by Dietmar Wehr
As she came up to stand beside the Command Pod, she checked the sidebar data. “We’ve been scanning now for almost five minutes. If they’re asleep over there, then they’ve got terrible alert systems and ship procedures. I’d say it’s time to let the Old Lady know what’s happening.”
Koenig nodded. “Yeah. Com, send this message to the Fleet.”
Dejanus realized that she had let herself get lost in thought when she jumped at the sound of the ping made by the Com system to denote an incoming text message from Excalibur.
ACTIVE SCANNING SHOWS NO SIGNS OF ACTIVITY OR MOVEMENT AFTER FIVE MINUTES. REQUEST PERMISSION TO APPROACH ALIEN FLEET FOR VISUAL INSPECTION. KOENIG.
Koenig and his XO were discussing the relative merits of sleeping on one’s back versus one’s side when the Com system pinged to notify them of a reply.
VISUAL INSPECTION APPROVED UNDER STEALTH ONLY. TRANSMIT VISUAL DATA TO FLAG AS YOU GATHER IT. DEJANUS.
“What’s the point of approaching under stealth if we’re going to make a continuous transmission of the visuals?” asked the XO.
Koenig smiled. “Her Nibs is making it difficult for us to get too close this way. In order to eliminate the possibility of the transmission being intercepted, we’d have to stay outside the alien formation by at least a hundred kilometers.”
“You don’t seem too upset about that restriction.”
Koenig laughed. “I’m not. I don’t think there’s a living soul on any of those ships, and the only way to know for sure is to take Excalibur right through the middle of that alien formation while transmitting visuals back to the flagship. When Her Nibs sees what our opticals pick up, her jaw will hit the deck, and she won’t be able to risk sending back an order to pull out without the risk of giving the Fleet’s position away if there is anyone on those ships listening in. Astro, I have some new orders for you.”
Dejanus found herself drumming her fingers impatiently as she waited for Excalibur to begin transmitting its visual data. When the com AI confirmed that the data was now being received and it appeared on the main display, she gasped in shock. Excalibur was slowly passing right through the middle of the alien formation! Her impulse to send a message to Koenig relieving him of command quickly evaporated as the display began to show close up views. There was a bewildering variety of shapes, but they were clearly ships, and equally clearly, some of them were huge.
She stared in silence as one alien ship after another passed Excalibur. It must have gotten within several hundred meters to be able to pick up the kind of hull detail that she was seeing. Some of the ships were slowly tumbling, but they all seemed to be holding their place in the formation. One ship in particular caught her attention. It appeared to be a flying wing design, but the sheer size of it was breathtaking. It also had dozens of what looked like weapons turrets on the wing. So far there hadn’t been any reaction of any kind from the alien ships or the planet, and if it turned out that these ships were all derelicts, then this flying wing ship would be looked at very closely. If those were weapon turrets, they were for a type of weapon that humans weren’t familiar with, and if it didn’t take too long, perhaps her people could reverse engineer the technology
It took almost an hour for Excalibur to make its way through the formation. By then Dejanus had decided what they would do next. She started issuing orders.
No sooner had Excalibur exited the alien formation than another text message arrived from Dejanus.
ASKING FOR FORGIVENESS ISN’T ALWAYS EASIER THAN ASKING FOR PERMISSION. WE’LL DISCUSS YOUR FLAGRANT DISREGARD OF ORDERS AT A LATER TIME. HOLD EXCALIBUR WHERE YOU ARE NOW AND WAIT FOR THE FLEET TO RENDEZVOUS WITH YOU. DON’T PUSH YOUR LUCK, WOLFE. DEJANUS.
Koenig realized that he had come perilously close to going too far, but dammit, the Fleet didn’t really have enough food to justify playing it safe in his opinion.
“Still think that was a good idea, CO?” asked the XO.
“She hasn’t relieved me of command, so the answer to your question is yes.”
