by Drew Wagar
I’m glad she’s on my side…
The shields on the Falchion failed. Jim saw the military laser fire from the Eclipse puncture further holes in the hull; plasma began leaking from damaged internal mechanisms.
Zerz tried his previous trick, yawing his ship around on its vertical axis. Rebecca was forced to dump all of her ship’s velocity, but not before she triggered her forward military laser once last time.
Rebecca’s laser fire, now unhindered by the failed forward shields on the Falchion, stitched a path across the primary hull, neatly across the forward gun mounting, just as the plasma beam lashed out.
The plasma attack only lasted for a fraction of a second before Rebecca’s own weapons fire disabled it. Despite this, there was enough energy to penetrate the shields on the Eclipse, and strike the hull, sending shock waves of devastating energy through the ship. Jim and Rebecca ducked instinctively as overloaded panels and circuitry shorted out around them.
ECM damaged!
Shields damaged!
Fuel injectors damaged!
Cloaking device damaged!
Drive coils damaged! Engine efficiency compromised!
Forward Military Laser overheated!
Undercarriage inoperable!
Main computer damaged!
Flight control offline!
Switching to auxiliary control!
Damage assessment sys… .
The console display flickered, showed a set of corrupted indicators and promptly faded out.
I’ve never seen the damage report machine damaged before!
Rebecca gasped as she wrestled with the controls.
The Eclipse staggered and spun away from the surface, out of control. On the forward viewer they caught a brief view of the Falchion, smoking copiously from a major hull breach across its forward section, before it disappeared behind them.
“Anything left?” Rebecca cried out, pulling on the non-responsive controls.
“Not much!”
“ Brace yourself!” she yelled, as the Eclipse reached the top of its arc and started to spiral back down towards the surface. “I may lose it!”
The Eclipse completed two more rolls before Rebecca managed to stabilise it, narrowly avoiding a collision with the rocky surface. She snapped on the rear view.
The Falchion was not pursuing them. It had angled up away from the planet’s surface, and was heading back out of the gravity well.
Round three was a draw.
“He’s running!” Rebecca snapped. “I’ve lost main control! Help me bring her around!”
Jim manned the emergency gyros while Rebecca used the thrusters. The Eclipse turned and fell into pursuit.
“We can’t catch him,” Jim observed. “He’s got full power to his engines, we’ve got damage to the drive coils!”
“ Damn!” Rebecca snapped, targeting a missile on the fleeing Falchion. She switched on the narrowband. “Taking the coward’s way out again, Furvel?”
There was no response from the Falchion.
She fired the missile. The Falchion made no attempt to avoid it. The missile homed in square and true, impacting on the Falchion’s rear shields, which flared up against the impact, but remained intact.
How much more can that ship take?
“He’s running out of range,” Jim said, worried. “Probably fixing that galactic jump as we speak. How many missiles do you have left?”
“Just the one,” Rebecca said, targeting it and firing it. “Oh and a Q-Bomb!”
“We’re not close enough to use it,” Jim said, “and we’d kill ourselves too! Next time, get a full rack of missiles!”
“Thanks for the tip, Harmless!”
Once again the missile homed in on its target, closing rapidly on the fleeing Falchion. It didn’t seem possible that the Courier, no matter how strong a ship, could survive two direct missiles hits in its weakened state.
The two dots on the scanner scope became one. There was a flash…
… and a circular patch of blue flickering energy, the signature of a witchspace wormhole. The missile turned aside and self-destructed.
“NO!” Rebecca yelled. “He’s not doing this to me again! This time we are going to follow him!”
Jim didn’t argue as she set the course. The Eclipse limped forward as the witchspace wormhole slowly began to fade and close up.
“This is going to be close!” Rebecca said. “Hang on.”
She rolled the Eclipse around, giving them the optimum angle of approach. The witchspace wormhole began to shimmer as it destabilised, heralding its imminent closure. The engines strained under the load, plasma leaking from their damaged exhaust ports, leaving a yellow-tinged smoking wake…
Witchspace tunnel!
Chapter 9
Chapter 9
Lave was always a busy system, with a large amount of traffic entering its system space at the witchspace marker. It was not unusual to see a number of ships appear in short succession. It was not even unusual to see a damaged ship appear on occasion, having found itself bested in combat in the profitable, but extremely dangerous, system of Riedquat close nearby.
Most ships would set a direct course for Lave system space and the relative safety of proximity to the Coriolis space station network. This was the safest way to travel, typically guarded by Galcop Vipers every few million miles. It could take a while though, the space lanes were often overcrowded.
Others, conscious of time and wanting a less busy transit would often dive away from the space lane, seeking clearer space. The transit might be faster, but you were further from Galcop assistance. Naturally, pirates knew this. It was the traders’ choice; time, risk and reward.
Few ships, other than automated tugs, turned aside to make a close pass of Lave’s peculiar moon. There was nothing of any value to a trader there.
Two ships, both showing the symptoms of a severe fire-fight, were breaking with tradition.
It seemed this was going to be an unusual day.
