by Britt Ringel
“Good idea about getting Pioneer’s data,” Kirkpatrick said.
“Maybe we can get some insight into what we’re up against,” Holt added approvingly. “Message away, Captain.” She paused a moment. “Sir, this is strange but I think I need to report it. For the last several minutes I’ve been getting some weird, very low frequency radiation emissions from that Parasite destroyer.”
“Like unstable energy readings?” Twist asked.
“No,” she answered. “It’s directional emissions, pointed right at us. It’s almost like they are sending us some kind of signals.” The line of her mouth twisted slightly. “At first, I thought it might be a communications attempt.” She shook her head. “The frequency is far too low though.”
“It still could be a message,” Kirkpatrick pointed out. “Just because it’s not how we transmit messages doesn’t mean it’s not how they might. In fact, I’d expect it to be different.”
“ECM?” Twist speculated. “Are they trying to jam us?”
“It’s really weak ECM, if that’s what it is, sir,” Holt answered and then shrugged. “You see? This is why I wasn’t sure how I should report it. Right now, it’s just ultra-low frequency emissions directed at us from that flagship. That’s my report.”
“Okay, Lieutenant,” Twist acknowledged. “We’re not always going to have the answers but I’m glad you said something. Record the incoming transmissions and we’ll hand copies over to Davis.”
A cloak of silence fell over the bridge as they waited. The minutes passed without change until the time had come for Hunter to attempt his dive. Twist measured the distance between his ship and Pioneer. Eight more minutes for her light to reach us.
After another frustratingly slow bout of waiting, Holt announced the events as she received them. She shook her head while interpreting Pioneer’s efforts. “Misfire on the drive, sir,” she stated with profound disappointment. Pioneer’s blue symbol stubbornly remained near the tunnel point.
Five more minutes passed and Pioneer reattempted her dive without success. Holt groaned. “Another misfire.”
Kirkpatrick looked at Twist, who simply shook his head. “Give them a little more time.”
“And then what?” Kirkpatrick asked.
“We switch roles. Hunter pulls the Parasites away while we dive back to warn the fleet.”
“But what will happen to Pioneer?” Quick asked from her station.
“If they can’t evade the Parasites and dive, they’ll have to self-destruct,” Twist answered coldly. He looked at Quick, allowing his blue eyes to pierce through her. “Just like we’d have to do.”
Kirkpatrick saw Quick’s horrified look and assuaged, “We can’t allow the Parasites to capture our ship, August. People infected by the Parasites not only lose control of their motor functions but evidence indicates the aliens also make a mental connection to their hosts. An infected crewmember could hand over knowledge of this entire operation and the route back to the Republic. You know this. I’m not telling you anything new.”
She nodded grimly and returned her attention to her panel.
A disheartening quiet shrouded the bridge as Pathfinder watched her sister. After a nine-minute delay, Pioneer’s symbol pulsed brightly and faded.
“They’re away!” Holt said triumphantly before reasserting a more professional demeanor. “Tunnel disturbance at the J-Two tunnel point. Pioneer has cleared the system, Captain.”
“Godspeed, Pioneer,” Twist whispered.
Chapter 46
“Engage the transmittance generator,” Twist ordered.
Pathfinder was already sailing upside down relative to the Parasite ships, with her starboard beam facing her pursuers. The inverted flight was necessary because of the damage to her three port stealth panels. Twist warily eyed the stealth screen to ensure the generator activated. When it engaged, Pathfinder’s theoretical detection radius shrank considerably on the system plot, collapsing away from the cutters. The swarm of pursuers was an estimated 1.2lm from the new detection threshold.
“Navigation,” Twist announced once he was sure Pathfinder was sailing under stealth, “make your course one-one-one and dive us deep into the z-axis. Speed point-two-eight-C.”
Lieutenant Fitts operated the thrusters to orient Pathfinder to her new heading. The ship’s drives glowed brightly and pushed the scout ship not only tangentially away from the Parasite flotilla but also “below” the standard plane of the star system. Twist’s course had been carefully selected to keep Pathfinder’s engines directed away from the enemy, lest their glow outshine the background radiation and trigger detection.
