Casimir Bridge: A Science Fiction Thriller (Anghazi Series Book 1)

by Darren Beyer

  Chapter 54

  Alnair System

  Mandi fidgeted as she hovered over the auxiliary station. She and Grae were forced to stand on the crowded bridge, with all stations manned by essential personnel. The atmosphere was tense.

  Dauntless continued to drift toward the eighth planetoid of the Alnair system. A blue light shone through a window to Mandi’s left, the vivid luminosity of the young star Alnair. Only hours earlier, they had arrived in the system and cycled Dauntless’ sensors between Alnair’s nine known dwarf planets and planetoids. Most had exhibited exactly what might be expected of diminutive bodies orbiting a faraway star. From near the eighth planetoid, the sensors had detected sporadic neutrino readings—the telltale signs of a wormhole briefly opening and then blinking out of existence.

  A single high g burn had put them on a course to intercept. The engines had since been silenced, and Dauntless traveled now in a long dark drift toward the small planet.

  “Why aren’t we firing the engines again?” Mandi leaned toward Grae, her voice low. “Couldn’t we get there quicker?”

  “Their exhaust is a stream of highly-charged particles traveling at eighty percent the speed of light. Dauntless is the stealthiest ship in existence, but when the engines are going they’re beacons to anything in our rear quadrant.”

  Mandi nodded, looking toward Sophia at her station with her headphones on as she listened intently for anything that might be hiding, waiting.

  “Do you really think something could be out there?”

  “I’m almost certain. You don’t put an operation of this scope together without making sure that it’s protected. The device that attacked the Gaussian was stealthy. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a defensive screen of more of the same.”

  Without looking from her station, Sophia held up a hand, silencing the bridge. For a tension-filled thirty seconds, she listened, motionless.

  “I’ve got something,” she finally said quietly. “It’s different from the last one, but definitely not natural. Defining a profile for the sensors.” She shifted her attention.

  The sensors identified what Sophia had heard and began tracking it on the main screen.

  “That’s still a ways out,” Grae said. “Good work catching it so early.”

  “It helps when you know what to look for.” Sophia took off her headset, her eyes glued to the main screen. “It hasn’t seen us.”

  “I should hope not,” said Captain Stanton. “If it did, we’d have to send our stealth-tech engineers back to the drawing board.”

  An alarm sounded, and all eyes focused on the screen, where a second object appeared. Moments later, it was joined by another.

  “I’ve got to hand it to you, Captain,” Sophia said, “these sensors of yours are damned good. Jans has been holding out on me.”

  “They just needed you to tell them what to look for. And it seems you are spot on. Grae, my boy—” Captain Stanton shifted his gaze to another object joining the rest. “—note the pattern. It looks like a defensive screen. Navigation, distance to the planet?”

  “Three point seven million kilometers from target.”

  “That far out, it’s a hell of a screen,” Grae said.

  “And well placed,” Sophia added. “We’re way outside of mass sensor range for anything smaller than a planet.”

  Dauntless continued its silent path toward the planet, as more objects appeared. A clear pattern emerged, showing a barely discernable partial sphere.

  Captain Stanton stood, transfixed by the display. “The big question is,” he said to no one and everyone, “can we get through without detection?” He turned to Sophia and Grae.

  “I have no data on which to base a conclusion.” Sophia looked to Grae.

  “Grae, you’ve done your fair share of infils. Your thoughts?”

  “It looks tight. We have no idea of their detection capabilities. If I were on the ground, I’d look for a different route.”

  “We don’t have that luxury. A course change now would light us up like a torch. And there’s no guarantee that we would find any other way in.”

  “If you can’t go through it or around it—” Mandi threw her voice into the mix. “—how about jumping past it?”

  “In order to get past the screen we’d need to terminate jump too close to the planetoid.” The captain shook his head. “The wear on the jump coils could be catastrophic.”

  “Then come out short,” Grae said.

  “And risk encountering the screen?”

  “Do we have a choice?” Grae raised a single questioning eyebrow. “Either we turn tail now, or we micro-jump in.”

