by T J Bryan
Rozel was intensely concentrating on his station status. "It looks like twenty meters or so."
Silvi spoke if only to herself, "Twenty meters. Can't be much armor on that connecting column." She turned again to Arast. "If we get the opportunity to fire 'K's, or when we get our shot, lets focus on that connecting section between the two spheres. It's probably well armored, but it cannot be as armored as the spheres. I suspect that is the weak point of its' design. Even damaging that column might result in a loss of control or increased reaction time."
Arast nodded. "Mr. Jónsson, when we fire 'K's let us target that column connecting the two spheres."
"Aye, aye. Sir," replied Megan Jónsson.
Megan's fingers ran over her weapons station. "H1 will be visible in 90 seconds. At this distance we should fire our first volley in 78 seconds and counting. The casters will reach H1 just as she rounds that asteroid."
"Very well Mr. Jónsson. You may fire when ready," said the captain
With systems so highly automated the release of the sand casters was programmed on auto fire, but the tension on the ship was intense. As they prepared to fire the vid screen revealed the heavily damaged Kára. Kára had been hit and breached on her starboard side and she was no longer venting. That would mean that the ship had been vacd and that the crew was on rebreathers and perhaps vac suits. One of the damaged engines was spilling plasma which tended to shove the Kára to starboard. Silvi remembered Hamilton's pilot Tom Baxter. He must be having one hell of a time maintaining their heading.
As Silvi watched Kára on vid she felt the deck shudder as all 24 tubes fired their first volley in an five second sequence between shots. Immediately on the vid screen 24 slightly separated red dots appeared streaking toward where H1 would appear in a few seconds and past Kara. Another four appeared as well, shot from Sigrún. Sigrún had pulled away from Ragnarök by more than 50,000 kilometres in order to present less of a target to H1's antimatter torpedoes.
Sand casters were fast. Very fast. And within six seconds of firing they reached 60% of SOL and then four seconds later 28 sand casters sequentially discharged their load. A second later an anti-matter torpedo exploded. The explosion was only 70,000 kilometres from H1. As Silvi looked she could see H1 stagger and then recover and continue on. Eight seconds later another round of casters impacted on a second torpedo at about the same distance from H1. Again the ship seemed to stagger. A few seconds later four casters from Sigrún hit the lower dumbbell unopposed. That will certainly scrub their bottom thought Silvi. Still H1 came on.
Silvi watched as a third volley of sequential casters left Ragnarök's 24 tubes. She saw Kara turn hard. Some piloting Silvi thought and on one engine and one streaming plasma. The SAR Kara fired four 'Ks'. The 'K's followed behind the last volley of casters fired by Ragnarök and although the casters were far, far faster than the 'K's, as the casters destroyed yet another anti-matter torpedo, the 'K's sailed through the plasma field left by the explosion and hit H1. Two impacted on what Silvi called the 'bottom' sphere or the engine compartment and one hit hard on the connecting column. The fourth detonated on a proximity fuse rather than on direct contact, but its' explosions made H1 stagger again.
The distance between Ragnarök, Sigrún, and H1 was rapidly closing. Sand casters needed at least 50,000 kilometres to reach speed and soon they would be ineffective. Everything would soon depend on 'K's.
In moments Silvi knew they would enter the kill zone of those torpedoes and while 'K's were effective in defence against a torpedo their kill ratio was not favourable.
Captain Arast called out. "Now Megan. Give them every 'K' we have."
Seconds later the deck rocked again as 24 multi gigaton fusion warheads leapt from Ragnarök's tubes in a full volley and sped toward H1. On vid Silvi could see H1 launch yet another torpedo but it was even slower than the 'K's and soon detonated taking most of Ragnarök's volley with it, but again Kara fired four and seconds later Sigrún fired four more. All eight impacted on H1. One on the head of the ship, three on the bottom, and four on the column connecting the two. Moments later the column separated and the two spheres became detached.
Captain Arast called out to Kára on her comms. " Kára we will come along side to pick up your crew."
There was no reply from Kára.
Chapter Sixty Eight
Cranmore System - Mist - Year 3246. November 13: 06:19
Mist arrived at Cranmore and found the dead system unchanged. Crossing the system to the New Holland entry portal took two days as the Mist, as always, took a less direct route in case of detection. Ten days later they entered the New Holland System.
