Vorpal Blade (ARC)

by John Ringo

  * * *

  "Grapp, I'm getting whacked," Hattelstad said, looking at the clock on the bulkhead. "Four more hours."

  "We're on twelve on, twelve off schedules," Jaenisch said as they made their way to the armory. "Two platoons up at a time, one down. We're the last platoon to go down. Sorry about that. I know you had a bad night."

  "Not a problem," Berg said. "I can hang."

  "Hey, Josh," Jaen said as they entered the armory.

  The armorer was a corporal, very tall, about six-six if Berg was right, and skinny. He also looked . . . odd. It was something about the way he stood. His name tag read "Lyle."

  "Hey, Jaen," the armorer said in what was barely a whisper. "This Two-Gun?"

  "Yeah," Jaen said, grinning. "But he promises he's not going to go all mojo on us in combat."

  "I laid in a spare set of M-96s just in case," the armorer said, smiling lopsidedly. It seemed as if one side of his face didn't work quite properly. "You'll be wanting your guns."

  "That we would," Jaen said. "Want help?"

  "Got it," the armorer said, limping away from the window. When he came back he was hefting an eight-barrel Gatling gun in either hand. He set the massive weapons on the counter as if they weighed no more than a .22. Then he went back and came out with a heavy automatic cannon.

  "You've got the other Gatling," Sergeant Jaenisch said, checking the serial numbers and setting one of the guns on his shoulder. "See ya, Josh."

  "Go get 'em," the armorer said, grinning. "And I'm serious. I've got two official .455s for old Two-Gun here when he wants them."

  "Thanks," Berg said, picking up the other Gatling. "If I need them, you'll be the second person to find out."

  "What's with the armorer?" he asked when they'd cleared the compartment.

  "Broke his grapping back in a Humvee rollover," Hattelstad answered. "Spent two years in rehab. They said he'd never walk again. He could have taken a full medical but he went through rehab then did a maulkload of paperwork to get back in."

  "Grapp," Berg said. "I guess I'll just overlook any little oddities. He reminded me of Lurch, though."

  "Thus his team name," Sergeant Jaenisch said. "But you only use it if you're allowed."

  "Clear," Berg said.

  The only compartment large enough to work on the Wyvern systems was the missile compartment. It wasn't exactly crowded with Marines, but there were quite a few when they got there. They found an out-of-the-way corner, port aft, and settled down to some serious weapons cleaning.

  "You know an M-675?" Jaenisch asked.

  "I qualified in it when I Wyvern qualled," Berg said. "Then again at FOT. About the only thing I haven't trained on is the Mark Fives."

  "We'll get you fitted tomorrow," Jaen said. "It's scheduled. Then we'll run you though the simulator. You're going to have priority on that, so you can avoid most of the dickbeating for a couple of days."

  "We've got maulk to do unless they find a planet that's worth checking out on the ground," Hattelstad said.

  "Hey, guys," Crowley said from where his team was working on their guns. "You hear there's an alien onboard?"

  "Sure," Jaen said, easily. "Tchar in engineering. I mean he comes through the missile bay twice a day at least."

  "No, I mean a real alien," Crowley said. "Some sort of talking spider that rides around on one of the mission specs shoulder! And, that mission spec? She can't be more than twelve but man is she hot!"

  "Twelve will get you twenty, Crow," Hattelstad said. "On the other hand, the linguist? Oh, my God."

  "Huh?" Berg said.

  "The science team," Jaen explained. "It's mixed. Only two women, though, so if we get stranded it's going to be drawing straws time. And I seriously hope I get the linguist straw. Cute as hell. The bio lady, though, well . . ."

  "She's not bad," Hatt said. "But she's black and in her forties. Sort of rode hard and put up wet. But the linguist is a grapping fox."

  "I hear she's weird as hell, though," Crowley said. "Like nuts weird."

  "Can't be nuts and be on a sub," Jaen said placidly.

  "We don't deal with the scientists, huh?" Berg asked.

  "Nope," Hatt replied. "Not until we land. SF does all the mixing, lucky bastards."