  Captain Stanton thought for a few moments.

  The crowd on the bridge waited.

  “Engineering, bridge.”

  “Bridge, engineering. Ivey.”

  “Lieutenant Ivey, I need your evaluation on a micro-jump along current course, two million kilometers.”

  The comm fell silent for a long few moments.

  “Captain, I’m seeing a planetoid scale mass near this line of flight. The drives won’t like it.”

  “I need a no-nonsense answer. Can we jump in and still save enough to jump back out?”

  “It’ll take us well into our reserves, but I think we can coax it.”

  “Understood. Miss Ivey, prepare the drives. Navigation, plot an exit that puts us beyond the planetoid. If we need to get out in a hurry, I don’t want that in our way.”

  Tension on the bridge grew as the crew performed their prep for jump. Sophia’s face wore the lines of worry. Grae’s eyes narrowed, keenly assessing the tactical map. To Mandi’s surprise, no part of her was scared. They had to do this. She had to do this.

  “Captain,” the navigation officer announced, “jump parameters set.”

  The captain ran through the pre-jump checklist as all stations checked in.

  “Prepare for jump,” the captain announced, “and sound general quarters.”

  Mandi breathed deeply, steadying herself for what was to come.

  Chapter 55

  Alnair System

  Mandi braced herself as once again the blue-white haze of jump initiation blasted the view ports. The intoxicating pattern of a forming wormhole transformed to blackness, and seconds later a brief flash showed Dauntless exiting the micro-jump. As the gravity returned to the bridge, she leaned over slightly, her hand to her stomach, but she was indeed becoming used to the effects.

  “If they didn’t know about us before, they certainly do now.” Captain Stanton kept his eyes to the front as he addressed the sensor officer. “Sensors hot, and get me a sit-rep right off.”

  Seconds passed. Mandi glanced up to a blank look on the operator’s jaw hanging open.

  “Sensors, report!”

  “Sir! Multiple contacts. This isn’t right. It can’t be—”

  “Spit it out, officer!”

  “I’ve got—Captain, I’ve got forty-plus contacts, multiple bearings. Two contacts astern, only point three miks. Most of the rest are roughly three five zero, mark three four five.”

  “Bloody hell. We’ve jumped right into the middle of it. Type?”

  “The targets astern are system ships. Destroyers. Computer has them as Churchill class, likely the Roosevelt and Thatcher.”

  “Check again,” the captain said in an annoyed tone. “Churchill class ships can’t be here. They aren’t interstellar.”

  “I’m reading it correctly, sir. One ship in front of us is reading thirty-five thousand tons, and the computer is telling me that it’s the Coalition battleship Intrepid. It’s also showing heavy cruisers Gibraltar, Achilles, Cumberland, Augusta, Exeter, Norfolk, Halifax, numerous light cruisers and destroyers. Drop ships Mallory, Laconia, Arcona, Birken, Tamar—”

  “I concur,” Sophia called from her auxiliary station.

  “That’s most of the Coalition Home Fleet. None are jump-capable. How the hell are they here?”

  “I’ve got massive hyperium readings d
irectly along the vector of the main body,” Sophia added.

  “Put it on the main holo.” Captain Stanton was grim.

  Mandi stared in astonishment at the pyramids that sprang into the 3-D depiction of the planetoid and surrounding area. Each pyramid represented a ship with its name and designation connected by a thin white line. An arrow extended from the front of each ship, indicating its velocity vector. The bigger the ship the bigger the pyramid, with the holo dominated by the largest, Intrepid. Mandi frowned, thinking back to the riddle that had started her whirlwind tour of the galaxy. The body of ships followed the leader in trail formation, vectors pointing directly at a red sphere, the source of the hyperium reading.

  “The Roosevelt and Thatcher have changed orientation and are accelerating toward us at four g’s, Captain,” announced Sophia.

