by Kal Spriggs
Against his will, Commander Bowder nodded slowly.
“Oh, and also,” Feliks said, “the magnetic burst of the coils releasing in destruction would quite possibly disrupt the planet's magnetosphere long enough to allow the star's radiation to kill off all surface life.”
“Well, that too,” Rory nodded. “It would be interesting to map the effect. I bet we could write a really interesting paper on the distortion pattern and how that effected the exposures to lethal radiation levels and then tracked that against the native life and colonist die off rates.
“Oh, yes,” Feliks nodded, “that's true, I should set up a monitor for that.”
“Belay that order to fire,” Commander Bowder said.
***
“They're continuing to accelerate,” the Cuthroat's Captain said.
“I can see that,” Two-Fingers snapped.
As it was, the cruiser was outside of optimal range and still too close to the planet. If he fired now, he risked the ship being operational, depending on the strength of its defense screens. He still might cripple it, but it wasn't anywhere near the certain thing he'd planned for.
And if father learns that I spoiled his secret... Two-Fingers shuddered at that thought.
Two-Fingers couldn't risk the chance that the cruiser might see his shot and survive. It would be bad enough if someone learned of the weapon's existence. It would be far worse if they realized that a senior member of the Centauri Confederation had given that technology to a pirate.
Far better to order his fighters to hit the enemy ship before that happened. They didn't have nearly as sophisticated technology as the induction cannon, but each of the twenty four fighters did carry four Hellcat missiles each.
Launching all ninety-six of those missiles, plus the external racks from his destroyer and frigates would be a massive salvo. Each Hellcat carried a shaped, tactical nuclear fission-fusion-fission warhead. They were old technology, but of advanced design built in the Tanis system.
Individually, he doubted the missiles could take down the cruiser, but in a mass salvo, there was no way that the enemy could knock down all of them. Even a couple of hits should be enough to destroy the ship. The cost would be ghastly, a huge hit to his profit margin, but capturing Sapphire afterward and looting Copley's wealth would at least make up on that somewhat.
Still, he thought, it doesn't hurt to at least try to end this by capturing her. “Full acceleration, try to get them in range,” Two-Fingers snapped. “But order our fighters to ready their missiles.”
***
Chuni fought to control her rage as she worked her way along the edge of the wall.
It was a primal thing, her rage. Her own childhood fanned that rage as she thought about her older brother, murdered by evil humans as casually as these ones had killed Lieutenant Commander Douglass. Somehow the two incidents had almost become one in her mind and all her frustration at living her life in the shadows, of hiding her true identity, and of never having the chance to be who she needed to be had focused upon the men who'd attacked.
She wanted nothing more than to rush upon the pirate scum and smash them with her fists... but if she gave them that much warning, they might kill her friend Alannis.
My friend, she thought and that was a surprise enough to still her rage. She had not had many friends. There was Rastar, but that friendship was something that had to be kept and managed carefully, for to do otherwise would be to invite dishonor upon herself.
Alannis was an equal in many ways and was a warrior who had much honor to her own name. The tiny human had both good humor and wise words. She was fierce and honorable. Chuni felt shame that she had retreated from the fight, yet in the face of so many armed humans, she had realized that she could not accomplish any more than to die like Lieutenant Commander Douglass.
Yet now was different. She had tracked them back to this bunker. She'd seen enough of them moving in and out of the building to know this must be their headquarters. She didn't know why they had kidnapped Alannis, but it could not be for a good reason.
These were bad humans, humans like the ones who had killed her brother when she was barely old enough to remember. She felt her rage come back and wash over her again. Yet this time, it was a cold rage. This wasn't noman kar, the killing bloodrage, this was something different.
She felt almost calm. Chuni drew her four pistols as she moved forward and a plan began to form in her mind. Her hide began to flush with kava as she felt her heartbeat steady. The bad men had taken Alannis... and she would make sure they didn't hurt her or anyone ever again.