  "There's not a designated linguist team," Jaen pointed out. "There's a designated bio team and geo, but no linguist team. So who's gonna cover her pretty backside if we find aliens for her to talk to?"

  "Some officer," Hatt said. "Face it, we're not going to get near her. I don't even know her name."

  "Surely there's a roster," Berg said. "Look it up."

  "Like I have time?"

  "You said we're going to be dickbeating most of the cruise."

  "Top's inventive at ways to keep us from getting bored," Jaenisch said.

  "That sounds ominous," Berg said.

  "It was meant to."

  "All hands. All hands," the 1-MC announced. "Secure all gear and noncritical personnel."

  "Maulk," Hattelstad said. "That's us. What the grapp? We just drew these things!"

  "And now we turn them back in," Jaenisch replied. "Welcome to the Space Mushrooms."

  "Lost me," Berg said, rapidly putting his Gatling back together.

  "Mushrooms," Hattelstad said, sliding the breach into the cannon. "They keep us in the dark and feed us horsemaulk all day."

  "Ah."

  * * *

  "Hey, Josh, what the grapp?" Jaenisch asked when they got back to the armory.

  "No grapping clue," the armorer whispered. "Heard a rumor that we're on some sort of collision course."

  "Oh, just grapping great," Hattelstad said.

  "I didn't say I believed it," Lyle snapped. "I think it was Lujan spreading the worst rumor he could think of. You believe Drago?"

  "Not on a bet," Hattelstad admitted, handing over his cannon.

  It had taken nearly fifteen minutes for them to get to the counter and they had to make their way through the crowd to their racks.

  "There's a ship info channel," Jaenisch said, then paused and cursed. "But of course they haven't posted anything!"

  "Attention on deck!" somebody yelled.

  "At ease," the CO said, cutting through the bustle. "Stay in your racks. There is an unforeseen problem with exiting the system. Maybe. The captain is taking the precaution of locking everything down. In the event of a serious problem, seal your bunks. On-duty crew are going to suits. You've got ten hours of air in your bunk systems. Even if we sustain a full-scale breach, you'll be fine. Just hunker down and listen to music. Hopefully, nothing will happen. But if it does, we're still good. That's all."

  "Like the CO said, there's a possible problem," Top said as the CO exited the compartment. "If anybody wants the physics, I can explain it. Sort of. But if the theory is right, it's going to be like going through a bad storm. Just hold on and puke into your bags. So let me get an attitude check."

  "Grapp this!" most of the Marines shouted.

  "Let me get a positive attitude check!"

  "Positively grapp this!"

  "Let me get a negative attitude check!"

  "I am not joining the grapping Space Marines!"

  "Ooo-rah!" the first sergeant said, grinning. "Seal 'em up, boyos, it's gonna be a bumpy ride!"

  * * *

  "Approaching the bow shock," the XO said.

  The conn personnel had put on their ship suits. Unlike the EVA suits, which were traditional "space" suits, the ship suits were leopard suits that fit like a glove. They were designed simply to permit the ship personnel to survive in the event there was a full scale pressure breach. Damage control personnel were fitted with "real" space suits.

  The helmets of the leopard suits were hinged back so that they could be donned rapidly in the event of an emergency. But barring serious conditions, the CO never ordered them donned. They really tended to slow down communications.

  "Slow to Warp One," the CO replied, then grinned. "God, I love saying that. And you were right, Com
mander Weaver, it is rather spectacular."

  Once the sampling on Saturn was done, the run to the heliopause had taken about forty minutes.

  The bow shock, this close up, was rather spectacular. The area captured a mass of hydrogen and helium along with charged particles from the interstellar cosmic rays and interfiltered solar wind. The charged particles excited the atoms of hydrogen and helium into a broad spread fluorescence that lit up the forward viewscreens.

  "XO, make an announcement that we're entering the bow-shock zone and the ship may experience some turbulence," the former fighter pilot said. "Tray tables and seat backs should be upright."

  The announcement had just been made when the first wave hit.

  "Wow," the XO said, grabbing a stanchion. "What in the hell was that?"

  It had felt as if they had turned sideways, but the boat remained "upright."

  "Standing wave," Bill said. "That was the first one."

