Black Hole Oblivion

by Kumar L

  “I’ll do it,” she said.

  3

  Operation Trikon

  The hangar on the moon base resembled a deep cavern. With just hours left before the launch, it was buzzing with activity. Anara strode in, trying to tune out the mechanical sounds and human chatter flooding the hangar. It had been a difficult two weeks for her and her team. There had been no time to mourn their fallen colleague and friend, there was just too much to do in the limited time available. The orders for the recall of the crew of Antariksh had gone out immediately after her meeting with the new PM. Operational briefings had begun within a few hours of the arrival of her crew.

  The crew was mostly ready, but the condition of Antariksh itself was a cause for concern. It had been battered during its almost two-year journey to Alpha Centauri and back. Additionally, in the last few months of its return journey it had been pushed to its limits and beyond. It had been taken into dock for overhauls soon after its arrival, but the new situation meant that it would have to go back into space much earlier than previously anticipated. Fortunately, ISC had managed to carry out major repairs even if it had meant gutting spare parts from the new ship Antariksh-2, still under construction. Anara trusted and hoped that the intense efforts over the last few days would be enough for her next journey.

  ◆◆◆

  Manisha stood in the large hangar watching the loading of the final set of supplies. She noticed a tall man in an unfamiliar uniform supervising a squad of soldiers similarly dressed.

  So that is what the JITF looks like. Quite handsome. Major, huh? He obviously outranks me, but it wouldn’t hurt to talk to him.

  The loading seemed to be at an end, and she saw him dismiss his men and walk around checking the cables securing the cargo.

  She stepped forward to where he stood and saluted. “Good morning, Major. Lieutenant Manisha. Conn Officer, on this ship.”

  He returned her salute. “Major Kevin, Lieutenant. US Navy SEAL and now with JITF. You’re not the same intrepid Lieutenant who broke into the NIA’s secure systems and helped save a city?” he asked.

  “No one was supposed to know about that, and I did receive the President’s pardon, so I’m good,” she replied.

  “We got a full briefing, you know, about the events in Mumbai when we were asked to prepare for this mission. It seems you were an all-out badass with a computer. Nice!”

  He smiled, taking an immediate liking to the bright-eyed young woman. The strict regimen back at camp did not allow much time for socialising, and maybe it was time to make some new friends.

  “Lieutenant Manisha to Ops, please. Lieutenant Manisha to Ops.” The announcement came over the ship’s speakers.

  “Acknowledged,” she said into her own radio. She looked back at him. “Sorry. Can’t talk now. Duty calls.” She started to walk away.

  Uh-oh. Not so fast lady. “Um. I’m off to JITF centre myself. Maybe you can show me the way.”

  She smiled internally and nodded.

  Kevin followed her. “Tell me, is it always so hectic on a spaceship?”

  “Only during take-off and in these special circumstances. And, of course, when you are being shot at by enemy aliens or saving a city. Otherwise, it’s quite dull.”

  I’m gonna like her, he decided.

  They came to a T-junction in the corridor.

  “The JITF centre is that way, sir,” she said, pointing to the left. “And I will need to go right.”

  “Thanks. Maybe we can get together later for a drink or something?” he asked, hopefully.

  “Sure, sir. I’ll look you up. See you soon.” This trip had just got more interesting, for her at least.

  ◆◆◆

  Anara felt a surge of pride looking at Antariksh. The ship seemed to beckon to her and her pace quickened as she approached it, eager to assume her command and get away from the political machinations of Earth. It would be good to get back in space. Space was dangerous. Space was unforgiving. But it was devoid of human deceptions and politics. She felt she needed the emptiness of space to regain her emotional balance. Within the cocoon of Antariksh, she could heal. Her ship loomed large in front of her.

  Antariksh was 150 meters long, capable of housing a hundred people comfortably and had three levels. Level 1 at the top was the control section, with the Operations Centre or Ops in the front. The medical bay, engineering, observation and navigation systems took up most of the rear. Level 2 housed the crew quarters, communal areas, the cafeteria and the dome. Level 3 housed the power plant, standby generators, battery banks, solar power banks, antimatter storage, utilities and the escape pods.

