Invisible Enemy

by Ken Britz

  “Reverse course. Negative one gravity once steady,” Kenga said to the pilot and then turned to Reed. “Charge hull generators.” Systems whirred and there was soft chatter as the crew again verified the Kuro was ready for shift.

  When they were steady, she admired Little Kuro ahead of them, its narrow, needle-like design, threading a hole through the universe. And when it shifted into subspace, it vanished—a ghost in the infinite black, a figment of tired spacer eyes.

  3

  GLSS Venger

  Rigel B Heliopause

  1030 U.Z.

  1254.12.12 A.F.

  Captain Julian “Jolly” Rogers was always aware of the thrum and pulse of his ship. He couldn’t imagine her not being alive. GLSS Venger was a benevolent spirit, keeping the crew inside her alive—a symbiotic relationship. The captain held few romantic notions. Venger wasn’t his first ship, but she was his first command and that alone bore weight. He tried to imagine an ethereal spirit of Venger herself but failed. He wondered if it was his lack of imagination or not wanting to give this warship a familiar face then marred by battle.

  “It’s unfair,” JEM said, lighting the board piece and its destination. “I’m far more advanced than your biological mind.”

  Rogers moved JEM’s black knight to its new location on the three-dimensional chessboard. “It’s because you aren’t taxed at the moment. When you’re running compression computations, you’re almost human.” It was true. Venger’s artificial intelligence calculated and piloted the corvette during transits through fold-space. JEM was a quantum Mark IV computer— though Rogers found little difference from the Mark III Mod 12 version of JEM in place before his last mission to Tau Ceti. While not navigating compression space, JEM idled or powered down. It was too fragile to risk operating in combat, but the captain enjoyed working his mind around a strategy and having JEM run calculations deemed too theoretical for normal ship computers. In that arena, JEM was a pleasure. Humans were wary of AI even this long after the Fall, but no one else could do calculations at quantum speeds like these AI.

  The AI computer screen flickered blue. “It’s not a challenge for me, sir,” JEM replied.

  “The point isn’t to challenge you, Jem.” Rogers tugged on his graying beard absently and focused on the multidimensional board in front of him. “You might fool me.”

  “Would I fool you?” JEM’s screen pulsed. “We could switch to Go.”

  “Your ancestors beat us at Go long before we left Earth,” Rogers replied. “I enjoy Go. Has a sense of action. Go.”

  “You could excite yourself adrenally with some drills, sir.”

  The captain moved his white bishop along the main axis. “The problem with running drills is you lose the excitement. When a real crisis occurs, you’re apt to take the right action for the wrong reason. You hope that the lower adrenaline keeps the mind clear and lets you consider the problem rather than reacting.”

  “Repetition reduces excitement and adrenal levels, but does it induce boredom?” JEM pretended to study the board and changed the subject. “I’ve been considering the problem, you know. The in-system compression hop.”

  “So, you’ve read my thesis?”

  JEM paused for human emphasis. Of course, it read the thesis, Rogers thought. It was probably running calculations on my work. “I’m not saying it’s impossible, but practically, it’s improbable. Theoretically, it’s sound, in a system with few gravitational bodies—”

  “Ah, so you concede the possibility—”

  JEM pulsed. “I concede that as our computing advances, it’s possible we could decompress closer to gravitational wells. You understand the nature of space fabric. The dynamics change within a star system and the mathematics, even at the speed of my computing, cannot be calculated.”

  The captain opened his mouth to respond, but the comm panel buzzed. He reached over for the hard-wire intercom switch from sensors and snapped it on. “Captain.”

  “Decompression echo, sir. Might be the Bouman leaving or returning to system,” Sensor First Class Mann’s voice was a whisper.

  Rogers glanced up at his cabin’s astrogation display. “No, Bouman left system six hours ago. Any delay of transit or CASREPs on the broadcast?”

  “No, sir. Thought I’d pose the question.”

  “You know better than that, Manny,” Rogers replied. “Tridar?”

  “Tridar checked, sir. No mass detected. Nothing on spectrum emissions.”

  “What’s the declination from ecliptic?” Rogers read Venger’s own declination and distance as referenced to Rigel B on the display. She was above the ecliptic, in a comet-like arc around the Rigel B outer system.

