by Craig Allen
Cody pulled off his glove. An alarm sounded in his suit, but he shut it off. The air felt warm, just like the air inside the hopper. From what he could tell, the mining facility duplicated the air of the craft entering it.
He reached for the blue light again, and a three-dimensional image of the stars surrounded him. He could make out Kali’s star in the distance, the largest of the white dots on the three-dimensional display. The system was online. The blue and indigo lights would roll star maps back and forth, each one a snapshot of the stars for each time exotic matter was extracted from the facility. The green one below the other two was the one that actually mined degenerate quark matter. Cody passed his hand through the green light.
Nothing happened. The last time, the mining facility had given him almost two kilograms of ex-mat.
“Weird. It’s not doing anything.” Cody tried it again. “I wonder—”
The lights rushed forward before he could respond. The green light hovered in front of him, and according to the readouts on his suit, the blue and indigo lights were on either side of his head. They glowed brightly, but the brightness didn’t hurt his eyes.
“Cody!” Sonja clicked switches inside the hopper. “I’m putting us on autopilot. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“No, no, I’m okay.” Cody reached for the lights around him. “I’m not sure what’s—”
In his mind, he saw the giant teleportation ring orbiting Kali VIII. He then saw the exotic matter inside their ex-mat containers, each one housed within each section of the ring. The vision vanished just as quickly as it appeared, and the lights retreated to where they originally were.
“That was odd.” Cody blinked several times. “I’m okay, but I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“Cody, get back in here.” She had a tether on her suit. “To hell with our mission. I’m—”
A bright light appeared below Cody’s feet, one different from the other lights. It rose from the bottom of the shaft, passed through the three-light control system, and stopped just in front of Cody, where it sat motionless in the zero gravity.
“I think it gave us the first batch of ex-mat.” Cody reached for it.
His hand wrapped around the tiny ball of material. The last time they had found ex-mat in the mine, it had given it to them in a tiny ball about the size of a marble that weighed just under two kilograms. In reality, that much degenerate quark matter would be microscopic in size. What he felt seemed like the same size as before, but when he tugged at it, it didn’t budge.
“That’s strange.” Cody tugged again but ended up just pulling himself closer to the sphere. “This one is more massive.”
“Hang on to it if you can,” Sonja said. “I’m going to retract your tether.”
Cody slipped on his glove, which connected with his suit automatically. He gripped the tiny sphere with both hands then gave Sonja the okay.
The suit actuators in his arms and hands locked in place as the tether pulled at Cody. After a brief strain, the sphere moved toward them. Even without gravity, all objects retained mass.
Cody’s feet touched the ramp, and the gravity caught hold. At the last moment, he released his grip on the sphere. It crashed to the deck with a loud clank, causing the deck plates to shiver briefly.
“I’m reading fifty kilograms,” Sonja said. “That’s over twenty-five times what it gave us last time.”
“Just the amount we need,” Cody said. “It knows what we’re using it for. When the lights were hovering near my head, I had an image of the ring facility.”
“Christ, it can read minds?” She stepped out of the cockpit. “Let’s try to secure that thing.”
Sonja tried to pry at the tiny sphere with her gloves. Cody helped, and they managed to roll it farther into the hangar bay.
“Closing hatch.” Sonja activated the controls at the rear of the hopper. “That was easy. I thought we’d have to get a few dozen little pellets instead of one big one. Come to think of it, it isn’t that much bigger.”
“Degenerate quark matter is so dense we can’t tell a difference in diameter when we measure it in kilograms.” Cody rolled it into a corner of the hopper near some straps. “If a cubic centimeter is a billion tons, then a few kilograms is going to be a lot smaller.”
“Good point.” She headed back up to the cockpit. “Time to head back.”
Cody pulled loading straps from a compartment under the seats and tied off the ex-mat. The straps tightened automatically, signaling the HUD in his space suit that they had, somehow, secured a fifty-kilogram package the size of a marble.
