“But the Union naval tactics book provided by the Mercenary Guild said EMP attacks are common,” he finished for her. An EMP attack wouldn’t ruin the ship’s electronics, but it might cause the main power breakers to reset. Just flip a switch and everything came back online…in Bakulu.
“Let’s go into the computer room,” he said.
She unstrapped from the chair—also brought up in the shuttles—and followed him to a hatch on the side of the CIC. The main computer room was about twice the size of an old fashioned phone booth, and held more computing power than half the IT companies of Earth combined. It was also as ancient as he’d suspected. The former Bakulu Mercenary Ship Shallow Waters was 425 standard years old, had more than 100,000 hours in hyperspace, and several thousand hours in combat. She’d been refitted three times, and heavily damaged twice. Yet she was still alive, so that was something.
Lawrence had a slate in the extra-large thigh pocket of his jumpsuit. On his breast, he had a name tag showing he was “Commander Lawrence Kosmalski,” head of damage control, computers, and 4th in command. It was the highest rank he’d accepted. He had five people under him, Denise in the CIC, and four damage control people who were being trained by a pair of former EU astronauts and Polish Naval engineers. The second and third in command were both reserve Polish Naval officers who’d commanded Kosmalski ships. He wasn’t worried about having to make decisions on the contract. He’d sit in a seat in CIC and keep everything running. Six months later, he’d be home and a billionaire. He smiled at his situation. Years ago, he’d tried to join the European Space Agency. The felony assault charge had ended that. Now he was going to go a trillion times further than any ESA astronaut had ever gone.
He took the slate and touched a control point on the main computer frame, instantly linking the two. The Union computers were super redundant, and that was part of the problem. They were manufactured as Bakulu computers. He could reprogram them to pretend to be Human, easy enough. However, when they were reset, the redundancy kicked in, and they became Bakulu again. Handy…and frustrating as fuck. Data flowed into the slate, and he watched it carefully. The log showed the reset, as well as his commands not to reset. Great.
“I think we’re over thinking this,” he said. She was just a few inches away in the cramped space, and he was all too aware she was a darned good-looking lady. Zero gravity did fascinating things to breasts. “How many of those little mini slates do we have in storage? They had already been in stock on the ship when they took possession. A few had been traded for needed provisions, but not all. She took out her own slate and made an inquiry. Part of the harried provisions man’s job had been to inventory everything from meals to nuts and bolts.
“Seventy-two remaining,” she said. Lawrence looked over the computer setup. There were eleven discreet computers designed to work together and compensate for each other depending on the task.
“Okay, lets pull eleven and start setting them up as bios writers. We’ll hook one to every computer in here. Their own internal power should run them for…” he looked for the number, “six weeks of continuous operation?” She nodded.
“We’ll have to recharge them manually,” she said with a grin, “but they’re invulnerable to EMP.”
“We’ll program them to monitor for power disruption, and in that event to automatically override the mainframe computers’ bios. That will take less than a second.” The alien computers were not only fast at doing their job, they were also fast at transferring data. The wire communication rate of even the smallest slate was measured in terabytes a second.
She considered then nodded. “Less than a second, actually. And we can add a line of code that if one goes down, and we get an odd computer out that still wants to be Bakulu, then it’ll be down checked and taken out of the loop.”
“Excellent,” he said. “Let’s get to work!
* * *
“Captain Kosmalski,” Lawrence called over the intercom, trying to not heap on as much scorn as he wanted to, and failing.
“Yes?” came the terse reply.
“We need to cut main power for a second, then bring it right back online.”
“I assume there is a good reason for this?”
“Yes,” he said with an equally terse reply. Lawrence smiled at the sigh that was carried over the intercom. Then his cousin’s voice came over the all hands.
“Attention, this is the Captain. We will be powering down the mains for one second. Test commences in one minute. Stand ready.”
