The Fighter was routinely stocked with enough fuel and supplies for 14 months—they had needed a lot more. From the fighter group’s high-speed drop off from the Leviathan Battleship and its two years of performing slingshots around Serena and Aster, it had taken another seven months to arrive on course for the firing run. That had been 45 long and boring days ago, and still they were nowhere near the required position to fire the Jumper missiles.
Like every other Amular defensive unit, so far the war was mostly filled with boredom. Hurry up and wait. The universal rhythm of war was already in full swing.
The TX300 was the fastest ship in the fleet and it was armed to the teeth with the latest weapons. For this mission, each ship also carried four special missiles to deliver the Dawn Jumper weapons—a dozen of the weapons for each of the two chambers within the black hole. This was 200 percent of the estimated power needed.
The inhabitants of Amular, as well as the Loud, could not help placing their hopes on the Jumpers for how could they not work? The only problem was that they would only have one chance to use these weapons.
First, they could only use the Jumpers while the black hole encased the Blackship. The grav-bombs were far too powerful to be used this far in-system without being encased within the event horizon where the intense gravity would contain their enormous explosive force.
Then there was the fact that, if all went well, the weapons would destroy the Blackship and no one was completely sure what the black hole would do once the ship that controlled it was gone. The assumption was that the precise deceleration it had been maintaining for 200 years would vanish and that gravity would start affecting and dictating its course and speed (right now, it seemed to ignore gravitational pull). Therefore, they had to use the Dawn Jumpers at a point where the speed of the black hole and the gravitational pull of Aster would slingshot the black hole out of the inner system and into deep space. Otherwise, the black hole would continue into the star system and would eventually consume their sun as well as every planet, moon and asteroid.
“Thirty seconds to visual contact,” Jag announced.
The Torrent TX300 IPA stretched the definition of a Fighter, which was considered a light attack craft. At 533 feet, she was larger than any fighter that had come before her. Almost all of this extra space was used for fuel and weapons. Living space for the six crew members was tight, and a lot of multi-usage had been employed.
Each crew member’s flight station rotated and lowered into the deck and converted into a private sleep or R&R cubical. As ingenious, surprisingly roomy and well-appointed as these cubicles were, multi-year voyages simply required more options and room to move. Therefore, there was a small war room where they could meet, eat or play games, as well as a one-man gym and jet massage shower shared between the crew.
Adamarus turned and glanced out the side view port. He could just make out three of the other five fighters. It seemed ridiculous to hide such relatively tiny specks from an object a quarter the size of their largest gas giant. The black hole would hold 60 Amulars. Even so, all the fighters were in silent mode, their engines shut down, running lights off, restricted to only passive sensor use and tight beam ship-to-ship communications.
The six fighters looked like they were standing still, dead in space. In reality, they were hurling through space at relativistic speeds.
Over the last five years, sensors had been placed in orbit around Aster. These were sending Tachyon images of the gas giant to Serena’s Tach-com hub that could be requested by anyone.
Jag spoke in a quiet voice, “It should appear within the circle in about ten seconds, sir.”
Everyone studied the space within the blue circle. There were six large stars backdropped by a sea of tiny more distant stars.
As Adamarus watched, one of the larger stars, the one closest to the center, seemed to change. At first, it seemed to get larger, but then it was obvious that it was stretching out into an arc. The countless dim specks in the background had also begun distorting. As he watched, everything began to elongate toward a central point. The distortion grew until it almost filled the circle.
Adamarus watched the raw feed for a few seconds longer then, “OK, let’s see it. Enhance visual.”
Jag touched a control and the computer, aided by sensor feeds, augmented the raw view so that the crew could see the black hole’s event horizon. Instantly, where the distortion had been, a small black sphere appeared. The intense gravity bent the light from the stars around it so that they appeared to be stretching inward toward the black sphere.
So, at last, there it is, Adamarus thought. He glanced over at the passive sensor panel—everything looked as expected. Everything the passive sensors had recorded during the object’s appearance would be sent to Serena. From there, the rest of the fleet would receive it.
Adamarus broke the silence, “Please establish narrow beam communication with the Serena relay,” he said.
Lt. Gregory Vanderman, call sign Van, was their communications specialist. His tall, lanky form worked over the communication’s control panel, “Establishing link.”
Adamarus continued, “Dials, if you’ll package up your sensor readings.”
The sensor specialist, Lt. Sue Rinker, call sign Dials, was a tall, thin woman with long legs and short blond hair. Mirroring the rest of her form, she had a long face that was by no means unattractive with her ready smile and twinkling eyes. She was all business and good at what she did. She pressed an icon and the sensor data collected so far was compressed and made ready for transfer.
“Captain, your package is ready,” she reported.
The crew was always on the alert for any statement that could be taken multiple ways. There were several loud snickers and one, “I bet it is.”
The right side of Adamarus’ mouth edged upward into a smile as he accurately imagined Dials’ face turning red.
“Link established,” said Van.
Normally Adamarus would relay short reports through Van, but this time he switched his throat mike over and did it himself. “Visual established. So far, everything as expected.”
