by Kalina, Mark
At least she knew her mission now. At least that was clear. First was to try for the rescue of a possible survivor. It was going to take a substantial vector change to get within reliable comm-laser range of that lone interceptor, but the swift-ships could do it. Reaction mass was getting very low, but she still had enough to try for the rescue. After that, it would be time to start thinking about refueling. So long as she had enough delta-vee available to kill her vector when she made the FTL transit back to the Yuro system, she would have no trouble rendezvousing with a fuel tanker.
But there were things to do before that happened. Captain Meryl of the Skyrunner had wanted to attack the last lance-ship, and if she had three or four swift-ships, she might have succumbed to the temptation. Swift-ships could attack a larger ship, building up a high closing vector and deploying dozens of heavy anti-ship warheads. A swift-ship had far more firepower than an interceptor, but with an emergency maximum sustained acceleration of less than nine gees, they could not evade enemy lasers. An interceptor could change its vector so radically that, given laser blinding of enemy sensors, the tracking mechanisms that steered a hostile laser array were hard pressed to lock onto one. A swift-ship had no such defense. Its bow-shields were stronger, but its only real hope for surviving an attack was to build up a huge inbound vector and deploy a wide spread of warheads, and then to break off. If it went well, that would force a defending ship to concentrate its fire on trying to shoot down the inbound anti-ship warheads, leaving the swift-ships to escape. In the best case, some of those warheads would get through even so. But that required enough swift-ships to deploy a huge shoal of anti-ship warheads. With only two ships she would have to get too close to make an attack count and would have nowhere near enough firepower to survive the attack run. There was no way she was going to order an attack. There was something else she had to do.
From the moment that the fact of the Conquering Sun's destruction had finally penetrated into her stunned mind, she had seen her mission with a superb clarity that Captain Ari-Kani would have probably approved of. She had to find out about the unprecedented weapon that had killed the assault-ship, and she had to get that information away to higher authority. And now, finally, she knew how to do it.
In a way, the Coaly's use of his seemingly impossible interceptor salvo had been tactically brilliant and strategically foolish. Brilliant in the way he had lured in the high value assault-ship for destruction, even at the cost of one of the Coalition lance-ships; a very favorable exchange. Foolish in that the unsupported lance-ship could not hope to catch two well-handled swift-ships. The secret of the new weapon, at very least the fact that it existed, would be out now, unless some other secret weapon could enable the surviving lance-ship to catch her.
But her task was not merely to escape, running with a tale of woe, much like the freight-liner Ulia's Flower had done. She needed more information. She needed a close look at that lance-ship; close enough that Fleet Intelligence could begin to make sense of her unprecedented armament. And that was a task purpose-made for a swift-ship.
Her initial plan, after she had squelched a desire to make an attack run just as that idiot Meryl still wanted to do, was to send Ice Knife and Skyrunner on a vector dangerously close to the surviving lance-ship. She planned to have the two swift-ships pass on opposite sides of the enemy, limiting his ability to concentrate laser power to blind them both. If they used most of their reaction mass to build a fast vector, the odds at least one of the swift-ships surviving were not too bad... especially if the enemy was damaged.
But Skyrunner's captain's obstinate insistence on a retaliatory attack made that option unworkable. She could not trust him to refrain from some desperate attempt at vengeance if the lance-ship killed Ice Knife.
But she had to get that data. A close look might give her the secret of how a lance-ship had matched the firepower of an assault ship. It was data she had to have... data the Hegemony of Suns had to have. Because unless she missed her guess, the Hegemony and the Coalition were at war.
8
Commander Grantsen took a deep breath. That was possible now that the ship was drifting with no acceleration. The command pod had released him from the prison of engulfing acceleration gel and neural interface in which he had fought the battle.
The alarms were silent now, though vid-screens in his command pod showed flashing damage warnings in a half dozen places aboard the Coalition lance-ship Swift Liberty.
