Invisible Enemy

by Ken Britz

  “Should we deploy?” Kenga asked, her voice a whisper in the hush of subspace. Tiny lights floated around her, like fireflies suspended in solution.

  Reed relaxed his grip on the creche controls. A fin might give the torpedoes something to track. An explosion in real space would tear through the subspace hull and there would be no Kuro. It seemed reasonable to shift to subspace and then work an approach and attack on the enemy.

  “Sensors, conn, tachyon track,” Kenga said, her rising voice knocking Reed from his reverie. He switched over to tachyon display, trying to make heads or tails of it. There it was, a faint trace on the bearing of the corvette.

  “Conn, sensors, tachyon stream has left the corvette. Detecting two streams now.” There was a burst of static on the display along the corvette’s bearing. “Explosion, first ship’s torpedo. Battle damage assess—”

  “Focus on that second tachyon stream,” Kenga said. “Pilot, hard left rudder, full declination.”

  “Aye aye, ma’am,” the pilot responded and the ship dove, angling away from the tachyon pulses, the gravitic impeller yanking the ship through space like a toy on a string. They shouldn’t be in acquisition range of the enemy torpedoes. What was this?

  “A new weapon?” Reed asked.

  “I thought Intel briefed proconsuls on the latest GLF weaponry,” Kenga said. She tapped controls and the tachyon sensor clicked over the speakers. Reed was sure she didn’t know either but kept his thoughts to himself.

  “Tachyon stream growing. Contact closing at high speed,” Sensors reported. “Altering course to track on us.”

  “How?” Reed asked. There were few things that could navigate subspace.

  “The Galactic Fleet wouldn’t abandon one of their shipyards without leaving dogs with teeth,” Kenga said. “Pilot, hold the turn, hold flank speed!”

  Reed’s creche hissed and his suit squeezed as they sped away from the torpedo.

  “We should dive deeper!” Reed said.

  Kenga turned up the tachyon trace audible until it was a loud ticking and echoing in subspace.

  Reed heard the slight uptempo. The closing aspect.

  “Translation in tachyon! Device has entered subspace!” Sensors said, voice shrill.

  “Shift to real space!” Kenga ordered. “Standby weapons! Brace for impact!”

  Reed clutched his controls, eyes locked on the combat systems array. The tachyon pulse sounded like a tiny hammer in his head.

  Kenga shifted the ship back to real space, and the world brightened to normality. Alarms blared and buzzed around them. The astrodisplay lit up with data for one of the enemy torpedoes.

  Reed stared at the tacticals. The torpedo had acquired Kuro at extreme range, its drive plume flaring as it moved into attack.

  “Incoming!” Sensors announced. Then the ship bucked as the close-in weapon systems activated and automated defense spun the ship to engage. The ship spiraled, both turning away from the torpedo and giving weapon batteries a target solution.

  “Firing… Firing… Firing…” the automated system droned in concert with the alarms flashing everywhere.

  Proximity alarms blared. The ship jerked and spun away from something that slapped it like a toy. He was thrown against his harness, his suit flexing, and protecting. Reed gritted his teeth against the counterspin and his vision tunneled. Thrusters reacted against the spin and the Kuro tumbled.

  “Shut off those damn alarms!” Kenga snapped at Reed and stabbed the comm panel. “Weapons, report.”

  “Enemy torpedo destroyed starboard side. Damage to two close-in weapon systems from debris.”

  “Sensors? Second torpedo?” Kenga was scanning the corvette for additional response.

  “No longer in acquisition range,” Sensors replied.

  Sensors locked onto the torpedo. It was far out of range, its drive inert and fuel spent. The tachyon pulse of the subspace torpedo ticked away, but the sound grew faint amid the other noises of combat.

  “Damage control?” Kenga asked Reed. Her fingers sifted through the tactical data.

  Reed reviewed the damage and silenced the alarms. “No hull breaches. Some damage to outer hull near the starboard attack fin fairing. Starboard weapons blisters still functional. Gravitic impeller is offline, but engineering is responding. Should we get the secondary drive online?”

