Edge of Redemption (A Star Too Far Book 3)

by Casey Calouette

  “Natyasha Dousman.”

  “Can I call you Naty?” Mustafa asked.

  “I don’t fucking think so. Now who is your employer?”

  Mustafa shifted and looked down the hallway again. “How many people are waiting over there?”

  “Enough,” Bark said.

  Mustafa nodded. “The Gallipoli is armed, you know.”

  Natyasha saw the tone change subtly. It was a negotiation at its most basic level. Lay out what you’ve got and let’s see the hand. Time was not on her side. “What’s your contract?”

  Mustafa turned his head slightly and ran his tongue along his lips. “Passage.”

  “Terms?”

  “Three months with an option.”

  Natyasha nodded. “Bond?”

  Mustafa shook his head slowly.

  “Would you like one?” Natyasha asked.

  Mustafa looked between the two and leaned away. He looked down the hallway once more. He laughed, and it sounded like a cough.

  Natyasha could feel it. There it was, laid on the line. The man was weighing his options. “Rhenium, platinum, maybe a bit of good old fashioned gold. A nice bond, yes?”

  Mustafa’s eyes focused on Natyasha and he held her gaze. “That would be nice,” he said slowly.

  Natyasha wanted to smile. “We’ll pack it up and store it here. All yours. once the term is completed.” She turned to Bark. “Ms. Bark, arrange it, please, two hundred kilos of each?”

  “Three,” Mustafa added.

  Natyasha held her hands up in mock defeat. “Done.”

  Mustafa smiled and relaxed his pose.

  “Who do you work for?”

  “Emilie Rome.”

  The name meant nothing to Natyasha, but it sounded familiar. “Who is she?”

  “She owns the Core assets here.”

  Natyasha was caught silent. Anyone who could purchase the industrial assets of an entire system could be a valuable ally. “Where is she?”

  “On the UC ship inspecting assets.”

  “Capabilities?” Natyasha asked as she looked at the hull.

  “Enough.”

  “Enough for what? A picnic?”

  Mustafa chuckled and ran his fingers through his mustache. “Enough to handle anything in the system, troopship, even that cruiser.”

  “Cruiser?” Natyasha asked as she looked at Bark.

  “The one the UC is headed for.”

  Bark shrugged and spoke quietly into her mic. “The UC Ambassador doesn’t know.”

  I bet he doesn’t, Natyasha thought. But I bet he knows more than we think, she thought.

  Departure alarms sounded through the halls. It was a steady tone followed by shrill beeps. Then silence once again.

  “That’d be the Core transport, yes?” Mustafa asked.

  Natyasha ran through her options, she didn’t trust the Ambassador but at the same time didn’t particularly trust the UC either. Were they really leaving? It sure seemed that way, and the UC Ambassador had left on the ship. She weighed waiting for the Captain of the UC ship or taking matters into her own hands. Time enough, she liked control. “Mustafa, it’s a fighting war now, isn’t it?”

  “Seems to be, yes.”

  Natyasha clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “I like options. Having a Hun cruiser floating overhead hampers my options. Having a troopship dock up restricts my choices.” She let it hang for a moment and watched Mustafa. “And having the UC on my back creates problems as well.”

  Mustafa rubbed his chin. “The rate went up.”

  Natyasha smiled. Her eyes sparkled in the bright light of the boarding bay. She liked this, that moment where new plans merged past old ones. The course had changed. But to still leave some options opens. “I’m not burning any bridges here. Let the Core transport out, even cover them if need be. Then see what happens with the Hun and the UC. Depending on the end game take ‘em out.”

  “The troopship?” Mustafa asked.

  “Leave them be for now, we can handle that—can’t we, Ms. Bark?”

  Bark smiled a thin, professional smile and said nothing.

  “Now go, keep in touch,” Natyasha said as she turned and walked away.

  Bark nodded to Mustafa in a moment of professional recognition before turning and following. Mustafa leaned back with his hands in his pockets and smiled.

