The Ascendant Stars (14 page)

But now everyone felt hunted, trapped. It came out in expressions and postures, eyes widening suddenly in shock or squeezed tight shut in fear, fingers pointing, quietly muttered curses. Kao Chih returned his gaze to the flatscreen and saw one of the
Marauders caught in a tumbling trajectory, trailing swirls of gas while pulse cannon fire stitched bright, criss-cross lines against the blackness. Then the Marauder pilot regained control, throwing his craft into a series of evasive manoeuvres as a flock of enemy missiles converged.

The frame zoomed out to reveal the spread of the battle. The Marauders were small compared to the Suneye ships. It was like an aquavarium he once saw being unloaded at the underdocks of Agmedra’a, the Roug orbital – inside, two big almost-fish lurked torpidly at the bottom of the tank while smaller creatures darted around them, nibbling flecks snatched from the greater ones’ tails and fins. In the half-minute between the offload and the exit to Cargo Staging he saw the big fish snare three of their parasites with bizarre tentacle-tongues.

Out there in the cold dark, the Marauders nimbly dodged volleys of enemy fire and missiles with such skill and bravado that Kao Chih felt like joining in the cheers that went up from time to time. Those Vox Humana boys could really fly. At the same time he wished he knew what was going on aboard the
Nestinar
and how close the repairs were to completion.

Then the inevitable happened. One of the Marauders evaded a trio of missiles only to be hit by a projector beam from one of the Suneye ships. It sheared off one of the port manoeuvring thrusters, sending it slewing round straight into the path of an oncoming missile. The craft vanished in a violent burst of white fire that dazzled the sensors for a moment. When the picture stabilised there was a glimpse of a glowing wreck amid an expanding cloud of debris. A despairing groan went around the lounge.

In the next instant the frame pulled back and panned across to one of the Suneye ships, which, oddly, was moving sideways. While the other two now redoubled their efforts against the remaining Marauders, this one seemed to be trying to distance itself …

Abruptly, the ship disappeared. There was a collective gasp of amazement. Some colonists pointed, others leaned forward to study the screens, then a woman looking out of one of the oval ports cried out, ‘It’s here!’

With others pressing behind him, Kao Chih stared out – and up. The Suneye ship was there all right, perhaps a couple of hundred metres away but still moving sideways and rapidly closing on the
Viteazul
. Alarms began to sound and a sudden panic took hold.

‘Enemy vessel on collision course!’ said a voice over the PA. ‘All passengers assume safety positions! Admiral Zhylinsky, please come to the bridge.’

Most of the colonists were crowded around the hatches leading to the ship’s main spinal corridor, but Kao Chih was still at the oval window, fairly certain that he was in no immediate danger. Even though the Suneye ship was rushing side-on towards him. As he watched, shimmering, tapering beams sprang out from glints spaced along its smooth hull, maybe grappler fields of some kind, he guessed.

‘This is First Officer Rosario – all crew and passengers brace for impact.’

The shock threw him off his chair to land on his shoulder, the impetus carrying him further, flipping him over. Dazed, he struggled to his feet. The lounge was a chaos of overturned furniture, fallen people and the cries of the wounded. As he watched, some chairs floated free of the floor and glided along for a few feet before banging back down again.

Deck gravity is losing coherence
, he thought.
Is the enemy already aboard?

Someone grabbed his arm. He was startled to see that it was Admiral Zhylinsky.

‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘There’s a security station above on Deck 7 midsection – we can pick up weapons and supplies there.’

‘But sir, why not head for the bridge?’

‘That’s now the riskiest place to be – they’ll shut it down before they subdue the colonists.’ The admiral straightened suddenly, head cocked as if listening. ‘It’s gone quiet along the dorsal corridor. Quick, this way.’

The older man seemed possessed of an intense energy as he practically dragged Kao Chih to the other end of the lounge.
Almost concealed by the low lighting and the textured, dark brown decor was a recess with a partially camouflaged door that opened to the admiral’s thumbprint. Bead lamps winked on as they sidled along a narrow access passage. The air was warm and dry and smelled of oil and plastics and the admiral seemed to be quite familiar with the place. When Kao Chih asked about this, the admiral shrugged.

