Oblivion Flight

by J. R. Mabry

  “Ocampo here, Captain.”

  “Commander. Can a science probe deliver a nuke?”

  “Huh…a probe is plenty maneuverable, and it has power. In space, it wouldn’t be hard. Problem is just attaching the two so that the probe could get free—”

  “Never mind salvaging the probe.”

  “Oh. Then, no problem, sir.”

  “How quickly can you rig one up for me?”

  “Uh…how about fifteen minutes?”

  “How about seven?”

  “I’ll meet you at ten.”

  “Make it seven. Hail me when it’s ready to launch. Captain out.”

  “Mr. Chi, set coordinates for 297.21 by 592.6. Take us in so we come up behind the Authority vessel.”

  “Aye, sir. Laying in course now. We’ll be there in…seven minutes, sir.”

  “Perfect.”

  The coordinates were for the nearest Authority vessel adjacent to the dark ship—which looked like the…the Dwight Eisenhower. She scowled, studying the tactical panels. That ship looked like it was putting up a hell of a fight. She saw the flaming remains of two RFC battle cruisers already drifting off into space, and a third was engaged in active fire. “Hold on, brother,” she said through her teeth, “we have got your fucking back.”

  It seemed like seconds rather than minutes. Jo gripped the arms of her command chair as they slid into firing range of the Eisenhower.

  “Sir, we’re being fired upon,” Ditka shouted. “Their aft gunners are opening up—looks like strategic lasers and particle cannons. They’ve got one aft torpedo bay as well.”

  “Shields?” Jo asked.

  “Back up and holding at 95%.”

  “Mr. Ditka, you’ve got one thing at the top of your to-do list—plug that torpedo bay.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Jo’s eyes moved back and forth between the tactical display and the image sent by the forward camera. She knew she needed to bring her ship about to get as many guns into the fight as possible, but there was a tactical advantage to being a small target as well, and she clung to it as long as possible. Torpedoes could maneuver, however, and she noted that Mr. Ditka lost no time getting off two, four, then six rounds.

  “Captain, this is engineering,” Ocampo’s voice broke through her concentration. “Your…nuclear probe is ready. I call it the Little Shit.”

  Jo allowed herself a smile. “Get ready to launch the Little Shit, then, Mr. Ocampo. On my signal.” She turned in her seat. “Mr. Chi, I want you to program and load a course for that thing ASAP.”

  “But I’m—”

  “I know you’ve got your hands full. Multitask, navigator. Send it back the way we came, then dip in whichever direction is down for our sleeper. Navigate back on stealth mode, and come up beneath her as quiet as a fucking mouse. Got it?”

  “Got it, sir.”

  “Then let’s show the Eisenhower our starboard broadside, Mr. Chi. Let’s open this girl up.”

  The stars swung on the viewer as the Talon pivoted, bringing a full complement of her guns to bear. “This is not how I like to fight,” Jo whispered to herself. It wasn’t nearly sneaky enough. But it sometimes has to be done, the voice in her head reasoned, and she knew it was right.

  “How are we doing on that torpedo bay?” she called.

  “Six direct hits, but their shields are holding—although they’re down to 50%.”

  “Keep pounding them until we get something through.”

  Jo glanced to see how their sister ship—the Claw—was faring. Their shields were down to 30%, and nine of their seventeen guns had been taken out. Jo saw that the Eisenhower was holding the Talon off with one hand, but her full attention was on the Claw.

  The Claw’s captain seemed to be pummeling away at a structure that Jo guessed must house a reactor—it was the only explanation that made sense given the ship design. “Swing us around to her starboard side, Mr. Chi. Let’s give the Claw a hand.”

  “Aye, sir. By the way, sir, course is laid in for Little Shit.”

  “Excellent, Mr. Chi.” She punched at the arm of her chair. “Mr. Ocampo, launch that probe when ready.”

  “Ready and…launched, sir.”

  Jo watched as they approached the Claw. Jo looked up and blinked, performing a handshake with the ship’s captain. He no doubt knew she was there, but now they had an open comm link. Jo used it.

