by A. C. Ellas
“Understood.” Nick highlighted a ship on their tactical map. “This one is at the heart of their formation, in a command position. Let’s take them out.”
Cai studied the approach—right into the center of the Rel fleet. The ship was the largest sphere Cai had ever seen and was surrounded by a cluster of smaller spheres. Nick was proposing that he jump right into that. It was riskier than Cai would prefer. “Captain, we’d be very vulnerable to counterattack if I jumped in there.”
“There’s a hole in their formation, Cai. They don’t have any coverage against a negative-z axis attack.” Nick spun the display, magnifying the cluster of ships and highlighting their probable effective attack radius. The space directly below the massive sphere remained black.
Cai realized that Nick had seen that hole immediately and was only manipulating the display to show him what Nick already knew. “You really are a tactical genius, my dear.” Cai studied the formation dispassionately. Even with the gap, this would be tricky, but he was confident in his ability to exploit the weakness Nick had found. He crunched the numbers and didn’t like the results at all. He studied alternatives. “I think this would be better done in two skips. One to take us well below the ecliptic, the second to position us below the target.”
“You’re the Astrogator,” Nick replied, a simple statement with volumes of meaning, which, at the moment, boiled down to approval of Cai’s desire to perform a double skip. They could only skip a limited number of times, but if this was the enemy flagship, it would be worth the cost.
Cai immersed himself in math once again. This time, the numbers were much rosier, and he twisted the heart of the singularity just so, then surfed along the edge the event horizon until he sensed he was where he wanted to be. He fired up all his emission dampeners before he released his hold on the singularity and emerged into real space. He was millions of kilometers from the action, fully stealthed and so far below the orbital plane of Aldebaran that he was confident that nobody could see him. Nobody would even be looking in the right direction.
“Where the hell did you go?” Rit of Boreal Owl asked on the telepathic band that only ship-linked Astrogators could use.
“We’re staging an attack on the flagship,” Cai told him. He located his target, prepared his missiles and updated his gunners. He went back into the math of the jump with new variables to input, a new destination to acquire, he carefully positioned Laughing Owl in the specific attitude he wanted. He reached his solution and twisted the untwistable yet again. It was harder to surf the event horizon this time, due to his strange position, but there was neither air nor drag in space, and so the difficulty might have been purely mental on his part.
He reached the place he wanted to be and emerged into real space directly blow the south pole of the massive spherical ship. His bow was pointed directly at the sphere, like an arrow aimed at a fat balloon, and he launched every missile he had in his tubes at them while still stealthed. The missiles caused a lot of damage but not enough. The supporting spheres were angling down now, trying to reach a position to return fire on them. Cai’s gunnery teams were blasting away at the flagship, other teams were reloading the missile tubes, but time was running out. He calculated less than a minute to act. Not enough time to jump.
“Captain, I have an idea.” Cai sensed Nick’s attention and didn’t waste time waiting for a verbal acknowledgment but sent the simulation to Nick as he rapidly explained.
“I concur,” Nick replied. “Do it, Astrogator.”
Cai seized the singularity in his mental hands and twisted, while at the same time, he flexed the containment fields. Laughing Owl, now out of phase with space-time, slid forward into the space occupied by the massive sphere. Cai flexed the containment fields again, directing streams of matter—hydrogen mostly—across the event horizon at incredible speeds. The superheated plasma burst out in every direction, reentering real space the moment it escaped the event horizon. The massive sphere turned into a miniature nova, and Laughing Owl sat safely in the heart of the storm, balanced perfectly on the point of no return.
Not only did the reaction destroy the flagship, it destroyed some of the supporting spheres as well. Eventually Cai moved, he stopped flexing his containment fields and surfed the slippery slope until he was clear of the explosion by a good million klicks. He untwisted and fell back into real space with a heavy sense of exhaustion, then the pain hit as sensors all over his body screamed about the damage his idea had caused. He wouldn’t be skipping again that day. He analyzed his damage, decided nothing was lethal and turned his attention back to the fight. The human fleet had arrived and the space battle was ongoing.
