Right Ascension

by David Derrico

  “Don’t worry, Nathan,” the Admiral assured him, never removing his eyes from the display. “I have no intention of allowing that to occur.”

  Nathan gulped loudly, not sounding particularly convinced.

  The numbers had now turned amber, and counted upward. Raising his right arm, Daniel extended his index finger toward Nathan. “Prepare to exit hyperspace on my mark,” he ordered, flicking his eyes from the display just long enough to see that Nathan had turned back to watch him, his tentacles poised readily over his console.

  The numbers reached 18 and the orange dot turned a bright red as the Admiral dropped his hand. “Now, Nathan!”

  The Fedoran’s reflexes were excellent. In fact, judging by the speed at which they came out of hyperspace, Daniel could not help but wonder if he had taken them out just an instant before he had actually given the order.

  The viewscreen dimmed itself automatically as it abruptly filled with the giant orange Tu’oth star. They had emerged from hyperspace precariously close to the burning sun.

  “Engage the Quantum Refractor,” ordered the Admiral.

  There was a lengthy buzzing sound as the cloaking device engaged, beginning abruptly and dwindling to an unsettling silence. The Admiral was banking on their proximity to the star, now intentionally situated directly between the Apocalypse and Tu’oth’roor, to disguise their arrival. Even if they were detected, the Admiral reasoned, the Vr’amil’een would probably think the momentary radar blip was simply a system short or transient reading of some kind, perhaps merely a solar flare.

  Zach maneuvered the ship around the massive star, bringing the planet of Tu’oth’roor into view. As it grew larger in the viewscreen, its details became apparent: it was a dark, foreboding sphere, pock-marked with craters and consisting of one enormous land mass that covered the entire viewable half of the planet. As they sped ever closer, orbital bases and ships came into view.

  ConFed Intelligence had been right. The Vr’amil’een were massing for an assault.

  Battlecruiser-sized ships dotted the viewscreen, clustered around orbital bases, weapons platforms, and shipyards. Small transport ships swarmed in all directions, docking at bases and supply depots and ferrying materials from the planet below. Drawing ever larger in the display, the bright arcs of welding tools could be seen as service vessels hastily finished construction on skeletal Cruiser and warship frames. Like an elaborate dance of space-faring fireflies, the Vr’amil’een readied for war.

  Passing close enough for the flight recorders to obtain detailed readings of the preparations, the Apocalypse veered and headed around toward the dark side of the planet, which was dotted with harsh red pinpricks of light. There were fewer ships on this side, though several scattered defense platforms still orbited the planet in darkness. Apparently the shipbuilding facilities had been concentrated on the far side of Tu’oth’roor.

  There were a few large ships floating on this side of the planet as well, so when another one appeared around the horizon, the Admiral was not especially concerned.

  As more of the ship became visible, however, the Admiral’s face tightened noticeably. It appeared larger than even the immense Vr’amil’een Battlecruisers.

  When it had finally come completely into view, the eyes of the entire crew were fixated on the behemoth vessel. Though not nearly the size of the Indomitable, it was larger than any other ship the Admiral had ever seen.

  And with the Indomitable destroyed, that left it as the largest ship in the known galaxy.

  How could ConFed Intelligence have missed this? thought the Admiral incredulously. Perhaps their reconnaissance services were less than superb, but how could they have missed this??

  And suddenly the Admiral remembered. The strange readings in the asteroid belt. The Vr’amil’een had been hiding their warships right under their noses, not 100 million kilometers from the planet.

  “My God, sir,” gasped Dex. “I didn’t think they made them that big.”

  “Neither did I,” replied the Admiral. “Neither did I.”

  • • •

  The Apocalypse headed toward one of the several orbital supply depots encircling the planet. The depot consisted of a toroidal structure that surrounded a partially open enclosure filled with various ores and materials. It was a uniquely Vr’amil’een design: the ring-shaped structure served as a magnetic coil that generated a field just strong enough to contain the floating metallic ores. Undoubtedly housed within the structure were facilities for zero-g refining, an essential process in producing the specialized Vr’amil’een armour plating used on the warships of their Armada.

