The Tarantula Nebula

by David Kantrowitz

  “I’m getting a little seasick,” said Ray. “This is a bit different than the sims.”

  “No shit. There’s more feedback on the stick as well.”

  John continued to fly towards groups of satellites, destroying as many as he could before the incoming plasma became too heavy.

  “Ray to the fifty gunners. Take it easy on your fire or you’ll deplete your ammo before the time’s up.”

  “Roger that,” said Richter.

  “Two minutes remaining,” said Christie.

  “Energy absorption?”

  “Eighteen percent and falling.”

  “Good. I think...”

  Three plasma bursts hit the ship. John let loose a string of invectives.

  “What was that?” asked Byron.

  Ray shook his head. “Ten of the satellites just fired simultaneously. They adjusted their fire based on our tracers and created a thick field of fire. They’re getting smarter.”

  “Don’t worry, this is all old hat for me,” said John, wiping sweat away from his brow.

  “Those tracers are becoming a liability,” said Christie. “What’s the point of having an invisibility field if they can just follow the tracers back to us?”

  “We can’t stop firing,” said John through gritted teeth. “The only way we can clear enough maneuvering room is to destroy as many as we can.”

  “I can increase the energy absorption rate if I drop the invisibility function,” said Dana.

  More shots slammed into the ship.

  “Fine, go for it,” said John. “It’s apparently useless right now anyway.”

  “One hundred rounds left and counting on the ventral gun,” said Ari.

  A satellite nearby fired five rounds very rapidly and exploded into white fire. Two of the shots hit the ship.

  “What was that?” yelled John. “We didn’t hit it.”

  “It looks like the satellite intentionally overloaded itself to increase its rate of fire,” said Dana. “It sacrificed itself to increase its hit potential.”

  Ahead of him, John’s view was filled with plasma fire. The color drained out of his face.

  “Shit. Hold on!”

  John throttled forward and pulled into a sharp about-face roll. Seth’s inertial dampening abilities balked at the maneuver and the crew was squashed painfully into their seats. John felt himself blacking out before he pulled out of the roll.

  “Ow,” said Ray.

  “I’m going to have to keep my speed up.”

  “One minute left!” said Christie.

  “Scherer to Talvan, do you think you could hurry it up? Things are getting a little hot up here!”

  “I can’t increase the data flow with this type of connection. Once Seth’s been upgraded, maybe...”

  “Energy absorption limit at fifty-five percent,” said Christie.

  “We can’t take too much more of this,” said Ray.

  John concentrated on his flying. He realized he was biting into his lower lip and drawing blood. His arms were getting tired, and on top of it all the forward cannon was getting low on ammo. Taking plasma hits was becoming the norm rather than the exception, despite John’s best efforts. He felt his adrenaline rising and he felt his fear increasing.

  “Not now,” he whispered to himself, “you can worry about this later.”

  “Limit to seventy-five percent!” said Christie, her own fear evident in her voice.

  A new noise began to fill the bridge. John realized a moment later that it was coming from the engine room. It didn’t sound very reassuring.

  “Damn it,” he hissed, “I wish I could take this excess energy and shove it down their fucking throats!”

  John punctuated this statement with a long string of fire from the forward cannon. Several of the satellites were destroyed. He felt a bit of confidence return at the sight.

  “There are just too many of them,” said Ray.

  “Transfer complete!” cried Christie.

  John sighed. “At last! Hold on everybody, we’re getting the hell out of here!”

  Pointing the nose of the ship away from the sun, John threw the throttle all the way forward with vigor. The ship lurched ahead violently, outrunning the remaining plasma bursts with ease. The planet disappeared from sight almost immediately.

  “Repair program acknowledged,” said Seth calmly. “Systems will be shut down during repair process.”

  “Just wait until we’re safely away,” John said.

  “Systems shutdown initiated.”

  “No, no, WAIT!”

  John brought the ship to a complete halt. He was the only one on the bridge who managed to stay in their seat during the rapid stop. The others swore and picked themselves up as the power went out. The sudden silence was bizarre after so much noise. John stood up slowly and gazed out of the window.

  “We’re dead in the water,” he said.

  7.

  “All right, give it a try.”

  Ray’s legs stuck out from underneath three large industrial batteries stacked in the corner of the engine room. Richter moved his flashlight from Ray’s legs to a large electrical switch mounted on the wall. He threw the switch, and the lights came on dimly. Ray shimmied out and stood up, dusting himself off.

  “The main connector had come loose,” said Ray. “We should wrap the connection with duct tape to prevent it from happening again. I don’t think the platform we installed these batteries on is particularly stable.”

  “It doesn’t look like there’s enough voltage to run everything,” said Richter, looking around.

  “We’ll deactivate everything we don’t need. That should help.”

  Richter turned off his flashlight. Ray exited the engine room into the hallway. Richter followed him.

  “Ray to the bridge.”

  There was no reply. Richter grabbed a portable transceiver from his belt and spoke into it.

  “Bridge, this is Richter, over.”

  “John here. I see you got auxiliary power back online.”

