Star Force 10: Outcast Page 11

  Next, I said, “Give me an analysis of their main weapons on those ships.” This took a few minutes, but soon I was looking over basic computed specs on the enemy guns. They surprised me. “Antiproton beams?” I asked aloud.

  The big, bald, rangy man at the helm was a warrant officer named Hansen. He spoke up in response to my question. “Yes, sir, that’s what they look like. Nasty things at this range. If they hit our hull, they’ll vaporize it in big chunks—far more damage per second than similarly sized lasers could produce.”

  I nodded, reviewing what I knew about antiproton weapons. Unlike lasers, which burned or cut directly, or particle beams, which slammed subatomic particles into the target causing contact fusion and heat, these beams sent a stream of antimatter particles. Negatively charged protons were essentially sprayed at the enemy, and they instantly annihilated the protons inside whatever they hit, releasing enormous energy and disintegrating the target’s atomic nuclei.

  Star Force had never developed antiproton beam technology because of its shorter range and high power usage. Such weapons couldn’t be used effectively in atmosphere since the antiprotons would annihilate air instead of their targets. Laser weapons were far more versatile.

  On the other hand, antiprotons could eat through any sort of armor, no matter how thick or resistant to more mundane attacks. The only defense was the heavy, Macro-style magnetic shield every capital ship carried, but seldom used because of its huge power consumption.

  “Hansen, make sure our shield is in good working order and ready to snap on if we are targeted by those weapons.”

  “Yes, sir. Already did it, sir.”

  “Good man. How are the repairs coming?”

  “We’re patched, but we need more materials, especially the exotic elements, to fully rebuild.”

  I thought about all the dead Macros on their moon’s surface, a goldmine of easily recycled metals, but we didn’t want to piss off the Pandas by poking around just yet.

  “What about their secondary beams?” I asked.

  “Entirely antiprotons.”

  I tapped my chin in thought. That made no sense. Pound for pound, our weapons mix was much better in a ship-to-ship battle. Why were theirs so specialized? Antiproton weapons wouldn’t take down Macros better than our load-out. Who else did they have to fight?

  “Kwon,” I said, turning to the hulking marine who stood near the hatch. “I want all your marines in full armor, with their weapons, nuclear grenades and skateboards handy in case of trouble.” They were Kwon’s marines at the moment since the marine commander had gone along with the captain.

  “Yes, sir.” Kwon said, passing the orders down to the troop pods. That made me feel better.

  “How many Panda ships have us in range?” I asked.

  “Six, sir,” Hansen replied.

  I should have seen that coming.

  “Set up a battle script so at the first sign of trouble the shield snaps on, and then we’ll take evasive action. Make sure to include Greyhound in the plan. Are both our main lasers good to go?”

  “Yes, sir.” Hansen ran his hands across his controls.

  “Figure out a plan to survive their first volley. If they can’t take us down right away, we’ll knock out as many of these as we can and then head for the other ring.”

  “Sir?” Hansen and the rest of the crew stared at me, horrified.

  “Just in case, Hansen.”

  “If something happens, shouldn’t we try to rescue the captain and the other officers?”

  I stared at the holotank, not meeting his eyes. “That would be my first impulse, but this one ship can’t take on a whole world. We can’t even take out these six ships—especially not at close range. According to these readings, they have dozens of surface batteries and defense installations around the capital city, as well as the hundreds of other ships we’ve pinpointed and probably a lot more. The captain chose to risk himself and his officers for the chance at an alliance.” I deliberately didn’t remind them of Turnbull’s other motivations—glory and promotion. “Probably it will all work out, but I want to be ready in case the situation hits the fan.”

  For the first time, I was getting a real taste of what it meant to be a Star Force line commander. Hansen turned slowly away and then nodded. I was glad he seemed to agree with me. I thought that if I had Hansen and Kwon at my side, the crew would probably follow along, even if everything fell apart.

  “Let me know if we get any word concerning our, um, ambassadors,” I said. “Next, I want to see what you’ve got on that other ring.”

