Drysine Legacy (The Spiral Wars Book 2) (36 page)

Just as hard as it had begun, G eased. They weren’t running, Erik realised with relief — that would mean abandoning their people on TK55. They were headed to TK55, much faster than a shuttle could, to intercept the shuttle already on standby there, and save several minutes on their retrieval time. The away-crew would be racing now, getting into those big transit passages in the base and jetting up to impressive speeds to reach the shuttle.

Erik accessed command feed without having to ask, and bridge scan feed appeared on his glasses — scan with inbound ships, three so far, two-minutes-light and closing fast. Erik did fast calculations and wondered if he’d have the time to get up to the bridge. They were closing on TK55 but not too fast, there was no need to arrive before their crew was ready to be picked up. Lieutenant Alomaim was in command over there, with Ensign Hale, Erik’s old friend from when he’d been third-shift commander. And he realised that it would only be worth getting up to bridge if his entire first-shift bridge crew could get up there with him. Bridge crews were a team, and putting himself at the head of a team more accustomed to Draper could conceivably lead to worse outcomes than if he stayed in his sling.

“Lieutenant Draper, I’m reading active tracking!”
came Abacha again from Scan.
“It’s close range. I think one of those mines just went active, it’s tracking us.”

“Query Makimakala,”
Draper said calmly.
“Nav, I want that escape trajectory.”

“Aye Lieutenant,”
came Lieutenant De Marchi’s reply.
“I have three possibles on best escape track. We going with or without Makimakala?”

“Depends what they say about that mine,”
Draper said reasonably.

“This is away team,”
came Lieutenant Alomaim’s voice, crackling with interference.
“ETA two minutes fifty. PH-3 confirm position?”

“This is PH-3, do
not
decelerate upon leaving the transit tunnel. Maintain velocity, PH-3 will rendezvous with
you.
Away team respond.”

“Away team copies PH-3, make it a good catch.”

They were going to come flying out of that transit tunnel at over a hundred kph accumulated velocity, and PH-3 was going to chase and intercept to save time. Heck of a thing with Engineering department spacers along who didn’t practise emergency retrieval intercepts as often as marines did. Shit, Erik thought as the bridge chatter continued, fast and professional. If Draper screwed this up they could not only lose lives, they could ruin whatever relations were left with
Makimakala
, possibly even end up shooting at them. He had to get up there… only he couldn’t, he needed a clear window of at least a minute with no possible manoeuvring to change bridge crews.

If that mine hadn’t locked on he might have got that minute, but if tavalai mines started chasing them, possibly attracted by the sudden manoeuvres in their midst, there was the real chance that
Phoenix
would have to push hard enough to make red smears of anyone moving unsecured in the ship. Draper would do it too, even if it was the LC unsecured. The first thing they drummed into you in the Academy when you sat the command chair was that it didn’t matter who was loose on the ship when a ship-killing scenario came racing at you — you moved, or everyone died. It was of course the reason why they didn’t allow family to serve together on warships, and strongly discouraged anyone who sat the chair from having intimate relations with crew. In the wrong situation, you had to be prepared to kill your own crew to save the ship. Erik thought of Lisbeth. He knew
Phoenix
crew had made common agreement with each other that getting Lisbeth into an acceleration sling was number one priority in any trouble. They did it not from chivalry, but from the real fear that their LC might not hit thrust when he had to, and would get them all killed from his concern for his sister.

“Incoming transmission!”
came Lieutenant Lassa on Coms.
“Signal registers as Fleet, light delay one minute forty-six.”

“Hello UFS Phoenix. This is UFS Mercury, Captain Ritish commanding. By order of Fleet Command, you will surrender your ship and accept Fleet terms of pardon, as previously stipulated by marine Colonel Khola. Failing this you will be declared outlaw from all humanity, and hunted to destruction at the ends of the galaxy if necessary. Mercury out, awaiting your reply.”

“Rai Jang is outbound hard!”
Abacha announced.
“Rai Jang is leaving!”

“Hello Rai Jang,”
said Draper.
“Hello Rai Jang, please explain your actions, Phoenix out?”

“Is he going to attack them?”
someone wondered in disbelief.

No, Erik realised. As commander-off-the-bridge, he had to be careful interfering with bridge operations and allow Draper his space to work. But this intervention would save time.

“Hello bridge, this is the LC,” he said. “
Rai Jang
led them here. Joma Station barabo were already working with Fleet,
Rai Jang
’s captain as good as warned us himself. They want Fleet to take over barabo security, so they’re working with Fleet to catch us. That’s the only way
Mercury
could have found us so fast.”

“Dammit,”
said Draper.

