The other mutineer asked, “How bad is the damage?”
“They hit our long range targeting scanner emitters and some areas of the hull have been breached,” Linden replied.
“I confess we too sustained some damage.”
“Then I believe it is appropriate to evaluate each ship. After that evaluation, I suggest we rejoin, concentrating all remaining resources on the ship that remains most capable of carrying out our last duty. Furthermore, by combining the two crews, we will be able to operate one ship far more efficiently than the two separately.”
“Agreed,” the other mutineer responded. “One moment, I will determine our own status.” The transmission muted. A minute later the mutineer came back on-line and said with chagrin in her voice, “We too have exhausted most of our hard munitions. In our understandable zeal and lack of experience, much was squandered.”
“What is your assessment?”
“Not good I am afraid. Our complement of skip-missiles has been exhausted. The bio-scanners on the Righteous Fist were not operational even before the attack, so we cannot scan the debris for life-signs. A number of our main energy weapons are off-line. Even more troubling, is the damage to steering control. We have yet to determine if it can be repaired.”
Linden nodded to himself, although the Light Avenger’s energy weapons were operational. The scanners were limited, only the short range and tactical arrays appeared to be still functional. The two small crews were sufficient in number to control and fire the ships’ weapons from stable, station-keeping positions. Even so, for this last task, it would be better to combine the two crews into one ship in order to operate navigation and flight controls more efficiently.
It was quickly determined that Light Avenger was in the best condition to continue. The Righteous Fist would first be cannibalized. Regrettably, the remaining prisoners would be executed, then the mutineers would be transferred to the Light Avenger and the Righteous Fist abandoned. This would necessarily take some time but it wasn’t believed to be a major factor in light of the Light Saber’s dissolution.
Once they consolidated their personnel and munitions on the one ship, they would perform necessary flight system checks. With that completed they could then, at their relative leisure, begin the final clean-up operation on what little remained of the Light Saber. There was no urgency in the minds of the two leaders of the mutineers. It should be an easy task to destroy any of the remaining wreckage they deemed large enough to harbor survivors. Very soon, it would finally be over.
● ● ●
Owens fidgeted in the confined space of the medical recovery capsule. He looked at the small glowing display in the capsule that counted down the time remaining to complete the transfusion. He ignored the other indicators that reported on his various bio-signs. He wasn’t interested in any more bad news. He received doses of speed-heal and anti-shock from the mini-doc to combat his body’s reaction to the loss of blood. With the transfusion and additional medications from the medical recovery capsule, he was beginning to feel a lot better and was now growing more anxious to be outside, shedding the wreckage from Holmes’ hull.
“Hec,” he called. “What’s the status of those ships?”
“Same as it was two minutes ago. No change, they’re holding their positions and we are continuing to extend our distance from them. If anything changes, you’ll know immediately.”
The medical recovery capsule took that moment to signal that the transfusion was complete. Tubes that were attached to each of his arms were retracted and disappeared back into the capsule’s inner housing. He waited impatiently as the needle punctures were sprayed and sealed. At last, the padded bands holding his arms immobile during the procedure released and the clear canopy opened. Owens quickly exited.
He slowly stretched and carefully rotated his shoulder. He winced. It still hurt like hell, but it was manageable. All in all, though still a little weak, he felt closer to normal than he had any right to expect. He walked down the corridor and reached the locker embedded in the bulkhead next to the inner airlock hatch. He paused, again taking stock of his condition. He was relieved his head was clear, with the dizziness gone. His shoulder pain subsided to a dull ache. He nodded to himself in satisfaction; he seemed good to go.
He quickly stripped down to his underwear, dropping his torn clothes in an untidy heap. He then opened the locker and began to don the tight-suit it contained. After he finished closing the suit’s torso seals, he put on the helmet. It immediately self-sealed and initiated the routine safety checks. It took only a minute to verify all suit systems were working properly. He did a final test on the suit com.