  “Twenty point oh four seven,” Manny replied. “Not in line with any of the surrounding system hops.” Manny was a damn good sensor tech, and Rogers had been lucky to get her onto Venger after the last refit. It caused a row with Captain Jack Hollis on the Marengo Orca, but he was still in the shipyard. Still.

  “Deploy ASDIN,” Rogers said, switching the comm circuit over to Engineering with a snap of the knob.

  “Cheng, sir,” Chief Engineer Mitchum replied to the hail.

  “Cheng, we’re about to change course.”

  “Got the heads up from the conn, sir. We’re wrapping up maintenance on the starboard thrust manifold.”

  “How much time?”

  “Less than ten minutes, skipper.”

  “That should be fine. I’ll have course laid in when you give the word. Any problems?”

  “Not a one you haven’t heard of, sir.”

  Rogers snapped off the intercom. It might be something but could be a false return or a fleet probe. Or it could be a sub. Seemed likely, and the Galactic Fleet diverted all capable ships to take action at Eagle Nebula. There was a lot of confidence that GLF would succeed against the Hegemonic Fleet, and yet why the GLF chief of space operations left these two ‘screw-ups’ to defend the shipyard was beyond Rogers’s reckoning. All right, he wasn’t exactly a screw-up. He’d been lauded for his actions in public for his ship’s performance at Tau Ceti, but in private, he’d been excoriated and relegated to patrol duty. Plenty of time to do his real work, except that his real work wasn’t quantum compression theory, it was being the commanding officer of Venger.

  Venger was up to the task. She was Anvil Class, two generations older than the Venom Class corvettes. She’d been retrofitted with the latest gear, so Venger was ready for a fight, but he wondered what class he matched up against. An Arbitrator? We can go toe-to-toe with that, he wagered. Ship-on-ship action. By gods, I hoped for this. He wondered if the enemy ship’s captain was ready for them.

  “Time to go to the bridge?” JEM asked, seeing the smile on the captain’s face with its cabin camera.

  “I’m afraid so. Stow for flight but stay in standby. It could be a false detect. I’m not letting you off that easy.” Rogers grabbed the handle at the top of the playing board, twisted and collapsed the it in one smooth motion.

  “Very good, sir,” JEM replied.

  The captain slid the board into a locker and headed to the ship’s bridge, which unlike the seagoing vessels of yore, were neither at forefront nor top of the ship, if one could say a space corvette had a top or bottom. Smaller vessels had atmospheric capability, but the Venger was too large in mass and engine to be planetside, so there was no true up or down outside the vessel. Inside was another matter. He strode down the hall, happy to be keeping the ship steady at point eight gravity, but that would change when Venger’s thrusters and engines were put to task. Venger, like most fleet vessels, had two axes of orientation—a vertical one that supported gravity thrust, and a horizontal one that supported shipyard and zero gravity work. A single orientation, while consistent, betrayed two-dimensional earth-based thinking, while over two axes added too much complexity in design and lowered combat effectiveness. Two axes worked well and thus, the established standard in the interstellar age.

  The gravity change alarm buzzed, and Ro
gers grabbed a handhold. The main engines cut power, the ship rotated, and the engines cut back in as Venger re-vectored. He stepped onto the deck plate of the bridge. “Captain on the bridge!” announced one of the crew.

  Commander Amber Cowan handed him a magbulb of hot coffee, fleet standard black.

  “XO, you’re up?” Rogers asked, knowing she bunked on the alternate shift for wartime patrol.

  Cowan gave her crooked smile. “I was checking on starboard thrust manifold maintenance.”

  Some combat stations crew were already in their creches. “News travels fast.” At least Cowan wasn’t too eager—she was still in her fleet galactic blue flight suit. “Should we signal Marengo Orca?”

  “Jack’s last report said she’s not spaceworthy.” Cowan meant Jackie Traynor, Marengo Orca’s XO. The relationship between the executive officers was stronger than the ships’ captains, fortunately.

  Rogers picked up the direct line to comms. Cowan followed suit to listen in.

  “Comms, sir.”

  “Is that you, Jenkins?” Rogers asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is Alexandria in line of sight for tight beam?”

