by Mark Wandrey
Lilith’s expression darkened slightly but she said nothing more.
“Look,” Minu said, “we must draw the line somewhere. It’s that simple.”
A few hours later Minu was feeding Mindy and Aaron was pretending to study schematics while actually nodding off, Lilith showed up at their quarters.
Minu looked up as the door slid aside showing her older daughter floating there. Her tired, worn look tugged at Minu’s heart. But she could see a look of excitement on Lilith’s face.
“What’s happened?” Minu asked. She got up and gently placed her sleeping infant in her crib. Aaron still looked bleary eyed but he was watching as well.
“I sent out another eight Eseel gunboats.”
“You didn’t even ask?” Lilith gave her mother the look and Minu let it go. “Fine, what did you find?”
Lilith gestured and the omnipresent holographic projectors located through the ship came to life in Minu’s quarters showing space around the Ghost Fleet. Their location was in blue at the center; first six points were described in a sphere around them, then fourteen.
“After sending them out, I pushed the entire squadron out to one light year for maximum affect. I found a number of passive returns shadowing our trajectory, though at a fractionally different course.”
“I thought we were stationary,” Aaron said.
“Only in a relative sense. The entire ghost fleet is moving relative to the nearby star systems at about twelve thousand kilometers per second, or about 0.06 C. The CI from other Kaatan confirms the trajectory matches ours suggesting that is more battle damage, possibly before The People set up this salvage operation.”
“Any idea what it is?” Minu asked.
“None, Mom. I was waiting to check with you before I went in.”
“Oh, nice to know I’m still in charge.”
Lilith and Aaron exchanged little sidelong grins while Minu double checked that Mindy was asleep.
“One light year out? That’s about half an hour in the Kaatan?”
“A little bit more when you consider speed up and speed down. Call it an hour to the nearest signal.”
Minu nodded. “Detach us from the fleet. Send details to Bakook of our plans. Tell him he’s in charge and we should be back in less than a day.”
Chapter 24
April 28th, 535 AE
Deep Space, Near Ghost Fleet #2, The Frontier
The Kaatan held position a light-minute from their target, the largest of the objects detected by the gunboats. Along with the ship of the line were their own squadron of Eseel gunboats, six in all. Along with the fourteen of the sensor group, that only left four remaining of the newly reactivated and the two they’d had for years now. The bare minimum Minu was willing to leave with the Fiisk to protect the salvage operations.
The six Eseel were arrayed around the Kaatan like gems in a crown, all holding position a perfect kilometer distant and controlled by Lilith like extensions of her own ship. Together they were a vastly more powerful sensor system, and should the need arise, weapon of war.
Lilith was in the CIC with her husband and daughter as the sensors slowly, pixel by pixel, using passive IR background scanning, assembled an image of their target of interest.
“Looks like an asteroid or something,” Minu said as the shape slowly got clearer. It was roughly potato shaped and slowly spinning on all three axis.
“Density scans doesn’t match an asteroid or comet,” Lilith said. “It’s light metallic or plastic.”
Another minute passed then Aaron suddenly snapped his fingers and called up an interface terminal. He gestured into it and created another display next to the mystery potato. It was a Fiisk battlecruiser. Aaron isolated the drive section with a gesture, it separated and expanded. He created some damage and set it spinning. The match was clear.
“Well done,” Lilith said and after a couple gestures the match was perfect. “It is almost certainly the drive section of the Fiisk.”
Over the next hour Lilith used active sensors to build images of what was a debris field. “This is likely what is left of the battle that precipitated the ghost fleet,” Lilith explained.
Within a light hour’s distance was more than a hundred large pieces of destroyed ships. Some were as big as half a ship, other just one ball-like section, ubiquitous to larger ships of The People.
While Lilith worked to assemble a detailed inventory of their newest find, she flew the Kaatan to within visual range of the identified Fiisk debris. Just as Aaron had said, they could all see on the image relayed from cameras on the Kaatan’s hull and the dim starlight what was the drive section of a Fiisk.