New Holland was an unusual system in that it had a trinary gathering of three white dwarf suns, suspended in an intense field of gas and dust, as well as six gas giants on highly distorted elliptical orbits. Although the distance to the entry portal to Osaka System was not far, any ship traversing New Holland had to proceed at a slow speed through the gas and dust. Enormous electrical discharges were common in the cloud, and although Mist could handle electrical strikes of the magnitude found in the system, the electromagnetic radiation played havoc with the instruments and scanning gear. Guidance weapons such as 'K's could be made useless in these intense electrical storms. Mist lingered for two days to make sure they were alone before proceeding through the cloud.
Eight days later they were at the portal to Osaka. Osaka was a dead system with only the remnants of a nova resulting from the collision of a white dwarf and a red giant from galactic history. The system still had a slight glow from ejecta now light years away from its' core, but other than a magnificent view, the system had nothing to offer. Five days later they entered Dong Son.
The EG offered little information on Dong Son, other than it might lead to knot lines terminating in Hitti space. The entry in the EG for Dong Son was almost as long as the entry about the Hitti themselves. Farn carefully read and re-read the Hitti description. The Hitti were a very old civilization and had ruled a vast arm of the galaxy for well over six thousand years. However about the time of the human diaspora three thousand years ago, the Hitti declined and their empire seemed to begin to collapse. The EG flatly stated that no cause for the decline was known, but that internal discord was suspected based on very little evidence. The most detail in the EG concerning the Hitti was their unusual trading practices of leaving a pile of trade goods on an empty platform and expecting you to do the same. They would not trade directly and when they did trade their selection of goods you put on offer was chaotic or unfathomable. Trade with Hitti had only been conducted a dozen times over two hundred years before the Great War and well after Hitti was in decline.
Hitti biology was also an unknown. What the EG revealed was information obtained by autopsy of a destroyed Hitti ship found abandoned at Osaka. The ship had been rectangular with a cone shaped nose and it contained sixteen Hitti designed fusion engines. The Hitti ship was badly battle scared and had clearly been destroyed in battle. Hitti bodies were found in the wreckage. But the bodies were badly desiccated and burned from the explosion. The Hitti were bi-pedal but not symmetrical. In other words they stood on two feet, but the feet were not the same. One was more of a pod or stool, and the other thin and useful for grasping and reaching. There were two arms or arm like appendages. One of which was segmented and extremely flexible, and the other short and fixed. The head was large and oval in shape with two eyes, each of different sizes. The head sat atop a thick torso that seemed covered in hard chitinous plates about the size of a child's hand. The EG had no more to say and the brief article ended with a caution from the editors that much they had written was speculation. Informed speculation, but speculation none the less.
As Mist entered Dong Son, Farn held the ship back and remained close to the entry portal. Her intent was only to survey the system and then leave via the exit portal that lead to Gatecliff and then on to Pope Leo XXI and an eventual return to Cranmore. The question in Farn's mind was had the Hitti retu
rned to human space? And if they had returned was it only to visit and explore or something more permanent. All Farn was looking for was any remnant of Hitti passage or occupation of Dong Song. What surprised her was the ordinary-ness of the Dong Son system. A simple yellow dwarf star surrounded by eight planets, two of which were almost in the 'goldilocks' zone, but one was a little to hot, and the other a little two cold and very dry. If human kind had not fallen in the Great War, the Dong Son system would have proven attractive for terraforming since all that was needed to transform the outer planet was well understood and manageable by terraformers. However the Great War simply put a stop to all human expansion in space.
Farn chose to linger in stealth and simply drift in system for almost six days during which she scanned and surveyed the system in as passive a mode as she could. They saw nothing unusual or even of much interest. After the sixth day Farn ordered Mist to close in on the exit portal which was believed to lead to Hitti space. Farn intended to measure any backwash emanating from the portal. Nomi had described the backwash in several ways but two occurred to Farn. A slight backwash from the terminating system was always present but most faint. But a portal that saw active use had a much stronger backwash signature and in this case the signature was very strong. It was clear that the portal was in active use. Dong Son had a two way street or dual portals; one exiting perhaps to Hitti space and one for entering from Hitti Space. The entry portal to Dong Son was known to be used by the ancient Hitti. The exit portal was open to question.
