The Anvil of Dust and Stars (Dark Seas Series Book 1)

by Damon Alan

  “Our reactor that powers our coolant pumps is down. Fused injectors. I need you to modify the Stennis to receive power from the Fyurigan during the jump. Do you have a team that can do that?”

  “I do, and if you want it done, we'll do it. Want me to get started now?”

  “Right away,” Sarah said.

  “I'll get it set up.”

  “Thank you, Captain. Dayson out.”

  “Vargas out.”

  Gilbert crossed his arms and looked smug.

  “You look pleased,” Sarah observed.

  “Why wouldn't I, Captain? I just earned my spot.”

  “You earned your spot already, Mr. Gilbert. Today was just further proof. Let's get this set up so we can get to Oasis.”

  Gilbert smiled at Harmeen. “Last one there's a rotten egg, Lieutenant.”

  “Dismissed,” Sarah said. “Lieutenant Harmeen, coordinate with the crew Captain Vargas sends over to get the work done. Use any materials you need. We're all getting to Oasis in one piece.”

  “Right away Captain.”

  The idea the group brainstormed had never been done before, but that didn't mean it wouldn't work. Nobody they knew of had ever jumped nineteen thousand light-years either.

  * * *

  37 MAI 15327

  “Power is flowing.”

  Sarah listened as Lieutenant Harmeen oversaw the implementation of what became known as the Fyurigan plan. The auto-extending cable between the two ships was transferring power to the Stennis from the main fusion reactor of the Fyurigan.

  Sarah anticipated the real test to come. “Mister Seto, tell the fleet ships to assume their jump positions. This is only a test.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Seto answered. “All ships, assume jump positions. This is a test. Assume jump positions. This is a test.”

  The ships of the Seventh Fleet maneuvered into the positions they would hold relative to the Stennis for a jump to highspace. A position they would hold for the duration of the jump to ensure they didn't not breach the edge of the bubble generated by the hyper-rotating singularity in the FTL drive core of the Stennis or strike another vessel.

  The Fyurigan usually rode three kilometers from the Stennis off the starboard bow. The massive engineering vessel, three kilometers long and designed to harvest raw material to build space stations, now hovered six hundred meters off the port side of the Stennis. A thin cable spanned the distance between the two vessels. Both vessels maneuvered in a preset routine designed to test the link and simulate the conditions of highspace. The Stennis, more agile, darted at the Fyurigan several times to see if the larger ship was responsive enough to move away.

  After several hours of painfully slow maneuvering, AI autopilot procedures were perfected. The two ships were able to move almost as one, maintaining the cohesiveness of the cable.

  Sarah smiled. “I feel confident enough to try this when the rest of the fleet repairs are done.”

  Corriea had a grin a mile wide. “I'm sorry I doubted your idea, Mr. Gilbert. We get to live.”

  “No apologies, Lieutenant. You want us alive every bit as much as I do,” Gilbert answered.

  Sarah approved. Gilbert just earned his position with the rest of the bridge crew. And their respect.

  “If this works, we all get to live,” Sarah commented. “And we get to stand down.”

  Forty-Eight days later, on Huni 11, 15327, the Seventh Fleet entered highspace bound for Oasis.

  Chapter 47 - Captain's Personal Log

  11 HUNI 15327

  AI Lucy82A recording, Captain’s personal log, Michael Stennis archive: Galactic Standard Date 18:18:32 Huni 11, 15327

  Personal log entry #627, Captain Sarah Dayson, origin Korvand, Pallus Sector.

  Current Location: Indeterminate

  Damn, I'm so happy to be off duty, even if I will be sleeping most of it. This is my first personal log entry since the day before Hamor, on Seppet 14 last year. Lots of official logs have hit the books, but... well, to be honest I have been too tired, physically and mentally to keep my personal log up. Not to mention I wasn't sure if it would even matter. I'm still not sure, but things are looking up. After over eighteen hours in highspace, the power cable idea is working fine.

  [short laughter]

  I'm excited. Things going right after so much going wrong is just what this fleet needs.

  We fixed most of what's wrong with the ships on the interior, Harmeen and his crew practically rebuilt this ship from the FTL drive back. The Samville and the Hive bomb ripped us a new one.

