Armageddon

by Craig Alanson

  The whole thing kind of blew my mind. If you are wondering, like I was, why we didn’t have to go back to clean up the site of every battle the Flying Dutchman was been in, don’t worry about it. That’s what Skippy told me. After we rebuilt the ship at Newark, the quantum signature of the hull was different from whatever it was when we captured our pirate ship, so no one could track our debris back to a particular Thuranin star carrier that had been declared missing in action. The reason we had to clean up evidence this time was that we were planting false evidence, and couldn’t have anything drifting around that could conflict with our story that the Bosphuraq were the culprits.

  Man, when the Maxolhx scanned the false evidence we planted, they were going to be seriously pissed at the birdbrains.

  The next step in our ‘Sometimes It’s FUN To Be An Asshole’ tour of the galaxy, was to jump in near a Wurgalan data relay station, then upload the file that supposedly came from a Bosphuraq group. At my request, Skippy added a feature to the file, that looked like a virus hidden in it had tried to erase the entire file, but only succeeded in corrupting part of the data. I thought that feature would make it look like someone in the Bosphuraq group had second thoughts about sending such a devastating confession to the Maxolhx, and tried to stop the file from being sent. There was also an addendum to the file, intended to appear as if it were tacked on at the last minute. That addendum stated the file was given to the Maxolhx, because the senders knew the reckless idiots who destroyed two Maxolhx warships were inevitably going to get caught, so the senders hoped that by confessing, the exalted patrons of the Bosphuraq would punish only the guilty party.

  Yeah, like that was ever going to happen.

  The file was uploaded successfully, and would bounce around ships and relay stations until it reached the Maxolhx in about nine days. We needed that time for the last and the most, really the only, dangerous part of our operation to frame the Bosphuraq.

  Which reminds me, I need to get T-shirts made for our ‘Sometimes It’s FUN To Be An Asshole’ tour.

  Skippy needed to get close to the star in the star system where we had nuked the moonbase, so he could leave behind a subtle vibration or quantum signature or whatever the hell it was. For all I knew, he was going to make that star pulse in Morse Code to announce a two-for-one deal on chalupas at Taco Bell. I had to trust him.

  The Bosphuraq already had two dozen ships in that system to investigate why, and how, their own moonbase had destroyed two orbiting battlestations and the atomic-compression research facility on the planet. And then to investigate why and how that moonbase, and another unknown site on that moon, had been wiped out with crude nuclear weapons. According to Skippy, the birdbrains were hopping mad and scratching their heads, having no idea what happened. Anyway, the reason we were sort of screwed was, after the disaster at Nubrentia, the Bosphuraq were forced to halt their offensive, and that made plenty of warships available for other duties. Like helping to figure out just what the hell happened at the moonbase we blew up.

  With so many ships there already, the system became a temporary staging base for battlegroups passing through the area. When we jumped in near the edge of the system, Skippy reported detecting thirty-seven warships, with signs that another battlegroup was performing stealthy combat exercises somewhere near the largest gas giant planet. That was a lot of ships, any one of them was capable of disabling our poor battle-scarred Flying Dutchman. No way could we risk our space truck to carry Skippy close to the star. That deep in the powerful stellar gravity well, we could not jump away, not even with Skippy flattening local spacetime for us. Yes, Skippy had performed that particular magic trick when we were ambushed by a squadron of Thuranin destroyers before we were forced to take the ship to Newark. But that time, we had not been quite as close to a star. Skippy said this time, he needed to be so close that, if he had to flatten spacetime for a jump, the distortion would tear the ship apart.

  Besides the Dutchman, our assets were a handful of Kristang Dragon dropships, two Thuranin Falcons and our one big Condor.

  Oh, and we had one stolen Maxolhx dropship we called a ‘Panther’. After agonizing about the problem for nearly a full day, I made the blindingly obvious decision. We jumped the ship away, and accelerated for nineteen hours to get the ship moving in the correct direction and speed. I got into the Panther with Skippy and Captain Reed, because she was one of only three pilots aboard the ship who were at least somewhat qualified to fly that advanced, senior-species spacecraft. I had been practicing basic operations of the Panther, but we only had one flight simulator for it, and the real pilots were occupying the simulator almost twenty-four seven. If something happened to Reed, I could probably fly the Panther, if I was very slow and careful and Skippy coached me. But I wasn’t in the Panther as a copilot, I was there in case a critical decision needed to be made on the spot.

  And, I was there partly because Skippy told me that, if my stupid plan got screwed up, and he sank into the core of the star to linger there until the end of time, it would give him a small measure of comfort to know I was also dead.

  I appreciated his honesty.

  Anyway, the three of us got into the Panther, depressurized the docking bay, opened the big outer doors and released the clamps. Only our landing skids’ grip on the deck held us in place, as the Dutchman jumped in dangerously close to the star. Reed retracted our landing skids and puffed thrusters to let us drift out the door, then she blipped the throttle so we could get away from the ship before it jumped. Our advanced stealth field enveloped us as we cleared the docking bay doors, and we were invisible to any ship that was not right on top of us.

