The Condor hung upside-down in space. A tricky thing for her pilot to manage, the lack of gravity notwithstanding. Tilted 180 degrees opposite the locals’ plane of orientation, Victoria watched as the perforated Vautan destroyer drifted closer on her screen. Mauled lettering across the bow marked her as the Kreshna, which the computer identified as a predatory animal from the Vautan homeworld. The shredded aft of the destroyer’s dorsal section still glowed white-hot from the particle cannons that had carved out its propulsion system and main reactor, leaving the Kreshna as scrap to be cleaned up after the battle.
The Vultures weren’t keen on waiting that long. Either the Vautan would win the ongoing battle and scuttle her as a loss or, more likely, the joint xeno fleet assaulting the Vautan mining colony would return and mop up. But before either outcome had time to play out, the destroyer was equipped with laser batteries close enough to human understanding to reverse engineer. Lasers which could bring the Union Earth Navy one step closer to force parity among the stars.
Victoria thumbed her tactical team’s communication circuit. "Red, we’re two minutes out, what’s your status?"
"Go for vacuum, Vick. I’m about to cycle the forward airlock," Red answered. His voice was tinny and muffled by the helmet on his armored vacuum suit.
Those laser batteries could still be seen in the distance, even without the computer highlighting their energy signature. Human lasers were still limited to terrestrial warships and planes firing at terrestrial ranges of a few dozen miles. They wouldn’t even scratch the paint of xenotech hulls.
As the Condor drew close the navigator, Huian Wong, slowed the ship with shielded thrusters. With the heat hidden by shutters, a xeno would have to look pretty closely to notice their approach, vectored as they were to slip between the stars. Someone must have been looking very closely indeed, because a new shortwave frequency appeared on Victoria’s command repeaters, accompanied by a red flashing alert from Avery in the sensor shack aft of the conn.
"Shit, is that the Kreshna?" asked Victoria.
"Aye Ma’am, a handshake protocol, someone over there wants to get our attention," said Avery.
"Us and every other xeno in this goddamn system. He’s turning up the volume, too. We better open the damn channel before he gives us away."
Victoria completed the circuit, a section of the main viewscreen giving way to an ugly brown face. Moist folds of skin surrounding a central lamprey mouth with little black eyes asymmetrically scattered to either side. The display flickered as the low-resolution recorder captured the Vautan’s turbid countenance.
"You are the men from Earth, humans, yes?"
The computer didn’t bother to translate this, he was speaking Kossovoldt Standard, a language seeded across the known galaxy and adopted by the Union Earth. No one knew why or how the Kossovoldt instilled their language across a thousand alien races, and if a starship captain survived an encounter with them long enough to ask, his or her priorities were generally elsewhere.
"Yes, I’m Captain Victoria Marin. We are not hostile, our intent is to—"
"Yes yes, I know what it is you do, just get us off this blasted wreck. The battle is lost. I have fourteen crew and I am the ranking officer."
There was another alert on her console. Her chief sensor officer’s voice had picked up a note of alarm this time.
"Vick, we’ve got inbound, three contacts decreasing bearing rate. Thrust contrail suggests two fighter-type and a frigate. Must have picked up the active RF emission from the Kreshna. Designated Primary and Secondary One and Two."
Victoria swore. The Condor might bloody the nose of those fighters and escape before the frigate arrived, but it would be a close thing. She was in one of the most advanced ships the Union Earth could float, but the xenos were just so far ahead on the technological power curve. Her XO was already developing the warships’ intercept solution, they would have time to grab the survivors or tear off part of the laser array, but not both. She knew which was more valuable to the UE government. But damned if she was going to have that blood on her hands. "Red, hold off on vacuum, we’re taking on rescues."
"Aye, Vick," Major Red Calhoun replied. His marines would stand down, likely relieved, or maybe disappointed, at avoiding the inevitable firefight as they boarded the derelict vessel. The Vautan officer made a satisfied slurping sound that made Victoria’s stomach want to crawl out her ears.
"I am pleased, Human Victoria, that in this the rumors proved true. I look forward to the sights and scents of your ship."
