“I’ve got a good signal,” Nance said. “The sensors are all working.”
“Great,” Ben said. “Once I get inside, we’ll fire up the shield and see how it all works.”
“Be careful,” Kim said. “If you go floating away, I’ll take it personally.”
“You and me both,” Ben said.
He made it to the air lock without any trouble and got back inside. After stopping at the artificial gravity generator in the engineering bay to make sure his modifications were still intact and working, he hurried up to the main deck and took his seat on the bridge.
“We’re ready,” Ben said. “Engaging the flux shield now.”
“It’s hard to believe you invented a shield that beat and Imperium battle cruiser’s weapons,” Kim said. “What, are you some kind of genius or something?”
“I would say so,” Professor Jones said from the communications console. “He has a better grasp of mechanical engineering than the best students I’ve ever taught at the university level.”
“No sign of the shields yet,” Nance said.
“It’s spinning up,” Ben said. “Give it a second.”
“It’s too bad you can’t project a hologram over the ship,” Kim said. “Make her look like something else. Then maybe we could get some more ale.”
“You drank your share,” Ben said.
“I don’t know,” Kim replied. “I was asleep for two days, remember?”
“How could we forget,” Jones said, “when you remind us several times each day?”
“Okay, I’ve got a reading,” Nance said. “Putting it on the main display.”
The big screens showed a circle all in green. The sensors showed the gravity’s strength, which was really high that it could easily enough snap the ship in half.
“Wow,” Kim said. “Who would have thought the art grav genny could produce that much pull?”
“It is because of the motion,” Jones said excitedly. “The gravity is projected as a wave, and swirls around the ship, gaining strength as it moves, just like a black hole. But we are safe here, in the center.”
“Don’t remind me,” Kim said.
“We’re safe as long as the flow is unaltered,” Ben said. “Or collects too much mass inside the flow.”
“What happens if that occurs?” Nance asked.
“The stronger it gets, the more the swirl will contract,” Jones said. “Like water in a bottle. Slosh it around slowly and it creates a fat, weak swirl. But slosh it quickly, and it contracts upon itself, spinning in a tight cyclone.”
“I thought it was made to spin things away?” Kim pointed out.
“It is,” Ben said. “And it does, if the object has enough mass. Or no mass at all, like a laser beam. But smaller fragments can get caught in the flux.”
“And build up,” Nance said. “Which is what the sensors should catch.”
“What about power levels?” Magnum said.
“We’re still in the green,” Ben said. “It draws a bit more energy, but not too much.”
“Excuse me,” Jones said, raising his hand. “It appears we are being hailed.”
“What?” Ben said.
“I’ve got nothing on radar,” Nance pointed out.
“Engaging the main drive.”
“Put it on the speakers,” Ben said. “Let’s all just take a second. It could be a random ship.”
Modulus Echo, this is the RIF Deception.
Ben’s heart dropped and a cold fear spread through his body.
“That’s it,” Kim said. “We’re out of here. Nance?”
“Calculating,” Nance said.
Please do not leave this sector of space, the voice on the hailing frequency said. We have come to deliver a message from the Royal Imperium military. I repeat, this is the RIF Deception. Please do not leave this sector of space. We have come to deliver a message from the Royal Imperium military.
“Nance, how much time do you need?” Ben asked.
“Just another minute,” she replied.
“How did they find us?” Jones asked.
“Tracking device,” Magnum said. “I should have searched the hull.”
“When would they have gotten a tracking device on the ship?” Ben asked.
“We were surrounded by a Special Forces team, remember?” Magnum said. “They fought the Scalpers for us.”
“And let us escape,” Kim said, “because they had a tracker on the hull the whole time.”
“I should have known,” Ben said.
“Too late for that now,” Jones said.
“Patch me through,” Ben said. Jones nodded and Ben spoke into the mic attached to his console. “This is the Modulus Echo. What’s the message?”
From the admiral general of the Royal Imperium Fleet. You are hereby ordered to surrender. If you do not surrender immediately, the Imperium Fleet will begin bombardment of ten highly populated worlds.
The person sending the message began to list the systems and worlds that would be destroyed.
“They can’t do that,” Kim said.
“Who’s going to stop them?” Ben said.
“Those are all worlds with strong Confederate ties,” Nance said.
The person reading the message repeated it. Ben felt as if he might be sick. They were out of options. His flux shield could protect them from an attack, but it couldn’t save the innocent people on ten worlds. The Imperium was desperate, but what option did that leave him.
“The jump point is set,” Nance said.
“Got it,” Kim said.
“Wait,” Ben said. “We can’t run.”
“I still don’t have them on my radar,” Nance said. “It must be some sort of stealth vessel.”
“Fighting them won’t help,” Magnum said.
Your compliance must be assured, the person speaking from the unknown ship replied. You have one hour. If you do not comply in that time frame, bombardment of the aforementioned worlds will begin.
“Damn it!” Ben said.
“What should we do?” Jones asked.
“We’ve got an hour to decide,” Kim said, turning her pilot’s seat back around to face the others.
