The Unscheduled Mission (22 page)

“I hope not,” Ronnie shivered, “but I also don’t know why they left.”

“I’ve assumed it was the shock of finding themselves so far out of the time we left,” Park replied.

“I don’t believe it,” Ronnie shook her head. “none of us ever expected to see the world we left again.”

“But did we expect to wake up in a world where our closest living relatives belonged to another species?” Park countered. Ronnie didn’t have an answer to that. It was two days later that all hell broke loose.

Park and Iris were at home and Iris was playing catch with Cousin, tossing a small rubber ball back and forth when Marisea and Sartena rushed into the house. “Park!” Marisea called ahead of her. “Did you turn off your torc again?”

“I left it in the office,” Park admitted. “It was chafing a bit. Why?”

“Colonel Theoday is trying to find you,” she told him urgently.

“We have a comm. unit in the house,” Park remarked. “Why doesn’t he call that?” Just then the comm. chimed and Park got up to answer it.

“Park, where have you been?” Arn demanded even before the screen finished lighting up. Cousin dropped the ball and climbed up on the comm. unit to look curiously at the screen. In the Screen they could see Taodore and Dannet standing behind Arn.

“Right here at home,” Park shrugged. “Same place I am any normal night that I’m in town.”

“This is not a normal night,” Arn told him. “There is a new Governor on Luna. I think he arrived on that ship that came and left again the other day.”

“You’re right,” Park admitted. “We should have invaded while we had the chance.”

“It’s going to be a bit harder now,” Arn told him. “Watch this.” He reached toward an off-camera keyboard and a moment later the picture in the screen changed.

The man in the picture now was dark-skinned, although with a grayish cast, Park had never seen in a living person before. His eyes were larger than the average suprahuman’s and instead of hair, he seemed to have orange fur on his head, although there was no sign of a beard or even any indication he ever shaved. His ears were also oversized in Park’s estimation and he gave the impression of largeness, although in the screen there was nothing to give the viewer perspective.

“People of Earth,” the man told them. Cousin squeeked an exclamation and jumped back down from the comm. “I am Governor Taret Vextor. I have been duly appointed to speak for the Alliance of Confederated Worlds in all matters in Sol System and am hereby the highest authority in this system.”

“That is not a good start,” Park remarked in the short pause, but Governor Vextor went on.

“I am not only the governor of Moon Base Lagina, but of Earth and any other settlement in Sol System,” Vextor told them firmly, “and as such there are several mistaken notions I am going to clarify for you.”

“First,” he plunged on, “I repudiate any form of surrender the former Acting Governor Gount may have proclaimed. He did not have the authority to surrender to anyone, least of all a single ship of cowardly pirates who broke the Covenant in every conceivable way. Furthermore, Mister Gount was not empowered to rescind the Covenant and I assure all the law-abiding people of Earth that the Covenant is still fully in effect. Mister Gount is now on his way back to face charges for his crimes.

“Next,” Vextor continued, “I hold all Earth accountable for the lost of life in the incidents surrounding the installation of your illegal satellites and reparations will be paid at triple the standard ransom rates and quintuple the cost of the lost ships. All Earthly ships and satellites will be destroyed at your expense and never again will any Terran be allowed to leave Earth with the exception of one ‘Black Captain McArrgh’ who is to be tried for his crimes against all Humanity and summarily executed following that trial.”

“Presumed guilty regardless of the verdict?” Park asked.

“People of Earth,” Vextor continued. “You will surrender the Pirate McArrgh or I will order the destruction of every city and town on your world. McArrgh will be executed whether you help him or not, the only choice you have is whether you care to join him. That is all.”

“What a sweet guy!” Park laughed. “And does he think we’ll just lie down and die for him?”

“The man is disgusting,” Dannet said from behind Arn. “A piece of filth who does not deserve to represent the Alliance.”

“And yet he does, Dannet,” Park sighed. “Any more good news, Arn? I’m assuming you aren’t going to throw me to the neowolves.”

“What are neowolves?” Arn asked, then shook it off. “Not the way you mean it, but it may come down to that. Three hours before that was sent, all eight Alliance battle ships assembled in Lunar orbit and set course for Earth at high acceleration. They will be here in another six. This is it, Park. War.”