"Passage ain’t free, you know. I wanted to tear those laser charging coils off your hull. What’s your hide worth to you?"
An annoyed series of chirps followed, which the computer was kind enough to translate as an expression of frustration. "Surely you realize I cannot authorize the release of any of my ship’s weaponry. I would never hold command of my own vessel again!"
Soft shudders went through the Condor as the magnetic clamps energized, locking Victoria’s Privateer onto the much larger vessel. At the same time, XO Carillo's intercept solution passed to Vick’s terminal. Less than five minutes until the enemy ships were in firing range. She keyed the circuit for the marine channel again. "Hold off on that airlock, Red. The captain and I are still negotiating passage."
A nervous contraction of his mouth and throat muscles betrayed a hint of urgency in the ranking Vautan officer. Clearly, he too was aware of the approaching vessels and their intent, his distress call to the Vultures a calculated risk that he fell on the wrong side of. "Human Victoria—"
"Captain Victoria."
"Captain, time is of limited commodity in this venture, attempting to salvage parts in the midst of a battle is unwise."
"It is now that you’re broadcasting our location to anyone with ears. Now if I don’t get the parts we need, I get stranded at a neutral station and don’t get to go home on time. But one of us gave away our position with that little radio stunt, and that bastard isn’t going home at all without something to make up for it. So if you want to keep all the broken pieces of your dead-ass ship until it’s blasted to atoms with you still inside? Well, I don’t see your prospects for command looking too good if you’re floating across the cosmos in a million pieces. What’s it going to be?"
There was chatter from other Kreshna crewmembers offscreen, and a wave of static pushed across the transmission. Seconds passed. The ranging solution on the intercept fighters dwindled. Victoria waited.
The Vautan officer regained his post. "This is not the altruism I was told your kind possessed!"
"Altruism doesn’t fill the cargo bay and fuel tanks. What’s it going to be?"
"You’re a scoundrel, Human Victoria, but I will do as I must, you will have your trophy. Terminate connection."
The section of the viewscreen winked out as the circuit was severed by the Vautan officer, replaced by the countdown until the frigate and fighters reached expected weapons range. Victoria’s sensor team was still trying to identify their class and race of origin, but the derelict destroyer was blocking any view of the Condor`s sensors. She was cutting it awful god damned close.
"Major, get them off that fucking wreck, double time. Whether or not they manage to pry something loose, those crewmen don’t deserve to die because of one asshole officer."
"Roger Vick, sounds like the crew of the Kreshna is already lining up to get off that tub."
Victoria looked over her command repeaters, the various ship’s subsystems reporting their status. Engineering, tactical, sensors, and navigation all showed nominal. In the brief moment where every task was assigned and a captain found herself with no orders to give, the weight of the lives resting on her decisions seemed to grow even heavier. She looked at the back of Huian Wong’s head, watching her run trajectory programs to double-check that their egress route back to the horizon jump was the fastest available. Victoria could find fault there if she looked hard enough. The impotence of waiting made her want to vent her frustration, but jumping down her pilot’s throat would only undermine the girl’s confidence in the midst of a crisis. She settled for calling up fire control instead.
"Carillo, prep countermeasures as primary response. If those interceptors were listening in then they have an idea who we are, and today isn’t the day to make enemies by smearing more xenos across the stars if we don’t have to."
"Aye, Vick, dummy loads, anti-fighter munitions in reserve."
Her executive officer, Cesar Carillo, preferred to lead the fire control team from their targeting room instead of his station on the conn. The Argentinian was busy plotting firing solutions on the three ships bearing down on the Condor.
The view on the main screen swiveled at a gesture from Victoria, superimposing a projection of the expected flight path of the fighters. They were Tallidox war birds, though the Tallidox manufactured and sold arms and equipment to many interstellar governments at prices Earth couldn’t hope to afford. And unfortunately, they were always improving their export fighter designs.
Active sweeps began to bounce off the Condor’s hull, and the iconography for the fighter craft jumped from the projected path to within line of sight.
