The Log Of The Crimson Lien

BOOK 1

Too Good To Be True

By

Wesley Clifford

  CHAPTER 4

The Core

Chuck's fuzzy beard bristled in anger. At least, he hoped it was bristling and he assuredly felt the anger. He stared across the table at the inspector, a young woman probably just out of college, who flipped through the ship's papers.

"Olpath?"

"Yes."

She nodded. "Going to Jaunta?"

Chuck sighed. "Yes."

"You seem to be in a hurry."

"My passengers are in a hurry, so I'm in a hurry."

"What's the rush?"

"We're trying to catch up with their science group. Apparently the first one to Jaunta gets all the best 500-year-old junk."

The inspector did not look up form the papers, and did not smile.

So much for charming her. It was a shame, actually. She was quite pretty in her own way. Her hair was too long for Chuck, but it framed her oval face well and brought out the green in her eyes. Her Ibinian inspector's uniform clung to her thin body nicely and held her not-too-large but not-too-small breasts in perfect place. Not that Chuck considered anything serious with the woman; that wasn't even an option in his eyes - with anyone. But still, if you're going to try to charm someone, it may as well be someone charming.

"It says here you have 103 cargo containers and two passengers."

"Correct."

"I will need to question them separately."

"Every container?" he smiled.

The inspector looked up, a mixture of confusion and annoyance on her face. "What?"

Chuck gave up. No joking would save this situation. "They're in their room. I'll take you. Quincy, we'll be right back."

Quincy nodded from the far corner of the room where he sulked. Less than an hour ago he'd logged that they were making good time and now they were being delayed, just like he'd predicted.

At least we got the Bollians to take the blame for delays in the Core, he thought.

Chuck glided down the lift tube to B-Deck. He kicked his way out of the tube and landed with little trouble on the floor, accounting for the sudden gravity change with a decent bit of ease thanks to a large amount of practice. He turned to help the inspector only to find her step easily from the tube without even a shudder.

The Core, he thought. They probably have these tubes in every ship.

Chuck hit the call button next to the door to the Bollians' stateroom. The door snapped open, revealing Prialla on the other side. As usual, she dispensed with the pleasantries. "I hope you're here to tell us we're on our way."

"Not quite," said Chuck.

The inspector stepped up. "Are you..." she consulted her arm-mounted computer. "Sultia?"

"Prialla," said the Bollian. Her voice went from cold to frozen. "Prialla Thrombia."

"Please," said Sultia, appearing from behind his wife as if the inspector summoned him by saying his name. "Ladies, we don't need this kind of trouble."

He reached a hand out to the inspector. "My dear... What was your name?"

"Uh... Lindack," said the inspector. She had obviously been caught off guard by the Bollian man who stood before her.

"Lindack. What a beautiful name."

"Oh," she stammered, blushing. "Thank you."

"Now, what can I possibly do for you today?"

"Well," she started, and then stopped. "I need to... um... interview you. Each. Separately."

"That sounds splendid!" said Sultia, putting his all into the last word. "Please, come in."

In a daze, the inspector strode into the room, and the door closed behind her. Prialla and Chuck were left outside, in the hall.

"This may be a while," said Prialla. "To the kitchen?"

"What is he doing?"

"I believe the word you'd use is 'charming'."

"I've known your husband for 3 days, Prialla. I don't think I'd ever use that word to describe him."

"That's because you're male. Take it from me: Women find him quite charming."

"But aren't we wasting time?"

Prialla frowned. "Yes, we are. But in this case I don't think we can avoid it."

"Well, then," said Chuck, offering his arm. "To the kitchen?"

Prialla strode forward, leaving Chuck's arm behind. "Sounds good. I'm starving."

Chuck and Quincy leaned against the counter, watching Prialla eat. She was calm for a woman whose husband was two meters below her doing who-knows-what to the ship inspector.

Prialla looked up, and they looked away. "What?" she asked in annoyance.

