by Jake Elwood
Strictly speaking, he wore his Spacecom uniform under his vac suit, with a black sash signaling his EDF rank. "I did what every decent officer in Spacecom should have done," Bloch said impatiently. "I joined the EDF as soon as it was formed. If more Spacecom officers had followed my lead, there wouldn't be a need for inexperienced EDF personnel to command ships."
After another long pause Jamison said, "Unbelievable."
"Enough," said Bloch. "You've had your bit of fun, but vacation's over." He leaned forward, putting his mouth closer to the microphone on his console. "Now it's time to pay the piper. I'm not here to negotiate with you. I'm not here to talk. I'm here to accept your unconditional surrender, or to destroy you." The familiar fury rose within him, and he controlled it with an effort. "There's a war on, and you won't be allowed to disrupt the war effort any longer. If you want to still be alive this time tomorrow, you'll surrender now."
"You're on the wrong side of this conflict," Jamison said, sounding weary. "We're the ones actually fighting the aliens, remember?"
"That's enough!" Bloch snapped, slamming his hand down on the arm of his chair for emphasis. "You're traitors and cowards, and your little escapade is over! You've betrayed the entire human race, and you're going to pay the price."
For a long time there was no reply. Bloch sat fuming, hearing his own angry breathing over the faint hiss of the ship's air conditioning machinery. At last Jamison said, "Well, you know where we are. Come and get us any time you like."
Bloch looked at Tomlin and made a curt gesture. Tomlin touched a button on his console, cutting the connection, and nodded. "Plot us a rendezvous course with Asteroid N581," Bloch said. "Transmit to the fleet. We'll stick together. Once they realize what we're doing, they'll come after us."
It would be an ugly fight, in the depths of space far from the protective fire of the captured alien gun. Bloch would win, though, and then he'd return to take control of whatever remained of the colony.
The Cassandra would make it almost easy. She was an experimental doomsday weapon, a ship designed to move cargo, given a hasty refit after the first Hive attack. The blueprints had kicked around Spacecom for decades, but there had never been the need—or the will—to implement them.
The original ship, almost a kilometer long, was in effect a giant flying rail gun, designed to lob cargo containers very long distances through deep space. Instead of using the current between the rails to directly propel a cargo pod, the newly-renamed Cassandra had an armature that would travel the length of the rails, stop, and be retracted.
Traditional railguns and their cousin weapons, magnetic launchers commonly though incorrectly referred to as railguns as well, could fire a dozen rounds per second. The Cassandra was much slower. It typically fired a projectile every five seconds. The projectile, though, didn't have to be machined to precise tolerances. The projectile sat in the armature like a pebble in a slingshot, and the movement of the armature gave the projectile its velocity.
The projectile could be anything that would fit in the hollowed-out nose of the armature. The projectile could be a simple lump of rock.
Like the rock that composed Asteroid N581.
And, since the nose of the armature was five meters across, the projectile could be very, very large. The other part of the refit, the part that made the Cassandra a real threat as a weapon, was a group of articulated robots mounted with powerful lasers. They were programmed to swarm all over a piece of rock, cutting away rough cylinders of stone and loading them into the armature. Every asteroid, meteor, and dwarf planet was a source of ammunition, and the Naxos system was full of rubble.
One good hit inside the crater would be enough to devastate the colony. That kind of accuracy was nearly impossible without precisely-machined projectiles, but that was all right. A dozen or so hits to the planet should be enough to generate hurricane-force winds that would sweep away the fragile pocket of breathable air that filled the crater. The colonists, choking on a mix of methane and helium, would fall over each other in their haste to surrender and pledge allegiance to the EDF.
"Commodore."
Bloch looked at Tomlin.
"There's some communication between ships. They've encrypted it, but …"
But it was Spacecom hardware and software. Spacecom encryption, which meant a good comms officer—and Tomlin was very good—would be able to decrypt it before long.
A hiss of static came from the bridge speakers. Then a man spoke, his voice garbled at first but becoming clearer with every word. "… least let me talk to him. It can't do any harm, can it?"
