Alien Death Fleet [Star Frontiers 1]

by Robert E. Vardeman

  “One of the emperor's toadies? He was. Son of a bitch got his head blown off in the first mutiny. For a genhanced genius...” Barse openly sneered when she spoke of him. “...he was one damned fool. Walked right into the middle of a mob, demanding that they disperse. They tried to rip him apart, but he was too strong, so they blew his head off. Even then he fought on for almost a minute. Goes to show he never used that genhanced brain of his for much.”

  “Who's in command now?” Norlin asked.

  Emuna had said no one in the chain of command was left, but if the cruiser's outfitting had been classified he wouldn't have heard a whisper. The copilot could assume command of the station, being a space officer.

  “No one. That's our problem.”

  “You've not got a copilot? Was he killed, too?”

  “Dukker was a one pathetic son of a bitch,” Barse said, “but I'll give him this. He could pilot his way through a black hole if he had to. Never liked the notion of someone sitting at his elbow. No copilot. Just crew.”

  “Crew?”

  “Miza, Sarov and Liottey, in order of their smarts.”

  “Where do you rank?” Norlin asked, a slight smile curling his lips.

  “At...” Barse stopped and stared at him. Her ex-pression altered subtly, and her pale eyes took on a glitter like amethyst. “You're all right, Norlin. We're going to get on just fine.”

  “What are you talking about? I'm in command of the station, and you're assigned to a cruiser.”

  “You're in command of space junk.” Barse spat again. “Is there anything worth saving here? You just turned the guts of five men into novae. Think there are any better left?”

  “You scanned the information on the Death Fleet. We've got to prepare a defense for Lyman IV. The station has heavy artillery. I don't know how much and I can't remember when it was used last—certainly not since I've been here.”

  “Never is my guess. There's rust on the lasing tubes.” Barse spoke with such authority that Norlin hesitated to argue. Lasing tubes weren't likely candidates for rusting. Most were formed from carbon composite materials, and the chambers were highly silvered. The chemical shells that fitted into the firing compartments might have deteriorated, but he doubted this. Storage in the hard vacuum of space had definite advantages.

  “There are civilians on-planet. Our oath of duty is to protect citizens of the Empire.”

  “Piss on the Empire.”

  Barse watched as he lifted the pistol. He aimed it unwaveringly at her chest.

  “That's treason,” he said. “We are both officers in the Empire Service and have duty and honor to uphold.”

  “Piss on the Empire,” Barse repeated, “but you're right. I did swear to keep its stupid civilians from getting blown into decaying atoms. You've got a choice to make.”

  “What choice is that?” Norlin asked. He lowered his pistol but did not put on the safety. Barse wasn't hostile enough to be a mutineer—he hoped.

  “You can stay with this outmoded, outgunned hunk of junk and die in a futile attempt to stop a fleet of space knows how many warships.” She pointed at the station around them. “Or you can come aboard the Preceptor. We've got a full complement of crew—except for a pilot.”

  “Me? Pilot a cruiser?”

  “I was outvoted. The other three want a human on the bridge. I know a computer can do it all and better. It'd take a bit of tinkering, but I could kludge one together in a few days.”

  “We may not have a few days. There may be only hours before the alien fleet comes in, radiation cannon firing.”

  “Dammit, I know. That's why I decided to go along with them. You want to pilot a top-of-the-line cruiser or not? It's going to be your last chance.”

  “Command a cruiser? I'm better qualified for that than garrison duty.” Norlin's heart skipped a beat. Piloting an Empire Service line vessel was the goal of every officer.

  “No one said anything about command. You'd be under my command.”

  Norlin looked at her then laughed out loud. He tried to stop and couldn't. Tears ran down his cheeks, and he clutched his sides.

  “That's the funniest thing I ever heard. An engineer can't command.”

  “Calm down. You're hysterical,” she said, accurately assessing the true source of his mirth. “That's the way it's got to be aboard the Preceptor.”

  “What do the others say about that?”

  “They agree.”