Lawrence spun in the tight space and winked at Denise, who grinned back. In the back of his mind he worried a bit that he might be undermining Lech’s authority as captain. Most seemed to follow his orders out of fear, rather than loyalty. They’d been hired on percentages of the contract net value. The fear of losing that potentially massive payday was very real to them.
As the time counted down, the lights and air circulation fans cut out. Absolute darkness encircled them in the tiny computer space. It was a form of fear Lawrence had never felt before. All the light in the universe was gone, and he floated in the weightlessness. He could have been in deep space, for all his senses told him. He felt his breathing increasing of its own accord, then his heart rate as well. Wasn’t the power supposed to be back on by now? What if there was a malfunction in the reactors, and it didn’t come back on?
There was a snapping sound as breakers reset, and the lights came back up, quickly followed by the whirling of fans and beeping of computers.
“You can let go of my hand now,” Denise said. Lawrence was surprised to see he was indeed holding the woman’s hand, and he quickly released it. A few weeks ago, he might not have and made a play. Now…
“Look!” she said and pointed at the operator’s terminal. He turned and looked. The terminal was displaying in English, the language the programmers had used. It was a good thing they were all fluent in it.
“Excellent,” he said. “Run checks on all the processors.” They went through them one at a time, confirming that everything had gone as planned. Everything checked out perfectly. “Okay,” he said, “on to the next issue.”
Lawrence floated into his stateroom for the first time untold hours later. He didn’t bounce off surfaces or make mad grasps at handholds nearly as much as he had when he’d first come aboard. He amazed himself at how fast he was adapting to zero gravity. Once he got to work and stopped thinking about how he felt like throwing up, the sensations went away. He didn’t notice the fishy smell anymore, either, though his cabin did kind of look like the inside of a seashell.
In his tiny stateroom was a newly installed mat on one ‘wall,’ the aft bulkhead of the ship where he’d sleep when they were under acceleration, and a green nylon net attached at three points around the mat. He understood this was to hook himself into place while sleeping, so zero gravity wouldn’t make him float around. Less and less like Star Trek, he thought with a grin. There was also a bag floating in the middle of the room with a handwritten note on it.
“Thought you’d be hungry when you got done. Lech.”
“I’ll be damned,” he said, shaking his head, the man had a heart after all. He opened the bag and found a NASA-issue meal bar, some kind of meat sandwich, and a squeeze tube of orange drink. He had heard Lech was trading for a small food robot that could cook in zero gravity, but it might not make it before they left. He ripped off the cover and bit into the cold sandwich and sighed with pleasure. It was meaty and tasted like the best steak he’d ever eaten, even though his mind knew otherwise. The orange drink was slightly glutinous, a measure to keep it from damaging vital circuitry if the drinker got careless. Even that tasted wonderful.
Lawrence devoured the meal and floated over to the wall where his communications terminal was. He hooked an arm through a strap there, also installed by the retrofitting crew, and touched the screen to bring it to life. He was happy to see the English interface working just fine. He activated the comms system and placed a call to Earth. I
t rang for a moment before an answer.
“Hello?” the woman said in accented English.
“Hi dear,” he said, smiling even though she wouldn’t see it.
“Lawrence! How are you doing?”
“Fine,” he said, “just tired.”
“No surprise, you lifted off 29 hours ago!”
“Has it been that long? Gowno!”
“What was that?”
“Oh, nothing,” he said with a sly grin. Amelia’s Polish was pretty good, but it was tuned for legalese. No surprise she wouldn’t know the word for shit. Their being together had been a complete accident. He’d had no idea she felt anything for him, and had since they first met when he’d tried to kill Lech. Or that she’d sent a plea to the Polish courts to get him released on probation even before Lawrence hired her. After they’d ended up together a week ago, her willingness to leave her partnership made more sense. She was as brilliant with the law as he was with computers. They just fit together. The fact she was British would probably have chagrined his grandfather to no end.
“How are you managing in orbit?” she asked.
