“Computer, course away from the wave and kick in the afterburners.”
“Afterburners?” the computer asked, mystified.
“Whatever you have that does the same job as an afterburner, kick it,” Haynes said with a touch of weariness.
“You can’t outrun it,” the computer told him, “which is to say that I can’t outrun it.”
“It’ll give us more time,” Haynes explained.
“About seventeen seconds,” the computer calculated.
“Which you’ve just wasted arguing,” Keely pointed out.
“Computer, swing us around to face head on with the wave,” Lyssa ordered urgently. “Give it just enough speed to maintain steerage and throw everything else into the forward deflectors, except minimum life support,” she added as a safeguard. She noticed the other two looking at her. “What? Lowest cross-section to the disturbance with maximum reinforcement at that point. Try and ride it out.”
“I’m not complaining,” Haynes assured her hurriedly. “Do you think it will work?”
“Might,” she shrugged, “might not. Either way it’s not going to be pretty. Anybody any other ideas?”
“Making you captain?” the computer offered.
“Helpful suggestions?”
“Grab hold of something?” the computer suggested further, “and soon.”
“Acceleration couches!” all three passengers said together and raced for the protection.
The material sucked them in and held them tightly in place.
Everything was quiet for a moment.
“I don’t believe it,” Keely said, surprised, “For once we actually made it here with plenty of tiiiii....”
The wall of energy slammed into the ship with force of, well, a wall. The shock was enough to break the magnetic clamps anchoring the acceleration couches the floor. They were hurled across the flight deck and into the bulkhead. The material kept them from being hurt seriously, but didn’t stop them from feeling most of the turbulence.
“Now I know what it’s like to live inside a maraca,” Keely groaned.
“Don’t you dare throw up,” Lyssa, who was closest to her, warned.
“Can you even have one maraca?” Haynes mused distractedly. “I mean don’t they come in pairs?”
The computer shouted out the entire contents of its profane language file and a console erupted in a shower of very impressive yellow sparks. There was a smell of burned insulation.
“What was that?” Keely squealed.
“Power surge,” the computer reported shortly. “Had to route it somewhere.”
“Did we lose anything important?” Lyssa asked in concern.
“I routed it into the folklore banks,” the computer told her. “I think I may have wiped the entire history of morris dancing.”
“Well, that’s something to be happy about,” Keely said cheerfully and then squealed as the acceleration couch was sent skidding across the room to crash into the far wall.
“Everybody OK?” Haynes asked when the shock absorbing material released its grip on his face.
“Just peachy,” Lyssa replied with heavy irony.
“Oh quit complaining,” he shot back, too busy holding on to be really irritated. “At least we’re still underway and have life support.”
With a crackle and a snap, all the lights went out and the room became very quiet.
“You had to say it didn’t you?” Lyssa scowled, but the others couldn’t tell because of the dark.
“We’ve stopped being thrown around,” Keely pointed out. “That’s got to be a good sign, right?”
Haynes stood up and the folds of the acceleration couch released him. As it was propped up at a 45 degree angle, he dropped two feet onto the deck and fell over.
“Not if it means we’re adrift,” Lyssa answered her question, also struggling out of the clutches of the couch. She added, “I can’t hear anything; no propulsion, no attitude jets, no fans...”
“No life support,” he picked up on her meaning straight away.
“Shouldn’t the emergency lights have kicked in by now?” Keely asked from somewhere in the blackness.
“You’re right,” Lyssa agreed, nodding uselessly. “They’re on batteries, so the system failure shouldn’t have affected them.”
As if waiting for a cue in a play, the emergency lighting flickered into life with the visual equivalent of a cough. The low illumination revealed that they were all looking in different directions, none of which pointed at anyone else.
“Well, that’s something at least,” Haynes welcomed being able to see something again. “What’s the damage computer?”
The room remained resolutely silent apart from their breathing.
“Sometimes, if there’s a problem, complex systems can revert to default language status,” Lyssa said. “Computer, damage report.”
The response was the same. Haynes noticed that there was a faint mist coming out of Keely’s mouth with every breath. “it’s getting cold.’
“Absolute zero of space outside, no heating inside,” Lyssa explained succinctly. “The damage must be pretty bad if emergency life support hasn’t enough power to run it.”
“All right we abandon the ship,” Haynes made the inevitable decision, “and rig it to blow.”
“What?” All of the lights burst into brilliant white and the air was full of whirs as various systems whined into life. Fresh, warm air flooded the room. “‘Rig it to blow’? Just like that, without even one attempt to fix me? Not one!”
“Welcome back computer,” Haynes said without too much surprise.
“You’re not dead!’’ Keely squealed in delight at the same moment.
“Would you believe a superfast self-repair job?” The screen ignited into life with a swirl of bright colours.
“No, what I would believe is us getting into the lifepods and abandoning ship only to see you come back to life and sail off into the sunsets,” Haynes suggested.
“Just a joke,” the computer said, the patterns on the screen becoming more agitated. “That’s all, but I really had you going there for a moment didn’t I?”
Haynes pointed at the viewscreen, “You’re using purple. You only ever use purple when you’re lying.”