There was a long burst of static as someone replied.
"We can't fight them." It was the anonymous man, his voice firm. "They're Spacecom personnel. If there's any chance at all of avoiding a full-blown civil war, we have to take it."
"All right." The second voice belonged to Jamison. "I think it's hopeless, but I've seen how convincing you can be."
The speakers went silent, and Tomlin said, "We're getting a call from the Indefatigable."
Bloch gave him a curt nod and the same anonymous voice began to speak. "Commodore. This is Captain James Carruthers of the Colonial Forces Corvette Indefatigable."
"Your corvette belongs to Spacecom," Bloch said. "You don't get to keep it."
"Neither does the EDF," Carruthers replied. "In the meantime, I have a proposition for you."
Bloch remained silent, taking a moment to recall what he knew of the other man. Carruthers was a career lieutenant, one of hundreds of officers passed over for command, serving an unremarkable career at a modest rank. He'd struck Bloch as a sober, perfectly ordinary officer on the half-dozen occasions when they'd met over the years.
Carruthers had been on the Alexander during its historic final mission, and it had catapulted the man at last into a captain's uniform. Clearly the promotion and accompanying attention had gone to his head.
"I'm willing to listen," Bloch said at last. "But make no mistake. This will end with your surrender or your death."
"I don't think you really want to fire on your fellow human beings," Carruthers said. "I don't think you want to destroy the ships that have been fighting the Hive. They're your real enemy, after all."
"You won't hide behind the chaos of wartime," Bloch said. "You've crossed a pretty significant line. You WILL face the consequences."
"Well, we're not going anywhere," Carruthers said. "You can always kill us later. In the meantime, I have a suggestion."
Bloch frowned. He'd expected either bravado or groveling, or at worst the passionate rhetoric of fools who believe in a ridiculous cause. Jamison and Carruthers just sounded … impatient, as if Bloch was a blundering fool they had to tolerate. It was insulting. Worse, in fact, than if they'd actually hurled insults.
Well, they'd take him seriously soon enough. In the meantime …. "What's your suggestion?"
"You must know that fighting the Hive would be a better use for your ships," Carruthers said. "But you have your orders, and the EDF is obsessed with controlling people. I understand. So here's what I suggest. Admiral Hammett has taken a small fleet on a reconnaissance mission. He's scouting Hive forces in the system. We're pretty sure they're out there, not far off. We even know what direction."
Bloch nodded, though Carruthers couldn't see him. He'd read the reports from O'Hare and Swanson.
"Why don't you go after Hammett?" Carruthers said. "If he's encountered the Hive, you might have a chance to do something useful. You can fight the real enemy for a change."
He spoke that last sentence with such disgust that Bloch felt his fists clench. A traitor, criticizing me for doing my duty? He pushed the fury down with an effort, and jerked his hand at Tomlin.
"Connection's closed, Sir."
Bloch took a deep breath, then another, fighting for calm. He wanted to shout at Carruthers. He wanted to bellow his rage and frustration. These self-important morons were making a huge mess, then judging him for cleaning it up! Only years of exp
erience as an officer let him keep his emotions in check.
Slowly, deliberately, he walked around the bridge. He paced out a precise square around his station, his hands clasped behind him, his anger largely hidden. Emotion had no place in command decisions, and he walked around his station, then around it once more, as the worst of his frustration faded.
Carruthers was a self-righteous fool, but it didn't mean he was entirely wrong. The Hive was the real enemy. It would be unfortunate if he had to lose ships and personnel combatting the mutineers. No ships could be spared. If the mutineers could be persuaded to surrender even one vessel, it would be a huge boon to the defense of Earth.
Right now, they were determined to stand their ground. Their morale was high, and they were ready to put up a good fight. He meant to take the starch out of them by destroying the colony.
However, firing on the colony, though it might yet prove necessary, was not without consequences. Every human being who died at the hands of Spacecom or the EDF added fuel to the fires of unrest. It made the ridiculous claims of the anti-EDF movement seem plausible. If he could persuade the colony to surrender without killing any non-combatants he'd make the EDF stronger, and weaken its enemies.
