AMP Private War (3 page)

Davis began to punch in the settings for a bump and run. The Tower then came back over the comm. "Lopez this is Borgram. Hang in there for one second if you could. The Tuttle is being moved off the pad as we speak. Sorry for the delay Lopez."

Davis raised his hands just before pushing the throttle forward. "Excellent! That was a close one."

The four vehicles then began to pull the Tuttle from the launch pad. The Tower once again gave a command. "Lopez. You are free to center and scoot. Enjoy your flight back to… Orcon-7."

Davis pushed us forward and with a continuous move had us rocketing skyward. Only seconds had passed before we moved through the atmosphere to the blackness of space.

Frig offered a possible solution to our dilemma. "Sir, I analyzed the trajectory of that craft. If we follow that same heading at maximum speed we should be able to catch them in just under four minutes. That is, if they remained on that course."

I gave the order and Davis pushed the throttle to full. Less than a minute later the small escape craft showed on our proximity screen. I gave the command. "Let's take her down!"

Davis responded, "Boss, what do you propose we use? This barge doesn't have any weapons."

I grabbed Davis by the shoulder as I stood over his command chair. "We don't have a cannon, but we do have that grapple down by the cargo door. If you can get us in close, we can grab her tail section and affect a personnel transfer."

Davis smiled. "You got it Boss, one tail fin coming up!"

The small flier attempted to evade our advance, but Davis was a skilled pilot in a craft that was much faster and more responsive. We soon had her in our grasp.

Davis spoke over the comm. "ORC9981. You may as well not struggle. We want your passenger and then you are free to go. And if you have thoughts of breaking off your tail and getting free think again."

"For starters, we can catch you again, and of course there is always the possibility that you crack that hull and expose your cabin. I saw that happen once... people were screaming right up to the point when all the air got sucked out of their lungs, it wasn't pretty. And if I am correct, you are suiting up your passenger about now. Good idea. We are going to need that for the transfer anyway."

A voice then came over the comm, "You had better let go and leave now while you have the chance. You don't know who it is that you are dealing with. They will be here in a few minutes."

I took the mic from Davis, "I'll tell you who will be here in a few minutes, a Marcon cruiser or two. They were in orbit over Gonk City and I'm sure they have our signatures by now. I'm guessing you have five minutes tops before they get here. And they are probably of the mind of shoot first and ask questions later."

The small cargo door opened on the flier and Yacabucci was pushed out into the void. "OK, you have your guy. Let me go and I'll be out of your way."

Davis released the grapple and the small ship quickly departed. Seconds later Yacabucci was brought on-board the Lopez. "OK. Boss, zip her up and we'll be..." The proximity alarm went off as another ship approached. It was the Ranger!

Davis continued, "She is coming in hot. Going to full, but it is going to be close!"

The Lopez began to accelerate as the Ranger closed. She had moved to within three minutes distance by the time we had matched her speed. Both ships had the EID drive enhancements with the Ranger having a slight advantage. She was gaining ground.

Davis again spoke, "Boss, she is going to overtake us in a couple hours. What's our game plan?"

I turned and began to pace back and forth on the deck just behind the cockpit. Then it hit me. We had negative ion engines and we were not far from the Frasture Nebula. "Set a heading for the nebula. We can switch polarities when we get there. We should be able to leave her clean then."

It was brilliant move. The Ranger began to lose ground immediately after entering the Frasture. With each rising negative wave we pulled farther away. Three hours into the nebula the Ranger dropped off of our sensors. We were free! And our passenger was safely aboard!

The trip back to Bullwort was a smooth ride. When we touched down, George was waiting for us at the hangar. We escorted our visitor into a conference room and I began with my appeal, "Mr. Yacabucci, first I would like to set your mind at ease. We are the good guys. You will not be harmed in any way. If at the end of our discussion and if you have no desire to join us, you will be returned to Hardlin."

Yacabucci replied, "The good guys? Those were the good guys out there! That was the Grid military you just stole me from. I would not be surprised if they were sitting in orbit around wherever this place is right now!"

I grabbed a chair, pulled it in front of him and sat down with my hands on my knees. "Look. We know who they were in that second ship. They were Grid military all right, but a rogue division of them."

I then began to tell the story of our relationship with Cortes and the Ranger, with the Admiral and with our nemesis the Milgari. I showed him hours of footage of our fight against the massive Milgari ship and of our cleansing of the pirate threat around Gonk.

When I had finished my speech he had a concerned look on his face. "So, you are saying that I should believe that stuff you just showed me? Your little group of ships was able to take on that much firepower and live? I'm a scientist Mr. Grange. My test scores in grade school were among the highest on the planet. Much of what you just said does not seem possible."

