In Earth's Service (Mapped Space Book 2) (28 page)

Jase grinned. “Getting out will be easier than
getting in.”

He took the helm, tickled the thrusters and sent
us drifting out of our cramped hiding place. The big screen wrapping around our
control positions all the way to the aft bulkhead showed how close Acheron Station
and the freighter were as we slid into view of a Drake raider berthed astern of
the
Merak Star
. Her hull was blackened and scarred, and she could have
crippled us with a single shot, but we turned across her bow without a
response.

By the time we were clear, I had the autonav ready
for a sub-light hop out to the minefield, having overridden its protest at being
unable to find any stellar reference points. For a machine designed to fly
blind across Mapped Space, it had a peculiar dislike of not knowing where it
was.

“There are four ships maneuvering off the station
and one powering up to undock,” Jase said as he returned helm control to me.
“None heading our way.”

Five ships that could give chase at short notice
was bad luck for us. I’d hoped the Drakes would all be docked and manned by
skeleton crews when we ran.

“What about the Super Saracens?”

“The fleet’s gone. Only the refits are left.”

A gruff voice sounded from the flight deck’s comm
system. “Ship in zone theta, identify yourself.”

I nodded for Jase to open a channel. “This is the
Cormorant. What do you want?” I barked aggressively, bringing our maneuvering
engines to life to put distance between us and the station.

“Who’s your Captain?”

“Gwandoya,” I replied. “Big guy, melted face, bad
teeth. You’ve heard of him.”

“Shut down your engines!”

“I don’t take orders from you,” I snapped, buying
time.

“I’m the station master! No one undocks unless I
say so!”

“Screw you! I have permission!”

“And I have six pulse cannons targeting you. Last
chance, tough guy!”

We had good inertia now, enough to carry us into
clear space. “OK, OK, shutting down.”

For several valuable seconds, we drifted away from
the station, then the station master’s voice sounded again. “What are you
doing? Get back to the station!”

“You told me to shut down my engines!” I said.
“Now you want them back on?”

“Use thrusters, you idiot!” the station master ordered
with rising anger.

I nodded for Jase to pull sensors as I starting charging
our spacetime distorters.

“Hey!” the station master yelled as he detected the
energy build up around the
Lining’s
hull. “Where do you think you’re
going?”

We blinked to the inner edge of the gravity minefield.
Before our sensors had even deployed, I kicked the maneuvering engines to thirty-five
g’s and began accelerating blind toward the mines. Soon we were slip sliding
through heavily curved spacetime, slewing into one artificial gravity well
after another.

We soon picked up the station master broadcasting
on every channel. “All ships! An unknown vessel is heading for the minefield! Zero
six five by one eight nine. Intercept and destroy!” The urgency in his voice
was laced with fear that we were spies about to escape with Acheron Station’s most
closely guarded secret, its location. Once Earth Navy knew how to find their
base, the Drakes would have to abandon it, leaving them crippled for years
until a replacement could be built.

“Here they come!” Jase warned as three of the ships
maneuvering for berths suddenly went to full power.

“They won’t risk the minefield,” I said, glancing
at the screen now filling with rotating ovoids. Each gravity mine was equipped
with a pair of acceleration fields that created an hourglass depression in spacetime
strong enough to collapse any bubble with devastating consequences.

“We’ve got company,” Jase said, orienting the port
side of the screen toward a stretched disk-shaped passenger ferry with
maneuvering engines above and below the hull. Two short range energy weapons on
her bow glowed hot as they charged to fire. Moments later, a space tug unbubbled
several clicks to starboard. She was little more than a huge circular engine
behind a tiny trapezoid hull armed with a belly mounted turret. Its massive engine
went to full power, sending it speeding into the minefield after us.

“The big ferry’s about to fire!” Jase warned,
raising our battle shield.

“It’s the other one I’m worried about,” I said,
concerned its belly turret showed no thermal build up.

The flash of an explosion flared ten clicks away
as a third Drake ship overshot, jumping into the minefield where its fragile
bubble collapsed, tearing its hull apart and detonating its energy core. A
brilliant white blast sphere inflated rapidly, vaporizing every gravity mine in
its path and washing over the
Silver Lining
’s shield. Our view screen
dimmed, automatically saving us from flash blindness as the blast momentarily
hid us from the two surviving Drake ships.

