The cockpit lights flashed twice, and a warbling alarm sounded, one that was new to Grady. “What the…” It only took him a couple of seconds to find the source of the problem. The stealth engine status screen had a strobing red border around its edges, and a message box in stark bold letters now forced itself atop the rest of the diagnostic information.
It was a warning—and a countdown. In thirty seconds, the stealth engine would activate its automated cycle mode, powering down and back up again to avoid excessive drain on the energy cells.
When that happened, the insertion craft, with Grady inside it, would become visible to a task force of enemy ships. Worst of all, he was still holding position near the Ganymede and there wasn’t enough time to move further away.
The gigantic warship’s sensors couldn’t fail to spot him.
36
With only seconds to react before the stealth craft became visible, however briefly, Grady pushed the flight stick sideways, executing a tight turn. He piled on the thrust, angling for the starcarrier’s engine array. “It’s going to be close!” he murmured to no one but himself.
Would the dissipating cloud of fusion particles from Ganymede’s engines and stern thrusters be enough to obscure the stealth vessel once it became visible, making it harder to detect? He didn’t know. Its small size meant it might be overlooked amid the propulsion backwash.
With the countdown approaching zero and the cockpit lights flashing again, he glided to a hover just above and as close to the starcarrier’s rear as he dared. And held his breath, heart drumming a frenzied cadence against his rib cage.
He didn’t have long to wait. Twin alarms resounded in rapid succession, the noise clanging in his ears in the cramped cockpit. The messaging on the status display changed, the stealth drive now disengaged. A heartbeat later, the engine made a muted grinding noise as it began powering up again. Poised with the control stick gripped in his right hand, Grady eyed the sensor readout. Had he been spotted?
An alarm shrilled, causing him to curse out loud, and he flicked his gaze to the main screen. Proximity alert. The destroyer, its maneuver to pass astern of the starcarrier almost accomplished, began to slow, its bow starting to change direction and angle toward his position. It was coming about!
Worse still, a fighter abruptly peeled away from its patrol vector near the edge of the task force and surged toward the starcarrier. Grady let out another curse and restrained himself from pounding the console as he willed the stealth engine to reset and once more render him undetectable.
Another alarm chimed, lower-pitched than the previous ones, yet somehow more demanding. His eyes widened as he gazed at the stealth engine’s status display. A vivid red dialog box, the words overlaid on it in stark pearly white, announced that the prototype drive was in danger of overloading and asked if he wanted to commence re-initialization.
Grady leaned forward and stabbed at the ‘Yes’ button. Part of him marveled at the politeness and simplicity of the system’s interface—wondering if the needs, and perhaps limited piloting skills, of cyborgs were uppermost in the designers’ minds—while another part wanted to scream in frustration. Instead, he forced his pulse to settle and contented himself with a guttural murmur. “How long is this going to take?”
Years of training and combat experience kicked in, and his mind swiftly reviewed his options as he remained decloaked while the stealth drive cycled through its initialization phase. The contact profile presented by the craft was so small—its configuration unusual and its transponder inactive—the imperial vessels couldn’t be certain what they had uncovered.
They might take it for an anomaly, a sensor ghost, especially with so much fleet activity occurring around the starcarrier. He recalled standard operating procedure required any anomalous reading to be investigated without delay, especially one so close to the flagship. What would they do when the blip disappeared, assuming it did?
How many in the enemy task group even knew of the stealth ships’ existence? A select few, he reasoned, the project doubtless being classified top secret at the highest level. But, if, as he suspected, Cavill was responsible for dispatching the female cyborg to kill him—using the insertion ship to infiltrate Cavalier outpost—then he would almost certainly be aware of the stealth program. He might also have briefed the most trusted members of his senior staff aboard the Gany.
This raised a more disturbing thought. Did the starcarrier possess the means, no doubt also classified, of detecting the craft? But his initial approach went unnoticed—likewise when he laid the mines—or the alarm would have been raised and a drone or shuttle sent to disarm the ordnance and fighters launched to hunt him down.
Maybe they just weren’t watching for stealth ships, since the only ones in existence—to Grady’s knowledge—were prototypes crewed by cyborgs acting on behalf of the renamed Eternal Empire to carry out covert ops.
“Where are the damn rebel reinforcements?” Grady grunted, scrutinizing the sensor holo. He gave the flight stick a gentle nudge, sending the still visible craft—shields raised—even closer to the starcarrier’s stern, practically kissing her gigantic exhaust nozzles. He was betting neither the approaching fighter nor destroyer would open fire on an object so near the flagship, not without first determining what they were dealing with.