  Natyasha heard the airlock cycle behind her and saw Mustafa walking through. She didn’t trust him, but he was going to be very useful. He gave her deniability across all fronts. If he succeeded, well, all the better. And if he didn’t, then she was still sitting ahead of where she was. “Interesting times, Ms. Bark, interesting times.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The display was a dance of vectors that pulsed through the unending pull of gravity. Lines were laid, paths were set, and now only time split the opponents. The Hun cruiser approached and took a wide arc to blink onto the edge of a barren planet. The troopship skirted the other direction and fled in system.

  William saw the chess pieces and mapped it out. If he went after the troopship the Hun cruiser could maul him from behind. He’d get it, there was no doubt, but they’d get him. Instead he nudged the display and laid a course out for the barren planet. Winterthur Seven.

  “Why don’t they give them names? Winterthur Seven, kind of lame,” Bryce asked himself.

  “Cuz they weren’t born on Haven, sunshine,” Shay replied as she laid out the nav program.

  William took a moment to leave the bridge and stretch his legs. He nodded to Grgur and passed through to zero-g. The shift to zero gravity and back to full gravity made his stomach turn. Though it always did.

  He looked in on his crew and smiled and nodded to each. A moment to connect, say hello, not lay out the expectations, but to just communicate. They knew the expectations, there was no doubt. He once regretted not making that walk, so he made time for it.

  Huron was laying on his back in the middle of the small crew commons area. His eyes were closed and a slight smile was on his face. The room had taken on the smell of garlic. Not a touch of garlic, not a spill, but an all out garlic assault. Huron appeared to be sucking it in and enjoying it.

  William smiled and leaned against the bulkhead. He’d always found the Martian-born engineer quirky. “Huron, maintenance time?”

  Huron’s smile grew wider. His eyes stayed closed. “Ahh, Captain. Just stretching out, my quarters are a bit tight. It’s a luxury to have a moment here.”

  “We ready?”

  “Of course, I wouldn’t be lying on the floor if we weren’t.”

  William nodded. “Of course,” he replied with a light laugh. “How’s she gonna do?” he asked in a more serious tone.

  Huron sighed and the smile dropped. “She’ll hold up. Or should at least. It’s a good design for what it’s for.”

  William knew what it was for: war. Nothing but. His hand slid along the wall and rubbed against one of the welded sections. Memories slid back, harsh memories like gritty snow. It would disassemble, to prevent anyone from taking it. He wondered how it would happen. If the welds popped, vacuum would surge in and everything would fall apart. Could suit up, he thought.

  The moment drifted away and he put the thought of disintegration behind him. Already he’d violated his orders and was about to engage a Hun cruiser. No use worrying about the ship coming apart.

  “Does the Hun cruiser look any different?”

  William shook his head. “They make ‘em ugly. Maybe even uglier than this,” he said as he looked to the raw asteroid wall. “Doesn’t appear they made a technological shift like the Sa’Ami.”

  Huron let out a sigh of relief. The engineer sat himself up. “How long?”

  “Another hour or so, we’ll open it up early and keep ‘em guessing. They’ll hold range if I had to bet.”

  Huron looked surprised. “You? A betting man?”

  William laughed and felt a bit of tension wash away. “I’ve had a good run, no use rui
ning it with a bet, eh?”

  Huron nodded and stood. “Works for me! If you lose a bet, we lose a ship, not a prospect I like.”

  A hissing sound burst out from behind of a narrow wall. The smell of garlic billowed after a moment later. A shuffling sound of steel on steel pushed in behind it.

  “Hello Igor. What’s for dinner?” William asked, knowing the answer, but felt hungry anyway.

  Igor’s thick head popped around the edge of the small galley and grinned at William. “Garlic!” he said excitedly. “Beautiful ,beautiful garlic, Captain.”

  “Make a good ship name,” Huron mumbled.

  “Garlic?”

  Huron shrugged. “Earth plant, but spread through the stars and to almost every colony. A bit of poetry to that, eh?”

  William liked it. There was a subtle poetry, a slight nod to heritage on both sides of the debate. It also beat the damned numeric indicator they’d left with. It was hard to inspire a crew and talk about S245998. “Sounds good, Mr. Huron.”

  The smell of garlic grew stiffer in the room, as if Igor wanted to christen the hull.

