Eternal Frontier (The Eternal Frontier Book 1) Read online

  “Pressure loss, cargo bay,” an annoyingly calm robotic voice claimed.

  At least the AI would show more emotion than these damn prerecorded response and emergency messages. Sweat beaded over Tag’s skin as he tried to settle into orbit without the AI’s guidance. He gazed at the holoscreen’s relative altitude displays and manually locked in Eta-Five as his new target. He pulled up hard as another blast of pulsefire grazed the ship.

  Metal screamed and groaned from the change in acceleration and the connecting rounds. He needed to move, to get away from those pirates. The increasing acceleration pressed him into his seat, and nausea curled its fingers around his stomach as the ship’s inertial dampeners fought to keep up. His muscles felt weak. Dizziness threatened to overtake him. But he forced himself to stay aware—to stay awake.

  As he managed the shaking controls with one hand, he tapped on the Ops display on the terminal. He tried to get the weapons AI to provide a bit of return fire, but a single message reported no firing solutions from the ship’s AI. Just as he’d expected.

  Instead, he manually fired the ship’s Gauss and energy cannons over the Argo’s stern and watched a trail of pulsefire shimmer behind the ship on the holoprojection. He had little chance of scoring more than a lucky hit on the pirates, but he’d be damned if he didn’t at least try. Anything to distract them or keep them on their toes was fine by him.

  Tag pulled back on the controls, guiding the ship into an orbital trajectory around Eta-Five. The holoprojection gave him a rough estimate of where the Argo needed to be to enter orbit. Using the planet’s pull, the ship started to slingshot around it. More rounds zipped by him, disappearing below the ship and into Eta-Five’s cloudy atmosphere. The energy pulses seemed to dissipate when they hit the mass of white, arcs of lightning cutting horizontally across atmosphere wherever they collided with the curtain of swirling clouds.

  Odd, Tag thought. The strange energy anomaly emanating from this planet appeared to affect more than just comms.

  Arcing fire cut over the bow, dashing Tag’s thoughts, and he jolted the ship to starboard. The maneuver threatened to shake him from orbit, but he pushed into the controls until the acceleration crept up again.

  “Don’t worry,” Tag said, staring down at the planet, thinking of Lieutenant Vasquez stuck down there somewhere. “We’ll be back.”

  He scrolled through the terminal as he maneuvered the ship, avoiding another incoming salvo. Warnings still flashed across his screen from the damaged cargo bay. He ignored them and switched on the T-drive. The drive spooled in preparation for a jump to hyperspace.

  “Computer”—he stopped, realizing his mistake almost immediately, then continued with only the faintest of hopes—“Computer, calculate hyperspace route to the last known position of the SRES Montenegro.”

  No response. His plan of leaving the pirates behind had hinged on making the jump. It was his only chance at escaping the bastards sending volley after volley of energy rounds coursing through space at the Argo.

  But jumping through hyperspace was a risky affair. One wrong move, one tiny collision with space debris, and the whole ship would go up in a ball of unleashed plasma. The ship would not make the jump without a carefully plotted course. And Tag couldn’t plot the damn course himself. He needed the AI. Even trying to throw in a random coordinate, chart a haphazard path, and hope for the best was too complicated and ridiculously dangerous when he was simultaneously piloting the ship and operating the weapons.

  Another blast rocked the ship. It was followed by a second, lower explosion. From the bridge’s viewport, Tag watched blue plasma jut into space. One of the attitude impellers on the port side had been damaged. He wrestled with the controls, wrangling with the ship, but the jutting plasma pushed it off course, and he fell out of orbit. With the whole vessel bucking like a wild mustang, there was no way he was going to outrun the pirates now. There was only one thing to do.

  One very crazy thing.

  Tag put the ship into full reverse. His body flew forward, but he fought to maintain his grip on the controls. He swiveled the Argo around on its axis and spun to face the pirates.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Blue rounds twisted and curved through empty space, zipping over the viewport and across the bow. Tag shot up, sending the Argo over the spiraling laces of pulsefire. The Argo was no destroyer, but Tag was sure going to treat her like one now. It might be his only option. Kaufman’s only option. This maneuver could make or break their chances of survival.

