Shackleton's Folly (The Lost Wonder Book 1) (44 page)

The energy capacitors within the walls had built up so much stored power that they were instantly ready for use. They targeted the largest in the field to cut them down in size for easier disposal. The rods aimed and let loose their power. Great beams of red energy reached out from hundreds of gardens, striking the asteroids greater than ten kilometers. This was a blasting operation. The red energy was being used to surgically cut them down to a more manageable size for the maintenance robots to haul off to the star for disposal.

The largest asteroids — above a hundred kilometers — were the first to be cut up for disposal. Planes of energy sliced from above and below, paralleling the vertical axis as others cut across from right and left. The cutting was quick, and the beams were coming from opposite directions, negating most, if not all, forces on the rock. This meant that they stayed relatively close to where they were cut up. This was happening all over the asteroid field.

The Koty ships had kept themselves close to the asteroids, but, now, with the robots disposing of the smaller asteroids and the red energy beams slicing the rest down to size, it was time to act. The
Illia
and
Saleen
were close to a medium-sized asteroid, about 90 kilometers in length and 34 at the widest when it came. The great blasts of coordinated energy beams cut every 4.5 kilometers along its length and about every 3 along its width. The battleship
Saleen
quickly backed away from the asteroid. The red energy beam flickered as it cut through the rock like butter and hit the
Saleen
from behind, catching the ship in the engine compartment, causing the ship to explode in a brilliant spectacle.

*

The
Quest
neared the Atlantis garden. Alec nodded to the screen as they replayed the explosion of the second battleship. Alec said, “I have to go back. The Koty problem must be dealt with before they can report any of what they have seen.” He looked to Electra.

She said with agreement, “They are a hostile race; we have seen a preview of what is to come. If they are allowed to report, we could soon expect a fleet of Koty warships and the murder of billions of beings.”

Alec replied, “Then you’re with me?”

“Alec, the Koty must be stopped by any means possible.” Electra tossed her hair back. “I left home and spent years in slavery waiting to find the Rovers who caused this to happen here. I’ve laid down my life to save my people already. This,” she pointed out the port, “fight with the Koty is nothing more than the end of my mission. If I have to die to save our people, our world, and our family, then I say ‘Let’s do it.’”

“Our family,” said the surprised Alec.

“We survive this, and we’ll talk.”

“I don’t see why not — a Koty battleship against a space yacht. I’ll see what we can do.”

*

The battleship
Illia
maneuvered away from the chunks of asteroid and bits and pieces of the
Saleen
still floating by. The maintenance robots had arrived and were in the process of grabbing the cut-up chunks of the asteroid and bits of the
Saleen
that they could manage and hauling it away. The
Illia
was having a hard time keeping itself out of the way of the cleanup crew; the destruction of the
Saleen
had put a chill on the confidence of its crew and Captain. They had tried to make it out; they were stymied by the maintenance robots, but not directly. The few times they had tried leaving, they had drawn the attention of a nearby robot who came toward them, registering that they were a piece of debris floating away. The robots seemed to forget about them when they moved back into the asteroid field.

Captain K’Dhoplon ordered the crew to ready the ship for FTL flight. They would have to align the ship so that, when they came to speed, they would engage the FTL engines and escape the station. The robots were beginning to show some progress in removing the largest rocks in the belt. This progress came at a price for the
Illia
. The largest asteroids were the ones giving them the best protection, shielding them from the energy beams. The methodical progress had nearly caught the
Illia
on three earlier occasions. The red beams cut through the asteroid nearest them, vaporizing rock and dicing up the space debris like a master chef chopping an onion in a rush. The ship’s shields lit up with the blasts.

The
Quest
appeared from behind the blasts and raked the bridge’s forward shields with energy beams. Normally this would have meant little to a battleship, but on the heels of being grazed by the enormous directed energy rays, the
Quest
’s insignificant weapons knocked out the
Illia
’s forward shields.

The
Illia
’s bridge crew recovered from the attack at their stations. Captain K’Dhoplon remained at his station. He demanded the attention of the crew. “Follow that human ship. On my mark, engage!”

Bridge crew members readied their stations. “Bring us out at one-quarter speed,” said Captain K’Dhoplon.

The
Illia
’s engines fired up, and the battleship slowly broke from the background of rock they were hiding behind into pursuit of the
Quest
. This alone drew interest from the robots nearby. Their real-time communication with the gardens systems provided a nearly instantaneous response.

Captain K’Dhoplon demanded, “All forward batteries target the human ship, Fire at will!”

The
Quest
flew evasive maneuvers as the Koty technicians tried both manual and computerized targeting to eradicate the
Quest
. The communication screens filled with Alec’s face. “Is that the best you Koty can do? I thought you were the best. It looks like a little old ship and a human is a match for a Koty battleship.” The screen went blank.

“I want that ship blasted from existence.
Now
!” yelled Captain K’Dhoplon into the ship’s intercom.

The
Illia
followed the
Quest
out into to the void beyond the edge of the asteroid belt. The
Quest
changed direction in a half roll, came out below the asteroid belt, and took a different course, keeping the rock between it and the Koty.

*

“It seems you have touched a nerve,” stated Dancer flatly.

“I hope so. We can’t outgun him, so we’re going to have to out-fly them,” replied Alec.

The
Quest
flew two kilometers from the surface of the asteroid field.

“Dancer, you have the Koty on the screen — right?”

“No.”

The asteroids in the field the
Quest
was flying over erupted as the bow of the
Illia
punched up through the disk and plowed the rubble aside. Alec yanked the controls back hard and over, trying to avoid a collision with the hull of the battleship blocking their course. The rock displaced by the
Illia
swept into the
Quest,
knocking it up and backward. Smaller gun positions fired on the
Quest
, but the displaced rubble took the majority of the hits. The
Quest
’s shields strained to keep the asteroids from crushing the yacht.

