She settled back to wait, expecting to see the enemy fleet appear on the scanners at any moment. But nothing materialised, not even a handful of freighters running supplies in and out of the system. The Druavroks had apparently come, seen and retreated without bothering to fire a handful of shots for the honour of the flag. And it made no sense at all.
Maybe they decided our defences were too strong to risk tangling with, she thought, as the minutes turned into hours. But Dab-Yam’s defences had been stronger, at least on paper, and the Druavroks hadn't hesitated to try to wear them down. And we had a powerful mobile fleet to back them up.
“Order the alpha crews to go off duty, catch something to eat and get a little sleep,” she said, grimly. Her crews had been at red alert for over three hours, leaving them tired and strained - and ready to jump at shadows. It wouldn't be long before there was an accident, perhaps with tragic consequences. “The beta crews are to remain at alert.”
“Aye, Captain,” Wilde said. “It doesn't look as if they have any intention of returning to the system. They may have just wanted to test the waters and force us to go on the alert.”
“It certainly looks that way,” Hoshiko agreed. She scowled at the blank display as if it had personally offended her. “Our enemies are suddenly acting like rational men and it worries me.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Texas - and the other states of the Alliance for the Preservation of the United States - began a mass round-up of illegal immigrants today, following the victory over Mexican troops in the Battle of El Paso. All immigrants are being taken to concentration camps where they will be held, pending the end of the Texan-Mexican War. The Governor’s office, citing the precedent of the round-up of Japanese-Americans during World War Two, has refused to consider halting the program, despite legal challenges. Indeed, a number of lawyers who did challenge the program were arrested on charges of sedition and aiding and abetting criminal acts.
-Solar News Network, Year 54
“Captain, I think we have something here,” Lieutenant Octavo said.
Thomas leaned forward as a new icon blinked to life on the display. It had taken three weeks to reach the Druavrok-held system, shadowing an enemy convoy so closely as to be lost in the convoy’s gravimetric backwash, then another week to establish the fact that most of the freighter convoys making their way in and out of the system were heavily escorted by enemy warships. Attempting an attack would be nothing more than suicide. He’d been on the verge of seriously considering moving on to another system when Octavo had called for his attention.
“I see,” he said. Thankfully, three weeks of constant drilling had improved his Gal-Standard One to the point they could communicate without any problems. “What is it?”
“It’s a mass driver,” Octavo said. “Or, rather, it’s a mass-driven piece of rock, spewed out from one of the asteroid mining stations and spat towards the fabber.”
Thomas studied it in some puzzlement. He couldn’t help being reminded of some of the early Solar Union settlements, back when GalTech had been in short supply and human technology had been all there was for the vast majority of founding citizens. The concept was simple enough - raw materials mined from an asteroid were fired towards a fabber, where they were caught and fed into the gaping maw - but the Druavroks should have had no need for such a primitive construction. They’d copied the Tokomak, after all, and the Tokomak had always dragged the asteroids to the fabber and carved them up there, rather than hacking the asteroid to pieces where it was found.
“Maybe they’re running short of GalTech,” he mused.
It made a certain kind of sense, he thought. The Druavroks would have a handful of military-grade fabbers, but they’d want to keep them focused on supporting the war, rather than maintaining their economy. Someone with a far less advanced tech base - even pre-Contact Earth - could build and maintain the mass driver without any need for GalTech. He wondered, absently, just how advanced the Druavroks had been before the Tokomaks arrived, then dismissed the thought. By now, they were as capable with GalTech as any of the other Galactic races.
He smiled as a nasty thought occurred to him. “How many of those projectiles are they tossing at the fabber?”
“I think there’s one every ten minutes,” Octavo said. He’d been a merchant spacer before transferring to the Solar Union’s auxiliary forces and had plenty of experience with passive sensors. “They’re hard to detect, but I’m picking up an electromagnetic spike from the direction of the asteroid belt at ten minute intervals.”
Thomas tapped his console, running a calculation. The projectiles would take four days to reach the fabber, assuming nothing went wrong along the way. And what could go wrong?
Us, he thought. Time to do something nasty.
He glanced at Octavo. “Are there any sensors mounted on the projectiles?”
“I don't think so,” Octavo said. “They’re just pieces of rock, as far as I can tell.”
And passive sensors would be impossible to detect, Thomas thought. But really, why would the Druavroks bother to rig the projectiles with passive sensors? They’d have to strip them off at the far end before they shove the projectile into the fabber.
He rose. “Match our course and speed with the projectile,” he ordered. “And then order Roxy and Tarquinii to suit up and meet me at the airlock.”
“Of course, sir,” Octavo said. He sounded puzzled. “Do you mind if I ask why?”
“We’re going to unlock one of the missiles from the hull, then fix it to the projectile,” Thomas said. “I want to give the bastards a very nasty surprise.”
He grinned at Octavo, then nodded. “You have command,” he added. “In the unlikely event of them coming to investigate, take the ship out of range and we’ll go doggo.”
