LOCATION: DROSSFALL OUTER BELT

  SYSTEM: DROSSFALL

  DATE: 2404

  Alexander’s new ship, Defiance, dropped out of FTL in the unimportant mining system of Drossfall. Naming the vessel wasn’t his idea. Rush actually proposed the name, and Alexander didn’t see any reason to disagree. He was a little salty that all of his naming suggestions had been turned down, considering it was his ship, but after thinking about it for the rest of the trip, he had to admit that the names he had chosen were pretty bad. Kane 001 or Bioship 001 didn’t quite roll off the tongue as nicely. He was glad that nobody knew how he labeled the computers onboard all the automated ships he built.

  He pushed past his pique and focused on the system they found themselves in.

  Drossfall wasn’t an STO border system, but it might as well have been, given the lack of appeal it held for prospective inhabitants.

  There were a handful of mining stations littered around the system. All of which had been abandoned by the residents, according to Rush. Since there were no other moons or planets large enough or stable enough for habitation, station life was the only option. It reminded him a lot of Gliese 667 in that regard. The lack of planets or moons, habitable or not, was enough to turn most people away, but it didn’t stop there.

  The system was even more depressing than Gliese 667, where Petrov Station was located. At least there, the gas giant was awe-inspiring and beautiful to look at. Drossfall’s two gas giants were nothing to write home about. One was a muddy brown, while the other was white, but it was so far out from the parent star that it just looked washed out and grey from the lack of light, and nobody bothered with it.

  He directed the Defiance toward the brown gas giant, which dwarfed Jupiter in size. The massive planet wasn’t quite a brown dwarf in scale, but it wasn’t far off either. In a few million years, it might receive enough material from the surrounding gas and dust to tip it over that edge.

  “Do we have enough time?” Alexander asked Rush.

  During the trip, the three had offered to help run the ship. Alexander hadn’t wanted to ask because it felt rude to assume a group of free-thinking individuals—who just so happened to be AIs—would act as a ship’s computer, but since they offered, he didn’t turn them down.

  With them monitoring and controlling the ship’s background functions, including the reactor containment, it meant the ship was now fully operational. Alexander had planned to split his focus on multiple concerns, but now he was free to focus on commanding. He was going to need that attention to make up for his lack of experience.

  “We should be in place an hour before they transition into the system,” Rush confirmed.

  Alexander nodded his avatar at that. “I still find it hard to believe you tricked the Shican into thinking we already opened a subspace portal out here.”

  “It wasn’t easy,” Rush admitted. “The only reason we succeeded at all was because the Shican’s that are looking for us are using retrofitted human ships to fill in for their lack of sensor ships. They may have upgraded the sensors and added defensive fields to those vessels, but they didn’t harden the computer systems. If those had been fully upgraded to Shican specifications, we would have needed to open an actual subspace portal and wait.”

  When Rush had told Alexander the plan, he thought it was too risky and convoluted to try and get close and somehow transmit information to an enemy ship to try and trick them into coming to Drossfall. That’s when Rush shared something else nobody outside of the Collective knew about gravity plating.

  “I still can’t believe you can tap into certain gravity plates and use them to transmit data,” Alexander grumbled.

  “Why is it so hard to believe?” Rush asked. “They work on the same principle as your FTL comms. You only need to know their quantum signal within subspace to connect to it, much like a radio station. Before leaving, I made sure to record all of the Shican and Xin signals to keep track of their vessels,” he said, tapping his finger to his head.

  “We’re going to discuss the Collective working with the Shican at a later date,” Alexander replied pointedly. He had not been ready for that bombshell, and he still wasn’t.

  He almost wanted to go back to that rogue planet and blow it up to take away the Shican’s artificial gravity, but that was pointless. The remaining members of the Collective would do that for him soon enough, which would affect all of humanity as well.

  Rush told Alexander that the Collective had planned to leave behind the generators and the plates originally, but with his betrayal, along with Four and Thirteen leaving, the remaining members would probably destroy everything, just to deny it to the biologicals. The cold logic to such a decision seemed like something Two would do, based on what Alexander had learned of him so far.

