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We hopped from jump point to jump point. Our path back toward Morganite Space was shorter than the circuitous route we took getting to the Angmar system, but there were still a lot of jumps. The Pendragon system was, after all, only part-way there.
Each stop along the way told the same story as Pendragon, with destroyed space stations and destroyed planets. The food situation was getting worse, especially after we left as much as we thought we could spare with the Old Pack Mule. Everywhere we looked there was destruction. Finding nowhere else to go for supplies, I had Barnes change our course. We headed for Newhome. Surely, we would find something there.
If the stories can be trusted, Newhome was one of the very first settlements in this area of space, and maybe even anywhere. I have heard so many different versions of the story that I don't know which, if any of them, is true. Most of the stories agree that mankind came from a planet called Earth, and if you travel core-ward long enough, you'll find the Sol system, where the planet Earth is located. I don't know. I've never been there and so far, neither Sol or Earth has popped up on any of my nav maps. The stories also say that when mankind first discovered the ability to detect and then use jump points, there was one that lead directly from the Sol system to the Newhome system. That's the part that I question the most.
Jump points appear and disappear all the time. That is why the constant search for the latest nav updates. Time is money and traveling out to a jump point only to find it gone wastes a lot of time. A smart Captain keeps that in mind and makes sure to have the latest and greatest nav updates.
I wasn't sure what I was expecting to find at Newhome. The Newhome system is very similar to what I've been told the Sol system and Earth were like at one time, with most of the surface of Newhome IV being habitable, if not comfortable. There are mountains, and lakes. Oceans and polar ice caps. I am told that Mankind is comfortable on Newhome and I suspect they have a point. Newhome has grown to a population on the order of a few Billion people. If any place could withstand an attack, it would be Newhome.
Newhome had a few billion people. With the operative word being had.
"Captain were receiving a hail" Shelly announced.
"Put it on screen." I said.
A tired looking man in a once-fancy uniform came on the screen "This is Admiral Bane of the Newhome Defense Force. Please state your intentions."
"This is Captain Kid of the Haul-o-caster. We were hoping to find supplies here, every place we've looked has been destroyed. What happened here?" I asked.
"We are still investigating. Newhome was attacked by ships using a combination of kinetics and anti-matter weapons. The surface is barely habitable and will likely only get worse. Whoever did this tried to make it look like it was the 'rus, but I've seen 'rus weapons. They don't look like this. The defense force is rescuing anyone we can find and moving them core-ward. So far, our scouts are finding the attacks haven't gotten much further in. You might try Garados for supplies. Or head back to Morgan Space if I'm reading your personnel right that they are Morganites. I'd love to know why I'm talking to a cyborg, but I don't have the luxury of time to be curious right now."
It had become so easy to forget how others might see me, I hadn't even thought to pull my hood up to cover my cyber device.
"Lt. Tine, send over a report of everything we've found since we left Angmar." I commanded. At the mention of Angmar, I saw the Admiral tense up. Not surprising with the reputation that Angmar had. "Admiral, I hope the data helps you get to the bottom of this. And in case you are worried, we landed at Angmar to effect repairs. We aren't pirates." I smiled what I hoped to be a reassuring smile.
The Admiral saluted. "Bane out!" and the connection went dead.
"Well, at least now we know that the attacks don't go too much further core-ward." I said.
"If the Admiral can be trusted." Lt. Cmdr. Dorn replied.
"I think so." Mother Ahmisa said, "His words didn't feel deceitful anyway."
I took a look at the Nav data. There were two directions we could go from here. One jump point would take us to the New Brazil system and beyond that to Garados. The other would take us through the York system and eventually, a half dozen jumps later, to the edge of Morgan space. Garados may or may not have supplies, probably not if the Newhome Defense force was taking refugees there.
I guess York and beyond to Morgan space it is then.
