The 28th Gate Volume 2

Episode 7-2

I pressed as much acceleration out of the Endurance as I could, knowing I’d need to close the distance before the raiders did much damage to their intended prey. As the Endurance hurtled forward, I readied the guns and primed the warheads for a volley of missiles.

By the time the raiders realized I was headed for them, I had already closed more than half the distance. As it turned out, these raiders were chatty. They sent me a warning they’d open fire if I drew any closer. Of course, I was going so fast I wouldn’t have been able to kill my forward momentum before I reached them. But I figured they knew that, too, so I didn’t bother replying.

Instead, I pulled the safeties off the forward lasers and sent my response at the speed of light.

The first few shots were intended as a warning to draw the attention of the two raiders from the distressed vessel. The attack stance they took as they turned toward the Endurance assured me they were preparing to engage. So, my next shots weren’t warnings. I managed a few repeated hits on the hull of the lead ship, and given its size, I figured I put at least a couple of small holes through their armor. They weren’t enough to do much damage to the hull, but they might have weakened the surrounding armor, and that was something.

As the raiders returned fire, I did little in the way of evasive maneuvers. At the speed I was traveling, there was little I could do beyond roll or tumble, and I wanted to maintain my forward acceleration rather than my usual tumbling technique. So, I rolled the Endurance a little, and relied on speed to hurl me past the oncoming ships.

Just as we were about to pass, though, I launched a full volley of missiles from the two underslung pods on the Endurance. Eight multidirectional missiles streaked into space, little spheres with a handful of thrusters mounted along their primary axes. I wasn’t too worried about the quality of the raider’s armor, so I didn’t bother using the more expensive double-impact missiles. These were just my standards—full tracking, single impact, explosive devices.

The Endurance was moving so fast I had to reverse launch the missiles with most of their thrust directed to counter the momentum the Endurance imparted. Even so, their small thrusters weren’t enough to send them flying in the opposite direction, so I expect it appeared as if the Endurance had dropped them rather than a hard launch.

The lead raider, with the new holes in its armor from my pulse lasers, had almost no time to respond. They managed a sloppy shot with their point defenses that took out one of the four missiles headed in their direction, but after that it was too late. Three flashes of light marked the missiles’ detonations, followed a michron later by a larger, brighter flair as the raider itself exploded. At that range and speed, even three missiles were more than it needed between the kinetic impact and the explosive load. But when I’m going up against superior numbers, I don’t take chances.

The second raider had a little more time before the missiles reached it, and its crew put their time to good use. They managed to take out three of the inbound missiles before the last one collided with their intact armor. And I will say their armor saved them that rota. Even though the basic missile wasn’t armor piercing, its rapid speed vaporized portions of the armor it collided with, but the remaining armor must have been just strong enough to absorb the subsequent explosive power. The last I saw of them, they were screaming out-system, leaving a thick trail of engine coolant and atmosphere vapor.

I didn’t even receive the usual parting death threat.

It took the Endurance another half chron to decelerate and turn around so I could check on the raider’s target, which seemed to be drifting dead in space after the attack. I was concerned because I hadn’t heard anything else from them, so I pushed the Endurance harder than normal until I finally pulled alongside.

The ship was gorgeous. Sleek and trim, it had elegant, flowing lines that bore a striking similarity to those of the derelict Katherine and I had explored for Quatra. But while that vessel had been a beast of ship, large and powerful, this craft appeared to be built for speed. Its hull shined in the dull light from the distant dual suns, glittering against the black void beyond. But then, most Gate Age derelicts appear that way from a distance. And even Quatra’s derelict, one of the finest salvage ships I’ve ever encountered, had suffered during its life. But as I moved the Endurance closer to this small vessel, the glittering visage persisted.

“Have you heard anything else from them?” I asked Katherine over the comms.

“No,” Katherine replied, concern in her voice as well. “Judging from the feeds, I’d say they took a couple of serious hits. They certainly lost propulsion, and maybe their life support if it’s tied to their engines.” The Essta had full access to the Endurance’s sensors, through a relay Gloria and I had rigged way back, so I let Katherine focus on that while I turned my attention to bringing the Endurance in close.

“I don’t see any damage at all,” I heard Gloria announce from the bridge of the Essta with Katherine rather than working on the cannons as I’d asked.

“That was the general idea.” I assumed she was taunting me for having failed to stop the raiders sooner. “Aside from the gaping hole in their port side, I mean. I prefer it when the ship I’ve saved doesn’t have holes in its hull.”

“I wasn’t talking about that,” Gloria countered with an odd tone to her voice. “I meant that aside from the fight, I don’t see any other damage at all.”

Any ship picking its way through space is going to suffer some wear, even if only from the general micro debris all ships encounter during their travels. But as I shifted my attention to the scans, I saw what Gloria meant. The outer hull of the little beauty I had just rescued didn’t appear to have any damage at all. The more I looked at the readings, the more convinced I became that—aside from the fight damage—the Essta had more extensive hull damage than it did.