  A small transport ship had just discharged its cargo of metallic ores, leaving them floating in the random mass of slowly drifting ore fragments. As the small ship turned back to the planet, Zach maneuvered the cloaked Apocalypse in amongst the flotsam, hovering unseen in its midst.

  A small drone ship floated out from a cargo bay on the inner ring of the toroidal depot. Moving toward one of the ore fragments, it extended a robotic jaw and began collecting sections of the minerals. The tiny ship was obviously unmanned, and there did not appear to be any windows or observation posts on the depot itself that suggested any live presence.

  “There doesn’t look to be anyone here,” ventured Dex. “If anyone was on board, it would probably be spinning, generating artificial gravity.”

  “Yes, it does appear to be unmanned,” agreed the Admiral, “especially considering what that magnetic field would do to anyone stationed on board for any length of time.”

  “We won’t know for sure until we decloak and scan for life forms,” Dex said matter-of-factly.

  “Well, I guess we might as well give it a shot,” decided the Admiral. “Nathan, go ahead and decloak.”

  The scene on the viewscreen shimmered slightly as the Quantum Refractor disengaged. Dex’s report was almost immediate. “No life signs aboard, Admiral.”

  Daniel nodded slightly. “Excellent. Okay, Dex, let’s get to the fighter. Time to visit Tu’oth’roor.”

  • • •

  Fitting two people in the small ZF-255 was never comfortable, but could be done if necessary. The tiny cockpit was even more cramped than usual by the addition of two equipment bags filled with survival gear, scanning equipment, and, of course, weapons.

  “It’s all in,” reported Dex, his mouth just centimeters from the Admiral’s ear. He was hunched over in the tiny space behind the pilot’s chair, and carried the two dark equipment bags with him. Daniel keyed the cockpit sealing mechanism, and the canopy closed securely around them, shutting them in even more tightly.

  “I’ll try to make the trip brief and as smooth as possible,” promised the Admiral, not envious of Dex’s position in the least. He quickly fired up the engines and the hangar bay door opened, depressurizing the chamber with a powerful gust of air. Daniel smoothly lifted the fighter off the deck, his view of the planet below almost entirely blocked by the slowly-drifting masses of ores and minerals surrounding them. Passing cautiously through the hangar doors and into the mélange of debris, Daniel surveyed the fragments, which floated perilously close to them, suddenly much larger than they had seemed as blips on his display console. Behind them, the Apocalypse shimmered and abruptly disappeared.

  Easing in slowly amongst the rocks, the Admiral checked the radar display to find that there were no ships in the immediate vicinity. So far they seemed to have gone unnoticed, and if the Apocalypse had not been spotted, the ZF-255 surely would also be rendered undetectable in the ore field.

  Daniel flicked on the electronic countermeasures suite, which, though by no means as foolproof as the Apocalypse's unique cloaking device, would perhaps confuse the Vr’amil’een radar well enough for them to slip down to the planet in secrecy. He guided the ship out of the ore field and began to meander down to the planet, following the approximate path of the cargo ship that had just departed. Hopefully, with the cacophony of small vessel traffic during the frenzied buildup, the
y would simply get lost amid the clutter, just another tiny transport weaving its way amongst the chaos.

  Daniel descended toward the planet slowly, approximating the speed of the many shuttles that crisscrossed before and around him, their blinking navigation lights forming a complex web of red specks contrasting against the dark planet below. He noticed that there seemed to be little pattern to their movements in space, but that they did seem to confine themselves to several loose invisible flight corridors when they entered or exited the turbulent atmosphere of Tu’oth’roor.

  The tempestuous gasses of the upper atmosphere were not far now, and the Admiral maneuvered the fighter onto the tail of a descending shuttle, following its lights down the approach corridor but hopefully keeping enough distance so as not to look suspicious. The craft shuddered just slightly as it entered the upper reaches of atmosphere, which even at this rarefied level were gusting fairly violently. Daniel noticed that the shuttle before him was descending relatively quickly; the speed was normal for a fighter, but seemed a bit high for a shuttle descent. Perhaps the Vr’amil’een shuttles were built to be more durable in order to withstand the rough atmosphere, or, more likely, all the ships buzzing about the planet were in more of a hurry than usual.

