This Corner of the Universe

by Britt Ringel

“Right, a fused power relay,” Heskan finished for him and scratched his chin. “Okay, Jack. You and your section have done good work. I need you to do one more thing for me though. Take the power relay out and really dig into it. I’d like to know exactly where it fused, how long ago it fused and so on. Hell, if you can tell me how much radiation it absorbed before it died, I’d want to know that too.”

  “Yes, sir,” Truesworth answered back as Heskan hid his smile.

  Your mouth says “yes, sir” but your eyes say “wild goose chase,” Ensign. Heskan smiled after Truesworth left his quarters. I guess I can’t blame you but you might as well learn sooner than later that superior officers want overkill on projects like this. Well, good superior officers do.

  Chapter 6

  Anelace spent the next two weeks loitering around the edge of the Beta Field, monitoring the ore extractors. If an ore extractor suffered an accident, the intent was to move Anelace in quickly and then lend support to the distressed craft. During this downtime, the crew settled into a standard routine. Most watched the latest Slamball sporting games that had been transmitted to Anelace from Nomad when their standard data computers synchronized. Since news traveled only at the speed of light, it was standard practice to have passing ships exchange information.

  Not long after the discovery of tunnel points, this exchange custom was made automatic and instant with the use of specialized computers that swapped and updated news, sporting events, movies, books and anything else placed into the collective information database known as the “standata.” As soon as a ship, buoy, or orbital station was identified as friendly, standata was synchronized so that each party had the latest information available. Nomad’s standata, like most civilian cargo ships, had significant updates for Anelace.

  In the ship’s mess hall, which also served as a recreation area, Heskan watched the Slamball quarterfinals between the Anthe Scrappers and the Tetium Tempests. Quite a crowd had gathered for the game and the room had taken on a relaxed and jovial atmosphere. Crewmembers laughed and cheered as they followed the game, which diverted their attention, at least momentarily, from how far they were from home. While Heskan didn’t miss his “home,” he enjoyed spending time with his crew and watching them interact.

  They really have bonded with each other, he thought as he looked around the room. Sitting not too far away was a contingent of the operations section, Spacemen Cook, Diaz, Gables and Getney. The group was teasing Damage Controlman Gables who, wearing her Tempests jersey, was currently lamenting a Tetium turnover. On the other side of the room, Anelace’s weapons section was represented. Gunner’s Mate Second Class Pruette and three spacemen from the LAZ weapons subsection were clearly pulling for the Scrappers. As Heskan took in the atmosphere, he realized how protective he was beginning to feel of his crew. Chances are we’ll never see any real danger this far away from everyone, he comforted himself, but I don’t know how I’d ever forgive myself if something happened to this little family.

  Heskan’s eyes moved from the wall screen to the door as Anelace’s weapons officer, Lieutenant Vernay, entered the room and grabbed a snack. As she smiled and nodded her way past the members of her duty section, the crowd exploded into collective cheers and groans that brought Heskan’s attention back to the game. He watched as a flanker from the Tempests snatched up the ball and lithely avoided two defending Scrappers to score.

  Barely audible over the noise, Heskan heard Vernay’s voice, “May I join you, Captain?”

  “Of course, Stacy. Let me scoot over a bit and give you some room. I guess you don’t need much.” Heskan slid his tray over to make some space for the lieutenant.

  Vernay sat down gracefully and looked up at the screen. “There’s no better flanker than Tony Campbell.”

  Heskan shook his head, “He’s good but what about Lace’s Julian Gonzalez? He broke nearly every season record last year.”

  Vernay smiled, “Yes, but he has the best aggressor line in the league. It’s pretty easy to run through holes as big as Ana. Campbell is much younger and earns every meter he gets. Plus, Gonzalez got hurt two months ago.”

  The room erupted into cheers once more as Campbell again dodged two defenders and then bowled over a final one to tie the game. Spaceman Gables was jumping up and down in delight and even Heskan was impressed by the young flanker. “You might be right, Stacy.” Vernay wiggled her eyebrows up and down as if to say “I told you so,” and then laughed as she watched Gables’ victory dance. “She has a lot to celebrate,” Vernay said loudly, trying to be heard over the ruckus.

