by Evan Currie
Hyatt examined the readings. “Hold for my signal . . .”
She keyed open a laser link to the Bellerophon. “Captain Roberts, we’ve detected the quantum bow shock of the enemy formation. Standing by to enable the system.”
The laser went out, taking several moments before she received a reply.
“Roger that, Captain Hyatt,” Roberts’ quiet voice came back finally. “Initiate at your discretion. Bellerophon will follow your lead.”
“Understood, Captain. Good luck, good hunting,” Hyatt sent before killing the comm and putting the ship’s systems as dark as could be managed.
Hiding a Heroic Class ship from gravity detection was not an insignificant task, unfortunately, which was what had led them to their current situation. The Boudicca was parked in extremely close orbit of a cold planetoid roughly two-thirds the mass of Earth. It had no atmosphere, which was the only reason they were in a technical orbit and not flying a “few miles off the surface,” but the planetoid massed enough that any passive scan of the system would conclude that the Bo’s mass was simply part of the planetoid.
Active scans would be trickier, but those had to be directed and space was a big place. If the enemy got suspicious of the planetoid for some reason and focused their attention there, things would likely get problematic. Barring that, however, Hyatt figured that they should be safe.
For a certain version of safe.
Nowhere in the entire system was what she would consider “safe,” of course, not with an Imperial flotilla about to bear down on them.
“Ma’am, triangulation from the Bell confirmed,” Maxim said firmly. “We’re in the hot seat, ma’am.”
That didn’t surprise her. The initial scans seemed to indicate that the enemy were coming their way. Based on the data they’d received from the Prometheus Rogues, Hyatt and Roberts had figured out the most likely approach vector to the system and parked themselves as best they could to cover the widest aspect of those vectors.
As luck would have it, she supposed, the Boudicca was up.
“Initiate the system,” she ordered as some of the readings she was watching on the tactical repeaters changed.
“Aye ma’am. Initiating,” Maxim confirmed instantly.
Well, that’s it. Game on.
Lord’s Own Dreadnought, Empress Liann
Jesan overlooked the main screens as the ships approached the target system, though there was nothing really to see. When moving faster than light, the effects of universal laws were such that real-time viewing became effectively impossible. The computers could reverse engineer the effect pattern, given time, but not within anything that resembled a reasonable tactical time frame.
So he stared at the raw spattering of color displayed on the screen, wavelengths of light that were actually invisible to the naked eye under normal circumstances but were now shifted into visibility while other wavelengths were made invisible as a result of their great speed.
“Sector Lord, we’re approaching the deceleration point,” the ship’s commander announced respectfully.
“Very well, Captain. You may make the approach at your discretion,” Mich said simply, his voice and tone doing nothing to betray his interest in what was coming.
Since he’d heard about the troubles the navarch’s squadrons had encountered during their penetrations of the Oather worlds, he’d been fascinated by what might be discovered there. Real challenges were quite rare for one of his rank and power.
Mich kept his posture commanding as the orders were given and the ship’s hum shifted subtly, the lights on the main display wavering as the vessel reversed its acceleration to the outer system they had chosen for their first approach. He didn’t really expect much to happen here. The little planet was by all reports rather unimpressive within even the Oathers’ limited colonial reach, but it was part of enemy territory.
The screen stabilized a moment later, and he found himself looking at what could be the view from nearly any system in the galaxy.
The star was a distant point of light in the center of their screens, a white dot in the speckled black. Nothing special, certainly nothing to hint that there was anything present other than just that point of light. At first that was all he saw, all there was to see, really. That changed as the computers began to catch up to the sub-light scans they had available, comparing them to library records of the system. From what Imperial Intelligence and the navarch’s squadrons had acquired, the local planets were filled in on the screen as the computer located each of them in turn and then highlighted their position in the black with a red box and another point of colored light.
“No signs of any Oather activity, My Lord,” the ship’s commander announced a few moments later. “Gravity scans show nothing out of the ordinary for the system, according to library records.”
Pity, Jesan supposed. He almost wished that there had been a small squadron waiting for them. A few ships would have been enough for him to get a measure of the enemy without unduly risking his command.
“Very well, take us in. Vector for the Oather colony.”
“On your orders, My Lord. Fleet Command to all ships,” the commander said. “Vector information follows. All ahead, three-quarter power.”
The distant hum of the reactor drives shifted again, as did the light visible on the screens—neither quite so drastically as they had before—while the ships launched themselves downwell of the local sun. With gravity helping them, the fleet made fast progress as they began the long fall starward.
“Signals detected from the colony planet, Fleet Lord.”
Jesan looked over to where the communication officer had spoken. “Anything concerning us yet?”
“Not yet, My Lord. Merely the normal communications one might expect from a new colony,” the officer admitted.
“Continue to monitor. I want to know when they detect us.”
“Yes, My Lord.”
Jesan was feeling fidgety, he found, like he couldn’t quite sit still. Something was missing. Something had to be missing.
