The Price of Conquest

"Emergence into normal space in one minute."

The smooth, feminine voice of the Conquest's computer roused Kressa from a light slumber. She yawned lazily, stretched, and sat up straight in the pilot's chair.

During the three-day hyperspace flight from Arecia, she'd spent several of her waking hours tending to routine ship maintenance, and several more on the rec room's VR stage, working out and practicing some hand-to-hand moves that had gone a bit rusty. She spent the rest of the time coming up with various satisfying ways to spend the money she would make from this job. She stretched again.

Time to get to work.

"Thirty seconds, Kressa," the computer said.

"I'm ready, Connie." She turned her attention to the coordinate display on the control board in front of her.

Before leaving Arecia, she had gone over the full list of Terra's hyperspace emergence points for her estimated arrival time, seeking one far enough from the planet to give her a chance to make sure no surprises awaited her, but close enough to limit her in-system travel time. Her choices had been few; emergence points tended to diminish with distance from any significant gravity source. She'd finally settled on one that was unlikely to receive much traffic; not that any on her short list were apt to be busy, given their distance from Terra.

As she watched, the display before her centered on the emergence coordinates she'd selected. The hyper- and normal-space energy readings began to change rapidly, one rising, the other falling, as Connie precisely balanced the fields. The readings reached zero simultaneously.

Kressa shut down the hyperdrive, and the subtle tingle of the field faded from the air. An instant later, her insides lurched gently as the ship dropped into normal space.

"Emergence successful," Connie said.

Kressa smiled. "I never had the slightest doubt."

The main viewer came on, and she glanced at it, expecting to see Terra's distant blue-and-white globe. An icy chill shot through her limbs.

"Kressa, there's a—" Connie started.

"Shit! I see it!" She activated the Conquest's shields, spun the ship on axis, slammed the engines to full power, and keyed the latest evasion pattern she and Connie had developed into the flight computer.

On the main screen, the massive ungainly form of a United Galaxy Patrol dreadnought eclipsed the view of Terra, its main forward batteries facing the Conquest. Below the image, a readout displayed the information contained in the warship's transponder. It was the Esprit, Admiral Shaw's flagship, and if the ship's current location and heading were any indication of its master's intent, the admiral had been waiting for her.

"Connie, compute a jump back to Arecia."

"A hyperspace jump this close to an emergence point could cause severe damage to—"

"Connie, don't argue!" Kressa snapped. "Compute the damned jump!"

She glanced at the image of the dreadnought again. How had Shaw known she'd be here? Not just here at Terra, but here at this precise location?

The obvious answer to the first question was that B'Okhaim set her up, but Kressa refused to believe that. B'Okhaim had worked with the Arecian Guard since its formation over two decades earlier, ever since his wife died in a Patrol raid; he would never agree to help any of the admirals, even under duress. Then another explanation formed, and Kressa spat a curse. What if Tyler were involved? He knew she would go to B'Okhaim if she was on Arecia and thought something was up, all but assuring she took the job that brought her to Terra.

But that did nothing to explain how Shaw knew so precisely where the Conquest would emerge from hyperspace. Information traveled between star systems only as fast as comm drones or relay systems could carry it, and that wasn't much faster than the Conquest. Even if someone witnessed her hyperspace jump at Arecia and accurately tracked it, getting the information to the admiral in time for him to get the Esprit into position would have required a tricky bit of timing. Not impossible, but still—

"Jump computation complete," Connie's voice cut into Kressa's thoughts. "However, we're still too close to—"

"What we're too close to is that dreadnought!" Kressa activated the hyperdrive field generator, but an occasional stomach-twisting shudder in the emerging field structure warned her that Connie was right. As usual.

"The field is not stabilizing," the computer said unhelpfully, then continued, "The dreadnought's forward weapon control sensors just went down."

Kressa glanced at the main screen. A section of the dreadnought's bow glowed white-hot around the ragged remains of shredded armor and systems.

She stared at the image in astonishment. "What happened?"

"The Esprit was struck by an energy pulse," Connie said.

"Someone did that with one shot?" Kressa asked, amazed. "Who fired it?"

"Unknown."

"Replay the attack."

The image on one of the secondary viewers switched to show the undamaged dreadnought. An instant later, an electric-blue fireball flashed into the picture and struck the dreadnought's bow in a massive explosion that left behind the glowing wreckage still visible on the main viewscreen.

"Damn," Kressa breathed. "That couldn't have been anything natural, right?"

"Unlikely. The Esprit has begun firing. Not at us."

Blazing lines of energy burned across the main screen as the dreadnought's side-mounted pulse cannons fired. The beams lanced out to converge on a moving point far off the warship's port side. Kressa followed the searing rays, searching for their target. At first, she saw nothing; the beams simply ended. Then she began to make out a dark shape moving against the backdrop of stars. Slowly, the darkness took on the shape of a sleek swept-winged ship. Blacker than space, the strange vessel seemed to absorb the energy of the dreadnought's weapons.

"Connie," Kressa said quietly, staring in disbelief at the dark shape, "what is that thing?"

"Clarify use of the term 'thing.'"

"That… thing out there. Whatever the Esprit is firing at."

"The dreadnought's actions are senseless," Connie said. "I detect no targets for the Esprit's shots."

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Damn it, Connie, there's a ship or… something out there, and you can't see it?"

"Sensors detect nothing. Shall I enhance visual input?"

Kressa considered the suggestion. Connie relied primarily on active sensors for her view of the outside world; if she couldn't detect the black ship, then it must absorb sensor emissions, as well as pulse beams. While temporarily boosting Connie's trust in visual inputs would almost certainly enable Kressa to convince the computer that the featureless shape really was a physical object, she feared she did not have the time to argue the finer points of logic the ensuing conversation could entail.