Rebecca looked out of the forward viewer with a sense of relief. Despite the crisis, it felt good to be back in Chart One. The other charts had their attractions, but it always felt more comfortable near home around the familiar Old Worlds.
Strange how we’re back here again! Like the song says – ‘Everything spins about Lave’!
“He’ll reach the moon four or five minutes before we do,” Jim observed, looking at the scanner.
“What do we do when we get there?” Rebecca asked. “It’s a moon, just a lump of rock. What are we looking for?”
Jim had been thinking in advance. “Look for a witchspace anomaly of any kind, I’m guessing there will be some kind of static wormhole, or maybe a jumpgate, that sort of thing. Somewhere there has to be something out of the ordinary. I remember lab data showing that the moon was unstable away from the equatorial belt. Start looking away from that region, north or south.”
Rebecca looked at the scanner, seeing the curve of the moon’s surface moving towards them, and the bright dot that represented the Falchion. “I don’t see anything yet.”
“We’ll need to fly low, just like we did when we dropped that Q-Bomb last time. Keep the scanners on maximum range and hope we get lucky before Zerz does.”
The Falchion had changed course slightly, moving towards a normal orbit insertion. Rebecca brought the throttles down and brought her ship to a gentle coast, watching as the Falchion drew closer to the moon, slowing as it established orbit.
“He’s found something,” Rebecca said, indicating the scanner. “He’s heading for the north pole.”
She locked the ident computer onto the Falchion.
Imperial Courier.
Mass 480 Metric.
Speed .375 LM.
The Falchion had turned almost directly north, as oriented by the spin of the moon. It slowed further, coming to a stop directly over the pole.
“Right above it,” Jim said. “It could make sense for any entrance or device to be positioned t
hereabouts. Easy access for docking, and it could take advantage of magnetic voids and rotational energy.”
“ Whatever you say. Looks like he’s scanning for something. Three minutes until we’re in range,” Rebecca said, diverting the course of the Eclipse. The moon continued to grow larger, transforming from a small orbiting body into a landscape of low rolling grey hills, pockmarked with craters.
“Doesn’t look like much, does it?” Jim commented.
“No,” Rebecca replied. “Looks exactly how I’d expect a boring old moon to look. You sure about this?”
“Sure? Not at all!” Jim said with a laugh. “Let’s wait and see.”
“I remember being told about Raxxla as a child, by my mother,” Rebecca said wistfully. “I imagined it like a polished black marble of a planet, diamond coated and floating in space like an onyx jewel. Not a scrappy old moon.”
“Your mother?” Jim queried gently, not wanting to probe too hard. “You’ve never mentioned her.”
“It’s complicated, she was… what in Lave… ?”
The Falchion suddenly appeared to be dropping out of orbit, abruptly changing direction and careering towards the moon’s surface. Even from their remote distance they could see the flash of actinic exhaust flux. What was Zerz doing descending like that? It was reckless in the extreme. The Falchion was dropping precipitously, heading towards the surface at breakneck speed.
“I’m not losing him now,” Rebecca said, pushing forward the throttles.
The Eclipse roared in towards the moon at full speed. Rebecca watched as the Falchion continued to descend. Something strange was happening. She couldn’t make out the outlines of the other ship as it was too far away, but the engine flux was flickering on and off, almost as if the ship was tumbling.
Something else appeared on the scanner. An undesignated target.
“What’s that?” Jim asked.
“Something on the surface,” Rebecca said, locking it into the multi-target computer. “Zerz is heading right for it!”
Unrecognised target.
Mass divide by zero.
Speed … Your ident computer is not responding.
“Damn!” Rebecca snapped. “It’s crashed my ident computer!”
The Falchion was heading towards a deeply shadowed crater, surrounded by grey forbidding hills. The moon was looming large now; the Falchion flickered on the edge of the scanner.
Then it was gone. It passed into the shadow of the crater and disappeared visually, the blip representing the ship on the scanner faded out at the same moment. The second blip also faded out. The scanner was empty.
Target lost.
Target lost.
Your ident computer is not responding. Please proceed to an authorised service centre.
“Damn it! It’s gone!”
“Crashed?”
Rebecca waited for the flash of destruction. It didn’t come. There was nothing; no explosion, no debris. An impact of that speed should have easily produced a noticeable trace.
“I don’t think so… ”
Why did it go out of control?
She pulled the throttles back and Jim pulled up the onboard telescope. The crater appeared as before, deeply in shadow, but with nothing that looked out of place. It was grey, covered in rills and boulders down to the resolution of the image. There was no wreckage, no smashed duralium panels, or any other trace of the Falchion, or the other mysterious target. Both had simply disappeared.
“There’s nothing there,” Jim confirmed. “No trace of it!”
“Now what?”
Jim pushed the scope aside and sat back considering options.
“We don’t have much choice. Either we have a closer look at the crater, or give up and admit defeat.”
Rebecca bit her lip, tapped in a course and pushed the throttles back up, cautiously moving closer, heading into a standard orbit. At the same time she made sure the lasers were charged up and the shields and energy banks were fully powered.
