Eight

The K-1011, 2257 C.E.

“Strain on the port drive pod building dangerously,” The Second Officer reported. “The strut may be cracking, and there is a potentially dangerous harmonic flutter developing.”

“Stay on course,” Atta the Angry ordered.  “Maintain weapons lock.”

“Subcommander,” Tiktikitti III said softly, “I am obliged to tell you I believe the ship will not survive this transit.”

“I did not ask your opinion,” Atta snapped.  “Stay on course,” he repeated.  The corvette groaned as the ship’s bow dropped towards the gravitic anomaly.

Somewhere in the ship, metal groaned.  The ship’s signals panel sparked and went dead.  “Request permission to divert weapons power to shields,” the Engineering tech called out suddenly.  “Tidal forces are approaching critical levels.”

“Granted,” Atta conceded. “Be prepared to switch power back as soon as possible.  I want weapons as soon as we’re free of the cloud.”

***

The Shade Tree

“Holy shit, I can see it,” Ophelia Watts cried from Scanning.

“What?”

“The Q-star – with the forward scanners, in the radio band, the star is silent but the infall of gas from the nebula is radiating like nobody’s business!”

“Put it on the main screen,” Barrett ordered.

The shape of the pursuing Grugell corvette faded, and a swirl of red-pink-purple gas took its place.  “This is the visual spectrum,” Ophelia Watts explained.  “See that swirl?  From that, you get kind of an idea where the Q-star is, and it happens that it matches gravimetric readouts.  But look at the radio band,” she said, tapping at her panel.  The screen changed again, revealing a deadly-looking spiral in hot, angry red.

“The gravity well is sucking in gas from the nebula, heating it, making it radiate across the radio band.  Captain, it’s going to be hot as hell at perigee, on top of everything else.”

“We’ll have to deal with it,” Barrett said.  “Nobody ever drowned in sweat.”

“But people have fried to death in atmosphere entry failures,” Indira Krishvarna observed.  “The gravimetric stress and tidal forces will play hell with our shielding.  I think we should watch hull temperature and radiation exposure closely.”

“For all the good it will do us,” Giorg Constantin added from Navigation.  “For better or worse, Captain, we are now committed.  We can’t escape this gravity well except by following our planned trajectory.  I think I have it programmed well enough, but there is a margin of error.”

“Wonderful,” Barrett said dryly.  “By ‘margin of error’ you mean ‘we all die horribly,’ of course.”  She tapped the PAGE prompt on her Bridge chair.  “Everyone, we may experience a bit of a rough ride here, we are now committed to a trajectory around the Q-star.  There is no going back from this – we either make the transit or die trying.  Hang on to your asses, find a seat, strap in, and cross your fingers.  Oh, and if that Grugell ship manages to follow us through, all hands be prepared to repel boarders once we are on the far side.  Let’s hope it won’t come to that.  That is all.”  She tapped the prompt again. 

“Abandon all hope,” Constantin said, “ye who enter here.”

“Giorg,” Jean told the navigator, “I bloody well hope you know what you’re doing.”

***

Halifax, 2252 C.E.

The Confederate Navy frigate Charles Daly had taken damage from a Grugell torpedo a parsec from New Albion, and the Fleet dock at Halifax was the closest place to get the ship’s damages fixed.

That was not, however, Lieutenant Giorg Constantin’s primary concern.  A court-martial took precedence over the damages to his ship.

“Lieutenant,” the Judge Advocate lawyer told him, “You are right, the evidence against you is shaky.  However, the Navy has to hang the blame for the torpedo hit on someone.   It was your trajectory plot that brought the ship out of subspace away from the formation – I know, I know, formation jumps are tricky business, and it could just as well have been one of the other ships that landed in front of a Grugell battle cruiser.  But the fact is, it was yours, and you were the navigator, so the rock falls on you.”

Constantin pounded his hand on the table.  “Damn you,” he snarled. “I told you; I’ve told everyone – Captain Apodaca changed the plot.  He ordered the helm to change the program – that is why we came out of subspace off-course.”

“And I’ve told you, Lieutenant, that we can’t just come out and accuse a ship captain of lying to save his career,” the JAG answered.

“Why not?  He is lying.  The stukach would gladly hang me out to dry to save himself.”

“That is as may be.  But the good news is the prosecutor is willing to offer you a deal.”

“A deal?”

“Reduction in grade to Ensign, reassignment to another ship in a non-combat assignment.  In exchange, they will drop formal charges and forgo any financial penalty.”

“That… that… nekulturney bastard,” the young Russian officer ground out through gritted teeth.  “Give me a moment to think.”  He stood up and walked to the small viewport in the JAG’s office.

Outside the port, several ships were entering or leaving the spacedock – in wartime, the Navy’s Fleet docks were busy places.  One of the ships coming in was a small, charcoal-gray ship with a nasty, martial look. 

It was not a Navy ship.  There were no Navy markings, the color was wrong – and there was a subdued but visible skull and crossbones painted on the ship’s stub wing.

