Hegemony

by Kalina, Mark

  "It will take a some hours to bring us back on an intercept vector, but yes, Oversight Officer. They can't be that close to being able to initiate FTL. Just a matter of time.

  "Still, given their situation, their tactics are... very skilled," Grantsen finished.

  And very brave, he thought, careful not to send that thought into the interface link. They were doomed, but they didn't scatter, didn't give up... Instead they did their all to try to engage their enemy and hurt him, before they died. How could they do that? Could the undead... things that commanded those ships still have that sort of spirit? Not a safe thought to have, not even in the silence of his mind.

  Kill those two ships and finish it, he thought. Finish it.

  ---

  Almost time, Zandy thought. Almost time. The enemy lance-ship was coming close. So close! The closure rate was low, but range was getting close. It was almost time to light the drive, to use the interceptor's tiny supply of fission fuel in a short burst, to bring the lance-ship deep within the range of her warheads.

  The enemy interceptors were far past her now, getting close to the Whisperknife. The void-runner swift-ship had nothing like the laser power to defend against a three-interceptor attack. She'd deploy warheads to try to engage the inbound interceptors, but the closure rate of an interceptor attack was too high for easy anti-interceptor fire. Whisperknife had less than a minute to live... if this didn't work.

  As soon as she lit her drives, the lance-ship would detect her, and then the secondary laser arrays would be on her. A properly focused pulse would explode her interceptor body like shattering glass with a hammer. Her fission fuel acceleration and her bow-shields would have to keep her alive, till her warheads were away. After that...

  After that, she'd probably join her friends. Her dead friends.

  Oh, Pixie, Zandy thought. It was hard to really believe she was gone. And Handric, and Shank... Even Wimms, Katerzi... Slobo, Tanner... Executive Officer Psan... and Captain Ari-Kani... All of them. In a way, Zandy almost wanted to follow them. But that wouldn't do. Not just yet. Not till those warheads were away.

  Now! Zandy thought, and lit her fission drive.

  ---

  "Contact!" screamed the signal from the sensors officer, flashing the data feed to maximum priority.

  Grantsen had watched his interceptor salvo closing in. There was nothing the strange little swift-ship could do; interposing its drive plume, deploying warheads. He would have done all of that, expected the enemy captain to do the same, and it wouldn't matter.

  The sudden contact data froze Grantsen for a second. A second could be a long time in a space battle. There was a contact, a drive flare, at only 11,000 kilometers! So close? A warhead? Too large...

  The command to engage with secondary and tertiary laser arrays flashed out through the interface. But the target was evading, accelerating at over seventy gees on an irregular spiraling vector that made exact targeting difficult.

  An interceptor! Grantsen realized. How? Not possible. It was within warhead range already!

  "Maximum priority," he commanded into the interface, "engage enemy interceptor! Emergency maneuver! Interpose the bow-shields!"

  "Commander, that will bring the PLAs out of line to power our interceptor salvo," sent Executive Officer Wannel, but Grantsen overrode the protest.

  Grantsen could feel the lurch as the Swift Liberty fired maneuvering thrusters at full power to bring the ship around. The bow-shields were coming into line. If they were interposed in time, the Swift Liberty had a good chance of surviving...

  Everything shook in a series of intense, impossibly rapid, impossibly brief moments, as the shockwaves of the x-ray laser pulses from the enemy warheads smashed into the Swift Liberty.

  ---

  "Got her!" exclaimed Nas. It was impossible to shout at high gees, with the life-support mask and the acceleration gel encasing him. But he came close.

  The lance-ship's drive plume was sputtering and dying. The flares of the nuclear detonations of the warheads faded to show the huge enemy ship beginning to tumble, venting air and debris from the shattering impacts of the coherent x-ray blasts that the warheads had pumped into her.

  "Past the bow-shields!" he exulted. Those shots had come in angling to miss the bow-shields; right into the hull. Thick composite-and-alloy armor would have met the pulses of x-ray laser energy, but at that range, pumped by megaton-yield warheads, no amount of armor was enough. The material of the armor would have become the leading edge of the blast wave as it absorbed so much energy that solid matter exploded.

