Reality: The Struggle for Sternessence

by Daniel A. Liut

Deehra lowered her eyes. “TD, Captain.” That meant Total Destruction, which implied no significant remains of the vessel and no survivors possible.

  O’sihn was silent for a couple of seconds. “Thank you, Deehra.”

  “Picking up a Doppler positive contact astern,” Leepardian reported. “It’s gaining on us fast, Captain.”

  “Interception time?”

  “Five minutes, four seconds, sir.”

  O’sihn set condition one on his console. All combat stations immediately acknowledged the command. “Tango on line with the rudder. Engage evasive pattern Alpha-Charlie-Eight.”

  “Tango rudder on line, Alpha-Charlie-Eight engaged, sir,” Foxin, the navigational officer, confirmed.

  “Maximum evasive acceleration.”

  “Maximum A aye, Captain.”

  “Tango is providing preliminary enemy I.D.: frigate type, about ten thousand tons,52 conventional tactical weapons . . . she’s a Strages class warship.” Laida raised her eyes from her display and looked at O’sihn. “So much for any doubt about dealing with the Establishment.”

  “Combat engagement evaluation, X.O.”

  Laida shook her head. “We’ll stand a small chance against a modern Strages-class ship.”

  O’sihn looked at the Tactical Officer’s virtual console. “Recommended way of action, T.O.?”

  Tygrum linked his system with the captain’s console. “On bearing zero-four-three dash zero-three-zero we have ionic nebula Solis.” The nebula appeared on O’sihn’s display. “I recommend hiding inside it, turning off engines and non-vital equipment, and waiting there in electronic silence. In case of engagement, I’d advise using plasma cannons. Missiles would not be effective or fast enough within a dense and highly ionized environment.”

  O’sihn nodded. “Course of action accepted.”

  “Down-starboard rudder. New course setting: zero-four-three dash zero-three-zero, maximum evasive acceleration.”

  “Course zero-four-three dash zero-three-zero, maximum evasive acceleration, aye, sir,” Lieutenant Foxin confirmed.

  “Time estimates?”

  “Three minutes to nebula,” Leepardian said. “Seventeen for enemy overtaking.”

  “Copied.”

  The Intrepid was soon piercing through the edge of the gaseous formation. Immediately, the ionization equalizers were turned on to hide the path of the ship. Ten minutes later, it stopped its engines deep inside an ionized ocean with no shores.

  “All non-vital systems in standby, Captain,” the X.O. reported. The crew was working fast to adjust the vessel’s instruments to the new tactical situation.

  The Chief Engineer, Lin Beaver, now came through, overriding all other virtual consoles for a private communication with the bridge.

  “What’s up, Lin?”

  “Sir, high external radiation and ionization levels. Keeping our radiation neutralizers down can damage vital equipment.”

  “Understood, Chief, but we will have to maintain this condition for a while.”

  “They’re above us!” Leepardian’s clipped comment broke through.

  “Enemy status?”

  “Not clear, Captain. But it’s stopped about fifteen hundred kilometers above our position.”

  “We are nothing but sitting ducks in here,” Laida said. “I strongly recommend that we abandon this area immediately.”

  O’sihn nodded. “Foxin, ahead point one, standard escape velocity.”

  “Ahead point one, standard escape, aye, sir.”

  “Steady as she goes.”

  “Steady as, sir.”

  A crimson frame, edging the engine room’s virtual console, popped up on the bridge. O’sihn set all other consoles in standby, except for the T.O.’s. The stand-by consoles dimmed their luminescence by seventy percent.

  “Yes, C.E.?”53

  “Hull outer temperature, seven thousand KGs.54 The ionized environment will . . . will fry us up if we maintain present speed, Captain.”

  “I do understand the situation, C.E.” O’sihn checked the hull temperature gauge on his console as he released all consoles from their stand-by condition. “Foxin, down to point zero, eight, five standard escape speed.” The fine-tuned speed adjustment (from 0.1 to 0.085) only served to aggravate Beaver’s anxiety.

  “Point zero, eight, five standard escape speed, aye, sir,” Foxin acknowledged.

