by Shane Black
The probe bolted. It streaked across the room and stopped at the hatch that led out into the deck four center corridor. It started running an electronic bypass on the door locks. Taser picked up the transmissions and calculated he had about five seconds to stop it. He lit up like police cars should and activated his sirens, peeling backwards on the workbench like it was a parking lot outside a bank robbery. Smoke drifted from his tires as he performed a textbook J-turn and accelerated down the workbench.
He passed the other mini-bots like a black and white racehorse. Somewhere deep inside Echo’s complex circuitry, an automatic reflex system activated. She heard something way in the distance that sounded like a siren, but it couldn’t be her siren, could it? She was asleep! Her power systems reported a full charge, and she initiated a cold restart.
By now Taser had soared off the workbench and bounded across the floor. His high-performance suspension combined with his electromagnetic ground contact field kept his tires in contact with the floor. He maneuvered frantically around chairs, equipment and more workbenches. The lights in the lab went dark as one of the power relays overloaded and burst into flames from the alien probe’s signal. The suddenly disabled deck hatch opened and allowed the alien probe to escape into the ship. Taser activated his other siren, which filled the room with urgent alarm. Moments after the probe rounded the corner and rocketed up the corridor, Taser skidded across the deck behind it and accelerated in pursuit, headlights strobing and lightbars flashing angrily.
He activated every transmitter he had and began broadcasting on every frequency he could find. “Intruder! Intruder! Intruder!”
A scramble signal nobody besides Commander Hunter had ever seen before began blinking on the Fury bridge signals station. The Officer of the Watch noticed it first and leaned closer to see what it was.
Exactly 716 nanoseconds later, Echo detected Taser’s microcode designator and noted the emergency deck alarm bit was flipped to the “on” position. She and Taser initiated a lightning-quick dialogue via the fleet command net that took a grand total of 68415 nanoseconds, which was a televised-presidential-debate-magnitude amount of time for two datanet-connected minibots to engage in negotiations. Finally Echo agreed to give Taser the benefit of the doubt as to his identity. 206 nanoseconds later, Echo’s own lightbars activated. Her red rotating emergency beacons swirled around the dark lab. She activated the fleetwide hailing channels.
“Emergency! Emergency! DSS Fury! Intruder protocols! Sensor section forward! Security to deck four!” Echo revved her engines and only managed to cause an unholy racket on the workbench as the torque almost ripped the suspension rack she was sitting on out of the wall. Her obstacle navigation systems took over and she overshifted her transmission to put maximum pressure on the structure. Her back wheels spun free and shrieked against the surface. The friction created an enormous white cloud of smoke. A few moments later there was a loud wrenching sound just before half the mechanism was literally ripped out of the wall. Echo peeled forward and barely avoided pitching off the workbench in a screeching back-wheels-up forward skid. She reversed and swerved, bouncing over the twisted remains of the power connector and rack and finally freed herself, only to tear across the empty bench, dive off the edge and fall backwards into a scrap metal can.
Meanwhile, crew members of the Fury were coming out of hatches to see what all the commotion was. More than a few of them had to dive out of the way as the strange flying device howled past followed by what looked for all the world like a toy police car in hot pursuit, sirens blaring. Finally the alien probe made a wrong turn and ended up in a dead end corridor. It slowed before attempting to reverse its course, and Taser had his shot. Both LAC guns activated simultaneously and fired. Gun Two glanced a shot off the probe’s hull. Gun One speared it center-mass. It worked.
Well, it should have worked. Taser discharged all four of his capacitors at the exact moment the probe accelerated back in the opposite direction. The resulting pressure wave from the electrical discharge threw the little car back. Taser tumbled over and over before coming to rest on his roof several yards away.
The probe raced back around the corner and stopped suddenly. There in the center of the corridor, strobes flashing and lights spinning, was Echo. Her chassis and outer body were still scorched and smoldering with wisps of dark colored smoke from the virtual destruction of the scrap metal can, but she was fully operational and in no mood for foolishness.
