The lack of communications disturbed her because it was a problem she ought to be able to resolve. The Naga satellite had been able to use their radio to detect the Satori even when it was cloaked, though. It was a fair bet they were actively hunting for the ship, and even though they'd shut off the cloaking device to help the wormhole drive recharge more rapidly, the risk of the Naga detecting even a small radio signal was too great. This deep underwater they didn't really need to remain invisible, but start chirping out radio waves and they'd likely have a lot of unwanted attention.
She didn't know how to fix the issue, though. Without having access to the tech the Naga were using to detect them, she couldn't even be sure if something she did was going to work or not.
"Multiple objects closing on the rear of the ship," Majel said, breaking into her thoughts.
"What?" Dan asked, suddenly alert. He'd been dozing in his chair, the bastard. He was always able to relax even when she was tense as a piano wire.
"There are six objects, each about two meters across. No, twelve objects - they were too close to pick up the full number before," Majel said. "Closing slowly on our location."
"The Naga?" Beth asked. She tensed, thinking her fears had come to life despite all their precautions.
"No, I don't think so," Majel said. "They're biological."
"A school of fish passing by?" Dan asked. He was tapping his console, bringing the displays there to life.
"I thought that might be the case," Majel said. "But they've been approaching in a manner which suggests we are their destination, rather than just passing by us."
Dan was looking at the track displayed in his screen. Beth crossed the bridge to stare over his shoulder at the image. To her, it looked like a fairly erratic zig-zag course, but if Majel said there was something odd about it she was probably right.
"Can you get a camera on them?" Dan asked.
"Yes," Majel replied.
Dan's screen blinked, the image replaced by a view out the rear of the ship. The creatures approaching them looked like enormous jellyfish. They had a mass domed top, with long appendages dangling from beneath like vines. As Beth watched they moved the dangling bits. Not quite like jellyfish, then. Those had to be actual appendages, capable of controlled movement. She revised her earlier assessment - these were more like jellyfish with octopus arms.
The first one connected with the rear of the ship, gently bumping into them. Beth grabbed the back of Dan's seat to keep her balance as the ship rocked slightly.
"Grab a seat," Dan said.
She did as he suggested. This might get a little bumpy if the entire school of these things banged into them. The Satori's engines ought to be able to handle a few curious creatures bumping around outside. They were keeping the ship stationed at this depth by running the engines, churning the water beneath the ship into a pool of whirling bubbles.
"They're slipping below us," she pointed out, watching the screen as one after another of the animals slid down below the ship. "They're going to get hurt if they go near the engine exhausts."
"I can't shut them down. We'll sink," Dan said.
"Can we move away from them?"
"Sure," he replied. He engaged the main drive a little, trying to gently scoot clear of the things.
Beth flipped through the cameras, and found one which showed her the bottom of the ship. The jellyfish had all latched on there, gripping the hull with their tentacles. As she watched, one of them drew near an engine exhaust port. She flinched, hoping it would not be injured too badly. The creature entered the exhaust and she lost sight of it for a moment as the stream of bubbles pulsed and flowed over its gelatinous form.
The ship lurched sideways, tilting sharply.
"Shit!" Dan said His fingers flew over his controls, and the Satori righted itself. They still seemed to wobble a bit as he fought to stabilize their ship.
"What's happening?" Beth asked.
"We're losing power to the aft port liftoff thruster," Dan said through gritted teeth. "I'm trying to compensate."
She looked again at her screen. The jellyfish was still there, covering most of the thruster exhaust. Somehow it hadn't been blown clear or blasted apart by the force. It was soaking up enough of the thrust that it was actually impacting their ability to stay afloat. As she watched, more of the things were headed toward the other thrusters.
"Dan, we've got a serious problem," Beth said. "The fish. They're covering the thrusters."
She had just gotten that out before the Satori lurched sideways again, violently tilting up on the starboard wing. There was a high pitched whining sound coming from somewhere beneath her as the engines struggled to keep them up despite the blockage.
"I can't keep her steady," Dan said. "I'm going to try to increase power, blast them clear."
"You overload those thrusters and we'll lose them," Beth warned.
"How much tolerance did you build into them?"
"A lot." But this was going to tax her design to the breaking point. "They can handle a hundred and fifty percent output for a short while."
"Giving it a shot."
The engine noise increased to a roaring sound as Dan applied more thrust. But even as he did Beth watched more of the things latching themselves on to the thrusters. There were only four nozzles to help control attitude during vertical takeoff and landing. The ship had never needed more than that. Now they had three of the jellysquids pulling themselves in to block each thruster. Dan was giving them every bit of engine power he could, and it wasn't doing a damned thing to break them loose.
"I'm losing attitude control," Dan said. "Hang on!"
The ship tilted again, the nose dipping down sharply. Through the viewscreen on the front of the ship all she could see was the utter blackness of the depths beneath them.
"Thrusters no longer maintaining depth. Ship is now descending rapidly," Majel said.
