by J. P. Larson
* * *
Pamela wandered over to security.
“Jimbo, show the captain what you were showing me.” Jimbo paged through the scanner logs, pointing at various points.
“What are you two doing?” Jimbo asked.
“Talking.”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
Jimbo jumped. “What did you just do?”
“He didn’t know, Alex.”
“Jimbo doesn’t gossip much, and the women have all been very, very polite.”
“They can read minds?”
“I told you that the first day, Jimbo.”
“Oh. I thought you were kidding, that it was just like Mom could read our minds when we were kids.”
“Can you read my mind?”
“If I try. But it’s rude, unless you invite me to.”
“You mean, all those women told embarrassing stories when they could just have dug a little instead?”
“Like I said, it’s rude.”
“Can we cover this later? We’re gathering an audience, and I think we have something more important to talk about.”
“We’re twelve hours from your home, Alex.”
“You guys are talking again?”
“Okay, Captain.”
“I’m going to have a bite and stay fresh,” Alex told them. “Jimbo, I’m going to ask Gina to relieve you early. I want fresh eyes on this board at all times. I’ll take the watch at three hours out.”
Perception
“Captain, we’ve got company.” Janice sounded nervous. She was sitting in the first officer’s seat next to the captain’s seat and was an hour into her psionic scan of space along the Ghost’s flight path.
“Where are they, Janice?”
“Only about a half hour in front of us, moving to intercept.”
Pamela hit an alarm. “General quarters!” she yelled into the ship’s intercom. “Security, get up here!” Pamela left the ship’s intercom open, allowing the bridge to instantly communicate with the rest of the ship, especially the engine room.
Alex appeared nearly immediately, buttoning his shirt as he stepped onto the bridge. He headed straight for the security console, currently manned by Gina.
“People, this is a combat situation,” Pamela said. “We do not know who is out there, so we assume the worst until we know better. Alex, it’s your ship. You already have your priorities.”
“Captain, it’s probably my father.”
“You have your orders, Alex. We assume the worst, not the best.”
“Gina?”
Gina gestured at her console. “The same three behind us, but they started accelerating the same time Janice noticed the ones in front.”
“They’re coordinated? Interesting. Janice, what do you have?”
“Twelve ships, moving to intercept. About a half hour.”
“A half hour? How did they get that close? I thought you could see out for hours. Were they shielded?”
“No. They came in from the edges of my scan.”
“Which means they know you scan and what the standard pattern is.” Alex smiled wryly. “Dad has good intelligence, he might know. Other people may also know. That tells us they know who we are and what your skills are. We won’t surprise them. How fast are they?”
“The ones behind are closing,” said Gina.
“The ones in front are moving slower than we are, but there are twelve of them of various sizes.”
“Any psions?”
Janice paused. “I can’t tell.” She closed her eyes, concentrating. The only sounds on the bridge were the distant, ever present hum of the engines and, barely audible, someone’s teeth were grinding.
“Helm, how fast are we?”
“125%.”
“Let’s make sure they know we’ve noticed them. Make it 200%.”
“Captain?”
“Mr. Grey’s ship right now, helm,” Pamela said.
“Aye-aye. Increasing to 200%. Hang in there, baby.”
“Alicia, are you watching your gauges?”
Alicia’s voice came over the intercom. “Everything is green.”
“I want to know if the gauges hiccup, or look like they might think of hiccuping next week.”
“You’ll hear from me.”
“Gina?”
“They’re accelerating.”
“Okay. We know we have three military vessels behind us, and we’ve got twelve ships that are being very obvious in front of us. What if we’re supposed to tuck tail and run, right into the three we weren’t supposed to see?”
Pamela spoke up. “That would mean the ones in front aren’t the threat.”
“We’re going to blast past them. Gina, closing rate on your three?”
“They’ll get to us before we get to Random Walk, but it’s very close.”
“Good. They aren’t an immediate threat. Pamela, I need to see the twelve in front of me. You know the drill.”
Alex felt his mind quickly grabbed and pulled forward out of the ship. Together, he and Pamela raced towards the twelve ships.
And he was back in the ship again. “We’re getting better at that, Captain. Good job. Who wants to go brush past a star?”
“I’d rather surrender,” said Janice. There were weak chuckles all around.
“Okay, I’ll think of something else. How about a game of chicken?”
“We’re at 200%,” the helm announced.
“Alicia?”
“They’re warm, but steady.”
“I don’t like playing chicken, Alex,” Pamela said.
“We can cut and run, but the detour around those twelve is huge, if we’re trying to make my home. The three behind us become a definite threat. We have more engine to spare, but they’re still probably faster than us. Or we can blast through. They’re expecting us to cut and run, so I think maybe we should give them what they want. Helm, thirty degrees up.”
