Exodus: Machine War: Book 2: Bolthole

by Doug Dandridge

  Hasslehoff nodded, not taking her eyes off the viewer. Ahead was the hell of the accretion disk, hiding the gravity point source that was the black hole. Black hole was a misnomer in so many ways. If not for the step down function of the viewers, the brightness would have blinded everyone on the bridge. And the visible light was only a fraction of the wide spectrum radiation coming at them.

  The Admiral could feel the nausea of radiation sickness in her belly. The entire crew had received boosters of nanites, while the seed stock reproduced behind the heavy particle shielding off of the med clinics aboard. The nanites, while they survived, were doing yeoman’s duty fighting the cellular deterioration, before the radiation took them out as well.

  The object was horrifying, like something that had been created to eat life. She wondered what happened to the human soul, if there was such a thing, if it was pulled beyond the point of no return. Did it still go to an afterlife, or was it doomed to sit within that hole for the rest of eternity, trapped?

  Hasselhoff had seen the sixty solar mass black hole that the Donut was built around. That was considered a tame black hole. The ancients had cleared the space around the black hole thousands of years prior, and the Empire had continued to police up any matter in its vicinity. Things still fell in at infrequent intervals. Things like the last Emperor and his family. This was a wild black hole, sucking up everything around it, which was mostly the material the supernova had ejected near the end of its explosion.

  “What’s our hull temperature?” she asked, afraid of the answer.

  “Facing temperature is over ten thousand degrees,” said the disbelieving Sensor Officer. “Opposite hull temp is, two thousand, ma’am. I‘m not sure how much more of this we can take.”

  As much as we need to, thought the Admiral, looking at another holo that showed the Machine ship trailing them. The Challenger had simulated continued deterioration of its propulsion systems, allowing the huge planet killer to catch up to them. It was now light seconds behind, within beam range. The hellish radiation was enough to spoof any targeting system, and any beams that the enemy ship fired were way off the mark. Their missile like weapons were also pretty much useless as well, frying from the radiation as soon as they were launched.

  The liquid metal cooling system of the ship was moving heat as fast as it could from one side of the ship to the other, where it was being channeled into the grabber units and the additional cooling grids installed for this mission. The supermetals in both were the most efficient radiators know to science, a thousand times more effective than any other possible system. Those radiators and grabbers were near the point of melting, and if they did that would be the end of the entire cooling system. And still that side of the ship was starting to melt from the heat. All outer compartments had been evacuated, everyone sheltering in the three central capsules of the vessel.

  The black hole’s accretion disk was less than a light minute ahead, and the battle cruisers had decelerated down to little more than five thousand kilometers a second. That was all they could do in this kind of particle radiation field. That disc was still small, no more than forty thousand kilometers out from the hole. It would grow through time, until in a century it would probably span hundreds of thousands of kilometers. The space above and below the center of the disc, where the actual black hole lived, was distorted as light was flung around at from just over thirty million gravities at the center, almost to the point where photons couldn’t escape, to fifty-nine thousand gravities a thousand kilometers from the horizon. Magnetic fields were pulling gas to the poles and shooting them out into space as weak gamma ray beams. Those would also strengthen over the years. In a century they would be deadly to living planets, while the point of the beams had reached a hundred light years above and below.

  And we need to stay away from a heavy gravity field, she thought, her eyes straying to the distortion that was all they could see of the actual hole. The problem wasn’t the gravity per se, since they would be in free fall about the hole. In really close and tidal forces could become a problem. But even before they reached that point the time dilation would play hell with their systems. The dilation caused by velocity was not a problem, when the systems could compensate for up to ten times the slowing of normal time. But here they could reach into hundreds of times dilation, which would play holy hell with tactical and targeting systems, as well as navigation. A battle would be meaningless at that kind of time distortion. Not that she really intended to fight a battle, but might find herself in one despite her intentions.

  “Captain,” called the ship’s Chief Medical Officer over com. “I’m getting more and more radiation casualties here. Pretty soon I’m going to start losing them.”

  “Understood, Doctor,” replied Hasselhoff, knowing that if they went through with the approach to as close to the black hole as they needed to go, none of the crew would make it. She looked over at the Navigation Officer, then yelled at the Helmsman. “You two. Plot our course around that hole to the tightest tolerances possible.”

  “We already have, ma’am,” said the Helmsman. “But it’s going to take some human touch to get around that thing in one piece.”

  Hasselhoff nodded her head, feeling the fear build up in the pit of her stomach. It might kill her, but it was the only chance her crew had.

  “Prepare to evacuate the ship,” she ordered, her voice coming out in a croak. She looked over at the Com Officer. “Order Daedalus to come alongside and take off our crew. Argonaut is to fall back and do everything they can to mask our evacuation.”

  “Ma’am,” said the Helm Officer. “I can almost guarantee if you send this ship around that hole on auto, it will hit enough unexpected turbulence to fall in.”

  “I’m not going to send it in on auto,” said Hasselhoff after licking her bone dry lips, feeling the sweat that had little to do with the heat in the compartment rolling down her face. “I’m staying here. I’ll pilot Challenger around the hole.”

