by M. D. Cooper
Markus looked to his sides. The command crew surrounded him. Though most had not slept in more than a day they were all smiling; even Sarah—though she was scanning the crowd. No doubt looking for Luminescent sympathizers.
“People of platform SK87, we’ve done it,” Markus said simply. Thunderous applause exploded. Cheers and whoops of joy echoed through the station’s corridors for a full minute before he raised his hands for silence.
“We have always been free in our hearts. Our ancestors came here because they had an untamable spirit, a desire to see new worlds and new stars. The Lumins spent generations trying to crush that spirit out of us, but they failed.
“Today we are truly free. Your children will never know the yoke of slavery. They will be able to choose their own destinies!”
He waited once more for the crowd to quiet.
“You all know the story of the ship Hyperion, the ship that escaped after the shorts betrayed our ancestors. They left Sirius and found a new home in the stars. Now we are Hyperion!”
A shudder rippled through the deck plates and above the crowd a holo shimmered to life. It showed the platform suspended in space. Markus held his breath, a transformation like this was unprecedented as far as he knew, no one took a mining platform between the stars.
More shocks reverberated through the decks and the holo showed several sections of the newly christened Hyperion drift off into space. In their wake, much larger engines were revealed.
Two massive fusion burners sat on either end of the platform and in the center a cluster of short-burn antimatter pion engines were exposed as the west yard drifted away with the last month’s harvested ore still resting in containers.
The Hyperion’s supply of antimatter was limited, but the engines would give them enough thrust for a slingshot around Sirius before running dry. If their calculations were correct the platform should achieve a velocity just over a tenth the speed of light.
Markus glanced down at a small tablet he held and then to Dmitry. The chief engineer gave him a thumbs up. So far everything was going to plan—impressive
Beside Markus, Dmitry was nodding as he listened to his teams report in. He smiled and gave Markus a thumbs up.
Markus returned the gesture as another shudder rippled through the deck, causing a fresh round of cheers. The hastily set up holo projectors showed the south yard breaking free from the ship, exposing a much larger MDC emitter that would function as a stellar matter scoop.
The scoop would draw in as much fuels as possible during the slingshot maneuver around Sirius. Once the platform was on an outsystem vector it would be reconfigured to function as a solar sail.
They would burn the engines as long as possible, retaining half the fuel for braking once they reached Kapteyn’s Star. Dmitri’s estimations put the journey somewhere between fifty and seventy years—with new engines and a untested scoop the variables were many.
The holo projections shifted, showing a view of the engines roaring to life—a visual that was accompanied by a low rumble in the deck.
Markus looked to Dmitry who was smiling broadly.
“Thank the light,” Markus whispered while he watched the holo show streams of plasma race into space as the platform eased into motion.
“I can’t wait to see the faces of the shorts when they see this on their long range scans,” James said with a grin.
“They’re going to lose their minds, or piss themselves,” Sarah said with a laugh.
Katrina caught Markus’s eye. Her expression was not so jovial.
“If those were there only two options I’d feel a lot better right now,” she said softly to Markus.
The interceptor was running dark.
Voices were hushed; any and all unneeded electronics were switched off. Even lighting was dimmed.
The only discernible energy output was a stream of pions—traveling near the speed of light—streaming out the engine’s long funnel.
Major Han re-read the EMF output and engine reports. Surprise was key. The inhabitants of SK87 had no idea a stealth ship was bearing down on them. The longer that lack of awareness persisted, the more of his soldiers would survive the fight.
He looked over the troop readiness reports a third time. This was his company’s second combat deployment; though they had made countless training runs—both simulated and physical.
The brass had considered his first live combat mission to be a smashing success, but he did not. Too many of his troops had died at the hands of the Noctus scum they were putting down. The corporation had wanted the station to stay intact, and the lives of his men and women bought that result.
That was why, when this new stealth interceptor became available for a trail run, he jumped at it. The normal troop transports could be seen half the system away. A station had days to prepare before his soldiers arrived.
SK87 would have no such foreknowledge. They would know of their demise the hour it was upon them.
“Sir!” the officer manning the scan terminal called out. “Something… something has happened to the platform!”
Major Han surveyed the scan report with disbelief. At first it appeared as though SK87 was exploding, but there was no fire, or small debris. Chunks of it were simply falling off.
Minutes later, as the scan updated, it became quite clear what was occurring. The platform had been surreptitiously refitted. How or why was not his concern, stopping whatever they planned next was.
“Helmsman, increase burn, I want to get there as fast as this ship can take us. No need for surprise, they know we’re coming.” Major Han’s tone was brusque.
Helm nodded and Han’s XO gave him a quizzical look. “How can you be sure?”
Jennifer was new to Han’s command, a recent OSC grad. She had promise, but like any newly minted lieutenant, thought she knew a hell of a lot more than she actually did.
