Starship's Mage: Episode 5 (5 page)

The tech gave a worried looking nod to Azure, confirming the message was on its way, and the crime lord leaned back in his chair to wait.

They’d jumped in almost dangerously close to the asteroid port, but it still took time for the radio waves to wing their way across space. It likely took longer to even
find
Julian under whatever rock he’d found to hide behind and deliver the message, but the response was well within his twenty minute warning.

“This is Julian Falcone, of
la Casa Nostra
,” the swarthy, heavily-built man in the responding video. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, Mikhail, but I suggest you drop it and leave.
La Casa Nostra
has been dealing with fools and pretenders for eight hundred years – this station is not defenseless. Even if you took it from us, you would never be able to keep it!”

Mikhail grinned, watching the timer tick down until the
Azure Gauntlet
would range on the first of the Falcone’s defenders. He nodded to the young tech to start the recorder again.

“You have eight hundred years of history at being thugs,” he agreed mockingly. “That’s cute. I have a
battlecruiser
, Julian – and I’m coming for you.”

#

“Have you located the
Blue Jay
yet?” Azure asked Wong, turning his attention away from his entertainment to the task of the day.

“There is no jump signature that would match her,” the Tracker replied. “I believe she, along with most of the freighters in system, is docked inside the asteroid. Once we have demonstrated our superiority over the Falcone forces, they will attempt to flee.”

“You can track her if she does?”

“Of course,” Wong answered disdainfully. “With sensor footage of the inevitable explosions, there will be no issues.

“Now, if you will excuse me my lord,” he continued in a momentary lapse of subservience, “I need to fight your ship.”

Azure settled back in his chair, accessing the controls and bringing up an overview of the space around his warship. Despite the hovering young woman, he actually
had
familiarized himself with the tools available to him, and quickly zoomed in on the immediate dangers.

The Falcones really had prepared for a major assault on the base. The
Gauntlet’s
scanners were incredibly powerful when fully active, sweeping the entire system with overwhelming pulses of radar and lidar that allowed them to identify every feature of the pirate port.

Twenty-four missile boats closed in on the
Gauntlet
. The cruiser’s computers happily informed him that the Phoenix VI missiles the Falcone defenders carried had a maximum range of ten million kilometers after a seven and a half minute burn – versus the
Azure
Gauntlet’s Phoenix
VII
missiles, with a range of eleven million kilometers after a seven minute burn.

“Target two missiles per shuttle, hold tubs forty nine through sixty in reserve for any that survive the first salvo,” Wong ordered. “Fire.”

Across the front facing edges of the massive spike that was the old cruiser, hatches slid aside to open weapon ports that had never been fired in anger, even in the old ship’s years of service in the Martian Navy.

Now electromagnetic coils flared to life, expelling the missiles away from the warship. Moments passed in the silence of deep space, then forty-eight antimatter explosions burst to life and flung themselves forwards.

“Spin up the RFLAMs,” Azure heard Wong order. “Some of them will launch, even if they’re not in range.”

Behind the shuttles, orbiting around Darkport, a fourth armed yacht drifted lazily out from the asteroid’s interior hangers. The four hunter ships assumed a loose formation between the
Gauntlet
and Darkport, but didn’t move any closer to the cruiser.

“Impact in twenty seconds,” Hu reported from the main sensor station. “Targets maneuvering –
they’ve fired
.”

“Confirm that!” Wong snapped, and then Azure’s screen dissolved in static as their missiles hit. Almost fifty antimatter warheads went off within seconds of each other, blotting out every scanner or sensor for a light minute around.

“Systems resetting,” the scanner tech reported. “Confirm kills – I see four shuttles.”

“I see four left as well,” the Gunner confirmed. “Confirm twenty kills. Last four are breaking off, six gees acceleration.”

“Let them go,” Wong ordered. “Where are the missiles?”

“I’ve got them,” the first tech responded, and Azure’s screen lit up as the ship’s computers and junior pirates finally resolved the missiles. “Looks like our blast wave gutted their salvo; I’m reading sixty-one inbound, four hundred seconds out and closing.”

“Spin up the RFLAMs and engage at one million kilometers,” the ex-hunter captain ordered. He stepped over to Azure and looked down at the crime lord.

“They’re running on internal sensors,” he told Azure. “Between the explosion and the range, they’d need twice that many missiles to be a threat. We’ll deal with them, and then move on the station.”

“What about your old brethren, the Hunter ships?” the Blue Star Syndicate’s master replied.

“Even for this place, they won’t fight without money,” Wong told him. “If they do, they’ll do it under the guns of the asteroid itself. At that point, we will know we’ve been in a fight.”

“And the
Blue Jay
?”

“The asteroid rotates slowly under its own power,” the ship captain observed. “The hangar exit will point directly away from us just as we reach range of the rock. The Falcones will try and hold the ships back until then – it will be the safest time for anyone to run. We will track her then,” the tiny Asian man said confidently.

“Mister Wong, Lord Azure,” the young woman who’d helped Azure with his comms earlier interrupted. “You’ll want to see this message.”

She threw it up on the bridge’s main screen before either of the two men who ran the ship had time to question her. The swarthy image of Julian Falcone glowered out from the screen as he spoke.

“All Hunters in Darkport,” he said grimly, “this station is under attack. We will pay one hundred million Martian dollars, plus munitions, repairs, and death benefits, to any crew that engages Mikhail Azure’s ship.”

The loose formation of Hunter ships Azure had been watching suddenly tightened up, the heat signatures of all four ships increasing as they spun up secondary fusion reactors to power their weapons.

