Space Carrier Avalon

by Glynn Stewart

  Michelle nodded and gently nudged the shuttle up, slowly orbiting around the centerline of the carrier to bring them over the top of the ship.

  “Watch that!”

  Linked into the shuttle, it took Michelle less than a moment to identify the engineer’s concern and adjust her course, pulling the ship significantly further away from the section of hull glowing a deep, dangerous, red in her sensors.

  A piece of hull, a rough circle sixty or so meters in diameter, was radioactive, returning the energy dumped into it back into space in a slow and steady pulse of deadly energy.

  “I didn’t think our hull got radioactive?” Michelle asked, as her computer overlay the schematics of the ship over what she was seeing.

  “It can,” her companion replied grimly. “It takes a lot of the right kind of radiation – with a warp bubble failure? This much heat would take at least a full second more than it should have taken the failsafes to kick in.”

  When the wire frame schematic popped into her vision, Michelle wasn’t surprised to see that the center of the circle was only fifteen meters from the bridge on Deck Two. The entire bridge was underneath a chunk of hull attempting to imitate nuclear waste.

  Chapter 33

  Deep Space

  05:00 September 16, 2735 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time

  DSC-001 Avalon – Deck Six Meeting Room Two

  The advantage to the extent of what Kyle could only call the bureaucracy of running a starship was that even with the main conference room a half-melted mess down the hall from the morgue that had been the bridge, there were still meeting rooms for the senior officers.

  That there were only three of them standing meant that the meeting room intended for the ten-person logistics team still felt empty.

  “The good news,” Kyle said quietly, “is that both Pendez and Stanford will live. Neither is going to be back on active duty for a while though.”

  Stanford was going to have to have his legs regenerated, a process that would take at least two months. He was invalided out for that long.

  Pendez was luckier. She’d been on Deck Three, in one of the sections that had been badly irradiated. Unlike anyone else in that section, though, she’d been awake. She woken up the Marine Lieutenant-Major whose quarters she’d been leaving, and between them they’d got seventeen of the thirty people in those berths to the secondary infirmary on Deck Four – before collapsing in a heap of radiation poisoning themselves.

  She’d saved eighteen lives – and taken enough rads to compromise her skeleton and circulatory system. She’d be in the infirmary for weeks.

  “No one has found Colonel Ardennes or Lieutenant-Major Khadem,” he continued. “Both had quarters on Deck Two, which leaves me fearing the worst. I’ve confirmed Major Riesling as our acting Marine CO, and he’s sorted his people into teams to sweep the outer hull for any survivors we’ve missed. They’ll also,” he finished quietly, “begin policing up the bodies.”

  “How bad is it, sir?” Kelly asked. The tactical officer – now acting executive officer – looked shaken and tired. So far as Kyle knew, she hadn’t slept in almost twenty-four hours.

  “We won’t know the exact totals until the Marines and medics are done,” Kyle told her. “But the com network is back up, and only two thousand and fifty-one people are linked in.”

  Avalon’s crew, including the starfighter crews and their support staff and her embarked battalion of six hundred Marines, was just under thirty-one hundred. Over a thousand of their crewmates were almost certainly dead.

  “Damn,” Wong replied. The shaven-headed man looked even more exhausted than Kelly, for all that he had been asleep when it all went to hell.

  “My good news, such as it is,” the engineer continued, “is that most of our systems are back online. We have power, we have life support, we have computers and we have gravity. I think we have weapons and sublight engines, but I don’t plan on firing off antimatter explosions I don’t have to.”

  “What about FTL?” Kyle asked.

  The Chief Engineer shook his head.

  “I know what happened now,” he admitted. “Flight Lieutenant Williams’ survey let us know where to look, and we found it. One of the power couplings feeding the internal Stetson stabilizer field was just loose. Kept wiggling loose as we flew – every second we were under Alcubierre drive, it was weakening.”

  “When it finally blew, twelve Stetson emitters – directly above the bridge – went down. The failsafes recognized a problem before it blew, but it takes just over seven seconds to do an emergency Alcubierre emergence.”

