A Taste Of Despair (The Humal Sequence) (13 page)

On
Ulysses’
bridge, Rames sat clutching the arms of his chair with white-knuckles. Glancing around, he saw that none of Hamilton’s companions seemed in the slightest concerned by the pilot’s crazy flying. Veltin himself was laughing and crowing like a lunatic as his exploits threw their pursuers further behind. Quite how the pilot was managing to change their thrust vector so quickly was something that Rames did not understand. Gravity Drive aside, the man was gifted, he had to give him that, even if he did seem slightly insane. He used the standard thrusters in conjunction with the Gravity Drive in ways nobody was ever taught to do.

Grimes, at least, had the grace to look alarmed by the wild piloting.

A couple more dives up and then down back through the berthing ring threw their pursuers even further adrift. Finally, the PDC’s gave up any direct pursuit and simply maintained pace some way away. Although the small craft had a power-to-mass advantage over the
Ulysses
, effectively being designed to intercept incoming threats, they had nowhere near the same level of hull thrusters available to them as the cutter had. Accordingly, they were less maneuverable.

Veltin maintained his orbit of the berthing ring, content now to let the PDC’s sit at a distance.

“Mr. Veltin. What’s your plan for getting away from this situation?”

The pilot actually looked away from the viewscreen and half turned to the captain. “Nothing complex. Run like hell towards the planet, orbit it, then run like hell until we can Skip out to our jump point.”

Rames watched alarmingly as the viewscreen showed them approaching a docked ore carrier. They appeared to be heading straight at it.

Without even looking back at the screen, Veltin’s hands twitched in the waldos, sending the
Ulysses
on a graceful arc to pass beneath the huge vessel.

Rames tore his eyes away from the screen and looked at Klane and LeGault, to his right.

“What’s happening with the opposition?”

LeGault said. “Destroyer is still holding off, ready to block or Skip if we head directly away, out to space. That cruiser, the
Shiva
, is now undocked and moving away from the station. Looks like they’re getting the assault craft ready for launch. At least, they’ve opened the hangar doors port and starboard.”

“Klane?”

She shrugged, her prosthetic eye casting a demonic glow over that side of her face. “Shields are as good as they’re going to get. I’ve adjusted the bias aft, since we’ll be running away, mostly. Might as well have most protection there.”

Rames nodded. “Alright, let’s get the hell out of here!”

The
Ulysses
lurched violently under Veltin’s hands, the ship suddenly breaking away from the station and hurtling towards the planet at full thrust.

The PDC’s lunged after the fleeing cutter but it did have a fair head start. It would take them a few moments to close to weapons range.

“Cruiser’s launching the assault craft now!” LeGault warned. On his screen, a swarm of small ships suddenly appeared around the
Shiva
and headed their way.

“Intercept time?” Rames asked.

“PDC’s will be in range in about twenty seconds. Assault craft in maybe three minutes.” Klane responded.

“That’s not enough time!” Rames muttered angrily. They might shrug off attacks from the PDC’s, but the Assault craft were another matter. If the PDC’s could be likened to a swarm of bees, then the Assault craft were a pack of wolves. They were designed to run down their target and disable it, then board, or tear it to pieces, as required.

“Relax.” Veltin told them casually from the helm. “The Assault craft’ll get nowhere near us.”

Rames frowned. “We’ll find out in a few minutes.”

A few seconds later there was a buffeting sensation as one of the PDC weapons found its mark. All eyes turned to Klane.

“Nothing to worry about.” She stated.

Rames was muttering under his breath. It was something about everyone taking the situation too casually.

There were several more thumps on the shields as the PDC’s began to close range. It began to become a regular patina of increasing noise, like a rain shower. Then abruptly, it stopped.

“What the?” Rames muttered. “Now what?”

It was Grimes that answered. “Tantalus has recalled the PDC’s. Seems like it was enough to just run us off.”

Rames shook his head. “They’re just letting the military handle the situation. They got in their whacks. It’ll look good on their reports. Now they’re letting the military deal with it.”

“Well,” Klane stated. “At least it’ll let the shields recover some.”

“Don’t worry about!” Veltin said. “I’ve got it covered. Those naval jarheads won’t give us a problem. I…” He stopped and then, to Rames’ horror, once again turned away from his instruments to address the captain. “No offense meant, captain. You and yours are clearly way above the average bunch of goons that they stick in ships.”

“Thanks.” Rames growled darkly.

“Anyway,” Veltin continued, turning back to the display, in which the planet now loomed hugely. “It’s always the same with the military mind-set. You run a pirate down, you’re happy. A pirate gets away and they give you a bigger engine, or more powerful weapons. Or a Skip Drive, or Gravity Drive. It’s always the same. Bigger, faster, more power. Like using a hammer to crack an egg. It gets the job done, but there’s no finesse. No one ever learns to use the tools they have effectively. Which is why, when you do get someone who can use the tools effectively, they run rings around the clumsy opposition.”

His hands twisted in the waldos and then pushed forwards. The
Ulysses
lurched at a steeper angle towards the planet.

