“Good work, Sparks.” Cap responded.
“Can’t we spin the ship,” I suggested, “to keep them from concentrating on one small section of the shield?”
“Sure, but not fast enough to make a difference, and it would make it harder for us to target them when we fire back.”
“Right, then,” Cap said firmly. “Open fire!”
For the second time, we let ‘em have it, and this time the shield wasn’t a problem. Tom obliterated two fighters before I could blink. Either they weren’t shielded or their shields weren’t up to the task of stopping our weapons. Guido hit one with his laser and I got two more fighters with my heat projector. While slower to work than the particle weapon or the laser, the results were just as satisfactory. The heat ray covered a broad enough area to take out the two Stromvik fighters at once. They lit up like fireflies, then flashed briefly and were gone. Tom finished off the last of the six fighters a moment later.
“Yeah!” Tom and I whooped simultaneously. Similar cheering came over the intercom from Sparks and Cap. Guido simply grinned from ear to ear as he and Tom leaned across to “high-five” one another in front of my face. Where in the world did they dredge up that old relic?
“That ought to teach them not to mess with us ‘hoo-menzz’!” Tom exulted with fierce satisfaction.
“Good work, gentlemen,” Cap interrupted. “But don’t celebrate too long. I don’t think the Stromvik are going to give up that easily.”
He was right. Within seconds we were bombarded with dozens of energy weapons of various sorts—most of them types we didn’t even have names for. The attack was continuous. It hadn’t taken them long to figure out that we had to drop our shield to fire.
“How is the shield doing, Sparks?” Cap demanded.
“It’s holding for now, but it’s already showing strain. I don’t know how long we can hold out if we can’t leave or fire back. Their weapons fire is distributed over more of the shield than the fighters’ concentrated effort was, so the shield is holding up a bit better so far. But the mother ship has a lot more firepower than the fighters did. It’s only a matter of time.”
“For now, give the shield as much power as you can, taking it from the weapons and other systems if you need to. Then figure out a way for us to fire back without dropping the shield.”
“Aye, Cap.”
“The rest of you, stay at your stations and keep an eye on the screens—things could change in an instant—but you can relax for now. We can’t do anything until Sparks gives us a way to shoot through the shield. If you think of anything, let him know ASAP.”
As if we could relax, knowing that at any moment the shield might fail and we’d be obliterated. The Stromvik were already ticked off at us for trespassing. I hated to think how incensed they’d be now that we’d killed some of their fighter pilots.
If that weren’t bad enough, there was the noise. There was a constant pulsating thrum throughout the ship from the bombardment. I assumed it was some sort of sympathetic vibration. Somehow the energy impinging on the shield caused parts of the ship to vibrate in synchrony. That, plus the hum of the starflight drive in the next room—running wide open at more than twenty-two times its original design tolerances—was creating a terrible din and giving me a monster headache. My skull felt like it might explode if this battle didn’t end soon.
I looked over at Tom and Guido, who had their hands pressed over their ears. So—it wasn’t only me feeling the effects of the barrage.
“Cap!” Sparks shouted. “They’re using some sort of sonic weapon on us. It’s making the ship vibrate and if we don’t do something about it it’ll eventually tear us apart.”
“How are they doing that across a vacuum?” Cap asked.
“I have no idea. Maybe they’re piggybacking on a particle beam or something, but the effect is measurable.”
“How long do we have?”
“No way to tell yet, but it’s only going to get worse the longer it continues.”
“Can you do anything about it?”
“No, sir. All we can do is try to take out the sonic weapon on their ship, but first I have to give you a way to fire back. I’ve got an idea, but it’ll take time.”
“Do it,” Cap ordered.
The next several minutes were the most painful of my life. My head throbbed, my ears rang, and my skin itched—subsonics, perhaps? Then the very walls around us began to rattle, increasing the racket even more. How much more of this could we take before the ship came apart or our heads imploded?
