Chapter Eleven: The Interplanetary Highway
Why not use miniature black holes to create a kind of river passing between the sun and its planets? What could possibly go wrong?
Loucas watched helplessly as the eerie red glow produced by charged bolts of energy striking the Jagdkontrol’s shields bloomed across the stars. The Toff interceptors were dangerously close now, and all he could do was stand there and wait to learn his fate.
Turning his back to the bombardment, Loucas stared for a time at the shimmering tear in the sky that looked like a rainbow had been crumpled into a ball then spun out into thread. For the past hour this phenomenon had grown grander and brighter as the Jagdkontrol approached. Olga called it the Interplanetary Highway, and in about two more hours somewhere nearby the Acerbic was supposed to appear and whisk them away to safety.
It represented their only hope of escape. But the interceptors Station Rome had sent to destroy them were in close pursuit and gaining ground. In only a few minutes their weapons would be able to punch through the ship’s protective shields, or so Olga said. Loucas didn’t really understand the details, but full comprehension wasn't necessary for him to know that shield failure was a very bad thing in any context.
“You ready, Yarielis?” Olga said, beaming as if their lives weren’t in immediate peril. Loucas turned in time to see his sister nod in reply. He couldn’t say he felt the same.
Yari had spent most of the past few minutes standing on the Star-Bridge, studying information that moved too fast across projected screens for him to make out. She’d only spoken once to tell him to be quiet and stop asking questions while she was busy trying to concentrate, which didn’t do anything to mitigate Loucas’ twinned feelings of uselessness and fear.
“Alright then,” Olga nodded. “Once the interceptors are in range they will break into two groups and start hitting us from different angles. I’ll take two of the Jager flights and cover our underside. You take the third and do your best to hold any attacks coming from above our dorsal horizon.”
“Uh, what if they all come at us from the same side at once?” Loucas pointed out. “And what is it you need Yari to do, anyway? I ask you, Olga, because she’s apparently too busy getting ready to talk to me.”
“Sorry that I got so absorbed,” Yari said, turning to him. “The Jager flights are our only useful weapons, and Olga needs my human style thinking to help fight the ones that are under direct control of people on Station Rome.”
“Gotcha Yari,” Loucas replied, hardly mollified, “but are you supposed to control all the flights if they attack from your zone? How do you control them, anyway? As a matter of fact, what are these flights made of?”
“Don’t worry about any of that,” Olga shook her head. “If they all attack in one cluster I’ll be able to keep a flight in reserve to cover any mistakes they might game me into making with the other two. And as for how everything works, we’ll have plenty of time to get into that later. For now, you’ll just have to trust me when I tell you that they will try to pincer us from two sides, forcing me to fight machine and human attacks at once. Little do they know we have a secret weapon that negates their crucial advantage!”
“There isn’t anything else you can do?” Loucas asked, hating to be a step behind. “Why is so much of this on Yari?”
“I can jam their control transmissions,” Olga said helpfully, “whenever we physically pass between the drones and their control station. That forces the interceptors on our far side to go on autopilot, which makes them much more predictable. Drones have to maintain a direct line of sight to their controllers for maximum efficiency. So I’ll maneuver as much as I safely can to create that situation as often as possible. Have hope! If we do everything just right, I calculate that we do stand a real chance of getting through this alive. Well into the double digits!”
The Jagdkontrol began to shudder. Yari and Loucas looked up in alarm at the intense blooms that now covered the entire rear quadrant of their horizon. The vivid blue-green of the interceptors’ particle beams while they raced across space turned to a sickly red-orange upon impact, each one sending torrents of glowing plasma flowing outward into the night and making the ship vibrate.
“Alright kids, they’re in lethal range now!” Olga warned, raising her hands dramatically to the stars. Launching all Jager flights! Bring it on, you Toff twits!”
From the corner of one eye Loucas saw a rapid blur. A series of small hatches opened across the surface of the Jagdkontrol all around them, and small angular objects shot out from each, a twinkling light flashing behind each as it zoomed across the sky.
Yari took a deep breath, raised her hands, and began making a series of strange, jerking gestures. Six of the blurs arced gracefully through the star field, converging in a hexagonal formation just beyond the edge of the Jagdkontrol’s shields, To Loucas, they were the spitting image of obsidian arrowheads like he and his friends had sometimes run across hiking in British Columbia, their leading edges so sharp that when viewed from head-on or one side they seemed to slip between the stars.