  The crew had been briefed that there might be some unusual effects and warned of the possibility of damage. But that was different from experiencing the effects.

  "Whoa," the CO said, shaking his head. He'd installed himself in his command chair and now brought up his chicken straps, buckling himself in. "XO, all hands, brace. That last one was—"

  "Holy maulk!" Weaver shouted as the world seemed to buck. He slid into his chart table, then started to slide back. In the distance there was a crash as some equipment that had been improperly stowed spun across a compartment. "That was at least a G, sir!"

  "Drop out of—" The words from the CO were too late as the boat suddenly seemed to twist. The grav wave stretched everything in the boat, pulling forward and aft and creating a miniature tidal effect even on the human body, pushing blood into the head and feet. On the boat, and the engine, it had much worse effects.

  * * *

  Berg hunted through the menu on the computer until he found what he was looking for.

  "Hey, Jaen," he said.

  "You found the communicator," Jaen said. "What you got?"

  "How do I ask Top about the physics?" Berg asked.

  "You're serious?" Sergeant Jaenisch said. "You ask Top about the physics some time when we're not talking about the ship coming apart. Clear, Marine?"

  "Clear, Sergeant," Berg said. "Sorry."

  "Not a problem," Jaen replied. "Just sit tight and—"

  "All hands! All hands! Prepare for bow-shock entry."

  "What in the hell . . . ?" Jaen said.

  "Shiny, we're going into the bow shock," Berg said happily.

  "What in the hell is a bow shock?" Jaen asked.

  "Aw, hell," Berg said. "There's probably an explanation on the system. Is there a way to look out?"

  "Look it up, Two-Gun," Jaenisch said, then gasped. "Whoa! What in the hell was that?"

  "Maulk," Berg said. "That was a—"

  Then the second wave hit and he stopped talking. All he could do at first was hang onto his position by bracing against the door and bulkhead. But as the ship went into what felt like flips, he could feel his stomach, normally cast-iron, start to flip with it.

  "Oh, God," Berg moaned, fumbling for the puke bag compartment. "I'm sooo tired of thisss!"

  It tasted like a soprano note.

  9

  We're HOW FAR Off Course?

  "Wegurcaingl!" Tchar shouted as the grav wave hit. His arms flew to their limits from tidal stress and he watched in horror as the coryllium sphere began spinning out of control.

  At the first movement, the world seemed to tear apart. The massive Adar flew through the air of the engine room, spinning as tidal forces began to corkscrew. The air seemed to turn violet and the bulkheads seemed to stretch. By luck as much as anything he landed on his back, his helmet slamming into position and automatically locking. He slid across the metal floor feet first into the rear bulkhead as the air began to smell like yellow.

  The shearing forces of whatever had hit them had caused a cascade failure in the lighting system, but red automatic lighting came on automatically. When Tchar looked up the coryllium sphere was spinning like a top, a blue glow filling the air around it.

  The shearing stress and the random distance fluctuations caused by the confused warp field left an odd residual effect on the boat, which either was tossing end for end or felt like it was. The difference was only semantics and Tchar didn't feel like debating it at the moment. He was pinned to the far bulkhead, and the engineer on the reactor console was crumpled in the corner, unconscious or dead.

  Tchar stretched out one arm and grabbed a stanchion, waving his hand back and forth to figure out where it was, then dragged himself across the compartment by main strength until he got a hand around the pedestal of the engineer's chair. With two hands he chinned himself up to the chair then reached up and hit the chicken switch on the reactor, cutting all power to the engine.

  The weird sensory effect and gravitational stresses fell away immediately. Of course, it was replaced by microgravity.

  "Oh, this is much better," Tchar snarled. He pulled himself into the engineer's too-small chair and began the laborious process of stopping the spinning ball and getting it realigned.

  "What just happened?" the chief engineer asked from across the compartment.

  * * *

  "Dr. Weaver, what in the hell just happened?" the CO asked, shaking his head. He'd popped his helmet into place as had most of the conn that were still at their stations. "And is it just me, or is the bow shock gone?"