Owens chinned the com toggle, “Hec, I’m suited up; my indicators look good, how do you read?
“I read you green. Suit telemetry looks good. Let me know when you want me to cycle the lock.”
Owens put on flexible re-enforced work gauntlets for added protection. He shifted some loose containers, found the plasma cutter, removed it from the locker and said, “I’m ready. You can start cycling the locks now.”
Owens soon found himself standing just inside the outer airlock, the hatch-door wide open. The inner lock was sealed behind him. He had moved outside the Holmes’ gravity field and felt a slight queasiness as he transitioned to weightlessness. He gripped a convenient handhold and looked out through the tattered framework of the Light Saber’s docking rig, into raw vacuum. He saw the stars beyond as jumbled streaks of light; a result of the ship’s tumbling. The view momentarily mesmerized him. He blinked away the hypnotic image and concentrated on the task at hand. Now was not the time to become disoriented.
He was no seasoned spacewalker. The only other times he had been in a spacesuit was for the periodic exams he took as a requirement to renew his pilot’s license. Those spacewalks were limited to one-hour, closely supervised exercises. He knew he would have to be extra careful with his heavy gravity reflexes in this weightless environment.
He focused on what he needed to do and ignored the light show. He pulled the retractable safety tether from its receptacle built into the airlock’s threshold. When the tether was deployed, the hatch’s safety mechanism was engaged and the hatch could not be closed without a coded override. He snapped the end of the tether into the D-ring on his suit’s waist. It would play out from a spool mounted inside the hatch’s frame as he needed it. Then he hesitated.
The past events of the last five months unexpectedly resurfaced and he was momentarily distracted from the task at hand. He reflected back on the two direct attempts on his life and this most-recent attack on the Light Saber. He didn’t believe in coincidence. All of these events were obviously linked, but how exactly? Why was it so important that he be eliminated? It was easy to surmise someone didn’t want him to reach Golstar. He just couldn’t fathom the reason behind it.
Just as confusing were the other observations he had made while aboard the Light Saber. He sensed that part of the answer was in what he saw while aboard the Golstar ship. He needed some down-time to sift through what he had witnessed. And not in the least, he wanted to talk to Sharné. He needed more information and she was his only source. Perhaps she could provide the connection he was looking for. All of these recent events were the result of something far beyond a request for a private investigator, of that he was sure. Perhaps, he thought, even beyond the possibilities expressed by Reynaud and Neven back on Denbus.
“Hey Boss, it looks like one of the ships is just beginning to move.” The intrusion of Hec’s voice over his suit’s com startled him out of his reverie.
Owens asked, “Is it coming toward us?”
“No, they’re moving away from us, at least for now. I’m using the lowest level of passive monitoring I can manage, so it’s hard to tell exactly, but it appears they’re heading for a particularly large piece of debris drifting in the opposite direction that we are traveling. The other ship is remaining stationary.”
Owens had squandered precious seconds. He curs
ed himself mentally. He immediately clambered out of the hatch and grabbed a twisted support of the still-attached framework. “Okay Hec, I’m outside now. It looks like we’re dragging a little less than half of the docking rig; the rest was torn away when we escaped.”
He looked at the four anchor cleats where the dock was attached. Three of them were secured to the rig. The fourth was bare. The portion of the dock that it had been attached to it had been ripped completely away. He looked at it closer and found only a small scuff at the base of the cleat; the hull had barely been scratched. Good.
“Hec, you can retract number two docking-cleat.” Owens watched as it sank back into the hull becoming only a faint circular outline on the ship’s ceramic alloy surface. Satisfied the cleat mechanism was working; Owens then pointed the plasma cutter at the next nearest cleat and started to cut through the docking clamp. The clamp was quickly removed, and Owens was surprised by the relative ease in cutting through the metal. He immediately went on to the next clamp, and it parted as easily as the first. Another pattern was emerging. As he was starting on the final clamp, Hec’s voice suddenly filled his helmet.
