by Rolf Nelson
“Sir?” a crewman calls.
“What?”
“Official call from your nephew.”
“I’ll take it in my ready-room.” The captain smiles and walks off the bridge. The crew go to rigid attention, whether standing or sitting, then back at ease after he passes.
His ready-room is large and opulent, full of cushy seats, settees, and decorations. Standing next to the central seat is a boyish young man of 12 or 14 years, slender, wearing sheer, tight-fitting clothes, with a cloth over the crook of one arm like a waiter. As the Captain approaches, the servant hands him a drink. The Captain accepts it, eyes the young man for a moment, then waves him out of the room. As the boy leaves, the Captain sits down in the large central seat and addresses the ship AI.
“Put the message on screen.”
The Warehouse Master’s face replaces the decorative image of a hugely fat, nearly nude woman on a large screen to the side. He’s angry and flustered.
“I’m terribly sorry to bother you on such short notice. A shipper showed up ahead of schedule and managed to load and lift before a judgment against them could be filed! I don’t know what kind of evil magic they performed to load so fast, but they slipped out at dawn and did not respond to orders to return.
“It’s a small ship, an old Meridian. The load barely fit. The Tajmagica they said. And the dogs hacked the computers here as they were leaving! Left no record of their being here. NOTHING. Just a ‘delivered as required’ notice with no personnel, ship transponder data, or company information! NOTHING! They messed with the backup accounting records, too!
“Hunt them down and GET THEM BACK HERE! The judgment should be official shortly! Please, HURRY!”
The transmission ends, replaced by the previous image. The captain sits motionless for a moment, then shakes his head in disappointment. “He’s got one job. One. Keep people from loading too fast, and he can’t even do that. Even manages to have the accounts hacked. Pathetic. Might need to hire a different nephew.” He sighs and hefts himself up out of his seat, heading for the door. It slides silently open, and he starts barking orders. “Sensors, track ALL ships leaving the DMS! Find a small transport! Navigation, plot for Emirate, shortest time! Wing Commander, prep four interceptors for launch and get the pilots ready! We are going to go rumble some thieves, bring them back for trial and execution!”
Not a Hockey Player
The Captain of the HMS Hussein sits in his raised command chair, brooding. One of the sensor techs turns in his seat and calls out “Sir, I think I found them!” as he puts a diagram up on the main screen. It shows:
The sun
Half a dozen planets
An icon for the HMS Hussein at 2 o’clock, near the fourth-ring gas giant. A vector arrow points inward.
An icon for the suspected Tajemnica, with a shorter vector arrow pointing away from the Hussein, inward across the system toward 9 o’clock.
Dotted lines for expected future courses.
The Hussein is far away from Tajemnica, but much faster. A data box pops up in the lower right. It reads:
Name: NO DATA
Class: NO DATA
Registered: NO DATA
“They obviously reset it,” the sensor tech says. “Everything else in the area is known and verified.”
“Navigation, any chance they can transition before we get there?” the captain snaps.
“Not likely, sir. Acceleration barely two.”
The sensor tech evaluates the data coming up on his screens. “A two-drive Sokolov calliope. We have three times their acceleration. The interceptors, five.”
The captain smiles with glee. “You can run, but not fast enough.”
The transponder data changes. NO DATA disappears, and in its place:
Name: Irony
Class: Nightmare
Registered: Once upon a time, somewhere, someone knew me
The captain snorts in derision. “So, the jokers think they have a sense of humor, eh. Well. Joke’s on them. We know who you are now! Lay an intercept course! Get ready to launch when we are eight hours away unless it looks like they manage to get a little more acceleration under themselves. You can run, little freighter, but you can’t hide. You can’t hide.”
The main display screen on Tajemnica’s bridge diagrams their situation.
An icon for Tajemnica
An icon for HMS Hussein. Close to her, a small icon with a “4” next to it.
A series of arcs running this way and that, all of which converge at one point or another.
The planet labeled Rings, with a small moon nearby
Not too far from that, a red line, near the edge of the display, labeled Transition
Helton’s frustration is palpable. “Damn. Those interceptors will get to us before we can transition.”
