Warborg - Star Panther (27 page)

Briton’s eyebrows raised. “Impressive. I saw some preliminary tests from a binary cannon. They were originally contemplating using a variation in the gunfighters, then decided against it, something to do with degradation of the firing chamber. For you it makes no difference, but to a ship that might need to fire it dozens of times over a short period of time it was problematic. So when are you heading out?”

Martin shrugged. “Actually I’m already outbound and should reach the drone barrier in about two days. I figure to go silent in the next few hours.”

Briton nodded. “Good luck then , Major.” He stood up and continued with a quiet smile. “You and Prowler take care of yourselves and come back in one piece.”

“We’re going to try, Sir.” Martin replied with a wink.

Commander Briton saluted Martin. “God speed, Major.”

“Thank you, Sir.” Martin answered Briton’s salute and faded out.

. . .

Maria knelt on the floor in front of Prowler sprawled out on a lounge chair armrest and scratched his chin. “I think I’m going to miss you as much as Martin,” she sighed.

Martin appeared in the lounge and did a double take when he saw Maria.

She stood up. “Martin,” she said quietly. “We need to talk.” She looked down and shook her head. “I can’t do this anymore.”

He gave her a sad smile. “I know kid, I’ve seen it in your eyes.”

“When you were silent for so long evading the interceptors it almost killed me . . . the not knowing.” Her eyes slowly started to tear. “Then in the battle for Earth, just knowing you were going head to head with a killer . . .” Her voice faded out. “I’m sorry.” It was barely a whisper.

“For what, caring?” He asked softly. “I could be gone a long time this time, probably months.” He gently took her by the shoulders. “Maria, it’s not fair. You need someone who’s stable. Someone you can count on being there, day in and day out. Not someone who just sails in and out of your life.”

She looked up with teary eyes. “I’m just so sorry.”

He slid his hands up under her ears and wiped her tears with his thumbs.

“I still love you . . . I just can’t do this anymore.” Her voice was hoarse with confused emotions.

He smiled sadly down into the red rimmed eyes. “It’s ok girl.” He lightly kissed her forehead and let his hands drop. “Go out and enjoy your life.” He had a sad, bitter smile. “I’ll be back . . . someday.”

She reached up and stroked his cheek. “Thank you, Martin. Thank you for everything . . . thank you for understanding.” She took a step back. “Please let me know when you get back, Martin.”

“Of course I will. We’re still friends, nothing has changed that.” He reassured with a nod.

Maria stepped up and gave Martin a quick hug. “Take care of yourself out there.” She reached down and patted Prowler. “Keep this wild man in one piece for me sweetie.” She looked up at Martin with a tight smile. “See ya.”

Martin nodded and she vanished. “Go silent.” He instructed Prowler. He quietly sagged into a seat and looked into the big yellow eyes. “I’m going to feel this one for awhile,” he sighed in resignation.

“I guess that’s the last of them.” Martin muttered to Prowler. “I can’t believe it took four days to get through the reconnaissance drone barrier.” He sighed and stretched in his chair. “We’ll run for a day then check in. I don’t want to give the Koth too good a bearing on us in case they intercept the micropulse.” He commented to himself as much as Prowler.

. . .

“Yeah, I see them too.” Martin responded to Prowler’s low growl. “That’s the third group in the past two hours. They’re really patrolling this side of the barrier in force.” He sighed, studying the group of Koth. “Six fighters and a depth charge ship in this batch.” He leaned back in his chair. “Bet you a fedbuck to a donut there’s some surveillance ships around we’re not seeing.”

An hour later Martin sent a micro pulse text only update outlining what they were seeing and forewarning them he considered transmitting to be very hazardous. A few minutes later he received a response from Commander Briton agreeing he should only attempt to communicate if they find something of importance. He also updated Martin that the Koth still had done nothing, no contact what-so-ever with the Federation forces.

A month since the Koth have even shown up anywhere in human space. They’re waiting for something. Re-enforcement maybe?
Martin thought.
They did lose a lot of ships, especially heavy stuff.
He shook his head with a slight frown, somehow not comfortable with that answer.

. . .

Martin woke up to Prowler’s low snarl. “Show me, fella.” He requested, knowing Prowler wouldn’t wake him up unless he had something unusual. He shook off the last of the dopiness and analyzed the display Prowler presented. “Very interesting,” he muttered looking over the small Koth battle group heading back into their space. “Ok, let’s follow them at maximum sensor range. They have to be headed somewhere called home.”

. . .

