Authors: Mark Kalina
---
"Captain, we're coming up on the point of closest approach to the disabled interceptor," said the sensors officer.
"Roger that," said Freya. She actually
said
it; for the next hour, her crew were back in their humanoid avatars, as
Ice Knife
drifted, letting her drives cool down and giving the repair microbot swarms time to fix dozens of minor systems that had degraded under the stress of prolonged high acceleration.
"Initiate a hyper-bandwidth data link. Get the pilot aboard."
"Roger, Captain," said the comm officer. "I'm setting up the link... It's not going to be easy. Range is better than five million. It's getting lossy."
"Get it done. Commit as much processor resources as you need, short of shutting down the ship."
"Understood, Captain," said the communications officer.
There was a moment of distortion in her data feeds as the computing power of the
Ice Knife
was briefly re-tasked to pick up the distant signal, leaving dozens of other systems in low-performance mode, and then the feeds regained their sharp edges.
"We've got it!" said Comm. "It's a daemon! Like we thought, it's one of the
Conquering Sun
's interceptor pilots."
"Good work," said Freya. "I assume you have the daemon in a neural net?"
"We've got it, Captain," came the voice of the medical officer. "We've got her in a ultra-low speed neural net for now. ID reads 'Deputy Wave Leader / Interceptor Pilot Alekzandra Neel; Sigma-99-Alpha-29-Theta-22,
Conquering Sun.'
As soon as we can prep a backup avatar we'll transfer her over. For now, I don't want to risk any extra psychological trauma."
"Understood," said Freya. "We'll be going to full acceleration in just under an hour. Do what you can."
Freya focused on her data feeds again. "Communications," she said, "get me a tight-beam to the
Skyrunner
."
"Captain Tralk," said Meryl.
"Captain Meryl. Are you ready to execute?"
"I am ready, Captain. I've already logged my concerns about your plan. If it succeeds it will be brilliant," he said, voice grudging, "but it has a low probability of success."
"That's my problem, Captain Meryl."
"Then
Skyrunner
is ready and standing by, Captain Tralk. Good luck."
Freya terminated the comm-link and smiled tightly. Meryl was an arrogant gob, but he would do his part.
She turned to Muir. "You ready?"
"Sure, Captain. Back into the neural net we go."
"Not that. Are you ready with the plan?"
"Yes, Captain."
"It's going to be tricky."
"I know, Captain. I can do it."
"Confidence is good, Muir, but..."
"Captain, you know I don't make confident noises if I'm not confident. Barring false modesty, I'm one of the best FTL navigators in the Fleet. I can do it."
---
Oversight Officer Segan Steven watched the receding swift-ships. They were over ten light seconds away, and getting further every moment. They were splitting up, but he could not see how that mattered. They were all that was left of Hegemonic presence in this system, and in his mind Segan was tempted to consider the system liberated from the Hegemony's corrupt power. That was a silly thought, he knew. The
Swift Liberty
would not be staying. And for that matter, the empty system was not worth having. Killing an enemy assault-ship though... that was worth everything.
It had been a near thing, Segan knew, but the mission had succeeded brilliantly. The new weapon system was proven, and the faction behind it would reap the benefits while those opposed would, as corollary, suffer a loss of influence and status. All that was to the good.
The alarm caught Segan by surprise, so that he heard the sharp audible tone before he thought to focus on the data feed.
The last hour had been harrowing, and this latest surprise was enough to break through his facade.
"What the hell?" he exclaimed.
"FTL emergence! At eighty
thousand
kilometers!" came a shout from the sensors officer.
"Right on top of us," said the commander, softly. Then, "All laser arrays, stand by for point defense!"
"What is it?" asked Segan.
"It's a swift-ship," said the sensors officer.
"Battlestations!" said the commander. "Designate the new contact 'Delta.'"
Segan quickly lowered himself back into his command pod. If the
Swift Liberty
had to accelerate hard he wanted to be inside the pod, protected by acceleration gel. He focused on the data feeds now; there was no time to ask questions.
"I've got an FTL initiation from contact Gamma!" sent the sensors officer, through the data feed. It was aimed at the commander, but Segan could monitor any data feed aboard the ship.
"God damn!" said the commander; an exclamation into the data feed. Segan frowned at the outburst. An enemy swift-ship had FTL'd in right on top of them, and one of the other swift-ships had FTL'd out...
"Redesignate contact 'Delta' to 'Gamma!' It's the same ship!" said the commander, and Segan started, suddenly understanding.
Of course! Segan thought. It had taken the
Swift Liberty
more than ten seconds to
see
the FTL initiation of the swift-ship; it was more than ten light seconds away... so that data reached them
after
they had seen the same ship emerge from FTL, much closer to them. The astounding thing was how closely and precisely the enemy had managed the FTL emergence.
"Contact Delta-- I mean, contact Gamma has deployed sensor drones. Contact Gamma has lit its drive," reported Sensors.
"Sensors, give me a full scan with radar and LIDAR; if the contact launches more drones or warheads I want to know it. Weapons, engage the contact with the primary laser arrays. Maybe we can cause an overheat or some local burn-throughs. Set the secondary arrays to stand by to engage enemy warheads or sensor drones. Deploy the bow-shields. Stand by for maneuver." The commander's orders were calm again, coming through the data feed in quick succession.
"Destroy it!" commanded Segan, breaking into the commander's data feed as the command pods once more sealed the bridge crew in acceleration gel.
"There's no way to," said the commander, and fed Segan a three-dee model of the situation by way of explanation.
