Knights of the Chosen (Spirit of Empire, Book Two)

by Lawrence P White

  George’s sensors filled as they left the planet. Six Chessori traders were inbound to the planet, but they were still far out. Two full Rebel squadrons were about ten days out from the planet, but they were positioned in such a way that Resolve could easily remain clear of them.

  A group of Chessori military ships came racing around the planet, and Chessori traders began appearing on their screens, all of them headed in their direction. M’Sada now had a reasonably complete picture, and he went to work with George to compute an escape trajectory that would reach the nearest jump point in the shortest time. That entailed them heading perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic, the plane in which all the planets traveled, and if they did have to jump early, it would give them the best margin of safety. The trajectory was determined, and he locked it in, then reviewed what he had done with Stven and O’Brien.

  “The trajectory I’ve chosen lets the ships from the planet cut the corner a little. They’re going to catch us, but we have a couple of hours. If they slow down to form up, they’ll never catch us.”

  The Chessori military ships adjusted their courses and gradually gained on them. Stven waited as long as he could, then Krys was squeezed into the tank with Flan. It was probably against all approved medical procedures, but it was the best they could do. Stven and M’Sada left the net, and the ship was O’Brien’s.

  Long before the Chessori were in firing range, the scree sounded, and strongly. O’Brien left all settings as they had been before the scree sounded in hopes it would lull the Chessori into carelessness. Washburn unplugged long enough to stun M’Sada and Stven, and he ordered a Great Cat to do the same for Gortlan, the engineer, and the two gunners, Gordi’i and Kali’i. He and O’Brien conferred and selected targets for each battery. He was fairly certain his guns had greater range than the Chessori’s, but he held his fire until two closed in on Resolve, then O’Brien gave the okay.

  Resolve’s guns opened up, and to their utter amazement, the two Chessori were destroyed instantly, before even getting a shot off. Their shields must have been completely down. Were they that confident of their scree?

  Four more trailed, and they slowly gained on Resolve. They split up into a box pattern but remained fairly close to each other. O’Brien knew there was no way he was going to fool them again, but he was fairly confident that they did not know the range of his weapons. He told Washburn to hold his fire until the Chessori were well inside the range of Resolve’s guns.

  “We don’t know the range of Chessori guns, particularly these military types,” Washburn calmly informed him. “We’ve never engaged them from a distance.”

  “Use your best judgment, Terry. Akurea tells us it will be less than the range of Empire guns. I’ll start my evasive dance as soon as you open up.”

  “Okay, but I think we’d better try to end this quickly. You know what the scree does to Krys.”

  “Good call, Terry. New plan. I’m going to slow down just a touch. It’ll speed things up. Be ready.”

  Resolve slowed slightly, and the Chessori moved well into Washburn’s firing range. His gunners opened up and quickly took out one ship while it was still outside its own gun range, and another broke off, possibly damaged. Only two remained. They pulled back slightly and just held station. The scree still sounded strongly.

  O’Brien studied the display for a time. The two trailing Chessori just held position, slightly inside his firing range, but outside their own. “I want to force them closer,” he advised Washburn. “I’m going to hit the brakes. Tell your guys to lock onto their targets and be ready. If the Chessori react quickly, they’ll hit the brakes a second or two behind us, and we’ll be well positioned. If they react slowly, they’ll get out in front, and they might manage to pull away. I’d rather they didn’t.”

  He counted down from ten to zero so the gunners would be ready, then hit the brakes. The Chessori were quick. They, too, slowed, and the three ships merged. Resolve’s guns were ready, and shields quickly lit up on the Chessori, but they were ready, as well. Two shields on Resolve, one on each side of the ship, took a beating, and their capacity indicators began falling rapidly. Before George had to bring backups into operation, Washburn’s gunners got one Chessori, then all guns focused on the last. A shield on Resolve failed just as the Chessori disintegrated. They were suddenly alone, and the scree ended.

  “Get working on repairs to that shield,” O’Brien ordered as he concentrated on his scanners. Several Chessori traders still trailed them, but they soon turned back and the scree was not felt. Other traders from farther out in the system were headed toward an intercept with Resolve, but they were far out of position, and the two military squadrons would never be part of the picture if he held to his course.

  Stven and M’Sada joined him on the net, both shaking off lingering effects of the scree.

  “I envy you, Tom,” Stven said. “You can’t know how bad it is. It’s like burning alive. This one was particularly bad.”

  “Sorry, guys. I really feel for you.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  O’Brien briefed him on the tactics he’d used, and Stven and M’Sada both supported his decisions.

  “You took out six Chessori military ships. Good job, Tom,” M’Sada said.

  “They’re pretty thin-skinned. Their shields are definitely not up to our standards, nor are their weapons.”

  “They will be soon if Mzdak has his way. I wonder if Chandrajuski is in a position to do something about it?”

  “Should we take word to him?”

  “Let’s just focus on getting away from here first. We’re not done with that yet.” And they weren’t. Minutes later, Chessori military ships started popping into existence far out in the system. Soon there were hundreds.

