your ship until you come back.”
13
Maeken Kea was still fastening her jacket when she arrived at the bridge. As a matter of fact, it was the only part of her uniform that she had on. In her years as the Commander of a warship, she had learned through experience to always wear something when she tried to catch a little sleep when battle was likely. But the Starwolves had a certain perversity on that score; they had been careful to attack while she was in the shower. She reasoned that, if she got only one thing on by the time she reached the bridge, the jacket was long enough to keep her decently covered — if just barely. She was correct, for the most part; she was blissfully unaware that the tail of the jacket was split in the same place her own tail was split.
Lieutenant Skerri saw her the moment she entered and pretended to notice nothing strange, although she could well imagine the stimulation to his postadolescent fantasies. She threw her pants in his direction and headed straight for her console.
“So what is it?” she demanded briskly as she bent over her monitor.
“Captain, the Methryn’s corridor has turned straight out from the planet,” Skerri reported. “It seemed suspicious to me, so I knew that you would jump on it.”
“You bet your — “
“Collision imminent!” Marenna Challenger warned suddenly.
Maeken glanced anxiously at the main viewscreen, where the danger was immediately obvious. A rock of respectable size, a kilometer and more wide by half a kilometer high, was hurtling down the Methryn’s corridor, moving fast and accelerating rapidly along a path designed to make the best use of the gravity of the large planet below. Numbers projected to one corner of the screen estimated time to impact and counted down sixteen to fifteen even as she watched. Maeken needed only an instant to decide.
“Arm missiles to launch!” she ordered briskly. “Detonation on impact. Fire one… and two. Hull shields to maximum — brace for impact.”
“Condition red — brace for impact.” Marenna relayed the order to the entire ship as the first missile struck and exploded. The viewscreen dimmed automatically against the brilliant nuclear flash barely six kilometers ahead. The second explosion followed in the next instant. A fourth of the boulder was either vaporized or crushed by the concussion into gravel. The rest split into five sections that were still alarming in their proportions.
A second later the debris pelted the Challenger’s forward hull. The quartzite shielding held, although the ship shuddered violently. Maeken remained standing through the impact only by holding on to the back of her seat.
“Shield your engines!” she yelled at Marenna even as the reverberations echoed through the ship’s hull. She was only guessing what the Starwolves would do next, but it was a good guess. Four packs of fighters dived out of the ring in the next instant. Because Maeken had already given the order to shield, they got only six of the fourteen exposed engines.
“That tears it,” Maeken muttered in disgust as she snatched her pants from Lieutenant Skerri’s grasp. “Keep your eyes open.”
Skerri did as he was told. As the Captain turned and began to pull on her pants, he did his best to watch closely while pretending to keep his eyes discreetly on the monitor. At forty-five, Maeken Kea was twice his age, on the far side of middle-aged by his own definition. He was all the more surprised to see a trim and shapely fanny.
“Do you see anything?” she asked.
“Captain, I…,” Skerri stammered guiltily, then understood what she meant. “All clear for the moment.”
Maeken paused to glance at him over her shoulder. It did not do for junior officers to have any fascination for their seniors, but she could keep Skerri under control. Besides, he served her best for as long as she was able to keep him impressed, and she had the feeling that she had just impressed him in a way that neither of them had expected. She looked around for her boots and found that they must have been left in her cabin.
“Collision imminent!” Marenna warned again.
Maeken looked up at the viewscreen and saw absolutely nothing. At that instant the Challenger shuddered so violently that she left the deck. She struck the ceiling and was pinned there for a moment, hitting squarely in the middle of her back so hard that her vision dimmed. Then gravity returned and she was dropped sprawling to the deck. Skerri landed nearby and remained motionless. She began to pick herself up, cursing herself for not strapping in after that first attack but glad that she at least had her pants on. A second impact from the opposite direction flattened her to the deck. She was about to ask for a report when she saw Starwolf fighters on the main viewscreen.
“Do not return fire!” she ordered sharply as she rose to stand uncertainly. “Keep your power in the hull shields.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Maeken straightened her back experimentally, trusting that nothing hurt bad enough to actually be broken. Skerri remained motionless. She considered moving him but knew that she could not. He was a big, healthy boy, while she was technically a tall midget. She appreciated the fact that she was moving while he was not. Well, Mr. Skerri. Not so old after all, are we?
“Damage report!” She gasped in pain as she lowered herself into her seat.
“No damage to the ship,” Marenna replied. “I believe that the better part of the crew is slightly incapacitated for the moment, and I will send automated sentries to investigate possible injuries to off-duty personnel.”
“What happened?” she asked.
“There were two additional impacts,” the ship explained. “Small corridors had been opened at right angles to our own. Boulders of approximately two hundred meters were accelerated along these corridors and struck the ship above and below the forward hull, the result of remarkably accurate timing. The impacts rocked the ship violently.”
A slight understatement, Maeken reflected. She noticed that Lieutenant Skerri was sitting up and rubbing his head. At the moment that seemed to be a favorite activity of the Challenger’s crew.
“With us again, Mr. Skerri?” she asked.
“I was never completely gone,” he replied. “Just very close to it.”
He rose and walked stiffly over to her console. Holding the supports of her seat, he quickly checked the scanner images. Starwolf fighters were swarming over the hull of the ship, skimming the gleaming black surface by as little as two meters. All to absolutely no effect.
“As long as we keep the guns retracted, they have absolutely no targets,” Maeken explained. “Besides, it might be a trick. I want to keep that power to the hull shields in the event they throw something else at us.”
“I see what you mean,” Skerri agreed. “Tricky devils. These attacks are getting more sophisticated all the time.”
Maeken nodded slowly; it was as fast as she could nod. “Perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but I’m beginning to get scared. There seems to be no limit to how much Velmeran can think up and put together. We may reach a point where I will finally make a mistake.”
Skerri frowned. “It is getting dirty.”
“I’m glad you recognized something suspicious and got me to the bridge in time,” she said, grinning mischievously. “At least they didn’t catch you with your pants down.”
Lieutenant Skerri laughed in spite of the pain.
The seventh and last fighter dropped quickly into the sheltered cove formed by three towering projections in the Challenger’s hull. Watching from his own cockpit, Velmeran identified it as Lenna’s. The little ship extended its landing gear and dropped down until its landing pads locked magnetically against the hull of the Fortress.
“All down and no problems,” he reported over com. “You can break off the attack.”
“Right, Captain,” Baressa replied. “All packs break off… “