Loucas thought they looked neat, but wondered how such small objects could help defend against these interceptors. He was so distracted by the launch and form-up of the Jager flight he didn’t notice at first that the interceptors had switched off their particle beams, last plasma clouds generated by their strikes quickly dissipating. The Star-Bridge helpfully outlined the hostile drones in red boxes, else he would hardly have noticed them as their own starkly angled profiles twisted through the stars, the quartet accelerating in odd directions while minimizing their own profile relative to their target. Despite these cautious maneuvers, every second that passed brought them a little closer.
Suddenly the interceptors split into two teams, just as Olga had predicted. One pair darted under the horizon, the other seemed to twist and shift in space before growing larger at an alarming rate. Streaks of light flashed all around, missing the Jagdkontrol’s shields by what seemed like mere inches.
“Here we go, Yari!” Olga shouted. “Remember, their shots are coming at almost the speed of light, so you won’t know they’re firing until they’ve hit or missed. Ignore what you see; predict and disrupt as best as you can!”
Yari seemed to slap at the air and the Jager flight became a blur, twisting and dashing off towards something Loucas couldn’t see. Then there was a bright flash at the edge of his vision, and the six arrowheads of the Jager flight were outlined against it, sparks of red and orange bursting between and around them, chaotically dissipating into streams of liquid light.
“Well done!” Olga cried. “I’ve got the other pair bottled up. Keep doing exactly that! Just one hour and fifty-two minutes to go!”
Yari jerked again, almost stumbling from the force it apparently took to move the tiny drone swarm. Again the Jager flight lanced across the sky and intercepted a shot. Loucas dashed to steady her, and she flashed him a brief smile.
“Bro, I can use your help,” Yari told him. “Pretend the ship is a clock. The front is twelve. I can’t watch the whole sky at once and they’re so fast. When you see bad guys appear somewhere I’m not looking, tell me what time they are at!”
“Three o’clock!” Loucas shouted half a second later, his eyes already straining to track the interceptors as they dashed at random around the sky. Yari clawed at the air with both hands, and the Jager flight made another intercept.
“Thanks Lou!” Yari shouted, then twisted to direct another intercept.
The next hour seemed to last an eternity, the routine they were forced to adopt more tiresome every minute that passed. Spot and intercept, spot and intercept, the same rhythm playing out over and over again. Only able to help with his eyes and sometimes a steadying hand, Loucas had to watch his sister perform this desperate dance, saving them from destruction again and again.
Slowly, his quick mind worked out what was happening. The controllers back on Station Rome were ordering their interceptors to attempt ever more wild, unpredictable trajectories around the Jagdkontrol, firing in no distinguishable pattern, harrying it like marauding dogs tormenting a fox at bay. They were not going in for a swift kill, instead seeming content to wear down their prey.
It wasn’t a bad plan. And as the deadly waltz wore on, Yari became visibly tired, beginning what Loucas feared was an inexorable slide towards total exhaustion. It wasn’t just the more violent movements at fault, either. It seemed that she had to maintain constant concentration on the Jager flight itself. Watching her, Loucas felt as if she were constantly untangling a bundle of invisible heavy cables whose weight grew heavier as the minutes dragged by.
“How long can we keep doing this?” Loucas muttered at last, stepping forward to help steady her.
“Long as it takes.” Yari said, speech almost slurred. Loucas felt in awe of her determination, but he wondered how long her body could match her will.
Olga sighed, tapping her elbow nervously. “The little Jagers can handle several hours more,” she said after a brief silence. “They’re basically mobile shield projectors with extremely reflective physical surfaces. Half the energy that hits them scatters, and a portion of the rest of absorbed. But controlling them is taking such a toll on Yarielis! It is not easy to maintain the necessary level of concentration, yet she is doing a fantastic job despite this being her first time.”
“Unfortunately,” Olga grimaced, “while they can constantly rotate fresh personnel in to control the interceptors, we don’t have that luxury. Frankly, if she weren’t so naturally efficient at motivating Jagers this would have become too much for her half an hour ago. They’re not that easy to move around until you get used to them. They’re almost as smart as human toddlers or dogs, in their own way.”
Olga hesitated for a moment, looking uncertain while Yari directed her Jager flight to another intercept. Then a dense arrow made up of six smaller arrows streaked up from the horizon, converging on a point in space. There was an ugly flash as the flight impacted one of the interceptors, and Loucas saw its partner twist violently to dash below the horizon.
