The Daedalus Incident

by Michael J. Martinez

  Chance.

  “Good God,” Weatherby breathed.

  “What is it, sir?” hissed Rooney, crouched at his officer’s side.

  Before he could answer, Weatherby was distracted by shouts from the beach. He turned his glass back to the cover to see a huge man shouting at the others there. This one, most obviously in charge, was tall and broad, with a massive black beard and a voice that brooked no dissent. He was dressed in a glut of finery, all of it mismatched and ostentatious. He wore the hat of an English admiral, but the snippets of language Weatherby could hear sounded French.

  “Unless my eyes are mistaken, that is the Chance, and the blowhard ashore may be Jean-Jacques LeMaire,” Weatherby whispered.

  Everyone who had taken to sea or Void knew of LeMaire and Chance. LeMaire was the most notorious pirate, and the Chance the most famous pirate ship, to sail the Void. Many things were said of LeMaire: that he had taken a third-rate ship-of-the-line in a one-on-one engagement despite being outgunned by a factor of three; that he had a base on one of the larger boulder-islands of the Rocky Main; that he always left one man alive on any ship he plundered, so as to spread his infamy.

  It was the stuff of scandal sheets and tavern tales throughout the Known Worlds. And he was a mere fifty yards away. Weatherby tugged at Rooney’s sleeve and quickly made his way back to the rest of the group.

  And there, he found Plumb, sitting upon a fallen log, looking as dour as when he had left. “Mr. Plumb!” Weatherby shouted, as best as one could shout whilst whispering. “The ship out there is the Chance!”

  Shocked out of his gloom, Plumb turned to regard Weatherby with amazement. “You’re joking,” Plumb said.

  “Not at all, sir. And I believe LeMaire himself is on the shore!”

  Plumb stood from his perch, his cold stare returning. “You’d best be right, Mr. Weatherby,” Plumb said, offering the sentence somewhere between concern and threat.

  Nonetheless, Plumb began to plan the attack. He would lead one group south, hiding in the foliage until the alleged pirates were between them and the water. Weatherby would take up a position just north of the beach. “When I give the word, fire upon the shore and we may catch them between us,” Plumb said. “And Finch, as soon as we engage, fire that rocket aloft to alert Daedalus. While they still have men upon the shore, we may catch them by the heel!”

  The group split in two and spread out. Plumb led his men through the undergrowth and around, ultimately facing the pink-sanded beach, the bay and the unknown vessel beyond, while Weatherby took up the flanking position looking south across the beach from the promontory. Soon, twenty muskets were pointed at a small group of men as they prepared to embark within two small boats. The third was well en route to the waiting ship.

  The assault came quickly. “FIRE!” Plumb shouted. Weatherby gave the order as well, and soon Finch’s rocket was three hundred feet in the air, glowing with the light of the Sun and illuminating the quick carnage that erupted upon the sand. Of the twenty men left on the beach, eight fell upon the first volley between the two groups.

  Sadly, the man who might be LeMaire was not among them. Weatherby saw him quickly clamber into a boat, pulling another man along with him. Those already aboard started rowing quickly as LeMaire drew pistols and returned fire.

  The other men on the beach weren’t as quick to act, torn as they were between the decision to fight or flee. Some ran for the other boat, while their fellows pulled their pistols and shot blindly into the trees, aiming mostly at Plumb’s group, which was closer. Meanwhile, Weatherby could see the first boat—the one that had already departed—had reached the Chance. Under the dim pre-dawn light, he could even see a very well-dressed gentleman ascending the ladder. It was impossible to tell whether it was their suspect, though this seemed likely.

  Plumb’s men suddenly charged from their cover, swords and bayonets at the ready. Weatherby immediately ordered his own charge and was soon dashing across the sand, sword in hand. Those left standing on shore were outnumbered by more than two to one, and quickly realized the folly of their position; their weapons were cast down to the sand before either group arrived.

  “Open fire on the boat!” Weatherby ordered, purely out of instinct, even though it was Plumb’s duty to give that command. Nonetheless, the men immediately knelt in the sand, reloaded and fired. Weatherby could see two men go down on the boat—again, the black-bearded leader appeared unharmed—but the little dinghy kept moving steadily toward the Chance.

