Land of the Dead

by Thomas Harlan

  The secondary beam weapons on the Tlemitl were now firing in staccato, sweeping the area ahead of the massive ship free of bomb-pods and penetrators. The Khaid were fond of strewing clouds of one-off mines when they engaged the enemy, then working to drive their prey into the shoals which resulted.

  Four Khaiden battleships—Xochitl had never encountered the class before and his exocortex could find no references to them in the Fleet briefings and intelligence estimates—were now closing on the dreadnaught, seeking to bring particle weapons to bear behind three speeding waves of shipkillers.

  An answering salvo of penetrators was already belching from the Tlemitl. Xochitl fought down a fierce desire to override Yoemon and take direct command of the dreadnaught, but the Thai-sa was doing an able job. Initial damage was already being attacked by Engineering damage control parties. Shields were up, the ship was building velocity, and the Tokiwa and Asama were closing vector with all speed.

  We need to get point-defense interlock engaged. The Prince scowled, watching the intercept projections update in his ’well. The Khaid were forming up, their main body of battleships—falling somewhere in size and throw-weight between the Tlemitl and her battle cruisers—screened from immediate attack by this lead group of four.

  The two Imperial battle-cruisers swung in moments later, having reached interlock range on point defense. Both were spewing ECM pods and the new remote point-defense platforms as fast as their launchers could recycle.

  “Combat interlock confirmed,” Thai-sa Yoemon and Chu-so Xocoyotl’s voices overlapped in each ear. The Prince had already seen his secondary status displays shade green. The Tlemitl’s spoofer pods now began to flood nearspace with a hurricane of false data. Subsystems on all three ships had been drinking in the Khaid ECM signatures for almost ten minutes now, and with interlock allowing each ship to differentiate their countermeasures, the attacking ships were suddenly moving in an electronic fog.

  «Now?» suggested his exocortex. «Battlecast synch time is within parameters to implement override.»

  Xochitl shook his head, though no one else could see, or hear, the exo. “No, not yet. The commanders of the other ships haven’t been briefed—” Even Yoemon, who had seen the new control overrides in action during trials, wasn’t ready to let the Tlemitl fight herself. Well, under my direction, thought the Prince.

  «Our direction,» countered his exo. «We are one.»

  “—they’ll panic.”

  * * *

  The interior airlock opening onto boat-bay nine wheezed, locking motor complaining as it attempted to seal the hatch. A fallen stanchion twisted with a squeal, crushed by the door, but refused to break free. Helsdon, face streaming with sweat, looped a magnetic block ring around the twisted battle-steel, snugged it tight, and stepped back. Behind him, a good dozen cooks, stewards, stray officers, and off-duty ratings leaned into the rope, hauling for all they were worth.

  Someone shouted “Heave!” and the stanchion squealed, trying to slide free of the hatch. At the airlock controls, the Engineer Second wrenched aside the panel covering with a pry bar and shorted the mechanism. The hatch tried to cycle open and the stanchion popped loose. Almost immediately the environmental circuits triggered an alarm—the boat-bay had lost its exterior doors and was open to the void—and only the inner airlock hatch, luckily still intact, prevented the entire corridor from venting into space.

  Helsdon had his hand-comp clipped in and now he thumbed a counteroverride, letting the little unit drop into a blindingly fast response cycle as the hatch requested permission to close, was told no, then requested it again.… The damage control party dragged the stanchion free with a grinding scrape.

  The Engineer Second unclipped the comp—the hatch ground closed, spitting out metal shavings—and he pitched the plastic control cover away.

  “Let’s go,” he broadcast, drawing everyone’s attention. “There’s a hull puncture two halls leeward and we’re venting atmosphere. We’ve got an emergency repair closet there and one on the way, so get ready to carry what we’ll need.”

  Their faces were blank with incomprehension, or stiff with incipient fear, but Helsdon pushed them along—using the pry bar if necessary. If they stopped, he would stop, and then he knew he’d break down. The specter of another endless time trapped in a broken, disabled ship, waiting for the cold or hunger or radiation to take him was ever-present.