Minutes passed as Pathfinder took an indirect route toward the tunnel point while keeping the Parasite ships at bay. Twist sat back and thought about his options, knowing that it would be nearly fourteen minutes before he would see the Parasites’ reaction, if any.
Keeping them outside of our detection radius is paramount. Once we’re past them, I can angle in more directly toward the tunnel point and escape. He spent the next dozen minutes examining an overlay on the system plot that estimated background radiation from the system’s indigenous features. The largest source was Junction’s star but the two jovians also emitted heavy amounts of localized radiation. Those zones created by the gas giants would make superb places to disappear, Twist mused. However, they’re so far from the tunnel point I doubt that Pathfinder can use them.
“Getting something,” Holt announced from her sensor panel. “They’re, um, splitting up?” she stated hesitantly. “Here, let me divide the flotilla symbol.” Several commands later, the tactical picture became clearer.
The majority of the Parasite cutters were maintaining a haphazard formation around their destroyer. However, scores of individual cutters bloomed outward in a semi-circle from their flagship, toward where Pathfinder had activated her t-stealth generator. The wayward cutters darted forward at .35c to form an expanding hemisphere in front of the main body.
“What the hell is that?” Kirkpatrick asked angrily. He pointed toward the wall screen in alarm. “That is not supposed to happen.” He was utterly insistent. “Cutters do not split into separate formations; they mass and attack.”
Twist’s eyes narrowed at the screen in realization. “It’s a search net,” he stated grimly. “They’re sending out cutters almost as if they were probes in a bid that one of them will blunder into us.”
Kirkpatrick lifted his light-stylus from the magnetic lock on his chair and circled a portion of the growing hemisphere. “Lieutenant Holt, how long until that gaggle breaks inside of five light-minutes of us?” The lone cutter in J-Two had detected Pathfinder at a range of 4.8 light-minutes.
Holt set to work on the task, creating a simulation on the left side screen. The cutters sailed quickly away from the flotilla, their 5lm detection bubbles pushing outward, closing on Pathfinder. However, every light-second’s travel outward spread the expanding formation thinner and thinner. As the cutters moved to cover all three dimensions of space in a rough half-sphere, their individual detection circles overlapped less and less. The cutters on the most direct course for Pathfinder eventually breached 5lm.
Holt looked at the simulation’s chronometer and reported, “At present course and speed, thirty-five minutes, forty-two seconds.”
“The coverage zones are nearly unlocked there and there, Captain,” Kirkpatrick said, pointing out the weak areas with his light-stylus.
“Helm, come left zero-three-zero, mark one,” Twist ordered. “We’re going to have to thread the needle, Vix. This course change will buy us some time to figure out where the best spot to puncture the net will be.” He turned to face his first officer. “You’re going to the hangar, Commander.” He cocked his head toward the bridge’s Engineering officer. “Lieutenant Dru, you’re with Commander Kirkpatrick.”
Kirkpatrick looked at his captain with a moment’s hesitation.
Twist smiled when he saw his expression. “I’ll brief you on your errand on your way down to
the hangar but don’t worry; you’ll be back to the bridge in plenty of time before something comes up.” Twist looked at Quick. “August, I need your best shuttle pilot to meet Vix in the hangar.”
Quick nodded while already calling down to Auxiliary Control for Dru’s replacement.
* * *
When Kirkpatrick and Dru arrived in Pathfinder’s hangar, Petty Officer Third Class Gary Wojtek was waiting. The shuttle pilot shifted his weight nervously from foot to foot.
“Sir, you’re not going for a ride, are you?”
Kirkpatrick looked past the anxious pilot to Pathfinder’s sole shuttle. He approached the tiny craft and entered commands to open its ramp. “Gary, you and Lieutenant Dru are either remotely piloting this shuttle out of the hangar and into space, or you’re doing it from the pilot’s seat.” He gave the NCO a mirthless smile. “I wouldn’t recommend that second option.”
Wojtek looked from Kirkpatrick to the junior grade lieutenant. “Can we pilot it using the shuttle’s autopilot? Just send updates to the nav computer and have the autopilot fly it for us?”
