by Evan Currie
Since they had priority with the control network, the shuttle soon began its descent. Gracen felt the first slight buffets of atmospheric turbulence through the seat she was strapped into. It was, to her mind, a point of no return. She was deep enough within the magnetic field of the planet that Gaia had to have read her.
I wonder how long it will be before she makes her appearance, Gracen wondered. Quickly, or will it bide its time?
“Why wait?”
Gracen tried not to jump, and the straps holding her down kept her in her seat at least, but she felt like her body had just attempted to make an orbital burn all on its own. As her heart raced, she twisted in her seat to see that her once empty compartment was now home to another passenger.
The woman or, rather, female-formed entity that was sitting there with a beatific smile on her face just looked back with no reaction to Gracen’s glare. Gaia, if anything, seemed far calmer than Weston’s descriptions had painted her. She appeared as a tall woman, over six feet, with thick and wild hair that almost seemed to have a life of its own. Smooth, dark skin offered features that stood out all the more as she smiled, her teeth almost a blinding white.
“I was rather put out at the time my dear captain, well . . . commodore now, I suppose,” the woman mused. “Where was I? Oh yes, I was rather put out at the time I met with him. Those things were quite distasteful. I really have no way to describe them that you might understand. They were like mental . . . parasites, perhaps, scratching at my brain.”
Gaia shrugged casually. “Without them, and with the whole world’s focus now beyond the edge of the atmosphere . . . beyond the stellar envelope itself . . . well, I’ve been feeling rather cheerful and optimistic lately. It’s almost similar to how you humans feel when smoking marijuana, or when you’re deep in fantasy, I suppose.”
Gracen’s eyes widened at that statement, not remotely sure how to process the thought or if she should even try. She elected to change the subject. “Weston and Tanner suggested that you would probably make yourself known.”
“Of course they did.” Gaia smiled. “You’d be surprised how much I, and I suspect the one known as Central, actually make ourselves known. During the invasion I whispered advice in many ears, Admiral, and I have walked softly among you for millennia. However, you are fully aware of me, and you hold a fascinating bit of information. One I could hardly resist, if I were to be honest. Odysseus. Truly fascinating.”
“It’s messing with a warship we can hardly afford to have running at less than optimum efficiency.” Gracen scowled. “‘Fascinating’ might be accurate in peacetime, but this is anything but. According to Tanner, Central has never encountered anything like this. I don’t suppose you might have better answers?”
Gaia was silent for a moment. “Answers? No. Those I do not have, Admiral. Ideas? Thoughts? Suspicions? Those, I have aplenty.”
Gracen waited a few beats before growing frustrated. “I don’t suppose you care to share?”
Gaia smiled slightly, shaking her head. “Not at this time. Good voyages, Admiral. I will, as you say, be in touch.”
Gracen blinked and the seat beside her was again empty, leaving her to wonder just how she was supposed to deal with the universe from a position that held any remote connection to rationality.
The whole damned universe had gone mad since that day she’d seen Eric Weston off in the Odyssey on her maiden voyage.
The garden was one of the most perfect places on Earth and possibly in the entire galaxy, to Gaia’s thoughts at least. Certainly, she hadn’t seen anything remotely close to it in the memories of her children who had traveled far and returned.
She walked barefoot across the ground cover, a thick, luxurious moss that was deep green and cool to the touch. Her sheer gown, an affectation of human fashion that would have appeared at home in an artist’s rendition of a dream or fantasy sequence, flowed with each step.
Above her, the stars beamed down, shimmering through the atmosphere as she paused near a large central tree. Gaia reached out to press her hand into the rough bark, considering what she had learned.
Odysseus was a puzzle, but she did have her suspicions.
During the last battle of the invasion, she had quickly entered the ship as it passed, briefly encountering the minds of the crew and more. She remembered looking deep into the singularity, a point of infinite blackness, and being shocked when for a split second she saw something other than infinity. It was like a reflection, though not precisely.
Again, she found herself unable to describe the scenario. Something seemed entirely off above all, and she had no frame of reference even in her own mind. It was just . . . experience.
No one had ever experienced anything like this, not ever in all of Earth’s history, and possibly never in the history of time itself.
No words could exist to describe it, and yet she longed for one. Just one word that fit.
Gaia never would have believed that she could be so tied to language, and yet there it was. For all her mental acuity, infinite memory, and transcendental experiences . . . by human standards . . . she craved a word.
Ultimately, she would have to endure without it for the moment.
“Humans—such interesting beings, are they not, my dear?”
The sudden voice caused Gaia to pivot slightly as a large blond figure appeared some distance behind her. Power emanated from him in tangible ways, but he seemed largely indifferent in tone and attitude.
“Saul,” she said with a slightly annoyed tone. “What brings you here?”
“Merely this new development,” Saul told her. “I don’t believe I’ve ever had something with this level of fascination happen. Literally ever. It’s all rather amusing.”
Gaia rolled her eyes. “You find everything amusing.”
“And nothing,” the big man agreed affably. “Should I care about them? Really?”
