“No, they’ve been off our scopes for some time now. Unless they managed to go invisible, they’re still back there somewhere. But they‘re not coming after us. I can tell you why. Take a look at this,” Frank swiped his hand across one of his two “spare” screens. They sat inches from his left hand and were each twelve inches measured diagonally - the smallest of Frank’s eight screens. As he moved his hand an image appeared. It was a still picture that he’d taken just after Vinn and Jonas had gone to rescue Michelle Vazquez. A large piece of wreckage - clearly from the USS Drake.
“They must have put up a fight at least - damaged their attackers. That’s what’s keeping the alien ship from blasting us right now. But these smaller ships will finish the job if we can’t get out of here,” he looked stone cold at Frank, “Can we get out of here?”
“I don’t know,” Frank said, “We’re flying off the scale as far as speed goes. The Haliburton can’t keep up and we’re going too fast to scan for uncharted wormholes. Sorry, Vinn.”
“What the devil are you sorry for, Frank?” Apple said, irritated. He held Frank’s eye and, a second later, gave him an apologetic frown, “These small ships are obviously going to destroy us if we don’t get out of here. Am I right in thinking that we’re going to outrun this second wave?”
There was a pause. The two men exchanged glances. Frank looked serious and intense. Vinn Apple licked his lips. Somewhere behind them both, Julian Barrett was holding in a full bladder with mixed success. Nobody noticed the faint signal from Jack Sloane, receding into the distance. Vazquez had muted her console before leaving the bridge. The little red light stopped blinking as the Glasgow finally moved out of range of the speeding sports car.
2195AD - Aston Martin DBS.
Aston Martin could fly much faster than the ageing SS Glasgow, but the car’s safety systems would not permit it to travel fast enough to catch the fleeing spacecraft. Sloane had tried to persuade the on-board computer to disengage the safety mechanisms, but his pleas had been met with the same polite but stubborn refusals. Shouting bloody blue murder at the computer had not worked either.
“The SS Glasgow has moved out of range,” the Aston Martin computer reported, “They did not reply to our signals, I‘m afraid and I no longer recommend that we continue our pursuit.”
“If you’d driven faster we’d have caught them,” Sloane murmured, frustrated, “What about your owner, Mr Quinn? Can we contact him again?”
“I’m trying now,” the Aston Martin said, “But I’m no longer receiving the signal from Mr Quinn’s controller.”
Chasing the SS Glasgow had taken the car too far away from Jann Linn mountain and the planet Relathon. Quinn had tried to contact his car again several times, but without success. Sloane turned the car around. The massive orange ball of the dead alien world Crantarr filled the windscreen as the planet’s gravity pulled the Aston off course so that it flew broadside through space for three hundred miles. Then the altered momentum engine compensated and absorbed the planet’s attractive forces. Moments later Sloane had full control of the Aston and turned the car back towards the small blue green ball of the distant planet Relathon.
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Grid Fannchinn of the first imperial defence unit spotted the Aston Martin on his Dart fighter’s close range scanner.
“This is HomeGuard one,” Fannchinn spoke into his comms unit, “I’ve got an unidentified object on my combat scanner. Is anyone else getting a reading directly ahead of us?”
There was a moment’s pause. The other pilots regarded their controls. Three of them had the same readings. As they replied to their leader, the others began to see the same object on their scopes.
“I’m going to break off to investigate this,” he said, “Linn, you have command of the group. Pursue and destroy the target.”
“Understood,” Linn Joop snapped back, “Good luck, sir and be vigilant. We know what these beings are capable of. Take no chances.”
“That goes without saying,” Fannchinn stated coldly, “No heroics. Get within missile range and blow them into pieces. Blazza and Hinn; you're with me. Take flanking positions at twenty kilometres and follow my lead.”
The two pilots replied as one and their craft split away from the main group.
