by Rob Buckman
“This is a bit of the hull plating that got blown off by some sort of horribly powerful weapon. I picked up a lot of them and brought them back. Watch.”
Saying that, he looked for and found an edge on the large plate about the length of the bent piece. Carefully, he held the bent piece against the edge of the larger plate and to Mike’s surprise they mated and came together as if they were magnetically attracted to each other. Once they “bonded” Adam let go and stood back.
“I’ll be damned!” Mike muttered and leaned closer and watched as the bent piece of hull plate slowly straightened itself out. In less than a minute it was as flat and straight as the rest of the plate. On top of that, there was no sign of any junction, or any way to tell that it wasn’t part of the plate to start with.
“If I hadn’t seen it for myself, I don’t think I would have believed it.”
“Sort of said that myself, Skipper, but that's not the strangest part.”
“What else?”
Adam hurried over to a large boxlike machine off to one side. Adam opened the side exposing a cutting platform and an inch thick slab of laminated metal.
“This is your normal, everyday armor plate used on the hull of a battleship. Watch.” He closed the side door, locked it and turned the machine on.
After tapping in some instructions, he pointed to a monitor screen just as the plasma laser cutter came to life. The screen darkened automatically as the brightness increased and the laser began cutting. The analogy of a hot knife and soft butter wasn’t far off, and in less than a minute the hair thin beam cut the plate in half. In the corner of the screen Mike could see the temperature of the metal at the cutting point hovering around the 30,000 degrees Fahrenheit. As the light died, Adam switched on the cooling unit and slipped on a pair of thick, insulated gloves. Even with the cooling unit on the inside of the cabinet was still hot, but Adam quickly removed the cut plate, and placed another in its place.
“This is a smaller section of the alien hull metal.” Even at ten feet Mike could see that the plate was only a quarter of an inch thick.
Adam closed the door and tapped in some new instructions. As before the screen darkened as the plasma laser came on. This time it took a lot longer to complete the program and the temperature was even higher, almost 40,000 degrees. As the light died Adam opened the door and reached in. Before Mike could even react, he reached in with his bare hand and picked up the plate turned and held it out.
“Oh, my lord!” Mike took the plate. It wasn’t even warm. Mike looked Adam in the eye, and they stood there for several seconds looking at each other.
“Don’t even think about asking me where the heat went. I don’t know. Maybe it never absorbed the heat in the first place.” Mike turned the plate over in his hand, shaking his head. It wasn’t even scorched.
“I’d say that was impossible, but…”
“Skipper. We are dealing with a technology way beyond anything we know.”
“At least 80,000 years beyond, I’d say.”
“Yes,” he muttered, looking off into space, “you could look at it that way. There is no way we can understand this at our present level of technology.”
“I know, nor can we let the Sirriens get their sticky fingers on it either.”
“I hate to think what those power-mad assholes would do if they had just a fraction of the tech on that ship.”
“Or us for that matter.”
Adam looked at him a moment, and nodded, understanding where Mike was coming from, “So what are we going to do, Skipper?”
“I’m going to give that ship enough fuel to get the hell out of here and back to its home world.”
“Even so, Skipper. Is that far enough away?”
“If Jan and Cooper are right, that the ship’s home world is somewhere in the Andromeda galaxy.” Adam blinked.
“Yeah, well, I think that is far enough away.” He laughed.
* * * * * *
Sitting in his ready room, Mike waited for the knock on the door, wondering if Cooper and Wheeler could handle what he was about to ask them to do. The knock came at last.
“Come.” The door opened, and in stepped his two lowly ensigns. They came to attention and saluted, both looking a little nervous. Mike returned the salute.
“At ease.” They looked a little different from the moment they stepped off the truck, more sure of themselves.
“Skipper, we can do it.” Cooper blurted out before he had a chance to say anything.
Mike had to smile, “I haven’t asked you to do anything yet,” he answered, trying to look stern. The two “kids” as he thought of them, smirked back.