Then one of the lights representing a ship in his fleet blinked out, and every alarm in the Empress Liann went off in a screaming mess as the screens shifted to show the vessel.
Fires were burning in space.
Jesan rose up from his seat, shocked, his eyes wide as he looked over the scene. “What happened?!”
The CM mine was a relatively simple piece of technology, really.
Just a dumb computer connected to a powerful CM generator and a Priminae power capacitor. The generator had its vibratory currents reversed from the normal settings, making it much closer to what was known as a Kubelblitz than a traditional CM device.
That meant that, when the command to initiate was given by the Boudicca, the little, inoffensive device became what might be best described as a Mr. Hyde version of its normally pleasant self. Instead of lowering the effective mass effect of everything within its sphere of influence, the mine increased the effect of mass.
By rather a lot.
The Imperial ship unknowingly sucked the device into its own forward wave trough, part of the gravity wave that allowed the warp drive of the vessel to apparently break the laws of the universe and travel faster than light. Inside that already-warped space, however, the mine activated and went terminal.
The result was that the wave trough suddenly deepened incredibly, sucking the ship forward into its own drive warp. The deep sinkhole in space and time that pulled the ship along suddenly expanded dangerously, its outer edge intersecting with the Imperial craft.
That alone would be enough to strain the superstructure and possibly even the hull of the ship, but not remotely enough to cause it any serious damage. The sudden appearance of an event horizon within the gravity sinkhole, however, changed things rapidly.
In an instant a true singularity sucked in the mine, destroying it instantly from the point of view of the mine but leaving the locale an eternal pit from the perspective of all observers beyon
d the event horizon. Eternal, of course, until the newly formed event horizon expanded, eating up all the particles and energy that had been unwillingly stored in the ship’s warp wave. With that energy and mass added, its growth jumped again, reaching beyond the warp in space-time that the ship had carefully formed and stretching out for the ship itself.
Once the event horizon crossed the edge of the vessel’s bow, everything went to hell for those on board.
AEV Boudicca
“Oh God.”
Hyatt didn’t look around to see who had spoken. She didn’t care. She wasn’t actually feeling all that great about what she was looking at either.
The small artificial singularity they had introduced to the path of the enemy squadron was not remotely enough to do what they’d just seen. Not under normal circumstances, at least. However, when planted right into the forward warp of an accelerating warship, the numbers they had worked out were clearly correct. In many ways, Hyatt almost wished they hadn’t been.
“Sweet Jesus, would you look at that . . .”
The bow of the enemy ship couldn’t take the strain, and the armor spaghettified. From the perspective of the Boudicca, the armor was just torn to shreds and sucked into a spiral around the singularity. Explosions rocked the ship as critical systems were torn apart, and fires erupted as gasses escaped into space.
Hyatt refused to look away.
“Tell me again that isn’t stable,” she ordered softly.
“No ma’am,” Commander Maxim said, his voice sickly. “The singularity shouldn’t have the mass to remain stable. It should explode anytime n—”
He was cut off as the front of the Imperial ship suddenly vanished in an explosion of pure energy.
Hyatt flinched, shaking her head.
“Alright. I’d say we just delivered a line in the sand,” she said firmly, forcing down the bile in her gut. “Do we have any—”
“There’s another one!”
Again, she didn’t look to see who had spoken.
The scene of another ship being torn to shreds, in part by its own warp wave, transfixed her. Hyatt stared silently until that vessel suddenly exploded in a flash of brilliant energy.
“Lord forgive us,” she whispered. “This is insanity.”
Imperial Fleet, Deep Space
“All stop! All vessels stop!”
Navarch Misrem screamed over the command channel, her own ship dumping velocity as quickly as it could. The explosions of two ships had made it clear to her that they’d bumbled, somehow, into a minefield.
She strode over to the scanning station, eyes wild as she glared at the technician.
“Find those weapons!” she snarled.
“Y-yes Navarch!”
The Oathers or, more likely to her estimation, the anomaly species, had spotted their approach and prepared a welcome this time.
Not entirely unexpected, but still impressive.
It’s almost like they were watching our approach for some time already, Misrem thought, the sarcasm dripping even in her own mind.
She knew those damn invisible ships had caused this. The enemy’s destroyers were so hard to detect that they could have had pickets observing all the way from Imperial territory, sending intelligence on their course back to the ambushers here, and there was damn little that the fleet could have done about it.
She’d screamed for an all stop, and thankfully most of the sector fleet had responded with some modicum of common sense.
“How many ships?” Misrem asked tersely, eyes darting to the screens. “How many have we lost?”
“Three . . . four, Navarch,” her second answered, wincing as he delivered the correction. “What type of weapons are those?”
“At a guess? Some type of singularity generator.” She sighed. “They are clearly sending a message.”
Her second looked over at her with wide eyes. “That would be a significant message, Navarch. Singularity weapons are banned by Imperial edict.”