The probe and minibot fired within a few milliseconds of each other. The probe’s particle beam was a direct hit, and blasted Echo’s relatively minimal battle screens into a non-functional state. Echo’s weapons, however, were far more effective.
One of the things most of the technicians and engineers who evaluated Echo’s design overlooked due to their focus on her medical and scientific capabilities was the little ambulance’s acoustic weapons. Not only were they capable of producing all kinds of destructive sound waves, but they were also capable of changing air density and air pressure. Properly configured, they were even capable of ionizing an enclosed atmosphere given enough time.
With her reserves at 100%, she was by no means at a loss for the power to do what was necessary. She poured overload-level energy into her emitters and changed the gas mixture in the narrow corridor so quickly that the bulkheads began to vibrate. The resulting combination of temperature differential and cratering air pressure conjured a short-lived but violent tornado on Deck Four. Its effect on precision electronics was as predictable as it was devastating. The subsonic waves from Echo’s emitters shook the probe until it was reduced to scattered debris.
Ten seconds later, the first Fury security detail arrived to find Echo helping Taser back on to his wheels. They watched as the two little vehicles deactivated their lightbars and made their way back to the lab with Echo in the lead.
One Hundred Three
A full power standoff blast from the Sentinel gun at Scorpion One Three drilled the Kingsblade with a full power direct hit on her forward leading edge.
The blast filled the bridge with debris and fire. Automatic suppression systems kicked in immediately. Captain Doverly wrenched herself back into a seated position.
“Report!”
Only one of the two crewmen at the helm was still conscious. “Forward battle screens down to 18 percent!”
On the bridge of Argent, Jason rose from his chair, eyes locked on the 160-foot red hot gouge the battle station’s gun had torn in his flagship’s sister vessel. “Tactical! Lock all main batteries on ground targets designator Scorpion One Three!”
With Kingsblade burning, Argent’s weapons rose with a chilling majesty. They locked their targeting mechanisms on the gun that had very nearly ripped a heavy battleship in half.
“Tactical reports a hard waveform lock and bearings match on Scorpion One Three!”
“All batteries fire! Fire at will!”
Had Captain Doverly not ordered her bridge crew into their shock harnesses, few would have survived. As it was, the room was filled with smoke and particulates. Emergency life support and air filtration systems kicked in while the bridge crew fitted themselves with flight masks.
The Captain pulled her release latch and rushed to the helm where her pilot had fallen.
“Ensign! Ensign!” Doverly shook Ensign Winchester and leaned down, putting her ear next to the injured woman’s face.
“Briggs! Get me the field medkit! There’s one next to the life sciences board!” Doverly ripped the pilot’s tunic open, clearing the area around her neck.
Kingsblade began to veer. The front viewer showed the other ships in the fleet rising and pitching to one side as the larger vessel lost her maneuvering systems. Its drive field began to fail. A moment later, Ensign Briggs arrived with the kit. He looked like a pack of lions were right behind him.
“Open it and find me the metal scalpel. It’s the only thing in the kit that is silver colored. It will be sealed in a sterile pack.”
“B
ut wouldn’t the–”
“Yes, yes. The LASER scalpel is more accurate, but if we add another energy source to the atmosphere on this deck we’re going to blow the bridge out into space. Put on a pair of gloves. She’s choking on something.”
Ensign Briggs watched sickly as his Captain used the scalpel to cut a two-inch vertical incision in the pilot’s neck. An alcohol-soaked tube from the medkit was inserted, and the young woman practically scared Briggs out of his socks when she involuntarily sucked in a deep breath through the tracheotomy.
“Take this scalpel and cut both pantlegs from cuff to belt. You’re going to find a bleeding wound on the outer edge of one or the other thigh and hip. Take the dressings from the medkit and put pressure on it.” Doverly left the Ensign with her patient and climbed back to the conn. Briggs wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened, but there was no arguing the value of having a trained surgeon on the bridge.
“Engineering, report!”