"Shit," said Victoria. The engines on the fighters either received an upgrade since her last encounter with them, or they were running extra hot.
"Conn sensors. Targeting sweep just hit us. Fighters are 50KK and accelerating. Designating Primary and Secondary target now."
"Seal the airlock, take what we’ve got and cast off."
The profile of the active sensors changed from a wide sweep to a focused cone as the fighters struggled to maintain a lock on the Condor’s slick hull. The active radiation signature was similar to Earth radar, enough so that the surface of the privateer ship was conditioned to shrug it off. Xeno fighter craft by nature couldn’t carry the advanced gravitic sensors that xenos in this stretch of space favored on their larger ships.
Victoria’s pilot pushed the ship away from the Kreshna. And not a moment too soon, as visible-spectrum lasers began peppering the remaining active defenses of the derelict ship with quarter-second bursts of indigo light. At thirty-thousand kilometers, the beams weren’t focused enough to do much more than warm up the hull and melt off the remaining automatic defenses on the Kreshna just in case a few of them still had power, but as the distance closed, those indigo beams became more and more lethal. The fighters began carving shards of red-hot composite hull off the Kreshna even as they maneuvered to keep the Condor in their active sensor overlap.
Something in the Kreshna took poorly to the lasers, and ignited plasma began to vent from the dorsal port-side. The force of the release sheared a fissure across the top of the ship that split the derelict in two. The aft section spun freely on the main viewscreen, the magnification level growing while the Condor accelerated away on a plume of ionized xenon with enough thrust to overcome her newly upgraded inertial dampeners. Victoria grunted against the g-forces pushing her back into her captain’s couch. The frigate began to decelerate, launching missiles and more indigo lasers into the wrecked scrap of the Kreshna. The fighters kept on course, closing the distance with alarming speed even as their sensors struggled to find purchase on anything but her engine’s heat signature.
"Tactical, deploy pursuit screen now."
Two small missiles fell back from the aft tubes of the Condor, deploying a reactive ceramic cloud between her and the Primary. With two fighters and only the waste heat of her engine, it was difficult for the xenos to determine the range to focus their weapons. The lasers on the craft could be configured for a range-finding mode, and the emitters on the Primary fighter began to flash in rapid succession. The energy alone from the ranging could potentially damage the Condor, but these new laser countermeasures seemed to do the trick. The ceramic particles reacted to the light-energy by transforming it to heat and expanding rapidly to block the distant fighters from view and offer nothing but garbage returns to their sensors. It forced the closer fighter to abandon the ideal ranging formation and waste energy adding lateral acceleration, giving the Condor precious seconds to accelerate to a safe Alcubierre vector. Huian Wong kept the ceramic countermeasure screen between the Condor and the fighters as best as the woman could without sacrificing acceleration.
Indigo light flashed within a dozen lengths of the Condor as the second fighter began taking wild stabs with his laser array using his limited knowledge of the Condor’s position and path.
"Vick, ready to deploy anti-fighter defenses on your mark."
"Hold, tactical," said Victoria. The lasers were growing closer and more focused as the range shrank and the sensor returns improved, but firing the dummy missiles too soon would give the fighter too much time to react, and she needed his response to be survival instinct, not the calculation of a hunter defeating a prey’s defenses.
"Conn sensors, the sweep on the secondary just narrowed. Zero bearing rate, waste heat increase from his engines. He’s closing in."
The fighters could accelerate faster than a bad night of drinking, and if the frigate stayed behind it spoke to their confidence in the abilities of the pilots. Victoria glanced at her repeaters. That second fighter, she could play to that confidence. Let him think he had the kill.
"Engineering conn, vent heat portside."
Small alarms showed as hot coolant sprayed from the port ventricles of the engine room, presenting an enormous thermal signature for the Secondary to see on his thermal scope. The randomly firing lasers ceased as the pilot squeezed every ounce of power into his engines, the distance track closing at an alarming rate. To the fighter, it looked like one of his blind shots got lucky and hit something critical, and now it was just a matter of finishing the job. But he got careless too, and forgot to vary his bearing as he closed.
