Modulus Echo

by Toby Neighbors

  “So?” Kim said.

  “So I need your help. I’ll lead the fight against the intruders,” Pershing said. “I’ll rally the Fleet, extend the olive branch to the rebels, put my life on the line. That’s not just my job, it’s who I am. I didn’t rise to this rank by networking with politicians or courting the royal family. I earned this star. But I need your technology to do it. And I need to know everything.”

  Ben looked at Kim. She shook her head, but Ben could see doubt in her eyes. The truth was, Ben was scared. He felt sick over the loss of life in the Celeste system and afraid of what lay on the other side of the wormhole they had opened.

  “Get everyone together,” Ben told Kim. “We’ll meet in the lounge.”

  “What about her?” Kim asked.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Pershing said.

  Kim got up and left the galley.

  “Please wait up here,” Ben said.

  “Alright,” Pershing replied.

  “I’ll talk to them, but I can’t promise anything. And we make a decision together.”

  “I understand,” Pershing said as she leaned forward. “Just make sure they understand what’s at stake. We’re not alone in the galaxy anymore, Ben. It’s time to bury our differences and come together to face the real threat.”

  “Maybe you’re wrong,” Ben said. “Maybe they weren’t alien ships.”

  “You saw them,” Pershing said. “Did they look like something humans would build?”

  Chapter 2

  Ben didn’t reply. He got up from the table and carried his plate to the kitchen with his heart hammering inside his chest. His emotions were swirling like matter caught in the gravity of a black hole. He felt guilt over the destruction of the Royal Imperium Fleet, fear of what lay beyond the wormhole, and anger at having been put in danger to begin with.

  General Pershing didn’t leave the table under the transparent steel of the observation deck. Ben couldn’t tell whether she was cold and calculating, or merely patient, but he was certain she was dangerous. He went back down to the main level and found his friends waiting for him in the crew lounge.

  “What a piece of work,” Kim said. “That’s one cold fish if you ask me.”

  “What did she say?” Nance asked.

  “She wants to know about the professor’s research,” Ben said.

  “Of course she does,” Kim said.

  “It’s not ready,” Professor Jones said quietly. “The portal works, but I’m not sure where it opened. I need more time.”

  “Time is the one luxury we don’t have,” Ben said. “We’re less than three hours from the Yelsin system with who knows how many Special Forces troops.”

  “So maybe we shouldn’t go there,” Kim said. “I mean, we just killed about a hundred thousand Royal Imperium soldiers and destroyed their headquarters. I doubt they’re going to just sweep that under the rug.”

  “If we give them the information they want, will they let us go?” Magnum asked.

  Kim gave him a look like the big man had lost his mind. Even Nance looked at him strangely.

  “She didn’t say,” Ben said.

  “That’s because she wants to see our heads lopped off and mounted on the prow of her ship,” Kim said angrily.

  “She doesn’t have a ship,” Magnum pointed out. “And if that were her plan, she wouldn’t ask us for the information. She would just take it.”

  “Are you really considering giving that woman the secret to one thing that has kept us alive this last week?” Kim demanded. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “No,” Magnum said.

  “Please don’t fight,” Ben said softly. His emotions were like a maelstrom just below the surface of the calm demeanor he was trying to project. “We need a plan and we need it fast.”

  “I say we toss the general and her companion right out of the air lock,” Kim said.

  “We should at least hear her out,” Nance said calmly. “She has to be offering something in return.”

  “You are talking about my research,” Jones said. “We cannot just hand it over. You all saw the destruction it caused in the Celeste system. We have a moral obligation to ensure the information isn’t abused.”

  “The way we abused it?” Ben said, shaking his head. “I still can’t get over the destruction it caused.”

  “Hey, don’t forget who we’re talking about here,” Kim said. “The Royal Imperium is evil. They torture and kill anyone brave enough to speak out against their tyranny. We saw firsthand what they’re doing in the Mersa system.”

