by Richard Fox
“Patch it through.” Captain Garland stood up and walked to the railing in front of his seat. His XO, Commander Mitch Turkel, stood adroitly by.
The grizzled face of Admiral Beale appeared on the display in a darkened but busy command center. “Captain Garland, it looks like we’ve got a situation forming up around us. We’re going to need a recon team to get around the far side of Jupiter and tell us what we’re dealing with. Looks like you drew the short straw. The Morrison is the fastest boat in our group.”
Garland regarded the older man on his screen. “Of course, sir. We’ve dispatched a drone and are waiting for its return.” He looked down at the small team in the sensor pit. Haim shook her head, no, the drone hadn’t returned yet.
“There’s a lot of hash out there, Hap. We’re finding our displacement drives aren’t working entirely predictably. Either some kind of interference or some physical phenomenon we haven’t encountered before. Some of the ships we sent back to intercept the bogey headed for Earth have jumped back outside Jupiter system, navs are all scrambled.”
“I know it, sir.” Garland recalled their recent encounter with the Sumerki and wondered if they were related somehow. He still had a gnawing sense of unease that their hastily-planned rescue jump above Ganymede had been successful. “We’ll be careful.”
Specialist Haim looked up at the XO from her nest in sensor control, and in a low voice said, “Drone’s back, sir.” He nodded and she began integrating the drone’s intel with the ship’s tactical displays, the far side of Jupiter filling in with additional information. The view of the planet zoomed in. A new hazy sphere appeared in the massive planet’s upper atmosphere, callout reading UNK – unknown.
Garland pulled on his moustache, nodding at the image in front of him on the virtual holo surface, the data racing across their beam to the Saratoga, which in turn relayed it to the rest of the fleet, all in a tiny fraction of a second. “Are you seeing this? The drone was off-target, but managed to bring back some data. There’s something in there. We’ll check it out and report back.”
“You’re a good man, Hap. And one last thing…”
“What is it, sir?”
“Shave that off. Saratoga out.”
“Yes, sir!” Garland cut the channel and sat back in his chair, pinching the curled end of his moustache with thumb and finger. He reached down and tapped the intercom switch on the arm of his chair. His voice transmitted throughout the ship. “All hands, set condition code orange. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill.”
The lights in the C&C dimmed and a siren wailed as the ship transitioned to battle readiness. The men and women of the Morrison ran, jumped and flew to their allotted positions around the ship, ready to act in an instant. “Crew,” the Captain continued, “we’ve gone from an exercise to a full first-contact operation. We have been tasked with becoming the eyes and ears of the Fifteenth battle group. You’ve done your training well. The Morrison is the fastest Corvette class ship in the fleet. We are not going to disappoint our flag. Make yourselves ready for high-gee maneuvers. Let’s do the Fifteenth proud. Garland out.”
He switched off the intercom and pointed to sensors. “Did we get anything useful out of that drone shot?”
Haim replied, “Still sifting through the data, sir. So far it’s pretty murky. Definitely something down there, but we’re having a hard time making it out. Also, it seems that our drone’s position was off by close to a million klicks. Running a backtrace trying to figure out…” She shot a dagger-laced glance at Bickers in navigation.
Flustered, her face red, specialist Bickers blurted out, “I’m going over the data. There’s an offset in the anchors that doesn’t make any sense.”
The Captain cut her off with a raised hand. “You two figure it out, but keep it professional.” He turned back to Haim in sensors. “I want four more sensor drones, box pattern over whatever’s down there. Ten second sweep, as deep as you can put them, but safely.” He pointed to helm control as the sensor chief acknowledged the command and set about making it happen, distant thumps as the torpedo tubes launched the new drones. “Helm, set a course to bring us around the other side of Jupiter. Begin transferring ship’s momentum to make orbit just beyond Europa. We can evaluate next options from there.”