  And that was when Daedalus appeared from around the promontory at full sail, quickly wheeling to larboard in order to offer a broadside against the Chance‘s stern; surely Morrow could see the identity of the famed pirate vessel by this time, and had opted to engage.

  However, it appeared Chance earned her reputation fully, in every sense. She was lucky to be positioned well upon the currents, so as soon as the remaining boat was abreast of her, those aboard cut the anchor chain entirely. The result was that the stern of the ship began to turn toward land—not only pointing the ship in the right direction, but allowing her to easily offer her own guns to Daedalus as well.

  The shots resounded across the beach, as each vessel fired upon the other. It was impossible for Weatherby to tell whether either had been damaged, given the smoke that immediately obscured the battle from view. But he soon saw Chance moving away from the cloud at full sail. Meanwhile, Daedalus—having survived the exchange with little damage—was nonetheless tacking toward shore, away from her quarry. Even at that distance, Weatherby could see the helmsman spinning the wheel furiously, with Lt. Foster assisting, in order to come about in time—but there was nothing for it. By the time Daedalus had her bow pointing away from shore, Chance was at full sail, and the winds were in her favor.

  Chance’s maneuver was uncommonly canny. By cutting the anchor chain, the pirates had protected their vulnerable stern, shielded their incoming fellows from the onslaught, put themselves in position to return fire and immediately captured the winds coming off the land to speed them off to sea. Even if Daedalus had opted to tack away from shore during the attack, Chance would have kept the advantage.

  “Damn them!” Plumb roared as he saw the brilliance of the move. “Daedalus shan’t reach them in time!”

  “Why not?” Finch asked. The officers and half the crew looked at him as if he were mad. “I’m sorry, but I’m still rather new at all this,” he added with a shrug.

  Weatherby explained the situation as briefly as possible while the marines rounded up the surviving Chance crew. Meanwhile, Daedalus remained undaunted, unfurling more canvas in an attempt to overcome the fleeing pirate. It was a good 300 miles to the southern aurorae, the nearest means of ascent into the Void. Yet Chance had opted to flee to the north, with the prevailing wind, which struck Weatherby as a short-term expediency at best. Perhaps Daedalus could catch her after all….

  And then, beyond all reckoning, they saw the Chance start to rise from the green Venusian seas.

  “What in blazes?” Weatherby muttered, stopping in his tracks as he watched.

  The Chance‘s keel slowly rose from the water, and they could see its crew immediately begin to unfurl her planesails. Weatherby could not be entirely sure, but he thought he spied the familiar motes of sun-currents around the pirate’s keel—quite impossible so far from the aurorae.

  And yet there it was, a sight that defied all notions of sailing and alchemy both. The Chance rose majestically into the skies, leaving Daedalus in its wake.

  “That can’t be,” Plumb muttered, staring off into the distance as the pirate ship faded into the foggy skies.

  “Doctor?” Weatherby asked quietly.

  Finch stared wide-eyed at the sight. “I could not tell you, Lieutenant. It is a working beyond anything I’ve seen.” He turned to Weatherby, an odd smile on his face. “We’re into something here, I’ll tell you that.”

  In stunned silence, those on the beach watched Daedalus tack in sheets and weigh anchor.
Weatherby was sure he knew the calculus in Morrow’s mind—there were still men ashore, captives to be had and a Venusian village to investigate. There was no sense in undertaking an effort already doomed to failure, as they would have to make sail for the poles to pursue Chance—and she would be long gone before they even lifted off from the sea.

  Finally, the Daedalus officers turned their attention to their new captives. There were eight still standing, another eight dead or wounded. Finch tended to these as best he could, though Plumb cautioned him not to use too many curatives, as they were still upon a foreign and potentially hostile shore. Weatherby attempted to question the captives, first in English, and then in his rudimentary, halting French, but they sat tight-lipped, staring off toward the water and their escaping comrades, knowing full well that their surrender meant prolonging their lives but a little. Piracy was a hanging offense, and they would soon all have a noose around their necks.

