A Galaxy Unknown (12 page)

"Ready, sir."

Captain Goshan stared at the image. "There," he announced as he pointed to the image. "Look at the lower edge of the link-section. Does that look like a ship to you?"

"It isn't part of a cargo link section, that's for sure."

As Satan's Own continued on a course perpendicular to its original track, Goshan grinned evilly and mumbled to himself, "So, our young captain is more clever than the commandant believed. She distracted us by sending her cargo section on ahead and preparing an ambush. But she's not commanding a warship; just an old freighter." Raising his voice he said, "Tactical, target that ship and fire tubes seven and eight."

"Aye, Captain."

Goshan leaned his bulk back into his bridge chair as the torpedoes left his ship. He was supremely confident in his ability to destroy the freighter, and he had a grudge to settle. Despite assurances from the commandant that the freighter's crew was incapable of putting up a fight, they'd somehow destroyed the six fighters that he'd sent out. Six fighters? He should have sent six squadrons. But on their last mission Leggmann had done serious damage to the ship he was sent to seize, so this time they had been under strict orders. And those orders specifically limited the size of the force Goshan could send out. But now that the freighter had separated from the cargo section, she was fair game. He could use whatever force he wished. And since that ship out there was only a freighter, two torpedoes with high-explosive warheads should split it open like an overripe melon.

* * *

"Captain," Gunny said calmly, "the Raider has fired torpedoes. They're presently bearing down on us at— 36,178 kps and still accelerating. Estimated time to impact is— one-niner seconds."

"Gunny, fire two and four," Jenetta said quickly, trying to remain calm but unable to remain totally unperturbed in the face of this new development.

Anticipating her order, Gunny had been targeting the destroyer. He immediately depressed the two switches that would send the missiles on their deadly errand. "Aye, Captain. Two and four away!"

"Helm, get us back up behind our cover. Quick."

The Vordoth's ascent seemed agonizingly slow as tiny thrusters struggled to raise the mass of the ship into position. All that could be seen on the viewscreen was the rear of the cargo link-section until Gunny locked in the targeting sensors. Suddenly, it was as if the cargo section wasn't there at all. As Gunny counted down the seconds, everyone on the bridge watched in stunned silence as the torpedoes raced menacingly towards them. The crewman at the science station began whimpering, until she realized the noise was being heard by those around her. She clamped both hands over her mouth and nose. Two seconds before impact Gunny changed the view back to regular sensor data.

The four, ten-meter deep by twenty-meter high containers, filled to the brim with unprocessed ore, took the full force of the two Raider torpedoes. Jenetta watched in silence as thirty-two-thousand cubic meters of rock, enclosed in linked, steel containers, completely absorbed the energy of the torpedoes. Since the torpedoes didn't penetrate the cargo containers, the explosive force discharged almost harmlessly against their surface in the vacuum of space. The link-section held together, but the force from the accelerated mass of the torpedoes bent the hundred-sixty-meter wide link-section inward and drove it towards the ship hiding behind it.

"Helm," Jenetta said, "full reverse."

The Vordoth responded to the order from the helm and immediately began to back away. The sub-light engines strained mightily to push it back from the approaching cargo link-section. Within seconds, it had matched the velocity of the link-section, insuring that the damaged cargo unit couldn't catch and damage the ship.

"Helm, disengage sub-light," Jen said. "Keep us hidden behind the cargo link-section using thrusters.

Gunny locked in the targeting sensors again and the bridge crew was able to watch as the latest counter measures from Satan's Own died and the Vordoth's second pair of torpedoes shut down as well.

"Where's that destroyer, Gunny?" Jenetta asked anxiously.

"It crossed our original track and continued on, but it's turning again, Captain. He's headed back."

* * *

"Did we get them, tactical?" Captain Goshan asked.

"I don't know sir. The explosions blinded my sensors for a couple of seconds. Immediately after detonation, I got a reading as if they fired up their sub-light engines."

"Which way did they go?"

"They didn't go anywhere. The sub-light engines cut out after just a few seconds. Here's the image of the link-section at maximum magnification, sir."

