War of the Spheres Page 23

  Jessup eyed me with suspicion.

  “What are you up to, Gray?” he demanded. “Don’t try to show me your orders. I’ve seen them. As I said, I have the—”

  “Yes, exactly,” I interrupted. “It’s your prerogative to ignore Control and to sentence this crew to death. Not to mention leaving our precious cargo to its fiery destruction.”

  “What kind of crap are you spouting?” he demanded, reaching for the computer paper I was fooling with.

  I snatched it back, removing it from his reach. “A moment please,” I said. “I have to finish your edits. Then you can sign it, and we’ll disembark immediately.”

  “Why would I sign that?”

  “All it says is that you’ve overruled Control. That you’ve decided to retreat from the incoming danger with your crew alone. Isn’t that accurate?”

  He looked from me, to the computer paper, then back to Colonel Hughes. He hesitated.

  “Yes…” Hughes said, catching on. “You’re taking full responsibility.”

  Jessup stewed for a few seconds before exploding.

  “Son of a bitch! Why didn’t you just stay aboard your transport and leave the platform?” he demanded in a growl.

  “First off, because we were under orders. We were in the act of transferring to your ship when news of the incoming attack broke. Secondly, Viper is much faster than any transport. The odds of us escaping with our lives therefore—”

  “…and our irreplaceable cargo!” Colonel Hughes threw in angrily.

  “—yes, that too,” I said, “are much better aboard Viper. But I can see you’ve made up your mind.”

  Colonel Hughes let me continue—slowly nodding in affirmation as she watched Jessup and I.

  “Even if this singular operation fails and a unique prototype is lost, I’m sure no one at The Ministry will question your judgment. You wouldn’t be in command if your decisions weren’t ultimately being made to keep the brass happy.”

  Jessup narrowed his eyes to slits, thinking hard.

  I took the opportunity to offer him the computer paper for his signature.

  “Get that out of my face!” he ordered, slapping it away. “Fine. Board my ship. Fill my holds with junk—but be quick about it. We’re pulling away from the dock in four minutes. That’s our launch window.”

  After giving this order, he demanded that all non-crewmembers clear off his bridge. We all hustled below, and I contacted Logan.

  “It’s a go,” I said, “finish loading the cargo and get into an airlock. You’ve got about… two hundred seconds left.”

  Logan squawked and complained, but I didn’t listen. I figured we’d gotten the best shot we could hope for out of Jessup. It was time to swallow hard and hustle.

  Cmdr. Collins drifted down to find me as the seconds ticked down.

  “You know…” he said. “That was pretty well-played.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  He tapped the computer paper, which I had rolled up and stuffed into the front of my spacesuit.

  “You really have a report for Control on that thing?” he asked.

  “As far as you know,” I coolly challenged.

  He narrowed his eyes. “He’ll have our asses if he finds out.”

  “He’s already got your ass, Collins—and there are only ninety seconds left, by the way.”

  Collins glared at me. “Your crewmen have loaded some kind of bulbous thing into the stern of my ship. What the hell is it?”

  “What if I told you it was a bomb?” I asked. “What would you do about it?”

  He stared at me, then slowly shook his head. “You Control officers really think you’re hot-shit, don’t you? I suggest you watch your back aboard this ship, Chief. You’re not making friends.”

  Toby suddenly appeared in our conversation. “His ability to infuriate innocent people is unmatched,” Toby said.

  Cmdr. Collins walked away, still shaking his head.

  “Strap in,” I ordered Toby.

  For once, he didn’t argue. Logan and the loading team were coming aboard through the engineering airlock. There wasn’t much time to spare, and I could already hear Viper’s engines rumbling.

  I checked the status of the space dock, and was impressed to see it was pretty much abandoned. The transport had left—overloaded and creaking under the weight of a hundred desperate crewmen.

  A few last tugs and pinnaces were floating away in random directions, trying to get to a safe distance.

