Warborg - Star Panther (16 page)

“What a piece of bad luck.” Briton muttered, as he watched the holodisplay of Martin’s failed attack.

The other three mumbled in agreement.

“At least he didn’t get away clean.” Reese’s low rumble filled the silence, “pretty much ruined his day, I think.”

“Hmmph . . . yeah, but the bastard did get away.” Lieutenant Alysis Hayes’ green eyes sparked as she resettled into the luxurious seat on Martin’s yacht bridge. “We’ll be seeing that son-of-a-bitch again.”

“I reckon you’re right,” Reese smiled, then chuckled. “But I don’t think it’s going to be any time too soon.”

Briton eyed the Lieutenant. “I suspect Reese is correct, and it’s no reflection on you. You more than did your part Lieutenant. That ion blast from the wreckage did a lot of damage, probably more than we realize.”

Martin gave a low laugh. “I don’t think anyone knows what the overall effect of having half a strike fighter blown to ions and blasted into a ship at near light speeds by a one kiloton pseudo-nuke would be.”

Reese smiled. “Think it made their lights flicker?”

“Hell, I hope it makes the shit heads glow in the dark.” Hayes grumped.

“If it happened just a couple hundred meters closer . . .” Briton shook his head and heaved a sigh.

Martin scratched Prowler between the ears. “It may have worked out for the best. Prowler ran some time analysis and came up with some very disturbing results. During the twenty seven hundred meters where the Koth could see the missile, there’s a ninety percent probability they could have jumped clear.”

“That son-of-a-bitch was quick,” Hayes grated. “I can attest to that first hand.”

“That derelict fighter may have been a blessing in disguise.” Martin sighed. “And there’s more,” He had their complete attention.

A second holodisplay materialized along side the first. A moment later a Koth killer ship appeared in the display.

“This is the ship that Brian and I ran into.” Martin nodded toward the second display. The ship that evaded his missile came up on the original display. The ships in the two displays slowly rotated in unison. “At first I thought they had added gun turrets to the first ship and that’s what the Lieutenant and I were facing yesterday. It fits the Koth profile of changing something in response to our tactics and the turrets would be a quick effective fix. Those turrets would have made Brian’s suicidal run impossible.”

Lieutenant Hayes raised an eyebrow with an unasked question.

“It’s a long sad story, I’ll fill you in later Lieutenant.” Briton gave the girl a sad smile. “Continue, Major.”

“But look at the superstructure. This gnawed at my subconscious all last night, until finally I realized it wasn’t the same ship.”

“Oh my God,” Reese sputtered. “You mean there’s two of the dang things?”

Briton paled noticeably. “. . . or more.”

“Son-of-a-bitch,” Hayes hissed. “This is just peachy, we still don’t have any
effective
way to fight these things.” She seemed to sag a little. “Let’s face it, my tincan was pretty much useless.”

“Not that you didn’t give it one hell of a try, Alysis.” Martin consoled the grousing Lieutenant. “The hypervels just weren’t up to the task.”

The other two men nodded in glum agreement.

Reese sucked his teeth, “I wonder how long it will take the boys over in fleet intelligence to figure out this little tidbit.”

“Oh, I’m sure they’ll see it soon enough.” Martin snickered. “They just haven’t been as up close and personal with these guys as I have.”

Hayes turned to Briton. “Do you have any pull with the R and D troops.”

He answered her with a non-committal shrug. “Maybe . . . if the idea is sound.”

She gave a tight smile. “The hypervels didn’t work for squat.” She heaved a sigh and stared at Briton. “I want a gun . . . a big fucking gun. Not in a turret, it can take up the whole damn ship. I’ll aim it by pointing my ship, like it would be possible to miss that fat ass bastard from a couple thousand meters. Piece of shit!” She was gnashing her teeth and waving her arms all over when she finished.

Briton studied the Lieutenant with reserved neutrality, but Reese’s head rolled back in laughter. Martin gave the girl a toothy smile as she blushed a slightly over her outburst.

“A gunfighter,” Reese chided Hayes. “You want to be an’ old fashioned, wild west quick draw gunfighter.” He finished with a huge lopsided smile.

She winked and answered Reese with a nasty grin. “Sure, why not?”

“Why not, indeed.” Briton commented quietly, his eyes lost in thought.
[7]

Martin shook himself awake at the insistence of the incoming message alert on the Command channel. “Major Morgan reporting.” He responded, shaking out the rest of the cobwebs.

Admiral Chin’s face appeared in the vidphone. “Major . . . oh sorry to wake you.” She smiled.

“It’s ok. What can I do for you, ma’am?”

“I’ve got a situation here, Major. What’s your current location?”

Martin nodded at Prowler and the AI sent an encrypted burst giving the current location.

Admiral Chin looked off screen for a moment. “Good, you’re by far the closest asset. Major, we’ve lost contact with a forward scout group.”

