by Marko Kloos
“Three seconds. Two. One.” There’s a pause from the weapons officer, and then a sharp intake of breath. “That’s a miss. Orion Four failed to intercept.”
“The Lanky dodged at the last second,” Captain Steadman says with disbelief in his voice.
“Lankies don’t fucking dodge,” the XO says. “They can’t see the Orions coming. You can’t dodge what you can’t see.”
“Another aspect change on Lima-3, sir. They turned back toward port, ten degrees offset from their original trajectory, and positive twenty on the starting ecliptic. He’s definitely dodging, ma’am,” Steadman replies.
“He’s zigzagging,” Colonel Drake says in wonder. “We gave him a warning with that missed shot, and now he knows there are sharks in the water.”
“Johannesburg is asking if they are weapons free for a follow-up shot,” the comms officer says.
“We’re kissing up on minimum Orion range,” Lieutenant Lawrence warns.
“Goddammit.” Colonel Drake strides back to his chair and sits down. “Tell Jo’burg to hold their shot. No point wasting another Orion on a dodging target.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Give me Jo’burg on comms, please,” Colonel Drake says.
“Aye, sir. You are on.”
“Johannesburg, this is Washington Actual. We’ve missed our opportunity for a clean trap. This one is tap-dancing inside our minimum intercept range now.”
“Washington, Johannesburg Actual. That’s on us, unfortunately. We will be happy to take point for a close-range intercept.”
“Negative, Commander. Turn your ship around and shield the task force. We are going in for a knife fight. If they make it past us, you hold off the bogey while the battle group transitions out. And let’s not argue over who gets to take it on the nose right now. We are quickly running out of elbow room here.”
“Affirmative, Washington. We will come about and take up blocking position. Good luck.”
“Same to you, Commander. Washington out.”
Colonel Drake slips on his harness straps again and tightens them.
“Comms, lay in a direct intercept course for Lima-3,” he orders.
“Intercept course for bogey Lima-3, aye.”
“One gravity acceleration, nice and easy. Give us some margin on the closing rate. Light up the drive.”
“One gravity acceleration ahead, aye,” the helmsman acknowledges.
“Weapons, it’s all on you now,” Colonel Drake says to Lieutenant Lawrence. “It’s a head-on engagement, so you get one shot with the particle mount before we have to take evasive action. That’s a second and a half, Lawrence.”
“It’ll do, sir,” Lieutenant Lawrence says.
“I hope so. Because otherwise we’ll have a few million tons of seed ship coming through the forward bulkhead.”
“Lima-3 changed course again, sir,” Captain Steadman reports. “Now forty degrees south of the approach ecliptic, descending bearing. He’s mighty nimble for his size. I’m not sure we could do the same course changes if we had to.”
“Bobbing and weaving like a boxer,” Colonel Drake says. “Well, let’s get in there and trade blows. See who hits harder.”
“Ready on the particle mount, sir,” Lawrence says.
“Lock the system to auto-fire mode and hand the triggers to the fire-control computer.”
“Particle-cannon mount is now armed and live, sir.”
I haven’t moved in five minutes, and the air-conditioning in the CIC is working just fine, but I feel sweat trickling down my back between my shoulder blades. Washington and the seed ship are rushing headlong toward each other like two medieval knights in a joust. We are well inside the minimum range for the Orions now, and any missiles we fire will not have enough of an impact to break the hull of the Lanky ship. That leaves the particle cannon, which is powerful but short-ranged. With the sizes and speeds of the combatants involved, ten thousand kilometers isn’t a very long distance in ship-to-ship battles. Every time I’ve seen the footage of the two particle-mount kills we’ve achieved so far, it looked like the old gun-camera footage from World War II atmospheric fighters, where the firing craft is so close to its target that it takes up most of the windshield, and bits from the stricken target fly off and hit the pursuing plane.