“Because they’re making no attempt to hide what they’re doing. That means they’ve taken the station and either know about us specifically, or expect some retaliation soon.”
“Then we should expect them to have weapons,” Jennifer replied.
“Lieutenant, we should always expect them to have weapons.”
Han let out a long sigh. It was going to be bloody. Too many Lumins would die at the hands of Noctus animals and there was little he could do about it now.
Other than kill every man, woman, and child on that platform.
Yusuf’s expression remained calm and serene as he read the report. Those around him at the monthly executive meeting would never have suspected that a sea of rage roiled beneath his calm demeanor.
That Markus would do something so brash, so outrageous. That Luther, the coal-brained station overseer, hadn’t suspected a thing was inexcusable. If he survived, Yusuf would have him executed.
The brief flashed with an update from the field commander, a Major Han. It was a single line of text:
We think they have your daughter.
Yusuf looked up at the other governing executives. Greenich, a pitiful man responsible for reclamation infrastructure was speaking—Yusuf interrupted him without notice.
“You’ll have to excuse me, something urgent has come up.”
With no further ceremony he swept out of the room, already calling Admiral Pontius on the Link.
Yusuf severed the connection. He hadn’t given Pontius their destination, but he knew the Admiral would figure it out soon enough.
“Aras!” Yusuf yelled to his assistant without turning. There was no need to ensure that the man was there; he was always scuttling in Yusuf’s wake. “Ensure bags are packed for me and transferred to Pontius’s shuttle when it arrives. We could be gone for several weeks.”
As he stepped into the lift Yusuf
considered the words, we think they have your daughter. Katrina had been on SK87 several times in the past few years, checking up on them and ensuring that there was no unrest following his killing of Markus’s assistant.
Her reports, and the reports of his other operatives, indicated that it was the model station and he had all but put it from his mind.
Now, with this new information, he could arrive at only one conclusion: his daughter had betrayed him. If that was true, she would die as well—at his hands if possible.
GETTING OUT OF DODGE
STELLAR DATE: 3248428 / 10.17.4181 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Hyperion
REGION: Noctilucent Space, Sirian Hegemony
Markus leaned back in his chair, forcing his heart to slow and his breathing to calm. Though the events now unfolding had been his goal for the last few years, actually carrying out these final, irreversible actions left him feeling more anxiety than he had imagined he would.
The door cracked open and Katrina’s head peeked around.
“Do you have a moment?” She asked.
Markus couldn’t help it as a smile crept across his face. “I always have a moment for you.” He stood and she stepped into his arms. The pair shared no words for a long moment, simply breathing in one another’s presence.
“Hard to believe this day has finally come, isn’t it?” Katrina asked as she stepped back and sat on the edge of his desk.
Markus slipped back into his chair, taking in the sight of this beautiful woman who genuinely seemed to want to spend time with him. She still wore the skin-tight clothing of her people—though she had muted its coloring somewhat. The way it hugged the curves of her body undid all of the calm he had managed to acquire before she entered his office.
Katrina gave a slight chuckle, drawing his eyes to her face.
“You’re always so calm and in control, it’s nice to see you acting as a mortal man every so often.”
Markus laughed in reply. “If this is what we are judging me by, I am so very mortal.”
Katrina smiled in return and took several moments to speak.
“I don’t know what is going to happen over the next few days and months, but I need you to know something.”
“What would that be?” Markus asked in reply.
“There has been no acting on my part,” Katrina said. “I know that because I am a spy you suspect my motives and whether I am genuine. Hell, sometimes I wonder where I end and a cover begins,” she said the last with a rueful chuckle. “But I need you to know. This is real, I have feelings for you, it is no act.”
Markus worked to find the right words. He had certainly hoped that her feelings were genuine, but a kernel of doubt had always lingered within him, gnawing slowly at his surety.
“Why?” he finally asked.
Katrina’s expression showed puzzlement and then she gave a light and silvery laugh. “Markus, you really are a fool of a man. A great leader, amazing in how you motivate your people and have earned their trust, but when it comes to this…well… let’s just say you’re not too skilled.”
“Something I have never claimed to be, but you still haven’t answered my question.”
“I can see into people’s motives all too well and manipulate them as needed, but I can’t say I understand love,” Katrina said the last word with a finality that rung like a bell.
“Love?”
“Yes, administrator Markus, love.”
She reached down and pulled him up into her arms, their lips meeting with a deep yearning.
“Uh, Boss?”
Markus looked and saw James standing in the doorway, red-faced and sheepish looking.
“Yes James?”
“Sorry to disturb you, but we need you in overwatch, both of you actually.”
Markus and Katrina disentangled their arms and they followed James through the administrative wing toward overwatch.
“What’s up?” Markus asked.
James’s voice was grim. “It would seem that our visitors are going to be here a bit early.”
“How is that possible?” Katrina asked.