  William returned to the bridge and took his seat. “Go get a bite to eat, you two. Igor is cooking.”

  “Yes sir,” Bryce said quickly and left.

  Shay stood and stretched. “Nav’s laid out, Captain, Bryce put in a weapons program, but this pig handles most of it herself. Wonder why we’re here sometimes eh?”

  “I wonder the same thing. I’ll check the programs, now go get some more garlic. Oh, that reminds me.” He pressed the shipwide intercom button and waited for the tone to finish. “This ship is no longer named the S245998. It is now to be called the Garlic.”

  Shay looked at William like he was crazy and laughed as she walked off the bridge.

  His eyes returned to the display before him and he saw about what he expected. The Hun cruiser was coming in. The last blink had it headed to the barren planet. It could have changed, they weren’t close enough to get a visual yet. The Core transport was moving out of the system with Mustafa’s corvette running a screen on the side. The Grouper, his friend in agony, was still docked. Mustafa surprised him, he expected the corvette to hang close to the planet.

  He laid out the nav plot and played out the course. Statistical bands shifted away from the course of the Hun cruiser. But he wouldn’t know for sure until they blinked, were lit up with an energy source, or came close enough for a scan.

  The smell of garlic preceded Bryce by a moment. “Captain? Do they know we’re here?”

  William nodded. “Yes, once we blinked they could read the signature from the Haydn and guess on our mass.”

  Bryce nodded and concentrated as he chewed the side of his cheek. “So we’re gonna look pretty small—correct, Captain?”

  William smiled at Bryce. He could see where his thought train was going, but didn’t want to stop it. “Go on.”

  “So they think we’re smaller than we really are for the guns we mount.”

  “Go on.”

  “So when they do get close enough...”

  “It’ll be too late,” Shay said, sliding into her chair.

  A look of recognition spread on Bryce’s face, followed by a smile. “Oh hell yeah.”

  William felt the burning and itching on the palm of his augmetic hand. The feeling always came when he was excited, or maybe the adrenaline triggered it. “Let’s blink and get this dance going.”

  The starscape shifted once more and the barren planet was wide in the screen. Before the blink it was scarcely brighter than the starscape behind it. Now a band of light showed the terminator line. The edge looked like stirred up dirt mixed with old milk.

  Turrets slid and tested limits. The railgun powered up with a dim shudder. The lights winked for a moment as the capacitor bank charged to maximum. On the rear the missile batteries loaded with a resounding ka-chunk. The grav shields powered up, but only barely. It was the one downfall of the design: they sacrificed grav shields for mass.

  The ship came close to the planet, or as close as one could get and still be in space. The gravity well acted like a slingshot, like a ball bearing rolling down a funnel and gathering speed. Below them the surface was dark, empty, devoid of anything. In front the curvature of the planet marked the edge.

  “Weapons program is live,” Shay said in a low voice.

  William nodded. Soon. It’d happen before he even expected it, the weapons would be off. Then, he knew, it’d be over quick. The wall of slugs that the mass driver could throw was immense. “Get ready on the roll, Mr. Bryce, I want to get all the mass drivers in the fight.”

  “Yes sir!” Bryce snapped back quickly.

  A light blinked and then it began. Instead of coming in on the same plane as the Garlic, the Hun cruiser was in a polar orbit. The ship was curving from below. Both ships opened fire immediately. Mass drivers slugs punched through vacuum while railguns fired and left trails of singing plasma.

  Missiles erupted from both ships and blossomed out into space. From a distance it would look almost beautiful, like a light show in the midst of the darkest night ever. Instead, the rounds punched and shattered, missiles exploded and the brawl was on.

  The wave of adrenaline washed over William. Surprise was followed a second after. The Hun cruiser had altered course and changed planes. He felt stupid for not thinking of doing it himself. Trapped in two dimensions, a true pilot would say. “There it is!” he shouted out.

  “Rolling!” Bryce called out.

  The display shifted and drifted down as the Garlic pivoted upon the center and presented the thickest spot forward. The railgun was a fixed mount model, now the muzzle could be brought to bear. A second after the computer produced a solution, servos adjusted the aim, and it fired.