  “Who?” Heskan asked as he watched the replay of Campbell’s magnificent run.

  Vernay pointed at Gables. “Denise. She found out she was accepted into the next cycle for Officer Training School. So was Glen Jamison.” Vernay smiled even wider. PO2 Jamison served in her section at the portside Number Two Laser position. She had dedicated dozens of hours preparing and motivating him for the officer’s qualifying tests and meticulously helped craft his application, and she was now basking in the knowledge that she had helped open a door to a larger universe for one of her own. Originally, Vernay had thought all the work had been for nothing as Jamison had been a “non-select” for the last cycle. However, all applications were automatically resubmitted for a second cycle and he had beaten the odds and been accepted for the upcoming training class. The news had reached them with the latest standata and meant that both spacemen would probably have to hitch a ride with a freighter out of Skathi as the beginning of the next cycle was only three months away. Vernay’s section would be short-handed in the meantime but she considered it a small price to pay for launching a promising officer’s career.

  “That’s great news, Stacy. Be sure to remind me in tomorrow’s staff meeting so we can plan a proper send-off for them,” Heskan replied as he watched the game.

  On the wall screen, the Tetium Tempests shot the ball over to Anthe and players collided as the Tempests stopped the Scrappers’ assault. With the Tempests in possession, the crowd in the mess hall started to get loud again. The cheering grew in intensity as the ball was pitched backwards to Campbell, who was immediately surrounded by four Scrappers. Campbell shook off two players but the other two held on tightly as Campbell dragged them meter after meter. With each step of the beleaguered flanker, the crowd in the mess hall cheered louder and louder.

  The volume of the game suddenly muted as the compartment’s speakers chimed and the voice of Petty Officer Deveraux came through. “Captain Heskan, we have a tunnel drive disturbance at the Narvi point. It’s hard to read this close to the Beta Field but the signal seems like a freighter’s beacon, distance unknown. Her beacon color and ID are unknown. Sensors confirm a ship but we’re too far out for anything else.”

  The volume immediately returned and the crowd in the mess hall talked excitedly about the flanker’s incredible strength.

  “I guess that’s my cue. Nice chatting with you, Stacy,” Heskan said as he got up from the table and departed.

  Out in the corridor, Heskan initiated communications with the bridge from his datapad. He could have opened a comm link in the mess hall but there was no reason to make everyone remain quiet while he conducted routine operations. There’s no rush, we’re a full twenty-five light-minutes from the tunnel point and we won’t get a clear picture until we get through the Beta Field.

  “Bridge, Captain, report.” Heskan liked keeping communications simple and short.

  This time, Heskan’s first officer responded, “Still too much disturbance to get a lot, Captain. The navigation buoy amplified that ship’s beacon so we can detect it but sitting right at the edge of the Beta Field makes it too hard to get a clearer transmission. I’ve ordered Anelace on an intercept course in anticipation of us escorting the ship to the RALF. We’re making our way through the Beta Field at point one-C and I estimate we’ll be clear of it in fifty minutes. After that, we should have a much better sensor picture, sir.”

  “Very well, Mike. My
shift starts in a couple hours so I’m going to go to my cabin and get cleaned up. I’ll relieve you in a while.”

  Heskan heard his first officer acknowledge and then ended his transmission. This system would be a nightmare to defend from invasion, Heskan thought. All we would get is a warning that ships tunneled in and then we’d have to get past the asteroid fields before we knew what we were up against. I guess you’d have to have pickets on the outside of the Beta Field all the time and relay what they saw to the inner part of the system. On the other hand, any ship that dove in would be equally blind. That freighter won’t have a clue we’re here until we’re past the Beta Field, at which point only then will they be able to detect our ship’s beacon.

