And with that, the Ool’s doubt faded into space. The lead Captains took turns over the shared comm channel, voicing their thoughts and opinions on how to solve the problem. The meeting lasted two hours. By the time it was over, the Lead ships had a plan for devoting time and personnel to solving the problem. Ool herself eventually committed her ship to a primary role. Drexler accepted her offer gratefully.
Only the Insectoids were largely and strangely silent. Fourseven offered her support and consent to commit her ships to the plan. The Arachnids were behind her. Drexler could not tell whether her reticence was implied consent or disapproval. Drexler opened a private channel and requested a word as the meeting ended.
“Hello, Fourseven,” Drexler subvocalized.
“Captain Fleetfoot,” Fourseven replied.
“I notice you did not have much to say during the meeting.”
“Yes.” Fourseven replied.
Drexler’s temper rose for a moment before realizing Fourseven was not accustomed to conversing with humans. Direct questions worked better. “Why were you silent?”
“I found not much to say. The proposal seems adequate.”
“Only adequate?” Drexler asked.
“Yes,” Fourseven replied. “Our calculations show a fifteen percent chance of doing significant damage to the Reptilian vessel.”
Drexler felt the blood drain from his face. “Very well,” Drexler said. “Thank you, General.” He closed the channel, took a deep breath and wondered for a moment how many breaths he might have left. Then he got to work.
These facts slowed their progress, but it would also slow their pursuers. Drexler could work with that.
“Mumlo,” Drexler called across the bridge. “Would you come here for a moment? I need your thoughts.”
17
Gholss stood once again at the left shoulder of the Great Alpha before the floor-to-ceiling display column. The Alpha Lead Ship sliced through the termination shock region at near light speed, thanks to the ingenuity of their new lead engineer. With two of the four reactors dedicated to particle fields, the ship was able to withstand transit through the layers of denser space.
In their pursuit of the Trade Union Armada, they were able to follow a straighter course.While the Armada had to follow the charted paths around dust clouds and ribbons of stellar gas, the Alpha Ship cut right through. Gholss salivated imagining the fear the Traders must feel watching Alpha Ship do the unexpected. The more course corrections the Armada made, the more distance the Alpha Ship was able to cover.
The crew was eager to avenge the fifty ships destroyed by lucky trickery. Gholss was determined not to allow that again. The shame and embarrassment of losing the captured Tonaw vessel promised to fade the closer he got to the target. The Tonaw captain was making it easy for him as the vessel joined the Armada.
“What is the time delay on this information?”Alpha Sslolg asked.
“The delay is nearly forty-two micro-cycles, but the resolution should increase as we near the target,” Gholss gave a ready answer, proud in his knowledge of ship operations.
“But it is not. I see the enemy position jump across several thousand intervals. Is this a sensor problem?”
Gholss looked closer at the display. Not only did the positions look jumpy, but the markers appeared to be in two places at once.
“Operations! Check your detection instruments. Confirm with engineering. We are seeing errors in your data,” Gholss ordered.
As they stood and watched, the errors grew more numerous. Gholss felt a strange vibration in the deck plates.
“Check our inertia field! The ship does not feel right! What is our position?” Sslolg ordered.
“We are twenty million kilometers from the system’s debris ring,” the operations officer replied.
“Have we left the quickening sphere?” Gholss asked.
“No, Second Alpha, but we should have,” operations replied. “Instruments still show high particle density, some stellar debris, and strong gravity waves.”
“Gravity waves?” Gholss asked in disbelief. “There should be only marginal gravity distortions here, you fool! Why did you not report this!”
Sslolg bellowed, “Decelerate to one-half light speed and calibrate the sensors! This may be another trap!”
Gholss stepped closer to his Alpha and spoke softly as not to be heard. “You asked me to advise you when our thoughts differ.”
“Advise me, then!” Sslolg hissed.
“Slowing the ship is not the best course of action,” Gholss replied.