  “The computers recognized the problem just under six seconds before it blew,” he concluded grimly. “The entire ship took a quarter-second pulse of the radiation from the warp bubble – but everything under those twelve emitters took a one and a quarter second pulse.”

  “Damn,” Kyle murmured. The artificial bubble of space-time created by an Alcubierre-Stetson drive caught up every particle that crossed their path, creating a pocket inside the bubble of radiation intense enough to melt even a starship’s hull. The Stetson stabilizers contained that energy between an inner and outer bubble, and forced it out slowly as a ship decelerated. Not only did this prevent the bubble from destroying the ship, but it also avoided the massive radiation burst early theories had suggested an Alcubierre drive would emit on returning to sublight.

  “What about the external failsafes?” he asked. They had stopped in mid-flight, still traveling at multiple light years a day. Stopping like that meant they had released that world-killing radiation blast.

  “They worked perfectly,” Wong answered. “The blast from our emergency stop was fired off on a vector with no system for at least three thousand light years.”

  Kyle glanced between his two senior officers and nodded slowly.

  “Is the drive repairable?” he finally asked.

  “Yes,” Wong confirmed. “We’ll need to replace about ten percent of the stabilizer emitters and re-calibrate the Class One manipulators. It’s going to take at least twenty-four hours.”

  “That’s all you have,” Kyle warned him. “If we leave in twenty-four hours, we will arrive at Tranquility roughly when the Commonwealth battle group is scheduled to appear.”

  “You can’t seriously intend to take this ship into action,” Kelly snapped. “The only place we should be going is a shipyard!”

  “If we go to a shipyard, Commander Mason, Tranquility falls,” Kyle replied calmly. “From what Alistair has said, we are still capable of completing our mission. If we can, we will.”

  “You’re nuts,” she said flatly. “Alistair, please! You can’t let him do this.”

  “He’s the Captain,” Wong said slowly. “And he’s right – I’ll test the weapons while we get the A-S drive back online, but the starfighters are fine either way. This ship can still fight, sir.”

  “Bullshit he’s the Captain,” Mason snapped, her glare turning on Kyle again. “You’ve been a Navy officer for a week, you have no idea how to command this ship. You’re going to get us all killed and I won’t let you.”

  “Commander Mason!” Kyle’s hand slammed down on the table as he rose to his feet. She was a tall woman, but Kyle Roberts was a massive man – taller and broader than she was. Mason didn’t even quiver facing him down, her eyes filled with fire as she glared at him.

  “You are walking very close to the line of mutiny,” he told her, his voice very slow and careful. “Of the people aboard this ship, I have spent more time in combat action than anyone left alive,” he reminded her. “I have commanded an entire fighter wing for longer than you’ve run your department. I am, regardless of your opinion, qualified to command this vessel – and more importantly, by the Articles of our Navy, I am in command.

  “Now, are you prepared to follow my orders, or do I need to relieve one of the few senior officers we have left?” His tone was flat as he met her gaze, but he knew his eyes were pleading. He would restrict her to quarters i
f he had to, but he needed her.

  A long silence hung in the meeting room, with Wong looking hugely uncomfortable, and then Kelly exhaled sharply and nodded once.

  “I apologize,” she said stiffly. “I am… afraid. We have too many wounded aboard.”

  “I think we can all agree that nothing happened here that deserves comment,” Kyle observed, his voice cheerful again as he returned her nod. “I’m concerned about the wounded myself,” he continued. “I’m hoping to drop them on Tranquility before we have to fight, but it’s going to depend on the situation.”

  Kelly nodded again, taking a sharp ragged breath.

  “Now,” he continued, “I need to go talk to our lords and masters. Both of you need to get some sleep – and that is an order. Understood?”

  Both of his senior officers looked ready to argue with him for a moment, but they did nod their agreement. They knew he was right – being tired enough to yell at even the Acting Captain was a bad sign for their ability to do their jobs.

