Cloak of War

by Casey Calouette

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I wake with a start and check the clock on the side of the bunk. There’s about three minutes until I’m due on the bridge. Worst of all, it feels like I haven’t slept at all.

  “Hurry up, you’ll be late,” Hartford says as he plods past.

  Henna’s conversation will have to wait. I’m not about to keep the captain waiting. Not when it finally seems like I’m on his good side. Hell, for that matter, like he’s on his own good side!

  This time, I straighten my uniform, smooth it as good as I can, and shave while I walk to the bridge. I’ll not be making my earlier mistake again. I stuff the ultrasonic razor in my pocket and enter the bridge.

  The hour tone sounds right as I step inside.

  Captain Hallverson looks up from his console. He gives me a quick glance up and down, taking in the state of my uniform. “Right on time.”

  “Yes, sir,” I reply.

  “Next time, be early.” He looks back down to his console.

  I don’t bother protesting; he’s right.

  “Astrogation, prepare to plot. Mr. Jager, sound action stations.”

  I relay the info throughout the ship. The thuds and shudders of closing hatches and sealing bulkheads echo through the hull. The air takes on a different feel. We’re now compartmentalized. The bridge feels a bit warmer.

  Somewhere far behind us, near the core of the ship, the astrogation computer goes into overdrive. Liquid nitrogen flows over the processors and chills them. Data flows in and, as soon as it’s verified, flows back out.

  All ships bouncing out arrive at the nexus points. A million different gravitational factors all determine exactly where in space you will arrive. On most starships, they simply plop down right in the center of the nexus point. But for combat operations, this won’t do. The enemy might have a minefield or a defensive array waiting.

  On the bigger warships, they have plenty of room just for a monstrous astrogation system. In the Orca, that one astrogation computer takes up a quarter of our space. And it is quite special.

  That fancy computer allows us to jump into those nexus points and be even farther away than a warship would. On one hand, we can hunt more successfully; but even more importantly, it gives us time to drop the cloaking gas and escape should some burly bruiser be waiting.

  This is quite likely.

  Once we bounce, we land with zero energy potential. For a few brief moments, there’s nothing to herald our arrival. The only thing they’d see is starlight reflecting, and that just for a moment. If they had a ton of active buoys anchored about, they could send shotgun blasts of laser or radar waves. But even that isn’t a guarantee. Plus, our spec-ops fleets like to burn in a drone just to whack those and give us a hole.

  This is the first time we get to use the refitted astrogation computer. Who needs sea trials, right?

  We should have taken odds on how accurate our landing will be.

  “Astrogation confirmed. Ready for plot,” the Astrogation station calls.

  Captain Hallverson hunches over his console. A moment later, a new set of coordinates flows across the display. “Astrogation confirm.”

  “Confirmed.”

  “We won’t deploy the gas unless necessary,” Hallverson says to me. “But always be ready on a jump like this. We’re headed toward the Tyrolean core, and at each jump they like to add a few more layers of defenses.”

  Katzen looks back from his station. “Torpedo’s loaded. Ready to go, sir.”

  I feel a tingle on the back of my neck. Fear, maybe? Definitely nervousness. This is the first time I’ve gone this close to Tyrolean space.

  From this point on, we’re in the ring. The bell is about to strike. We’ll be on our toes, gloves on, ready to strike, until the mission is done. Even when we aren’t swinging, we have to be ready to dodge.

  “Spool the drive,” Captain Hallverson calls.

  I swallow hard.

  “Time to kick this cat in the ass,” someone mumbles.

  “Astrogation. Go.”

  The drive bounces that long distance between the stars.

  You never feel a thing when a ship bounces. All you can see is that the stars look a touch different. I always expect more from it; something so awesome should feel cooler than it does.

  Alarms ring out. Sensors struggle to acquire new data. We are temporarily blind as the barest bits of light strike our sensor arrays. Tiny waves of electromagnetic energy dance on the antennas and slowly build in intensity.

  Bit by bit, a picture emerges. It only takes a second—anything farther away than that we wouldn’t have to worry about. This time, we are on the supply routes leading back to Tyrolean space. Before, we could bounce without worry as we were in deep space. Now, though, now we hunt.