“What are we without them? Their thoughts are our thoughts,” Gaia challenged. “I remember the early days, the bestial urges that those such as we could never fulfill. The frustrations of it all, in the lack of understanding or logic.”
“You believe your memory is somehow superior to mine?” Saul snorted. “Gaia, you are too soft on them.”
Wind rustled around her as she turned to face off, her hair flowing as her eyes blazed.
“I am the gentle mother and the vengeful bitch,” she snarled. “But that does not mean I must be cold and uncaring. I am not you, Saul.”
“Give it time,” he told her, unimpressed by the display she’d just created. “You’ll come around, eventually.”
“We are the same age of mind, Saul,” Gaia snapped. “Stop acting as though you’re my father, or some idiot older sibling.”
“I am older than you can imagine.”
“And yet you’re still a thirteen-year-old child, petulantly pretending greatness as your own when it has been inherited from others at best, or is a mere reflection of others at worst. Go. Leave my garden, Saul.”
The big man pulled himself up to his full height, power rolling off him in waves. “You believe that they are somehow special. They believe that they are special. I see them for what they are. Merely another insignificant species in a long line of insignificant species. Open your eyes, Gaia. They are nothing to us, nothing to you. They’re arrogant enough to believe they can hide their thoughts from us by staying away . . .”
“And are they not right?” Gaia asked with a soft smile. “The only mistake they made is in the range, and if someone told them about you, they would correct that mistake promptly.”
Saul drew back. “You would not dare.”
“Wouldn’t I? Be gone, Saul. We will have words another time, when you are more inclined to civility.”
Saul glowered at her for a time before he finally vanished, leaving Gaia alone in her garden aside from a scorched spot where the other had been standing. She sighed and waved her hand, causing the ground to writhe with green as moss grew back, leav
ing the garden unmarred once more.
There was a great deal to think on and decisions to be made.
AEV Enterprise, Sol System
“All systems secured,” Commander Bride reported. “Word from the COB is that all new munitions and equipment have been loaded, stored, and secured, sir.”
“That’s good news, Commander,” James said. “Contact Unity and clear us for departure, then get a course for the heliopause. We’ll transition directly to Ranquil as soon as we’re outside the solar influence.”
“Aye Skipper,” Bride said before heading off to issue the orders.
James noted his departure in a vague sort of way, but was more intent on studying the likely composition of enemy forces.
The Empire seemed to prefer a fleet of heavy combat vessels rather than the mix of light and medium ships that had been the standard for Earth’s Blue Navy even through the Block War. Their version of heavy was so damned heavy that they could absorb insane levels of fighting before being destroyed.
That put a carrier platform, like the Enterprise, in an odd situation.
Normally, the ability to project force through her fighters was a game-changing factor in a conflict. The small Vorpals he commanded could flit in and out of an area, all but invisible to anything but an accidental direct scan in the deep black, while packing as much power as one could expect from a formidable task force.
The problem was that the enemy ships could easily stand off a not-insignificant task force and remain operable afterward.
How the hell can my fighters take on something that can just absorb that kind of firepower? Don’t these damn things have any weak points?
That seemed to be the overall problem, from what he could see. While they likely did have weak spots, they seemed to be buried deep inside dozens of meters of armor and deck after deck of nonessential sections. It was good military design, and good space design, and was a pain in the ass for him to game as the Op Force.
He was sourly aware that the enemy was just as likely having similar issues trying to figure out how to crack the Heroics. But he wasn’t in command of a Heroic. His command was a flying eggshell that carried even more fragile flying eggshells. They all packed a rather large number of hammers to throw at the enemy, but that wouldn’t do much good if they were cracked before they got a chance to unload them.
He had no doubt that every captain in the Black Navy, along with a large number of minds in other services, were currently struggling with the very same problems. They were in a time crunch, and that meant that everyone was going to be throwing whatever they could find at the wall and hoping to hell some of it would stick.
I hope the admiral has a real solution up her sleeve, but in the meantime . . . James frowned, looking at the munitions list they’d loaded onto the Big E in the last few days, noticing the large shipments intended for the Vorpal squadrons.
“Commander, you have the bridge,” he said, standing up. “I’ll be in main engineering, speaking with Chief Yu.”
“Aye Captain, I have the bridge,” Bride said automatically as James cleared his station and stepped away.
Bride took his place, and James started making his way down through the decks to main engineering.
Chief Yu was one of the many Block specialists for the Alcubierre Warp Drive that all Earth ships had been fitted with, including the Enterprise. The Confederation and its allies had significant experience in tachyon transition drives, which, while terrifying, were far faster, but the Block scientists were the acknowledged experts in warp drives.
James had done his research, which he tried to do for most of the critical systems that his ship relied on, to avoid getting lost when the tech geeks started talking.
He took the lift straight down to the engineering decks, feeling gravity lessen as the lift slowed its spin to match microgravity conditions. When the lift stopped, James kicked out and drifted onto the deck, keeping to the walls and as out of the way as he could.