"Tactical, fire the dummies," Victoria said. Her voice was calm, despite her heart attempting to beat its way through her chest as she felt the shuddering of the half-dozen missiles launch from the aft tubes on the Condor. Privateer ships had a variety of rear-facing weapons. They tended to do a lot of running for their lives.
"Huian, take us about. Vector away from the Primary and get us clear for transition."
"Aye skipper."
There was a brief moment of risk as the Condor presented a broadside to the Secondary, silhouetting itself against the vented coolant. But in that moment all six missiles screamed to life on a fume of solid propellant, blasting the fighter with a bevy of active radar in various lock-on profiles. Completely superfluous EM radiation, as they received all of their targeting information from the Condor’s main computer. But the intended effect was simple, gut-wrenching, bowel-loosening horror. The sudden appearance of the seemingly deadly ordinance, stripped of their payload in favor of greater acceleration, took the fighter completely off guard. For a brief instant, there was no reaction as the pilot was caught between an ideal targeting solution and the certain death homing in on his craft.
"Conn sensors, secondary is reversing thrust, laser refraction pattern suggests a point-defense configuration. He’s breaking off the attack," said Avery.
"Huian, get us out of here before he thinks to tell his wingman about our course change."
"Aye ma’am."
The tone of the engines softened to a dull roar as Huian Wong pulled the Condor back from emergency acceleration, and Victoria relaxed back into the conn. On the main screen, two of the missiles winked out when the fighter’s point defense clipped them, and the other four sailed past as he desperately tried to change his vector. When the fighter’s pilot found himself still alive, his thrust signature dulled. He abandoned the emergency evasive maneuvers and his laser banks stopped producing their defensive light-show. Victoria had no doubt that whoever was in that craft knew full-well she held the pilot’s life in her hands and chose to be merciful. Most of these xenos weren’t sure how to handle that. Some saw it as weakness, others as opportunity. Some, as her new Vautan shipmate demonstrated, saw it as convenience. The pilot at the controls of the fighter craft flashed his engines in two short bursts, an acknowledgment of her tactics. An interstellar tip of the hat.
Victoria snarled under her breath and thumbed the main circuit. "Stand down from battle stations," she said. The Vultures had almost no time to get the crew off that hulk, let alone pry loose any carrion. Goodwill didn’t fill exotic matter tanks. She pushed herself up and stormed off the conn. She dropped down to the mid-level and was heading for the ancillary cargo bay when she was intercepted by Sergeant Aesop Cohen, her marine xenotech specialist, still in his vacuum suit.
"Captain, I was just coming to see you," the boy said, the distress clear in his eyes. Tears stained the corners.
"Christ, Cohen, what happened to you?"
The marine laughed, then coughed, and wiped his nose on the ceramic plate of his armored sleeve. "The Vautan, ma’am. Their skin reacts . . . poorly with oxygen. Secretes a cyanocarbon chemical that reminds me of chem-war training I had at Tel Aviv. At the end, we had to take off our gas masks and sing Hatikvah in a room full of CS. Not harmful, but not pleasant."
"They’re walking, talking tear gas grenades. Fuck me. Tell me you were on your way to deliver something other than that. Did we get anything?"
Cohen grinned. "That officer of theirs made a fuss, I think he was going to go back on whatever deal you made. The crew of the Kreshna almost left him over there, but settled for bringing him bound and gagged, which for them apparently means stuffing a big cork plug in that radial saw they’ve got for a mouth."
Cohen presented a small device to her, held as delicately as a newborn in his gloved hand. "One of their engineers was a quick thinker, pulled this off the ship’s databanks before he scuttled them. Full schematics for their forward laser array, if we can find a system to interface with it. We don’t know much about Vautan computers."