I look over to Colonel Drake, who is checking the straps of his harness again to give his hands something to do, as if the tightness of the chair’s restraints will make even the slightest bit of difference if we collide with a three-kilometer-long seed ship head-on. But I know that in the face of mortal danger, we all have our little tics and rituals, our brains’ individualized ways of dealing with the stress of our possible impending death. I’ve run out of fasteners and latches to check, and now I’m reduced to watching the orange icon on the holographic orb.
“Lanky is changing course,” Captain Steadman says. “He’s turning to port again. Twenty degrees. Forty. Fifty. Seventy-five. Lima-3 is now on a perpendicular heading at twenty-five to positive twelve degrees. He’s still turning, sir.”
“How does he haul that much mass around this quickly?” Colonel Drake says.
On the other side of the tactical orb, Johannesburg has opened the gap as she’s burning her drive at full throttle to catch up with the battle group, increasing the distance between us with every refresh blip of the display.
“The Lanky just started to accelerate.” Captain Steadman looks from his screen to the holotable display and back. “He’s on a heading back to where he came from. I . . . I think he’s making a run for it, sir. We scared him off.”
“Oh, hell no.” Colonel Drake shakes his head. “That won’t do. If he gets away, there’s no telling what’s going to come down on our heads next. Can we catch up with him at flank speed?”
Steadman checks his screen again.
“He’s at two and a half g. We can catch him.”
“Helm, all ahead flank. Plot an intercept course that gets us within gun range as quickly as possible. There is no way we’re going to let this guy leave the neighborhood and call all his friends. Comms, inform the battle group that the remaining seed ship is trying to break contact, and that we intend to pursue and destroy.”
“Pursue a Lanky ship,” Lieutenant Colonel Campbell says with a dry smile. “I don’t think anyone’s ever put those words in that particular order.”
Washington has the higher acceleration rate, but the Lanky still has a head start, and for the next hour, the distance readout above the orange icon ticks down with agonizing slowness.
“We’re well past the drone picket now,” Captain Steadman warns as we reach the sixty-minute mark of our stern chase. “If there’s anything else out there, we may run right into it without warning.”
“Then we better take care of this customer and head back to the battle group,” Colonel Drake says. “But we’re committed now. For better or worse.”
“He’d pull away faster if he went in a straight line. But he’s still zigzagging.”
“I’m fine with him making our job easier. We can’t use the Orions at this range anyway. And I am not about to let him open the distance and then get away when he dodges the next volley,” the commander says.
“Seven minutes, thirty seconds to weapons range for the particle mount,” Lieutenant Lawrence says from the weapons station.
“Tell me we still have green lights on the mount.”
“That’s affirmative, sir.”
“Steady as she goes, then. At least the closure rate won’t be a problem,” Colonel Drake says.
The display is empty now except for the single orange icon that’s moving closer to the center of the tactical orb with every second. Ever since we first ran into the Lankies, a solitary Fleet ship would do everything in its power to get as far away as possible from a Lanky ship. It goes against every instinct to do the opposite and try to get closer, and it’s even more unnatural to see that seed ship run away from us.
We’re chasing a Lanky, I think.
At some point, the universe must have flipped itself upside down somehow when I wasn’t paying attention.
As we close the distance to the Lanky, it keeps changing its course randomly, altering its heading by ten degrees or more every time it does. On the tactical screen, the weapons officer has marked the range of the particle-cannon mount with a yellow cone that stretches out toward the seed ship.
“Target Lima-3 is in weapons range in thirty seconds,” Captain Steadman says. “Triggers are armed and under computer control.”
“Hold still, now,” the XO says to the orange icon on the display. “Just a few more moments.”
“He’s turning again. Forty degrees to port and negative thirty.”
“Helm, match the turn. Get those guns on target again. If he keeps jinking around like that, we’ll end up overshooting him before we can get the shot off,” Colonel Drake says.
On the holotable, the distance between the blue and orange icons suddenly decreases rapidly. The number marker next to the Lanky starts to spool down much faster than before, the numbers blinking in an unfriendly red.
“Lanky is decelerating rapidly,” Captain Steadman shouts. “He’s counter-burning. Really counter-burning, sir. Closure rate ten kilometers per second and increasing. Eleven seconds to collision.”