“Nor is rushing forward with blurred vision,” Sslolg said. “We have already learned that these Traders are prone to tricks and traps. Whatever they have in mind will surely fall apart when they see that we attack them with their own ships!”
“You are wise, Great Alpha,” Gholss said.
“Do not lose confidence in your own plans, young Second. It was you who proposed turning their own ships against them. Do not let doubt rob you of your rightful victory now that your claw is so close to striking.”
“Thank you, Alpha,” Gholss said.
“The sensor picture is not clearing up, Alpha. In fact, it is getting worse,” offered a terrified Operations Officer.
“Increase power to the protective fields. Rely on optical sensors. I want more crew on those optics. Watch and be wary!” Sslolg ordered.
“Ready main photon weapons,” Gholss added. “Initiate targeting computers and stand by.”
“An excellent move. You smell them, do you not?” Sslolg said.
“I do. It would be just like them to attack us here.”
“Contact, Alpha! Multiple contacts ascension seven bearing ninety-thousand intervals!” the helm officer reported.
“Ready weapons!” Gholss ordered. “Prepare to fire!”
“How did they get so close?” Sslolg asked.
“Target aquired,” weapons crew announced.
“Fire!” Gholss ordered.
The ship shook as conduits channeled energy to the photon emitters. The bridge fell silent.
“Report!” Gholss bellowed, and ribbons of saliva flew from his teeth.
“Nothing, Second Alpha,”
“Clarify,” Sslolg said, his voice surprisingly calm.
“No contact. No sensor readings. Optical stations can not confirm contact nor debris, or any sign a ship was there. The gravity distortions scattered nearly thirty percent of our photon beam, and even now reflect back to us.”
Sslolg hissed low between clenched teeth. “The distortions,” he said. “They trick us! They used their gravity wakes to create mirrors in space. That is why their path wiggled like the tail of a fertile female! Our pray may prove worthy yet!”
“What do we do, Alpha?” Gholss asked.
“We do what they do not want us to do. We proceed slowly. They expect us to chase the shadows and reflections that they place in our path. They think we are foolish. They seek to evoke the same behavior that succeeded before.”
“We rushed to attack the Insects,” Gholss said.
“And they hurt us,” Sslolg replied.
“And our attack fleet rushed to the kill again,” Gholss said.
“And the Traders caught the fleet in a trap,” Sslolg replied.
“So now, we proceed slowly. Force them to come to us,” Gholss replied.
“Where do the sensors show the Armada now?” Sslolg asked.
The operations station conferred among its several crew, and the officer made his report, “The Armada has disbanded. We detect multiple contacts among the debris band one-hundred-million intervals ahead.”
“How many contacts can you make out?” Gholss asked.
In response, the officer changed the command display to show the long band of the asteroid belt. “The blue lights represent all enemy contacts. We count six hundred, but it is difficult to tell among the gravity distortion.”
“Their armada numbered two-hundred fifty vessels. What we see are probab
ly reflections.”
“Proceed at one-half C, and hold at photon weapon range. Let us engage in target practice.” Ssolg ordered.
“Yes, Alpha Leader. We will be at that location in one-hundred-fifty cycles.” the officer reported.
“We are in no rush, Gholss. Time belongs to us,” Sslolg said. “When will our attack fleet arrive?”
“Less than one hundred cycles, Alpha,” Gholss replied.
“We will wait, and we will plan,” Sslolg replied, staring deeper into the holographic column. He read the signs there, and Gholss caught the impression that the Great Alpha was a sort of oracle, reading signs.
“Second Alpha Gholss,” the engineering station officer called across the bridge in a tentative voice.
“What is it, Engineer?” Gholss replied, annoyed at the interruption.
“As you ordered, we now understand why the Trader ship was able to escape,” the officer said.
Both Gholss and Sslolg turned slowly to fix their expectant eyes on the small, cowering engineer.
“Come forward and tell us, then,” Sslolg ordered.
