by Jeff Kirvin
The bridge of the massive ship was nearly deserted, only the skeleton crew of ship's pilot, navigator and communications officer present. Jack removed the helmet from his armor and began giving the orders to tunnel back to Earthspace. He was interrupted.
"Sir!” the comm officer shouted. “We have two tunnels opening, bearing 245, thirty-two degrees up!"
"Show me."
One the central viewscreen, Jack watched the images captured by cameras on that side of the ship. In two different locations, Jack witnessed the signature distortion of the starfield caused by the intense gravitational energies of a tunnel drive bending the light. Two tunnels opened, and from these rents in the fabric of space, two starships emerged. They were like nothing he had ever seen.
The ships were identical. Each was nearly two kilometers long, and roughly cylindrical. They were dark pewter, full of sleek curves and ripples, suggesting the powerful musculature of a predator. The bow of each ship bristled with spiky extrusions Jack took to be the barrels of weapons, and at the center of the bow was a dark maw. On one of the ships, this maw began to glow.
"Sir!” the comm officer shouted again. “I'm reading a massive gravitational surge from one of the craft!"
"Adjust our orientation,” Jack said as he slid into the Captain's chair, listening to it creak and protest under the weight of his armor. “I want both of those ships underneath us. And ready the tunnel drive to get us out of here. We're going home."
"Aye, sir,” said the ship's pilot from his neural interface couch. Jack felt the slight tidal disturbances as Envoy's gravitational field altered, pulling it into a new orientation. The views on the screens shifted to keep the alien craft in view.
Jack watched as the glow increased from the alien ship.
"Sir! The alien craft's gravitational field is spiking!"
I was afraid of that, Jack thought. “Hang on, everybody!” he shouted as he gripped the arms of his chair with armored strength, almost ripping them off.
A flash of light appeared on the bow of the alien ship, followed almost instantaneously by a severe rocking of the Envoy. Robyn and Jabari fell to the deck, and the navigator was knocked away from his console.
"What was that?” Jabari inquired.
"A mass driver,” Jack said. “Probably an asteroid, accelerated by their tunnel engines to good chunk of C. It was deflected by the space curvature caused by our tunnel drive to create artificial gravity, but they won't make that mistake again.
"Where the hell is that tunnel drive?"
"On line in twenty seconds,” the navigator said. “I've laid in the course to Earth. We should come out just outside of Luna's orbit."
Twenty seconds, Jack thought. Not so bad...
"Sir, I'm picking up the same gravity surge in the second alien vessel,” the comm officer said.
Bad, Jack thought. “Pilot! Tunnel the instant the tunnel drive is on line."
"Aye, sir."
Jack could do nothing more than watch as the seconds crept by. The glow on the alien's bow was growing much more quickly this time.
"It's spiking!” the comm officer called.
"Initiating tunnel drive,” the pilot called.
Jack felt the familiar tug against his body in all directions as the tunnel drive deep in the heart of Envoy created a fold in the fabric of space, temporarily placing their current position just nanometers from a point in the Sol system. They tunneled home.
The last thing Jack saw on viewscreen before the tunnel was a bright flash from the bow of the alien ship.
* * * *
The Envoy had no sooner reappeared in Earthspace than it rocked with a huge explosion, the lower third of the giant sphere ripped off and flung into space. It began to spin as atmosphere rushed out of the missing hull.
The bridge was in chaos. Power had gone out, and the emergency power had kicked in only partially. The pilot had let out a bloodcurdling scream at the moment of impact, then lay limp in his neural interface couch. Jack and his Marines were still okay, but the artificial gravity was coming on and off intermittently, and they had to engage the electromagnets in their boots just to remain standing. The navigator and comm officer weren't so lucky, and the irregular gravity was wreaking havoc with them.
"Report!” Jack shouted to whoever was still listening.
Robyn made her way over to a status console, stopping to check the reading on the pilot's couch. “The pilot's dead. The neural feedback from the damage overloaded his safety buffers. Nearly the lower third of the ship is gone, and the tunnel drive is severely damaged. The power system has gone completely haywire, and is causing secondary explosions and fires all over the ship. Oh my God."
