“Ah, Skipper,” Jase said anxiously,
pointing to the view screen. “Why is the
Soberano
doing that?”
I looked up to see eight of the
super transport’s large square cargo doors opening in front of us. A large
silver naval gun, mounted on a circular swivel mount, began sliding out of the
nearest of
Soberano
’s holds.
“The SI’s not going to let us
leave with the Codex,” I said, activating the intercom. “Izin, is the burster
ready?”
The heavy naval gun locked into
place. It was almost as big as the
Silver
Lining
and right in front of us. Behind it, seven more guns identical to
the first were extending towards their firing positions. If they’d been on a
navy ship, they’d have been inside armored turrets, but on the
Soberano
, their protection was normally
limited to the ship’s shield.
“I haven’t test fired it,
Captain, or calibrated the targeting –”
“Forget targeting. Is it ready to
fire?”
“Yes Captain.”
I nodded to Jase. “Charge it up, and
hang on!”
Jase switched his console to
weapons and activated the proton burst cannon as the
Lining’s
collision alert sounded, warning Vintari II’s moon was now
dangerously close. The timer ticked down to forty seconds as I fed more power
to the engines. The
Silver Lining
shuddered, but couldn’t break free as the big naval gun locked in place.
I kept sliding my finger up the throttle
control, pushing through ten percent, but our mated docking rings remained
stubbornly locked together. Fifty meters from our bow, the big silver gun began
to swivel slowly towards us, the same weapon that had destroyed the BBI base’s
processing center with one shot.
“Can we survive a hit from that
gun?” Marie asked.
“Don’t worry, you won’t feel a
thing,” I said, knowing with our shield down, at point blank range and with us
a sitting duck locked to the side of
Soberano
,
one shot would vaporize everything inside the
Silver Lining’s
paintwork, except for the Codex!
“That makes me feel so much
better!” Marie said.
I pushed engine power to twelve
percent, causing the
Lining
to shudder
like crazy, but she couldn’t tear free. “I thought we could only apply three
percent!”
“For twenty minutes!” Jase said.
“Not five seconds!”
I glanced at the screen. The big
gun was almost pointed towards us. “Jase, fire!”
He tried, but nothing happened.
“It’s not charged yet!”
I dumped more power into the
engines, wondering if they would tear the hull apart before the docking rings
shattered. Status indicators began flashing red on my console and the main
screen, warning of an impending catastrophic hull failure.
“You’re going to tear the side
out of her!” Jase declared.
“Better we lose half the hull
than the whole ship!” I said, pushing the engines past fourteen percent. On the
big screen, the body of the nearest naval gun began to glow.
“It’s charging!” Marie said.
I wanted to push the engines to full
power, but that would have destroyed the ship. Restraining myself, I crept the
energy feed to fifteen percent. A piercing metallic shriek reverberated through
the ship as the hull began to tear apart under the strain. There were so many
warning indicators flashing, I couldn’t tell if the engines were about to fly
out their housings or the docking ring was failing.
Jase’s weapons console flashed a
green ready indicator as the cannon reached full power. “About time!” He
yelled, slamming his palm onto the firing control.
A ball of brilliant yellow light
erupted from the top of our wrap around screen and streaked towards the nearest
naval gun. For a moment, a brilliant white flash filled the flight deck, then a
shower of metal burst from the where the gun had been and began raining back
along the
Soberano’s
hull towards the
other big guns as the super transport accelerated through the debris.
“Damn!” I said, surprised at the power
of the burster cannon’s blast.
The
Lining
suddenly tore free, almost throwing us off our acceleration
couches. With our engine thrust directed hard to port, we spun uncontrollably
away from the
Soberano
, challenging
our internal inertial field to offset a flat spin it had never been designed
for. A spray of hull plates, airlock doors and docking rings flew out from both
ships, some after us, most falling back towards the naval guns arrayed along
the
Soberano
’s hull as she continued picking
up speed. The second gun exploded as metal fragments crashed into it while the six
remaining guns all swiveled after us. First one fired, then another, but we
were too close, spinning too fast and the big gun’s mounts moved too slowly.
Their searing blasts flashed around us, scorching our unshielded hull but
missing us as we spun uncontrollably towards the
Soberano’s
stern.
I angled the engine’s vector
nozzles against our spin, fighting to get the
Lining
back under control as the
Soberano’s
mountainous stern came racing towards us. The next naval
gun in line exploded as the thickening swarm of shrapnel tore it apart, then I
fired our bow thrusters, pushing us away, narrowly avoiding a collision with
the super transport’s stern. For a moment, her hull plating filled our screen,
then her sixteen enormous engines blazed like blue stars in front of us as the
super transport pulled quickly away from us. Beyond the bulge of her stern, now
blocking her gun’s firing arc, a ripple of explosions shot out into space as
the debris cloud destroyed one exposed gun after another.
I was dizzy and disoriented and
the autonav was warning me we were far outside Izin’s curveball simulation, but
empty black space now lay dead ahead and that was all I needed to know. I
killed the bow thrusters and the engines as our spin died.
“Skipper, we’re forty degrees off!”
Jase yelled as the tiny moon hurtled towards us. We were so close now, the port
side of the view screen was filled with craters and dark jagged ridges.
“Too late!”
Every parameter was off, but one
– the only one that counted – Vintari II and its moon weren’t in front of us! I
triggered Izin’s curveball maneuver as the moon’s surface raced up towards us.
A single large crater swallowed the view screen, and us with it, then the screen
turned to static – except for the impact timer – as the
Lining’s
bubble fried half our optics.
