Starship

by Michael D. Resnick

  “No, sir. For David Copperfield.”

  And suddenly Cole got his first look at the Hammerhead Shark. His first impression was that the Shark was big. His second was that he was huge. The Shark's eyes extended far out from his head on bony stalks, just like the long-extinct hammerhead shark of Earth's oceans. His face seemed to be in a perpetual snarl as he glared into the camera. His chest and arms were massive and scale-covered, his belt held half a dozen hand weapons that seemed totally unnecessary, and his legs reminded Cole of smooth tree trunks. He did not wear a T-pack, the translating device that enabled most aliens to speak and understand Terran. Like many on the Inner Frontier, where T-packs were both rare and expensive, he'd learned the language himself, and spoke it in a frighteningly deep voice with very little trace of a sibilant accent.

  “You betrayed me!” he bellowed, extending a clawed forefinger toward the hidden holo camera. “You tried to set me up!”

  They could hear a near-hysterical David Copperfield denying it, but he'd forgotten to add his holograph to his message—and then Cole remembered: it wasn't Copperfield who'd turned off the camera. He had three crewmen stationed there. If the Shark landed, they were going to be outnumbered and outgunned; their only advantage would be the element of surprise.

  “I'm coming to get you!” continued the Shark. “You like the writings of the humans that you imitate, you sorry piece of filth? Very well. I shall turn you into covers for the books you worship, piece by piece. That is my solemn pledge to you!”

  The transmission ended.

  “Pleasant guy, isn't he?” said Cole dryly.

  “I told you what he was like,” replied Val.

  “Well, David did this at our instigation. We can't let him suffer for it. Four Eyes, are you ready?”

  “Ready and locked on,” said the Molarian's image.

  “Remember: You're just disabling it.”

  “You'd better give me the order to fire or I won't even be able to do that,” said Forrice. “He's approaching light speed.”

  “Fire,” said Cole.

  At first they couldn't see anything. Then Briggs's sensors picked it up, created an image, and flashed it on the bridge's largest viewscreen.

  “Nice shot, Four Eyes,” said Cole. “He looks to be in some distress, but he's still functional. Now we'll step in and finish the job.”

  “What do you mean, finish the job?” demanded Val.

  “I don't mean destroy the ship,” said Cole. “I mean, empty it of bad guys.”

  “I'll take the Shark myself,” she said. “Nobody else on this ship could handle him.”

  “He's all yours.”

  And then the Shark's image appeared on the bridge. It looked from face to face, paused at Val's and smiled grimly, then continued looking until it came to Cole.

  “Commander Cole,” said the Shark. “I might have guessed. I recognize you from your holos. The Navy wants you almost as badly as I now do.”

  “It's Captain Cole, and you and the Navy are both destined to be disappointed.”

  “Captain?” repeated the Shark. “That won't last. It never does, not with you.”

  “It lasted long enough for us to meet. Your ship is disabled. You can't escape us, and you must know that we can outgun you. If you will surrender and turn the Pegasus over to its rightful owner, we will set you down on an uninhabited oxygen world to live out your lives. That's the best offer you're going to get, and it's not going to stay on the table forever.”

  “You dare to offer terms to me? I'm the Hammerhead Shark! I make offers, I don't accept them.”

  “Then you'd better learn to start accepting them,” said Cole. “I'm withdrawing it in five Standard minutes.”

  “A lot can happen in five minutes,” said the Shark, pulling his thin lips back to expose his pointed fangs in what seemed to be a very alien grin.

  “Raise all our defenses, Mr. Briggs,” said Cole softly. “I don't know what he's getting at, but he looks too damned confident.”

  “But if I am to choose an uninhabited oxygen world,” continued the Shark, “I choose Riverwind.”

  And with that, the Pegasus's cannon disgorged another huge pulse of energy, headed right for Riverwind.

  “It's your choice,” said the Shark. “Board my ship or save Riverwind. You can't do both in the five minutes it will take the energy pulse to hit.”

