Trial by Ice (21 page)

The marauder tilted slowly, but not before a stream of the mass driver particles punished through the repulsor and impacted the hull. Railguns opened fire a split second later, driving a pair of depleted uranium slugs into it. Nanite particles charged into the hull in an incandescent white burn before winking out.

William felt excited as he watched his program burn through and deliver a blow that they definitely felt. The marauders velocity was rising and the acceleration was growing at a rate that troubled him.

“Mr. Xan, how long? Tero, everything good?”

“Uh, four minutes,” Xan replied.

“Well enough, Mr. Grace,” Tero called back.

William slapped down the next program and hoped that they could handle the next barrage. He had no doubt the marauder learned and would deliver the next blow more decisively. He had to keep the attention on him and not on what was coming over the horizon.

The marauder sparkled as both top and bottom batteries deployed another array of missiles. The prow railguns continued to pound the repulsor fields. The rotating of the corvette would only do so much to spread the damage out. Tero hummed to himself as the missiles approached.

The missiles, after expending the initial fuel, coasted until they reached the corvette where they drove in with a renewed vigor.

The mass drivers opened fire on the approaching missiles. The missile explosions coalesced in a field of plasma that blossomed onto the armor. The marauder’s railgun walked rounds onto the hull stitching a jagged trail in the nickel alloy armor.

William tensed his stomach as the repulsors peaked into the red. His eyes stared unblinking until the readouts finally slid lower. Another barrage like that would overwhelm the heat sinks and the armor couldn’t take a sustained railgun assault.

“Xan, give me something good.” William laid out the next weapons program.

“It’s going to be close, they might get off another shot. Orbital batteries weren’t designed for this sort of thing.”

“I can bring her around and cut the drive,” Von Hess said in a low tone.

“Negative,” William called back. His hand hovered over the console. He held his breath and watched the display. Any second, he knew, any second. The desire to strike again was almost overwhelming.

The marauder fired the railguns once more. The rounds impacted farther along the hull at a steeper angle. The heat each round generated was dispersed among more of the repulsor fields. William realized that this would be more than they could handle when the missiles landed. Already the repulsors were stressed.

“William…” Tero called out. “We’re going to have—”

“I know!” William snapped back. Think,
think!
What if the batteries missed? Had they already gone past and they hadn’t seen it? Ten seconds more and he’d strike back with something, anything.

He counted down ‘til he reached four and something happened.

At first it appeared like another barrage was incoming. The color was different and the position was random. Blinks of green and yellow flashed against the repulsor fields before an overwhelming light blinked out the display. Something hit the marauder. Something hit it hard.

William slapped the console. The sensors were all recalibrating and the weapons fired blindly. The mass driver took in the last known position and wavered through a minute of angle to cover a probable grid of positions. The railguns compensated for the velocity and spouted out more rounds. The ship hummed as an electromagnetic shockwave slammed against it.

“Eduardo, how long?” William yelled. The excitement was getting to him. The steely taste floated in the back of his mouth as the adrenaline was back. He needed to try and calm himself. This was going to be a long haul.

“I don’t know!” Eduardo called out. He fidgeted and tapped the consoles cautiously with arms wreathed in scrolling figures.

William sat forward and flexed the fingers on his right hand. The tactical display flickered on. The icon of the marauder showed it was still moving. Still in place. His heart dropped a second until he saw the acceleration was slowly dropping.

“Hey, hey! We got something, they’re slowing down,” William yelled out.

The celebration was short lived as the acceleration began to edge up again. But it was enough. Every meter they grew apart was another meter of breathing room for the repulsors to recharge. Every meter gave the mass drivers more time to engage the missiles. Railgun fire continued to pound against the repulsors but they were holding steady.

“Ten minutes ‘til blink,” Von Hess said.

The marauder seemed to pause as the acceleration winked to zero. Was this it? Were they going to fall back? William blinked his eyes and watched.

The marauder reengaged the drives. The ship’s acceleration tripled.

“Shit.” William slapped in another program. “Tero, can you see anything yet? How the hell?” 

“Uh, I don’t know, they shouldn’t be able to do that. They’re moving at nearly four gees, they aren’t designed for that.” He tapped at the console and sat back. “They repositioned the crew grav fields in line. Once you do that, you can’t realign. They’re giving it all they got to catch us now.”

