Trapped

by Scott Bartlett

  Moens shook his head. “The density should have made things more difficult.” He glanced at Fontaine, who shrugged. “A speck of matter can be a killer, when you’re in a warp bubble. But in this case, there’s hardly anything out there to run into, despite the fact that space is densely packed with stars here. There are no quasars. No energy signatures. No significant background radiation. There’s just nothing out here.”

  Husher exhaled slowly. “So. A pocket universe. Well, all right. I’m not sure how good this news is.”

  Shota raised an eyebrow. “Considering we can’t even get inter-dimensional travel going, I’d say it’s very bad. We have nowhere we can run.”

  “What’s the story on the quantum drives?” Husher asked. “Why can’t we go back the way we came?”

  Winterton glanced at Fontaine before answering. “That’s an open question. As far as I can tell, there shouldn’t be anything preventing it.”

  “We’ve double-checked every readout on the quantum engine,” offered Third Engineer Jennings. “Everything is nominal—there’s nothing in the data to suggest it isn’t working. Besides, the chance of every quantum engine in the battle group malfunctioning all at once is pretty low.”

  Husher snorted. “If they’re fine, why aren’t we talking about all of this on the way back home?”

  “I can’t say for sure, sir” Jennings said. “But my theory is that there’s something about this universe that’s preventing the quantum engines from working.”

  Husher looked around the room. His gaze settled on Winterton. “Does Jennings’ theory align with what you’ve seen in the sensor data?”

  “Sir, I can only tell you what I know. It’s a tiny universe. Like the Progenitor universe, except theirs was once as big as ours.”

  The mention of the Progenitor universe almost made Husher flinch, but he caught himself in time. Dark tech had triggered the collapse of that dimension to a single star system, but he’d shrunk it down even further. And the toll had been bloody. Millions wiped from existence in an instant.

  He shook himself out of his dark reverie. “Enough about where we are. Let’s talk about who we’re stuck here with. That alien invasion in engineering. They got damn close to the reactors.”

  “It did,” said a science officer Husher didn’t terribly care for. His name was Cornell. “But we’ve scrubbed the contamination area, and we think we’ve gotten everything. The marines in quarantine are reacting reasonably well, given the situation.”

  Husher chuckled at that. He understood that if looks could kill, the marines would all be murderers. They couldn’t stand the quarantine teams bossing them around in there. “Good to hear you have the situation under control. But what the hell were those things? And how were they able to slice open my ship and rush straight for its most sensitive part?”

  Cornell’s lips tightened. “We’re working on that. We’ve isolated the substance they were spraying, and should have more data soon. As for their tactics, identifying the reactor core isn’t terribly difficult.”

  Husher grunted. “Getting to it damn well ought to be.” He suppressed a sigh. “As of now, we’re playing cat and mouse in a tiny universe with a very big cat.”

  “Worse than that,” Shota said. “With no quantum drives, there’s no way for us to get word back to the Milky Way, to call for reinforcements. Until somebody comes looking for us, we’re on our own. This battle group is all the support that we’re going to get.”

  The room was silent for a moment at that thought. Husher thought about the dead husk of the Able, tumbling aimlessly through space. They couldn’t afford to take more losses like that. There was no one out here to help them.

  “We’re trapped here.” Cornell’s voice trembled slightly.

  “With a big cat,” Shota added. As usual, his tone didn’t waver.

  The conference room’s vid screen suddenly came to life, and Second Watch officer Gyver stood up. The Winger’s feathers were standing at attention—a sign that he was upset.

  “What is it, Lieutenant?” Husher asked. He liked Gyver. He was a good officer. The Winger wasn’t the most creative thinker on the ship, but he was as reliable as any human Husher had ever had serve under him.

  “Sir, we’ve exited warp.”

  Husher leaned forward. “Already? We weren’t expecting that for another hour at least.”

  “Yes sir.” Gyver’s beak snapped as he spoke. “But the situation has changed.”

  Husher was already on his feet. The other department heads were getting the message and starting to walk out as well, returning to their stations. “How has it changed?”

  “There are more enemy units in this system. Identical to the ones that attacked us.”

  Shota cursed. “I guess that’s not a surprise.”

  Gyver swallowed visibly. “Sir, there are far more of them than there were in the previous system.”

  Husher exchanged looks with Shota. “Out of the frying pan.” He turned back to Gyver. “We’re on our way.”

  He was about to cut the connection when Gyver spoke again.

  “There’s something else, sir.” The Winger’s beak clacked again. “They aren’t the only aliens.”

  Husher narrowed his eyes. “There are other aliens?”

  “Yes sir. They’re engaged in battle with the ones that attacked us.” He hesitated, then his head dipped. “And they’re losing.”

  Chapter 25

  Combat Information Center

  UHC Relentless

  Husher spent the next hour watching in fascination as the battle unfolded in front of them on long-range scanners, which gave them little flavor for the actual fighting, but a plethora of broad-strokes data on the battle.

