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BRIDGE—KRANE DESTROYER ZOADEN—EARTH ORBIT

1345 EST

Quinjot’s cilia quivered as he pondered this new development. Exceltor had been opening two meter ports every 130 seconds all over near space. At 4 megawatts a pop, they were putting a fair amount of energy into this effort, but after looking down the vectors to a randomly chosen twenty and finding nothing, he was beginning to think that Exceltor must be doing it just to distract the kranes. Or perhaps they were temporary passive imaging portals? Open, get a snapshot, close and analyze.

A new report grabbed his attention. A lot more planet based sources were beginning to sweep space with beams of microwave radiation. Presumably they were trying to find out what was producing all the flashing lights in near space. Incredible luck! The wavelengths they were using were in a range where the kranes’ stealthing was more effective than the humans’. Quinjot’s initial impulse had been to shift the hell out of there before he was caught like he suspected Xajion had been, however, he was now realizing that this represented an incredible stroke of good fortune. If one of those beams swept Exceltor it would light up like an onmibull, whereas Zoaden would be hard to see without big antennas.

He decided to gut it out. “Rotan, deploy our own microwave antennas and see if we can pick up a ping off that humaniform ship. Then calculate the minimum size antenna ports we’d need to pick up a humaniform cruiser based on the strength of those microwave sweeps and open a couple on the other side of this damned planet.”
Should I let Jenkoit know what’s going on?
Quinjot wondered.
No!
he decided,
Let the scum sucker figure
something
out for himself.

BRIDGE—KRANE FLAGSHIP—LIGHT CARRIER XAJION—BOW FRAGMENT—EARTH ORBIT

1400 EST

Commander Kinjie was fuming. He knew that a destroyer, either Zoaden or Yaitan, had shifted into an orbit lower than Xajion’s because his navigation team had picked up the flash
despite
the severe damage to his fragment of a ship. The only port making equipment he had in this miserable fragment of a ship was the communications setup at the back of the bridge. The ports they’d been using to communicate with Yaitan and Zoaden in their P2 and P4 orbits just after the Xajion had been stricken. Gueel had been unable to find whichever ship had shifted in below Xajion using the comm ports without having the precision data they’d used to locate Yaitan and Zoaden in their previous orbits. However, Xajion had sent the other two ships some information on Xajion’s current location in the message where Kinjie had transferred command to Jenkoit on Yaitan.
Any cretin with a full complement of search ports should have been able to find Xajion with that data by now!
Kinjie was getting a sinking feeling that giving command to the more competent, but more junior Jenkoit was the source of this problem. He doubted that a peeved Quinjot was
refusing
to search for Xajion, but the arrogant fool was just the type to assign one or two of his less qualified technicians to the task.

Even worse, two meter ports had been opening all over creation and now planet-based units were sweeping the area with microwave frequencies. That damned Humaniform Federation
must
have had prior contact with this Mother-forsaken planet. Duot had finally gotten up the courage to tell Kinjie that they had been heavily irradiated by multiple planet-based sources of microwave just prior to their jump. No wonder Exceltor had found them so quickly. They must’ve just called their buddies on the planet, who’d seen Xajion’s in-shift flash, and asked them to radiate the whole area with those big, crude, planet-based antennas.
Now
they were having them sweep around to try to find Zoaden and Yaitan the same way. Exceltor had probably popped some 10 meter “blossom” antennas out through some of those 2 meter ports. Quinjot, that offspring of a DNA fertilized egg, probably hadn’t figured any of this out yet and, since he hadn’t established contact, couldn’t be told! Cilia wilting, Commander Kinjie spoke, “Fotayl, have you been able to rig the radio to broadcast on an antenna extruded through that damn comm port yet?”

“No sir.”

“How much longer?”

“Fifteen or twenty more minutes, sir.

“Too slow. Coded radio message to Zoaden and Yaitan, direct from our shipboard antennas. ‘Suspect that planet-based microwave radiators are in communication with Exceltor, therefore they will
not
sweep Exceltor for you. Recommend that you destroy radiators immediately. If you
are
swept by their radar, assume that Exceltor will have picked you up on blossom antennas that they extruded through some of those 2 meter ports. Jump
immediately
to safety. Quinjot, if, as I suspect, you have assigned your least-qualified port technicians to find and establish the rescue port to this fragment of Xajion, then I recommend your court martial for dereliction of duty
if
Zoaden ever successfully returns to Krane. I expect the humaniforms will home in on this radio message and destroy this fragment of Xajion in a few more minutes. Good hunting to you.”

