by B. V. Larson
After that comment, I caught Gwen flashing me a nasty look. That had to be about Mia. I had to admit, if there was ever a phrase that summoned up Mia as a person, love and war did it pretty well.
A few minutes later, we crossed into the rift and came out in a star system we’d left behind days ago. The same primitive world with simple radio communications was still there, intact. They’d originally warned us about the starships hiding on their world. The atmosphere that circled their planet was still slightly smoky and radioactive from our last engagement there.
Relief swept me to see the inhabited planet was still intact. That was more than could be said for the outer worlds. Both the system’s gas giants were gone, and a very large ship was moving methodically sunward toward the doomed planet and its hapless people.
“There’s the Hunter,” Abrams declared. “I was right!”
“Uh-huh,” I said, sliding my lower jaw around and slouching in my captain’s chair. “We found the Hunter right where you said it would be, Doc. What do we do now?”
“Do? We retreat and regroup, of course. When we can put together a force of great size, we might be able to destroy it. But Captain Lael said it would be difficult even with a large fleet.”
Ursahn wasn’t taking any chances this time. While we watched, more and more starships appeared. She’d talked to another admiral and managed to get him to bring along his entire fleet, which had been gathered from local, inhabited systems.
“We’ve got a lot of ships now,” I pointed out. “You still want to run? What about the Kher on the inhabited world? They’re going to die without our help.”
He snorted rudely. “They’re dead regardless. We can’t stop that thing with such a small force. It would be suicide to try.”
“You don’t know that,” I said.
“I didn’t know we’d find the Hunter here, either. It was an educated guess. A high-odds probability, nothing else.”
“Point taken... Time for you to head on back down to your lab, Doc. Build me more Hunter-attractors and repellers. I might need them soon.”
Shaking his head, he left the bridge. Gwen came to stand next to my command chair.
“Captain,” she said in a quiet voice. “You can’t be serious about fighting the Hunter. We can’t save these primitives.”
“They’re intelligent, and they’re Kher, just like us.”
“You’ve got to get over this complex of yours,” she said. “You owe your loyalties to Earth and to this ship. You can’t save everyone in the universe, Leo. You’re not even in command of this fleet.”
I looked at her. “You think I couldn’t get Ursahn and the rest to fight if I wanted them to?”
“You probably could,” she admitted. “These people have been blindsided by your manipulations from the start.”
“Right… So, as my exec, you figure it’s your job to talk me out of doing something rash? Give it a try.”
She licked her lips and studied the system charts. The Hunter had already begun to shift its course. It was no longer making a beeline to the next world. It was turning, braking and angling its course.
“The Hunter appears to be performing a course-correction, Captain,” Dr. Chang called out.
“Plot it out, Chang.”
He did, and the details flashed up on the walls. “It’s heading back toward us now. We’ve distracted it from destroying the next world in line.”
“We’ve got that going for us, at least,” I said sarcastically.
“Hold on—” Chang began, as two objects appeared to separate from the monstrous Hunter. “We’ve got confirmation. The enemy has released two of its spine-missiles.”
“ETA?”
“We’ve got just under three hours. Ah—two more launches now—it is firing a volley every minute or so.”
We watched in fascination as the Hunter launched what amounted to a slow-motion barrage of massive missiles. The spine-like growths that attached to the vast ship’s heaving back were each the size of one of our battleships. Any vessel struck by one of them would be instantly obliterated.
“Captain,” Gwen said urgently, “we could do what we did in the Ral system. If we can get a gravity beacon operating on the inhabited planet, we can make the Hunter pass on destroying their world.”
“Yes… maybe. Chang, plot me out a course to the inhabited planet. Can we beat the Hunter?”
“If the enemy doesn’t change course—yes,” he said. “But the Hunter is between us and the target world already. If we try to go around it, the vessel is sure to engage.”
I threw up my hands. “We can’t transmit instructions on how to build a gravity-wave unit, Gwen. We can barely talk to them, and I assume their tech is too unsophisticated to do it anyway.”
She frowned thoughtfully. “But sir… we are a phase-ship, and we are operating a gravity repellant system now. We can slip by and deploy our unit on the planet.”
I had Chang plot out the run she’d suggested.
“We have the only ship in the fleet that the Hunter will ignore,” I told Ursahn as I reported in our thoughts. “The rest of your ships haven’t had time to deploy the technology.”
“This is most brave of you, Blake. As to our own path, we’ve come to a decision. We will battle the Hunter here on this ground. If we succeed, we will have removed a threat. If we fail, at least the inhabited planet will survive.”
“Does that mean…?” I asked
“Yes. You are to fly directly toward the inhabited world and install your protective device there. We’ll occupy the Hunter in the meantime.”
“Understood. Blake out.”
I quickly ordered my crew to comply. We were working against the clock. We had to make a run right past the thing—without phasing. Using enough power to vanish would have cost us precious speed, and thus precious time.
Feeling my guts beginning to churn, I watched Dalton swing us around to a new heading. We began accelerating, flying toward the inhabited world.
The whole plan seemed crazy, especially now that I was in the midst of doing it.