“Laughing Owl, this is Star Wolf, do you read?”
“Star Wolf, Laughing Owl, we hear you.” Cai hadn’t heard that Dex had finished the space worthiness trials. He found the Star Wolf and briefly admired the new ship. Star Wolf was the new flagship for First Fleet for obvious reasons.
“Transmit status report, please.”
“Transmitting,” Cai replied, sending data on his current condition—damage, armament, efficiency ratings for each gunner.
“Status report received. Stand by.”
Cai snorted. “Hurry up and wait,” he muttered to Nick on their private channel.
“Motto of every military ever,” Nick concurred.
Laughing Owl was safe enough, their last skip had taken them out of the battle, so Cai didn’t mind waiting all that much. He let the repair teams out of their couches and sent them a prioritized list of what to tackle. Medical teams were also on the prowl, looking for injured or physically stressed crew.
“Laughing Owl, this is Star Wolf. With Admiral Becher’s compliments, you are to take position along the civilian escape route and protect the civilian fleet.”
“Orders received and understood,” Cai replied. Although they were in Fourth Fleet under Admiral Nbuntu, Admiral Becher was in command of First Fleet. In this situation, that of open battle, Fourth Fleet reverted to being part of First Fleet and took their orders from Becher. He accelerated, setting his course for a cluster of fleeing civilians. He was actually well positioned for the task he’d been set, which may have been a factor in his assignment.
In the center of the cluster was the liner Quasar Dancer, but Laughing Owl wasn’t the only ship heading toward it—a formation of five Rel spheres were also on an intercept course, and at their current velocities, they’d get there first.
Chapter Six
“They promised us protection,” Dab’s nasal whine shrilled over the speaker. The Astrogator was being more sulky than usual, and Sammie grit his teeth and attempted to reason with the man yet again.
“Protection’s on the way, I’m sure of it. I’m worried about those mining vessels; they’re sitting ducks. We need to magnetize the hull and allow them to attach so we can accelerate and get out of here before the Rels decide to target us.”
“Absolutely not! They’ll slow me down. They’re best right where they are, between me and any Rels.” Dab broke the connection.
Sammie tried to call the Gator again, but Dab refused to accept the call. “Bloody arrogant ass,” he snarled at the comm set.
“We’ve got incoming,” Captain Salazar announced in a calm, almost fatalistic manner. “Five spheres on an intercept course, seven thousand klicks and closing at three hundred point five degrees.”
Sammie tried calling the Gator again, with the same result.
One of the miners called. “Quasar Dreamer, this is Rocky Roll, we show Rels on intercept.”
Sammie replied, “We show the same, Rocky Roll. Our Astrogator is sulking and won’t magnetize for you. I suggest you clear out, find some rocks to hide behind or hide behind us.”
“I am not sulking!” Dab shouted on an open comm channel. “The miners would be even more vulnerable if they’re attached to my hull because they wouldn’t be able to maneuver. They’d make a nice layer of armor, though!”
&
nbsp; Another transmission cut in. “Quasar Dreamer, this is Laughing Owl. Change course fifteen degrees to starboard and magnetize your hull. All smaller craft within one hundred klicks of Quasar Dreamer are instructed to match the turn and attach.
“Not without protection,” Dab shouted. “We were promised protection, and now, there’s five Rels bearing down on me and not one of your precious Space Corps ships are in sight.”
“You are ordered to comply, Quasar Dreamer.”
“Fuck you, Laughing Owl. You can’t make me do anything. I’m the Astrogator!”
“Unbelievable,” Sammie muttered. “That damned idiot is going to get a lot of people killed.”
“You’re hardly the only Astrogator out here, Dab, and from what I’ve seen so far, you’re a piss-poor example of what an Astrogator should be. If I have my way, you’ll never have the privilege of flying again.” While Cai was telling Dab off, he was also launching a computer assault on Quasar Dreamer’s shipnet. Sammie and Salazar watched, and made no effort to intervene, as Laughing Owl hacked their ship and basically took control of them.