  “What are they doing?” Professor Jones asked.

  “Gassing the planet,” Kim said. “They’re releasing some kind of chemical agent in the atmosphere to make the citizens there less aggressive and more open to the government’s influence.”

  “That’s unbelievable,” Jones said.

  “We saw it,” Nance said. “We even recovered one of their drones. That’s how we know what they were doing.”

  “And they were threatening to bombard innocent planets if we didn’t surrender,” Kim said. “Don’t forget that. They were evil, and if not for their warmongering, we wouldn’t have had to use the rocket to protect ourselves.”

  Ben wasn’t sure that his life was worth the thousands who died in the attack. It had been his idea to use the rocket, although he hadn’t realized how many ships would be caught in the gravitational pull of the black hole they created. And he never dreamed the entire Royal Imperium headquarters would be destroyed. All he had wanted to do was protect the people he cared about.

  “What’s done is done,” Nance said. “We can’t take it back, but we can keep anyone else from repeating it.”

  “What are you saying?” Jones demanded.

  “That maybe we should destroy the research,” Nance said in her usual, unflappable tone.

  “It’s better than handing it over to the enemy,” Kim said. “We know they have no qualms about wiping out entire worlds.”

  “That’s a noble thought, but you’d have to kill me and the professor,” Ben said. “He knows his research and I know enough to make another rocket. I’d like to think I could withstand being tortured, but I would do anything to keep someone from hurting one of you.”

  “So where does that leave us?” Kim asked.

  “We could run,” Nance said. “Just disappear on a small planet somewhere.”

  “I have an issue with that,” Magnum said.

  Ben could tell that speaking up with an idea that was the opposite of Nance’s suggestion pained the big man. He wasn’t afraid of a fight, but hurting the woman he cared so much for was not something he relished.

  “Those ships in the wormhole,” Magnum went on, “were alien. And one of them came through to our side.”

  “We don’t know that they’re alien,” Kim said.

  “They looked alien,” Magnum said.

  “The general thinks they were alien too,” Ben said.

  “That’s why I don’t think we can run away,” Magnum went on. “I don’t regret taking out the Fleet. They had it coming for sure. But they were also our only defense against an alien threat.”

  “So you think we should help them now?” Nance asked.

  “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Professor Jones said.

  “Who’s to say the aliens are our enemy?” Kim said. “Maybe the ice queen went through the wormhole, saw the aliens, and just started blasting away.”

  “There’s one way to find out,” Ben said. “Let’s ask her.”

  “I trust that woman like I trust a space eel,” Kim said.

  “But if she’s telling the truth,” Magnum said, “and the wormhole leads to another galaxy, we may have opened the door to something terrible.”

  “Your man knows how to make a girl feel safe, doesn’t he?” Kim said to Nance.

  “I guess he’s right,” Nance replied. “If we run and hide while aliens come through the wormhole, we’d just be delaying the inevitable.” />
  “Or maybe we’ve done our part,” Kim argued. “Isn’t there an army of Confederacy troops just waiting to win back control of the galaxy? I say we find a quiet port and let the rebels take up the fight.”

  “Let’s hear what the general has to say,” Ben said. “We won’t know what to do until we’re sure she’s telling the truth.”

  “There’s only one kind of royalist you can trust,” Kim said. “The dead kind.”

  Chapter 3

  “When we first went through the portal, there was nothing on the other side,” Pershing said. “Just empty space. I ordered the ship’s officers to take readings and ascertain where we were.”

  “What did you discover?”

  The older man seemed genuinely curious, while the rest of the crew were obviously suspicious. It had been a long time since Pershing had endured such open hostility. Even her superiors among the Royal Imperium command structure had shown her deference when they disagreed with her. Of course, they had the knowledge of what she had done. While they had risen through the ranks by currying political favor and making the right connections, she had clawed her way to the top on the backs of confirmed kills and bloody engagements.

