Retribution

by Dave O'Connor

  At 2215 the comms relays within the Qwantum system were all slaved to an overriding protocol that had been embedded within the AI of all Imperial comms relays. From here on all comms out of the system would be vetted. Those complying with the new protocol would be processed and all others rejected without a reply. The Qwantum system was now in a comms lockdown.

  At 2225 the Fustus surged forward.

  “Retna wake up!” yelled Chung a few minutes later.

  It took a moment for Retna to respond. To his surprise he had slept. “What is it?” he asked.

  “They’re moving. This is it, their run in.”

  “Well launch the probe now” barked Retna as he began bringing himself upright.

  Chung leaned over and hit launch on the co-pilot’s screen. The probe dropped out of the underbelly of the craft and initiated its engines. It powered to full speed and began closing with the Fustus.

  “It’s recording now” said Chung as Retna sat back into his chair. It was then that the alert sounded. “We have incoming missiles” he yelled. He engaged the impulse drives and began banking towards the outer edges of the system. Then he could fire the warp drive. With no defensive systems of their own their only choice was to escape.

  Chung was cursing the fact that the warp drive needed to power up. He should have done so earlier. As he looked at the screen and saw the missile paths arcing towards them, he knew they were not going to make it. “Abandon Ship” he barked.

  Retna had just got himself seated. He looked at Chung dismayed but he knew he must act and not question. He extracted himself out of the seat while Chung engaged the autopilot. He willed his tall frame through the hatch and down the main cabin. At the rear end was the corridor off of which were the two escape pods.

  Chung was right behind him now and impatient to get into his pod. “Move Retna” he yelled.

  Retna went for the far pod leaving the nearest to Chung. Chung was inside his and engaging the escape pod’s ejector while Retna struggled to squeeze himself into the pod. It had been designed for two rogan but it would barely accommodate him.

  He closed the pod’s hatch even though his long right leg was still over the dividing panel between the two seats. His left shoulder and arm were pressed up tight against the wall and his head was crouched over and in contact with the ceiling. The automated warning system was speaking in rogan to him. He did not need a translation to realise that he had to launch now. He hit the launch button and shot out into space.

  The pod was programmed to put as much distance as quickly as possible between it and the mother craft, while also avoiding the enemy craft and missiles. It was now hurtling at incredible speed at right angles to the Konkorda’s trajectory. Retna’s head was rubbing against the pod ceiling while he craned to see the screen in front of the seat. The Konkorda was destroyed under the impact of six missiles. But there were more missiles now and these were targeting the pods and the drone.

  His only viable course of action was to kill the engines, kill all emissions and pray they lost him in the void of space. Only his right arm was free to reach the screen. The other was jammed in against the wall. He strained and punched the necessary commands. He was no longer accelerating but his momentum would continue.

  He scrutinised the screen as best he could. He saw one missile explode near the probe but the probe continued. “Yes” said Retna out loud. But his elation was cut short when he realised Chung’s pod was still powering away. With dread he saw the missile hit Chung’s pod. He knew there was no hope for Chung. But his thoughts were not with his brother in arms but on the missile that had targeted his pod. He knew it would be trying to actively scan for him. He prayed his signature would be too small. It was.

  However, the default action of the missile having reached the last known location of the target was to explode. It was almost three kms away but Retna felt the outside of his pod peppered with some shrapnel.

  His heart was still pounding when the screen reported the anomaly. It only then dawned on Retna that he was not out of the woods yet.

  Chapter 6. Konkorda Pod 2 in Qwantum, 2000, 25 July

  ‘They must have gone by now’ thought Retna. He tried to move his right arm but it did not respond, having gone numb with discomfort. He willed it to respond. Finally it moved after he shifted his weight a little.

  He conducted a scan with his passive sensors. There seemed to be plenty of activity but no sign of the Fustus. ‘Time to reactivate the engines.’