  Heskan passed through the quiet corridors of the lower deck, greeting the rare passerby. This early in the day, most people were either on duty, asleep or watching the Slamball game. Heskan skipped the ladder, took the elevator to the upper deck and walked down the officer’s quarters portion of the long, single hallway. When he reached his cabin, he quickly took a sani-shower and put on a fresh uniform. With plenty of time before his shift started, he decided to review the freighter schedule for the next few weeks. Most of the time there would be none or only one freighter in the system. However, on a few occasions, there would be multiple cargo ships; one traveling to the mining station, one traveling to the Narvi tunnel point. Heskan had decided to place Anelace at the Beta Field during those instances so she could help the freighters navigate the most treacherous leg of the journey.

  He was deep in thought when his cabin chime sounded. “Captain, we’ve exited the Beta Field and have a good picture of the freighter. Her beacon is green and ID says she is the Vagabond. Visual confirms a HandySize bulk cargo ship.”

  Heskan answered, “Thank you, Mike. I’ll be up shortly.”

  Forty minutes later, Lieutenant Riedel chimed Heskan again. “Sorry to bother you again, Captain, but something strange just happened. The freighter just came about and is heading back toward the tunnel point to Narvi.”

  “Was there a change in her beacon, Mike?” Heskan queried.

  “No, and nothing we can pick up visually explains why she reversed course. She’s not leaking anything and her emissions are normal,” the first officer answered.

  “On my way.”

  * * *

  “Captain on the bridge,” Riedel called out.

  “What have you got, Mike?” Heskan asked.

  Riedel ran his fingers through his hair as he spoke, “She’s still going back, sir. I sent a message out to her asking her why she turned and if we can render assistance but it won’t reach her for another ten minutes. Any reply from her will take another ten to get back to us.”

  Heskan looked at the system plot on the main screen. The plot was zoomed in to focus on Anelace and the freighter. It showed the blue blip of Anelace with smaller “vector dots” behind her representing her course over the last hour. Ten light-minutes ahead of her was the green blip of the freighter Vagabond, the dots of her course confirming a one hundred eighty degree turn back toward the Narvi tunnel point. Surrounding the green blip was a lighter green, roughly circular shaded area that represented a margin of error for the ship’s actual location. Since the information Anelace was currently seeing was ten minutes old, the freighter could have theoretically changed course again and Anelace would not know it until the light from the freighter traveled the 180,000,000 kilometers to Anelace.

  Heskan’s hand absently scratched his chin. Why would it turn around? The ship looks fine, and, at any rate, if it were damaged why would you stress it further with the distortion waves a dive inflicts? What do you see that we can’t?

  Riedel thinking along the same lines ordered, “Sensors, full sweep. Give me the status of the RALF.”

  The order was acknowledged and Heskan’s attention returned to the plot. You turned around forty minutes after we broke clear of the Beta Field… Ack! No, I’m wrong! You turned around twenty minutes after we broke clear and it took another twenty minutes for us to see it. Heskan ran some quick calculations to confirm his theory. You turned around not because you saw something we haven’t but because you saw us.

  “Navigation, max speed, full military acceleration,” Heskan commanded. “Deveraux, tell that freighter to heave to and cut her engines, and don’t make it a request.”

  After the stunned silence of a few seconds, both stations quickly complied. Anelace powered forward on her Allison drives. Her speed leapt from .1c to .2c. She would eventually top out at .3c given the command of “maximum speed.”

  Riedel gave his captain a questioning look, “Sir?”

  “That freighter is running, Mike. Look at the plot. She turned around right when she saw us. We haven’t been on station long enough for freighters to know we’re in this system and Vagabond wasn’t expecting to see us.”

  Heskan turned to the navigator third class manning the navigation station. “Can we reach her in time, Mark?”

  “I’ll calculate, sir,” he nervously replied. After a minute that seemed to drag on forever, the navigator said, “It’s going to be close, sir. We might be a little late. They’ll be able to generate a tunnel effect in forty-two minutes. At .3c, we’ll reach them in forty-seven minutes.”

  Heskan activated a communications link to Engineering. A voice responded, “Engineman Second Class Ross, sir.”

  “PO Ross, I need Lieutenant Jackamore in Engineering right away.”

  “He just walked in, sir. I paged him when we got the max speed order.”

  Smart man, thought Heskan. “Good call, Ross. Lieutenant Jackamore, if you look at your plot you can see we’re chasing a freighter.”