  "Warez," Nas sent. "Do you have a read on the interceptor? Did she make it?"

  "Can't tell with all that flash and debris."

  "Damn. OK, never mind. Xulios, stand by with the lasers and the fire plan. Enemy interceptors are still inbound. They're coming in on fission drive..." Nas sent.

  Whisperknife was already tail-on to the inbound interceptor salvo, interposing her drive plume. Now Nas slewed the ship, accelerating at 90 degrees off the old vector. The interceptors were more than an order of magnitude faster than the Whisperknife's best acceleration, but their endurance, their delta-vee, was tiny. Making them use up that endurance to match his maneuver, giving his gunnery more time, was the best he could do. With no laser power to drive them, the interceptors were no longer certain death bearing down on his ship, but they were still a danger.

  The three Coalition interceptors were burning hard to maintain the intercept and still keep the Whisperknife's main laser array from getting a proper targeting solution. There were just seconds left till they entered the effective launch envelope of their own warheads.

  Xulios' lasers had a hard job to do. It was easy enough to track an extended duration laser pulse across an evading interceptor, but getting the perfect focus needed for a killing, high-intensity pulse was almost impossible. With their bow-shields deployed, the enemy interceptors could mitigate the damage his laser could do, at least till they ran out of ablative polymer for the bow shields, or till a laser pulse got in without having to go through the bow-shields first.

  "Fire plan... now, Xulios," Nas sent.

  "On the way," came the reply.

  The main laser array was firing constantly, putting energy down on the inbound interceptors, boiling off polymer from their bow-shields, dumping heat into their systems that their limited radiators couldn't get rid of. But too slowly. They would be in range in...

  The three anti-ship warheads Whisperknife had deployed as she boosted away from the interceptors, her "fire plan," detonated as the interceptors swept past them. The warheads had drifted, falling behind the ship as it continued to accelerate. The enemy interceptors, with their limited sensors blinded by the swift-ship's lasers, had not even detected the launch.

  These anti-ship warheads were not military grade weapons; they were oversized and bulky, their targeting was not as advanced as a proper anti-interceptor warhead's and their nuclear devices not as effective. At point-blank range, they worked well enough, and they were anti-ship warheads at that, with multi-hundred kiloton yields, meant to damage large ships through thick armor and bow-shields. Each warhead's lasing rods generated a dozen pulses of x-ray laser energy in the nanosecond before they vaporized in the nuclear explosion that gave them power. Most of the pulses missed. One interceptor was lit by two pulses and exploded as x-ray laser energy turned its hull to plasma. Another caught a single pulse that shattered it into an expanding cloud of metal and composite confetti. The third caught only the edge of a pulse.

  "One still inbound," came the signal from Warez.

  "On it," sent Xulios as the Whisperknife's laser array kept firing. "Venting coolant," he added. The laser was getting dangerously overheated.

  "He's in warhead range," came the warning from Warez; the crew were operating though their neural interfaces and seconds felt like they were hours long.

  "He's past us," Warez sent. "No warhead launch."

  "Fuck," said Senny, subvoc
alizing into the interface. "He must have gotten cooked by the pulse..."

  "Xulios," sent Nas. "He's ballistic. Take him-- no, never mind. Let him drift. He's got no delta-vee to come at us again."

  "Roger, Captain. Lasers are near melted anyway. Fuck."

  The Whisperknife was suddenly silent as Nas cut the drive, leaving the ship drifting in free-fall. The release of pressure from acceleration was a relief, even still encased in the acceleration gel of the command pods.

  "Captain," said Warez. "I'm getting a signal... its from the interceptor. From Zandy."

  "Roger," said Nas, and smiled into his life-support mask.

  ---

  "Too predictable," said Commander Grantsen. "We were too predictable." He turned his video feed to display the oversight officer's command pod. Segan Steven was still in his pod, but no longer encased in life-support gear and acceleration gel.

  "The attack you ordered me to make was too predictable," Grantsen said.

  The bridge of the Coalition lance-ship Swift Liberty was still intact. The same could not be said of the ship. Damage warnings were streaming in through the interface data feeds.

