The Expanding Universe

by Craig Martelle

  "ShipLord," Sythil shouted, fear in her voice.

  Asarik looked up quickly. "What?" she demanded.

  "My time estimate was off, ShipLord," she said. "Far off. We're deeper in the gate than we thought. It's-- The data. It skipped forward like it was-- Like it was closing a trap."

  "Stop babbling, Lieutenant Sythil. Stop talking about what seems and tell me what is."

  "Halith is open, ShipLord. We're translating."

  No sooner did she say the word, Asarik Karak felt herself disintegrate.

  Chapter 2

  Asark emerged from the moment of nothingness with an overwhelming feeling of homesickness. She remembered running through tall grass under a deep gray-purple sky with droplets of rain hitting her face, rough blades of grass dragging across her bare arms, laughing as her father chased her. She had been seven years-old. Her father's voice had been full of joy.

  "Status check," Lieutenant Sythil demanded.

  Blinking, Asarik freed herself from the memory. She looked around the control deck. Everyone appeared awake, bent to their tasks. Had she been the last to come out?

  "Systems clean," Athan answered. He cleared his throat and continued, "Engines report full capacity. Hull integrity one hundred percent. Conducting long range scans now."

  "Get me a crew status," Asarik said. "I want reports from every section."

  "Yes, ShipLord," Sythil said automatically.

  When the status came back that all crew were accounted for and at station Asarik allowed herself to relax slightly. Serens' Reach had managed to complete five gate crossings and lost only four crew members in eight months.

  She looked toward the navigator's station where one seat was still empty from the lieutenant she'd sent to medical. Athan leaned back in his chair, one hand holding his hair off his forehead as he glared in thought at the near distance. Sythil drew her fingers across her console in complex variations, squinting into her data cloud. A surge of pride filled Asarik as she watched the intensity in their dark eyes. They were truly the finest Serens had to offer.

  Asarik pushed aside her pleased thoughts and turned to the mission, to what might await them. The atmosphere in the room grew tense again as parts of the ship returned more status checks, including damage that hadn't been recognized during the transfer.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Asarik watched the sensor panels make sense of the new system, information gradually developing into a blurry understanding.

  "Single star system," Sythil called out. "I show eight planets. Seven terrestrial and one gas giant."

  Whoops of excitement went through the command deck.

  Lieutenant Athan had moved to the front of his seat, long fingers reaching into the data whirling on his panel. He looked up abruptly to find Asarik watching him. His eyes were wide.

  "ShipLord," he said. "I have a return. The beacons are ancient but the transmissions are readable. The fourth planet is identified."

  "Identified as?" Asarik asked.

  "The beacon returns Elegaia."

  "Anything else?"

  He turned back his data, starting for a minute before shaking his head.

  "I see no other activity to indicate current habitation," Sythil offered from beside Athan. "At least not current levels of technology. No transmissions aside from the beacons. Radiation levels are as expected."

  "Plot a course for the fourth planet," Asarik commanded. "Continue system reconnaissance by protocol."

  "Launch verification drone?" Athan asked.

  Asarik noddded.

  Protocol directed the crew to launch the verification drones, so it wasn't a command he required from Asarik. It was a welcome bit of theater, though.

  Lieutenant Athan activated a ship-wide communication channel and repeated the request: "ShipLord, permission to launch verification drone with a course for ProgressWorld Elegaia."

  "Time to destination?" Asarik asked, raising her voice for the broadcast.

  "Verification drone will achieve mission target in approximately four standard hours, ShipLord."

  "Confirmed," Asarik said. "Launch drone."

  Athan raised one long arm in the air and brought his finger down on the panel, activating the launch directive. He sent the course data to a wall panel, which now showed the new system in hazy colors, seven planets and a gas giant, with the fourth planet highlighted in blue. The drone was a white dot on the far left side of the screen. The room was silent as the moment passed.

  "ShipLord," Sythil said, voice quiet. "Halith has reactivated."

