The Legacy of the Iron Dragon: An Alternate History Viking Epic

by Robert Kroese

  “You’re absolutely right, Mr. Haas,” he said. “Inform the others that I will be addressing them shortly.”

  *****

  Admiral Huiskamp sat strapped in his chair at the center of the pit, with the four remaining crew members facing him in their own chairs. They were barely visible in the dim illumination of a few display screens and blinking red warning lights.

  “When I was assigned to GODCOM,” Huiskamp began, “I told them that I’d prefer a smaller ship. Well, it appears I got my wish.”

  Aguilar smiled weakly. Lee chuckled. Even Haas couldn’t resist a smirk.

  “Naming a space station GODCOM always struck me as hubris in any case. We were asking to be taken down a peg, and here we are on the IDLS Arc Zero, the ugliest spaceship in the galaxy. Whether it was intended or not, though, that name has mythical resonance as well. The Ark was God’s means of saving mankind from extinction.

  “I don’t have to tell you that things look pretty grim for the human race right now. We’ve been losing this war for a while, and we bet heavily on the seedship program as a last-ditch option to escape the scourge of the Cho-ta’an. That bet has not paid off. Two of the three seedships have been destroyed, along with most of what was left of the IDL fleet, and the last remaining ship, IDLS Freedom, is being pursued by more enemy ships than it can possibly defend against. We received a communication from Jason stating that Freedom was forced to dump its cargo, including the Terran Gamete Payload. That means that even if by some miracle Freedom were to escape the Cho-ta’an, it no longer has any way of preserving the human species. As far as we know, Geneva is the only human world that has not yet fallen under Cho-ta’an control, and it is currently in the throes of a planet-wide civil war. When the Cho-ta’an get around to attacking the surface, the Genevans aren’t likely to put up much resistance. It’s only a matter of time before the Cho-ta’an exterminate humanity.

  “Given all that, you’re probably wondering why we’re bothering to set up a transmitter to communicate with Geneva. This station has seen the end of its useful life, and we don’t have the resources to be of any assistance to the surface. We’ve got a little over two days left. What’s the point?

  “To be entirely honest, I’m not certain there is one. My judgment may very well be compromised. My son is on that ship, and he intends to pilot it into the Chrylis gate, destroying his ship and eliminating the last chance we have to escape the Cho-ta’an. Maybe I just can’t accept that. I got knocked on the head pretty good, and that might be affecting my judgement. Our air scrubbers are working at about seventy percent of nominal, so there’s a decent chance I’m not getting enough oxygen to my brain.”

  To Huiskamp’s relief, this was met with laughter from Aguilar and Lee. “Don’t get cocky,” he said. “You’re all in the same boat.” This even got a smirk out of Haas. He went on: “I like to play things pretty close to my vest, and I don’t like having to explain myself. If you’re part of my crew, you follow orders because you believe in the IDL and our mission. But… well, we’re about all that’s left of the IDL, and our mission isn’t what it used to be. There may still be something we can do to save humanity, but we’re not going to beat the Cho-ta’an on their terms. If we’re going to have any chance at all at this point, we’re going to have to roll the dice.

  “Most of you are probably aware of the disappearance of an exploratory vessel called Andrea Luhman. Andrea Luhman was being pursued by enemy ships when she fled through the Fomalhaut gate at nearly a third of light speed. Her intended destination was the Sol system, but she never arrived. Andrea Luhman’s disappearance is officially categorized as ‘unexplained.’

  “The fact is, though, that everything about the hyperspace gates is unexplained. You know the official story, that the workings of the gates are top secret, known only to a handful of IDL scientists, but you probably also know that the official story is bullshit.”

  Lee chuckled nervously.

  “We don’t know how the gates work. The Cho-ta’an don’t seem to either, although they seem to have a leg up on us at this point. It’s a mystery why Andrea Luhman disappeared, but it’s also a mystery every time a ship disappears through one gate and reappears at another one twenty light years across space. We suspect the gates somehow bend space. My knowledge of physics isn’t as deep as Mr. Haas’s, but my understanding is that it’s impossible to bend space as much as the gates do without also bending time. I’d heard these theories before, but I never paid them much mind, as they had little bearing on my duties as an IDL officer.