A privateer, Constantin realized.

With his back still turned to the JAG officer, Constantin asked, “So I have the choice to be court-martialed and discharged, to accept a demotion and assignment to a hazmat scow that sees a civilized planet once every other year, or, what?  What if I voluntarily resign my commission instead of taking reassignment?  Will the rest of the deal still apply?”

The JAG looked up from his papers.  “Well,” he said, “if that’s really what you want, I’m sure I can make that deal.”  He looked relieved.

“Good,” Lieutenant Constantin said.  “Make it.”

Two days later, in civilian clothes, his commission resigned, he showed up at Pier Six, Level Two, to learn that the privateer ship was called the Shade Tree.  He tapped on the contact pad by the docking port.

“Yeah, who’s that?” a voice asked.

“Giorg Constantin,” he answered, “until yesterday, Lieutenant Giorg Constantin, Confederate Navy.  Request permission to come aboard.”

“Hang on a second.”

A moment later another voice addressed him through the contact pad, this one female, hard-sounding; manifestly a voice accustomed to authority.  “Lieutenant… Constantin, is it?  I am Captain Barrett.  What do you want?”

“I am a qualified interstellar navigator, Captain,” he told the voice.  “I am told you are looking for a navigator.”

A moment later: “I might be.  Then again, I might not.  Aren’t you the one that the Navy just cashiered for dropping the Charles Daly in front of a Grugell battle cruiser?”

“Word does spread, does it not?  I was the one they blamed for it,” Constantin snapped.  “That’s not the same thing as being the one at fault.”

He heard the faint sound of a feminine chuckle over the circuit.  “Very well, Lieutenant – sorry, Mister Constantin.  You had better come aboard and explain the whole thing, eh?  I have a feeling nobody else has really listened to you – I may as well.”

With a sharp snap, the port opened.  Across the docking umbilical, a large, red-haired man with a holstered sidearm waved Constantin across.  “Come on,” the big man called.  “Cap’n’s waiting for you.”

Constantin took a deep breath.  He stepped across the umbilical and stepped on board the privateer ship Shade Tree.

***

The K-1011

The Grugell corvette’s navigator finally looked away from his panel for a moment – the briefest of moments – to make eye contact with his commander.  “I have the trajectory plotted,” he said. “I have adjusted for the Confederate ship’s greater mass, which makes it necessary to accelerate into the first part of the curve.”

“Where will that put us on the far side?”

“If we survive,” the navigator said, looking again at his panel, “we should emerge right after them, within visual range.”

“Are you certain?”  Atta the Angry growled.

“As certain as can be with the data at hand, Subcommander,” the navigator replied.  He was a self-assured, competent officer from a good bloodline, and reputation or no, his ship’s commander intimidated him rather less than he intimidated the rest of the crew.  “I will refine the trajectory as we transit, and transmit maneuvering data to helm.”

“See that you do.  Helm, monitor your navigation inputs closely.”

“By your command,” the helmsman piped.

“I want that ship destroyed,” Atta the Angry said to no one in particular.  “And by the Emperor’s teeth, I will have it.”

The ship groaned again as the tidal forces continued to build.  “Adjusting course,” the helmsman announced.  The ship shuddered slightly as thrusters fired. 

“All available power to shields and inertial dampers,” Atta ordered.  “Divert everything but Helm.  All hands, find something to hang on to.  This will be exciting.”

***

The Shade Tree

Tim McNeal and Robert Timmons stood in the corridor near the Shade Tree’s shuttle port, a circular hatch set into the deck.  Their carbines were slung on ready-access harnesses.  Timmons held a Tangler enhanced with a hefty stun charge capacity, a little trick he had picked up on a rescue operation recently, while McNeal held a custom-made melee weapon he called a Mag-Staff.

“You were on the ship during the last year of the war, weren’t you?” Timmons asked.

“Yeah,” McNeal said.  “Last fourteen months or so, actually.  I came aboard at Tarbos, right after my hitch in the Marines.”

“So you were on the ship when…”

“Yeah,” McNeal admitted.  Even on board ship and at space, nobody on the Shade Tree talked much about the asteroid strike on Grugell.  While the strike had ended the war, swiftly and decisively, it had wreaked havoc on the Grugell home world and left millions dead.  In reflective moments, Tim McNeal had admitted to himself that the captain and crew of the Shade Tree may have been prosecuted as war criminals – except that their side won the war.

“Suppose that’s why this Grugell has such a hard-on for us?”

“I expect so.  Why else would he drop cloak and come after us, this far into Confederate space?  You better believe the specs on this ship are damn well-known by the entire Grugell Imperial Navy.  None of them would pass up a chance to take us out.”

“Nice,” Timmons muttered.  “Nice.”

“Don’t worry,” McNeal smiled an evil smile.  He brandished his Mag-Staff.  The ends of the staff let out crackles of energy.  “I promise you, if they try to board us, they’ll be in for one hell of a fight.”