It was a low power bubble, barely
half the speed of light, but stable. If I’d tried the same maneuver at a
thousand times the speed of light, the bubble would have collapsed and torn the
ship apart. After just a few seconds, the sublight bubble dropped and we were
back hurtling through flat space on our original course.
“Get the sensors out!” I yelled.
Jase quickly deployed our eyes
and ears, bringing the view screen back to life. It was a little grainier than
usual now that half the optics had melted, but at least we could see where we were.
Vintari II was to starboard and from
our relative motion, I realized we were heading backwards across the planet’s orbit.
A mini nova of brilliant white was expanding beside the planet where its small
moon had been obliterated by the
Soberano
.
As we raced away, the planet slowly eclipsed the expanding fireball behind it
while molten droplets showered the planet’s upper atmosphere in a rain of fire.
The fine particles quickly burned away, illuminating the planet’s dark side sky
with an eerie orange light that was already triggering religious awe from the
planet’s primitive inhabitants. The night the gods turned the sky orange and
one of the two mythical sky travelers disappeared would mark a global turning
point in their bronze age civilization that would influence their belief
systems for thousands of years to come.
Marie gave me a wry smile,
relieved we’d avoided the planet. “Only you would blind micro bubble inside a
crater!” She leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “I knew you’d think of
something.”
I turned the
Lining’s
bow in the direction our flat space momentum was carrying us,
watching Vintari II and its mini nova roll across the view screen to the port
side. The dazzling golden orb of the Vintari star appeared on the starboard
side and followed the planet across the view screen until it was in the center
of the screen, dead ahead of us.
“Don’t thank me yet!” I didn’t
need the autonav to plot this course. Izin’s simulation had planned to take us
far enough away to clear the star, but we’d been way off course when I’d
bubbled. “We need to blink again, right now! Jase, pull the sensors and let’s
get out of here!”
I instructed the autonav to plot
our next sublight micro-bubble, one that would take us safely away from the
star, then nosed the
Lining
around so
we were facing out into empty space. When the surviving sensors were safely stowed
inside the hull, I gave the autonav control. The sixty distorters started gently
curving spacetime around us, then inexplicably, they all lost power simultaneously.
“That’s impossible!” Jase exclaimed
when he saw the energy readings fall to zero.
“Oh ho,” I said warily as I reset
the autonav to try again. For a second time, the distorters began to charge,
then just before they could form a bubble, they were drained of power again.
“What is it?” Marie asked.
“It’s no system failure!” I said,
nodding to Jase to push the sensors back out.
When the view screen came to
life, the Vintari star filled one side of the screen, and empty space the rest.
Jase took one look at his display
and scowled. “They’re behind us!” He sent the optical feed from our stern
sensors to the view screen, revealing the Mataron ship floating off our port
quarter.
“They’re jamming us,” I said, “letting
the star do their dirty work for them. There’s no weapons for the TCs to detect,
just our own energy signature!”
“How long have we got?” Marie
asked.
I glanced at the autonav. “We’ll
hit the
chromosphere
in forty minutes.”
“They caught us fast!” Jase said,
remembering the Mataron ship had been stationary high above the ecliptic plane
only minutes ago. Now they were perfectly matched with us.
“Captain,” Izin’s voice sounded
from the intercom. “Our processing core was just scanned. The ghost numbers are
gone.”
This time, the
Lining’s
safety system hadn’t detected
their attack. Had they learnt how to sneak past our radiation sensors since they’d
loaded the SI into us over Deadwood, or was this something different?
“Lock a comm beam on them.” When Jase
opened the channel, I said, “Mataron vessel, release my ship.”
The flight deck’s comm system
came to life almost immediately. “Surrender the Codex and I will let you
leave.”
I was tempted to say ‘what Codex’,
but the Earth-tech jamming field we had hiding the
Lining’s
smuggler compartment would be no obstacle for them. For a
moment, I wondered if our new burster could hurt them, then shelved the idea.
Any weapon we had would be ineffective against their ship, while firing first
would give them the right to return fire.
I nodded for Jase to close the channel.
“Izin, have you removed the warhead from our drone?”
“Sirius!” Marie exclaimed, “You
can’t give it to them!”
We certainly couldn’t fight a
Mataron armored cruiser and if I refused to give them the Codex, they’d simply
ride us down until the star burned us to a cinder. “They sure as hell aren’t
going to let us keep it!”
“I have yet to remove the
payload,” Izin said.
“Get started. I’ll meet you
there,” I said, motioning for Marie to follow me.
When we reached the smuggler
compartment hidden amidships, I removed the hatch cover, then wary of the SI
lurking inside the Codex, turned to Marie. “Can you remove it?”
She gave me a confused look.
“It’s a long story and we don’t
have time.”
Marie shrugged, then retrieved
the Codex and offered it to me.
“No.” I backed away, refusing to
touch it. “This way,” I said, leading her to the cramped bow compartment
housing the drone launcher. Izin had removed the anti-ship drone’s nose plate
and was releasing the restraints holding the penetrator warhead in place. I motioned
to the deck. “Put it there, please.”
“Please?” she said surprised,
then placed the Codex on the deck while my mind raced.
The Matarons were cleaning up,
removing any trace of their involvement. The
Soberano
was gone and so was the synthetic agent that had taken
control of her. Now they’d wiped our processing core, eliminating Izin’s work
on the ghost numbers. All they wanted was the Codex, which told me they didn’t
realize how easily Izin had reverse engineered their simulated agent. They must
have thought our processing core had cracked it, so either they didn’t
understand what a tamph was capable of, or they really didn’t know he was
aboard. The trouble was, it didn’t matter what Izin knew, no one would ever believe
a tamph – especially not the Tau Cetins.