“Lieutenant, I have a shot,”
said Second Lieutenant Corrig from Arms.
“Do I fire on Rai Jang?”

“No,”
said Draper before Erik could intervene with the same answer.
“Let the treacherous furry bastard go.”

“Makimakala queries status,”
said Lassa.

“Second mine targeting! Is Makimakala doing that?”

“Braking,”
said Draper, and thrust kicked Erik toward the G-wall again, the line of acceleration slings bobbing and swinging in unison, like fruits on a branch in a storm.
“Makimakala, this is Phoenix. Rai Jang is a traitor, barabo working for human Fleet. Did you receive last human transmission?”
Because it would have been Fleet encrypted.

“This is Makimakala, we copied that transmission.”
So much for Fleet encryption being unreadable by tavalai.
“We are engaged in rapid retrieval of personnel from TK55, ETA three-and-a-half minutes.”

“Copy Makimakala, Phoenix is also retrieving, ETA three minutes. Two tavalai mines have locked onto us, please explain?”

“It’s not us, Phoenix. If we were targeting you, you’d be locked by a hundred plus, and they wouldn’t have given warning. These systems are very old, it’s possible your aggressive manoeuvres have triggered them. We will attempt to contact and override.”

“Yeah well tell him to make it fast,”
said Corrig.
“One of them’s orienting to engage.”

“Arms, hold fire until you absolutely have to. If you blow one of them away the whole bunch will charge us. Coms, get me Mercury. LC, are you reading this? Do you want to tell them, or should I?”

“You can do it, Lieutenant.” In some ways, he thought, it would carry more weight from someone other than himself. “Just remember, there are marines on
Mercury
, commanded by Major Rennes, who helped us on Hoffen Station.”

“Understood LC. Hello UFS Mercury, this is Phoenix. We have uncovered evidence of a large hacksaw ship-building base previously undiscovered and currently occupied by sard. Reason to believe this base is under the command of a deepynine queen, and is building ships for the sard, several of which tried twice to kill us, including just recently on Joma Station. If you’d like to help us destroy this base, that would be a great service to humanity. If not, then we are not humanity’s enemies — you are. Major Thakur sends greetings to Major Rennes, and would like to tell him that Phoenix marines just killed several deepynine command drones and sard forces in this hacksaw base. What have Mercury marines done for humanity lately? Phoenix out.”

“Timelag counting,”
said Lassa on Coms.
“Expect reply in three minutes thirty at earliest. Nice one Lieutenant.”

There followed some more growls of agreement. It nearly made Erik smile. As commander, he’d often wondered just how many of his crew were behind him, as he led them on this venture that could make them enemies of their species, and possibly get them all killed besides. This outburst of spontaneous, heartfelt support was gratifying.

“This is PH-3, all away crew aboard, Operations prepare for docking in forty seconds.”
Lieutenant Jersey sounded cooler than a winter breeze as she burned her shuttle’s engines to get clear of the starship hangar and out to
Phoenix
. With three ace shuttle pilots all in friendly competition to see who was the most shit-hot of them all, Erik just hoped one of them wouldn’t overdo it.

“Makimakala is sending navigation coordinates for jump,”
said Lieutenant Lassa.
“Routing it to Navigation.”

“Nav copies.”

“Makimakala,”
said Draper.
“What’s the story with this heading?”

“Your Fleet won’t dare follow us there,”
came the reply.
“Trust us. We have control of ninety-three percent of surrounding mines, the rest are not responding adequately. Sending non-responses to your tactical, Makimakala out.”

“That’s coming through,”
said Lassa.
“Routing to Helm.”

“Helm copies,”
Dufresne replied.

“PH-3 aboard in five seconds.”

“Arms is targeting those rogue mines.”

“Navigation course set.”

“PH-3 aboard.”

“Wait for Makimakala,”
said Draper.
“Scan, you see their shuttles?”

“Nearly there. Looks close, last shuttle closing now. Shuttle aboard, Makimakala is leaving.”

“Phoenix is leaving.”
Hard thrust shoved Erik’s sling back far harder than before, Gs blurring his vision, the sling’s motors squealing to keep him off the G-wall.

“Mines reactive! Two marks inbounds!”

“Arms, kill them please.”
Two detonations on scan, neat and precise.

“Two down, we have multiple activations…”

“Makimakala is firing!”
More mines disappeared,
Makimakala
slightly ahead of the game, knowing which was the greatest threat.
“Mines targeting Makimakala, they’ve halved our target load.”

“Getting real narrow ahead,”
Dufresne observed, as mines along their projected path began to activate.
“Prepare full evasive, targeting rotation for full fire spread.”