  “We were still in the process of collecting data when the first alien ship appeared,” Pershing admitted.

  The older man looked disappointed. He was a curious addition to the crew. The leader, the one called Ben, was much younger. It was hard to ascertain, but she guessed he was in his midtwenties. There was still a youthful enthusiasm in his face, although she could see the phantoms of horrors deep in his eyes. The big man was quiet. She had yet to hear him speak, but she knew the type. His eyes took in everything and studied her the way a prizefighter summed up an opponent.

  “How do you know it was an alien?” asked the pilot, who in many ways reminded Pershing of herself.

  She had entered the Royal Imperium Military Academy full of optimism and confidence. She had overcome the many hurdles placed upon her by superiors who had their own favorites they wanted to see succeed. Years of officer training had taught her to control her emotions and keep her ambitions secret. The last thing she could afford was to reveal her desires to her fellow cadets who would use any information she gave them to stab her in the back.

  “We hailed them,” Pershing explained. “The response was gibberish.”

  “Maybe the signal was scrambled?” Kim said.

  “That’s possible, although highly unlikely,” Pershing said. “The response was clear enough, just unintelligible.”

  “Did you fire on them?” Ben asked.

  He was not the type to dance around a subject and she could respect that. She trained her own subordinates to get straight to the point.

  “No,” Pershing said.

  “You really expect us to believe that?” Kim snapped.

  “If you knew your Fleet vessels better, you wouldn’t doubt me,” Pershing said. “The R.I.F. Deception was a surveillance ship. She had a point defense system, but no antiship weapons.”

  “So you were in a spy ship,” Ben asked. “Why didn’t you try to hide?”

  “They surprised us,” Pershing said honestly. “I suppose they were drawn to the energy from the portal opening, but that’s just a guess. All I know for certain was that one moment we were alone in an empty stretch of space between star systems, and the next two unusual vessels dropped out of hyperspace nearly on top of us.”

  “Then what happened?” Ben asked.

  “As I said, we hailed them,” Pershing continued. “I raised our shields, but their ships were too close to outrun. We were in the process of turning around when the first attack came.”

  “They attacked you first?” Nance asked.

  “That is correct,” Pershing said, not quite sure what to make of the smaller girl. She wasn’t as young as she looked, but it was hard to tell in the oversized garments she wore. Pershing hadn’t been certain she was even female until she spoke.

  “They used some type of grappling arms to take hold of our ship,” Pershing continued. “The connections ripped open the hull and compromised several of the Deception’s compartments. Dozens of the ship’s crew were killed in the attack. We tried to pull away, but fighting against the connections only damaged our ship further. When I was certain that we couldn’t escape any other way, I gave the order to abandon ship.”

  “We saw the escape pods going back through the wormhole,” Magnum said.

  “Captain Derringer and I were the last to leave the ship,” Pershing went on, “and were making our way to the escape pods when the Deception was pulled close to the alien’s hull. Their gravity overwhelmed our own. We both fell. The captain hit her head. I managed to get her into an escape pod, then followed her in one of my own. I’m not sure what happened after that. I ejected, but there was a bang almost immediately after my pod was jettisoned from the Deception. I can only assume that my pod hit something, or perhaps the ejection system failed somehow. I had no control over the pod.”

  “You weren’t going to make it back through the wormhole,” Kim said. “If we hadn’t picked you up...”

  She let the thought trail off. Pershing looked at Kim with narrowed eyes. She wasn’t sure if the pilot wanted her to fall down and thank the crew for saving her life, but that would never happen. Up until the moment aliens had appeared on the Deception’s scopes, the Modulus Echo had been her enemy. One day, if they lived long enough, Pershing would make sure that they were held accountable for their crimes.

  “The question is what we do now?” Ben said. “You asked for our help, General. What did you have in mind?”