  His Second Watch officer had been right. It was going badly for the new species of alien. It seemed as though they were familiar with the ones that had attacked the human battle group. They were using tactics that reminded Husher of their own, in some ways. All of their maneuvers seemed to boil down to blinding or tricking the attacking aliens.

  Whatever the history books liked to say about wars past and future, it wasn’t always the brilliant tactician that prevailed. In fact, you heard those stories precisely because they were the exceptions to the rule. The reality was that most wars were won the same way they’d been won since the beginning of time. Pure, brute force. Overwhelming numbers. Mind-numbing attrition. That was the sad reality of what Husher was watching before him.

  The new species had techniques that worked well to slow the advance of the monsters with their ship-eating acid spawn. But in the end, they simply didn’t have the numbers. And try as they might, the sheer weight of enemy aliens was going to win out in the end. There was nothing that the new species could do, no matter how brilliant their tactics.

  It was a stark reminder of how the universe worked. Any universe. Even a pocket universe.

  “All ships reporting successful transit,” announced Winterton. “The battle group is out of warp and accounted for.”

  They’d spent the last twenty minutes monitoring near-space as the ships from the battle group had appeared, one by one.

  “The Providence?” Husher asked.

  “She’s hailing us now.”

  By virtue of being the lead ship, and the one with Admiral Iver aboard, the Providence was the last ship to arrive. The destroyers had arrived first, and successive waves of subsequent arrivals had fortified the position. It might be a romantic notion that the admiral would lead the charge, but it didn’t make much sense to have your most important ship warping into a space that hadn’t been secured first.

  “On screen,” Husher said, since Iver hadn’t requested a private conversation. Whenever possible, Husher preferred to receive transmissions in the presence of his CIC crew.

  “Captain,” said Iver. “I’ve just been briefed on the situation. You’ve been here the longest. What can you tell me?”

  “Not much more than I’m sure you’ve had reported to you already. Whate
ver this fight is, our new friends aren’t doing much better against those alien acid spitters than we did. They have better tactics, and from what I can tell, more powerful weapons at their disposal. Not to mention a hell of a lot more ships than we have.”

  “But?”

  “But they’re still being overwhelmed. There are just too many.”

  “How long can they hold out?” Iver asked.

  Husher glanced over at Shota.

  The XO shook his head. “I’m not optimistic they can last another hour, Admiral.”

  Iver grunted. “I’m contemplating jumping again.”

  Husher nodded. “We considered that too, but as we’ve been watching, the destroyer captains have started to form a consensus. We were waiting for the rest of the battle group to get here—to get your thoughts.”

  Iver sniffed. “What’s this consensus, then?”

  In truth, there was no consensus. Husher had talked with his fellow captains, but there was far from uniform thought on this. He’d been banking on Iver contacting him first when he dropped out of warp, and his wish had been granted.

  Husher bent forward slightly. “We need to go down there and help.”

  The admiral raised his eyebrows. “In our last engagement, you wanted to run with our tails between our legs, but now you want to rush in and fight? After we’ve learned just how powerful this enemy is?”

  “When we thought the quantum drives were still working and we could jump back out of this universe, it seemed prudent to leave with what information we’d gathered and return with a larger force.”

  “Well, now we’re even more sure of the enemy force. This was a recon mission, and we have the recon we needed. Why engage the enemy again?”

  “I don’t think this mission is about gathering data anymore, Admiral.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “We know we can’t run. Not far, anyway. And I’m sure your brainiacs are telling you the same thing mine are. This is a tiny universe. We can’t hide here. And we can’t jump back to our own dimension, for some reason. Something about the fabric of this universe is changed.”

  “All true,” Iver said. “But not especially compelling reasons to attack.”

  “I’d disagree. My XO and I have been talking, and we’ve concluded this is a cat-and-mouse scenario. We don’t want to be the mouse. We want to be the cat.”

  Iver narrowed his eyes. “How do you propose we do that?”

  “Sir, these new aliens are clearly the enemy of our enemy. That makes them potential allies. They must know more about the hostile species than we do. If we can tip the engagement in their favor, we’ll have made some valuable new friends. The kind that can help make us much stronger for the next fight.”

  “So you want us to go make friends with another mouse in the hopes that two mice can kill a cat?”

  “When you put it like that, it’s not the most compelling argument. But yes, I think that’s exactly what we need to do. We can’t run. That means we have to fight. If that’s the case, we’d better find allies. This might be the only chance we have.”

  “Sir,” said the Coms officer. “I have a transmission incoming.”

  “From where?”

  “The engagement, sir. I think it’s coming from one of those new alien ships.”

  “Put it on the speaker.”

  The message comprised of hissing sounds interspersed with staccato clicks. Husher had heard it before.

  “That sounds just like the distress signal,” he said. Iver was on the main screen, no doubt hearing the same message himself. “These are the creatures that sent the original signal, the one we came here for.”

  Iver nodded slowly. “All right,” he said at last. “We’ll set a course for the engagement, God help us.”

  With that, the admiral vanished from the viewscreen.

  Husher glanced over at Shota. “Ready to go take the fight to that cat?”

  Shota smiled. “Power to the mice.”

