The thing I hated most about working
for the government, any government, they all seemed to think alike,
was that then they invariably thought that they owned you.
Patriotism, duty and all those other words that meant they thought
they were entitled to what was yours. All meaningless trite to a
world-less vagabond like myself. My ship was my home and I needed no
other.
“They’re waiting for a response,
Captain!” Tanya Serensen said, my strong First and the meanest
bitch I have ever met.
The war was over. We were, had been,
part of the Federation forces which had unsuccessfully attempted to
unify the four hundred and seventy-two known human worlds. We had
been smashed ruthlessly, to put mildly what had been a lost cause
from the beginning. I had been paid handsomely with trade goods and
supplies; semi-precious metals and fuel rods, to be exact, plus I’d
brought my ship, Last Chance, and my crew through without a scratch.
So I had not complained when everyone started signing peace treaties.
The problem began when I informed my
erstwhile employers that with hostilities ended, so too were my
obligations. I had fulfilled to the letter our contract. I owed
them nothing more. They had not agreed.
There were now three of my former
allies, positioned in attack formation outside Last Chance’s hull.
Not only did they not feel as if I had not completely fulfilled my
end of the bargain, but I was getting the distinct impression they
would not be satisfied until they had added Last Chance herself to
their now depleted arsenal. I guess they felt, that with all the
losses they had suffered, that Last Chance would be a welcome
addition to their much depleted Navy. I guess they hadn’t quite
learned their lesson about attempting to force their wills on
unwilling subjects. Some people are simply incapable of
understanding. Especially people in positions of power, like
governments, for example.
“You bastards!” I snarled. I
should have known these ungrateful hypocrites would try to back stab
me, especially now that every planet was a law unto itself, only
answerable to itself, and they angry at the defeat they had suffered.
They were quick at jumping on the bandwagon of self governance, now
that no unifying government held sway. That was for sure.
“Is that your response?” Tanya
asked, no inflection in her voice.
“No!” I snapped. The crazy bitch
would repeat it too, if I didn’t specifically say no! A
first impression of Tanya Serensen would never give you the
insightful depth that existed behind her innocent appearing,
stunningly beautiful face. Blond hair, blue eyes, body and face of a
love goddess, barely fifty kilos soaking wet, but as vicious as a
Tarnian Bola Raptor when angered, and if you’ve ever been to Tarnia
you know there is no living creature meaner nor better able to defend
itself. That’s my Tanya, in a nutshell. A very tough, unbreakable
nutcase.
“What are we going to do?”
Demanded David Bren, my Science Engineer, when I didn’t immediately
make a decision. Bren is a mathematical genius and quite able to
compute our odds, no matter which decision I ultimately made; whether
we fought or fled, against the three Class Four Katon Destroyers
which were arrayed around us now in a roughly triangular formation.
Not that it took a mathematical genius to figure these odds.
We were fucked, and that was the long and the short of it! To
fight would be bad. To flee, worse. To surrender, the worst! They
weren’t going to let us survive to go running around telling anyone
who would listen how we had been robbed by the honest, law abiding
Katons. They had their tourism and immigration to think about, but
they also needed ships to patrol their borders. Hell, I was
seriously worried, and I, Marc Deveroux, am usually quite
unflappable. There was really only one answer.
I keyed ship’s intercom; “Battle
Stations. Delegate targets. Fire on orders only!” I looked into
Tanya’s cool blue orbs and winked my left eye. A left wink meant
to be prepared to fight. The wink was redundant, of course. There
was no other option but to fight. She smiled at me serenely, the
calm before the storm.
“Tell them,” I said, “that we
surrender.” I smiled my own smile back at Tanya, my goodbye, if
that was what it would come to, but we had been through so many such
tough scrapes, that it seemed impossible that this one could really
be the end.
“You damned maniac!” Bren yelled,
jumping up from his seat at his computer console, glaring at me
furiously, but he shut his mouth on whatever he had been about to say
when Coto, my pet Xiong, chittered insect-like at him from the
ceiling above me where it was resting. Impossibly, and as
comfortably as I was myself sitting in my own seat, it clung
effortlessly to the seamless, smooth ceiling panels like a fly, or
spider, and this under full gravity. I was not one of those Captains
who preferred his ship’s gravity at near zero for the comfort it
provided. I liked my full gravity, and even more, upon occasion, to
keep my body fit. Coto clung to the ceiling now under that full
gravity, as if on some invisible perch.
