Iterations and other stories (collection)

The computer had numbered the two remaining Nidichars with big sans-serif digits. “Concentrate all our fire on number two,” I said. The crisscrossing lasers, shooting from the eleven beam emitters deployed around the rim of our hull, all converged on the same spot on the same ship, severing one of the three connecting struts. As soon as it was cut, the beams converged on another strut, slicing through it, as well. One of the cylindrical modules fell away from the rest of the ship. Given the plasma streamers trailing from the stumps of the connecting struts, it must have been an engine pod. “Continue the surgery,” I said to Nguyen. The beams settled on a third strut.

I took a moment to glance back at the Rhamphorhynchus and Quetzalcoatlus. The Altairian singleships were swarming around the Rhamphorhynchus (colored blue in the display). Peter Chin’s lasers were sweeping through the swarm, and every few seconds I saw a singleship explode. But he was still overwhelmed.

Heidi, aboard the Quetzalcoatlus, was trying to draw the swarm’s fire, but with little success. And if she fired into the cloud of ships, either her beams or debris from her kills might strike the Rhamphorhynchus.

I swung to look at the hologram of Peter’s head. “Do you need help?” I asked.

“No, I’m okay. We’ll just—”

The fireball must have roared through his bridge from stern to bow; the holocamera stayed online long enough to show me the wall of flame behind Pete, then the flesh burning off his skull, and then—

And then nothing; just an ovoid of static where Peter Chin’s head had been. After a few seconds, even that disappeared.

I turned to the holo of Heidi, and I recognized her expression: it was the same one I myself was now forcing onto my face. She knew, as I did, that the eyes of her bridge crew were on her. She couldn’t show revulsion. She especially couldn’t show fear— not while we were still in battle. Instead, she was displaying steeleyed determination. “Let’s get them,” she said quietly.

I nodded, and—

And then my ship reeled again. We’d all been too distracted by what had happened to the Rhamphorhynchus to notice the wake moving through the cloud of expelled gas around our ship. Another stealth torpedo had exploded against our hull.

“Casualty reports coming in—” began Champlain.

“Belay that,” I said. The young man looked startled, but there was nothing I could do about the dead and injured now. “What’s the status of our cargo?”

Champlain recovered his wits; he understood the priorities, too. “Green lights across the board,” he said.

I nodded, and the computer issued an affirming ding so that those crew members who were no longer looking at me would know I’d acknowledged the report. “Leave the Nidichars; let’s get rid of those singleships before they take out the Quetzalcoatlus.”

The starfield wheeled around us as the Pteranodon changed direction.

“Fire at will,” I said.

Our lasers lanced forward, taking out dozens of the singleships. The Quetzalcoatlus was eliminating its share of them, too. The two remaining Nidichars were now barreling towards us. Kalsi used the ACS thrusters to spin us like a top, lasers shooting off in all directions.

Suddenly, a black circle appeared in front of my eyes again: there had been an explosion on the Quetzalcoatlus. A stealth torpedo had connected directly with one of the Q’s three engine spheres, and, as I saw once the censor disengaged, the explosion had utterly destroyed the sphere and taken a big, ragged chunk out of the lens-shaped main hull.

We’d cut the singleship swarm in half by now, according to the status displays. Heidi powered up her tachyon-pulse cannon again; it was risky, with her down to just two engines, but we needed to level the playing field. The discharge from her TCP destroyed one of the two remaining Nidichars: there was now only one big Altairian ship to deal with, and forty-seven singleoccupant craft.

I left Heidi to finish mopping up the singleships; we were going to take out the final Nidichar. I really didn’t want to use our TCP—the energy drain was too great. But we couldn’t risk being hit by another stealth torpedo; we’d left our cloud of expelled atmosphere far behind when we’d gone after the swarm, and—

And the Pteranodon rocked again. A structural member dropped from the ceiling, appearing as if by magic as it passed through the holobubble; it crashed to the deck next to my chair.

“Evasive maneuvers!” I shouted.

“Not possible, Captain,” said Kalsi. “That came from the planet’s surface; its rotation must have finally given a ground-based disruptor bank a line-of-sight at us.”

“Cargo status?”

“Still green, according to the board,” said Champlain.

“Send someone down there,” I said. “I want an eyeball inspection.”