As viewed from the galactic plane, the Ghost made a curving arc upwards in an attempt to sweep over the blocking ships.
“Janice?”
“She’s watching, Alex. I’ll be a go between. No change in their behavior.”
“Thank you, Pamela. I want to know when there is, and I want to know if the ships display any extra capabilities.”
They continued this way for a short time.
&nb
sp; “They’re moving to intercept, Alex. Same performance rates as before. Two minutes to close.”
“One against fifteen just doesn’t seem fair, Pamela.”
“They’re onto your tricks, Alex. Too smart for your own good.”
“Helm, return to our previous path. Gina, how we doing?”
“They’re five minutes behind, and accelerating again.”
“Pamela?”
“Adjusting to intercept. They tracked immediately with our change. But they’re slow.”
“We assume they’ll stay slow. If they’re fast, then it’s got to be Dad or else we’re hopelessly outgunned.”
“Anthony, let’s give their screens a headache. Prepare an EMP.”
An electro-magnetic pulse was a fairly low tech means of temporarily jamming an opponent’s sensors. A large energy pulse could burn out electronic circuits. Of course, this was a well understood and expected tactic, and military vessels would have hardened equipment built to withstand an EMP of much greater power than the Ghost could produce. But even hardened equipment took a moment to reset after protecting itself from a pulse.
“It’s already set, Alex. On your command.”
“Pamela, get Janice back here. I don’t want to know what an EMP will do to her if she’s psionically scanning. Gina, shut down external sensors on my command. Anthony, as soon as Gina says do it, you do it, then tell us when it’s done.”
“I’m back, Alex,” said Janice. “They’re intercepting, about thirty seconds.”
“Now, Gina.”
“I’m down.”
“EMP!” said Anthony. “Give it a second… Done!”
“Janice, go! Gina, you too.”
Janice took on her distant expression and Gina hit buttons on her console.
“Helm, thirty five degrees port.”
“No change behind us, Alex. They’re chasing our old vector.”
“Confusion in front, Alex.”
“This won’t last. Helm, back to our original course.”
“Alex, they’re back on us,” announced Gina. “Maybe thirty seconds, probably less.”
“The ones in front are converging on this location.”
“Oh, goody. Helm, drop out of hyperspace. Anthony, prep a staccato series of EMP. When I call for it, I want them to go off fast, fast, fast, and I need Gina and Janice shut down.”
“I’ve got my hands on the kill,” Gina told him.
“I’ve got mine on Janice,” said Pamela. “She’ll be back in an instant.”
The ship dropped out of hyperspace.
“Helm, thrustors, straight up, twelve gees. Prepare a hyper skip to port, then hyper to Random Walk. Alicia, I haven’t heard a green word out of you.”
“Green!”
“You’ve heard our plans.”
“Green, Alex. We’re green. Get us out of here!”
“Pamela?”
“They’re converging, but irregularly.”
“Gina.”
“If they’re going to, they’ll… Dehypering, Alex!”
“Helm, now! And do the EMPs.”
The ship hypered for a second, dropped out, then hypered again.
“EMPs done,” said Anthony.
“Gina.”
“I’m back up. Oh man! I show a dozen missile tracks!”
“Now, that’s downright unfriendly. Time to impact?”
“Five… Wait, some are disappearing.”
“Helm, 60 degrees starboard. Pamela, correct that to dive us right into the thickest packet of ‘em.”
“Missiles past us, Captain. Complete miss.”
“They’ll be turning, Gina. Watch them.”
“They’re turning!”
“Eight seconds to blow through, Alex. We pass within ten klicks of one of the ships.”
“Fly right down that one’s gullet.”
“Down 2 degrees, helm,” Pamela ordered.
“Missiles are on our tail!”
“300%, helm, slam it!”
The ship vibrated. “300%,” Linda said.
“We’re past, Alex.”
“60 degrees port! Gina, watch the missiles.”
“Three hit that ship. Two more seem to have lost us.”
“Anthony, tell me my father’s hailing us.”
“We’re in hyper, Alex. No hails.”
“Helm, straight for Random Walk. Gina, the ones behind us?”
“Everything’s behind us. I see fifteen ships and several confused missiles. Three ships still on us, Alex. Closing. We gained ground. We’ll never make it. I never saw damage on the one hit by the missiles.”
“Helm, drop to normal space. Then hit the thrusters.”
“Dropping…. Now.”
The Ghost dropped into normal space, then the main thrusters immediately engaged.