At the very least, he could gather some intel.
"All right," he said. "Where is Hammett?"
CHAPTER 4 - HAMMETT
Hammett watched as a wormhole opened just ahead of the Gideon. A familiar dismay ran cool fingers up and down his spine as the Jumper went through. The Gideon, though poorly armed, was heavily armored, since it was constantly leading the way into unknown space. Its armor wouldn't handle heat weapons well, though.
The Gideon vanished, and the Tomahawk hurried through after it. The little corvette could open a wormhole for a quick escape, but Captain Kaur would wait for the Theseus. Hammett said, "Go, Eddie. Let's not hang around here."
Eddie, not looking much more comfortable on his seventh jump than he had for the first six, nodded and touched his console. The converted freighter surged forward and the Gideon and the Tomahawk abruptly reappeared.
"Admiral, we've got contacts." The voice belonged to Jean Harrington on the Gideon, the only ship in the little fleet with military-grade scanning equipment that still worked. "I've got six unknown ships at a bearing of 47 degrees absolute, nine degrees up absolute."
"Absolute" meant a bearing in reference to the galaxy itself, with zero degrees lying along a line from the center of the galaxy to Sol. "Nine degrees up" meant nine degrees above a theoretical horizontal plane running through the middle of the Milky Way.
Hammett, with the ease of long practice, found the direction she indicated with his eyes. There was nothing to see. He looked instead at the screens on his console. "All I get is a single fuzzy blur," he told Harrington. "You'll have to be my eyes."
"Range is two to three thousand kilometers," she said promptly. "Actually, it looks like your display is about to become more accurate. They're glomming together. My best guess is it's six of the smallest Hive ships. They were spread across about two hundred kilometers of empty space, but they're grouping."
"Any other contacts?"
"None." She'd have told him if she'd seen anything else, of course, but every officer knew that assumptions bred mistakes at ten times the normal rate during crisis situations.
"We'll pursue," Hammett decided. "But we'll stick together." To Eddie he said, "Do you have the bearing?"
"Got it."
"Best speed, then." The Theseus was the slowest ship in the little fleet. She'd be setting the speed of the pursuit.
"They're all linked up with each other," Harrington said. "They're running."
"Try some laser shots," Hammett told her. "You might get lucky."
"Aye aye."
"Helmets on," said Hammett, and reached for the helmet rack on the side of his chair. They all wore the vac suits, but no one wanted to wear a helmet any longer than necessary. Hammett's vac suit was Spacecom issue, but they'd painted his helmet green to show his new affiliation. Beside him, Sanjari clipped her own green-painted helmet into place. Hammett kept the faceplate retracted and peered into the screen on his console.
He knew they were gaining when the blur on his screen sharpened into a white circle. It started to jerk left and right as the aliens evaded the Gideon's lasers, and he smiled. That would slow the aliens down.
"I'm scoring some hits," Harrington said. "It's hard to tell how much damage I'm doing, though."
"Interesting," Sanjari murmured.
"What?" Hammett turned. The converted freighter had a tiny bridge, crowded with five of them there. Sanjari was beside him, almost close enough to bump elbows, and he had no trouble seeing her screens. One display showed the Theseus as a green triangle and the Hive ship as a blue square. A white line bisected the square, extending off at an angle.
"They aren't running directly away from us," she said. "They're going kind of sideways." She put the edge of her hand on the screen, parallel to the white line. "They're a good thirty degrees port and down."
"They have a destination," Hammett said. "Reinforcements, or …"
"We're getting close," Harrington said. "I'm trying some ballistic rounds."
Rail guns, in other words. The Theseus had vastly more ammunition than the Jumper, but the Gideon had computer-controlled weapons, and at long range that made all the difference. Hammett watched his inadequate tactical screen, wondering if he'd be able to see a hit.
Hal looked back over one thick shoulder. "Should we shoot too?"
