by Baen Books
“Yes,” Takeda nodded. “Tapping into that subspace for usable negative energy was the greatest problem Bernheim had to overcome.”
“Well, Yoder was convinced that there was at least one other exotic energy state—he never publicly discussed its exact nature—that could be utilized for his purposes. Possibly it was this that the survey ship detected. The instruments that I’ve asked you to have connected to this ship’s sensor suite are designed on the basis of the readings that ship recorded—and now we know the exact region of space in which to search.”
As it turned out, however, Hawke’s own sensors were the first to detect the phenomenon. Not long after they passed beyond the outermost limits of the debris disc, the gravitic scanners revealed an intense gravity field—evidently artificial gravity, since there was no large mass to account for it.
“The survey ship’s report mentioned nothing about this,” fidgeted Willett.
“They wouldn’t have had Navy grade long-range gravitic scanners,” Takeda reminded him. “They detected this ‘exotic energy flux’ by other means before they were close enough for their civilian gravscanners—if they had even those—to pick up this gravity field. Mr. Malone is doing a detailed analysis of the readings, and he should have some answers for us soon.”
After consultation with the ship’s sensor ratings and the technicians Willett had brought aboard, the first officer approached the captain’s chair, frowning. “Captain, we’ve now got readings on Dr. Willett’s equipment that match what was reported. But as for the G-field . . . we’re still not close enough to detect what’s generating it. But it’s a very intense one—an odd kind of gravitational vortex. And it’s . . . anomalous.”
“Explain, Number One.”
“As I said, sir, it’s very strong—but it somehow reverses itself.”
“What does that mean?” Willett wanted to know.
“It’s a matter of a ship’s vector. If you’re heading into it, it will suck you in toward the center. But if you were headed outward from the center, it would shove you out. Spit you out, really.”
Takeda felt he must be missing something. “How could that be? And how the devil would anybody be heading out of it?”
“Unknown, Captain. It’s a complete mystery to Dr. Willett’s people too.”
“You say you can’t detect a generator yet?” Asked Willett.
“No, Doctor. But I can tell you this much. Your people gave me the specifications for Jonas Yoder’s ship, and if it were that size we would be able to detect it. It’s simply not there.”
“Is there any sign of wreckage?”
“No, and even if there ever were any, I doubt if we’ll find it now. I imagine it would have long since been drawn in by the gravity field. But we won’t be able to do a real search for it until we get closer.”
“Which we are going to do with great caution,” Takeda stated firmly. “We won’t head straight down the gravity well, of course. We’ll go into a hyperbolic orbit of the . . . phenomenon, passing its center as closely as possible without getting within its Primary Limit.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Malone. The “Primary Limit” was defined by a gravitational force of 0.1 Earth G; any stronger and the Bernheim Drive would not function even in slower-than-light mode. “I’ll instruct the helmsman. Of course, it goes without saying that this will bring us well within the Secondary Limit.”
“Of course,” Takeda echoed. “No matter. We’ll have no reason to want to go superluminal.” He turned to Willett. “Well, Doctor, maybe we’ll have your answers soon.”
* * *
As they drew closer, the first officer’s skepticism was confirmed. No trace of wreckage was found. At the same time, it became possible to detect a material object at the center of the gravity field. It wasn’t a naked-eye object, and wouldn’t have been even if it hadn’t been surrounded by a region of slight visual distortion, with the stars behind it seeming to wave and flicker. But it was definitely there.
“Perhaps it’s Yoder’s device,” Willett speculated.
“But how could anything that small be producing this field?” demanded Takeda. “Especially after all this time? You told me Yoder came out here a generation ago.”
“The effect must be largely self-sustaining, with minimal assistance from the generator. Perhaps the two-way gravitational action somehow produces energy in a manner analogous to the ‘tidal heating’ observed on many moons of massive planets.” Willett shook his head, dismissing the subject pending further observation. “Captain, are we going to get any closer to it?”