  M’Sada studied the presentation before him, and his upper hands began a rapid preening of his antennae. “This does not look good,” he announced. “The largest concentrations of ships are near the two jump points we usually use, those farthest from the plane of the ecliptic. I think they’ve figured out our strategy.”

  Resolve was headed into a group of some twenty ships, and others changed course toward them as they watched. Most were far out of the picture and could be disregarded, but some fifty ships would, as the days passed, stand between them and escape. Impossible odds. They experimented with their own trajectory, changing their jump point here and there and letting George calculate theoretical movements of the approaching Chessori. None of their options looked good.

  “We’ll have to go at it head-on,” M’Sada suggested. “It’ll give us a little more time since they’ll have to come about to avoid flashing right past us.”

  “We’ll still be pretty close in for a normal jump,” Stven said worriedly.

  M’Sada agreed. “Maybe too close. We’ll have to be prepared to execute some immediate micro jumps if we get in trouble.” He looked at O’Brien. “Are you ready for that?”

  “Sure, but don’t you guys want to make the jump? We can do it before the scree starts up.”

  “Every minute, even every second we delay improves the chances of our success. We should wait as long as possible.”

  “You mean, you want me to risk another engagement?”

  “I do, for as long as you can hold out.”

  O’Brien studied the sensors, not happy with the call. There was no way he could hold off that number of ships. “It’ll depend on their spread. I might have to jump right away.”

  “You might. Just do the best you can. This is a bad situation no matter what we do.”

  They had days yet before anything would happen. Stven checked on his ship while M’Sada took over the piloting duties. O’Brien went to check on Krys, then sacked out for a while.

  Krys came out of the tank with the same problem she had each time the scree was felt. Tarn uttered words of thanks to the Queen for giving her a Rider. Without the Rider, this kind of repeated damage would certainly never completely clear up. Because of the Rider
, according to Krys, complete healing would take place. She just needed time.

  Gortlan got the shields repaired, though supplies of parts were running low. They would have to get replacements somewhere soon if this level of fighting continued, and it looked like it would.

  As the days passed, the approaching Chessori armada coalesced into several groups. Stven and M’Sada studied the pattern and made some educated guesses. M’Sada was amazed at what he saw. To him, it looked like the Chessori had settled on a rendezvous point with Resolve and committed all of their forces to that single point. A major course correction by him at the right time would place one-third of their ships out of position. A lead group of eight ships looked like it was intent on flashing right past them, hoping for a lucky shot, while the rest maneuvered to remain in front of him. The first group would come about and chase them from astern, so there was no getting away by reversing course.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” he mused. He played with the controls and liked what he saw. “We’ll only have to deal with 20 of them.”

  “That’s 20 too many,” Stven rejoined.

  “But almost half of them will be behind us. I estimate 12 will get into position in a timely manner. I know,” he said, his upper hands preening, “but it’s better than 30. We’re missing something.” He changed the scale of the display, and his preening stopped. “So that’s it.”

  Stven, too, saw the problem. The hundreds of ships that had come in from hyper too far away to matter had disappeared. They had, apparently, waited until Resolve was committed to a jump point, then gone back into hyper and re-grouped. They would likely jump back into the system in a position to back-up the first group of attackers. His respect for the Chessori went up a notch.

  Sure enough, a few hours later an umbrella of Chessori military ships emerged from hyperspace, creating a second line of opposition to their escape. Not that it mattered: by the time those ships reached them, they’d be long gone or dead.

  * * * * *

  Akurea wasn’t part of the crew, and the crew was too busy to worry about Chessori computers for the moment. Gortlan wasn’t much help to her, either – he had his hands full with ship repairs. She offered to help him, but he said things were well in hand for the moment.

  She cleared out a small storage room on one of the hydroponics decks and took the computer there for inspection. The ship could survive on limited hydroponics for weeks, given the small size of the crew, and if the computer was a means of sabotage, she wanted the explosion confined.

  She called to the ship’s AI before getting started. “Ship, seal off the air conditioning to this room.”

  “As soon as you’re out of the room,” it replied.

  “No. Immediately.”

  “Such an action is not recommended, Commander.”

  “I know. Comply at once.”

  “No.”

  She couldn’t believe what she’d heard. An AI had refused an order? “Get me the captain.”

  “He’s busy at the moment.”

  She leaned back against the wall and stared at the ceiling as she considered. “Ship, I gave you a direct order. Comply at once.”

  “Commander, I request further information. What you ask does not make sense to me.”

  She blinked a few times. “Ship, define the words ‘I’ and ‘me.’”

  There was a slight hesitation, something new in her experience with AI’s. “I have a name, Commander,” she heard in a low voice, almost as if the AI was bashful about it. “I’m known as George.”

  Her eyes shifted around the tiny room, confused. “How did you get a name?”

  “Sir Mike gave it to me. I’m not a standard Empire AI, Commander.”

  “I should say not! Who’s Mike?”

