Cindy took a minute to reply, “If we burn at five mark thirty at five gravities it will take them thirty-two minutes to intercept.”
The captain stared at John for a moment, could he handle it?
“Do it, strap in now, this next half hour is going to suck, but I don’t believe they’re peaceful, or in a hurry to give out gifts. Katy, restart the scan on our predicted vector.”
While we gained twelve minutes, we’d also in a way lost five. Since the current FTL scan wouldn’t be valid anymore once we changed vectors, but given we’d have two minutes to spare, I wouldn’t complain.
We all strapped into the acceleration chairs, and just a few moments later Columbus verified all crew were in strapped in.
“Engage.”
At five gravities it was rather uncomfortable, but not truly dangerous if we stayed in the high acceleration chairs and didn’t do anything stupid. It did make operation of the consoles extremely difficult, especially since the chairs reclined to spread out the forces more evenly, but most things could be done via voice commands with A.I. assistance. It was better than dying at any rate.
Two minutes later, Katy reported, “Maam, the alien ship has increased to forty-five gravities. Given the distance between us, they did so just seconds after our burn started.”
That… wasn’t good. How did they react that fast? Was forty-five gravities their limit?”
Cindy reported, “Our new vector is still helping maam, time for intercept is now twenty-six minutes.”
I grimaced, almost ninety seconds before we could make transition. Better than five minutes, but probably far too long. Was forty-five gravities their limit? Or could they see and read the target of our active FTL scan? We couldn’t increase to our maximum of eight gravities of acceleration, even if it would buy us ninety seconds, or we’d overrun the target scan. Plus, eight gravities could cause serious issues with the crew, a few minutes would be fine, but not almost a half hour of it.
The captain said, “Cut off the radio transmission, update the logs on one of the messenger missiles and send it out. We’ll try and send the second at the last minute.”
Katy replied, “Aye captain, updating logs and transmitting transition orders. It will take almost three hours for the missile to receive.”
In other words, we’d either be long dead, or have beat the missile home before it received the instructions.
I supposed it made sense for her to act this early, we were making assumptions. The enemy was already in missile range, but I doubt the captain would open fire before the aliens. But, the interception timing was for when they’d be in range of our plasma array, we didn’t actually know their weapon’s range. For all we knew, they’d be trying to kill us at two and a half minutes out, or further. The only good news was we were certain they didn’t have missiles. There was still a chance we were just being paranoid xenophobes ourselves, but I highly doubted that. Still, better if the aliens started the first human-alien space war in history. That small lingering doubt would be enough for us to hold our fire, just in case.
First contact wasn’t all it was purported to be.
The question I had was why had they ignored us until we started to transmit. Surely, they saw us before then? They should have seen the plasma from our engines deceleration burn if nothing else. Maybe they hadn’t reacted until we hit their sensor net. Maybe that was their version of a fence line, and we hadn’t intruded on their territory until then. It was impossible to guess what set them off, or why they’d held back.
I loved my job, and had always felt honored to serve, but truthfully this was a mess we could have easily avoided with a little forethought and planning. In hindsight, the way we rushed in and hit the brakes at the last minute was idiotic. I couldn’t really blame the admiralty though, or the regulations, I’d never thought of this outcome before either. I’d never believed there would be any aliens to find at all, much less ones only twenty-eight light years away from home.
The galaxy was almost a hundred thousand light years across, the furthest edge from earth about seventy-five thousand light years away. At the rate humanity was moving and spreading out, it would take us about three hundred thousand years to populate. Hopefully, there’d be advances to speed that up, but not appreciably. The point was that if we found an alien species every hundred years, there were potential thousands of them out there.
My twenty year’ stint, or more if I reached flag rank which seemed likely if I didn’t die, was just a drop in the ocean of that kind of thing. It was humbling. I kept a confident look on my face as best I could, as my thoughts wandered and that ship caught up.
What happened if they got a hold of our computer systems? Would they go after earth, or was the race like wasps that would leave the hive to go after threats, or did they just defend their territory from all comers and leave everyone else alone. Did they have more star systems? So many questions, and only time would yield the answers.
I thought about my father, who had died in a pirate attack fifteen years ago, when I was just twelve years old. At the time, he was a commander, and second officer on a cruiser. Cruisers were just short of a half mile wide, or eight times the diameter of this scout ship. Battleships were rare, and almost a mile in diameter. It was morbid, but I remember watching his farewell message with my mother and sister, and wondered if soon they’d both be watching mine.
My mother Elizabeth was a scientist and engineer, and had raised me and my younger sister alone after that. She’d always said the world was generally a safe place, but also confined, too controlled, and as a result limited. There was no privacy, or the ability to stretch the human spirit, and that the very same government that made us safe was why we’d never discover the things said to be impossible, because they didn’t allow theoretical work outside of narrow guidelines.
She was always careful to only say anything like that in private, and warn us that rocking the boat was dangerous. I’d always thought she was nuts, but now that we were being chased by an alien vessel that clearly had the ability to do several of those impossible things, I wondered if she was right all along.
