Sidereal Quest

by E Robert Dunn

  Nicraan shot a quick look over his shoulder, his face straining, "Moela, Retho, get down there and see what you can do, I'll compensate again for unequal thrust.” Turning back to his board, he manipulated its instruments. As the free-fall affect lessened, he went on, “I’m maintaining cruise altitude, but I don’t know how much longer I can …"

  "Just hold us together until we're beyond double zero," Retho said, leaving the astrogator console and moving with Moela quickly for the rear of the flight deck.

  A slight change in the roaring of the antigravity engines became audible on the flight deck. No one looked at their neighbor, for fear of seeing their own worries reflected there. Sweat beaded their foreheads and upper lips, more from nervous tension rather than internal temperature increases.

  Moving a little more slowly but still slicing effortlessly through six mets of boiling clouds and atmosphere, the Pioneer 4 continued to power spaceward, on course to meet with an unknown destination. The compact antigravity engines' circular track on the undercarriage of the Pod gave off visible light as a by-product of each revolution of the generated field. With the engine at full throttle, the revolving light resembled a continuous ring of illumination.

  In contrast to the comparative calm of the flight deck, the engine room was the scene of frenzied activity. Both Moela and Retho stood beside the plasmatic reactor core assembly. Its usual calmness that it displayed when not in use was gone, replaced by a chaotic flurry of electronic and biological kinetic energy. It was a dais that supported the hyperplasmic injector core; it also housed a colorful, futuristic array of tubes and luminglass gas regulation displays. Inside the cylinders meniscuses of liquids rose and fell, each emanating a colored light. The liquids bubbled, bathing Moela and Retho in a warm psychedelic glow. Each tube housed biological material that floated in these multi-hued liquid nutrients and pulsating with energy. Conduits filled with rushing fluids connected up and ran off into a massed array of nutrient banks. The luminglass displays where composed of three syntheglass plates that were sealed and had rarefied gases, electrons, and crystalline beads fused together at power junctions within the conduit arrays. They now sizzled with bolts of neon-blue energy that raced and twisted in a symphony of light that resembled a seductive door to another realm, exciting the imagination. Retho rechecked the computer wall once again, sweating and wishing he were back topside.

  "Got it figured?" Moela asked, coming up from behind him; focusing on the sense of the fetus she carried within her. So potentially strong and yet so utterly helpless.

  "Yes, I think so. Debris and water vapor from the storm and the volcanic eruptions are clogging the intakes. Number two is overheating now."

  "I thought we shut that debris out."

  "So did I. Some must have slipped a screen again. Damn engines are too sensitive."

  "They weren't designed to fly through typhoons," Moela reminded her associate brother. "Flush it two more times and we'll be clear."

  Retho turned his attention to the tubes of colored, bubbling liquids that radiated their precious, life-giving rays and the luminglass junction boxes with their fiery visual maelstrom hues into the room. These tubes and luminglass displays were what mattered. The support that they held outshone everything else. Without them, the drive system failed utterly. He leaned over the adjacent computer and activated the appropriate controls to catalyze the healing energy require to compensate the wounded engine sections. The changing, swirling bars of light flashed and became more vibrant. Fluids within the core's support tubes rose expectantly inside the thousand cylinders, their atoms pregnant with stored electro-biologic mechanical energy. The luminglass plates zapped with controlled Nature in concert with the rise and fall of the billions of particles quivering along with a whirring sound vibrating throughout the engine room.

  The fluids inside the core's tubes began to boil at a fierce rate. Their meniscuses shot up and down like pistons in their glass cases. A white swarm of bubbles and foam formed in the pressurized liquids and streamed to the surfaces. In their nutrient tanks, the biological masses began to glow and then they pulsated madly. Waves of harsh light flowed over the luminglass plates' unbroken surfaces, transforming from seductive cool blue-greens to hot yellows and reds and back again.

  A second tremor rattled the flight deck. Everyone's attention stayed glued to their respective consoles. Capel thought of querying engineering, then thought better of it and decided not to. If Moela or Retho had anything to report, they'd do so.

  “Podship ascent reestablished,” informed the onboard computer. “Orbital insertion in three macronodes. Artificial gravity activation timer synchronically reset.”

