The Enclave (The Verge) (29 page)

Mark’s finger tapped excitedly at the frame, momentarily distorting the optics.  “Got the little bastard!”

“What’s going on?”  To Tom the object looked to be a refugee vehicle moving around to find somewhere safe to hole up and he said as much.

“Tom, I’ve been tracking this since I moved to the pickup point at the ridge. 
It’s moving at an altitude that most sensors would miss, thinking that it would be a land vehicle, but the Skipper had the
William Light
decked out with the best, so we picked it up.”  Hunter’s fingers tickled the frame again and a new display leapt up.  “Have a look at this.”

Tom leaned forward and quickly took in the information.

“Shit.”

The object was a Tiger; a small three-man fighter usually used for short haul convoy escorts and connected with a large fleet carrier.  The exhaust trail that Hunter had mapped showed that it came from a position ten clicks north of the site at Braidon Hills. 

“It’s armed to the teeth and its shielding is better than you get on most frigates.”  Hunter looked at Tom, a feral gleam in his eyes, “The complex had another exit, maybe another lab facility.”

Tom heard Hunter’s unspoken question and suddenly felt relieved that Katherine’s injuries caused her to be taken onto the
Australia
.  If she was here she would have had this ship turned around and headed straight to the new complex no matter what her injuries.  Her one thought would be to destroy that complex.  Tom felt a twinge of guilt; he had stopped Steve from laying the charges at Braidon Hills, the Federation needed the place intact so that any evidence about Alliance involvement and what they were working on could be found.  But then again, would Kath have let the Tiger run?

“Mark.  Send a packet to the
Australia
, notifying them of the site’s co-ordinates and all the info on that Tiger.”  Tom paused and looked again at the Tiger’s heading.  “Their heading is running parallel to ours.  I want you to drop back and shadow them.  I want to know more about what they are up too.  Alert me if they change direction”

“Aye Aye Lieutenant.”  The helmsman’s fingers again few over the optics and within a few moments Tom saw the icon flash for a sent data packet.  He turned and headed back into the personnel cabin and flopped into the nearest chair.  Ignoring Steve’s inquiring gaze, Tom’s body fell into a much-needed sleep.

“Lieutenant.”

Tom started in his chair.  Normally a light sleeper, he was not used to being roughly woken.  His body must have really needed sleep.  Tom looked up at Steve. 

“I’m awake.”

It was then that Tom realized that his body could feel no vibration and there was no humming sound from an active engine.  The
William Light
had landed.

“Why have we landed?”

“Mark’s got something on that Tiger we’ve been following.  That will explain everything.”

“How long have I been asleep?”

“Not long.  About an hour.”

“Shit.”

“I think you might be glad of having this hour once this day is finished.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Tom said as he rose from his chair and stretched himself as much as he was able in the confines of the personnel cabin.  He then made his way into the cockpit.

“Hunter.”

“Lieutenant.”

The Astrogator was always formal when there was heavy business at hand, though his urge to impress was more pronounced whenever Katherine was present.

“What have you got for me?”  Tom sat down in the co-pilots chair and waited for Hunter to pull up the optics.  The same display flashed up as before except that this time the Tiger was not producing a tracking trace.  It was stationary, about 10 Klicks south of them. 
What the hell are they doing?

“How long has the Tiger been stationary?”

“Twenty minutes.  As soon as I noted them going down I landed as well and have been watching them on the sensors.  No one has left the vehicle and they have kept their engines hot.”

“So.  It looks like they’re waiting for something.”

“Or someone.”

Tom looked again at the optics.  The Tiger had landed on an open plateau that would be noticed by any craft flying in the vicinity.  They were not hiding themselves.  Maybe they were hoping to be mistaken as refugees, though a detailed scan of the craft would show that not to be the case.

“Whatever they’re waiting for; they want to be able to leave in a moment’s notice.  Since the engines are hot that means they won’t be waiting around long.”

Hunter’s fingers skipped over a second optics screen.  What he saw caused him to frown.  “The sensors can pick up no incoming traffic and I can detect no one on foot either.”

“Maybe they’re waiting for a signal -”  As soon as Tom spoke, the optics showed the Tiger suddenly firing up its engines and a red icon flashed that its weapons systems were armed.

“Mark, get us the hell out of here.” 

The deck already thrummed with the sounds of the engines.  Tom gritted his teeth.  The standard armament on a Tiger would rip right through a planetary craft like the
William Light
.  And the pulse weapons on the
William Light
would only tickle the Tigers shields if fired at their full potential.

“Alpha, strap yourselves in, we’re going to have a Tiger on our tail quick smart.”  Tom strapped himself in as he spoke and took over the business as Co-pilot. 

“Tran, take the gunnery station.  I am feeding you what info I can about the Tiger, including what Hunter collected on its exhaust signature.” 

The guns would not even worry the Tiger’s shielding but Tom felt better knowing that they were at least fighting back.

“Yes Sir.”

The
William Light
was now rising quickly from the ground; once Mark Hunter had clearance he spun the vehicle on its tail and hit maximum velocity South.

Tom kept a close eye on the optics as he adjusted systems to pump more power to the
William Light’s
engines.  Whatever power he found, Hunter quickly used.  The sensors showed that the Tiger was coming up on them fast, faster than the
William Light
could accelerate.  This was not good, not good at all. 

‘Shepherd, they’re closing.’
  Tran’s voice came over Tom’s comm.

