“Listening to space,” Guns muttered back. “Aye, takes a vacuum between the ears to do it, too.”
Rick turned to the veteran. “Why don’t you like them?”
“You haven’t been around like I have,” Guns replied, his gaze leveled like a missile tracker on the pair. “Having a pilot on the flight deck is like taking a plague on board.”
Consuela opened her eyes, struggled to focus, and announced, “They’re still there, Captain.”
“You’re sure?”
“I can’t say what they are,” she replied, her voice quiet yet confident. “But there is definitely a ship waiting down the next shadowlane.”
“Any ship in this quadrant that is standing poised off a lightway can be presumed to be enemy.” He turned to the lower deck. “Any communication traffic?”
“Nothing in the sector at all except our vessel and the port,” Signals replied.
He turned back to Consuela. “How far off the lightway are they lying?”
When she hesitated, Wander replied for her, “About two minutes at our present speed.”
“Guns?”
“Aye, Skipper,” the veteran groused. “Well within stunner range.”
“Very well.” He keyed his own console. “Chief Petty Officer, is the ship ready?”
“Battened down tight, Captain.” The flight deck’s intercom carried Tucker’s bundled agitation loud and clear. “The crew’s raring to go.”
“Very well.” He keyed a second switch and said, “All hands, this is the captain speaking. An unidentified vessel has been tentatively identified lying off the lightway approximately”—he checked his console—“sixty-one minutes ahead of us. No communication traffic has been detected. According to Hegemony law, a vessel not directly upon a lightway and not sounding a distress call may be presumed to be enemy and fired upon. In the case that the vessel is a slaver and this ship is hit by stunners, all crew are ordered to remain suited and shielded, with arms at the ready, until the all-clear is sounded. Marine units, prepare for possible boarding. Good luck and good hunting. Captain out.”
He looked down at the upturned faces before him, checked the shipboard chrono, hesitated a long moment, then nodded. “Hit it.”
A thrumming tone sounded over the ship’s intercom. “Battle stations. Battle stations.” The signals officer droned the words, yet nothing could keep the excitement from spilling over. “This ship is now on red alert. Battle stations.”
“I want you scouts to check the vessel every five minutes,” he ordered. “Alert me immediately to any change in status.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.” Wander slipped on his headset.
The captain swung around. “Guns, I have decided to go ahead as discussed in my quarters.”
“But, Skipper—”
“You will not raise the shields,” he ordered, overriding his weapons officer. “You will arm yourself, but you will not draw your weapons.”
“I have to protest,” Guns replied. “That puts us at a desperate disadvantage.”
But Arnol was not finished. “You will track at your absolute limits. You will hold yourself fully ready to draw and strike. At the first forward move, you will attack. You will not wait for my command. I want you to try to take out their shields without cracking their skin.” He let the orders sink in, then continued. “I wouldn’t dare try this maneuver with anybody less skilled than you, Guns. Think you’re up to it?”
Clearly the captain had hit the correct key. The weapons officer swelled visibly. “Give it our best shot, Skipper.”
“Cripple an attack vessel, but leave those aboard alive.” The captain swung about to ensure that the entire flight deck’s attention was turned toward the weapons station. “I’ve never heard of such a maneuver.”
“Aye, it’d be one for the books, that’s a fact,” Guns replied, basking in the attention.
“I ask this only because no one has ever captured a pirate vessel.”
“Always wanted to be a bit of history in the making, Skipper.”
“You realize, of course,” the captain went on, “we are placing this ship and the lives of all within her in your hands.”
“Split-second timing,” Guns replied, planning out loud. “Blast her shield, hit them with a stunner bolt, melt the guts of her weaponry, go for the drive system. A four-step attack faster than you can blink your eye. That’s the ticket.”
“Very well, Guns, you have convinced me. I hereby authorize you to fire at will. But if the plan does not appear to work at first blow, I want you to annihilate her, is that clear? No time for inspection or hesitation, man. The risk is too great.”