  A gauge on the commander’s board showed that the planetary gravitational pull was fading rapidly. They were almost through, almost. Outside the viewport, the ugly gray clouds that swirled dementedly about the ship could be seen. Fiery lightning strikes blasted forth from the hellish vapor, threatening to convert the hurling craft into molecular scrap.

  The engine room's main core assembly seemed to ejaculate a hideous scream of pain and terror. It became an almost unbearable electronic oscillation. In desperation, Retho's eyes swept over the colorful, bubbling tubes on the core dais in front of him and Moela. The lieutenant's heart banged heavily, and his body shook visibly with the shock of what was going on around him.

  As the podship fought its way through six mets of atmosphere, its heart, the engine core, was challenged almost to its limits of endurance. Any moment, both Moela and Retho expected the cluster of conduits to shatter and release a billowing sheet of electronic energy into the room. They knew that such a release of pure force would twist and buck outward, shaking and smashing more of the room's equipment until the rushing fireball consumed terran and machine alike.

  Turbulence suddenly blasted through the podship. The Pioneer trembled and shook. Only the warble of the antigrav engines seemed real and solid. Dara was thrown from her station and to the tilting quarterdeck as a series of strong vibrations shook the Pod 4. Nicraan gritted his teeth and clenched his hands on the flight controls. Suddenly he felt a response. Though he did not know where they were or what lay ahead as the turbulence continued to buffet the ship.

  Dara shivered as she scrambled to her feet. She ran across the quarterdeck, resumed her station and supported herself weakly against the hardware.

  "Continuing to ascend from planetary surface, approaching terminal velocity," the pilot called out, trying to give the crew some morale support as stressed metal shrieked and groaned.

  Capel flinched at the horrible high-frequency squeal of metal on a rend threshold. A tongue of flame leapt out in front of the podship’s prow from the diminishing volcanic ground below. Looking out the bowport he saw choking wreaths of smoke pouring into the upper atmosphere, the flight deck was alight with the external roar of planetary flames.

  Perezsire was fully aware of the crew members rushing from station to station, covered with grime, frayed to the last nerve ending, every one of them doing double duty every moment. He sniffed, hoping for a molecule of fresh air. Staying in his flight chair, Capel resisted the urge to help his crew in the same manner. They didn’t need to feel more helpless than they already were.

  The onboard computer’s alert didn’t help morale, “Warning! Shields at twenty-nine per cent!”

  By now it was evident to see that the whole of the planet combusted with lava streaming from volcanoes of glittering obsidian. Fissure eruptions radiating from regional summits’ active volcanoes and generating at several contemporaneous sites along linear fractures, revealed the planet’s tectonic plates’ outlines; fiery jigsaw pieces cracking apart. The crumbling planet crust was broken and being pulled apart by underlain reservoirs of basaltic magma tensional forces. The area where the podship had once been marooned now produced a 25-kiloretem-long fissure that was producing 12 cubic kiloretems of rhyolitic lava, filling two deep river valleys and covering an area greater than 500 square kiloretems instantaneously
obliterating everything in its path.

  Dancing curtains of fire and the hail of rocks and cinders, ejected into the fading atmosphere from the continuous rivers of burning stone, tried to envelope the Conestoga-class vessel. The energy bulb that surrounded the rushing craft was fractured with blue and white demolition as debris ricocheted. Yet, the podship still moved steadfastly upward leaving behind exploding banks of violent eruptions of energy and from the sound of crackling flames and the rumbling of earth. At its present altitude, the podship presented a view to its crew that made the planet resemble a luminescent fragmentary orb covered in festering cystic acne.

  Finally, the Pioneer 4 zoomed out from the crown of dirty clouds, breaking an atmospheric barrier surface and pushed upward, away from the dusky, smoke-clogged skies of a dying planet to enter the peaceful, star-dotted silence of deep space. The podship had finally entered the exosphere.

  The nameless planet fell away behind along with its dissipating atmosphere, crumbling in on its fiery self as the podship escaped into the silent depths of Space. Nicraan Matasire sighed, joyful that they were at last off the deadly surface -- but eager to leave the star group far behind.

