THE KOSTROMA SAGA by Michel Poulin - HTML preview

CHAPTER 34 – TEACHING A LESSON TO A BULLY

 

15:56 (Universal Time)

Saturday, May 22, 2320

Command bridge of the patrol cruiser CENTURION Sixty million kilometers away from Gliese 581c

‘’The spectroscopy readings of the star confirm it to be the red dwarf Gliese 581, Captain. We are now sixty million kilometers away from the third planet, upstream from its orbit.’’

‘’Excellent! Just where I wanted us to be on arrival.’’ replied Miki Kondo, the captain of the Spacers League patrol cruiser CENTURION. While she didn’t say it out loud then, she was truly impressed by the accuracy of the Koomak Drive. This was only the third interstellar jump made by her cruiser since it had been refitted at the Avalon Space Yards, the first two jumps having occurred during a test run between Earth and the Proxima Centauri system. Those three jumps now averaged a distance error per jump of plus or minus three million kilometers per light year of travel, a truly negligible factor in terms of astronomical distances where interstellar travel was concerned. Doctor Koomak had certainly proved his genius by inventing his interstellar drive.

‘’Let’s stay in passive electronic mode for the moment, time to see what is around us.’’ added Miki from her command chair. ‘’Pilot, continue towards the moon of the third planet on gravity sail propulsion only. Let’s not generate a drive flare that could be seen from all around us.’’

‘’Aye, Captain!’’

Next, Miki twisted her neck to look at Gerald Holmes, who was occupying a chair recently added into the bridge of the CENTURION, which was much smaller that the bridge of the KOSTROMA and was quite cramped in comparison.

‘’Hopefully, those Vorlaks will not have had time to hurt further their Hoshi prisoners held in their surface base.’’

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‘’I am sure that Captain Forster would have acted at once at the least sign of the Vorlaks retaliating against their prisoners, Captain Kondo, and this with or without reinforcements.’’

Miki Kondo nodded her head at that: despite her young age, Tina Forster was already a quasi-legend among the Spacers League, thanks to both her combat performance during the 2315 War and to the high moral standards she had displayed during and after the discovery of the Koorivar ship on Eris, when she had put her reputation and career at risk in order to follow her moral beliefs and keep her promises to the Koorivar. A warning from one of her sensors technicians then switched her attention.

‘’Captain, our thermal sensors are detecting a group of four drive flares which have just left the orbit of Gliese 581c and are going down towards the orbit of the moon Hyanesu.’’

‘’Do an analysis of those drive flares: tell me what kind of drive those ships are using.’’

‘’Yes Captain!’’

After less than two minutes, the sensors technician came back with more information.

‘’Captain, those flares are definitely from thermonuclear rockets. However, their spectral analysis and plasma ejection velocity show these drives to be rather inefficient. They would be comparable to the first thermonuclear drives developed on Earth around the year 2100. Also, they are using their main drives in order to cut down their stellar orbital velocity, using an economical Hohmann transfer orbit to align themselves onto an orbit around Hyanesu. Those ships thus probably have limited space endurance and little agility and also probably have no gravity propulsion system.’’

‘’That’s to my liking. What about any electronic emission from those ships?’’ Another sensors specialist answered that last question.

‘’We are detecting weak signals from medium range radars, Captain. Those radars are however unsuitable for detection distances beyond five million kilometers.’’

‘’Even better! Navigator, calculate a micro-jump inside this system, with

reemergence on the illuminated side of Hyanesu, two million kilometers above the moon’s surface.’’

Gerald Holmes gave a worried look to Miki on hearing that.

‘’Has anyone effected such micro-jumps before, Captain Kondo?’’

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‘’Yes! The prototype drone ship tested by the Avalon Space Yards tried a series of such jumps inside the Alpha Centauri system, with very good results. Doing a micro-jump now will bring us very close to Hyanesu, while the bulk of the moon will mask us from the enemy ships.’’

‘’Oh, I see!’’

‘’Micro-jump calculated and entered in the auto-pilot, Captain.’’ announced the navigator after half a minute.

‘’Then, effect micro-jump, NOW!’’

An orange maelstrom enveloped the cruiser for a fraction of a second, then the external views of Space completely changed on the holographic display screens of the bridge. Gerald Holmes could now contemplate the side of Hyanesu which faced its star, with the third planet now hidden from direct view by its moon. A small white shape orbiting the moon near its northern pole then attracted his attention at the same time that a sensors specialist spoke up.

‘’The KOSTROMA is visible in the upper eastern quadrant of our screens, Captain.’’

‘’Excellent! Establish a tight directional laser link with it at once and call the KOSTROMA to tell its crew who we are.’’

‘’Aye, Captain!’’

The specialist, pointing first a highly directional laser communication dish towards the KOSTROMA, then spoke for a few seconds in his headset microphone before looking at Miki Kondo.

‘’Captain, Fleet Captain Forster wishes to speak with you. I am putting her on Line Two.’’

‘’Thank you, mister!’’ replied Miki before switching one of her display screens on the said channel, making the head and torso of a smiling Tina Forster appear on the screen.

