His optimism lasted until he realized that the Phantom hadn't even been trying. It had been waiting. Toying with Stiles and the rest of the convoy. Suddenly, the Phantom began an apparent full burn... and was growing with alarming speed, seeming to double in size every couple of seconds as it caught up swiftly to the convoy.
Along its flank, many little hatches were opening. SLFs came flitting out, closing in on the slower assault ships with no effort.
"Permission to fire, Sir?" Stiles barked into his radio.
"Granted," Asher approved. "Let's take them out!"
In a moment, the convoy's own ship-launched fighters were darting together into a spherical arrangement, flying into the heart of the enemy fleet and firing in every direction but backward. Feeling painfully hopeful, Stiles watched as Lobo, the Commander’s ace fighter pilot, led their fighter swarm into the teeth of their adversary’s assault. It brought down one, two, three and then four of the pirate fighters in a matter of seconds. He felt a surge of pride. It seemed that honor and good would triumph today, over the seeping evil and ignorance that had poisoned humankind for thousands of years.
Then he saw, blinking on the side of the phantom, a red eye crying tears of blood. The red eye was a voltic smart-plasma beam. The tears were the initial sparks of the beam itself. Once that beam started up, it would move toward its target at near the speed of light. And once it touched you, you couldn't escape. It would follow you, until you either died or moved behind an object large enough to block it. It was a powerful but limiting weapon. In order to use it, the Phantom was weakening it’s shields and dropping its acceleration again.
"Magnusson," Stiles said. "Where is that eye pointing? Can we track that?"
Magnusson, a silver-haired veteran mercenary and all-around good man, was already on the job. "They seem to be aiming toward the Axis, Sir."
"Asher, did you hear that?"
"I heard. Just keep firing, Stiles. As long as the freighter makes it back home, we've done our job."
Stiles nodded. Then, realizing that he had a choice, he switched off the wideband to his ship and turned to his three crewmembers. "It's been a pleasure," he said. "I had hoped to keep this crew going for as long as possible. But I guess we all realize what we have to do."
Magnusson and the rest of the Sargent’s crew nodded slowly and solemnly.
"Asher is that freighter's best hope. Without the Commander’s rail gun their all dead,” Magnusson said.
Out in space, the excited plasma sparks were beginning to coalesce. In a moment, they would form a solid mass that would propagate toward the Axis at a speed no physical craft had ever achieved. By then, it would be too late.
"One last maneuver," Stiles said. "Let's make it count."
He sat at his terminal. Together, and without a word, he and his crew moved into the path of the beam just in time to be obliterated.
CHAPTER 12
◆◆◆
Asher watched the spreading fireball, which cooled into a condensed cloud of vapor, and then into a scintillating curtain of frost and solidified gases that drifted in all directions like fireworks made of snow.
"Stupid bastard," he said, but he was secretly relieved. If his own ship had been destroyed, the rail gun would have been lost. Along with any chance they had of making it home.
As far as the plasma beam knew, it had hit its target. It retreated back into its eye. The red glow died, and as the energy it had used came back into the shared pool the Phantom's thrusters gobbled it up greedily; the huge ship lurched forward again at rising speed, its dark surface wobbling like a silhouette glimpsed through textured glass.
"I need a status report," Asher said. "A health report on the convoy."
"Two assault ships left," Burden said in a hollow voice. "Five SLFs."
"Any damage?"
"Hull integrity for the remaining ships are at a hundred percent," Burden confirmed.
"Let's try and keep them that way," Asher remarked. "Bring the fighters in close, let them ride our wake a bit. Use them to soak up any more fire that comes our way. Let's boost forward, close back in on the freighter. Top speed."
By now, the freighter was long gone. Looking in the direction of the moon, he couldn't pick it out from the twinkling stars. That didn't mean anything though. He could be back on its tail within a minute or so... but so could the Phantom.
"It's all about defense," Asher reminded them all with a wink. "We just need to reach the moon. That's what we want Greyson to think."
He switched over to a private band, communicating directly with commanding officer Sergeant Carisso on the other remaining assault ship.
"I need one of your fighters," he said.
"What for?" the lanky red head asked. "Already down one, are ya?"
"You know I am. I'll give it right back, Carisso."
"Promise?"
"No. Not really."
She laughed. It was a giddy sound, and Asher couldn't help but laugh in return. People either laughed when they were about to die or else they shut down entirely, retreating into their shells. In his experience, you wanted the kind who laughed around you when the shit hit the fan.
They enacted a quick transfer of an SLF into Asher's care, bringing his total back up to two. When you got down into the nitty gritty of space battle, into the thinly shaved moments that stood between life and death, even a single extra moment could make the difference between a hit and a miss. The extra SLF would be key.
"Alright then," Asher said, speaking only to his crew, "I guess it’s time for that age old sacrificial move. I'm almost certain that's what Greyson expects from me."
“Do you think it’ll work?” Lobo asked as she glanced over to the Commander.
“It will if you take the shot,” Commander Asher said confidently as he sipped from yet another cup of dark coffee.
“I thought you’d never ask,” Lobo beamed as she stood from her fighter terminal and approached the rail gun controls.
