by Alex Kings
The command console bleeped. An incoming signal. Very weak. Coming from the Black Cat.
“I'm putting it through now,” Dunn said, without needing to be asked. “It's text only.”
The message came up on one of the command console's screens: Operative Serafin here. The signal locked down most of my systems. I'm working to restore them now, but that will take time. Hours, at least.
Hanson typed out a reply on the console – This is Captain Hanson. Is your life in immediate danger? He sent the message.
The response came a few seconds later. At last we meet, Captain. No, my life-support systems are active. I should make it out alive unless someone else comes in and starts taking shots at me. Now, clearly I can't stop you in my current state, so it's your move.
Hanson looked up at Lanik. “Well,” he said, “maybe we should keep her company until she can arrest us. The rest of our mission had gone down the toilet, hasn't it?”
“Captain,” said Lieutenant Miller. “I've got a request from Yilva. She wants to see you. She says she has an idea about where to go next.”
*
Hanson, Lanik and Yilva gathered in Hanson's ready-room. He'd told Operative Serafin to hold tight while he sorted this out. He was still debating whether it would be dangerous to let her on board the Dauntless.
“So,” he said, “where do you want to go now?”
Yilva produced a tablet from her gown, placed it on the table, and extended it. “When we were down there,” she began excitedly, “remember when I found the information about IL and the map? 'All known Ancient technology sites.' Here!” She pointed at the tablet, where there were twenty or so points highlighted in red against a background of the local galactic arm.
“I assume you're not saying we should visit all of them?”
Yilva shook her head. “Nuhuh. But look, here's the planet where I found you. Vane, I think it was?” She tapped the tablet, and highlighted another point in green. “It's closest to this site here.”
Hanson looked up at her. “That's where you escaped from?”
“That's it. I mean, it's not guaranteed. There's jump uncertainty. But I checked the jump statistics. My journey from the Afanc, and my escape. This location has a 97.4% chance of being the Ancient ship.”
Hanson looked at the map, at its little red and green highlights, locations hidden among a great wash of millions of stars.
Mr. Bell and his associates had everything they needed. The key to unlocking the Ancient ship, and a crew of blanks to pacify any planet they wanted. They were probably on their way to the Ancient ship now.
Hanson had a heavily damaged frigate and no backup.
He settled his thoughts, then looked over at Lanik. “XO, put together everything we've learned. IL's little manifesto, all the data on the blanks, the Ancient weapon they use. Everything. Send a copy to Operative Serafin and to Mayor Orlov. Then tell them where we're going.” He tapped the red circle on Yilva's tablet.
“Yes, sir,” said Lanik. He stood. “Any idea on what to do when we get there?”
“I'll figure it out on the way,” said Hanson. “But right now, we have to get going.”
Lanik nodded in assent. “I'll have Fermi start working on the jump calculations.”
“Yilva,” said Hanson. “Any ideas you have about how to disable that ship, no matter how much of a long shot it is. Tell me.”
Yilva shrugged. Her tail twitched with a sort of muted excitement. “I can think of nine or ten,” she said. “All unpolished, though.”
“Go, get them polished, and bring them back to me in one hour.”
Yilva grinned. She gave him a strange imitation of a salute. “Oh, wow. Yes, sir, captain sir!”
Chapter 51: Sounds Like Fun
With the co-ordinates in place, the calculations for the first jump began.
On the live feed, Mayor Orlov accepted Hanson's apology with a stony-faced nod. “I wish I could say it's been a pleasure, Captain,” she said. “Good luck with your mission.”
Next came Operative Serafin. Hanson sent her the information.
By now she'd got audio working, albeit in a distorted and laggy signal. “I should tell you,” she said, “My mission is still to stop you.”
“I'm counting on it,” said Hanson. “It wouldn't hurt if you brought a battleship with you, too.”
“Yes,” said Serafin. “Perhaps it wouldn't.”
