AMP Colossus (23 page)

Maracus replied, "It won't penetrate our new battle suits, but it will give you a nasty wallop. The kinetic energy delivered from that is about a fivefold increase over a standard round. We have also run a few tests on objects, Sir. It will take out a standard apartment door here on the Grid. If you are unprotected, the concussion will knock you out from almost two meters. It really is a nasty little shell, Sir."

I set up in a firing lane on the otherwise empty range. Maracus carried several targets out for me to practice on: a rubberized mannequin torso and a metal chest. Both were obliterated with a single round. The hour of stress relief I had planned on soon turned into three. When I left the range, I had a new gun along with five hundred rounds of the explosive ammo. I would be sure to take it with me on my next off-Grid excursion.

Several days passed, with the Duke's fleet continuing their slow barrage of rail gun rounds. Two additional masses had made contact with the Fango section, causing severe damage. Luck had been on our side, and the rounds had penetrated the outer wall with a small hole, while the damage was done inside the Grid. From the perspective of the Duke's ships, the rounds had done no damage.

I was sitting in the command room with Admiral Zimmerman when word came in from Touchstone and the engineers. A sizable Yacabucci generator would be ready for use in two days. Construction was taking place in Alpha Bay, where the generator would have a direct line out to the Duke's fleet. Orders had been given to the
Granger
to move slightly behind the fleet and to the right side.

A powerful straight-line Yacabucci wave could be produced and then spread quickly across the Duke's fleet. If the strategy worked, it would be the Duke who was being held captive, if only until more Colossun ships arrived.

The Colonel and the Ghouls had been practicing their boarding drills almost nonstop. During our time on the Duke's ship, I had taken the initiative to record structures, halls, and rooms, with the hope that one day that information would come in useful. If the other Colossun ships were similar to the Duke's, the Colonel's men would be well prepared. When the generator construction was complete, I stood in the command room with Ashley, the Colonel, and the two Admirals.

Jon Touchstone walked into the room and spoke. "Mr. Grange. I think we have a generator up and ready to test."

I replied, "How are we able to test it? Will the Duke be able to detect it?"

Jon shook his head. "I don't think so. We can start with a low-power wave out to the
Granger
and then ramp up the intensity without it emitting any detectable signal. They will not see it coming until it is upon them. I sized the generator so that it will overtake the fleet in under a minute. So long as a few on one end don't get spooked and move away, we should be able to grab and hold them all. I designed the generator with a 25 percent overhead margin, so if it works we should be able to sustain the wave field as long as we can provide power."

Jon continued, "There is one item of concern, Mr. Grange. To create and sustain a field this large takes a tremendous amount of power. The Grid's reactors can supply that power, so long as we have enough fuel to feed them."

I replied, "What is it you are trying to tell me, Jon?"

Jon shuffled for a moment. "We can hold those ships for eighteen days, Mr. Grange. After that, we will only have enough fuel to keep the lights on here for another six months."

I nodded and spoke. "Well, that doesn't cut too deeply, Jon. We only have about nine months’ worth of fuel as it is."

Jon replied, "You have to keep in mind, Mr. Grange, that is six months if we don't fire those ion cannons that are protecting this place. With an all-out assault, that number may drop down to as few as forty-five days. That is well below any level that we have previously hit. We are already near our all-time low. This generator will use a significant amount of our fuel once it comes online."

I sighed. "Dr. Touchstone, it is always something with us. Thank you for letting us know."

I turned to the Colonel, who was standing beside me. "What do you think, Colonel? How long will it take you to board and take down that fleet?"

The Colonel replied, "Three, maybe five days, depending on the resistance those sentinels offer. Of course, since that is a big unknown, we may not be able to take a single ship."

I replied, "Well, knowing you, Colonel, you have a backup plan. Care to enlighten me on that?"

The Colonel spit on the floor beside me. "If we can't take 'em, we destroy 'em. We will be taking enough charges to set off their hydrogen stores."

Ashley grabbed my arm. "Don, Colonel Harper, would it be possible—instead of destroying those ships, could we tap and siphon off their hydrogen? Is that something that could be done with our harvesters?"

The Colonel thought for a moment and replied, "Grange, this is why she's a keeper!"

The Colonel turned and stormed out of the room while barking commands into his comm. He would have a fast answer to Ashley's question: could we steal fuel from the Duke's fleet?

Jon Touchstone did a quick calculation based on the size of the Duke's fleet and what we knew about his capital ship. "Mr. Grange. If we were able to take 80 percent of the fuel I just estimated is out there, it would allow us to make a small jump away from this location. A quick guess would be one hundred to one hundred fifty light-years’ distance. That would place us easily out of reach of the Duke and his ships."

