Spinward Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins

by Randolph Lalonde

  “Good, the escape pods should be picked up soon. Who picks them up isn't our business. Plot a course towards Starfree Port, make sure we're not taking a direct route. Let's go about four hours out of our way.”

  “Yes sir. Making full burn to the edge of the artificial gravity field and plotting to Starfree Port.”

  Oz turned his command module off and stood, “I'm going to go find out how those ships knew our exact course.”

  “Wait, one of my engineering team found it. It's the quantum computer core,” Ayan interjected from her holographic representation. “There's a communicator in the center. It was completely dormant before so it was undetectable. Vindyne activated it remotely.”

  “How close would someone have to be to activate it.”

  “One moment.” Ayan consulted with another member of her team who wasn't close enough to appear on the projection on the bridge and turned back towards us. “It must have happened as we were leaving the station. They'd have to be within five hundred kilometres.”

  “There were a lot of ships within that distance as we were leaving. It's going to take forever to sort through all that comm traffic,” Jason said, he was already starting to bring the playback of our departure up, and I could see the quickly scrolling list of channels open and burst communications. There must have been thousands per second.

  “I'd be surprised if we were able to find it at all, even if we took years to work on it. The length of transmission needed would be measured it fractions of a millisecond.”

  “How do we fix it?”

  “We'll have to take the core off line while we're in hyperspace. Since it's only set up to enhance system performance -- not to actually run anything on its own -- that'll be easy. Designing a dampening casing won't be hard, but it'll take about fifteen hours for our materializer to make one dense enough to be effective. After we've put that on the core someone would have to be within centimetres to activate the transmitter.”

  “How much of a difference has the core made?”

  “Performance is up across the ship, we're saving power everywhere, and interstellar navigation computers are making near instantaneous calculations for hyperspace travel instead of having to number crunch for seconds or minutes at a time. It's significant.”

  I thought for a moment. It would be much easier and less risky to just take it off line and present it to Freeground when we arrived. Even if we shielded it from all transmissions, limited it's use, it could still present an unknown danger. The quantum molecular computer core was so dense and complex that it could take months of scanning to completely understand all of its inner workings, let alone know about every primary and secondary function internally. “Machine a casing from ergranian steel, then supercharge it and increase the density as much as you can. I want that core inside three tons of metal before we reactivate it. A simple faraday cage won’t do it. Someone with a micro wormhole hyper transmitter could cut through it like it was made of tin.”

  “Sir, that's at least five times the insulation Ayan was suggesting,” Laura objected mildly from her station.

  “The Captain's right,” Oz said flatly. “We don't know what other risks that core could present. The more bottled up our genie is, the better I'll feel.”

  “Genie? Good nickname. We're taking the core off line right now and we'll start machining the casing right away. We should be ready to reactivate it in about twenty hours,” Ayan reported.

  “Okay, so we'll be able to safely use that core. That takes care of one problem. Now we just have to be very careful of where we go, who we mix with and what we say on Starfree Port. I wouldn't be surprised if Vindyne, Triad and God only knows how many bounty hunters have people looking and listening for us.”

  “I know. This part of the galaxy is getting pretty hot,” Oz agreed.

  “Pardon me sir, but what does it matter?” asked one of the navigation crew. “We just licked a carrier, two destroyers and sent three running.”

  “The ancient Americans used to tell a story about a lone wolf. No matter who attacked him, tried to keep him out of their territory, he would defeat them. He could go anywhere, take anything he wanted, game, mates, anything. You'd think he would live a long life, become alpha of a large pack in an area rich with game, but he still died young. The fact that he could defeat any other wolf, and proved it often, caused too much trouble for everyone else. Eventually it caught up with him.”

  “What killed him?”

  “One of his own pups. When he came of age he wanted to have a reputation greater than his father’s. The only way to do that was to defeat him.”

  “What the Captain is saying, is that no matter how well known we get, how powerful our ship is or how good we are at keeping her together, our mission isn't to wage war on the galaxy. We have to step off this boat sometimes. We have to make repairs and maintain the ship somewhere. We also want to make friends out there, and that gets pretty hard when you have a reason to be paranoid.”

  “Those Vindyne destroyers are also made of paper, and that carrier wasn't as well armed as we are or as well shielded. At least two corporations will have intimate knowledge of what happened today, and if they still want us they won't send a small battle group. They'll send something they know we shouldn't even try fighting. Or worse, they'll catch us planet-side.”

  “Exactly. I agree with Oz, it's too dangerous for us in this sector. We should move on or return to Freeground,” Ayan affirmed.

  “Unfortunately our immediate future isn't in our hands, so deciding what our next destination is will have to wait. Until then, let's get a post-engagement assessment of the ship done,” I ordered.

  The post-engagement reports came in quickly. Everyone was on their toes after our most recent firefight. They collectively expected to take damage, maybe some losses, and when we came out of it so clean, with barely a scratch people felt like dancing.

