The Bright Black Sea (67 page)

He just stared back at me.

'Illy reports that we've nearly exhausted the
defensive missiles we took off the Striker. Not knowing how many
ships we'll face on the far side, I don't care to find out.'

'You have us.'

'Yes. But I don't see how a course change can fail to
save both of us a great deal of danger.'

'They'll have considered that possibility and will
disperse their forces no matter what course we take. Staying the
course will be no more likely than any other course, perhaps even
less likely, so there's no reason to deviate.'

'Besides altering our course, I intend to increase
our speed as well. Our present course will take us into the reef in
six days. If we're to decelerate enough to navigate the passage in
the reef, we'll need to start decel three days after leaving the
drift stream, allowing the Despar forces to collect and attack
again right up to and into the reef. By altering our course and
increasing our speed, I'll run alongside the coast of the reef,
which means we can decelerate when it's safe to do so. It gives us
options. If things are as rosy as you'd have me believe, the course
change would simply allow you to reach Boscone sooner. I'm a
cautious fellow by nature, but I don't think I'm being overcautious
in my proposal. I'm being practical.'

'I've a job to do. My hands are tied. I was hired to
deliver my crew and boats to Boscone and destroy Despar's fleet
about Boscone. I intend to do that as quickly and efficiently as
possible, or die trying. That is the code I live by.'

'And I was hired to deliver you to Boscone, not fight
those battles. I'll do my job, you'll do yours,' I shot back. 'I
wasn't hired to be your bait or your base of operations.'

'The risks came with the credits you accepted as
payment. I'll make certain that agreement is kept as well.'

I drew a burning slug of rum and staring off into
grey blankness of the office bulkhead, considered what to say next.
I needed to tread very carefully. I looked up to find D'Lay
watching me warily. I had little option but trust that he was in no
more hurry to die than I.

'You need us, Captain, so I'll not take that last
remark as a threat. You've more than enough enemies already. I
intend to change course in the drift stream when all our shadowing
ships will be blinded by the dust and gas. While I'm certain
they'll anticipate such a move, they can't anticipate my exact
course and so must disperse their forces, both here and what they
may have on the far side of the drift. And by increasing our speed,
we'll not only have even less, but we'll have more options in
dealing with any situation we find ourselves in.'

He gave me a very dangerous, ram you damn you look.
'You're rather... shy... aren't you Wil?'

'I'm no Brilliant Pax, if that's what you're
implying.'

He shrugged. 'Listen, Litang, the battle is, for all
practical purposes, over. They've only eight or nine ships left to
attack us. We can handle them. We've won.'

'And how many more on the other side of the drift
stream?'

'My intel suggests that we've faced their entire
Boscone force, save the frigate hanging on the fringe directing the
operation. There is no need to change anything. Let'em come. It'll
make my job all the easier, since they're worn out as well.'

'That being the case, why would you object to a
slight course change...'

'Because I want to take them on now, before they have
time to be rested and resupplied.'

'So I gathered. However, we agreed to transport your
force to Boscone, not to replace the Striker. We've done far more
than we agreed to do. But there is a limit, and you're at it.

He glared at me. 'You'll stay the course. You seem to
forget where you are.'

I drained my globe and waited for the fire to die
down.'I may or may not be shy, but I'm no fool. I've already given
the orders. In less than ten minutes we'll be closing the cargo
hatch doors sealing your boats in my hold in order to prepare for
the drift field. I have an experienced former first mate who'll see
to the ship, whatever you do. You see, while I'd hate to be hasty
in my judgement, D'Lay, it's been my misfortune to cross orbits
with two alumni of Saint Bleyth. One tried, and failed, to kill me,
twice, or three times, depending on how you look on it. The other
fell prey to an ambush and now seems content to blindly follow a
plan conceived of weeks ago that did not anticipate the actual
tactics of his opponent. I can't say I'm overly impressed,' I said
biting down my anger, not caring that members of the Order of Saint
Bleyth were unlikely to take insults graciously, except from
customers.

