Moral High Ground: Crew of the Ninja #1

by Joseph Bradshire

  “Don’t worry. Sam will know what to do,” Jon said.

  Jon strapped into the sensor station while adjusting the scopes to track the two destroyers in a blocking orbit directly overhead. He also searched for any other vessels in position to interfere. There were a few Cao naval vessels, mostly smaller escorts, nothing with enough firepower to be a problem.

  With the sensors jammed Jon couldn’t be sure where the bulk of the Cao system fleet was located. Generally, they were scattered about the system in squadrons of 3-4 escort sized ships anchored by a cruiser. They provided fast reaction security and emergency services to the various outposts and mining operations in the Cao system.

  Unless Lee Sang-Hun had a lot more pull than he knew the regular Cao fleet should remain neutral. He hoped.

  The destroyers though, they had to be mercs. Maybe jumped up pirates. Loyal to whoever was paying them. They were deadly but would probably back down if it came to a fire fight with the Lord’s Justice.

  Probably. Maybe. He hoped. Jon hated basing his plans on so many suppositions.

  Weston broke Jon out of his thoughts.

  “Jon you are going to get us killed. I shouldn’t have let you be captain.” Weston was starting to panic, his voice tremoring.

  This was bad. He couldn’t have a mutiny now. Mutiny was the wrong word though. Technically this was Weston’s vessel. Technically their mission had ended when they dropped off Young Rae.

  Technicalities be damned. Jon was about to make an angry retort. Snapping Weston back into place like he would a half trained zero on a Battlefleet warship when Young Rae came onto the bridge.

  She had a med kit in her hand, pulling out the plasti-skin sprayer.

  “Weston,” Young Rae said. “Do you really wish to assume responsibility of captain right now?”

  Perfect. Leave it to Young Rae to ask a Socratic question that cut right through to the point.

  The answer was obvious.

  “No. Of course not,” Weston answered. “It’s just, we have warships overhead, we could lose everything and be killed. Look at Jon. He’s bleeding all over.”

  Without a word Young Rae grabbed Jon’s wrist, lifted his bloody hand, and cleaned the blood off with a sterile cloth. Then she sprayed plasti-skin over the area. It would seal and sanitize the wound, accelerating healing. Jon flexed his hand a few times, the plasti-skin held. Without sutures there’d be an impressive scar but otherwise it would be fine.

  “See,” Young Rae said to Weston. “No more blood.”

  Weston was starting to calm down. His face still flushed but he was thinking again.

  “I wouldn’t know how to get us out of this anyway.” Not exactly an endorsement but Jon took it for one.

  “Good,” Jon said. “Let’s get to it then. Everyone strap in tight. Jeff, blast off.”

  Tan Verakul strapped in to one of the wall seats near the hatch to the bridge. Staying out of the way, as he was told. Jon made sure he and Young Rae were secured before giving the next orders.

  “Jeff, keep the Lord’s Justice between us and those destroyers. Try to get around the horizon on them.”

  Jeff complied. Zealously. He kicked the Ninja’s thrusters to maximum rocking everyone back in their cushions. Pushing through atmosphere at that acceleration caused massive turbulence that the gravity dampeners couldn’t sort out. The chaos was too much, so the crew of the Ninja was jostled and vibrated.

  Jon heard Weston’s teeth rattle together, he’d forgotten to tighten his jaw. Jon made a mental note to invest in mouth pieces for everyone, assuming they made it out alive.

  He looked over at Young Rae who was doing her best to hold on to her chair, hair flipping into her face, blinding her. Jon should have told her to tie it back. He made another mental note.

  Tan had his eyes closed, groaning.

  Of all of them, Jeff was fine. His biology helped, his aquatic modification made him more tolerant of pressure and g-force changes. He also had the advantage of the high gravity upbringing on Cornhaul.

  As they blasted toward the horizon, trying to keep the Lord’s Justice between them and the pursuing destroyers, they moved out of the jamming field that had disabled their coms.

  As they climbed higher into the atmosphere the buffeting lessened to a dull roar. They could hear the com panel chirping. It was Cao hyperwave station and traffic control.