CHAPTER 25
“I’ve got it!” Sparks announced, triumphantly. “Our weapons operate on specific frequencies. I couldn’t simply make the shield transparent to those frequencies because the Stromvik would catch on soon enough and use weapons that would likewise penetrate the shield. So I set the weapons to hop from one frequency to another—still within the narrow bands they each operate in, but different enough that I can set the shield to be transparent to only those exact frequencies. Every few nanoseconds the frequencies hop and the shield adjusts in synch.”
“Sparks!” Cap interrupted. “I don’t care how it works right now. All I want to know is, are we able to fire continuously?”
“Absolutely. The only bogey left is the mama ship, but I’ve sent the targeting coordinates for the sonic weapon and the other major weapons on the ship to your consoles. We may not be able to kill that big bastard, but we might be able to pull a few of its teeth!”
“You heard him, gentlemen. Commence firing! Go for that damn sonic weapon first.”
“Aye, Cap!” Tom, Guido, and I acknowledged almost simultaneously.
As before, Tom’s reflexes enabled him to get off the first shots. But he had no effect on the weapon. Guido and I added our firepower, but we had no luck either.
“It’s no use,” Sparks reported. “They have a shield too; actually, many overlapping shields. Unlike ours, their shields aren’t big bubbles. They hug the contours of the ship like an outer skin—no, more like the scales on a fish. We’re not getting through.”
“We need more power to the weapons,” Cap said.
“I can give you more power,” I replied, “but that means weakening the shield. I’m not sure how much I can safely give you, but I can give you some.”
“Do it! And give most of the increase to the particle weapon. I have a gut feeling that’s got the best chance to punch through.”
“Aye, Cap!” I acknowledged. “Okay. You’ve got eighty percent more power than before, but the shields will only hold for another ten minutes at this rate, so we have to make it fast!”
“Ten minutes isn’t nearly long enough. We need more time. Cut power to all noncritical systems, and reroute it to the shield. Can we crank up the emergency generator while the starflight drive is running?”
“I don’t know!” I had to shout to be heard over the various buzzes and whines caused by the metal parts of the ship vibrating. “I can try it, but the electrical system isn’t designed for that much load.”
“I don’t think we have much choice. Start it up on minimal power and gradually crank it up. Keep an eye on the gauges and back off if it looks like anything is in danger of blowing out.”
“Aye, Cap!” I turned and dove for the generator control panel. “Okay, the generator is on. I’ll start with ten percent. Looks good. Twenty percent. Thirty. So far so good. Forty percent. Fifty. Sixty. We’re getting near redline. Sixty percent is about as high as we can safely go, leaving a safety margin to allow for power surges. We don’t want to blow out the mains and lose both the shield and our weapons.” I climbed back into my seat at Holly’s console.
“Good work, Swede. Sparks, how much additional shield time does that buy us?”
“Maybe another four or five minutes.”
“That’ll have to do. Ready on the weapons. Fire!” Cap shouted.
We hit the sonic weapon with everything we had. I briefly glanced at Tom and saw a trickle of blood coming from h
is ear. A look at Guido showed a crimson trace dripping from his nose. A second of introspection revealed that I was bleeding as well. That damn sonic weapon wasn’t going to kill us if I had anything to say about it!
“Sparks!” I hollered. “Tighten the beam of the heat projector as much as you can. We need to increase the intensity.”
“You got it, Swede! Give me a second…. Done!”
We kept pouring energy into that tiny patch of the Stromvik ship. Eventually, something had to give—and eventually it did.
“Our shield is weakening. We’ve got maybe a minute left before it fails completely. But the Stromvik shield is beginning to buckle as well,” Sparks announced. “Cap, should I cut back on the weapons and reinforce the shield?”
“Whose shield will fail first?” Cap asked.
“It’s pretty close. It could go either way.”
“Cut power to life support. If the shield fails, we won’t be around to need it. And reduce gravity to ten percent—we’re all strapped in anyway. That should buy us a few minutes. Keep full power to the weapons.”
