We All Died at Breakaway Station

by Richard C. Meredith

  She turned back to her instruments, caught a malfunction at its earliest beginnings, relayed this information to higher authority and bypassed the faulty circuit. Another section of the FTL communications station had failed‌—‌a tiny, insignificant part, this one, but just one of many that continued to fail as the station weakened further, as overloaded components refused to carry loads that far beyond their design ratings. And out there, on the surface, other sections and components, bathed in nuclear radiation, seared by energy beams, ceased to carry their load as well. The magnificent thing that had been Breakaway Station was dying, but it was dying hard.

  “Post seven,” a voice broke in suddenly, coming from the speaker mounted in the wall near her.

  “Post seven, Brandt here,” Sheila replied.

  “Prepare to accept diversion from post four, four hundred watts, second level modulation, channel 772. Repeat for confirmation.”

  “I can’t,” Sheila cried, looking at her own instrumentation, seeing that her own circuits were working at capacity.

  “Post seven!” the voice from the speaker said angrily. “You are better able to accept than other adjacent stations. Make adjustments and prepare to accept diversion.”

  “What adjustments?” Sheila cried in desperation.

  There was a pause while the voice on the other end considered.

  Outside, through the bubble above her, Sheila saw a barrage of missiles leap from Breakaway’s surface, climb flaming into the sky, rise to meet other Jillie missiles that fell toward the planet’s modulation station. Who’s winning? she wondered, and then told herself that it didn’t matter who was winning right now. It was only a matter of time until they lost, lost for good and forever.

  Finally the voice from the speaker said, “You are carrying channels 643, 659 and 682.”

  “Roger,” Sheila said automatically.

  “Ground them out,” the voice said brutally.

  “What?” Sheila asked.

  “Shunt them to ground,” the voice of her superior said. “You must accept diversion of channel 772.”

  “Acknowledge,” Sheila said, wondering what information was being carried on those channels, what information it was that had crossed the long light-years from the Paladine to Breakaway, and here on Breakaway they would be wiped out of existence, diverted into the great capacity of the planet.

  Her hands fell across controls and while she did as she had been ordered she felt that she was violating something holy, destroying something beautiful‌—‌though probably those channels carried nothing of any real importance.

  “Circuits cleared,” she said at last, her instruments showing that she was ready to accept the new channels of communication.

  “Very good, station seven,” said the speaker’s voice. “Diversion now…” The voice broke off into a squeal that climbed in pitch until it was so high that Sheila could not hear it.

  God, oh God, she said to herself as she felt the wall shaking around her, as a great thrust from the floor threw her off her feet. She staggered against the banks of instruments, grabbed for something to hold onto, felt the floor shudder again and lost her footing and fell.

  Her head struck something as she fell. For an instant the pain was blinding and she grappled to hold onto consciousness. She heard a great booming roar coming through the stone.

  As she finally managed to rise to her feet and shake the grayness from her mind, she heard, from a great distance away, a terrible hissing sound and she felt a wind against her cheek.

  “No!” she cried aloud, only half grasping the fact that the air seals had been broken, that faults had appeared in the stone around her, that the air she breathed was escaping into the thinness of Breakaway’s atmosphere.

  There was a locker somewhere that held breathing equipment for an emergency such as this. Where was it? She was unfamiliar with this area, but she knew that there must be…

  There was a rumbling of sliding metal as great hatches sealed off the depressurizing area, and for an instant Sheila felt comfort in that fact‌—‌until she realized that the closing doors were not sealing her off from the break, but with it. She was trapped.

  Sheila turned to run down the corridor to where she thought safety might be when the earth under her shook again and the paraglas dome above her broke, splitting into two uneven sections.

  “No, God, no,” she cried, gasping for air that was thinning faster than she would have thought possible. “No.”