“You’ll fire on my command.”
“Absolutely, Sir.”
Let’s make it count,” Asher said as he peered out the viewing bubble and watched as the fleeing Eclastica came into view in the distance.
CHAPTER 13
◆◆◆
Greyson was relaxing again. Everything was going just fine as far as he was concerned. He had lost more fighters than he anticipated, but what were they worth anyway? Not nearly as much as what he had gained. Another of the convoy assault ships down. Just two to go. And by the looks of it...
Yes. Just as he had expected. He knew Asher couldn't resist playing the hero.
By now, the Phantom had very nearly closed the distance between it and the freighter. Only a couple dozen miles, two assault ships and five SLFs stood in the way. Asher understood that his convoy was about to be overtaken. That his stupid move to try and run to the moon would end in his death no matter what. So, he was getting ready to throw himself onto the sword. To take one for the team.
Before Greyson's eyes, the assault ship Axis, along with its two fighters, dropped back from the stripped-down convoy. In a moment it was alone, left behind with the Phantom bearing down on it. Greyson had expected something like this to happen. Yet, he could hardly believe his eyes. Had Asher's mind gone even softer in his advancing age? Or was he just completely suicidal?
"Collision course," the first mate warned.
"Divert," said Greyson. "And we don't want him on our tail. Take him out."
The Phantom slowed slightly, correcting its course and nudging away from the Axis. The assault ship kept pace; it and its SLFs were peppering the Phantom with shots that it barely felt, like pebbles tossed against the flank of an elephant.
"Just an attempt at distraction," Greyson said. "Asher knows he's a dead man. But it's not like him to go down without a fight. Get that plasma gun back on, would you?"
The crew did his bidding, and the red eye began to spark again. He figured it would take at least three shots to take the A
xis down. And, just as he predicted, one of the SLFs flew into the path of the beam at the last moment. The beam retracted, and nothing remained of the little ship but a cloud of frosty dust that quickly dispersed and became invisible.
The other SLF was hovering around now, waiting for its turn to go down. Two more shots. One for the SLF, one for the Axis. Then Greyson would be out of here, with nothing standing in his way but one last assault ship. But it wouldn't be much of an obstacle. Its crew would be demoralized, ready to surrender. Even if they fought, what could they possibly hope to achieve?
In the midst of his joy, Greyson noted in a vague, absentminded way that the Axis was no longer firing. It had gone completely motionless relative to the Phantom, showing its flank. It was almost like Asher wanted to die. And by that point, Greyson had no problem with fulfilling that wish.
The eye sparked again. Just before the beam unfurled, the last remaining SLF jumped in the way and was reduced to its constituent molecules. The beam curled back into its housing, a teardrop of blood being sucked back into a tear duct, and Greyson held up his hand. His crew hesitated a moment before starting up the next shot.
"He's not firing," Greyson said, gritting his teeth as he watched the Axis drifting three miles off his starboard flank. But it was no longer completely motionless. It was drifting closer, slowly but surely, almost as if it was falling into the Phantom's interior gravity field.
"He's getting closer," the first mate said. "Sir, I think he may attempt to ram us. He's already given himself up by getting this close, and he has no more fighters to protect him. He knows he's going to die, so he'll try to cause as much damage to us as possible."
Greyson nodded. "What will a collision entail?"
"At this low relative velocity, not much. But his ship is capable of drastic acceleration. If he starts boosting in the next few moments, he might..."
The first mate trailed off. The Axis had stopped again, holding its distance.
"If I didn't know how much of a brave fool Asher was," Greyson said, "I'd almost think he was setting a trap. Let's get rid of him now. We have a freighter to catch."
"Yes, Sir," his crew echoed. With obvious zeal, they turned to the task of melting the Axis out of existence.
Greyson watched his ship status. They had dropped speed slightly to take out the Axis, enough to bring their shields up in a weakened state. But each time the plasma gun charged up, it stole power from wherever it could. Since the ship automatically prioritized speed, the power was drained inevitably from the shields. They died each time the weapon was fired. It was a small weakness, a narrow opening which Asher could have exploited. But Greyson had no reason to believe that he was even capable of doing so with only one assault ship at his command.
And he held that opinion right up until his first mate shouted a warning at him.
A hatch was opening in the side of the Axis. A huge electromagnetic charge was detected. And long before the plasma eye could ever unfurl its beam, the rail gun was moments away from firing and penetrating clean through the Phantom in a fraction of a second.
"Divert power to shields!" Greyson screamed.
There was no need. His crew was already trying. They had started trying a moment earlier, when they realized simultaneously that they had been tricked. But it was far too late. By the time their hands met their terminal screens, their ship had already been skewered.
Greyson went down, hitting the floor hard. People and alarms were screaming wordlessly. Distress calls were coming in from other areas of the ship. On a screen, which had fallen from its stand and now dangled just above Greyson's head, he watched as a great many of his crew were ejected into space.
For once, he understood how his victims must have felt. They would have had this same sense of despair. Of numb horror. But it didn't make Greyson feel ashamed. It only made him angry.