“The instant it even appears that they might either still have drive or secondary weapons,” Guns promised, “that vessel will disappear, Captain. Mark my words.”
Captain Arnol’s features were more sharply drawn than ever. He nodded his acceptance and ordered, “To your weapons, then.”
Chapter Seventeen
Weapons Lieutenant Valens was a taciturn young man with the slender yet muscular build of a gymnast. He had done little more than nod in Rick’s direction since arriving. When Guns swiveled back around to his console, however, he asked, “You want a trainee up here in the middle of a fight?”
Guns glanced in Rick’s direction, hesitated, and for an agonizing instant Rick thought he was going to be taken out of the action.
The senior weapons officer caught a hint of Rick’s distress, and humor flickered across his features. “Not just yet.”
The lieutenant shrugged, as though it was of no great concern. “Might get awful busy later.”
“Maybe our Rick here might serve a purpose.”
“A trainee?”
“The boy’s a natural, mark my words.” Guns mulled it over for a long moment, then turned to his number three, a long-time weapons officer who clearly was not concerned with rising farther up the ladder of authority. “How’d you like to arm a second ferret?”
Experienced eyes cast themselves over Rick’s form. “You really think he’s got what it takes?”
“Set him on the power bank, have him hunt with our secondary weapons. Never can tell, an unknown vessel might have a little derringer up its sleeve.” Guns nodded at the sound of his own decision. “I’ll take the shield, that’s the trickiest bit because I’ll have to give it a glancing blow. Straight shot might leave us with a cloud of nuts and bolts.”
“I’ll hit them with a stun bolt soon as the shields are down,” the number three offered. “Then go for the drive tubes.”
“I’ll take weapons,” Lieutenant Valens said.
“Aim well back,” Guns ordered. “Stay clear of the upper decks. I’ll put a second shot on the nose and take out their control systems soon as the shield’s cracked.”
“You sure it’s wise to leave a novice on the deck during action?” Valens asked once more, his gaze coming nowhere near Rick.
“Can’t hurt,” Guns replied. Clearly his mind was made up. “We three are seeing to all the known targets. Let him hunt about on his own, play the extra ferret. Lad’s got to have his first taste of battle sometime.”
Rick felt his entire system drenched in adrenaline when the two assistant gunners nodded their acceptance. “Thanks, Guns.”
“Make me proud, lad,” the grizzled veteran replied, understanding him fully.
Rick searched his memory, and when nothing came up he decided he had to ask. “What’s a ferret?”
The officers exchanged glances, and the number three explained, “It’s what we call a tracker in hunt-attack mode,” he replied, as the other two bent over the weapons console. “You heard the captain give us the right to fire at will?”
“Yes.”
“This means that as soon as the target is identified, we attack. Weapons officers assigned as ferrets search for unexpected threats.” He motioned to Rick’s overhead console. “Draw down your systems console and code in.”
Instantly Rick knew what was required. He keyed the lever situat
ed at the end of his right chair arm, and the console smoothly swung up and over and into place at chest level. A second key drew up the two side consoles, so that he was now situated at the center of an electronic cocoon. He scanned the elaborate array and felt the sweep of sudden understanding rise with the tide of his mounting excitement. The checklist was there, ready and waiting in his mind. He poised his hands over the incredibly complex pattern of levers and keys and readouts, and began. He announced, “Connectors keyed and coded.”
“Power up.”
He reached for the central dials and with both hands swept the levers forward. “Powering.” As the levers rose, so too did the soaring sense of reaching out, joining with a force of incredible magnitude. “Power at full and holding.”
The lieutenant paused in his work long enough to glance Rick’s way. He then turned to Guns and raised an eyebrow.
“What did I tell you?” Guns replied proudly.
“Power to tracking,” Valens ordered.
