by Jake Elwood
Something slammed into the shuttle window right in front of him, and he flinched back, giving a low shriek. For a moment he thought the shuttle was under attack. Then he recognized Sanchez, palms splayed flat against the window, eyes wide, his face no more than a meter away. The man had panicked, thrust too hard, and slammed into the shuttle.
Kasim shook his head. If Sanchez was falling apart already, what was he going to do when he learned about the aliens?
Roberts came through the hatch and pulled himself into a seat. Kasim caught a brief glimpse of Sally's shoulder through the window. She murmured to Sanchez over the radio, her voice low and soothing. "Come on. The hatch is right here. You're doing fine."
"Shuttle Five," said another voice. "Get a move on. We have to go."
"Hurry up," Kasim told the technicians. "Get in here."
"What's the big emergency?" said Roberts.
"You don't want to know."
Sanchez came through the hatch feet-first, and Kasim smiled, relief flooding through him. Then something moved in the corner of his eye, and he turned his head.
And swore.
The Alexander was moving away, picking up speed as she raced to intercept the alien ship.
"Okay," said Sally. "We're on board. Kasim? Kasim, what's wrong?"
He turned to look at her, shook his head, and said, "It's too late."
CHAPTER 10 - HAMMETT
Hammett stared at the screen in front of him, distantly aware that his fingers ached from gripping the arms of his chair. The bridge was filled with an unprofessional babble of excited voices. The junior lieutenant at the communication console, a man named Singh, was piping in radio chatter from the rest of the system. It was the same mix of panicky voices that filled the bridge. Hammett closed his eyes. It sounded more like an asylum than a warship.
"Silence!" He opened his eyes. Every eye was on him, and he made himself loosen his grip on the chair. With a calmness he didn't feel he said, "Keep your mouth shut unless you have something to say."
No one spoke, but a frightened voice came over the bridge speakers. "Sweet Buddha, what is it? Can you reach Port Albuquerque? I can't raise them. I think those ships—that thing, whatever it is-"
The voice went silent, and Carruthers, with no more emotion than a man discussing the weather, said, "Her transponder just went silent. That's the James Joyce. Local freighter. Crew of six."
Hammett looked at Singh. "Try to raise Port Albuquerque." Albuquerque was a space station with a dozen scientists on board, doing some kind of long-term analysis of changes to the local star. "Where is Albuquerque right now?"
"About two hundred thousand kilometers on the other side of Gate Eleven," Carruthers reported.
"They're not responding," said Singh.
More panicky voices came over the speakers, someone calling out to the crew of the James Joyce, someone else demanding to know what was happening. "Cut that racket," Hammett said. "Let me know if you hear anything useful."
Singh nodded. After a moment he said, "There's an Administrator Carmichael demanding to speak to you. I think he just wants you to tell him what's going on."
"He can wait. What's our time to intercept?"
"Eight minutes," Carruthers said.
We could retreat. We could duck through the Gate. It's important to get word back, right?
But three Gates have gone silent, and no one has ever escaped. And there are hundreds of people on Freedom Station. I can't just leave them.
Hammett looked around the bridge. Carruthers was focused completely on his own screens. Velasco sat at the next station over, staring at Hammett. You're not much use in a crisis, are you? Most of the bridge crew was watching him, and he made himself lean back in his chair. "This enemy may be unfamiliar," he said. "But a ship is a ship. We are all experts in naval combat. I don't know yet what that ship out there can do. But they're up against Spacecom's mightiest warship, and they are about to see what we can do."
It sounded hokey to his ears, but it seemed to work. Some of the fear left them as they remembered what they were.
Warriors.
"Before we blow them into scrap," he said, "is there any chance that their intentions are benign, or even friendly? Are we certain that they're hostile?"
"Three Gates are down," Carruthers said. "Port Albuquerque is silent, and it looks like the James Joyce was destroyed."