“Oh, come on, Skipper, we know as well as you that you don’t have enough qualified people to steal those fuel barges without us.” Kids they might be, but both were sharp and had figured out for themselves what he was going to do and had worked out how to do it. Mike looked at them both for a moment. It wasn’t nervousness he saw, but excitement.
“You both know you’ll be breaking half a dozen laws, not to mention that it could be viewed as piracy?”
“Yes, sir!” they both answered together.
Mike covered his face with his hand and shook his head, but more to hide his smile. “Where did I go wrong? I raised you up, taught you all the rules, gave you shining examples to live up to, worked my fingers to the bone to make sure you grew up to be fine outstanding naval offi…” His voice trailed off as he saw both looking at the overhead and humming a tune very softly.
“I take it, you’re not buying this.” He recognized the tune, Colonel Bogey, the dirtier version, which became... “Bollocks and the same to you…”
“Not one little bit of it, Skipper. You taught us to think outside the box,” the normally shy Cooper answered.
“And I’d like to apologize for my remark about this ship when I first came aboard, sir,” Wheeler looked him in the eye, and Mike nodded.
“Still want that transfer to a ship of the line?”
“Good god, no, wouldn’t take it you gave it to me, sir.”
“If we get caught, neither of you will have much of a naval career anyway.”
“If we do it right, Skipper, they won’t know the barges are gone.”
“Yes, our window for getting people on board, setting the nav point and getting barges out of there, all without central control twigging to what’s going on is very narrow.” He looked at their expectant faces and smiled.
“Alright. You can go. BUT! You will follow Sergeant Rice’s lead. Clear?”
“Sir, yes, Sir!” They both chorused. Grinning from ear to ear.
“Well? What are you doing standing around here for. Go get your suits ready.” It was a rush to see who could get to the door first, both forgetting to come to attention and salute before they left. He couldn’t fail to hear the “Oh yes!” and the slap of hands as they gave each other a high five.
“I’d say you did a bang up work with those two, Skipper.” Jenks chuckled as he came out of his pantry and placed a mug of tea at Mile’s elbow. “You always did have a way with the ‘FNG’s.”
“Yeah, but some of them still got killed.”
“Don’t you go there, my old son. You did your best, taught them right. If they got killed after that, it wasn’t through any fault of yours.”
“Maybe you’re right, Jenks. But they still died on my watch.” Jenks reached over and squeezed his shoulder, knowing what he was feeling.
As they neared Jupiter’s orbit, Mike sat on the bridge, feeling tense. Even if their “cloak” did hold up under the Sirrien sensor sweep, there was no guarantee it would hold up under the latest generation of RN sensors. Jan was now at the operations station monitoring their sensors. So far, several random sweeps from orbiting control platforms had swept over them, but as yet there hadn’t been any reaction.
“Launch the shuttles when you’re ready, Pete.”
“Aye, sir. Launching shuttles.
The expression of being on te
nterhooks was an understatement as far as Mike was concerned. This was the first time he wasn’t directly involved in a mission, and he couldn’t sit still. He ended up slowly pacing back and forth across the bridge like a caged tiger. He managed to refrain going from station to station to look at this or that readout, and concentrated on what the main 3D battle “tank” was telling him. The Hemlock was now on the dark side of Jupiter, keeping pace with the Europan 3.5-Earth-day orbit around the planet and the fuelling control station on the moon’s surface. Like a string of pearls the ten-million-barrel fuel barges orbited Jupiter with the automated refueling ships coming and going like a horde of bees from a hive as they scooped and separated the H3 from the thick clouds and brought it back. Thankfully, there were gaps in the three-layer string, otherwise the control center would spot the missing barges the moment this section of the string came within sensor range. The question was, had they timed the shuttle descent to the barges with sufficient time to drop their payload off, reprogram the on-board nav system, and pull the barges out before they were spotted leaving orbit? If Jan had written the navigational program correctly, the barges would pull away and stay in Jupiter’s tachyon radar shadow until they were out of range.