“Really? Damn!”
“Maybe we should abandon ship and blow it up,’ Lyssa proposed angrily. “We might be a damned sight better off.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t advise that,” the computer said, adding hurriedly when Lyssa opened her mouth to retort, “Not with all these alien ships bearing down on us.”
The viewscreen shimmered into the view outside, dark and empty space with just a few sprinkled stars and several giant and unfriendly-looking spaceships to give any definition.
“Now that’s impressive,” Lyssa breathed the word out rather than spoke it.
“I’ll not take offence,” the computer said huffily. “Not least because they are impressive. They’re also heading this way.”
“How close will they pass?” Haynes wondered how big a change of course they were going to have to make.
“By ‘coming this way’ I mean right to your door,” the computer clarified, “Collision course. And they’re bigger than us by a factor of ten and 95% of their power is dedicated to offensive weaponry. And you remember that thing I said about outrunning the shockwave?”
“That you couldn’t?” Keely hazarded.
“Same applies here.”
“Try,” Haynes ordered. Then he asked Lyssa, “Do you think they’re the ones that probed us?”
“Can’t imagine there’s too many others out here,” she shrugged. “I mean we get an alien probing...” she ignored the snigger from the computer’s hidden speakers, “...and then these guys show up. It’s got to be more than coincidence.”
“Can you identify them?” Haynes asked the computer.
“Oh yeah,” was the confident reply.
“Halreptors?” Haynes guessed.
“Got it in one,�
� the computer confirmed.
“Any idea what they want?” Keely wondered. “Apart from raping us and sucking the marrow from our bones whilst we watch?”
“Actually, I do have an idea about that,” the computer said.
“Right,” Haynes said decisively, straightening his shoulders and looking like he knew exactly what he was doing. He didn’t, but that didn’t mean that he had to let the others see that. “Turn us around and take us back to Bliss at the best speed that you can manage that doesn’t blow us up.”
“You want to go back to Bliss?” Keely wondered.
“Can we get there before they catch us?” he asked the computer.
“It’s going to be very close,” the computer warned him.
“Good,” Haynes nodded, “the closer the better.”
The hyperspace shock wave caused little damage to the small, black-with-yellow-racing-stripes, spaceship. It was buffeted just as strongly, but it was smaller, sleeker and more designed to slip through things with the least disturbance. In one of the storage lockers, a mug marked with the message ‘Someone went to Arcturus and all I got was this lousy mug’ was cracked by a cellular membrane disruptor pistol that was not completely secure.
The computerised damage report also announced that a small pinhole breach in the hull had caused the loss of the ship’s entire supply of liquid soap and there was a tiny discolouration of one of the yellow racing stripes where an external sensor had fused.
“Have you isolated the cause of the shockwave?” the ship’s sole passenger and crewmember asked once the pinhole had been sealed and a few cakes of hard soap had been located.
“It is posited that the shockwave was caused by a very severe manoeuvre carried out by a number of very large and very powerful alien ships,” the computer reported its conclusion, which was surprising enough to make the man pause for almost half a heartbeat.
“Evidence for this conclusion?” he then demanded calmly.
“Those same ships are now on screen in pursuit of the target,” the computer told him.
“Come to a full stop,” the man ordered immediately. “Shut down all radiant energy sources and shield those that you can’t shut down. Go to full passive scanning mode and show me what’s going on out there.”
The computer followed its orders and the ship effectively disappeared from sight. The only way that anyone was going to find it now was to accidentally fly right into it, which was unlikely given the infinite amount of space there was around it to pass by in.
A single viewscreen ignited to show the target vessel now on a new course, accelerating away with several new, much larger, primary signals in pursuit. The man noted the path of the new course.
“Clever,” he allowed, admitting at the same time, “but not clever enough.”
“How close do you want to get?” the computer questioned.
The main viewscreen was split between two views. On the left was the blazing maelstrom of deadly energy that now passed as the Bliss system, whilst on the right was a view of the pursuing ships, now so close that it was possible to pick up the complete lack of striations on the hull caused by space matter getting through their navigational shields.
“Till we can smell the discharge,” Haynes responded and then added, “and I know it’s not possible so don’t even start.”
“Oh it’s possible,” the computer assured him, “but you won’t be smelling it for long.”
“Are you ready?” Haynes asked, looking at the girls. They were both holding on tightly to whatever was at hand.
“Absolutely,” Keely confirmed with an emphatic nod of her head.
“No,” Lyssa denied with an equally emphatic shake of hers, “but go ahead anyway.”
“Do it,” Haynes ordered.
Every single attitude engine that the ship possessed fired at full power and in unison, spinning the ship through a sharp angle. The main engines were momentarily stopped, but then came on again at full intensity plus a little more until the tolerance levels set by the designers were a distant memory. The damping field almost failed to compensate for the move, objects straining to fly across the room again. The humans held on tightly.
Spaceships don’t have handbrakes, but many a teenage car cruiser would have recognised the manoeuvre, and applauded it.