  The plasma drive was down. The singularity reactor had not shut down, but Grantsen's displays showed the inexorable increase in the instability of the singularity. Most of the stabilization systems were down, destroyed. Wannel had gone to supervise a desperate attempt at emergency repair, before they lost the singularity.

  Then there was the rest of the ship. Vast jagged holes had been torn in her hull, venting air and debris. There was no contact with Primary Medical. Secondary Medical was reporting a flood of casualties: thermal and radiation burns, vacuum injuries, fragmentation injuries, injuries from blast overpressure. His people. His crew.

  "I ordered?" said Segan.

  "Yes, you ordered, you red-coated buffoon!" yelled Grantsen with sudden fury. "You overrode my plan. I was going to come in close enough to finish it without giving them a chance for something like this. Point-blank... We would have taken some damage, but the outcome would have been certain!"

  "Commander! You..." Segan's voice rose, grasping for authority.

  "Shut up!" snapped Grantsen, and Segan was briefly silent.

  "It does not matter anyway," Grantsen said, suddenly quiet. "It does not matter."

  "You think you can talk to me like that?" Segan said, almost hissing with unexpected rage.

  "What does it matter how I talk to you, you fool?"

  "Do you know? Do you understand who I am?" Segan felt himself sputter. He was out of control. Both he and the commander were out of control, and he had to reestablish control quickly, Segan knew.

  "Do you understand our situation, Oversight Officer?" Grantsen asked mildly.

  "Don't--"

  "We've been disabled," Grantsen went on, talking over the other man. "We're going to lose the singularity in another few minutes, and then we'll be down to the emergency fission reactors for power. So we can't run, even if we can get the plasma drive back on line. And of course, no FTL."

  Segan was suddenly silent.

  "There are two Hegemony ships in the system. Both have FTL capability. I expect the undamaged one is no more than twenty or thirty hours from being able to initiate an FTL transit... That's based on the data our sensor drones gave us when we emerged into this system..."

  "No," Segan said.

  "When that ship goes for help..."

  "No," Segan repeated. Not like this, he thought. It was one thing to take risks for the Coalition... to take chances... The rewards for success were almost limitless for the oversight officer of a prominent mission that succeeded... influence... power...

  "They could bring in another ship, maybe a lance-ship, here, within a few hours of making their FLT transit," Grantsen said, smiling coldly at the vid-image of the oversight officer.

  "And we have no way to resist or escape," Grantsen finished.

  ---

  "There she goes," said Warez.

  The flash of the Coalition ship's detonation wasn't as bright as a singularity drive failure, Nas saw. Nuclear self-destruct charge, he figured.

  "Just like you predicted, Captain," said Ylayn, stretching now that she was free from her acceleration pod.

  "Orders, Captain?" asked Senny.

  "Take over navigation. I want a break... Give me a nice, comfortable vector for the interceptor," Nas said with a smile. "No hurry."

  It was really only fair, he thought. This battle had cost the Whisperknife a lot of ordinance, a lot of money. A modern Hegemonic Fleet interceptor, in almost perfect condition, would go a long way to balancing accounts.

  "Signal from the Ice Knife," said Warez.

  "Sure," said Nas, "put it through."

  "Captain Killick," came Freya Tralk's voice. "Good... better than good, work. That was... really something."

  "You're right," Nas said, still smiling. "It was. Go ahead and tell me your Hegemony could have pulled something like that off."

  "I was going to say, what you did was in the finest tradition of the Hegemonic Fleet."

  "Well. I'll take that in the spirit it was meant, Captain. And I hope you'll take it in the spirit I mean it when I say, fuck off. I don't do anything in the traditions of the Hegemonic Fleet. On the other hand, I accept the implicit compliment."

  "I... see. Very well. It will take us some time to prepare for an FTL transit. When we're ready, I'd like you to coordinate with us. We'll escort your ship back... just to make sure there are no misunderstandings from our side. At this point, I think I can confidently promise that you will get your bounty."

  "Thank you, Captain Tralk. I think you mean that, and I appreciate it. I really do."

  "In my opinion, Captain Killick, you have earned it. Meanwhile, you can shut down your drive. Ice Knife will pick up our interceptor."

