.”

  “Do you have to?” asked Regina. “I mean, they must see how hopeless their position is. Can’t you demand that they surrender or something?”

  “I’d like to, Dame Regina, believe me that I really would. But physics is against us here. Our vector will carry us right on past them and before we could stop and turn around they would be on top of our two lifters. If they did surrender and then reneged on it, they could disable the lifters and we’d have no way of diverting the asteroid short of ramming it ourselves. Do you want to take a chance on Panmunaptra being destroyed?”

  “N-no…” Frichette turned away before she could say anything else. Now it was Crawford’s turn to squeeze Regina’s hand. “I hate this,” she hissed.

  “I know, I know. But we haven’t got any choice at all that I can see.” They watched in silence as the last Clorindan ships were destroyed. He felt slightly sick, despite his relief. A few minutes later, Felicity flashed past the asteroid. The ship’s lasers gouged out a few chunks as they went by, but Frichette shook his head.

  “Sorry, Charles, but I think we’ll need your lifters. With no torpedoes left, we won’t be able to deflect it enough just with the lasers.”

  “Right.” Cr
awford relayed the necessary commands through the ship’s communications officer to put the two heavy machines on a collision course with the asteroid. It did not really matter what direction they hit from, any significant change of the rock’s course or speed would prevent the destruction of Panmunaptra. Meanwhile, Chapman had reversed the ship’s course, or to be more accurate, he had turned the ship around and its drive was working to null out its previous vector and get them headed back the way they had come. By the time that was done, the icons for the lifters had nearly merged with the asteroid.

  “The baron’s gonna have a fit,” said Crawford. “Those things cost over fifty million apiece.”

  “A bargain at a hundred times the price, Charles,” said Regina.

  “Yeah, I know that, but he might not be so easy to convince.” But then he laughed and shrugged. “So screw ‘im. But see if you can tie into the lifter’s forward cameras. We might be able to see something.”

  “Right, sir,” said the communications tech. “Shouldn’t be too hard to… there, on screen.” One part of the display split off and showed an empty starfield. No, not quite empty, there was a gray speck in the center. “I’ll increase the magnification, sir.” The gray speck grew and grew until it nearly filled the screen. At his side, Regina gasped.

  “God!”

  Crawford told himself that it was just a trick of the light and random chance, but his primal instincts weren’t listening. The ship’s lasers had torn through the black fabric the Clorindans had wrapped around the asteroid and blasted off portions of the dark dust-covered surface to expose the white ice underneath. The result was a slowly spinning banshee-headed monster coming right at them. A ghastly lopsided face with a ragged mane of hair streaming out grinned at them from the screen.

  And it was getting bigger—fast.

  The relative velocity of the asteroid and lifter was well over a hundred kilometers per second, so the image grew rapidly. The tech backed off the magnification to keep it a steady size on the screen. After a minute, the rotation of the asteroid caused the hideous face-like appearance to disappear, but it was etched in Crawford’s mind now and the menace of the object did not diminish one bit.

  “Can we… can we stop that thing from destroying my home?” asked Tad. Crawford glanced at the boy and he could see that he was thoroughly shaken at the sight of the Clorindans’ death-weapon. He mentally kicked himself for wanting it on visual.

  “Yes we can, Tad. In fact we are going to stop it just about…now.”

  The first lifter’s icon merged with the asteroid’s and the image on the screen vanished. “Direct hit,” said the sensor operator. He studied his instruments. “That was probably enough, Sir Charles, if you want to abort the other…”

  “Nah, let’s make sure. Might as well get our—I mean the baron’s—money’s worth.”

  Without being asked, the communications tech had tied into the camera on the second lifter. This time the image wasn’t nearly so threatening. The asteroid was now spinning rapidly, surrounded by a cloud of smaller fragments. The fabric covering was nowhere to be seen. It just looked like a hunk of ice now. The image grew and the icons got closer, and then they hit.

  “Okay, that did it,” said the sensor operator. “It’s in about a dozen main pieces and none of them will come within a hundred klicks of Panmunaptra. Some of the smaller stuff might still hit, but it’s too small to do any real damage.” The man grinned. “We did it!”

  That produced a cheer from the bridge crew and Regina hugged both Crawford and Tad. They were still congratulating themselves when a message came in from Panmunaptra. Crawford was not at all surprised to see the face of Vanit Gorin, the Seyotah clan leader, appear on the screen.

  “Thank you, my friends,” he said. “We owe you more than I can possibly calculate. Thank you.”

  “Glad we could help out, sir,” said Frichette. “There are quite a few disabled attack ships floating around out there. Will you be able to pick them up?”

  “Ships are already on their way. But I’m hoping that you will return to Panmunaptra so that we can properly show our thanks.”

  “No choice, sir. Our tanks are nearly dry. Can you provide us with reaction mass?”

  “Anything we have is yours. All of our people are waiting to welcome you.”