  "What?" Asarik went to the lieutenant's shoulder to study her control panel. A graphic showed the seemingly slight progress Serens' Reach had made clearing the gate's boundary. Fluctuations behind the ship indicated something else followed.

  "So there was another ship behind us," Asarik said.

  Sythil shook her head. "There's no way to know yet. Too much scatter. I'll have more data once the--" She paused and tapped the panel, pulling up another series of returns.

  "It's debris," Sythil said, an edge of fear in her voice. "We've got debris accelerating out of the gate."

  "I'm on it," Lieutenant Athan shouted, pulling up the course commands he had just finished loading. His long fingers stabbed the console as he entered evasive corrections.

  From what current technology understood about the GalaxyGates, the wormhole was activated only by an approaching vessel. The gates ignored meteors and other debris, typically remaining caught in rings that had formed over millennia. The scientists of Serens' Reach had discovered during their first two crossings through Kinsla and Bitralis, that newly awakened gates tended to spit-up, slinging collected material alongside the ship. When everything moving through the gate travelled at the same velocity, the crew could track and avoid the debris. This was the first time a hail of bullets had followed them through, turning their position into a killing zone.

  "Calculating maneuver," Athan said. He raised his voice, activating ship-wide communications. "Alert all stations," he said, voice rich with command. "All Hazards Alert. Prepare for defensive acceleration. Secure in place." He counted down from ten, and hit the execute function after calling out: "Three. Two. One."

  The sucking feeling in the pit of Asarik's stomach meant Serens' Reach was manipulating its gravity state. The acceleration hit her face and chest like a slap, wrenching her in place. The ship stabilized and she nearly stumbled forward, expecting to push against force that was no longer there. For the future maneuvers, the ship would adjust without the crew noticing.

  Two sharp cracks filled the command center at once, followed by the hiss of escaping atmosphere. Someone behind Asarik screamed and she turned to find one of the technicians pulling at a crewmember hunched over their control console. The black panel beside the screaming man was covered with sprayed blood. The mess covered a quarter of the small chamber.

  Asarik scanned the floor and walls until she found the two puncture holes, barely bigger than a finger. The debris had blown completely through the ship.

  Klaxons blared as emergency systems shocked to life, covering the sounds of hissing air. Screams and shouts seemed to bounce around the room, mixed up with the alarms. Asarik tried to assess the overall damage as quickly as possible. She had to get control of the command deck so she could reach out to the rest of the ship.

  Yelling over the noise got her nothing. She pushed her way to Athan's station and grabbed his shoulder.

  The lanky lieutenant stared at her blankly. Blood from the dead navigator two meters away painted half his face

  "Kill the alerts," she shouted at him. She tried two more times, shaking him, before pushing him away from the flashing panel to enter her own override commands.

  The room when immediately quiet. Shouts died out with the alarms as people tried to make sense of the scene around them. The technician near the dead man was still jabbering. Asarik shouted for someone to help him, then opened a channel to engineering to check the engines.

  She r
eceived updates from throughout the ship. Micro-meteorites had perforated the length of the Serens' Reach. Two crew were dead and another had lost a leg.

  "We have the debris field mapped and have achieved a matching velocity," Lieutenant Sythil announced in a control voice. She wiped a bead of blood off her cheek. "Impact damage to control systems and environmental control." Her fingers swept over her panel. "Sending correction protocols."

  "Status of the verification drone?" Asarik said.

  Sythil checked her panel. "Systems clear," she said. "Drone is still on course."

  "Well, that's good news, at least," Asarik said.

  Sythil's composure spread to Athan. He looked down at his panel, his hands, and then pulled up his data cloud. He rotated the image and pulled open a section packed tightly with gravity waves. It was Halith Gate. He picked among the points, pausing to pull a blood-soaked strand of hair off his forehead, then reached back for the panel to pluck a coordinate. He focused the sensors.

  "ShipLord," he called, louder than necessary. "ShipLord Asarik?"

  "Stop shouting," she told him. "What do you see?"

  "There's another signature at the gate," he said. "It was their activation that sent the debris through."