  * * *

  The Naniwa sped towards rendezvous with the flagship, steadily building velocity. In Koshō’s mind, the invisible, undetectable Barrier seemed only a hands-breadth from her flank. All sections had finally reported in, ready for battle. Damage control crews were standing by, the launchers had recycled, and transit deflectors were at full strength. In her executive ’well, she could see that the Tlemitl had brought the new battle-shields on line and Susan was pained by jealousy. Curse the Prince, he has all the new toys … while we fight with flint and wicker!

  Koshō stiffened, agonized to see the Falchion—hammered by dozens of bomb-pods—shiver and begin to break apart. A cloud of evac capsules spewed away from the mortally wounded cruiser, but Susan knew her commander would not be aboard one of them.

  Muldoon. May Mor-Ríoghain convey you to the West with all good speed.

  The battle-cruiser held fire, munitions racks rolled out with the full weight of her shipkillers and suppression pods ready to launch. Seconds ticked past, and then—

  “Chu-sa, transit spike!” Holloway’s voice was flat and sharp. “Multiple spikes! Incoming transit across the board—estimating thirty contacts inbound.”

  “Launchers ready for salvo two, kyo,” Konev barked, running through his readiness checklist one more time.

  A wide arc of space shimmered, twisting aside as dozens more Khaiden ships—a swarm of destroyers, light cruisers, Fleet tenders, and assault boats—dropped out of hyperspace. Susan grinned mirthlessly. Months spent far beyond the rim of Imperial space, hunting the Khaid and Megair and being hunted in return, had gained her a hard-won familiarity with their tactics.

  The Naniwa sprint missiles already launched into the void were now within seconds of a sudden new array of targets. The deadly little weapons sprang awake, autonomic targeting systems fixing on the fresh signatures of Khaiden ships, and blasted forward, exhausting the last of their fuel.

  Two Khaiden destroyers staggered as the Imperial missiles streaked past their point-defense and antimatter charges detonated against shipskin. Startlingly violet blossoms of plasma erupted from their engine arrays. An assault boat tore in half. Missiles raced through the Khaiden formation, causing panic. Ships corkscrewed away wildly amid a wave of secondary explosions. A wedge of destroyers rotated towards the Naniwa, beam weapons stabbing at her through the incandescent murk.

  “Weapons, fire salvo two.”

  The battle-cruiser shuddered as every launch rail and missile rack triggered simultaneously.

  * * *

  The Tlemitl and her two consorts lunged toward the Barrier at maximum acceleration, clawing for room to maneuver. In FlagCom, Xochitl let the threatwell feed wash over him, his attention fixed on the maneuvering of the Khaid main elements. The arrival of their support ships had been expected, though he was surprised to see such numbers. Exo displayed comparisons of numbers of ships, types, and throw-weight between this battle and more recent encounters with the Khaid raiders.

  A proper fleet, the Prince observed, almost impressed. On our model; with supply ships, a repair tender, lighter elements, some kind of troop transports.…

  Swiftly approaching the danger zone marked out on the threatwell in strobing crimson, Thai-sa Yoemon’s voice cut sharply across the chatter on the command ’cast. “Prepare to change vector, rotating aspect … now.”

  Xochitl’s eyes slid to the display showing g-integrity deck by deck on the massive ship. Time to put everything to the test.

  The constant rumble transmitted through the hull—despite a brand-new dampening system—from the maneuver dr
ives ceased abruptly. The Tlemitl rotated aspect on tertiary thrusters. The status displays started to wink amber and yellow—one red spot flared up as a compartment lost its g-decking—and then the Firearrow was pointed on a new heading. The exchange of missile clouds and beam weapons had continued unabated throughout the evolution and the Prince was pleased to see his gun crews had kept targeting lock on the lead Khaid battleships. Battlecast was still in sync, though hostile ECM was now starting to interfere, forcing a faster encryption cycle rate.

  “Main drives at full,” Yoemon snapped and the rumbling vibration kicked in again. Now three compartments flared red and Xochitl cursed, knowing any man in those areas was probably dead or seriously wounded, given the acceleration they were pulling. Still, the dreadnaught had successfully swerved away from the Barrier, the Asama keeping pace off her port. The Tokiwa, however, had failed to change vector with them. Xocoyotl’s battle-cruiser had rotated to reverse aspect, but now she was forced to a full-burn to avoid colliding with the invisible weapon.

