by Dave Bara
I switched off the survey displays and proceeded through my regular protocols, scanning the path ahead to Levant Prime. There was minimal disruptive flak and no energy anomalies on the infrared. Stellar dust and debris was within acceptable ranges.
“First sweep complete. The path to Levant Prime is all clear, Captain,” I called out, then began a second scan. After repeating the process I gave the clearance again and stepped back from the ’scope, waiting for Zander. He stood.
“I want a system-wide scan, Commander. Not just the path ahead, and not just the path we took before,” he said.
“System-wide, sir?” I asked. That could take hours. Zander nodded affirmative.
“Start with the asteroid cloud between L-5 and L-6, Commander. Our longscope officer warned us of an energy anomaly there the last time we entered this system. I want to see if it’s still there,” he said.
“Aye, sir,” I said, and dove back under the hood. Scanning the asteroid cloud would probably take me twenty minutes. Of course the whole crew would be waiting on me while I scanned.
Halfway through my scan I detected a pulsing energy signature. It was almost equally distant from the Levant star as our position at the jump point.
“I have your anomaly, Captain,” I reported through my com.
“Let me guess,” said Zander back to me. “Located at the opposite Lagrange point to our current position relative to L-Prime.”
“Yes, sir,” I acknowledged. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t,” said Zander. “But I guessed it would be there. Especially if this jump point we’re sitting in is artificial. You’d need a hyperdimensional generator at the opposing point to balance the solar system.” I’d never heard of an artificial jump point before.
“Sir, are you implying—” I started.
“I’m implying nothing, Commander. I’m stating fact: if there is a hyperdimensional anomaly at Lagrange opposition to this jump point, then this jump point must be artificial,” he said. I checked my scans again.
“Sir, although the energy point is anomalous, I’m not detecting anything that conclusively points to it being a hyperdimensional energy source,” I said.
“And you won’t, Commander. Not unless you get much closer. Conference please, Commander,” he said. I shut off the com and came out from under the ’scope hood. Zander and Kierkopf were already in close quarters.
“If I’m not mistaken, this is what set off the attack on our last encounter,” Zander said once I had made us a threesome. “We made an unauthorized jump into an artificial jump point, probably setting off ancient automated defenses of some kind. They could have been around for centuries, from before the war even.”
“So what do we do?” asked Kierkopf. Zander looked to me.
“Other than the anomaly, do I have your All Clear for ingress to Levant Prime, Lieutenant Commander?” he asked. I hesitated only a second.
“I haven’t completed the system-wide scan, sir, but as for the path ahead to Levant, you have my All Clear, sir,” I said. A part of me wished I could report otherwise.
Zander turned to Dobrina. “XO?”
“All systems are up and running, sir,” she said. Zander stood and clasped his hands behind his back, then nodded to the communications officer, who engaged the all-ship com.
“This is Captain Zander. We have entered the Levant system right on the dot. We are proceeding to the rendezvous point of our last encounter. All stations, be on alert for displacement wave activity. They’ll not catch us with our pants down this time,” he said, then gave the signal to cut the line.
“EVA teams, man the shuttles. Prepare the docking bay for depressurization. All protocols in play for interplanetary excursion,” he said. The bridge erupted in a flourish of activity. Our course was set for a minor planet in the asteroid cloud designated L-42, the location of the displacement wave incident that had killed my countrymen. It was thirty-four minutes away at our present course and speed.
“Mr. Cochrane,” called out the captain as he made for the lifter, “congratulations, you have the con.”
“I have the con, aye, sir,” I said. Claus Poulsen disengaged from his station and followed Zander to the lifter.
“Commander Kierkopf,” I called as she started for the lifter. She turned halfway back to me. “May I suggest that you take Lieutenant Layton here as your shuttle pilot. He’s fully rated on the shuttle and I can vouch for his skills in the pilot’s chair.” She looked at me and smiled slightly from one corner of her mouth. I was trying to protect her and she knew it. She humored me.
“A fine suggestion, Commander. I’ll have Ensign Kasdan report to take his station. Mr. Layton, you’re with me,” she ordered. She gave me the slightest of nods as Layton joined them in the lifter. He winked at me as the doors shut.
I looked to the center seat. Four short steps and I was there. I sat down in the chair and nodded once to Jenny Hogan at her post, pleased to see that she had reverted to a Quantar-blue duty uniform. She nodded so slightly in response that only I would likely have picked it up. We were both acknowledging the moment: a Quantar commander in charge of an in-service Carinthian Lightship. I clicked on the captain’s chair com to initiate a direct link to John Marker and spoke softly.
“All ready, Corporal?” I asked.
Marker’s voice came back fuzzy and crackling through the line. “Ready down here, sir. Looks like the captain and the XO will be out in just a few minutes, sir.”
“Understood. Do they all have EVA suits?”
“Aye, sir. Zander insisted.”
“Good,” I said. The line became uncomfortably silent then. Finally Marker came through again.
“It will take us seven minutes to prep and follow them, sir, from the time you give the order,” he said.
