Darkspace

by Richard Tongue

  “We don’t know that at all, Mike,” Rochford protested. “We’re talking about an alien race. We don’t know whether or not they think the way we do, whether they have the same comprehension of reality itself. For all we know this was a way of accelerating their demise, getting the war over with, win or lose. Or maybe there’s something else we need back here, this spear of stars, perhaps. The key might be waiting one system away, and there are still options we haven’t yet explored.” Folding his hands together, he added, “Another thing. Right now, we’ve evidently only had a fraction of their attention, a tiny one at that. Launching an invasion into their home space is going to make us even more of a threat than before. If they have any weapons yet to deploy, we’ll see them in a hurry.”

  “They have the power to destroy planets at will. I’m not sure how much worse their arsenal can get than that.” He paused, then added, “You’re right, and for the right reasons, and I agree with all of your arguments, and we’re still going ahead with the mission as planned, because there’s no time for anything else, no time to try any other plan, no time to gather more ships.” With a sigh, he added, “I’m willing to concede that there is every chance we will be destroyed the second we emerge through the other end of that wormhole out there. There could be a million warships waiting for us when we cross the galaxy. And I know we don’t have a plan worthy of the name, but there’s just no alternative left for us to try. It’s this, or we go down without a fight, and I’ll be damned if I do that.”

  With a resigned nod, Rochford said, “You’re in command, Admiral, and this is your decision. I wouldn’t be doing my job as your second-in-command if I didn’t make any objections of mine clear. You know I’m with you all the way, but this is one hell of a gamble. Probably the biggest in history. If this goes wrong…”

  “If this goes wrong, Clyde, then they can hold my court-martial in Hell.”

  Chapter 13

  It had taken overdoses of half a dozen medications to keep the bridge crew at their posts for the transfer, and even with all the planning the medical team could manage in the short notice they had, two of the technicians had been forced to run green-faced from the deck after Leonidas had completed entry interface. Novak sat at her post, behind Admiral Scott, monitoring the long-range sensors and checking over the ship status monitor. Most of the lights were dark, the positions temporarily abandoned and thrown over to automatic, waiting for the revival of the crew from their chemically-induced slumber. Somehow, she hadn’t found the transfer quite so bad the second time around, though she suspected she was in a minority with her opinion.

  “Sickbay to Bridge,” Nguyen’s voice barked. “We’re heading out now to begin injecting stimulants. It’s going to take the better part of an hour before the crew are back on their feet, Admiral, but you should have at least some of them at their posts in less than half that time.”

  “Do everything you can to expedite the process, Doctor,” Scott replied. “I need the crew up and alert.”

  “We’ll do all we can, sir. I’ve got five crewmen down here who suffered reactions severe enough that I want to give them a full check-up before I clear them for duty. One of them is still out cold, and he didn’t take any of my special pills.” He paused, then added, “Admiral, I’m not sanguine about doing that again. I know I promised you a week, but even that might be pushing things a little.”

  “Not much we can do about that now, Doctor. Go over your pharmacopeia again, see if there’s a combination of pills you can prescribe to ease the process. Somebody’s got to be in control up here on the bridge to navigate us out again. We can’t operate on automatic. Not under these circumstances. Keep me posted, Doctor.”

  “Will do, sir. Sickbay out.”

  “Two minutes to egress, Admiral,” Cunningham reported, as the helmsman reached for a glass of milky liquid, another prescription from the medics that had been consumed in quantity before and during transition. Scott nodded, then turned to Novak, still looking over her instruments.

  “Best guess on what we’ll find, Commander?”

  “Tough question, sir, but I’d expect that the enemy ship we spotted will have held position by the planet. There’s no chance that they could have moved quickly enough to reach us, even if there was a hidden wormhole somewhere out there. It’s more likely that they’ve called for help. I wouldn’t be surprised to find someone waiting for us, sir, or at least someone on their way. I’d recommend that we move as rapidly as possible once we arrive.”

  “I concur,” Scott said. “Helm, as soon as we arrive, set course for our target wormhole at maximum acceleration.” Scott looked ruefully at the status monitor, and added, “There’s not much point even attempting to go to battle stations with the crew in its current condition. Tactical…”

  “We transited ready for a single salvo, sir, but I won’t be able to maintain firing rate for any length of time until my gunnery crews return to their posts,” Silva warned, anticipating the commander’s question. “I think we can manage a distraction play, sir, buy some time, but that’s about all, Admiral.”

  “It’ll just have to do,” Scott replied. “How long, helm?”

  “Thirty-five seconds, sir. I’ve prepared a first-minute evasive course, just in case we do have some unexpected company waiting for us out there, and then a full-burn trajectory to our target wormhole. As far as I can work it, we should be through in a little less than two hours assuming we can hold to an optimum acceleration/deceleration profile.” Looking down at a side panel, he added, “Then one more wormhole after that.”

  “Do we have anything on the target system?”

