The Terran Privateer (43 page)

When they finally emerged into G-KXT-357, it was anticlimactic for many of the crew.

Annette had known from Harmon’s description that the system appeared empty at first glance, but some of her bridge crew seemed to have been expecting the system to
look
like the lair of some kind of evil monstrous overlord.

Instead, it was a relatively plain red dwarf star with no habitable planets and one massive super-Jovian gas giant. She watched the data come in on the eight planets, noting the additional carbon dioxide content on the planet Harmon had noted as having the beginnings of life.

“Anything on the scanners?” she asked.

“Nothing so far,” Rolfson noted. “I’m picking up what
could
be EM reflection off one of the gas giant’s moons, but I’m
looking
for something and might be seeing patterns that don’t exist.”

“That’s our destination anyway,” Annette told him. “I don’t see a reason to be subtle about it—and if we’re flashy, they may miss Lougheed. Amandine—take us in at point five cee.”

Lougheed was supposed to drop
Of Course We’re Coming Back
in on the opposite side of the one planet farther out than the gas giant. The whole point of the stealthy scout ship dropping out of hyperspace hidden from most of the system, however, meant that
Annette
wouldn’t even know if he’d emerged safely until he contacted her—which he wasn’t supposed to do without reason.

They were five light-minutes from the gas giant, but at
Tornado
’s new cruising speed, that distance started to evaporate with a smooth fluidity. The upgrades to her ship were mind-boggling to Annette, but her
speed
was the most noticeable.

“Deploy the defender drones,” she ordered as they crossed the four light-minute mark. “Harmon saw warships. Let’s make sure we’re ready to say hello when they pop out.”

Additional icons dropped onto the ship status display on her command chair as her drones deployed. They’d lost two of the hull-mounted installations along with the sixth of their offensive weaponry Metharom hadn’t managed to get online.

The drones represented as much defensive power again as the original fixed installations, though, and they’d only lost one of them—and they had several spares, so even that hadn’t reduced their defenses.

“Looks like I’m not seeing things after all,” Rolfson reported as they continued to close. “I’ve got EM reflections on four visible moons and on the rings. I’ve localized what appears to be a mid-sized space station on the opposite side of the gas giant.”

“Given that the rest of the system is as technological as a rock, I’m guessing that’s our target,” Annette concluded. “Pass the coordinates to Amandine. Let’s go knocking.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Rolfson confirmed cheerfully, then paused.

“I have bogeys,” he announced, suddenly serious. “Two ships detaching from the station and heading our way. Velocity is only a few dozen KPS, but they are inside the moons and rings.”

“They’ll come for us once they’re clear,” Annette said grimly. “Weapons check, Commander Rolfson.”

“Launchers one through twenty online, loaded, and green,” he told her. “Defender drones deployed. Suites one through ten online. Proton beams one through five online, capacitors at fifty percent and rising.
Tornado
is prepared to engage the enemy on your command.”

“Let’s see if they have anything to say first,” she told him. “But in any case, you are clear to open fire at one light-minute.”

“Understood.”

#

Seconds ticked by as the two ships carefully maneuvered out of the crowded confines of a gas giant’s orbitals and then set their course to intercept
Tornado
. As soon as they were clear of that debris, Annette got a good look at what she was facing, and a chill settled into her spine.

With the Laian upgrades,
Tornado
could go toe-to-toe with an A!Tol cruiser and, even damaged as she was, be sure of victory. Having now fought one, Annette would even give her ship even odds against an A!Tol battlecruiser.

Her nightmare had been that the conspiracy had dug up a ship of the line and its escorts to guard their lab. Even a battleship on its own would have been more than a match for
Tornado
. It wasn’t
that
bad, but the two cruisers now making their way toward her at half the speed of light were more than a match for her poor battered ship.

“We’re being hailed,” Chan reported.

“Play it.”

“Unidentified ship, you are in violation of an Imperial no-entry zone. Leave this system immediately or be fired upon.”

Annette considered for a moment. She was sure there was
something
she could say to buy her time. At close-enough range, the defender drones could probably bring down a cruiser’s shields as easily as they’d crashed
Subjugator
’s, though that was closer than she wanted to get.

Unfortunately, her imagination apparently wasn’t up to the task of coming up with a lie that would get them that close no matter what.

“Fuck ’em,” she said sharply. “Rolfson, do what we did at Sol: pick a target and sequence our missiles onto her in a stream.”

“They’ll evade,” Ki!Tana pointed out. “It doesn’t take much rotating of the ship to stop that tactic punching through.”

“I know,” Annette replied. “But we’re outgunned two to one, so I’ll risk every trick I can.”

She met Rolfson’s gaze and he nodded back to her as he set up his firing plan.

“Anything more from them, Chan?” Annette asked.

“Nothing. Their shields are up, I’m not sure they ever intended to actually let us go,” her communications officer noted.

“Probably not,” Annette admitted, leaning back in her chair and studying the two warships. There were no clever tricks available to her now; she had comparable weapons and more powerful defenses, but she was outnumbered and there was nothing she could do about that.

“Mister Rolfson,” she said calmly. “Open fire.”

A single missile shot into space from Launcher One. Moments later, a second missile followed from Launcher Two. Then Launcher Three, and Four, and so on until all twenty launchers had fired and Launcher one kicked its second missile into space.