Fighting a sense of panic, and pushing away the mental fog that came from his head hitting the floor, Greyson rose languidly to his feet and stumbled through the darkening command deck, searching for his bridge crew.
CHAPTER 14
◆◆◆
“Get fucked, bitches!” Lobo roared as she leapt from her chair and landed with an exaggerated air hump, clutching her fists and triumphantly raising them before her after the celebratory thrust was finished.
"Direct hit," Commander Asher smiled. “Nice work Lobo,” he continued as he grabbed his transponder to radio the Eclastica. "The Phantom won't be giving us any more trouble. Not before we reach our destination. Unless Maestro has updated her model."
Onboard the Eclastica, Tira listened to the Commanders statement and hoped that he was right.
"A successful disabling shot had been factored in from the start," the AI responded. "I could not find a way to reach the moon safely without it. Nothing has changed, however; we will still have to hurry. The pirates have proven themselves extremely resourceful in the past, brilliant in the art of repair. Now they are also fueled by rage and the urge to seek revenge. We will not be free of them for nearly as long as any of you are hoping."
"That's comforting," Asher grunted. "Way to piss on the parade. Anyway, I'm headed back toward you now. Carisso, get ready to rotate with me. I've done just about all I can. Sorry about your fighter, by the way. If it's any consolation, it had a glorious death."
"Amen to that, Sir," Carisso responded.
While they were making their small talk, processing the horrors that had happened, and sharing their mutual dark senses of humor, Grisham seemed to be building up to some kind of explosion. A moment later, he finally gave out.
"What are you doing?" he shouted. "You haven't even finished the job!"
"What do you mean, captain?" Asher said patiently.
"I mean that the Phantom is still a threat and right now they can’t even move! I don't care what that robot says, I’m changing the plan. You need to shoot them again. If you destroy their ship we can just go home. We wouldn’t have to stop by some weird moon base.”
“That’s not possible, Captain," Asher called out.
“That’s an order, Commander,” Grisham growled.
"There’s nothing I can do, Grisham! I can’t use the rail gun again? Not right now!”
"Why the hell not?" Grisham shrieked. "I gave you a direct order. You’re just a contractor, Asher. You have to do what I say!”
Asher laughed. It was the type of laugh usually reserved for over-imaginative children.
"If I fired the rail gun again," he said, "without the proper follow-up maintenance, it would tear my ship in half, Captain. The Phantom might get blown straight to Hades, but so would my crew.”
“Fire the weapon, Commander,” Grisham insisted.
“Sorry, Captain, but I’m going to have to reject that order. I’d be killing my crew. Do you understand what I’m saying?! We would all literally die seconds after firing the shot!"
Grisham was pacing again, flexing and unflexing his fingers, generally looking like a man who was about two inches from falling over an irretrievable precipice.
"I hear what you’re saying. I just don't believe you," the Captain finally said. "I still think you’re in on this, Asher. You and that pirate captain. You just don’t want to kill him, isn’t that right?"
Asher took a few moments to respond, but only because he was on the move. Eventually, his projection appeared on the Eclastica’s command deck. Like the sudden arrival of a ghost, or a demon from his past, this appearance made Grisham jump in fear.
"If you’re directing me to take a shot that would guarantee the deaths of my crew," Asher said, "you are the one whose integrity should be questioned, not mine. If I knew it was necessary to sacrifice myself for the survival of your freighter, Grisham, I would not hesitate to place myself in harm's way. But we have Maestro, who is about a million times smarter than your dumb ass, telling us that such a sacrifice is not necessary. So, if you want me to die, my only conclusion is that you have a grudge against me. And that you are no dou
bt unfit for service. Doctor DuVernay… your thoughts?"
He looked over at her. And so did everyone else. Tira resisted the urge to shrink away, to abdicate her own position. Instead, she stood straight and tried to look like she had her shit together.
"Asher," Grisham said, mouth hanging open. "I don't want you to die. But if we don't finish off the Phantom, not even Maestro can guarantee that it won't catch us."
There were a few seconds of silence, as the ship continued its full burn toward the moon. And then the AI itself broke in.
"Barring any unforeseen circumstances, there is now a ninety-seven percent chance that we will reach the moon ahead of the Phantom’s Paradise," said Maestro. "You can all afford some hope now. And you can also give yourselves credit. It was my plan, but it was all of you who carried it out."
It was an oddly sweet sentiment, Tira thought. Especially from Maestro.
"Doctor DuVernay?" Asher said again, still staring straight at her with eyes that were not much less powerful than the plasma gun that had melted a good deal of his convoy.
Tira was happy for Maestro's interjection. It had given her time to think, without appearing hesitant, which was probably the AI’s intent.
"I think it’s a bit premature to assume that the Captain intended to guarantee the death of your crew, Commander. I think we all know what would happen if that was indeed the case,” Dr. DuVernay said, taking a conspicuously passive aggressive tone that made it clear that she would relieve Grisham of duty if he didn’t back down. "Perhaps this was simply a misunderstanding on the Captain’s part, but now that Maestro has re-confirmed our best case scenario, I think the Captain and I would agree that proceeding as planned is in everyone’s best interest. Right, Captain?”
Darkside Dreams - The Complete First Series Page 13