Takeda glanced at the nav plot. “Yes, we’re not quite at perigee yet. Soon we’ll—”
At that moment, a series of threat displays awoke, and a new icon appeared on the nav plot astern of them, about sixty degrees clockwise and moving rapidly out from the center of the vortex.
“Captain—” Malone began.
“I see it, Number One. Beat to quarters. And give me an ID of that ship as soon as you can get some sensor readings on it.”
As the alarms whooped through the ship, the artificial gravity field took hold of the mysterious newcomer while it was still within the Primary Limit and began to bend its course into a counterclockwise orbit that would more or less follow Hawke’s.
“Where did it come from?” demanded Willett, staring wide-eyed at the icon that had sprung so inexplicably into being.
“I was hoping you’d be able to give me some help with that, Doctor.” Takeda ordered himself to keep his voice level.
“Captain,” Malone called out, “the sensor readings are in, and the computer has run them against our database. They don’t exactly match any known ship.”
“Go for similarities, then.” Takeda swung toward the communications officer. “Mr. Chandra, raise that ship.”
“I can’t sir,” Lieutenant Chandra reported. “Whatever this exotic energy field is, it’s creating a lot of interference.”
“Well, keep trying. Any luck, Number One?”
“Yes, sir.” Malone’s voice was crisp and emotionless. “The closest match is the big Gharnakh warship that we have data on. But that one was equivalent to one of our fourth raters. This one is somewhat more massive and has a stronger energy signature.”
So it’s almost equivalent to one of our capital ships . . . “Mr. Davison,” Takeda snapped at the helmsman, “get us out to the Secondary Limit!”
Had they already been outside the Secondary Limit, Hawke could simply have ducked into the safety of its warp field. As it was, Davison thought a command into the neural-induction helmet that mind-linked him with the ship’s brain, and Hawke surged under sublight pseudo-acceleration. But at appreciably the same instant, the Gharnakh ship passed the Primary Limit and proceeded to do exactly the same thing. And it immediately became apparent that the Gharnakh’sha could pull at least as many Gs as they could . . . in fact, a few more.
“Captain—” a bewildered Willett began. Takeda shushed him with a peremptory gesture and thought furiously. As a fifth rater, Hawke was armed primarily with laser weapons. Her reaction-drive missiles were useful against planetary targets or immobile orbital installations, but their puny few Gs of acceleration made them laughable in a deep-space engagement against ships with Bernheim Drives. He allowed himself to hope the same would be true of the Gharnakh ship, which after all wasn’t quite of capital-ship size . . . .
The hope died aborning as tiny red icons began separating from the large red one in the tactical plot. “Torpedoes,” said Malone in a flat voice.
“So I see,” said Takeda. “Torpedo” was a term of art for big missiles with overpowered Bernheim Drives of their own. In human space navies, only capital ships carried them. Evidently the Gharnakh’sha had slightly different ideas. He told himself that the ship he was up against couldn’t possibly mount many of the things. But four of them were streaking toward Hawke at what the computer said was almost nine hundred Gs. “Mr. Nichols, get a target lock on those torpedoes and fire at
will as soon as they come within range.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” the weapons officer acknowledged. From all the turrets that could be brought to bear, gigawatt X-ray lasers stabbed invisibly out across space. They were longer-ranged than the savage bomb-pumped X-ray lasers the torpedoes would generate when they detonated, which provided a window of opportunity for destroying them—not a wide enough window to suit Takeda.
Still, Nichols accounted for one of them promptly, and the icon of another began to flicker as its force shields overloaded. Takeda looked back at the nav plot. Even at their prodigious pseudo-accelerations, Hawke and her pursuer were both struggling out of the gravity well.
“Number One, run a computer projection. Are we going to reach the Secondary Limit before the Gharnakh’sha catches us?”
“I just did, sir.”
“And the answer?”
“Almost.”
