Interlude: Steel Thunder

[Malacandra]

(Set a short time after the events in Ships That Pass In The Night)
Steel Thunder fell between the stars, in the paradoxical space where distance, speed and time had little meaning and the very light itself appeared to give up in confusion. It was a few hours of blessed peace and quiet, in which Hammond was improving his education with a highly speculative work on theoretical physics. Words and images rolled steadily up the computer screen, leaving a whirl of chaotic images in Hammond's mind.

A tiny change in the physical constants of the Universe, Hammond absorbed from the text, would lead to a myriad of bizarre consequences. Planets would be so far from their suns that light itself would take anything from minutes to hours to cross the void, moons would orbit their parents at perhaps thirty planetary diameters, and space would be frictionless, with nothing but relativistic effects to impose an upper limit to a ship's speed. But it would be a strange Universe in which an Asp could hit point nine nine light and cross interstellar space in hours or days of subjective time, but years would have passed to the people on the planet he'd left and the planet he arrived on. Meanwhile, wormholes would take the energy of a galaxy to open and some highly theoretical "negative matter" to keep from closing. And there goes star-trading and even star-exploring, thought Hammond wryly.

He tried to imagine what space combat would be like where ships could close a 25km gap in a literal eyeblink, just at low-orbit velocity in opposite directions around a habitable-sized planet, and gave up in amused bafflement. There was only so much science fiction a man could take at one sitting.

The display warned him that Witchspace exit would occur in thirty minutes. He eased himself out of the pilot's seat and went to void his bladder, knowing darn well that it would make its presence very much felt as soon as the trouble started - which it was odds-on to do in an Anarchy system where planetary law barely extended even to orbit and Galcop Vipers were rarer than hundred-year-old Vetitician lethal brandy. But there were still some minutes to kill and Hammond pulled up his language lesson program. Sector Six, index scrolled to "Aq...", and off he went to learn a few more conversational phrases in a language that wasn't quite intended for the human tongue, palate or ear. Still, he was improving with practice.

Too soon, he had to interrupt his learning as the shifting patterns outside indicated imminent Witchspace exit, and the view of normal space resumed with the computer's imperturbable announcement of the destination system: Qudira. A backwater of a system it was too, with a few hundred million human colonials scratching out what would be bare subsistence farming if it weren't for imported technology so advanced even an illiterate could use it, and so desperate for offworld capital that it was exporting food, raw materials, alcohol and furs at knock-down prices. Which brought in the traders keen to make money, and the pirates keen to profit off them in the absence of any effective local law.

Which, for the next half an hour or so, was where Hammond came in, and Steel Thunder.

Hammond cycled the space compass through the only targets in this system: the witchpoint beacon, the main station navigation buoy, the sun, and Qudira herself, before settling on the navigation buoy and aligning the Asp towards the distant orbital point. There seemed to be a metallic gleam far ahead, but nothing close enough to masslock him, even after he had completed what he thought of as "pre-fight checks" - which in a ship as simple and to the point as the Asp II just meant bringing the lasers online and engaging the ident system in readiness for the first blip to enter his crosshairs. Steel Thunder's V-number sped upwards abruptly as he engaged the hyperspeed and closed the range on the planet by a few hundred kilometres before the computer announced cut-out and the long-range scan simultaneously displayed a familiar pattern of "lollipops", as the spacers facetiously named them. They might denote a trader and her escorts - and any trader with a gram of sense would bring as many escorts as he could afford into a place like this - or... But, "by their fruits shall you know them", the old proverb ran, and even as Hammond cut the Asp's speed to below half he saw the distants ships' profiles appear to wink as they turned towards him, and several lollipops turn red as the computer detected hostile target locks.