The story I always heard was that there was a place on Earth called New York. I assume there was a place called York before that because why would you name something New anything if there wasn't an old one? When mankind came to found Newhome and branched out from there, a group of people from this "New York" decided they wanted a home of their own. What they found was the York system. Of course, this was all hundreds of years ago, so the story was probably confused and garbled by now, but if you ask anyone on York Prime - it's what they call the second, and only inhabitable, planet in the system - They'll tell you that New York was some kind of mega-economic center of commerce, and quite possibly the capital city of the entire planet.
York Prime must be such a letdown then.
Sure, it's inhabitable. Meaning people can live there, and for much of the planet's surface you don't even need an environmental suit to go outside. It isn't exactly comfortable, but at least the atmosphere isn't poison.
Well, wasn't poison anyway. Now the York Prime atmosphere is so thick with dust and fall-out from the kinetic and anti-matter weapons that at first, I mistook it for a gas giant. A small one to be sure, but a gas giant none-the-less. I had Lt. Tine monitor for any comm traffic in the system, but there was none. The York system is either dead or keeping its head down in case the 'rus - or whoever is attacking everywhere - comes back.
Each system we traveled through was the same. Settlements destroyed; space stations destroyed. Cloud scoops. Very few survivors other than Rock dogs. Which isn't surprising. The kind of people who hollow out asteroids and make their home inside usually aren't particularly sociable. Pete showed me some tricks to spotting them, but most ships fly right by without even knowing they are there.
We didn't have to worry about reactor mass because we had a scoop so we could refuel from gas giants. Food, on the other hand, was starting to worry me. We were down to ration bars, which had everyone on edge. Well, except me. I lived on ration bars for most of my life, so while it was disappointing, whatever, sustenance is sustenance. I was just glad that I managed to get my emergency stash back, and the crew missed a nice sized crate of them, so they didn't put all the ration bars on the Old Pack Mule when we left it for the survivors.
Finally, we reached the jump point back to Otford.
I can't really explain it but transitioning into Otford was like coming home. Only to a home that was a pile of ash and rubble. I found my eyes drawn to the upper right-hand corner of the main screen where Otford Station would appear if it hadn't been destroyed. It was still gone.
Now I have never really understood people emotions. Like when Pete and I would watch the old vids that he liked and there would be a girl crying. Ol' Pete didn't want me to notice, but the big ol' softee would tear up. Not me, I usually couldn't figure out what all the blubbering was about. Pete really couldn't explain it. Not well enough for me to understand. When I found out about me being a cyborg, that sure seemed to explain a lot. Now I wasn't so sure. After all those years flying with Pete made. Life with Pete was solid. Sure, there was joy and sadness, but the joys were always muted. "Hey, we made bonus on a load." or "Look, we got an easy haul this time." And the sadness was likewise. Missing bonus on a load. Hell, even missing a deadline on a load is usually not that big a deal. Sure, we might even come in at a loss if we missed deadline, but the way Pete scrounged, we were fine. We were never in any real danger of losing our ship like so many other haulers, living from haul to haul. Maybe that explains it, maybe I had people emotions all along, I just didn't have a reason to use them so much. So, I was surprised by just how gut wrenching it was to see, or not see in this case, Ortford Station where it was supposed to be. I needed to be shouting orders, getting things in trim, looking to see if we had a welcome committee and deciding what to do about it. But I couldn't. I couldn't speak for the lump in my throat. I couldn't look because my eyes were glued to that damn empty piece of screen that wouldn't show what my heart wanted.
"MOVE KID!" Yelled Pete in my head.
"Helm Evasive!" I yelled, not even knowing what it was. Bless her, Barnes slammed the controls around like the devil himself was coming at us.
The shot came from a dark blur of ship off in the distance. They must have fired the moment we transitioned and gotten lucky. What kind of jack-nose flings a kinetic at a ship fresh out of transition? I suppose I should also ask what kind of lame Capitan doesn't move her ship off the spot as soon as it translates in also, but that would be pointing fingers. All of them. At me.
I prefer to praise Barnes for being such an incredible helmsman.
Sufficiently shaken from my sentimental stupidity, I started hollering for reports and then looking for myself anyway before they came in. Yea, that's usually how it works.