Soon, the calculations were complete. Hanson stood on the CIC as the Dauntless pulled out of Iona's orbit, its jump engines ramping up.
“Prepare for jump,” Lieutenant Miller said over the intercom. “All hands, prepare for jump in five … four … three … two … one.”
The starfield ahead twisted, gave way to a wormhole mouth. As the Dauntless passed through, it creaked under the tidal forces. A distant-sounding clang came echoing through the ship as some damaged bulkhead tore a little further.
And then they were through, away from Iona.
The journey would take about seven jumps – an estimated two and a half hours.
Walking through the ship, Hanson passed the corridor by Yilva's quarters, the chromed walls and floor dented and coated with black grime from a blank's explosion. He'd seen the damage reports – the ship was barely holding together at this point. Some of the crew had been reduced to bunking in the mess-hall or empty storage rooms because their quarters were open to space.
And casualties. Eleven so far. It would almost certainly rise before the mission was over.
He stopped at the storage room – Agatha and Srak's temporary quarters – and rapped his knuckles on the door. It returned a dull thump.
The handle rotated, and the door swung inward to reveal Srak's giant reptilian face. Behind it, shoulders that covered the whole width of the room.
“Hanson,” he said. “Was wondering when you'd be here. Come in, then.”
There was just enough room for Hanson to enter, so long as he stood with his back against the closed door. Behind Srak's bulk, Agatha sat cross-legged in a greasy shirt, polishing the lenses of a laser pistol. Srak's tail lay in front of her. She smiled at Hanson and waved when he came in.
They seemed happier, Hanson realised. All the tension that had filled the room last time he'd been here had gone. They didn't say anything to each other, but it was the comfortable silence of close friends.
He looked Srak in the eye. “I have to admit I'm rather at a loss for disciplinary procedures here. If you were on my crew officially, that sort of stunt would get you a court martial for mutiny and, probably, the better part of a life sentence. But you're not. Besides, it would be rather hypocritical for me to lecture you on the importance of military disciple when I'm running a rogue ship. And where we are now, it would be hard for me to imprison you both, let alone drop you off the ship.”
Srak grunted. “I think you could arrest me if you really wanted to.” A hint of a smile revealed a few of his teeth. “And don't I don't say that lightly. Not many humans could.”
“Still,” said Hanson. “I need you – both of you – on my side if I'm going to finish this mission.”
“Aww,” said Agatha, idly picking her nose. She thumped Srak's tail. “You here that? So play nice.”
Srak glanced at her, then turned his gaze back to Hanson. “You should know I'd do the same again,” he said levelly. “If circumstances forced it.”
“I understand that,” said Hanson. “But for the moment, we're in the same boat. We've got the same enemies, and we're going to work together to defeat them.”
“And if we have another … difference of opinion?”
“That's when things get really interesting.”
Srak stared at him, then laughed, loud enough the make the walls reverberate. “Yes, exactly!” He offered a giant hand for Hanson to shake. “Let's hope it doesn't come to that.”
“Now,” said Hanson. “I've got a meeting with Yilva in fifteen minutes. If you want to come along, we could use your input.”
&n
bsp; “Sure thing,” said Agatha. “Sounds like fun.”
Chapter 52: I Noticed You Have Some Thermonuclear Warheads
The Dauntless, floating in the interstellar void. Four jumps completed. ETA: One hour.
Hanson sat in his ready-room around a table with Lanik, Moore, Yilva and Agatha. Srak crouched up against the far wall – the only place there was room for him.
When everyone had settled, Hanson began: “This is what we know. Interstellar Liners – IL – is behind everything. Their plan is to, basically, conquer the galaxy. They have an army of perfectly-loyal soldiers. They have an Ancient ship. And they have to key to making it work.” He looked over his team. “We don't know how long it will them take to put it all together, but they're working on it now. And as soon as they have that ship active, it may well be game over. With any luck, the Tethyans will take an interest when they hear our message and come as backup. Until that happens, we're on our own. It's up to us to stop this ship from launching.”
