My Other Car is a Spaceship (37 page)

With
out power, the force field generators protecting the hangars failed, venting all remaining atmosphere into space. Hundreds of pirates had eluded the radiation from the lab explosion; dozens of those even survived the atomic blast in protected areas far from ground zero. Very few had time to find airtight accommodations before it was too late.

Hal
turned to the others in the bridge of
Queen Anne’s Revenge
, on one hand grimly satisfied at the destruction of the pirate fortress, and on the other sick to his stomach at the loss of life, however necessary. When he spoke, it was barely above a whisper.

“Phase 4
complete. All we have left is Phase 5,
the Great Escape
.”

Inside the fortress’ command center, behind blast doors, Jern Ishtawahl and the others sat in near-darkness. Only a green glow illuminated the Pit.

“What
in Tammen’s name happened?” Ishtawahl asked.

Mek shrugged. “Judging by the readings before the
sensors stopped working, I would say someone detonated a nuke inside the fortress. That is what knocked out our power.”

Ishtawahl
frowned. “
WHAT?
But how? The last working nuke was loaded aboard Tro’s ship hours ago— Ah. Someone has taken the ship.” He sighed. “So much for independent backup power. What is our status now?”

“Not good,” Mek sighed. “The blast door saved us—we must not have been in direct line
of the blast—but only for now. It is still warm in here, but without power, it will cool soon enough. It will be well below freezing in here within hours. And without power, the air processor is offline, so we will get no new air, and what we have will be depleted in a few hours. Even if there is a safe haven somewhere in the fortress, there is no way to open the blast door from inside without power.”

“And the light?”

“Running off batteries. With no power to recharge them, they will run out before the air and heat.”

Ishtawahl
grimaced. “So, with no hope of rescue in less than four days, we will be dead within hours one way or the other. The only question is whether we will suffocate before we freeze to death.”

MekFensal grimaced.
“Correct. Unless, of course, radiation kills us first.”

“Thank you for your succinct assessment.”

Ishtawahl then pulled his blaster and shot MekFensal in the face. He proceeded to shoot the other command center personnel. They scattered, attempting to evade slaughter. But as he was the only one armed and there was nowhere to go, the result was a foregone conclusion. It took only a few minutes to accomplish.

One person uses less air than
twelve.

In near-zero gravity it was not difficult to
drag the bodies of the others to the center of the Pit and stack them atop one another in a sort of pyramid, leaving room in the center for himself.

Their body heat will not last long, but it may buy me a few more hours.

Jern Ishtawahl burrowed inside his nest of corpses and waited to die. Seven hours later, the lights went out.

“By the way, Hal,” Kalen said with a smile, “it’s damn good to see you again.”

Hal grinned in reply from the pilot’s couch. “You too,
Captain. We can trade war stories later. Right now, I think it’s time to leave.”

“You bet. Take us out, pilot.”

“Roger that.”

Hal turned
Queen Anne’s Revenge
and slowly headed for the shield wall. There was no need for speed now.

“This could get tricky,” Hal muttered.

“What’s the problem?” Kalen asked.

“We still don’t know the safe passages out of the shield walls, or whether this ship has the latest pass
codes to get past the automated defenses safely. The ones in the shield walls are undoubtedly self-powered. What happened here didn’t change that. Plus this ship is considerably larger than
Adventurer
was, making it harder to maneuver between asteroids—especially when trying to evade missiles.”

“So you didn’t have this part of the plan all worked out in advanced?”
Kalen teased.

Hal snorted. “Hell, I didn’t think we’d live long enough to
get
this far. I figured we’d either buy it on the way in, or while trying to take the ship. After that, the plan simply consisted of ‘escape’.”

“
I understand. I think the obvious move would be to ask Captain Tro. He has just as much interest in seeing the ship get past the defenses as we do.”

