Star Carrier (Lost Colonies Trilogy Book 3) Read online

“Negative. We’re within her best range now. We’ll be raked by her cannons if we try to move away from the debris shield we’re following.”

  My heart sank as I realized the truth of his words. The enemy had caught us neatly in their trap. Lulled by the trickery of our makeshift shield, we hadn’t stopped to consider the fact that variants like to change things and worked very quickly.

  The whole idea that they’d brought a damaged ship into the home system now seemed absurd in the extreme. Such creatures weren’t the sort to sit idle while their ship needed repairs—or improvements.

  “All right then, we’re committed,” I said. “We’ll have to make the best of it.”

  “Another volley incoming,” Yamada warned us. “They’re striking for the center of the asteroid now. I… I don’t understand it. That’s the safest place they could hit.”

  Durris and I exchanged glances. Durris took the job of explaining the situation.

  “They’ve decided to burn down our asteroid entirely,” he said. “Rather than punching holes in the maelstrom of gravel, allowing us to tear away a fresh protective sheet, they’re going to try to melt the core down and leave us with no defense.”

  Her face was bloodless, shocked. She turned slowly back to her instruments.

  No one on the deck spoke for several seconds. We watched as the enemy weapons punched through the debris and dug into the core. The asteroid had a nickel-iron center, tough, but not invulnerable.

  After six total strikes, the core vaporized entirely. We were without significant defenses.

  “Missiles launched, sir,” said one of the staffers.

  “Countermeasures,” I called back mechanically. “Launch our own barrage in return. It’s time.”

  “How many?”

  I hesitated before answering.

  “Throw everything we’ve got at them,” I said at last.

  The ship shook rhythmically as our missiles were fired in rapid sequence. The drumbeat of launches went on and on.

  I checked the range. We were still six hundred thousand kilometers out. Our main batteries could do damage at this distance, but the lance wouldn’t be effective. We had to get in closer to use it—much closer.

  “How long until the debris shield loses integrity?” I asked.

  “It’s coming apart now, Captain,” Durris answered. “We’ll be taking hits from their cannons in a few more minutes.”

  I nodded, unsurprised. Returning to my command chair, I strapped myself in. Reaching out with one hand, I activated the ship-wide PA system.

  “All hands, hear this,” I said. “We’re going to accelerate hard in thirty seconds. Get to an acceleration couch and strap in. Secure equipment, if you have time to do so.”

  Bringing up my external hull view, I saw the variants retreat into the ship. Their lance was fixed on the prow, looking odd and stubby. Could it be that all our hopes truly rested on these strange creatures?

  “Captain,” Durris said, “I know what you’re thinking, but—”

  “Excellent. Make it happen. Helmsman, pull us away from the debris cloud. Durris, prime the guns. We’ll get one or two shots in, then we’ll be down to the lance.”

  “But Captain,” Durris continued. “We’ll only get one shot with the lance if we come in fast. Then we’ll be past them after that and our tail will be exposed.”

  “I know. We’re only going to get one shot. That’s why the damned computer has halved the odds of our survival.”

  He nodded and hunched over his controls. Everyone had strapped in by now—and if they hadn’t, God help them.

  “Rumbold, pull us out from behind the debris. Full power to the engines. Let’s charge her amidships.”

  He gaped at me. “Are we going to ram Victory, sir?” he croaked.

  I considered it. The idea wasn’t without merit.

  “Not yet. Just get me in close as fast as possible. Then, we’ll fire that lance and see if it operates as advertised.

  No one cheered as we made our desperate maneuver. We pulled out from behind the remains of the asteroid which was now a swirl of glowing dust.

  The moment we were out in the open, the battleship landed her first punch at us. The hull bubbled and ran with slag. A hotspot appeared and damage reports began flowing in.

  Fortunately, they hadn’t taken out the lance—not yet.

  -17-

  I’ve been in a dozen hostile actions in space, perhaps more. None had ever seemed more desperate or uncertain than this one did.