‘’Aaah, Captain Kondo! It is truly nice to see you here and now with your fine cruiser. I see that Governor Robeson acted quickly with the data files I gave her.’’

‘’And it is a pleasure for me to be able to come assist you in a mission, Fleet Captain Forster. How is the situation in that Vorlak base and prison camp on the surface of Hyanesu?’’

The smile on Tina’s face then changed to a most sober look.

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‘’That situation is already resolved, Captain Kondo. When the Vorlaks of the base started giving signs that they were about to massacre their prisoners and then evacuate on one of their cargo ships, I unleashed my Plan ‘B’ and destroyed their barracks, headquarters, hangars and guard towers with a combination of laser fire, heavy rail gun fire and missiles. The guard towers were in fact the first to go, vaporized by laser beams. The investigation team that was already on the surface of the moon then helped evacuate the Hoshi prisoners out of the camp and into our waiting shuttles. That happened some ten hours ago and the freed Hoshis have now been returned to their respective villages…at least to those villages still existing. Those who had no homes left were then accepted into other villages and hamlets. In return, our rescue operation has created a huge positive feeling towards us and the Koorivars and the various local Hoshi village elders have declared that they would welcome the resettling of Koorivar refugees on their moon, whenever we will find and retrieve the SHUNDAR and the SHANIZAR.’’

‘’That is all very good news, Fleet Captain, however I am afraid that I have to give you one piece of bad news: a formation of four Vorlak ships has left Gliese 581c and is now heading towards Hyanesu. These ships may still be simple cargo ships, but I would very much doubt so. My guess would be that they are combat ships sent to investigate what happened to their fleet around Hyanesu.’’

‘’I would concur with you on that, Captain Kondo. By the way, I suppose that you brought Mister Holmes and my shuttle with you?’’

‘’Correct! I also brought with me a directive from Governor Robeson: the Vorlaks are to be considered as a Space-faring threat to other sentient beings and are to be quarantined to their own planet’s surface. Only non-lethal orbital satellites will be tolerated around Gliese 581c. This way, the inhabitants of Hyanesu and of Oceana will be able to live in peace, without having to fear Vorlak depredations.’’

‘’Excellent! Now, what do you say to us dealing with those four incoming Vorlak ships? We could catch them in a pincer while they are still in their deceleration phase, then give them a single ultimatum to withdraw. If they refuse to obey, then we will open fire.’’

‘’From what I heard and seen about those Vorlaks, even giving them a last chance via an ultimatum sounds very generous to me, Fleet Captain.’’ Tina sighed at those words while lowering her head for a moment.

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‘’Captain Kondo, let’s just say that the 2315 War taught me not to collectively judge our enemies. Yes, those Vorlaks have up to now acted like monsters, but what tells you that they are all like this? Maybe the lower classes on the third planet are less cruel and aggressive than their military class and their leaders.’’

‘’Maybe, but could we gamble the future of the Hoshis and of the other species in this system on a mere assumption? If those four incoming ships turn out to be warships, then we should destroy them without further ado.’’

‘’Still, I would like to give them an ultimatum before opening fire, Captain.’’ replied Tina in a tone that indicated that this discussion was closed. ‘’You will go hide just behind the western terminator line and wait there in ambush while I will show myself to the Vorlaks at the eastern terminator to give to them my ultimatum. If you see them fire missiles at me, or if they continue towards Hyanesu, then open fire.’’

‘’Understood, Fleet Captain!’’ said Miki, hiding her skepticism about Forster’s choice of giving a chance to the enemy. She then shouted orders to her bridge crew.

‘’Pilot, head to the western terminator line and stop just short of it. Sound battle stations! Weapons Officer, have special munitions prepared for our heavy rail guns.’’ That last order got her a somber glance from Gerald Holmes, something she however didn’t notice due to the renewed activity around the bridge. On her own command bridge, Tina Forster first told her pilot, Frida Skarsgard, to rise from their present low orbit and fly towards the eastern terminator line of the moon, then spoke to her ship’s central computer.

‘’Spirit, I will need your talents in communication to compose for me a number of visual messages using pictograms. Here are the messages I want to send…’’

Tina waited until the four Vorlak ships, which were plainly visible due to their drive flares, were some 100,000 kilometers away from Hyanesu before starting to emit her first pictographic message, which warned the Vorlaks to turn away and return to their planet on pain of destruction. Either because they were too obtuse to understand the message or because they wanted to close further the range in order to fire their missiles at the KOSTROMA, the four ships continued on their trajectory, ignoring her message. Tina then sent a second message once the Vorlaks were down to a distance of 80,000 kilometers, repeating her warning in an even more blunt fashion. Tina’s patience ran out when the Vorlaks kept approaching, getting within 70,000 kilometers of her ship.

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‘’That’s it! I have had it with them! Transmit to the CENTURION: fire at will! Renée, make our lasers dance on those ships!’’

