Ridgerunners - Softcover

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Chapter 1

Stations.
Clusters of research and development stations. That was what Captain Rowan Bartlett should have been looking at. Instead, the Imperious’s panoramic floor-to-ceiling window offered an unobstructed view of Europa’s swirling, terraformed atmosphere.
Bartlett ran a hand over his short, receding hair.
His chief mate stepped up next to him and wondered aloud, “If the stations were destroyed, where’s the debris field?”
Bartlett quietly considered. Stealth tech? Certainly not far-fetched for the Europans. But if so, why no communication? Silence could presage rebellion, but surely the Europans understood that war against the Collective was not a viable strategy, even for a civilization as advanced as theirs.
“Comms?” Bartlett called over his shoulder.
“Still nothing, sir,” the communications officer answered.
Europa had ceased all communications with the Collective approximately sixteen hours ago. Bartlett’s frigate, the Imperious, had been the closest company ship to Jupiter and its inhabited moons. They had tried to establish contact en route, yet not only had those attempts failed to yield results, but there had also been no challenge issued by the outer sentry rings when they arrived in Europan-occupied space.
Mainly because, as with the R&D stations, the sentry rings were simply not there.
An update had been sent to MARSA to be further relayed to Earth and the Collective headquarters. That news would not be well received.
The chief mate moved nearer the windows, as if a change in vantage point could produce for the naked eye what their scanners could not.
Bartlett turned back toward the operations deck, a raised, semicircular space around the captain’s chair. His op crew sat at stations lining the walls to both sides of the bridge entry. As in all Collective designs, the modular hologram stations adhered strictly to the law of “form follows function” with one exception: scale, the executive-level belief being that size conveyed power.
Bartlett ordered, “Bring us into low orbit and give me a full spectrum sweep of the—”
"Sir, tracking an incoming object." This from the second mate. "Closing at eighty kilometers per second. Spherical in shape, approximately ninety-one centimeters in diameter."
“Shields up and go to code yellow,” Bartlett replied.
“Shields up, sir,” the third mate responded.
“Code yellow, aye.” The chief mate jogged back to his station.
The second mate cut in, “Object’s come to a full stop, one kilometer to port. Bearing 302.298.”
“Give me something useful,” Bartlett commanded.
“Scanning,” the second mate answered. “Metallic. Tristeel. Low heat signature. Zero exhaust—”
“Can it put holes in us?” Bartlett asked. He was a military man, keen on threat assessment. He had a healthy fear of what Europan tech could do. Yet he was also a company man, and as such, his fear of next-gen weaponry paled in comparison to his fear of failure.
“No apparent weapons capabilities, sir. Looks like some kind of drone.”
A drone? Just observing?
The third mate spoke quickly: “Secondary object inbound . . . just appeared . . .  maybe from behind Europa?”
Bartlett rushed onto the op deck and over to the third mate’s station, eyeing the sensor display where a pulsing red dot quickly closed distance.
“It’s a ship,” the young man continued. “Sigma class. Fusion drive. Shields active.”
With a few quick taps over the third mate’s shoulder, Bartlett raised a holographic tactical overview that hovered at a diagonal just in front of the captain’s chair. He put one hand on the chair’s back, observing the top-down view of his own ship and the small drone dot out to the port side. He placed his fingers at the bottom right corner of the display and pinched. The tactical field of view widened to include the incoming ship.
The chief mate had joined him. “Vessel identifier?”
“Negative,” the third mate answered. “I’m reading multiple vessel types.”
Ridgerunners. Pirates. They prowled the outer reaches of the solar system, preying on cargo ships that ventured to the Jovian planets or the farposts or the asteroid belts, all collectively known as the Ridge. And thus, Ridgerunners.
But how were they using shield technology? Shield tech was still relatively new, developed by the Europans less than half a span ago . . . Were the pirates responsible for the Europans’ disappearance? Had they stolen the shield tech and figured out how to use it? Or was this ship Europan, masquerading as pirate?
Bartlett punched a button on the arm of his chair, starting a transmission. “Incoming vessel, this is Captain Bartlett of the Collective ship Imperious. State your business or be fired upon.”
Bartlett’s message was greeted by silence. On the hologram, the incoming ship’s dot stopped.
The third mate spoke, “They’re readying weapons, starboard side.”
“Code red. Ready all missiles, starboard side.”
The weapons officer confirmed Bartlett’s order as the chief mate rushed to his station and initiated the code red.
“Ship is coming about, but . . . port-side facing.” The third mate sounded confused. And with good reason. Why in all the known worlds would a hostile ship ready weapons on one side and turn to face their enemy with the opposite side?
“Lock missiles, confirm,” Bartlett ordered.
The weapons officer confirmed.
Bartlett pressed a button on the chair to open all channels. “Unidentified vessel, respond immediately or be destroyed. This is your final warning.”
After a few seconds of silence, Bartlett commanded: “Shields down.”
“Shields down,” the third mate confirmed.
“Fire.”
Eight Cyclone-class missiles blasted from the Imperious’s starboard ports. Bartlett watched the salvo’s progress on his display while the entirety of the op crew did the same at their respective stations.
Bartlett’s mouth dropped as the larger dot of the unidentified vessel disappeared, to be replaced by a smaller dot . . . before the missiles reached their target.
Bewildered, the second mate said, “The drone, sir, it moved. Relocated.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Missiles aborted,” the weapons officer reported. “They’re showing no target within acquisition—”
“Vessel to port, one kilometer! Missile lock. Incoming!” the third mate shouted.
At the same time the second mate blurted: “Two more vessels coming from behind Europa—”
“Shields up! Shields—”
“Too late!”
The floor shuddered beneath him. Bartlett grasped the seat back for support and yelled, “Damage?”
“Busters, port side,” the second mate replied.
“Busters” blasted apart a ship’s outer shell and bulkheads to make way for “seekers”—pirate specialties—that would pinpoint and eradicate a vessel’s shield processor.
“Breach in sector three. Shields nonfunctional,” the chief mate reported. “Mobilizing repair crews.”
The...