She swallowed hard. “Yes, sir, Captain. And Sergeant Van Cleef is the best.”
“Of course he is,” Hannibal said. “Or he wouldn’t be on my ship.”
Hannibal left Valkyrie as her chin twitched and elevated an inch. He thought he detected a flicker of a smile in the corner of her mouth. He smiled to himself. If only it was all as easy.
Blok presented the Admiral and Hannibal to Chief Engineer Ffion Gonzalez.
Grint noticed the smear of engine oil on her cheek and wondered just how ready Valiant was for her first trial voyage.
“Gentlemen, if you could spare me two shakes of a gnat’s whiskers,” Gonzalez said. “Witness our state of the art tractor beam. The strongest in the fleet. And may I suggest the perfection of our gravity core? I guarantee it will make you feel as if you’re back home on Earth.”
“Sounds like a wager to me,” Finnean said. “What say you, Captain Grint?”
Grint shrugged.
Admiral Finnean put an arm around Gonzalez. He held up his cigar. “Chief, this here is a Vanguard special leaf torpedo. Said to be rolled on the inner thigh of a slave girl. If your gravity core can stop me spinning a smoke stack spiral, then I’ll sign off a shuttle cargo hold of rum for engineering section. Deal?”
They shook on it and headed for engineering. Grint followed with Blok. Neither saying what was on their minds.
“Going to be a long afternoon, Lieutenant,” Grint whispered to Blok.
She nodded. “You have no idea, Captain.”
“I don’t see Lieutenant Dax.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Apparently something important came up.”
“What exactly?”
“He wouldn’t say. Shall I summon him, sir?”
Hannibal felt grateful for the small mercy of noting First Officer Zen Dax obviously had better things to occupy his time than kissing the admiral’s medals.
“First we need to talk, Lieutenant.”
He noted she didn’t correct him for failing to address her by her new title, Commander. But her eyes narrowed. Her knuckles clenched white. She was bracing herself.
He held back to allow the admiral and Chief Engineer Gonzalez to take the elevator to Engineering. As the doors slid shut he turned to Blok.
“Admiralty promoted Dax above you.”
Her eyes widened. “Dax is leaving Valiant?”
“No. Admiralty denied your promotion.”
She bit her lower lip. “Dax is your new XO?”
“Correct, Lieutenant.”
“But you’re captain of Valiant and free to assign whoever you wish.”
“Finnean made Dax’s promotion a condition of my captaincy.”
“The boys’ club rules always win,” she spat. “You could at least hold out for promotion to admiral.”
“It’s not like that, Oksana.”
She shook her head. A tear formed in the corner of one eye. “Please don’t give me the speech about how things change if you play the game, Captain. It’s the year 2179 and women are still reminded of their second place. And now the Vanguards are on the scene human women ran even lower than ever.”
He felt his knuckles crack. He hated she was right.
Along with her damn tears, he sensed there was plenty more on her mind rapidly surfacing on the tip of her tongue. But he could only publicly take so much insubordination.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, Lieutenant.”
She swallowed hard and avoided his stare. “Thank you for informing me, Captain.”
“I’m sorry, Oksana,” Hannibal whispered. “If it was up to me...”
She turned her back on him and slapped the elevator wall button, hard. “No matter how technologically advanced we become...” she said and her voice trailed off. She let her head slump forward.
He reached out, hesitated, and placed a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged him off and cut through him with a bitter laugh.
“There’s never an elevator when you want one,” she said.
The elevator door opened and she squeezed into the crowded cubicle. She held up her palm to stop him joining her.
“A man like Dax won’t be around forever,” he said. “A year or two at most, and then--”
“The next one will be around soon enough, Captain,” she hissed. “A year or two at most.”
The doors slid shut on him with a bitter hiss.
Hannibal cracked his knuckles. Damn this man Dax. He better be worth the trouble he’s causing.
CHAPTER 5 - SABOTAGE
“Any problems installing the new propulsion drive, Chief?” Admiral Finnean asked as he chomped on his cigar.
“The Vanguard are a little touchy about their technology.”
