Ion Trail 16: Bushwhacked

Damn it, damn it, damn it, I swore to myself, staring blankly at the console in front of me. I could drop out of hyperspace right now, but they’d already know my destination, and Stroika wouldn’t be in any better position to defend against an attack than Kestrel had been. The listening post at Percyval’s Rest would be even worse, being little more than the mining station we’d visited in Proxima Tau, but used for military communications instead of mining. I stilled my restless fingers, trying to think of a plan that wouldn’t result in all of us dying, or anyone else if I could help it.

“Captain?” Clinton’s voice cut through my distraction, and the edge I heard stilled my own panic just enough to respond.

“Thank you,” I said, more calmly than I felt. “We’re already in hyperspace, so we’ll keep going for now, until I decide on a plan of action. Continue monitoring the nanites.”

I’d grown careless. That was the only explanation. But the insidious, self-destructive voice that was my ever-present companion found new opposition that I hadn’t expected. No I hadn’t, I realized. I’d kept someone on nanite-watch even after more than a week of silence. I’d made sure I always had navdata calculated in case we’d needed to run. I’d been as careful as I could be, which had resulted in catching the nanites as soon as they’d started transmitting again; it had just happened at the worst possible time. Calmer now, I keyed the intercom.

“Crew meeting in the galley. We need to talk options.” By the time I’d gotten myself back there everyone else was there and it looked like Clinton had given everyone the spoilers. Even Janice was there looking as surly as usual, but everyone else just looked worried.

“So, nanites,” I started. “We weren’t able to get rid of them entirely, and now they’re back to cause us trouble. Maybe there’s not enough of them left for a strong signal, but it’d be stupid to assume the best. So we assume they know where we came from and where we’re going.” There were several murmured comments of understanding, so I continued. “Obviously we can’t stop and make Stroika any more of a target, and Percyval’s Rest is just a listening post. No one can protect us there, and we’re likely bringing a world of hurt down on their heads.”

“So we stop again, scrape off the nanites, and try to make another run?” Diaz looked nervous, but he didn’t seem to be even considering the option of endangering others.

“That’s one option,” I said. “Any other thoughts?”

“Why do we have to stop?” Omar asked. He’d gotten the digest version of the events that led them to Proxima Tau’s mining station, so I took a moment to explain.

“The nanites are able to act as a transponder beacon. They’ll know where we’re going, and they’ll know if we stop. If we lead them to Percyval’s Rest, they’ll destroy the station there, same as they did Kestrel.”

“No, no,” he shook his head impatiently. “I understand that. Why do we have to stop to deal with the nanites?”

“Because it’s hyperspace,” I said, trying to be patient with him. “If we send someone out… there…” I trailed off as I realized where he was going with this. He grinned as he saw it hit me. “We could use the drones.”

“Yup,” he said. “So long as we have a way to tell them where to go, they can do most things that a person can do, and a few things a person can’t.”

“We’d still need to stop, to throw them off the path,” Diaz added, and I frowned. He was right. I didn’t see stopping as optional either, though I didn’t like it. We’d have to stop with the nanites still functioning so they’d know we’d stopped, deal with them, and then jump again. I didn’t like the delay, especially with the timing of the nanites’ reactivation.

“What if we hijacked the signal?” Janice didn’t seem condescending or bored for once, and I looked at her closely. “The nanites’ signal, I mean.”

“They’re too complex, aren’t they?” I felt like we’d covered this, but she seemed like a smart girl, so I was more than willing to hear her out.

“The nanites are probably too complex, but I’m not talking about decrypting their internal communications, just their sub-space transponder frequency.” I glanced from her to Clinton, who had a thoughtful expression on his face, and back again.

“If you think you can do that, it does give us more flexibility,” I admitted. “To be clear, you’re suggesting we clear the nanites out in hyperspace using the drones, and then..” I paused, momentarily taken aback at the audacity of the plan. “Then use our own transponder, with the nanites’ frequency, to tell the black ships where we are?” When she nodded, I exhaled slowly.