BRIDGE—HUMANIFORM CRUISER EXCELTOR—COMETARY EARTH ORBIT

1402 EST

Lt. Snellen turned abruptly in her chair, “Captain! Krane-type radio broadcast, opposite side of P3! Coded, should take ten to twenty minutes to break the code. The broadcast antenna was not within line of site for Exceltor, but one of our blossom antennas has a directional fix and approximate vector.”

“Pass it to the gunnery room and have them check it out. I assume it came from a ported antenna from the bow fragment of that carrier. They probably can’t get back in direct port communication with the destroyers. Must be in pretty bad shape.”

Azimus exclaimed, “Whoa! Captain, one of the dirtside microwave radar antennas just swept that region and it looks like the bow fragment is actually
at
that location. They
must
be in bad shape if they can’t even port an antenna!”

“Have gunnery assign two ports to finish disabling the bow fragment, but keep everyone else on the search for those destroyers.”

BRIDGE—KRANE DESTROYER ZOADEN—EARTH ORBIT

1404 EST

With dismay Quinjot read and reread the message from Quell. Mother’s carapace! Now he
must somehow
find that DNA-based scum before the humaniform ship did, or at least cover his tracks. “Kueck! Have you found Xajion’s bow fragment yet?”

“Sir? You assigned Quac that task, sir. I’m looking for the humaniform ship, as I have been tasked, sir.”

“I assigned who?”

“Quac, sir.”

“I couldn’t have. I specifically remember assigning you!”

“Sorry sir. We thought you said Quac. In any case he’s just found the fragment sir. We homed him in on the radio broadcast, sir.”

“For the Mother’s sake get a port in there and rescue them!”

“Working sir.”

“OK also assign three gunnery teams to destroy those planet-based microwave broadcasters.”

Quinjot was nervously wondering whether he’d sounded sincere when he heard the words he dreaded.

“Sir, we’ve just been pinged by one of those planet-side microwave sweeps!”

Damndamndamndamn, damn!
Quinjot’s left head turned, then both began darting back and forth indecisively. “Give me a running count on the time since the ping! Prepare for emergency shift… back to P4! Is that rescue port working yet?”

“Opening now sir.”

“Get them over here, NOW!” Quinjot turned his right head to check the running count.
Thirty seconds! How long would it take the humaniforms to track them down from that ping?
“Is that escape shift set up?”

“The shift-ring’s already set up sir. We’re locating the P4 shift. We had a getaway shift already set to the backside of P6 if you want it sir.”

“Keep it! If I call shift and P4 isn’t ready, go to P6. Observers, any sign of a targeting port vectoring in on us?”

“No sir.”

“If you see one, don’t report it, just call for emergency shift!” He thought uneasily about how slim the chance of seeing a targeting port actually was.

BRIDGE—HUMANIFORM CRUISER EXCELTOR—COMETARY EARTH ORBIT

1406 EST

“Captain, we think we have a ping on the destroyer behind P3!”

“Feed gunnery.” The captain said. He murmured, “Gun room.” Then, “Guns, rush multiple ports to the location of this ping that we’re feeding you. They must know they’ve been pinged and will be pulling their antennas in preparation for jump. Blow holes in ‘em as soon as the first ports get there; don’t wait for other ports to arrive.” He thought,
We can’t possibly get many chances like this against these odds.

“Working sir.”

Captain Leis turned to Azimus. “What do you think’s going on with the ship that jumped in behind the moon? None of our ports have caught a glimpse and the planet based radars have now swept the entire circumference. At the altitude they jumped in at, any sustainable orbit would have brought them out from behind the moon by now. You think they came out so fast that they’re already beyond our sweep or did we just miss them because of their better stealthing?

A glazed look passed over Azimus’ face as he rocked in his seat. “Don’t think their stealthing is
that
good sir… I can back calculate from the reflection we just got off the other one though. I’ll also calculate what their incoming velocity would have to have been to be beyond the first sweeps.” His head tilted to an odd angle and he began murmuring to the computer.

