We returned to the Argos, deposited our gear and weapons in our lockers, and met on the mess deck for our preference of non-alcoholic drinks. I had some hot tea. Not something I drink often, but it pleased me this time. Doc joined us but didn’t say a word, not wanting to give the failure any more weight than it already had pulling us down.
“Wizzy, anything new to report on Toor’s location?”
“Sorry, Captain Nick, nothing yet. I have increased the numbers and types of sensors in the city area, but nothing so far.” Wizzy tended to be a little more formal when he had either made a mistake or could not provide the help we needed. I think it irritated him that he did not have all the answers. Especially when it didn’t live up to his grand magnificence model that he was so proud of.
“Do you think he’s still on Tye?” asked Amini. “He does have access to ships, you know.”
“Good question, Wizzy, how about that? You’re the all-seeing, all-magnificent being here. Has one of his ships departed the planet?”
Wizzy appeared in his holo form.
“No, no, no. That is not possible. I have a track on all the space-capable cargo ships in orbit, and none have moved.”
“How about smaller ships like those that deliver cargo around the planet?” I asked.
There was silence for a few moments, which was unusual for Wizzy.
“Ah, heh, heh… there might have been a teensy-weensy, itty-bitty little ship depart a few minutes ago. It was probably nothing. Pretty sure. It wasn’t an extended space-capable ship anyway.”
“Wizzy, didn’t you think that was important to know when you first detected it?”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch, Nick. Do you think it was important?’
Sometimes I couldn’t understand how this all-capable AI could be so dumb now and then.
“Of course, it was important! We were chasing a dangerous little rat, and he was probably on that small ship hoping to disguise his departure, which he seems to have done well. Do you have a sensor lock on the ship?”
“Not exactly, but I can follow his ionization trail. It is an old ship, after all.”
“Then get us out of orbit and follow the trail… in stealth!”
“Yes, Captain, maneuvering now.”
As it turned out, the small ship was slow, by our standards anyway, and we pulled in behind it at about five hundred miles several hours after Toor escaped. It wasn’t FTL capable, so we weren’t worried about it getting away, and we wanted a little distance between us just in case it was heading to a meeting with a larger and perhaps more capable ship. It didn’t take long.
“Nick,” Amini called out, now sitting in the pilot’s seat. “Our passive sensors have picked up a larger ship about two thousand miles out. The little one seems headed straight for it.”
“Ok, Amini, drop back another two hundred miles as we approach the new ship. Any idea who she is?” Amini didn’t have time to answer.
“I do! I do!” came the excited response from the holo image of Wizzy rubbing his hands together rapidly. He was developing some interesting human characteristics. I assume they were being programmed by him, but they looked real.
“She’s the Dreng, or Lotana if you prefer. She’s the one I attached the ID and tracker pod to way back when. If Toor is going to transfer to her, we can follow easily.”
“Amini, bring us to a halt while we watch what happens. Let’s also launch a drone to get a closer look.”
“Doing it now, Nick.”
I could feel the subtle vibration of the forward thrusters as we braked. There was no physical indication of the drone launch, just a green blip appearing on the sensor screen as it moved stealthily away toward the Dreng.
Doc and Sif must have felt the thruster vibrations also and made their way onto the bridge.
“What’s going on?” asked Doc.
“The ship we’ve been following has joined up with the Dreng. You remember her, don’t you?”
“Not likely to forget when Toor tried using her to take over our ship.”
“Don’t think that will happen this time. We’re assuming Toor is transferring to the Dreng, and we’ll follow her next. She can’t see us in stealth.”
Doc just nodded and took a seat near Sif at the weapons console. Still an odd couple, if I do say so myself. Doc seemed to have completely overcome his fear of the Arkon Red. On the other hand, I believed Amini still had some reservations, but I felt they were diminishing.
While we watched with an amplified view, we could see a docking collar extending from the small ship to Dreng. After a few minutes, the docking collar retracted, and the small ship veered off to the left and pointed itself back toward Tye.
“What do we do now?” Amini asked.
“Stick with the Dreng. Any information from the drone we launched, Wizzy?”
“Only an infrared image of one person transferring from the smaller ship to the larger one. The Dreng is starting to accelerate.”
That had to be Toor. Who else could it be under these circumstances?
“Ok, stick with the Dreng and see where she goes. This could be interesting.”
It was interesting, just not in the way we might have thought. Just as Dreng steadied out on a course to who knows where at a constant speed, Argos was rocked but an unknown force inside the ship. Red lights appeared on the sensor console as well as the threat screens.
“What the hell was that?” I asked with alarm.
“We just lost our stealth systems and part of our sensor suite,” Sif answered.
“You mean the Dreng can see us?”
“Yes,” was the Arkon’s stoic response.
“Wizzy!”
“Hold your horses, Nick. I’m assessing the problem now. Ah, I found it.”
“Would you like to tell the rest of us?”
“Oh, sure. We just lost our ability to maintain stealth as well as several sensors.”
