By Other Means (25 page)

“For all our people.”

*****

“Damn it!” Parker swore, fingers flying over the control pad for the Jump Drives.

“What is it, son?” Chief Harrowitz asked, almost not wanting to know the answer.

Whatever it was that got the crewman pissed right then was probably bad news for the ship, and that was if they were very lucky.

“I think whoever is on the other end of this just took a personal hand, Sir,” Parker admitted, “The pattern just changed, becoming more random.”

Harrowitz winced, knowing exactly what that meant.

The attack had probably been an automated assault up to this point, likely designed with maximum efficiency in mind rather than any thought to evading countermeasures. With a human, or rather Alien, hand at the controls they probably had a little more time but it would become much harder to predict and counter the interference they were fighting.

“Damn it, he shifted again,” Parker muttered, “Chief I need to get better readings… we’ve
got
to get our sensor tech in closer to the source of the interference. The latency is killing us here!”

Harrowitz cursed again, something he would probably have to slap himself a few times to avoid doing later, assuming they lived through this mess for there to
be
a later.

“Alright, fine,” He said, stepping over to the main controls for the Jump Drive. “Go.”

“What?” Parker blinked, confused.

“Take the portable sensors and interface and go,” The Chief ordered, “I’ll cover it from here until you get into place.”

Parker stared at him for a brief period, eliciting a grunt and a glare back.

“I can keep us from imploding for a few minutes, Parker, move your ass!”

“Yes Chief! Moving my ass!” Parker blurted, bolting for the portable instruments and grabbing two other crewmen on the way.

Harrowitz took over the task of trying to outguess the enemy as he tried to put out countervailing gravity waves to neutralize the ones being sent into the core by the enemy. It was like a sick, high stakes, game of missile command played on a battlefield of pure quantum mathematics. Frankly, Harrowitz wished that he’d stayed in bed, but he had a job to do.

They all had jobs to do.

*****

When Sorilla got her hands on the idiot who was screwing with the local gravity, she was going to pop his head like a pimple.

Nevermind the fact that she was currently running on the ceiling, the particular humiliation of how she
got
on the ceiling would never be mentioned by her, or the Lucian if he knew what was good for him… no, that was only a minor annoyance compared to the severe motion sickness she could feel coming on from the sudden shifts.

Oddly, however, it wasn’t as bad as the minor variations she endured during normal space travel. Possibly because she was too focused on the situation to think about throwing up in her helm, but maybe it had to do more with the tangible impact… figuratively and literally speaking… of the gravity changes.

She was more irritated by the fact that the Lucian seemed to be handling the changes easier than she was, despite not using augmenting armor or sensors as best she knew.

“You do this often?” She asked as she felt another gravity shift approaching and tensed.

Kriss did a circular shrug, “That would depend on what you define as ‘this’, I suppose.”

“Fighting in variable gravity.” Sorilla flipped in the air as the shift occurred.

“Ah,” He said, dropping back to the floor alongside her. “Not so often as you might expect, but it is part of training, yes.”

“I can see where we’re going to have to add it to the curriculum,” Sorilla scowled, the very idea of a course of that nature making her want to heave.

“Our ships make more fluid use of gravity warping,” He said, knowing that it was nothing she… or at least her people, hadn’t already worked out. “Such changes are controlled with more precision on an Alliance ship.”

“Right.”

They slowed as they arrived at the end of the corridor, noting that there was no fire from the open doors at the end. That might be because the enemy had been tossed around like a pinball in a tilted machine, but it also might be because they were laying a trap. Sorilla drew a small sphere from her gear and thumbed a button on it before tossing it through the door.

An image appeared on her HUD, flipping end for end a few times as she looked through the remote drone’s camera. Inside she saw at least fifteen aliens with weapons turning to look directly at the camera.

Say cheese.

Sorilla gave the detonate command, causing the sphere to jump up one meter from the deck and explode with a violent eruption of concussive force and shrapnel.

