“Engineering. I need a status report as soon as possible.” As she said that she looked over at the slumped over figure of the second assistant engineer. She thought he wasn’t dead, but he was injured. A corpsman made her way over to the officer as the Captain watched.
“Should I send a distress signal ma’am?” asked the com officer, her frightened eyes looking out of her faceplate at the Captain.
“No,” said Mei Lei, shaking her head. “No one on our side would get it for years. The most likely recipient would be our enemy.” And nothing passing by in hyper will get it, not unless they happen to drop back to normal space to sample the traffic.
“I have a preliminary report, ma’am,” came the voice of the assistant chief engineer over the primary circuit.
“Give it to me straight, Commander,” ordered the Captain, steeling herself for the worst.
“Ok, ma’am. Here it is. We’ve only got the one antimatter reactor, and one of the backup fusion reactors. We have enough grabber units to give you a hundred gravities, but inertial compensators can only absorb about forty. And with the structural damage we sustained I wouldn’t push her more than twenty if you can.”
“Ok, Chief,” she replied, looking at the astrogation information on her main console. They kept the speed and vector they had while in hyper, and were moving at point three seven light. At twenty gravities it would take days to come to a stop.
“Navigator. What’s the nearest source of metals and volatiles from our location?”
“Give me a minute, ma’am,” said the navigator.
“Everything OK up there?” came the voice of Commander Jackson over the com.
“We survived, Commander,” answered the Captain, cracking her helmet and removing it, feeling that if anything were going to happen with the atmosphere it would have already. “Most of us at least. How are things in CIC?” She visualized where the Commander was stationed, in the mid hull central capsule, at about the same place the bridge was in the forward capsule, as protected as could be.
“We took some systems damage,” he rumbled in his deep basso voice. “In fact, we just reestablished com with your section. I understand the main computer core is down.”
“More like shattered,” she said, looking at a damage control readout and wincing. Laser rings A and C were also shattered, completely destroyed, while B and D only had less than fifty percent capacity each. Port missile battery had only one tube able to load, while the starboard side had half its tubes out of commission. One of the plasma tubes was working, which made sense since it fed from the backup fusion reactors, and only one of them was functional.
“We should have the secondary core online in ten minutes,” said Jackson. “It seems to be in good shape, but the power and data feeds were severed. We’re getting them replaced as we speak.”
The Captain looked at the data feeds that were just coming online, frowning at the lack of hyperwave detection. That was the only way they could detect the ships nearby that were still in hyper. Without it they were blind outside of normal space.
“Are you getting any hyperwave signals back there?” she asked Jackson.
“There won’t be any until we fix the system. Both of the ship’s hyperwave resonance chambers were destroyed during our forcible ejection to normal space.”
Lei thought about that for a moment, not liking the implications. Anything could be cruising around them in hyper, ready to drop out into normal space right on top of them. “See if you can get that lack fixed as soon as possible.”
“Yes ma’am,” replied the Exec. “I don’t like the feel of being blind any more than you. Like we’re naked in space.”
“Any suggestions on where we should go?” asked the Captain of the man she was supposed to solicit advice from.
“Wherever we can get to and exact repairs,” he answered. “Besides that, I don’t have a clue.”
“My idea as well,” answered Mei Lei, running her fingers through sweaty hair. “If you get any other ideas let me know. Otherwise, keep on getting anything repaired that needs it.”
“I have a destination ma’am,” said the navigation officer, his own helmet off now, his face visibly pinched with stress.
“What do you have?”
“Closest target is a small nebula field about four days, twelve hours from here at current acceleration profile. There are several catalogued metallic asteroids in the field. We only need to make minor adjustments to heading, which will take thirty one hours at twenty gravities. Then of course deceleration onto a matching velocity.”
“Plot it and go,” she said, looking at the tactical graph he had thrown up on the main viewer. One more thing to check up on, she thought, as she sent the call out, inwardly cringing at the information she was sure she was going to get.
“Chief Surgeon Mohammed,” came the answer to her hail. “This had better be important.”
“I know you’re busy, Commander,” said the Captain, in her mind’s eye seeing the carnage that the medical officer and his staff must be dealing with. “I just need a quick casualty report.”
“There’s going to be more of them if I don’t get back to work,” said the man in a whiny voice. “But I’ll tell you this. We have one thousand one hundred and thirty-four dead or missing.”
Or missing, she thought with a cringe. Crew who had been totally destroyed or blown into space without a trace. Or possibly trapped somewhere. But if their internal IDs weren’t working that normally meant the worst, since anything that could take out those systems normally didn’t leave a living body behind.
“How about wounded?”
We’re overflowing all of the medical decks,” said the man. “Over a thousand of all categories. Most will probably live, but I’m not sure of fifty or so of them.”
Over two thousand casualties, she thought, bowing her head. She was saddened by the figure, but knew it could have been worse. It gave her fifteen hundred healthy crew to work the ship, plus whatever the medical people could return to her.
“Thank you doctor,” she replied in a soft voice. “I’ll let you get back to work.”