William stared up at the screen. The visual display popped back on again. Everything seemed slightly grainy as the sensors were still coming online. The marauder still glowed on the outer edge where the orbital battery had struck.

“Can you hit them on the nose?” Tero asked.

“What? Maybe. Why?” William replied. His stump ached and tingled.

The weapons systems were computer controlled for maximum impact. The program preferred to work in concert with the other weapons for optimal damage instead of targeting individual points. They had the statistical proficiency that no human gunner ever would. But in regards to single shots, statistics wouldn’t cover the numbers.

“They’ve changed the field layout, the repulsors aren’t tuned for that acceleration, the field is dragging behind.” Tero let the words hang. The very tip of the Hun marauder was unshielded.

“Highlight where, I’m going to need to override and do it manually,” William said. He delved deeper into the command console rigging the weapons program for manual control.

The nose of the marauder wore a dim orange overlay. A small area directly in the center was vulnerable. It would be a shot that only a railgun could make.

William drifted his fingers over the console and watched as the impact point shifted on the marauder. It would take a direct hit to punch through the armored nose. The time to blink was drawing close. He sat back and took a deep breath.

The marauder’s armor was finally beginning to cool enough that it didn’t glow. One entire edge was a ragged mess of slagged armor and wrecked launcher tubes. A bit closer and the Hun railguns would begin to fire once more. The repulsors were stressed enough from the last barrage.

William realized if his repulsors were almost spent that the Huns must be maxed out as well. The time was now, he had to fire. “Hess, slam ‘em!”

The mass drivers opened up into a less accurate spread. The green flashes of vaporized nickel peppered the entire leading edge of the accelerating marauder. One burst through and then another.

The focal point changed for a split second and William twitched it aside. With a gentle tap he set off the first pair of railgun rounds. Each one sped from a Xeno designed turret and careened through the empty space. One of the rounds deflected off of the grav field but the other was funneled right in and exploded in a spectacular display of incandescent light.

Cheers erupted as they had finally struck a blow that would hurt, if not cripple, the Hun marauder. The sparks from the impact cascaded and were slung out from the grav field as if a fountain of burnt iron gushed out. The embers glowed as they passed in the wake of the marauder. Heat dissipated tediously in a vacuum.

William watched as the reload indicator of the railguns progressed. His feet tapped back and forth. It seemed sluggishly slow. The room was completely silent, only the hum of the grav drive bled into the room. “How much longer?”

“Two minutes,” Xan said.

Two minutes. It’d be close. The railguns might load in time. If it did, he could quite possibly slam another round home. Did they know? They had to know.

The railgun had to bleed heat that. Fire too fast and the projectile would weld itself into the barrel. The reload indicator crawled upwards. Orange, then yellow, then just turning to green.

“In three!” Xan said as he hunched forward in the chair.

“No! We’ll get her,” William cried out. He slammed down his hand onto the console and let loose a round. The last thing he saw was the nose of the marauder panning to the side.

The consoles winked. A low hum passed through the floor. The corvette had slipped through the Haydn field and was now two AUs farther.

William stared at the empty screen and felt the palm of his hand burning. Did he hit it? Was the round already out? He licked his lips and looked at the others. Everyone was smiling. He felt relieved, but also cheated—he could've landed a killing blow… or had one landed on him.

“Is that it?” Eduardo asked.

The adrenaline ebbed. William released all of his muscles and suddenly felt an empty place inside of him. That thrill, that feeling, the dread mixed with the excitement, was seductive. Now he was just tired. His left hand itched furiously—all he could do was grit his teeth.

“We’ll know shortly if they’re going to follow,” William said. He ran his hand over his eyes and stretched back. A number caught his eye. “Xan, can you verify position?”

“We, uh, we went farther than she would have,” Xan said as he leaned towards the display.

“Huh. I’m going down to see the Haydn,” Tero replied quietly, and walked out of the room.

“I’m not sure I…” Eduardo trailed off.

“The Haydn drive skips over the top of gravity waves. It’s like a big sine wave. You get far enough away from a gravity well and skip across the trough. You drop out near the peak of the next gravity wave and power through to the falling edge and blink again.”

