“That’s not a solution!” Jase declared.
“The Captain asked me to find a way to save the planet. This is the only idea I could come up with.”
Jase gave him an exasperated look. “But . . . we’re still dead!”
Izin seemed puzzled by Jase’s response. “I didn’t say it was a good idea.”
“We’ll do it,” I said. If all else failed, at least the planet’s population would be saved. “Now I’ve got another job for you, Izin. I want you to run a simulation for me.”
“A simulation, Captain?”
“I want to see how big a curveball we can throw, a spacetime curveball.”
Izin and the others listened with rising anxiety as I outlined my plan.
* * * *
The flight deck’s view screen filtered down the glow of the Soberano’s engines as we came up behind her. Keeping to starboard of her engine blast, we glided up to and around the spherical bulge of her stern, bringing the long straight wall formed by her cargo holds into view. The number three starboard cargo door was open, revealing a dark rectangular cavity, although at that extreme angle, not what lay within. If the cargo hold housed a naval gun, we were safely out of its field of fire while we hugged the super transport’s stern.
“That’s not the same cargo door she fired from on Deadwood,” Marie said.
“I’m taking no chances,” I said, nudging us up and over the Soberano, giving the open cargo door a wide berth.
Once clear of her weapons, we glided above the vast hull towards the smaller elongated sphere at her bow, watching for any sign of the super transport rolling to bring her big guns to bear. She remained rock steady, considering us no threat. No doubt, the Mataron’s had calculated at that speed, we couldn’t escape the Soberano’s fate. Once we reached the bow section, I followed the gentle curve of her hull around to her starboard airlock.
“Their auto-docker isn’t responding,” Jase announced.
“They’re just playing hard to get,” I said, switching our docking system from partner to the emergency solo mode. The big screen reset to the view from our port airlock, looking straight across to the Soberano. Vertical and horizontal calibration scales appeared over the center of the big freighter’s docking ring, guiding me towards a perfect alignment. Even though we were both moving through flat space at a small percentage of the speed of light, with our velocities matched we appeared to be floating motionless, side by side, making docking a simple procedure. We slid up against the Soberano, lightly kissed her hull and clamped onto her docking ring.
“She isn’t locking onto us from her side,” Jase warned.
“Our clamps will be enough.” I cut our engines and activated the intercom. “Izin, send a crawler back along the Soberano’s hull. Find out what’s in that open cargo hold.”
“It’ll take the crawler a few minutes to get back there,” Izin replied.
“How’s the drone coming along?”
“I’m removing the warhead now, Captain. I’ll have the distress beacon installed by the time you get back.”
The beacon would ensure that when the Tau Cetins came to investigate the destruction of Vintari II’s smaller moon, they’d find the drone. Izin had calculated if we launched it ninety seconds before impact, its high acceleration would allow it to avoid colliding with the planet’s atmosphere. The drone would be going too fast for any human ship to catch, but the TCs would have no trouble running it down. Once they took it apart, the Matarons would have a lot of explaining to do and mankind would be off the hook.
I threw a timer up onto the view screen, counting down from twenty four minutes, the time we had until both ships vaporized Vintari II’s smaller moon. Izin needed four minutes to seal the Codex into the drone and then we’d need a minute to prep it for launch. Once the hypervelocity drone was away, I wanted to give it a full two minutes to clear the planet, just to be safe.
“Keep reading the timer out to me,” I said. “I want to be back on board with seven minutes to spare.”
“You got it,” Jase said, glancing at the sandy colored world now beginning to fill the view screen.
“She’s all yours,” I said as I climbed out of my acceleration couch. “Spin her nice and easy.”
We were still facing in the same direction as the Soberano because we’d had to keep accelerating until we docked, to stay matched to the larger ship. Now that we were locked together, the super transport was towing us. Jase now had to rotate the Lining one hundred and eighty degrees around her port docking ring to point our bow towards the Soberano’s stern. Only then could he apply a trickle of thrust to pull the super transport around so its sixteen engines could nudge her sideways.
