by Richard Fox
“Two minutes.”
Another alert sounded and Hale felt his jaw tense.
“Well, that changes things a little,” Kenzie said.
The six additional FCF attack frigates that had just appeared on Franny’s sensors were closing in on them from starward, coming in fast to intercept.
“A little?” Ears asked. “I’m pretty sure that means we’re screwed.”
“Where’d they come from?” Kenzie asked.
“They appear to have launched from the large carrier in the center of that large formation of ships,” Yesarin said.
“Doesn’t matter.” Hale ran through his options. There weren’t many. With five attackers behind and six more closing in from the front, they’d have him cornered in no time. He changed course again, aiming away, perpendicular to both groups. He punched the engines to full and the g-forces pushed him back into his seat.
He didn’t have to wait for Yesarin’s calculations to tell him what he needed to know; he could see it as soon as he’d made the course adjustment. The new targets had speed on him, and the angle. They’d intercept his ship in just under a minute.
“Yesarin, what about the link?” Hale asked Yesarin through his i3.
“Sixty-seven seconds.”
A message from Kenzie appeared on his display. TWELVE TORPEDOES IN THE VOID. ETA 35 SECONDS.
Not enough time, Hale thought, straining against the ship’s acceleration. He made himself work through the haze that was starting to cloud his thinking. Even if, by some miracle, they were able to outrun the frigates, Kenzie wouldn’t be able to shoot down all of the incoming torpedoes. There was only so much cat and mouse he could play.
Unless. He smiled.
Quickly, Hale scanned over the data for the closest ships, found what he was looking for and changed course to intercept. As the ship banked Kenzie sent another message, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
Hale ignored her question and focused on what he needed to do. He cursed after checking the drive levels, then rechecked his course. His fingers made quick work of the calculations, despite having to fight the contest relative nine gees his body was experiencing. The meds Yesarin had provided were definitely worth the price.
TORPEDO IMPACT IN 15 SECONDS.
He made a slight course adjustment and prayed.
10 SECONDS.
The ship ahead grew quickly. The computer estimated its length at just over half a mile, most likely an attack carrier of some kind. It appeared to only be about half complete; four large bay doors stood open to the void and it didn’t look as though any passenger compartments had been started yet. Hale hoped that meant there was no one aboard.
FIVE SECONDS.
The carrier now filled the entire viewport and Hale could see hundreds of tiny lights, probably windows, along the matte black hull.
“Now would be ideal,” Yesarin told him.
Hale punched the command and a fraction of a second later, the Franny ceased to exist in space-time. The carrier disappeared and for a brief second, they were surrounded by lines of blue and white light. Then, almost as soon as they’d appeared, their view of hyperspace disappeared and they reappeared in normal space, surrounded once again by a mass of ships.
The wormhole closed behind them and Hale killed their accelerations. The pressure lifted immediately and he felt every muscle in his body relax. He breathed heavily, working to slow his pulse. Beside him, Kenzie let out a gasp of air and groaned as Hale brought the ship around.
“I hate when you do that,” Kenzie said through clenched teeth.
“Yesarin?”
“The torpedoes exploded on impact. All eleven attack frigates currently attempted to reengage, but they are well outside their engagement range.”
“Do you have their computers?”
“I do.”
“Lock them down.”
“Done.”
“Open a channel to them, and anyone else who will listen. “This is James Hale, captain of the Franny. We aren’t here to fight any of you. Who we are and where we come from is kind of a long story, but I think whoever is in charge here would be interested in having the information we have.”
Ears hopped down onto Hale’s shoulder. “Don’t do it.”
Hale couldn’t help himself. “Take me to your leader.”
Ears groaned.
Seven
Hale, Kenzie, Lincoln, Ears and Fazion sat around an oval table in the middle of a large briefing room, all watching the same man work though what Hale had just spend an hour telling. Fazion’s bot made little clicking noises as it walked back and forth across the table.
Admiral Blair Skarsgaard sat, fingers peaked in front of his face, considering. Hale felt a strange sense of sympathy for the man. The story of Franny’s journey through the wormhole and back wasn’t an easy tale to stomach. There were still times when Hale didn’t quite believe it himself.
“I have to tell you,” the admiral said after a time. “We’ve lived through some pretty crazy things as a species over the last hundred years or so, but this pretty much takes the cake. That being said, it’s not all that unbelievable. We’ve encountered plenty of alien races and technology, some of which are so different from us that I firmly believe anything is possible.”
Hale laughed. “With the things we’ve seen during this trip, I think we’d all agree with those sentiments.”
“This multi-verse theory, though, is pretty fascinating. If we could figure out how to crack that, the possibilities would be literally endless.”
Yesarin’s voice came through unseen speakers. “It would be unadvisable to explore those theories and matter manipulation without first exploring the repercussions of the first two crossovers.”
The admiral didn’t actually start when Yesarin spoke, but Hale could see that he wasn’t expecting the AI to be a part of the conversation. Hale had grown to know that Yesarin was everywhere he wanted to be, and usually that was where important things were being discussed.
“Let me guess,” Skarsgaard said. “Yesarin?”
