by Kal Spriggs
“You’re talking a coup,” I asked in shock.
“I’m talking enough chaos that our mystery guests have an excuse to invade,” The Admiral said. “Especially with an invitation from members of Century’s Charter Council. It wouldn’t even have to be Drakkus, it could be a Guard Peacekeeping force. Once they have boots on the ground, no one outside our system would bat an eye if they stay here. That’s basically what happened at Ten Sisters. It could happen here easily enough.”
I shivered as I tried to picture all of that. If people were confused, if they didn’t know who to believe or who to trust, would they just go along with whoever showed up to restore order?
“I got it!” Commander Weisfeldt exclaimed, “Oh, this is just marvelous!”
“So it was just the patrol routes?” I asked hopefully.
“Oh, no, they had our evasion algorithm perfectly,” he answered. “I plotted in your course and if you hadn’t had your evasion software disabled, they would have nailed you with their first volley. I’ve tried the software three times now on three different systems, it plots exactly the same evasion pattern... but only when I disable the “drill” sequence and make it think it’s a live scenario.”
I shivered as I realized what that meant. The software wasn’t flawed... it had been designed to be predictable in combat.
“Can you crack their code?” The Admiral asked.
“Hacking isn’t my area of expertise, ma’am,” he replied. “I have some people in Directorate Thirteen that might be able to do it, but I’m really worried about what other traps we might find. This software is used in every Militia ship. If there happens to be some kind of panic code, with how it’s integrated into navigational software, they could do some serious damage.”
I cringed as I imagined just how disastrous that could be. I doubted it could arrange collisions, but navigation systems tied into the warp-drives, communications, almost every system on a ship. If this was invasive enough, it might even access the ship’s power plants where it could overload them or even just shut them down.
“We need a handle on this. Bring in anyone you need. I’ll get you a navigational computer you can work on in isolation. Tear it apart and give me every scrap of information you can,” The Admiral began typing in commands on her display. “In the meantime, I’m going to begin drafting an order to have select forces begin reverting to the old navigational software, as soon as you can promise me that won’t trigger another trap.”
“Select units?” Kyle asked.
The Admiral started, almost as if she’d forgotten we were present. Her lips formed in a frown as she answered, almost as if she didn’t like the words she was saying, “I’m only going to issue the order to units whose commanders and personnel I trust.”
“She doesn’t want the information to get back to Beckman,” Commander Weisfeldt nodded.
“But that will leave most of the Militia vulnerable,” I protested.
“It will,” she nodded, “but I can’t risk our enemies knowing that we know.”
“But they’ll have to know that Kyle and I survived!” I waved a hand at my boyfriend.
“Do they?” The Admiral asked with a slight smile.
“Uh, we’re alive, aren’t we?” Kyle asked, his eyes going wide. From his expression, I could tell he was wondering if the Admiral were about to make us disappear.
“The assignment records for cadets are kept close-hold, normally only the assigned unit, the school, and the cadets know where people were assigned. Now, someone might have shared that information, but it’s encrypted, so only people with the proper access can see that.”
“So?” I asked.
“So while they’ll be able to look up a crew roster of who was supposed to be on the station and find it in the public record, neither of you will show up on that list,” the Admiral said. “And, while you both survived the attack from the enemy destroyer, sensor records from long range showed your drives cutting out during the detonations of several antimatter warheads. The official story, right now, is that Summit Station came under attack and that two of their pilots attempted to come in-system to warn us. Those two pilots were intercepted by unknown parties and while they managed to destroy their attacker, they were killed in the process.”
I stared at the Admiral in shock. Surely it wasn't so easy to make two people disappear?
“What about the crew of the destroyer that picked us up?” Kyle asked, his green eyes wide and his face pale. His expression would have almost been comical, if I hadn't felt the way I did.
“Most of them never saw you two, the ones that did, have been sworn into secrecy. The entire crew, in fact, has been sworn into secrecy, just as they would have if we really didn't know what had happened. They're all being debriefed and, then, they're being assigned on a long patrol mission.”
“You can arrange that much from here?” I asked in surprise.
“There's a handful of people in the Militia that I can trust, but arranging such things is possible,” the Admiral said dryly.
“Won't we need their firepower, in case it comes to an invasion?” My eyes narrowed as I considered it.
“One destroyer, weighted against the chance of surprising our enemy?” The Admiral shook her head, even as she brought up a map of units throughout the star system. “No, we'll activate a reserve unit for the duration. That patrol we're sending the destroyer on, it's going to involve our mercenary company anyway.” She pursed her lips as she looked between us. I could tell that she didn't want to tell us, tell anyone, anything further. She'd made plans to defend our system and in her mind, the less people who knew the details, the better.
“I'm assigning both of you to Directorate Thirteen, they're operational working on a special project since the move. Jiden, you in particular are going to be useful on the project they're working on... and Cadet Regan, given your engineering scores, I'm sure they'll be able to use you too.”
“Yes, ma'am,” we chorused after she finished.
She looked between us both, “I'm proud of you both, by the way. Not just for finding this, as you did, but also for surviving.”
“If not for Commander Arton...” I began.
