by Britt Ringel
Kirkpatrick’s call to the bridge interrupted the quiet. The shuttle project was complete. Twist ordered its launch and returned to watching the tactical plot update in gradual ebbs. More minutes passed with little to do other than count time. Just as he was beginning to believe they had committed the perfect crime, the tactical plot dashed his dream.
“Movement,” Holt called out. “Cutters Five and Seven-B are changing course toward Six’s point of destruction.”
Twist noted that Cutter Six-Beta’s expanding debris field was less than a light-minute ahead of Pathfinder. Behind him, the bridge doors slid open.
“Shuttle is on her way, Captain,” Kirkpatrick announced as he entered the compartment. “Sailing on a reciprocal course and without active emissions.”
“Good,” Twist answered as he turned to watch Kirkpatrick walk to his station. “Okay, obviously Six-B got word out about our missile, Pathfinder’s location or both.” He pointed at the screen. “Those cutters are turning toward us but more accurately, they’re sailing to the last location of their dead friend. Lucy, we need to sail past the remnants of the cutter we destroyed and out of the estimated five light-minute detection radius of the inbound cutters. How long for that?”
Holt worked her console before answering. “Twenty-one minutes, twenty-five seconds.” Without prompt she continued, “At their faster speed, the inbound cutters can reach the point of destruction in a little under twenty-four minutes but they will close the sensor gap in nine minutes and twenty-five seconds.” She shook her head. “We’re not going to get clear in time.”
“Plus,” Twist added, “as the warning reaches other cutters, they’ll each come crashing down on us.”
“And who knows how the destroyer and its swarm will respond,” Kirkpatrick pointed out as he took his seat. Despite the gloomy situation, he gave Twist a jaunty grin. “Good thing you planned ahead.”
Or serendipity, Twist mused. But I’ve come to learn that luck beats planning every time. He sat straight again. “Lucy, I want a running timer on the shuttle. I need to know when to order the activation of its navigation beacon so those signals can be detected by the Parasites in time to draw them away from us.” He leaned forward, closer to his sensorwoman. “The longer we can wait, the more it will draw them away but we have to time this perfectly.”
“Understood,” Holt said with a nod. It was a complex problem in mathematics. Every light-second farther apart added to the time Pathfinder needed for the activation signal to reach the shuttle. Additionally, the more distant the shuttle grew, the longer the signals from its navigation beacon would take to reach the Parasites searching for Pathfinder. Pathfinder’s motion directly away from the shuttle and her hunters’ motion toward another point added equations as well. Multiple variables contributed to a problem that needed to be solved for every cutter nearing Pathfinder.
“Lucas, turn us to port another three degrees, same plane,” Twist commanded after studying the destroyer’s path. The Parasite flagship still had nearly three hundred cutters escorting it. Its current course took it toward a theoretical intercept point, 12lm away, where the Parasites had lost contact with Pathfinder originally. The course would change once the light of Six-Beta’s destruction reached the flagship.
Four more minutes passed and six additional cutters swung their bows toward the point in space where their sister had been demolished. Every passing minute redirected a growing portion of the herd toward Pathfinder’s approximate location. The two nearest cutters, Five-Beta and Seven-Beta, were a scant 5.3lm from the ship.
“Captain,” Holt announced, “we need to send the activation order in the next thirty seconds if we want the shuttle’s nav signals to reach Seven-Beta before it breaches five light-minutes.”
The shuttle was 2.8lm from Pathfinder, merrily sailing directly away from her at .1c.
“Send the signal, Lucy.”
Holt nodded while Kirkpatrick noted with a quiet voice, “This distraction will buy us some time but will it be enough?”
A simple message raced toward the shuttle at the speed of light. Inside the auto-piloted craft, an ad hoc communications computer connected to the shuttle’s two sensor receivers diligently listened for signals on a specific frequency. When the short electronic command reached the receivers, the computer activated the shuttle’s primary navigation beacon, the redundant backup beacon and its emergency locator transmitter implement.