“Understood,” Octavo said. “Good luck, sir.”
Thomas nodded, then turned and walked back to the airlock hatch. Roxy and Tarquinii were already waiting for him, wearing everything apart from their helmets. Thomas had a private suspicion the two girls had actually been pirates, judging from some of the things they’d said when he’d been trying to get to know them, but he’d kept that thought to himself. As long as they did as they were told, when the chips were down, he didn’t give a damn about their past lives, Besides, they were hellishly competent.
Roxy leaned forward. She’d dyed her hair purple, for reasons Thomas couldn’t begin to fathom. “What’s the plan, boss?
“We’re taking an antimatter warhead to the projectile, fixing it to the rock and then leaving it there for the enemy to find,” Thomas said, as he reached for his suit. Thankfully, like so much else, Galactic suits were standardised. “Any more questions?”
Roxy and Tarquinii exchanged glances. “No, sir,” Roxy finally said. “Are you sure the warhead is safe?”
“Antimatter is never safe,” Thomas said. He finished pulling his suit on, buckled an EVA pack to his back and then picked up his helmet. “But it’s a lot safer to rig one of their projectiles than it is to try to attack the fabber ourselves.”
He smiled at the thought as he clicked the helmet into place, then checked Roxy and Tarquinii’s suits and allowed them to do the same for him. The enemy fabber was heavily defended, surrounded by a network of automated weapons platforms which were backed up by the planet’s mobile defenders. He’d hoped to find a way to get into attack range, but one look at the defences had told him it would prove futile. They’d be blown out of space a long time before they managed to launch a missile at the fabber. But this way ... they might just get a warhead into contact range before the enemy noticed it was there.
“Check radios,” he said. “Sound off.”
“Here and hear, sir,” Roxy said.
“Confirmed,” Tarquinii said. Her voice was lighter than Roxy’s. Thomas thought she was younger, but neither girl had been forthcoming about their age when they signed up. “Here and hear, sir.”
“Good,” Thomas said. The low-power radio w
asn't passive, but it would be next to impossible to detect unless the enemy had a stroke of amazingly good luck. “Let’s move.”
He stepped through the airlock, silently grateful they weren't anywhere near a planet. He’d grown up on an asteroid, of course, and he’d made his first EVA almost as soon as he could walk, but being in orbit around a planet had often struck him as disconcerting. It was an illusion, he knew, that the planet was either falling on him or he was falling on it, yet the knowledge wasn't enough to keep him from feeling antsy. In deep space, by contrast, he was actually swimming through the inky darkness ... smiling, he climbed out onto the hull and headed towards the missile launchers. The spare missiles were bolted to the hull behind them. Reloading was going to be a right pain.
And if we get hit, the containment fields fail and we die, he thought. It was something he’d overlooked until the drills had brought it to his attention. Antimatter warheads could be a major problem, but most missile storage compartments were heavily shielded. One hit and we’re dead.
He pushed the thought aside as the first missile loomed over him. It was huge, easily twice the size of a shuttle; he recalled, with a flicker of gallows humour, just what missiles had been called back at the Academy, when the prospect of a violent death had been somewhere in the future. He muttered orders to Roxy and Tarquinii, then carefully deactivated the control systems, released the missile from its bolts and pushed it away from the ship. There was no point in keeping it - it was GalTech, after all - once they removed the warhead. He keyed the EVA controls on his wrist and thrust away from the ship and out towards the missile. Thankfully, landing on the missile’s hull would not be enough to trigger the warhead.
“We need to remove the warhead,” he said. His skin felt cold, very cold, as he peered down at the sealed hatch. “Get ready to catch it when I remove it from the casing.”
Praying silently under his breath, he opened an access hatch, linked into the system with his implants and shot a handful of codes into the processor. It bleeped once, then opened the latches, allowing him to remove the antimatter containment system from the missile and push it out into space. Roxy caught it a moment later and checked the processor herself, making sure the antimatter was secure. A mistake now would destroy the ship.
“It's secure,” she said.
“It doesn't look very big,” Tarquinii commented. “You sure you got the right warhead?”
“Antimatter doesn't have to be any bigger than my fist,” Thomas reminded her.
His skin crawled as he took the warhead, then pulled it towards the projectile. Up close, the projectile was colossal, easily twice the size of Rustbucket. He landed on the rocky surface and waited as Roxy and Tarquinii landed beside him, then used cutters to burn their way into the projectile. No one would notice, he was sure, as they carved out a chamber large enough to take the warhead. The surface was already scarred and pitted where the Druavroks had burned it free of an asteroid and carved it into a shape they could load into a mass driver and shoot towards the fabber. He placed the warhead within the chamber, set a proximity alarm just in case the Druavroks did discover it, then watched as the chamber was sealed again. It was almost unnoticeable when the girls had finished.
“Back to the ship,” Thomas said, once they were done. He checked his timer, then led the way back to the airlock. “They’re in for a very nasty surprise when they melt the projectile down for raw materials.”