“That’s the price of a good-sized starship,” Azure observed. “I think we have them scared.”

“Scared or not, he’s got the Hunters in,” Wong told him. “Strap in, my lord. This is about to get ugly.”

In the space around them, the
Azure Gauntlet’s
laser turrets opened fire on the pitiful salvo that the Falcone missile boats had died to deliver. Without guidance, and with radiation scrambled sensors, even military antimatter missiles fell easily.

A handful broke through the lasers, but the Mage standing next to the simulacrum was ready. In an almost casual display of power, he blotted the remaining missiles from space with a single blast of fire.

#

David glared at the main viewscreen on the
Blue Jay
’s bridge and the relentlessly closed main hangar doors of Darkport. They’d detached from the docking tubes and connectors as soon as Jenna’s sensor feed had shown the arrival of the cruiser, but Darkport Control had ordered them to stay where they were.

A single ship – an armed bounty hunter ship, from what the burly Captain could tell – had been allowed to leave. The remaining collection of freighters and blockade runners, over thirty starships, was blockaded inside the massive cavern hangar by immense metal doors he hadn’t even realized Darkport
had
.

“You should
see
some of the offers we’re getting to carry people away from Darkport,” Jenna told David dryly. “We’re into buy a small mansion territory – a small mansion in
New York
.”

“Let someone with fewer of their own problems take them,” David replied sharply. “I just want out of this place. Damien?”

“Before you ask boss, yes, I can probably open the doors,” the young Mage told him from his usual spot in the simulacrum chamber. “Of course, the small arsenal the Falcones have strapped to the rock might object.”

The
Blue Jay
’s Captain nodded sharply. “Any word on outside?”

“The cruiser just blew away the missile boats,” Jenna told them grimly. “Looks like the Falcones have bought the Hunter ships outside – I think they’re maneuvering to fight. I’m guessing the exterior launchers and lasers are charging up too. It’s going to be ugly.”

“And we’re stuck in here?” David complained aloud. “I’m about ready to risk that they won’t want to shoot at us, even if …”

“Incoming coms from the station,” Jenna told him, then threw the transmission up on the viewscreen, replacing the image of the hangar doors.

“All ships, this is Julian Falcone,” the swarthy, heavily-built man in the suit informed them. “In twelve minutes, Mikhail Azure’s personal warship will come into range of Darkport. Fortunately for all of you, about thirty seconds before that, the hangar will have rotated to point directly away from him.

“At that time, we will open the hangar doors, and I recommend that you all run for it,” the crime lord said bluntly. “We will use the station weapons to cover your retreat. I hope to defeat Azure, in which case you will all be more than welcome to return to the base.”

“Uh-huh,” someone said into the channel. “We’re supposed to believe you’ll expend resources to protect us? Right!”

“Oh, we will also be covering a number of
our
own ships,” Falcone told the voice dryly, then leveled a hard glare on the camera. “But I am also somewhat old fashioned, and I believe that if a man has paid me for protection, I owe him some god-damn protection.”

“If you don’t trust me, do whatever the hell you want,” he finished, “but I will only attempt to provide
one
window of opportunity. After that, you can dodge the cruiser on your own.”

The channel cut off and David looked over at Jenna and the screen with Damien’s image.

“I have this sinking feeling that even with thirty other ships around us, that asshole is going to shoot at us,” he told his two officers. “Thoughts?”

“I’m not coming up with much beyond ‘run like hell,’ boss,” Jenna admitted.

Damien seemed to consider for a long moment, and the Mage nodded.

“I think so,” he said. “If we keep on a relatively steady course and acceleration, I think I can hide us from the cruiser’s sensors.”

The Captain stared at his Mage in shock for a moment. “You’re kidding me, right?” he asked bluntly.

“I couldn’t do it in empty space,” the youth admitted. “But we’re going to be in an area with explosions and a bunch of ships firing their engines. I can split up our heat signature to attach to everything around us and mis-direct their radar and lidar.” He hesitated. “I don’t think I’ll be able to do it for long, but I think I can get us far enough out to jump.”

“Get ready then,” David ordered, before his doubts solidified. “Any edge we can get,” he reminded himself and Jenna aloud. “We need out of this system – and away from that cruiser!”

#

Azure watched as the four Hunter ships formed into an even square facing the
Gauntlet
. The modified yachts starting moving towards the Syndicate cruiser, their acceleration slow for no reason he saw.

“Should we be slowing down to board Darkport?” he asked Wong, quietly so as not to betray his ignorance to the rest of the bridge crew.

“We’ll be firing retro-thrusters shortly,” his Captain told him, “but to actually be able to
dock
with Darkport, we’d need to start full deceleration, which would have us pointing our engines at the station – and three-quarters of our weapons
away
from it.”

“We’ll make a slow firing pass of the station and remove most of the weapons with our forward batteries, then return once we’ve neutralized their batteries and defenders.”

Azure nodded his understanding. The Crime Lord knew the limits of his skill-set, and fighting a space battle was well beyond them.

“What about the hunters?”

“The four of them could probably take a pair of Navy destroyers,” Wong observed, watching the defenders’ formation. “They know what they’re doing, too – that square clears both their offensive and defensive lines of fire, but lets them support each other too.”

The pirate captain shrugged, and flashed his boss a bright grin.

“Not enough,” he concluded, turning to his crew. “Monroe!”

The ship’s gunner turned to face Wong. “Yeah, boss?”