The faint, blue symbol of the shuttle tripled in intensity on Pathfinder’s main screen five minutes and thirty-two seconds after Holt had sent the command. Confirmation of the shuttle’s beacons permitted Kirkpatrick a sigh of relief. He had watched the engineers and shuttle pilot work feverishly without really understanding the intricacies of their task. His greatest fear had been that somewhere in the rush of their patchwork job, something had been overlooked and when the penultimate moment arrived, the shuttle would fail. Instead, he stated the obvious with a smile, “Shuttle beacon is active.”
The leading edge of the beacon’s signal was represented on the tactical plot by an expanding ring around the shuttle’s symbol. All eyes on the bridge watched as the ring promulgated outward, reaching the nearest Parasite cutter two minutes and forty-eight seconds after having washed over Pathfinder.
We’ll have to wait another five minutes to see their reaction, Twist noted to himself while staring transfixed at the tactical plot. If they don’t alter course toward the shuttle, they’ll be able to pick us up in anywhere between sixty and one hundred twenty seconds, depending on precisely how sophisticated their sensors are. He drummed his fingers on his chair arm as he waited anxiously.
Kirkpatrick beat him to the call five minutes later. “You’ve done it, sir!” the first officer announced while raising a clenched fist into the air. Audible sighs of relief sounded throughout the bridge.
“Confirmed,” Holt followed up after consulting her console. “Cutter Seven-Beta is turning away from us… toward the shuttle.” Slender hands danced over her controls. “Given speeds and courses, it’ll take twenty-two and a half minutes for Seven-B to overhaul the shuttle.”
Kirkpatrick flashed Twist a grin. “And all that time, they’ll be sailing away from us.” He reached out, took hold of Twist’s arm and gave it a shake. “Plenty of time to get well past them.”
Twist returned his friend’s smile with a nod. “Looks like we did it.” He leaned back into his chair, content with himself. “Helm, plot a direct course for the tunnel point.” He looked again to the tactical plot. Cutter Five-Beta was now turning toward the shuttle, clearing Pathfinder’s way all the more. His eyes darted lower on the screen; the tunnel point remained clear. “Okay, people, we’re looking good but let’s keep our focus. Talk to your section heads and let them know that we still have jobs to do. Lieutenant Fitts, time to the tunnel point?”
“Thirty-nine minutes, seventeen seconds, Captain.”
“Very well,” Twist acknowledged. “Lieutenant Holt, send the self-destruct command to the shuttle so it receives it one minute before any Parasite ship can overhaul her.”
“Aye, sir.”
Twist eased back into his shockseat and glanced at his first officer. “Am I missing anything?”
Kirkpatrick shook his head. “We just want to be sure to take as much of a snapshot of the system as we can before we dive. The situation may have changed since Pioneer left.” He leaned back into his chair, unintentionally mimicking his captain.
The next half hour passed slowly despite the decreased tension in the bridge. In sequence, every Parasite cutter that detected Pathfinder’s shuttle beacons turned immediately toward it in a headlong pursuit. When the signal reached the destroyer, an additional one hundred four military cutters shook loose from the swarm and proceeded at .35c toward the bait. Even then, the destroyer and her remaining escorts adjusted course to make their own run at the invader.
As Pathfinder slipped farther away undetected, the scout ship changed its focus from evasion to reconna
issance of the star system. Deprived of her primary sensor, the APG-200-A Looking Glass, Holt’s sensor section was reduced to the ship’s upgraded Naka-Fujita sensor suite. During their sweep of the system, the signal to self-destruct the shuttle became redundant. At a range of 4ls, Cutter Seven-Beta fired its particle beam weapon and removed the tiny craft from existence. The cutter rotated one hundred thirty degrees in place and began the lengthy process of returning to its flagship. The maneuver was repeated in sequence when each, lone cutter received the news of the shuttle’s demise.
“Tunnel dive in three minutes, Captain,” Fitts stated while double-checking the status of his tunnel drive. “Propulsion nominal.”