After measuring the backwash at the exit portal Farn moved the ship closer to the known entry portal to Dong Son from Hitti. They knew where the entry point was located, but they also knew that the portal on this side of the tunnel simply did not exist. But upon close scan of the area around the non-existent portal entry an object was discovered. It was a beacon of some kind and it was active. As Mist hit the beacon with an 'M' wave scanner, the beacon replied with a similar scan. Farn decided that she had learned enough and began to move Mist toward the exit portal eighteen hours away that led to Gatecliff and then on to Pope Leo and Cranmore.
They were two hours from the exit portal that led to Gatecliff when Molly Mots first on defence called out.
"We have an entry from Hitti. Just came through the portal. It's at quite a distance but the energy signature is definitely Hitti."
Farn, who had been standing, sat in her Captain's chair. "Give me a full scan on that ship. If that beacon is theirs they will know we are in system. Stealth is of no use at this point."
Moments later the vid screen sprang to life with a highly magnified and slightly distorted view of a 'Dumbbell' shaped ship. Farn recognized the shape and configuration from their brief trip to the Poly System. Farn remembered as well that the dumbbell ship at Poly had been peaceful as all the other ships gathered around the polyhedron had been. The peaceful motivation at the Poly anti-matter fuelling station had been obvious. Any conflict there might well result in a catastrophic system wide explosion as anti-matter and matter extinguished themselves and the amount of anti-matter stored at Poly was probably immense. More than enough to wipe out every ship within a light hour. Farn knew that to assume the dumbbell ship was peaceful was not warranted. Neither was assuming it was hostile.
"Take us a bit closer to our exit portal to Gatecliff. We are about as close to that thing as I want to be. Lets just hang out there and watch."
"Captain. I have an update of our scan of that ship," said Molly.
Farn nodded her head and Molly continued. "That thing has Hitti designed engines That's for sure from the signature, but they are very dirty. I'd hate to be standing within a half kilometre of that thing. You would be all toasty warm for about an hour and then all toast. There is nothing in our database about Hitti ships being so dirty. So it may be of Hitti design, but if it's the Hitti I cannot tell."
Moments later Molly labelled the ship H1, but as the vid screen displayed the label another ship entered from the portal. "I have another one of those ships. Just like the first. Hitti designed engines and very dirty."
"Where are they headed?" asked Farn.
Molly's fingers raced over her keyboard and control. "Directly toward us. Or at least toward the exit portal to Gatecliff. I'm unsure if they are interested in the Mist or they are simply passing through to Gatecliff and beyond."
Farn thought a moment. Gatecliff had only one exit and that was to Pope Leo. From Pope Leo a ship could jump a knot line through Cranmore and on to the mysterious Iceman System where there were Hitti installed energy sources. However on Iceman the Hitti engines which powered some kind of undersea facility were clean. The dumbbell ships had dirty engines. Farn wondered why there would be a difference given the cost of design and manufacturing of any fusion engine. To have two different designs made little economic or manufacturing sense.
"All right," Farn said. "Pilot Paris take us through the portal to Gatecliff. When we arrive, assuming all is quiet, I want our best speed to the entry to Pope Leo. Then we linger at the gate to see if we are followed. At Pope Leo Mr. Schmidt I need a plot to take us to Cranmore where we will simply watch some more."
Tunnel time to Gatecliff was six days and Mist's arrival was uneventful but tense. Clearly Farn believed she was either being followed or headed in the same direction as the dumbbells. Gatecliff was a simple system with one dim yellow dwarf and three small dead planets. Travel time across the system to the Pope Leo portal was two days. Upon arrival Mist positioned itself just outside the Pope Leo entry portal and waited. 34 hours later the first dumbbell ship arrived and Farn waited only as long as she needed to determine that the dumbbell was headed to the Pope Leo portal. Then she entered the tunnel and ten days later arrived back at Pope Leo XXI.