Hammett looked around the bridge. "Anyone else?" When no one spoke he said, "I'm inclined to agree with Lieutenant Carruthers. This is a hostile force. I think we are at war. I think all of humanity is at war."
There was a moment of bleak silence.
"We are going to protect Freedom Station," Hammett said. "And the Naxos system, and Earth."
"We should destroy Gate Six," Carruthers said.
Hammett said, "If we win …"
"If we win, we can take our time getting word back. But if we lose?"
If we lose, they'll sail right past our shattered hull, through the Gate, and pillage Naxos. Hammett nodded. "Lieutenant Singh. Get me the pilot of Shuttle Five."
There was a pause, and then Singh turned and nodded.
"This is Captain Hammett."
A young man said, "Yes, Sir?" His voice sounded only a little unsteady.
"Lieutenant al Faisal, is that you?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Lieutenant, this is important. I need you to send those technicians back outside. I need them to destroy the Gate."
There was a moment of silence. Then the pilot said, "I understand, Sir."
"What?"
Hammett looked up. Velasco was staring at him, her eyes too large in a bloodless face. He gave her a hard look, but it didn't seem to register.
"You can't do that! We need the Gate to get home."
"We'll get home. Man your station, Commander."
"Look, you can't destroy the Gate!" She looked around wildly, as if seeking support. "You have to call them back. You have to rescind your order." She stared at Hammett for a moment, and when he didn't move, she turned to her console. Her hands chopped at the air as she worked through menus. She was going to contact the shuttle directly, Hammett realized, and he stood.
"Captain?" came a voice over the bridge speakers. It was Kasim, the pilot, sounding regretful.
"Don't destroy the gate!" Velasco cried. "You can't!"
"I'm afraid that's not an issue," Kasim said. "I've got a little mutiny on my hands. The technicians have refused to disable the gate."
"Oh, thank God," Velasco said, and slumped in her seat.
Hammett shot her an irritated glance. He would have to deal with her, but first … "Mr. al Faisal," he said. "Please take your shuttle around to the far side of the gate."
"Aye aye, Sir."
"Make sure you can't see the Alexander. I'll be sending a missile your way."
There was a long moment of silence. Then Kasim said, "That might not work, Sir. Hang on. I'm going to connect you to Miss MacKinnon. She was willing to disable the gate, but the other two won't let her."
Static crackled on the speakers, and then a woman spoke. Her voice quavered, but it grew steadier with every word. "I don't know if a missile would do the trick, Sir. These gates are tough. They're designed to survive an accidental collision from a ship moving at a fairly high speed. The outer casing's titanium, solidly made. It's really hard to damage a Gate without opening the casing first."
Hammett thought for a moment. "I have six nukes on board. Would one of them do the trick?"
"If you managed a direct hit, yes. That would do it."
Hammett tried to imagine what would happen if the missile was just slightly off target. It would sail through the wormhole and come out in the Deirdre system. And what would happen then?
"Get on the other side of the Gate," he said, and gestured to Singh to break the connection.
The enemy ship loomed closer and closer on his screen. He was running out of time to consider his options. "Jim," he said, and Carruthers looked up.
"Nuke that gate. Don't you bloody miss."
Carruthers nodded.
"Detonation on impact only. Let's not fry the shuttle crew if you do happen to miss."
"Aye aye, Sir."
He turned to Velasco. "Commander. Pull yourself together or get off my bridge. I won't tell you again."
"Missile's away," said Carruthers.
He desperately wanted to drop back into his chair and watch the progress of the missile. Instead he made himself stroll around the bridge, hands clasped loosely behind him, the picture of unconcern.
"Impact," said Carruthers. "I can see the shuttle, so the gate must be down." After a moment he said, "I can see debris. The Gate's destroyed, all right."
"Lieutenant al Faisal says the shuttle is intact," Singh reported.
"Tell him we'll be along presently to pick him up." Hammett returned to his seat. "Now let's deal with that ship."
