Game, set, and match, I think, Larssen. I did warn you not to get in my way.
PART TWO:
SATURN
44
Dan stood in the darkened Observation Deck, watching the space tugs take up their positions, ready to conduct the delicate ballet that would move the ship to a safe distance from the Orbital Dock and into a launch position. Blue-white flames stabbed from their chemical propulsion units. The hull resonated slightly with the transmitted vibrations as they began to push the huge Spacefreighter away from the Dock. A black gap appeared between the ship and the Dock and slowly yawned wider. Metallic creaks from the protesting flight frame echoed throughout the ship. Dan bit his lip and waited. He knew they were an expert team but the E-class was massive and there were limits to the amount of force the tugs could apply. Gradually the ship began to turn. It wouldn’t be long now.
He flicked the faintly illuminated switch that restored diffuse lighting inside the dome, located the switch that closed the protective doors over its transparent panels and then, using his hands alternately on the vertical handrails, lowered himself quickly to the Flight Deck.
He couldn’t hear the exchanges between individual tug pilots – they were on a separate frequency – but both he and the Flight Controller could listen in to the Chief Pilot handling communications with them. At last the message he was waiting for:
“Undocking sequence completed. STs, you are free to disengage.”
He had to wait now until all of the tugs were completely clear. He checked the navigation display and saw that they’d coordinated the manoeuvre beautifully; the orientation looked good and the ship was stable.
“Flight Control to Spacefreighter Solar Wind. You are clear to initiate APU burn.”
As the tugs had towed the freighter well away from the Dock it was now safe to light the auxiliary propulsion units. Flight Control would also have made sure there weren’t any other ships in the danger zone. Even so, it would be fifty miles before he was allowed to engage the plasma drives.
“Solar Wind. Commencing APU ignition sequence.”
“Good luck, Dan.”
“Thanks, Ted.”
The auxiliaries fired and the freighter started to move away. Glancing at one of the monitors Dan could see the Orbital Dock receding slowly, visible now as a line of bright lights against the dark backdrop of the Earth.
With fifty miles between himself and the Orbital Dock Dan needed to make final adjustments to attitude and heading. The APUs were designed for this task, four sets of steerable nozzles, two fore and two aft, enabling the pilot to pitch, roll or yaw the craft as necessary. The servomotor circuits were collected to a single control stick and a pair of pedals. To the man at the controls it would be rather like manoeuvring a very large, very cumbersome skimmer. He would seldom be required to fly a ship this way; something as critical as setting up the trajectory for the main burn was best handled by the navigational computer. When the display showed that the task had been completed he verified every setting manually. All was in order, the moment had come. He started the ignition sequence for the plasma drives.
Some people strapped themselves in for the acceleration phase of the flight but he had a little routine of his own. Between the Flight Deck and the main living accommodation there was a flat vertical bulkhead. He floated up there while the computer was counting down on the ignition sequence. As soon as the ship began to accelerate under the immense thrust of the plasma drives he stood up on the wall in more or less normal gravity and did an hour’s exercise. He knew it was the last chance he’d get to work out like that for quite a while. From now on he would have to exercise in the small gymnasium, which had been equipped to his specification with a stationery bicycle, a rowing machine, rubber pulls, and a treadmill fitted with rubber slings to give him artificial weight.
An hour later the freighter reached cruising velocity. The computer cut the power on the plasma drives and Dan floated down off the wall. He had a few things to do at this stage. He had to ensure that the ship was on the predetermined trajectory, make any course corrections that might be needed, run final checks on all systems, run a quick medicheck on himself, and then send all the data back to Mission Operations. Once those tasks had been completed, he was to prepare himself for cryosleep. He would sleep peacefully while the rest of the trip was flown under computer guidance and, barring some kind of emergency, he would continue to sleep peacefully until they were about 0.01 astronomical units from Saturn. That was the official flight plan, drawn up by the mission planning team, and approved by the Board of SpaceFreight.
So the first thing to do was change it.
He ran the course checks, the systems checks and the medicheck and transmitted the data. Mission Operations would now assume that everything was going according to plan. Then he rescheduled the cryosleep, because he wasn’t going to need it for a while.
Somewhere out there, just outside Mars orbit, there was a drug factory belonging to the late Mikhael Rostov – he was convinced of it. And no way was he going to fly an unarmed freighter across their doorstep.
45
He’d planned carefully for this. He’d studied the construction of the E-class carefully, and he also knew in detail what had gone into Holds 52 through 60. He’d even directed the handlers where to stow it. The only weapons he was interested in were the shell-throwers and the torpedo launchers, because both had fully calibrated integral target acquisition, which he could interface with the ship’s computer system.
Shell-throwers were repeat-firing weapons. They’d be devastating against anything the size of a shuttle, but these people could well be coming out in something a lot bigger. Against a target like that torpedoes would be more effective. The ones in this consignment had the latest acquisition system, incorporating not just laser guidance but multi-mode targeting on radar reflection, heat emission, ionization, and plasma trail, and new software designed to filter out any distracting chaff. They were much larger and far more destructive than the shells but he’d only have one shot because he’d never be able to reload the launchers while he was busy flying the ship. Shell-throwers or torpedoes? It seemed sensible to use both.
