Nepenthe Rising

by John Triptych

  “You’re crazy! Even if we get to the field before they catch us, we still need some time to power up the t-drive.”

  “How much time?”

  “An hour, at least.”

  “We don’t need to jump far,” Dhara said. “We just need to get away from that ship.”

  Udeze thought it was a foolhardy idea, but he knew she had command override, so he felt it best to reason with her. “Look, the minimum charge time for the t-drive is fifteen minutes once we get inside the field, but even then we’d be pushing it. We need to store some reserve power just in case we end up making a wrong jump.”

  “I’d rather jump into the unknown than be helpless.”

  “The Memnon is pretty formidable,” Udeze said. “If the Nepenthe somehow defeats her then I suggest we surrender. From what I read on the news, these pirates will just take whatever booty they want but they’ll spare our lives.”

  Dhara grimaced. “No. Don’t you get it yet? Nobody is supposed to know we’re out here, that’s why this route was chosen. The Nepenthe wants what I’m bringing along, and we can’t let it fall into their hands.”

  “I don’t know what it is you Institute people are working on, nor do I want to know,” Udeze said tersely. “But I have a crew and two hundred other passengers on this liner, and their lives are my responsibility.”

  Dhara narrowed her eyes. She didn’t want to pull rank on him, but now she had no choice. “The Institute paid for this entire voyage and even provided the escort ship. We only allowed those other passengers on this trip so you and your crew could make some extra cash on the side.”

  Udeze threw his hands up. “What was I supposed to do? We had unused berths and you yourself approved of the extra passengers, Dr. Hayer. You even complimented my decision since it would obviously give you some cover for whatever shady business it is that you’re up to. Please, I’m asking you to think of the lives of others here.”

  Dhara shook her head. “My mission is to get back to Earth at all costs. Now are you going to do what I ordered, or do I activate my override and let my AI run this ship?”

  Udeze stared at her in silence for a short minute before he reactivated his crew com-link channel. “Pilot, chart a course back to our arrival field. Start at two-gee acceleration, then gradually increase thrust until we get close to three-gee.”

  “Orders confirmed, Captain,” the chief pilot said before he began to alter course.

  “Com Officer, get me a private channel with the Memnon,” Udeze said softly.

  “Com-link to Memnon ready, sir,” the communications officer said.

  Udeze knew Dhara was listening in, so it was useless to lie. “Memnon, Institute Actual requests you engage enemy contact. We will retreat back towards arrival area and attempt to make a quick jump out of system. Please acknowledge, over.”

  The Memnon’s commanding officer was quickly heard over the channel. “Orders acknowledged. Accelerating to engage enemy ship. Will apprise you of the situation once it’s resolved, over.”

  Dhara’s shoulders had started to dig deeper into the accelerator couch. The embedded flexi-gel along the surface of the chair did its best to alleviate some of the squeeze as the gradual increase in gravity became uncomfortable. It’s about to get really painful in a few minutes, she thought.

  Sure enough, the weight on her chest seemed to double in a matter of seconds, as if an invisible elephant had decided to just sit on top of it. Despite the unrelenting pressure, Dhara remembered to breathe slowly, keeping her mind clear. The Tamaishi’s shipboard AI would automatically decelerate the vessel if the entire human crew were to lose consciousness, but it would only be as a last resort.

  Keeping her eyes on the tactical readouts on her smartglass visor, Dhara could see the Memnon accelerating away as the Tamaishi turned around and began heading in the opposite direction. Strangely, the Nepenthe continued to barrel straight on towards the heavy cruiser escort, not even attempting an evasive maneuver.

  In happier circumstances, Dhara would have snorted at the blundering way the pirate ship was going, but a tension headache was distracting her. The last time she had experienced a gravity surge was during emergency training more than two decades ago, and she hardly recalled it. Now the crushing pain was making it all too real again.