“The mains are online, but our drive field is fluctuating.”
“I need battle screens forward!”
“Not happening today, Captain.”
“Very well. Helm, bring us about. Heading one six one. Tactical, give me a weapons status!”
“Dorsal weapons are off line! Main battery ventral is operational!”
“Affirmative! Do what you can with our dorsal batteries! Transfer target lock to guns seven and eight! Arm weapons and stand by! Open a channel to the flag!”
Titanic bolts of cataclysmic rail caster energy exploded from Argent’s main batteries one after the other. The heatsinks inside the hull under the gun emplacements glowed red hot and pulled even more energy from the battleship’s huge reactor matrix to hyper-accelerate the cooling systems. With Kingsblade momentarily out of the fight, Argent’s main guns were the heaviest weapons in the fleet. The other ships in the battle group held their fire. Their captains knew their weapons weren’t designed for this kind of action. Missiles and precision energy weapons were designed to knock out weapons systems, engines and enemy fighters. When it came to blunt force trauma, there was only one kind of ship suitable for duty, and her designation always included the letters “BB”
The Captain spoke without taking his eyes off the viewscreen. The blinding white beams firing from Argent’s weapons and the explosions in the distance silhouetted him as he stood resolute and faced his enemy’s superior weapons. The tone of his voice was low and ominous.
“Signals, get a message to Second Marines and do it quickly. We’re about to get hit. We might not survive the first shot. We definitely won’t survive the second. Get the Highlanders off the deck and in space for a ground assault. Target: Scorpion One Three. Their orders are to take that battle station. All other considerations are secondary.”
The signals officer hesitated with a shocked look on his face. Then he swallowed. “Aye s-sir. Coding your message.”
One Hundred Four
Zony couldn’t believe what she was seeing. There was simply no way these readings could be accurate. The Barker’s Asteroid station had at best, partial power. There was absolutely no way she could be getting readings indicating weapons fire from a Sentinel-class gun. She keyed her commlink.
“Dunkerque! Come in!”
“Yili here.”
“Can you confirm superheavy weapons fire bearing two six five?”
“Stand by, landing party.”
Yili switched her console to drive the cruiser’s combat scanners and turned all of the vessel’s collectors to the coordinates Zony had provided. Sure enough, there was an EM spike tracking signal going back some 300 seconds. The energy readings were right in the center of the tolerances for a Sentinel weapon.
A weapon that ostensibly hadn’t fired in more than nineteen minutes.
“Landing party, your readings are confirmed. There’s another Sentinel out there!”
Moo looked back. “Say again, engineer?”
“Zony, I’ve got weapons fire from Argent and another ship at roughly the same coordinates! Are they assaulting the interdiction formation?”
“We need to raise Argent and find out! And we’ve got company down here!”
“We’re barely functional! If we start transmitting, we’re going to attract all the wrong kinds of attention!” Moo shouted.
“Argent can’t go toe-to-toe with a battle station, even with her escorts.” Yili replied.
“I’m forced to agree, Colonel!” Zony added over the comm circuit. “We’ve got to do something to help!”
Moo sighed. “It’s not happening with Dunkerque. We don’t have the horses. Our only option here is to get our own big gun operational.”
“That may be the only chance the Captain’s got, sir,” Yili said. “We can drive that thing up there with Dunkerque’s power systems, but the throughput is going to be way too much for this ship’s power bus. We’ll have three shots, maybe four. Then we’re going to blow the relay matrix.”
“What about surface-side power?” Zony asked.
“We haven’t had a chance to survey the installation yet. They might have put power down there. They might not. To be fair, they didn’t need to if they knew they would have the matter-energy field. But that presumes this station was built by the aliens or their allies.”
“Four shots is better than none. Can we target the location of that gun?”
“Affirmative, sir!” Zony said. “It’s at the extreme port edge of our range, but we can do what we need to!”
“There’s another factor, colonel. Once we burn out the Dunkerque’s power systems we’re going to be right back where we are right now with our lack of life support energy.”