  “Recently, however, I was presented with evidence that the hyperspace gates may be capable of bending time on a scale that I would have thought impossible. Not to mince words, the information I was given suggested that rather than simply traveling across space, Andrea Luhman traveled through time as well. Specifically, she traveled roughly thirteen hundred years into the past.”

  “Now I don’t expect you to believe this. I’m not sure I believe it. All I’m asking is that you accept that there’s a chance that it’s true. If Andrea Luhman traveled backwards in time, then humanity possesses a weapon that the Cho-ta’an do not. They’ve got unquestioned dominion of space, but maybe time is still on our side. We’ve been presented with an opportunity to test that hypothesis, and I have to believe that fate has presented that opportunity for a reason.

  “Right now my son is piloting the last remaining seedship toward the Chrylis gate with the intention of ramming it, killing himself and everyone on board. If we can get a message to him, we might be able to get him to change course. If Freedom travels through the Chrylis gate at point three light speed, with the Sol gate as her destination, she may be able to replicate what happened with Andrea Luhman. As I see it, the worst case scenario is that Freedom will be annihilated, killing everyone on board. If Jason rams the gate, that’s going to happen anyway, and while he believes destroying the Chrylis gate may assist in the defense of the Geneva system, the fact is that it’s almost certainly a pointless gesture.

  “Assuming that the gates really can be used to travel back in time, and assuming we can replicate what happened to Andrea Luhman, what is the best possible outcome of sending Freedom through that gate? I’d be lying if I said I had any idea. What I do know is that if anyone can still find a way to save humanity, it’s Jason. If by some miracle Freedom ends up in the Sol system a thousand years ago, those aboard would have nearly a millennium to prepare humanity for the arrival of the Cho-ta’an. I don’t know if it’s possible to rewrite history, or if there’s some other way to ensure the survival of the human race, but I do know that if there’s even the slightest chance that this could work, I have to try.

  “So, to the question at hand: why are we building a phased array antenna? Some of you probably suspected this project is busywork. Maybe it was at first, at least in part. Something to do to pass the time while we await our doom. No matter how many helmet transmitters we string together, we can’t reach Freedom, and there’s nothing we can say that will help Geneva at this point. If, however, we can still get in touch with someone at Surface Command, we can get a message to Freedom. I intend to tell Jason to abort his attempt to destroy the Chrylis gate and instead to thread the needle at point three light speed, traveling to the Sol gate in an attempt to replicate what happened with Andrea Luhman—whatever that was.

  “There are so many things that can go wrong with this plan that I’ve lost count. The Chrylis gate may already have been destroyed. The Choties might be jamming communications with the gate, preventing Freedom from sending the destination coordinates. Even if the gate is online and responsive, the odds of successfully piloting a ship through it at that speed are not good. And all of this presumes that we can get through to someone on the ground and get them to transmit the message to Freedom—and that Freedom receives it, even though it is a hundred billion klicks away and speeding away from us at thirty thousand klicks per second. I would be remiss if I did not also mention the possibility that t
ime travel may be impossible and this entire plan is probably insane. And of course, even if we are successful in sending Freedom back in time, we have no idea what they can accomplish there. Or rather, what they have already accomplished. If Freedom appeared in the Sol system thirteen hundred years ago, wouldn’t we know about it? Isn’t the fact that the Cho-ta’an have gotten this close to exterminating humanity proof that we failed? I have no fucking idea. All I know is that this is the only chance we have, and I’m going to take it. If it makes you feel better, you can think of this project as pointless busywork. Now, all that having been said, does anyone have any objections?”

  No one spoke. There was no sound but the gentle hum of the ventilation system. Even the music had been turned off in the interest of conserving power. Was this the sound of a three people coming to the realization that their leader was a madman?

