PREDATORY PRACTICES
A Tech Infantry Novella
by
Edward Stasheff & Marcus Johnston
Copyright © 2011
Chapter 20: Strategic Withdrawal
In orbit above Cronos, Lord High Admiral Ramachander Pennyworth of the Imperial sat on the bridge of his flagship, the Stalingrad-class battlecruiser Chevauchée, watching though satellite cameras as the Cialt Siege drew to a close. Imperial troopers had finally broken through the walls of the Abbey and were swarming inside. If they succeeded in capturing Governor Edwina Smythe—preferably alive—the Emperor would be quite pleased. The credit would go to the Imperial General directing the siege, of course, and rightly so... but Ramachander wanted to be in the area when the final victory came. A little glory-by-association never hurt, especially at the Imperial court.
"Admiral?" the sensor officer called out. "I'm detecting a huge power spike in orbit... I think it's coming from that big alien cargo ship."
Ramachander nodded to his crewman, unconcerned. "Anything dangerous, Lieutenant?"
"I'm... not sure how those alien ships work, sir. It might be a systems failure… or it might just be routine."
"Find out what's going on, just in case," the Admiral said. "Open a channel to the ship, offer assistance."
"Yes sir." The officer turned back to his console right as it beeped and a new holoproj display popped up. "Admiral? Etheral scanners are detecting intense magickal energy on the same ship. It's something big, a..." He double-checked the telemetry, puzzled by the readings. "A… transit portal?"
Ramachander and his lieutenant exchanged glances. "A transit antenna? On an alien freighter?"
"Yes, Admiral. As unlikely as it may be… that would be my best guess."
"Unusual... Find the other end of that portal, Lieutenant. Start with a scan of the planetary surface."
"Yes sir," the sensor officer replied as he brought up a different display. "Etheral scanners are detecting another transit portal in the northern hemisphere… Titan Ridge… Hestia Range…" The officer looked up at the Admiral, concerned. "It's in the same area as the Cialt Siege, sir."
Ramachander narrowed his eyes in suspicion. Whatever was going on, it merited further investigation.
"Heth! BEHIND YOU!!"
Heth rolled over to see a huge armored werewolf swinging down a battle-axe. Heth knew he was dead.
A fat flying cat slammed into the werewolf's helmet, spitting and hissing and clawing, bladed tail whipping. The werewolf's axe swung wild, missing Heth by centimeters. Heth scrambled for his rifle as the beast seized the cat, ripped it off its face, and hurled it away—but the armored cat fired his suit's retrorockets and bounced right back.
"Shoot it, Heth!" M'Rowr roared, dodging axe blows in midair as the werewolf swatted at him with growing frustration. "Shoot it NOW!!"
Heth fired point-blank into the werewolf again and again, no longer caring how expensive each round was. His first burst missed, ricocheting off the rock face behind. His second burst hit. Some slugs passed clean through the beast without detonating—but others struck home, the explosive tips bursting craters through armor and flesh… but the supernaturally tough beast merely flinched in annoyance, as if stung by an insect, hardly slowing down as it swung furiously at M'Rowr.
"In the HEAD!" M'Rowr yelled at Heth, "The HEAD!" M'Rowr hit his suit's thrusters—but wasn't quite fast enough. The enchanted axe sliced through his armor. Helium under pressure in his air sacs shot out; M'Rowr flew away like a deflating balloon. The beast turned to Heth with a snarl, licking its fangs.
Heth fired up at the monster's head… but his hands were trembling; he missed. The werewolf swung its axe up for the final death blow as Heth squeezed off one last shot.
The Impossibarium slug crashed through the faceplate of the beast's helmet and out the back in a spray of blood and shrapnel—and took a chunk out of the rock wall behind it, too. The werewolf collapsed to the floor, motionless.
It took Heth a terrified moment to realize he'd survived. Then, slowly, he looked around for M'Rowr.
Was the fighting... dying down? Heth shook his head, looked closer, and saw Imperial troopers retreating through transit portals, werecreatures shifting back into the Umbra. He blinked. Are we... winning?
The Abbot bleated in fury as the last enemy portal closed. He slashed his blood-stained claymore against the stone wall in a burst of sparks, then shifted back into his human form. "Why?" he bellowed. "Why are they leaving? They have us!"
The room grew quiet. The remaining Brothers and cats looked around nervously, suspicious.
Narrah looked up from a mauled body. "Unless..." he said, absently flicking intestines from his claws. "To save their troopers from... something else?" He glanced at the Abbot; they locked eyes and realized the same horror.