  Deep Space

  05:35 September 16, 2735 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time

  DSC-001 Avalon – Executive Officer’s Office

  The XO’s office was as close to Secondary Control as the Captain’s was to the bridge, so Kyle was at least able to use his own desk to call Joint Command on Castle.

  He’d fired off an initial text report before meeting with Mason and Wong, and the uniformed communications officer who answered his call was clearly expecting him.

  “Senior Fleet Commander Roberts, correct?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Kyle replied, his voice tired. “Reporting in on the status of Avalon.”

  “Understood,” the headquarters officer replied. “I’m to put you through to Admiral Blake immediately.”

  Kyle was suddenly both very aware that he hadn’t showered, and glad that he had grabbed his uniform jacket, but he had barely moments before the image of the gray-haired Fleet Admiral appeared on his screen.

  “If you try and salute after the night you’ve had, I will make personally sure your mother hears about today,” Blake told him bluntly as he tried to rise. “At ease, Commander. What’s your status?”

  “Battered but unbroken, sir,” Kyle replied, relaxing back into his chair. “Our starfighters are undamaged, we believe we have weapons and sublight engines, and we expect to have Alcubierre drive back within twenty-four hours.”

  “Damn, son,” Blake replied. “How long a list of commendations should I be expecting?”

  “Long,” he admitted. “Not as long as the casualty list though. We’ve lost a third of the crew, and gods know Captain Blair is enough of a loss on his own.”

  “Indeed,” Blake murmured. She looked down at her desk and keyed something. “I am confirming you in temporary command of Avalon, Commander Roberts. We don’t have a lot of other options.”

  “I understand, ma’am,” Kyle agreed. “Nonetheless, we remain able to carry out our mission. The timing will be tighter than any of us would like, but Avalon will reach Tranquility.”

  The Fleet Admiral’s face tightened. He could almost see her desire to tell him to turn back. To save his people from the cauldron he was about to take them into.

  “I can raise First Admiral Wu immediately,” she said instead. “I think he deserves to be in this conversation.”

  “I understand, ma’am,” Kyle said. “I can hold until you’ve raised the Admiral.”

  His senior uniformed commander nodded sharply, and then her image was replaced the stylized castle and stars of the Federation.

  Apparently, when the uniformed Commander-in-Chief of the pre-eminent power of the Alliance calls, even First Admirals pick up the phone. It was less than two minutes before the placeholder dissolved into a split screen of Fleet Admiral Blake on the left, and the pale, shaven-headed face of First Admiral Sagacity Wu.

  “I understand that your ship is damaged, Commander Roberts,” Wu said slowly. “What is your status?”

  “We were forced to make an emergency Alcubierre exit, sir,” Kyle summarized. “Captain Blair and a large portion of our crew were killed. Our ETA to Tranquility is now approximately three days.”

  The pale admiral blinked, considering Kyle carefully.

  “How badly damaged is your vessel?” he finally asked.

  “Not as badly as we feared,” Kyle replied. “We will be fully functional before arrival in your system.”

  Wu glanced sideways, and Kyle knew he was meeting Admiral Blake’s gaze.

  “Commander, Admiral,” he said slowly. “An emergency Alcubierre exit is a dangerous action, one which puts many hidden strains on a vessel. My government would understand if Avalon must detour. She is an old ship, and even a new one could not take....”

  “First Admiral,” Kyle cut him off. “Avalon is a carrier, and her fighters are intact. She is also a warship of the Castle Federation, and the Federation Navy does not abandon our allies.

  “As you yourself said to Captain Blair, it is right and it is proper that Avalon return to Tranquility to honor the promises made upon her decks.”

  Wu was silent, and then slowly bowed his head.

  “I do not know if we can hold alone,” he admitted. “My mind says to let you turn back, but my heart says to demand you come with all dispatch. Words do not – can not! – express our gratitude.”

  “This is our duty, First Admiral, nothing more,” Kyle said quietly. “While Avalon flies, Avalon fights.”