  He hit the control but got no response. He hit it again. Still no response. “No!” he yelled. He did a systems check and there it was – his engine control must have been hit by the shrapnel. “Fuck it!” he yelled.

  He then scanned the media channels. “Damm it.” There was no broadcast from the drone. In fact there were no broadcasts on any channel bar one which was broadcasting a message about a system wide curfew.

  A good minute later after the initial shock had passed he pondered his options. Sending out a signal would mean death or worse. He knew that if he were caught alive they would make him talk and he would be killed later anyway. He would not dishonour his name that way.

  He checked his ship’s status and noted with alarm that instead of an outward trajectory the craft was now heading back towards the gas giant. He did not have the necessary sensors to confirm it but he knew that the device had succeeded in its purpose.

  After a few more touches with his fingers the screen reported that the gravity from the gas giant would pull him in to a fatal conclusion in just over a month. He checked the survival stock. If he stayed awake he would run out of oxygen in just under three weeks. Going into cryo for two weeks would stretch it out just long enough. He then pondered whether to go into cryo now or later. ‘Better to die in my sleep’ he concluded.

  ‘I should have just stayed on board.’

  Chapter 7. Resolute over Chelora 2300, 1 August

  Captain Dave Warner, commander of the Federation Fleet Ship (FFS) Resolute lay horizontal and naked on his large bed in his cabin. Beside him lay his wife, Acting Captain Rihan Kabel, commander of the now captured Imperial Rogan Ship (IRS) Mailon. She was also naked and had a satisfied smile on her face.

  “Now I know that was pretty good but you’re smiling about something else, aren’t you?” asked Dave.

  Rihan turned her head and brushed back her long fair auburn hair. Her green eye peered out from behind the soft curl and with a twinkle she replied with a teasing expression “My ship IS bigger than yours.”

  “Yeah but it lacks a stealth capability, is crewed mostly by rogan and its cabins are as a cramped as all hell.”

  “Mmm…there is that.” She stretched out extending her feet and then spread her legs. She rolled over onto her side and hooked her topside leg over Dave’s body. She brought her head up close to his, her breasts resting on his chest. “I do like this bed.”

  Dave shook his head. “You’re incorrigible.” With his left arm he grabbed her buttock and pulled her on top of him.

  She arched her head back and shook her hair loose. With his free hand he gently pushed her hair back out of her eyes and caressed her cheek. She locked her eyes onto his. “Yes I am. But you like me that way don’t you?” She felt him being aroused. “See!”

  Ten minutes later with an exhausted Dave sound asleep, Rihan lay on her back and her mind turned to tomorrow. The Kiev group was due in late morning and she would be returning to Polaris, back home and to a staff position at Polaris HQ.

  That was what had been agreed before Yomoto had shanghaied her to temporarily command the Mailon until the permanent commander arrived. Dave wanted her in a safer role. But she was having mixed feelings now. They had been trying to conceive for months now but so far with no luck. The doctors had assured her that her previous miscarriage on Klaster when it was nuked had not caused her any permanent problems. But she wasn’t so sure.

  ‘Bastards’ she mouthed silently. Part of her mind, though, cut in and she dropped the animo
sity. ‘I’m better than that now’ she reminded herself.

  She glanced over at the dark shape beside her. ‘Yes I will be safe but what of you my love? What does the Admiral have in store for you once the Kiev is here to secure Chelora?’

  She thought of her good friend Commander Aubrey Bellard and how her ship, the Phantom, would be arriving soon in rogan space. ‘That could have been my command.’ But she didn’t begrudge Aubrey her appointment. Part of her did not envy Aubrey at all. Her mission to support the rogan resistance overthrow the Imperialists was incredibly challenging and highly dangerous even with the latest stealth ship in the fleet.

  She recalled the look of resolve on Aubrey’s face just before she departed. The English rose had become the steeled hunter. Aubrey was all serious business. ‘No Aubrey was the right choice’ thought Rihan. She smiled. She had seen that look on her good friend in battle before. Over Alpha Phi, when she was in a lather of anxiety herself, it had been Aubrey who stepped up to the plate and took control of the battle. ‘No Aubrey will do just fine. We can count on her.’