  He flipped on the point-defense system in conjunction with the Gauss cannons and targeted a set point directly in front of the ship. There was no easy way he could simultaneously fly and guide the kinetic cannons, as they automatically launched uranium-depleted rounds and powerful kinetic slugs in rapid fire. I'm going to have to do this the old-fashioned way, he thought, like some ancient World War I biplane pilot. The recoil from the cannons echoed through the ship’s bulkhead with a constant, rhythmic whoomph. Tag pitched the ship’s prow up, toward the pirates. The cannons’ bright-orange, beady fire followed wherever the Argo pointed.

  For the first time, he got a good, lengthy look at the pirates’ ship. The vessel was no bigger than a cutter. Its sleek black design was similar to the armor the three pirates had worn aboard the ship, and its elegant curves and dark shading enabled it to almost seamlessly blend into the murky void of space. A small viewport glowed orange, glaring with the brilliant light radiating off Eta. Tag was at first surprised that they’d sent such a small craft to intercept the Argo, but just as quickly he realized they hadn’t anticipated using anything more drastic when they had the advantage of both stealth and far superior firepower. And no wonder his plan of outmaneuvering the vessel hadn’t worked; it was much spryer than the Argo. There’d be no outpacing it now.

  He punched a command to charge the energy cannon. A progress bar slid across the terminal, displaying the rising strength of the charge. He jostled the controls, avoiding the spiraling cords of incoming pulsefire. Like an adept dance partner, the cutter moved in concert and brought its weapons to bear on the Argo with each slight adjustment in the ship’s relative altitude, attitude, and pitch. Tag’s fingers trembled as he pulled back, then pushed forward, then twisted the controls in response, constantly trying to stay a step ahead of his lethal dance partner. All it would take was one wrong move, one minute mistake, and this standoff would be over.

  “Maximum charge achieved,” a robotic voice announced from the terminal. The energy cannon was ready.

  The cutter zipped back and forth, deftly avoiding the kinetic fire coming from the Argo. The small ship presented a difficult target for the rapid-fire weapons, and it was going to be exponentially more difficult for Tag to line the ship up in his sights and score a hit with the single fire blast of the energy cannon to bring down its shields—exactly like they’d done to him. I'm not going to have another shot at this, Tag thought. I've got to make this one count. He smiled grimly. And all this while doing the jobs of a three-man crew. He had to decrease the probability of a miss somehow. Tag rocketed toward the cutter, his jaw clenched instinctively, as he dodged the incoming pulsefire and narrowed the distance between the two ships.

  He ignored the alarms, the quaking bulkheads, and the warnings on his holoscreen, dead set on bringing these pirates down. If there was no running away, if there was no getting out of this alive, the least he could do was take them out with him.

  As the pirates’ cutter grew larger through the viewport, he realized that this could very well end up being a suicide run. It should be monumentally emotional. Maybe brazenly heroic. But right now he felt only the unrelenting pangs of intense anger. He leaned forward until he was almost completely off the pilot’s seat. More pulse rounds skimmed the bow of the Argo, and he jockeyed the controls to steady it.

  “Just a bit more,” he said through gritted teeth.

  The Argo’s point-defense system and Gauss cannons continued firing. Glowing orange rounds f
rom Tag’s ship twisted through space to meet the winding ropes of blue blasting from the cutter. The Argo shook and tremored violently, but so far, it hadn’t exploded into a ball of plasma and debris. That was all that mattered to Tag. He concentrated on his evasive maneuvers, steering the ship through the onslaught of incoming fire.

  Closer.

  Closer.

  The cutter almost blotted out the bridge viewport. Several uranium-depleted rounds from the point-defense cannons drilled into the pirate ship, and Tag hooted as small flames flickered then were sucked out by vacuum. Clouds of debris geysered from small holes in the ship. The rounds had actually breached the hull! It didn’t seem as though the shots had debilitated the cutter, but it was proof the ship was no god, it wasn’t invincible. It bled, too.

  A chain of pulsefire ripped over the prow. One round splashed against the hull near the bridge.

  “Hull breach detected,” the terminal said in its irritatingly calm voice.

