Starhunt: A Star Wolf Novel (16 page)

Korie shrugs. “Sounded fine to me.”

Brandt lowers his voice to a whisper, Korie steps in closer. “You know, Mr. Korie, I have my doubts.”

“Yes, sir. I know. So do I.”

Brandt grunts. “Yes, you should—
you
should know better than anyone on this ship how well prepared—or unprepared—we are.”

“Yes, sir. That’s why I have my doubts. But if they perform as well as they did during the drills—”

“This isn’t a drill, though. This is for real.”

“That’s why I drilled them so hard—I’d rather that the actual battle be less than they can handle, instead of more.”

“This crew has never been in battle—”

“Neither have I,” says Korie. “Neither have you, sir.”

Brandt looks at him sharply, decides to let it pass.

“What I’m getting at is that they’re untested in a crisis situation—any one of them could fly apart at a crucial moment.”

“I’ve got my eye on a couple that might not be able to cope with their boards. Aside from them, I’m not worried.”

“Hmph. Well, we’ll see. You drilled the bridge as well as the engine room?”

“Yes, sir. The first set of drills was only engine room and missile firing. The second set were full simulations. We took it down to 19 per cent of optimum.”

“That’s not too good—”

“
Optimum
was a K-class cruiser.”

Brandt raises an eyebrow. “Then the rumor was true—”

“Oh, yes.”

“Then the 19 per cent isn’t really as bad as it sounds.”

“On the contrary, it’s quite good. For this ship, anyway.”

“Well,” says Brandt. “I’m reassured. Perhaps we have a chance after all.”

“I’ve never doubted it,” says Korie.

“Minus twenty minutes,” notes a voice on their right.

For a while, silence reigns on the bridge. Brandt, a shaggy gray chunk of granite, is immobile in the seat. He seems like a statue, perpetually frozen into on characteristic position—a position of casual rigidity. Beside him, Korie resists the temptation to fidget, but his nervousness seeps out around his edges, displays itself in the insistent tapping on his foot, the recurrent pursing of his lips, the sucking in of his cheeks.

Elsewhere, things tick, things hum, things click and clatter; a monotonous symphony of checks and rechecks, of ask-me-again and tell-me-three-times. The tempo is four-four time,
punctuated by bursts of staccato sixteenth and thirty-second notes; the key is the key of fear, and the conductor is destiny—

“Fifteen minutes.”

Korie forces himself to sit. There is an auxiliary seat just to the rear and to the right of the captain’s. He perches stiffly on the edge of it. “Radec?”

“Sir?”

“Anything?”

“No, sir.”

“Keep watching.”

“Yes, sir.”

(All right, relax, he tells himself. You don’t gain anything by being nervous. When it happens, it’ll happen. Rogers will tell me as soon as he’s got something—) He takes deep breaths, long deep breaths, slow deep breaths. (Relax, just relax—)

“Minus twelve minutes.”

Abruptly:

“Sir, I’ve still got a red light on my board—”

“What is it?” Korie is on the horseshoe immediately.

“It’s the gym. It hasn’t been secured—”

Korie reaches past the man, flicks at the console. “Give me a visual on that,” he mutters. He snaps a few more buttons. “There.”

On the screen, the hull of the ship is shown, a single splash of light illuminating it. A narrow line of black indicates a hatch not completely closed and a gentle bulge of yellow-shining
mylar shows that the gym is escaping from its storage bin. As they watch, the bulge forces itself out even farther.

“Are we losing pressure—?”

“No, sir. Not yet. That ballooning must be residual gas.”

Korie flicks a communicator. “Leen! Dammit—why wasn’t the gym secured?!!”

A puzzled chief engineer, “Sir?”

“The gym! Why wasn’t it secured?!!”

“As far as I know, sir, it was.”

“It wasn’t!”

“It wasn’t—??”

“Take a look on your screen. Channel D.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want two men down there immediately. Get that damn thing sealed—and fast.”

“I’m on my way, sir—”

“You stay on station. Send someone else.”

“Yes, sir.”

Korie switches off. Almost immediately, he switches back on. “Why wasn’t that secured in the first place?”

Leen again. “Sorry, sir. I don’t know.”

“Find out—who did you assign to do it?”

“No one, sir. I went myself.”

“You—went—yourself—”

“Yes, sir.”