  [a low throat noise, AI estimates 93% probability to be a grunt]

  How the fuck do you ever get used to that kind of thing? I have no idea how many died on the Samville. A thousand or more.

  Throw in four hundred more losses on the Yascurra, the loss of the Mongol and Vixen and one could justifiably call being in the navy a bloody business.

  I'm so tired I'm not even drinking. That should say something.

  [a single deep sigh]

  I was worried about Gilbert, but he's really coming around. His idea has saved this fleet. I'm embarrassed, and I know Harmeen is too that we didn't think of it. That happens. Choosing Gilbert was a choice I'm not regretting one bit. Despite Harmeen's failure to see this fix, he's done a remarkable job. Let the record reflect that.

  [42 second pause, sound AI estimates 81% probability as swiping a holodisplay to peruse data]

  I sure hope this star pans out. If it doesn't, we're fucked. I'll be half tempted to just scuttle the fleet and be done with it. There are stories of survivors making it on very little, however. We have a functional fleet now that the Yascurra is back online.

  It's an untrained crew on the Yascurra. I promoted Commander Batalova, second in engineering on the Stennis to captain of the new crew.

  [23 second pause, sounds of undressing]

  Batalova has the experience fixing enough shit to get that ship working regardless of what parts and pieces he has. The four pilots we rescued from the shuttle... they'd been in the shuttle to conduct a debriefing from flight ops at Hamor in peace and quiet. The radiation shielding of the shuttle saved them. Initially they'd come out to remove the bodies in the hangar, they stacked them in a cargo shuttle. But temperatures fell quick and they retreated to a shuttle with supplies and rations to survive a normal jump. Only the jump wasn't normal, and despite extra rations they barely made it. But make it they did. They each have their own flight section to command now, we don't have that many experienced pilots. We're going to be doing a lot of training.

  Hopefully one of them doesn't smash into my ship the moment he launches.

  [18 second pause, sound AI estimates 91% probability to be sliding into zero grav berth]

  I need to be more optimistic. This is the mantra, Sarah. The new pilots will do great. The crew has done a job beyond anything I ever expected. The power transfer will go fine. My officers are walking on water. We are going to live.

  [a yawn]

  I can see the historians listening to this log a thousand years from now.“What a snarky bitch,” they'll say. Walk in my shoes, historians, and tell me that again.

  I'm going to sleep.

  End log and file, Lucy.

  Chapter 48 - An Unwavering Path

  Bn74x00 returned to awareness. It dropped out of highspace on the edge of the Abzurrin Abyss. Nanites streamed from small ports on the body of the scout, weaving themselves into the thin tendrils of a sensor net.

  Creating it took a while. The scout cataloged what data it possessed on the abyss. Very little. The Collective has no use for a place without the materials of existence. The emptiness was an unexpectedly logical place for the humans to build a base.

  Bn74x00 flew an ever expanding hexagonal search pattern, looking for the trail the Stennis would leave behind when passing by. A long period of time passed before the scout found the trail. So much time the scout consumed most of its engine reaction mass. But calculated persistence paid off, and it found t
he chemical signature of the Stennis. The scout determined the vector of flight and stored the data. It dropped a small buoy to mark the trail, and another to mark the jump vector it would follow from the initial buoy.

  Once satisfied it could find the Stennis again, it jumped to a nearby star system to refuel its fusion engines. That would take some time, but time was irrelevant. It was patient, it would find the hidden human base. Bn74x00 would jump, and if it didn't find the trail within the projected radius of its drop to realspace, it would know it jumped past the base. It would then jump smaller jumps back along the way it came until it found the trail again. After that, additional small jumps back and forth would eventually zero in on the base.

  After locating the base, 00 would return to Hive space to gather a fleet of ships. Then the humans would die or be colonized by the fleet.

  Bn74x00 understood the definition of the word hope, as it was defined by humans. It didn't know how to experience the emotion, however. As close as it came was to observe it would be advantageous if Sarah Dayson was at the base when 00 returned with a fleet of warships.

  00 went into a lower state of function with Sarah Dayson resonating in its neural net.

  It had a plan.