At that moment there came a sudden booming sound from outside the craft and Tom’s eyes snapped to the optics as they flared up in an alert.

“Oh no…” Tom groaned and Hunter, seeing the same information pulled hard to the right.

The first torpedo detonated fifty metres off the port side, the shockwave hitting the side of the
William Light
causing the ship to heave and roll.

‘Incoming!’
Steve snapped over the commlink.

“Compensating,” Hunter muttered as he suddenly pushed the cruiser into a nosedive causing alarms to activate all over the cockpit.  The ground grew rapidly closer through the front viewport and Tom found himself gritting his teeth as the detonation shockwave from the second torpedo shook the tail of the
William Light
.  And Hunter was not pulling up.

“Mark!”

As Tom’s voice cut across the cockpit, Hunter wrenched back on the controls and they suddenly leveled several metres above the ground, speeding South again.  Moments later the
William Light
was buffeted again by a booming shockwave.  Hunter’s fingers flew back over the console and the ship suddenly swerved up.

“Cross your fingers that the inertial dampeners hold out.”

The fingers blurred again and the
William Light
moved to execute several fast, tight barrel rolls before breaking out into zigzag evasive maneuvers.   Another torpedo streaked past them to detonate not far in front of them.  The resulting shockwave knocked the
William Light
  on its side and Hunter took the opportunity to swig the ship around and then throw it into another steep climb.

“Hunter!”

The pilot did not answer Tom, but instead evaded the next torpedo coming for them that whizzed off and detonated far out of range of the
William Light
. 

“How many torpedoes is that thing carrying?”

‘I don’t know but the Tiger is arming more to throw at us,
’ Steve Tran said over the link.

“Great.  Just great,” Tom muttered.

‘They’re playing funny buggers though.  The scans taken from the other torpedoes show that the target locks are not being activated.  Explains why the Electronic Counter Measures are not working.’

“They probably think we have the Commander on board.”

As Tom spoke another brace of torpedoes streaked past them and on the optics he saw Steve activate the
William Light’s
quickly depleting complement of ECM’s to counter them.   Even with all this, one of the torpedoes detonated close enough to buck them with its shockwave.  Tom even fancied he could hear the shrapnel hitting the hull.  Hunter leveled the ship again and sped onwards.

“I’ve had enough of this.”  Tom released his seatbelt and jumped up from the co-pilot’s seat.  Hunter did not even spare him a glance, his mind fully concentrating on evading the Tiger and its torpedoes.

He made his way through the personnel cabin to the small room that passed for the
William Light’s
gunnery control.  It was only a single panel affair, not as impressive as the controls Steve was used to on the
Adelaide
.  The Tac officer was hunched over the controls tracking the current barrage of torpedoes coming at them and having run out of ECM’s was now trying to manually destroy them.

Tom wrapped an arm through a crash bar and waited for Steve to finish his work.  Even though the targeting was not activated on the torpedoes, the shockwaves from their close detonations could still do them serious damage.

Steve finished entering his firing sequences and Tom tensed as he waited for the shockwaves to hit the
William Light
.  As the last of the shockwaves rolled over them Tom came and knelt beside Steve.

“That circlet that you took from Ross.  Do you still have it on you?”

“Yeah.  Why?”  Steve was only half listening to Tom as he was already readying himself to track the next barrage of torpedoes.

“Give it to me.”

Tom’s tight tone must have grabbed Steve’s attention.  He turned and looked Tom in the eyes.

“Why?”

Tom was about to tell Steve not to question his commanding officer but stopped himself.  “When they bring us down and find that the Commander is not on board we’ll all be dead men.”

Urgent beeping from the gunnery controls made Steve turn back and run his fingers over the new firing solutions, any torpedoes that were missed, he would take care of manually. 

Steve drew the circlet and its power pack from his utility belt as he turned back to Tom.  “Are you sure you want to risk this?  We really don’t know what this thing is capable of.”

“I would do anything to stop those bastards from getting what they want.”

It wasn’t the best reply or the best reason but Steve still handed the piece of equipment over to Tom.  As Tom took it, the gunnery control again screamed an alert; Steve turned back to manually pick off the torpedoes that had got through his firing solution.

Tom barely spared a glance at Varden and the unconscious Joshua.  Varden was seat belted to the chair beside the toilet cubicle, her eyes never leaving the door.  Locked inside was Ross.

Dropping back into the co-pilot’s seat, Tom found no change in the situation; Hunter still was managing to keep the
William Light
out of harm’s way.  But all it would take was one mistake and they would all be toast.  He slapped on his seat harness and sat with the circlet clenched in his hand.

‘Lieutenant, the guns need more power shunted to them.  The power cells are nearly out.’

“And I need to keep power going to the engines,” Hunter said as he pulled the ship up into yet another steep climb to avoid torpedo fire.

I wonder how Ross is going in the loo?
  The idle thought slipped into Tom’s head as his brain tried to furiously think of what to do.  Without their pulsars, they had no defense against the torpedoes, and without the engines they were a sitting duck.  If only they could get at least five seconds of peace where they did not need to gun the engines.

“Immel it,” Tom suddenly said.

“What?”

Tom looked across at Hunter.  “Do the Immelman
maneuver.  A large loop mind you.  Gravity can help us on the way down and you won’t need to have all the power pushed to the engines.  We can do a hot siphon to the pulsar power cells.”

“Does the
William Light
look like a bi plane to you?”

“Just do it.  You never know, we might even be able to get behind the bastards.”