by B. V. Larson
“Sir,” I interrupted. “I think you misunderstand the situation. I’m negotiating your surrender, not my own.”
There was a moment of silence, then a stream of curses. “You got me out of bed for this? You asshole. I’m going to enjoy it when—”
“Captain Singh,” I said loudly, “please listen to me, because the safety of your ship and crew require it. We’ve armed the main weapons battery of this vessel. Upon my order, a sensor array on the external hull of the ship will go active. It will ping and lock onto your ship. Once we have the signature, I’m sure you realize that at this range we can’t miss. Your own armament doesn’t have the location of our guns mapped. We will fire and disable Altair. I do not want to do this, as I believe Earth will need every ship she has in the coming—”
“Shut up!” Singh screamed into my ear. “Of all the crazy shit—you’re worse than those fake press releases we cooked up! You and your bat-shit father. We’re going to do this my way, and we’re going to do it now. I don’t want to hear another word about imaginary weapons banks and—”
Turning my head, I signaled Yamada. Her face tightened with stress, but she relayed my order. Outside the ship, a bank of metal dishes tried to swivel, but couldn’t due to the accumulated ice and debris. They were intended to sweep an entire star system and finally did manage to switch on and blast out radiation. The signals were so intense that they easily penetrated the obstacles coating them and a signature response from the Altair came back to us.
On the main display, an outline of Altair appeared. It was eerie, seeing this alien technology operate. This is how the Beta crew might have looked upon our fleet if they’d encountered it in battle.
Singh’s tirade broke off. “There’s something—are you doing that, Sparhawk?”
“I told you sir. We’re engaging you now. Events have been set in motion. You have a very short window during which you must comply with our wishes. Otherwise—”
“Helm, hard over!” I heard Singh shout. “Evasive action. Now!”
“Unless you stand down now, Captain,” I said. “We will fire on you. I’m not bluffing. I never bluff, sir.”
There were a few moments of silence.
“You can’t have done what you say you’ve done,” Singh said. “That ship is alien to you. It’s a derelict. You can’t—”
“We can, and have, sir,” I said loudly. “We had help. Some of the crew and repair robots were active aboard. We’ve done it, and now you must accept that it is you who must surrender to me. If you don’t, I’ll be forced to damage Altair. I’ll give you thirty more seconds, then—”
“William!” Yamada shouted. “They’ve rolled over and engaged their guns. They’re pumping depleted uranium rounds right down on the sensor array.”
I watched as the display showed a beam of sparks which leapt from Altair’s midsection down toward our vastly larger ship. Within the span of a second, the image of Altair melted.
Yamada looked up at me, her eyes huge. “You can’t give them any more time. They’ll gun their engines and move—they’ve blinded us!”
She was right. There was no more time. I took two long strides to the display and I tapped the image of the ship, which was now only an outline, a computer projection of where it had been.
“Rumbold!” I shouted. “Activate the primary cannon!”
“Only one, sir?” he asked.
“Follow orders!”
“Done sir, her clamshell is opening…she’s priming…she’s…”
“Sparhawk!” Singh shouted in my ear. “For God’s sake, man! Don’t do it!”
I heard the fear in him. I heard the full knowledge of the situation. He could see the gun. He knew what it meant, and so did I.
“I’m sorry, Captain, but I didn’t start this fight.”
I touched the fading diagram depicting Altair again.
Yamada sucked in her breath, as she’d seen the specific target I’d chosen.
The ship shivered. I knew the feel, even if I’d never experienced it before. The cannon had fired. It had released a vast amount of energy, forming a beam so powerful and accurate it could reach across the gulf of emptiness between planets and strike another vessel.
This time, however, the beam only had to go a few kilometers. It struck accurately, and Altair was disabled.
Yamada’s eyes sought mine. “You—you took out the bridge. You deliberately selected the bridge.”
I nodded slowly. “It was the only way. You said it yourself. Singh had to be stopped.”
She was breathing hard. Her face was reddened, as if by grief or shame.
I reached out to touch her, but she shied away from me. I immediately retreated. I’d made a mistake, allowing emotion to move me to embrace her—now could hardly be the time.
She looked at me again. “You really are like your father,” she said.
“They fired first, Christine,” I said gently.
“Sorry,” she said. “Let me explain: your actions were justified. I’m not saying they weren’t. But to actually do something like that takes courage, determination—ruthlessness. You have all those traits, apparently.”
I wasn’t sure whether I should be insulted or pleased, so I turned back to the screens. I was surprised to see them come to life again, showing a damaged image of Altair.
“The sensor array is back online?” I asked.
“There are several arrays. I only activated one initially, as I expected them to knock it out when it pinged them. I’ve switched on another array.”
“Of course—good work.”
There was a cold lump in my gut as I surveyed what I’d done. Altair was spinning slowly, lopsidedly. She was out of control, leaving the orbit of our larger vessel and drifting away from us. Her grav-beams were off, as were her engines. The bridge module, a section that sat forward between the primary cannons, was twisted wreckage.
“William?” Yamada asked.
“Yes?”
She came up beside me, and we surveyed the wreck that had been our mothership.
