April (51 page)

"I wish it was that simple. If we shoot up the sats and he sticks around at this level he could be right back on us. Next time he might succeed in sneaking up on us. And he may just be the first of a couple looking for us. USNA was complaining about us also. And I don't really want him to leave and go sit at M3, waiting for us to come home either. No, I'm afraid we need to take him if he can. We should start the burn when he stops at the decoy, it will give him just time enough to look around with radar and shake off the twitchies and he will either be talking to his handlers, or have them suiting a man up and cycling him out in the back. With a little luck he'll be too busy to see us coming until we do our braking burn."

"If we used the plasma drive to decelerate, aimed right at him, instead of to the side and ended the burn on a power ramp up and chop off so our exhaust plume played over him at full power, do you think it would damage his ship?" April asked.

"I don't know. I have no idea what the power densities are very far from our tail. But even if it doesn't damage him, it won't help him make calm decisions to see a white hot jet of plasma coming at him. The closer the better, but we have to leave enough margin we don't accidentally ram them. I'll allow two hundred meters.  Somebody's gotta try it out, so it might as well be us," he said grinning. He started keying the flight profile in the navigation computer. "We'll use it both burns. It'll be pointed straight away from them the first burn. They won't see it and we need to conserve the regular fuel. But run off the accumulators. Don't program to crank up the fusion power until we are right next to them."

They watched the Chinese ship creep back. The crew was surprisingly cautious. They were  back to the decoy and the
Happy Lewis
was on count to burn and meet them. Suddenly Easy slapped the kill button and said: "Abort, Abort. I have another radar coming in. Somebody else is joining us."

The Chinese had probably seen the same signal before them, with their military level gear. Within seconds of stopping they had deployed two suited figures. They must have been riding in the lock, suited up ready to go out. Even at their telescope's highest magnification, they were just fuzzy little silhouettes from kilometers away. You couldn't see their helmet faceplates, or their fingers and thumbs.

When Eddie sneezed in the back, the vibration shook the whole vessel hard enough to made their image shake violently on the screen. At first they didn't understand what they were doing. The suited men were waving their arms around and easing closer to each other. It looked like they were going to have a karate match in space suits. "I got it!" April announced. "They are gathering up our decoy. They are pulling the wire in to loops and making a bundle of them. It looks like someone pantomiming coiling a power cord back up to put it away."

"What a strange waste of time," Dr. Singh remarked. Watching on the screen they had rigged now for the passengers.

Very quickly they finished their task and hurried back to the shelter of their ship, before the approaching vessel caught them in the open.

"Their superiors probably ordered them to do so over the radio," His wife remarked. "They would want to examine it themselves. Rather than trust their report."

"Well it will confuse the other ship coming in. They had two targets on the scope and they merged and then when they get here - one's gone. The Chinese ship looks big enough to take us inboard. It probably has an inboard fuel tank to reach this orbit, but maybe the new guys will think they pulled us into their cargo bay."

"OK," April asked. "What's your game plan
now
?"

"If it's another Chinese ship we sit and hope they separate, because I don't want to fight them both at the same time. If it's somebody else's and they sit talking, let's still wait. They still may decide to take us together if we approach. But if they show any hostility to each other at all, lets dive in and follow our plan with the drive. I'll want to turn so we can see both ships from the lock when we stop."

"Eddie, if he looks dangerous you carefully put a missile in the new guy and then the Chinese second, because hopefully we may have already damaged them with the drive as we come in. April you use the laser on anything which looks like a weapons system real fast. Their laser mast first and any bays you see open up, because it probably means a missile launch. No finesse trying to wing them. Just keep burning the crap out of it at high power."

"Where's the best place to aim one of these for the most damage?" Eddie asked.

"Don't get fancy on me," Easy growled with no humor in his voice. "Just aim for the middle with the selector on show and release, because if you waste one, I'm gonna shoot the other one up your ass to show you how!"

"Yes Sir, Captain Sir," Eddie replied, rattled at the unaccustomed stern demeanor.