“You mean she hasn’t relieved you of command yet, right?”
“Correct, and I don’t think she will for this. I’m the Acting CO. If she relieves me, who will she put in the CO’s slot? If she field promotes you, this crew will be short two bodies instead of one. Transferring someone from another ship would create a personnel shortfall there. Oh, she’ll chew me out alright, and I’ll act properly chastened, but I know the AFC pretty well, including how far I can go with her.”
“Well, I have to admit, getting as close as we did was pretty damned exciting. That winged ship looked very menacing. What you want to bet that Her Nibs decides to have somebody look that one over very carefully?”
Koenig laughed. “I’m not stupid enough to take that bet. If that winged ship isn’t our first priority for investigation, it damn well should be.”
The Fleet wasted no time when it reached Excalibur’s position. Shuttles from each heavy and super-heavy cruiser fanned out among the alien ships for preliminary surveys of possible ways to get inside them and to discover what kind of weapons they had. Koenig was eagerly waiting for some results, but Dejanus had other plans for Excalibur.
“The Fleet is going to stay in this system for a while, so there’s no reason why the surrounding systems can’t be surveyed. Javelin’s taken enough jump risks for a while, so it’s Excalibur’s turn now, Wolfe. I’m sending you your jump itinerary. If you find anything interesting, jump back here right away. Is that CLEARLY understood?”
“It is, sir. I’m guessing that you suspect there might be other traces of this civilization in the area?”
“You guess right. This planet can’t be where that race evolved. Even from up here, it’s obvious that there’s not enough land for a space-faring race to develop, and I can’t see any signs of cities yet. That suggests to me that this planet was maybe a colony, but more likely an outpost. If we can figure out which direction their home world is, and if it’s not too far away, it might be worth checking out even if only for a possible food source. Although I admit that the technology in some of those ships makes my mouth water. If the TOSF is at war with the Jabs, and I think we have to assume that, then any technological windfall we can bring back could make a huge difference. If you behave yourself on this survey mission, I’ll cancel the chewing out I was planning on giving you when you got back. Deal?”
“That’s a deal.”
“Fine. Carry on, Commander. Out.”
Koenig looked at the sequence of jumps Dejanus had sent and whistled in surprise. She wanted six star systems surveyed, and a couple of the jumps involved were not what he would call routine in terms of length. Total mission time would be just about ten days. The first jump was short enough to be considered routine, and Koenig decided to let Soriya get some experience in lining up the ship for that jump.
“XO, you take the con and get us lined up for the first jump. Let me know when you’re ready, and I’ll let you know when you can jump. In the meantime, I’m going to grab a bite to eat and check on the crew.”
“Ah, line up for the first jump, yessir.”
Koenig could tell from her voice that she was nervous. COs normally supervised jump prep, but the astro AIs did all the real work, and every officer had to get a jump ready for the first time at some point in their career.
When Soriya was confident that the ship was lined up about as well as it could be, she called Koenig. He checked the astrogational data and was satisfied with the results.
“Okay, XO, you may give the order to jump,” he said since the other officer technically still had the con. She passed the jump order on to the astro AI, and the ship jumped.
The entire survey mission turned out to be depressingly boring: no signs of any alien presence and no life-bearing planets. Koenig would have considered the mission a complete waste of time except that it did have the secondary benefit of generating more precise astrogational data for the next several star systems in the milk run path.
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br /> Koenig sent Dejanus his recorded verbal report while Excalibur was still making its way back to the Fleet. She sent him a video recording with the latest news.
