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Alternity - Chapter 10
Field Trip
Time: CY 10090 AD April 5167Location: Winnipeg Drift
Four days later, a now brown haired, brown eyed Harper, and a red haired, hazel eyed Beka were on Winnipeg Drift letting all and sundry know about the load of luxury goods they were planning to sell on Halcyon.
"It's a pity Trance couldn't come with us, Boss," said Harper. "It would be like old times, the three of us working together."
"You know Dylan was right, Harper. Trance and the baby would have been too conspicuous. And start calling me Henrietta, not Boss. We're supposed to be married." She wondered what she had done to annoy Dylan to deserve the name Henrietta.
"Married, hmm, that presents possibilities." Harper gave Beka a leer as he said that.
"Remind me to tell Trance what you just said when we get back to the Andromeda, Shorty. Mr. Lockhart is going to be spending his evenings on board The Busted Flush repairing the slipstream generator, and his days in the dock area looking for maintenance parts. Mrs. Lockhart is going to be a neglected, bored housewife looking for more cargo during the days, and at night she'll be visiting the local dives while her husband ignores her for the Flush."
She and Harper had decided that they would pretend that the Maru, now The Busted Flush, had an ion leakage in its magneto-plasma dynamic drive. Such a leakage would make the ship easy to track in the slipstream and decrease its speed in normal space, making The Busted Flush a very tempting target.
"Hey," protested Harper. "How come you get to have all the fun while I stay on the Maru, err, the Flush?"
"Because I promised Trance I'd keep you out of trouble is why. And because it's my turn to get some. You're married; you've got someone to keep your bed warm."
Over the next few days the two of them kept busy, supposedly doing business but in actuality setting out bait for what they hoped would become a trap. As Beka engaged in pillow talk, Harper stayed aboard, ostensibly to conduct repairs on the renamed Maru, but actually to insure that no one had the opportunity to see the extent to which the Maru had been modified. All too soon from Beka's point of view, but much too late from Harper's, it was time to rendezvous with the Andromeda.
To Beka's undisguised delight she had been able to secure a cargo to take to Halcyon. Dylan hadn't expressly forbade her to take on a cargo, and she saw no reason why she shouldn't. She and the captain had had several arguments over the subject. He couldn't understand what he called her obsession with money but then, as she pointed out, he didn't have a family to feed. Nor did he have to fear the possibility of ending up in an FTA owned brothel, working off his debts while flat on his back if he fell too far behind on payments to his creditors.
"Harper, you ready?"
"All set here, Boss. Let's see if anyone took the bait. At least they won't be able to use that homing beacon trick on us this time."
"Are you sure some folks picked up on your story about the ion leakage?"
"I'm sure. A couple of ears turned my way when I discussed it. An ion leakage will make it easy for us to be tracked, and I intend to provide a trail a blind man could follow."
"Ok then, entering slipstream on my mark. Three, two, one, mark."
The portal opened and the Eureka Maru slid into the slipstream.
"Preparing to enter normal space. Harper, as soon as we pick up the bad guys, stop the ion leakage and give me full power."
Less than an hour after they entered normal space, the ESM alarm went off. The pirates had taken the bait. There were six blips on the radar, all of them on an intercept course. A feral grin passed over Beka's face. It was payback time. The Andromeda might do most of the paying back, but she intended to do some of it herself.
"They found us. Lets do it."
The Maru's speed increased dramatically as Harper brought the engines up to full power. As the Maru leapt forward, the pirates commenced firing at them.
Beka keyed the secure communication's channel to the Andromeda and began broadcasting the agreed upon codes and headed for the rendezvous point, where if all went according to plan Andromeda would be waiting in ambush for the pirates. The Maru's missile lock on alert began to sound as the pirates missiles began to close in on them. It was then that Beka dropped a rack of mines.
Fragmentation mines had originally been designed as an anti fighter weapon, but they had turned out to be only marginally effective against them. Fighters were maneuverable enough that in most cases they were able to avoid the mines, and the fragments that the mines blew themselves into were generally too small to destroy a fighter. But against homing missiles, the mines were spectacularly effective, since a missile once locked onto its target would not change course to avoid a mine, and they were small enough that the mine fragments were effective against them. The barrage of missiles flew into the minefield and was destroyed.
"Surprise, you bastards," snarled Beka. "This time we have teeth." Unlike atmospheric fighter craft that have to face the direction they are traveling, a spacecraft traveling in deep space will continue to travel in the direction it was moving no matter what direction the nose of the ship is pointing. Beka rotated the Maru around its axis so that for a moment the ship was facing its pursuers while it was still moving away from them.. As she faced them she emptied one of the ELS missile tubes at the nearest pirate. Six OM-5 kinetic kill missiles shot forward. Each missile weighed about 1 kilogram and traveled at 95 percent of the speed of light. When one of these missiles struck a target it was the equivalent of a 20 megaton nuclear weapon going off. Four of the weapons missed their target but the other two struck home and the pirate craft, along with its pilot ceased to exist.
"Harper, get up here and man the weapons station. I don't think they're going to play nice anymore."
Beka's prediction proved accurate. As Harper manned the station, one of the remaining pirate craft opened fire with its laser weaponry, scoring a direct hit on the Maru's crew compartment area. It was at this point that another of the Maru's modifications came into play. The Maru's hull had been covered with ablative armor. When the laser beam hit the armor, the armor vaporized, dissipating a large portion of the beams energy in the process. In addition, the vaporized material formed a cloud which acted much like a smoke screen further decreasing the effectiveness of the attack. What should have been a devastating strike simply caused the Maru to shudder violently.
Unfortunately for the attacking pirate, by closing into range where he could use his lasers he was within range of the Maru's upgraded lasers. Harper locked the lasers onto the pirate vessel and an instant later the attacking ship was an expanding cloud of incandescent gas.
"Payback," yelled Harper.
"Oops," exclaimed Beka as she began maneuvering. One of the pirate craft had gotten behind her and was opening fire. "Here, catch." She dumped the remaining mines into the path of the attacking craft.
Had the attacking pilot not been so intent on destroying the Maru, he would have been able to avoid the mines but instead he was almost on top of them before he noticed he had flown into a trap. As it was, he was almost good enough to avoid the mines. Almost but not quite. Instead of being shredded the craft was simply damaged, and rapidly fell astern of the Maru.
"Three down and three to go," said Beka. "But I'm out of mines and down to a half load of missiles. Dylan and Trance had better get here soon or things are going to get ugly."
As if that was her cue, Trance's voice came over. "Hang on Beka, we're on our way." An instant later there were a series of explosions as the remaining pirate craft vaporized in a hail of missiles. The cavalry in the form of the missiles and sensor drones launched by Andromeda had arrived
Dylan's voice came over the ship-to-ship communicator a couple of moments later. "It looks like our little ambush worked . Now, let's recover that ship you damaged. With luck we'll be able to have a long talk with the pilot."
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