“Copy full rotation, Arms respond?”

“Arms copies.”
As Erik’s old third-shift buddy Raf Corrig blasted several more, firing freely as
Phoenix
rotated at full thrust, bringing all weapons into play about the hull.

“Swing two-eighty,”
Dufresne advised as she plotted a better course ahead, watching the far-trajectory where Draper had to take the near.
“Seventy degree yaw, full thrust, punch it.”
And thrust increased to a full, bone-bending 10-Gs as
Phoenix
strained to escape the field of defective mines that could accelerate at twice that rate. Those that did, Arms pasted before they could go evasive — magfire only, none had yet gotten close enough for defensive spreads.

“Clear in ten.”
More firing, and several racing mines got within five seconds of impact before exploding short as Corrig and Mendez on Arms One and Two tasked the guns with margin to spare.
“Clear, we are clear.”

“Makimakala is clear.”

“Proceeding to jump,”
Draper confirmed.
“Navlink to Makimakala on exit, let’s keep this tight.”

“Where you think she’s taking us?”
Second Lieutenant Zelele wondered from Scan Two.

“Home to meet grandma,”
said Lassa. Then,
“Incoming from Mercury.”

“UFS Phoenix,”
came Captain Ritish’s voice.
“You have made a most unwise call. It is my solemn duty to inform you that as of this moment, UFS Phoenix and all her crew will be considered…”

“Turn that bitch off,”
said Draper, and the voice ceased.
“Much better. Jump in two minutes fourteen, all hands stand by.”

A
s he blinked
to focus from the disorientation of post-jump, Erik recalled how much he hated combat jump as a passenger. The dim shapes of neighbouring occupied slings bobbed and wobbled through the mesh of his own cocoon, and it felt vaguely like one of those dreams where he found himself back in school, with all his adult securities and achievements taken away from him. He could almost imagine old school friends laughing at him when he told them he was actually a Fleet warship commander.

‘Oh go
on
, Erik! A job your mother didn’t arrange for you? That millions of other kids fantasise about having?’ Of course, at the elite private schools he’d attended, most of his friends had been in the same boat.

He fumbled within the sling pouch for a water bottle and an electrolyte bar, washing the latter down with the former as he blinked on his glasses’ command icon to restore the link that had gone dead in jump. Bridge chatter filled his ears once more as he refocused, and then scan’s system display flashed on his glasses. He didn’t even know what system they were in, he realised —
Makimakala
had put that to
Phoenix
Nav post without making it onto his feed. Only here ahead of them, he recognised the little red triangles of unidentified ships that Scancomp didn’t like the look of. Only three minutes light, and in parking orbit about a smallish planetoid of the kind that might make a good military base. More likely that than a trading base — there was no other traffic in the system that scan could see, and trading bases tended to avoid messy rocks for more efficient rotary designs.

“Hello Makimakala,”
he heard Lieutenant Draper saying on coms.
“We read those ships ahead as tavalai warships, please confirm?”

“Hello Phoenix,”
came Captain Pram’s voice.
“Yes this is a tavalai fleet hiding spot. You have just been in big trouble with your fleet, now you can watch me be in big trouble with mine. But my first priority is to lose this pursuit, and this was my first choice.”

“Phoenix copies.”
A click, and then,
“Hello LC, I judge we may have a six minute window here at minimum until we get a response from those tavalai ships. Are you coming up?”

Erik wanted nothing as badly. “Hello Lieutenant Draper,” he said. “That’s a negative,
UFS Mercury
could be jumping in behind us at any moment. Continue as before.”

“Aye LC.”
He could almost hear the surprise in Draper’s voice. In truth, the likelihood of
Mercury
plunging out of jump right on top of them was low. More likely she’d come out somewhere nearby, but leaving a several minute window between manoeuvres, allowing enough time to transition the bridge crew back to first-shift. But interrupting a bridge crew in mid-action could be troublesome — crews got ‘in the zone’ when tackling a situation, and new crews took minutes to adjust and catch up. Erik judged that Draper’s crew were totally in the zone, and should be left to handle things for now. Furthermore, they’d impressed him so far, and deserved his praise and confidence. Many of them had minimal time in action outside of sims, and there was no experience like the real thing. If anything happened to him or others in first-shift,
Phoenix
was going to need good replacements who wouldn’t need endless hand-holding when they stepped up to the big-time. And his sacrifice for helping that happen was to hang here in zero-G cocooned frustration for the next however-long period.

The private call icon blinked, and Erik opened it.
“That’s a good call LC,”
Kaspowitz told him.
“If it somehow fails to kill us, I’ll buy you a drink next stop.”

