by Randal Sloan
It was Sara that answered. “We were moving too fast for the control system to handle the changes in frequency in hyperspace. I’ll need to swap out the AI processor. Should take about an hour.”
“Do it!” Jarra told her.
“I’ll have the reactors up in a couple of minutes,” Gabo told her.
Kaeden had calmed himself by this point. After all, he was a Borjon monk. It was just the shock more than anything. “Two minutes?” he asked.
Jarra smiled at him. “We’ve had a little practice. If Gabo says two, he means two. Now you see why this team is the best in the galaxy. That’s why we had to be the ones to undertake this mission.”
She looked around at them all. “If I didn’t believe we would find a way to survive, we wouldn’t be here. Even I don’t believe duty should mean a suicide mission.”
She glanced over at Kaeden. “I know a number of your brothers did indeed accept such a mission due to your desperate situation, so we will always honor them. Fortunately, our situation is not that dire yet.”
Moments later, the lights came on. Sara immediately spoke up as her com came active. “Amfiltrite wants to know if we’re alright. They sounded pretty frantic.”
“Tell them that we’re fine. Explain the situation and tell them we’ll let them know before we attempt a second test.”
She looked over at Kaeden, who still was trying to find his own equilibrium. “Looks like your brothers are still getting used to us too.”
Kaeden smiled. “Even as Master says special, seeing says more. We learn.”
A little over an hour later, Katarina attempted and successfully completed the test with the modified control system. Once more, the team had indeed done the impossible.
“We celebrate tonight,” Jarra told them all.
She smiled. “For tomorrow, we have a mission.”
Chapter 10
Crossing the Void
Jarra sat in her seat in the control center of Katarina, although already she wondered what the point of it was. They had been moving through fast hyperspace for many hours and there was absolutely nothing out here. Even Galen was bored; the hyperspace flows so consistent that the AI was able to manage the navigation. She knew that they were looking at several more hours of this before they neared the edge of Aerstone space.
It was actually kind of freaky to be out here in the middle of nowhere. Nothing was near them for many, many hundreds of light years. They could barely detect the edge of the galactic arm they had left and the edge of the Aerstone arm was even less distinct. Even knowing they likely wouldn’t be becalmed in this hyperspace stream, and knowing they had the null drive as a backup, it was still quite disconcerting.
The actual transition into the stream across the void had been considerably difficult. At the edge of the galaxy arm that the Borjon inhabited, the multiple streams that poured out into the void had been a lot smaller and considerably more convoluted than normal, gradually coming together to make the broad, more sedate flow they were now inside of.
Those first few minutes reminded Galen of when they’d first discovered fast hyperspace, not that they’d known what it was at the time. But he persevered, making sure he kept their ship safe and away from the ever-dangerous edges of the streams. This time he at least had the advantage of scans before they entered the gambit.
To think, only a few weeks ago what they were doing had been barely theoretical. Now it was almost becoming commonplace to them.
He sent Jarra a message by implant. “We’re nearing the halfway point. Still several hours to go, but the rest of it should be just like this. Nice and smooth.”
It was as if she’d read his mind. “It’s pretty amazing to think about what we’re doing despite the fact that it’s become rather boring, if you don’t think about the big picture, that is. Of course, the fact we’re way out here in the middle of nowhere is still terrifying when I think about that, so I’m trying not to. Just think how you’d feel if we didn’t have the void drive.”
Maybe they needed a distraction to help all of them pass the time. Jarra looked over at Kaeden. “What can you tell us about those Borjon ships that crossed the void a millennium ago? Were their ships like the ships you have today? Were all the crews voluntary?”
At first, Kaeden was startled by the question. “Sorry,” he told her. “I was using the module Miss Amy gave me to learn to speak with you better. As you hopefully can tell, I’ve made good progress. These implants of your people really help too. I’ve been able to practice by speaking with the ship’s AI through my implants over the last couple of days.”
“You sound great,” she told him. “Hardly any accent and much better with your grammar. It will be a big help as we work together on this mission.”
“Thank you. But back to your question.”
He knew what she wanted. She needed something to keep the interest of the crew as they flew out here in the void. There was just something about being out here in this huge expanse of nothingness. It weighed on the psyche. In his case, it was made worse by the discomfort of being in fast hyperspace. He couldn’t help but envy his team members that didn’t seem to have that problem.
He was glad he could help; he knew he still owed his Princess for his failings earlier. That thought brought another realization to him. Before this time, she had just been the One, someone whom he idealized and followed because the Prophecies told him so. But somehow over the last couple of days, the Borjon that had blindly followed her had turned into someone who followed because he really believed in her.
“The ships were much like the companion ship following us even now, although the drives were much cruder. They wouldn’t have been able to cross in that weaker connection we saw because the hyperspace engines wouldn’t have been able to maintain them in hyperspace. The crews were pretty small; about what we have here on Katarina. Even their AIs were pretty limited because we were concerned about the risk of the Aerstone being able to hack them and take over the ships.
