Orion Fleet (Rebel Fleet Series Book 2)

by B. V. Larson

  I shrugged. “No, but we’re on a mission to save Ral. These three ships were controlling the Hunter. We must finish the last one.”

  “That is supposition and conjecture. I’ve lost a hundred fighter crews and their craft. It will take weeks at dock to repair Killer and gather new squadrons.”

  “Are you forgetting our instructions?” I asked. “Fex demanded that we save Ral.”

  She shifted uncomfortably. “He is a mad-thing. Almost as crazy as you are. It was only luck that allowed you to survive this long—you know that, don’t you? One phase-ship can’t fight three cruisers.”

  “I wasn’t alone,” I said. “I had you at my back. But maybe I was wrong to believe that. Maybe I only assumed you were brave—my apologies.”

  “Captain, do not poke the bear,” advised Sampson in a whisper.

  Ursahn stared at me angrily for several seconds. Her people didn’t have quite the same facial expressions that mine did, but I could tell by the way her dark lips were lifting to reveal her teeth she was pissed off.

  “You insult my honor?” she demanded. “After all our sacrifice?”

  “No, Captain. Of course not. I’m merely suggesting we should finish this while we can.”

  “How?” she demanded, cooling a little. “I’m coming your way, but we’re out of position. The rift will fade before we can arrive.”

  I glanced at Chang, who nodded to confirm what she was saying. After thinking hard for a moment, I faced Ursahn again.

  “We’ll go through,” I said. “Alone.”

  Ursahn’s expression shifted to one of surprise. “Brave to the point of self-destruction. Such an odd people—at one moment tricky and malicious, and at the next noble and selfless.”

  “We’ll follow them, take a look around, and run back to you. Once we get a fix, we can follow at our own schedule.”

  “Scouting…” she said. “All right. Do it. In case things go badly, Blake, it was an honor taking up tooth and claw at your side.”

  “Same here, Ursahn,” I said, and closed the channel.

  “Punch it, Gwen. Miller, get ready to switch on the phasing system the moment we hit the rift. We want to come out on the far side invisible.”

  “Got it. We’ll have to kill the engines just before we hit, however. I’ll need the power.”

  “Let’s set up a script.”

  We worked quickly, setting up a small program to do these operations within milliseconds. Sometimes, human reaction time wasn’t good enough to fly a starship.

  After that, it was all over but the waiting. The rift grew and grew. Soon it became overwhelming, a bright glowing mass of warped space, looming inescapably before us.

  In the final seconds before we struck the rift and plunged into it, I felt a thousand regrets. I wanted another few moments to breathe, to think clearly.

  But those precious seconds were denied me. We entered the rift and traveled instantly to a different place.

  It was like being pushed off a cliff. Once we were falling, there was no turning back.

  =43=

  We came through to the other side phased-out. Just managing that trick had apparently taken Dr. Abrams months of fine tuning.

  The man was a true and dedicated genius, no matter how odious his personality was. Every time we phased in and out, I gave thanks to him. Hammerhead was a great achievement. He’d advanced Earth’s chances to compete among the stars ten-fold.

  Even as I had these fleeting thoughts, I heard Abrams voice in my mind. He was using his sym to contact me privately.

  “Yes, Doc?” I said. “I’m here, but can it wait? I’m kind of busy.”

  “My sensors have improved,” he said, ignoring my attempts to put him off. “We can ‘see’ while phasing a little more clearly. For example, I know you’ve taken us back to the Ral system.”

  I froze. I’d been about to cut him off, but instead I sat there, ramrod straight in my chair, trying to grasp what he was saying.

  “Blake?” he asked. “You’re still there, aren’t you?”

  “How do you know we’re back to Ral?” I asked him.

  “Gravitational cross-referencing,” he said. “You have to wait for light waves to bounce around a system to read something like radar, but gravity is always there. There’s no delay. By applying the relative pattern of tugs from all the local centers of mass—removing the ship itself from the equation, of course—my software is able to—”

  “You’re sure?” I demanded. “This is the Ral system? Chang barely has the spectral class of the local star figured out.”

