by Dain White
“Captain, from your wink, I extrapolate that you are not being serious, and I am glad. Gene is a necessary component of our mission, sir.”
“Wait, I thought you said you couldn't see us?” I asked, momentarily caught off guard and looking around for a camera.
“Gene, I can't 'see' in a visual sense, but I am nonetheless completely aware of your physical translation and motions.”
“You are?” I exclaimed.
“I understand how this works Gene,” Dak explained, “it's like when she replayed the motion track of Red Martigan aboard the Archaea. It was visual, and very detailed. She 'sees' more detail through sound and RF interactions than we see visually--”
“Captain, conn”, Yak called back on comms. “I need you on the bridge at your earliest convenience, sir.”
He flashed me a look. “On my way, mister” Dak replied, kicking for the lock. “Time to get back to work, it looks like. Gene, let's get that sensor package done as quickly as possible – Janis, if he falls asleep again, poke him – but gently. And make sure his coffee cup stays full and most importantly… make sure he drinks it!”
“Aye sir.” she said sweetly.
*****
As I kicked through the cargo bay headed for the bridge, I was caught slightly off-guard by another assembler unit at work with a welder on the deck below. It looked like a twin of the one in engineering, and looked just as supremely competent and efficient. Seeing a second assembler on my ship, I had a fleeting moment of doubt, but it was overwhelmed by the realization that with Gene and Shorty busy overhauling their respective systems, this new role Janis filled was a perfect compliment. I might not know everything that happens around me, but I have to trust my crew to do the right thing. There really was no alternative. It was the least I could do in return for the trust they put in me.
As I transited through the inner lock to the gun deck, I nearly had a mid-air collision with Shorty coming towards me with a strapped pack of crates. As it was, I just about pulled a gluteal hauling my legs around enough to snap-roll to the side.
“Make a hole, Shorty”, I called, as she hurled past me.
“Sorry sir, I didn't see you there!” As usual, she had somehow found the one patch of dust in this gleaming gun deck, and cleaned it with her face.
“Steady on, Shorty – I didn’t see you either, to be honest. How’s it coming along in here?” I asked, as I floated to a port-side grabber.
“This is the last load, and I'll be ready for testing”, she said proudly, “I think you're really going to be impressed, sir.”
“I'm sure I will, Shorty. Do you need a hand?” I asked, as she pushed a few errant crates back into the lock.
“If you can just help me get this mess through the lock, I can get them stowed on the--” she stopped abruptly, looking down off the catwalk onto the cargo bay deck, where Janis' assembler was still welding.
We both stood there for a few long moments, lit by the flash of the burning arcs below.
“What... is... that?” she said in a quiet voice, sliding her hand into a lumbar pocket.
“Breathe deep and stand easy, Shorty. That's called an assembler. Janis has built at least two of them that I am aware of. One is busy helping Gene finish the gravimetric sensor package in engineering and the other appears to be… well, building that dropship we were talking about…” I trailed off, realizing how crazy I sounded, “…a few hours ago.” I took an extra moment to smile at her wide eyes and look of utter amazement. Between Gene’s nap and Shorty being caught off guard, this was shaping up to be a first-rate day. The only thing left to see before I die was Pauli subduing Yak in a wrestling match. Luckily for me, that wasn’t ever going to happen. I was going to live a little longer.
“An assembler?” she said, incredulously.
“Yep, you need to ask Janis to fill you in, she’s moving fast – speaking of which, I need to be as well”, I said with a smile, and left her there staring down at the assembler hard at work, with her jaw hanging on the deck.
As I kicked through, I noticed the gun deck was again immaculate, and looked as perfect as ever, definitely a marked improvement over the past few days. Shorty had clearly been working pretty hard down here.
With all the mess and work on board, I had been a little concerned. Though I trusted Gene and Shorty, there really wasn't a good time to tear apart the machinery on this bird. We don’t really ever stand down.
“Captain to the bridge”, Yak called again across the 1MC.