  The two warships were getting close to battle range. The Memnon had begun a high flanking maneuver to orbit the pirate ship while facing her nose towards the enemy, all the while letting loose with her gauss cannons at the target. Powered by immensely powerful magnetic fields which acted as accelerators, the needle-shaped ordinances of each gauss cannon could reach their intended target in under four seconds at an extreme range of ten thousand klicks, making them the primary weapons of choice for long-range combat in space.

  Dhara kept her focus on the tactical display, ignoring the squeezing pain on her chest and forehead. The Memnon must have fired multiple bursts already as she began to circle above the Nepenthe. She remembered having dinner with the heavy cruiser’s ship commander a few days ago when she and Maeve were invited as guests onboard the Memnon. Spacecraft Commander Oswald Jackson told them his Hoplite-class vessel had double the usual complement of laser batteries, and woe to any enemy ship that got too close to them.

  Multiple laser banks are deadly at short range, but you have to get close first, she thought. Beam weapons were impractical at longer ranges due to diffraction, and the fact that they required ever larger radiators to vent off the excess heat they produced, despite the advantage of having a near instantaneous reach to target. Modern space combat relegated lasers to mostly point defense, in order to protect the ship against incoming missiles. Particle beams had proven to be even more inefficient due to thermal blooming, and were quickly discarded from general use.

  Dhara watched in astonishment as the red blip on the display suddenly changed direction, turning at a high delta-V rate while she began to veer upwards, directly towards the Memnon. The gauss cannons fired unguided ordinance, which meant the Memnon’s first salvos would surely have been dodged by the Nepenthe. Dhara grimaced. Come on, fire again. Blast the damned pirate ship to hell and I’ll make sure you get promoted, Captain.

  Both ships were now getting to optimal range, which meant that there would be very little time to maneuver against incoming fire from their gauss cannons. Warships had multiple layers of void spaced armor and impact gels with heat-absorbing nanites that could withstand staggering barrages of both solid ordinance and laser fire. Current tactics and fighting seemed to bear a close resemblance to the seagoing armored ship conflicts of Earth’s distant past. Whoever could dish out the most firepower while withstanding similar attacks would most likely win the conflict.

  Dhara’s virtual display now offered glimpses of what the opposing ships actually looked like. The Memnon’s hull resembled a flattened lozenge, the plasma-dusted radiators along her sides making her look like a gigantic surfboard with glowing dragonfly-like wings. Opposing ships blasting away at the exposed radiator’s magnetic fields would be pointless, since their weapon barrages would pass right through the dust and the holes in the plasma would simply reform again.

  Without warning, the readouts of the Memnon suddenly changed, and the holographic diagram of the heavy cruiser’s hull was riddled with red marks. Despite the force of gravity making any kind of talking difficult, Dhara heard Captain Udeze cursing on the com-link channel.

  When the AI analysis of what had just happened began to flood her smartglass display, Dhara gave a short gasp when she realized the truth. The Nepenthe must have fired her gauss cannons well in advance before closing, and she made the flanking maneuver in order to set up a trap for the Memnon, leading the Union heavy cruiser to blunder right into her field of incoming fire.

  Despite the seeming vastness of space, advanced combat AI systems could predict the eventual whereabouts of fighting ships by carefully plotting their acceleration, heading, and having a little luck. By following conventional tactics, the Mem
non had become predictable, and the expert gunners of the Nepenthe discharged their main guns into several corridors of fire in anticipation of the Union heavy cruiser’s appearance in one of these kill zones. Time had proven the pirates right, and now the battle was decided.

  Using mental command words, since her fingers were glued by gravity to the chair, Dhara quickly ordered her AI to predict possible outcomes. The conclusions did not sound promising. With moderate damage to her hull, the Memnon was now at a clear disadvantage. The Nepenthe could easily outmaneuver her while their escort tried to repair her fusion drive and damaged weapons. First blood in space warfare usually gave a decisive advantage.

  Just as she had finished reading the final part of the analysis, the Memnon’s status changed once more. This time the readouts said that she had been impacted by a second barrage of gauss cannon fire along the length of her hull.

