by Tony Healey
All of that lost to the Draxx. Because of the Union. Because when they had called for help, the Union didn’t come. Because the peaceful settlers of Nyular, at the very frontier of the galaxy, had refused to accept Union rule, instead opting for independence.
Sonjiin glared at himself in the mirror, blue eyes sparkling with cold fire.
He hated the Union and everything it stood for. As did the Outland Raiders.
They’d done a lot to cause disruption and mayhem, but this would be their crowning achievement. It would be more than terrorism. It would be more than idealism with an edge.
Outright war . . . and a war the Terran Union would never win.
Sonjiin checked the time again. "Time to go."
*
"Sensors have deteriorated to less than ten per cent," Chang reported, dismayed.
"Easy, Lieutenant," Captain Singh told her. "That’s to be expected."
"What am I meant to do? Use visuals only?" Lieutenant Banks asked.
Singh shrugged. "Pretty much, Mr. Banks. Sometimes you just have to . . . fly by the seat of your pants."
It was one of the more powerful ion storms the Captain had ever flown through, that was for certain. Not that he'd have let that be known. From all outward appearances, he was cool as a cucumber but in reality he was keen to have it behind them.
"Aye Captain," Banks said.
*
Sonjiin checked the corridors before climbing through Relay Service Hatch 28. In the confines of the small space, he located the power line control relays to the engines. From his pocket he produced a small, black device. It would go off at a designated time and cut the power. Even though they’d locate the problem before too long and bypass it, it wasn’t a concern. He’d be long gone by then.
Sonjiin set the device for a half hour later, and climbed out of the hatch. Still nobody around, and what if there were? No-one would suspect good old Dr. Grissom of any wrongdoing.
Sonjiin headed for the hangar.
*
"Just one slice?" the cook asked her.
She held up her fingers. "Better save him two. He likes his pie."
"Yeah, he got real upset the last time," the cook said as he put the plate beneath the counter.
"I heard," Jessica told him, picturing the man thrown in the brig for crimes against pie lovers.
She took her sandwich and coffee and sat down at an empty table. The ship continued to tremor all around them, despite the efforts of the dampeners to absorb the turbulence. She didn’t fancy too much to eat. Just a snack.
Jessica also didn’t expect to sleep that well. It was like snoozing on top of a gyrating tectonic plate. Impossible.
She gazed out of a nearby viewport as she ate. The storm was one thing, at least.
Beautiful. It couldn’t be said of many of nature’s lethal dangers. Outside soundless lightning flashed around them. Jessica ate her sandwich.
*
Sonjiin climbed into the shuttle.
"Your shift now, eh doc?" one of the guards asked him through the hatch.
"Yes," Sonjiin said. He disappeared behind the Sun Hammer, as if he were examining a part of it. On the wall behind him hung a selection of basic tools. He selected a laser torch and flicked it on.
The guard had his back to the hatch as he surveyed the hangar’s interior. Sonjiin stood with the torch in hand, his thumb over the lighting switch. He crept up behind the guard and levelled the torch an inch from the back of the man's neck. He activated it, sending a thin beam of pure energy straight at the guard. With one flick of the wrist he had severed the man’s head from his body. The guard only had time to utter "Huh?"
Sonjiin shoved the man forward. The body hit the deck followed by its head, which rolled for several metres before coming to a stop.
"What the hell?" the other guard asked as he bounded over to his fallen comrade.
Sonjiin leaped out, slashed the laser torch in a downward motion. It cut the guard all the way down the front, his innards spilling to the floor.
He didn’t wait for the man to collapse. Sonjiin ran to the controls for the hangar bay doors and set them for a timed release using one of the access codes they’d been able to obtain prior to his arrival at the station.
He dropped the torch and ran for the shuttle. Sonjiin turned to where he knew there was a series of cameras overlooking the hangar. He pressed the side of his neck. The facial stealth technology deactivated, returning his face and hair to its natural state. He waved at the camera. Klaxons sounded around him.