“Get those guns back on target, helm. Match the turn.”
We’ve been following the seed ship at full burn for almost an hour, and our forward velocity is much higher than that of the Lanky ship, which has decelerated so quickly that it looks like they threw out an anchor and caught a comet traveling in the opposite direction. I grip the armrests of my seat so hard that the alloy creaks under my hands. It seems the Lanky has figured out that he outweighs us by a factor of ten, and that he can squash us like a pesky bug on a windshield.
“Eight seconds to collision,” Steadman calls out.
“He’ll kill us with his debris,” the XO warns. “Helm, crash turn to port, forty-five degrees positive, emergency power. Now.”
The yellow cone marking the targeting envelope of the fixed particle-cannon mount swings rapidly away from the Lanky as Washington’s bow comes up and around in a last-second attempt to avoid the seed ship, which is still decelerating hard in what seems like a suicidal attempt to make us overshoot.
“Five seconds.”
“All hands, brace for impact,” Lieutenant Colonel Campbell shouts into the 1MC.
I close my eyes and breathe in slowly and deliberately, fully conscious of the fact that it may be the last thing I do in this life. I picture Halley’s face because I want her to be the last thought I have before my consciousness disappears.
“Come on, you sluggish pig,” Colonel Drake mutters. “Turn away.”
“Lima-3 passing astern in three seconds. Clearance will be less than a hundred meters.”
The sounds of the frantic activity in the CIC recede into the background as I exhale slowly, focusing on the sensation of the air streaming out of my mouth and past my lips.
A vibration shakes the ship from stern to bow, a rumbling jolt that is unlike anything I’ve ever felt under my feet in a spaceship. A dozen alarm sounds seem to go off all at once in the CIC.
That’s it, then, I think.
There’s a strange sensation rushing through me, a kind of lightness that feels as if the molecules in my body have become buoyant all at once for a second and then settled back down. A sour, electric sort of taste spreads on my tongue. A high-pitched whistling drowns out all the noises in the CIC around me, and when it fades after a few moments, all the sounds return muffled and dull as if I am suddenly underwater.
For a few heartbeats, I wait for the world to come to an end.
I can feel the sweat trickling down my back. I can smell the air in the CIC, now faintly tinged with ozone. Whatever just happened, I am not dead yet. If we collided with the seed ship, it was a glancing blow, not strong enough to pulverize the ship outright. But the metallic taste in my mouth is still there, and when I move my hand along the armrest of my chair, it generates a peculiar and unpleasant tingling sensation, as if the metal is slightly electrified.
I open my eyes again. The situational orb above the holotable has disappeared. I can hear people yelling and shouting orders, but it all sounds remote and distant. My display screens have gone out as well, and the status light in the control strip is blinking, indicating a system restart. A few seconds later, the screens come back to life, and the tactical orb in the command pit at the center of the CIC expands again, showing nothing at all except the reference grid. Everyone around me seems as dazed as I feel, like I just got woken up from a deep sleep by a comms request, and my brain hasn’t had time yet to adjust to conscious reality.
The sounds of my environment come rushing in again as the stuffed feeling in my ears fades away.
“What the hell just happened,” Colonel Drake says.
“Status report on damage control,” the XO orders in a breathless voice. She looks like she’s shaking off a heavy blow from a sparring partner.
“Damage panel is green, ma’am,” the damage control officer reports. “All compartments report integrity.”
“Something just hit us,” Lieutenant Colonel Campbell says. “We didn’t just trade paint with a seed ship without even popping a weld somewhere. Check the system circuit for integrity.”
“Get me a new target solution on the Lanky.” Colonel Drake is holding on to his armrests and shaking his head slowly. “Weapons, is the particle mount still online?”
“Negative, sir. The fire-control system is restarting. All weapons are off-line.”
“Same with sensors, sir,” Captain Steadman says from the tactical station. “We have no eyeballs on Lima-3. Propulsion is out, too. All eight fusion reactors are restarting from emergency shutdown.”