  “All right,” Huiskamp said at last, “no objections to the time travel plan. Any questions?”

  Again it was silent for some time. Then Dietrich Haas spoke up. “I have a question, sir,” he said.

  “Go ahead, Haas.”

  “Can we get back to work, sir?”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  It took nearly a full day to get the phased array antenna assembled and programmed. The next—and much more difficult—step was to get it outside and affixed to the station. Haas’s plan was to attach it to one of the remaining solar panels so that the angle of the transmitter could be controlled to some extent. The antenna panel—just an interior wall panel that had been pulled off and cut to size—was slightly smaller than the solar panel, so it was simply a matter of drilling holes in the solar panel and fixing it in place with bolts. No construction project undertaken in a vacuum and zero gravity was simple, though, and they had only a single space suit. Even this was a stroke of luck: four damaged suits had been left in a storage locker near the galley, and they had managed to put together a single working suit from the pieces. Haas had held back one of the transmitters so that a signal could be relayed to the antenna without having to drill a hole in the hull for a wire.

  Huiskamp still wasn’t sure whether his crew believed in the mission or whether they were just humoring him. Maybe they were just desperate for something to take their minds off their situation. Probably they needed something to believe in as badly as he did. In any case, Haas was all in, and Aguilar and Lee seemed willing to play along. By the end of the second day on the project, they had a functional phased array transmitter that was in theory capable of sending a message to the surface of Geneva.

  Another day was spent calibrating the antenna. Arc Zero had lost radar and all their positioning sensors when the station broke apart, but Lee had determined their orbit by triangulating from satellite signals, and they had done their best to orient the panel holding the array antenna “down” toward the surface of Geneva. Both sides of the wheel of GODCOM had been lined with small rocket thrusters with self-contained fuel systems. Seven of these had survived with Arc Zero, and Haas and Aguilar had hacked GODCOM’s navigational software to get them to fire in concert with each other to keep Arc Zero stable. Orienting the array with any precision, however, turned out to be surprisingly difficult. The fragment of station itself had no “up” or “down,” and its curved floor and angled walls made it difficult to discern from inside the station whether the panel was pointed straight at the center of Geneva. Dietrich Haas was suiting up to attempt to orient the panel by hand when Lee came up with a more elegant solution.

  The solar control system was programmed to orient the solar panels toward the sun in order to maximize the amount of radiation they received. Haas had turned off this feature for the panel they had repurposed for the antenna array so that they could manually orient it, but Lee suggested that there was no reason they couldn’t use the automatic system with a few tweaks. The system knew the angle of the active solar panels to the sun, and it knew the orientation of the panels (even the repurposed panel) to each other. The distance between Geneva and the sun was a known variable, and thanks to the satellite triangulation data, they knew where Arc Zero was relative to both the sun and Geneva. From this data, it was a simple matter to calculate the correction needed to point the array panel directly at Geneva. Lee wrote a simple interface that regularly fed the triangulation data into the solar control system and then overrode the function that automatically oriented the panels so that instead of aiming itself at the sun, the array panel oriented itself toward Geneva. Now, no matter how Arc Zero drifted, the array would be aimed at the center of the planet, with a margin of error of less than a tenth of a degree.

  The physical orientation of the panel holding the transmitters, however, was only part of the equation. The direction of the signal would be determined in large part by the phasing of the individual nodes of the array. To properly calibrate the array, they needed someone (preferably several someones) on the ground to gauge the strength of the signal as they passed overhead. As this was not an option, Haas had to find another solution.

  There were several satellites in Geneva orbit that were programmed to respond to pings with standard telemetry information. A single helmet radio receiver was sufficient to receive the response. Haas would aim the array at one of these satellites, send a signal, and then wait for a response. After three attempts, he got his first response, from a satellite that was only about six hundred kilometers away. He tweaked the phasing of the nodes and then tried again, on a more distant satellite. Again he received a response. By tightening the beam, he was able to reach satellites several thousand kilometers away. Within a few hours, he was communicating with satellites in high orbit over Geneva—over thirty thousand kilometers from Arc Zero.

