Winged Hussars (The Revelations Cycle Book 3)

by Mark Wandrey

  * * * * *

  Chapter 40

  Alexis pulled herself back into the CIC after sleeping for three hours in her wardroom. She tried jumping for the door, and was almost marooned in the middle of the compartment, having forgotten the new rules. She hoped they could get out before too long, otherwise a lot of Hussars were going to get injured when they returned to normal space and started crashing into walls.

  Her primary command crew arrived at the same time. Alexis wondered, and not for the first time, if they’d bugged her wardroom and knew when she was returning to the bridge so they could all arrive at the same time. Flipper was just slipping on the special headset that let him breathe and receive sensory data through his sonar receptors when Alexis spoke.

  “Updates?” It took the Selroth a moment to finish scanning his screens before he reported.

  “We have confirmed 111 ships within five light minutes of our location,” he reported.

  “Did you say over 100?” Paka asked, joining them.

  “Correct,” Flipper said. “Sizes are extrapolated based on radar profiles, but we can’t confirm because the modifications to the lidar aren’t as accurate as those made to the radar.”

  “I’ve been running simulations on small craft flight,” Chug said, “based on data from the marines who’ve been messing around in that soup out there.” Data appeared on the main Tri-V. “Our shuttle’s maximum range is going to be about four light minutes.”

  “Why so short?” Paka asked.

  “The strange resistance?” Alexis asked.

  “Exactly,” Chug agreed. “Though it isn’t really resistance. We used a couple Vaga with maneuvering packs to test this universe’s flight characteristics. The thrust needed to reach a certain speed is identical to normal vacuum. But the instant you cut thrust below a certain threshold, you start to experience drag.” A graph appeared. “The test with the Vaga subject produced this curve.” Alexis examined the data.

  “According to the curve, when you reach five hundred feet per second you’d come to a complete stop in five hundred feet?” The Bakulu helmsman nodded. “How were the G forces?”

  “There were none.”

  “None?” Alexis asked incredulously.

  “None,” Chug agreed. “Dr. Sato was manic, wanting to take out a ship to see if that held true at a few thousand feet per second. I convinced him you wouldn’t approve.”

  “You are correct, of course.”

  “Regardless,” Chug continued, “we found that if thrust remained at least 10 percent of the current velocity, you wouldn’t experience drag.”

  “That means you have to keep increasing power indefinitely?” Alexis asked.

  “We don’t know, having not tested the theory. The endurance of the shuttle is based on this assumption. We don’t want to take it above a speed where the potential Gs would be dangerous, if our assumptions are incorrect.”

  “Good plan,” she agreed. “Where does that leave us, then?” The helmsman manipulated the display and it shrunk to the distance mentioned.

  “There are 29 ships within the operational range of the shuttle. If we allow for maneuvering at the individual targets, or moving between targets,” the display changed again, “we end up with 19 ships within range. They appear to range in size from frigates to at least one possible behemoth.”

  “Is there any record of a behemoth lost in hyperspace?” Paka asked.

  “None that we could find,” Chug replied. On the display, there were several dozen courses plotted to the ships in range. Each one went by at least three ships before returning to Pegasus.

  “Let’s rule out the behemoth,” she said, and four of the courses disappeared. “Same for the frigates.” Another five popped out. “Try to keep it to ships of cruiser or battlecruiser size.” Only four routes were left. “Very good, please consult with Dr. Sato and pick the most probable one. The away team is to include a light squad of marines, engineering staff, and any of the Geek Squad who elect to go. Is the shuttle ready?” she asked her XO.

  “Yes, Captain, fueled and equipped with F11-rated tankage. Pilot Southard has volunteered to fly the mission.”

  “He’s a good choice,” Alexis said. “Better have the marines go out in CASPers.”

  “” Ghost spoke to her.

  “I’m heading to engineering to check on repairs. Notify me when the shuttle is ready to depart. Paka, you have the conn.”

