At the end of the count down the angry red beam seemed to link the ship to the artifact instantaneously. It was travelling a mere point nine nine light, as fast as the accelerators aboard the ship could speed it before it was shot out of it projector. As fast as just about any ship could accelerate the protons up to. There were ships in the Empire that shot faster beams, but the protons were accelerated on enormous stations and sent to the ship’s projectors through wormholes. No such weapons existed in the Command.
The beam struck the object. It should have both pummeled the substance of the artifact and superheated it as kinetic energy was transferred into heat. Instead, nothing seemed to happen. And the probes and sensors, as with the lasers, picked up no residual energy.
“Forty percent capacity,” called out the Tactical Officer again, and once again the beam came down from above, this time carrying twice the protons per second of the first beam.
“We’re picking up something from the object,” called out Helen, staring at her board.
“What kind of something?” asked the Commander, pulling up the readouts on a holo. “Not much of a spike.”
“More than we’ve gotten out of any other shots,” said the Captain. “We’ll see if we can kick some more out of it.”
The third shot came down, sixty percent capacity, which much the same results, if maybe just a little bit more. Then the fourth shot came down, and all hell broke loose.
“We’re getting a surge,” yelled Helen, as the power readings started climbing, gigawatts, terawatts, pentawatts, then shot off the scale.
“What’s it doing?” shouted out the Commander, running over to her station.
“Nothing, as far as I can tell. But it is surging energy.”
The last second of the fourth shot finished, and something blindingly bright erupted from the top of the artifact, well above the atmosphere and aimed at the Challenger.
“Something is hitting our shields,” called out Sensor Officer. “I can’t tell what it is, but it's flowing around the ship. It’s…”
The com went dead, and with it all signals from the battle cruiser.
“We’ve lost all uplink with Challenger,” called out one of the Petty Officers.
“Get me someone up there,” yelled the Commander. “Anyone.”
“Aye, sir,” replied the Petty Officer, working on his board for a moment. “I’ve got the duty officer aboard Boudeuse. Lt. Commander Rizzo.”
A holo sprang to life, showing the shocked face of a woman in the soft suit of shipboard wear when nothing was really expected to threaten. Lights were flashing behind her, and the sound of a general quarters klaxon sounded.
“Rizzo. This is Commander La Clerc, down on the planet. What happened to Challenger?”
“My God, sir. She just, vanished. She was there for a moment, then space distorted around her, and she was gone.”
“Was she destroyed?”
The holo changed, and La Clerc found himself looking at the face of Captain Joshua Jackson, the commanding officer of the Boudeuse. “What the hell happened, La Clerc?” asked the Flag Captain of the man who was normally executive officer on Challenger, and whose vessel was no longer up there in orbit.
La Clerc gave the Captain a quick rundown, up to the point where they had lost contact with the battle cruiser.
“We don’t have a clue as to what happened, Commander,” said Jackson when the other officer had finished. “There was no explosion, and there is no debris where she had been. Not even particles. But whatever happened, we’re pretty sure that the artifact had something to do with it.”
Moyahan listened from her station, her heart sinking as she thought about the eight million ton ship and the more than thirty-one hundred personnel who had been aboard her. All gone, without a trace.
* * *
“We have no idea where she is, sir,” said Captain Susan Lee, the worry and fatigue showing in her face.
Lee sat across the conference table from the Admiral, and there were twenty-three others sitting in. Seventeen were there in the flesh, while six attended as holograms that looked just like living people.
“Things don’t simply disintegrate, Captain,” said Nguyen van Hung, feeling his own fatigue seated behind his eyes. “Not unless something shot eight million tons of negative matter at them, in a perfect spread to take out the entire ship.”
“We don’t think it was blown up,” continued the Chief of Staff. “There wasn’t even the residual radiation of her antimatter breaching contain and exploding.”
And if that happened, from where she was in orbit, there would have been a lot of flattened planet beneath her.
“And the distortion in space before she disappeared? We did get sensor readings of that, didn’t we?”
“Yes, sir. Engineering and astrogation are studying them right now. They look kind of like the distortions of normal space being ripped open to another dimension. The only problem is that any holes we open up are just that, holes. And we fly through them. But this seemed to encompass all the space around the ship. And it’s too close to two very large gravity wells, the planet’s, and the star the world orbits. We can’t open portals into hyper or subspace this close to that much gravity.”
“So, if they went into hyperspace,” said Boudeuse’s Chief Engineer, also on the com. “They should have dropped right out, either in one piece, or as scattered debris. And if they had somehow been transported outside of the gravity well, beyond the barrier, they should have been able to translate down and contact us.”
“Unless they had been transported so far away any signal they sent hasn’t reached us yet,” said Lee. “Or they’re so far away, it’s going to take some time to get back to us.”
“Which would mean we won’t be able to know what happened to them for quite some time,” said the Admiral with a scowl. “From days to weeks, or months? And I’m missing almost half of my combat power until she gets back, if she ever does. For all we know, that beam transported them into a star, or a black hole.”