“Helm, prepare to pull us away on my mark.” Pete ordered, softly.
“Aye, sir, on your mark.” Cindy Loftland responded. The watch rotation had her at the helm, instead of Conner Blake.
“So, does this mean we can go back to dressing up like pirates again, XO?” She asked softly. It seemed inevitable that whenever human being are doing something sneaky or in hiding, they speak softly or in whispers, even when the people who might hear them were several thousand miles away across the vacuum of space.
“Oh, you don’t like the wonderful standard-issue uniforms His Majesty’s Royal Navy so thoughtfully provided for you, Cindy?” Pete asked in a nasal sounding official voice.
That broke Mike out of his concentration, “Is that a note of complaint I hear, Number One?”
“It would appear so, sir.”
“I do hope the complaining person has submitted the aforementioned complaint, in triplicate I might add… ” Mike paused for a moment, looking up at the deck head in thought, “ …fully explaining in great detail why the wonderful, standard-issue naval uniform doesn’t meet with the complainer’s, in this case helmsman Cindy Loftland’s, standard of comfort and fashion.”
“Oh, indeed, sir. I’m sure she would be more than happy to comply with all Navy and ship’s regulations in this matter.”
“Oh, right!” Cindy snorted, “Now I see, and said complaint form, of course, would be the size of a postage stamp.” Cindy shot a look over her shoulder at the XO and her captain.
“Of course. Is there any other size for a complaint form?” Pete answered with a look of mock outrage on his face.
“Come to think of it, I don’t believe I have ever seen one any larger,” she chuckled.
“Cindy - Mark!” Pete murmured as he eyed the ship's clock.
“Aye, sir, on your mark.” Cindy dropped the banter and concentrated on moving the ship away from Jupiter and staying in her radar shadow.
Even so it was touch and go as each of the chosen barges moved out of orbit and headed away. They quickly fell in one behind the other and slowly accelerated. Cindy kept the ship on a parallel course, pacing them as the Marine shuttle came in over the stern for a landing on the arrester deck.
“Now comes the tricky part. Let’s hope the alien ship can catch and tractor them in when they arrive.”
“Amen to that, Skipper.”
As it turned out, knowing what was coming, the alien ship did catch the barges as they came through with the Hemlock close behind. It was still a rough crossing, but with the nav beacon to lock onto, and Conner Blake at the helm, it was nowhere near as bad as the first time. The giant barges looked tiny compared to the bulk of the alien ship, and much to everyone's surprise, the ship opened one of the enormous bays and swallowed them whole.
“We thank you, one called Gray. You have given us sufficient fuel to escape, and reach a planet where we can fill our tanks for the voyage home. Farewell, and may the stars guide your path.”
With that strange salutation, the giant ship pulled away. Mike Gray wasn’t the only one to wonder how long it would take her to get home again, knowing the distance she had to cover, and what she would find when she got there. Before returning to Sol space they repositioned the nav beacon at the safest spot between the two angry giants so any future ship would have something to lock onto before making the jump. Without it any ship making a blind transit into this system would still have to fight its way through and out of the gravitational tidal forces of the twin anomalies. With one final scan of local space, Mike ordered Conner to take them home, and thirty-seven hours later in the middle of the dog watch, they re-entered Sol space with little fanfare. This far out, it was doubtful anyone even knew they were there.