  * * *

  Eventually T’jto forced Dr. Sato to stop conducting science experiments on her marines and brought Rick and Oort back aboard. The two had returned to their respective quarters to rest. Between the physical work of the experiments and the mental gymnastics involved in understanding how this strange version of hyperspace worked, Rick was physically and mentally exhausted. Just before he fell asleep, his pinplants informed him he needed to prepare for a mission in three hours. He had just enough forethought to set an alarm before passing out.

  When the alarm sounded, and he struggled back to wakefulness, he realized he didn’t dream. He’d never been much of a dreamer, but since the laser injury, nothing. What’s left of me? he wondered as he dressed. In the squad bay, the lieutenant was waiting to brief him. He listened as he ate a couple of ration bars high in protein and nutrients. They weren’t sparing power for things like the autochef yet.

  The marines were tasked with investigating nearby derelict ships for possible sources of F11. Besides Oort, only Humans in CASPers were going on the shuttle, as there could be some risk. They weren’t told what the risk was. Sergeant Stan Jones of Raptor Squad would command the marine detachment.

  Naturally, the marines were incredibly curious about where they were. The captain’s briefing hadn’t been very detailed, and they tried to grill the lieutenant for details.

  “Culper and Oort are the only two who’ve been in the black here,” T’jto said.

  “And it’s really, really black,” Rick said. He told them about his experiences while he finished another protein bar and an energy drink. Oort added occasional color as she slurped something that looked like motor oil from a zero-G tube. Then it was time, and the Humans went to their respective armories to suit up. The armorers had repaired Rick’s CASPer by replacing the arm he’d gotten sliced off. Oort’s armor was likewise fixed up. Rick felt a little spoiled. Training with Mickey Finn, he’d had to do most of his own repair and maintenance work.

  As he was finishing his suit check, he wasn’t surprised to see a familiar elSha clinging to the wall nearby, making notes on a slate.

  “Hello Kleena,” Rick said.

  “Rick,” the scientist said.

  “Can I ask what you are doing to my suit?” Rick could have sworn the little reptile grinned.

  “Sato had a few algorithm updates for your suits. They should make the jumpjets respond properly to the drag this place induces on movement. Likewise, I’ve recalibrated the radar, lidar, and thermal imagers. You won’t be blind, at least.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “That should help a lot.” Rick considered something. “What about weapons?”

  “We didn’t have time to check,” the scientist admitted. “Ballistics should work at short range, and energy at long. I left off the MAC shoulder mount and gave you a heavy laser rifle instead.”

  “Better than nothing,” Rick said as he started to wiggle into his CASPer.

  “Listen,” the little alien said. “Be careful out there. We’re off the map. I’ve read some of your Human fiction. Here, there be dragons.” Rick chuckled and nodded.

  “I will. Thanks.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter 41

  “Everyone strapped in?” Southard asked from the cockpit. In the rear of the shuttle were four 50-gallon portable tanks designed to be worn on the backs of combat suits to hold any F11 they found. Four CASPer-suited Human marines and one Tortantula were locked down. Latched to the wall were four specially-made drones, modified for this mission. A single engineer, a woman named
Bonnie Cole, was included almost as an afterthought. She wore a light combat space suit and was obviously uncomfortable amidst the squad of hulking eight-and-a-half-foot-tall combat suits and a ten-foot-wide spider.

  “Good to go,” Corporal Johansson told him and used her suit’s powerful arm to flash a thumbs-up. Cole finally finished getting the straps on her seat settled and looked peevishly at the four marines standing clamped magnetically to the floor, holding to a brace with one hand.

  “We’ll take care of you,” Alvarado told her as she checked the buckles on the backward-facing fold-down rumble seat at the front of the cargo hold.

  “I don’t understand why I couldn’t get one of those combat suits,” she said. All four Human marines chuckled, even Rick. “What? Don’t think I could handle one?”

  “No,” Sgt. Jones said; “we don’t just think you couldn’t handle a CASPer. We know you couldn’t.” She glared at the suit, but was obviously uncertain where to glare since the suits didn’t have heads, and, unlike the older Mk 7, no visible cameras.