  The Intrepid was opening a burning trail through the Solis nebula.55 She had been responding well despite the harsh radiation, but as the result of an overload, the weapon’s network suddenly went down. It needed to be reinitialized, a procedure that would take about an hour. As Beaver briefed the captain about the problem, the ship reached open space, adopting standard acceleration automatically.

  After a few minutes of relative peace, O’sihn ordered a new course to the A57 quadrant. He was about to demote the tactical alert condition to a lower status when an emergency warning popped up on his console.

  Two simultaneous shots slammed into the ship, leaving it mostly without power for a second or two.

  “Damage control/conn, report.”

  “Damage control, Captain.” Lieutenant Deehra’s voice came through the D.C.’s56 virtual console, as alert one was reinstated on all decks. “Sir, bow missile launchers and bow bay exposed to radiation. Pressure leak in compartment B-57 under control. Total decompression in compartments F-56 and Y-34. Additional damage of lesser significance.”

  “Effect bow-area evacuation, Lieutenant.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  “C.E./conn here.”

  “What’s our current status with the weapon system, Chief?”

  “We are doing all we can.” Beaver’s voice came through amidst a flurry of technical jargon from the engineering team.

  “Enemy activity ahead. Range within yellow zone,” Leepardian said. “It seems to be the same ship, sir.”

  “Full astern, maximum escape acceleration.”

  “Full astern, maximum escape A, aye, Captain,” Foxin acknowledged.

  “I have another contact off the down-starboard beam,” Laida added. “It seems to be following us on a parallel course.”

  O’sihn was quiet for a moment. “Odd. Keep an eye on it.”

  “Three dart-wolves locked on us,” Leepardian called. “Bearing zero flat relative.” That meant three incoming missiles straight ahead.

  “One hundred-and-eighty degrees hard about, maximum escape acceleration.”

  “All hard about, max. escape A, aye, sir,” Foxin said.

  “Overtaking time?”

  “Twelve minutes, thirty-three seconds P.K.P.,57 captain,” Leepardian said.

  “Procedure twenty-four.” That was an anti-missile electronic-counter-measure routine.

  “Twenty-four engaged, Captain,” McAwian acknowledged.

  Despite the imminent threat, O’sihn kept pondering on the contact Laida had detected a moment before. “Is the missiles’ point of origin correlated to the second contact?”

  “Negative,” Laida replied. “Second contact moves on a parallel course. It might as well be an echo from the nebula.”

  “Or some trap,” added Tygrum.

  Shaking his head slightly, O’sihn opened his all-decks channel. “Dahncion to the bridge, Dahncion to the bridge. Engine room/conn.”

  Lin Beaver’s console came on again. “C.E., Captain.”

  “Estimated time for weapons operational?”

  “No less than thirty minutes, Captain.”

  “Lin, we have three dart-wolves locked on us. They will reach lethal range in less than twelve minutes.”

  “It’s impossible to have the network reinitialized in less than thirty minutes, Captain! It’s . . . it’s just impossible.”

  “We could try activating one missile manually,” Laida added.

  “That would also take about half an hour, ma’am,” Beaver added hurriedly. “Plus, it would divert key personnel from the main weapon controller.”

  “Never mind, C.E.,”
O’sihn said. “Concentrate all hands on resetting the main system.”

  “Aye-aye, captain.”

  “Dahncion to the bridge, Dahncion to the bridge.” O’sihn’s voice came up on all decks once more.

  “Ten minutes for overtake,” added Leepardian.

  The captain stood up, slowly stepping forward. Three bright objects were displayed in front of him on the space projection surrounding the whole bridge. They were heading relentlessly towards the ship. The captain stood for about a minute, immersed in the 3D, striving to come up with some way out. But there was not much he could do.

  “Summon a security squad to the bridge.”

  Laida turned towards O’sihn, but he did not divert his attention from his console. Still looking at him, the X.O. activated the internal security alarm.

  Fifteen seconds later, an officer with taut canine features was standing at the entrance to the bridge with four security personnel. “Security squad reporting as ordered, Captain.”

