Starhunt: A Star Wolf Novel (23 page)

Leen doesn’t answer right away. “Look, Al—that’s the whole point. This ship is a mess; I ought to know better than anyone. The phase-handling system that Korie had me jury-rig is—well, it’s not a regulation system. We’ve got parts in it cannibalized from three or four different ships. None of them was specifically designed to work with the others, so we get distortions, interferences, vibrations—the thing has to be nursed.” He leans across the worktable and switches on a monitor screen. “I want
you to take a look at something.” Punching buttons, “There. That’s a simulation. If the phase adapters are magnifying the vibrations of our inherent velocity against our warp, that’s the kind of patter we’ll get.”

Barak stares at the screen for a long moment—the shimmering lines on it are disturbingly familiar. A thought starts to take shape in his head—he shakes it away. “No, Chief—it couldn’t be.”

“The way the Hilsen units were tuned,” says Leen, “they could have acted as a focus.”

Barak goes silent. His gaze remains fixed on the screen, his face is creased into a dark frown. That shimmer is all wrong; its shape—

“Oh, look,” says Leen. “I could be wrong about this; but what if I’m not?” He says intently, “What about the spare that’s in there now? What do I do?”

“You say you’re not sure—?”

“Not without monitoring the actual adapters—”

“No, don’t do that. It wouldn’t look right now. What about the Hilsen units—are they back in tune?”

“Yes, but I don’t know how long they’ll stay that way—”

The astrogator is troubled and thoughtful “And you haven’t told anyone—not Korie? Not the captain?”

Leen shakes his head. “You’re the first. I can’t talk to Korie—or Brandt—” He breaks off without explaining. “Al?”

Abruptly, Barak makes a decision. “Chief—there’s only a day or two left to the search; then we’ll be turning home. Let’s just leave things like they are—you stash this adapter away and forget about it. I won’t say anything to anyone, neither will you. The search will end and we’ll go home. You can re-check the adapters at base and no one will be hurt.”

Leen’s eyes are skeptical. “You really think so, Al?”

The astrogator says slowly, “No, I don’t. But I don’t want to consider the alternative.” He reaches over and switches off the monitor.

In each ship there is one man who in the hour of emergency or peril at space can turn to no other man. There is one alone who is ultimately responsible for the sage navigation, engineering performance, accurate gunfire, and morale of his ship. He is the commanding officer. He is the ship!

—Bronze plaque, Office of Chief of
Fleet Operations

At zero three hundred hours and seventeen minutes, when the ship is at a low ebb of activity, an alarm—an electric and raucous scream—startles the crew into life.

Lights blink in confusion, fade out abruptly with just as much puzzlement, fade in again, then switch to battle-alert orange. Hurried footsteps, muffled curses, confused mutterings—men, pad-pad quickly down corridors. “What the—?” followed by others, swearing, “Come on! That’s an alarm! They’ve found something!”

Doors slam shut; there is the whoosh of air as compartments seal themselves off and pressurize. Emergency panels flash in indecision, then abruptly a voice—Barak’s—on the intercom: “All hands, battle stations! All hands, battle stations!”

“Dammit! I thought we weren’t going to have any more drills—”

“Shut up, you idiot! This isn’t a drill!”

“Huh—?”

“That’s Barak on the com. Let’s go.”

And suddenly, Korie is sliding through the tumult and confusion like an eel. Unruffled, he hurries surely down the narrow corridor to the bridge, still buttoning his tunic. Other men shoulder past him, some in various stages of undress, rushing to their battle stations. Korie starts
to bark an order, then checks himself. If they don’t know what to do by now, it’s too late to teach them.

The bridge is a bowl of organized confusion. Men stand before their boards, but are staring at Barak. The dark-skinned astrogator is standing on the command dais, one hand on the seat’s control, but he is looking toward a still-sleepy Jonesy on the astrogation console. “Where is it now?”

“Still flashing on the edges—”

“What’ve you got, Al?” Korie drops into the seat.

“Not sure—we’re picking up a persistent flash on the edge of our sensibilities. It’s too definite to be a will-o’-the-wisp, but—”

“Then it’s the bogie,” Korie snaps; he smiles—a thin flash of triumph.
I knew it. I knew it.

“I’m not so sure,” says Barak. “It’s still too vague to have a pattern.”

And then Brandt is on the bridge. “What is it?”

“The bogie!” Korie says exultantly, “I’ve got him.”