  “Compare it to Ral,” Abrams said with utter confidence. “You’ll find it’s a perfect match.”

  I checked with Chang, and my heart sank when he nodded. “How did you know, Captain Blake?” he asked.

  I ignored him and spoke to Abrams again. “You nailed it,” I told him. “Thanks—keep up the good work.”

  “I’ve only just begun a redesign of our sensor arrays. Based on a theory of—”

  Cutting him off, I felt no malice in my heart. What I felt was something more like panic.

  “Chang, I’m going to relay Abrams’ data to you. Start using it to give us a picture of our relative position.”

  “Relative to the enemy, sir?”

  I nodded.

  Chang began working on it, and his expression darkened. “We’re far from the Hunter,” he said. “About three AU. But the cruiser is very close. They appear to have stopped moving. They must have braked hard the second they plunged through the rift.”

  “Right…” I said. “They’re using our stealth against us. The enemy captain must have expected us to follow. They know we’re half-blind while phasing.”

  When phasing, it was still possible to see bright energy sources, such as a ship’s engines, or large gravitational tugs like planets and stars. But ships that sat in space, cold lumps of metal that were quietly doing nothing—they were almost as invisible to us as we were to them.

  Abrams new data analysis of the sensor input had helped locate the enemy this time, however. They were out there, stalking us.

  “Range to enemy target?” I asked.

  “About fifty thousand miles.”

  In astronomical terms, we were right on top of each other. With no obstacles or atmosphere to get in the way, missiles and radiation beams could easily reach out and touch another vessel at this range. It wasn’t quite point-blank, but it would be hard to miss.

  “You think she sees us?” I asked Miller.

  “It’s unlikely,” he replied. “If only because if she could, she would have fired by now.”

  I nodded, remembering our own experiences with phase-ships. “They might know we’re here, though. There was a measurable wobble in the rift when the Imperials sent ships through.”

  “There’s something more pressing to worry about, Captain,” Gwen said.

  “What’s that?”

  “The rift—it’s closing already.”

  That got my heart pumping. “Come about. Full thrust back toward the rift. We’re done enough scouting.”

  “They might see us, Captain!” Miller called out. “Full thrust isn’t advisable.”

  “Neither is being trapped alone in this system with a heavy cruiser and the Hunter.”

  They shut up after that, keeping their objections to themselves. We performed the sharp turn under Gwen’s steady hands, then we applied powerful thrust. The anti-grav system was off, as in order to run the engines at full and the phasing system we couldn’t afford the power.

  The G-forces applied to our bodies were cruel. We were wearing supportive pressure suits that automatically squeezed our extremities until they were partially numb. That kept the blood from pooling in our feet and hands, keeping us conscious.

  The experience wasn’t pleasant, but we survived a full three minutes of heavy thrust, and that reversed our forward momentum back toward the rift.

  “It’s going to be a close thing, Captain,” Miller said, his
eyes rolling around.

  We were all using only our fingers on our armrests to operate our interfaces. They’d been built to function even if we were almost pinned down. My sym helped me as well, interpreting my desires and turning them into a logical sequence of computer commands. It was nowhere near as smooth or accurate as using a touchscreen or a mouse, but it was the best we could do under the circumstances.

  “I think we’re going to make it, Captain,” Miller said through gritted teeth.

  “We are going to make it,” Samson grunted out.

  I dared to hope as the rift became visible again and slowly began to grow in size. Since we were phasing it was only a projection, not a true image. But I still took comfort in its growing proximity.

  “Captain!” Chang called out from ops. “We’ve got contacts closing. Closing fast.”

  “Missiles?”

  “They have to be.”

  I glanced at Gwen, and Miller. They looked wild-eyed and scared.

