Counterweight

by A. G. Claymore

  And that assumed they weren’t misdirecting their efforts against Stoners in the mistaken belief they were behind the whole thing.

  Cal grinned as he blended in with the flow of pedestrians. He truly did wish the boys from Oudtstone long and healthy lives. They were his three best recruits, whether they knew it or not.

  Stocking Up

  The Brisbane

  “…and so then the guy looks at her and says Madame, I was talking to the parrot!” Thorstein waited for the laughter but the other crewmen just shrugged and went back to their roasted meat.

  “I was talking to the parrot…,” he tried again.

  “Hmmm…” The engineer looked over the ship’s brazier to where Rick was looking back with mild amusement. “It’s a Human joke. Maybe it’s funnier if…”

  He trailed off as Rick suddenly slid from his low-slung hammock, dropping his piece of bifleet roast in his haste to reach the cockpit.

  “Stop!” the Human shouted as he burst into the small chamber. “Full stop – now!”

  It was fortunate that he’d been billeted as an engineer. A mere passenger would likely have been ignored but Rick was one of the wizards who kept the ship from destroying itself. If an engineer demanded a full stop, he got it.

  “Full stop,” Erik announced, turning a troubled look at the young crewmember.

  “What’s going on?” Freya demanded.

  Rick punched the combat shielding button. “Distortion coming.”

  “Where?”

  “Everywhere.”

  The instant the word was out of his mouth, the windows went red. A large vessel had dropped out of distortion just in front of them and the Brisbane was on the fringes of the plasma wash. If they’d held their original course…

  “We would’ve been vaporized,” Erik whispered, watching through the automatically darkened screen as more plasma flares announced the arrival of three more ships, the accumulated debris from the bow-wave of distorted space suddenly released with incredible energy. “If we hadn’t stopped when you said…” He looked at Rick and trailed off.

  It was no secret, by now, that Thorstein believed him to be a seiderman. If anyone had doubted it, this would definitely make them reconsider. Still, they were reluctant to talk about it, partly out of fear and partly out of respect for their captain, who didn’t care for the topic.

  “They picked a poor time to show up here.” Freya declared quietly. “We just located our fuel dump. Another hour and we’d be on our way home.”

  “So do we run or fight?” Rick whispered, aware that it served no useful purpose to do so, but he was compelled to be quiet nonetheless.

  “No,” she answered calmly, looking up at her second engineer. “It might have escaped your notice but our ship is based on an original Republic design. The only difference – the only one that counts – is that she has a distortion drive.” She nodded out the bridge screens.

  “We fit right in with this lot.” She opened a holo menu and made a few selections. A rumbling sound echoed through the small vessel for a few seconds. “With our emergency atmo port opened, the runes on our hull will be obscured and nobody really looks at a small ship like this anyway. The Dactari will assume we’re just shuttling from one cruiser to another.”

  “And nobody’s really operating a uniform fleet, after all these decades,” Erik added quietly. “We’ve been taking their ships from the start and they’ve got a few Earth-built ships as well.”

  “Anybody else notice something missing?” Erik asked the screen in front of his face.

  Freya frowned for a moment and then… “No fleet transponders! These are mercenaries!”

  “Or pirates,” the weapons officer offered. “Should we try to look busy, Captain?”

  Freya nodded. “I’ll try to make it look like I’m flying and smoking lagweed at the same time. The concentration is building around that big troopship, probably the best place to go if we want to avoid getting killed by late-comers.”

  “Why’ve you gotta say if?” Erik asked, his grin reflecting off the screens in front of him.

  Thorstein stepped into the already-crowded chamber. “What in Niflheim is going on? What was…” he stared out at the growing fleet. “Nastrond,” he breathed. “This is interesting.”

  “I can always count on you to put a finger on the moment,” Freya whispered, not bothering to look at the engineer. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the enemy ships. “What have we got in our bag of tricks?”

