Tides of the Continuum 1: Making History (11 page)

17

Lincoln sat forward in his chair. Had he seen what he’d thought he did? “Paul, where did that freighter go? Did you see that?”

Paul ran his hand through his hair, and then rubbed his eyes. He searched his view of the fray. Then, all at once, they knew what had happened to the missing ship. As the sensors reported the compression field collapse, they witnessed a brilliant explosion, one that couldn’t easily be missed, even by a blind man. The shock wave impacted the Legion off her starboard bow, causing a slight jolt in the bulkheads. Aurora had officially been brought into the battle.

The single waiting android, still standing motionless by the over-filled freighter, received a new order. He raised his heavy metal arm, grasping the sensory shunt firmly. With one quick motion, the mechanical man ripped it from its mounts and sent its system into default reconstruction. The ship, now in sensory blindness, would have no choice but to follow the autopilot’s directions, no matter what. And those directions were being fed into its processor directly from Athena’s mainframe.

Lincoln looked at Aurora, who was staring confusedly back at him. “I wonder if you realize just how many people on board the Legion know of your stunt earlier today.” Aurora didn’t quite catch his drift, so he clarified. “You had one of the Hot Squad fire a proton cannon at one of your cosmetic accessories. It caused a decompression warning to sound on every deck but the one containing it.”

Aurora blushed in embarrassment. “Sorry, I was only trying to-”

“No, don’t worry about it. Your idea was ingenious, and will be used in our combat training courses. Our tactical androids, even now, are being outfitted with several concussion charges, for non-lethal acquisitions. But that’s neither here nor there. What I was referring to was the principal at work in that tactic. You used a concussive blast. Your goal wasn’t to damage the enemy soldiers, but to force a change in the battle environment.” Lincoln was almost giddy.

Aurora looked back at the ghostly apparition used as a main viewer. She didn’t quite catch it still. Then she understood; it all made perfect sense! The ship in the hanger bay was being transformed, in effect, into a very large can of hairspray. It wouldn’t get close enough to the Red Nova to do any good, if it had its proximity sensors still functioning. It would simply redirect itself away from the enemy.

“What about the bad guy's guns? Can’t he just shoot it down before it gets to him?” she asked in alarm.

“We are going to act as a diversion. Our limited research indicates that the Black Core will take some time to effectively hit the Legion. It targets a specific stationary location in space in relation to where the Black Core’s emitters are placed in a three dimensional grid. If we keep moving, on random trajectories, at differing speeds, the chances of him hitting us in vital areas are slim to none."

"And then," interjected
Aurora, "you're going to aim that freighter at his ship."

"But they will never collide. Remember your tactic. You shot the can before it hit the enemy. We are going to do the same. As we fly by him for the last time, we’ll drop the can. When the freighter gets close enough, the Legion will fire on the freighter causing a catastrophic explosion. When it goes up, we'll already be on our way out of the system. The blast should act quick enough to hit him before his inertial dampers can act, thus ending the threat of further aggression. You see the reactor assembly that powers the Black Core is very delicate, which explains why he kept it back from the space battle. If we can’t get him into the battle, then we’re going to bring the battle to him.”

Slowly at first, then quickening, the massive Legion accelerated toward the Red Nova. At the last second, the Legion changed course, veering off to one side. It passed very close to the nearer of the stars, creating a slow arc. Athena was using the star’s gravity well to aid in the shifting of the ship's large bulk. As they came around the other side of the flaming orb, they carried in their wake a surprise. Five hundred tiny star fighters were launched in the solar shadow, and made their way toward Gracchus’s remaining cluster. They swarmed around the Legion like bees around their hive. At the signal from their mother computer, each of them left the safety of the giant and executed a swarm-like attack on their mutual enemy.

All fighters flew a separate and distinct path, none firing, to maintain the distraction as long as possible. Here and there, one of them was lost, shot apart by the Koratind Ratahn. Some of Gracchus’s ships started to move away from the Red Nova, mostly under the control of the unexpected influence Athena possessed over them. The Legion approached again and like the time before it veered off, this time executing a roll.

Athena warned, “Hold on. I sense a gravity distortion ahead, I am changing course to by pass it, but inertial dampers may not completely compensate for the shift.”

As soon as she had finished her warning, there was a drastic change in gravity in the room. Most people were sufficiently braced, but one android lost control of his momentum. The railing he was holding couldn’t support his weight under the stress. In an instant of chaos, he fell toward the viewer, parting its intangible fabric like steam, and impacting the wall behind. A few seconds passed, before the systems caught up with the Legion’s movements. When they did, the damaged automaton fell to the floor, unmoving. Another went to him, lifted his lifeless body and took him to be repaired in another area of the ship.

The viewer showed the edge of one star moving out of frame and the Red Nova revealed. It was starting to move away from the Legion, but not at full speed. “I am evacuating multiple areas. Gracchus is attempting another distortion,” Athena again warned.

Legions of artificial warriors herded and sometimes carried men out of the dangerous section. Somewhere near the front middle of the Legion, a small gravity well formed in the inner space of the ship. Bulkheads stretched as they passed through the gravity well. Walls ripped, doors crumpled like paper, and finally, the outer hull plating stretched as the Legion passed the area of compression.

Athena ordered her fighters closer to their nemesis, to intensify the distraction.

Colonel Smyth checked the display to his left; the surprise protomatter-laden ship was still undamaged. “Athena, we’re going to launch the freighter on our next pass. Open the bay door.”