  Pershing cleared her throat and looked at the young man who led the crew. He was not what she expected. Most spacers had a hard edge, but Ben wasn’t jaded or angry. He wasn’t like the rebels she had fought either. They were fanatics, unwavering from their cause even if it was misguided, and fueled with an irrational hatred for the Royal Imperium and anyone who represented it.

  “I suggest, until we have dealt with the problem caused by the portal your device opened in the Celeste system,” Pershing said, “that we work together.”

  “How’s that?” Kim asked.

  “I want to know where your new technology came from,” Pershing continued as if the pilot hadn’t spoken. “I have to know all who have access to the weapon you used against the Fleet.”

  “No one else,” Ben said.

  “It’s not a weapon,” the older man said.

  “Whatever it was, you used it as a weapon,” Pershing said in an icy tone. “Where did it come from?”

  “I invented it,” Jones admitted.

  “And you are?”

  “Forrest Remington Jones, former professor and gravity research specialist.”

  “He’s also our acting physician,” Ben said. “He’s taking care of your friend, Captain Derringer.”

  “Why would you create such a deadly device?” Pershing asked.

  “It was never intended to be weaponized,” Jones replied. “The rocket, if detonated in empty space and under the right conditions, was meant to create a wormhole to a specific location.”

  “A wormhole,” Pershing said.

  “That’s correct, a stable pathway between systems,” Jones said excitedly. “Just imagine being able to traverse the galaxy in minutes. My goal was to create a central port where information and goods, including people themselves, could travel anywhere in the galaxy in a fraction of the time needed to make a single hyperspace jump, and at minimal costs.”

  “Why did you hide this research from the Royal Imperium authorities?” Pershing asked.

  “I didn’t,” Jones replied indignantly. “I am not a political advocate. I’m a research and design expert. I was part of the Imperium’s Technology Institute, but my theories were ridiculed. I was run out of the academic community and until I met the crew here, my research was unsupported.”

  “And how did this little group from Torrent Four help you?” Pershing said.

>   “I think maybe we’ve shared enough,” Kim spoke up. “I mean, after all, what are you offering in exchange?”

  Pershing looked at the pilot. She was arrogant and brash, the way a fighter pilot should be. But Pershing was beginning to think there might be more to the short-haired pilot than just being an angry flyer.

  “I can’t speak for the royal family,” Pershing said. “Or the rest of the Fleet, although it’s highly likely that I’m the last remaining officer from the command staff still alive.”

  “Lucky for us,” Kim quipped.

  “I want to know about the weapon and the advanced shields,” Pershing said. “In exchange, I’ll promise you safe passage in the Yelsin system and all the supplies you need.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Kim demanded. “You want the biggest technological breakthrough in over a century for a few measly supplies?”

  “She’s offering safe passage,” Ben added.

  “That’s still not enough,” Kim said.

  “Look,” Pershing said, trying to keep the anger from her voice. “I’m not bargaining here. We have a new threat. One that you are frankly responsible for.”

  “Ha,” Kim said, but without much enthusiasm.

  “We know nothing about them, but I’m assuming your shields held up against their attack?”

  “That’s right,” Ben said.

  “Then we have to know what you’re using,” Pershing went on. “The Fleet is weaker than it has ever been, and it’s impossible to know who will rise up to help us face this new threat. If you don’t give us the technology, we’re essentially defenseless against an enemy that for all we know could have endless resources.”

  “It’s all conjecture,” Kim said.

  “Speaking statistically,” Jones said, “the general is correct. The odds are not in our favor.”

  “I think we have to help,” Magnum said.

  “We can’t leave the galaxy open to invasion,” Nance said. “We couldn’t live with ourselves if even one innocent world was lost because we refused to help.”

  “I’m not suggesting we don’t help,” Kim said. “But I think the general is asking for a one-sided deal. The entire galaxy is looking for us. Why not promise us safe passage anywhere we go? Why not offer immunity for whatever perceived crimes the Royal Imperium claims we’ve committed?”