“It’s a plan with some balls,” said Omar, slowly. “It sounds risky.”

“It is that,” I agreed. “But better the risk be on us who accepted it, than on the unsuspecting people at Percyval’s Rest. I looked around and saw apprehension in every face, even fear, but also resolve. They were all with me. I clapped my hands together with more bravery than I felt and said, “Let’s get started, then.”

It ended up being a bit less simple than stated, but we worked through the challenges. The drones didn’t have sophisticated sensors of their own, so they had to be controlled by one person and their efforts monitored by another on the sensor console. I was finally able to confirm my earlier hypothesis that extreme heat would disable them, and the mining drones’ lasers, on a low setting, were a lot more efficient than scraping and scrubbing. We were also finally able to procure a sample of the disabled nanites, which we would be able to turn over to the TU along with the other data. Meanwhile, Janice worked on duplicating the frequency used by the nanites, she called it spoofing, and calibrating the ship’s own subspace transponder to transmit on that frequency. For most of this my only contribution was to offer encouragement as my active role would only begin when it was time to drop out. I did spend some time fretting about that, looking over the navdata from Stroika to Percyval’s Rest repeatedly, trying to guess where we would most likely drop out. It was a fairly safe route, with only a couple star systems in-line with our destination; I’d selected this route over a direct line to Terra Primus for that very reason. Hopefully it would bode well when we finally dropped out.

=+=

“Last chance to say you’re not sure,” I said, looking between Clinton and Omar. “We only get this one shot, so if you’re not one-hundred percent certain, say so now.” They exchanged a glance, and Clinton spoke for both of them.

“We’re sure, Captain,” he affirmed. “The nanites are gone. It wasn’t like before when the signal stopped, the last ones were still transmitting when we disabled them.” He glanced over at Janice, who frowned back at him.

“The ship transponder is ready,” she said. “The signature is identical to the nanites.” I looked around the galley at the rest of the crew; their parts, much like my own, had been peripheral, but they deserved a say.

“We’re really gonna do this, huh?” Diaz said. “Actually try to bait in one of the black ships.”

“Only long enough to jump back out again,” I said seriously. “It’s not like we need to wait for them. They’ll know as soon as we drop out, and will likely send someone after us. As soon as I have calculated the navdata, we’re gone.” I was proud at how confident I sounded because it was a complete sham, but it seemed to work. Everyone looked resolute. I shook myself, and pushed up from my seat. “Alright then, prepare for drop out in approximately thirty minutes.”

Back in the cockpit, I ran through my checks one more time, then leaned back in my seat, staring blankly at the ceiling. I’d just graduated flight school a month ago, and I was about to do my second premature drop out. Most pilots went their entire careers without even one. Interesting times, I thought drily, remembering another of my mother’s favorite sayings. Then I keyed the intercom, gave the crew a 30 second warning, and grasped the yoke. Let’s do this. I dropped the ship out of hyperspace.

Nothing.

I blinked at the viewscreen, scanning left to right, and glancing at my sensor array as well, and there was nothing. Well, not nothing; off in the distance, just close enough to be discernible from the backdrop of stars, was a single star, but beyond that nothing else. It was anti-climactic as hell even with the adrenaline still coursing through my body, ready to react to just about any possibility, except this one. Still jittery, I wasted no time running an analysis on the star and checking it against the few systems that were en route according to my navdata; it didn’t take long to calculate our location. Are you fucking serious? I thought. While drop outs were almost random, this seemed impossible; we’d been in hyperspace for barely a day and a half, but according to the data we were nearly half-way between Stroika and Percyval’s Rest, which would have been a week and a half’s jump in this ship.

“Captain?” I started, and turned to see Diaz poking his head into the cockpit. “We good?”

“Yeah,” I said. “We’re good. “I’ll have new navdata plotted in an hour or two, then we can go. Oh, tell Janice to kill the transponder. They’ll know we stopped by now, we don’t need to keep advertising.”

