“Alright, let’s go over the plan one more time,” Miliam said to her crew as she took her seat. Aoibhe gave her an irritated look.
“Cap’n, we’ve gone over it every day for almost a week. What good’s one more review gonna do for us?” she asked, waving her hand palm-up questioningly. While Aoibhe wasn’t wrong, Miliam was inwardly afraid not to review this daily. It was impossible to say what would happen if they failed entirely, but she wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of making their way home with ever-dwindling defensive capabilities. And one of the other options meant murdering an entire crew of miners. She didn’t even want to consider that.
“Just…humor me, please?” Miliam begged, to which Aoibhe gave her a tired nod. “Great. So, by the time we know the rogue miners have appeared it will probably be somewhere around twenty to thirty minutes after. That’s more than enough time to take whatever they can grab and run, so they’ll already be starting to head back by then.”
“Which doesn’t matter, because they’re not faster than teleportation,” Aoibhe continued for her. “So we jump as close to the gas giant as possible the moment we know they’re out there. That should give us a bit over half an hour to send the stand-down message.”
“I have it ready to transmit so we don’t have to take the time to record it!” Eun-ji gave a thumbs-up from her place at the comms station.
“And…we should know if they’re going to surrender a little under ten minutes before they reach us because their wave drives top out at 0.8c,” Min-ji added next, coming across almost as nervous as Miliam herself.
It was that last detail that really explained why the True Edenites needed the Astrum Vitae. Their military ships were faster than civilian models, but with a twenty minute head-start at minimum, there was no way they could catch up even when cruising at a solid 0.9c. That was bad by even the standards the Astrum Vitae, itself outdated, was built to but Miliam wasn’t sure if they even knew how fast her ship was given they’d only moved at a pre-approved speed on the way in. Depending on the distances involved, it actually would have been possible for them to outrun the miners without engaging the translocation drive at all.
When Miliam had realized that, she’d actually considered telling Captain Brown about it in an effort to not burn out the Astrum Vitae’s reactor, but in the end had come to the conclusion it was better that it stayed a secret. Just in case she needed to outrun True Edenite ships herself. The days they’d already spent waiting were more than enough for Engineer to prepare another replacement part for the reactor, and by the time this job was over it would already be installed, anyway.
“But if they keep coming, we fire the missiles!” Tessa contributed over the comms.
“Right. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, though. And we’ll fire one early as a warning shot,” Miliam was quick to clarify.
“Replacement. Ready,” Engineer said, which was a bit light on details, but they didn’t really need to say anything more. Everyone already knew that any part of the reactor both in the way and safe to remove was stripped out, reducing the time Engineer would need to do their part.
“Alright. As soon as we see that mining ship, fire up the drive, Aoibhe. Assuming…you know, that they actually show up today,” Miliam finished awkwardly. They’d evidently not needed to replenish their supplied yet given that the rogue miners remained hidden. It was hard to say how long the Astrum Vitae would be waiting for, but Miliam hoped it wouldn’t be much longer. Staying alert at all times and only rotating crew out for sleep had seriously frayed everyone’s nerves, but if they didn’t react quickly enough it would reduce the window in which they’d be able to see if the miners were slowing down, making it an unfortunate necessity.
Another four hours had passed and Miliam was just about to dismiss the twins for their rack time when Min-ji straightened in her seat. Even before the woman spoke, Miliam knew the time had arrived.
“A mining ship just intercepted another and docked with it! The second ship is broadcasting a distress call!” she cried out, and Aoibhe snapped into action without Miliam needing to remind her. Since they knew this would happen eventually, the Astrum Vitae was already stationed outside of True Eden’s gravity well, saving them the time needed to reach a safe distance.
Moments later the Astrum Vitae was over a light-hour away. The gas giant was too far to discern any detail with the naked eye, but it loomed large on the map of the system. Miliam watched as Min-ji changed the focus of the plot to give the distance between their own ship and the mining ship that had come under attack. From this far out the boarding action hadn’t occurred yet, but given that they knew the vector the attacking ship had come from, Min-ji was quickly able to locate it even with visuals only- normally a difficult task in the vastness of space.
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“Go ahead and send the message; make sure it’s broadcast over a wide area since we don’t know exactly where they are yet,” Miliam told Eun-ji. Light-speed delay meant that the other ship wouldn’t be seen heading toward them until about fifteen minutes prior to its arrival, at which point blueshift would make it appear to cross that entire distance in the remaining time.
Or…so Aoibhe assured her. Miliam didn’t have much of a grounding in physics, so it sounded insane to her. What was important and at least made sense was that it would be forty minutes or so longer before the the other ship turned their way, so they would need to act on the assumption that it already had. If it changed course, that was fine- the miners would either be apprehended by the True Eden Navy or the Astrum Vitae would change positions to intercept, as they would still have a bit of a head start.