To the navigator’s right, Holt’s head lifted away from her sensor panel. “Captain, my sensor sweep is finished. Within a fifteen light-minute radius, there are one thousand four cutters plus that destroyer. They will, no doubt, follow us into tunnel space when we drop our stealth field to dive.” She illuminated the destroyer on the tactical plot. “It’ll take about thirty-six minutes for that destroyer to reach the tunnel point and dive after we’re gone.” She swiveled a half-turn in her chair to look at Twist. “The question is whether it charges forward blindly or waits to consolidate its cutter fleet before it dives.”
“Doctrine says charge blindly forward,” Kirkpatrick noted.
Holt’s brown eyes regarded the man seated next to Twist. “I don’t think the destroyer-sized Parasite ship exists in doctrine and we’ve witnessed plenty of other ‘undoctrined’ things today.” She looked back to Twist. Her mouth had become a thin line as she briefly considered her sensor report. “There’s worse news though, Captain. I can’t get an optical but I’m pretty sure I’ve detected super-carriers, destroyers and probably cutters breaking orbit from the living moon in the system.” Grim, bister eyes met her captain’s. “They pose no immediate threat but they’re coming.”
The information made Twist shudder. The destroyer and its thousand-strong swarm would be difficult enough to repel, even with Davis’ specialized fleet. The news of an even greater alien force sent jolts down his spine. He tried to settle his nerves. Relax, Caden. The plan accounts for this. In fact, the plan is dependent upon it. We’ll fight the lesser force and then outmaneuver the larger fleet and have it chase us all the way to the Commonwealth. He took a deep breath. It’s still going according to plan. We’re not going to fail.
“Captain, Pathfinder is ready to dive in twenty seconds.” Fitts sounded the two-toned dive bell, alerting the crew to impending disorientation.
“Disengage the T-gen and dive when able, Lieutenant,” Twist ordered. Three days in t-space to J-2. “I just hope Pioneer has the fleet good and ready for our friends.”
Chapter 48
Pathfinder had completed a third of her trip through tunnel space. In twenty-five hours, she would dive from the distorted realm and back into J-2. The scout ship’s repairs were well underway. Most of her internal hurt had been patched, leaving only pitted scoring along her portside transmittance panels and the cored primary sensor optic as evidence of her time in Junction.
Twist hunched over his datapad in his quarters, reviewing Kirkpatrick’s latest status report. The muscles in his shoulders were beginning to cramp. A chime sounded near his door.
“Come in,” he answered automatically without looking up. An unannounced visitor could only be one of his senior officers. The retracting door revealed a pair of them.
“Got a minute, Captain?” Kirkpatrick asked, waiting at the threshold. Holt stood behind him.
“Sure,” he replied. “What’s wrong?”
Kirkpatrick stepped into the room without answering. He stood to one side, waiting for Holt to enter, before pressing controls that would lock the door. Privacy now assured, he and Holt looked anxiously between them.
Finally, Holt addressed the captain. “May we sit?”
Twist looked back and forth, curiosity piqued at the unusual behavior. “Of course,” he answered. “What’s wrong?” he asked again.
Kirkpatrick cleared his throat while taking a seat. “Well, it depends. Am I talking to Caden or Pathfinder’s captain, sir?” Holt nervously swept her hair behind her ears.
Twist’s voice took on a measure of suspicion. “Who do you want to be talking to, Vix?”
After a moment’s pause, Kirkpatrick looked Twist in the eye. “Caden, one of my jobs is to ensure the ship runs smoothly. It can’t do that if the crew is terrified of the captain.”
“What?” Twist asked. “Who’s terrified? What have I done to cause that?” He shoved his datapad away and devoted his full attention to his fellow officers.
Holt raised her hands up and reached tentatively for Twist’s arm. “Captain… Caden, you’ve changed.”
Twist retracted his arm. “I haven’t changed,” he insisted stridently. “What are you talking about?”
“On the bridge,” Kirkpatrick said gently, “you’re very short with your bridge crew at every imperfection.” He quickly added, “It’s your right, Captain. You can hold your crew accountable but I wish you’d have a little more understanding when you make corrections….”
Twist crossed his arms. “Like when? Give me an example.”
