by David Adams
“I don’t know, but I have a feeling I’m not going to like it.”
*****
Captain Knight’s Office
TFR Sydney
Later
Knight finished the last of the incident log, then set his pen down on the heavy oak desk.
He trusted Baker implicitly. The man had been his right hand throughout almost all of his career, always giving him good advice and keeping him focused on his job. Baker was much more cautious than him, a quality that served him well as the ship’s XO.
Perhaps caution could be wisely applied here.
As Knight always did when he wanted to think, he reached out for a memento on his desk, a full-sized Australian Football League ball, a Sherrin, oval shaped and elongated like an egg. He stood, standing over by the wall, bouncing it against the ground.
Bouncing an oval-shaped ball was a particular skill unique to Australians who had played the local brand of football, the AFL, as the ball had to be bounced much like in basketball. Typically performed while running, it could also be done while standing—not straight up and down like a basketball, but forward, using the oval shape to return it to one’s hand. A much more challenging task than the American version, but one that focused his mind and allowed him to think.
Knight had played on a team once as a reserve for the Geelong Cats during his teenage years before enlistment. No star of the track and field, his position was brief and unmentionable, almost entirely spent warming a bench, but it was a stint he had always treasured. He’d played a grand total of eight minutes on the field, but those eight minutes were some of his fondest memories.
No longer a member of the club and those days far behind him, Knight had kept his jersey safely stored in his home on Earth, and he took the ball with him when he was away. It was a useful thing to remind him. Once a Cat, always a Cat, he liked to think.
Thump, thump, thump went the ball and his mind turned over. What was the signal, and what was it doing there? What was transmitting it?
He didn’t like this. It was a simple beacon floating out in the middle of the asteroid belt, but for some reason, it nagged at him. He tried to rationally explain it: a warning against a navigation hazard, perhaps, or even a Forerunner probe that had malfunctioned or was transmitting some kind of alert.
But alerting what?
The door to his office creaked and opened, so Knight caught the ball and stepped back to his desk. Commander Peter Baker stepped inside, a folder in hand.
“Playing footy in your head again?”
Knight gave his old friend a smile, cracking open the fridge. A bottle of the famous scotch each of the Pillars of the Earth carried was resting on a shelf, an option briefly considered but ultimately passed up. They were, after all, still on duty. Instead, he withdrew a tray of ice cubes, a container of water, and a pair of chilled glasses. “You caught me.” Setting them out on his desk, Knight twisted the tray, dropping a heaping of ice into each container.
“If the crew knew you did that, they’d think you’re mental.”
Knight poured out water from the steel container, the ice clinking as it filled. “Good thing nobody tells them then.” He picked up a glass, offering it to his XO with his left hand, the scar from a surfing accident years ago giving it a rough, calloused surface. His tone became more formal, and it was down to business. “So Peter, I heard the report came in. What did our teams find on the Giralan?”
Commander Peter Baker took his glass. The two men clinked their drinks together, then both sipped at the cool, icy water. “Nothing,” Baker answered, “absolutely nothing. The coordinates the Beijing gave us were accurate, but when our marines arrived, there was just this great big hole in the ground. The whole ship appears to have been taken.”
“The whole ship?”
“Yes, sir. There was plenty of debris still around, buried in the sand, but the body of the ship appears to have just been taken away. That area gets quite bad dust storms, apparently, so don’t read too much into this, but we couldn’t find any evidence of salvage equipment or cutting tools or anything like that. To be honest, Captain, it’s like the ship just lifted straight out of the ground in one piece.”
“But Liao described that vessel as a derelict, almost rusted through. Apart from the information in its datacore, I can’t imagine there’d be anything of any value remaining.”
“Me neither. It’s a mystery for Fleet Command, I’m afraid.” Baker sipped at his drink again. “What’s the word on the beacon?”
Knight put his glass down on the desk, inhaling. “Not a lot, to be honest. It just appears to be a repeating, long-range signal sitting out there in the middle of nowhere.”
