by Joshua James
“No change, sir.”
Olsen didn’t understand that. They must have caught them on their sensors by now. No captain in their right mind would commandeer a critical military operation without frequent scans of the sector. But not a single module had budged from position.
Olsen wanted to do something to announce their presence, but the weapons and shield systems were completely kaput. Their comms systems were also a bust, meaning they couldn’t contact Admiralty AI and get an opinion on what to do next — not that he thought such intelligence would do them much good.
Meanwhile, the sun of the Ripley sector raged, lashing out into space with massive fiery tendrils, as if inviting the spatial detonator to enter its realm. The warhead looked almost complete. Even if they could get off the Tapper in the next ten minutes, Olsen guessed they’d have only moments to stop the warhead before it sank underneath the sun’s corona, the sun melted away its outer shell, and the subsequent explosion wiped out the system.
“Sir,” Commander Novak said, breaking the tension. “What is your plan?”
“Ram the warhead with the Extractor and knock it off course,” he said. It hadn’t been his plan until he’d said the words, but now it made sense to him. “If we can push it into orbit around the sun, we might be able to impede the Okranti’s ability to get it back.” He paused. Now he really was out of ideas. “And we hope that the Admiralty will send someone else to stop the warhead launching, before it’s too late.”
He had a bitter taste in his mouth as he said those final words, remembering his last communication with Admiral Brownstone. She really didn’t seem to understand the gravity of this situation, and it seemed like Olsen’s tiny, beaten-up mining ship was humanity’s only hope.
Novak grimaced. “It seems very risky, sir,” she said, “and there seems to be no end goal to that plan. The Okranti will destroy the Extractor.”
She was right. It was a suicide plan. If it was just himself, Olsen would do it, but not with the remainder of the Tapper’s crew. “Do you have any better suggestions for now?”
“Not yet, sir. I’m still thinking things through. Things have turned out quite … unexpectedly.”
“You can say that again, Novak.” He wanted to tell her that this was the problem with leaving executive decisions down to a machine or a system. You needed creativity in times like this. But there was little value in scoring philosophical points now.
“How about you, Rob? Any input?” he asked.
“I suggest we carry on our current course of action,” Rob said. “Escaping this ship before it explodes is the immediate priority.”
“Hard to argue with that.” A brief silence filled the room. Eventually, this was broken by some beeping from Cadinouche’s computer.
“The Okranti is hailing us, sir,” he announced.
Olsen nodded. “Put them on screen.”
Captain Kraic appeared on the viewscreen. Olsen shrank the Arstan’s face on the display and dragged it to the bottom right corner of the screen, so he could still see what was happening outside. Arstans, particularly male ones, had angular features. But the lines of Kraic’s face were especially jagged, and his eyes rose out of his snout like pyramids.
“I never thought of you as a thief,” Olsen said.
The Arstan raised his eyelids as if in mock surprise. “If you’re referring to the spatial detonator, it was never yours to begin with. A nice Tauian ambassador by the name of Oort advised me it was in the sector and told me to come and retrieve it. Oh yes, I wasn’t meant to tell you that. But given we’re both going to die today, what’s the point of keeping secrets between friends?”
Olsen felt rage surging in his chest. The Tauian, Oort. He’d been betraying them all along. But why would an advanced intergalactic race deliver the weapon into the hands of the warmongering Arstans?
“We will find a way to stop you, Kraic,” Olsen said.
This caused the Arstan to erupt in a hoarse laugh. “You really think you have a chance against me in this bruised and battered ship? You’re practically falling to pieces, and I don’t know what will destroy you first: lack of oxygen, or the supernova that will soon ensue.”
“So why not just annihilate us and have done with us?”
“Because I want to experience my last moments of life in peace. And if you do nothing to interfere, I will allow the brief time you have left to be calm. But if you try anything stupid, I warn you, Captain Olsen, I will make your dying moments so painful, you won’t be able to distinguish them from eternity.”
“Such empty threats,” Olsen said.
“That’s all I have to say. Go with honor. That’s the best you can do now.” The Arstan cut off the channel.
Olsen pinched his lip as a thought began to take hold. He turned to Novak. “He’s gloating. He wants me to see that he’s won.”
“A reasonable assumption,” Novak said.
“Which means he doesn’t know that the Tapper’s engines are critical. He doesn’t know that we’re about to blow up. He thinks we’re going to be around to watch his big triumph.”
Novak frowned, showing more emotion than he’d seen for a while. “I suppose not, sir. The engine damage is within the core, so it wouldn’t show up on their sensors.”
Olsen snapped his fingers. “He’s not going to expect it.”
“Expect what?” Novak asked.
Olsen ignored her question, and instead raised his wristwatch to his mouth. “Chang, can we fly that shuttle?”
“The engines are … operational.”
“Good enough.” Olsen turned to Redrock, who was stooped over Santiago’s computer screen. “Will you be fit to pilot it, Lieutenant Nathan?”
“Absolutely. I’m sure we can ram that warhead.”
“We’re not ramming any warhead.”
“Sir?”
