The Pilots and the Frontier
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: After all this time, you know what this means, right? Rating: K Time: About three years after my story the Pilots and the Passengers.
They did find that the Betelgeuse Wilderness wasn't entirely devoid of anything interesting.
"Rick! Sensors have picked up a ship headed this way at top speed." Kate reported.
"Battle stations everyone." Rick said as the rest of his crew reached their stations.
"Can you ID the ship, Kate?"
"No…Wait. That's an Imperial ship. Probably out here looking for trouble and from the way it's running, probably found it."
Long minutes dragged by before Kate spoke again.
"I've got it. She's a Mare Nubuim class heavy cruiser."
"Can you see what's chasing her?"
"Not yet. Give me ten more minutes. It's just now within sensor range."
Ten minutes went by and, true to her word, Kate IDed the other ship.
"It's a Pannonian CB-24 class battle cruiser."
"Shit." Castle muttered. "About the only ship in their whole fucking navy that could run down one of our heavy cruisers, and have enough firepower to take it out."
"Perhaps if we hit and run, we could distract the battle cruiser enough to let the Imperial ship get away."
"That sounds perfectly suicidal, Spotty." Rick said. "Luckily, I have a better idea. You can just watch from now on, Spotty. Let me and Kate handle this."
"Yes, sir. That is, yes, boss."
Rick and Kate discussed something for a moment or two, then Rick turned to talk to the rest of the crew.
"Pika-Don is basically a scout, just like our old ship, but much, much improved. It has a few tricks that the old Commonwealth had never thought of. We're going to allow the Pannonians to see us, but their sensors are going to show them that we're a nice, fat assault transport, the kind that'll carry an entire division of ground troops. That's a much better prey than a cruiser."
"Oh, what a tickled web we reeve, when first we practice to pickle." The Quinncunx said portentously.
The Pannonians saw the new target at the very edge of their sensor's range. They could tell it was big, bigger than the cruiser they were chasing and it appeared to be slow. They knew that there were no other Pannonian ships nearby, and after a quick discussion on the bridge, they changed course to chase down the new target.
"Can't you identify it yet?" Growled the Pannonian captain.
The sensor officer suppressed a sharp retort. The captains forebearers had been mud farmers for centuries while the sensor officer's ancestors had been wealthy and powerful landowners. The captain may have had the rank, but he would never be a gentlebeing.
"It'll take a few more minutes, sir." He replied calmly.
"Can't you get any more speed out of the engines?" He demanded of the engineering officer.
"We're at 104 percent of capacity now, sir." The aristocratic engineering officer was faced away from the captain, so no one could see his smile. "If we go any higher, considering the abuse the engines have taken, they'll seize up. If that happens, we'd have to call on Captain Lord Pizzean to tow us back to base."
The mention of Captain Lord Pizzean was enough to have almost made the captain chew on his command chair. There was no one in the universe he hated more than Captain Lord Pizzean.
"Very well. Maintain current speed."
The "transport" suddenly put on a burst of speed, as if it had just spotted the battle cruiser.
"Sloppy Imperials." Said the Pannonian captain with a grin.
"He's headed for a sun that's coalescing, sir." Said the sensor officer. "It's not really a sun yet, but it is a mass of super-hot gasses. We'll have trouble with the sensors there."
The captain nodded disdainfully.
"No matter. If he stays in there, the heat will become unbearable for him long before it bothers us."
Pika-Don did not stay in the hot gasses for long. Just long enough for her to put on a burst of speed that no assault transport could have managed.
"He's where?" Bellowed the Pannonian captain.
"There, sir. Well out of firing range and almost at the edge of our sensor range."
"By the God's Three Pricks, how did he get so far ahead of us?"
"I don't know, sir. They're not that fast."
The sensor officer was interrupted by an underling. After a hurried conversation, he spoke to the captain again.
"Sir, the ship seems to be leaving a trail of ionized cesium behind him."
"What in all of the Motherless Afterlife does that mean?"
"I have no idea, sir."
Aboard Pika-Don, Spotty was confused.
"Skipper, how can we be leaving a trail of ionized cesium behind. We have none aboard. I'm sure I checked everything."
"You're right. We have none aboard, but we can make their sensors think that's what we're trailing. They'd need to stop and scoop up a sample to find out that there's no cesium of any sort there. No Pannonian captain will stop when there's a nice juicy target to be had."
Rick turned to Kate who was handling the sensors.
"Where's the Imperial cruiser?"
"Out of our sensor range and out of the Pannonian's, but to be on the safe side, we should lead them on a bit more."
Rick thought for a moment.
"Let's go to about 110% of the max power for an assault transport. How long would it take for the engines to overload?"
"About an hour. Perhaps a little more."
"We could make it to that nice crowded solar system dead ahead in an hour, right?"
"Certainly."