  Launched in the year 2096, it had taken fifteen years to build and another five years to test. Though Faster-Than-Light or FTL speeds had been made possible by 2085, sustaining the same for extended periods of time, and with humans on board, had required scientists to come up with path-breaking applications of quantum mechanics. Even so, it had taken nearly a decade for the management of power supply—with a combination of fusion reactions and controlled matter & antimatter explosions—to be perfected for practical use. To protect travellers from the time dilation experienced during FTL, the bubble-like dome had been constructed to enable a mix of suspended animation and isolation from all external references. In all, what stood before her was a marvel of science and engineering.

  The ramp was open. As she entered the ship two junior officers stopped their discussion, stepped back and saluted smartly. She nodded her acknowledgement and climbed the stairs to the Ops Centre. She was not surprised to find the chaos outside the ship had penetrated all the way to Ops. Her eyes sought and found Commander Ryan, surrounded by various section heads. Ignoring the rest of the crowd, she moved behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. Ryan turned around in annoyance, but his face immediately brightened on finding her onboard.

  “Looks like you have everything in control, Commander,” she remarked looking at his tousled hair and grimy uniform. Not how he looked most of the time. Thankfully, his discipline and drive had allowed Anara a few hours of rest and the time to make herself presentable.

  Ryan sheepishly ran his hand through his hair, trying to finger-comb it into order. “Sorry, I’ve not had a chance to freshen up.”

  “Relax, Ryan. Just pulling your leg,” she smiled. Then she slipped into her captain’s role. “What’s the status?”

  “We are at 97% readiness. Just waiting for the last set of supplies to be loaded. The Joint Interstellar Task Force has brought a lot of equipment on board. Flying and tracked crafts, drones, heavy weapons, you name it. Our payload has gone up by almost forty percent. Add to that the fifty commandos, and extra fuel and food supplies, we are rolling heavy. Anyway, right now we are accounting for all the equipment and locking it down. We should be ready to launch on schedule.”

  “What about the Colonel and his team?”

  “I’ve assigned them quarters and they’re settling down. Colonel Fraser has requested a meeting with you at your earliest convenience.”

  “He has, has he? Well, the good Colonel will have to wait till we’ve launched. He’s not my priority right now. How about you take a short breather and meet me back here in thirty minutes. In the meantime, I’ll manage the tasks as hand.” She held out her hand and Ryan handed over his data pad gratefully.

  “Thanks. It wouldn't do for the people to see your second-in-command looking like he's been dragged through a pig pen.” Ryan paused for effect. “And smelling like it too.”

  As he left, Anara looked around for Lieutenant Manisha to help bring her up to speed. There was much work yet to be accomplished before they could get underway.

  “Captain Anara taking over from Commander Ryan. Note in the logs. Okay, Lieutenant Manisha,” she addressed her conn officer or helmsperson, “let’s do the next system-level status check. Proceed, please.”

  “Affirm, ma’am. Initiating second-degree system-level checks now. Estimated time to complete, one point five hours,” confirmed Manisha.<
br />
  Anara acknowledged her report. “Let me know once finished. We will be launching in three point five hours. Mr Madhavan?” She spoke next to her Engineering head over the intercom, “how’re my engines coming along?”

  Madhavan was moving around, seemingly at random, from station to station in Engineering, passing along instructions and checking readings from a dozen status boards simultaneously. This might have overwhelmed any other person, but he was in his element among his engines and the constant hum which seemed to pervade the atmosphere in Engineering.

  “All boards are green, Captain. Matter-Antimatter, M-AM drive ready for operation. Fuel loading complete. Environment systems are green. We’re good to go. Fusion engines will be at thirty percent power in one hour.”

