by M. D. Cooper
“They’re nailing us again with beams,” Trist reported.
Tanis looked at the holo, which at this, point was only estimating the Arc’s location. Both ships had fully cleared the moon. Now was as good a time as any. “Can you signal out?” She asked.
“Yes, we have a line of sight out the back to the relay.”
“Send the command.”
Trist initiated the signal; through the relay’s optics the bridge crew watched two points of light emerge from behind the moon. Based on its earlier volleys and timing, Tanis knew the Arc was in a charging cycle, unable to stop the two relativistic missiles lancing toward it.
Her plan had hinged on getting the Arc to over-extend itself. There was no way the Andromida could defeat the enemy ship on its own. The next best thing was to get the advantage of a second ship without having it.
A tug from the Hyperion had positioned the missiles in a polar orbit around the moon hours ago and now they were boosting toward the Arc, already at 0.1c.
Point defense lasers on the Sirian ship tried to hit the missiles but failed as the projectiles jinked erratically, making for impossible targets.
One beam made a lucky strike, but the Arc’s batteries were not fully recharged and little energy was delivered to the missile with no damage done..
Tanis held her breath during the seconds it took for the missiles to cross the black. When the first hit the Arc’s port engine the bridge erupted with cheering.
Flames blossomed out into space in an eerie pattern as oxygen and hydrogen erupted from the fuel tanks before the second missile struck the ship across its keel—where Tanis expected the superconductor batteries to be housed.
Neither of the missiles were nuclear; their damage was entirely kinetic, but a hunk of tungsten traveling at a tenth the speed of light was nothing to sneeze at. Most of the port engine had been torn free, the remnants spinning through space in a thousand pieces, while the keel was torn through and through.
“Looks like we hit them right where it counts, their EM output is almost nil,” Trist reported.
The Arc’s drifting hulk was still moving at a high rate of speed and it took nearly five minutes to match velocities and another three secure a grapple to the Sirian vessel’s hull.
The Marines were not going to go in quietly. Their powered armor was air-tight and the magnetic boots allowed the soldiers to move about on the surface of the Arc as though they were walking inside the ship. The feeds from the shuttle optics showed them planting hull busters on four separate hatches.
Four flashes of light later and the Marines were pouring through the Arc’s new access points.
“God help anyone who gets in their way,” Tanis said softly, thinking of the fate the enemy would suffer if any had been near the breach points. This assault would kill as many of the Arc’s crew through asphyxiation as weapons fire—which was the point.
Tanis didn’t hold the Marines to blame. She had ordered this tactic.
Corsia informed the bridge crew.
“I’ll make sure that happens,” Tanis smiled.
Tactical feeds came through and several soldier’s combat cams provided video while a ship’s overlay showed the Marine’s progress through the Arc. From their vantage point on the Andromeda it looked as though Brandt’s platoons were encountering little opposition. As they approached the bridge Brandt ordered her Marines to seal bulkheads behind them.
Tanis checked the estimated location of the Intrepid and noted that it would be another three hours before the colony ship saw the outcome of the battle. She passed an update on a tight beam to the ship before accepting an incoming call from the Hyperion.
“Captain,” Markus was beaming; even the stoic Katrina who stood beside him seemed on the edge of cracking a smile. “I must admit; I was pretty worried for several minutes there. I can’t believe you planned such a daring maneuver.”
Tanis laughed. “Well, that wasn’t entirely planned. I improvised here and there. By and large it went the way I thought it would. “
“Nevertheless I couldn’t have hoped for more. We owe you our undying gratitude for your assistance here.”
“You’re welcome,” Tanis replied. “I’d like to come over to discuss our next steps.”
Markus nodded. He must have been expecting an in-person meeting sooner rather than later. “Of course, Captain Richards, what is your ETA?”
“I should be there in five hours,” Tanis replied.
Markus nodded and after a few more pleasantries the call was ended.
“Why so long?” Trist asked. “You could be there in two hours tops.”
“Because I want to take a Marine escort,” Tanis replied. “Oppressed or not, these folks stole an entire mining platform from Sirius. They just about lost it and may feel compelled to do whatever it takes to ensure they hold onto it. We’re crippled, but almost as threatening as the Arc from their standpoint.”
“You think they’d try to take you hostage?” Petrov asked.
“Honestly? No, but you know me, I like to play it safe,” Tanis shrugged.
