Wanderer 3: Tainted Universe (14 page)

The words cut off as Leo’s ship blew apart in a massive explosion.  Clay’s helmet and cockpit automatically damped down most of the glare, but Clay still found tears in his eyes.  Leo always had a way with systems.  Either squeezing the most out of them or diverting them for his own means.  He’d proven it one last time, taking a stable engine to the point of destruction in only a few seconds.

The explosion cleared almost immediately, and there was no wreckage to be seen.  Nevertheless, Clay found himself staring at that patch of space for a long time.

Chapter Twenty-One

How did they find us? 
For a few seconds it was the only thought in Jess’s mind.

Then the danger of the situation filtered in and he leapt into action.  Reaching for the
Wanderer
he accelerated his thoughts.  First he checked the status of his ship.  While far from full strength, it was in better shape than it had been.  The damaged hull had emergency patches in place to strengthen it.  The main shields were up and providing at least a reasonable level of defence.

It wasn’t all good news though.  Many of the damaged thrusters were still offline, making the ship respond sluggishly.  That could be their undoing, especially against such overwhelming forces.

Jess studied the Imperial ships as they started to form up.  The massive battlecruiser was actually the closest of the enemy ships.  It had started out facing away from the
Wanderer
, as if it had overshot.  Every other ship had started in the same orientation, spread out beyond the battlecruiser in a scattershot pattern.  The fleet gave the overwhelming impression of having performed an emergency exit from jump space.

Fire from the battlecruiser stopped that line of thought.  Jess threw the
Wanderer
into motion but it wasn’t enough to evade everything thrown at her.  The
Wanderer
’s shields took a pounding but held.  For the moment.

Jess shoved the
Wanderer
to one side, trying to avoid the next wave of fire.  Once again the damaged thrusters slowed her movement, allowing shots to strike the shields.  This couldn’t go on.  The shields were already badly depleted, and the battlecruiser hadn’t managed to bring any of its heavier weapons into use yet.

Even with his thoughts accelerated panic threatened to overwhelm Jess.  How could they stand against such a powerful ship?  And others were turning now, would be joining the fight soon.

Then the answer struck Jess.  He fought down embarrassment at having missed the obvious, even as he had the
Wanderer
claw its way through to jump space.  There was no need to fight the fleet.  They could just leave.  Jess still worried for several seconds.  If any part of the fleet carried a Tar Pit then the
Wanderer
would be dragged back into the battle.

Nothing happened.  Jess let himself relax a little, then returned to his original question.  How had the fleet found them?

*****

Admiral Vorn stared at the display which now showed only empty space where the
Wanderer
had floated before.  He was aware of the
Starslayer
’s officers moving quietly around him.  Casting cautious glances his way.  Trying to measure his mood.  Not that he would give anything away to them, not unless he chose to.

Inside he was getting frustrated.  This was threatening to turn into a massive game of cat and mouse.  At that moment he would happily have given up the entire squadron of banshees for a Tar Pit.  That would put a stop to the
Wanderer
’s disappearing act.

He was a practical man though.  He didn’t have a Tar Pit so he needed to find another solution.  The problem was finding the fine line between incapacitating the
Wanderer
and badly damaging it.  Or even destroying, it.

The biggest issue was the delay between the tracking device indicating they’d reached the
Wanderer
and getting the fleet out of jump space.  Vorn had taken control of the exit himself, but even so they had ended up well past the
Wanderer
.  Even the
Starslayer
’s powerful weapons had been firing at extreme range.  The rest of the fleet had been even further from their target.

As the fleet formed up again Vorn realised there needed to be an automated reaction when they neared their target.  Setting it up was beyond Vorn’s talents, but he was expressly forbidden from sharing knowledge of the device or even its existence.

Vorn’s frustration built as the fleet slowly reformed.  If nothing changed then each time the
Wanderer
stopped the same problems would play out.  He muttered a curse, far too quietly for anyone else to hear, then opened a channel to the chief engineer.

“
I need you and one technician here right now.  Someone good who you trust absolutely.”

The chief engineer started to protest that all his men were completely trustworthy.  Vorn cut him off.  Of course they were all trustworthy, they wouldn’t be on the
Starslayer
otherwise, but there were different levels of trust.  Vorn had no doubt the chief engineer understood that, despite what he had said, and would be choosing someone suitable already.

*****

Jess let the
Wanderer
keep to a straight line through jump space.  If the Imperial fleet could track them then what was the point in leaving a false trail?

“
How did they find us?” Jess asked himself once again.

“
Damn good question,” Dash replied.

Jess jumped slightly.  He hadn’t realised he’d given voice to the question this time.  In fact he’d forgotten that Dash and Sal were even there.  He felt irritation flare.

“I suppose you’ve got the answer?” Jess asked.  The edge to his voice could have cut through steel.

“
No.  I’ve never heard of anything like this.”

Dash had replied in a normal voice.  Either he hadn’t noticed the barb in Jess’s words or he’d ignored it.  Jess remembered how sharp Dash was.  He must have noticed so he had ignored it.  That annoyed Jess even more.  Fighting down anger he tried to focus on the immediate problem.  How had the fleet tracked them down?

“Are we certain they did?” Sal asked.  “Could it just have been unbelievably bad luck?”

“
No way,” Dash said.  “The odds against that are almost incalculable.”

“
Could they have the ability to see other ships in jump space then?  The same as the
Wanderer
does?  They could just have followed us.”

