HADRON Havoc, Page 2

  “That’s it. Can’t get to any other decks.”

  The remaining members of the Rogers crew were either trapped or dead. The small group of survivors worked their way down the hull to the ground.

  Liam said, “Up and over this ridge and we’re in the valley. Cave is about eight kilometers that way. This is Greenbriar Forest. Got us as close as I could.”

  “Excellent job of flying, Mr. Hobbs.”

  Liam looked up at the flames and smoke that billowed from the once mighty warship. “We’d better be moving, Mr. Hardy. If that hydrogen store blows, it will take half this valley with it.”

  As the group hiked up through the woods toward the top of the ridge, a Karthian cruiser, trailing flames and heavy smoke, crossed over the opposite ridge before crashing hard into the row of mountains just beyond. The ground shook as its hydrogen store gave way to the force. A tremendous mushrooming fireball rose up into the cloudless fall sky. The remaining crew of the Rogers hurried to get out of the valley.

  The hike up and over was followed by a walk through the woods, taking most of two hours. Mace carried a still-unconscious Fatso Geerok. The group emerged from the woods to a scene that looked unfamiliar.

  Johnny said, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to get used to that. Every time I come up to it, the place looks slightly different.”

  Mace said, “The projector has eight scenes it flips between. All are similar, but just different enough that you think you’re somewhere else. Jeff thought it would add to our ability to stay hidden.”

  Johnny laughed. “Yeah, hidden from ourselves.”

  The group walked through three different projected images before the gift shop came into view. Seconds later they were entering the cave. Fatso was taken to a room designated as the infirmary and laid out on a table.

  Mace returned to the main room, where most of the others had gathered. “I’m taking a team back to search the ship. I need volunteers.”

  Johnny, Jane, and Jenny walked into the room.

  Jenny said, “I can fly you over but we need to go now. The fight up above is almost over and those ships will be coming down to the surface soon.”

  Mace looked around. “If you have gear with an exosuit, come with me.”

  Ten from the original crew, along with two from the cave, made their way out to the shuttle. It lifted up over the mountains and settled a minute later with its ramp lowered beside the hole Jordan Crawford had cut into the hull.

  As the group moved in, Mace said, “I want four teams of three. Take your torches and cut through whatever you need to. And check walls for heat before cutting. We’re here to rescue others, not to get ourselves killed. Mr. Montak, I’ll go with your two teams. We’ll start two decks down if we can. Mr. Crawford, you take this floor. Johnny, you take deck two.”

  An hour was spent cutting and chopping as the teams swept through the available areas. Only a quarter of the great ship’s original crew areas could be accessed. A dejected Mace sat on a box as a final room was cut into.

  Bontu placed his hand on Mace’s shoulder. “This is the last we can do for this deck. Fire burns hot beyond that bulkhead.”

  Mace shook his head. “I waited too long to give the order to pull back.”

  Bontu replied, “You did as well as could be expected to get us this far, Mr. Hardy. Your decisions were made with concern for us all.”

  Mace shrugged. “We had seventy-six people on this crew. Counting Johnny, Jane, and Jenny, we only made it out with thirteen. We can’t even get their bodies out.”

  Bontu said, “They died fighting for freedom, on a ship I believe they all loved. You made this ship our home and us your family.”

  Johnny came over the comm. “We’ve done all we can here. That hydrogen store is still burning. And the Karthians are searching. I suggest we move back to the cave before we draw attention to ourselves.”

  A comm was opened to everyone. “Pull back to the shuttle. We’ve done all we can here.”

  Johnny met Mace at the hole going out. “Why you bringing that? What good is a damaged wormhole generator? Shrapnel looks to have shredded the insides.”

  Mace replied, “It’s damaged, but maybe Doc can fix it. Besides, didn’t want to leave it for the Karthians to find. At some point they will be going over everything in that ship, taking the rest of our tech. A small wormhole generator is not something we want to give them.”

