by Dain White
“Sir, I have two contacts classified hostile, designated Master 3 and 4, bearing 13 degrees, burning for high orbit from the surface of Mars. It looks like they either boosted from Arsia or Meridiani Prospect. They are burning hard, range 243k and closing.”
“Well, that’s interesting.” He paused briefly, long enough for me to turn around and take a look. “Yep, hostile or not, they are burning for our lane, with a near-collision vector.” He called out on the 1MC, “All hands, secure for battle stations. Weapons, make our main gun ready for firing in all respects, including opening the forward port.”
“Making main gun ready, opening forward port, aye” Jane said immediately on comms, in a solid, calm voice.
“Engineering, energize all systems to maximum please.”
“Energizing, aye Skipper”, Gene said smoothly. A slight vibration thrummed through the deck as the Archaea came alive.
“Conn, Weapons, outgoing turret fire, sir.” Jane didn't sound concerned, just passing along information.
“Very well... Yak, do you have solutions?”
I scanned my screens, swiping through layers looking for firing solutions. “Negative, sir… the scope is clear.”
“Pauli, please look into this with Janis.”
“Yes sir.” he said, working on his screens. Outgoing turret fire was nearly solid, streams of fire reaching forward and curving. Mars was starting to fill our screen, and cast a ruddy glow through the bridge.
“Yak, open comms with MOC please”, the captain asked.
I reached for the tab, but it was already open, with the proper channel active and ready. “Thanks Janis” I said softly.
“You're most welcome Yak.” she said sweetly in my ear.
“Sir, comms are open.”
“MOC, Archaea on slingshot approach, how copy?”
“Archaea, MOC, good signal.”
“MOC, Archaea, we have two inbound tracks that appear convergent with our filed course. Please advise.”
“MOC, Archaea, stand by one.”
As we waited, another salvo of outgoing turret fire blazed into the darkness ahead of us, lighting up the bridge with a savage glow.
“Sir, Janis is pre-firing intercepts for inbound bogeys.” Pauli stated calmly.
“She is? I don't have anything on track.” As he said that, I nodded. There was nothing red on my screen, except Master 3 and Master 4.
“Sir, they aren't on track yet because they haven't been fired.”
A brief pause filled the bridge. “Very well, carry on.” the captain said calmly, sipping his coffee. Pauli smiled across the aisle at me.
“Archaea, we are unable to raise comms with outbound vessels, and recommend you come to new course bearing 285.”
“Janis, what would that do for our current course?”
“Sir, we need to remain on this course to remain effective for our current mission.”
“I figured that might be the case. Does our current mission involve Master 3 and 4?”
“Yes sir.”
I looked over at Pauli, who shrugged back at me. We were along for the ride, it looked like.
“Very well… MOC, Archaea.” he replied on comms.
“Copy Archaea”
“MOC, we are unable to adjust course at this time, we are committed to this track.”
“Understood, Captain. Please stand by.”
Right then, a swarm of bogeys lit up my screens, and immediately blanked out. “Sir, direct hit on 16 bogeys, looks like Janis splashed them right out of the tubes, sir.”
He chuckled softly. “Very well Yak… Janis, please keep up the good work, dear.”
“Thank you sir, I shall”, she said smoothly.
We were close enough now to see the dropships clawing for orbit, twin points of light climbing towards a divergent point ahead of us.
Mars had us in its grasp, and we were slipping down into a tight hook as it hurtled past. It was moving towards us nearly as fast as we were moving towards it, and the captain was aiming for a thin corridor between capture and escape. Unfortunately, the two dropships looked to be aimed toward the same pipe.
“Sir, their course tracks converge with ours at our closest approach, though we will have considerably more headway at that point.”
“Son, for Mars, we call that the Apoareion.”
“I thought it was called the Apogee? Isn't that the opposite of Perigee?”
