Chapter Twenty Five
Parithalian Transport
“Jump point just ahead, Envoy.”
“The Ross vessel is just behind. Will we make it?” Sienele asked tersely, eyes flicking between the displays.
Kriss shrugged, seemingly unconcerned.
“The Upwind succeeded in reducing their acceleration significantly. However, they had still built up sufficient velocity to overtake us,” The Lucian answered. “The numbers are a little bit of an uncertain spread due to some uncertainty in how well the Ross vessel can maintain acceleration and how much of an effect they’ve had on the local spacetime when they destroyed the Upwind.”
Sienele grimaced, but tipped his head to acknowledge the point. The Ross had shown some variable energy in their acceleration since the destruction of the cruiser, likely from their attempts to repair the damage as well as from damaged sections wearing out under the stress of their ongoing pursuit.
The effects of the gravity valve on local spacetime had actually slipped his thoughts, but it was an obvious variable that would be difficult to account for. Even from the significant distance between them and the Upwind the small transport had felt a pull back toward the gravity sink used to destroy the cruiser.
They were firing everything they had, pushing as hard as possible to get to the Jump Point, but in the end, they were only going to find out if it was enough when they actually got there… or when they didn’t.
He examined the scans of the Ross vessel, making sure to get as much data on it as possible. The Parithalians hadn’t developed the negative matter warheads during the war, and for obvious reasons had not had any chance to use them on the Ross since. A lot of people would be very interested in the level of damage they’d managed to inflict.
Which was extensive, to be fair to the Parithalian efforts. The ship looked like it had been ravaged by some insane beast, with deep scars tore through the hull and exposing the inner infrastructure of the vessel to space along great swaths of the previous clean white ship.
Unfortunately, it hadn’t been enough to destroy it, nor even disable it. The damage had been crippling, to some extent, but clearly not enough.
It would appear that the damage it primarily superficial, along the exterior of the hull or a few decks deep. An obvious issue with negative matter warheads, they are hardly capable of doing anything other than reacting with whatever is closest.
It would be something that the Pari designers would have to improve on, he supposed.
During the war, the humans scored several kills on the Ross. I wonder what weapons they used to do so?
He would have to look that up, assuming he got back to his office and had access to the Alliance intelligence systems ever again.
A proximity alarm shook him from his thoughts, and Sienele’s gaze shifted to the navigation system.
It was outdated by modern Alliance standards, of course, but still quite serviceable, and he could see that they’d just entered the outer perimeter of the plotted Jump Point.
“Finally,” He hissed.
“Do not be so excited,” Kriss warned him. “We need to get in deeper, our jump drive isn’t… well, it is not new, let us be charitable and leave it at that.”
Sienele snorted.
As the Lucian had stated, calling it ‘not new’ was being charitable. The old Parithalian ship they were using had one of the earliest model drives he’d ever heard of, one that he was honestly shocked was still in service. Though, selling off old ones to primitives like those on the two human colonies within Alliance space made some sense in that regard, he supposed.
“And the Ross are almost in range. This will be tight.”
*****
The conclave once more shifted focus, a warning alarm demanding that they turn some attention to the situation in the system they were originally tasked with handling rather than deal exclusively with the rampant human. Relaying on compressed time to provide them with as much of, well time, as they needed, they examined the course of the target vessel attempting to escape the Alliance Production system.
They are nearing the coordinates for initiating a jump. That must not occur. Calculations for intercept?
Interception will be too late… marginally.
Marginally late is still late. Options.
The minds set to determining various scenarios and the potential each would have, played out in simulations.
Disrupt the jump point.
That caused them to pause, shifting focus to the speaker.
Interesting. Before or during their Jump?
That question set the group back. Disrupting a jump point during a jump transition was a good way to establish a little death by accident, but only if you had the time to ensure the calculations, such as their original plan for the Alliance cruiser. Without that time, it was possible that the ship would wind up merely at the wrong jump point upon exit, or perhaps somewhere in deep space.
Unacceptable risk. We cannot determine if we will be close enough for a proper disruption during the jump, likely they would survive. Disrupt before, then destroy them before it can reform.
Agreed.
The orders were issued.
Scans were analyzed quickly, taking in the gravitational sources of the system and the waves that were entering from outside the system, their interactions creating the jump points in the first place. A quick calculation was made on the best placement to temporarily disrupt the point and the ship’s gravity valve was aimed and loosed upon local space time.
*****
Parithalian Transport
Acceleration alarms screamed as the ship was abruptly yanked off course by an anomalous gravity source.
“We’re being fired upon,” Sienele concluded, tension filling his body.
“No, that wasn’t even close,” Kriss said calmly. “It’s worse than that.”
“Worse? How?” Sienele leaned in as Kriss tapped a display in front of him with a single talon.
“We’re no longer reading as being within the outer rim of the Jump point… we’re no longer reading the jump point at all.”
