“Everything worked,” Lech finally said. “Great job!” A little cheer went up on the bridge. “Now we have 170 hours to run drills and keep everything running.” The thrill was dead. The rules of hyperspace said it took a little less than seven days to travel between departure and destination in hyperspace, regardless of how far that was. This trip took them 5,400 light years, where they would meet up with the other ships going on their contract. “But for now, stand down the watch and get some rest.”
Lawrence handed off to Denise and went to his quarters where he wrote a brief email to send to Amelia back on Earth. Private messages of less than one megabyte were free if sent through the stargates. However, the free message service sometimes meant it could take a long time to reach its destination, since there was no promise of the route they’d take. For a mere 100 GCU, you could get one there quicker. Lawrence didn’t have 100 GCU, so he would send his free mail through the Cartographers Guild, bundled with all the other crew’s messages.
Amelia, we just made our first transition to hyperspace. It was…interesting. I’ll have to explain it in person when I get home. I don’t want you to worry too much; this contract should be easy. The money will not only save the company, but make us all rich. I might just buy a house in the Alps, or something? Maybe a space yacht and fly around the solar system. This flying in space is kind of fun, minus hyperspace anyway. Well, I’ll write again when I have time.
I miss you, Lawrence.
He logged it into the ships comms buffer for transmission, noticing that a dozen others were already there. That was good, he thought. Crew members who were talking with home were less likely to get stir crazy in deep space. He had eight hours before his next watch, so he called up the ship’s library and watched a movie. He settled on Star Wars. Somehow, it wasn’t quite as entertaining as he’d hoped it would be.
* * * * *
Winged Hussars - 8
The transition clock was down to under five minutes when Lech called battle stations. Lawrence ground his teeth in frustration and engaged the computer protocols that isolated several of the main processors to avoid catastrophic failure in case of damage. Once again, his cousin had fucked up. When they’d rendezvoused with the aliens who held their contract, they’d been informed that the contracting party was exercising a sub-lease clause and delegating EMS John III Sobieski to another operation. While Lech screamed at the Cochkala commander of the other ship, who looked like a big bipedal badger, Lawrence pulled up the contract and read under ‘secondary contingencies’ as fast as he could.
“Lech,” Lawrence said.
“…no intention whatsoever of letting you do this to us,” Lech was snarling at the Tri-V display of the Cochkala.
“I’m afraid you have little choice,” the alien replied, “unless you are forfeiting your bond.”
“Lech,” Lawrence said again. His cousin held up a hand toward him then spoke at the alien again.
“Small cost to pay for forcing us into doing something we didn’t sign up for.”
“Lech!” Lawrence shouted this time.
“What?” the other man demanded. Lawrence made an across the throat at the comms officer, and their end was muted.
“According to the contract they can do this.”
“Then we cancel the contract. The retainer isn’t that big.”
“Sure, Lech, and if you do that we lose our mercenary status as a company. It states in the bylaws that if a new company cancels their contract as the result of a dispute, it loses its mercenary status and cannot reapply again for nine years.” Lech blanched. “Yeah, I didn’t realize what that meant until the badger started talking about bond forfeiture.”
“Motherless whore,” Lech swore.
“The upside is this gives us another ten percent bonus upon completion.”
The CIC was silent for a time as Lech glared at the opposite bulkhead, and the Cochkala waited. It didn’t look bothered, because it knew it had them right where it wanted them. Finally, Lech gestured at the comms officer. “It seems you have us at a disadvantage,” he said to the Cochkala. “Please, send over the new orders.”
That had been three weeks and two transitions ago. They met up with a small fleet of combat transports after the second transition. Lech had kept the operation to himself until then, which was a mistake, as it had allowed rumors to run freely through the crew the entire time. The only advantage of his not talking about it was that most of the imagined operations were worse than what it really was. They were to be one of eight warships providing combat escort for a multi-mercenary company assault on some race’s manufacturing operation, which was part of a growing brush war. It didn’t matter whose war, or why, only that their old contract to escort transports through potentially dangerous territory was a sham, and now they would be in the mix for real.
“Transition in one minute.”
After they met the rest of their fleet, details of command and scrambled channels were worked out, and the entire fleet accelerated toward the stargate to transition as a single unit, travelling at several hundred kilometers per second. That had been a little nerve wracking. Apparently, it would let them arrive at speed, because you left hyperspace with the same velocity you entered it with. Lawrence had spent a lot of the last three weeks studying Union space tactics manuals. Most of them were written by a race known as the Izlian, which looked like squids that floated in the air. The manuals were also thousands of years old. He’d been taking notes.
“Transition in ten seconds.”
“All stations, prepare for battle!” Lech called on the PA. At the count of ten, they transitioned into normal space. Lawrence had been thrilled to learn that returning to normal space was nothing like entering hyperspace. Just a quick sensation of falling, which was a bit disconcerting since they were already in zero G, and you were back in the real world. Hyperspace was just pure white nothing—pretty strange really. “Sensor sweep,” Lech ordered. “Comms, link us with the rest of the fleet.”