  White gas condensed and plumed out of the small opening in the Argo. It was enough to obstruct Tag’s line of sight. But he was too close to give up now. Too damn close. He tried to guide himself by the ethereal blue rounds slashing at the ship.

  More quaking, more warnings. Another hull breach.

  “Hold yourself together!” he yelled, his voice echoing in the empty bridge. The pain in his leg from the yellow haze seemed to have dissipated. Whether it was from the ship’s last dying efforts to clean the air or the adrenaline barreling through his vessels, Tag couldn’t be sure. His mind felt as if it was on fire, as if he’d been ready for this moment his entire life. As if it hadn’t been years since he was training on a bridge like this, working his way up to earn his place as captain, instead of being forced into this seat by disaster.

  The spewing white gas cleared from the viewport, and an inky-black hull appeared before him again. The cutter. Spikes of debris and gas still jutted from the piercing rounds he’d sent through it. A bright purple glow emanated from beneath its hull. Its impellers were lighting up, propelling it away from the Argo at the last second.

  “Too late!” Tag punched the button to unleash the fully charged energy cannon. A brilliant fiery blast exploded from it, and the ship shook. No more blue rounds chased the Argo. It had been a direct hit.

  “Yes, yes, yes!” Tag pumped his fist in the air.

  But the Argo’s shuddering became more violent.

  Any sense of victory he’d felt evaporated as quickly as life in the vacuum of space. The explosion around the cutter continued as if in slow motion with flashes of orange and red and white, cut through by green arcs of what looked like lightning.

  But no metal debris. No bodies of pirates flung across his bridge viewport. Instead, the blast of intense energy dissipated and fizzled out. More crackles of green lightning illuminated the invisible energy shield protecting the cutter. Except for the few already bleeding wounds in its hull from the Gauss cannons, she came away from what should have been a devastating blast unscathed. The shields didn’t go down like Tag had hoped. They were too strong.

  Unadulterated terror coursed through Tag. Energy weapons weren’t going to cut it. He fought his panic and directed the Argo to send a volley of uranium-depleted rounds into the belly of the cutter, where more pinpricks appeared in its hull as the rounds slammed into the pirates’ ship.

  More jutting gas, more debris.

  But it wasn’t dead yet. It just wouldn’t die.

  A glowing indicator on his holoprojection ensured he knew that. The pirates were charging their main energy cannon again. A shot this close couldn’t be missed. Tag went into reverse thrust. He continued firing, hoping against hope that he’d score a lucky hit and his enemy would explode into a million pieces before their energy cannon fired. But the cannon continued to throb a dull blue. His palms grew sweaty around the controls as he focused more gunfire into the cutter’s hull. It was no longer moving. No longer trying to avoid the incoming slugs.

  The glow beneath the pirates’ keel had ceased. Maybe he’d knocked out the cutter’s main impellers. He dropped the Argo underneath the enemy ship to maneuver into the pirates’ blind spot and fired another salvo into its hull. A small explosion ripped through the port side of the sleek ship.

  Tag grimaced as he watched larger chunks of debris get sucked out. The orange viewport flickered, and several small explosions rocked the stealth ship. The main impellers were surely dead by now. But its weaker altitude and pitch adjustment impellers were not, and the cutter rocked unsteadily, bringing to bear its charging energy cannon. Tag stared at it, agape, then threw the Argo into full thrust forward.

  The violent change in direction caused unhealthy shaking throughout the ship. An explosion blasted somewhere along the keel, and the ship lurched. A warning glared across his holoscreen, proclaiming the Argo’s main impellers and thrusters had failed, leaving the ship as vulnerable as the pirates’. Tag cursed himself. This was why he hadn’t become a pilot. Demanding too much of his ship. Too much of himself. Not knowing the limits of man or machine.

  And this time, the mistake had cost him his life.

  More, smaller plumes of plasma spouted from the cutter like fountains. The ship vibrated as alloy panels rocketed off from its hull, carried by blasts of venting gas and tongues of plasma. Then the energy cannon fired.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A blue flash of light became white and swallowed the Argo. Tag wondered if this was the afterlife. If this was the tunnel to the gods, the final beam through space that would take him to a land without suffering.