“Sure thing,” he replied easily and left me to work. As I worked through the calculations, my mind kept coming back to the improbability of our location. How could we have covered half the distance in a fraction of the time? I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I slid the window aside and pulled up a new query screen, looking for information on hyperspace research.

I’d read all of this as part of my training, but I wanted to refresh myself; maybe then I’d be able to focus on the problem at hand. What I found was all what I expected, the experiments, the lost ships and the eventual conclusions about hyperspace drop outs. Nothing unusual, but there was just such a big gap in our knowledge. On a whim, I checked the date on the research, and was surprised to find that it was last updated over a century ago, and most of the experiments mentioned were almost a century before that, barely following humanity’s expansion to the stars. Nearly two hundred years since we’d done any real research? It didn’t add up, but what really bothered me is that I’d never really noticed this before.

But of course now wasn’t the time, either. I could dig into this during the jump, which was still going to take almost a week, despite the fact that we were halfway there; although we had managed to somehow gain more than a day all the same, which also seemed impossible. I forced that aside for later too as I pulled the navdata window back to the fore. After about half an hour of distracted mistakes and starting over the habit of running the numbers and checking the geometries finally took over and I was able to fall into the work. When it was done, I rechecked it, found a small carrying error, traced it through a few calculations until it was all good, and then checked it one more time for good measure. I’d never been that seriously distracted while plotting navdata, but after the second check I was confident that we were good to go. I checked the time and it’d taken nearly three hours, instead of the one or two I’d predicted. I sighed and committed the navdata, figuring I had a moment to grab a quick cup of coffee before we jumped again.

“Hey Melva,” I said as I walked into the galley. She was, with Omar’s help, preparing dinner for the crew. He’d taken to acting as her assistant on dinner ever since we’d left June and the rest at Bekter’s Rim, and he seemed to enjoy it far more than he liked to admit. As I’d come to expect there was a fresh pot of coffee on, so I poured a cup and prepped it the way I liked it while exchanging small talk with them both.

“Hope you’re hungry, Captain,” Omar said. “We’re experimenting with trying to recreate one of my mama’s recipes.”

“I’m sure it will be-“

“Captain!” Clinton’s voice stopped me dead, and Omar’s expression changed from amused to alarmed; he’d obviously heard the bark over the commlink, even though it was in my ear.

“Was that Clinton?” he asked. I shushed him, and keyed my commlink.

“What is it?” I asked tensely.

“There’s something coming! The proximity alarms-” he was saying, but I’d heard enough. I spilled my coffee when I thrust it onto the counter and sprinted for the cockpit, nearly knocking Harper down as I caromed off a wall. I should have waited on the coffee, damn it. I threw myself into my seat, eyes seeking the sensor readings that showed that something was approaching, fast, slightly smaller than our ship. I didn’t have time to warn anyone, so I just jammed my finger down on the Jump button. The cover dropped into place over the viewscreen, but the telltale flash of light that meant we were safe in hyperspace never came.

“What the fuck!” I swore, and swatted the button again, harder than necessary, but still nothing happened. My eyes jumped to the screen, but it was closed so I slapped the key to open the cover, glaring out at the dark. Nothing visible, so I pressed the Jump button again, and again, nothing.

“Captain!” Clinton yelled, and the ship suddenly lurched with an impact. Finally I saw the indicator, the last thing I expected out in the middle of nowhere. We were interdicted. I threw the yoke forward and jammed the throttle to max, causing the ship to surge forward and down.

“Clinton!” I called over the commlink. “I need you to release the full sensor suite back to me! I can’t see where it’s coming from!”

“Done!” he yelled. “Fuck!” There was another impact, and I heard him continue cussing, but with the sensors back, I was focused on what was outside the ship. There was a smallish proximity blip to our port aft, but no radar or other signatures coming from it. As I maneuvered, another fast-moving signal was picked up. It was firing another missile. With an interdiction field and no weapons or defensive fields we weren’t going to withstand this for very long, no matter how small the enemy might be. The deflection shields on this thing were only there to deal with small space debris, and the second impact had completely overloaded them. This third was going to hurt.

