Singularity Point

by Brian Smith

  “See anything there that would have worried you at the time?” he asked.

  Campbell grunted. “Well, it looks like Dr. Shu was beginning a node expansion against my direct instructions,” he admitted. “I’ll meet with her and get that resolved when the disassembly process is complete and she returns to Mars,” he added. He kept his expression carefully neutral—his poker face again. In truth, he was deeply disturbed by what he’d seen, but he wasn’t going to admit it here. He didn’t want to raise any more flags; he was on shaky enough ground with his foundation colleagues as it was. He glanced at Ashburn. “Captain, you have my thanks for obtaining this information for me. At the time, I considered it verra important. I’ll nae forget it, lad,” he added pointedly.

  Ashburn’s frosty expression didn’t change.

  “I’ll let you in on a little more privileged information as well,” he added, glancing at Forester and getting a quick nod of approval. “The computer at Janus did what we needed it to do: Federov’s company has made a breakthrough, and at the very least we should be able to fly roundtrip to Rigil Kentaurus in something like two decades or less, rather than four. I’ve already ordered construction on Daedalus to resume. Now, that ought to interest you, eh?”

  Ashburn’s face registered shock, and he looked at his boss for confirmation, not quite believing what he’d heard. “Twenty years?” he asked. That didn’t seem possible.

  Forester’s face split in a wide grin. “Federov is serving up that pie in the sky, son,” he chuckled. “I’ll believe it when I see it, but old Dmitri is putting a team on Earth right now, going to prototype on new technology. If everything shakes out the way he says, it looks like it’s going to happen.”

  Twenty years! That put the mission timeframe squarely back into synchronicity with his own age and experience. Ashburn’s face split into a grin of his own, his dark temper and angst at Campbell suddenly shoved into the background. “Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch!” he half shouted.

  Forester laughed gleefully and slapped his knee. “Well you might be, Dakota, but—”

  “—we can talk about yer momma later!” the two men finished together, laughing loudly.

  “Right, then,” Campbell added as the laughter died down. “I’m going to leave you gentlemen on that happy note.” He exchanged handshakes with Forester, then looked Ashburn squarely in the eye before extending his hand to the torchship captain as well. Ashburn hesitated only a beat, then reached out for a gentlemanly shake. Apparently all was at least forgiven, if perhaps not forgotten. The news about Daedalus did a lot to defrost Ashburn’s attitude toward Campbell, to be sure.

  Campbell’s smile vanished once he stepped outside the Barsoom Traders company offices and began his solitary trek to the moving walkway that would take him back to the spaceport landing field. He had a hopper waiting for him, ready to take him halfway around Mars, back to Nuevo Rio and his own headquarters. He thought about what he’d seen in the imagery Ashburn had obtained: clear evidence that Shu had begun expanding OURANIA’s node network without permission, and evidence that the computer had also discovered the location of his hidden data archive. The imagery clearly showed a rover at the confidential site at a time when there shouldn’t have been anyone within hundreds of kilometers of it.

  Most of the quantum data cores he’d stored there had long since been removed, but a few were left over. What was Shu doing with them? Tampering with them? Replacing them completely? Perhaps trying to disguise some form of evidence that indicated OURANIA had been conscious and self-aware? The reports he was receiving from his Tafuna Yaro team and Shu herself stated that OURANIA’s disassembly and the core-data retrievals were proceeding apace; he made a mental note to have the Tafuna Yaro visit the data archive, remove any remaining material, and search for evidence of past intruders. It was one more thing he was going to have to take up with Shu. Campbell considered her in hindsight, from the point at which he’d first started the whole project, and it looked like he’d made a very poor choice.

  ***

  Back in the office, Forester poured a couple fingers of bourbon into two glasses and handed one to Ashburn. “To Daedalus and Alpha Centauri,” he said.

  Ashburn raised his glass in return and the two men drank a toast.

  Forester waved Ashburn to a seat and sat down behind his large desk. The boss idly fiddled with his antique slide rule as they got down to company business. “Well, I looked over the numbers for your first run around the triangle.”