Sonja was strapping herself in when Cody dropped into the co-pilot’s seat. She checked the holocontrols. “I wonder why it didn’t give us more before.”
“Because we weren’t thinking about how much ex-mat we needed, or even thinking about ex-mat at all.” Cody looked around them. “You know, I think this facility is intelligent.”
“Like we are?” She frowned. “And it’s stuck down here.”
“I’m sure it’s programmed not to mind,” Cody said. “And it may be intelligent but not self-aware. Who can say?”
She activated the comm. “Banshee One Eight to Odin. We have the cargo. We are en route. ETA, six hours.”
If the Odin was near the top of the zero-g corridor, getting a response would take about fifteen minutes. Sonja turned off the autopilot and inched the hopper forward on station-keeping thrusters. When they passed the purple barrier, she kicked in the main drive and slowly accelerated to maximum.
“It’s all crazy,” Sonja said. “Ancient technology, buzzards looking for a new home, moving a planet from one place to another.”
“I bet you didn’t think you were going to do that when you signed up.”
“No, I didn’t.” She smiled wryly. “I thought I was just going to kill Spicans, but now that the war is over, I don’t even want to do that anymore. I just want…” She turned and stared at Cody.
He gripped her hand. “I want that too.”
The surface of the neutron star fell away behind them, and open space spread out before them, distorted by the massive gravity of the star. Cody leaned back in his seat and waited patiently. The trip back would be quiet. The real question was what would happen at the end of the zero-g tube.
Fifteen minutes later, Cody checked the comm. “Odin hasn’t responded yet.”
“Yeah, that’s odd.” She activated the comm. “Banshee One Eight to Odin. Did you receive our last transmission?”
Another fifteen minutes passed, and by that point, they should’ve received a response a little sooner.
“Still no response.” Sonja frowned as she did a diagnostic. “Our systems are fine.”
“Maybe the Spican ship is blocking the signal?” Cody asked. “But I’d think they’d relay it.”
“I hope it’s just that Spican ship’s big ass in the way.” Sonja gripped the controls tightly. “God, I hope so.”
~~~
Hours passed, and the whole time, Cody struggled to remain calm while Sonja gripped the stick. They had reversed their momentum hours earlier and were nearly at the top of the zero-g column. Above, they saw the Spican vessel, still sitting where she had been previously.
“What’s going on up there?” Cody asked. “I’d think the Spicans would know better than to not relay a signal from us.”
“It did go straight up away from the star,” Sonja said.
“True, and outside the zero-g tube, the star’s gravity would pull at the signal wavelength until it was below reception range.” Cody frowned. “What’s—”
He picked up readings on gravimetrics. In the distance, several grav engines came online, maneuvered, then went offline again.
“Shit.” Sonja pulled up lidar on the HUD. “Look at this.”
Lines traced along the HUD toward the Spican cruiser. Where the lines touched, armor plating fell away.
“Grasers.” She pulled up weapon systems. “I’m not seeing the Odin.”
“She might be on the other side of the Spican ship.” Cody pulled up the navigation controls. “I’m going to punch in coordinates for the Kali system. Just in case.”
“Good idea.” Sonja’s voice started to shake. “This is why I didn’t want you along.”
“I’ve been through this before,” he said. “We both have.”
“Yeah, but that was…” She shook her head. “Let’s just… Wait a second. What are they doing?”
A group of three ships approached the star at an angle almost parallel to the zero-g tube. They accelerated together, as if connected. Cody painted them with lidar and zoomed in as far as the HUD could manage. Three battle cruisers of the old Kali design were carrying a giant black sphere between them. It was at least a hundred meters in diameter and nearly perfect in shape. The cruisers positioned themselves eight million kilometers over the neutron star.
The comm came online. “Banshee One Eight, do you read?”
Sonja let her breath out. “Odin, we read you.”