  He bellowed his laughter and cut the connection.

  “Pilot, catch up with that damned thing!” ordered Cole.

  “Which damned thing, sir?” asked Wxakgini. “The ship or the pulse?”

  “The pulse, damn it!” Then: “Mustapha!”

  The chief engineer's image appeared. “Yes, sir?”

  “I assume you've been following this. Once we get within range, what the hell do we use?”

  Mustapha Odom frowned. “It has no mass, sir, so we probably can't knock it off course. You'll have to find some way to dissipate it. Give it something to hit before it reaches the planet—and something explosive would be even better. Have we any explosives in the armory?”

  “Four Eyes—how about it?”

  “Just pulse, laser, and sonar,” answered the Molarian. “We've got a thermite bomb in the cargo area, but no way of delivering it.”

  “This is the Captain!” shouted Cole. “I assume you're all listening in. Whoever's closest to the cargo area, get that bomb and move it to a shuttle. Tell Briggs which shuttle you've chosen. He'll pilot it from here.”

  “That's me, sir!” said Esteban Morales.

  “I thought you were in the Gunnery Section,” said Cole.

  “I'm still closer than anyone else,” he said, and they could hear his feet pounding down a corridor.

  “Four minutes, sir,” said Christine.

  “If there's one thing I don't need right now,” said Cole irritably, “it's a countdown.”

  Another minute passed.

  “Done, sir,” said Morales. “It's in the Archie.”

  “Okay. Mr. Briggs, open the shuttle hatch and send the Archie after that pulse at as many multiples of light speed as it'll take.”

  “It's off,” said Briggs. “It's not built for these speeds, sir. It'll shake apart in a couple of minutes.”

  “A couple of minutes is all we need. Then it's going to blow up anyway.”

  “What should I do now, sir?” asked Morales.

  “Get back to the Gunnery Section,” said Cole.

  “Gunnery?” asked Morales.

  Oh, shit! thought Cole. Don't tell me what I know you're going to tell me.

  “I'm on the Archie, sir. That's what I thought you wanted.”

  “Get into a protective suit, Mr. Morales,” said Cole. “Fast!”

  “Where the hell do we keep—? Ah! I see them!”

  “As soon as you're in it, I want you to jettison.”

  “It'll kill him, Wilson,” said Sharon Blacksmith's voice.

  “Let's hope it doesn't.”

  “Don't you understand? Even if he lives through it at light speeds, he's going to be in terrible shape. In case it's slipped your memory, we're still not carrying a doctor!”

  “It's not a choice between the kid and the ship, damn it!” said Cole. “It's between him and a city filled with people!”

  “Ready to jettison, sir,” announced Morales.

  “Oh, Jesus! Did you hear all that?” asked Cole.

  “It's okay, sir. I've always wanted to be a hero like you.”

  Heroes like me live, thought Cole bitterly. “All right, son. I don't know what advice to give you, because no one I know except Slick has ever been outside a ship at light speeds. Try to keep in a fetal ball to protect your vital spots. We'll pick you up less than thirty seconds from now.”

  “Here I go, sir.”

  Then there was silence.

  Briggs was tracking the Archie on his sensor monitors. “Contact in about fifteen seconds, sir,” he announced. “Providing there is contact and the shuttle doesn't melt first, or pass
right through it.”

  “Don't worry about that. If we destroy it, it'll be on every screen in the ship. Concentrate on finding the kid.”

  “Got him, sir!”

  “Any movement, any sign of life at all?”

  “No, sir.”

  Suddenly all the screens turned a blinding white for a few seconds.

  “That's it,” announced Briggs. “No more energy pulse.”

  “And the kid?”

  “We won't know until we pull him in.”

  Getting Morales aboard took more than the thirty seconds Cole had promised. More than two minutes. And it was clear before they pulled him out of his spacesuit that he had died instantly.

  “Wrap him up,” said Cole. “I'll read over him, and we'll give him a burial in space.”

  “Then what?” asked Forrice.