“Those crazy bastards!” Jase exclaimed.

Once the blast wave had passed, the
Silver
Lining
stopped floundering in curved space, now free of the gravity mines
destroyed in the explosion.

“Have we got flat space ahead?” I asked, charging
our distorters, waiting for the white noise to clear.

“I can’t tell,” Jase said, staring helplessly at
his overloaded sensors.

I ordered the autonav to plot a tenth of a light
year bubble thirty degrees to starboard, hoping that would throw off the Drakes
and carry us clear of the Acheron without crossing any natural gravity hazards.
By the time the screen cleared, the space tug had moved well ahead of the
ferry. Her belly turret was still ominously cold, and now a dark square of an
open hatch had appeared, marking it as a launcher, not a gun.

“This is going to hurt,” I said softly, surprised
to find any Drake ship armed with anti-ship drones. Brotherhood ships preferred
crippling weapons, so they could capture and loot their victims, but ASDs were
dedicated ship killers, most designed to target a ship’s energy core.

“Must be a station defense ship,” Jase said.

The tug’s ASD flashed into space on a brilliant
blue-white tail, heading straight for us. There was no way we could outrun it
without going superluminal, and if it was anything like our drones, its electromagnetically
charged penetrator would easily punch through our shield. A moment later, the ferry
opened fire with its two beam weapons at extreme range, barely tickling our
shield, but that was all they needed to do. Those beams prevented us dropping the
shield to bubble, holding us for the anti-ship drone.

I woke up our drones hidden in the
Silver
Lining’s
bow and ordered them to compute parabolic firing solutions against
the two Drake ships. We had one on the launcher and three in the loader, and
thanks to Lena Voss, the EIS had upgraded our old black market weapons to Earth
Navy Vulcans.

“Are we fighting or running?” Jase asked when he saw
our ASDs come to life.

“Both.” With a hundred Drake ships preparing to
come after us, the last thing I wanted was to stick around, but we weren’t
going anywhere with those beams on us.

Our first two anti-ship drones plotted best guess solutions,
then launched in quick succession, planning to figure out the rest in-flight.
They swung around behind the
Silver Lining
on high-g trajectories, one
heading for the ferry, the other for the tug. I set three and four to defend
rather than attack, then let them loose too. For the first few seconds, they
followed the same path as our first two Vulcans, but rather than go after the
ships, they angled away, going head-to-head with the Drake ASD running us down.

Jase looked surprised as he realized what three
and four were targeting. “I didn’t know they could do that!”

Black market drones couldn’t, but expensive navy
drones were multi-mission. He’d seen the new birds when they’d been loaded, but
thanks to the EIS scrubbing them clean of any navy identifiers, didn’t realize
what they were.

When the space tug saw it had one of our drones
bearing down on it, it fired a second ASD then quickly turned and ran, showing
no sign of preparing to bubble as the crew bet their lives on their big engine.
It was a bad choice. The Vulcan had long legs and would run them down long
before it ran out of power.

While Vulcan three continued to go after the first
Drake ASD, number four switched targets, locking onto the tug’s second drone.
Our two defenders started moving apart, each now locked in single combat with a
rapidly accelerating robot opponent.

The Drake ferry suddenly decided it was time to
save itself, veering away before it had even shut down its energy weapons, sweeping
space with parallel beams. Seconds later, its twin beams winked out, its shield
dropped and it streaked back toward Acheron Station. Our Vulcan immediately
switched targets, joining the hunt for the tug.

The two Drake drones heading after us now tried to
avoid our Vulcans. The first narrowly dodged an impact, but our drone detonated
close for a proximity kill, catching its target in the blast, triggering a
double flash as both weapons vaporized. The second Drake weapon pitched sharply
one way then another, forcing the heavier Vulcan to slew off course as it tried
to shut down its target’s escape vectors. Under high acceleration, two
brilliant points of lights raced toward each other, then at the last moment, the
Drake drone nosed up sharply. Vulcan four detonated, swallowing its target in a
brilliant ball of light, then the Drake ASD burst out of the blast sphere and
swung toward us.