  “No. That would give us away before we can recover,” Kenga replied with a grimace. “Pilot, slow our spin to zero g. Let’s deal with this while the impeller is brought online.” She turned to Reed. “You need to learn your tactical panels, XO. We can’t have every alarm on the ship sounding during battle. Review your settings next time.”

  Reed ground his teeth. The nerve… he looked around the control room. The rest of the bridge crew weren’t looking at him. They were too deep into their own immediate recovery actions, but he could tell they were listening. He stared Kenga down, noting her skin was ashen and her fair hair was dark with sweat and matted against her forehead. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’m going to fin deck to check on our weapons systems. Proceed with a standard torpedo loadout for tubes one and two. If the corvette reacts, you have the conn for response.” Kenga unstrapped from her creche and pushed off in the light gravity toward the ladder.

  Reed perused the mess of his tactical display. It was still rigged for subspace operations. In hindsight, he should’ve set it for combat conditions, but he hadn’t thought of it, and besides, they were only in subspace for a few moments. He glanced at the shedding counter. They wouldn’t be shifting to subspace for a few hours yet. He worked his display and took damage reports from around the Kuro, growing anger mixed with shame sat like hot lead in his belly. Kenga, despite the fact he was the proconsul, held him to subspacer levels of competency. He’d made three mistakes in a short time. She had ignored the first two mistakes, but called him out on the third. He had failed and reacted poorly to the new threat. He snapped off the audio of the fading tachyon trace—the subspace torpedo that had lost its prey, and that made him wonder… had the enemy known they would drop back out of subspace? The enemy’s new weapon didn’t seem capable of returning to real space. There was a lot of tactical data to chew on here, all of which the Admiralty Intelligence could use to good effect.

  It angered him she’d pointed out his failure with the tacticals. She’d never speak to a proconsul in that manner, but he wasn’t just the proconsul. He was her executive officer, which she took as the higher calling. She was wrong, but in the heat of battle, she relied on him as she had any subspace officer. And, in that, he had failed her. Professional shame cooled his ire somewhat. Damn her!

  He monitored the corvette, also bruised by their exchange of fire. They had expected Kuro would be at the extreme edge of torpedo range and had switched to the less capable long-range torpedo. That had saved Kuro, but their close-in return to real space had been an unfortunate exigency.

  “Medical personnel to fin deck,” Weps’ voice announced on the PA circuit. Reed unbuckled and stumbled to the ladder, almost slamming into it with his urgency. He’d forgotten the ship’s gravity was Coriolis and not vertical. He caught himself and climbed up the ladder. Halfway to the fin deck, a body slumped against the ladder. The captain’s insignia was unmistakable on the shoulder patch of the dangling arm.

  12

  GLSS Venger

  Rigel B Outer System

  0333 U.Z.

  1254.12.13 A.F.

  Cowan grabbed her controls when the ship tumbled. Amber lights pulsed, informing them that somewhere on the ship, there was a compartment without pressure. The captain had lost consciousness.

  The pilot worked to slow their spin.

  “Tachyon pulses detected,” Basan reported from Sensors. “Loss of tachyon stream. Conn, sensors, explosion bearing, mark.” He didn’t bother giving the bearing since Venger was still tumbling.

  “Weapons, conn, rail gun,” Cowan said, switching comms.

  “No power to rail gun,” Weps rep
lied.

  Cowan saw the red lines on the port main and auxiliary fusion cores. She routed power from the starboard fusion core. “Power rerouting. Giving you control to fire on the solution.” Cowan shunted piloting control to Weps.

  “Aye, shooting rail gun,” Weps said. Estrada could’ve been reporting on the weather for all of his indifference.

  The ship swung toward the sub’s reckoned position. A whine vibrated through the deck plates into Cowan’s suit, and Venger shuddered as she launched ballistic weaponry along the longitudinal axis of her rail gun. The heavy round sped up out of the ship’s rail chamber, arcing toward the N-boat’s likely location. He was only a tenth of an AU away—optic scans were searching doggedly for signs of the ship in real space. Had she gone deep into subspace? It was possible, but that meant no response to the attack…

  “Let’s give a declination spread,” Cowan advised Weps.

