Pearce thought so, but ran out of time to discuss it as they neared the outer airlock door of the Nightingale. “Hold on!” he yelled out as he pivoted the mass of bodies around so that his upper back would strike the inner airlock first.
Even before they were all the way inside the airlock Pearce had signaled the outer airlock door to begin cycling closed. They impacted into the bulkhead with a grunt, a yelp, and a particularly guttural curse uttered by Jula. As they bounced off the wall Pearce let go of his charges and gave each a firm push towards the aft bulkhead of the airlock, both to keep them away from the still closing outer door and to prepare them for the rapid maneuvering that was about to occur.
Lillywhite’s crew had been watching and proceeded with blowing the emergency disconnect charges for the Nightingale’s umbilical, which used small shaped explosives to destroy the four bolt assemblies that attached the ship-to-ship bridge to the airlock and sent it slowly floating away from the hull. Seconds later Pearce felt and saw the ship begin moving laterally away from the station using its maneuvering thrusters.
Pearce pulled himself over to the aft bulkhead where Jula and Meson were holding on to whatever they could. This ship was not designed with rapid maneuvering in mind, especially with occupants in the airlock, and so lacked crash webbing or any kind of restraint system. And the anti-gravity system would not be up and running in time to assist. And while he had hundreds of hours of high-g training the two civilians had precisely zero.
“Time for a crash course in AGSM. Backs against the bulkheads, start hyperventilating now, in-and-out-breaths every second, and once you feel the pressure from the burn, flex and unflex every muscle in your legs and gut as many times as you can. We shouldn’t pull more than four or five g’s but if you don’t pay attention you can still lose consciousness and hurt yourself. I’ll do what I can to make sure you stay in one place.”
As the outer airlock door sealed shut, Pearce found a spot to grab on with his hands and wedge his feet that allowed him to straddle his body across both of the civilians in a sort of human restraint belt, even as the Captain begin counting down from five.
“…three…two…one…mark!” Lillywhite announced as a crushing weight suddenly exerted itself on Pearce and the others in the airlock. He followed his own AGSM instructions but wasn’t overly concerned about himself. His bio-genetically advanced physiology let him routinely handle nine or ten g’s for long periods of time.
He received a text broadcast from the Captain informing everyone that they would be accelerating for 30 seconds before beginning evasive maneuvers. As the ship shuddered around him and he strained against the g-forces, Pearce decided on the next steps and sent a text reply back to the Captain, the words appearing in his OHUD and transmitting with barely a thought.
After initial burn, change course to 70 degrees Starward and initiate one additional max burn for thirty seconds, then shut down the engines and reactor and go dark. Running lights, active sensors, anything that sends a signal gets turned off. Run off batteries only.
He received a terse confirmation from the Captain and checked Jula and Meson. Both were still awake, the physical strain evident on their faces, along with fear plastered on Mason’s and determination on Jula’s. Both seemed to be following Pearce’s hasty instructions as best as they could, and so there wasn’t much else that he could do other than wait.
When the engines turned off, both civilians “fell” forward against Pearce, but his positioning kept them safely in their spots. “Ten second break as we turn, then another thirty seconds and we are done,” Pearce said to both of them as they gasped for breath. “You are doing great. Keep hyperventilating.”
The Captain counted down again and they were burning once more, now at an angle heading in the general direction of the system’s star which would take them on an arcing path away from the wreckage of the fleet, and any enemies that may be lurking there. Pearce took the time to once again analyze the situation.
Twenty-seven objects exited into local space based on the gravimetric readings. There were twenty-seven ships present in the system including the Nightingale. Certainly not a coincidence. The Scorpio had received the orders Pearce had read in the Captain’s quarters shortly after the Nightingale’s arrival in the system a little more than three days ago. Those orders explicitly commanded all ships to hold position. Making them sitting ducks for a kinetic strike of some sort that could be stealthily launched from whatever gravity-based system they were dealing with. Pearce was willing to be that if the Nightingale had remained in her stellar orbit as of just a few hours ago that the twenty-seventh object would have destroyed her as well.
