A loud bang coming from the outer hull startled everybody on the bridge.
“What just happened?” Janice asked no one in particular.
Bryant grimaced as he switched over to the damage control menu. “Damn that Vega. He’s activated the defense grids near the shadow zones to cover his tracks; they’re firing a ton of laser batteries at us.”
“Are we taking a lot of damage?” Janice asked him.
“Not at this range,” Bryant said. “They’re nothing more than pinpricks, but it also means our own laser arrays will be damaged if I keep them open. The focusing mirrors are vulnerable.”
Janice let out a deep breath. If the Stiletto kept her laser banks closed and protected against the incoming long-range fire from the defense grids, she would not be able to fight back versus the approaching battle drones effectively. She had to make a choice—either pull back and let the Tiburon get away or take her chances.
Bryant stared at her. “What’s your decision, Captain?”
“Stay on intercept course,” Janice said. “We’re not letting Vega get away this time.”
12 Reaching
Garrett Strand was the first to open his eyes after he had temporarily lost consciousness while being strapped to a rocket. Turning his head, he could see Duncan Hauk’s unmoving body a few meters away, tied down to a nearby alcove beside one of the missile’s grid fins. The sudden acceleration from the planet’s surface had evidently knocked them both out for a time.
Sappho’s voice came over his helmet’s audio link. “I’m glad you’re awake now, Lieutenant, but I have some bad news for you.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that?”
“This rocket you’re riding in doesn’t have enough delta-V to make it to high orbit.”
“Oh, that’s just great,” Strand said. “How far away are we from getting to intercept course with the Nepenthe?”
“At this rate of acceleration, you’ll miss her by a scant twenty thousand or so klicks.”
Strand cursed as he looked down and stared at Karana’s incapacitated form situated just below his legs. The museum had an emergency probe launcher situated near the apex of its pyramidal structure. Instead of having to battle their way through a heavily guarded spaceport, both he and the boy donned skinsuits before tying down Karana in order to bring her along. Only now they had misjudged the small rocket’s capability, and they would probably die in low orbit.
“Can you wake the kid up?” Strand asked.
“I’ve been trying to talk to him,” Sappho said. “But I believe he is still unconscious.”
Strand undid his restraints before activating the magnetic soles on his boots. “Okay, let me see if I can get to him and shake him awake. What about our prisoner?”
“Karana’s vital signs are low, but she seems quite resilient,” Sappho said. “We can still save her if we can get her into the medbay of the ship as quickly as possible.”
“Easier said than done,” Strand said as he placed the soles of his feet on the rocket’s fuselage and began to move towards the boy.
After a short walk, Strand crouched down and began shaking Hauk by the shoulder. “Hey kid, wake up.”
Hauk’s body jerked spasmodically for a few seconds before he opened his eyes. “W-what happened?”
“Well, we made it to low orbit, but that’s pretty much it,” Strand said. “I think this rocket is out of fuel.”
The boy looked around and saw brief flashes of light out in the distance. “Can the Nepenthe reach us, Sappho?”
“Hold on,” Sappho said. “I’m relaying your coordinates to the ship right now.”
Creull’s voice came over their com-links. “Where are you two?”
“We’re out of fuel and still in low orbit,” Strand said. “Can you get down to us?”
“The Nepenthe is taking a lot of hits, Lieutenant,” Creull said. “Is there any way you can close the distance?”
Hauk tapped him on the shoulder. “I think we can. Up there, LT.”
Strand tilted his head upwards and activated the enhanced sight mode on his helmet visor. There was a cigar-shaped object a few kilometers above them. “What is that?”
“I think it’s an automated refueling tanker,” Hauk said. “Sappho, do you think you could hack into its systems and get it close to us for a flyby?”
“One moment—accessing,” Sappho said. “Affirmative. The control software you copied from the museum’s security room is proving to be a useful hack, Duncan.”
