Alpha Contracts

by Chris Kennedy

  “I have two of the three fusion plants hot, running at one percent and five percent.”

  “What about the third?” Lawrence asked.

  “It has some damage. A beam weapon came through the hull and took out a few of the buffers. It’s fixable. However,” he said, holding up a pair of tiny hands. “The F11 is not in great shape. It’s about 90% saturated.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “No, it’s not. However, if you’re okay with it, I’ll transfer the F11 from your shuttles and ours and run a cleaning cycle. With that, we’ll be around 80%. It’s hard to tell how much power this beast uses, but it’s probably good for a thousand combined hours.”

  “That’s several hyperspace trips,” Kochek said. There were mumbles of pleasure and heads nodding all around. Eto continued.

  “There are a lot of age issues with decayed connectors, rotted pipes, and such. But there were also a lot of spares and redundancy. This ship was made as a very utilitarian warship. It’s rough, without a lot of the polish our old ship Tobriea had, but it was an Izlian design and very refined. This ship looks like it was fast. We need another 72 hours, and I believe we’ll be ready to maneuver. We’re also low on reaction mass, though enough for a few hundred hours at low G. I have to say, once all the reactors are at 100%, this ship will have incredible maneuverability and speed. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s more than 10Gs.”

  “Holy crap,” Lawrence said. The rest of the crew all exclaimed and talked to each other.

  “Yes, Captain,” Edo repeated. “Whatever race built this had a very high thrust tolerance.” Lawrence nodded his thanks and pointed to Biggs.

  “There are a thousand things that don’t work, like the bow-to-stern elevators and these hangar doors. Half the plumbing is out, and there’s no fresh water on board. That said, enough is working that I’m sure we can make it a few weeks underway, and there’s enough food and supplies on our combined survival ships that we won’t starve or die of thirst. Our life support is nominal. That said, the scrubbers need replacing, but they’ll probably last longer than the F11. For safety, I’ve asked everyone to bunk in the quarters we found on Deck 11. We’ve had to double up, and some of the cabins are tiny.”

  “Good. Kochek, you mentioned our range, but can you fly this ship?”

  “I ran a few commands through the system and found it more or less to Union standard. This is a major warship, and small craft were my specialty.” He looked over at the other pilot, and she nodded back to him. “Silvia and I are pretty sure we can manage it, and we’ll have time to learn on the fly.” Several people booed. “No pun intended. The diagnostics on the hyperdrive were difficult.”

  “Why is that?”

  “The interface and controls are different than on the Sobieski. I mean completely different. There seem to be two control interfaces and different parameter input protocols for each. Both systems’ diagnostics come back good, though.”

  “Do you think it matters which one we use?”

  “I don’t know,” Kochek admitted. “I’m going to advise we use the familiar one.” Lawrence nodded. “After the three days engineering needs, we’ll have the hyperdrive better figured out.”

  “Good. That leaves tactical.” Lawrence turned to the last man with a report. “Lieutenant Wisniewski?”

  “The ship has a lot of weapons,” the man explained. “It’s going to take some time to fully understand how a ship like this would use them.”

  “How about the basics?” Lawrence asked.

  “Okay,” Nowak replied. He took a deep breath to calm himself. He’d merely been a gunner on Sobieski, but then all of the tactical crew were killed on the bridge. Lawrence wasn’t sure, but he thought the man had operated weaponized drones for the Polish Army. “There are eight main offensive laser batteries in two groups of four, one forward and one aft. There are 20 defensive lasers mounted in four groups of five around the hull. We also have 10 missile launching ports.”

  “Not turrets like the other capital ships we’ve seen?” Lawrence asked.

  “No sir, just ports aimed straight out from whatever side they’re on. I agree with Mr. Eto; this ship was made quick and simple. She’s also got independent defensive shield generators—two of them—forward and aft. Either can cover the whole ship.”

  “More redundancy,” Eto pointed out.

