Star Carrier (Lost Colonies Trilogy Book 3) (33 page)

-59-

The next twenty minutes were like a rollercoaster. At first, we thought we were going to slip away. By our numbers, the enemy fighters couldn’t reach us. They’d spent too much fuel racing after our ships.

But then the enemy shifted their plans. As always, they did so as a group and all at once.

“Captain!” Yamada called to me, “they’re coming about to a new course heading.”

“Durris, project possibilities.”

He was already tapping and dragging his fingers across two screens at once. On the projection above the table, the situation shifted. Balloons of color appeared, representing possibilities, and our course began to merge with them.

“XO?” I asked, unable to contain myself. “What are they doing?”

Durris ignored me, but then he turned around with a sigh. “Several wings have reached the Stroj home world. They’ve been hitting them hard.”

“I know that. But they’ve got no base left. Nowhere to return and refuel and rearm.”

“Right sir, but there are still the four battleships. They’re following us now. All the fighters that aren’t striking the Stroj planet are after us too.”

I stepped on unsteady feet to join him at the planning table. We were both hunched over it as if clinging to it for dear life. Our bodies weighed more than usual, and the effect gave one aches and pains in unexpected areas. In particular, I found that my neck always hurt after hours of keeping it upright under acceleration. I guess it was like wearing a cumbersome helmet.

Worse, our natural blood flow was adversely affected. Our heads were up high, and it took a lot of pressure to drive blood to our brains under these conditions. When the effects were prolonged, headaches, dizzy spells and the like were common.

“Let’s sit back and rest,” I said, relaxing on a nearby couch to talk to him. “Where could we go to escape these converging groups?”

He shook his head. “There is no escape. They’re englobing us. Look at the spheres of possible future engagement. They’re overlapping already.”

I looked up, straining to see the ghostly graphics that hung effortlessly over the planning table. At moments like this, I wished I were a weightless pixel.

“What’s that gray globe to the right?”

“That’s the Stroj planet.”

“Surely, the planet isn’t that large!”

“No, Captain. The extent of that balloon includes the reach of their missile bases.”

I sat up and stared with renewed interest. “You included our allies as enemies?”

“They warned us off, Captain. You remember their threats? To stay out of missile range or be destroyed?”

“We’ve done just that,” I said. “In fact, we’ve removed the biggest threat from the system. They should be grateful for that.”

Durris snorted. Apparently, he believed the Stroj to be ingrates. I had to admit, he had a point.

“What about their fuel limits?” I demanded. “Aren’t the pursuing fighters drifting by now?”

He shook his head. “I can only assume the variants performed some alterations and improvements.”

“Get Lorn up here. Bring him to the command deck.”

The last uninjured marines we had aboard groaned at this order, but they complied. Several minutes later, a foul-tempered Stroj arrived to look down at me.

“Taking a rest on your command deck, Sparhawk?” he demanded with a rough laugh. “What happened? Did you soil yourself when the variants nearly caught you?”

I pointed at the planning table, or rather, at the ghostly projections hanging over it.

Lorn studied the scene. “How did you get yourself so badly misplaced on the battlefield?” he demanded.

“Unfortunately, a brave strike at the heart of the enemy often leaves the brave in the middle of the opposing force.”

“Yes… How are we going to get out of this?”

“You’re going to help,” I said, climbing to my feet.

The Stroj pirate stood tall and proud ignoring the crushing G forces. His body was at least fifty percent artificial. His brain and his limbs were flesh, but except for certain key organs, his bones and other internal components were made of cold metal.

Lorn looked at me disdainfully. “I’ve kept our bargain. I’ve done everything you asked and more. Why should I help you further?”

“Because you will be destroyed if you don’t. We’re flying toward your home planet. What will the Stroj do planetside when we come into range of their missiles?”

“They’ll fire,” he said glumly. “They won’t tolerate an enemy ship in that close.”

“What if they’ve used all their missiles?” Durris asked. “I’ve noticed their barrages have been increasingly thin. They haven’t been very effective against the enemy fighters, either.”

