Vectors 30

Pexlini

"Aww, crud."

I think there are still life signs on the Hazari wrecks, but the operative word there is wrecks, they ain't gonna be any use to us in the fight. And there will be a fight. Tuarak is not a live-and-let-live kind of a guy, he is already moving towards us.

I could try to break away and flee at warp speed - it'd be the sensible thing to do. Problem is, Vaadwaur ships are fast, there is no way I could get out of his weapons range quick enough.

"Welp," I say, "looks like we've got two choices. Surrender and die, or fight and die. Me, I'd rather do the fighting thing."

Ajbit gives me a brusque nod. From the tac console, Vebanillo says, "I make lots of holes in him."

"There's a fair number already," Voesyy remarks. "I don't think he's had time to make full repairs after that last fight. His drive harmonics are way off -"

"OK. Hard about, one niner seven mark two. Reinforce forward shields, stand ready for max evasive, evasion pattern Zeta Two. Oh, yeah, red alert and stuff."

I'm trying to sound casual. I don't think I'm fooling anyone, certainly not myself. My heavy raider is outclassed and outgunned by a Vaadwaur interdictor cruiser. We are a rat attacking a wolf. Maybe, if Vo's right, a wolf with a thorn in its paw. Don't see how that'll help much.

"Vaadwaur is turning," Ajbit reports.

Presenting his polaron broadside. My pulse is hammering in my temples. The Vaadwaur polaron barrages are deadly, but their targeting scans show visible traces before the firing begins - if we have our wits about us, we can weave between those markers, can ride out the worst of the pounding -

On the tactical board, the markers are showing up. "Run evasion pattern now!"

Ostankino weaves and twists as space erupts around her. The deck trembles and the lights flicker as near-misses pound our shields. "Steer three seven niner mark one!" Clear space, outside the range of Tuarak's guns - outside the immediate range of Tuarak's guns -

"Incoming hail," says Voesyy, then adds, "Shields at thirty-six per cent."

"Put him through." While he's talking, he's not shooting. I hope.

"You," Tuarak's voice says over the comms link. "You were at the Hazari station... you interfered with my plans. I will show you, now, why that was unwise. I will -"

"Oh, can it, you ranting snakehead loudmouth!" I yell back.

There is a wordless screech from the other end. I don't know if it's Tuarak's reaction or just comms interference. Voesyy cuts the connection.

"He's launching torpedoes," Ajbit remarks.

"Yeah, kinda figured he might.... OK Stand by to vent theta radiation, and I want this." I sketch out the course on the tac board. It'll be tight, and a whole bunch of tricobalt torps are coming at us now -

Deep breaths, Pex, I tell myself. Yes, it'll be tight, but it'll work.

As Tuarak's torps come screaming in towards us, Ostankino turns in a tight circle, clouds of theta radiation spraying from her vents. Dim flashes within the greenish murk show where the charged particles have overwhelmed the torps' guidance systems and caused them to self-destruct. Ostankino continues to turn - then lunges, back through her own radiation cloud, back towards Tuarak.

My cannons hammer at his shields, my plasma torps roar out of the launchers. Polaron fire slams into my shields as Tuarak shoots back. Then the Ostankino zooms under and past the interdictor cruiser, catching Tuarak - just - in the last gasps from the theta vents. My turrets snap off shots at the Vaadwaur ship as it wallows, temporarily helpless, in the radiation cloud.

It won't last. Tuarak's drives are offline, but his weapons aren't badly affected, as the continuing impact of polaron bursts is telling me. "Come about, give him the forward cannons!" Veb has a big dreamy smile on her face as she complies.

It's taking Tuarak a long time to get his drives back up. Maybe he's hurt worse than I thought.

Then the tac board lights up again with targeting markers. "Evasion pattern lambda!" I yell, as space breaks out in blue-violet glares around us. Consoles flare with sparks from transient overloads, the deck bucks beneath me like a wild thing, and everywhere we turn, we run into another blaze of killing light. It lasts for seconds that seem like years, and then Ostankino finds her way out of the barrage and into clear space.

"Shields down to six per cent," Ajbit reports. "Structural integrity fifty-one per cent, hull breaches decks three and six." She quirks an eyebrow. "Looks like the captain's quarters took a direct hit."

"Aw, yibbly squeeps, that was where I kept my stuff." We can't take much more of this. Tuarak's ship must be hurt, but I don't know how bad. We can kill him, maybe, if we get real lucky. But we also have to stay real lucky, just to stay alive.

Somehow, we need to make our own luck.

"Reading a torpedo launch," Voesyy says. "Big. Could be a cluster warhead."

Our luck just got worse. One of those things will get in close, then fire its submunitions and pound us to death from a dozen different directions at once. Ideas flash through my mind -

"I nail it good," says Veb.

"No," I say. "Hold off till the warheads separate, then fire the isometric charges." The charges will leap from warhead to warhead, detonating them prematurely - creating, in the process, a nice spectacular light show. "Then we go straight in, ramming speed. Only we don't ram."

"Near miss?" Ajbit asks.

