"Acceptable." Premaratne has come up behind me; for such a big man, he moves very quietly. I turn towards him. He nods towards the screen. "There we are. On schedule."
"I wish you'd tell me what for," I say.
Premaratne gives me a loose-lipped smile which exposes his wide-spaced yellow teeth. "I regret that does not accord with my instructions," he says.
"We've spent days assembling this thing." The structural components were simple enough to replicate; even the antimatter reactor is a standard design. The lens, though, was brought to us by an anonymous freighter, and it has to be fitted very carefully indeed. "You can't expect me not to speculate, at least."
"Of course," says Premaratne. For a moment, it looks like he is winking at me, but it might just be a trick of the light, an illusion caused by those mis-matched eyes.
"The lens is high-density exotic metals, bonded in a very precise pattern. It'll refract along subspace frequencies.... It looks almost as if you're planning the same sort of thing you did with the Rikilsa Array. A subspace energy beam. But aimed at what?"
"I cannot comment on any supposition you can make," says Premaratne. Privately, I determine to review the sensor logs, both from this - operation - and the Rikilsa Array. If I can work out where this thing is pointed, at least, I might be able to work out what is going on.
Certainly, there are no clues to be gained around here, anyway. Beauregard is hanging in interstellar space; aside from the device itself, there is not so much as a planetoid within six parsecs of us. We are all alone in the blackness. So why does Premaratne - or, more likely, his employer - want this thing built here, rather than anywhere else?
"Final tests are in." Premaratne has a PADD in his hand. "The lens positioning is exact. Commend your work teams, Captain, on my behalf - they have performed most admirably."
I nod to Rissmo, who's on comms. "Teams prepare for retrieval," she says crisply. On the viewscreen, I can see little spacesuited figures detach themselves from the device. It dwarfs them. Fully assembled, it's longer than the Beauregard herself. Transporter glows stipple the lens with brief light, as the workers beam back aboard.
"Our schedule will be kept," says Premaratne. "This is most gratifying."
"Sir." Morak's voice, and there is urgency in it. "I have inbound sensor contacts."
"On screen. And go to yellow alert status." I stride to the command chair and sit down, opening up the tac displays as I do. Premaratne shoots a brief troubled look at me, then turns his attention back to his PADD.
Four bright points are showing at the extreme edge of sensor range. As I watch, the computer makes its identification. Orion ships. One Corsair-class, three smaller Dacoits. Flickers on the display show that they're already deploying auxiliaries.
"Raise shields. But hail them, as well. Let's see if we can get out of this without shooting."
"If there is violence," says Premaratne, "the integrity of the device must not be jeopardized. I insist on this, Captain, under the terms of our contract."
"Noted. Let's hope the Orions cooperate." I study the tac display more closely. That doesn't look like a peaceful deputation to me. That looks like an attack wing, closing fast, its fighter screen already deployed. Beauregard outclasses any ship in that group, of course, by a considerable margin - but numbers will tell.
"Hailing frequencies open," says Rissmo. "I have the Orion commander."
"On screen."
He is green, bald, handsome in a brutish sort of way. "Raider Beauregard," he says. "You've been identified as the party responsible for the attack on the Rikilsa Array -"
"If I may?" says Premaratne. "Offers of full compensation and indemnification for all losses have been lodged with the appropriate authorities. No one need be the loser from the unfortunate business at Rikilsa. Please, Commander, be reasonable. It is my duty to remove any inconveniences that I may come across in the course of my duties."
"Compensation," the Orion spits. "Not a chance, pirate. You don't smash our facilities and kill our people, and then just buy your way out of it. Stand down and prepare to be boarded. Or make a fight of it, if you like. I'd prefer that."
"You are being gravely unreasonable and causing much difficulty," says Premaratne. "I must ask you once again to reconsider your course of action."
The Orion commander just glares at him, and cuts the channel. "Red alert," I order.
"Highly inconvenient," mutters Premaratne.
"Ahead full impulse, steer one hundred mark three two seven," I order. It should take us clear of Premaratne's precious device - I hope. "They're Orions, not Ferengi," I say. "You can't just buy them off, not if there's pride or honour or revenge at stake."
"Most unreasonable of them." Premaratne's thick fingers are moving rapidly on the PADD's interface. "Try bringing them to relative vector seven three by six zero, if you can. It will be beneficial."
I look at the tac display, orienting myself. If I'm reading him right, Premaratne wants me to bring the Orions on a line just a little bit off from the axis of the device. Maybe he plans to use it as a weapon, maybe he just wants it out of the firing line.... well, I will cooperate, if I can. And if I can persuade the Orions to.
