by B. V. Larson
“Where did it come from?” I asked him.
“We picked it up in the asteroid belt about here.” Hansen pointed at its position of first detection.
“No, exec. I meant, where was it built? Could they have completed it on their homeworld in three months?”
Hansen shook his head thoughtfully. “I doubt it. Not from the keel up. They might have gotten their first Nano-style factory working by now, but they wouldn’t have had time to do much with it yet. They must have had it under construction before we even arrived in this system. We just don’t know where.”
“Well,” Adrienne said, “if it wasn’t in the orbital shipyards of Orn Prime, maybe it was on the surface of another planet?”
It was my turn to shake my head. “Nobody builds ships in a gravity well if they don’t have to. Especially a vessel of that size. It’s so much more efficient to use asteroid materials and zero-gravity dry docks.”
That gave me an idea. It quickly grew into a suspicion.
“Kleed was angling for power before I beat him in our duel,” I said. “Maybe he was planning a coup against the Raptor government. What if there was more to that situation than we know? Maybe he wasn’t alone in his plotting.”
“A conspiracy?” Hansen’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe they were building this super-ship in secret for, I don’t know, years. Conventional construction methods would take that long. Now it’s done. I don’t like that its first mission seems to be aimed straight at us.”
“Or at the ring,” I said. “Obviously, they saw the Slab appear and disappear out here. They could be coming to check it out. Or it could be an official Raptor military ship, something they didn’t want us to know about. It could be first of its class, their best ship, and designed to take on the Lithos.”
“If it’s an official mission, why don’t they talk to us?” Hansen asked. “And why is there only one ship and not a squadron?”
Hansen was right. The whole thing did seem off somehow.
“Valiant,” I said, “see if you can open a private channel to their military liaison, Shirr. Ask for a report of their activity and include this new ship’s presence in the requested details. Maybe that will get him to talk to me.”
I knew it would take some time for any reply from the Raptor military HQ to arrive this far out, but there was someone closer that might be able to give me information. “Valiant, put me through to my new troops.”
Within seconds, I had Commander Kreel, the chief of my new Raptor contingent aboard the military transport, on the screen.
“Greetings, Commodore Riggs,” Kreel said through the translation software.
“Greetings, Commander Kreel. What can you tell me about the Raptor battleship on its way here?”
Kreel hung his head. “My dishonored father was misled by a group of rogue military officers operating from secret bases in the asteroid belt. They have long plotted to overthrow the legitimate government of my people. When my sire took command of the outer ring defenses, he was seduced by their song of betrayal and aided them in constructing the abomination you see approaching.”
“But with your father dead, what do they hope to gain by showing their hand now?”
“I wanted to tell you this in person when I reached your base, Commodore Riggs, but it seems we are running out of time. The conspirators’ aims are multiple. They wish to seize command of the fortresses to control the ring and the Square. Word of your exploitation of the artifact has stirred wild rumors among my people, and now the accepted belief is that you and your crew have found advanced alien technology and will soon come to destroy the entire Raptor species. When the Guardian Box visited our system for the first time in many years, this event must have convinced the rebels the time was right to make their move. By destroying or driving you away, they gain popularity and legitimacy for their rebel cause as well as the alien technology they believe you have found. Incidentally, they consider me to be a traitor because I didn’t take up where my father left off, so my life and those of my followers are also forfeit.”
I blew out a long sigh. “So both sides want to kill us now? Great. We’ve done nothing but try to help the Raptor people, and this is the thanks we get.”
“I tried to tell you,” Sokolov muttered under his breath. I glanced sharply at him and he avoided my gaze.
“Some of us still have honor,” Kreel protested. “Please don’t condemn us all for the actions of a few.”
“I’m trying to keep an open mind, but it looks like we’re about to be attacked. What are you going to do if that happens?”
“We have sworn ourselves to your service, Commodore Riggs. My comrades and I will follow your orders and die gloriously.”
“You might get a chance to do just that.”
Signing off, I looked narrowly at the holotank again. “It seems like the battleship will catch Kreel’s ship if we don’t do something, and they’ll probably blow our friendly Raptors out of space. Hansen, set course to rendezvous with our new allies. We’re going to take them aboard and get the hell out of the way. I assume we can outrun that Raptor heavy?”
Hansen scoffed. “That tub? Nothing to it, Skipper.”
“Make sure you take weapons’ ranges into account, and keep our shields activated. I want to snatch up our friends and go without getting damaged or having to fire. This really isn’t our fight, and we aren’t in possession of any prize alien technology anyway.”
I wasn’t as certain of that detail as I sounded. Marvin probably had something up his nano-metal sleeves.
“Course set and…we’re under way,” Hansen said as I felt Valiant’s big new engines fire up. “Rendezvous in one hour twenty minutes. Captain, after we pick up our birdie buddies, where are we going?”
That was a great question, one I’d only begun to think about. We could play hide-and-seek around the star system, and I was confident in our ability to survive. Our technology was ahead of the Raptors’ for the time being so our ship was faster, our weapons had longer range and hit harder, and we had Macro-style magnetic shields, which was something I’d seen no evidence of on their ships.