“Be advised, Banshee One Eight.” The voice sounded like Johnson’s. “We got a visit from toads, and they’re keeping us busy. Looks like it’s a distraction for something else.”
“Understood, Odin,” Sonja said. “Could it have anything to do with that giant ball carried by three Kali vessels?”
Silence on the other end was followed by distant chatter.
Someone in the background said, “Oh shit.”
~~~
Gaston sat as calmly as he could, taking in the massive amount of information displayed on the hologlobe and the torrent of shouts from his officers.
“Kali Two is trying to come up on our anterior.” The sensor operator’s voice was getting hoarse. “Zero zero five by two six zero. Ten thousand klicks.”
Every toad ship was an identical copy of the old battle cruiser, the UEAF Kali, so they had taken to giving each ship a number. Gaston wanted to launch a torpedo barrage, but ten thousand klicks was too close for torpedoes.
“Take us to zero one four by two four five,” Gaston said. “When you have a solution on grasers three and four, fire.”
For such a big ship, the Odin spun around pretty quickly. Gaston was even more impressed when fire control had a solution in a few seconds. The hologlobe traced the grasers to their mark. Kali Two then detonated, leaving only debris behind.
“Nice shot,” Gaston said. “Now what the hell is that giant cue ball doing?”
The hologlobe focused on the three Kali ships carrying the large sphere. They hovered over the neutron star, far enough away to not get caught in the damn thing’s gravity and nowhere near a threat to the Spican ship or the Odin.
Whatever they were up to, Gaston didn’t like it. “Do we have a shot at it?”
“Only with torpedoes,” his weapons officer said. “But they’re far enough away they’ll probably knock them down.”
“Angle us toward that thing and get me a firing solution. And hail the Spicans.”
The comm chimed, and the Spicans spoke before Gaston could get a word out. “The unusual sphere is not a threat to you or us but is concerning.”
No shit. Gaston checked the hologlobe. The Odin wouldn’t be in range for a half a minute or more. “Can you take down that globe?”
“We will do what we can, but we will have to leave the mine undefended.”
The big bulk of the Spican ship moved away from the top of the zero-g corridor. It drifted toward the triad of Kali ships, her torpedo tubes angling toward them.
The Odin’s and the Spican’s torpedoes launched just as the orb began to glow. Seconds later, a beam of energy burst forth and made contact with the neutron star. The surface quivered, as if an invisible hand were squeezing it.
“The hell?” Gaston was about to contact the Spicans when they spoke over the comm.
“Something is happening to the star, and we are moving away. We advise you do the same.”
Gaston started to give the order to veer off but noticed something in the zero-g tube. The hopper was still climbing out of the corridor even as the neutron star below them grew smaller.
~~~
Cody stared at the star on the hopper’s visual. He could’ve sworn it was shrinking, which made no sense. Neutron stars were about as dense as possible, but the beam of energy from the globe had destabilized the surface somehow.
And he knew why.
“Get us out of here,” Cody said. “The star is collapsing.”
Sonja pushed the throttle forward. “I’m taking us to one hundred twenty percent on the reactor. What’s going on? What’s it collapsing into?”
“The only thing it can.”
On the visual, the gray patterns vanished, and the star shrank even more. Cody knew the star wasn’t actually shrinking, at least not as much as what he was seeing. The shrinking effect was merely an illusion caused by gravitational lensing. The gravitational pull of the star was beyond what was measurable. Soon, any object below the event horizon would be lost forever, even if accelerating at the speed of light.
The hopper’s HUD flashed a message: Warning! Singularity in Range.
“Oh shit.” Sonja searched for more power. “We’re still in zero gravity. Two minutes to the top of the tube.”
“The tube won’t last,” Cody said. “I strongly doubt even Antediluvian technology can survive the surface of a black hole. The time dilation from the gravity alone would make it impossible to react to anything in normal space.”
“Well, with luck we’ll—”
A shower of sparks erupted behind them. In the hopper bay, a fire had started.