We made it, Grantsen thought. We live. Others die but we live. The Righteous Justice was gone. Three hundred crew, gone. Ship-commander Tanaka Laura, an old comrade, gone. Twenty-three of his own crew, gone; victims of hits that his ship had suffered. And the damned oversight officer was still alive.
But the enemy assault-ship was gone too. A Hegemonic assault-ship, one of the monarchs of their space fleet, and he had killed it. It was an amazing victory. And even though the Righteous Justice was gone, it was still a vindication of the new weapons system.
In a way, it was almost better that the two little swift-ships had seen it, and would report. They were too far away to see the details of his ship; they could not bring back information on how he had destroyed the assault-ship. But they would report the fact that he had. How would the Hegemony react to that? How would they guard themselves, when, as far as they knew, every Coalition lance-ship might be able to destroy an assault-ship? Something like that could hurt them, could undermine the fear with which the ghouls who ruled the Hegemony dominated the living humans under their control.
The two swift-ships were too far away too worry about, now. They had lit their drives and boosted hard on a vector that was almost reciprocal to his. He did not know why they had not simply made an FTL transit to carry the news of their defeat, but they were streaking away from him at more than two percent of the speed of light, more than twenty million kilometers away already.
As soon as damage control was done doing what they could, he would initiate an FTL transit. His ship needed more reaction mass, and time for more extensive repairs. His crew could not make good all the damage, but he suspected that the ship could be brought to better than 90% readiness, given enough time. He could do nothing here, though. As soon as those swift-ships were gone, he would have to expect another enemy force, and the fact was that while the enemy might think he had an assault-ship's firepower, at this point he would be badly endangered by a squadron of swift-ships. In another few hours, he would take the Swift Liberty to a pre-selected, empty system, where no Hegemony ship would bother him.
---
"Captain, we're coming up on the point of closest approach to the disabled interceptor," said the sensors officer.
"Roger that," said Freya. She actually said it; for the next hour, her crew were back in their humanoid avatars, as Ice Knife drifted, letting her drives cool down and giving the repair microbot swarms time to fix dozens of minor systems that had degraded under the stress of prolonged high acceleration.
"Initiate a hyper-bandwidth data link. Get the pilot aboard."
"Roger, Captain," said the comm officer. "I'm setting up the link... It's not going to be easy. Range is better than five million. It's getting lossy."
"Get it done. Commit as much processor resources as you need, short of shutting down the ship."
"Understood, Captain," said the communications officer.
There was a moment of distortion in her data feeds as the computing power of the Ice Knife was briefly re-tasked to pick up the distant signal, leaving dozens of other systems in low-performance mode, and then the feeds regained their sharp edges.
"We've got it!" said Comm. "It's a daemon! Like we thought, it's one of the Conquering Sun's interceptor pilots."
"Good work," said Freya. "I assume you have the daemon in a neural net?"
"We've got it, Captain," came the voice of the medical officer. "We've got her in a ultra-low speed neural net for now. ID reads 'Deputy Wave Leader / Interceptor Pilot Alekzandra Neel; Sigma-99-Alpha-29-Theta-22
, Conquering Sun.' As soon as we can prep a backup avatar we'll transfer her over. For now, I don't want to risk any extra psychological trauma."
"Understood," said Freya. "We'll be going to full acceleration in just under an hour. Do what you can."
Freya focused on her data feeds again. "Communications," she said, "get me a tight-beam to the Skyrunner."
"Captain Tralk," said Meryl.
"Captain Meryl. Are you ready to execute?"
"I am ready, Captain. I've already logged my concerns about your plan. If it succeeds it will be brilliant," he said, voice grudging, "but it has a low probability of success."
"That's my problem, Captain Meryl."
"Then Skyrunner is ready and standing by, Captain Tralk. Good luck."
Freya terminated the comm-link and smiled tightly. Meryl was an arrogant gob, but he would do his part.
She turned to Muir. "You ready?"
"Sure, Captain. Back into the neural net we go."
"Not that. Are you ready with the plan?"