***
Boris looked north as yet another explosion erupted in the north. Whatever defenses Rickey One-Eye's men had run into, he was glad that he didn't have to worry about it. Rackham had sent off some of his men to help in the assault, but Boris hadn't missed that they were some of the boss's newest recruits or old hands who didn't pull their weight anymore.
Boris had seen how tough James Conley's men were and just how fearsome the pirate king could be. He wanted nothing to do with trying to pry them out of that underground fortress. In fact, he doubted a two-bit slaver like Rickey One-Eye would manage the job.
Certainly Boris didn't know why Rackham had him and his team attack the two military types. Boris had known enough to understand that the woman was the important one, so he hadn't flinched when the order came to kill the other one. Killing wasn't something that bothered him as much as it once had. In fact, it bothered him more that the killing didn't bother him than the actual act itself.
Boris frowned as the echoes of the explosion faded. It had almost sounded like there were separate sharp cracks in that sound, almost as if...
Another explosion rocked Sapphire City and this time he did hear the gunshots at the same time, sharp and loud and close.
Boris fumbled for his comm but his hands didn't seem to work. In fact, his legs felt weak. He stumbled back against the door frame, just as a huge figure raced at him. Boris tried to lift his weapon, tried to call out, but before he could do much more than groan he found himself staring down the barrel of a pistol.
There was another explosion and Boris's world disappeared in a flash of light.
***
Alannis's head cocked as she heard a sharper sounding crack in the edge of an explosion... and what might have been a shout of alarm cut off.
The pirates who sat in the room seemed oblivious. Then again, they also hadn't noticed that she'd been working her right wrist against the metal edge of the chair... so that she almost had it free. If this was a rescue attempt, her best bet was to go flat. While Reese might not use her as a hostage, his pirate allies certainly wouldn't have any such compunctions.
Alannis didn't think she could tip over the heavy metal chair. Nor did she think she could work her other limbs free, not without more time. Time to improvise, she thought.
“Hey!” Alannis called over at the two pirates who slouched in the corner, “I need to pee.”
“Piss your pants then,” the first one said. The other gave a giggle.
“Sure, I bet my husband would just love the fact that you made me piss my pants,” Alannis said. “I'm sure he wouldn't have your boss take it out on you at all over something like that.”
The two pirates looked at each other. “Fine,” one of them snarled. He stomped over, his hand going for the knife on his belt. “But...”
Alannis tugged her hand free just as he drew his knife. She caught his wrist and shoved hard, pushing the blade up into his stomach and then up under his ribs. As the pirate’s hands went slack in shock, she grabbed the hilt of the knife and jerked it out, a wash of hot blood gushing forth to soak her hand. The pirate gave a horrid scream as he fell back and behind him, she saw his friend staring their way in shock.
Alannis used the knife to cut the ropes on her other hand and then leaned over to reach for the dying pirate’s pistol. Her blood-soaked hands slid against the pistol’s grip and the squirming, crying pira
te writhed out of her reach.
She looked up to see the other pirate had drawn his pistol and he fired. He fired shot after shot in rapid succession and bullets buzzed around her like malignant wasps only to strike the stone walls and ricochet. Either he wasn’t a very good shot or he was shaken by the scream of his dying friend. Alannis stretched out and her hand finally caught the pistol and dragged it out of the pirate’s waistband. She brought the pistol up and leveled it on the other pirate, even as she watched him pull the trigger on an empty gun.
She fired once and again and saw blood blossom on the pirate’s chest. He fell back and she leaned forward, scooping up the knife again and then sawed to cut the restraints that held her ankles to the chair. She heard shouting in the hallway just outside the door to the room.
As her legs came free, she shoved herself to her feet, then stumbled and fell as her numb legs refused to hold her weight. Alannis dragged herself away from the chair as someone kicked open the door.