  “Not yet, sir,” Novak replied. “We didn’t have enough time to conduct any sort of sensor sweep. I’ve ordered it as a priority target as soon as we emerge, so we ought to have at least something out of the systems in relatively short order.” Turning to the viewscreen, she added, “The science team has a list of three thousand potential targets, but I’ve made sure that the military targets are at the top of the list.”

  “Three thousand?” Rochford asked. “How did they manage that many? They only had half an hour!”

  “Apparently most of them are of long, long standing. More than a hundred are extragalactic.” She sighed, and said, “We’re only getting one chance to come out here. It might be ten thousand years before we make it this far out again, and the only exploration we’ll get to do is incidental. It’s just a damned shame, sir.”

  “I don’t disagree with you at all, Commander. Maybe when this is over, we’ll be able to get to some real exploration, push out the frontier and try and find some new friends, rather than just increasing our roster of enemies.”

  “Egress, sir!” Cunningham warned, as the ship dived through the far side of the wormhole, returning to normal space. The viewscreen snapped into life, the stars appearing on the display, strange and unfamiliar, the same blood-red that Novak had seen before, scant hours ago, on her first visit to this unknown region of space. Her hands moved across her controls, targeting the sensors according to the list of targets she had been issued, her first goal their target system, the stepping stone to take them to their final objective.

  “Threat warning!” Chen yelled. “Enemy ship, thirty thousand miles, on intercept course. Time to target is four minutes, ten seconds, Admiral, and she’s got weapons hot already!”

  “Prepare for counter-fire, Lieutenant,” Scott ordered. “Commander, focus all medium-range sensors on our new friend. You’ll have to let the automatics work their way through the checklist. If you can find any weakness, anything at all, we need to know about it right away. See if there are any differences from the ships we’ve encountered in the past. This close to home, they might have some special ships on patrol.”

  “Working, sir,” she replied, bringing the enemy ship into focus on her sensor monitor. Already she could see messages streaming up from those of the science team who had opted not to put themselves into safe unconsciousness for the passage, com
plaints that she was ignoring their instructions, their advice, but none of that mattered now. As much as she regretted it, this was a mission of war, not of exploration, and the survival of their ship was paramount.

  Data streamed in from her sensor feeds, the picture of the enemy ship building layer upon layer as she gathered more and more information, trying to match it with the ships she’d encountered far too often in the past. Superficially, it looked much the same, the dozen tendrils snaking their way into space, power building up at their tips as they prepared to unleash bolt after bolt of laser death in their direction, but there was something about the way it was moving, slower than normal, almost sluggish. The mass readings were, if anything, down. It didn’t seem to make any sense. A lighter ship should have been able to manage greater acceleration, but this ship was defying those particular expectations.

  Then, a smile crossed her face, and she looked up at the monitor again, the display now showing the web of stars that she had seen before, focused on what they had assumed was the enemy homeworld. She turned back to the display, bringing up the scientific database, calling up all the information they had on the potential manufacture of singularities. A significant, perhaps a majority of the mass of an Exterminator ship had to consist of the mysterious beast at its core, and if that was where it was obtaining its power, she had the answer to her question, and perhaps a way to beat through the enemy vessel.

  “I think I’ve got it, Admiral,” Novak said. “Both the difference and the weakness we might be able to exploit, but it’s going to take some extremely fancy flying on the part of Ensign Cunningham.”

  “You just tell me which part of the sky you want me to take you, ma’am,” the redoubtable helmsman said.

  “What have you got for me, Commander?” Scott asked.

  “That ship is new, sir. Probably right off the construction slipways, or whatever the Exterminators use. The black hole is new as well, and I don’t think that it’s up to normal power levels yet. It’s too small to produce all the radiation they’d normally use to power the ship, so they’re going to have to make some tough choices between acceleration and firepower. Right now, they’re choosing to maximize their firepower to finish us on the first pass, at a guess.”

  “Sounds plausible, Commander, but how does it help us?”

  “We play into their deception. Make them think that we haven’t spotted their weakness until the last possible moment. We set up as though we’re planning a normal attack run, then alter course at the last second, run the ship as hot as we possibly can with all power diverted to the engines, and race for the wormhole before they can stop us.” She paused, looked up at the screen, and added, “There’s a catch, sir, of course.”

  “And that is?”

  “If the ship is lighter,” Silva replied, before Novak could respond, “then all they have to do is change their mind, focus their limited power on acceleration rather than firepower, and they’ll be able to catch us before we can get out of the system. Or enter the wormhole right behind us, ready to continue the fight in our transit system.”

  “That’s about the size of it, sir. I said I had an answer, but I’ll admit it isn’t a great one.”

  “Nevertheless, it gets us through to the target,” Scott mused. “What do we have on the next system?”

  Hastily bringing up the new data, Novak said, “Red dwarf star, though fairly hot for its type, with nine planets orbiting, all of them small. No gas giants. All terrestrial or smaller bodies. Four of them are in the zone of habitability, but we haven’t got a big enough baseline of data to tell whether they might actually have life on them.” Looking up from the readouts, she added, “Frankly, sir, it’ll be faster for us to take a look for ourselves, rather than waiting for the computers to come up with what we need.”