Goshan studied the two-dimensional CG image carefully. He saw no sign of the ship, and the link-section appeared intact. "We got the little bitch," he announced with a confident smile. "We must have blown them to pieces. At sub-light, they couldn't have cleared the area in a few seconds. Certainly not far enough to avoid power signature detection. The explosion must have shorted out their control systems and ignited the sub-light engines briefly." His rubbed his chin for a second and then added, "But— helm, maintain this distance until we're absolutely sure."

"Aye, Captain," the helmsman said. The lump in his throat had begun to shrink appreciably.

Chapter Eleven

~ July 13
^th
, 2267 ~

"Gunny, are tubes one and three loaded yet?"

"Not yet, Captain. They'll be available in— forty-two seconds."

"Unfortunately, we may not have forty-two seconds," she said calmly. "If that Raider sees that we're still intact, he'll try to finish the job. What's his position?"

"He's holding at— eight-hundred-eighty-two thousand kilometers from us. Almost precisely where he was when he first altered course to avoid our torpedoes. His helmsman must be some kind of perfectionist."

"How long until we can fire again?"

"Tubes one and three should be ready in— thirty-one sec… Damn!" Gunny stopped talking, peered more intently at the console, and then stabbed a finger at the console interface pad.

"What is it, Gunny," Jenetta asked, with just a touch of anxiety in her voice.

"Look, Captain," Gunny said, pointing to the image that he had just put up on the front viewscreen. It was a greatly magnified view of the Raider destroyer as provided by the targeting sensors. Counter measures were erupting from the warship like seeds from a fluffy dandelion seed ball caught in a powerful Terran gust of wind. At the same instant, laser weapon gunners began to fill space with pulses of coherent light as they opened up on seemingly invisible targets. A second later, an explosion white'd out the Vordoth's viewscreen. Another explosion immediately followed the first. The two explosions opened great holes amidship in the destroyer, wiping out bulkhead walls and exposing large sections of the ship to open space.

As the bridge crew of the Vordoth looked on in surprise, two additional explosions rocked the heavily damaged Raider ship on the opposite side, finishing the job so effectively begun by the first blasts. The destroyer, already severely weakened, broke apart, leaving two large halves and clouds of detritus tumbling and spreading through the coldness of the cosmos.

"What happened?" Jenetta asked, her jaw hanging slightly open.

"
Captain
Jenetta Carver happened," Gunny said grinning. "Those explosions were from the four torpedoes you ordered fired."

"But they were dead."

"Apparently they weren't quite as dead as we thought, ma'am. They suddenly came back online and reacquired their original target. My sensors picked them up as they reignited and accelerated towards the freighter."

"But how?"

"I don't know ma'am— but I'm not complaining."

The danger past, Jenetta smiled lightheartedly at him, leaned back in her chair, and stared at the image. "I'm not either, Gunny," she said after breathing a silent sigh of relief.

A delayed cheer went up on the Vordoth's bridge as the crewmen realized that the threat was gone. Everyone was suddenly smiling, laughing, crying, clapping, slapping one another on the back, or shaking hands. Jenetta just sat in the command chair and breathed another silent sigh of relief, letting the tension drain from her body and the exhilaration wash over her, while doing her best to maintain a staid exterior.

Gloria, white-faced and visibly shaken, leaned over to say, excitedly, "Congratulations, Captain. It was brilliant how you used the ore containers to protect the ship! With a full load of ore, they were better than the toughest and thickest battleship armor ever made."

Drawing in a deep breath, Jenetta expelled it slowly. Smiling, she said quietly, "I thought I would have a heart attack when the first two torpedoes lost their target. Space Command torpedoes aren't confused by counter measures once they've locked onto a ship's mass and shape. And usually a guidance specialist is in constant contact, directing them into their target. I certainly wasn't expecting yours to behave quite so— unpredictably as they did. And I still don't understand how they came to life again."

"What I don't understand is why the ship returned to fight after you fired the first two torpedoes? If all they wanted to do was watch us, they could have easily stayed out of range."

