Steele's Demon Star

by Dietmar Wehr

  Murphy winced. “Son of a bitch. You’re actually going to do that, Captain?”

  Steele nodded. “That’s what the Navy contracted for. We either take the K in right now with the data we have in hand, or we collect more data that will clarify the risks by using the missile boat. Once we know how steep that gravity well is, we can adjust the ship’s velocity going into the wormhole so that we keep our distance from that black hole.” When neither of the two men said anything, Steele decided to try another tack.

  “There’s also something else to keep in mind. Nobody’s done anything like this before. Whoever volunteers for the missile boat mission will have his name recorded in the record books as one of the first two men to explore a black hole star system via a wormhole. Aside from bragging rights, which I’m guessing should impress the ladies, I’ll be recommending a hefty bonus for my co-pilot. In case you hadn’t heard, I have a pretty good working relationship with Vice-Admiral Akane Hara, who owns the company that owns the K. Does that help?” From the changes to Murphy’s and Kasparov’s expressions, it did.

  Murphy looked at Kasparov then back at Steele. “Okay, what the hell. I’ll volunteer, but I’d like to suggest a slight change in the plan. I’m far more familiar with piloting a missile boat than you are, Captain, so how about you command the mission and look after collecting the data and leave the actual piloting to me?”

  “I can live with that as long as we both agree who’s in command. If we’re going to do this, we may as well do it right now and get it over with. You two get the One One Four topped up with consumables and ready in all respects. I’ll check with the XO about the alpha drone. Let’s move.”

  A half hour later, Steele and Murphy were sitting in the missile boat’s cockpit running the pre-flight checklist when Murphy leaned back in his seat and looked over at Steele.

  “I know the plan calls for holding position as soon as we exit the wormhole and then backing into it when we’re finished tracking the alpha drone, but without the wormhole detection gear, we won’t know for sure if we’re drifting laterally. We may end up not being able to find the damn thing again.”

  Steele looked at Murphy without really seeing him as he pondered that question. The possibility of unknown forces pushing the missile boat away from the wormhole had never occurred to him. He wondered if the detection gear in a Bravo drone could be removed and installed in the boat. It then occurred to him that he was overlooking the obvious answer.

  “We’ll send in a Bravo drone along with an alpha drone. The Bravo drone will be programmed to monitor the wormhole and hold position near it while also transmitting the detection data to us. When we’re finished tracking the alpha drone, we use the Bravo drone as a signpost to find the wormhole again.”

  Murphy stared at him for a couple of seconds before snapping his fingers. “Aha! I have an even better idea. Why not program the Bravo to track the alpha and then report back? That way, we don’t have to use the boat at all.”

  Steele felt like slapping his forehead. Yes, of course! Why hadn’t he, or anyone else for that matter, thought of that alternative before now? It seemed so obvious in retrospect. “Well, I guess your name’s not going down in the history books, Jess. You’ll have to find some other way to impress the ladies,” he said with a grin.

  Murphy shrugged as he started to unbuckle his safety harness. “I’m not worried about impressing the ladies, Captain. I’ve already done enough interesting things to impress them but not having my name in the history books, now that hurts!” Both men laughed.

  By the time both drones were launched, another half hour had gone by. Steele had decided to use Bravo Two since Bravo One had already transited the wormhole twice and no one was certain how much wear and tear it had endured. The necessary turbulence mapping data plus the tracking instructions had been uploaded. Both drones were moving at a modest velocity towards the wormhole. As he watched, Steele suddenly remembered that a message had been sent to Vanquisher for relay to Relentless that he planned on piloting the missile boat into the wormhole. He told himself he’d send a correction message after the drones entered the wormhole.

  “Wormhole transit in three…two…one…now,” said Sanchez. The was an audible sound of relief as everyone on the Bridge relaxed.

  “And now we wait,” said Steele. The drones were using the same entry velocity as last time, and that meant, the Bravo drone was not expected back for at least two days. Steele remembered that it was his turn to move in the chess game with Lavrov. He called the game up on one of the smaller displays at his station, completely forgetting about the correction message to Relentless via Vanquisher.

  Hara just happened to be visiting with Captain Forstchen on Relentless’ Bridge when she learned of Mac’s plan to personally explore the black hole system via missile boat from the message sent by Lavrov. With Conquistador acting as a relay at a location that all the other HRCN ships knew about even though she was stealthy, Lavrov had been able to send his message to Conquistador which had then passed it on to Relentless.

  Why the hell is Mac risking his own life to do this? I thought this is what the Mark Two drones for designed for. She checked the time stamp on the message and compared it to the actual time. Because of the distances between Vanquisher and Conquistador and between Conquistador and Relentless, almost four hours had passed since Lavrov had transmitted the message. It was likely that Mac’s missile boat was already in the wormhole, so any thought of ordering him to not go on that mission was pointless. She said a silent prayer to the Gods of War for the safe return of her friend along with a mental note to have a serious talk with him at the earliest opportunity about not risking his life unnecessarily!