The hull abruptly magnetized and the smaller craft started attaching, but it was too late, the Rels had launched a full spread of missiles at them. Sammie held his breath as the points of light drew closer and closer, but before they could impact, a piece of the void itself cut them off. At least, that’s how it looked. “What the hell?”
“It’s Laughing Owl,” reported Salazar. “The Owl-class frigates all have black hulls; I remember reading a dispatch about it. They’re intel platforms under normal circumstances.”
“Quasar Dreamer, this is Laughing Owl. I have rendered your Gator unconscious. Please manually adjust your course seventeen degrees to starboard. Once I have dealt with these Rels, I will take you in tow to the hardpoint.”
Salazar immediately launched himself at the manual controls. Sammie got back on the comm set. “Laughing Owl, this is Quasar Dreamer, we understand and will comply with your instructions. Good hunting, Astrogator Cai.”
“Thank you, Quasar Dreamer.”
On their screens, Laughing Owl was more or less visible now—the computer was extrapolating the frigate’s position and outlining him in green. The frigate’s counter battery had taken care of the Rels’ first flight of missiles, and the frigate was launching missiles of its own—and fighters, too. Those were visible, silvery streaks shooting out the sides of Laughing Owl on columns of blue flame. Sammie kept trying to focus on the Laughing Owl himself, but his eyes wouldn’t cooperate, they insisted that there wasn’t anything there to see.
* * * *
Cai had little attention to spare for the civilian with five Rels trying to take him on. Once he’d dealt with the cowardly Dab—by delivering a psychic blow the other Gator couldn’t even hope to block—he launched another salvo of missiles at the Rels. He also launched his fighters.
“You can boost your telepathy with the power from your engines, right?”
“Yes.” Cai didn’t see what good that would do them here and now, however.
“Can you do the same with your telekinesis?”
He’d never tried it. Never thought about trying it. His teek wasn’t strong... but did it need to be? “Theoretically, yes. Psionic cargo loaders augment their teek that way. What did you have in mind?”
“Why don’t you try to teek one of your missiles into the center of the closest Rel?”
Why not? Either he could or he couldn’t. He grabbed hold of his fusion reactors and soaked in the sweet power then reached out a mental hand and grasped one of his missiles. It was heavy, it fought him, but he managed to get a hold of it and fling it where he wanted it to be. Pain lanced through his skull as the missile disappeared from its rack in his hold. He felt the missile reappear inside the Rel. It exploded, and Cai thought his head would explode along with it.
The Rel ship started to explode in a spectacular fashion, but the explosion stalled then reversed, and the ship collapsed in on itself in an equally spectacular implosion.
“Oh, shit. I breached their containment.” Cai thought for a moment then projected fields about the wayward singularity. He captured it, but instead of containing it, he moved it by weakening one side of the fields in such a way that the singularity moved toward it. Or rather, the universe moved toward the singularity. In either case, the singularity moved precisely where Cai wanted it, and he collapsed the projected fields as the singularity reached the next Rel ship.
As the singularity proceeded to eat the Rel, Nick asked, “What did you just do?”
“I’m capable of capturing a stray singularity,” Cai told Nick. “All jump ships are. I suspect the Rels use lab-created singularities rather than wild ones, and so, they lack the tech to capture them, just to contain the ones they make.”
“I think you just proved that,” Nick replied after a moment. “That’s two down.”
“Three,” Cai replied smugly. One of the Rels had opened a launch bay—on the side facing away from Laughing Owl, of course. Cai sent a half dozen drones hurtling into the opening, giving control of one to each of his six adjuncts. They piloted the drones through the ship, wreaking maximum destruction, guns blazing and plasma jets firing until they reached the reactor core. The Rel was dead, this time without containment being breached.