  Chapter 8. Phantom to Sturam 0200, 2 August

  “What the …” exclaimed Aubrey as she was rolled out of bed. The ship was turning and rolling. She stuck out her hand instinctively to arrest the impact. “Aagh” she cried out as her hand jarred against the ceiling of her cabin. She felt like a piece of clothing inside a tumble dryer. Her body was sliding down now. Thankfully her cabin was small. She extended her legs and then cursed as she was again being rolled. She fell onto the top of her desk and managed to grab hold. She thanked that it was bolted down to the floor.

  Her communicator was bouncing off the floor along with her console. It hit her in the forehead on the next roll. She knew she would have a big bruise there real soon. She didn’t dare let go to try and grab the communicator. Around again and she forced her mind to focus on the predicament. “Cabin, lights” she commanded and the lights came on. “Officer of the watch” she barked.

  The motion was still playing havoc with her sense of balance. She hung on for dear life as the ship was effectively inverted. The gravity well had obviously failed.

  “Watch” she barked again.

  “Maam” came the reply into the cabin comms channel.

  “Is that you Alice?” asked Aubrey.

  “Yes Maam” replied 2nd Lt Alice Wu who had scored the dog watch. “Somehow we’ve come out of warp.” Alice was strapped into her chair in the Command Centre, trying to maintain a focus on the screen in front despite the rolling motion of the craft.

  “Has the gravity well malfunctioned?”

  Alice interrogated the system status on the workstation in front of her. “Not according to the system but it has been turned off. Should I turn it back on?”

  “Do it and engage the autopilot. That should stabilise us” said Aubrey still clutching onto the top of her desk.

  Alice was being hailed by just about everyone now. She ignored them all and focused on the workstation controls. She activated the autopilot first. This had the immediate effect of stabilising the craft as the autopilot engaged the required thrusters. Alice issued a ‘holding racetrack’ for the autopilot to follow.

  “Thank god for that” exclaimed Aubrey back in her cabin as the rolling stopped. She let go of the desk but began to float. She grabbed the desk with her hands and swung her feet down to the floor which was now in the usual position below the ceiling. Then she felt the gravity well come into force. She felt for her forehead and felt the sliminess of her own blood. Her T shirt was covered in a series of blood stains like someone had splashed her with a paint brush at different angles.

  “Well done Alice” she hailed. “SITREP?”

  Alice checked the sensors and determined that there were no threats. She then focussed on the holo in the centre of the command centre in which was displayed the surrounding star map. They were near a big gas giant in a star system called Qwantum but she didn’t recognise it. But that was to be expected given that they were traversing into rogan space where no human had ventured before.

  “SITREP Alice?”

  “Yes Maam” replied Alice. “We’ve come out of warp in the Qwantum star system, near a gas giant, no threats, we’re in a holding pattern, no damage alerts. I’ll do a pers check now.”

  “All right. Keep us on an even keel. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  Aubrey made her way to her ensuite and winced as she pulled away her hand. It would need a deep cut patch (DCP). She splashed some water onto her face, bowed her head and watched as the blood stained rivulets flowed into the sink. She reached for the hand towel and with it applied pressure to her forehead. It was already hurting. She came back into the main cabin, found her pants on the floor. With one hand she pulled them on while sitting on the edge of her bed.

  “Alice” she hailed “Casualties?”

  “Still determining, Maam…mostly cuts and abrasions. The worst so far is Cpl Felix with a fractured arm. The doc is with him now.”

  “Looks like I need a DCP. I’m going to the med bay. Hold the fort. Oh and get Bob to find out what happened.”