  “Independent Merchant Ship Ninja. You are to abide by atmospheric speed limits or you will be detained and/or fined. Please respond.”

  Before Young Rae could respond, Tan leaned in, speaking in Cao. “This is Lee Tan Verakul requesting emergency consideration. We are being pursued, illegally, by two mercenary destroyers working for Lee Sang-Hun. We just witnessed Sang-Hun’s men murder several monks during a dueling ceremony. We request official protection as witnesses to this crime.”

  Young Rae translated for Jon while they waited for a response. Another voice came over the com, someone with the sure voice of authority.

  Young Rae translated. “That was the head of system security. They’ve granted our request for protection while they investigate. They’ve sent us coordinates to rendezvous with a military squadron sunward.”

  Great. They wanted the Ninja to proceed deeper into the grav well. Closer to the primary where it would be harder to escape to jump distance. That wasn’t going to happen.

  Jon got on the com. “Negative control, we are fleeing this system. We’ll make our reports to your authorities from Sol. Please assist in that or stay out of our way.”

  Jon cut the com without waiting for a reply.

  They were rounding the horizon, way out ahead of the destroyers. The Lord’s Justice was doing a good job of boxing them out. It was only a matter of time, however, before they got wise and split up.

  Jon hailed the Lord’s Justice. “Captain Crater, we are making for the jump limit at max speed. Whatever you can do to cover us is appreciated.”

  Captain Crater replied, “Your Chief Walchli is urging me to blow these lunatics out of the sky but starting a fire fight over an inhabited planet could bring the whole Cao fleet down on us. There are already several Cao squadrons moving this direction. If they fire on you, we’ll fire back, but other than that all we can do is run interference.”

  Just as Jon thought. This was going to get hairy. Without firing on them or disabling their weapons first the destroyers, at some point, would get a shot off on the Ninja. Fast light transports like the Ninja were not built to withstand military grade weaponry.

  If you can’t fight, execute a high g turn. Sun Tzu said something like that. Basically.

  “Jeff, we are just about out of sight line of those destroyers. As soon as we are I want you to turn and burn on this vector.”

  Jon highlighted a course to the jump limit 90 degrees off of their current heading.

  “You sure?” Jeff asked. “That’s a hard turn.”

  “Yes. Do it.”

  Moments later Jeff executed the turn. They were nearly out of the atmosphere at that point so the buffeting wasn’t a problem. Making a nearly 100g turn was the problem. Even with the artificial gravity some of those g’s were going to bleed through.

  Jon bit down and tightened his abs, leaning back as far as he could in his chair, willing it to absorb the truck load of pressure that pushed down on his chest. Jon blacked out for a moment, perhaps more than a moment.

  Jeff shook him awake. Of course Jeff remained conscious. Not sure if Jon envied him or not, a couple of his ribs felt like they’d popped in and out of place while he was unconscious. Jeff was rubbing his side, he’d had the same problem but was awake to feel it.

  Weston hung in his straps, mouth open. Breathing fine. Young Rae was the same but had blood dripping down her nose, breath coming in gasps.

  Jon checked the scanners, they’d outmaneuvered the destroyers for a moment but soon enough the stern chase would be on. He had a few moments before that started.

  Jon unstrapped and grabbed the medica
l kit. He loaded up a heavy dose of pain killers into the injector and pressed it to Young Rae’s rib cage. He had no idea where her injuries might be, so injected her up and down both sides.

  Hopefully none of her ribs had punctured a lung.

  She came to while he was finishing the injections. She inhaled sharply and whimpered a little but otherwise did her best to be tough. The injections did their work and soon she was breathing normally.

  “You alright?” Jon asked.

  “Probably not. She said. There’s something clicking in my side, maybe a broken rib. If we live through this I’ll start crying about it, but for now let’s focus on getting out of here.”

  Tan was coming to, a large bump on his forehead. Jon had no idea how he’d gotten it. There was nothing to hit his head on. He gave Jon the thumbs up and his eyes seemed to focus fine. He’d be alright.