She rolled to her side and fired twice more, striking the man who’d come through in the stomach. The man behind him spun as his companion dropped, bringing up his rifle. Alannis centered the pistol on him and fired again, this time squeezing the trigger until it went dry, firing each shot as quickly as she could.
The second man fell back out of sight but for one leg which twitched randomly in the doorway.
Pins and needles signaled the return of blood-flow to her legs and Alannis shoved herself to her feet. She stumbled over to the doorway and grabbed the rifle from the downed pirate. She tried not to look at what her shots had done to the man’s face as she checked the weapon and glanced up and down the hallway.
Somewhere not too far away she heard gunfire and shouts. A moment later a pirate tumbled head first down the stairs to Alannis’s right and lay still.
Chuni came around the corner, a pair of rifles in each set of limbs. “Alannis!” she shouted, “I found you!”
“You did,” Alannis said as she lowered her own rifle in relief. “Where’s the rest of the rescue team?”
“Just me,” Chuni replied. She hesitated then, “Is any of that blood yours?”
“No,” Alannis said. “Let’s get out of here.”
***
“Sir,” Forrest said as he looked up from his display, “whether or not that destroyer has this weapon, those fighters are a threat. Sensors indicates their birds are active.”
The XO hesitated for a moment. If they fired their secondary batteries, the enemy might well fire their special weapon. Forrest knew that if Rory was wrong about the range, then they were as good as dead.
The question was: could they take out the enemy fighter strike before they launched and if they did, would the enemy's mystery weapon work?
Forrest didn't know the answer to that question. He felt confident of his firing solutions, but he didn't even know what to think about this theoretical weapon. At the end of the day, it was Commander Bowder making the call.
“There might be a way...” Rory said as he stared at the sensors display. Forrest didn't look up from his console, even as he felt sweat bead his head. If those fighters did launch, then he knew he couldn't stop all of their salvo.
“Explain quickly,” Commander Bowder said.
“Well,” Rory said, “when they fire their radio-frequency projection cannon, it'll be a directional burst. They have to release the induction coils in a very precise sequence in order to snap the magnetic bands and generate the electromagnetic burst just right.”
“And?” Commander Bowder demanded.
“Well, if something interrupted that burst,” Rory said, “then the process should fizzle.”
“You would get a localized, minor series of electromagnetic energy releases,” Feliks said, “Like a slow burn instead of an explosion.”
“How?” Commander Bowder demanded.
“The magnetic field will be very finely tuned,” Feliks interlocked his fingers. “Any nearby disruption would unravel those preparations.”
“Exactly!” Rory shook a finger at his companion, “the exotic particle cannons, they fire disrupting beam of generated exotic particles. Those particles cause all sorts of disturbances in gravitational and electromagnetic forces... if we fired very, very close to the destroyer and missed...”
Commander Bowder looked at Forrest as did the two scientists. “You want me to miss?” Forrest asked with more than a little irritation. It really felt almost insulting to do that.
“Can you?” Commander Bowder asked.
“Yes sir,” Forrest said confidently. He knew he could knock the ship out of the sky.
“You have to aim very, very precisely and fire exactly when the enemy destroyer begins to fire its weapon,” Feliks said. “If you fire too far off, it will have no effect. If you hit it...”
“I understand,” Forrest said. He looked at Commander Bowder, “Ready when you are, sir.”
“Right,” the XO settled into the command chair and gave Forrest a nod, “do it.”
***
Two-Fingers gnawed on the inside of his cheek as he watched the cruiser moving. He had to make a decision and soon. The warship had held its fire so far, but it was only a matter of time before it opened up. If he didn't fire the main weapon, then he had to have his fighters launch their Hellcat missiles, otherwise the cruiser would wipe them all out.