“Can’t we hide behind that moon?” Bipasha asks.
“Nope.” Cooper states flatly. “That’s the one that surprised us on the way in.”
Helton nods. “Yeah, we should avoid it if we can.”
“What’s the exclusion zone look like?” Kaushik asks. On the display a circle appears around the moon. It extends just past the planet.
Helton considers it a moment. “Hmmm… Not too bad. Maybe we could curve around behind it; we’re slower, we can make a sharper turn. They’d have to decelerate to get around it. Then they’d have to rumble us at a much slower speed.”
“Rumble?” Allonia asks.
“Pass at high acceleration and set up a drive field interference problem that would make us shake and vibrate,” Cooper explains. “You break engines that way if you’re not careful.”
“That wouldn’t be very smart.” Lag says. “We have a lot more mass than they do. I’d do a radio threat and missiles, not a rumble. This thing’s drives are set up more like a tug than a racer.”
“You said you worked here a while back,” Helton presses. “Think they are smart enough to know that?”
“Good point. Likely not. Give an asshole yokel the best equipment in the system, and he’s still an asshole yokel, regardless of rank and name. They’d want to show off their new toys. I think you’re right, they are likely to try to rumble us.”
“Plot a curve behind that moon, make them slow down a bit, or else they’d overshoot going too fast and have no choice but to launch at us. I’m sure they’d like to get their ammo back cleanly to sell again, and missiles are so messy. But not too close. It buys a bit of time.”
“Another hour,” Stenson says. “More for even basic testing.” He and his crew are working frantically in Engineering to get the drives operational.
“We don’t have that much time,” Helton says.
“The Sokolovs are moving us. We have to shut them down to spin up the Harmons, and that change is going to take a couple of minutes minimum, if everything is perfect on the first try. Synchronizing will take more time.”
“We don’t have any guns, missiles, beams, anything offensive. We only have running, with a shitload of extra mass and no time to dump it! We need those drives up!”
“Working as fast as I can, but I’m not a miracle worker!”
“We only have–” Helton suddenly freezes with a thoughtful expression. “You said this thing has tough armor. How tough?”
“Not going to stop a contact hit from a heavy anti-ship missile straight on, I wouldn’t think.”
“How about a collision at moderate speed?”
“WHAT?”
“I think they’re going to rumble us. How fast could you invert and cycle the drive fields?”
“It’d take … wait.” Stenson is suddenly incredulous. “NO! You CANNOT be SERIOUS! With enough velocity a used bandage would blow a bloody big hole in a ship, and those are sixty-ton interceptors!”
“They’ll have to slow down to make the turn around the moon, and move slow enough they don’t break their own drives rumbling us.”
“Dammit, Helton! This is a starship, not a hockey player!”
&nbs
p; “You said it’s the toughest warship hull ever built. Time to find out just what that means. How long?”
“Aw crap, I don’t know. I’ll let you know what’s possible as soon as I know.”
“No guns. No missiles. Can’t run. Nowhere to hide. No other option. Get it ready. We’ll only have one chance.”
Rumble
The ringed planet and the corp-war robo-moon hang in space in the near distance. Tajemnica streaks by, blocky, angular, and dirty, space glowing faintly around it. Shortly behind it is a formation of four lean, lethal-looking spacecraft, newly painted and streamlined for atmospheric flight. The interceptors are moving faster; the glowing molecules excited by their drives are bright. A pack of hungry wolves in their prime chasing an aging moose.
In the cockpit of the lead interceptor sits a handsome young man, dashing in his immaculate uniform spacesuit, comfortably strapped into his seat, surrounded by controls and screens. A confident air of superiority shows in the lines of his face. “This is Prince Walid of the Cruiser Hussein to unregistered piece-of-shit freighter Taj-shitica. You are ordered to return to port now, or we will use you for target practice. Respond.” There is a pause as he looks out the windows at his wingmen, then forward at the rapidly approaching Tajemnica. “Last chance before we open fire!” A long pause while he listens for a reply. He continues disdainfully. “Didn’t think so. Idiots.” He thumbs a control. “Line up behind me, time to rumble the dog!”
