Battlecruiser Alamo: Shadows in the Sky

by Richard Tongue

   “Looks like someone else wants you,” she replied. “Take a moment to shave, first. If we're about to run into the Supreme Overlord of Andromeda, you want to make a good first impression.”

   “It's probably just another empty system,” he said, moving to the sink, reaching for his razor.

   “Maybe,” she said, with a shrug. “I think we're overdue for something a little different.”

  Chapter 2

   Lieutenant-Captain Pavel Salazar sat in his command chair, his eyes fixed on the viewscreen, waiting for Alamo to return to normal space. He looked around the bridge, saw the familiar faces at their consoles, working to prepare for emergence. Harper, his partner, sat at Defense, ready to employ the might of the ship's countermeasure systems, with Lieutenant Scott sitting next to her, holding down Tactical as though she'd spent her life at the station.

   At the head of the bridge, Sub-Lieutenant Quesada sat at the helm, working under the watchful gaze of Senior Lieutenant Francis, preparing to rip open the fabric of reality once again. Salazar glanced at his datapad, looking over the report that Lieutenant Carpenter, his Science Officer, had labored to prepare. Five planets in this system, no sign of anything special. Just another step on the road to their next real target, a stepping stone through an alien galaxy.

   When they'd first arrived in Andromeda, they'd almost immediately found evidence that there was a way home, that a century ago another human starship had managed to traverse the endless void and return to the Milky Way. They'd also found a selection of stars that might have been the home of the wormhole builders, seven of them. Of which five had turned out to be dead-ends, and one distant enough to be many months distant.

   Frowning, Salazar settled back in his command chair, trying to project an air of confidence he didn't truly feel. The crew needed something to hope for, something to work towards, and the longer they stayed, the greater the temptation to find a place to set down. They'd already found one human colony, had liberated it from its oppressors, and it had been tempting to simply stay there. He found himself mentally plotting a course back, four jumps to be back among civilization again, their own kind.

   “Sir,” Quesada said, breaking him from his momentary reverie. “Emergence in one minute.”

   “Very good, Sub-Lieutenant. You have the call.”

   “All decks are at alert status, sir,” Scott reported. “Ready for anything.”

   “Let's hope I don't have to take you up on that, Kat,” he said. “Ballard, I want full sensor sweeps of the system as soon as we emerge.” He paused, smiled, then said, “I'm sure you've got the whole drill down by now.”

   “Aye, sir,” she replied. “Sweep ready. I'll have a full picture of the system for you in a couple of minutes, and Lieutenant Carpenter is standing by down in Astrogation to interpret what we find.”

   “Sir,” Quesada said, frowning, “There's something strange here. The mass readings from the gravitational source up ahead just changed. Dropped by two percent. I've never seen anything like it.” Anticipating Salazar's first question, he added, “Diagnostic checks show no error.”

   “Will it interfere with our emergence?” Salazar asked. They were close to the maximum possible duration for a hendecaspace transit, and stories of ships that lingered too long were the stuff of drunken debates in the bar, of low-budget horror flicks. Not something he wanted to personally experience.

   “I don't think so, sir, but it might make for a rougher ride.”

   “Now hear this,” Salazar said, stabbing a control. “Prepare for turbulence. All decks to battle stations. I say again, all decks to battle stations.”

   A siren sounded, and Francis turned, warning, “We won't be at full readiness before we return to normal space, Captain.”

   “I know, Max, but this way we at least get a bit of a head-start if there is another nasty surprise waiting. Have engineering prepare for a full sensor recalibration, in case this turns out to be a glitch. We've been running those systems pretty hard lately.”

   “Aye, sir,” he replied, moving over to Fitzroy at the Flight Engineering station.

   “Pavel,” Harper said, quietly, “That sort of sensor glitch doesn't happen.” She threw a control, and said, “Our firewall is firm. No sign of infiltration.”

   “That's something, anyway,” he replied. “Keep watching out.”

   “I always do.”