“Aye, Cap.” All lights went out but the emergency ones over the hatches and control consoles. The instrument panels took on a bloody hue. “We’re back up to eleven percent shield strength.” The barely audible hum of the ventilation system ceased, slightly reducing the din around us. But I didn’t have time to worry about that. I had to concentrate on keeping the heat beam centered on my target.
Suddenly, silence. Or rather, the cessation of the painful humming that had drowned out almost everything else. There was still a fair amount of ambient noise, but it was barely noticeable through the ringing in my ears. My console showed a huge gout of flame and debris coming from the area of the Stromvik sonic weapon.
“We’re in!” Sparks announced unnecessarily. “Not only did we destroy the sonic weapon, we blasted clear through the Stromvik ship and vaporized a fair portion of their prow!”
We all whooped and shouted as if we’d won a major victory, even though the Stromvik ship still blasted our weakening shield nonstop.
“Reinforce the shield with the power from the weapons while we assess the situation,” Cap ordered.
“Aye, Cap. Shield strength back up to twenty-three percent, but we can’t hold out forever. We don’t have the energy to take out all of their weapons one by one if they’re all as tough as the last one. But even if we divert all power to the shield, it’ll still fail in less than an hour. What do you want to do?”
“I guess it’s time to break out the secret weapon,” Tom announced. I was about to chuckle at his lame joke when Guido nodded in agreement.
Tom unbuckled his restraints. “Guido, fill the others in while I get ready.” With that, he bolted out of Engineering, aided by a combination of magnetic soles and handholds in the low gravity.
“What’s he talking about?” I asked.
“Cap,” Guido called over the intercom, “while the rest of you were getting ready to leave orbit, Tom and I installed another particle weapon on Pod 3. We figured better safe than sorry. By taking the pod out, Tom’ll give us a fourth gun and a second target for the Stromvik to shoot at. That should take some of the fire off Shamu.”
“Are you both insane? He’ll be killed!” Sparks shouted in disbelief. “His shield’s nowhere near as powerful as Shamu’s.”
Guido shouted back. “Look—we’ll all be killed if we don’t do something!” His voice dropped to its normal volume. “Besides, he’s got the pod’s computer set up with evasive maneuvers programmed in. It’ll microjump every second or so—a few klicks at a time in random directions—so the Stromvik can’t get a lock on him. Sparks, if you set the firing control to slave the pod’s gun to whatever target we’re firing on, the pod will be able to keep a fairly steady stream of fire going.”
“Damn!” Cap said, with wonder in his voice. “That might just work. Do it, Sparks!”
“Aye, Cap! I’m slaving Patty and the pod’s gun to Lori so all three fire wherever Guido’s aiming.”
“Cap,” Tom radioed from the pod bay, “spin the ship a bit so the cargo bay is turned away from the Stromvik ship. Let’s hope the bulk of Shamu blocks their tractor ray.”
“You got it, Tom.”
“Exiting pod bay,” Tom said a moment later. “It seems to be working. I’ll jump as soon as I’m out. Give me a couple of seconds to clear the bay then hit them with everything you’ve got.”
“You heard him, men. Sparks! Shift power back to the weapons.”
“Aye, Cap. Done,” Sparks reported. “Let ‘em have it!”
We blasted away at the next designated target. Although the starflight drive in the pod was tiny in comparison to the one powering Shamu, it was unburdened by the need for life support and the myriad other systems that typically drain power from Shamu’s engine. As a result, between jumps nearly all of the considerable power it generated could be dedicated to the shield generator and the particle gun. Because the pod’s shield was far smaller than the one protecting Shamu, it left enough energy to give the pod’s gun a powerful punch. Consequently, Tom’s particle weapon nearly matched the output of the one mounted on Shamu.
After jumping beyond Shamu’s shield, his pod flitted around like a hornet, darting and stinging. The Stromvik tried to swat him, but the pod kept jumping before they could get a firm lock on its position.