Brandt steps toward the seat, but Korie ignores him. Brandt covers by turning to Barak. “Let’s get it on the screen.”

Barak shakes his head. “It’s too vague to show in the gridwork. We’ve got it on the high-gain sensors; still too fuzzy to pinpoint.”

“We’re going in after it,” says Korie. He raises his voice to give the order. “Go to full warp.”

The officer at the pilot console looks back at them, the first officer, the astrogator, the captain—
but Korie is in the seat.

“Go to full warp!” Korie repeats.

Puzzled the man glances at Brandt—why didn’t the captain give or confirm the order? But he turns back to his console and obeys. After a moment, the gridwork begins flashing by faster.

“You getting it any clearer yet?”

“No, sir,” Jonesy says, “not yet. They could be running.”

Korie hits the chair arm. “Radec. What’ve you got?”

Rogers’ voice: “I don’t know, sir. We can’t make out a pattern—it’s a moving singularity, but that’s all—”

“All right. Stand by.” He switches off. To Jonesy, “How far is it? How long will it take to close with him?”

“Can’t say—it depends on a lot of things—I won’t be able to tell you until we get a clearer fix.”

Brandt interrupts, “Mr. Korie, that bogie may be beyond our reach—”

“We don’t know that yet—”

“He’s too far away for a clear scan.”

“Not for long—”

“And your ten days are almost up.”

“We can do it!” Korie insists. He stands suddenly. “I’m going back to the radec room.
I’ll
get a fix on him.” He darts from the bridge.

The radec room is flickery-dark; only the screens are bright. Korie lunges in and stops. Rogers is setting up a new routine on his board; the monitors flash with the shimmering vagueness—he clears them, cross-circuits, and starts again. Again, the same shimmer, no larger, no brighter. He sets up a third routine—“Nothing, sir.” He is curiously exultant, as if the elusiveness of the bogie is a personal attack on the first officer. He clears his board and starts over; every new scan he programs digs that much deeper into Korie.

The first officer watches with nervous impatience. Rogers’ able hands move skillfully across his console. “Can’t you pump more power into that scan?”

“Sorry, sir—I’m at maximum now. He seems to be maintaining his position in relation to us. He must be running. Wait a minute—” He adjusts a knob. “—No, he’s not quite maintaining his position. We’re gaining on him—I think—but very slowly.”

Korie mouths a curse under his breath—“Damn! This is where we were twelve days ago—” He turns to go. The corridor back to the bridge is troubled and oppressive.

“Well?” says Brandt, as Korie steps down into the pit.

“We’re gaining on him,” he replies, “but only slowly.”

Brandt lets his gaze meet that of Korie—the first officer is grim and pale. “I guess you know what that means—we’re going to have to let him go—”

“We can’t! Not after all this time! We’ve almost got him—”

“With what?!! You’ve got nothing left to fight him with—”

“We do!” Korie insists. “We have that extra margin—”

“We need that to get home—”

“We have enough for that and to catch him. He’s not as far as he was before; we can close with him in a few days.”

“And be left here without the power to return to base,” rumbles Brandt. “No, Mr. Korie, we’re going to have to let him go. You were given ten days to make the kill; they’re almost up. I can’t extend that deadline—we don’t have the power.”

“We have twenty days power left in the cells! We’re only thirteen days of travel from base.”

“We can’t throw away our safety margin!”

Korie glances at the captain; abruptly, he crosses the pit to the warp control board. He leans across the technician there, Wolfe, and stabs angrily at it. Above, a screen flashes with a bright blue graph. Korie takes a step back and looks at it. “Now, look—we can do it—”

The captain raises his voice, “I’m not going to argue, Mr. Korie!”

“If you don’t believe me—ask your own engineers.” Korie grabs at Wolfe, standing by the console, pulls him toward the captain. “Tell him.”

Brandt looks at the man. “Well?”

Wolfe looks from Korie to Brandt and back to Korie again. The first officer’s upper lip glistens with tiny beads of sweat.

“Well?” asks Brandt. “Is there power or not—?”

“Uh—” Wolfe is fascinated by the intensity in Korie’s face—by the power he suddenly holds over the man. It is too much—abruptly, he looks at the captain. Brandt
is every bit as intense, but there is something disturbing there—“Yes, sir. There’s power.”

Korie’s exhalation is a sharp, “I told you so.”

