THE BLACK FLEET CRISIS #3 - TYRANTS_TEST

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

apparently has a few more surprises tucked away under the service

  panels of this ship."

  "There is something else," said Pakkpekatt. "Look at the message

  size."

  Hammax squinted. "That's heavy lifting."

  "It has to be a mistake. We should send back a verify request," said

  Taisden. "Confirm the originating station, packet size, router. Or

  request a redirect to our own hypercomm transceiver."

  "There is a simpler way to satisfy our curiosity," said Pakkpekatt. "I

  would like the bridge to myself for a few moments. Colonel Hammax, I

  believe you Were headed aft?"

  Hammax nodded. "I'll be skinned up in five to ten," he said, turning

  away and ducking through the hatchway.

  "I'll check in with Pleck," Taisden said, climbing out of his couch.

  "Page me on the observation deck."

  Even though he was alone, Pakkpekatt covered his right hand with his

  left as he entered his authorization code and switched the viewer to

  privacy mode as he read the notice.

  COLONEL PAKKPEKATT

  ACTIVATION OF FAIR LADY'S P' W' ECK COMPLEMENT RECORDED HERE.

  SINCERELY HOPE THIS PRESAGES RESTORATION OF PEACEABLE RELATIONS WITH

  HOST WORLD AND DIPLOMATIC RECOVERY OF EXPEDITION.

  PENDING DISPATCh1 CONTAINS LETTERS OF INTRODUCTION, RECENTLY ACQUIRED

  AT GREAT EXPENSE. TRUST THEY WILL OPEN DOORS FOR YOU.

  It bore an apparently authentic Fleet Intelligence watermark and seal

  but was unsigned.

  General Calrissian's friends, Pakkpekatt thought. They should not know

  that I am in this ship, but they do, and they are still looking after

  him.

  He drummed his thumb-claws on his temples as he considered his

  response. 'Letters of introduction' can only mean the Qella genetic

  code--assistance that I requested through proper channels, which was

  denied when the task force was recalled.

  There was no real choice before him. With a few light touches on the

  display, Pakkpekatt entered his send authorization and returned a

  clear-to-transmit message to his unknown benefactor, noting the ship

  time as he did. At their present distance, the transit lag for a

  round-trip to Coruscant should be something more than forty minutes.

  If the reply came back too

  soon or too late, he would know what meaning to give it.

  "Colonel Hammax, are you ready?" Pakkpekatt called over the comm

  system.

  "Going through my weapons check now, Colonel."

  "Very well. Agent Taisden, please return to the bridge. Agent Pleck,

  please assist Colonel Hammax at the airlock. Colonel, during the

  flyaround, did you identify where you would like to make your entry?"

  "Those open ports on the far side looked to be as good a place as any,"

  Hammax said. "I'm going to use a ring charge to cut in, and I can put

  some hull between myself and the blowback."

  "Very well," Pakkpekatt said, taking the yacht's maneuvering yoke in

  hand. "I'll notify you when we are in position."

  Colonel Hammax did not stay aboard the hulk of the cruiser for long. A

  mere fifteen minutes after he disappeared into the maw of launching

  port eight, he reappeared at the opening of launching port four.

  Raising his right hand in a wave, Hammax squeezed the thruster controls

  with his left and started across the hundred meters separating Gorath

  and Lady Luck as they drifted together through space.

  Though Hammax's foray suit had voice, holo, and biomedical comm systems

  in both open and conductive modes, Pakkpekatt had directed him to

  observe strict comm silence unless confronted by a threat, and Hammax

  had done so. So his early return was the object of sudden and intense

  curiosity. Pleck and Pakkpekatt watched from the flight deck and

  Taisden from the observation deck as Hammax jetted toward the yacht,

  knowing only that it was impossible under any conditions to thoroughly

  search a 450-meter-long warship so quickly.

  "He looks okay," said Taisden. "Maybe he had some equipment problem.

  Or maybe he got lucky and found what he was looking for right off."

  "If Colonel Hammax had found what he was looking for, he would be

  returning with two body bags," Pakkpekatt said, tracking the

  spacesuited figure with the laser cannon.

  "You're going to make him nervous, doing that," Taisden observed.

  "Good. That will help him understand that I am," said Pakkpekatt. "Go

  back to the airlock and hold Colonel Hammax there with the overrides

  until I have satisfied myself."

  As soon as the outer lock closed, Hammax broke his silence, using his

  suit's conductive transmitter. "Colonel, she's well gutted.

  Definitely Prakith, though."

  Taisden startled at that. "A long way out for a Prakith ship--a long

  way out. Are you sure?"

  "I could still read the blazons on bulkheads here and there. Colonel,

  it's a derelict. Nothing's functional, and there are no signs of

  life--a lot of bodies, but none of 'em are going to get any more

  use."

