“May I have your attention, please?” Kas’ voice reverberated throughout both ships. “I have an important announcement that concerns everyone aboard Vir Rekesh and Starhopper, Fleet and civilian. As you all know, Starhopper has just returned from contacting Empire diplomatic personnel. You also know that it is necessary to negotiate passage for us through the independents.
“But news of our mission has leaked to the media. They, in turn, have spread the word throughout man- settled space. They have also fueled a plague hysteria.
“Now, we know that a cure has been found. If it had not, all of us would be sick by now and most of us would be dead. Unfortunately, the people of the Empire and the independents don’t know it.
“We’re almost ready to begin our run home. Passage has been negotiated. However, due to the excitement over the plague we are not going to be allowed to approach Prime or, indeed, any inhabited system. The course we have been given is roundabout and ends in an uninhabited system near the Empire/Alliance border. Moreover, we will be quarantined when we get there until the authorities are convinced the plague is no threat. So, it’s going to be a long, boring trip.
“Captain Ler-Traken of Starhopper managed to get a promise from a diplomatic Fleet Attache to try to get us reprovisioned, but I’m not going to lie to you. At the moment most of settled space considers Vir Rekesh and Starhopper to be plague ships. If we try to deviate from our approved course, we might very well be attacked and destroyed by our own Fleet.
“Now that would be bad enough,” he continued, “But there’s more. Our course has been negotiated. That means any competent astrogator can backtrack the course and locate this system — and us.
“I’m not going to belabor the obvious. We have to get out of this system as quickly as possible. A battle group from the Glory or one of the other independents could be on its way here right now. I’m sure that even you civilians realize that a warship with only a tenth of a crew is not an effective warship.
“So, I’m calling on each of you, civilian or Fleet, enlisted or officer, to do your utmost to get us underway. I have been given an estimate of three to four days to get us ready to boost. We can do better than that. I want to boost in forty-eight hours.”
He flicked off the intercom, then immediately flicked it back on. “I almost forgot to mention something. Most of you know that battle cruisers carry planet-busters. We have two of them aboard. Just in case we have to fight and are overwhelmed, I intend to make certain those weapons do not fall into the wrong hands. Therefore, as soon as we break orbit we will jettison both of them into this system’s sun. No matter what happens to this ship, or us, those planet-busters will not be allowed to threaten our homes and our loved ones. That is all.”
He flicked off the intercom and turned to To-ling. “What do you think?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I think we’d better be on our toes. We might make your forty-eight hours. And most of the crews will be too busy trying to cause any trouble. I would not have expected trouble for at least forty-eight hours anyway. But once we enter Jump, most of them will find themselves with time on their hands. Time to compare notes and begin bitching and egging each other on.”
He nodded. “That’s about the way I figured it. Okay, let’s pass the word to the officers and petty officers to slack off a bit on the discipline and concentrate on getting us under way.”
The previously busy atmosphere aboard Rekesh took on an edge of urgency and became noticeably more frantic. Every officer and petty officer, as well as most of the civilian techs, was exhausted and groggy from lack of sleep, but they made Kas’ forty-eight hour deadline.
The civilian techs were a pleasant surprise. Oh, there was some bitching and a few hysterics that demanded to be immediately returned to Prime but for the most part, once they realized their lives were also at stake they attacked their jobs with frenetic enthusiasm. In addition, they had taken his idea and developed it further. All of Rekesh ’s weaponry could now be controlled by the two gunnery officers, assisted by four enlisted Gunners at secondary stations away from the bridge.
Tre Wansung breathed a huge sigh of relief as Vir Rekesh broke orbit and headed for the jump point, Starhopper matching her moves.
Kas suppressed a grin. “I don’t think I’d relax yet, Commander Wansung. We’re still almost two days from the jump point.”
The young Commander flushed, and then grinned. “Yes, sir. It just feels good to finally be under way again. I was beginning to feel like I was on a space station instead of a ship.”
Kas started to snap a retort when he realized that he felt better, too. He contented himself with ordering max boost — which was not particularly impressive. A ship in space may be weightless, but it is not massless. It was no mean feat to accelerate the ship’s multi-megaton mass at all, much less to accelerate it quickly.
He did permit himself a smile as he ordered the planet-busters launched on their self-destructive orbit into the system’s sun. At least the Fleet would not have to face those monstrosities in the hands of an enemy. Of course, what Pankin or the Emperor might have to say about him throwing away perfectly functional weapons… well, he’d deal with that if, no, make that when, they got to their destination.
Kas and To-Ling had double-checked Lieutenant Commander Raskin’s orbital computations. They agreed that the planet-busters should hit the sun’s photosphere an hour and twenty-seven minutes before they jumped.
Given the speed of light and their own no-longer-trivial acceleration away from the sun, that meant they should have a few seconds to see at least the beginning of any effect the bombs might have, but they should escape into jump ahead of any wave fronts generated by them. They hoped.
Once underway Kas sent the crews of both ships to alert stations. From this time on, they would be at alert stations anytime they were not actually in Jump. It wasn’t exactly standard procedure, but then, these were not exactly standard conditions.
Despite their theoretical safety margin, Kas was fidgeting, eyes glued to the countdown timer as the time approached for them to be able to see the effect, if any, of the planet-busters’ impact on the sun.
A shout from the helmsman interrupted his worrying. “Ship emerging! Two… Three… Six ships, sir!”
Kas cursed and swung to his panel, clicking the controls to forward sensors, rather than aft. There they were, six blips. Two were noticeably larger, and he was unsurprised by the Gunnery Officer’s cry of “Empire pattern warships, sir! Two are destroyers!”
Kas forced himself to remain calm. They were incredibly lucky. Whoever the admiral commanding that flotilla, and whatever his origins, he could not be expecting to find Kas’ ships charging directly toward him at a significant fraction of light speed.
No, he had certainly been expecting to have plenty of time to form his command into an attack formation, then to spend perhaps days looking for Rekesh and Starhopper.
His surmise was confirmed by the ragged formation that was becoming even more disorganized as the ships’ captains detected a half-kilometer-sized ship bearing down on a collision course and keyed emergency maneuvers.
He swung his command chair. “Gunners, fire everything we’ve got. They’re confused, and we’d better keep them that way!”
The hull beneath his feet thrummed as Vir Rekesh erupted in weapon discharges. Heavy lasers, particle beams, and even projectiles slashed out toward the new arrivals. Kas tried to judge the effect, if any, of their fire, but as suddenly as it had begun, the universe disappeared, and they were in the nothingness of supralight. Kas glared at now-useless sensors. “Damage reports…” he began. Then he noticed Con Vertring, the Assistant Operations Officer, speaking urgently into his headphones. Of course. Any officer worth ten minims would be collecting damage reports as soon as they jumped — or even before.
“Ops,” he continued, “route damage reports and all sensor scans for the last five minutes to my cabin. XO, if you’ll join me, we’ll try to figure out what the Sheol just happened.”
A frosty smile rose to To-Ling’s lips. “Of course, Commodore.” They hurried to the flag cabin.
“The first thing to find out is whether Starhopper made it,” he began. “I hope we had some sensors trained on her!”
To-Ling shook her head. “I doubt it, sir. Almost all our sensors were trained on the sun, so we could observe and record what happened. If anything.”
Kas frowned. “Yah. If anything. Okay, let’s try to piece this thing together. Whoever that was,” he waved an arm vaguely, “His timing couldn’t have been worse from his point of view. Or better, from ours. I…” he paused as his earpiece came alive with damage reports.
He breathed a huge sigh of relief. Damage was minimal. Their enemies had managed only scattered,
