Iterations and other stories (collection)

The Quetzalcoatlus surged ahead. All three of our ships had the same design: a lens-shaped central hull with three spherical engine pods spaced evenly around the perimeter. But the holoprojector colorized the visual display for each one to make it easy for us to tell them apart: Heidi’s ship appeared bright red.

“The Q is powering up its TPC,” said Nguyen. I smiled, remembering the day I blew up my Altairian toy. Normally, a tachyon-pulse cannon was only used during hyperspace battles; it would be overkill in orbital maneuvering. Our Heidi really wanted to make her point.

Seconds later, a black circle appeared directly in front of me: the explosion of the first Nidichar had been so bright, the scanners had censored the information rather than blind my crew.

Like Peter Chin, I had been content to let Heidi have the first kill; that was 110 big deal. But it was time the Pteranodon got in the game.

“I’ll take the ship at 124 by 17,” I said to the other two captains. “Peter, why don’t—”

Suddenly my ship rocked. I pitched forward slightly in my chair, the restraining straps holding me in place.

“Direct hit amidships—minimal damage,” said Champlain, my ship-status officer, turning to face me. “Apparendy they can now shield their torpedoes against our sensors.”

Peter Chin aboard the Rhamphorhynchus smiled. “I guess we’re not the only ones with some new technology.”

I ignored him and spoke to Nguyen. “Make them pay for it.” The closer ship was presumably the one that had fired the torpedo. Nguyen let loose a blast from our main laser; it took a tenth of a second to reach the alien ship, but when it did, that ship cracked in two under the onslaught, a cloud of expelled atmosphere spilling out into space. A lucky shot; it shouldn’t have been that easy. Still: “Two down,” I said, “two to go.”

“ ’Afraid not, Ambrose,” said the Heidi hologram. “We’ve picked up a flotilla of additional Altairian singleships leaving the outer moon and heading this way. We’re reading a hundred and twelve distinct sublight-thruster signatures.”

I nodded at my colleagues. “Let’s teach them what it means to mess with the Trisystems Interstellar Guard.”

The Rhamphorhynchus and the Quetzalcoatlus headed off to meet the incoming flotilla. Meanwhile, I had the Pteranodon fly directly toward the two remaining Nidichars, much bigger than the singleships the others were going up against. The nearer of the Nidichar grew bigger and bigger in our holographic display. I smiled as the details resolved themselves. Nidichar-class vessels were a common Altairian type, consisting of three tubular bodies, parallel to each other, linked by connecting struts. Two of the tubes were engine pods; the third was the habitat module. On the Nidichars I’d seen before, it was easy to distinguish the living quarters from the other two. But this one had the habitat disguised to look just like another propulsion unit. Earlier in the war, the Star Guard had made a habit of shooting out the engine pods, humanely leaving the crew compartment intact. I guess with this latest subterfuge, the Aides thought we’d be reluctant to disable their ships at all.

They were wrong.

I didn’t want to use our tachyon-pulse cannon; it depleted the hyperdrive and I wanted to keep that in full reserve for later. “Shove some photons down their throats,” I said.

Nguyen nodded, and our lasers—thoughtfully animated in the holo display so we could see them—lanced out toward first one and then the other Altairian cruiser.

They responded in kind. Our force screens shimmered with auroral colors as they deflected the onslaught.

We jousted back and forth for several seconds, then my ship rocked again. Another stealth torpedo had made its way past our sensors.

“That one did some damage,” said Champlain. “Emergency bulkheads are in place on decks seven and eight. Casualty reports are coming in.”

The Altairians weren’t the only ones with a few tricks at their disposal. “Vent our reserve air tanks,” I said. “It’ll form a fog around us, and—”

“And we’ll see the disturbance created by an incoming torpedo,” said Nguyen. “Brilliant.”

“That’s why they pay me the colossal credits,” I said. “Meanwhile, aim for the struts joining the parts of their ships together; let’s see if we can perform some amputations.”

More animated laserfire crisscrossed the holobubble. Ours was colored blue; the aliens’, an appropriately sickly green.

“We’ve got the casualty reports from that last torpedo hit,” said Champlain. “Eleven dead; twenty-two injured.”

I couldn’t take the time to ask who had died—but I’d be damned if any more of my crew were going to be lost during this battle.