  "No, Captain Tralk. Ice Knife will not. Thank you for the promise of a bounty, but like you said, you're not the one in charge. I really do believe you'd see me get a reward. Maybe even a big one. But the Hegemonic authorities? Don't forget who, and what, I am. I think, with all your efforts, I'd be lucky to get away with my life and my crew. I doubt they'd let me keep my ship.

  "So, no. I'm going to let the chance for the bounty go, I think. But the interceptor will make a decent reward in the mean time. Like you said, we've earned it. And we expended a lot of valuable warheads on this fight, so it's even fair, making sure we at least break even."

  "Captain Killick," said Freya, "I sorry, but I cannot allow that!"

  "Don't bother to protest, Demi-Captain Tralk," Nas said. "You can't actually stop me. And you owe me. Don't worry. I'll let your pilot link back to your ship... if she wants."

  "Shut down the link to the Ice Knife, Warez. I think we've heard enough for now," Nas said, turning back to his crew. There were brightening smiles on their faces. Ylayn's carnivorous grin was feral.

  "Now," Nas said, "give me a link to the interceptor."

  "Yes, Captain."

  "Zandy..."

  "Captain Killick," came the reply.

  "How are you?"

  "Intact. No serious damage, actually. A little thermal shock in the hull, some sensors burned out. They didn't get too much laser energy on me."

  "That was a hell of an attack run, Zandy," Nas said. "Fucking beautiful."

  "I made it. They didn't. I guess I got revenge."

  "Yeah, revenge..." Nas said. There was a long pause.

  "You're going to steal this 'ceptor, Captain Tralk tells me," Zandy said, finally. Her voice didn't sound too upset about the idea.

  "Yup. I earned it. My crew earned it. It's a valuable piece of gear. An intact Hegemonic Fleet interceptor, a modern one, is worth more than the warheads I expended. Don't worry, you can get back to the Ice Knife. I'm not trying to kidnap you."

  "Oh. Right, OK."

  "On the other hand, not that I expect you to say yes... but if you want, you've got a place on my ship... Fuck, I've got all sorts of freaks in my crew.
A daemon would fit right in."

  "I guess I'm flattered," Zandy said, "but you already know the answer."

  "I guess I do," Nas said, and terminated the connection.

  Whisperknife drifted, the crew resting in free-fall after the tense high-gee battle-maneuvers trapped in their acceleration pods. The interceptor was close now. There could be a little trouble if the pilot tried to evade their docking attempt, but her delta-vee was very limited. Perhaps it would be better to send the shuttle to collect the interceptor, Nas thought. That way there would be no temptation for Zandy to try to damage the Whisperknife in some desperate, duty-bound attempt at keeping the interceptor out of void-runner hands.

  There was a communications request tugging at his attention, coming from the interceptor. Nas accepted the link.

  "Nas," came Zandy's voice.

  "That should be 'Captain' to you, Zandy," Nas answered, though there was no real annoyance in his voice.

  "Why? I didn't sign on with your crew. But anyway, fine, Captain, I'd like you to do me a favor."

  "Maybe. But if it's about not picking up the 'ceptor, forget it. For that matter, why haven't you linked back to Ice Knife?"

  "I've got a reason. And no, my favor's not that. I'd like you to link into a VR. Your ship can't receive the hyper-bandwidth signal from this 'ceptor to get me back in to the biosim I left on your ship, and I don't really like talking over a data-link... I'd like to talk to you 'face to face...' if that isn't too much of a joke..."

  "No. I think I understand. A bit odd for a daemon, maybe."

  "Sure, a bit odd."

  "Actually, I think I understand pretty well. Sure, I'll link in to your VR."

  Nas had a virtual reality persona stored in his personal data unit. It was not something he used often, but once in a while he would conduct meeting in a VR. He had not lavished time or money on his VR persona, but Ylayn had made a bit of a project of it; she liked to indulge in a high fidelity VR, and sometimes convinced Nas to come along, using the high quality persona she had crafted for him.

  Nas unspooled a data cable from his command pod and linked in, accepting the data stream beaming in from Zandy's interceptor. He did not expect much from the tiny little fighter's computer, but it would be enough to manage a conversation.