Coto appeared to be some kind of sick
hybrid of ant and spider, except on a mammalian scale. Six legs,
segmented brown body with bristly short black hairs, lusterless matte
black eyes (it was impossible to tell where Coto was looking) and
razor sharp pincer mandibles. Though only the size of a small dog,
it could be a vicious killer if antagonized, and it didn’t like
anyone yelling at me!
Xiongs were considered partially
sentient, able to use simple tools when it was necessary, but having
been adapted to survival so well from the beginning (they had been at
the top of the food chain on their own world until humans arrived)
that they hadn’t needed to evolve further. I had saved Coto from a
gang of boys with shock-sticks and the aggressive little creature had
been my loyal friend and protector since.
Not that I needed a protector.
Tanya ignored the little drama and
passed along my message.
“Prepare for boarding!” The
Bridge speakers relayed immediately, aggressively.
My answer was to buckle the
acceleration harness of my Captain’s chair. David sat back down,
looking as petrified as he always did before a confrontation, but he
buckled himself in as well. Tanya was already secured.
“Melanie, Janice, Manuel?” I
asked over ship’s intercom.
“What’s happening?” Manuel
Terrarium asked. “Why am I looking down the barrel of a photon
cannon? What the hell did you do now?”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
I said sarcastically. “The Katons want to confiscate Last Chance.
I think you can guess what will happen to us if we let that happen.”
“It looks like they’re
succeeding.” Melanie Vang said.
“Do you have a plan?” Janice
Ortiz asked. “One that doesn’t involve breathing vacuum or
copious bleeding!”
“No.” I said.
“Be ready to fight. There are no odds in surrender. They’ll kill
us sure as I’m Marc Deveroux. Anyway, there are only three of
them, so the odds are in our favor.” I thought I sounded
convincing, and no one contradicted me, though Bren was staring
daggers at me from his station. If looks could kill . . . !
Maybe I am a maniac and maybe I
sometimes enjoyed risking the lives of everyone around me (as well as
my own), but there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that we didn’t
stand a snowballs chance in hell once we’d surrendered Last Chance,
and ourselves, to the merciless Katons. Our time remaining in this
life could at that point be measured in the number of steps it would
take to march us to the nearest airlock. No. Surrender was not an
option.
“Forward Destroyer moving in to
dock.” Tanya said. “Ten seconds. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six.
Five. Four. Three. Two. One.” The hull rang as the pilot of
the Katon Destroyer brought his vessel up against Last Chance’s
docking locks.
“Engage locks. Seal all airtight
hatches.” I told them. Bren’s fingers moved over his keyboard
and we heard the locks engage gratingly and seal with a clang. Our
two ships were now one. Locked together. Our Fates inseparably
intertwined. That left only the two unengaged ships able to fire on
us from their attack formation, and even they would have to worry
about damaging their own comrade if and when they did, or the
secondary fusion reaction if we were destroyed while the two of us
were still mated. The Katon ship now locked to our side was as
fucked as we were, because I did not feel for one moment, not one
second, that the two remaining Katon ships would refrain from firing
just out of consideration for their comrade. When we opened fire,
they’d return it, in spades.
We had no time to dally. The engaged
ship could blast or cut through the lock in only moments. If I gave
them those moments.
“Fire on free targets!” I yelled
into the com, at the same time engaging Last Chance’s main fusion
engine, throwing the controller over hard to thrust away from the
Katon locked onto our side, hoping literally to rip it loose and fill
it with nothing. Fill it with the vacuum of space and the joys of
explosive decompression. If they had not thought to seal their
interior airtight hatches, it would be all over for Destroyer number
one. A rather gruesome way to go!
The thrust threw me back in my seat
despite Internal Gravity. It could only compensate for just so much.
Last Chance groaned desperately under the dangerous stress as she
tried to pull away from the ship attached to her side, and failed,
the metal straining but somehow holding, the Destroyer coming along
for the ride with us.
