Tira shook her head in disgust and declined to reply. If Everett was coming to her with this ridiculous attempt at an overture, he must really be desperate. Tira could almost pity him, but that leering smile on his face made it impossible.
Thankfully, a rescue soon arrived. Another man from the table came to the bar, sliding deftly between Tira and her harasser.
It was Darwin Bradger, the grease covered, scruffy bearded and strangely handsome mechanic. It was rare to see him without a wrench in his hand and a squint of concentration on his face. Now, he was freshly showered but still managed to emit a slight smell of machine lubricant, still managed to have a fair bit of grime under his fingernails. He wasn't looking to impress anyone out here, just work, and Tira respected that. Enough to ignore the sometimes overwhelming urge to knock on the door of his compartment late at night.
"That game's too much for me," Darwin said with a slow shake of his head. "Too many pieces. Too many rules."
"Seems like a mechanic wouldn't have too much trouble with pieces and rules," Tira replied, with hints of flirtation subconsciously creeping into her tone of voice.
A mixture of anger and envy swelled in Everett’s chest as he observed Dr. DuVernay’s warm response to Darwin’s presence. For a moment Everett considered accosting Darwin for butting in, but he had second thoughts, as he was unsure of how the much larger mechanic would react.
Dr. DuVernay breathed a sigh of relief after Everett eventually stood and swaggered away, somewhat drunkenly, although there was supposed to be no alcohol on the ship. He was off to badger Enilsa. Tira wasn't too concerned for Enilsa because she knew the girl could handle herself.
"Thanks for that," Tira said to Darwin.
Darwin nodded. "He had no shot with you anyway. I was just saving him time."
"Does he do that often?"
"What, you've never been in the eye of hurricane Everett before?" Darwin chuckled.
Tira shrugged. "I figured I'd be the last person he would approach. Other than you, of course."
"Hell, you never know with someone like, Everett. Maybe after he strikes out with all the ladies, he might just try his luck on me."
“I don’t imagine that would end well,” Tira replied, smiling at the thought.
She was about to refill her drink, when the lights in the room cut off for a fraction of a second. When they came back, they glowed red as blood. At the same time, an alarm began to blare throughout the ship.
Red alert. Something had happened that involved the whole ship, maybe the entire convoy.
Everyone in the room, including Everett, switched into business mode instantly. Their first course of action was to report immediately to the command deck. And that was what they did, rushing out of the recreation room, leaving their drinks and cigarettes behind.
CHAPTER 2
◆◆◆
Situated at the tail and head of the gargantuan mining freighter, in up and down positions at a distance of around five miles, were four sleek and heavily armed assault ships. It was the minimum mandated amount for freighter escort. But in the unlikely event anyone unwelcome should arrive, Commander Asher wasn't worried in the least.
The tall and stoic Commander stared out the command deck window of his own ship and watched for the pale blue dot of Earth in the distance. He sipped coffee, listened to the purr of his ship, and felt at ease for the first time in weeks. The freighter was full, no problems had been reported, and the convoy was moving forward like a well-oiled machine. No obstacles, no issues. Now that they were so close to home, Asher allowed himself the luxury of relaxing.
His ship, the Axis, was at the upper head position. From here, depending on which end of the deck he went to, he could pretty much watch over the entire convoy. Though the assault ships at the tail were over ten miles from him, he could make them out as dark gray dots amongst the darkness. Each ship in the convoy moved at the same speed, remained at the same relative distance. They seemed to hang motionless in the black void of space, as the universe moved slowly past them like a sliding backdrop.
If he wanted a more detailed glimpse at the convoy's inner workings, he could call up health and efficiency reports not only on the ships themselves but on each of the crew. From his seat here, in the tiny command deck of the Axis, he could look into every nook and cranny of the operation. Generally speaking, he liked what he saw.
This was looking like another boring, uneventful voyage. Just the kind he liked.
Asher went to refill his coffee cup. As the coffee poured out of the pot and into the mug, a curious thing happened. Just for a moment, too fast for Asher to be certain, he thought he saw the stream curve slightly in the air as though running over the side of an invisible obstruction. He blinked twice, poured his cup back into the pot, then rushed back to his station.
He wasn't worried. Not yet. He was hoping it was just the dim light, and the lack of sleep, making him see things strangely. There was also the fact that none of the other three people on deck seemed to be concerned at all. They just went about their work, updating courses and logging events.
Asher touched the side of his command screen, waking it up. He navigated to the ping map, which showed every object larger than a pea in a radius of a hundred miles out from his ship. He saw what he expected. Three medium objects - the other assault ships - as well as the behemoth freighter. He was just about to release a sigh of relief when he noticed something else, closing in fast from the side.
At least he knew he wasn't going crazy. The coffee stream had distorted, the result of a great many ships arriving at a speed sufficient to gently disturb the private gravity field inside the Axis.
There were too many to count. At least ten about half the size of Asher's assault ships and over twenty even smaller shapes, buzzing quickly around like bees. The smaller blips were likely ship-launched fighters, but what ship had they been launched from?