  “Yes, sir. Just checked array alignment after the turn.”

  “Let’s send a tight beam situation report, no handshake. That echo is out of normal transit lanes, so their peripheral sensors won’t pick it up.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jenkins replied.

  “Inform XO when it’s gone out,” Rogers hung up and drank his coffee.

  “Giving Alexandria a heads up?”

  “Alexandria has a strong defense system. There’s not much here but the shipyard, what else is the enemy after? The shipyard’ll relay the message to Marengo Orca and kick Jack Hollis in the pants to get her mains put back together. Not that it’ll do any good.” Hollis had been damnably irritable after the fleet left, preferring to confer with the shipyard CO and the Office of Special Intelligence node stationed there. There wasn’t much Rogers could do about it. Hollis was senior to him, but Hollis should do his job, working the heliosphere patrol. Not sit in the shipyard sulking. Sulking might be too harsh a word, but what else was there to say about it? Damned little, really. Rogers was tempted to send a PERSFOR message to Admiral Odom, but he’d rather not pull that lever. And it might be too late for subtlety.

  Rogers scanned the bridge and spied the ship’s schedule board. “It doesn’t look like we have any maintenance or drills scheduled.”

  “I cleared the slate,” Cowan said.

  “All right let’s set Zebra and get the ship airtight. No battle stations yet but have the combat systems tested. It’ll give the crew something to do before we’re in range.”

  Cowan nodded, picking up her handset to answer a buzz. She put it down. “SITREP sent, about fifty light minutes to receive.”

  The astrogation display was a mess of calculations, probabilities and orbital mechanics. “What do you think, XO?” Rogers asked.

  Cowan leaned, her swarthy face burnished by the astrodisplay’s illumination. “No signature in real space. Either he’s stealth or using subspace transit. It’ll be a good chance to test the ASDIN. Do you really think he’s headed for the shipyard, not the colony?”

  “Alexandria isn’t where the dreadnoughts are being built, but the ASDIN refits are here. Add in our intelligence node, and the orbital is compelling. I think it’s too coincidental that the enemy just hopped in-system a week after our fleet’s left.”

  “That’s what Venger’s for.” Cowan smiled.

  Rogers liked Cowan. She had the makings of a true spacer. Venger would be in capable hands with her if Rogers were incapacitated. Possibly more capable. He loved being a spacer, but he’d grown too comfortable working at OSI. He was overdue for Regenerate, but he was distracted, too busy thinking about quantum theory or space born enemy tactics to be bothered. He studied the astrodisplay. “OOD, come left to yaw 120, roll fifteen.” He grabbed a handhold reflexively and braced himself.

  The officer of the deck repeated the order to the pilot who complied. The ship heeled over with the vector change, the mains staying online for this.

  “Coming in abaft?” the OOD, Ensign Raheem, asked.

  Rogers motioned at the display, giving a course probability of the sub based on echo datum, orbital mechanics, and light delay relativities. “She’ll be watching what’s in front of her. She’ll spot us if she’s in real space, but even if she is, the narrower her aspect, the fewer weapons she can bring to bear on the initial volley.”

  “She won’t change until she’s past the Jovian gravity well,” Cowan turned to Raheem. “Set condition Zebra.”

  Ensign Raheem nodded, and the announcement went over the ship’s PA circuit.

  “Let’s see what ASDIN has to say,” Rogers prompted. Together the CO and XO headed up through the ship. Rogers sensed the subtle shift in routine. The pulse of the ship and the step of the crew quickened. Hatches shut and the ventilation shifted. He suspected the crew were going to their battle stations before the signal, and more than a few had donned their skinsuits and spacesuits, ready for the hard vacuum of space that often accompanied a fight. He entered the dark room on the ASDIN center. Sensor Tech 2nd Class Blas Basan was already there, scanning the new Anti-Subspaceship Detection In N-Dimensions (ASDIN) system for the tachyon stream that escaped subspace when a ship emerged. Basan was engrossed by the feed. Cowan’s hand on his shoulder didn’t make him stop, but he held up a hand. “Nothing yet, sirs,” he said. “Too far away.”

  “What about aspect?” Rogers asked.

