Chapter 699

...”Can we outrun them?”

“I have no basis with which to determine their top speed.”

“No matter. I would hate to lead them to our stranded team, let alone back to Earth. Come to Battle Stations,” Jeff said, as the claxon went off loudly enough to wake the dead followed by a mechanical voice that announced, “Battle Stations. Battle Stations.”

“The warp bubble of the other ships will intersect with our course in approximately two and a half minutes,” the Pilot said.

“Very well. Maintain your shields at maximum. Drop out of warp. With our impulse drive at one-quarter power, initiate evasive action A-1, but mimic a non-inertialess drive.”

“Drop out of warp while maintaining shields at maximum. Impulse drive at one quarter while maintaining evasive action A-1 and mimicking a non-inertialess drive, Sir.”

The wavering field of nothingness that was warp space was suddenly replaced by a brilliant starfield. Those that were new to the transition feeling hissed in a breath, grabbed something, or otherwise reacted similarly to the way they had when Ship warped out, but the worst of the feeling only lasted for a few seconds.

“The other ships in the single bubble have also dropped out of warp,” the Pilot warned his Captain, even as the lead ship fired a beam that registered on Ship’s scanners as an angry red when it passed by their bow.

“That’s a particle beam or we wouldn’t see it in vacuum,” Jeff commented to the General.

“No one can misinterpret a shot across the bow, though,” Whitworth snarled.

“Yeah, you’re right. That was a warning,” Jeff said as he stared at his screen.

Ship spoke up. “Permission to resume my larger state which will allow me to use all my facilities.”

“Granted. Let them see that you’re a true battleship.”

Jeff turned to his superior. “General, it looks as if we’re going to be delayed in delivering the supplies to your team, but these guys are going to have to be dealt with.”

“Affirmative, Colonel.” The General chuckled. “Do you think they’ll fall for the wounded mother bird routine you have just set up?”

Jeff flashed his superior a grin. “We’ll soon find out.”

Jeff looked about the bridge. Everyone was at his or her station, save the First Officer who was with the point defense group as ordered. The General sat looking at his screen with a smug look on his face.

“Another pulse fired in front of us, but this one was approximately half the distance of the first one,” Ship said.

“Looks like they’re going to make certain we notice. Pilot, continue your evasive action, but go to D - 4,” Jeff told him.

“Continue evasive action, but go to D - 4, Sir,” the pilot repeated as he initiated the correct response while continuing their snail’s pace.

“Sir, they have fired a missile. However, when we changed course, the missile did also.” Then a second later, the Pilot spoke again, “Sir, if I’m not mistaken, the missile has changed course again and will go well in front of us unless it changes course yet again.”

“Okay, maintain our present heading for now. We’ll let them waste missiles if they want to.”

“Maintaining course for now, Sir.”

The missile, which appeared to be a small one, swung wide and exploded well in front of them.

The Prime thought for a moment, but before he could say anything, Ship managed to match frequencies, and a fuzzy picture appeared on the holo screen, faded out, then back in before suddenly coming to sharp clarity, which wasn’t necessarily a plus as far as Kayla was concerned. “This guy sets the standards for ugly,” she quietly said to the accompaniment of chuckles.

“Graex,” Jeff snarled. “I knew I would meet those ugly bastards again one day.”

“You’ve seen them before?” the General asked. “Upon second thought, now I remember them from a video you sent me.”

“Yeah. These guys, or at least the same race, attacked one of the research groups my team and I were sent to bail out. They don’t seem to believe in brotherly love. Shoot first is more their style. In a word, they’re pirates, and they will fight as long as they have the advantage. Failing that, they tend to cut and run.”

It’s easy to believe, Kayla thought as she focused on the nightmare on the screen. Her first impression was that the being must be a first cousin to an alligator, although if the parts were taken separately, they were only a vague resemblance to the Earth beast. The being stood mostly upright with a slight lean forward. It didn’t have an alligator head — exactly — but its head was somewhat flattened and elongated with its eyes, as well as its ears, sitting atop the sloping head.

There was no scale of reference, so she couldn’t tell how tall it was, but she felt they were at least as tall as the average human. Its body was narrow from the shoulders down with a narrowing past its hips which suggested that its ancestor might well have had a thick tail in its distant past. The legs sprouted from the body about a third of the way up, and since it wore a material resembling leather around where she supposed its genitals were, she could only assume it was male. Its deeply muscled legs were uncovered; neither did it wear anything on its massively clawed feet. Its arms were heavily muscled also, but not as much as the legs. It, or he, she assumed, was either wearing clever body armor, or else the being was covered from the neck down with overlapping scales. Its overall color was a deep, dusky green except for its face which was a slightly lighter shade of greenish red.

“Ship, are we projecting a visual?”

“No, Prime. Neither am I transmitting audio without your permission.”

“Excellent. If this is the same race that attacked the research group my team and I were sent to protect — and I think it is — then the beings are aggressive and will fight another race on sight — at least they did when they saw us. With the portal, we later contacted another peaceful race of beings in a nearby star system. They claimed that these beings — the Graex — are basically pirates who prey on shipping and any group unable to properly defend themselves. They have weapons comparable to ours and the whole species is a menace to shipping according to the race we talked to. The ones who attacked us fought until they realized that their demise was inevitable, then they left with their tails tucked without bothering to recover their dead and dying.”