Finnean smiled to himself. “Giving your team a hard time, are they?”
“Aye, Admiral. I have to ask you, what’s the point in having a faster-than-light-speed drive, if the Vanguard insist we install their limiters?”
“It’s all in negotiation. Give it time.”
Her eyes lit up. “Admiral, what say we disable the limiter, and take Valiant for a quick jaunt to Mars?”
He nodded and rubbed his dry throat. “Sure,” he said. “We could be back in port in less time than it takes to get a coffee around here.”
“Really?”
“Sure, Chief, and don’t worry yourself about the drive sensors automatically alerting the Vanguard, who will undoubtedly send their flagship Nightwing to obliterate Valiant.”
She winced at his sarcasm and they enjoyed the rest of the elevator ride in silence.
***
Captain Hannibal Grint entered Engineering section. Chief Engineer Gonzalez paced up and down in an observation gantry. She blasted up a gear into full animated zeal with her explanation of the Gravity Core.
A vast metallic spinning sphere, some two hundred feet in diameter, hovered in the air between two giant magnets in the middle of a cavernous, deep chamber. The core shimmered blue behind a force field. Mist rose from sub-zero vats.
At the north and south poles of the sphere, a Borealis of shimmering greens, pinks and blues seemed to Hannibal like phantoms trapped in another dimension of space and time. Along a criss-crossing platforms, engineers in bio insulation suits took readings on the ends of long poles. They seemed to Hannibal as if they were poking the eye of a malcontented demon.
Staring at it for too long produced hallucinations of tiny creatures scurrying across the surface of the core. Ghosting on his Interactive Reality lens, perhaps.
But, didn’t I ditch it?
Hannibal shivered. He blinked hard and shook his head. The creatures vanished.
The sooner he was on the bridge, the better. State of the art, the technology might well be, but this close to the core, Hannibal longed for the days when a captain relied on his Anti-Gravity boots keeping him upright on the deck of a starship. Or the docile science of a spinning orbital station’s centrifugal forces to approximate Earth-like gravity.
From a wide gantry lined with techs behind monitoring consoles, Gonzalez pointed downward.
“The vats help regulate the force field,” she said. “Which in turn help us control the fields of gravity produced by the core. Above us, magnets produce the core’s rate of spin.”
Admiral Finnean listened and nodded as he puffed out cigar smoke. A small cloud of smoke began to spiral down the dark abyss toward the mist and up again in an erratic path.
He shook his head. “Looks like I win, Chief.”
Gonzalez rubbed the spot of engine oil on her cheek and smeared it further across her brow. “I don’t understand,” she said and threw her hands in the air with apparent disgust. “It should be perfect.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Finnean said. “It’s damn good. The best I’ve experienced off planet, in fact. But a bet’s a bet. Better luck next time.”
Oksana asked Gonzalez how long it would take to run a full gravity core diagnostic.
“Why?”
“It will confirm
my suspicions.”
Admiral Finnean turned to Oksana. “Which are?”
“First I need evidence, Admiral,” she said in a calm, but authoritative manner. “Please hurry, Chief Engineer.”
“Have it for you in the beat of a gnat’s wing, Lieutenant,” Gonzalez said and nodded to her assistant. “At least we’ll understand the reason for the fluctuations.”
Hannibal considered now was as a good a time as any to start learning the names of his crew. He silently repeated three times the name beneath the insignia tag of the unremarkable looking young man assisting Gonzalez. “Siorus Nickel... tall, thin, shifty eyes, Siorus Nickel... tall, thin, shifty eyes, Siorus Nickel... skinny and shifty...”
The elevator doors slid open and Hannibal turned to watch a lieutenant step out. Everything about him seemed average. His height, not tall, but not short. His build, not lean, but not fat. His full set of hair an indistinct sandy brown swept across his head in an untidy, thick mass. His passive, pleasant, if somewhat bland looks, were forgettable. They portrayed nothing special or unique that might make anyone glance at him twice. It all made him perfect for his role aboard Valiant.
Hannibal knew this man would make a perfect spy, cable of slipping under anyone’s radar. The man singled out Hannibal, and standing to attention, he saluted.