“I see. Thank you.” Takeda decided not to tell Willett what that meant. In what passed for a face-to-face duel in space warfare, Hawke wouldn’t stand a chance. He would try to close the distance even more so he could use his fusion guns—short-range ship smashers. But that wouldn’t save them. The Gharnakh ship undoubtedly mounted similar weapons; and even though the aliens’ versions were believed to be less powerful, a ship that size would have a lot more of them.
Maybe I’ll tell Willett after all. He has a right to know.
He was opening his mouth to speak when a new icon in the nav plot caught his eye.
This one, too, appeared out of nowhere, coming out from the center of the vortex, but it was only about thirty degrees astern of them. Thus, when the gravity field took hold and began to bend its course into a counterclockwise orbit, that projected orbit brought it between the Gharnakh’sha and Hawke.
Takeda became aware that Malone was looking over his shoulder. “Another Gharnakh ship, sir?” she asked, unable to keep despair out of her voice.
“Maybe. Run an ID check—” But even as Takeda gave the order, it became superfluous. The Gharnakh ship, as though forgetting Hawke’s existence, opened fire on the newcomer. That fire was returned, and the readouts jumped at the intensity of the energy being expended. At the same time, two secondary icons separated from that of the unidentified ship.
“Torpedoes?” Takeda demanded of the sensor officer.
“No, sir. They’re too big for that. More like manned spacecraft.”
“I see.” Neither the Royal Space Navy or any other known service favored the concept of fighters, or light assault craft. Evidently, somebody did.
“Captain,” Malone called out, “the ID check is completed. There is nothing in our database even remotely similar to this new ship. It’s a complete unknown.”
“Well, we know one thing about it: its doing us a bloody good turn by fighting the Gharnakh’sha.” Takeda reached a decision. “Mr. Davidson, reverse our acceleration and kill as much of our velocity as you can. We’re going to join this battle—or, rather let it catch up with us.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
The closing of the range enabled one of the Gharnakh torpedoes to detonate before they could destroy it, but their force shields held the damage to acceptable levels. In the meantime, the secondary craft launched by the Gharnakh ship’s new nemesis went in like dogs attacking a bear. One of them was vaporized and the other reeled away, clearly disintegrating; but they had inflicted damage, and had drawn off enough Gharnakh fire to allow their mother ship to inflict still more, even though the greater firepower of its larger enemy was clearly wearing it down.
Then Hawke came in range and began pouring in its own laser fire. For a sickening instant, Takeda thought they had been too late, for the new arrival could now no longer maneuver; gravity was taking control and drawing it inward. But it could still put out a certain volume of fire. Under that fire and Hawke’s, the enemy was visibly wilting. Then they were within fusion gun range, and blinding discharges of star-hot plasma blasted down the last of the Gharnakh ship’s defenses. All at once, its force shields went down and a rapid-fire series of secondary explosions consumed it.
A series of damage control reports were rolling in, But Takeda hardly heard them. He was watching the nav plot, staring at the icon of the ship that had rescued them, as gravity pulled it down toward the enigmatic center of the vortex. It had already passed within the Primary Limit. There was absolutely nothing they could do for it. Even if it had some form of escape pods for the crew, those would also be drawn in. “Mr. Chandra, hail that ship if you possibly can.”
“I’m trying, sir, but the interference—”
Takeda strode over to the comm officer’s station, nudged Chandra aside, and punched controls. A shriek of raw static answered. He spoke loudly. “Calling the unidentified ship in the Tau Ceti system: this is Her Majesty’s Space Ship Hawke, Captain Ian Takeda. Please acknowledge, and identify yourself.”
He repeated it several times. Occasionally there were snatches of what might have been speech. Then, for an instant, there was a brief break in the static, and a voice was heard. It was speaking in English, but in an undefinable way there was something odd about it. Only a few words could be heard.