Transit time across Pope Leo was three days to the Cranmore entry portal and Farn immediately set out for the portal only to wait upon arriving. 40 hours later the first dumbbell ship arrived at Pope Leo. Farn decided once again to only wait as long as needed to determine that the dumbbells were headed to Cranmore, but to her surprise the two ships took up orbit around Pope Leo's dead and probably contaminated planet. The EG was clear that the planet was to be avoided as the human population had been wiped out before the Great War by famine, pestilence or biological contamination. The EG stated in no uncertain terms that the planet was to be avoided.
Farn decided to edge inward toward the planet and the two orbiting dumbbells in order to understand what they were up to. Again to Farn's surprise the scan revealed heavy lifters descending to the planet from one of the two ships. The other ship seemed to be approaching one of the two abandoned orbital stations above the planet.
Molly Motts called out, "We are being scanned. 'M' wave scanner."
Farn had assumed that the dumbbells had known Mist's whereabouts and direction since they entered Dong Son, but the scan only confirmed her assumption.
Molly continued, "One of the dumbbells, I have labelled B1, has launched what looks like a probe. It seems to have an active scanning array. It will take 29 hours at its' present speed to get within 500,000 kilometres."
Farn responded, "Any closer than that and we knock it down. I want nothing from those dumbbells within 500,000 kilometres. I have no intention of being surprised by a stealth anti-mater weapon."
Farn thought to herself how she wished she had probes to hurl back at the dumbbells. There was so much she wanted to know, but she needed to exercise caution and keep her distance.
As the hours passed Farn considered her options. She could stay put and perhaps eliminate the probe before it came to close, or she could approach B1 and B2 and hail them and attempt to establish contact. Or she could pay attention to Abel's admonition and that said to her it would be best to run. Run home.
After 36 hours and the probe only 600,000 kilometres away Farn decided that the Pope Leo system had nothing to offer and that the two dumbbells were best left alone. What they wanted from Pope Leo would remain a mystery at least for now. And now was
the time to return to the Commonwealth.
"Astrogator Schmidtt give us a plot for home."
Nineteen days later they entered Girots and found the Spikey tending his nest and uninterested in their passing to Nelots and home. 16 days later Mist pulled up to the Old Mining Dock of the Habitat.
Also docked at the Habitat Farn could see the Destructor Ragnarök, and the SARs Sigrún and Brynhildr. Conspicuous in its' absence was Kára.
Chapter Sixty Nine
Jamon System - Nolo's Diner - Year 3247. January 15 ET: 16:32
Abel, Silvi, and Farn sat in wobbly wrought iron chairs facing the worn formica table top at Nolo's diner drinking coffee and tea. Milli was standing nearby proud to have such a distinguished set of OCN officers in her diner. A number of patrons lingered longer than usual probably to simply enjoy the opportunity to be in the presence of the most famous of the OCN captains.
Upon arrival OCN ships and crews were interviewed by Stephen Klein and updates were broadcast on the mid-day news. Stephen would read the official dispatches and summaries of OCN actions including descriptions of far off worlds, alien encounters, and deadly combat. The Commonwealth was an open system and free speech was a proud tradition, however as each crewmember discussed with Stephen his personal exploits, adding a little excitement here, and a bit of bravado there, the actions of the OCN took on the heroic. Abel was unhappy with these small individual exaggerations that collectively made the OCN sound invincible in the face of monsters wielding horror weapons, but there was nothing he could do about it. And even if Abel could do something he would not. The Commonwealth was a free society and there would be no censorship. Abel knew that the Commonwealth in its isolation made secrecy unnecessary. There were no pirates, Hitti, or Dumbbells lurking about and spying within the Habitat.
Farn's arrival had triggered an entire day and a half review of her actions on the Recovery and Survey effort. Farn found it exhausting and was glad to have Silvi attend for support. The review had gone well and Abel had praised Farn for emphasizing 'survey' over 'recovery' at this juncture in the development of the OCN. Further Abel found her actions at Himmer commendable by resolving the war with as little violence as possible. Leaving a copy of the EG he thought was in full compliance with his directive to return knowledge to The Dark. Other concerns with Farn's decisions he left unsaid. Farn needed seasoning and now was not the time for small course corrections.