Schematics were, by and large, inferior to physical parts. Scientists jumped ahead years by analyzing and duplicating xenotech alloys and composites. And complex devices that eluded the top minds of the Union Earth still opened doors to new possibilities. Drawings and diagrams could go a long way toward putting the puzzle together once they had all the bits and bobs, and the Vautan ships the UE encountered were only a few hundred years ahead of Earth technologically. But such a divide was surmountable only with the proper application of reverse engineering, and for that Victoria needed physical parts. Union Earth had been after a shortcut to ship-borne lasers for some time now, especially following her experience with a Dirregaunt battleship almost cutting her ship in half at two hundred and fifty thousand kilometers the year previous, out of direct line of sight, by refracting the beam across the upper atmosphere of a planet. Hell, these schematics might finally be the key that let scientists crack the mystery of how the xenos could pump so much energy into their weapon systems without their ships exploding. But she doubted it.
With the hold smelling like the inside of a CS gas grenade, Vick headed for the foremost compartment, as far physically as she could get from the Vautan rescues. The tip of the spear was her Fire Control compartment, where her executive officer was squeezed into a console between two technicians and a midshipman learning the ropes before taking a post on another Privateer.
Even though the ship was standing down from general quarters, XO Cesar Carillo still had his nose to the screen, poring over potential firing solutions derived from a steady stream of sensor data. When it came time for the shooting, Carillo was the hand that aimed the gun, and his grip was as steady as his midsection was thick. Which was to say, very. In fact, Victoria never determined how the man kept getting cleared for space duty with his physique. Maybe he ate the physicians. Or maybe you didn’t kick out someone who stared down the barrel of hypersonic fighter craft without flinching. Victoria could see stains at the neck and armpits of the technicians, and you could have wrung out the midshipman’s hair into a bucket. But Carillo’s uniform was dry as a vacuum-sealed turd. He’d probably sleep through a firefight if she let him.
"Captain," he said beneath a wiggling gray mustache and bushy black brows. It wasn’t a question or an invitation, simply an affirmation of her presence. It unnerved her, somewhat, that he seemed preternaturally aware of when she entered a room, and that typically he would make his egress moments prior. The two technicians turned, startled for a moment at her sudden appearance. Victoria jerked a thumb behind her. "Cobb, Mavis, out," she said. She pointed at the midshipman, a hint of a smile on the young woman’s face. Probably thought she was getting included in the big-girl conversation. "What rig are you slotted for?"
"The UE Artemis, Ma’am."
"Shit, we’d better not get too chummy then. You’ll probably be stardust within a year. Out."
Once the red-faced junior officer had left the fire control room Victoria leaned against the bulkhead.
"A fucking cabbie service, that’s what we are, Cesar. Give us a ring and we’ll come pull you out of a jam. No no, put that wallet away, your reactive charging coils are no good here. This one’s on us."
"There are worse things than being harmless, Vick," said Carillo.
"I know. But what are we doing out here? Six months ago we were running Malagath princes through Dirregaunt blockades. The Big Three are barely even seen in this corridor now."
Carillo laughed, "And we’ve hauled more tech in these last six months than in the prior two tours combined. And we did it without the Dirregaunt breathing down our necks. Why let this xeno under your skin, Vick?"
"I have no goddamned idea. Maybe it was his expectations, maybe his lack of respect, or maybe how stupid he was to open a comms channel. Take your pick. But after we dump his ass off at Ersis, we’re going to take a hard look at what we’re doing out here. Humanity can’t just be a free ride if we want to survive in this galaxy."
"You should leave that sort of talk to the politicians, Vick," said Carillo.
The dull roar of the ion engine cut abruptly as an oscillating whine crept up in its place. The Alcubierre drive pushed the Condor into superluminal transit. The mining station was off the beaten path, in a system whose star didn’t support the properties ideal for a horizon jump. The trip to the nearest star that did would take them almost two weeks. Little happened during light speed transit, and so the ship would be put on Alcubierre stand-down with a minimal watch rotation. That was a long time for a captain to be alone with her thoughts, and Victoria did not particularly enjoy being alone with her thoughts. Paperwork and model spacecraft only kept her from the bottles that always seemed to find their way into her rack for so long.
"No sense putting it off any longer," said Victoria. "I suppose it’s time to meet the new arrivals. Come on."