War of the Spheres

by B. V. Larson

  “Yes… yes…” he said, squinting at the plan. “Too bad it’s unworkable.”

  “Unworkable?” Gevan asked. “Why?”

  “Because there’s no passage into that hold that’s wide enough,” Fillmore said. “We don’t have time to dismantle the whole engine and reconstruct it, and there’s no hatch or tube to use to get there from here.”

  “It’s not impossible…” Hughes said. The colonel locked eyes with me. “I know what the chief was getting at when he mentioned the manual controls. What if instead of dragging Fairweather through the hull, we just… cheated?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Pardon my terminology, but it’s not about the mass inside the bubble right? It’s all about the size you make it and where it ends up.”

  The scientists all exchanged startled glances.

  “Oh…” Fillmore said. “You’re suggesting we move Fairweather right through Viper’s guts…?”

  “Can we really do that?” Gevan asked.

  Then, as one, they began working on the numbers. Soon, the planning about Fairweather’s move became intensive. They also made plans to meld the two vessels in a sturdy manner.

  I wasn’t sure what they were working on, but I decided I could use another man who knew about moving large things around and reconnecting them, so I went to get help from Logan.

  Unfortunately, Captain Jessup came the other way, and he found me first.

  “There you are,” Jessup said, “right at the center of this insanity. It’s bad enough your crazy gaggle of scientists wants to make my crew barf like schoolgirls eating tainted meat at a picnic. But, now—this,” he glowered menacingly.

  He flung his arms wide and stood there. “Your people flew us smack toward a brick wall, you lunatic,” he said.

  “Hmm…” I said, realizing he had a valid complaint. “I thought Colonel Hughes had your permission, Captain.”

  “They had my permission to test their drive. They didn’t say anything about killing my crew and blowing my ship up. I assume you are aware, Chief, that we are about to fly smack-ass into a man-made asteroid belt.”

  “We’re working on the solution Captain,” I said. “The changes are being made right now.”

  “I don’t think your hearing me, Gray. My crew is aiming for a thin spot in that shit storm out there, but I’m not so sure any of us is going to be here in an hour. In the meantime, I am still in charge.”

  Two crewmen were standing at his back. They were armed, and they looked seriously pissed off.

  I considered my options. I could try to take them all down right here—but that wouldn’t be good for our future relationship. At some point Jessup and I were going to have to choose to be on the same side or have one action-packed showdown.

  Jessup bulled past me with his goons, and I let them go. They headed into Fairweather like they owned it. They reminded me of cats slinking into a drainage pipe in seek of prey. I followed them quietly, just to make sure things didn’t get out of hand.

  So far, they hadn’t pulled out a pistol, but I knew they might if things went the wrong way.

  “Damn…” Jessup said when he got inside and was able to stand tall due to the space-warping fields. “No wonder all you geeks like it in here. It’s like a VR wet dream.”

  Hughes and the rest gawked at him. Hughes spoke up first.

  “Hello Captain…” she said. “We’d love to give you a tour, but we’re very busy right now. Do you mind?”

  Jessup’s initial surprise at the unique interior of Fairweather faded fast. His frown reasserted itself, and he eyed the group in an unfriendly manner.

  “Yes—I do mind. I mind those that have rank over me, unlike yourselves. I’m here to clear you out of this compartment and seal it off,” he said. “I might be dead in an hour, but there won’t be any more unsanctioned jumps. I’ll decide when and where you can use my ship as a guinea pig from now on—however long that is.”

  “Such presumption!” Dr. Fillmore said, flashing into one of his indignant rages.

  Jessup drew his pistol then, and the crewmen behind him nervously followed suit.

  That was when I began to move. I was still behind them, forgotten. Two silent steps brought me to the back of the nearest man. My big hands came up—but I stopped.

  Colonel Hughes had seen me, and by now she knew well enough what I was going to do. I was a man of action, and she was very aware of that.

  She signaled me to stand down, so I hesitated. Then the crewman in the rear of the group turned and saw me. His face furrowed into a frown, and his pistol came up to greet me.