The eleven Dart fighters sped away from their leader as Fannchinn locked the new target into his targeting systems. He gave his engine maximum thrust and was pushed back into his seat as he powered towards the mysterious craft. Lieutenants Blazza Ooon and Hinn Biir followed in formation as ordered. All three fighters were fully armed and ready to fight.
“Homeguard one to Imperial Defence. I am tracking a foreign object I believe to be escapee from the Justice Six. What are my orders?”
There was barely a three second pause.
“Affirmative, Homeguard one. The intruder is within the Crantarr exclusion zone. You are cleared to proceed with all caution. Intelligence now suggests that this is an unarmed vessel. The occupant is an enemy of the empire and is to be eliminated with “
The Aston Martin was coming towards Fannchinn’s attack ship. It was already well within range of his missile systems. He locked the missile onto the target an, an instant later, triggered the firing mechanism.
The missile was very large - almost half the size of the craft that carried it. It carried its own internal guidance mechanisms and could find and destroy a target entirely on its own. The little silver sports car was well within range of the missile’s sensors. The locks binding it to the starboard wing opened as powerful magnets repulsed it away from Fannchinn’s fighter. The missile’s own engines came alive with a flash of blinding blue white light and then it was on its way.
“Homeguard one reporting Starboard missile is hot,” the Enrilean space pilot reported, “Starboard missile tracking the target with impact in five seconds. Port missile locked and ready.”
The Aston Martin DBS had just made an accidental yet fairly effective evasive manoeuvre to avoid the gravitational pull of the biggest planet, Crantarr. The missile’s initial burst of acceleration took it streaking straight past Jack Sloane and the Aston Martin, passing so close to the sports car that Sloane saw the missile fly past like a flash of lightning.
“Missile,” he said to himself.
“That would seem to be correct” The Aston Martin computer replied evenly, “The craft approaching us seems to have just launched some kind of projectile.”
Fannchinn clenched his teeth and cursed loudly, almost biting his bottom lip. He realised that the target had suddenly changed direction and looked to be coming towards him now as if to start an attack of its own. He released the safety catch from the port missile launch control and got ready to fire.
Sloane instinctively jerked the steering wheel of the Aston Martin to the left. Again the great orange ball of Crantarr appeared, slightly further away as the car twisted wildly in space and flew broadside again for a second or two. Again the Altered Momentum engines found their feet and the Aston started thrusting towards the planet.
“We’re under attack!” Sloane shouted to the computer, “Now will you please give me maximum power?”
The Enrilean fighter launched its second missile. The first missile, now thousands of miles away, started to turn back towards its target. The Aston Martin computer seemed to hesitate for a very long time as if it was considering the situation.
“All engine restrictions have been removed,” the serene voice said.
Sloane had already turned the car towards the orange planet. The heads up display on the windscreen now conveniently showed the distance and impact time of the two missiles. The first missile would impact in twenty seconds. The second missile was less than three seconds away. By the time Sloane absorbed this information another second had passed. His foot was already pushing the accelerator deeper into the plush carpeted floor as the car plunged into the upper atmosphere of Crantarr. Even with the inertial compensators Sloane was almost thrown out of his chair. Without them he’d h
ave been smeared all over the Aston’s windscreen. The Aston Martin computer made a comment about Sloane not wearing the safety belt and then the missile exploded.
He’d expected that the second missile would find its target. It had only taken him a second to realise that the first missile had been confused by his radical change of direction. He’d hoped to accomplish the same thing by turning the car towards the orange planet. But the second missile hadn’t been confused by the pre-launch data as the first one had. This time the fighter’s sensors had a good, solid lock on the Aston Martin. It was Jack Sloane taking the car into the planet’s upper atmosphere that saved him. The missile struck the atmosphere just as the Aston had. But the shock of the impact was too much for the delicate guidance systems. They became confused, losing track of the target ship. Sensing this, the missile blew itself up immediately, in keeping with instructions that had been programmed into it ten years earlier.
The missile detonated twenty eight miles from the Aston Martin. The shredding anti-armour shrapnel barely reached the Aston and only a few small chunks scratched the underbelly and right side of the car. Jack Sloane was not aware that the missile had even exploded at all. He assumed that it had also overshot.
