It took longer to get to an altitude where it was safe to jump to cruise, than it did to cross the light-hour distance to the gas giant on their main engines. When they dropped back to sub-light speed, the planet hung directly in front of them.
It was a massive dark blue gas giant at least five times the size of Jupiter. As dark as it was it reflected light like a black pearl. It sat nested in a spectacular set of iridescent silver rings with four bright white moons. Within a few seconds a diagram of the planet and its system of satellites superimposed on the view screen over the actual view.
Three of the moons shared a common orbit at equal distances around the circumference of the ring. The fourth moon orbited in a high polar orbit several million klick above.
“Oddly, the planet appears to be almost entirely metallic hydrogen,” Marti said. “This should not be possible at less than stellar pressure levels. The ring also appears to be metal ices of unusual composition.”
“Is it safe to close in on it and get a better look?” Ethan asked.
“Sensors are detecting an extremely strong magnetic field that extends well past the ring, but it seems to drop off beyond that,” it said. “We should be able to approach to within a few million kilometers safely.”
Ethan nodded and Nuko punched in the commands. They stayed below light speed, but the planet grew while he watched.
“I am detecting the same field as on the surface of Kahna Ri,” Marti said. “It appears to concentrate on the rings and at the moons.”
“Can you tell what is causing it?” he asked.
“At this distance it appears to be a byproduct of the magnetic field and the rings,” it said. “The planet is spinning unusually fast for a body of that size. The corresponding magnetic field may be creating an inductive electron flow on the ring structure. It appears the metallic ice of the rings is channeling the charge outward to where the moons are concentrating the field.”
“The whole thing is a generator?” Nuko asked. “Someone built it?
“Although it could be a natural occurrence, the odds of it evolving through random orbital mechanics are remote,” Marti said.
“We’re looking at a civilization with the ability to rebuild its own star system,” Ethan whispered.
“More than two centuries ago humanity began modifying its own home system,” Marti pointed out. “The Old Union moved asteroids around to create an interplanetary transportation system.”
“That’s not even in the same neighborhood,” Nuko said. “These people turned a gas giant into a machine.”
“That also would explain why there’s none of the annoying crap in the inner system,” he said. “One of the biggest threats any civilization faces is being blasted back to the amoeba stage by a stray asteroid. Sweeping the clutter out of the home system would be simple for anyone who could do something like this.”
“An interesting observation, Captain,” Marti said. “We should present that hypothesis to Dr. Makhbar.”
“We’ll worry about that later,” he said. “For now, let’s stick to finding Rene some answers.”
“The low frequency waveform we detected on Kahna Ri seems to originate as a byproduct of the harmonic field oscillation between the outer edge of the rings and the orbital period of the moons,” it said. “They must therefore be connected in some fundamental way.”
“Can we tell how?”
“I cannot detect any type of transmission mechanism,” it said. “It is possible there is a tight beam transmitter system between the moons, but unless we get close enough that I can scan for collateral dispersion of the beam I am unable to confirm that possibility.”
“Is it safe to get closer?” he asked.
“At this range there is minimal impact on ship systems. Although there is a measurable minor RF signal interference, it is negligible,” Marti said. “However, I would expect that it will increase in intensity as we get closer.”
“Will it affect operations?”
“It is unlikely that it will cause damage to the ship, but there will be degradation of communications and sensor systems while we are within the field.”
“Do we need to get closer, or is this good enough?” Nuko asked.
“Our remaining objective is to determine the power transmission mechanism,” Marti said. “We cannot do that at this range.”
Ethan sighed and nodded. “Slowly. We’ll need to back out before it gets to the point where it may impact critical systems.”
“Understood. I will determine at what point we have reached our safety limit,” it said.
As Nuko edged them inward, Ethan’s skin crawled. He knew it was probably more in reaction to the awesome magnitude of what they were looking at than to any physiological reality, but when he glanced at her, she looked like he felt. They were flying inside a giant generator and it wasn’t likely to be an experience many humans would ever know firsthand.
After almost a minute she said, “We’re at two megaklick from the nearest moon.”
“How are we doing?” he asked.
“Passive HD sensor efficiency is down fifty percent. Short-range comm is offline. No other systems are affected,” Marti reported. “I am detecting what may be a signal from the nearest of the satellites. It may be a tracking pulse.”
“Tracking pulse?”
“Yes. There is a pulse emanating from the polar moon and a synchronous pulse from the closest equatorial one. It is a much higher frequency and non-harmonic to the background field signal,” it said.
“Is the other moon the relay?” Ethan suggested.
“That is potentially an explanation,” it said. “The nearest satellite has an unusual outward appearance, but without switching to active sensor mode I cannot determine whether this is a result of the environment, or evidence of structure.”
“Is there any risk in going active?” he asked.
“We will lose resolution, but the active sensors are less susceptible to interference from the field,” Marti said. “At this point, the degradation in passive sensor efficiency has reduced the data resolution to near the same level.”