  Usually, combat in the cold void was a dance of mathematics and precise planning. In this case we were no doubt facing odds that could be calculated, but we had no idea what the central formula might be.

  We’d never faced this particular enemy before. We’d never once used the weapon all our hopes rested upon. There were too many variables, and I for one didn’t have the skill or the stomach to recite them even as I attempted to win the day.

  Yamada caught my eye as the world darkened. The acceleration of Defiant was legendary. She could flatten one’s tongue against the back of your throat.

  “This is a fantastic risk,” she said thickly, “but I think it’s the best play we have.”

  “We’ll know shortly,” I said. “Hang on.”

  Rumbold flew Defiant toward the enemy ship with sickening speed. We shot toward them on a gut-wrenching curve, canting obliquely and unleashing tremendous power. Victory’s next salvo went wide, no doubt due to her crew being surprised and having to shift their turrets to track our rapidly approaching vessel.

  The battleship went dark for a time, then lit up again as we plunged close. When less than a hundred thousand kilometers separated us, their cannons fired again.

  This time, they struck home. The prow was molten in a dozen places. Forward decks were venting gas into space. Bulkheads sealed themselves to prevent depressurization.

  Casualty counts and lost systems began to flash red on all our screens. We’d lost exactly ten crewmen in one strike, and one of our three main batteries was dead as well.

  “Keep firing,” I ordered. “Yamada, is the lance still functional?”

  “As far as I can tell, sir,” she shouted back over the roar of our engines. “The cables are still intact and the indicators are green.”

  “Good. Durris, program that thing to fire at the enemy. Hit her amidships at that thinned-out section. Let’s see if we can’t break her spine.”

  “Already plotted, Captain.”

  I nodded. Of course he’d anticipated the order. I smiled at him, and he smiled back. By my estimates, we had less than ninety seconds to live.

  When we reached optimal range, the enemy cannons flared blindingly bright. The light was bluish and intense beyond measure. Squinting, I felt Defiant shudder as she fired her own response.

  The lance had unleashed an answering burst of power, a thick cylinder of brilliant energy.

  Our two ships plunged toward one another and crossed paths. The moment was brief, but definitive.

  The enemy cannon caught us in a crossfire at point-blank range. Huge gouges were torn into our armor. Exposed decks streamed out gas and tendrils of short-lived flame.

  Our own lance sliced into the battleship, cutting into her like a blowtorch. We passed by almost without seeming to have done much damage.

  “Spin us hard about, face them with our armored prow,” I ordered Rumbold.

  He fought with his controls, but at last threw up his hands.

  “Helm is unresponsive, sir,” he said in a voice laden with finality.

  I stared at him for a few seconds, then nodded.

  “Get the work crews down there. Get the control lines repaired.”

  “They’ve been dispatched,” he said in a dull voice.

  We both knew there wasn’t going to be time. The enemy only had to swing around their big guns, aim carefully, and blast a giant hole into our exposed engine compartment.

  “Call engineering,” I ordered Yamada. “Tell them to cut out ou
r port engines and give all thrust to the starboard side. We can turn that way if—”

  She shook her head with regret. “Engineering isn’t answering my hails, sir. They’ve lost pressure. Most of them are probably dead. Radiation levels are spiking in the stern sectors on every deck.”

  I nodded, lowering my eyes. I felt defeated.

  Sucking in a deep breath, I shucked off my harness as the engines died. We were drifting away from the enemy at speed.

  “Display Victory,” I said, standing up and looking at the forward screens. “Let’s see how we did.”

  The screen brightened, and there was the enemy ship. Oddly, she seemed motionless in the velvet black. Her forward half, in fact, was entirely dark.

  “I think they’ve lost power,” Durris said. “Our sensors are fuzzy, but optics suggest—”

  Rumbold whooped. “Look there! She’s breaking up!”