Segan could see the inbound swift-ship, closing in at almost two thousand KPS. That put the closest point of approach in less than 30 seconds and well outside of killing range for the
Swift Liberty's
lasers. The enemy already had their bow-shields deployed and angled to face the lance-ship. Segan could even see why the commander had not bother to launch interceptors; even at maximum acceleration, they would never reach the enemy before it had swept past, hurtling out of range. It was infuriating.
"Launch warning! Contact Gamma has launched! Inbound warheads and sensor drones!" came the call from Sensors.
"Primary laser arrays, engage the enemy warheads," ordered the commander.
The enemy swift-ship had used its unprecedented approach to avoid the salvo of interceptors that would normally have killed such a small ship trying to get within warhead range of the
Swift Liberty
. Now the little warship had fired dozens of heavy anti-ship warheads, mixed in with sensor drones. The warhead's short duration pulse-drives flared, flashing like a cloud of fireflies.
Segan could see the vector projections; at their closest point of approach the warheads were going to get
just
within the edge of the maximum warhead range of the
Swift Liberty
. There was a sudden slam of force as the
Swift Liberty's
drives fired, bringing the lance-ship to face the enemy attack with her bow-shields. Those were damaged, Segan knew, but should be able to hold off the warheads' detonation lasers from this range; the enemy ship would have had to get much closer for the warheads to be able to blast thought a lance-ship's bow shields, and, at that range, the lance-ship's own lasers could have focused killing energy on the little swift-ship.
The sensors picture wasn't perfectly clear; the two ships were lasing each other, and pumping out focused radio energy to jam radars. The lance-ship was firing its primary and secondary lasers, swatting enemy warheads as they hurtled in towards the maximum range at which their detonation-pumped lasers could deliver damaging energy densities. That let the enemy swift-ship off the hook, sparing it the damage that the primary laser arrays could do, even at this long range. The
Swift Liberty
was less effective than a conventional lance-ship in this, with only half the PLAs.
Effective enough. Some of the enemy warheads got through the point defenses, but at the extreme range the detonation lasers were not enough to penetrate even the damaged bow-shields of the
Swift Liberty.
Segan felt the faint shock as the X-ray laser pulses vaporized ablative polymer from the surface of the bow-shields, but there was no actual damage done.
The enemy swift-ship was past them now, receding at more than two thousand kilometers per second, flipping end for end to keep its bow-shields aimed at the lance-ship. Interceptors fired now would never be able to catch it. Even if they had fired interceptors as soon as they saw the enemy, the parameters of this intercept meant that they could not have reached their target, Segan admitted to himself.
The little unexpected battle was over now, and Segan relaxed as the acceleration pod released him.
"God damn them, that was sharp!" said the commander.
"What do you mean, Commander Grantsen?" said Segan.
"What that bastard did... God damn them!"
"Commander Grantsen, I am dismayed to see you not in control of yourself," said Segan. It was time to resume the persona, and also to rein in the commander.
"You are correct, of course, Oversight Officer. But the enemy's tactics were utterly... unorthodox, and very effective."
"How do you mean? Their attack failed utterly. I suppose it was daring, if such a concept as daring can even be applied to the
things
that operate Hegemony warships..."
"Contact Beta has initiated FTL," came a report from the Sensors officer.
"As expected," said the commander, wearily. The other swift-ship, the one that had
not
just buzzed past the
Swift Liberty
, had gone FTL, most likely leaving the system. The swift-ship that was streaking away from them now would take something like a hundred hours, maybe more, to re-stabilize its singularity before it could initiate FTL.
"What do you mean, Commander?" Segan asked, but at the edge of his thoughts he began to understand... It was a sinking feeling.
The commander's words confirmed it. "They weren't trying to attack us. They were making a sensors pass, made a sensors pass, as close as thirty-seven thousand kilometers. And I'm almost certain that some of their sensor drones escaped our blinding. We kept the bow-shields facing them, but they likely had drones leading and trailing their warheads. The detonations of the warheads could have masked some of the drones' maneuvers. It is all too likely, Oversight Officer, that the enemy got a very good look at our ship, and then sent that information to the other swift-ship... which has just made an FTL transit to send the information back to the Hegemony."
Segan was silent.
"Like I said," ground out the commander, "sharp bastards."
Nas Killick pressed
broad shoulders against the rough splotchy wall of the Fortunate Landing Bar & Lounge and settled in to wait. One leg was stretched out in front of him, booted foot propped up on the chair opposite him. The other leg had a holstered heavy pulse-laser pistol strapped to the thigh. Nas watched the crowd and took in the rhythm of the music from the stage. It was something local, and played by two live musicians, not the usual audio data feed with euphorics mixed in. That suited Nas just fine.
The broad table in front of him was empty of other patrons in spite of the crowd. That gave Nas space in the crowded room. The table also hid the hand resting on the grip of his pulse-laser. One of the staff, a Modified girl with a wild mane of neon blue hair framing a sky blue face sculpted for slightly inhuman beauty, caught his eye and nodded, weaving among other staff and patrons to bring his drink. There were places that charged hundreds of credits for the privilege of live service. And then there were places like the Fortunate Landing, where live service was all there was because the dirtball excuse for a planet that held it couldn't afford the automation.
Nas was used to places like this: dingy, jury-rigged, worn. Nas had once been at home in those other places; the automated, well polished and gleaming places. Now there was nowhere that was home, if not the bridge of his own
Whisperknife
. A smile twitched across weathered features. He looked very little like the smooth-faced Fleet Academy cadet that had once, long ago, been dishonorably dismissed from Hegemonic Fleet service.