   “Emergence, sir,” Quesada said, and a blinding flash of blue light rippled across the bridge, Alamo tumbling through the jagged gash in the fabric of space-time, the stars swirling around it as it spun end-over-end. Struggling with the controls, Quesada fought to stabilize the ship, playing the thrusters carefully as he tried to return to a normal trim.

   “My God!” Ballard said, throwing a switch. Before he could question her statement, Salazar looked at the image she'd thrown on the viewscreen, and rose to his feet in shocked horror at the sight unfolding before him.

   The tattered remains of a planet, half a hemisphere ripped away, with blinding flashes of laser beams tearing it apart, while a trail of debris faded into the horizon, puffs of gas hurling it towards a distant point. Someone was tearing an entire world to pieces, chopping into neat, million-ton chunks, and Alamo had a front-row seat.

   “Spaceman, tell me this is a scene from a bad movie,” he said.

   “All checks confirmed, sir,” she replied, her voice hushed, as though someone outside might be listening in. “I'm picking up thousands of small ships, moving in a firing pattern. Laser projectors, shuttles. More tonnage than every fleet in known space. Gigawatt lasers, sir. The heat discharge is tremendous, almost off the scale.”

   “No sign of comm traffic,” Bowman reported from the communications station. “Nobody has tried to contact us, and I can't detect any signs that anyone out there is talking to each other either. I suppose they could be using tight-beam, but even so, I'd expect to pick up something, even if it is just unintelligible overspill.”

   “Two of the other planets in the system are gone, Captain,” Ballard added. “No trace at all. The gravitational fields are shifting, out of position.” Looking at the viewscreen, she continued, “Our friends out there have been busy.” She frowned again, then said, “They're on the move! Three targets, heading our way! One laser projector, two shuttles. I think.”

   “Quesada, get us out of here, right now, any heading!”

   “Aye, sir. Main engine sequence start.”

   “All decks are cleared for action, sir,” Scott reported. “I can have a firing solution in a minute.”

   “No,” Salazar said.

   “But...”

   “Agreed,” Francis added. “Lieutenant, we're facing an enemy that appears to have hundreds of gigawatt lasers, capable of tearing entire planets to pieces. They could destroy this ship by accident and never even notice. I think we need to be contemplating how to get away from them.”

   “We'd better think of something fast,” Harper said. “They've got ten times our acceleration. They'll be on us in a couple of minutes.”

   Frowning, Salazar said, “Take us towards the planet. The remains. We can use the debris as a gravity slingshot, try for one of the other hendecaspace points.”

   “You want to head towards the enemies?” Scott asked, eyes wide.

   “It's the best chance we've got to make through. Do it, Quesada, and for God's sake, try and avoid the laser beams. Make sure we stay out of direct line of sight.” Stabbing a control, he said, “Bridge to Engineering.”

   “Chief Santiago here, sir.”

   “I need all the power you can give me to the engines. Strip it from the weapons and defense systems. Right now I need every scrap of acceleration, or we're as good as dead.”

   “Just another morning on the Battlecruiser Alamo,” she replied with a sigh. “Power transfer initiated, sir. Please try not to cause too much damage to my ship. I'm having a hard enough t
ime keeping up with the maintenance routine as it is.”

   “No promises, Chief. Bridge out.” He looked up at the trajectory plot, watching as the incoming ships altered course, trying for an intercept. At the critical second, Quesada stabbed his controls, sending the ship veering to the side, away from the rippling pulse of energy that threatened to destroy them.

   Harper frowned, then said, “We're getting overloads. Sensor malfunction.”

   “What's wrong?”

   “Got to be a few billion pieces of debris out there, Pavel, and we're flying close enough that each one is being individually resolved. We don't have the processing power to handle that for very long.” She looked up at her systems monitors, shook her head, and added, “Getting worse, not better. We've got to get through this soon.”

