A Line in the Sand

by Ryk Brown

  Unpredictable. The word kept popping up in his mind.

  Captain Proth stopped in his tracks, turning toward his helmsman. “Lieutenant Commander Callo, prepare a jump, and do so quickly. Five light minutes.”

  “Captain,” Commander Lobey objected, “we will be forced to break off our attack on Volon.”

  “Volon can wait,” the captain insisted.

  “Jump is ready, sir,” the helmsman announced.

  “Missiles!” the commander warned.

  “JUMP!” the captain ordered.

  The Bor-Quarum shook violently, the first missile striking their shields and detonating as the jump flash washed over them.

  “Jump complete!” the helmsman reported.

  “Damage report!” the captain barked.

  “Bow shields on the starboard side are down!” the systems officer reported. “Multiple hull breaches; deck two, sections five and six! Emergency doors on both sections have activated!”

  “Shunt power to neighboring shields and expand coverage,” the captain ordered. “Helm, come about and prepare to jump back. I want to be five kilometers from our previous position.”

  “Shunting power,” the systems officer acknowledged.

  “Coming about,” the helmsman reported.

  Captain Proth looked at his second in command. “All guns forward; load all missile tubes with nuclear warheads. They will be expecting us to still be in orbit. We will surprise them.”

  “Surely they have already jumped in and realized that their attack has failed,” the commander insisted.

  “They will linger long enough to scan the area in search of us,” the captain replied. “But not for long. We will use their own tactics against them, but we must work quickly.”

  The jump flash faded, and once again Volon loomed large in the forward windows…only this time, there was no ship in orbit.

  Nathan gazed out the window in disbelief. Vast swaths of smoke traced across the planet’s atmosphere along the lines of the Dusahn ship’s attack, obscuring the fires that were undoubtedly still burning below. “Find them,” he instructed.

  Dylan exchanged glances with Josh. “Scanning.”

  “Turn complete,” the Bor-Quarum’s helmsman reported. “Attack jump is ready.”

  “All guns are forward, all tubes loaded with nuclear warheads,” Commander Lobey announced from the tactical station.

  “Weapons free,” Captain Proth instructed. “Fire at will.”

  “Weapons free, fire at will,” the commander acknowledged.

  “Helm, execute attack jump.”

  “Attack jump in five seconds,” the helmsman replied.

  “Are you seeing this?” Jessica asked over the intercom. “There have to be at least a hundred fires raging down there.”

  “Anything?” Nathan asked Dylan.

  “Not nothing, but no warships. Just the jump missiles that missed.”

  “All four of them?”

  “No, sir; only three,” Dylan replied.

  “So they’ve been hit,” Josh surmised.

  “If they were, it wasn’t enough,” Nathan surmised.

  “How do you know?” Josh wondered.

  “No debris.”

  “The debris could’ve been jumped with them,” Josh suggested.

  “That’s possible,” Nathan agreed.

  “Do you think they left?” Dylan asked, hoping the engagement was over. “Maybe they decided it wasn’t worth it.”

  “Unlikely,” Nathan replied.

  “The Dusahn rarely retreat,” Jessica commented over the intercom.

  “Especially when evenly matched,” Nathan added. “Somehow, that ship’s captain anticipated our missile attack and jumped out just in time.”

  “Then…”

  “We need to get the hell out of here,” Nathan decided, cutting Dylan off. “Josh?”

  “Already on it,” Josh assured him as he changed course away from the planet to get a clear jump line.

  Six flashes of blue-white appeared to the left of the Voss as it turned away from the planet. Six missiles streaked from out of the flashes. Two of them were tracking ahead of the Voss, and one aft of the target. The other three, however, immediately struck the ship’s port shields, their nuclear warheads detonating on impact in brilliant, white flashes of light.

  Seconds later, another flash of light revealed the Dusahn warship that had launched them, all guns pointed forward and firing away.

  Nathan picked himself up off the deck, having been knocked off his feet by the detonations. “Jump us out of here!” he barked.

  “Jump drive is offline!” Josh replied.

  “Evasive!”

  “Whattaya think I’m doin’!”

  “All gunners! Sound off!” Nathan instructed.

  “Nose gunner!” Jessica reported.

  “Tail gunner!” Kit announced.

  “Starboard gunner!” Marcus chimed in.

  “Ventral gunner!” Jokay added.

  There was a pause.

  “Dorsal gunner!” Mori reported.

  “Vlad!” Nathan called over the intercom. “Vlad! Sound off!”

  Dylan quickly called up the weapons status display on his auxiliary view screen. “Port gun is offline! I’m not getting any telemetry from it!”

  “Vlad!” Nathan repeated.

  “I’m here!” Vladimir finally replied. “The detonations overloaded the port shields, dousing the port nacelle with radiation! The port gun is offline!”

  Nathan felt relief washing over him, but it was short-lived. Energy weapons impacts slammed into his ship, violently rocking her. “Vlad! The jump drive isn’t working!”