  "Was there any sign of Calrissian?"

  "No," said Hammax. "I checked both brigs--there were five bodies

  between them, none of them human. I also checked the bridge and the

  maintenance shop--no droids of any kind in either location."

  "Why did you terminate your search? A Strike- class cruiser has two

  hundred fifty-eight compartments."

  "Colonel, with the conditions over there, I wasn't going to find out

  any more in an hour than I did in fifteen ticks," Hammax said. "I

  thought the best thing was to come back and leave it up to you whether

  to commit the time to take it further. If you want all two hundred

  fifty-eight compartments searched, I'll turn around and get started on

  it."

  "Is it your report, then, that Calrissian's party is not aboard the

  cruiser?"

  "I can't tell you with absolute certainty that the general wasn't

  aboard when the balloon went up," said Hammax. "But in my opinion,

  it'd take a forensic sal

  vage team the better part of a week to be any more certain. Your call."

  "Stand by, Colonel Hammax." Pakkpekatt rubbed his temple crests as he

  checked the comm queue. The "Fleet Intelligence" dispatch was still

  spooling into Lady Luck's comm buffers, pouring in at 94 percent

  efficiency of the highest available error-checking transfer rate. But

  even at that rate, the counters predicted it would take another

  twenty-three minutes to complete the transfer.

  "All stations, conference," Pakkpekatt said.

  "Hammax here."

  "Taisden here."

  "Pleck ready."

  "It is my belief that the most probable scenario to explain our

  findings is that this vessel was destroyed by the vagabond by means of

  a weapon not previously seen. The vagabond is likely to have been

  damaged in the confrontation, prompting Calrissian to recall his

  yacht.

  Concur or dispute."

  "Concur," said Pleck, "I concur," Hammax and Taisden said

  simultaneously.

  "Proposition: The degree of damage sustained will dictate the current

  location of the vagabond. If not seriously damaged, she will have

  jumped ou
t. If seriously damaged, she will have moved off in

  realspace, perhaps to make repairs. If mortally damaged, she may still

  be present as an undetected debris field."

  Pleck and Hammax agreed.

  "Or she may have tried to jump out and broken up in the process, in

  which case there might be very little debris to find," said Taisden.

  "Yes," said Pakkpekatt. "Disposition: We will remain at this location

  while we conduct a maximum-aperture deep scan for the vagabond, and

  until we examine the debris field more closely. Colonel Hammax, stand

  by for possible debris recovery operations.

  Agent Taisden, please return to the second seat to supervise the deep

  scan."

  As Taisden reached the flight deck Pakkpekatt was turning the bow of

  Lady Luck away from the cruiser.

  "You said there was a possible body?"

  "Let me locate it for you," said Taisden, reconfigur-ing the

  displays.

  "Twelve hundred meters, bearing two-one-zero, plus four-four,

  relative.

  A lot of smaller stuff between us and it, though."

  Pakkpekatt responded by reactivating the particle shields so that they

  could shoulder aside any debris in their path. "Please begin your

  scan."

  "That'll scatter the field," Taisden said. "Standard recovery protocol

  calls for deflectors only, with particle shields at zero."

  "I know that," said Pakkpekatt. "But this is not a junker, Agent

  Taisden, and we are not scavengers." He pushed the yoke forward, and

  Lady Luck eased away from the shattered cruiser. Within a minute, it

  had entered the cloud of debris.

  The "body" proved tO be a curious object--a rough-surfaced sphere two

  meters across, carbon-scorched over one third of its surface and

  encrusted with a thin layer of fragile, long-crystal ice.

  Pleck had come forward to the flight deck for a closer look. "Could it

  be some sort of escape pod?" he asked. "I've heard that spaceliners

  used to be equipped with something like the ferry bags S-and-R units

  use--you know, not much more than a soft-sided ball with a rebreather,

  so you can move people off a disabled ship without having to try to get

  them into spacesuits."

  Taisden shook his head. "I'm still on passive sensing only, but the

  thing looks solid to me. If the colonel will let me strobe it--" "No,"

  said Pakkpekatt.

  "Colonel, if it's something interesting, let me go out and get it,"

  said Hammax. "At two meters, I should be able to bring it in through

  the cargo airlock."

  "No," said Pakkpekatt. "I do not want it inside this ship. But I do

  want to know what it is made of. If it is not part of the cruiser, it

  may be part of the vagabond."

  "You say it's iced over?" asked Hammax.

  "To a depth of approximately one centimeter," said Taisden,

  recalibrating his displays for fine detail.

  "Sounds like draw-frost," said Hammax. "You only get that on

  biologicals, and only for a little while, until the remains are

  desiccated or deep-frozen. See, the pressure differential pulls the

  water in the epidermal layers toward the surface, but it starts

  freezing on the skin before it can evaporate. The residual body heat

  can keep things pumping for a while, but eventually the ice evaporates,

  too, one molecule at a time."