The answer came in a brief moment, when an object even larger than the freighter appeared from the edge of the screen.
Immediately, without a word, Asher reached out and punched a big red button.
CHAPTER 3
◆◆◆
A minute later, Commander Asher and his three crewmates were standing around a two-way projector which placed their ghostly forms inside the freighter's larger command deck, enabling a personal meeting between the ships without needing to dock. The signal was strong, the fidelity high; the escorting assault ships had closed in around the freighter like nodes on a protective shell.
Standing in the center of this meeting of digital ghosts was Emmanuel Grisham, captain of the freighter Eclastica. The scrawny thirty-two-year-old captain was putting on a brave face, standing tall and proud so that his escorts could see how well he was holding up. Commander Asher and his contractors weren't there in person though. Not like Dr. DuVernay who was standing only a few steps away from Grisham. So close that she could practically smell the fear and uncertainty that was rolling off the Captain like body odor.
"Well," Grisham said, his voice dripping with impatience. "Who are they and what do they want?"
"We've yet to establish comms," Commander Asher replied. "But they have stopped short of collision and are now matching our drift speed. Their closest ship is eight miles out. It seems that killing us isn't their objective right now. As for who they are... they're pirates. We've confirmed that the large ship at the back of their ranks is the Phantom's Paradise."
The Commander used the ship's full name because he wanted to make sure that the Captain understood exactly what they were dealing with. Most people just called it the Phantom. At any rate, everyone in the room gasped simultaneously. Even Captain Grisham couldn't keep it in.
"If the Phantom's here," Everett whispered at Dr. DuVernay’s back, "we're fucked."
As much as Tira hated to agree with anything the man said, he was absolutely right.
In a moment, a magnified image of the Phantom appeared on a large screen near the ceiling. It was a me
nacing thing, huge and dark, grungy and rough. The chassis was that of an old Corvette, one of the first ships of its size ever to be created, but it had been pilfering and stealing from newer ships for years. There was no telling what it had under the hood now. Probably some of the best hardware and weaponry humankind had ever invented.
“Can we beat them?” Captain Grisham asked without taking his frightened eyes from the glowing image of the menacing pirate mother ship.
"If it was just the assault ships and the fighters," Commander Asher said, "we might not have to worry as much. We could even pretend that it was a chance meeting, though the likelihood of that is astronomically small. But the Phantom's Paradise is basically a small warship. They're obviously pulling out all the stops."
"So you're saying we can't win, then?" Grisham asked.
"It's highly unlikely.”
The lanky captain began to pace, hiding a grimace of fear behind his hand. "They've been watching us, haven't they? They know what we found out there..."
"They wouldn't have shifted so many of their ships into accosting us if they weren't certain," Commander Asher replied. "They're serious about this. If they get this freighter, they'll be set up for years. Decades even."
There was a dark tone in Asher's last few words that altered their meaning to something more final, something to do with the imminent death of everyone in the convoy.
"How did they find us?" Grisham asked.
"I'm not completely sure but it's almost like they knew our flight plan.”
“How’s that even possible?” the Captain asked.
“Somehow they must have obtained our chain of milestone coordinates. That shows a certain level of sophistication. This may seem like a rag-tag mass of stolen ships and jerry-rigged hardware, but I assure you that’s not the case. I've dealt with pirates before. We can’t afford to underestimate these people.”
"What do we do?"
"You're the Captain," Asher replied.
"Well, what do you advise? What would you do?"
Asher smiled. He was the only one in the room, in the entire convoy, to do so.
"I'd wait," he said. "So far they haven't fired on us and they haven't advanced further. Right now they want you shaking in your boots, sitting on the edge of your seat, ready to leap at the first sign of a possible resolution. Either way, I suspect we'll be hearing or seeing something from them shortly."
The projected version of Asher now turned to the rest of the freighter crew. Scores of men and women gathered, some in their underclothes, some still grimy and sweaty from work. All of them huddled in fear. Mining was a dangerous enough job, fraught with unpredictability. But no one had expected to be preyed on by pirates. People in their line of work could go entire careers without facing anything more worrying than the occasional computer glitch or damaged tool.
"In the face of fear," Asher said, "life must go on. We'll continue our course without deviation and wait for the pirates to make their intentions known."
Easier said than done, Dr. DuVernay thought as she glanced back up at the monster of a spaceship that was still displayed on the monitor above.
Before leaving, Commander Asher gave Captain Grisham a discreet yet disapproving glance. Grisham failed to meet his eyes. Instead the freighter captain simply stared at the floor, as if hoping it would swallow him up.
The anxious crowd eventually filed out of the command deck, going back to where they had been before the red alert. It would be easier for the people on the evening crew; they had work to focus on. Tira had nothing. At the risk of losing her mind, she needed to find something quickly.
She made a beeline for her personal quarters, a small pair of rooms situated off a narrow side hall. She stopped in her tiny kitchen for a quick drink of filtered water, then tossed off her work clothes and changed into something lighter. She sat on the edge of the bed long enough to lace up her leisure shoes, then set out on a run. By now, she knew how to string together certain hallways and passages into a relatively enjoyable loop of three and a half miles. Her goal now was to run two loops, planning to take a breathing break each time she passed by the command deck.