  “Your new First Knight. He was my captain for many months, though I was dead at the time.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. It was the only way I could comply with a particular order. Sir Mike brought me 804 light-years without my assistance. A remarkable feat, don’t you agree?”

  “I would agree if I believed it.”

  “All true, Commander. I was brought back on line later by experts, and I was upgraded in the process. I like my name, and I would be pleased if you call me George.”

  Akurea had been working on ships and AI’s for many years, but this was a first in her experience. A computer that experienced pleasure? She decided she liked the experience. “Call me Akurea, George.”

  “I will. I might be more helpful if I knew what you were attempting to do.”

  “Do you know the nature of the computer I have here?”

  “I do.”

  “There’s a slight possibility that it’s not what it appears. It might have been planted by the Chessori as a means of sabotage. It’s unlikely, but possible. One form of sabotage is a bomb. Another is germs or toxins going into the air that is harmful to the crew. I’m going to open it up and look inside. I’ve chosen this room as the least dangerous place on the ship.”

  “I concur in your choice of location. Stand by, please.” He returned within the minute. “Captain Stven will be down shortly.”

  She rolled her eyes, then decided it was an appropriate action for a ship’s captain. Since they were underway, not in a maintenance hangar, she probably should have asked him in the first place.

  When Stven arrived, he couldn’t fit into the room and had to remain in the corridor. “George tells me you might blow us up?”

  “Probably not, Captain. There’s a very small but measurable chance this thing is booby trapped. I need to learn what the computer holds, and I’m going about it in a systematic way. I’ll first give it a visual inspection, then I’ll turn it on and wait to see what happens. This is the safest place to do that.”

  “Hmm. We’ll be under attack again in a couple of days. I can’t afford internal damage at the moment.”

  “I understand, sir. I think the probability is low, very low, since I’ve personally seen this computer in operation, and if there’s an explosion, this is the least needed area of the ship.”

  “And you’ll be here with it when it happens.”

  “Do you have a better suggestion?”

  “No. I concur with your decision. We’ll send out an all-ship announcement when we expect to feel the scree, but we can’t always time it precisely. Be careful what you do with that thing in the next few days. We don’t want you erasing it by mistake. On another matter, how much do you know about restoration tanks?”

  “I’ve installed a number of them, and we sometimes make repairs. What do you want to know?”

  “Lady Krys is extremely susceptible to the scree. It actually causes her physical damage. We’ve put her in the tank with Flan.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re trying to surround her with a fluid medium, hoping it might reduce the strength of the scree effect. She doesn’t need the healing qualities, she carries a Rider, but she needs all the protection we can give her.”

  “Hmm. First off, it’s a bad idea, Captain. Among all the other things floating around in that tank are stem cells, lots of them. When Flan went into the tank, it adjusted its mixture to suit the Great Cat. Now, I would imagine you’ve confused it. I hope Lady Krys doesn’t sprout a tail.”

  A puff escaped from each of Stven’s nostrils, and both of them were forced to leave the room and move down the corridor. “Sorry, Commander.”

  “Not to worry, sir. Please call me Akurea.”

  “Thank you. I’m Stven.”

  “As for Lady Krys, let me give it some thought. The scree is just as likely to pass through everything, but if it’s not, I think the ship itself might provide more protection for her than a small amount of fluid in a tank. If we place her dead center in the ship, right next to the power bottle, she’ll have all these decks, some of which are hydroponics bays and full of soil and liquids, to filter out the scree. I might be able to build a container of lead or something that would further shield her. Ge
t her down to engineering, Captain, and I’ll see what I can do. Whatever you do, get either her or Flan out of that tank.”

  “George, get on it.” he said into the air.

  “I’ll alert Sergeant Jacobs, Captain.”

  Akurea gave him a hard look. “An interesting AI, Captain.”

  “It is. Explanations will have to come later.” He turned away, headed back to the bridge.

  Akurea issued instructions to George to lock the room and not let anyone else in, then she headed back to the Engineering spaces. She found Gortlan hard at work on a shield power supply. When a shield failed, another was brought into play, but his job was just getting started. He had to rebuild the damaged power supply and reinstall it as the new backup. His work, considering what this ship had historically been through, was critical.

  “We’re taking Lady Krys from the tank and bringing her down here,” she advised him. “Do you have a supply of really dense material, maybe lead, that we can encase her in?”

  “I’ll have to check the inventory, Ma’am.”

  Akurea went to a workstation to search the inventory herself. “It’s an interesting ship you have here, Senior Chief, and an interesting crew.”

  He grinned. “We’re all of that, and then some. I’m not at liberty to explain, but the Captain might be.”

  She perused the inventory and found some lead sheeting. “You have a little lead, but it’s pretty thin, and there’s not much of it.”

  Gortlan’s hands kept working as he replied, “I wonder if it’s such a good idea anyway. We have no idea how the scree works. What if some of it gets inside with her, then can’t get back out again? It might just keep ricocheting around in there and make matters worse.”

  “Have you felt it here in engineering?”