“They’ve boosted a lot harder than we had anticipated after we transformed the Hyperion. I guess someone lit a fire under their assess.”
Markus and Katrina exchanged glances.
“I can imagine who held the match,” Katrina said with a grim expression.
James cast a glance her way. “Yeah? Who?”
I’m guessing it was her father,” Markus said.
James chuckled and shook his head. “I’ve heard of dad not liking the boyfriend, but this is a bit much. Who is he anyway?”
“Yusuf,” Katrina’s voice was tense as she spoke the name.
James turned sideways as he walked, locking eyes with Katrina and then Markus. “Are you kidding me? What… why…?” he sputtered.
Markus just shrugged. He wanted to ask James what he would do had he caught the attention of Katrina, but decided that was not the wisest response.
“What does their ETA look like?” Katrina asked, changing the subject.
James took the hint. “About nine hours, but they’ll be in weapons range in half that time—provided they don’t plan to use something that we can’t deflect.”
“They don’t have any nuclear weapons; their superiors don’t like the mess those make. They prefer, at least, to have salvage if they can’t keep the station intact,” Katrina said. “No, their first offensive will be a full-scale boarding and cleansing.”
Dmitry had joined the trio in the corridor as Katrina was speaking. “Cleansing. I guess we’re just bacteria to them,” he said angrily.
“No good thoughts lie that way,” Markus cautioned Dmitry. “We have to remain focused on how we’ll get through this.”
“Well, you’re lucky. With no small amount of divine intervention, we got the intercoolers installed. It’s not pretty and if any other chief engineers see it I’ll deny I had any part in that installation, but we’ll get the operational efficiencies we need out of the engines.”
“Then we need to light those pion drives,” Katrina said. “Making them alter v and thread the belt to meet up with us will buy us some more time.”
“I have our four biggest tugs fueled up and ready to go as well,” James added. “We’ll get this thing underway in no time.”
No time, as it turned out, was just over two hours. James’s crews carefully selected anchor points on the newly balanced station and the new engines threw a few final curve balls before they were running just the way Dmitry wanted.
The Hyperion lay deep within Sirius’s second asteroid belt, just over three AU from the star. The engines and tugs strained to pull the platform stellar north and out of the field before the platform could begin the hard burn toward the star for the gravity assist slingshot outsystem.
The belt was not densely populated, but enough so that the platform had to alter course several times to thread their way past errant rocks and dust clouds. It was just over seven hours after their burn started that the path to the star was clear enough to push the engines to their maximum output.
Markus watched the scan on the main holotank in overwatch, keeping an eye on the positions of other platforms and asteroids, as well as the spotty ghost-echo of the pursuing ship.
Several times the platform had been hailed by system traffic control stations as to the nature of their unscheduled movement, but each time the Hyperion did not respond. With each subsequent hail, a hushed silence deepened across overwatch—and across the entire platform—as the crew waited for the inevitable confrontation.
“I have a contact,” scan called out. “It looks like a patrol ship leaving a nearby garrison station.”
“To be expected,” Markus nodded and looked to Katrina. “Do you think it’s synchronized with the strike force?”
“Hard to say,” Katrina replied. “It could be, but I don’t think that the strike force would want to tip their hand. It could be a feint, either
way, if I were their commander, I would look for an opportunity to use the distraction this will cause.”
“That interceptor ship couldn’t get all the way here without us picking them up on scan, could they?” James asked.
The yard-master’s day-to-day work was some of the most dangerous on the station. Wrangling cargo and asteroids where the smallest mistake could result in disaster. Markus had rarely heard him sound anything other than calm and serene, but there was more than a waver in the man’s voice.
Katrina caught Markus’s eye and he nodded, people needed some assurances. He switched his chair’s comm to station-wide.
“People of the Hyperion, you have shown incredible fortitude during our endeavor thus far, and through our initial actions today. It is likely that things are going to get exciting soon. A patrol ship is on an intercept course with us and it’s possible that our friends on the destroyer could use that distraction to their advantage. I want all teams to be ready for boarding at any moment and everyone monitoring external hatches to be ready to blow them at a moment’s notice.
“Stay strong, stay vigilant, we will weather this and see a new star.”
James grinned. “Good speech boss.”
Markus didn’t reply and turned back to scan. Three hours until the patrol ship was in weapons range.
“Patrol ship entering range,” scan called out one hundred and eighty-two long minutes later.
“They’re hailing us,” comm added. “Nothing new, though their tone is considerably more irate,” the woman running comm added with a smile.
“Put me through,” Markus said.
The comm officer pushed a button on her panel and nodded in his direction.
“This is the sovereign ship Hyperion, formerly known as platform SK87. Do not come within ten-thousand kilometers of our platform. Doing so will be considered an act of aggression and we will fire upon you.”
Markus put the comm down and wiped the sweat from his hands as he exchanged looks with the overwatch command crew.