Eduardo nodded slowly.

“We measure the drive by how efficient it is at reaching the peak. The greater the efficiency, the less time you spend burning between peaks. Right now the distance is small as the waves are spaced close together, but in between the stars it can take weeks.”

“Sounds like a filter in an electronic circuit,” Eduardo said.

“You’ll have to ask Tero about it. All I know is we are about eight percent more efficient than we should have been.”

William relaxed a bit more and kept watch on the screen. He was hungry and wanted nothing more than to eat and drink a proper meal. The slight smells of something cooking wafted through the ventilation system.

Tero returned with a smile. “The Haydn is sealed, looks unusual, Gracelle maybe?” He shrugged and sat back down.

Eduardo engaged him in conversation about the details of the Haydn.

“If you don’t mind, Mr. Grace, I’m going to rest, it can be overwhelming,” Von Hess said.

“Absolutely, you did good work,” William said. He’d been surprised at the versatility of the strider pilot.

The bridge grew silent as everyone kept an eye on the display. The marauder had turned, ever so slightly, and would need time to get back on the right tack or it might turn around. William saw no reason to speak to the rest of the crew yet, not until he knew if the Hun marauder was in pursuit.

He ran through the diagnostics. They were banged up, but nothing critical yet. Not that they could do much, anyway.

Then it appeared. William crouched forward and smiled an animal smile. The Hun marauder was back, far behind, where the corvette should have come in. The distance was too far to get a good visual on the prow. It held in position for a few moments before the velocity began to rise. William kept his eye on the acceleration.

The marauder accelerated again up to 4Gs.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Beyond

William sat on the edge of a rimmed white table. Eyes rose from the seats as everyone waited for him to speak. Bowls were scattered everywhere as the survivors indulged in whatever they wanted. The world of privation had ended.

“They hit us hard. The only thing that kept us alive was one of the orbital batteries slamming them. It knocked out half of their missile batteries.” William shifted and looked into the tired eyes of those around him. Did they really trust him to get them out of this? The thought still surprised him. “We’ve got an advantage: we jump farther. But they are faster, much faster, in the peaks. We’re going to make the next jump before they do, but the jump after that is a lot longer and they might catch us before we can jump again.”

“So, uh, Mr. Grace,” Avi said, standing. “What can we do?”

William looked around at the faces around him. They were gaunt, wounded, tired, but still eager. They were dirty, black earlobes, gray cheeks, cut, burned and bruised. If he felt this lousy, he was sure everyone else did. The last thing he would want to do is sit and wait, so why would they?

“Crack open every single box, container, and locker. Find something we can use, anything, I’m open to ideas,” William said.

They nodded and the mood changed from a complacency of a passenger to the professionalism of a crew with a mission.

“But first, eat, shower, get into clean clothes, and dress your wounds. I expect you’ll find a fully functioning medical suite, use it.” William stood. “Tero, you have the bridge.”

“Squad. Attention!” Sergeant Crow bellowed out.

All of the troops snapped up from the seats and stood at attention. They were dirty and disheveled but not anywhere near beat.

William returned the best salute he could manage and walked out.

Crow followed behind William through the narrow corridor. “Mr. Grace, that applies to you too, yes?”

William nodded, leaning against a bulkhead. “Does it show?”

“You’ll do us no good sleep deprived, bleeding, and hungry.” Crow pointed to the stump. The end was slowly spreading red. “Let’s find the medical suite.”

The pair wandered through a few corridors. William was impressed with the organization of every room he entered. Whoever ran the ship knew exactly how to keep it up. It was designed for a much larger compliment than was onboard. Reminders of the previous crew were all around: trinkets, shells, a coconut, a stiff yellow palm frond.

They found the medical suite and Crow changed the dressing. William got his first look at where his hand once was. The skin was folded back into a ragged seam like the top of a burlap bag. The color seemed unnatural and the stitches looked like something out of a cobbler shop. None of it seemed to bother Crow, who bound it firmly but gently and slapped a patch onto his shoulder.

“You’ve done this before?” William asked. The nanites numbed everything and the itching stopped.

