The Huralon Incident Read online

  “Captain, we need to move,” pleaded Qaas. He knew it would be hard to get through to his commander’s rational mind just now. Elites could become so self-absorbed they would become blind to the reality unfolding right before them. “If that ship has boarders, then it’s probably armed, too. If they fire, we don’t have enough paddle sweeps—”

  “Shut up, Qaas,” shouted Mallouk. “Would you interrupt your betters? I am the Captain here. Do you forget your place?”

  ***

  The tension on the bridge of Springbok notched up as they waited to see if the plan would work. The two ships cruised awfully close together—just one light-second apart, by now. If a battle ensued it would be a short-lived battle to the death, possibly for both.

  “Their weapons just went active,” barked Warwick. “We’re being targeted.”

  “Helm,” snapped McCray. “Full power, now. Evasion plan, Theta.”

  Springbok leapt forward like a cat jolted with a cattle prod. Within a fraction of a second, her dark paddles hurled her forward at more than four-hundred gravities. Inertial balancers whined audibly, attempting to counteract the enormous force of their acceleration that could splatter the entire crew into a thin red paste across the bulkheads.

  “Helen of Troy reports they’ve sounded GQ, Cap’n,” said Ando.

  “I’ll bet,” McCray said. “But I thought they were going to fire. Warwick? What happened?”

  “They’re trying but they aren’t getting a lock.”

  “Excellent work, Eyes.”

  “I’m good, Cap’n, but not that good. Their targeting beams are wandering all over the place. It’s like their targeting computer has arthritis.”

  McCray snapped his fingers. “Helen got their automatic firing controls. They’re trying to fire on manual. But now, did Helen take control of their propulsion?” He knew if their paddles were down, they were vulnerable, but if they started moving, their paddles would protect them long enough and Springbok could not win a prolonged engagement at such a range.

  “Not yet, sir. I don’t know why, but Scirocco is crawling along at fifty-three gravities. It’s like they’re out for a stroll.”

  “Huh. Well that’ll make it easier for us. Piper, target the positions we discussed. Let’s take advantage. They’re crippled for some reason, but Mind knows how long that will last or if it will hold at all. Ando, does Helen have complete control or not?”

  “No way to confirm, sir,” said Ando. “Helen reports countermeasures are active, but that’s all I know.”

  McCray shook his head. “I can’t risk waiting to see if she gets her targeting back. Piper, I want engineering disabled, but don’t destroy that ship. Understand?”

  “Copy that, sir.”

  McCray hoped none of the rare Reapers had reached engineering yet. According to the tank they hadn’t, but his data wasn’t real-time. Still, tactical flexibility and the willingness to sacrifice systems rather human marines was one reason for using the machines. He wouldn’t fire at all if human crewmen were over there.

  “Aye, sir,” Piper said . “Firing…now.”

  Two 990 megawatt lasers emerged from their disguised ports and fired, reaching out like the jagged claws of death.

  “What the devil are they doing over there?” murmured McCray, impatiently waiting for a damage assessment. “Are they playing paddycake?”

  Chapter 06

  “You know better than to interrupt an Elite, and your captain no less,” raged Mallouk. “You common dogs never learn. I could have your entire family executed for what you have done.”

  Qaas’s frustration rose to a boiling point. As one of the rare commoners with the high intelligence to become an officer, he frequently had to endure the more simplistic minds of his alleged betters. Still, he found himself wondering, how could this idiot blather on at a time like this? “You are so right, Captain, but we must evade now. If that ship fires…” He reached for Mallouk’s shoulders, intending to shake some sense into him. But as he did, Qaas realized he’d committed a capital crime. The unbidden touching of an Elite carried with it, a penalty of death.

  The two men stared at each other in shock for a moment.

  Perhaps Qaas knew he was already dead, or perhaps he thought he might save the rest of the crew from the guns of a hostile vessel. He could never be sure. It all happened in an instant. All he remembered was his hands gripping Mallouk’s spindly neck and a lifetime of fury erupting from his soul.

