Star Carrier (Lost Colonies Trilogy Book 3)

by B. V. Larson

  Vogel agreed, and we both sat brooding over our next move.

  The idea of defending the Council with my life and the lives of my crew bothered me, but then so did the prospect of leaving Earth undefended. They had me boxed in. For now, I was forced to do my utmost to protect everyone on Earth—whether they deserved it or not.

  “We have to continue the mission,” I said, “even if it plays into the Council’s hands.”

  “Agreed,” Vogel said. “Those bastards don’t deserve our loyalty, but what else can we do?”

  We broke up the meeting and returned to our posts. Both of us were a little wiser, but we were by no means comforted by these new thoughts.

  -35-

  Okto pursued me doggedly. As we got closer to the next breach in the sequence Admiral Perez had written for us, it became increasingly clear she wouldn’t be able to catch up.

  Still, it wasn’t going to be for a lack of trying. The acceleration arc of her ship was such that it might have killed a normal human crew. Her people were enduring tremendous physical challenges to pursue us.

  Only when we approached the breach did the true nature of her plans begin to become clear.

  “We’ll have to slow down, Captain,” Rumbold said. “This breach is bouncing all over the place.”

  I strode to his side, checked the measurements and then moved to Durris’ planning table.

  “Why weren’t we aware of this previously?”

  He shrugged. “You can’t get good readings on a breach when you’re several AUs away. The radiation signatures are too faint. But Rumbold is right, this breach is unstable. It’s liable to shift a thousand meters every few minutes. If we approach with too much velocity—”

  “We’ll be unable to make a course correction in time and shoot right past it,” I finished for him. “Damn it... Okto knew this all along. She knew that this had to be the breach we were heading for as it’s the only one out here. Further, she had to know we couldn’t detect how unstable it was. She’s going to catch up when we slow down.”

  Durris nodded helplessly. He knew I wasn’t interested in apologies. I valued results, so he didn’t offer any phantom solutions.

  “Hmm…” I said, pacing the deck. We were no longer accelerating, but coasting along in preparation for entering the breach.

  “Captain?” Durris asked. “I’ve plotted a new set of maneuvers. If we begin braking now—”

  I shook my head, and he fell silent.

  “I’m thinking,” I said, “what velocity are you estimating Okto will reach when she hits the breach?”

  “If we begin to slow down now, she’ll be moving about twenty percent faster than we are currently.”

  “Isn’t she slowing down as well?”

  “No,” Durris admitted, checking his instruments to confirm his answer. “She’s not. I can only assume she knows this breach-point’s behavior pattern. She’s predicting a point where they can make a high-speed entry.”

  “Ah-ha!” I said, daring to give him a tight smile. “Let’s match her course precisely then. We can certainly project it—she must be blazing along after us at full burn.”

  Durris shook his head sadly. “No Captain, I tried that. She’s making random course variations. At first I thought she was worried we might have left mines in our wake, but now I believe she’s trying to hide her exact course.”

  “So we can’t match it…” I said, deflating.

  “Exactly.”

  “All right then. We’ll have to take a risk. To be eighty percent certain we’ll hit the target, how much would we have to slow down?”

  Durris turned back to his boards, frowning. He sighed when he’d finished.

  “We have to begin slowing right now to achieve that goal. Every minute that passes is increasing the odds of a high-speed miss by about one percent.”

  This news alarmed me. “We’re at eighty percent? Right now?”

  “Seventy-nine.”

  “There’s no way to rectify this?”

  “We could perform an emergency deceleration, but there will be injuries. Further, we’ll be at their mercy when they catch up to us.”

  “Apply the brakes. Get us to eighty percent.”

  He turned to his boards and all around us crewmen began strapping in and bracing themselves.

  I made an announcement over the ship’s com system to the entire crew. “All hands, get to an acceleration couch! We’re going to be braking hard. This is no drill—you have seconds in which to comply!”