  Then, Viper’s big engines kicked into high gear. We were pressed into our crash seats with violent force.

  We were running. I hoped we had enough time to reach a safe distance.

  Chapter 28

  Viper could really move. We were under the weight of several Gs of acceleration. Below decks, people were crawling around and strapping in. There weren’t enough soft berths and crash seats to go around—but we made do.

  I got myself tangled up in a cobweb-like mass of webbing and relaxed. It was like being in a hammock.

  Once I’d gotten myself situated, I tried signaling Colonel Hughes by comm-link. To my surprise she answered.

  “Chief?” she grunted out, her lungs compressed by the ship’s steady thrust.

  “Emily? Is everything all right with the engine?”

  “You know, Gray,” she said, “I think you care more about the engine than you do people.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “It’s okay—I’m like that too. Without that kind of love, I don’t think we’d have made it this far.”

  “You know, I just noticed something,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “You didn’t object this time when I called you Emily.”

  She hesitated for a moment, then laughed. “You’re right. I think I might just allow you to call me by my familiar name in unofficial moments—you’ve earned it. On a related note, Jillian has caught me up on the latest events, and I’ve got to hand it to you—you keep a cool head in a crisis.”

  “Thanks,” I said, wondering vaguely which of my many extracurricular activities she was referring to.

  “I can’t believe we finally escaped that station. General Niederman is a real tool.”

  “Ah…” I said, sighing in relief. “The engines are easing off. Feel it?”

  “Why don’t they keep pushing? Are we out of danger already?”

  “I doubt it. But now we’re either up to a high enough cruising speed to avoid the spill, or the ship can’t take that much acceleration for long.”

  “If we’re at cruising speed, I’m going to get Dr. Brandt and her team to finish installing the field-projector into Fairweather. They’re side by side down in the aft hold.”

  “Is that a complicated procedure?” I asked.

  “Hardly—with the nanite tech I’ve built Fairweather with, sliding the generator onto its permanent mounts is the easiest part.”

  As the Gs dropped away from us, the people in the main hold with me began to stretch and moan aloud. They got out of their makeshift crash-seats like zombies crawling out of graves.

  Soon, everyone began talking and even laughing. The mood was positive and high spirits took over. There was nothing that could make a roomful of scientists happier than escaping death and playing with their new toy in space all on the same day.

  Hughes emerged in person wearing one of Logan’s headsets. Beaming, she greeted me by shaking my hand with both of hers. She was pretty happy about escaping another attack.

  “All we have to do now is attach the destroyer’s power couplings to the Fairweather module,” she said. I could see the gears turning in her head. “Then, we’ll be ready to give this a try.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Is Jillian done with the installation already? It sounds like you’re accelerating your time schedule.”

  “She is, and we are. Nothing will force a team to meet a deadline like a billion ton gravel storm. If we don’t get this show on the road, we might not last long enough to test the
engine at all.”

  “All set,” Dr. Brandt said, walking in with a smudged towel on one shoulder.

  She walked up to us and gasped when she caught sight of me. “Colonel Hughes, didn’t you see his leg?”

  “What?” the colonel asked, then she looked down and gasped. “You’re hurt, Gray.”

  “It’s nothing,” I said.

  “Nonsense,” Jillian said. “You’ve got a fresh hole burned through your leg. I’ll go prep some smart-mesh.”

  “Thanks…”

  “Oh,” Hughes said. “I can smell burnt meat now that you’ve mentioned... That’s awful. Are you badly hurt, Chief?”

  “I’m fine, Emily. Hey, by the way, did Logan make it back into the airlock?”

  She gave me a sidelong glance. “You didn’t try to kill him again, did you?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Well then… yes, he’s down with the bulk of the team getting ready to launch. There wasn’t time for him to return to Whitman’s transport—I hope they made it out as well.”

  “What I need to know is whether or not that shit-storm of rocks hit the space dock.”