“Fifteen potential targets, at least some wounded.” She said alound as she proceeded forward.

Kriss snorted, both amused and irritated, “You lean too strongly on your toys.”

“Tools are there to be used,” Sorilla countered, “I don’t lean on anything, but I don’t ignore what I have at hand either.”

“So you say.”

They split the door way, sheltering at either side for a moment before making their move. Sorilla went first, spinning through the door in a crouch with both her guns out and seeking targets.

For most humans, and she suspected most aliens of the ones she’d encountered, using two guns was silly showboating. The brain and eyes were only engaged in one target at a time, so the second weapon really served no purpose beyond distracting you from aiming either of them correctly. Sorilla, however, had two brains and several more eyes than the average human.

Her guns were on automatic discharge, the CPU implanted in her chest controlling their firing pattern as she breached the room. All Sorilla had to do was sweep the weapons onto the target and the computer did the rest.

Alright,
She thought a moment later as she straightened up amidst the carnage,
He may have a point about leaning on my tools.

“Impressive.” Kriss said as he walked up behind her.

His own weapon had only discharged twice during the entry, and he suspected that she’d beat him to one of those he’d targeted. Her personal weapons were far faster than anything in the Lucian armory, but relatively low in power by comparison.

Sorilla broke her guns open and flipped them up, discharging both barrel assemblies to the deck as she reached for replacements.

“How many more are there,” She asked, scowling under her helm, “I’m going to run low on ammo at this rate.”

“I do not know,” Kriss admitted, “We have already killed more than I believed had remained on the ship.”

“Great.” Sorilla sighed, glancing around.

Oh well, I know how to use the alien weapons. There’s no shortage of those kicking around, if I need one.

Sorilla paused for a moment, turning slightly as she considered what she was feeling.

“This way,” She nodded to the door on the right.

Kriss glanced at her curiously, but merely shrugged and followed when she headed out.

*****

“Blasted Terrans… they’re learning quickly.”

The elder Parithalian scowled, “Are they going to stop you?”

“No. They’re not learning
that
quickly,” his subordinate chuckled dryly, “merely becoming an annoyance rather than an amusement.”

Even that was a surprise and a pain, however. They were on a Terran battlecruiser with no reinforcements available, they only had so much time before every soldier on the ship descended on their position. Alright, in many ways the interplay between the two sides fighting over control of the gravity was buying them time, but it was also costing them time.

It would be up to the universe to say which won the race.

*****

“Captain, we have gravity inversions all across the ship.”

Hiro scowled, his habit would normally have him walking over to check the readings, but given the blood stain on the ceiling of the bridge as a reminder, he wasn’t undoing his safety restraints anytime soon. Instead he mirrored the display and checked them from his command station.

“Are these tidal readings correct?” He asked, stunned.

“Yes sir, we have a standing wave pattern forming up. If the ship doesn’t implode in the next few minutes, the tidal forces are going to tear us apart.”

This is insane,
Hiro tried to work out what he was seeing, but it was so close to impossible that he was having some serious trouble parsing it.

While it was true that Gravity propagated in waves, the period of a gravity wave was generally measured in
lightyears
. So, while there was a variance in the strength of gravity depending on where in the wave you were located, it was so slight that human senses certainly couldn’t detect it.

What he was seeing here, however, was a standing wave formation with a period measured in
meters
. That created gravity variance across the ship that was not only noticeable, it was damned dangerous. If they didn’t get a handle on things in a hurry, he had no doubt that the warning about it tearing the Mexico apart would be prophetic.

With shooting still being reported on Deck Three of the Engineering section, Hiro could only hope that the situation was resolved before it came to that.

“Set it up here,” Parker ordered, picking a spot on deck three as close as he dared get to the source of the jamming.

The technician didn’t know what sort of defenses the saboteurs would have set up, but he could hear gunfire and explosions from where he was and had no intentions of getting any closer. Any sort of fighting that involved weapons smaller than nuclear warheads was far too petty for him to involve himself in.

Petty. Right.