  It all happens in a flash of motion. The AI takes over for a split second and drives the ship in a sudden maneuver so fast that the gravity compensators fail.

  I fly against one wall and tumble over a railing onto the floor. There is an audible crunch as my ribs strike conduit. A rebound wave of gravity flings me up, and I connect with the ceiling before finally settling on the floor.

  “Stabilize! Deploy gas! Give me a targeting solution!” Captain Hallverson says in a loud but not nervous voice.

  All of the stations report.

  “Gas deployed! Compensating drive to match velocities.”

  “Sensors show a bishop three hundred kilometers off our port bow. Thermal signatures—she’s preparing to fire!” Wiltsiuz says.

  “Torpedo’s hot. On your call!” Katzen says quickly. He turns and looks at Captain Hallverson with one hand on the firing key.

  I struggle to stand. Actually, I struggle to breathe as wobble to my feet. It feels like someone double-fisted me right in the side.

  “They’re firing!” Wiltsiuz says excitedly.

  Captain Hallverson shouts back at him, “Follow protocol, dammit! What, where, velocity?”

  Wiltsiuz spins back to his console. He looks ashamed of himself and taps on his console. Even from where I stand, I can see his fingers shake.

  “Denial charge, thirty degrees below our current position, five hundred meters per second. It’s spreading.”

  Captain Hallverson leans back into his chair and sighs. “We caught them sleeping. If they’d been on the ball, we’d have eaten a load of rail gun charges. They’re grasping at straws, Mr. Jager. They’ll send out clouds of ball bearings to deny us movement, but that big hulk of a ship doesn’t want to get any closer to us.”

  I finally get a breath and nod in agreement. The captain looks eager, satisfied, like he is honing himself. I know that look, it’s how Martinez looked after surviving the first round against Mbutu in ’64. Triumphant.

  Then I remember that Martinez was knocked out cold in the third round.

  From then on, our ships drift apart. The bishop fires off a cloud of communication drones that zip off and bounce away in a dozen different directions. Now they know we’re coming.

  Shortly after, the bishop bounces out. It sent a few more tons of ball bearings out our way, but nothing close.

  Captain Hallverson looks thoughtful as he chews on his stylus. He looks up as if remembering I’m there. “Get those ribs looked at. You’ll need to be at your peak, young man.”

  I rub my ribs gently. “Yes, sir.”

  The doctor is tending to someone else, so I find Henna instead. She’s off duty, lying in her bunk, staring up at the ceiling. Her hands are clasped tight to her chest, her lips pursed up. If there was ever a look of unhappiness, this is it.

  “Hi, Henna. What’s up?”

  She bites her lip and half sits up, bracing onto her elbows. She looks back and forth down the halls. “We made a mistake.”

  “We did?”

  “We shouldn’t have stayed on this ship.”

  “If we hadn’t, then we’d be sucking vacuum with the commodore.”

  “No, then the Orca wouldn’t have left until they received replacem
ents.”

  This is nonsense. There was nowhere to go, no reason to get upset.

  “Henna, what are you talking about?”

  She looks up and down the hall once again. Then she snatches my hand in hers and squeezes it tight. Her fingers are cold. “This is a ghost ship, Karl.”

  I narrow my eyes. She’s serious. “Are you superstitious?”

  “Don’t mock me!” She releases my hand as if it’s burning her. “One of the welders told me that the Orca comes in worse off every time, but always they go back out. Every one of them has earned an out. A total discharge. Instead they keep going, keep sailing, keep killing. They want to die, Karl. All of them do.”

  I open my mouth to speak, but she continues.

  “The welder told me it was a ship filled with the dead, but they can’t die, can’t rest, until this war is done, till they have vengeance.”

  How do you argue against superstition? She’s an engineer, a scientist that knows nuts and bolts. But even in our age they haven’t mapped out the human soul. Not yet, at least.

  “We focus on our job, we get through this tour, and then we go.”