  She winced at the mention of it. “Let’s go find out.”

  We made our way to the bridge. Jessup, Collins and Allie were all there, and they looked glum.

  “What’s the report?” I asked.

  Jessup turned to me with tired, bloodshot eyes. His hand was over his mouth.

  “That should be obvious,” he said. “We shut down the engines, didn’t we? The danger to Viper has passed.”

  Straightening his kit, Jessup glanced over at Cmdr. Collins. “You have the helm, Collie. You’ve got our new course laid in. I’ll be in my quarters.”

  “I have the helm, sir,” Collins echoed.

  Jessup left, and the rest of them looked like someone had shot their dogs.

  “He’s probably going to have a stiff drink,” Col. Hughes commented.

  Allie and Collins glanced at her. Allie looked embarrassed, but neither of them denied it.

  They were quiet, mournful. I knew right away there wasn’t any good news to be heard.

  “The disaster already happened, didn’t it?” I asked. “I hate being out of the loop like that.”

  “This isn’t your ship, Gray,” Cmdr. Collins said. “This isn’t your post. You’re a passenger here, that’s all.”

  I glanced at Collins. He was stone-faced.

  “What’d you see?” I asked.

  “It was bad,” Allie said. “So awful…”

  Without asking for permission from Collins, she cast a recording to the holo-table.

  From behind me, Hughes walked up alongside to watch.

  We watched a vid stream in 3-D over the low dais. It was only a few minutes old. Center-screen, the space station hung in the foreground. The entire structure was perfectly intact except for the small bites the aliens had taken out of it recently.

  Suddenly, silently, the gun turret swung around and began flashing. It was shooting at the whole mass automatically, attempting to defend the station.

  But it was hopeless. Cannons are good at smashing down attacking ships—but a billion tons of rocks and grit traveling at thousands of kilometers an hour was another thing entirely.

  The space station melted. That’s the best way I could describe it. There were explosions, and pieces broke off to spin away, but for the most part the station looked like a sand castle hit by a tidal wave. The destruction was total and swift.

  After perhaps fifteen seconds, the space where the station had been was empty except for a few sparkling motes of burning gases and released radioactive substances.

  Hughes gasped, and her expression turned grim. The vid automatically looped and started again. Viper’s crew looked down. They couldn’t bear to watch it again.

  Unlike the rest, I kept staring until it finished a second time. I expected it to play again—but someone had stopped it from repeating.

  “Back it up and play it again,” I said. “Make it loop for thirty seconds this time.”

  Blinking, Allie did as I asked.

  I watched closely, but I didn’t see anything of special note. The destruction was very thorough.

  “Nothing could have survived that,” I announced. “There’s no need to go back and perform rescue operations.”

  “You’re right,” Cmdr. Collins said. “We’ve already passed on that idea.”

  I heaved a sigh. “Well, these aliens are no longer satisfied with kidnappings and assassinations.”

  “You’re still on that alien theory, are you, Gray?” Collins asked.

  Glancing in his direction, I nodded. “Have you got a better explanation?”

  “This looks like unprecedented rebel action to me. A declaration of war by the rock rats. Those outer-system breathers have been unhappy for years.”

  “Breathers” was an insult often tossed around on any spacecraft. It referred to someone who did nothing but waste oxygen.

  “Hmm…” I said thoughtfully. “You’re neglecting to explain all the other strange behavior in recent months. I can’t agree with you. But I can assure you… you’re wrong.

  Rock rats aren’t known to be technologically advanced. They’re isolated miners, eking out an existence on the fringe. It’s plain from the evidence, we’re facing a more sophisticated threat—in fact, I’ve personally sparred with this enemy.”

  Against Colonel Hughes complaints, I showed the bridge crew my recorded encounters with the enemy. They watched in fascination.

  “That isn’t human! It’s… insectile, sort of,” Allie said.

