Scout Force (35 page)

      
Kelly rolled his eyes.
 
“Got it, sir, no action unless they shoot first.”

      
The K’Rang ship continued its high speed run through the Scutum sector.
 
Kelly wondered if it was intentionally showing off, hoping to draw a GR Fleet reaction.
 
Kelly saw the wisdom in following their orders to the letter.
 
It was probably equipped with a self-destruct mechanism and they could gain more information from observing the ship secretly than analyzing a debris cloud.

      
Chief Blankenship appeared.
 
She said, “Sir, you asked about the engine.
 
As best we can determine it is an extremely efficient reaction engine with an unshielded gravity well FTL drive.
 
It is running at about 98 percent efficiency.
 
They seem to be injecting something into the exhaust stream to give them that much thrust.
 
We’re trying to see what that might be.
 
We are tracking the flight path.
 
If we can run through the flight path later, we might be able to use the sniffers to figure out what it is.”

The captain said, “Good enough, Chief.
 
Once this thing clears out, we’ll do just that.”

      
Chief B continued, “One other thing, sir, as sharp as that ship is turning, there isn’t a living being on board.
 
Nothing human or K’Rang could survive those G-forces.”

      
“Thanks, Chief, that's all for now.”

      
Chief B went back to the sensor section.

      
The ship turned back toward the Vigilant’s position and slowed down.
 
It began a series of slow, wide right and left turns making a serpentine path across space.
 
As the ship got closer, the turns got tighter and tighter.
 
An itchy feeling came over Kelly.

      
“Captain, I think it's homing in on us.
 
That thing is going to come right at us if it keeps going as it is.”

      
“Exec, I think you're right.
 
Helm, prepare to lift us out of here on a course dead away from that ship.
 
If it gets within 10,000 km of us, execute.
 
Gunnery, don’t move the turrets at this time, but prepare to fire on the ship if it gets within 9,000 km.”

      
Helm and weapons answered aye aye.

      
Kelly watched the ship continue to close the range and home in on the Vigilant, wondering what signature was giving them away to the drone.

      
The captain looked up from his terminal and said, “Helm, we’re not waiting.
 
Come to course 175, mark 0 and get us out of here now.
 
Prepare to go to FTL if I call for it.
 
Gunnery, slew your turrets as we move off.”

      
The helmsman acknowledged the order and pulled the ship quickly out of the asteroid field.
 
The K’Rang ship oriented on the Vigilant and sped up.
 
The distance closed slightly until the Vigilant picked up speed and then the distance remained constant.
 
As the K’Rang ship increased speed, so did the Vigilant.
 
The captain ordered the helmsman to stay outside of 10,000 km distance from the K’Rang ship.
 
It required the helmsman to keep accelerating to stay ahead of the K’Rang ship.
 
Their speed was approaching FTL.

      
“Helm take us to power 2 and steer us away from the frontier.
 
Exec, let’s see what kind of legs this thing has.
 
If we leave him behind, we’ll slow down some and lead him away from the frontier.”

      
The helm smoothly accelerated the Vigilant to power 2.
 
The K’Rang ship fell behind.
 
The helmsman slowed the ship down until they were just maintaining the distance from the K’Rang ship.
 
They calculated the top speed of the ship to be power 1.6, or at least that was all it was currently showing.

      
Kelly said, “Gunnery, keep targeting that ship.
 
It may be faster than it is letting on.
 
Let’s keep our guard up.”

      
The chase kept up for the better part of that day, with no signs of the K’Rang ship breaking off.
 
The captain called Kelly and the section chiefs into his ready room.
 
“All right, what are we up against?
 
I want to hear your opinions.”

      
Chief Blankenship spoke first.
 
“When we went into FTL the reaction engine was replaced by a primitive FTL engine.
 
We are seeing a standard FTL signature.
 
Our assessment is that it’s a little faster than it’s showing, but probably less than power 2.”

      
Chief Miller spoke next.
 
“I agree with Chief Blankenship.
 
The engine signature shows it to be a single coil system.
 
That’s about the only FTL engine that can fit in a ship that size.”

      
Chief Pennypacker said, “I’ve looked at the sensor readings.
 
The ship is unarmored.
 
It has minor navigational shields.
 
I can cut it up into little ship bits in no time.”

      
Chief Billings said, “All ship systems are at 100 percent.
 
The bridge crew is ready for any action you choose, Captain.”

      
Chief Watson was next.
 
“I’ve been looking at the active scans we’ve made on this ship since its been chasing us.
 
I can’t figure out what it is.
 
It doesn’t appear to be a scout drone.
 
If it is, it shouldn’t be chasing us.
 
It should be running the other way.
 
It's not fast enough or armored enough to be a combat drone.
 
I don’t like the way it is chasing us away from the frontier.
 
I recommend we kick this K’Rang piece of crud in the butt and get back to the frontier.”

      
It was Kelly’s turn.
 
“I agree with Chief Watson on not liking the way it seems to be chasing us away from the frontier.
 
Why don’t we increase speed to high FTL, leave this guy in our dust and use the long-range sensors to see what he does.
 