  Weston was coming to as well. Out of all of them he’d come off the best. No pain or injuries of any kind.

  Jon strapped back in and checked the scanners. The destroyers hadn’t seen their turn so came out around the planet on the wrong heading. They’d picked them up though, and were accelerating towards them.

  Jeff, without waiting to be told, had already taken them past the local space speed limit of 1% c, they were nearing 2% c and might even surpass it.

  Jon started giving orders. “Weston, I need you on the shields, at this velocity micro particles can destabilize them. We need you monitoring.”

  Jon flew forward, caught with a jerk by his straps. He hadn’t tightened them yet. There was a cracking sound from engineering, everyone’s boards lit up with red warning lights.

  “The heck was that?” Weston asked.

  “Warhead,” Jon answered.

  The destroyers had fired a medium yield anti-matter warhead in their direction. Scanners hadn’t spotted it.

  That changed the situation drastically. If they were willing to pop off full radiation warheads in Cao space they were capable of anything.

  Jon checked the scanners to see if anything else was headed their way but the sensor system was dazzled by the radiation. No physical damage, so it would clear, but for now they were blind. That wasn’t all bad though. Any follow up warheads would also be blinded, so they had a moment’s respite.

  “Jeff start evasive moves, zig zagging randomly. Weston, what’s the damage.”

  “Looks like everything is coming back online fine, except the coil. It’s out of alignment.”

  The jump coil. The most sensitive piece of equipment on any starship. Doubly so on a civilian ship not built for battle.

  “Can you realign it?” Jon asked.

  “Maybe...” Weston answered, without confidence.

  “I can realign it.” Tan said, raising his hand like he was in school.

  Jon turned to look at him. “You have experience with jump coils?”

  “I have a degree in multidimensional physics. Jump math, basically. I know my way around a coil.”

  Jon looked at Young Rae, she nodded. “Okay, take Weston with you, get it fixed.”

  Tan and Weston left the bridge, jogging down the corridor to the small engineering section at the rear of the ship.

  Jon was about to hail the Lord’s Justice but they called first. “This is Sam on the Justice, Crater is engaging one of the destroyers but they’ve split up. The second one is still coming for you. Cao System Fleet is out of position to engage in time for it to matter but are responding. If you can make the limit and jump out you should be fine. They shouldn’t be able to trace your jump with us and the Cao fleet breathing down their necks. Good luck Jon. See you back on Earth, assuming you don’t die.”

  Great. One destroyer still coming. And they were still 180 seconds from the jump limit.

  The Ninja shuddered again, slightly, as another warhead blew far to starboard. Young Rae was gripping her seat, with nothing to do. That was the worst. Being in an emergency situation with no control, no task.

  “Young Rae, you want to send your father a message. Tell him off maybe?” Busy work, keep the mind occupied.

  Young Rae looked him in the eyes, and smiled. “Trying to occupy my mind are you, so I don’t panic? Don’t worry Jon. I’m fine.”

  Jon didn’t know if he believed her but there was no time to probe further.

  Jeff was corkscrewing the ship in three dimensions, impressive. Maintaining course while executing a sophisticated evasive pattern was a feat most Battlefleet pilots couldn’t pull off. Jeff was doing it effortlessly, even looking a little bored.

  Jon was starting to pick up incoming warheads on his scanners, luckily none of them would hit before they jumped out.

  Jon had the computer calculate the jump. A short hop. He double checked incoming warheads, still nothing that would reach them in time. The destroyer pursuing them had broken off, fleeing the hard charging Cao System Fleet.

  Ten seconds to the jump limit. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Jon hit the big red button and nothing happened.

  Jon yelled down the corridor to engineering, “Weston! We need the coil now!”

  A few long seconds later Weston yelled back, “I think we got it. Hit it again.”

  Jon hit the big red button again. The Ninja’s coil spun up, bending space/time. And they escaped into the void.

  Chapter Eleven

  Taking a more direct, and well mapped, route back to Sol saved them a lot of time. They could make the trip in under two weeks. Still a lot of time in deep space. A lot of time to kill.

