by Evan Currie
The shudders of the ship increased, and anything remotely loose clattering around them as dust and dirt from years past began to drift from every crevice. That continued for a few seconds before a sudden bang rang through the ship, and they were all thrown heavily into the air before the destroyer’s gravity yanked them back down in heaps all over the deck.
“What the hell was that?!” Buckler demanded from where he was lying with his feet tangled in the rail over his head.
“We just skipped off the lower atmosphere,” Steph said gleefully, as he was the only man in the room who managed to keep his feet. “Don’t worry, I planned that!”
“With all respect, sir,” the master sergeant growled out, “that’s what worries me!”
Archangel Three
“Ow.” Cardsharp winced as they watched the destroyer skip off the lower atmosphere of the planet hard enough that it shook its fireball for a moment and once more became visible before being engulfed again.
“Brilliant,” Noire whispered over the communications line. “Assuming he doesn’t get himself killed, of course.”
“You know what the hell just happened, Noire?” Tyke asked, curiously.
“He must have used the ship’s warping of space-time as an inverse aerofoil,” she answered. “They briefly dug into the lower atmosphere, but skipped out of it to redirect the destroyer back into space. It let him keep far more of his velocity than a traditional escape vector. The maneuver is called an aerogravity assist, but I don’t think anyone has ever thought to do it without a specially designed vehicle.”
Noire paused, considering. “Usually an unmanned vehicle, if I’m being honest about it.”
Tyke groaned, “Why does this not surprise me?”
“I can confirm, he’s gained a lot of speed and isn’t losing it as fast as expected,” Cardsharp cut in as she checked the telemetry. “The destroyer is climbing out of the atmosphere and will be ahead of us unless we pick up the pace.”
“Let’s not keep him waiting,” Tyke said, putting more power to his own drive.
“Roger that,” Noire said as she and the rest increased their own warps to match, racing the fiery destroyer around the curve of the planet as they watched to see it climbing out of the atmosphere, a falling star in reverse.
Imperial Third Fleet
“We’ve lost contact. They’ve crossed the terminator of the planet. We will pick them up again momentarily,” the sub-commander said as the telemetry scans they were watching went dead.
Jesan merely nodded. He knew what had happened. The enemy captain was not one he would care to meet in battle on even odds, he decided. Insanity in one’s enemies was not a desirable situation to find oneself dealing with.
He had already faced that situation in the near past and had zero inclination to seek it out again.
It was, however, amusing and slightly exciting to observe in a completely outclassed foe. Jesan almost felt like cheering for the unknown captain. He had provided some rather impressive entertainment. They had even made the display available to the crews of the Third Fleet simply to raise morale.
May not even be a bad idea to simply let them go, Jesan thought. The destroyer at least, if he could manage to force the smaller vessels into an engagement. The crew would likely enjoy letting this one escape, if only to hunt the captain down another time to see if he could offer up as much entertainment again.
He would not do that, however. As amusing as the thought might be, he could not afford it under his current status with the Imperial House. Any sense of failure might be enough to see him, and his crew, censured.
In the Empire, some censures only happened once.
“Increase closing velocity,” he growled.
“Commander,” his second replied. “We are at the edge of allowable military—”
“Noted. Increase closing velocity.”
Baphon
The Baphon exploded back into space, shedding flames and shimmering electrical cascades as the ionized particles were sequestered deep in the trough of the forward space-warp while others were expelled from the rear crest.
The ship plowed through the rings at high speed as the interference began to clear and Steph was once more able to check his telemetry against the information from the Archangels.
“So far so good,” he said. “Nice of you lot to catch up. What kept you?”
The six gleaming fighter-gunboats dropped into formation from the rear, matching his new velocity and acceleration as the ship was now climbing hard out of the stellar gravity well with as much power behind it as the reactor room could manage.
“Watch it, smart guy,” Noire answered. “None of us felt the need to light our butts on fire to get in the mood to run.”
“Whatever works, Noire,” Steph said, checking the Archangel scans for the Imperial Fleet. “Where are the Imps, anyway?”
“Coming around the planet,” Tyke answered. “Seems that they weren’t interested in following you down into a suicide run.”
“Some people—just no adventure in their souls.”
“Is that what you call it?” Cardsharp asked. “I thought it was shit in your brains.”
“Is that really how you talk to your CO?” Steph complained.
“Yes!”
“I swear, I get no respect.”
An alarm over the network cut off any reply the others might have had.
“Imperials just rejoined the party,” Cardsharp said. “And they’re looking to rock. Lasers are bracketing our position. They’re going to get our range soon. How is the accel curve looking there, boss?”
“Well, we’re not in the red anymore,” Steph said. “But we’re far from the green. They’re going to have several minutes where they might just be able to get a hit.”
“Well, fuck.”
“Nothing much to do about it, I’m out of brilliant—”
“Lucky!”
“Brilliant,” Steph stressed, “maneuvers. Just have to ride this one out and hope for the best now.”