  Meanwhile, Bacon was looking down the trail that, presumably, led to the Venusian village. “It’s kicked up something fierce,” he reported when Weatherby joined him. “Must’ve been at least twenty men that went down that trail. Can’t imagine the Va’hakri could’ve withstood that many.”

  Weatherby nodded grimly. While his knowledge of the Venusians was limited indeed, he knew their tools of warfare were limited to spears and bows, though a few tribes were known to utilize particularly virulent poisons, drawn from the alchemically rich plant life around them. Twenty men, twice the size of a typical Venusian and armed with muskets, pistols and swords, would make short work of an entire tribe, poisons notwithstanding.

  “Signal from Daedalus,” Plumb said to Weatherby as he walked up to the trailhead. “We’re to proceed to the Venusian village. I’ve detailed six men under Forester to stand guard over the prisoners. Gather the rest, Mr. Weatherby. We’ll out what these bastards are up to.”

  As the men prepared to venture into the interior of the Venusian jungle, Finch sidled up to Weatherby. “I admit, I remain perplexed.”

  “How so, Doctor?” Weatherby asked. “Aside from the fact that they reached the Void without benefit of the aurorae?”

  Finch shrugged. “For most, that would be enough, would it not? That’s a fine prize, indeed. But they came here, and risked capture. Thus, it stands to reason that there’s an even greater working afoot. Otherwise, they would take the Mercurium—and their new formula for ascending the Void—and sell it to the highest bidder. So what then is their true purpose?”

  Weatherby eyed the trail leading into the foliage. “I pray the answers are in that jungle.”

  July 25, 2132

  Thirty seconds after Diaz grabbed Greene by the arm and shuttled him into her office, engineering had called the command center, wondering what the fuss was all about. No, they didn’t see it as a joke. But neither did they understand why this particular bit of radiation had threatened to put off their sleep cycles, either.

  In Diaz’ absence, Shaila ordered engineering to continue a full diagnostic check of the reactor, but not to take it offline quite yet. They didn’t seem worried, even though she was. And Greene’s cameraman and producer were still filming, which didn’t help one bit.

  Shaila’s mood brightened when Stephane sauntered into the command center, Yuna in tow. “How can I sleep with all these alarms?” he said with a disarming grin.

  Shaila walked over to him, taking him and Yuna by the arm and pulling them away from the holocam. “It was the rad signature we found in the cave,” she said quietly. “It was all over the reactor room.”

  “Is it dangerous?” Stephane asked, suddenly looking rather worried.

  “Nobody in engineering seems to think so. We’re running checks now, and Diaz is in with Greene. He seems to know what it is.”

  Stephane’s response was cut off by Harry Yu, who stalked into the command center looking like he was ready to hit someone. “Anyone mind telling me why I have sixty miners in pressure suits ready to evac?” he barked to no one in particular.

  Shaila approached him with a nod to the cameras. “You mind? We’re getting this under control here.”

  Harry looked the cameraman over quickly before fixing his gaze on Shaila. “This is not under control, Jain. My guys are pissed off enough as is, and now you’re talking evac and this-is-not-a-drill? Do you know what sixty pissed-off diggers looks like?”

  Shaila opened her mouth to respond, only to see Diaz reemerge from her office, looking irritated. “Stand down from alert status,” Diaz told Shaila. “Engineering can finish up their checks and go to bed. You, Durand and Hiyashi—in my office. Dr. Greene here has volunteered to give us a little science lesson. Harry, feel free to tag along.”

  Shaila followed everyone into the commander’s office, where she and Stephane stood along the wall while the others sat huddled around Diaz’ desk.

  “All right,” Diaz said, taking her seat behind the desk. “Everybody listen carefully to Dr. Greene here and learn from this little disaster, shall we?” She nodded to Greene, who downloaded the radiation signature from the sensor pack to the desk’s holodisplay.

  “This is the rad signature for Cherenkov radiation,” Greene said in his best holovision voice. “First and foremost, it’s harmless. It’s actually a fancy name for a specific kind of light.