  "Maybe it is a body, then," said Pleck. "Just not a human one.

  Colonel?"

  Pakkpekatt glanced at the counter on the comm display. "Very well,

  Colonel Hammax. See if you can move it to the fantail observation

  deck. I believe there are cargo tie-downs there, and we will not have

  to concern ourselves with turning the cargo deck into a hy-pothermic

  cooler--" "Hold everything," Taisden said, sitting forward sharply and

  frowning at the displays. "I have a deep-scan contact alarm. Colonel

  Pakkpekatt, there's something coming in fast."

  "You are acquiring Colonel Hammax's bad habits," said Pakkpekatt with a

  hiss. "What sort of contact?"

  Taisden shook his head. "She's bow-on to us and still a long way

  out--nine hundred thousand kilometers," he said. "It'll be a little

  while, even for this rig."

  He paused, tapping the console with his fingertips. "On the other

  hand, if she's related to the late Prakith cruiser behind us, she's

  probably coming in with her don't-shoot-me lights on."

  "Combat transponder," Pleck said. "Yes. Scan for it in the high

  forties--that's pretty common for Imperial-class designs, and I don't

  think the Prakith are likely candidates for a lot of field

  modifications."

  "I've got it--forty-four two, for future reference.

  Uncoded, but in Prak." Then he grunted. "Looks like General

  Calrissian went for all the options when he bought this yacht. The

  system's giving me an on-the-fly translation--ha!"

  "What?"

  Despite the seriousness of the moment, Taisden was briefly consumed by

  a spell of deep, closed-mouth chuckles. "We are heading for a

  rendezvous with, and I quote verbatim, 'The gallant and eternally

  vigilant patrol destroyer Tobay of the Grand Imperial Navy of the

  Constitutional Protectorate of Prakith, in grateful and loyal service

  to His Glory, the potent and courageous governor for life, Foga

  Brill."" "And you thought your section commander had unreasonable

  expectations," Pleck said, clapping Taisden on the shoulder. "Do you

  think the Prakith navy holds public fawning competitions?"

  Pakkpekatt parsed the puffery for the one detail that mattered to

  him.

  "Patrol destroyer, Imperial Adz- class. Primary armament three class-D

  quad laser cannon batteries, three class-B dual ion cannon

  batteries."

  "Sounds like we definitely don't want to be here when they arrive,"

  said Hammax. "Colonel, do you still want me to go after the

  floater?"

  Pakkpekatt looked to Taisden. "How long?"

  "Not quite six minutes, though she'll have to start knocking her speed

  down pretty soon. Call it eight."

  "Not enough time, Colonel Hammax," said Pakkpekatt. "Come back

  inside.

  I need you to take over weapons control."

  "Pardon me, Colonel," Taisden said.

  "What is it?"

  "Colonel, this other ship coming in may not be ignorant enough to think

  that we're the ones who rearranged the furniture on the cruiser, but

  they're sure as sweat going to be curious about what we know. I

  strongly recommend we jump out before they get anywhere near here."

  "Recommendation noted," said Pakkpekatt.

  "However, inasmuch as we are currently receiving a mission-critical

  dispatch from Fleet Intelligence, we will

  not be able to jump out for another"he leaned forward to read the

  display--"ten minutes."

  Pleck and Taisden exchanged glances. "Anyone know the top speed of an

  Adz-class patrol destroyer?"

  "Point-five-five," said Pakkpekatt.

  "And this yacht?"

  "Unknown to me," said Pakkpekatt. "Agent Tais-den, tell me when the

  contact's velocity changes."

  "We could hide in the scan shadow of the cruiser," Pleck said.

  "I intend to
," said Pakkpekatt, handling the yoke with a light touch

  that nudged the yacht sideways to port. "'But I won't be able to do so

  for long."

  "They might come in more slowly if they see us," said Taisden. "We

  only need a couple of minutes."

  Hammax appeared at the hatchway, finger-combing his helmet-matted

  hair.

  "Patrol destroyer carries six fighters," he pointed out. "They can

  have it both ways--send the fighters in hot after us, and take a nice

  safe, slow approach to the wreck."

  "Anyone know what kind of fighters the Prakith have?" Pleck asked,

  frowning. No one answered him.

  "Contact is decelerating," said Taisden. "Looks like she's spotted the

  wreck. Colonel, the wreck's going to eclipse the contact in a few

  seconds."

  "Tell me when."

  "Coming up--damn. Fighter launch, two birds."

  "Excellent," said Pakkpekatt, pushing the yacht's throttles forward to

  the limit. The sudden acceleration knocked Hammax back into the