  Chapter 49 - A New Home

  18 JUNI 15327

  Corriea called down the time until the singularity spun out.“Five... four... three...... two... one...”

  Sarah felt the vibration of the drive core coolant pumps in her bones.

  My ship is a beautiful machine.

  “Singularity has spun out,” Corriea said.

  “Coolant system is performing optimally,” Harmeen added.

  Sarah marveled at the feat of engineering and technology she commanded. The jump to Oasis was flawless. The power transfer cable stayed in place as hoped. The pilots on both the Fyurigan and Stennis performed well.

  “Real space in three... two... one,” Corriea said, interrupting her thoughts. Normally the view screen filled with a new star field, indicating they'd moved far from their previous location. This time only one star appeared, and it was not far away. It and its planets were bright against a nearly unbroken blackness, like beacons calling out to the small fleet.

  Sarah felt a sense of relief wash over her. After a second of reflection, she reminded herself complacency killed.

  “Run your checklists, people, let's get these ships squared away,” Sarah said as she opened her own holographic checklist. She ran through her routines as she listened to the other members of her bridge crew do the same. When the heat from the drive core was shed, the Fyurigan disconnected and withdrew their power cable.

  “Preliminary scan, no contacts, optics or radar, within combat distances,” Corriea reported.

  Harmeen smiled with his standard enthusiasm. “No new damage, all decks green, we're operational, except starboard railguns.”

  Sarah expected Harmeen to be upbeat, but that theme ran through the ship and the crews of the fleet at the moment. Everyone seemed to feel they'd reached a turning point.

  “The fleet reports all green,” Gilbert said. “A clean jump Captain.”

  Sarah grinned at Gilbert before speaking to Corriea. “Active sensors?”

  “Confirmed, no contacts, optics or radar, at full range of our sensors, Captain.”

  Sarah hit the fleet intercom. “Battlestations. Battle condition one. All hands battlestations. This is a drill. Repeat, this is a drill. Yascurra, launch your kites, grapplers and G-Ks. I want a full picket.”

  “Yascurra, roger, scrambling twelve in thirty,” came the radioed reply.

  “Commander Gilbert spoke quietly in her ear, “That's a lot of fuel, and risky for pilots with two months of simulator time.”

  “Something I thought of, Commander. Either we find usable resources in the system and we have no fuel concerns, or... we find nothing and... well, we have no fuel concerns.” She paused a moment. “As for risky, they're a new crew, yes, but they need to fly live at some point. Should we coddle them forever?”

  “No, sir, I suppose not,” he replied. “And you're right about the fuel. I should have thought of that. It won't matter either way.”

  Sarah thought about the future needs of the fleet. “They'll be flying sorties continuously to colonize this system. We'll need resources, transferring personnel…”

  “And there will be accidents.”

  “Yes there will. But we'll worry about those as they happen,” Sarah replied.

  On the main screen grapplers launched from the Yascurra, each breaking off in a different direction. Long trails of flame extended behind them as fusion engines ignited. Sarah wanted to listen in on the combat frequency, but she didn't have time. She rubbed her neck where she'd been wounded on the Teplo. Some days she ached to be back in a small boat.

  She hit the intercom again. “Set simulated condition one throughout the fleet. Combat is imminent.”

  Gilbert was in her ear again. “Just so I know, are we expecting combat here?”

  “One should always expect combat,” she replied.

  Gilbert looked at her a moment, absorbing the idea. He came down in favor of it. “A good explanation for why you've survived so long, Captain. I just point out the options.”

  Sarah was grateful it was Gilbert who was with her in the current situation instead of Giarri. “Don't change that, Mr. Gilbert. Don't change that at all.”

  Sarah changed the main screen back to the image of the star. “Mr. Corriea. Tell me good news about this system. The Stennis would like some nice deuterium filled gas giants from which to fill his tanks.”

  “Science advises preliminary optical search indicates several hydrogen rich giants, Captain, with a large compliment of moons. They're counting and spectral analyzing now.”

  “Fantastic. How long until we need to torch?”

  “Seven hours at most, Captain. We dropped back to realspace right on target, so we'll need to start braking pretty soon if you want to stay in the system with a normal burn. Our speed relative to the star is nearly twelve hundred kilometers per second.”