“Why did you select the target with your own hand? You touched the control bar to fire personally. Did you think that I wouldn’t follow your orders if you asked me to fire on their bridge?”
“That wasn’t it,” I said. “I wanted to spare you the anguish—the sensation I’m feeling right now.”
“Oh, I see…thank you for that.”
-25-
Together we stared at Altair as she rolled, going through her death throes. She was venting plasma, gas and liquids which froze instantly into clouds of icy droplets.
We tried to establish communications with her, but failed. Now and then we caught a snatch of frantic radio, probably from one survivor’s suit to another, but we could do little to help. We had no rescue ships, no grav-beams—nothing.
Watching Altair die was difficult for me. I could scarcely believe I’d done such damage to one of Earth’s finest vessels.
“Open a channel in the clear,” I ordered Yamada. “Broadcast it to anyone who might be able to listen.”
“Channel ready, you’re live.”
“Crew of Altair,” I said. “This is the battle cruiser Defiant. We would like to render assistance, but we have no means to do so. If you can get to the hull of our ship, we will do what we can to help.”
A full minute passed. I began to lose hope. But then a faint, scratchy answer came back. I was sure it was a suit radio.
“We can’t trust you, Sparhawk,” said a voice.
“Yes, you can. Who am I speaking with?”
“This is Midshipman Taranto. We’re not going to surrender. You’d kill the last of us if we came to you.”
I knew him, and I placed a face with the voice as soon as he said his name. He was a squatty man with lamb-chop sideburns and a hawk nose.
“No surrender is required,” I said, “I’m an honorable member of the Guard, the same as you are, Taranto. Listen to me: Altair is tumbling farther away. We can’t come to
your rescue. You must come to us.”
“You’re a renegade, a pirate—”
“Please, let’s set aside this tragic conflict for now. A court of inquiry on Earth can settle any questions as to who was at fault.”
There was a moment of quiet, then: “You would submit to a court martial? After what you’ve done?”
“I absolutely would, if such a thing is eventually ordered by CENTCOM. I swear to that on the honor of House Sparhawk.”
“All right then. We’ll probably be butchered, but we’re coming to you. We’ve got no more than three hours of oxygen left in our suits, anyway.”
His statement left me confused. “So little? What about the lifeboats?”
“The lifeboats weren’t properly maintained.”
I understood then. The poor budgets and lax maintenance schedules had claimed more victims. The supplies aboard the lifeboats had been allowed to leak away. Probably, their fuel tanks had been emptied long ago to feed Altair’s hungry engines as well.
“All right, contact me when you’ve reached the outer hull. We’ll guide you in.”
The channel closed, and I looked at the screens thoughtfully.
“I need to regain the trust of these men,” I told Yamada. “I’m going to speak with our prisoner. Is he awake yet?”
“I don’t know,” she said as if startled. “I’d forgotten about him in that automated cell.”
Nodding, I walked toward the exit. “Now we know what happened to Zye.”
When I arrived at the detention center, however, I found Marine Lieutenant Morris had not been forgotten by everyone. Zye was there, staring at him through the porthole.
“Zye? Is Morris well?”
“He’s functional,” she said. “The medical machinery performed surgery on his leg—it had to be removed. The system is generating a simple prosthetic.”
I winced at that news. After all, I’d ordered the door shut on him.
Steeling myself, I walked up next to Zye, who went back to peering into the chamber quietly.
“Is he speaking?” I asked.
“I think he is,” she replied.
I saw then that Morris was indeed talking in his cell. His lips were moving, and his face was red with anger, but I couldn’t hear him.
“Why…?” I began. “Did you mute his speaker?”
“Yes. I found his speech distracting.”
“I see…what exactly are you doing here, Zye?”
She looked at me for a moment. “I’m remembering. I spent a long time in that cell. Now, for the first time, I can see a prisoner from a new perspective—that of the jailor.”
“Okay…do you mind if I talk to him now?”
“Not at all, Captain. Be my guest.”
She retreated, and I was left alone with the lieutenant. I turned on the speaker and apologized to him.
“There’s something wrong with that woman!” he told me. “I don’t know where you found her, but she’s a freak.”
“She’s a Beta,” I said. “A colonist. They’ve been cut off from Earth for so long, their cultural norms have clearly deviated. Are you well, Lieutenant?”
He glared at me and slapped his lower leg. “Oh sure, I’m doing fine. I’ve just got to get used to this plastic leg!”
“I’m sorry about that. This ship isn’t capable of regrowing tissue, I guess. When you get back to Earth, I’m sure they can fix that.”
“Yeah, right. Six weeks in some ward full of cripples, waiting for my turn. Thanks a lot, Sparhawk.”
“Would you rather be dead?”
“No, I wouldn’t. I’m sorry. You’ve kept me alive. It’s just that woman—a Beta, you say? I barely remember the long list of colonies. They taught us about them in school, but I never thought I’d meet one.”
“Lieutenant, there are things we must discuss.”
I told him then about the fate of Altair. He was shocked.
“You mean you destroyed one of our best ships?” he demanded. “You killed the bridge crew?”