The side consoles were his tracking units, intended to be set in motion, then followed with gentle nudges of the two control sticks rising from their flexible mountings at hand level. Rick directed the power now set at his control to both tracking mechanisms. “Tracking alerted.”
“Ready your weapons.”
The top-central console drawn down over his head was his weaponry. Phasers, neutron missiles, strafers, stun bolts—they and the close-hold defense weaponry called energy lances could at the press of keys be armed and directed to his control sticks. Tracking would be guided and locked, then with a press of the red-light buttons capping his control sticks, the weapons would be fired. Rick ran through the weapons-power keys, then intoned as calmly as his quaking chest would permit, “Request weapons arming code.”
“Listen to the lad,” Guns exclaimed, turning to give Rick his flat-toothed grin. “How does it feel?”
“Incredible,” he said, willing his hands to remain steady.
“Know what it is that’s firing the flame in your gut?” The weapons officer’s eyes held a knowing gleam. “It’s the coming battle, lad. You can smell it, can’t you?”
“I think so.” Rick could not help but grin so hugely it felt as though his face were splitting. “Thanks for letting me stay, Guns. Don’t worry, I won’t let you down.”
The veteran laughed and slapped the boy’s shoulder. “That you won’t, lad. That you won’t. I’ll be holding your final controls in my hands, mind, so there won’t be any chance of firing early.” He nodded to his number three. “Code his arms. Let the lad flex his muscles.”
“Coding in.”
Something then caught the senior weapons officer’s eye, and the vast good humor slipped from his face. “Just look at those two over there, would you,” Guns muttered. “Their heads together, practicing their mumbo-jumbo. Who’d have thought the captain would place a ship of the line in the hands of two novices like that.”
Without looking up from his own monitors, Lieutenant Valens replied, “At least they’ve given us a chance to fight. You’ve got to grant them that.”
“I’ll grant them nothing,” came the growled reply. “Witches is all they are. Witches and wizards run this Hegemony. It’s a sad day when real men have got to bow and scrape to the likes of them.”
Rick took advantage of the companionable atmosphere and asked, “What happened to you?”
Guns swung his way. “Eh?”
“Why are you so bitter about sensitives?”
There was a moment of grinding teeth before Guns muttered, “When I first started spacing I came up against a monster in midnight robes. A pilot who didn’t like my attitude. Kept me a midshipman on a moon bus for five stinking years before I could shake off his curse and prove my worth. Five years I lost because I refused to suck up to the pompous fool.”
Rick ventured, “Maybe those two are different.”
All three weapons officers turned his way. Guns demanded, “What’s it to you, then? You fancy the lass?”
“Not at all,” he protested. Under the veteran’s fiery gaze he confessed, “I knew her back home, that’s all.”
“You’re both from the same homeworld?”
“Same town.”
“Is that a fact.” He looked bemusedly back toward the pilot’s station. “I always figured them to have sprung up full blown from under rocks, like other vermin.”
The lieutenant snorted a laugh but did not speak up.
“Stay away from them, lad,” Guns warned. “You’ve got the makings of a top-flight officer. Don’t let their kind destroy your chances like they did mine. Not a sensitive’s been born that wasn’t pure poison to good and decent folk.”
Chapter Eighteen
To Consuela’s great relief, she and Wander were left alone, an island of calm in a turbulent sea. With each five-minute course mark from signals and the helmsman, the flight deck’s frenetic pace rose one notch. Yet the two of them remained isolated on the pilot’s station, separated by an immeasurable gulf from the remainder of the flight deck.
Each five minutes also meant reaching out, connecting with the approaching shadowlane, following its course and touching briefly upon the silent vessel. It was a harrowing experience.
The shadowlane vibrated with a power that was as forboding as it was dark, a nemesis that left them feeling unclean. The closer they drew, the less amplification it required to reach forward and monitor, and the stronger the brooding menace sounded in their minds. It was an infernal buzzing, a hissing of unclean energies that tainted their innermost beings.
Evil.