  “That’s suicide, ma’am,” said the Exec over the com, while the bridge crew stared in disbelief at the Admiral.

  “Yes, it is,” agreed Hasselhoff. “And the only way I can think of to complete this mission.”

  “You won’t be alive to complete the mission, ma’am,” cautioned the Exec. “You won’t survive that approach.”

  “If we move most of the portable electromag generators to cover the bridge, and flood all the compartments around it, I might just make it.”

  “You won’t be able to do it alone, ma’am,” exclaimed the Navigation Officer. “You’re going to need at least a skeleton bridge crew.”

  “And someone in engineering, said Ungra, the Chief Engineer, over the com. “You’re going to need some people watching the guts of this old girl while you whip around that beast.”

  “Very well. Two volunteers for the bridge crew, three for engineering. Everyone else, off of my fucking ship. I want as many survivors as I can get. So get with it people.”

  People started moving quickly. Electromag generators were moved into position around the bridge and engineering control, while engineers flooded all the surrounding compartments of both control sections with the water reserves. Meanwhile, all nonessential personnel moved across fifty meters of space to the Daedalus, while Argonaut, back twenty thousand kilometers behind the close pair, used holo projections and its own electromag fields to obscure the sight of the Machine ship, so it couldn’t actually view the evacuation.

  It took several minutes, during which time the Challenger had moved one million five hundred thousand kilometers closer to the hole, almost to the edge of the accretion disk. Now it was a work of exact piloting, as the six remaining crew members guided the ship around the edge of the disk, avoiding the contact that would destroy their vessel in an instant.

  * * *

  The huge Machine followed, watching as two of the organic controlled ships changed vectors and started accelerating away from their crippled compatriot. The target limped along,
on a vector that would take them around the black hole and off into space with increased velocity due to the slingshot effect. The organic controlled ship was capable of fifteen gravities at most now, while the Machine ship could do twenty sustained, twenty-five in a pinch. It calculated the vector of the organic controlled ship and found that it could easily follow without a problem. As long as the other ship didn’t dip into the accretion disk, all should be well.

  The other vessels were now up to a hundred gravities acceleration, much too much to allow the Machine ship to catch them. The prize was ahead. It was dangerous space, full of particles and radiation. The human ship seemed to be able to handle it, and the Machine vessel was so much tougher, by orders of magnitude. The guts of the ship were not even receiving that large a dose of radiation. Not through its five kilometer thick armored skin, two kilometers of carbon reinforced alloys sandwiching a kilometer of nanoliquid shock absorbing layer over another two kilometers of armor. Able to handle hits by relativistic missiles, then repair itself. The heat was a problem, and most of the outer machinery, weapons and sensors, were offline. They could be repaired later. The ship could repair any conceivable damage to itself as long as the central brain was functional.

  The computer finished its calculations, made its final approach vector changes, and pulled onto the needed course. Ahead was the technology it wanted, the ability to travel into the higher dimension of hyperspace. The ability to move four times faster across the galaxy than was now possible. And possibly organic minds it could infest and interrogate, and the hints at other technologies it couldn’t calculate at this time.

  * * *

  “They’re still coming in, ma’am,” called out the Navigation Officer, settled into the tactical station. “Fat and sassy. Distance to event horizon, seventy-five thousand kilometers. Pull, ten gravities.”

  It’s going to work, thought Hasselhoff, sealed up in her armor like them all, letting the suit’s environmental systems keep her temperature down to a survivable level. The bridge itself was well over a hundred degrees centigrade, while the skin of the ship was starting to vaporize away. It was a losing battle, as armored hull evaporated a little bit at a time, allowing more radiation through. It had better work, she thought, or they’re going to get us, then go after Klassek, and who knows how many other planets after that.

  The nausea was getting worse as well, and the Captain ordered the suit to inject her with more of the medications that would prevent her from vomiting, as well as another booster of nanites from its shielded store. That was all she could do, and through blurring vision she looked back at the tactical holo from her position as assistant helm, wondering if they were going to die after all. We’ve got to stay alive long enough to at least see this thing through, she thought, trying to hang on through sheer willpower.

  The gravity at the horizon was enough to stop light from escaping, over thirty million gravities at a distance of nineteen kilometers from the singularity. Gravity fell off at the rate of the square of the distance. At sixty kilometers it was a mere seven and a half million gravities, still enough to dilate time to almost unreal rates, seconds of time passed at that point compared to hours in the Universe at large. At their current position they had a time dilation so small they wouldn’t even notice it without complicated measuring equipment.

  “There’s something pulling on us, ma’am,” called out the Chief Engineer from his section. “A magnetic tractor of some sort.”

  “Can we counter it?”

  “We can,” said Ungra. “But we might give away the game if we show too much engine power.”

  “Give us just enough to keep them from reeling us in,” she ordered the Engineer.

  “Twenty-five seconds till closest approach,” called out the Helm Officer, fingers flying across her board, making the minor adjustments to the program to compensate for the varying gas densities they were plowing through.