Mike pondered the problem of getting to see Admiral Rawlings, and possibly the Lady Anne. Taking the Nemesis/Hemlock to Earth was out of the question. There was way too much traffic moving around the inner systems as far out as the asteroid belt, what with all the mining and manufacturing going on out there. No matter how good their cloak was, he couldn’t risk the ship being spotted in either configuration. The density of the OWP, sensor platforms spotted around, and RN ships moving around on patrol increased the chances they’d be spotted. It would only take one to spot them to come close enough to spot them at optical range and they would be in the middle of what the Germans called a Kluster fucken with all sorts of angry people trying to blow his ship away. One solution was to use the Marine assault shuttle, which had the legs to get him to Earth in a reasonable time. The closest he dared go was Mars, and from there the average distance to Earth at the moment was 140 million miles. That was a three day run at 10 gravities, which was about the top acceleration of the shuttle. The Marine scout car would be faster by a day or so, but the thought of a day in a cramped cockpit with few amenities didn’t have a lot of appeal. Spending seven days in a Marine shuttle had just about as much appeal.
“Skipper, you are going about this the wrong way.”
“How's that, Jan.”
“You could land on Mars as a rich prospector returning to Earth with the fruits of his labor, so to speak.”
Mike pulled his ear. It was a good plan, and he had an ace up his sleeve in the nature of a Free Trader identity under his family name of Tregallion. So far, very few people knew of any connection between Gray and Tregallion. That would get him by any customs and immigration officials. If he was careful, it should get him off Earth as well once he’d completed his mission and needed to return to the ship. Once he reached the Free Traders Guild Hall, he could virtually disappear and have access to all the funds he needed. Neither, Pete nor Jan realized just how rich he was, or he should say, his family was.
“Pete, set course for Mars, and whistle up Sergeant Rice to get the shuttle ready. I’m off to pack.”
“Aye, sir. Setting course for Mars and calling Sergeant Rice.” Pete answered.
“Take her in slow and easy, Pete. Stop if you see anything you don’t like.”
“Aye, slow and easy as she goes.”
Mike made his way down to his quarters, thinking of a dozen things he needed to do before he left. Updating and downloading his ship's log was the least of them.
“Jenks! How would you like a nice holiday?” Jenks stuck his head out of his bedroom.
“What?”
“We need to pack.”
“Alright, now drop the other shoe.”
Mike gave him a wounded look, “What do you mean the other shoe? Would I kid you?”
“Har! The last time you said that, we ended up on bloody Borland, and look how that turned out. Holiday, my ass. Where are we going?”
“Home, my old son. You do want to check on the till, don’t you?”
“Till… You mean London?” He said with a gri
n. “Yeah, I need to check on that sticky fingered Welshman. He’s probably robbing me blind, drinking all the profits, and sleeping with my wife.”
“Jenks,” Mike looked over his shoulder, “you don’t have a wife, remember?”
“Oh yeah. Forgot about that. Still and all, I do need to check up on the bloody Welsh twit. No telling what sort of trouble he’s got himself into.”
“That’s right, so pack light. We won’t need much.” An hour later, they were ready and about to head aft to the flight deck when his comm pinged.
“What’s up, Pete?”
“Not sure if this might be of interest to you, Skipper. I’ve come to a stop, as we have just spotted a ship you might be interested in.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. What is it?”
“A Free Trader ship just came up on our sensors. She’s dropping down the gravity well, on the usual commercial, clockwise spiral for a zero/zero orbit with Earth.”
“How far out is she?” Mike asked as he made his way to the bridge.
“We estimate she’s three days from the north WP, and four days out from Earth orbit.”
“Humm, that puts her right in the middle of nowhere.”
“Captain on the bridge.” The Marine guard sang out as Mike entered.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Number One?”
“I think so, sir. You do have a history with the Free Traders, and if you can get aboard you’d have a perfect means to get to Earth in the minimum amount of time.”
“That would depend on who’s driving the bus over there.” Pete gave him a funny look, and Mike smiled, “It’s a question of if they’ve picked up the pilot vessel.”
“Oh… right, customs inspector and the system pilot.” He murmured, looking at Jan. She shrugged.
“We are too far out to be able to tell if there’s a second ship there,” she answered the unspoken question.
“Let’s go closer under cloak and have a look. Helm, best possible speed without leaving a drive trail a blind man can follow.”
