Darkness: Book One of the Oortian Wars

by Iain Richmond

  “Meteor showers frequently blast out of the Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt. That is a common—”

  “Yes they are,” Admiral Chen said without letting him finish. “But how do you explain a meteor shower suddenly appearing without warning? Directly in the path of a wayward starship? Meteors with purpose? If they were meteors at all.” Chen was growing weary but continued. “That far out, meteors were an assumed theory, not proven.” Chen took a step towards the director’s desk to quell the annoying beeping of the hatch that quickly slid shut centimeters behind him.

  “The United States has its nano-tech industry and its batteries, but the People’s Republic of China has the greatest military that earth has ever known.” Chen softened his statement. “At least we have the greatest peace-keeping force the world has ever known.

  “Yes, Admiral, a carrot and a stick is necessary with our enemies or competitors, which is all well and good, but what does the United Nations Navy have to do with the area beyond Station Pluto?”

  Chen smiled at the emphasis. “With our advanced military technology came advancements in satellite imagery and the creation of telescopes that make the ancient Hubble seem like a child’s magnifying glass in comparison.”

  “So you picked up images of these anomalies or signs?”

  “It’s a little more technical than that, Director Lipinski,” Chen said, unabashed condescension dripping off every over-enunciated syllable. “Americans called the black field an unexplained variant on dark matter. You were right as our technology found no comparisons, even similarities between the black field and dark matter.”

  “And this is how you surmised of the potential that the Euro-Arab League or Russian Federation has leapfrogged us and have been placing weaponry out here?” Lipinski eased the sarcastic tone.

  Admiral Chen felt the chess match had gone on too long. “Director Lipinski, we found nothing. Do you understand what that means?” He continued before the bureaucrat could open his mouth. “No sign of gravitational pull, no energy, even particles do not exist in the dark field.”

  “That is impossible, Admiral.” Lipinski was at a loss.

  “And now you understand, Director. It is impossible unless something is making it possible. Did you think the People’s 10th Fleet were only here to celebrate the ribbon cutting ceremony of Station Pluto? The dark matter, dark energy, the dark field, whatever the hell you want to call it… is too perfect out here. Do you understand what I am saying, Director?”

  Lipinski leaned across his desk, “You are eluding to the notion that the massive black field, that lays just beyond our solar system… was manufactured?”

  Chen placed both thick hands on the edges of the desk and looked hard at Director Lipinski. “I am saying that the black field does not follow the gravitational laws as we know them.” He stood up straight. “Your position gives you clearance for this conversation, Director, and I expect you to keep it to yourself or I will happily house you in the station’s brig.”

  Admiral Chen turned, punched the release, brushed by the sliding hatch and was gone.

  22

  En route to Space Station Pluto

  Anam Cara

  “Captain on the bridge!” Commander Shar’ran boomed and went back to the video stream on the Battle-Net.

  “As you were.” Falco was annoyed by the protocol and knew his commander thoroughly enjoyed following it. Enjoyed it a little too much.

  Falco moved to Shar’ran’s station and looked to Ensign Holts who held his gaze until he looked down to the monitor.

  “Let’s see this video, Commander.”

  Shar’ran started the video. Falco watched the feed of the black field, studying any potential changes in its whole, trying not to focus on any individual detail.

  “Here it comes,” Commander Shar’ran was already pointing to the glow as the video froze on the final frame, “fireflies en masse.”

  Falco reached under the workspace and flipped down an additional seat. He sat hard, eyes focused on the dark mass and the slight glow that seemed to pulsate even though he knew the video was now static. “Holts, you have seen this footage. Best guess?”

  Holts pushed off her control panel, stood up and quickly brushed past Falco’s chair and stood focused on the Battle-Net monitor next to him. The three officers remained silent.