Renée d’Argenteuil, one of the more senior officers of the KOSTROMA and one who often took Tina’s command seat when she was resting, occupied the weapons station at the time and, having already entered a fire plan in her fire control computer, opened a red cover on her command console and pressed the big red button inside.

‘’Opening laser fire now!’’

Four 1.2-gigawatt laser beams, invisible and silent in the void of space, cut across the black emptiness in less than a quarter of a second, each beam targeted at one of the four Vorlak ships. The invisible beams, measuring some forty centimeters in diameter after their 70,000-kilometer-long travel, created an explosion of sparks when they hit the aluminum alloy hulls of the Vorlak battleships, which were not built to fly inside the atmosphere of a planet or moon. Burning through the hulls nearly instantly, the laser beams then danced around inside the ships, melting bulkheads, cutting wires, cables and pipes and opening compartment after compartment to the vacuum of Space, creating explosive decompressions which sucked the Vorlak occupants through the jagged hull openings, ripping them apart in the process. The Vorlaks, still being outside of the maximum range of their own missiles, could only endure that treatment for the time being, hoping to soon be able to fire their missiles. They never got that chance, as a huge nuclear fireball suddenly detonated in a blinding flash within 700 meters of the lead Vorlak battleship. That fireball then rapidly expanded to a radius of over fifty kilometers, engulfing and vaporizing the whole ship in an instant. Before the three other battleships, already heavily damaged by the KOSTROMA’s laser fire, could react to that, they were vaporized in quick succession by three more nuclear fireballs, which left behind only expanding clouds of plasma and thermal radiations.

The flashes from the four nuclear explosions left Tina Forster’s aghast in her command chair, like the rest of her bridge crew. Seeing that the expanding clouds of plasma would eventually hit her ship, she gave an urgent order to her pilot.

‘’FRIDA, MOVE US SIDEWAYS AWAY FROM THOSE EXPANDING PLASMA CLOUDS!’’

As Frida Skarsgard obeyed her and pushed their gravity sails to the maximum, making the giant cargo ship jump sideways with an acceleration of 3.2 Gs, Tina opened a communication link to the CENTURION and gave a hard look at the image of Miki Kondo.

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‘’Captain Kondo, since when do Spacers League ships carry nuclear weapons?’’

‘’Those were not nuclear weapons, Fleet Captain Forster: they were heavy rail gun shells equipped with anti-matter devices triggered via proximity fuses. Governor Robeson expressly agreed to their use against space-faring threats.’’

‘’Anti-matter weapons? But I thought that we banned their production in 2317.’’

‘’Correct, but we didn’t know at the time that we would be able to travel to other star systems any time soon…if ever. Now that we do, Governor Robeson, with the accord of the other leaders of the Spacers League, decided that we needed to have such weapons ready in our arsenal, in case an invading alien race would show up in our Solar System.’’

While she still felt that such a decision was wrong, Tina didn’t protest further about it: the politicians had decided on this and now there was no way to turn this around. God knew how many more of those anti-matter warheads were in service right now with Spacers League Navy ships. Feeling some bitterness about it, she still conceded that Captain Kondo had acted within her mandate and had destroyed legitimate targets.

‘’Very well, Captain Kondo. I will now ask you to stay in Hyanesu’s orbit, in order to protect the moon while I go do an orbital reconnaissance of the third planet and make sure that no other attack fleet is being prepared by the Vorlak.’’

‘’Be careful, Fleet Captain: the Vorlaks could possess orbital defense stations. Remember the ISF orbital fortresses we had to destroy in the 2315 War.’’

‘’Oh, I remember them well enough, Captain Kondo. I will be careful. Before I leave for the third planet, could you send back to me my shuttle, along with Mister Holmes?’’

‘’I certainly can do that, Fleet Captain. Kondo out!’’

Once the link was closed, Tina stayed silent for a moment in her command chair while digesting the revelations from Captain Kondo. She had done everything in 2317 to prevent the Koorivar anti-matter technology from becoming known and used by Humans, in order to prevent their eventual misuse. To be honest, she had then been the first to have this technology adapted to her ship, once the Koomak Drive had been invented and the Koorivars had asked her to go search among the stars for their two other evacuation ships. That had however been done with the full consent of the Koorivars themselves, with the sole purpose of preparing her ship for an interstellar search and rescue mission. Between that and putting in service anti-matter weapons, there was

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quite a huge gap. Finally chasing away her bitterness, Tina looked at Dana Durning, her navigator.

‘’Dana, plot a course to the third planet. Once there, we will do an extensive mapping and reconnaissance coverage of the planet from medium level orbit. We will also tally the number and types of space installations the Vorlaks possess in orbit. However, wait until our shuttle and Mister Holmes are back aboard before leaving the moon’s orbit.’’

‘’Understood, Tina!’’

‘’Then, I will go rest a bit in my day cabin, until the return of our shuttle. Renée, you have the bridge.’’

‘’Aye, Tina!’’

20:24 (Universal Time)

Vorlak Imperial Palace

Vorona, capital city of the Shumesh Empire

Planet Gliese 581c (Shumesh)

‘’Your Majesty, I am afraid that I have some bad news.’’