  "It's gone, sir," Weaver said, slowly lifting himself up with one hand. At the very beginning of the strange effect he had hunkered down to the deck, slammed his helmet down and held on for dear life. Fortunately, most of the conn crew were strapped into their seats. The only three people on the conn who didn't have seats were Weaver, the XO and the COB. Weaver had hunkered, the XO had grabbed a stanchion for dear life and was now holding on with one hand, frowning. He did not like microgravity.

  The chief of boat was standing by the diving board, legs spread, his arms folded, one hand holding a cup of coffee. He was floating about two feet off the deck, though.

  "That was interesting," the command master chief said. He slowly turned his coffee mug over, then reached up and lowered himself to the deck by pressing a finger on the overhead. A careful wrist twist and he had his mug back upright with the coffee held in place by microgravity forces. He still had his helmet open so very, very slowly he took a sip. The black coffee rippled and glimmered oddly, but friction between the cup and the liquid held it in place as he lowered it again. "Damned interesting. Reminded me of one time we hit this tsunami off Sumatra . . ."

  "I saw all the viewscreens blank out," the CO said. "The indicator lights were still going so apparently there just wasn't anything to show. There are apparently benefits in this job to being a fighter pilot. I'm not sure if we were actually tumbling . . ."

  "Neither am I, sir," Bill said, bringing his tracking system to life. "But I'm pretty sure we're not where we were."

  "And by that you mean . . ." the XO said.

  "I mean we're not anywhere near where we used to be, sir," Bill replied. "I'm working on tracking right now, but so far I can say that we are nowhere within five light-years of Sol. . . ."

  * * *

  "You okay, Miriam?" Mimi asked.

  "No," Miriam said, folding up the plastic bag. "I'm dying. Oh. My. Goddd!" She hastily pulled the bag closed and reached for another. "I hate zero G!"

  "I don't think it will repeat," Mimi said. She lowered her feet from where they'd been planted on the overhead. "I think we went through a dimensional shift. I hope we get gravity back soon, though. . . ."

  * * *

  "Normal space drive coming on-line," the COB said over the 1-MC. "Prepare for gravity in all compartments. Repeat, prepare for gravity in all compartments."

  "We've got ten casualties," the XO said. Everyone had their feet on the ground for when the gravity came up and when it did he simply bent his knees slight
ly. "All minor except for one cranial injury in engineering. He's been taken to sickbay and Dr. Chet says that so far it just appears to be a concussion. No fractures."

  "Small favors," the CO said. "Okay, Commander Weaver, what's the consensus?"

  "I've talked with Tchar and Dr. Beach," Bill replied. "We apparently went into either a dimensional gate of some sort or possibly a 'hard' warp where we weren't dropping in and out. Mimi is apparently pretty sure that it was a dimensional gate and based on some . . . objective effects I agree with her."

  "Both of you having been in a dimensional gate before," the CO said.

  "Yes, sir," Bill replied. "The effect, as far as I can tell, other than the weird effects, was to . . . jump us to Epsilon Eridani."

  "That's not just off course," the CO said, frowning. "That's way off course."

  "Yes, sir," Bill replied. "More or less in completely the wrong direction. Our survey plan just went out the window; we weren't supposed to survey the E Eridani area until late in the survey. But at least we're in the same universe."

  "Are we sure?" the XO asked, sarcastically.

  "Pretty sure," Weaver answered. "The physics team is doing some pretty sophisticated tests. So far, quantum mechanics is working the same way as we'd expect with the exception of some gravitational effects. They're asking if they can do an EVA and do more grav tests."

  "XO?" the CO asked.

  "I'm for it," the XO said. "We took some damage. Nothing serious, but it would give us time to fix it all before we take off again. If we shut all the way down we can chill, too. Question: Are we going to have that problem each time we hit one of these helio things?"

  "Unknown, sir," Bill said. "I'm hoping that if we approach away from the bow shock it will be lower. But I'm also recommending to the chief engineer and to Tchar that we install a better seat for the engineering watch crew. That way if we dimensionally jump again, they can shut down the power. That is what stopped us, this time. If Tchar hadn't scrammed the power, I'm not sure where we would have ended up. The other side of the galaxy would have been bad. In the middle of a star would have been worse."