“—and we’re fighting the Gharnakh’sha too. Who the hell are you? What’s—”
Then, abruptly, the voice ceased as the static closed in again. An instant later, the viewscreen went blindingly white as what looked like a small nova flared into existence deep in the vortex. Then it faded out, leaving their eyes dazzled.
“Their powerplant went critical,” Malone said quietly.
And even as he said it, various readouts ceased to register the findings of the sensor suite. The gravitational anomaly, with its accompanying field of unidentified exotic energy, was no longer there.
Willett sighed.
“I was right. The effect wasn’t entirely self-sustaining. That explosion destroyed the physical object at the center—presumably Yoder’s device. Now the vortex is gone, permanently.”
It was true. Where it had been, the stars beyond now shone serenely, without the previous shimmering distortion of light-waves. Hawke lay all alone in an undistinguished region of what might as well have been interstellar space, with Tau Ceti no more than a superlatively bright star.
* * *
The damage control teams had contained all the ravages of combat, but some repair work still needed to be done. While it was in progress, Takeda ordered a search for any wreckage that might be adrift in the vicinity. A few chunks of the Gharnakh ship were found, but they yielded no useful information.
Then something more interesting turned up.
“Captain,” Malone reported, “remember those two light attack craft, or whatever they were, that the second ship launched?”
“Yes. One of them was a total loss, but the other merely broke up.”
“Well, we think we’ve found part of that second one’s tail section. The tractor-beam crew is hauling it aboard now.”
“All right,” said Takeda absently, not looking up from the report he was reading. “You’d better go down and check it out.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” The first officer departed. After a moment, Takeda turned to Willett.
“You know, Doctor, we still don’t know what happened to Yoder. And where did those two ships come from?”
Willett continued to stare at the empty viewscreen. He had been doing that a lot lately. “We’ll never know, will we?”
Silence reigned for a time. Then Takeda’s communicator chimed for attention. It was Malone. On the tiny screen, her face wore an odd expression.
“Captain, I’m down in the hold with the wreckage. I think you should come here and take a look at it. And . . . I definitely think Dr. Willett should too.”
Takeda and Willett exchanged a puzzled look. Then, without a word, they left the bridge.
Malone showed them a sheet of metal, its ragged edges carbonized from heat. “It seems to be part of a vertical stabilizer,” she explained. “Evidently the
craft had aerodynamic flight capability.”
Takeda studied it. There was a meaningless alphanumeric designation printed on it. But what caught his eye was an obvious flag. A curious flag, though, mostly occupied by horizontal stripes—thirteen of them, alternating red and white—except for a blue rectangle in the upper left-hand corner with rows of white stars. Curious indeed . . . although it seemed to speak to something elusive in his memory.
“What kind of flag is that, Captain?” asked Malone.
“I don’t know. Although . . . it seems to have a vaguely familiar look.”
“It should,” said Willett in a flat voice that caused both officers to turn and look at him quizzically. His eyes were haunted. “After all, Captain, you mentioned your interest in history.”
All at once, it came to Takeda.
“The flag of the First American Rebellion’s ‘United States of America’ was something like this,” he said slowly. “Although, as I recall, the blue area had a circle of stars.”
“Thirteen, for the thirteen rebelling colonies,” Willett affirmed with a nod.
“This one has—” Takeda did a quick count “—fifty.”
He met Willet’s eyes. Neither of them spoke. A shudder ran through him.
Malone looked from one of them to the other. Her look was almost pleading “Sir, what can it mean?”
“That’s unknowable . . . and meaningless, really, because the vortex is lost forever. Whatever was beyond it doesn’t exist, as far as we’re concerned.” Takeda took a deep breath and drew himself up. “Let’s get back to the worlds we know.”
Dragon’s Hand
David VonAllmen
The Chained King. Flaming Goat. Moon of Day.
Jane pinched the squares of heavy paper hard enough to turn her fingertips white. She’d finally drawn the hand of cards that would end her years of searching.