  Wisniewski continued. “Both are in pretty good shape, but Eto informs me the capacitors have seen a lot of action. The missile magazines are next to each group of launchers. There’s one on Deck 29 and another on Deck 3, and they are marvelously engineered. They have blowout panels and are designed to feed from anywhere in the magazine in seconds. The only problem is those magazines are nearly dry. They must have had a hell of a fight!”

  “How dry is nearly dry?” Lawrence asked.

  Wisniewski consulted his slate. “We have 39 in the forward magazine and 11 in the aft. Stores says all the rear missiles are anti-missile missiles, and the forward missiles are 22 offensive and 17 defensive.”

  Wisniewski consulted the slate again and started to speak, but the sensor operator interrupted him. “We just got confirmed sensor readings from the stargate,” the man said.

  “What do you have?”

  “Our sensor tech was able to identify their emissions. There are three ships by the stargate; it looks like two frigates and a cruiser.” The space echoed with the moans and conversation of a hundred people.

  Lawrence called for quiet. “Lieutenant Wisniewski, can the shields hold on a run through that?”

  “Not for long,” he said. Lawrence looked down at the deck. “But they don’t have to.”

  “What do you mean?” Lawrence asked.

  The man grinned from ear to ear. “I figured out what that hatch in the bow was for.” Lawrence nodded and gestured for him to go ahead. Everyone listened as Wisniewski explained. After a minute, Lawrence’s grin was just as big.

  “Everyone back to work,” he said at the end of the meeting. “In 72 hours, we’re getting out of here.”

  * * *

  The three ships on highguard over the Z’tha stargate had been patiently waiting for almost two weeks for any sign of the surviving enemy merc ships. There were, at most, two frigates unaccounted for, so when their Bakulu commander had left two frigates and a cruiser behind, they were completely confident of being able to hold off any potential escape. Their orders were simple; capture or neutralize any aggressor who attempted to transition out-system from the stargate. Their contract was nearly up when their sensor drones picked up the approaching ship.

  The small squadron came about and moved into formation, the two frigates on opposite sides and a thousand kilometers ahead of the cruiser to supply a missile screen for it. They would also provide targeting data to allow the much more heavily-gunned cruiser to hit targets at a greater distance. It was right out of the Izlian tactical manual.

  The ship approaching them, however, was different than what they’d planned for—it wasn’t a frigate. Scans showed a ship much closer to a heavy cruiser in size, but it didn’t match any of the radar cross sections in the database. It was coming directly toward the stargate at a moderate speed, its fusion torch burning to slow it to a rendezvous.

  A missile spread was ordered against the approaching ship. The two frigates released a total of 20 anti-ship missiles that raced out toward their target, accelerating at more than 100 Gs. As soon as the missiles were away, the approaching cruiser rolled to face the missile storm and unleashed a complicated pattern of defensive laser fire. All but three of the missiles were intercepted. The remaining were destroyed by anti-missile missiles.

  The commander of the squadron, a well-trained officer in the Izlian doctrine of defense in depth, ordered his frigates to spread out further to allow them to engage the approaching ship from multiple fronts, and perhaps even get onto the enemy’s flank. The other ship unleashed pinpoint laser fire and one of the two frigates was hulled in less than a second. A spread
of six ship-killer missiles flashed out at the second frigate. The second frigate only shot down two of the missiles, and it died in nuclear fire.

  Realizing it was up against a deadly adversary, the cruiser, now alone, swung around to allow all of her side-mounted particle cannon to come to bear. The ship was aligned, defensive lasers ready, and waited for the other ship to reach optimal range. On the enemy ship, a series of doors opened over a three-meter-wide glowing aperture on its nose. The Bakulu squadron commander looked at the image on his display, curious as to what it was. The approaching cruiser fired its spinal-mounted 40-terawatt particle cannon, and the beam hit the Bakulu cruiser dead center, slicing the ship completely in two. Energy overloads caused multiple secondary explosions, turning the remains into brightly flashing, wildly spinning hulks.