The other two Rels abruptly changed course, accelerating along a tangent. Cai wasn’t in a mood to let them go, so he pursued. Once he closed the gap, he used what he’d learned from the drones and his teek to lob a missile precisely into the reactor core of each ship in turn. It hurt, unbelievably so, but it was the best tactic he could think of. Flames shot out of the seams of the two Rel ships, and they stopped accelerating.
“Are you okay?” Nick asked gently and on their private channel.
“I feel like someone drove a pair of ice picks into my skull, but it’s all in my head, not damage to Laughing Owl. Let’s get this civvie to safety so I can collapse. I’ll inform Star Wolf,” Cai added as an afterthought. He wearily opened a comm channel to the heavy battle cruiser. “Star Wolf, this is Laughing Owl. Retreat route secured. Am piggybacking disabled cruiser through hardpoint.”
“Laughing Owl, this is Star Wolf, piggybacking understood. Laughing Owl to remain on station on other side of jump in case Rels want to sneak in the back door.”
“Understand and will comply.” He closed that channel and focused on Quasar Dreamer. Their Gator was still out cold. He maneuvered himself into towing position and lashed out with a pair of maglines. He felt them catch on the cruise liner. He verified their placement then opened a channel to the civvie. “Quasar Dreamer, this is Laughing Owl, we have taken you under tow and are proceeding to the hardpoint.”
“Laughing Owl, this is Quasar Dreamer, we thank you.”
Cai accelerated, aimed for the hardpoint, careful not to exceed the maximum velocity the civilian was capable of. He desperately wanted to exit the Chamber and collapse into Nick’s arms, but he couldn’t do that until after he jumped. More than just his own crew was relying on him at the moment. So he remained alert, searching for any enemies that might be approaching or lying in wait at the hardpoint. The fleet was wreaking havoc on the Rels, a sight that cheered Cai immensely, although it didn’t do anything for his aching head.
After far too long a flight, held to the crawling pace a cruise liner could handle, they reached the marker. Cai pulled on the maglines, bringing the Quasar Dreamer in closer, then he selected his patch of hull and magnetized a corresponding patch on his own hull. Quasar Dreamer locked itself onto him with a satisfying thunk.
Cai pulled up the jump protocols and announced, both ship-wide and on comm channel to all the connected ships, “Ten minutes until FTL transit.”
Juan Cortez made the next announcement. “All hands must be in an acceleration couch in seven minutes from mark. Three, two, mark.”
Cai fell into the number storm. At some point, he announced, “Five minutes until FT
L transit.” But it had been much longer than five minutes for him.
“All hands must be in an acceleration couch in three minutes.”
Cai arrived at his solution with three whole seconds to spare. He waited until the optimal moment and twisted the untwistable. Compared to his recent antics, a straightforward jump like this was simple, almost a relief to execute with flawless precision. He slalomed down the incline, leaped the chasm of the void then hauled himself up to the marker for Epsilon Tauri before emerging in real space with a point zero-zero-one percent variance from target.
He quickly set a course for the Quasar Dreamer and released the cruise liner under its own power. Their Gator should wake up before long, not that Cai cared. After scanning the system and ascertaining that it was currently free of hostiles, Cai positioned the Laughing Owl in relation to the marker and the hardpoint such that he had a clear field of fire but wouldn’t himself be in danger from an emerging vessel. Housekeeping done, Cai finally collapsed the linkages then collapsed himself. He roused briefly as Nick’s arms came around him, lifted him and carried him. Knowing himself safe in his husband’s arms, Cai yielded to the onrushing void once more.
Chapter Seven
Nick had assured himself of Cai’s well-being and had settled him in bed when a comm channel chimed. Curious, he accepted the call and found himself face to face with Samuel Hunter. “Mr. Hunter, this is a surprise,” Nick said by way of greeting.
“Are you Captain Steele? I was hoping to speak with Astrogator Cai.”
“Cai is indisposed at the moment. I am Steele. What do you want?”
“I was hoping to invite you and your crew to a banquet in your honor. Since Cai cannot leave Laughing Owl, I was hoping to impose on your hospitality by holding the banquet on your ship. I would be providing all the food and drink, of course.”