“Alright, let’s–”
A thumping sound almost caused Zony to drop her commlink. Commander DeMay stood and drew his weapon.
“What the hell was that?!” Yili exclaimed.
Zony looked back at the closed magnetic hatch between the storage bay and the rest of the complex. Another thundering crash caused the metal deck plates to vibrate and left a visible dent in the door.
“Landing party to Dunkerque. We have a problem.”
One Hundred Five
“There’s an alien ship out there, Jason. Either that or someone is playing practical jokes on us!” Jayce reported insistently. “One of my mini-bots just took out an alien probe board Fury!”
“Where did it come from?” Jason asked.
“Unknown, but the rest of the fleet has to be on the lookout for intruders. They could appear anywhere at any time!”
“Acknowledged, Fury. Tactical, notify Second Marines I want all decks upgraded to intruder protocols. Have the Deck Officers notify the Quartermaster I want all personnel armed until further notice.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“You might want to do something similar for the rest of your task force, Jayce. Things are going to be dicey enough out there without asking for trouble indoors. While we’re at it, let’s get Ajax and Jefferson up front in case something jumps out of that asteroid field at us.”
“Affirmative, Captain. Fury out.”
Jason bared his teeth as he watched the first wave of heavy paladins streak into space towards the enormous ground emplacement in the distance.
“Shoot me, you bastards.” Hunter growled under his breath. “Take your best shots at me. Let’s see if that gun can beat my ship.”
The shattering explosion that silhouetted Scorpion One Three caused Argent’s entire bridge crew to gasp. Plasma fires reached a thousand miles into space in every direction, and gigantic chunks of dense rock tumbled away from the asteroid’s main body. The Sentinel emplacement swiveled rapidly to target something at the far edge of the asteroid field.
“Tactical, tell me what I think I just saw!”
“Confirmed! That blast came from Barker’s Asteroid, sir! A full power war shot!”
Jason Hunter rose to his feet and vigorously punched the air. “Flash message to flight leader Highlanders! Belay landing operat
ions and reconfigure for strategic bombing!” Hunter grabbed the black phone from the overhead console. “STC, this is the Flag. Raise Highlander One on battle frequency. Do it smartly!”
“You’re on, Captain!”
“Highlander One! This is the Flag, report!”
“Six thousand miles to target. Received new orders. Weapons free in thirty seconds!”
“Make sure there’s nothing left but a forwarding address, Nick. Be advised the Sentinel on Barker’s Asteroid is still engaged.”
“Yes sir.”
Hunter slammed the handset back into its cradle. A moment later, another thundering explosion crashed into Scorpion One Three.
“Way to go, Yili,” Hunter said quietly.
***
“New contact! Designate Silverback Seven Five Five bearing three one mark four, range 42000 miles!”
Both Annora and Sabrina snapped around to look at the forward screen. Sure enough, an unidentified ship had suddenly appeared only sixty miles from Scorpion One Three.
“Identification?” Doverly shouted.
“Negative. No known configuration. Her drive field is fluctuating. Now on a breakaway course, accelerating and veering off!”
“Sabrina! Take the helm. Plot an intercept course!” Doverly ordered. “Engineering! Engage main power. All ahead flank speed! Do not let that ship escape!”
The enormous battleship righted itself with customary capital platform prodigiousness and then roared directly into the asteroid field. It wasn’t until her starboard battlescreens shoved a six-million-ton rock to one side that the rest of Strike Fleet Perseus realized what they were seeing wasn’t some kind of hallucination. A moment later, both of the mighty vessel’s ventral guns fired into the asteroid field away from Scorpion One Three.
“What the hell is she shooting at?” Hunter barked from the Argent bridge. “Signals! Raise Ajax and Jefferson! I want them escorting Kingsblade. Order them to close fields so your battle screens can absorb any mine detonations. Go!”
“Affirmative Captain! Coding your message!”
An instant later the Scorpion One Three Sentinel fired on Barker’s Asteroid.