Spinward Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins

by Randolph Lalonde

  “How is it?”

  “I haven't tried it. This is the first pitcher,” he said as he handed me a glass. “They're not serving any until after we've carried out our orders.”

  I tried a sip. It was bitter, rich, and I was surprised. Even what they called ale in most places was sweet, almost every popular beverage was sweet. I tried a bit more and smiled. “It's almost just like the traditional stuff they serve on Freeground if you're willing to pay for it.”

  “Only stronger, darker,” Oz said after finishing a gulp. “What do you think?”

  “I like it. I think I could get used to it.”

  “Too bad Minh and Jason aren't here.”

  “Minh is off fine tuning the fighters and briefing his pilots. Jason's probably with Laura somewhere.”

  “Where's Ayan? I'm surprised she only stayed for an hour.”

  “She's in engineering doing fine tuning. I think we've managed to shake out any of the bugs left over from the refit.”

  “Good, from the looks of things we'll need to be in good shape.”

  “I think we will be, but even if this station only has the defences Freeground built into her decades ago, the odds aren't in our favour.”

  “With friends like Captain Wheeler, I sometimes wonder if the odds wouldn't be better if we were alone,” Oz pondered aloud, gesturing out the window to empty space. The Triton had cloaked after doing some work on her hull, so there was nothing to see.

  “I think we're both taking too much at face value there,” I took a drink from my pint. The flavour was growing on me. “It's true that they didn't contribute as much to the strategy we'll be using on this attack, but what they did add was very clear and useful. Their advice spoke volumes about their experience.”

  “I've been thinking about what we saw at the pod. Wheeler's people were using crowbars and torches, I still can't believe it. Most standard escape pods require serious tools to break into if anyone inside locks it down.”

  “It must have been a show. He wants us to underestimate him.”

  “That's a dangerous thought. The Triton is loaded with weaponry but our scans tell us that most of it has been inactive for decades. I don't think he's about to start anything ship-to-ship.”

  I laughed and shook my head. “What would be the point? It's bad enough we had it out in the middle of a club for both our crews to see. Who knows how he could hold that over me if we ever ended up back in communication with Freeground Fleet Command at the same time.”

  “I think they'd have more important things to bring up if he came into port. Like stealing a Sol Defence vessel, or cutting a valuable informant up to get at technology that we're about to get the details on for ourselves. I'm sure the price on Wheeler's head is a lot higher than yours for reasons we haven't found too.”

  “It takes intelligent people to stay ahead of that kind of trouble. I'm sure he's crossed a lot of people out here.”

  “I don't get it. Why would he want us to believe he was an idiot?”

  I refilled my pint and walked to the window to stand beside Oz. The repair crews would be finished soon if everything happened on schedule. “He's setting us up for something.”

  “Could he have forged our orders?”

  “With a detailed bioscan? Not likely, besides, we double and triple checked them.”

  “Even so, according to our information and the strategy we'll be using to get the Framework software, we'll be the conspicuous target.”

  “Even if both our ships had cloaking technology as good as the Triton's, one of us would have to provide a distraction. Wormhole gates don't open themselves. We'd have to send a visible ship through otherwise the sentry ships will know something's up.”

  “Well, I know I'll be keeping one eye on the Triton through this entire operation. I can't help it.”

  “I think everyone will. I don't think Wheeler's plans are in our best interest and I want as much warning as possible if he turns.”

  Ayan entered the room then, practically bouncing. The long hours didn't seem to be affecting her at all. “Well, the new ordinance nine B’s are ready. We're materializing the torpedoes now.”

  “I didn't think it would be ready on time.”

  “Well, the residual signatures of the torpedoes were easy to cover according to Laura, so now they're completely invisible. We were also able to double the payload since we knew these wouldn't end up in storage.”

  “This ought to be interesting.” Oz said, smiling and shaking his head. “I don't think anyone will expect us to have high yield cloaked antimatter torpedoes.”

  “I know. I doubt they'll ever realize what hit them.” I agreed. “How many will we have by the time we arrive?”

  “About twenty torpedoes for our stationary launchers and forty for our turrets.”

  These weren't the complete answer to the problems we were about to face, but they would tip the scales. “I'm pretty sure that the gun crews will be grinning from ear to ear as they load them up, knowing what they are.”

  “I might still be grinning by the time we get there,” Oz chuckled.

  Doctor Anderson stepped in. His expression was solemn, which was unusual. “I've finished arguing with the lead medical officer on the Triton. He's under orders to keep anything they learn about the Framework technology under wraps. They used nanotech to inspect Marcelles, and they're keeping him in stasis. The kind of inspection they're doing over there could take weeks or months of recovery. Hopefully that Framework tech helps that along.”

  “I don't know if we'd really want anything resulting from that dissection, even if it is done on a cellular scale,” I commented, shaking my head.

  “I don't agree with their methods either. I was hoping to get Doctor Marcelles over on our ship so we could treat him and get him back on his feet.”

  “They're not just holding him on their ship because of orders. I'm sure Wheeler would gladly offload him to us if he didn't have another purpose,” Oz commented.