"Bloody Hell!"
"SCAT!" Narrah roared. "THROUGH THE PORTAL! NOW!!"
Monks and hunters charged the portal—except Heth. He raced around the cavern on all four, searching. His armor's radiological sensors suddenly lit up and continued growing, triggering a loud alarm in his ear.
"Hunter Heth!" Narrah roared, bounding toward him. "We have to go, NOW! THAT'S AN ORDER!"
"But... I have to find M'Rowr..."
"Leave him!"
"...but he's hurt!"
"HE'S DEAD!"
"No!" Heth said. "He's—" A cybernetic tail whipped around his throat, cutting off any further protests.
"It's a nuke!" Narrah yelled, dragging Heth away. "Run, RUN!"
Panic filled Heth. He scrambled to his paws, racing toward the portal with the speed of blind fear. They hit the event horizon of the transit portal flying… right as they heard a deafening roar above them.
Silence descended on the bridge of the Chevauchée as the crew watched the crumbling Cialt Abbey complex consumed in a nuclear blast. This is bad, very bad, Admiral Ramachander thought. The nuclear option was a last resort for the Imperial Army. Either something went very wrong... or the rebels detonated it themselves... "Lieutenant Hernandez!" Ramachander turned to his communications officer. "Contact the Imperial Army, find out what happened."
"Yes sir, as soon as I can. The EMP and nuclear radiation is interfering with their communication systems."
"Understood." Ramachander nodded. "Let me know as soon as you get through."
"Admiral!" the sensor officer called out. "That transit portal on the alien freighter just shut down."
Interesting timing, the Admiral thought. "Any response from the freighter yet?" he asked the communications officer.
"Uh... sort of, sir," Hernandez replied. "They've responded, but it's just a lot of garbled hissing."
Ramachander raised an eyebrow. "Are the translators not working properly?"
"Yes, but they're not speaking their native language, sir," the officer explained. "They're speaking Terran—but their accent is so thick that I can't make it out."
"Well, that's a new way to stall for time," Ramachander said, amused. "I don't believe I've seen that one before. I also believe it's rather suspicious. Helm, set a course for that big freighter. Comm, try to keep them talking."
Heth and Narrah crashed onto a hard metal floor as the transit portal closed behind them. Heth looked around, dazed, at the transit bay of the Avarice. Kirrp the K'Nes technomancer stood at the control terminal, wide-eyed, fur bristled, and trembling. Hostile military extractions were very different from clandestine cargo pickups.
All around Heth, people were shouting. O'Reilly and Abbot MacAries were calling for their men to sound off, trying to figure out who had made it out alive, who was injured, and who was missing. Heth noticed they were standing on the floor—and suddenly realized the crew must have turned on the artificial gravity.
"What are you orders, sire?" someone said in Heth's ear.
"Mom! Dad!" a shrill voice cried. Heth looked toward the sound in time to see Rachel O'Reilly slam running into her parents in a fierce three-way hug.
Heth heard someone call M'Rowr's name. He looked the other way to see Surra and her three cubs searching the crowded transit bay. "M'Rowr! Sound off! M'Rowr!"
"What are your orders, sire?!" Claws slashed at Heth's face. The pain brought him back to reality. He shook his head and looked up to see Narrah shouting at him. "We're still in enemy territory, sire—and I am not a sailor! We need to get out of here, now! So what are your orders, sire?"
"Yes... yes, of course," Heth said, coming back to his senses. "We need to cross into hyperspace, right away. Kirrp? Kirrp!" The wizard cat looked up and blinked at Heth. "Has the crew powered up the gravity drive yet?"
"Uh... how in the stars should I know?!" Kirrp answered, seeming just a little overwhelmed.
Heth growled and switched his suit's comlink to the Avarice control center's frequency. "Rameth! Report!"
"Director Heth!" Rameth exclaimed, relieved.
"Cross into hyperspace, now!" Heth ordered.
"Aye, we're powering up the gravity drive right now, boss," the Avarice's Manger replied, "but it's still gonna take the capacitors a few minutes to charge up!"
"All right then, just cross over as soon as you can."
"Heth, that Imperial battlecruiser heading straight for us on an intercept course! And an Admiral is hailing us!" Rameth said, sounding a little rattled. "We've been trying to stall, but—"
"Understood, I'll be there as soon as I can!" Heth replied. "Discom." He raced out of the room, dropping to all fours for maximum speed, bounding along corridors and flying through shafts toward the Avarice's control center.