“You seem worried,” said Baker. “I would probably have just left the thing alone.”
“Yeah, well, my mum always used to say I was a curious one.”
“You know what they say about curiosity and cats, sir.”
“I’ve heard that one before.” Knight tapped a finger on his desk. “I hate to say it, but I’ve felt very strongly that, ever since the attacks on Earth, we haven’t known enough about our enemies or our friends. We’re going into this blind, stumbling through the dark, and so far things have turned out pretty good for us more or less. The problem is that the floor is covered in razor sharp glass, and just because we can’t see it, and just because we haven’t stepped on any, doesn’t mean it won’t cut us.”
“So you’re saying,” Baker said, “that we need to shed some light on this situation.”
“Correct. Even if it hurts our eyes, we have to see the universe as it really is. Otherwise, we’re just going to continue to stumble and eventually we’re going to cut our feet up. We’re going to fall.” Knight deliberated for a moment. “But for now, though, have our men continue to comb through the debris of the Giralan. Let’s see what else we can find.”
*****
Operations
TFR Sydney
Later
“We’re entering the outer regions of the asteroid belt now, Captain. Distance to the beacon, ten minutes.”
Knight studied the radar screen closely. “Very good. Start decelerating; we don’t want to overshoot.”
“Confirmed all engines reversed, Captain. We should pull up right beside it.”
He could feel the shift in the gravity as inertia pulled him backward, the reactionless drives unable to fully correct for such a high amount of decelerationHe and Baker leaned forward slightly to compensate. “Good,” he said, “make sure we get as close as possible. We’ll be doing an EVA to study it.”
“Did you want to bring it on board, Captain?” asked Baker.
“Depends on what we find,” Knight answered. “I’m definitely not ruling out that possibility, though.”
“I’ll set up Engineering Bay One as quarantine then, along with a clean room path directly to it. As a precaution.”
“Agreed, quarantining this thing, if we do bring it aboard, would make total sense.” Knight smiled thankfully. “That’s what I pay you the big bucks for, right?”
“You’d be lost without me, sir.”
“That I would.” Knight tapped at his command console. “How long until we can see this thing on radar?”
“Two minutes, Captain. We should be able to get a simple reading now, but the asteroids are interfering with our long-range radar.”
That was to be expected. “What about thermals?”
The tactical officer considered. “Something so small won’t appear very hot on our cameras, but it might help us figure out what kind of power source it’s using.”
Knight mulled this over. “Works for me. Let’s bring up a fisheye thermal view, see what we can see.”
His screen on the command console changed to a black and white image, a sea of white streaked with occasional darker spots. He switched it to white-hot, frowning in confusion at a tiny white dot sitting to their port. It was warmer than the other asteroids and far too large to be a probe. He zoomed in on t
hat spot, tapping at the touch-responsive screen several times. It was hard to see from the artefacts and corruption, but all around the hotspot, billowing black clouds slowly expanded out. It looked, to him, like steam rising from a boiling pot of water, or the cold gasses billowing out from a pot of liquid nitrogen.
“Mister Baker, what do you make of this?”
His XO moved beside him, looking over his shoulder. “No idea, sir. It could be friction from a recent impact between two asteroids.”
The density of an asteroid belt was significantly lower than most people thought it would be, their perceptions informed by Hollywood movies. Most asteroids were hundreds of thousands of kilometres apart, with the total mass of the belt being less than a fraction of most moons. The likelihood of witnessing a collision between two objects was extraordinarily low.
“I doubt it,” Knight said. “It’s too hot for that, and the heat dispersion is far too even.” He considered. “It would explain the gas, though. Mister Weeder, can you focus the long-range radar on it, see what we can determine about its composition?”
“Aye aye, Captain. One moment.”
He stared at the white dot, barely a few pixels wide, then the radar operator spoke again.
“It’s about fifty thousand kilometres from the signal’s origin point. It appears to be hollow, so it could be a fractured asteroid. It’s hard to determine size at this distance… Something is scattering our radar pulses, but it’s pretty large. It might be a chemical reaction within the exposed layers, perhaps some kind of massive geological anomaly.”