"Yes, Captain."
"It's going to be tricky."
"I know, Captain. I can do it."
"Confidence is good, Muir, but..."
"Captain, you know I don't make confident noises if I'm not confident. Barring false modesty, I'm one of the best FTL navigators in the Fleet. I can do it."
---
Oversight Officer Segan Steven watched the receding swift-ships. They were over ten light seconds away, and getting further every moment. They were splitting up, but he could not see how that mattered. They were all that was left of Hegemonic presence in this system, and in his mind Segan was tempted to consider the system liberated from the Hegemony's corrupt power. That was a silly thought, he knew. The Swift Liberty would not be staying. And for that matter, the empty system was not worth having. Killing an enemy assault-ship though... that was worth everything.
It had been a near thing, Segan knew, but the mission had succeeded brilliantly. The new weapon system was proven, and the faction behind it would reap the benefits while those opposed would, as corollary, suffer a loss of influence and status. All that was to the good.
The alarm caught Segan by surprise, so that he heard the sharp audible tone before he thought to focus on the data feed.
The last hour had been harrowing, and this latest surprise was enough to break through his facade.
"What the hell?" he exclaimed.
"FTL emergence! At eighty thousand kilometers!" came a shout from the sensors officer.
"Right on top of us," said the commander, softly. Then, "All laser arrays, stand by for point defense!"
"What is it?" asked Segan.
"It's a swift-ship," said the sensors officer.
"Battlestations!" said the commander. "Designate the new contact 'Delta.'"
Segan quickly lowered himself back into his command pod. If the Swift Liberty had to accelerate hard he wanted to be inside the pod, protected by acceleration gel. He focused on the data feeds now; there was no time to ask questions.
"I've got an FTL initiation from contact Gamma!" sent the sensors officer, through the data feed. It was aimed at the commander, but Segan could monitor any data feed aboard the ship.
"God damn!" said the commander; an exclamation into the data feed. Segan frowned at the outburst. An enemy swift-ship had FTL'd in right on top of them, and one of the other swift-ships had FTL'd out...
"Redesignate contact 'Delta' to 'Gamma!' It's the same ship!" said the commander, and Segan started, suddenly understanding.
Of course! Segan thought. It had taken the Swift Liberty more than ten seconds to see the FTL initiation of the swift-ship; it was more than ten light seconds away... so that data reached them after they had seen the same ship emerge from FTL, much closer to them. The astounding thing was how closely and precisely the enemy had managed the FTL emergence.
"Contact Delta-- I mean, contact Gamma has deployed sensor drones. Contact Gamma has lit its drive," reported Sensors.
"Sensors, give me a full scan with radar and LIDAR; if the contact launches more drones or warheads I want to know it. Weapons, engage the contact with the primary laser arrays. Maybe we can cause an overheat or some local burn-throughs. Set the secondary arrays to stand by to engage enemy warheads or sensor drones. Deploy the bow-shields. Stand by for maneuver." The commander's orders were calm again, coming through the data feed in quick succession.
"Destroy it!" commanded Segan, breaking into the commander's data feed as the command pods once more sealed the bridge crew in acceleration gel.
"There's no way to," said the commander, and fed Segan a three-dee model of the situation by way of explanation.
Segan could see the inbound swift-ship, closing in at almost two thousand KPS. That put the closest point of approach in less than 30 seconds and well outside of killing range for the Swift Liberty's lasers. The enemy already had their bow-shields deployed and angled to face the lance-ship. Segan could even see why the commander had not bother to launch interceptors; even at maximum acceleration, they would never reach the enemy before it had swept past, hurtling out of range. It was infuriating.
"Launch warning! Contact Gamma has launched! Inbound warheads and sensor drones!" came the call from Sensors.
"Primary laser arrays, engage the enemy warheads," ordered the commander.