“How is that even possible?” one of the Lucians blurted from behind them.
“Disrupting a jump point is theoretical to Alliance research, but with enough twisting of spacetime, it should be… and obviously can be done,” Sienele said grimly. “No one realized that the Ross had that much power.
“We are dead,” Kriss said. “We cannot outrun them now.”
Sienele grimaced, looking away from the screens. He knew it was true, there wasn’t much they could do now, not with their only means of escaping the star system cut off entirely.
“Make them earn the kill.”
Kriss and Sienele looked at one another, then back to the speaker, the same Lucian who had been shocked by the fact that the jump point had vanished. They nodded slowly.
“Agreed,” Kriss said, turning back, his smile returning slowly. “Make them earn the kill.”
*****
Portal Ship
The Conclave watched as the jump point vanished, moving away from the current location so quickly as to be faster than the speed of information, if only technically. It would be back, soon enough, but the gravity pulse would buy them sufficient time to accomplish their task.
The old Alliance transport didn’t have the speed to outrun the vessel, not even damaged as it was, particularly not with the vastly superior starting speed they had before the Alliance cruiser had damaged them.
It was only a matter of time, and the conclave knew that the people on that ship had to be aware of it.
So, they were mildly surprised when the ship began evasive maneuvering, cutting away at an oblique angle. The maneuver would tax the drives significantly to match, but they turned and followed.
There would be no witnesses.
*****
Parithalian Transport
“They are following,” Sienele said. “Acceleration… dropping. Still not low enough for us to escape, unfortunately.”
“Escape is a fools dream, if we had proper weapons, I would at least add to the damage they had to repair before we died,” Kriss growled. “Instead I will settle for making them work for our deaths.”
Sienele nodded, one eye tracking the pursuing ship while he focused some of his attention on the impossible effect the Ross had just managed to create.
As he’d told the Lucian, disrupting a Jump Point was believed to be possible by the Alliance, but none of the space warping technology in common use was anywhere near the potency believed to be needed. Indeed, no one in the Alliance believed that the Ross even had such power behind their systems, given the vast scale that Jumps were formed under.
It took the interplay between multiple stars, planets, and special stellar phenomenon, all in a balance to create one.
Destroying one should be beyond the power of any species, even the Ross.
The very idea was bothering him deeply, which was why he was taking time to try and work out just what had happened. Likely he would die before figuring it out and, even if not, he would never get to tell anyone, but if he worked it out at least he wouldn’t die with that itch scratching at his brain.
The transport’s scanners were old, but they were robust enough that they hadn’t been shut down by the gravity pulse releasing. Newer models would have done so in order to avoid damage, but it seemed that they’d been far enough away from it to have avoided that… though Sienele wouldn’t be shocked if the instrument cluster had lost a few thousand cycles off its life from the wear all the same.
They’d held up in the moment, though, and that was all that mattered to him just then. Crunching the numbers was taking an eternity, however.
Blast this old computational system, I can’t believe anyone ever traveled the stars with this little computing power.
The model he was running was forming up, though, based on the scanner data.
“What are you doing?” Kriss growled, “I’m showing the computers running eighty percent over peak!”
“Is it affecting your ability to avoid the Ross?” Sienele asked, tensing.
Kriss snorted, “Hardly. We are limited to picking a direction and flying in it as fast as we can. Takes little computer power to manage, thankfully.”
“Then don’t worry about it,” Sienele responded. “I’m just scratching an itch that I would rather not die with.”
Kriss laughed, “I cannot blame you there. Unfortunately, any itches I carry can only be scratched with a blaster, and I have no targets I want dead by my hand within my personal range.”
The other Lucians grumbled in agreement with that, leaving Sienele to continue his work. His eyes widened as he suddenly saw what had happened.
They didn’t destroy the jump point… they… chased it away?
He threw the computer display away from him, letting it swing back into its place and lock into the console as he lunged out of the chair and reached over Kriss to change their course.
“What are you doing!? That will let them catch us earlier!”
*****
Alliance transport has altered course. Estimate to intercept revised down eight percent.
The conclave blinked metaphorically at that announcement. It was not a particularly difficult calculation to make, working out the best course to draw out the engagement for as long as possible, and yet somehow the beasts from the Alliance had managed to get it wrong.
Mildly surprising in some ways, completely unsurprising in others.
Recalculate engagement formulae, engage when ready.
Formulae calculated, engagement window opening… now.
Prepare to fire.
Warning! Jump Point is returning, the course places the…
The conclave watched as the jump point intersected the Alliance transport’s position as it tracked back through space toward its original location and the transport’s Jump Drive flared once before the ship vanished from local space time.
They jumped from a moving Jump Point. That is not something even we would do.
Impressive, if also insane and likely suicidal… but impressive.
Can they be tracked?
Negative.
The following formulae that was spoken was as foul as anything ever imagined from any species before.
*****