Shadows of Golstar (18 page)

“I got it now. A jet of radiation appears to be coming
from a small asteroid cluster deep within the field. The cluster isn’t dense
enough to hide a ship, but the radiation jet has similar characteristics to a
hot leak from a reaction-drive propulsion system. It’s pretty small, but we
would have detected it even without the sensor upgrades.”

“So,” Owens said. “What’s the source?”

“Well, I completed another scan and just now found the
cause. It’s a sphere of metal alloy disguised as an asteroid, definitely man-made.
I pulled a profile comparison from the ship’s library and at that size; it
could be some sort of space-mine. They haven’t used them since the Altair
rebellion back in the last century.”

“What’s it doing out here?”

“I haven’t a clue, but it sure looks to be the genuine
article. The radiation jet could be coming from a leak in the mine’s propulsion
reactor. Lucky for us, it seems defective. That’s what gave it away, if it
really is a mine. With our recent luck, I guess you never know.”

Owens asked, “In case it’s not a mine, is there any
chance a human could be aboard that thing?”

“No Boss,” Hec assured him. “It’s just too small; no
room for environmental-support and a living compartment. Not even someone from
Genhome could fit in its dimensions given the equipment that would be needed to
sustain life.”

Owens paused in thought, and then made a quick
decision. He asked for the range of the various upgraded weapons aboard the
Holmes
.
Hec responded immediately with the specifications for each weapon. For a moment,
he considered contacting Neven to check if this was a little test he had
masterminded. After a moment more, he dismissed the idea. If it was a test, he
would take it on his own terms. He considered his options and thought at this
range the burst lasers should do quite nicely.

“Put the T-Birds on-line and give me manual control. I
could use a little practice. And while you’re at it, I want you to train every
sensor at the mine with full recording. I want to be able send our Mr. Neven a
little show.”

“You got the T-Birds, Boss. They’ve been upgraded to
Mark VIs. The weapons’ blisters have opened. The emitters are deployed.
Everything checks out in the green and weapons are hot. All available sensors
are on-line and recording. You have a clear target. It’s your show.”

A contoured weapons control grip immediately rose out
of the end of the seat’s right armrest. The seat once again had two armrests.
The broken one was repaired and both had been reinforced. A small tactical holo
appeared in front of him, blocking a part of the main screen.
 
Using the integrated targeting system, Owens
quickly locked on the innocuous appearing asteroid. The glowing cross-hairs
aligned on the target and changed in color. He squeezed the trigger; firing
three, one-second bursts of energy.

Owens was gratified to see he hit his mark the target
disappearing in a satisfying ball of energy. However, he was startled when an
alarm immediately sounded and eleven moving targets appeared on his screen as
flashing red diamonds. They looked to be small ships swarming out from behind
the larger asteroids within the field. Before Owens could utter a sound, he
felt a momentary vibration as the ship’s generators increased their output in
answer to Hec’s command for full shields. The reaction drive engines throbbed
to urgent life, and the
Sherlock Holmes
turned tail and began to run.

With mouth agape, Owens watched as the main
holo-screen turned into a tactical display that mirrored his own smaller one.
Highlighted indicators on either side of the display gave flicking readouts of
the ship’s defensive and offensive status. He saw that every generator was at
its highest output, all protective shields were deployed, and reaction drives
were at maximum thrust.

Not again, he thought. “What’s going on, Hec, now
who’s attacking us?” Owens finally shouted.

“We’ve been suckered,” Hec replied quickly. “I think
that we were expected to find that mine, if that is what it really was. It
looks like our laser fire provided a target path right back to us. I just finished
a scan of those blips. The damn things are human-guided ships and from the
looks of it, they’re spoiling for a fight. They must have hidden behind the
larger asteroids to shield them from detection. With all that floating nickel
and iron, I was blind to their presence.”

“Do you have any ideas on who they might be?”

