Unstable Prototypes (47 page)

Normally he would flit around inside the
relay array for a while until the person on his tail was good and
confused, then make a jump to the next location, but this time a
different tactic was called for. He didn't know for sure who it was
that was following him or how they had managed it. A little bit of
hide and seek would give him a chance to see what he was dealing
with. It didn't take long for his shadow to arrive. What dropped
out of FTL at the outer perimeter of the relay array was a ship
that was triple the mass of his, armed to the teeth, and with fully
activated weapons. For the moment, though, the guns weren't the
most worrying thing about the vessel.

For one thing, it shouldn't be there. Even if
the pilot had known precisely where Lex was headed, it should have
overshot by a few hundred thousand kilometers, since Lex was the
one who had decided precisely when to stop, and this guy would have
had to react to that. Human reaction time, multiplied by many times
the speed of light, equals
extremely
far off course. This
guy had stopped precisely where Lex did. He didn't even know how
that was possible. Either the pilot of this ship was a clairvoyant,
or Lex had somehow been tracked. Regardless of how it had been
pulled off, it translated to a ship heading directly for the array,
and an intimidating ship at that. It looked similar to the gunship
that had shown up on Tessera... in fact, it looked
exactly
like the gunship that had shown up on Tessera. The front end was
equipped with the same four turrets and there was a pair of yawning
missile launchers under a pilot compartment that was completely
armored, foregoing even a viewing window. A dark blue energy shield
shimmered into being around it, produced by the heftiest looking
emitters Lex had ever seen. The rest of the ship was all engines
and reactors, and according to Lex's sensors, every one of them was
belching out enough heat to suggest that a catastrophic failure was
not far off. As more time passed and more sensors were able to
complete their sweeps, it became increasingly evident that this
thing was one serious predator... And it wasn't just heading for
the array, it was heading
directly
for Lex's ship.

"What? No! I'm in stealth mode, how did they
find me? There
can't
be a tracking device, I checked the
ship before I left! That's it. When this is over I'm getting a
built-in hull scanner... Wait... Computer, activate hull
scanner."

After a few moments, one of the voices Ma had
borrowed announced. "Hull scanner active. Scan underway."

"I seriously have to get Ma to give me that
list of features they installed that I didn't ask for."

"Unknown electronic device attached to the
port side, aft docking socket."

"He put it
underneath
the docking
clamp? Man... Whoever this guy is, he's good," Lex said. "Let's see
what sort of gear he's got, though. That beast might be better
armed than me, but there is no way he's as agile as I am. All I
have to do is get out of range before-"

"Plasma Cannon Lock Detected," computer
stated.

"COME ON!" Lex objected, hammering the
throttle.

"Missile- Missile- Missile- Missile- Lock
Detected."

"Please tell me you've got a stutter," Lex
groaned, pulling hard at the controls in time to just barely avoid
the first volley of plasma bolts. Holding down one button and
tapping another activated his ship's not-so-legal offensive mode,
and updated the displays appropriately.

He flicked a sparing glance at the sensor
screen to see four missiles closing fast. A nice little "time to
impact" counter was tracking each one. With an exasperated squeak
that caught in his throat, Lex angled his ship down and juiced the
throttle further, but it was pretty clear that the missiles were
going to catch up. No problem, they were grouped together, and the
SOB had all sorts of fun tricks up its sleeve. He dialed the engine
down to 98.6%, double-tapped his lights, and popped his heat
dumpers. What precisely all of that meant didn't matter. The
important thing was that it was the secret command to trigger a
burst of circuit scrambling radio waves out of his ship's rear end,
an Electromagnetic Pulse. All four missiles flared and flew wildly
off course, drawing fun little squiggles on his screen before three
out of four prematurely detonated.

"Yeah! Is that all you got!?"

"Missile- Missile- Missile- Missile- Lock
Detected."

"I guess not."