Korie stops himself from speaking. (No, I can’t put Leen on report—not now. I—we need him.) “Uh—Chief, we’ll have to go over this later.” Very quietly, he says, “Just get it secured now.” He switches off, and very carefully, very slowly, steps back away from the board.

The crewman there looks at him. “Sir—?”

“Give them—five minutes—to secure it—”

“Yes, sir.”

“—and if they can’t get it secured by then—” He weighs his words carefully. “—jettison it.”

“Jettison it. Yes, sir.”

Korie steps back down into the pit, makes his way to his seat. He is pale and almost shaking. The sudden surge of adrenalin in his veins has left him quivering. (Leen, that bastard, I thought I could depend on him—)

After a moment, he straightens, forces himself to be firm again. (Come on, man—it’s only the gym. The real thing is still to come—)

“Eight minutes to approach.”

(Eight minutes—they’ll never get it in that time.) He bounces back up to the horseshoe, hovers nervously over the crewman and his board. On the monitor screen, something can be seen jerking at the plastic, but no progress is being made.

“They’re not going to get it,” he says. “Tell them to stand clear; I’m going to jettison.”

The crewman mumbles something into a mike. After a moment, “They’re clear.”

“All right.” Korie punches at the board. Red lights flash; he snaps two more switches. There is only one way to jettison the gym—inflate it quickly with a small charge of gas under high pressure, then release the pressure collar that holds it fast to the ship. On the monitor, the bulge grows quickly to a sphere.

Behind him, there is a mutter of voices. “What the—”

“Hey! They’re inflating the gym—”

The interior hatch is closed. Korie breaks a locked cover, turns a key—the exploding bolts are armed. A quick check of the board and he presses the button. The gym is cut free; the giant bladder squirts away from the ship. On the screen, it can be seen as a ghostly blur of pale white, reflecting the glare of the single spotlight against the hull of the ship. Like some vast, slow-fluttering butterfly, it swirls out toward the edge of the warp and is gone.

“Damn! There goes the gym,” someone says.

Korie ignores it; he clears the board, punches for a check. All lights flash green. “Your board is clear,” he says to the crewman.

“Thank you, sir.” The man steps back up to it; Korie returns to the pit.

“Four minutes to approach. All stations, stand by.”

As Korie starts to sit down, Brandt whispers to him, “Was that necessary—jettisoning the gym?”

“I think so.”

Brandt considers it. At last, he says, “All right.”

Korie explains, “Perhaps it wasn’t necessary from a security standpoint; the gym alcove and observatory are double-sealed. But it was necessary for disciplinary reasons—it will serve as an example.”

“An example?” Brandt raises a shaggy eyebrow.

“If we’re going to be a battle cruiser, we’d better act like one. Next time, they’ll make sure the gym is secured.”

“Hm,” says Brandt. “An interesting point.” He falls silent, allows Korie to return to his position behind the seat.

“Three minutes,” says Barak. “All stations, prepare for autocontrol.”

“Standing by.”

“Warp factor at 1.1.”

“Right.”

The screens are flickering rapidly; diagrams flash, only to disappear and be replaced by others.

“Ninety seconds.”

“All systems. Last check.”

“Warp control?”

“All green.”

“Power bay?”

“Green.”

“Life support?”

“Go.”

“Engine room?”

“Go.”

“Astrogation?”

“Right on.”

“EDNA—?”

“She says go.”

“Systems check?”

“All on.”

“Go to autocontrol.”

“Fifteen seconds to approach.”

The forward screen remains empty. Red and empty.

“Ten seconds. Stand by.”

“Standing—”

“Five seconds.”

“Autocontrol is green—”

“And go—!”

Somewhere a circuit closes—the
Burlingame
’s warp alters its shape and—

Now the ship is hurtling down a corridor of space, 174 times the speed of light, visible only on the flashing graphs.

The monitors beep. The screens flicker with lines and streaks, imaginary boundaries drawn by computers, directed by men; lines to mark the range of the battle, lines to give the minds of men something to identify in an otherwise empty environment.

“Radec! Report.”

“Scanning for bogie. No response.”

On the screen ahead, the stress-field grid swells and hurtles past. Korie moves to the center of the pit. In the darkened bridge, the lines streak past him like bullets. He fingers his hand mike impatiently.

“Still scanning,” comes Rogers’ voice. “No response.”