Wolfe adds. “There’s a five-day margin for error over and above the one that shows on the screens. We’re not supposed to count on it—”

“But it’s there, isn’t it?” demands Korie.

Wolfe nods. “Yes, sir, it is.”

“Thank you, Wolfe.” (Thank you for giving me back my bogie.) He turns to Brandt. “We can do it—we have to do it. If necessary, we can cut back to half power on the way home. We can spare five more days that way—six, even—”

“Korie, didn’t you hear him? We’re not supposed to count on it—” To Wolfe: “Why not?”

“Uh—because that’s the power that’s necessary to maintain threshold levels in the fields. If we had to unwarp for any reason, we wouldn’t be able to put them up again.” Wolfe mumbles the answer: he didn’t want to give it.

Brandt says to Korie, “You knew that, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir, but—”

“Never mind.” To Wolfe: “Go back to your board.”

Korie advances on Brandt. “Why don’t you want to make this kill, dammit?!! We can do it!”

“Only if you get him on the first shot—and I don’t care how well you’ve drilled this crew. They’re going to need more than one shot!”

“At least give me that one shot!”

“He’ll be shooting back at us, dammit! Evasive maneuvers cost power!! Your one shot could take us five or six days—once battle is joined, you have to make the kill or be killed yourself. One shot wouldn’t be enough for you, Mr. Korie. If you could have caught him before your ten days were up, you could have had your chance, but I can’t risk the safety of this ship—”

“This is a battle cruiser, Captain!! Certain risks are supposed to be taken—”

“I’ll decide when!”

A pause—one of those endless moments when two sets of eyes lock. And then—the moment is snatched away from them—

“Heavy distortions! The pattern is dopplering—he’s coming in!”

Korie whirls to stare at Jonesy; Brandt too. At the astrogation desk, Barak starts stabbing at buttons. “Dammit! He’s not coming in clearly; he must be using some kind of scrambler to disguise his warp—” To the intercom: “Radec, what are you doing?”

“I’m scanning, sir—full power! But he seems to be all over the stress field—”

Korie steps in close to listen, to watch.

“—and he’s coming in awfully fast.”

“How much time, Al?”

Barak looks at his board. “Six minutes. Maybe less.”

“Can you give me a target?”

“I’ll try—” To Jonesy: “Patch in EDNA to the gunnery crew.”

“Right.”

Korie steps back up onto the control dais; he pulls out his hand mike. “All hands, stand by for target information. Prepare for evasive maneuvers, patterns Three Beta, Six Gamma, Nine Delta. Stand by to—” The captain’s hand cuts him off.

“I didn’t give permission to order us into battle.”

“You didn’t tell me not to—we’ve got to be prepared—”

“We’re not going to meet that other ship in battle!”

“You gave me ten days—I still have five hours left—”

“I’ve change my mind. We’re heading for home.”

Korie is incredulous. “We’re going to run—??”

Brandt ignores him. To Barak: “Al, stand by to reverse polarities; set up an emergency course for home.”

“We’re being attacked, damn you—
let me meet it!”

Brandt steps past him to the pilot console. “Reverse polarities; maintain full warp.”

“Aye, sir—”

Belay that order, mister—”
Korie’s voice is knife-edge sharp. Into his hand mike: “Missile crews, stand by.” To Barak: “Al, go to those evasion patterns—”

Brandt turns to stare at him; Barak too. Other men on the bridge look up. Brandt says, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m going after that bogie—”

“Still closing,” calls Jonesy. “Four minutes to contact.”

“There’s no time to argue this, Korie—” To the pilot, Brandt says, “Reverse polarities.”

The man looks from Brandt to Korie to Brandt again. One is the captain—but the other gives the orders. “Sir—??” He looks to Korie helplessly.

“Do it!” Brandt growls at him. “I’m telling you to do it—
I’m
the captain.”

And still the man hesitates, waiting for Korie to confirm the order.

“Hold course!” snaps the first officer. “Al, go to those evasive patterns—”

Watching from his console, Barak remains motionless; but beside him,
Jonesy punches at the board
. It is a signal. Follow Korie. Around the bridge, the men snap to orders.

And Brandt realizes. He stares about in confusion. “
I’m
the captain—!” He takes a step toward Korie. “Don’t be a fool! You can’t risk the ship this way.”

“We’ve trained for this,” says Korie. He continues to watch the screens around the bridge. “Missile crews—stand by to lay down a spread of three.”