  Ashburn nodded. “Not the best, were they?” he asked rhetorically.

  “Rock bottom,” Forester replied bluntly, “but you had the dubious honor of being the second captain in company history to be attacked by pirates. The first, really, because Dejah Thoris was a hijack. What do you think about your second contract run to Titan?”

  “I think it sets me up for a repeat shitty performance,” Ashburn replied. “There’s no way to compete when you force a run from Mars straight to Titan, skipping Juno or Vesta and factoring in the way the planets line up right now. If we have to repeat this run, I think Jerry Sommers might ask for a transfer back to Dejah Thoris when you put a new crew on her. To be honest, I was planning to bring this up with you. I don’t want to take Thuvia back to Titan on this next run. In fact, maybe not for the next few runs.”

  “I’d have thought you’d be skittish about going back to the Trojans,” Forester admitted, “but I suppose I see your point of view. I had a really hard time swallowing it myself, Dakota, but it really does look like recent events were all one big, unhappy coincidence.”

  “What actually happened to the Deety? Just who in the hell were these hijackers, anyway? Have you gotten a solid report from the navy?”

  “Don’t know, don’t know, and not yet, but I expect some real answers once they arrive and turn the ship back over to us.”

  “I’d sure like some,” Ashburn said. “What about Titan, boss?”

  Forester sighed. “I’ll reassign the Titan run to Issus. She’s a little smaller, but I’ve looked it over and we can cram the entire payload into her if it’s done right. You can do a counterclockwise run around the triangle this time: Federov Propulsion has a big payload of gear they need moved to Earth for their technology demonstrators, and you and Sommers can put your heads together and figure out the balance of the cargo in order to maximize your profit. After Earth, I don’t have anything specific for you in terms of a company contract. Turn Sommers loose on the local economies and see if you can make up some of the bank we lost on this last run.”

  “I hate like hell to disappoint you like this, boss,” Ashburn added.

  “Well, now, let’s be clear on that, Dakota: you didn’t disappoint me,” Forester replied fervently. “Losing a brand-new torchship on her maiden run, along with her crew . . . that would have disappointed me. Hell, it would have been devastating, both for me personally and for the company! Now see here, son, you need to lose this storm-cloud attitude that’s settled over you, and lose it fast! You can’t afford to make enemies of men like Bill Campbell, and you need to refocus on the future. I already told you when I hired you that my decision wasn’t just as the boss of this outfit: I’m a trustee of the Crandall Foundation, too, and I’m looking down-range at Daedalus. You’ve got qualifications that only a handful of people in the solar system can match, and you’ve proven more than once now that you can think on your feet in a crisis and handle trouble when it comes your way. Get back on the bridge of your ship and keep logging those deep-space hours as captain! It’s all going to count in the end!”

  Ashburn bit his lip for a moment and nodded firmly. He tossed off the remainder of his drink and stood up. “Okay, boss, you’re right,” he said firmly. “I’ll put this all behind the torch bell and get on with it. One thing, though,” he added in parting. “You said you looked over the payload for the next contract run to Titan. Anything strike you as odd about it?”

  “Not in particular. Why?”

  “Well, Camp
bell said his big computer on Titan was all shut down, right? Take another look at that payload manifest: everything we took last time for Janus Station is on there again, but under another ‘new’ company name. It’s still all slated for drop at Chusuk Station, though, just like the last run.”

  Forester called up the manifest and checked it, his brow furrowing in a mixture of confusion and consternation. “Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch,” he breathed.

  “It could all be a coincidence, though, right?” Ashburn quipped. “No ‘momma’ jokes from me this time, boss,” he added as he headed for the door. “When it comes to Titan and Bill Campbell, I’ve lost my sense of humor. I’ll be in touch.”

  November 29, 2093 (Terran Calendar)

  USS Ranger

  Saturn

  “Cut thrust on the mark,” ordered 1LT A.J. McClain, still the acting squadron commander of VMF-52. He listened to the verbal acknowledgment of his human wingman, 2LT Alexandra “Skate” Hess, and noted the electronic acknowledgment of their half dozen AI-drone wingmen. McClain watched the chronometer roll down, and suddenly the 2-g of acceleration he had been under for the past four and a half hours was replaced with the temporary bliss of weightlessness.