  "They?" Asarik demanded.

  He wiped the side of his face, looked at his bloody hand, then rubbed his palm on his chest. "It's a guard-class, ShipLord. Signature broadcast is Garalan."

  Asarik's stomach rose in her throat. Serens' Reach was unarmed. They couldn't stand against a guard-class Garalan cruiser.

  "Do we have a name?" she said.

  "Prowling Thunder," he said. "I have the crew manifest. Do you want me to signal them?"

  "No," she said. "We have a mission to complete. Lieutenant Sythil, recalculate the course for the fourth planet. Use whatever evasive maneuvers are necessary."

  Sythil nodded and bent to her panel.

  "Lieutenant Athan," Asarik said, "get yourself cleaned up. Then study everything we have on the Garalan guard-class and find a way we can fight it."

  "The only way to win that fight is not to fight it," he said in a low voice.

  Asarik shot him a hard look to let him know she had heard. Before he could say anything else, she gave Sythil control of the command deck and left to check her crew in person.

  Chapter 3

  ShipLord Ahsal Karak, Asarik's mother, had been given what seemed like an innocuous task: Ensure clear passage between the Caisan and Ereta Ylaj Gates, two wormholes that opened into Rini, a system that held only rubble gathered around a dying star.

  A Garalan flotilla had occupied Rini System and stopped all traffic between Caisan and Ereta Ylaj, cutting Serens off from half its trade partners. The Garalan government denied any knowledge of the action.

  Ahsal and her CombatShip Hunter's Fury were dispatched to break the flotilla and return transit operations to normal. When Hunter's Fury arrived in Rini System, it immediately fell under attack from five Garalan cruisers.

  * * *

  Asarik stood against the wall of the medical center, watching the flurry of activity as technicians ran equipment between beds, called for supplies, or huddled over patients to perform the limited surgery they could complete by hand. The surgery bay was full, as well as the five recovery beds. Three more wounded lay on the floor, attached to portable monitoring systems scavenged from the escape craft. The air smelled of plastic tubing, sweat and coppery blood. Their red Serensian duty uniforms hid the blood stains.

  This was the reality of command. She wished she could talk to her mother about her crew, the struggle in their faces, how their pain hung on her shoulders. On the command deck, she could read the instruments and fall back on her experience as a navigator. In medical, she had only her basic injury response knowledge. She could only nod as they passed, offer a word, clap them on the shoulder, speak to the wounded. On the surface, she understood that her presence helped them; but she had never enjoyed delegation, never felt a task fully accomplished if she didn't pull with the team.

  This was where Asarik felt disconnected from her father the council member. Everything he did was a delegation many steps deep. She often thought back to ShipLord Till's final words, as he slid down her resonance blade: "Your father is manipulating you."

  Didn't all parents manipulate their children? Did her mother know how her final act would weigh on Asarik's mind through every day of her command? She couldn't escape her fate as a Karak, raised in a warrior caste within a people who valued strength above all else. Strength was safety, confidence, power, momentum. Strength would propel her people forward.

  Asarik shook her head, chiding herself. Those were her father's words. She had to focus on the immediate problems in front of her: the wounded, the mission.

  Her communications link beeped and Asarik stepped into the corridor to respond.

  Lieutenant Sythil said, "ShipLord, the Garalan vessel is attempting contact again. They've been trying for the last fifteen minutes."

  Irritation flickered in Asarik's voice. "Fifteen minutes? Why didn't you notify me sooner?"

  "You were with the wounded," Sythil said. "That seemed more important than bothering our ShipLord to talk to some Garalan war scow."

  Asarik snorted a laugh and a passing technician shot her a curious glance. Sythil was correct, reminding her they were Serensians and they bowed to no one. She appreciated the confidence.

  "Location status?" Asarik asked.

  "We are still six light minutes from the ProgressWorld, ShipLord. The engines are operating at full capacity and would put us in an orbit within seven hours. The drone will arrive in two hours."

  "Have we received any further verification data?"