“Good point.
I’ll ask one of the strike team to bring him up. In the meantime…” he looked to his right at Mynax, sitting in the captain’s chair. “Spelvin, I think it’s time to turn command over to Captain Jeffries.”

Mynax
nodded. “All too happy to do so. I’m an administrator at heart. I’m not really cut out for this sort of thing.”

Kalen smiled and then grew formal. “
Captain Mynax, I relieve you.”

Mynax’s eyes twinkled. “
Captain
Mynax—I like the sound of that; but I think I prefer my role as
Commissioner
Mynax. Captain Jeffries, I stand relieved. You have command.” With that, he mentally transferred command access of the ship’s systems to Kalen.

Mynax rose and ceded the
captain’s chair to Kalen.

“
Captain!” Hal yelped. “There’s a pirate ship leaving the hangar on the far side of the asteroid. They must have gotten their shields up in time. Should I fire on them?”

“Are they powering up weapons?”

“No sir, just shields.”

“Then let them go.”

“But Captain, we’ll just have to fight them at some point in the future, when we might not have the advantage.”

“Maybe so, but I’m not going to fire on a ship that’s simply trying to escape from that inferno we created in there. If they fire on us, destroy them; otherwise, let them go.”

“But—”

“Besides, if they know the way out, we can follow them.
Then we won’t have to trust Captain Tro to get us out of here alive.”

“Aha. There
is
method to your madness. Roger that.”

Hal maneuvered behind the other ship, ready to take the same path through the shield wall. The ship headed for a gap between two asteroids.
A thousand meters before it arrived, twin APCs from each asteroid lanced out and danced across the ship’s forward shield. Then two quems arrowed at the ship’s belly, disrupting the shields long enough for the APCs to cut through and slice the ship into three chunks, spewing atmosphere and fluids.

The engine blew in a tremendous explosion, sending wreckage and shrapnel in every direction, including straight back into
Queen Anne’s Revenge
. Her shielding held, but Hal immediately reversed thrust and heeled the ship over to starboard. He allowed her to drift until she was two kilometers from the shield wall.

“That’s not a good sign.”

“No, it’s not,” Kalen replied. “Not good at all. It looks like we need to talk with Captain Tro after all.”

“Suppose we don’t try to leave,” Mynax ventured.

Kalen frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Another pirate ship is bound to arrive eventually.
That’ll make two ships. We can escape together.”

“A nice thought, but doubtful. There’s no telling how long that might
take and we don’t have unlimited supplies. Even assuming a pirate ship can get through the defenses, there’s every chance they’d attack us as soon as they realized who we were. Then, if we survived the fight, we’d be weaker than we are now when we eventually try to escape.”

Mynax
frowned and then nodded. “You’re probably right.”

Several minutes
later, Kelmalar and GleyRepnal arrived, summoned by Hal’s call, each holding a blaster on Captain Feshen Tro.

Kalen took the lead. “
Captain Tro, we have a small problem we need your help with.”

A faint smile played on
Tro’s lips. “My help? You are flying me back to Unity headquarters to be imprisoned and executed. Why would I want to help you?”

“I should think you would want to ensure t
hat your ship and your crew get past the shield walls intact.”

Hal cut in. “I’ve checked and you have security passcodes in the computer
dated yesterday. Are they current for today, or are we going to have trouble with the shield wall defenses?”

Tro thought for a
moment. “They are today’s codes; however, that may not matter. The shield wall defenses are in constant contact with the fortress, to receive updated passcodes or changes in orders—such as manual overrides—and so the fortress can monitor their status. But as an additional security measure, they are programmed to go into lockdown mode if they lose contact with the fortress. That means all passcodes are voided. The defenses will fire on any ship attempting to arrive or depart.”

“Wonderful, just wonderful. So how do we get out of here?”

Tro shrugged. “This is the most advanced ship in the pirate fleet, one of the most sophisticated anywhere. She has powerful offensive and defensive weaponry, but even this ship cannot make it through both shield walls. The defenses will cut us to pieces.”