  While he did this, the situation on the surface continued to deteriorate. Violence had spread to every corner of the globe, and news reports had begun to mention mysterious explosions at spaceports and military facilities all over Geneva, suggesting that more Cho-ta’an ships had arrived in orbit and were bombarding strategic targets. Arc Zero had probably escaped their notice only because it looked like a chunk of worthless debris.

  Once Haas was confident in the calibration of the array, they pointed it at Geneva again in an attempt to contact Surface Command. When Surface Command didn’t respond, they tried military bases under the authority of the civilian government, but received no response from these either. After several orbits, they tried aiming the antenna at major population centers as they passed below Arc Zero in the hopes of getting through to someone. Even if the recipient were a civilian, they could relay the message to the authorities, who would get it to Surface Command. Surface Command could then send the message to Freedom using one of many powerful transmitters on the surface. Huiskamp didn’t need to worry about the content of the message raising eyebrows—once they’d established contact, he could send the message in a packet that could only be decrypted by personnel aboard Freedom.

  Still there was no response. It was beginning to look like both Surface Command and the Genevan military had been wiped out—either by rebel factions or by the Cho-ta’an—and any civilians who received their messages probably had more pressing concerns than the fate of a derelict space station.

  Meanwhile, Freedom continued to recede into deep space. If Arc Zero didn’t make contact with someone on the surface soon, Freedom would slip beyond the range of even the most powerful transmitters on Geneva: even if the signal didn’t degrade to the point where it was undetectable at that distance, it would reach them too late. Freedom would crash into the Chrylis gate, obliterating whatever slight chance humanity had to escape beyond the reach of the Cho-ta’an. It was beginning to look like building the phased array antenna was just busywork after all—something to keep them occupied until the inevitable end.

  “Let’s break down the problem,” Huiskamp said. He had called the pit crew into his quarters to discuss their options. “We need to get a message to Freedom. We’ve been assuming our best chance is to get a message to Surface Comman
d, but we’re not getting a response from anybody on the surface. Is there any way to bypass Surface Command?”

  “The phased array antenna isn’t powerful enough to get a signal to Freedom,” Aguilar said, “even if we could get it aimed properly.”

  “Technically,” said Dietrich Haas, “the problem isn’t the wattage, it’s signal dispersion. Freedom has a pretty big antenna pointed directly back at us, specifically so that it can stay in contact with the IDL for as long as possible into its voyage. They’re actively listening for signals from us, and as I recall, the signal strength on their end can be as low as a billionth of a watt. But even with our phased array concentrating the signal strength drops well below that over five billion kilometers. By the time it reaches Freedom, it’s spread over a million kilometers of space. There are probably a hundred transmitters on Geneva that could send out enough wattage in a reasonably tight beam that Freedom could receive an intelligible signal from them, but we don’t have access to any of them.”

  “But we could solve the problem by either increasing the power or tightening the beam?”

  “Theoretically,” said Haas. “The power option is a non-starter, though. We were already strapped for power before we repurposed one of our remaining solar panels, and in any case, the wattage of the transmitters we’re using is a hard limit. If we try to push more power through them, we’ll just fry the whole array.”

  “Is there any way to tighten the beam without relying on hardware on Geneva?” Huiskamp asked.

  “Not that I know of,” Haas said. “The concentrating effect of a phased array is a function of the number of transmitters. Ideally, we’d use a laser with an extremely tight beam rather than a radio, but the only lasers we have on board are very low powered. Freedom would never be able to differentiate the signal from the background light of Geneva’s star. So we’re stuck with our phased array transmitter. You could get a tighter beam with a big parabolic dish like the Deep Space Antenna outside Geneva City, but we don’t have the time or materials to build a big enough dish.” The Deep Space Antenna, operated by the civilian government of Geneva, was used to detect extremely weak radio signals, like those that might originate from a civilization in a distant star system.