“With Mosi,” Holt answered. “He made a simple error in forgetting time-lag—”
“That would’ve killed his crew,” Twist countered sharply. “You can’t make mistakes like that. He’s not an ensign fresh out of OTS.”
“August Quick,” Kirkpatrick stated. “Jumping on her like that didn’t make her go faster. All it did was shatter her confidence.”
Twist furrowed his eyebrows as he shook his head. “She’s not a baby, Vix. We don’t have the luxury to handhold these young officers.” He looked between the two, exasperated. “Don’t you understand? This is our final chance. This is the Republic’s last chance. The Hollarans invaded our systems and got away with it. This is our one chance to restore the Republic’s honor. We can’t screw this up, not any one of us. I won’t lose again.”
Kirkpatrick looked at his captain quizzically. “You didn’t personally lose the war with the Hollarans, you know. We were outmatched in ships and in strategy.”
Holt nodded beside him.
“Tell that to the people in New Milan, in Anesidora. Tell that to my mother. This is personal. It’s personal for everyone in this fleet who cares that every citizen will bear the consequences for our failure. The stakes are too high to let hurt feelings stand in the way of total success. You know that pride and honor are more than words to the officers of the Brevic Navy.”
Holt met Twist’s eyes. “I am proud to serve in the Brevic Navy. I’m proud of my accomplishments. But have either of you stepped back to look at what we’re doing? Our mission is to lure a horrifying species back to human civilizations and pray the weapon behaves itself.” She sighed. “I don’t know if this will restore our honor but one way or another, the Republic will be remembered for this… forever.”
* * *
The Expeditionary Fleet was holding position 30lm from the Junction tunnel point inside the J-2 star system. Initially, Admiral Davis had ordered the standard, 22lm defensive orbit from a tunnel point that might come under attack but Brewer had inserted his clearly unwelcome opinion once again.
Sebastian Brewer appraised the grey-haired admiral seated to his right on Docent’s flag bridge. The man’s thirty years of service inside Third Fleet, a theater generally regarded as a backwater, had left him without the hard-charging attitude found in most Republic admirals. The last thing this fleet needs is a gung-ho, overly aggressive commander, Brewer told himself for at least the hundredth time. We need a more cautious, methodical approach.
Of course, adherence to method was a double-edged sword. Brewer glanced at the system plot as he mused. Orbiting twenty-two light-minutes from a tunnel point might be proper against the Commonwealth but this is an entirely different enemy. At their speed, the Parasites would cover seven and a half light-minutes before we’d
even be aware of their tunnel disturbance. It frustrated him that Davis had missed such an elementary fact. Even worse, the man possessed a distrustful attitude that had not been evident from reviewing his service jacket. Brewer’s every suggestion seemed to be taken as an indictment of Davis’ ability. His miscalculation of the man’s personality was concerning. The man mistakes my every recommendation as an attempt to usurp his command. Brewer furrowed his brow. It’s too early for that.
“Disturbance at the Junction tunnel point, Admiral,” the flag bridge’s sensor officer announced over the chime from his panel.
“How many?” Brewer asked ahead of Davis.
“Just one, Mr. Secretary.” The officer’s reply held no hesitation. The flag bridge had become accustomed to answering to two “admirals.”
“Obviously one of our scouts,” Davis noted. “We should receive a report soon.”
As prophesied, the scout’s report reached Docent less than a minute later. A side screen provided a clear view of Pathfinder’s captain. Brewer immediately knew the report would signify the true beginning of his mission. Dark half-circles resided under the ship captain’s eyes. The man looked to have aged five years over the last week.
“To Admiral Davis, we were able to cut a path through to the tunnel point. As Pioneer has no doubt informed you, there is a significant Parasite presence in the Junction star system. We estimate an alien flotilla to be ten point eight light-minutes behind us. It has a destroyer as a flagship, limiting their fleet speed to point-three-C. That puts it thirty-six minutes behind us. Pathfinder will continue directly in-system as per our standard ambush plan. Twist out.” The ship captain gave a curt motion and his image faded.
“A destroyer?” Davis questioned aloud. Salt-and-pepper eyebrows furrowed. “What’s he talking about?”