They traded off the monitoring duties, one reaching outward every five minutes while the other leaned close and gave comfort. Consuela did not know which was worse, having to sit and watch Wander flinch as he drew into contact or doing so herself.
“Twenty minutes and counting,” intoned Signals.
“Status unchanged,” responded Wander, peeling the headset from his temples and discarding it upon the console. To Consuela he murmured, “I’m down to amp level five.”
“We know what to look for,” she agreed.
He nodded. “It’s strange. When I’m out there, I can feel you.”
“I know,” she said, wishing she could touch him. “Just knowing your love is there with me—” She stopped with the sudden realization of what she had said.
He turned to her, his gaze soft and full and deep. “My love,” he whispered.
She felt a swelling pressure push up from her chest and lock her throat tight. “I’m so scared.”
“Not about the threat up ahead.”
“No.” She willed herself to steady. “Thank you for believing my story.”
His brown eyes were great pools of yearning. “How long can you stay?”
“I don’t know. It’s the hardest part of all, not knowing.”
“Do you want to leave?”
“No,” she said, definite now. “I think of home, I wonder how my mother is. But my place is here now.” She had to stop and swallow. “With you.”
They sat in silent sharing until the monitor chimed.
Wander said, “Let me do it this time.”
“No.” She stopped further argument by fitting on her headset. “All right. Amp up.”
Reluctantly he acquiesced. “I’ll go to four unless you say more.”
“I’ll be fast,” she said, and as the amp level rose, she reached outward, a tightly focused beam of concentration, racing down the lightway, unfettered by time or physical bonds. The shadowlane appeared and she veered off, anchoring herself to the lightway as she searched down the unclean way, feeling the buzzing vibratory patterns course through her mind. She flitted to the darkened vessel, saw it holding to its stationary pattern, and returned in a flash.
Yet even at her rapid and focused pace, she could not deny what she almost heard.
“Fifteen minutes and counting,” droned Signals.
“Status unchanged,” she replied, setting down her headset.
Wander asked. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “I’ll be glad when this is over.”
“Me too.”
Consuela looked up and out at the star-flecked expanse. In the far right corner, a nebulous gas cloud extended one purple-flecked tentacle out over a thousand stars. A supernova blazed almost directly overhead, outshining the two galaxy swarms that flanked it. “I wish I knew I could stay.”
They sat in intimate silence until the monitor chimed once again. Wander sighed and fitted the headset back on. “Be there with me,” he asked.
“For as long as I am able,” she whispered, her gaze only for him.
****
At the ten-minute count, Guns passed on shield control to the onboard computers and to the captain, while keeping a third key directly under his left hand. The triple backup was established in case the vessel came under attack before one or more of them could react. Waiting until the pirates committed themselves before shielding to full strength, in order to reduce risk of their detecting the battle shield and safely fleeing, was the riskiest part of the whole plan.
That done, Guns ordered, “All right. Let loose the ferrets.”
His heart hammering, Rick followed the number three’s lead and keyed in the circuit that connected him to the wider-ranging signals’ tracking units. The ship’s outer tracker spread indiscriminately in all directions. It was the weapons tracker’s function to wait and listen while the signals officer filtered through all incoming sensory data, until the foe was identified. At that split second, the tracker homed in, locked on, and attacked.
“Five minutes,” Signals announced, his voice crackling with tension.
“Status unchanged,” Consuela repeated, her calm utterly at odds with the flight deck atmosphere. When Guns snorted his derision, Rick had to agree. How could she remain so unaffected by the coming battle?
“Better make sure nobody’s dropped off,” Captain Arnol announced. “Helmsman, give them another blast.”
“Red alert. Red alert. Battle stations. Attack in three minutes and counting.”
Rick allowed himself to sink down in his seat, as though melding with the yielding surface and drawing directly into the power circuitry. As the signals officer searched, he sensed as well as saw on the monitors the outer reaches of the equipment’s capacity, finding only empty space.
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