Emperor Shumesh III, sitting on his throne, gave his Fleet Grand Admiral an angry look on hearing those words. He however didn’t jump off his throne and simply said one word.

‘’Speak!’’

‘’Your Majesty, our four battleships have been destroyed, probably by the same unknown ship which destroyed our Second Fleet earlier. Our ships signaled spotting that alien ship around the moon, then retransmitted to our fleet headquarters an alien message that was basically a warning for us to stay away from the moon. Shortly after that, four large nuclear explosions were seen in space, above the moon, with our four ships stopping to communicate after those blasts. We still can’t get any response from our ships and they thus should be considered destroyed, Your Majesty.’’ The emperor, who was even more powerful physically than the average Vorlak, slammed a raging fist on the armrest of his throne.

‘’HOW COULD ONE SINGLE SHIP DEFEAT OUR FOUR MOST POWERFUL SHIPS?’’

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Grand Admiral Kanos repressed his fear as best he could: bringing bad news to the Emperor was a good way to end up dead afterwards. He however decided to tell Shumesh III the simple truth, as telling lies would only make things worse for him once the Emperor would see through those lies.

‘’Your Majesty, we believe that this alien ship may be of the same origin as the one that we chased away from our moon some 2,900 rotations ago. However, the present one is much bigger than the one seen in the past. In fact, its mass was largely superior to the combined mass of our four battleships and the ease with which it destroyed our ships indicates that its weapons are superior to our own weapons.’’

‘’Could it have come from the fourth planet, Gorosh?’’

‘’That is possible but unlikely, Your Majesty. Before this day, no sign of a Space-capable civilization was ever seen on Gorosh. In fact the near total lack of emerged lands on Gorosh directly militates against the development of a technically advanced race there. Many of our scientist now agree that this alien ship may have come from another star system, something that would denote by itself a clear technological superiority by those aliens over our own science.’’

‘’Humph! And what do we know about those aliens? Do we have pictures of them?’’

‘’We do have a picture of what we presume to be their ship captain. The aliens used it as part of pictographic messages sent to our ships to tell them to turn back. Here is the picture in question, Your Majesty.’’

Taking the viewing pad offered by Kanos, Shumesh III examined it for a moment with genuine curiosity.

‘’Hum, a rather frail looking being in my opinion. It must come from a low gravity planet, something that would indeed disqualify Gorosh as being the home planet of these aliens. The next question I have is why? Why attack our ships around our moon?’’

‘’Our best guess is that it came to try to find what happened to the alien shuttle that was destroyed on the moon 2,900 rotations ago, Your Majesty. Finding the debris of that shuttle may have caused this alien ship captain to seek revenge on us.’’

‘’That would make sense, as I would have done the same in his place. But why then telling us to stay away from our moon? Why taking the time to send warnings to our ships before destroying them?’’

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Grand Admiral Kanos then hesitated for a moment, as what he was about to see was assured of infuriating the Emperor.

‘’Your Majesty, the only reason I could think of to explain that is if those aliens intend to colonize and occupy our moon.’’

As Kanos had expected, the Emperor became instantly enraged at his words.

‘’WHAT? THOSE IMPUDENT ALIENS WOULD COME, DESTROY OUR SHIPS AND THEN ESTABLISH OUTPOSTS AND SETTLEMENTS ON THE MOON OF OUR OWN PLANET? NEVER! WHAT DO YOU HAVE LEFT IN YOUR FLEET THAT COULD CHASE THAT ALIEN SHIP AWAY OR DESTROY IT, ADMIRAL KANOS?’’

‘’Chase it away? Nothing unfortunately, Your Majesty. However, our long-range nuclear missiles can easily reach our moon. We could fire them in a massive salvo that would be able to bracket the whole moon. With luck, that should have good chances of destroying that alien ship. Even if they don’t, then our moon would become unlivable for those aliens and they would be forced to leave our system afterwards. Better for us to lose the use of our moon than to let an alien race take possession of it, Your Majesty.’’ Shumesh III needed only a short moment to think about that before he nodded his head.

‘’I totally agree with that. If we can’t have it, then nobody will have it. Prepare at once a missile firing plan and present it to me when it will be ready to be executed. Go!’’

22:58 (Universal Time)

Command bridge of the KOSTROMA

Halfway between Hyanesu and Gliese 581c

Tina, having taken some time with her toddler son, had stepped on her bridge only a few minutes ago when Amin Jamilian stiffened in his chair and shouted a warning.

‘’CAPTAIN, WE ARE DETECTING THE LAUNCH OF HUNDREDS OF OBJECTS FROM THE THIRD PLANET. THOSE OBJECTS HAVE JUST CLEARED THE PLANET’S ATMOSPHERE AND ARE NOW ACCELERATING AT A HIGH RATE TOWARDS HYANESU.’’

Tina, who had studied extensively the history of modern wars on Earth in order to then prepare herself for the incoming 2315 War against the Terran Federation, didn’t take long to understand what was happening and visibly paled.