  “Then you'll have to look for another pilot.”

  “You'd stay on this derelict and let the Death Fleet blow you into undifferentiated protoplasmic plasma?” Barse's eyebrows arched in disbelief.

  “We'd all be dead in seconds if I agreed and tried to let you command the ship. What do you really know? I may not have much experience, but I've been trained.”

  “I'm the best damned engineer in the Empire Service—and I outrank you.”

  “You probably are the best engineer,” Norlin said. “That's not got a damned thing to do with commanding a ship's crew, though. You're right about a computer being able to operate better. A good pilot lets the computer do what it does best. A commander knows how to keep humans and machines working together smoothly. There's more to keeping a ship running than being able to navigate.”

  “Damned little else.”

  Norlin heard the vacillation entering Barse's voice. She knew he was right and was reluctant to admit it. He turned the argument against her, proving his point as he did so.

  “Decisions. They have to be made by reaction, not conscious thought. An AI system computer can come close, but there's always the unknown. They're programmed to randomness if they're unable to make a choice given current data. Who do you trust? A machine's choice of random data or a human's? Mine?”

  “So, you admit you might make the wrong decision,” she challenged.

  “Maybe, but the odds are still with a disciplined pilot. I'd try to keep my own hide intact. An AI system doesn't have that programmed into it. What keeps me alive just might keep you alive—and the cruiser in one piece.”

  Norlin remembered the long, arduous training he had endured. Most of what he did at the console came as second nature. A cruiser would be a challenge, but he was better qualified to accept it than an engineer or computer operator.

  “We got fed up with Dukker pushing us around.”

  “He might have been a good pilot, but he sounds like a lousy commander.”

  “You ever been in command?”

  “Not before an hour ago.” Norlin smiled crookedly as he stared down the station's long corridor. “It's been a challenge, but it's time to move on. I'd like the chance to be the Preceptor's pilot—and commanding officer.”

  “Damn,” muttered Barse. She wrung her hands then stared up into his purple eyes as if she scanned his soul. Norlin could almost see the decision process she went through.

  “Call me Tia,” she said finally. “We run an informal ship.”

  “Call me Captain Norlin. I don't.”

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  * * *

  Chapter Five

  “The Preceptor is standing off the station a few klicks. We didn't want to get involved in all this.”

  Tia Barse wrinkled her pug nose as she surveyed the main docking area's destruction. Norlin had missed this demolition by coming in down the picket ship corkscrew. The major ships docked here had presented major opportunities for escape; dozens of vessels had been hijacked by mutineers.

  “Do you have a shuttle or did you use a bubble suit?”

  “I held my breath and walked. I'm tough.”

  “You're an engineer,” he said, shrugging it off.

  Norlin wanted to see his new command and discover the problems he would have with the other three crew members. Barse had made it clear she'd accept his orders if they seemed reasonable—and possibly not even then. That bothered him. In the heat of combat, and having access to full computer information, he might try a tactic that seemed suicidal. If the engin
eer balked the others might, also. He had to establish who was the Preceptor's captain early.

  “You've got style, kid.”

  “That's Captain Kidd, to you, Lieutenant Barse.”

  “Got it,” she said insincerely. “There's the two-man shuttle I used. Want to jet across now?”

  Norlin's mind raced. He had new responsibility in the cruiser, but it hardly seemed right to abandon his command on the station without putting someone in charge. Such desertion in the face of an emergency constituted a court-martial offense. That no one of rank remained to charge him—or would ever know—didn't deter him.

  “I've got to find Captain Emuna and turn command of the station back to him.”

  “He's not in the chain of command. He's nothing but a toilet paper counter. I ran into him a couple times. What a pain in the butt he was. Double forms this, triplicate that and where's your captain's aunt's grandmother's DNA-confirmed authorization?”

  “I don't want to walk away without letting him know I've relinquished command.”

  “You take all this seriously, don't you?” Barse cocked her head and stared at him, those unblinking colorless eyes boring into his soul.

  “Would you want it any other way?”