“Well enough; I’ve been so busy I haven’t worried about it. How about down there?”
“Everyone is holding their breath that you can get the ship ready. The Mercenary Guild rep says you only have a week left before you won’t make the departure window.”
“Tell everyone not to worry; we’ll be ready for a shakedown cruise in twenty-four hours.”
“Wow!” she said. “You sure about that?”
“Completely,” he assured her. “I’ve already got the operating system sorted out, and we spent quite a while working on an interface between the local control system and our home grown one.”
“The one you wrote down here?”
“Yeah, the thing I needed to finish before flying up, despite what Lech thought I needed to be doing. I knew I couldn’t get it done while trying to learn how to fly, so to speak.” She laughed, and he could hear her stifle a yawn. He suddenly realized he’d called in the middle of the night, as he’d left in the afternoon the day before. “But right now, I think you need some sleep.” She yawned again then laughed.
“You’re right. You get some rest too?”
“I will,” he said, then after a moment added, “I miss you.”
“Yeah? I miss you too.” The terminal flashed, indicating the call had ended. Lawrence floated over and slid into the bed netting. It took a little work, but he figured he’d get better as time went by. He messed with it a bit, and after a time, it felt a little like a waterbed. Pretty comforting, actually. He set an alarm for six hours and fell asleep in just a few minutes, thinking about the next day’s work.
* * * * *
Winged Hussars - 7
“Reactors two and three nominal! Reactor one on standby.”
“Telemetry and guidance is good!”
“All stations report secured for maneuvering.”
“Computers up and running,” Lawrence called out his status.
“Very good,” Lech said. They were all strapped into chairs on what would have been the rear wall of the CIC, if the ship had been sitting on the ground. Instead they were orbing 1,000 kilometers above the Earth. “Communications, inform Earth traffic control we are preparing to depart orbit.” The comms officer nodded and spoke into his headset.
“ETC, this is EMS John III Sobieski preparing to depart orbit for the stargate.”
“EMS John III Sobieski, this is ETC, we have your departure flight plan. There is no inbound traffic; you are cleared to leave. Good hunting, and come home safe.”
“Okay,” Lech said and nodded his head twice. Lawrence glanced at him and saw the sweat beading on the man’s forehead. In zero gravity, it would just continue to build until it was a layer of water. “Okay,” he said again, straightened in his chair, and spoke. “Helm, engage the engines, one-half-G of thrust. Break orbit.”
“Aye-aye, Captain,” the helmsman said, a Polish Navy reserve commander, “one-half-G it is.” He tapped an input into the controls Lawrence had retrofitted, and the hull began to vibrate. An alarm claxon sounded, three horns, a signal to the crew that they were preparing to move. On board, 95 men and women braced themselves. Sixty meters astern, fuel was fed into the fusion reactor and routed through a nozzle directed out the aft. The old warship began to move, and the command crew felt themselves settle into their seats. “We’re underway, sir.”
Gradually the thrust built up until they all weighed about half of what they’d weighed on Earth. Those who’d struggled with zero gravity sighed with relief; those who liked zero gravity shrugged, knowing it would return before long. Everyone on board had been on the shakedown cruise four days ago. EMS John III Sobieski had left Earth orbit for a quick trip around the moon at speeds from half of a G up to 3Gs. What had taken the Americans more than two days to do—reach Lunar orbit—had taken them a mere 90 minutes. Now they were going much, much further. Eight thousand light years, to be precise.
“ETA to stargate?” Lech asked.
“ETA four hours,” helm answered, “mid-course rollover in 98 minutes.”
“Understood.” He consulted the slate mounted to his captain’s chair, then he nodded. “Next time the stargate opens is in nine hours. We’ll have a few hours to go over systems checks before leaving home.”