  “When will they hit closest approach?” asked Hasselhoff of her Navigation Officer. That was at forty-one thousand kilometers, just outside the accretion disc, with a pull of about twenty-five gravities.

  “Two minutes, fourteen seconds after we do.”

  “Do we have a good signal to the wormhole?”

  “Signal strength is fluctuating, ma’am,” replied the Navigation Officer. “That’s not surprising with the state of our skin.”

  “We need a strong signal when the time comes,” said Hasselhoff, grimacing.

  “I’ll do all I can, ma’am, but some of it’s out of my hands.”

  Hasselhoff nodded as the ship pushed forward, decreasing its acceleration just enough to allow the pull of gravity to counteract the magnetic tractor the Machine ship was using on them. And if they close to half the distance, that tractor becomes four times more effective at restricting our motion.

  “We’re under some structural stress, ma’am,” said the Chief Engineer over the com.

  “How much?”

  “Only about a gravity difference from one side to the other,” said the Engineer.

  Hasselhoff noticed it then. There was some barely noticeable stress on her body as well, though it was less than half a meter across her shoulders. The ship had a width of five hundred meters, and the closer side was being pulled toward the hole with a little more than a gravity of force than the farther side. The Machine ship would experience even greater stresses, but it was built on a massive scale, and would probably weather any kind tidal forces the hole could throw at it, unless it were near to the event horizon.

  “We’re should be able to handle that, right?” she asked, praying for the answer she wanted. Her ship was built to handle thousands of gravities of stress, much greater than the compensators could account for.

  “She’s been heated up to the extreme, ma’am,” reported Ungra. “I cannot guarantee she can handle it for long.”

  We don’t need it to handle it for long, thought the Admiral, her eyes locked on the tactical holo that was showing all the players in relation to the hole.

  “Closest approach, now,” called out the Helm Officer, looking over at the Admiral.

  The ship had been adding acceleration the entire trip in due to the gravity of the black hole. The grabbers had for the most part been decelerating them so they wouldn’t increase their velocity to the point where the particle radiation increased to intolerable levels. Now they cut the decel entirely, and used the pull of the black hole to slingshot around the accretion disk, using the gravity to whip around and out, gaining multiple kilometers a second per second velocity.

  This is it, thought Hasselhoff, watching as the monster vessel adjusted its vector slightly to follow them through the maneuver. The hook has been baited, and now they bite.

  If the Machine followed them in their path, it would gain the same acceleration and velocity boost, and, as far as it knew, it could then pile on the superior self-generated acceleration and catch them, reeling the human ship in with their magnetic tractor and capturing the prize.

  “Signal when the time is right, Commander,” Hasselhoff ordered her Navigation Officer. And I hope to hell the signal gets through.

  * * *

  The Machine ship was seconds away from closest approach when the stream of thirty missiles came streaking out of the wormhole that was only two light seconds out. Each of the missiles was traveling at point nine light, much too fast for this space, and they were all converted to fast moving blobs of molten metal before they reached the target. If they had travelled much further, they would have been even faster expanding clouds of gas. As it was, they were not effective as weapons by the time they reached the Machine vessel.

  Twenty-three of the missiles missed completely, heading into the accretion disk and straight in to the event horizon. Another four achieved partial hits, grazing the huge ship. And three hit the target dead center, imparting all of their kinetic energy into the hundred kilometer diameter ship.

  The missiles were without warheads. Instead, a neutral load had been p
ut in that space to increase the mass of the missiles. The three weapons that hit directly slammed into the five kilometer thick armor. Even had they been whole, even had they carried a gigaton class warhead, the best they could have achieved was a minor penetration, while the shock absorbing nanoliquid layer distributed the shock around the outer reaches of the ship. They achieved no penetration. They didn’t need to. What they did was give the Machine ship a good shove into the accretion disk that waited two thousand kilometers in. Even the application of all its grabber units to try and counter that vector, which would have worked given sufficient time, was not enough.

  The ship plowed into the thick hot gas of the accretion disk, slowing its velocity, dropping it into an even closer orbit. From there it hit the point of no return. One of the human battle cruisers could have gotten out if it had survived the heat and radiation. But no ship with a mere twenty-five gravity peak acceleration was going to get out.

  The Machine ship spiraled in, faster and faster as the force of gravity increased. The computer brain didn’t panic. That wasn’t in it. It tried to find a way out, but nothing it thought of could save it. Even with increasing time dilation giving it hours of processing time, it wasn’t enough. It died a heat death well before it hit the event horizon, and tidal forces ripped it apart before it dropped out of the Universe, the victim of a force that even its great size could not save it from.

  * * *

  “Get us the hell out of here,” ordered Hasslehoff as she watched the huge Machine ship get pushed into the accretion disk and begin its ride to the gravity point source that was going to swallow it up and remove it from the Universe.

  “Plotting optimal course, now,” called out the Navigator, working her board, then sending her data to the Helm Officer.

  Challenger accelerated away at a hundred gravities, balancing her increasing velocity and the decreasing density of the baby nebula to get them away and allow the ship to lose its heat over time.