  The holotank showed me a representation of what the sensors had gathered over the past twelve hours or so since we had arrived in the Tullax system. While our arrival ring orbited above Tullax 6, this one was stuck into a barren rocky outer moon of the gas giant, Tullax 5. Even though the gas giant was in a closer orbit, it happened to be on the other side of the star system right now.

  That ring looked similar to the Venus ring near Earth. It was half-buried and stood on its end, forming an arch. Twenty miles above it hung a massive battle station, not unlike the one my father had ordered built in the Eden system. The enormous construct did not seem to be in orbit. It looked like it was sitting on repellers, guarding the ring. Judging by the engineering and materials, it seemed to be of Panda origin. It made sense that this battle station would be guarding the only active ring against Macros.

  I wondered, though, why they didn’t put defense installations on the ground. They could have set up gargantuan guns or beams on the moon’s surface that could blast anything coming through. Maybe they had the area mined, but I wouldn’t have done it that way.

  Then I remembered the Lithos or at least the litho-nanites. The Pandas didn’t need mines. If the Macros came though on the ground, the dirt would get them. If the Macros came through in space, the battle station should be able to hold the ring long enough for reinforcements to arrive. And the Pandas might have a lot more ships we hadn’t seen. If I were them, I wouldn’t reveal my full strength.

  Something beeped. “Hail from the surface,” Valiant said.

  “Put it on.”

  We saw vids of several Pandas sitting around a table heaped with food. A Panda I recognized as First Provider Long Growl spoke in his grunting burr, which was translated as a neutral, pleasant male voice. The calm, almost kindly nature of that voice made what followed all the more horrifying.

  “Greetings,” said the alien. “We thank you, Turnbulls, for a wonderful feast. Please send down another six leaders so we may serve our superiors.”

  Behind Long Growl, we could see all of the Star Force officers’ empty uniforms displayed in a row.

  “Look, sir. On the table,” Hansen said.

  I’d been staring at the Pandas, trying to get some nuance of meaning from their body language, so I had missed what was really important. Scattered across the tabletop I saw human body parts—whole hands, bones, a scalp with an ear attached—even a bare foot.

  -12-

  I stared at the image on my viewscreen. I couldn’t believe it. The entire delegation had been slaughtered.

  “Fuck me,” I breathed, because nothing else came to mind.

  First Provider Long Growl jerked as if poked with a stick. “That will not be acceptable,” he replied.

  “Stop translation, Marvin,” I snapped. “Mute the audio. What are those six cruisers doing?”

  “One is moving toward us. It looks like it wants to dock.”

  “To hell with that. These sons of bitches just ate our delegation, and now they want more?” My impulse was to open fire, but maybe this was all a huge misunderstanding, and I wasn’t going to start a war by shooting first, no matter how sick the situation. Besides, we were outnumbered.

  Then it struck me that I really was in charge. Despite the fact I was a mere ensign, I was now the senior ranking Star Force officer within hundreds of lightyears.

  “Start translation and audio.” I took a deep breath. “First
Provider Long Growl, your behavior is not acceptable. Consuming other sentient beings is abhorrent to us. We cannot provide you with more humans to eat.”

  The Panda seemed surprised. “Do you not wish to join our cooperative society?”

  “No. We’re happy to discuss an alliance against the Macros, but we cannot comply with your customs.”

  “We must insist. Please have the next six Turnbulls ready.”

  “No.”

  “Then we will compel you.” The communication snapped off.

  “Sir, the aliens are powering weapons!” Hansen shouted.

  “Execute the script!”

  I watched as Greyhound powered its engines to full and took off like a bat out of hell with three times the acceleration we could manage. At the same time, our shield came on and we powered after the yacht as fast as we could go.

  “They’re firing.” Lights dimmed as all our excess power went into the shield. Even if we had enough juice to fire our own weapons, they wouldn’t work very well with the shield in the way. It was an all-or-nothing deal.

  “Damage report!” I snapped.

