Starfire & Snowball

by Alastair Mayer

  Unless their pilot was far better than his flying had shown so far, the first sign they had of me as I bore down out of the sun—or Alpha Centauri B—was my braking thrust buffeting their ship. I held formation at about two meters away. It was dicey; much further and they might be able to warp away, closer and we risked collision. I’d flown in tighter formations, and in atmosphere where you worry about random vagaries of wind and turbulence, but that was with a cooperating pilot in the other craft. This guy wanted to get away from me.

  He tried the obvious, pulling directly back, but I was on him. He tried a couple of sideways jinks, but I watched his control jets and compensated almost before he’d moved. You could tell this guy was just a pushbutton pilot, he’d never done any real flying. He rolled left but I just ignored it; it didn’t change the distance between us so he still couldn’t warp out.

  That’s when I realized that I didn’t have an exit strategy.

  What the hell was I going to do out here? I could stop him from warping away, but I couldn’t make him do anything without risking my own ship. Crap. If I were really unlucky, when and if the Space Force ultimately showed up, they might assume that I was in cahoots with them and blow both of us apart. I’d better get on the radio.

  “Kakuloa Control, this is Starfire holding position with the guys who hijacked the antimatter torpedoes. I’m. . . .” Wait, this was an open frequency and the bad guys would be as curious about what I was going to do as I was.

  “Starfire, Kakuloa Control. Say again?”

  “Kakuloa this is Starfire. Request secure channel.” They’d have my public encryption key on file from my earlier landing. I was already telling my comm system to use theirs.

  “Roger Starfire, go to secure on 191.8” they said, telling me which secondary channel to use. I flipped over and hailed them again.

  “Kakuloa, Starfire, secure on 191.8. How do you read?”

  “Five by five, Starfire. What the hell’s going on? Did you say you were holding position with the terrorist?”

  “Affirmative. I’m keeping them out of warp.”

  “I hope you’re a damn good pilot, but thanks. What are your intentions?”

  “Uh, I was hoping you could tell me. I can stay close but this can’t last forever.” As if to emphasize that, the terrorist pilot chose that moment to perform a complicated mix of translation and rotation thruster firings to try to get away. I scrambled trying to follow, and came close to banging my starboard vertical stabilizer—my right tail fin—against his hull. That gave me an idea, but I’d check my other options first.

  “Kakuloa, how long before the cavalry gets here?”

  “The what? Sorry Starfire, no Space Force ships in-system—”

  Oh, crap.

  “—the nearest is off Sawyer’s. We’ve signaled them.”

  Not so bad, then. Sawyer’s World orbited Alpha Centauri A, when they’d said “in-system” they’d been talking about the Kakuloa system around Alpha Centauri B. At this point in their mutual orbit the two were about 20 AU apart, or the distance of Uranus from Sol. Still, it would take about two-and-a-half hours for a radio signal to reach there from here. Add to that however long it would take for a Space Force ship to get into position to do the twenty-second jump to this system, plus the time from wherever they came out of warp to where the terrorist and I were dancing around.

  “So, about three hours then, Kakuloa?”

  “Sorry about that, Starfire. Sit tight, we’re checking other possibilities.”

  The terrorist ship danced another little jitterbug, then powered up main thrusters to try to get away. I followed, cursing under my breath. Sitting tight was one thing, but I wasn’t sure I could stand to play tag with this guy for three hours. At least he couldn’t warp out while he was firing thrusters; a warp bubble intersecting an exhaust plume isn’t healthy either.

  They cut thrusters abruptly and I almost overshot, but quickly maneuvered back to take up station again. How was I going to get out of this? Pissing off a shipload of terrorists who had just hijacked a pallet of antimatter message torpedoes didn’t seem like something with a high survival index. At least they couldn’t do anything to me that wouldn’t kill them too.

  Then I saw their airlock door slide open. Oh?

  There were two of them, suited up, in the airlock. One braced himself against a grab rail, holding on to the other. The other pointed an assault rifle at the Starfire. Oh crap.

