Wasp Hand Read online

  “On it,” said Adelaide, and the tactical displays changed as she fed a new firing solution to the laser turrets. They sent their invisible beams at the nearest Wasp fighter. The gravitic distortion bled away most of the beams’ energy, but the sensors reported damage as the remainder of the energy reached the fighter’s hull.

  March wrenched the Tiger around, pursuing the second fighter as the turrets kept firing at the nearest one. He squeezed the triggers. The Tiger shivered as the railgun spat its tungsten round, and it slammed into the stern of the starfighter, ripping open its back quadrant in a spray of greenish slime and something that looked like bundles of glowing fiber-optic cables. The wrecked fighter tumbled away, and March turned the Tiger again, bringing the ship towards the final alien craft. The starfighter tried to go evasive, but the laser turrets had damaged whatever method of propulsion it used, and the fighter was slower and less maneuverable than it had been.

  March lined up behind it and fired the plasma cannons. The first volley bled away in the gravitic distortion, but the next volley tore the fighter to charred organic rubble. March jerked back on the flight yoke, sending the Tiger over the tumbling wreckage, and then spun the ship to point for deep space. He glanced at the navigation display. Only half a minute remained until Vigil could complete the calculations for the hyperspace jump…

  “Incoming!” said Adelaide just as the targeting alarm trilled through the flight cabin.

  March reacted on instinct, putting the Tiger into an evasive pattern just as the scoutship fired a plasma bolt.

  The plasma bolt had the kind of power rated for capital ship combat, and if it had hit the Tiger dead-on, it would have collapsed the radiation shield and burned the ship to atoms. As it was, even a grazing hit drained thirty percent of the shield’s remaining strength. March cursed and put the ship into a violent evasive pattern, the Tiger spiraling into deep space.

  “I don’t think they can target us so long as we stay evasive,” said Adelaide. “The plasma cannon, or whatever it is, on that scoutship is too big to aim quickly.”

  “Good,” said March, looking at the navigational display.

  Fifteen seconds until the jump calculation was complete.

  Then another display lit up on his console.

  The Tiger had just picked up a nearby distress call.

  Chapter 2: The Lord Admiral

  “Jack?” said Adelaide, startled.

  March looked at the sensor display, keeping the Tiger spinning through its evasive pattern. Another few thousand kilometers, he thought, and they would be out of range of the scoutship’s plasma batteries. Though the ship might have the interior capacity to carry more fighters. Hell, maybe the organic starship would grow a new set of fighters and send them after the Tiger.

  “Sensor focus,” he said, keeping his attention on the evasive maneuvers. “In the direction of that distress beacon.”

  “On it,” said Adelaide. The scoutship fired again, but the plasma bolt missed the Tiger by a good five hundred meters. “Let’s see...yeah, the radar and ladar are picking up a group of small ships about five million kilometers closer to Vesper’s World. None of them have an active dark energy reactor, so we didn’t pick them up right away.”

  March flipped a switch on the communications panel. Static crackled over the flight cabin’s speakers, and then a man’s voice came on, distorted but recognizable.

  “This is Captain Alex Donaghy of the shuttle SC-9, attached to the carrier Roncesvalles of the Seventh Fleet of the Royal Calaskaran Navy. We are under attack by alien craft. I repeat, we are under attack by unknown alien craft. Our hyperdrive has been destroyed, and our defenses are failing. We request any and all craft to come to our aid. I repeat, this is Captain Alex Donaghy of...”

  The message continued. Midway through the first recitation, Vigil chimed. The Tiger was ready for its jump to hyperspace and safety.

  “Are we going after them?” said Adelaide.

  March frowned. “Everyone on Vesper’s World is going to die, aren’t they?”

  “Probably,” said Adelaide, her voice tight. “Those scoutships usually probed the way before the nestships. If the Royal Calaskaran Navy can get here in time, they might be able to destroy the nestship. But...yeah, it’s probably too late.”

  March nodded and turned the Tiger towards the distress call, throwing full power to the fusion drive. “Maybe not everyone.”

