Four

The K-1011, a Grugell corvette, 2257 C.E.

Among a race not known for patience, Subcommander Attakickell III was not a patient Grugell.  The crew of his corvette referred to him – not to his face – as “Atta the Angry.”  It was a nickname he secretly knew of and secretly enjoyed.  He also enjoyed his command, the first of the new Type 10 corvettes.  The K-1011 was a small, fast, agile ship with an improved cloaking device.  The gleaming silver craft mounted only two anti-proton emitters, but the builders balanced that with two missile bays mounting the latest torpedoes capable of .8C.  Space constraints meant the ship was only able to carry one torpedo in each launch bay with no extras to reload, but the devices were fast enough to catch a ship running for subspace if launched within the generous acquisition envelope. 

The K-1011 was not a large ship, but the Imperium intended it as a stealthy, hit-and-run raider rather than a ship of the line; it was a prestigious command for a promising young officer.  Attakickell was pleased with his lot, but his crew would never have guessed that to be the case.

The Subcommander sat in his Bridge chair, staring at the main view screen.  The corvette was small even for a Grugell ship, and the Bridge –- tall and narrow, filled with workstations and panels –- claustrophobic even for the tall, skeletal Grugell.

“Scanning,” Atta ordered.  “Report.”

“One parsec over the frontier in six ticks,” Scanning reported instantly.  “No Confederate traffic in range of our scans.  The Confederate world New Albion is four light years away at fourteen and six.  There should be ship traffic there, I would expect freighters, maybe a passenger ship.  There is a large gaseous anomaly at sixteen and four, recommend we avoid it, ionized gas will interfere with our drive system and cloaking field.”

“Yes,” Atta mused. “Helm, new course fourteen and six.  Ahead one-third.  Adjust course as necessary to avoid the anomaly.”

“By your command,” Helm confirmed. “Fourteen by six.”

“We will obtain a high orbit about New Albion,” Atta told his Bridge crew, “And inventory shipping for a few planetary rotations.  To see what we might see.  This world once belonged to us, remember – one day we will no doubt reclaim it.”

“Subcommander,” Scanning said, “I have a ship contact.”

“You just reported clear screens,” Atta snapped.

“It just came in, Subcommander,” the Scanning rating replied instantly, his eyes wide.  “A small ship, at max range, too small for a freighter.”

“A scout ship?”

“Perhaps.  It appears to be following our course.”

“It’s tracking us?”

“It appears so.”

Atta turned towards the Systems panel, snarling. “Report status of cloaking device.”

“Functioning perfectly, Subcommander.”

“How can they be tracking us?  They must have some new technology we have not yet seen.  Can you get me a visual yet?”

“Magnifying,” Scanning reported. 

A dull charcoal-gray form swam into view, blurry from the maximum magnification, but recognizable.  “I know this ship,” Atta said.  “I know this ship.  I have seen it on briefing videos from the war.  This is no scout, this is the privateer warship Shade Tree.”

Atta’s second-in-command, Tiktikitti III, turned his head to look at his superior.  “The ship that…”

“Yes, that ship.  The one that wrecked our home world with an asteroid strike.”  Atta turned his head and spat.

“Weapons,” he said after a moment, “activate our torpedoes and lock in a launch solution.  Helm, bring us about.  Reduce velocity, let them pass us, we’ll come up behind them and launch when they’re too close to do anything about it.”

The Shade Tree

“Still on course for New Albion, about ten light-years to go,” Scanning Tech Ophelia Watts announced. 

“All right,” Barrett answered. “Exec, what might they want at New Albion?  Think they may be wanting to try to take that planet back?”

“Not with just one ship.  I would think they are on a scouting mission, probably inventorying shipping.  Remember that frigate that lost his cloaking device last year in the middle of a convoy?”

“If the Navy had been around, they’d have blown him to a fine haze, as it was he just had to run like hell for the frontier,” Jean recalled.

“That’s the one.  A head or two probably rolled for that, even if they did get away.  Anyway, they seem to be showing interest in civilian shipping.”

“Why shipping?”

“Makes a lot of sense, Cap’n,” Gomp said.  “First rule of reconnaissance is to know exactly what your enemy is moving and where they are moving it to.  Logistics is damned important in war-fighting.  Does anyone doubt that the Grugell would like to come looking for trouble again some day?  If they do, they’ll want a good handle on how to disrupt our logistics.  Either that, or they’re just assholes.”

“Or both,” Jean agreed.  “The two are hardly mutually exclusive.”

“Captain?” Ophelia Watts said. “Something’s funny here.  I’ve lost their track; I think we may have passed them.”

“What do you mean?”

“Their track just wobbled, showed a little turn to about ten o’clock, then dropped off.  We’re past the end of the track now.  I think they’ve dropped out of subspace.”

“All stop,” Jean ordered, a little puzzled now.  The Shade Tree slowed, dropping out of subspace with the usual flutter.  “Global scan.  Find them.”

“Still only showing the track in, behind us now, stopping right where it was.  No ships, no traffic.  I have a hyperphone beacon at sixty-two by ten, one of the Sonntag Nebula markers, nothing else in range.”

Barrett’s mind began to race.  She sat in her Bridge chair, thinking furiously.  What the hell is this character doing? He was just motoring along towards New Albion, then he veers off and stops just off that nebula, just as we come up behind him?  Why?