“I would say that from the graviton readings of the time it disappeared,” said the Engineer, “she went into subspace. That’s the most likely destination. But that still leaves the problem of why she didn’t come right back out, since she was still deep into the gravity well.”
“Unless she was transported beyond the gravity well,” said Lee, rubbing forehead. “Or she was translated to subspace by some method that ignores gravity wells.”
“Or she was translated into some other dimension we know nothing about,” said the Engineer. “Possibly another Universe. It’s theoretically possible.”
Nguyen shook his head. He couldn’t think of a worse fate. From what he knew of the Other Universes Project, most of them were inimical to life, and many of those that weren’t still seemed devoid of it. So, if they had been sent there, they were either dead, or as good as when their life support ran out.
“Let’s assume they went into subspace,” said Nguyen, preferring to not dwell on the other possibilities. “What keeps them from coming out of it. Supposing that they weren’t sent so far that it will take them considerable time to come back.”
“Well, they aren’t going to drop back out by themselves,” said Lee, who had been an engineer herself before transitioning to staff. There were nodding heads around the table, agreement to that fact. Unlike hyperspace, which would throw any normal matter out that wasn’t protected by a graviton field, which had to be projected by the vessel at all times. Subspace, on the other hand, took energy to enter and leave, but nothing to stay. A ship entering subspace could stay there forever. In fact, would stay there forever, unless they used energy to open up another portal and leave. But very few modern vessels had subspace drives. It was felt that since they would never enter subspace, since hyper was a much more efficient highway to the stars, they would never need to leave, and so a subspace drive was just extra mass that would take up the allowance that could be used for something useful. Like missiles.
<
br /> “What’s the chance they can build something to get back from subspace?” asked the Admiral. “Assuming that they are there.”
“If they realized they are in subspace,” chimed in the Engineer, “they should be able to cobble something together in a couple of weeks.”
“And we could do the same?” asked Captain Albright. “Maybe put together a subspace drive for one our ships and go looking for them.”
“I think that would be a waste of time,” said Lee, looking over at the holo of Albright, who was actually on the bridge of her ship. “The Challenger could do the same, and we would just be tying up a ship for no reason.”
It would make us feel better, thought Nguyen, nodding his head. He agreed with his Chief of Staff, even though cutting loose Clark to go looking for them would make him feel much better. The test had been Captain Jackson’s idea, and he had volunteered his own ship. But Nguyen had signed off on it, which made the ultimate responsibility his own. And if the over three thousand people aboard that ship did not come back, he would always blame himself.
“I don’t think we need to probe that artifact again,” said Lt. Commander Higgs, Boudeuse’s Tactical Officer, and therefore the ranking officer of that specialty for the entire force. “It’s obviously some kind of weapon system, and it takes exception to being poked.”
“It’s not a weapon system,” said Albright, shaking her head.
“Why do you say that, ma’am?” asked Higgs. “It seemed a pretty damned effective deterrent.”
“And it absorbed enough energy to lay low one of the largest cities on this planet,” said Albright, looking over at Higgs, then turning her attention back to the Admiral. “What kind of defensive systems allows a potential enemy that much fire on the planet before it reacts? And why the hell would it extend above the atmosphere?”
“Then what do you think it is, ma’am?” asked Higgs.
“Some kind of defensive system,” she answered.
“But you just said you didn’t think it was a weapon system,” said the Admiral. “So where are you going with this, Captain?”
“I don’t think it’s a weapon,” she answered. “It is a defense, but not against ships And it only responds when enough energy, a lot of energy, is pumped into it. That triggers the response, which used a lot more energy than we put into it”
“So, where is the energy coming from?” asked Lee.
A holo sprung to life over the table, showing one of the huge artifacts in orbit around the blue giant star.
“You think it comes from here?” exclaimed Lee. “But, for what purpose?”
“That is the question,” said Nguyen, taking a moment to stare at the enormous globe. “That is the question.” He shook his head and looked around the table. “But, since we can’t do anything about the Challenger, except continue to scan for her, this will also have to wait. We have a bigger problem right now. Challenger had almost thirty-five percent of our total personnel on board. Which leaves us that much more shorthanded. So, what’s the good news, Colonel?”
“Only forty Marines were aboard the battle cruiser at the time of its, ah, disappearance,” said Colonel Margolis. “So it hasn’t affected our ground combat capability all that much, though we will miss the five shuttles and three sting ships that happened to be aboard.”
“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is good news,” said the Admiral. “I suspect that this incident is going to have serious repercussions for us on the surface of the planet. First off, the aliens will see this as a sign of our weakness in the face of their, whatever. The more religiously fanatical of the population will see this as a sure sign that they should resist, and violently. While the leadership will want to strike while we are confused and disorganized.”
Looking at the holo of the planet, he could pick out the hotspots where trouble was most likely to erupt, and his installations on that planet, many of them near to those hotspots. “What we must do is prepare for the worst. We are here to save these people, but that does not preclude slapping some of the more fanatical of them down. And, hopefully, this will allow us to find out who is giving the commands for these attacks.”