  “Might have been amusing to watch,” Oort noted. That elicited even more laughter, and the engineer decided the floor was interesting.

  “Launching,” Southard said, and they felt sideways acceleration.

  * * *

  Alexis had come up from engineering in time to watch the shuttle launch. Long, good to his word, had nearly finished the new, improvised reactor. They were behind schedule, but only because of manpower shortages. He was confident they’d be able to begin running containment tests in three hours.

  She watched through the window as the shuttle cautiously left. Beyond was the hideous blackness. She turned away before she got another headache and returned to the CIC. Everything hinged on what the marines would find. It was down to one big roll of the dice.

  * * *

  When the shuttle was only a couple minutes out, the pilot tried to check in with Pegasus and got the first nasty surprise.

  “Comms are out,” he told the passengers.

  “Our radios work between suits,” Sgt. Jones said.

  “Must be something to do with space here,” Bonnie said, holding up fingers to make quotation marks when she said space. It was as good a theory as anything else. They flew on.

  The shuttle flight took longer than Rick thought it would. He didn’t understand the strange effects of hyperspace here, only that it seemed they were flying much slower than he was used to, considering the distances they’d mentioned. The furthest they were supposed to go was only two light minutes out, or around 22 million miles. Even at one gravity constant, they could do that in an hour or so. But because of the weird physics, Southard had to carefully balance a thrust/deceleration curve and override the ship’s automatic maneuvering subroutines because they kept trying to compensate for a roll that was automatically cancelling itself. They could hear him in the cockpit, mumbling to himself unhappily.

  “Everything okay, pilot?” Sgt. Jones asked after fifteen minutes.

  “Okay for this fucked up place,” Southard answered.

  “We flipping over to slow soon?”

  “No,” he growled back.

  “Huh?”

  “We don’t have to,” Rick said, and explained the drag Oort and he had experienced. The scientists were calling it counter-gravity.

  “How many Gs we gonna pull?” the sergeant wondered. “We have to be really moving by now.”

  “We’re not even going a thousand feet per second,” Southard called back, and Rick nodded. That was why he kept pulsing the engines. No doubt the cursing was because they kept slowing down, but didn’t feel it. The pilot didn’t like the fact that physics had a different playbook here. Several hours passed until he finally announced, “We’re approaching the first ship.”

  Southard routed the camera feed through the displays mounted on the forward bulkhead of the shuttle’s cargo hold, just behind the cockpit. The visual projection inside Rick’s CASPer was wonky, and had been since Kleena had modified the input filters. It gave everything a hazy fishbowl appearance which he hoped would clear up when they were in space.

  The image on the shuttle monitor looked perfect to him, the modifications Kleena had made were doing their job. The ship, on the other hand, looked unlike anything he’d ever seen before.

  “Looks like a snowflake,” Johansson said.

  “Or a crazy old Earth sci-fi movie space ship,” Alvarado said.

  “I didn’t know you were into old stuff like that,” Rick said. He’d watched a lot of those shows with someone he couldn’t remember now. Come to think of it, the memories of those old films were hit and miss too.

  “Whoever set up the video library on Pegasus certainly was,” Alvarado said, “there have to be two thousand old Earth movies and TV shows.”

  “More like 10,000,” Johansson said. “You can blame or thank Edwards, the TacCom.”

  “The little black man?” Rick asked.

  “That’s him,” she said. “He was born with the diastrophic dysplasia form of dwarfism. Couldn’t walk for most of his childhood. His older brother joined a merc unit and sent almost every credit home to be used for nanotherapy. It got him as far as he is now, otherwise he’d probably never have lived this long.”

  Rick was more than a little amazed Corporal Johansson knew that much medical terminology. Mercs tended toward the smarter side of the scale, the VOWS pushed that number up, but she seemed even smarter than average.

  “You know a lot about the little dude,” Jones said. “You sweet on him?”

  “Fuck off, sergeant,” she said coldly. The sergeant laughed uproariously, but he was the only one.

  “If you people are done fucking around back there?” Southard barked from the cockpit. Rick thought his voice had an edge to it. “We gonna board that snowflake, or not?”

