by M. D. Cooper
“So that’s what they’re doing! For being so behind on tech, these Bollers have something pretty ingenious going on here,” Earnest said, his holographic image appearing on the bridge.
“You finally figured out what the heck they’re doing with this planet?” Tanis asked.
“I have indeed—well, Bob did most of it. They’re using graviton emitters—pretty large ones, at that—to emit a negative gravity field around the planet. But that field only goes so far. Then it reverses and increases pressure. Basically, the whole thing is a helium-3 generator. It’s the biggest gas station you ever saw. If they didn’t have the graviton emitters, it would collapse into a brown dwarf star.”
He walked around the holo display, peering intently at the world into which they were descending.
“If they focus the energy coming off it, they could probably use it as a heat source for orbiting dwarf planets, too. It’s like having a second star without all the problems a second star causes.”
“Nice of them to leave it here for us, then,” Tanis said. “Saves us having to turn protium and deuterium into helium-3 ourselves.”
“I wonder if they’ll try to bill us,” Joe chuckled.
The Intrepid slipped past the graviton emitter web and into the atmosphere of the planet, while above, scan showed that the leading ships in the AST fleet were now within a hundred thousand kilometers of Aurora
“I wonder if they have any idea what we’re doing?” Sera asked.
“There’s nothing to see here, go back to your homes,” Tanis chuckled.
“Gods, I wish they would,” Sera replied.
The Intrepid dipped beneath the swirling clouds and deployed its scoop. Like a straw, it reached deep into the planet and began to draw the denser deuterium and helium-3 into the ship. The process proceeded quickly, and thirty minutes later the colony ship’s tanks were full and Captain Andrews directed helm to bring the ship out of the clouds, timing their ascent for a vector toward their desired jump point.
They broke free of Aurora’s atmosphere to see the world ringed by AST ships.
Scan called out an alert. “They’re launching something—a lot of somethings!”
“RMs,” Tanis swore. “They’re targeting the graviton emitters.”
“Oh, that’s bad, very bad,” Earnest shook his head with dismay.
“Helm, full thrust. Get us out of here!” the captain called out.
“Why very bad?” Tanis asked. “The mass is the same, the planet will just collapse.”
“You don’t understand,” Earnest said. “One of two things will happen. The first is that the planet just collapses. Except things like this don’t happen naturally, you don’t get nice spherical balls of heavy hydrogen and helium isotopes that can collapse under their own gravity in minutes. This thing is a planet-sized fusion bomb just waiting to happen.”
Tanis frowned, watching as concern showed on the bridge crew’s faces.
“What’s the other option?” Tanis asked.
“Graviton emitters don’t just make gravitons out of vacuum,” Earnest replied. “They get them from somewhere. That somewhere is the dark layer. They tap into dark matter for mass and energy.”
“Seriously?” Tanis asked.
Sera and Earnest nodded together.
“Sooo?” Tanis asked.
“The Bollers are really going to hate us,” Terrance commented. “I have to admit, I feel bad for them.”
“They did try to kill us,” Andrews frowned. “I don’t feel so bad. Besides, we’re not taking out their big H-bomb of a planet, the AST is.”
“I can see why it might create a singularity, but why do you think it’s probable?” Tanis asked Earnest.
“When a ship transitions into the dark layer to achieve FTL, it does so by slipping through the fabric of space-time into that sub-dimension—graviton emitters do something very similar.
“A better description of what a ship does is to say that it cuts open a portal into the dark layer. That portal self-heals, because no energy is being used to keep it open. But if there was an energy source nearby—say an exploding planet, it could be used to keep the portal open. It’s why systems enforce the use of their jump points, and it’s also why people don’t just blind-jump into unexplored systems—at least I would imagine they don’t.”
“You are correct,” Sera nodded. “People who do that usually aren’t heard from again.”
Tanis took a deep, calming breath. “To the case at hand, Earnest. What do you think?”
“I think we need to push our engines harder than we have ever pushed them before,” Earnest replied.
Everyone fell silent as scan updated, showing graviton emitter platforms exploding in a wave across the planet.
“Oh!” Earnest said.
All eyes turned to him.
“There’s a lot more tritium in this planet than I expected. My money is on black hole. Given how much dark matter is clustered around this world, we’re looking at a significant increase in mass.”
The Intrepid was pulling past the last of the planet’s clouds, even as the gasses began to rush past them, drawn down into the deep gravity well that that the graviton emitters had kept them from for so long.
“Neutron storm incoming!” scan called out, and Amanda announced that full shielding was in place. Stasis layered over grav, layered over electro-static.
On the holo, the AST ships began to veer off, apparently also realizing the full enormity of what their actions caused.
“They really didn’t think this through,” Earnest said through gritted teeth.