The unanticipated change in ship positions, against the implied intent of the orders received, must have been the cause for Garga’s last minute attachment to the Marine squad and his subsequent attempt to kill them all. That meant that whomever Garga was working for was aware or even behind the strike. How deeply had the Fleet been compromised? Who were they ultimately up against?
Pearce hoped they’d survive long enough to find out.
ELEVEN
Receding New Shangai, Shenzen System
CS Nightingale
A short time later, the motley crew and remaining passengers of the Nightingale gathered on the ship’s bridge to regroup and decide on a plan of action. Pearce had changed into a black and grey tactical jumpsuit which sported Garga’s pistol on the right thigh’s mag-holster. He had more advanced armaments in his quarters but was holding those in reserve for now.
However, he had ordered the Marines into their standard light battle armor and told them to “cowboy up”, outdated lingo they obviously had understood as they stood now on either side of the room with menacing particle beam rifle’s slung over their shoulders. Their flat-black armor itself was imposing despite the fact that it was non-powered.
Jula and Meson had switched back into their civilian clothes, and were finishing connecting Jula’s terminal to the Nightingale’s main systems. The rest of the crew was either at their stations or huddled around the center navigation console, a large flat table that could project 3D imagery above its surface. The Nightingale wasn’t a large ship, being designed to hold no more than thirty passengers, and so normally fielded a crew of only four. None of them had prior military experience, and most were only holding themselves together under the clear direction and leadership of Captain Lillywhite.
The Captain had done as Pearce had requested and the ship was now floating as stealthily as possible on a wide arc heading out of the inner solar system. Of course, true stealth in space was impossible, as even without the engines firing the ship emitted enough heat to stand out like a lighthouse amongst the unforgiving cold of the expanse of space. By limiting their active emissions as much as possible they could only hope to delay a serious adversary from finding them.
While Pearce and the others had been changing from their e-suits Lillywhite had his crew confirm the destruction of the rest of the ships in the system by playing back the sensor readings during and just after the incident. By adjusting the sensitivity of the scopes they had been able to show more detail than the ships simply disappearing as Pearce had witnessed. All of the ships had each been hit by a single small object travelling at near relativistic speeds that had suddenly appeared only a few hundred thousand kilometers away.
The resulting impacts had all but obliterated the ships, sending pieces of wreckage hurtling in all directions in a cascading effect that left little more than tiny pieces of metal behind. Even the mighty Scorpio fared no better, having at first broken into several larger pieces before secondary internal explosions blew the rest of the warship apart.
As they had been watching the warship for a response to their ISC signaling, they had a short video from the moment of impact. There was an enormous flash of light and then simply empty space left behind, as the explosion had sent the pieces of ship blasting away at thousands of kilometers per hour. It was a sobering display of raw destructive power.
>
“OK, listen up,” said Pearce. “First of all, great work by everyone over the past few hours. Everyone has kept their cool and acted very professionally amidst grueling stress and fear. This may be hard to believe but I’ve dealt with situations just like this many times in the past, and I’m telling you that if we work together we can get out of this alive and well.” He saw a few nods and facial expressions as he spoke. It was important to keep up morale in what Pearce could internally only call an unmitigated disaster.
“So let’s go over the status so we are all on the same page. Have we confirmed that there are no other active presences left in-system?”
“Yes sir,” said a boyish Nightingale crew member whose uniform had ‘Dewey’ adorning the nametag. Despite his youthful appearance, he was the Nightingale’s navigator and therefore responsible for the ships sensor suite. “All shipping traffic either left days ago or had stayed behind to participate in the rescue mission and was destroyed. And the sole occupied station was the counterweight for the planetary tether. It flew off into space when the explosion on the surface destroyed the tether, and everyone aboard was rescued and evacuated to other ships.”