  1st Lt Bob Ditmar was not surprised when Alice passed on the commander’s request. He left Cpl Chester Felix in the hands of the ship doctor, 1st Lt James Dunstan. He sat down at his workstation in the engineering section of the ship. His first guess had been that the gravity well had failed like it had on the Resolute on its first mission. But he was now puzzled. The system was saying that the gravity well was functioning perfectly.

  “Mmm…something caused you to shut down though” he said out loud but to no one in particular.

  Sgt Tanya Shilton came over and stood behind her boss as he interrogated the data. “Well if it’s not our gravity well then some other gravity anomaly brought us out of warp” she contributed.

  “Probably….but what?” Bob’s first guess was the nearby star but the initial system analysis said all was OK. He worked his way through the five planets. “Got it!” exclaimed Bob.

  “What?” asked Tanya.

  “There” said Bob pointing to the third and fourth planets. The third was a huge ice world, known imaginatively as Q3 and the fourth an even bigger gas giant, known as Q4. “Look at the variance in the magnetic fields between these two.”

  “And look at the size of this gas giant. It must be 30% less than what it should be.”

  “It’s mass has increased and it’s sucking the ice world in” added Bob.

  “And us too if we hang around here!”

  “Maam” hailed Bob.

  “Bob” responded Aubrey as the medic applied the deep cut patch to her forehead. He was pinching the skin on either side of the cut as he applied the patch, much to Aubrey’s annoyance. She knew it was necessary to prevent scarring but the bruised area complained the only way it knew how. The result was pain for Aubrey and that pain manifested in her voice.

  “Are you alright Maam” asked Bob.

  “I’ll be fine. What have you got?”

  The nearby gas giant has gained mass and shrunk 30% according to the star chart. Its gravity has increased correspondingly but it’s erratic causing an oscillation. It’s also pulling the next closest planet towards it.”

  “So why has this forced us out of warp?”

  “It’s a really significant shift in the gravitational field, well over what was expected when the warp route was calculated. If it had been a constant the warp drive would have compensated but the oscillation has triggered its fail safe to cut in.”

  “But these charts are from the Mailon, and can’t be more than a month out of date” queried Aubrey.

  “That’s right Maam. So either the charts are wrong or this phenomenon has occurred in the last month.”

  “You can’t be serious. There is no reason to believe that these charts would have been wrong and gas giants don’t degrade that fast. Well not any we know” she added.

  “That’s for sure and I would bet that the characteristics of gas giants are
the same in this part of the galaxy as in ours. So my best guess is that something ‘external’ has happened here.”

  “What do you mean?” Aubrey sighed with relief as the medic released his grip on her head. She turned to the medic and asked “Are we done?”

  “Maam?” asked Bob.

  “No not you Bob. I’m just trying to get the medic here to leave me be.” The medic took the hint. He was a bit put out but had plenty of other patients to attend to. He simply waved his open hand to indicate she could go. Aubrey nodded. She realised her temper had let her down. She tried to make up by mouthing ‘thank you’ to the medic but his attention was now on the injured knee of the next patient. Aubrey sighed as she got to her feet and walked out of the med bay.

  “Sorry Bob. So what are you saying - that some event in the last thirty days has caused this gas giant to shrink?”

  “Exactly and I’ll lay odds it’s been manufactured. How, I don’t know for sure. Most likely a PME device.”

  “A what?”

  “A Pulman Mass Exchanger. They were outlawed under Geneva 2403 remember?”

  “No, I’m not that old Bob – though I’m feeling older by the minute right now.”

  Bob ignored her remark. “Suffice to say that PME devices were originally proposed to reduce the cost of resource extraction from gas giants. But after the first two tests caused both star systems to become unstable they were banned.”

  “But the rogan don’t subscribe to Geneva conventions do they?”

  “No Maam.”

  “Why here? Why now?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe this is a test.”

  “Leave it with me Bob. Good work. Are we OK to resume warp?”

  Bob looked up to Tanya who was shaking her head. “Not advised from our current location. We will need to use our impulse engines to get clear of this gravitational anomaly.”