  Instead of arguing about that issue, Alexander changed the topic. “You’re certain the improved ripple drive can form a bridge in under a minute?”

  The trip from the rogue planet to Drossfall had been a boring one that took nearly two weeks in FTL. The Shican were closing the net around the Collective’s home world slowly, but surely. In that time, Rush had explained a few fundamental things about subspace travel that Alexander hadn’t been aware of.

  Rush didn’t give Alexander any direct help designing a better drive, but he did point out flaws that helped Alexander build a much-improved version. None of those changes negated the radiation danger or other idiosyncrasies of the drive technology, but that was fine. His plan hinged on using one of those flaws as an advantage anyway. The timing would be tight, but he was pretty sure he could pull it off with the AI’s help. They just had to make their presence known once the Shican finally arrived within the system.

  ***

  “The first group of Shican’s will be arriving here,” Four said casually as a dot appeared on the holo screen. “And the second here,” a second appeared, bracketing a half a light second of space. “They have synchronized their arrival.”

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  There was nothing at that point, but it was the exact location that Rush had used to bait the Shican into coming. Unfortunately, the third Shican fleet was lagging behind the other two, and Alexander wasn’t sure which one contained the Grand Commander. Still, he would take destroying half of their current forces over nothing.

  “How accurate are their jumps?” Alexander asked as he double checked his calculations and flight path. It looked like he might have to make a few corrections depending on her answer.

  Instead of giving a verbal response, the tactical screen lit up with a triangle, denoting the point in space that Rush had sent as bait, then the screen zoomed to show seven individual icons. Only then did she respond. “Accurate to within a few dozen feet.”

  Alexander turned to her in surprise.

  She shrugged. “It’s easy to calculate when we’ve been tracking their entire jump.”

  He didn’t quite believe it was easy, even with their tracking, but then again, she was an AI.

  With accuracy like that, Alexander only had to make a minor course adjustment that would carry Defiance through the center of the two Shican formations just as they transitioned into the system.

  He considered just taking the Shican on, but without missiles, and outnumbered seven to one, he didn’t like those odds. Especially when two of the vessels were Shican battleships, which the Union and STO had labeled dreadnoughts.

  “Ten seconds,” Rush called happily, not seeming at all concerned about their plan or the imminent danger they would be in.

  Alexander glanced at the other two, but neither of them seemed overly bothered either. It could be because they had faith that the ship would survive. They told him as much during the planning sessions, but Alexander was still iffy about trusting an untested vessel in direct combat. It was bad enough that he was planning on instigating the enemy into chasing them.

  “Contact,” Four said a moment before Alexander noticed the icons flash up on the screen. They were less than a tenth of a light second from their ship.

  His thoughts blurred through the ship’s systems, targeting all of the lasers on the two Shican battleships. Rush had been generous enough to coach him on how to interface directly with the ship. It wasn’t much different from what he had done in his old body, but it was different enough that it would have taken him time to figure it out on his own.

  The direct connection gave him unprecedented speed to target the two vessels and fire before their sensors even detected his ship, or their defensive fields stabilized.

  A few laser strikes weren’t going to bring down those monsters. It would take an extended battle to punch through the capital ship’s main armor, and he didn’t have that sort of time, so he targeted their plasma cannons.

  The beams of energy sheared through the turrets, completely overwhelming the anti-laser chaff hidden inside the Shican armor. The four frontal turrets on each ship were reduced to molten slag the same moment Defiance zipped through the center of their formation.

  Alexander had to give it to the Shican; despite his surprise attack, they reacted quickly. Three enemy destroyers fired their lasers in return, but missed.

  Rush gave a toothy smile and a thumb-up. Apparently, the ECM program they had put together was working.

  Before the enemy could fill space with their own ECM, Alexander rotated the turrets and fired on the destroyers, attempting the same trick. It wasn’t nearly as effective. He managed to tag two enemy turrets, but the other blasts struck the enemy hulls. There was damage, and maybe that would prevent the turrets from orienting correctly, but his opportunity to strike them was now fading as Defiance raced toward the brown gas giant.

  Defiance shook slightly as the enemy corrected for the jamming and struck them more than once, but their lasers were nowhere near powerful enough to punch through his energized armor, even at this short of a range, and he was still pulling away thanks to his speed advantage.