The two loose Destroyers, shown on
separate view screens, were glowing with stripes of luminescent green
death as Last Chance’s plasma cannons poured the green fire into
them at such close range, the gelatinous plasma smeared across the
hulls of the ships sticking where it struck and eating into the thick
armor like napalm on flesh. Nothing but nothing could scrape it off
once it adhered. The thick armor of the Katon ships boiled away into
space in billowing clouds as the plasma tried to eat its way down
into those ships.
The image on my right hand main screen
(Last Chance sported two main view screens plus twelve smaller,
secondary screens) showed the Destroyer to our stern taking fire from
both Janice and Melanie’s rear guns, though the way we were
beginning to rotate, those targets would soon swap positions, and the
Destroyer on the left screen would be under those twin guns, Janice
and Melanie’s, which were mounted above and below the main rear
fusion engine. The Destroyer now under those guns was losing armor
quickly. It was taking a hell of a beating.
Melanie and Janice were pouring their
fire into the same area amidships on their joint target, hammering
the same spot over and over again until the whole section was glowing
green fire and which was rapidly creating a huge sink hole in the
side of the ship. Atmosphere exploded outwards from the red-hot and
green glowing area as the Destroyer lost hull integrity, blowing a
green and yellow flame many meters out into space as the red hot
plasma ignited the escaping oxygen into open flame.
I shoved my controller back over to
avoid throwing us into a complete spin and to maintain those two
stern guns on the damaged ship as long as I could, and in the hope
that I could get the bow Destroyer under Last Chance’s photon
cannon, at whose controls Tanya was eagerly awaiting the opportunity
to fire the powerful weapon.
As powerful as the plasma cannon were,
they were but a minor nuisance compared to the energies of the photon
cannon. The photon cannon was too large to track independently,
however, its mounting fixed and immovable, so if I wanted Tanya to
get off a shot I had to bring the enemy under our nose, even if only
momentarily, for the opportunity to become reality.
The bow Destroyer realized my aim and
lit her own engine, shooting past us before I could give Tanya her
chance, but we striped her with green fire as she flashed past, but
doing insignificant damage.
“Destroyers falling behind!” Bren
yelled.
“We can see that.” Tanya said,
glaring at him for a moment while she had nothing else to do, angry
that she had not been given her chance.
The Destroyer we had hulled was
floundering behind us, but the second Destroyer, having spun out to
our side and having missed its first opportunity to fire its photon
cannon at us, either out of surprise or the fear they would
hit their own companion locked to our hull (a plan that paid off for
once) were thrusting side-wise to get around behind us and realign
their main gun again, evidently willing to risk their companion now
in their own fear and anger.
I couldn’t allow them a shot down
our fusion engine. One such direct hit would mean the end for a
certainty. Maybe for them as well, as they looked to be well within
the blast radius, if I were any sure judge. Space battles were
seldom fought at such close ranges. They were usually long over
before two such vessels could get to such intimate proximity. It was
much easier to target the photon cannon on a long distance target
than it was to try and twist around to get it within your own moving
targeting brackets. Such contests were normally determined by which
ship possessed the largest capacity to generate fusion electricity,
because that ship would have the longest striking ability. I on the
other hand, am quite familiar with this close in infighting. It was
my style. Last Chance was far too small to engage the larger vessels
she most frequently found herself contesting. And anyway, I wasn’t
interested in a victory that included my own destruction.
Last Chance’s plasma guns were
firing wildly, their green streaks of fire fanning off into space
around the second Destroyer as I pushed Last Chance hard into her
spin, the Destroyer riding our side helping our spin as I fought to
get our gun on our enemies before they finished their turn and got
their big gun on us. A battle of orientation, of maneuverability.
“Be ready.” I told Tanya calmly,
but it was hardly necessary and I doubt she even heard me. Her
entire concentration was centered on her fire control screen and the
ship I was slowly putting in the cross-hairs of her photon targeting
brackets. She was smiling suddenly.
Last Chance was swinging around
rapidly now, her exterior cameras, under Bren's sure control,
tracking the second Destroyer, keeping us on target.
Suddenly the Destroyer whipped across
the screen. Whipped across the red targeting cross-hairs. Tanya
stabbed at the fire control on her console. The pencil-thin red beam
of the condensed particle stream flowed out along the the cross-hair
targeting bracket, following it even as Last Chance continued to
turn, the beam curving away into space, and then it cut across the
nose of the Destroyer, separating it cleanly from the rest of the
ship.