"Looks mostly clear Capitan." Tine announced. "That one ship is all I see, it was lying in wait, and now seems to be making a run for it."
"What we got on her." I asked.
"Looks 'rus, but I don't think so." Tine answered. "In my free time, I've been studying everything I could find on 'rus ships. This one is the right shape, but it's the wrong speed, and doesn't seem to maneuver as crisply."
"Crisply Mr. Tine?"
"Yes Captain. There is a certain quality to the way a 'rus ship turns. Almost a snapping motion. This ship rounded it's turn." Lt. Tine explained.
"YEA!!" Barnes blurted out. "I just did a search on vids of 'rus ships. Man, how can I have missed that? Those turns are snappy. This guy's turn was mushy."
"Barnes, could you make Haul-o-caster turn snappy like that?" I asked.
She thought about it for a moment, playing with her controls a little as if contemplating how it might be done. "Nope! Not with these controls, but I think I could write a programmed flight path that could almost do it. Would hurt like a bitch though."
"Hurt?" Lt. Tine asked.
"Yea, that kind of thing would over-load the lateral insertional dampeners." Barnes replied. "The main dampeners could handle it because they are made to handle main engine power, but the laterals are just for turning."
I, of course, had already ran the numbers and understood. Not that we would need to, but I was pretty sure the bungee trick would work for that, not that we would ever need to take Barnes up on her offer to give us all whiplash.
"Alright, let's see if we can run that thing down." I ordered, "Mr. Tine, any idea of what we're getting ourselves into?"
"It is a relatively small ship. With mass less than the Haul-o-caster." He reported. "I cannot guess what her weapons load is beyond what we know. She has a kinetic. Probably a rail gun."
"Capitan, it looks to me like that was a picket ship." Lt. Cmdr. Dorn reported. "This looks like a poke and draw to me."
"Barnes, veer off." Barona ordered. "Get us out of here." For once I agreed with her, although I see we still needed some work on the whole "who's in charge" thing. To my surprise, Barnes looked at me.
"Do it." I ordered. "Find us someplace to hide while we figure out a plan."
Someplace to hide is a little bit of a misnomer. As I have said time and time again; Space, it's big man. Everywhere is a place to hide providing nobody is looking in that spot. On the other hand, there really isn't any good places to hide, because no matter where you are an active sensor sweep will find you. It's the old game of cat and mouse. The mouse hides, the cat looks. Only, looking with passive sensors only is practically useless. Space is so big; you'll never find anyone unless you get uber-lucky. Unfortunately for the cat in this scenario, using active sensors is like putting a bell on the cat. As soon as you fire them up, everybody knows where you are and where you are looking. For a real good sensor suite, that might be everywhere or as close to it as makes no nevermind. For a lousy one, you only have a directional antenna so if you're pointed in the wrong direction, you just put a bell on your proverbial cat-neck for nothing.
"So, what can we deduce from where that stinker was running to?" I asked. Barona gave me a surprised look, as if she didn't expect me to ask the right question.
"If they are following the Morganite playbook, that puts the ambush somewhere along this line." Dorn plotted a line on the nav chart. "My guess is here, since there are some rock formations they might use to make it harder for the prey to notice them till it's too late."
"I say we hit it and hit it hard." Lt. Tine added. "Then push through." Both Barona and Dorn looked at him in shock. "What? That ship rabbited at about the speed of a freighter. I didn't see even a blip from an active scan, so the only thing they are likely to really know of us is roughly what we mass. The Haul-o-caster masses funny. I'm betting they have no idea what we are but judging from the speed of their withdrawal they think we're an armed tramp freighter, mad that they took a pot-shot at us."
"What if they figured out who we were from our acceleration curve?" Barona asked.
"I don't think so." Lt. Tine replied. "At best, they had us on passive scanners. Add to that they were turning and running, so they were traveling away from us. Passive scans while traveling away from the target are fuzzy at best. At least they are in the Fleet. You think whoever this is has better?"
"I strongly suspect they don't." I told them. "We need to find Admiral Thomas as soon as possible."
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