  “New contact,” said Roark. “Designate this contact as Sierra1. She looks to be entering the system about where we would expect ships from Socorro to arrive, Captain.” TacComp is unable to give a high confidence assessment of the bogey’s class.”

  Hara turned to look at Forstchen. “What you think that is, Captain?”

  He looked at the tactical display for a few seconds before answering. “I’d guess it’s either a destroyer or cruiser sent to relieve one of the ships that we eliminated, Admiral. It’s been long enough that sending relief ships would make sense.”

  “I agree,” said Hara, “and that Captain is going to see five HRCN transponder IDs with no sign at all of any RSN ships. If he doesn’t turn around and hightail it back to the King, he’s an idiot, but just in case he is an idiot and sticks around, let’s try to intercept him. I’ll head back to the Flag Bridge and issue the order, but you can have your people get ready now.”

  “I’m all in favor of giving my crew something to do so we’ll be ready, Admiral.”

  Hara took one last look at the flashing icon on the display before turning to head for the exit. She had debated with herself and her captains about whether any of her ships should turn on their IDs. Most of her captains had pushed to have all HRCN ships stay stealthy to give any RSN ship as little information as possible but Hara had come around to the view that by having only HRCN transponders on and no RSN ships visible at all, it would send the unmistakable message that 12 RSN ships had failed to hold this system and that the HRCN was in complete control of it. King Pierre would learn about his Navy’s defeat sooner or later anyway, so the advantage of hiding all her ships had a limited shelf life. And if this bogey got away and sounded the alarm, so be it but that didn’t mean that trying to intercept and stop it wasn’t a worth doing in and of itself. As she stepped into the Flag Bridge, she noted that her people were already alerted to the new arrival.

  “New squadron orders for Relentless, Chivalrous and Broadsword. I want the squadron to attempt an intercept of this bogey. Captain Forstchen’s HO should have calculated the vector by now. Let’s get that to the other ships and execute.”

  Captain Kevin Matheson of His Majesty’s heavy cruiser, Stinger, stared in shock at the tactical display. Not a single RSN ID anywhere in the entire system! Ho
w could six heavy cruisers and six destroyers have been wiped away by five HRCN heavy cruisers and whatever that Diamond K was?

  “Is it possible that our ships are still here and are operating in stealth mode?” asked the XO in a low voice.

  Matheson shrugged. “Possible? Yes, it’s possible but if this is all the enemy has in this system why would our two squadrons need to operate in stealth mode? Our six heavies should be able to take these ships on all by themselves never mind Commodore Sogard’s six destroyers. The only explanation that makes any sense is that there are or at least were more HRCN ships and that they were able to overpower the destroyers first and then DeSoto’s cruisers later on. Fuck. The King is going to want someone’s head for this. Okay, Helm. Turn us around and boost for home.”

  “Looks like Sierra1 isn’t an idiot after all,” said Forstchen over the video connection to Hara’s Command Station.

  Hara sighed. “No, he’s not, damn him. Well, now we know for sure that King Pierre will soon find out where things stand in AG38 and that means we’ll also soon find out what, if anything, he decides to do about it. There’s no sense in continuing the interception attempt. The squadron can cut acceleration. We weren’t going fast enough to have to decelerate. As long as Conquistador knows where we are, we can maintain this vector for the time being.” She sighed. “Damn. That was fun while it lasted.” As the rest of the Flag Bridge crew and Captain Forstchen laughed, her thoughts turned back to Mac’s crazy mission and wondered how it was going.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Steele stared at the chessboard and scowled. Lavrov was closing in for the kill, and there was nothing Steele could do about it. He decided to avoid further humiliation by electronically conceding the game and offer to start a new one. That concession, along with the frustration over the drone situation made him feel like working out in the ship’s makeshift gym. The two drones had entered the wormhole almost 73 hours ago, and Bravo Two was long overdue. He had just started changing into clothes more suitable for strenuous physical exercise when he heard the two-tone signal that someone was standing outside his quarters requesting admission.

  “Who is it?”

  “Ah, it’s Murphy and Kasparov, Captain. Can we talk to you for a minute?”

  “Sure. Enter.” The door slid open on his voice command, and the two men stepped inside.

  “What’s up, Jess, Sergei?”

  Murphy cleared his throat. “Well, ah, Sergei and I have been talking about the missing in action Bravo Two, and we’ve also been doing some checking. It looks as though no one programmed Bravo Two to return at a specific time or event. At least we can’t find any proof that she was programmed to do that. What we suspect is that Bravo Two is still holding position near the wormhole. It would be simple for the One One Four to traverse the wormhole, transmit the return code to Bravo Two as soon as it exits the other end and then return itself. Shouldn’t take more than ten minutes if that, between exit and re-entry at the other end and Sergei and I would like to volunteer for that mission, Captain.”

  Steele’s face must have shown his surprise because Murphy and Kasparov both started to grin. “That’s a hell of an about-face from how you felt about coming with me for a trip down the rabbit hole. Especially you, Sergei; what changed your mind about visiting a black hole?”