Parker grinned as he worked, setting up his link to the Jump Drive as the portable diagnostic sensors and accelerometers were set into place as well.

Whatever the enemy was doing, it was screwing with spacetime in ways that he hadn’t thought possible before now, and he’s specifically taken a career path that made twisting spacetime into origami shapes a prerequisite for success.

As it was he could feel the gravity bending around him, rather like riding a roller coaster even while every other sense he had insisted he was standing still. The standing waves being established by the countering effects of the Mexico’s jump drive and the enemy interference device were quite possibly the most unnatural thing he’d ever encountered in his life.

Which was actually saying something, give some of the things he’d seen since enlisting with the SOLCOM Black Navy.

“Everything is hooked up, diagnostics green.”

“Good, Parker bent over the portable console he was working on, “taking control from the Chief… now.”

*****

Gravity suddenly shifted again, dropping Sorilla and Kriss to the deck as they sheltered just outside two big blast doors that had been pried open.

“Give it up!” Sorilla called out in Alliance basic, “You don’t have a chance!”

Kriss shot her an amused look, but didn’t say anything.

Sorilla ignored him, it wasn’t like the aliens inside knew there were only two of them.

This would be much simpler if I could use a couple room brooms,
Sorilla lamented.

Unfortunately there was no way she could, or would, risk using anti-personnel devices with an active space-time core in the room. She was crazy, not stupid. Unfortunately, it seemed like those in the room knew that or, more likely, just didn’t care.

With no response forthcoming, Sorilla jammed her gun around the corner and swept the room with the muzzle camera.

“I can see five of them, but there’s some kind of wall covering a few others… it’s not part of the room,” Sorilla said.

Kriss looked pensive for a moment, then risked a quick look himself. He pulled his head back just ahead of enemy fire and nodded.

“Portable artillery shield. They’re well equipped.”

“Great, because the handy dandy superweapon wasn’t enough,” Sorilla growled sarcastically. “Can we blast through it?”

“Not with what we have on hand,” Kriss admitted, “and, more importantly, anything that could would probably destabilize the core they’re using.”

“Great. So we do this the hard…” Sorilla paused, “Shit. Brace yourself!”

Kriss just had time to ready himself as another gravity shift picked him off the deck and sent him careening down the corridor. Sorilla threw herself out, just catching him, and pulled him back to the doorway she was gripping tightly with her other hand.

The Lucian was no stranger to feats of strength, but he
knew
that the woman wasn’t this strong.

The armor she wears is impressive.

Of course, he already knew that quite well. Kriss gripped the ridge of the door, hanging on for himself as he considered the situation.

“This is becoming untenable.” He admitted, finally.

“You’re telling me?” Sorilla bitched, “I don’t know how much more of this the ship can take, but I do know that
I
can’t take much more. Let’s move now, while this has them as disoriented as we are…”

“That would be a mistake,” Kriss cautioned.

“What? Why?”

“because the core they are using will be providing local stabilization.”

“Oh well just fuck me then,” Sorilla swore, now more than fed up with the situation. She mentally mapped out the field she was in, considering her options.

Kriss was silent, considering her words. They sounded like a proposition; however he was certain she didn’t mean them as such. He hoped not, at least, the idea wasn’t remotely appealing; no matter how impressive a warrior she was.

“Alright, I’ve had enough of this. Hang tight,” Sorilla said, “I’ve got to drop in on someone.”

“What? Wait!” Kriss managed to get out before Sorilla let go and kicked off the wall, flipping over backwards as she plummeted down the corridor toward a line of windows at the end.

She hit them feet first, smashing out into the larger bay area of Engineering’s Deck One, and being pulled into a tight orbit by the standing wave of gravity she was caught in. Even without her sensitivity to changes in local gravity it wasn’t hard to predict the general shape of the toroidal wave she was caught in, so Sorilla twisted in flight as she swept out along the catwalk that overlooked the main engineering section and brought her guns to bear on the enemy from behind their position.