“Well, no shit. We already knew that.”
“Then why did you ask me?”
“Because, you dum-dum, what we wanted to know is how that happened and when the systems will be back online.”
“Oh, well, you should have asked that. Learn to be more specific, Nicky.”
“I’ll take that under advisement. Meanwhile, please tell us how this happened and what we need to do to fix it—like right away.”
“The initial assessment by the bots is that it could take up to an hour to fix it. How it happened is more difficult. There was nothing in the area of the generator that was volatile enough to cause any kind of explosion. However, the bots have detected traces of combustion gasses related to an explosive compound known as MFX, a common explosive in mining activities on Tye.”
“This was sabotage? How in the world could that happen?”
“In this case, the explosive was likely strapped to the generator power conduit and initiated by remote radio command.”
“Who could do that?”
“I am not certain, Captain. The only people on board recently were Larona’s people who we used to capture the ships at Ledo. Anyone with an understanding of ships and explosives could have done it.”
I was about to ask more questions when my concentration was broken.
“Nick!” Amini yelled
“What?”
“Dreng has slowed, and we have a new contact coming up behind us.”
Could this day get any worse? I was about to ask what the contact was when Wizzy spoke.
“Captain Nick, you aren’t going to like this.”
“I already don’t like this. Just tell me what’s happening!”
“Well, that contact coming up fast behind us is an old Arkon corvette.”
“Shields up!” I yelled.
“Already done,” responded Amini. I had to remember to thank her
for her heads-up thinking.
“And, Dreng is slowing to a halt,” Amini added. “I’m adjusting our speed to match.”
You know I wanted to ask, “Can things get any worse?” but I didn’t have time. This was looking like a trap. But that could only have happened if Dreng suspected she was being followed (a good bet), and one of the ships, probably Dreng, remotely set off the explosion on Argos at a predetermined position. The corvette had been waiting for this. No time to think more about that out now.
It was Sif who spoke up next. “Both ships have opened fire, Captain Nick!”
The Argos shook as she received fire from opposite directions, bow and stern. The ship shuddered, but shields were holding. Even so, the idea of facing two ships at the same time who had surprise on their side was alarming, at least to me. That’s what made me take a step I had been avoiding.
“Amini, you and Doc go to the old bridge, take control of Argos, and return fire. Sif and I are launching the Falcon.”
Fortunately, since the modern Argos bridge was also the bridge of the Falcon, Sif and I remained in place as Amini and Doc disappeared above us toward the other bridge, locking Falcon’s hatch seal behind them.
After the launch of the Falcon, we learned something. Without the Falcon attached, the Argo’s firepower was less than with Falcon integrated. That is why the Argos had a less than anticipated impact on the Dreng and the corvette. The old ship still scored powerful hits, but not like the ones we did when we attacked the Myron.
Argos’ fire was potent enough to distract the corvette and score damage to the Dreng. That changed when Falcon joined the fight directing her power against the fastest and most dangerous threat, the corvette.
Falcon’s lasers, plasma cannon, and missiles began leaking inside the corvette’s shields and into the armor of the old ship. I thought I saw some gasses release from the enemy hull. Unexpectedly, however, the corvette was scoring hits on Falcon despite our stealth system, which was independent from the Argos. More than once, Sif and I would have found ourselves on the deck of the bridge had we not been strapped into our chairs. I was getting whiplash as each hit threw me from side to side in my pilot’s chair.
“Wizzy!”
“Yes, Captain Nick?”
I had to hold off my response when the cockpit lights dimmed as another savage blow hit our shields.
“How the hell can that corvette score hits on us when we’re in stealth mode?”
“That’s simple.” But that was all the AI said as yet another hit splashed against our shields and shook Sif and me.
“Wizzy, mind telling me why? I’m not as smart as such an advanced being as you.”
“Good point. I keep forgetting how you apes process things more slowly. As anybody with a more advanced brain would know, when lasers strike shields or when missiles hit the shields or deeper, the reaction creates positively charged ions as well as tiny particles of equally charged armor remnants. When a stealthy ship such as the Falcon moves through such ionized clouds or creates its own, it generates a particle wave. Sort of like the wake of a ship in water. At short range, that can be seen on several types of sensors such as those on the corvette.”
“So?”
“You don’t get it, do you? Do you remember when you went duck hunting with your uncle Mel in Pennsylvania six years ago?”
Two more hits. This time right on top of each other. Sif responded with shots of his own.
“Listen, Wizzy, we’re kind of busy here. Can you pick up the pace and get to the point?”
“OK, OK. What did Uncle Mel tell you about shooting ducks?”
I had to think about that one but remembered.
“You have to lead them.”
“Bravo! Score one for the chimps. In this case, the Arkon are seeing your charged ion and particle wake at close range and leading it. They don’t score a hit every time, but enough to make you slightly more visible, temporarily, when a hit occurs. See how it works?”
