Authors: Christopher Nuttall
“This is the Colonial Liberation Front,” a toneless voice said. “We will not tolerate the surrender of a human world, claimed by humans, settled by humans, to serve as a home for alien scum. The humans who have been forcibly evacuated from this world have no recompense; we will punish the aliens for them ...”
Glen sliced his finger across his throat. The message cut off, sharply. Whoever had written it didn't seem to realise that there had only been a handful of settlers, none of whom had been likely to survive the next two years without intensive medical attention. The doctor’s report had made that quite clear.
“Interesting,” Cynthia muttered, through the communications network. “They didn't say anything about Fairfax.”
“True,” Glen agreed. The timing would have been more than a little odd, if they had. If
Dauntless
had only just heard about the blockade it was unlikely that the raiders had heard anything, unless their base was somewhere between Primus Omega and Fairfax. But even so, the timing would have been skewed. “But it doesn't really matter ...”
“I’m picking up a data packet,” Danielle injected. “It's coming from one of the light cruisers.”
Sandy
, Glen thought. “Store it securely,” he ordered. “We’ll look at it once this day is done.”
“Enemy craft entering missile range,” Cooke snapped. “They’re locking weapons on us.”
“Open fire,” Glen ordered. It was a pity that there was no easy way to tell which ship was the enemy flagship. The Dragons had taken years to realise that their command network identified their flagships, which promptly drew fire from their human enemies. But then, their command network had been so rigid that when they lost the flagship, the next in command simply took over and kept fighting. “And take us into close engagement range.”
“Enemy craft opening fire,” Cooke reported. “Deploying ECM drones ... now!”
***
Jason
gritted his teeth as both sides opened fire. The feds were good, he had to admit, and they had the most modern weapons available. And the best countermeasures; one by one, several of his missiles were drawn off and wasted on electronic shadows projected by ECM drones. His own ships had their own ECM, but even Mr. Ford hadn't been able to get his hands on the latest in naval technology. They were at a disadvantage that even superiority in numbers might not be able to address.
The battle was rapidly slimming down to a simple problem. Could his ships destroy the cruiser, or at least cripple her, before she got into energy range? Somehow, he doubted it.
But as the cruiser wasn't the primary target, it hardly mattered.
“Signal to
Seurat
,” he ordered. “She is to launch planetary bombardment projectiles now.”
“Yes, sir,” Dana said. “Signal sent.”
***
Sandy saw the opening, a gap in
Dauntless’s
defensive shield that could be used to slip a missile or two through the chink and slam it into her hull. Even if the ship wasn't badly damaged, sensor nodes and weapons blisters would be smashed and rendered non-functional .. she hesitated, then moved too slowly to launch her missiles before the gap closed. If she was lucky, they would see it as incompetence. She remembered the former helmsman – he'd been left behind when they departed the asteroid – and shuddered.
But if they realised that she’d done it deliberately, it would be far worse.
***
“Captain, one of the enemy ships is firing on the planet,” Cooke reported. “Their missiles are already outside our point defence engagement envelope.”
Glen cursed. The choice had just boiled down to a very simple one; go after the missiles, thus surrendering their chance to take a bite out of the raiders, or leave the planet to its fate. There were thousands of innocent beings on the surface ... but
could
they be saved? He ran through the situation in his head, then swore inwardly. They had to try.
“Take us after the missiles,” he ordered. “Break off from the enemy craft.”
Dauntless
shivered as she altered course. Glen watched grimly as the missile drives burned out, sending them flashing towards the planet on ballistic trajectories. They wouldn't be accelerating any longer, but they would still be moving hellishly quickly ...
***
“They’re heading towards the planet, sir,” Dana said. She giggled. “I think they’re too late.”
“Fire one final barrage, then order all ships to return to hyperspace,”
Jason ordered. One way or the other, the feds were going to know that they had lost this round. “And transmit our final message.”
***
“Two missiles made it into the planet’s atmosphere,” Cooke reported. “Captain ...”
Glen watched in horror. Compared to antimatter, the explosions weren't
that
powerful ... but unleashed on a planet’s surface they would be utterly devastating. And the radiation from the dirty materials used to make the bombs ... any aliens who survived the first blast would be condemned to a lingering death, unless they received immediate medical attention.
“Break us off,” he ordered. Behind them, the last of the raiders was withdrawing into hyperspace. No doubt they would use a static bomb to hide their escape. They’d succeeded in slaughtering their targets and withdrawing, without loss. “And then stand down from battlestations. There’s nothing else we can do here.”
He looked over at Danielle. “Find out what is in that damn packet,” he added. “If it’s a clue to the raider base, I want to know about it.”
***
Sandy kept her head down as the Captain and XO advanced towards her station, once the craft was safely in hyperspace. She’d hoped that they’d missed what she'd done completely, but it seemed that she wasn't going to be that lucky. All she could do was pray, silently, that they didn't know the truth. If they did, she would wish for death before it was over ...
“You missed a shot,” the Captain said. “A chance to do real harm to the feds, a chance to damage their ship ... and you missed it.”