  “Then we're going fishing,” said Cole grimly.

  Cole finished reading from the beat-up copy of the Bible he kept in his office, and Morales was jettisoned into space.

  “He got his wish,” said Forrice. “He died a hero.”

  “Fools die for their causes,” replied Cole grimly. “Heroes live.”

  “You could have saved him.”

  “True,” agreed Cole.

  “But at the cost of a city.”

  “Also true.”

  “I've changed my mind,” said the Molarian. “I guess I don't want to be Captain after all.”

  “I don't blame you,” said Cole.

  The two of them took the airlift up to the bridge, where Val and Domak had relieved Christine and Briggs. Cole turned to Forrice. “You're not on duty for a few hours yet. Why don't you get some sleep?”

  “Molarians don't need that much sleep.”

  “The hell they don't.”

  “All right. I want to be here when we catch up with the Shark.”

  “I'll wake you as soon as we spot him. But if it takes a few hours, I want you fresh when you come back up here.”

  “All right,” said Forrice reluctantly. “But you'd damned well better let me know when we find him.”

  “I will.”

  The Molarian went off to the airlift.

  “All right,” said Cole. “Has anyone got any idea where he is?”

  “I haven't been able to find any trace of him, sir,” said Domak.

  “Me neither,” said Val.

  “He can't have gone that damned far,” said Cole. “Lieutenant Domak, I want you to capture the images we have of the hit we made on the Pegasus. Enhance them as much as possible, and then have Mr. Odom look at them.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I still want first crack at him,” said Val.

  “I don't see anyone racing to fight him ahead of you,” said Cole. “Just how tall is he, anyway?”

  “Maybe a foot taller than me.”

  “And he must be three times as broad,” said Cole. “How the hell do you beat something like that?”

  “By spending your whole life training to beat something like that,” she responded.

  “Good answer.” Meaningless, he thought, but good.

  Cole found himself feeling hungry, and it occurred to him that he hadn't eaten in more than twelve hours, so he went to the mess hall and ordered a sandwich and a beer. As he was sitting at his table, Mustapha Odom approached him.

  “May I sit down?” asked the engineer.

  “Please do.”

  Odom pulled up a chair. “I've studied the images of the Pegasus.”

  “You're our expert,” said Cole. “How far can it go in the condition it's in?”

  “You've done some damage to its light drive and its stabilizers,” answered Odom. “My best estimate, and it's only an estimate, is that it can't go more than about ten or eleven light-years before the drive gives out. They're going to have to set down for repairs, or that ship's going to be dead in space.”

  “Thanks,” said Cole, getting to his feet. “That's what I needed to hear.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” said Odom, “but if you're not going to eat the other half of your sandwich…”

  “Help yourself,” said Cole, walking to the airlift. A moment later he was back on the bridge. “Lieutenant Domak, how many star systems are there within a dozen light-years of Riverwind?”

  “Four, sir.”

  “How many of them have oxygen worlds?”

  She checked her monitors. “None, sir.”

  “That's encouraging,” said Cole. “Pilot, take us by each world in the four closest star systems. Skip the gas giants.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Wxakgini from his pod atop the bridge.

  “Lieutenant, scan each world we come to. If Mr. Odom is right, and he usually is, the Pegasus is going to be on one of them.”

  “What do I do when I find it?” asked Domak.

  “Take no action at all. Just let me know.”

  He noticed Val examining each of her weapons, making sure they were in perfect working order.

  “You know, there's every likelihood that he's going to fire on us when he sees us, and that you'll never get close enough to use those.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “But I plan to be ready.”

  “Very commendable. I'm just warning you that if he stands and fights, we may have no choice but to destroy the Pegasus.”

  “Just offer him the chance to fight me personally,” she said. “He'll jump at it.”

  “Do you really think you can beat him?” asked Cole. “He looks awfully formidable.”

  “I can beat him.”

  He stared at her, and while he'd seen her in action and knew her skills, he couldn't imagine any way that she could hold her own against the Hammerhead Shark.