“There they are,” Nance said. “I didn’t get a full read, but I got something. It has to be them.”
“It’s an Imperium ship for sure,” Ben said. “No one else would deliver that sort of message.”
“So that’s it then,” Kim said. “We don’t have a choice, really. I can’t live with the destruction of ten worlds on my conscience.”
“The Imperium can’t get their hands on the professor’s tech,” Magnum said. “His research is too dangerous.”
“It was never meant to be a weapon,” Jones said, obviously in distress.
“We know that,” Ben said. “But Magnum’s right.”
“What are you saying?” Nance said. “You want us to destroy his research and turn ourselves in?”
“That won’t be enough,” Ben said.
“No, they would torture us until we told them everything,” Kim said.
“We could ram that ship,” Magnum said. “Go out in a blaze of glory.”
“What?” Nance demanded, her voice sounding strangely emotional. “You think we should commit suicide?”
“We’re better off dead,” Magnum said.
“They’re going to kill us anyway,” Ben said. “Probably in a very public way.”
“Perhaps as martyrs we could inspire more people to stand up to the Imperium’s tyranny.”
“If we off ourselves, there’s no telling what they might do,” Kim said. “They might destroy those worlds in an act of revenge.”
“What other choice do we have?” Nance said. “They win.”
“There’s still one option,” Ben said. Everyone looked at him. He felt fear breathing down his neck. He wasn’t even sure if he could actually suggest what he was thinking, but it was the only chance they had to live.
Chapter 43
“We h
ave the flux rocket,” Ben said. “Maybe we should use it.”
“Running away won’t help,” Kim said.
“I’m not talking about using the portal,” Ben said.
“He’s talking about using the rocket against the Fleet,” Magnum explained.
“Can we do that?” Nance asked.
Everyone turned to Professor Jones. He looked pale, and there was sweat on his forehead.
“The gravity created would be deadly to any vessels in the vicinity,” Jones said. “But that is not what I made it for. You know that.”
“We’re talking about creating a weapon of mass destruction,” Magnum said. “And once we use it, the Imperium will stop at nothing to get their hands on it.”
“What good is destroying one ship?” Kim said.
“That ship isn’t big enough to take the Echo in,” Nance said. “They have to be expecting us to go somewhere else.”
“They said we have to comply immediately,” Jones said. “What does that mean?”
“Let’s ask,” Ben said. He leaned into the mic, “What do you mean by ‘comply immediately’?”
You are to travel directly to the Celeste system via hyperspace jump using these coordinates.
The person giving the message rattled off numbers and vectors, which Nance typed into her computer console.
Once there, you will power down your ship and allow her to be towed to a ship of our choosing where you will be taken into custody for crimes against the government.
“Well, that’s clear enough,” Kim said.
“The Celeste system is the royal family’s home world,” Ben said.
“And the RIF headquarters,” Magnum said.
“If we set the bomb off there, it would do maximum damage,” Kim said. “I’m starting to warm up to the idea.”
“It’s not a bomb,” Jones said.
“No, it isn’t,” Ben agreed. “But if it goes off close to a group of Imperium ships, it would destroy them, right?”
“In theory,” Jones said. “We haven’t tested it. The rocket might do nothing at all. And you haven’t even finished building it.”
“I’ve got time,” Ben said.
“How would we fire it?” Kim asked. “There’s no time to mount it. The Imperium agents would see us for sure.”
“Where are they sending us?” Ben asked.
Nance ran the coordinates through the Nav Network.
“It’s in the Celeste system,” she said. “Just beyond the orbit of Gershwin. A few hundred miles from their military complex, I think.”
“My guess is they’ll have dozens of ships between us and their HQ,” Magnum said.
“Are we really talking about doing this?” Jones said. “I hate the Imperium, but it would kill tens of thousands of people.”
“The planet wouldn’t be close,” Nance said.
“And we wouldn’t kill more than they’re planning to kill,” Kim said.
“You don’t think they’ll bombard those ten planets if we fire first?” Magnum said.
“They won’t if they think we’ll fire again,” Ben said.
“There’s no way we survive,” Magnum said.
“Why not?” Ben replied. “We drop out of hyperspace and fire the rocket, then power up the flux shield. After the portal opens, we fly back through.”
“If we don’t comply, they’re likely to blast us to oblivion,” Kim said.
“They’ll think we are complying,” Ben said. “We’ll shut down the main drive. They won’t even pick up the shielding.”
“Unless they learned from the last encounter,” Nance said. “They might have gravity detection devices or something.”
“Either way, what can they do?” Ben said. “If they know what we’re capable of, we can hold them in check.”
“Only if the royal family doesn’t go crazy,” Kim said.
“They’ll be too scared,” Ben said. “They’ve got front row seats to the rocket’s destructive power.”
“What happens if they see the rocket and blast it with their defensive lasers?” Magnum said.
“Maybe they won’t,” Ben said. “The rocket only has a tiny amount of fuel. It’ll burn for maybe a few seconds, just enough to get it moving past the ship. And maybe we don’t use it. Maybe we just send it floating away from us toward the Fleet. Then we power on our shield and start backing away. Professor, what’s the minimum safe distance?”