  “Cherenkov radiation is light emitted by charged particles that move through a medium in which the speed of light is actually slower than the speed of the particles. Think of light moving through water; the density of the water not only bends the light, but slows it down. Of course, the vast majority of atoms passing through water molecules aren’t charged.

  “Now, let’s say you produce a charged particle and put it through that light-slowing medium—say, particles produced in a reactor that are then sent through the heavy water surrounding the fuel cells. The charged particles are still traveling at the speed of light, and when they zip through the water coolant, they produce radiation that shows up at the blue end of the visual spectrum. The glow you see in your reactor chamber is actually Cherenkov radiation.”

  “And that’s why engineering detected that signature in the reactor area,” Shaila said glumly. “It’s supposed to be there.”

  “Exactly,” Greene continued. “Now, if you didn’t get a read on this signature before, it was probably a good idea for them to check to be sure that nothing got out of the containment chamber, because that would indeed mean some kind of leak. But then again, if Cherenkov radiation were to somehow escape, a whole bunch of nastier radiation would escape with it, setting off the automatic alarms.”

  Stephane cleared his throat. “Doctor, does Cherenkov radiation happen naturally outside of fusion reactors?”

  “Any time you have a charged particle moving through a medium that slows light, yes, you can get Cherenkov radiation. We’ve had satellites in Earth orbit for over a century looking for it in deep space, and we’ve caught a few glimmers—mostly ionized particles going through an area of dense gases or some kind of dark matter. Sometimes, you’ll get a Cherenkov effect when cosmic rays whip through the atmosphere, too. At least on Earth—I haven’t heard of it on Mars, but I suppose it’s possible.”

  Shaila chimed in as she put the pieces together in her head. “OK, but what if you had evidence of this radiation without actually detecting charged particles?”

  Greene looked at her quizzically. “I’m not sure I follow. What exactly did you have in mind?”

  “I’m afraid, Doctor, that I’ll have to get clearance from Houston on that one,” Diaz said quickly. “And besides, you got your special EVA coming up to compensate you for your time, and for your creative editing of this evening’s events.”

  “That’s true,” Greene smiled. “I look forward to working with you, Lt. Jain.”

  Shaila shot Diaz a look, but the commander studiously looked down at her hands while Yuna took over the questioning. “Is there anything else you can tell us about this Cherenkov radiation, sir? Anything you can think
of?”

  “Nothing much, really. Mostly having to do with particle physics and some quantum mechanics, and unless you’ve got a hundred-kilometer particle collider around here, you don’t need to worry about that. Charged particles moving through a light-slowing medium are rare enough as is. My guess is you’ve got a sensor screw-up related to the reactor.”

  The group around the table was silent for a moment before Diaz spoke up again. “Thank you for helping us clear this up, Doctor, and of course I appreciate your discretion with regard to all this. I’ll have Lt. Jain get in touch with you tomorrow morning to set up your EVA.”

  “Always a pleasure, Colonel. Happy to help.” With another grin at Shaila, Greene took his cue and left the conference room.

  “Shut it, Jain,” Diaz said as Shaila started to speak. “We’ll discuss Greene later. Meantime, you can tell us how we apparently missed one of the most common forms of radiation known to man.”

  Shaila stood a little taller, trying not to feel like a dressed-down cadet. “Ma’am. This Cherenkov radiation was what we picked up inside the lava tube right before the quake destroyed the sensor array. When I saw the same signature coming from the reactor room, I sounded the alert.”

  “This is common radiation, yes?” Stephane asked. “You searched the database for it?”

  “Yeah,” Shaila said, catching on. “And the search turned up nothing.”

  “Do it again,” Diaz ordered.

  Shaila pulled out her datapad, plugged the radiation signature into the search engine, and waited a moment.

  “What the hell?” she muttered.

  The search came back with a definition: Cherenkov radiation. The computer even provided her with a helpful précis that neatly mirrored Greene’s explanation.

  Shaila looked up. Diaz was staring at her with a tired consternation, while Yuna and Stephane had concern and, goddamn it, pity on their faces.

  “I swear, this is not the result I got when I did the search before,” Shaila protested.