Sonjiin closed the shuttle and settled into the pilot’s seat. Moments later, the engines fired and he brought the shuttle to a steady hover over the deck.
As he waited for the hangar bay doors to open he glanced back into the rear of the shuttle. The Sun Hammer looked harmless enough, secured to its platform.
So does a tiger, he thought. Till you wake it up.
*
"Sir! The hangar bay doors are about to open!" Banks said, shocked.
"What?" Singh asked, just as surprised. His mind raced. "Stop it. Lock it down."
Banks tried. "Captain, I can’t!"
"Ensign Boi, shipwide communications," Singh ordered. "Commander King to the hangar deck at once. Commander King to the hangar deck. Unauthorised launch in progress."
*
Jessica dropped her sandwich and darted for the door. She raced through the ship, stopping only to relieve a male crewman of his side arm. As she continued to the hangar she took the weapon off the safety. It hummed to life in her hand.
*
The doors opened slowly, exposing the airless hangar to the similarly airless vacuum of space. Sonjiin took the shuttle up and over the other stationary vehicles parked there. He took it through the opening in the ship’s side and out into the storm. Almost at once the shuttle was hit by the strength of the tempest.
*
Jessica watched through the blast door viewport as the shuttle took off and exited the ship. She went to the nearby comm. panel and contacted the bridge.
"Bridge this is King. It’s gone. The Sun Hammer’s gone."
28.
Sonjiin flew the shuttle away from the Defiant, then turned the small craft about to face the larger vessel again. He tipped the shuttle’s nose and rose up over the Defiant’s dorsal. As planned, his own starship hovered above the Defiant’s aft fin, completely hidden from both the visual inputs and the diminished sensors of the Union ship. It had travelled with the Defiant for hours that way, within one of the bigger ship’s blind spots.
The Retribution pivoted about to gain him access to its aft cargo bay. Sonjiin spoke into the shuttle’s comm. system.
"Sonjiin to Retribution. Get us out of here as soon as I’m aboard," he said.
*
"Whoever it is, they just piloted that shuttle out of the hangar," Jessica said over the comm.
Before Captain Singh could let that register, the Defiant died around him. Every console went dark, the lights failed. The steady background vibration of the Defiant’s powerful engines faded away to nothing. It took several seconds for the emergency systems to kick in, for the different stations around the bridge to come back online. The emergency lighting flickered to life.
"Engines are down," Banks reported.
Chang looked up from her own readouts. "Complete loss of power."
Captain Singh turned to Lieutenant Commander Greene. "We need to get answers and fast. Somebody needs to explain to me what the hell’s going on!"
*
"You are safe, brother," Belosh said.
"And I have our bounty. Are we about to get underway?"
Belosh nodded. "As you ordered."
Using a scanner attached to his forearm, Belosh performed a diagnostic of the Sun Hammer.
"As you expect it to be?" Sonjiin asked him. Already his men were removing the device from the shuttle.
"Yes. It should not take long to connect it to the Retribution. The containment room was install
ed precisely as we were told," Belosh said.
The two of them followed the Sun Hammer into the adjacent room, where the sealed centrifuge had been fitted weeks before. It would shield them from the lethal radiation emitted by the device when fully operational.
"Good. Then return to the bridge and I will oversee the connection. You have all done well. At last, our time has come."
*
When the power died, Commander King went straight to engineering. The Chief didn’t even notice her enter the engineering section. She was focused on getting the ship back online.
"Chief," Jessica said as she approached. "Hey, Chief . . ."
Gunn shook her head. "Wait. Give me a second."
King bit her lip. The Chief’s lack of a bedside manner could shock at times, but she was by far the best engineer in the Union. It was worth putting up with her abrupt manner, because she nearly always delivered.
She watched as Gunn coordinated the engineering crew as if she were a military general. The Chief barked orders left and right.
A moment later, the lights came back on.
Jessica smiled.
