Counterweight (31 page)

It also meant they would have to lose eight ships before the
young couple lost their status as haulds.

A hauld with seventeen ships could take more risks without
fear of the consequences. That meant faster growth and a greater chance of the
original nine being sent off on missions of their own with the chance to better
their own stations.

As haulds, they would still owe allegiance to Freya and Rick
who, in turn, would still owe allegiance to Erin Shelby. It was a simple
structure but one that encouraged growth.

And they were keen to get on with it.

“Right,” she announced, “all prizemasters and their crews
will report aboard the Mark IIIs. We leave the moment it’s done.”

Rick had expected her order to generate a flurry of shuttle
activity but he soon found that it meant bringing the Mark IIIs alongside each
of the other ships to take off warriors directly. The first approach was
relatively unsettling as he saw a cruiser rapidly filling the bridge screens.

The second transfer was even more alarming as the helmsman
pushed himself and his ship to greater feats of maneuvering, knowing that the
next attempt would be under enemy fire. Rick nearly fell on his back and was
giving serious thought to the installation of a few grab-posts on the bridge.

“Cal…” Freya’s voice appeared in his skull again. “Leaving
now. We’ll be there within the centi-day.”

“Good luck, folks.”

Freya looked to the fleet panel floating just to the side of
the holographic image of Chaco Benthic. All ships showed green.

“All vessels stand by to jump on my mark,” Freya ordered. “
Frír,
tveir, ein
, mark.”

Rick knew some could feel the transition into distortion but
he’d been through several jumps and never noticed any effects. Still, he did
notice a tightness in his stomach. He put that down to the fact he was going
into battle for the first time.

He’d gone up against these very ships before but that had
been different. Boldly flying through the midst of the gathering enemy had
seemed more like a silly prank than combat. The actual effects of the knockouts
seemed to have taken out three ships but the whole thing had a sense of removal
to it – as if he’d only heard of the exploit from someone else.

Now the ship he was standing in would be recognized as
unmistakably hostile and she would be pressing in to make physical contact. The
prizemasters would be leading their teams into the enemy ships through
(hopefully) aligned shuttle bay doors.

The hulls would take damage from the impact, if not from
defensive fire, and then they would dance away to attack the next target.

If they were still alive.

The
Guadalcanal
,
Chaco Benthic

B
arry
was too hyped to stay in his chair. He was several feet in front of it, feeling
ahead for the earliest opportunity as the drop wash quickly faded. “Fire the
mains!” he shouted.

A deep, bass moan ran through the bridge as the huge steel
slugs were accelerated to more than fifteen times the speed of sound before
reaching the muzzles at the bow of the massive carrier.

The bridge crew cheered, most already seeing the results.
The slugs left pencil lines of plasma in their wake for half the distance and
then the eye lost them. A few seconds later, they didn’t so much impact the
troopship as convert to vapor inside the ship’s hull.

In less time than it took for the enemy crew to realize they
were under attack, their ship had been destroyed.

“Hail them,” he ordered, knowing he’d be conversing with a
cruiser captain, now that the command ship was gone. The cruiser captain seemed
very uncertain about the situation.

A Dactari face appeared on Barry’s central screen.

Before the enemy could speak, Barry took the initiative.
“This is Captain Fletcher of the Alliance carrier strike group
Guadalcanal.
Identify yourself.” He almost laughed at the Dactari’s flustered response.

“This is Sub-Flota Kerna of the… Dactari response forces…
Who are
you?
”

“I’ve already
told
you who we are,” Barry reminded
him, “and who or what are the
Dactari response forces
?”

The
Ormurin,
behind
Chaco Benthic’s Moon

“
A
ll
hands, brace for maneuvering,” Freya ordered, moving over to the helmsman’s
station and taking a firm grip on a black, carbon stanchion.

Rick wasted precious time staring at his wife. He’d
obviously not been the first to wish for railings. Suddenly he realized the
precarious nature of his current stance and raced to the communications
officer’s station to grab a stanchion. He caught her questioning glance and
gave her a nod. “We look good, as far as I can see,” he assured her. It
occurred to him that this would be her first time in high-intensity combat as
well. He didn’t know if he could have displayed such composure, in her shoes.