CHAPTER 11 - VELASCO
Velasco stared, rigid with horror, at the image of the Gate on her screen. Maybe it will miss. The Gate is so narrow. It's a tiny ribbon of metal, and-
The Gate vanished. She didn't see the missile, didn't see an explosion. One moment the circle of silver metal was there, glittering in the light of the star Naxos. Then it was gone. The shuttle appeared as if by magic, a blocky white shape against the darkness of space, and she heard Carruthers say, "Looks like the shuttle is all right."
They're not all right, she thought. They're stranded here, with us. With them. She switched her display to the forward view where the alien craft was closing with terrifying speed. Those are hostile aliens rushing at us, and you just destroyed our only escape hatch. She looked at Hammett, who lounged in his chair, looking incomprehensibly calm and unperturbed. You've killed us all, you bloody maniac.
Terror was like a gibbering specter hovering around the edges of her thoughts. She wanted to scream. In fact, she was finding it very difficult not to. I have to do something. I have to get a message back to Spacecom. Someone has to know that this lunatic is out of control.
Radio transmissions didn't work through wormholes, and there was no way to send a message faster than light. The only way to contact Spacecom was to fly all the way back to Earth.
Maybe we can still survive. If we flee now, if we generate a wormhole and escape through it. She looked at Hammett. But this idiot is flying us toward the aliens. Can't he see we need to go the other way? The man is unstable. He's insane. I should relieve him from duty. I should take command and get us out of here.
She looked at Carruthers and the other lieutenants. They were hunched over their stations, totally focused on their tasks. Will they support me? They have to. They would be idiots not to.
"Commander Velasco. Commander!"
She jumped and looked around. Hammett was glaring at her, and she flushed. How long was he trying to get my attention?
"Did you hear a word I said?"
Velasco opened and closed her mouth.
"I'm going to need you to launch drones," Hammett said with an air of strained patience. "But not until we match velocities. Get ready to launch on my command."
"Drones," she said. "Right." She looked down at her console, feeling some of her terror recede. It's too late to run. We'll have to fight our way out of here. But we have hundreds of drones. We'll win this fight. We have to.
The Alexander had changed course, she saw. The ship was moving laterally, putting itself between the enemy craft and Freedom Station. You idiot. We could run away while they're busy with the station. Her finely-tuned political instincts told her not to make the suggestion out loud. It's too late to run. We'll fight. Focus on making sure we win.
With that in mind she hit the icon for the console's main menu. Lines of text and translucent buttons appeared all around her, projected on her retinas. She found a red-outlined box labelled "Tactical Menu" and touched it.
The display around her changed. Now she saw menus for weapons, targeting, and damage reports. She had last looked at this interface in the Naval Academy ten years before, but much of it was coming back to her. She poked the "Drone" icon and the display changed again.
The ship had two hundred and eight drones, and she selected all of them, queuing them up for launch. We're fighting for our lives. It would be stupid to hold anything back.
A tactical map appeared to her right, with glowing circles around Freedom Station, the enemy ship, and the shuttle. She quickly labelled the station and the shuttle as friendly, and the enemy ship as hostile.
She looked again at the icon for the enemy ship, now circled in angry red. It was appallingly close. Less than two thousand kilometers. What was Hammett waiting for?
As if reading her mind, he said, "Launch missiles."
Half a dozen fresh icons appeared on the tactical map. The missiles streaked forward, moving closer and closer to the circle of red. The alien vessel was moving almost as quickly as the missiles themselves. Collision was only moments away, and she held her breath.
One by one, all six missiles sailed past the alien ship. There were no impacts, no explosions.
Hammett said, "Dammit, Jim …"
"Still not responding, Captain," Carruthers said. "I can't explain it."
"Launch the nuke," Hammett said. "Velasco. Launch drones."
"Missile away," said Carruthers. Velasco slashed a hand through the launch icon and watched as new icons erupted onto the map.
"You launched them all?" Hammett said, sounding startled. He gave her a considering look and said, "Probably for the best."