They were falling into the night beneath them. How deep had the trench here been? Beth tried to remember, thinking as she did that it didn't matter. If they didn't find a way to dislodge the creatures, the Satori would reach crush depth a long time before it crashed into the bottom of the ocean.
Thirteen
At least the whale colonies were being reasonable, and they seemed to have more presence than the smaller colonies living on the smaller, more predatory fish. John was growing confident that they could make this work out well after all. It had seemed about to fall apart, but as soon as the sharks left the meeting things returned to a reasonable tenor.
"We won't need long. We will return here as soon as the testing process is complete," John promised.
"The colonies must take you at your word," the Cyanaut colony replied. "We shall wait for..."
It cut off in mid-thought, and began swimming in an agitated series of diving and rising motions. The other whales joined it and opened up in a song of long, keening notes. Something was up. John was at a loss to know what was going on. The Cyanauts could read his every thought, but the power didn't flow both ways.
"We are so sorry," the colonies said in unison.
"For what? I don't understand," John said. Something terrible was happening, that much was clear.
In the distance, the lights from the Satori wobbled briefly, like something had jiggled the ship. They were so remote that John almost missed the movement. But it was impossible to not notice a moment later when the lights went out entirely. The ship. Something was happening to the ship. With a sudden wave of insight, John realized it had to be the colonies which had left. They'd done something - attacked the Satori, or damaged it in some way.
"What have they done?" John demanding. There wasn't an immediate reply so he added more force behind his thoughts. "What have they done to my ship?!"
The whales continued their keening noises, not replying at all. Andrew was looking around at them, confused. He had his weapon at the ready though. With a swift movement Andrew leveled the spear-gun, aiming it outward. John stared in th
e direction of his aim. All three sharks were returning, steaming toward them at high speed.
"Don't shoot unless they force our hand," John said.
"I think we're a little past that," Andrew replied. "It looks like they hit the Satori."
The sharks weren't slowing down. John pulled his own spear-gun off his shoulder and aimed it at them as well. He'd never fired one of the damned things. He didn't know if he could hit the broad side of a barn with it, let alone nail a fast moving object. He'd need to wait until the sharks were just about on top of them.
Andrew had no such reservations. He fired. The shot sped out toward the lead shark, which twisted wildly to avoid the weapon. The spear gouged a line along its flank, slashing the skin and releasing a pool of blood into the water. It was only a light wound, but it broke the rush. All three sharks went swimming in different directions, turning fast to avoid any other projectiles coming at them.
Andrew was already reloading as quickly as he could. John tracked the nearest shark with his own weapon but held his fire. Partly because he wasn't at all sure he could hit the thing, and partly because he was still hoping they might be able to talk their way through this.
"What have you done to our ship?" John asked, projecting his thoughts as best he could.
"Sent it into the abyss," one of the shark colonies replied. "Where it will remain unless you give us the cure you say you have."
Would a bluff work? "If the ship is destroyed by the depths, then you lose the cure forever."
"I think not," came the reply. "Your words do not match your thoughts. The cure is not on the ship."
John cursed under his breath. Lies and half truths were useless against telepaths, and he should have known better. The truth was the only way through this.
"If you can read my thoughts, then you must know that I believe it when I tell you that this bacteria could do terrible harm to your world. We must test it before we release it here," John said.
"That is not your decision!" The shark sailed past John's head. Andrew was about to snap off another shot at it, but John waved him off. He had the thing talking now. All that remained was to convince it.
"No, it's not. That's fair. But should it be your decision alone?" John asked. "Or the collective decision of all your people?"
The shark dove in toward him again, and John was afraid it would strike this time. But one of the whales came in from the flank, smashing into the shark's side and battering it away from him. The sheer mass of the animal knocked the shark spinning, dazed.
"THAT IS ENOUGH!" the whale called out, its voice loud an imperious. It quieted again before continuing. "What you have all done is abhorrent. You have attacked our guests. And you have spilled blood."
"Our friends are going to die unless we do something," Andrew said.
"Our people are dying because you do nothing," a shark colony replied.
The whales came around together, then one of them swam off toward the Satori, while the other two remained close to the humans. Whether that was to keep them safe from the sharks, or the sharks safe from them John wasn't sure. For all he knew it might be both.
"We will call conclave, and ask all the colonies to weigh in on this matter," the whale colony said. "In the meantime our brethren will assist your ship to ensure it is not destroyed by the deeps."
"Thank you," John said.
"Do not thank us yet," the colony replied. "Some of our people want what you have to offer, no matter the cost. Their voices will be heard now as well."
John grimaced. Whenever someone said that they would do something no matter the cost, it always seemed that it meant they were ready to abandon reason and ethics in favor of whatever their cause might be. He prayed fervently that would not be the case here. Too much was at stake.