But survival wasn’t enough. My crew had to have a goal beyond just living one more day. That meant eventually we have to come back to my original plan: going through the ring and making progress toward home.
Unfortunately that meant entering territory where the Slab apparently lurked. Kreel had called it the “Guardian Box”, so his people had some knowledge of it. That was one more thing to question my new ally about.
I ran the three-way geometry through the holotank and determined that we would be cutting it close. The old Valiant would have made it easily, but our new battlecarrier configuration was significantly slower if a lot tougher. Unfortunately this was one of those times I wished I had speed rather than combat power.
“Bradley,” I said to my CAG, “send out a pair of recon drones. Have them cruise by that battleship at nonthreatening range. I want to see what we’re up against.”
“Aye, sir,” Bradley said. “Launching now.”
I glanced up in surprise. He must have had them waiting in the tubes anticipating my order. Good man.
The drones were, of course, far quicker to accelerate than we were, so we only had about twenty minutes to wait until they were close enough to get good readings.
“Data is coming in now,” Bradley said.
Pictures came up on the screens. The holotank image zoomed in and resolved itself in ever-increasing detail as more information came in. For all its size, the Raptor battleship was graceful, vaguely resembling a bird with wings, a striking beak and reaching claws. On this one, the central projecting “neck” seemed overly thick and heavy. “Give me a close-up on its prow and the weapons there. Calculate its probable power output.”
Soon we could see that there seemed to be only one large weapon at the front, though it had the expected number along its flanks and, I assumed, the point defense phalanx in the rear. After a moment of calculation, V
aliant gave me a power output number that told me the Raptor weapon was about twice as powerful as any one of our main batteries.
“Not good news,” Hansen said. “They’ll outrange us from the front, and that thing will hit hard. We’ll dominate the midranges then they’ll have the advantage again with their point defense if the fight gets in close.”
I nodded. “They’ll also take a heavy toll on our combat drones and missiles with the point defense. On the other hand, as soon as our secondaries get in range we’ll tear them apart. They don’t have shields. We do.”
“We don’t think they have shields,” Hansen replied darkly.
“Valiant, look for and identify anything that might be a magnetic shield projector on that ship.”
“No such structure identified.”
“That’s a relief,” I said.
Hansen only grunted, ever the pessimist. “I’d still rather not fight it.”
“Me neither, XO. Nothing to be gained. But we don’t even know they’re hostile yet.”
“They haven’t answered our transmissions. That doesn’t seem friendly.”
At that moment, several screens fuzzed and went dark. The icon of one of the recon drones winked out.
“Just lost a bird, skipper,” Bradley said. “Laser strike from the battleship.”
“Get the other one out of there!” I snapped.
“Already evading. They’re shooting…damn.” The other icon disappeared. “Took them about twenty shots but…”
I waved a hand. “Don’t sweat it. That’s why they’re unmanned. We found out what we needed to know.”
I stared at the enemy battleship, for that’s what it had declared itself to be.
“Send another message to Shirr with this latest info and demand he explain himself. If I understand Raptor psychology at all, he’ll feel compelled to respond. Valiant, how long until we can expect a reply to the first message I sent?”
“A reply to our first message for their planetary government is overdue.”
“And from this one?”
“One hour twenty-six minutes.”
“Great.” Our Raptor rescue and possibly a battle would already be over with by then. “Is Kreel’s transport going as fast as it can?”
Valiant replied to my question. “Sensors show the ship’s engine output is above rated maximums.”
So he was redlining his propulsion already. “Are we at flank acceleration?” I asked.
“Yes, sir,” Hansen said. “I can ask Sakura to give us more.”
“Do it. Stay safe but see what she can squeeze out.” A moment later I felt the rumble of the engines become a little louder and gravity began to drop and waver as my chief engineer shifted power around. I didn’t really like pushing our new ship without a thorough shakedown, but Kreel had put himself in my hands. I had to retrieve his people and get away without casualties.
If not that, I had to commit to a costly and brutal battle against a vessel with unconfirmed capabilities. I had to assume the Raptor battleship harbored some surprises. The old saying “no battle plan survives contact with the enemy” always applied. You never knew what you didn’t know.
“Go to General Quarters,” I announced. “Once everyone reports in as suited and ready, reduce gravity and life support to minimums. Switch the spare marine battlesuits to auxiliary generator mode. Pass the word that Sakura can draw down the batteries by half if she needs to. Just get us there in time to match velocities and get away.”
A change in the transport’s holotank icon caught my attention. “Kreel is losing power. His acceleration curve is dropping. Why is this happening, Valiant?”
“The Raptor transport has lost one of three engines.”
I released a mumbled stream of profanities and ran the intercept simulation again with the Raptor transport moving more slowly.
“Could the battleship have disabled it with a long range shot?” I demanded.
“No, I don’t think so,” Hansen said after going over the numbers. “I’d say Kreel did it himself by pushing too hard to get away.”