‘I was captain of the
Viteazul
before my promotion to admiral. Relations with Earthsphere were still tense back then and we had to be ready if their agents attempted a hijacking or some kind of sabotage. So I got to know the less obvious ways around the ship, especially ones like this which allow access between the decks.’

Kao Chih smiled, jabbing his thumb upwards. ‘To Deck 7.’

Zhylinsky nodded, clearly pleased at being able to show off his clandestine knowledge. ‘I even had this maintenance passage extended and modified. It now has a ladder that comes up in the storage closet of Deck 7 security station!’

Several minutes later they were climbing out of a square hatch in the floor of a small room with box-stacked shelves. Kao Chih was helped up by a middle-aged female security officer, then a skinny youth in a grubby yellow onepiece handed him a paper cup of water.

‘Good to see you, Sergeant,’ said the admiral. ‘Where’s the rest of your team?’

‘Sdanek and Iklos got shot by enemy drones deploying narcoleptics, sir,’ said the woman. ‘Combination of needle-darts and dispersal pellets. I was lucky to escape.’

‘I see – and are we secure?’

‘Sealed tight, sir, now that hatch is locked. Monitor network is still up and as far as I can tell the enemy is in control of both engineering and the bridge.’

‘Good. Sergeant Miczek, this is Kao Chih, our liaison with the Pyre colonists and now a comrade in this time of need.’ Zhylinsky gazed at the yellow-garbed youth. ‘And who is this young man?’

‘Erm … Marko Degellis, sir, uh, Captain, um, assistant stores monitor.’

The admiral sternly shook his head. ‘Marko, have you ever used a gun?’

‘Only on a glowset, sir … ’

Zhylinsky smiled. ‘Good reactions, then? I used to be pretty sharp in
Biokrysis
, you know, but that was a few years ago, of course. So, yes, we’ll find you something useful in the arms locker, along with the body armour. Not going anywhere without
that
!’

The security station comprised two small rooms, one with heavy cabinets lining two of its facing walls, the other equipped with consoles and screens. The admiral led them in, seated himself in one of the two swivel chairs and brought the screens to life.

‘I had subfeeds from all main monitor nodes routed here. We should be able to get both internal and external views.’

Two screens began to show a succession of images from around the ship, views of people lying sprawled and unconscious in corridors down which glittering disc-shaped drones floated on patrol. Cabins and common areas were the same, as were the crew decks and the operations rooms. Smaller, arrowhead-like drones were also everywhere, mainly hovering. The subjugation of the
Viteazul
had been swift and efficient. Almost.

Yet Kao Chih could not see how they could do anything against such a numerous adversary. But he knew that inaction could only lead to the certainty of capture and imprisonment back on Pyre.

‘I wonder what’s been happening on the other ships,’ he said quietly.

‘The very question that has been vexing me,’ the admiral said.

Just then their surroundings quivered and Kao Chih felt the telltale momentary dizziness of a hyperdrive jump. Marko staggered a little, Sergeant Miczek leaned against the bulkhead and the admiral sat straighter, eyes glaring.

‘They’ve shifted us somewhere else,’ he said, fingers suddenly flying over controls both solid and holo. ‘Now we really do need access to the externals.’

One of the monitors switched to a view of the Suneye ship seen from a hull cam at the stern of the
Viteazul
. The grappler force-beams that Kao Chih saw earlier shone brightly now, a
bizarre scaffolding of energies locking the two ships firmly in place, roughly twenty metres apart. In addition four opaque, fluted tubes stretched across to connect with the
Viteazul
’s flank. As they watched, several Suneye drones, the smaller fist-sized arrowheads, began gliding back to their mothership in pairs and threes. In moments this had become a constant stream, scores of arrowheads and the larger discs returning to the Suneye vessel. Studying this, the admiral nodded.

‘To be expected,’ he said. ‘Now that we’re effectively crewless and the colonists have been sedated, it’s safe for them to cast us adrift and return to the battle. Once that’s satisfactorily concluded they can come back to collect us. There, see?’

