by neetha Napew
“Oh, brillig! Of course they saw it, and just what we need - !” Huron gave her an uneasy glance, and she grinned at him. “But life is risky, eh? If we go for their armed ships, we’ll lose the kids for sure, and if that slaver has any sense and a peashooter, it could plug us in the rear. So - “ The Zaid-Dayan surged, suddenly freed of its stealth constraints, and closed on the slaver. They were just over the limb, out of line-of-sight from both the escort and the base below, although the missiles launched would be a factor in a few minutes. The slaver vessel, cut off from radio communication with its base, could have chosen to boost away from the planet, or try a faster descent . . . but whether in confusion or resignation did neither. Nor did it fire on them. “Huron!” He looked up from his own console, when Sassinak called. “You take the boarding party - get that ship out of here, safely into the next sector. I’ll give you Parrsit: he’s good in a row, and Currald’s sending half our ground contingent - “ She quickly named the other boarding party members. Huron frowned when she named the two Wefts.
“Captain - “
“Don’t argue now, Huron. Wait ‘til they’ve shown you - you need both the heavy-world muscle and Weft ability. Get ready - “ Huron saluted, and left the bridge. Sassinak waited for the boarding party’s report: the marines had already donned their battle armor, but the crew that would take the trader on had to get into EVA suits and armor. Seconds passed; the ships closed. When the forward docking bay signalled green, Sassinak nodded to the helmsman. “Screens open to code, tractor field on - “ Now the screen showed a computer-enhanced visual of the fat-bellied trader vessel, within easy EVA range. It attempted a belated burn, but the shields absorbed the energy, and the tractor field held it, dragged it nearer. The boarding party, clustered in assault pods whose nav codes overrode the tractor, blew an airlock and started in.
The fight for the slaver was short and bitter: once inside the lock, the boarding party found well-armed and desperate slavers who fought hand-to-hand in the passages, between decks, and finally on the bridge. The marines lost five, when a passage they thought they’d cleared erupted behind them in a last desperate flurry of fighting. Sassinak followed the marine officer’s comments on her headset, wincing at the losses. Slavers were dangerous: they knew they faced mindwipe if they were taken alive. You had to check every hole and corner. But she could do nothing from the Zaid-Dayan, and she could not leave her ship. The last thing the marines needed was her scolding them over the radio. Deck by deck the marines reported the ship safe; in the background Sassinak could hear hysterical screams which she assumed must be the prisoners.
Finally a very out-of-breath Huron called to report success, and admitted that the Wefts were “more than impressive.” The trader had, he said, adequate fuel, air, and supplies for a shortest-route journey to the nearest plotted station, but he wouldn’t be able to use the ship’s maximum insystem capabilities because of the captives, some seven to eight hundred of them.
“They’re not in good shape, and they’re half-wild with panic and excitement. They don’t know a thing about ship discipline; there aren’t any acceleration barriers, and this thing doesn’t have a zero-inertia converter. I’d pile ‘em all up along the bulkheads like fruit in a dropped crate - “
“All right. We’ll shield you. Just get out as quick as you can, and if you do jink, be sure we know ahead of time.”
“I can’t jink in this junk,” said Huron, quick-tongued as ever, even in a crisis. “I’ll be lucky to jump in it. And the nav computer is a joke.”
“That we can help,” she said. “What’s your cleanest comm link?” When he told her, she had her communications specialists patch a direct line from the Zaid-Dayan’s navigation computer to the slaver’s. Now Huron could keep track of the various incoming threats, and have a chance to evade them.
“Take care,” she said. She wished she’d said it before he left; she wished they’d had time for a real farewell. His face in the vidscreen already looked different, the face of a fellow captain . . . she saw him turn as one of his crew - no longer hers - asked a question.