  “Axas, locate Dahncion and take him to recon vessel Sagacious. Do whatever you judge necessary to get the boy on that vessel. Am I sufficiently clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Dismissed.” O’sihn tipped his head to the X.O. console. “Find Lieutenant Commander Clara and instruct her to stand by to assume command of the Sagacious immediately.”

  Laida held her response for a second. “Acknowledged.”

  “Reentering Solis nebula,” Leepardian reported.

  “Stabilize speed at point zero eight standard.”

  “Point zero eight standard, aye, sir,” Foxin confirmed.

  “Keep adjusting velocity to maintain external hull temperature below seven thousand KG.”

  “Aye.”

  As O’sihn checked the data on his tactical console, a window popped up showing the Sagacious’ bridge. Axas’ team was already entering the recon vessel with Dahncion.

  “McAwian, tie me in on all decks, but make sure I don’t reach the Sagacious.”

  Immediately, O’sihn’s voice began echoing everywhere in the ship. “This is the captain. Three enemy missiles are locked tightly on us. Estimated overtaking time, seven minutes. Our weapon system is off-line. As I speak, we are penetrating an ionic nebula at maximum allowable thermal speed.” That meant everybody was trapped inside the vessel. Escape capsules could not withstand ejection inside a nebula at tactical velocities. Only the Sagacious would be able to survive a jettison procedure.

  “Lieutenant Lin Beaver’s team is currently engaged in restoring our weapons system.” O’sihn paused. “Erandie, the Realdom cannot afford the luxury of further loss of personnel or material. We must and will complete this mission. All stations stand by for tactical orders.”

  O’sihn switched to an internal channel. “Conn/Sagacious?”

  “Lieutenant Commander Clara in command. I’ve got an all-systems-go, Captain.”

  “What’s goin’ on?” Duncan’s voice came over O’sihn’s console. “Have this lady release me, Captain.”

  Duncan was handcuffed, the security team having followed O’sihn’s instructions to the letter. He had correctly surmised that O’sihn had decided to have him abandon ship due to the tactical situation, and he had resisted.

  “T minus fifteen seconds,” O’sihn added, looking at the main TD now displaying a new console with the Sagacious’ bridge.

  “Copied,” Clara acknowledged.

  The final sequence was displayed both on the bridge and the recon vessel.

  “Wait!” Duncan protested, barely raising his handcuffed arms.

  “Five, four, three . . .”

  “Stern strength . . .” O’sihn muttered, invoking the beginning of the Veritas Marine Corps traditional salute.

  Clara nodded at the TD with a strained smile.

  The Sagacious was immediately jettisoned towards an uncertain fate.

  24.

  The three bright spots on the main TD remained peaceful and steady, but the figures on the scale display kept changing at an ever-faster rate. Despite O’sihn’s determination to resolve the crisis, the main weapons system had not come back yet. Without it, there was not much he could do. The captain understood there was no point in bothering Beaver about it again.

  “Leepardian, launch record logs.” Consisting of very thin solid cards (less than ten thousandths of an inch thick and about one hundredth of an inch in length and width), the logs contained detailed encrypted data of the previous three hundred and sixty operational hours.58

  “Record logs away, Captain.”

  “Thirty seconds for overtake,” Laida added.

  O’sihn stood up in deep silence. Then he felt a warm touch on his right hand. He smiled briefly, turning to his wife.

  “. . . Twelve, eleven, ten, nine, eight . . .” The final countdown drowned out the constant background noise of the instruments. For O’sihn, each second was like an hour, each spent looking for options with a disciplined barren optimism. But when the sequence reached three, the 3D and all TDs became blindingly white. Instinctively, Laida covered her eyes.

  “. . . one, zero.”

  The background sounds continued on the bridge without change. A noisy ionized environment was the only visible activity on the main tactical window. The missiles were not there anymore, whereas the ship remained untouched.

  “Full stop.”

  “Full stop, Captain,” Foxin acknowledged.

  “C.E./conn. Estimated time for weapons operational?”

  “Less than ten minutes, sir.”

  “Let’s expedite this, C.E.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Full stop effected, Captain,” Foxin confirmed.