The Aston Martin was talking.
“I’ve performed automatic attitude adjustments, sir,” it said, “We are entering the atmosphere at a dangerous velocity. I suggest we slow down. Would you like me to take control now?”
“Yes,” Sloane said, “But keep us going down towards the surface as fast as we can without falling apart. There's someone back there shooting at us. Did you notice?”
“I was wondering what that might have been,” the Aston replied calmly, “I'm not certain that Mr Quinn would approve of this. I am quite certain that the Aston Martin warranty will not cover purposeful damage - especially damage caused by any military or terrorist related activities.”
Sloane ignored the computer. The console was becoming familiar to him, but he was flying a sports car and not a transport shuttle or armed escort ship. There wasn't much he could do besides hope that the Aston Martin somehow turned out to be faster than the pursuing alien fighters. And he doubted that.
Crantarr's dusty orange atmosphere was around the Aston Martin now and tore right through its flimsy particle shield like it was not there. A distinct warning appeared on the heads-up display - the Aston Martin's nose flashing orange. A soft alert moaned in two tones. Sloane considered asking the computer about the Aston Martin's hull specifications, but he changed his mind. The other option was to slow down and allow the pursuing fighters to catch up.
The nearest Xenno type fighter was closing in on the Aston Martin. All of the fighters had dropped out of the Aston Martin's detection threshold now, the car not being designed to detect craft with deliberate low sensor profiles. The Enrilean fighters were not inherently stealthy by design, but they were small enough and moving quickly enough that the Aston's scans no longer detected them through the upper atmosphere of the massive orange rock.
The speedometer read 50,000 miles per hour. Sloane knew that a red warning would flash in front of him if there was any danger of the car breaking apart. He wondered if it was a bad sign that there were no warning signals at all. Was he going too slowly? Was his pursuer closing in, ready to strike?
Fannchinn was indeed ready to strike and his finger hovered over the railgun trigger. He was flying a few hundred miles above the strange alien transporter as it burned its way through the forbidden world's atmosphere. As he flicked the safety catch upwards, one of the fighters on his wing fired a quick burst.
“Hold your fire, we're still out of range,” Grid said.
“Sorry Sir,” the pilot replied “Got a little over enthusiastic.”
“Okay. Keep it tight everyone.”
“Affirmative.”
The small explosive tipped railgun bullets missed the Aston Martin by more than ten miles. But even if they had been on target they would not have hit the Aston Martin. Crantarr's atmosphere was thicker than Fannchinn had realised. The railgun bullets, travelling at hyper velocity, had disintegrated and then quickly exploded once they'd entered the Crantarrian atmosphere.
“We've got a problem,” Fannchin said, almost to himself.
“I know, sir,” thee same pilot replied, “We can't get him with the railguns - the new explosive rounds are going to detonate in the upper atmosphere before they even get close to the target.”
“Correct,” Fannchin said, “And if we open fire within the atmosphere ourselves the bullets will probably exploded the moment they leave the barrel,” he considered the problem, “We're going to need to do this the old fashioned way. Damn it, if we'd still been carrying the standard ammunition we could do it all from up here.”
“That's what they call progress,” the other wingman said.
“I guess. Okay, ease off into a split arrow formation. Put your railguns into safe state and switch to particle cannons. I suggest you start charging now, gentlemen.”
“Got it, sir.”
Jack Sloane smiled wryly. His eyes were narrow and hard. The inside of the Aston still smelled of leather and extravagance, but he could smell his own fear and tension even through his deodorizing Nike t shirt. His foot was pushing the silver alloy accelerator hard into the claret red carpet, but the car was still slowing down. As he glanced at the speedometer again, the Aston's speed changed from a reading in miles per hour to a Mach speed. The Aston was travelling at Mach 25. At last the red warning lights were on and the computer was complaining weakly. Sloane looked around the heads up display, trying to find an altitude reading. He located it underneath the Mach speed indicator just as it dropped past Mach 20. The Enrilean fighters were entering the atmosphere about ninety miles above the Aston Martin DBS. Grid Fannchin was two miles ahead of his wingmen. His small ship's particle cannon was ready to fire, but the disturbance of entering Crantarr's atmosphere had the cannon tucked away in its protective pod under the belly of the slim fighter. Fannchinn could see the alien ship on his sensor scope and his cannon had a solid, good lock.