“Subterranean nitrogen pockets?” Knight scowled at his monitor, the dot looming larger and larger as they grew closer. “Yeah, I don’t think so. I don’t like this thing, whatever it is. Can we stop before we get there?”
“Sorry, Captain. We’re already decelerating at the maximum safe rate the reactionless engines can compensate for. We could try an emergency reversal and exceed that, but I wouldn’t recommend going higher than half a G. It will make a mess, but it’ll slow us down a lot faster.”
Machines could typically output far more stress than a body could handle.
Weeder spoke again. “Captain, the spectroscope’s returning data. Hang on one moment. Strange… very strange.” he paused. “The spectrometer suggests that the nearby gas appears to be nitrogen and is significantly cooler than the hotspot itself.”
“It’s not a geological anomaly,” Knight said. “It’s coolant. It’s a ship trying to mask its heat signature. We’re stepping into a trap.”
“Emergency break?” asked Baker.
“Do it,” Knight said, “on my mark.”
Baker grabbed the intercom headset. “All hands, emergency brace for impact. This is not a drill. I say again, brace, brace, brace.”
Knight gripped the console tightly, spreading his feet to steady himself. He gave the crew an extra few seconds, then looked to Cruden, the helmsman. “Three, two, one, mark.”
The ship lurched like a car swerving around a corner, the force of half the Earth’s gravity almost knocking him off his feet. The fittest, absolute best aircraft pilots could, with the aid of G-suits and other devices, sustain nine-G turns, but they were strapped firmly into their seats. A full one-G turn would be the equivalent of hanging straight off his console on Earth. As it was, a half-G was like trying to ride a rollercoaster by simply hanging on.
Nobody said anything, being far too busy trying to keep their footing as the ship slowed and alarms rang out through the ship’s Operations room. After a period of time that seemed to last forever but couldn’t have been more than ten or fifteen seconds, the feeling eased, and the only sound he could hear aside from the alarms was the retching noise of one of the Operations crew emptying his stomach’s contents onto the metal deck This was followed by the faint smell of vomit.
He could hardly blame him. “Report!”
“We’ve slowed, Captain. Full deceleration imminent.”
Baker grabbed him by the shoulder, ashen faced. Knight wondered for a moment if it had been he who had lost his breakfast. “Casualty reports coming in, Captain. Multiple injuries over all decks.”
Knight heard Finnis’s voice cut over the din. “Captain, priority alert. The Broadsword Paladin is reporting they’re under attack!”
“What?!”
“A wing of Toralii strike fighters were hiding on the surface! Their escorts are down. They’re cut off!”
Knight gave a wide-eyed stare to Baker, the man returning it, then looked back to Finnis. “Get them out of there. Order the ship to make a run for the L2 jump point and escape. In the meantime—”
“Captain!” Weeder, the radar operator, said as he swivelled in his chair. “The contact, it’s moving!”
Knight felt the sickening feeling in his stomach, the same feeling he had before a big game. “Damnit.” Knight grabbed the intercom. “All hands, general quarters. This is not a drill.” He tossed the device onto his keyboard. “Mister Baker, charge the hull plating and prepare the ship to escape. Head for the nearest jump point and execute an emergency jump. Have our strike craft execute a defensive screen.”
“Aye aye, Captain!”
Turning back to the thermal camera, Knight could see the silhouette of the contact becoming clear now, a familiar sight, one he’d seen before, on the exact same screen he was looking at now, in the exact same hostile, aggressive attack position.
The Seth’arak, pride of the Toralii Alliance.
“Fuck! They’re meant to be our allies!” He reached for the headset. “Mister Finnis, broadcast to that ship. All frequencies, no encryption.”
“Channel open, Captain!”
“Seth’arak, this is the TFR Sydney, of Task Force Resolution. We are authorised by your own words to be here. Cease fire on our Broadsword immediately. I say again: Cease. Fire.”