Lorn shrugged. “The Stroj always have reserves. Always. It’s part of our doctrine. A knife behind the back is often worth more than a rifle in the final moments of a struggle.”

“More Stroj wisdom?” Durris said angrily.

I waved for him to calm himself which he did with difficulty.

“Can you do it?” I asked Lorn. “Can you convince your people to hold their fire? That we’re coming to help?”

He laughed. “I don’t see how I can do that. You’ll be trailing thousands of additional fighters. Why not destroy you?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” I demanded, getting an idea. “If they shoot us down, the fighters will have nothing left to attack other than your home planet. They’ll need to keep us alive, if only as decoys.”

Lorn stared at me for a second. Almost reluctantly, he nodded at last.

“That might work,” he admitted.

After a few minutes of trying, we managed to get the Stroj overlord to answer our calls. I tried not to sound desperate, but we were getting close to the borderline.

The odd alien-looking Stroj we’d spoken with previously came on the screen again. Lorn did the talking, explaining the reality of the situation.

“Deception!” it said. “Duplicity! We’re preparing to fire, but you’ve not yet crossed the line. Please continue on your current course.”

“Wait a minute!” Lorn said with a hint of desperation. “What do you mean? We haven’t deceived you!”

A limb waved to indicate Lorn’s surroundings. “The humans are in charge, not you, traitor. We’ve monitored your transmissions and hacked your security codes. We know you’re nothing to them but a prisoner. To us, you’re a traitor.”

“Hold on!” Lorn said. “Hear my appeal to reason, to your sense of self-preservation. The enemy following us will overwhelm you if we’re destroyed.”

The creature appeared to examine instruments. “You’re almost within our reach now. Continue wasting your final moments. It amuses us.”

“Listen,” Lorn said, hardening his resolve, “our three remaining cruisers are coming your way. There are a thousand fighters chasing each of us. They hate us because we destroyed their carrier. They’ll chase us until their fuel runs out—unless you destroy us first. Use us as decoys to lead the fighters safely away.”

“Falsehood. Miscalculation. The enemy will follow you because you’re the nearest available target. Once they determine they can’t catch you, they’ll swarm our planet instead.”

Lorn and I stopped talking, and we fell into an uncomfortable silence. We’d both realized the creature might be correct.

“Here’s what I offer,” continued Lorn after a painful delay. “We’ll slow down after we’ve moved a hundred thousand kilometers into your territory. Fire your missiles—but aim them at the fighters instead of our ship. We’ll help, gloriously fighting to the death among them.”

“What—?” I asked, my mouth sagging open.

The creature considered the offer for about a second.

“Very well,” it said, with a wobble to its red crest. “Die well, Lorn, and your name will not be deemed too sinful to speak aloud in the future.”

The screen went blank, and I turned on Lorn, who was very proud of himself.

“You see?” he said. “I told you I could swing a deal.”

“You’ve only postponed our doom by an hour or so.”

“Exactly,” he agreed, and then he moved to sit in my chair. He wore a self-satisfied expression.

Irritated, I had him chased from the command deck and placed back in his cell clamped in gravity-cuffs.

-60-

We reached the red line and passed it. The line indicated the point of no return, the point where we’d moved into Stroj space.

They could reach us with their missiles now, and they didn’t wait long to exercise that power.

“They’re firing barrages, sir,” Yamada said, “every base they have is unloading.”

“How many? What targets?”

“There are several hundred missiles en route to each cruiser.”

I looked at the data sourly. “Any chance they plan to meet the fighters chasing us instead?”

“That’s hard to know,” Durris said, working his analysis table. “They’ll strike our position right after the fighters meet up with us—if we maintain our current course and speed.”

“Right,” I said, poring over the information. “We’ll have to change our heading. We’ll veer away from the planet slightly.”

“What good will that do?” Durris asked.

“We have to play this carefully,” I said, “the fighters must follow us closely, but never catch us until the last possible moment.”