I thought for a moment before standing. "Come with me. I am going to show you the drive we have in that little hauler out there. Keep in mind; we were able to travel through that nebula without an issue. That ship following us could not. Have a look at our drive mods and I think you will be convinced of our capabilities."

I gave Yacabucci the quick tour of the Lopez and her ion drive. His expressions were inquisitive as he let the technology soak into his brain. Fifteen minutes after the show had begun he sat back down in a chair. "Negative drives! And it's an elegant solution you have there. I can see where the speed would be a huge advantage. But that ship doesn't have much for shielding. That's not what you were fighting the Milgari with."

I concurred with Yacabucci's reasoning. But he was not yet fully convinced. "Come with me. I'll let you in on a little secret."

I took Yacabucci to the next hangar where our Defenders sat idle. "This, my friend, is a Blevin class Defender. We have made a few additions to her, additions that have allowed us to fight out there."

I continued, "The sole reason we brought you here was to see if you would be willing to join our team. We need your inhibitors to fight the Milgari. If your technology can hold their fleet in place, we can take down those cannons and that massive ship before they can be used against the Grid, or against Gonk for that matter. The Milgari are coming, it's only a question of when will they be here and will we be prepared."

I could tell Yacabucci was hesitant to make a decision. I offered him a helping hand. "I realize you have concerns over using this technology. I would have them too. Here is one place where we are willing to show some good faith. You went years with the pirates with only you knowing the secrets of how that field works. We are good with that arrangement."

"Design your system in private if you like; we will give you the means. Just give us a working system that we can deploy against the Milgari. If you want, set it up so that only you can activate it and then ride along in one of our ships. Your device, if it works on the Milgari ships, could be the one thing that keeps this sector free. That includes your own home world."

"Your accomplishments could one day be something that every Gonk youth is taught about in school. How it was a Gonkian that saved the sector!"

Yacabucci squirmed in his chair as his brain raced through the information that had been presented. "Mr. Grange. You know just how to hit a guy. I'm guessing you must have been a transport salesman in your former profession. I appreciate all that you have told me. My head is spinning at the moment. I need a few minutes to pull this all together if you don't mind."

I raised my hand as I walked towards the conference room door. "Take your time Mr. Yacabucci. When you reach a decision, just knock on the door, I'll be waiting just outside for your answer." I smiled as I closed the door behind me.

Two new Defenders were commissioned. The Falcon and the Fox had the latest of tech adaptations which included a phased mode for the ion cannon. The bolt would switch from positive to negative repeatedly during the short duration of the pulse, making it a much more deadly weapon as impacted materials would be pulled hard in one direction and then the other.

The Falcon's crew consisted of Maria Rodriguez and Hardy Haskel. The other crews were always giving Maria a hard time over her obsession with her appearance. If there was a mirror to be looked in, she was in front of it. Her piloting instincts were excellent with her shot timing being some of the best that we had seen.

Hardy Haskel was a quiet sort, a good engineer, but he had a fixation with Maria. Much of his daily effort was spent doing her bidding in an attempt to win favor. The behavior had us all shaking our heads, but it never interfered with him performing his duties so we kept out of his business.

The Fox was piloted by Deve Deitric. "D" as we called him, had earned his flying time as a body guard for hire. He was big and muscular with a closely shaved head and a goatee. He was an Omrin by birth, but he had spent most of his life working for several of the royal families on Amerex. Omrin's were a favored species for personal protection on the lighter gravity world of Amerex. The Ameries were slight of build. D's build was anything but slight.

D's engineer was Bubis Mulee. Everyone called him "Bub". No one knew where Bub was from, including Bub. He had been taken from his parents as an infant. They were travelers from a distant sector. Pirates had attacked their ship and killed his parents and their crew. The ship was then stripped of its equipment and the empty hull was thrust into a star to rid the galaxy of any evidence. The pirates that had done the deed were long since dead, Bub's history and origin with them.

Our newest team member was Robert Yacabucci. We had come to call him "Bucci". As a Gonk he was constantly taking a ribbing from the others over his suction cupped fingers until one day when he used those cups to stop a heavy forged plate from falling on Gy. From that point on having "cups" was a thing of respect.

Bucci had been hard at work on our first field inhibitor. "Chief, this thing is ready for a dry run. We can test it right here in the hanger if you like. I'll set up the field. You just need anything that is ionic to test it out."

I gave the go ahead and half an hour later a field was up in the middle of the hangar.

Yacabucci spoke, "OK. Slide that Bilson wrench across the floor, through the field."

Frig loosed the wrench and it slid through to the other side. "Now, somebody turn its auto-cal on and slide it back through there."