  “Calculating six shot spread, forty percent probability of a strike assuming no course change,” Weps responded. The ship whined and shuddered five more times. “Sequence complete. I don’t recommend another salvo just yet.”

  “Concur, Weps. Stand by.”

  “You have control,” Weps said and signed off.

  “XO?” Rogers said. “What happened?”

  “Torpedo hit, port side, sir. Particle beam punched through our aft weapons array. The explosion and high gravity maneuver spun us out of control. We passed ten inertial gravities briefly, and you passed out. We lost the port main.”

  “That would be the coupling failure. I must be getting old,” Rogers said, hitting the retract button on his suit helmet ring and tucking a stimtab under his tongue. “Been a long time since a ship’s made me space out.” He took a deep breath and forced his bloodshot eyes to focus. “Do we have a damage report?”

  “No, sir. I was using the rail gun to return fire. We might’ve got him with your Betta torpedo, sir. Half of our sensors are offline, so our sensor sweeps are degraded.”

  “Superb response,” Rogers replied.

  Venger’s tumble slowed and straightened as the pilot took control and used the attitude thrusters to steady her. “Steady course zero seven five point two,” the pilot said.

  “Steady as she goes,” Rogers replied. “Let’s get to zero gravity so Javier can have help back aft.” He tapped his comm panel. “Sensors? What do you have for me?”

  “I’ve got some strange things going on, sir,” Basan said.

  “Let’s go over the facts. Torpedoes, first.”

  “Torpedo one is defunct, loss of track. Torpedo three exploded at the extreme edge of its envelope.”

  “What about the Betta?”

  “Lost track. I don’t think it closed the sub enough for a hit.”

  “Hmm. Was that before or after torpedo two?”

  “I’ve lost some of my sensor data, but I think it was after. I’ll know better once we recover and query my systems.”

  “Hmm, then our silent friend might be back with us in real space,” Rogers said, thoughtfully. “It also means our Bettas transitioned to subspace prematurely. Send bearing data to the pilot station to vector us in.”

  “Conn, Sensors, aye,” Basan acknowledged.

  Cowan asked, “Do we want to get into weapons range?”

  “She might be damaged. She hasn’t returned fire…” Rogers’s hand went to his beard, tugging, a tell that he was working the problem. “Damage report, XO.”

  Cowan sent him the system status. “Port aft struck. After weapon ring damage but operable. Port main engine room struck and blew through the earlier repairs. A lot of internal damage, so the port core is in emergency shutdown. Five weapons blisters damaged, including close-in weapons array eight, laser turret sixteen and sensor arrays charlie, echo, and gamma. Lost five personnel, three outboard through explosive force and decompression. It could’ve been worse if the torpedo had been able to get its shaped explosive inside the hull after the particle punch. Weapons teams did their best.”

  Distress beacons blinked from the consoles. Weapons Technician First Class Cook’s and Engineering Technician Second Class Gendry’s suits showed zero vital signs. Three suits had activated beacons when they left the proximity of the ship’s hull—Anders, Quint, and Eddings from Engine Room Two.

  Cowan thought of Javier Mitchum. He’d be devastated that Anders was lost in space, but she wasn’t dead yet. She tapped through the console, selected the emergency life system nearest the damaged area, sent the location data for the suits, and launched it. The lifeboat would give the sub a detect, but Venger was not a stealth ship and well-armed to answer threats. “Lifeboat launched and beacon activated.”

  “Good thinking and thank you, XO,” Rogers said, his eyes unfocused and staring past the astrodisplay.

  Cowan examined the battle space. They opened range to the sub’s expanding area of uncertainty. Nothing would be solved until they got the auxiliary core online and power to the starboard main. And she was not yet privy to the skipper’s strategic thinking. She had to assume the worst—that the enemy was alive, operational, and pursuing her original mission. Venger needed to get back to the fight—they’d been lucky to get a reprieve. They were in a defensive posture for now and weapons systems were reactive, ready for anything. She checked and rechecked tacticals. Without data from sensors, she felt useless and anxious. She wanted to do something. “Request permission to assist in damage control efforts?”

  Rogers nodded. “Granted. We’ll not be fighting at the moment, but I’ll warn you if we do. See what the damage is to the port and auxiliary core. We’ll have more than enough thrust in the starboard main to close range, but it would help if we could get thrust to the port manifold.”