  The pain began soon afterward. The lights on the command deck went yellow, then orange, then red. The ship was built to withstand this kind of abuse, but the humans aboard weren’t. I found myself wishing Zye were here with us. She’d always been able to withstand more Gs than the rest of us. In a way, she belonged aboard Defiant more than any other crewmember as the ship had been built by her people, for her physique.

  Pressed back into my seat with terrific force, I was close to blacking out when I suddenly shook myself. I’d almost begun dreaming. The pressure—it was too much.

  “Ease off,” I ordered. “Rumbold? Ease off!”

  Rumbold didn’t respond. Durris grunted, crawling hand over hand along the railing toward the helm. He was trying to follow my orders. I waved him back and slid out of my swiveling chair. I was much closer to the goal than he was.

  The full pressure of heavy deceleration brought me to my knees. Humans could withstand high G forces with proper support, but only for short periods of time. We’d been on full thrust for too long. The oppressive force from braking had begun to mess with our guts and play with our minds.

  Managing to crawl to Rumbold’s station, I killed the thrusters, returning them to a relatively mild one-point-five rate. We were still sick and heavy, but we were able to function.

  All over the ship, people had lost consciousness. Several of my command crew were lolling in their seats.

  “Durris,” I grunted out as I crept back to my chair, “what are our odds now?”

  “I can’t get back to my tabletop to check…” he said from the deck. He was lying flat on his back, his breathing labored. “…sorry Captain.”

  “It’s all right,” I said, “we’ll make it, or we won’t. Rest until you’re fit to resume your duties. We’ll know the outcome soon enough.”

  “Breach in thirty seconds,” the ship’s computer said. We’d recently taught it to talk when we were back at Araminta Station. “Acceleration rate non-standard.”

  No shit, I thought to myself vaguely. I’d made it back to my chair, but I was envying Durris who was still flat on his back.

  With an effort, I swiveled my attention to the forward screen. The anomaly was right there, dead ahead. Undetectable to the human eye without instruments, we had many names for these twisted patches of space-time. Wormholes, warp-fields, ER bridges…

  That was all I had time to think about before the anomaly loomed, and we went into the final plunge.

  -36-

  Defiant went into shutdown mode the moment we were through. Durris had programmed the computer to ease-down once we’d crossed the barrier.

  In this case, it was a good thing. We were in no condition to control the battle cruiser properly when we first breached. As far as I knew, we were traveling at speeds no ship from Earth had matched in more than a century.

  Even more alarming, space seemed odd on the far side of this particular breach. It was colorful and gaseous. That didn’t bode well.

  “Durris… are you awake, man?”

  “I’m on it, Captain,” he said, struggling to his knees.

  There was a gash on the side of his head, and blood dripped down onto his uniform now that he’d removed his helmet.

  “How did you get injured?”

  “I’m not quite sure, sir…”

  He looked dazed, so I ordered him to a seat and summoned a corpsman to the command deck.

  My attention turned to Yamada, who seemed to be in better condition. “I need a fu
ll sensor-sweep and a summary report,” I told her.

  “I’m on it.”

  Within minutes, during which we continued braking, she had the report.

  “This hyperspace isn’t normal,” she said. “In fact, it’s quite small. Sir… from my experience, we’ve only seen this type of space once before.”

  I nodded, studying the data. I already knew what she was going to say, I’d only wanted confirmation.

  “This is an artificial breach, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “I think so. Like the ones we encountered a year ago. As far as we know, only the Stroj are capable of creating a bridge like this one.”

  Most—almost all—ER bridges we’d encountered were natural phenomena. Theoretically, they were created between two or more star systems by gravitational warping of local space. Like exoplanets, they were once thought to be rare or that they only existed in theory. In actual practice, we’d found they were commonplace.

  This one, however, was different. It had been created purposefully. The Stroj were the only people we’d met capable of building their own bridges between stars of their choosing. Even so, it took a vast amount of energy to do so. Often, a portion of a star’s mass was used up in the process. The resulting bridge was weak and unstable in comparison to a naturally occurring one.

