“Engine ports.” He scanned the three dimensional model of the station, turning it round and round. “Fucker can’t jump if he doesn’t have engines.” A few seconds of silence and the gunner sighed heavily. “Well, shit. This is gonna be a problem.” He tapped at his panel, updating the data Hanu sent him. Pushed a modified version of the station schematic to the front windows, adding markers from the Artillery pod’s targeting display. “See that?” He tapped a finger against his panel, highlighting an energy signature at the station’s center. “That’s the Cepheid’s jump drive. And those…” More tapping, more highlighted shapes glowing on the front windows, bright points set in a star pattern around the oversized orb at the station’s center. “Those are the jump drives of the other ships they butchered to create that manufactory. They daisy chained them together to make their jump signatures overlap.”
Which explained how they managed to move the damned thing in the first place, but not really much else.
“And?” Henricksen prompted.
“Seven hyperspace units means seven targets. That’s a lot of engines to try and take out.”
Scythe slid free of the asteroid field’s clutter, giving Henricksen a clear view of their target. “Ignore the outliers. Cepheid’s the nexus, right? Got the biggest engine of the bunch. So you just focus your fire on that. Forget about the rest.”
“Toughest target of the lot to hit,” Sikuuku noted, flipping switches, settling the targeting visor over his face. “Pretty much buried—”
“Just shoot the damn thing, Chief.”
“Aye, sir.”
Stiff, surly answer this time. Exactly the way Henricksen liked his gunners.
The Artillery pod whirred, pivoting to lock onto its target as Sikuuku hunkered down inside. A squeeze of the triggers activated Scythe’s cannons, flinging stuttering lines of cobalt blue plasma fire across the stars.
Scan flashed a warning as the station came alive, automated defense system kicking in. Rail guns ignited, chattering out strings of ion rounds as a single plasma cannon lit, chucking fat blobs of plasma fire Scythe’s way.
Henricksen hit the thrusters, putting on a burst of speed, zigged and zagged, jogging the ship sharply as rail gun fire tore along Scythe’s side.
“Fuck!” Sikuuku swore, targeting system blanking, losing its lock on the Cepheid at the station’s center. “This would be a helluva lot easier if you stopped movin’ the ship around so damn much.”
“I stop movin’ and we stop livin’,” Henricksen reminded him, yanking hard on the control stick to dodge the station’s fire. “Helluva lot easier for them to hit us if we just sit here like a catatonic turtle.”
Sikuuku cursed roundly, pouring out more fire. Kicked at a floor pedal to reorient the pod, targeting system re-engaging to guide the cannon fire toward its target. Scored a few hits before the structures shielding the Cepheid got in his way. Spat out more curses as he mashed the floor pedal, swinging the Artillery pod around.
The targeting system locked—cannons dead on, errors flickering on and off as the station’s outer structures intermittently got in the way. Sikuuku gripped the firing sticks, muttering curses as he squeezed the triggers, pounding away at the station to get at the Cepheid’s hull.
Dents appeared, hull plating bending and twisting, slowly peeling away. A sustained burst from Scythe’s main cannon crumpled one of the external structures, but a jog of the ship and he lost it, targeting lock failing again, shots flying wide.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Sikuuku punched the panel, swearing at the useless piece of shit targeting system as it desperately realigned.
A shot clipped them—station turret scoring across Scythe’s wing, tearing a plasma cannon away—and Henricksen hauled her over, engines igniting as he dodged her away.
Sikuuku kicked out, slewing the pod around. Yanked hard on the firing stick’s triggers as the ship came about. “This isn’t fucking working!” he yelled. “I can’t hit a god damn thing—”
“Boss! Boss!” Baldini shouted, comms crackling as his voice came through.
“Shouldn’t be here, Baldini.” Henricksen grimaced, weaving around the station’s fire. “Told you boys to go.”
“Can’t!” he panted. “Need some help.”
“Fuck. What now?” Henricksen checked the schematic, searching for Sever’s signature. Found Shriek and Snicker-snack first—the two of them together, just clearing the asteroid field, making a break for the stars—and Sharp soon after, following a more wandering line. And Sever…
Sever wasn’t where he was supposed to be. Hadn’t even cleared the mine layer yet.