---
The Gas Giant Serena, Battle Group One…
The Tach-com units in orbit around Serena picked up Adamarus’ transmission and passed it on to the other defensive elements.
Aboard the armada’s flagship, The Bonnet, a newly promoted Fleet Admiral Radin Talvin insisted on sitting in the Captain’s seat.
His first officer, Commander Nancy Boshear, a tall striking woman with long white hair that reached her waist when it wasn’t in a bun, was effectively the captain of the ship when Radin performed duties related to Amular’s Armada as Battle Group Commander. It was just how he liked things and there was no one there to deny him.
Out the front and side view ports of the Battleship’s bridge, most of Battle Group One’s other 99 Leviathan Battleships and their support ships could be seen stretching off toward the terminus of Serena.
Radin knew that about 10,000 miles away, Admiral Mitch Kobe was sitting on the bridge of the Brickindarik perhaps looking at the other 99 Battleships of Battle Group Two. He’d be waiting, like everyone else, for news from Adamarus.
Finally, “Transmission from the Jumper One, sir.”
“Well, let’s have it,” Radin said to Boshear.
Adamarus’ voice came over the com speakers, “Visual established. So far, everything as expected.”
Radin got up and walked down to Commander Boshear’s station to watch the sensor data play back on the large main screen. He had her replay the visual data again, then grunted. “Not really much to look at, is it?”
---
Amular, Dark Mountain Command Center…
A mile underneath Dark Mountain, far below the caverns once used by the El Asfar pirates and later by Radford’s terrorists, a large command center buzzed with activity. Near the rear, elevated above everyone else was the Commander in Chief’s console and the president sat there looking over the data
coming in from every point within the theater of operations.
The front wall, about 50 feet away, contained five large display screens. Mounted six feet above the floor, each was 15 feet wide and 10 feet tall. Above each, running the length of the screen, were three-foot high info panels describing what the screen below was displaying. To the left and right of the five giant screens were four more screens that were a quarter the size, two high and two wide.
The center screen was showing the image from the orbital Tachyon scope. On it, displayed in the Tach-scope’s now familiar green fuzz, was the Blackship, or rather its event horizon. The monstrosity had shrunk from the size of a small star system to its present size—about a fourth of the size of their largest gas giant, Aster. A part of Aster filled the right quarter of the screen.
To the left and right, the big screens displayed various shots of Aster from unmanned orbital stations whose purpose was to monitor the Blackship’s effects on Aster as the black hole passed the planet. The smaller screens showed the four battle groups and various other defensive elements. One showed Trinity and the three arks—workers could be seen still finishing repairs on the side of one ship, and on the ground were the thousands of people boarding the ships. Yet another screen showed a computer-generated tactical of the location of the two Loud Umbrella Ships—their arks. They were now well outside of the star system.
Above the screens, centered in the domed ceiling, a holographic projection floated in the air. It showed a real-time tactical view of the star system and the Blackship quickly approaching its encounter with Aster.
On every known frequency, unmanned stations had been sending greetings and instructions to enter the Iceis system in a peaceful manner. There had been no response.
No one knew if the huge gas giant Aster would survive the close encounter with the black hole or not. Presumably, the Spiral Slayers had a better idea of what their close pass would do. On the other hand, maybe they simply did not care.
“…So far, everything as expected,” Adamarus’ voice sounded across the large command center. One of the floor-to-ceiling view screens switched from the orbital Tachyon scope’s live feed to the video feed from Adamarus.
Dr. Donnelly stood nearby the President studying the video from Adamarus, “At last, we can finally see the damn thing.”
---
Aster, Jumper Attack Group…
Dials announced calmly, “Object is now nearing Aster and the planet is...” she checked readouts, “already shifting its gravitational focus.”
Jag was checking several computer readouts. He nodded, then turned to Adamarus, “Dials is right, sir.”
Dials chimed in, “The object will start its pass of Aster in fifteen minutes. At current speeds, it will take twenty-one seconds to pass by the planet with the closest approach eleven seconds into the pass.”
Adamarus was leaning forward, drumming his fingers on the arm of his seat. “Cheater, request a live stream of images from an orbital sensor…” Adamarus brought up a tactical hologram of the gas giant showing the fighter group, the black hole and the orbiting sensors. “I want to see...” he moved his finger to a point that would give them a better view of the far side of the planet, “...lets try OS-71.”
“Aye, sir,” Cheater, another member of Adamarus’ crew, replied.
In seconds, the view port changed.
Dials said, “Damn. A huge stream of atmosphere has already stretched out from Aster toward the black hole.”
Jag said, “Skipper, our speed is steady. We’re not being affected by the object’s gravity yet.”
“Noted,” Adamarus, replied.
Dials reported, “The object is now passing the planet.”
“Split the window and show our forward view alongside,” Adamarus ordered.
“Splitting window,” Jag said.
“Object is at its closest approach…right now,” Dials reported. Then, “What the hell…”
They saw it but didn’t believe it.
---
Dark Mountain Command Center…
“What the…” It was a sharp whispered voice.