  Qaas slammed the slender Mallouk around like a ragdoll. The Captain tried to fight back, but Qaas’s grip on his neck was born of a rage that had known no outlet until then. Mallouk’s face turned purple, and his eyes began to bulge.

  “You,” screamed Qaas.

  He slammed the Captain’s head down and the deck plate rang like a bell.

  “Will.”

  He slammed him again.

  “Not.”

  Blood splattered across the deck.

  “Kill us.”

  “Qaas, stop it,” shouted the Ensign at the Helm. “You’re killing him!”

  “He’s going to kill us, you idiot,” snarled Qaas. “Get us moving or we all die.”

  “Get your hands off the Captain first.”

  Qaas knew a lifetime of serving the Elites drove the Ensign’s defense of the captain, but it wasn’t helping at the moment.. “Get us out of here,” he bellowed. “Do it now!”

  The embattled officer wasn’t quite out of his mind. Unlike the helmsman, he knew a critical part of their defense came from their dark paddles. The energetic beams didn’t affect a lot, but considering the millions of sweeps per second the paddles made that a weapon must pass through to hit, they had a cumulative effect.

  They wouldn’t stop everything, of course, so particle shields were still necessary. Still, a vessel in combat not accelerating much wasn’t sweeping its paddles, and that left a significant portion of its defense inoperative.

  “Princely Dawn is moving,” reported the sensor controller. “Gods! She’s blazing along past four-hundred gravities.”

  “I knew it,” said Qaas, releasing the unconscious Captain. “Even a clipper isn’t that fast. That’s a damned Q-ship.”

  “She’s targeting us.”

  Qaas shoved the still bristling helm officer aside. At a glance, he realized he was too late. “Helm is down,” he groaned. “It’s been hacked, too. We’re a damned sitting duck.”

  He heard the destruction just as he was hurled off his feet. When Springbok’s lasers slammed into them, Scirocco’s super-heated hull materials exploded, heaving the ship through space like a child’s toy. The blast reverberated through the ship like the death scream of a god as thousands of tons of hull, equipment, and crew vaporized in a pall of fiery plasma.

  ***

  McCray gazed into the tank at the optic’s view of DPS Scirocco. A seventy meter hole tore through the ship from port to starboard. The aft quarter of the ship barely held on by a smattering of bent struts and girders. Her aftmost hyperdrive engine drooped slightly, broken at the hull connection and in the middle of the enormous tower. Sparks the size of ground cars erupted everywhere from damaged power conduits near the devastating strike.

  “Mindit,” said McCray. “What the hell happened? We almost cut it half.” Damage like that could only happen if their particle shield was down, but it had been up a moment ago. “Ando, was Scirocco’s particle shield up?”

  Ando held his hands up helplessly. “Captain, when you gave the order to fire, the shield was still there.”

  “Mind help me. I didn’t want this!” He gestured at the image of the wrecked ship. He’d never intended to destroy the vessel, only disable it. He sent a quick prayer to the Emergent Mind, hoping not too many died needlessly.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” said Piper, looking surprised. “Her particle shield must’ve been down. I’ve never seen a warship that vulnerable.”

  “Helen of Troy reports their main engineering section is destroyed,” said Ando. “Mo
re data is coming in. Scirocco has life support and emergency power only in most of the ship. There’s casualties in critical condition near engineering. You were right, Mr. Piper. Helen brought down their shield just before you fired. Helen now controls their weapons, helm, and propulsion control.” Ando grinned. “Looks like we got ’em, sir.”

  “We fired on an unprotected enemy,” murmured Piper. His face sagged. “All those people....”

  “Don’t kick yourself too much, Piper,” said McCray, staring at the deck as he quietly kicked himself internally. “We had to fire. They were targeting us after all. We had no idea how far along Helen had gotten, or if she would maintain control.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Piper, still looking distraught.

  “Looks like this went from a boarding action to a rescue mission,” said Zahn, once more sitting beside McCray.

  “Only if they surrender, Prime,” replied McCray. “Away the Marine boats, Ando. Have Major Candless take remote control of the Reapers and secure a surrender from Captain Mallouk.”