  The forward section of the great ship moved away from the stern. The rear portion, where the engines were located, still appeared to have power.

  The battleship’s aft guns were swinging about as if trying to focus on our fleeing vessel. They fired at random intervals, but nothing hit us.

  “They’re uncoordinated,” I said. “Either their sensors are all forward or knocked out… No fire-control. They’re operating manually.”

  Durris grinned suddenly, and he pointed beyond the battleship. A flock of tiny bright dots approached.

  “Our missile barrage!” he said. “We flew so fast, we out ran them. I sent them all at her engines.”

  Dumbstruck, I watched the screen as events unfolded with startling speed. First, the enemy ship began to fire her point-defense weapons—or at least the rear half of her did. The crew pumped out chaff, decoys, everything they had.

  But none of it was working. The forward section had the computers, the sensors—the brains.

  Our missiles slammed into them like a shower of meteors. Brilliant explosions glowed on every screen. The battleship was tough, but no ship could take such a hammering on her stern without any appreciable defenses.

  In the end, she blew up, transforming into a brilliant, glaring fireball.

  We cheered and clapped one another on the back. Everyone aboard who still drew breath took a moment to enjoy a glorious victory.

  It was short-lived. We soon had to return to the grim business of counting our dead, caring for our wounded and patching up a dozen holes the size of houses in our hull.

  By any account, we had stepped from the shadows to sprint in for a desperate and lucky slash. Surviving such tactics at all might be counted a victory, but we had done better. We’d survived the exchange and bested our foe all at once.

  Never had Defiant been so thoroughly wrecked. We were weary, but no one asked for a break. We worked on until shift-change, then through that one and into the next.

  While the ship hummed with the activity of souls who were overjoyed just to be alive, I retreated to my office.

  I sat down and contacted CENTCOM.

  My plan was to ask for Admiral Perez, but he beat me to it. He answered my call within minutes of the transmission reaching Earth.

  The conversation was a long one, partly because we were so far out it took several minutes to transmit our words from one office to the other.

  In the end, he congratulated me with what seemed like honest relief and ordered me to return home as soon as possible.

  I accepted these orders with a single suggestion of my own.

  “Sir,” I said, “I’d like to stop off at Mars first. We’re not far, and we could use their labs to refuel and refurbish.”

  “All right,” he said several minutes later, “but don’t take on any more variants. I no longer trust them—or Doctor Vogel. Understood?”

  “Understood, Admiral. Sparhawk out.”

  The channel closed, and I considered the black screen carefully. Who should I trust at this moment? CENTCOM or Vogel?

  I wasn’t certain.

  -18-

  It was nearly two weeks later when we reached Mars. Defiant had been so battered that we’d taken most of the time just getting her underway.

  A small flotilla of support vessels escorted us. By the time we made it to the docks at Phobos, they were no longer serving as tugboats, but as ship escorts.

  When we arrived at the lab complex, I found myself loathing the place. My previous visit still grated on my thoughts.

  It was the variants, of course. They were so different, so alien. In comparison, even the savage Stroj seemed relatable. At least the Stroj possessed normal human emotions and could ape our appearance. They were prideful, prone to anger, and determined to see their missions through. All of these were relatively human-like qualities.

  Not so the variants. I’d had plenty of time to become familiar with the trio aboard Defiant. Physically they were specialized, but their minds were all similar.

  Certainly, K-19 had an air of authority about him, and the other two were subservient though argumentative. Still, their overall sameness bothered me. The questions and responses from the lesser pair were particularly noticeable. They were virtually interchangeable in speech patterns. Only Q-161 sounded different due to her higher voice. Pressed to know which of them had spoken a given sentence, I could not have told you except for that single difference.

  In comparison, the Stroj were all individuals. They were part machine, yes, but the machine part wasn’t always the portion that was dominant. Even in the case where they had a purely artificial brain, each of them was as varied and twisted as the gnarled roots of an old tree.

