by Isaac Hooke
No wonder I feel so groggy.
“I just finished talking with the admiral,” Levieson said. “We’ve decided to reassign you to the Callaway.”
“Well that’s good news,” Jonathan said.
“Did I wake you?” Levieson said. “You sound groggy.”
“No, not at all,” Jonathan said, doing his best to sound wide awake.
“I almost want to keep you aboard the Talon,” Levieson continued. “But I believe you’ll be of best use aboard your own vessel. Therefore, effective immediately, the Callaway is yours. I’m also placing you in charge of the surviving members of Task Group 72.5, along with the vessels of 12.5.2, which are to be incorporated into 72.5.”
“12.5.2?” Jonathan said. “The missing task group?”
“Yes, they accompanied 72.5 back from the Elder galaxy,” Levieson said. “I’m sure Commander Cray will tell you all about it. While he was gone he had a few... well, I wouldn’t call them adventures, but let’s just say things didn’t quite go as planned. Now, as for the Talon, Bill Wethersfield will remain aboard along with the telepath. The alien vessel and its fighter escort will join 72.5, and remain under your direct command. You know the capabilities of these aliens better than anyone, and you’ve developed a bond of sorts with their captain. I believe the fit is good. You’ll continue to report to me, of course.”
“Thank you, Vice Admiral,” Jonathan said.
“You’re welcome,” Levieson returned. “Pack your things. You’re to shuttle over to the Callaway immediately. Ford wants to send the Talon to 3-Vega as soon as possible to get an idea of what’s lurking on the other side. Unless you want to visit the Slipstream, too, I suggest you debark the Talon by 0300.”
“Will do,” Jonathan said. “By the way, when we finish the return Gate and reinforcements arrive, will the Callaway or any of the vessels under her command be relieved?”
“No,” Levieson said. “The Callaway and her ships are going to see this thing through to the end right alongside the rest of us. We’re going to need every last one of us if this mission is to succeed.”
Jonathan nodded. “Good. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
JONATHAN ACCESSED THE forward camera of the shuttle as it approached the Callaway and he watched his old ship approach. He saw the scars of battle on her hull, the dark, criss-cross colorations where the Whittle layer had been repaired after the alien fighter attacks, and the longer discoloration running along the port side of the cruiser where the enemy had ripped a gash with their particle beams.
The shuttle docked shortly. He waited for the hangar bay doors to close, and for atmosphere to fill the compartment. The shuttle’s down ramp lowered. Two Centurions were waiting for him, along with Commander Cray.
“I purposely kept the welcoming party small,” Robert said. “I figured you would prefer it this way.”
“Absolutely right, as always, Commander,” Jonathan said.
Jonathan removed his helmet and gloves and handed them to one of the Centurions, and then he walked in silence beside Robert. The captain ran his bare fingers along the bulkheads as he walked, the grainy surface feeling cool to the touch. The overhead lights were just right, not too bright and not too dim, shining down with the appropriate intensities and angles so that nobody had a shadow. His footfalls were muted by the deck rug. The crisp air contained no hint of recycling; near the hydroponics department, he smelled notes of pollen and pine like a meadow on a spring day. Crew members either nodded or saluted as he passed.
It was good to be aboard his own ship again.
Robert led him through Wardroom Five—the bridge officers’ mess—to a green-curtained passageway. A robot MA in full-dress uniform guarded the opening. The robot saluted with its rifle and Robert led Jonathan through into the passageway of staterooms beyond. The commander paused at the door to Jonathan’s old quarters, which was guarded by another robot MA. It also saluted. Jonathan found the presence of the robots odd, but said nothing: their placement was at a captain’s discretion.
“We haven’t touched your quarters since you left.” The commander’s eyes defocused; Jonathan guessed he was accessing the remote interface of the sealed hatch, probably to remove the lock.
The hatch opened, revealing a bunk stuffed into one corner, a closet, a desk, and a doorway on the far bulkhead leading to the private head.
Jonathan enabled his aReal overlay. “You’ve even kept my virtual decorations intact.” His bed had become a hammock strewn between two palm trees, and he gazed longingly at the white sand beach beyond it where waves gently lapped against shore.