"It's just..." started Quincy, faltering.

"You don't seem all that concerned," finished Chuck.

"About what?"

"Your husband."

"My husband," said Prialla, "can take care of himself." It was such a matter-of-fact statement that Quincy didn't know exactly where to go with it.

Chuck did. "That's what - I think - you should be concerned about. I know I would be."

"Are you implying that my husband might be cheating on me?"

Chuck averted his eyes from her gaze. "It... did cross my mind, yeah."

Prialla stood. "You honestly believe that Sultia would cheat. On ME..."

She held her hands out, palms upward as if displaying a prize on a game show. "With HER," she completed, pointing downward.

Quincy mused on this. "You do have a point."

And at that, the trio was interrupted with laughter coming from the lift tube, echoing down the hallway from the staterooms. It was uninhibited laughter. Joyous laughter. Friendly laughter.

Female laughter.

Chuck and Quincy's eyes met, and Chuck shrugged. Sultia and Lindack rose up the lift-tube, smiling and laughing at some private joke.

"How'd it go?" asked Chuck as if the question needed asked.

"I believe," said Sultia, gazing into the inspector's eyes, "that it went splendidly."

The inspector smiled back. If Chuck didn't know any better - and he realized that he in fact did not - he would have called her demeanor coy.

"Yes," she said. "Splendidly."

"Well, then," said Chuck, hoping to cash in on her good mood. "The inspection..."

Sultia shot Chuck a gaze that could kill a grock at 30 meters, but before he could speak the inspector said, "Oh, don't worry about that. I'm giving you a pass through Ibin that will get you to and through the jump point. I can't help you past there, of course, but that should help you on your way."

"Yes..." said Chuck, flabbergasted. "It will..."

"Thank... you?" said Quincy.

Sultia took Lindack's hands. "Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Can I walk you to the airlock?"

"That would be..." said the inspector.

"Splendid?" asked Sultia, smiling.

Lindack smiled back and nodded. "Splendid."

They floated down the lift tube together, and crossed the cargo bay to the open airlock on the starboard side, which was connected to a short tube that itself connected to the inspector's ship. Prialla, Chuck, and Quincy followed the duo down the lift but remained there, on the ship's port side.

Lindack faltered in front of the door, and turned back to Sultia.

"If you're ever in Ibin again..." she trailed off.

"Of course," said Sultia. "That would be wonderful."

"Well," she said. "Good bye."

"Good bye, my dear Lindack."

She stepped from the ship into the tube, which did not have its own gravity, and floated. She turned with the ease of someone who had grown up in space and waved to Sultia. He waved back before closing the door.

"Don't let the airlock hit you in the ass..." Chuck muttered.

Sultia returned to the group and grasped his wife's hands.

"By all the dead worlds," he gasped. "I thought that woman would never leave."

"I'm sorry you had to go through that, dear," said Prialla.

"Okay, I'm confused," said Quincy. "What just happened?"

"You just witnessed the power of charisma," said Sultia. "We could have easily spent hours in an inspection. If she had wanted to, we could even be detained while they opened every single cargo container. Instead, I invested a little time - and a considerable amount of charm - and have a pass through the entire system."

Chuck nodded. "You two have done this before."

Prialla and Sultia glanced at each other, then smiled. Prialla answered. "On occasion."

"Now, if you will excuse me," said Sultia, "I think I've earned a fairly lengthy shower."

"Go right ahead," Chuck said. "Quincy, let's get going."

The four split up. Sultia headed for the bathroom, Prialla went to their stateroom, and Chuck and Quincy went to the cockpit.

"You have to admit," said Quincy as he recomputed their red line, "it was nice to not do a full inspection."

Chuck nodded, firing up the drive and going down the checklist. "Yeah. I'm not Sultia's biggest fan or anything, but he scored one for the good guys today. I just hope we have as easy a time in Gatir. We may actually make it to Jaunta on time."