“Do you think you could fly the Extractor to one of the Okranti modules?”
Redrock cocked his head. “You mean you want to—”
“Board the Okranti,” Olsen said. “Exactly.”
Redrock exchanged a glance with Kota that suggested he thought Olsen had lost his mind. “I mean in theory, sure. But they’d see us coming.”
“Eventually, yes,” Olsen said. “But I think it will be a real surprise. Kraic thinks the ship is battered, but not critical. He won’t expect us to abandon ship. He probably thinks we’re over here trying to get our weapons systems online.”
“Still,” Kota said insistently. “Sooner or later they’ll see us.”
“Yes,” agreed Olsen. “And when that happens, we’ll need a diversion. A big diversion.” He turned to Rob. “How long until the Tapper explodes?”
“Considering the degradation of the engine,” Rob said. “I estimate six minutes.”
Olsen’s turned back to Redrock, and this time he had a little twinkle in his eye. “One big diversion coming right up.”
39
The Extractor currently held six times its recommended capacity of ten people.
It wasn’t the weight that was the problem, since asteroid rock weighted a lot more than people, and they could pack the cargo bay full of it. But they didn’t have the equipment to harness them in. Nor could the mag-floor at the back generate the power required to keep them all down, which left the passengers almost floating in the back every time Redrock turned the ship, even slightly. And with the shuttle running on a single engine, he had to do quite a lot of maneuvering to keep it on course.
In all honesty, he wasn’t in tip-top shape to pilot the ship. His eyes were bleary and he felt a little dizzy, not quite recovered from his brief coma before. But there was no way he was leaving his shuttle in the hands of a much less experienced pilot, particularly when the Extractor was in such a volatile state. Cadinouche could operate it under normal conditions, yes, but there was a huge difference between piloting small crafts and massive starships.
For the same reason, Kota didn’t sit next to him. Instead, Lieutenant Santiago — so
meone who had worked as a navigator for over seven years — sat hunched over the tiny computer, trying to extract data out of the noise generated by the scratched and charred roof-mounted sensor dome.
Kota, Olsen, and Novak stood behind them.
“Any idea for a destination yet, Santiago?” Redrock asked. They’d already decided they needed to board one of the modules. The big question was: which one?
“Not yet,” Santiago said. “But it looks like the Okranti is finally moving in to intercept.”
Just after she said it, Redrock also saw the shield modules start to break off from the main body of the ship. Even in its bruised state, the shuttle counted as a fast-moving target. Unless he was flying directly away or directly towards the weapons module, there was no point trying to combat it with long-range cannons, as Redrock could easily weave out of the way of the line of fire. Although, no doubt, a carrier module full of Arstan fighter planes wouldn’t be far from the shields.
“Find the weapons module. We’ll find our way inside that and take it from there.” Redrock said, and he glanced back at Captain Olsen, who nodded his approval.
“No modules seem to have detached, other than the shield modules.”
“Then we’ll just fly around them. What’s the point?”
“Because,” Olsen said with a slight mirth in his voice, “Kraic can’t take us seriously as a threat, so he’s only sending out the shields as a deterrent. Maybe he worries that we’ll fire on something, but that isn’t our goal.”
Redrock was only half listening. He was watching the six incoming shield modules and the faint blue lines that indicated the edges of their shields.
It took quite some squinting through the window — and only the naked eye would be able to pick it up — but there was a slight gap in between two of the shields. If he thrust hard enough, then he’d push through.
“Here we go,” he said. He really didn’t have time to explain.
Redrock yawed the ship a sharp ninety degrees and pitched down a little, while ramping up the throttle. He added a little energy from the afterburner. Behind him, he saw heads bump and hands grapple on to whatever they could find for support.
There came the sound of sparks from above, and the ship jolted. Santiago swore, and her screen went black.
But they made it between the shields. On the other side, the Okranti awaited them, much larger than before. From here, the ship’s body looked like a mass of floating shipping containers, stacked out in all directions.
In front of them, two bay doors opened, and five Arstan fighters swarmed out of both carrier modules attached to the Okranti’s main body. They sped forward with full momentum, and fired off a few red shots of light from their twin-mounted blasters. But the Okranti had let them come too close, and so Redrock only had to perform a clumsy one-engined barrel-roll out of the way, and the enemy fighters streamed past him.
He had about twenty seconds before they corrected their course and came back at him. That was long enough.
Just as the fighters completed their arc and started to return, they were engulfed in a bright blast of energy that seemed to wash over the three furthest shield modules as well. All of them glowed white and looked as if they would soon explode.
Through the Extractor’s battered reinforced windows, Redrock and everyone else in the shuttle knew what they’d just seen.
The Tapper, their beloved ship, had just blown up.
There was no going back now.
Redrock turned the engine around to slow the Extractor down as much as possible without entering into a full spin. He veered right a little and kept the wings straight, so that he could squeeze through one of the closing airlock doors.
The landing was rough, and Redrock only just made it without crashing in to the far wall. But they’d made it, and his sensors told him that the carrier module had artificial gravity, clean air, and was stationary compared to the rest of the Okranti.