  William watched as the mass drivers expanded and stitched the hull of the cruiser. His missiles were mostly intercepted as they came closer.

  He jumped when the railgun fired. It drew a plasma trail from one ship to the other, he’d never seen it like that before.

  Like a laser line it smashed into the starboard quarter of the Hun cruiser. Sparks gouted out with a surge of white frost. Atmosphere, the most precious thing, was being vented.

  Shay whooped and leaned forward into the console. “Two minutes!”

  Bryce rocked from side to side as he worked the nav control. Icons above him showed where the Hun rounds were intercepting and eating away at the asteroid core. Grav shields had long ago surged into the red. The Garlic had nothing but its mass protecting it.

  “Captain, nanites are up eighteen percent,” Engineers Mate Pope called out over the comms.

  William scrunched his brow. That meant that there was a breach somewhere and the nanites were sealing it. “Where’s Huron?”

  “He’s with the reactor,” Pope replied.

  The reactor. William felt his stomach drop a bit. Whatever it was, Huron didn’t see fit to notify him so he wasn’t about to micromanage. “Keep me posted, Pope.”

  “Second round coming up!” Shay called out. Above her lines and displays showed the ordnance heading through space. Reload times were bracketed next to firing solutions. Everything was broken down into the physics of the moment. Math at its most violent form.

  The Hun cruiser was passing behind the Garlic with its nose presented front on. Atmosphere had ceased venting from the cruiser, but the entire section was dark. They’d hit something critical. The Garlic was pocked and still rolling. With every angle turned, new mass drivers presented themselves and more fired.

  “Getting hot, Captain,” Bryce called out. The mass drivers were like miniature railguns. But because they fired so quickly, heat buildup was the main issue.

  The moment was close, he could feel it. “Save the guns,” William said. “Don’t burn ‘em out. The next rail shot will give ‘em hell.”

  The two ships passed and the distance grew. The Hun ship would arc above the upper pole while the Garlic would continue on an orbital plane around it. Gun
fire stretched out a farther distance. Missiles seemed to make the least impression on either ship. The Garlic had too many mass drivers to screen it and too few missiles to break through the Hun defenses.

  William watched the railgun count and didn’t focus on anything else. His damage console was blinking yellow in a few spots, but yellow meant non-critical. The violence the little potato could put out was stunning. He didn’t like the ship initially, but now he was growing attached to it.

  “Here we go!” Shay yelled.

  The countdown for the railgun dropped to zero. The bridge dropped into instant darkness. Darkness so deep it was like a pool of ink. There was silence for a moment, then the silence was replaced with a steady booming and shuddering. The Hun cruiser continued to pummel the Garlic. Emergency lights blinked on throughout the ship. A dull blue illuminated the bridge giving hard edges to everything and everyone.

  William snapped his head down the hallway and felt the gravity begin to dissipate. Shit, he thought. “Huron!”

  Voices called out throughout the ship. Grgur poked his head into the bridge before beginning to float away. He caught himself and hugged the edge of the bulkhead.

  A voice called out down the hall. “He says it’ll be a minute, Captain.”

  The knockout punch was ready, and he didn’t have any power. Anger rose, a prototype design rushed into war. Or did they send him out with a bad boat? He shut the thought out—he had no evidence, just anger. “Seal hatches!” William shouted, his voice cracking.

  The booming of the impacting rounds grew louder. Grgur stepped onto the bridge and swung the bulkhead door shut with a clang. The silence seemed deeper, more detached. The booming echoed but seemed far away.

  The gravity continued to drop slowly and everyone found themselves pushed into one side of their chairs. The Garlic was still rolling. The artificial gravity continued to bleed away leaving the crew feeling the centripetal forces.

  William had once heard the term, “fail like an escalator, not like an elevator”. The rational being that if a system failed, it should still function, just not as well. He gazed around the blue tinted bridge and felt helpless. A starship was not an escalator, and when it lost power, it lost everything. It hit him that unless Huron did his job, they’d all die. He could hear the impacts growing farther apart, the cruiser would be dropping away, the distance growing. “We’ll have one orbit, then they’ll nail us,” he said.