  —Reactor?

  —Main reactor.

  “Mr. Ditka, give that reactor housing everything we’ve got—” Before she could finish, her screen erupted with blinding white energy, and she felt the Talon lurch and rumble beneath her. Her eyes darted over to tactical, and she saw the last thing she expected or hoped for—the Eisenhower was still intact. It was the Claw that had gone up in a spray of atoms.

  “Shit,” Jo said out loud. That would mean one thing—the Eisenhower would now be turning the full barrage of their firepower on the Talon, and they were not in a strategically advantageous position. Far from it.

  “Keep plugging at that reactor housing!” Jo yelled.

  “Sir, debris from the Claw took out three of our guns.”

  She jabbed at the arm of her chair. “Damage, Mr. Ocampo?”

  “Still awaiting reports, sir. Looks like we need to seal off deck two—we’ve got hull breaches in two places. My men are on their way now. We’ll get patches in place as soon as I can get them into suits.”

  “Damn damn damn…” Jo realized she was chewing on her nails, but she didn’t stop. “Think think think…” she told herself.

  A patterned burst of laser fire sprayed out from the Eisenhower, pinpointing targets along the Talon’s hull.

  “They’re targeting our guns, sir,” Ditka was yelling, though there was no reason for it. “Shields holding.”

  Just then Jo heard a boom that reverberated along the Talon’s hull.

  “What the fuck is that?” she asked.

  “That…is an e-disruptor mine, set to go off in five…”

  An electrical disruptor mine would take out their power—temporarily, but that didn’t matter. They only needed to get through their shields for a few seconds to polish them off. “All power to C-drive. Gun it, Mr. Chi, get us out of here!”

  Chi’s eyes were wide as she punched away at her console. Jo heard the standard propulsion engines’ whine rise to a high-pitched whistle as they strained against physics to move them faster than was actually possible. Before the C-drive kicked in, however, there was the sound of metal striking metal that shook their hull, creating an ominous, metallic echo.

  Then everything went dark.

  “Don’t engage C-drive until we’re well clear of the station,” Jeff ordered. “We don’t want to look like we’re running.” Danny had risked a lot to orchestrate their escape. He sure as hell didn’t want to mess it up.

  “How soon would a merchant ship actually move to their C-drive?” Emma asked.

  “I don’t know anything about merchant ships. But with military vessels, you want 500,000 kilometers out, just for safety. C-forces can buckle the hull of a ship or a station. I’ve seen it happen.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir, my uncle had a transport business,” Commander Nira offered. “The designated safety margins are the same.”

  “Okay, then. Light ’em up at 500,000K,” Jeff said.

  Martin Pho worked at his console and nodded. “Aye, sir.” He turned to look at him. “And then where?”

  “They didn’t really give us a choice. Head for neutral space. Mr. Wall, give me a list of options—space stations, planets, casinos, any possible port in the storm. Ideally, we want a place we can refuel and get some supplies.”

  “With what funds?” Emma asked.

  That caught Jeff up short. He was a military man; he didn’t think about paying for things. “I…I have no idea.” He stood up. “But we’ve got some time. Commander Nira, you and Dr. Stewart are with me. Until further notice, the mess is off limits. Let me know if we hit any trouble. Mr. P
ho, you have the conn.”

  Jeff felt a little wobbly as he rose from his chair and made his way to the door. It slid open and he crossed the short distance to the mess. It was a very small ship, and he didn’t have far to go. He could hear that Nira and Emma were behind him. He stopped at one of the wall units and got a cup of coffee before sitting down.

  Emma did the same, but Nira seemed to have no interest. She moved directly to the table, her brow bunched and her jaw tight. “Out with it, Commander,” Jeff said.

  “I don’t understand why they just let us go.”

  “I don’t think they did. Danny risked a lot—”

  She interrupted him. “And you trust him?”

  Jeff blinked as Emma took her seat. It was a very good question, and if he was honest… He squirmed in his seat. “No, I don’t trust him. But having you out of that heightened-security pod, in our own ship, under our own power certainly seems preferable to—”

  She looked at his coffee and nodded. “I just don’t trust them.”