Strand couldn’t help but be impressed. He relayed the information to the Nepenthe. “Give us a minute and I think we can get closer to you, Commander.”
The entire bridge of the Stiletto shuddered again as the ship took more hits from both the outlying defense grids and the fleeing Tiburon. The danger had gotten so acute that Captain Janice Gwynplaine instructed the crew to don their helmets in case of a hull breach and subsequent loss of atmosphere.
Dun Bryant continued to make adjustments to the weapons console as he plotted every possible fire corridor the enemy ship would move into. What frustrated him were the constant adjustments he had to make as the ship he was in took more damage and sustained a subsequent loss in firepower.
Janice could see that both vessels had slowed due to the pounding they took from each other, though it frustrated her that Vega’s ship had not yet been defeated, and there was a chance he might get away. They had been able to destroy the enemy battle drones, but in so doing they had to increase the range between themselves and the Tiburon.
Bryant grimaced while staring at the tactical map. The Tiburon had gained enough distance to get into the subsequent dark matter field and make a jump out of the system. “I think they’ll get away from us.”
Janice scowled. “What can we do?”
“Let’s conserve the ammo of our main guns and follow them to wherever it is they’re headed to,” Bryant said. “If we time our jump effectively, we might be able to enter the next system at a closer range of engagement to them.”
“Where do our star charts say that the shadow zone up ahead leads to?” Janice asked.
Bryant shook his head. “It’s officially an uncharted jump point. Maybe Vega knows where it goes, and he’s not telling.”
“I don’t like it,” Janice said. “We’ll be making a blind jump—who knows where we’ll end up.”
“He can’t have any allies. Vega has already betrayed all the other raider crews with his actions today. If he’s got other pirates waiting for him on the other side, then we can state our case and team up with them.”
“What if he set up automated defenses?”
“Highly unlikely,” Bryant said. “We know jump points go one way from here, so he couldn’t have taken the time to go back and forth to set something up, because the Union would have spotted him on his previous trip out here if he did.”
“You’re saying it’s a desperation move just so he can get us off his tail?”
“I’m confident we can intercept him if we conserve our ammo for the jump,” Bryant said. “If we can just get close to him, we can finish this.”
“Alright,” Janice said. “But what about the Nepenthe?”
“We’ll fire off a beacon just before we make the jump so Dangard and his crew can follow us,” Bryant said. “Leave a trail of breadcrumbs, so to speak. We’ll encrypt the codes so no one else will know.”
Janice turned towards her granddaughter. “Open an encrypted com-link channel with the Nepenthe and tell them what we’ll be doing.”
Inside the Nepenthe’s battlesphere, Captain Lucien Dangard stayed silent as he brooded over the betrayer’s intentions. His ship had dealt with most of the opposition, and they were now lagging behind the others. “How are we doing?”
Creull made a frustrated growl. “Viniimn says we’ve taken damage on every system, but nothing major. Minor hull breach on the manufacturing decks. Twenty percent of our main guns currently inoperative. A few coolant leaks and damaged laser arrays. Al
l in all, I’m surprised we haven’t been hurt more.”
Sappho’s voice was heard across the entire module. “Lieutenant Strand, Spacer Hauk, and their captive were able to make it to the refueling drone. I have taken control of the unit and will try to set up a rendezvous course.”
Oana Florescu bit her lip while manning the helm controls. “She’s a bit more sluggish than usual, and our acceleration is degrading. Sappho, if we go by the course you’re suggesting, then we’ll be running into the teeth of the planet’s orbital defense grid.”
“It’s a serious risk, Captain,” Creull said while eyeing her superior. “I would suggest we leave them behind. Strand has the skills to evade the authorities and escape on his own.”
“No,” Dangard said. “We go in. See if you can open up a corridor by blasting at the orbital grids.”
“Won’t be much of an effect even if I score a lot of hits,” Creull said. “A defense grid is just a space platform full of automated weapon batteries. It’s expendable.”