"I suppose that they were so stunned to see a freighter take the offensive that they weren't thinking clearly. And can you imagine the embarrassment if word leaked out, and it would have, that they ran from a shootout with an old freighter. Their captain would probably get the sack, or worse. I suppose he also looked upon it as an easy opportunity to grab our cargo now rather than later."

"You should make an announcement to the crew about our incredible victory, Captain."

Standing up, Jenetta straightened her tunic. "You're right. But first let's see if this link-section is salvageable, and then we'll have to catch the rest of our cargo. Charley?"

"Aye, Captain, I'm on it," Charley said from the security station where he and Gunny were using the imaging equipment to view the link-section. "The link is too badly damaged to couple with the cargo section, but I'll send a bot out to see if any of the containers can be salvaged. Congratulations on a successful attack, Captain."

"Thank you." To Gunny Rondell, Jenetta said, "Excellent shooting, Gunny. If we'd had anything to shoot but those screwy old Mark III torpedoes, you'd have taken him out with your first shots."

"Thank you, Captain," he said, beaming proudly. A new admiration began to fill his eyes as he looked at his commanding officer, while a profound sense of relief that he hadn't attempted to take over the ship flooded his abdomen.

A robot tug was dispatched to perform a close examination of the damaged cargo containers as Jenetta walked to the communications console. "Please put me on ship-wide speakers," she said the com operator.

"Ready, Captain."

"This is the captain speaking. We have just successfully destroyed the Raider warship that was tailing us. We'll now recover our cargo section and resume our trip, along a different route to Higgins. Thank you for your fine work today."

The bridge erupted briefly in applause again. Jenetta smiled and nodded at everyone before turning to Gunny and Charley at the security station. They were busy examining the images being relayed from the service bot. "What's the story with the four containers?"

"Those two Raider torpedoes did a real number on them," Charley said. "Everything is far too badly damaged to reconnect to the ship. We'll have to use a space tug to tow the link-section along until we reach port. It can follow along behind the ship and we can change the personnel once each day."

"No, we can't do that, unfortunately. The tug would cut our progress in half. Other Raider vessels may already be on their way here. We have to be out of DeTect range before they arrive. I'm sorry, but we'll have to leave it. Bring the service bot back in and let's go get the main cargo section."

"What about the other two sections that we released first?"

"We don't have time to recover them either, or to look for survivors in the Raider ship. We know where the link-sections are, and they have tracking transponders in them. If the company wants them, they can have them picked up on the next run through this area."

"Aye, Captain."

* * *

Charley's gaze lingered for just an instant upon the large wall monitor in the captain's briefing room as he entered later. Gloria was already there, studying the projected illustration with keen interest.

"The cargo section has been reattached and the three tugs are safely back aboard, Captain," he said.

"Thank you, Charley," Jenetta said. Gesturing towards the monitor, she asked, "How long would it take to reconfigure the cargo section like this?"

Studying the diagram intently before answering, he said, "With maximum effort I'd say that we could do it in about an hour. Are you sure that you want to consolidate all the gun sections together like this behind the main ship?"

"Yes. In the event of another attack, we'll drop the cargo section and fight with just the main ship. Right now, the guns are too far apart to give us really concentrated fire, and we completely lose their firepower if we separate from the cargo section to improve our maneuvering capability. With the guns remaining attached to the main ship after the cargo section is released, we'll come close to the maneuverability and armament of a Galactic Space Command light destroyer, although we still lack its armor and FTL speed."

"Okay, you're the captain. I'll get right on it."

"Thanks, Charley."

Every tug in the Vordoth was pressed into service as the cargo section was separated into almost three dozen pieces like a giant jigsaw puzzle, and then reassembled. As promised, Charley had the new configuration ready in an hour. For the first time since the initial attack, Jenetta felt good about their chances of getting through. The crew had been under fire and had performed well. The ship was fairly well armed, for a freighter, and the gunners now knew their job. The weapons system had been reprogrammed and all laser arrays that locked on a target would now fire, instead of just the one closest to the object, filling the immediate area around any target point with pulses of coherent light energy. Most importantly, Jenetta was settling into her new role and gaining confidence with each passing day.