“Either way, the damage is done,” I said, going over his displayed numbers and projected graphs carefully. “The battleship will be able to bring its super-beam into range before we can reach Kreel. Can our shields handle a few hits from that thing, Hansen?”
“Easily, sir—at long range anyway. There won’t be any hull penetration, but I’d recommend we use both layers of shielding.”
Valiant had a general shield that covered the whole ship and then smaller ones for specific areas. As long as we didn’t want to fire our weapons, we could power them both.
Time passed, and all three contacts crawled closer. We were still the farthest one out when Valiant’s voice broke in. “The Raptor transport has lost another engine. It has reduced power on its remaining propulsion systems to below rated maximums.”
“He blew two engines and gave up on overloading them,” I replied.
Running the intercept once more, I saw we weren’t going to be able to avoid an engagement. Unless…
“Bradley, as soon as we turn over and start decelerating, deploy our entire contingent of Daggers as a screen in front of us. Load them full of missiles and have them coast to save fuel. Hansen, at the same time do a soft launch of two full salvoes of missiles and spread them out around the drones. I want to make us look intimidating as hell.”
“Trying to bluff them off?” Hansen said. “Think that will work?”
“It will work,” Sokolov said. “The Raptors are a decadent and cowardly race.”
“I hope they do back off,” I said, “but it’s not really a bluff. If we’re going to fight, I want our unmanned systems out there to absorb the punishment and strike the first heavy blow. If we have to, we’ll sacrifice them all to buy us time.”
“Miss Turnbull won’t like you losing all her ordnance,” Hansen said. Adrienne had become our de facto logistics officer in charge of our factory and supplies.
“It’s there to be used, and we can always make some more.”
“I don’t see why we’re wasting all this effort for a bunch of hostile aliens,” Sokolov muttered.
“General, I’ll thank you to limit your comments to vital issues,” I said. Maybe my tone was disrespectful as he shot me an angry look, but after a moment he nodded sharply.
“Turning over and beginning deceleration in five minutes,” Hansen announced a few minutes later. “Bradley, commence your drone deployment.”
Soon we had an armada of more than sixty combat-loaded Daggers and another forty-eight missiles coasting in a nicely arranged formation, aimed straight at the Raptor battleship.
“Maneuvering,” Hansen said, flipping Valiant around.
Now our main engines pointed almost directly at the oncoming transport and, incidentally, the enemy battleship. Looking at the holotank his maneuver seemed early to me until I remembered that not only did we have to slow down and stop in space relative to the transport, but we then had to accelerate in the other direction in order to match speeds with it. Without the battleship charging in, we could have just waited for Kreel to arrive and saved a lot of fuel. Instead we were burning through our hydrogen isotopes at an alarming rate, as well as running down our batteries to power repellers, grav-plates and everything else.
Hansen was the best I had. I told myself I’d have to trust him.
I watched the holotank for any sign that the battleship was breaking off its charge, but it didn’t waver in its course. I did notice our batteries were refilling slowly.
“Where’s the extra power come from?” I asked.
“Probably because we’re not dragging around the mass of the drones and missiles,” Hansen said. “She maneuvers better without the aerospace wing aboard.”
“Right. But now all those Daggers and missiles are leading us as we brake. They’ll have to slow down on their own. Can they even make it back?”
Hansen shrugged glancing at Bradley, who looked a bit distres
sed. “It will be iffy. As you said, they were made to be expendable.”
I understood his subtext. We were using up a lot of resources to rescue those Raptors, and the crew was not happy about the whole idea.
“I made a promise to Kreel,” I said loudly enough for all to hear. “Besides, we could use more troops to fight with us.” I was bullshitting a bit, and I knew each crewman would hear what he or she wanted to. That would have to be good enough for now.
Suddenly a dozen pinpricks blossomed in the holotank, tiny icons with tails blazing as they accelerated away from the battleship toward the transport.
“Missiles,” I said. “Dammit, they’re going to kill Kreel and his men after all.”
-9-
I ran the projections for the new missile intercept, and I heard the bridge crew hold their collective breath as I did so. “Bradley, have the Daggers launch their missiles at the battleship. Once the launch is complete, order half the drones to go shoot down the missiles aimed at Kreel. Keep the other Daggers and Valiant’s missiles on target.”
I watched as the Daggers launched two nukes each. The missiles quickly pulled ahead. Thirty Daggers followed, diverging slightly to intercept the oncoming enemy missiles. My calculations said they were going to make it, but as they were accelerating they would have less fuel remaining to return to Valiant after their first pass.
“The bastard is making us waste resources,” I said, and then I ground my teeth wishing I’d kept quiet. There was no need to highlight the high cost of this rescue, which was an effort some of my crew undoubtedly already thought foolish. “Bradley, rather than trying to keep those first Daggers in the fight use them in suicide mode and follow the missiles in. Maybe we can end the battle before we even get within beam range.”
Each drone had a small nuke aboard. In company with an overloaded fusion reactor and a little unspent fuel, they could be turned into extra missiles when needed.