Wish I still had a missile left!
The Eclipse established its orbit and she pulled the throttles back again. She’d followed in on the same trajectory, in position a few thousand miles above the surface. The crater was directly below her. Nothing seemed amiss.
She checked the astrogation scanner again. Nothing. Jim was looking through the telescope at high magnification.
“Anything?”
“No sign.”
“So what the hell happened? He can’t have just disappeared, there’s no witchspace wormhole!”
Ping!
Something had appeared on the scanner again, the undesignated target was back.
Rebecca reached for the controls, but not before both of them were thrown abruptly back in their harnesses as the Eclipse lurched. The on-board system alarm began to howl. On the view screen the stars whirled around and they caught a glimpse of the moon’s surface rushing past. There was some kind of light, but it quickly disappeared off screen as the ship spun.
Gee forces were alternately pushing and pulling them against their harnesses. Rebecca struggled to reach the controls, feeling nausea growing in the pit of her stomach as the Eclipse was whirled about. She could see the internal gravity controls had gone off-line. The engines were still at idle, yet the Eclipse was spinning and descending rapidly towards the moon, the astrogation compass a blur of motion.
A trap!
She wrestled herself forward, grabbing the helm controls and pushing the engines to full power. The helm would not respond at all, the ship continued spinning uncontrollably, the moon looming closer all the time. She hit the emergency gyros, still nothing!
Warning! Excessive yaw, abort maneouvre!
Warning! Helm control offline!
Warning! Excessive energy drain, check maintenance!
Warning! Collision imminent, alter course immediately!
Warning! Altitude low!
“You’re not getting me without a fight!” she cursed, over-boosting the engines again.
The Eclipse shuddered, vibrating around her. Jim stared at the indicators on the console as Rebecca wrestled in vain with the controls. Everything was draining away; energy banks, shields, lasers, even the Quirium fuel levels, everything was going!
What kind of force could do this at range? There was no science, no technology he knew of.
Warning! Gravimetric radiation detected!
He looked at the course plot. Even at full power the Eclipse wasn’t budging a millimetre. They were going straight down, perpendicular to the surface. The moon was close now. They would never survive an impact at this speed.
This is it, we’re dead!
The engines spluttered and failed. The bridge lights dimmed as the energy banks finally discharged.
Warning! Collision imminent, impact in…
The computer faded out and the screens went black. Jim had his eyes closed. Rebecca braced herself for oblivion.
“Screw yoooooou… !”
The Eclipse crashed into darkness, and they knew no more.
“Jim? Wake up, Jim!”
Jim came to, Rebecca shaking him.
“ What happened?” he said, sitting up and looking around. The bridge of the Eclipse was in almost complete darkness, he could only just see because Rebecca had grabbed an emergency ‘glo’ from a nearby flight cabinet. Her face looked small and worried in the dim light.
“Are you okay?” she said, concerned. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m good. Dizzy, but fine otherwise. What happened?”
“No idea, but the ship is completely dead, no power in the mains, auxiliaries or even the batteries. Everything looks okay, but nothing works, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Rebecca’s ship had no external viewpoints, everything was provided by remote cameras and thrown onto the viewscreen, fine if you had power, worse than useless without. They were blind, dumb and mute.
“If the ship’s systems are off-line… ” Jim said, taking the glo from her. He toss
ed it in the air and caught it, observing how it fell. “Where is the gravity coming from?”
“Normal strength too. Can’t be the moon, it’s not big enough,” Rebecca acknowledged.
“ And the ship appears to be level too, we must have landed on something. Whatever that mechanism we triggered was, it appears to was designed to capture ships intact.”
“We need to get outside and look around,” Rebecca replied. “Airlock?”
“After you,” Jim replied, grabbing a portascan from the bulkhead. She extended an arm and helped him up out of his chair
Definitely a changed woman…
They climbed carefully down into the cargo bay, and Rebecca examined the airlock controls. The automatics were dead, needing power, but the emergency manual cycle controls would work. She pulled down a lever and a large wheel reluctantly emerged from the door.
“ There’s an atmosphere on the other side,” she reported, having looked at the basic controls within the airlock. “Standard twenty percent O2, a bit thin, but breathable.”
“Let’s go see.”
“Take this first,” she said, handing him a standard issue hand held laser. “If we survived, it’s likely that Zerz did too.”
“What about you?”
“That’s the only one I’ve got left,” she said. “I’ve got this, it will have to do.”
She held up the knife. Her eyes gleamed.
Rebecca cycled the manual controls for the airlock and the internal door slid open as she spun a heavy wheel. They proceeded through, closing the inner door behind them.
“All set?”
“Let’s see what’s out there.”
Rebecca repeated the process with the external door. As it slid back a crack of intense white light shone into the airlock interior. Both of them squinted into it as the door rolled back.
For a long while they could make nothing out at all, the light was so intense. They hesitatingly edged forward to the threshold of the airlock and peered out.
The view, or lack of it, was confusing. Jim first thought they must be inside a cloud, so lacking was the vista in any kind of feature or reference point. It was a complete, blank whiteness.