  But he had no such luck.

  The light dissipated as plasma permeated cracks around where the energy cannon was fixed to the pirates’ cutter. The ship spiraled, end over end, away from the Argo. The main thrust of the energy beam had missed, but it had been close enough to batter the Argo with its wake, and the Argo rocked, its bulkhead groaning as if it was about to be torn apart. Tag fought the concussive force overwhelming him with the Argo’s functional altitude and attitude adjustment impellers. But it wasn’t enough.

  The Argo accelerated toward Eta-Five as the planet’s gravity tugged the ship from its failed orbit. Tag clenched his fingers around the controls, barely keeping the ship in an upright position relative to the planet.

  As the Argo dropped, he watched another explosion separate the cutter from its energy cannon. The ship buckled, splitting in half and freezing for a second, then debris and cargo spilled from the ruptured hull like the guts of a battlefield casualty. The cutter had pushed itself too far. Firing a blast like that when the ship was already damaged had been a mistake.

  Whoever’s in charge over there isn’t so different from me, Tag thought.

  A final blinding blast tore through the cutter, and it disappeared in a rolling ball of plasma, sending a storm of flotsam flying from the blast. Pieces of the cannon’s barrel, shards of the orange viewport, and fragments of alloy spread to envelop the Argo. One panel, flipping end over end, crashed into the Argo. A loud thud echoed through the bridge, and Tag watched it deflect after tearing into the outer hull. The pirate ship was almost as deadly now as it had been when it was intact.

  In a barely controllable descent to Eta-Five, Tag used the weak adjustment impellers to dodge the largest pieces of broken ship careening toward him. Smaller bolts and unrecognizable hunks of slag couldn’t be avoided. They rained across the Argo, pinging and flying off in other directions, every little piece transferring momentum that only served to accelerate the ship’s unavoidable new trajectory.

  As the ship plummeted, Tag knew there would be no escaping Eta-Five now. The adjustment impellers on the Argo were nothing compared to the unrelenting pull of the planet. The best he could do was use the impellers and inertia to guide the ship. He focused on the holoprojection glowing in front of the terminal, searching the planet and gesturing over it to rotate the image. The dot signifying the Argo blinked red. Nothing he didn’t already know. He was looking for something else.r />
  There! He spotted another crimson marker. It signified the location where the Argo’s crew was supposed to meet Lieutenant Vasquez—that is, if she was still alive. It had been months since the SRE received her last courier drone scheduling their rendezvous.

  Unexpected green light flickered around the Argo. The holoscreen reported the ship’s hulls were heating, approaching thermal limits. Friction tore at the Argo as the ship fell through the thick mesosphere, threatening to finish the job the pirates had started. Tag gave the adjustment impellers everything the ship had left, trying as best he could to push the falling ship toward the rendezvous point and slow the plummet. The atmosphere outside the viewport suddenly became white and hazy, obscuring any hope he had of seeing where he was headed. Every sensor was going haywire, undulating in a bevy of colors and singing in alarm. The holoprojection of Eta-Five flickered. One moment the ship appeared to be near the rendezvous point. The next it seemed to be almost a thousand klicks away.

  A long groan reverberated through the ship. Then everything quieted.

  Almost everything.

  The alarms that had been wailing before the tumultuous descent still screamed. But the sensor readings were back to normal, and the holoprojection of Eta-Five stabilized. The ship had fallen past the blanket of white and gray clouds and the sparking emerald electricity of the upper atmosphere.

  A new landscape was rising up to meet the Argo. Tall, craggy mountains pierced the horizon. Clean, white carpets of snow covered everything. Ice sparkled from the few rays of dull light shifting through the dense overhead clouds. In the distance, a dash of green lightning flashed. Snow fell. Big, soft white flakes danced and curled past the Argo. Ice started to freeze and obscure the bridge viewport.

  Tag tried to ignore the frigid landscape and turned back to the holoprojection. He was still over eight hundred klicks from the site of the rendezvous. He pushed full thrust to all impellers, slowing the descent as much as he could and hoping forward momentum would be enough to close the distance.