The man signed off in a huff, leaving the Captain to her own thoughts. We’re still here. If we can just creep out of here and get to someplace to make repairs, or at least get to protection, we might just make it. The Captain bowed her head again, saying a prayer to the God of her childhood, and the son of that God who was said to be God as well. Please let us make it out of this, she finished. After all they had been through, just to survive would be enough. And let the Emperor make it to safety, so that this sacrifice will not have been in vain.
* * *
Smaug and her consorts were cruising through hyper VI, sensors questing for the track of the ships that had passed by in VII. Commodore Blake Griffith looked at the tactical plot which showed the most probable location and heading of the vessels of interest. Crap, he thought to himself, seething inside, and careful not to show it to his flag crew. We’re still saddled with these damn slow ships, while this new enemy flits around us in VII. The days of these dinosaurs are over. Now it’s the time for the fast ships coming off the slips. And we don’t even have weapons that can reach them up there into that rarified dimension.
His ships carried the kind of hyper missiles they would use to kill those that were like them. They could fire missiles in any of the dimensions VI and below, and the missiles could move up or down through the dimensions, as long as they were going slow enough for translation. Soon they would have to carry missiles that could go up to VII, like the VII capable ships. That would make them bigger, to have the same range as acceleration. So the VI ships would have to carry fewer of the hyper capable missiles, or fewer normal space missiles, so they could carry more of the weapons needed to fight a hyper spatial battle.
And I bet the old foe has missiles that can kill in VII and on down, so they can hit us wherever we are with impunity. And I can only hope that their ships come down to my level, which only a fool
would do if they didn’t have overwhelming odds in their favor. So they always have the weather gauge against us, as the ancient mariners used to call it. They could choose to attack or retreat at their pleasure.
“The sensor chief is picking something up, Commodore,” called out the Flag Sensor Officer. The sound came over the speakers, a noise that sent chills of fear up the spines of any warriors who plied the hyper dimensions. The sound of a large mass being ejected forcibly from hyperspace. And well over ninety percent of the time that meant the total destruction of that vessel.
“The chief thinks it’s one of the intruder ships, sir,” said the officer, looking back at the flag officer. “About the four million ton range.”
The tactical plot now showed where the chief, who was monitoring and correcting the computer input, thought the vessels were. Still over ten light years toward the core of the Empire. Still over twelve hours away at their present speed and heading.
“So the battle cruiser is giving a good account of itself,” said the Flag Tactical Officer.
The Commodore nodded his head, knowing that the battle cruiser was still outnumbered and outmassed. A moment later the sound of a second vessel ejecting from hyperspace came over the speakers. The crew started to cheer, and the Commodore let a smile cross his face. Then came the sound all were dreading, faint as it was in the distance.
“That was the battle cruiser, Commodore,” said the sensor officer. Now the bridge was silent.
“Continue on present course,” said the Commodore to the com officer. He looked back at the plot that showed the markers of three destroyed ships. We’ll either catch up with the bastards, or we will continue on to Conundrum to report in. Most probably the latter, since we really don’t have a hope in hell of doing anything to them, if they’re still in the area. I also think they won’t try to do anything to us, since we out mass those two ships left by a factor of twelve. Unless they have something else waiting for us.
* * *
Group Leader Thiaxoquillana sat back in his couch and stared again at the main viewer. The ship his group had been engaged with had disappeared, along with the telltale burst of energy that signaled a catastrophic translation back into normal space. But she had also destroyed two of his ships. Half of his group gone in combat. The ship had been half the mass of his entire force. And he had possessed superior technology. And they the better commander, as far as he could tell.
“Any news on the smaller ship?” he asked his tactical officer.
“No sir,” said that officer, bringing a hand to his chest, his own eyes troubled at the result of the battle. “It must have gotten away in all the noise.”
The Group Captain snorted in agreement. With warheads exploding and ships being hurled through the hyperspace barrier there had been enough noise to overload all the systems.
“Since the larger ship attacked us,” said the tactical officer, “and covered the smaller getting away, I think whatever we are after must be on the smaller ship.”
“And they are probably far away and much lower in hyper by now,” said the Group Captain, waving a dismissive trio of hands. “Like looking for a Thrallmak in a Drarrata field,” he finished, using a well-worn cliché of his people.
“Order Captain Jarrahhanna to search along the path the aliens were taking before the bigger came back to engage us,” he ordered the com officer. He turned in his chair to look at the helmsman. “We will move a billion kilometers to the port and follow that same track.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to drop into normal space and make sure the bigger ship was finished?” asked the tactical officer.
“What use?” said the Group Captain with another dismissive wave. “If they weren’t destroyed it will still take many hours to get down for a jump to normal. We will never find them, unless they somehow survived against all odds, and are foolish enough to come back into hyper. And I doubt they would be that foolish. No, we will track the one that got away, though I doubt we will catch them either. But we must try.”