  “This bridge seems to fit the profile precisely,” Yamada continued. “No wonder a Stroj imposter knew about it—his people probably built it.”

  “You said it’s different,” I prompted “different in what way?”

  She shook her head. “It’s gaseous. Not much, not enough to burn our hull with our forward shields up, but it could get thicker. If it turns into dust ahead…”

  “Oh, I see. Apply heavier braking!”

  Rumbold was back in the game by this time. He lurched to his seat, snorting as if waking from a nap. He leaned forward, eyes rolling over his instruments, and selected a control. He applied his hand to it, giving it a tweak.

  We all rocked in our seats as reverse thrust was applied. A few people stumbled and cursed.

  “Take it easy, Rumbold,” I said. “We’ve got injuries aboard.

  “Sorry Captain… I must have nodded off.”

  I laughed and turned back to Yamada.

  “Are you watching for Okto?” I asked her.

  “Yes… so far she hasn’t arrived.”’

  “She should have by now. According to my calculations, she should have hit the breach and joined us in this bridge about two minutes ago.”

  “The fact that she hasn’t indicates she must have hit her brakes as well,” Yamada said.

  “Either that, or she steered clear of the breach entirely. Maybe she only wanted to chase us out of the Beta Cygnus system.”

  Yamada shook her head. “That isn’t what I would expect. I’ve studied Beta behavioral profiles since they were first rediscovered.”

  I stared at her for a moment. It felt so odd that I could remember Zye, and she couldn’t. It had created a gap between us, a gulf I had trouble reaching across.

  “What’s wrong, Captain?” she asked.

  I touched my forehead. “That was a rough breach.”

  “Yeah, I almost lost consciousness. Do you want to take a break? I could—”

  “No,” I said, “I’m fine, thank you. Keep watching for the Beta ships.”

  Behind Okto were several others. They might be catching up to her by now if she had slowed down hard enough to let them.

  Time ticked by. Four minutes passed.

  I began to relax. Perhaps the threat had eased. Okto and her people were tenacious, but not to the point of insanity. If they knew this was an artificial breach—and I had no doubt they did know the truth—then they had to know it was dangerous. Perhaps they’d decided to let us go and return to the task of defending their homeworld.

  One more minute passed, and during that time, I managed to convince myself that we’d escaped the Betas. It was a great relief. The odds of them coming through now were remote. The enemy ships would have had to decelerate so hard it would have killed a normal human.

  At that precise instant, the moment at which I calculated we were in the clear, the Beta ships appeared.

  “Captain,” Yamada said, “I’ve got three contacts.”

  “Where?” I demanded.

  “Behind us. At the breach. They all just appeared together.”

  I froze for a moment in disbelief. “Okto?”

  “It has to be her, sir.”

  Nodding slowly, numbly, I had Yamada display the tactical situation on the forward screen. Three Beta battle cruisers, each a match for Defiant, had appeared at the breach. They were going relatively slowly, but I had no doubt they would increase speed once they spotted us in this gassy chunk of space-time.

  “They waited to get grouped-up before they came through,” Rumbold said. “Didn’t we ambush Okto the last time she followed us into a breach?”

  “I believe we did,” I said.

  “I bet she didn’t want to suffer a repeat performance, Captain. She waited for her friends before daring to enter here.”

  His analysis was logical, but unwelcome.

  “Sir!” Yamada said, “Okto is hailing us.”

  “On screen.”

  We waited for a few seconds until a scratchy image appeared. Talking ship to ship in hyperspace was possible, but it always seemed to be difficult. The radio signals had a difficult time handshaking and maintaining a coherent channel.

  Okto glared at us. “We shall destroy you, Sparhawk. Don’t run. You’ve already embarrassed Earth enough.”