“Activate the Hellcat's firing circuits,” Two-Fingers said. He hated to do even that, especially with how... finicky the weapons sometimes were. Tanis's Tschanz Munitions insisted that the rumors about malfunctioning fire circuits had no basis on reality... but then again, his family owned a majority stock in Tschanz Munitions so he knew exactly how much he could trust their word. “Order them to fall back inside our protective screen.” That would put the fighters close alongside his frigates, though safely away from the destroyer with its weapon.
His face went stern. He would have to try to fire the induction cannon. If the weapon didn't have the desired effect, he'd follow it up with the missile strike. One way or another, Two-Fingers would win this battle.
“Align the ship to course one two seven,” Two-Fingers said. He brought up the firing sequence on his terminal. Everything looked to be in order... he activated it.
“Enemy firing!” The Cutthroat's Captain shouted.
***
The exotic particle beams flashed past faster than any human eye could have registered, just as the induction coils began to release in a precise sequence. The assorted exotic matter and energy, accelerated to near-light speed actually had negative mass... but it did generate gravitational and electromagnetic disturbance in a wake behind it. Two of the beams passed within only meters of the hull and the finely tuned magnetic bands writhed in the wake of those beams... just as the firing sequence released the energy in the coils.
Instead of the highly-focused directional electromagnetic burst they'd been designed for, the coils instead fired off in an almost random sequence as magnetic bands overlapped and twisted. The induction coils overloaded, triggering protective releases of their energy in a cascading effect that threw off all the careful precautions built into firing the system.
That cascade was still far more rapid than any of the designers would have expected. Instead of a single, powerful snap, it was a rapid sequenced chain of electromagnetic releases, each with a terawatt of magnetic energy release.
For the Cutthroat, the out of sequence release was merely devastating, as more than half the systems overloaded, burned out, and died. Power arced through the ship's hull and corridors as the coils released extremely powerful microwave bursts in random directions, in some cases using the ship's structure as amplifiers. Three quarters of the crew simply died, roasted alive in their seats before they even knew they were dead. The rest suffered such severe burns that they only lived for a few, agonizing minutes.
For Two-Finger's fighters, the effect was far worse. The high intensity microwave and radio wave burst created arcing throughout the fi
ghter and frigate systems... but more dangerously, they'd activated their Hellcat missiles, which meant that their warheads were armed and their safeties were disengaged.
The Hellcats contained highly sophisticated fission-fusion-fission nuclear warheads... but the controls for those system went into overload just like the other ships systems. On almost thirty percent of those warheads the built-in safeties still prevented premature detonation even in the face of such extreme abuse.
The other sixty-four nuclear warheads detonated in a chain of fifty megaton nuclear explosions, the vast majority either in contact with a ship on the external racks or in immediate proximity.
Forrest didn't know exactly what had happened. All he knew was that he'd fired and less than a heartbeat later, his entire screen lit up with a chain of massive detonations. “Woohoo! Look at those fireworks!”
Rory pushed a sensor tech out of the way and was analyzing the data. “I was right... I am brilliant.”
“Thank you, professor,” Commander Bowder said.
“No!” Rory looked up and shook his head, “you don't understand, I didn't think that would work!”
“Wait... what?”
“It was a long shot,” Feliks said. “Very low probability of actual success.”
Rory nodded, “Yeah, I mean I figured the Ensign there...”
“Lieutenant,” Forrest corrected automatically.
“...whatever,” Rory waved a hand, “I figured he'd just hit the ship. I didn't think it would actually work. But the magnetosphere is still within acceptable parameters and while those detonations didn't help things, they were well above the ionosphere and outside the magnetosphere, so while there's going to be some serious communications disturbance and some pretty lights... I think we didn't actually kill the planet.”
“Doctor,” the XO said ominously, “you gave me advice that might have wiped out all the higher order lifeforms on a planet... and you're admitting you thought we'd screw it up.”
“Well, yes,” Feliks said. “The odds of anyone making the shot close enough for the beams to disturb the magnetic fields without hitting the hull were astronomically low. It was far more likely that the ship would be destroyed and then we'd have to evacuate the planet.”