The can, Henricksen thought, noting the ship’s position. He’s still looking for Kinsey’s stupid can.
“Goddammit, Baldini! We’ll come back for the payload later. Now get your ass in gear and clear out!”
“Can’t,” Baldini repeated, pushing a video feed across the channel.
A live stream from Sever’s cameras flickered to life on Scythe’s front windows, crowding the station schematic to one side. A view of chaos surrounding the ship at its center: rocks swirling randomly, slamming together and disintegrating into deadly clouds of ship killing shards.
Henricksen winced, shoulders hunching as a shrieking squeal filtered across the channel. A thud and the camera slewed sideways, focusing in on a puff of air and a hole torn in Sever’s side.
“Trapped,” Baldini said, breathless. On the edge of panic now. “Can’t find a way out. Field’s disintegrating. Can’t—I can’t—”
A burst of static drowned out the rest of the communication, but the video feed kept running. Slewing one way and the other as Baldini wrestled Sever around, dodging one obstacle and another.
Missed a mine by a hair’s breadth and came up on a rock. Went up and over, Baldini cursing like a sailor as Sever’s belly scraped along the top. “Fuck! Fuck me! Boss! We can’t—I can’t—I can’t find a fucking way out!”
“Buckle’s forming!” Hanu called as a spreading disc of darkness appeared off Scythe’s starboard bow. A hyperspace distortion that sucked at her body, trying to drag everything—Scythe, the remaining droned ships, hell the whole goddamned asteroid field—inside.
Henricksen fought for control, struggling against that pull, doing his best to keep the ship on-line. “How long, Hanu?”
“We’ve got a minute, maybe a minute thirty before that thing jumps.”
“Sikuuku—”
“Boss!” Baldini called, voice desperate now.
“Hang on, Baldini. Just hang on!” Henricksen yelled back. “Scan! Give me a view of the area. Need to know what the hell’s happening out there.”
Hanu rattled away at her panel, moving the map of the asteroid field to the front windows, layering in Sever’s location.
Obstacles around him—asteroids and debris, mines just waiting to go off. Swirling chaos everywhere, spreading in waves across the asteroid field, collapsing the open space at its center.
Can’t stay, Henricksen thought, eyes flicking across that map. We can’t stay here much longer or we’ll get caught up in all that.
“Boss!”
“We’re working it, Baldini.” Plasma fire slammed into Scythe’s tail, shoving her nose around. “Shit,” Henricksen breathed, bringing the ship back online. “Hanu! Get on that map. Find Baldini a way out.”
“How—”
“I don’t know, Hanu.” Henricksen clenched his teeth, trying for calm. “I’m a little busy right now, in case you hadn’t noticed, so I need you to figure it out.”
“I don’t—I’m not—”
“Try, Hanu.” He spared a look for Scan. “Just try.”
“Aye, sir,” she answered. Entirely uncertain. All too aware of the impossibility of that task.
“Sikuuku! How’s it going back there?” Henricksen yelled.
“Almost,” the gunner hissed, blasting away with his cannons. “Got some heavy fucking shielding, but I’m just about there.”
“Ogaw
a! Give me status—”
“Boss!”
Explosion on Sever’s feed, mine detonating, peppering the Raven with rock shards. Baldini jogged desperately, putting on speed as the shockwave spread outward. Racing to stay ahead of a chain reaction of explosions—one mine’s detonation leading to another, and another, a rippling wave of destruction working its way through the asteroid field, triggering every last mine in its path.
“Jump,” Ogawa breathed, staring at the feed on the windows. “He’s got to jump it if he’s going to get out.”
“Thirty seconds!” Hanu called.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!” Sikuuku shouted, cannons blasting away.
“Screw this!” Baldini yelled, and a second later, Sever’s jump drive activated, the ship itself slewing around.
“What the hell is he doing? Baldini, what the fuck—?”
“Henricksen,” Scythe called, serene voice intruding. “It’s ending, Henricksen.”