“Welcome back, Wolfe. Too bad you didn’t find anything interesting, but like you said, we got some useful astro data from the mission. I’ll quickly bring you up to speed on what we’ve found out so far. There are ruins of a relatively small settlement on one of the islands down below. This planet may have the right temperature and water for life, but as far as we can tell, if there’s any life at all down there, it’s the single cell variety. The land is all rocky, no soil or vegetation. Of the alien ships, we’ve determined that the ships that appear to be warships don’t have any access hatches. Our best guess is that they’re controlled robotically. Most of the ships are unarmed and have hatches, so they probably are freighters, passenger ships, etc. We haven’t been able to get access to any of them yet. I’ve sent Javelin on up the path to scout ahead. She’s to stop at MR10 and wait for us unless she finds something interesting. Call me when you rejoin the formation. Out.”
The Fleet spent another week in MR7 with little to show for it. Access to some of the ships had been achieved by literally cutting a way in, but nothing useful was found either in terms of physical objects or information. The technicians were unable to power up any alien system. They assured Dejanus that they could figure it out eventually, but as she told the other COs in a video conference, eventually could be months away, and the Fleet just couldn’t afford to use up their meagre food stocks on a maybe. It was with a high degree of reluctance that Dejanus ordered the Fleet to move on to MR8, which turned out to be as unremarkable as did MR9 and MR10. MR10 was one of a dozen systems along the path where there were multiple options for the next jump. MR11A and MR11B were both more or less equi-distant from MR10, and both could be used to get to MR12. Dejanus claimed that she flipped a coin to determine that Excalibur would jump to MR11A, while the rest of the Fleet went to MR11B with the intention that they would come together again at MR12.
Koenig had his fingers crossed that Excalibur would find something of interest in MR11B, but he was disappointed. MR11A turned out to be boring too. By the time Excalibur rejoined the Fleet at MR12, there was a new astrogational development. Dejanus called a video conference to share the news.
“As you all know, the Hail Mary option is the closest of the two alternate options to us. If Saratoga is going to attempt the Hail Mary jump, she’ll have to leave the Fleet at MR13 and then make half a dozen short jumps to the launch system that I’ve designated as HM1. As the Fleet has been getting closer to MR13, our astros have been looking at HM1 to try to figure out if the best jump point lies close enough to that system’s star to be practical. If the launch point is too far out, then the time it would take to get to it would negate any advantage of jumping back quickly enough to do us some good. Every time we jump to a new system, we get a different viewing angle on HM1, and the data now seems to indicate that the launch point for the Hail Mary jump is close enough to the HM1 star to make the attempt worthwhile. I’m holding this conference now because Saratoga will immediately proceed to the next jump as soon as she arrives in MR13. So, the exchange of her present crew for the volunteers has to be done before we do the next jump. I want to express my thanks to Commanders Williams and Brogun for volunteering to continue on as Saratoga’s CO and XO. Not having to change the senior command structure of the ship makes the transition to a new crew a lot easier. Unless there are any other issues that should be discussed in this conference, we’re done.” No other issues were raised.
MR13 and MR14 turned out to be frustratingly typical and useless. The bulk of the now 14-ship Fleet took a short break at MR14 so that Excalibur and two other light cruisers could investigate nearby systems that had the same type of suns as Earth’s sun and therefore were more likely to have life-bearing planets.
Excalibur was almost half finished her survey circuit around MR14B when Soriya woke Koenig in the middle of his night cycle.
“Found something?” asked Koenig in a groggy voice.
“Some thing, yes, but we’re not sure what it is. Optical sensors are picking up reflections from what the spectrograph says is a metallic object, which seems to be moving in a solar orbit at slow speed. It’s about half an AU away. Permission to move closer?”
Koenig was wide awake now. “Damn right we’re going to move closer. Full ECM mode and passive sensors only. Bring us around so that we approach it with the sun behind us. How long to intercept?”
Soriya must have been expecting that question because she had the answer ready immediately. “We can get there in about 36 minutes if we really pour on the velocity, sir.”
“Let’s do that. It’ll give me just enough time to have a shower and a quick bite to eat before I need to be on the Bridge. Anything else?”
“No, sir.”
“Then carry on, Eriko. Out.”