  Just before the Dutchman jumped away, Desai ordered two modified missiles to be launched toward the star, in a direction away from the course our Panther was flying. The missiles arced away, making lots of noise. Their booster units normally would have fired for only a short, hard burn, to reduce the time when the missiles were glaringly visible. These missiles fired their boosters in slow-burn sustainer mode, so they could be seen across the star system. As the missiles approached the star and their booster motors were expended, the active sensors in their modified nosecones began sending powerful pulses into the star, pretending they were looking for something. The missiles weren’t sending back data and we didn’t care, we just wanted them to attract the attention of the Bosphuraq.

  “Is it working?” I asked as I sat in the Panther’s copilot seat, anxiously watching the display.

  “I don’t know yet, dumdum,” Skippy replied in a tone more peevish than usual. “The closest Bosphuraq ship was eight lightminutes from where the Dutchman jumped in, so they would have just seen the gamma rays a moment ago. How about you, I don’t know, play a video game or something. Let the adults handle this.”

  Our Panther coasted along toward the star, inside a stealth field that was wrapped tightly around the hull, to minimize our already-tiny signature. The Maxolhx stealth technology, modified by Skippy, was highly effective. However, there was one problem we could not avoid. As close to the star as we were, space was flooded with particles of the solar wind. The Panther was carrying a lot of speed, and we were flying through the solar wind, causing hydrogen atoms and whatever to collide with us. The Maxolhx stealth field was integrated with the shield that protected us from micro-meteors, enemy masers and missiles. As particles impacted the forward part of the shield, instead of bouncing off they were bent around the hull as if we weren’t there. At least, most of them were. The shield wasn’t perfect, we left a trail of particles behind us that had higher energy than the solar wind, like the wake of a speedboat on the calm surface of a lake. Even the Bosphuraq would notice the particles trailing behind us, so we had one more trick up our sleeves. In the rear of the Panther was a tank full of low-energy particles that we spewed out behind us. There was also some sort of fancy vacuum-energy quantum bubble gizmo that Skippy tried to explain to me, until my head just about exploded. Supposedly, it extracted energy from nothing, and l
eft spacetime behind us slightly colder than normal. The effect of all this technology was to mask our passage through the hellish solar wind near the star. Or, we hoped it masked us. We would know if it failed only by a Bosphuraq warship painting us with an active sensor sweep and pinpointing our position.

  I watched the instruments as we flew closer and closer to the star. Reed was acting calm, but I could tell she was feeling the tension like I was. The temperature of the hull was enough to melt titanium and rising. The instruments assured me the Panther was coping with the heat and the interior of the cabin was comfortable, I still felt sweat trickling down my back. “Skippy, how do we know this vacuum bubbly thingy is working?”

  “Because the instruments say it is operating perfectly, dumdum.”

  “Ok, if you say so. Hey, is this vacuum-energy gizmo anything like an Elder power tap, it pulls energy from nowhere?”

  “No, it is not. Ugh, do I really have to explain this to you now?”

  “It’s not like I’m doing anything else right now, so-”

  “Fine.” Clearly, the exasperated way he said that word indicated he was not, in fact, fine with the idea of explaining quantum physics to a particularly dense monkey. “Listen, I am busy, so I’ll make this quick. The device aboard this Panther does not create energy, nor does it pull energy from another dimension. The Maxolhx do not yet possess that level of technology. The device we are using takes energy from the Panther’s reactor and creates an effect that extracts vacuum energy, but the amount of energy we put in is much less than we get out. Think of it as an air conditioner, extracting heat from space and dumping it into a heatsink. We will have to dump that excess heat before we rendezvous with the Dutchman again. Is that it? Are you satisfied with that answer, or is there any other information you need to submit your application for a Nobel prize?”

  “Um, no, that’s good, thank you.”

  “Great. Now, will you kindly shut the hell up, while I am in the extremely delicate operation of tying knots in the magnetic field lines of a freakin’ star? If you are bored, you can monitor the pair of Bosphuraq destroyers that just arrived to intercept our decoy missiles.”