Crow nodded and began to change a dressing on Kerry. “Yes, unfortunately. Religious cranks once. Then a docking station from Sa’Ami on Tunis.” His hands weaved a new bandage around Kerry’s shoulder. “The cranks were a pain, the Sa’Ami were few in number but they made up for it in tenacity and augmentation.” He slapped Kerry on the good shoulder. “Now git.”

A thumb worn photo of a woman standing on a green plain was stuck next to a cabinet. Crow leaned forward to give it an appraising look. “I saw quite a few amputations after that fight. The Sa’Ami moved so fast.” He let the words drift away as he nodded at the photo. “Good looking girl,” he said with a nod.

William felt the gentle sedation wrap around him like a silky blanket. Chills ran down his back and his muscles relaxed. “Woo. I’m going to need to lay down.”

“Avi! Help Mr. Grace to his quarters,” Crow called.

The Marine Private appeared from around the corner. “Here we go, Mr. Grace!” Avi called out as he helped William into the narrow corridor.

William turned to see Crow lean forward again and peer at the photo. His face looked lost in times past.

* * *

The two ships raced each other. The corvette speckled like a stream worn salmon followed by the brutish marauder with a flattened nose. There was no violence between the two at such distances. At this range, rail projectiles could be dodged and missiles could be intercepted by the mass drivers.

The marauder worked closer knowing that the advantage was his.

Through the night William had crawled off of the bed and curled up into a ball. He never awoke, it was what his body was used to. The sleep brought no dreams, and for that he was thankful. They blinked while he slept.

William walked out of the quarters and into the hallway.

“Mr. Grace.” Avi saluted. He was now cleaned, though the grit seemed to hang in the creases around his eyes. “Mr. Villeneuve asked to see you in the cargo hold once you had eaten.”

“Thank you, Avi. Have you eaten?”

Avi nodded. “I did, but I’ll gladly eat again. I’m not sure I’ll ever turn down a meal for the rest of my life, sir.”

William felt much the same way. Even once he had eaten, he had the urge to pirate away a bit of food just in case he couldn’t get to it later. It took a conscious mental effort to not stuff himself.

His mind stuck on the marauder barreling towards them. He couldn’t outrun it. He couldn’t beat it in a fight.

The bowl sat next to him on the table. His stub gently braced against it. He slurped down a mouthful of noodles and ran across all the simulations he’d ever been in. Nothing seemed to help. Though he was quite satisfied with the noodles.

He thought about that first day, that damned cold first day. He could have rolled over and let the cold slip into him. What made him—hell, what made them
all
—carry on? Survival was simple enough, but he felt it was something more. At any moment they would die. Was that where the courage came from? He didn’t know.

His father flashed through his mind. Was this how he felt? You win the day, fight to the end, and are dashed on the rocks of fate? The sound of the horses stampeding echoed through his mind. He paused, there were no horses on Farshore.

* * *

Crates and containers were opened, wedged, pried, and popped. A rough chalk marker on each door showed either a one, a zero, or a question mark. There were many zeros, a few question marks, and just a handful of ones.

Sebastien was surrounded by a sea of metallic spheres the size of a man’s head. Each was stamped with the blue and white logo of the Quebecois mineral company DythCo. Contained within was a slug of precious rhenium.

William wasn’t sure if the spheres were laid out on purpose or if they had rolled out of a burst container. “Morning, Sebastien.”

Sebastien raised a hand as he silently mouthed numbers. “Do you have any use for forty-seven spheres of Rhenium?”

“Sell them and retire on the beach?”

Sebastien nodded. “That thought crossed my mind, too.” He walked to a container with a question mark. “This one has combat armor, enhanced suits. These guys were about to leave.”

“I’m not surprised.” William walked over and peeked his head into the crate. “Looks like fun.”

“They’re overrated,” Sebastien said.

“Anything else exciting?”

Sebastien shook his head. “No.”

A single sphere clanked against its partner and began a slow roll down the length of the cargo hold. Like a cannonball of old it slid to one side and then the next before crashing into a container. An enormous divot buckled the side.

William turned and stood with Sebastien at his side. The pair watched in silence as the sphere rebounded and came to rest against a pile of strapping.

O’Toole stepped out from behind a container. “Ouch! Imagine if that hit your toe!”

