Event Horizon (Hellgate) (3 page)

“Neil, they’ve asked me to take Tactical. What am I shooting at? I’ve got nothing in the tank big enough to call a target.” His voice was taut.

“Power up the cannons and Aragos, and standby,” Travers told him. “
Harlequin
, can you hear me now?”

“Reading you 12/17,” Asako Rodman responded. “Tell Vidal to reconfigure – he’s looking for ships, and he won’t be seeing ’em. Scan in the four-meter range, and smaller.”

“Roark, that’s boulder size,” Vidal protested. “You got a meteor shower coming out of Hellgate?”

“Mick, that’s
pod
size,” Hubler corrected. “Some kind of acceleration shells, we’re counting five of them – they punched out of the Drift like a volley of freakin’ artillery and vectored ’emselves in on the
Wastrel
and Oberon, soon as they were clear to maneuver. I never saw anything like ’em before. They’re not Fleet hardware, not Freespacer tech, and you know what
that
means. Shit, hold on – we’ve got a clear shot, we’re going to take it.”

A peppering of red enunciators winked on in the helmet display, and Travers’s eyes narrowed as he watched. The
Harlequin
had taken on a full warload at the orbital yards at Ulrand, and to his knowledge she had not fired a shot since. The same impressive cannons that had seen service in the Freespacer battle there were hot again, and sensors counted sixteen rounds delivered dead on-target, on the closest of the bogeys. He held his breath now, hoping, wishing he knew how to pray, but as the interference from the blasts cleared his sensors told him the same truth they told Hubler and Rodman.

“No joy,” Rodman called bitterly, “and that’s the best we got.”

And Hubler, a moment later: “You seeing this, Mick? They have to be shielded. We didn’t even knock the little bastards off-vector.”

“Get out of there,” Vidal advised. “They haven’t returned fire, but we’re not assuming they’re unarmed. With these guys, who knows?”

“They’ll be armed, count on it,” Marin said emphatically, “but in craft this size they won’t have ordnance to burn. Do like the man says, Rodman – get out while you can. Show them a sitting target, and they’ll take a crack at it.”

“We’re gone,” Rodman sang.

Sensors showed a fierce heat bloom at the
Harlequin
’s position as the engines lit up brightly, and Travers called, “Are you tracking unknowns yet, Mick?”

“Not yet,” Vidal told him, “but the
Harlequin
just bounced her data right to Etienne. It’s only blind luck she was out there, close enough to see them. Mark Sherratt will tell you, these raids normally have no warning, no lead time. Ask Curtis. He knows so much about this crap, it’s a wonder he can sleep.”

“I guess we got our personal guardian angel,” Ingersol breathed. “Uh, Neil, I looked at the inbound tracking data from Fridjof Prime, back at Ulrand, when you guys fought there, at the refinery … same deal?”

“Same deal,” Travers muttered. “Mick, you getting anything now?”

Vidal’s body might still have been frail but his mind was almost as sharp as it had ever been. “I’m trying, Neil. There’s just too much bloody interference from Oberon, I’m
still
not seeing shit. Richard!”

“Right here.” Vaurien’s voice was the sole note of calm in the loop. “I’m coming to you, Michael. Take a deep breath, and recalibrate.”

“Already did that. Whatever Roark’s seeing, they’re too small to pick up at this range through this swamp of background white noise.”

“Understood.” Vaurien did not skip a beat. “Etienne, bring the deep scan platform online.
Harlequin
, you hearing me?”

“Yo,” Rodman called. “You want realtime coordinates.” Not a question.

“Best you can guesstimate,” Vaurien affirmed. “Relay what you have direct to the AI. Michael, use the deep scan to derive a firing solution and configure the Aragos, get some shielding between us and them.”

The
Wastrel
’s deep scan platform was the sensor array from a Resalq research vessel. It was designed for observing stellar phenomena, and far more sensitive than the close-range sensors which normally guided the guns. Vidal swore quietly. “Damnit, I’m getting slow. I should’ve thought of that.”

“No,” Marin argued. “You’re used to the resources of a warship. You’re still trying to adjust to think civilian. Richard, we’re outside. Where do you want us?”

“Pick your ground,” Vaurien offered. “Nowhere’s going to be safe, and you’re already wearing the toughest armor this side of Zunshu space itself. Michael, any joy?”

And Vidal, as appalled as he was self-satisfied: “Oh, yeah. I’m seeing six,
Harlequin
, not five, but you pegged the size dead right. Just over the three meter mark … some weird-ass engine signature, doesn’t even
look
like an engine. The only thing I’ve seen that’s halfway similar –”

“Is the signature off the mines the Fleet battle group flew right into, at Velcastra,” Barb Jazinsky finished. “Oh yeah, these bogeys are Zunshu. No question about it now. Okay, Tully, I’ll take Ops – get moving. Weimann ignition procedures. Get us to jump minus three seconds and hold it right there.”

Ingersol: “Will do. You better check the highband. According to everything I’m seeing on sensors, those bloody fools on Oberon are charging up for another pulse. They blind us again, and we’re a sitting bloody duck.”

“Shit,” Jazinsky swore in a rasp. The comm clicked audibly as she switched up, and Travers almost winced as she bawled, “Danny Ramesh, are you listening to me? Ramesh!”

He was there at once. “Like I’m going anywhere? What the hell is your problem, Jazinsky?”

“Shut down your goddamned pulse generator,” she told him, “right now. Do it, Danny, or I swear I’m going to blow the emitter right off the shoulder of Oberon.”

He snorted a laugh that was terrible in its ignorance. “Yeah, right. Take a pill, go have a lie down. I might talk to you later when you’re making more sense.”