  “They saw our exhaust trail. It’s too long, and it must have extended past our phasing field.”

  “Two choices,” Miller grunted out the words, “we can run or try to slip away. I suggest we come out of phasing, and crank up our shields in case the missiles catch us.”

  “That will put us in their sights!” objected Gwen. “They’ll burn us with radiation. Right now, they’re probably firing beams at us in a pattern, trying to get lucky in our probability-cone.”

  She was talking about blind pot-shots coming from our pursuer. We couldn’t see them due to the fact we were phasing, but it was a logical presumption that they were sizzling by us even now. Each shot was deadly without our shields, and at any moment we could be taken out.

  The pressure mounted, and I read the data closely. The missiles—there were eight of them we could detect—were closing fast. There was no way we’d make it to the rift before they reached us and detonated.

  When that happened, it all depended on how close the warheads were to our hull when they went off. If they were direct hits, we’d be destroyed. If it was a close thing, we’d be irradiated, and there would be heavy casualties.

  Running the numbers quickly in my mind, I didn’t like the odds. I couldn’t calculate the situation precisely, but I guesstimated it was fifty-fifty we were going to catch a deadly strike in the next minute or so.

  Cursing, I ripped off my helmet. “Ease off our thrust to one gravity. Swing hard at right angles to our current course. We’re running.”

  They crew hastened to obey. It was touch-and-go for another few minutes, but then the missiles and beams were left safely behind. At our greatly reduced speeds, they’d lost track of us.

  The crew was obviously relieved. They smiled and breathed deeply. We were all going to see another day.

  But as the rift faded and dispersed, leaving us stranded in the Ral system, I had to wonder.

  Had I made the right choice? Or had I merely delayed our inevitable doom?

  =44=

  Killer had no idea where we were now. Presumably, Ral was the last location they would search. They knew as well as we did what was waiting for them here.

  “Any captain would assume this ship was destroyed,” Miller said. “We have to proceed as if Ursahn has made that assumption.”

  “Agreed,” Gwen said.

  “Then we’re on our own,” I told them. “We’ll behave accordingly. We’ll tail the cruiser and look for a chance to take her out.”

  For the next several hours, Hammerhead glided close behind her prey. We’d been phasing since the moment we’d arrived in the Ral system. The enemy cruiser had almost caught us then—but she’d failed to swing shut the jaws of her trap fast enough.

  The cruiser soon changed course, heading toward the next world in line. Perhaps her captain suspected we were still lurking around. We followed quietly, as we had before.

  “Captain? I think you’d like to see this.” Chang said, directing my attention to the forward projections.

  I saw immediately what he was pointing at. The Hunter had finished its meal, spitting chunks of rock the size of asteroids from its posterior, and headed for the next planet closer to the star. Hammerhead, the cruiser we were tailing, and the automated ship were all heading toward the last world before Ral herself.

  “I don’t understand,” I said in frustration. “If they want to kill the people of Ral, why not just direct the Hunter to go there and get it over with?”

  “That must not be their only goal,” Chang said. “I find the situation intriguing. The Imperial ship seems to be ignored by the Hunter, and it acts more like an observer than a controlling shepherd.”

  I shook my head, got out of my chair and paced the deck.

  “If the Hunter isn’t under their control,” Gwen said, “why are they heading to that planet? Do you think they know we’re stalking them?”

  “Of course they know,” I said, “they spotted us when we arrived, and they know we never left. They’re probably getting nervous. They’ll hug up to their Hunter for protection.”

  My words were a brave front, designed to hide my real concerns. Possibly, the enemy was frightened—but they could also be planning another trap.

  It didn’t matter which case was the true one. We had to act now, regardless. Ral was too close now, and she was still helpless.

  “Steady-on, helmsman,” I said to Dalton. “Get us as close as we can without tipping off this monster.”

  He was back at the wheel and doing an excellent job—but he didn’t seem to be completely convinced of the wisdom of our plan.