In a little over a month's time Jenetta would be back with Space Command, and perhaps in six or seven months she might be able to get home to see her family. For now, she had the framed picture in her quarters to keep the memories fresh.

* * *

Things calmed down over the next several days, but the bridge crew never relaxed their vigilance. Everyone was on maximum alert as crewmen took turns scanning the surrounding space for signs of Raider activity. Jenetta began to notice a real change in the attitudes and behavior of the crew, who were acting more like they were on a military ship with each new day. On the fifth day following the destruction of the large Raider ship, Jenetta was brought up short as she arrived on the bridge in the morning to relieve Gloria and was greeted with a loud "Captain on the bridge." All crewmen not at stations came to immediate attention and held their position until Jenetta thought to say, "As you were."

Jenetta turned to Gloria with narrowed eyes and said, "Could I see you in my briefing room before you leave for breakfast?"

"Of course, Captain," Gloria said, as she moved to follow Jenetta.

As the briefing room door slid closed behind Gloria with just the slightest whisper, Jenetta turned. Gloria stopped and braced to attention.

"Okay, what's going on?" Jenetta asked.

"What do you mean, ma'am."

"Knock it off, Gloria. You know damn well what I mean. What's with the formal military recognition of a commanding officer?"

The corners of Gloria's mouth turned up almost imperceptibly. "The crew is just showing their respect for you as captain of this ship. Gunny Rondell has been schooling those of us that were never in the military, and refreshing the rules of military conduct for those that have been out for a long time."

Jenetta's nostrils flared for a second. "That's not right. I don't want him forcing people to feign military conduct."

"Force? Captain, you don't
force
freighter crews to modify their behavior about
anything
. They do it only if they want to, and they
do
want to. They requested that he teach them. They know that you saved this ship and everyone on it, twice now, and someone suggested that it might please you if, until we reach Higgins, we simulated the kind of atmosphere that you're most familiar with, and which you've been away from for so long. By the time we reach port they'll probably be able to pass inspection in a review parade."

"They
requested
that he teach them formal military conduct? Really?"

"Yes, ma'am. And if there was anyone aboard who might have been reluctant to follow your orders when you first accepted command, I can guarantee you that that isn't the case anymore. There isn't a crewman on this ship that would hesitate to follow any order that you gave now. And I'm talking about orders well above and beyond the orders that any freighter captain could ever expect to have obeyed."

Jenetta was stunned into silence by the revelation. The irritation she'd been feeling evaporated instantly, to be replaced by astonishment. "That's extraordinary," she finally said. "And I'm truly honored. But this isn't a Space Command vessel, and I'm just an
acting
captain. I have no right to ask for the kind of unquestioning obedience expected by the commanding officer aboard a military ship."

"You don't have to ask for it, Captain; you already have it. Ever since our last Raider encounter, this crew will do
anything
you ask of it. Over the past decade, we've all lost friends, and in some cases loved ones, to Raider attacks. This is the very first time that a freighter has not only
escaped
almost unscathed from a Raider attack, but actually
bested the attacker.
Everyone is simply busting with pride that they were a part of it. And you did say ‘until we're out of danger, we'll operate as if this is a military ship' when you accepted command."

Jenetta frowned, remembering her perhaps ill-chosen words. "Yes, I did, didn't I? But I never meant that to extend to formal military conduct." Scowling, she said, "Gloria, you don't have to stand at attention; and when we're alone, call me Jen." When Gloria didn't change her position, Jenetta sighed and added "At ease, Lieutenant."

Gloria relaxed. "No ma'am, I can't call you anything except Captain. I might slip when we're not alone and I only want to set a good example for the rest of the crew. They're trying really hard to adapt."

Jenetta sighed. "Very well. Ask Anthony to send me a pot of coffee when you go to breakfast, please."

"Yes, Captain."

Jenetta walked around her desk and sat down. Looking up, she was surprised to see Gloria still standing there. "Was there something else you wanted to discuss?"

"No ma'am. Gunny Rondell told me that in the military you never leave the commanding officer's presence until you're clearly dismissed."

Jenetta groaned inwardly to herself. "You're dismissed, Lieutenant."