Loucas pumped a fist in the air and shouted in triumph, relieved to see the Jagers could do more than act as mobile shields. But then a terrible vibration shook the Jagdkontrol more violently than any had before, and Loucas froze in terror.
Thankfully, it subsided. “Phew,” Olga breathed a sigh of relief. “Survived! I was afraid we’d take a bad hit if I did that, but it was the survivor of your pair that got in a shot, and fortunately it was a weak burst. But… oh no!”
All three interceptors converged above the horizon, then split apart with terrifying speed. An instant after, three particle cannon blasts flashed past, two narrowly missing the shields, the other barely intercepted by Yari at the last moment before impact.
“I was afraid of that,” Olga grimaced, “They know we’re down a flight. See it limping back? I had to recall those Jagers for repair. They’re down a gun, but we’re out a shield. Now they can play angles and chip away at our energy reserves to wear us down. Still, I calculate we’ve bought a little more time. We just have to keep hanging on and hope that somehow we last until Franz arrives.
Loucas quickly lost track of time as the battle dragged on. The three interceptors began a series of rapid individual attacks. Two interceptors together were difficult enough to spot, but alone they were nearly impossible to see until they fired, and by then it was pretty much too late.
Yari, finally almost totally exhausted, began to miss intercepts. Fortunately the wild nature of the attacks and Olga firing lateral thrusters to dodge conspired to prevent any shot from striking them dead on. Olga became totally absorbed in controlling her flight and managing these jarring maneuvers. Yet eventually, almost every new wave of attacks resulted in at least one shot getting through. The Jagdkontrol shuddered almost continuously, and Loucas knew they were almost out of time.
The three interceptors suddenly converged at their eleven o’clock and raced in together, firing their weapons as fast as they could. Yari’s Jager flight was too far out of position, and Olga’s flight couldn’t stop the incoming fire from all three. Yari shouted in frustration and threw her entire body towards the interceptors in a last-ditch effort to assist.
The sky between the Jagdkontrol and its tormentors was torn apart by a searing blue-white light. The brilliant beam slid away, passing between the interceptors, then shifted from target to target faster than Loucas react. One, two, then three clouds of molten metal were left to expand and fade across the starry sky.
“Franz, you magnificent bastard!” Olga cried as Loucas blinked away the after-image left by the blazing light. “How did you shave nearly an hour off the transit, you grouchy digital wizard?!”
“You are welcome, Olga,” Franz appeared on a screen that sprang into being before their eyes. “But it is simply a matter of physics… and a convenient lack of biology. We were able to enter a deeper lane than anticipated and survive a hard deceleration before Station Rome had a chance to pick up our engine trace. Now, please hurry up and dock so we can secure the biologicals and get moving again. Warships have been vectored to this position, and we must get back onto the highway while we can.”
Loucas held Yari upright as the Jagdkontrol’s trajectory quickly shifted to converge with that of Acerbic. He watched as their rescuer grew from a blurry point in the sky to a distinct shape, the thick stream of variegated light that marked the Interplanetary Highway bright behind it.
Having now seen other spacecraft, Loucas realized how large a vessel Acerbic actually was. It wasn’t pretty, the ship looking more or less like a giant boxcar with an odd scaffolding surrounding much of its bulk that jutted out in odd directions. But it was a ship that wasn’t trying to kill them, and right then that was all Loucas could ask for.
It took only a few minutes for Olga to bring the Jagdkontrol to dock between a gap in the scaffolding. Acerbic mostly disappeared below the horizon as the Jagdkontrol rotated to match velocity. There came a loud thunk, then a different kind of vibrations shook the Star-Bridge, leaving Loucas feeling a sense of relief, one he had a sneaking suspicion was far from justified.
Olga smiled and waved cheerily. “It’s been fun, guys! Hope to fly the unfriendly skies with you again very soon. Especially you, Yari, it’s been an absolute pleasure! I can’t wait to see what other fights we get into together, that was intense! And you did great. Now, head back up to the command center on our host raider and I’ll patch myself in for the debrief.”
Olga’s grin suddenly faded, and for a brief moment she seemed hesitant. “One… last thing,” she spoke in a whisper. “Whenever you see Franz’ screen go red, you must always remember that it is absolutely essential that you do whatever he says without question. Never offer any information or explain anything you do, have done, might do, or might even think about doing, when his screen is red. Just do what he says and wait for it to go away and do not ask him about it. Trust me on this, it’s better for everyone if you don’t.”