Eight to one, Hammond noted. Once upon a time he might have considered using the Quirium Cascade Mine to thin the hostiles out a bit and make the odds a little less uneven. But odds like that weren't more than Steel Thunder could handle, especially not with most of a tank of witchdrive fuel still to burn. First things first. Killing Steel Thunder's remaining speed, he locked onto the Python at the heart of the formation, then broke the lock and scanned slowly sideways for one of the escorts. A Cobra Mk 1, in the name of pity. With a delicate touch on the attitude jets Hammond brought the sights to bear on the distant target, allowed a hairsbreadth for the vagaries of the targeting reticle at that distance, and tapped the fire button. Immediately the audiofeedback system confirmed a hit and Hammond switched to sustained fire. Against a Cobra One it barely started to put the laser into the red before the target, too slow to dodge, flared white against the blackness. The Python, assuming it were undamaged, would have taken his laser all the way to overheating and still maybe not blown, which was exactly why he was leaving it alone for now. Instead -

But inevitably there was a missile incoming, and Hammond interrupted himself for the bare second it needed to activate the ECM, and a moment longer to confirm that the blue-white trace had disappeared. Good. Steel Thunder could handle a missile hit on her intact shields, but he could do without the need for now -

Instead he tracked among the remaining escorts to find himself locked onto a Sidewinder, fine-tuned his aim again, and ran the laser all the way into the red. His aim was good enough to make the entire burst count and send the Sidewinder where the Cobra had gone, but by now the return fire was starting to get the range; just, unfortunately for his enemies, as they were running their own lasers up to overheating. Too bad. Stupidity had been a capital crime ever since the first stone-age man figured his new-found skill with a club meant he could take on a sabretooth one-on-one.

Six to one, and he didn't have time to let his laser cool, but that was all part of the plan. Random red beams were flying all around him as first one then another of his remaining opponents managed to get their lasers back down out of the red zone, but the Asp's narrow profile made her hard to hit and Hammond spun her round on her z-axis to keep the profile narrow. The odd shot hit his rear shield but he had enough energy there to last him a while. He acquired a Mamba, tried a shot or two until the audiofeedback confirmed his aim, then let rip with all he had; but this pilot was quicker and broke away on the lateral. Not to worry. That was one fewer to chase him for now. Hammond ran Steel Thunder's throttle up to the maximum and watched the lollipops recede on the trace. He couldn't sight through the blue glare of his own exhaust flame and he didn't try. Pitching slightly, he spotted the familiar profile of a Cobra Mk 3 heading for his six, and struggling to stay in touch with the fleet Asp. That was his next target, with his rear laser almost cool again. Hammond cut the thrust, let the blue flame die, and settled the reticle squarely on the Cobra even as the pursuing craft got in a few good hits of its own. But Steel Thunder had the best shields money could buy and Hammond knew he could trust them for the bare few seconds it would take his own military-spec laser to reduce the Cobra to glowing gas.

Yet again the pirate's last act was to launch a missile in desperation, and to Hammond's annoyance he saw it was still coming despite a blast of electronic noise from his ECM system. Well, a hardened missile was a nuisance, but not a killer. On a lucky day his target-acquisition system might even have locked on before it went into its death spiral. Not this time - but it took only a touch on the witchfuel injectors to shift the annoyance further astern.

The Python and three of her escorts were still back there, with maybe a Mamba crabbing around to rejoin the action once he'd got his energy back to survival levels. That was... doable. The front shields were at full strength and the front laser back to minimum operating temperature. To hell with a stupid missile! Hammond spun Steel Thunder round in a bootlegger reverse again, cutting speed to zero and presenting his intact shield to the missile. He didn't even try to shoot the missile, concentrating at last on targeting the Python and not even flinching as the missile impacted. Minimal kinetic penetration with Steel Thunder stationary, and the blast was not quite enough to blow the shields down. Not quite... Hammond gave the Python all he had and saw it sheer cumbrously away, venting plasma from her damaged systems. She was hurting badly but his front laser was overheated. Three escorts converging on him, and Hammond hit the injectors again, surging past them and halving the distance to the stricken Python. He had to watch for the Python's rear laser if she had one, as it would be in much better shape than his front shields right now, but mercifully no short-range fire came his way. He coaxed every burst of fire out of his laser that it could possibly give him, knowing he couldn't permanently burn it out and - as long as his gunnery stayed good - the Python couldn't regenerate its energy faster than his laser could scour it away.