  “Out of those harnesses,” Jessup commanded. “This is my ship, and I want you all to report to the crew quarters.”

  “One moment,” Colonel Hughes said. “Just take a look at this scanner.”

  Jessup began to sneer, but she sent the image of the second wave of debris to the primary screens. They all played out a vast swirling tangle of dirt and processed ore, spinning out in a spiral pattern before us.

  When the captain saw our impending doom—now filling a whole screen in brilliant, virtual detail, his mouth sagged open. Speechless, he stared at the high-def image and his pistol fell out of his hand to the deck. His hand drifted up to his chin.

  It was much worse than before. The mining freighter had jettisoned its ore silos. They spun crazily near the center of what had become a solid blanket of pulverized stone.

  “Ho-ly shit!” he said. “That’s some impressive technology. This here rock-cloud is getting pretty close too,” he added, smiling and pointing a finger at the screen.

  “That’s right,” Colonel Hughes agreed smoothly. “Your ship is in danger, Captain. We can help—”

  But she was talking to his back. He’d turned and made his way toward the exit. Over his shoulder, he shouted back at us.

  “No more tricks. No jumps. No nothing. You people clear out of here and find a crash seat. We’ll be maneuvering under hard acceleration in less than a minute... and somebody grab my gun off the deck.”

  So saying, Jessup and his angry knot of crewmen left us. I stayed behind with the scientists.

  “What now?” I asked them.

  “We have to keep working on a solution,” Dr. Gevan said. “Jessup won’t be able to get us out of danger—my calculations show he’s doomed to fail in case the main screen isn’t obvious enough.”

  “I know this kind of personality,” Hughes said. “There’s no talking him out of making the attempt. And he’s legally in the right—it’s his ship.”

  “But this is a matter of life and death,” Gevan insisted. “We have to jump again without his approval…”

  “I’ll be right back,” I told them, and I raced off.

  I found Logan nearby. He followed me back to Fairweather when I asked him to, but soon we were reduced to crawling from one handhold to the next. Jessup had begun a hard swinging turn, then it felt like we were going into a dive. At least, he’d decided to plunge in a direction that felt like it was downward. That soon changed again as the ship rolled over.

  “At least we’re not hanging onto the roof like it’s the floor,” Logan said, but then he caught sight of what we could see inside Fairweather.

  “Hey—this is unbelievable!” he said. “What is this?”

  “This is me returning favors already, Logan,” I said. “Have a seat. If you behave yourself, you might even get to help save our asses.”

  He slumped into the chair Fillmore had vacated and continued to stare. Snapping out of his state of amazement, he tinkered with the sensor board in front of him.

  “Did somebody toss their cookies in here?” he said, sniffing the interior.

  “Yes,” I said. “Besides Para-Dimensional Manipulation theory, vomiting is one of Fillmore’s greatest talents.”

  “We’re ready to transition through Viper’s belly folks,” Hughes announced. “This may take some finagling—hold on.”

  “Here we go again,” Dr. Gevan remarked.

>   “So… what are we going to do?” Logan asked.

  She smiled at him. “We’re going to ease our way from here to another spot inside this same ship. We shrank the field down to just contain Fairweather. It’ll be much quicker this way.”

  “There’s plenty of juice in the capacitors for this hop,” Gevan sang triumphantly.

  “But wait!” Logan objected in alarm. “What if you miss? You’ll gut the ship!”

  “Not to mention killing all of us,” Gevan pointed out. “Nobody’s sure it’s possible at Viper’s current velocity,” he added while shaking his head.

  “We’re not spacewalking this module over the exterior hull,” Hughes said impatiently. “Besides, we don’t have enough time for anything fancy.”

  “Jessup’s bound to notice what we’re doing,” I pointed out. “But that’ll mean he’s alive still.”

  “We ran back over the numbers, Colonel,” Gevan stated. “You’ll have to cross your fingers and trust us—it’s the only way. Don’t forget this was your idea.”

