Müller approached her once more.
“As soon as we are refuelled, we will go after this patrol ship.” He lowered his voice, and said, “I do not rate high our chances of destroying it but, with luck, we will at least damage it. As I told you, we have a full load of munitions. We will use them well.”
Yrden extended her hand, and Müller took it.
“Stay alive and rejoin us, Major.”
He smiled grimly. “One hopes. One does not have high expectations. I will take three fighters, and leave two. They will hide behind your station. If this patrol ship approaches to aid those now fighting inside, they will have to drop shields. Then my last two fighters may be able to do something.”
He took her hand. “Keep my people safe, if you can.”
Then turned to mount his fighter. Jaswinder had to fight back the tears.
* * *
Venture
Dave Patterson sweated with the rest of the Cargo handlers to fix the two workboats in position.
“Be sad to lose them,” he said to Wen.
“They’re going to save Haida Gwaii,” Wen replied. He stepped into Workboat-3, and activated its systems.
“How so?”
“Later. Get my personal pallet down, S43. Then send everyone but Carly back to their acceleration chairs.”
Dave shrugged, dismissed his crew, and went into his office.
His personal pallet. His revenge. For Lil. Those bastards would die for what they did to 684. He walked over to Workboat-4, and performed the same procedure. Venture could now control the boats from a distance.
His pallet appeared just as he exited Workboat-4.
“We need to secure it in the loading bay, Dave.”
Together with Carly, they shifted the heavy pallet and fastened it with straps to fasten-holds in the deck.
“Your spec cargo?” Carly asked.
“Looks like I’m not going to become a wealthy trader, Carly.”
“You can have mine, too, if it will help.”
He smiled at her offer. “Kind of you, but it won’t help. This is for me. It’s revenge. Those bastards will die.”
She stepped back at the vehemence of his words, and he cursed himself. He shouldn’t have said anything. Still, best she knew what she would get if she wanted him. Not a nice man at all. One with only one thing left driving him.
“Okay, here’s how this works. You two take the acceleration chairs in Dave’s office. When you get the signal, Dave, you jettison the workboats. Close the hatch, air up as fast as possible, and then pull these rods out. That’ll allow my boxes to open. Then get back to your chairs as fast as possible. You can start pumping out the air again, but you may not have time. It doesn’t matter. When you get the second signal, you open the hatch again. Then hold on.”
“Hold on?” Carly asked, but Wen had already began to jog to the hold’s exit.
* * *
Haida Gwaii
By the time Jaswinder had returned to the Command Centre, the two scientists had arrived and were seated in chairs. She went to check the detectors, saw the Germans launching. Moments later three of them started a maximum burn. The other two drifted to the lee side of the station, where the bulk of Haida Gwaii would give them cover from the patrol ship’s detectors.
She clenched her jaw. She had just sent fifteen men and women to their doom. She turned around, feeling anything but welcoming.
“So, you’re Dr Burnett,” she said. “I’m Jaswinder Yrden. Pleased to meet you. Now, tell me why Ken thinks you’re important enough to bring here, for us to have given you and your soldiers sanctuary, even if this unpleasantness hadn’t made your soldiers very valuable?”
“Jazz,” Johannes remonstrated. “Don’t bite her head off.” He turned to Burnett. “I’m Johannes Yrden. Right now, Captain of this little lot.” He glanced back at his station. “Ferguson, can’t we get a little more out of the gravetic drive? That cruiser’ll be here long before we get far enough away from the Moon to jump and still have a chance of surviving.”
“Faster we go, the more we’ll have to slow down again before we can jump, Johannes.”
“Damned if you do; damned if you don’t.”
Dr Burnett began to explain about her program, which would instil skills into someone through what she called ‘sleep-learning’. It sounded fairly far-fetched. She held out her prospectus, but stopped mid-word when the hatch to the passageway opened, and gunfire sounded. Jaswinder spun around, and saw three soldiers stride in, weapons up and pointed at the control room personnel.
