* * *
Smash ran back out through the communal hall, grabbing a travel-tunic from a storage locker and calling to Xu-fu and SAM as he went. The trio piled into a bubble-chute—whizz—and stepped out into the asteroid’s below-surface dock filled with small spacecraft salvaged from all over the quadrant. Dozens of different designs, but all were fast, and none needed a large crew. Instead of trying to match the strength of the monstrous battleships, the rebel fleet depended on maneuverability, and the pilots were as varied as their vessels. The recycled air crackled with excitement as RATs of all shapes and sizes rushed about preparing for launch.
“We’re getting slow,” Smash muttered. “The rest of A-squad’s already here.”
“We’rr getting soft,” Xu-fu’s gruff voice barked out. He had the vocal chords of a man twice his size and a thick Ahzian brogue. “Too much down time! I keep telling you we need to move base. Why do you nevrr listen? The big ships little visit this quad no morr.”
“Well, one has now, but it will be past raiding range before you finish your griping,” SAM said, sounding rather gripey himself.
Smash paused, his back hairs suddenly prickling. Something didn’t smell right somehow. Xu-fu had a point. They had seen too few Fed battleships recently. Why was another question. Because the ships had been sent elsewhere? If so, what for? Not to squash an uprising, that seemed certain. The whole galaxy had been subjugated, hadn’t it? No one dared to resist Kkrypt anymore.
Except the space rats who not only resisted but harassed.
Which brought his mind back to the business at hand.
“You’re both right, so shut up and move it.” He pushed past them, leading the way to their raider.
A jovial eight-armed mechanic, waiting by the craft’s nose, greeted him with a bug-eyed grin. “I haven’t been able to repair your G-pods, Cap’n—when anti-grav gear wipes out, it really wipes—but I have installed some old-fashioned retrorockets for you. Antiques really, but they fired when I tested them and should cushion your landings. A little. Maybe.”
“Thanks, that makes me feel very secure.”
“My pleasure, Cap’n.”
Arachnid people were always so affable, weren’t they? So unscathed by the ravages of intellect. Sarcasm went right over their guileless bulbous heads.
The mechanic threw him a jaunty fourhanded salute as Smash climbed through the ship’s hatch into her circular control-cabin with Xu-fu and SAM close behind.
Once positioned, the three would form a tight triangle, their backs to each other, inside a ring of consoles and view-screens. SAM stationed himself in front of the scanners and nav-puter and clamped his cylindrical form to the deck, while Xu-fu strapped himself into a seat before the antimatter regulators. Smash sat at the helm, switched on the captain’s communicator and tuned it to the A-squad frequency, then activated the engines.
Deftly, he taxied the ship up through the tunnel that led to the landing and launch field under the asteroid’s dome. Five more small craft followed. The dome’s space-hatch slid open, and one by one, the six ships lifted off and sailed into the stars.
SAM locked onto their target’s location and transmitted the coordinates to the rest of the squad. Accordingly, they spread out into a wide-arc approach pattern—all routine maneuvering so far—separating so they could attack from six sides, one after another. Zoom in, hit hard, and retreat. Then hit again. Surprise and speed were the RATs’ main weapons.
As they neared striking range, Smash issued the order of attack: “A-2, stern. A-3 and A-4, port and starboard. A-5 and A-6, back and belly.”
A-1, Smash’s ship, would cover the bow. No further orders were needed. They all knew this game. At Smash’s signal, SAM sounded the charge siren in all six vessels, and they boosted into attack speed.
A-2 darted in and out, zapping the cruiser’s stern with his lasers—but only hard enough to get her attention—then A-3 zoomed forward and blasted her full broadside.
The great ship suddenly radiated a strange glow, and A-3 hurtled backward, madly out of control.
What the…
“Hold fire! Retreat and regroup!” Smash ordered, and followed the remaining four raiders a safe distance away. “A-1 to A-3, A-1 to A-3, acknowledge and report status,” he transmitted over and over—with no reply. Gods. “SAM, get a reading on that crate. I want to know what that glow is. Now!”
“It appears to be some manner of force field, activated automatically, that protects the attacked craft while deflecting the attacker’s blast back onto himself. I do not have enough data to compute for certain if we can penetrate it or not. Right now it seems highly unlikely.”
“Terrific.” Smash banged his forehead against his console. “If we can’t get past it, the RATs are finished. The Feds will have all their ships equipped with that device. We have to find a way to break that field.”
“A-3 to Command A-1… A-3 to A-1,” came a weak voice over the communicator.