The Pannonian sensor officer smiled.
"Sir! They're going at full speed and heading for the solar system ahead of us." He checked his readings. "They must have disengaged all of their safety protocols. They're well over one hundred percent of their engine power."
"Is there anything in that system?" The captain demanded.
"Nothing, sir. There is a hunter-gatherer society there, but they couldn't possible help the Imperials."
The "transport" had just entered the solar system when there was a massive explosion, seemingly blowing the ship to pieces. No one on the Pannonian ship noticed that a large piece of debris had disappeared behind a moon. They were unable to see it speed away much faster than any Pannonian ship.
The Pannonian captain was very happy. The destruction of such a valuable Imperial ship should finally get the so-called aristocrats in the high command to take him more seriously.
Far below on a planet, a small clan of bipeds saw a huge flash of light in the sky. Their attempts to understand its meaning would spawn two religions, numerous wars and an abiding curiosity about what was above their planet.
The Pannonian captain's report was indeed carefully studied by the Pannonian high command and a crash program was set in motion to try to increase ships' speeds with the use of ionized cesium as the Imperial transport had used. By the time that the high command decided this was a complete waste of time, the captain had been promoted to admiral.
The Pika-Don went back on patrol. Not surprisingly they found very little for quite some time.
"I give up." Moecious said, sadly. "I've done everything I can to our rations and I can no longer make them palatable. My spices are all gone. My sauces are a thing of the past. Once I had a bit of cooking sherry to make our meals more palatable, but now…"
"When I was growing up on Kate's World, I was lucky to have any food at all. The first time I ate Rick's rations, I thought they were heavenly." Kate cut in.
"And now you know better. You've had my galaxy famous ice cream sundaes, you've thrilled to pizza a la Moecious, and you've had…"
"Nothing to eat since lunch." Spotty said. "I'm hungry."
"Hasn't contact with the Empire taught you Kzin anything? You just gobble down your food as fast as you can. You don't take the time to savor it."
"That's because I'm hungry."
"We have something." Lindane said. She was on the sensors, giving Kate a break. "Wake the rest of the crew, please."
Moecious sighed.
"Delaying dinner won't be so bad."
"I'm still hungry." Spotty insisted.
"What is it?" Rick said, coming onto the bridge.
"A very fast-moving ship at the edge of our sensor range."
"Fast?" Castle asked. "As fast as us?"
"Not at all, but still as fast as anything we've seen from the Pannonians.
"Let's go after it and see what there is. We should be able to hang on its tail and be out of their sensors' range."
They closed on the unidentified ship until they could get a better idea of what it was.
"Fast and small." Kate said, having taken over the sensors. "It might be the equivalent of the Empire's express boats."
Faster than light communications were possible over relatively short distances, but other than that, communications had to be by ships. The Empire had an entire service dedicated to such communications.
"We could take it and see what it's carrying." Spotty said, stroking his gunnery panel.
"Express boats are built for speed and not for combat." Rick said. "We'd more likely blow it to little bits and pieces."
"Combat, wombat. See the silly ball bat." Said the Quinncunx happily.
Castle thought for a moment.
"We'll follow it. Maybe it'll take us someplace interesting."
It took two boring days, but it became obvious that the Pannonian craft was headed for another uninteresting solar system.
"We'll drop back a bit." Rick said. "We'll go into stealth mode and sneak up on the system and see what's there."
The first thing they saw was a small warship, moving slowly through the Oort cloud on the very outskirts of the system.
"Small but well-armed and it has good sensors." Kate said. "Not good enough to pick us up, but good. I'll bet it's a picket ship, and that means there's something in that system worth guarding."
"Unless this is some kind of main fleet base, they won't have enough ships to cover the whole system. We'll be able to find a way into the system."
"And a way out as well, please." Moecious said.
There wasn't much to the system. There were two airless and barren rocky planets, three with atmospheres that would be poisonous to almost any species, and one very large gas giant.
"We've hit the jackpot." Rick said. "That's the equivalent of a full Fleet around that big planet. But what are they doing here?"
"There's a group of asteroids nearby." Jane said. "We could sneak in, power everything down except our passive sensors and go right by them. We'd be able to read their hull numbers that close."
They settled down in a position that gave them sensor coverage in every direction and waited for their asteroids to take them close to the enemy fleet.
"An odd fleet, if that's what it is." Kate said. "They have battle cruisers and light cruisers, but very few heavy cruisers. They have less destroyers than any fleet that size would need for a screen."
"Um…" Spotty said, but then stopped.
"If you have something to add," Rick said, "jump right in."
"Uh…Those are all very fast and well-armed ships, but lightly armored. Perfect for a raiding force. Swoop in, do as much damage as possible and run. Then do it all over again someplace else. Destroyers are too short legged to keep up with a raiding force."
"Spotty, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Rick said.
TBC