The interceptors stretch out into a line before surging forward and blazing past the larger ship. Close together, one after another, the glowing patches around them overlapping with the fainter glow surrounding Tajemnica, they create ripples of interference patterns where the fields interact, like iridescent and intersecting ripples on a three-dimensional pond.
Tajemnica shakes and the people on the bridge sway as the line of interceptors pass.
“Not bad,” Cooper opines. “Guess that’s what happens when you try to push around someone bigger than you.”
“Been through worse than that landing.” Helton speaks into the mic. “Stenson, drop power on the Sokolovs.”
“They broke one!”
“Well then, prepare to kill the other one, and start getting the Harmons ready.”
“They’ll likely try coming around again for another pass as a group,” Lag says. “It’ll take them a while to reverse and come back by us. Eight, maybe ten minutes.”
On the speaker, a mechanical voice calls: “Challenge gallium Albert chocolate tintinnabulation.”
The Ship AI responds in a similar voice. “Respond alpha arsenic Carthage galaxy trophy.”
“Send cladistic profiler for final.”
Cooper expresses everyone’s confusion.
“What the HELL?” Cooper yells. “We are outside their exclusion zone! And we CAN’T jump!”
“If we can’t transition, don’t get any closer,” Helton agrees. “If it fires we are all screwed.”
Prince Walid bounces around vigorously in the interceptor’s cockpit; outside his windows are the ripples and glow of the interfering drive fields. Warning indicators flash on screens and a dedicated warning light turns red. His expression shows surprise, then anger. He looks over his instruments, thumbs a button, his voice contemptuous. “Looks like they are down to one drive. Bastard barely moved! When we pass back, we go by all at once, you three very close together with synced-up fields. I’ll be right behind you to match and ride the interference wave you set up. That should shake them up and take down their remaining drive. They’ll be stuck!”
Stenson and his crew are at stations, tired and nervous. The readouts around them are all over the place. Some are red, some green, a lot of yellows, a few steady, most changing every second. Helton’s voice comes in on the speaker. “Ready or not, here they come!”
“Drives are online! Hit the switch whenever you want!”
One of the techs closes his eyes briefly and crosses himself in silent prayer.
The screens on the bridge show the rapidly approaching quartet of ships in tight formation. Helton takes a deep breath. “Spun up, Cooper. Get ready to kick ’em into gear.”
“I sure hope you know what you are doing.”
Helton looks defiantly at the oncoming ships. “So, you wanna dance? No problem. Let’s dance.” He nods to Cooper.
“Rumble THIS!” Cooper says, and he hits the “Drives Online” switch, pushes up the power levers hard, twists and pushes the control yoke. At his first motion, the slight background hum of the drives abruptly changes to a wildly discordant three-tone scream as energy flows and Tajemnica digs her drive fields into the very fabric of the universe. As the volume ramps up, the tones start to converge in a powerful, pulsing, deep-throated scream.
The three lead interceptors have a large and bright envelope of glowing atoms around them, excited by their drives’ combined energy. The faint glow around Tajemnica disappears. Prince Walid wears a wolf-like grin of contempt. Suddenly, his cockpit is filled with a deep, powerful, angry, metallic voice: “Your friends close, your enemies closer!” He looks around wildly, his grin of anticipation gone.
A huge and growing blaze of angry light leaps from Tajemnica, much brighter than the squadron’s, as Tajemnica spins, rolls, and rotates sideways, presenting the largest possible target. The lead interceptors’ courses suddenly alter, and instead of passing close by they dive straight at Tajemnica, pulled in by her powerful drive field. The last ship manages to turn its nose away, but it has too much velocity and is pulled sideways by the field’s inexorable grip. The field intensifies and the ships are violently crashed and crushed and splattered across the landing pads and lower hull of Tajemnica. One collapes like a cartoon accordion, the second shatters on an angled corner, the third explodes on an edge. The drive field interference patterns disappear as the interceptors, their drives, and their pilots die. The glowing field surrounding Tajemnica intensifies even more, extending like a great glowing arm, a deadly blazing swarm of fireflies, toward the surviving fighter.