“Only for Earth... It's a silly bit of ancient custom, but if you don't want to be laughed at by other spacers...on Mars the closest orbital approach is the Apoareion, and the farthest is called the Periareion.” he trailed off, watching his screens, and adjusting our angle slightly. “Yak, do you have anything on comms yet?”
I took a quick scan through the full spectrum, marveling in the sensitivity and range of our new gear. Even though they weren’t communicating with us, the occasional burst of RF leakage seemed to indicate they were communicating with each other.
“Sir, I am tracking what appears to be narrow-band comms chatter leakage between Masters 3 and 4 – there might be enough leakage for Janis to work on.”
“Very well, Yak. Please get her working on that. Pauli, let me know the moment they are in range…“ The bridge lit up again with a salvo of outgoing turret fire, flashing out and down. We all leaned up and looked forward, watching as flash after flash registered direct hits on torps as they were launched.
“That has to be pretty damn frustrating”, he chortled, tapping his fingers on his console. “Serves them right, you can't just go through life picking fights. Sooner or later, no matter how tough you think you are, you run into people like us.”
I chuckled, smiling across the aisle at Pauli shaking his head.
“Archaea, MOC… request confirmation of high-order detonations adjacent to your track… are you being fired on?” Orbital Control didn't sound at all pleased with this turn of events.
“MOC, that's affirmative. No damage sustained yet, though I don't know how much longer I intend to let that continue.” Captain Smith sounded upbeat, but ominous.
“Archaea, be advised we have scrambled interceptors from Arsia, they will be on station in 10.”
“Very well MOC, 10 minutes, Archaea out.”
“Sir, comms key is cracked”, Pauli called across the bridge. I saw the channel open onscreen and quickly put it on speaker.
“-- cant can't get a shot! All misfired!” we heard, followed by a hiss and crackle.
“Janis… can you encode a return channel on that frequency for me, same encryption?”
“Certainly sir”, she said after a very brief pause. “Comms channel is open now.”
“This is Captain Dak Smith of the Archaea, how copy, over?”
A muted crackle and hiss was our only answer, then suddenly, in a blast of static, “--at the hell? How did you get on this channel?”
“Unidentified hostile vessels, this is Captain Dak Smith of the independent frigate Archaea. You have thirty seconds to alter your course, or you will be fired on. Do you copy?”
There was no answer, just the hiss of background radiation.
Their course track had closed to within 200 kilometers, on a rapidly diverging course. Their ships no longer looked like points of light… I could almost see individual features.
“Pauli, are we in range of their network yet?” Captain Smith called across the bridge.
“No sir, not yet”, he replied immediately.
“Well, I am not going to mess around with these grommets. We have places to go, and people to save. Janis, if they were to lose their boost capability right now, would they fall into a stable orbit?”
“Negative, sir, their orbital speed is insufficient for a stable orbit. They would re-enter atmosphere just over 14 hours from subjective now, sir.”
“That's good enough for me, the cavalry is coming. Janis, fire mission, target fire on Masters 3 and 4. Remove their maneuvering capability. Please advise when you have a valid solution.”
“Sir, I have a firing solution on screen now.” she said immediately.
“It looks good to me, Captain” I said, confirming the shot.
“Very well, stand by.” he paused, and opened comms. “Unidentified vessels, you have 10 seconds to alter course.”
Pauli and I started counting down, taking turns.
“Ten...”
“Nine...”
“Eight... “
“Seven...”
“That's enough, kids. I see the clock. Janis, stand by.”
“I am standing by, sir.”
We all stood by for a brief moment as the clock raced towards the inevitable. “Janis, fire for effect.”
“Firing for effect, aye” she said immediately, as both turrets lit up, pouring streams of plasma into both ships, tearing into their stern tubes. We could see the shock waves from the kinetic impacts, and watched as the stern quarter of each vessel turned into a glittering cloud of debris. Both vessels were soon slowly tumbling and streaming sparks and sizable chunks of their aft sections.
“Sir, fire mission is complete.”