“Of course,” Veltin continued his monologue. “It’s not just the tools you have to be able to use effectively. It’s your environment as much as anything. Utilize the surroundings to your advantage and your enemy’s disadvantage. First rule of combat piloting, really.”

Puckett glanced across from the nav console. “I guess I must have missed that one at flight school. Don’t you think we’re going in a little steep?”

Veltin sighed and slipped his left arm free of its waldo to pat Puckett condescendingly on the shoulder. Somehow, the
Ulysses
maintained its steady dive towards the planet even with Veltin not actively controlling it with both hands.

“I know what you’re trying to do.” Puckett told him. “But we haven’t done any calculations! The angles, velocities and so on. Plus, this isn’t an atmospheric capable craft!”

Veltin returned his hand to the waldo. “Bah! She can take a little heat! She’s a good ship!”

“Heat? What are you talking about?” Rames demanded.

Veltin didn’t turn round this time. “Sorry, too busy to talk much anymore!”

“He’s intending to slingshot us around the planet, skimming the atmosphere to keep the Assault craft at bay.” Puckett explained.

“Is that even possible without proper preparations?” Rames asked Puckett.

Puckett shrugged. “He seems to think so.”

Rames looked surprisingly helpless in his role as captain. He looked pleadingly at Klane and Jones. “Is he always like this?”

“Actually,” Klane frowned. “I think he’s a little more manic than usual.”

“Probably the pilot equivalent of a sugar rush.” Jones added for good measure. “It must be all the flashing lights and hi-tech goodness that’s done it.”

“I don’t like it!” Rames scowled.

Klane shrugged fatalistically. “What’s to like? We either die at his hands or theirs. At least he’s
trying
to save us.”

Hamilton
. Rames thought, sitting back helplessly in his chair.
If I ever see you again
…

*****

The object of Rames’ thoughts was approaching the berthing ring docking arm that led out to the
Morebaeus
. Behind him, the two women labored heavily. Moving in a suit, especially using fibergrip to keep your footing, was a tiring process. He was weary and the two women were about done in. Lewis in particular was moving very slowly. Much longer and they’d be carrying her.

The docking arm which held the
Morebaeus
was at least ninety meters long. The ship itself was docked at right angles to the arm at the very end. It looked huge in comparison to the arm itself, though most of that size was down to the cargo modules. The small tractor unit looked tiny by comparison. However, the three massive engine nacelles that sprouted from it were big, powerful drives. Even by modern standards they were potent units. The
Morebaeus
might be old, but it had been designed to haul large amounts of cargo out to colonies. A lot of that transport time was spent going to and from jump points within a system. The quicker that was accomplished, the faster the turnaround time for loads.

Hamilton waited for his companions to catch up to him. His air supply was getting low, so he assumed Johnson was in a similar position. The rebreather technology the suits used could only scrub the air so much and the oxygen renewal bottle was tiny. There was enough to get them to the ship, but not much else. Lewis, on the other hand, had a much better suit. Her supply would be fine.

“You guys need a break?” He said, as they reached him.

It was an honest offer, but Lewis glared at him. “I can make it!” She hissed.

“I could do with a minute or two if we can spare it.” Johnson replied.

Hamilton nodded. “”It’s not much farther to go. We can afford a minute or two.”

They stood about for a few moments before Johnson asked. “How are we going to fly the ship? Do you two know all that stuff?”

Hamilton nodded. “Both Lewis and I were in the Survey Corps. You get basic piloting and navigation training. We’ll do alright.”

“I’m probably…not going to be… much use to you.” Lewis gasped.

Hamilton bit back the reply that came immediately to mind and said. “You’ll be fine once you’ve actual got out of that suit and sat down for a few minutes. In any case, a jump point and hyper jump have already been calculated. All we, or I, have to do is fly the ship to the coordinates and the rest is automatic.”

It wasn’t quite as simple as he made out, but no sense in alarming the two women with unnecessary details. He’d attend to that once he got aboard. For a start, the power core was currently off-line, as if it was still damaged. That “damage” was easily rectified by simply reseating certain processor boards in the engineering section. The actual damaged components had been replaced and the faults replicated by simply pulling out certain control modules. To a casual inspection, which is all they hoped the ship would be subjected to, the damage would seem real enough.

Similarly, the hyper jump that had been pre-calculated was locked away in an encrypted file on a storage flake. He’d have to retrieve the flake, insert it into the navicomp and decrypt the file using a password he’d memorized. Only then would the ship be good to jump. They were precautionary measures taken to ensure any snooping would not show up the
Morebaeus
’ intended destination.

“What kind of a name is
Morebaeus
anyway?” Johnson asked.

Hamilton and Lewis looked at her but Lewis was too exhausted to answer.

“Ships have a couple of basic naming conventions.” Hamilton explained. “Military vessels tend to use mythological names. Gods, creatures, heroes of legend, that sort of thing. Civilian craft tend to be named after places or people.
Morebaeus
was the name of the man who invented the hyper jump drive. I don’t remember his first name.”