  Johnny glanced over his shoulder. “Should we destroy it? Or what’s left of it?”

  Mace stopped for several seconds in thought. “Not just yet. But we should put something in place that will allow us to, should the time come. I’d like to salvage everything we can out of her first.”

  Johnny helped Mace carry the weapon down to the ground. “If we’re gonna field strip this beast we need to get started on it soon.”

  Mace nodded. “Let’s get this aboard the shuttle. Jenny can take it to Doc’s lab. Everyone else needs to go back to the cave until we figure out what we’re gonna do here.”

  “You said we. I take it you and I are staying?” Johnny replied.

  Mace carried the device up the shuttle ramp. “Yep. We’re gonna put together a plan of how we’re gonna rig her.”

  Johnny turned back to look at the fallen warship. “Would hate to see her go out like that.”

  Mace set the wormhole device on the deck. “We’re beyond the point of being able to recover her. Even if we put out the fires and somehow manage to patch up her hull, the gravity drives are shot. And there aren’t any repair docks left to do the needed work.”

  Mace began to walk back toward the downed ship. “Let’s go through and identify every bit of gear we think could be removed. We’ll work on a solution to taking her out as we go.”

  Johnny laughed. “Taking her out is the easy part. Set off one of those hydrogen stores. I’m surprised the one that’s leaking hasn’t gone off.”

  “It’s a pinhole leak. The pressure is keeping the flames far enough away that they haven’t started that tank melting. The biggest danger will be when that pressure drops and the flame gets closer. We’ll want to have all our scavenging done by then.”

  “How long do you think we have before the pressure drops?”

  “Montak said possibly a couple days. It was a full tank. Seems insanely long to me, but it is what it is, I guess.”

  Mace stepped onto the bridge. “We should try to pull every one of these consoles if we can. Wish we could salvage a generator or two but that whole deck was crushed.”

  Johnny said, “We have that green energy weapon, the wormhole weapon we just grabbed, and a handful of the plasma and microwave cannons. Oh, and the food store is intact. We should empty that out. I know we’re well stocked in the cave, but it doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere anytime soon.”

  Mace opened a comm. “Doc? You think you could rig up a bomb for us that would rupture one of the hydrogen tanks on the Rogers? We’d like to not leave the Karthians any of our technologies if possible.”

  Jeff nodded. “We could, but I think your fears are misplaced. The Karthians already have examples of all our technology from the previous fights. Our newest wormhole weapon might be the only one they don’t have.”

  Mace said, “Yeah, I ripped that out of the Rogers today. Would also like to grab the green energy weapon and anything else we could possibly make use of. And I have your prototype. It’s damaged. Took some shrapnel to the main box. Jenny should be dropping it by in a minute.”

  Jeff replied, “I’ll assemble a team from here for salvage. Mr. Klept and I will work up a method for total destruction, if that’s what you desire.”

  Mace looked into the comm camera. “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to blow her up. I just don’t want the Karthians to be able to pull anything from her that they could use against us.”

  Jeff rubbed his chin. “I tell you what, let us come over. We’ll ID everything we think they could make use of. After that, we strip out those items and then just
leave the rest. If the Karthians come and take it away, well, good for them. In the meantime we can use it as a resource for our needs.”

  Mace thought for a moment. “Anyway we could disguise it with one of those holo-projectors? Do we have any spares?”

  “We do. I’ll have to give it some thought. Although, it would require us to extinguish the fires first.”

  The science and engineering team rode over to the wreck of the Rogers with Jeff Moskowitz. An inventory of possibly usable items was taken and the work begun to remove them.

  A comm came in from Jasper. “I got a report that said the Rogers was down.”

  “She’s finished,” Mace replied. “We’re stripping her of what we can. A passive scan says the fighting above us has come to an end. You have any scouts around?”

