Kris switched the infrared scan and searched for magnetic anomalies. Ah-ha! There was a spike out there. It showed—
The commander bent forward sharply. The magnetic spike disappeared, as if someone had just figured out what she was doing and practiced countermeasures.
Kris’s heart rate accelerated. Who had a cloaked ship out there? Maybe she should figure out what kind of vessel was hiding there first.
Right. Given the scanty data, a mere outline, Kris ran an analysis. Seven seconds later, she stared at the readings. The computer gave a seventy-six percent probability that the craft belonged to the New Men. She’d seen a star cruiser.
The commander sat back, stunned. Could that be the same star cruiser I saw in the New Arabia System just before we jumped?
If so, did that mean the enemy vessel had been tracking them? Why else would a cloaked star cruiser be in the Karachi System? The reason seemed clear to her. The New Men didn’t want Osprey getting back to Earth with the news of the planet-killer.
Kris hurried to the piloting station and began immediate evasive maneuvers. As she did, the commander put the ship on red alert.
Five minutes later, the control room door slid open. Lieutenant Artemis hurried in, still buttoning her uniform.
Kris vacated the piloting chair, going back to sensors.
“Is the star cruiser coming after us?” Artemis asked.
“I can’t tell,” the commander answered. “The vessel is cloaked.”
“Star Watch’s cloaked ships give themselves away if they try to move at speed,” Artemis said.
“I understand,” Kris said. “But this is a New Men vessel. Undoubtedly, it’s better at what it does.”
Artemis said no more on the subject. Despite the hard acceleration to get farther away from Karachi 7 and the cloaked star cruiser, the frigate jinked in one direction and then another. The excess Gs would be straining the crew. Soon, the violent maneuvers were going to stress the little ship.
A Star Watch station orbiting Karachi 7 beamed a message, asking what was wrong. The station was over one million kilometers from the gas giant and thus well out of the star cruiser’s present range.
Kris had already sent them the data about a cloaked vessel. Were the station personnel too dense to understand what that meant or did they not believe her?
“I repeat,” Kris said, “I have spotted a cloaked, enemy star cruiser at ten-sixteen-eight on your Vaster scale. It was right beside the gas giant.”
“We checked the location,” the station comm-officer said. “There’s nothing out there.”
“Did you read my data?”
“Yes. The blockage you state as your evidence is a routine occurrence, Commander. You’re spooking at ghosts. I suggest you relax. This is a safe star system, far from the action of ‘C’ Quadrant.”
“Keep checking for a cloaked vessel,” Kris said, stung by the comm-officer’s rebuke. “Try magnetic sweeps. That worked for me a few minutes ago.”
There was a pause in communications. Likely, the comm-officer checked with her superior officer. “Thank you, Commander, we will continue to do checks on a routine schedule.”
“Idiots,” Artemis muttered. “Don’t they believe you?”
Kris kept her opinion to herself even after signing off. There had always been a bit of a gap between Patrol officers and regular line personnel, especially those on station duty.
Kris kept scanning Karachi 7, trying to find the cloaked vessel. She knew what she’d seen. No one was going to convince her differently.
Time passed as the frigate headed for the Laumer-Point.
“Commander,” Artemis said fifteen minutes later, with fear in her voice. “You’d better look at this.”
Kris tore her tired gaze from the sensor board to look up at the main screen.
“Magnetic readings out there just spiked,” Artemis said.
Kris frowned. “Put the readings on the screen.”
Artemis complied.
Kris studied the numbers. That didn’t match what she’d seen near Karachi 7. How had the star cruiser leapt ahead of them, and so far? It made no sense whatsoever. That was over half a million kilometers away from the ship, given their distance from Karachi 7—
“Commander, the spike is increasing.”
The number on the screen flickered to greater and greater length. Maybe that wasn’t the cloaked vessel. But what could make magnetic readings like that?
Abruptly, Kris twisted back to her sensor board. She tapped fast, scanning the area. The magnetic readings grew exponentially. Then, they burst forth even faster. Before her eyes, an ion storm simply appeared out of nowhere.
Icy fear gripped Kris’s heart. “I want full deceleration!”
“What?” Artemis asked.
“Now! Give me full deceleration.” Kris opened frigate-wide channels and told everyone to strap in. When she looked up, Artemis still hadn’t reacted. “This is an emergency, Lieutenant. I want full stop, full stop. I want Osprey dead in space.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Artemis said weakly.
“Don’t you understand?” Kris shouted. “The doomsday machine is coming through. Do you think we can outrun it or go around? No! It will block our path to the Laumer-Point. We have one chance, and I’m going to take it. Full stop, Lieutenant. That is an order.”
“Yes, Commander,” Artemis said, her fingers tapping fast.
Osprey rotated so the main engines aimed in the ship’s direction of travel. Then, Artemis tapped her board once more. Full thrust roared from the engine ports. It pushed Kris against her chair as the G forces slammed home.
The commander kept her eyes glued to the sensors nonetheless. As the small Patrol frigate decelerated, a vast, planetary-sized magnetic storm swirled into existence with astonishing speed. Soon, long, recognizable, purple bolts sizzled from the storm.
Kris recorded the spatial-temporal phenomenon, wondering if she would ever get to share this with anyone.
Artemis moaned with dread.
Kris felt sick as she saw it. She’d been hoping that she had been wrong about this. The doomsday machine, with its signature neutroium hull, came through a dark portal inside the magnetic storm. What form of transfer was that? Why did it cause the massive ion storm?
“We have to get out of here,” Artemis declared.
“No,” Kris said. “Can’t you see? Don’t you understand? The planet-killer is blocking our route to the Laumer-Point. I doubt we can get past it. Remember what it did to the Wahhabi warships?”
“So we just stop out here in front of it?” Artemis asked.
“If we can stop fast enough I think we might have a chance,” Kris said. It was a long-shot, and she had no idea if it would work or not.
Kris made some quick calculations. Did the magnetic storm transfer cause Jump Lag on the doomsday machine? She was betting it did. But Osprey still wasn’t going to stop fast enough.
“We need more thrust,” Kris said.
Artemis didn’t argue this time. She tapped the piloting board.
Even greater G forces slammed against the commander. Osprey began to tremble due to the strain. Kris struggled to remain alert, as the blood pounded inside her skull. Her arms felt glued to the rests of her chair.
The minutes ticked away in growing agony.
Soon, Kris’s head felt too heavy and her eyeballs hurt. Even so, she studied the massive ship blocking the way to the Laumer-Point. She spied the giant orifice that contained the planet-killing ray. With the beam, the doomsday machine had annihilated the majority of the Wahhabi Home Fleet. What chance did a small Patrol frigate have against it?
The doomsday machine was so ponderous, so huge. Who had built it? Why make such a thing?
“Has it come here to destroy everything in the Karachi System?” Kris asked quietly.
“Damn them,” Artemis said.