Both of them knew it probably would not come to that. The physically weaker Grugell were far more likely to blow them out of space instead of trying to board under fire.  By unspoken mutual agreement, the two Security troops left that unsaid.

***

2252 C.E.

It was during the second year of the Grugell War that Jean Barrett had decided to try something that had not been done before.  A carefully planned ambush on a small Grugell task group left two frigates destroyed and a light cruiser badly damaged – just as the privateer captain intended.  Now she meant to take advantage.

“Bring us alongside,” Captain Barrett ordered.

The image on the main viewer changed, rotating to keep the crippled Grugell light cruiser in view as the Shade Tree moved into a parallel course, a hundred meters from the cruiser’s port side.  The wounded enemy ship was bleeding air, her drives and shields were off-line.  Like a wounded predator, she was still dangerous.  But Jean Barrett was, nevertheless, going to attempt something that no ship, privateer or Navy, had yet accomplished.

She intended to board and capture the Grugell cruiser and take it as a prize.

“Weapons, target anything that looks like an emitter, take it out.”  Barrett tapped a contact on her bridge chair.  “Gomp, are you ready down there?”

“Ready here, Cap’n,” the rough voice of the former Marine answered.

“Very well.”  She looked up at the screen.  “All stop,” she ordered.

“All stop,” Helm answered.

Barrett tapped the contact again, and barked out an order out of ancient history: “Away boarders!”

Down at the sally port, Hector Gomp stepped into the crowded clampon lander and slammed the hatch shut behind him.  He sat down at the tiny control station, turned his head and looked at his ‘troops.’  He cast a hard look at the newest member of the landing party, a young man who had only recently left the Confederate Marines after his hitch. 

“You all ready?” he asked.

“Ready!” the Shade Tree boarders chorused.

“Then let’s do it,” Gomp said.  “Mind your live fire, remember, Cap’n doesn’t want to blow this one up, we’re going to capture her.  This will be a nice feather in our cap if we can bring in a reasonably intact Grugell cruiser for examination, not to mention a nice fat share of the prize money from the Confederate government.”  He tapped the comm-link on the chest of his armor.  “Lander to Shade Tree – boarders are away.”

Gomp manipulated the controls to bring the lander across the space separating the privateer from the Grugell cruiser.  As they approached, the lander unfolded, not unlike an old-fashioned print book opening.  The open side came to rest against the gleaming silver hull of the enemy, where ceramic magnets activated to hold it in place.  Lasers sheared away a portion of hull.  A pressor field knocked the cut-away metal into the ship, revealing a narrow, high-ceilinged passageway.

“Let’s go!” Gomp ordered, and the privateers stormed into the stricken Grugell cruiser.

The new kid had brought a decent set of Pritchard Mk II combat armor aboard with him, but it was his weapon that caught Gomp’s attention.  Along with a pair of holstered pistols and several concussion grenades, the new recruit carried a two-meter polymer staff with electrostatic discharge points at both ends.  As the hull fell away from the lander’s lasers, McNeal hit the activation stud.  The staff emitted a high-pitched whine as the capacitors charged.

Two Grugell waited in the corridor when the boarding party leaped into the cruiser.  A bolt of green from a Grugell hand weapon struck sparks off Gomp’s armor and before he could react, McNeal’s staff sent the silver weapon spinning out of the enemy soldier’s hand.  The recruit let out a long, bubbling howl and charged the tall, skeletal aliens, slamming one to the deck with a strike to the neck and stunning the second with a static discharge.  He fell into a defensive crouch, watching, but no more Grugell showed up to contest the burn-in point.

“Good job,” Gomp told him.  “Let’s get moving, everyone – bridge is forward, if we take their Captain, they’ll surrender.  Move!”

Ten minutes later, the ship was theirs.  The Grugell were not up to human standards in hand-to-hand combat; their origin on a low-gravity planet saw to that.  The Shade Tree‘s boarders herded the remaining Grugell officers and crew into the cruiser’s shuttle bay while their compatriots prepared to loot the Grugell cruiser for anything of value.

“McNeal,” Gomp said as a prize crew from the Shade Tree took possession of the cruiser, “that was some damn fine fighting.  What do you call that thing, anyway?”

“It’s called a Mag-Staff,” McNeal grinned.  “My old Krav Maga master cooked it up.  Two meters long, two 100,000 volt stun charges, flexible polymer staff tapered to hit like a damn whip, and it even illuminates.”  He held up the staff and triggered an unseen contact; the center of the staff gleamed with a clear, white light.

“Mind if I have a look?” Gomp accepted the weapon from the new recruit, spun it experimentally a few times.  He tried a feint or two, a practice slash, then examined the discharge points.  “Hell of a melee weapon,” he agreed.  “Great for boarding parties.”

“That’s why I brought it, Boss,” McNeal said.  He looked around the shuttle bay.  “Now, if we can just finish this job up, I’m dying for a cold beer.”

“Tim, my boy,” Gomp laughed, slapping the younger man on the back, “I think you’re going to fit in here real well.”

***

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Anderson Gentry (Ward Clark)