  Jon and Young Rae had restarted their series of chess games. They’d tried a few computer games, tried to get Weston or Tan or Jeff to join in, but most nights it was Jon and Young Rae up late talking over a few games of chess. Jon preferred the physical pieces anyway. And the company.

  He’d been trying to broach the difficult subject for the past few nights but couldn’t quite steer the conversation in the right direction. Jon wanted to talk about what Young Rae’s father had said, about her being a mutant.

  Not that Jon was afraid of mutants, either natural or manmade. His brother, Jeff, was from one of the more heavily modified populations in the galaxy. Jon had grown up in a very tolerant household.

  Still, Young Rae looked fine. Was her father a liar? Was Young Rae sick? The strain of not knowing was killing him. He knew his imagination was probably worse than the reality, but every time he tried to bring it up Young Rae had something else to talk about. So he got side tracked.

  Not tonight.

  Jon mustered his nerve and opened his mouth to ask when Young Rae interrupted him.

  “Okay, fine, we can talk about it, you are obviously not going to let it go.”

  Jon stuttered. “Talk about what?”

  “Whatever it is my father told you. Let me guess, he called me a freak?”

  “How did you know he said something?” Jon asked.

  “It’s written all over your face. You’ve been wanting to ask about it for days but I kept distracting you, hoping you’d forget about it. No such luck.” Young Rae looked down at the table.

  “Young Rae,” Jon said. “He wanted to kill you over it. I can’t forget about something like that.”

  Young Rae still wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at the table. Downtrodden. Like she was going to cry.

  She shook her head, tears starting. “I am a freak. A mutant. There. Now you know. I probably disgust you now...”

  She looked back at Jon with deep and direct eye contact, like she so often did.

  Before Jon could answer she brightened, smiling.

  “Wait. You don’t mind? Of course you don’t. How could I miss that? With your brother and everything I should have seen it.” Young Rae’s rapidly changing moods were confusing.

  Jon opened his mouth to say something but, again, Young Rae cut him off.

  “Look, I can read faces. It’s some sort of mental mutation. It’s not mind reading but I can tell what people are thinking by looking at their face and eyes. I should
have told you already, I’m very sorry.”

  Jon started to get angry. “Wait, so you can tell what I’m thinking by looking at my face?”

  Young Rae started to darken again, frowning. “Yes, I’m sorry, I’m confused. You are angry at me for not telling you? Please, don’t be angry. It has to be kept secret, people will fear me.”

  “So what your telling me,” Jon said with a smirk. “Is that you’ve been cheating at chess this whole time?”

  Young Rae’s face brightened again. “Yes. The whole time. Poker too. I can see right through you.”

  Jon and Young Rae started laughing at that. Young Rae imitated, perfectly, Weston’s serious face every time he thought he had a game winning hand in poker. That made Jon laugh even harder. He was gasping for breath.

  They must have been loud because Weston woke up. He came into the common area making his serious face, which Young Rae immediately imitated. At that point they laughed so long and loud they woke up Jeff, even though his water bed was nearly sound proof.

  * * *

  They were all on the bridge when Jeff executed the final jump into Sol. They entered in perfect position, a few hours travel to Earth. Even Weston couldn’t complain about that.

  Jon sighed. He’d soon have to part with his friends and family, go back to his Battlefleet duties. Assuming the politics of his reinstatement had gone smoothly.

  Jon didn’t have to wait long. Within an hour of checking in with Central Command He received a summons to attend a reinstatement hearing the next morning. The Ninja was placed in the landing que for Port New Chicago as everyone prepared for bed. The computer would handle the approach and they’d all be awake and alert for the landing in the morning.

  The Ninja had been kept on Command Central time. So everything worked out pretty smoothly.

  Jon arrived at the hearing at the exact correct time. 10 minutes early. No sooner, no later. Battlefleet standard. It probably wouldn’t impress anyone but sometimes those little things mattered.

  He stood at attention as the clerk called his name.

  “Yes sir, Captain Aichele here.”