“Well, what have we here?” their leader said. He leaned out the entranceway. “You two, guard the door,” he said to someone out of view. “We’ll end this from in here.
“So, Doctor Burnett, I see you’re the cause of some of my difficulties. Still, I’m pleased you escaped from Topside One. This time, though, you’ll do exactly as I say, when I say it, or,” he pointed his weapon at Arch Grant, Dr Burnett’s aide, “this man will die very painfully.”
Jaswinder watched in shock as he shifted his aim to Johannes even while watching her. “You will put out a call for your people to lay down their weapons. Otherwise your husband, here, dies.”
“Don’t do it, Jazz,” Johannes said.
“He dies, and then we evacuate the air from various parts of this station,” the leader continued, shifting his gaze, looking at Johannes contemptuously. “Go ahead; try it, if you think that’s your duty.”
Jaswinder heard a roaring in her ears. She couldn’t concentrate. She couldn’t lose Johannes now, not when they had put aside all that had come between them. What? What was Burnett saying?
“I’m happy to see you, Colonel.” She took a step closer to the man. “Jensen and his crew brought some of the bio-back suits and some of the control equipment with them. They used that – and me – as payment to get them asylum. Dr Grant made the suggestion. I don’t like being used – not by you, and certainly not by them. But I had a contract with you; I can trust you, even if we don’t see eye-to-eye on everything.”
The traitor! She, Jaswinder, would die before she co-operated with the colonel. She closed her eyes as the scientist offered up her partner to slake the colonel’s blood lust.
“I think we can use him – I could use him – but he’s not vital.”
“Dr Burnett, please,” Grant reached towards her with a supplicating hand.
“Shut up.”
The colonel smiled, and Jaswinder saw his finger tightening on the trigger. Transfixed, unable to turn away, to close her eyes, she knew she was about to see a murder take place right in front of her.
Then Burnett turned quickly and thrust with the prospectus, now tightly rolled. It struck end on, crushing the colonel’s larynx. He dropped his rifle, hands going to his throat. Burnett dropped her prospectus, and grabbed Westorn’s pistol from its holster.
She turned and shot each of the two remaining soldiers, calmly, efficiently. Jaswinder’s ears hurt, the explosions loud and sharp. Burnett went to stand over the colonel, who had collapsed, and looked down on him, no pity in her eyes, on her face.
“Your program, Colonel,” she told him as Johannes, Nick and Lorrie grabbed the fallen weapons. “Very effective, as you know.” Desperate for air that would not come, the colonel stared up at her. “Goodbye, Colonel.”
* * *
Venture
Monday 31 August
Wen arrived at the bridge, breathing heavily, and took First Pilot’s chair. He opened the public address.
“Hold on. This may get a little rough.”
“Ken, I want you to use manoeuvring thrusters to send us port, starboard, dorsal and ventral at odd times. Me, I need to calculate.”
Bettina interrupted his attempt at calculations. “What good will that do?” she asked as the ship jolted to starboard.
“It’s an attempt to throw off their aiming. We don’t want them to put a beam on us before we put one on them. And they likely have more power than we
do.”
Ritter shook his head. “It won’t work. They can target us anyway.”
Wen gave up calculating for the moment. “What would you do if you were them and saw us executing the same manoeuvre?”
Ritter laughed.
“Exactly,” Wen said. “They’ll laugh. They’ll take one look at our pathetic attempts to play the warrior, and dismiss us out of hand. When we get good and close, when they decide they’ve had enough fun at our expense, they’ll drop their shields and let us have it. ‘Amateurs,’ they’ll say.” He felt his hands starting to tremble. “They’ll laugh until I kill them. Now let me calculate.”
He saw Ritter exchange glances with the captain, and then ignored them both. At least the captain hadn’t thrown him off the bridge.
“Three shuttle-fighters going to maximum burn behind us,” Owen reported. “Must be the Germans. Mom’s sent them to help.”