  I goosed the forward thrusters to drift my ship back relative to theirs, and I saw the rifle’s muzzle flash and heard the impact of bullets somewhere on the Starfire’s hull. She was a tough ship, and had once taken a hit from a piece of asteroid without much problem, but a hit in the wrong place could still be trouble. The recoil sent the gunner twisting back; he and his buddy hadn’t been braced quite right. They scrambled to get back into position. About then Starfire’s forward attitude jets came even with the airlock.

  I twitched the control stick.

  To the guys in the airlock, it must have looked like somebody had aimed a cannon at them and fired. I mourned the lack of shot in my “cannon”, but the exhaust plume was enough to blast them tumbling back into the airlock. With any luck, the exhaust had hazed up their helmets, or even flash-blinded them, but I wasn’t going to hang around to find out. I fired my side thrusters to move the Starfire around their ship, away from the open hatch.

  “Starfire, this is Kakuloa Control.”

  “Go ahead Kakuloa.” I wondered what they’d come up with.

  “Patching Deep Star Two into the channel.” Deep Star? That was one of the expedition ships. Another voice, female, came over the comm.

  “Jason? Are you okay?”

  “Renee? What’s going on?”

  “We’re lifting now, we’ll be clear to warp in about five minutes.” That wasn’t a normal trajectory for a ship like Deep Star, they must be pouring it on. “We’re going to Alpha-A to contact the Space Force.” Good, they’d beat the radio signal by almost two hours. “Hang on, the cavalry should be here in a half-hour.”

  I’d be surprised if that were true, it would depend on where they came out in the Sawyer system, and whether there was a Space Force ship ready to go on just a few minutes’ notice. I figured at least an hour, but that beat the two-plus hours now waiting for them to get the radio call.

  “Thanks, Deep Star. I’ll be here. Renee, be careful.”

  “You too, Jay. Deep Star out.”

  * * *

  “Hey, Starfire, come in.” This was over the public channel. I had wondered when the terrorists might get around to calling me.

  “This is Starfire. Identify yourself, please.”

  “Who do you think? Listen, we got no quarrel with you, why don’t you just back off before you get killed?”

  “Right now I’m think I’m in one of the safest places around. You can’t do anything to me without hurting yourself.”

  That drew several minutes of silence from the radio, together with a few more twists, shimmies and turns from their ship which I followed like a skilled dance partner. Then . . . .

  “Back off or we’ll drop one of these on Kakuloa City.”

  Now, there was a problem. They’d have to do more than just drop it, we were in some kind of orbit and I was sure that the antimatter containment could withstand normal reentry. But what could they do? I flipped back to comm two.

  “Kakuloa Control, did you hear that last? What would it take to detonate a message torpedo?”

  “Roger Starfire, we heard it. That information is classified, we can’t tell you.”

  “Damn it, man, is that a credible threat or not? Is there any way it could be rigged as a bomb? Could you shoot it down?”

  Whoever was manning the radio didn’t answer right away. I could imagine some hasty discussion in the control room.

  “Kakuloa?” I asked.

  “Okay. Someone who knew what they were doing, who had access to the right tools and classified information, could r
ig that in about an hour. Or they could just stuff the housing with high explosives in about ten minutes.”

  “Damn. And shooting it down?”

  “Not likely. We don’t have anything armed, the best we could hope for is somebody ramming it. We’d still get a blast but if it were high enough that wouldn’t matter. We’ve got ships scrambling to take off now.”

  “Starfire,” it was the terrorists on comm one again, “did you hear us? Move away or we drop one.”

  “I heard you. The way I figure it even if I do back off you’ll just use them on some other city. If I stick around you’ll be caught before you have a chance to do that, and they’ll wipe you for mass murder if you hit Kakuloa. Your best bet is to just give yourselves up.” Unlikely, but it couldn’t hurt to suggest it.

  “We’ll kill you first.”

  Yeah, I was afraid of that. “We’ve all got to go sometime. Maybe they’ll erect a statue in my honor.” That was pure bluster on my part. I’ve faced deadly situations before, any pilot has, but I could always see a way out of them. I was really beginning to regret putting myself here, but I was committed. I wasn’t going to back down now. I looked at the clock; still at least twenty minutes before help arrived, more likely forty.