"We’re not out of it yet, Commander. I can’t get the engines back online," Gunn explained fleetingly as she rushed past. "I’m still working on that one."
"Could it be sabotage?" King offered.
"Perhaps."
Gunn stopped. She locked eyes with Jessica as the implication of what she’d just said set in.
Jessica nodded slowly. "And if you were going to sabotage the engine’s you’d . . ."
". . . cut the power lines at one of the relays!" Gunn said, putting it together in her mind. She rushed away.
"Is there anything I can do?" Jessica called after her.
"Stay out of my way," Gunn called back.
The smile on Jessica’s face disappeared as fast as it had come.
*
"Captain! Dead ahead!" Banks yelled.
On the viewscreen an arrow-shaped ship came into view above them. It went on ahead, corrected its course slightly, then increased speed to leave the Defiant behind.
"Lieutenant Chang, do what you can to track that goddamned ship!" Singh snapped. He cracked his knuckles with frustration. "Banks, as soon as you have engines you will initiate a pursuit course. Let’s hope their trail isn’t lost in this storm."
Lieutenant Commander Greene removed an earpiece. "Apparently the security footage shows Doctor Grissom killing the two guards and then boarding the shuttle."
It didn’t seem possible. "Doctor Grissom?"
"I’ve sent security to go and grab Doctor Russell," Greene said. "Salnow will interrogate him, get some answers."
"Do what you have to. We need to know what’s happened here," Singh said. "Something tells me our Doctor Grissom wasn’t who we thought he was."
And now we’ve lost the galaxy’s most devastating weapon, Singh thought.
He swallowed hard. His throat had turned to dust.
29.
When Commander King returned to the bridge, the engines were back. But in the time it had taken to fix them, the enemy vessel was long gone.
Captain Singh updated her on their situation. "We’re now trying to locate their trail."
"But the sensors are all jammed up, aren’t they?" King asked, hands on her hips.
"They are, but we have enough to work with," Chang said.
"Try looking for their residual wake through the ion storm’s dispersal patterns," King suggested. "Think of an old-style boat cutting across a lake."
Chang’s eyes lit up. "Great . . . working . . ."
Her hands flew over the console controls.
"Well?" Singh asked impatiently.
"Got it!" Chang said. "Tying in with navigation now."
"Excellent," Singh said. "Push her as hard as you can, Banks."
*
"Approaching the system," Vilik announced as Sonjiin strode onto the bridge.
"The device is now tied in with the Retribution's main power banks within the sealed containment room," Sonjiin said with satisfaction.
Belosh looked nervous. "Sonjiin, you’re certain this is where you want to use it . . ."
Sonjiin closed the gap between them. "You doubt me, Belosh? I have led you this far and you doubt me? Brother . . . don’t start to question me now."
"I’m . . . I’m . . . not . . ." Belosh stammered.
The others looked on. Sonjiin rested a hand on Belosh’s shoulder. "Proceed to the system," he ordered firmly. "And we will show the full measure of our resolve to these Union dogs."
"Yes, Sonjiin," Belosh said weakly. "Right away."
*
They left the last of the ion storm behind them.
"Where’s he headed?" Singh asked. He joined Lieutenant Commander Greene at Ensign Rayne’s station.
"It appears to be the Xilin system," Greene said.
"Inhabitants?" Singh asked him.
Greene deferred to the Ensign. "An estimated thirty billion," Rayne said.
The Captain looked up at Greene. "Time?"
"At their current speed . . ." the Lieutenant Commander said, "they’ll be there in under an hour."
Singh walked away, his hands at the small of his back. He worked the kinks out of his neck. "Will we be able to catch them up?" he asked no-one in particular.
"No," Banks answered.
The Captain turned around. "Spool up the Jump Drive, Lieutenant. Prepare for a short burst."
"What’re you thinking?" Jessica asked him.
"A former Captain of mine did it once. Increase elevation, then calculate how much Drive you’ll need to cut the distance between you and the other vessel. With any luck, you end up just ahead of them. But if you get it wrong . . ." Captain Singh explained.