=60=
Sailing past the spiny mass of the Hunter was the most nerve-wracking experience of my career as a spacer. The thing was so close, so big, it was like buzzing past a moon.
The spines shifted and thrust upward, spreading out. They were growing, I realized. We’d always wondered what the Hunter did with her insatiable appetite, and now it seemed we had an answer: she grew fresh spines and launched them at targets.
It was far from her only armament. Guns bristled at a dozen locations, set up in formations that resembled barnacles on the vast hull.
Up close and phased-in, we could see every detail. The surface was pitted and scorched. It was obvious this vessel had been opposed countless times in battle. But none had yet managed to stop her.
“We should warn off Ursahn,” Miller suggested.
“I tried, but she wants to do battle with this monster. She’s not going to listen to me.”
Tensely, we slid past the stern of the Hunter and breathed a sigh of relief. Our friend-or-foe system had spoofed the enemy AI again. Whatever kind of artificial brain the thing had, it was somewhat rigid in its thinking.
There wasn’t time to make ourselves clearly understood as we approached the small, low-tech world. We probably looked like hell-bent raiders from the stars to them—if they could detect our approach at all.
“Central landmass is directly below us, Captain,” Dalton said, flipping Hammerhead around and decelerating violently.
“Land on it. Chang, locate a good flat area that looks uninhabited.”
“The whole thing looks uninhabited, Captain,” Chang said, “but I’ll try.”
He directed us down through the puffy clouds into a world that was covered in pink, purple and brown vegetation. We zeroed in on a rocky region that was relatively flat and high, a plateau in a central mountain range.
The world itself was warm and inviting. We measured the atmospher
e as we sank into it. We found an abundance of oxygen, higher than normal CO2, and plenty of nitrogen for the plants.
“Still no sign of native cities,” Chang said.
“We’re going to have to just chance it. There’s no time to send the pod down. Land this thing, Dalton.”
He did so with expert fingers dancing over his control panels. Everyone held their breath as the computers analyzed the atmosphere in more detail.
“I’m not reading any pathogens that should affect us,” Chang said.
That was good enough for me. “Samson, let’s hit the airlock.”
“Me?” he asked, startled, but he climbed out of his seat and donned a helmet without further complaint.
“Catch a few local girls for me, mates!” Dalton called after us.
We made landfall without a hitch. Carrying a technological gift, we stepped out onto a rocky plain. The self-powered gravity generator was bulky and thumped into our legs with every step.
“Hey, Leo,” Samson said. “What if these guys don’t get it? What if they throw rocks at this thing, or something, and break it?”
The thought hadn’t occurred to me, but it seemed plausible. They were somewhat primitive, and invaders from the skies had been unfriendly with them before.
“Then they’re probably screwed,” I admitted.
Gritting my teeth, I set up the unit hastily and turned it on. Samson helped me, wrestling with the folding stabilizing legs Abrams had attached to the main housing.
At last, the unit kicked on with an audible buzz and began to pulse gravity waves. That was unpleasant. It was a more powerful unit than the one Abrams had built for our ship. It had to be, as it was supposed to protect an entire planet.
As we were packing up to go, each pulse felt like a hiccup in our bellies. A hitching sensation that was sickening rather than painful.
Before we boarded the ship again, a figure appeared. It was tall, slim, and faintly attractive. It had purple-pink skin and big golden eyes. Another appeared beside it—then several more.
Where were they coming from? I suspected they were phasing in like our ship, but then I saw the truth. They lived underground. Perhaps that’s why we hadn’t seen any cities from orbit. Perhaps we’d landed right on top of one, and we’d freaked them out by putting a pulsing machine on their roof.
“These guys live underground, Leo,” Samson said. “Crap! We might be caving in their little anthill.”
“Yeah…”
I didn’t move as the group of Kher crept toward us cautiously. Samson pulled out his disruptor and waved it around.
“Should I pop one, Captain?”
“No, dammit! Put that away. We’re trying to save these people.”
Reluctantly, he did as I asked, but he kept a wary hand on the weapon.
“Hello,” I said, waving at the group that circled around us. “We’re from the sky.”
I pointed at the hazy clouds above us. They looked up, following my gesture, as if trying to see what I was pointing at.
“No, no…” I said, and I used my sym to reach out to Abrams and Chang.
“Any chance you’ve worked out a way to talk to these people?” I demanded. “I’m getting nowhere out here.”
Abrams transferred a program to my translator. It amounted to an update of the controlling app. I tried again.
“Can you understand me?” I asked one of them.
Startled, it lowered its long neck and fixed me with those golden eyes. That neck had to be a foot long. These people were the giraffes of the Kher.
“I hear,” it said.
I grinned, and that made it—or rather she, as she was nude and obviously female—cover herself with long, splayed fingers.
“Don’t smile,” Samson said. “You’re showing your teeth.”
“Oh, right.”
I made sure my lips covered my teeth, and I waved at the creature slowly, languidly. It waved back, imitating my motion.
The others were still moving around us. They all moved oddly. It was as if they were in slow-motion, but they were very graceful. It was like being surrounded by a pack of tall sloths who danced whenever they moved.