With the last of the drones back aboard, the Suneye vessel began to retract the boarding tubes. Kao Chih gazed at the sight, impatient to do something, purposefully ignoring futility.

‘Admiral, sir,’ he said. ‘Please excuse my lack of technical knowledge, but is it possible for even we four to reactivate your ship’s engines so that we may not be here when they return?’

‘I admire your spirit, Pilot Kao, but it is very likely that the control systems have been disabled.’ Then he gave a toothy grin. ‘But that won’t stop us trying! We’ll wait until … ’

‘Sir,’ said Sergeant Miczek. ‘The tubes are extending again.’

The access tubes had been detaching and retracting one by one, but now they were extending out again.

‘Something’s happened to change their mind,’ the admiral said. ‘Ah, look – there!’

A small craft darted into view, weaving in and out of the access tubes and grappler beams. As it raked the hulls of both ships with volleys of greenish energy bolts, the admiral’s sensor systems grabbed images from hull feeds and presented a tactical composite. The attacking craft had a bullet-shaped aft section ending in a pyramidal thrust assembly; the forward section had the look of a tapering cockpit in an oddly textured grey material, flanked left and right, above and below, by four curved weapon sponsons. And the newcomer had not come alone.

‘The drones are coming back,’ said Marko, voice wavering.

‘Not so many this time,’ Kao Chih observed.

‘Either they expect these unknown attackers to try and board us as well,’ the admiral said, ‘or … ’

The security station shivered and the screens flickered as one into a spiral standby symbol. A second or two later the external feed came back on – the Suneye ship, its boarding tubes and grapples, was still there but beyond they could see a wide segment of landscape with ragged edges, its surface made grey by millennia of exposure to hard vacuum. They had jumped back to the gas giant in the red dwarf system, only now they were on the other side, away from the fighting.

‘They brought us back,’ said the admiral, smiling.

‘So we’ve a chance of being rescued,’ said Marko.

‘Only if we can stop these Suneye bandits from towing us off to their prison.’ The admiral got up, went to one of the cabinets and opened it. Tough but flexible body armour was handed round, jackets and leggings, and goggled face protectors. All of it had a silky black sheen.

‘Sabotage,’ the admiral said. ‘We fight our way onto their ship, find some important-looking systems and set a few shaped T9 charges. Oh, and slap a few on those boarding tubes as well. Sergeant, how would you rate our chances?’

Miczek squinted back at the screens. ‘Far fewer drones patrolling our corridors than before, sir. I’d give good odds on reaching their ship.’

The admiral grinned and broke out the weaponry.

Kao Chih, though, felt that the admiral was being less than candid about encountering the Suneye drones. Might they not have something more powerful than darts to fire? And could there be other lethal countermeasures hidden in ceilings and bulkheads?

Kao Chih was passed a beam pistol: cased in some lightweight alloy and coloured white and blue, it looked and felt like a toy.

‘Don’t be deceived by the lightness,’ said Sergeant Miczek as she gave an identical one to Marko. ‘These are droptroop issue, a redesigned model with a twenty per cent range improvement over the previous mark.’

‘We’ll divide into two teams,’ said the admiral. ‘Young Marko will stay with the sergeant, keep his wits about him and follow orders, understood?’

Marko grinned nervously and bobbed his head.

‘Kao Chih,’ Zhylinsky went on. ‘You’re with me. Let’s teach those Suneye machines a thing or two, eh?’ He pointed at one of the screens, which showed that the
Viteazul
was being hauled on a course leading around the gas giant towards the vicinity of the Roug–Vox Humana flotilla. ‘Time is limited. Let us be on our way.’

Via more maintenance passages, communal rooms and underfloor crawlways they reached a medstation near the sternmost of the boarding tubes in ten minutes or so. Once the sole patrolling disc-drone had passed by on its way along the dorsal corridor, the admiral led them out along the passageway. He used a local hatch override to lock all the nearby hatches, sealing off that particular corridor junction. Then they approached the oval opening in the ship’s hull. Silver-green hooks curved round the edges of it, their tips sunk into the bulkhead metal. Beyond, the opaque conduit waited, undulating slightly.