Gy obliged. The wrench made it one third of the way into the field before stopping. "Sweet! Now, Gy go pick it up, turn it off and slide it through again."

Gy responded, "I'm not stepping into that thing. You want it? You go get it!"

Gy crossed his arms as Bucci looked on. "OK, well, for any of you who don't fully understand ionics I guess it’s OK. The field won't hurt you. It’s not strong enough and living organisms rarely have more than a tiny ionic presence. Worst case is you would feel a slight tug, but nothing that would hurt you."

Bucci walked into the center of the field, picked up and turned off the Bilson wrench and then tossed it out of the field to Frig. "Now, Frig, turn that wrench back on, strap it into your tool belt and walk through that field."

Frig complied and began his walk. Again, a third of the way into the field and the wrench came to a standstill, this time fully attached to Frig's belt and holding him in place.

Yacabucci continued, "The field draws its power from the surrounding space. Positive ions will trigger a gravitational mechanism, a force that we still do not fully understand. It restricts any movement of the ions, which in turn holds the wrench in place. If you take that same wrench outside of this field, hold it out to your side and let it go, what happens? It falls to the floor."

"We all know that's because of the gravitational force given off by this planet. We all accept that it works, but we don't know why. Just think of this inhibitor in the same way, we don't know how it works, it just does. That is the best explanation I can give you. I won't be telling you how it works; only that it does. Accept it as you do gravity."

With the dry run and our science lecture concluded, we were ready to take the field into space. "We will need at least three ships to construct an inhibitor web, optimally four. I will be riding in one of those ships with the controller module. You lose the controller, you lose the field. It should give you extra incentive to keep me alive."

Yacabucci grinned and spoke. "The controller will send out a wave to each of the other three ships, assuming we have four, and that wave will be bounced from there to each of the other ships. Takes a short period of time for the web to fill in, but we are only talking minutes all the way out to a quarter of a light-year. If any of you were wondering, we will be adding an extra ion generator to each ship to handle the field load."

"Generating a field and maintaining a field takes very little power. Those generators will be needed once we have something stuck in the field. Once established, a single ship could be held so long as any one of those generators can feed the field. If you want to hold a fleet, well, that depends on how long the field has been there, the longer it's there the stronger it will be."

"Think of the field as having capacitance, maybe similar to an electronic charge. If you allow that charge to really build up it will take longer for it to dissipate once power is turned off. Holding a fleet in place will take a lot of energy, energy that we do not have. So, think of the fleet as being able to drain that field capacitance faster than we can fill it up. In layman’s terms, we could have anywhere from several hours of hold down to a few minutes, depending on the size of the fleet."

Yacabucci continued, "Had anyone known that little fact I'm sure the Gonk system would have been overrun soon after the fields went live. Nobody had interest in losing a fleet."

I thanked him for providing us with the understanding that he had. Each crew then returned to their ship to make preparations for our next raid. We would be attempting another run out to the Felgar sector. We had eight Defenders at the ready and crews who were eager to exact some revenge after our prior outing disaster.

Several team members had suggested we name the next commissioned Defender the Harley. While I thought it a fitting tribute given his sacrifice, I did not think it would be good for morale; who wanted a constant reminder of our losses? Not me.

During the ride out to Felgar we were entertained by the banter between Maria, Barg and Milly. Each of them were quick witted talkers that deployed their own brand of sarcastic humor to each and every conversation. The comic relief was a good distraction for the long journey.

Maria spoke, "Hey Barg, Milly tells me that you like your women to have one leg shorter than the other. If they try to run away, they circle around and end up right back with you! Hahahaha!"

Barg replied, "Hey, if it keeps them coming back then I call that a win! By the way, Milly tells me that you like your men heavily ionized. That way when they try to run you can use one of Bucci's fields to hold them in place!"

Milly commented on their conversation, "Both of you need to work on your material. Maybe practice your routines in a Rythium bar while tied up to a wall. I'd pay to fire a few needles at the both of you!"

If anything the ride was a team building experience, more so for those who found the sarcastic humor entertaining, a little less for everyone else. When we finally arrived at the Milgari base the seemingly endless stream of banter had died down to a trickle. When the views of the giant cannons came up on our monitors the idle chatter ended.

Frig spoke, "Sir, I'm counting 144 battleships, 176 cruisers, 356 destroyers and 695 frigates. And I am picking up signals from the far side of that fleet Sir. It appears that those two moons are the massive ships that carry those cannons. Looking at those two empty construction docks makes me think that two new cannons have just been installed or perhaps they are being installed as we speak. I think we need a closer look at those big ships Sir."