  “It reminds me of lightning on Earth. Dark, thick cloud cover, the initial thunder and then the black, billowing mass glows, or, fireflies as Commander Shar’ran suggested. It resembles the ball they can form in flight as each is attracted to the other until they literally form a floating, glowing sphere. The field seems to emit a subtle light and stop. Like a light behind a curtain, there is no flash of energy, just the return of black like the flipping of a light switch.”

  Ensign Holts fell silent, working through what she was or maybe was not seeing, then added, “This is a steady building glow that I estimate continues beyond the length of our feed.”

  “Fireflies and lightning?” Falco once again felt ice begin to work its way into his veins, “coming from a massive field mimicking dark energy? Let me know, Ensign, when you have more.” The image frozen before him was nothing short of wrong. He stood up and made his way to the captain’s chair.

  “Captain we are approaching Station Pluto,” Lieutenant Wallace stated, “10th Fleet battle group is now within range.”

  About time, Falco thought.

  The Battle-Net screen lit up in green signifying the approach of friendly forces. Commander Shar’ran turned toward Falco, “Captain, Chinese Viper Class battle group approaching at MACH 1 and slowing.”

  “Having a functional COM-Sat or Emergency Beacon would be convenient right about now or even a Data-Pod, for the love of god,” Falco mumbled.

  “Commander ‘open the can,’ blast shields down.” Falco listened to the clicking plates crawling into their storage compartment and leaving the windows on the bridge clear.

  He turned back to the bow. “Lieutenant Wallace, now we find out if your Morse code is up to snuff. We need an actual two-way conversation this time. Use the lantern out the window.” Wallace shut down engine one and fired the bow thrusters to slow the Anam Cara’s forward momentum and slid a small steel door open on his right and pulled out the lantern, wiped the lens. A cord was now hanging out of the small compartment. Wallace reached down, grabbed the cord and the tiny data-pad attached to it.

  “Dusty, data-pad looks good and its half charged and ready to go, Captain.”

  The pilot was hastily pulling up a Morse code chart as the Anam Cara came to a full stop. Falco again felt the urge to look over his shoulder, something following them or tracking their boat. He was sure of it or at least some primal part of him detected a predator in the wind.

  The newest sensor technology would give his boat a glimpse of what moved around them, but the reality was that sensors were unreliable. Once in deep space, the interference was intense. The most accurate findings were those that went against the randomness of objects in space that were not under the influence of a gravitational pull.

  Items that were ‘too perfect’ or things that traveled in formations, for example. Those were the clues that the scanners would pick up. Then it was up to humans to make the call. The sensors, scanners and video feeds main use were to keep the pilot from running into various objects or getting hit by something.

  “Captain I have a theory regarding the growing glow in the black field, but I would like to run it through the Battle-Net first to compare it to previous data.” Ensign Holts had already sent an access request to Shar’ran.

  “Allow her access, Commander.” Falco turned toward Holts. “Do it, Ensign, and make it quick.”

  “Sir, Captain Yue Fei of the People’s Liberation Navy is requesting to speak with our ‘cleaning officer’.” A standing Lieutenant Wallace smiled wide and turned towards Falco. “Captain, I think he wants to speak with you. They look to be about as proficient at Morse code as I am.”

  Falco an
d his crew could not help but stare out the windows on the bridge of the Anam Cara. The Chinese boats were aptly named; the Viper class was more than just a patrol craft. Predators built as first wave attack and pursuit boats. Under these circumstances they were a welcome sight. Their matte black hulls were crafted of the newest poly-carbons. As far as Falco could surmise, they were missile boats, no need for the cumbersome, heavy and aging rail guns.

  “Glad these boats are on our side. Let’s get this over with, Lieutenant.” Falco began typing a message on his data pad, which he would soon send to Lieutenant Wallace, who would in turn attempt to accurately flash it to the waiting vessels. He paused in mid-sentence, hands hanging over the pad, and looked at Wallace fastening the suction cup of the business end of his little lantern to the poly-glass in the pilot’s nest.

  “One, if by land, and two, if by sea…” Captain Falco stated, “and three, if by space.”