  “Three days then,” Wu accepted with a firm nod. “I will arrange for our defense telemetry to be forwarded to you via Q-com. Whatever happens, you will not arrive in Tranquility blind.”

  “Thank you, First Admiral.”

  Wu inclined his head and his image vanished, leaving Kyle facing only Blake again.

  “I don’t know if you’re brave or crazy, Commander,” she said bluntly. “Even with the Tranquility Space Fleet, you will be badly outnumbered by what we suspect is coming. Most would take the excuse to run.”

  “There may yet come a day, Admiral, when the Federation must break its word to its allies from necessity,” Kyle said quietly. “But it is not today. And until that day, our honor – our oath – is part of the glue that binds this Alliance together.

  “In all honesty, Admiral, I think we can afford to lose one obsolete carrier far better than we can afford to lose that honor.”

  Chapter 34

  Deep Space

  20:00 September 16, 2735 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time

  DSC-001 Avalon – Main Infirmary

  Michael Stanford woke up.

  That, given his last memories, was enough of a surprise.

  He also woke up without pain, which was even more of a surprise until an interrogation of his implants informed him that he wasn’t receiving nerve input from anything more than eleven centimeters below his pelvis.

  Slowly, the fighter pilot opened his eyes. He was in one of the beds in Avalon’s infirmary, tucked off to one side with a curtain drawn around him. Knowing what he would see, he nonetheless looked down at his legs.

  And sighed.

  He’d hoped that his memories were somehow wrong, but the reason his nanites and implants weren’t letting him feel his legs was that he didn’t have any. From what he could see, he had all of twenty centimeters of thigh left, and the rest was gone.

  The curtain whipped aside, allowing an unfamiliar blond Surgeon Lieutenant-Commander to slip into the room. The man looked Michael up and down calmly.

  “You’re awake, good,” he said brusquely. “How do you feel?”

  “I’m pretty sure my implants are stopping me from feeling anything,” Michael told him dryly. “So how about you tell me? The legs are obvious.”

  “Yes,” the doctor said slowly. “Your legs were completely severed, roughly where you see,” he continued. “Your nanites automatically sealed the wounds and placed you into an induced coma. Commander Mason then carried you here.”

  “Along the way, you received w
hat would have been a major dose of radiation poisoning in other circumstances, but is minor by today’s standards,” he finished. “I am Surgeon Lieutenant-Commander Cunningham, by the way,” he introduced himself. “I normally run the night shift for the Deck Three secondary infirmary, but our resources are stretched thin.”

  Michael closed his eyes and breathed slowly.

  “How bad is the ship, Lieutenant-Commander?” he asked.

  “We’ve lost at least a thousand people,” Cunningham told him. “A good quarter of those remaining have taken radiation doses equivalent to yours or worse. I think you’re our worst physical injury, but some of the rad cases are just as bad in their own way.”

  He finished reviewing the scans next to Michael.

  “You’re going to live,” he finished. “Legs will take seven to eight weeks to regen, though, so you’re off-duty until then.”

  “The hell I am,” Michael objected. “I don’t need legs to fly a starfighter!”

  A chuckle interrupted them, and Avalon’s CAG looked up to see Kyle Roberts ducking under the curtain.

  “I’ll deal with our stubborn ox of a CAG, doctor,” the XO told Cunningham, dismissing the Lieutenant-Commander with a gesture. “You have other patients.”

  The doctor bowed out, and Stanford looked at Roberts, hard. The big man wasn’t much of one to show strain, but there was something to his eyes.

  “He said it was bad,” Michael said quietly.

  “He understated it,” Roberts replied bluntly. “Blair is dead, along with one thousand and twenty-seven others. I’m in command, and, if Wong is as good as he thinks he is, we’ll only be two days late to Tranquility.”

  “Damn,” Stanford said slowly. “You’re going to need me in that cockpit, Kyle,” he concluded, “legs or no legs.”

  “For now, Commander Rokos is running things,” Kyle told him. “I don’t want you out there unless things have really hit the fan, Michael. But I’m also not having Cunningham lock you in here.”