‘’My God! A missile strike! How many of those objects can you count, Mister Jamilian?’’

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‘’Our sensors are detecting a total of 827 of them, Captain.’’

‘’Are they nuclear-tipped?’’

‘’One moment, please… Yes! There are definite radiation signatures for

plutonium masses coming from them. They are not the signatures of nuclear rocket engines, Captain.’’

‘’Jesus! Over eight hundred nuclear-tipped missiles heading for Hyanesu? They would be the death of the entire moon if we don’t stop them. Spirit, you alone can manage fast enough the kind of massive fire control calculations we would need for our lasers to destroy all of those missiles before they could reach Hyanesu. Can I count on you for this?’’

‘’Of course, Tina! Starting fire plan calculations now!’’ replied the artificial intelligence super-computer. With that off her mind, Tina’s next move was to call the CENTURION.

‘’CENTURION, this is the KOSTROMA. Urgent message, over!’’ An operator on the patrol cruiser responded at once to her.

‘’This is the CENTURION. Go ahead, KOSTROMA.’’

‘’CENTURION, this is Fleet Captain Forster. We have detected the launch of 827 nuclear-tipped missiles from the third planet. They are now heading at high acceleration towards Hyanesu. My KOSTROMA will do its best to intercept those missiles, but we may get swamped, with some of the missiles breaking through. I need you to take a second line intercept position and stop the missiles which may filter past me, over.’’

The voice on the radio then changed to that of Captain Kondo.

‘’I am moving the CENTURION into intercept position now, Fleet Captain. CENTURION out!’’

Feeling better now, Tina punched her intercom button, setting it on ‘ship-wide announcement’.

‘’Attention all hands! Attention all hands! This is your Captain. Battle stations! Battle stations! All non-essential personnel and passengers are to put on their emergency vacuum suits and wait in their quarters or close to the nearest escape pods. Engineering control: we will need the maximum electrical power possible for our lasers and our rail guns. All airtight doors and hatches are to be closed immediately. All the ship’s sections will switch to local power generation and local life support systems, while the common ventilation shafts will be shut tight. Power on and disperse all our damage

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control and firefighting robots. Those measures will stand until further notice. Captain out!’’

She had just finished giving her address when Amin Jamilian spoke up.

‘’Our laser batteries have started to fire, Captain.’’

‘’Good! Keep your eyes out for any extra missile launches from the third planet, Mister Jamilian.’’

‘’Aye, Captain!’’

Then, Tina found herself with nothing to do but observe and wait, leaving her crew and Spirit to do their job. She had learned a long time ago that a micro-managing captain only ended hurting his or her crew’s performance, especially during an emergency. Calling up a tactical situation display on one of the screens attached to the armrests of her command chair, she watched anxiously as the KOSTROMA’s laser fire, directed by Spirit, started taking out missile after missile. What worried Tina was the sheer number of missiles to deal with. Those missiles were also proving to be quite fast. Her nervousness increased as it soon became evident that some of the missiles, mostly those the furthest from the KOSTROMA, were going to filter through despite the astounding job done by Spirit in directing their laser fire. Amin Jamilian suddenly shouted a warning on an urgent tone.

‘’TWO OF THE NEAREST MISSILES HAVE CHANGED COURSE AND ARE HEADING FOR US, CAPTAIN! THEY SHOULD IMPACT IN ABOUT TWENTY

SECONDS.’’

‘’HAVE OUR SECONDARY RAIL GUN TURRETS ENGAGE THEM WITH A MASS CONCENTRATED VOLLEYS!’’

‘’AYE, CAPTAIN!’’

Jamilian then switched the eighteen 25-meter-long rail guns of their secondary turrets, lodged inside the six huge landing pods of the KOSTROMA, to ‘automated anti-missile mode’ by simply pressing a button. While those rail guns were minuscule compared to the four 150-meter-long heavy rail guns of their main battery, those smaller weapons still threw tungsten-steel pellets out at a muzzle velocity of eight kilometers per second and at a cadence of 900 pellets per minute. The impact of a single pellet on a typical ship hull would burn through it easily via the kinetic energy of such an impact, which made such rail guns ideal for short range fighting. A total of 120 pellets per second soon started raining in the direction of the two incoming missiles, straddling their trajectories nearly at once. One of the missiles was hit after four seconds of fire, with the impact of