  Wallace looked around the bridge, as Shar’ran and Holts chuckled. “Is that the message, sir?”

  “No, Lieutenant, it’s Longfellow.” Falco shook his head and went back to his version of typing.

  Holts watched her captain poke one letter at a time on his data pad, the ridiculousness and reality of the situation firmly in mind. The man was complicated. He was a captain on duty, iron fisted at times and raw, but off duty he often kept to himself when not sparring in the grav-gym with Commander Shar’ran and Lieutenant Wallace. Holts let her thoughts linger to visions better left to her personal quarters.

  Holts finished inputting her instructions to the Battle-Net. ‘Three, if by space…’ the Anam Cara was Paul Revere warning the colonies of the coming invasion, and who or what behind the field was the British in this metaphor. She was beginning to hedge her bets on it being a ‘what.’

  Holts waited as the Battle-Net worked through the data and fought the urge to look over her shoulder. Something is coming, she thought, and we are all alone.

  23

  10th Fleet Battle group

  Captain Yue Fei of the Kwan Yin

  Captain Yue Fei of 10th Fleet sat perfectly still while scanning his data pad. His long, black braided hair woven into a thick single rope lay heavy on the back of his neck. The personnel file on ‘Captain’ Falco was as brief as his experience as a captain. But the chronicle of Marine Falco’s exploits before his marriage and the birth of his daughter was a warrior’s life. Fei slid the data-pad into its compartment, folded his arms and leaned back in his captain’s chair.

  Captain Fei had lost little due to the Korean Terror Militia’s historic slaughter. He had no family, few friends, he had nothing of value to be lost. Even his own life was little more than a cog in the People’s Navy—

  “We have Captain Falco and the Anam Cara in visual range, sir.”

  Captain Yue Fei’s arms unfolded and rested on his lap. He held up a single finger towards his COMs officer. “A moment. First, holo-feed, my station.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  A smaller class patrol vessel appeared over his lap. Spots of smooth, hardened repair-epoxy pocked her belly and steel was gouged from her stern. Fei reached up, placed a hand on each side of the floating ship and rotated it, examined the main engine damage, then moved the image to his right. He followed the lines of Captain Falco’s vessel, the Anam Cara. Noting the classic design using steel plating with welds to prove it. Magnificent, he thought and his gaze moved to the ‘windows’ surrounding the bridge… real windows.

  He had heard the Americans had a small number of Cyclone class patrol boats with poly-glass ports still in use within the United Nations Navy, but he never thought he would see one in action so far from Earth. China’s Viper class vessels used ‘Virtual Surround Vision’ or VSV. The poly-epoxy layers that comprised the hull were imbedded with thousands of small cameras on the exterior shell. Each camera fed into the Battle-Net system.

  From any station onboard, crewman could pull up a virtual view from thousands of different perspectives that covered the entire vessel, bow to stern. It looked like you had just cut a piece out of the hull and applied an invisible force-field. The skin of the boat became your eyes. Most crewmen using the VSV felt vertigo the first few times the hull vanished and outer space rushed in.

  “Sir, we have Captain Falco ready to send. The Anam Cara is using an old strobe-lantern, so we will be using Morse code. I am proficient,” the COMs officer stated.

  Fei turned. “Good. Let us begin.”

  24

  the Kwan Yin and the Anam Cara

  Fei and Falco

  “Sir, Captain Fei of the Kwan Yin is ready.”

  Falco raised an eyebrow to Lieutenant Wallace who stood in the pilot’s nest, a thin cable hanging from the suctioned lantern and ending in the small data-pad lost in his thick hands. “Lieutenant.” Falco took a moment to scan the etiquette document on his data pad for using the ‘lantern.’ “Well, let’s begin.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Falco caught the uneasy agreement in his lieutenant’s face as the officer prepared to input text into the data-pad.

  “One ping, Wallace,” was Falco’s first message.

  Wallace sent a single flash. Captain Fei was the senior officer and Falco had sent the honorary flash signaling the other captain to begin.