“Yes, we just saw a demonstration of that,” Kalen replied.

“I am afraid we are stuck here until someone arrives from the outside to free us. And it might take an entire fleet to fight their way through.”

Hal coughed
out a bitter laugh. “You mean like the Unity fleet you pirates destroyed?”

He shook his head
in frustration. “So all this was for
nothing
? We’re going to die here anyway?”

Tro shrugged.
“Ironic, is it not?”

“That’s not the word
I
would have chosen.”

“There has to be
some
way out of this cage,” Mynax fumed. “We just have to find it.”

“Let’s think about this logically,” Kalen suggested. “What do we have to work with?”

Hal shrugged. “This ship, obviously, with all its weapons and defenses—quems, APCs, lasers, MDs, and so on.” He turned to Captain Tro. “Is there anything about this ship, beyond the obvious, that might help us?”

“There is the second nuke. You used
others to force your way in initially, did you not?”

“Yeah
, but we had two of them, and other ships with two each.”

“It is a start.”

“True.” Hal paused a moment, staring off into space. “In fact, it’s more than a start. Tell me if I’ve missed anything. I’m guessing that the area directly ahead of the hangar opening got hosed with the electromagnetic pulse, so the weapon sensors should be fried. I don’t know how wide that safe zone is, or how deep, so we’d have to feel our way along. Even if we manage to get all the way through the
inner
wall without attack, it’s unlikely the
outer
wall’s defenses would be damaged by the EM pulse. They’d be shielded by the asteroids forming the inner wall.

“
But we have the second nuke to use on the outer wall. It’ll fry some weapons, too, even if the burst isn’t as focused as the one from inside the fortress. That should get us at least part way through the outer wall. But enough for us to fight our way out? I don’t know.”

He turned to
Captain Tro. “You know this ship and the fortress’ defenses better than we do. What do you think?”

“I think you may have a point. Can your missile tech modify the warhead to intensify the EMP?
That might increase the missile’s effectiveness.”

“It’s certainly worth asking. I’ll get Giffen up here and we can work out
the details.”

“I have added a nickel shell to the casing, to increase the X-ray and gamma emissions somewhat,” Giffen Moritha Brih said with a shrug of her narrow shoulders. Somehow that gesture made her look even more froglike than usual. “It is not a true enhanced-radiation weapon, in the sense of a neutron bomb. But I have done as much as I can without a fully equipped laboratory to redesign the warhead. You will get a stronger radiation effect, but with a corresponding decrease in blast effectiveness.”

Kalen acknowledged her work of several hours with a nod. “Thanks, Giffen. Every little bit helps. If the additional output knocks out even one or two addit
ional weapon emplacements, that has to improve our odds. Get ready to deploy, but don’t load it until I tell you. We’ll need the other missiles first.”

“Aye,
Captain.” She left the bridge to return to the missile room.

Kalen looked around the
bridge at Hal, Mynax, Kelmalar, and Tro. “Well, gentlemen, I guess we’ve put this off long enough. Unless one of you has something else to discuss, I say let’s get this over with.”

“I wish you would reco
nsider and use Mos as the pilot,” Tro said. “I am sure your pilot is good, but he cannot know
Queen Anne’s Revenge
like Mos does. She has piloted this ship for more than two years and dozens of missions. Your man has had only a few hours of simulator time to become acquainted with the ship. That could be the difference between life and death in a crisis.”

Kalen nodded. “I understand your point,
Captain. But Hal has served with me for more than two years as well. He and I know how the other thinks. He won’t hesitate when I give him an order in the heat of battle.
That
can be the difference between life and death as well. Besides, I know I can trust him to be on my side. I can’t say that about your pilot.”

Tro acknowledged the point with a nod.
“Very well, Captain. The good news is that if you are mistaken in your decision, we will not have long to regret that choice.” He flashed a wry grin. “May I stay here during the attempt? I may be able to offer some technical expertise.”