Pearce nodded, and ruminated for a moment on the loss of life. He knew that the Scorpio would have had a crew of about eight-hundred, plus the investigative team. The other Fleet ships were smaller than the destroyer and would have around a thousand more combined, including a hundred or so highly capable surgeons and doctors aboard a Fleet Hospital ship. Despite the fact that there was no SSG on-board any of the ships they were still his brothers-in-arms. Additionally over a dozen civilian vessels, ranging from non-profit disaster relief organizations to a Hyks Enterprises’ freighter loaded full of relief supplies were wiped out, adding a few hundred more to the death tally.
“Right, so we are quite literally the only witnesses to what has happened here. We are the only people in the entire Confederation that have proof that someone has developed an incredibly powerful weapon, one that can bypass the Planetary Approach Network and which presents an enormous threat to all of civilization. That can target ships and entire planets with precision and vast devastation.”
He paused to let the gravity of the situation sink in.
“Where are we with restoring Q-Coms?”
Engineer Venano, standing with arms folded across his chest, spat out his response. “Dismally slow going. That bastard fried all of the control boards as well as the data and power lines all the way back to the main trunk. None of it is really major but he also fried all of our repair bots and the spare parts printer. So we are running the spare lines by hand and repurposed some processors from non-essential systems to try and get the 3D printer up and operational again.”
“You’ll need to re-flash them and upload the printer bios to make that work,” Jula interjected. “I can help you with that.”
“Thanks, that would be tremendously helpful,” Venano replied, just the hint of a smile cracking his dour visage. “Once we get the printer up and running again, it will take at least a day to make all of the components needed to get the QCOM operational.”
“Why not just repurpose another board like you are doing for the printer?” The Nightingale’s pilot, a middle aged female named Pilosni asked.
“Can’t do it. The hypernet has a highly customized interface. Replacing it with an off-the-shelf part isn’t possible.”
Pearce shot a glance at Murrig, and the Corporal nodded his confirmation of the Engineer’s assessment.
“What about using the QCOM integrated into the failsafe systems of the flash drive?” Pearce suggested.
Venano looked at Pearce as if he was crazy. “It’s tamper proof. Any attempt to mess with it at all and the drive self-destructs.”
Pearce looked at Jula, and could see her eyes already spinning. “Well we happen to have the GTS Senior Distinguished Software Development Engineer with us, who may know a thing or two about ways to get around that restriction.”
Jula didn’t quite blush at the attention, but a flicker of embarrassment crossed her face quickly. Pearce guessed that she didn’t quite enjoy the long-winded title that put her atop the entire conglomerate’s cadre of code-junkies. “It may be technically possible…I’ll have to think about it. No vows.”
“And regular comms?” Pearce asked Venano, moving the briefing along.
“Much better luck there. With your Marine’s assistance we pulled the comm system out of one of our EEVs and are almost finished patching it into the main communications array. Once we are done here we should have it back up within the hour.”
“OK, then let’s finish this up quickly. We’re a sitting duck here right now. How long until we reach the outer perimeter?” Pearce asked, referring to the point in space distant enough from the primary planet that the PAN would allow their ship to flash-out. Trying to engage the A-Drive prior to reaching that distance would result in the PAN system rejecting the activation. And would call a lot of attention to your ship in normal circumstances.
“Sixteen hours at current speed, which is barely crawling,” Lillywhite replied. “If we powered up the mains we could be there in thirty minutes.” His facial expression betrayed which course of action he thought was best.
“Captain, we just witnessed an indefensible attack on an entire fleet of ships with a weapon nobody can detect until it is too late. We know that an entire super-freighter used the same system. We have no idea if there is another ship hiding out there that directed those weapons that may be even now hunting for us. We have no idea of their detection capabilities while they are hidden from every known sensor mankind ever developed. I think it is prudent to not call attention to ourselves.”
The Captain nodded and Pearce saw that everyone else was mollified as well. “Now, that being said, how long will it take to fire up the reactor and the flash drive once we reach the perimeter?”