“That is correct, Being Skarsgaard.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you.”
When Yesarin didn’t respond, Hale said, “He’s not much for small talk.”
Skarsgaard raised an eyebrow. “I see. In that case, perhaps you explain what you mean by two crossovers. I was aware of just the one, your own.”
Hale sat forward, also curious.
“The second dimensional crossover occurred near where the rogue transmission, sent from the Franny, arrived. My sensor scans of the area suggest that the local matter has been disrupted in much the same way it was when we came through our path, through the path generated by the Erabos Outpost.
“When Franny crossed over, the rift not only compressed the distance between the arrival and departure points, it broke down the space-time continuum of the area as well. However, the second rupture was much less stable than our path.”
“Meaning?” Skarsgaard asked.
“When the crew of the Franny made the translation between their universe and this one, the gateway was relatively stable, using the Erabos path as an anchor. The data I’ve been reviewing, in respect to the second path, is that there did not appear to be any such anchor, not one that I could detect. Which suggests the tear in the extra-dimensional fabric holding both universes together was so extensive that the very temporal cohesion of the path was disrupted.”
“In English, Yesarin.”
“It is impossible to know where, or when, the people translating the second path went. It could be one light year, it could be a thousand. Perhaps a hundred years into the future, or a few millennia into the past.”
“Yes,” Skarsgaard said. “And while that’s extremely fascinating, and I’m sure our scientific community will be debating and theorizing about the topic for years to come, right now, we have much more pressing topics to discuss, I’m afraid.”
Lincoln leaned forward in this chair and spoke before Hale could wave
him off. “And what’s this bullshit we hear that the Sun has been destroyed?”
The Admiral slumped back in his chair like he’d been punched in the gut. He took a breath and said, “I’m afraid that’s true. Sol is dying. The plasma ships appeared several months ago and attacked without warning. We were able to fight them off, but not before they laid waste to Earth and set our sun on a path to collapse.”
“And the fleet you’re building out there?” Hale asked. “Is that your counter-offensive?”
“In part yes, though right now we don’t have any idea where to send them. We’ve had ships out scouting the galaxy for years, looking for Empyrean, but so far we’ve come up short.”
“Do you really think your ships will stand a chance against an enemy that can destroy whole planets?” Ears said, his usually sarcastic tone absent from his voice.
Skarsgaard stood and began to walk about the table. “Whether or not the Fleet can defeat Empyrean isn’t something I’m willing to speculate on. Whether we defeat the Star or not doesn’t change the fact that we have to find a new home for our entire race. No matter the outcome, we can’t stay here.” He pointed to a large star-chart displayed on the holoscreen on the back wall. “Defeating Empyrean is only the first phase of our survival. The next phase will be finding a new home. Our initial plan is for a number of fully manned expeditions into the unknown and our hope is most, if not all, will find an acceptable system to start rebuilding our species.”
The door at the far end of the briefing room opened and a young First Lieutenant entered. “Admiral Skarsgaard, sir, we have a situation.”
“What is it, Lieutenant Bastion?”
The officer tapped a command and the star-chart vanished, replaced by the top-down view of a star system labeled Urian. A red dot near one of the planets flashed, alternating red and yellow.
“We’ve received a distress call from the Impregnable, they’re under attack.”
“Son of a bitch.” Skarsgard moved closer to the display as it zoomed in on the planet. Its name appeared in white above the globe: Urian. “Display closest response forces.”
A list appeared along the right side of the display.
Skarsgaard’s fists clenched and unclenched. “Goddamn it.”
The names themselves didn’t mean much to Hale, but he was pretty sure he understood the numbers beside them. The closest ship was more than a day away. The times and distances displayed intrigued him, however, and a thought came to him.
Hale was asking the question before he’d finished the thought. “How far is that system from Sol, Admiral?”
“Eight light years. Three days by displacement drive.”
Hale took a long breath, considering his information. He turned to Kenzie and Lincoln and could tell by their expressions what they were thinking.
“I really should get a cowboy hat one day,” Ears said. “It’d be fitting.”
“We can go,” Hale told the Admiral.
“I can’t ask you to do that,” Skarsgaard said. “Not without knowing who or what is involved out there. I’ve got other warships responding, they’re much better equipped to handle battle than your little ship. No offense.”
“Little?” Lincoln said.
“None taken,” Hale said. “We might not have the large arsenals your warships have, but we have something your ships don’t.”
“Which is?”
“We have a Yesarin.”
Eight
They jumped into chaos.
Proximity alarms barred and alerts flashed on Hale’s display as the Franny’s sensors began exploring the Urian system. Skarsgaard had provided extensive maps of the system and using those, Yesarin had been able to coordinate their jump to almost ten kilometers. They were still about 250,000 kilometers from Urian Prime, but were only 100 kilometers off the Impregnable's stern.
“Damn,” Kenzie whispered.