  “We’ve really cocked it up this time,” Captain Stanton swore. “Navigation, turn us away from the main body and get us the hell out of here, five g’s.” He sat down hard at the command console. “And remind me to add a passage to the micro-jump operating manual, ‘Not to be initiated without prior active sensor scan.’ ”

  “Roosevelt and Thatcher fired beam lasers. Glancing hit on main engine nacelle. Seventy-three percent reflected, eighteen percent ablated. Minor structural damage. Return fire, Captain?”

  “Negative! Evasive maneuvers, engage ECM. Angle our course so that our engines don’t present a target. I don’t want a lucky hit going straight up our tailpipe.”

  Dauntless turned to shelter its engines with their armored nacelles, as everyone on the bridge held their breath, watching the screen. Dauntless made a random positional thruster burn. Mandi braced herself, expecting to be thrown around the bridge, but the gravitational systems compensated and negated any sensation of movement. Dauntless adjusted, made another random positional thruster burn, adjusted, and made another, performing more effective evasives at higher g’s than was possible in any other ship.

  “Good luck hitting us now.” Captain Stanton visibly relaxed. “Bloody bastards.”

  The sensor operator tensed, eyes never leaving the screens. “Gibraltar and Achilles fired beam lasers. Negative impact. Cumberland and Augusta fired beam lasers. Negative impact. Missiles inbound astern, twelve g’s.”

  “Time to intercept?” The captain turned.

  “Calculating—twenty-three minutes at current acceleration. Incoming beam lasers have ceased.”

  Mandi stared at the holo depiction of the arrayed ships. The large pyramid with the designation Augusta intercepted the unknown hyperium object and vanished.

  “Did you see that?” Mandi shouted.

  The entire bridge crew looked at her.

  “The Augusta—it just disappeared!”

  “She’s right,” the sensor officer called out. “Augusta is gone. I’ve got neutrino readings consistent with jump initiation centered at the hyperium concentration.”

  “Are you trying to tell me a non-jump-capable ship just jumped out of system?”

  “Sir, the sensors quite clearly indicate a jump at Augusta’s last known position.”

  “Could Augusta have a jump drive installed?” Captain Stanton snapped his head to Sophia.

  “A retrofit with a viable interstellar drive is possible, but such hybrids exhibit extremely poor efficiency and limited range. Retrofitting a ship the size of Augusta would not be economically viable, and it would take decades to refit every ship out there.” Sophia stared at the main screen. “If Augusta didn’t create its own wormhole, something created one for them.” She paused. “It can’t be,” she muttered under her breath.

  “Sophia?”

  “I think it’s a Casimir Bridge.”

  “A Casimir Bridge?”

  “Hendrik Casimir was a Dutch physicist who developed a theory related to forces generated associated with quantized fields. A few years ago, researchers expanded on his ideas to theorize that those forces could be used to keep a wormhole open by placing appropriate modeled devices to anchor it on each end. As far as I know, no progress has been made. It’s just theory.”

  “It doesn’t look like a theory to me.” Captain Stanton rubbed his chin and stared straight ahead. “Sophia, you said that if you had a ship’s mass and one neutrino reading, you could ascertain a destination.”

  “I’m on it.” Sophia bent over her station, working for long, tense moments.

  “I’ve got four candidates.” She looked up in alarm. “One is Eridani.”

  “Engineering, bridge!”

  “Bridge, engineering. Ivey here.”

  “Lieutenant Ivey, how are the coils?” The captain leaned over his comm panel.

  “We’ve got a jump or two left.”

  “We need to jump out of here now. Can the coils take it?”

  “Mass readings show we’re still close to the planetoid. Do you mean micro or interstellar?”

  “We’re going back to Eridani.”

  “Captain, so close to that much mass—if the coils were fully tuned, it would be no problem. In their current state—” She stopped. “I don’t know. I can’t say what they’ll look like on the other side.”

  “Navigation,” barked Captain Stanton, “get us on a max-g vector toward Eridani and plot a jump.” He leaned over his comm. “Prepare for jump, Ms. Ivey. We’ll get you as far away from the planetoid as possible.”