“The crews were, as you say, all volunteers. But you have to understand. The war was going badly for us and we all knew that if we didn’t do something drastic, we were going to lose. We’d also learned by then that the intent of the enemy wasn’t just to win. No, they intended to destroy every nest and leave our beautiful worlds desolate. So we had nothing to lose.
“Many of them were like me, youths of only a few decades of age. Despite the war, our people still did things much slower than you humans. None of those crew members had the drive to accomplish so much as your team. For example, they would never have thought of building the null drive, even if one of their ships were to become stranded here in the void.
“But still they knew what they fought for and all did it willingly. Another thing we did was to have one of my Brothers assigned to each ship. The Prophecy warned of the Great Sacrifice and so the Order had always believed they understood. Master Hadassah tells of meeting the Master who was over the Order during that second war. Master Abremonar never recovered from having to send all those of our people to their certain deaths. At the end, I believe he understood what the Great Sacrifice meant.”
Jarra nodded. “That is something that all great leaders dread. Why do you think I never wish to become Empress? It is much too great of a responsibility and we still live in a time of relative peace. I see it sometimes when I look at my uncle. He will never shirk his duty but it wears on him.”
“Duty. You spoke of duty when we talked of this mission,” Kaeden said. “I think now I understand it better than when we spoke of it before. It is not something that you just blindly follow. You must choose to follow your duty.”
“Yes, but if I had any other way, I would protect my team, my friends. At least I still can give them that choice, even though I already know what they will do.”
Kaeden could only nod. He had chosen to follow that duty too, even though he was just now beginning to understand what it really meant.
Amy had been listening to
the entire conversation. She couldn’t help but smile. Kaeden hadn’t realized it, but his Galactic Standard had been almost flawless.
All of their musing was interrupted by Gabo.
“I’ve found something,” he announced suddenly. “I think you need to take a look. If I didn’t know better, I would say it’s a ship.”
Jarra just stared. How could there be a ship out here — out here in the middle of the void?
Gabo had grown bored. He had been scanning ahead of them, the scans being fed to Galen and the AI for navigation. To combat his boredom, he also had taken to scanning out as far as he could to the side of the ship, out to the edge of the stream. He’d even carried his scans down to normal space.
There were theories about space out in the voids. Even where they were now, almost in the middle of the void between the arms, they weren’t really in a true void. Those were the areas between the galaxies, where space stretched to its thinnest. Enough was known about the universe that most of those theories had been accepted as fact, but no one had been able to prove it, since they had no way to get there.
So he’d been scanning, not really expecting to find anything, but still looking for clues about the real space out here. Instead, he’d found something else.
“It’s definitely a ship,” he said as he refined his scans. “It doesn’t appear to be actively responding, so I expect it’s a derelict.”
Jarra turned to Galen. “Can we get that far out so we can investigate?”
“We’ll have to use the void drive, but yes, if we use it we can reach them.”
Jarra nodded. “Sara, send a message to Amfiltrite. Tell them what we’ve found and that we’re going to investigate. They are to hold position nearby and wait for us.”
“Engaging the void drive,” Galen told her. “It’s going to take some time to get there. Gabo, I’m going to need detailed scans of the fast hyperspace in front of us. We’re going to need to tunnel through the worst of it.”
“You’ve got it,” Gabo said. “Still no life signs from the ship.”
Kaeden had been looking at the scans. He spoke quietly to Jarra. “I believe that is one of our original fast ships,” he told her.
Jason came to stand beside her. “They must have gotten trapped out here when their hyperspace stream collapsed. What a terrible fate.”
He glanced over at Jarra. "I’m glad you thought enough ahead to make sure we avoid that.”
“All the more reason to investigate,” Jarra told him. “Perhaps we’ll be able to gather more intel before we get into Aerstone space. The more we can discover ahead of time, the better chance we have to get out of this alive.”
She turned to Kaeden. “How much do you know about those ships? Will their reactors still be active?”
Kaeden nodded. “They should be if they were set to minimum levels. Even then we built a solid reactor.”
“You said they had minimal AIs. Does that mean it should be able to respond to queries?”
“Yes. I will need to find the correct protocols, but it should.”
“Work with Gabo,” she went on. “We need to know everything about that ship and what they found. Something tells me this is of utmost importance to the success or failure of our mission.”
A few minutes later, they arrived at the ship, just off the edge of the hyperspace stream. They were all shocked by what they saw. It looked so much like their companion ship, the Amfiltrite, that to the humans it might have been the same ship if they hadn’t known better.
Most importantly, the ship appeared to be completely dead.
Everyone stared, barely able to breathe as Gabo bent over his panel. He was as worried as the rest of them. What if it was completely dead?
“We have minimum reactor signals,” Gabo finally said, causing everyone to breathe a sigh of relief. “The ship is also broadcasting a low power IDent signal so we now know the ship’s name. Fionachtina!”
“See if you can re-activate the ship remotely,” Jarra told him. “We need to know what happened to them.”