She took a deep breath. “
Barden, Munin
, stand by to
pitch on my mark,” Freya ordered. “
Frír, tveir, ein
, mark.”

Rick swayed back a few inches as the three Mark IIIs leapt
forward. As they cleared the moon, they arced upward toward the fleet, forcing
him to fight to remain on his feet. If the compensators failed, he knew he’d be
flat on the deck with a cracked skull. The sudden rotation that came next was a
surprise but it was easier to deal with due to the extra gravity holding him
down.

“We’re oriented with target number one,” the helmsman
announced. “Pitching to port…”

Rick almost toppled over on his right side as the ship
shifted over and darted in to press her forward shuttle bay against a
corresponding door on the enemy’s ship. A jarring impact ran through the vessel
and all the way up to his skull.

“First team is away,” the helmsman called out. “Brace for
pitch…”

“Alert!” the sensor coordinator yelled, her face bathed in
orange and red flashes from her holo-display. “No distortion but there’s
suddenly a ship right next to us.”

The main holo showed a ship, a massive ship, in their midst.
It was roughly forty kilometers long and shaped like an elongated barrel with
every second stave missing.

“Helm no longer answers,” the helmsman pounded at the
surface of the workstation.

“Weapons down too,” an officer sighed. “Girru’s scorched arse!
Well, I suppose that’s three ships taken for sure. What in Niffleheim is
Aliekna doing all the way out here?”

Rick looked at his wife in confusion. He suddenly gripped
the stanchion even tighter. What he was seeing had to be a mistake.

“It’s the
Firm Resolve
,” she explained. “A ship built
by the ancestors. She has some fifty million refugees living on her but, more
importantly, her symbiote, a Bolshari named Aliekna, serves as a referee of the
truce between the Alliance and the Dactari Republic.”

“So she just stops fights?”

“If she happens to be around, yes.” Freya flexed her hands,
shutting her eyes. “And then she…”

Rick squeezed his eyes shut in alarm. When the sensation
passed, he eased them open to see both his hands in front of his face. “Whoa!” he
shouted involuntarily. He dropped his hands to see Freya standing the same
distance away and in the same pose but they now appeared to be in some kind of
lounge, looking out on a massive city. What he’d seen had been real.

“Just… Whoa…” he added lamely. Looking up, he realized the
city extended above them as well. Massive strips of city stretched away into
the hazed distance.

“…takes the opposing leaders aboard for a chance to
negotiate a peaceful solution,” Freya finished, opening her eyes. “Sorry, Rick.
I thought I had more time to warn you to close your eyes. It can be incredibly
unsettling.”

“Oh, no… It’s fine, really,” Rick muttered. “I’m just glad
it wasn’t a seizure.”

She laughed. “We should be meeting with an Alliance
representative any minute.” She looked toward a glazed wall separating them
from a larger room with a conference table. A Human, or Midgaard, was
approaching the door.

“Don’t know who that is,” she warned Rick, “so let’s be
careful what we say in front of him. And don’t worry. This should probably save
us some trouble, if we play it right.”

“Hi, folks,” he greeted them from the doorway. “I’m
Commander Colm McDonald, Alliance Forces, Oaxian Sector.” He held out his hand,
palm up.

“Freya Augustdottir,” she waved her own hand over his, palm
down. It was a handshake used since the old Empire, a civilization that the
Republic had replaced when Babylon was still a village. It had caught on with
the Alliance out of novelty but the reduction in communicable disease had been
a definite bonus.

Rick followed her lead and greeted the Alliance officer.

“Haulds, if my math is correct?” Colm glanced between the
two. He dropped into one of the chairs with a sigh. “D’you know you’re my first
case? I’ve only been posted here for a few months.”

“What are you even doing out here, Commander?”

He waved to a point past Rick’s shoulder. “The
Guadalcanal
,”
he replied. “Aliekna detected a CVN drive where there shouldn’t have been one.
When you arrived here, that carrier was visible to your opponents as well as the
station itself and all the ships parked at the airlocks.”

