Frontier's End: A Seth Donovan Novel

by Jim C. Wilson

  “What have you got for me?”

  “Them Ghantri grubs are no good at tuning a Linus Drive. Too much output, not enough focus, if you get my drift? What we got to work with here is dirty, but should do the trick. I seen junkers with cleaner propulsion wakes, though.”

  “Can you get the engines ignited?”

  “Sure can, but there’s a good sized chunk of something that shouldn’t be here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s like I said. There’s a big coil wrapped around a piece of machinery connected to the reactors that just doesn’t seem to do anything.”

  “Any idea what it’s for?”

  “Nope.”

  “Will it interfere with the operation of any of the other systems?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I need more than that, Gannerson.”

  “It’s hooked up to the Linus Drives but has a separate power conduit. Means it shouldn’t do anything unless we divert power from the helium-3 reactors. If we don’t kick it in, I don’t think it will do anything. No guarantees, though.”

  “Thank you, anything else I need to know? Do you need anything?”

  “I have a team of volunteers with engineering experience with me, but I could use a dozen extra hands with high-pressure hoses to clean this shit up.”

  “Once we’re underway, you can hand pick as many assistants as you need.”

  “Thank you, sir. And thank you for giving us this chance. I left behind a family in Eridani before the Ghantri buggers turned this frontier into a war zone. I hope to see them again someday.”

  “I’ll do my best to make sure you get the chance, Gannerson. You just get me those drives operational.”

  “Give me ten minutes. I’ll have them purring like a Golus swamp panther.”

  After my talk with the grizzled engineer, I heard more good news from my bridge crew. They had elected a woman by the name of Martine Lenser to lead them, having had the most experience and knowledge. Martine was Harakiwan – I could detect faint traces of her accent when she spoke. She looked to be slightly younger than Maxine, but the past few decades of hardship had hardened what I could tell were once handsome features. She was stern of countenance, but days of despair, and now a glimmer of hope, had softened her appearance. Like the rest of us, she was worn out past exhaustion. It was survival instincts and determination that gave her strength now.

  As luck would have it, two of the bridge staff had served on a Danghar Cruiser in the past, including Martine. At first, the inefficient AI’s that governed bridge operations hampered the team, but as soon as Tac had been installed in the sensor nexus he had taken over much of the operations himself.

  “Stations three through eight should be operational,” reported Martine, calling up from the operations deck, “But we can’t switch configurations over without shutting them down completely and doing a full reboot. I recommend setting up what you need for now and just sticking to it.”

  “What do we need? What options do we have with this vessel?” I asked.

  “We’ll need at least three systems operators, a comms officer, and helmsmen. If you want someone on weapons…”

  “I do.”

  “You’re going to have to prioritise between point defences and anti-ship weaponry. Looks like only one or two hardlight cannons are operational, though.”

  “We can do without a comms officer, I can fill that role with Tac’s aid. I want both weapons positions manned at all times.”

  She sighed. “Okay, but you’ll need to keep an eye on the bigger picture.”

  “Of course.”

  “You ever captained a capital ship before, sir?”

  “No. Mostly just personal ships and a Meridian Class Transport.”

  “Consider a ship this size not as one giant machine with several operators, but as hundreds of machines inside one shell, with different operators.”

  “Okay…”

  “All trying to go in different directions at once.”

  “Right.”

  She made a ball with his fists, then spread them apart while making an explosion sound with her mouth.

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “You get it now?”

  “I’m going to need to orchestrate everyone working together?”

  “Yes, sir. I can slave one of the functions to your station, but you won’t get full operational access, you’ll get an overview and status readouts. I suggest letting someone else handle the communications, at least until you have a handle on getting everyone moving in unison."

  “Can we do with only two sys-ops? Make the third a weapons console?”

  “You know how many systems those three are going to have to monitor and operate with a ship this large? With stable AIs, years of experience, and a whole galaxy of natural talent we just might be able to. I’m your most experienced here, and I haven’t touched something this complex in over twenty years. No, sir. We cannot do this with only two.”

  I sighed. I really didn’t want to limit our combat capabilities, but it looked like I had no choice.

  “Okay, maybe you should come up here and show me how to operate this command chair properly then.”

  “I’ll be right up there, just as soon as we lock down these configs.”

  She bent over the nearest station and talked through its function with one of the other crew. After a few minutes, she climbed the short stairwell in the rear of the compartment up to the command mezzanine.

  “This glass table here?” she said, indicating the table behind the command station, “This is a DonCrest Model 89 navigation pane. If we can get this operational, it would make your job a hell of a lot easier.”

  “How so?”

  “You can plot waypoints on a system scale, up to three AU away, and then send it to the helm station and sys-op consoles. Anything Yansek can pick up…”

  “Yansek?”

  “One of your system operators – he’s on sensors – anything he tags can be referenced here and vice versa.” She gestured at a row of darkened consoles. “If you had an engineering officer, you can control energy fields, power distribution and damage control from this bank of consoles along this side of the mezzanine.”

  “Ghantri never struck me as a species interested in controlling damage, only causing it.”