  She staggered toward the locker, grasped its handle, pulled it open, and then felt the grayness taking her. She tried to breathe, tried to hold onto something like consciousness until she could get into the breathing equipment, but the grayness, the stifling lack of anything to take into her lungs grew greater and greater. Her eyes saw the locker stagger away from her. She grabbed for it, could not find it, fell backward and felt the waves of gray unconsciousness taking her.

  “No,” she cried into air that was barely thick enough to carry her words. “No.”

  Breakaway Station fought on. The Jillie warship pounded her with every weapon it possessed, but the remaining ground defenses of FTL communications station returned the fire of the Jillie, blew most of its missiles out of the sky, intercepted most of its energy beams.

  And at last, when it seemed that Breakaway could endure no more and still continue to relay it’s messages between the stars, the Jillie fell back, retreated to a safe orbit, and awaited the return of its companions so that together they could put an end to this human thing, this creation of mankind that dared defy the Jillie conception of how the universe ought to be run.

  General Herbert Crowinsky sighed relief, checked the signals coming in from Adrianopolis, hoped that the all-important Mothershed report would come soon, and then sat down at his desk and wept for those who were dead and those who were dying.

  And for himself.

  52

  “Engineering to bridge,” said a voice from the command console.

  “This is Maxel, go ahead.”

  “Pseudospeed generator three is showing signs of overheating, captain.”

  “How badly?” Maxel asked.

  “Not too bad yet, sir,” the engineering officer replied, “but it could be if we keep this up for long. Iwo isn’t in shape to be pushed this hard, sir.”

  “Watch it closely, but maintain acceleration.”

  “We’ll do our best, sir.”

  “Keep me informed,” Maxel said, turning away from the communicator of his console and looking at Bracer with a questioning expression on his face.

  “A while longer, Dan,” he said, “just a little while longer. We’ve got to take them as far as they’ll go.”

  Bracer looked up at the tank that showed the rearward view, the four tiny specks of light‌—‌subspectrum scanner data converted to light‌—‌that were slowly closing on the battered human ships. They won’t stay with us much longer, he thought. A little more of this and they’ll decide that they’ve wasted enough time, and then they’ll turn back toward Breakaway. The only way we can prevent that is to stop and fight‌—‌and even that won’t prevent it for very long.

  The chronometer had now ticked away three and a half hours since the brief battle off Breakaway. Commander Lasin had said that it would take at least six hours, maybe eight, for the patrol ship that Ommart had sent to get to the scene of Mothershed’s battle, pick up the admiral and his reports, and then return them to Adrianopolis for transmission to Earth‌—‌six hours if the rescue ship could get in to Mothershed at once, if it did not have to join in the battle with the Jillies and fight its way into the admiral and attempt a transfer under fire‌—‌and all that with an unknown factor like the young Guardian Culhaven, about whom Bracer knew nothing. Six hours, maybe eight hours, maybe even more than that, and then the time needed to transmit the reports. So‌—‌how much time Breakaway must stay alive was anybody’s guess‌—‌but how long it was actually going to be a functioning FTL station was not a great p
eriod of time. A few hours. Perhaps long enough. Perhaps.

  “Mr. Darbi, are all weapons stations ready?” he asked aloud.

  “Ready and in good shape, sir,” the weapons control officer answered. “Very good. Miss Cyanta, raise the Pharsalus and Cragstone.”

  So little time, Bracer thought, so very little time for any of us left. And this time you know you’re going to die, die for good. This is it!