“Hoping for the best rarely seems to work in a combat situation, Steph,” Cardsharp said seriously.
“Don’t I know it,” Steph responded wearily. “You have your orders.”
“Roger that.”
Imperial Third Fleet
“They survived,” Jesan said, a little surprised.
His sub-commander hissed softly. “More than that, they’re pulling away. We will only have a few minutes to engage at extreme range now.”
Jesan shrugged. “Good training for the beam crews. Inform them to go to constant fire as quickly as the beams will charge.”
“On your order, Fleet Commander.”
Jesan nodded absently, eyes on the small dots that depicted the enemy ships. The fleet had lost time splitting around the planet compared to those that had plunged in close to the gravity well—enough to lose their quarry in a short period, but it was better than losing several of his vessels.
He heard the whine-click of his flagship firing along with the rest of the fleet, a barrage of beams showing on the displays as they calculated their passage through the intervening space.
His eyes remained on the visual scans, however, since Jesan was aware that the first sign of a strike would be a flash of visible light in the darkness.
Baphon
Milla wiped her brow, cleaning the sweat away as she slumped against the closest wall. She pulled the armored helmet over her head. Now that the work was done, she wanted to see what she had succeeded in doing.
What she found was that they were back in the void, climbing hard for interstellar space, with the Imperials still in pursuit but far enough behind that the Baphon’s crew now had a chance at survival.
Catching the tail end of Stephan’s conversation with his fellow pilots was a little disheartening, however, as he seemed to be willing now to settle for the luck of the draw. She somehow felt wrong about that. Milla secured her helmet, linking into the telemetry from the Archangels, and mentally reviewed what she k
new of their capacities.
She was hesitant to offer the idea that came to her mind. It seemed insane to her. However, after what they had just done . . .
“Stephan,” she said hesitatingly. “I believe I have an idea.”
“Wow.”
“That’s all you have to say?” Cardsharp demanded of Steph after they’d listened to Milla’s suggestion. “You’ve obviously driven that poor girl as crazy as you are! I swear to God, Stephanos, you need a padded room and a nanny.”
“I am sorry?” Milla said into the conversation. “I did not mean . . .”
“Don’t apologize,” Steph said. “I love it!”
“Of course you do,” Cardsharp said, resigned.
“Thing is, I don’t know if any of the others are pilots enough to pull it off,” he went on as though she hadn’t spoken.
“Hey,” Alex growled, cutting in. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing there, Steph.”
“Are you saying it’s not working?”
The pilot of Archangel Two sighed deeply. “You know damn well it’s working.”
“Excellent,” Steph said, his tone smug. “So I say we go with Milla’s insane plan this time. Only pilots good enough to pull it off say aye.”
“Aye,” the six Archangel pilots ground out, some sounding like he was pulling teeth.
Genuine music to Stephanos’ ears.
Chapter 22
Imperial Third Fleet
Jesan watched as the numbers slowly began to diverge again, the enemy ships now making up the disadvantage they’d earned early on when his fleet had been accelerating while they remained on a ballistic course. Shortly, he knew, they would be out of range entirely and would escape him.
It wasn’t a critical miss on his part, but there was a frustrating element there just the same.
He would, he decided, loop back around once they were fully out of range, just to examine the disabled destroyers left behind, on the off chance that they had left something that might explain the actions of the unidentified ships. He didn’t truly expect to find much, not without considerably more context than he had, but it would be required for his report.
The fleet was still firing and would continue to do so as they sought the range to the enemy ships. He expected to get a few solid strikes, simply by statistical averaging if nothing else, but at the extreme range they were dealing with, it would be easy for the enemy to evade the majority of the beams with only minor course changes.
Space was vast, and even a cruiser’s beam had an infinitesimal focal diameter in comparison.
“Enemy vessels altering formation, Fleet Commander.”
Jesan frowned, curious more than anything else. “Define that.”
“Never seen anything like it. They’re pushing into a very tight formation. Estimate cluster . . . Commander, they have to be overlapping their warp effects.”
More and more curious, and reckless.
Jesan examined the formation on the display as the computers struggled to get scans clean enough to determine what in the abyss they were doing.
“Concentrate fire,” he ordered. “They’re grouped together, making our targeting easier.”
“As you order, Fleet Commander.”
What are they thinking?
It didn’t matter, he supposed. They had just given his gunners the best opportunity yet, right as the vessels were about to escape.
Archangel One
Tyke cringed as he felt the gravity in the fighter-gunboat twist, trying to pluck him out of the secured control section of the deck. He was so close to the warp field of the destroyer that he could feel it through his interface, like a prickly sensation across his left side.
“Easy, easy,” he said, mostly to himself though he was on the squadron channel as he murmured. “Don’t think about how crazy this is . . .”
“Easy for you to say. I’ve been thinking of nothing else,” Cardsharp responded, edging Archangel Three into position from the other side while Noire dropped in from the top. Archangels three through six were filling out the pattern on the ventral side of the destroyer, all seven ships overlapping their space-time warps as they did.