  Quick dots and long flashes pushed through space. One of the most advanced starships in the UNN fleet used a four-hundred-year-old code to communicate with one of its most antiquated vessels with its laser beacon. Lieutenant Wallace translated then sent the message to Falco.

  Falco read the first message.

  ‘I am Captain Fei of the Kwan Yin. I have orders from Admiral Chen to search out and destroy, if necessary, the hostiles that have attacked your vessel and threaten the People’s 10th Fleet and Station Pluto. I have captured and uploaded all data sent by your Battle-Net. Is there anything else you can tell me regarding these hostiles?’

  Falco already didn’t like the direction this was going. ‘The People’s 10th Fleet…’ The United Nations Navy was often less than united and each of its countries rarely referred to their boats under the UNN flag unless they needed aid. “Ensign Holts, I need your analysis on the ‘anomaly’ caught on the video feed.”

  She was sifting data and typing in new information to the Battle-Net. “Captain, I need a few more minutes to—”

  “You have two minutes, Ensign.”

  Holts straightened in her chair as the captain began keying in a response to Captain Fei.

  ‘It is an honor to meet you, Captain Fei. I am Captain Jack Falco of the Anam Cara. We are thankful to have a battle group of the People’s 10th Fleet to aid us. Hostiles or a defensive weapons system? They may not have been the aggressors. My instincts and the encounter lead me to believe we possibly encroached on a defensive system protecting a territory or boundary. The proof lies off your port side. The Anam Cara was tactically wounded, yet allowed to leave without being destroyed.’ Falco sent the message.

  Lieutenant Wallace began to translate the text to Morse code, then turned and gave his captain a look that Falco immediately took for ‘Jesus, could you make the next one a bit shorter?’ Falco kept his poker face in place and his pilot turned and resumed. He caught the tail end of an animated conversation between Ensign Holts and Commander Shar’ran.

  “Captain, I am sending my analysis to your station.”

  Holts had one hell of a concerned look on her face. Falco pulled up her analysis. His eyes intensified as they moved across the data, his poker face gone. He drew a deep breath.

  Falco looked up and found the ensign watching his reactions. “A few defense systems or a fleet in hiding? That is a broad spectrum, Ensign.” Falco thought back to his training and the immense focus the UNN Academy put on the great and ancient general, Sun Tzu. “In making tactical dispositions, the highest pitch you can attain is to conceal them.”

  “Sun Tzu has much to say in the matter of hiding a large force,” Holts offered. “We encountered or were allowed t
o see a few of their weapons, but what did they hold back? What lay hidden inside the black field?”

  “And what is controlling them this far from any detectable vessel, station or even satellite? If these ‘weapons’ are run through advanced artificial intelligence,” Falco leaned back, “it is far beyond the UN’s current capabilities. Or anyone else we know of.”

  “Yes, Captain and what if it is not AI controlling them? What if the weapons are actually ‘crewed’ by someone or something?” Holts emphasized the last word.

  “Either way,” Commander Shar’ran stated, “these sentient or crewed weapons did not destroy us when they could have. We turned and headed for Station Pluto… and they let us. Still, we know nothing of what remains hidden behind the field. We are blind.”

  The flashes from outside the bridge portside windows ceased. Captain Fei’s next message was translated and sent to Falco.

  ‘I agree with your assessment. However, Admiral Chen has ordered me to the quadrants of your last encounter near the edge of the ‘black field.’ Based on our current information, our battle group should provide us with a sufficient tactical advantage, if necessary. Director Lipinski of Station Pluto has asked me to pass along your docking information, which is Beta-Four. A crew is standing by to make your needed repairs and the station COM-Sat is up and functional, though it does you little good in your current state. I wish you and your crew peace and prosperity.’

  Falco had been sporadically tapping his data-pad while reading Captain Fei’s response. “Lieutenant Wallace, translate and send Holts’s analysis over as fast as possible.”