Paul McMann pressed the button that polarized the sails and the ship immediately sped up and was soon travelling faster than light. “How are we running?” Slone asked.
“Our speed in the slipstream is 1.69 light years per hour and if we were to stay in the slipstream to the end, we would have a transit time of ten and a half hours,” Paul McMann reported.
“Ok then we should be dropping out of the stream between three and four hours from now. Roger, is the subroutine running normally?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Ok, nothing to do now but wait.”
The first three hours felt like three days until Paul McMann finally reported they were past the three-hour mark. Slone was not sure what he expected, but nothing happened. Slowly the time clicked off the seconds on the ship’s clock mounted on the front of each bridge console. Fifteen minutes passed and the anticipation throughout the ship was palpable. At the half hour mark, Slone began to fidget a little in his seat. Thirty-three minutes and fifteen seconds after passing the third hour mark, the glow in the sails suddenly stopped and the wall of white in front the ship vanished as they dropped out of the slipstream. Everyone looked out of the bridge bubble but there was nothing to see. Not the usual signs of a star system, such as the nearest planets appearing as small marbles, some of which with rings. There was also no star, only the distant stars of the galaxy. All around the Tempestas, it was black and empty. So much so that Alaya Sinclair couldn’t help but feel a chill, go through her body.
“Roger, anything out there?” Slone asked.
Roger Umgabe looked at the sensor readings. “Captain, so far there is nothing in our immediate area. There are no transmissions.”
“Can the sensors detect the location of the slipstream we dropped out of?”
“Yes, Captain. We are able to detect the slipstream, but I would suggest dropping a buoy here to mark the location. It will make it easier to find.”
“Load a marker buoy into a forward missile tube and set it here.”
The weapons tech loaded a buoy and fired it. The buoy was set to stop after moving away from the dreadnought. “The buoy is transmitting normally, Captain,” Tom Gardner reported from the communication console.
“Order the ship to rest mode for a full 24 hours. I want everybody well rested before we start searching out here,” Slone ordered and then left the bridge. There would only be a minimal watch kept, since the sensors were still probing deeper and deeper into the surrounding space and there was literally nothing around them.
Alaya went down to the children’s section and checked on her daughter. They had dropped out of the slipstream during the ship’s morning cycle, so the children’s school day was just getting started. The parents could however see their children at school activities. They were encouraged not to distract them. The Garner’s joined them as they watched the children through the two-way mirrors. Both children had birthdays during the long voyage out from Nova Romae. The Garner’s son, Allen was now 9 years old and had spent most of his life in space. The Slone’s daughter was eight and both of them knew every detail of the battleship they called home. As the parent’s watched, the children were practicing basic swordsmanship with real short swords. Under the Romani system of training, children move from wooden swords to metal swords at age 6. They all wore children’s armor that protected the entire body against the thrusts and cuts of their swords. Since children were not as strong as adults were, there was no risk they would harm each other. After watching the children for a while, the Slones left and took a tour of the ship. There were two reasons for this. One was to make sure everything was in order, as they would face the unknown after the rest period. They also wanted to walk around the jogging deck, which used to be the promenade deck of the old Rising Star. Diana Gardner liked the idea of a jogging deck and made sure that it ran around the entire ship. The center portion on both sides ran along the edge of the flight deck housing the serpent and scout ships. This passed along the inside of the force fields and gave the joggers a panoramic view of the space around the ship. This made it a very popular spot for the crew to hang out. When Diana had broached the idea in the design discussions, the Romani Military loved it and all of the battleships under construction would have them.
After making certain the ship was in top condition, the Slones returned to their quarters to relax. The time passed slowly but the electronics were not idle. The scanners kept penetrating further and further out from the ship until, by the end of the rest cycle, they had reached out a distance of 8 billion kilometers. When the rest period was over, the bridge crew was back at their stations.
“Have the sensors picked up anything?” Slone asked.
Roger Umgabe replied, “No, Captain. There is nothing out there.”
Slone turned to his wife, “Hon, I think this is going to be a long search. I checked with the supply department and we have enough supplies for a nine month search, then we have to return to Petrov space for resupply and refuel.”
“Well then we better get started,” Alaya said and left for her scout vessel.
The plan that had been worked out during transit was to divide the area around the Tempestas into ten pie wedges. The twenty serpent ships would fly out from the center along each of the pie wedges for a period of one month and then return. After resupply, they would then make the pie wedges at a 90-degree angle to the previous ones. By moving outward for a full month, the scout ships covered hundreds of billions of kilometers out from the ship. But they were still looking for a needle in a haystack, and if the Tempestas had to move to start a new search grid a month further out, it would be a pure guess which direction to move. Slone was not sure what they were looking for, but at this point, he would accept anything other than empty space. Just over four months into the search, the scouts returned from their pie slices and downloaded all of their sensor data. Slone began to consider which direction he should move the ship and realized he might just as well throw a dart at a star map and it would be as good a choice as any he could think of. The results of the sensor scans from the scout ships were being analyzed in the sensor analysis room near engineering. Roger Umgabe and his sensor techs were poring over the sensor results. As he was going over the results from scout eight, which explored a pie wedge below the ship out to a distance of 388 billion kilometers, Roger Umgabe saw something. It was faint and a less expert sensor tech may have missed it, but Roger was not the usual level of sensor tech. Long years in the Sinclair scout service had fine-tuned his own senses to the sensor results he analyzed. He saw a slight blip on the background signals always present in space. Space was full of waves of all kinds stemming from stars to black holes. It was one of the reasons that sensor readings had limited range before they could no longer be separated from the background noise. Most would have looked at the tracings Roger was reviewing and chalked the blip up to background noise, but Roger knew different.