After thirty seconds, a deadly stream of missiles charged toward one of the two warships, each streaming at fully three quarters of the speed of light.

It was another thirty seconds after that before Annette saw the response from the A!Tol warships, the speed of light being a huge delay to sensors at the ranges at which interface drive warships fought. Both cruisers had opened fire as soon as they’d seen her missiles, and a swarm of fifty missiles was now flying back toward her.

“Amandine, turn us about,” Annette ordered. “Let’s hold the range and see if we can even the odds before we let them close.”

The distance stabilized, the A!Tol ships were no faster than
Tornado
, but all of the missiles were
far
faster than any of the ships in the system.

“Plasma cannon engaging missiles,” Kurzman reported. “Defender drones in optimal position.”

By the time the first massive salvo of missiles reached
Tornado
, scanners were showing two more salvos closing on them. Plasma cannons on the drones and the hull opened up, cones of superheated plasma droplets smashing missiles apart by the dozen.

There were simply too many missiles, though, and warning lights flashed as impacts rocked the cruiser’s shields. Annette checked them carefully. Everything was still holding, but there were only so many salvos they could take when the plasma cannon couldn’t cover them.

“Target Alpha is rotating to spread shield impacts,” Rolfson reported. “Missiles are compensating but…not enough.”

“Are the new missiles powerful enough to make up the difference?” Annette asked. “Can we hammer one of them down?”

“Maybe,” he allowed. The survivors of the second enemy salvo flashed through the defenders, the shield warnings beginning to flash a little more urgently. “But…I don’t know if we have the missiles to do it twice.”

“How many missiles do
those
fuckers carry?” she demanded.

“About five times as many per launcher as we do,” Ki!Tana pointed out. “Their designers knew how long it would take them to pound down an equivalent warship’s shields.
Tornado
’s designers did not, and your magazine designs didn’t lend themselves to easy expansion when upgrading.’

“And it wasn’t something we even thought about,” Annette admitted. “So, what, we’ll run out of missiles before they do?”

“Long before they do,” Rolfson confirmed quietly. “And…well, possibly even before we take down Target Alpha’s shields.”

More missiles hammered each way.
Tornado
, thanks to her defense suite, could withstand the A!Tol ship’s missiles for a
lot
longer than they could withstand her fire in turn—but without the ammunition to take down their shields, a missile duel was only wasting time.

“Fine,” she bit off. “Let’s do this the hard way. Amandine!”

“Yes, ma’am?” her navigator said.

“Take us in, full throttle,” she ordered crisply. “Try and keep Target Alpha between us and Target Bravo, but set Rolfson up for the proton beams.” She shook her head. “Our shields are tougher, but we’ll need the defender suite to get us into beam range. Hold off on the booster until we’re
in
beam range,” she finished. “We’ll need it to stay alive once we’re there.”

“Point five cee charge, coming right up,” Amandine replied.

The distance between the two groups of ships, which had stabilized around fifteen million kilometers as they all moved away from the gas giant and the space station it shielded, suddenly changed. A full light-minute vanished in moments as the ships lunged toward each other at a literally incomprehensible relative velocity.

Annette watched as Rolfson and Amandine—and their teams—swung into action like a finely oiled machine. At a million kilometers, Amandine triggered the “booster”—
Tornado
’s new ability to temporarily travel at point five five cee.

Arriving in proton-beam range a full third of a second before the A!Tol and their computers expected them,
Tornado
gracefully dodged the first beams from her enemies and locked onto Target Alpha perfectly with all five proton beams.

More missiles arrived in the same moment, both
Tornado
and her target lurching as the high-velocity weapons slammed into their shields—then
Tornado
lost beam lock and Target Alpha
gained
it.

“Target Alpha’s shields are failing!” Rolfson announced. “Salvoing more missiles.”

“
Our
shields are failing!” Ki!Tana, manning the engineering console, snapped.

A massive white flash filled the screen as Rolfson’s missiles flamed home—all twenty missiles crossing the distance in under two seconds and overwhelming shields already pressed to the breaking point by the proton beams.

Just as
Tornado
’s shields were about to fail, Target Alpha’s beams cut off as the A!Tol cruiser came apart in a ball of fire.

Annette had enough time to begin to sigh in relief—and then Target
Bravo
arced over Alpha’s wreckage, her own beams slamming into
Tornado
.

“Evade!” she snapped. “Get us in closer.”

Amandine was rotating the ship, trying to spread out the beam impact, but it wasn’t enough. As the range dropped farther, so did
Tornado
’s shields.

“Hit her with everything!” Annette bellowed, hitting the override commands on her own screens that turned even the defender suite into a short-range offensive weapon.

Plasma and protons and missiles filled the space between the two ships as the distance shrank,
Tornado
’s compressed-matter armor
ringing
under impacts that would destroyed a ship without it.

Then a proton beam cut through the A!Tol cruiser’s shield, cleaving off a chunk of the enemy’s hull. Power flickered, shields and weapons alike failed for a fraction of a second—and in that fraction of a second, Harold Rolfson put three proton beams and a dozen missiles into his enemy’s hull.

“Targets down,” he reported a moment later in a breathless voice.

#

Annette took a deep breath and nodded acknowledgement of their victory. Her command chair status displays told her much of the story. Half of their remaining missile launchers were gone. They were down to two proton beams and two hull-mounted defender suites.