The pursuing ships were bigger, heavier and travelling faster in their attempt to capture their prey. So intent were they on the final moments before the tractor beam could be applied that the sudden change of direction took them by surprise. The delay was only momentary, but as the target vessel shot off in what appeared to be an impossible direction captains yelled at their own pilots in their own way and wildly evasive action was taken.
The delay was only momentary, but it was not enough. For anybody.
The black, spiderlike ships raced past the ship they were chasing and the viewscreen rotated its view to follow them. They all turned in motions almost as violent as the ship they had been chasing, but the extra speed, size and weight meant extra inertia and they all entered into range of the randomly firing Bliss defence systems, decelerating all the time. Enormous arrays of deadly power lashed into defensive shields of enormous power and the normally dark region of space burned like the heart of a supernova. The glare caused Haynes, Keely and Lyssa to cover their eyes and turn their heads away despite the filters that automatically countered its intensity.
The electromagnetic feedback overloaded the Bliss planetary defence grid and did what the controllers had failed to do. The laser cannons stopped firing. The energy surge died away and the filters on the image disconnected, one by one, as the harmful energy dissipated. Against the background of stars, a group of immensely powerful warships limped towards them.
“They’re still there?” Keely cried out. “How is that possible?”
“The kind of power their shields must be capable of,” Lyssa mused, equally shocked. “No wonder they beat all our defences so easily.”
“They’re not moving easily though,” Haynes pointed out. A straight line seemed to be something that the ships on the screen had lost the ability to maintain. “Can we outrun them now.”
“Them yes,” the computer declared, “but I think that Mama just showed up.”
The image on the viewscreen swivelled through a half circle (inducing the humans with a moment of mild motion sickness). There was nothing to see except for a few tiny patches of stars scattered around the edges.
“Reduce magnification,” Haynes ordered.
“Can’t,” the computer responded. “This is as low as it goes. This is normal size. Not only that, but I had to launch a video probe about five miles behind us just to get it down to this size.”
“But it’s enormous!” Keely said in awe.
“Say that in the bedroom and you’ll be one popular lady,” the computer promised her.
“It’s approximately six times larger than the Star Fleet flagship and armed to the teeth,” Lyssa studied the readout on her personal screen.
“To the back teeth,” the computer confirmed.
“Ideas anyone?” Haynes queried.
“Immediate surrender and say we’re very, very sorry?” Keely suggested.
“Anything more constructive?” Haynes asked Lyssa.
“I’m kind of leaning in the agreeing with Keely direction,” she replied with a shrug.
“Computer?”
“Charge them head on with all weapons blazing.”
“Chances of success?” Haynes asked.
“Oh. None at all,” the computer announced, “but at least we’ll go down fighting.”
“Let’s call that Plan B shall we?” Keely put in.
“I’m thinking more Plan Z,” Haynes assured her. “Lyssa, can you still block them out telepathically?”
“Only reason that little stunt of yours with the defence grid worked,” she said with a nod, “but they’re a lot closer now and a lot more determined. I can feel them trying to get in.”
“
How does that feel?” Keely was a little curious and a little repelled by the idea.
“Like someone opened my head and dipped my brain in a bowl of hungry ants.”
“Eww,” repulsion drove Keely’s curiosity right out.
“OK, here’s what we do,” Haynes decided, rubbing his hands together decisively.
“You’ve got a plan?” Keely said excitedly.
“A plan, no, an idea, yes,” he grinned at her to hide the fact that what he had wasn’t even grand enough to call an idea. “Computer, take this file,” he leaned over to a keyboard and punched in the location code to one of his personal files, “ and bury it. Bury it so deep and protect it with so many security protocols that nobody gets to see it until I tell you to implement it and that means you don’t get to see it either so just keep it locked. When I tell you to run it, run it without question and without delay.”
“Gotcha,” the computer agreed.
“And I do mean no peeking,” Haynes added meaningfully.
“Oh all right,” the computer agreed sulkily. “We’re being pulled inside.”
“Tractor beam?” Lyssa wondered.
“Nope,” the computer told her. “That thing’s so big its gravity is pulling us in at this range.”
“Lyssa, it is vitally important that they don’t read us,” Haynes continued urgently. “They must not be able to see what I’m thinking. Can you handle that?”
“For now, I think,” she did not sound sure. “What happens when we’re over there, though...”
“I’m asking you for what you can do, nothing more,” Haynes favoured her with a more gentle smile.
“What do I do?” Keely asked excitedly.
Haynes thought about that for a moment before offering lamely, “Look pretty?”
“Ooooh!” her face took on the angry look that had become so familiar to Haynes over the past few days and then she stormed out of the room, again in familiar fashion.
“Do you really have a plan?” Lyssa asked him earnestly.
He lied with total conviction, “Oh yes.”
Inside the small ship floating in its pool of passive invisibility, the hunter watched as events unfolded on the edge of the Bliss system. Haynes’s manoeuvring of the Halreptor ships into the heart of the energy weapon maelstrom had been masterly, possibly even better than he could have handled himself, but it had been in vain. A giant mothership had powered out of hyperspace within a few kilometres of the fugitive vessel and was drawing both the vessel and his own prey inside
To Infinity Page 16