Dru stared blankly at the shuttle before answering. “We’ll need to modify the comm equipment. There’s no receiver linked directly to the autopilot for fear of a remote, hostile takeover of the shuttle’s systems but I think we can do it….”
The lieutenant tapped at the surface of his datapad. After a soft chirp, he quickly ordered, “Hazel, get yourself and McDowell down to the shuttle hangar and bring a standard comm maintenance pack.” He looked at Kirkpatrick. “Commander, there’s going to be a delay between when Wojtek enters a flight command and when the shuttle receives it. The setup isn’t going to be very elegant.”
“I don’t care,” Kirkpatrick replied but then his eyebrows shot upward. “Oh! We need a method to self-destruct it. I don’t want it falling into Parasite hands.”
Dru readdressed his datapad. “Hazel, grab Peters and Greer on your way down.” He looked back to his first officer. ‘We can do that, sir. I just need time to get this working.”
Kirkpatrick nodded. “Do it as fast as you can, Lieutenant. The horde is approaching.” After he was certain the young officer understood the stakes, he turned his attention to his own datapad.
* * *
“Understood,” Twist acknowledged. “Oversee the modifications and call me the second the shuttle is ready to go.” He terminated the connection and rescanned the tactical plot.
As usual, the plot was centered on Pathfinder. Toward the lower edge of the screen, six Parasite cutters were charging blindly toward his ship. Their estimated 5lm detection bubbles preceded them and there was a scant 6.7lm between Pathfinder and the closest cutter. Twist had ordered Pathfinder on a course that would sail her between the two nearest cutters, hoping to skirt between them while avoiding detection. He frowned with the realization that the Parasite search net had not spread wide enough to allow for a sensor gap. The lethal cutters would sail within 5lm of Pathfinder in twenty-four minutes if he did not act.
Behind the expanding search net, the Parasite destroyer and her brood moved at the slower speed of .3c, lagging behind its probing cutters. Pathfinder’s current course would take her well wide of the menacing ship but the swarm of cutters around the mothership would still pass disconcertingly close given their terrifying .35c speed capability.
Even if I ran directly away from those cutters, they’d catch me before I could maneuver around them. There appeared to be no good option. A sense of dread had crept into him over the passing minutes. He shook his head in an attempt to clear it. “Hey, Lucy, what does the destroyer look like?” he asked.
Holt flashed a capture from Pioneer’s Looking Glass optical onto a side screen. The destroyer-sized alien ship mimicked the tiny cutters in basic design. It was cylindrical, with two dozen propulsion drives mounted in a honeycomb at its stern. The similarities ended there though, as long, thin antennae spiked outward down the length of the barrel-like hull. Particle beam mounts ringed the hull at even intervals. Most distressing was the bow of the destroyer, fashioned much like that of a militarized cutter except that its concave surface easily measured seventy-five meters across.
Twist pointed at the bowl-shaped front of the ship. “That can’t possibly be a particle beam mount, can it?” He had never heard of a particle beam weapon that required such a large aperture.
Lieutenant Diallo tilted his head skeptically as he answered. “It’s either the most inefficient particle beam ever, or the amount of power that ship can generate to create a particle beam relative to the size of that mount is beyond imagination.”
“So it’s something else,” Twist stated. “Some new weapon that requires a spinal mount that’s over four-hundred meters long. Let’s not see it firsthand.” Nods of agreement filtered around the room.
His eyes fell back to the encroaching cutters. There appeared to be no escape. “Opinion, Lieutenant Holt,” he said as he rubbed the scar near his chin. “Where would you pierce their sensor net?”
Holt’s hand batted dark locks away from her face as she turned toward the main wall screen. Brown eyes analyzed the tactical plot. “Two options,” she offered. “Option A: we plot our course to take us directly between Cutters Six-Beta and Seven-Beta and hope that they cannot detect us at a range of three-point-seven light-minutes.”
“What’s your evaluation of Parasite sensor capabilities?” Twist asked.
“I actually think their detection capability is worse than ours, Captain.” She dipped her head slightly. “But I do think they will discover Pathfinder if we close to within that range.”
Pathfinder’s captain sighed. “I’m afraid I agree.” He shifted his weight in his shockseat. “My assumption is Option B is a bit more aggressive.”