“So,” he said, looking over Yilva. “I'm going to assume they have some sort of defence?”
Yilva nodded quickly.
“So if we just jump in there in our current state, we stand no chance. What are our options?”
“They've, uh, probably revoked all the access codes I found,” said Yilva. “That makes it harder. But! I still know the architecture of their security systems.” She looked around the table. “The Ancient ship is in a dust belt. If anything looks like a rock, their lidar won't flag it to the human operators.”
“Like a rock,” said Lanik. “So that means no thrust, no energy emissions?” He frowned slightly. “We can't do that with the Dauntless. The reactor would give us away.”
That was true. Anything with a monopole reactor would likely get flagged. Hanson considered this. “A shuttle,” he said at last. “If we turn off its reactor, it might have enough energy on backup to get there and back.”
“Might?” said Moore. “Sir, I know the shuttle's systems The reserves aren't that great.” She pulled a tablet from her breast pocket and extended it. Her fingertips brushed against its surface and she murmured quantities of kilojoules under her breath as she calculated. “No gravity, for sure. Minimal life-support. A couple of kicks on the engines.”
“Uh …” Yilva raised her hand. “There's something else. I said the lidar won't flag anything that looks like a rock. But if the object gets too close, the systems will shoot it down to prevent a collision.”
Moore stared at her. “That's wonderful. It really is.”
Agatha, leaning back on her chair and picking dirt from under her fingernails as though she wasn't really listening, laughed. “So we drift in as close as we can … then run like hell?”
Yilva's ears drooped. She gave an odd sort of shrug. “Yeah, effectively. We can get in very close drifting. That final run will catch them off guard – I hope! – and we can hide the shuttle inside the Ancient ship. There's enough space in there. And they'll have trouble tracking us.”
“But they'll know we're there,” said Hanson.
Agatha grinned. “So we work quickly.” She frowned slightly and turned to Yilva. “What do we do when we get there?”
“Well,” said Yilva, her claws tapping on the surface of the table. “If I had enough time, I might be able to get into the system again. Try and activate some self-destruct system, or lock everyone out. If I had a few hours. Or …” Her tail flicked about behind her. “I noticed you have some thermonuclear warheads on board.”
Srak laughed and thumped against the floor with one of his middle hands. “Sneak in, set a nuke, then get out as quickly as we can. Good plan.”
“Well, uh, it wont that simple,” said Yilva. “The Ancient ships aren't made of normal matter. The hull is, as far as we can tell, a quantum condensate. It's incredibly strong.”
“So the bomb won't destroy the ship?” said Hanson. He thought for a moment. “We have to put it in the right place. Where the human technology has been added.”
“Yeah,” said Yilva
“Still, we're nuking the bastards,” Agatha reminded them, as though this were the essential point.
Hanson smiled. “That we are,” he said.
“Right,” said Moore. “For the shuttle, our stages are: One, sneak in. Two, run like hell once they see us. Three, escape a nuclear fireball.” She took a deep breath and checked her tablet again. “It's a long shot, but I think I can make the shuttle's reserves stretch that far.” She looked up. “And if they don't, an escape is off the menu.”
“I think I can live with that,” said Hanson.
Srak snorted. “At least until we all get evaporated.”
Hanson smiled faintly. “Yes, until then.” He took a deep breath and looked around his team. “That's the plan. Now let's get the details sorted …”
*
The final leg of the journey. The Dauntless burst out of a wormhole, creaking and shuddering but holding together.
In interstellar terms, they were almost on top of their destination.
This was the recon stop. Ten light-hours away.
Close enough to observe the system through the long-range telescopes. It was a delayed image, of course – an image of how the system looked ten hours ago. But by the same token, it would be ten hours before anybody in system saw the Dauntless.