  The engineer scratched the back of his head. “We have a few small demolition charges but I doubt we’ll find a use here. All of ‘em together wouldn’t knock out a cruiser, much less the troop ship, unless we put it in their distortion drive and…”

  An evil, wolfish light came into his eyes. “We do have one thing that might work, if we use it right.” He looked at the captain. “We have a stock of knockouts.” He saw the look on Rick’s face so he indulged his colleague. “They’re micro-singularity generators. Not much against stationary targets – they might be roughly equal to our conventional explosives but they play seven kinds of hell on an active distortion drive.”

  “If we find ourselves on the wrong end of a scout-hunting party, we drop out of distortion, eject a knockout with a short delay and then hop out again. It goes off after we’ve passed out of the effect horizon and the pursuing fleet gets tumbled when they pass it.”

  “And since they’re all warm to catch us,” Erik whispered over his shoulder, “there’s a good chance they’ve forgotten all about their intervals. Each captain wants to be the one to paint another silhouette on their hull, so they’re climbing over each other to get into distortion and counting on a bit of maneuver to organize themselves.”

  “And if they don’t get organized before our knockout enters their bow-wave…” Thorstein whispered with glee, “boom! Half of them are wiped out by drop wash!” He looked back out the window. “Should work just fine if we attach them to the enemy’s hull.”

  “You sure?” Freya finally tore her eyes from the enemy, turning her head to face Thorstein.

  A shrug. “Nothing is sure – even our places in Valhol – but I’m pretty certain we can at least knock individual ships out of distortion. Given the fact that a knockout can tumble a medium-sized fleet from the bow-wave, I’d think it can do at least as well from the middle of the pack.”

  “Alright.” Freya nodded at the engineer. “We have five, right?” At Thorstein’s nod, she continued. “Plant one each on two cruisers and one on the troopship. Hook up a tether harness and we’ll pass close enough to our targets for you to limpet them on with a mag grappler.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, Captain,” Thorstein began, shooting an apologetic glance at Rick, “but it’s going to be tricky getting a good grapple unless we sit right under our targets.”

  “What’re you getting at, Thor?”

  “Well, I think Rick, here, is the man for the job. I’d like to be the one to do it,” he added hastily, “but this is a job for younger hands… and Rick… well… he has advantages I don’t.”

  Her haunted look was back. “Alright.” She nodded at Rick. “Thor’ll show you how to attach your harness line to the exterior rails.”

  Thorstein led Rick back to the engineering space and pulled a harness assembly off a rack on the port side. ‘Harness’ was a bit of a misnomer because it was nothing but a tether reel that clamped onto the front of an EVA suit.

  He grabbed the carabiner on the front and pulled out a few feet of line. “Hold this in your right hand,” he explained to Rick, “and hold the grab bar in the escape trunk with your left. Once the hatch opens, keep a grip on the bar while you look outside for the clip rail. Hook on with the carabiner and you’re ready to get to work.”

  Rick nodded. He was jumping with nerves but he was excited to be taking on such a crucial role. He climbed down into the escape trunk and took hold of the grab bar. Thorstein handed down the bag with the three knockout assemblies and gave him a fri
endly grin.

  “Good luck, Seiderman,” he said cheerfully. “I doubt you’ll need it, though.”

  With that, he hit the hatch control and the door began to slide shut.

  Oddly enough, Rick’s nerves began to calm once he was alone in the trunk. He was still unaccustomed to the idea of being one of the group. He’d spent his entire life as one of the lowest members of society. A few, like Barry or the stranded Midgaard, treated him well but he still felt different around them.

  Now that the small crew of the Brisbane were treating him as one of their own, he was acutely conscious of their confidence in his abilities. The last thing he wanted to do was let them down. Being alone, even if it meant being outside the ship, gave him some small measure of insulation from their expectations.

  Out here, he could simply concentrate on the task at hand.