“Outstanding Janis, great shooing as always”, he called across the bridge, then clicked open the 1MC. “All hands, secure from battle stations, power down to nominal. We are at material condition x-ray at this time. ”
“Sir, we're in range of their network now”, Pauli called out a few moments later as we pulled past their hulks.
“They still have networks?”
“Yes sir, Janis was very selective” he replied with a smirk.
“Very well Pauli, dig in - one moment son,” he clicked on comms. “MOC, Archaea.”
“Archaea, Mars Orbital Control, we copy.”
“MOC, we tried to make contact, but were unable to do so. In light of their hostile response, I felt it best to remove their maneuvering capabilities and leave them for you to deal with. Our best guesstimate is that their current orbit will be stable for approximately fourteen hours, over.”
A slight pause filled the channel with a low hiss. “Archaea, we copy. Interceptors are inbound and will take custody. Good shooting, over.”
“Thanks, MOC – Archaea out.”
We had a few moments of quiet calm and silence on the bridge, as Mars slowly rolled past, filling the starboard quarter.
“I sure wish I knew why people were shooting at us so much.” Captain Smith said thoughtfully. “I mean, it's not like we make a habit of making enemies around here.”
“Criminal syndicates in this system might not like us very much right now”, I mused.
“Good point, Yak. Pauli, what did you find in their networks… anything juicy?”
“Not really sir. They are semi-independents, ownership registered to an LLC named Deimos Enterprises, which appears to be at least partly owned by what looks like a cut-out corporation named Sol-Sys Partners. Nothing really special on their network at all, just ship systems, manifests, receipts. It doesn't look like they use their network for much besides a glorified filing cabinet.”
“No rogue AI lurking in there?”
Pauli laughed. “Not that I can see, sir. I have another idea, however...” he trailed off momentarily. “Bingo! I just cross-referenced their registry numbers against the local message exchange, and apparently… we have a bounty on our heads, sir.”
“Cool! How much are we worth?”
“One million credits. The bounty is coded and doesn’t reference us by name, but it does list our transponder and tonnage, and describes us as a light-frigate, unknown armament.”
“That sounds about right. You’re right, Yak, we're not exactly making friends in Sol space.” he chuckled. “Well, if that's how they want to play. Pauli, is there any way to trace that message?”
“Ordinarily, no, but Janis is working on it sir. If it was posted through a node she was resident in, she ought to be able to replay the packet and trace it back. It's not immediate, though sir. It takes time to propagate the request.”
“Well, that sounds good Pauli. Let me know when you know.” He stretched, then mashed the 1MC. “Well folks, it looks like we may not have many friends among the criminal element of this system, though I know that's not really a big surprise. We're just about done hooking Mars, and we will be lining up the final leg of our course in about nine minutes.”
I worked a bit more on my slightly stale, almost-forgotten sandwich, and took in the sight of Mars rolling past. We had crossed the terminator, and the major metropolitan areas of Elysium, Eunostos, and Xanthe shone like sparkling patches of humanity; bright against the bitter cold and dark of the Martian night below.
As we completed our partial orbit and came out from behind Mars, the furious glare of Sol flashed full through the forward port. We all cringed and looked away while the port filters adjusted. Despite the purple afterimage dancing in my eyes, a flashing border on my screen caught my attention.
“Sir, Master 2 is onscreen again, range 1.8 million kilometers at 110.” I scrolled their projected course forward. “It looks like they're on an approach vector to our current course, though our rendezvous is pretty far, sir – just a bit over 2.3 million kilometers.”
“That's not very far at all, considering the speed we're carrying at the moment, Yak. Any sign of the Clairvoyant?”
“One moment sir, I am looking now.” I swiped through the target list. Mars space was pretty full, and with our new gravimetrics, Janis was plotting mass characteristics for targets farther away than I want to look – she must have taken pity on me, and lit up a distant target with a flashing yellow border for me to ‘find’.
“Sir, they're pretty far off, but it looks like they're on the trail of Master 2.”