“Altair was disabled, not destroyed. She can and will be repaired.”
“With what?” he snorted. “Have you seen our budgets the last few years? She’ll be scrapped.”
I shook my head. “Think it through, Lieutenant. We’re on a battle cruiser. If she were in prime condition, I’d bet she could take on every ship Earth has combined. In the light of this, the government will have no choice other than to increase the budget for the navy—dramatically, I should think.”
“Huh,” he said, staring into space. “You might be right. If the colonists have powerful vessels like this, and a few of them managed to get here, we’d have no chance. The navy will have to be rebuilt to defend the home world. Damn…the colonists might have twenty ships like this—they could conquer Earth in a week!”
“Exactly,” I said, “and that brings me to my next point. Earth is going to need every vessel and guardsman she has. That would include you, me and this captured ship.”
“It hasn’t been captured yet,” Morris said, his eyes narrowing, “you’re still aboard.”
“I’m not the man Singh said I was. I’m a member of Star Guard. Everything I did I was forced to do in order to save my crew.”
He stared at me suspiciously. “You didn’t obey orders. You declared mutiny against Singh, who was leading the task force.”
“Let’s go over the sequence of events. I was sent out to investigate this object. At the time, no one knew Defiant was a ship.”
“Go on.”
“When I got here and reported back that I’d found a large vessel, not a natural comet, Singh ordered me and my crew to stay here. He wanted Cutlass to sit on the hull of this ship so we’d be stationary targets. Then, he ordered Altair’s gunners to destroy my vessel.”
Morris looked troubled. “That was a head-scratcher. We marines were put on standby, but I heard what the gunners were chatting about. They didn’t know quite why we were to fire on our own pinnace. Singh said you’d refused to obey orders—but the gunners could see the situation. They knew you were just sitting there on top of this rock that turned out to be a ship.”
“Exactly. When the attack came, I ordered my people to run as there wasn’t time to lift off and escape. We found our way into the ship after that. The rest you’re familiar with.”
“Okay, let’s pretend I believe your story,” he said. “Why would Singh do it? What possible reason could there be?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, “but it must have to do with the fact this vessel is a warship. Perhaps he wanted full credit for the find. Or perhaps he planned to use it, or sell it. I’m sure the truth will come out in the end after a full investigation.”
“I’m not so sure about that. You’re a son of House Sparhawk. I think that’s why Singh hated you so much.”
“It was clear he disliked me personally,” I said. “You knew this?”
“Everyone did. He leaned on you from day one. He gave you Cutlass, the worst pinnace of the lot, only because he wanted you off his decks.”
Nodding, I considered the possibilities. Singh had maintained a grudge against me, that much was clear. Still, attempting to destroy my pinnace and kill my crew seemed extreme, even for him.
“It had to be related to this ship,” I said. “He asked me to investigate and when I made my initial report, he ordered me to return. We were low on fuel, and he was determined to come out personally. I think he decided he had to kill me when I discovered the truth about this object—that it was a large ship. I’m thinking now that he sent all the pinnaces out to look for this ship, but when we found it he didn’t want the discovery made public.”
“I’m with you on that one. Say, Sparhawk, is there any chance you can let me out of this cell?”
I stared at him thoughtfully for a moment. “I’m the senior Guard officer on this ship. Do you accept that fact?”
“Yes…” he said, eyes narrowed.
“Good. Therefore, I’m in command here for no
w. In time I’m sure I’ll be relieved—either when we return to Earth, or when other vessels arrive to perform a rescue. Do I have your word as a guardsman that you will obey my orders until that time?”
“As long as you don’t ask me to do something contrary to the laws of man or nature,” he said warily.
“On your honor, do you so swear?” I asked.
He sucked in a deep breath and let it out. Swearing on one’s honor was a big deal to any guardsman, especially a marine.
“All right,” he said at last. “You have my word. But you better not be full of shit, Sparhawk. If you are, I’ll tear your guts out myself.”
“I stand forewarned.”
Working the detention center control board, I opened the cell door. He walked out cautiously, as if he were barely able to believe he was free.
“I owe you my life,” he said, “but I also owe you death for killing my officers.”
“We must put all that aside for now,” I told him. “Earth itself is under threat. As you said, the Betas might have a dozen more of these vessels lurking somewhere.”
He laughed unpleasantly. “If they do, we’re totally screwed.”
I didn’t arm the lieutenant, but I did allow him to walk unrestrained at my side. We got as far as the detention area exit before we were intercepted.
An angry, looming Zye stood in the doorway when it shunted open. She had a pistol leveled at Lieutenant Morris’ chest.
“Have you been coerced, Captain?” she demanded without taking her eyes off Morris.
“No,” I said. “The lieutenant and I have come to an understanding. He’s an honorable man, and I’m sure he will obey me until such time as I’m no longer in command of this vessel.”
Her eyes flashed to me, then back to Morris, who had his hands part-way up. He was glaring, but he looked worried, too.
“I don’t condone releasing an enemy combatant,” Zye said. “But you’re in command, as you said.”
She lowered her weapon partway. By my estimate of the angle, she was now aiming at Morris’s groin, rather than at his chest.