There was time only to begin seeing
the sections separate before the Destroyer exploded in painful
brilliance and the video dampeners blocked the screens to save us
retinal burns.
“Hit their photon cannon!” Tanya
said cheerfully as the screens slowly brightened and we could see
where we were going again.
I pushed the stick over and fought
Last Chance’s inertia to twist us around for a photon cannon shot
at the first Destroyer, and to keep the pressure on our
piggy-backers, whom I couldn’t forget would be doing all they could
to get inside us. This I could not let happen. The turn threw me
over hard in my seat but I wasn’t in time to give Tanya her shot
and the Destroyer slipped out of our grasp as it went tumbling beyond
us, tossed mercilessly by the explosive force of its dying comrade.
The explosive repercussion of its
comrade had snuffed out the fusion fire of its main engine or the
green plasma fire it took would have been blown away like so much
chaff on the wind. Several of Last Chance’s plasma guns now poured
the green fire right into the bowl of the extinguished engine as the
great ship spun past us, completely out of control. I knew what was
going to happen next before it happened and threw my stick forward as
far as it would go, racing to get as far away from the doomed ship as
I could get us, before . . .
If I had thought
the explosion of the first ship bright, it was as nothing to that of
the second. Unaware that the bowl of their engine was full of
burning plasma, or maybe they were aware, and knowing their only
chance at that point had been to ignite their engine to
attempt to blow away the plasma, they had lit their engine and
allowed the burning plasma an inlet to their fusion reactor. Instant
cataclysm. A minor star going nova might not have been the brighter.
It was the same stuff, only on a smaller scale.
Though we were
running and putting distance between ourselves when it went, the
explosion sent a tremendous shock wave through us that rocked us to
our core. Stressed metal screamed and groaned and I let off the
stick immediately, fearing if I didn’t I would tear us apart.
“Release docking
locks!” I yelled at Bren as all of our screens once again went
dark. Even our forward screens, which were pointed out into the
blackness of space. It was a sure measure of the forces which had
been unleashed. Universal forces. The stuff of creation, except in
this case, the stuff of destruction!
The locks grated
momentarily, pinned under the pressure of the spinning ships and
dissipating force from the fusion explosion, then gave way silently.
I felt it as a change in our inertia when the Katon Destroyer left
our side, but it wasn’t until the screens came back up that we
could see for ourselves the ship was gone. It was spinning away from
us, out of control, having been unprepared for its sudden release.
“They’d already
released their own locks.” Bren said redundantly. Tanya gave him
a look which was easy to interpret and which he ignored.
Our plasma cannons
were lighting up the third Destroyer even as it spun away from us,
but it had twisted in a way that did not give our guns an open shot
on its engine and suddenly it was burning and the ship trying to
right itself, and throwing plasma fire right back at us. From four
turrets!
Last Chance
shuddered under the attacks from the larger plasma cannons but
continued to put distance between us as I held the stick forward,
outrunning most of the fire but not all. We seemed to stagger under
each new blow, but then we were beyond range and accelerating
rapidly.
“I wouldn’t
plan any vacations in Katon for awhile.” Tanya said
conversationally. “I hope everyone cleaned out their bank accounts
before we left.”
“Never did like
Katon anyway,” I said, “and I brought my bank account with me.”
I patted the armrest of my Captain’s chair.
“You sure know
how to wear out your welcome.” Tanya added.
“I burn my
bridges as I go.” I said. It was the story of my life. “As I
recall,” I went on, recounting a worn out story, “you had more
than worn out your welcome on Teva when I came along and saved your
bacon. Something about some missing Crown Jewels! Suspiciously like
those you’re wearing around your neck right now!”
“Allegations.”
Tanya replied.
“Yeah, and you
almost dragged me down with you.” I said. “You just couldn’t
leave without the goods!”
“They’re worth
more than this crappy ship you set so much store by.” Tanya
replied. “A crappy ship we all just risked our lives to save, need
I remind you!”
“That’s really
amusing,” I said, “when this crappy ship is the only
place you can wear those jewels!”
“Funny,” Tanya mused, “but I bet
the Katons report Last Chance as a stolen ship!” Now she really
smiled. An evil smile if I ever saw one, and one that meant she had
scored the point. “Plus we wouldn’t have been in this mess in
the first place if you hadn’t lost all your money gambling on the
Kievor Trade Station. A fool and his money are soon parted!”