"Very near. Like, inside his shields. Rapid fire on the plasma cannons at zero range."

"Thirty seconds to torpedo range," Voesyy calls out.

"It'll knock our shields down," Ajbit says.

"They're practically there already. Do it."

"Torp on final approach!" Voesyy yells.

"Punch it," I say, and Veb hits the isometric charges. Space is filled with crackling white light and blue blooms of tricobalt detonations, and Ostankino swings around and lines herself up -

The interdictor cruiser explodes towards us, swelling on the viewscreen with terrifying speed.

Something - some almost indescribable sensation - washes over me and through me, like an impact, or an electric shock, or maybe neither. Our shields, tough though the Aegis systems are, flatline as the ship plunges through Tuarak's shields. The bare metal hull of the Vaadwaur ship is so close I could reach out and touch it.

"All cannons, maximum fire!"

White-gold bolts rage out of Ostankino's cannons to smash almost instantly into the cruiser's hull. The viewscreen fills with a solid pulsing glare of vaporizing armour plate. My ship shudders and jerks, alarms screaming, the air full of sparks and smoke.

"Thermal overload on the cannons!" someone shouts, I don't know who.

"Plasma fires in all forward compartments!" Ajbit screams over the din.

Ostankino moves nose-down over the hull of the Vaadwaur ship, like a cutting torch wielded by some suicidal god of blacksmiths. The rear-mounted turrets are chattering constantly, sending bolts downwards, deep into the flaming trench we are carving across Tuarak's hull.

Then we shoot past the cruiser's hull, and the hellish glare ahead fades to nothing. I hardly dare look at the damage control board. But we must have hurt Tuarak, hurt him bad. Maybe even bad enough.

"Come about," I start to say, "set plasma torps to -"

WHAM.

And everything goes dark and weightless for an instant as Ostankino's power grid blinks off. For that brief moment, I wonder if I'm dead. Again. Then the gravity comes back, queasy and uncertain, and there is light and sound everywhere from exploding consoles and flaming conduits. There are screams and curses all around me.

"I think we hit a stray tricobalt warhead," Ajbit croaks.

My head is spinning. The tac board is a mess of random flickering lights. Voesyy is white-faced and tight-lipped at her science console, her hands pressed to a wound on one thigh. The main weapons console has blown itself apart completely, and Veb is on the deck beside it, groaning faintly. I stand up. I wish I hadn't.

"Engineering!" I shout. "Tell me what's left that works!"

"Main power is down." Goyar's voice. "We have... partial manoeuvring thrusters... life support is still online -"

No point asking about shields or weapons. "Get me a scan! Get me visuals, get me something!"

The viewscreen flickers and flashes, and a fuzzy shape appears on it. For a moment, I don't know what it is, and then I blink and focus my eyes properly, and it comes clear.

Tuarak's ship. I didn't recognize it at first, because most Vaadwaur cruisers aren't spouting torrents of plasma flame, flares reaching out from the ravaged hull for hundreds of metres in all directions. As I watch, the cruiser turns, and seems to lurch... and then it dissolves in a wash of blue flames and is gone.

A couple of seconds later, there are some loud, dull booms as a couple of random fragments bounce off our hull.

I kneel down beside Veb. The Pakled's eyes are closed, but she's still breathing. I take one of her hands in mine.

"It's OK, Veb," I say. "Bad guys go muchly bang."

She doesn't open her eyes, but she manages a faint smile and a tremulous squeeze of my hand.

"Come on," I say, "let's get you down to medical."

---

The sickbay is kinda busy. Veb is not the worst hurt, not by a long way. It takes a while to get her settled, and on my way out a medic grabs me and runs a protoplaser over a bleeding gash in my scalp. I honestly didn't know that was there.

By the time I get back to the bridge, Ajbit, God bless her, has started returning some semblance of order. The artificial gravity has stabilized, at least, and the lights are staying on. I don't want to think about what shape Ostankino is in overall, though. Not right now.

"Repairs underway to power grid," Ajbit tells me. "We should have auxiliary back online within the hour, and then we can reinitialize the warp core and run some tests. Do not ask for warp speed," she adds, firmly.

I take a grip on the back of the command chair, unobtrusively using it to stay upright. "We got any comms capacity?"

"Subspace is back online," Voesyy reports. She has a dressing around that leg, and looks marginally happier. "We've reached the survivors from the Hazari ships. Y'Nadan and some of his people are steering escape pods in our direction now. And I've got through to the Timor - M'eioi is proceeding on course to Nessick's probable location."

I toy with the idea of asking her for help - but no, we're alive now, and tracking down Nessick is more important than fixing my warp core. I step around the command chair, and then I notice a sullen look on Ajbit's face. "What's up?" I ask.

Ajbit looks even more sour. "I ran through the sensor logs," she says. "Just before the cruiser blew, something launched from it. Looked like - maybe - a warp-capable shuttle."

And three guesses who was on board it. "Aw, cripes," I grumble as I drop into the command chair, "that guy must have more lives than Rrueo and M'eioi put together...."