“Or maybe they considered it worth the risk to destroy us,” Joe replied. “Think about it. We have an invincible shield and our pico could wipe them out. What better way to deal with an unimaginable threat than to drop it into a black hole.”
“Makes sense,” Tanis scowled.
“Too damn much sense,” Anderson agreed.
The Intrepid had reached an altitude of twenty-five thousand kilometers above the previous surface of Aurora—though the radius of the planet had decreased by fifty-thousand kilometers.
Earnest began whispering a countdown to himself, and then a moment after he reached zero, the planet’s collapse stopped and a massive explosion of light, matter, and energy flared out from its compressed core.
As Earnest predicted, compression won. After that initial explosion, the visible light all but snapped off and the pull of gravity began to increase, slowing the Intrepid’s progress.
On the scan Tanis saw that two of the AST ships had moved to pursue the Intrepid, likely intent on ensuring that the colony ship fell back into the world below. Their course put them too close to the world when the explosion occurred. The ships were pushed outward by the blast, but then, as the mass of the world collapsed into a black hole and drew matter from the dark layer, they began to fall in.
The shockwave passed over the Intrepid, sending a violent shudder through the ship.
“Will she hold?” Terrance asked.
“Earnest nodded. “She’ll hold. We don’t have the dampeners that those other ships, have, but our stacked decking was designed to handle lateral thrust.”
Tanis tightened her arm around Joe as she wondered if this is how the crew felt when they passed close to Estrella de la Muerte and were hit by a solar flare. There was nothing to do but wait and pray to whatever gods or stars you believed held sway.
Sera spun the view on the main holo and some of the bridge crew gasped as several of Aurora’s moons appeared to stretch, and then disintegrated, falling back into the dark, roiling mass below. Above the Intrepid an icy moon was pulled out of its orbit and the ship altered course with a lurch to avoid the debris as it crumbled and fell.
“This is amazing,” Earnest whispered.
Tanis looked at the r
apt expression on Earnest’s face and shook her head. “For some definition of amazing, perhaps.”
“Oh, come on!” Earnest gestured at the display. “How often do you see the death of a planet and the birth of a black hole. If they’re lucky they can stabilize it. It’s a far better source of energy than what they had.”
“If they can keep the rest of their planets in stable orbits,” Sera said. “There are already reports of earthquakes on one of their inhabited worlds and solar flares are bound to let lose across their star.”
“I never said it was going to be an enjoyable transition,” Earnest replied.
No one responded as a new vibration began beneath their feet.
“OK, are you still sure she’ll hold?” Earnest asked.
On scan, the two AST ships lost their battle and disappeared into the black hole, around which now swirled a glowing accretion disk.
Scan highlighted three other enemy ships, which were also struggling to pull free of the deepening gravity well. Tanis marveled as they began to detonate nuclear warheads behind their ships in a desperate attempt to pull free.
Joe cast Tanis a worried look. “They got a lot more bang for their buck than they expected.”
The gravity well swelled, growing faster than anyone had anticipated and more of the AST fleet began to fall into it. The vibration in the Intrepid’s hull increased and the ship began to lose velocity relative to the monster growing beneath them.
She returned Joe’s concerned look, unable to find any words to voice the fear she began to feel in her heart.
The bridge crew also began to look anxious, though no one spoke, everyone attempting to focus on finding a way to improve the ship’s chances of survival.
Earnest appeared calm, just as he always did when facing some insurmountable problem. “We’re reversing the polarity of the scoop, sweeping it behind us. It will give us a bubble of reverse polarized ions to slip through.”
The captain nodded his approval and a minute later the vibration in the deck ceased and the ship began to move forward once more.
“Two hundred thousand kilometers,” someone announced with a note of nervous jubilation in their voice—and then Tanis felt everything stop.
“Wha—?” she began to ask when she saw that the ship’s clocks had jumped by eleven minutes.
“Status!” the captain called out.
Bob replied.
“Handy trick,” Joe said softly.
Reports rolled in; helm responded, scan was operational. Engines were online, the scoop team indicated the emitter was damaged, but they could repair it in a few hours. Stasis shields were down, but only needed a reset of their control systems. The ship’s position was updated on scan and everyone gasped.
“Wow, it really gave us a boost,” Sera whistled.
The blast of plasma from the fledgling black hole had flung them over fifteen million kilometers. They were nearly at the jump point and helm reported they could adjust course and be in position for FTL transition in just over an hour.
“Well, that’s a rapid change in fortune,” Terrance observed.
Behind them, a large number of the AST ships were gone, but those which remained were boosting after the Intrepid in a furious attempt to catch their prey.
“Jump early,” Sera said softly.
“What?” Tanis asked.
Scan updated again, revealing so many relativistic missiles that scan could not reliably separate their signatures and simply estimated the count to be over a thousand. They were spread out like an arrow of death arching toward the Intrepid.