“It’ll be the slowest maneuver I ever pulled,” Jase said as he tapped his personal console, resetting it to helm control.
Marie followed me to the airlock. When I gave her a puzzled look, she said, “It’ll be faster if we do this together.”
“The Mataron SI has control of the Soberano,” I said, not wanting to worry about her while I was searching for the Codex.
“I’ll be careful,” she said, tapping the twin needle guns holstered at her hips. “The Soberano’s a big ship and you don’t even know where to look.”
She was right. It would be faster with two of us. “OK, but this is a grab and run. No delays no matter what else we find over there.”
“Hey, you know I’m a grab and run kind of girl,” she said with a beguiling smile, reminding me she’d already successfully stolen the Codex out from under my nose.
We reached the locker compartment adjoining the airlock and quickly changed into our pressure-suits, strapping our guns on over the top.
“Out of all the ways I thought I’d die,” Marie said, “crashing into a moon backwards wasn’t on the list.”
“It was number three on mine,” I said, reaching for my transparent pressure helmet.
Marie put her hand on my helmet, stopping me from fitting it, then pulled my head down to hers and kissed me. “In case that’s the last time.”
“It won’t be,” I promised, then we secured our helmets and cycled through the airlock into the Soberano.
We emerged into a dimly lit metal corridor. “I’m reading atmosphere,” I said, surprised the ship was still pressurized.
“Should we remove our helmets?”
“No.” There were plenty of chemicals aboard a ship like the Soberano that the Mataron SI could use to produce toxic gas. “Assume the air is unbreathable.”
“OK. Where to?”
The Soberano had one long passageway running the length of the bow section, dotted with ladders and companionways to other levels. The central corridor passed through airtight hatches into a pressurized walkway that ran through the cargo holds all the way back to the twin energy plants in her stern. I figured the vault would be in the forward section, where Vargis could keep his eye on it.
“If you find the vault first and it’s locked, call Izin.”
“A safe cracking tamph?” she said. “I have to get one of those.”
“You look for Vargis’ stateroom, I’ll search the bridge.”
“Yes sir,” she saluted. “And here I was thinking this was going to be fun.”
“This is how I have fun,” I said, knowing I was giving her orders, but she’d volunteered and time was running out.
We were almost halfway to the ship’s spine when Jase’s voice sounded in our earpieces. “Twenty minutes, Skipper.”
“Understood. How’s the spin going?”
“We’re at thirty one degrees,” Jase replied, “and the crawler’s nearly halfway to the open cargo door.”
When we reached the central passageway, we split up. Marie went aft towards crew country while I headed towards the bridge. Halfway there, I passed the ship’s armory. Its heavy security door was open and several of the gun rack’s cradles were empty.
“Marie,” I said activating my suit communicator and looking back along the central corridor
to where she was searching hatch to hatch. “There are rifles missing from the armory.”
“I’ll be careful,” she said before stepping out of sight into a compartment.
I hurried forward to the bridge. It was spacious compared to the Lining’s cramped flight deck, and was equipped with an immense view screen and lavish control consoles that would have made a navy survey ship’s commander envious. The only light came from the crew consoles and the view screen which displayed the approaching planet and the luminous orb of the Vintari star behind it. In several places, small circles of hissing white static marked where weapon’s fire had struck the screen, destroying fragile technology.
Vargis lay dead on the deck with a hole in his chest larger than my fist. The edges of the wound were charred black and the gun he wore was still in its shoulder holster. It was the first time I’d ever seen him carrying a weapon and the fact he wore it on the bridge indicated he knew there was danger aboard. Vargis might have been a Consortium lapdog, but he didn’t strike me as the kind of man who’d die without getting at least one shot away – yet that was exactly what had happened.