  “This,” Emma said softly, “is not our home. I don’t think we should let our guard down for a second.”

  “This war is not our war, either,” Jeff said, agreeing. “I don’t know much about the other side, but the Authority is not the CDF. I’m not sure where our loyalties should lie.”

  “I don’t think we have any,” Emma said.

  “I don’t think we have any choice but to take sides eventually,” Jeff said. “After all, we’re here. We can’t be anywhere but here.”

  “We could jump to another string,” Emma said.

  “And destroy—or even risk destroying—every creature on this string? Not a chance.”

  “What if we could figure out a way to jump the ship without endangering the string?”

  “Too risky,” Jeff shook his head resolutely. I already have too much blood on my hands, he thought. “Besides, from what I’ve read, the theory is that the further out we go from our own string, the more…different…the universes become. We’re not going to find a world more like our own than this one.”

  “We could try String 309,” Emma said.

  “No,” Jeff said, with an edge in his voice that brooked no further discussion. He softened, adding, “Like it or not, this is our new home.” Neither of the women looked at him. They didn’t like the sound of it—hell, he didn’t like the sound of it—but it was true. It had to be said.

  “If you don’t mind me saying so,” Nira said, “you look like hell. Sir.”

  Jeff didn’t doubt it. He hadn’t been sleeping well, with his crew in the brig and the dreams.

  “Why don’t you let me take this shift?” Nira asked. “All Pho and I have been doing is lying around and sleeping anyway. I’ll let you know at the first whiff of trouble.”

  Jeff saw the corners of Emma’s mouth turn up in compassionate agreement. She reached over and placed her hand on top of his. “It’s a good idea, Jeff. Get some rest.”

  Now that he stopped to notice, he felt an aching weariness in his bones. It would feel good to lie down. It was not unreasonable. “Okay, I’ll take four. But wake me if we hit a dust mite out there.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Go,” Emma said.

  He stood and straightened his jacket, crossing the mess toward the cabins. They weren’t really cabins—that was too generous a term. There was barely room to stand up straight or walk three paces in them. When first entering, it looked like an empty 1x3 meter room, save for a chair at the far end, along with a sink and some bookshelves set into the wall. He pulled the little table top out from the wall and placed his coffee on it. Then he folded the bed down and eased himself onto it with a great, groaning sigh.

  He didn’t remember falling asleep. One moment he was looking at the ceiling of his cabin, and the next, he was by a campfire. The shaman was there, smiling enigmatically.

  “You found me,” he said. “That’s good.” The fire crackled and the night sky blazed with stars. The ridiculous little hat sat cock-eyed on the man’s jet-black hair. “I have much to tell you. But we need time.”

  “Tell me now,” Jeff said.

  “No. You must be here in body, not just in spirit. The body is as important as spirit. But you know that. You remember what it was like to lose one.”

  He did. It had been terrifying, awkward. Not physically uncomfortable, but psychologically…

  “Look at these stars,” the little man said. “When you see them again, you’ll know where I am.”

  Jeff found himself looking at constellations he had never seen before. It took him a while, but he was able to identify a couple of clusters. They were different, of course, because his perspective had changed, but they were undeniably stars he knew. The others…there were just too many of them. His eyes grew wide as a serpent slithered across the night sky, twisted into an unnatural shape, and froze. Then it faded, leaving only blazing balls of light where the various bends and folds of its articulated body had been.

  Jeff was conscious that he was no longer dreaming. He was more in control of this…vision…than he would be in a normal dream. He looked down and saw the shaman sitting alone by his fire, on a world that seemed untouched by technology. That couldn’t be true, but it seemed true. Perhaps the vision showed him something more or less than actual geography. Perhaps it was more…interpretive. He didn’t know.

  He felt his consciousness gather to a point in his own brain, and then expand, filling the All. A question nagged at him, invading the ecstasy of the moment. Was he experiencing the true All, the All across all strings of reality, or was he just experiencing the All of this string?

