Starhunt: A Star Wolf Novel (32 page)

“We won’t see them till they go into warp—”

“Stand by with scramble evasion warp—”

“Standing by.”

“Three minutes.”

Barak is staring with a near-wild expression. There has to be some better explanation! “There’s no missiles, yet, Korie—” he says. “That’s no bogie. It’s just our wobbly come home again.”

“Sure, Al—that’s right. Be sensible.” Korie swivels to look at Barak. “But I don’t have to be sensible. I’m already mad. So I might as well go for the big one. I don’t have anything else to lose!”

Barak stares back at him. Almost regretfully, he says, “I never expected this of you, Jon.”

“Don’t teach your grandma how to suck eggs, Al,” Korie slaps the chair arm impatiently. “I haven’t got time for that one, now. Another couple minutes and we’ll
all
know the truth.” He swivels forward again.

The warp on the screen is steady—the
Burlingame
’s missiles are moving toward it, but uncertainly.

Someone says, “They’re having trouble tracking.”

“Not a good sign, Korie.”

“Shut up, Al—he’s probably doing evasions. But if we dropped them fast enough, they’ll find him before they power-out. They’re too close not to.”

“If he’s there.”

“There was a time when you wanted him
too
, Al—
Unh!
” That last was in response to a sudden burst of twenty-seven new points of light on the screen.

“Oh, shit! He dropped his whole load.”

“Recode and go!”
To the hand-mike, “Leen! Give me everything you’ve got—I need fifteen minutes flat-out!”

“Aye, sir! You’ve got it!”

Barak is still staring at the screen.
“He really was there!”

“What do you think I’ve been trying to tell you? That he wanted to blow kisses at us and play tag! We’re not out of the woods yet.”

“Look—”

On the screen—the enemy missiles are veering toward their own—

“Oh, shit!”

“Shut up—” Korie thumbs his hand-mike and prepares to give an order. Then stops. Closes his eyes and counts. Then, “How many missiles have we got left?”

“Twenty, sir.”

“Damn. Barely enough.”

“Enough for what?”

“Enough to drop another spread.”

“You’re out of your mind. We don’t dare unwarp—”

There are three flashes of nonexistence. “First spread destroyed. They homed on the warps.”

“We don’t have any choice—if we don’t stop his missiles with
something
, one of them is sure to stop
us
. It’s dangerous—but have you ever heard of the Valsalva maneuver?”

“The experimental—?”

“Not even experimental. Theoretical. Won’t be experimental until they find a ship captain stupid enough to try it. Here we go—”

Another three flashes of nonexistence and the second spread of missiles is destroyed. “If he gets our last three, he’s still got eighteen left to hunt with.”

“Right.” Korie thumbs the mike. “Arm those harpoons, me swabbies! All of them. Set for hunt and code them to activate all on the same signal.”

“Huh—?”

“Just do it! Don’t question it.” He switches off in time to see the third spread of missiles disappear from the screens. “Eighteen left. Here we go. How long till they close?”

“Three minutes.”

“All right, men—this is where we find out if those drills did any good. On my commands now—missile bay, start dropping your torpedoes
now!”

“Huh—?”

“Who is this?!!”
Korie roars.

“Dropping missiles, sir!!”

“Leen—?”

“Sir!”

“Stand for emergency unwarp—and then rewarp ten seconds later.”

“I don’t know if the generators can handle that—”

“There’s only one way to find out—”

They are interrupted by the sudden thundering vibration of missiles breaking free—KA-CHUNKA-CHUNKA-CHUNKA-CHUNKA . . . The sound goes on and on and on.

“Dropping missiles while still in warp?!!”

“By the time they get to the edge of the field, the field won’t be there—” Korie is counting silently.

“Last missile away—”

“Unwarp!”

A violent shudder of discontinuity and—

“We have unwarp—”

Korie cries—“Activate missiles!”

“Signal sent!” A beat. “Acknowledgment. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen—and twenty! All gone!”

“Thank you, General Missile Corporation!
Rewarp!”

And another shudder of discontinuity and—

Korie thumbs the mike again, “Mr. Leen! Get us out of here. Let’s run like hell!”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“Field polarities?” asks the helmsman.

“It hardly matters. Any direction at all. Al, give him an evasion scramble.”

Korie stops then, and sinks back into the chair. He can’t remember when he stood up. He is gasping for breath, but he never takes his eyes off the screen. “Total elapsed time out of warp?”

“Seventeen seconds, sir.”

“We may have a chance. We may just have a chance.”

“I can’t believe it,” Barak is saying. “How could you know—?”

Korie turns to his astrogator and gives him his biggest possible cat-who-ate-the-canary smile.

The helmsman calls, “Missiles up and running. His eighteen to our twenty.”

“I’d sure like to see the look on that bastard’s face right now,” says Korie. “When he realizes what we’ve done—”

The helmsman starts counting off missile collisions. “Two down. The score is sixteen to eighteen. One more, and another. “Fourteen to sixteen. We’re still two up.”