The massive warship had been ravaged. Huge chunks of hull floated free, others clung to the superstructure by literal threads. A thick cloud of debris surrounded the ship, pieces spinning and bumping into each other. Sparks shot out from exposed wires and large support pillars. Huge rents along the hull exposed large portions of the warship’s interior. Then there were the bodies.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of bodies floated in the void. Some were in vac-suits, but most only in what looked like the ship’s duty uniform. A pit formed in Hale’s chest as he took in the carnage. Whoever, or whatever had attacked this ship, it had been truly devastating. When Hale spoke he couldn’t quite keep the tremor from his voice. “Any life signs?”
“Negative,” Yesarin told him almost instantly. "The Impregnable’s drives appear to be on the verge of collapse and her systems are completely offline. I am, however, detecting a secondary energy signal on the far side of the debris field."
"Escape pods?" Hale asked, hopeful.
"I do not believe so. The energy signature is unlike any I have seen before. If I'm not mistaken, it appears to be some kind of displacement drive, but it is operating at a much higher threshold than the Earth drives I was able to observe."
"Is it the people that attacked the Impregnable?"
"Unknown. However, based on the available data, I would say that is the most likely explanation."
Hale punched the drives to full, the sudden burst of speed throwing him back in his seat. While keeping his hands on the flight controls, he used his i3 connection to the ship to bring up Franny's targeting system.
Beside him, Kenzie apparently saw what he intended and began spinning up Franny's weapon systems. Lines of red and yellow outlined pieces of hull and larger debris, depending on how far they were from the ship, and trajectory lines marked their directional paths and relative speed. Blue brackets appeared and drew a course through the debris field, plotting the most direct and clearest route to the unknown ship.
The drives on the phantom ship ignited, hurtling it away from the Franny at six gees. After several seconds, the ship changed course by almost 30 degrees, hugging the inside of the debris field.
"She's not as fast as us," Kenzie said, her voice strained from their acceleration.
Hale grunted, turning the ship to follow. A proximity alarm blared and almost without thinking, Hale depressed one of the firing triggers on his flight controls, vaporizing a large, spinning hull fragment. The Franny flew through the space where the fragment had been, angling after the phantom.
"Damn it, Kenzie, clear me a path!"
"I'm working on it."
The phantom altered course again, another 30 degrees, this time back along its original course. The distance between the ships wasn't growing, but they weren't gaining any ground either. Hale considered pushing the engines to full burn, but knew he'd lose a considerable amount of agility and in this situation he couldn't afford the loss of maneuverability.
"If I can get you in range I want you to disable its drive system if you can. Skarsgaard will want answers."
"Already sucking up to the boss, eh?" Ears said from his crash couch behind Hale.
Hale ignored the chattermonkey's comments, instead focusing on the task of avoiding the thousands of pieces of debris that would spell disaster for the Franny and most likely death for her crew, if they collided with any of them. He jerked the controls, rolling them left, over a jagged piece of hull. A spinning figure appeared out of the darkness and the corpse bounced over the plastiglass viewport.
"Oh God," Kenzie said.
Hale fought back the rising bile in his throat. The person was gone just as quickly as they had appeared, but the image of that frozen corpse wouldn't soon leave Hale's mind.
"They're firing!" Kenzie shouted.
"Shit," Hale muttered, bringing his mind back to the battle.
Twin energy beams shot past, barely missing them off the starboard side. Hale pushed the ship to port, then rolled again back starboard. He pulled back slightly on the throttle, changing course again, keeping their flight path erratic and unpredictable
.
The phantom changed course again, 30 degrees from its current heading. Hale frowned, and replayed the last two course changes in his mind.
Yesarin spoke just as Hale saw the pattern himself. "There appears to be a pattern to the enemy ship's evasive flight path."
"He's making 30 degree changes every time he alters course."
"That is correct. I am detecting an energy surge from the ship as well, something that is not directly connected to its drive systems. My readings suggest he could be trying to open a path."
Plasma shot out from Franny's cannons, vaporizing two more pieces of debris.
"He's trying to open a wormhole?" Kenzie asked.
Hale increased thrust and the Franny shot through the expanding vapor cloud. They'd started to gain some distance on the phantom, but Hale was beginning to have some serious doubts as to whether they'd be able to catch them or not. "I didn't think these people had wormhole tech."
"It doesn't match the quantum signatures from either the Erabos engine or our own."
"I guess we're not that special after all," Ears said.
"They can't activate that thing in here, can they?" Hale asked.
"I do not have sufficient information to make a determination on their ship's capabilities."
"We'll be in range in another minute or so," Kenzie said.
"Power levels surging," Yesarin said. "It appears as though they are going to activate their Pathway."
"We can't let him get away," Hale said. "Hang on."
"Oh, shit, not again—"
Hale grunted as the engines pushed to full power. Alarms blared as they plowed through smaller bits of debris, their shields struggling to maintain coherency.
A text window appeared on Hale's display with a message from Kenzie. YOU'RE GOING TO FLY THE SHIP APART!
Hale ignored it.
“Unknown ship's power levels reaching critical levels," Yesarin told Hale through his i3. “I believe they are going to open their path."
Without waiting on Kenzie, Hale took his best shot and fired. The twin plasma cannons unleashed a barrage of fire, which shot past the phantom without so much as scratching the paint. He adjusted his aim and fired again. This time one of the plasma bolts hit home, slamming into the phantom's starboard hull.