  Bonnie was studying the image on her slate, which had likewise been modified by Kleena to interpret images in this space. She was frowning and shaking her head.

  “There isn’t anything like this in the Union, not even close.” She pointed at various parts of the ship. “I can’t see any obvious form of propulsion, and it looks like more than one gravity would tear it apart! But I’d love to get a look inside.”

  “No time,” Sgt. Jones said, shaking his head. “Our orders are to find some F11 and get our asses back to Pegasus ASAP.”

  “Why the hurry?” Rick asked. “We’re not going anywhere fast.” The sergeant shook his head and shrugged.

  “Don’t know,” he said; “don’t care. Southard, push on to the next one.”

  “Fly close by,” Bonnie asked, “I want to record as much as I can!” They moved on with the same surging on-again off-again acceleration. Bonnie was given views of the snowflake from only a few hundred yards away. “Looks like it’s disintegrating,” she said. Sure enough, parts of the structure were clouds of debris. Rick wondered if someone, or something had done it on purpose. Seemed a shame to destroy something so beautiful.

  Another hour passed in silence as they flew to the next ship, which would be the furthest they went from Pegasus. Southard’s grumbles grew less vocal as he became accustomed to the altered physics. The passengers watched the video screen as they drew closer to their objective. Engineer Bonnie recognized it before long.

  “That’s a Maki battleship,” she said, running her finger along the blunt, bullet-shaped ship’s outline on her slate. “No doubt about it. Long range sensors didn’t think it was this big. Calibration must be off.” Even the marine’s uneducated eye could catch the weapons damage and scorch marks on the hull as their pilot played the telescopic view along the hull.

  “So, it’s a Union ship,” Sgt. Jones said. “You sure?” The engineer nodded her head emphatically. “Then they should have F11.”

  “Yes,” Bonnie said, “unless engineering is wrecked. Pilot, can you take us around to the rear of the ship?”

  “Sure,” he said, but his voice sounded strained.

  Rick began to wonder
about Southard. “How are you doing up there?” Rick asked, realizing Southard had a window.

  “My head hurts,” he admitted. “I’m trying to fly with the cameras as much as possible, but that’s not how I was trained. Fucking space here is like ants digging into your head.”

  “Shutter the windscreen,” the engineer suggested.

  “I’ll do that after approach.”

  The shuttle flew in along the length of the massive battleship. As they passed the bow, they could see the ship’s merc registry information. The engineer keyed in the alien writing for a translation.

  “Ardent Grove,” she said, using the English translation. “Registered to the merc company Guardian Forest.” She read a moment. “No notation of it being lost.”

  “Didn’t we just fight some Maki?” Rick asked.

  “Both in the last system and before you signed on,” Johansson confirmed. Rick had vivid memories of fighting on a Maki battleship. The engineer tapped her slate.

  “One of the ships we fought in Grkata was the Illustrious Meadow,” she said, “and that ship was torn to shit, from what I heard. Chief Engineer Long was talking about it yesterday; he wants to do a failure analysis on it. I don’t know about this one. The Maki are big into space; they have a lot of ships.”

  “But this one isn’t listed as missing,” Southard said from the cockpit. “Losing a battleship isn’t a casual thing. Surely they filed a claim, or notice of loss in action.”

  “Any signs of life?” the sergeant asked.

  “Nothing,” Southard said, “but I don’t know if the modified sensors are working well. We lost comms with Pegasus only a mile out, after all. Your call, marines.”

  Jones was silent for a minute as they slowly flew on intermittent engine thrusts along the nearly half-mile-long length of the warship. He knew the captain had set their search route intending to find only cruisers. This was way bigger than a cruiser. Finally, they reached the rear of the ship where they saw a great rent in the hull. It didn’t look like something done by any weapon they’d ever seen, it looked like someone took a huge pair of pliers and ripped open the superstructure, bending a chunk of the hull outwards. The shuttle flew slowly through a cloud of debris. Metal, piping, odd flotsam, and bodies.