  He sent out an additional command, and all eight ships executed a synchronized turnover, moving almost as one. Titan’s day side swung into sight: a murky orange ball that now filled almost their entire field of view. McClain commanded a full active-lidar sweep; several contacts came back and were plot-locked to what the local traffic network was already showing them. There were no surprises, and no contacts out of their expected position. Several vessels sat in parking orbits over Titan, including two passenger liners, a few big freighters, one large tanker, and a corporate-security vessel tagged as Night’s Minnow, registered out of Mars. This far out in the solar system, that was practically a traffic jam.

  “Lidar shows no new contacts,” Hess confirmed.

  “Same here,” McClain replied, stretching as best he could under his straps. “Updating Ranger’s plot,” he added.

  His onboard sensors linked the raw-data update to the mother ship, currently parked at the Calypso 5th Fleet refueling depot. Calypso and Titan were currently about 980,000 kilometers apart; the transmission delay for a signal to bounce there and back was about seven seconds.

  “Skate, get the drones moving. I’m starting on the keps for Chusuk Station.”

  “Roger that. My ass is killing me,” she added.

  “TMI, whiner,” McClain retorted.

  “C’mon, admit it, skipper—it’s you we have to thank for this, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Thank me for what? Your first chance to fly Titan’s atmo? A reprieve from counting asteroids out in the belt? Two days of liberty at Chusuk Station? Go on and blame me! If you want to thank me, you can pick up the bar tab!”

  “Point taken, but I’m sort of serious: do you really think we’d be all the way out here if you hadn’t run that whiskey-fueled intel report up the chain?”

  McClain had been wondering the same thing himself. Not long after he’d sent it, RADM Costello had detached them from their flotilla, turning it over to a British squadron commander who was the next senior officer in the TOA task force. Ranger had originally been scheduled to burn back to the Jovian system and Nimitz Station when her patrol deployment ended; now here she was at Saturn, currently 12 AU away from Jupiter and her fleet base. Saturn was part of the 5th Fleet’s area of responsibility, so Ranger’s being here didn’t raise any eyebrows. It was the timing that was suspect, that was all. McClain was still acting as squadron commander of the understrength Five-Two, but he was only a first lieutenant and so far down the food chain on a ship Ranger’s size that he was practically beneath notice. He hadn’t gotten any feedback other than a casual thanks from the admiral’s chief of staff over his report, and the navy didn’t generally consult with embarked Marine Corps commands when it came to planning ship’s movement.

  Yet here they were. Ranger had been at Calypso for two days now, topping off her mass tanks and showing the flag while casually tracking all activity near Saturn. Numerous patrols had been flown, usually on the pretext of training, but with full drone escort and each trajectory designed to provide raw-data confirmation of what the civil traffic network was broadcasting. Some actual training was going on as well; anytime a ship carrying endo/exo craft called at Saturn, the pilots would fly as many Titan planetfalls as the schedule allowed. That was the official excuse for this run, although it wasn’t lost on McClain that both manned fighters were carrying ISR packages and had been sent with a full spread of drone wingmen—drones that would remain in orbit over Titan in a constellation that provided full sensor coverage of the surface and surrounding space while the humans enjoyed a little respite at Chusuk.

  McClain wasn’t even finished with the keplers when he received updated tasking from Ranger, ordering them to do two things: the first was a close flyby of Night’s Minnow, conducting a full lidar-imaging scan of her as they passed; the second was a full-sensor run over Janus Station as they made planetfall. Skate asked him about it as McClain dumped his first set of numbers with a mumbled curse and began reworking the update.

  “The flyby is nothing unusual,” he assured her. “Good training, with practical value as well. We’re always looking for hard intel on ships like that—some of these corporate-security types that have this tendency to show up later, engaged in piracy or corporate warfare. The imaging scan will go right in the database, and we’ll have the latest intel if she’s been upgunned or modified in some other way. It’s totally overt and the corporate types are used to it, even though they don’t like it.”

