Dreadnought (Lost Colonies Trilogy Book 2) (25 page)

-38-

Our prideful sense of accomplishment only lasted about fifteen minutes. During that brief period we kept searching for that last ship, pinging and focusing our sensor arrays on small regions of local space, figuring that bastard had to be close.

“We’re going to find him, sir,” Durris said, his head tilted oddly to one side. “I feel it. He’s right here close.”

“We’re not seeing any tritium traces any longer,” I pointed out. “We could be a million kilometers off.”

Durris shook his head, slightly and painfully. “No. The ship is running silent. That means he can’t do anything—not even change course. He is right here.”

Unconvinced but intrigued, I moved to Yamada’s station and hovered over her for a time.

“Anything?” I asked.

“We’ve got every array focused on the nearest ten thousand kilometers of space. I’m not picking up a damned thing. A couple of times I thought I had something, but it always turned out to be background radiation from the last ship’s explosion.”

“Let’s widen it out a little. And turn one array toward the central planets. Maybe we’ll pick up a response to an S.O.S.”

She looked at me quizzically. “How so?”

“The enemy ship is stealthed, but it might have a way of reaching out for help. Are you getting any transmissions from that structure at the breach point?”

“Yes, quite a bit of packet traffic. All encrypted of course.”

“Well, they came in before we did. If I’d been given even one minute of time on this side of the breach alone, I would have transmitted my situation in the clear, then gone silent again when my pursuers came through.”

She nodded. “I’ll take a look in that direction.”

Turning around and heading back to Zye and Rumbold, I’d intended to discuss our damage repair status—but Yamada swiftly called me back.

“Sir, we have a contact.”

“Where?”

“Inner planets—something big. It’s coming toward us now.”

That wasn’t what I’d expected. My eyes raced over the raw data. The contact was several AU out, and we didn’t have a visual yet. But there was no doubt it was coming, and it was transmitting its own pings toward us. We could tell it was large because its engine signature showed a heavy output of energy.

“A warship,” I said. “Whoever runs this system, they’ve sent out a warship to deal with us.”

Yamada nodded, meeting my eyes briefly. I could see fear in her face. It only made sense that if Lorn had called for help, he would have been specific about what he was up against. That meant the enemy would have dispatched a warship they felt could deal with us effectively.

“All right, listen up everyone. We’re going to have company in—Yamada?”

“The acceleration curve is steep, even though the enemy is coming at us up out of the gravity-well of the local star… Ten hours, I’d say. They’ll be in extreme range by then.”

“Durris, do the math. Give me a confirmation on that. I also want navigational options.”

“In case we have to run, sir?” he asked.

“Exactly.”

Just like that, our good moods evaporated. The enemy pirate was still hidden—but we weren’t. We’d made ourselves the biggest, fattest target in the system by using every active sensor we had. That tactic had flushed out one of the pirates, but it might have doomed us at the same time.

Moving to Durris’ table, I looked on as he worked his projections. Two ballooning spheroids had appeared on his nav table. They were different colors, and they showed how events may possibly unfold over the next few hours. Our balloon was green, and the unknown warship’s balloon was red. The two spheroids splashed together in the middle, creating a vast area of possible contact where they could intercept us and commence firing.

“What’s the word, First Officer?” I asked.

“The big picture is this: we only have about another forty minutes to hunt for the pirate before we’re locked into a battle with the approaching ship.”

“Your recommendation.”

He looked tortured for a moment, then made a hissing sound of vexation. “I think we should withdraw, sir. Let the pirate go, as much as it pains me to say that. We can’t risk this entire vessel in a battle against an unfamiliar warship just to run down one Stroj pirate—even if Lorn is likely aboard.”

I nodded thoughtfully. “I agree,” I said. “We’ve got forty minutes to find this bastard, then we have to veer off and head for the nearest breach out of this system.”

“There’s a problem with that approach as well, Captain.”

“What else do I need to know?”

“The breaches here—this entire system—we’re off our charts. This star system isn’t listed or recognized by the computer. I can’t find it on the Connatic’s maps, either.”

“Meaning that any bridge we use to exit this system might be a deadly one?”

“Exactly.”

Troubled, I moved to Zye’s station. She was, after all, in charge of tactical operations. In most cases that amounted to following my orders concerning when and where to fire
Defiant’s
armament. But technically, she was supposed to help draw up our battle plans.

“Zye,” I said, “tell me how we can flush out this rabbit.”

She looked at me quizzically for a moment. “Rabbit? Oh, you must be talking about the Stroj pirate. He won’t appear, sir. He’ll hide now, as you implied, like a small prey-animal in a hole. Only when we, the predator, have left the vicinity will the vermin emerge again.”

Snapping my fingers, I gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. She flashed her eyes up from my fingers to make eye contact with her brows raised slightly. She appeared alarmed, but not upset. Remembering our previous conversation, I took my hand away again immediately. We needed at least one more discussion on work-ethics versus our personal lives.