“The waiting is always the worst part…” Miliam complained under her breath. What was truly unfortunate was that any reply from the other ship would arrive only five minutes before the mining vessel itself. She would have time to send one more message at that point, but probably couldn’t afford to await a second response without risking letting the fugitives escape.
Miliam looked around the bridge, noting all three of her bridge crew had their eyes fixed to their displays despite the long wait still ahead. She herself kept glancing back to her sensor screen, which was set to reflect Min-ji’s at the moment. All she had to look at was a prediction at the moment.
Sweat dripped down Miliam’s neck as the tension built. Technically she could send more messages without waiting for a reply. Would that make the other captain more likely to surrender or less? It might come across as a lack of confidence. But maybe the repeated reminders would test their nerves as much as the waiting did her own.
“Eun-ji…send them another warning, just in case. Tell them they have until they’re ten minutes out before we start firing missiles,” Miliam said after stewing in silence for a good twenty minutes or so.
“Ah! Yes ma’am!” Eun-ji squeaked, startled when the veil of silence on the bridge was suddenly disturbed.
“That’s…well before we have much chance of hitting,” Aoibhe pointed out. Based on the tone in her voice, Miliam suspected she knew it was meant as a warning shot but wanted Miliam to say it anyway. For the benefit of the other two, maybe.
“I just want them to have a bit of time to see a missile coming their way before it’s too late. If it misses, that’s fine. And…Tessa?” Miliam said, establishing a link to the missile bay before continuing. “Can you set the first missile to detonate short of the target?”
“Ah…about that. Counter missiles don’t have the same capabilities as normal one, and we only have the warheads from standard missiles, nothing else. Proximity detonation only. Might be able to send a self-destruct if we’ve got the right codes?” Tessa replied, causing Miliam to click her tongue. Captain Brown hadn’t provided those. She hadn’t realized the implications of only getting the arming codes at the time.
“Would their barriers survive a hit?” she asked, dreading the answer.
“Well, the warheads are pretty old tech…so, maybe. They might blunt the damage enough for the ship itself to survive, too. Or…I might be able to misalign the sensors so when the missiles does detonate it’s more likely to miss,” Tessa answered, giving Miliam a glimmer of hope.
“Is that dangerous?”
“It shouldn’t be. Half a degree off isn’t going to make the missile mistake us for a valid target, but it would definitely cause the lensing apparatus to go way off target.”
“Do it…but just for the first one. We can’t afford to let them pass us,” Miliam told her. Technically it might be possible to just follow them in and track where they hide, but with how close to the planet the Astrum Vitae was sitting, they might not have enough time to get up to speed before the other ship was able to put the gas giant between them. Wave drives didn’t generate their bubbles instantly. It was too risky.
“Assuming they’re still on course, they should be hitting the ten minute mark about now, captain,” Min-ji announced some time later, shaking Miliam from her thoughts. Miliam took a deep breath before giving the order.
“Fire, Tessa.”
“Yes’m!”
The missile appeared on the sensor plot as it sailed away. This model used conventional propulsion only, leaving it at ‘only’ a third or so the speed of light, but so long as it was on the right course it would intercept its target, and the bomb-pumped laser it used as a warhead did reach that speed.
Miliam watched with bated breath as the missile advanced. By now the target ship’s location was much more certain thanks to data slowly coming in, and it looked like they fully intended to stay the course.
“Could their comms be damaged?” Miliam asked as the two icons moved towards each other.
“I don’t think so…they need to be able to send their own demands,” Min-ji told her. Which was about when a horrifying thought occurred to Miliam.
“What if…what if they can’t hear us? The True Edenites are terrified of ‘secular’ influences. What if they don’t let their civilians receive messages from outsiders at all?”
“That…yes, that’s possible. There’s a few ways I can think of that they wouldn’t even notice were there since there’s never any outside ships around to talk to,” Min-ji replied shakily, disturbed by the thought.
It was only a theory. A conspiracy theory, even. But…if it were true, then Captain Brown never intended to capture these miners in the first place. By leaving that information out he could trick Miliam into killing them without having to order her to do so. She might have refused if told to do it from the outset, but this way she would be forced to weigh the decision to fire while under intense pressure, thinking it was on the miners.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions, cap’n. They might just figure it’s they’re dead either way so they might as well take the risk,” Aoibhe suggested.
“Then why not beg us to let them go?” Miliam countered. “They have nothing to lose from that either.”
Aoibhe didn’t have an explanation for that one. But the moment was fast approaching and Miliam had to make a decision soon- because the moment those missiles launched she’d be responsible for the death of everyone aboard that ship.