Minu tried to imagine the firepower it would take to tear the two hundred and fifty meter ship in half. She largely failed.
The display began to itemize the partial ships, further showing the magnitude of the fleet that had been involved in this epic defeat of The People, and how big its opposition must have been to deal them such a blow over and over again.
“Many of the large pieces can be considered parts of entire destroyed ships. As we surmised, they’re following the last trajectory. Since they’re so close to the ghost fleet, perhaps this engagement was more of a draw.”
The images moved and resorted. “Some of these partial ships are not designs used by The People.”
Aaron had been observing the sorting of parts and getting more excited. He had a tablet out and was making notes. Lilith finally noticed.
“You see something, dad?”
“It looks like parts of at least twenty ships that were The People’s designs, and all capital ships.”
“That appears correct,” Lilith agreed.
Aaron taped at his tablet and the main display highlighted twelve of the floating chunks of debris. “These are all drive sections,” he said. “Can’t we use them on the Kiile?”
“They’re not Kiile drives,” Lilith said.
“Does that really matter?”
Minu glanced at her husband then at Lilith who was considering. She called up more screens showing the schematics of both the Fiisk and the Kiile. Their engineering sections were highlighted in side-by-side comparisons.
“The drive of the Fiisk is a much more powerful drive,” Lilith said.
“Why would the Fiisk have a more powerful drive?” Minu wondered. “The Kiile is much bigger.”
“The Kiile is not intended to perform combat maneuvers,” Lilith explained. “When it comes to gravitic drives, size is not so much the factor as is desired gravities of oppositional sheer. The Eseel gunboats are relatively tiny, yet their drives are more powerful than T’Chillen frigates. This enables them to produce gravity sheer forces in excess of 1 million gravities.”
Minu whistled. Aaron had tried to go into details of gravitic theory with her more than once. It was more effective than a glass of mead and a hot bath.
“But only for a few seconds,” Aaron added, to which Lilith nodded. He looked at his wife. “It’s enough force to allow an Eseel to make a nearly right angle turn at several thousand kilometers per second.” Minu whistled again.
“That’s nothing compared to what my tactical missiles are capable of,” Lilith said.
“I’ve always wondered why dodging missiles isn’t an option,” Minu said.
Aaron returned them to the subject. “So these drives are all more powerful than the Kiile drives were. Big deal?”
“It will cause considerable problems with the power system and navigation.”
“Problems that can be handled in programming,” Aaron countered. Lilith considered then slowly nodded. “It’s got to be better than towing the damned things.”
“Immensely,” Lilith agreed.
“Come on,” Minu said and headed out of the CIC.
“Where are we going?” Aaron asked as he followed.
“Suit up, we’re going to use our escort Eseel and get that nearest one under tow. Hours count.”
Chapter 25
May 8th, 535 AE
Deep Space, The Frontier
Minu floated in the CIC with her family and marveled at the display. Lilith had set the interior to reflect near space so the CIC was like being outside in the void, with the viewers being the Kaatan.
Space slid by at many thousands of times the speed of light. The Kaatan was near the front of a flotilla. Directly behind her was Fiisk Alpha, controlled by the other Kaatan CI. Just behind it was Fiisk Beta, being operated by a mixed crew of human and Beezer. Two Kiile class carriers, Alpha and Beta flanked it to either side. Ibeen Gamma and Zeta were just behind the Kiile, Beta having left a week ago. And finally over forty Eseel gunboats surrounded them out to a quarter of a light year as pickets.
The only ship that couldn’t be gotten underway was the Kaatan that had been hulled through by a powerful energy beam. It had been loaded whole into one of the cargo balls on Ibeen Gamma.