  He glanced at Adelaide, and to his surprise, she grinned at him.

  “Good,” she said, a flash of affection in her voice, and then the cool tone returned. “Orders?”

  Orders? That was right – he was the captain and pilot, and she had appointed herself co-pilot, which meant that he was in charge. For that matter, he was an Alpha Operative, and she was a Beta Operative, which meant March could give orders to his girlfriend.

  His first unexpected impulse was to say something salacious, but he quashed it at once. They were in far too much danger to waste time with jokes.

  “Get the radiation shield charged back up,” said March, “and get as much power to the weapons as you can. I’m going to call Captain Donaghy and let him know help is on the way.” They were still too far away from the shuttle for anything like instantaneous or even delayed radio transmission, but March could record a message and send it.

  “Right,” said Adelaide, concentrating on her displays.

  March flipped switches on the communications panel. “This is Captain Jack March of the licensed Calaskaran privateer vessel Tiger, responding to your distress call. Please answer with your current condition.” He hit the transmission button and then turned his attention to the navigational display. “Vigil, keep the hyperspace calculation running. Try to modify our current set of jump calculations based on our location.”

  “Acknowledged,” announced Vigil. “Please be advised that there will be a calculation delay of fifteen to twenty-five seconds due to location change and relativistic drift.”

  “Got it,” said March, glancing at the sensor displays. He keyed for maximum power to the radar, ladar, and gravitic sensors. That would make the Tiger stand out to anyone scanning this area of space, but the Wasp scoutship already knew that they were here.

  Greater detail about the area near the distress call appeared on his display. The Tiger picked up four ships. One was a Royal Calaskaran Navy assault shuttle, heavily armed and armored, used for carrying Royal Marines into active combat zones. The other three ships were smaller, and the sensors thought they were organic, which meant more Wasp fighters.

  “These Wasps,” said March. “The Eumenidae. While I wait for Donaghy to call back, can you tell me about them? Anything might be useful. I’ve only vaguely heard of them a few times before this.”

  “Okay,” said Adelaide, not looking up from her displays as she worked. “The Wasps.” Despite the urgency of the situation, he felt a flicker of amusement as her voice changed. It was the controlled-yet-warm tone she used when narrating her documentaries. “I don’t know much about them, just what I learned in school, but I’ll tell you what I can. We call them the Eumenidae, but we don’t know what they call themselves or even if they call themselves anything. Their nickname is the 'Wasps' since they kind of look like giant stinging insects. They are totally hostile to all other life, and they move from inhabited world to inhabited world, killing every living thing and reforming the ecosystem to suit themselves.”

  “Sapient?” said March.

  “Probably,” said Adelaide. “We don’t know for sure. They do have a hive mind, that’s obvious from the way they coordinate, but we don’t know how much sapience or even sentience individual Eumenidae have. Their technology is entirely organic. Those ships we destroyed weren’t built, they were grown. If the battle had gone on long enough, they would have regenerated any damage we did and even grown new missiles. They can continuously recode their DNA to grow anything they want. Humans would have to build a space station. The Eumenidae could grow one in a few days if necessar
y.”

  “Do they have any weaknesses?” said March.

  “Not that I know about,” said Adelaide. “Their ships can be destroyed with conventional weapons. We just did that, yeah? They radiate huge amounts of dark energy, which makes it possible to detect their ships from a long distance off...”

  “They do?” said March, looking at the sensor display. Neither the Wasp scoutship nor the fighters around the shuttle gave off any dark energy readings.

  “It’s a different part of the dark energy spectrum than what we use for hyperspace travel,” said Adelaide. “The Tiger’s sensors are probably not...wait. Wait!” She snapped her fingers. “Vigil!”

  “Yes, Dr. Taren?” said the pseudointelligence.

  “Can you apply a filter to the dark energy sensors?” said Adelaide. “Configure them to check for the dark energy signatures of Eumenidae starships. The data will probably be buried deep in a historical database somewhere.”

  “Processing,” said Vigil. “Sensor profile available. Applying the profile to the dark energy sensors. The configuration process will take several moments to complete.”