“Lieutenant Dax, reporting for duty, Captain.”
Even his voice was bland. Perfect in every way. Except perhaps the eyes. The dull edge of emerald, would avoid attention, but they were a little too passive. Hannibal considered this man was trained to use peripheral vision techniques for enhancing his observation. Useful in places where vision enhancing technology would trigger alarms.
Admiral Finnean seemed to have lost interest in both the Gravity Core and his cigar. He wandered over to Hannibal.
“I hear congratulations are in order, Lieutenant Dax,” said Finnean. “Or should I say, Commander?”
“Sir?” Dax said and shot a quizzical look at Hannibal.
“Well, put the man out of his misery, Captain Grint,” Finnean said.
Hannibal sighed and watched Oksana out of the corner of his eye. She was acting like she was out of earshot as she stooped over a console, whispering with the Chief. But he knew she was watching and listening to every word. She would have made a superb first officer.
“Admiralty confirmed your post, Dax,” Hannibal said, “as Valiant’s First Executive Officer.”
Dax turned to Finnean, “Thank you, Admiral.”
“Don’t thank me,” Finnean said raising the stump of his cigar in the air. “It was all Captain Grint’s idea.”
Hannibal caught Oksana’s ice-like stare and winced.
“Captain,” said Dax, “I’ve been analyzing chatter on the Q-NET.”
From the little Hannibal understood of Q-NET, he considered it as troublesome and timewasting as Earth’s internet. It existed as a quantum link between planets. Based on quantum physics principles he didn’t understand, but fully accepted for its simultaneous transmission and reception capabilities of high levels of encrypted communication data. He had a love, hate relationship with Q-NET.
He felt Admiralty relied too much on Q-NET communication to oversee the galaxy, and left too little hands on decision making by the officer in the star-field. There were few Q-NET dead zones. Planet Mars was the exception. But that was a deliberate decision of the opaque Vanguard Peace Accord.
Most annoying for Hannibal, Q-NET’s capabilities also meant there was virtually nowhere in the galaxy, it seemed, where he had the excuse of failing to keep in touch with anyone. On a professional, or personal level.
Q-NET was once a military technology, but quickly became adopted and developed by corporations for civilian use. Its main function for civilian populations seemed to Hannibal to exist as a means to enable criminal gangs to exploit the universe faster than a man could think. Or react.
In short, Q-NET made Hannibal’s beard itch. But he knew why Dax liked Q-NET.
Hannibal shook his head. “Spying on the crew’s downtime?”
“Yes, but all crew are acting on Admiralty standing orders of double shifts so we’re shipshape for launch deadline. I conducted my research on the basis that the crew are by now so dog tired that if they’re not working--”
“Then they’re sleeping?” Hannibal cut in. “Found anything of significance?”
“I believe so, Captain.”
“Spit it out,” Hannibal said, feeling his blood pressure rise.
“Regular broadcasts from Valiant,” Dax said. “Same time every day. From a crew member to their family in the Saturn quadrant.”
“What’s there?”
“I sent out a drone to the location. There’s nothing but a relay satellite.
“Relaying signals to where?”
“The Lupos galaxy.”
Hannibal forced himself to appear calm on the surface.
“What’s the nature of the broadcast?”
“Recipes.”
“Recipes? A recipe for disaster?” Hannibal snapped. “Or a recipe for wasting my time?”
Dax glanced around him and whispered, “I decoded the message, Captain.”
Hannibal leaned forward. “And?” he asked quietly.
“It refers to shipments of rum, sugar, beef and genetically modified products. All itemized by weight and cargo size.”
“Is this a joke?”
“No, Captain,” Dax said and kept what seemed to Hannibal an impossibly placid expression. One, Hannibal was sure would provoke him to punch one of these days. Sooner, rather than later.
“Decoded with a Lupos encryption template,” said Dax. “It refers to Valiant’s exact armament and defense capabilities.”
Hannibal felt his breath catch in his chest and forced himself to breathe.
“Show me what you have,” Hannibal said and held out the back of his left hand.