“20 seconds more”, I grumbled on comms as I kicked forward through the gun deck toward the forward ladder. It was just a short hop up and I was moving down the bridge companionway. As I hit the top of the ladder I realized that despite all efforts to the contrary, I had neglected to pick up some more coffee. My poor cup was thoroughly empty. I had been air-sipping for thirty minutes, and things were starting to seem slightly insubstantial.
“Yak, I relieve you, sir.” I said, hauling my semi-comatose self across the bridge to the helm station.
“Captain, you have the conn”, he said, slipping out of the helm station and latching on to a grabber.
“What's the situation, Yak?” I asked, while I called up ghosts of all system screens while reaching for the refill.
He took a breath, and motioned towards the targeting ghost. “Sir, Janis has a number of targets on track, Sierra designations 12 through 18 at the moment, though we are concerned about Sierra 14 and Sierra 16.” He pointed at two bogeys on track; both were assigned orange classification, with divergent vectors; however Sierra 16 was a distinct reddish-orange, something new I haven't seen.
“What is our concern with Sierra 14 and Sierra 16?”
“Sir, Sierra 14 appears to be following us out-system, and Sierra 16 appears to be on a collision vector. Janis has it flagged as future-hostile.”
“Future-hostile?” I asked, with an eyebrow slowly climbing up to see what all the fuss was about.
He smiled weakly. “Yes sir. Janis is confident of future hostile action, but is not marking it as hostile at this time.”
I shrugged; she probably had a good reason. “Very well, Yak. Please take your station, and prepare for maneuvering.”
“Aye sir.” he said, launching for his station.
This was a new one to me, but I am not going to get in the habit of second-guessing her – but that doesn't mean I won't try to avoid a fight if it’s at all possible. Not that I am a coward, or necessarily concerned about a fair fight. If I need to, I will do whatever it takes to win. I just like to make sure I look before I leap.
Pauli wasn't on the bridge, and he wasn't supposed to be on shift for a few more hours yet. This time of our cycle, he was probably asleep. Poor kid… hopefully he was belted down, but deep down a sadistic part of me gleefully hoped he wasn’t. I chastised that part of me sternly and set it off to painting some decks somewhere, and got back to work.
“Let's see if we can defuse this Yak, stand by.” I said calmly, and clicked on the 1MC. “All hands, secure for maneuvering in thirty seconds.” Just to make sure everyone heard me over running machinery, I added a brief honk on the collision alarm.
I considered my options. Our rate of closure was formidable, but at our current range, I had some time to think. “Yak, please hail, and let them know we are shaping a new course to port, and will signal with two flashes of our forward arcs.”
“Hailing, aye”, he said, then repeated my hail on comms. He waited a moment, and hailed again.
“Hit them spread-spectrum, Yak. Maybe they're not on the pilot channels.”
“Aye sir.” he said, and repeated the hail a third time. We waited a few moments, and he repeated the hail again across all frequencies.
“No return on comms, sir.” He turned around and fixed me with a grim look. “Maybe we don't have a strong enough signal, or they have interference...” he trailed off, hopefully.
“Well, even if they can’t hear us, they should be able to see this”, I rep
lied, and flashed our forward arcs twice for the standard 'giving-way' signal using deliberate, long-blasts for each flash.
After I had burned their eyes out with our forward arcs, I came around 35 degrees to port, and punched a one percent burn for 10 seconds. I counted off thirty seconds on the clock and hauled us back over 40 degrees to starboard, finishing the maneuver with another one percent burn. It was a perfectly executed side-slip maneuver, by the book.
On my waypoint screen, the indicators showing our course were located a few kilometers to starboard, but on the same plane. We looked good for a reinsertion once Sierra 16 moved past and our lane was clear.
“Yak, what's our rate of closure?” I asked across the bridge.
“Sir, rate of closure is 23km/s. That seems a little fast… is that us?”
“Negative, we're not going that fast, we're hardly poking along right now. What mass do we have for them?”