“Aye, sir. Adjusting momentum,” the twins replied in unison, barely visible under their control connections. They consulted with navigation, using their clipped mathematical shorthand, plotting a new orbital solution for the ship, Bickers trying to keep up with the two requests simultaneously. The indicators in the central holodisplay began rolling and yawing as they adjusted the ship’s course.
The XO barked at the men and women in tactical. “Look sharp, gunners. We are lighting this torch.”
The ship’s main thruster ports swung open, the mighty fusion engines came online and spewed forth jets of hot star fire into space. The deck plating hummed, compensating for the sudden application of five gravities’ worth of acceleration. One and a half megatons of titanium alloys and carbon composites resisted the forward push against her previous vector, preparing for a new course and heading on the far side of the massive gas giant, roiling millions of kilometers below.
“Steady, helm. Keep your eyes peeled, sensors.” The XO hung on to the straps at his station, his voice not betraying any tension as the ship piled on the acceleration.
The Captain listened to his ship. Distant metallic bangs reverberated through the framework where heavy objects hadn’t been secured properly. Anti-gravity plating had only been installed in the crew areas. Some sections were without it entirely.
“Turk, see that we’re not punching any holes through our hull from the inside, would you?”
“Yessir,” the XO acknowledged, and began feeding orders to the crew in various sections to lock down any loose parts they had sitting around. The Captain knew he’d make sure anyone whose stations weren’t properly secured got a grilling later.
“Drones are back, sir. Acquiring data… They missed the pattern, but I think we can still get useful data out of them,” Haim reported as more of the blue sections on the far side of Jupiter filled in with crisp detail on their display. The Captain zoomed in with his optics at the blob in the upper atmosphere of the planet; a heat-shimmering, distorted picture came back of a black, spiky sphere spinning above the clouds… no, inside the clouds, partially obscured in the swirling mass of Jupiter’s upper atmosphere, coming up from below in long streamers of hot gas. The roiling surface of the alien vessel hinted at a glow deep within. “How big is this thing? We have no scale here.”
“Based on the drone’s optics and magnification, we’re putting the size of the alien vessel at under a hundred kilometers in diameter, sir.”
The XO whistled. “She’s a big one. That makes her almost a hundred times the size of the Saratoga.”
The Captain allowed the speculation for now, but didn’t deign to reply himself.
They regarded the image for another moment. Haim said, “It looks like it’s sucking up Jupiter’s atmosphere. Is it getting bigger?”
The question was met with silence.
Captain Garland swiveled in his chair, facing forward. “Helm, how long until we can make our jump?”
The ship rumbled as the helmsmen watched their counter. “Another thirty seconds, we’ll be up to speed, sir.” The ship was falling faster now, piling on the velocity as she swung deeper into Jupiter’s orbit, pulling further away from the rest of the fleet.
“All right, round up those drones and put us over there.” The Captain thumbed the key on his seat’s arm and a warning sounded, indicating they were prepping to displace.
Distant thumps as the remote sensor drones latched onto the surface with their smart grapples and reeled themselves in so they could be redeployed.
“Drones onboard. Board’s green, sir. Ready to go.”
The Captain nodded to the XO and he held onto the railing, turning to helm. “Lock anchor. On my signal, crewmen. Mark!”
The main engines shut down and briefly, the ship became silent as the displacement drive took over. The only indication they’d changed position was the updated display in the center of the room, Jupiter rotating about nearly one hundred and eighty degrees, the ball of Europa… The display shifted again, flickering into a new configuration.
“Navs. Report! What is our position?”
The display jumped again and Jupiter loomed larger than before, shimmering in a wash of radio frequency interference from the planet itself. The engines whined and the whole ship listed sideways, the anti-gravity plating struggling to compensate with their new orientation and velocity. A warning buzzer sounded.
“Navs!” The XO yelled at the pit as the frantic operators worked hard to make sense of their readings.