The Red Nova was moving again, this time it was attempting to burn off some of the small annoying ships. It would use the corona of the closer of the two dwarf stars. As they started near it, Gracchus noticed that the ships were avoiding the dangerous emissions that were starting to surround his ship. He cursed under his breath, as he ordered his vessel deeper into the blazing atmosphere. Knowing his ship could withstand the inferno for quite some time, he held position in the star’s flaming cloud. Turning his attention back to the flying dragon, which opposed him, he ordered the rest of his ships to attack. Only a few of them complied, those farthest from the enemy ship. The ones closest to the Legion turned and left. He assumed they were returning cowardly to their homeport, several weeks away. In his indignation, he cursed them also.

Those that approached the enemy were quickly dismantled into dust and flaming debris, but at least they went out with honor. Gracchus considered a new course of attack. His eyes fixed on the opposite star, knowing that he could collapse it, though it would tax the reactor assembly to dangerous levels. He began with his calculations, all the while keeping his eye on the cowardly dragon, always in the picture, but never honorable enough to approach by itself. They used machines to do their dirty work, scared to die in battle themselves.

Lincoln watched his foe run to the star’s shelter to hide. In disgust he ordered the Legion slowed to three-quarters flanking speed.

An idea sprung into Aurora’s mind. Something she had seen on an episode of
Space Train
, some years before. She tried to remember all the parts of the maneuver. Then all at once it came to her. “Colonel, don't launch the freighter yet. I have an idea! We could force them out of there if we fired our space guns at the star’s surface. We’d be creating a solar flare right below his ship. If we calculated it right, it would hit his ship center mass. If we ignite the briar patch, maybe the rabbit will come running out.”

Lincoln considered her proposal, knowing the whole time that their enemy was probably preparing for another gravity reconstruction. He turned back to the viewer, watching his target hide cowardly. “Athena, can it be done in passing?”

“I believe so. Give me a few seconds to calculate,” she answered. “Hold on ladies and gentlemen, this ride could get very bumpy.”

The Legion accelerated again to flanking speed. They would need to go as fast as possible, to ensure their massive underside would be out of harm’s way after the attempt. As they started to move in, the Red Nova began to fire bursts of munitions at the Legion’s hull. They were having a surprisingly damaging effect on the skin of the Legion.

“His ship is firing absolute matter charges,” reported Ambrose.

“Absolute matter? Never heard of it,” shouted Aurora.

Paul clarified, “Absolute matter is like a solid ball of protons with almost no space in between the particles, just complete matter. Basically, cannonballs weighing in near twenty tons, though they are only a half-inch in diameter. He has found a way to make them quickly from random space matter collected by his ship, probably compressing it with his gravity weapon. When they’re fired from his cannons, they’re hitting us with the momentum of a freight train engine.”

“Wow! Why don’t we use anything like that?” asked Aurora.

“For the exact same reasons we don’t use radioactive weapons or poisonous gas,” answered Lincoln. “They’re considered dirty, and therefore against regulation.”

The Legion reached its firing point, and let loose a volley of particle cannon fire on the target area of the star.
Aurora was certain that she could see in her mind Gracchus cringe at the approaching death, then smirk when it passed him by. The Legion continued past the Red Nova, knowing that the resulting eruption on the solar surface would soon be making a spectacular solar prominence.

But Athena's calculations hadn’t taken into account the star's present state. It was already very close to creating a flare on its own. The resulting ejection of radiation and smoldering gasses erupted faster than they could anticipate, hitting their intended target, yes. But it also hit the Legion on its ventral plating as they flew by. The prominence exploded past both ships in an ever expanding cone which would eventually arc back toward the star’s surface. The Legion made it clear of the eruption before too long, as its speed carried it through the region where their engines no longer functioned.
In an area of such strong magnetic field activity, they could not effectively use their propulsion systems.

The impact, though less physical than it could have been, still shook the ship violently with its sheer power. Out the other side of the flare, the Legion resumed its escape. They kept running from the sunburst on a free trajectory, moving around the other side of the star, using its gravity to pull a tight sweep.

Aurora spoke when she could gather herself from the floor. “So what was that you were saying before about this ship not being easily jostled?”

Lincoln must have hit his face on the way down, because he answered as he checked his swelling lip for blood, “Well, there’s a first time for everything. Keep in mind, we’ve never taken a solar flare to the gut before.”

“Well, then I guess I can let this one slide with a warning,” Aurora said jokingly.

"Listen
, professor," replied Lincoln, "it was your idea, or at least the writers of
Space Train
."

The radiation from the dwarf star caused a momentary loss of visibility of their foe, but it was soon again within their view. Huge burning plumes of star material were
still dissipating into space around and beyond the Ratahn vessel as it moved slowly away from danger. As Aurora had surmised, her plan had indeed forced the Red Nova from its hiding place. Several of its hull sections were burning, while most of the rest of its skin was blackened, otherwise, it looked no worse for wear. Its course would take it near the barycenter of the system. From a gravimetric view, that position would be the best from which to crush something very large while not being pulled into the enormous compression field itself.

Lincoln ordered the modified freighter into space.
This would be the final resting place for either the Red Nova or the Legion, and if fate were in favor of Gracchus, then Lincoln feared the worst.

-MESSAGE RECEIVED FROM 'BISHOP'

-FILTERING...

-DECRYPTING...

-TRANSLATING...

-DISPLAYING MESSAGE CONTENT:

You have chosen your side.

-COMPOSING REPLY FROM 'ROOK':

You filthy crap-stick! You had the

‘extraction team’ try to kill me. I

suspected you'd do something like

this, so I sent an android in my place.

You've turned your only ally against

you and I will watch you burn.