  The fire from all four Khaid battleships retargeted on the Tokiwa as she slipped out of the point-defense envelope maintained by the Tlemitl and Asama. Hundreds of shipkillers rained in, saturating the battle-cruiser’s lighter point defense network. Dozens of explosions rippled the length of her hull, stressing shipskin beyond its capacity. A bright pinpoint seared through the plasma clouds as a penetrator pierced containment on the antimatter reactor. Then everything—the Tokiwa, the debris clouds spilling from her flanks, the corona of bomb-pod lasers igniting—was washed away by a pure white flare.

  «IMN BC-261 lost with all hands,» Xochitl’s exo commented, spooling off a log entry.

  “Battlecast resynced.” Yoemon’s voice was harsh and flat. The Tlemitl was now turning, still building velocity, with the Asama running in tight, well inside the fire control envelope of the dreadnaught’s point-defense batteries. With the four Khaid heavies drawn off by killing the battle-cruiser, the two Imperial ships accelerated into the flank of the opposing fleet. Four Khaid cruisers swung towards them, but now the full throw-weight of the Tlemitl and Asama could focus on the approaching ships.

  A storm of sprint missiles and particle beams stabbed out, while the spoofer pods flooded Khaid targeting control with thousands of phantom contacts. The first three cruisers shattered, shipskin ravaged by particle beams, missile racks torn away, and then each hull punched in by a pair of shipkillers—big Tessen-class multiphase penetrators.

  «Resource utilization is higher than recommended per target,» exo commented, but the Prince shook his head. “The weapons officer is showing admirable restraint, given his desire to be sure of the mark. Yoemon has noticed we’ve no resupply now that the Hanuman has fled. Very wise.”

  ’Cast relay beeped cheerfully, showing a fresh Imperial fire-snake glyph boosting towards the protective shell of the Tlemitl’s point defense.

  «IMN CA-1042 Gladius has synched to battlecast,» exo announced. «All other cruisers have been lost.»

  * * *

  Her field of view filled with an intricate schematic of potential Barrier threads, racing ship glyphs, and the still-present necklace of science probes arrayed beyond the radiation cloud which had been the Can, Gretchen tried to concentrate on the results from her models. The first pass she’d taken had been discarded and while searching for more computational resources Anderssen had found—to her wary delight—that node 333 also boasted well over nineteen thousand processing nodes. Many of them were inactive, or inaccessible to her, but enough remained to offload model calculations for three alternate schemas.

  The constant fluctuations in the g-decking field made her work very difficult and Gretchen had resorted to taping down the comps and her other gear.

  “Crow, we’d better get tied down, this is getting rough.”

  The old Méxica did not bother to look over his shoulder. His displays had reconfigured again and the Swedish woman frowned, not recognizing any of the interfaces he was now navigating. Somehow it seemed freshly minted and new, though still recognizably Méxica in origin. “Hummingbird, are we going to get out of this?”

  “I have,” he said in a musing voice, “a great faith in Chu-sa Koshō’s ability to survive.”

  Then everything lurched violently and Gretchen lost her seat, flying into the nearest wall with a bone-jarring crunch. Hummingbird’s consoles tore free of the tape, one of them shattering against the wall beside her. Despite this, his attention remained fixed on flipping through the Tlemitl’s internal systems as fast as possible.

  “Holy Blessed Mary, Bride of Jesus, that hurts!” Anderssen slid to the floor as the g-decking reasserted itself, landing painfully. “Crow!”

  * * *

  Six decks away, Koshō watched calmly as the Naniwa’s abrupt course change sent the battle-cruiser careening into a pack of six oncoming Khaiden destroyers. The battle-cruiser’s deflectors rippled with millions of tiny impacts as irradiated dust and battle debris hammered at the electromagnetic veil. Missiles punched straight through, while particle beam traces speared past as the Khaid gunners lost lock on the elusive Imperial ship. In turn, she was designating priority in her ’well, the stylus stabbing like a dagger into the heart of the enemy.

  “Weapons, target number four, give me a tight grouping!”