I looked over the information on my screen before giving the order. "Hammer, work your way around to the other side and take your time. If we tip them off to our presence we won't be able to do much of anything in this area. I'm guessing they are only still here because of their last encounter with us. They lost a few ships, but they were able to drive us back. There is nothing like a victory to instill confidence. Maybe we can use that against them. Either way, keep your tail down out there Hammer, there are sure to be pickets."

The Hammer spent nearly an hour snaking its way around the massive Milgari ships and back. They had news, big news. Barg spoke, "Chief, you aren't going to like it. Beyond those two big boats out there is another fleet, bigger than this one, and three more of those big ships. That is one massive invasion fleet Chief. Not sure I want to know where they are headed. If it's the Grid, they had better be firing up those gravity drives right now."

For three days we sat, watching and studying the Milgari base. The Hammer made an additional four runs to the far side of the Milgari fleet, each time there had been no change. The Milgari ships were all holding position. Our down time had been spent attempting to come up with a strategy for an assault. Nothing that had been put forward stood out. On the fourth day that all changed.

Frig spoke, "Sir, we have incoming ships. I am counting… 4,456 additional. This has to be their main fleet Sir. This places their total at nearly 7,000 ships. They are massing for an attack. I’m not sure what we could possible do at this point. Our little handful of ships would unlikely draw much attention from a fleet that size. I don’t think we offer much of a threat."

I stood and paced the deck of the Swift, scouring my mind for any possible way to stop or slow our enemy. I continued to come to the same conclusion. "OK, listen up. We are going to sit tight and continue to gather intel until they make a move. If it is towards the Grid we will fly out and give a warning. It may not be enough, but it is all we can do. If it’s the Prassi they are going after, maybe we can give them a hand."

"That Prassi fleet is way bigger than the 800 or so ships we have protecting the Grid. Maybe we can figure out a way to use these inhibitors to give them a hand. We somehow have to figure out a way to keep those massive ships from firing on their stations and planets. That is, if we can even convince them that we are there to help."

I continued, "If we can bring one of those massive ships to a halt, what are our chances of getting past their exterior guns again?"

This time Bucci replied, "Ah, Chief, if one of those ships is caught in the field there won’t be any external guns firing. All ion related equipment will be held in place, they won’t be able to fire. If we establish a field behind them and then move forward to capture a ship, we should be able to drop a few Defenders off the web. We can then attack using your negative engines and cannons. I don’t know how much you can do with two ships against one of those beasts. Given their size, you may only have five or ten minutes of hold, but at least you will have something."

I sat back in my chair and hit the comm. "Five minutes with none of those external guns is all we need. A quick fly around to destroy the external ports of those massive cannons will send them back to their repair docks. The question is… how do we keep the rest of the fleet off of us while we do this? If we have the web out to a quarter light-year, that places us only an eighth light-year away. That will put us just inside their visual range. We are small, but not that small."

The discussion carried on for hours before Barg injected an idea, "How about we rig up a partial Tantric shield on the side of each Defender? Should mask most of that visual and still allow us to broadcast that inhibitor field. We are already small, let’s make ourselves smaller!"

We got to work immediately on making use of our Tantric shields. They would be programmed to ride only a few meters off the side of the Defenders, leaving only the transducer probe protruding from the nose remaining as visible. A viable plan was beginning to take shape.

I spoke, "Once we have the field established with all eight ships, one or more can break away and do the assault. Bucci, how many do we need left to maintain that web?"

Several seconds passed before a reply came over the comm, "Technically, only two if you already have a ship captured. You can maintain the field with two. But given the size of those beasts, two ships won’t hold one for long, maybe three or four minutes tops if you are starting with a full field."

"If it was up to me, I would come in with a full field from all eight of us, capture a ship, and then have one break off to assault while five others break off to establish a new field in front of that ship, a field that we can build and take on to the next one. That only works if one ship can take out those cannons."

After Bucci’s comment, Frig typed away at his keyboard. "Sir, if our goal is only to disable those cannons it will take one ship 58 seconds to accomplish that task from the time it leaves the web, 26 seconds to fly in and 22 to circle the cannon ports. But that only takes care of one of those ships, there are five."

"If we adopt a rolling strategy we may be able to get all five. Four ships establish a web, ensnare a Milgari and then three hold it while the fourth does what’s needed. In this manner, we can attack two of those ships at once. Given the prior response times of the Milgari fleet ships we should have the second set of two ensnared and finished just before they arrive. At that point one team of four goes to stop the fleet while the other takes care of the final ship. From the first ensnarement, we should be able to take out all five ships in less than six minutes Sir."

Frig continued, "But there are many variables that will come into play. If the big ships are nicely lined up for us, if the Milgari fleet is slow to react, if the cannons from the other big ships cannot be used against us while we have one ensnared. Those factors and others could play heavily into this type of plan."