Four other bridge officers were dead from similar wounds. They’d barely begun to decompose, which in the ship’s sterile environment, told me they’d been dead at least a week. Whatever had hit them had been so hot, it had vaporized bone and flesh in an instant, cauterizing the interior of the wound and limiting the amount of blood that had spilled onto the deck.
I activated my communicator. “Vargis and his bridge crew are dead.”
“There are two more back here,” Marie said. “I’ve never seen wounds like these before.”
A female officer lay face down on the navigation station, shot precisely through the spine. The blast had continued across the bridge and struck the main screen where static now hissed. Beneath the drops of blood splattering her console, a collision alert was flashing. The ship should have been ringing with an alarm, but the siren had been disabled. A single bloody smudge marked where someone had disabled the alarm. Whoever had killed the crew had been here recently – after the autonav had become concerned about the ship’s collision course with the planet.
A short distance from the navigator’s body, another officer lay dead on the deck. A hole had been blasted through his shoulder and another between his eyes. His weapon, lying nearby, had been fired three times, although there was no sign he’d hit whoever had killed him. His wounds, like the navigator’s, showed a precision comparable to the best EIS eye-hand modded sharpshooters.
The helm display indicated the autonav was off and the ship was being flown manually, no doubt by the Mataron synthetic intelligence. Every ship system was on minimum power as all available energy was being fed to the engines. The ship’s internal lighting was low, but if everyone was dead, why have any lighting or atmosphere at all?
“Captain,” Izin’s voice sounded from my earpiece. “My hull crawler has reached the open cargo hold. There’s a small craft inside.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t recognize the hull geometry or the propulsion technology. It’s sealed itself to the inside of the cargo hold. It may have cut into the ship.”
If Izin didn’t recognize the ship in the Soberano’s cargo hold, it wasn’t human, which could mean only one thing.
“Marie, get back to the ship!”
“I’ve found something!”
“It’s too late. The Matarons are aboard. They killed the crew. Get out now!” I waited, but there was no response. “Marie, acknowledge.” When she didn’t reply, I said, “Jase, are you receiving her?”
He didn’t respond either.
WARNING! NON-HUMAN CONTACT! flashed from my threading into my mind.
My sniffer picked up movement behind me. Without looking back, I dived sideways as a flash illuminated the bridge and a wave of heat passed my shoulder. My threaded sensors tried locking onto what was shooting at me, but I already knew it was a Mataron. Unlike the encounter in Sarat’s penthouse, this snakehead was using his own weapons because he knew no energy signatures would survive the impact with Vintari II.
I stole a look over a crew console as a tall, slender form in a skin-tight black suit leapt agilely to the left. He had to stoop to prevent his triangular reptilian head striking the ceiling, then he swung his short barreled plasma rifle towards me and fired. I rolled behind a crew station as another flash threw sharp shadows across the bridge and a console exploded in sparks. Coming up on one knee, I fired twice, but the Mataron was moving so fast, my armor piercing slugs crashed harmlessly into the view screen, turning another section into white noise.
The Mataron leapt across the bridge, closing on me fast as we circled each other. Snakeheads were taller, faster and more agile than unmodded Homo sapiens, although they had weaknesses we didn’t – none of which helped me fighting one of their best at close range in a p-suit. I fired a blind shot as I darted away while my threading finally figured out the contact was a snakehead, then confirmed it wasn’t the same Mataron who’d nearly killed me on Icetop.
I knew his alien-tech was tracking me with precision. Fortunately he wasn’t carrying the kind of dampening field Sarat had used. It allowed my DNA sniffer and thermal optics to keep me in fight, revealing his movements when he was wasn’t silhouetted by the view screen. We both used the bridge consoles for cover, knowing that to stand still for a moment would be fatal. I fired into the darkness several times at a dim thermal blur, never having time to properly aim. He did the same, narrowly missing with each shot as he continually underestimated my speed. If he’d been fighting an unmodded human, every shot would have been a kill. Thankfully, against my ultra-reflexed agility, his timing was off – but he was learning fast.
