by Allen Wold
"Let me take the weapons," Grayshard said, and moved to a console near the one that Rikard was commanding. The screens which showed the side of the alien vessel from which he shot blinked brilliant blue as he fired, but without computer assistance he hit nothing.
Rikard let his hand play over the trackball control of the inertial drive and set the ship rocking and spinning in an attempt to avoid the enemy fire. This seemed to be effective, since the telltales on the schematic showed that they weren't being hit very often, and the shots that did hit damaged only the skin.
The gunship was getting closer to them, firing its blasters at the enemy as it did so. There was nothing wrong with its ranging systems, one shot out of every eight or ten hit a fighter, with devastating results. But there were more and more Tschagan craft all the time.
Sukiro crouched beside Rikard, and together they tried to maneuver the ship so that it could dock with the gunship.
Meanwhile, Gray shard was beginning to develop a strategy. The Tschagan ships frequently passed within a certain distance of the gunship before arcing away. He watched the next fighters to approach and just aimed at the place where he figured they would begin their turn. He did in fact hit two of the fighters out of thirty shots and, given that he had no computer assistance, that was impressive.
Rikard's ship and the gunship were now near enough that they had to turn off the inertials and use grappler fields in order to dock. Rikard had no idea how to do mat on his ship, so he just shut it down and left the task up to the pilot of the gunship, with its finer control.
All this time Grayshard was laying down a barrage of UV laser fire around the edge of the gunship, which in turn continued to fire protectively around Rikard's ship, as the two moved together. The Tschagan fighters were only lightly armed, and though tha two larger craft took a lot of hits a single shot did little damage. But now the Tschagan started concentrating their fire on the gunship's habitation saucer and the alien ship's top sphere.
At last, with a shock that knocked everybody out of place, the two ships connected and locked onto each other.
"Can this ship jump?" Sukiro yelled to Rikard.
"I think so," Rikard answered.
"Good enough." Sukiro ordered the gunship crew to board the alien vessel.
The voice from the gunship responded, "As soon as I can find your hatch."
Rikard rotated the alien ship so that the hatch was facing the gunship. The voice from the gunship said, "Got it," and grapples came out from it, and a connecting tube snaked out between them.
Both ships continued to fire during the maneuver. The tube connected, the hatches on both ships were opened, and everybody on the gunship except the weapons crews started coming on board the alien ship.
5
"Set all weapons on automatic," Sukiro told the ten remaining gunners on the gunship. "Set an automatic release on the hatch connection, and get ready to abandon ship."
But even as she got an affirmative reply, the Tschagan craft all suddenly broke away and headed for the station's horizon.
Both gunship and alien ship stopped firing. Then a frantic voice from the gunship said, "There's one hell of a big flicker drive warming up."
"My God," Rikard said, "it's the station."
"Get over here," Sukiro yelled to the gunship crew. She didn't have to yell, they could have heard her subvocal just as well.
The crewman on the other end said, "six seconds... five seconds..."
Rikard's senses hung poised, as if he were clutching his gun. If the Tschagan station, did indeed have a jump-drive big enough to move it—and what a god-awful big drive it must have been—and if it jumped while the gunship and his alien craft were still this close, the warp of the drive would smear the two ships into dust and gas. There were still the ten gunners on the gunship, and maybe a few others. The hatch connector was still in place between the two ships.
"... four seconds..."
Rikard watched in horrified fascination as his hand, seemingly of its own volition, reached out to the inertial drive controls and jammed them on hard. The wrench of the separating hatch tube was lost in the wrench of acceleration. He angled the alien ship away from the now not so derelict Tschagan station, that was not really just a space station after all but a giant starship. Alarms went off as atmosphere went out the breached hatch. Then inner locks shut down automatically.
"... three seconds..."
He could see the gunship on the central screen of his console, receding. Its inertial drive came on—had one of the gun crew gotten to the bridge in time? And what was that other ship that had suddenly appeared—the second pirate ship? It opened fire on the gunship. With his right hand Rikard continued to work the inertial controls for all they were worth. His left hand hovered over what he hoped was the jump controls.
"... two seconds..." The voice was resigned. The gunship's inertials pulsed again. Rikard jabbed at the jump drive.
The alien ship flickered once. Alarms went off everywhere. They came to rest, still moving with the velocity imparted by their inertial drive. The Tschagan station was no longer visible.
"... one se—" A sudden flare, off to one side, showed them where they had been.
"They blew up my ship," Sukiro said.
But almost immediately there was a larger flare, that grew and spread for long seconds. The Tschagan supership had jumped too, and the gunship and the pirate ship had become one with the dust of space.
Part Seven
1
It was a long moment before anybody could react.