“That’s a good idea,” I said. “Helm, give us a ninety degree turn to port. Pull away from here at six gravities—and turn on the inertial dampeners so we aren’t all crushed.”

“On it, Captain!” Rumbold beamed. He was more than happy to put some distance between us and any possible threat.

“Captain,” Zye said. “I don’t understand your actions.”

“You will. Yamada, switch our sensor arrays into passive mode and focus them on the region we’re leaving behind. Look for tritium trails.”

“Ah,” Zye said, “you’re trying to flush the enemy out by appearing disinterested. When they show themselves again, we’ll pounce—is that it?”

“Exactly, Zye. Now, all we have to do is wait.”

The wait began—and it ran too long. After twenty minutes of nothing, I became frustrated again. I was hovering over Yamada’s chair and gripping the back of it with a claw-like hand.

“Damn that Lorn,” I said, “he’s too clever. He’s going to wait until we’re gone before he stirs again.”

“Looks that way,” Lieutenant Yamada said.

Checking with my officers in turn, I asked for more ideas. None of them gave me much I could work with.

At Durris’ nav table, the projected spheroids of possible action had shifted dramatically. There was now a larger region of non-conflict. We were moving out of harm’s way.

About ten minutes later, things changed again.

“Contact!” Yamada shouted triumphantly. “The pirate is back, Captain.”

“You found his tritium trail?”

“No sir, not just that. See for yourself.”

She patched the feed onto the forward screens, and we all watched, grinding our teeth.

The last pirate ship had become visible. Its engines had flared white, and it wasn’t bothering to stealth or dampen emissions. They were running for it, in the exact opposite direction we were headed.

“We flushed him, but it’s too late,” Zye said. “We’re just out of range.”

“Prepare a spread of missiles,” I said.

Durris waved for my attention.

“What is it, man?” I demanded.

“Sir, we have a limited supply of warheads. If we fire them after the pirate, we won’t have them for any later battles. It’s my job to warn you of this.”

“Damn it,” I breathed. “Stand down the missiles.”

I felt defeated, even though I had no real reason to be. We’d destroyed nearly all of the enemy ships. Letting one get away wasn’t a disaster. Still, it pained me to allow it.

“Captain,” Yamada said, listening to her headset. “The Stroj pirate is trying to open a channel to talk to us.”

I stared at her for a moment. I felt my face tighten.

“Put him on screen.”

She did so, and we all learned the truth together.

-39-

The Stroj pirate leered at us. It was indeed Captain Lorn. As I’d always believed, he’d sacrificed the lives of every underling he could to stay alive himself.

“Greetings, pathetic Earthmen,” he said effusively. “I must say, I’ve never seen you run from a fight like this, Sparhawk.”

“Is that why you called, Lorn? To gloat? Perhaps on the Stroj homeworld, losing every ship under your command save for the one you’re in can be described as a victory.”

His face darkened. “This isn’t over yet, Sparhawk. You’ve outgunned and abused my forces for a long time. But that is about to end. I’ll return to my home system with your skin melded into mine yet.”

“Ah, thanks for that valuable intel,” I said.

“What?”

“You just informed me that this isn’t the Stroj home system. We weren’t sure, but some of my officers believed it was. It’s very helpful to have confirmation on this critical point. Our star maps will be much more complete when we return due to your helpful efforts.”

I was needling him, and it was working. His face had fallen from affable to angry.

“You won’t be returning anywhere. There’s no way out of this system for an Earth ship. You’ve signed your own death warrants by coming here.”

The channel closed.

Frowning, I turned to my sensory data. “Yamada, I want you to stop focusing on the enemy vessels. Examine the outer regions of the system. What breaches have you found?”

“None yet, sir,” she said. “We had everything beaming our local region of space to find the pirate.”

“Of course. Now, be so kind as to find me an exit out of here.”

She began to work her controls, but she quickly became concerned.

“I’m not seeing anything, sir,” she said.

“Nothing?”

“No breaches—other than the one we came through to get here.”

I moved to Durris and examined the situation. As we’d turned away from that region of space, the escape path was no longer a viable option. The enemy vessel coming at us from the inner planets—whatever it was—would catch us long before we could return to our original point of entry into the star system.

“So that’s what he meant,” Durris said. “Could this all be an elaborate trap, sir?”

I shrugged. “Only in the sense that we followed Lorn here. Maybe he meant it to be a trap. What are our options?”

“Well, we can continue circumnavigating the system, swinging around the two central stars. Maybe we’ll find another exit.”

“Maybe. What else do you have?”

“We could turn and fight. Right now. If we keep running around, maybe another warship will come for us. One on one, we win or lose, then we retrace our steps back to Earth.”

Beginning to pace, I was keenly aware of the passing minutes and the passing opportunities they represented.

“Let’s use logic,” I said. “The Stroj had to come here somehow, right?”

“That stands to reason, sir.”

“So if they didn’t use the path we just traveled by to reach this system, they must have used another route. There has to be another bridge somewhere.”