Why would I stop?

Why would I stop when I had a ship coming up behind me?

Why would I stop when I had an armed ship coming up behind me?

“Shields!” she shouted, a moment too late.  The ship shuddered with an anti-proton hit. 

“Get those shields up!  All ahead flank!”

“Shields up, Captain,” Gillian Bates called from Weapons.  “I don’t have a target, Scanning, I need a target!”

“Torpedo launch astern!” Ophelia Watts shrieked. “Five thousand meters and closing fast, two Grugell torpedoes, damn, they’re fast!”

“Pee-beams,” Barrett ordered, “Hit them now!”

Fine lines of force reached out from the Shade Tree, finding one torpedo and shattering it.  The other closed in and detonated against the ship’s aft shields.

“Sorry, Captain,” the Weapons tech said when the ship stopped shaking. “There wasn’t time to adjust fire, it was too close.”

“It’s all right – fan fire around the launch point, keep them off us.  Paolo, ahead emergency, get us the hell out of here.”

“Ahead emergency,” Paolo Guerra confirmed.

“Negative on the fan fire,” Bates reported, “We’re not hitting anything.”

“Keep shooting.”  Barrett stabbed her comm panel’s contact to the Engineering space. “BJ, what did that torpedo do to us?”

The Chief Engineer answered personally. “Two of the aft shield emitters are off-line, must be shock damage.  Drive is all right, but we better not take any more hits.”  As if in reply, the ship shook as an anti-proton bolt slammed into the hull.  “Like that, I mean.  I have some flutter in the drive now; there may have been some damage from that last hit.  I can keep us flying if you can keep them from shooting holes in us, Captain.”

“We’re working on it.”

The K-1011

“Maintain evasive, keep us clear of that return fire.  Target any emitters you can scan,” Atta the Angry ordered.

“This is a violation of our orders,” his second-in-command observed.  “Firing on a Confederate warship without authorization…” 

“Orders be damned, that ship nearly destroyed our home world.  I’m going to be the one to annihilate them.  If you don’t like it, get off my ship – the closest airlock is just a level down.”

The corvette’s Bridge crew went silent.  The Weapons officer bent over his targeting scope.  “Acquiring,” he whispered. “Firing.”  Bolts of angry green spat from the corvette, slamming into the Confederate ship’s shields.

“Their shields are weakening,” the K-1011’s Scanning technician reported.  “Confirm we have disabled their aft batteries.”

“We have them.  Drop the cloaking field,” Atta ordered.  He snarled at the ship on the main viewer.  “Let them see who is killing them.”

***

The Shade Tree

“I’ve got a Grugell ship decloaking aft, Captain,” Ophelia Watts announced from the Scanning station.  “I don’t recognize the type.  It’s smaller than the usual Type 11 frigate.”

“Main viewer,” Barrett ordered.  She looked up at the main Bridge viewer as the silver shape of a Grugell ship appeared; it was small, with two typical orange-glowing drive pods trailing the gleaming orb of the main hull.

“It is small,” Hector Gomp noted.  “Smaller than a frigate.  It’s about the size of one of the Navy’s new Hawking-class corvettes.”

“Yeah, small but sneaky and well-armed,” Captain Barrett replied.  As she watched, it spat out another emerald anti-proton bolt.  The Shade Tree rang like a gong, and the Bridge lighting flickered.

“Weapons targeting is down,” Gillian Bates reported from the Weapons station.  “I can shoot forward, but I won’t hit anything.  I get no response from aft emitters.”

Barrett slammed a hand down on her comm panel.  “BJ, talk to me!”

“They hit a main power coupling,” the Chief Engineer replied. “Aft weapons and shields are still down.  Trying to reroute now.” 

On the screen, the gleaming silver Grugell closed, began to pepper the Shade Tree with targeted fire.

“We won’t survive this,” Indira Krishnavarna said.  “He knew just where to hit us, and he did a hell of a good job.  We can’t shoot back, and our shields are damaged.  I do have an idea, though.”

“Go ahead.”

The Exec walked to the ship’s main viewer.  “Ophelia, bring up tactical.”  She pointed.  “There.  Head for the nebula.”

“The Sonntag Nebula?  It will take our drive off-line the moment we hit the gas cloud.  Our drive can’t function in that kind of a gas concentration; if we hit it in subspace we’d never notice, but in normal space it will overload the conversion matrix and blow up apart.”

“So we shut the drive down and coast into it, use thrusters to adjust our course.  We can’t run, Captain, but we can hide.”

The decision was an obvious one. “Paolo, new course sixty one by ten, all ahead flank.  Hide us in the cloud.”

Hector Gomp stood up. “Cap’n,” he said, “I can’t do much up here – you need your high forehead types working on trying to fix the ship, I’ll just get in their way. But I do need to go get my troops ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“Well,” Gomp said, “If worse comes to worse – to repel boarders.”

“Very well,” Jean said. “Go.  Get armed and armored.  Station your people at the sally port and the shuttle port.  I don’t know if they’ll try to board us, or just blow us up, but either way…”

“If they try to board, Cap’n, I guarantee them a warm welcome.”  The big Marine grinned evilly and left the Bridge.

***

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