For an hour they studied the system, mapping out the larger chunks of rock hiding in the dust belt. There was the Ancient ship. It appeared as a smudged halo. A sort of ring shape. Occasionally, it flashed with blue lightning. Beside it, barely visible, were two Solar Union cruisers and a weapons platform, all swamped with blood red light from the star.
And there was a suitable asteroid to hide behind. A few kilometres across, close to the Ancient ship.
They ran the numbers. The image was ten hours old, so where would the asteroid be now? With that, Lieutenant Fermi did the calculations for a precision jump.
Eventually, he came back with the numbers. Everything was ready.
The reactor would have to be powered down as soon as they arrived in the system, or they'd be visible even behind the asteroid.
Hanson stood on the CIC, running through a checklist.
They were about to jump into an enemy system in a damaged ship, heavily outgunned, with no idea when back would arrive. If it arrived at all.
“Jump,” he ordered.
Chapter 53: Drift
As soon as the Dauntless emerged from the wormhole, the engineering crew scrambled to dial down the reactor. They kept it active, but at a low burn. Just enough to to keep the gravity on and the ship active.
Without this measure, their emissions would be visible even through the asteroid.
Lieutenant Miller reported the success of this process to Hanson.
“Good job,” he said, studying the displays above the command console. The precision jump had worked: They were only a few tens of kilometres away from the asteroid, following the same orbit.
For a few minutes, the crew waited, tensed, in case they had been discovered. The ragged face of the asteroid was covered in red light and long, monstrous shadows.
Nothing attacked.
“It's time for me to get going then,” said Hanson. “Miller, call the ground team to the shuttle bay. XO, you have the CIC. And remember, if things get too hot, your priority is to get this crew to safety.”
“Sir,” said Lanik. He offered his hand. “Good luck.”
Hanson shook it. “You too. It's been an honour.”
Lanik acknowledged this with a faint nod.
At the shuttlebay, Hanson arrived at the same time as Agatha and Srak. Yilva was squeezing her head into one of the larger human helmets. She wore a slightly baggy environment suit, and the armour Srak had lent her over the top of that. Moore was already kitted up.
The bay itself was filled with an odd sort of train: First of all, the decoy shuttle. It would fly empty on a pre-programmed trajectory, fifty kilometres or so ahead of Hanson's shuttle.<
br />
Second came Hanson's shuttle.
Third, connected to the rear of Hanson's shuttle by a web of cables, was a chrome cylinder. It was about two metres long and a metre in diameter. On its side, a tablet screen had been connected. A thermonuclear warhead, extracted from one of the Dauntless's missiles and prepped for manual detonation on a timer.
When he was kitted up in full armour, Hanson led the others into the shuttle. Moore took the controls, and Hanson sat on the benches. He extracted the safety webbing from the wall, showed Yilva how to use hers, then put his own on.
Srak curled up near the back. He was the only one without a helmet.
“Are you sure you're okay like that?” Hanson asked him. “It's going to be a long journey.”
“Two and a half hours,” Moore put in.
Srak grinned, then opened his mouth wide to show some silvery piece of technology sitting near the back of his throat. “Oxygenates the blood, connects me to the comms,” he said. “I'm not new to this, Hanson.”
“Very well,” Hanson sighed. He turned to Moore. “Are we ready?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Take her out, then.”
Moore tapped on the controls. The hatch beneath them opened up, and the two shuttles floated out from the Dauntless's belly.
Ahead of them, the shadowy face of the asteroid stretched away in all directions.
The decoy shuttle shot ahead first, rapidly becoming a speck in the distance.
“Beginning initial burn now,” Moore said. A faint tug of acceleration came through the artificial gravity. A second later, they were out of the Dauntless's shadow and racing towards the asteroid at an angle. “Initial burn completed,” Moore informed them. “Shutting reactor off in three … two … one.”
Hanson's insides lurched. The floor seemed to drop away. All familiar feelings, a signal that the gravity was off. A second later, the shuttle's lights dimmed.