  “Acknowledged,” said March. He glanced at Adelaide. “Good thinking. That wouldn’t have occurred to me.”

  She grinned at him and turned her attention back to her displays. “Glad I could be...”

  A notification scrolled across his screen. Donaghy had responded to their transmission.

  “This is Captain Donaghy of the shuttle SC-9,” said Donaghy. His voice crackled and hissed over the flight cabin’s speakers, maybe from the distance of the transmission, but most probably from battle damage to the shuttle’s communications equipment. “Privateer Tiger, be advised that we are under heavy attack by three alien starfighters that match the configuration of fighter-bombers. Unless you have heavy armaments, I advise that you withdraw and head for Antioch Station. Alert the Royal Calaskaran Navy of what is happening here.”

  “Lucky for him, we do have heavy armaments,” said Adelaide. “Speaking of which, all weapons are charged and ready to fire, and the shields are back to full strength.”

  “Good,” said March. He fed more power to the fusion drive and the ion thrusters, sending the Tiger hurtling towards the battle between the shuttle and the three Wasp fighters. The radar and gravitic scanners were getting better results as they drew closer, and the sensors picked up a field of organic debris around the shuttle. The three Wasp fighters were larger than the five that he and Adelaide had destroyed near the scoutship. Likely they had the firepower of heavy fighters, then, or fighter-bombers like Donaghy had said.

  “How did you get a capital-ship grade railgun mounted to a blockade runner, anyway?” said Adelaide.

  “I know a technician at Mercator Foundry Yards who owed me a favor,” said March. More sensor data came in. The shuttle was not in good shape. Its kinetic shield was gone, and there were multiple rents in its heavy armor, some of which had been hull breaches. Its radiation shield was only at about half-power.

  “Sensor configuration complete,” announced Vigil. “Eumenidae dark energy overlay now available.”

  Dozens of new contacts appeared on the sensor display.

  “Damn,” muttered March. If those readings were accurate, there were dozens of Eumenidae ships in the Vesper system.

  “Jack,” whispered Adelaide. “God, there’s an entire fleet of them.”

  “Vigil,” said March. “Record all data from the dark energy overlay. We’ll need to take it with us to Antioch Station.”

  “Acknowledged,” said Vigil.

  March keyed for a sensor focus on the three fighters attacking the shuttle. Each fighter gave off a massive amount of dark energy. A human starship giving off that much dark energy would have been moments away from a cataclysmic reactor failure, but that kind of radiation seemed to be within the range of normal function for a Wasp ship. At last, they were close enough for Vigil to assemble a visual image, and one appeared on March’s screen. The heavy fighters had a double hull, joined together by meshes of rigid grayish-green cables, red highlights glowing at random along the entire ship. If the fighters that March had destroyed earlier looked like wasps, these heavier craft looked like two wasps joined together by an enormous tumorous growth.

  “Heavy gravitic distortions around those fighters,” said Adelaide. “I think they have better shielding than the first five. The laser turrets won’t do much against them.”

  “No,” said March. Even as he looked, one of the turrets on the shuttle rotated and fired. The turret put out a powerful laser beam, more powerful than the Tiger’s turrets could generate, but the beam did only minimal damage to the alien fighter. The Wasp starfighter responded with a volley of plasma bolts that hammered into the shuttle’s radiation shield. The shuttle had sturdy radiation shields, but the shield had already taken a pounding, and its power level dropped steeply.

  “Too much more of that and they’re dead,” said Adelaide.

  March nodded. “Configure the turrets for point defense, and start on firing solutions for the plasma cannons and the railgun. It probably would be best to configure for volleys. That gravitic distortion around the Wasp fighters seems to act like a unified radiation and kinetic shield...”

  “Which means we can overwhelm them with plasma volleys followed by railgun rounds,” said Adelaide. “On it.”

  They were close enough to the shuttle for real-time communication with a lag of only a few seconds. March tapped some commands into the communications panel.

  “Shuttle SC-9, this is the Tiger,” said March. “We’re beginning an attack run.”