  “Roger, Madhavan.” Anara sat back in her chair and looked around the Ops Centre or Ops as they had come to call it.

  A large holographic display in the centre provided them a three-dimensional image of space when they were flying. It would track and identify foreign objects and also display the flight map for the journey. Ops was surrounded on three sides by large portholes. While useful in observing outer space during sub-light flying, the portholes were useless at FTL or faster-than-light speeds. When Antariksh was in FTL flight, the portholes would convert to virtual windows displaying simulated images of the space outside.

  Multiple stations around Ops controlled every vital function of the ship, but if needed one person was enough for navigation. And, of course, the ship’s Artificial Intelligence, named Narada, was more than capable of handling the entire ship if the crew was incapacitated due to any reason. Having been given legal rights, Artificial Intelligence systems were given human names and assigned genders if they so wished. Narada had been named after an ancient Indian sage, regarded as wise, mischievous and someone who knew secrets. The AI lived up to the name.

  During the first flight from Earth to Alpha Centauri, Narada had been found to be hiding the storage of nuclear weapons on the ship, from the Captain and the crew. Having faced a severe reprimand, he had been under observation for further signs of untrustworthiness throughout the journey. He had explained that his ethical programme had been deliberately tampered with by the DRDO when they placed the nuclear devices aboard Antariksh, but Anara had been unwilling to rely on him till the battle on HuZryss, when he had regained his right to be treated as a trusted member of the crew.

  “Narada, begin countdown to launch. Secure personnel. All senior officers to be in Ops by T minus one hour.”

  “Roger, Captain Anara.”

  “Manisha, give me the flight path data.”

  “Displaying on your screen now, ma’am.”

  A virtual display appeared in front of Anara and she used her hands to manipulate the image. The probable path taken by Jim during his escape from Earth had been plotted alongside. The problem was that space was just too enormous to be patrolled or covered effectively, even by the multitude of assets placed by humans across the solar system. Only one station, on Jupiter’s moon Europa, had managed to track Jim as he had sped away from Earth. The TrueKif ship was somewhat faster than Antariksh, and the consensus was that Antariksh was at least ten days behind it.

  Anara swiped her hand to transfer the data to the main holo-display, then sat back to study the ship and crew manifests. Antariksh was heavy with all the extra load added to it, but having been designed to hold a crew of a hundred people, it could handle the weight. After all, it was the largest FTL-capable ship ever built for the purpose of interstellar travel.

  We are as ready as we are ever going to be. Time for some action.

  4

  Reluctant Allies

  The view of the rings of Saturn as Antariksh travelled past it at sub-light speed finally allowed Anara to relax. The events of the last few weeks back on Earth, had taken a larger toll on her emotionally than she cared to admit. Her mind continued to dwell on the loss of Major Rawat. It had taken only forty-eight hours between the landing of the mercenary TrueKif ship on Earth and the devastating firefight at the hospital. Jim had left his baby daughter in Anara’s hands. She believed he regretted the havoc he had caused by submitting to the Chairman’s will. She also believed that he could be reformed, if only she could reach him in time. The device he carried, which he had failed to blow up in Mumbai, was supposed to be more powerful than ten nuclear bombs. She had to find it and neutralise it. Otherwise there was no telling what destruction the Chairman could cause. Moreover, she and Ryan had practically had no time to rest or acclimatize to the new space journey. Here they were again, moving across space and time, going once more into the unknown. Nevertheless, she was a leader and she could not allow her emotional turmoil to come in the way of her duty.

  Might as well get it over with. I cannot avoid meeting the Colonel any longer. After all, we are jointly in command.

  She got up from her chair and gestured for Commander Ryan to follow her. “You have the command, Manisha.”

  Anara and Ryan exited Ops side-by-side, neither speaking for some time.

  “Where are we going?” Ryan asked finally, as they went down the steps to Level 2.

  “I thought we will pay a visit to the JITF and plan our next move. Did you get time to go through their mission profile?”

  He nodded.

  “And what do you think of it?”