  “Not on my ship,” she agreed.

  Norlin found a console that required only a few minutes tinkering to get working.

  “Captain Emuna to any com.” He waited only a few seconds before the officer's haggard, haunted face appeared.

  “You're leaving? I'm on the bridge and saw the cruiser come up.”

  “You've got the conn, Captain. I'm going to the Preceptor and assume command. It's the best way of fighting the Death Fleet.”

  “It doesn't matter. I tried checking the number of staff left.” Emuna heaved a deep sigh. “There're only a few aboard the station. We can't put up a decent defense—any defense. We're goners.”

  “Captain,” Norlin said sharply. “We are Empire Service officers.”

  “You are. I wasn't anything more than an accountant.”

  “Not a very good one, either,” Barse muttered.

  “Captain!”

  The other man reached for a pistol. He put it to his head and broke the circuit. Norlin heard nothing, but he imagined the sound of the weapon firing and the explosion within the captain's head.

  “Rough way to go,” commented Barse. “If he'd thought on it for a second, he could have gone down fighting the alien fleet. Would have amounted to the same thing.”

  “We'll see,” Norlin said, his belly tied in knots. He had graduated from the Empire Service Academy with more idealism than he'd thought. Pragmatism had been drilled into each cadet, but Norlin had believed the officer corps to be more loyal and responsible than he'd seen.

  Mutiny. Suicide. If any remained, would they attempt to collaborate with the aliens? He pushed the horrible notion from his mind. He hoped that any human would die fighting rather than turn traitor to his own race. No one, nothing organic, had been left on Penum. The aliens had sent their pillaging machines to get things—humans would only have been in the way.

  “Let's go,” he said. “I'll conduct a brief inspection, then I need to go down.”

  “On-planet?” Barse peered at a vidscreen showing Lyman IV hanging suspended in the jet-black sky. Thin wisps of snowy clouds formed into force ten storms over the primary ocean—falsely named Tranquility Ocean by overzealous promoters and developers looking for colonists in the early days. The four major land masses stretched brown and gray and green and brought a lump to Norlin's throat. It looked so much like Sutton II.

  He had been born on Earth but remembered little of it except the pollution, overcrowding and rank-conscious populace. He had thought of Sutton as his home after arriving there for academy training. It looked so much like Lyman he hated to think of it laid to ruin, too.

  “There are several people I need to find.”

  “Why bother? They're ground grippers. Otherwise, they'd've been on the station when the mutinies started.”

  “Civil unrest is the way Captain Emuna described conditions on-planet. Have you anything more to add to his report?”

  “No, Captain.”

  Norlin's eyes widened in surprise.

  “Is there anyone you or the others want to contact on-planet or try to lift off?”

  “No one for me. This isn't my world—or my type of world. Can't say about Miza or Sarov. And I don't much care if Liottey has anyone there. He's a vacuum brain.”

  Norlin interpreted the woman's evaluation of the others in the Preceptor's crew. She didn't care for Liottey. He couldn't tell if it was a personal or professional dislike. The other two Barse had a guarded truce with.

  He followed her into the small shuttle and wiggled forward to lie beside her.

  “Ready, Cap'n?” Barse didn't wait for his answer. She slammed home the locking lever and pressurized the bullet-shaped shuttle in the same movement she launched them toward the cruiser.

  Norlin took the acceleration on the bottoms of his feet. He felt lightheaded for a few seconds then recovered swiftly. Barse had intentionally launched fast to test him. His week at more than two gravities stood him in good stead. He reached over and put his hand on hers atop the throttle.

  “Cut back. I'm in no hurry. I want to study the station's exterior.”

  “We can take a quick tour by the defense turrets,” she offered. He nodded assent. She worked the throttles expertly and fired side jets to turn the shuttle. The off-vector thrust caused a roll. Norlin never hesitated. He pushed her away and took over. The tiny ship righted itself.