April was trying not to laugh at the unexpected threat. "It's Aye-aye. Eddie," she corrected him, teasing. Their boards showed the incoming ship painting the
Jade
with millimeter targeting radar and the
Jade
turned their target radar, on besides both running navigation radars. Both were also transmitting heavy encrypted data traffic on multiple channels. The
Jade
 turned her nose to the incoming space plane in a classic minimum profile. The new arrival came to a sudden high acceleration stop with no taper off and flipped right over to look at them. It was showy piloting, but it would have been much safer to go past and come back, keeping his face and radar to the Chinese ship, the way they had approached the decoy. It was bold to the point of recklessness.

"The Chinese commander just missed his chance to put a shot up his butt while he was blind. He may regret not doing so very soon." Easy predicted.

"USNA Space Plane
James Kelly
here. Joseph Buckley commanding." He introduced himself with a casualness that had to be fabricated. You folks wouldn't have seen the shuttle
Happy Lewis
hereabouts would you? It's real puzzling, but she seems to have gone missing and there was a radar return from her here not an hour ago."

"This is the heavenly vessel
Pretty as Jade
," the commander of the Chinese boat informed him. "We are not folk. Our command does not send peasants to man a space vessel." He didn't offer his name, which was a deliberate insult.

"Probably a glitch in translation there fella." Wayne drawled. "But you wouldn't mind I'm sure, if I send a couple of my boys, fine officers not peasants, to take a look at your pretty ship, especially the big cargo hold y'all got. We have orders to take the
Happy Lewis and
I don't see it anywhere else. And if I'm wrong about where she ended up, you can all have a cup of tea together or whatever and we'll be moseying along."

"We also are ordered to capture the
Happy Lewis and
arrest two people on the ship. One of them is a Chinese subject so our claim is superior to yours in regard to her. If there is anything left when we have fulfilled our duty, you are welcome to it. Until then you will stand off from us and maintain your distance if we find this vessel."

Easy just growled at the point he spoke so casually of "taking" the
Happy Lewis
.

"Go Easy. Attack now," Singh Nam-Kah called from the back. "They'd skin him alive at home if he ever let foreigners on his ship. They'll end up fighting now for sure. It's just a matter of exchanging a few more words. They're at a fatal impasse."

Easy slapped the button to send the camera boom home and hit the navigation computer actuate square. There was no wait, because there was no window to count to. The drive kicked right in. It seemed even more important hearing what was happening, knowing they'd be cut off when they flipped to brake.

They listened to the outraged Chinese commander explain in profane detail why a sovereign ship of the Chinese people did not subject itself to search by barbarians and how he would rather extend social hospitality to swine freshly rolled in the mud.  "Keep talking baby." Easy encouraged him. The plasma drive caused static on the radio. Easy hoped it was just internal and not something they were broadcasting. Neither of the other ships seemed to notice anything yet.

"Commander Buckley," the Chinese officer said, at least acknowledging the other's rank, "I see you deploying men outside your airlock. You will take them back inboard and leave, or I will be compelled to fire on you."

"Now that, as they say friend, would have - consequences. Why don't you welcome two of them and you'll live to bounce your grandchildren on your knee?"

"Uh-Oh," April said. "He sounds like you Easy."

An excited voice broke the channel. "Laser fire! One of my men is - gone."

"Harold, fight your ship. Mr. Edwards disperse your men and direct fire at their cockpit."

"I hate this when we can't see what's going on," Easy said."

"I think I have his laser shot out." A new American voice said.

"The cockpit is Swiss cheese." The voice which must be Edwards reported. "Not armored at all. Ports shot out. I doubt if anyone can be alive there. Oh Shit! Coming out the air lock! Suited troops. We need laser support."

"Ten seconds to braking burn," April calmly informed her mates, as the ship tumbled over hard to point its drive the other way. "Three hundred twenty second burn," she informed them. She was surprised at herself, how steady her voice was, as they hurried to kill these strangers. Then the electric drive came on and pushed them down hard in their seats. Over the increased interference the drive created on the radio they heard a static squawk of voices breaking radio discipline, as the plasma torch relit pointed right at them. But spewing plasma ahead of them now the drive interfered too much for them to understand speech, it was just bursts of louder static with the cadence of speech.