  “I’m on it!” Vladimir assured him.

  “Marcus!” Nathan called. “Help Vlad get the jump drive back online!”

  “Son of a bitch!” Marcus exclaimed.

  “Keep our stern to them, Josh,” Nathan instructed. “Dylan, drop all forward shields and reduce midship shields to half power. Then divert all the extra energy to our aft shields.”

  “But half the ship will be unshielded!” Dylan protested.

  “That’s why we’re showing them our ass!” Nathan replied as he moved to the starboard auxiliary station. “I’m calling for reinforcements.”

  “The target is taking evasive actions,” Commander Lobey reported from the Bor-Quarum’s tactical station.

  “Target has dropped forward shields, and its midship shields are at fifty percent,” the sensor officer added. “They are channeling all available energy to their aft shields.”

  “Why do they not simply jump away?” the captain wondered. “Is their jump drive damaged?”

  “Unable to determine,” the sensor officer admitted.

  “Keep pounding them,” Captain Proth instructed.

  “I’m trying,” the commander assured him. “But that ship’s pilot is quite skilled.”

  “Lieutenant Callo, do not follow the target precisely,” the captain instructed his helmsman. “You will only make it more difficult for our guns to track the target. Calculate the target’s average course deviations and hold that as your heading.”

  Jokay kept his gun trained aft, firing only when the Dusahn warship following them momentarily slid into view.

  “This would be a lot easier if you held this ship still for a few seconds.”

  “At least you’re not taking all the fire!” Kit replied as the aft shields outside the open utility bay door flashed bright red with each impact.

  “A minute ago, you were complaining that you had nothing to shoot at!” Mori reminded him.

  “Yeah, well, this little gun back here is for ground suppression fire, not shooting spaceships!” Kit exclaimed as he fired away at the constantly shifting target outside.

  “Sto
p complaining,” Jokay chuckled.

  “You might want to consider using the stern tubes more often!”

  “I’m trying,” Dylan assured him.

  “Damn it!” Nathan exclaimed. “They shot down the comm-drone!”

  “How the hell did they do that?” Jessica exclaimed over the intercom.

  “I don’t think it was on purpose,” Nathan replied as he prepared to launch a second comm-drone.

  “Well, launch another!” Jessica suggested.

  “What do you think I’m doing?” Nathan replied.

  “You can’t launch one now,” Josh warned. “We’re too close to the planet.”

  “What?”

  “They’re not designed for this!” Josh explained as he continued jinking the ship about, to evade incoming fire as best he could. “They might not be able to break free of the planet’s gravity!”

  “Are you certain?”

  “We’ve only got three more left! Do you really want to risk it?”

  “Can you get us further away from the planet?” Nathan asked.

  “Not quickly!” Josh replied. “Not without giving them a good shot at our unshielded areas, like where our asses are sittin’ at the moment!”

  “Our weapons are not having much effect on their shields,” Commander Lobey reported. “Recommend we launch our attack drones. They may be able to outmaneuver the target and attack their unshielded areas.”

  “Those drones came with this ship,” Captain Proth reminded his second in command. “They have never been tested in battle.”

  “I have studied their specifications,” the commander replied. “I believe they will work.”

  Captain Proth hesitated, but only for a moment. “Launch the drones.”

  “I told you it wouldn’t work,” Vladimir said as he disconnected the damaged circuit board from the port jump drive’s control rack.

  “It would’ve worked fine if you’d beefed up the buffers going into this thing, like I told you!” Marcus argued as he strung the new power cable across the port engineering bay.

  “We needed the buffers for splitting up the shield grid!” Vladimir reminded him.

  “Excuses,” Marcus grumbled, walking back to the power distribution panel to start connecting the power line.

  Vladimir pulled the damaged circuit board, tossing it aside and reaching for the spare lying on the deck next to him. “What are you doing?” he asked, noticing Marcus at the power distribution panel.

  “I’m connecting a new power line to the buffers.”

  “Why?” Vladimir asked as he pushed the new circuit board into its slot.

  “So that thing doesn’t fry again! What the hell do ya’ think?”

  “But those are shield buffers!”

  “A buffer is a buffer!” Marcus insisted. “It’ll be fine!”

  “The moment we jump, the shield section that buffer is serving will experience a fifty-percent dip in power! If we take a hit on that shield…”

  “The dip will only be for a second,” Marcus argued. “Two, at the most. What are the odds?!”

  “What are the odds,” Vladimir mumbled to himself. “With Nathan, not good!”

  Four panels along the side of the Bor-Quarum slid open, revealing rows of small, hexagonal-shaped objects packed tightly together. One by one, the objects were ejected, their intervals and sequencing designed to allow all the drones to extend their maneuvering thruster arms to deploy immediately after release, all without interfering with the drones beside them.

  Once deployed, the drones spread out, streaking away from the ship to either side, accelerating forward to catch up to the target vessel.