  “We’re prepping a torpedo. If you don’t back off in five minutes we’ll launch it.”

  I would have taunted them, but they were too close to the edge. Help wasn’t going to arrive in five minutes. I had to consider my other option.

  There would be at least three of them aboard: the pilot and the two who’d tried to shoot at me from the airlock. At that thought I looked over their ship carefully, to make sure nobody was trying to sneak around the hull with a weapon in hand. It was clear. There’d been others on the field, although I’d only seen the one who’d been shot near the cargo ramp. What else did I know about their ship? I didn’t recognize the make and model, but that was my ignorance rather than anything unusual about it. It was about the size of my Starfire, but differently configured.

  “Kakuloa, this is Starfire. Did you get the make of their ship? I, uh, want to make sure I stay clear of any surprises.”

  “Okay, Starfire, it looked like a Staravelle class. Small cargo bay, sleeps four, range about three parsecs. Their transponder was rigged so we didn’t get full details.”

  “Thanks, Kakuloa. Do you have diagrams?”

  “Uh, generic ones, sure, Starfire. Uploading them now. What are you planning?”

  “Just staying alive and trying to keep them from bombing you or anyone else. I’ll keep you posted.”

  The other ship fired full thrusters for a moment just then. They couldn’t listen in on my encrypted conversations with Kakuloa, but they could tell I was talking. Perhaps they hoped to catch me off-guard. It didn’t work. I caught them easily, and now I knew the pilot was still at the controls.

  “Three minutes, Starfire.”

  I brought up the Staravelle deck plans on a side screen. Fuel tankage on the sides. The cargo area was midships with the bay doors underneath. That matched what I’d seen on the field, where they’d loaded the message torpedoes. They’d be in the cargo bay—and the terrorists could pop one out the bay door. If I positioned myself in front of it they could shoot at me from both the cargo bay and the airlock, so that wasn’t going to work. If they were making a bomb there’d be at least two of them in the cargo bay, the pilot was still in the cockpit, and there could be one other. More if they doubled up on the sleeping arrangements.

  The plans showed that the warp units, fusion plant and life support were all arranged to the sides and aft to balance the center of gravity, with landing gear wells at roughly the four corners of the rounded trapezoidal deck plan. Sleeping quarters were behind the cockpit, which was on the upper or dorsal surface forward of midships. The main loadbearing paths—and the strongest parts of the ship—would be to the landing gear and the thrusters. While the overall shape was aerodynamic it wasn’t designed for prolonged atmospheric flight. It wasn’t a lifting body like the Starfire, and lacked wings or tail fins. The cockpit and dorsal surface would be the weak area.

  “One minute, Starfire. Back away now!”

  “You sure you don’t want to just give up?” One last chance.

  “Stop fucking around, Starfire. Back off or we bomb.”

  “How do I know you’ll leave Kakuloa alone if I do?” When I moved, I wanted them to think I was backing off. Their pilot wasn’t good enough to counter what I intended, but if he moved the wrong way it would be worse for me.

  “Why would we waste one of these if we don’t have to? Now back away.” The voice held a confident note. Gotcha!

  “Standby.” I thought to wonder if their pilot was suited up, and realized that I wasn’t. There’d been no time, and there was none now. I’d have to take my chances without my suit. I hit a switch and the cockpit door sealed behind me. That would have to do.

  I nudged my thrusters to move into position. Their pilot would be ready to warp as soon as I was clear; his attention would be split between his panel and watching me. The Starfire drifted a bit and rolled, which brought my upper surface to his port side, still close enough to inhibit their drive.

  “Move it, Starfire.” They were getting impatient. I’d move it alright, but not the way they wanted.

  “I’m moving.” So saying, I rolled Starfire as hard as she’d go, bringing her forward. I saw their ship’s side swing by overhead and I felt and heard a shuddering crunch as my portside fin crashed into and through their cockpit, my fin’s spar much stronger than their thin pressure hull at that point. I yawed to port, twisting the fin to enlarge the hole I’d made and inflict more damage on their ship’s control circuits. Warning lights lit on my own panel. My fin was ruined, of course. I wouldn’t be able to re-enter without repairs, but right now I had too much else to worry about.