I took in a deep breath. “Consider the order given the moment the landing bay is inhabitable again, Corporal. Not a moment to wait. I want our only delay in leaving to be my transport in the lifter.”
“Understood,” said Marker, pausing before continuing. “Sir, if you don’t mind me saying, you do have another option if you’re so worried about this mission.” I held a finger to my ear to suppress the sound coming through.
“Go,” I said.
“You’re officer of the deck. You can deny them liftoff clearance if you deem the conditions too hazardous.” The earpiece crackled as I considered this.
“I have no basis for such a claim,” I said. “And Zander would have my hide and find someone who would give him clearance to replace me. No. We have to follow the plan. Just be prepared with our backup.”
“Aye, sir,” Marker said a final time, and I cut the line. The time passed quickly until Zander and Kierkopf both called in requesting launching rights. Despite Marker’s suggestion, I had no legitimate reason to deny them.
“Granted,” I said, to each in turn, then watched on the main bridge display as they departed through the open landing bay doors, one after the other.
“Mr. Kasdan,” I said, to the ensign who had replaced Layton at the helm position in the interim, “switch the main display to tactical. How long until the shuttles reach the exact coordinates of the incident?” Kasdan checked his panel.
“Thirteen minutes, sir,” he said. I stood and made for the longscope station, there to monitor the EVA.
Thirteen minutes. Time enough for disaster to strike.
In the Levant System
Under the hood of the longscope, I watched anxiously as the clock ticked away the time to the shuttles reaching the rendezvous point. We had seven minutes. I flipped through my displays as rapidly as I could, then decided to focus on the infrared, the most likely display to indicate trouble from an HD displacement wave.
It worried me that Zander believed we were possibly facing a displacement wave weapon of some kind. Any weapon that could bend space and time w
ould be formidable even for Impulse to handle. Displacement waves were the most potentially destructive force our technology knew of. Usually they only occurred when a jump-capable ship left our dimension for hyperdimensional space and then jumped back in again at its new location. They were also usually a localized phenomenon, but very destructive to anything in the general vicinity, especially if that thing was unprotected by a Hoagland Field. If the First Empire had a weapon that could project such a wave over long distances, that weapon would be the most dangerous force in the universe.
I watched the bulwark shuttle with Captain Zander and Claus Poulsen aboard pass through a field of midsized asteroids, most less than a kilometer across, as it made its way toward L-5, the nearest gas giant to our entry jump point. Dobrina followed in the Search and Rescue shuttle on a slightly different vector, keeping station with Zander at a safe distance. I counted down the remaining minutes until the shuttles reached the X-point, where my countrymen had been burned alive.
“Five minutes,” said Zander’s crackling voice over the shipwide com. The tension on the bridge felt like oppressive air hanging over us all.
I gripped the longscope control rods ever tighter, but the displays were all clear. I heard the lifter doors open and checked my bridge display to see Tralfane striding on to the deck. I turned my focus back to the longscope display.
“Not a good time, Mr. Tralfane,” I said out loud. I heard him walk behind me and activate his workstation. The ship shuddered slightly and I cued up my private com line to the Historian.
“What did you just do?” I demanded. I was acting captain of this ship and I wasn’t letting anyone undermine me while I was on duty, even an Earth Historian.
Tralfane said nothing for a few moments, then: “You’ll find your three new displays active, Mr. Cochrane. Use them.”
I checked my display viewer and found that he was right. The three new active displays were available on the icon grid and I clicked on to each in turn. They were probes, launched by Tralfane moments ago from Impulse, the first two giving both visual feeds and telemetry on the shuttles, their location, course, speed, etc. I ordered Kasdan to track the telemetry for anything unusual while I kept a close monitor on the visuals the probes provided. They gave me a far clearer and closer view of the shuttles than what was normally available from the standard longscope displays. The third probe focused on the asteroid field ahead of the shuttles. If Tralfane was expecting an incoming displacement wave, clearly he wasn’t expecting it to come from a natural source like the Levant star or the upper atmosphere of L-5.
Captain Zander was on the move. I watched my visual display as Zander came out of the dense asteroid field and into an area of clear space. “Five seconds . . . Mark!” came Zander’s voice over the com. Impulse and the shuttles had reached their X-points.
As I observed the new probe displays I noticed three asteroids in the general vicinity of L-5 that were drifting in seeming sync with each other, in a circular orbit on a single plane. This sight in itself seemed highly suspicious, as they weren’t large enough to generate a mutual gravity well that would keep them tidally locked together, drifting through space as one. I began scans of the first asteroid. Within seconds I realized something was wrong. The density was too light and the mass too small. I switched to another display and detected hints of alloy metals underneath the rocks and dust. This thing was a hollowed-out device of some kind.
The battle alarm claxon shocked me into action.
I switched displays again and saw the unmistakable energy signature of an HD displacement wave incoming. Each of the three asteroids had flared to life with the energy of a thousand suns, and each had fired at a different target. My first responsibility was to Impulse.
“Incoming displacement wave!” I shouted into the shipwide com as the alarm claxon blared. Then I switched to the bridge com channel. “Turn us to one-four-six, mark six, Mr. Kasdan, and fire up the baffle shields!”