Ritter shook his head. “They’ll have about as much chance as we do of taking out that ship. It’s a suicide run for them; they can’t jump.” He studied the navigation tank. “And they won’t be able to catch us up to support us unless we slow down.”
“Johannes calling again.”
Bettina sighed. “Put him through.”
“Bettina, the Germans launched three fighters to engage the patrol ship. But they say even that is just a forlorn hope. Don’t risk Venture. Don’t risk our people. Jump.”
Carson engaged the main thrusters again.
“Ken, plot me a course that will send us across their bow at about a twenty degree angle. We want to cross it exactly 100 kilometers away.”
“Jesus! At the speed we’ll be going by then, that’s less than ten seconds separation.”
“Dropping shields. Put the beam on them.”
“Yes!” Jordan cried out. “We have them. I’m using low power, or we’d burn out the beam long before we got near them. But I can shift to full power in an instant, and they’ll know that.”
“Good man,” Carson said, never slacking their acceleration. “Keep them lit up.”
He turned his attention to Ritter. “Ken, cease manoeuvring.”
Opening the Comm, he called Cargo. “Dave, launch workboats.”
Johannes’s voice came through again. “For the love of all we hold dear, Bettina, jump!”
Bettina looked over to Carson. He saw her, and added more thrust.
“Trust me,” he begged.
“Sorry, Johannes, we’re committed.” She turned to the Comm Tech. “Cut communications.”
“Carson, we have to stop accelerating. If we hit anything at this speed without our shields up, we’ll hole ourselves for sure.”
“Yes, we will,” Carson said, sounding grimly happy about it.
* * *
In the starboard acceleration lounge, Angela watched the seats ahead of her twist back and forth as the ship jinked from side to side. The farmers – for most of the passengers in the starboard lounge had come from the life-pod rescue – had no idea what reason they had for doing this. The youngest male, a tall boy, the last one to leave the life-pod, seemed to enjoy it, as if he were on some sort of fair ride.
Rolf, seated one row below her – to her right side whenever the acceleration came from the rear – looked up at her.
“It’ll be okay.”
But he looked worried. Engaging a patrol ship with a freighter reeked of insanity. But if they didn’t, all the dreams of all the Families would die with Haida Gwaii. Rolf had told her what they intended to do with the workboats. She felt a small thrill. Wen’s work hadn’t been for nothing. Maybe he could get them out of this. He had been, after all, First Pilot on 684.
Then again, it might not work. Angela looked down at Rolf. Better not to leave it unsaid. “I love you.”
He reached up his hand and gave hers a squeeze. “I love you, too.”
* * *
“Carson, why haven’t you accelerated the workboats. They need to be in front of us, not behind. Once we pass the patrol ship, we won’t be able to keep our beam on them. They’ll be able to drop shields, and then destroy the workboats at a distance.”
“Exactly Captain. That’s when I kill them.”
The hatred, the determination in his voice took her aback. They had now gone well beyond maximum insertion velocity; she could no longer jump. She could only pray that Carson knew what he was doing.
Carson triggered the comm. “You ready, Dave?”
“Ready, Wen.”
“Ken, activate the workboats. Send them to rendezvous with our target, full thrust.”
“Workboats activated.”
The patrol ship and Venture now hurtled towards each other. But their courses didn’t intersect. There would be no collision, and the pirate knew that. He didn’t change course at all. He merely had to wait for Venture to pass, drop his shields, destroy the workboats, take out the Germans, and then Haida Gwaii would belong to him.
“Ken, give me a countdown to our crossing his path.”
“Two minutes, ten seconds.”
“Dave, now!”
“Two minutes.”
At one minute, Wen began to spin Venture about her longitudinal axis, slowly then ever faster.
“Kill the beam, prepare to raise shields ... for all the good it will do us. Communications, send to them, ‘This is for Lil and Amalgamated 684.’”