  She chuckled, “You got that right, sir. These consoles were never operational, by the looks of it. If we get someone in central engineering control we can probably do most of those functions from there. We’ll just have to work out some communication protocols with them.”

  “I’ve got a man named Gannerson in engineering. Seems to know what he is doing. I’ll make sure you two meet and have a talk.”

  “Roger that. I gotta say, being up here, on a starship again? It’s like I’ve been sleeping for years and only just waking up. This might be a piece of shit junker, but it’s the best darn ship I’ve been on in decades. And it’s ours. Yours, I mean, sir. Sorry.”

  “No, no. You’re right. We’re in this together. One community, one family.”

  She leant over the rail and looked down into the operation deck. “One in, all in?” she said, smiling.

  “Something like that.”

  14.

  “Retro thrusters, five percent,” I called out.

  “Retro, five percent,” repeated the helmsman down below. The ship shuddered ever so slightly, as the hull received the pressure exerted by the forward manoeuvring thrusters. The bridge was busy, all our operational stations were manned and Naga Team stood behind me as we began our movements to get out of the docking sphere. Several other civilians stood about the various consoles, watching their operation and learning. I wanted watchkeepers ready to go as soon as things settled down.

  I watched the readout given to me by one of the systems operators, showing the proximity of the gantries all around the ship as we slowly backed out of the hangar.

  “Inertial stabilisers at maximum.” called one of the system
s operators.

  “Very good,” I said, as the vibration in the hull abated completely. All we could hear was the steady drone of the thrusters. “Retro to zero percent.”

  My command was repeated again, and the retros cut out. I watched the velocity counter level out and kept watch on the proximity readings.

  “Steer eleven degrees, starboard.”

  “Eleven degrees, starboard.”

  “Steady.”

  “Zero degrees, sir.”

  “Pitch down, ten degrees. Five percent retro.”

  I had done fine manoeuvring with Crege, Max, and Fel in the past, but nothing as large as this Cruiser. If I messed this up, I could bring the whole gantry system down upon us and cause a hull breach, alert the Ghantri to our escape or some other unforeseen consequence. A single bead of sweat formed on my brow, running a long, itching trail down my face as I concentrated.

  “Steady! Zero thrust!”

  “Zero degrees, zero thrust!”

  After ten minutes of high tension manoeuvring, the ship was finally free of the berthing and had a clear path directly out into open space. I fell back into the command chair in relief, blowing the air out of my lungs as I did. The bridge crew clapped gently, and Kekkin congratulated me from where he stood at my shoulder.

  “Expertly done, naga-zak,” he said

  “I think I need a coffee. Please tell me we have coffee.”

  “Warrior will ask Merade for supplies, next time I see her.”

  “Well, we’re not out of the woods, yet. Time to see if we can bullshit our way past the Ghantri ships out there,” I said, pointing to the view screen as we backed up through the atmo-shield.

  “Power levels are holding,” came Gannerson’s report from engineering, “Engines are loud and unsightly, but they’re steady too. Had to shut down number three emission line, but one of my lads seems to think it’s an easy fix.”

  “Thanks, Chief. Keep me posted.” Next, I called down to the operations deck. “Comms, connect me to the sensor nexus.”

  “Line connected, sir!”

  “Tac, how are those IFF codes you pulled from the Sectis neuro-module?”

  I am unfamiliar with the structure of the codes, came a line of text on one of the readouts at my station, but the transponder accepted them. Ghantri codes are unlike Protectorate signals, but we should know soon enough if they recognise them.

  “Any luck setting up a local network?”

  That particular AI is rude and obnoxious. Not to mention thinks it’s in charge. I’ve had to initiate a full memory purge from that AI ahead of schedule since it’s a non-essential function. I couldn’t have an AI like that running unchecked in a network, I’m sorry.

  “Thanks, let me know the moment it’s been rebuilt. Comms, prepare to activate IFF transponder!”

  “Transponder on standby. Entering codes now.”

  “Captain,” called a system operator, “Contacts coming in on sensors, assigning tags now!”

  It took me a second to realise they were talking to me. “Let’s show them who we are, Comms. Activate transponder. Let me know the moment we are queried.”

  “Transponder active. Queries coming in now.”

  “Systems, weapons,” I called, “Stay sharp! Pipe up the moment you get energy spikes on those contacts.”

  Martine started calling out to the console operators, getting them to share various data feeds with each other, especially the weapons operators. I turned behind me to check on Rego, who was trying to repair the holo-table.

  “What’s the status of that navigation pane, Private?” I said.

  “Think it’s just wear and tear, sir. Thing’s never been serviced since it was removed from whatever ship they pulled it from.”

  We had found that the Cruiser was a salvaged ship, rather than rebuilt using stolen designs. Several key systems were not native to a Danghar Cruiser, but the modular nature of the Danghar meant it was able to work regardless. The Jaani who pieced it all together were hardly experts, however, and many of the consoles, AIs, and machinery fixtures simply did not work. It appeared as if they never had, either. There seemed to be a lot of guesswork done to get these ships operational.

  Without that holo-table working, navigating the system was going to be a real pain in the arse. I was starting to see why this ship was left behind, instead of joining the rest of the Ghantri fleet on their crazy crusade into the Great Web to find their gods.