"What?” Jack asked as he made his way over to Robyn.
"Several of the explosions have been in the launch bay. I can't get a reading on the status of any of the shuttles."
"Then we check it out personally,” Jack said, reading the data over Robyn's metal shoulder. “It's time to get off this scow anyway."
Robyn and Jack each grabbed one of the still living crewmembers, who had now been forced to don emergency oxygen masks due to the thinning atmosphere. They were also shivering from the cold. The bridge rocked sharply from a nearby explosion, and the gravity cut out.
"Sergeant Major,” Jack called out as he reached the door. “You coming?"
"No sir,” Jabari said, taking a seat in front of the emergency command console. “I'll stay here and try to stabilize things as much as I can until you get the evacuation underway."
Jack nodded. “Don't wait too long, Eleanor. Meet us at the dropship."
She nodded, and the others left the bridge.
The rest of Envoy was in much worse shape than the bridge. Twice Jack and Robyn had to backtrack and find alternate routes to the launch bay due to fires in the corridors, the bright flames flowing like water in the zero gravity. They could have ignored the flames in their armor, but the bridge crew didn't have that luxury.
They reached the launch bay. Jack stopped short, and almost dropped his charge.
Half the launch bay was missing. A great gouge had been ripped in the side of the ship, and the half of the launch bay that remained opened to empty space. Jack did a quick count.
More than half of the shuttles were gone.
Liquid, zero-G fire was spreading into the remains of the launch bay. They didn't have much time. Feeling rather than hearing their magnetic boots thunder down on the deck, Jack and Robyn ran for the nearest shuttle. After cycling through the airlock, Jack ran to the control console of the huge craft.
He opened the radio channel as he ripped off his helmet. “Jabari!” he shouted.
There was no answer for a moment, then faint, with crackling interference, “Yes, sir!"
"Half the launch bay is missing!” Jack said. “The ship's coming apart!"
Another delay, then, “I know! The reactor has taken too much damage. The tunnel drive is totaled, and we have no AG or insystem propulsion! The remnants of the tunnel effect are tearing the ship apart!"
"Get down here!” Jack said as he eased his armored form into the control chair. “We're leaving."
"With all due respect, sir,” Jabari answered, “get the other shuttles out first. It's all I can do here to hold the ship together. I'm tied into the pilot's neural interface couch. Envoy's a lot bigger than the transport mechs I jacked in training, but she's manageable. As soon as I leave, Envoy will shake apart!"
Jack stared at the radio, then turned his attention to another control panel. As a safety feature for just such occasions, the shuttles all had an emergency override feature than allowed the entire group to be controlled remotely from any shuttle. Jack engaged this feature, then began moving the shuttles out of the launch bay in something resembling an orderly manner. In the microgravity, a slight touch on the thrusters was all that was needed to get most of the ships clear of Envoy.
As Jack tended to this task, he noticed the tremors shaking the Envoy increasing in
intensity and frequency. With or without Jabari's intervention, the ship was shaking itself apart.
Finally, only Jack's shuttle remained. He turned to the radio again. “Jabari!"
There was no reply.
"Sergeant Major!” Jack shouted into the microphone.
Nothing. Robyn put her hand on Jack's shoulder just as another mammoth quake racked the ship. “She's gone,” Robyn said. “Let's make her sacrifice mean something."
Jack nodded, and fired the thrusters that would take the shuttle out of the ruined launch bay and into space.
Clear of the ship, Jack brought the rear camera view up on the monitor. Great holes had been ripped out of Envoy's once unbroken sphere, and gouts of fire shot from rents in the hull. The great ship quivered, shook, and collapsed in on itself, leaving only a small and irregular hunk of metal smaller than one of the shuttles.
Turning his attention back to the front viewscreen and the view of Earth, Jack moved aside and let Robyn pilot the shuttle home.
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© Jeff Kirvin 2005
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