“We have it,” Roger said to his techs and reached for the communicator. “Captain Slone, we have something.”
‘Finally’, Slone thought to himself and headed down to the sensor analysis room. Engineering was 24 decks below the bridge and Slone thought he covered the distance in record time. He reached the sensor analysis room just as Roger was showing his findings to the other techs. There was a difference of opinion as to the meaning of the blip, but all agreed it was there and it was the only thing found on all the traces from the past four months. Slone was filled in on the findings and shown the blip. He decided he would take Roger’s word for it, since he was not sure what he was seeing.
“Where was it picked up and how far?” Slone asked.
“At the 234 billion mile mark of the eighth pie slice below the ship.”
“Ok, we’ll head there and see if we can pick up anything else. It’s as good as any direction to go. Send the location up to navigation and return to the bridge for departure.”
“Yes, captain,” Roger said.
Slone and Umgabe went to th
e bridge and Slone took his place in the captain’s chair. He then turned to his navigator, “Paul, how long is our trip to the location Roger sent you?”
“I have the course plotted. It will take us just under a month to reach that point.”
“Ok, lock it in and move us there ahead standard. The sooner we leave the sooner we get there.”
“Yes, captain,” Paul McMann responded.
The ship came to life and the helm took control of the engines and powered them up. Alaya came on to the bridge from the Slone’s quarters to see what was happening as the ship began to accelerate and move in the direction leading to the position were the signal was detected. As Alaya came up to the captain’s chair, Christopher looked at his wife and filled her in. Both of them were glad to be doing something. So far, this entire mission had been a monumental bore. Now that they were moving, activity and anticipation increased on the ship. They reached the location of the sensor blip in the estimated time and stopped at the spot the sensor readings indicated the anomaly was discovered. Captain Shegai was also on the bridge. For her this trip had been nothing but a huge waste of time and she had no idea why she was sent along unless it was just to make sure she couldn’t tell anyone. Whatever the importance of the Sakkara, it was a level of secret that exceeded her clearance. That was saying a lot, since she had always believed she carried the highest clearance.
Slone looked over to the sensor station. “Roger, are you picking up that blip again?”
Roger Umgabe was concentrating on his console screen. Finally, he looked up and said, “I have it. Point of origin is 132 billion kilometers bearing 26 degrees to starboard and a negative angle of 67 degrees.”
“Paul, how long to get to that location?” Slone asked his navigator.
Paul McMann did some calculation and stated, “About ten days.”
“Ok take us there. Maximum scanning ahead of us as we move there.”
All acknowledged, and the ship moved to the new location. Slone left the bridge and went to his quarters. Alaya joined him after getting Olivia from the training school and bringing her up. When Olivia was settled into her room with her homework, Alaya joined her husband in the living room.
“Well, Christopher, any idea if this is finally the end of our endless mission?”
“I hope so, Hon, I am bone tired of this. A year and a half and nothing to show for it. Whatever the Senate thinks is aboard that ship, it better be worth it.”
“Chris, didn’t they give you any idea what was aboard?”
“I’m not sure they know. The order concerning the ship goes back eight centuries. If they do know, they didn’t trust me with the information. Our orders are to get the ship and bring it back.”
“Well then, I hope we’re on the right track,” Alaya said, not quite believing they would ever find the needle in this haystack.
As they approached the calculated source of the electrical blip, the primary bridge crew was at their posts. Slone was in the captain’s chair and his wife was standing next to him. This time Tavia Marshal was also there, since she was curious about what they found. She was part of the scout crew, which had nothing to do now. All around the bridge bubble, everything was black. Months of nothingness was starting to wear on the human members of the crew. The legion aboard spent most of their time training, so they were not much bothered and the serpents didn’t care at all. However, the human naval personnel had never spent so long a time in absolute darkness with no end in sight. Add to this the primal fear of the unknown outside of the slipstreams, and Slone worried about the psychological condition of his crew. The medical personnel were reporting more and more people complaining of nervousness and anxiety. As far as Slone was concerned, this mission couldn’t end fast enough.
“Captain, I have something,” Roger Umgabe said as he looked up from his console. “The source of the sensor blip is transmitting a corrupted transponder code. Only an ‘S’ and an ‘R’ are identifiable. The source is approximately 13 hours ahead of us.
“Maintain course and speed. Any indication if there is a ship out there?”
Roger Umgabe looked at Slone, “Captain, the signal is coming from a massive object. Sensors indicate it is of planetary size.”
“Double check that as we get closer. Helm when we are an hour out cut to half speed. I don’t want to run into whatever that is in the dark. Set the ship to rest cycle and tell everyone to get as much rest as possible. Primary bridge crew back here one hour before arrival.”
