Farthest Space: The Wrath of Jan (13 page)

“It’s a Klaxon ship, Captain.
 
Their largest—a war-bat.”

“The Klaxons are currently our allies,” Steven said thoughtfully.

“On paper, yes.
 
That wouldn’t prevent them from taking advantage of a Patrol vessel if they thought they could get away with it.”

“Why didn’t we spot them earlier?”

“They were hiding over the magnetic pole of the fifth planet, making them invisible to our sensors.”

“Great.
 
As soon as I get the lifepods upgraded, remind me to redesign our sensors so they don’t have any blind spots.”
 
He scowled at the viewscreen.
 
“Hiding over the magnetic pole isn’t very friendly.
 
I think we can safely assume these Klaxons are not allies.”

“With the Klaxons, you never know,” Vaish said.
 
“Then again, they may not be Klaxons at all.
 
There are still thirty-four of Jan’s followers unaccounted for.”

Steven nodded as if the same thought had occurred to him.
 
And Vaish knew the thought didn’t make him happy, either.
 
If Jan’s people had taken over a second ship, they might even now be rematerializing on board the
Arisia
.

“Open a channel,” Steven said.

Vaish flipped a switch.
 
“Klaxon vessel,” he said.
 
“We are a Patrol ship, on our way back to
Alliance
space.
 
We only have peaceful intentions.”

A beam of particles shot out from the Klaxon war-bat, narrowly missing the
Arisia
.

“Shit!” Fred yelped.

“Don’t panic, Fred.”
 
Vaish flipped the switch off.
 
“It appears
their
intentions are less than peaceful.”

“You think?”
 
Steven glared at the viewscreen.
 
“Open the channel again.”

She did so, and he spoke again.
 
“Klaxon vessel, hold your fire or you will compel us to defend ourselves.
 
Our weaponry is significantly more powerful than your own.
 
We don’t wish to destroy you, but we will do so if necessary.”

The viewscreen flickered, and Jan’s smiling face appeared.
 
Obviously Jan and her followers had been dematerialized off Harmon IV by the war-bat the minute the
Arisia
had left the planet.
 

“You’ll find, Captain, that none of your weaponry is in working order right now.
 
You’re helpless… and totally at our mercy.”

“Marvelous,” Steven said.
 
“Just peachy.”

It was bad enough to face down a lunatic once.
 
Dealing with said lunatic twice, when the lunatic kept popping up like a bad credit, was really more than any man should have to do in a day.
 
Steven was definitely going to demand a raise when he got back to headquarters.

If
he got back to headquarters.

“Surrender the
Arisia
to us, Captain.”

“Screw you,” Steven replied pleasantly.

“How nice of you to offer.
 
That will be an enjoyable side benefit of your capture, of course.
 
But the
Arisia
is what we really want.”

“You plan to keep on wandering around the galaxy, appropriating ships until you have an armada?”

“It’s worked rather well so far.
 
We’ve acquired quite a lot of firepower in two days.”
 

Silently Steven had to admit that was true.
 
A Klaxon war-bat and the flagship of the Patrol could do a lot of damage together.
 
Most ships in this sector would assume them to be allies, and wouldn’t realize their error until it was too late.
 
It would probably be quite possible for Jan to take numerous ships without firing a shot.

Not a good situation at all.

He toggled the viewscreen off.
 
“Fred,” he said, “are our weapons operational?”

“My readouts show they are.”

“Hmmm,” Steven said.
 
“Launch a quantum torpedo.”

Two very long seconds elapsed, then Fred spoke, sounding embarrassed.

“I can’t seem to do that, Steven.”

“How about the particle weapons?
 
Can you access those?”

Two more long seconds went by.
 
“I’m afraid not, sir.”

“Damn.
 
How about the shields?
 
Are they operational?”

Fred uttered a very human-sounding sigh.
 
“No.”

Steven swore under his breath with great feeling while he considered his options.
 
He didn’t like the only solution that sprang to mind.

“Well,” he said at last, “a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

Vaish looked over at him expectantly, doubtless expecting him to pull a rabbit out of his hat.
 
Unfortunately, he was fresh out of rabbits.

“Fred,” he said, “top speed.
 
Let’s get the hell out of here.”

*****

The
Arisia
lurched to near lightspeed, the Klaxon war-bat on its tail.
 
Unfortunately, Vaish thought, the
Arisia
had no real advantage here.
 
As long as they were within 150 million kilometers of the star, neither of them could exceed lightspeed.
 

