“See, Uncle! We aren’t finished yet!”
* * * * *
“Sir, the bogey is signaling us. It looks to be a repeat of the first message,” said the com technician.
“No reply. Surrender be damned,” said Frichette. Then he looked at Crawford. “Sorry, sir, you are in charge here, but I’m assuming you agree?”
“Damn right.” He said it as confidently as he could, but he did not feel nearly so confident. What the hell had they stuck their hand into?
“Aye, sir, do not reply.”
“Range to target is twenty-two thousand kilometers and closing,” said the sensor tech. “They are not evading, sir.”
“You have a solid lock?” asked Frichette.
“Yes, sir, their transmission gave us a good fix. And this one is a lot bigger and with far more metal in it than those others. They won’t be able to lose us, sir.”
“If they aren’t evading, we might be able to hit them, even at this range, sir,” said Lieutenant Chapman.
“Wait. Mr. Farsvar said there could be one or two more waves of attackers. Presumably ones like the first. I want to hold our fire until we see those energy build-ups again and then lock-on and fire as quick as we can—before they can hit us.”
“Right, sir.”
“Sensors, look sharp. I want to know at the first hint of a contact. And tie in a camera to your sensors. Maybe we can get a look at these things. Weapons, standby to lock on to any sensor contact. You will fire only on my command.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said both men. Crawford was becoming more and more impressed with Frichette. The lad had certainly been doing his homework!
Several minutes went by and the bogey stopped signaling. All the while, damage reports were coming in. Whatever the enemy had hit them with had fried circuits and popped breakers all over the ship. Most of the damage seemed to be on the portside, but the reactor had gone into an automatic shutdown and the chief engineer wasn’t sure how long it would take to get it back up. With no reactor and no drive, they would zip past their destination at high velocity and continue on into an unexplored—and apparently hostile—star system. Crawford was tempted to grab a wrench and go help with the repairs—at least that was something he understood! But no, his place was here.
More time passed and the bridge crew was getting edgy. Frichette was wiping his hands on his tunic and rubbing his fingers together, the only real signs that he was nervous. “Sure hope these guys are right about the first batch,” said Chapman quietly. “If they are able to double back on us, we’ll never see them coming.”
“Amen to that, Lieutenant. Well, in another three minutes, if nothing else happens, I’m going to open up on the one target we do…”
“Captain!” exclaimed Hreni, the sensor tech. “New contacts. Five of them, just like before! Range about twelve hundred klicks!”
“Transfer the lock to weapons! Standby to fire!”
“Yes, sir!”
Crawford drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair and then forced himself to stop. The main bridge monitor had split itself into a dozen smaller displays. Some of these were showing the status of the weapons mounts that were still functional. The two primary turrets quickly accepted the targeting information from the sensors and achieved a lock. There were four secondary mounts that could bear, but they were slower in getting a lock. Frichette had put his most experienced crews in the main turrets and the others were having trouble handling their weapons without the help of the main fire control computer.
“Sir Charles, do I have permission to fire on these targets?”
He swallowed and his eyes flicked to another display which was showing a view from an exterior camera, slaved to one of the sensors. It was at full magnification and it showed a blurry blob that was one of the targets. He couldn’t really tell anything about it from the image, but in all probability there were human beings aboard them. And Frichette was asking permission to kill them.
“Sir, the energy levels on the bogies are still climbing,” said Hreni.
“Captain, we better fire before they can,” said Chapman.
“Sir Charles?” Frichette looked him straight in the eyes and Crawford couldn’t look away, as much as he wanted to. “We’re running out of time, sir.”
His head jerked convulsively. “Yes.”
The exec immediately turned to give the firing order, but Frichette stopped him. “Wait. I want them all in one salvo.” Two of the secondary turrets had their locks now. Four of the five were targeted, but the last one was still eluding the remaining turrets. “Damn it, what’s the delay?”
“Energy levels are starting to spike!” exclaimed Hreni. Crawford tensed and gripped the arms of his chair.
“All batteries…” The last targeting icon flashed from yellow to green. “…Fire!”
Felicity’s lasers lashed out. There was no sound or motion to indicate it, but an instant later all five targets blinked off the screens, to be replaced with a symbol for drifting debris. On the video monitor there was a sudden flash and the fuzzy blob was blown to bits.
“Got the bastards!” exclaimed Chapman. Cheers erupted from all over the bridge. Crawford had to force himself not to join them.
“Well done, people!” said Frichette. “Weapons, retarget the main batteries on the remaining bogey. Standby to fire.”
“Yes, sir!” The weapons officer had a wolf-like grin on his face. The sensor tech had already aimed the camera pick-up at the new target. It was larger, but much farther away and so it was just a fuzzy speck.
Crawford was learning to read the displays. It appeared that B-turret already had its lock, but D-turret was lagging behind. The secondaries were out of range. Suddenly, there was a tug on his arm. He turned to see Mr. Farsvar beside him. The man looked agitated and he was talking rapidly. He couldn’t make out any of it.