"Here's your red line."

Chuck grinned. "Splendid."

The Crimson Lien accelerated away from the inspection ship and into the night.

"Hey, Chuck?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't think it'll be a problem, but we're going to be skirting near a war zone."

Chuck blinked. "You don't think that will be a problem?"

"Near a war zone. Not into one."

"I still consider that a problem. How close is 'near'?"

"Well, we're coming out of the Core at Kladnor, and then going on to Plithia, which is right next to Halfnor."

"Okay..."

"And Halfnor is at war with Fallon."

"But not with Plithia?"

"No. But I don't know if any fighting is spreading to other systems."

"And we're not going to Halfnor or Fallon?"

"No. We're going to Krell and from then on we're going farther from the fighting."

Chuck frowned. "Well, it's not like we can do much about it now. We'll just have to hope we can sneak through without much trouble."

"Ow," said Quincy.

"Still bad?" asked Chuck.

"Yeah, but no worse than normal. I guess that rules out meditation 3, though."

"7 more to go."

Quincy nodded, and as the computers came up he started plotting the red line through the Plithia system, from Kladnor to Krell. "Add about 5 percent to our speed. I'm going to push the red."

"We have a problem," said Quincy.

"Well we can do 3 percent if you think that's better."

"No, it's not that..."

"What is it, then?" asked Chuck, catching his friend's concern.

"The Krell Jump Point..."

"What about it?"

"It's... not there."

The Bollians sat at the table. Prialla sat upright, her hands in her lap and with an outward appearance of calm. Sultia was the opposite. His hands were in front of his visibly reddened face and he was supporting the weight of his forehead with the tips of his fingers, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. He stared at that table as he asked his question, "What do you mean it is not there?"

Chuck was sitting on the counter top, and Quincy was pacing the room, bobbing up and down with each step as his two-kneed legs wobbled beneath him. "I mean it's not there," Chuck said.

"How do you lose a jump point?"

Quincy scowled. "You can't. it's not a physical item."

"Then the supports. Where are they?"

"They're still there," said Chuck. "They're just off line."

Prialla asked the obvious question, "What happened?"

"Halfnor and Fallon are are war."

"I know," she said quickly.

Chuck noted that she - despite knowing about this war - had not mentioned it while they were plotting their course. He let it go, but added it to the list of reasons to despise their passengers.

Instead, he continued, "Well, there are 3 jump points out of this system. There's Kladnor,which is where we came from. There's Krell, which is where we were going. And there's Halfnor, who's at war with Fallon.

"Okay," said Prialla. "What does that have to do with us?"

"Well, it appears that Halfnor won a battle. Some Fallon ships escaped, and made it through the jump point from Halfnor to Plithia, where we are now."

Quincy continued for him. "The Halfnor ships pursued them, which was actually a bad idea. They risked pulling the Plithians into the war."

Sultia snapped, "I believe my wife asked what this has to do with us?"

Chuck took over. "Well, the Fallon ships were in full retreat, and tried to red line to the Krell jump point. They only made it part way before the Halfnor ships destroyed them. Their wreckage, though, was on a red-line course to the point, so..."

Prialla nodded, understanding. "Collision."

Quincy nodded. "At one tenth the speed of light."

Sultia returned to the important part. "How long until the jump point's back on line?"

"Well, there's nothing on the news about it, which I think is probably bad for us because it probably just happened. Maybe just in the past couple hours. I sent a specific query but haven't heard back, which is probably more bad news. I really don't see how they'll have the jump point up in less than a week. maybe longer."

"We don't have a week," said Sultia. His voice was stern.

"I'm aware of that," said Chuck, "but I don't know what our options are."

Quincy looked up. "I do."

"Let's hear them," said Prialla.

"Well, other than waiting - which I guess is out - we can head back to Kladnor and go around, or we can go through Halfnor and hope to not get killed in the fighting."

