Wanderer's Escape (23 page)

As to what they want now... I guess they want you dead.  Quickly.  Before you get a chance to blow their little scheme.  If you talk then there'll be no real proof, but their little operation would be watched much more closely.  Maybe by the authorities, but definitely by those representing the other traders in the system.  Rogues like that are bad for business, at least they are once word gets out.  I reckon there's plenty who know what their game is and keep their traps shut.
”

“
They won't try to take the ship again?” asked Jess.

“
No.  Too difficult.  They'll be looking to pounce on you the moment you return to normal space.  My brain still feels fuzzy, should have asked before.  Where's your captain?  They should be hearing this too.”

“
That's me,” said Jess.

She stared at him for a moment.

“Really?  You're pretty young.  Not the youngest Captain I know though.  So who've you got flying her right now?”

“
Err... that would be me again.  The ship is pretty automated.”

“
Three hostile ships closing on you and you're sitting down here?”  She shook her head.  “Well, you're the captain.  Though I'm guessing there's a story behind that.  Once for later though.  If there is a later.”

Chapter Twenty

The Wanderer reached safe distance and jumped on time.  The three chasing ships had closed the gap significantly and were only a few minutes away from engagement range when the Wanderer jumped.  Jess was surprised to see their pursuers jump at almost the same time, and mentioned it to the others.

“
Safety margins,” said Elizabeth.  “The published safe distance is actually about ten percent more than is really needed.  Cutting it fine like that is frowned upon, but I don't think they care about that.”

Jess pulled up a display showing the Wanderer and the three ships chasing them.  Even in jump space the three were far closer than he liked.

“We'll drop out in about fifteen minutes and take a different route.  That will put us out into deep space.  Then we can pull a few of our tricks.”

“
I'd love to see them,” said Elizabeth.  “I've been around a lot a years and I ain't got anything we can use.  Clever display, by the way.  Estimating their position relative to us.  Must have used the disturbance from them jumping to calculate it.  Bit pointless really though, nothing's gonna change till we drop back to real space and we know they'll be right on us when that happens.”

“
I guess,” said Jess, shrugging and trying to appear casual.  If she hadn't guessed the scan was real time he wasn't going to tell her just yet.

As the time to drop into real space approached the four of them strapped into the flight deck.  Sal had taken a seat in the back row, leaving Ali and Elizabeth to sit behind Jess.  She said it was because Elizabeth had more experience in piloting and ship to ship combat.  Jess suspected it had more to do with being in position to watch Elizabeth.

When the moment came Jess dropped the Wanderer into real space, wrenched it through a hard turn and jumped again – just as the chasing ships dropped into real space almost on top of them.  Jess started to grin at the close call when alarms blared out across the flight deck and blasted into his mind.  With a crunching wrench the Wanderer crashed back into normal space.  They were several minutes flight in real space from where they'd started, but that still left them almost on top of their pursuit.  Jess urged the ship to jump again but it couldn't.  It felt as if the ship was mired in something sticky.

“
What the hell happened?” shouted Sal.

“
I don't know.  We'd just got into jump space, then it was like we hit a wall.  Now I can't get the ship to jump.  Every time I try to use the jump engines it feels like we're stuck in something.  I don't think we can jump.”

“
Tar pit,” Elizabeth muttered to herself.

“
What?” asked Jess.

“
A tar pit.  A jump space inhibitor.  It's a device that disrupts jump space, prevents any ship in its radius from being able to make a jump.  They're incredibly rare, the Empire has just about all of them.  The rumours say no one knows how to make them – that they're so rare cos they've been salvaged off derelict spaceships.  Most of the rumours say alien ships, unbelievable as that sounds.”

“
So that's what they've got?  It couldn't be anything else?”

“
Not that I know of.”

“
Any way to get away?  To shut it down?”