* * *
Sean winced as the resonances of a large ship being kicked forcibly out of hyper came through the net. He was linked into the ship, feeling, seeing and hearing through the sensory skin and the hyper resonance chamber. It was a God like feeling, even in the relative sparseness of hyperspace. That feeling was the reason that most ship’s crew could not spend too long in linkage. It was addictive, and some people ended up becoming true wire heads. Tolerance to the link was a major factor in the selection of officers for command. His family had been bred to link with computers, and had much greater tolerance than just about anyone else in the Empire.
A small but sturdy body shifted in his lap and meowed plaintively. Sean ran his fingers through the Himalayan’s soft coat while he winced at the last of the resonances that denoted a ship undergoing catastrophic translation out of hyper. It’s like he knows that something happened to his mistress, across all of this distance. For years researchers had been trying to prove that there was some kind of psionic link between some creatures that circumnavigated space and time. There had been no definitive proof, but that didn’t kill the belief.
“That sounded bad,” said the Captain of the Dot McArthur, sitting in his command couch near to Sean’s observer seat.
“Large enough to be Jean de Arc you mean?” said Sean, breaking the link and looking at the Captain. The cat jumped from Sean’s lap and padded across the bridge to sit by a door, clearly disturbed by the tension.
“I don’t mean to make light of it, your Majesty,” said the Captain in a low voice. “Just stating fact. That was the resonance of an eight million ton object, or thereabouts, leaving hyperspace through a forcible ejection.”
“I’m sorry, Captain,” said Sean, bowing his head. “It’s just that I’m tired of people dying trying to get me to safety.”
“I too am sorry that Captain Lei is probably dead,” said the Captain with a grimace. “I say probably, because though the odds are bad of surviving that kind of event, they are there. I have served with her for the past couple of months, and found her to be both an efficient officer and an admirable human being. I do not want them to be dead.”
“And she and her crew will be listed as missing in action for how long?”
“At least several years,” said the Captain with a sigh. “Captain Lei is now nobility. Earned, I believe, while in your service. So there will be lands and other property to be distributed to heirs. That could take as long as a decade, just to make sure that she isn’t coming back.”
And that was the rub, the Emperor knew. In the vastness of space people often disappeared for multiple decades. And then they were found. There had been a number of sensational trials when a multi billionaire came back and wanted his stuff returned. So the decade rule was enacted, the minimum time that could pass before an estate would be distributed to relations. Unless there was conclusive proof of the person’s demise. Which normally didn’t happen during a catastrophic translation. I’ll have to look up Captain Lei’s record, thought Sean. See what she did to gain a minor patent, the one she held before I made her a Duchess. He now had that kind of access. Really access to anything that he had a need to know, which was anything and everything in the Empire. He looked back at the Captain, who he had just noticed seemed very young for his command status, even in a society where people were young over the age of a hundred. We’ll be seeing lots of young ship commanders, he thought, if this coming war is anything like I imagine it will be.
“You were born into the nobility, were you not?” he asked the Captain. As soon as the question left his mouth and he saw how the man’s face clouded, he knew he had hit a sore point. And he knew what it was.
“My father was a Count on one of the Core Worlds,” said the Captain in a strained voice. “I am a younger son, and so got the title of Baron.”
A count on a core world, one of the developed central planets of the Empire, would rule over part of a continent, or a large group of islands.
Hundreds of millions of people would look to him for leadership. And the Fleet was a way to make some difference for a younger son.
“It doesn’t help, you know,” said the Captain with a shrug of his shoulders. “But of course you know that. You have to prove yourself. Prove that you got your rank not because you are the son of Lord Hawhaw, or whomever your father is.”
“Where was your last assignment?” asked the Emperor, leaning forward, interested in the reply. This man had been in destroyers, or at least frigates, all of his career. Those were the officers who were promoted to command those kinds of ships. The little vessels that screened the larger from the enemy. Or hunted through the dark.
“I had another destroyer,” said the man, his eyes assuming the faraway look of a combat veteran, “an older one. We were in another sector, on anti-pirate patrol. I had two other destroyers under my command.”
“Any action?”
“More than I really wanted, your Majesty,” said the man with a crooked grin. “But we did some good. There are a lot of murdering bastards no longer stalking the outer reaches because of our patrols.”
“So, where do we go from here?” asked Sean, going back into link for a moment and hearing nothing.
“They seem to be out of range now,” said the Captain, nodding his head. “And in answer to your question, we get you back to sector headquarters. From there they can see how to get you back to the capital for your coronation ceremony.”
“All the way to sector HQ in hyper II?” Sean did the math in his head. If they got up to point nine light they would get up to a pseudo velocity of fourteen lights. Years to get to sector.
“I think we should continue on at hyper II for another hour,” said the Captain, his eyes going flat as he linked. “Then up to hyper III. I think we’ll jump then every couple of hours until we’re at VII, and then run for the sector capital.”
“That sounds like a good plan to me, Captain,” said the Emperor, getting to his feet and clapping a hand on the officer’s shoulder. “Now I have a cat to comfort. Get me if anything comes up.”
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3: The Rising Storm Page 11