  “Surface damage only. The shield absorbed most of their shots.”

  I could see we were pulling away from the Pandas as they kept firing their antiproton beams at us. They seemed to really want another feast. In a few minutes, we were out of range, and I had time to get angry, remembering our officers. I couldn’t believe they’d been served for dinner.

  I wanted to swing around and go blasting at the Panda ships. If we were skilled and lucky, we could beat the six that were following us. They hadn’t seemed very imaginative.

  Suddenly, thirty-six missile plots sprang into being in the holotank, all aiming at us. I calculated our respective accelerations and determined that the missiles would not catch us any time soon, so I ignored them for now.

  “Sir, I’ve dropped the shield,” Hansen said. “We’re out of their range, but our primary lasers can hit their ships. Shall I return fire?” Understandably, he was eager for payback.

  I thought for a moment then shook my head. “No. There’s no point. We can’t afford revenge right now. We have to reserve all power for our engines.”

  “What about shooting down the missiles?”

  “Not right now. It looks like we can outrun them.” A germ of an idea was forming in my head.

  Hansen turned to stare at me. His face was red and his brows were drawn tight.

  “Riggs, we must hit them back! We can’t let them get away with this.”

  “Believe me Hansen, I would love to do the same,” I said grimly. “But revenge is an indulgence we can’t afford right now.”

  “What do we do, then?” Hansen asked. He looked disgusted but resigned.

  Staring at the holotank, I reached over to tap the icon representing the moon circling gas giant, Tullax 5. “We have to go through this ring.”

  “What about the battle station?”

  “We’ll blow past it. That’s our only option. If we stay in this system, they’ll chase us around until we run out of fuel and supplies. How are the missiles tracking us? Optical, radar, heat?”

  “Radar, sir. They’re pinging us all the time.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Tell Greyhound to slow down and let us catch up.” A few minutes later we came alongside and docked, with the enemy missiles trailing far behind. “Adrienne,” I hailed, “you and Marvin come over to Valiant. I have a use for that yacht, but neither of you needs to be on it.”

  “Marvin is in the cargo bay experimenting with his litho-nanites,” Adrienne replied. “I’ll try to get him to come, but he doesn’t listen to me.”

  Five minutes later she boarded Valiant and told me, “I relayed your orders to Marvin, but he didn’t respond.”

  I thought about sending Kwon over, but Marvin was a coin flip when it came to being useful. I decided to let him be. I didn’t really expect my plan to lose Greyhound anyway.

  At least, not yet.

  I told Greyhound to cast off and spent the next couple of minutes instructing its brainbox. Soon, the yacht fell back toward the chasing missiles while Valiant forged ahead. This made the smaller ship’s radar signature bigger in the missile’s sensors, and reduced the battlecruiser’s.

  Then we slowly diverged courses until I was certain the missiles were following Greyhound and not Valiant. “Perfect,” I said. “Now we can lead them around for a while before we use them.”

  “Use them?” Hansen said.

  “Yes.” I ignored his implied question. “Now set course for Tullax 6, full speed.”

  “The dead Macro world?”

  “Exactly.”

  Hansen shrugged and input the course. Employing maximum speed, we reached Tullax 6 in two hours. We hovered over the blasted landscape. I noted that the six Panda ships had turned back to their own world.

  “Now what?” asked Hansen sourly.

  I glanced at him, realizing he was highly upset. His jaws clenched, displaying bulging cheek muscles. I decided to ignore his attitude. The death of Captain Turnbull had been a shock to everyone.

  “Come down slow, but don’t land,” I said. “Grab some of the taller pieces of dead Macros with arms, and use the small lasers to cut them free of the surface. Try not to shoot the ground. I’m not sure if the energy will feed the Lithos or harm them, but I’d rather not do either. Load the cargo bays full of chunks. In fact, extend some smart metal to make extra holds. I want the material broken up into small masses in case we pick up Lithos accidentally. They’re dangerous when they’re clumped together.”