Trist snorted back a laugh.
"I’m glad to hear all is well enough,” Andrews’ face was filled with relief on the holo as they watched his reply to Tanis’s status report. “From what I can see you made the best out of a tricky situation, though there’s concern here that we could find ourselves on the wrong end of an attack from Sirius.”
He ran a hand through his white hair before continuing. “Personally, I think it’s fairly unlikely they’d mount a retaliation. Especially since it would take them at least fifty years to do so.”
The captain paused for a moment, appearing to answer an unseen question.
“Anyway,” he continued. “we’re bringing people back online here—your Jessica is doing a good job of being a bloodhound and keeping things in line. Our ETA is just over six days while we break around the star and then loop over to Victoria. Keep me appraised about how your talks with the Hyperion go.”
Tanis couldn’t help but notice how Andrews appeared to have aged. She could have sworn he didn’t look so old at her New Year’s Eve dinner. The man really needed to take a regen treatment and give up the white hair.
NEW FRIENDS
STELLAR DATE: 3266051 / 01.17.4230 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: ISS Intrepid
REGION: Interstellar space near Kapteyn’s Star
The tug slipped through the ES shield into a small dock that was spare, but clean and well appointed. Several tugs sat on cradles, all old and worn but clean and well cared for. The walls were all plain and unadorned, save for various functional signs about storage and safety. Tanis noted several areas over doors and a large area on the back wall where a new, slightly misma
tched, paint had been applied—likely where the Sirius government and compay’s crest had been.
Beside her the tug’s pilot, a wiry man named Irek, deftly guided the craft into the bay and settled it on a cradle. As the docking clamps took hold, Tanis felt the light pull of a half-g take hold.
Brandt commented.
Tanis had suspected that the people of the Hyperion were low-g adapted humans. It made sense—the cost of adjusting a seed generation vs thousands of years of full gravity were easy to compare. It also made running a facility like the platform much simpler if workers didn’t have to constantly fight against their own gravity.
Out the tug’s cockpit window she saw several of the Hyperion’s security forces and a squad of the marines already on station waiting—with a wide space between them.
The Hyperion forces had their fingers too close to their triggers for Tanis’s comfort.
Tanis rose and looked back at the two Marines accompanying her and Brandt, then down at the pilot.
“Irek, right?”
The man nodded in response, “yes ma’am.”
“Thanks for the lift,” Tanis said, offering her hand. “You guys did really fine work today, we’d likely be sucking vacuum without your help.”
“Uh, thank you, ma’am,” the pilot returned the handshake.
Tanis rose and stepped out of the sparely appointed cockpit into the ship’s main cabin—little more than a corridor with a cot. Brandt moved to the hatch, the two Marines behind her.
The hatch lowered and the two Marines took positions on either side of the ramp. Tanis could hear them swapping tactical information with the on-station Marines on the company net.
On the deck the Marines took up positions around the tug, manning the corners with Brandt surveying the room.
The doors at the end of the bay slid open and Katrina strode through, wearing a broad smile and pointedly ignoring the soldiers on either side of her.
Tanis had suspected that Katrina did not share the same ethnic background as the Hyperion’s inhabitants and now, having seen more of the crew she was certain of it.
While close to their height, she did not have the same willowy build as a low-g spacer.
Katrina approached the shuttle and extended her hand.
“Captain Richards, on behalf of the Hyperion and Governor Markus, thank you.”
Her tone was warm and sincere, but Tanis could see the appraisal in her eyes.
“You’re welcome,” Tanis replied with a smile. “What would the galaxy be if we just let warships cross between the stars and attack innocent people.”
“Of course,” Katrina smiled. It was a sincere expression, but Tanis could see that she was reserving final judgement.
Katrina turned to Brandt. “And thank you for risking the assault on Yusuf’s cruiser. I hope none of your Marines were injured.”
“A few bumps and scrapes,” Brandt replied. “Yusuf was a real peach.”
“You should try being his daughter,” Katrina sighed.
Angela said.
“Daughter? I thought maybe niece,” Tanis said aloud.
Katrina gave a rueful laugh. “Nothing so lucky. It’ll be interesting to see him again after all this time.”
Tanis gave a non-committal nod. She wasn’t entirely certain what would happen to Yusuf and his surviving crew members. Ownership and jurisdiction in the Kapteyn’s system was going to be muddy at best.
Angela paused a moment before replying.