“Aye, sir! Turning the ship! Baffles activated!” called out Kasdan. I felt Impulse strain under me to get into position to deflect the incoming wave as her gravimetric generators whined to life. With luck our Hoagland Field would deflect and dissipate the wave away from Impulse. If not . . .
“Countdown to impact!” I said.
“Thirty-six seconds!” replied Kasdan.
Suddenly one of the probe displays showed a back angle, toward Impulse. I could see the baffle shields rising over the nose, spreading their four wings to protect the ship while the gravimetric energy began sparking to life. But the ship was turning painfully slowly into position. If she didn’t take the wave full on the nose we could be scorched again and severely damaged. I took one last look at the shuttles, to my horror.
The inbound displacement waves bore down on the small ships. The only advantage they had was the small footprint of their shielding compared to Impulse, but it was likely to make little difference. There was no doubt now that the triad of asteroids were all automated HD displacement wave weapons. This was not technology that the Union Navy possessed; it was far beyond us. Each weapon had targeted one of the ships and they had all fired simultaneously. That’s why Impulse had taken such a hard hit the last time: she was felled by a different wave than the shuttles.
I watched on the infrared as the waves engulfed the bulwark shuttle and the Search and Rescue. The telltale purple signature of the Hoagland Field at work surrounded both of the small ships, but it was impossible to tell if they had survived the blast before the probes Tralfane had sent out winked out of existence, flung from our dimension to the next. The shuttles were so much closer to the weapons than Impulse . . .
“Report, Mr. Kasdan!” I shouted again.
“Twenty seconds to impact!” I shut the longscope down, lifted the hood, and ran to the captain’s chair.
“Lock her down, Mr. Kasdan!” I ordered. Then I clicked on the shipwide com again. “All stations, prepare for imminent impact! I say again, prepare for impact! Radiation protocol Alpha One!” I strapped myself in as the seconds ticked away. I swiveled my chair to the side instinctively, away from the master display plasma, as if it could protect me from the golden-green mass bearing down on us. Layton began a countdown.
“Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . impac—” The shock of the energy wave hitting the Hoagland Field rocked the ship as our HD power curve rose to match and then disperse the wave’s energy. The main power systems failed in the midst of the impact and the ship went to emergency lights. I was spun around like a child on a playground ride as the air inside the bridge crackled with kinetic energy. It was far more frightening than I’d imagined it could be, especially in the dim blue glow of the emergency lights.
A few seconds later the bridge returned to life at quarter power, essential stations only. I unbuckled and leaped from my chair toward my ’scope station.
“Mr. Kasdan! Priority power to the longscope, and reports from all decks!” I ordered.
“Aye, sir!” I stuck my head under the display hood. The probes had been annihilated by the waves, so the only display I had was the standard long-range visual. I furiously searched for energy signatures from the shuttles or any signs of environmental controls operating. Finally I spotted one of the shuttles on the visual display, still crackling with purple sprites and tumbling through space as waves of kinetic energy burned yellow-hot and dispersed off of her hull and shielding. It was the Search and Rescue.
“Mr. Kasdan!” I yelled out again, “Try and raise the Search and Rescue shuttle on the com, and move us toward her, vector one-four-four.” I ran through my operating displays again; there was no sign of the bulwark shuttle. I pulled away from the ’scope to return to the captain’s chair. Tralfane stood in my way.
“You have to destroy those asteroid weapons,” he said flatly. I could hardly contain my fury. He was keeping me from launching a rescue party, from reporting those weapons bac
k to the USN at Candle, from Zander and Dobrina . . .
“I’m aware of my duty, Mr. Tralfane,” I said as evenly as I could in the chaos. The lights chose that moment to power back up to half. “Search and rescue teams—”
“Can wait, Mr. Cochrane! If those wave generators launch a second salvo there’ll be nothing to rescue, and securing Impulse is your priority,” he said, “Or it should be.” I wanted to punch him, but I knew he was right. I turned to Kasdan.
“Belay that last, Kasdan. Do we have power to the impellers?”
“Yes, sir, but we can’t reach—”
“Fire them up, Mr. Kasdan. Get us moving toward the Search and Rescue shuttle, now!” Tralfane grabbed me by the arm, and he wasn’t gentle about it either.
“Commander—” he started. I shook free of him. I knew my duty, even if I hated it. Even if it cost me my friends’ lives.
“And, Kasdan,” I said, “keep the Search and Rescue shuttle between us and those displacement wave generators. Protecting Impulse is our top priority now,” I said out loud. It hurt to say the words.
“But if we don’t get ourselves between the shuttles and those displacement weapons they’ll be finished,” protested Kasdan. “Captain Zander and the XO—”
“They knew the risks, Lieutenant,” I said, interrupting. “Now carry out my orders.”
“Aye, sir!” said Kasdan, obviously disturbed but too good an officer to protest further. I turned back to Tralfane, looking up into his eyes.
“We’re too close for atomics, and those weapons are too big and too well shielded for conventional missiles. Do we have any other weaponry options aboard?” I said, almost whispering to keep the bridge crew from hearing.