Lawrence let his eyes roam over the computer boards, making sure everything was running well. It was, as he expected. LT Wojcik and he had gone over them 100 times. She sat next to him, a further redundancy. This was the military way, as he had been told. Just like there was a small command station back in engineering that could run the ship as well. Of course, if the CIC was gone, the computer room was gone as well, so Lawrence doubted the engineers would be able to do much of anything.
On one of the two three-dimensional monitors located on the bridge, Tri-V as the aliens called them, the aft view was visible. Earth, hazy through the fusion torch’s Cherenkov distortion, was already growing visibly smaller. He felt a pang of regret. He’d only spoken twice with Amelia before they broke orbit. It had never hurt to leave a girl behind before. He was beginning to wonder if he was in love with her. Now that would be a new experience.
As planned, they braked to a stop a few hundred kilometers from the massive stargate. It looked like a hundred boxcars linked by cables slowly spinning in space, an array of gossamer solar collectors reaching away from each segment. The fact that this device could hurtle you into another dimension seemed utterly ludicrous. Nine other ships were already waiting there, all transports taking mercenary companies out on contracts. Along with the John III Sobieski, they were the last of the 100 companies to leave Earth. Lawrence knew they were the only ones with their own ship, though, and the only space navy to enter into a contract.
Once again, Lech had acted impulsively just before signing and had renamed their company. “Kosmalski just didn’t fit the name of a combat unit,” he told Lawrence after showing him the contract.
“But cousin, Winged Hussars? They were cavalry, not navy!”
“It sounds impressive, no?”
Lawrence just shook his head. Of course, he should have expected this after Lech named the ship John III Sobieski. In the battle of Vienna in 1683, John III Sobieski led the charge of 3,000 Polish Winged Hussars against the Turks. It had also been an awesome metal song by Sabaton back in 2016.
“We’re going to be only the second Human ship to leave the solar system,” Lech told them four hours later as the clock ran down. It was synchronized with the computer that controlled the stargate, an automated system operated by the Cartography Guild. “Only the Mirai Maru, a Japanese trading ship, has gone before us. And we are going much further and into harm’s way. The pride of our family, and of Poland, rides with the Winged Hussars.”
“Stargate opening in one minute,” the comms officer called.
“Ahead slow,” Lech ordered. A small thrust, just enough to settle them into their seats, mov
ed the ship forward.
“We go into history now,” Lech continued. On the forward Tri-V, the space within the circle of the stargate began to shimmer as it did its alien magic. “Do not fear, because God is with us!”
Shut the fuck up, Lawrence willed his cousin as the shimmer became a swirling distortion of visible light.
“The stargate is open,” comms reported. On the Tri-V, one of the other ships touched the distortion and was devoured by it.
“Reactors one and two are at one hundred percent,” engineering confirmed, “hyperspace generator is at power. We are ready.”
Lawrence watched the distortion grow closer, his eyes wide in growing terror. Then it was there. Ridiculously, he took a deep breath as if they were about to go underwater. Then, the world was unmade.
An unknown time later, he was himself again. The CIC was a cacophony of yells, gasps, and more than a few cries of terror. The reports from the Mirai Maru had been read by everyone, of course. The Japanese had reported making transition into hyperspace as the most transcendental meditation imaginable. None of them said it was like being destroyed and reformed!
“Lying Japanese bastards!” Lawrence gasped, feeling his body to be sure it was still his body.
“A-all stations, report,” Lech barked, his voice as shaky as Lawrence felt. One at a time, they called out.
“Computers nominal,” Lawrence said when it was his turn. He glanced at Denise; her face was ashen, and she was visibly shaken. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“I think so,” she replied, “but I’m afraid to touch myself in case I’m not there.”
The rest of the command crew were following the checklist provided by the previous ship’s owners. One reactor ran at full power to run the ship and hyperspace generator, another at ten percent as ready backup. The last was on standby to conserve fuel and F11. All departments ran multiple checks to be sure the ship was okay; engineering ran more than any other. They’d all been told that a failure of the hyperdrive meant no return.
Alpha Contracts Page 20