  “Any sign of intelligent life?”

  Shaking her head, she replied, “We don’t have the resolution to tell, sir, but I’d have to say that seeing four worlds in the habitable zone looks suspiciously as though somebody decided to tinker with the system. It’s the sort of thing we’d do if we had powerful enough drive systems, and wanted to do some serious terraforming. Having said that, Admiral, it could just as easily be natural. The word ‘coincidence’ exists for a reason.”

  “Noted.” Scott frowned, then said, “We press on, and we buy time to come up with something else once we emerge from the wormhole. Do we have a good course projection for our next transition?”

  “Only a rough one, Admiral,” Cunningham warned. “I won’t be particularly precise.”

  “Good,” Chen said. “We might be able to fool them, decoy them away.”

  “I’d be extremely surprised if they fell for that, Lieutenant,” Scott said. “This close to their home system, there’s only one target worth going after, and they know exactly where it is.” Rubbing his forehead, he added, “Commander, input your recommended course to the helm. Tactical will fire their single shot wherever it will do the most good, but I want all power transferred from weapons to engines at the proper time. Clyde, ride herd on the power grid.”

  “Doing it,” Rochford replied, calling up the relevant controls to his terminal.

  “Two minutes to closest approach, sir. Enemy will be within firing range in thirty seconds.” Tapping a control, he added, “I’m using a modified version of one of my old evasive patterns. Close enough that they should recognize it, hopefully not so close that they manage to break through it.”

  Novak leaned over her console, periodically looking up at the sensor plot, trying to calculate a trajectory that would give them a safe margin of error, whilst still fooling the enemy ship. A few miles in the wrong direction, and her plan would fail, either taking them so deeply into the defenses of the Exterminator that they’d be unable to get clear in time, or too far away, giving the enemy time to react to her plan. Finally, with only a couple of seconds to spare, she tapped the control to commit the course to the computer, feeding it to the helm.

  The first familiar bolts of energy soared through the air, the enemy attempting to guide them on its preferred course, herding them into position to strike the final, deadly blow. Cunningham weaved the ship from side to side, a smile creeping across his face as he danced with the enemy gunner, dodging the bolts before they could be fired, his eyes darting from the trajectory plot to the power signature scanner as he attempted to predict his counterpart’s move.

  “Firing!” Silva said, and a short burst of noise ripped through the hull as the kinetic cannons fired a single shot, hurling debris towards the enemy in the hopes that it would at least distract them, the Exterminator vessel barely moving in response. The gunner threw a control, sending her power to the helm, and Cunningham reached down for the throttle, ready to throw the engines to maximum acceleration at the proper second. The timing had to be perfect, and the reactions of the enemy ship meant that it couldn’t be left to the computer. Only a seasoned veteran, his instincts honed from constant warfare, might be able to make the adjustments necessary to save the day.

  As the tendrils lanced around Leonidas, curls of energy racing through the sky, Cunningham threw the throttles full open, firing a final burst from his thrusters to put the ship on a new course, the engines roaring now as the ship sprinted towards its target. Red lights danced around the engineering monitors, warning of the overstress on the hull, and the superstructure began to creak alarmingly, the ship showing its age at last as it struggled to compensate for the overload.

  The enemy ship had been caught by surprise, tendrils hurling death in the wrong direction, far behind the fleeing cruiser. Novak permitted herself a smile as she looked at the trajectory track, seeing the Exterminator belatedly turn, attempting to place itself on a new interception course, one that could not possibly catch Leonidas before it left the system. They’d be entering the wormhole five minutes early, a margin that was tight, but better than she could have dared to hope.

  “Not bad,” Scott said, nodding in approval. “Not bad at a
ll. Keep the engines running hot for as long as you dare, helm. We can use every second of lead time we can muster.”

  “Aye, sir, but I don’t think she’ll take the load for much longer.”

  Nodding, Rochford added, “Amber lights on ten distribution conduits now, Admiral.”

  “At least we’ve shown them a clean pair of heels,” Silva added. “What do we do in the next system, when they catch up to us, sir?”

  “We’ve got a little over three hours to work that out, Lieutenant,” Scott said with a smile. “I guess we’d better get started.”

  Chapter 14

  Scott breathed a sigh of relief as Leonidas nimbly raced through the mouth of the wormhole, the Exterminator ship still a quarter million miles behind. Cunningham’s skill at the helm had bought them a few moments more, and when they emerged at the far end, they’d have the luxury of eight and a half minutes in normal space to decide what to do about the raging warship storming behind them, now with greater acceleration than his ship could ever muster.

  “Estimated transit time is fifty-five minutes, Admiral,” Cunningham reported.

  Nodding, Scott said, “Stand down from battle stations. Captain Rochford, I will want us brought back to full combat readiness in fifty minutes from now. Inform all hands that if they want a chance to grab a coffee or a bite to eat, this might be the last opportunity they have for a while. Our next transit point is halfway across the target system, at least a six-hour cruise, and I have the distinct feeling that we’re not going to be permitted easy passage.”