  Jasper nodded. “I do. Stark surrendered with seventy ships left. Word is the Karthians are discussing their desires with him right now. I’m guessing Humans will become part of their military, just as we had talked about before.”

  “How many ships did you manage to leave with?”

  “Thirty-seven, all Collins class. Five are still flyable but in bad shape. Another seven have moderate damage, and eleven have light damage. We’re doing repairs as we can.”

  Mace said, “I hope you realize you can’t stay there long. The Karthians will be scouting all the nearby worlds. That site might stay hidden but your ships won’t. Have you thought about where you’re gonna base yourself?”

  Jasper nodded. “We’re going back to Hardy. That claim spike will keep them away until we can decide further. I have scouts moving to our prior battle sites. I’m hoping we can find a Karthian structure with enough left of it that we could salvage a set of starmaps from it. As soon as we have our basic repairs done, I want to start conducting raids into Karthian territories.”

  Johnny said, “One day Zax and Fina are gonna be reading in a textbook about how Jasper Collins, the deposed Targarian king, became the first Human space pirate.”

  Jasper said, “Let’s hope we can make that come true. I have about twelve million very motivated people that want to make that happen.”

  Johnny said, “If he makes it back to Hardy and they don’t bother him, we might want to think about making that jump too. I would imagine the Karthians are gonna have this place locked down pretty tight in short order.”

  Mace picked up the end of a newly unbolted bridge console. “Keep us informed, Mr. Collins. We’re still breathing, so this isn’t over yet.”

  Jasper nodded. “Will do.”

  The comm closed as Mace backed toward the exit. The next day and a half were spent removing every piece of gear that could possibly be put to use. The salvage operation came to an end when a Karthian scout ship happened over the wreck and lingered for a short time. The shuttle had pulled away with a new load of gear only moments before. A remotely controlled bomb was attached to a forward hydrogen store. Should the Karthians come to claim her, it would be to their demise.

  Mace sat in the lab as Jeff continued his work on the wormhole weapon. “Did you ever get past that feedback issue?”

  Jeff shook his head. “Haven’t been able to get back to that point. It seems some of the tweaks we applied to the circuits before were somehow lost. Or perhaps different, due to the different environment we���re now in. At the moment I have a feeder circuit that is failing to initialize.”

  Mace frowned. “So even if you get this working here, it’s not likely to work on a ship when installed without major tweaking?”

  “I don’t think that will be an issue. The artificial gravitational field on a ship is extremely stable. Down here, I can go across the room and encounter slight variations. And when the fracture is developed, there is little gravitational effect at all. Unfortunately, we haven’t found our way back to that point with this unit.”

  “Have you had a chance to look over the damaged prototype unit?”

  Jeff stopped his efforts. “Only took an initial look. The damage was to a critical section. I won’t know how severe until I take it apart.”

  “I was wondering about the green energy weapon. Would it be worthwhile to install it on one of our shuttles?”

  Jeff winced as he shook his head. “I don’t see what good that would do. We already know it won’t penetrate the Karthian shields. And a scaled up version wouldn���t fit. Now, it might be a formidable weapon if combined with the wormhole weapon��� open a wormhole, and as it penetrates a hull, send the quantum wave through. I would imagine that combination would create havoc for the Karthians.”

  Mace nodded. “Great. So when can I have it?”

  Jeff took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I suppose I will have to evaluate the damage to the prototype unit. We didn’t pull any cloning equipment from the hull of the Rogers, did we?”

  “Cloning equipment?”

  Jeff smiled. “Yes. I need three or four more of me to take on the current set of priority projects I have going.”

  Mace sighed. “You’re a funny man, Doc. And definitely clone-worthy. If you get a moment, see what you can do for us. Otherwise, we won’t be taking those shuttles out anytime soon. Not worth the risk if we can’t shoot back.”

  Mace stepped out of the front door of the lab and was immediately confronted by Jordan Crawford. “Mr. Hardy, I think we should send a recon team over to Ronceverte. A Karthian cruiser was seen making a descent in that direction.”