More plasma and still more, while the escorts recovered from their overshoot and turned back onto his six, and now it was ticklish, because he had to cut his speed right down to stay on the Python's six and he couldn't run from those last three escorts while he was at it. But he kept grimly on target even while shot after shot was running down his rear shield - and now the Python was erupting in a ball of white fire and he twitched back on the stick even as he went straight to witchfuel injection without bothering to open the throttle in more conventional fashion. He'd pulled back just enough to miss the cloud of cargo barrels left behind in the wake of the Python's destruction - someone else would have to salvage them though. That was no work for an Asp.

As the range opened out, the hits tapered off abruptly. They'd had their chance, they'd failed as escorts, and now he just had to see to it that they failed as nemeses too. No problem. Again Hammond eased off on the thrust in order to spot targets with the rear sight, and settled on a Moray Star Boat. He snorted contemptuously. Please! A nice spaceman's toy was the Moray, but you had to be demented to pit one against an iron-assed Asp, even with backup. But for all that, the professional thing to do was not to sneer but to eliminate the threat as expeditiously as possible. He almost admired the pirate's courage in even giving it a try... but, fool or hero, it all came to one as the Asp's rear laser filleted the Moray like an eel.

Two left and - oh, a distant blip that just might be that lone Mamba coming back for another go. And the upshot of everything so far was that the Python and more than half her escorts were so much stardust drifting on the void, and Steel Thunder's shields and energy banks were almost back to full strength. No need to run any further.

Hammond spun Steel Thunder around again to face her pursuers, yet another hopelessly optimistic Cobra 1 who managed to get off a missile in time to cause a moment's inconvenience with the ECM, and another Mamba who didn't have the reflexes of the first one. They should have realized it was no go. Eight ships in formation they had been at the start, and he'd broken them and torn them up one by one. He had the speed to have run any time the fight wasn't going his way, so why would they think he was staying to fight, and what chance would the last three of them have?

Steel Thunder was such a powerful weapon, a man had to beware of letting her go to his head. Eight against one, and it was a mismatch, not in favour of the eight. Hammond settled down to duel the last Mamba, but he wasn't expecting any difficulties. He didn't encounter any, either. He had the edge in speed, protection and firepower, and more than enough agility for the task in hand. There might have been a pilot somewhere in the Eight who could have suckered him into a turning fight and somehow managed to run his shields down, but he'd have had to be mighty careless not to simply run when the going was getting tough - and a Mamba could no more catch him in a stern chase than it could flee from him.

Once he'd sent the Mamba where the wicked cease from troubling, Hammond performed a perfunctory check of Steel Thunder's systems. All were completely nominal. From time to time when he had been running his Boa Class Cruiser across the galaxy, a pirate encounter had left systems damaged, anything from the fuel scoops to, frustratingly, the military shield enhancement. But Steel Thunder just never got badly damaged enough for this to be a concern. Hammond grinned and brought the Asp back on course for the planet.

He mused, as Steel Thunder skipped along in hyperspeed, about the thousand or so ships he'd... dealt with. That wasn't counting the bonus on his record that the Navy had spotted him, either. Could he be sure they'd all deserved it? Well, no man would ever know the truth of that, and he had to let his conscience make the best call it could. But if that crazy old duck in Inceisa station had the right of it -

"Mass-locked," warned the computer as the proximity of another drive-enabled object dropped him out of hyperspeed, and in the same moment the squawk-box was announcing an incoming SOS. "Help! Anyone! They're shooting at us". And by the Great Diquusian Tree Grub, it was a Moray Medical Boat under attack. Scum! Greedy, selfish scum who'd kill a doctor and his crew for the sake of drugs for the black market - medicines that could save thousands of innocent lives, and in a Tech 1 system to boot! Hammond hit the injectors without a moment's thought, regretting for once that he hadn't a missile on Steel Thunder's only hardpoint. Not that he needed a missile to deal with these two - a pair of Kraits that must have seen better days, they weren't being made any more and spare parts were getting hard to find - but if he'd targeted and fired one then the victim would have lost all interest in the Medic on the instance.