He heard her type out a sequence even though she never looked away. Prowler gave a soft chirrup and set of coordinates appeared on a side display. Martin glanced at the screen. “I’m a day away, Admiral.”

“That’s what I estimated, but that puts you a full day closer than anybody else. Check it out Major . . . and report directly back to me.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Martin nodded.

Admiral Chin’s expression softened. “And thanks, Major.”

Martin winked. “Major Morgan out.” Her still smiling face disappeared from the display.

He scratched the top of Prowler’s head. “I knew it was too good to last.” Martin sighed. “Well, at least it was quiet for a couple weeks. Take us there fella.” Prowler just looked up and blinked a couple times, Martin ‘felt’ his ship change course.

. . .

Martin studied the loose collage of dead ships it had taken him a day to get to and another eight hours to track down. “No, Admiral. Everything’s dead, I get nothing, not even a light bulb.”

Admiral Chin sagged in the display. “Damn, no warning, no distress beacons . . . and apparently no survivors.” The pain on her face was palatable. “Was it one of their killer’s?”

“Yes ma’am, there’s still a little ionic residue from the weapon.” Martin fought back an impulse to reach out and comfort those sad eyes burning in the vidphone display.

“Very well, Major. It’ll take a recovery group a few days to get there. I see no reason for you to stay in the area. Thank you for checking.”

“Admiral, I think I’m going to poke around here for a while.” Martin shook his head with pinched lips. “Something just doesn’t seem Kosher, but I just can’t figure out what.”

“Very well Major, please report when you leave the area.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Martin responded and the sad face faded out. “Let’s go in for a closer look,” he sighed at Prowler. “But you get us the hell outta’ there if you so much as hear a mouse fart.” The cat looked up for a moment then continued grooming.

. . .

“This is too weird.” Martin muttered unconsciously as he studied the ships in the destroyed fleet. Everything was about what he expected except for the small tactical fighter base ship. All the launch bay doors had been blown off . . . with surgical precision. The ships in the bays were untouched. In the twelve bays there were four manned strike fighters, four manned light fighters and the other four were empty. “Prowler, I need to go in and take a closer look. I’m going to eject, you take Star Panther out a hundred LK and go silent. If you see anything let me know and if it looks like I can’t get back you take whatever information you get and go back to fleet. Understand?”

Prowler’s whiskers bristled and his tail stub lashed a couple times then shook for a second. Otherwise he just stared at Martin.

“I know you don’t like it fella, but I gotta do it.” With that he ejected his container from the ship. Martin felt a pang as his ship faded. He fought down a surge of panic as the memory of another time he was out in only his container edged into his consciousness.
That was then, and this is now. Get over it!
He shook himself out mentally and headed for the small fighter base.

A couple minutes later he crept into one of the empty launch bays. An icy knot of dread formed in his gut as he studied the ship tie down latches.
These weren’t released . . . they were cut!
His skin crawled with the feeling someone, or something, was watching him as he left the bay. Once clear he micro-jumped several LT from the derelict fleet not taking the time to enter his ship.

. . .

Admiral Chinn absently tapped the connect button on the secure channel when it beeped, not looking up from the report she was dissecting. “Admiral Chinn.”

“Cindy, . . . were there any warborgs in the group?”

Cindy! Now who the hell . . .
The thought was cut short when she looked at the display with Martin’s pale, haggard face and haunted eyes. “What?” She asked dumbly, not noticing as the display tablet slipped from her fingers, falling to the desk with a soft thump. “Martin, are you ok?”

“I’m ok, were there any warborgs in this group?”

She typed a quick sequence on a display on her desk. “What’s happened Martin . . . are you going to be all right?” The requested information lit up her display. “Yes, there were four warborg strikes in the group. Why?”

“Oh God, the Koth took them, Admiral.”

“What do you mean the Koth took them?” Chinn tried to push back the sludgy surreal muck that suddenly seemed to be overwhelming her mind. “Took them where?”

“I don’t know, away, back to their base . . . I don’t know. They’re just gone.” Martin took a deep breath to steady himself. “They were cut away from their release bindings in the bays and taken . . . only the warborgs. They left the manned ships behind.”

“My God, Martin, can you link to Briton?”

“No ma’am, I’m too far from anything to act as a repeater in the subspace net. Too much bandwidth.” Martin answered quietly, settling down now that he had someone to talk to.

“Ok, hang on.” Chinn forced a smile and tapped out a sequence that would connect to Briton over a secure channel and transmit a recording of her and Martin’s communication. In a matter of seconds Briton’s face lit up a second display.

“Admiral, Major.” Briton greeted the other two. “Talk to me Martin. I know there’s more or you wouldn’t be this rattled.” Commander Briton had an epiphany. “You think those warborgs were taken alive!”