  The Naniwa shuddered as the starboard missile launchers went to rapid-fire, spitting a cloud of smaller interceptors around a single big Tessen shipkiller. The destroyers had broken ranks, each burning maneuver mass to break away from the oncoming Imperial. The Naniwa’s beam nacelles strobed, capacitors discharging with a high shrieking whine that carried through the shipframe like the lament of the damned. Secondary launchers spat out a handful of spoofer pods. Target five flared with a brilliant violet-hued detonation and the ensigns on the lower tier of Command shouted, “Seikou!”

  Susan nodded to Konev, whose beam gunners had gotten in a choice hit.

  To starboard, target four had gone into a corkscrew pattern, trying to shake the outbound munitions package—but the interceptors fragmented on final approach, separating into dozens of smaller missiles, each radiating as hot as the parent chassis. Point defense lasers and ballistic munitions tore through them, causing a sparking cascade of smaller explosions. Serenely, the Tessen sailed through the weak ECM spewing from the destroyer’s emitters and slammed into the smaller ship’s hull at a hundred g. At the instant before impact, the multiphase warhead ignited, spearing a needle-sized plasma jet into the Khaiden shipskin.

  A seven-meter-wide hole blew through the side of the destroyer before the Tessen blew up inside the hull proper. The destroyer convulsed, filling with superheated plasma, and then shattered into a cloud of molten debris.

  The other Khaid lightweights scattered, dumping a cloud of missiles and bomb-pods behind them.

  Koshō nodded thoughtfully, then tapped an execute glyph Pucatli had prepped for her.

  Each of the fleeing destroyers had acquired a spoofer pod running passive when the Naniwa had interpenetrated the formation. Now they each lit off with the battle-cruiser’s signature and sped off, keeping pace with the Khaid ships, each now followed by a swiftly closing pack of missiles.

  “Pilot, vector to join the Flag,” Koshō snapped, letting her attention return to the larger battle. “Get us into their envelope and synched up on point-defense.”

  She did not have time to give Tloc, his holds full of chocolatl, or the lamentable Chu-sho Xocoyotl even the brief parting Muldoon had received.

  * * *

  «Enemy battlecast pattern is adapting,» exo announced.

  Prince Xochitl had sunk back in his chair, expression thunderous as he realized how heavily the odds had turned against him. The Tlemitl outweighed any single enemy ship by three or six to one, but now his battle-group was stripped down to only three supporting cruisers. Even the two Scout frigates had disappeared.

  As he watched, the Khaid battleships coalesced—showing admirable skill, one part of his mind com
mented—into a tight pack. Now they veered towards the Tlemitl, their point-defense overlapping, with a stormfront of shipkillers, penetrators, and bomb-pods hurtling towards the Imperial ships. Behind their munitions screen, the heavy beam weapons on the Khaiden battlewagons were sparking, searching for a weakness in the battle-shields surrounding the Firearrow.

  The shield-generator status display was a patchwork of green, amber, and red. Some of the nodes had already failed, having shorted on backfeed from the shields themselves, or failing under the massive stress. Xochitl’s teeth bared, gleaming white and sharp, and he cursed the pochtecas who had sold his father such junk.

  «Projected failure rate of the shield nodes, from field trials, is almost thirty percent. Current failure rate is thirty-four percent.»

  “Unacceptable.” Xochitl straightened in his chair, attention drawn to the emergence of a second pack of Khaiden heavies which had been screened from the Tlemitl’s sensors by the oncoming wave of attackers. This formation was accelerating off at an angle and redeploying on the move, smoothly shifting from their initial wedge into an unfolding “flower-box.”

  «Secondary elements are targeting the Gladius,» exo reported, and the threatwell shifted, focusing in on the heavy cruiser, which was trying to match course with the Tlemitl and Asama. «Missile storm intercept in sixteen seconds.»

  The particle beam nacelles covering that quadrant of the envelope began igniting. Yoemon’s gunnery team had reached the same conclusion. Khaid shipkillers began to wink out, obliterated by anion impacts. The Gladius’ point-defense guns were spinning hot, filling the intervening space with ballistic rounds, and her short-range launchers were discharging as fast as the robotic loaders could clear the launch rails. Better than half of the incoming missiles were obliterated, but the remainder detonated in a staggered wave of plasma flares, washing from one end of the ship to the other.