  “Figure it out, Mister. I want every second you can give me for Science's survey. If they find a rocky body with water, oxygen, or hydrogen, I want a hound on it if we have one to spare. I want probes all over this system. I want to know it like home. Because it is.”

  “Aye, Captain. I can get you more time to coast if we brake harder than regs normally allow,” Corriea responded.

  “I'll think about that a minute, Lieutenant,” Sarah considered the trade offs. “Mr. Harmeen, will that be a problem?”

  “No ma'am, I believe the ship is structurally sound.”

  Sarah wanted clarity. “You believe?”

  Harmeen looked at Sarah slyly, “Well, I prayed you see, and a god told me...”

  Sarah laughed. “You have balls like an elephant, Mr. Harmeen. A large part of me admires that. I hope everyone has morale as high as yours.”

  “Thank you ma'am. We can easily handle a point six gravity braking maneuver. Until I can run tests with the ship idle and ops at minimum,” Harmeen patted the metal frame of his grav couch, mimicking a behavior Sarah did frequently, “I'd advise we limit ourselves to three Gs.

  Everyone loves this old boat.

  “Good to know,” Sarah said to Harmeen. “Figure it out, Corriea, sounds like you have all sorts of options.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Sarah punched the fleet intercom again. “Stand down battlestations in twenty minutes. Follow with normal ops. Yascurra, you are to continue battle drills for six hours, recall on short notice. Launch, simulated attack runs, and recovery. No live munitions.”

  “Yascurra. Aye, Stennis, battle drills. Request dummy runs on the Stennis.”

  “Approved. Port high and low only. Have fun.”

  “It'll be a cluster, Stennis. But it should be a safe one,” came the radioed reply. “Ignore the yelling on the radio, that's called training.”

  Sarah laughed and for some reason Chi
p came to mind, as well as the grouchy crew chief on the Marius. “I remember those days, Yascurra. Stennis out.”

  Sarah untethered from her command console. “Mr. Harmeen, have the port railgun crews run defensive drills on the Yascurra pilots. I expect the results to show no hits on my ship.”

  “Aye, Captain, I'll advise them now.”

  “Tell the gunners they'll get an alcohol ration if the computer tags them with kills on all twelve grapplers before they get a nuke in. Inform the Yascurra that the first pilot to successfully score a simulated nuclear strike on the Stennis will dine in my mess this evening. With wine.”

  “Will do, Captain.”

  Sarah untethered from her command station. “Mr. Gilbert, you've got the conn. I'm headed to Science.”

  “Aye. I have the conn.”

  * * *

  Sarah floated through the bridge hatch to the gangway below, then proceeded forward to the nose of the ship. After passing through several airtight hatches, she arrived at the most forward compartment of the vessel. SCIENCE was scribed across the access. The hatch recognized her and cycled open to allow her inside.

  A young man carrying a data tablet greeted her. “Captain, welcome to Science.”

  She waved him off with her hand, urging him back to work. “Thanks, sergeant. Don't let me interrupt your duties. Optimize your time.”

  She floated to the command console for the section, a young ensign worked at the controls. Holographic displays arced in a quarter sphere around the woman, with her head at the center point.

  Sarah looked over the junior officer's head at the displays. “Ensign.... Dantora, I believe.”

  Ensign Dantora swiveled in her zero G chair. “Captain, I didn't expect you to come down personally. Welcome to Science.”

  “I'm just here to get a firsthand view of Oasis and light a fire under your team. Any results for me yet?”

  Dantora popped up a large hologram of the planetary system, then briefed Sarah. She pointed to the various bodies as she spoke of them. Occasionally the AI would move an object from translucent to “solid” as data on the object was verified. “Good preliminary results, sir. The star has acceptable metallicity, which means we will probably find the elements we need. The computer is reporting two inner terrestrials, both small and airless. They're too far in to be habitable, but should be looked at for heavier elements at some point. Follow those up with three gas giants, an asteroid belt, five more gas giants, and two snowballs. All the big bodies have nice circular orbits in a resonating pattern, so the system is stable. We're still tabulating data on the moons, but I think you're going to find the third planet to be the most interesting, sir.” The ensign tilted her head and looked up at Sarah, clearly pleased.