  The other ship spun back around tail first, and finished its deceleration burn to come abreast of the stargate, as planned. The entire engagement had taken less than five minutes.

  “Mother of God,” Kochek said from his pilot’s station on the bridge. When each of the frigates had gone down, there had been cheers from the bridge crew, both alien and Human. They’d all come from ships of that class. There was a familiarity and scale of purpose. The destruction of the cruiser was a brutal act of near-slaughter. It never had a chance.

  “I told you,” Wisniewski said as he safed the spinal mount and powered down the tactical systems. “It’s a game changer.”

  There was very little conversation in the CIC as they flew through the debris cloud of the ship they’d killed. Kochek and Silvia made some minor course corrections to avoid a big, glowing piece of the dead cruiser. The quiet remained. Eventually, they stopped next to the stargate and Lawrence entered the company’s ID into the gate’s remote control and selected “At Leisure” for their departure window. Lacking any other nearby customers, the gate replied it would open in two hours.

  “Well done,” he finally told his crew. They were still melancholy. “We need to remember they fired 20 ship-killer missiles at us. We didn’t shoot first.” He looked around at them and made a fist. “They tried making us their prey; we returned the favor. They died, we lived. It’s that simple.” There were nods of agreement around the CIC.

  “We can’t keep calling this The Ship,” Kochek said a short time before the gate opened. The fusion plants were coming to full, and the ship’s hull vibrated with the power. The ship began to move forward slowly.

  “No,” he agreed, “but I have the name. Whoever owned it before called it Sk’lana, which is a creature that looks like a winged horse.” He grinned. “I’m naming her Pegasus.” A minute later, they made the transition to hyperspace.

  * * *

  EMS Pegasus drifted a few kilometers off Karma Station. Two of her shuttles, now successfully operating off the flight deck, were moving people and supplies back and forth. Once they’d arrived, Lawrence registered the ship, reporting it as salvage, and assigned the new name under the merc company Winged Hussars. It was surprisingly easy. Next, he’d gone over to the merc guild office and completed their contract.

  Even though the objective had been retaken, the Winged Hussars had participated in a successful capture of the target. They’d fought one battle on the way in, and another on the way out when they’d lost the Sobieski. Lawrence collected a total of 12 million credits. Eto, as the only survivor of his own company, collected his own sum.

  “What’s your plan now?” he asked the engineer and leader of the survivors from Tobriea.

  “We’re busted,” the elSha said. “We didn’t get a fraction of what we needed to buy another ship. At least one worthwhile, anyway. I guess we’ll split up and look for work.”

  “I have a proposal for you,” Lawrence said. The two spent the afternoon talking, and in the end, their companies were merged. Lawrence gave Eto and his people 20% interest in the Hussars, in exchange for 10 million credits. Eto didn’t know it, but he’d made the deal of the millennia.

  With the cash in his safe, Lawrence had his new chief engineer, Commander Eto, start laying in supplies and making repairs. He also named Biggs his second-in-command, much to the damage control specialist’s chagrin. Lawrence also did some hiring. There weren’t any Humans on Karma, so even more aliens were employed. By the end of the week at Karma, the ship had a much better complement, he had spent almost 5 million credits, and they were ready to go home. As they headed out toward Karma’s stargate, he was surprised to realize they’d been gone for six months. He was also surprised at how he was only really looking forward to going home for one reason. The last week in hyperspace passed quickly, and they were back in their home system.

  “Earth traffic control, please identify,” a woman’s voice spoke shortly after they’d transitioned out of hyperspace.

  “This is EMS Pegasus,” Lawrence said from the CIC.

  “Pegasus, please identify further.” Lawrence looked confused, then suddenly laughed.

  “Traffic control, this is Lawrence Kosmalski of the Winged Hussars, commanding our new ship EMS Pegasus.”

  “Confirmed, Pegasus of the Hussars. Welcome home.” The ancient battlecruiser slowly thrust toward the bright blue ball of Earth. After everything that had happened, he was most looking forward to seeing his girlfriend again.