“
I don't know.  It's not like these things are common.  If you're fast enough you can outrun the ship it's on, get clear and jump.  Otherwise you need to destroy it.  If there's another way I don't know it.”

“
Looks like we fight then.” Jess said grimly.  “Any idea which ship it will be on?”

“
It could be any of them, but...”  She stopped and sighed.  “It'll be the Queen Liz.  She's significantly stronger than the other two ships.  You'll have to destroy her.”

“
I'm sorry.”

“
Yeah, you and me both.  Guess I had the idea I'd get her back somehow, bloody unlikely though that was.  Can you take her down?”

“
I don't know.” he answered, shrugging.  “Maybe.  Her shields are pretty strong and she packs a wallop.  If the Wanderer was at full strength then I'd say yes, easily.  She's not though.  Those other two ships will complicate things too, they'll be blasting us as we try to tackle your ship.”

“
Damn it.  Bastards.  Making me do this to my own ship.  All right, there's a chance.  A weakness in the shields.  Bring her up on the display.  Right... it's here.  There's a small area in the shields that's far weaker than the rest, something to do with the way she was built from the three old ships.  Been trying to fix it for years.  Used to pray each time I got in a fight that nothing would find that spot.  Nothing ever did.  Just hitting it ain't good enough though.  You need to get the shot through to hit the reactors, here.  The armour's strong there but if you can punch through it'll be goodnight folks.”

Jess studied the image for a while, then nodded to himself.

“It's tight but we can do it.  Dangerous though, we'll be taking fire from all three ships.  Anyone got a better idea?”

No one had.  Jess swung the Wanderer around sharply, curving back towards the pursuing ships.  Now the closure time was measured in seconds instead of minutes and the other ships seemed to leap towards them.  Mind heavily accelerated Jess was able to keep track of the situation despite the massive closing speed.  He had the Wanderer performing basic evasive manoeuvres as they entered weapons range, avoiding anything that would change their course significantly.  He opened up with the ships weapons, targeting the leftmost ship, ignoring the Queen Elizabeth in the centre and the rightmost ship.

The sudden change of course had caught the pursuit flat footed.  It was almost five seconds after entering weapons range that the right most ship returned fire. The Queen Liz and the ship on the left followed suit soon after.  The Wanderer shook as its shields were pounded by return fire, but they held firm.

A virtual countdown in Jess's vision counted down to the critical shot.  With five seconds to go it still looked good.  Then alerts flew into his vision, all three ships had launched missiles.  A lot of missiles.  At such short range avoiding them would be nearly impossible, and they'd easily overwhelm the shields.  There were almost fifty.  With a curse Jess changed direction, shoving the Wanderer hard over to the left and down, dragging the missiles down towards their new course.  Ruining his chance of making the killer shot.

At three seconds the shields were struggling to hold out as the enemy poured fire into them at point blank range.  The missiles had turned to their new interception path.  Jess tensely watched as everything came together, trying to judge the right moment.

At two and a half seconds he threw the Wanderer back up and right, clawing its way back towards the position it needed to make the critical shot.  The missiles detected the new course and adjusted, but crucially the move slowed them a little more, lengthened the distance they had to travel slightly.  Now they'd reach the Wanderer just after the countdown finished instead of just before.

At two seconds Jess targeted some of the incoming missiles, managing to knock out the closest and buying them a few more tenths of a second.  He kept the ship turning hard despite numerous hull stress warnings.  Even so they'd only just be able to get into position for the shot before they flashed past.

At one second the Wanderer's shields were dangerously weakened.  Jess desperately routed power into them everywhere he could, only sparing the weapons, thrusters and jump engines.  With a sinking feeling he realised the Queen Elizabeth was rolling to  bring more weapons to bear, and in doing so moving the weak area of shields away.  He pushed the Wanderer into an even tighter turn, ignoring both the critical stress warnings and the grunts from the others at the forces acting on them.  If they didn't make the shot they'd be dead anyway, there were far too many missiles to take out and the shields were already close to collapse.