There was no way now for them not to see the
Happy Lewis
. It must seem a sudden nova in their heavens. They watched the countdown to the end of their burn knowing they were an easy shot right now, but confident the others were under orders to capture them, not destroy them. The garbled transmissions from the
Jade
ceased suddenly, reducing the babble, then the drive cut off and they heard clearly again Wayne telling his number two.

 "If they turn the damn thing towards us burn them."

"Yes Sir. But our orders are to take them prisoner."

"I don't give a shit. Look what they did to the Chinese." Unthinking they were still broadcasting in the clear. "Get a missile lock on them right now."

Cutting off from six G to nothing was such a shock, April wondered if it was worth spraying their exhaust on the
Jade
point-blank. She felt stunned and queasy from the sudden transition.

 "Damn!" the American said. "They're too close to launch on. The missile might ram them, but the warhead needs a good kilometer to arm. You'd think they expect to run out a frigging boarding plank to run in this close."

"What the hell is that crap on them? It looks like flocking on their boat, or fur"

"Harold, Hail the
Happy Lewis and
demand their surrender."

Easy was half way back to the machine gun by now. April knew what to do and he hadn't wasted any words on her. He could feel the
Happy
twisting, turning under him to take up the firing position - still listening to the chatter.

"They're turning sideways to us and deploying a camera arm."

"Good. Let them look all they want. Just watch out for the torch from their stern. Is it their drive or a weapon?"

"I think it could be both," his second answered.

As soon as they were sideways April stabbed the hot key on the computer to hold position on auto pilot and grabbed the laser controls. There was a post like a periscope sticking up from behind the cabin of the space plane. The laser beam from it was almost invisible when it flashed despite all the debris, but little star-bursts of molten metal droplets off the edge of the Chinese ship, showed where it was keeping two suited figures pinned behind the hulk. They were popping up and peppering the USNA shuttle with small arms fire, then ducking down quickly to move to a new location to fire.

She centered the cross hairs at the base of their laser mast and held the fire button down so hard she hurt her fingers, jiggling the joy stick in her other hand with a circular motion. Her heart was pounding like she was at the end of a long hard run, but she concentrated on her task and resisted the urge to ask Easy and Eddie what the hell they were doing, since she couldn't see any fire from the lock.

"Shuttle
Happy Lewis
this is the USNA Space Plane
James Kelly
. Your are ordered to cease all acceleration and stand idle to be boarded..."

Over the radio channel upon which the
Kelly
was ordering them to heave to, there was a huge thump and the shriek of escaping air which cut off the surrender demand.

On the
James Kelly
the thump and tearing sound shook the whole plane. Their ears popped which is always a very bad sign on a space ship and rows and rows of green status lights turned amber or red on the right seat boards. Then the decompression alarm went off.

"Helmets closed, go to suit oxygen," captain Buckley ordered his crew.

* * *

When Easy got to the open lock he clipped a safety line on and eased in the wider middle of the coffin lock. He just stopped and looked in shock for a wasted moment. He had never seen so much debris floating in open space. The drive had heated the whole front of the
Jade
until it vaporized away much of the surface layers. It immediately condensed back as a metal grit floating like a fog around the ships. There were thousands and thousands of bigger scraps of material peeled off, which showed as bright points tumbling every which way like a snowstorm or a ticker tape parade.

The
Jade
loomed only a hundred meters away, half what they had aimed for and the
Kelly
three times as far. They'd cut it too close to a collision. The laser was already reaching out to the
Kelly
through the dust. April had severed the laser mast which was  tumbling away and there was already an ugly ulcer cut in the roof of the space plane with a hot sprays of fading metal droplets being thrown off where the strange square beam continued to eat deeper into the top of the vessel. It was encouraging. He slipped in further beside Eddie and cocked the action on the big machine gun.