“Brace for impact!” I screamed over the intercom. The missile struck and the ship shuddered and nearly threw me from my chair. I heard Clinton cry out, followed by more cussing.

“Captain,” he called, “we’ve taken a hit to our ion drive!” He was only confirming what I already knew, as the ship suddenly felt sluggish and seemed to want to pull to the left. We weren’t going to make it.

“Omar!” I yelled, as inspiration suddenly struck. “Omar, is the drone still in the airlock?” I paused for an answer I realized wouldn’t come, then just kept talking. “Space the drone, Omar, then get to the control console. Please tell me you hear me!” Again, I didn’t expect a response; the intercom only worked from the cabin and the cargo bay. If he heard me, he’d get to the engine room soon enough, where he could use Clinton’s commlink.

I continued to maneuver the best I could, and when the ship fired another missile, I waited until the last moment, then killed thrust and used the maneuver thrusters to turn the ship; as hoped the missile struck broad-side away from vital systems, but the life support system started screaming about a breach. Perfect, I thought sourly and gunned the throttle again. Come on, Omar! As if he’d heard my silent plea, his voice suddenly crackled across the commlink.

“Captain,” he growled, “Drone’s away, what do you want me to do with it?” He sounded like he was hurt, but I shoved that thought away. If this didn’t work, we’d all be dead.

“Ram it into that ship,” I told him. “Weapons array if you can, fucking anywhere if you can’t.”

“Gotcha,” he grunted, and I suddenly picked up another, slower moving proximity alert as what had to be the drone came to life. “Fuck! Captain, it fell too far behind. I’m not going to be able to reach the ship.”

“Leave it to me,” I told him. “I’m coming around.” Under the best of circumstances the ship moved like an elephant on ice; ponderously but smoothly. Now it juddered and groaned, but I used the tendency to the left to my advantage, and finally I saw the ship for the first time. It was much, much smaller than the last one I’d seen, but like that one, it was pitch, matte black; It was a hole in the sky, visible mostly because it fired another missile as it came into view. It was coming fast, as was the missile, but veered away as I drove the ship directly toward it. At the last second, I jerked the yoke up and felt the missile impact along the belly of my ship. I glanced over and sure enough, comms were once again offline. I could feel my face stiffened into an expression that felt like something between a mirthless grin and a snarl as I poured on as much throttle as I could toward the drone, watching on sensors as the black ship came around to follow me. Our chances were pretty slim, but damned if I wasn’t going to make that asshole earn it.

“Going in!” Omar yelled. I could hear Clinton cussing and banging on something in the background, and my grin split into a maniac laugh as I leaned hard into the yoke, trying to bend it to my will. We were going to fucking die. “Shit!” Omar cursed and I watched the drone’s signature wink out just as it neared that of the black ship. “It fired a missile just as I was bringing the drone in, blew it before impact!”

“One less for us, I guess,” I told him. “Can you deploy the other drone?”

“On it, Captain,” I heard Diaz’ and Shanna’s voices faintly through the commlink.

“Be careful!” I yelled stupidly, as if it would matter. I counted seconds, still doing my best to make the ship a difficult target, fighting against the increasingly obstinate controls. No more missiles came, though. Instead, the black ship came alongside and just seemed to wait, pacing us as we slowed down. It was then that I realized something that gave me hope.

“Wait!” I yelled over the intercom. “Don’t deploy the drone. I don’t think it can shoot anymore.” I jinked the ship toward the black ship and watched the proximity reading smoothly move away, keeping a steady distance between us. It couldn’t fire on us and didn’t want to risk an impact; that meant that they were most likely going to try to board.

“Okay,” I said, feeling a sudden calm. “I think I know how to survive this.” I slowly decreased throttle until we were drifting aimless through space, and watched as the black ship sidled up alongside. I stood up and hurried out of the cabin. We might still die, but we were going to go out fighting.