Alec kept the
Quest
’s bow from taking them directly into any rock of consequence. He managed to extricate the
Quest
from the floating debris.

“How did they do that?” asked Alec.

“Not sure. If we couldn’t see them on scanners, they shouldn’t have been able to see us.”

“I think they did, somehow. Are we transmitting?”

Dancer checked. “I think we are. They must have another tracker on the ship somewhere.”

“Okay. Let’s see what we can do with that.”

The
Quest
rolled as the
Illia
turned back to follow. The
Quest
put on speed. The
Illia
matched its prey. The
Illia
’s forward sections showed damage from impacting with the asteroids as it plowed through to fire on the
Quest
. The
Quest
poured it on, putting some distance between it and the Koty.

“Electra, take a look at the maintenance screen.”

Electra had it at the ready.

“I want to know where the highest concentration of custodian activity is located in the belt.”

Electra resized and zoomed in on the asteroid field. Icons representing the
Quest
and the
Illia
were shown traveling quickly over the belt, but ahead was an area of activity greater than anywhere else.

“That’s it, then. We will make our stand there,” he said.

Electra looked at him blankly.

“Sorry — I intend to take on the Koty there.”

Electra nodded. “We make a stand together, then.”

“Yes, we do.”

They held the intensity of their eye contact for just a second.

“Here we go!”

The
Quest
’s engines jumped to 110% of full power. They strained against the demand, but the
Quest
accelerated, opening up a huge lead. The
Illia
’s engines lit up with full power but could not come close to the speed and acceleration of the
Quest
. The
Quest
built up a lead great enough that, when it doubled back, the
Illia
did not notice it.

*

Captain K’Dhoplon wiped the blood of the weapons officer from his hand on the arm of his chair. The fool had missed the human ship after they had plowed the asteroid field to gain a tactical advantage that further damaged the front of his ship. This should have been over already. The humans could run from the Koty. All races did sooner or later. The Koty Union would be the dominant force in the galaxy for thousands of cycles once they were able to recover the armies of robotic soldiers he had seen.

“Where is the
Quest
?” asked Captain K’Dhoplon.

“We are closing in on it quickly, sir,” replied the science officer.

“What? Put it on screen.”

The forward screen showed the two ships hurtling toward each other.

“Forward batteries, fire!”

A hail of weapons fire opened up on the oncoming yacht. The
Quest
did little to make it easy for the
Illia
to get a target lock on them. The closure rate climbed as both crafts increased their speeds to maximum.

*

Alec watched the maintenance screen as the two icons raced toward impact. “We’ll know in a minute.” The field in between the two craft started blinking. Alec looked out the port as energy beams flicked into existence in the removal process. The first asteroid to be cut to pieces was the largest on this side of the belt and the one the
Illia
was just starting to pass over. The asteroid went from the cold of space to plasma as the energy beams sliced through it like a hot knife through butter. Then the Koty battleship
Illia
became the focus of five energy rays in a crossfire. The shields flashed through the spectrum, holding on for the merest fraction of a moment, and then exploded.

Alec banked the
Quest
over and off the asteroid belt. He wanted to put as much distance between the
Quest
and the custodians as possible. He set course for the Atlantis garden just as an energy beam grazed the
Quest
. The ship shook as the nearby rock exploded; chunks peppered the hull.

The hexagons of the Emperor’s garden were all clearly outlined in red. Unlimited bolts of red energy sparked across the gaps of all the gardens. The arcs would start from the corners of the hexagons and move down the walls to the next corner. The red energy pushed the pieces even further apart.

Alec and Electra were at the controls, with Dancer at the engineer’s station. They fought the controls as the
Quest
plummeted into the Atlantis garden.

Alec yelled out, “Hold on!”

The
Quest
dived into the Atlantis garden at a steep enough angle so as not to skip off the atmosphere. The force field lid flickered from transparency to opaque and back again. The ship’s hull heated up, burning away the residue of dust covering the ship. The process gave the golden hull a sparkle as the dust superheated instantly, lit up, and vanished like an ember in a flame. The force field flickered again, and the sphere’s red energy filled the sky.

Alec took the
Quest
back as close to Atlantis as he dared with the ship in the condition it was in. If he pancaked the ship, he wasn’t going to take out any civilians if he could help it. There was no way to tell how she was going to perform in the atmosphere. Alec and Electra fought for control of the ship as it reduced its speed so as not to burn up on reentry. The
Quest
fell through the cloud layer over the representation of the Atlantic Ocean before the ship had slowed enough for Alec to try to turn the
Quest
toward the Atlantean coast. The ship fought him at first but then seemed to understand what was being asked of it.

The
Quest
begrudgingly turned toward the coast. The red energy above gave the garden an otherworldly look as the
Quest
hurtled along the channel from the coast toward Atlantis. Their screens showed that the local inhabitants were out, witnessing the world in red. The
Quest
’s controls were sketchy at best. The park was filled with a great multitude of citizens, trying to get a better look at the sky as they had never seen it before.

They headed back to the landing pad near the crest of the Hill of Cleito. The
Quest
landed hard as the engines finally gave out. The airlock burst open, and Electra ran out onto the landing pad to look up at the sky. The red energy gave everything a hellish appearance. Poseidon, above his temple, was particularly evil-looking in the red energy.

The city’s inhabitants pushed up the hill toward the temple. Alec, Electra, and Dancer made their way to the steps of the Temple. There was a force in the air, and all eyes looked to the heavens.