“If you’d come this way,” Katrina was saying while gesturing to the doorway out of the hanger.
Tanis nodded and began to follow while Brandt signaled the two Marines on their detail to follow. She listened to Brandt giving orders for the other two platoons to disembark and return to the Andromeda.
A ground car waited in the corridor outside the shuttle bay. The group climbed aboard and Katrina took the wheel and shifted it into gear.
“Wow, hand controls,” one of the Marines whispered.
Brandt shot him a dark look as the vehicle took off and if Katrina took any offense she gave no indication.
“We have spent a lot of time examining this system,” Katrina said. “We stared at it for over fifty years as the Hyperion crossed over from Sirius. There were no signs of habitation—from what we can tell there still aren’t.”
“That is our assessment as well.” Tanis wanted to meet Markus as well before she decided what to divulge, she would hold off on details until then.
A puzzled look crossed Katrina’s face and her brow furrowed. “Your ship is even less equipped for interstellar travel than Yusuf’s, how is it that you came to Kapteyn’s?”
Katrina certainly was an enigma. She was obviously from Sirius’s ruling class while Markus was from its sub-class. However, she was subordinate to him—yet very sharp and capable. Who was the real leader here?
Before she brought up the Intrepid Tanis decided to feel Katrina out further and learn what the Hyperion intended to do in Kapteyn’s
“Tell me, Katrina, how is it that you came to be aboard the Hyperion? There must be an interesting story there,” she asked.
Katrina shot Tanis an appraising glance. She saw the game of cat and mouse they were playing all too clearly.
“Playing it close to the chest I see. I guess one of us has to go first. I find myself more closely aligned with the Noctus than the Luminescents by both sentiment and heritage. My mother was not exactly a voluntary partner in her marriage to Yusuf. For years I operated as a spy for Luminescent society, but the whole time I was looking for a way out, a way to change things.”
“Things sound worse in Sirius than I had suspected,” Tanis said.
Katrina gave her a rueful smile. “For the Noctus it certainly is. However, Sol too has its share of problems.”
“What makes you so certain we’re from Sol?” Tanis asked.
“I worked as a spy for a paranoid totalitarian oligarchy for decades. I wouldn’t still be alive if I couldn’t recognize a Sol starship, or TSF Marines when I saw them.”
Brandt cast Tanis a concerned look and shifted uncomfortably. Tanis knew what the woman felt. There was a pride in being a part of the TSF—a military that had been reduced to a shell of its former self since their journey began over a century ago—and a sadness with knowing that they would never be counted amongst its esteemed ranks again.
“Perhaps,” Tanis replied, time to shift the conversation. “How long have you and Markus been together?”
Katrina shook her head at Tanis’s turnabout. “It seems like forever now. We fell in love while the Enedavor to free the Hyperion was under way. He didn’t know I was a Luminescent at the time—.”
“That must have been an interesti
ng disclosure,” Tanis interjected.
“You have no idea,” Katrina smiled at the memory. “My heart was in my throat. I had no idea if he would accept me or try to have me killed. In the end it all worked out. We’ve had a great life together and he is going to get to see his people finally be free.”
Tanis read the subtext. Markus looked old. More than just well-aged, but wizened. She suspected that when he and Katrina began their romance they appeared much closer in age. Now he looked like an old, old man and Katrina didn’t look a day over thirty.
“It sounds like you made a good match,” Tanis said, her thoughts momentarily flitting to her reunion with Joe six days hence. “It’s not easy to weather that sort of adversity… and stay together for so long.”
Katrina smiled. “My mission to the Hyperion is the best thing that ever happened to me.”
She slowed the ground car in front of a lift and the group rode up several levels to the platform’s administrative offices. Markus greeted them as they exited the lift. He looked older in person, tired and near the end of his days as he leaned heavily on a cane.
“Captain Richards,” he said as he reached out his hand. “I’m sure Katrina has thanked you, but allow me to do so again.”
Tanis accepted his hand and smiled warmly. “You’re most welcome, we couldn’t have done it without the assistance from your tugs.”
Tanis said to Angela.
“We do what we have to, to survive,” Markus replied.
Katrina took his arm and led them into a sparely appointed conference room. It took the group a moment to settle, Brandt and Tanis on one side, while Katrina and Markus sat across from them.
The Marines took up positions on either side of the door, but Tanis gave Brandt a glance and the two men filed out.