“Of course,
Captain Tro. Good idea. I just need your word as an officer and a gentleman that you will not attempt to subvert our operation of this ship.”

“A gentleman? I am no
man
, gentle or otherwise. However, you have my word as an officer.”

“
Good enough. Hal? Take us in, please.”

“Roger. Shields at maximum.”

He eased
Queen Anne’s Revenge
forward, aiming for the gap between asteroids that they had identified as the center of the ‘dead zone’—the path the EM pulse would have taken through the wall. Because not all asteroids housed weapons and some asteroids shielded others from the EMP, it was impossible to predict from where the attacks might come. All that those aboard ship could do was take the threats one by one and hope for the best.

Here we go.

With sensors set to maximum sensitivity, Hal and
Queen Anne’s Revenge
entered the inner shield wall at a moderate rate of speed—too fast and he’d have trouble negotiating the gaps between the asteroids; too slow and they’d get pounded by whatever defenses remained.

We should be okay on these first few rocks. The EMP had to play havoc with whatever defenses are there. It’s the next few that we have to worry about.

The first attack came from the port side. It was only a single quem, accompanied by one APC blast. The ship’s shields had no problem fending them off, and a single shot by Hal was enough to take out the missile launcher. Without that, the APC couldn’t do much.

That was just the appetizer. The next bunch of asteroids are likely to be untouched by the EMP.

The ship emerged from between two asteroids into a void.

At least now I can see what’s up ahea—

Multiple laser emplacements blasted the shields on all sides. Hal corkscrewed the ship to try to keep the lasers from concentrating on one section of shielding. He released eight decoys that mimicked the energy signature of
Queen Anne’s Revenge
. Several emplacements fell for the decoys, lessening the impact on the shields.

With fewer
APC blasts splashing off the shields, he could better see where he was going. Hal goosed the ship toward the gap between the next set of asteroids. He knew beyond them lay the empty band between the shield walls.

The
decoys and chaff were not always successful in distracting incoming missiles. The ship rocked from first one, then another, and then a third impact, weakening the shields and allowing some of the APC blasts to stab through to the hull itself. Alarms shrieked, but Hal didn’t need them to know the ship was ailing. Sensors clamored for his attention, registering atmospheric loss on one deck and a coolant leak on another.

“Repair crews to Decks 2 and 5, ASAP!”
The lack of a trained crew aboard ship didn’t help.

Hal launched electronic chaff, more decoys, and fired on two of the missile launchers. He destroyed one and damaged the other such that
when the next missile ignited it jammed in the cradle and blew itself and the launcher into a million pieces.

Two other missile emplacements continued to fire, along with the four
APCs.
Queen Anne’s Revenge
took impact after impact, her shields dissipating incredible amounts of energy—much more than
Adventurer
could have done. The ship passed within range of a gee mine, which latched onto her. But she was too powerful for a single gee mine to do more than briefly slow it down.

As amazing as this ship is,
she can’t take much more of this. We have to get out of here—ASAP.

He fired
quems, APCs, and lasers, destroying three of the defensive APC emplacements and one more missile launcher.

A
quem weakened the aft shield and the last remaining antiproton cannon fired a blast that penetrated the midsection of the ship, knifed into the machine shop, and killed GleyRepnal instantly. The airtight hatch slammed shut, sealing the room from the rest of the ship.

A moment later,
Queen Anne’s Revenge
squirted through into the eight-kilometer gap between the inner and outer shield walls. The defensive APC on the inner wall took one last shot at the ship, but missed.

Hal
took a deep breath and let it out. “That’s one shield wall down and one to go.”

Yeah, the easy one down, and the hard one to go.

For a split-second, Hal had an image of the fortress as a medieval castle and the shield walls as the stone battlements guarding the castle. The gap between walls formed the moat.