“Then do it. Let’s see if we can get some real answers,” he said. “We’ll have some interesting stuff to report, when we get back.”
“First ping away,” Marti reported. “Twelve seconds until we have data.”
“Frak we’re not alone,” Nuko hissed. “There’s a ship out there.”
“What? Where?” Ethan snapped his hands down on his console and called up the sensor screen in front of him.
“Four meg to port,” she said. “Bearing 280.5 by 237.15.”
“Is it Jetaar?”
“It’s small. Maybe a type-six shuttle,” she said. “It looks like we woke them up when they caught our ping. It’s moving out.” She tapped in some commands and then nodded. “It’s a fast shuttle. They’re running no transponder and pushing toward half-light.”
“A shuttle like that can’t be operating alone,” he said. “Time to call this done and get us up on some big legs.”
“On it boss,” she said as the planet swung around behind them and they accelerated toward the edge of the field. “Thirty seconds until we’re far enough out to kick it.”
“Marti track that shuttle and see if you can tell where it’s headed,” Ethan said.
“It is dropping deeper into the field so we will lose it before we jump to cruise.”
Ethan leaned his head into his hands and rubbed his temples. “This would sure be a good place to hide a pirate base wouldn’t it?”
“It would have both advantages and disadvantages,” Marti said.
“No matter. I think it’s time we pack our bags and go home,” he said.
“We can’t leave them defenseless,” Nuko said as she punched the engine up to cruise.
“I know,” he growled.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Ammo report to the ConDeck,” Ethan said as they dropped into position above Sha-Kahna Ri. “I need you to help m
e deal with our client.”
“Let me get decent and I’m on my way,” she said.
“Marti cut me in to Rene. I want a visual channel if he can get to one.”
The comm screen came on and the engineer was standing in front of the fabrication printer. He’d opened the back cargo hatch of the shuttle and they’d dragged the equipment out onto the surface. It was building a piece of hardware that was impossible to guess as to its purpose.
“Welcome back,” he said, stepping into the shuttle and wiping sweat from his forehead with a white rag. “I knew you were back when Marti’s body started booting a minute ago, but I’m surprised to see you already.”
“We got tagged,” Ethan said.
“Tagged? By what?”
“There was a shuttle over there. It was either patrolling or investigating the gas giant.”
“You’re sure it was a shuttle and not something else?” he asked.
“Absolutely. It was a short-range type-six fast shuttle. You know. The kind that needs to have a support ship or base to operate.”
“Nogo,” Rene hissed.
“That wasn’t exactly what we said, but that sums it up,” the captain said. “I think we scared him as bad as he did us. He made feet the instant we pinged him.”
“Where did he run?”
“We didn’t stay around to watch,” he said, “but it looked like they went deeper into the field. We couldn’t track them for long before they disappeared into the interference.”
“What did you find over there, other than trouble?” Rene asked.
“The planet itself is the source of the field,” he said.
“The planet?”
“Imagine an old-fashioned mechanical generator ten times the size of Saturn,” he said.
“Excuse me?” The engineer shook his head.
“Yah. It looks like someone re-engineered the whole planet to work like a giant magnetic field collector. The rings collect the charge and the three co-orbiting moons are some kind of crystal that concentrates the energy to broadcast it all to the fourth moon. We didn’t get a chance to verify it, but we think that one’s the relay that transmits the power here.”
“Holy frak. That’s unbelievable.”
“Marti has the hard data on it, but there’s no doubt it’s the source of the field over here,” Ethan said.
After a long pause, the engineer cleared his throat. “Let me loop Makhbar in on this. He needs to hear about what you’ve discovered.”
“That’s a good idea,” he said. “I need to tell him we’re packing out, anyway.”
“We are?” he asked. “I can get them tied in and running when the planet goes into conjunction. We can’t leave them with no defenses.”
“We’re no defense for them as it is,” Ethan said.
“I don’t mean the Dawn, but if we can hang in until I get it hooked up then—”
“I can’t put you and the ship on the line over this,” he said. “MacKenna was right. We’re taking a lot of risk to protect another man’s fortune.”
“We need to talk about this,” Rene said. “Please. I don’t think either of us could live with abandoning these people to Jetaar.”
“We’re pulling out?” Ammo asked, appearing on the deck behind him. He hadn’t heard her come in.
“We got caught by a scout ship,” Ethan said.
“You don’t know it was a scout ship,” Rene said. Makhbar’s face appeared on a split-screen beside him.
“A scout ship?” Makhbar asked.
“Yes,” he confirmed. “While we were investigating the source of the power field here, we had an encounter with a small ship.”
“I assume you destroyed it,” the archaeologist said.
“Dr. Makhbar, do you understand that the Olympus Dawn is a freighter?” Ethan asked. “We don’t carry the firepower to destroy a shuttle unless it’s within ten kilometers, and we have time to whittle on it with our repelling lasers.”
“Then you led this scout ship back to us?” he roared. “What kind of insanely ignorant move is that?”