   “Energy spike ahead!” Ballard said, and Quesada hurled the ship to the side an instant before a beam of laser light raced through space. Alamo dived for the swarm of planetoids ahead, Salazar watching implacably as the ship hurtled towards danger. Even under normal circumstances, this would be an extremely hazardous maneuver. Under combat conditions, it was damned near suicidal, but he didn't think they had a choice. The strange ships were sweeping the system clear, a quick glance revealing an absence of asteroids and comets that didn't appear to be a coincidence. Engineering on a planetary scale, out here in the dark.

   “Planet in one minute, sir,” a harried Quesada reported. “Losing sensor definition. Autonav struggling with trajectory plot, skipper. I can't guarantee our end course.”

   “Just get us through, Sub-Lieutenant. I'll be more than happy with that, I assure you.”

   Alamo gathered speed as it approached the shattered remnant of the world ahead. There was nothing anyone could do now. They were committed to the course, and all Salazar could do was wait, and trust in the skills of Quesada to see them through to the other side. He briefly caught himself wondering about the planet they were flying towards, spotting the faint outline of continents visible on the exposed hemisphere, any atmosphere long since boiled away into space.

   Was it inhabited, once? Did people walk on its surface, have hopes and dreams of their own, before the strange machines arrived to destroy their paradise? Or had it been a barren chunk of rock, destined to drift through space for untold billions of years before finding a final, fiery end, its fate simply coming sooner than it had otherwise been destined to be. He'd never know, but the thought kept him distracted for the critical seconds.

   Beams of light filled the screen, flashes of laser energy as the machines continued with their work, heedless of the comparatively tiny starship dancing through the rubble of creation. The trajectory plot rose and fell, projecting them to fly all across the map as the influence of gigaton hunks of rock tossed them from side to side, brief flashes on the viewscreen as they tumbled through the ruin. Quesada's face grew pale as he played the thrusters like a virtuoso pianist, pinpoint pulses of gas to guide them through the worst of the rubble.

   The hull rattled as they passed through a dense cloud of debris, too fine to detect, but enough to cause a series of warning alerts to sound, Fitzroy jerked into life to deal with the tiny fractures before they could become catastrophic hull breaches. Salazar leaned forward, ready to face the end, convinced briefly that he'd made a terrible mistake.

   And then, almost without realizing it, they were through, out on the far side, leaving the machines far behind. He waited for a moment, turning to the sensor station, watching as Ballard worked her controls, smiling as she finally turned with a nod.

   “We're clear, sir. No sign of pursuit.”

   “Damage report, Fitzroy?” Salazar asked.

   “Nothing serious, sir. Chief Santiago would like permission to put a work crew on the outer hull when we next get a chance, certainly before we attempt another hendecaspace transfer, but aside from that, we passed through in one piece.”

   “Excellent work, Sub-Lieutenant,” Salazar said, rising from his seat and walking over to the helmsman. “Damn good flying.”

   “She's a good ship, sir. Makes it easy.”

   “Sure,” he replied, with a smile. “Sure.” Behind him, the elevator doors opened, Carpenter walking onto the bridge with eager glee in her smile, a datapad clutched in her hands.

   “This is amazing,” she said. “Just unbelievable.”

   “I'd say that was putting it mildly,” Salazar replied, still looking at the display on the screen. “What possible reason could there be for something like this? Have we stumbled into a war?”

   Frowning, Scott replied, “I suppose there could be strategic goals in mind, removing possible hendecaspace points, but this seems a rather extreme way of doing it.”

   “Building materials,” Carpenter said.

   “For what?”

   “That is an excellent question, sir, and one that I think we're going to have to answer.” She walked over to the sensor controls, and said, “All of that debris is being hurled into interstellar space, well over escape velocity.” She worked her console, and added, “A visual check reveals nothing for thousands of light-years on that course, but if you take a look at the gravitational grid, we get something very different.”

   The viewscreen flashed, and a pinpoint gravitational source appeared on the screen, just within hendecaspace range, seven light-years distant. The readings were off the chart, and Salazar looked back at Carpenter, wonder in his eyes.