Redrock opened the shuttle doors, and Chang rushed outside to place a hacking device on the module’s console that would stop its airlock from opening, and also stop the whole module from detaching from the rest of the ship. Redrock leaned back against his headrest and took a deep breath.
He’d done his part to help Olsen’s crew live another day. Now, the gauntlet would pass to someone else.
40
Kota wouldn’t have thought she’d had a chance of taking an Arstan warship with a squad of five Marines. But now, given she’d lost Connery and Singh, she only had three at her disposal. Admittedly, she had the rest of the crew of the Tapper, but they were only lightly trained in combat situations, and their standard-issue pistols wouldn’t do much against Arstan heavy weaponry.
She’d always felt that the Tapper should have a much larger Marine force. They needed to protect not only against situations like these, but also against mutinies. And recent events had proven a squad could be reduced by half in minutes.
Olsen had given her permission to take care of all tactical orders, while he and Novak would only give strategic commands at crucial moments. They waited in front of the airlock doors leading away from the Arstan carrier module, as Chang fiddled with the controls. He’d already hacked the module’s system so it couldn’t detach from the rest of the ship. Where you learned to do such a thing, Kota had no idea. Chang was a dark horse.
The air here smelled different than on the Tapper — almost like fresh air. It didn’t have that oily, sickly smell to it and, strangely, it had the scent of pollen floating upon it. Kota could get used to this. If they survived on it, anyway.
But Kota had no time to think about that, because the doors opened right in front of her, leading into an empty module.
“Ready,” Chang shouted.
“How long we got?” Kota asked.
“Around a minute before it detaches, and I need to work on the next panel. There’s modules attached to the left, right and front of this one, and we’ll need to move straight on to the equivalent of a CIC module.”
“And you know where that is?”
“I think so.”
The components weren’t just modular structurally, but also electronically. Chang would have to work on each one in turn to ensure they didn’t break off from the main ship. These modules didn’t come with EVA suits, so if they detached, the crew would be left floating in space until Kraic launched the warhead and the star went supernova.
Kota signaled Riley and Turgin forward first, indicating for them to guard the side doors. They sprinted forwards in sync, then pivoted towards their targets. Kota rushed toward the front door. Just before she skidded to a halt, the door to her right shot open, and the boom of rapid-firing bullets erupted out of Turgin’s rifle.
Kota hazarded a glance out of the corner of her eye at Turgin’s targets, to see two Arstans crumple underneath their own weight on the adjacent module’s floor. The door to the right whizzed open, and Riley took down another three Arstans and then let out a high-pitched whoop.
Something was wrong — Kota had expected more of them — but there was no time for anxiety. No time to focus on anything but the mission. She raised her index finger and thumb, and made an okay sign to the crew behind her. Chang shot forward and headed toward the console on the left side of the front door.
“Hurry,” Chang shouted. “You have ten seconds, and then the system will override my hack. The hangar module will detach.”
That was enough for Olsen and Novak to sprint into the module, followed by the rest of the crew. Just behind them, the carrier module let off a grinding creak, and there came a sucking sound, just before the doors to it slid shut.
“Got it,” Chang said. “We need to move faster.”
Kota turned towards the screen on his panel. Chang worked with surprising speed, sliding windows around on the display, entering codes into the foreign keypad with jagged symbols etched across it, panting and tapping his toe loudly against the floor. Kota wanted to point out that he shouldn’t be making such a racke
t, but she knew better than to interrupt.
Soon enough, the doors slid open in front of Kota, affording them a view of another module. This one looked like a shield module, with a glowing blue tube of cooling fluid running along the top of the wall. The ends of the tube met at a point to the right, and then led down into a spherical generator that would power the shield outlets outside the ship.
Chang didn’t even wait for permission to run to the console this time, but started frantically swiping at the screen. There were only two hatches out of this module. As briefed, Turgin secured the left hatch and Riley the front one, while Kota moved into the center of the room to give extra support, should one of the two Marines need it.
Chang turned around to look at Olsen, who stood slightly behind Kota. Novak kept close to him with her pistol drawn and trained on the front door, as if acting as Olsen’s bodyguard.
“Sir,” the engineer said. “Something’s wrong.”
“What is it?” Olsen replied.
“I’ve managed to install a hack to keep the modules in place and give us a straight route to the CIC, but all the other ones are detaching. The ship is separating into its components.”
Olsen raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“I don’t know, sir. But it appears they’re entering formation to attack the CIC.”
“Damn it. Open the door.”
“Got it,” Chang said.
Immediately, the door slid open in front of Kota, and she charged first into the room, while Riley kept her covered from behind. She half expected to meet the entire Arstan crew in this module — a barracks, with twenty bunk beds stacked along the side walls.
Each bunk contained an Arstan soldier lying down, their eyes closed, their hands folded on their chests and white foam bubbling from their mouths.
“All clear,” she shouted back. “They’re all dead.”
“Dead?” Olsen asked as he stepped forward, with his XO trailing close by his side.
Kota nodded, the words forming on her shocked lips. “I think they all committed suicide.”