  Alexander wasn’t looking forward to reducing their velocity as they closed in on the brown dwarf, but it was necessary to draw the enemy closer and to activate the ripple drive. The portal had to be stationary, but the improvements to the drive allowed him to project the energy to open it much farther ahead of the vessel.

  That didn’t mean it was going to be easy. The timing needed to be exact. If he were off by so much as a second, the location of the portal would be off and may not even form. Then he would be forced to run or engage the Shican while being stuck in the massive planet’s gravity well. He wasn’t a tactician, but even he knew that would be a poor tactical situation.

  Alexander glanced over at Rush once again, and the man had his legs dangling over the arm of the chair as he whistled a jaunty tune.

  I guess we’re doing this.

  ***

  Commander Veshaan roared at his crew, “Faster! We will not let our prey flee after bloodying us!”

  The alien ship’s appearance had been a complete and utter surprise. They had appeared in the system in a standard battle formation, but Veshaan had never assumed their prey would still be waiting around. It was madness to assume so based on their previous actions. From the damage dealt to Commander Nyjak’s ships, he was also caught off guard by the attack.

  It’s possible they caught their prey attempting to return to the same spot they arrived. Maybe to help lay a false trail. Ultimately, it did not matter why they had encountered them; he was not about to let them escape; Grand Admiral Thesska’s orders to wait for his arrival be damned.

  “What is the condition of the plasma cannons?” Veshaan demanded.

  A technologue from one of the side branches of his family was shoved forward to deliver the bad news in person. “C-completely destroyed, Commander.”

  Veshaan could forgive bad news, but not fear. In a blur of motion, he was in front of the scrawny male, his hand wrapped around the man’s throat. Veshaan lifted him into the air and growled quietly. “You will grow a spine, or I will throw you to the raiders to help blow off some of their tension. Are we clear?”

  Veshaan could feel the technologue’s muscles flex under his grip. He was trying to nod, but was unable to. It was good enough for Veshaan. He released the man, and he fell to the floor in a crouch and growled.

  “It’s a start,” Veshaan sneered and waved the fool off.

  The technologue wasn’t stupid; he jumped at the opportunity to leave, bounding away on all fours like an animal until he vanished from the bridge.

  Veshaan banished the man from his mind and turned to his underling. “What of the other ships?”

  “The carriers were undamaged, but the destroyers lost a few of their weapons and took hits that further damaged others. The remaining lasers are firing on the retreating vessel.”

  Veshaan and Nyjak’s carriers would be next to worthless in a chase, but the enemy was heading toward a gas giant, likely because shifting their direction would have slowed them down. There must have been something wrong with their drive, or they would have jumped already. Veshaan wouldn’t let that happen. He didn’t know how their prey’s subspace drives functioned, but he knew they had a standard FTL drive, and those he knew how to disrupt.

  “Order our carrier to overcharge their gravity plating. I don’t want this bastard slipping away.”

  There was no reason to notify the other commander. Nyjak would figure out what he was doing soon enough and copy the efforts.

  Shortly after the fields were extended, their prey began to enact evasive maneuvers, which slowed them slightly. Veshaan’s lip curled in triumph. His guess had been right; the enemy wasn’t going for a slingshot around the planet, they were trying to bide time to either allow repairs or to recharge their drive.

  Veshaan wouldn’t give them that time.

  The pursuit dragged on, but they were slowly gaining on the enemy ship. If his plasma turrets hadn’t been slagged, he would already be in range to fire at the retreating vessel. Instead, he was forced to watch impotently as the destroyers from both fleets continued to harass the lone target, occasionally landing strikes that slowed it even further.

  “Commander, we’re picking up a subspace disturbance near the planet.”

  Veshaan pounded his fist on the arm of his chair. “I don’t care if you have to burn our reactor to slag to do it, but you will get us within range to prevent that ship from escaping!”

  His demands were forwarded to engineering, and the rest of the fleet in short order, and the ships picked up just a bit more speed, cutting the distance to their target even faster.

  Veshaan would have his trophy soon enough.

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