“Possibly so,” Durris admitted. “But what if we find it? The odds are fairly good it will lead us back to the Stroj home system. Or at least, to another Stroj base. We’ll be out of the frying pan and into the fire.”

I nodded and continued to pace. “All right then. We’ll have to try something drastic. How much acceleration can our crew live through? For a period of, say, four hours?”

Durris blinked at me. So did the other crewmen who overheard my question. No one looked happy that I’d asked it.

“Two or so Gs, maybe, past the rating of the inertial dampeners. We could take up to thirty Gs for very short periods of a minute or so, but even with our suits fighting the pooling of blood with smart-mesh and other adjustments, we’d pass out or suffer tissue damage if we tried anything like that for hours.”

“Right,” I said, “so let’s do the math. We’ll spin around, and punch it past the enemy ship in bursts. Say, no more than three minutes at a time.”

He shook his head. “That’s too much, sir.”

“We only have to get past the approaching enemy ship in a short burst. We need to give the enemy as small a window to shoot at us as possible.”

He returned to his boards and his math, working the nav computer and simulations. After ten precious minutes, he had an answer for me.

“We might be able to do it,” he said. “We’ll brake hard, then thrust back the way we came—I’m assuming you just want to get past the enemy warship and exit through the bridge that brought us here, right?”

“No,” I said, “I want to skirt the enemy ship, then run down Lorn’s ship. We’ve still got a fix on him, don’t we?”

“Absolutely,” Yamada called. “I’ve got him on scope. He’s cruising around to the far side of the bigger star right now.”

“We could try it…” Durris said. “We’ll be in their range for a short time at least, though. We’ll have to expect to take some fire.”

“Zye, you’ll be at the helm. Rumbold, you’re relieved. Find a couch and fill it with support foam. Tell everyone below to start doing the same. They should pack themselves up like melons in crates.”

“Got it sir!” Rumbold said, and he jumped out of his seat and practically ran off the deck.

I’d never seen anyone so relieved to be relieved of duty. Zye smoothly moved from her station to Rumbold’s.

“Before you leave tactical ops,” I told her, program our shields to divert all power to the flank and belly shielding. We might be taking a few hits from that direction.”

She did as I asked wordlessly.

When everything was ready, we spun the ship around and slammed the throttle down. The powerful engines thrummed and sang.

We shook, we drooled, and most of us blacked out over a period of fourteen harrowing minutes.

During that time, I hazily recalled taking hits. Yamada said something about a shield buckling, but I couldn’t turn my head far enough to look at the data. I did consider that if we were forced to do battle any time soon, my crew wasn’t going to be in the best of shape.

Watching Zye struggle through it all stoically, I began to wish I’d had a hundred of her kind on board rather than just one. But that might have caused as many problems as it solved.

When the ordeal was over at last, we’d slowed and begun to recover. Our bodies were more damaged than the ship itself.

“We did almost forty-nine gravities,” Durris whistled from the floor. His neck was back in a brace again, and medical people were gently trying to pull a computer scroll out of his shaking fingers.

“Forty-nine gravities,” he said. “That’s a record, as far as I know. The dampeners halved that, of course, but no Earth ship has ever performed such a stunt under fire.”

“This isn’t an Earth ship,” Zye said proudly. “There is no comparison.”

“Truly said,” Durris replied as they loaded his prostrate form onto a gurney and gently bore him off the deck toward medical. “No engineer on Earth would be mad enough to build something like
Defiant
.”

He was gone then, and I wished him well.

Rubbing at numb extremities, I asked Yamada to give me an ETA. “When are we going to catch Lorn and his fleeing ship?”

“Maybe never, sir,” she said a moment later. “He must have seen what we were doing. He’s vanished.”

Cursing, I lurched to her station and almost slumped over it. “Look for his trail. It will point the way.”

After a few tense minutes, she picked it up. “Here—tritium traces. But sir, I can’t be sure that’s—”

“It’s him,” I said, interrupting. “Get after him. Mark his course. We’ll intercept—here.”

We laid in the course and eventually Rumbold staggered back to the helm. He had his head wrapped in a bladder of rubber and one of his eyes had swollen shut.

“Can you fly like that, Rumbold?” I asked.

“Sure. I’ve had worse.”

“Liar.”

He chuckled and returned to his chair. He flopped into it and winced.

“Captain Sparhawk? Could you answer me one question?”

“Certainly, Rumbold.”

He swiveled around and fixed me with his one good, working eye.

“Why the hell did you nearly kill us to run down Lorn? Is this a simple matter of vengeance?”

“Not entirely,” I said. “Think, man. There has to be another way out of this system. Who do you think knows where that might be?”

He looked at me for a frozen second, then he grinned—his square teeth rimed in blood.

“Captain Lorn would know, wouldn’t he? He’s a pirate, so he must know every bridge and system by heart.”

“Exactly, Rumbold. Now, you’re going to help me run him down and capture him.”

“Will do, sir!”