Hammett shook his head. "We'll never hit anything from here." He gave Hal a grim smile. "Don't worry. We'll be doing plenty of shooting soon enough."
Hal nodded soberly and turned back to his console.
"They're losing speed," Sanjari said triumphantly. "I think they took a hit."
The ship broke apart on Hammett's screen, close enough now that he could make out the shapes of the little component craft. There were only four now, he was pleased to see. Three of them scattered, while the fourth wallowed in place. A moment later it disappeared, ripped apart by rail gun rounds or sliced up by lasers.
Eddie and Hal started talking excitedly, drowning each other out, until Harrington's cold voice cut through their chatter. "We've got more company inbound."
Hammett looked down. Fresh blips spread like a rash across his display, more than he could count, advancing from the direction the alien ship had been fleeing.
"Admiral, are you seeing this?"
He needed a long moment to figure out who had spoken. "Captain Harrington." She would have a much better view. "No. Explain."
"There's a big triangular structure," she said. "Hardly any mass, though. Sir, I think it's what the aliens use for a Gate."
His eyebrows rose. Gates were circular—but maybe they didn't have to be. He certainly didn't understand the physics involved. Maybe a Gate could be triangular. "Do you see ships coming through?"
"No, but there's a whole swarm of them gathering between the triangle and us. Like they're protecting it. And several dozen coming forward to meet us."
"We need to upgrade the scanners on this tub."
Hammett didn't realize he'd spoken aloud until Eddie said, "I hear that, Admiral."
"I can see the thirty or forty coming at us," Sanjari said. "The rest is just a blur, though."
"Thirty-four hostiles inbound," Harrington reported. The Gideon's computers would have counted the blips. "One hundred and nine hostiles guarding what I'll assume is their Gate. That's misleading, though. Quite a few of them are composite ships. They keep splitting and merging. The number keeps changing."
"Well, it's clearly a target-rich environment," Hammett said. "The exact number doesn't matter." He took a deep breath, channeling his stress, concentrating on the ways his body was reacting to alarm. A little awareness went a long way, keeping the adrenalin from controlling him. "Begin braking."
"My generator is charged up," Harrington said. "We could jump out of here.
"
"No." Hammett wiped his palms on his trousers, momentarily startled by the touch of cotton instead of artificial fabric. "Every moment we're in the neighborhood gives us valuable intel. We won't jump until we have to."
"Aye aye, Sir."
He wanted to flee. The swarm of ships ahead of him was terrifying. He also wanted to barge straight at them. Tear through the pack, rain destruction on all sides, and storm that Gate, if Gate it was. He'd never have another opportunity. Maybe he could dash through, jump to the enemy homeworld. Find out where it was, then run back before they could disable the Gate.
Pushing the thought from his mind, he stood, reached the port window in one stride, and peered through the hardened glass. A faint mesh of Fourier metal blurred the view. No ships were in sight. He knew they were out there, though. A hopeless number of enemy vessels. He'd never make it through the first wave that was coming to engage his fleet, never mind the larger group protecting that mysterious triangle.
He wanted to pace, but the tiny bridge was just too small. Stifling a sigh, he sat back down in time to hear Harrington say, "Contact aft."
Hammett looked at his screen, which showed nothing aft, then at Sanjari, who shrugged.
"It's faint," Harrington said. "Very long range. I can't actually tell what's back there. It's giving off energy, and it's at least several tonnes of mass. That's all I know for sure."
Well, it had to be tens of thousands of kilometers distant if that was all the Gideon could pick up. He could safely ignore it, whatever it was, for the moment.
The smaller group of Hive ships, the ones rushing forward to intercept them, began to merge on Hammett's screen. The level of detail grew sharper as the distance closed, until he could make out three composite ships and nine of the smallest craft.
"Use your own judgment, Captain Harrington," he said. "Fire when you've got targets. We'll be waiting until they're right on top of us. Captain Kaur?"
"Yes, Admiral?"
"Hold your fire until they're at point-blank range."
"Understood, Sir."