“Comms established.”
“Contact!” the sensor officer exclaimed. “Two unidentified ships!” He gave the bearing and distance. The forward Tri-V came alive, and a map was assembled of the near space, friendly ships in red, enemy in blue. Because the tactical computer was Bakulu, Lawrence hadn’t been able to change that color scheme, much to his and Lech’s annoyance. Currently two blue ships were flashing several thousand kilometers away.
“Fleet has identified them as enemy highguard,” comms reported, meaning they were there to guard the emergence point. Yet another rule of hyperspace stated that when you set up a stargate at one Lagrange point, the emergence location would settle at a different Lagrange point. No one seemed to know why, but it was handy so ships didn’t run into each other. As long as you cleared the emergence point as soon as possible.
“I have missiles away from the bogies,” sensors declared. “Eleven missiles targeting the fleet.”
“Oh shit,” someone in the CIC whispered.
“Stow that,” Lech ordered. Their job was escort, which meant they dealt with these kinds of missile attacks. They and the other two frigates in the combat detachment. There were three close escorts who would follow the transports most of the way down to the planet, and two light cruisers to provide the real firepower. “Helm, bring us about for anti-missile missile launch.”
“Coming about,” helm said, and the alarm sounded over the battle stations claxon. The John III Sobieski groaned slightly as her attitude thrusters spun the ship on its central axis, which was where the CIC was, so the command crew felt little of it. The sound of thumps and thuds reverberated through the ship as the untested interceptor missiles were fed from the magazines into two of the ship’s four launchers.
“Two missiles are locked on us,” the sensor officer updated.
“Stand by missiles,” Lech ordered. The tactical display showed them coming around. “Load tubes three and four with anti-ship missiles.”
“Missile impact in
39 seconds,” the sensor officer announced. The CIC was so quiet Lawrence could hear the air circulation fans. He glanced at Denise and saw her watching the slate that monitored the alien computers, her eyes wide in terror.
“Bearings matched,” the helm said.
“Fire!”
The ship shifted slightly as the air charges blasted the missiles clear; their rocket motors ignited a split second later to send them away at an incredible speed.
“They’re away, good track,” the weapons officer confirmed. The weapons officers and armorers were the only ones on the ship who’d been active duty in the Polish Navy; they were on loan for a piece of the prize. They were also the only crew to have fired weapons in anger before that day. “Intercept in ten seconds…five, four, three, two, detonation.” There was a second while sensors monitored the results.
“Both missiles intercepted,” the sensor officer confirmed. A cheer went up; the new missiles had worked. “I have two more targeting the transport in our lane.”
“We are in range for lasers,” weapons reported.
“Roll to target,” Lech ordered. Clustered around the middle of the ship in two groups, the lasers were out of position when missiles were fired on that bearing. The ship spun.
“Increasing power from the reactors,” engineering said.
“Firing lasers,” weapons said. Only the thrum of the distant fusion plants was any indication of the megawatts of laser energy flashing out from EMS John III Sobieski’s emitters. “Bogies intercepted.” Another cheer.
“Status on the rest of the fleet?” Lech asked.
“Escort Tobriea took a single missile hit,” comms said; “their shields handled most of it, but they have some damage. Fleet command is ordering us and O’llo to engage the enemy highguard.”
“Confirmed,” Lech said, “match bearings on the other tubes and fire on Bogie One. Inform O’llo and Tobriea of our target selection.” A few seconds later, two more bumps announced the departure of another pair of missiles. These were the alien-manufactured weapons, and it was easy to see on the tactical board because they shot away several times faster than their Human-derived counterparts.
“Good track,” weapons confirmed. On the board, six more missiles left friendly ships, two from the damaged Tobriea and four from O’llo. The enemy ships began to maneuver and fire their own defensive lasers, but under a bombardment of eight missiles, it wasn’t enough. Both were hit several times and were gone. “Both ships are down.” Lawrence wondered if they’d just killed a ship full of living beings.
“Fleet command sends their regards and says well done,” comms said.
“We just earned an extra million credits,” Lech said, rubbing his hands together. There were a few appreciative murmurs around the CIC. Lawrence glanced around and could see that a lot of them were thinking the same as he was. The million credits were at the cost of a lot of lives.
“Fleet is assigning us a new lane for the approach to target,” comms reported.
“Very well,” Lech said, “helm take the bearing and bring us into formation, optimal thrust.” The ship began to maneuver, and Lech was all smiles. “We’re as good as home.”
* * * * *
Winged Hussars - 9
Lawrence soared down the central trunk of EMS John III Sobieski with a specialized slate that traced data pathways. They’d been orbiting Z’tha for nine days as the assault below bogged down. They’d taken fire from an orbital defensive platform and a seemingly stray laser shot, which had punched clean through EMS John III Sobieski from ventral port to dorsal starboard with frightening ease. There were no casualties except for one of the missile tube controls, which he was still trying to diagnose.