“No, Boss, I receive no registry ID signals and no
reply to my hails. Sound familiar?
”

“That’s just great,” Owens said. “Is there anything
you
can
tell me about them?”

“Well, from their relatively small size, they must be
single pilot ships. I’m still correlating the data.”

“Okay, since you’ve already put the ship in motion,
what’s the plan?”

“All I’m trying to do right now is to put some
distance between us,” Hec responded. “But our options are limited as we’re
restricted to normal space. Since we’re still in the Denbus system, we can’t
use our subspace generators.”

“Well,” Owens sighed heavily. “You know the routine.”

 “I’ve already declared an official emergency and
transmitted the ‘Defend’ declaration.” The AI seemed to hesitate. “Uh, and I’ve
assumed full ship’s control if that’s okay with you?”

“I sort of figured that… a little late to be asking,”
Owen said dryly. “But hell yes, it’s definitely okay with me.” Owens then
formally repeated the transfer of control for the ships log. “If you can,
change the time stamp on the log to coincide with the actual transfer of ship
control. If we get through this, I don’t want any unnecessary questions.”
 

“It’s done, Boss.”

“For the future, provided there is one, your standing
orders are to assume full ship control under similar circumstances, at least
initially, unless I issue an order to countermand it. Is that clear?”

“Clear, Boss.”

Owens asked, “Okay, now why haven’t they fired on us
yet?” They’re definitely within standard weapons’ range.” Owens stared at the
blips on the screen as they made sudden, erratic course changes while still in
obvious pursuit of his ship. “Damn, they’re small. Where do they find the space
for weapons?”

“Would you believe that I can’t scan any weapons
aboard those ships? My best guess is that they have no weapons as such. Rather,
I think that they
are
the weapons.”

“You’re kidding!”

“I wish that I was.”

“So, what are they planning to do? Go for the kill and
bail out at the last moment?”

“Ah… I don’t think so, Boss. From my scans, there’s no
indication of a mother ship lurking around. There had to be, to ferry those
little devils, but it’s long gone now. Those ships appear to be little more
than engines, reactors and fuel. I can detect a single life-form in each ship
but there’s nothing to indicate an integrated life-support system. They must be
wearing space suits. Given the ships’ simple configuration and assuming the
limited time their suits can generate air, it looks like they don’t expect to
be coming back.”

Owens let out a surprised, “What?”

Hec asked, “Are you familiar with the ancient term,
Kamikaze?”

“I can’t believe this,” Owens muttered. Then louder,
“You’re serious, suicide pilots?” Owens watched the screen as Hec repeatedly
fired the lasers at the dodging ships. “Damn it, how long before we are at a
safe subspace emersion point?”

“Too long I’m afraid; they’re gaining on us and if I
can’t destroy at least three-quarters of them in the next four minutes, the
likelihood of our continued existence looks pretty damn slim. Even with all the
upgrades, ol’
Sherlock
is still not a full-blown military attack-class
vessel. She was designed for exploration, not fighting. We don’t have a
warship’s heavy shields or its blanket firepower. Under all the tacked-on
goodies, we’re still a scout ship.” One of the nearest diamonds on the
holo-screen winked out. “Hah, I finally got one of the little buggers.” Hec
then amended, “But a
pumped up kick-ass
scout ship!”

Owens watched as another red diamond winked out, and
then another as Hec successfully destroyed two more of the ships. “Three down,
eight to go,” Owens announced.

Another enemy indicator disappeared from the grid and
immediately a new alarm flared into life then quickly subsided. Hec assessed
the problem. “That was only a proximity alarm. That last ship was pretty close
before it blew, nothing penetrated our beefed-up shields, but we lost about ten
percent in available shield power. A little closer and we would have felt it.”

Owens asked, “That much from one small ship?”

Hec answered, “The fuel, when ignited has a big enough
bang to blow the reactor and make a rather effective nuclear bomb. I’d be
impressed if I wasn’t on the receiving end. It looks like the strategy is to
get two or three ships to detonate close enough to overload our shields; then
the remainder can finish us off.”