  For a moment Absolom Bracer wondered what his life had been good for, why it had been worth all the trouble. It had been good for a lot of things, he supposed. He had done most of what he had set out to do in his youth, and, all in all, it hadn’t been such a bad life. He had rather enjoyed it, most of it. Oh, of course, he thought, there had been a few things that he had missed. Like his last visit to Earth. And there had been a time when he had hoped to see an end of this damned, senseless war, had hoped to settle down with Donna‌—‌God, Donna, I miss you‌—‌and raise a family, but he hadn’t thought about that sort of thing for a long time now. He hadn’t thought another woman could ever replace Donna. But then there had been‌—‌there was‌—‌Eday Cyanta, and once, only a few days ago really, but it seemed like ages, when the thought had been in his mind that after they had returned to Earth, and after he had been made into a real man again, well, perhaps he and Eday could have found something. It might have been possible…

  But he had wanted to be a starship captain, and he had made it, and hadn’t been a bad one. And later he had even hoped to make admiral, and now he had done that too, though he would never have an opportunity to wear his gold braid in a Terran officer’s club. But then how important was that?

  Yes, Absolom Bracer thought, standing on the bridge of the starship Iwo Jima, looking out at the endless and unknown universe before him, it’s been a pretty good life, all in all. I don’t regret it, I just wish there were more of it.

  “Captains Medawar and Bugioli are on, sir,” Eday Cyanta said.

  She would have made a man a good wife if she had ever had the chance, Bracer thought, looking back at her, catching her eyes.

  “Very good,” he said aloud. “Dan.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Come in on this.”

  The images of the two starship captains appeared in the divided tank. Quickly, to cover up his own uncertainty, Bracer began to speak.

  “They’re going to get tired of this soon and head back toward Breakaway. We’ve got to delay that. So we’ll split up. We’ve held our present formation too long as it is. The Iwo will angle off to the right, 30°, Pharsalus will do the same to the left. We will maintain our present acceleration for another fifteen minutes. Then we will cease accelerating, but maintain the speed we have reached at that time. This will give the Jillies a chance to catch up with us.” He paused. “We’ve got to let them do that now.”

  Zoe Medawar’s face, of course, showed no expression; Lena Bugioli’s little more.

  “Captain Medawar,” he went on, “we must assume that the Jillies still don’t know what you are. They will have to assume that you are a very large warship‌—‌and will act accordingly. They have one heavy battle cruiser and three mediums. I would guess that they’ll take the heavy and probably one of the mediums after you, and leave a medium apiece for us.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Keep your screens up and run when they get close. With any kind of luck at all, the Iwo and Pharsalus can knock out the mediums they send after us and then come to help you. So just hold out as long as you can.”

  What kind of conscienceless bastard are you, Absolom Bracer, a part of his mind asked, to send a hospital ship full of dead men into battle? Don’t you know that you’re destroying forever their chances of revival? Dammit, let the Cragstone make a run for the stars and hold back the Jillies as best you and Bugioli can. But that‌—‌that wouldn’t be long enough to do Breakaway a damned bit of good. Cragstone can decoy them for a while, just a little while, and that will be of some help. Can you weigh the Cragstone’s values against Breakaway’s and the FTL link and Mothershed’s report? What the hell can you do? And suddenly he found that he did not hate Paolo Ommart quite so much. He knew how he must have felt.

  “Okay,” he said to his captains, “good luck to all of you‌—‌and thank you.”

  Without waiting for a reply, Bracer snapped off the communicator of the command console.

  53

  The autocrat of the starship must have begun to feel frustration, must have been on the verge of turning the bows of its warships back and completing its mission regardless of what the three ships it was chasing did. But then things changed, and it did not turn back toward the world that men called Breakaway.

  The three human starships that fled from the Jillies angled apart, and then, fifteen minutes later as men reckon time, ceased accelerating. The autocrat of the flagship must have felt something like satisfaction that at last the cowardly Terrans had ceased their running and had turned to stand and fight like klaj should do.

  The Jillie warships maintained their own acceleration for a while and the gap between them and the humans closed.

  Perhaps the autocrat said to itself, “Shibeeesh are dying.” Then again perhaps it really didn’t care.

  54

  “Weapons, prepare to fire on sync,” Captain Maxel ordered as a single Jillie medium battle cruiser came into weapons range.

  I was right, Bracer told himself. The Jillies split their forces just as I predicted. Funny. Roger was right, of course. The Jillies are rational beings, of a sort at least.