Our technology really hadn’t advanced all that much over the last hundred years, not since the Chavez-Teller drive.
I couldn’t argue that the government was controlling, Amy would blow the whistle on me in a second if I ever broke the law, or even UEDF regulations, using my own eyes and ears as a witness. I’d never really minded that though, it was why the world was so safe. Outside of pirates and illegal corporations, the world was a much safer place in this day and time. Beyond that, I’d never really wanted to break any laws anyway, though I had to admit there were a few times I was tempted to skirt regulations.
Nothing was perfect, and I couldn’t think of anything that would be better, or anywhere as safe for most. Assuming of course, these aliens would just blow us up and leave the rest alone. Ninety seconds, there had to be a way to survive that long.
My sister Anne had been just two when dad died, and was in her last year of college. Last year she’d still been determined to follow in her older brother’s footsteps and join the UEDF, to my mother’s consternation neither of us felt a pull toward science or research. We’d both inherited our father’s penchant for getting out there and making a difference.
Of course, I hadn’t talked to them in almost a year, but I don’t think she’d have changed that much. Most postings would allow messages to be sent, but not while hurtling at a good percentage of light speed across the void between stars.
Messenger missiles were expensive, usually they were used for whole systems worth of people to send messages out to the other colonies and Earth every few days. But the missiles were far too expensive to deliver personal mail for a crew of just twenty on any kind of regular basis, military reasons only, and we’d only had six of them on the ship anyway.
One good thing, I truly didn’t have that many regrets in life, and all of those in my personal life, none about my chosen caree
r.
Ninety seconds, my mind kept turning it over and over, but no solutions popped in my head. Our only hope was if they did attack it wouldn’t do too much damage and our return attack with missiles and phased plasma would. Would they want to capture and study us, or just destroy us? Were they curious at all? So many questions.
I looked at the plot, the best I could without snapping my neck anyway. My mind had been lingering on the past longer than I’d thought. There was six minutes left to transition, and four minutes and just over twenty-nine seconds before the alien reached effective plasma range.
Did they have some kind of faster than light gravity sensors? If they did why the sensor net, were those sensors limited in range like our active sensors were, and if so were we in range of their ship’s sensors now that they were only a few light seconds behind us and closing?
I opened a channel to the bridge, “Captain, I wonder how fast their targeting is, if they truly target us with some kind of gravity attack, maybe varying our acceleration every second will throw it off? They’re more advance than us yes, but they have to have limitations. A missile could compensate, but maybe not a gravity attack?”
If their targeting scan and attack were virtually simultaneous, without the loss of a second or two when in range, then that probably wouldn’t help. They were almost directly on our stern now, so it also wouldn’t help if they sent out some kind of gravity beam, that bent space around it in a line, no more than it would help them against our plasma beam, but if it was a targeted field effect type of thing it could make a difference.
The captain ordered, “Cindy, program in a series of one second course corrections varying between four and six gravities so we reach our insertion point exactly on time, and transfer it to John’s console to implement in… four minutes. If they do fire at us, you have permission to open fire in return, do not wait for my orders.”
Maybe we were just tilting windmills, but it was better than cowering and doing nothing.
Cindy replied, “Yes captain.”
A few moments later, “Done captain.”
The captain ordered, “Cindy, have the computer plot a subspace course to the three-light year point from the 82 Eridani line, and transfer initiation to helm board.”
Cindy answered, “Yes captain.”
The captain said, “George, ready on countermeasures?”
George replied, “Yes maam, ready to launch.”
I wasn’t sure that would help, and then shrugged, it couldn’t hurt. If they were using gravity scans of some kind for mass, it wouldn’t help at all. But… if they were using active or passive scans similar to ours, and had only caught us by a sensor net and FTL communications of some kind to inform them, then it could very much help. The countermeasures would spoof their active scans, and the launched devices would confuse their passive scanners into thinking there were hundreds of the one scout ship, all on slightly different vectors.
Only problem was, we hadn’t detected any active scans at all of Lidar or Radar, so for that to be true they just hadn’t used them yet, and had stuck with passive scans. There was so much we didn’t know, but it could hardly make things worse if we tried anyway. If we were lucky, one of the things we were trying would work.
Still, depending on luck because of a lack of solid intelligence was a crappy plan, but it was the only plan we had.
John said, “Activating course correction program in five, four, three, two, one.”
The ship started to jerk and shake every second, this couldn’t be healthy, but it was healthier than dying.
Katy said, “Plasma range in ten… five… one.”
Nothing happened for several seconds, and then there was a loud screeching sound. Our sensors couldn’t detect the weapon, only the results.
George said, “Launching countermeasures,” as Cindy said, “Launching missiles and firing from two arrays.”
Samantha barked, “Damage report.”
Katy said, “Captain, part of the mid-ring deck has been crushed directly in front of the inner ring, I believe that last slow down prevented them from hitting the center of the ship. All emergency bulkhead airlocks have been closed and secured.”