“Sir, one second--” he stopped talking abruptly as his screens flashed red. “Janis is now designating Sierra 16 as Master 1, range 190k, dead ahead.”
Master designation means they have gone hostile. Without firing on us, that could indicate they have willfully maneuvered to present a hostile aspect, or to maintain a collision course.
“Steady on, Yak. They’re a few hours away yet, and we need to consider the possibility that maybe they didn't understand the give-way signal. There are certainly a lot of scrubby pilots hauling tugs around Sol system.” I replied calmly.
On the other hand, they were closing pretty fast, definitely faster than I’d expect an in-system tug to be going.
“Yak do you have a mass reading on Master 1?”
“Sir, roughly 500 tons.” he replied, a little more calmly.
I pulled over the gravimetric layer, scanned at maximum resolution, and didn't see much that I liked. “Janis, can you pull any detail out of this scan?” I asked the air hopefully.
“I am sorry sir. If I perform any further extrapolation the object loses detail. I will continue to refine the topography as it approaches.”
“Very well Janis.” I wasn't really happy with what I was looking at. It looked like a crumpled ball of mystery, slowly rotating.
“Yak, I am going to shove a bit farther over, and see if we can't get out of this guy's way.”
“Aye skipper.” he said with a bit of relief in his voice. I guess he doesn't want to play chicken with a 500 ton object moving a few thousand meters per second, and who could blame him.
“All hands stand by for maneuvering in 15 seconds.” I said on the 1MC, and beeped the collision alarm. Pauli was probably not sleeping at this point.
Right on the mark, I slewed us five more kilometers to port and then burned a bit more to line us up and lock us in.
“Yak, how are we looking?” I said with my eye on the course plots. We were now eight-some-odd kilometers off line, and should be well clear of whatever primate is in charge of that in-bound hunk of junk.
His voice was grim. “They have altered course again, sir, still holding a Master designation.”
“Well, that's interesting.” I considered our options. We could still be looking at something innocent here. Some scrub on early watches, mixing his reds with his greens.
No sense taking any unnecessary risks, however.
“Janis, you have the conn”
“I have the conn, aye.”
“Please shape a two-hop slipspace course with a terminus of 500 meters astern of Master 1, with autopilot assist.”
“Certainly sir”, she said as the course showed up on my center screen with that shiny red button I love so well. The stars wheeled slightly across our forward port as she lined us up.
“Thank you dear, please stand by and adjust as needed to keep this valid while I rouse the troops.”
“Very well sir.”
I was about to hit the 1MC right as Pauli kicked in to the bridge, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Luckily for everyone aboard this old bird, he brought some coffee. I might actually stay awake long enough to save us.
“Good morning Pauli, just in time for the fun.” I said holding out my cup with hands so rock solid steady they looked like they already fell asleep. For all I knew, maybe they had. I was cutting it a little close… it's dangerous to play games with coffee withdrawal, when it's a major food group.
Once the cup was happily refilled, and I took my first soul-replenishing slug, I was ready. “All hands secure for free-fall and in-system slip – just a short hop, you'll hardly notice it.” I added the last bit for Gene's benefit. Try as he might, he will never get over his fear of hurtling into a rock at hyper-luminal speed.
I took another sip, and continued on comms. “As background, we are currently looking at an incoming bogey that has been designated hostile by their stubborn refusal to stop trying to run into us head-on. I will be maneuvering to a position on their six, using a triangle route of linked slipspace hops. Over the next... some-odd seconds, we will slip, maneuver, and slip again until we are in position.”
I paused for another sip.
“Gene, I’m going to need maximum power from the tokamak, and juice our plates to maximum as well. Shorty, I need the main gun hot, lit, and ready to burn. Hopefully this is just a drill, but I would appreciate it if everyone were to regard this as the real thing.”