  "Nothing beyond the beacons, although Athan has found some anomalous signals from the gate itself. There appears to be a repeating wave emanating from Halith."

  "It's not Prowling Thunder?"

  "He doesn't think so, ShipLord. The Garalan vessel has assumed a waiting orbit within range of the gate."

  "A blockade," Asarik said.

  "That's possible, ShipLord."

  In the background, Athan growled, "It's exactly what they're doing, ShipLord. This is basic Gate Tactics. They know we can't fight them, and they're in a perfect position to attack any reinforcements."

  "They've sent one communications drone back through the gate, ShipLord," Sythil said, "but so far nothing has returned."

  Asarik nodded at soldiers and technicians as she passed them in the corridor. She walked past a set of windows looking in on a cafeteria with three crewmembers at various tables, eating quickly. There was a viewscreen on one wall of the cafeteria. She entered the room and quieted the closest technician, a young Private First Class, before he called the mess to attention. She crossed to the viewscreen and tapped its edge to transfer the link from the command deck.

  Sythil's face appeared in the screen. She blinked at the cafeteria and the hallway in the background, then fell back into her briefing.

  "Do you want me to accept communications, ShipLord?"

  Behind her, someone asked, "Do you want us to leave, ShipLord Karak?"

  Asarik glanced at the lean, worn-looking warrant officer seated at the table behind her. His nameplate read: "Thasan." She shook her head. "Eat," she said. "I'm about to talk to a Garalan commander. I may want your opinion afterward, Chief."

  Thasan's brown face turned ashen at the suggestion. He opened his mouth to protest, then saw Asarik's serious expression and nodded.

  "Of course, ShipLord," he said.

  Asarik turned back to Sythil and sat against the edge of a table, crossing her arms. "Connect to Prowling Thunder," she commanded.

  Chapter 4

  Garalan and Serens Systems were not at war. There had been peace among the Known Worlds for two hundred standard years. The action by the Garalan vessels represented a clear aggression; however, the Serensian Fleet could not scramble quickly enough to aid Hunter's Fury.

  Ahsal led the five Garala
n guard-class vessels on a system-spanning chase. Hunter's Fury quickly depleted its missile batteries and was forced to rely on its rail gun and kinetic weapons utilizing free-floating debris.

  Asarik had studied her mother's battle at the military academy, followed her decisions point by point as she succeeded in destroying two of the Garalan cruisers and then found herself trapped between a close pursuer and two ships sitting on the gates, her only escape routes.

  Hunter's Fury slammed its chaser with a wave of accelerated debris, perforating the Garalan ship enough to cause catastrophic hull decompression.

  The two ships guarding the gates did not move. Ahsal had to choose her next target.

  * * *

  The man who appeared on the view screen looked barely older than Asarik, maybe thirty, but with a thin silver streak down the middle of his beard. He had a thin face and pock scars across his cheeks that darkened as he smirked into the screen. His gaze went up and down Asarik's body, his gray eyes calculating, before saying, "Aren't you a tall drink of whiskey."

  More crewmembers had gathered behind Asarik and one of them gasped. She held up a hand to calm them.

  Asarik took a slow breath and tilted her head slightly. "I am Asasrik Karak," she said, "ShipLord of Serens' Reach. Who are you?"

  The man's grin widened. He had an intelligent expression but also a recklessness to the set of his jaw. His lower lip swung as he watched her. He was wearing a brown tunic with neon-green piping -- definitely not a Garalan Fleet uniform. "So you're Councilman Karak's daughter," he said as if pleased.

  "I am."

  "The almighty Robert Karak."

  "Commander," Asarik said. "You requested this meeting. What do you wish to speak about?"

  "I'm not a commander," he said sharply. His gaze flicked to the crewmembers over Asarik's shoulder.

  "Who am I speaking with, then? Who commands Prowling Thunder?"

  "You Serensians and your authority," he said. "I'm no one's commander and no one commands me."

  Frowning now, Asarik put her hands on the edge of the table and straightened slightly.