  ***

  Blood red emergency lights pulsed across Scirocco’s bridge. The marines guarding the bridge hatch outside screamed as they blasted away at their assailants.

  Qaas slumped at his station, wondering how his life had gone so wrong. His career had started well enough. He had a great previous captain who’d taught him a lot. Then Mallouk’s greed led him and them all to ruin and death. Qaas wondered how long he would rot in an Elysium jail cell or maybe if he was lucky, they just shot pirates and got it over with.

  The gunfire outside the bridge hatched finally ceased. “How long do you think that hatch will hold?” asked the helmsman.

  “It’s not a matter of holding,” said Qaas. Smoke filled the bridge where Qaas had ordered computer storage systems destroyed. The enemy may claim the ship, but they wouldn’t claim her logs. “They’ve taken control of most of the ship just by hacking the network. Their hacker will open it for them eventually.”

  It only took a few seconds more before the hatch crashed open and killer machines rushed through it like a coppery wave of death. Qaas felt his guts turn to water. Reapers.

  They weren’t awkward caricatures of living things, jerking along the way a robot should. They moved like ballerinas, graceful and sure. Their hips rolled with each step but the head, mounted on an articulated neck, stayed steady and locked on target. They were apex predators made of exotic carbon. Every molecule focused on snuffing out lives in the momentary blindness of a blink.

  Qaas closed his eyes and waited to die.

  The lead machine stopped before Qaas, the serrated teeth of its gaping jaws centimeters away. It spoke in a voice like crackling bones. “Where is Captain Mallouk?”

  Qaas opened his eyes, amazed he was still alive. He didn’t dare move his hands. He gestured with his head.

  The Reaper gazed at the Captain’s somnolent form, returning to Qaas. “I am Major Candless, Egalitarian Stars Marine Corps. Surrender. We control your ship. There’s no point in further resistance.”

  Qaas choked. When he first saw the machine he hadn’t considered surrender a possibility. “Yes. Yes, DPS Scirocco surrenders.”

  The machine tilted its head. “You surrender the entire ship? You aren’t the Captain. Do you have the authority to surrender it?”

  “Captain Mallouk has been declared unfit for duty,” Qaas replied. He glared around the bridge, daring anyone to contradict him. No one spoke. “Our more senior officers were killed during your attack.”

  “Very well,” said Candless, after a moment’s pause. “I accept your surrender.”

  “No,” croaked Mallouk, rising with pistol in hand. “We will never—”

  Candless’s Reaper moved like a cobra, firing a burst from its gating guns. Mallouk’s weapon splintered like delicate crystal, and his hand disappeared in a cloud of bloody mist.

  “My hand!” he screeched, unaccountably surprised his feeble attack failed. “You shot me.”

  “What shame,” Qaas said, sneering. “Next time, aim for the head.”

  ***

  The door of his sarco opened up. McCray disconnected the comms cable and stepped out, tired. He’d been inside for much of the day and he felt exhausted.

  He gazed at his tanned torso in the mirror of his stateroom. Idly, he wondered if it was time for another animated tattoo, or perhaps a slight body mod. As it was, he represented a minority of people who accepted only minimal body mods, accepting only tattoos or corrections to create perfect symmetry. Part of that was the Navy’s restrictions on them. Another was, like Aja, body fashion simply wasn’t a priority.

  After a shower, he dressed in a generic merchant shipsuit. No one aboard Springbok wore a military uniform, even though she was a military vessel. They had to pass for a merchant crew whenever the ship received routine inspections. Uniforms would’ve given the Q-ship’s game away. So rather than scramble to hide uniforms when port officials required routine safety inspections, they eliminated uniforms altogether.

  He walked down the passageway on his way to the brig. There weren’t many places to go aboard Springbok. With virtual reality, the bridge, auxiliary control, even a true engineering control center proved superfluous. Hundreds of comms ports located across the Q-ship meant he and his bridge crew could connect and control the ship from anywhere. He could even do so wirelessly, though the bridge simulation wouldn’t include olfactory and tactical sensations. Sitting at the Conn wouldn’t “feel” like he was sitting. He preferred a complete connection where all five of his senses swore the bridge was an actual place.