  “They’re not built like us, that’s for sure,” I added.

  “How did you beat that thing?” she asked, after watching the footage. She was marveling and looking at me with an odd light in her eyes. “In hand-to-hand combat, no less? It must have been like fighting a giant praying mantis.”

  I shrugged. I’d showed them the clip of my fight with an alien on Earth. “I didn’t exactly beat it,” I said. “I’d call it more of a draw—until Major Knox stepped in with weapons to finish it.”

  “But you were covered in cuts and blood,” Allie said. “You should be dead.”

  Making an easy gesture, I spread my hands wide. “I’m made for this kind of thing, Allie,” I said. “Control doesn’t assign officers like myself to light detail. We have certain… enhancements which qualify us for extraordinary work.”

  “You can say that again, Chief,” Colonel Hughes said, joining the conversation. “That hole in your leg from today—I don’t see how you’re standing on it at all. Most men would have landed in a hospital with a wound like that.”

  They were all eyeing me as if I were the alien, not the thing on the screen. I had to get them back on track before somebody got the bright idea to start a witch hunt.

  “Listen,” I said, “just be glad The Ministry of Control has a few tricks up their collective sleeves. Let’s stay focused on today’s disastrous events. Was the entire station evacuated before it went down?”

  “No,” Allie said. “There are about a hundred casualties listed.”

  “A hundred?” Hughes asked in surprise. She demanded to see the list, and she went over it growing concern. “Most of these names… Is this right? The crew of the transport is listed here!”

  Cmdr. Collins cleared his throat. “Gray was right. There wasn’t time for a slower ship to exit the zone. We got a little lucky ourselves, in fact. The debris field was deliberately spread out over a large, spiraling area. We were on the fringe of it when it went by, and barely escaped destruction ourselves.”

  “What about Whitman?” Hughes asked. “And all the rest of them?”

  Collins shook his head. “No survivors have been reported.”

  My fist pounded on the top of the console, making them all jump.

  “That’s it then. We’ve got to stop screwing around. The aliens almost won that round. I want everyone here to agree with me: this enemy is deadly. We h
ave to assume they’ll attack us again.”

  “Captain Jessup is the man you’ll have to convince,” Colonel Hughes said.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Cmdr. Collins said.

  We all turned to him.

  “He set us on a new course as soon as we were clear of the debris,” he said. “We’re in pursuit of that freighter right now.”

  Chapter 29

  When we learned it would be a full day’s flight to catch up to the fleeing deep-space freighter, we decided to worry about the status of the Fairweather module first.

  “How fast can you get this thing connected up to Viper’s power supply?” I asked.

  “Give us three hours,” she said. “Then we can dig into the math.”

  “Um… what math?” I asked.

  “As you must realize, we’ve done a lot of calculations regarding this engine.”

  “Sure…”

  “But we weren’t planning on moving an entire destroyer with the engine originally. All of that work must be redone now.”

  “Oh…” I said, thinking it over.

  The Fairweather wasn’t just an independent, egg-shaped ship anymore. In addition to her own displacement, she was adding a whole destroyer which was a much larger and heavier structure. In order to move that greater mass, it only made sense that some recalibrating was in order.

  “Are you sure the engine can push Viper at all?” I asked. “It’s so much bigger…”

  “That’s an ignorant term,” Dr. Fillmore said, walking up to us and joining the conversation without being invited. “The word ‘push’ is incorrect. The most important variable involved is the field width. The larger size of the region to be affected—not the displacement of any objects inside—requires exponentially more power. To answer your core question, however: yes, Fairweather should be able to do that—in theory.”

  “The whole project is only theoretical until we get it to work,” Emily Hughes said. “Let’s go check it out.”

  While the engine had been loaded still mounted to a glide-cart, Fairweather had been placed inside the aft hold on her own skids. It was the simplest approach, and they’d basically shoved the module into a compartment, tacked it down and left it at that.