“She picked up on the
awareness
of the
Guadalcanal
rather than on the ship itself.” Freya shook her head. “I never considered
that.”

“Hell,
I
didn’t understand how she found you until
she explained it to me,” Colm soothed. “But then, I was never much for that
esoteric stuff. Some folderol about ship’s scanners and humanoid perception…”
He settled his gaze on Freya. “So, you’re taking this planet?”

“We’re responding to a distress call from its citizens,”
Freya answered evenly.

Rick was careful not to use his abilities on friends and
especially not his wife but that didn’t extend to situations like this. The
meeting was too important and he knew she was about to ask him to contribute to
the conversation. He’d spent time down there, after all.

“They indicated the station was being menaced by raiders.”
He explained. “The citizens can’t clear them out because the elevator is too
easy to secure from the top. Any troops they send up to deal with the raiders
would be easy targets when the capsule opens. That elevator is their lifeline
and they don’t have the Republic to call upon for help.”

Colm nodded. “This world was a bit of a surprise to us,” he
admitted. “We’ve no records of it in the convention lists so I doubt the
Republic is aware of it, at least officially...”

“That’s how we see it as well,” Freya agreed. “So let’s hit
the table, Commander.” She stood and headed for the same door he’d entered
through, leading them to a central conference area.

Through the glass on the other side of the large room, they
could see two Dactari arguing. One, dressed in Republic uniform, was shaking
his head while the other, in a battered EVA suit, was waving his arms and
shouting.

The uniformed officer saw the Alliance officers taking their
seats at the table, shrugged, and headed for the door. After a moment of
stunned hesitation, the suited Dactari let out a deep breath and followed.

As they took their seats, a silver sphere rose from the
center of the table. “Welcome aboard the
Firm Resolve
,” the sphere
greeted them. “My name is Aliekna.”

“Ummm…” Rick looked away from the sphere to where Colm sat.
“So that sphere is…”

“Not actually
her.”
Colm laughed. “In earlier
mediations, Aliekna spoke directly to participant’s minds but it made them
nervous that she might be reading their thoughts and favoring one side over the
other.” He nodded at the sphere. “Now she speaks to everyone in the room by
causing this sphere to vibrate. Her true form is in stasis.”

“Hello, Aliekna. My name is Freya Augustdottir.”

“And my name is Rick Carrolson.”

“They have two representatives,” the suited Dactari
complained.

“They’re Midgaard,” the uniformed Dactari explained in tones
one would use with a child who kept repeating the same questions. “If they rule
as a couple, they
represent
their interests as a couple.”

Colm grinned as he gestured to the uniformed officer. “This
reprobate is Krillna Quo and don’t let his size fool you – he can put away a
startling amount of alcohol.”

 “You guys drink with each other?” Rick had been raised
to believe the Dactari had wiped out the fleet and finally taken Earth. He knew
now that it wasn’t true but the idea of Humans and Dactari getting drunk
together…

“Of course,” Colm replied without hesitation. “Drinking with
friends is all well and good but drinking with your enemy is one of the best
ways to get to know him.”

“There’s truth in your old Earth saying,” Krillna added.
“Booze makes a good truth serum.”

Colm rolled his eyes. “
In vino veritas
,” he told the
Dactari. “You’re good fighters but you’re just shite when it comes to phrases.”
He looked back to Freya and Rick. “In their culture, it’s more about creating
the image, so they go to great lengths to come up with clever new ways to
phrase it.”

“I’d say he did a decent job of at least capturing the
meaning,” Rick offered.

“
Thank you
,” Krillna exclaimed in a dramatic, long
suffering tone. “I knew that blathering Scotsman was just hauling on my foot.”

Rick squinted at him. “Okay, now you’ve lost me.”

“Pulling your leg,” Colm insisted to Krillna. “I keep
telling you not to do that with idioms. Idioms come from ancient phrases. The
original explanation is too obscure, so your clever little word pictures will
make no sense to us.”