“Maybe we’re doing this all wrong,” Denise suggested a short distance away. She floated perpendicular to him, her uniform blouse bulging from her breasts. Lawrence wrenched his gaze away from the delightful view and forced himself to think about Amelia, and not how many thousands of light years she was from him.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Well, we’re thinking the laser caused an overload somewhere down the line. Maybe that’s not what happened. Maybe the laser took out some sort of supporting system to the data trunk.”
“That’s…” He’d been about to say that was crazy, then changed his mind in mid-stream. “That’s a damn interesting idea.” Once they’d taken the ship out of their solar system, Lawrence began to really feel the effects of not having a planet of computing power behind him. The deeper they got into systems diagnostics, the more difficult translation became. The interpretive system he’d designed was straight forward and meant for control. Damage analysis got into deeper functions, and some of the equipment wasn’t made by the Bakulu.
He reoriented with Denise, and they both used a slate to examine the layout of the ship’s communications systems. Human-designed electrical and computer components followed a more or less uniform architecture. Lawrence knew enough of that side of computers to handle most situations…on Earth. Alien-made equipment didn’t seem to follow the same rules. They shared common communications and power protocols, so the equipment could talk to and power each other, sure. But how it got from A to B didn’t seem to stick to any one method.
“We should have spent months studying how this ship worked before we ever left the Solar System,” he admitted after they’d consumed an hour examining the diagrams.
“It’s confusing to say the least,” Denise agreed. She reached out a finger and pointed at part of the schematic where the details were written in an unidentified alien language. “Look at this. Does it look like a power distribution panel?” Lawrence looked at the notes and symbols, then called up some of the systems schematics they had which were translated. He quickly found a match.
“Bingo,” he said; “you nailed it.” She grinned and leaned in to kiss him before he could react. He responded without thinking.
“Well that was amusing,” Denise said sometime later, slipping back into her uniform. “I always wondered what it would be like in zero gravity. Not at all like movies made it out to be—it took a lot of work.” She glanced at Lawrence who was sullenly putting his clothes back on. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m in a relationship,” he said, realizing he could have said that anytime in the last half hour of zero-gravity aerobics, but hadn’t.
Denise pulled her hair back and secured it with an elastic band, then shrugged. “So am I,” she admitted. He looked at her askance. She gave him a devilish grin.
“Then what was that all about?”
“Sex,” she said. “I seem to remember you being there…”
“Lawrence,” echoed from his headset as he slipped it on, “what’s the status on that missile launcher?”
“Shit,” he said and tapped transmit. “I think we have it figured out, Lech.”
“Captain Lech,” his cousin instantly corrected. “I was beginning to wonder what you two were up to in that tunnel. Aleksander in engineering said you’d been in there for a couple hours. Fraternizing between officers is against the rules.”
“Fuck off Lech, we’re working.” He turned off the radio just as Denise started laughing. “I’m glad you find this funny. Now can we finish fixing the turret?”
“All turrets operational,” weapons announced an hour later.
“Hull integrity is down five percent,” Aleksander reminded from engineering.
“What do we need to do for repairs?” Lech asked.
“I’m not sure.” Lech glanced over to where Lawrence was strapped into his workstation and gave him a ‘help me’ look. Lawrence shrugged.
“We can’t do anything about it now. At least we’re fully operational—”
“Contact from fleet,” comms said. “Monitors at the emergence point have picked up several ships arriving at speed. No determination of type prior to the monitors’ destruction.”
“Battle stations,” Lech said. “Prepare to break orbit!”
* * *
* *
Winged Hussars - 10
“The ship is lost, sir.” Lawrence looked up from the slate detailing the ship’s damage to see the head of the only surviving damage control detail floating at the hatch to the CIC. Ensign Biggs was maybe 20, and he was wearing an environmental suit with a helmet clipped to his belt. He was one of the few crewmembers not in the family. The suit was scuffed and battered, with obvious electrical charring in several places. Lawrence wondered if it even held pressure anymore. He’d taken over from the head of damage control when a power panel the previous chief had been working on suddenly exploded, killing the other man instantly. Since then Biggs had fought a valiant, but apparently fruitless battle to keep the ship’s fusion plant functioning.
“How long?” Lawrence asked.
“I can give you another six hours of power from number two reactor,” Biggs said, taking a slate from his belt holder and examining it. “After that, we risk containment loss.” Lawrence sighed. That was it, then.
“Do the best you can,” he told him, and the other man spun to float back out. “And Ensign?” Biggs turned his head back to look. “Good job.” Biggs nodded his thanks and was gone.
The CIC looked like the rest of the ship, as if someone had taken a tube full of Lego building blocks and shaken it for an hour. The force that arrived in Z’tha was simply too large to oppose. Seven ships, including a battlecruiser and a drone carrier. John III Sobieski had been managing an orderly retreat until a 100-megawatt laser from an enemy cruiser had punched though the already failing shields and then gone diagonally through the ship. The shot neatly bisected the CIC as well. The one-meter wide beam of coherent light lanced through the armored hull, the main weapons console, the weapons officer, across the CIC, and out the other side through the secondary computer station, and Denise. As luck would have it, Captain Lech Kosmalski was also in the beam’s path.
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