A Star Wheeled Sky by Brad R Torgersen

Author:Brad R Torgersen [Torgersen, Brad R]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, Action & Adventure, Military, Space opera
ISBN: 9781481483629
Google: mG52swEACAAJ
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2018-12-04T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

One by one, the Antagean starliners puffed their jury-rigged ejection pods into the void. Nothing spectacular, per design. The pods were gently pushed out of their tubes. Like ice cubes being dropped from a dispenser, they floated slowly away from their respective ships, at the same time those ships dialed their thrust up slowly past two gees, and into three-gee territory. Leaving the ejection pods to drift in a small but expanding sphere of space—looking for all the universe like a collection of comet nibblets, shaved from the hulk of some larger, much more impressive body.

It was days before the slumbering weapons crossed the Nautilan pursuit force’s path. At which time some of the ejection pods had dispersed very widely indeed. Too wide to be of any use.

But a few were within the desired activation envelope, which brought their small attitude-control computers to life. The computers quickly identified where the nearest, largest masses were, and activated their respective reaction-control thrusters. Ice and hydrogen blasted away from the thruster nozzles, and formerly drifting bits of interplanetary junk suddenly became accelerating projectiles.

At first, the threat-detection matrix being used by the Nautilan pursuit force did not recognize the pods. They were moving too slowly, and not giving off the right signatures for the kinds of missiles the matrix was programmed to recognize. But when the other detection system—the one designed to help with conventional collision avoidance—began to bwoop painfully at the Nautilan crews, they knew something was seriously wrong.

Of the four ejection pods within reach of a warship, only one of them found its mark. The other three went off prematurely, providing their prey with a trio of very bright, very disturbing explosions. The fourth got to within one hundred meters of its intended target, blowing away half of the ship’s fuel tanks, and cracking the superstructure like a man might bend dry sticks between his hands—before tossing the kindling on an open fire.

Golsubril Vex was sleeping when it happened. One moment, she was nestled securely in her gee hammock. The next, she was rolling out of the hammock and almost smashing her face into the deck, on account of three gees pulling her much more quickly to the floor than her reflexes could remember. The threat klaxon was very loud in her ears, and when she called for her compartment’s lights to come on, she got just the dull orange of the emergency lanterns, which popped out of the ceiling near the door.

Vex pulled a zipsuit from the wall locker where she kept her emergency-readiness supplies, and struggled into it. Once she had it secured at the collar, she made her way out into the corridors of the Alliance, intent on reaching the lift shaft, which would take her to the command module. Crew bustled past—if one could call struggling in three gees bustling—and Vex had to make way several times for space-suited security personnel who clomped past her. Each with beads of sweat on their foreheads, visible through the transparent face bowls of their space helmets.

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