“So he wants to call out Black Captain McArrgh,” Park commented grimly. “I’m willing to meet him halfway.”

“I do hope you mean to fight them,” Arn told him.

“I’m not planning to give myself up to that pompous ass,” Park growled. Iris and Marisea were already rushing toward their rooms. “Look, Iris and I will be at the port in a few minutes. Please do me a favor and have someone grab my torc – it’s on my desk – and bring it to me there. And please activate my crew, whoever is on the next rotation, and have them scramble. Holman out.” He broke connection and started toward the room he shared with Iris only to find her coming back out with two bags.

“Doesn’t take long to pack a toothbrush and a change of clothes,” she told him, tossing his bag at him.

“And where do you think you’re going?” he demanded of Marisea as she joined them a second later.

“Where do you think?” she replied. “I’m on the next rotation. So is Wakack.”

“You did order the next rotation up, Park,” Iris reminded him.

“I should have thought to ask who was on it,” Park retorted.

“Yes, you should have,” Iris agreed, “but we haven’t got the time to argue about it now.”

“Where’s Cousin?” Marisea asked, looking around.

“I saw her running away from the screen when Vextor appeared on it,” Sartena replied. “I suspect she’s hiding in a corner somewhere. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her while you’re gone.”

Seven minutes later, Park’s Humvee came to a halt by the spaceport control tower. Arn came running up to greet them. “The rest of your crew is already on board and running down their check lists,” Arn told them.

“Thanks,” Park nodded. “Could you have someone move the Humvee to a normal parking space?”

“You’re worried about that?” Arn asked.

“Big problems are made up of little details,” Park recited back at him as they walked briskly toward
Phoenix Child
.

“No fair,” Arn protested. “I told you that in your freshman year.”

“Then you can’t argue with it much, can you?” Park smirked. “Anything else I need to know before we lift?”

“Lots, probably,” Arn replied, “but the only thing I can think of is that you won’t be alone out there. Terius just called and he’s sending a ship up as well.
Defense of All Pangaea
he’s calling it. I pointed out it would be best to shorten it to simply
Defense
during ship-to-ship communications.”

“Good name,” Park admitted.

“Good ship,” Arn replied, “or so I hear. She’s the sister to
Phoenix Child
and for this trip she’s being piloted by Paul Gonnes who was in the Quetso shipyard showing Ronnie’s and Velvet’s improvements to the Mer. Velvet’s on board as engineer too.”

“Two ships against eight,” Park mused. “What about Terius’ other ships?”

“You know they are lightly armed at best,” Arn pointed out.

“True, but the Alliance ships don’t know that,” Park argued.

“So you’ll have a target-rich situation in which to work,” Arn laughed, then got suddenly serious. “
Defense
will be meeting you at the rendezvous with the Galactic ships, but due to her launch location she’ll be coming out of a polar orbit about ninety degrees from yours. From what we can see, the Galactic ships are travelling in formation. You may be able to use that to your advantage.”

“Should be able to,” Park nodded at the bottom of the stairs that lead up to the hatch. “Let’s just hope the Alliance can’t break our encryption.” He held out his hand. “Wish us luck.”

“Good luck,” Arn told him as they clasped hands. “Try to bring this one back in one piece. Terius is starting to think we don’t know how to fly.”

“Remind me to invite him into the next battle,” Park laughed. “Keep the fires on for us. We’re all going to want a hot meal after this is over.”

A minute later he was seated in the command chair giving the orders to close the hatch and get final clearance to launch. Five minutes after that, they were airborn.

Space flight must always be impeccably timed and planned and owing to the nature of their sudden departure, they had no sooner reached an altitude of sixty thousand feet when it was time to turn upward and start the burn that would start them on their collision course with the approaching warships. Once that maneuver was completed and all systems were running well, Ronnie Sheetz came up-deck and into the bridge.

“When I said we’d try out the improved grav-cannon on the next mission,” she told Park tartly, “this was not what I meant.”

“Sorry,” Park chuckled. “This one wasn’t in my plans either. Everything is in order I take it?”