  “What about the run over Janus Station?”

  McClain sighed. “You probably have me to thank for that one,” he admitted. “Do me a solid, Skate: download an intel report on that ship and give me the highlights.”

  “Roger that, skipper. Stand by,” she replied, sending the request to the Ranger through their data link. It took a few seconds to arrive, a minute or so for the ship’s intel division to generate a reply, and another few seconds for it to get back to them.

  In that time, Skate finished assigning the drones their tasks and sent them on their way. As a group, they precessed in different directions and pulled out of formation ahead of the manned fighters, using small bursts of thrust to adjust their trajectories. It was less than a minute before they were no longer visible to the naked eye, although they were still boxed and tagged in their visor displays.

  McClain sent his wingman the updated keplers for a deorbit burn that would take the manned fighters over the Buzzell Planitia and Janus Station, giving their reconnaissance suites a good look at whatever was down there. The fighters reoriented themselves on the mark and throttled up, mashing them back into their seats again.

  “Okay, here it is,” Skate said a minute later. “Night’s Minnow: she’s a Cyprin-class armed courier, Class III size category, built by Hardesty and Hardesty on Luna. She can carry two standard units of cargo, a permanent passenger module for a dozen, armed with two one-shot defensive torpedo tubes along with a pair of point-defense cannons. No energy weapons. She berths two auxiliary boats: both small spaceplanes, possibly armed, but there’s no data on those. She belongs to Tafuna Yaro Security Associates, a Nihon-flagged company based on Mars. She’s been here for a while. The network shows that she made orbit last month and has been here ever since. She’s got a flight plan on file to burn over to Hyperion tomorrow—so she’s staying in the neighborhood, at least for now. What’s so funny?” she added when she heard McClain laughing over the radio.

  “Tafuna Yaro. Do you know any Japanese, Skate?”

  She was already running the translation, and laughed along with him. “Tough Bastards Security Associates. I like it!”

  “Where are her spaceplanes?”

  “No data on that, and no flight plans on file, according to Ranger’s intel and the civil net.”

  “Fair enough
. Okay, Skate, you ready for your first Titan run?”

  “Yes, sir!” she replied enthusiastically.

  “All right, then—you have the lead. I’ll follow you down after the flyby on Night’s Minnow. Watch our fuel ladder, but let’s have a little fun. This is something we don’t get to do every day.”

  November 30, 2093 (Terran Calendar)

  USS Reuben James

  The Asteroid Belt

  A very tired James Ford sat at the head of the wardroom table, looking over the somber faces of the officers and chiefs gathered before him. Only eight officers remained alive after the action against their own squadron tender, and almost half the crew had perished either from the explosive decompression when Reuben James separated from Marineris or from the ensuing combat. The ship was heavily damaged and unable to use her torch, but they were relatively intact.

  People were serving themselves coffee and munching absently on peanut-butter-and-honey sandwiches from a zero-g container magnetized to the table; their synth steward was conspicuously absent. In a momentary fit of either paranoia or posttraumatic stress, Amy Tanner had directed the synth into one of the ship’s airlocks and summarily spaced it. Nobody had voiced any objections or even said a word about it. The mood was dangerously quiet, and it wasn’t just from a state of shock in the aftermath of the battle—the sense of bewilderment and betrayal among the survivors was almost palpable.

  “All right,” Ford began. “Let me update you on our status. You’ve all been making reports to me, but I know not everyone has had the chance to fill each other in. First and most important: we survived and we held the ship. BZ to all hands. I know we’re hurting, strung out, and exhausted, but I’m very proud of all of you and you should be proud of yourselves and each other. What happened to us was unthinkable. Now we lick our wounds and press on, because I’m sure you understand that our navy and possibly our nation stand at grave risk. Our priorities are as follows: getting a SITREP out to 4th Fleet or any USN or TOA command, getting this vessel as functional as we can, and getting her back to a safe port.