Chief Navigator Heather Bickers held onto her console, leaning sideways in her seat as she worked out their position. “I’m reading a lot of skew. We are –”
A deafening boom cut her off and more sirens blared as the ship rumbled, shaking everyone onboard with heavy subsonics. Helm fought the controls to right the ship. The bridge erupted in the clipped, implant-focused communications they used when operating at full speed. The ship re-oriented and the engines blazed to life, her frame groaning under the stresses.
“What was that detonation?” the Captain asked.
“Compression, sir,” Haim reported. “Wave front from our displacement. I’m reading trace atmo and particulates, probably from Io, in this region and we just pushed it all out of the way at near light-speed.”
“Any damage?” The XO was scanning through the data coming in from all over the ship.
Jones in tactical reported, “None, sir. Shield held, but we had to shut her down after the jump to maintain position.”
“We are two hundred thousand kilometers inside Io’s orbit, altitude only one hundred and fifty thousand kilometers above the atmosphere. The alien bogey is directly beneath us,” Bickers announced, voice hitching in excitement.
“Get me a visual,” the Captain ordered. “Launch probes. Get me my eyes, damnit.”
Haim in her sensor pod: “Drones away.”
Rapid-fire pulses as the retrieved drones jumped off the hull and launched themselves outward on ion thrusters. New information began streaming in from the drones almost immediately and the Captain allowed himself a look outside through the virtual interface relayed to his implants. The planet was massive, filling his vision in all directions with dull browns and cream-swirled masses of clouds. Thousands of kilometers below them, a whirling mass glowed above the surface, sucking up vast quantities of matter from the gas giant. The image shook and broke up as interference from the massive planet destroyed the connection to the small sensor drones.
The Captain snapped back from drone space to the C&C and saw hundreds of dots blinking all around them on the holodisplay, as a host of small ships displaced in.
“What are th…” The Captain didn’t have time to finish the sentence as explosions detonated all over the surface of the ship.
“Bring our displacement shield back up. Batteries! Weapons free. Set condition red throughout the ship! Action stations! This is not a drill!” The Captain hollered into his intercom as the lights changed again, klaxons blaring. The bridge crew all reacted in their seats to comply with their orders.
Then, to his XO: “Damage report?”
“Coming in, sir. Minor surface damage on the outer hull. I guess they’re not here to make friends.”
A rumble grew as the ship’s batteries opened fire on nearby targets. Particle cannons spewed energized chunks of metal at immense velocities into space around them. A flare lit up on the display as one of the intruders got caught in the barrage. All of it was relayed to the bridge crew, who reacted with the impossible speed of machines, their training and interfaces making them a part of the ship.
“Helm, get us out of here, jump back to fleet position now.”
“Sir.” The helm began running their calculations as the ship listed again, gravity changing faster than the plating could compensate.
“Get our shields online and out of range of those fighters. Whatever they are.”
“Aye, sir, prep for high gee.”
“Brace for accel!”
A loud explosion detonated behind them as the ship’s engines roared to full thrust. Those who weren’t secured into couches or chairs were hurled to the deck. The XO, strapping himself into his seat, said, “We’re getting casualty reports coming in. A few of the crew weren’t secured. We had one crewman in one of the ladder tubes…” He trailed off.
“Flag those who survived for discipline when we’re out of this. What are we dealing with out there?”
A loud bang reverberated from the front of the ship.
“Massive EM interference is making it hard to see what’s going on. One of the alien ships just collided with us. Small tetrahedron-shaped craft. Could be automated. Might have a crew. Look like they’re at most ten tonnes.”
Another whoop as the ship registered damage to the hull, ops dispatching damage teams to the forward section. The Captain watched as the alien craft blinked in and out around them, the Morrison’s guns hurling metal into space at the encroaching invaders. “They are displacement capable. Must be coming off that mothership below.”
“Captain! The ship, it’s moving!” Haim yelled, pointing with a trembling finger at the holodisplay. The massive swirling ball rose up from the depths of Jupiter, trailing a burning tail through the clouds as it ascended towards them.