"I pity any pirates left alive on the Tschagan ship," Dyson said.
"I pity us," Sukiro said, "if we don't get word of the Tschagan back to the Federation." Her voice was flat, emotionless. "Anybody who could build a flicker drive big enough to move a station like that is not to be taken lightly."
"The hell with the Tschagan," Lisobria said, "I don't want to die here."
Denny glared at her, then turned to Rikard. "Can this ship jump again?"
Rikard looked at the schematic. The drive section was dark. "I don't think so," he said.
Private Goren, stationed at the hatch, came into the bridge. "We lost three crew who were in the hatch when we broke loose," he said. "Everybody else is all right."
Rikard turned around when he heard no response. Sukiro was staring into a blank angle of the wall, in a state of emotional shock. Out of a total complement of eighty, only fifty-five of her crew and goons were still alive, and fifteen of them were wounded. No police force had suffered more than ten percent casualties since the Qoon Squads had been founded seven hundred years ago.
"Heavy losses, Major," Denny said brutally. Her tone was intended to break Sukiro out of her mood. "And we'll have one hundred percent losses if we can't jump out of here or call for help."
Sukiro stared at her, then her face lost its blank expression. She turned back to Goren. "Did Captain Brenner make it?" she asked.
"He did, and would like to see you."
"Bring him forward."
Goren departed, and a moment later Brenner came into the bridge. It was obvious that he was taking the loss of his ship very hard. It was all he could do to control himself.
Sukiro stepped up to him and grabbed him by both shoulders. "Did you send out a distress call after you were hit by the pirates?" she asked.
"Of course," Brenner said, in a very small voice. "Standard operating procedure when a police craft is disabled."
"And what was the response?"
"I had gotten none by die time—by the time—"
Sukiro shook him as hard as she could. "It's my fault," she said, "not yours."
"I should have stayed with the gunners," was all Brenner could say.
Corporal LeClarke had come quietly up to the pair. She put her arm around Brenner and led him back through the hatch.
"The first thing," Falyn said, "is to make sure that the life support on this ship is functioning, and then maybe we can figure out ho
w to make the communicators work."
Rikard turned back to the console. "At least we can breathe the air," he said, "but I wouldn't place any bets on the food." His hands fluttered over the readouts.
Droagn leaned over his shoulder and said, ~It begins to make sense if you look at it like this.~ He pointed to the power section of the schematic. ~It looks different, but it's where the power should be. Same with the various drives. Everything is analogous to the ships I know—~
"And to Federation ships," Rikard said.
As Droagn went on, Grayshard slithered up to join them and contribute to the analysis. "Communicators, see"—he touched the part of the diagram in question and brought up a control version on another screen—"the symbols are different, but they really work the same way."
~Their number system is base eight,~ Droagn said, ~and we know the possible frequency range for deep space communications, maximum and minimum. We should be able to translate their scale into terms we understands~
"I believe you're right," Rikard said. He turned to Sukiro. "What's your helmet frequency?" Sukiro told him.
Rikard diddled with what he now thought was a tuning scale. Then Sukiro suddenly said, "I got static."
Droagn reached out, touched a part of the scale on the screen and "dragged" it to another screen where it was enlarged.
"Aha," Rikard said, and diddled some more.
"Good clean signal," Sukiro said. "Nothing on it, of course."
"But now we know what that frequency is in their terms," Gray shard said, "and now we can figure out what frequency we need to call for help."
Sukiro grinned. "By damn I think you can."
"You just have to look at it the right way," Rikard said.
"Well," Denny said, "maybe you do."
"We were just too pressed for time before," Rikard said, "had too much to think about. See, it's only the variant symmetry that's confusing, a matter of shape and terminology rather than of real function. It really all makes sense."
"I'm glad you think so," Falyn said.
~But of course it does,~ Droagn said. Then Rikard tried Sukiro's personal com-link frequency to calibrate the scale.
"Assuming we have the power," Sukiro said.
"We should have enough to last us until we starve to death," Rikard told her.
"Or die of thirst," Denny said, "if these people didn't drink water."
"It might get kind of sticky in here during the next few days," Falyn observed.
But their progress made everybody feel better, and Rikard continued to work on the communicator, to try to identify the right frequency, assisted by Private Leeds, who knew Federation technology.
"What if the Tschagan come back?" Yansen asked.
"Why would they want to," Dyson returned, "just to shut us up?"
"Are they really a threat?" Private Satorian asked.
"We had better assume," Raebuck said, "that they're the worst threat possible. There may not be many of them left but we don't know how well equipped they are to try to reassert their former place in the galaxy, and if their flicker drive is any example then they're formidable. And I'd wager they can increase their numbers quickly. Maybe not this year, or this decade, but from what I know of them they'll eventually come back, looking for trouble and dominance. They might decide to try to establish themselves somewhere outside the Federation, and some of the smaller star nations would be especially vulnerable to their depredations."