  “Sir, the vector to the jump point will cut the corner on the in-bounds.” The navigation officer looked up from a screen.

  “Bollocks. Get me an estimate ASAP.”

  “We won’t make it at current acceleration.”

  The captain spun toward Mandi and Grae. “You’ve got fifteen seconds to get to your berths.”

  Before Mandi knew what was happening, Grae had her by the wrist and was dragging her toward the exit. She barely got her feet under her, as he pulled her down the main passageway at a run.

  “What the hell is happening?”

  “The captain’s taking Dauntless into a high-g burn. And he’s cutting the safeties.”

  Mandi felt as though she were stumbling forward. Grae steered her abruptly down a side passageway. The ship was tilting backward until they were straddling the angle between floor and wall, still trying to run. Then they were running in slow motion on the wall, feeling heavier and heavier. Each step became a trial, until Mandi succumbed, falling painfully on her knees and rolling over.

  “Grae!” She cried out. An access panel or switch plate on the wall dug painfully into her back.

  Grae turned, dropping to a knee. He tried to stand and take a step, but fell to all fours and crawled to her. He gently pried her up and dragged her into his arms, holding her tight, acting as a shield against the sharp, unpredictable protrusions of the ship’s passageway in high g.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Nothing good,” Grae grunted, as the telltale weightlessness of the jump replaced the intense pressure of high g.

  III

  Earthdate: October 29, 2108

  Chapter 56

  Eridani System

  Eridani Prime shone in a bright blue crescent, its star a white ball of light perched behind it. The massive engines of the unmanned high-g cargo tug spit superheated propellant and fire from conical engine bells, as they arrested the inbound trajectory. Held fast by heavy grappling clamps, the three cargo pods shook under the tug’s maximum thrust. Only the engine burn wasn’t per the published flight plan. More powerful than expected, the burn fell silent in an extended orbit, leaving the cargo pods well outside standard shipping operations space. The tug drifted soundlessly, its reaction thrusters ejecting momentary puffs of propellant to move the tug and cargo into its final, planned orientation. For long moments, the tug floated motionless with no sign of activity. Then in perfect unison, the clamps restraining the three pods opened and released their cargo. With only the slightest movement, the pods glided slowly away, propelled by the compressive force and elasticity of the structure released by the clamps.r />
  Once the pods had cleared, the tug fired its thrusters to gain distance. Like performers in a precise choreography, the three pods began a dance, shedding their exteriors in dramatic explosions that sent the casings tumbling into the void of space. The cargo floated unrestrained and exposed—three gigantic metallic gold-copper arcs. Their control structures and power cores came to life, triggering their maneuvering thrusters to emanate small puffs of propellant and push the arcs slowly away from each other, firing again to stabilize their positions in a perfect equilateral triangle. Now the metallic arcs formed a portion of a large circle one hundred and forty meters in diameter. As the power cores engaged, each component began to glow with a cold, blue light.

  Chapter 57

  Eridani System

  The wave of nausea hit Mandi as she was thrown face down onto the floor of the passageway. Grae pushed himself deftly to the side, narrowly avoiding landing on her. Head down, Mandi took deep breaths and tried desperately to keep her stomach in check. The feeling subsided, replaced by pain in her back from her earlier encounter with the bulkhead. She pushed herself up—first to her knees, then to a sitting position, and slowly turned her head toward Grae. He rolled onto his side and she gasped when she caught sight of his uniform, torn and covered with blood.

  “We need to get you to the med-bay!” Mandi gasped. She stood, dizzy and off-balance.

  Grae reached to his back, gingerly feeling for the wound. When he pulled away his bloody hand, he looked at it for a moment. “Medic to the bridge.”

  “Medic to the bridge, aye,” Dauntless’ computerized voice responded.

  “We don’t have time,” Grae said to Mandi, his voice unsteady with pain. “We have to get back to the captain.”

  Only slightly less hurried on their return, they retraced their steps through the passageways. Mandi shook whenever she glanced at the blood saturating the back of Grae’s uniform.