He arrived breathless. "Open me a channel to that ape Admiral," he ordered the Communications Administrator, "I'll try to buy us some time." Heth suddenly realized he'd forgotten something important. He looked down at his armor. "Suit, human!" The nanotech armor finished shifting into a black suit and tie just as the Admiral's image appeared on the room's central holoprojector. Heth put on his most polite smile. "Miao Mercantile Super-freighter Avarice, Senior Director Miao K'Rrowr K'Heth speaking. I apologize for my crew, sire—their English is quite poor and their accents are just horrible. Now, how can I help you?"
The holographic image of the Imperial Admiral was silent for a moment, eyes narrowed at Heth, studying him. "Well, it looks like you've been in a fight recently, Director. Care to explain those scratches on your face?"
Heth raised a paw to the cheek where Narrah had clawed him and thought fast. He smiled and looked away in feigned embarrassment. "Oh yes. That. Well... it is the K'Nes mating season, you know—and you wouldn't believe the claws this little kitten has! That's why I'm late taking your call, I know you humans prefer us dressed when we—"
Ramachander made a face and held up a hand to silence Heth. "We detected your ship opening a transit portal to the Cialt Siege. What were you doing?"
"Why, just dropping off cargo for the Imperial Army, Admiral, all according to contract. They purchased a full distribution package for their shipment, you see. This is a new cargo delivery solution Miao Mercantile is offering to improve customer service. If you'd like, I'm sure I could offer the Imperial Fleet a discount coupon…?"
The holographic Admiral turn to someone off-screen. "Hernandez, verify that with the Army encampment once you get through." He turned back to Heth. "I thought it was illegal for K'Nes ships to carry transit antennae."
Heth smiled politely, but let a chill creep into his voice. "That was a restriction imposed on us under Federation rule. The K'Nes have been independent for almost a year now, you know, and we began upgrading our merchant marine immediately. Oh, I know you humans have military applications for transit antennae, but K'Nes find their commercial applications are far more profitable—especially when compared to the fuel costs of flying cargo shuttles out of a planetary gravity well!"
"And just what kind of cargo did you transit down to the Imperial Army?" Ramachander asked, suspicious.
Heth pulled out his datapad, stalling for time as he pretended to look up records. He stole a glance at Rameth, who shook his braided head; the gravity drive wasn't ready to open a portal to hyperspace yet. Heth had to keep stalling. He turned back to the holographic Admiral. "We delivered food, water, medical supplies, and… winter survival gear, I believe. I hear it's cold down there." That should check out with our cargo manifest. "I don't suppose the Imperial Fleet is in need of provisions? We're currently offering a liquidation discount on Mungunwha algae. Really, nutrition at that price can't be beat! And isn't taste is just a luxury, after all?"
The Admiral looked off screen again, listening to someone Heth couldn't hear. His face darkened. He turned back to Heth. "We've just had word from the Imperial Army siege lines. They destroyed the Abbey because the rebels were escaping—through a transit portal!"
Heth put on his best look of shock. "I'm sure there must be some sort of misunderstanding—"
"Power down your ship, prepare to be boarded and searched," Ramachander ordered. "If you have nothing to hide, you'll be on your way soon." The Admiral leaned back in his command chair. "I've already ordered a blockade of the jumpgate to Proxmia Centauri, just in case you were thinking about running. Let me be clear: There is no way your freighter is getting out of this system until you submit to a search. Now power down your ship."
Heth threw a desperate look at Rameth—the Ship's Manager nodded; the gravity drive was charged and ready to form a jump point. Heth turned back to Ramachander, sighed and shook his head. "I'd love to oblige you, Admiral, I really would. But we have a tight shipping schedule to keep, and time is money. We really must be on our way."
"Admiral! Hyper footprint detected! They're opening a jump point! They... they have a gravity drive!"
Ramachander stared, stunned, at the holographic cat before him—who was now baring his fangs in what was supposed to be smile. "It's been such a pleasure doing business with the Empire!" The hologram winked out.
The Admiral's mind raced as he watched the huge freighter move through the hyper portal into the swirling void of hyperspace. Lance torpedoes and fusion shells are too slow, our heavy grav lasers are in fixed mounts facing the wrong way, which leaves... "Starboard chemlasers, fire at will!" he ordered, pointing at his tactical officer. Twin beams of light shot out at the massive alien freighter, tagging one of its ion drives... then the jump point closed, and the ship was gone.