He looked at her, eyes locking onto Scythe’s camera. “He’ll get it,” he said, jerking a thumb at Sikuuku behind him. “He just needs a little more time.”
“The asteroid field is destabilizing around us, Henricksen. There is no more time.” The ship shuddered, plasma fire tearing into Scythe’s hull plating. Another shudder—this one deep inside her belly, accompanied by a high-pitched whine—and a warning appeared as the cloaking system shut down.
“Jump drives are cycling!” Ogawa called, sorting through the data on her panel. “Our hyperspace engines just came online!”
“Not yet. Not yet,” Sikuuku muttered, cannons firing, tearing holy hell out of the Cepheid’s protective plating. “I almost got this. I’m almost there.”
“Scythe.” Henricksen tore his eyes from the windows as the whining intensified, hyperspace engines filling Scythe’s bridge with a bone-rattling hum. “What’s going on?”
“I’m sorry, Henricksen, but Sever and I are agreed on this.”
“Agreed on what?” he asked numbly, cold seeping into his bones. “Agreed on what, Scythe?”
“Aw, fuck it!” Baldini shouted, and the video feed changed again.
Sever shot forward, dark void engulfing his nose as he short-spun his jump drive and slid inside.
“Time to go, Henricksen.”
Soft voice from Scythe now. Gentle and apologetic.
“We’re gonna talk about this when we get back to the station,” Henricksen told her.
“I know.”
Scythe’s engines flared as she turned away from the station, slipping into the hyperspace buckle.
Henricksen caught a glimpse of Sever in the instant before the jump distortion closed around them. Saw him exit the hyperspace void, sharp-sided shape a blur of disintegrating panels and shards of shredded asteroid, plowing head-on into the DSR station. Heard comms crackle, Baldini screaming a banshee’s song of joy and rage as Sever’s kamikaze run came to a sudden and abrupt end.
The Raven connected, ploughing nose on into the station’s center, triggering a massive explosion. And then the trough them, sucking Scythe into hyperspace. Sending her far, far away from that place of destruction and death.
Twenty-Nine
Scythe drifted, waiting for a pick up in the vastness of wide open space.
Burned out her engines short hopping from the asteroid field. Lost her main cannon and a good chunk of the hull plating on her starboard side when the DSR station blew, obliterating the asteroid field around it. Suspected she still had a few chunks of asteroid lodged somewhere inside her, but the alternative…
Dead in the water’s better than dead as a doornail.
Henricksen pulled a video feed onto his panel, studying the remains of the asteroid field outside.
Missed the actual explosion, luckily. Dropped out of hyperspace thirty thousand kilometers from where they started and got caught up in the aftermath—klaxons screaming as a storm of debris pelted Scythe’s sides, hammering at her triple-thick shell.
Didn’t last long—velocity behind that debris rolled it right across her—but the thirty seconds they were caught up in it, rocks and shredded pieces of metal buffeting Scythe’s body, were somewhat terrifying. Especially since there was nothing the crew could do but clench their teeth and suffer through it. Let it blow through like a summer thunderstorm, taking the swirling chaos with it.
A lifetime, those thirty seconds. And now here they sat—thrusters damaged, hyperspace engines torn apart—waiting on one of Gogmagog’s Valkyries to come and pick them up because they couldn’t go much of anywhere on their own.
Embarrassing, that. Having to call up one of their own ships and ask for a rescue. Especially with all that devastation around them. The broken ships and missing crew. AI lives snuffed out.
Long way back to Dragoon, though. Long, slow way with nothing but a stuttering, beat-up propulsion system to get them there. Scythe claimed they could make it—might take a few days, but she swore the main engines would hold together—but Henricksen didn’t share her confidence.
Didn’t relish spending that much time in these cramped quarters, either. Easier to just call for a pick up. Slide Scythe into the belly of one of those sleek-sided Valkyries out there and take the leisurely way back. But, oh how it rankled having to call over to Gogmagog and ask for a favor. Gogmagog, who was the oldest of them. A battle-scarred veteran, long on anger, and short on patience. In no good mood when Scythe called over.