  “Suicide impresses no one, Okto,” I said. “Fortunately, your ships are slow. We’ve improved upon Defiant, rebuilding her engines and her instrumentation.”

  What I was saying had some basis in fact, but that didn’t make my crew any happier. They were staring at me in slack-jawed surprise.

  “Rumbold, all-ahead full. Let’s head for the exit.”

  “But…” I knew he wanted to say we had no idea yet where that was, but he kept his mouth shut after I gave him a hard glance. “All-ahead full, Captain.”

  The deck lurched under my feet again, and we began accelerating. All this stopping and starting was enough to make a man nauseous, but such was the life of every spacer in Star Guard.

  “You flee again!” raged Okto. “You are without honor! You’re a cur who dodges the boot and runs away not even daring to stand and snap at the heels of your betters!”

  Her words were aggravating, but I contained my response.

  “Not so, Captain,” I said. “We’re doing battle even now—but on our terms.”

  I turned to Durris, who was back at his post looking hunched.

  “Commander Durris, release three of our largest missiles. Maximum yield. Target one of the enemy vessels with each bird.”

  “But Captain—”

  “Do it now. This isn’t the time to be merciful.”

  He stared at me for a half-second with his mouth open, but then turned back to his boards and fired one missile at each of the pursuing ships.

  “Birds away, Captain,” he said in a dull voice.

  “Excellent,” I said, turning back to the blue, glowing pickups and Okto’s angry face.

  She’d been watching us with an expression of alarm and irritation.

  “My apologies Captain Okto,” I said. “Our missiles may prove too much for your battle cruisers. In that case, I promise to notify Beta command of the loss the next time I visit your system. Please remember: you gave me no choice.”

  Her mouth transformed into a confused snarl, but I signaled Yamada to cut the channel. It closed instantly.

  Rumbold let out a guffaw of laughter the moment the woman’s face was gone. Durris was less pleased.

  “Sir, I hope you realize those missiles I just fired were nothing but standard-issue ordnance.”

  “He knows that, you stiff!” Rumbold boomed. “He’s bluffing them!”

  Durris turned back
to me in surprise. “I thought you didn’t like to lie, Captain.”

  “I didn’t lie,” I said. “I misled. There’s a big difference.”

  Rumbold snorted and laughed aloud again.

  “Captain,” Yamada said, “they’re taking evasive action. They seem to have believed you. How did you know?”

  “I’d heard somewhere that Betas are easy to bluff.”

  Yamada and Durris tossed me confused glances. As they couldn’t recall Zye’s existence, they didn’t know how I’d come to this conclusion.

  Durris stepped up to my chair, dabbing at oozing adhesives over his cheekbone.

  “What is the purpose of enraging them?” he asked. “Idle fun?”

  “Hardly,” I said.

  “Then why?”

  I looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. “We’re outrunning them right now. They should turn back, but they can’t now that I’ve fired on them. That would stain their honor.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “So you want them to chase us? To follow us through star system after star system in a blind rage?”

  “Yes,” I said, “do you think they would have come along willingly if I’d asked?”

  “No.”

  “There you have it. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

  “One more thing, Captain.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’ve noticed—we’ve all been noticing—that you have a level of knowledge concerning Beta behavior that none of us can fathom. Where did this intel come from?”

  I stared at him thoughtfully. “There’s a Beta prisoner,” I said, “a live one, in the brig under CENTCOM.”

  He looked startled. “Is that information classified?” he asked.

  “Maybe,” I admitted. “But no one told me that it was. Perhaps they overlooked the procedural details in the messy aftermath of the attack.”

  “A Beta prisoner on Earth…” he mused, “and you’ve had personal contact with this… person?”

  “That’s right.”

  “That explains a lot. Thanks, Captain.” He walked away, nodding to himself.

  The rest of the crew eyed me with increased respect. I felt bad I couldn’t tell them more, but if I did, they’d question my sanity. That wouldn’t be good for morale or our odds of survival.