D'Lay, said nothing. His silence, however, was far
from reassuring.

'Right. Do you want my people here, or would you
rather we return to our part of the ship?'

'Go.'

I stood. 'There's still time to cooperate on a plan
of action, if you choose. Think it over.'

He said nothing, so I left, gathered Min, Tenry and
Vynnia, suited up and returned to our ship. I closed up the ship.
We were not in the drift yet, but there seemed no prospect of
another attack. Once in the drift, we'd run across the occasional
pea sized meteor, which would not damage our hull, but would pierce
the containers the mercenaries used as their quarters. Closing the
hold hatches was a necessary safety measure.

02

The dust on the hull made an audible, almost electric
sound – like static – as it brushed against the hull, with the
occasional
zingggg!
, when a pea-sized rock scraped along the
ship's hull. Our sensors were hardly able to penetrate the glowing,
highly charged field that encircled our ship as we drove through
the dust and gas of the drift stream. We'd the three drones in a
line ahead, extending our sensor range as far as it'd reach, to
give us a chance to avoid any meteor stream in the dust. I was
waiting until there was no chance of our maneuvers being detected
before ordering the change in course. As I waited, I considered my
future.

Cha growing – that's my life's work. If we reach
Boscone, survive this drift war and escaped the drifts with our
lives, I'd be pushing up my retirement date as a spaceer up several
decades. That was a big dark if, I'll grant you, but I was trying
to be optimistic. And oh, yes, only if Nadine – Cin – didn't catch
up and killed me. I'd enough credits to buy a small parcel of land
high in the misty peaks of Belbania where I could plant a few cha
trees. I'd start small. But it'd be peaceful. And safe. I took
anther sip of cha. I'll have to have Rafe work up a new identity
for me before he gets restless and moves on. It's a big nebula.
There's a chance I'll live to plant cha, but in reality, I was
merely whistling in the dark of my cabin as
zinggg!
went the
little rocks across the hull.

'Sensors range down to a bare minimum, Captain,' said
Vynnia over my com link. 'No ships in range. I think we can make
our move.'

'Right. I'll be right out. Alert the crew for power
and maneuvers.' I sucked up the last of the luke warm cha, and
stepped around to the bridge.

We made a slight alteration in course and fired the
rockets for six hours. I made my rounds late in the 5th watch, as
usual. I stopped and told the cats of no. 4 hold my woes. They made
a polite effort to appear to care.

03

Amazingly enough, we discovered only one ship at the
extreme range of our sensors as we cleared the dust of the drift.
We left it quickly behind. It was too far to get a very accurate
read on the ship, but it appeared to be a small drift trader that,
judging by its trajectory, was likely on picket duty rather than
one of our attackers. I was quite relieved. Nevertheless, I stayed
on our course and if all went well, we'd begin our deceleration
along the coast of the reef, and dodge in through one of the
smaller passages when we killed enough of our velocity to safely
navigate in the reef.

A reef is a term given to a thick cluster of
asteroids. It is what is commonly pictured as the drift in most
people's minds, space filled with rocks of all sizes, from dust to
large planets. There are indeed areas in most reefs where there are
hundreds of rocks visible to the naked eye – or would be if there
was enough light. The vast bulk of the reef is, on the whole, a lot
less dense. Of course, in space travel, density is relative to the
speed at which you're traveling through it. The more space you
traverse each second, the denser it becomes in practice. If a ship
was going fast enough to traverse a reef like Boscone's in an hour,
the reef would be a solid wall (assuming such a ship could not
steer with equal rapidity) but with reliable charts, the fissures
in the reefs, the channels or passages can be safely sailed at near
interplanetary speeds, and the reef itself can be carefully
traversed at a quarter or less interplanetary speed.

The Boscone Reef is about half an astronomical unit
long and half as thick and tall. It appeared as a black wall
against the faintly glowing marbled pattern of the nebula off our
starboard bow. Our altered course would take us alongside the
fairly well defined
coast
of the drift (as it appeared on
the radar screen) and from there we could alter course for one of
the well charted passages into the drift proper, or just dodge into
the reef and pick our way slowly through the rocks and debris. The
drift planet of Boscone lay at the reef's heart, which is where we
were contracted to deliver the mercenaries.

