by D. J. Holmes
“Yes sir,” Mallory said.
“And Becket,” James added, “as a reward for your unrequested humor you can liaise with Chief Driscoll and organize for him to put a new observation chair onto the bridge. Councilwoman Rodriguez is going to need somewhere to sit.
“Aye sir,” Becket acknowledged.
“For now you can sit in Mallory’s command chair,” James said as he turned to Suzanna.
“Thank you Captain,” Suzanna answered. “And to you too First Lieutenant,” she added to Mallory as he hastily jumped out of his seat.
“I’m sure our First Lieutenant doesn’t mind standing until we get another chair put in place,” James said.
“Not at all,” Mallory replied. “It will be my pleasure to make the Councilwoman as comfortable as possible,” he finished with a wink for James.
James just shook his head. Having Suzanna on board was going to be embarrassing, yet he was happy Mallory could jest with him. When Mallory had come on board Endeavour just over a year ago he had been a spoilt self-centered officer. Not unlike James when he had taken command of his first ship. The first battle with the Vestarians over Haven had changed Mallory and although James had missed it at first, he was developing into a good officer.
In the last two months, they had begun to get on very well. It helped that they came from very similar backgrounds and the sheer amount of work that had been involved in repairing Endeavour’s battle damage had forced them to spend a lot of time together.
Mallory was the third First Lieutenant James had commanded and he hoped things would go better than with his last. Lieutenant Ferguson had seemed like a competent officer, but in the end he had betrayed James and tried to lead a mutiny to take over the ship and run away from battle.
James was happy with his senior officers. He and Mallory were becoming fast friends and although the First Lieutenant had a lot to learn, James knew he would make a fine Captain one day.
Trusting in Mallory’s abilities, he let the Lieutenant direct Endeavour towards the mass shadow of the Chester system and then make the first jump into shift space. Once they were on their way, James rose from his command chair and turned to Suzanna. “Shall we retire and sort out some quarters for you to stay in during this trip?” he asked.
“Certainly Captain,” she replied, “lead on.”
Chapter 2 – The Gift
No one knew it at the time, but the discovery of The Gift and its first use as a strategic weapon in war would foreshadow the vital importance it would come to play in the War of Doom.
-Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD
1st March, 2467 AD, HMS Endeavour, unexplored space near Chester.
James sat in his office replaying the events of the last few days over in his head. As they had followed the course Suzanna had given them the trip had gone by uneventfully. After the briefing with all the senior crew a wave of excitement had swept through the ship as everyone discovered what was ahead of them. For James’ part, he was more than a little concerned. Suzanna assured him that many Haven ships had used the Gift, yet that didn’t make him feel any more comfortable with the idea. More than once on the trip he had wished he still had Science Officer Scott on board to reassure his worries. Sadly, the Admiralty hadn’t found him a replacement Science Officer before he left Earth for Chester.
He had spent most of his time during the trip in his office as he had given Suzanna his quarters and with Fox’s help he had set up a makeshift bed in his office. It wasn’t the most comfortable but it would do for a couple more weeks. Suzanna spent a lot of time in her quarters reviewing her notes and the data she had brought from Haven. James had put on a special meal for her with all the senior officers the first evening after they had jumped into shift space. After that, they had shared their evening meals together in the privacy of James’ quarters. James wasn’t sure if they had intended it to work out that way or if it had just happened, but as he spent time with Suzanna he came to appreciate her more and more.
Most of their conversations had been about the future of Haven. She loved her people dearly and was desperate to see her planet retain its sovereignty. The suggestion James had made that Haven become a British protectorate was now the only way Suzanna saw of making that a reality, and she grilled him on the ins and outs of such an idea constantly.
In turn James had grilled Suzanna about Haven’s history and the Gift. She had been much more forthcoming than the last time he had spoken to her and yet she hadn’t been able to fill him in on anything but the basics. The fact of the matter was that the Havenite scientists didn’t yet fully understand the Gift and Suzanna only understood half of what they did. It doesn’t matter now, James thought to himself, we’re about to find out for ourselves.
Almost as if his thoughts had summoned Sub Lieutenant Jennings, her voice came over James’ COM unit. “We have arrived Captain.”
“I’m coming now,” James answered, “please inform Councilwoman Rodriguez that we have reached the Gift.”
“Yes sir,” Jennings replied.
As James walked onto the bridge, he was stopped dead in his tracks by what he saw. On the main holo display Mallory was projecting the feed from the gravimetric sensors. The images were like nothing he had ever seen.