“You, too,” he said, his expression showing that his thoughts ran with hers, as they did so often. She wanted to touch his hand, his shoulder, wanted a last feel of his body against hers. But it was too late: he was captain of a very vulnerable ship, and she was captain of a Fleet cruiser - and even if they met again, it would be a different meeting. Sassinak looked around the bridge at a very sober crew. Fighting off a single enemy was one problem - keeping several enemies from blowing an unarmed transport with limited maneuvering capability was another. They all realized that the pirates would be perfectly happy to lose that ship - the evidence of their crimes. Now that lost ship would include loss of Fleet personnel as well - their own friends and shipmates.
But there was little time to think about it. Already the missiles from the surface were within range, homing (as Sassinak had suspected they might) on the transport. Arly took out this first assault easily, dumping the data generated by their explosion into a primary bank for analysis later. If there was a later. For the escort vessel, boosting at its maximum acceleration, would all too soon round the planet’s limb on their trail. Already Huron had boosted the transport into an outward trajectory; Sassinak let the Zaid-Dayan fall behind and inward, where she could more easily intercept the surface-launched missiles. Behind them, she knew, would be the manned craft: the little one-man killerships, and the larger escort. Their only chance to protect the transport, and save themselves, lay in using every scrap of cover the complex system offered.
The main display screen now showed a moiré pattern of red, yellow, and green: safe zones, when both transport and cruiser were hidden from all known enemy bases and ships, zones when one or the other were exposed, and maximum danger zones when both were exposed. On this pattern their current and extrapolated courses showed in two shades of blue - and the display shifted every time another factor came into play.
“If that tub had any performance capabilities at all,” Sassinak muttered angrily, punching buttons, “Huron could use that inner moon as a swing-point, and head back out picking up another swing from the middle one - and that’d take him safely over the ring, too. But I’ll bet that thing won’t take it - “ Sure enough the return from Huron’s ship showed unacceptable acceleration that way. But she had performance to spare, plenty of it, if she guessed right about how the slaver escort would choose to come in.
“Swing-point off the second moon gives ‘em the best angle,” said Arly, hands busy on her console as she checked out the systems again.
“No - fastest is the deep slot. using the planet itself. They’ll come by like blown smoke - maybe get a lucky shot, and for sure see what they’re up against. They can use the maneuver Huron can’t - it’s a high-G trick, but they’ll save fuel, really, and it gives them a reverse run in less than two hours.”
“So?”
“So we go up and meet them. Outside.”
The Zaid-Dayan barely vibrated as the most versatile insystem drive known lifted her poleward and away from the planet. Sassinak held to the edge of their own green zone, making sure that they could blow any missile sent after the transport with their LOS optical weaponry. Ahead, the transport lumbered along, slow and graceless. Sassinak tried not to think of the children on board, and hoped that Huron had enough sedative packs along.
“Captain - got a ripple.” The faint disturbance ahead of the escort’s high speed movement showed on one screen. Sassinak tapped her own console, while nodding a commendation to the Helm tech. “Good eyes, good handling. Yes - here she comes. Arly, see what you can do - “
Arly chose an EM beam, lethal to unshielded ships, and temporarily blinding to the sensors of most others. Sassinak followed the green line of its path on the monitor; the beam itself was invisible. Something flared out there, and Arly grunted. “Thought they’d have shields. But it may have glared out their scan.” In the meantime, a flick of pale blue sparkled into brillian
t rainbows: the escort had fired back, but their own shields held easily. Sassinak watched another line score with bright orange the yellow zone near them on the monitor - a clear miss, but remarkably good aim for a ship that had just been lashed by an EM beam. The Zaid-Dayan shifted in one of the computer-controlled jinks, covering the transport’s stern just as the escort vessel fired at it. Again the cruiser’s shields held.
The escort, on the course Sassinak had predicted, was now in rapid transit between them and the planet. Arly lay a barrage of missiles near its expected path. At the same time, the scans showed the telltale white blips of missiles boosting from the escort.
“Those are targeted to the transport,” Arly said. “They’ve got all its signature.” Even as she spoke, she had their own optical weapons locking on. But although two of the missiles burst suddenly into silent clouds of light, another had jinked wildly and continued. Arly swore, and reset her system. “If that sucker gets too close to Huron, I can’t use these - “ Again the missile seemed to buck in its course, and continued, now clearly aiming up the transport’s stern.