Dash shrugged.  “It’s not impossible I suppose.  If the
Wanderer
can do it then other ships could.  What’s the range though?  There was a long gap between us getting here and them arriving.  If they were that far behind us the range would have to be massive.  Jess, can the
Wanderer
scan over those kinds of distances?”

“
Nowhere near,” Jess replied.  “Do you think they could track us through jump space somehow?  Is it possible ships leave a trail that can be followed?”

Dash shrugged again.  “I don’t know.  A couple of weeks ago I’d have said no way.  Between the
Wanderer
and those stealth ships I’m questioning everything I thought I knew.  I can’t say it isn’t possible.”

They fell silent, thinking deeply.  Finally Dash looked up.

“Jess,” he said.  “Had we moved far from where we dropped into normal space?”

“
No.  We came out almost on top of the asteroid we needed to mine.  We didn’t move more than a few hundred metres.”

“
I thought so.  Then they didn’t know where they had to leave jump space.  Not until the last moment at least.”

“
How do you know?”

“
Think about how they appeared.  They were spread out in their direction of travel, scattered along it.  They came out of jump space unexpectedly.  Even the battlecruiser was firing at extreme range.”

“
Ah…” Jess said as things clicked into place in his mind.  “If they’d had us on their scanners they’d at least know what our exit point was, and they’d have come out in formation there.  The same goes for following a trail through jump space.”

“
Possibly not,” Dash said.  “We don’t know how short ranged such a device might be if it was possible.”

“
OK.  So that’s still one of the possibilities.  At least we know they can’t actually see where we are.  I’m sure they can’t scan real space while in jump space like the
Wanderer
can.  At least not to any useful distance.  Otherwise they’d have landed right on top of us.”

“
This must be how they found us at Desolation,” Dash said.  “I thought they’d just guessed well.  If looks like they didn’t have to guess at all.”

“
Could they have some way of tracking the
Wanderer
itself?” Jess asked.

“
Again… I just don’t know.  Not that I’ve ever heard of, but that’s meaning less by the minute.”

“
What else could it be?”

“
I don’t know.  Maybe one of those stealth ships has been following us and leaving a trail behind.”

“
Wouldn’t that have the same objection?  The trail should have led right to us.”

“
Not necessarily.  If the stealth ship had to return to normal space, as it almost certainly did, then they wouldn’t want it too close to us.  We might have detected it and that would have spoilt their plans.”

Jess nodded slowly.  It made sense.  Quiet fell again for several minutes.  Jess realised that his earlier anger at Dash, and at Sal, had largely gone.  Working together on a problem had eased the tensions.  For now at least.  The anger was still there, just banked down.

After a while Jess stopped trying to think of how they had been followed.  Instead he started thinking through the limitations of the different approaches they had already identified.

“
We can narrow it down,” he said.  Then he frowned.  “At least I think we can.  Unless the fleet is able to move faster in jump space than is usual.”

“
I think that’s unlikely,” Dash said.  “Some parts of that fleet are like nothing I’ve seen before, but most of the ships are bog standard Imperial design.  If they could make ships of that type move faster through jump space I’m certain we’d have found out by now.  I don’t see how knowing their speed helps though.”

Jess smiled, pleased to have spotted something that Dash had missed.  He pulled up a display.

“Here, look.  This is the path we’ve been following so far.  I’ve already had the
Wanderer
pushing its jump engines so we move faster than normal.  Then if we do a turn through ninety degrees… like this… then the fleet following us can do one of two things.

“
The first is to follow our path exactly.  If they do that then we know how long it should take them.  If they arrive earlier then we know they’ve done something like this…”

He drew another line.  If the first two were the short edges of a right angle triangle then this was the hypotenuse.

“If they do that then the distance they have to cover is significantly lower, which means they’ll reach us sooner than they could have otherwise.”

“
How does that help?” Sal asked.

“
Because it tells us whether the fleet is somehow following where we
have
been or it knows where we
are
,” Dash said.  “Clever.  Very clever.  How long until we know?”

“
I’ve made the turn.  If they follow the route we’ve taken then about forty minutes.  If not then… somewhere over twenty-eight.”

“
Can we spot them coming?” Dash asked.

“
No.  We can’t scan jump space from normal space.  It’s not possible.  Or the
Wanderer
can’t do it at least.” 

Admitting that the
Wanderer
might be unable to do what some other ships could was difficult for Jess.  He’d got used to the idea that the
Wanderer
was special.  That only it could do things other ships were incapable of.  The stealth ships had proven that to be wrong.

“
We’d better be ready to jump at the first sign of trouble then,” Dash said.  “We can’t rely on them coming out of jump so far away next time.  I can guarantee they’ll be working on that problem right now.”

Jess nodded.  The advice was sound.

“Is this a good idea?” Sal asked.  “Why not just stay ahead of them? The
Wanderer
could build up enough of a lead to stay safe.”

“
Only in the short-term,” Dash replied.  “If they can tell where we are, rather than just the route we took, then every time we took a sideways course, every time we had to double back, every time we took a pause we’d have to worry about how close they could be.  We need to know what their capabilities are.”

“
All right.  Then let me help.  I can control…”

As the sentence trailed off anger flooded her face.  She’d remembered that Jess had destroyed her implants.

“I need to prepare,” Jess said, quickly closing his eyes and sinking his mind into the interface with the
Wanderer
.