“At least twenty miles,” Jones said.
“So we start running, and when their ships come after us, we set it off,” Ben said. “Then we reverse course and fly through the wormhole.”
“To who knows where,” Kim said.
“What’ll keep them from following us?” Magnum asked.
“Fear, maybe,” Ben said. “They won’t know what it is.”
“It might work,” Nance said.
“You know, kicking their Imperial butts is what got us into this mess in the first place,” Kim said.
“The way I see things, it’s the only option we’ve got,” Ben said. “But it’s up to you. We decide together.”
Kim stood up, “If we’re going down anyway, we should go down swinging.”
“I prefer to hope that we don’t go down at all,” Nance said. “I’m in.”
“I’m with her,” Magnum said. “No matter what.”
Ben turned to Jones, who had tears in his eyes.
“What do you say, Professor. Want to test your rocket?”
“Of course I do, but not like this,” he said. “You are creating the very thing you warned me the Imperium would do.”
“We can always self-destruct and hope they don’t bomb the ten planets,” Ben said. “We’ve always made decisions together as a crew. No one is going to force this on you.”
“I’m not a member of your crew,” Jones said. “I’m at your mercy.”
“So join us,” Kim said. “You’ve got some useful skills.”
“What do you say, Forrest. Want to join the most wanted crew in the galaxy?”
“I…I…don’t know… Our goals are not the same,” he said.
“Under different circumstances, they would be,” Ben said. “But we don’t have many choices left. The Imperium is going to torture us to death and take the ship. I’d rather die than see that happen.”
“Me too,” Kim said. “We owe it to the Echo to keep her out of their slimy hands.”
“So we die, or we fight back the only way we can,” Nance said.
“You don’t have to like it to see it’s the only chance we’ve got,” Magnum said.
“Your call, Professor. You’re part of this crew whether you like it or not. And like you told me, what we’ve got is something special. We’re a family. I hope you’ll see yourself as part of that.”
“In all my years at university, I longed for just this type of community,” Jones said. “To be part of a group that genuinely cared about me. Are you saying that it’s really up to me what we do?”
“Given the circumstances,” Ben said, “yeah, it is.”
“Then I’ll join your crew,” Jones said. “I’m in. You can use the rocket however you see fit. Just make sure I’m alive long enough to see the result.”
“Let’s hope we all live that long,” Kim said.
Chapter 44
“Should we close on them, General?” Captain Derringer asked.
“No,” Pershing said.
“What if they fire on us?” It was the tactical officer asking, and the man was beginning to wear on her patience.
“How would they do that?” Pershing said. “Visual scans show no weapons other than the laser cannons, neither of which is even pointing in our direction.”
“I just think that locking onto their ship with our weapons system is prudent,” the tactical officer said.
Pershing turned to him. He wasn’t a big man, and yet he clearly thought of himself as a fighter. Pershing had seen men like him before. They relied on big weapons to hide their cowardice fr
om the world.
“You think it prudent?” Pershing said. “And why is that? Do you really believe that if an armada of battle cruisers couldn’t take out the Modulus Echo that our lone ship would have more luck? Because if that is what you believe, Lieutenant Kronig, then we need to remove you from duty for a mental health assessment.”
The man looked down, his face turning red with embarrassment. Pershing didn’t enjoy humiliating other people, but occasionally it was necessary.
“Let me remind everyone what our mission is,” Pershing said in a loud voice that carried across the bridge. In her opinion, the Navy crammed their vessels with too many officers, but that was their business. Hers was getting the rebel ship to willingly travel to the Celeste system.
“We have one task,” she continued. “To get the rebel ship, Modulus Echo, to surrender and travel to the Celeste system. Any other outcome will, at best, cost us our place in the Royal Imperium military and, at worst, our lives. The admiral general has said as much. So we will do nothing that will jeopardize that mission. We will not raise our deflector screens or target the ship. We will not close the distance between us or act in any way threatening to the rebels. We are messengers, and the only thing that gives us any leverage in this negotiation is the fact that we are not a threat to their ship. Am I clear?”
There was a chorus of “Yes, General” from the naval officers. She was outside their branch of service, but officially she outranked them all. And the Deception had been tasked with carrying out her orders, which meant that Pershing was effectively in charge of their ship. They would do what she wanted, the way she wanted, and would not complain. If they failed, she would hold them all accountable, from Captain Derringer to the lowliest machinist’s mate down in the bowels of the spy ship.
“Why haven’t they answered?” Captain Derringer asked.
“Because we gave them an hour,” Pershing said quietly, glancing down at the chrono that counted down from the beginning of the first message. There was twenty-three minutes left before the hour was officially up.
“What could they be discussing?” Derringer said.
“I believe they are milking the clock,” Pershing said. “The crew of that ship is smart enough to know what awaits them. Would you be in a hurry to get to the Celeste system?”
Gravity Flux: Kestrel Class Saga Book 3 Page 20