  Dhara’s eyebrows shot up as the damage control report came up. The Memnon had suddenly lost main power, and was getting weaker by the second. The heavy cruiser’s vaunted laser batteries would not have any juice, and were now nothing more than multiple lines of useless crystal mirrors embedded in her hull. Without power for her fusion drive, their once mighty escort ship was now a sitting duck.

  Despite the heavy damage done to the ship, Dhara did see a close-ranged barrage from one of the clusters of gauss cannons from the Memnon had scored a hit against the spike-shaped hull of the Nepenthe. Her rising hopes were quickly dashed however, when her AI further reported the damage to the pirate vessel was negligible.

  Turning her attention back to their own ship, Dhara checked the Tamaishi’s course and heading on the tactical map. The battle taking place between the two warships had given the liner some distance, however it would hardly be enough.

  Udeze’s voice came over the com-link once again. It was high pitched, almost pleading.”We … need to surrender.”

  Dhara’s own voice was a croak, but it was enough to get the point across. “No.”

  A few more muted gasps erupted from the crew when they saw the Nepenthe veer away from the stricken Memnon; it was now making an intercept course towards the liner. Defeat and capture would very well be a certainty.

  The virtual map indicated they were thirty minutes away from the dark matter field. Dhara still kept her hopes up, and imagined a scene in which the crew would be congratulating each other as they made it out just in time. Even the chief pilot remained committed to an escape as he continually made minute changes to the Tamaishi’s course, dodging any potential gauss cannon fire from the pursuing Nepenthe.

  Minutes ticked by. All they could do was wait for either the impact of the pirate guns on the Tamaishi’s hull, or the friendly chimes of their ship’s AI telling the crew that they had made it into the field of dark matter.

  Despite the chilly air of the bridge, beads of sweat rolled down Dhara’s forehead as she kept her eye on the numbers of the tactical display, slowly counting down the distance between their ship and the sanctuary they were seeking. She could hear several of the crewmembers openly saying prayers to their respective antecessors. Come on, we can do this. Hurry up!

  The moment the Tamaishi made it to the outskirts of the dark matter field, another type of alarm sounded. Scowling with uncertainty, Dhara wondered what it could possibly be. As her eyes focused on the display once more, she groaned in despair.

  A new, smaller contact had suddenly appeared on their tactical maps, followed by three more. They were in close proximity, and there was no way the Tamaishi could avoid them. Dhara could hardly contain herself. “What … are they?”

  Udeze’s voice was filled with dread. “Battle … drones.”

  Despite the heavy constriction in her throat from the high-gravity acceleration, Dhara let out an ear-piercing scream.

  2 Her Motley Crew

  They called it the battlesphere. Located at the very heart of the Nepenthe’s hull, it was an armored capsule with its own gyros, allowing it to shift towards wherever the ship’s center of gravity was located. The more conventional term for it would have been the combat information center, but due to its globular shape, the name stuck.

  Sitting in the command chair in the center of the room, Captain Lucien Dangard remained silent, preferring to let his subordinates handle things from here on out. He ran a gloved hand over his close-cropped gray hair, down past the scars on his gaunt cheeks, before placing it back on the armrest. The prize was theirs, but the length and effort of the continuing resistance made him brood.

  Less than an arm’s length away to his right, the ship’s executive officer continued to stare at the tactical display on her personal console. Commander Creull Bonecrusher shifted her yellow eyes across the screen before emitting a short growl. Since her species preferred to lie forward rather than sit on their buttocks, her command chair had been modified to accommodate her needs. The voice coming from her whiskered snout was akin to a low growl. “Strand, what the fekk are you doing? Take out the liner’s damned engines first before you attempt to close and board.”

  At the far end of the room was a hairless, violet-skinned man attached alongside the wall. His eyelids were closed, but he could sense everything around him. “Sorry to butt in, but the lieutenant does have a sound tactical move. He wants to draw the Tamaishi in closer to the missiles before he fires up their thrusters.”