“Thank you Kaspo,” said Erik. “Your vote of confidence is always welcome.”

Mercury
came out of jump five minutes later, with one cruiser that Abacha on Scan correctly stated had to be korchek-class, the only Fleet non-carrier class capable of staying with a battle carrier through jump. Positionally they were offset by ten-seconds-light, and behind by another seven. ‘Uphill’ on this system’s gravity slope,
Mercury
would have been in an ideal position to block
Phoenix
’s possible escape runs within their own entry arc, and force her to run long across-system to get out the far side while exposing herself to fire all the way. But with
Makimakala
here,
Mercury
was outgunned… assuming the unthinkable would happen, and a Fleet warship joined forces with a tavalai warship to take on one of their own.

“Hello LC,”
Draper said to Erik.
“Do you want to explain the facts of life to Captain Ritish, or shall I?”
He sounded a little cocky, Erik thought. Good. Among warship pilots, cocky was always better than tentative.

“Hello Lieutenant. Yes, I think I might take this one. Lieutenant Lassa, please get me a connection to
UFS Mercury
.”

“I copy LC, you are on lasercom transmission to Mercury, go ahead.”

“Hello Captain Ritish,” Erik said calmly, aware of the spacer in the sling alongside looking at him. Through the mesh, he couldn’t tell who it was. “Nice to see you made it safely through jump. I have no idea who these tavalai ahead of us are, but I could guess that they’re remnants of the tavalai fleet hiding from us so the human Fleet won’t demand them decommissioned as per the peace treaty. I couldn’t guess if they’re going to be friendly to
Phoenix
, but I’m quite sure they’re not going to be friendly to
Mercury
. So unless you want to help us destroy the hacksaw base I mentioned, and you’re quite welcome to do so, I suggest you turn around and head back the way you came.
Phoenix
out.”

Triangulation told him the light-delay should be about eleven seconds each way. He counted patiently to twenty-two, as bridge chatter continued, and Coms registered
Makimakala
sending to the much more distant tavalai warships. Twenty-two seconds passed. Then thirty. Then forty.

“Mercury just dumped V,”
said Abacha. Erik felt relief, but no real surprise. Confronted by this, Captain Ritish had no real choice. But also, he felt the cold, fearful realisation that this was it.
Phoenix
was on her own. Fleet may not be able to pursue her any further, but with that,
Phoenix
also abandoned all lingering hope that someone from that old life might come to their senses and help them. The UF Marine Corps might broadly support them, but marines were incapable of action without spacer approval. Debogande Incorporated might broadly support them, but DI was an enormous organisation comprised mostly of people who were more interested in their own jobs and families than in risking everything to support the dubious actions of the naming-family’s black sheep son. And Worlder politicians might have some enduring affection for them, but Worlders were as effective at opposing Fleet as were goldfish staring up at the human faces looming over their bowl. And as they progressed on this hunt deeper into alien territories, human space was falling further and further behind.

“Signal from one of the tavalai ships,”
said Lassa.
“It’s tavalai fleet encryption, can’t break it but it seems of a conversational length. Makimakala’s answering.”

“Maybe they’re discussing how they’ll cook us,”
De Marchi suggested.

“Okay,” said Erik. “We’ll give it another five minutes. If nothing changes, we’ll coordinate approaches with
Makimakala
and downgrade to orange alert. Scan, please keep a close eye on
Mercury
in the meantime.”

Three minutes later, one of the tavalai vessels boosted up to come out and meet them. It was not an aggressive move — the Scancomp was close enough now to read the ship as kurialima-class and nothing like powerful enough to be threatening to
Phoenix.
This ship was headed out at
Mercury
, to investigate and to dissuade
Mercury
from hanging around to watch and gather intel. A minute after that,
Mercury
dumped all remaining V, turned straight back around and boosted up the way she’d come. Heck of a straining move that was, fighting for purchase upon the weak outer grav-slope, but once committed it signalled the end of
Mercury
as an ongoing strategic threat.

At the five minute mark, Erik’s glasses flashed orange, and the corridor lights copied in patches. With a thump and hum, the cylinder rotation restarted, and Erik unzipped to get his feet out. There were few things more embarrassing on a warship than to be caught in the sling by restoring gravity, feet stuck in the mesh and hanging like a sack of vegetables while you struggled to extricate yourself, and your neighbours laughed and took photos for wider humiliation. When he’d been a very green Second Lieutenant on
UFS Firebird
, it had happened to Erik twice. Thankfully never on
Phoenix
, and his feet hit the deck as gravity restored, and he pulled the rest of the mesh off him with relief while disconnecting his harness, and set about winding it correctly back into its wall-wrap, and setting off for the bridge.