The Tempestas continued to move through the impenetrable darkness until it was an hour from its destination and the helm dropped the speed to half. This made the arrival time one hour longer. The bridge crew were all back at their stations. Slone looked over to Roger Umgabe.
“Roger, what do the scans say now?”
“The signal is coming from a planet about half the size of Earth.”
Slone looked out of the front of the bridge bubble. “We should be able to see a planet at this distance?”
“There’s no starlight,” Alaya said. “There is no light out there at all. We’ll have to do everything by instruments.”
“All Stop,” Slone ordered.
Paul McMann shut off all engines and the forward retrorockets fired to bring the ship to a dead stop. Slone then looked at the weapons tech. “Fire a mining probe at the location the sensors say the planet is located and have it stop 10 kilometers above the surface.”
“Yes, captain.”
The probe went out and as it was heading towards the planet, Roger Umgabe continued to scan the planet for the location of the signal. “Captain, the planet is basically an ice ball covered with organic molecules and space dust. It has all the features of a rogue planet.”
A rogue planet was a planet that was once part of a solar system and for some reason was ejected out of orbit and into interstellar space. The ejection was usually due to a larger planet’s gravity disrupting its orbit. Roger continued, “There is one odd thing about the planet, it is not moving in any direction. It is simply sitting where it is in the middle of nowhere and there is no possibility it could have formed here.”
Slone realized how odd that was, since once a planet was expelled from its star system, there was nothing to stop it from moving through space unless it collided with something. The fact that this planet was just sitting there with no movement was very strange. Sensors also indicated it was not rotating on its axis. That was unnatural, since the only heavenly bodies with no rotational movement were those trapped in the gravity of a larger body they orbit. There was nothing near the rogue planet to hamper its rotation. This mystery just kept deepening. An hour after launch, the probe reached a distance of 10 kilometers above the planet and went into orbit. It immediately started mapping the surface using radar and laser mapping. At the same time it was also building a three dimensional image of the planet using laser mapping. The images began to arrive and they were projected onto the front of the bridge bubble. The bridge crew looked with great interest as the planet formed on the screen. There were low mountain ranges and flat valleys. There were a few meteor craters but the majority of the planet was amazingly free of blemishes. This would suggest it was once a moon of a large gas giant orbiting near the planet. This would cause the moon to be geologically active due to the gravitational forces from the planet. Those forces would alter the surface and erase the scars of meteor impacts. As more of the surface formed, the probe highlighted an object on the surface in a valley.
“What is that object?” Slone asked. “Magnify that area.”
Roger stopped the probe over the valley and magnified the area containing the object. Of course, what was magnified was the radar and laser-mapping image. The enlargement showed an object which was slightly elongated with some projections along the sides. It was not recognizable as a ship but was also not a natural structure.
“Roger, take the probe down to that structure and light up the area.”
“Yes, Captain.”
&nbs
p; Roger Umgabe slowly descended the probe down to the valley containing the structure. The rogue planet had no atmosphere so the probe had no problems moving to one hundred meters above the target. When the probe was hovering at that distance, Roger sent the signal to turn on the intense lights located on the undersurface of the probe. As the lit image came in, everyone on the bridge could see an irregular colored, red-brown, blotchy surface. This suggested the planet was covered by organic chemicals and other forms of space dust. Now everyone’s attention went to the target object. It was covered in the same reddish organic material as the rest of the area, but it was obvious now that the dust was applied and not natural.
“Have the probe scan that object.”
Roger pressed some buttons and started the scan. As the results came in, Roger read them off. “The object is fifty-five meters long and 8 meters wide, about the size of a serpent ship. The object is made of a metal the scans cannot identify. There is an interior space with faint traces of electronics. Captain, though it is an odd shape, this appears to be a ship.”
“The Sakkara,” Slone said to no one in particular. It would be too coincidental for it to be anything else. He then turned to his wife. “Alaya, get your crew into the Mary Rose, we’re going down there. I’ll meet you on the flight deck.”
“Aye, Captain,” Alaya replied and left the bridge as she contacted Tavia to assemble the crew. Slone handed control of the ship over to Paul McMann and went down to the flight deck, the name given to the large hangar deck on the upper part of the ship. There the ship was awaiting him. Since this was not considered a hazardous mission, Alaya left her contingent of 25 Special Forces legionaries out of it. If problems arose on the surface, they could quickly land troops. Slone did not expect any trouble, since they were literally off the grid. Slone boarded the ship and Alaya flew through the force field and began the hour trip to the planet. Slone could still not get over how pitch black everything was outside the slipstreams. Not even starlight illuminated the area. If not for the probe sitting above the target, they would not see anything. As they approached, they could see more and more of the light from the probe. Alaya brought the Mary Rose down to the surface and stirred up a cloud of space dust as she landed near the target. She made sure the bow of the ship pointed at the object and turned on the floodlights all mining scout vessels had along their bows. Suddenly the entire area looked like midday on Nova Romae. They now looked closely at the object and saw that patches of metal were visible between the stardust covering it.
The Sakkara Page 4