Fourteen
They were still sinking, and it looked increasingly like there wasn’t a damned thing that Dan could do about it. The Satori’s hull groaned, reminding him that they were on a clock. At some point, the ship would crack apart under the pressure, imploding from the crushing force of the water around them.
“Beth, any idea how long we have?” he asked.
“Hard to say. Minutes? No more than that, for sure.”
He pursed his lips. The engines weren’t kicking those jellyfish things off. Nothing he did seemed to matter. Whatever they were made of, it was tough material. Without the thrusters to keep them aloft, they were sinking fast. He didn’t even have enough control of the ship to get their nose up so he could power their way skyward with the main engines.
“The wormhole drive is still working,” Dan said. “Majel, how’s our recharge level?”
“The drive is at about half charge,” she said. “There’s enough for a small jump, but not enough power to return home.”
“We have any known coordinates close enough?” Dan asked.
“Just the one for this planet,” Majel replied.
“We’re too close,” Beth said, shaking her head. “The gravity well…”
“I know,” Dan growled. He was maybe a little more harsh than he’d meant to be, cutting her off like that. But they were running out of options.
The gravity of large objects seemed to throw off the wormholes somehow. For some reason none of them really understood that effect was greater on short distance jumps. They’d only tried one short jump before, and Jupiter’s gravity had grabbed the wormhole and yanked them in close enough that the ship had almost been sucked down into the turbulent storms in its atmosphere.
This close to the planet’s surface, with exit coordinates barely a few dozen kilometers away, what sort of havoc would that wreak on the wormhole exit point? They might end up transiting through a wormhole into the planet’s core, for all they knew. But Dan was fast running out of other options.
“I might be able to mitigate the risk somewhat,” Majel said.
“What?” Dan asked.
“I’ve been running simulations on the micro-jump we did in Earth’s system,” Majel said. “I believe I can manage the jump better if I can directly modulate the power going into the wormhole drive.”
“How sure are you?” Beth asked.
“Impossible to be sure without testing,” Majel said. “It’s a hypothesis at best. I had meant to discuss the idea of testing it once I had run more simulations, using a probe to test the destination point. If I can compensate for the gravity distortion, it should be possible to manage very short jumps with greater accuracy.”
“But you haven’t yet,” Dan said.
“No, it’s just a theory,” Majel said. “But I do not have any other insights which might solve our problem at this time.”
Neither did Dan. He swept his eyes over the console again, like he would somehow see the answers written there. Instead he saw the blinking light of a new object on their scanner.
“Majel is that a ship?” he asked, unable to take his eyes from the radar screen. Whatever it was had to be even larger than the Satori. Maybe some sort of sub?
“Negative, scans indicate it is biological,” Majel said.
“Time until it reaches us?” Dan asked.
“Forty seconds,” Beth replied. “Dan, if that thing rams us we’re going down. The Satori’s hull is already under too much strain.”
“I might be able to give us a burst of speed from the main engines, make it miss us once. But the trick won’t work twice,” Dan said.
“And you’ll just drive us down faster,” Beth said.
“If I may interrupt, I am preparing the systems for micro-jump,” Majel said.
“Whoa. Can you jump the ship without the pilot engaging the drive?” Dan asked. He didn’t like the idea of the computer taking over his steering wheel, no matter how smart or likable the computer might be.
“Probably. But I won’t. However, I do not wish to die down here, and unless either of you has any better suggestions, we have about twenty seconds left until we all perish,” Majel said.
Dan looked at Beth an
d shrugged. The AI was right. If they were going to die anyway, they might as well take a stab at surviving. In the worst case scenario he could imagine, they would die. Which was what would happen if they did nothing anyway.
Beth snapped her harness into place and gave him a small smile.
“Engaging wormhole drive now,” Dan said, flicking the switch. “Majel, I hope you can do this.”
“So do I,” the computer said.
Lights flickered in front of the ship, exploding into the now familiar pattern of swirling photons that appeared whenever they activated the wormhole drive. The device punched a hole in the fabric of the universe. Water rushed into the wormhole, pouring through it to whatever was on the other side. Was it simply being annihilated out there, coming into contact with solid matter at the destination? Or had Majel accurately projected a new destination?
“Power fluctuations in the drive,” Majel said. “The wormhole is unstable. We’re going to lose it.”
“Hang on,” Dan said. He turned the main engines on full power, and the Satori rocketed forward through the portal and into the unknown.
The ship exited the wormhole, blasting out somewhere. Dan couldn’t tell where they were at first. They were surrounded by a massive bubble of water which seemed to stick to the ship. It was freezing in place, lines of ice forming all around the ship so quickly that he could watch it happen.
“We’re in space,” Beth said. “Not far from our point of entry.”
Which was good, and bad. Dan engaged the cloak - not that it would do a lot of good, with a big ball of ice forming around the ship. “So the good news is, we aren’t dead,” Dan said. “The bad news is, we’re sitting right next to the Naga again.”
Adventures of the Starship Satori: Book 1-6 Complete Library Page 48