Smash heaved a huge sigh of relief and threw protocol out the porthole. “Hardn here. Where the hek you been, Trax? What’s the damage?”
“Could be worse. But not much. We’re operating on emergency power. Our main generator was knocked out by our own weapons. It was not amusing.”
“It didn’t look it. Return to base. The rest of us will stay and search for a chink in their armor.”
“How?” Xu-fu groaned. “The morr we hit them, the morr we hurt us. No win, no way.”
“You were right before, you are getting soft. In the head.” Smash frowned, concentrating. The ghost of an idea haunted his own head. Analytical thinking wasn’t his strongest suit, but he did have his moments. His frown flipped into a grin when the ghost finally materialized into a clear course of action. “Don’t you realize a force field that size has to be a tremendous drain on a ship’s power?”
Xu-fu’s blue face blushed purple. “You mean if we keep attacking, we’ll sap theirr energy, and the field will fizzle?”
Smash glanced at SAM. “Is that feasible?”
“It does have possibilities. Except for one minor problem. How do we avoid being destroyed by our own lasers while launching this steady attack?”
“Details, details.” Smash waved the question aside. “We’re not going to use our lasers.”
SAM emitted an electric cackle. “What then are we going to use, O great captain and master?”
“You should never have been programmed for sarcasm, you rusty junk heap.” Smash’s grin broadened. He’d thought of everything. “Tell me, how much firing power do you suppose our newly installed retrorockets have? Enough to burn out that F-field?”
“Enough to burn up ourr ass, too,” Xu-fu grunted.
Smash frowned again. Okay, so maybe he hadn’t thought of that. Still…the R-rockets were a safer bet than their lasers, which were downright deadly. This was a tough little ship. She could handle the heat. He hoped.
“We’ll risk it,” he decided aloud. “If we don’t destroy that field, we’re doomed anyway—so we may as well die trying.”
On that cheery note, he ordered the remaining four ships of A-squad to hold position (but be ready to run, just in case), then pointed his bow toward the battle cruiser, accelerated, and shot forward, top speed, on a collision course. At the last possible instant, he swung about sharply and threw his raider into reverse while firing his rockets against the cruiser’s hull. A bone-jarring jolt struck as the glowing F-field activated in automatic defense, but Smash held the raider steady and continued fire.
The cabin’s temperature gauge rose into the red. Danger zone. Xu-fu and Smash broke out in a heavy sweat. The captain’s controls grew blistering hot, so Smash stripped down to his szken and used his travel-tunic to cover his hands.
This wasn’t going too great, was it?
“SAM, standby to sound retreat for the others,” he ordered. “We can’t take much—”
“The F-field’s off!” Xu-fu cried.
Like lightning, Smash cut the r
ockets and raced into the clear. Gradually, his craft cooled. His breath heaved out. “Damage report, SAM.”
“A scorched hull for our ship—and Xu-fu nearly had a heart attack—but no serious concerns. Engines, weapons, and life-support systems all read normal. This is a well made craft.”
“All right then”—Smash reversed direction—“let’s make sure that F-field is really off.”
He zoomed in for a direct laser hit to the battleship’s stern. The Fed crew had to feel it, but the pulsating glow of the field never appeared. The cruiser continued on her course.
Weird.
Smash’s eyes narrowed. The Feds should be trying to return his fire…or accelerating…or something. He didn’t like this turn of events, didn’t trust it, but he contacted the waiting raiders and issued orders to attack. The swift small vessels darted in, fired, and were off again, giving their target no chance to hit them—not that their target seemed to care. The big ship made no effort to fight back.
Very weird.
“What’s wrong with them?” Xu-fu scratched his spiky haired head.
Smash felt an ominous chill. He pulled his travel-tunic back on, but it didn’t help. “Have they lost that much power? SAM, scan that tub and see if you can get an energy reading.”
“Energy-scan affirmative. They possess ample power to retaliate.”
Then why didn’t they?
“I don’t understand,” Xu-fu said.
Neither did Smash. Emperor Kkrypt was notorious for choosing his officers from among the most brutal and bloodthirsty of the galaxy. Never before had one of his ships refused to do battle. “Try to get them on the viewer. I want to see who we’re dealing with.”
At first the connection displayed nothing but static and ion-tracks. Then slowly the bridge of the Fed ship came into focus. Smash stared in disbelief.
The bridge was empty.
“Get me a life reading—fast!”
“Life-scan negative,” SAM reported. “It appears there is no one aboard.”