“I could tell you that,” said Lt. Colonel Mary Isaiah. “Just give us the order, and we’ll go take them out.”
“We can’t just arbitrarily take a member of one of their nation’s ruling bodies into custody without proof,” said Susan Lee, looking over at the Marine officer.
“If it causes an uprising, so what?” growled the Lt. Colonel. “It will be just as bad if we go after him and we have proof. These people, and everyone knows who I’m talking about, will go off just as hard if we arrest that son of a bitch with proof, because they’re not going to believe it. Or they simply won’t care, because in their minds, whatever action he takes is justified.”
“We will follow the rule of law, as much as possible,” said Nguyen, narrowing his eyes at the Marine officer. He left it unsaid that the law would be stretched to the breaking point when it came to protecting his people.
“What about the alien artifacts?” asked Commander Sekumbe, the Exec of Clark, also attending by holo. “Do we keep probing it?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Lee. “It’s already bitten us once. I don’t see any reason to stick our hands back in the snake’s mouth.”
“But, what we can learn,” said Sekumbe, his holographic head looking around the table. “We have never run into anything like this before. It’s right up there with the artifacts of the Ancients in Imperial territory. And it works.”
“It works, alright,” said Lee. “It works just fine, and probably to spec. And we don’t know what it did to one of our ships. I really don’t think we should continue to prod a hornet’s nest with our stick after they’ve already stung us.”
“For now, the artifacts are off limits, until we get some dedicated researchers in here,” ordered the Admiral. And we’ll let those damned civilian scientists, with their total lack of common sense, poke their noses into it. But I will lose no more of my own people.
“There’s a broadcast from the planet, sir,” came the call from the Com Officer of the ship. “You might want to see it.”
“Put it on.”
The holo of the planet changed, replaced by a pair of Klassekian talking heads. The header identified it as a news program from Honish, and several of the participants of the conference cringed at that news.
“And on this day, the hand of God reached out and punished the unbelievers from the stars,” said the first of the talking heads. Both were males, from a society in which males were dominant, and females secondary citizens. “The infidels tested the resolve of Hrrottha on this day, and he utterly obliterated one of their larger spaceships. Comments, Mrrassra?”
“We all know that our weapons cannot even touch the ships of the humans,” said the indicated male. “They came to us in their arrogance, masters of the stars, or so it seemed. And now they have seen the power of our God, the true God. Whose plans they sought to interfere with.
“And the unbelieving infidels of Tsarzor, and the other mistaken have been helping them to go against the will of God. But soon Hrrottha shall visit his judgment upon the world, and, while believers will go to his heaven, the infidel will go to hell. Take heed, worshippers of false Gods, your time is coming.”
“And what of the humans?” asked the first male, who must have filled the role of the reporter, while the second seemed to be some kind of holy man.
How can anyone believe this crap, thought Nguyen, frowning. He was an atheist himself, and really couldn’t see how any rational being could believe the claptrap of religion. Still, those people who followed a faith in the Empire were at least rational enough to see the Universe as it was. Fanaticism had died out among the human race for the most part, while some of these people, the Honish branch of Klassekians, acted like the blood thirsty Lasharans.
“I don’t even know if they have souls,” said the Klassekian. “They are no
t spoken of in our scriptures. I think they may be no more than clever beasts.”
The officers in the conference room glared at the holo for some more minutes as the two Honishers continue to compare the humans, who were millennia more advanced, to clever animals because they didn’t have souls, because they didn’t accept the God of the Honish.
“Kill it,” ordered the Admiral, turning away from the holo. “Well. We at least know how those people feel about us.”
“And they’re going to pay for it when they’re killed off by Big Bastard,” said Lee. “I really don’t care all that much about the adults, but the children.”
“The adults aren’t to blame either,” said Mandy Albright, a deep frown on her face. “They were raised in the religion after all. Brainwashed from youth to believe their creed of hate.”
“That doesn’t mean we can take our fingers off the trigger when we have to stop them from stopping us,” said Colonel Margolis.
“No, it doesn’t,” said Nguyen. “I feel sorry for them, and their insistence that we don’t save them. But we have to concentrate on those who want to be saved. There are more of those than we can save, anyway, and we can’t let these others stop us from saving all we can.” And if that means killing a million Honish to stop them from keeping us from saving a thousand of the others, that’s what we do. After all, even the ones we kill only have another year to live anyway.
* * *
“Now is the time to strike,” growled the General, slamming his hand on the table top. “They are confused, hurt, and the people all over the planet are opening their eyes. Hrrottha has told us what to do, and the fate of our souls depends on doing what he wants.”
The transmission was going out by fiber optic, and was using the best encryption techniques on the planet. Which meant they were being read by the intelligence agents of the Empire as if they were in plain speech broadcast for all to hear.
“Hit them then, General,” said a familiar voice, one most of the humans had heard before. “And make sure that once you start hitting them, you don’t stop.”
* * *
Exodus: Machine War: Book 1: Supernova. Page 16