Cooper works the controls frantically, everyone else hangs on, and the noise of the drives rises to a beating roar. A faint undertone that nearly sounds like an old steam locomotive thundering in the distance can be heard in the thrashing the ship is inflicting on itself and the space around it.
Most of the readouts in Engineering are well in the red, and the screaming of strained power systems and mechanical stress makes the ship sound like it is in pain. Stenson and his crew just stand back in amazement, hanging on, wondering how much more abuse she can take.
Prince Walid looks around frantically, trying to find some way out of the trap. His visor is down, and he is being shaken violently about, not always the same way as his ship. Over the cockpit speakers he hears the last thing that isn’t his own terrified scream. The voice of Tajemnica is female, commanding, and imperious.
“Come to me! NOW!”
The great glowing arm of agitated atoms glows, mostly reddish-yellow, but they coruscate and shimmer with interference patterns in many colors, like an Aurora Borealis, all around the interceptor. The helpless fighter shakes violently, vibrating ever faster as it is pulled in closer and closer to Tajemnica.
Then the light fades considerably, the interference patterns disappear, and the shaking stops. The interceptor is carefully pulled in close to Tajemnica’s topside, cradled in the drive field. Loose debris and the crushed and flattened hulks of the first three interceptors spin away into the void. The drive glow diffuses, extends, and reintensifies, then Tajemnica flips back to her original course and accelerates away.
Tajemnica’s bridge is a scene of celebration.
“THAT was perfect!” Helton exclaims. “Absolutely perfect!”
“Wow!” says Cooper. “That was…” He’s as much surprised and confused as happy. “Not quite sure how that last bit happened though.”
“Did I see that right?” Lag says. “The first three wrecked, the other one shaken and grabbed, and it’s alon
gside?”
Helton thumbs his mic. “Stenson, I don’t see any failure lights. How’s it look there?”
“I … I don’t think we broke anything major, but Hindu’s hamburgers, we’ve got a lot of checking to do before I’ll swear to ANYTHING.”
“Then before we find out we can’t, let’s get the hell out of here. I’m pretty sure they might be just a little bit annoyed that we trashed four of their shiny new interceptors. Nice and easy, just fast enough for us to leave before they can launch anything at us.”
“Aye-aye!” Cooper says.
“And we deleted at least one prince from their roster,” Lag observes wryly. “That may not go over well.”
“So,” Helton says with a grin. “How much do you think your buyer of interceptor information might pay for a mostly whole if slightly used ship?”
“That’s going to be an interesting negotiation,” Lag replies. “Could be complicated; information can be hard to trace, but entire late-model ships are bit harder to sterilize. Let’s get out of here before we count any profits, shall we?”
The main screen on the bridge of the HMS Hussein shows a cockpit camera view from Prince Walid’s interceptor, along with various critical systems readouts, which fluctuate wildly. Walid looks desperately at the controls of his ship, flicking switches, making changes, trying to find something that will save him. He is crushed back into his seat, then shaken violently. He screams incoherently, and his pain and terror echo around the bridge. The camera view goes blank, and the critical systems readouts all flat-line, then display NO DATA, like three others beside it.
Silence falls. The captain is shocked, and everyone else on the bridge looks at their screens in mute fear, wondering what happened, how imminent victory became destruction. On the main screen, now nearly blank, the transponder data on the lower right flickers and changes.
Name: Irony
Class: Nightmare
Registered: Nowhere is home
An image appears on the main screen, a woman standing alone on the small command platform of a large bridge. Mature, sharp features, lean and beautiful and dangerous-looking. Her face is scarred, and a black patch with a red Possenti Cross covers her left eye. The other is a vivid green. She wears a simple, dark blue uniform with red, white, and gold accents; on her left side she wears dark gray, medievalesque armor of polished metal, with a few gilt highlights. A sword at her left side, pistol on the right. Dense dark and silver hair is pulled to one side of her head and down her neck into a thick, short braid. She could be the half-sister of Lag and Harbin, the one with a sense of style. She leans forward to address the crew of the Hussein up close and personally. She speaks coldly, quietly, deliberately.