“That’s not good!” Jase said anxiously.

“Are we clear ahead?” I asked as our distorters charged
to full. If there was just one gravity mine ahead, bubbling would be suicide.

Jase focused on his console, searching for any
holes in space blocking our course. “Sensors are still foggy,” he said
uncertainly as the collision alert sounded, warning the Drake ASD was about to
hit us. “Just a few more seconds.”

“Too late!” I declared. “Sensors in!”

Almost a hundred clicks away, Vulcan two fired its
penetrator into the tug’s shield. The armored warhead punched through the Drake
ship’s hull into the energy plant and detonated. An intense flash forced our
screen to dim, then a brilliant white blast sphere bloomed where the tug had
been, swelling rapidly. Suddenly, our screen went blank as our sensors locked
inside our hull, safe from our bubble’s searing heat. I cut shield and
maneuvering engines, then let the autonav take over. For a moment, we drifted
naked through space, then a muted thud rang hollowly through the ship, followed
immediately by telemetry filling our screen, telling us we were superluminal.

“We made it!” Jase said relieved.

“Something hit us,” I said warily. “How close was
their drone?”

“Right on top of us,” Jase said, “but it must have
missed. We’re still alive!”

I knew the Drake ASD had struck the hull, and it couldn’t
have been a dud. Thousands of years of development had engineered misfires out
of existence. Suddenly, the telemetry on screen disappeared, replaced by a
flashing warning:

Bubble collapse in 30 … 29 … 28 … 27 …

Jase stared at the screen, confused. “What the
hell is that?”

The message wasn’t coming from any of the
Silver
Lining’s
systems and no signal of any kind could pass through the bubble.

“Izin, what’s our hull integrity?” I demanded,
suspecting the truth.

24 … 23 … 22 … 21 …

“Within safe limits, Captain,” he replied.

“No! Exactly! What is it?”

17 … 16 … 15 … 14 …

“Ninety nine point seven percent, Captain,” Izin
replied, still unaware of the danger.

“That signal’s coming from outside the ship, but inside
our bubble!” Jase declared confused.

8 … 7 … 6 … 5 …

“Emergency stop!” I yelled, ordering the autonav
to dump the bubble. There was no slowing down, no decrease in intensity. The
bubble just vanished, subjecting the
Lining
to a sudden spring back of
spacetime. Internal inertial fields absorbed the effect, but when the sensors
locked in place, we discovered the ship was rolling and spinning out of
control. The thrusters quickly stabilized the ship while the timer was frozen
on screen with two seconds to spare, then a new message appeared:

Disable your weapons and shields and prepare to
be boarded.

It was a message from a dead ship and a dead crew.

Jase scanned nearby space. “There’s nothing out
there, Skipper.”

“It’s not out there, it’s on the hull!”

Lucky for us Drakes wanted cargoes and credits,
not worthless radioactive wrecks. Not so lucky was the fact that the Drake
fleet had seen the space tug’s drone hit us just before we bubbled. They knew
we were either dead or trapped. We’d flown for only twenty eight seconds, but
it would take ten and half hours for our energy plant’s neutrino emissions to get
back to Acheron Station. They’d be there now, listening and waiting. When they
picked up our emissions, all they’d have to do was jump out and grab us. There
was no point having our E-plant go dark, it was already too late for that.

“Captain,” Izin’s voice sounded from the intercom,
“I’ve sent a crawler out to investigate a hull breach ten meters forward of our
port engine.”

“Check for an acceleration field. It would have
started when the timer finished, so we can’t bubble without blowing ourselves
up.”

“Did we ram a gravity mine?” Jase asked as Izin’s
eight legged robotic spider scurried across the hull, sending us its optical
feed.

“Not a mine,” I said, eyes glued to the screen as the
round bulge of our port engine appeared above the gentle curve of the
Silver
Lining’s
hull. The crawler ambled forward, revealing the glowing exhaust of
a hypervelocity engine, then the cylindrical body of a drone embedded at an
angle into our hull. Five harpoon like clamps had shot out from the drone’s
body, anchoring it to the ship.