“It’s a fleet,” Aaron said where he played with Mindy. The little girl was growing like a weed. She also simply loved playing in microgravity. Minu thought it was the best playpen ever. Lilith created little holographic things for the girl to grasp at and watch with her intense green eyes. Lilith never seemed to get bored with the girl.
“You’re damn right it is,” Minu agreed.
Mindy turned her head at her mother’s voice, the sudden motion inducing a slight spin. Amazingly she threw an arm out in the opposite direction and nearly succeeded in arresting the spin.
“This fleet is really nothing more than a collection of wrecks and half operational hulks,” Lilith pointed out. She gestured and the baby girl stopped spinning. The gentle caress of the forcefields made her giggle wildly, just like always. It was the feel of a forcefield against her skin that made her laugh for the first time days ago.
“It might be a bunch of wrecks,” Minu agreed, “but no one would know that to see us flying by.”
“Still, I believe stealth is a better tactic.”
“I agreed,” Minu reminded her, “which is why the Eseel aren’t ranging out very far.” Lilith nodded and went about her job of marshaling the taskforce. Minu thought about how they had to use the Eseel as scouts and thought about the day she could start using the Tog scout ships. Their electronics capabilities were an order of magnitude over that of the Eseel.
The voice of the command crew about Fiisk Beta came over the room’s audio system. “Engine #2 heat gradient has stabilized,” the man reported.
A few hours ago they’d started to have trouble with one of the Fiisk’s two huge engines. Lilith had responded by slowing the entire fleet by a hundred times the speed of light. It appeared to have remediated the problem.
The main navigational display against one circular wall of the CIC showed their progress towards the third ghost fleet. A stylized line in blue pulsing across the void from one deep space location to another. Around them for lightyears in all direction was nothing more than the occasional hydrogen atom every few cubic meters, and even more occasionally other atoms.
Still, at thousands of times the speed of light, they encountered a million of those atoms a second. A large part of the drive was actually its shield projector that created a gravity lance, which forcefully shunted aside anything it encountered. As long as it was less than the mass of the drive itself. Seen from the outside, a starship traveling at that speed seemed to shimmer as it deflected atoms aside.
That same deflection happened faster than the speed of light. The result was similar to what many ages ago on Earth had been sought after in a positron collider. Naturally, that subatomic reaction produced some unusual side effects. One of them, was tachyons. Tachyon flux, as Lilith called it, was the principal way of detecting a starship approaching at supraluminal speed. While neutrinos didn’t ‘really’ travel faster than light, they propagated faster than the event wave which created them. To Minu, in the end, it was enough to know that it was a reliable way to detect a fast moving ship.
The problem for them was that it was a double edged sword. The same effect allowed them to be detected as they moved through space. It was a game of cat and howler.
As Minu examined the map she noticed something forming ahead of them towards their destination.
“What is that?” she asked.
“It’s a minor nebula,” Lilith said, “the next ghost fleet appears to have begun at one end and has been transiting it slowly over the intervening years.”
“How dense is it?” Aaron asked.
“On the order of five hundred particles per cubic meter.”
“Is that a lot?” Minu asked.
Lilith gave a slight shrug. “If you were to walk through a cloud of that density you would not notice it. However it is dense enough to limit our speed considerably.”
“How much so?”
“Less than two hundred times the speed of light. Even then we’ll have to go in line to minimize the strain on the salvaged ships. Fiisk Alpha will lead, it has the most power drive. Higher speed risks overloading the drives, or initiating fusion along the bow shockwave.”
Minu considered. “Only two hundred times the speed of light. How far into the nebula is it?”
“Three light years. Even at the rate of drift the ghost fleet won’t leave the nebula for another forty-two thousand years because the nebula is itself moving relative to the fleet and in somewhat the same direction.”
Minu watched her daughter giggle and watch a holographic butterfly Lilith had created fly around her head and thought. “So it’s going to take about six days to transit into the nebula and reach the fleet?”
Lilith nodded.
“Are you sure it’s there?”