“No!” Bettina shouted before she could stop herself.
“Kill beam!”
“Beam off.”
“Twenty seconds.”
The rotation became almost unbearable.
“Enemy has dropped shields!” Owen half-shouted. “Firing missiles!”
* * *
ETO Shuttle Anton-1
Major Karl Müller looked at his NavTank.
“We cannot catch them, Erika.”
“They are no match for a patrol ship. They will die.”
He feared that she had the right of it. He looked over to her. Major Erika Baumeister, colleague, fellow soldier, lover. They would end this wild ride together, would die together. He had hoped for so much more.
Leutnant Kelner reported, “Herr Major, the Venture has lit him with her beam weapon.” A moment or three passed. “It does not penetrate the shields.”
Of course it failed. The Nord-Amis would not have so weak a shield on a vessel designed for war. The Venture would fail, and then it would fall to his three pathetic shuttle-fighters.
“Venture has launched workboats.”
Interesting.
Erika looked at the NavTank. “Do you think Venture intends to ram?”
They watched closely, but the ships would not meet. Just as well. He would hate to see the poor freighter scattered in one hundred thousand pieces, bodies floating in space.
“Venture has raised shields; beam has lost target.”
And now the patrol vessel would kill them all, Venture included.
“Prepare to launch all missiles.”
He reached out to Erika, and squeezed her hand. Too late they had found each other.
“Patrol vessel has launched missiles.” Kelner watched his screen with an intentness Müller had not before seen. Imminent death causes one to concentrate, he supposed. “Targeting workboats.”
“I hope they operate by remote,” Erika said. “Please, Der Herr Gott, no pilots were sent to die so hopelessly.”
As if they had not volunteered to die hopelessly, too.
“First workboat destroyed; second workboat destroyed.”
“A worthy gambit,” Müller said. They had but a minute to live.
“Launch!”
Antons Two and Three would wait until the first exploding missiles from Anton One momentarily fouled the enemy’s screens before launching together.
“Herr Major!”
“Yes, Leutnant?”
“The patrol vessel does not raise shields; it does not activate ECM.” He paused. “It does not react.”
Unbelieving, Müller watched as his missi
les struck the patrol ship, killing it. Not enough. “Anton 2, launch missiles.”
Erika turned to him. “Why?”
“Earth is gone, liebling. The factories that produce munitions are no more. We do not want anyone to salvage missiles from the wreck.”
More missiles tore the wreckage into smaller pieces, and the ship’s munitions began to explode.
“Alter course. We do not wish to fly into that,” Kelner advised.
Müller changed course. He looked at Erika. “We live.” Even to him, his words sounded more a question than a statement.
“We live,” she agreed. “But we have not the fuel to return to Haida Gwaii.”
* * *
Venture
“Missiles impacting patrol ship,” Owen said, not believing his own words.
“Wen, what did you do?” Captain Bettina asked
Owen looked up from the detectors. Wen’s expression held such sorrow that he had to look away again.
“Remember when you told me to use centrifugal force to eject cargo in order to make it more difficult for the pirates to pick it up?”
“What did you eject?”
He gave a wan smile. “My spec cargo. I gave them a cloud of twenty-five thousand marbles – and they flew through it at a relative speed in excess of fifty thousand kilometers per hour ... without shields up.”
“Merciful heavens.”
“Germans have fired more missiles. Missiles hitting. Oh! Must have hit their magazines. Patrol ship exploding.”
“Message from the Germans. They wish to know if they can come aboard. They say they don’t have the fuel to return to Haida Gwaii.”
Bettina nodded. “Tell them affirmative. Have them affix themselves to our pod latches.”
Carson unstrapped himself and stood. “Captain. I request permission to stand down and return to my room.”
Captain Bettina considered him. Owen thought he looked utterly beaten. ‘For Lil’, he had said. Perhaps this would end it.
Not With A Whimper: Survivors Page 37