  Chapter 26

  Combat Information Center

  UHC Relentless

  “Steady as she goes,” Husher said, watching the battle grow larger on the viewscreen.

  Their new allies, if that was what they were going to become, had ships that were highly modular. As they approached the flank of the battle, Husher saw one of the ships begin to break apart.

  “Magnify that,” he said, stepping toward the screen.

  “Did she take fire?” Shota asked. “Is that why the vessel’s breaking up?”

  “Negative, sir,” Winterton said. “None of the enemy ships has managed to reach it.”

  Husher shook his head. “The breakup is too controlled. It’s purposeful.” As if to support his assertion, a moment later the pieces of the ship that had split apart began to rotate and move at speed. They looked like little modular versions of the main ship.

  “Is this a trick that everyone in this universe uses?” Shota said sarcastically.

  Winterton gave a small shrug. “Similar patterns should emerge across any number of fields, particularly in a universe as small as this one.”

  “So the way they all seem to split into smaller units, this must be a common battle tactic here.”

  “Apparently so. Whether our own tactics put us at an advantage or a disadvantage, we don’t really know yet.”

  Husher allowed himself a small grin. “It’s nice to have that tactic on our side, considering how effective it was against us. Even if our new friends’ vessels look much less organic than the enemy’s. Their craft were like living beings.”

  “Like amoebas or something.” Shota’s gaze was intent on the viewscreen. “At least these look like proper ships.”

  As they watched, one of the larger modular ships exploded. “They might look like proper ships,” Winterton said, “but they’re struggling against the same ones that attacked us.”

  Another blinding flash confirmed the sensor operator’s words.

  Husher suppressed the urge to curse. “This might be ending faster than we thought.”

  “It’s a failure cascade,” Tremaine said from the Tactical console. “They’ve reached the tipping point, now. The destruction of their ships is going to happen faster, because they’ve lost containment across the front closest to us.”

  Husher took a deep breath. “Well then, we need to get in there.”

  “Sir,” Winterton said. “I might have been wrong—”

  “My God,” Tremaine said. “How is that possible?”

  The ship that had seemed to get blown to pieces had somehow split into fourths the moment before the blast. Only one of the chunks had sustained damage. The other three were spreading apart from it as they concentrated firepower on the amoeba creatures that were still converging on the destroyed quarter.

  In spite of the growing distance as they fled, because they were all concentrating their fire, they were far more effective than even the paired missile launch had been. They were able to overwhelm and destroy the amoeba creatures, despite their efforts to flee back into space.

  “That’s a hell of a way to limit damage,” Shota said.

  Husher nodded. “And it’s a hell of a way to get those things right where you want them.” The screen was full of the battle now. “How close are we?”

  “Another two minutes and we’ll be able to launch missiles ship-to-ship.”

  “We’ll need to make sure we’re firing far away from those modular ships, at least until they know we’re on their side.” Husher bit his lip. This is going too smoothly. “Why doesn’t the enemy come after us?”

  Shota furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that they must see us coming.”

  “Maybe they don’t know about our last engagement.”

  “I doubt they’d need to. They were only too happy to attack us without provocation.”

  “We were a little provocative,” offered Shota. “We tend to be that way wherever we go.”

  Husher ignored the remark.
“There was no reason for them to attack us, but they did. Now they’re in a heated battle, and they’re just going to let us saunter up to their flank with no resistance?”

  “Sir, we’re inside missile range,” Winterton said.

  “Guess so,” Shota said. “I guess your reputation doesn’t precede you everywhere you—”

  “Sir,” Winterton said. “We’ve got company.”

  I knew it. “Where are they?”

  “Off our starboard side. Seven more of the Stomachs we encountered before.”

  Husher tilted his head. “Stomachs?”

  The sensor operator’s gaze locked onto his. “The ones that shed the amoebas in layers. Seems as good a name for them as any.”

  “Get our alert fighters in the air. Divert non-critical power to the point defense systems. How the hell did they sneak up on us?”

  The Tactical officer shook his head, but it was the sensor operator who broke in: “They just appeared out of nowhere, sir. I wouldn’t say they sneaked up on us, exactly.”

  “It’s the same way the amoebas seem to jump in and out of realspace.” Shota said. “Apparently the Stomachs can do that, too.”

  “They didn’t before.” For the first time, Husher wondered if some of these might be the same ships they’d fought in the last engagement. If they could just jump in and out of space like this, who was to say they couldn’t travel incredibly fast as well?

  Tremaine leaned over his console, his entire body rigid. “They’re going to outflank us! Sir, we have to redeploy the battle group.”

  “Has the Providence—”

  “She’s calling for us to form up out front with the other destroyers,” Winterton said, having guessed what his captain had been about to say. “The battle group is reorienting.”

  Husher took a long breath. “They want a fight. They’re getting one.” He mashed the com panel. “Major Callum, get everything you’ve got out there. Expect similar conditions to last time.”

  “Can’t wait,” Callum said, his voice tinny in the cockpit as he raced away from one of the Relentless’ launch tubes. “And I have a bunch of stick jockeys with me who feel the same way.”