“It was a fast shuttle, and probably capable of no more than half light speed at best,” Rene said. “It couldn’t get here for several hours and we’d see it coming almost immediately.”
“And it would have lost us in the interference around the planet,” Ethan said. “We couldn’t track it with our sensors, so the odds are it couldn’t tell which direction we ran.”
“What planet?” Makhbar asked, scratching one of his temples with a fingertip. “Never mind, you should have attacked it.”
“Are you not listening to what Captain Walker said?” Ammo jumped into the conversation as she sat down at the engineering console behind him. “We’ve got no weapons.”
“If you led them here and they attack us, you will be responsible for our losses,” Makhbar said.
“Wait one frakking minute—” Ethan said.
“Stand down a second. He’s got legs. Maybe I can trip him,” Ammo tapped in on his screen using the same method they’d used to talk when stalling Jetaar.
The captain growled as he bit down on the rest of what he wanted to say, but he nodded.
“Let me explain this to you Alaran,” she said, leaning forward so she’d be fully in the shared screen. “Even if this scout ship shows up here, there is no foundation for your assumption that we led it here. There are only two worlds in this system. Sooner or later they’d show up here.”
“Yes, but probably later,” he said, also visibly biting down on his anger. “After our defenses are operational.”
“Defenses you would not have any potential of having at all if it wasn’t for what I’m building for you,” Rene said.
“As long as they work as promised,” the archaeologist said.
“There was no promise,” Ethan and Rene said.
“As long as they work as implied then,” he corrected. “Do I need to explain contract law to you, Captain Walker? I have experience with enforcing implied agreements in court, and my legal team has substantial expertise at it. And you must realize that if nothing else, in a legal fight I have far more financial endurance than you do.”
Ethan leaned forward and tapped a message to Ammo. “Can he screw us?”
She leaned back to read his message. “Maybe. He’s got deep pouches.”
“Legal action aside, let’s look at the reality here,” Ammo said, leaning forward again and giving Ethan’s arm an informal squeeze. “You know that there was no way we could take out that shuttle with an unarmed freighter. You also know that whether or not Captain Walker brought the ship here or took it clear to earth and back, sooner or later the pirates will pay you a visit.”
Makhbar’s face settled into stone, but he let her continue.
“Any actions we take on your behalf are in good faith. I think we have a right to expect similar treatment,” she said.
“It would not be in good faith to abandon us,” he said.
“Nobody’s saying we’re abandoning you,” she said, squeezing his arm again and getting him to look at her. “Are we?”
He drew in a deep breath and glared at her. That was exactly what he wanted to do but he shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Sha-Kahna Ri goes into conjunction with the generator planet in about sixteen hours,” Rene said. “If we can agree to let me keep working, and the pirates don’t come calling before then, I think I can get your guns hooked up.”
“Generator planet?” Makhbar asked.
“The power source is the other planet in the system,” Ethan said. “Apparently when it drops behind the stars from here, it goes offline.”
“Once that happens, I can tap into the field and you should have operating defenses on the other side of the transition,” the engineer said.
“And this happens in sixteen hours?”
“About that,” Rene said.
“Why would a civilization use a power source that is blocked on a regular basis by a recurrent stellar pheno
menon?” Makhbar asked.
“I was thinking about that,” the engineer said. “The red dwarf isn’t native to this star system. It probably perturbed the orbits of these planets and because of that, now the gas giant drops into eclipse. If the two planets were in orbital resonance in the ancient past, it would have been possible that their inclination never let the stars come between them.”
“That’s fascinating, but right now we’re dealing with how to best handle Jetaar when he comes calling,” Ethan said.
“The stellar transit lasts seven hours and ten minutes,” Marti said. “We are fifteen hours and forty-seven minutes from entering conjunction. If the installation is successful, the defenses will go online in twenty-two hours and fifty-seven minutes. It is essential that we devise a strategy to delay any attack past the point where the weapons are online in case they arrive before that point in time.”
“How soon will the cargo be ready to load?” Ethan asked.
“Forty-eight hours until both containers are ready to transport,” Makhbar said.
“We only contracted to return with one,” Ammo said.
“Yes, but—”
“But no,” she said. “You’ve pushed us as far as you are going to today. How long until the one container we agreed to is ready to transport?”
“We have other artifacts that need to be examined by the Shan Takhu Institute,” he said.
“I’m going to let you in on something Alaran,” Ammo said, her voice carrying an edge that made Ethan want to slide out of arm’s reach. “If you ever expect to have any commercial carrier take a contract with you again, you’ll just answer my question and drop it. Otherwise word will spread.”
“Twelve hours,” he said. “But STI wants to see—”
“Don’t bother. That’s a lie,” she said. “We’ve got contacts at the Institute and we know better.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” he said, snorting.
“I’d tell you about that, but you’ve already shot yourself on that count,” she said.
Ethan shot her a side eye and shook his head. She knows about Kaycee, too?
Wings of Earth- Season One Page 33