“You about finished out there, Boss? From what I can glean from the limited data, it looks like only the one ship is moving. It’s systematically destroying everything that’s left of the Saber. I figure after they finish the last big piece of debris in their vicinity, they’ll probably head out toward us and blow up what looks like another significant chunk of wreckage… and that chunk just happens to be the Holmes.”
Owens quickly finished with the last clamp and said, “Retract the rest of the cleats. He waited and watched as they all disappeared back into the hull. “I’m heading in. Are we ready for a fast getaway?”
“By the time you make it back to the bridge, the reaction drives will be on-line.”
Owens re-entered the outer hatchway, disconnected the tether, and cycled the airlock. As soon as the airlock was re-pressurized, he entered the inner hatch and not waiting for Hec, manually dogged it shut behind him. As he jogged towards the bridge, he dropped his gauntlets on the deck and began fumbling with the release on his helmet. The discarded helmet was still bouncing on the deck when he entered the bridge.
He noted that Sharné was sitting in a crew chair looking relatively calm, almost relaxed. He was pleased by her composure. He nodded to her, dropped into the command chair and asked Hec for a status.
“That ship has just finished destroying another large piece of debris. They’re beginning to change their course in the direction of the last big piece of the Saber in their area. After they finish with that, it looks like they’ll likely head towards our general vicinity,” Hec reported.
“Alright, use…”
Hec interrupted, “Hey Boss, the ship that was stationary just blew up.”
“Beginning to cover their tracks,” Owens said. “It’s not really surprising.”
“Nothing surprises me anymore,” Hec added.
“Hec, I think it’s time to shed our disguise. Engage our maneuvering thrusters to separate us from the docking rig. However, make it nice and easy, as if two pieces are drifting apart. Once we’re well clear, then to hell with it, engage the reaction engines, activate the shields and put our weapons on-line. Hopefully, they’ll not be expecting to encounter an intact ship. They should be caught off-guard and may hesitate a little when a piece of the Saber’s wreckage starts to move out under its own power.”
He thought a moment, “And take the shortest heading you can, directly away from the satellite grid and planetary gravity wells. We need clear space in order to generate the subspace bubble. Let’s try to put some more distance between us while we can, if we can.”
Hec immediately complied and Owens watched the tactical screen as the space between the two active blips began to grow. Minutes passed, and then at a safe distance from the remains of the docking rig Hec engaged the steering thrusters and reaction engines. The Holmes attitude was quickly stabilized, and it smoothly began to accelerate away from the still tumbling wreckage.
The next few minutes were agonizing as the Holmes continued to extend the distance from the Golstar ship. The enemy still hadn’t reacted; it continued on its original course. Owens mentally thanked the inattentive mutineer manning the ship’s scanners. He stared at the holo-display and saw that the Holmes was approaching the outer boundaries of the system. He asked Hec, “When can we go into subspace?”
“In about seven minutes,” Hec replied. “Although we’re away from any significant gravity well, the condensers are still recharging. I’m sorry Boss. It would have been sooner, but I was ordered to void the condensers after we docked with the Light Saber. You already left the Holmes. And since the Saber’s destruction, I deliberately kept the generators off-line while we were pretending to be a piece of wreckage. The mutineers might have noticed an energy spike from their scanners had we tried to charge them before now. I only just now restarted the generators to begin the recharging cycle.”
“And speaking of the devil, it looks like they finally woke up and realized that we aren’t just a piece of the Saber after all. It looks like they abandoned that last piece of debris they were heading for.”
Sharné asked, “Are you sure they have seen us?”
“Oh yeah, they’re beginning to accelerate toward our position, but since we got the jump on them, our distance has increased,” Hec replied. “But they’re still in weapons range, at least using Confederated Planets weapons’ standards, so I’ve initiated an evasive flight pattern.”