Two weeks later the Star Panther was still following the Koth group as Martin examined space around him. “Getting to be a lot of traffic around here.” He observed, not overly concerned. “Just tread lightly, little fella.”

An hour passed and Martin noticed some strange interference originating beyond sensor range. “Let’s back off, there’s something going on up ahead.” Prowler reduced the Star Panther’s speed and they lost contact with the Koth ships they were following. A few minutes later every FTL field in the group they were following lit up on the blank display. Martin stopped the Panther dead in space.

He watched with interest. Up ahead was a detection field, much like the reconnaissance drones, but this one was active using continuous interceptor pulses. All the ships that passed through the barrier were lit up. “Well, we’re not getting through that undetected.” He considered his options. “Let’s back away a safe distance and check this thing out.”

An hour later Martin mused over the display showing the detection barrier. Prowler’s extrapolation showed the barrier as an immense sphere floating in space where there were no known natural space bodies. The Star Panther’s passive sensors showed there were several huge signal sources in the center of the sphere, but offered no detail.

Several hours later they were on the far side of the barrier and Martin had to admit Prowler’s concept was accurate. He dropped into normal space and bled off his FTL field. Cautiously he entered the edge of the barrier, depending on Panther’s stealth to keep them from being detected. He knew it would take years to travel through the barrier in normal space let alone to the center of the sphere, but he wanted a better look. He stopped his ship and became a hole in space.

They sat dead for three days studying and cataloging the ships coming and going. Two things became very clear to him. There was an immense amount of traffic and there were two distinct routes leading deeper into Koth space. “I think we should follow one of those paths.” Martin mused at Prowler. “But which one?” A few hours later Martin smiled. “And we have a winner,” he announced when a battle damaged heavy cruiser with an unstable field was forced into normal space for a few minutes within optical view of Martin. “Ease us out of here and run parallel that path.” He pointed at the display sitting back to let Prowler do his thing.

. . .

Thirteen days later Martin had the uneasy feeling of being in contested space.
An occasional piece of debris and fields of ion weapon residue, what have we gotten ourselves into?
He asked himself.

The next day an obvious battle erupted at the edge of the Panther’s sensor range. It appeared to be a small fight between fighter class ships. As in most space battles, it lasted only a minute. “Let’s go take a look,” Martin breathed in apprehension.

When the Panther arrived at the battle site a half hour later Martin eyed a drifting derelict with practiced expertise. He felt a lump in his throat. “I guess that answer’s that question,” he wheezed at Prowler. “It may be Koth type technology, but it sure as hell ain’t Koth.” He closed his eyes with a sigh. “Get us the hell out of here and back on track.”

Martin got up from the captain’s seat and collapsed into one of the couches. He laid, resting his head on the armrest with Prowler perched on his stomach lightly treading. “Well, that solves the mystery of the unknown FTL curve.” he pondered, thinking out loud. “But why are the Koth expending so much energy just to keep us apart? Not just apart, they don’t even want us to know they exist . . .” Martin’s eyes slitted, “or they don’t want these newcomers to know we exist. Which one is it . . . or both?” He closed his eyes and sighed. “Questions . . . too many questions and no answers.”

. . .

Two days later the Panther approached another detection field.
Now ain’t this interesting.
Martin thought, setting a course to inspect the new find. “Well,” Martin observed a little later, “it’s still huge, but considerably smaller than the last one.” He watched the Koth ships come and go, noting unlike the first discovery most of these were warships. “We need to get in there fella, and preferably back out in one piece.” He smiled.
And ideally without them any the wiser.
He thought.

“We can’t sneak in without being seen, maybe we can hide right under their noses. There are a boatload of strike fighters coming and going constantly.” He smiled at Prowler. “The big question is; are they verifying the identity of every ship as it enters or leaves?”

Martin and Prowler dissected the comings and goings of the strike fighters. After several sightings it became obvious some central authority was querying all the incoming ships, but not the outbound. Martin had just about given up hope of spoofing the system when they stumbled across the answer they needed.

An obviously damaged Koth strike fighter entered the barrier with its FTL field flickering and fading in and out. The central system queried it several times as it sputtered its way through the barrier, never raising a coherent response. Then to Martin’s amazement the system just ignored the entering ship, not even bothering to send any ships to check it out. “What are they, stupid?” Martin shook his head in wonder at the laxness of the normally persnickety Koth.
No, not stupid.
The unbidden memory of a strategy instructor entered his mind.
“Your strategy must conform to the threat at hand to offset the tendencies of your enemy. Wasting precious resources to protect against something your foe is incapable of, or simply will not do, can be just as disastrous as under estimating them in the end. Your strategies must reflect your enemies tactics.”
Martin smiled.
If this was in human contested space there would be much more security. So what type of enemy would forego gathering intelligence from inside one of these?
He drew in a breath.
One who felt they didn’t need it.
His eyebrows knitted together.
Why wouldn’t they need . . . or want it? A, they already know, or B, it doesn’t matter to them. Or a combination of both.