With Kaeden’s help, Gabo prompted the ship in front of them to wake itself back up. Knowing that the ship was probably set to self-destruct if approached by the enemy, Kaeden quickly sent the Borjon equivalent of command codes. It must have worked, because a few moments later the reactors came up and the AI sent the proper response.
“We have a connection,” Gabo told them excitedly.
“Find out what happened to them. Download all the data to Sasha’s console,” Jarra told him.
She turned to Sasha, “Sasha, this needs to be your highest priority. We’ll meet in the galley when you have your report ready. Use Amy’s translation matrix to be sure you get it all correct.”
Jarra knew they would be busy for a while. “Want to join me for a cup of tea,” she asked Jason.
Jason didn’t have to be asked twice. “Oh yes, I would love to. I haven’t had much Jarra time lately.”
“We do need to rectify that. Unfortunately, it’ll just have to be only a quick respite today. We’ll have to double up later. As soon as we can find a safe anchor spot in fast hyperspace on the other side of this void, we’re all going to take a few hours off.”
It only took Sasha a little over an hour to finish. For her, this wasn’t a lot of data. When she stood up to address them in the galley, she gave them a grim smile.
“As we expected, after remaining becalmed for several weeks and even with the quick decision to ration their food, the small crew quickly realized they were facing a slow death by starvation. They had already determined rescue would be impossible. Without anything like our new void drive, they just didn’t have any other options. In the end, they voted to end it quickly by exposing the ship to vacuum.”
As a group, they all looked at Kaeden. They could imagine those Borjon trapped with the choice of a slow, painful death by starvation or deciding to end it quickly. When there was no hope, the second seemed preferable.
Jarra spoke quietly to him. “We honor them in their sacrifice.”
“Thank you. Although they’re only a few of the ones who lost their lives in that horrible war, I’m sure their nest will be pleased to know they have been found.”
Sasha took a breath and then continued. “They chose not to initiate the self-destruct just in case they were found by their people later. They hoped someone would be able to use their data.”
She pushed a map of Aerstone space to the display in front of them. “The information they obtained is quite valuable.”
Sasha looked around at her team and friends, and especially her leader. She knew what she was about to tell them next was going to be monumental. “It seems their ship is the only one of their entire attack fleet to face the Aerstone Sentinel and survive.”
Everyone sat in shocked silence. Finally, Jarra spoke up. “I guess you’d better share with us what you’ve found.”
After their little side trip, the rest of the flight across the void was anticlimactic. It really was a whole lot of nothing. The whole time they couldn’t help but think of those aboard that Borjon ship, trapped out here with no way to get home. At least now their story would be told and they would be remembered.
Jarra had struggled with the decision of what to do with the ancient Borjon ship, but in the end, they had no choice. They had no way to get the ship across the void to return it home, and she didn’t think it was safe to leave it here. So before they left to continue their voyage, they sent the ship into a strong hyperspace energy stream so that it would be dissolved into its component atoms and at least giving the deceased Borjon a burial in space.
Everyone had been quiet for the rest of the time in the void. All of them were thinking his or her own thoughts. Unsurprisingly, even after learning what Sasha had told them, not a single one suggested they break off from their mission and return home. For the sake of her friends, Jarra wished that she could give such an order, but she knew she couldn’t.
Every time they learned more abo
ut the Sentinels, their mission took on even more importance. To Jarra, the Sentinels represented the biggest risk they’d seen to date from the Aerstone, especially if what she believed to be true was correct. Not that they could do anything about it yet. But as soon as Sasha had done a complete data dive inside the Aerstone NET, she intended to send Amfiltrite back with the information they’d obtained to this point. Her uncle needed to be warned.
The exit into the Aerstone arm went without incident. After all, they were traveling in fast hyperspace and the Aerstone had no way to detect such ships. They rather quickly found their way to an anchor point just inside the galaxy arm, the Amfiltrite joining them shortly afterwards. Hidden away in an eddy in fast hyperspace, Jarra told everyone to take the night off; they would begin their mission the next day.
They would do their duty, even if it was their last act.
Sitting in the ship’s galley, Jarra forced her thoughts to more pleasant things and joined in with the others as they all tried to relax. Unspoken but obvious in its absence, no one talked about their mission that would begin in earnest the next day. Instead, they all chose to treasure their time together.
Jarra had instructed the AI to go beyond the normal and dip into their stores for a special meal. Jason couldn’t resist commenting on the meal. “Corsica prime rib again?” he asked her with a smile.
“You probably wish. Here I thought you’ve been interested in me all this time, where really all you care about is what’s for dinner.”
“I’m extremely hurt that you would suggest such a thing. I’m really in it for your wealth and fame as a crown princess — fooled you so far, haven’t I?”
“And I thought it was my beauty and wonderful personality,” Jarra replied, a twinkle in her eyes.
Jason shook his head. “I can’t deny that one. I fell in love with the whole package; it was only a coincidence that you were a princess. Everything about you I find amazing.”