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the pellet vaporizing its nose section, which contained its warhead and guidance package. That impact also deformed the body of the missile and took out its propulsion unit, throwing the whole missile off-course in an uncontrolled spiral. The second missile proved to have a bit more luck and survived another nine seconds before being hit and essentially destroyed. However, that left a cloud of metallic debris expanding in space as it still sped in the original direction of the missile. Those debris, being nearly impossible to further destroy by now, then intersected the KOSTROMA’s trajectory in space. Some flew by the ship, missing it by a few hundred meters, but others actually hit the giant cargo ship at velocities of around 1,300 meters per second. Any lesser ship would have sustained some significant damage from those hits, but the truth was that the KOSTROMA would easily qualify as a ‘battleship’ by any standards. Its regular outer hull was at a minimum made of a sandwich consisting of two ten-centimeter-thick steel plates joined by thick steel framing ribs and with the inner space between the plates filled with anti-radiation material. To that had been recently added one-meter-thick appliqué armor plates of tough ceramic composites, which covered the vital parts of the ship. The sheer size of the KOSTROMA, with its sturdy construction and structural rigidity and resistance, also helped absorb the impact of the few missile debris which hit it. On the bridge, those impacts were barely felt or heard, with only a couple of lights lighting up on the control panels of the ship’s damage control center. As a result, the laser fire was not affected at all and continued picking up missile after missile. When she saw that the surviving missiles were now passing by her on their way to Hyanesu, Tina gave an urgent order to her pilot.

‘’FRIDA, CHANGE COURSE AND FOLLOW THESE MISSILES ON A PARALLEL COURSE, SO THAT WE COULD CONTINUE TO ENGAGE THEM. HOWEVER, DON’T STAY RIGHT BEHIND THEM, OR WE COULD BE IN THE WAY OF THE FIRE FROM THE CENTURION.’’

‘’Understood, Captain!’’

On the bridge of the CENTURION, Miki Kondo was anxiously following the KOSTROMA’s battle with the missiles and waiting for her own lasers, which were much less powerful than those of the cargo ship, to be within effective range of the incoming missiles.

‘’Time to start firing our lasers, Mister Voronzov?’’

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‘’Another two minutes and the missiles will be within our laser effective range, Captain. If I may, I made a quick calculation and, at the present rate the KOSTROMA is shooting down those missiles, there will be approximately 183 missiles left by the time we will open fire. The KOSTROMA is truly accomplishing miracles right now, but there are simply too many missiles for it to all shoot them down before they enter Hyanesu’s atmosphere.’’

‘’Then, we will have to do our part, Mister Voronzov. As the Fleet Captain aptly said, we are now the last line of defense for this moon and for the Hoshis. If we fail, millions may die.’’

‘’Understood, Captain. I will do my very best.’’

‘’You always do, Mister Voronzov.’’ replied Miki, in order to encourage her weapons officer. However, what she had just said about being the last line of defense was unfortunately too true.

Two minutes and eleven seconds later, the laser batteries of the CENTURION started to fire at the missiles still speeding towards Hyanesu. To increase to the maximum her chances to hit the incoming missiles, Miki had elected to place her ship very close to the calculated trajectory of the missiles, in order to reduce the angular speed of her targets. This also made it possible for one or more missile to detect the CENTURION and then swerve towards it, like what happened to the KOSTROMA, but she was ready to accept that risk in view of what was at stake. Her decision to cut the angular separation between her ship and the missiles proved at once to be an effective one, with the laser batteries of the CENTURION starting at once to shoot down missiles at a high rate. With the KOSTROMA still firing and decimating the missiles in the tail of the swarm, the number of intact missiles dropped dramatically, putting hope in Miki’s heart that they would succeed in destroying in time all of the missiles. Then, Lieutenant Voronzov shouted in alarm.

‘’MISSILE VEERING OFF…’’

He couldn’t finish his sentence before a blinding flash of light filled the holographic display screens of the CENTURION’s bridge. A tiny fraction of a second later, a shock wave hit hard the patrol cruiser, throwing it in a mad tumble through space. More than half of the bridge’s work stations short-circuited at the same time in explosions of sparks. Temporarily stunned by the brutal shock, Miki started to cough as acrid smoke from burning wiring insulation filled the bridge.

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‘’CLOSE YOUR SUITS VISORS, NOW!’’ shouted Miki before doing so herself. Breathing quickly some filtered air first, she then looked around her to assess the damage to her ship. The bridge was now in semi-darkness, with the holographic screens off and with emergency lights now alone to provide some illumination. The moving lights from spacesuits’ helmets then reassured her that at least some of her bridge crewmembers were still alive and effective.

‘’DAMAGE REPORT! CAN WE STILL FIRE OUR LASER BATTERIES?’’

‘’NEGATIVE, CAPTAIN!’’ replied at once her weapons officer. ‘’OUR FIRE CONTROL SYSTEM IS OFFLINE AND OUR RADARS ARE DEAD!’’ Miki swore quietly to herself: that meant basically that they were now defenseless…and blind. If another Vorlak missile decided to track her ship, then they would be as good as dead. Using one of her command chair’s display screen, which was still functional, she contacted the ship’s damage control center, where the second engineer of the CENTURION answered her.

‘’Lieutenant Commander Turner, damage control center!’’

‘’Commander, how extensive is the damage? Do we have casualties?’’

‘’The casualty count is still unclear, Captain, as contact has been lost with a number of compartments. Some of the outer sections have been holed and have depressurized, while our main thermonuclear drive is offline. The half of our sensors facing the explosion burned out at once, while we have major short-circuit damage to our wiring all over the ship. We are now strictly on emergency power and are in no state to fight, Captain.’’