I tried the open channel again, hoping the mystery ship would respond. It didn’t, which meant I had to do things the hard way.

As far as I could tell, there weren’t any standard coupling ports, so I couldn’t just attach the Endurance and jaunt right over. I did, however, see something that looked like an air lock. So, I started suiting up and told Katherine and Gloria I was about to make the jump.

Even as I leapt into space, I was already talking with Katherine about how to force the air lock open.

“I might be able to walk you through the process to splice it yourself,” she offered, though I was decidedly unimpressed by the notion, since I was sure that wasn’t true. “Or you could hack into a relay to give me remote access.”

The ship’s rapidly approaching hull distracted me before I could say we’d be resorting to the latter. I thrust my synth arm out, attempting to absorb some of the shock of slamming into the air lock door, when the air lock door disappeared. Instead of colliding with the sealed entry, I floated past it and landed in an impressively calibrated artificial gravity field.

I stood there a moment, trying to sort through my surprise.

“Umm… I think I’ve got it,” I told Katherine.

The air lock door had already closed behind me and I could feel the air cycler pumping air back into the chamber. A half moment later, much faster than I’d expected, the air lock’s inner door opened just as swiftly as the outer door had.

With one hand, I triggered my helmet to fall back into the cowl at my neck. With the other I pulled the XMR up to the ready, ensuring I had stun rounds chambered. I was confident the raiders hadn’t made it on board, but I didn’t know how the ship’s owners would feel about my arrival.

“I’m here to help,” I called down the hallway to announce my presence as I stepped out of the air lock.

Ahead of me flowed a small corridor leading to a matching air lock on the opposite side of the ship. From the interior, it looked much smaller than I’d expected. Toward the front of the ship another corridor branched off in the center, while a doorway in the middle of my present corridor opened toward the rear.

I stuck my head through the door, confirmed it was a storage area or cargo hold, and turned toward the nose of the ship. I passed a few other rooms, including a domicile and a recreation center, before reaching what I presumed was the bridge.

“Is anyone hurt?” I called again as I moved through the doorway, stepping onto a bridge unlike any I’d seen before.

Though the exterior of the ship had looked solid from nose to stern, the bridge appeared to float in the vastness of space. A small upper level had a couple of auxiliary consoles, while a few steps down a couple of chairs marked the main crew positions. Ahead of them lay nothing but the stars—under, above, and all around. For an instant, I feared the raiders had blown a hole in the bridge, but then I realized that what I was seeing—be it a projection of the surrounding space or a translucent hull structure—had been intentional in the ship’s design.

I pushed my speculation about the design aside when I saw a slumped figure in one of the two main chairs—presumably, Commander Darrell Umbstard.

I let the XMR fall to its ready strap as I moved down the steps to the man’s side and placed a hand on his shoulder. I didn’t see any external signs of trauma or notice signs of damage to the surrounding bridge. But judging from his pallid skin, I guessed he was in shock.

As my still gloved hand fell to his shoulder, he stirred. His eyes blinked a few times and he sat up, looking around in confusion.

“It’s fine. I’m here to help,” I said as he turned to me.

“But I was attacked.” He seemed disoriented as he shook his head again.

“I know,” I replied. “I drove them away. When you didn’t answer my hails, I came to ensure you weren’t hurt.”

“They attacked my ship,” he murmured, “but I was so deep in the interface I suppose it must have left me stunned.”

“Well, the habitable section looks to be intact,” I told him. “But there are a couple of large holes in your drive area. I’d guess you don’t have much armor back there?”

He rolled his head toward me with an odd expression of disbelief. “Why would an exploratory vessel have armor? Too much weight, no need.” He shook his head again, as though trying to clear his thoughts.

Then he slumped back against his chair. For a moment, I thought he’d lost consciousness again.

“Three hull breaches, five ruptured emshar containment conduits, and the port triconoic stabilizers are offline,” he murmured. “They’re damaged, I expect, but I can’t tell how severely.”

I relaxed, realizing he was checking the damage through the interface with his ship. “Do you have the parts to fix them?” I asked, not sure what most of it meant.

He nodded weakly.

“Good,” I said, “we’ll see to that after you’ve had some rest. But you’d better come back to my ship first—I have a well-stocked med bay, and I think you’re still suffering from the attack.”

He nodded again.

“Do you have any spacesuits?” I asked. “I didn’t see a docking port, so I had to jump to get here.”

He gave me a weird look again. “You don’t have an ARGB mounting site?”

It was my turn to give him a strange look. “I… what?”

He shook his head and sighed. “Just help me to the air lock.”

As it turned out, the Endurance did have an ARGB mounting site—just as, I now know, every other air lock constructed since the Gate Age does. I just never knew what it was called or what they did. But, as I learned, they’re guidance points for the activation of a nonmechanical docking port. Air, gravity, and protection from the vacuum were all instantly available, albeit with a bright blue shimmer obscuring the view of surrounding space.