Loucas was disturbed by this strange warning and tried to ask her a question, but before he could speak she held up a hand, shook her head, and disconnected them from the Star-Bridge. Loucas awoke in the cabin next to Yari the scent of disinfectant again in the air. The door swung open, and beyond Loucas saw the hall leading back to the place they had last seen Franz.
He stood up, pulling his sister after, then followed it, moving slowly, Yari gripping Loucas’ arm as if it were the only thing keeping her on her feet. They reached the place Loucas assumed must be the command center, and it was almost as if Olga had predicted what they would find.
Franz was hovering over the center of the room, screen a dull and angry shade of red. They froze and stared at him. The flying coffee can seemed to appraise them. Then without warning the red disappeared. Franz’ screen went back to how it had been before, a ghostly face in static.
Olga appeared as a hologram then, standing next to Franz. She stuck her tongue out at him, and he rolled his eyes.
“Report, Olga.” Franz ordered.
“Nice to see you too, Franz!” Olga stood at attention and mock saluted. “Well, the report is this: the package made it to the target, detonated on schedule, and blasted out the entire section of Station Rome controlled by the occupation!”
Franz bobbed in midair. “Well,” he said softly, “that went substantially better than anticipated, didn’t it? This is the first time one of these strikes has actually worked. Certainly a boost for Insurgence morale, but now the question is how we can get back to the Belt without being hunted down by half the Navy. A hit this big will provoke a mighty response.”
Franz and Olga turned towards one another, apparently conferring in silence. Loucas noticed a chair and took his sister to it. She mumbled her thanks and collapsed into it. He thought she would immediately fall asleep, but she simply sat there, eyes half shut, gazing impassively towards Olga and Franz.
“So we pass through the Solar Interchange,” Olga said, “and head for Earth? Bold, the Toffs will not be expecting that! At biological-safe accelerations we can make the trip in three days. Perform an early high-speed off ramp, then a gravity assist maneuver coupled to an atmospheric deflection that launches us out towards the Belt? You know that puts us weeks out of the loop, Franz.”
“Nice of you to verbalize our dilemma for the biologicals, Olga,” Franz grumbled. “But that’s the price we must pay for this being a successful mission. And for keeping them on board, which, I suppose they deserve, don’t they? After all, the raid on Station Rome would not have worked without them. What a miracle they arrived when they did.”
Olga nodded, beaming at Loucas and Yari. She waved once rather jauntily, then disappeared.
“Well,” Franz said, “now that everything is decided we will be off at once. Down the corridor to your left you will find bio-crew accommodations. Beds, showers, food, water, and other essentials. As Humans usually request digital privacy within their crew quarters, we will not bother you unless you bother us first. And please don’t, because we have a lot of work to do.”
Loucas stood up and took two steps towards Franz, feeling irritated. “Wait a minute, don’t we get a say in any of this? I thought you needed us for decision making and... stuff like that?”
Franz let out a scratchy, metallic sound that was apparently his version of laughter. “We do, for certain functions,” Franz replied. “But we have factored in all relevant parameters required for your survival. When we reach the blockade near Earth, you will be needed again for a special task. But until then, there is simply nothing you can do but prepare yourselves as best as you can for what is to come. Breaking through the Toff blockade fleet around Earth will not be easy. Another difficult fight awaits.”
“So you are telling us that this was all for nothing?” Loucas protested. “There’s just another fight waiting for us in a couple more days?”
Franz bobbed. “So it is, so it will be, until the world’s end. Though for us, hopefully our next will be the last fight for a few weeks. Who knows what will await us when we reach the Belt. But in the meantime, enjoy the breathing space to live without interruption for several days. Sensors indicate you both are in need of significant rest and recuperation. I suggest you attend to your peculiar maintenance requirements rather than waste time on metaphysical inquiries.”
Franz twisted and flew away down a corridor, bouncing from wall to wall. Loucas looked at his sister. She gazed back at him, and he realized how half-conscious she really was.
“Let’s go sis,” Loucas said, sighing. “Check out the room, see what future accommodations in space are like. And it sounds like we’ll have a bunch of time alone, so hey, maybe by now everybody has had a chance to go back to Mimr’s place. I could really go for a beer right about now, and I’d like to see the others, if they’re around. If not, we’ll have to try leaving a message with Freyja’s cats.”
She didn’t respond, already falling to sleep. He pulled his sister to her feet and, following a light that appeared on the hallway, half-dragged her to the cabin.