  I needed to work fast because the enemy missiles were still on Greyhound’s trail. They weren’t as fast as Star Force standard issue missiles, but they were determined. They kept following Marvin’s ship around with grim tenacity, and they were slowly catching him. He had only a few days before they caught up to him.

  Within an hour, we had several thousand tons of high-grade metallic elements including the exotics and radioactives we needed from the scrap. That sounded like a lot, but it really wasn’t. Metals are dense and don’t take up much space. The Lithos seemed to ignore us on the ship. Maybe they only cared about things on the surface.

  “Get the factory pumping out constructive nanites. We’ll patch up Valiant and repair the more complex systems later,” I told Hansen.

  His expression was almost a snarl. He didn’t even acknowledge the order, just turned back to his boards and began carrying it out.

  I considered relieving him—but I knew I couldn’t. Despite his attitude, I needed him. He was functioning as my executive officer now, my second in command. He knew this ship better than I did, and I had my hands and mind full trying to figure out what to do.

  “How long will it take?” I asked.

  “A few hours for the structure and hull. Once that’s done, it will take days to make and install the high-tech mechanisms—the weapons, repellers and so on. I’ll pass the word to Engineering.”

  I leaned back and stared at the consoles. “How long can we keep those missiles chasing Greyhound?”

  “Assuming nothing interferes, we have a day or two left. I told Marvin to modify the yacht’s course and put Greyhound into a fuel-saving solar orbit.”

  We both knew Hansen should have at least informed me that he’d made a course correction. Eyeing him, I let the matter pass.

  “You’d think the Pandas would recall their missiles,” I said.

  “Maybe they like to kill their enemies. Maybe that’s more important to them than retrieving a few weapons.”

  “Or maybe they aren’t very imaginative,” I replied, ignoring his barb. I was beginning to think Hansen and I were going to have to have a private chat eventually, and I wasn’t looking forward to it. I was still hoping he’d cool off if I gave him the time. “The Pandas may not have fought anyone but Macros thus far. Since we have time, let’s stay here and salvage dead Macros. There are more of them mired in this dirt than we could ever use. Just keep a sharp looko
ut for those Lithos. They might have something up their sleeves.”

  We stayed at Tullax 6 for several more hours until the ship’s hull had been repaired. Given a few more days, we’d be back to original specs.

  I spent the time talking with the ship’s engineers and the surviving scientists about a modification I wanted to make. I even let Hoon in on the discussions. The other scientists seemed to know how to handle him. As long as I didn’t talk to him directly, it seemed like he could contain himself from making a pronouncement about interacting with someone unworthy of his presence—namely me.

  Hoon was a reminder that there were different ways to be “smart” in the universe. Hoon and the scientists acted like field academics, but they were a bit more practical than the usual university-bound types. For all that, Hoon was still a major pain in the butt.

  The ship’s engineers were much better. With me pushing them, they eventually programmed the ship’s onboard factory to make what I wanted: three smaller magnetic shield devices.

  While the shield output was naturally spherical, it could be shaped somewhat by the right kind of conductive surfaces and magnetic energy. I put aside one of the devices for installation on Greyhound, but the other two I had configured to cover two sides of the ship, leaving the pair of big lasers free to shoot. The bubbles rose on either side of the energy cannons and limited their field of fire to some extent, but now we had some flexibility. Valiant could be partially screened against the antiproton beams but still fire, at different targets, like a swordsman stabbing one man while shielding against another.

  The engineers protested that all this was against regulations, but I overruled them. “We’re three hundred light years from home, with no support,” I pointed out. “To hell with the regs. Exercise good judgment and creativity, and make these things work the best you can.”

  Once I assured them they weren’t going to get in trouble from anyone but me, they became more enthusiastic. These guys had grown up in a different Star Force from my old man’s. There were lots more procedures and rules these days. In my heart and mind, I’d always longed for what Dad and Kwon had talked about as I grew up: the early days of improvisations and big, desperate gambles. I guess I’d gotten my wish.