  He poked his head out of the exterior hatch, finding the clip rail to his left. He hooked up and grabbed the bag, levering himself out of the small chamber. He pulled his way along the rail until he reached the middle of the dorsal hull, almost directly above the distortion engine.

  He placed his feet at shoulder width, one slightly ahead of the other, and activated the grapplers in his boots. Firmly anchored, he did the same with the bag, locking it firmly to the hull before opening an induction channel, using the material of the suit and ship to carry his signal to the bridge.

  “I’m ready,” he told them, remaining in the crouch, grasping the clip rail with both hands. Inertial compensation was provided by the small ship’s gravity plating but it didn’t extend all the way up to where Rick was standing.

  He lurched backwards, straining against the rail as the tiny vessel leaped ahead, moving toward one of the big cruisers. The acceleration ceased and he was able to let go of the rail, reaching into the bag to take out the first assembly.

  As they passed under the stern of the massive Dactari ship, he began a gentle swing with his arm, keeping his hand on the assembly until his mind told him he had a successful release. He looked over his shoulder as they moved away, seeing it drift up toward the underside of the ship’s engineering section. As it came within range of its mag grappler, the device accelerated suddenly, slapping silently onto the hull.

  Engine rooms, even on a small ship like the Brisbane, were noisy places and a sudden noise was easily overlooked. It would hardly be reason for an engineer or one of his ratings to call off a captain’s order to enter distortion.

  Rick’s grin was wiped off his face as his body shifted backwards and to the right. He had to bend his knees and fall to the hull to avoid breaking a limb or dislocating a joint. “Shit,” he groused. “Tell me when you’re gonna change course, will you?”

  “Sorry, Rick,” Freya replied. “I’ll disable the auto course and handle her manually.”

  Rick was certain he could hear amusement in her response but he was somehow certain that Freya was laughing with him, rather than at him. She wasn’t aiming abuse at an inferior; she was just having a little fun at the expense of a crewmate.

  The next cruiser went just as easily. They drifted under her at a course that would take them straight for the prime target. The massive troop carrier was even bigger than the Canal and Rick knew his childhood home represented one of the largest ships ever built by mankind.

  But something wasn’t right. They were now heading for a spot to the carrier’s starboard side. It looked like they’d come no closer than a hundred feet. It was still doable but why the change?

  “Rick,” Freya’s voice filled his helmet. “They just raised their nav-shielding. It looks like they’re going to jump in the next centi-day.”

  “Dammit!” Rick looked down at the bag on the hull. The last knockout wouldn’t get through the shields if its mag-grappler was active. He looked back up at the massive slab of vessel drifting his way.

  “I’m going to unhook,” he told her. “I can carry it through to the hull, hook it on and come back before they jump.”

  He reached down and detached the bag from the hull, hooking the straps over his shoulders as the captain’s refusal sounded in his ears. He detected something personal in her tone but, whether it was out of concern for him or a reluctance to fail in her mission to deliver him to her superiors, he didn’t know.

  He deactivated the grapplers in his boots and pushed off, breaking the stream of protest from Freya in the process. He was halfway to the troopship when he wondered whether the grappler in his bag was active or not. He started to pull the bag around to the front, not stopping when he saw himself pass through the shield. He didn’t know if he was going to pass through because he shut off an active mag unit or because it was off in the first place.

  Pre-cognitive abilities could be tricky, if you got careless. He didn’t want to end up stuck to the nav shield of the troopship like a blood-gnat caught on sweaty skin.

  He slid a hand inside the bag, putting a finger on the rocker switch. It was turned off. He passed through the shield, a bluish haze the only hint of its presence, and continued on toward the hull. He realized he would probably rebound off the Dactari ship unless there happened to be a conveniently located protrusion for him to grab onto.

  With fourteen seconds to go, he saw himself bouncing off the ship like an idiot. He was about to fail the crew but then he realized what he still had his hands on. He pulled out the knockout assembly and flipped the rocker switch to activate the mag grappler.