  Kit stopped firing for a moment, spotting something unusual. Flashes of light, a whole swarm of them, spreading out and away from the Dusahn ship. At first, he thought it was debris; that one of their plasma blasts might have gotten through. It also could have been sparks from an overloaded shield emitter.

  The thing was, they were not spreading out in any pattern. They were maneuvering.

  “Oh shit,” he muttered, aiming his gun toward the incoming objects. “We’ve got drones incoming!”

  “Where?” Jokay asked over the intercom.

  “They’re spreading out from either side of the target and accelerating toward us!”

  “They’re spreading out wide!” Dylan reported, looking at the threat display. “They’re going to come at us from all sides!”

  “I’m targeting them with point defenses,” Nathan said as he entered commands at the auxiliary console.

  “The drones are too fast!” Dylan replied. “Our guns will never be able to track them!”

  Mori swung his gun turret around as fast as he could, trying to keep up with the drones as they passed. “They’re too fast! The turret can’t track them as they pass!”

  “Just fire at the masses whenever you can!” Jessica suggested. “You might get lucky!”

  “Marcus, are you busy?” Nathan asked over the intercom.

  “Are you fucking kidding?”

  “Get to the utility bay,” Nathan instructed. “I need you to help Kit.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now!”

  “I’m pretty sure I can fire a gun all by myself, but thanks for thinking of me,” Kit said.

  “Stow your gun, Kit,” Nathan instructed. “It’ll be in the way.”

  “In the way of what?”

  “The mines.”

  “We have mines?” Kit asked.

  Dylan looked back over his shoulder. “We don’t have mines…” He then looked over at Josh. “Do we?”

  “About twenty of them passed right by us and are coming about!” Dylan reported over the intercom.

  “I’ve got them,” Jessica replied, adjusting her nose turret gun on the group to port.

  “I’m redistributing power equally again to all shields,” Nathan announced.

  The tiny specks in the distance ahead seemed to stop moving. A few shifted slightly in one direction or another, and then became still again.

  “Here they come, Jess,” Nathan warned over the intercom.

  “These things are impossible to hit!” Jokay exclaimed from the ventral gun turret.

  “Not impossible!” Mori disagreed. “Just really fucking difficult!”

  Jessica opened fire as the specks became hexagonal objects that began firing at her. “I fucking hate drones!”

  Vladimir quickly connected the power cable that Marcus had run from the shield power buffers to the port jump field generator. Once finished, he reached up above the connection and pressed the actuator button, reopening the circuit. He looked to his left, eying the jump field generator control rack that he had been working on, expecting it to erupt in a shower of sparks, dooming the Voss to an emergency landing on Volon as their only chance of survival.

  But no sparks came.

  “Ha!” Vladimir burst out, practically laughing.

  “Vlad!” Nathan called over the intercom. “I’m getting some wonky readings in the port shields.”

  “Ignore them!” Vladimir replied as he ran across the bay back to the port jump field generator control rack. “I’m rebooting the port jump field generator now! We should have jump capability restored in thirty seconds!”

  “You need to work fast, Marcus,” Nathan urged over the intercom.

  “Work fast and nuclear warheads are two phrases that really don’t belong together,” Marcus grunted as he and Kit rolled the jump missile off the rack and onto the deck, where it landed with a thud. The two men looked at each other, wondering if they had not been gentle enough.

  Marcus grinned. “Relax, kid. I’m sure they built these things to take a few bumps without detonating.”

  “I’m good,” Kit assured him. “I’m just not used to working with nuclear ordnan
ce.”

  “They didn’t teach you about nukes in Ghatazhak school?” Marcus joked as he removed the access plate from the side of the missile’s forward section.

  “They did,” Kit replied, removing the panel from the opposite side. “We just never worked with live warheads. What about you?”

  “Unfortunately, not my first time.”

  After removing the access panel, Kit reached inside and began removing some nuts along the inner edge of the nose section.

  “Whattaya doin’?” Marcus wondered.

  “Detaching the nose from the vehicle body,” Kit replied as he continued to work.

  “Why?”

  Kit looked at Marcus, puzzled. “We can’t just push the whole damn missile out the back.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’d ID it in a second, and their point defenses would take it out.”

  “You think they’re not going to spot a hunk of plutonium comin’ at them?”

  “Yeah, but it will take them a few extra seconds to realize it’s a threat,” Kit argued.

  “You could be right,” Marcus admitted, returning to his work.

  The ship shook violently, nearly knocking Marcus over.

  “Aft shields are down to forty percent!” Dylan exclaimed.

  “Any time, Marcus,” Nathan said over the intercom.

  “Rewiring a nuclear detonator isn’t like changin’ a light panel, Cap’n.”

  “How the hell do you know how to do that, anyway?” Kit wondered.

  “Long story,” Marcus replied as he worked.

  “Another long story?” Kit smiled. “Can’t wait to hear that one.”

  “The drones are forcing them to keep all their shields up,” Commander Lobey announced triumphantly from the Bor-Quarum’s tactical station. “Their aft shields are down to thirty-four percent.”