‘’How long to repair at least the essential systems, Commander Turner?’’ Miki didn’t like the hesitation by Turner before answering her.

‘’It will take at least six hours to restore most of the life support systems. However, repairing our main drive and external sensors will be a job for a space yard: we simply don’t have the spares needed aboard.’’

‘’What about our Koomak Drive?’’

‘’Forget it, Captain: it is dead right now, with most of its circuitry fried. I’m sorry but that’s our situation now.’’

‘’Well, we at least are still alive…for the moment. Do your best in the meantime.’’

‘’Aye, Captain!’’

Miki Kondo sat back in her command chair, feeling discouragement. Apart from her ship being helpless, she couldn’t even say if her efforts and those of the KOSTROMA had

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saved Hyanesu from being devastated by nuclear explosions. She then looked at her communications officer, Lieutenant Commander Yusuf Abadi.

‘’Commander Abadi, are we able to contact the KOSTROMA right now?’’

‘’Uh, one moment, Captain: our UHF, VHF AND HF band radios are presently out but I will try on the MF bands.’’

‘’I’ll wait!’’

Miki had to wait less than half a minute before Abadi twisted his head to smile to her.

‘’I have Fleet Captain Forster online, Captain. I am transferring the call to your command chair.’’

‘’Thank you, Commander.’’ replied Miki before opening the link on her sole working display screen. Seeing the image of Tina Forster helped her gain some confidence.

‘’Fleet Captain, my ship is presently blind and without propulsion and I am still waiting for casualty reports. Did we succeed in destroying all the Vorlak missiles before they could reach Hyanesu?’’

‘’Yes, thank goodness, although you took out one of the last ones in a rather unorthodox manner.’’

Tina’s attempt at lightening the mood actually worked, with Miki giggling briefly at it.

‘’Well, that method was not exactly my preferred choice. I was just told that my ship is basically out of business at this time and will need major repairs at a Space yard, as we lack the spares and tools needed for the job. What do you suggest that we do now?’’

‘’Well, after this attempt at premeditated genocide committed by those Vorlak bastards, a strong reply is definitely in order. However, we will take care first of at least doing some repairs to your ship. My KOSTROMA will come and grab your ship, using its stern towing station, so that we could connect directly our two ships. We will then transfer your crew aboard the KOSTROMA, where it will stay while we effect the repairs we can. Our ship workshops are actually very capable and we have large stocks of spare parts and structural parts aboard. With luck, we should be able to restore most of your systems.’’

‘’And what then, Fleet Captain?’’

‘’It will depend on the degree of repairs we will be able to do on your ship, Captain Kondo. I would like at least for your ship to be functional enough to stay in orbit

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of Hyanesu and serve as an orbital defense station for the moon, in case of another Vorlak attack. Only then will I go to the third planet and deal with the Vorlaks.’’

‘’Fleet Captain, before you leave for the third planet, I suggest that you transfer to your ship my reserves of special anti-matter munitions, along with a couple of weapons specialists. You will need them to strike the Vorlaks.’’

Tina was silent for a moment, appearing conflicted. She finally nodded her head once, her face somber.

‘’Normally, I would never agree to even carrying anti-matter weapons on my ship, much less so using them. However, the Vorlaks have just attempted what was a clear case of premeditated attempted genocide, with the goal of wiping out completely another sentient race. That attack would also have destroyed a whole moon and made it uninhabitable for centuries. Added to the barbarous acts they already committed in the past against the Hoshis, this makes them a clear and severe threat to all the races who either live already in this system or who will visit the system in the future. As much as this goes against all my moral principles, we are now left only with one solution to this Space threat: to destroy the Vorlaks’ heavy industries and all space installations and make them unable to travel into space. I will thus accept the transfer of your anti-matter weapons aboard my KOSTROMA.’’

‘’I would also consider destroying another category of Vorlak installations, Fleet Captain: their command and control centers. Let’s cut the head of the serpent at the same time.’’

‘’That I certainly agree with, Captain Kondo. Are your shuttles still operational and able to leave your ship?’’

‘’I will have to check on that first before answering you, Fleet Captain. Why do you ask?’’

‘’I am asking because, if they are operational, I would like you to use them to send down to Hyanesu your embarked space marines, so that they could provide some ground defenses to the main Hoshi villages and towns. The second-generation Koorivars living in Wynona could then serve as your interpreters with the Hoshis.’’

‘’That sounds like a great idea, Fleet Captain! I will check on that and get back to you as soon as I have an answer for you.’’

‘’Excellent! Please send me a complete casualties and damage report as soon as you will have compiled one.’’

‘’I will! CENTURION out!’’

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Closing the link, Miki sighed to herself: the next hours and days were going to be very busy indeed.