  “Thank you, Tiger,” said Donaghy. “Be advised that we just lost power to weapons. I’m afraid we won’t be much use in the fight.”

  “Acknowledged,” said March. “After we take out the Wasp fighters, I think we had better dock and evacuate your shuttle. Doesn’t look like you’re going much farther.”

  The three Wasp fighters broke off their attack on the shuttle and turned towards the Tiger.

  “No,” said Donaghy. “We’ve only got three people on board – myself, and two passengers. I will start evacuation procedures. Good luck, Captain March.”

  “You too, Captain Donaghy,” said March, and he turned his full attention to the tactical display. The three double-hulled Wasp ships came at the Tiger in a chevron formation. The sensors detected radiation spikes as the fighters built up power for plasma cannon fire.

  “No missile locks,” said Adelaide.

  “They must have expended all of their missiles on the shuttle,” said March. “Those things can take a pounding.” His eyes flicked over the available firing solutions. “Okay. Plasma volleys, followed by railgun rounds.”

  “Ready,” said Adelaide.

  March gripped the flight yoke and sent the Tiger into a wild evasive pattern as the three Wasp starfighters began shooting. Plasma bolts burst from their double hulls, and the sensors reported that the bolts were more powerful than the Tiger’s guns.

  Fortunately, the Tiger was faster and more maneuverable than the heavy fighters. March banked the Tiger hard to port, the ship spinning, and turned onto an approach vector at the nearest fighter. One of the firing solutions flashed green across his display, and March squeezed the triggers. A volley of plasma bolts slammed into the fighter, their energy dissipated by the gravitic distortion. A half-second later the Tiger shuddered as the railgun spat its round, and the tungsten rod punched through the weakened distortion and drilled through the fighter’s starboard hull. March wondered if the fighter could keep functioning with one of its hulls destroyed, but evidently, the rod had struck at the right angle. The fighter split apart in a spray of organic debris and frozen liquid.

  The other two fighters scattered, trying to encircle the Tiger. The radiation shield registered a hit, and March realized that the fighters had rear-mounted laser turrets. Likely they would try to orbit the Tiger and hammer at the radiation shield until it collapsed.

  “Cut po
wer to the kinetic shields,” said March, “and put it into the ion thrusters and the radiation shield.”

  “Got it,” said Adelaide.

  March spun the ship, moving faster than the nearest Eumenidae fighter could turn. For about a second and a half, the fighter was right in front of the Tiger’s bow, and that was all the time March and the ship needed. He squeezed the firing triggers, and a volley of plasma bolts slammed into the fighter, followed by the railgun’s shot. This time the railgun hit the mass of organic tendrils between the fighter’s hulls, and the force of the kinetic impact ripped the starfighter apart.

  March rolled the Tiger as the final starfighter came at the ship, plasma cannons firing. Two bolts hit the ship, but Adelaide had reinforced the radiation shield, and none of the deadly shots hit the ship’s armor. March twisted the Tiger out of the fighter’s line of fire, banked, and took an attack vector at the Wasp ship.

  He squeezed the triggers, and the Tiger’s armament reduced the Wasp starfighter to drifting organic debris.

  “Good shooting,” said Adelaide.

  “Thanks,” said March. “Now let’s pick up some passengers and get the hell out of here.”

  “We should probably do that sooner rather than later,” said Adelaide. “That scoutship we saw earlier has decided to follow us. We’ve got about five minutes until it gets into weapons range, and if that dark energy filter Vigil applied to the sensors is accurate, we have several more Eumenidae ships closing on us.”

  “Then we’ll hurry,” said March. He tapped the communication panel. “Shuttle SC-9, please respond.”

  “This is Donaghy,” came the response. “That was some good shooting, Captain March.”

  “Thanks,” said March. “What’s your status?”

  “Our dark matter reactor is offline, which doesn’t matter because the hyperdrive has been physically destroyed,” said Donaghy. “Our weapons are offline, and half the ion thrusters are down. Fusion drive is only operating at half capacity.”