“I find it unlikely that they signed on to that agreement,” Misrem responded dryly, “not that signing it has stopped the Empire when times called for special deployment.”
“Navarch! The sector lord wishes to speak with you, My Lady!”
Misrem groaned but waved an acknowledgment. “To my station.”
Jesan glowered at the screen when it cleared to show Navarch Misrem falling heavily into her seat.
“What just happened?!” he snarled.
“You likely know more than I,” she said wearily, “but at a guess I would say that we entered the kill zone of a hastily prepared minefield.”
“Hastily prepared? Why do you think that?” Jesan asked, unbelieving.
“Simply? Because we’ve only lost four ships, My Lord,” she answered succinctly. “Had they had time to lay this properly, we could have lost ten percent of our forces instead of less than one. The Oathers and their allies are giving notice here, My Lord.”
“I will see this ‘notice’ of theirs shoved deeply up their . . .”
“Peace, My Lord.” Misrem held up a hand. “I agree. For the moment, however, we must deal with the current issue. We should scan the local area intently, identify any more weapons, and eliminate them.”
Jesan took a breath. “Of course. Consider the orders issued.”
“Very well, My Lord. I will return to my work,” she said before bowing her head. “My apologies for issuing fleet commands, My Lord. It was not my place.”
Jesan settled back, looking at her over the screen intently for a moment before he suddenly waved a hand idly. “Please, Navarch. That is of no matter. You were quite correct in this instance. You have my gratitude.”
He smiled thinly, leaving no doubt between them that his gratitude was entirely dependent on her success. Had she overstepped her bounds to such a degree and been wrong, that would have been a very different story with a much uglier outcome for the navarch.
“Thank you for your understanding, My Lord.” Misrem bowed her head again. “I live to serve.”
Jesan nodded, dismissing her but staring at the blank screen for some time after it had gone dark.
Misrem, he decided, was an ambitious and intelligent woman. Despite her previous failures, his impression and her record said that failing was something she was largely unfamiliar with. She could be a valuable ally, he decided. For a time, at least. Eventually, if she were permitted to gain sufficient power, he had no doubt that she would be far more of a deficit than an asset.
I believe I will keep this one close, for a time, Jesan decided.
Once this operation was complete, he would have uses for a disposable asset like her.
He always had uses for disposable assets.
Jesan got up and walked across the command deck as the computers began lighting up with detections and opening fire on the destructive little annoyances that lay in their path.
“Proceed ahead,” he ordered. “Slowly, all scanners active. Find and clear those things from my space.”
“Yes, My Lord,” the commander answered. “All ships, ahead slow. Scan and destroy targets as they are detected.”
AEV Boudicca
“Well, it was fun while it lasted,” Hyatt said, her stomach churning again.
She’d thought watching the little singularity bombs tear ships apart was a gut-wrenching feeling, but that was nothing compared to watching the massive fleet start shooting them out of space as it began to lumber slowly forward again.
They’d deployed hundreds of the little lethal balls of quantum tech, and in return they got four ships. FOUR.
She wasn’t sure there were enough munitions in the entire reserves of the Earth and Priminae militaries combined to do much more than blunt the edge of the Imperial advance. She hoped she was wrong, but then she had hoped to get a couple dozen ships with the impromptu minefield.
“Orders, ma’am?”
“Tell engineering to figure out how to put cam-plates on those damn things. Maybe we’ll be able to sn
eak a few more past them next time.”
“Uh . . . yes ma’am,” her first officer responded. “But, um, I meant right now?”
“Orders? Stay deep, stay silent,” she snapped. “What the hell else are we going to do?”
He sighed, relaxing. “Yes ma’am.”
Honestly, Hyatt fumed, did he think she would order a frontal assault? She doubted even Weston would be so foolish as to entertain that idea in this case. Whatever happened to the colony now, it was out of their control.
“Record everything,” she ordered. “Just . . . record everything.”
CHAPTER 15
AEV Odysseus, Ranquil System
“This is what we’re to be building,” Milla said firmly, displaying a conceptual sketch as well as rough diagrams to the group of assembled engineers. “The captain wishes to have . . . drones with the capacity . . . well, suffice to say, the captain will get what he has asked for.”
The engineers shifted a little uneasily. They could read the specs as well as she could and many of them were a little less than eager about the project themselves. Still, she was right. They would get the captain what he’d asked for, assuming it was remotely possible.
The designs were straightforward, thankfully. Those who were familiar with antimatter were pleased to note that containment was far simpler, given that there would be no need for the extreme precision of magnetic containment used on board starships such as the Rogue or Odyssey Class.
The drones had no need of atmosphere, so the entire storage area would be evacuated and largely open to space. That would allow them to use a more forgiving containment system to hold the antimatter charges while awaiting deployment orders. Rearming the drones would be the usual nightmare, of course, but that would be a problem for the future.
The drones were to have a sharp-pronged forward “bow,” a large bulbous sphere to contain the warping core to the rear, and a central open area that would hold the charges.