Quincy accessed his personal armband computer. "I asked the ship to plot two courses. The first one is the best one available, considering we can't use the Plithia/Krell jump point. The course goes through Halfnor - which is something I'd personally like to avoid - and then on to Gibber and from there to Xanther which is where we were going from Krell anyway. That adds a single system, and about 6 hours of time to the trip. Of course, this is on top of the 5 or so hours we're already behind."

Chuck added, "If we want to go through Halfnor undetected, we may need to go slower than full rel. Maybe even half that."

"Why?" asked Prialla.

"At full rel, the ship's constantly making course corrections to avoid the larger dust and pebbles that can penetrate the shield. All those changes are easy to see and the one thing we won't want to be is easy to see."

Prialla cocked her head. "In your ad, you listed that the ship has a mild cloak."

Quincy turned to his friend. "It does?"

Chuck smiled and turned defensive. "Ah. Yeah. The cloak. That may have been a slight exaggeration."

Sultia asked, "In what way?"

Chuck rubbed the back of his neck, trying to think of the best way to explain it.

"You see... by 'mild cloak' I actually meant to say that the ship has... a black paint job."

Sultia blinked.

Prialla blinked.

Quincy blinked.

Chuck, for lack of anything better to do, blinked.

Sultia broke the silence. "A black... paint job?"

Chuck protested, "Space is black!"

Sultia frowned. "You may need to work on that advertisement"

Quincy took this opportunity to pitch his alternative. "I'm not all that hot on going through Halfnor anyway, cloak or not, so I asked the computer to try the next best route. It came up with Kladnor to Glib, then to Ignot, Thallup, Franj, and then to Krell. It adds 5 systems - and about a day - to our trip. With the time we've spent already you'll be about 30 hours late. Maybe 35."

"Unacceptable!" Sultia yelled.

"What if we push the red?" asked Chuck.

"The whole way? We'd die. And it'd only save an hour or so anyway."

Prialla tried to remain the voice of reason. "We should go through Halfnor, then."

Quincy frowned. "I really don't want to..."

Sultia's hand slammed down on the table. "Enough! 10 hours late is bad enough, but 30 is completely unacceptable!"

Prialla placed a hand on Sultia's arm and her eyes met his. He visibly calmed, nodded, and allowed her to take over.

She stood, and smoothed the fabric of her skin-tight pants while contemplating her argument. "Chuck. Quincy. Remember our agreement. We're already 5 hours behind."

Quincy corrected, "5 hours of in-the-Core time behind. Those hours don't count toward our actual arrival time."

Prialla nodded. "Of course they do not. However, they do affect how late Sultia and I could be to Jaunta. And arriving late on the same day as our fellows would be bad, but not career-ending. Arriving the following day could be... WOULD be career-ending. You understand that, don't you?"

Chuck said, "Of course we do. You don't think we're trying to sabotage..."

"No, no," said Prialla, strolling easily toward him, hands up. "Of course not. I'm just trying to make sure you know how important this is to us."

"We understand that," said Quincy. "but staying alive is important to us at LEAST as much."

Prialla nodded again. "But if you know how important this is to us, you'll understand better what I'm about to say." She licked her lips, and met each man's eyes in turn. "When I tell you, I would like to sweeten our deal if you can get us there before the end of the day on the 27th."

Quincy's right ear perked up. "Sweeten... how?"

"Well," smiled Prialla. "We'll be on Jaunta for four weeks. I'm sure we can find something."

Quincy's mouth watered. He dared not look at Sultia OR Chuck. Sultia quite simply scared him, and knew Chuck well enough to know that Prialla - no matter how beautifully her clothes clung to her body - was not going to entice his friend. Quincy, for his part, was enticed. But he knew Chuck would need more.

Chuck came up with more. "Money."

Prialla blinked. "What?"

"We need more money. Hazard pay, I guess you could call it."