“Five minutes from a cold start,” Venano replied confidently. “I could have the main engines back in three.”
Pearce thought for a moment. “OK, we have sixteen hours to kill before we can get the hell out of here. Let’s make them count.”
***
There was a lot of work to do and not enough bodies to do it. Pearce wanted the bridge constantly manned in case of any change in the situation, so Pilosni and Dewey were stuck at their stations. The two Marines were working on the final repairs to the main comms system. Jula was reprogramming circuit boards for the 3D printer. Everyone else was working on the QCOM.
Pearce spent some time helping pull wiring from non-essential systems such as the entertainment systems that fed into every passenger suite. They needed roughly one hundred meters of power cabling to run from the closest trunk line connection to the QCOM itself.
In short order he had a hefty supply and dropped it on the deck next to where Venano and Lillywhite’s legs were sticking out of maintenance hatches, taking apart components of the QCOM. Meson was acting as an operating nurse for the two, handing tools and parts as requested to them. Without having much else that he could assist with Pearce made his way to where Jula was working.
Adjacent to the larger engineering compartment was a smaller utility room where supplies were stowed. Against one bulkhead was an industrial sized 3D printer, which would regularly be used to produce whatever was required to keep the ship maintained and in working order. A series of large cylinders filled with raw materials lined the space next to the machine.
Jula had dragged a folding stool into the room and setup a workbench on top of the cylinders. She sat on the edge of the seat, hunched over her terminal which was connected to one of a series of naked circuit-boards resting on one of the cylinders heads. On the floor to her right was a pile of discarded electronics, and as Pearce watched from the doorway she disconnected the alligator clamps from the board she had been working on and tossed it into the heap with a sigh.
“No luck?” Pearce called out as he leaned against the door frame.
“Some,”
Jula responded as she connected the next candidate without interruption. “I’ve already replaced the three sub-controllers. But I need a specific set of requirements for the main controller, and vid player components aren’t cutting it so far.”
“Replaced already? As in, you reprogrammed three microcontrollers to serve a completely different purpose then what they were designed to do in less than an hour?”
“I thought you had said that you’d read my entire file?” Jula retorted as fingers flew across the keyboard of the terminal, along with an occasional in-air gesture. Code-junkies like Jula still preferred such inputs despite also utilizing the VIA’s brain-computer interface directly. “Reprogramming a few basic PCBs is Tavaris.”
“Tavaris?”
“Tavaris Taeyang.”
“The vid star?”
“Yeah.”
When Pearce didn’t respond for a few seconds, Jula finally turned around halfway to look at Pearce in the doorway with a cross between exasperation and a smirk on her face.
“You know…easy?”
Pearce laughed loudly. He surprised himself with it. He hadn’t actually laughed in a long time. Months for sure. Maybe even longer.
He was suddenly aware of just how dark his world had become. Even before the endless intensity of Omega had largely removed him from normal life, he had dealt with the daily grind of serious life and death in the 102nd. As the brigade commander he had little leisure time and few friends. As the smirk elongated into a grin on Jula’s mouth, he found himself laughing even harder.
“It’s not that funny.”
“Miss Rivis, I’ve seen trained solders go catatonic after dealing with the type of stress that you’ve been through in the last few hours. And yet here you are, kicking ass and cracking dirty jokes.”
“And explaining common pop-culture references to a guy with a fake name. Just who the hell are you anyway, Not-Buxton?”
Pearce’s smile faded as he pondered the question seriously for the first time in an eternity. The answer was suddenly elusive. Soldier, Agent, Hero. Assassin, Murderer, Monster. Take your pick and you wouldn’t be wrong. He had done plenty of bad things for what had always seemed good reasons in many years of service to the Confederation. What was causing him to reflect so deeply in this moment? The attack? The possible Confederation plot? This girl, nearly ten years his junior?
Impact Event (Dargo Pearce Chronicles #1) Page 14