   “Is that what I think it is, Lieutenant?”

   “A quantum singularity, sir. Large enough to be detected easily at interstellar distances, and close enough that we can actually take a look at it.” Tapping another row of controls, she added, “It gets better. There's something else there, about the same size, but invisible. Not another singularity, but the largest object I've ever seen. Millions of miles across.”

   Harper whistled, then said, “We wanted to find something strange. I'd say we've found it.”

   “And the debris is being thrown in that direction,” Salazar mused. “The largest construction project in history? Fuel for the black hole?”

   “There's only one way to find out, sir, and that's to go and take a look. I've already started calculating the course. It'll take a little more work than normal, but it is certainly well within our capabilities to make the attempt.”

   Francis looked at Salazar, then said, “I can't help but remember an old pre-space phrase. That there are some things that Man is not meant to know. We've just stumbled through the most powerful striking force I've ever seen, a technology thousands of years ahead of ours, and there's an obvious danger in looking further. I very much doubt that we're of any importance to them now, but I'm certain that they could destroy this ship and everyone on it in a heartbeat if they chose.”

   “We've been looking for the creators of the wormhole network,” Carpenter countered. “And we know that has to be a technology way in advance of our own. Whoever is doing this has the power to destroy worlds, and potentially to control black holes. That's got to be worth a look.”

   Rising to his feet, Salazar said, “We can't leave the system for five days anyway. Helm, set a course to the nearest safe hendecaspace point, timed for our arrival as soon as we complete dimensional stabilization.” Turning to Carpenter, he continued, “I want all the data you can gather, Lieutenant, but stick to passive sensors only. Let's try not to attract too much attention. Max, you have the deck. I'll be in my office.”

   “Aye, sir,” Francis replied, as Salazar moved to the exit, taking one last look at the viewscreen. For centuries, humanity had feared the day when they'd encounter a more advanced alien race. That day, it seemed, had finally dawned.

  Chapter 3

   Salazar sat at the fringes of the gym, watching Mortimer and Clarke spar, the clash of steel drawing the eye of everyone in the room. He'd been on the verge of taking official notice of the deterioration of the young officer until a few days
ago. That Mortimer had apparently decided to make him her project had bought him a little more time to pull himself together.

   “It isn't his fault, you know,” Harper said, taking a vacant seat behind him. “It's ours.”

   “Mine” Salazar sighed, then continued, “He's too young for his rank, and I'm pushing a promising officer far too hard. If I had anyone else I could use in the role, I'd relieve him.”

   “I doubt that,” she said. “You're thinking that you can see a young Pavel Salazar, maybe six or seven years ago, and that the fire forged you, and will do the same to him. You might be right about that, but it will be a hell of a thing to push him through.”

   “We survived. So will he.”

   “A lot of our friends didn't.”

   Turning to her, he replied, “There's nobody else I can assign. I need Foster handling Operations, Scott at Tactical. Mortimer would be my second choice, but given the, shall we say, unusual circumstances by which she came on board, I don't think the Admiralty would approve.”

   “We're a long way from that being a problem.”

   “Perhaps, but on rare occasions our Lords and Masters are known to make the right decision.” He paused, smiled, then added, “Very rare occasions.” Clarke ducked in, with a long sweep that forced Mortimer onto the defensive. “I wonder if he isn't hustling her.”

   “I don't think he's got quite that level of guile yet, though he is learning fast.” Turning to him, she added, “All I'm saying is that he's going to require supervision. That you probably need to make sure someone else is with him the next time you send him off on a mission. Carpenter, maybe. Or Mortimer, actually.”

   “I had something like that in mind.” He frowned, then said, “You didn't come down here to talk about Clarke.”

   “No.” She paused, looked at the fight for a moment, and continued, “It's been two days. We're still waiting on your decision. If we're not going to investigate the anomaly, then we've got to come up with a different search strategy.” Glancing across at him, she said, “Though that's academic, because we're going in.”