  I thought quietly for a moment, looking out into space. Ayan walked to my side and I put an arm around her.

  “What's on your mind?” she asked quietly.

  “He's also distracting us from something. The fight in the club, his crew behaving like they've never seen an escape pod or opened one before, and how he offhandedly told us he's performing a live autopsy. No one could survive the way he has for thirty years while acting that way. Wheeler's going to sell this technology. He might follow orders and hand the researcher over to Freeground, but whatever he learns before then he's going to sell.”

  “Fleet Intelligence must see that coming,” Oz pointed out.

  “They would,” Doc answered. “It's probably part of their plan. If Freeground were the only people with this technology after we've managed to steal it from the Triad, they could become a big target. The same accusations could be made by Freeground's enemies as we're making of Triad and Vindyne.”

  “But if the technology is being traded and sold across the galaxy, that's not an issue.” Ayan concluded.

  “So Wheeler is being used because they expect him to behave a certain way.”

  “It makes sense. Someone's already paying for that while he's getting cut up in the Triton's medical bay,” Oz said. “Makes me wonder why Freeground selected us for this. What do they expect us to do? We haven't been out here long enough to establish predictable future behaviours.”

  “You're forgetting they have over a year of simulations to look over, personal psych profiles and career records for most of us. They expect us to take calculated risks and do a lot of damage. If I were looking at our performance and behaviour from Fleet's perspective, I'd say that we've been loud and ruthless. That's what they're expecting here,” I said after some thought.

  “They're aware that you've been accomplishing your goals regardless of the hardships you've faced. In the short time the crew has been making its way out here you've acquired so much technology that it took an independent refit to install it. That's
undoubtedly something they consider whenever they look at the First Light and her crew,” Doctor Anderson added.

  “That doesn't change the fact that the term shadow ship doesn't apply to us anymore. After this mission I think things will be very different.”

  Chapter 19

  The Blue Belt

  For the first time since I had assumed command, the First Light underwent long range wormhole travel. It was nothing short of amazing. Without sensor enhancement the universe outside looked distorted, like looking through a curved or severely lensed window. With sensor enhancement, which highlighted radiation and the massive energy required to form the wormhole tunnel, it was like we were passing through a corridor of light. I had never gone through a high compression long distance wormhole myself, and aside from the strange and amazing visual experience of it, the most noticeable thing was that there was no real difference inside the ship. We were really travelling just under the speed of light through a passage in space that compressed the distance between where we were and where we were going.

  Memories of primary school, when our teacher marked a piece of paper with two dots, one at each end, and said. “Normally, it would take an ant several seconds to walk across the piece of paper from one dot to another.” Then she folded the piece of paper so the dots were facing each other and made a hole through both dots then looked through them. “But if you fold the paper so the space between the points is reduced, he can walk right through in a tenth of the time. Wormhole travel is the same, only instead of folding a piece of paper, we're folding or compressing time and space.”

  I remembered babbling about folding space with my mother and father for hours that night, right until bedtime and beyond. If I could go back and tell my younger self that I'd be actually travelling through a high compression wormhole someday, I'm sure it would have gone on for days longer. Getting me to sleep would have been impossible.

  Our trip to the Blue Belt was reduced to two hours, a little more time than we needed to ensure that the ship and crew was ready to fight its way to the heavily guarded station. I opened a channel to Minh-Chu. “How is everything down there?”

  “Everyone's ready to launch as soon as we come out on the other side. We've been ready for about twenty minutes.”

  “Good luck,” I said, wishing I had spent a bit more time with my old friend over the last few days.

  “May your life be interesting,” he replied before cutting the comm. I could hear his smile over the transmission.

  The interactive holographic representation of the main engineering control and monitoring station appeared in one corner of the bridge. Ayan and Laura were in the centre, life size and working the power and subsystems of the ship as if they were there. “Thought it would help if we were on the bridge at least in spirit. I'm a little busy to be there myself,” Ayan said with a smile.

  I couldn't help but smile back. I knew they could see a digital representation around them of the bridge, a two dimensional projection that surrounded the circular control console semi-transparently. “Good to have you,” It did make it easier to relay commands and receive information from engineering.

  The distraction was welcome as we came down to the final minutes before emerging from the wormhole to face the defences on the other side. It was the calm before the storm, we all knew, but confidence was still abundant.

  Oz was rechecking department status reports, checklists, and had just ordered tactical to set the main holographic viewer to display the details of our arrival point. He watched me punch in instructions that counted down to our exact time of emergence from the wormhole gate. I leaned back in the command chair, knitted my fingers and sighed behind them. He looked from his console to me. “A little tense, Captain?”

  I stared at the counter and tactical display in turn. It would be a gauntlet of enemy ships, asteroids and anything else we had no intelligence on. “The Triton is staying behind to stop ships from escaping through the gate. We'll be on our own.”

  “That's how it's always been for us. From when we started running simulations right up until now. We're at our best when we're given enough room to do something our way.”