He’d also thought about where he was going to put them. These people were unlikely to mount a frontal attack: they’d get one pass and he’d be two hundred miles away before they could turn around. No, they’d almost certainly approach obliquely on the flank, so he had to mount the weapons somewhere on the cargo pods. The answer was obvious: the eight observation bays on each pod were ideal – there was room to mount a shell-thrower and a single torpedo launcher in each one. As soon as they were bolted in place he’d suit up, close the airlock on that access tube, and take out the transparent panels. The weapons could then operate without obstruction. They’d be in space vacuum, but they were designed for it. If he equipped all the bays the fields of fire would overlap for any object further than about two hundred metres. Which was good enough.
It would take twenty-five days to reach Mars orbit and there were sixteen bays. That would give him about a day and a half to work on each bay. It wasn’t long, and it would demand a lot of him. He was glad he’d kept up the fitness regime after he’d joined SpaceFreight.
He started by equipping Bay Number 1 on the starboard pod. It took him two whole days. He worked twelve hours in a twenty-four-hour cycle and he was exhausted. The last part was especially taxing; it wasn’t hard to remove the panels, but once encumbered by the suit he found every task more awkward, more tiring. When he finally desuited, his undergarments were soaked with sweat. Then he hit a problem establishing the interface and wasted half a day sorting it out. At this rate he wouldn’t finish in time. He decided to work on the two cargo pods alternately – that would give him at least some defensive capability to both port and starboard sides – so the second bay he tackled was Number 1 on the port side. That went a little better. He knew what he was doing and he got the sequence of operations right. By the time he’d done eight
bays he was recovering some of the lost time, and by the time he’d done fourteen he was ahead of schedule.
The last two bays were the starboard and port Number 8 bays. Here he hesitated. Starboard Bay Number 8 was adjacent to cargo hold 193, where the liquid hydrogen was stored. It was a good idea to avoid high temperatures and naked flames around liquid hydrogen and the armaments he was installing had a fair potential for generating both. On the other hand it would leave a serious gap in the defences if Number 8 wasn’t equipped. He decided he’d take the chance; he equipped both bays. The job was finished with a day to spare.
He became aware of an aggressive new sense of ownership. Before he’d carried out these modifications, Solar Wind was, to him, just a hulking great freighter. Now it was his hulking great freighter and anyone who thought they could take it away from him was going to have a fight on their hands.
He hadn’t had a chance to visit the Observation Deck since undocking, so he floated himself up there now. He retracted the clamshell doors, doused the illumination, and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. He found himself looking out on millions of stars. He’d never lost his sense of wonder at the sheer immensity of space. He spent a long time studying the patterns, adjusting the transparency of the dome to simulate the absorption of light by Earth’s atmosphere, a trick that made it easier to identify the major constellations. Then he turned to look back along the length of the craft and located Earth. It was just a large blue star. A cold shiver passed through him, a sudden sense of loneliness and isolation. He knew he’d have to busy himself with something to shake off that feeling. He flicked the switches back and descended to the Flight Deck.
He decided to link the target acquisition systems to the ship’s own surveillance system. That way he might get earlier warning of an impending attack. He had to dig deep into the surveillance system to make the links, but it worked. While he was about it he finished the subroutines that would enable him to control all the weapons bays from the ship’s computer. One thing still bothered him: what countermeasures would they have? The only weapon they could use against shell-throwers and torpedoes was a megalaser. Did they have megalasers? Almost certainly. How many incomings could they target? Those big lasers took a lot of energy. The ones he had in the holds were the latest model and he’d read their specifications. They could fire ten times in quick succession but after that even they needed a pause to recharge the capacitor bank. That would provide a window of weakness. He decided to program in an automatic firing sequence on each bay; ten shells to draw the counter-fire, then the torpedo. Before he left the console he switched it to voice control and readout; it might save time in an emergency.
Then he went and made himself something to eat.
*
The intermittent siren sounded when he was about fifty thousand kilometres beyond Mars orbit.
He wasn’t alarmed or surprised; in fact, he was secretly elated.
He raised a clenched fist. He’d been right all along.
46
He went straight to the Flight Deck, switched off the siren, and had a look at the monitors. The surveillance program was designed to detect any unusual changes in the star pattern, such as the eclipsing of stars by something moving in front of them. It had picked up an anomaly and his little bit of programming had switched the narrow beam radars from the starboard torpedo guidance systems directly onto it. That gave the range: about a hundred and eighty kilometres and closing. The echoes were sorting themselves out now: one, two, three…nine ships. He gritted his teeth.
That’s a lot more than I expected. Maybe the echo from this crate is so large they think they’re turning out to intercept more than one ship. Better make sure the computer records the coordinates; Customs will be interested in those at some stage.
Range was sixty kilometres now and still they hadn’t identified themselves. No way was this a benign encounter.