“What do you call your world?” I asked.
“Call it? It is the world.”
Listening closely, I heard a sound over the translator. It sounded something like “Gondwana” so I decided to use that word.
“We brought you a gift,” I said, indicating the gravity unit. “We give this to everyone on Gondwana.”
“It makes us sick,” the giraffe-thing complained.
“Sorry about that. But it will keep your world safe from the Hunter above.”
They conferred together in confusion. “Which Hunter? We see many with our instruments.”
“Uh… the big one.”
“Ah, the eater-of-planets?”
“Yes, that one.”
“We thank you. Can you turn it off now? It makes us sick.”
I sighed. “If I turn it off, the Hunter will come and destroy you. You can keep the Hunter away with this machine, as long as it’s turned on.”
I showed them how to operate Abrams’ unit. It was simple and intuitive, even for the giraffe-people.
When we were done with the training, they flipped it off, and I started to argue.
The female who I’d spoken with first laid a gentle hand on my arm. “Don’t worry. We understand. We will turn it back on when the eater-of-planets returns to Gondwana. We are watching the skies all the time now.”
“Okay then,” I said, and we turned to go.
A few of the giraffe people followed us to the airlock.
“May we visit your ship’s stomach?” one asked.
“Not today. We must go now and fight the planet-eater.”
They seemed saddened, but they withdrew. One at a time, they vanished into the rocky ground. They had to have trapdoors there, things that I couldn’t see. Perhaps they were built into the natural landscape.
Whatever the case, we soon lifted off and left the strange people on their strange world.
I wondered if I’d ever see any of them again, and if they’d survive another year. For a race of Kher, the people of Gondwana were very peaceful and friendly.
The Imperials were heartless monsters in comparison.
=61=
We were soon out in open space again, and the battle between the Rebel Fleet and the Hunter had begun.
Our side started with a fighter strike. It was powerful, and thousands of tiny ships participated. Most of them were heavy fighters, the type of craft I’d piloted with my friends on behalf of Earth.
Hammerhead rose up out of Gondwana’s atmosphere and applied full thrust toward the battle as if eager to join. But it was going to take us more than half an hour to get there.
“Can you get more speed of out these engines?” I demanded.
“I sure can,” Miller said, “but we’ll have to switch off the anti-grav.”
“Forget it.”
Without the anti-grav unit, at these acceleration rates, we’d be pasted against the bulkheads and probably killed within minutes.
We kept going at full burn, chasing after the Hunter and Ursahn, but I could already tell we were going to arrive too late.
“The first wave of fighters is breaking off,” Chang said several minutes later.
“That bad, huh?” I asked.
He nodded. I didn’t ask him to display the battle. It would only dishearten the crew. Using my sym, I reached out to the distant scene and sucked in a breath.
Our fighters had melted away without leaving much behind in the way of damage. The comparative scale of the Hunter was too great. It had swatted the fighters down like so many gnats.
“It’s like sending fighters to attack a moon,” Miller said. “They’ve added a few craters—nothing more.”
“Gwen,” I said, “try to get me in contact with Ursahn.”
“She won’t break off,” Samson said. “She’s too stubborn.
I’ve seen her like this before.”
As if to prove his point, Ursahn didn’t even answer my call. She was in the heat of battle—if you could call it that. To me it looked more like a slaughter.
“Plot a new course, Chang,” I ordered, coming to a sudden decision. “We’re not going to join the Rebel ranks. I want to hit the Hunter in the stern.”
Miller and Gwen exchanged alarmed glances, but they said nothing.
“Mia,” I said. “Arm and prep your weapon.”
Mia had been curled in a ball on her seat, bored and dozing. At my words, however, she bounced awake. Her eyes flew wide, and she looked instantly excited.
“You mean…?”
“Yes. We’re going to engage.”
“But sir,” Miller protested finally. “We’ll be a single ship, without support on our flanks. We can’t possibly do enough damage to—”
I waved him down. “People, remember what we have aboard this ship. A friend-or-foe system. That’s full camouflage. The enemy effectively doesn’t know we’re here. In a straight fight, with them firing back—sure, we’d have no chance. But the Hunter won’t fire back.”
“We can’t be sure about that, Captain,” Gwen said. “That’s speculation.”
“Objection noted. What isn’t speculation is that the Kher fleet is getting whacked.”
It was undeniable. Chang was displaying the long-range data, and we all watched as the bleak battle continued. Ten gunboats and two destroyers were already gone, and our fleet wasn’t even in effective range yet—if there was an effective range against such a massive opponent.
The bridge crew fell silent. We plunged toward the Hunter’s stern, getting closer every second. After ten more minutes, we were within range—barely.
“Mia,” I said, “hold your fire. We’re going to hit her in the engines. If we can damage those massive exhaust complexes, we might be able to slow her down.”
“That won’t take her out,” Miller pointed out.
“True,” I said, “but at some point, those crazy Rebels out there are going to realize this is hopeless, then they’ll break and run. We can buy them some time to escape.”
Dalton locked eyes with me. “And what’s the plan after that? When the Hunter wises up and turns on us?”