“The Commander did what he should have,” she nodded. “And given his close ties to Admiral Drien, I suspect that he was there for a similar purpose to you two. But in the end, both of you survived and brought me the information I needed. That will allow me to find the people responsible for this and to destroy them.” Her blue eyes burned as she said that last part.
Not surprisingly, I was perfectly good with that last part.
***
“It really is a shame about the timing of all this,” Commander Weisfeldt said as he escorted us into a security checkpoint. The first part was a simple ID check, but after that, we stepped into a corridor lined with full-body scanners and a pair of armed guards scanned all three of us as we stood waiting. The guards stood behind armored glass complete with firing ports for their rifles, their expressions alert. Apparently Directorate Thirteen had undergone a security upgrade.
“Timing, sir?” I asked, holding my arms up as they scanned me. I wasn’t sure what they were looking for. I had a full audiovisual recording set built into my implant along with the ability to push massive amounts of data.
“Yes, we’re still about a year out from finishing, so...” he shrugged, “all good?” Commander Weisfeldt quirked an eyebrow at the guards.
“Scan verified, sir,” the NCO replied. “Deep tissue scan verified all three of you within human parameters, the female came up with a flag on her implant.”
“Oh, yes,” Commander Weisfeldt nodded, “update your scanner with parameters ‘quicksilver’ and it should authorize her.”
The guard did that and her scanner beeped. “You’re all clean, sir,” she toggled a switch and the door at the end of the corridor opened, allowing us to move on.
I had expected a lab or office. What I found instead was a waiting room. At the fa
r end was a standard airlock and next to it was a display that listed departure and arrival times. I looked at Commander Weisfeldt in confusion.
“We’ve moved,” he answered. “But while the Admiral controls our operations from Century Station, there’s not really the right environment for us to do our work here. So,” he gestured at the airlock, “we take the shuttle.”
“To where?” Kyle asked. “I mean, Century Station makes sense, because it’s fortified and you can control access to the military sections… but we don’t have any other major military stations in the system, and as we saw at Summit Station, we’re vulnerable.”
“Classified,” Commander Weisfeldt grinned. With his wild eyebrows and unruly hair, his expression was downright manic-looking.
“Seriously, sir?” I asked, looking around, “After what we just went through?”
“I couldn’t tell you because I don’t know. Nor does just about anyone else on staff,” he grinned broader at the consternation on my face. Kyle looked confused, “But the shuttle, it’s not like it’s hard to track where a ship goes, right?”
“It’s harder when it goes into strategic warp,” Commander Weisfeldt settled into a seat and crossed his arms, still grinning like a child with a secret. “Harder still when you make multiple jumps.”
Kyle frowned, “But shuttles can’t fit a strategic drive…”
The display near the airlock chimed and others in the waiting area stood up. Commander Weisfeldt rose as well, still grinning. He led the way over and we all stood waiting. A few seconds later, the airlock opened and a dour-looking NCO stepped out, datapad in one hand. He scanned each person as they went through the airlock, his expression distrustful.
“Hello, Watts, how are you today?” Commander Weisfeldt asked cheerfully.
“About as well as can be expected, sir,” Sergeant Watts grunted in reply as he scanned him.
He scanned Kyle and then me, and as we moved past him, he closed the airlock, swiping his hand over the lock to secure it and then closed the hatch to the shuttle. We had to move all the way to the back of the shuttle to find open seats. Even for a military shuttle, the whole area felt claustrophobic. There were no windows or portholes, no displays. We detached from the station, going into microgravity for a moment.
As we maneuvered clear of the station on thrusters, I noticed that most of the passengers had adopted grim expressions, all except Commander Weisfeldt, who had sat in the jump seat next to Sergeant Watts. Watts’ expression was fixed, jaw locked, eyes straight ahead. Commander Weisfeldt’s lips were drawn back in a smile, his teet bared and his dark eyes twinkling in excitement.
I’ve got a bad feeling about this…
The FTL warp drive engaged. On a ship, normally there was the slightest sensation of movement. On the shuttle, it felt like something had grabbed the shuttle and shook it. No sooner did that ease up than it started again as we emerged from FTL. The flight time had been ten seconds or less, including the spool up and down of the drive. That meant we could be just about anywhere in the inner or outer system.
I looked at Kyle, “That wasn’t so bad—”
The entire shuttle lurched and shook as the strategic drive engaged again. This time, as it disengaged, I had the strangest feeling of tumbling, or spinning. I had to swallow against the urge to throw up. A moment later, the drive engaged again, this time a shorter jump, but it was worse because the shaking, quivering feel from spool up occurred with the spool-down too.
Someone nearby had started quietly throwing up. I clenched my lips together and reached out to squeeze Kyle’s hand. He squeezed back, but I didn’t dare turn my head. I kept my eyes locked forward. The next jump, I could see the air and bulkhead flex a bit. The drive, I realized, it either wasn’t stable or it wasn’t properly calibrated and we’d just jumped four or more times. The level of risk in that made me shudder and I nearly lost control of my stomach.