Then
the weapons on the outer wall opened up.

“Here come the moat dragons,” Hal chortled, drawing a puzzled look from Kalen.

At least Hal now had some open space in which to maneuver. He was able to jink and jive enough to slip some of the missiles while shooting at the others. That gave him a fraction of his brain to spare for discussion as he continued to weave and counterpunch.

“Kalen,
I’m worried about the starboard midship shield. The shield generator is still operating, but it can’t take the sort of pounding it just went through.”

“
Is there anything we can do to take some of the strain off that shield?” Kalen asked.

Hal shrugged. “If we were dealing with one enemy ship, I could rotate
Queenie
to keep the weak shield facing away from the attacker, but with weapons firing from all sides, that’s impossible. I can expand the field size of the fore and aft shields on the starboard side to overlap the midship shield, but then we’re stretching those shields thin. Still, that’s probably safer than leaving the midship area exposed. I recommend evacuating the starboard side of the ship and sealing all hatches beforehand, to minimize casualties should the shield fail.”

“Makes sense.”

“Yeah, but if the fore and aft shields are weakened by covering the midship, that exposes the bridge and the engine room.”

Kalen sighed. “Damned if
we do, damned if we don’t.” He shrugged. “All we can do is shore up the weak links and hope everything holds together.”

“That’s the idea. I could try to shift power to whichever shields the missiles target, on the theory that the
APCs will hit the same spots after the quems weaken them. But if an APC misses its target, or if I turn the ship too far trying to slip a missile, it’s possible the APC blast will hit a weaker shield instead of the one I’ve reinforced. So maybe that tactic is self-defeating.”

Kalen shook his head. “Don’t overthink it.
It sounds like a reasonable approach, as long as you can shift power fast enough. No matter what strategy we use, there’s a strong chance we won’t get out of here alive. Just do your best.”

“Will do. Cross your fingers.
” Hi eyes went out of focus. “Aha!
Gotcha!
That was the last of the long-range weapons on the backside of the first wall.”

Kalen flashed a crooked smile.
“All right, then. Let’s do it.” Kalen toggled the shipwide intercom. “Everyone evacuate the starboard side of the ship for now. Hang onto your hats, we’re going in.”

Hal eased
Queen Anne’s Revenge
forward toward the chosen gap between asteroids. At a range of two kilometers, the four nearest asteroids launched missiles—one each at first, and then a second wave.

Hal punched out a series of countermeasures
: chaff and decoys. Without an experienced crew to help him, he was forced to handle all the offensive and defensive weapons himself. Two missiles detonated away from the ship. One missed. Hal fired lasers and picked off two more. He then shot at the missile launchers. Despite his twisting and bucking, the sixth incoming missile struck the starboard fore shield and the others hit the port and starboard midship shields. The asteroid APCs fired at the same targets.

“Shields are holding—for now.”

Hal’s return fire destroyed three launchers and damaged the fourth. He then blasted the APCs.

“Now comes the tricky part.”

He couldn’t simply launch the nuke into the middle of the shield wall and detonate it, because it was likely the defenses would attack it before it reached its target. So Hal had to find a way to keep the defensive weapons at bay; but he also couldn’t fly the ship behind the missile to defend it because he had to stay far enough back that he could hide behind an asteroid for protection from the blast and EMP.

He launched two decoys into the next gap ahead, followed seconds later by two more decoys. Once they entered the gap, they split up, forcing the defenses to take on four separate targets.

“There go the defenses. Eight defensive missiles fired, four APCs following up, as expected.” He paused for a moment. “Poof, no more decoys.”

H
al then fired two missiles, specially modified with scraps of metal and spare parts from the machine shop crammed into packages affixed to the noses of the warheads. As soon as defensive missiles approached, the warheads exploded, sending hundreds of pieces of debris in every direction. The shrapnel shredded the incoming missiles and damaged one of the launchers and one of the antiproton cannons.