“Aye skipper”, Gene said on comms after a very brief, yet precisely calculated pause that shared with me exactly how he felt about going to full power with untried components. “We will have full power in 15 seconds.” I felt the tokamak cycling through its harmonics as it tuned up, tingling my toes. “Captain, our tokamak and plates are at 100%, everything is looking good, sir.”
“Very well Gene. Shorty?” I asked quietly.
“Sir our main cannon is ready now and standing by. Waiting for fire mission, sir.” she replied even more quietly.
I looked through my screens at Yak and Pauli, saw their single eyebrows and raised them a table-winning pair of my own.
“Shorty, is there a malfunction?”
None of us felt the gut-wrenching, teeth pulling harmonics we normally feel when Shorty's gun warms up. The tokamak was tingling our toes, but usually Shorty’s gun dominated the senses as it warmed up.
“No malfunction sir, we are at maximum charge and ready to fire.”
I swiped a ghost of her screen to my forward holo and looked at it cross-eyed for a moment, trying to make sense of the various telltales and figures. It looked lit to me, but – where was the vibration?
“Shorty, is this expected behavior?”
“Yes sir. Our new focal rings are deformable and Janis has total control over their attenuation. She is able to ramp up to maximum intensity in a fraction of the time it used to take. The vibrations were caused by the old rings and steppers. Those components were barely a step above garbage, barely adequate. Our new gun is one mean machine sir”, she said proudly.
“Very well Jane, well done.” I was very impressed, even enough to use her given name. I try not to make a habit of it, but she seems to really appreciate it when I do.
I can't understand it, myself. I prefer to be called 'Captain’. If it wasn’t for Gene stubbornly reminding me I have another name, I would have forgotten it long ago.
“In that case, I believe we are ready for this evolution. All hands secure for free-fall on the ten-count.” I said, while Janis rendered the countdown to every station.
While we waited, I called across the bridge. “Pauli, I want you and Janis to do everything you can to take total control over Master 1 the moment we arrive.”
“Aye sir.” he said, bringing up some new screens to his forward holo and leaning in to his work.
“Yak, keep your eyes on comms, they may want to get chatty pretty quick. If they hail us, I want an immediate response, Marine.”
“Oo-rah Captain.” he said quietly, while Janis precessed the Archaea towards our first transit. Her course looked simple, our first waypoint was one light-second
away, roughly 300,000 kilometers, then another light-second back to the terminus, a point she was calculating at some unholy level of precision, probably to the nanometer.
Our stasis field charged, pseudomass engaged, and we slipped. Before I could even register that it had happened, she pulled us out of stasis, and transited to our new heading while re-energizing the field. Her timing was absolutely perfect, the instant her translation completed, the field energized and we were off again – and just as suddenly, we were there, staring at the stern of Master 1, a little above and oriented downward, perfectly lined up for a hull shot through their topside.
“Sir, we have control”, Pauli called out, almost before I realized what I was looking at.
“Very well Pauli. Cut their drives and lights, and give Yak a channel to their bridge. Do we know the name of this...whatever it is?” I wasn't sure what to call it. It looked like a floating pile of garbage.
“Engines and lights are cut sir. Janis reports the vessel as the Alene, an indentured materials hauler registered out of Diemos.”
“Yak, please open comms.”
“Sir, comms are open.”
“Attention Alene. This is Captain Dak Smith of the independent frigate Archaea.”
A moment of silence, while I tapped my fingers on the side of my coffee cup in a haunting syncopated rhythm that probably sounded like 'jitters' to Yak, but wasn't.
“Alene, this is Captain Dak Smith of the independent frigate Archaea. Please respond.” I said again, patiently.
In a burst of static, a man with a heavy accent replied. “Archaea, this is Captain Lars Bakke of the Alene, we seem to be having a systems failure at the moment. Please stand by.”
I had no intention of standing by, and replied sternly. “Captain, were you aware that your vessel changed course two separate times to maintain a collision course with my vessel? You did not respond to hails, and our targeting system had you painted red for maneuvering in a hostile manner.” I said this as matter-of-factually as possible.