“Oh sure,” she replied. “Had there been a problem, I’d be working on it. I just wanted to talk to Iris about the changes. Iris, who’s manning the Gravity Cannon?”

“I may be,” she admitted, “but only if things go really wrong. I have three gunners in the weaponry cabin, and in the simulator Wakack has been the best on that weapon. The other two will be firing the phasers and I’m handling the missiles console.”

“I nearly forgot,” Ronnie admitted, “I mounted a few specials in the weapons rack.”

“What sort of specials?” Park asked from half way across the bridge. “Nuclear-tipped?”

“I could have,” Veronica shrugged, “but that’s as dangerous for us as it is for our targets. They explode symmetrically so we can get hit by the radiation at the distances we need to fire them from.”

“I thought we had radiation shielding,” Park commented.

“Against normal solar radiation,” Ronnie replied. “The average nuke will still give you a sunburn that will never go away. I may have some dirty tricks up my sleeve but they aren’t that dirty.

“Each of the two racks carry twenty-five missiles,” she went on, speaking primarily to Iris. “And most of them are normal conventional rockets with explosive tips, same as you used in the past. They’re only semi-smart, as you know. Set their target and let them go. If we were in atmosphere I doubt any of them would miss their targets. Here in space they’re a bit clumsy, but they have some ability to self-correct their course. So I’ve been experimenting. In slots twenty and twenty one, you’ll find heat-seekers. They’re based on the standard model and I made target recognition the priority, but identifying the target’s heat signature will be part of that.

“In slots twenty-two and twenty-three I tried a scaled down version of the same gravimetric drive we use to maneuver in space. Naturally it doesn’t have the acceleration of the chemical drives, but they have a much longer range,” Ronnie explained.

“How much longer?” Iris asked.

“Assuming targeting circuits work,” Ronnie replied, “maybe a thousand miles.”

“I’m not sure I can see a target at that range,” Iris remarked.

“Your radar can,” Ronnie retorted, “but what I had in mind was chasing down a ship that was trying to get away. Those two might not build up gees like your other missiles, but they are still faster than any ship using a conventional drive.

“Now finally we have Slots twenty-four and five,” Ronnie went on. “I’m not sure if they’ll do any good at all, but I was getting creative. They have a conventional chemical drive, and chemical explosive too, but the missile has a one-use stasis generator that activates on impact. It will be completely impervious to damage until it’s managed to penetrate the target and will then explode. It’s the modern-day version of armor piercing shells.”

“How reliable do you think they are?” Iris asked interestedly.

“Not enough to suit me,” Ronnie admitted. “I don’t know if they will work. I was still testing them, so leave them for last unless nothing else is working. There’s also a new setting on the grav-cannon; it’s for focusing the beam. It makes it easier to aim and should give it a longer range as well.”

“Maybe you should show me and Wakack that part together,” Iris decided and together the two women started toward the aft section of the ship. They only got to the door, however, when a small furry creature squeaked happily and ran into the cabin.

“Cousin!” Marisea called from the communications post. “What are you doing here?”

“As if you don’t know,” Park grumbled. “Did you really think taking her into a war was a responsible thing to do?”

“I didn’t, Park,” Marisea protested. “Really I didn’t! I wouldn’t want my little cousin hurt. But how did she get here?”

“She must have climbed into one of our bags without our noticing,” Iris commented. “We were packing so quickly I doubt either of us actually looked inside and she does like to burrow.”

“There aren’t a lot of places for her to burrow on this ship,” Park pointed out.

“Except into our hearts,” Tina laughed from the pilot’s chair. “Well, I think this is a good luck sign. We have a ship’s mascot.”

“Wonderful,” Park grumbled. “Well, maybe we should lock this one up in a cabin for now.”

“No,” Marisea protested. “I’ll take care of her.”

“Well, for now,” Park decided. “But I want her locked up when trouble starts.” After a while, Cousin fell asleep in a corner and was forgotten.

As
Phoenix Child
flew onward, Marisea started coordinating with
Defense
on an encrypted channel so that by the time the approaching Alliance warships could be seen, both Terran ships were in their relative positions as they closed in on their rendezvous.