“Of course, Captain,” Robert replied.
“Meet me in my office in half an hour,” Jonathan instructed his first officer.
He changed and stowed the few belongings he’d brought with him in the desk and closet. He picked up the old mitten he had saved from a climbing expedition a long time ago. It belonged to a woman he had abandoned on the mountain. Famina was her name. It had taken him years to forgive himself for leaving her, but he had. Just as he had learned to forgive himself for the others who had died under his watch.
A captain’s burden. A captain’s crucible.
The appointed time to meet Robert grew near, and Jonathan made his way to the bridge.
The commander stood up as Jonathan entered. “Captain on the bridge.”
The officers of the Round Table rose and saluted sharply.
It was a formality Jonathan usually dispensed with, but given that he hadn’t been aboard for so long, it seemed somehow suiting. He ran his gaze upon the familiar faces and found it hard to suppress the joy and sense of belonging he felt. Tactical Officer Lieutenant Miko. Comm Officer Lieutenant Rald Lazur. Ops Officer Ensign Lewis. These and others.
For a while there, I never thought I’d witness any of this ever again.
“As you were,” Jonathan said.
“We’re very glad to see you, Captain,” Ensign Lewis said.
“And I’m glad to see you as well, Ensign,” Jonathan said. “More than you know.”
The officers took their places at the empty, curved desks that formed a circle in the center of the room. The bridge crew faced one another, though never really saw the person seated directly across from them—their aReals overlaid most of their vision with digital visualizations of the information required to man their stations. Some wore the spectacle variants of the aReals, like Jonathan, while others chose the contact lens and earpiece versions, and still others had Implants installed directly into their brains.
Jonathan tore his eyes away from the Round Table and took the hatch to his private office; he motioned at Robert to follow him inside.
When Jonathan had settled behind the desk, he stared for a moment at the virtual stars portrayed beyond the aReal-generated portal beside him. Finally he looked at the commander and said: “Damn it’s good to be back.”
“It’s good to have you,” Robert replied.
Jonathan cocked his head. “Was that a note of regret I detected in your voice? Not too happy I’m taking away the reins of the Callaway from you?”
Robert sighed. “I’ll admit, I’ve grown used to commanding the fleet these past six months. It’ll take some time to get used to my old role.”
Jonathan folded his hands over his chest. “How is Bridgette? And your boy?”
“Very well,” Robert answered. “She has made a complete recovery from her radiation poisoning, as has Eugene. He’s the healthiest baby boy aboard.”
“Good to hear. I intend to invite you and Bridgette to dinner with me once I’ve settled. Along with Stanley.”
“I look forward to it.” Robert regarded the captain quietly for a moment, then leaned forward. “So. Has the admiral told you anything about my debriefing?”
Jonathan extended his noise canceler around the commander.
“Not a thing,” Jonathan replied. “Though the vice admiral did inform me that 12.5.2 accompanied you back to our galaxy. Though I have no
clue how they got to the Elder galaxy in the first place. I’m going to need you to tell me everything.”
“Where to start...” Robert said.
“How about the beginning?” Jonathan suggested.
seventeen
Jonathan sat back while the commander seemed to organize his thoughts.
“The beginning,” Robert said. “All right. Not long after you departed, we discovered an alien shipyard on a moon orbiting the third gas giant of the Elder system. We believe it was the source of the six Raakarr ships that attacked during our engagement there.”
“You’re talking about the six ships that came before the alien reinforcements arrived from our galaxy?”
“That’s right,” Robert said. “We took a sample of the microbots they used to construct the ships, and then lasered the site to hell.”
“And let me guess, the admiral has already sequestered the sample.”
“Surprisingly, she hasn’t,” Robert replied. “She hinted that the battle group scientists already had similar samples in their possession.”
“Yes,” Jonathan said. “The fleet encountered a few Raakarr shipyards on the way here. I’m sure she’ll make you give it up when our reinforcements arrive. So what happened after that? You finished constructing the return Gate?”