Sultia, who had sat quietly while his wife did her act, spoke up. "We are already over-paying for your services as is."

"I think an extra, say, twenty thousand would cover it."

"Chuck..." said Quincy, not at all sure twenty thousand credits was worth risking their lives.

Prialla cooed. "The important thing is getting to Jaunta. I'm sure we can work out how to show our gratefulness when the time comes."

"No," said Chuck. "We work this out now."

Sultia frowned. "Twenty thousand credits, minus one thousand credits for every hour we are late. That should work out to about ten thousand extra credits if we hurry."

Chuck corrected him, "Fifteen. 5 of those hours were in The Core."

Sultia barred his teeth. "This run is getting less and less worth it all the time."

Quincy smiled and raised a finger. "Hey! I said that before we even started."

Chuck asked him. "Well? This is as low as I'll go."

Sultia looked at his wife, asking not for permission, but seeing if she had anything else to contribute. Prialla - almost invisibly - shook her head. It was obvious that her feminine charms would not work this time.

"Fine. Twenty thousand more, minus one thousand for each hour delay."

Chuck smiled at the victory. "Great. Quincy, work up a red line to the Halfnor jump gate. I'll get a contract amendment for us all to sign."

Quincy frowned. He wasn't as sure as his friend that they'd just won.

And do I still get Prialla?

The Crimson Lien passed into the jump point at one percent of the speed of light, and was flung across space to the Halfnor system where it was deposited ten million kilometers from the jump point.

Ten million kilometers. Nearly a tenth of an AU, and well outside where even the most enthusiastic search for them would look.

Chuck opened an eye. For the first time he got a hint as to what Quincy must go through as the beginnings of a headache crawled up and down his skull.

He looked first out the window and then - when it finally came back up - to his console so as to confirm what his throbbing temples told him was true.

"All right!" he said as enthusiastically as he could considering the headache. "Fourth time's a charm, eh Quince?"

Quincy also opened one eye. His headache wracked back and forth across his bald head, like electric arcs of pain between his tall Quillian ears. "No it's not. I guess next time I try meditation 5."

"But we're through!"

"I see that," said Quincy. "Let me calibrate."

"Passive only, remember."

"Right. Okay. There's Halfnor Prime. We're too far from the jump point to see it with our eyes but its beacon should be... There."

As Quincy talked, he brought information up on the heads up display on the front window. First an icon representing the Crimson Lien was displayed, and then another representing the star Halfnor Prime. Third, an icon representing the jump point. They were displayed relative to each other in space.

"So what are you doing now?" asked Chuck.

"Well," said Quincy, "In passive mode we've got a lot less information to go on, so I have to do some deducing. I can see Halfnor Prime, and actually see its size, so I can figure out how far we are from it. Now that I know where the jump point is, I should be able to get it on the telescope, and we can find out how far it is."

"It's 10 million kilometers."

"No, it's ABOUT 10 million kilometers. Could be 8. Could be 12. Could be 9.5. I need to know EXACTLY how far. And even that's not enough, because I need to know in what direction.

"We know the distance from the star. It's a little over 3 AU. Imagine a big sphere around Halfnor Prime that's about 6 AU across. We know that our ship is somewhere on that sphere. Now, if we can determine the distance to the jump point, we can draw a sphere around THAT, and those two spheres will intersect. Like two soap bubbles stuck together."

Chuck nodded. "So we'll know where we are?"

"Not quite. The two spheres intersect in a circle. Think about where the two soap bubbles touch. The ship can be anywhere along that circle."

"Gotcha."

The computer made a noise. "Aha," said Quincy. "I have the distance. It was actually very close to 10 million kilometers."

"Told you," said Chuck. His voice sounded hurt, but when Quincy looked at him, Chuck was smiling.

"Anyway," Quincy continued, smiling back. "We now know where we are on the circle defined by the distances from the jump point and from Halfnor Prime. So then we need to find out distance from a THIRD object. The sphere drawn by that object will narrow it down to two points, where that sphere intersects our circle."