Breathing hard, wiping sweat from her eyes, she peered through the command deck windows. Inside, the bridge crew worked in silence. It was not the relaxed, bored silence of an ordinary day. It was a heavy, strained stillness that grew more tense with every passing second.
Captain Grisham stood completely still, staring at the vast ping map overlaid on the main screen. Hands on his narrow hips, standing straight, he almost looked like a real captain. Almost.
Tira didn't respect the man much, and she barely even liked him, but she silently prayed that he would rise to the occasion. That he would magically become stronger. Because if he didn't, if he allowed this pressure to bend him to its will, she would suddenly find herself in a much tougher position.
As the freighter's lone psych officer, she had the ability and, more importantly, the responsibility to relieve the captain of duty if his sanity or fitness became questionable. This was part of the reason why Tira went to such great lengths to maintain her own mental and physical health - why she decided to suddenly run seven miles through stuffy freighter halls rather than sit around twiddling her thumbs and waiting to die. The other part of why she did it was that she too was afraid. Just as terrified as the captain. Afraid that she too would fail if she suddenly found herself in his position.
When she passed the command deck for the second time, she saw that Commander Asher and Grisham were engaged in a private meeting. She wanted nothing more than to hear what they were talking about... but it wasn't her business. Not yet, anyway. She turned and ran on, wondering if she should do a third loop.
CHAPTER 4
◆◆◆
Asher came away from his meeting with Grisham feeling a bit giddy. A seemingly peculiar sensation given his current circumstances but the veteran Commander’s vast experience let him know that giddiness was often the precursor to fear. One of the human body's many natural defense mechanisms.
The time had come to make a choice. Ahead of them now was a fork in the road, two branching destinies. Both uncertain. Down one way, they would remain meek and passive. They would allow themselves to be the prey. They would play dead and let these pirates extract from them whatever they were after, and lick their wounds afterward.
Down the other branch, they would take a more active role in the proceedings to come.
Asher had just recommended that they take the second path instead of continuing to wait around. The Commander knew Captain Grisham had only agreed to the more assertive approach in an effort to maintain his façade of false bravery, but Asher was still confident it was the right course of action. If they simply rolled over, they were asking for more trouble. More exploitation. If they sought a certain level of respect, even a sort of partnership, both parties could come away from this in pretty good shape. That was, if the pirates decided to play along. A gamble, but what was life but a series of gambles anyway? A series of near-misses and almost-failures, of terror and anxiety, with death the only permanent solution.
It was time to flex their muscles. What little they had, anyway.
Each of the four assault ships under Asher’s command had a crew of four. Each ship also contained two ship-launched fighters. These SLFs were piloted remotely, so they were capable of maneuvers and abrupt changes in speed that would injure any onboard pilot. They were also capable of sustaining greater damage while remaining effective. They were a great asset, but there were only eight of them on Asher's side, and twenty-six on the other.
Asher also had his four assault ships. That brought the number of fighting ships on his side up to twelve. Still not much, but there was at least the fact that his assault ships were about twice the size as those on the enemy side.
If he was able to display enough confidence, if he was able to flex his muscles properly, he could perhaps convince the Phantom and its unknown commander that a fight was no
t in their best interest. The potential damage to their own fleet would be too great. A pyrrhic victory, with repairs and losses in manpower costing more than they gained.
"Lobo," Asher called, glancing over to his ace fighter pilot, "get over here."
Lobo, a small, curvaceous woman with a tomboy haircut, walked over to the Commander and stood at attention. Asher gestured toward one of the SLF terminals, then took his seat at the other.
"We'll take both," he said. "Keep the guns nested. We don't want to look too aggressive yet. Just a little recon."
Lobo nodded without question. She understood the purpose of this mission, to show the pirates that they weren't afraid to get close.
So they took out the SLFs. They controlled one each, making minor adjustments and allowing the SLF's own computers to handle the rest.
They crossed the distance to the pirate fleet in seconds. And then they were darting around between the ships, sometimes coming within a breath of scraping the huge, dark hull of the Phantom itself. The SLFs fed readings back to them, giving them some information about the composition and density of that hull. It would be damn near impenetrable. Certainly beyond the capability of the SLFs or the three other assault ships.
For a long time, the pirate fleet showed no sign that it recognized the presence of the convoy SLFs. But Asher knew they were watching. He knew they were taking their own readings, or else just sitting patiently and confidently. Unafraid.
Asher took one of his SLFs around to the little view-bubble that extended past the hull at the Phantom's command deck. The bubble would be incredibly strong, made of a single thick piece of arched materials. It was also protected by upper and lower shelves of hull, like eyelids over a cornea.
He couldn't see much through it. Only faint, backwards ghosts of whatever overlays the crew were consulting. The atoms of the bubble material were arranged in such a way that you could only really see through from the inside.
Darkside Dreams - The Complete First Series Page 9