  He held the device out in front of himself, grappler first, and nearly lost his grip on it when its effect horizon reached the ship. His strong archer’s fingers barely kept him attached as the device suddenly accelerated to the hull plating.

  This time, he heard a faint sound of impact transmitted through his suit as he pushed his body to the right in order to avoid crashing into the moderately fragile device. It could survive a rough grappling throw but not the impact of two hundred pounds of Human and suit.

  His right hand let go of the device and caught the hand rail that he hadn’t been consciously aware of. It would have been just out of reach if he’d been bouncing roughly against the hull but, now that he was anchored, he could stretch out and get his hand on it.

  Some part of his mind had registered the pre-cognitive possibility and sent it straight to his muscles. The chief medical officer on the Canal referred to the phenomenon as Pre-cognitive Procedural Knowledge.

  It was the same thing that made Rick an effective hunter. His ability could predict the behavior of a target and pass it to motor control with little interference from other parts of his mind.

  He let go of the device with his left hand and began rotating his body for the return push. He would hold the handrail while he got himself into position.

  Why was there a handrail here? He looked to the spot where a short search would have led him to an escape hatch. Like the Canal, escape hatches were also used as access hatches for maintenance work. The rail in his hand led straight back to the hatch.

  He clipped his safety line to the rail and dragged himself along the rail to the hatch’s control panel. He grinned. Even if he hadn’t been able to decipher the Dheema glyphs, the ubiquitous red button was unmistakable. He punched it, unclipped his safety line and slid inside the pod.

  It was larger than those on the Canal, but then he’d heard the Dactari liked to use them as boarding landers. They had composite ceramic metal rings around their outer hatches that were loaded with a metal oxide mix. Once a pod grappled with an enemy ship, the oxides were ignited and the resulting heat melted straight through the enemy hull, dropping a large disc of hull plating onto the deck.

  Now that he was in, he had no idea why he’d bothered. What silly impulse had led him to enter the ship? He knew it was the sort of thing a Midgaard might have done – they adored brash foolishness for its own sake – but he was a Human.

  Still, he’d come this far… He activated the inner door control and waited while the outer hatch slid shut behind him. The inner door snapped open
and his helmet retracted. He peeked out, already knowing there was nobody in the corridor.

  What was he doing? Was he thinking of taking a stroll on a ship loaded with a hundred thousand enemies? As he pondered his brash stupidity, he suddenly looked up the corridor and then slid back into the pod.

  A single set of footsteps approached and he edged up against the inner wall of the pod, just beneath the open hatch. He silently cursed his predicament. The hatch was still open and the crewman would likely notice it.

  Then he almost laughed as he saw what was being thrown in his path by dumb luck.

  “Affirmative, Control,” a voice said in Dheema. “It’s an open hatch, all right.” There was a slight grunt just outside the opening and, suddenly, a shadow fell across the outer door. “Probably just another failed actuator… I’ll check in when it’s fixed.”

  This was Rick’s chance. The conversation was done and the tech wouldn’t be missed for quite a while. He rotated his body, reaching up with his right arm and grabbing the front of the surprised Dactari’s suit.

  With a startled yelp, the crewman was hauled into the pod and welcomed by a punch of surprising force. He went limp.

  Rick dragged him over to the exit hatch and stopped to take stock of the situation. The prisoner could be valuable but how to get him back to the Brisbane? He had a large bag but not quite big enough to stuff a Dactari into. But the bag could still be useful.

  He reached down and found the manual controls on the Dactari wrist pad, activating his helmet, just in case it wasn’t automated. He opened the outer hatch, jumping slightly as his helmet reacted to the first hint of a pressure change, snapping out and assembling itself before any appreciable difference in the pod’s environment could develop.

  He laid the bag on the prisoner’s chest, sticking the Dactari’s arms through the long handles so he could carry him, much like the arrangement used to move the bifleet. Once out of the hatch, he grappled his boots to the hull and pulled the handle straps over his own arms, effectively slinging the unconscious Dactari on his back.