The General commented, “I read your reports and viewed the video of parts of your confrontation with them. I agree that the being on the screen is the same as the ones you fought. If we are able to avoid them, they might well follow us to our destination and might even be able to backtrack us to Earth.”

During the interval, the Graex had continued to scream and posture.

“I think he is ordering us to drop our shields,” Ship told Jeff. “I have incorporated the Miadax translator into our communication equipment. It should be able to give us a few words after it has time to analyze enough of the Graex language.”

Jeff had told Ship to keep the First Officer and the point defense crew aware of everything that was going on. “Put the First Officer on the screen,” Jeff told Ship. When his image filled the big screen and he had acknowledged his Captain, “I am familiar with the race of beings that have fired on us. They are pirates who will probably try to board us. Needless to say, we do not want that to happen. Tell your people that I have faith in them, and good hunting.”

The General raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything.

A little while later, the posturing and threats by the Graex being — who must have been their Captain — changed and something appeared on the screen with the squiggles on it continuing to change at regular intervals.

“I think we have been given an ultimatum and a countdown,” Jeff said.

“Looks that way,” the General agreed.

“General, would you return the greeting and fire a pulse across the lead ship’s bow so they’ll know we mean business?”

“Glad to,” Whitworth said with an evil grin. “I’ve been wanting to do something like this ever since Ship trained me to use her weapons.”

As soon as the General fired, the lead ship jerked aside for a moment before continuing on. “They can’t say that they haven’t been warned,” Jeff said with a grin. “That practically singed the hair on their heads — if they had any hair.

A couple of minutes later, Ship said, “I am beginning to detect a pattern to the characters of their clock. If I am correct, we are only seconds away from whatever they intend.”

“Warn the First Officer that an attack is imminent.” Then to the Bridge crew, “Here we go, people. Stay calm and follow orders.”

Jeff barely had the words out of his mouth when all three ships fired at the same instant. Ship’s shields flared and they could feel an impact as if the beams were physical.

“Status?” Jeff asked Ship.

“Shield power down only three percent and will soon be back at maximum.” There was a slight pause before she continued, “the Miadax translation program now understands enough words to send a warning that I think the Graex will understand.”

“If you can, warn them that we are capable and we will defend ourselves, and also add that my patience is growing thin. However, if they wish to leave now; I will permit it.”

It was obvious when the being on the screen received the message, because he paused before practically exploding with anger.

“Looks like all that did was piss him off,” Whitworth said as he stared at Jeff, but when the Prime just grinned at him, the General, embarrassed, just said, “Oh.”

“Anger seems to be more or less universal, and it sometimes makes us make mistakes that we would not make without it.”

“I have just finished analyzing their pattern of alternating shield frequencies. When I match it to the frequency of our weapons, their shields will offer little defense.”

The front screen shifted as Ship said, “Warning, all three ships have launched a barrage of smaller missiles. They will be only minimally effective against my shields, but I assume the purpose is to cover the emergence of four smaller craft that have just been launched and are now powering away from the main vessels.”

“They’re going to try to board us,” Jeff said. “Are you capable of tracking them?”

“The four smaller craft are using some type of cloaking device, but I have determined its frequency, so it is of little consequence.”

“Make certain the First Officer and his Point Defense crew are tracking the boarders,” Jeff ordered.

“Already done.”

“Tell the First Officer to hold his fire until the boarding vessels are well within range, then have his group give them hell. If possible, they are not to let any of the alien vessels escape. They will only continue to attack other vessels.”

“Message delivered and acknowledged.”

Ship rocked again from another volley from the three mother ships.

“Okay. No one can say that we didn’t give them time to change their minds. Weapons free. Fire at will.”

One of the boarding craft swung away from the others and accelerated directly toward Ship.

“Sir,” the First Officer spoke over the communicator, “the boarding craft seem to have a giant armored, ball-like object attached to the front of their vessels. Under maximum magnification, I think I have detected what is probably a shaped charge on the forward side of the ball. If so, that would concentrate a very large amount of force on a small area. That might well test our shields to the maximum.”

“Affirmative. Tell your people, and do your best to keep the boarders away.”

Jeff told the Bridge crew what the First Officer had discovered, but the only response was a couple of disparaging comments directed at the aliens.

Pilot, change to evasive action D - 6, and increase our speed by ten percent.”

The pilot acknowledged and followed his Captain’s orders, but every cell in his body wanted to turn and attack the vessels, not limp away at some ridiculous speed.

“Steady as she goes, Pilot. We’ll get our chance in a few minutes.”

“Certainly, Sir,” the man acknowledged even as he tried to put confidence into his voice.

“Everyone else, continue to fire at any available target.”

“Bastards,” the General growled. “No telling how many times they have done this, or how many lives they have taken.” He cursed under his breath and swung his weapon controls around. A second later his beams reached out toward the lead boarder on the port side, along with several others from the bridge crew who had chosen the same target. The boarder jinked and fired barrage after barrage, all ineffective against Ship’s shields as the vessel continued to accelerate toward Ship, but eventually the General managed to lock his weapon onto the boarder, and just as he fired, several others on the bridge locked on and fired too.