“Contact Nashville and tell them to give us an uplink. Restart our propulsion and bring the ship about. We just overshot that Lanky by fifty thousand klicks at least.”
“Sir, I have no reference data from the navigation system,” the helmsman reports. “I don’t know which way to turn the ship to bring us about.”
“You’re saying the whole navigation system is down?”
“No, sir. It’s just . . . it’s just not showing anything.”
“Astrogation,” Colonel Drake shouts. “Do you have a fix on our position?”
The astrogation officer shakes his head.
“Nothing at all on comms,” the communications officer says. “Not even static. Nashville is not answering.”
“What the fuck,” the XO says. She unbuckles her harness and launches herself out of her chair, then quickly steps down into the command pit. The situational orb still shows nothing at all, even though the sensor pulses are now refreshing the reference grid again once every other second.
She turns toward Colonel Drake.
“Sensors are active, but they can’t detect anything outside of the hull,” she says. “Comms are working but can’t hear anyone. Tactical, give me a visual of the outside. Optical feed, bow sensors, on the forward bulkhead, please.”
Captain Steadman complies, and a screen materializes on the forward bulkhead. Instead of the blackness of space interspersed with the pinpoint lights of distant stars, the optical sensors on the outside of the hull show a chaos of red and purple streaks, streaming past the optics like rushing rapids.
“We’re in Alcubierre,” I say. “Son of a bitch.”
“Not possible,” Captain Steadman says. “We never turned on our Alcubierre drive. And we’re nowhere near a transit node.”
The XO points at the imagery on the bulkhead screen in response.
“Major Grayson is right. Unless you’re pranking me with fake sensor footage, we’re inside an Alcubierre bubble. Which explains why our sensors and radios don’t work.”
I run my fingers along the top of my chair’s armrest again. The unpleasant tingling sensation is still there whenever my skin touches the bare metal.
; “She’s right,” I say. “Just feel it.”
“How the fuck can we be in Alcubierre?” Steadman asks. “That’s impossible.”
“The Lanky dragged us with him,” Captain Drake says. He looks from the bulkhead display to Lieutenant Colonel Campbell. “We’re inside the seed ship’s Alcubierre bubble. He slowed down for the transition to get away from us. That’s why we almost rear-ended him.”
“The Alcubierre field isn’t big enough to wrap around two ships at once,” Steadman insists.
“Ours isn’t,” the XO says. “Looks like theirs is, though. Unless you have another explanation for that.” She points at the viewscreen. “Could be that we all died, and this is just the Bifrost taking us all to Valhalla, maybe.”
“Reactors are back online, sir,” the engineering officer says into the moment of silence that follows.
“Belay the order on propulsion,” Colonel Drake says. “If we are in an Alcubierre bubble, we’ll tear ourselves into pieces if we try to maneuver. Everyone, man your stations and see what your status reports say. We need data right now, not best guesses.”
The CIC officers seem to be glad for something to do that falls into their area of expertise. All around me, people resume their tasks, and the stunned silence gives way to the sounds of regular operations again. I unbuckle my harness and get out of my seat for the first time in what seems like a day and a half. Lieutenant Colonel Campbell watches me as I walk up to the command pit guardrail and seize it with both hands.
“How are you doing, Major? You’ve had a bitch of a day so far. Looks like it’s not getting any better anytime soon.”
“Could have gone worse,” I say. “At least I’m still around to feel tired.”
“For now,” she says. “Day’s not over yet.”
“And I think it just took a hard turn toward Shitville,” I say in a low voice.
CHAPTER 21
ALONG FOR THE RIDE
“I don’t see how,” the astrogator, Lieutenant Cole, finally says when he reports in. “Our Alcubierre drive is cold. But I have to conclude that the XO is right. We can’t get a stellar fix, not even by doing the equivalent of sticking our heads out of the window. And we are in a total comms blackout. We should be able to triangulate on something, but we can’t. Everything looks like it does when we are in an Alcubierre bubble. Except for the fact that our drive isn’t running.”