“Not quite,” Robert said. “About three months into the construction, we were attacked by a strange ship. It emerged from the Slipstream and destroyed our Builder, stranding us in the system.”
“Strange ship?” Jonathan said.
“Yes,” Robert said. “It looked like it was cobbled together from parts of other spacecraft. Have a look”
A request appeared on Jonathan’s aReal. He accepted. A holographic ship appeared in the space between himself and the commander. The virtual vessel slowly revolved in place. Twin wings protruded from a central cigar segment, slightly reminding him of a United Systems corvette. But that was where the similarities ended, because everywhere the hull was uneven and dented, with sharp protrusions at random places, almost like its parts were salvaged from other craft.
“Scavengers of some kind?” Jonathan asked. “A branch of Elder?”
“Who knows?” Robert said. “Could be scavengers, or maybe they’re just badly damaged. And there’s no way to tell if they were members of the Elder race.”
Jonathan rubbed his chin. “You say the ship attacked you and destroyed the Builder. What then?”
“It retreated through the same Slipstream,” Robert said. “And into Vega 951, presumably.”
“You think it came from another system in the Elder galaxy?”
“Yes,” Robert said. “As we now know, a Slipstream doesn’t necessarily have to point back to the system that led to it.”
“Though it usually does,” Jonathan said. “Unless the Elder decide to meddle.”
“That’s right,” Robert said. “In any case, we believe this ship came from an adjacent system in the Elder galaxy. The aliens probably didn’t expect to encounter us, but if we hold true with the scavenger theory, it was an opportunity they couldn’t refuse. By fleeing through the same Slipstream, the aliens probably believed they would be returned to the system they came from, not another galaxy.”
Jonathan tapped his lips. “So they entered Vega 951 ahead of you. You know, when our battle group passed into this system, there was no sign of the enemy save for a razed shipyard. I wonder if that was the handiwork of that strange ship of yours. Perhaps they drove out any other Raakarr from the system. That would explain why we didn’t encounter any initial resistance.”
“You think that ship is still hiding in this system?” Robert asked.
“It’s certainly possible,” Jonathan said. “Though doubtful. More likely they’ve proceeded into 2-Vega or 3-Vega—they obviously don’t need Gates to traverse Slipstreams, just like almost every other race besides humanity, it seems. Unless they have a way to mask their signature from our telemetry drones... we’ve mapped the entire system, and detected nothing. Then again, we did discover a Raakarr probe hiding in the thermal wash of the star. It’s possible they’re doing something similar.”
Robert rubbed his earlobe. “Wouldn’t plasma-penetrating X-LIDAR find the ship?”
“Depends,” Jonathan said. “The range of X-LIDAR is limited. We’d have to launch several throwaway drones close to the star, essentially losing them, because they wouldn’t be able to escape the mass.”
“How did you discover the Raakarr probe, then?” Robert said.
“It gave itself away by transmitting a gamma ray signal toward 2-Vega,” Jonathan said. “So we were able to launch a nuke toward the general location, and it used X-LIDAR to finalize the target coordinates.”
“I’m not sure I buy that the scavenger ship is hiding there,” Robert said. “The Delta Vs for the kind of ship we’re talking about, that close to the sun, are huge. They’d have to be in a decaying orbit, and probably unable to achieve escape velocity.”
“What if they utilize the same reactionless drive tech as the Elder?” Jonathan said.
“I’m not sure about that,” Robert replied. “The ship seemed to obey classic Newtonian physics. But then again, they could have been merely pretending a Newtonian constraint. Some of their maneuvers, like their quick retreat, barely fall inside the realm of the classical, and definitely hint at a reactionless solution, or perhaps a combination classical-reactionless engine.”
“Well,” Jonathan said. “Let’s just hope it stays in Raakarr space, sowing panic and confusion among our enemies. So... with the Gate only partially complete, and your Builder destroyed, what did you do after that?”