  “Only this time we'll be rushing right into the secret heart of our enemies.”

  “They'll never see it coming,” Oz whispered with a smile.

  I remember thinking, I wish that were true, I wish I didn't have this feeling that they're more than ready. I sat quietly for a moment longer, watching the seconds tick down until it came to an even 100. “It's time,” I said, standing. “Torpedo bays, beam firing posts, remove all safeties and ready for target acquisition.” I ordered. “Roll back all gunnery and missile doors. Gunnery positions, load heavy flak munitions and prepare to fire at low velocity on my order. Missile turrets, load EMP missiles. All stations check in.”

  As I was setting orders for weaponry, Ayan was instructing her team to bring all power systems to maximum generation, checking the antimatter intermix that was in place with the engines, and ensuring that her damage control and rescue teams were ready. Laura was checking all the field generation mechanics, she had just finished designing new redundant forty-two layer refractive shielding. If something tried to hit us with beam weapons the energy component of their weapons would be redirected straight back at them leaving only particles to damage the hull. It was all coming online. I could feel the slight rumble of the ship underfoot as the First Light truly came to life, starting with her heart, the power plants.

  “One hell of a bright candle in the dark,” Oz said with a smirk. “All stations report ready.”

  “How are we feeling, Lieutenant Gregor?” I asked Derek, our most experienced helmsman.

  He half turned to me, brought the cross of an old rosary to his lips, kissed it, and nodded. “Like I'm not the only one at the controls sir.”

  “Amen,” I said, sitting back down and looking at the counter. The seconds seemed to run slow as they dropped from seven all the way to one, and then the distorted tunnel of the wormhole disappeared and we emerged from the wormhole gate.

  “The Quantum Core is online and ready,” Jason reported.

  “Begin hacking the gate. Start with the Freeground manufacturer codes.”

  I checked the tactical display as it populated with ships. There were two Triad Destroyers just in firing range and a nine kilometre long command carrier minutes away. The placement of the asteroid field all around a corridor leading to the research base was still roughly the same, and I could see that navigation was scanning for safe routes between the destroyers. “Stop. Search for other options,” I commanded. “If we try to go between those destroyers there might not be much of us left. They're harder targets than what the Vindyne threw at us.”

  “Communication from the Command Carrier sir,” reported Jason's communications assistant.

  “Well, put it up. No reason to be unfriendly.”

  The secondary holographic projector displayed the grey haired commander. “Admiral Garvais of the Command Carrier Vesuvius Three to destroyer First Light. You have used our wormhole gate with a stolen entry code and violated our space. Stand down and prepare to be boarded.”

  “Freeground authorities don't recognize your claim on this space Admiral. I come bearing a warning. The Triad occupation of the Blue Belt is over. We're coming home.”

  Admiral Garvais arched an eyebrow. “I don't see a task force or battle group. You're outnumbered and outclassed. Stand down, Captain, or we'll scuttle your ship with you in it.”

  I looked to the tactical display off to the side of the Admiral's image and saw that several potential courses had been plotted, one of them took us into the asteroid field. It wasn't navigation's first choice, but I highlighted it and heard someone from that corner whisper. “Madre de Dios.”

  “It was good meeting you, Admiral,” I smiled.

  The Admiral stared at me for a moment then nodded and cut communications.

  “Head into the asteroid field as fast as you can. As soo
n as we're at the edge start launching fighters. Tactical, weapons free. Begin firing on any enemy ships within range.”

  “The Freeground codes were a no-go Captain, but they didn't change any of the computing technology in the gates. The Quantum core has already cracked the first layer of internal controls,” Jason reported. “We'll have that gate locked down in a few seconds unless there are any surprises waiting deeper in.”

  “Why would they post a secret research station using Freeground's old technology?” I overheard Jason's assistant ask.

  “Because it takes a decade or so to build just the gate, and a station that size takes about twenty five years,” Oz replied. “The destroyers are firing on us, but our flak cover is interfering with their torpedoes and our shielding is refracting and absorbing the beam weapons. Nothing to worry about so far.”

  “That's because they're still a few kilometres off and know that we're thick on countermeasures at a distance.” I replied. “If we give them a chance to get close we'll start seeing solid-round fire.”

  “Hyper accelerated torpedoes,” Oz said with a shudder. “How long until we're under asteroid cover?”

  “Less than thirty seconds sir.”

  “Fighters incoming from the asteroids, Sir. Someone foresaw this,” came the report from tactical.

  “I wouldn't want to be in their place,” I said. “Go through them.”

  “We've cracked into the programming level of the gate computers sir,” Jason reported with a smile.

  “Well, that's part one of the plan. Upload that artificial intelligence you've been working on. It's time to put her to work.”

  “Oh, I wish I could hear what Triad will have to say about their new gatekeeper.” Jason snickered as he began the upload. He waited a few seconds then looked back up from his console. “Done! She's taking encryption instructions and implementing new security now. With an Artificial Intelligence changing the passwords required for access several hundred times per second, no one could gain access.”

  “How will anyone ever use that gate again?” one of his younger staff asked.