  “Energy spike on contact two-two-delta!” called a sys-op.

  “Weapons, start tracking that target!” I called.

  “Target acquired! Tracking!”

  “What’s two-two-delta doing?” I said, “Vectors, aspect, range?”

  “Coming about on bearing red one-one-zero, north five-five. Range – nine hundred kilometres. Vector is closing, two kilometres a second.”

  The comms officer yelped in surprise. “Sir! Incoming communications from contact two-two-delta!”

  Kekkin and I shared a look, “Weapons! Do you have a firing solution?”

  “Yessir!”

  “Tell me, next time.”

  “Sorry, sir!”

  “What do you think, Sergeant?” I said to Kekkin.

  “If we start shooting first, galab will know we are calak. Going too slow to start space battle.”

  “If we let them take the first shot, though, the others will just think it’s a territorial dispute.”

  “First shot might be last shot.”

  I rubbed my chin. “We need to find out what weaponry that ship has.”

  The Cruiser had a dozen anti-ship cannons, firing hardlight projectiles, but only a handful were operational. It also had a missile battery, but no missiles were left in the magazines. There were manufactories, but they too had been stripped of anything usable and their condition was doubtful at best. Regardless, I only had my point defences manned. The Class 1 weapons were AI controlled cyclic beamers, firing rapid pulses across the forward and aft arcs of the ship. If we were forced into a pitched battle, I had Tac’s reassurances that he could route gunnery controls to my chair, but this was less than ideal. Although the ship did pack a hell of a punch with the hardlight batteries, I knew that any hits to this ship could mean the lives of hundreds, if not thousands of civilians. No, I had to avoid combat at all costs.

  “Systems!” I called, “I want optical imagery of that contact. Anyone familiar with Class 2 weapons?”

  A few of the bridge staff raised their hands.

  “If anyone with an idea about anti-ship weaponry gets a look at those images, I need to know what level of firepower this kak has,” I said.

  People started to crowd around the three systems consoles, straining for a look at the images. I had my own display, flicking through the images as they were given to me.

  “Looks like Korveli-Xue Lancer,” said Kekkin. Moments later, one of the bridge staff confirmed it.

  “Definitely KX Lancer, sir!” they called, “Range is five hundred kilometres, but you don’t want to get hit with it. Will cut through the hull like a plasma torch.”

  I swore. “Okay, helm! Swing us about, one zero five degrees to port. Zero retro.”

  “Red one zero five! Zero thrust!”

  I watched the heading marker as we swung about to face away from the oncoming threat. When we hit the right direction, I called down to Gannerson.

  “Chief! We’re going to need full thrust. Everything you got. Ready for that?”

  “No, but you’re going to do it anyway, right?”

  “Sorry, Chief!”

  “I’ll keep it together. I’ll have to re-open number three emission line, though. Just don’t go full burn in one hit, goose them gradually or we risk destabilising the Bose-Einstein condensate in the Linus chamber.”

  “I’ll try and remember that, Chief. Helm! Fifteen percent main thrusters!”

  “Fifteen percent, forward!”

  I watched the velocity indicator steadily begin to climb, slowing the approach o
f contact two-two-delta. When we had reached fifteen percent, I called out to the helm once more.

  “Fifty percent thrust!”

  “Five zero thrust, sir!”

  The ship started to vibrate again, the inertial stabilisers unable to compensate. After several moments, the g-forces of our acceleration started to push me back into my seat.

  “All bridge staff! Get to a seat and strap in!” As people started to scramble to find seating, I keyed in the ship-wide public announcement system. “All personnel, get to a seat if you can find one, or sit down on the deck if you can’t and grab onto something. We’re about to experience significant g-forces. Captain out!”

  I gave it several minutes more, giving the civilians below decks the chance to settle down.

  “Helm! Seventy percent thrust!”

  “Roger, seven zero thrust!”

  The roar of the propulsion system echoed through the hull as we started to pull at least twelve gees of force. It felt like only two, the inertial stabilisers working overtime, but it was enough to push me hard into the back of my seat. We were starting to pull away from the contact, who corrected their vector to intercept us. After about twenty minutes, systems reported that they had increased acceleration and were once more gaining on us.

  “Time to intercept – three hours twenty-two minutes, sir!”

  “Helm! Eighty-five percent thrust!”

  “Eight-five!”

  Once more the g-forces started to climb, and once more we started to pull away from the vessel. After another fifteen minutes, though, the enemy ship accelerated again.

  “Can’t have too much more in her,” I said, “That’s a Destroyer Class ship. No match for a Cruiser.”

  “Time for full throttle?” said Kekkin, strapped into a dead console station behind me.

  “Helm! Full burn! Give me all she’s got!”

  “Roger, one-hundred percent thrust!”

  The sound of the thrusters drowned out all other sounds, a great roaring that shook the hull as if an explosion was going off behind us. In a way, that’s exactly what was happening. I watched with baited breath, keeping an eye on the sensor data on the enemy ship. If it started to gain on us, we would have no choice but to engage in combat – an outcome that had far too many consequences for my liking.