  A few seconds later, he answered, “Looking at it now, sir. It looks like we’ll come up short. Let me guess…”

  Heskan nodded even though there was no way for the engineering officer to see it. “Can you give me point three-two-C, Brandon?”

  The lieutenant answered immediately, “I think so, sir. Ana can’t dash that fast forever but we’ll see how long she can hold it.” The incredible amounts of power needed to achieve the speed would diminish once Anelace reached it but the power requirements to maintain Anelace’s structural integrity and suppress inertia actually increased over time and speed due to the Hoss-Boland effect.

  Lieutenant Vernay and Ensigns Truesworth and Selvaggio entered the bridge out of breath. They quickly nodded to Heskan as they took the primary seats of their respective stations. The second shift navigator, gunner and sensorman stood by their section heads.

  Selvaggio’s soprano voice called out, “Updated time to intercept is now forty-two minutes, six seconds. Vagabond will enter the tunnel point effect zone in forty-one minutes.”

  “If they maintain their speed,” Riedel commented.

  Heskan looked knowingly at him. “Fat chance in that but we have to try.” Heskan rose from his chair and took the three steps necessary to move next to Lieutenant Vernay. “Go ahead and call the ship to action stations, Stacy. I doubt we’ll get Vagabond into our weapons envelope for some warning shots but I want to be ready in case we do.”

  The action stations alarm sounded throughout the ship. The second shift crew who were standing next to their officers exited the bridge to head toward their assigned action stations.

  Heskan reseated himself and watched as his chair arm console displayed Anelace’s status. Each of her sections would turn green as they readied up. Right now, all crewmembers were running to their assigned stations. Down in Auxiliary Control, the second command team was forming up, ready to assume command in case the bridge was destroyed. In the bow of the ship, the Kruger Mk 237 mass driver was spinning up and being loaded with a 0.762 meter wide kinetic projectile. Each of the four general-purpose lasers was cycling through its warm-up procedures and training out toward the freighter. Chief Brown’s operations crew was staging at strategically placed damage control rooms throughout the ship, ready to act as corpsmen and damage control partie
s. Ensign Truesworth’s sensors crew of three was split; two in the main sensor room, continuously monitoring the data Anelace’s sensors were accumulating and one in the AIPS control room operating the corvette’s defensive screen. His section would also be responsible for estimating the battle damage that Anelace might inflict upon her foe. Ensign Selvaggio’s three crewmembers were in the main navigation room located on the lower deck, coordinating Anelace’s movements with Engineering. Far aft of the bridge, Lieutenant Brandon Jackamore had his entire twenty-man engineering department working hard to monitor not only the ship’s power plant and drives but also all the other vital systems running throughout the ship. Engineering’s other officer, Ensign Antipova, would be moving to the middle of the ship to lead the Auxiliary Control team.

  Once Heskan had ensured all stations were green, he checked the ship’s chronometer. One hundred forty-five seconds… that’s not bad but it could be better.

  Ten minutes later, Truesworth exclaimed, “Red shift! Vagabond is accelerating. She's at point one-two-C and increasing.”

  Selvaggio followed up dejectedly, “They’ll beat us to the tunnel point easily now.”

  Heskan ordered Anelace to reduce speed back to .3c. He still wanted a vigorous pursuit but there was no point in stressing the ship unnecessarily. During the remainder of the chase, Vagabond never responded to the challenges the corvette had issued and Heskan and the crew watched the freighter close the distance to the tunnel point and dive in. I wish we could follow her or even just get a message to Narvi to stop that ship, he thought futilely.

  Riedel grumbled, “If we had a second ship with us and had posted it at the buoy, we would’ve had her right as she tunneled into the system.”

  “Yep, and we can’t even get word to Narvi until the next freighter arrives, assuming that one doesn’t run too,” Heskan added bitterly. He stared at the plot for a full minute trying to think of options and then sighed.

  Anelace came down from action stations and reduced speed further when Heskan ordered her back to the Beta Field. “Let’s replay the whole feed again, folks. I want to watch everything, starting from the time Vagabond entered the system. We’re going to learn about that ship.”