That extra weapon made all the difference. It added enough extra energy that we quickly punched through the Stromviks’ shielding and destroyed the first targeted weapon. I would have cheered but I was too busy raining death and destruction on the Stromvik ship. Sooner than I would have expected, we eliminated a third weapon. A gush of flame and a spray of debris from deep within the ship accompanied each explosion. I tried not to think about how many Stromvik we killed with every weapon we eliminated.
“Yee-ha!” Sparks whooped. “These weapons of the Progenitors ain’t half bad! The Stromvik have scaled back their weapons to reinforce their shields. Their weapons output has dropped by over thirty percent since you took out that last one. Tom’s taken a few hits, but just random shots, nothing sustained. His shield is still at full power. Ours is down to eighteen percent, though, so you’d better hurry up and end this.”
We kept pouring it on and took out a fourth weapon and then a fifth. We had the battle just about won.
Then Shamu was rocked by a blast.
“We’ve lost Lori!” Sparks shouted.
The laser was gone. Only the restraint system had kept me in my seat. Fortunately the hull wasn’t breached—this time. A few more shots like that and we’d be in big trouble. Guido and I kept firing. But even with Pod 3, when we lost Lori we lost our ability to punch through their shielding.
“The shield’s down to eight percent. We can’t hold out much longer. Their shots are going to start getting through and we don’t exactly have armored hull plating. I’ve diverted all possible power to the shields, but it isn’t enough. What do you want to do, Cap?”
As if to reinforce his words, a shot partially got through the shield and jolted the ship. I was certain that we couldn’t have survived the full blast.
“I-I don’t know what we can do,” Cap said, wavering. “We can’t run and we can’t fight any longer. Damn it! I should have had us take out their tractor beam so we could escape, instead of going after their weapons. What was I thinking?”
I was shocked to the core. In all the years we had served together, I had never known Cap to be indecisive.
Then we heard the words that settled the matter.
“No! They got Tom!” Sparks shouted. “That damn tractor beam of theirs latched onto him and he’s dead in the water. They’ve diverted several of their weapons to him. His shield’s at full strength, but it’s nowhere near as strong as ours is. It won’t last for long. He’s got a couple of minutes at most.”
“Hey, don’t worry about me,” Tom radioed. “Give the bastards hell!”
Cap sighed, and my heart sank because I
knew what was coming next. “Everyone, cease fire. Tom, divert all power to the shields.”
“But Cap—” Tom cried out.
“No buts! Do it, Tom.”
“Cap! Incoming transmission from the Stromvik,” Sparks reported.
“Your shields are failing. You cannot defeat us. Surrender now or be destroyed.”
“He’s certainly succinct,” I muttered with a bitter taste in my mouth.
“Very well,” Cap sighed. “We surrender. Stop firing and we’ll lower our shield. Tom, you do the same.”
“But—”
“That’s an order!”
“Aye, Cap.” I heard defeat in Tom’s voice.
Guido and I looked at each other, mouths agape. How could it end so quickly? We were winning!
* * * *
They used the tractor ray to reel us in; however, I wasn’t really paying attention. Guido and I squeezed into the bridge, joining Cap and Sparks. There wasn’t anything else to do but watch the holoscreen as we approached the Stromvik ship.
“Sparks,” Cap ordered, “Radio Earth with everything we learned from the Seat of Power, or as much as you have time for. It’ll take over three thousand years to arrive, but maybe it’ll do Earth some good. After you do that, lock down the computer. Let’s hope they can’t break through our security. We don’t want them learning any more about Progenitor technology and Earth than they can get out of the portal computer.”
“Aye, Cap,” Sparks replied. Then a minute later, “Cap, the Stromvik are jamming our transmission. I can’t get a signal through. I’ve tried everything I can think of, but their gear is a lot more powerful than ours.”
“Those sodding bastards! Damn them to hell!” Cap snarled.
“I-I’m sorry,” I began. “This is all my fault. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me.”
The Imperative Chronicles, Books One and Two: The Mars Imperative & The Tesserene Imperative Page 61