  “Director Vogel is calling, Captain,” Yamada told me as the docking apparatus swung into place and locked onto our prow.

  “Right…” I said. “Put him on the forward screen.”

  I wanted no private meeting with this man. He had done me a good turn by placing three valuable and loyal creatures aboard my ship, but he’d also built the ones that had apparently gone mad and taken our fleet from us. Could three rights out of a thousand wrongs truly redeem an individual?

  “Captain Sparhawk…” Vogel said, running his eyes over the command crew. He was clearly taken by surprise. He’d probably figured I’d take the call privately as I had on previous occasions.

  “We’ll need your facilities to effect repairs,” I told him, taking charge of the situation. “Defiant must be fully operational as fast as possible. We lack full power, and one of our primary weapons banks is dead. Our bridge-drive is incapacitated as well.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen the manifest, but I’m calling concerning efficiency. It would be best if your entire crew disembarks and moves aboard our lab facilities here on Phobos while the repairs are being carried out.”

  “Excuse me?” I asked. “Pretend I don’t understand what you’re proposing.

  He blinked, pushed his glasses up his nose, then spoke again.

  “It’s not complex. There will be organizational difficulties, naturally. We don’t really have enough pressurized living quarters for all of you. We’ve done our best, setting up domes out on the moon’s surface, but—”

  “No—Director—I’m questioning the nature of this plan. Are you suggesting my crew abandon the ship while repairs are being performed?”

  “Why yes, of course. The variants will be crawling over the hull and the internal passages. Your crew will just be in the way.”

  I shifted in my chair and frowned at him. “I’m sorry, but that’s unacceptable. Here’s how events will proceed: your facilities will manufacture parts and munitions. We will install them here on the ship. If we need some heavy lifting, such as the installation of a gun battery, we’ll use the three variants you gave us previously.”

  Director Vogel looked perturbed. “That will slow down the job considerably. Have you witnessed the speed at which a variant can operate? Especially in a depressurized environment?”

  “I have. It’s quite impressive. But after recent events, I have security issues to take under
consideration. You understand my reasoning, I’m sure.”

  He pursed his lips and nodded curtly. “I see. You’ve come to doubt my work—my variants. Even after watching this new version in action, you still refuse to trust them.”

  “That’s right, Vogel,” I said firmly. “I don’t trust them. You do realize I have seen the old version in action too?”

  “Damned straight…” I heard Rumbold mutter, but I didn’t reward his rudeness with a glance.

  “Well,” Vogel said sullenly, “at least you should release the trio I’ve given you for an update. I noticed that when we tried to patch their software remotely we failed to connect.”

  I glanced at Yamada. That was her doing, and she was looking smug. She’d closed the port on our network that would have allowed Phobos to update the firmware on the variants aboard.

  “We’ll have to decline on that front as well,” I said. “The current software version is working very well. We’ve got no complaints.”

  “Seriously? You should always update critical systems. We’ve discovered flaws. There would be no less than a thirteen percent upgrade in battery-life alone if you would only—”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Is there anything else?”

  He appeared uncertain. “No, I guess not,” he said at last. “Welcome to Phobos. We’d like to treat you to a victory dinner at our cantina if you’d like to come with your senior officers. That is, if you trust my engineers not to start a bar brawl and physically attack you.”

  Chuckling in what I hoped was a good-natured tone, I nodded. “We’ll be there. Thanks for the invitation.”

  The screen darkened, and Rumbold caught my eye.

  “What is it, Helmsman?” I asked him.

  “If there’s drinking to be done, I’m normally the first man to the bar. But I’m not sure about this outfit. Can we trust him, sir?”

  I considered his question seriously. “If he tries anything, we’ll melt his lab into slag, orders or no. He’ll probably respect that.”

  “Right…” Rumbold said thoughtfully. “In that case, count me in as part of the going-ashore party!”

  “Excellent. Anyone else wish to join me?”