  “Excellent! We should make rendezvous in about four hours. I will talk to you again then.” The connection was broken and Frichette got out of his chair and stretched. “Well done, everyone. Captain Chapman, my compliments to you and please pass them on to your crew.”

  “Thank you, sir, and I’ll certainly do that. Mr. Kirby, stand the ship down from general quarters.”

  People began to talk quietly and take off their vac suits. Crawford did the same and had the enjoyable experience of helping Regina out of hers. Damn she was a good looking woman! “I’ll treat you to a coffee,” he offered.

  “After this I want something stronger than coffee! I need a good stiff drink! Several of them, in fact.”

  “Hmmm, I’ll see what I can…”

  “Captain!” A sudden exclamation from the communications tech froze everyone in place.

  “What is it Mr. Kirby?” said Chapman.

  “Uh, I’m picking up a broadcast in the clear. It’s using our frequencies. Pretty faint and it’s…You better hear this yourself, sir.”

  “Put it on the speaker.” Kirby flipped a switch and a voice came over the speakers. It sounded vaguely familiar to Crawford and then he suddenly felt his stomach drop when he heard the speaker’s name.

  …I repeat, this is Carlina Citrone, welcoming my bothers and sisters of the Venanci squadron. Where the roots are deep, the seed is strong. I regret that I cannot welcome you in person, but my capture is imminent. However, you must know that I have completed the majority of my mission. The crews of the Anderan warships are all dead. Do not be deceived by any show of strength you might see! The crews, the officers, and the captains of those vessels are all dead! The crews manning them now are all civilians and they will not have the access codes to operate those ships. They cannot beat you! Go my friends! Go to victory! Death to the Protector!

  The message started over again, but Kirby cut it off. Frichette came over to Crawford. “The drone Citrone dispatched.”

  “Yes, I’d almost forgotten about it. But she didn’t know for sure when the Venanci squadron was coming. We must still have a few weeks to prepare.”

  Frichette frowned. “Perhaps. But right now I’m more concerned with what the locals will make of this.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Well, they certainly know how to throw a party!”

  Charles Crawford smiled as Regina spun around with her arms wide, taking in the whole wonderful canyon-park inside the asteroid of Panmunaptra. Despite all the other people, the flowers, the music, and the enthusiastic celebrations going on, his eyes were on Regina. She was wearing the most daring costume he’d yet seen her in: a halter top and a sarong-like skirt split all the way to her hip. He’d been trying to figure out for an hour if she had anything on underneath it. While he had to admit that her clothes were entirely appropriate to the heat, they were also stirring things in him which had not been stirred for a long time. He plucked at the fabric of his shirt, which sweat had plastered to his torso, and shifted in his chair.

  “Yes, they do. And I must say you certainly know how to enjoy a party, Regina.” She had been drinking and eating and dancing for hours. He wasn’t sure where she found the energy. As he spoke, a slight wave of dizziness passed over him. Cursing silently he forced himself to inhale through his nose and exhale through his mouth. The Seyotah had provided tiny respirators which only covered their noses, so they could eat and drink without the bother of a full bubble helmet. But that still meant they had to remember to breathe the right way! At least the heat wasn’t as bad as the first time they had been here. Their hosts had lowered the overall temperature as far as they dared and then set up cooling units in a number of areas t
o blow cold air on their guests.

  “Seize the moment, Charles! God knows when we’ll have another chance to have any fun.” She spun over to him, put her hands on his broad shoulders, puckered her lips, leaned forward, and… clacked her respirator into his.

  “Ow!” they both exclaimed simultaneously. Then they laughed.

  “Seize it, but seize it carefully.”

  “Yes, let’s try that again.” She sat down on his broad lap and put her hands behind his head and slowly leaned forward, tilting her head so their respirators did not collide, and carefully kissed him on the lips.

  “Mmm, that’s better,” he said when it ended. “But I’m not heading out into mortal combat this time, what was that for?”

  “To celebrate, of course. And just because I wanted to. And because I like you, Charles Crawford.” She kissed him again and this one lasted longer than the first. He tentatively put a hand on her bare ribs. He remembered thinking months earlier that Regina’s face looked a bit odd from certain angles. He decided that from this angle, her face, and all the rest of her, looked just fine. They sat that way for quite a while, alternately kissing and sipping drinks and eating dainties which were provided by an attentive crew of smiling, but more warmly dressed, Seyotahs. Tad Farsvar came by with his cousins and proudly showed off the new baby. Crawford had never had much interest in babies, but it was incredibly cute. Regina never left his lap.

  “You know,” she said after the Farsvars moved on, “Tad was telling me about a very interesting part of the gardens here. It’s like a maze with a lot of very private nooks and crannies. I think I want you to show them to me, Charles.”

  He felt slightly dizzy and he wasn’t sure if it was because of how much he had drunk, or because of the totally intoxicating woman on his lap—or maybe he had just forgotten to breathe the right way again. Whatever, it seemed like a wonderful idea.