The Mataron leapt in front of a damaged section of view screen, aiming ahead of me, trying to anticipate my moves, but I darted back the other way a moment before he fired. I sent another armor piercing slug his way through a console, striking the Mataron’s leg with a static electric spark – not the crack of shattering bone I’d hoped for. He stumbled, then leapt away unhurt. I fired again rapidly, seeing my slugs flash harmlessly against his skin shield. The AP slugs were like hammer blows, knocking him off balance but doing no real damage. I held fire for a moment, lowering my aim. When the snakehead turned to fire I blasted the plasma rifle out of his hands.
I’d guessed right! He was shielded, but his gun wasn’t!
The plasma rifle flashed as it hit the deck, then without hesitating, the Mataron charged, leaping as if to kick me but at the last moment, spinning in the air and whipping his thin flexible reptilian tail at my neck. I rolled away onto the deck as the tail cut the air with enough force to take my head off. The tail-whip would have killed a slower human, but my genetically engineered speed saved me again.
The Mataron landed gracefully and for a moment stood staring at me. I could no more read his expression than I could any non-human’s, but I sensed he was wary, confused by my speed.
“We know who you are human!” He said in a deep, synthesized male voice. “E – I – S!”
So much for Lena’s impenetrable security! “And you’re just another ugly snakehead.”
“I am Zatra e’Ktari and I am going to kill you,” he said, drawing his quantum blade from the angled chest scabbard in his body armor, the twin of the weapon I’d seen in Sarat’s penthouse. “It is a pity I’ll not be able to keep your head as a trophy, but I was never here.” He raised the Q-blade menacingly. “I will have to be satisfied with the memory of your death.”
I fired my P-50 at the quantum weapon, but the armor piercing slug vaporized on contact without even causing the blade to quiver.
“This is not a weapon you can destroy.”
“It was worth a try,” I said backing away. “Why are you here, on board the Soberano? Taking a big risk aren’t you?”
“The crew were going to destroy their own ship once they realized what was happening. We could not allow that.”
I gla
nced at the corpses of Vargis and his dead officers with new found respect – and rising anger. Even someone like Vargis would rather sacrifice his life than risk mankind violating the Access Treaty. I remembered they’d been dead a week, and wondered why the Mataron was still aboard?
“The Tau Cetins will figure it out.”
“They will find trace elements of two human ships and the ravings of a deluded, fanatic,” he said, then leapt forward, sweeping his Q-blade at me.
I jumped back out of reach, putting a crew console between us.
“You are fast for a human,” he said.
“You’re slow for a snakehead.”
“Many times I have killed simulated humans. None move like you.”
“Your simulations underestimate us.”
“I’ll see that is corrected.”
The Mataron charged again. When he was almost on me, rather than sweep the Q-blade, he lunged forward, trying to spear me. I took a fast step to the side, turned as the blade passed my chest and grabbed his black gloved hand. Even through his skin shield, I felt hard thin bones and strong sinewy muscle. He shifted his weight, trying to break out of my grip as his free hand lunged at my throat. I dodged, twisting the Mataron’s knife arm, locking the joint, then slammed the barrel of my P-50 against his elbow and fired. The armor piercing slug struck his skin-shield, unable to penetrate, but still breaking his elbow joint.
He grunted and tried pulling away. I dropped my P-50 and twisted his wrist with both my hands, turned the quantum blade into his chest. The Q-blade flashed against the Mataron’s skin-shield before slicing open a bloody tear in his armor. The tall reptilian staggered backwards, shocked. I slipped my foot behind his ankle, tripping him, then threw my weight on top, driving the deadly weapon into his lungs as we hit the deck. The Mataron grabbed my throat with his free hand, choking me as I forced the quantum blade down through his heavy spine into the deck plating.
Mapped Space 1: The Antaran Codex Page 27