Silence descended on the bridge. The Chevauchée was an old Stalingrad-class battlecruiser—it didn't have a gravity drive. They couldn't follow the freighter into hyperspace... unless... "Set a course for the Proxima jumpgate, full burn," Ramachander ordered. "We can cross over into hyperspace there."
"Yes sir," the helmsman said, then added, "They'll have a multi-hour head start on our pursuit by then."
"Pursue them? What for?" the Admiral said, stroking his chin as he thought out loud. "No, we'll let them come to us." At his crew's puzzled looks, he explained. "They may not need a jumpgate to enter hyperspace—but they do need the jumpgates' navigational beacons to travel through it. Now, the Cronos system has only three jumpgates—and one of them leads nowhere, the old Cronos-Avalon gate. I suppose they could go through the military jumpgate to G2—assuming they could crack the security codes—but in terms of hyperspace navigation, the G2 system is a dead end." He shook his head. "No, the only way out of the Cronos system is along the navigational beam from Cronos to Proxima—where we've got a substantial Imperial picket to defend against a Fed invasion from Minos." He turned to his communications officer. "Lieutenant, notify the Promixa picket to locate and intercept that fugitive freighter, in realspace or hyperspace."
"Yes sir." The Lieutenant nodded and opened a comlink to relay the Admiral's orders.
Ramachander was beginning to think this fiasco might be a blessing in disguise—for him, at least. Governor Smythe may have slipped through the Imperial Army's fingers… but if he could bring her in, alive or even dead, the credit and honor would go to him, helping to secure his position and improve his standing at the Imperial Court. "We'll still cross into hyperspace at the Proxima jumpgate," he instructed his helmsman, "and hide out on full stealth mode, just in case that cargo ship tries to double back into the Cronos system. If they do, and we intercept them… well, we're a battlecruiser, and it's just a freighter, albeit a big one."
Ramachander smoothed down the front of his uniform, feeling quite pleased with himself. "Don't worry, they'll come to us, sooner or later. They'll have to—where else could they possibly go?"
"The Cronos-Avalon jumpgate, boss?" Rameth stared at Heth, dumbfounded.
"Exactly." Heth nodded. "I told you I had a contingency escape plan."
"But… the jumpgate on the Avalon side was destroyed—the Cronos-Avlalon gate leads nowhere!"
"Oh, that's all right," Heth said, going over a navigational map on his datapad. "We're not going to Avalon. Sky Father above, of course not! That's the Imperial capitol—we wouldn't stand a chance there!" He paused to open a comlink. "Narrah? Yes, please find Zinga… Chinjo… M. O'Reilly, and bring him to the bridge." He paused for a second, listening, then rolled his eyes. "Which O'Reilly? The male one! Fat, red pelt, fake eye, you can't miss him! Just get him here!" Heth turned back to Rameth. "Don't worry, we'll just need to use the navigational beacon from the gate on the Cronos side of the Cronos-Avalon hyperspace lane for a little while."
"But boss!" Rameth protested. "The other jumpgate's nav beacon on the Avalon side is gone! We'll lose the beacon signal halfway there—maybe a bit more, if we're lucky—and then we'll be lost in hyperspace forever!"
"Not if we can get close enough to Avalon to detect the Avalon-Alpha Centauri beacon instead."
"The… the Avalon-Alpha Centauri beacon?" Rameth sputtered, confused. "But… the gate on the Avalon side of that hyperspace lane was destroyed as well!"
"Only on the Avalon side," Heth corrected. "The beacon on the Alpha Centauri side is still transmitting."
"I'm sorry, boss… I don't understand." Rameth shook his head, braided mane swirling. "What does the Alpha Centauri system have to do with anything?"
Heth sighed. Apparently he was going to have to walk Rameth through it. Heth entered a few commands into the navigational console. A three-dimensional galactic map appeared on the central holoprojector, points of light representing star systems connected by lines representing the hyperspace lanes. "All right, this is current star map—note that Avalon only has two digital gates now. But this is the star map before the Caal Invasion." Heth typed another command, and another galactic map came up—with several more hyperspace lanes surrounding the Avalon system. "Avalon used to have seven hyperspace jumpgates in addition to the two digital gates," Heth explained. "During the Caal Invasion, the Federation destroyed all the jumpgates in an attempt to prevent the Caal from reaching Avalon—but they only destroyed the gates on the Avalon side of the hyperspace lanes! The gates on the other sides are still out there, still transmitting navigational beacons and tachyon beams." Heth pointed a claw at two lanes around Avalon. "Now, you'll notice these two old hyperspace lanes—Avalon-Cronos and Avalon-Alpha Centauri—come very close to each other, for quite a long distance. Yes, with the gates destroyed on the Avalon side of those lanes, both navigation beacons will fade out before they reach Avalon… but if we can detect the Alpha Centauri gate signal from the Cronos lane…"
"Sky Father above," Rameth whispered, tail twitching. "You want to jump the beam? Seriously?"