“Hmm,” he said. “But what if they figure out what we’re up to? These pilots are intelligent. They’re likely to switch their targeting and fall upon the Stroj planet.”

“Then the Stroj have even more reason to take them out, instead of us.”

He looked at me with respect. “Ruthless and cunning. The Stroj have let us into their space under false pretenses. They’ll never trust us again.”

“They as much as told us our only option was to die while they watched,” I said, “I have little pity for them if they’re so intractable.”

He nodded and turned back to his tables.

I felt a little weighed down by these crucial rapid-fire decisions, but I felt there was no room for error. The Stroj had refused to bend. We were thus forced to deal them a harsh blow even as we helped pull their rear-ends from the fire.

The battle played out much as I’d imagined it would. The variant pilots followed us for a time, but then turned toward the planet when it became clear we weren’t going to let them catch us.

After that, things became ugly. Several waves of fighters struck the Stroj. Their last handful of ships did battle as we watched from a safe distance, but they were taken down one by one.

Many of the fighters were taken out by the Stroj missiles, but it wasn’t enough. They won through.

“Advance,” I ordered, when the fighters entered the atmosphere and began bombing runs with impunity. “Get us into range of those fighters. They’ll have to slow down in the atmosphere or burn up. They’ll be easy targets for our guns.”

White-faced, my crew followed my orders. They were thinking that I was taking a big risk. The Stroj might well have more reserves—but I’d be surprised if they did. Who would hold back firepower when their cities were burning?

“Yamada, get Okto on the line for me, I need to talk to her.”

“Piping her through—she doesn’t sound cooperative.”

“She never does,” I said, grimacing as I made contact.

She was still flat on her back in our medical bay, recovering. She stared at me with baleful eyes that were swollen half-shut.

“What do you want, Sparhawk the traitor?”

“I want your two cruisers to help me destroy the variant fighters,” I said.

“Are you mad? Let our enemies destroy one another. Have you no concept of strategy?”

“What you suggest would be a good tactic, but not a good strategy. The variants have been broken. Their battleships are coming in now, but they’ve been targeted by more missiles. They’re unlikely to survive.”

“So are we, if we get any closer to this planet of mad-things.”

“We can’t stand by as a fellow colonist group is destroyed. They’re human—technically. They will remain a power after this battle as they have a few other star systems they’ve seeded. Therefore, strategy dictates we should—”

“All right,” she said. “Shut up, and I’ll tell my captains. They’re under no obligation to follow my orders, however, as I’ve lost my own command.”

“Let’s hope they still respect you enough to listen to sensible advice.”

She made a hissing sound. “Whatever I saw as admirable in you is a mystery to me now.”

With that, she disconnected. I couldn’t help to be anything but relieved to hear she no longer had a crush on me.

We watched tensely as Defiant glided into range of the Stroj home world. From here, the Stroj did have the option to blast us. I’d calculated that to be a justified risk as we were currently firing at their enemy. To further emphasize our value, I ordered my gunners to begin taking out variant fighters.

We popped them, two or three at a time, with each barrage of our cannons. It proved not to be quite as easy a task as I’d thought. The fighters, now deep in the soupy atmosphere of the Stroj home world, were defended by the heavy vapors and particles in the upper layers of gas that hung over any planet.

But some of them did go down with every shot. When two more cruisers came down to join us in our efforts, the destruction became pronounced. The number of variant fighters was dropping precipitously.

“Are the Stroj unleashing a new weapon?” Durris demanded. “We aren’t hitting all of these ships. We can’t be. They’re losing around a hundred a minute.”

We all studied the data, puzzled. It was Yamada who figured it out this time.

“They’re out of fuel,” she said. “On my scopes, I can see their contrails vanish seconds before each one goes down. They’re fighting until they drop to the ground and burn. Such dedication.”

“The dedication of army ants!” Rumbold declared. “Hah!”

We had nothing to add to that other than a sense of intense relief. The battle was soon over. The variants were brought down to the last craft.