The EMP trick, alas, was a one shot deal,
since it took a minute or so to recharge, and that was about 55
seconds too long. His brain chewed on the alternatives and spat out
a typically desperate stunt. The missiles were fast, very fast, but
that also meant that it would take them forever to turn, as the
single remaining scrambled one, which was just now beginning to
head back toward him, was illustrating. If he wanted to dodge them,
all he had to do was make a sharp turn. Unfortunately, that wasn't
the sort of thing you could do in space. That is, not unless you
got creative.

"Thruster output down, reactor output up,"
Lex muttered, tugging and pushing at the appropriate controls.

His thrusters dropped down to a dull glow,
bringing his acceleration to nothing and allowing the missiles to
gain on him that much quicker. Meanwhile, his reactor hummed and
shuddered, building up one hell of a lot of energy and not having
anywhere to send it. He watched his sensors, all the while nudging
his thrusters to pivot his ship until he was practically facing the
incoming ordinance. Soon he was sliding almost perfectly backwards
through space, the distant glowing dots of the missiles clearly
visible through the cockpit window. He waited, watching the dots
get closer and judging his time. At the last possible moment, he
dumped the power into the thrusters. The ship lurched.

"Hold together, hold together, hold
together," he chanted through clenched teeth.

His ship's frame groaned and complained as
the sudden change in direction subjected it to stresses that no
sane engineer would have designed for. Lucky for Lex, then, that
the man who designed the SOB was a certified lunatic, because he
managed to avoid flying to pieces. The four missiles previously on
his tail couldn't adjust quickly enough, rocketing past him, far
too close for comfort. The good news was that he'd survived the
attack. The bad was that he was now flying away from the array,
which represented the only thing resembling cover or safety for
light-years, and flying toward the ship, which had evidently
decided that it was perfectly willing to play a game of chicken,
and give that plasma cannon another try while it was at it.

Bright violet bursts of plasma began to trace
their dotted lines of destruction toward Lex's ship. He dodged and
rolled, keeping himself just ahead of the string of blasts. One
hand kept the ship on course, the other danced across the other
controls, panic and exhilaration playing tug of war with his
dexterity. He activated the more aggressive mode of his tractor
beam and flipped it to the rear.

"Computer, voice interface."

"Voice interface act-"

"Auto-target missiles and auto-fire."

"Unable to comply."

"Oh sure," Lex growled, "
That
they
don't give me."

"Unknown Command: Missiles."

"Auto-target trailing... targets," he
attempted, casting a nervous glance at the blips that were now back
on his tail and making up for lost time.

"Unknown Command: Trailing Targets."

A pair of plasma bolts grazed his shields,
knocking them down a few percent.

"Auto-target best target. Fire, fire,
fire!"

Evidently those had been the magic words, as
he felt the familiar jackhammer rhythm of his improvised weapon
activating. It took a few shots at the missiles, and even managed
to destroy one, but quickly decided that the best target was the
gunship bearing down on him. As the tractor beam rattled at the war
machine, Lex realized a few key points. The first was that two fast
ships going head on makes for a very short game of chicken. The
second was that it didn't take a physicist to figure out who would
win if his sleek speedster of a ship were to collide with the
armored, shielded, charging opponent.

The four cannons on the gunship tracked Lex
tighter and tighter, trying to cut off his escape and box him in.
It took more and more of his mind and body to wrestle the ship
through the shrinking gaps in the attacks. Bolts were almost
constantly lapping at the edge of his shields, chipping away at his
protection. Finally there simply weren't enough free braincells
left to continue to second guess what was clearly the only option
left to him. He held his course taking a few direct hits on his
forward shields in order to maintain the straight line trajectory
he needed for his "plan" to work, then eased the ship down at the
last minute, dipping below the gunship and back up again. An
instant later the missiles that had so diligently been following
him found an obstacle- the ship that fired them. The explosion was
massive, swallowing the ship in a ball of blue-white energy bright
enough to activate the SOB's windshield tint even from behind.

"Oh my God," Lex breathed in terrified awe.
"I killed him..."