Wicker had left his command seat and, along with Burnwall and Donnelly, had wandered down to the floor just in front of the monitors. He had been pacing and looking down—Donnelly had been looking away as well. Both jerked their heads, first toward the large central screen showing the Tach-Scope view, then, seeing nothing of note, scanned the other screens shouting, “What? What’s happened?”
Surprisingly, no one attempted to answer either of them as everyone was checking to see if it had been a glitch in the signal or in their hardware, and both senior men were left looking around with their mouths open.
Finally, Wicker looked at Donnelly, then marched up to one of the operators and grabbed him. “What is going on?”
“Ah, sir…sir, the screen flickered. No, I mean maybe…”
Wicker gave him a look.
“Sorry, Mr. President. It looked like the image of the event horizon…disappeared…blinked out or something. We’re checking now to see if it was just a hardware or communication…”
“No,” a stern voice said, and both turned to see General Burnwall. He was pointing to the central viewer. “It happened. It’s confirmed. We’re replaying the event.”
All turned to the main viewer.
The central screen played back the event visually while other screens showed radio, thermo, X-ray, radar and other feeds. The view snapped to the next frame and suddenly the black sphere was gone. More frames snapped by, but it was just gone.
Suddenly everyone seemed to shout out at the same time:
“Wait.”
“Zoom in.”
“Pause that.”
“What’s that?”
Two voices said the same thing louder than all the rest. “What’s shooting out of it? Look here. Over here.”
And suddenly everyone had turned to the radio and infra-red screens which, unlike the central screen, showed a bright dot emerge from a shape no one had seen or noticed before and shoot toward the gas giant Aster.
Wicker spoke first, “What in the hell is that?”
---
Aster, Jumper Attack Group…
“Dials?” Adamarus queried.
Dials replayed the event on her sensor station. Several seconds passed.
“Dials, what did we just see?” Adamarus asked again.
“Sorry, sir,” Dials said hesitantly, “the black hole just vanished for about a second.”
“Just vanished?” Van asked, looking at the black sphere—he’d been looking elsewhere and hadn’t seen it briefly vanish.
Adamarus turned in his seat. “Was anything visible when the event horizon…disappeared?”
After a moment Dials replied, “Yeah. I’m putting a magnified and enhanced image on the main viewer.”
The main viewer switched to the image. It showed a featureless sphere the size of a small moon. From its mid-section, four long thin lines bowed upward and eventually met, and four more identical ones did the same going downward.
“Can you enlarge and enhance the image anymore?” Adamarus asked.
“That’s the best I can do, sir.”
“Get this off to the rest of the…”
“Look,” Van said, looking at a smaller side screen still showing the black hole and Aster. He quickly switched the main viewer back to the live feed and zoomed in.
A small but distinct distortion was headed for Aster. Adamarus sat up straighter and leaned forward. “Dials, what do sensors show?”
Dials had already been frantically adjusting controls. “It appears to be a small singularity, in fact, microscopic—there’s very little mass. It’s headed toward Aster traveling very fast,” she replied. “I just back-tracked its trajectory—it came from the Blackship when its black hole disappeared.”
Cheater stated the obvious. “It will consume Aster—turn it into a black hole.”
“Yes,” Dials confirmed.
“How long?” Adamarus asked.
Dials did some quick calculations. “It’s hard to say. About a year, maybe two.”
Adamarus closed his eyes, “How will this affect the rest of the star system?”
“It won’t,” Dials answered. “There will be the same amount of mass so to the star system at large, it won’t matter. Locally its gravity will be more focused—our orbiting sensors might break orbit and fly off.”
“Right,” Adamarus said. He ran his hand through his hair. He said, “Howard had said that the Blackship had done something with the Loud’s gas giants. He also said the nebula was missing an amount of matter equal to the system’s three gas giants. They turn them into black holes and somehow take them.” He looked up at the moving distortion. “And now…we must expect the same thing to happen to the other gas giant it will pass close to—Serena, our central communication hub. Package all the sensor data along with your analysis and what I just said and send it out.”
“Yes, sir,” Dials replied.
The small singularity vanished into the planet’s banded clouds, heading for the center.
The atmosphere being pulled away from Aster was getting close to the passing black hole, but it was clear that it would not touch the rapidly moving alien ship.
After a moment, Dials reported, “The gravitational pull is now affecting Aster’s liquid core.” Dials’ eyes glanced down at her console, “The object has now completed its pass of Aster,” she announced.
Adamarus pulled up the images and sensor readings of the gas giant. Now that the black hole was moving away from Aster, the massive amounts of atmosphere that were being pulled away would gradually come to a stop, then begin to fall back to the gas giant. This would take days. Once it had fallen back, its momentum would drive a shockwave through the planet and a bulge would form on the opposite side…or the planet would break apart which would result in a colossal explosion. If the planet held together, the atmosphere would continue to oscillate until it finally stabilized again.
Adamarus rubbed his 5:00 shadow and started thinking aloud, “That little black hole will change what happens to Aster…it will dampen the shockwaves and help stabilize the planet while it eats it from the inside. What else? Anyone?”
Countdown Amageddon (The Spiral Slayers Book 2) Page 28