The fighter executed a sharp turn, streaking past above and to the right of the starcarrier’s propulsion cluster. Grady half expected the Gany to put on a burst of speed, stranding the stealth craft in the open, but it continued to maintain its position using maneuvering thrusters. Did that mean he hadn’t been detected after all, hidden amid the vessel’s fusion wash?
He stared at the console as the fighter veered off and put some distance between itself and the massive ship. Had the pilot executed a visual inspection and seen nothing? Alternatively, if the stealth ship had been spotted, were urgent comms even now being sent to the Gany’s bridge crew warning them that they had picked up an unwelcome, and doubtless hostile, hitchhiker?
But he was tucked so close to the starcarrier—and holding as steady a position as he was able—that the insertion craft might be mistaken for part of the ship’s complex superstructure unless the pilot had incredibly sharp eyesight.
His focus fixed on the fighter, Grady had neglected to keep as close a watch on the incoming destroyer. The proximity alert screeched again, more urgent this time, as a blue beam lanced out from just below the warship’s bow. “Shit,” Grady yelled. “Tractor beam.”
Mentally berating himself for his momentary lapse in attention, he shoved the joystick forward and then sideways—all pretense at stealth forgotten—jinking and dodging in a desperate effort to prevent the beam from locking on.
It was too late. With a sickening lurch that caused the safety harness to stiffen, gripping Grady’s chest in a bear-like hug and driving the breath from his lungs, the prototype craft slammed to a teeth-rattling halt. He’d been caught.
His gaze sliding between the stealth engine status screen and the sensor readout, Grady slanted the control stick from side-to-side, then forward and back in what he hoped would translate into a rocking motion. If he expected the frenzied attempt to maneuver would break the tractor lock, he was soon disappointed. Instead, the destroyer came to a hovering halt and began reeling him in, like a fish snagged on a hook, unable to break free.
“Come on,” he shouted, stifling a curse. “Re-engage already!” Eyes narrowed, he stared at a horizontal green bar showing the progress of re-initializing the prototype drive.
A tremor ran through the floor, and, with a grim realization, he watched the sensor results update as the gap between the destroyer and his small craft continued to diminish. A dark maw loomed before him: the warship’s main hangar bay.
He knew what would happen once the energy barrier was lowered. The stealth ship would be dragged on board, the reinforced blast doors sealed tight, the bay re-pressurized, and a localized forcefield positioned around his craft to prevent him from damaging the interior with his armaments.
Moments later, troopers sporting hardened combat armor—some bearing heavy weapons—would flood the area and surround the captured vessel. If he didn’t surrender and instead decided to fight, they would blast their way through the hull—eventually overwhelming the limited capacity shields—and take him prisoner.
Even if he chose to yield, as a rebel saboteur, he suspected the outcome would be the same: interrogation—involving a concoction of drugs to force the truth from him—and then, he feared, summary ejection out an airlock without a spacesuit.
The console dinged, and the red flashing margin surrounding the stealth engine display winked out. The progress bar had reached one hundred percent. With a low mechanical whine, the stealth drive re-engaged, the craft disappearing both from visual sight and from the destroyer’s sensors.
Grady almost whooped for joy, but cursed when nothing happened. The tractor beam maintained its unrelenting grip, and the open hangar bay filled the screen. He was about to attempt another desperate maneuver to try to escape when the beam vanished.
He chuckled, imagining the consternation that his craft’s unexpected disappearance caused among the destroyer’s bridge crew. With their captive apparently having slipped away—however surprising—the destroyer’s captain must have given the order to disengage the tractor beam.
They’d be scanning the area for him now, Grady knew. He sensed he was on borrowed time, yet was reluctant to stress the reinvigorated stealth engine too soon by accelerating away. It wouldn’t be long before a drone was sent to investigate the starcarrier’s stern, to discover what the intruder had been up to. The mines would be spotted and removed. He couldn’t let that happen, or everything he’d just gone through would be for nothing and the starcarrier would be free to spearhead the imperial assault on New Heb station.
“Thanks for the ride,” he murmured with a grin, gesturing to the destroyer’s image on the viewer. He toggled the thrusters, easing beneath and past the enemy ship, which still kept station off Ganymede’s rear, positioned between the starcarrier and Grady.
With a last look at the sensor readout—cursing when the additional rebel fighters still failed to materialize—he swiped at the controls, adjusted the screen to show the view astern, and declared: “Time’s up!”
He triggered the mines.
A surge of brilliant white light blossomed on the primary display, silhouetting the destroyer in stark relief. The imperial ship unwittingly protected the stealth craft from the blast wave. Enormous chunks of debris scythed outward from the Gany’s now mangled engines, interspersed with small, red-flecked explosions fleetingly visible within the ship’s aft superstructure.