  “Aye, sir,” Cowan said. She set her tactical control screens, unstrapped from the creche and floated to the ladder well. She looked down the shaft, the compartment doors mostly sealed and emergency lights all around. Seeing no one coming up, she floated down the shaft, touching the ladder propel herself to the junction that would take her to Engine Room Two. At the door, she stopped to check the pressure monitor. It was green, so she cycled the lock and shut it behind her. Around her, crews worked to repair damaged equipment and bulkheads. A compartment two spaces away from Engineering, was filled with argon. She activated her helmet and entered the j-tube next to the compartment lock. Once inside, she punched Mitchum’s code and put her hand on the comm pad. The j-tube shut, systems mechanically linked, allowing only one door open at a time.

  “Javy, this is Amber. How’re things down here?”

  “Blown to shit, exec,” Mitchum said, his voice strained yet professional. Cowan heard the tight anger, but whether it was the repairs, the enemy, or the captain, she wasn’t sure. “Port main thrust is out but we can restore power through port generator. Auxiliary core is shut down but can be brought back up to operational. Starboard main core, generator, and thrust operational. Engine room two is in vacuum and thrust repairs are needed. Estimate for hull repair is half day, so that’s out of the question. The port coupling that was damaged earlier buckled under overthrust. No fires, but there’s ablative and hull debris to clear from the engine room before major repairs can begin. I have a lot of systems out there and the core is in emergency shutdown. I don’t think I can get it back online soon. I can have auxiliary core online in an hour, port power in thirty minutes. Ship is in half power lineup on starboard main core and generator. Fusion cores are all intact. You coming in to assist?”

  “Yes,” Cowan said. The j-tube evacuated, the opposing lock cycled, and she was in the forward junction. “I’ll assist in auxiliary. That’ll give us thrust and rail gun capability, we’ll be back in the fight.”

  “I appreciate it,” Mitchum said, grunting as if he were struggling under a weight, though the ship was in free fall. “I have a crewman trapped in the after section of the port main. Once she’s out, we can get back under standard gravity to close range.” He paused, and Cowan’s suit picked up his private c
ircuit. She let go of the pad and spoke to him suit-to-suit. “I heard the lifeboat launch for my engineers.”

  “Seemed the right thing to do, Javy,” Cowan replied.

  “You didn’t have to. Venger isn’t done by a long shot.”

  “Let’s get her fixed and underway. That sub is still out there.”

  “My engineers will think the port side of Venger is unlucky, you know.”

  Cowan laughed at the ridiculousness of the notion, and Mitchum managed a chuckle. She swam to auxiliary and assisted the electricians in rerouting the auxiliary power to alternate systems still functional. The auxiliary compartment was in good shape. Debris from the torpedo and hull had severed power conduits from the core to the rail system. As she worked, Cowan kept a read on her suit’s tactical display, slaved from her bridge console. Sensors detected nothing, which meant worse than nothing. That sub was still out there and on her own mission. Inevitably, Cowan’s thoughts turned to home and her family. Though she worked with crewmen shoulder-to-shoulder, her mind drifted within the isolation of her suit. She wondered how her husband fared. Juan-Filipe was stationed onboard the Megaton, an Annihilator class cruiser who’d gone to meet the Hegemonic Fleet in Eagle Nebula. And her children Lucy and JJ, whom she hadn’t seen for more than a few days since the war began. They lived with their grandparents on Nova Kauai, hoping for a return to normalcy. She tried to remember how old they were when she realized that today was JJ’s tenth birthday. Half of his life had been spent waiting for his parents to come home. That was a depressing thought, and it made Cowan want to choke the enemy sub commander who kept her from sending a message off to her little boy.

  “Ma’am?” a crewman asked, and Cowan realized she’d sighed with her proximity circuit still open.

  “Nothing. You can button this up?” she asked, pushing aside her wandering thoughts. Get a grip, she admonished herself.

  “Yes, ma’am. Power’s back for weapons systems. It’s messy, but it should hold up enough to get a few volleys in. If we don’t get hit, they might hold.”