"And to figure out which point we're at...?"

"We need a fourth object."

The cockpit fell into silence. Chuck nodded at Quincy's last statement, and eventually noticed that he was still nodding so he stopped. He looked at the window, staring at the stars and the diagram displayed before him. He looked at his console, and then at Quincy.

"So..." he began.

"Don't worry. It's not impossible; this is just the hardest part. We need to get telescopic views of two planets. Halfnor itself shouldn't be that hard to find once I get a direction, and inhabited planets spray out so many radio waves I should have a direction soon. And then I just have to check a dozen or so of the brightest stars to find one of the system's gas giants. Shouldn't be ten minutes."

Chuck undid his harness and stood up. "In that case, I'm going to check on our passengers."

Sultia Thrombia was in the kitchen, waiting for the cockpit door to open. "Mister Williams, I do not hear the engines running."

Chuck raised his hands. "Don't worry. This is all normal. We can't turn on all of our navigation equipment or we'll stand out like a supernova. Quincy's working right now to get us a red line and the second he has one, we're off."

Sultia looked anything but convinced. "Remember. Every hour you waste is a thousand credits."

"Did I say it would take an hour? Calm down."

Prialla floated up the lift tube. "Sultia, please. Let them work."

"I would like to go in there," said Sultia.

"No can do. Cockpit's off-limits. You'll get in the way..."

"There is plenty of room..."

"...and you'll distract the navigator. Why do you think I left? The quieter it is the faster he'll work."

The communication system switched on, and the slightly tinny voice of Quincy floated through the room. "Chuck?"

"See?" Chuck said to Sultia, and then called to the ceiling, "All done?"

"No. But I can hear you guys and..."

"Say no more," said Chuck. "Come on, let's take this conversation down a level."

"No need," said Sultia. "We'll be in our room. Please let us know an ETA when you have one."

"ETD, actually," corrected Chuck, but Sultia had already turned on his heel to stride to the lift tube, his blond hair flowing behind him.

Prialla remained behind, her head tilted downward but her eyes looking up at Chuck. "Don't mind him. He's just worried."

"I know," said Chuck, rubbing the back of his neck. "We're all on edge."

"I know we can't go in the cockpit, but will you do me a favor?"

"What's that, Prialla?"

"Let us know when we're getting close to the planet? And when we're past it?"

Chuck smiled. Finally a reasonable request. "Of course, Prialla."

She took his hands in hers. "Thank you. Knowing will make it easier, I think."

The intercom snapped on again.

"Chuck?"

"I'm sorry, we're done talking."

"No... I've got our position."

"I'll be there in a sec."

Prialla squeezed his hands. "Go. Bring us safely through. I know you will."

Chuck grinned. "I wish I had your faith."

He turned and stepped through the cockpit door, which closed behind him. On the other side, Prialla's smile faded, turned into a deep frown, and then she turned back to the lift tube.

She glided down to B-Deck, where the staterooms were. Her husband was in the hallway, also frowning. "Well?" he asked.

"We're on our way."

"And they'll tell us when we're close?

She nodded, then her eyes welled with tears. "This wasn't the plan at all."

Sultia's large hand cupped her cheek. "I know, baby. But we've gone over this. There is no other way."

"You know? I'm okay with us dying. I've known that was a possibility since the day I joined the resistance. And killing Halfnors... Well... they're Halfnors. But those two are innocent."

"Nobody's innocent, Prialla."

"Well they've done nothing to us!"

"They lied."

"No they didn't! They never said their cargo bay would hold all 103 containers."

"They didn't say it wouldn't."

"But they didn't know what that meant!"

"Knowing or not makes no difference," said Sultia. "The result is the same. We cannot get all the cargo containers outside of the ship, so we must instead use the ship as our weapon."

"We could abort."

"Do you know how many good Fallons died to take out that jump point?"

