Jack Campbell - Perilous Shield

Some fragments did impact the last freighters, bringing to life new warnings on Marphissa’s display as the damage reports flowed in automatically. The thing she feared most to see, a major hull breach on one of the freighters, did not appear in the first wave of damage reports. A scattering of new reports came in, minor hull damage and some minor systems damage, then the wave of wreckage was past.

Kite was swinging back up and around in a vast parabola that was not nearly as stressful on her hull as the previous maneuvers had been. “Target destroyed,” Kite reported rather smugly. “Reverting to previous assigned target.”

Bradamont clapped Marphissa on the shoulder. “Only sixteen more hours to go.”

“Is that all?” Marphissa got control of her voice, then called Kite . “Very good job. Let’s all ensure no one else gets through.”

She shook her head, gazing at Kite ’s damage status. “She’s going to be limited in maneuvers until we can get her into a dockyard. And she burned a lot of fuel doing that. Only sixteen hours, you said?”

“Yes,” Bradamont replied. “Are you good?”

“I’m great.” At lying. Her heart pumping from stress that had burned through drugs quicker than usual, Marphissa checked the status of her up patch, pulled it off, and slapped on another.

The next six hours were a nightmare of repeated lunges by the Syndicate ships and parries by Marphissa’s warships. Fire was actually exchanged again twice; once when Manticore fired missiles at the Syndicate light cruiser that was her target, causing the light cruiser to flee, and once when two Midway HuKs maneuvered a Syndicate HuK into a sandwich, where they could get in a few hits before the Syndicate HuK twisted away.

After a pause, the attacks resumed. Lunge. Intercept. Reposition. Attack. Defend. Re-form. Despite the drugs in her, Marphissa felt the strain of nearly constant concentration on the movements of multiple ships as two, then three more hours went by inconclusively.

An entire hour passed without more attempted attacks, the Syndicate warships positioned all around the Midway Flotilla continuing to stalk their prey but making no moves to strike.

“What’s he doing?” Marphissa asked Bradamont, shocked to hear how her voice cracked when she spoke.

A watch specialist approached Marphissa, Bradamont, and Diaz with a ration bar and water for each of them. Marphissa barely looked at him, not able to risk taking her focus from her display, but nodded her thanks and tried briefly to remember how many times the watch specialists had been relieved and replaced while she, Diaz, and Marphissa had remained on duty.

She popped open the gray ration-bar wrapper with the big, block letters that shouted “Fresh! Tasty! Nutritious!” as if font size could somehow make the claims reflect the reality of a ration bar. Marphissa chewed the ration bar mechanically, discovering that probably thanks to the up patches, she couldn’t sense the usual bitter aftertaste, or the usual moldy, musty flavor that was actually preferable to the aftertaste.

Bradamont finished swallowing a bite before answering, her own voice hoarse. “We always wondered if these Syndic ration bars tasted any better when they were less stale. Now I know that they don’t. I don’t know what Sub-CEO Qui is doing. But he’s got to be getting desperate. You are less than five hours’ travel time from the hypernet gate. If he’s going to stop you or hurt you, he has to do it within that time.”

Marphissa nodded again. “If we can use the hypernet gate,” she whispered, putting into words what they both feared.

“He’s trying awfully hard to hammer us,” Bradamont whispered back hoarsely. “If Qui knew we couldn’t leave via the hypernet, he would know he had a lot more time to wear us down.”

It was odd how, even under the stress of such a long, running fight and with everything except her mental clarity impacted by the up patches, Marphissa could still feel a sense of pleasure at hearing Bradamont use the words “we” and “us.” “I think,” Marphissa said, “that he is trying to lull us. He knows how worn-out everybody on these ships is. He might be assuming that giving us an hour or two of inactivity might make us slack off.”

“Or he could be resting his own crews,” Bradamont pointed out.

Marphissa almost choked on another bite of ration bar, swallowed it painfully, then gasped a brief laugh. “He’s a snake. Sub-CEO Qui is a snake. He won’t let them rest.”

Kapitan Diaz, slumped in his own seat, nodded in agreement. “You’ll get a rest when the job is done,” he quoted. “Unless you have to do it over again.”

“No work breaks until morale improves!” Marphissa added. “No, Honore, I guarantee you that Sub-CEO Qui is not giving his crews a rest. So far they have failed. He , their leader, has not failed,” she added sarcastically. “They have. That’s the Syndicate way. He is riding them hard, making them work harder, telling them that unless they succeed, they will be punished for their failure.”

“But he’ll be punished, too,” Diaz said, “especially once the Syndicate learns who we are and that we brought those Reserve Flotilla survivors back with us.”

“Right,” Marphissa agreed, “because it can’t be the fault of the CEO who sent Sub-CEO Qui on this mission, so it has to be Qui’s fault.”

“There are times,” Bradamont said, “when the Alliance fleet works the same way.”

“That’s probably why you couldn’t beat the Syndicate until Black Jack came back,” Diaz said. “That and because we’re such tough bastards.” He laughed.

“Check your up meds, Kapitan,” Marphissa ordered him. She drank all of her water, wondering just how much more uncomfortable she would get in the hours remaining, then hit her comm controls. “All units. It is likely that Sub-CEO Qui, the snake commander, is trying to lure us into losing alertness by conducting no actions for an extended period. Remain prepared.” What sort of motivation would someone like Bradamont give? Not the standard Syndicate fail and you will regret it . “You have all done an exceptional job so far. A few more hours, and we will have won. For the people, Marphissa, out.”

Another hour passed. Marphissa felt a growing sense of worry battling with the bodily fatigue the up patches couldn’t completely banish. Maybe Qui has learned that we can’t use the hypernet gate. Maybe he’s waiting until we get to the gate and realize we can’t escape that way. He’ll have a lot more time to wear us down then, and a lot more time to wait for reinforcements, while I try to keep defending these freighters using ships with worn-out crews and fuel-cell levels that are already lower than I’m comfortable with. Where the hell would I jump to? We’ll never make it back to the jump point for Kalixa in one piece.

“Two hours left,” Diaz mumbled, then blinked, sat straighter, and slapped on another up patch.

The nest of vectors for the Syndicate warships, which had been unchanging for hours, suddenly altered.

“They’re coming again!” Marphissa snapped. “This may be their last shot. They’re going to push these firing runs. Everyone, don’t let them through!”

The surviving Syndicate warships, three light cruisers and four Hunter-Killers, were coming in hard and fast. Marphissa watched them, feeling a growing, bleak certainty that this time the Syndicate warships would not avoid action no matter the odds. If they did not damage or destroy those freighters this time, they might not get another chance.

The light cruiser that was Manticore ’s target had spun to one side and climbed, then dove, to confuse Manticore ’s intercept. But Diaz kept Manticore glued on the light cruiser’s vector, his face gray with fatigue but his eyes sharp. “All weapons,” he ordered in a voice that came out in a croak. “Engage.”