His answer came not in words, but in the twinkle of weapons fire on the thermal camera. “Incoming!” called his tactical officer right as a shudder ran through the length of his ship, the energy weapons splashing against their hull. Like an angry hornet’s nest, tiny specks flew out of the Seth’arak’s belly as it disgorged wings of strike fighters.
The ship’s glow on the thermal camera spiked, signalling what was happening before his tactical officer even spoke.
“Captain, they’re charging their worldshatter device!”
“Evasive manoeuvres; get us out of here! Full power to the hull plating!”
No sooner had the words left his lips than a powerful impact tore through the Sydney, tearing the Operations crew from their seats and flinging them violently across the room to the impossibly loud roar of tearing metal and snapping bulkheads. The intense blast caused the very rivets of the ship’s structure to pop, sending them screaming into computers, consoles and flesh.
Baker and Knight, who were standing together by the command console, both crashed in a heap at the base of the radar operator’s console nearly ten metres away. Black smoke poured from the air vents, and the wailing of alarms increased in pitch and volume, coupled by another sound, far more ominous and summoning in him the instinctive fear of all who worked in space.
The hiss of escaping air and the scream of the decompression alarm.
“GAS, GAS, GAS!” came a cry from across Operations. “Decompression alert!”
Knight struggled to stand, but Baker’s heavy body pinned him down. The damage to their ship must have been massive if it was causing a decompression alarm this far inside the armoured heart of the Triumph class vessel. Baker wasn’t moving, but Knight managed to push him away, checking the man.
Baker’s neck was bent at a strange, impossible angle, and blood poured from his nose. His eyes rolled back in his head. Knight could see immediately that he was dead. Pulling his bruised body up to his feet, he coughed out a lungful of acrid smoke and shouted out over the howl of air as it rushed out of the room.
“Report!”
Nobody answered immediately, save for the groanin
g of the wounded, but Finnis, the midshipman, pulled himself up and back onto his chair. “Direct hit to our starboard side! The superstructure’s cracked; we have a massive decompression along the length of the ship! Eighteen sections are holed, and there are fragmentary decompressions reported on numerous decks! The hull armour is sixty percent ineffective, with large gaps, and fires are reported throughout the ship.” He turned and looked squarely at Knight, and he could see the fear in his eyes. “They broke our back, Captain.”
“Signal the Toralii!” he gasped, a hacking cough interrupting him. “Tell them we surrender!”
“They’re not answering.”
Knight watched the short-range radar, the tiny dots of his strike craft winking out one by one as the vast tide of Toralii ships engulfed them. In the long-range communications headset, he could hear increasingly frantic Israeli voices, but one by one, they went silent until there was nothing but the faint hiss of static. The strike craft turned to the Sydney now, like a rain of arrows falling on a medieval battlefield, and the Seth’arak glowed warm in the thermal camera.
Another explosion, this one louder and more intense than the last, tossed the ship on its axis and threw the crew into the ceiling. Knight felt his ribs bruise at the impact, then again as he fell down and struck the deck. For a stunned moment, the only sounds on the bridge of the Sydney were the wails of klaxons, the dull roar of escaping air, and the groan of stressed, breaking metal.
Knight knew he was concussed. The pain of his injuries seemed so distant, as though he were watching himself through another’s eyes. With unsteady hands he pulled himself up to the command console, his right arm broken and hanging limply by his side. The red tinge of emergency lighting cast the console readings in a strange light. In a daze, he examined the output.
... breach on deck A. Hull breach on deck J. Hull b...
... ary coolant failure in reactor containment. Restore...
... on deck B. Fire on deck C. Reactor overload in se...
Knight could feel blood running down his forehead. He reached up and wiped it with the back of his left hand, the one with the scar, fresh blood staining the old wound. He opened his mouth to speak but inhaled a lungful of roiling smoke. Overcome by coughing, his lungs trying to breathe the thin, smoke-filled air, he doubled over again.