“I hope those two will be enough. That was our last shot—”

Brandt has not said anything through the entire battle. Now he turns and looks at Korie. He steps close and lowers his voice. “If you
knew
this was going to happen, Mr. Korie—why didn’t you tell me?”

Korie returns his accusing look with steady eyes. “I don’t think you would have believed me, sir. I’m sorry. There are a lot of things I did that I wish I hadn’t had to.”

The helmsman: “Four and six—oops. Three and five. No, make that three and four. One of his birds took out two of ours.”

“If he can do that once more, we’re dead,” says Barak grimly.

“Not dead, just stalemated again. Except now we know for sure that he’s out there.”

“One and two . . . and there they go. One left! And it’s ours! And closing!”

“Go, baby, go!”

“Mr. Leen—you can unwarp whenever you’re ready. Shut your engines down and recalibrate for long-range scanning, please—”

Before Korie can finish the sentence, the helmsman reports, “We’ve lost our scan—to a sudden field-overload!”

Korie, Brandt and Barak exchange glances. “It could have been the missiles,” says the captain.

“But not very likely,” responds Korie. “A missile warp is much too small. You have to be right on top of its collapse for it to blow your scan.”

“It could have been a cumulative effect.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Uh—”

“Neither do I.” Korie grins. “I think maybe—” He looks to Barak. “Al?”

“We
were
closing on him—” His eyes are bright.

“Anyone else?” Korie looks around the room. He is surrounded by hopeful expressions.

“I think—” He hesitates, then shouts out loud, “I think—
we got him!”

And then everybody is shouting, cheering, yelling, whistling, stamping, roaring, laughing, slapping each other’s backs and butts, hugging each other and jumping up and down and—

“Hey! Hey! Hey!—Hold it!” That’s Barak hollering. “Wait a minute! Wait a minute! It hasn’t been confirmed yet! We have to confirm it!”

The shouting dies away. Confused glances ricochet back and forth.

Korie looks to Barak. “You’re right.” And then he grins. “But I think
I’m
the one who should be demanding the proof now.” For once, the laughter on the bridge is almost good-natured.

Korie remembers something. He turns and looks at Brandt, standing glumly alone and thoughtful in the center of the bridge. He hands the microphone to his captain. “Sir? Do you want to direct the search for debris?”

Brandt looks at the proffered mike, then at Korie—

There is only the tiniest discontinuity as the
Burlingame
unwarps.

—then at the mike again. “You’ve done a fine job, so far, Mr. Korie. You may continue.”

“You
are
the captain, sir. I believe this is your privilege. To confirm the kill.”

“It was
your
kill, Mr. Korie.”

“Sir? I’d be honored to have you confirm it.” He meets Brandt’s gaze with his own. “Please?”

Brandt takes the mike reluctantly. “I know why you’re doing this, Korie. I’m beginning to figure you out.”

“Yes, sir—if you say so.”

The communicator beeps. “Well? Did we get him? Come on, what’s the story?”

“Stand by, Cookie,” says Brandt. “We’re going in for a look with broom and dustpan.”

“I just want to know if I should break out the champagne?”

“Stand by.” The captain switches off with a gentle smile. Brandt looks to his first officer. He moves to take his proper position in the Command and Control Seat. “Mr. Korie, we’ll schedule a full debriefing at eleven hundred hours tomorrow morning. But there’s really only one thing I want to know.” He looks at Korie shrewdly. “We have one man in the brig, another in sick bay with multiple injuries, and a body in the morgue. Was it worth it?”

“Sir.” Korie straightens almost to attention. “It hardly matters whether it was worth it or not. That was the price. And we never had any choice.”

“That’s hardly a satisfactory answer.”

“I’m sorry, sir—would you prefer I say something more to the effect of ‘Next time, suckers, maybe you’ll believe me’?”

“To be quite honest—I’d be afraid to disagree with you again.”

“Except—” Korie says, and there is not the slightest hint of a twinkle in his eye. He says it straight-faced, “Next time, I
might be wrong.”
(And I’m glad you don’t know the errors I made
this
time.)

Brandt nods thoughtfully. “As soon as we confirm the kill, Mr. Korie, there’s one thing I want you to do.”

“Sir?”

“
You
give the order to go home.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

Violence is the last word of the illiterate. Also the first.

—SOLOMON SHORT

9781939529565

The complete story of one of
Star Trek
’s most popular episodes:

    
•
  
From first draft to final shooting script

    
•
  
The how and why of TV writing

    
•
  
Three previously unpublished episodes

    
•
  
Working on the
Star Trek
lot

    
•
  
Personal stories of the stars

    
•
  
32 pages of photos

    
•
  
Original illustrations by Tim Kirk

    
•
  
MORE! MORE! MORE!

9781935251514

The first work in David Gerrold’s Star Wolf trilogy, this tale pits the human members of the
Star Wolf
space vessel against the superhuman Morthan crew. Captain Jonathan Korie, hampered by the loss of most of the human fleet to the Morthans and a nearly disabled ship of his own, faces the Morthan threat driven by the need for survival and the desire for revenge. A classic of military science fiction, the Star Wolf trilogy combines rapid action with powerful studies of military character.

9781935618720