  I shut the hell up and followed Reed’s example of doing her job in a cool and quiet manner. Inside, I was shivering as I watched first two, then four Bosphuraq destroyers examine and then vaporize our missiles. One destroyer broke away from the others to head in our general direction, causing me to promise the Universe or Karma that I would never push my luck again, if they got us out of this one. That lone destroyer sniffed around the general area with active sensor pulses, and I kept glancing over at Reed to judge whether we should do something. She continued calmly focusing on her job, or she was faking it really well. I guess she had the right attitude; there was nothing we could do if that destroyer locked onto our location with an active sensor sweep. We could not outrun a destroyer- No, that technically was not entirely correct. Our little Panther could accelerate harder than a comparatively bulky warship, but our momentum and the presence of the star meant we had limited options for an escape route, and the enemy would know that. The mathematics of orbital mechanics was not a secret and the math didn’t change, we could run but we couldn’t hide for long. The destroyer had three critical advantages if it detected us and wanted to blow our dropship to dust. According to Skippy, that class of Bosphuraq destroyer carried a typical load of sixty-eight missiles of various types, any one of which could vaporize the Panther. Those ships also were equipped with maser cannons, and particle cannons for close-range fighting. The destroyer also had the advantage that it was not alone, it could call its three siblings and surround us. The destroyers could surround us and cut off our escape, even though we could accelerate harder than any of them, because they could assign one ship to pursue us, while the other three jumped ahead to wait for us to fly into their trap. Yes, the destroyers would first need to climb out to jump distance, giving us at least a slim chance of getting far enough away that they lost sensor lock on us. But that chance was very slim, slim enough that even skinny jeans would fall right off it, if you know what I mean.

  The instrument panel in front of me included an indicator of the signal strength, frequencies and other characteristics of the destroyer’s active sensor pulses. Based on the wide spectrum of the pulses, and the broad area being swept, that ship was not looking for anything in particular. The strength of the signal passing intermittently over us was only seven percent of the power level necessary to break through our stealth field and detect us.

  Of course, we had discussed all our options if we were detected while we were flying close to the star, and we knew the risks and our extremely limited ability to survive if we were detected. Perhaps the major problem with trying to run away from pursuit was that would mean missing our precisely-planned rendezvous with the Flying Dutchman. For safety, our space truck had jumped far away, and would be jumping back in at a precise location, at a time specified to the second, and the ship would be moving at a known direction and speed. Because jumps are not super-precise unless Skippy is programming the navigation system, the plan was for the Dutchman to emerge in front of us along the Panther’s course, and we would maneuver to match course and speed so the Panther could quickly fly into a docking bay. Changing our course even slightly to avoid pursuit would totally screw up our rendezvous. If that happened, we would send a tightbeam message to the Dutchman when we detected the ship jumping in, and propose an alternate rendezvous time and location. Easy enough, right?

  No. The answer is no, because Mr. Orbital Mechanics Math is a stickler for precision. Although it is unfair, math isn’t flexible, you can’t fudge it or persuade it to bend just because that would be convenient to you. An alternate rendezvous point and time would not change the fact that our fleeing Panther would be moving too fast and in the wrong direction, so we would zip right past the ship before we could decelerate and turn fast enough to meet it. So, any alternate rendezvous plan would need to include a delay, so the Dutchman could accelerate to match course and speed, with whatever course and speed they guessed the Panther would be doing at the time and place of the rendezvous. If, during that time, the Panther had to change course to avoid the pursuing destroyers, we would helplessly fly right past the Dutchman, and have to try again. Because the Dutchman would be exposed to enemy fire, the ship could not linger at any rendezvous point for more than a few minutes.

  Did I mention that I freakin’ hate math? Math is a jerk. Math is even worse than that teacher who forced you to read Moby Dick over the summer, and made you lose your love of reading for the next decade.

  Yeah, I’m talking about you, Mr. Tomlinson.

  Anyway, if we were being hounded by destroyers and they forced us to miss several rendezvous opportunities, my plan was to toss Skippy out an airlock, then Reed and I would jump together out soon after. In our Kristang hardshell suits, we should be able to survive for a while, unless we left the Panther too close to the star. I had thought ahead, by bringing a portable stealth field generator that could wrap around me and Reed while our suits were tethered together. Skippy of course could conceal his can from detection. If we had to fall back to that desperate option, I would send the Panther on a preprogrammed course to lead the destroyers away from us, and ping the Dutchman with a guess on where they could retrieve first Skippy, then me and Reed. The ship would have to send out a dropship to pick us up, and we would be starting the rendezvous game all over again, this time using a Thuranin spacecraft that had significantly less capability than the Panther.

  I did not like our odds of survival if that happened.

  Plus, that last-ditch desperate plan to save our asses would mean abandoning the fancy Maxolhx dropship we worked so hard to get. I was not sentimental about the thing, but it was a priceless asset that we might need later. Plus, Skippy had warned me that, even if I got the Panther to self-destruct, the Bosphuraq might, and certainly the Maxolhx would, identify the debris as Maxolhx in origin. That would cause the Maxol
hx to ask all kinds of questions, which could weaken or ruin our attempt to frame the Bosphuraq for our own nefarious deeds.

  This clandestine shit is way, way too complicated.

  “Um, Sir,” Reed spoke for the first time in several minutes. “We may have a problem.”

  A quick scan of the instruments, showed me no warning indicators about systems aboard our used, stolen spacecraft. The curious destroyer was not any closer to detecting us. Although as the commander, I would have liked to pretend I also was aware of any potential danger, I had to look over at her and admit complete ignorance. “What is it, Reed?”

  “Solar flare,” she pointed to the display between the seats. “It’s building up ahead of us.”