The Klaxon vessel raced behind them, occasionally spitting particle beams.
 
“They won’t hit us,” Vaish said with more confidence than she felt.
 
“They want this ship in one piece.”

“They’re probably aiming at the engines,” Steven said.
 
“They want to stop us with minimal damage.
 
They must realize that if we get to hyperdrive, they won’t be able to catch us.”

A particle beam struck the
Arisia
, and the big ship shuddered.
 
“Fred!” Steven snapped.
 
“Evasive maneuvers!”
 
The ship began to roll as Fred sent it first in one direction, then in another.
 

“She’s trying to kill us,” Fred whined.

“It’s all right, Fred,” Vaish said, trying to dredge up a philosophical attitude through the terror pounding through her own veins.
 
“If Jan hits us, she hits us.
 
Today is a good day to die.”

“It’s never a good day to die,” Fred retorted.

“I happen to agree with Fred,” Steven said.
 
He yanked the small keyboard and monitor on the arm of his chair toward him.
 
“Let’s see if we can get the weapons and shields back on line.”

“That would certainly be helpful,” Vaish said.

Another particle beam struck the
Arisia
’s tail.
 
“Ow,” Fred griped.
 
“That hurt.”

“It was just a lucky shot, Fred.
 
Keep it together.”

Fred rolled the ship in a violent motion that would have squished them like bugs if not for the g-force compensators.
 
“This woman,” he announced, “is starting to piss me off.”

“You and me both, buddy,” Steven replied, his fingers racing over the keyboard.

“I find myself mildly irritated as well,” Vaish said.

“Mildly irritated
.”
 
Steven shook his head, his eyes still trained on the monitor as he worked.
 
“Stars, Vaish, sometimes you scare me.”

“I think you would do better to reserve your fear for the woman trying to shoot you,” Vaish remarked, a little more acid in her voice than she had intended.

Steven grinned.
 
“I’ve rarely met a woman who doesn’t want to shoot me at least once.”

“You do tend to have that effect on people.
 
I know I’ve been tempted to shoot you on more than one occasion.”

“I didn’t know you cared, Vaish.”

She bristled, finding it easier to be angry with Steven than terrified of the fact that they were likely to be blown apart within moments.
 
“I don’t.”

“Uh-huh.
 
Sure.”
 
He looked up from the monitor.
 
“Okay, Fred, try it now.”

They both watched the viewscreen, but nothing happened.
 
A ringed planet slid by in a wild dance as the ship spun and whirled its way through an evasive maneuver, but no weapons fire emerged from the bow.

“Shit,” Steven said.
 
“I thought I’d gotten around the password they installed.”

“It would appear that you were wrong,” Vaish answered.

The ship shuddered and listed violently.
 
“Hell,” Steven said.
 
His fingers flew.
 
“Okay, Fred, try it now.”

A lovely, rainbow-colored stream of particles lanced out from the ship’s bow, and Vaish let out a breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding.
 
She’d never seen anything so beautiful in her life.

“Nice going,” Fred said.
 
He sounded exuberant, like a fifteen-year-old boy who’d just gotten into a low-altitude speeder for the first time.
 
“Let’s go kick some blue Noo’dis’t ass.”

“By all means, let’s,” Vaish agreed, dropping her hands onto the controls.
 
In tight quarters, she’d always preferred to do her own steering.
 
Although Fred was quick, he wasn’t as intuitive as a flesh-and-blood person.
 
In response to the warmth of her fingers and her fingerprint, the steering instantly reverted to her control.
 

“Go for it,” Steven said.
 
“But let’s try not to kill them.”

“They were trying to kill
us
,” Fred pointed out.
 
“Besides, they singed my ass.”

“We’ll patch up your ass, Fred.
 
But we don’t go around killing people unnecessarily.
 
It’s against the Patrol code.
 
So let’s try to take them alive, okay?”

Vaish slammed the steering device hard to the right, and the ship dove to starboard.
 
“Stars,” Steven said, clutching the arm of his chair as the ship executed a tight turn and spun around to face its pursuer.
 
“You’ve always driven like a maniac.”

Vaish didn’t answer.
 
She was too busy aiming the
Arisia
at the war-bat and accelerating hard.
 
She imagined the panicked screams coming from within the other ship as they approached at high speed.
 
Beams of multicolored light lanced wildly at them, but none came close to hitting them.

“They may have managed to capture a couple of ships,” Steven said, “but they can’t aim worth shit.”

Vaish ignored him.
 
“Fred!” she said sharply.
 
“Strafing run, now!”