“Very well Yak, what range?”
“They’re a smidge under 4.8 million clicks, at 123 sir. They're closing the distance, but not very quickly.”
“Well, at least they’re on the chase.” he said calmly.
I was amazed at the resolution I could get at that range. Our old sensors would have registered the mass, roughly, but there would be nothing on the topology. Our new gear was just fantastic. Even at that range, I could easily scope right in. The Clairvoyant was a light corvette-class vessel, sleek and narrow, a little smaller than the Archaea, but not by much.
I spent some time on those birds, attached to orbital security on Croft for a few months. I remembered the smell most of all, the ozone smell of low-bid electronics at the edge of meltdown, the sweat and tight quarters. More than that, I remember the skull-crushing boredom of doing nothing but holding my bunk down, week after week, pumping iron and trying not to choke out my subordinates.
I took some consolation in the fact that even though they were pretty far behind the fight, there was almost certainly a squad of incredibly bored, incredibly well trained devil dogs waiting for their moment to kick doors and check corners.
“Janis, dear, this reminds me. Did you miss your million-click shot on Master 2?” Captain Smith asked smugly.
“Certainly not, sir”, Janis replied curtly. “That fire mission has not yet completed. We still have 385 seconds remaining.”
I looked over at Pauli, and he was grinning from ear to proverbial ear.
*****
With the slingshot complete, engineering was pretty calm. Our reac drives were charged just enough to keep the plates warm, and the tokamak was barely lit, just enough to power ship systems and the Duron.
“Gene, how quickly can you make it to the bridge?” the captain called back on comms.
“On the way” I called back, as I kicked hard for the hatch. That's not really the kind of question that looks for an answer; it's more of a request. I know Dak well enough to know he doesn't really care how long it would take; he wants me there immediately-if-not-sooner, with bells on.
“You have 120 seconds, mister.”
“Aye Captain”, I replied. As I boosted across the cargo bay, the assemblers below me were both welding away and working like... well, like machines
. The framework looked to be completed, and it looked like they were working on the structure for the interior compartments. I wish I had more time to watch, it was really something to behold, intelligent machines building machines – but I had to move.
The inner lock forward cycled me through, and I was boosting across the gun deck as Shorty hooked down out of her station and joined me for a flight forward.
“Hey Gene”, she said smiling. “Do you know what the Captain needs?”
“No idea Shorty, he said hop, and, well... you know what that means.”
She laughed at my scowl, and sang out the familiar cadence, “Quick and fast!”
I replied, “--like a bunny!”
“--on the double!”
“--at the ready!” I finished, laughing at the ancient rhyme of the cadet academy as we hauled up the forward ladder to the bridge companionway.
“Race ya!” she called out, boosting off my right shoulder.
“Not so fast, ma'am” I reached out, getting a grip on her ankle and hauling myself forward. She pivoted nearly double, and reminded me quite briskly who was the reigning champion of null-g aboard the Archaea, and it wasn't Mr. Gene Mitchell. I skidded to a slow stop on my face across the deck plates as she laughed her way down the hall toward the bridge.
“Just in time folks, you're going to like this.” Dak said as we pulled into the bridge to the grabbers along the helm station.
“What are we looking at Captain?” I asked, slightly out of breath and rubbing the side of my face.
“Well, we're about to witness history, according to Janis.” he replied proudly.
“Master 2…?” Shorty asked eagerly.
“That's affirmative, Shorty”, he paused, either for dramatic effect, or a quick pull on his coffee cup… maybe both.
“What about Master 2?” I asked.
“Gene, Janis started this fire mission about 7 hours ago”, Shorty replied.
“That's correct. Gene, she fired turrets at Master 2.” Dak added.
“And…?” I asked, not really making the historical connection.
“And... she was firing to hit specific systems on a moving target, over a hundred times farther away than the turrets are calibrated for… Master 2 was over a million kilometers downrange when she fired, Gene.”