“Well, they may not care, but I do.” Martin muttered. “Ok little fella, we need to make like a strike fighter with a damaged FTL system. Can you do it?” He raised an eyebrow at Prowler.

Prowler looked up and gave a low chirrup.

Martin watched in silent amazement as the Panther’s FTL field became a total mess, completely masking the fact they could still move at full speed if they had to. “Take us in and be ready to transmit some garbage when they query us.”

Martin held his breath as Prowler hiccupped the Star Panther into the sensor field. As soon as they were in the field they received a query, Prowler erratically sent a couple bursts of nonsense. The control system tried a few more times, then as with the other damaged ship stopped trying. “Ok, follow the damaged ship. I bet it heads for some sort of maintenance facility.”

For a half an hour they worked their way deeper into the sphere and Martin observed everything around them. Eventually when they moved beyond the range of the interceptor field he took a deep sigh of relief. He was stunned at the vast size of the ships they were encountering as they moved toward the center. “My God,” he sighed in amazement. “Some of these things are the size of a small moon.” The fighter they were following disappeared into a ship. “Ok, now we gotta make like a normal Koth, we’re going to draw too much attention if we keep going like this. They shouldn’t be able to see us, stabilize the field.” Once again he held his breath, if they were going to be challenged again, now would be the time. Nothing happened and he blew out a breath. “Good, let’s take a look around.”

For the next several hours they roamed among the Koth, never coming near any ships and avoiding all contacts. The only things they couldn’t avoid were large robot ships placed periodically throughout the sphere. The ships didn’t seem to be doing anything, they were just everywhere. They stopped the Panther in a less traveled area so Martin could gather his thoughts. “Well fella, this is plumb unreal, makes me wonder what’s inside the first group. I just don’t get it. From what we’ve seen here they could have come in and clobbered the humans anytime they wanted.” He sagged a little. “Let’s face the facts. The fight with us has been a side show for these guys. I can’t believe they didn’t just swoop in, swat us like a bunch of flies and get back to the business at hand.” He rubbed his forehead. “I guess it’s time to get a report back . . . I just wish I knew what I was looking at.” He shook his head in wonder as another huge group of Koth war craft headed out. “Report in and tell them what, that we’re a side show living on borrowed time.” He slumped into one of the lounge couches, buried in doubt and introspection.

. . .

Martin was jarred awake as Prowler was literally jumping up and down on his chest earnestly mewling and chirruping in obvious excitement. He was wide awake in an instant, alarmed by his AI’s strange behavior. “What?” The main display was flashing frantically. Martin jumped up and leaned over it. “What the hell!” Martin sputtered. Another huge group of Koth were leaving, but three of the ships were identified as warborg strike fighters. “Are you sure?” A side display lit up with the FTL signatures. “Oh my God . . . follow’em.” Martin ordered.

A few minutes later the Star Panther was just another Koth strike fighter among hundreds headed through the barrier in a tumulus cloud of obviously scrambling ships. No one paid them any heed as they cleared the barrier and dropped back. “Stay with them.” The battle group raced through space organizing itself as it went. Soon the three warborg were set off to one side as a group of their own.

“Command to Bozo squadron.” The clear calm voice over the command channel froze Martin’s heart.

“Go, Command.” An unknown voice responded.

“You have a confirmed sweeper in the Rhome attack flotilla.” The command voice informed.

“Roger . . . we have coordinates. We’re on the way.” The warborg squadron leader reported.

“Good luck, gentlemen. Command out.”

“Thank you Command, Bozos out.” The warborg squad leader signed off.

“Bozos?” Martin confusion was palatable. “Keep on’em fella.” He sputtered as the three warborg separated from the main group.
Mark me down as totally confused. These guys are obviously human and seem to be working openly with the Koth.
He followed the trio for several minutes and soon a battle of sorts came into view. A killer type ship was being buzzed and bombarded by several Koth fighters with little effect as they flicked in and out of subspace.

“Bozos to Command.” The squad leader reported. “We have contact and are engaging. Get your guys out of there.”