Endeavour was in the middle of open space. The nearest solar system was over a light year away. Yet about thirty light minutes in front of Endeavour it looked like there was a gravimetric superstorm. What appeared to be a number of tight weaving balls were spitting out huge amounts of gravimetric waves that intersected and crisscrossed over one another. The closest thing James could liken the image to was when he had watched one of his science teachers completely boil off a beaker of water. The bubbles and droplets of water that vigorously shot into the air looked very similar to the waves of gravitational energy the thing in front of him was shooting into space.
“What is it?” James asked.
“We have no idea,” Mallory replied. “The center of the disturbances almost look like they are miniature black holes, they are certainly producing strong gravitational forces. Yet they are nowhere near as strong as our scientists estimate a black hole should be. And there are more than eight of the disturbances. There may be more but all the gravitational waves are making it hard to know for sure.”
“And which one are we supposed to fly into?” James asked.
“This one sir,” Mallory said as he manipulated the display to highlight one of the tight balls that was giving off the gravitational waves. “It’s right on the edge of whatever this thing is so we won’t have to get too close to its center.”
“This can’t be safe,” James said out loud as he continued to look at the image before him.
“I’m having doubts myself,” Suzanna said from where she had entered the bridge. She too had paused to look at the image on the holo display. “But I assure you, it has been done before.”
“I still can’t believe the original Haven colonists took their colony ship through this thing. It was such a risk,” Mallory said.
“Yes, but they were desperate,” Suzanna said. “And they did send a probe through first. Once it returned and was able to tell the colony ship where it had gone, there was no way the colonists would simply pass this by. They had an opportunity to get more than fifty light years away from Earth in the blink of an eye. That was everything they had dreamed about.”
“Well it certainly worked out for them,” James said, “your people got the time they needed to set themselves up as an independent world. But now we have to use this thing to stop your leaders from shooting themselves in the foot and bringing their colony’s independence to an end.
“Sub Lieutenant Jennings, as much as I don’t want to, you can take us in,” James ordered.
“Yes sir,” Jennings said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.
“Down to business then,” James said. “Are our stealth systems working at full capacity?”
“All systems are fully operational,” Mallory
said.
Endeavour was equipped with the latest stealth coating and the most advanced heat sinks in the Royal Space Navy. It meant that when her reactors were powered down to their lowest operating levels and all non-essential systems were shut down, Endeavour became a dark hole in space. She couldn’t maintain it for more than a few hours but even then she had the same technologies all RSN ships had. By incorporating heat vents into their designs, RSN ships could vent their waste electromagnetic radiation into space along specific vectors. This allowed them to remain in stealth mode for prolonged periods of time. The vents weren’t nearly as effective as Endeavour’s heat sinks, but the combination of the two put Endeavour in class of her own.
“Good, any sign of the Havenite frigate?” James asked.
“None yet, but we are still scanning,” Mallory answered. “They are likely to have a lot of their systems powered down. If they have been stationed here for any length of time I imagine they will be trying to conserve power. According to the data we have on the Havenite warships, they don’t have our endurance for long missions,”
“Take us in slow then Jennings,” James said, “no need to let the Havenite frigate pick us up on their gravitational scanners.”
According to Suzanna’s intel, Maximillian had stationed a frigate at the entrance to the Gift to prevent her or anyone else from Haven getting to Earth. Ordinarily James wouldn’t be worried about taking on a frigate as Endeavour would be more than a match for such a small warship. However, entering the Gift had him nervous, he didn’t want anything to go wrong. He was also worried that if they didn’t deal with the frigate, it might be able to sneak up close enough to them to fire off a broadside of missiles at point blank range. Endeavour might be a powerful warship, but even she couldn’t survive a missile salvo from point blank.
“I think I am getting something,” Malik said a couple of minutes later. “There appear to be some gravitational waves coming from the edge of the Gift, yet they are not from any of the balls at the center of the structure. It might be a ship.”
“It must be them,” James said. “Implement plan beta.”
On the journey towards the Gift the senior officers had a number of meetings where they discussed their plans for dealing with Admiral Harris and his plan to attack the Kulrean envoy ship. They had also come up with a few ideas about how to deal with the frigate that was defending the entrance to the Gift. If possible, James didn’t want to cause any more deaths than necessary. Yet he wasn’t going to risk his ship or his crew.
“The modified stealth drone has been launched,” Sub Lieutenant King said a minute later.
“We’ll be in position in five minutes Captain,” Jennings reported.
When everything was in position James stood up from his command chair and walked over to Third Lieutenant Becket who was manning the tactical station. “Make sure your first shot counts.”
“Don’t worry Captain, I have everything under control,” Becket said confidently.
James rested a hand on her shoulder and gave her a slight squeeze, “I have full confidence in you.” He looked towards Sub Lieutenant King. “Send the signal to the probe.”
As soon as the probe received the signal it broadcast James’ pre-recorded message. It took less than ten seconds for James’ voice to reach the patrolling frigate.