Heth sighed. "Oh, come on, Rameth! We Miao are smugglers! We know lots of ways to navigate commercial hyperspace lanes in… er, unconventional ways. We jump between hyperspace lanes all the time!"
"True," Rameth nodded, "but we always do it near a star system, Heth, where the gate beacons are clustered close together! We basically just cross from one lane to another in hyperspace instead of realspace—and we only do that to avoid customs checkpoints, not as a form of hyper navigation! You're talking about jumping the beam in mid-lane, Heth! Partial lanes! With distant beacons! You got any idea how risky that is?"
"High risk, high reward," Heth said. "We only have two choices: jump the beam to Alpha Centauri, out of Imperial territory… or try to fight our way through the Imperial picket in Proxima Centauri. Which do you prefer?"
Rameth was silent. He stared at the map, unconsciously twirling a thick black braid around his paw in anxiety as he thought. "From Alpha Centauri," he said slowly, "we'd have to go through the San Angeles jumpgate to reach Fed territory. But that's a military jumpgate, and we don't ha—"
Heth cut him off. "I secured a one-time activation code from Captain Gergenstein before we left New Madrid."
Rameth fished out his snuffbox, snorted a pinch of nepeta, then let out a long sigh. "It's still a huge risk, boss. If we fail, we'll be stranded in the middle of hyperspace forever."
"Yes, well… luckily, we just happen to have an expert at this sort of thing on board," Heth replied. "He did it in this exact area of space, even—and in much less powerful ships than the Avarice, I might add." Heth heard the hatch open behind him and turned to look. "And here he is now."
Xinjao O'Reilly squeezed himself onto the bridge, hunched over under the low ceiling. K'Nes freighters weren't really designed with human height or comfort in mind. "Yeah, here I am. Um… what am I doing here?"
"M. O'Reilly," Heth began, pulling out his datapad and accessing a record. "The Federation provided me with your Earth Fleet personnel file before we left. I understand that during your Third Civil War, you led a raid behind enemy lines in the Christian Federation, yes?"
"Uh…" O'Reilly blinked, surprised, then nodded. "Yeah, I did. That was twenty-two years ago, though."
"And I further understand," Heth continued, pushing ahead, "that you remained hidden while travelling through enemy space, partly by continually jumping your ships between hyperspace lanes?"
"Well, yeah. It wasn't easy,
but…" His voice trailed off as he saw the holoprog of the pre-Caal star
map. "Oh! I get it!" he said, smiling. "Escape Cronos by
jumping the beam to Alpha Centauri, huh? Smart move…"
"If it works," Heth clarified. "Can it be
done?"
O'Reilly studied the map for a moment. "Yeah. I think. Maybe. But it won't be quick, easy, or safe. We're gonna have to go real old-school for this one." He looked down at the black cat. "You ever hear of a lifeboat chain?"
"Uh… no," Heth answered. "We K'Nes prefer to float over water than swim through it."
"Oh. Right." Xinjao nodded. "Well anyway, you get a line of ships, each one locked on to the transponder signal of the one behind it. How far that line extends and how much space you can search depends on the number of ships." He looked at Rameth. "So… how many shuttles do you have on this boat?"
From the Avarice, shuttles, drones, decoys, and anything else that could transmit and receive a transponder signal stretched in a long line across hyperspace towards where they thought the Avalon-Alpha Centauri beam was, each craft on the edge of communication range with the vessels in front and behind it. All they could do was watch, listen… and wait.
After what seemed like forever, they finally detected the beacon signal from the Alpha Centauri jumpgate—weakly, but it was there. Once found, the shuttles and drones maintained position while the Avarice headed across the line to pick up the new signal. Once the super-freighter was firmly locked on to the Alpha Centauri beacon, the shuttles and decoys returned to the Avarice and docked.
The crew and passengers breathed a collective sigh of relief. Sure, they were still in enemy territory, and wouldn't be truly safe until they were back in Federation space… but for now, at least the danger of being lost forever in the swirling void of hyperspace was behind them.