“No,” Lilith admitted. “While the density of the nebula is almost intangible from our point of view, it’s more than enough to shield passive sensors.” She gestured and a new display came alive showing a massive cloud of intricate patterns and swirling colors. Stars were visible in places giving it eerie, living pulsations. “There is a magnetar towards the side of the nebula we are going towards. It appears to have been part of the natural structure which helped the nebula come about.”
“Magnetar is a kind of neutron star, isn’t it?” Aaron asked.
“Yes,” Lilith confirmed, “only with a much slower rate of rotation and a much more powerful magnetic field.”
On the display one of the stars flashed to a very slow rhythm. Every time it flared the nebula around it gave off an iridescent lightshow.
“I don’t have a record of a magnetar in this stellar quadrant,” Lilith told them. “Since they don’t form quickly, I can only assume it was once much deeper in the nebula and not identified by the stellar cartographers of The People.”
“Science later,” Minu said, “right now we have to decide if it’s worth the risk to waste twelve days going in and out of that thing only to possibly find nothing.”
“We could bypass it,” Aaron suggested.
“I don’t advise that,” Lilith said immediately. “The days of cruise from the previous ghost fleet have pointed out a number of modifications that are necessary to fine-tune the newly installed drives in Fiisk Beta. And entering the nebula has secondary benefits.” Minu gestured for her to continue. “Within hours of entering the nebula we will be all be undetectable. We must be cautious with our speed navigating in the nebula, and against the massive magnetic flux from the magnetar. But these are quantifiable risks.”
“While a possible pursuing enemy fleet is not,” Minu said. “Let me ask you, what happens if we’re attacked inside the nebula?”
“They could not find us,” Lilith complained.
“Indulge me,” Minu asked.
“Combat would be extremely challenging for both sides. Because of the density of space, shields effectiveness would be limited as well as sensor locks for weapons fire. Particle weapons and lasers would be useless at anything other than pointblank ranges, and missiles would have to be reprogrammed for slower speeds, considering the environment.”
Minu though
t for a few moments before deciding.
The fleet slowed to just ten times the speed of light and came into a tight, single file formation. Fiisk Alpha was in the lead, Lilith’s Kaatan right in its wake. Arrayed behind were the Kiile and then Ibeen Gamma. All but ten of the Eseel were aboard the carriers.
“We’re approaching the edge of the nebula,” Lilith told them.
Aaron watched from where she held Mindy, who seemed to naturally want to be awake whenever anything exciting was about to happen. After finding out about the nebula he’d studied up on the stellar phenomenon, both scientific and fiction.
“I still think we should call it the Mutara Nebula,” Aaron said.
“After what happened to the good guys in that one?” Minu asked.
“Hey, the bad guy got owned, remember?”
Minu wasn’t impressed. A minute later they encountered the leading edge of the nebula.
All the times she’d been in the ship performing incredibly powerful maneuvers and inconceivable speeds, and Minu had no memory of ever feeling motion. The ship’s internal forcefields and gravitic control system kept the ride smooth. It had to. At the speeds the ship operated at if the inertial compensation system failed, even partly, the fragile living occupants would be turned to strawberry jam.
When the hit the edge of the nebula, Minu felt the disorientation of sudden slowing. It was only for a second, but it was still disconcerting.
“We’ve entered the nebula,” Lilith told them, rather unnecessarily.
For the next several hours it was a rollercoaster ride as Lilith fought the ship’s navigational and inertial control system. Lilith’s generally distant and vacant look when she piloted morphed into one of concentration.
“Is there anything we can do?” Minu asked as Lilith’s look of concentration turned to one of mild anger and sweat broke out on her forehead, something Minu hadn’t seen before.
“Silence would help,” she growled. Instantly everyone fell quiet. Even Mindy, who’d been cooing and blowing bubbles, fell silent and looked around. “I was not prepared for the layers of variable density in the nebula.”