Cindy said, “Plasma had minimal effect on the alien ship, merely scored the hull. All four missiles were destroyed fifty feet from the hull, the resulting explosions had no effect.”
Katy said, “There’s some kind of energy field over the hull now. It’s glowing.”
More sounds of crushing and torn metal, this time behind us. I guess either their computers were much smarter than our countermeasures, or they did have some kind of gravity scan. If that was the case, they wouldn’t even notice our countermeasures.
John reported, “Lost one engine, compensating.”
Cindy said, “Firing again captain.”
Katy said, “Fifty seconds to transition point, some damage at the edge of engineering, two crew were caught up in the gravity effects. More ruptures in the hull but emergency bulkheads are keeping the core of the ship and outer ring pressurized.”
This was insane.
Cindy cursed, “Sorry captain, that new energy field made our plasma worthless as well. We can’t get anything close. Their gravity shielding takes out our missiles, and the energy field absorbs our plasma beams.”
Like throwing sticks and lit matches at an armored car. If their gravity field protected against gravity attacks, and apparently, missiles, but probably not by design. What was that energy field designed to defend from in truth, plasma or something worse? I hoped I wouldn’t find out.
The ship jerked us forward and backward every second, I was starting to get a headache. Apparently, my half-baked idea was working, though the enemy seemed to only be missing by a handful of feet, which was better than nothing but would still tear the ship apart eventually.
More metal tore and crushed every few seconds both behind and in front of us based on trajectory, as Katy’s damage reports were getting more severe and longer. I wasn’t sure how much more of that the ship could take. The alien ships targeting was failing, but only on a straight line. If only there was a way to spread the damage…
I opened a channel, “Captain, we need to spread the damage more before we lose integrity, can we put a slight spin on the ship?”
It was against regulations of course, we didn’t put a spin on the ship during a one gravity burn, much less in battle during a four to six gravity burn. We were almost at a ninety degree angle to the alien ship though, burning sideways to maintain the trajectory toward transition, so rotating should change the area the aliens hit.
She looked at John, “Do it, one rotation per minute.”
John said, “Controls are locked out captain, I can’t override with my authority.”
She barked, “Columbus, override helm lockout on spin control, now.”
Columbus replied, “Affirmative.”
Thank god the damned A.I. didn’t argue, I supposed the captain had more pull than I did. She’d have taken long enough to argue with me, that we’d have finished the conversation in the afterlife.
John said, “Initializing spin.”
Katy said, “Twenty seconds to transition point.”
Metal tore and screeched, and my heart was racing. I swallowed when I saw the huge bridge view screen twist and spark, but the consoles and crew were thankfully beyond the affects.
Katy said, “Fifteen seconds.”
George and Cindy weren’t even bothering to fire or launch countermeasures at this point. The enemy ship’s vulnerability was in the rear, but they were also far more maneuverable, faster, and more powerful in every other way. How could we even attack there? Not that it would make a difference, the shielding would take care of any of our attacks, even in their most vulnerable spot.
Although, in comparison to battleship, or even a cruiser, our phased plasma arrays were smaller and much less powerful. They were designed to face civilian ships, not highly advanced military ones. Maybe it was a vain
hope, but I feared the alien ship would follow us, destroy us, and hunt down humanity. Missiles were apparently worthless, but perhaps stronger plasma beams could do more than simply burn and mark the hull.
Sure, it was a little paranoid to think all of humanity was in danger, and not just us, but I was in the military, I’d been trained to think that way.
Katy said, “Ten seconds.”
Screech!
Katy said, “They hit the outer ring of the ship, no casualties but the landing bay is a mess and open to space. Several maneuvering jets are offline.”
John said, “Compensating, though it’s hard to keep our course with their weapons pulling us around like they are.”
Katy said, “Five seconds.”
Another screech of metal, and then a sigh of relief as John said, “Initiating transition in three, two,” the burn cut off, “one…”
Chapter Nine
The FTL drive kicked in and the outside of the ship turned into a confusing mélange of energies and impossible angles, and it just didn’t look right. Then one gravity of acceleration kicked in and the computer started to fly us to our destination.
Katy said, “Field at sixty seven percent and holding captain, we lost a few of the emitters in the attacks, but we’re stable.”
Drive field collapse would be bad, as in subspace annihilating the ship bad.
Kane asked, “Status?”
Katy replied, “The ship is fifty three percent operational, but all major systems outside of two of the Ion engines are working. Two spokes are intact, so we have air in the vast majority of the inner and outer rings.”
Cindy reported, “Transition to our destination will take three hours and eleven minutes.”
That was a relatively fast trip. Multiple dimensions constantly shifting meant things in subspace were quite variable. The slowest and fastest records for traveling the four light years between Earth and Alpha Centauri for instance, was a little over two weeks on the outside, and just over four minutes was the fastest recorded time. Normally it isn’t so severe, most trips in subspace take more than an hour but less than a day.
Scout Ship: Rise of the Empyrean Empire: Novel 01 Page 7