Admiral Zimmerman turned to the lieutenant working the nav console. "Pearson, bring up a star map back along the path we came in. I want to see every star system between fifty and two hundred light-years along that path!"

I spoke. "Admiral, much of that path is still through the dense section of this galaxy arm. How far out do our mappings go along that path? Can we head to a location along where we would have originally gone? Before the sabotage? That would make it much easier for Frig to find us when he arrives."

The Admiral turned back to the lieutenant. "You heard the man, Pearson; bring up a line of our original path and show us where we would be if we traveled fifty to one hundred fifty light-years. I want a star with few or no planets, and few nearby stars!"

Several minutes later the lieutenant responded, "Sir, we have five candidates. Three have four or less planets, with one of them having two gas giants. One has no planets at all, and one has debris disks, Sir."

Jon Touchstone spoke. "The star with the debris disks—is it a yellow star? Red giant? Blue?"

The lieutenant answered, "Yellow, Sir; scan logs show an abundance of hydrogen. One moment, Sir... spectrum analysis shows the debris to have an adequate amount of the other resources we are in need of, Sir, except for iron. One planet shows a high percentage of iron."

Jon spoke. "The yellow star, Lieutenant—what is the distance from here?"

The lieutenant replied, "Eighty-seven light-years, Sir!"

The Admiral spoke. "Make preparations for a jump to that location. Should we get the fuel we need, we will be wanting to jump immediately!"

The lieutenant replied, "Yes, Sir!"

In one fell swoop, we had gone from an impossible situation to one with real possibilities of survival. The Colonel soon returned to the command center and slapped me hard on the shoulder as he stepped up beside me.

The Colonel spoke. "Grange, your little lady there is a genius. Those harvesters have a laser drill that should allow penetration of the outer armor of those ships. We drill a hole, poke through a suction pipe right into their tanks, and take what we want."

I replied, "Do we have a good guess as to how long it will take for us to get all the fuel?"

The Colonel replied, "My men say a single harvester could drain four of those ships a day. We have five harvesters. That's twenty ships a day. We could drain that fleet in under ten days!"

I turned to Jon Touchstone. "Dr. Touchstone? Is the Yacabucci generator ready? Can we capture the Duke's fleet and hold them in position?"

Jon replied, "Just say the word, Mr. Grange, and we will bring it online."

I looked around at all the nodding heads in the command center. "Dr. Touchstone, make it so. How long for the wave to build?"

Jon replied, "About a half hour, Mr. Grange. We need an intense wave to grab all of those ships and hold them."

I turned to the Colonel. "Colonel, expect to have those harvesters out of the bay in about half an hour. Looks like we are going to find out real soon if any of this is going to work. As those ships are taken down, we need to move them out of the web so the harvesters can tap into them."

Jon spoke. "Generator is online, and the board is showing all green!"

The Colonel once again slapped me on the back as he turned away. "I'm heading over to Beta Bay. We have all the boarding parties staging up there. Our transports and the harvesters have the negative ion engine enhancements. We won't need to move those ships out of the web. We just need to make sure those harvesters have free access."

The Colonel then left the command room.

I turned to Admiral Zimmerman and spoke. "What ships did the Colonel commandeer for his assault?"

The Admiral replied, "We only had a handful of small transports left after we sent the Durians packing. The Colonel has taken possession of about 90 percent of the remaining ships on the Grid. There are a lot of nervous private ship owners out there today, Mr. Grange."

I stood looking at the Yacabucci generator stats on the command center view-screen. "If we can't get that fuel, those ships aren't going to be of much use to anyone, Admiral."

Jon Touchstone spoke. "We have a reflection back from the
Granger
. Looks like it might just work, Mr. Grange!"

Once again Man's existence hung in the balance. As I looked around the room, the expressions on the faces of those who surrounded me told me why we were going to be successful. I could clearly see why we would survive. Every face, the tone of every voice, had the look or the sound of confidence. It seemed we were forever on the brink of destruction, but we always managed to survive.

An ensign then shouted across the room, "We have incoming ships! I count fifty-two ships that just dropped below light speed, Sir. Two of them are equal in size to the Duke's ship, Sir!"

I attempted to hail the Duke over the comm. Several seconds passed before I received a reply.

The Duke spoke. "Good timing if this is your surrender, Mr. Grange. My brother, Duke Ferdese, has arrived with his advance fleet."