“Yes Commander, I do. There isn’t near the level of damage that we’ve seen from the other killer ship attacks, that’s what was bothering me initially. Just enough to knock out the ships and kill any unprotected personnel.”

Admiral Chinn sucked in a breath at this new revelation. “Why do you think the warborgs would survive when nothing else, including the other cyborgs didn’t?”

Briton answered for him. “The warborgs were in a hardened base ship, in their own individual hardened warcraft, each living in hardened container. They had three layers of protection while everyone else had one, or at the most two.”

Martin was more himself after sharing the burden. “And there’s one more odd thing, Sir’s. I looked over one of the manned fighters on the way out.” He mentally took a deep breath. “Aside from power circuits being blown the ship was fine.”

“Are you telling us that those warborgs were almost fully operational when they were taken?” Admiral Chinn sputtered. “Who in their right mind would want to hijack four warborgs that could possibly come back on line in the middle of everything?” Her puzzled smile sagged. “This is a new ball game gentleman. The Koth have never taken prisoners before.”

Martin studied his senior officers for a moment. “Something is changing, not with us, with them. Something I think is of dire importance to us . . . that we may never know about until it’s too late.”

Martin repeatedly pressed the two buttons with his tongue in glazed panic as another wave of agony passed through him, a feeling like his intestines were slowly being shredded with red hot rakes. The buttons did nothing and the two Koth studying him made some notes with detached interest. Another wave of pain ripped through him and he screamed in silent torment as he focused on the open container and mutilated brain matter next to him through blurred sensors.
Why couldn’t I have been that lucky?
The thought was a tattered remnant of sanity as he ‘felt’ his bladder swell and rupture.

. . .

“Martin, wake up.” Maria yelled as she shook Martin’s shoulders, his body thrashing next to her. “Please, Martin, wake up.” She pleaded through her tears.

Martin’s eyes snapped open, glassy with panic. He grabbed Maria’s arms as she shook him, and stared at her.

“It was a dream, Martin. Only a stupid dream.” She whispered, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. He settled down. “Martin?”

He pulled her into his arms and held her tight to his chest. “A nightmare, just a nightmare.” He sighed, comforting both of them.

. . .

When Maria went on duty Martin went to Charlie’s Place, he saw Briton and Reese sitting off in a corner. “Gentlemen.”

Briton nodded to a chair as Reese smiled and rumbled. “Now there’s a sight for sore eyes. Sit.”

Martin turned the chair backwards and settled in straddling it with his arms resting on the seatback. A cup of coffee materialized on the table in front of him. He nodded a silent thanks to Reese’s smile and took a sip. “So how goes the war as seen from the top?”

“Just as fouled up as it looks like from any other angle.” Reese sighed with a sad smile. “Just a tad better view, I suspect.”

Briton gave one of his rare smiles. “The only good place to watch a train wreck is from a distance.” The smile faded. “A luxury we don’t have.” He looked Martin in the eyes for a moment. “Martin, what’s your take on what’s going on out there? You always seem to have a good insight on what’s happening.”

Martin raised his eyebrows. “I guess I’m a little slow this morning. Isn’t that something I should be asking you?”

“Probably not gettin’ any sleep,” Reese chuckled.

Briton shot Reese with a dour glance. “Oh, I’ve got the facts and figures . . . along with intelligence’s analysis of what’s happening. But you’ve been up and down the line, seeing and hearing first hand. No amount of data can take the place of that information.”

Martin rested his chin on his arms. “It’s changing out there. We’re not getting into as many fights with the Koth, but the ones we get into seem more vicious.”

“Except for our sector,” Briton frowned. “We’ve been getting hit hard and heavy. Our group alone makes up for 50 percent of the battles. If it wasn’t for the continuous flow of replacements and supplemental warcraft we’d have been forced to pull back a long time ago.” Briton gave an introspective chuckle. “This battle group is the largest in the Federation and by all rights should be commanded by an Admiral . . . not a lowly Commander.”

A Commander that’s getting the job done.
Martin thought. He pursed his lips and continued after a sip of coffee. “It’s like the Koth are getting more desperate.”

“Somebody must not of told them they’re winning this little fracas.” Reese muttered just over his breath.

“Hmmm,” Briton leaned back in his chair. “That’s my instinct too . . . Intelligence sees it, but can’t get a feel for what it could mean.”

Martin studied his coffee cup for a moment. “I mean they’re getting more desperate about driving this group back. We’re what now, a thousand light years beyond the rest of the front, a thumb sticking into their controlled space? For some reason our presence is a real thorn in their side.”

“I’d buy that, except strategically it makes no sense.” Briton shook his head. “This group is the furthest from the human occupied region . . . and the direction they have historically wanted to go. We should be a tactical nuisance and nothing more. Quite frankly, we don’t rate the amount of attention they’ve been giving us.”