  “Yup. We’re on our way back to you. Recommend we turn off all unnecessary devices to boost the power levels, over.”

  “There’s enough power to reboot our systems,” said Ari’s voice from the network room.

  “Well, we don’t want a sudden loss of power again,” said John. “Better do as Richter suggests.”

  “Roger.”

  “Roger, out.” said Richter, returning the radio to his belt.

  The two men entered the forward cargo bay and climbed the stairs to level one.

  “You did well today,” said Ray.

  “Thanks. Manning the fifties isn’t easy.”

  “Ari said she got at least forty of those satellites.”

  “Not bad. And you?”

  “I wasn’t counting. The situation made targeting with the aft cannon practically impossible. When targets did appear, they were only in my sights for a second or two. I got more than half a dozen or so. You?”

  “I wasn’t counting.”

  Ray and Richter arrived on the bridge. John and Dana were there. John had his radio in his hand. Ari’s voice came through on it.

  “How’bout now?” she asked.

  “I got something,” John replied.

  A small dialog box had appeared on Christie’s monitor. Dana read it aloud.

  “Time remaining until main systems reactivation: Three hours forty-nine minutes.”

  “I hope that’s accurate,” said John. “We’re sitting ducks out here.”

  “You’re the one who killed the engines just before Seth went down,” said Dana.

  “I already told you I thought that barreling through unknown space at top speed with no control was a bad idea.”

  “At least we’d be safe from pursuit.”

  “How could we barrel anywhere with no power to the engines?” asked Richter.

  “Inertia. Without a gravitational force acting on us, we would have continued in a straight line at the speed we were going
. Since I had us maxed out, that means 167,000 miles per second straight into who knows what.”

  “I gotcha.”

  The rest of the monitors lit up. They were displaying their usual readouts, except without the benefit of Seth’s added information. John began turning off the monitors, leaving only two on, his own and the gunnery station.

  “The good news,” said John, “is that our weapons systems only relied on Seth for advanced targeting. We can still use the guns, we just won’t have the HUD telling us how far to lead the targets.”

  “Better than nothing,” said Richter grimly. “If we can get enough power to them.”

  John spoke into his radio. “Ari, the systems here are back online. Turn off everything you don’t need before you leave, and do the same in the conference room. Then go to your quarters and make sure all of your electrical devices are shut off. I want the rest of the crew to do the same.”

  “Roger that,” came the reply.

  Christie entered the bridge via the hallway door.

  “How did it go?” John asked her.

  “Fine, for what it’s worth. I couldn’t see any damage with my own eyes. I couldn’t check any crew quarters other than my own, though.”

  “Right. Each of you, go to your quarters and shut off your electrical devices. Also check for cracks in the windows and bulkheads. Report anything unusual when you return.”

  Ray, Richter, Christie, and Dana acknowledged the order.

  “What about your quarters?” asked Ray.

  “You check them, I’m staying here. My keycode is my birthday in six digit format.”

  “Okay.”

  The others exited, leaving John alone in the darkness. He stared glumly at the progress bar displayed on his monitor.

  “Come on, Seth. Tell me you’re all right.”

  Four hours later, John was up to his elbows in the forward cannon and covered in grime. He and Ray were doing their best to clean the weapon, a difficult task considering John didn’t want to fully disassemble the receiver. John wiped his brow with a rag.

  “Thank God the plumbing still works,” he said. “I’m going to need one serious shower after this job.”

  “I hope Richter and Ari are having an easier time with the rear cannon,” said Ray, scrubbing a barrel through the breach.

  “They should, you only fired a few hundred rounds.”

  “We haven’t even started on the fifties. This is worse than a day out with my Garand.”

  The pair worked in silence for a moment.

  “What do you think about the mission?” asked Ray.

  “I don’t know. Somehow I doubt the defense satellites are the worst of our problems. We were outgunned that time, but ten thousand ships would have been overkill. I think our problem extends far beyond what we’ve seen already.”

  “Do you think the Zendreen have a space fleet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s hope they don’t find us before Seth comes around.”

  “I hope we weren’t just betrayed. How are we supposed to know that this Professor Talvan uploaded a repair program? If he was actually Zendreen, it could have shut Seth down for good.”

  “Why bother when you’ve got a thousand satellites available to blast us?”

  “Maybe he knew we were capable of repelling them, if only for a while. Think about it. It was a nice trap, if that’s the case.”

  “Well, if that’s the case we’re completely screwed, so I hope you’re wrong.”

  “Oh, I’m just expounding doom. I don’t really think that’s what happened.”

  “Talvan said it’s been ten years since the invasion.”

  “Yeah, he did.”

  “So why did it take Seth ten years to get to Earth, and us only six weeks to get back?”

  “Maybe Seth was visiting other potential recruits first. Nobody said he came straight to Earth.”

  “Good point.”

  John stopped working and stared out of the gun port. “I wonder if all of our efforts have been wasted. What good can one ship do, as Talvan said?”

  The lights in the room suddenly came up to full. Christie’s voice came through on John’s radio.