  The three suns rose quickly over the ruptured horizon. Their progress was so fast the watching crew could feel their ascent. Their rays grew hotter as their angle changed, and the planet's rotation increased as the world began to tear itself apart. The planet's orbit around its sun was decaying rapidly, the star's yellow disk swelled as the crew monitored. They knew that before the planet destroyed itself, its surface conditions would be lethal.

  The background timer signaled, and the computer reported, "Antigravity field intensity now at two hundred kilograms of thrust. Field strength now ineffective. Antigravity drive throttled back. Artificial gravity now engaged." Shortly thereafter, the surface-gravity indicator on Capel's console fell to zero. “Shields recharged to full strength. All flight fields ready and standing by. All systems now read green and go.”

  "Deactivating antigrav fields," the commander announced, touching the appropriate control on his flight board. "Plasma engines now on-line. All spaceborne fields active. Now at sublight velocity, concussion dampeners active. Just expect high frequency waves to come across the indicators -- ignore the ion motion."

  That was the signal for some unprofessional but well-needed cheering shipwide.

  "We did it," Nicraan lay exhausted against the padded back of his flight seat. "Damn. We made it."

  "Didn't think we were when we started that velocity slide," Capel husked. "All I could imagine was us splattering ourselves all over the nearest hillock."

  "Nothing to worry about," Nicraan Matasire smiled. Thumbing his intercom contact point, he knew the engineering team was at least entitled to some verbal commendation. He addressed the 'com. "Nice work, you two. How's it holding?"

  "Now that we're out of that storm, the ship's purring like it ought to," Retho replied.

  "Sure is. A good job," Nicraan assured him. "Take a break. You've both earned it."

  "Thank you, Major," Moela came online.

  "You're most welcomed, Lieutenant Commander."

  Beyond the bowport, the instability of the planet affected its orbit in an accelerating manner. The planet's sun contracted and brightened in the wake of its bloated sister star; surrounded by sheets of expelled hydrogen and eructating vast jets of plasma. They both were moments, no more, from nova.

  Without pausing for confirmation, Matasire swept a hand over glowing controls. “Maximum sublight speed – engaging emergency power!” he warned.

  As the podship bolted in the general direction out-system, its rear-facing sensors recorded and displayed a disruption that was insignificant on a galactic scale but terrifying in sapient terms. What followed happened in agonizing slow motion. The benighted planet the crew had taken a forced refuge on now resembled a boiling mass of smoke and erupting rock. A vast cloud of ejecta, larger than the globe that born it, spewed into Space at an angle; eruptions being on the bias, throwing up the gouged out planetary crust, and leaving red-hot molten land. Outward from the eruption streak, a shock wave expanded visibly through the remaining atmosphere, shoving shredded clouds and disheveled weather systems aside, leaving dust and ash and flame in its wake. The inland sea was swept away, vaporized into steam, leaving bare cracked seabed. A fireball roiled, blasting backward out through the swath of vacuum punched in the air by the volcanic mass. In that moment, this world had ended. The shock wave propagated around the planet at hypersonic speed, blasting everything in its backwash, scalding it with hyperheated steam. Nothing at all would remain alive on this world.

  As the planetary path decayed further, the world spiraled toward its parent star, becoming a mass of white fingers, like a splodge of paint against the starmap. Soundlessly, crumpling in upon itself like a cellophane wrapper, the planet imploded under unimaginable gravitational forces. Deserts, atmosphere, oceans – all the now-familiar geological features that combined to give the surface of a world its character – vanished, along with the remnants of ancient cities and infrastructure and the artifacts of the people who had built them. Secondary eruptions punched more devastation, catching whatever may remain alive between expanding shock waves of destruction. Slowly the fingers expanded into Space as more of the planet erupted. Soon it resembled a massive, burning star itself. The last glow of the planet’s molten core; then it, too, was gone.

  Without regret, the podship sped out into lifeless, but hospitable Space.

  A warning pinger sounded on the helm board and it escalated into a whine. Everyone flinched as the sound wavered, then tensed as it steadied and strengthened. Dara whirled around to stare at the astrogator's parabolic display. Alien objects sparkled like metallic sequins scattered through Space.

