But that was then, and this was now. The ship rolled, the smuggler fired a jet, and she stabilized. He was about to check his position, find out where the hell he was. when something hit the hull. The Molly shook, and some buzzers went off.
Willy tapped some buttons, discovered that the delta-shaped fighter was still on his ass, and wondered how.
None of the civilizations he was familiar with had the technology to lock on to another ship and follow it through hyperspace. But this sucker did ... and was determined to kill him. The Molly B shuddered as a missile exploded in the vicinity of her hull—and shuddered once again when Willy took evasive action. His eyes were bloodshot, veins traced his nose, and stubble covered his cheeks. The words went out over freq four. “You want some of me? You wanta dance? Well, come on you pile of metallic shit, let’s get it on!”
The Sheen fighter took note of the transmission, had no idea what it meant, and filed the message away. Such matters were handled by the Hoon—and the Hoon was a long way off. President Marcott Nankool nodded to Chief Warrant Officer Aba, the senate’s master at arms, climbed the short flight of stairs and made his way to the podium. Ironically enough it was Senator Omo who was tasked with the introduction by right of seniority. He rose from the specially constructed chair located to the right of the speaker’s position. His voice, translated by the computer woven into his iridescent robe, filled the chambers. The chatter died away. “Please allow me to welcome each and every one of you back to this, the sixty-ninth gathering of this august body, and the second half of this year’s session.
“Here to open the proceedings is the Right Honorable Marcott Nankool—the Confederacy’s President and Chief Executive Officer. President Nankool?”
There was sustained applause followed by the usual rustle of fabric, creak of chairs, and whir of servos. Nankool smiled. Most of the senators knew what the expression meant. The rest ignored it. “Thank you. It is a great pleasure to be here. You have an ambitious slate of legislation to consider—and I have no wish to delay your deliberations. With that reality in mind, I will keep my comments short and to the point.
“We have reason to believe that a force known as the ‘Sheen is headed our way. The purpose of this fleet is to destroy the Thraki plus any race that gets in the way or offers them support.”
Many of the senators had heard rumors and offered gestures of agreement while some looked confused. They turned to neighbors, and words were exchanged.
Nankool scanned his audience, prepared the next volley of words, and delivered them with care. “Even as we meet, efforts are under way to marshal what forces we have and prepare a defense. However, a series of budget cuts, combined with troubles on Earth, have left our forces at little more than half strength. That being the case, it is my hope, no, my prayer, that you will understand me when I say that desperate times call for desperate measures.”
Nankool looked out into the chamber, located the eyes he was looking for, and continued his speech.
“You may be interested to know that Governor ChienChu, acting at my request, accompanied Ambassador Hiween DomaSa to the planet Hudatha, where they met with senior officials.
“The result of those discussions, pending your approval, was the outline of what could become a mutual defense pact. An agreement that would allow the Hudathans some measure of additional freedom in exchange for their assistance against the Sheen.”
It was as far as Nankool got. Shouts were heard, and someone threw a glass. It shattered against the podium. Aba moved to protect the chief executive, and democracy turned to chaos. Every being present had lost someone to Hudathan aggression—and was opposed to any sort of rapprochement. ChienChu looked at DomaSa. The Hudathan shrugged.
There was nothing else he could do.
The Molly B shuddered, rolled, and corkscrewed away. The fighter followed. Willy had been in his share of scrapes during more than forty years of working, stealing, and smuggling, but couldn’t remember one worse than this He needed to beat the machine and do it soon. Coherent light blipped past the view screen and raced past the ship. The human scanned the instrument panel, was frightened by how many red and amber lights he saw, and took a firm grip on the control yoke. He pulled back. The Molly B
broke out of the corkscrew and started to climb. Not really, since “up” was relative, but that’s the way it felt. The smuggler’s mind started to race.
The machine was a machine. That constituted both its strength and its weakness It would do what it supposed to do, which, if its programming followed the dictates of logic, meant achieving its objective in the shortest possible period of time, while expending the minimum amount of energy required to get the job done.
He, however, was human, which meant he could do anything he frigging wanted to do, no matter how stupid that might seem.
Williams turned the yoke to the left, fought the gee forces that threatened to distort his movements, and checked the heads-up display (HUD). The enemy fighter appeared as a three-dimensional red outline. Suddenly, the ships were headed at each other at a high rate of combined speed. The smuggler steered into the center of the sighting grid, gave a whoop of joy, and sent another transmission. “You got balls?
Steel balls? Let’s find out.”
The fighter’s processor made note of the change, ran the numbers, and received negative results. Since it was bow-on, the target vessel would be extremely hard to hit. Not only that, but there was the very real possibility of a head-on collision, which while it would almost certainly destroy the enemy, would have similar implications for the fighter.
Something the Hoon was almost sure to disapprove of.
Added to that was the fact that the tactics employed by the opposition didn’t make much sense, suggesting that the enemy intelligence was inferior, defective, or—and this seemed unlikely—possessed of a plan so sophisticated that only one such as the Hoon would be capable of understanding it. The oncoming vessel was closer now, a lot closer, and showed no sign of turning away. A subprocessor signaled alarm. The Sheen fired two missiles, turned to the left, and ran into a beam of coherent light. It was powerful, much more powerful than a ship of that displacement would logically have, and therefore unexpected. The force field that protected the fighter, and was the origin of the name “Sheen,” flared and went down. Steel turned to liquid, a drive went critical, and the machine exploded. Willy saw the fireball, heard the tone, and the impact all at the same time. One of the enemy missiles had missed—but the other struck its target. The Molly took the blow, seemed to hesitate, and took a jog to starboard.
Most of the remaining green lights morphed to red, a klaxon began to bleat, and the control yoke went dead. Willy swore, attempted to kill power, and discovered that he couldn’t. The ship was hauling butt, heading out past the sun, bound for nowhere. The planet Arballa, to which the smuggler had been headed, was off to port. Way off to port.
Williams bit his lip, checked to see if the auxiliary steering jets were on line, and discovered most of them were. He fired two in combination, the vessel jerked to port, and the smuggler dared to hope. Maybe, just maybe, he could bring her in.
It took the better part of ten minutes, plus a dozen minute adjustments, but he brought the Molly around. Finally, convinced that the ship was on course, Willy sent a message: “Confederate vessel CVL9769 to any Confederate warship—over.”
There was a pause while the signal made the necessary journey, but the reply was as prompt as the laws of physics would allow. The voice belonged to a corn tech named Howsky—and she was bored. Nothing interesting had happened for weeks. ‘This is the vessel Friendship ... we read you loud and clear. Over.”