“Just great.” Sonja pointed at the HUD. “The reactor’s taking a toll. Our acceleration has dropped. We’re at eighty percent of our previous acceleration.”
“Can we fix it?”
“Trying.”
Red lights flashed across the HUD.
“I don’t have access to backup systems,” she said. “I’m not sure what—”
The hopper rocked again. Warning lights flashed, and the HUD highlighted incoming torpedoes. Most went off course, diving into the star itself due to the increase in gravity. The HUD indicated that two had detonated behind them.
“Battle damage,” Sonja said. “Just what we need.”
Cody stared at the fire as the fire-suppression system sprayed fire-retardant foam over the flames, putting it out in seconds. “What do we do?”
“There’s a breaker back there.” She pointed a thumb over her shoulder. “Port side, under the rearmost seat. Throw it, and it’ll activate secondary systems. I can’t access it from here anymore. You’ll have to do it.”
“On it.” Cody unlocked his straps and jumped out of his seat, hoping they’d get clear before the hopper was pulled down into the star.
~~~
Gaston gave swift orders to track the second volley of torpedoes inbound on the hopper. The three Kali ships had launched every torpedo they had right before the Spican torpedoes obliterated theirs. But the Odin was nowhere near the hopper. Thus, they were too far for point-defense grasers to track and destroy the torpedoes. The larger grasers might help, but they still had to get closer.
The Spican vessel adjusted course again, firing its own grasers at the torpedoes. Fortunately, most of the projectiles were being pulled in by the neutron star, which was nearly gone. In its place was a black circle with a distorted white outline.
“Sir!” the sensor officer shouted. “The zero-g tube is no longer present.”
Gaston stalked toward the viewing globe, staring at the thing that used to be a neutron star and the small dot representing Banshee One Eight. “Can the hopper make it out of the gravity well?”
“Unknown.” The sensor officer stared at his board. “They seem to be slowing down. I think they suffered damage from one of the torpedoes.”
“Get us in there,” Gaston said. “Activate grapples. Maybe we can grab her before she sinks into the star.”
But with their angle o
f approach, he didn’t think they could get to the hopper in time. If the hopper was going to escape, it would have to do it on its own.
~~~
Sonja did her best to hide her panic as Cody fiddled with the panel in the hopper’s bay and they continued to lose forward momentum. Finally, he pried the thing loose.
“Got it!” he shouted. “There’s one big switch.”
“That’s it. Pull it ninety degrees clockwise.”
“Pulling.”
Sonja kept the throttle forward. Their thrust hadn’t dropped, but their forward momentum had. She could feel the hopper shimmy. She’d felt it ever since the zero-g tube had dropped—they were slowing. The gravity of the star—or the singularity, rather—had a hold of them. She did some quick calculations. If they regained power within the next thirty seconds, they’d make it. Probably.
The secondary systems came online. “There we go. Feeding power to the main drive. Cody, get back up here.”
Sonja kept the reactor at one hundred twenty percent. Feeding that much hydrogen into the plasma field wasn’t the best idea. It could handle it for brief periods of time. Engineers usually underestimated safety limits to cover their asses, but running hot on a reactor in the long term was a risk.
The hopper rocked again, and Sonja grimaced. “Shit. Cody, another torpedo went off. No damage to engines, but…”
Sonja stared at the red lettering in front of her: Grav Plates Down. A cross section of the hopper appeared, showing the damaged areas. All artificial gravity in the rear half of the hopper’s bay was offline… where Cody was.
Her hands shook. She couldn’t peel her eyes off the warning message. The hopper was accelerating at hundreds of times the force of gravity. Without the artificial gravity, the force of that acceleration would turn a human being into jelly. Bones would turn to powder, and even skin would be destroyed.
She could let up on the throttle, but she was already too late. The damage done to Cody would have been instantaneous. Furthermore, throttling down would mean they, or she, would fall back into the newly formed singularity.