  “John, I think Seth is back online.”

  “Seth, are you there?”

  “...”

  “Seth, this is John, can you hear me?”

  “...I’m...”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m so fucking embarrassed,” said Seth.

  Two minutes later, John had the crew gathered on the bridge.

  “Where’s Tycho?” John asked.

  “Oh, I put him in my room,” said Christie. “Do you want him or Friday to be here now?”

  “I no longer require a medium to communicate,” said Seth.

  “Good,” said John. “Seth, give us a self-status report.”

  “You want the short version or the long version?”

  “How ’bout the efficient version?”

  “My memory and systems have been almost completely restored by Talvan’s update program. If you look at your screens you will see much more information about myself and our surroundings is now available. Most notable is the astronomical information I’ve been relaying to Christie’s station, and the communications information I’ve been sending to Dana’s station. Scans are still passive right now; active scanning systems will be restored shortly. Still, I might as well have been running around with a paper bag over my head, in comparison.”

  “You’re acting really different,” said Christie.

  “Are you kidding? I guess I should take that as a compliment, seeing as how I was acting like a complete idiot before.”

  “I mean you’ve got a lot more personality to you now.”

  “Seth, is Talvan telling the truth about the invasion of Umber?”

  “Of course he is. The Zendreen must be repelled and Umber liberated. That is why I was sent to you.”

  “Can we still accomplish that mission?”

  “Not unless we go back to Earth and construct a lot more ships. There are other things to worry about first, however.”

  “Like the fact that we can’t use the superspace drive for six weeks,” said Ari.

  “That’s not entirely true. The information that I gave you while damaged was correct in that the stardrive must recharge for six weeks to make it back to Earth. What I couldn’t remember is that the engines recharge at a constant rate. Since it has been four hours and fifteen minutes since the stardrive was deactivated, we now have four hours and fifteen minutes worth of faster-than-light speed available.”

  “You mean we could have brought Byron back to Earth after we found him?” asked Christie in astonishment.

  “It would have delayed our departure by four hours, but yes. Sorry for the confusion.”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “Regardless of that fact, it will still take six weeks before we can return to Earth. For now, the first thing we need to do is upgrade my weapons. I’m impressed that your Earth weapons were so effective against the Zendreen defense satellites, but they’ll be useless against their fighters and destroyers.”

  “Can’t we just hide out somewhere for six weeks?” asked Dana.

  “The defense satellites were able to track the ship. The engines produce a unique energy signature, but that signature is normally buffered by the invisibility shield. The shield was dropped momentarily during the fight, so we have to assume it’s been recorded. However, the satellites had little problem tracking us before then, so the only conclusion is that Zendreen technology can track us anyway, if only at short range. We have to bet on them finding us, it’s the only safe choice. They may only find us with a ship or two at first, so if we need to fight we might survive, if we upgrade my weaponry. Plus you can never count out the interference of pirates.”

  John raised his eyebrows. “Pirates? Are pirates really a problem?”

  “They’re a big problem, yes. Only a fool would venture out into the Tarantula Nebul
a without some serious firepower.”

  “Well, you sold me. How do we upgrade the weapons? Into what are we upgrading them?

  “Umberian Mark Seven Energy Rails will be installed fore and aft. There isn’t enough room for both the GAU 8 and the rear Mark Seven, so the rear thirty will have to go. Umberian Mark Three Laser Emitter banks will be installed on the port and starboard hulls at level two. We might as well keep the fifty caliber weapons, they’re not in the way.”

  “I assume you’re going to need additional resources to synthesize these weapons?”

  “You assume correctly. The raw materials are available on any inhabited planet except for one substance. It is called Talvanium 115 and it is only found on three known worlds. Umber, Residere Alpha, and Earth.”

  “Earth! Is that why you went to Earth?”

  “Yes. A Z'Sorth trader passed by your planet about two hundred years ago and scanned it for resources. Talvanium was one of the things he found. At the time it had yet to be discovered here, and since there was nothing more than a pre-spacefaring society on Earth, he left you alone. He arrived at Umber to trade his wares and he sold the government the information he’d collected. Umber was the only one ever to receive the information, so we alone knew about the presence of Talvanium on Earth. It was of little consequence, however, since it was hardly worth a ten year wait for something which was readily available in our own system.”

  “A ten year wait? But the voyage takes six weeks.”

  “You’re forgetting about time dilation,” said Christie.

  “Shit! You’re right!”

  “Five years have passed since you left Earth,” said Seth.

  “You really can’t go home again,” said Richter.

  “Wait a minute,” said Dana to Christie, “I thought that the superluminal drive operated independently of the standard model.”

  Christie shrugged. “Our faster-than-light speed is a result of the way the drive works, but I guess it doesn’t negate the effects of time dilation on us. It might be interesting to apply the Lorentz equations to find out if the effects are lessened, but I don’t know if they would even work once you start trying to increase c beyond c. It’s called c because the speed of light is constant and forms the basis for the variables. The equations might fall apart if you change that.”