William gave one of the spheres a gentle nudge. It was solid like it was bolted to the floor.

“What if you ran into one of these accelerating at 4G?” Sebastien asked.

“Time to put your beach vacation on hold, Sebastien.”

* * *

The ship suddenly descended into a bad caricature of a bowling alley. Soldiers and Marines waddled through the length of the ship with the massively heavy rhenium containers. Sebastien was able to carry a pair, and could have handled more if grip wasn’t an issue.

Men ducked and dodged as they passed each other through the tight quarters. The pile grew until it became difficult to add more without them collapsing under the weight of the pile. Netting and boxes were wedged on the edges to keep them in place.

“Will the airlock open with all that weight?” Vito asked.

William peered at the pile. He felt guilty not being able to help, but carrying a sphere was rather difficult without two hands.

“It’ll open. It might not close, but it will open,” Tero said.

The service airlock on the rear of the corvette was smaller than the cargo airlocks. When they opened the door, if it opened, the spheres would pass out and remain on the same vector. With any luck the dense metal would impact on the marauder. He didn’t know if it would be enough energy to break the repulsors, but they had to do something.

The Hun marauder was rapidly closing. At 4Gs of acceleration they were traveling nearly one percent of the speed of light. If it could be slowed even a little they could make the next blink and then the efficiency would gain them even more distance.

Eduardo was the last man to thunk one of the spheres into a pile. His arms were knotted and strained as he gently squatted down and deposited the sphere. His arms almost seemed to glow with tattoos of fire and stone. His face was set and intense as he saluted and walked off.

The almost comical logo made it look like a pile of monogrammed volleyballs. A small crowd was crouched and tucked into the hallway, eager to watch the payload get delivered.

“Mr. Tero, if you please,” William said, as he beckoned to the spheres.

Tero smiled and nodded. “As a kid we’d do something similar.” He tapped the console and the inner door closed and sealed with a pop. “We’d suit up and tuck inside an airlock. Hit the override and pop the outer door.” The display showed the vacuum level rising as it was pumped in with a hum. “And then
whoosh!
You’d shoot out! In Mars’s gravity you could really get some distance.” With a final tap he activated the override and the outer door began to open.

All eyes watched as the mass strained for a split second. An audible unconscious
“Ooooh”
began as first one, then another, then all of the spheres were sucked out. It sounded like stamping hooves as the spheres smacked against the airlock door. Frost grew on the inner window as the moisture condensed.

“Whoops. I think we broke it,” Tero said, as he tried to close the door.

Chuckles echoed from the crowd.

The spheres were now waiting in space, still moving forward, but at a much slower speed than the marauder. Far behind, the marauder continued charging forward at full acceleration.

* * *

“Noodles, Mr. Grace?” Avi asked, setting down a plastic bowl.

William nodded and slid the bowl closer. The sweet tangy aroma tickled his nostrils. He’d been hungry, even though his stomach was full. Just feeling the texture of the noodles was luxurious. The first bite was his new simple pleasure.

“So uh, how much longer, Mr. Grace?”

“Hmm?” William swallowed the noodles. “’Til we blink?”

“’Til they run into the cannonballs, sir.”

William liked how they referred to them as cannonballs, the most precious cannonballs ever lobbed. “Another hour or so, and you know they probably won’t even hit them.”

Avi nodded and looked up at the screen behind him. “Can we see anything?”

William shook his head. “If they hit, we’ll get a thermal signature, too far yet for visual.”

“So we just wait?”

“We just wait.”

Avi sat back and grinned. “This is driving me crazy, how can you Naval types do it knowing that you can’t do anything for days or weeks! It’s crazy.” He quickly added, “No offense, sir.”

“You can’t argue with physics, Avi, so you just relax and save the adrenaline for later.”

The young Marine looked down to the floor. Behind him Leduc was poking at the display console. The screen flickered and showed movies that were popular twenty years before. Soldiers and Marines were scattered about the room ,eating or sleeping. Those awake seemed fidgety and tense. This was not the type of battle they were used to.

* * *

William sat in the cool air of the bridge and watched the visual display. The marauder was so far away that it was barely a wink of light, just another star. The marauder maintained the 4G acceleration. He went to rub his hands together and caught himself. The itching was coming back.