To Miki Kondo’s immense relief, the casualties from the missile detonation turned out to be only fourteen wounded, including three severe cases, but no fatalities. However, the initial assessment of the damages by Lieutenant Commander Turner proved to be mostly accurate, with a series of major repairs needing to be done to the ship, repairs which would normally necessitate the use of a Space yard. Thankfully, all of the assault shuttles and fighter craft embarked aboard the CENTURION proved to be still intact and operational. Four hours after the missile strike, the 172 space marines embarked on the CENTURION left the ship in six assault shuttles, to go down to a number of selected villages on Hyanesu, while the squadron of eight fighter craft of the cruiser flew off and went to take residence aboard the KOSTROMA, whose newly fitted fighter hangars had been still empty. Then, the giant cargo ship slowly captured with its stern tractor beams the cruiser, which looked puny compared to the KOSTROMA despite measuring over 400 meters in length and 230 meters in diameter. Once nearly glued to the KOSTROMA’s stern, the damaged cruiser was grabbed physically by four huge sets of adjustable clamps with rubberized pads which solidly secured the cruiser to the cargo ship. Miki Kondo was the first to transfer to the KOSTROMA via the cargo ship’s stern docking airlock, so that she could start discussing right away with Tina Forster the repairs needed by her cruiser.

Miki Kondo was greeted inside the stern viewing lounge of the KOSTROMA by Tina Forster, her chief engineer Rose Tillman, her head electronics engineer Vincent Reed and her chief electrical engineer, Gengis Kurganovich. They did a quick exchange of handshakes before Miki handed to Tina a thumb drive.

‘’Here is my complete damage report, Fleet Captain. You will find it to be quite extensive. Thankfully, the nuclear blast, which I estimate to have been of a yield of 400 kilotons, occurred some eleven kilometers from my ship, so we were able to avoid the worst.’’

‘’Thank God for that!’’ said Tina, who then gave the thumb drive to Rose Tillman. ‘’Here you are, Rose. Do your magic on Captain Kondo’s ship.’’

‘’We will give it the V.I.P. treatment, Tina. Vincent, Gengis, come with me!’’ As the trio of engineers walked away, Tina gave an encouraging smile to Miki.

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‘’You will be impressed when you will see the kind of industrial production and repair facilities I have aboard the KOSTROMA. By the way, simply call me Tina when in private: I dislike formal protocol, especially of the military type.’’

‘’Yet, you are all but in name the senior ship’s officer of the Spacers League Navy. By the way, that was some very nice shooting by your KOSTROMA some hours ago.’’

‘’Bof! You can thank our central computer, Spirit, for that: she directed our fire plan. If we could change subjects right now, I would like you to tell me more about the anti-matter weapons you are carrying aboard your cruiser, Miki.’’

‘’Well, to be more precise, they are not actually weapons: they are only sub-parts on some of our warheads and shells.’’

‘’Sub-parts?’’

‘’Yes! Their concept is actually very simple…and very safe. They contain no anti-matter at all, as they basically consist in miniature Koorivar matter-to-anti-matter converters. Those converters, which are no bigger than a small battery cell, are connected to a special fuse circuitry with redundant safeties. Those safeties ensure that the converters won’t function until getting a discharge of very specific frequency and amplitude. Even a strong induced electro-magnetic field will not switch on a matter converter. The converter unit can be fitted to either a heavy rail gun shell or to a missile warhead, which can then be stored safely for indefinite periods aboard a ship. Once fired away at a target, the converter circuit will arm itself, powering up a conversion field when achieving either a direct hit or a proximity hit. The matter converter will then energize itself for a micro-second, long enough to instantly convert part of the mass of the projectile containing it to anti-matter. In the case of heavy rail gun shells, about two kilos of matter will be converted to anti-matter on impact. That anti-matter will then react with the matter of the rest of the projectile, causing a titanic explosion in the range of sixty megatons. If fitted to a missile warhead, a matter converter unit will change to anti-matter some three kilos of matter, causing a ninety-megaton blast. By the way, such anti-matter blasts don’t produce any persistent radiation, so they are considered to be ‘clean’ weapons.’’

Tina was left aghast at first by these numbers, but regained her composure quickly enough.

‘’And…how many of those ‘special munitions’ are you carrying inside your CENTURION, Miki?’’

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‘’I still have forty converter-tipped missiles and 92 converter-equipped heavy rail gun shells aboard, Tina. I realize that the prospect of using them probably disgust you, but I believe that the Vorlaks actions to date leave us with no other alternative but to use our most powerful weapons against the third planet. If we don’t, then the Hoshis will ultimately pay the price in the long run.’’

Tina had to sit down on a nearby bench as she contemplated the awful destructive power of those anti-matter weapons.

‘’These things are even more terrible than I had imagined.’’

‘’But to not use them now would bring even more terrible consequences in the future, Tina.’’

‘’You are right, unfortunately.’’ Could only reply Tina.

Tina could find little sleep during the following days, partly because of all the things to be done, partly because what she was going to have to do soon weighed heavily on her conscience. Two days after the missile attack, a Vorlak ship attempted a reconnaissance mission around Hyanesu but succeeded only in getting destroyed by one of the CENTURION’s fighter craft. A further three days later, the CENTURION was declared functional enough to act as an orbital defense station with limited mobility. It was now time to deal with the Vorlak threat in a definitive fashion.