Sassinak opened the channel to Huron on the transport. “Huron - dump the bucket!” The only defenses they’d been able to give him had all been passive, and this one depended on a fairly stupid self-guidance system.
The “bucket” was a small container of metal foil strips, armed with explosive to disperse them and make a hot spot of itself. It could be launched from a docking bay or airlock. If heat, light, and a cloud of metal fragments could confuse it, they’d be safe. If not, Sassinak would have to try to “grab” the missile with the cruiser’s tractor field, a technique dismissed in the Fleet Ordinance Manual as “unnecessarily risky.”
She watched tensely as the monitor showed the “bucket” being launched on a course that fell behind and below the transport. When it exploded, the missile shifted course, and headed for that bait. So - they had stupid missiles. Now if Huron had enough buckets . . .
But in the meantime, the escort passing “beneath” them had gained on the transport, improving its firing angle. It had detonated or avoided the missiles Arly had sent to its expected position. Helm countered with a shift that again brought the cruiser between the worst threat and the helpless transport. The cruiser’s shields sparkled as unseen beam weapons lashed at her. Arly’s return attack met adequate shielding; the deflected beams glowed eerily as they met the planet’s atmosphere below.
Unfortunately, the best solution was narrowing rapidly, as all three vessels were approaching the terminator. Beyond that, too quickly, the base’s own missiles and scoutships would be rising to join the fray. Sassinak could not keep the cruiser between the transport and everything else. There are no easy answers, she thought, and opened the channel to Huron again.
“If your ship will take it, get on out of here,” she said. “I know you’ll have casualties, but we can’t hold them all off for long.”
“I know,” he said. “We can’t - afford another close transit - I’ve done what I can for ‘em.” She saw by the monitor that the transport had increased its acceleration, climbing more steeply now.
“Can you make the swing-point for that inner moon?” she asked.
“Not. . . quite. Here’s the solution - “ And her right- hand screen came up with it: far from the ideal trajectory, but much better than before. It would lengthen the attack interval from below and the manned moonlet would be on the far side of the planet when they passed its orbit. Best of all, surface-launched missiles wouldn’t have the fuel to catch it. Only the escort already engaged was a serious threat. And that, committed as it was to its own high-speed path, could not maneuver fast enough to follow, after the next few minutes. Not without going into FTL - if it had the capability to do that so near a large mass.
“Good luck, then.” She would not think of the children crushed in the slaveholds, the terrified ones who found themselves pressed flat on the deck, or against a bulkhead, unable to scream or move. They would be no better off if a missile got them, or one of the optical beams.
The configuration of the three ships had now changed radically. The Zaid-Dayan had fallen below the transport, keeping between it and the escort, which was now approaching its turnover if it was intending to use the inner moon as a swing-point. Its course so far made that likely. All she had to do, Sassinak thought, was keep it from blowing the transport before the transport was out of LOS around the planet’s limb.
She had just opened her mouth to explain her plan to Arly when the lights darkened, and the Zaid-Dayan seemed to stumble on something, as if space itself had turned solid. Red lights flared around the bridge: power outage. Before anyone could react, a flare of light burned out the port exterior visuals, and a gravity flux turned Sass’s stomach. A simple grab for the console turned into a wild flailing of arms, and then a thump as normal-G returned. Someone hit the floor, hard, and stifled a cry; voices burst into a wild gabble of alarm.
Sassinak took a deep breath and bellowed through the noise. Silence returned. The lights flickered, then steadied. An ominous block of red telltales glowed from Helm’s console, red lights blinked on others. The main screen was down, blank and dark, but to one side a starboard exterior visual showed some kind of beam weapon flickering harmlessly against the shields.
“Report,” said Sass, more calmly than she expected. Her mind raced: another act of sabotage? But what, and how, and why hadn’t the ship blown? She couldn’t tell anything by the expressions of those around her. They all looked shaken and unnatural.