“Havenite frigate, this is Captain Somerville of HMS Endeavour, I trust you know who I am. I have reason to believe you are currently keeping station somewhere within the Gift. Reveal yourself now and surrender or I will be forced to enter the gravimetric anomaly and destroy you.”
“It looks like it is working,” Sub Lieutenant Malik said from the sensor station, “the frigate is altering course towards the drone.”
“Good,” James said, “open fire as soon as you get a firm target lock,” he added for Becket’s benefit.
The problem they had faced was that the gravimetric disturbances made it hard to lock onto a target within the Gift. James had toyed around with a few different ideas but in the end he had settled for the simplest one his officers had come up with. They were going to lure the Havenite frigate out.
It was risky in that they didn’t know just how good the Havenite gravitational sensors were. Though so far it appeared James’ guess was right. While Endeavour’s sensors were able to penetrate into the Gift, he had estimated that the Havenite frigate would have more of a problem with all the gravimetric waves the Gift generated. The Haven colony had been out of contact with Earth for more than two hundred years. While they had astonished everyone back on Earth with the size of colony they had been able to produce in those years, they were still way behind Earth in all sorts of areas.
It seemed the ruse had worked for the captain of the Haven frigate was operating under the assumption that Endeavour couldn’t detect him. As James watched, it was clear he was trying to maneuver to the edge of the Gift and into a position where he could open fire on the source of the transmission. By the time he found out he was stalking a drone it would be far too late
“Firing,” Becket said as soon as the frigate came close enough to the edge of the Gift for her to get a lock on it. As she spoke the holo display updated to show two green plasma bolts shoot into space from one of Endeavour’s plasma cannons.
“Hit!” Becket shouted moments later.
“I’m detecting the ship now without electromagnetic sensors, their stealth field is down. It looks like they are suffering some power fluctuations,” Malik reported after several seconds.
“Transmit the second message,” James ordered.
This time the message came from Endeavour and it took less than a second to reach the damaged Haven frigate.
“Haven Frigate, we have you in our sights, surrender now. If you make any aggressive moves we will destroy you.”
“No change from the frigate Sir,” Malik said after a few seconds. “There is no sign they are powering up any weapons.”
“There’s a message coming through now,” Sub Lieutenant King reported.
“Put it on the holo display,” James ordered.
“Captain Somerville,” a familiar face said. “I am offering my official surrender; you have bested me. Please don’t make my crew pay for my foolishness.”
James tapped a few buttons on his command chair to open a COM channel to reply. “Captain Denning. I am sorry we are meeting under such circumstances. What condition is your ship in?”
“We have taken serious damage to two of our three reactors. I have had to shut both of them down. Life support and propulsion are both intact however,” Denning replied.
“I’m afraid I can’t spare the time to help you, can you make it back to Haven?” James asked.
Denning looked away as he consulted with one of his juniors. “Yes, I think so, it’s going to take us a while with just one engine however,” he replied when he looked back. “But aren’t you going to relieve me of command and put a prize crew aboard?”
“Not this time,” James answered. “Technically we are not at war and I have bigger fish to fry. Your government has made a grave mistake in trying to attack the Kulreans. You can return to Haven and inform Maximillian that he won’t be seeing Admiral Harris or his ships again. He will have to find some other way to defend his planet.”
“And Captain,” Suzanna said as she walked into Denning’s view. “You can tell Maximillian from me that his time in office is limited.”
The surprise on Denning’s face was barely hidden, “you betrayed us all,” he shouted as he clenched his fists.
“If you really think that Captain, then you have already betrayed what Haven stands for,” Suzanna replied. “By aiding Maximillian you are as guilty as he and Admiral Harris for attacking an unarmed friendly alien race.”
James interrupted before it turned into a full-blown argument. “We don’t have any more time for you Captain. I hope you make it home safely. You can think about just where you stand on Haven’s future on your journey. I think the RSN will be
returning to Haven in the very near future and you might want to decide just whose side you are on.”
Before Denning could reply James cut the feed. Denning had proven himself a resourceful officer in the first battle of Haven and James had liked the man when he had met him in person. Yet he had aligned himself against the RSN and the British Star Kingdom and James’ mercy would only go so far.
“Take us back towards the Gift,” James ordered. “And open a ship wide COM.”
“It’s open sir,” Sub Lieutenant King said.
“This is the Captain,” James began, “we are going to enter the Gift in twenty minutes. Everyone who is not assigned to an essential post is to return to their quarters. We know from the Havenite data that about thirty percent of a ship’s crew react badly to their first jump. If you do, don’t worry, the effects will pass within the hour. Nevertheless, if you are affected I want you to inform the ship’s doctor. If you are not affected, once we are through you can return to your normal duties.”