“We looked into the feasibility of creating another Builder,” Robert said. “But with the technology and resources available to us, it just wasn’t possible. We decided we would wait and see if the Elder returned, and hope that they could help us out of our mess, though we had no means of communicating with them even if they did return. A month passed. Two. The situation began to appear hopeless. Many of us began to face the prospect that we weren’t going home. We looked into the feasibility of settling some of the planets and moons with biodomes. Morale was at an all time low across the task group.
“And then, from the same Slipstream the Elder had emerged from on the far side of the system, we detected new heat signatures. They belonged to United Systems vessels.”
“Task Group 12.5.2,” Jonathan said.
“The very same,” Robert replied. “Apparently, in addition to changing the outgoing endpoint of the 1-Vega Slipstream in Vega 951, the Elder also moved the destination endpoint on the Prius 3 side, so instead of leading to Vega 951 it looped back to the Elder galaxy.”
“What a tangled web the Elder weave,” Jonathan said.
“Yes,” Robert said. “That destination system was adjacent to our own, so that when 12.5.2 finished Building a Gate, thinking they would return to Prius 3, they ended up in our system, emerging from the farther Slipstream. They helped us complete the return Gate, and here we are.”
“Did I say a tangled web?” Jonathan said. “I meant a confusing one. Ignotum per ignotius.”
“What’s that?”
“When the explanation is harder to understand than the thing it is meant to explain,” Jonathan said. “I’m going to call the system where the Callaway and Task Group 72.5 resided in that galaxy: Callaway. And where the Elder emerged from: Elder. So you’re saying 12.5.2 traveled into the Slipstream in Prius 3 nearly a year ago, intending to search for us, but ended up in Elder. It wasn’t the same system where that scavenger ship came from?”
“No,” Robert said. “We can call that system Scavenger, if you like.”
“All right,” Jonathan said. “12.5.2 began constructing a Gate in Elder, while you were attacked by that ship from Scavenger. 12.5.2 finished its Gate, passed through into Callaway, and then finished the Gate your own Builder was working on so that you could return to Vega 951.”
“That’s exactly right,” Robert
said.
“Okay, that makes some small sense now,” Jonathan said. “So, 12.5.2 didn’t encounter a Möbius strip vessel in Elder?”
“No,” Robert said. “They didn’t detect any vessels or settlements of any kind. They proceeded straightaway to constructing the return Gate. They did launch a few exploratory telemetry probes, but again, found nothing.”
“You must have been taken mightily off guard when you emerged from the Slipstream to discover our fleet under attack by Raakarr.”
“To be honest,” Robert said. “We didn’t know what to expect, but we were ready for anything. We quickly sized up the situation, and realized there was something of value aboard the destroyer the Raakarr were towing, so we came to the rescue. What was so important about that ship anyway, by the way? Or did the Raakarrr just want to capture some of our technology, and that destroyer just got unlucky?”
“We’ll get to that,” Jonathan said. “One thing I don’t understand is why you emerged from 3-Vega instead of 1-Vega like the Talon. Did you not construct the return Gate around the same Slipstream the Talon passed through?”
“Actually we did,” Robert said. “But the Elder must have changed the endpoint on us again. Perhaps the Elder were watching, as they promised they would do, and when the battle between the human fleet and the Raakarr unfolded in Vega 951, they decided to change the endpoint to 3-Vega instead of 1-Vega, so that when we passed through we’d be right here, ready to intercept the enemy.”
“So your guess is that they were trying to help us,” Jonathan said.
“That would be my guess, yes,” Robert replied. “At least in that situation.”
“Even though they were the ones who had changed the endpoint of 3-Vega to loop back into Raakarr space instead of the Tau Ceti star in the first place,” Jonathan said.
“I didn’t know about that,” Robert said.
“Yes,” Jonathan said. “It’s true. 3-Vega no longer leads into the core of the Tau Ceti sun. We’ve lost our strategic advantage against the Sino-Koreans, not that we ever intended to detonate their star, not anymore.” Jonathan shook his head. “To be honest, I think the Elder are toying with us. This is all one big game to them. They don’t want us to win, but they don’t want us to lose, either. They want to draw out the entertainment for as long as possible. They haven’t witnessed such engaging sport for a few millennia.”