Fortunately the doctor could fly a bit, giving even the nimble Kraits some difficulty in calling their shots on him. But a Medical Boat wasn't usually equipped with much to defend herself beyond the barest minimum and it would have been all up with him if there hadn't been a guardian angel standing by. Hammond cut his speed to fall in behind the rearmost Krait and opened up as soon as his sights would bear, not even bothering to wait for the audiofeedback as he could afford for a few shots to miss as he raked his laser across the target. At a couple of klicks it was brutal punishment for the little Krait to absorb and she barely had time to start evasive manoeuvres before she blew up. That got the other one's attention away from the Medical Boat at any rate. Hammond stood his ground as she came around and cut loose with her own laser, watching the numbers tick off on his forward shield but knowing the danger was minimal. He picked up speed again and turned onto the Krait's six as she passed, in complete confidence that she would never shake him off her tail.

Nor did she.

Steel Thunder turned away from the explosion and made out the bright red shape of the Moray Medical Boat. She appeared intact. It was a toss-up whether to fly escort on her or... No, there was a flicker of laser fire a few tens of klicks away, the intense beams of coherent light so bright they could even light up space as they passed through it, and that likely meant someone else was in trouble.

Fuel was low, but still enough to inject away from the Medic's vicinity and clear the mass-lock. Oh yes, the greybeard at Inceisa. What had he said? "You've a talent, boy. Exercise it! It's needed - you don't know how bad it's needed. You'll likely understand better by the time you've travelled the Eight." Well, here he was back in the sector he'd started in, and no revelation falling from the sky. But... crazy men didn't last long in a galaxy full of wide-open systems and too much firepower, but a perfectly sane man with connections could grow a beard and act odd. Hammond was a Dangerous man by the official record - albeit a thoroughly clean one - but he wasn't so far off the Deadly mark, at that. Perhaps -

And there was the trouble, a Clean Python with a Gecko on his unguarded six. Unwise not to shell out for a rear laser, but not everyone learned to use one and a Python was slow on the turn in any case. She signalled her thanks as Steel Thunder's laser found the Gecko, which twisted away in desperation -

And she was dumping cargo and signalling on her own account! "Please, stop shooting! You're killing us!"

Ploy, or...? Dumping cargo was a trader's last desperate unspoken plea for mercy, hoping that the attacker would be satisfied with an easy profit - and it was a complete waste of time against an Asp II like Steel Thunder, which couldn't scoop cargo in any case. Although the Python might, and he was welcome to it. Hammond cut his power and settled on the Gecko's tail, just a couple of kilometres away. She was running straight, as though deliberately making herself helpless, the plasma-venting gradually tailing off as her damage-control systems dealt with the havoc Steel Thunder's laser had wrought. Hammond watched her closely, ready to deal with the situation if she were to try to resume hostilities.

He'd made ten kills so far this trip. He didn't need an eleventh right this minute - and he wasn't docked yet, by a respectable distance. Let the Gecko have her chance today. Maybe she could have been scared straight. If she kept her eye out for a trader going to Witchspace she might find a wormhole to some place where she'd lose the Offender tag and find a for-real honest job. Steel Thunder eased off the Gecko's six and headed for the navigation beacon.

- Perhaps there'd be some news the next time the squawk box lit up with a "Right On, Commander!". Perhaps there'd be another greybeard in another station soon with something less cryptic to say. Or perhaps Hammond would trade in Steel Thunder for another Boa Class Cruiser and go back to carrying passengers... and make his way back to Sector Six. Or even, in a universe where anything seemed possible, some combination of all three.

[JD]

I think you've got a real knack for this stuff. I really enjoyed this one and "Ships". Cheers.

[Malacandra]

Thank you! I've written quite a bit over the years, but the Ooniverse is the first setting I've used for space fic. Up to now it seems to be rolling out quite easily from the brain to the keyboard - and Hammond's next adventure is already in the works. (It's more or less written in my head, but of course that's not what counts.)

[Cholmondely]

The next part of Malacandra's story is here: https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=14043: Dangerous Moonlight