  It had been a week since the battle had ended. DPS Scirocco was so badly damaged, it wasn’t safe to leave the crew on the vessel. McCray had hoped to leave an emergency beacon so Madkhali ships could find her and rescue the crew, but that might’ve taken weeks. He expected most of Scirocco’s crew would die in that time. Instead, he’d elected to remove the crew and take them to Huralon, where they could be repatriated with a Madkhali merchant or transport. Leaving them to die in space simply wasn’t an option in McCray’s mind. Unfortunately, it had taken more than a week to convince everyone they wouldn’t be prisoners and then to pull them all off the stricken ship.

  McCray nodded to a cluster of crewmen he passed in the passageway. He didn’t see many as he walked. Like always, most were in their sarcos, at work directing one of hundreds of maintenance drones or taking their leisure in some place of the imagination. As of late, he almost preferred the largely empty passageways. Many of the crew gazed at him with a touch of awe. He’d taken them up against a more powerful warship and pulled them through it without a scratch. He already had a reputation as a war hero, but having personally pulled this crew to safety, some treated him like their hero. McCray tried not to think about that. Unexpected and important details still demanded his attention.

  Some of Scirocco’s crew required special care. A lot of them from near the badly mauled engineering section required extensive medical work. Even with the speed of modern nanomeds, Commander Bijou stayed awake for several days straight supervising the progress of the wounded.

  Second Lieutenant Qaas was a special case. Though not physically injured, he’d suffered a mental breakdown. Nanomeds were no help for injuries of the psyche. Bijou had ordered him sedated and sequestered from Springbok’s other guests. She hadn’t been certain the young man wouldn’t harm himself or someone else.

  Captain Stephen Mallouk appeared to have no psychological ill-effects, despite the ignominious loss of his ship. If the stories told during interviews with Scirocco’s bridge crew were even half true, Mallouk was already a lost cause as a human being. For this reason, McCray had no interest in meeting the man. But, after a rather unique report from Commander Bijou, McCray changed his mind. He had dropped everything else and made some arrangements with the marines in charge of the brig.

  He turned a corner into the red deck tiling of the brig section. A marine escorted him through the passages until he sat o
n a putrid-yellow bench across from the cell of Scirocco’s former captain. The floor to ceiling mylodiamond wall allowed an unobstructed view of the entire cell. Stephen Mallouk looked up from the lowest level of the three-tiered sleeping rack. His dark eyes blazed as he glared at McCray past the rack’s gray-painted frame.

  “Come to gloat, Captain? You must be feeling pretty good about yourself.”

  McCray shrugged. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  Mallouk sat up. His fractured skull had been repaired days before by medical nanites. The bone was stronger than before. Likewise, the growing blood clot in his brain had been chewed away by the microscopic robots. They even removed the cholesterol buildup in his arteries, created by a lifetime diet of rich foods. The former captain was healthier than he’d been his whole life.

  “You should be honored,” he said. “It’s not often a commoner is allowed to speak with me.”

  “Commoner?”

  Mallouk rolled his eyes. “A low-born person. You.”

  “I’m familiar with the term. I just seems odd that a military officer of the Democratic Peoples throws it around with such familiarity.”

  “You really are desperately naïve aren’t you? You remind me of that idiot, Castellano.”

  McCray crossed his arms. “I think you confuse honor with naivete.”

  Mallouk rolled his eyes again. On him, it seemed a curiously effete gesture. “Whatever. Well, I hope you enjoy your short-lived success. People like me don’t stay in prisons for long.”

  McCray wanted to spit. “You’re a damned pirate. That’s a crime you don’t just walk away from.”

  Mallouk waved the thought away as if he’d been accused of littering. “The crime is inconsequential. I am a Senator’s son. He’ll do whatever it takes, start a war if he must, to get me out. I won’t be imprisoned for more than a week, perhaps two.”