Rikard looked up from the controls. "This ship has a tachyon communicator very similar to ours, any idea which way to aim it?"
"Can you do a spherical broadcast?" Sukiro asked.
"That's the easy way, but it would take a lot of power."
"How much power do we need, besides life support?"
"None I guess. But we'll have to monitor what we use. This ship doesn't have a permanent fuel cell like ours do, and there isn't much fuel left. If we start to run too low, we'll have to cut the broadcast."
"There should be an automatic monitor," Sukiro said.
"I'm sure there is, if you think we can figure out their computer system."
"So we'll keep an eye on it ourselves, and broadcast full power until we either get a response or figure out how to do a tight beam—or until the lights start to go dim."
"If it comes to that," Rikard said as he turned back to the panel, "we'll probably all be dead anyway." He touched a few points on various screens. "That should do it."
He felt very tired. He drew a deep, shuddering breath and sat back on his heels.
"You've exerted yourself too much," Grayshard told him. "You must rest now."
"I intend to," Rikard said. He twisted around so that he was sitting, facing into the room, and lay back on the slanting deck beside the console.
LeClarke came back into the bridge. "Brenner's resting," she said. "Someone had a sedative."
"I think Rikard could use one too," Sukiro suggested.
"No," Rikard protested, "I'm just going to sit here for a while." He looked up at the major and sighed. "I guess the Leaves are lost again," he said to her.
"What about the Reliquiture," she asked, "do you want to give that back?"
"I think I'll let Darcy decide that," he said.
Sukiro looked at him a moment. "She gave up on you," she said at last.
"It doesn't matter," Rikard lied. He'd figured once that he and Darcy would be together for a long time. But whatever they had had between them, it was over now.
He looked up at Sukiro again. She nodded once and left him to his thoughts.
Rikard sat there for a long moment, then pulled himself to his feet and went over to where Endark Droagn and Grayshard were waiting, at the far side of the chamber.
As Rikard neared, Droagn turned to him and said, ~I'm afraid that my interests will not be best served by staying in your Federation, but everything I used to know is twenty five thousand years in the past. Have you any suggestions as to what I might do with myself?~
"You don't relish being the center of attention of every ethnologist and xenobiologist in the Federation?" Rikard asked ironically.
"That hardly seems to offer much freedom of movement or privacy," Grayshard said. "Now, in my case, my predator fellows can fill in for me quite nicely, and I suspect they'll have to put up with it. But I have no intention of staying where I would be only a curiosity."
"I've got a signal," Fresno, who was monitoring the communicators, said. Everybody turned to watch and listen as he turned up the volume. There was a moment of static, and then a voice came in.
"—calling on 2750. This is System Watch on Shentary. We got your signal, but it is very weak. Please repeat. Attention ship in distress calling on 2750. This is System Watch on Shentary. We got your signal, but it is very weak. Please repeat."
"This is Task Force Pirate," Fresno replied. "Let me switch to tight beam." He diddled with the console the way he'd seen Rikard do it.
"I'll take care of it," Sukiro said. She went to the communicator. "Turn the volume down," she said to Fresno. He did so.
"Looks like we're going to be saved," Rikard said to Grayshard and Droagn. "And I'm not going to stick around either. I'm thinking of taking a little private tour, you know, just to pull myself together, get over a few things."
~You think you can get me away from your people?~ Droagn asked. ~You can sell the Prime if you need money. ~
Rikard almost laughed. "No need for that," he said, thinking of the hoard of dragongems that even Darcy didn't know about.
"I'd like to see some of your Federation," Grayshard said. "Discreetly, of course. I have no reason to go home, mind if I tag along?"
"We were a pretty good team there, weren't we?" Rikard said.
"Help will be here in five days," Sukiro announced. Then she noticed how chummy Rikard was being with Grayshard and Endark Droagn, both of whom were self-professed rogues. Though she continued to smile her expression became that of the professional cop. "I guess you three have got some oth
er plans," she said.
"The only plan I have," Rikard said, "is to book passage as soon as we reach a Federation world."
Sukiro stared at him a moment longer, then sighed. "I guess you've done your share. How about your friends?"
"I thought we might team up for a while." He looked directly at Sukiro. "We're taking the crown with us."
Sukiro looked back at him. Her expression was unreadable. "To hell with the crown," she said, then turned away. "I just hope I'm never assigned to your case," she muttered over her shoulder.
Rikard grinned, then laughed, and scratched the palm of his right hand.