  Barse silently allowed him to conduct his survey of the immensely powerful chemical laser turrets studded all over the space station hull. Norlin's heart sank when he saw that the engineer might be right about rusty lasing tubes. The exterior showed no sign of maintenance for months, possibly years. Micrometeorite pits pocked what should have been sleek surfaces.

  The rebel attacks had been directed at worlds other than Lyman IV, allowing the garrison to become lax. Even if a full crew remained to man the laser cannon and kinetic projectile weapons systems, they'd have a difficult time making their equipment function properly.

  “Enough,” he said. “Take us to the Preceptor.”

  He turned the controls back to her and settled down on the thinly padded couch, lost in thought. Defending Lyman would be more difficult than he had thought—and his first impression had been one of desperation.

  Barse docked the shuttle in the cruiser's huge cargo bay. Norlin barely noticed the details. He had seen cruisers before, and the Preceptor looked no different from standard designs he had studied at the academy. His mind ranged out and down to the planet. Neela Cosarrian needed him.

  He swallowed hard. It went beyond that. He needed her. He missed her soft touches, the feathery kisses that turned into true passion, the shared moments afterward. All that would vanish forever if he didn't get her off the planet before the Death Fleet arrived.

  “You all right?” asked the engineer. “You're shaking.”

  “I've got to go down right now,” he said. “Is there a ferry?”

  “We can refuel your picket ship. We might have to rip out everything in the equipment bay. That any trouble?”

  “No. It's modular.”

  “You don't need the electric ion engine, either. Reduce weight, increase fuel for the rocket.”

  “See to it,” he said. “I'll conduct a quick inspection of the Preceptor and then be on my way.”

  “You got it, Cap'n. Give the boys and girls my best.” Tia Barse wiggled around and let him out. She resealed and jetted off even as he opened the inner airlock and saw the interior of his command.

  His. Shock at such a major promotion under war conditions struck him anew.

  “You're the sublieutenant Tia found on picket duty.”

  A small, dark woman stood with arms crossed, glaring at him. Her head had been shaved on the sides, leaving only a thick scalplock of jet blac
k. Woven into the topknot were silvery strands and what looked like sensors.

  “I use them to augment,” she explained. “I plug them into the computer and get a dozen new inputs. Some are light prompts, some aural and a few turn warm or cold.”

  “You're the computer op.”

  “How astute, but then, Barse said you were fast.” Cold eyes darker than space raked him. She rocked back slightly in obvious distaste for one so young commanding her cruiser. “Chikako Miza, Subcom-mander with nine years of space duty.”

  “Pier Norlin, Captain, recently graduated from Empire Service Academy on Sutton II.”

  “Captain?” Miza said cynically. “They're turning them out young. You must know people in high places on Earth.”

  “I know how to pilot, I know how to command. I assume you know how to run your department as efficiently.” He spun and faced a man his own height but twice his girth and bulk. Like the computer op, the man stood with bulging arms folded in an aggressive manner. He had bristly dark hair cropped down almost to the point of being shaven off. Thick, bony brow ridges hid muddy brown eyes. A feathery network of scars crisscrossed his left cheek.

  “Sarov? Engineer Barse has spoken well of you.” Norlin turned and glanced back over his shoulder. “Of you, too, Miza.”

  “What about me?” came a soft, almost feminine voice.

  Norlin frowned when he saw Liottey. Whereas Barse looked manly, the first officer had a distinct effeminate appearance. Sandy hair piled in unruly curls toppled from his head into a knot tied on the side. Blue eyes Norlin could describe only as beautiful peered at him from behind long lashes. Liottey saluted. Long fingers ended with decorated nails.

  “Report on our condition, Lieutenant Liottey. Critical status systems only.”

  He felt odd ordering about men and women who were not only superior in rank but also in age and experience. Liottey was easily five years older, Miza ten and of the stolid Sarov he could make no guess. The bulky weapons officer might be ten or even twenty years older.

  “Engineer Barse has everything shipshape, Captain,” Liottey reported. “We need only do the final vectoring checks, and we're ready to whip our weight in aliens.”