Koenig made it to the Bridge with almost ten minutes to spare. Excalibur was now decelerating so that the ship could rendezvous with the object and match its vector if desired. The main display was showing the object, but even at maximum zoom, it was still too far away to make out anything except that it was clearly made of metal and that it was slowly tumbling.
Soriya vacated the Command Pod when she saw Koenig enter. As he took her place, he gave her a quick glance. “Your shift is almost over anyway, so I may as well relieve you now, but you’re welcome to stay on the Bridge if you wish.”
“Thank you. I will,” she said.
It didn’t take long before he was able to make out more details, and suddenly he knew what he was looking at. It was another one of those alien wing ships, just like the one found in the alien formation back in MR7. However, this one looked like it had been in a battle. The closer Excalibur got, the more battle damage Koenig could see. The wing was not the smooth graceful form like the one in MR7. This one had holes blasted in the wing itself, with gaps in the leading and trailing edges. As he looked more closely, he realized what he wasn’t seeing. This wing ship only had a handful of the weapon turrets left, and it occurred to him that the holes in the wing might be where weapon turrets had been located and perhaps targeted by whatever the ship had fought. Since the wing ship was much larger both in size and tonnage than Excalibur, the idea that a ship like that had taken a pounding from some force more powerful made him shiver with dread. There was no way to tell how long ago this ship had been attacked. It could just as easily have been weeks as centuries ago, and that meant that whatever had smashed it might still be active and in the neighborhood.
“I’ve seen enough. Astro, take the ship to the jump point for transit back to MR14 to rejoin the Fleet asap.” The view on the display began to swing around even before the AI acknowledged the order. “What do you think, Eriko?”
“I don’t know what to think, Wolfe. We have no clue what this means. Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys out there, and what if there aren’t any good guys at all? My biggest fear is that we’ll run into a space-faring race that controls a large area that the milk run passes through. And if they say ‘No, you’re not traveling through our space,’ then what are we going to do?”
Koenig took his time answering that question. “I know what I’d want to do in a situation like that. Staying passive and dying from starvation is not really an option. If our path is blocked and it’s up to me, I say we force our way through. I’d rather die fighting to get home than give up and die anyway.”
Soriya nodded her agreement, but he could tell from her expression that the prospect of fighting their way back made her very unhappy. He watched her turn and leave the Bridge. Academy training and conditioning had made mixed gender crews workable by suppressing the urge to form romantic relationships, but that only worked because crews knew that they would get R&R on a regular basis and could fill those urges elsewhere. Now, having been on the same ship for months with more months to come and the possibility of perhaps never getting h
ome, he found that it was getting harder and harder to keep those temptations at bay. The question of when romantic relationships should be allowed was complicated by the fact that the ships in the Fleet didn’t have big crews. Crews were measured in low double digits per ship, and not all ships had equal numbers of both genders. If crew could start pairing off, some members of the gender in the majority would find themselves without any prospective partners, and swapping personnel between ships was not a real solution because the fleet as a whole was not evenly balanced between genders. It was a complex and touchy subject that so far he had not found the courage to bring up with Dejanus. In order to distract himself from further thinking along that train of thought, he switched the optics from forward to rearward and watched as the damaged alien ship shrank in the distance.
Forty-eight hours later, Excalibur and the bulk of the fleet were looking at the drifting wreck again. Dejanus had ordered an up-close inspection by the most experienced technical people in the Fleet. They spent almost two whole days crawling over and through the wreckage. Their report was long on speculation and short on factual data. The damage could have been caused by very powerful energy beams, possibly the same kind of gamma-ray lasers that the fleet had, but far more powerful. Another possibility was plasma bursts: concentrated, highly energetic plasma accelerated to high speeds like some kind of anti-ship cannon. With no clue as to who had inflicted the damage, Dejanus ordered the ships back to MR14 to rendezvous with the rest of the Fleet and then to carry on down the milk run path.