  “Don't you look at me like that!” snapped Val. “I deserve the chance to take him!”

  “All right,” said Cole. “If he talks before he shoots, I'll make the offer.” He turned to Domak. “I'll be in the lounge. Let me know when you find it.”

  He left the bridge and went to the cramped officers' lounge, where he tried to relax by watching a holographic entertainment featuring singers, dancers, magicians, and statuesque naked ladies, but he couldn't concentrate and he turned it off after twenty minutes. A few minutes later Domak's image appeared.

  “Yes?” he said, suddenly alert.

  “We examined the Priminetti and Vasquez systems, sir. Four planets in the first, seven in the second, excluding gas giants. No sign of the Pegasus.”

  “Keep looking. Either the Pegasus is on a planet in one of the next two systems, or Mr. Odom's never getting another one of my sandwiches.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said as her image vanished.

  He was restless, but didn't want to be seen pacing the bridge nervously, because that nervousness might spread to the crew. He considered stopping by Security, just to visit with Sharon, anything to take his mind off the waiting so that when it ended he'd be fresh and alert. He was about to leave the lounge when Domak's image appeared again.

  “We've found it, sir.”

  “Good! Where is it?”

  “The fifth planet of the Hamilton system, sir. I checked, and none of the planets have been named, so I guess it's just Hamilton V.”

  “Tell Pilot to hold our position,” said Cole. “And wake Four Eyes. I'll be right over.”

  He left the lounge, walked down the corridor to the bridge, and was soon looking at the image the sensors had constructed of the Pegasus, sitting atop a flat, featureless plain.

  “Is anyone working on it?”

  “Two Men are outside in protective gear, sir,” said Domak.

  “Can you tell for sure that they are Men?” he asked.

  “Neither of them is the Shark,” she replied. “He gives off a different reading.”

  “So he's definitely inside the ship?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Let's let him know we're here.”

  “I'm not at the transmission console, sir,” said Domak.

  “Let's send something m
ore interesting. Who's in Gunnery?”

  “Idena Mueller and Braxite, sir.”

  “Idena, can you read me?”

  “We can read and see you, sir,” said Idena as her image appeared on the bridge.

  “I want you to fire a laser beam toward the Pegasus,” said Cole.

  “What?” yelled Val.

  “Shut up,” said Cole harshly. He turned back to Idena's image. “I want you to miss it by one hundred yards. Then I want you to miss it a second time, by seventy-five yards. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay, line up your shot and fire at will.” Cole turned back to Val. “I'm trying to get your ship back. If you contradict me or challenge my orders again, I'll blow the damned thing to hell and gone. Do you understand?”

  He could see her struggling with her self-control. Finally the tension seemed to ooze out of her and she nodded her head. “I understand. And I apologize.”

  “You don't have to apologize,” he said. “Just don't do it again.”

  “There it is!” said Domak, as the first laser beam melted the rocky ground one hundred yards from the ship.

  “Val, get our defenses up,” ordered Cole. “If he thinks we're attacking rather than trying to get his attention, he may fire back.”

  “Done,” said Val.

  “And there's the second shot,” announced Domak.

  “All right,” said Cole. “He should know that we wouldn't miss him twice, not after we hit him from long range near the Riverwind system. Now it's his move.”

  Nothing happened for almost a minute. Then the Hammerheead Shark's holograph appeared on the bridge, glaring balefully at Cole.

  “Have your say,” said the Shark harshly. “Then the battle commences.”

  “It won't be much of a battle,” said Cole. “You're grounded and outgunned.”

  “I know it. You know it. Surely you didn't attract my attention just to tell me that.”

  “You know, you're a really unlikable character,” remarked Cole.

  “I take great pride in it.”

  “Somehow I'm not surprised.”

  “What have you to say?” demanded the Shark.

  “We both know that I can destroy your ship and everyone on it—and near it—whenever I choose,” said Cole. “The problem is, it's not your ship. It's hers.” He gestured to Val. “And she'd like it back.”