It might not be a bad idea to move away and circle around behind him.
 
Let’s get behind him, between him and the frontier.”

      
“I like that idea, Exec.
 
Let’s see what he does when he loses us.
 
Let’s all get back to our stations.”

      
Orders were given to the helm to increase speed to power 4.
   
The Vigilant quickly pulled away from the K’Rang ship.
 
As the distance increased to 250,000 km, the K’Rang ship slowed, halted, and turned back toward the frontier.
 
The Vigilant made a wide turn around the K’Rang ship, keeping it at least 300,000 km away.

      
The captain ordered a max speed run back to the Scutum sector.
 
In two hours they were at the fringes of sensor range of the sector.
 
They slowed to sub-FTL and scanned ahead for any anomalies.
 
The K’Rang ship that had launched the probe had moved away from the frontier, but was still in range of the Vigilant’s sensors.
 
The Vigilant moved in slowly.

      
A second, larger ship appeared at the edges of the sensor range.
 
It moved closer to the frontier.
 
The captain ordered the Vigilant to dead stop.
 
It floated free in space.

      
LCDR Timmons said, “Let’s see what’s going on here.
 
We’ll wait until we have a better picture on this second ship before we move closer.
 
Chief B, get me all you can as soon as you can on this second ship.”

      
Kelly and Timmons watched their monitors as the sensor crew resolved details on the second ship.
 
It appeared to be about three times the size of the earlier K’Rang ship.
 
It looked to be no more than a medium size interstellar freighter.
 
It moved up to the other K’Rang ship.
 
The sensor crew determined that the second ship was a lighter carrier.
 
It was designed for moving cargo from space to a planet’s surface on a primitive planet without an orbital transfer point.
 
They were usually fitted with four to six cargo lighters that would carry the cargo from the ship to the ground.
 
The sensor section estimated that the cargo lighters would be about the same size as the Vigilant, or just a little larger, for a ship the size of the K’Rang lighter carrier.

      
Both K’Rang ships moved toward and through the frontier and proceeded directly to the 6664 system.

      
The captain ordered the Vigilant to proceed to the 6664 system and the crew to battle stations.
 
He had a message sent to Fleet requesting reinforcements and containing all the details of the last two days.

      
The K’Rang ships were closer to the system than the Vigilant and arrived first.
 
The lighter carrier launched four lighters down to the surface.
 
The lighter carrier and the other ship used pulse cannons to soften up the planetary defenses.
 
The New Alexandria authorities issued a general distress call, which was replaced by an invasion emergency call.
 
The Vigilant increased speed.

      
“The captain keyed up the internal speakers.
 
“This is the captain.
 
We are moving to engage the K’Rang force attacking New Alexandria.
 
I plan to attack the lighter carrier first to give the lighters no escape route.
 
Once we have dispatched the lighter carrier, we will take out the other ship, then go down into the atmosphere to take out the lighters.
 
We will leave any enemy soldiers for the New Alexandria defense forces to deal with.”

      
“Exec, contact the New Alexandria authorities and inform them we are coming to their assistance.
 
Just in case our K’Rang friends over there are listening in, tell them that we have a reinforcement fleet coming in behind us.”

      
“Aye aye, Captain.”

      
Kelly brought up the comms suite on his monitor, contacted the Defense Force HQ of New Alexandria and informed them they were coming to their aid.
 
The general in command gave him a status report on the battle on the surface.
 
The K’Rang had landed about a battalion of troops near a light industrial compound in the southern hemisphere.
 
New Alexandria security forces in the vicinity were completely overwhelmed.
 
Forces were moving into the sector and preparing to counterattack.
 
Kelly told him that the lighters would have no place to return to shortly.

      
The captain increased speed to just below FTL to close the distance more quickly.
 
He oriented their approach to bring them in on the rear of both ships.
 
His plan was to take out both ship’s engines on the first pass and then come back and take them both out in turn.

      
As they approached, the turret gunners fired, taking out the K’Rang ships’ engines.
 
Once the engines were disabled, they switched their aim to destroy the pulse cannons.
 
They were less successful on the cannons than they were on the engines.
 
A couple of cannons were still in service and a few pulses impacted on the Vigilant’s armor and shields with no damage.

      
On the second pass, the Vigilant came in above the lighter carrier, using the forward guns and the turrets to maximum effect.
 
As they blew by the two K’Rang ships, the lighter carrier was displaying secondary explosions and venting atmosphere into space.
 
The second ship launched another drone as they passed.
 
It locked onto the Vigilant and vectored in on a tail-chase collision course and accelerated.
 
Kelly switched his monitor to rear view and watched as the turrets and rear-mounted guns made short work of the drone.
 
The size of the explosion as it disintegrated gave an indication of its true purpose.
 
It was a space torpedo.

      
The K’Rang lighter carrier exploded into a tremendous fireball, engulfing and consuming both K’Rang ships as the Vigilant turned back for a third run.
 
Sensors informed the bridge that the K’Rang lighter carrier used its self-destruct mechanism.
 
Both K’Rang ships were completely vaporized.