  Suddenly, the comm speaker crackled to life. It took a moment for the computer to isolate the frequency and modulation of the alien transmission, but once it had, a gruff Vr’amil’een voice could be heard barking over the intercom. Had he not known that to be the normal tone of the Vr’amil’een, the Admiral would have been sure that the harsh words indicated that their ruse had been detected.

  Silently, Dex handed a translator chip up to the Admiral, who placed the tiny mechanism gently in his ear, a difficult maneuver considering that he was still piloting the ship through the ever-more violent atmosphere. Daniel hoped that the ECM suite was confusing the Vr’amil’een readings enough to allow them to pass for a shuttle.

  The Vr’amil’een voice repeated its earlier query, this time translated by Daniel’s earpiece. “[Repeat: unidentified shuttle, this Ground Control. Your transponder signal weak. Must identify.]” Behind him, Dex softly began to grumble various profanities.

  The Admiral flicked a switch on the communication console, creating a soft buzz of static and a fairly pervasive crackling. “Communications malfunction,” the Admiral began, his words translated by the fighter’s communications system before the signal was sent. “We are … trouble.” Daniel purposely spoke haltingly, and intentionally omitted words. Combined with the computer-induced interference, the signal would be barely audible to the receiver. “Transponder not … properly. Following … shuttle down.” He hoped the listener would believe the deception, aided by the electronic countermeasures suite, or simply be too busy or too lazy to care.

  There was an inordinately long silence, as if the listener was deciding whether to follow the appropriate, time-consuming procedures, or just let them go and save himself the hassle. If the radio operator decided to pursue the matter much further, Daniel would have little choice but to abandon the charade and make a run for the planet.

  “[Shuttle … cleared for descent,]” he growled finally, obviously unwilling to spend any more time on the problem. “[Follow Shuttle Sith’van’een approach vector. Ground Control out.]”

  Daniel exhaled heavily. They had bought it.

  Following the shuttle ahead of them—the Sith’van’een, apparently—the ZF-255 passed through a thick layer of clouds and emerged in the dense lower atmosphere. Unfortunately, the shuttle had headed toward the daylight half of the planet, and the skies around them were now partially lit by the dim rays of the setting sun, rays that had been filtered by the hydrogen-rich atmosphere into a hazy, ubiquitous reddish glow. If they followed the shuttle much farther now, they would be visually identified from the ground, even in the failing light. After all, though they were roughly the same size, it was difficult to confuse the fighter with a Vr’amil’een shuttle, even at dusk and with an untrained eye.

  “Where do you think we should touch down, Dex?” Daniel asked, scanning the countryside below. The majority of the terrain was barren wasteland, dark brown, cratered plains punctuated by scattered mountain ranges. Several large cities, each inhabited solely by members of their respective tribes, could be seen nestled in amongst the jagged peaks of the taller mountains, their reddish glow illuminating the cliffs around them. The Vr’amil’een were a violent, territorial race, even amongst themselves, and as such, their cities were built as walled, defensible fortifications sheltered in the protective mountain ranges. The plains were home to only drifters and smaller, less socially powerful tribes and families.

  Each Vr’amil’een city was home to a single tribe, with the sole exception of the capital city of Roor’nun’kwa. Roor’nun’kwa was home to ambassadors from all the major tribes of Tu’oth’roor, as well as their delegations and several million permanent residents. Though the planet of Tu’oth’roor was more or less united under this central government, territory wars or blood feuds were far from uncommon. The three other inhabitable planets of the Tu’oth system—Tu’oth’rat, Tu’oth’mur, and Tu’oth’nun—were home to drifters and vagabonds even lower on the Vr’amil’een social ladder than those who inhabited the wastelands. As such, these other planets had no presence in Vr’amil’een government.

  “I don’t know where we can land, sir,” replied Dex belatedly. “I really can’t see very much from back here, but it’s going to be tougher to touch down unnoticed in this light.”

  Daniel nodded as he surveyed the terrain again. There was precious little vegetation on the planet, as though the purely carnivorous Vr’amil’een inherently disliked foliage of any kind but grudgingly realized its necessity in their ecosystem. There were scattered but perfectly-shaped dark patches of vegetation throughout the continent below, mostly concentrated as far from the mountain ranges and population centers as possible. Strangely, the large cities tended to be inland, situated some distance from rivers or lakes, which almost universally were instrumental in transportation of goods and people in most societies. In fact, as Daniel scanned the terrain, he could not find a single city directly bordering a body of water.