Dax waived his left hand over it. The back of Hannibal’s left hand shimmered and the embedded graphite molecules in his skin formed into a screen. Hannibal held his breath and for a few seconds scrolled down the information transmitted from Dax. By his own recollections of his morning briefing from his Gunnery Chief Wesley Jackson, these figures just might be legit. He summoned Jackson by touching the communicator on his chest insignia.
Jackson’s image flashed up on the back of Hannibal’s left hand. “Chief, check these figures I’m sending you against your own records. Priority One.”
Jackson’s eyes scrolled down the list and popped wide.
“Do they tally with today’s quota?” Hannibal impatiently asked.
“Yes, Captain, but someone’s hacked your list’s security protocols. Where did...”
“Grint, out!” Hannibal turned to Dax. “What else, Dax?”
“Intercepted transmission of engineering data that I’d like Chief Gonzalez to analyze.”
Hannibal caught his Chief’s eye and silently beckoned her over. Gonzalez walked over and held out the back of her left hand. Dax waved one hand over it. Gonzalez scrolled through the data and turned white.
“This is a full schematic of the Gravity Core,” Gonzalez shouted. “What in hell are you doing with it?”
Hannibal waved Gonzalez off. She walked over to her assistant. Together they began frantically punching buttons on the consoles.
“Recommendation?” Hannibal asked Dax.
“Spy drone report is incomplete,” Dax said.
“Best guess.”
Dax didn’t hesitate. “Valiant has a Lupos spy aboard.”
“I believe the admiral lost the bet, Captain,” Oksana said as she looked up from the Gravity Core diagnostic.
“Not now, Lieutenant,” Hannibal said.
She didn’t appear to be in the mood to take dismissal lightly. “Captain, if I may insist? The gravitational core is precisely as described by Chief Engineer Gonzalez. It is indeed perfect. With one exception...”
Hannibal narrowed his eyes sending her a once and final
warning shot.
“I said ‘not now’, Lieutenant.”
“The one exception being, Captain,” Oksana said calmly, but firmly, “the indication of a small field disturbance. Signal emission suggests a small trigger device.”
“Trigger?” asked Dax with the first betrayal of tension in the flicker of one eyelid.
“A wave disrupter hidden somewhere in the gravity core,” Oksana said. “Captain, I believe Commander Dax to be correct when he states there is a spy aboard. Or more precisely, a saboteur.”
“Give me evidence, not paranoia, Lieutenant,” Hannibal snapped. “In non-geek speak, Lieutenant.”
She offered an arched eye brow, but remained otherwise as impassive as a glacier. In that, she had something in common with Dax. Odd, how it had never irritated him before now.
“The anomaly of the admiral’s cigar smoke is key,” Oksana said. “It should perform like smoke subject to Earth’s gravity. Instead, the Admiral’s smoke exhibits fluctuations due to unstable gravity production.”
“Get to the point,” Hannibal growled.
Chief Gonzalez cut in. “Captain, Lieutenant Blok is correct. The Gravity Core diagnostic confirms my suspicions. Captain, there is a device interfering with my calibrations. If there’s a gnat’s whisker of a chance it’s what I think it is, then the wave feedback will increase exponentially to the point it’s irreversible.”
“Meaning?” Hannibal said and felt his knuckles crack.
Gonzalez took a deep trembling breath and let it out. “Captain, someone’s turned the Gravity Core into a Gravity bomb.”
Hannibal took a deep breath and let it out. Painfully aware all eyes were upon him. He sensed there was only one question on all their lips. No one daring to be the first to ask it.
No one, but him.
“How much time do we have?” Hannibal asked.
“The only way to tell, Captain,” Gonzalez said, “is to measure the disruption pattern.”
“Disruption, Chief?” Hannibal said and rubbed his aching eye.
“Yes, Captain. The saboteur’s device could create wild fluctuations. All it takes is for zero gravity to start increasing to ten thousand percent and then back again. Continually, over and over that kind of behavior can cause an implosion,” Chief Gonzalez said, pausing only to scan the data whirring by on screens.
Valiant (Jurassic War Universe Book 1) Page 4