  “It seems we’ve detonated one of the incoming missiles,” the X.O. reported. “The other two were destroyed by the same event.”

  “We’ve detonated?”

  “A torpedo was fired from the emergency bow launcher,” Laida explained, staring at the captain.

  O’sihn shook his head in disbelief. “Let’s have this one checked.” Laida nodded. “Should we try rendezvousing with the Sagacious?”

  “Not yet. It wouldn’t be prudent to leave our job inconclusive this time. Let’s terminate the attacker first.”

  “Aye-aye, Captain,” Laida said approvingly. “Searching pattern?”

  O’sihn shook his head slightly.

  “Searching pattern, Captain?” Laida repeated, raising her eyes from her console.

  “Staying right here will be our best move,” O’sihn said. “The enemy most likely picked up the detonation, but nothing else. They know that our weapons system is damaged, and after the explosion, they might presume our condition is precarious. However, they will have to penetrate the nebula to find out whether they destroyed us or not. Should they proceed accordingly, we will be ready to pay back all their attentions.”

  “What if . . .” Laida started.

  “We will adapt our course of action according to their movements, X.O.” O’sihn looked up to a VC on his left. “Leepardian, launch four tactical probes one hundred thousand kilometers ahead of us, and link onto them via N.B.L.”59

  “Tactical probes away, Captain.”

  “X.O.”

  Laida turned to O’sihn, raising her eyebrows.

  “Let’s make ready to welcome our guests, my dear.”

  25.

  After half an hour of silence, Duncan decided he had had enough.

  “With all this poking, testing, and checking around every instrument on board, has it crossed the captain’s mind to remove these . . . these things?” Duncan raised his handcuffed wrists at the woman standing in front of him. She could not help but chortle.

  “This is not a joke,” Duncan said harshly.

  “Take it easy.” Clara grabbed a card from one of her pockets and put one corner into a small slot on one of Duncan’s handcuffs. They should have opened on contact, but they did not. Clara tried again—on both wrists—but the handcuffs refused to yield.

  “So
?”

  “They won’t open.” Clara held the card between her thumb and forefinger, staring at it.

  “Stop playing games, Captain, and get these things off me!”

  “They just won’t open, and I don’t know why.”

  “Well, try it over until they do open!”

  Clara tried again and again, but to no avail.

  “There has to be something wrong with the code.” She stood up and nodded. “Don’t worry, it’s about nine hours to Soledad.” Soledad was a small scientific outpost assigned to study different types of cosmic radiation. “It may take a bit longer, though. We will have to wait a couple of hours to be beyond enemy sensor range before restarting the engines.”

  “I’m not interested in your touring schedule or your tactical analysis. Use your gun, your brains, use anything, but get these things off me.”

  “Nothing in this modest bridge would be of any use, Dahncion—including my gun.”

  Duncan bit his lip and gave a curt nod. “I’m not sure I like this attitude of yours, Captain.”

  Clara’s expression hardened. “My attitude is trying to keep you alive, mister.”

  “I should be onboard the Intrepid,” Duncan retorted. “And I have the feeling that you are an accessory to my being here today—handcuffs included.”

  “Neither you nor I know exactly why O’sihn ordered us onto this vessel,” Clara replied. “But the fact that he decided on this course of action, handcuffs included, makes it very clear that he had a very good reason. And by the way, I think it’s good for you to be acquainted with the fact that I’m here strictly by captain’s orders, definitely not by any personal interest in the matter.”

  “Really? Lately, you’ve been poking around into everything I do. It’s becoming annoying.”

  Clara fixed her intense blue eyes on Duncan. “I see. It would seem I’m nothing but a nuisance to you. Some kind of a drawing-woman, I suppose.”

  Duncan was flabbergasted by her comment. Somehow, Clara had managed to expose a very deep and obscure feeling he had been trying to conceal for weeks, even from himself.60 Clara’s expression might not have been deliberate, though. In the Realitarian language, a drawing-woman could also mean a busybody. However, it seemed that Clara did mean more than what the common expression conveyed. Her formerly positive mood had changed noticeably, and a trace of sadness, not present in her eyes before, had become visible.