“I have three ships leaving hyper around us, Alex!”
“We’re being hailed,” said Anthony.
“Put it on everyone’s screen, dual transmit from mine and the Captain’s.”
Alex looked at his screen and started to breathe again.
“Admiral!” yelled Pamela. “Am I to understand you fired on me?”
“Secure from general quarters,” Alex announced. “The Random Walk navy decided we needed a shake down. I want damage reports, including upset stomachs.”
“Engines green, Alex,” said Alicia. “But I think I’m going to be sick. I’ve never been so scared.”
Alex turned to the screen. “Admiral, I don’t even want to think about all the mistakes we made. Captain, they weren’t real missiles.”
“They sure flew like real missiles.”
“And they bounced off the hull of the ship they hit.”
“Doing significant damage, Alex,” his father said. “You’re mother is going to be upset when she sees the repair bills. Not to mention two sensor arrays from those EMPs. I wasn’t expecting that string of them. Alex, you made two significant mistakes. First, it took you too long to react. What were you people doing, negotiating chain of command?”
“Actually, that only took a second or two, but we did have a risk assessment discussion. I told them it was probably you, and Pamela and I discussed whether we should follow our original plan of assuming you were a threat when you jumped us. I thought she might be upset if I bent her ship getting away from my father.”
“Next time, assume it’s a real thread. Next, you babied the ship.”
“I wanted a reserve, Admiral. If we had done real damage to that ship, I was going to accelerate until the engines started smoking.”
“Fair enough. You burst through without taking damage. If the twelve in front of you had fired, you would have been dead.”
“Fifteen military vessels to take out one little merchant ship?”
“You guys did real well,” the Admiral said. “Care to do this again some time.”
“No, Admiral, we do not,” Pamela said. “Once was enough.”
* * *
Alex and Pamela were able to sell their cargo at a healthy profit, making them both very happy. They arranged cargo for their next leg, then had two days to visit with Arthur and Julie and see what could be seen of Random Walk.
On the second night of their visit, Alex’s parents hosted a party for the Ghost. Julie had met the ship when it landed and invited everyone right away. “I know some of you have friends and families you want to visit. Feel free to bring them with you, if you want. We’ll have plenty of room to entertain people.”
The party was a success, but the visit came to too short an end. Arthur and Julie saw the ship off, receiving promises for a longer stop on their next trip.
* * *
“Honor guard is peeling off, Captain,” Mary said from the communications board. Anthony sat next to her watching, but Mary was running the board without assistance.
“Thank them again, Mary,” Pamela said. “Navigation, do you have another unusual flight plan from Security to share with us?”
“No, Captai
n. He hasn’t said a word.”
Pamela looked at Alex, who was busy staring at his boards and ignoring her.
“We’ll take your favorite route, Spades. Punch it in.”
“Locked in and ready, Captain.”
“Alicia?”
“Green, Captain.”
“Helm, at your convenience.”
Gina worked her hands over the controls, pausing occasionally to get a nod from Linda. Pamela waited patiently. “Hyper in one minute, Captain,” Gina finally told her.
“Relay that for us, Mary,”
“One minute,” Mary repeated, then talked into the radio.
“Someone says ‘God Speed’, Captain.”
Alex smiled.
The minute passed, and Gina removed her hands from the controls to let the computer take them into hyper. Linda quickly grabbed Gina’s hand and moved it back to the board, talking quietly. Gina nodded, then asked a question. Linda shrugged.
“Ten seconds,” Gina announced.
“Here we go,” Pamela said over the intercom.
“Three, two, one, hyper…”
The ship twisted, and Alex killed the outside viewports.
“Status?”
“Helm green,” Gina said while Linda nodded.
“Navigation green,”
“Communications is…” Mary trailed off. Anthony spoke quietly for a moment. “Communications is going to take a nap,” Mary said, earning a twitch from Pamela’s lips.
“Security notes honor guard hypered with us, but they’re spreading out and dropping back. I’m expecting no company trailing us on this trip.”
“Systems green,” said Alicia.
“Alex, do you still want random exits from hyper?”
Alex looked at Pamela, who was looking pointedly at Gina.
“At your convenience, Captain, but sometimes you shake someone loose that way.”
“Well, if we’re going to do that anyway, we may as well limit it to Gina’s shift. It’ll give her more practice.”
* * *
“Melt down,” Pamela announced an hour later. “Five minutes.”
As usual, they all gathered in the galley. Pamela looked around. “What’s the deal? You guys sat in those exact same chairs the last time. Shuffle.”
Alex found himself seated between Spades and Alicia. He quietly said hello to both of them, then asked Alicia how her studies were going.