“Homeguard one this is imperial Defence. What's your status”
Fannchin was surprised to hear the command centre, but he answered automatically.
“Homeguard one responding. Closing to energy cannon range. Missiles and railguns are not effective. It should be over in about thirty seconds.”
There was a long pause. Fannchinn's speeding craft no longer glowed white hot and the plasma plume that had burned around its nose had gone. The ship was in Crantarr's atmosphere, twenty five miles up, travelling at twenty eight times the speed of sound.
“Lieutenant Commander, I have to ask you to switch off your long and medium range sensors. You are also instructed to maintain an altitude of five thousand metres.”
Fanchinn squeezed his brow. His thin synthetic glove felt like a second skin except that it clung to his sweaty forehead clammily.
“Understood. I'm relaying instructions to the rest of my team.”
There was another long pause. Fanchinn made the adjustments to his controls. When the young female from the Enrilean Imperial Defence network spoke again her voice sounded apologetic.
“Thanks, Grid,” she said.
“Don’t mention it,” Grid hissed, “At least you're making this interesting. No missiles, no railguns. All I need now is you to tell me now to fire the light guns!”
“No, you're free to fire that at will, Homeguard One. Destroy the target once you get in range.”
There were orange mountains topped with ice and snow. The sun was low, just behind the mountains to the east. It was early morning or late in the evening. The Aston Martin's adaptive windscreen shielded Sloane from the glare.
“I'm detecting an object behind us,” the Aston said, “Its travelling at Mach 20 and closing in on us very quickly. There's a very good chance it’s the same craft responsible for the missile attack before we entered the atmosphere.”
Sloane shook h
is head.
“You know, I had a cheap personal assistant that had five times the amount of brains that you're showing,” and he muttered, “Aston should sort their fucking computer department out.”
“I'll make a note of that,” said the Aston Martin, “For Mr Quinn and my manufacturer's consideration. Thanks for your comments.”
“Sure,” Sloane said.
The rust coloured mountains were getting closer. Sloane took the Aston into the clouds, hoping to confuse his pursuers. The Aston's engine warning light came on. The computer said something about overheating. For the first time, Sloane noticed the noise of the friction around the car. Then he noticed his own breathing, which almost rivalled the rushing of air around the small silver automobile.
The Aston juddered as if struck at the rear by an unseen force. Sloane would have mistaken the movement for turbulence in the alien world's atmosphere, but the sensation of movement was somehow different. And the rushing of air sounded louder. He knew something had happened to the Aston and his first instinct told him that the engine had blown.
Grid Fannchin's ship was five miles behind and three miles above the Aston Martin sports coupe. He was mildly surprised that the alien craft had withstood a direct hit from his energy cannon. He closed the distance and locked onto the Aston Martin again. He triggered another blast from the underbelly energy cannon and the little silver dot in front of him exploded into fragments.
Jack Sloane had just realised that he was being pursued. The alien ship had flickered onto his rear-view monitor and he was tightening his hands on the steering wheel when it happened.
The whole back of the Aston Martin - more than one third of the car's entire length - was vaporised. The side windows shattered and then vanished completely as the safety features worked. All of the air was sucked out of the car in an instant. The car was still flying more than a mile up. Sloane felt like his eyes were going to be pulled from their sockets. His ears felt like they were being pulled inside out. He screamed in the desperately thin air and raised his hands to his head. They didn't reach his agonised ears and flailed out by his sides as he passed out.
Beyond the Starport Adventure (Bullet Book 1) Page 29