“Six minutes to center,” says Barak. “Scramble pattern standing by.”

The screens flicker-flash. Their bright glare is hellish.

“Still scanning. No response.”

“Five minutes to scramble.”

“No response.”

Flicker-flash. Flicker-flash.

“Still no bogie.”

“All right, already,” mutters Korie, half to himself. “Where is he?”

Brandt is immobile behind him, strobe-lit by the screens. He rumbles. “He should be here—”

The streaking lines on the screens flash to red, then white again.

“What was that—?”

“Just a visual cue, relax.”

The consoles make sounds of their own, as involuntary a process as the sound of a man’s heavy breathing.

“Four minutes.”

“Still scanning. No response.”

“Missile control, stand by.”

“We’re standing—”

And still the lines streak across the screens. The garish images are scribed across the bridge, a shattering, splattering corridor of light.

“Three minutes—”

“Still scanning.”

“Where the hell is that bogie?”

The question remains unanswered. The endless tunnel of emptiness continues to rush past the ship. Korie fumbles at his mike. “Missile crew—”

“We’re still standing, sir.”

The insistent beeping of the monitors digs at Korie’s brain. “Give me a target, already,” he mutters.

“Two minutes.”

“Radec—?”

“Nothing, sir—
nothing
.”

“We should have spotted him by now.”

“Not if he’s on the other side of the target.” That was Barak.

Korie snaps back, “We’re close enough to see that far—”

Barak doesn’t answer; the empty flashing screen says it for him.

“One minute—”

“Stand by for scramble pattern. Just in case.”

Korie drops into his couch, impatiently. The bridge is a silent tableau; only the screens give the appearance of motion.

“Thirty seconds. Thirty.”

“Radec?”

“Still scanning, sir.”

“Well, where the hell is my bogie, dammit?!!”

“I don’t know, sir. I—”

“Sir—” Barak, speaking to the captain. “—there’s no bogie—”

“Scramble anyway,” says Brandt.

Barak stabs his console.
“Scramble!”

For one brief second all the screens flicker-flash out of synch. Suddenly the wild, rushing gridwork is viewed from a dozen different angles; the
Burlingame
ricochets madly through it.

“Radec!”

Rogers’ voice, almost panicky: “I’m sorry, sir—there’s nothing here!”

“Mr. Barak—” The captain. “Cut the scramble. Go to stationary fields.”

“Yes, sir.”

The screens flash insanely, then—

“End of scramble. Warp velocity zero. Stationary fields.”

The screens are empty. And still. The bridge is strangely silent.

Brandt rumbles, “All hands, stand by.”

A pause; they listen to the stillness. From a dozen mocking angles, the monitors grin down at them, toothless and empty.

Korie is in the pit. He whirls about, staring from screen to screen to screen. Futilely.

All empty. Silent and still.

He looks at Brandt. Brandt looks at Barak. Barak looks at Korie.

Brandt glances from one to the other, takes a breath. “Well, Mr. Korie—it looks like your preparations were in vain.”

Korie opens his mouth; he takes an angry half-step toward Brandt—then stops himself. He looks at Barak. “Radec—?”

Barak looks at his board, then back at Korie. “Check it out—”

Korie says, “I will,” and leaps to the horseshoe and out the back of the bridge—down the corridor and into the narrow radec room. Bridger and Rogers look up startled.

“Get up,” Korie snaps. He drops into Rogers’ seat, clears the board, and punches for a systems check. The panel lights up green.

He hits the intercom. “Systems reliability, I want a full check on all scanning systems—now.”

“Yes, sir.”

He turns his attention back to the board, begins setting up a new scanning procedure. “So help me, Rogers,” Korie breathes, “if that bogie is there and you’ve somehow missed it—”

“Sir,” the intercom cuts in. “Preliminary check shows all systems on and working okay.”

“Cross-circuit and try again.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Korie,” says Rogers, “but there’s nothing there—”

The board confirms this. Before him, six monitor screens grin emptily. Korie clears the board, sets up another routine. Still nothing.

Again, the intercom: “Mr. Korie, all scanning systems are within 91 per cent optimum efficiency. Scanning quotient is at ninety-nine.”

Korie doesn’t answer. He sets up one more scan. Impatiently, he waits while the console digests it. Then, one by one, the screens blink—but remain empty.