“It’s all right, sir, we’re taking care of them,” said Crawford, absently patting the man’s hand. “No need to worry now, you’re safe.” The man continued to talk, but it still made no sense.
“D-turret had its lock, sir,” said Chapman.
“Very good. Fire.”
The remaining target flashed brightly in the video display, Farsvar’s grip on his arm tightened painfully and the man shouted something. Clearly the man was excited by the battle.
“Target destroyed, sir,” said Chapman with satisfaction.
“Well done. But keep a sharp lookout. There could be more.”
“Hopefully not too many more, sir. The capacitors for the weapons are almost exhausted. Unless we can get the reactor back up soon we aren’t going to have much to shoot with.”
“Yes, well let’s get on that.”
Crawford took a deep breath and tried to relax. Whatever the hell was going on, they had come through it more or less intact. Then he noticed that Farsvar had released his arm. He turned and saw that the two natives had retreated to the far side of the bridge and were talking to each other. Neither one looked especially happy. What was wrong with them? With no immediate crisis to deal with, Crawford unbuckled from his chair, found the little translating computer and went over to them.
“Everything is all right now. No need to be concerned,” he told them. That seemed to make no impression. Their expressions were still ones of shock and anguish.
“What…? What did you do…?” gasped Farsvar.
“We destroyed the attackers.” What was the matter with the man?
“But… but, you killed them!”
“Of course we did. They were attacking us! What the hell did you expect us to do, surrender?”
“Oh no…oh no…Lifegiver the Merciful, how could you…?” the man was shaking his head and he looked to have tears on his cheeks. “They were Clorindans! They will never forgive this—never! It will be a blood-feud forever now. We are ruined…ruined.” He suddenly looked up, straight into Crawford’s eyes.
“We were your friends! How could you do this to us?”
Chapter Eleven
Regina Nassau paused outside the door and tried to figure out what she was going to say to Tad and Jari Farsvar. During the recent excitement, she had stayed with the other ‘emissaries’ in their quarters and tried to understand what was going on. A passing crewman had said something about an attack, but all attempts to get information direct from the bridge had been rebuffed by an increasingly irritated communications tech. Some of the clerks had been frantic and Beatrice Innes had been outraged at the lack of information. She had been so persistent that when the captain had finally deigned to notice his passengers it had come as a great surprise that he wanted to talk to her instead of the others. Innes had been furious, but Regina was quietly delighted that she was being snubbed. She was finding that she did not like her companion at all. Innes was insufferably smug at being Shiffeld’s new right hand and was used to getting her way with anyone less lofty than her boss. Regina had little patience for her.
Her conversation with Frichette had been brief; he was constantly being interrupted by his subordinates. Apparently the ship had taken some serious damage in the attack. Regina was amazed that there had been an attack, but the evidence was irrefutable. The question of why was still unanswered. The other question of why the successful repulse of the attack had so upset the two natives was also unresolved. The captain wanted Regina to find the answer to that one—and to the first question, too, if possible. She pressed the button next to their door. A few seconds later there was an answer through the intercom. It was Tad.
“Yes? Who comes?”
“Tad, it’s Regina. Can I come in and talk to you and your uncle?” There was a long pause before any reply came.
“My uncle is… resting. But I will come out and talk with you.”
Regina frowned. She had shucked off most of her outer clothing in anticipation of another session in the sauna. While she enjoyed startling the crew and Tad’s admiring glances, it was going to get a little chilly after a while. Where to go? Back to her quarters? No, she was sharing a stateroom with her assistant and she wanted to talk with Tad alone. The grav still wasn’t back on, so she floated there in indecision until Tad came through the lock. He was dressed in warm clothes and his breathing helmet. His usually cheerful expression was replaced with one of apprehension.
They traveled in silence along the ship’s corridors until they found an unused mess hall. The crew were all busy making repairs and it was deserted. Regina led Tad into one of the corners and they pulled themselves into two of the chairs. Regina stared at the young man. He stared back with fear in his eyes. She got out her translating computer.
“Tad, what’s wrong?”
“You…your captain and Mr. Crawford killed them.”
“Who? Who did they kill? Who attacked us and why?”
“They were Clorindan raiders. From another clan.”
“But why did they attack us?”
“I don’t know for certain, but they probably wanted to take you away from us and get the trade agreements for themselves. They have harassed us for generations.”
“Take us away from you? You make it sound like we’re some object that can be owned. Do I have the translation right, Tad?”
“No, people can’t be owned, but the right to trade with you can. We contacted you first, so we had first claim. But if the Clorindans had managed to take you to their base, they could have claimed the right to trade.”
“Don’t we have any say in the matter?”
“Of course. You could have refused to trade with them. But then concluding an agreement with anyone else here would have been…difficult. Still, it is surprising that they would try anything this high-handed with strangers like you.”
“Their actions seem pretty arrogant to me. But then I don’t understand why you are so upset that we drove them off. Especially if they have been your enemies for so long.”