GUNNERY ROOM—HUMANIFORM CRUISER EXCELTOR—COMETARY EARTH ORBIT

1408 EST

The long narrow room hung thick with the odor of nervous sweat. General Price found himself pacing back and forth along the rows of “cubes,” each with its own team of two to three operators. Price looked over their shoulders into the displays as if by staring harder he could somehow make an enemy ship appear in one of them. His skin crawled with the sensation that one of the enemy’s locator ports was just outside the wall of the chamber getting ready to position a star-port and blow them all to hell.

Suddenly, with a quiver in his voice, one of the noncoms shouted to Nedcam. “Sarge, I’ve got ‘em! I’ve got ‘em!”

Nedcam bellowed. “Teams one, three, nine, and twenty two! Take splits from Delos! Put some holes in it! It’s gonna jump!”

Price ran to where Delos sat at the number two cube. Delos’ cube showed the long, thin “false color” image of one of these “wormhole ships” and he saw the ring at one end brightly sparkling. The two cubes next to Delos’ immediately came alive with the same image and then began to diverge as their operators took the new ports that they had “located” on Delos’ off at slightly different angles, though still rushing toward the ship. As the cubes’ viewpoints rushed in close, loud booms repeatedly crashed through the room from the big cylinders in the back. The cubes’ displays zoomed back and showed radical changes. The “ship” started to deform and violet “false color” sparks and plumes began spraying out into the surrounding space from several sections.

BRIDGE—KRANE DESTROYER YAITAN—EARTH ORBIT

1415 EST

“Captain, I think Zoaden’s been hit! Their comm-port’s just translocated violently!”

“What? The motherless scum hadn’t shifted? Didn’t they pick up Kinjie’s message?” Jenkoit’s cilia stood on end and his exhalations began to cloud up. What else could possibly go wrong? How could a single humaniform cruiser,
even
if aided by the retrogressed locals, possibly have destroyed a light carrier and now a destroyer in just a few hours? Sure, there was a lot of luck involved in wormhole warfare, but this was
beyond
belief! “Locate a rescue port on that comm-port and see if we can bring any of them out. How much longer ‘til we have to re-shift to keep from crashing back into this damned moon?”

“Four hundred seventy five seconds sir.”

“Set the shift on automatic, to go at the last second.”

“Do you still want a bounce-type vertical relaunch sir?”

“Yes! What’d you think, that we were going to run?”

Quietly, “No sir.”

GUNNERY ROOM—KRANE DESTROYER ZOADEN—EARTH ORBIT

1416 EST

Commander Kinjie lay stunned on his side, his left head-hand weaving drunkenly in the air and his right stretched out flaccid on the deck. His relieved joy when the rescue port had blinded everyone by opening in the front of Xajion’s bridge had turned into dismay when, seconds after he ran through the port into Zoaden’s gunnery transport room, the destroyer had been wracked with violent explosions. His carapace had slammed into a bulkhead with stunning force and now he was having great difficulty controlling his neuromuscular system. To his horror, it seemed that all three of his excretory orifices had spilled involuntarily. The slippery mess beneath him was contributing to his difficulty in getting his feet-claws back to supporting him.

A minute passed and Kinjie found his legs had regained sufficient control that he was able to rise unsteadily and begin moving up the passageway toward the bridge. Another clap of thunder rang through the ship. The artificial gravity suddenly went off. At first Kinjie was dismayed, but then realized wonderingly that much of the clumsy motor dysfunction he’d been struggling with had been weakness. Without gravity, he found he could propel himself forward more easily, though reaching things to push off of remained difficult.

Kinjie realized that part of the reason he was traveling well was because he was being pulled along by a strong air current! There must be a hull breach near the bow!
Why didn’t the bulkhead doors close?
he wondered. Then he realized,
Ach, the power cabling must be cut too!

Kinjie’s pressure suit began to activate, indicating that there’d been a significant pressure drop. He peered ahead into the bridge with his good left head-hand. The images coming from his right head-hand’s eye cluster as it banged along flaccidly beside him kept distracting him. Zoaden’s bridge was strewn with floating bodies and moaning victims. He noted, with the same satisfaction he’d felt over diplomat Quell’s injury, that Captain Quinjot was one of the completely flaccid ones, drifting and slowly revolving near the ceiling, apparently dead. The bridge seemed to be losing air through multiple small holes, rather than one big one.