  The string was infinite, but he knew the answer to it instinctively. He could sense a barrier, the intangible separation between worlds, the limits of his Allness. That’s fine, he thought. I don’t care one way or the other, I just wanted to know. He allowed his awareness to fill the All, every square kilometer, every millimeter of it, every beating heart and excreting organ in every creature on every world. He experienced it all. Every topographical feature of every landscape. Every meteorological event on every continent on every planet. He didn’t try to hold on to it, or even to comprehend it. He simply entered into it, felt it. Then he rested in it.

  And he felt her—felt her panic, her danger, her spiking pulse rate, the quickening adrenaline shooting into her blood stream.

  Jo was in trouble.

  Chapter Eight

  They were sitting ducks, and Jo knew it.

  “Mr. Chi, you have one job and one job only. As soon as power is restored—no matter what condition we’re in, your job is to hail our probe out there and plot a new course for it. Bring it back here and put it right up their main exhaust chute. Little Shit is fully cloaked, so they won’t notice it navigating until it’s sitting on top of their reactor. Got it?”

  She couldn’t see Chi nod. The blackness was total. The only sound was the sound of her crew breathing, the fabric of her uniform squeaking against the imitation leather of her chair, and the rushing of blood in her own head.

  Then, a moment later, the emergency lighting came on. She saw Chi poised to pounce as soon as her console had rebooted. Nothing yet.

  Jo gripped the arms of her chair. “What are they waiting for?”

  Then it came—an explosion that made the bridge buck and lurch as if it were made of some poly material, as if it were being shaken. She wanted to yell, “Damage report!” but she bit her tongue. There would be no damage reports, not until power was restored—if power was restored.

  She saw raw terror in the eyes of her crew. She pounded on the arm of her chair, desperate to do something. She’d never felt so helpless in all of her life.

  Another explosion sent them reeling. Jo felt the straps of her restraints bite into her shoulder, into her sides. She tasted a warm coppery fluid that filled her mouth and realized, in the midst of the unwelcome g-forces, that she’d bit her tongue.

  I’ve failed. The thought invaded and tri
ed to take over, tried to shut down all other thought. She shoved it down and insisted her brain be open, unencumbered, nimble.

  Just then she heard a familiar whine of computers rebooting, of power coming online. It had never sounded so welcome or so good. “Shields up!” she roared and watched as Ditka’s fingers flew the moment power was available to her console. Chi leaped into action at exactly the same time.

  “Shields at 22% and holding.”

  “Target their engines, Mr. Ditka,” Jo said. “Make sure they don’t go anywhere before our little friend arrives.”

  “Yes, sir.” She saw the cruel smile creep unconsciously onto Ditka’s face. She decided she liked Ditka—so long as Ditka was fighting for her.

  She punched at the comm buttons on her chair. “Damage reports, Mr. Ocampo.”

  It took a few moments for Ocampo to respond. When he did, he was yelling over the engine room noise. “Massive damage, sir. We’re still trying to get a handle on the extent of it. We’re getting no reads from decks A through C. My guess is that they’re just gone. The good thing about this ship’s design is that all the essential functions are tucked up into its interior.”

  “Get to work. Send me updates by neural as soon as you get anything. Do we have C-drive?”

  “No sir, and standard propulsion is down to 40%. We can achieve maybe 600 kilometers per hour right now.”

  “Let me know when we’ve got C-drive capability again. In the meantime, direct all available power to our shields. Let’s see if we can bump them to 75%.”

  “Yes sir.”

  She felt the bridge rock from another missile assault. This time the shields absorbed the brunt of it.

  “Mr. Chi—”

  Chi didn’t wait for the question. “New course laid in, sir. Little Shit can do almost T1, but carrying the nuke…I’m putting it at 20 minutes.”

  Jo relaxed. She hoped they could hang on for another 20 minutes, but they didn’t need to. As long as the Eisenhower didn’t engage its C-drive, Little Shit would find it. And end it. Her mission was accomplished. The enemy would be destroyed. The only question for her now was, could she save her crew?