  “The intent looks good, but fifty troops against an entire unknown planet full of TrueKif terrorists? It's going to be suicidal,” he said, blandly.

  “We have beaten them twice before, haven't we? Once when we outwitted them to escape captivity on HuZryss, and then again back in Mumbai.” She hoped she sounded confident even though she agreed with Ryan’s assessment.

  “We did locate and neutralize the aliens before they could do any major damage. That has to count for something,” he agreed. “But, that was a piece of cake compared to our situation today. The entire military might of India was behind us at that time, not to mention the fact that it was our home turf. This is going to be way harder. It was only a city last time; this time around it is a whole damn planet!”

  They had reached the JITF command post. She knocked and entered. Fraser got up from behind his desk and greeted them.

  “Good of you to come over, Captain Anara,” he said. “You have met Major Kevin of the US Navy Seals and Lieutenant Rana of the MARCOS earlier, I believe?”

  Anara acknowledged the two soldiers who saluted her. They had met briefly at the mission guidance.

  “Can we get down to business, sir?”

  “Of course, ma'am, of course.”

  Anara’s mind wandered while the Colonel prepared to share his battle plans. She knew such lack of attention did not suit her standing as commander of such a critical mission, but her thoughts refused to stay still.

  “Is something wrong, Captain?” Fraser asked. “You seem preoccupied.”

  “I am sorry. There is a lot of work to be done. We left Earth in a bit of a hurry, as you are aware. We are space-worthy and we have enough supplies. Nevertheless, if we want to catch up with Jim’s ship, I am going to have to push Antariksh to its limits. The second time in as many months. It is going to be rough.”

  “I understand...but are you sure there isn't anything else bothering you?” asked the Colonel, shrewdly.

  Just the fact that I appreciate neither your mission nor your taking the place of Major Rawat. “No. There is nothing else. Let's start. I assume you want to discuss the plans for the capture of Jim’s ship and possibly the capture of the TrueKif leadership back on KifrWyss?”

  “You are correct. Kevin, will you bring up the plans for Operation Trikon?”

  A holographic display appeared in the centre of the room filled with complex operational and technical data.

  “I will not go too deep into the details right now, but we have multiple objectives. First, to identify, locate and bring the person or persons responsible for the Mumbai attack back to Earth to face trial. Second, to find and d
estroy any bases used by the TrueKif. The tertiary objective will be to rescue the KifrWyss leadership and the humans on HuZryss. Now, I will need your help in identifying and locating the leader of the TrueKif and their bases. We will definitely need help from the KifrWyss people opposing the TrueKif. What do you call them? The Discat?”

  “That’s right, the Discat. It is their form of government, somewhat like our own parliament. It’s led by RyHiza,” she told him. “But what makes you think Discat will help us?”

  “I am afraid that is entirely in your domain, Captain. I am working under the assumption they will be willing to listen to the person who led the first contact mission.”

  “We have to see how that pans out,” she remarked, non-commitally.

  “Provided we can get the support, you and your team go in and bring them out. Is that it?’ asked Ryan.

  “It will not be quite so simple, Commander Ryan,” replied Fraserl, stroking his chin. “As you know, military missions depend quite a bit on local intelligence for successful extraction. The layout of the land, strength of the opposition on the ground, their firepower—that sort of thing. As it stands, we have a very small chance of success if we go in blind.” He walked towards her. “Look, both of you have served in the armed forces of your respective countries. You know missions deep into enemy territory are always difficult. Mission Trikon is exactly like that. However, this is what we soldiers are trained for.” His two subordinates nodded in unison.

  “Our last trip to Alpha Centauri was quite eventful. It's a pity we did not have some the equipment we needed. I do hope you are well covered this time around?” asked Ryan. “I have seen your weapons manifest, but a lot of the stuff has been marked as classified.”

  “Yes, but there is no need for the classified status anymore. I will take you on a tour of the equipment personally. I assure you we are sufficiently prepared.”