“They’re still feeding power to the emitter,” Richard warned. He touched his combug. “Doctor Ramesh, I should warn you, we’re serious.”

“You have
got
to be kidding me,” Ramesh groaned.

“Etienne, clear Starboard 22 and lock onto the Oberon J-band emitter. Standby to fire on my command,” Vaurien said in a tone like crushed velvet. The words carried clearly over the comm. “Ramesh, shut it down.”

“Or we’ll shut it down for you – permanently,” Jazinsky breathed.

Marin’s helmet turned toward Travers. His voice was a bare murmur. “Which is what we should have done hours ago.”

“This is the property of the taxpaying public of the Deep Sky,” Ramesh roared.

“All the more reason to go dark and keep it in one piece,” Vaurien said reasonably. “You have one minute, Doctor Ramesh. Etienne, countdown and fire on zero if the pulse emitter fails to deactivate. Acknowledge.”

“Fifty-eight,” Etienne said calmly. “Fifty-seven. Fifty-six.”

“Michael?” Vaurien’s voice betrayed nerves wound tight as steel hawsers.

“I’m glimpsing objects,” Vidal told him. “But they’re so damn’ small, target acquisition is going to be like spitting into a cyclone. Looks like two are vectored on the
Wastrel
, the rest are going for Oberon.”

And Jazinsky: “Time?”

“Maybe two minutes before they get to us,” Vidal judged, “three minutes before they reach Oberon. It’s difficult to be exact because they’re surfing on gravity fields, their velocity’s constantly changing.”

“And we,” Marin said darkly, “are unarmed, Neil.” He took a step away, in the direction of lock 9, but Travers’s gauntleted hand on his shoulder held him back.

“No time to get in to the armory. Come this way.” Travers was already moving, and thanking the old soldier’s gods that he knew this ship as well as he had ever known the
Intrepid
.

The loop hummed with data and he listened as the flock of pods raced up out of Hellgate with the speed and maneuverability that had always defeated the Resalq. The same tiny craft had dropped the Zunshu machines into Fridjof Prime, and the Fleet docks at Albeniz, absolutely without warning. They were so small, so fast, in almost every instance the target was overrun before defenses could come online.

And for hours Oberon had been transmitting, loud and strong, in the very bands the Zunshu passive listening devices monitored. Nothing natural fired such pulses. Only industry or science used the comm bands close to the e-space horizon. The command traffic of military and industrial drones was loud there; the big AI freight haulers that cut time-saving slingshots through the safer quadrants of Rabelais Space bounced signals through the J-layer, where tachyon fields vibrated in and out of e-space. But nothing natural emitted such signals, and the noise Oberon had been making, right on the skirts of the Drift, seemed to Travers like blood in the water.

Just aft of the rank of four-meter parabolic dishes was a code-sealed hatch. He had never actually handled it, but he had seen it on vidfeeds numerous times. Tech gangs often worked out here. Tully Ingersol was far more familiar with the
Wastrel
’s outer hull, and as Travers dropped to one armoured knee beside the hatch he called,

“Tully, you there?”

“Engine deck,” Ingersol responded. “What d’you need?”

“Give me the code for service hatch 68, aft of the four-meter dishes.” Travers adjusted the tint of his visor and surveyed an outsized keypad designed for massive, armoured hands.

Ingersol did not even have to think about it. “Alpha-gamma-2-4-9-kappa-delta. You’re doing what I think you’re doing?”

The gauntlets were thick enough, heavy enough, to make tapping in the code a frustrating exercise, though the keys were huge. “How long till the
Wastrel
can jump the hell out of here?” Travers whispered.

“Fifty seconds, but sublight engines are already hot and all three reactors are throttled up. We can at least give them a run for their money.” Ingersol paused. “Shit, Neil, you, uh, you guys did this at Ulrand, right? You beat them?”

“We beat them,” Marin said levelly. “In fact, we’ve beaten these bastards twice. And the
Wastrel
can jump out and escape, Tully – it’s the crew on Oberon that’ll be erased like they never existed. Ops room.”

“We have tracks on all bogeys,” Jazinsky told him. “Two headed for us, four going for Oberon like a school of sharks.”

“There’s almost fifty people on Oberon,” Travers said as he lifted the service hatch. A light flickered on in the trench beneath. “Bravo Company, where are you?”

The voice answering belonged to Judith Fargo, as Travers would have expected. She had earned the promotion to lieutenant, and she took the rank seriously. “Armed and in the hardsuits, in Hangar 4, boss, starboard side. We can freakin’
see
Oberon from here. You call it.”

The Capricorn was parked in Hangar 4, and Travers took a deep breath, weighing the risk before he said evenly, “There’s a bunch of ignorant, dumb civvies on Oberon, and they’re getting fragged unless we get between them and a squad of automata. You want to go kill some more Zunshu?”

“We can do that,” Fargo said without hesitation. “Perlman’s been prepping the Capricorn as a CYA fallback. She’s about one minute off flight ready. It’ll take another minute to get over there and dock. We got time?”

“Just,” Travers judged. “Make it fast, Judith, and – be careful.”

He was still speaking when Etienne counted down to five, and Danny Ramesh’s voice exploded into the loop. “Fuck you, Vaurien – we’re shut down, going dark. You’ll never work in the Deep Sky after this – you better take off for Freespace and keep running!”

Vaurien was far too busy to deal with Ramesh, and it was Jazinsky who answered. “Save the squealing for later, you little twerp, and while you’re at it, look at your bloody sensor displays. You should be seeing six marks, coming in from the Drift on a vector of 159/280, almost in line with Naiobe itself.” Ramesh began to bluster, and she cut him off with a roar. “You want to stay alive long enough to file your report, look at your goddamned data!”