  Daniel hoped that the radar operators would not be monitoring his descent closely, and he began to slowly veer off from the shuttle as it headed roughly toward the large city of Roor’nun’kwa. With any luck, they would just assume he was headed toward a quarry or mine or some other remote site in the wastelands.

  There were no further questions over the comm system, so Daniel dropped toward the mountains beneath them. The onboard scanners picked up no large concentrations of people or structures other than the capital city several kilometers ahead, so he dipped the fighter lower, the sharp peaks of the mountains rushing abruptly toward them. Daniel settled the fighter into a narrow valley, which wended through the jagged cliffs and seemed to meander its way purposefully toward the city ahead.

  The walls of the chasm were draped in shadow as the wan light of the setting sun fought to filter through the thick atmosphere above. Just outside the fighter’s canopy, jagged outcroppings sped by at an alarming pace, and Daniel was silently thankful that it was Dex and not Nathan sitting behind him as they hurtled through the slender ravine.

  Forced to rely on the terrain mapping radar as much as his own eyes, the Admiral found a suitable alcove in the canyon walls ahead and slowed the fighter, descending almost to the valley floor. The cave, near the base of the starboard cliff wall, looked to be large enough to accommodate the ZF-255 with just enough room left over to open the canopy once they had landed inside. As they reached the opening, Daniel slowed the ship to a hover and deftly maneuvered it into the jagged maw of the cave. Gently touching down, the Admiral quickly powered down the fighter and popped the canopy.

  Daniel hastened out of the cramped cockpit, painfully dropping to the ground and stretching his aching limbs, immediately noticing the higher gravity of Tu’oth’roor. At 6’2”, the Ad
miral was never particularly comfortable in the confined fighter, even when he was its sole occupant. He realized, however, that his discomfort would be less than Dex’s, who was equally tall but more well built, and had been forced to withstand the entire turbulent journey unnaturally contorted behind him. To the Admiral’s mild surprise, Dex exited the fighter smoothly, both equipment bags slung over his shoulder, showing no outward sign of the obvious discomfort he had endured. Never one to complain, Dex probably actually looked forward to the physical exertion this mission would surely bring.

  “The first thing we need to do is hide the fighter,” advised Dex, dropping nimbly to the ground. He immediately set the bags down and reached into a panel on the underside of the fighter, opening it and producing a thin, folded sheet. He quickly unfurled the material, which was the familiar translucent gray of an inactivated chameleon tarp. The Admiral helped throw the tarp over the fighter, making sure it dropped to the ground on all sides. Dex fingered a control on his wrist nanocomputer and the tarp instantly shimmered, its gray coloring quickly replaced by the ambient brown of the cavern walls. When it had finished, the space where the fighter resided now looked like nothing more than an ordinary boulder. Removing his glove, the Admiral ran his fingers over the tarp, now the exact color and texture of Vr’amil’een rock.

  The Admiral belatedly noticed that his chest had begun to burn, and the aching in his muscles and joints was getting worse. He rubbed his chest absently, finally remembering that the oxygen content of the Tu’oth’roor atmosphere was dangerously low for humans.

  Dex had apparently noticed the Admiral’s breathing difficulties, as he had already retrieved a syringe from one of the equipment bags. “Here you go, Admiral,” he said, injecting the contents of the syringe into his arm. “This should let you breathe easier.”

  Almost immediately, the ache in Daniel’s chest began to subside as he could feel his body processing the oxygen more efficiently, an effect of the fluerenzinone shot. Looking over at Dex, he could see that he had already injected himself and retrieved one of the personal holographic emitters from the equipment bags. The emitter was shaped like a spider web, with a small central projector hub and several thin wires tipped with tiny sensors radiating out from it. Dex affixed the center of the device to his chin, attaching the sensors to various points on his face and neck. The effect made him look somewhat ridiculous, until he activated the device, which instantly projected the daunting visage of a Vr’amil’een over his own.