  “Bloody suicide,” he muttered. “We’d do better crashing into her hull, if you ask me.”

  “Do you wish to be relieved, Dalton?” Gwen asked promptly.

  “No, Lieutenant,” he said, and he finally shut up.

  We didn’t want to push our engines too hard as we chased after the Hunter, as that had gotten us spotted in the first case. But our rate of gain was too slow.

  “Chang, plot our intercept point,” I ordered.

  He did, and I frowned. “That’s much closer to Ral-2 than I would expect. How are we losing ground?”

  “Well, Captain… The enemy vessel is accelerating, and she’s increasing her rate of acceleration. This projection accounts for that.”

  I stood there, staring at the retreating fantail of the enemy.

  “She’s luring us in,” Miller said. “She wants us to slowly increase power until we give ourselves away. If we blaze after her at full acceleration, she’ll be able to see us.”

  “Right,” I said. “Dalton, give her some slack and shift our course. We’ll parallel her, lagging behind. That way we’ll be less visible and we won’t be where she’ll think to look first.”

  Dalton did as I asked. Fortunately, there was little chance of losing the enemy ship. It was true that tracking something the size of a ship while phasing was harder than doing so while traveling in open space. At the same time, the enemy cruiser was easier to see because she was accelerating so hard.

  “What kind of game is their captain playing?” I asked no one in particular.

  Miller came to stand next to me to give his advice. Gwen glanced up at that, twisting her lips in disgust. It was obvious to everyone Miller wanted his old job back.

  “I have a theory about that, Captain,” he said. “If I may?”

  “Go for it.”

  “I think he’s trying to get us to reveal ourselves—if it’s true, he’ll soon vanish.”

  “Miller…careful that you don’t get out of your depth.”

  “Sir!” Dalton called. “I’ve lost the cruiser.”

  I glanced back to Miller, who looked insufferably pleased with himself.

  “All right… Where did he go?” I asked.

  “Nowhere,” Miller said promptly. “He’s still there, but he’s coasting now.”

  “Yes…” Chang said, working his computer. “He could be. We’re now at a distance that won’t allow us to see a ship ex
cept by her exhaust plume. At this range when she cut her engines and began coasting, she became invisible to us.”

  I narrowed my eyes and looked over the instruments. “Why now? How did you predict this action of theirs so precisely, Miller?”

  “Simple tactics. They first ran ahead, knowing we could only keep up by giving ourselves away. But since we didn’t, they were able to deduce that we were either not following them—or we’d decided not to speed up. Which meant we were lagging behind.”

  “Which meant they could power down their engines,” I said thoughtfully. “Now they’re running as invisibly to us as we are to them. Chang?” I called, turning to his station. “Assuming they are coasting, can you accurately predict their path?”

  He worked on the problem for a minute or so before answering. I felt antsy, but I didn’t interrupt. Chang liked to take the time to give me accurate answers, not guesses.

  “Not reliably,” he said. “Small amounts of thrust aren’t detectable to us—amounts that a steering jet would emit, for example.”

  “So they could be gently curving their course right now, moving off by a few degrees? How long until we might lose them entirely, presuming they’re doing so right now?”

  “A few hours.”

  “I’m not waiting that long,” I said. “Miller, stand-by on the phasing unit. We’re going to break into normal space, then phase out again and evade the moment we get a fix on her.”

  “But sir,” Dalton said. “What’s to keep her from doing this again? Are we going to blink in and out every hour to keep track?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe so. A fix now will keep us informed. If we appear only briefly, we’ll give them less information than they’re giving us.”

  My crew didn’t like it, I could tell. But I didn’t care. I wasn’t about to lose the enemy cruiser. It was the only ship in the system we had the faintest hope of destroying.

  Miller cleared his throat. “Ready to phase-in?” he asked, his finger hovering over his screens.

  “Dr. Chang, are you ready to get your snap-shot from our sensor array?”