  “Too much dispersion, distance, and randomness.” Basan finished his sweep and pulled his head out of the headset. “Deep bearing sweep. Machines are doing routine scans. Are we going to intercept?”

  Rogers nodded. “We’ll follow it in if there’s no tachyon trace. There’s a sensor field past the Jovian we can use, if it comes down to it.” He checked the ship’s chronometer. They might have half a day before they closed within torpedo range and more if they used the shorter-range subspace ‘Betta’ torpedoes. Bettas were big, only capable of launching from Venger’s forward tubes. And because of their size and range, Venger only had four. They carried subspace charges, which were smaller, without propulsion, but their effects were devastating up close. Real space torpedo inventory was six, the normal twelve-rack bay taken up by the subspace behemoths and the rest for rail gun ammunition, all of which ran along Venger’s main axis down the central keel. There was weapon stock, but it took time to assemble more torpedoes. The jettison ports for the subspace charges were on her belt rings, as were her particle beam cannons, which could fire in any direction, except dead ahead or astern. They filled Venger to the brim with ammunition as she was the first line of defense for the orbital shipyard. Before leaving, they’d stowed two Betta fish in Venger’s enlarged launch tubes, with the real space fish in the remaining tubes and had taken the other two of Marengo Orca’s Bettas for a six Betta total loadout. They would fire plenty of ordinance before combat ended.

  “Got a problem with the Betta fish, though, sir,” Basan said, bringing the captain out of his mental calculations.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “The tube fish are leaking tachyons. Not a lot, but if we get in close enough, they may catch a sniff. I only noticed it when we powered up the ASDIN for sweeps.”

  “Are those the fish we got from Orca?” he asked Cowan.

  “Yes, ma’am. We planned a close-inspection, but we didn’t have time after Orca ordered us underway when the fleet departed. We could pull them and calibrate, but the stows are full, so we don’t have room to move unless we dismantle a couple of fish.”

  Rogers shook his head. “We won’t get to the Betta fish now, and by the time we can do anything about it, it’ll be too late. That’s not a disadvantage just yet. Let’s get a team to check the four stowed and get them calibrated.” He turned to Basan. “Report if the bleed becomes too much.”

  Yes, they coul
d go toe-to-toe. Corvettes took on subs in pairs, but Rogers was confident Venger had the tenacity to take on her foe single-handedly. “XO, let’s get up to point two cee and see what he’s about.”

  “Aye, sir,” Cowan said, relaying the message to the conn.

  “Keep half a sensor out for any other echoes,” Rogers said. No, there was probably only one boat out there… He mentally cursed Hollis for his reticence. Venger was just in position to intercept, but barely so. He hoped his initial SITREP would get Marengo Orca out of her berth, but he had to depend on his own skill, crew, and ship.

  4

  HFSS Kuro Hai

  Rigel B Outer System

  0235 U.Z.

  1254.12.13 A.F.

  Being inside subspace was weird. Something about translating into higher dimensionality influenced the mind. Everything felt dampened or depressed. Lights and colors were dimmer. Sounds muffled. The usual thrum of Kuro’s ventilation and systems were muted as though you were underwater, and the pounding of blood in your ears was a dull pulse. Beyond the dampening, there were other sounds—sounds that real space instruments couldn’t detect but humans could hear. Subspacers called it the music of the spheres or space whale song, and the sound deepened the farther into the multi-dimensional space you went. Even smells were tempered in subspace, the faint musk of humanity, machine ozone, and air purification suppressed. Subspace affects all the senses, Proconsul Reed thought. He hated subspace, and these damned subspacers reveled in it. He hoped to spend as little time within it as possible on this mission.

  The bridge crew were making jokes and laughing over some bawdy joke on the local community circuit, and Reed didn’t like it. Not that subspacers didn’t have discipline. They did their duty same as any fleet spacer. But Reed, who’d come from the main Hegemonic Fleet, didn’t like subspacers despite their criticality to the war effort. Reed pondered the why behind that distaste for the hundredth time. Why didn’t he like them? He thought if he’d became one, he’d understand them more. He’d see that the difference between spacers and subspacers was just inter-service rivalry. In some senses, Reed was right, but he couldn’t get over his dislike nor put his finger on what it was, he intensely disliked.