Busy working clean-up, scouring every last inch of that section of space to make sure nothing, not one single nannite managed to escape. Busy seeing to his own ships—nearly half of them damaged, ten lost completely, torn apart and eaten alive by those very same nannites he hunted, the droned ships in which they came. Hadn’t even had time to see to his own wounds, the dents and scrapes that showed clearly, pockmarks and jagged tears running up and down his sides, much less worry about some stealth ship with burnt out engines.
Surly old cuss—all of them were, every last Dreadnought Henricksen had ever met. But he was a tough old bastard, give him that. Limped back to port a smoldering, ramshackle hulk on more than one occasion, but he always made. Always battled his way home.
“Wait,” Gogmagog told them, and Scythe—lacking other options—acknowledged and did just that. Sat and waited. Sent a communication to Dragoon to let them know they’d be late arriving, and then drifted, enduring the razzing that came back.
“Busted up your ride already?” Shriek tsked, AI voice filled with disdain. “That’s one crap pilot you got there, Scythe. My pilot got us back to Dragoon just fine. And Sharp’s. And Snicker—”
“Stuff it, Leroy,” Sikuuku growled. “Captain’s not in the mood for your crap.”
“Crap?! It’s not—”
“Not. In the mood.” Sikuuku cut the channel, muttering something about “blabbermouth AIs” under his breath. Unbuckled his seat’s straps and climbed from the Artillery pod, grunting and hissing as he bent and twisted, trying to loosen muscles cramped tight after so many hours in the pod.
Snug fit in there, in every Artillery pod, so far as Henricksen knew. Never could understand why gunners came so damn big when those pods were built so damn small.
“Looks like we’re gonna be here a while.” Sikuuku nodded to the front windows, the ships running clean up outside. Salvaging parts where they could, searching for survivors amongst the wreckage.
Hoped there were some. Hoped some of those dead ships managed to eject their crew before the nannites took over.
“You mind?”
“Hmm?” Henricksen glanced around and saw Sikuuku hook a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the bridge door.
“Starving,” he said, stomach rumbling. “Stiff too. Wouldn’t mind stretching my legs for a bit.”
“Shove off.” Henricksen flicked his fingers, waving the gunner away. Considered Ogawa sitting to one side, Hanu on the other. “You two as well.”
Ogawa looked up, turned around. “You sure, sir? I don’t mind staying. Two sets
of eyes—”
“Are just as tired as one. Go,” Henricksen told her, nodding to the door. “Could be hours before Gogmagog sends someone to get us. Grab some chow. Rack out if you can.”
Ogawa still seemed uncertain. “But what if—?”
“I’ll call you, Ogawa.” Henricksen tapped a finger to the side of his helmet. “Promise.”
“Aye, sir.” Grudging response. Reluctance coming through clearly in the stiff way she stood, throwing a last, lingering glance at the windows before collecting Hanu and following Sikuuku out the door.
“Alone at last,” Scythe said, smile in her voice.
Henricksen grunted, sorting through data on his panel.
“Something wrong?”
“Nope.”
“Voice analysis says otherwise.”
“I’ll bet,” Henricksen muttered, closing one data window, opening another.
Silence after. Scythe watching him, Henricksen pointedly ignoring her camera.
“Henricksen.” Scythe waited, and waited, until he finally looked up. “What’s wrong?” she asked, a hint of worry creeping into her tone.
Didn’t really want to get into it, not right now, but Scythe’s camera kept staring and eventually he relented. Tugged at his seat straps to loosen them and sat back with a sigh. Folded his hands in his lap. “The canister. Kinsey’s spook. This whole goddamn mission. Was any of it real?”
Scythe didn’t answer—not right away. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Kinsey didn’t tell me.”
“And yet you sent him something, didn’t you? Right before everything went south.”
“Scans,” she said, in a soft, apologetic voice. “I sent a copy of the hull penetration scans back to Dragoon.”
“Mind telling me why?”
“I had orders.”
“Orders,” Henricksen grunted. “That’s an excuse, Scythe, not an explanation.”
Silence around him, Scythe’s camera an unblinking eye.
“And Gogamog?” he asked quietly. “Was he part of those orders too?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “And no.”
Hecate Page 38