The two girls were grinning from ear to ear when they removed their helmets, once they were back on the ship. Thomas left them to return to their duties and headed forward to the bridge, where he checked the tactical console to be sure his calculations were correct. It would be two days before the rigged projectile reached the fabber ... until then, Rustbucket could carry out a tactical survey of the system and look for other prospective targets. Who knew? The information might be very useful if - when - Captain Stuart went on the offensive.
“Keep an eye on the projectile,” he ordered, when his shift came to an end. “We’ll sneak closer to the fabber just before it reaches its destination.”
“Yes, sir,” Octavo said. He sounded impressed, although - unlike a Solar Union officer - he hadn't raised any objection to Thomas taking personal command of the away team. “Have a good night, sir.”
Thomas couldn't wait until they were in position to watch the fireworks, but there was no way to speed the process up. He slept, commanded the ship as they surveyed the handful of asteroid mining stations - all built with technology that would have been outdated on pre-Contact Earth - and slept again, as they slowly curved back to the planet and into position to observe the effects of their sabotage. It was hard to be entirely sure - there was no way to track the projectile using passive sensors, unless they were at very close range - but the projectile had been fired on a ballistic trajectory. Thomas found himself leaning forward as the seconds ticked away to zero ...
They’ll have to melt the rock down once she’s inside the maw, he thought. And that would destroy the containment system ...
The fabber exploded with stunning force, a chain of explosions ripping the giant structure apart and leaving nothing apart from tiny pieces of debris drifting down towards the planet’s atmosphere. A small explosion might have been contained, even by GalTech, but nothing - not even a human force field - could have hoped to save the fabber, once the containment field failed. Thomas watched, smiling coldly, as the Druavroks went on alert, hunting for an enemy attacker that was nowhere to be found. They didn't have a hope of detecting his ship, not unless they got very lucky.
“How long will it take them,” he asked out loud, “before they deduce the truth?”
“Unknown, sir,” Octavo said. “The force of the explosion will certainly tell them that antimatter was involved, but they may feel the projectile was rigged at the mining station.”
“Then sneak us out of the system,” Thomas ordered. He hesitated, then shook his head. “No, belay that order. Take us towards the asteroid station.”
“Aye, sir,” Octavo said. He sounded puzzled, but obedient. “We’ll be nearby in forty minutes.”
Thomas leaned back in his chair, thinking hard. What would he do if he thought the asteroid’s crew had deliberately rigged the projectile? He’d send a ship to arrest the crew, then subject the poor bastards to a merciless interrogation. Or, for that matter, maybe just shout questions at them. GalTech was perfectly capable of producing perfect lie detectors for humans, after all. There was no reason to assume it couldn't do the same for Druavroks. No, the crew would be interrogated, found innocent and then released, while the Druavroks started a hunt for a mystery starship.
And if they think they are facing dissent in the ranks, he thought, as he watched the Druavroks flurry around the system, locking the barn door long after the horse had bolted, they may spend too much time watching their backs.
“Launch a probe at the asteroid,” he ordered. “And route the results direct to my console.”
“Aye, sir,” Octavo said.
Thomas watched, grimly, as two enemy warships left the planet, heading directly for the asteroid mining complex, then turned his attention to the live feed from the probe. The complex definitely reminded him of some of the early Solar Union structures, a handful of tunnels carved into the rock and sealed to provide a habitat barely worthy of the name. He smiled, remembering some of the stories from the old sweats, about how they’d spent five or six months at a time digging for ore, then heading home to spend their bonuses in the brothels on Luna City. His grandfather had been an asteroid miner and he’d had some very interesting stories to tell.
“I’m reprogramming a missile,” he said, keying his console. He’d never reprogrammed a missile outside simulations, but he knew the basic theory. Normally, a missile would race to its target as fast as possible, trying to outrace or outsmart any counterbattery fire. Now, though, he wanted the missile to be almost unnoticeable. “Stand by to fire one.”
“Aye, sir,” O
ctavo said.
Thomas finished his task, then hesitated. He had no compunction over killing the enemies of humanity - and the Druavroks were the enemies of everyone - but did the asteroid miners deserve to die? The fabber crews had needed to die - even if there had been some way to get them off the fabber before it had been too late, they would have been moved to another fabber - yet was that true of the miners? For all he knew, they were just attempting to make a living by shipping rock ore home. Did they need to die?
He stared down at the console. If the miners survived, the Druavroks would deduce the truth, once they eliminated the miners as possible suspects. There would be literally no other alternative, not since natural antimatter was rarer than hen’s teeth. The odds of a pocket of antimatter surviving at the heart of an asteroid were beyond calculation, so much so that it simply didn't happen outside children’s sims designed to teach them about the nature of the universe. No, the miners had to die so they could take the blame. There was no other outcome ...
The Black Sheep (A Learning Experience Book 3) Page 29