"First fighters are coming into range," Morak reports. "Standard marauding force shuttles."
"Secure stations within the ship, stand ready to repel boarders. And I want this."
Beauregard corkscrews in a tight turn, and defensive drones spill out of her modified cargo bay. The drones are fast, accurate, and pack a substantial punch with their antiproton weapons. The shuttles are moving fast, on evasive patterns, but they're only shuttles, and over-sized for shuttles at that, with their big troop-carrying holds. Antiproton fire slashes scarlet light across the sky; a shuttle dies, then another. The survivors spit acid-green disruptor light back at us. Not enough to make a difference; even the few shots that hit aren't enough to raise a glow from my shields.
But they're not the main problem. The Dacoits are closing in, bracketing us with textbook precision, preparing to harass us from the flanks while the Corsair bores straight in with its main guns -
"Break left, three hundred mark one six." I highlight the nearest Dacoit on the tac display. "Designating Target One. Lock weapons and fire."
And our beam arrays blaze with cyan light, and I permit myself a tight smile. The Orions have done their homework - they have hardened their ships' shields against antiproton weaponry. When I obtained this ship, she had a full set of futuristic antiproton weapons, highly advanced, highly effective, expensive to maintain and impossible to upgrade. I had them replaced by Coalition-grade disruptor beams as soon as I could. Now, the Dacoit's shields shatter in a riot of light as my beams drive through, to ravage the unprotected hull. Spitting wreckage, reaction mass and escaping air, the Dacoit spirals away, its drives crippled, its weapons useless. Out of the fight.
The others respond instantly, though. They have no time to reconfigure their shields, so they decide, instead, to go hard on the offensive. It makes sense - it doesn't matter what I'm armed with, if I'm dead. More fighters are shooting out of the Corsair's launch bays, too, and a sudden blossom of fire in the night announces the destruction of one of my defensive drones. Disruptor beams claw at my shields.
Premaratne is still studying his PADD. I check my position - nowhere near the point he asked for. "Steer three six mark two eight. Reinforce starboard shield. Pulse generator online."
The pulse generator is another addition to the ship, a piece of Sphere Builder technology that sends disruptive antiproton bursts in a cone ahead of my ship. The Orions aren't expecting it, and it's enough to take out the fighters, and send one of the Dacoits veering away with its weapons offline. A temporary respite.
Beauregard shudders. Very temporary, it seems. The Corsair is in range, hitting us hard with quantum torpedoes. The starboard shield is already back down below forty per cent, and there is the characteristic flash-bang of a transient overload on the secondary engineering console. I sneak a look at Premaratne. He has not reacted. Unusual - an explosion on the bridge usually startles civilians. So, perhaps he is not a civilian -
"Commencing operations," Premaratne says. "Do not cross the axis of the device." One blunt finger comes down on the PADD, with finality.
The viewscreen whites out. The tac display fills with static and gibberish - and the damage control readouts fall suddenly silent. I stare at the screen as the light fades and the stars come back.
"What was that?" asks Morak, with something like awe in his voice.
"Subspace rift," I say. My mouth is dry. "Like at Rikilsa, only...."
"Higher energy gradients," says Premaratne, "simply because the device was so much smaller than the Rikilsa Array. The - effect - was therefore concentrated in a smaller volume of space. Still. You are to be congratulated, Captain, for your precise positioning of your craft."
"Checking scans now," says Rissmo. "Nothing on sensors but vapour. Subspace disturbance - " She stops. Her face is ashen pale.
I swallow hard. "Was that an isolytic disruption weapon?"
"That would be very much illegal," says Premaratne, as if blowing four Orion warships to atoms was something perfectly legitimate. "No. There is a subspace disruption effect, as you have noticed, but it is not weaponized, it is merely... an incidental phenomenon. If we had not been attacked, I would have directed you to retire to a safe distance before engaging the device. As things stand -" He looks down at his PADD again. "We were somewhat fortunate, I think. We were positioned in an interference fringe, where the subspace waves cancelled each other out. Only a little closer, or a little further away, and -" He purses his lips. "There would have been difficulties."
"Difficulties." My voice is shaking.
"If the Orions are disposed to be unreasonable, and if they are determined to track your ship, Captain, then I must consider matters." He switches off the PADD and lumbers towards the turbolift. "My function is to remove inconveniences," he says, absently, as if talking to himself. "I must consider."
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