  “This is good. Scratch that, this is amazing,” Oz said as he reviewed the reports on our tactical systems. “The worst damage we sustained was a burnout on one of the beam emitters and we can fix that in hyperspace.”

  “Was anyone injured?”

  “Nope. There wasn't so much as a spark, the emplacement just stopped working.”

  “Vindyne workmanship. We should look into replacing their components, I don't get the feeling that they're made to last,” I said as I finished reading the last of the reports.

  “You know, you don't have to read these with me,” Oz said quietly. “I could do what most First Officers do and report the highlights to you.”

  “I don't mind giving you a hand. Besides, there's not much else to do in hyperspace.”

  “Sure there is, it's just not very interesting. For example, I have to start looking over crew performance reports. Now that I'd love some help with.”

  “I think Laura's right. Our senior staff has traded sleep for time to produce reports.”

  “Dictated reports, quick and easy to create, slow and tedious to review,” Oz looked at me and smiled. “So, what'll it be? I can transfer half of them to your command console or you could get started on that inspection.”

  “Inspection.” I nodded. “You have the bridge, Commander. Time for me to take the tour.”

  “Yes sir. Tell the gunnery crews that I'll be making my recommendation for the new gunnery captain to you tomorrow morning.”

  “I'm sure they'll be glad to hear that,” I said as I took my trenchcoat from the back of my command chair and made my way off the bridge.

  Chapter 11

  The Grand Tour

  The inspection was long, but it was one of the most rewarding experiences I remember from my time on the First Light. From one compartment to the next there were crew members waiting to show me what they were responsible for during the refit, where their duty stations were, and what they did. Some of them were nervous, others were casual. There was an official air with most, and the others were downright social. Everyone seemed proud of their work but they als
o looked weary. It was a common thread on the ship, and even after taking on a number of new crewmen from Concordia, it was obvious that we were under manned.

  The hallways throughout most of the ship were lined with carefully colour coded sorted cables, conduits and piping. In some areas where access to those lines was more essential they were insulated but not under cover. Throughout most of the rest of the ship the pipes and very high voltage lines were covered, leaving the rest of the wiring tucked under clips that held them fast against the bulkheads. The only place you couldn't see any cables, wires or pipes was in the officers’ quarters, where they were hidden under padded panels.

  Another feature of the corridors -- and this was more important to my tour -- was that the colours representing all the primary departments were set up as stripes on the deck. Anyone who knew the colour coding for the ship could follow red and find their way to medical, or green to engineering control for example. You could also follow the different cables and pipes from one section of the ship to another. If you knew what you were doing you would find your way to the desired section fairly effectively.

  Seeing where the new systems were implemented interested the engineer in me, and I was riveted as one of the engineering staff explained how the new beam systems worked and what they were doing to repair the burned-out emitter. He was so nervous I thought he would just freak out and run away in the middle of his presentation. The fact that I was listening very closely because I was genuinely interested seemed to only make it worse.

  Ayan let an ensign guide me through every section of engineering. That part of the inspection took two hours on its own. I had never met Ensign Rowen before, but he seemed like he lived his life in engineering as much as I did when I started service aboard the Loki many years before. He was bursting with pride at the condition of engineering. He even took me on a tour of the engine section and showed me the antimatter intermix for the thrusters, which was interesting since I had never seen one before.

  The flight deck was fantastic. I got the full-on tour of the service area, was introduced to each and every pilot as he stood by his or her fighter, and they took the time to show me a playback of a simulation that Minh, Oz, Ayan, Jason and Laura had played several times before we started tour on the First Light. Minh's pilots had a different approach to the scenario, taking out a pair of corvettes and using them for cover. Back in the day we had a more straight forward approach.

  Minh introduced me to a tradition I had heard about and was glad to see in practice on board. When a pilot caused any kind of major damage during a landing -- in our case it was mostly divots that weren't bad enough to be repaired -- they had to revisit the scene and initial it. At the end of my tour Minh had nine of his pilots stand beside their divots and present them to me. Some stood proudly at attention, others obviously thought it was an unnecessary form of humiliation as I made the rounds. “Not bad” I said to one, “Looks a bit like a parrot.” I commented to another, “Now, you can do better,” I admonished the last with a grin.

  The flight deck was the last part of my inspection before visiting the officer's quarters, and as Minh walked me to the lift a thought occurred to me. “Hey, do you have much left to do down here?”

  “Not really. We're all secure and settled in for hyperspace.”

  “Meet me on the old bridge in twenty minutes? I'm going to blow through the tour of the new officer's quarters. No one on our crew did much up there so there's no one to offend if I cut it short.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  I was good to my word. One of the security personnel, a young ensign that had spent a few evenings in the simulations with us in Freeground but I barely had a chance to meet, guided me through with the help Foreman Berl's rough notes. We had a good laugh taking our tour around and when we were finished the bulk of it I dismissed her and took the lift to the old bridge.