“But Strand is not,” Dangard said. “He’s bringing along Vega’s executive officer as well, and I want to know what she knows.”
Creull’s whiskers curled up in curiosity. “You don’t think Captain Gwynplaine will be able to defeat Vega by herself?”
“I like Janice, but Vega seems to be following a plan, and so far he’s been prepared for everything we’ve thrown at him,” Dangard said. “We’ll need Strand for this.”
A flash of light erupted behind him as Strand continued to grip the handholds along the refueling drone’s hull. The once peaceful space above the planet was now an ongoing battlefield as lancers, lasers, and gauss ordinance discharges created a flash storm of heat and molten metal around them.
He looked down to check up on the boy, and he could see Hauk was hanging on just a few paces below him. They had placed the heavily wounded Karana in her air tent along an alcove near the drone’s interface module, ready to be pulled out in case they were in range to make a space walk over to the Nepenthe.
More streaks of intense brightness came from a ring of shadows above them. Using his helmet’s infrared mode, Strand could see the solid armored platforms of the planetary defense grid, even though it was thousands of klicks away. He knew the Nepenthe was having a hard time getting to them because the ring of death orbiting Angkor Delta was doing its best to destroy her. There must be a way we could help, but how?
He used the virtual navigation map on his helmet to see just how far away they were from rescue. The indicator gave him an estimated total of ten thousand klicks. We’re still too far away. We’ll never make it at this rate.
“Hey, LT,” Hauk said over the com-link. “I just saw a lancer missile up close. I didn’t know those things were that huge.”
“They’re designed to carry a lot of fuel for their fusion thruster, that’s why,” Strand said.
“You know, I just thought of something weird,” the boy said.
Strand wasn’t in the mood for small talk, but he figured there was no better way to pass the time. He decided to humor the kid. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“Well, that defense grid ahead of us is shooting at the Nepenthe, right? How come it doesn’t target us or the space station?”
“I’m guessing Vega’s cracker must have instructed it to attack only the Nepenthe,” Strand said. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Yeah, but the last update we got from the Nepenthe said the Tiburon was already making a jump out of the system, so it would mean that Vega set it on auto mode and there would be no further updates from his command link, right?”
Strand made an audible sigh. “You need to get to the point, kid.”
“Well, if Vega set the defense grid on auto attack, then how does it differentiate between the Nepenthe and the space stations in orbit?”
Strand’s eyebrows shot up. “By golly, you’re right. It could be the transponder signals.” He started inputting commands onto the holographic display projected over his wrist smartcom. “Sappho, you told us you can access the security command protocols from the museum on the ground, right?”
“That is correct, Lieutenant,” Sappho said. “Although the authorities have entered the museum and are in the process of shutting down the security robots using an outside override, they have yet to shut down the hacked command signal.”
“Okay, can you crosscheck the database for any known attack exemptions? Vega must either be using a friendly transponder code or he placed the Nepenthe and the Stiletto as an enemy contact.”
“One moment,” Sappho said. “Yes, got it. He instructed his now deceased cracker to place a friendly transponder code and designated his own ship the Tiburon as the signal bearer.”
“Is the Tiburon still transmitting the code?”
“Negative,” Sappho said. “Vega’s ship has already jumped out of the system, but no final updates were sent over the com-link.”
“Okay, here is what you do,” Strand said. “I want you to duplicate the transponder code and send it to the Nepenthe. Tell her to transmit it over to the defense grid as if it was her own.”
“Acknowledged,” Sappho said. “Initiating. One moment.”
The flashing lights around them suddenly ceased. Strand could see the heat spikes along the defense grid’s massive superstructure had already begun to cool down.
Hauk grinned while pumping his fist. “It worked!”
Dangard’s voice came over the com-link. “That was one hell of an idea you both came up with. Hang on, we’re dispatching a shuttle to pick you up.”
Strand looked down and winked at the boy. The two of them made a good team.