He fought to catch his breath and slowly
brought his ship around to survey the results of the blast. It was
something he never thought he'd have to do. Something he never
thought he would be able to do. But... there wasn't any other
choice, was there? This ship, whoever was flying it, was going to
destroy him. It was self-defense. Lex squinted at the residual
trail of energy, trying to make out any wreckage and debris that he
would have to avoid. It looked like...

His expression dropped. "Oh my God!" he
cried, this time in mounting terror, "I
didn't
kill
him!"

Instead of a sizzling hull or cloud of slag,
he saw a damaged but still functional ship, its flickering blue
shields blinking on and off as it sluggishly turned for another
attack run. Lex's brain slipped back into "fly for your life" mode.
According to the ship's sensors, his burly foe's shields were at
40%, and the handful of attacks that had hit their mark had left
the SOB's own shields at less than 20%.

"If that thing's weapons can't take it out,
there is no way that mine can. I gotta lose him. It's the only
way."

The SOB's shields had absorbed a lot of
punishment, but they had spared the rest of the vessel. There
probably wasn't even a scratch on the paint job. His engine revving
stunt hadn't done any serious damage either, but it had spiked the
heat level in his systems and stressed the hell out of the power
conduits, so pushing his ship to the limit would be a bad idea
until he had a chance to tighten some connections and replace some
hookups. That scrapped the plan of running long and hard until the
beastly gunship overheats, but with that tracking device attached
to the hull, no amount of running would do any good. He had to get
it off. Doing so in the right way would involve going to a
maintenance facility, which he would never make it to, or climbing
out of the ship and prying it off himself, which would be suicidal.
That meant he was going to have to do this the wrong way.

Lex was very good at doing things the wrong
way.

He looked at the gunship, which had finally
finished its turn and was firing with three of its four cannons.
From the ponderous turn and the loss of one cannon, it seemed that
the monster hadn't made it out of the explosion unscathed, despite
the status of its shields. With any luck, that would give Lex
enough leeway to play even faster and looser with his safety.
Without any luck, well, Lex wouldn't be around for very long. He
pushed his engines as hard as he dared and rocketed past the
gunship again, dodging a string of blasts as he did. His foe
started another turn, attempting to pursue, while his guns tracked
as closely as they could. The SOB bobbed and wove, using pivots,
dips, barrel rolls, and any other tricks he could muster to try to
stay on as direct a course back to the antenna array as possible
without getting perforated. It didn't take long for the gunship to
get on his tail and start to close the gap, illustrating that while
its maneuvering had taken a hit, its top speed was doing just fine.
A moment later it became clear that at least one of the missile
launchers was alive and well, as Lex's irritatingly calm computer
announced another pair of missile locks. He glanced at the impact
countdown, then at the approaching antennas. It was going to be
close. That was good, because it would have to be.

With a half-second to spare, he whipped past
the first antenna and placed it between the missiles and himself
just in time for a brilliant explosion to cost the good people at
VectorCorp one of their arrays, and costing the psychopath two
missiles. Thus began what was probably the most expensive and high
stakes game of tag ever played, with Lex blazing through the grid
of antennas like a last minute shopper looking for the last spot in
a mall parking lot. His makeshift weapon, which was still
automatically firing at the best target, took a few potshots at the
gunship now and then, but the heavy-duty shields shrugged off the
attacks. On the other hand the pursuing ship was spraying bolts of
plasma all over the area, blowing holes in dozens of antennas and
ensuring that an awful lot of data wasn't going to be reaching its
destination any time soon. When the lion and gazelle act had given
him some breathing room, he started to edge his ship closer to the
passing antennas.

"Okay... Just a little closer," he
mumbled.

"Caution. Proximity Alert. Extreme Collision
Threat," the computer helpfully bellowed.

"Shut up, SOB..." He took a deep breath,
glanced at the location of the marauding gunship, and did what
would stand as one of the most counter-intuitive actions he would
commit for a very long time. He switched off his shields.