Another Ultimate Weapon

A Story by Thomas Martin

A starship struggles to deliver a group of science fiction writers to a galactic convention while fighting through a fleet of pirates.

Warships were very well armed in this part of the galaxy. Pirates were a common hazard for ships traveling between stars, and of late, some of the pirates had become very bold indeed, raiding even into orbit around Federation Planets. Since they were patrolling from star to star anyway, Warships acted also as small liners for passengers.

Merchantmen often made long, slow trips from planet to planet, without the luxuries that the people who were important enough or wealthy enough to travel were accustomed to. Also, these people made tempting targets for the pirates that roamed the void. Merchantmen were normally used only for moving freight.

The Blue Mallard was an unusual ship. Freighters usually carried only bulk cargoes in strap on cargo pods, and special freight in pressurized sections of the small non-engine section of the middle pylon. The Blue Mallard had several liner staterooms strapped onto the Pylon, as well as a highly unusual combination wardroom, observation gallery, and mess.

Anyone who observed the little ship would immediately know that the ship had been converted to carry passengers.

A small group of people boarded the Blue Mallard on Earth and made their way to their berths on the little converted freighter. No one seemed to be nervous at the lack of guns and missiles aboard the freighter. Stripped of the bulky and massive cargo pods, the ship was capable of generating nearly twice the acceleration that she was wont to produce.

There were faster ships, but none could carry all of the passengers at one time, and with this group of high strung prima-donas, having them trickle in slowly over a period of days could prove disastrous.

The Federation mustered all of the small, fast craft that were within response range, and the Blue Mallard began the odyssey amid the largest space armada that had ever been assembled for any purpose other than war.

The first pirate craft appeared, and were promptly destroyed by a detached squadron of the corvettes that were accompanying the Blue Mallard. The captains of the corvettes strained their engines to their maximum incredibly huge outputs, but the fleet Blue Mallard and her escorts were already far ahead, and their ultimate efforts to rejoin their brethren was in vain. The Blue Mallard's escort had been reduced by three.

Other pirates met the same fate that their extinguished friends had met at the hands of the Federal corvettes and destroyers. Occasionally, one of the pirate craft would slip through the net of intercepting corvettes and would streak toward the Blue Mallard, but the time lost in maneuvering around the Federal craft was invariably enough to prevent the pirate from being able to catch the Blue Mallard and just as surely led to the destruction of the pirate craft.

After several days of continuous running battle, the Blue Mallard and one destroyer were left as they sped toward their destination, and were near to the planet when they were cut off by a huge black pirate craft. The black ship gave no warning, but fired a full spread of torpedoes which caught the poor destroyer in the center of her doomed hull, and detonated all of her engines in a bright nova of light and silent destruction.

The tiny freighter bored on. A wave of energy flooded over the shields of the freighter, which held. The third salvo rushed into the shields, and knocked them down, leaving the fragile freighter at the mercy of the huge pirate vessel.

As the ponderous battleship drew back and launches began to issue from her huge auxiliary bay, a tiny stream of small pink pellets was launched from the refuse tubes of the Blue Mallard. The pellets streaked towards the huge starship, and devoured the boarding craft like so many other small, insignificant toys, and tore into the spacecraft. As the pellets struck the ship, the material of the hull faded into nothingness. As the tiny pink pellets swarmed over the vanishing hulk, the passengers on the Blue Mallard quietly congratulated themselves on their strategic use of their secret weapon.

As the Blue Mallard bored serenely on to her destination, she left behind a scene that would give any military space commander the shakes. There was not a single scrap of debris left that could be recognized as either ship or crew left from the pirate craft.

Amid the fanfare of trumpets and the roll of drums, the passengers of the Blue Mallard stepped onto the dock of the starport's main landing pool, and staggered to the waiting car. The car took them to the hotel, and deposited them at the front entrance. Amid the cheering and yelling, they moved into the hotel and into their rooms.

Later, as they came out to make their speeches to the assembled crowds at GalaxyCon 29, they were most modest about the trip in, but one Pro was heard to say, "We didn't have any more problems than we thought we would, but I'd be careful leaving if I were you. There's eraser crumbs from Canopis to Proxima Centauri like you wouldn't believe," and then hiccuped.