“Ssli ...” came the speech synthesiser, from the Ssli’s biolink. Sassinak frowned. The Ssli usually communicated by screen or console, not by speech. For one frantic instant she feared the Ssli might lie her unknown saboteur - and the cruiser depended, absolutely, on its Ssli - but its words reassured her. “Pardon, captain, for that unwarned maneuver. The enemy ship went into FTL, to catch the transport - no time to explain. Used full power to extend tractor, and grab enemy. This lost power to the shields, and enemy shot blew the portside pods.” From relief she fell into instant rage: how dared the Ssli act without orders, or warning, and put her ship in danger. She fought that down, and managed a tight-lipped question.
“The transport?”
“Safe for now.”
“The escort?” This time, instead of speech, the graphics came up on her monitor: the escort had decelerated, braking away from its original course to attempt to match their course. Well - she’d wanted the transport safe, and she’d hoped to get the escort into a one-to-one with the Zaid-Dayan. However unorthodox its means, the Ssli had accomplished that . . . and she was hardly the person to complain of unorthodoxy in tactical matters. If it worked. Her temper passed as quickly as it had risen. Sassinak glanced up at the worried faces on the bridge, and grinned. “Shirty devils . . . they think they can take us hand-to-hand!” An uncertain chuckle followed that. “Never mind: they won’t. Thanks to our Ssli, they didn’t get the transport, and they aren’t going to get us, either. Now, let’s hear the rest: report.”
Section by section, the report came in. Portside pods out - probably repairable, but it could take days. Most of their stealth systems were still operative - fortunate, since they couldn’t get into FTL flight without at least half the portside pods. Internal damage was minimal: minor injuries from the gravity flux, and loss of the portside visual monitors. All their weapons systems were functional, but detection and tracking units mounted on the pods were blown.
And where, Sassinak wondered, do I find a nice, quiet little place to sit tight and do repairs? She listened to the final reports with half her mind, the other half busy on the larger problem. Then it came to her. Unorthodox, yes, and even outrageous, but it would certainly keep all the enemy occupied, their minds off that transport.
Everyone looked startled when she gave the orders, but as she explained further, they started grinning. With a click and a buzz, the main monitor warmed again and showed where they were going - boosting toward the co
urse Sassinak had originally plotted for the escort.
The Zaid-Dayan had lost considerable maneuvering ability with the portside pods, but Sassinak had insisted that they make her disability look worse than it was. Having lost the transport, surely the escort would go after the “crippled” cruiser - and what a prize, could it only capture one! As if the cruiser could not detect the escort, now nearly in its path, it wallowed on. Such damage would have blinded any ship without a Ssli on board . . . and apparently the escort didn’t suspect anything. Sassinak watched as the escort corrected its own course, adjusting to the cruiser’s new one. They would think she was trying to hide behind the moonlet . . . and they would be right, but not completely.
Comm picked up transmissions from the escort to the planet’s single communications satellite, and routed them to her station. Sassinak didn’t know the language, but she could guess the content. “Come on up and help us capture a cruiser!” they’d be saying.
If they were smart, they’d go for the crippled side: try to blow the portside docking bay. So far they’d been smart enough; she hoped they’d find the approach just obvious enough. Would they know that was normally a troophold bay? Probably not, although it shouldn’t matter if they did. Handy for the marines, thought Sass.
“ETA twenty-four point six minutes,” said Bures, Navigation Chief. Sassinak nodded.
“Everyone into armor,” she said. That made it official, and obvious. Bridge crew never wore EVA and armor, except during drills - but this was no drill. The enemy would be on their ship - on board the cruiser itself - and might penetrate this far. If they were unlucky. If they were extremely unlucky. The marines, already clustering near the troop docking bay below, were of course already in battle armor, and had been for hours. Sassinak clambered into her own white plasmesh suit, hooking up its various tubes and wires. Once the helmet was locked, her crew would know her by the suit itself - the only all-white suit, the four yellow rings on each arm. But for now, she laid the helmet aside, having checked that all the electronic links to communications and computers worked.