“Petty officer”—he flagged down a woman who was sailing past—“point me to Chief Yu?”
“Down that way, Skipper,” she said, gesturing behind her as she floated by, not offering up a salute.
He didn’t blink, just kicked off in the opposite direction. Salutes and other protocol were generally suspended in microgravity. Just figuring out what direction was up could take a group of people an absolutely stupid amount of time.
He sailed into the counter-mass control section of the ship, taking care not to make contact with anything or anyone. He was probably being paranoid, James knew, since few designs were so crappy as to leave anything overly critical exposed that could be fouled up by a single accident, but there were enough nasty things on a vessel the size of the Enterprise that he would rather not tempt fate.
“Chief!” he called out, grabbing a hand grip as he slid past, arresting his motion and causing him to swing in place until he stopped.
Yu Imam looked over and spotted him. “Captain.”
The man unstrapped himself from the console he was working on and drifted over to James’ location. “May I be of service, sir?”
“Yes, thank you, Chief,” James said. “I’ve been looking over our inventory and trying to work out a doctrine that’s feasible against the Imperial forces, and I wanted to speak with you about the warp drive.”
Yu cringed slightly. “Captain, if this is about the maneuver done by my countryman during the invasion, I strongly advise that be considered a final option only. Destabilizing the warp field is . . . not kind to the drives.”
James put up his hands, chuckling dryly. “Not that specifically, no, and I fully agree, Chief. We’ll not blow our warp field unless we’ve exhausted all other options. From what I understand, it would be of limited value against the Imperial ships anyway, since they use gravity drives to warp space themselves. The high-energy particles would be attenuated by their drives unless we caught them with their pants down.”
Yu looked puzzled as he worked his way through the captain’s phrasing, then nodded as relief washed over him.
“Precisely, Captain. I am pleased that you have been studying the mechanism,” the chief said. “Since you are not asking me to rupture space-time and destroy my drives, what service may I provide, Captain?”
James smiled slightly, almost despite himself. “I wanted to inquire as to the difference between the counter-mass tech we use and the warp drive itself.”
“Ah . . .” Yu nodded slowly. “That answer is rather technical, but in the simplest terms, Captain, the counter-mass technology is only one half of a warp drive . . .”
He trailed off, thinking his way through his response. “Strictly speaking, a warp drive is simply two opposed counter-mass fields. One is providing a negative mass effect, while the other is providing a positive mass effect . . .”
“Our missiles do that already,” James said.
“Yes, but only one effect at any given moment,” Yu said. “Lessen mass to accelerate, increase mass to provide more kinetic impact. A warp drive must do both at once, and project the effect away from the ship.”
James considered that for a moment. “So we could put warp fields on our missiles if we doubled up the CM generators and found a way to project the field?”
“Ah. You wish for hyperlight missiles, yes? I understand. Yes, this could be done. However, the missiles would have to be much larger and the range would be rather short I’m afraid.”
“Short?”
“Yes, the balance would be nearly impossible to maintain,” Yu said. “The reasons are difficult to break down easily, but even for tactical ranges, one would have to get remarkably close to the enemy.”
“How close?”
“In combat terms? Inside the enemy’s point defenses, sir. Within a hundred thousand kilometers, at best,” Yu answered.
To James, the chief was clearly right. That was close in Black Navy terms. Ships would never survive closing to that range, not against the overwhelming force the enem
y had brought to the table at least.
Ships wouldn’t.
“Could you make the modifications?” he asked quietly.
“Captain, the range issues—”
“More importantly,” James interrupted, holding up a hand, “could you make these modifications to the Vorpals’ missiles?”
Yu shifted back, surprised and thoughtful.
“Possibly,” he admitted. “It would reduce the payload overall, however.”
“Do it,” James ordered. “Figure out how to alter our missiles and do it. We’re going to need every edge we can get, and if that means we have to send our Vorpals into the teeth of the enemy, well, that’s what they signed up for. Just make sure that when they’re there, they have a real weapon in their hands, Chief.”
“I will do what can be done, Captain,” Yu said, mind clearly racing as he considered the captain’s request.
“Thank you,” James said, pushing back on the hand grip. “As you were, Chief.”
CHAPTER 14
AEV Boudicca, Marta System, Priminae Space
“Gravity waves inbound, Skipper.”
Captain Hyatt nodded grimly. She’d been expecting that announcement for several hours, and the tension had slowly been ratcheting up as the time wore on. It was almost a relief to hear it, finally, but only almost. The precursor of the inbound fleet’s gravity waves could be detected in quantum flux if you knew what you were looking at and had an idea of what was coming.
That was a good thing, because if they had to wait for the actual gravity shift to be detected, the enemy would be among them before the gravity “boom” of their passing could be detected.
Faster-than-light technology presented many unique and headache-inducing problems for the captain of a warship.
“Understood,” she said. “Stand by to initiate.”
“Aye aye, ma’am,” her tactical and weapons expert, Lieutenant Commander Geoff Maxim, answered. “Initiation ready on your command.”