“We wouldn’t have been in this war
in the first place if it hadn’t been for you.” Bren accused.
“We nearly lost our lives a dozen times all because of your sure
thing on the card table.”
“They cheated!” I defended
myself. It was true; they had to have cheated.
“Put us in warp space, Bren.”
Tanya said disgustedly, playing her advantage to the hilt, as was her
wont.
Bren’s fingers worked over his
console board and suddenly space shifted sickeningly around us. I
really, truly hated the transfer in or out of warp space. Human
bodies weren’t designed for this. Warp space is a completely
different dimension. When you transferred in or out of warp space,
you felt the transfer right through your body, all the way down into
and within the very smallest particles of your body.
Yet I didn’t like the idea of
hanging around and fighting it out with the Katon Destroyer, either.
Once again I had scraped us through an impossible situation
unscathed, so now was the time to make my curtain call, and get out.
The Katon Destroyer would not be able
to follow us. It was not equipped with the drive necessary to enter
or travel through warp space. Only the Katon’s big boats came
equipped with warp capability, and the rest, their Destroyers, mine
layers, torpedo boats, fighters, scouts and all else rode piggy-back
through warp until back in normal space again where their
conventional engines would once more find purchase. It wasn’t a
good system but one that they thought would save them money in the
long run. It hadn’t. I had seen too many of those unequipped
ships left behind in battle zones when their transport vessels either
left them behind under fire, they couldn’t get docked in time or
the Capitol ships hadn’t made it through the battles themselves.
It was the latter in most of those cases. Those planets had been
fighting for their independence and there was no man who fought
harder than the man who was fighting for his home, his family and his
freedom. The Katons had shown little regard for those left behind.
I began gagging dangerously as we
pushed into warp, taking much longer than usual because of our slow
relative velocity. We'd had no choice in the matter with the Katon
Destroyer swinging around to get a bearing on us. It was either warp
out at our slow velocity or face the Destroyer’s photon cannon
while our own was pointed out towards open space. My mouth flooded
with saliva and my stomach lurched. Nausea washed through me in a
wave that reached from all the way down into my guts and outward and
upward, nearly rising into my throat. Goose bumps rose over my
entire body.
I reached to unclasp my safety harness
so I could get out of my seat and get to Bren’s station to shut off
this hell. The controls for the warp space engine had been
deactivated on my own console for just that reason. I would shut it
off mid-jump and damned the consequences, not caring where we came
out, or even if we did. Suddenly we were through the wall of normal
space however, and fully into warp and the terrible sickness was
gone. Gone as quickly as it had come, and all that was left to
remind me of the horror of it all was the taste of the bile in my
mouth and the burning sensation it had left in my throat. I had held
it down but only barely. I glared at Tanya;
“We could have gotten up a little
more velocity first! We had plenty of time!” I had been watching
the Katon Destroyer’s progress as it came around onto us and we had
still had plenty of time. I knew that she had ordered the
early warp just to make me sick.
“Screw you.” Tanya replied
sweetly. “You’re not risking my neck to save yourself a couple
moments of warp sickness. You can shove it right where the sun
doesn’t shine!”
I have always been able to bring out
the best in a person. Any person. It’s one of my unimpeachable
assets. I smiled at her to let her know she had won no points with
me. She smiled back, not the least bit perturbed.
I unbuckled myself and breathed a sigh
of relief, but quietly. No one could know that the great Marc
Deveroux had been sick or concerned, not about three lousy Katon
Class 4 Destroyers and certainly not about any little old warp jump
sickness. Not miscreant Marc, as my loving mother, bless her honest
soul, had so unwittingly called me as a child. Marc Deveroux didn’t
get worried, because no matter what, Marc Deveroux was going to come
out on top!
I’m an indomitable specimen of
mankind. Six foot, two hundred and ten pounds of solid muscle and
aged at only about 21 Terra Standards. I had just undergone my first
rejuvenation treatment even though I had been, at my thirty-nine
calendar years, just as handsome as I had ever been. At least I had
thought so.
“We’ve jumped out of the frying
pan,” Bren said, “so where’s the fire?”
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