D'Lay kept to himself. We opened the hatch covers
after clearing the drift stream and he sent out a single boat as
sentry. I informed him that I'd start decelerating two two days off
the coast and that we should be able to enter the reef three days
after that. I'd have him and his crew on Boscone in eight days.

Things did not turn out that way.

On the second day after clearing the drift stream, I
got a call from Rafe.

'Would you care to step around to the bridge, Willy?'
asked Rafe over my com link, sending a dart of alarm shooting
through me.

'Right down. Anything Captain D'Lay would be
interested in?'

'I believe so,' replied Rafe.

Damn, I thought. 'Then please alert him too. I'll be
right down.

I dropped down to the bridge where Rafe, our look out
on watch, was pouring over the long range scanners.

'I'll replay it, Willy, watch,' he said pointing to a
bogey at the edge of our range.

I leaned over his shoulder as the blimp on the screen
appeared on the edge and streaked a finger's length in on a
converging line with our course. Nothing else to see.

'That's ten minutes,' Rafe said quietly.

'Ten? Do you have a velocity figure on that?'

'Aye, he said and brought up the figure, it was close
to our max Sanre-tay to Zilantre speed.

'Well, they're no danger to us ,' I said, relaxing.
'That velocity will take them a week past us before they even kill
that velocity. We'll be in the reef by . Assuming they have
anything to do with this business.'

'What is it Captain,' asked D'Lay, coming on
line.

'Send over the track,' I said to Rafe, adding to
D'Lay, 'What do you make of it?'

There was the longest pause and he said, 'I've got to
go and stir up my crew. Please relay this information to my control
center.'

'What? Why?' I stuttered. 'Care to enlighten this
poor old tramp skipper?'

'We've a fight on our hands. Despar seems to have
hired some very outlawed firepower.'

'Then you know who it is.'

'Not who it is, but what it is. It's a rogue sentient
machine, a so called
berserker
. They don't expend fuel
unless they're being paid. I'll have to consult our database to see
what its sensor profile tells us. We might have a chance against
it, if it's one of the smaller ones.'

'But we can't be certain it has anything to do with
us...' I said, grasping at straws.

'Come now, Captain, we're not in the interstellar
space ways, so the only reason a ship would be traveling at that
velocity and on course would be to intercept us. My enemies must
have enough ships to relay radio messages to Despar's HQ and with
the last attack failing, must have called up reinforcements. I
guess we were just too good. They've dispatched the only unit that
can intercept us before we reach Boscone. We're in sensor range, so
it'll begin its deceleration shortly and be on us within the hour
or two...'

'An hour or two! It'll take days to kill that
velocity and make its way back to us.'

'There are no humans aboard the vessel to worry
about, so it'll kill its velocity at 100 gees. I need to scramble
my fighters.'

'Do we have a chance against a machine like that?' I
asked before he could sign off.

'Never faced one. They're rarely employed. No one
understands them and few humans are desperate enough to trust them
enough to either upgrade their weapons systems, or employ them, so
there are likely some limits to its fire power. That said, even
armed at modest levels, they're super machines that can process
data far faster than even our machines – making them almost physic
in their battle responses. Plus they're built to maneuver without
concern for fragile bodies. They've a reputation for almost always
winning. Get your crew suited up. We'll be in battle within two
hours.'

04

Less than two hours later, the rogue sentient ship,
still hidden behind the intense flare of its rockets, was within
minutes of entering the operational zone of the jump fighters,
matching our speed and course just as D'Lay had predicted. He was
leading his fighters in person, and had them ready, just laying off
our starboard side.

We were at ready too. Everyone was suited up. I'd
them all allocated to the various stations on the bridge deck where
everyone would have quick access to our gig, long boat and the
Ghost
, which we'd brought out of the hold as well. Our
livestock had been rounded up and sealed in survival containers and
placed aboard the long boat.