  Kasparov shrugged. “Well, I’ve had three days to think about it, about having my name go down in the history books as one of the first two people to explore a black hole system via wormhole. Plus, the fact that as Jess said, we wouldn’t be there more than ten minutes tops. Your mission seemed to be more open-ended and therefore, more time for something to go wrong. Besides, ah…no disrespect intended, Captain but, ah, Jess is a better boat pilot than you probably are.”

  Steele resisted the urge to laugh. In spite of Kasparov’s pitiful attempt at careful wording, he had still managed to insult Steele’s piloting skills, but it was the Lieutenant’s obvious desire to be famous that made Steele want to laugh. At least he hadn’t mentioned about wanting to impress the ladies!

  “You’re probably right about my small craft piloting skills,” said Steele in a friendly tone. “How about you, Jess? Is it fame or the ladies that’s motivating you?”

  Murphy blushed a little as he shook his head. “Neither actually. By the time we were doing our pre-flight checklist, I was starting to get excited by what we had planned on doing. After I had that brainstorm about using two drones, I felt kinda let down. Over the last three days, I’ve been thinking more and more that I missed out on a hell of a ride. Just the sheer adventure of it all, never mind the fame or…anything else. How many people will use a small craft like a missile boat to traverse a wormhole into a known black hole system? Not very many, hell, maybe no one else. It’d be like being one of the first 12 astronauts to walk on the moon. I decided that if another opportunity to take that adventure came along, I’d jump on it and I think retrieving Bravo Two is exactly that opportunity, Captain.”

  Steele was not thrilled with the suggestion. What if Bravo Two hadn’t returned for some reason other than faulty programming? Perhaps the black hole was unstable and was generating gravity quakes that had overpowered or damaged the drone’s EG drive. If Bravo Two were no longer holding position near the wormhole entrance, then the missile boat would face the same risk of getting lost as he and Murphy would have faced under the original flight plan. He was at a loss to come up with an alternative way to retrieve Bravo Two without taking the ship itself down the rabbit hole, which would expose everyone to the same risk. If the two men hadn’t come to him and volunteered, he wouldn’t have even considered the idea, but since they had volunteered, he reluctantly decided to give his approval.

  “Okay. You two can try it, but the company will expect you two to reimburse it if you lose the boat!” He saw both men blink in confusion for a second or two before realizing that if they lost the boat, they’d be lost too and that it was just their Captain’s convoluted way of saying come back alive.

  “Absolutely, Captain. Thank you. We’ll start the pre-flight checklist right now,” said Murphy. He nudged Kasparov to let him know it was time to leave and headed for the door. Steele decided that now was not the time to go to the gym. If two of his people were going to pilot a missile boat into a wormhole, the least he could do was to watch from the Bridge.

  Forty-three minutes later, missile boat One One Four disappeared into the wormhole, and Steele wondered if he had made the right decision. He now had to wait at least another 36 hours or so because the missile boat’s velocity was the same as the two drones to minimize the combined residual forward velocity and the pull from the black hole when they exited the other end.

  Bravo Two returned 39 hours later. The missile boat didn’t return at all. Steele watched the tactical replay of the drone’s radar data showing the arrival of the One One Four which almost stopped all forward motion before suddenly sliding forward with increasing speed toward the black hole. Murphy and Kasparov somehow had managed to transmit the return code even as they realized they were doomed. Tomonaga, the Engineering Officer theorized that the boat’s EG drive was damaged by turbulence during the transit and failed seconds after exit. Steele said a prayer to the Gods of War asking them to escort Murphy’s and Kasparov’s souls to Valhalla where all brave souls belonged.

  The data brought back by Bravo Two was sufficient to determine what a safe transit velocity the Diamond K could carry over to the black hole system without sliding too far down the gravity well to recover. With the final piece of the puzzle in place, Steele ordered preparations made for the ship’s mission and sent a report to Hara so that she knew what to expect. Exploring the black hole system for other wormholes was a huge task that could take months, but Steele had already decided that for crew safety and fatigue considerations, Diamond K would not stay longer than one month regardless of what they did or didn’t find. The ship would return to Caledonia for resupply and rest, and if the HRCN’s CSO didn’t like that, he could
go fuck himself. Steele was confident that he’d bring back recommendations that would make return survey trips to the black hole system more accessible and more productive.

  As the ship hovered in front of the wormhole for last minute checks, Steele activated his Command Chair’s safety harness and made sure his pressure suit helmet was within easy reach just in case unexpected turbulence caused a hull breach as unlikely as that was. The entry velocity was a compromise between minimizing transit duration and maximizing net acceleration upon exit. The transit itself would take six hours and seventeen minutes but was expected to be relatively smooth. The slow transit made by both Bravo drones had mapped the wormhole’s turbulence to an exceptional degree of precision. The ship’s autopilot would manage the split-second course adjustments while the Helm Officer stood by as backup. Upon exit, Bravo One would be launched to hold position on the wormhole and act as a buoy that the ship could keep a fix on regardless of how far away it traveled from the wormhole.

  “All sections report ready, Skipper,” said Chilton who was temporarily replacing Sanchez at the Tactical Station.