  "Perimeter alert!" Nicraan gasped. "Sensors put objects at a good eighty times our size and mass."

  The circular astrogator’s presentation bowl flashed as it miniaturized the three-kiloretem-long-UFOs that had been tripped the lateral sensors in the blink of an eye. The holographic representation displayed gun turrets straining to track the podship’s approach. The alien crafts had sleek lines, relatively flat top to bottom, but each curved from their respective stem to stern into three distinct bulb sections. Along their hulls ran glowing blue conduits of superheated plasma; surrounding each ship was a faint shimmer of silver energy shields.

  "Sensors are picking three Tauron Strikecruisers off the starboard bow!" Dara screamed interpreting the astrogator’s holograms. "It's an ambush!"

  "Full power to lateral thrusters! Red alert!" Capel ordered, reading the statistics on his co-pilot's command panel. He wasted no time, as the flight deck became a busy clamor. "Arm all defensive systems! Bring weapon systems on-line! Shields and deflectors up! Get us out of here, Nicraan!"

  The Taurons had entered the dying star group.

  Three ominous shapes appeared in the black space of the Thilen Nine group and loomed like vast demons of destruction, ready to unleash the furies of their Imperial weaponry.

  Each of the Imperial armada's snub-nosed Strikecruisers hovered like a mechanized man-of-war in the sea of stars inside the Thilen Nine group. As the colossal ships began to move closer to the flaming world, the planet became clearly visible through the viewports that stretched over and across the huge bridges of each warship.

  Elyon Ba’al Sirdar Tyne-le gazed out a main port as the afterimages of hyperspace faded, looking at the star group when an operative came up to him. "Report," Tyne-le said.

  "Elyon Ba’al, Aidennian galleon-ship coming into our sector. Its size makes it impossible for our baseship’s armaments to accurately track and eliminate it. Pterosoar-to-ship combat is recommended. And, Elyon Ba’al, this solar group is about to go double-nova. A quantum implosion is occurring within two of three group’s stars. All nuclear fusion is breaking down!"

  "We're not leaving until we have our catch of the rotate! Return to your station!" Turning, the supreme lord q
uashed the fear that rose within him and faced the crew in which he commanded. "Armada Condition: Red! Fire at incoming ship!"

  Each ship’s engines rumbled. The acceleration played with the crews’ inner ears. For a 0.8 of a heartbeat, each wasn’t certain which way was up.

  The central command console’s holoset zoomed in on a massive weapon integrated into a niche on the nearest hostile ship’s hull, to which Dara reared back. “What is that?” she gasped.

  “Would appear to be,” Matasire said thoughtfully as he glanced over sensor/scanner readouts on his board, “an automated, phased-pulse battery array.”

  Dara’s gaze met Capel’s briefly, then she turned away to resume her position. She no longer took occupancy of her station than the deck tilted with an all-too-familiar slant and rumble.

  Brilliant billows of orange and yellow energy bolts exploded from the armada's guns at the hurrying science ship as soon as it was in range. The thunder of the energy packets detonating against the conestoga-podship's deflector screens seemed to cause more sound and fury than actual damage. The Pod bobbed and weaved as Nicraan navigated to avoid the bolts. Nervously he aimed the Pod's weapons at the mammoth spacers, feeling icy, unseen fingers pierce his body. The pilot hoped that the podship’s extreme oblique approach angle combined with their speed made them hard to hit, even for the notoriously accurate Tauron plasma weapons.

  "Shields are holding," Matasire reported. He eased back into his seat. The Major hadn’t realized that he’d been holding his breath, and he exhaled. “Good,” he said. “Very good.”

  Capel nodded acknowledgement, gripping the arms of his chair as the command deck rocked and swayed as another Tauron salvo collided against the podship's defense shields.

  No one on the tiny ship had the slightest idea what the appropriate plan might be; Nicraan only concentrated intently on his flying as he went over choices in his mind. There wasn't really any time to plan or check computer readouts, not with the entire armada rapidly gaining on them. He had to decide based on instinct and hope. They really had no alternative.