“I didn't see it in time,” Sandy said. as desperately as she could. She’d never pleaded with her father in such a matter, not even after the incident with her school friends and the semi-legal drugs. But she had to let them think she was weak. “It was only there for a second.”
“Silence,” the Captain barked. He motioned for her to stand up, which she did reluctantly. “I cannot abide sloppiness among my crew.”
Sandy bit down on the remark that came to mind. If he couldn't abide sloppiness, he needed to start with his crew ... and then train them up properly. But he hadn't cared, as long as he had his position and his responsibility. He might not even have cared about Sandy’s mistake, apart from the fact that it had embarrassed him in front of the other raiders. After all, how often would they have the chance to take a free shot at
Dauntless’s
hull?
He gestured ... and blinding pain surged through every cell in Sandy’s body. She screamed in sudden agony, unable to move or think as the pain tore her apart. It stopped, just for a second, then resumed; every inch of her body was on fire. She tumbled to the ground and screamed again; the deck seemed to be burning. There was a sudden horrible stench, then the pain doubled or tripled ...
... The next thing she knew was that she was lying on the deck of her cabin. Her entire body was shaking madly. She tried to sit upright and realised that her skin felt ... odd. It was sore, yet it was a phantom pain, as if it wasn't quite there. Sandy had been hurt more than once in basic training – the colonies insisted on teaching hand-to-hand combat, even to starship crewmen – yet this was different. Her skin seemed to be tingling with pain.
“I think you got quite a bad dose,” Jess said, softly.
Sandy started. She’d realised she was naked, yet it hadn't quite dawned on her just how weird it was to be naked. Her body looked normal, suspiciously so. There were no bruises, nothing to suggest that she'd been hurt ... nothing, apart from the feeling in her skin.
“Your clothes needed to be cut free,” Jess explained. “I think you were having a reaction to anything that touched your skin. In the end, I had to hold you in the air until you calmed down a little.”
“Fuck,” Sandy said. She tried to sit up again; this time, she managed to sit on her ass without feeling too sore. “The next time I bitch and moan about being hurt after we spar, you laugh in my face, all right?”
“Naturally,” Jess said. “You may have to be careful what you eat over the next few days. I think your senses may have been screwed up.”
She unhooked a flask of water from her belt and passed it to Sandy, who sipped gratefully. But the water tasted like milk and honey, not plain water. She shuddered as she took a deeper swallow, realising the implications, Something that she needed to eat might taste like shit ...
“Get some rest,” Jess ordered, standing up. “I told them that you were not to be disturbed.”
“Oh,” Sandy said. “Will they listen?”
“I think so,” Jess said. “I was quite graphic. Oh, and I promised to beat you if you did something as stupid as that again.”
Sandy rolled her eyes, then closed them. Jess pushed something against her neck and Sandy was out like a light.
***
“That’s the unlocked data package,” Cynthia said. “The XO sent us a
lot
of data.”
She tapped the screen. “But this is the important bit,” she insisted. “The location of the raider base. One day away, assuming we travel at maximum speed.”
“Which we will,” Glen said. He studied the data for a long moment. The raiders had built – or captured – an asteroid settlement and turned it into a base. And they had other starships, starships they were converting into warships ... and supplies of Federation technology. That was another piece of data for the puzzle, a puzzle that seemed to make absolutely no sense at all. “Pass the coordinates to the helm. I want us heading there as soon as possible.”
“Understood, sir,” Cynthia said. She frowned as she skimmed the rest of the data. “I honestly don’t understand how they’re funding so much activity. Piracy doesn't pay
that
much and they’re certainly not making profits on most of their raids.”
Certainly not after Xenophon
, Glen thought. The serial numbers of captured materials had been shared all over the cluster. Even the most amoral dealer would hesitate to receive goods from Xenophon – and might well tip off the Colonial Militia. Whatever the Governor thought she’d found, Glen honestly couldn't see how the colonies could hope to benefit by funding the raiders.
“I’ll go through the data packet myself,” he said, glancing over at the helm. “Time to raider base, Lieutenant?”
“Twenty-five hours, unless the storm reverses course,” Helena informed him. “In that case, we will have to evade.”
“Then get us underway,” Glen ordered. He tapped the console, copying the data packet to his terminal, then headed towards his office. “Mr. Cooke, make sure that the crew has a rest and something to eat. I want us in full fighting trim when we reach the raider base.”
Cooke nodded in understanding. The raiders would have nowhere to run, at least not if they wanted to preserve their investment. They’d have to stand and fight ... and they might well have enough firepower to take out the heavy cruiser. Glen had faith in his ship, but he also knew that the raiders would be desperate. Even a destroyer could kill a heavy cruiser, if the crew were willing to ram ...
He stepped into his office and sat down, then wrote out a brief message for the Governor and another for Admiral Porter. They had to know what he was doing, although he knew that there wouldn't be any reinforcements in time to make a difference. And maybe it would stop them doing something drastic ...
Once the messages were sent, he looked down at the data packet from Sandy – and the much larger data packet from Fairfax. In hindsight, asking for the raw data might have been a mistake; whoever had compiled it had included absolutely everything. But he shook his head and started to go through it, comparing both data packets with the other information they’d had sent to
Dauntless
through the Bottleneck.