Holt smiled as she nodded, her lips parting to reveal a hint of teeth. “We make our own hole in the net.”
Chapter 47
Twist’s dread evaporated as he nodded agreement. I already feel better, he thought. It’s amazing what a little action can do to lift the spirits. “Helm, set an intercept course for Cutter-Six-Beta.”
“We’ll be giving them an inefficient stealth facing during our burn, Captain,” Fitts reminded.
“Acknowledged, Lucas. Execute my command,” Twist said irritably. He swallowed before adding, “We’ll be giving them more than that. WEPS, warm up the missile port and work a firing solution for Six-Beta.” He glanced at the range between the two ships: 5.3lm apart.
Diallo uttered confirmation from Twist’s right and set his weapons section to work. In front of Twist, Fitts spun Pathfinder to her new orientation and put her Allison-Turner drives into action. The burn pushing the stealth ship to her new course lasted fifty-one seconds.
When the drives dimmed, Pathfinder was on a collision course for the Parasite cutter labelled Six-Beta at a closure rate of over .6c. The time to intercept had dropped precipitously to eight minutes twenty-four seconds. The ships would close to within the 5lm range of Pathfinder’s Javelin-G missile in less than thirty seconds.
“Target locked, Captain,” Diallo called hungrily from his station. “Missile ready to fire.”
“Loose,” Twist commanded.
At Pathfinder’s bow, her missile portal had already been retracted. The order to drop the containment field covering the port came three seconds after her captain’s command on the bridge. The hazy screen blinked away and moments later, a nine-meter Javelin-G anti-ship missile burst forth from the opening. The latest iteration of the Brevic ASM twisted radically as it was expelled and torqued even more violently when its main drive ignited. The spiraling motion of the missile’s first 6ls of flight was hypnotic as it made constant corrections to its course. After twelve seconds of travel, the gravity warhead tip pointed directly at its quarry, traveling at half the speed of light. In its wake, the twin hatches of the missile port began to close.
“Missile away,” Diallo announced.
On the tactical plot, an inverted “v” symbol marked the p
rogress of the Javelin-G. The missile’s predicted flight time to Cutter Six-Beta amounted to four and a half minutes.
“Crossing four point eight light-minutes, Captain,” Holt stated. “This is when the cutter in J-Two detected us.”
“Watch for a reaction, Lieutenant,” Twist ordered while keeping his eyes glued to the tactical plot. It would be difficult to know exactly what the Parasites would be reacting to, his ship or the missile fired from it.
The tactical plot played out the events with sterile indifference. The missile flew unmolested for almost its entire approach. As it entered to within 10ls of its quarry, it began pre-programmed jinks to evade enemy point defense efforts. No such defensive fire was issued from the cutter until the missile closed to 4ls. At that distance, a single, unremarkable particle beam flailed at the projectile but missed well behind it. Less than five seconds later, Pathfinder detected a gravity warhead disturbance and light from Six-Beta’s explosion and subsequent obliteration. The destroyed cutter’s 5lm detection ring collapsed on the tactical plot to leave a gaping hole in the Parasite sensor net.
“No reaction from the other cutters, Captain,” Diallo said in triumph.
“We’re not in the clear yet, Mosi,” Holt cautioned. “It’ll take eight minutes for Six-Beta’s warning about the missile or us to reach Cutters Five and Seven-B. Then, factoring in their reaction time, it would take another… roughly ten minutes for that light to reach us.”
Twist appraised his weapons officer dispassionately. “We won’t know if we’re clear until then.”
Diallo looked crestfallen. “Oh. It’s hard to wrap your head around all of the variables sometimes.”
“Maybe,” Twist stated coldly, “but errors like that can get your ship and crew killed, Lieutenant. Prep another missile. We’re probably going to need it.” The rebuked lieutenant shrank in his chair and focused quietly on his task.
The minutes passed slowly and silently. Pathfinder raced toward the center of the space formerly patrolled by Cutter Six-Beta while awaiting the light of Parasite reactions. During her wait, the ship sailed 2.5lm closer to her ultimate goal, the tunnel to J-2. Progress was frustratingly slow and steering through the coverage gap forced Pathfinder onto an indirect route.