  They have to be. But still it was odd. We can imagine what they’re going to do in a situation like this, when decisions are made on a more or less logical basis, but, well, in the really big things, like whether to make war or not, we can’t even understand their decisions. Just how rational are they? Well, how rational are we when it really counts? How often are the big decisions based on anything that makes sense?

  “Prepare to cut star drive,” Bracer ordered. “Engineering here, sir. Standing by to cut star drive.”

  “Dan?”

  “We’re ready.”

  “Okay. Give them hell,” Bracer said. “Cut pseudospeed.”

  An instant of dissociation‌—‌and the starship was hanging virtually motionless in space.

  Ghostlike, the Jillie warship flashed by. “Nuclear drive, stand by,” Captain Maxel said. “Standing by.”

  They’re efficient, Bracer told himself, these damned cripples and half-men. Goddam, they’re efficient!

  “Fire nuclear drive in one minute.”

  “Nuclear drive, one minute,” came the acknowledgment.

  “All weapons stations, stand by.”

  “Standing by,” Akin Darbi answered.

  The Jillie warship turned, came back toward the Iwo Jima, came out of star drive less than five hundred kilometers away.

  “Weapons fire on sync at my command,” Maxel ordered.

  “Standing by,” Darbi repeated.

  “Okay, Dan,” Bracer said calmly, much more calmly than he expected he could.

  “Open up!” Maxel snapped. “Fire at will.”

  The Iwo Jima’s missiles, plasma torpedoes and energy cannon began blasting space through momentary, synchronized gaps in her force screens, all her planet-wrecking weaponry aimed toward the enemy medium battle cruiser that crept toward her.

  “How long do you think the Cragstone can hold out?” Maxel asked as the first nuclear missiles from the Iwo began to explode against the Jillie’s screens, as the Jillie began to return their fire.

  “Let’s don’t fool ourselves, Dan,” Bracer said slowly as waves of nearly forgotten pain began to wash over his body, his mind. “She can’t last long‌—‌not nearly long enough for us to help her, if we could ever help her at all.”

  The space between the Jillie and the Iwo closed slowly, a space laced with the firing of weapons.

  She’s just a medium, Bracer told himself. We can take her. Can we? a part of
his mind asked. In our shape, can we handle even that by ourselves?

  Artificial eyes scanning the tanks, Bracer picked out the sphere of the Cragstone, now a brightly glowing ball, rich and metallic as her fields deflected wave after wave of energy. Jillie plasma torpedoes danced in her shifting electromagnetic fields, bounced toward the ship, then away, in a fantastic, unholy dance.

  The chronometer ticked. Time passed. Energy blazed in space. The Iwo Jima fired at her opponent and her opponent fired back.

  Bracer scanned the tanks again. …roger…

  …yes, admiral…

  …cragstone is in trouble. How much more can she take?…

  …little more, sir. We’ve lost all contact with her‌—‌with the pharsalus too…

  Bracer looked back at the tanks, found the LSS Pharsalus. Like the Cragstone she was surrounded by flaming energy, enfolded in hell.

  …my god, roger, she can’t even fire back…

  …no, sir, she can’t, not anymore, even a momentary weapons’ gap in her screens would‌—‌…

  Space was lighted by an artificial nova, this one brighter even than that of the exploding Jillie ship of‌—‌was it hours or ages before? Tanks darkened to avoid overload, but even with the stars blotted out, Absolom Bracer knew what that explosion was. The Rudoph Cragstone’s screens had failed. The hospital ship was gone. Zoe Medawar, Gautier Lindquist, twenty thousand cold-sleepers, gone.

  The chronometer ticked. Somewhere, millions upon millions of kilometers away, dying Breakaway Station fought for its life, for a few more moments of life, and while it did it still functioned. Somehow Bracer knew that. The FTL link, the subspectrum chain was still whole. For a while.