“Even with our new souped-up engines, we can’t outrun
‘em. They’re practically all engine with very little incremental mass. We, on
the other hand are hauling plenty of extra mass. They must only be using
rudimentary tracking; that’s why they needed us to fire a weapon, so they could
lock onto its source. They probably don’t even have onboard computers, so
they’re effectively flying by the seats of their pants and that’s making it
damn hard for me to anticipate their course changes.”

Owens stared at the tactical display. The tiny ships
continued to bob and weave while making slow progress in closing the distance
to his ship. His heart raced as he watched their deadly pursuit. He thought
furiously, desperate for an idea.  He was once again painfully reminded he
wasn’t a qualified space combat pilot. He was a ground-pounding detective by
trade.

Hec continued to fire at the pursuing ships but was
unsuccessful in taking out any more targets. As he was watching the tactical
grid, a sudden thought struck Owens. He quickly asked, “You didn’t mention
their shields; they have no shields?”

“No shields,” Hec confirmed. “It does it look like
they have a little extra plating at the noses of the ships for micro meteorite
strikes, but that’s about all I could determine. Not much protection but then
they don’t expect to be out there that long, so why add unneeded mass?”

Owens felt a surge of hope. He remembered something
from his briefing on the new weapons’ mods. “Quick, give me manual control of
the rail guns.”
 
Hec complied and a
different weapon’s grip emerged from the armrest as his holo-screen displayed
the new weapon’s options. Thumbing the small trackball built into the grip,
Owens selected the option he was looking for and immediately began firing. A
few moments later, a red diamond on the display began to slow then disappeared
from the tracking image, quickly followed by another, then another. One-by-one,
the diamonds disappeared from the holo-display until finally, no ship
registered on the
Holmes’
scanners. In a span of thirty seconds, they
had all been destroyed.

Hec remained silent for a moment and then began to
talk rapidly. “I would say ‘nice shooting’ if it weren’t for the fact you
cheated.” The AI griped.

“Hey, I didn’t cheat,” Owens protested. “You could
have used the rail gun. Why didn’t you?”

Hec sniffed, “There was nothing in the spec data that
indicated the rail guns had been touched. Obviously, someone failed to update
the specs. I see they can now handle multiple projectile salvos.”

“Actually, according to my briefing, they weren’t
modified at all. They simply provided us with additional military-class
ammunition for the rail guns; several types, in fact.” Owens smiled, patting
the weapon’s grip. “I took a chance and used the shells designated for
anti-personnel. The anti-personnel shells are actually designed to ward off
space-to-ship boarding parties using armored space suits. Once the shell covers
about two kilometers, it breaks up into a cloud of a hundred or so of
ferro-ceramic balls. Even a class-five hardened space suit would be shredded.”

“Hmmm, class-fives are pretty tough,” Hec commented.

“Well, I figured since those ships didn’t have
shielding and only cursory micro-meteorite protection, the anti-personnel
shells should penetrate the hulls. And, of course, with such a weapon, you
don’t need to be a sharpshooter.”

“It seems our benefactors neglected to include that
information in the inventories. I wonder what else they neglected to mention.
So basically, you used a high-tech shotgun to do in the bad guys.” Hec mused.
“That was pretty quick thinking on your part. It was a bit sloppy, but I’ll
admit it was pretty effective.”

“Thanks, but they should have been disabled, not
completely destroyed. I don’t understand why they disappeared from tactical.”

“Oh, I don’t think
you
destroyed them,” Hec
countered. “Your ‘shotgun’ wouldn’t have breached every fuel tank. Some should
have remained intact. I surmise they did it to themselves.”

Owens asked, “How?”

 “They must have been equipped with something
similar to a ‘dead man’s switch,’ something that would activate a self-destruct
either manually if the pilot remained alive, or automatically if the pilot
became incapacitated.”