  Both ships turned and drifted towards each other. Their nose swung down toward my cockpit. If my hull cracked I’d lose my air. And if their cargo bay was still intact they could still bomb Kakuloa. I pitched down, away from them, and tried to translate free. Starfire skewed around at an odd angle. Damn, I was tangled. I fired the control jets in different directions but with no luck. Pointing my nose as far away from their ship as the trapped wreckage of my fin would let me, I lit up my aft main thrusters with full force.

  Starfire jerked sideways a bit, groaned, and tore free. I shut off the thrusters. There was enough debris floating loose right now that they couldn’t go to warp even if their controls still worked, which I doubted. My exhaust had scorched their upper hull and plumes of vapor vented from holes in its surface. The cockpit area was a jumble of torn metal and plastic. I couldn’t see the pilot. He might have survived if he’d been in a suit. I hadn’t wanted to kill him, but there’d been no choice. I couldn’t dwell on that now, the cargo bay was still undamaged. If the rest of the crew was alive, they could still target Kakuloa. Or at least blow both of us up.

  I moved around to their underside. Sure enough, the cargo bay was opening. It moved slowly, in fits and starts, like somebody was cranking it open manually. The door power must be out. My portside fin was a ruin so I started to line up my starboard fin. This would be tougher, with all the structural beams on this side of their ship, but what else could I do? I saw flashes from the partly open cargo bay and heard impacts on my hull. They were shooting at me again. I heard a loud bang then a hissing noise. My hull was pierced.

  As long as the hole was small I had a few minutes. It’s not like the vids where everything instantly explodes into space; air can only get through a hole so fast, after all. But they were still shooting at me, and I was getting tired of this.

  I pushed my nose down and away, making my attitude jets shake their ship and throw their aim off. Would they be getting ready to detonate the bomb to take me with them, or were they still hoping to drive me off? I continued my turn; let them think I was leaving. I heard more impacts on the hull. At minimum my heat shielding was ruined. M
ore warning lights lit on my panel but I couldn’t tell if the rear cabin was leaking. I switched on the aft window and saw their cargo bay swing into view. The hatch was open wider, and they were still shooting.

  The firing stopped when my big aft thrusters lined up on the cargo bay the way my maneuvering jets had earlier on the airlock. Someone squeezed around the edge of the cargo bay door and pushed off from it sideways. I let him go, he’d be caught in the explosion anyway. Then I fired the main thrusters.

  I fully expected that to be the last thing I ever did. My exhaust would cause the torpedoes’ containments to fail, or set off the explosives, and all the antimatter would detonate. The view aft went dazzling white, acceleration slammed me back in my seat, and it took me a few seconds to realize that if the antimatter had detonated I wouldn’t have had time to experience even that much.

  I cut the thrusters a couple of kilometers from what was left of the terrorists’ ship. My exhaust would have killed anyone still in the cargo bay, and would have damaged the whole underside of the ship, heatshielding or not. If the backsplash hadn’t gotten the terrorist who’d crawled out just before I fired, he’d be drifting away from the ship with no way to get back. The Space Force could pick him up when they got here.

  My ears popped, and I heard the hissing again. Of course, I was losing pressure through the bullet hole. I had to suit up before it got serious. I undid my seat straps and turned to leave the cockpit—my suit was back by the airlock—and noticed the big red UNPRESSURIZED warning blinking on the cockpit door. That meant the other side was unpressurized, not this side. Not yet. My main cabin had lost all pressure. I was trapped in a leaking cockpit with no way to get to my suit.

  I turned back and keyed the comm. “Kakuloa, I have a problem.”

  * * *

  I quickly apprised them of the situation. They were happy to hear that the threat from the antimatter was past. The only immediate suggestion they had was to tear up small bits of fabric from anything handy and set them adrift to find and help plug the leak. I was already doing that. By the end of the discussion the inside of the cockpit looked like one of those snow-globes, well shaken. Slowly the pieces drifted towards different parts of the cockpit; the seams and joints between the walls, control panels and access panels. The leak had to be behind the panels. How would I patch that?