  Mace replied, “I’d say that warrants a look. I have a short errand to run. Bring Johnny and Jenny with you. I’ll meet the three of you back here.”

  “A short errand?”

  Mace half smiled. “It’s personal.”

  “Anything I can help with?”

  Mace laughed. “No. It’s a restroom break if you have to know, which seems to be the case. And I just realized… what’s up with all the J names? Jordan, Johnny, Jenny, Jane? Oh, and Jasper. Does that J offer you some kind of special protection or something?”

  Jordan was silent for several seconds. “Perhaps you should go take care of your issue, Mr. Hardy. It appears to be affecting your mind.”

  Mace began to reply, but then turned and hurried off to the cave. Ten minutes later he walked back to the lab, where the J team was waiting.

  Chapter 3

  *

  Johnny said, “There’s a setting on our suit projectors that is labeled as Surroundings. Select that and we can make a run over to Ronceverte. Unless they do a scan for bios, they won’t see us.”

  Mace replied, “Excellent idea. Maybe we should put a projector on one of our vehicles.”

  Johnny shook his head. “We can do a sustained run on foot at forty-eight kph. On these roads we can’t go much faster than that in a car, as they’re all beginning to degrade. We need to call the county road works out to do some patching.”

  Jenny frowned. “Would be nice if we could. I guess that was one perk of paying taxes. As an individual you never had to maintain the roads.”

  Johnny laughed. “If you’d like, we could implement a tax on all members of the cave.”

  Jenny scowled. “I’d be all for that if I thought it would work.”

  Mace looked at the two. “If you’re done with this pointless conversation, we can proceed.”

  Jenny gestured. “OK, you first, since you’re the conversation cop.”

  Mace turned toward the town, slowly building up speed until he was at a full run. The others followed close behind. Other than waviness to the air surrounding the team, no other visual clues told of them being there. Four minutes later, the three kilometer distance had been covered. The four hidden Humans stood on the roadway looking across the river.

  A Karthian cruiser was hovering just above the one-time ball field with its ramp extended. A dozen Karthian soldiers stood around the bottom of the ramp. The recently elected mayor of the town was kneeling on the ground before a Karthian officer.

  Johnny said, “Look at how they’re making him bow before the
m. I wonder what they would think if I snuck over and walked up that ramp? Bet I could clear that ship out in fifteen minutes… starting from the bridge.”

  Johnny began to shake his head. “I just realized, we assaulted all those shuttles and didn’t once think of using the projector. We could have virtually walked onto every bridge of every one of those cruisers.”

  Jenny replied, “You’re visible unless you’re standing perfectly still. I turned mine on once. There was a fractional delay when I changed where my weapon was aiming to what I was seeing. Made me very uncomfortable, so I turned it off. Not like it would have stopped the random fire coming from the enemy anyway.”

  Johnny said, “I wouldn’t mind hearing what they’re saying to him.”

  Mace nodded. “Well, Mr. Johnny? Since this was your idea, you want to take a shot at it? I would suggest approaching from the front of that ship, as they’re all looking away.”

  Johnny smiled. “Keep your comm open. If you hear me yelling, it’s because I’m running away. Send down some cover fire if that’s the case.”

  A ghost-like transparent image could be seen running down the road. Three minutes later, the voices of the conversation could be heard.

  “You will report all activities to me twice per day. You will assign two lieutenants as backups should you be unable. If a report is not received, you will be terminated and a new mayor selected. You will provide a report on all persons coming to or leaving from the center. And you will place monitors at all entrances and exits to the town providing the names of every Human in transit to or from your community, and the nature of their business with that transit. Understood?”

  The mayor nodded.

  The officer continued: “You will also provide a list of all construction or farming projects that are occurring in and around your community, and the status of those projects. Provide this information in full and you will not be bothered or harassed. Fail to comply and you will be terminated and replaced. Understand?”