Half a second and they were still not going to make it.  Jess shoved the ship over even harder.  An alarm flared into existence warning of a hull breach in one cabin, air pressure dropping already.  The ship sealed that cabin to prevent losing air from the rest of the ship.

Quarter of a second and he thought they might be able to make it.  A volley of enemy fire collapsed the shields for a moment, Jess registered it as a scalding pain across his shoulder.  Damage signals flared amber but nothing was critically damaged, the shields had sapped the attack of almost all energy.

Two tenths of a second and the shields flickered back into life – just in time to deflect another pummelling.  They held this time, but only barely.  Pretty soon they were going to fail completely.  Jess silently pleaded with the ship to hold together, to last just a little longer, to manage to make the cripplingly tight turn.

One tenth of a second and he started to think they'd make the shot.  The shields were holding out somehow and the turn was going to get them in place just in time.  Now there seemed to be a chance of making the shot he worried whether it would work, and if it did whether they could get clear.  The closest missiles were estimated to strike only forty-two hundredths of a second after he could take the shot.  What if he missed?  What if it worked but the field took time to collapse?  Realising there was nothing more he could do he shoved his worries down, focused completely on the impending shot.

Zero.  He took the shot.  Even with his mind accelerated the window during which the weak spot lay between the Wanderer and the Queen Elizabeth's engines was fractional.

Zero plus five hundredths.  He thought the shot had hit cleanly, a concentrated burst penetrating the armour.  There was no sign of a reaction yet and jump space was still unreachable.

Zero plus ten hundredths.  An explosion was starting to rip through the Queen Elizabeth, flaring out from her engines.  Jump space remained impossible to reach.  Jess targeted the closest missiles, managed to take three down which bought them another few hundredths of a second.

Zero plus nineteen hundredths.  A volley of incoming fire caused the Wanderer's shields to fluctuate wildly.  Jess could tell they couldn't take any more punishment.

Zero plus twenty-five hundredths.  The Queen Elizabeth was being ripped apart by huge explosions.  Jump space was still out of Jess's reach but felt different now, ripples flowing through the sense of stickiness the tar pit created.

Zero plus thirty-two hundredths.  A volley of fire collapsed the Wanderer's shields for good, punching through and smashing into her hull.  Forward sensors, all exposed on the outer hull, were knocked offline along with some weapons.  Jess was suddenly nearly blind to the front of the ship.  He knew the closest missiles would reach them in twenty-two hundredths of a second, if nothing else changed.  Desperately he had the Wanderer claw at jump space but it couldn't get a grip.  The effects of the tar pit were dissipating but jump space was taking time to revert to normal.

Zero plus forty-two hundredths.  They'd be dead already if Jess hadn't knocked out the first waves of missiles.  It wasn't going to matter.  They had at most twelve hundredths of a second to go.

Jess stopped watching the countdown, focusing everything he had on trying to find a way into jump space.  Suddenly the jump engines found something to grip, a tiny stable patch amid the chaos.  Without hesitating Jess dragged them in.  The ship bucked like a dinghy going over a waterfall, Jess heard at least one scream of pain from behind him.  It was a short flight, less than two seconds later they were dumped back into real space again, the ship unable to stay in the twisting and compressing world of jump space any longer.  It was enough.  They were clear of the missiles, clear of the remaining two ships.  Not massively so, only a few minutes of normal flight, but a breathing space.

Jess turned the Wanderer directly away from the pursuing ships and piled on as much acceleration as the ship could handle without stressing it further.  The shields were still offline, forward sensors and weapons were out of action and a number of structural warnings flashed despite the limited turn of speed.  The hull breach had almost finished leaking the cabin's air.  The room had automatically sealed, there wasn't anything else he could do.  It was the cabin Ali had been using.  Despite the situation the thought of sharing his cabin, his bed, with her flashed through his mind, causing a tightening in his chest.