She set the drones on full autonomous mode, and set the stance to highly aggressive. A cloud of tiny icons surged across the tactical map, making the Alexander look suddenly small and alone. Velasco reached out with her hand, swiping across a couple of dozen drones to select them. She switched those drones to defensive stance, and watched as they hurried back to hover around the Alexander. If a hundred and ninety or so drones won't do it, the rest won't help. This way we're ready if they surprise us.
"The nuke just stopped responding," Carruthers reported. "Eight hundred kilometers from the bogey, same as the other missiles." He checked a screen. "We'll be within that range in about a minute."
On the tactical map the enemy ship seemed to crumble, and Velasco felt a surge of hope. The nuke must have exploded! When she glanced around the bridge, though, she saw only grim concentration on the faces around her. It's reconfiguring, she realized. They all bunched together to share thrust, and now they're breaking apart to make smaller targets.
A course of beeps sounded in Velasco's ear through her implants, and she watched a wave of color change wash through the cloud of drones on the tactical map. The projected ships lost some resolution, too, becoming a bit fuzzy. She poked a finger into the cloud, selecting a drone at random, and read the status message.
"They're dead in space," she said, feeling a cold chill wash across her skin. "No transponders. I'm getting nothing back at all."
Carruthers said, "Thirty seconds until we're in range of … whatever it is that's happening."
Hammett snapped, "Get the rest of those drones back on board." He touched a button on the arm of his chair. "All hands. Prepare for a possible immediate loss of power."
Velasco made quick, urgent gestures with her hands, herding her drones closer to the launch tubes. She stared helplessly at the menus for a moment, her mind filled with swirling panic, then pressed the heels of her hands to her temples. Come on. You know how to do this. The button is right there, you just can't see it.
She lowered her hands. There was the recall command, hovering in the air beside her. She poked the button and the surviving drones swarmed around the launch tubes. One after another they popped back into the ship, guided by force field beams from the Alexander.
Nine drones were back on board when static howled in her ears. Pain filled her skull, and she screamed, clapping her hands to the sides of her head. The deck dropped away beneath her, she squeezed her eyes shut, and the pain
and noise vanished.
Velasco opened her eyes. She saw a moment of blackness, felt her stomach heave in reaction to zero gravity, and then emergency lights came on around the bridge. Gravity came next, a couple of seconds of gentle pull that let her get her feet under her, and then full gravity a moment later.
The tactical map was gone. She tried to bring it back up, but the menu didn't even appear on her implants. In fact, all her implant data was gone. She looked down and to the left, and the time didn't appear on a projected readout. She looked to the far left.
No menus.
She hadn't been without a data connection since puberty. Velasco shook her head, unable to believe what was happening.
"Oh my God." Her implants were completely dead.
CHAPTER 12 - HAMMETT
Shock crashed over Hammett in an icy wave. Every screen on the bridge was blank. All his tactical and sensor projections were gone. He was blind, crippled, helpless.
Well, he could function without implants. His thumb pressed a button on the arm of his chair, and he said, "Susan. What's your status?"
There was no reply. Not even the usual beep of a channel opening and closing. He had communication with everyone in reach of his voice, and that was it.
That was when panic hit him. He'd been scared plenty of times, but training and experience had always given him something to focus on, something to do. Now he stood on the bridge of a crippled ship with an enemy closing in, an enemy he couldn't even see. And he could do nothing.
Nothing at all.
He froze. He sat rigid in the command chair, every muscle in his body clenched, his mind filled with a silent scream. His breath came in tiny, short pants, and he was dimly aware of pain from his arms and legs and chest and stomach as his muscles strained against each other.
A tiny corner of his mind scrabbled through thirty years of memories, looking for a solution, looking for something to try. Every day of his career, though, every crisis he'd faced and survived, he had used the same basic toolkit. A toolkit that was now gone. The ship couldn't maneuver, he had no weapons, he couldn't even see …