“Docking, thirty seconds,” the pilot’s voice came over the intercom. He sounded tense and I wondered if he understood the risks… and just what the Admiral was thinking in doing things like this. This is crazy…
The pilot, crazy or not, brought the shuttle in to dock. We seemed to be in microgravity. I held up my datapad and let go, watching it slowly settle through the air. We disembarked and as we came through the airlock, gravity resumed, or at least, the deck had grav-plates.
Commander Weisfeldt awaited us, at yet another security checkpoint. This time, they didn’t ask questions about my implant, though whether that was because this was a deep-tissue scan or not, I wasn’t sure. As we stepped into the corridor beyond, Commander Wiesfeldt led us at a swift pace, his stocky frame practically bouncing in excitement. “That was quite the ride, eh?”
“The drive wasn’t properly calibrated, was it?” I asked. I’d reached out with my implant and found that while I had some limited access to the installation’s network, I had no connection outside of it and nothing at all with the base’s external sensors.
“Oh, it was… for what it’s worth,” he looked back over his shoulder. “Cadet Regan, any thoughts?”
“Was it… was it the drive we worked on?” Kyle asked. My eyes went wide as I made the connection that I shouldn't have missed.
“Exactly!” Commander Weisfeldt threw up his hands. “Isn’t it exciting? That’s just the prototype, mind you, but five consecutive strategic warp jumps on a shuttle-sized platform, the power requirements would be massive, well, they still are massive, but they’re actually possible given the equations we worked out last year.”
“It’s been built?” Kyle asked in shock
“The Weisfeldt-Armstrong-Regan drive is fully operational,” Commander Wiesfeldt stopped in front of a hatch. He tapped in a code and then held his hand over a reader. The hatch slid open and he gestured at us to step through. I went through in step with Kyle.
I froze, though, a moment later. It was a huge open area, spanning multiple levels. Taking up the central area was a ship. It looked to be big, bigger than my brain could easily take in. It had the standard-looking thick warp drive rings of a military ship, but there were differences that popped out to me. The shape of those rings, thinner in the front and thicker towards the back, were distinctive… because I’d designed something just like that
“Welcome to Directorate Thirteen’s primary operation: Project Alexandria,” Commander Weisfeldt said. “As you can see, we’ve already begun construction of the first of the class. Now that you two are here, we can really get things rolling.”
***
Chapter 19: Putting Myself Back Together
The ship was not as complete as I had thought. As Commander Weisfeldt gave us the tour, first of the construction bay and then of the ship itself, I saw that it was partially a shell. While the majority of the structural hull was complete, there were serious missing sections, many of them the custom-designed components that I’d helped to design my last summer at Directorate Thirteen.
“We’re still assembling some of the matter-antimatter core assembly,” Commander Weisfeldt said. “There’s some fine details involved and that’s not the kind of thing you want to rush.”
“The shuttle, though,” Kyle asked for what felt like the thirtieth time, “the fluctuations in the drive field, those were errors in the computer’s ability to tailor the power to the drive field in real-time, right?”
“Yes, we didn’t quite have the funding to pay for that level of computing power for an as-yet-untested prototype. Of course, now we’d rather put the funding towards this,” Commander Weisfeldt waved his arms around.
“Isn’t it dangerous, though, with the drive field in flux?” I asked. “I mean, especially with so many FTL jumps.”
“Despite what Sergeant Watts and some of our passengers believe, it is… mostly safe,” Commander Weisfeldt waggled his hand back and forth. “There’s a rather interesting pulse of radiation shifting back into phase out of FTL and there’s some incredibly hazardous navigational issues if you
r pilot isn’t spot on with timing, but other than that and some potential issues with a feedback loop with the matter-antimatter reactor, there’s really no risk at all over a normal drive field.”
“Uh…” those three things all sounded pretty serious but I wasn’t really sure how to say that.
“But the prototype is the past. This, this is the future!” Commander Weisfeldt gestured upwards at the Alexandria-class ship in its zero-g cradle. A team floated only a few meters away from us, outside of the field of the grav plates we walked on. I watched as they slid a sensor array into place and began fastening it into the inner hull. Beyond them, an assembly robot waited, a stack of armored hull plates clutched in its grabber arms.
“Has anyone looked at doing a quicksilver computer core, independent of a human brain?” I asked. I didn’t know how expensive it might be, but since it allowed me to split my focus and do multiple calculations almost instantly, I wondered whether it was in use elsewhere.
“We’re actually using the material for multiple roles,” he answered. “But it’s rather expensive to produce, something that Doctor Aisling’s Project Quicksilver didn’t properly account for.” Commander Weisfeldt shot me a look, “The five ounces of it in your cranium would pay for that shuttle we rode out here… twice over.”
I stared at him, “Are you serious?”
“Deadly serious, I’m afraid,” he replied, turning back to stare at the ship above us. “In fact, I notified the Admiral that all our Quicksilver Project cadets are a kidnapping risk, not just for the value of their implants but for the value of the material… especially when word inevitably gets out.”
“You don’t think…” I trailed off in shock. “That’s horrible.” I shuddered as I imagined someone cutting open my head to scoop out the thin filaments of my quicksilver implant. Kyle reached over and gave my shoulder a comforting squeeze.