His thoughts flicked briefly to the crews who’d been reported lost. Had they woken from cryosleep to see this same flotilla approaching? They must have wondered what the hell was going on. Well, he knew what was going on and this time things were going to be different.
You caught me napping once, Rostov, you and your filthy organization. I spent months in prison because of you, and my life went down the tube. I’ve been waiting a long time for an opportunity like this.
He switched to the “All Stations” band; if anyone was listening they’d hear his challenge. He sent out a standard call.
“Spacefreighter Solar Wind calling unidentified craft in Mars Sector 27. Please identify yourselves.”
There was a pause, then the receiver switched automatically to the incoming frequency. He noticed that it had also been forced to select packet transmission. That was clever. No one else would be able to listen in on the conversation. He wouldn’t hear the sender’s actual voice either because the computer had to decode each message first. That was okay, he wasn’t expecting too much in the way of subtlety. In fact there was an advantage: the incoming messages and his own answers would both be computer-encoded, so he could be sure the whole exchange would be recorded in the computer’s running log free of any transmission errors.
The screen put up the message and the computer’s voice synthesizer read it off.
“SOLAR WIND, YOU HAVE ENTERED A RESTRICTED SECTOR. STAND BY AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED.”
Dan responded without hesitation. “Negative. Solar Wind is in neutral space. Identify yourselves, please.”
“REPEAT. YOU ARE IN A RESTRICTED SECTOR. STAND BY AND PREPARE FOR BOARDING.”
“Repeat. Solar Wind is in neutral space. Any attempt to board will constitute an act of piracy.”
“PREPARE TO BE BOARDED SOLAR WIND. ANY RESISTANCE WILL BE MET WITH FORCE. COOPERATE AND YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED.”
He let out a hollow laugh and flicked off the communication channel. “You will not be harmed!” Since when did pirates start treating their captives with kindness? Their methods probably hadn’t changed in a millennium. What was it they used to do back in the seventeenth century? Walking the plank, keel-hauling? He wondered what the modern equivalent would be. Probably pushing you out into space without a suit and taking bets on how long you’d last. It wouldn’t be more than a couple of minutes. In the vacuum of space, body temperature was well above boiling point. Without a pressure suit your body fluids would start to boil and bubbles of gas would block vital arteries. Of course, if you opened your mouth to gasp for breath your lungs would rupture and it would be over more quickly.
You nasty bastards. You probably think you woke me up from cryosleep and I’m standing here in an unarmed ship with my brain fuzzy and my head pounding, in a complete blue funk. Well, I’m not. I’m awake, I’m alert, and I’m armed.
He had a visual on them now. The lead ship had closed to twenty kilometres and he zoomed the image for a closer look. He recognized the familiar humpback profile of a C-class freighter.
Makes sense. Single hull, light, fast, stable; a C-class would make an excellent weapons platform, suitably modified.
Then he had a disturbing thought.
These people are fitted out for privateering. They’ve had all the time in the world, and they haven’t simply armed their ships, they’ve probably armoured them in all the right places. Solar Wind is fragile and vulnerable by comparison. Well, there’s nothing I can do about that. I have the element of surprise and I’d better make the most of it.
Time to get busy.
“All starboard bays acquire individual targets.”
The computer would make sure that no two bays were locked onto the same target. The confirmation came up:
“INDIVIDUAL TARGETS ACQUIRED.”
The screen blanked the message and then switched to a display of the target assignments. Bay 4 had acquired the lead ship.
“Bay 4 prepare to initiate firing sequence on the command ‘Fire!’. All other bays stand by.”
Thirty kilometres. He could use the torpedo from her
e but the other ships weren’t quite close enough. He needed to surprise all of them at once.
They’re not going to fire first. A freighter this size would be a real prize for them, and they’ll certainly want to look the cargo over before they start blasting. They’ll think it’s perfectly safe to close; they could be half a kilometre away and they still wouldn’t be able to see what I’ve done with the observation bays.
The ships continued to approach on his starboard flank, matching his speed. The lead ship was now at twenty-five kilometres. Twenty… fifteen… ten… five. Close enough.
“Fire!”
The shells streamed out, answered immediately by stabs of red light from a megalaser located somewhere amidships. Most of the shells exploded short of the target; one or two got through. But now the torpedo was on its way. The ship erupted in an enormous, expanding ball of flame and flying debris.
“All starboard bays fire at will!”
Shells streamed out, followed by a swarm of seven torpedoes. The Flight Deck was brilliantly illuminated by one explosion after another. It was hard for him to know whether the ships had returned fire, but the cloud of debris that was still flying along with the formation would make it hard for any ordinary missile to home on his ship. As the luminous clouds of burning gas faded, three black shapes emerged. He had a wrenching feeling in his gut. Three of the ships were still there, and they were closing fast.
And he’d fired all the torpedoes.
47
His tongue flickered over dry lips.
There is a way but it’ll make me a massive target for the attacking ships.
Saturn Run Page 21