“Helm, get us out of here!” the XO yelled, holding onto the arms of his chair as another explosion rocked them in their seats. Then a deafening quiet as the guns and engines shut down, replaced with the faint whine of the displacement drive.
Helm reported in unison with their expressionless voices: “Shields up. Ready to jump.”
“Just do it!” the Captain yelled.
Silence.
Sparks flew from the console near operations and a jet of halon gas sprayed out from above to extinguish it. The smell of ozone and burnt electronics filled the C&C. The holodisplay flickered and went out for a moment, then came back on, to the relief of everyone. The Captain’s implants relayed damage reports from all over the ship. He zoomed in on the forward section and noted a major chunk of the ablative armor had been blasted away, damaging one of the particle batteries.
“Where are we?”
“Three quarter turn around Jupiter, outside Europa’s orbit. Gained a few hundred thousand kilometers altitude, but ended up on the wrong side of the planet.”
The holo flickered again and new lights appeared all around them, dotting the display.
“Shield is holding, displacement drive’s standing by. Looks like a few of them followed us, Hap,” the XO said.
The Captain glanced over at his XO, leaning forward in his seat. “What do you think, Turk? Should we try to run, or hold position and fight these off, and hope they don’t get any reinforcements?”
Mitch looked at his captain, eyes and forehead wrinkled in a frown. “Orders were to recon the things. I recommend launching a comm drone to the flag, while we stay here and defend.”
The Captain nodded. “Agreed. These things have probably already relayed our new position.” Hap stood up from his chair and addressed the pit. “Tactical, drop shields when we have our comms package ready. Batteries, standby. Anything comes into range of the main gun, send it straight to hell. Keep them off my ship. Helm, when those shields come down, you burn like hell, aim for a slingshot maneuver, take us in low, but watch out for drag in that soup of an atmo.”
A chorus of acknowledgements from the pit.
“Comms ready, sir.”
“Execute!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Dropping shields,” helm reported. The shields dropped and more ripping thunder sounded through the ship as the batteries woke up. A thump from the torpedo tube and the comm drone blinked away.
“
CD away,” comms reported as the ship pressed them into their seats.
Haim in Sensors: “Launching two drones, one forward, one aft, spiral orbits. Ten remaining.”
The Captain ignored that for now. They could round up the pods later, if they had a chance. “Navs. See if you can plot a solution to get us back with the fleet, staggered jumps. Helm, ready with our displacement drive. How long until you can restore shields?”
Jones replied from tactical. “Charging. Ready in thirty seconds, sir.”
Two successive thumps as two of the batteries dumped blazing metal cartridges into space to shed heat. The heavy cartridges melted as they fell into the wash of the Morrison’s engines, her nose pointing down towards the swirling mass of Jupiter as more dots appeared on the instruments.
Haim said, “More ships jumping in! They’re all over the place, as far as sensors can see. I think they’re running a search pattern, maybe looking for more ships.”
“Burn hard,” the Captain said.
“Yes, sir,” the twins replied, as the little ships jumped ahead of them, blinking around their ship like fireflies.
Solari
Yuri sat in the cramped quarters he’d been assigned to, presumably belonging to one of the junior crew members. The bed served as an acceleration couch and had webbing along the back wall which he was currently strapped into. The ship rocked and was making terrible noises from the outer hull. A frightening explosion erupted and the whole thing sounded like it was about to come apart.
“Gah!” he exclaimed, nearly dropping his personal computer. It was currently linked with the Sumerki in the cargo hold somewhere below and aft of his current location. The ship was cramped and confusing inside, but he’d made good note of his surroundings on his forced march to the crew cabins. He looked back at the screen again, studying the diagnostics from the ship’s displacement drive once again. The readouts confirmed his suspicions: The fabric of the skein throughout the solar system was being frayed; ripped apart by whatever force was invading.
He needed to reach the ship’s captain.