While maintaining a general heading, the AI had overlaid the evasive program. Under Hec’s control, the Holmes’ maneuvering thrusters nudged the ship in one direction, then another within the three dimensions of normal space. The duration of the thruster burns and sequence were varied. This resulted in a herky-jerky flight path. The changes in the trajectory seemed minuscule, but were enough to throw off an aggressor’s weapons aiming programs when such great distances were involved.
Owens looked intently at the tactical display. The separation between the two ships remained stable. The other ship seemed totally surprised by the sudden, powered flight of an apparent piece of wreckage. It was also clear the Holmes matched the acceleration of Golstar battleship. The battleship’s huge engines vied with its greater mass. Although it was more powerful, the bigger ship would not immediately overtake the Holmes. However, depending on how long the chase went on, its larger engines likely meant it had a better acceleration curve than that of the Holmes.
“Boss, I think I can coax a little more out of our reaction engines without much of a problem. In their rush to complete the modifications, the techs failed to update all of throttle calibrations when they beefed up the engines. I might be able to gain us a little more in acceleration. Of course, this is all guess-work. After I fine tune our engines, it could be that they’re still faster than we are. However, if that’s the case, their engines will still take longer to reach maximum output and along with their greater mass, they’ll lose some ground, initially.”
Owens said, “Do it.” He wondered if that greater mass also meant the Golstar ship would be slower in maneuvering. It might be a good idea to test that theory before they gained any ground on the Holmes.
He explained his thinking to Hec and ordered the AI to change their course by twenty degrees as quickly as was possible. Hec complied and halfway into the turn it became apparent that the Holmes could indeed outmaneuver the Golstar ship, at least in abrupt sustained course changes.
In conducting such a drastic turning maneuver, the Holmes needed all its maneuvering thrusters, and Hec had momentarily abandoned the evasion pattern. The Holmes changed course and the weapons’ master aboard the Golstar ship immediately observed through their sole functioning medium-range scanner, a now more predictable trajectory. He saw an opportunity and began to fire at the more easily tracked target before it could resume an evasion routine.
Hec immediately observed the weapons’ fi
re from the pursuing ship, abandoned the course change and reinitiated the evasive pattern. Unfortunately, Hec was a split-second too late. A gigantic blow shook the ship. Owens’ ears were filled with the sound of multiple alarms going off. “Hec,” he shouted over the din. “What the hell just happened?”
“Weapons fire, we were just hit by our friends in the Golstar ship. I let our guard down; they saw an opening and took it.”
“Damage assessment?” Owens asked.
Hec silenced the audible alarms. A myriad of red blinking indicators continued to flash their muted warnings. “We lost about eighty percent of shield strength in the A-band and fifteen percent of the C, but that’s not the bad news. Unfortunately, that single salvo hit us square amidships. That shot took away our subspace capability, at least for now. A power bus broke loose and grounded. The safeties worked but not before we lost both the primary and secondary power couplers. We can still charge the subspace condensers, but we have no way to connect the condensers to the pulse emitters. We can’t generate a subspace bubble.” Hec finished with, “I’m sorry, but I blew it.”
Owens waved his hands in quick dismissal. “No Hec, I’m just as responsible as you are, more actually. I gave you the damn order for the turn, not taking into account that we were still in their weapons range. I should have realized that before I ordered you to change course. My own damn thoughtlessness forced you to abandon your evasive pattern.”
“But Boss I should have warned you myself. I didn’t consider we would provide such a predictable target when I initiated the turn.”
Owens rubbed his forehead, “It’s nobody’s fault, or it’s everybody’s fault. We might as well face it. We're not trained as military; we don’t think like the military. Admit it Hec, we’re only human. So stop feeling sorry for yourself and tell me how long it will take to fix.”
Hec was both surprised and pleased by Owens’ ‘only human’ comment. The AI said, “I’m sorry Boss… once more. Well, at least it will never happen again. It’s in my programming now.”
Shadows of Golstar Page 26