“Scanner reading, captain.” First Officer Fawaz looked up from the display screen and turned toward Mustafa. “Energy emissions from the warp gate.”
Mustafa’s head snapped around. “Confirm readings.”
Fawaz turned toward his control board, but before he could do anything the ship’s klaxon went off. “We have something transiting in through the warp gate, captain.” His voice was shaky. Fawaz wasn’t a military veteran; his career had been on freighters and survey vessels.
“Activate deployed scanners.” Mustafa’s military reflexes were a little rusty, but they started coming back. “I want all possible data on whatever comes through that gate.”
“Ship transiting now, captain.” Fawaz stared at his screen and froze.
“What is it?” Mustafa stared over at his stunned first officer. “Now, officer, Fawaz!”
Mustafa’s rebuke shook Fawaz out of his shock. “Ah…sorry sir. According to preliminary scans the vessel masses approximately 70,000 tons.” He turned back toward the captain, his face white as a sheet. “What ship that large could be all the way out here?”
Mustafa ignored the question. He was wondering the same thing. There were warships that size, certainly, and even larger. Freighters too. But not usually out on the extreme frontier. “First Officer, send a communication. Demand the vessel identify itself.” Mustafa sat on his chair rubbing his chin. “And power up the laser battery.” Red Crescent wasn’t a warship, but it carried a double turret of light lasers.
“Yes, sir. Identity request transmitted in all languages, sir.” Fawaz glanced down at his board. “Laser turret activated and ready, captain.”
“Prepare a burst communication to Kemal’s Sword.” With a lack of modesty universal in his family, Kemal had named his flagship after himself. “Transmit from my communicator.”
Fawaz worked his controls. “Ready, sir. You may begin at any time.” A brief pause then: “No response from the unidentified vessel, captain. Scanners indicate significant power buildup.” Ships suffered a short period of disruption after a warp transit. It wasn’t usually tactically significant…unless a defender was sitting right on the gate, like Red Crescent was. Normally, battlefleets positioned themselves farther back, which gave them a wider range of options to react to an invading force.
Mustafa flipped on his communications headset. “This is Red Crescent with a priority communication for Emir Kemal.” It would take six hours for the transmission to reach Kemal’s ship. Whatever was going to happen in the next few minutes, Mustafa and his ship were on their own. “We have an unidentified vessel that has just transited into the system. Estimated mass of 70,000 tons. Intent and origin unknown.” Mustafa felt like he should say more, but he didn’t know anything else. Not yet.
“Officer Fawaz, repeat the communication demanding identification.”
“Yes, sir.” Fawaz moved his hands toward his board. “Sir…detecting massive energy buildup in…”
Red Crescent shook wildly. The lights went off, the bright illumination of the main system replaced by a dim glow from the battery-powered backups. There was a groaning sound and then another shudder, the metal spine of the ship breaking. Mustafa knew immediately that his ship was dead. He didn’t know what had hit them, but whatever it was, it was enough to kill Red Crescent with one shot.
“Sir, the reactor has shut down.” Fawaz was near panic. “Life support on minimal operation. Hull integrity compromised. Secondary explosions.”
“Get Engineer Nassar on my com.” Mustafa was staring down at his own display as he barked out the order.
“Engineer Nassar is dead, sir. So are both his technicians.” Fawaz was almost incoherent with fear. “What are we going to do?”
Mustafa leaned back in his chair and closed the visor on his helmet. I don’t know what to do, he thought grimly. He knew there was no way to save the ship.
Red Crescent tumbled again as it was torn apart by a second blast. The bridge shook wildly as it lost hull integrity and its atmosphere was quickly sucked out into the vacuum. Mustafa saw a large chunk of a conduit hit Fawaz, beheading the first officer in the process…just before the captain was sucked through a large gash in the hull.
Mustafa had his survival suit on with his helmet secure, and by some miracle, he was pulled unhurt through the opening in the hull. He was floating in space…actually he was moving at over 150,000 meters per second, the intrinsic velocity of Red Crescent when we was ejected. He couldn’t feel anything…just a calm sensation. The enemy ship was close by the standards of space warfare, but it was far too distant for him to see with the naked eye. He saw only the mangled hull of his own ship…and the black curtain of space, pin-pricked by the stars.
His survival suit wasn’t powered armor. He didn’t have a nuclear reactor to energize it, just a few small batteries. He knew he had six hours, maybe seven before he ran out of power. He would die then, though it would be a close race between suffocation and freezing. Unless, of course, he’d gotten a truly massive dose of radiation. Then the end would be quicker and he would die in agony, wracked with pain and choking on his own vomit.
I’ll just have to see what happens, he thought with an eerie calm.
“I want full power now, captain. We must reach the warp gate before that ship can fire on us.” Kemal was strapped into his acceleration couch on his self-named flagship, suffering terribly. He was not a navy man; he had no experience with the g forces that ships’ crews underwent during battle…or when fleeing. He’d thrown up at least three times, all over his expensive silk outfit. His present state was considerably beneath the dignity he customarily considered his due, and he was in a foul mood.
Kemal’s Sword had been a hunter-killer, the Caliphate’s answer to the Alliance’s fast attack ships. The ship had been obsolete and posted to the mothballed reserve for years, but in the post-war scramble for cash, the navy sold it off, along with two dozen other ancient vessels. When Kemal bought the ship, he replaced the military grade reactor with a standard commercial one. The naval reactors were simply too expensive to operate and maintain, and they required an engineer with a much higher rating to keep them safely functioning.
The commercial reactor was enough to operate the ship normally, but its acceleration capped out around 15g. It was enough to make Kemal uncomfortable, but it was woefully inadequate to escape from an enemy accelerating at 30g.
“Yes, my lord.” The captain sat at one of the workstations on the bridge, since the normal command chair had been converted for Kemal’s use. “With my lord’s permission, I will take personal charge of the reactor’s operation. Perhaps we can coax 110% or even 115%.” Captain Essa had been an engineer in the navy before he’d moved up to command rank. His naval career had been promising, but his family were retainers of the Raschid on Earth, and he resigned from the fleet to accept the command of Kemal’s flagship. He’d been reluctant to leave his naval posting, but the lesser nobility in the Caliphate were highly dependent on their sponsors, and offending one of the Raschid would have been a betrayal to his family.
“Yes, yes.” Kemal’s head ached like nothing he had ever felt before, and his patience was at an end. He couldn’t understand how the veteran spacers could put up with this discomfort so often. “Whatever you feel is best. Just get us through that warp gate.” Kemal was afraid too. If they didn’t make it to the gate on time, they would die. This unidentified ship had already blown most of his little fleet to plasma, and he knew Kemal’s Sword had no chance in a fight.
Essa stared down at his board, speaking softly into his com to the ship’s computer. He’d have preferred to be down in engineering handling the reactor at close quarters, but moving around in a ship at 15g wasn’t practical…and cutting thrust, even for an instant, was unthinkable right now.