I replied, "So, you had to call in your brother? That smacks of weakness, Duke. I mean, won't the King take note that you had to have assistance?"

The Duke frowned. "While I am touched that you are so concerned about my appearance, Mr. Grange, my brother and his forces will not be here long. He would consider this a courtesy call, a showing of support for his brother. I, on the other hand, know that its true meaning lies much closer to what you propose, Mr. Grange. It is a sibling meddling in the affairs of his brother in an attempt to, as you say, show his weakness. We will talk later, Mr. Grange. I must tend to the politics of the family and the Empire."

The screen image of the Duke was replaced by one of the Yacabucci generator stats.

As the wave continued to build, I spoke to Jon. "When the generated wave reaches the level you are content with, can we sustain it without deploying it?"

The professor placed his hand under his chin with one finger over his upper lip. He gently stroked his mustache.

Jon spoke. "The generator was built in haste, Mr. Grange. We cut a few corners where safety is a concern. I was not anticipating us needing multiple cycles of power. If we stop the generator now, we may not be able to restart it. In addition, we cannot sustain that wave between here and the
Granger
indefinitely. At these levels, the
Granger
's reflector is undoubtedly heating up as we speak."

I replied, "Heating up? That doesn't sound like a good thing!"

Jon shook his head. "It is not. If a reflector were to fail at either end, the result would be catastrophic. The
Granger
would be instantly incinerated given the raw amount of power that now lies between it and the generator here."

I again replied, "And what of the generator on this end?"

Again Jon Touchstone, professor emeritus of the Grid science lab, spoke. "The surge here would be catastrophic as well. I could see the real possibility of the resultant energy wave taking out as much as 20 percent of this station, Mr. Grange."

I replied, "And what about the Duke's ships? If we make a go of the field, can it hold the new ships as well?"

Jon shook his head. "No. Maybe for an hour or two if we were extremely lucky. The mass of the ships that are now out there exceeds our margin of error by 15 percent."

I turned towards the door and began to walk.

Ashley spoke. "Hey, where are you going?"

I replied over my shoulder, "I'm going to join the Colonel and the Ghouls! If this all goes sour, I at least want to go out fighting!"

Ashley yelled back, "And what about me?"

I stopped and turned. "Well, come on, then. I suppose if I'm going to die, I might as well have you right there with me!"

Ashley replied with a happy response as she ran towards me, "Hey!"

We were soon with the Colonel on his makeshift transport. I recognized the ship immediately; it was the
Deveroe
!

I spoke. "At least you have a ship with a hot drive system, Colonel. Michael Felix used to push this tin can to the limits when he was kicking my butt around in the Messenger Service. I don't remember him ever having an issue with it. Touchstone says he doesn't think we can hold those new ships. There are just too many."

The Colonel replied, "I was afraid of that. What do you have in mind, Grange?"

I spoke. "I say, just as soon as that field is released, we head out towards the far ships. We board the ones that may only be held in the web for a short period of time. If we can board them while they are being held, I think we can take them out of any fight while Touchstone adjusts that web to where it is sustainable. How many of those ships do you think we can handle, Colonel?"

The Colonel replied, "We can hit seventeen of the large ones or thirty of the medium-sized ones. Let me look at what we have... that end of the fleet is the new arrivals. There are eighteen large and thirty-four medium ships. Let me divide those by proximity... we can take on these fourteen large ships and these eight medium-sized ones. Why don't you let the Admirals and Touchstone know what we are planning, Grange. They may have more ideas for us."

I replied, "Will do, Colonel. One more thing: the jammer for the Duke's data broadcast—did the engineers tell you what they came up with?"

The Colonel smiled. "They managed to get one on each of our assault ships. If we get out there among that fleet, the Duke will be offline!"

I slapped the Colonel on the shoulder hard enough to jolt his ever-so-thick neck.

The Colonel spoke. "Finally! Now that was a man's slap, Grange!"

The Colonel looked at Ashley. "One day you are going to be proud of this one, Mrs. Grange. The Colonel is going to train him yet!"

I let the Admiral and the others in on our new plan. Our options were few, but I was happy to still have options. It wasn't long before Jon Touchstone relayed status of the Yacabucci generator to all involved.

Jon spoke. "We have reached the critical wave mass, gentlemen. Every minute we wait now, we risk the catastrophic reflector failure I spoke about earlier. I am awaiting orders for a release."

I replied, "Let's hold out a little longer, Jon. Have the Admiral bring the Duke up on the screen for me again, if possible. I want to see if we have a chance to goad him into telling his brother to leave."