The enemy swift-ship had used its unprecedented approach to avoid the salvo of interceptors that would normally have killed such a small ship trying to get within warhead range of the Swift Liberty. Now the little warship had fired dozens of heavy anti-ship warheads, mixed in with sensor drones. The warhead's short duration pulse-drives flared, flashing like a cloud of fireflies.
Segan could see the vector projections; at their closest point of approach the warheads were going to get just within the edge of the maximum warhead range of the Swift Liberty. There was a sudden slam of force as the Swift Liberty's drives fired, bringing the lance-ship to face the enemy attack with her bow-shields. Those were damaged, Segan knew, but should be able to hold off the warheads' detonation lasers from this range; the enemy ship would have had to get much closer for the warheads to be able to blast thought a lance-ship's bow shields, and, at that range, the lance-ship's own lasers could have focused killing energy on the little swift-ship.
The sensors picture wasn't perfectly clear; the two ships were lasing each other, and pumping out focused radio energy to jam radars. The lance-ship was firing its primary and secondary lasers, swatting enemy warheads as they hurtled in towards the maximum range at which their detonation-pumped lasers could deliver damaging energy densities. That let the enemy swift-ship off the hook, sparing it the damage that the primary laser arrays could do, even at this long range. The Swift Liberty was less effective than a conventional lance-ship in this, with only half the PLAs.
Effective enough. Some of the enemy warheads got through the point defenses, but at the extreme range the detonation lasers were not enough to penetrate even the damaged bow-shields of the Swift Liberty. Segan felt the faint shock as the X-ray laser pulses vaporized ablative polymer from the surface of the bow-shields, but there was no actual damage done.
The enemy swift-ship was past them now, receding at more than two thousand kilometers per second, flipping end for end to keep its bow-shields aimed at the lance-ship. Interceptors fired now would never be able to catch it. Even if they had fired interceptors as soon as they saw the enemy, the parameters of this intercept meant that they could not have reached their target, Segan admitted to himself.
The little unexpected battle was over now, and Segan relaxed as the acceleration pod released him.
"God damn them, that was sharp!" said the commander.
"What do you mean, Commander Grantsen?" said Segan.
"What that bastard did... God damn them!"
"Commander Grantsen, I am dismayed to see you not in control of yourself," said Segan. It was time to resume the persona, and also to rein in the commander.
"You are correct, of course, Oversight Officer. But the enemy's tactics were utterly... unorthodox, and very effective."
"How do you mean? Their attack failed utterly. I suppose it was daring, if such a concept as daring can even be applied to the things that operate Hegemony warships..."
"Contact Beta has initiated FTL," came a report from the Sensors officer.
"As expected," said the commander, wearily. The other swift-ship, the one that had not just buzzed past the Swift Liberty, had gone FTL, most likely leaving the system. The swift-ship that was streaking away from them now would take something like a hundred hours, maybe more, to re-stabilize its singularity before it could initiate FTL.
"What do you mean, Commander?" Segan asked, but at the edge of his thoughts he began to understand... It was a sinking feeling.
The commander's words confirmed it. "They weren't trying to attack us. They were making a sensors pass, made a sensors pass, as close as thirty-seven thousand kilometers. And I'm almost certain that some of their sensor drones escaped our blinding. We kept the bow-shields facing them, but they likely had drones leading and trailing their warheads. The detonations of the warheads could have masked some of the drones' maneuvers. It is all too likely, Oversight Officer, that the enemy got a very good look at our ship, and then sent that information to the other swift-ship... which has just made an FTL transit to send the information back to the Hegemony."
Segan was silent.
"Like I said," ground out the commander, "sharp bastards."
9
Nas Killick pressed broad shoulders against the rough splotchy wall of the Fortunate Landing Bar & Lounge and settled in to wait. One leg was stretched out in front of him, booted foot propped up on the chair opposite him. The other leg had a holstered heavy pulse-laser pistol strapped to the thigh. Nas watched the crowd and took in the rhythm of the music from the stage. It was something local, and played by two live musicians, not the usual audio data feed with euphorics mixed in. That suited Nas just fine.