Then, as we withdrew out of the range of the Stroj, we felt even greater relief. They weren’t firing on us.

I tried to contact them, but the overlord was either dead or uninterested in talk. We decided diplomacy was best left to another day and withdrew farther still.

Behind us, we left a burning hulk of a planet. The Stroj had suffered dearly. They weren’t wiped out, but conservative estimates placed their population losses at greater than fifty percent. Their military had lost over ninety percent of its strength as well.

Okto contacted me an hour or so later when our ships had been pulled away to the edge of the Stroj reach.

She was projected onto my range of vision by my implant. She was down, heavily bandaged and swollen. Her movements were labored and difficult.

“That was well-fought, Captain Sparhawk,” she said. “I’m impressed at your ability to grind together two enemies, like a woman determined to make dust out of boulders.”

“That wasn’t my initial intention,” I said, “but I thank you for the sentiment.”

“I’m calling you as a prisoner,” she said, “I’d ask for mercy, but it is not the way of my people.”

Dumbfounded, I shook my head. “Okto… you’ve never seemed to understand Earthmen. You’re not my prisoner. You’re free to go at any moment you wish.”

“A cruel joke,” she said. “I’m badly injured, and I’m calling you from your infirmary. I’ve assumed you’ve kept me alive as a hostage, but that’s pointless. My people do not pay ransoms or make diplomatic deals to save the life of failed captains.”

“Failed? How have you failed?”

“My ship has been destroyed. That is sick failure for any Alpha captain.”

“But you faced a much greater opponent. They lost their ships too—all of them. The Stroj even managed to take down the battleships with their missiles. There was bound to be losses on this campaign that we fought together. The sacrifice of your ship was a bold and brilliant attack that did terrible damage to the enemy. If your commanders back home can’t see that, they’re poor strategists indeed.”

She perked up a little. “You plan a coup, then?” she asked. “Your forces will attempt to conquer my home planet?”

“Certainly not,” I said. I would have laughed if the topic wasn’t so delicate.

“Your behavior is a mystery to me,” she said. “At one moment, Earthmen seem like vicious competitors. The next, they’re trying to tenderly help enemies like nursing mothers. Which are you, Sparhawk?”

“We’re both,” I admitted.

It occurred to me then that Okto was having trouble understanding Earthmen as we were all so different. True individuals, one to the next.

“Look,” I said. “The people from your world only come in two basic varieties. Alphas and Betas. On Earth, there are countless variations. Each man is an individual with varied behavior patterns.”

“Confusing…” she said. “I know that what you say must be true in theory, but we rarely encounter such variety in a single people. Among the stars, we’ve become isolated. Beta, as much as any world, is full of people who all think alike.”

“Yes!” I said. “That’s what I’m talking about. Earthmen sent out the variants. The people who did it were overcome with fear. They believed the rest of humanity out here among the stars wasn’t worth helping. After they met people like the Stroj, they became afraid of all colonists, and they decided to strike first.”

“You’ve just admitted to me that this action by the variants was intentional. That the variants were
not
mutineers.”

I hesitated for a moment then decided I didn’t even want to deny the truth. “That’s right,” I said, “but I’m an individual who disagrees with the others I spoke of. I came here to destroy what they unleashed.”

“A vast evil,” she said with feeling. “So many have died. By our thinking, you’re not much better. You’re a traitor to your world.”

“Not exactly,” I said. “I believe that all humans belong to the same species underneath, and we all owe each other respect and protection.”

“Protection against what?”

“Those who don’t ascribe to my point of view—criminals like the people who unleashed the variants.”

She stared at me for a moment. Her expression indicated she was trying hard to comprehend me.

At least she was
trying
to connect with someone who didn’t have her same mindset. That had to be a difficult trick for anyone from a clone race to pull off.

I was also fairly certain that males in general were completely baffling to her.

“Perhaps,” I said in conclusion, “your people and mine will come to understand one another in time.”

Privately, I wasn’t so sure.