  It had been aesthetically restored so perfectly that I had a flashback from my first time aboard. I corrected myself after a moment, remembering that I wasn't actually aboard the First Light at that time, but in a simulation of the Sunspire. Every station looked like it was ready to use. The panels were in place. There was even an old low resolution holoprojector serving as the main bridge display. The light of hyperspace, blue white and yellow, gave the room an eerie feeling.

  “Did you know this was here?” Minh asked as he turned around to face me from the command chair. “I mean, they used salvage and half broken equipment to put it together, but unless you sit down and try to take control of the ship you wouldn't know the difference.” He was filling two glasses with what looked like whiskey.

  “It's one hell of a red herring. I mentioned doing this to Ayan once and I knew the crew was rebuilding this bridge as a decoy, but I didn't think it would be this convincing.”

  “Just imagine a boarding party fighting their way to this bridge. I'd pay real money to see the looks on their faces when they realize there's nothing here. Especially since security can seal the armoured hatches by remote.”

  “It would probably look a lot like mine when you told me you showed one of our simulations to Admiral Ferrah.”

  “You haven't thanked me yet either,” he complained mildly, handing me a glass.

  “Well, then here's to my crazy pilot friend,” I said, clinking it to his. “Who likes to brag to Admirals about security violations.”

  “Here's to my ruthless Captain.”

  We took a sip and I took a seat in the pilot's seat. “Are you on duty?” I asked after a couple minutes.

  “Nope. I've been off for about half an hour. I wouldn't have eight year old whiskey on duty.”

  “Same here. Everything looks really good down there.”

  “Thanks. The engineering and flight deck crews are working together to finish building decoy drones using those salvaged fighter hulls. Those are working out well, but we're having trouble building uplink drones with a good success rate.”

  “Uplink drones?”

  “Yup, they'll launch from the fighter bay, head straight for an enemy ship after their shields are down, attach themselves, and provide us with direct access to their computer systems. Jason's communications crew will be able to hack any ship, even use the quantum core to speed things up.”

  “That's fantastic, I didn't see a report on that.”

  “I thought we would tell you when the first ones were ready. They are, it just looks like only half will work, so they're trying to improve that. That thing with Alice gave me the idea. Jason's department is providing the software.”

  We sat quietly, him in the captain's chair, me in the pilot's seat, looking out into space for a few moments. “Sometimes I can't believe we're out here, other times it feels like everything that came before was just some dream.”

  “Took the words right out of my mouth.”

  “How is running the flight deck down there?”

  “Easier than running a restaurant with all three of my sisters. Pilots and deck crewmen don't argue for sport. How's the captain's chair?”

  “Amazing. Tons of admin work but everything between is beyond what I could have imagined.”

  “Better than Port Control?”

  “I wasn't in command of an array of weapons in Port Control.”

  “Good point. I bet you wished you were sometimes though.”

  “With some of the captains I had to deal with? A few times a week.”

  Minh stood up and got closer to the forward window. “Ever think of making this your new quarters?”

  I laughed and looked around for a moment. “You know, if I didn't think that it would be mistaken for our main bridge and marked as a priority target every time we got into a firefight, I would.”

  “You would go through more furniture than an outlet store. Besides, if you took this as your new quarters, I could move into yours.”

  “I'm afraid Oz would probably beat you to it.”

  “Even after I got us all out here?”

  I laughed
. “I told Ayan about that by the way. She says you have a surprise coming.”

  “Oh great. I'm going to have to have an ensign open doors and taste my food for me from now on.”

  “Well, I'm sure she's as thankful as I am beneath it all.”

  “Ah, it was nothing. I just had to show off to an Admiral while feeding her the best dim sum she'd ever tasted. Thanks for keeping us in one piece and getting us out of prison.”

  “Nothing any other captain with an AI ready to go rogue any second wouldn't do.”

  Minh chuckled and nodded. “You know, I've only been out here in command of the flight deck and my own wing of fighters for a couple months now, and I have to say, if we get recalled I'm going to want to take the Gull and just keep going.”

  “I'm not ready to go back just yet either, but I can't say one way or the other what I'd do if we were recalled. I'll need to get a feel for the crew.”

  “Well, the flight deck wants more action. They'd go rogue with you if we just ignored a recall order.”

  “Where's this coming from Minh?”

  “Oh, come on, don't tell me you don't feel this coming? We're not a shadow ship, not since the Vindyne made us public and we're not exactly running for cover either.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Nothing differently. I think that carrier and those destroyers got just what they deserved. I only wish my pilots could have gotten a piece of it. I think we should stay out here and make a mark for Freeground. We saved thousands of people back in orbit around Concordia, sent them to Freeground and I haven't heard anything about them complaining.”

  “You're right. There's nothing saying we can't send more refugees in their direction. Even though I'm glad we could save those people, they didn't send us out here to liberate the oppressed.”

  “Those refugees were also skilled people who carried technology back to Freeground. That's something we are here for.”

  “I agree with you, but like I said, if ignoring a recall will cause a mutiny it's not something I can do. Besides, Freeground knew I liked following orders when they posted me as captain. I haven't disregarded or disobeyed an order since I started my career.”