Martin considered Briton’s comment for a moment. “I also think it’s a time thing . . . I don’t know why. It just has that ‘feel’ to it, like they need to get it done and over now, and not just our group. I mean the entire war.”

“After what, twenty five some odd years, now they’re in a hurry.” Reese shook his head.

“Something’s changed out there. I feel you’re absolutely right, Martin. But what? A palace revolt?” Briton gritted his teeth for a second. “We just know so little about them.”

Martin’s vidphone buzzed. “Oops, gotta go. Talk to you later.”

. . .

              Martin answered his vidphone and was surprised to see Will’s solemn face.

“Hi Martin.” Will greeted his brother quietly.

“Will.” Martin studied his older sibling’s somber features for a moment. “It’s mom, isn’t it?” He felt a dull pain in his chest.

“Yeah, she’s dying . . . they’ve done all they can do.” Will shook off sniffle.

Martin’s world turned a little grey. “How long do they give her?” He didn’t want to cause Will pain, but he needed to ask for his own piece of mind.

“A month, six weeks tops.” Will seemed to sink into himself. “She keeps asking about you . . . she really wants to see you again.”

“Damn.” Martin sagged. “How’s everyone else doing?”

“Dad’s accepted the inevitable. I think in some way he’ll be glad when it’s all over. Angel’s really taking it hard . . . plus she’s carrying a lot of guilt about not telling mom and dad about you.”

“God, I’m sorry. You guys don’t deserve this.”

“It’s ok Martin.” Will offered a weak smile. “It’s not like you asked to become a cyborg . . . shit happens.”

Martin gave his brother a sad nod at the ancient comment on life.
It’s as true now as the first time it was uttered.
Martin contemplated the destroyed scout group with its missing warborgs and his conversation with Briton and Reese for a moment, then made some quick mental calculations. “I’m coming home, Will.”

“What . . . why?” Will, stuttered. “I didn’t think you were allowed to come to Earth. And what good would it do if you were here? It’s not like you can come to the family picnic or anything.”

“I know, Will.” Martin sighed. “I can’t explain it. Through it all I’m still family . . . it’s just something I have to do.” Martin shook his head. “I know it makes no sense. I just . . .”

Will just stared at Martin for a moment before saying anything. “It’s your decision Martin.” He gave a resigned smile. “Just don’t do anything stupid little bro.”

“Me? Something stupid?” Martin had his first real laugh in what seemed like days. “And I may be able to come for a visit . . . of sorts.”

“Okay,” Will cocked an eyebrow at his brother.

“I need to run and get things ready for the trip.” Martin smiled, feeling a little better for making the decision.

“All right,” Will frowned at Martin. “But you be careful, a visit home isn’t worth your career, kiddoe.”

“I know,” Martin sighed. “And Will, I’m going to be out of touch for a few weeks, so don’t be alarmed if you can’t contact me.”

Will smiled for the first time in the conversation. “Shades of your scouting days, you just watch your ass out there.”

“I will,” Martin nodded. “I’ll be in touch.”

Will gave Martin a quiet nod and faded from the vidphone.

Now I get to go lie through my teeth to those I know and trust.
Martin sighed.
I only hope they’ll forgive me.

. . .

Martin, Reese and Commander Briton were gathered around a holotank showing the position of the entire length of the battle front. It vaguely resembled the side of a hand with the thumb pointing out. A red line appeared from the tip of the thumb where the battle group was located to the tip of the index finger on the far side of the front.

“That’s quite a haul.” Reese commented as he studied the proposed route.

“Yes it is, I figure it will take a little over three weeks for the run.” Martin nodded.

Briton contemplated the route and Martin. “That’s going to put you deep in Koth occupied space during part of the trip. You’ll be running silent for a long time.”

“Yes Sir, but that’s what this ship was designed for.” Martin smiled. “And we need any kind of information on what they’re up to.”

“Very true,” Briton gave a quick nod. “Carry on and God speed, Major.”

“Thank you Sir.” Martin snapped a salute. “I’ll be leaving within the hour.”

Commander Briton returned the salute with a smile. “Very good. Oh by the way”, he commented, “Lieutenant Hayes is on her way back in her new gunfighter.”

“Really, that was quick.” He smiled at the memory of the feisty Lieutenant. “How’s it look?”

This time Briton gave a reserved grin. “Better than anything we could have imagined. I saw a replay of her ship’s trials. Impressive . . . very impressive. They actually are sending a group of four gunfighters.”

Reese’s eyebrows shot up. “I didn’t know that.” He turned to Martin. “You should have seen her in the trials, that tincan is one danged nasty piece of work. Four of them . . . now this could get down right interesting.”

Martin’s face pinched. “Well gentlemen, I have one more good-bye then I’m off.”

Reese offered a solemn smile. “It’ll be all right, she’s been expecting it I reckon.”

Briton gave a sad nod in agreement.