The slender lizard came forward with his long, tail trembling behind him on the floor.
“By the trail of fear you leave behind you,” Sslolg said, “I take it you bring bad news.”
“You will not be harmed for telling us the truth,” Gholss reassured the engineer.
The engineer summoned courage and straightened his body as he began. “The enemy ship infiltrated our systems. As we replaced some of its low-function components with our own, it learned how to integrate with those components. It was able to learn how to interface not only with the replacement devices, but with similar systems on our own ship.
The enemy craft itself made independent decisions and used reason to achieve the goal of freeing the prisoners.”
“Impossible,” Gholss hissed.
“It would seem that way,” Sslolg said. “But it is apparently true. We see the evidence with our own eyes. The ship itself helped the enemy crew escape. We must discover if other Trader ships have such ability, or whether this is an isolated incident.”
Gholss had his doubts. The conclusion seemed like a fantasy devised by the engineers and ship security to avoid blame for allowing the Traders to trick them.
“I look forward to your detailed report on this matter,” Gholss said. “You are dismissed.”
***
“It’s working, so far,” Drexler said. Most of the forward bulkhead was covered in display scrolls he fastened there as his primary work surface. Mumlo stood at his side reading the signs like tea leaves in a cup.
“But they have slowed. They suspect something is wrong,” Mumlo replied.
“It does appear that they are learning,” Drexler replied. “But they are off their intended course and going exactly where we want them to go. They don’t even know their speed is closer to three-quarter C, thanks to all the spatial distortions out there.”
“By the time they figure it out, they’ll be several hundred-million miles off course, where we can attack them inside the asteroid belt,” Drexler said, then added, “With actual asteroids.”
The Armada’s combined creativity paid high dividends. They found that running the ships dangerously close together increased the distortion effect geometrically. The first shuttle that volunteered to move through the gravity foam nearly crashed at full speed into its destination vessel. It lost track of several thousand kilometers as it traveled. The Armada completely lost track of the shuttle as it traveled.
Further launches revealed bizarre lensing effects and sensor mirroring. The mood among the captains was nearly ecstatic. It did not take them long to come up with a plan. The problem was that distortions in space caused problems for everyone. They solved the issue by pooling computing resources to map the distortions. The only way they could tell the locations of all the ships was to track the gravity waves as they formed and dissipated. That involved the combined computing power of half the ships in the Armada.
The hope was that the Reptilian Battlecruiser would rush forward shooting at shadows and reflections without knowing that they were heading directly for the thickest part of the asteroid field. The plan was a partial success. It appeared the Lizards did not have a bottomless appetite for goading. They learned. The new demonstration of caution did not speak so well of the Armada plan.
Drexler’s heart sank as he watched the Alpha Cruiser drop speed and activate redundant sensors. He was still fairly certain they did not understand how far off course they really were because they headed directly for a very thick asteroid cluster. The Captain made a check mark in the plus column of his mental list of positives and negatives.
“Protector calling all ships,” General Fourseven hailed. “Advise making attack run now.”
The decision was obvious. The target was off-plan, so it was time to pivot. Drexler and his crew had the dubious honor of being the primary attack wing. He and the crew agreed that it was only proper since it was their ship that came up with the plan.
“Well,” Drexler said to Mumlo, unashamed of the quaver in his voice. “Good leadership and all that.” He turned to face the bridge crew and shouted, “Helm! Attack pattern ambush one! Initiate!”
Everyone took the unique precaution of strapping themselves into a flight chair. In his lifetime on the freighter, Drexler only sat on the bridge when he was tired, bored or on a long shift. Now, safety demanded a seated position.
Helm station poured on the speed and took the ship out of the field with a trajectory that momentarily overcame the bridge gravity plane. Drexler was pressed into his seat at what he guessed to be three multiples of standard Trade Union gravity. His stomach lurched and he saw distorted space through the viewing bulkhead become more distorted as his eyeballs changed shape.