  Colonel Hughes was bolt upright and focused.

  I looked at them both. For the first time, I thought they were more daring than I was. Perhaps they were when it came to playing around with deadly fields that were an exotic twist of advanced physics.

  “Okay,” I said, heaving a sigh. “I’m just along for the ride.”

  Without removing her eyes from the large, primary display, Colonel Hughes reached out her hands and gripped onto the control toggles.

  “Moving in near-space on manual override in… 3… 2… 1… Mark!”

  The nausea ended up being even worse this time. Hughes had to probe a bit to find the sweet spot. Passing through Viper’s belly was like seeing the inside of something that you normally can’t and shouldn’t want to—like examining someone’s intestines instead of their cute face, for example.

  We were all relieved to feel the floating sensation end, but the vertigo lingered.

  “Did we land inside the troop pod, Hughes?” I asked.

  “Stabilizing the localization fields… and done!” she said.

  We all unbuckled ourselves and got up on shaking legs. I felt like my feet were still in the air, but I got up and carefully followed her out.

  She turned down passageways around the bulkhead that was aft of the nucleus.

  A hatch had opened up, allowing us to exit the upper compartment into one of Viper’s holds.

  “I’ll go below and activate the folding ladder,” she said.

  My leg burned like hell still, but I jumped on top of a stow-locker and vaulted up through the opening the moment she was gone. My comm-link wasn’t able to raise a usable frequency onboard Viper, so I shambled topside as quickly as I could. Making it to the starboard Gunnery Bay, I heaved myself into a chair and ignored the stares of the regular crewmen.

  Slamming a palm onto an ops-board, I raised the bridge on Viper’s comm system. “Collins, it’s Gray—we’re requesting a new comm-link channel to Fairweather.”

  “Easy, Chief. You should be live any moment now. Give us another minute. Collins, out.”

  Chasing away the pain and discomfort that lingered in my mind, I walked back to the fresh portal between our ships. Techs were busy messing with a makeshift ladder, but I dropped straight into the hole.

  My boots slammed into the deck with a resounding thump. A collective gasp escaped the startled technicians. It felt good to tax my abilities—the healing was underway.

  Jessup and his goons caught up with me at that point. His face was red. He’d obviously figured out that the Fairweather module wasn’t where he’d left it only minutes earlier.

  “What the hell have you done to my ship, Gray?” he demanded.

  “You don’t look healthy, Captain,” I told him.

  His pistol got into my face, and his crewmen were targeting my chest. I didn’t make any hostile moves as they surrounded me.

  “Gray, you son-of-a-bitch!” Jessup said. “I told you and your circus to stand down. I’m trying to save our asses. Don’t you fools get that?”

  “We all have the same goal, sir. Colonel Hughes made the decision to move Fairweather, and I believe it was the right one. The good news is she’s now ready to jump your entire ship out of this debris field whenever you give the word.”

  I was still only hoping the generator had recovered sufficient power to pull that off.

  We stared each other down for a moment, but Jessup broke first. He lowered his pistol.

  “This can’t continue, Gray. I’m the captain here. The dick swinging has got to stop—especially if we live through this damned day.”

  “No one is denying that it’s your ship, sir,” I told him. “Hughes did what she felt she had to in order to save all of us.”

  “We’re not safe yet. We’re still pulling hard Gs—but we’re not out of the debris path.”

  I nodded. “Right. It’s your call now,” I told him, knowing he didn’t really have any choice. “What are your orders, Captain? Do you want to tell Hughes to jump us forward? She can move us ten thousand kilometers instantly.”

  Jessup worked his jaw. He wasn’t happy.

  “Sir,” one of the crewmen said behind him. “We only have seven minutes left until impact—that’s from Cmdr. Collins on the bridge.”

  The Captain refused to meet my eyes. Still, he hesitated, calling Cmdr. Collins. An intense conversation followed.

  At last, he turned back to me. He snarled and cursed my name.