“Very good,” Milla said over the network. “Bring the last ships into alignment . . . excellent. Hold position carefully. I will send calculations to each of you. We will need to synchronize our drive fields now.”
“Roger that. It’s your play, Milla,” Steph said, tension thick in his voice as he struggled to control the destroyer without being able to see from the perspective of the warship itself. “The Dutchman’s drives are at your command.”
“Dutchman? Really?” Alexandra complained.
“It’s a good name,” Steph protested.
“You are such a child.”
“Fine, you can name the next prize we take,” Steph countered.
“Next one? Why the hell did we take this one?”
“For the last time: We. Are. Pirates.”
“Child,” she repeated slowly, enunciating the word with precision and deliberation.
“You are all children,” Milla cut in. “Now, please focus, or this will be the shortest maneuver any of you have ever attempted. Bapho—”
“Dutchman!”
She sighed. “Fine. Dutchman drive warps increasing. Set frequency, overlap gravity waves.”
“Roger, Milla,” Alexandra called for the team. “Drive warp oscillations rotating to match your frequency . . . We’re showing wave cancellation here, losing acceleration.”
“Rotate frequencies, slowly,” Milla said. “I have sent each of you individual patterns to follow.”
“Roger that. Archangels, initiate frequency rotation.”
With six smaller ships forming tightly on the destroyer’s aft section, their own drives overlapping with the space-time warp of the central vessel, the small convoy tore through space as it climbed for the edge of the local stars’ gravity influence. Behind, a fleet of massively larger ships were still in pursuit, throwing everything imaginable at the fleeing vessels in an attempt to take at least a few of them out.
The overlapping gravity fields that warped space and time to provide propulsion for the ships operated largely like any other form of wave mechanics. At first, with the fields out of alignment, the interference largely canceled itself out or even negated the effectiveness of the drives, slowing their acceleration.
As the Archangels rotated their wave frequencies to match the destroyer’s, however, the gravity waves began to reinforce one another, turning the crest of the wave behind the ships from a large source of power to a veritable rogue wave of gravity that surged in power and drove the seven ships ahead in a rush.
“Holy crap!” Steph screamed, hanging on to the console in front of him, desperately trying to keep the bow of the ship pointed in the right direction as the imbalance of forces attempted to steer the aft sections of the vessel ahead of the front.
An Alcubierre drive vessel, which the space-time warp designs were all in some manner related to, had often been compared to “surfing” waves through the universe. In theory, Steph had always understood that comparison, but in practice the process never really felt like that to him, and he had been known to do a little surfing in his time.
Under normal operation, an Alcubierre vessel was far more like a train running on tracks. You steered the ship by changing the tracks dynamically rather than by changing the point of travel the way you would in a conventional reaction craft. This was due to the balance of a space-warp, with a crest pushing the ship from behind and an equal but opposite trough for the vessel to “fall” into. To change directions, you shifted the vector of the crest and trough, and the ship would follow.
Steph was learning, however, that the surfing analogy wasn’t as bad as he’d thought. When you massively unbalanced the rear “crest,” things got . . . twitchy.
“I don’t know if I can hold this damn thing,” he warned, hugging the console as he fought the controls to keep the sh
ip straight.
“What? Not pilot enough, Stephanos?” Noire said, her tone mocking.
Steph rolled his eyes. “You try steering this pig with this much power pushing you! Milla, are we holding together?”
Milla, in the engineering section, was in a similar position to that of Steph. Desperately gripping the console in front of her while everyone else around her had been thrown to the deck in the initial surge of power, she too was fighting the power imbalance generated by the synchronized space-warp to the rear of the ship.
“I believe so, Stephan,” she gasped out, her stomach twisting around in her gut as the internal gravity seemed to want to shift, yet somehow didn’t. “I am reading warp field increase of almost four times!”
“Great. Maybe we’ll escape the Empire long enough to be splattered across the galaxy!” Steph responded.
A shudder ran through the ship, startling Milla, who looked around for what might have caused the disturbance.
“What was that?” Steph demanded.
“The Imperial Fleet is firing on us with everything they have.”
Imperial Third Fleet
Jesan blinked in surprise as he watched the acceleration curve of the enemy ships suddenly increase.
“What is happening?” he demanded, looking around to similarly confused faces.
“I . . . I believe they’re reinforcing the destroyer’s drive warp with their own,” a technician from one of the scanner pits said, sounding rather incredulous, as though he didn’t believe what he was saying.
“Is that possible?” Jesan blurted.
“In concept? Yes. I have never heard of anyone attempting such, however,” the technician said. “In order to even consider it, you would have to fly incredibly close. Closer than starships ever maneuver, Fleet Commander. The ranges would be practically touching hulls.”
Jesan examined the data they were scanning, measuring it against the man’s words.
They could be that close, he thought. The group’s proximity was difficult to tell, however, because the interference from their drive warps directly from the rear made it nearly impossible to get clean scans.