“Jump early. Jump as soon as you can. Jump now if you can manage it!” Sera insisted.
“She’s right,” Earnest nodded. “The dark matter maps for this entire system are useless now. No one knows where it’s safe to jump—it doesn’t matter where we do it. Once the stasis shields are up, we need to go.”
“Time on stasis shields?” the captain asked.
A deep quiet settled over the bridge as everyone watched the swarm of relativistic missiles slash their way toward the Intrepid. Everyone prayed to their gods and stars that the transition would go smoothly as the time to impact and the countdown for FTL transition spun down in near unison.
Then, a minute early, Bob’s voice rang out in their minds.
“Well, here we go,” Tanis whispered to Joe.
THANK YOU
If you’ve enjoyed reading Destiny Lost, a review on Amazon.com and/or goodreads.com would be greatly appreciated.
To get the latest news and access to free novellas and short stories, sign up on the Aeon 14 mailing list: www.aeon14.com/signup.
M. D. Cooper
WHAT’S NEXT?
Tanis and the Intrepid’s adventures in the Orion Arm of the galaxy are just getting started. With the colony system of New Eden no longer available, they must now meet with the ancient terraforming group, the FGT to trade technology for a place to settle.
Book 2 of the Orion War, New Canaan is available for pre-order now, and will be released on April 2nd, 2017.
In the mean-time, you can also read Set the Galaxy on Fire, an anthology of short stories that occur in the final days of Destiny Lost and the months following.
While reading Set the Galaxy on Fire does not have to be read before New Canaan, it will add color, and introduce you to some of the new players in the Orion Arm.
Books by M. D. Cooper
Aeon 14
The Intrepid Saga
Book 1: Outsystem
Book 2: A Path in the Darkness
Book 3: Building Victoria
The Intrepid Saga Omnibus – Also contains Destiny Lost, book 1 of the Orion War series
Destiny Rising – Special Author’s Extended Edition comprised of both Outsystem and A Path in the Darkness with over 100 pages of new content.
The Orion War
Book 1: Destiny Lost
Tales of the Orion War: Set the Galaxy on Fire
Book 2: New Canaan (coming April 2, 2017)
Book 3: Orion Rising (coming June 2017)
Book 4: Starfire (coming August 2017)
Book 5: Return to Sol (coming October 2017)
Perilous Alliance
Book 1: Close Proximity (coming June, 2017)
Aeon 14 Stories in Anthologies
Pew! Pew! Vol 1: Delta Team (An anthology of humorous space opera tales coming June, 2017)
Touching the Stars
Book 1: The Girl Who Touched the Stars
APPENDICES
Be sure to check http://www.aeon14.com for the latest information on the Aeon 14 universe.
TERMS & TECHNOLOGY
AI (SAI, NSAI) – Is a term for Artificial Intelligence. AI are often also referred to as non-organic intelligence. They are broken up into two sub-groups: Sentient AI and Non-Sentient AI.
c – Represented as a lower case c in italics, this symbol stands for the speed of light and means constant. The speed of light in a vacuum is constant at 670,616,629 miles per hour. Ships rate their speed as a decimal value of c with c being 1. Thus a ship traveling at half the speed of light will be said to be traveling at 0.50 c.
Casimir effect – The Casimir effect is a small attractive force that acts between two close parallel uncharged conducting plates. It is due to quantum vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field.
CriEn – A CriEn module is a device which taps into the base energy of the universe, also known as zero-point, or vacuum energy. Unlike more common zero-point energy modules, which pull energy from artificial bubble dimensions, the CriEn module is capable of pulling energy from normal space-time, and can even do so while in the dark la
yer.
Cryostasis (cryogenics) – See also, ‘stasis’.
Older methods of slowing down organic aging and decay involve cryogenically freezing the organism (usually a human) through a variety of methods. The person would then be thawed through a careful process when they were awakened.
Cryostasis is risky and has a higher failure rate, but one that makes few people consider it as an option. When true stasis was discovered, it became the de-facto method of slowing organic decay over long periods.
Dark Layer – The Dark Layer is a special sub-layer of space where dark matter possesses physical form. The dark layer is also frictionless and reactionless. It is not fully understood, but it also seems to possess many of the attributes of a universal frame of reference.
Deuterium – D2 (2H) is an isotope of hydrogen where the nucleus of the atom is made up of one proton and one neutron as opposed to a single proton in regular hydrogen (protium). Deuterium is naturally occurring and is found in the oceans of planets with water and is also created by fusion in stars and brown dwarf sub stars. D2 is a stable isotope that does not decay.
Edgeworth Kuiper Belt (EK Belt) – The EK belt is a circumstellar disk of dust, rocks, and small planetoids which extends from Neptune’s orbit to 50 AU from Sol (in humanity’s home system).