  Then, when it was almost too late, he made the only choice he could.

  Chapter 31

  “Collins,” Captain Jessup said, “talk to Hughes over that new comm-line. Tell her to jump us the hell out of here in exactly three minutes. I’ll need that time to get my men secure. There will be no delay beyond that.”

  After giving this order, he turned to address me again. “Once we jump, this is my ship again—understand?”

  In response to this I shrugged and gave him a nod.

  Jessup and his escort retreated.

  I strode back to the nucleus and took the copilot’s seat. “As soon as we’re clear it’s time to go, Emily. Captain Jessup has approved emergency action.”

  She was holding up a hand and listening to her comm-link. Tapping to close the transmission, she resettled into her chair.

  “Affirmative, Chief,” she said, “…but I can’t believe Jessup is cutting things so close. We should jump right now to evade the rock-storm.”

  “The field projector’s capacitors are at nineteen percent, Colonel,” Gevan said. “If our math is right, we should be able to jump the whole rig at forty percent of our trial jumps—that means we’re about halfway there.”

  “Thank you Doctor.”

  “What range and heading, sir?” Dr. Gevan asked as he tapped at his screen.

  “If we’re cleared to proceed—we should jump forward,” Fillmore volunteered as he joined us in the small compartment.

  “Thank you, Dr. Fillmore,” Gevan said, “but since we’re not manning a hot-air balloon or a sled, I was looking for specific numbers—idiot.”

  Dr. Fillmore gaped like a fish as he sank into the seat next to Logan, before putting his nose back in the air. “I am not an idiot—I bring a unique and important skill set…”

  Fillmore was the one who’d calculated that the debris field had more breadth and less depth. I’m sure he was correct, but it was too tempting not to abuse him.

  “Dr. Gevan, pre-program a long jump of seventy kilometers following our current trajectory. On my mark in two minutes—assuming we get the green light from Commander Collins. Sean, go grab me a dose of caffeine. There’s just enough time.”

  “Emily…” Fillmore protested. She ignored him, and he slowly rose to his feet again and trudged toward the nucleus door.

  “Got it, Colonel,” Gevan said, working faster. “Assuming our power recovers, that will avoid disaster for now. Hey, Fillmore, grab me some too.”

  “My ass…�
�� Fillmore muttered in the passage outside.

  “Hey Chief,” Logan said, “we talked things out while you were screwing around. They’re going to let me assist on the sensor boards in here—on a trial basis.”

  “You’re welcome and congratulations. You’ve already scored a good job and as a bonus you’re not dead.”

  “Yeah well… that’s technically true, but a ‘thank-you’ is still a little premature. We might die in the next ten minutes.”

  “Don’t piss your pants, Logan,” I told him. “The colonel here is a pretty good pilot.”

  He smirked as he thought of something inappropriate to say. When he glanced at Colonel Hughes, he thought better of it and just ended up nodding.

  “Feed me the final numbers,” Col. Hughes demanded as our time ran out. All over the ship, people were scrambling into safe spots and tying themselves down.

  I tried not to think about the realities. We were about to use dead batteries to try moving a huge mass seventy kilometers based on an experimental algorithm that had originally been designed to do something else. The good news was if we screwed this up, we would probably die so fast we wouldn’t even know it. Probably…

  “Colonel,” I said, “how is a long jump different than moving manually in near-space?”

  Someone else might have been irritated, but she answered immediately. Tension slipped away from her face, and she went straight into lecture-mode.

  “Dimension rifts are exploited in any ‘jump’—like the second time we travelled,” she said. “There’s a lot of theoretical engineering behind the process. If you want to see the mathematical proofs, you can find them online at—”

  “That won’t be necessary… is there a dumbed-down explanation to go with that?”

  “Picture an envelope, Gray. If you look at its length and width, it clearly has some dimension to it.”

  “Okay…”

  “But if you look at it from the edge,” she continued, “it appears to have very little dimension and will easily fit through a narrow slot.”

  “So… we’re going through the slot?”