Prialla paused, thinking about it. "Yes," she said.

"Some of them were friends of ours. They knew they were going to die, and they knew that it was the only way we could get an unknowing ship to go to Halfnor."

Prialla nodded, but Sultia continued. "They didn't even know for sure if we could find a ship. Or if we had gotten caught. If we hadn't found THIS ship when we did we never would have made it at all, and even then we had to go through the Core. If one of those inspectors had tried to open a container..."

"I know," said Prialla. "Boom."

"And all of the planning would have been for naught."

The plan that Sultia and Prialla were a part of was an intricate one. A desperate one. The Fallon System had been struggling for independence from their neighbor Halfnor for nearly a decade, and in the past year that struggle became violent. And then it became war.

Halfnor had many war ships. Fallon had few. The Halfnors had begun bombing runs on Fallon. First they took out military targets and important shipping lanes, but more recently they began bombing populated centers in hopes that a final overwhelming display of superiority would cause the Fallons to concede their imminent defeat.

Sultia, Prialla, and a dozen others in the Fallon resistance saw their cause failing and their world cracking under the tightening grip of their soon-to-be renewed overlords, and they decided that drastic action was needed. They convinced themselves it was necessary, and they committed themselves to the plan.

Sultia and Prialla were to spend a month securing antimatter lead from the black market weapons dealers on the other side of the Core. They took the entire worth of the Fallon government and spent it all. Far removed from their compatriots, Sultia and Prialla could not notify them of their success. They had to do everything on a predetermined time line, and that time line had them entering Plithia on the 24th of October. Any sooner and the gate to Krell would not be down. Any later and word of the gate being down could cause their transporters to find a better way around.

Their transporters had to be a small ship that was capable of transporting the 20 full-sized cargo containers of antimatter lead. The first setback on their trip was that they could only procure 19, and not the 20 that they were supposed to have. But the mission plan said that anything over 18 was acceptable. 15 - what the Crimson Lien could actually carry - would have been too little.

Ideally, the ship would have a crew of two, and they would be desperate for money. All of this they found in Chuck and Quincy, with the exception of the cargo bay. However by the time they found that the cargo bay would only hold 15 containers it was too late. They had to depart as is and at that point, the fates of all 4 people on board were sealed.

The final part of the plan was - in the planning phase - the easiest. Prialla and Sultia were to overpower the crew without killing them, and then get the ship aimed at the planet, going at a full red-line speed of 10% that of light. Then, they would empty the cargo bay into space, letting momentum carry the containers of antimatter on to their target. Then Prialla and Sultia would escape the ship, returning it to its crew, and make it back to a hopefully liberated and thankful Fallon.

The cargo containers however - and Halfnor itself - would not have quite a happy fate. The containers would slam into the planet at a hundred million kilometers per hour, burying themselves deep into the planet's crust before rupturing and spewing out the now superheated liquid antimatter lead. When the antimatter came in contact with the regular matter of the planet, the resultant reaction would be so large as to mimic a massive asteroid strike. Anything nearby would be vaporized, and the explosion would cause a plume so huge as to engulf the world for all time. Nothing could grow. Nothing could survive. On the entire surface of the planet.

Halfnor would be a dead world. Again.

However, Prialla and Sultia now would not be able to get the cargo containers out of the stateroom in time. And they could not guarantee that they could access the bomb bay control in time. There was no way to send all 19 containers-worth into the planet - and their scientist had assured them that at least 18 were needed. Any less than that would not get the job done, so the 15 containers in the cargo bay surely wouldn't do it. They would cause quite a bit of destruction for sure, but they would not cripple Halfnor. The explosion would just enrage them, strengthening their resolve.

So Sultia and Prialla had to improvise their plan, and the only way they could see to do that was to slam the ship itself into the planet killing themselves - and the crew - in the process.

And so that was what they would do.

Copyright © Wesley Clifford, 2010

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