"Road kill," King said with obvious distaste.
"Nice," Singh said with a roll of his eyes. "Okay, everyone buckle up! Prepare for Jump. Del, I want you at the weapons station, ready to fire at my command."
*
Belosh peered over Vilik's shoulder at the readouts from the helm console. "Ten minutes till we reach firing distance."
"Target their sun and prepare to –" Sonjiin was cut off by the helmsman.
"Defiant dead ahead!" Vilik yelled.
Sonjiin's head snapped around. He glared at the hulk of the Union vessel before them. It blocked their path directly. Vilik threw the ship into a nosedive.
*
"We don’t want to destroy them, sir," King said. "There’s no knowing what will happen."
"Agreed. Del, target their propulsion systems with the forward batteries only," Singh said.
"Aye!"
The Captain sat forward in the command chair. "FIRE!"
Lieutenant Commander Greene expertly handled the controls. The Defiant reverberated from the action of the ship's guns. They watched on the viewscreen as the enemy ship ducked beneath them. The guns traced their progress, unable to meet their mark.
"She’s fast," Greene said, tongue between his teeth as he worked the controls. "Switching to lateral batteries."
Lieutenant Banks brought the Defiant around to pursue. There was less than a ship’s length between them.
"Easy, Del," King warned.
Their fire glanced the rear of the craft. A minor explosion knocked the ship off course, but it recovered quickly.
"She’s not firing back. She doesn’t have any weapons," Greene said.
"Just the one," Captain Singh said ominously. He turned to Jessica. "Anything from Salnow?"
"He's still questioning Russell, but so far nothing. Apparently Doctor Russell knew nothing about it. But I didn’t hold out much hope for info anyway," King said.
"Me neither. If he’d been in on it, they would have left together," Singh said. He slapped his thigh in anger. "I can’t believe we were fooled like that."
"We weren’t to know, sir," she assured him. "This is obviously bigger than all of us."
Singh turned back to the viewscreen. The Defiant�
��s guns trained in on the enemy ship again. Its starboard engine flared white and burst into flame.
"Good shot!" Singh cheered.
"Maintaining speed," Chang said. "Damage to their engines but they’re not slowing."
*
"We’ve lost one engine," Vilik said.
"Keep us out of reach of their guns. We’re so close . . ." Sonjiin said, his face eager with anticipation.
"But, Sonjiin . . . with only one engine, how can we hope to outrun a Union starship?" Belosh cried out, unable to contain his worry.
Sonjiin rounded on him, grabbed him by the jacket and shoved him across the Command Deck. He went flying into the far wall.
"Weak fool! In the palm of our hands we have the power to kill a star," Sonjiin said. His outstretched hand closed into the tight knot of a fist.
30.
Thirty seconds later, the Retribution came into range. Sonjiin fired the Sun Hammer. A bright orange glow lit every nook and cranny of the ship, as if she were ablaze.
A beam of energy stretched from the front of the craft to the fierce sun at the centre of the Xilin system. At first it seemed as though nothing happened.
But within the heart of the sun, where the Sun Hammer's blow had struck true, nuclear reactions of unfathomable magnitude were accelerated to millions of times their normal speed. The sun swelled white hot in a blinding flash as it erupted, doing in moments what would have normally taken billions of years.
The expanding energies of the resultant shockwave consumed all that stood before it. It tore through the orbiting planets, vaporising their atmospheres in seconds. The billions of sentient beings on their surface didn't have a chance to know what had taken place. The shockwave shattered each planet as it blasted through. Entire cultures and civilisations were wiped from existence in a matter of seconds.
And in the presence of all that destruction, Sonjiin smiled.
"This is our message to the galaxy. That we will not be toyed with. That we will not accept anything but total and utter surrender to our terms," Sonjiin said to the other Raiders aboard the Retribution as they watched the explosion from the Command Deck. "Brothers and sisters, we have arrived."