  “I just might ask Amelia Cromwell to marry me,” he said quietly, then smiled.

  * * * * *

  Avenging Angels - 3

  Message Initially Received: A’Alledo System

  For Forwarding To: Earth System

  Message Begins:

  Dearest Dianne,

  Hopefully this will arrive ahead of the official notification as I wanted to be the one to tell you we took some losses in our last mission. I’m fine, but we lost the other dropship yesterday.

  We finally got a contract out of the Taloco merc pit. It was supposed to be easy and didn’t require a lot of travel as it was on the planet below the space station. We were supposed to be helping the planetary government, which had just experienced a string of environmental disasters. Apparently, they had some really large storms (kind of like the hurricanes back home), and a bunch of their dams had failed. When I say dams, I mean real monsters—they were each over 500 feet above the riverbed. There were a large number of cities and towns downstream; when the dams failed, they wiped the cities clean out to sea. They needed lots of people to help sweep the oceans to look for people who needed rescuing. It’s what we do—rescue people—and it should have been easy, right?

  They neglected to mention that the disasters had actually been caused by some sort of revolutionary movement who had blown the dams, and while we were helping out, the other dropship got hit by a surface-to-air missile. No one knows where the resistance got SAMs from, but the ones they had were pretty good and put the other dropship into the ocean. We didn’t hear about it for several hours, and by the time we could get there, the crew was spread all over the place. Although we recovered the two pilots, we lost several of the crew, as well as the head of our medical group, Dr. Ezekiel Avander, who was aboard the dropship when it went down. That’s a big loss, as he was a great surgeon. We do have two other medics, though, so we can still make do.

  After that fiasco, we were able to hop on a transport that brought us halfway back to Earth. We’re now in the Tolo Arm of the galaxy, which is the same one Earth is in, so we’re getting closer. We’re currently in the Gresht Region, which is the part of the arm that is closest to the core. You’re in the Cresht Region, which is a little further out.

  In other news, we saw another Human at one of the merc pits here the other night, a guy by the name of Alton Gage. Apparently his whole unit got wiped out except for him. Gage’s platoon thought they were safe and secure in a big redoubt full of rocket launchers and machine guns, and a platoon of Goka walked in and killed them all without taking a single casualty. The Gokas are some kind of damned big bug with a really hard shell. Gage said everything they fired at them just kind of bounced off. Can you b
elieve it? I wouldn’t have, except I saw his eyes when he told the story—they were still haunted. Hopefully, we’ll never run into them!

  Gage was wounded and passed out in the attack, but he wasn’t quite dead yet, so the alien in charge of the assault force that overran his position—a Veetanho—slapped a medkit on him, and he survived. I guess the Veetanho felt badly about how easily they took the position. She said Gage’s group reminded her of her first litter—they were furless and defenseless too, when they were born.

  That’s the thing about dealing with aliens—you never know what you’re going to get. With Humans, we’re all generally wired the same way, and you almost always know how someone is going to act. Sure, someone may flip out and lose it on you, but that usually doesn’t happen. With aliens though…all bets are off.

  Some are mostly rational, like the Veetanho and the MinSha. The Veetanho are excellent strategists and usually have positions on the military staff, and oftentimes are the overall commanders. The MinSha are usually pretty rational, too, although they’re usually more front-line troopers than staff. I heard they have some weird code of honor, too, but haven’t talked to any of them. After what they did to Iran, I’ve always kind of tried to avoid them. There are some, like the Flatar and Zuul, that are usually okay, but can sometimes do things where you just want to slap them. The Zuul, in particular, are very literal, and you have to be careful about what you say to them. If you’re not…watch out. A lot of times, what they do is funny, but in combat, it can be fatal. Finally, there are some alien races that just need to be put down like dogs. I think I mentioned the Besquith one time (which is funny, because they do sort of look dog-ish) and the Goka, mentioned above. They are good front-line troopers, because they just flat-out like mayhem and killing. It’s best to just avoid them when you can.