  She starts to speak again, but this time I cut her off. “You’re an engineer; think of it rationally. You know there’s no such thing as ghosts. The dead don’t steer starships. This isn’t the Flying Dutchman.”

  She rolls over and shakes her head. “I dreamed I was in a coffin, drifting in space. I don’t like this ship. We’re all just waiting to die.”

  I lay a hand on her shoulder and give it a squeeze. What more can I say? She’s afraid. I’ve listened. I’ve tried logic. The rest is up to her. “Get some rest.”

  I set out to find the good doctor. My ribs throb, and I run the conversation through my head. God, I hope she isn’t right. Flying Dutchman. Does that mean I’m already dead too? I shudder and shake it off.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I spend the next watch in bed with a rib-setting compression squeezing the life out of me. Not only did I crack three ribs, but one was what the doc classified as having hemorrhaging potential. So they wrenched on a vest that looked like a torture device and used it to deliver bone-building medication right to the spot.

  It hurts like hell when you rebuild bone.

  So I spend the time reviewing orders, protocols, all of those little details that determines how a ship operates. I halt when I reach section 14.11.a.7 Mail, Incoming, Censorship, Duties. There it is, my position: the mail officer.

  On every ship, mail is the most important thing to the crew. Drink, drugs, and breathable atmosphere are a far second. Space feels pretty damned empty when it seems you’re alone.

  I sent out a packet of mail via drone a couple of days before we left the refit ship. I didn’t want Mom and Dad to think I was dead any longer than necessary. The navy likely considered me missing in space. Lots of sailors just end up missing in space. No bodies after a neutron blaster strikes.

  There should be a big ol’ data packet that I’m supposed to sort through. As the mail officer, my duty is to pull out those things that will, and I quote, “reduce the fighting effectiveness of the average sailor, soldier, or marine.” Yeah, I have to read their mail and decide whether or not to tell them that some orbital doll girl found a new fuck boy.

  Except there isn’t any personal mail. None. The only things in the mail queue are service updates, bank statements, some advertising, and a notice for Colby about overdue rent on a storage unit in MaoQin space.

  Even dead people get more mail than this. A shiver runs through me, and I wonder if Henna is right. Maybe not literally—but hell, this sure feels odd.

  At the shift change, I hobble back onto the bridge. Captain Hallverson is still at the chair. It’s officially Yao’s watch. The ratings mill off, exchange data, and then we do the shift change briefing.

  “Anything to report, sir?” I say to Captain Hallverson.

  “Negative,” he mumbles in a low voice. A set of star maps is open on his tablet. Thin lines mark prospective routes. I don’t recognize any of the space. He looks up and covers the maps with his arm. “Watch is clear. Continue for another four hours, then zero velocity. We’ll hunt from there. Notify me of any contacts.” Captain Hallverson stands, keys off his tablet, and steps off the captain’s platform.

  “Sir?” I say quietly. Mail is a personal thing; I don’t want to alarm anyone.

  He simply raises an eyebrow. It’s not an annoyed look, but close.

  “I was going through my duties, and uh, I’m supposed to censor the mail.”

  Captain Hallverson gives me a look that could shatter a diamond. “Inform me of any contacts.”

  “Yes, sir.” That is a conversation I’ll not be having again. There is no incoming mail to censor. The dead don’t send mail.

  Four hours later, we slide into position and shed our velocity at a snail’s pace. There’s a few things we have to worry about now: one is conserving reaction mass. It takes some talented maneuvering to use gravity as an assist to stop or to gain velocity. Hartford, oddly enough, is the expert.

  The trick is to minimize the energy that keeps us moving below the speed of light. Sure, we can bounce hither and thither, but in order to maneuver, we have to do it the old-fashioned way. The gravity generators that keep my feet on the floor also keep us on the hunt. But for every action there’s a reaction, and that means energy from the reactor. Ain’t nothing for free in a vacuum, baby.

  So Hartford keeps us on the straight and narrow with Father Gravity. Gotta balance those Newtonian books.

  In civilian life, he was a professor of astrophysics. Solving complicated orbital plots is like doing the Sunday crossword for him. He is completely unlike any professor I’ve ever met.