Tad looked puzzled. “I don’t understand that one word, Regina.”
“Which word?”
“Enemies.”
Now it was Regina’s turn to be puzzled. “Enemies? Uh, an enemy is a foe, someone you fight against. Aren’t the Clorindans your enemies?”
“They are rivals. They cause us trouble and sometimes we do the same to them. But…but we don’t ‘fight’.”
“They were certainly fighting us!” insisted Regina. “They attacked this ship with some sort of weapon.”
“They attacked the ship, Regina, not you. They would have harmed no one aboard. Their pulsers, the weapons they were using, only affected your ship’s electronics. They only intended to disable you and force you to submit. They weren’t going to hurt anyone—and yet you killed them!”
Regina felt like she’d been punched in the belly. Shock, embarrassment, shame, all flashed through her. “We-we didn’t know, Tad!” she gasped at last. “That’s not the way… that’s not the way we do things,” she ended awkwardly. “But you don’t fight? You don’t k-kill?”
“It happens sometimes. There are blood-feuds when things get out of hand. Usually just between individuals or families. Now there will be a blood-feud between my clan and the Clorindans. Because of you. My people cannot win such a… such a fight.” Tad waited while Regina read the translation. Then he went on. “You kill people. You kill each other.” It wasn’t a question and Tad’s eyes were wide—and accusing.
“Yes. I’m afraid we do, Tad,” whispered Regina. “We do, indeed, and I’m sorry.”
* * * * *
“Governor Shiffeld, I wish to report that the ship has been attacked…” Crawford pushed the switch to stop the recording and tried to figure out what to say next. He took a breath and continued. “The attack was a complete surprise and totally unprovoked. Our guests tell us that the attackers were from a rival clan. Apparently, they hoped to capture us and force us to conclude a trade agreement with them instead of Mr. Farsvar’s people.
“The weapons that were used by the attacker were… unconventional. From what we’ve been able to determine, they have something which will project an extremely powerful electro-magnetic pulse, similar to what is created by a nuclear explosion, except that the effects are tightly focused. This has severely damaged many of our computers and electrical systems. As you might know, sir, and as Captain Frichette has explained to me, warships are hardened to resist the effects of EMP but not for something as strong as this. The effects had the same strength as if a very large nuke had detonated only a few meters away. Since no ship would survive such an explosion anyway, our systems are not built to resist EMP of that magnitude. The enemy’s first attack knocked out our reactor and drive along with most of the sensors and weapons on the side of the ship facing the attack. I don’t know if it is possible to harden our systems to withstand such an attack, but you might want to put some people to work on it. On the good side, the range of the weapon seems to be only a few hundred kilometers. I should warn you, however, that the enemy attack ships are very small and almost invisible to sensors until they begin to power up their weapons. Captain Frichette will be sending his own report with all the particulars, but I wanted to give you a basic account of what has happened.
“Fortunately, with advice from Mr. Farsvar, we were able to destroy the follow-up attack and the mother ship which had carried the attack ships. No additional attackers have appeared. We are currently expediting repairs to the ship. We hope to have the reactor and drive operational in a few hours and we should be able to reach our destination only about seven hours late—if you still wish us to proceed, of course.”
Crawford’s expression darkened. “There is one other problem, sir. The destruction of the attacking ships seemed to disturb the Farsvars to an extreme degree. Regina, er, that is Dame Regina, has been able to determine that combat between the locals is almost always of a non-lethal variety. They were attempting to simply disable Felicity, not kill us. Our killing of the attackers has violated some sort of taboo and could have negative consequences on our relations and negotiations.
Well, one task done, now to look at his incoming messages. Most were just routine, but he immediately zeroed in on the one from Sheila. He smiled as her recorded features appeared on his screen. She was smiling back. “Hi, Chuck! Oh! Excuse me! Hello, Sir Charles, I do hope your lordship is passing a pleasant day, sir. I’d grovel and scrape a bit but the camera pick-up won’t tilt down far enough, but consider me abasing myself before you. There, did I lay it on thick enough?”
“Thick enough to drive across you silly bitch,” muttered Crawford. “I’ll get you for this, girl.” But his lips quirked up; damn, he was missing Sheila already.
“I’m sure you’re cursing me by now, Chuckie,” continued Sheila, laughing, “but I have a gift for you. You might want to find a big display for this. I’m attaching some vids of what we did this morning.” Crawford smiled and tied his comp into a larger display system he’d discovered in the former captain’s cabin. One wall faded to black and he seemed to be looking out into space. Two enormous pieces of metal loomed in front of him. Sheila’s voice was on the audio portion. “Three meters, look sharp. Closing speed, one centimeter per second. Alignment looks good.” Second by second the gap between the pieces narrowed. “Units M-1, 2, 3, and 4, five seconds reverse thrust. Kelso, have your team get those clamps in place, but for God’s sake keep your arms and legs clear!”
Across the Great Rift Page 18