I felt like palm slapping my forehead but didn’t. Now I knew I could diminish the hits on Falcon by opening the range, so the enemy ion detection took longer and, therefore, allowed me to get well ahead of the trailing, telltale wave. I was determined to hit the corvette with everything we had on the next pass when Amini broke in.
“Nick. Dreng has lost power and is drifting. We stopped firing on her. Need help from us now that we’ve freed up weapons?”
I was about to say yes when the corvette broke off and accelerated past us toward the Dreng.
“What the hell?” I asked out loud to nobody in particular. That ambiguity only stayed in my head for a second before I turned Falcon sharply to follow the corvette.
“Sif, fire missiles as soon as you have a lock on the corvette and continue to fire lasers and plasma cannon.”
“Done, Captain Nick. Two missiles on the way. Continuing to fire lasers and plasma cannon.”
I thought the corvette was trying to get away. But that was not the Arkon plan at all. We were both surprised when the corvette opened fire on the Dreng as she passed by the drifting old ship. One, two, three laser blasts ripped into the defenseless cargo ship. Gases and debris roiled from the ship, especially the area of the cargo bay doors. I was surprised and distracted at this, but my attention refocused on the bloom of yellow and white light coming from the stern of the corvette as at least one of our missiles penetrated a laser weakened shield and impacted the vulnerable engines. After the blast, there was nothing but small pieces of debris accelerating away.
The fight being over, I maneuvered Falcon to integrate with Argos. We were home and part of the old ship again. Sif opened the hatch to allow ship access and immediately two heads appeared.
“When are we going to Dreng?” Amini and Doc chimed in together.
Have you ever been in a near car wreck and were just coming down off the emotional high with some exhaustion thrown in? And then did one of the people in your car say something like, “Wow, that was exciting, can we go to McDonald’s?” No? Neither have I, but that’s what it felt like with Doc and Amini’s excited question.
All I wanted to do was sit back and rest, the replay of the fight still running through my head. We had also been awake for nearly sixteen hours from the start of trying to trap Toor to the end of this fight. But they had the right idea. Somebody had to go to the Dreng and look for Toor.
As captain, I felt I had to go and take Sif with me. Somebody had to stay with the ship. I explained that to our two excited crew members and they did something akin to rock, paper, scissors but with a Zarminian twist to determine who would go and who would stay. With an air of triumph, Doc smiled as the winner. Amini wasn’t happy, but the game rules were clear. She would stay. In retrospect, that was the best choice. If anybody in the Dreng was injured, especially Toor, Doc was the right person to take along.
As we expected, the interior of the Dreng was a mess, and then there was the damage from the fight. It was a mess because the pirates, or whatever you wanted to call them, were pigs. There was crap everywhere. So much so it was hard in some places to differentiate between the crew’s mess and the mess related to our damage. It was a delicate dance of “step over this old box and weave through dangling wires and conduits.” Doc and I had on lightweight combat suits while Sif, as always, wore full battle armor. The crew, however, had no protective suits and helmets, and the holes in the hull had exposed them to vacuum, and they were dead. We still searched for Toor with a diminishing hope that he would still be alive.
We cleared the bridge, the captain’s and crew’s quarters, but no Toor. We descended to the cargo bay, which, like Argos’, also served as a shuttle bay. There were two shuttles in the bay. One had been on jacks and was not flyable, and the other sat on its side, nose pointed toward the cargo door, which had numerous holes exposing the bay to the vacuum of space. I remembered the corvette had particularly
targeted those doors before meeting her end. I thought now I knew why that happened. She was trying to prevent the shuttle and its occupant or occupants from being captured as they would have been by us had the shuttle launched. I had a bad feeling.
The shuttle had rolled on its left (or port) side, with the crew door facing up toward the overhead of the bay. While I contemplated how to get the door open, Sif swept past me and jumped on to the shuttle. With two powerful kicks combined with combat suit augmented strength, he stomped the door open and jumped in. A moment later, two strong lines flew out of the open door and fell down the side of the shuttle. I grabbed one, tested it, and then pulled myself up the side and into the interior of the damaged shuttle. It helped that the artificial gravity of the ship was almost gone. Doc followed.
Stepping clumsily over crew seats and scattered debris, we made our way to the cockpit of the shuttle. There, still strapped in his seat, was the pilot with his helmet on. I got close enough to see through the helmet’s clear visor. It was Toor. Not having any communications link with Toor, I pressed my helmet onto his, which formed a sound bridge between us.
“Toor! Can you hear me, Toor?”
The head in the helmet turned slowly toward me. Two red eyes blinked.
“Argos captain?” I could hear.
“Yes, Toor, it’s me. Hold on, and we’ll get you out.”
“No time. Toor dying.”
“No, we can help. Just stay calm, and we’ll help. We have a doctor.”
I thought I saw a brief smile on the face of the little man as he slowly shook his head.
“No use.” I heard him say.
Realizing he was probably right, I asked, “Toor, where is Gurko? What is he planning?”
Crucible: Records of the Argos Page 12