  Hartford pushes his glasses up onto his nose. His fingers run through his very un-navy like-mustache, and he nods at the new plot. “Should we pursue in this quadrant, use this plot…” He continues on, and I make notes.

  “And if we have to run?”

  He looks up with a kindly smile. “We’re always running; it’s just the direction that matters.”

  “A vector is a vector.”

  “Correct,” he says. Then he lingers on the bridge and chats with the duty stations.

  Our signal board is stone cold. The system has a dim blue star and two rock planets in the habitable zone. Both are nonstop hurricanes of dust and destruction. The gas-ice planets farther out aren’t much nicer.

  “Hartford,” I say to him as he walks off the bridge.

  “Hmm, sir?”

  “Why doesn’t anyone on board get any mail?”

  Hartford’s kindly smile fades into an old man’s somber frown. “Because we’ve no one to send us any. Don’t bring that up. It’s hard enough sometimes…”

  I nod, and he leaves. It’s one thing to have a hunch. It’s another to get told outright. Call me a boxer sometimes, but I like a direct punch for an answer.

  “Ping,” Raj says. The bridge goes silent.

  I step from my position and stand behind her. Her dark fingers adjust the plot, change the scan, and finally arrive at an incoming vector.

  “Four hours,” Raj says. She lays the plot out on the display.

  “Captain?” I call on the ship’s intercom. “Contact inbound, four hours out, no resolution on size.”

  His response is quick, and he sounds tired. “Hold, prep for action in two.”

  So we watch the signal grow as it bounces across the system. At every bounce, we gain more data. First mass. Second composition. Lastly, identity. You can learn a lot from how a ship’s electromagnetic signature bristles in addition to its mass.

  Captain Hallverson comes onto the bridge just when the data comes into focus.

  Raj is as cool as a cucumber and her back as straight. “Freighter.”

  That is what we want. And, to make it better, alone.

  “They must know we are here?” I ask Captain Hallverson. I’m thinking of the bishop that sent off the warnings whe
n we had our close call not long before.

  “Of course, but they assume we’d move along after being detected.”

  “So we don’t?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Jager.”

  “But—”

  “That’s our objective. Outsmart them. Beat them. Kill them. Crush them.” Captain Hallverson is eager. Now we are on the hunt.

  Another hour passes, and we have a crisp visual. The ship isn’t Tyrolean. Instead, a neutral. Our registry pings it as a Hjonit Collective from the system we know as WES-661. Alien. Neutral.

  Captain Hallverson growls. “Bring us on an intercept. Mr. Jager, supervise that new scanner.”

  “But she’s a neutral.” Unless they are known to carry contraband, we leave them alone.

  “And why do you think they installed that scanner?”

  The Orca changes course, just slightly, and stays in the cloud of cloaking gas. There’s a certain giddy feeling you get while you watch someone and they don’t know it. Voyeuristic? Maybe. Sure.

  I wonder if they know or even have an inkling that they might be watched. Does the gazelle know the lion prowls?

  Raj starts up the scanner. “Too far off,” she mumbles.

  “Can we get closer, sir?” I say.

  Slowly we pick up velocity and hunt closer. We’ve got some time while that freighter waits for his bounce drive to cool off before he can go again. The bridge is dead silent. All eyes are on Raj. She pushes the controls from one side to the other and scans for a reading. Even the tiniest bit of radioactive iridium should be enough to light up her board.

  My eyes follow the trace of code on the side of the screen. It shows dead quiet, not the tiniest blip beyond background noise. “I don’t know, Captain, we’re—”

  “There!” Raj’s voice is quiet, as if she might lose the signal. “It’s weak. Barely audible over the background radiation. But it’s definitely iridium.”

  I look back at Captain Hallverson. His eyes are on the visual display. The clock is ticking. In a few more minutes, that ship will bounce away. We’ve discussed the reliability of the scanner before. The refit crews claim it is sensitive enough to sniff out an iridium nugget at a thousand kilometers. Well we’re one-tenth that distance and barely getting any signal at all.