  Creull turned towards him and bared her razor-sharp fangs. Her pale golden eyes had turned into slits while the double pair of nostrils above her mouth breathed in an inordinate amount of air. She wore a skinsuit over her black furred coat, and the outerwear almost seemed to rip apart whenever she flexed her muscles. “This is my operation, Zeno! When I desire your advice, I shall ask.”

  “Yes, of course,” Zeno Ninety-nine said. “Apologies, Commander.”

  Creull glanced at the captain in case he had something to say. When Dangard gave her a silent nod, she turned her attention back to the tactical display. “Strand, are you hearing me?”

  At almost half a million klicks away, the black teardrop-shaped battle drones continued to chase after the fleeing Tamaishi as the smaller spacecraft began to edge closer to the vessel’s rear right flank. The liner continued her high-gee acceleration as she dived down towards the edge of the dark matter field, only to change her heading the very next moment, when a pair of missiles suddenly emerged from the protracted edges of the zone and headed straight for her.

  The Tamaishi turned again, this time trying to aim her course at the narrowing corridor in between the pursuing drones and the missiles coming from the opposite direction, but it proved too late. One of the missiles impacted on the aft part of her hull, just underneath the glowing radiator petals, before detonating a shaped fusion charge.

  Since the liner was a civilian ship and therefore lightly armored, the missile’s exploding warhead instantly penetrated through her thin hull, ripping past layers of bumper armor and severely damaging her drive. In a matter of seconds, the Tamaishi lost main power and consequently her acceleration slowed down until she began to drift helplessly, just above the upper fields of dark matter. With the vessel now crippled, the remaining missile instantly shut off its thruster after veering away from its target, the ordinance’s internal AI correctly concluding that another impact upon the disabled ship might jeopardize the goal of the overall mission.

  The command drone was indistinguishable from the other two craft, with the sole exception of her being at the rear of their formation. The officer in charge remained floating in the aft deployment module as he commanded the two drones ahead of him to commence their intercept course.

  A crackling noise over his optical com-link system made him wince. Commander Creull’s voice was even louder this time, her heavy tones exuding unrestrained menace, even though the commonality of the Comm-5 language stressed subtlety rather than yelling. “Strand, I know you can hear me, I know your systems are fully functional, and I know you’re breathing air. Answer me at once!”

&
nbsp; Lieutenant Garrett Strand took a deep breath before replying to her. Even though standard operating procedure advised him to fully encase himself in bio-gel when he put on his powered battle armor, Strand preferred not to breathe the sticky substance into his lungs, so he always used air in his helmet instead. “Sorry for not replying to you earlier, Commander, but I was kinda busy.”

  “I ordered you to disable the target’s engines using your drone’s weapons before you pursued. Why did you disobey a directive?”

  “With all due respect, Commander, I felt it would be better if I harried the target ship closer to the missiles instead of activating them prematurely. It brought the intercept range nearer and time to target became a sure thing.”

  He heard a low purr coming through the audio speakers. It was a sure sign that Creull was satisfied. “Do not use this sort of tactic against a warship—you’d be killed easily. Continue your boarding operation. Over and out.”

  Strand grinned. Using his AI implant, he keyed in his command relay. “Okay, let’s close and commence docking procedures. Spacers, watch yourselves and stay close to the bots, okay?”

  Four teenage voices replied in unison. “Yes, sir!”

  Dhara screamed again the moment the missile impacted the liner’s hull. For a few seconds she thought they were all dead. As the weight on her chest began to slacken until it felt like nothing, she realized their acceleration had been cut off, and now the vessel was truly helpless. Disengaging the restraints from her chair, she activated her AI’s command override, giving her full control over what was left of the Tamaishi.

  Captain Udeze turned his head as he noticed she was overriding the remaining systems of his ship. “What are you doing? We’ve lost!”