13 Epiphany
Inside the Stiletto’s bridge, Captain Janice Gwynplaine shook her head to clear away the mental cobwebs the moment her vessel completed another instantaneous jump into the third dark matter field while continuing to chase the Tiburon. She quickly turned to look at her executive officer to get a fix on their location. “Where are we now?”
“Checking,” Dun Bryant said calmly. “Whoa, I think we’ve just entered Concordance space.”
Janice and the rest of the crew could hardly believe it. For the past several hours, they had tried to catch up with the Tiburon, only for Vega’s ship to suddenly turn and head into another shadow zone and make a fast jump before they could fire at her. Janice made sure they ejected a tracking beacon just before they made their own jump in order to provide a trail the Nepenthe could follow.
With nothing else to do in the meantime, her granddaughter Madison was busy using her console to comb through the star charts in order to get a solid fix on the area they had just jumped into. “I think I’ve found where we are. Fysdos, near the central Carina Arc Region. Uninhabited system.”
“We’re deep in Concordance territory now,” Janice muttered. “How far away is she, Dun?”
“At extreme range and headed towards another shadow zone,” Bryant said. “I can fire, but it would be a lucky hit if I scored.”
“No, don’t waste ammo until they’re within optimum range,” Janice said. “Vega can’t keep this up forever. His ship will have to refuel soon.”
“I don’t get it,” Madison said. “Before this last jump we were so close and even got in a few shots, but now they’re way ahead again. How did they do that?”
“My guess is the Tiburon has two tesseract drives,” Bryant said. “It’s the only way Vega could have made one jump after another while we were still busy recharging ours in the dark matter field.”
Madison was shocked. “A ship with two t-drives? Is that even possible?”
“Engineers say having two t-drives active at the same time increases the distortion field and makes the vessel unstable,” Janice said. “Looks like Vega was willing to take the risk.”
“It’s been tried before on other ships,” Bryant said. “Making constant jumps in a short span also wreaks havoc on people’s minds, so it’s not recommended for long-term sanity. I’ve heard of crews going
nuts after making one too many jumps in a single day.”
Madison gulped. They had already made a half-dozen jumps while trying to get at the Tiburon, and her mind felt like it was coming apart. “Maybe we ought to just let them go?”
“No chance,” Janice said. “They broke a sacred trust, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let them get away with it.”
“Tiburon’s acceleration is slowing,” the chief pilot said. “I think she’s running low on fuel.”
“How far away is she now?” Janice asked.
“She’s near one of the dark matter fields closest to the star, trying to make one last jump, but she’ll need time to refine more fuel,” Bryant said. “We’re at extreme weapons range, but we’re closing.”
“You sure you’ll get Vega this time, Dun?”
“I’m sure,” Bryant said. “Now that he’s out of surprises to pull out of his hat.”
Madison clapped her hands in glee. “I just got a new contact in the shadow zone behind us; the Nepenthe is finally here!”
Janice couldn’t help but grin as she punched up her com-link. “Lucien, you made it.”
Captain Dangard’s ever calm voice answered her. “Better late than never, eh?”
“You sure took your time,” Janice said. “We’re kinda run down and not much ammo left. You think you can finish off the Tiburon after my ship has gotten her licks in?”
“It’ll be my pleasure, Janice.”
“Okay, I’ll update you when we start firing. Over and out.”
Inside the Nepenthe’s battlesphere, Commander Creull updated her tactical map. “The Stiletto has begun her attack run at the Tiburon. Both ships have been blasting at each other for the past few hours, but they’re now getting into optimal weapons range.”
Dangard nodded. “How far away are we?”
“At least thirty minutes to extreme battle range even though we’re pushing close to four-gees of acceleration,” Creull said. “I want to conserve some of the fuel for maneuvering in case we get close.”
“Janice’s ship has taken some major hits and so far they’re not letting up,” Dangard said. “She really wants Vega’s head very badly.”
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