"Don't bother." She glanced at the nav board to determine their position, eager to get the hell out of there. "How's that jump looking?"

"We will achieve a minimum safe distance from the emergence point in twenty-seven seconds."

Kressa stared at the eerie nothingness of the black ship, certain it would be the longest twenty-seven seconds of her life. But only a few of those seconds passed before a sharp alarm snapped her attention away.

"Screen two," Connie said.

Kressa felt her heart clench in terror.

A fleet of Patrol warships had appeared in front of the Conquest.

"There isn't an emergence point there!" she gasped. "How in hell—?"

She shoved aside her consternation and rolled the Conquest away from the newly arrived ships.

A glance at the main screen showed the Esprit still firing at the black ship, although its efforts remained as seemingly futile as before. At least the admiral hadn't started shooting at her, but if Shaw wanted her alive, she knew he wouldn't risk firing without the aid of targeting sensors. One poorly aimed shot could mean the end of whatever plans he had for her.

She switched her attention back to the fleet. The ships had broken formation to begin chasing her. The swiftest of them were rapidly approaching effective firing range.

Kressa briefly considered bringing the Conquest's weapons online, but they would make little difference against so many opponents. Best to save the energy for the maneuver drive and shields.

"The Patrol vessels are requesting our surrender," Connie said.

"Ignore them."

A pulse cannon beam from one of the pursuing vessels burned close to the Conquest, and a new alarm pierced the air. Kressa threw the ship into a defensive spiral, adding to the flight computer's chaotic maneuvers. Another ship fired and missed, but a lucky shot from a third vessel punched through a weak spot in the freighter's shields. The Conquest shuddered from the impact.

Kressa cringed and checked the shots' positions. The Patrol ships were trying to knock out the freighter's engines.

No surprise there.

Another blast pounded against the Conquest's aft shields. Part of the screen that showed the pursuing vessels went black; the fleet and most of the starscape disappeared.

"Connie, did that last hit disable some of the detectors?" Kressa asked, and then wondered if it really mattered. She didn't need to see her doom to know it existed.

"All systems are functioning normally," Connie said.

"Then what happened to the Patrol ships?"

"The pursuing vessels have disappeared. I'm detecting only the Esprit. I suggest we reverse course again."

Kressa ignored the suggestion. There was no way those ships could simply disappear, and even if they had, the stars would still be there.

With a start, she realized what must have happened.

She glanced at the main screen again. The black ship had vanished. She returned her attention to the second viewer and stared at the dark area in shock. How had the vessel moved so fast?

The Conquest lurched suddenly, her infrastructure groaning in protest. The ship's grav generators and inertial compensators, already taxed by the freighter's wild evasive flight, faded for an instant, and Kressa slammed into the padded edge of the pilot's station.

She straightened and took a cautious breath. The dull pain across her ribs eased rapidly to a tolerable ache.

"We appear to be caught in a tractor beam," Connie said.

"That's impossible." No ship Kressa knew of—not even a dreadnought—possessed a tractor beam with the power or accuracy to latch onto a target moving as rapidly and erratically as the Conquest had been flying. She checked the readouts again.

The Conquest was moving backwards toward the darkness, away from the Esprit, her engines whining in an attempt to reestablish her forward momentum.

"Apparently, it is possible," Connie said.

Desperate, Kressa fed override power to the freighter's engines until the ship vibrated from the strain, but the Conquest continued her slow, backward movement toward the black ship.

"The Esprit has fired several missiles," Connie reported.

Panic welled in Kressa's chest, but she swallowed it when the computer continued, "None appear to be targeting the ship."

Not this ship, anyway.

Kressa believed she understood Shaw's logic. If energy weapons couldn't harm the black ship, perhaps solid missiles could.

But the mysterious vessel did not intend to let Shaw's strategy play itself out. Dozens of slender beams burst from the darkness. Several of them ended in brief flashes as they struck and destroyed the dreadnought's missiles.

"An object has appeared behind us," Connie said.

A small rectangle of light shone against the absolute blackness of the strange ship, directly in line with the Conquest's involuntary reverse trajectory.

Kressa magnified the image.

It looked like a docking bay. She could just make out several small ships inside. Compared to the types of vessels she knew, these possessed unfamiliar configurations and smooth, almost alien lines, as did the bay itself. The ships surrounded a clear area easily large enough to hold the Conquest.

Could the black ship's crew be something other than human? she wondered, then gave an adamant shake of her head, unwilling to contemplate the idea that she might be the first human to make contact with an alien race.

Kressa swallowed hard and considered her options. Dreadnought or mystery ship? It wasn't much of a choice.

She reduced power to the Conquest's engines, then shut them down.

"Kressa, are you sure—?" Connie started to protest.

"Trust me, Connie." She continued to stare at the image of the bay and the featureless blackness that surrounded it. "I know what I'm doing." I hope.

She took several slow, deep breaths, and then checked the screen that showed the Esprit.

The black ship was firing at the dreadnought now, but the mammoth warship's shields easily deflected the short, apparently random shots.

Did the black ship's crew have some strategy behind the odd firing pattern, or were they simply keeping the dreadnought busy while they secured their hold on the Conquest?

She fought down a worried shudder.

As the freighter moved closer to the bay, additional details came into view. A dozen long, dark ships sat in neat rows on either side of the chamber. They appeared as sleek and ominous as their mothership, although not nearly as black. Weapon-like structures protruded from their hulls. Kressa studied them in silence, her heart hammering against her ribs.

Stay in the Conquest and you'll be safe, she told herself, struggling to keep her breathing even and her imagination under control.

The black ship drew the freighter gently inside and set her down, then the bay doors snapped shut with terrifying speed.

An instant later, the universe fell out from under Kressa.