Even at a hundred-thousand kilometers distant, the Reptilian craft loomed. They saw two of them due to the lensing effect.
“Ops!” Drexler barked. “Mark the real target on the bulkhead for us!”
Before the words left his mouth, the Darl colored the actual battlecruiser bright orange.
“That’s our target!” Drexler yelled. “Comm. Attack wing one, target that ship and fire at will! We will not get another chance! Maintain V formation as long as possible.”
“Star Vine to Fleetfoot,” Ool called over open comm. “Where do you suggest we hit them?”
“Pick a spot!” Drexler replied. “Any spot. Particle emitters, maybe?”
Ool said something in the Forest Child language that made Mumlo hoot.
“What?” Drexler said. “What did she say?”
“I will tell you when this is over,” Mumlo replied. “You might not find it useful now.”
Just then, the ops station found a target and fired. The ops officer decided to use photon beams. Some of the other ships used directed electrons, while others decided to use coherent microwaves. The plan being to see what worked best.
“No effect!” the operations officer reported.
“Engineering!” Drexler called.
“Gajrup here, sir,” came the Chief engineer’s voice. He sounded surprisingly and disgustingly calm.
“How is my reactor?” Drexler asked.
“We are running at sixty-five percent. Conduits are getting hot. Reactor vessel is stable.” Gajrup replied, obviously reading from screens.
The Reptilian ship loomed closer through the viewport, taking up more and more of the scene. “Ah, helm,” Drexler said. “You might want to turn. Remember, everyone is following you.”
In response, the deck lurched, and Drexler’s stomach followed. He watched more directed energy make a light show against the protective field of the Battlecruiser.
“Why aren’t they firing back?” someone asked.
“I do not know,” Mumlo replied. “Best not to ask, maybe.”
“Comm. All ships, report!”
The enemy ship disappeared from the window, and Drexler reclined his chair to fo
llow the action on the display screen he fastened to the bridge ceiling above. The sensor picture of the scene still showed a double image of the Cruiser. Data markers showed the particle field weakening on its starboard side.
“Bring us around and focus on the weak areas of that protective field,” Drexler said. “Protector, are you seeing this? Should we send in the second wave?”
Before Fourseven could answer, a frantic voice came over the comm. “This is the Dolstra! We are picking up an energy spike!”
“We see it, Dolstra,” the ops station replied.
Drexler watched a false color marker appear on his display that showed the Cruiser’s bow. “They are forming a beam!” Drexler said. “All ships, full power to protective fields!”
Even though the Fleetfoot headed away from the enemy, the light of returning weapons fire filled the bridge. They all knew someone was gone because another flash of light answered the first and the hull rumbled with shock waves.
“We lost two ships!” operations reported.
“Sending in second wave,” Fourseven’s voice said over open comm.
The channels filled with chaotic voices coming too fast Drexler to understand. More energy beams stabbed out from the enemy ship’s bow and starboard side. The first wave took heavy damage.
“Bring us around and come back for another pass!” Drexler ordered, feeling completely insane. He was sure that would be his last order. He knew there was more than enough time for a second attack, and that was the best chance they had.
When the Fleetfoot I came around to face the enemy ship again, the enemy Cruiser filled the viewport completely. Soon, they were close enough for Drexler to see the curve of the boson field and the protective field behind it. He saw his chance.
“Helm! Maintain speed! Take us in to five hundred meters! I want you to kiss their hull! Ops, as soon as we pierce their boson field, open fire with everything you have! Aim for the weakest spots! Engineering, I need plus critical power. Open that reactor up as far as it will go!”
Time became a slow crawl as Drexler watched his orders carried out without question. The fact that the crew followed such disparate orders filled him with a mixture of pride, fear and a strange euphoria that he struggled to keep from bursting from his chest as hysterical cackling.
Rogue Messiah: Fleetfoot Interstellar Series, Book 2 Page 18