“LC on the bridge!” Dufresne announced as he entered, past Harris, Karle and Jiri from first-shift, waiting for their commander to enter first.

“Thank you second-shift,” said Erik, as the rest of first-shift came in behind him. “Your relief will take the easy part from here. That was outstanding, I don’t think first-shift could have done better.” Which was a lie, because first-shift had pulled off some pretty amazing stuff lately, and would likely have nailed that last sequence also. But the relief that he felt now was a revelation to him — just knowing that second-shift could really handle it, when they had to.

He looked at Lieutenant Draper’s face as the younger man unbuckled his restraints, and saw from the weary grin that Draper’s relief was even greater. “How was the ride LC?” Draper asked, handing the headset for Erik to hold.

“Horrible,” said Erik. “I like it much better up here.”

“Y’know, me too.” Swinging a display screen aside as he climbed out, and Erik clasped his hand with feeling.

“Fucking ace job,” Erik told him. Draper’s often glum, freckled face split with a huge grin, beaming like the nerdy kid who’d just won first place and now had all the pretty girls flirting with him. Erik decided that he liked this newly acquired power of his — the ability to praise others, and have them take it seriously. “I mean it, all of you.”

He wanted to go around and congratulate each of them personally, but that would have to wait — the command chair could not be empty for even a moment, and he slipped into it now as Draper helped him with the straps, and all across the bridge the other posts did the same.

“Might be out of a job soon LC,” said Kaspowitz, as young Lieutenant De Marchi grinned while helping him strap in.

Erik smiled. “I wouldn’t go that far. Scan, when you’re in, get me a full analysis of who our new ‘friends’ are. Coms, contact
Makimakala
for me and ask them the same thing.”

“
I
still think
this is a bad idea,” Trace told him twenty hours later as they over-handed into the rear hold of PH-4. Command Squad was with them, buckling in with full armour, for whatever small good it would do. Erik wore light armour, a cap instead of a helmet, and a small gear bag that he secured in a mesh net beside his seat.

“I know you think it’s a bad idea,” Erik affirmed. “Hello Tif? We are all secure back here, you are free to proceed.”

“Aw crear EwC,”
Tif confirmed.
“Reave in ten.”
Her English comprehension was improving, even if her ‘l’s were not.

“I know you think you have it all logically figured out,” Trace continued. “You think the tavalai have no percentage in taking you hostage because they’d never believe any promise Fleet gave to get you back. And you think tavalai are too principled to do anything nasty. And I’m telling you that those are assumptions, and that caution was invented to guard against dangerous human assumptions.”

Clank, as the grapples cut, and PH-4 came clear. Erik smiled at Trace, and to the amusement of Command Squad raised his hand to mime a motor-mouth, always talking. Trace looked displeased.

“Fine,” she said, as Tif gave them a gentle thrust from the mains. “Just fine. You could do this over coms, there’s no need to do it face to face.” Erik sighed, and lowered his helmet visor to look at the scan feed. It showed him
Phoenix
alone, a hundred kilometres from
Makimakala
, and another hundred from five vessels of the regular tavalai fleet. Not long ago, this proximity to tavalai warships, minus velocity, would have been unthinkable unless one or the other had surrendered. Now the situation was weird all round, with no state of war existing between human and tavalai… and yet no peace either. Not long ago Erik would have found it very strange… but since then he’d been in combat operations with
Makimakala
, and now they had a somewhat-live drysine queen in Engineering, and his threshold for strangeness had increased by several degrees. “So you’re happy with Lieutenant Draper?” Trace changed the subject, seeing him ignoring her.

“Very happy,” said Erik. It was nice to say something good about Draper in front of the lower ranks. They gossiped about such things, and with good reason, given all their lives were in his hands as well as Erik’s. It was the same situation he’d been in not long ago, as the dubiously-regarded third-in-command of
Phoenix
. And just like then, whatever was said here by the senior officers would spread through the ship. “He completely nailed it, Dufresne too. That was a tough scenario, all of second-shift worked it perfectly — Arms, Scan, Nav, everyone.”

“There was word going around that Dufresne’s sim scores were better than Draper’s.” Erik gave her a warning look. Trace was unapologetic. If word was out, pretending it wasn’t would not help.

“They’re a little higher,” Erik admitted. “But just like with marines, sims are not actual combat. Some people do better at sims than the real thing, others are reverse. Draper’s a big time player, he steps up under pressure. Checking back over his previous records, that’s what they confirm — better actual results than sim results. And his sims are excellent. Dufresne’s are just a little better.”