by Nick Webb
“Thank you, ma’am, this will help speed things up immensely.” As soon as she signed the pad, he accepted it back and scurried off, leaving her to return to the latest data just now coming in.
She scrolled through the numbers. The spectroscopic data came first, displaying all the possible atoms, molecules, compounds, quantum states, hyperfine splittings, isotopic variances—everything that could possibly be in that swirling death cloud that was the former Britannia. It was coming through in bulk, so she scrolled through to the summary.
“Ha!” she let the laugh slip out.
She was right. “See that, bitches? I was right. It’s not just the oxygen. It’s the hydrogen, the nitrogen, the carbon, and, interestingly enough, the tungsten and half a dozen of the other refractory metals. Rhenium. Osmium. Yada yada.”
Her bridge crew looked up at her with blank faces. At least, with faces she couldn’t seem to decipher. She could read the chaotic data from a malfunctioning fusion engine with the ease of a mother interpreting the hungry cries of her child. But the faces of irrational, emotional human beings? God help her.
“It’s not just the oxygen, people! It’s the compounds you might expect from, say, a giant asteroid. Or a ship.”
The science officer—what the hell was his name again? Price? Prince? Pratt? Pri . . . ck? No, definitely not Prick—began to speak. “Well that makes sense, ma’am. The Swarm ship collided with Titan before Titan collided with Britannia.”
“Obviously!” she said.
He smiled, clearly pleased with himself.
“Obviously, that would be very convenient if that explained all of the data we’re seeing.” She pulled up another dataset and waved it forward onto the view screen at the front of the bridge for the whole bridge crew to see. “But we have that data. Every sensor on Britannia was aimed at that thing for over an hour. We know its composition down to the last atom. But guess what? These numbers don’t quite add up. The Swarm ship accounts for about eighty-nine percent of the isotopic discrepancy, but not one hundred percent. Where, dearies, is that last eleven percent coming from?”
“Measurement error?” said the science officer.
“We’re at seven sigmas. If it’s measurement error, I’ll eat my unwashed underpants.” She saw one of the comms people cringe and stifle a gag, before straightening his back and nervously clearing his throat.
“Then, maybe there was a shielded section of the Swarm ship? Somehow the Britannian sensors couldn’t penetrate it? Throwing our readings off?”
She shook her head. “Nope. Our dataset includes gravimetric data, and that includes the gravity waves generated in the collision of both the ship with Titan, and Titan with Britannia. We know the precise mass of that ship, and given that its contents were smeared all across half the face of Titan, we know its contents too.”
“Then . . .” The science officer shrugged. “Sorry, ma’am. No idea yet.”
“Well thankfully I’ve got ideas,” she relied. “And I’m eighty-nine percent sure I know where that eleven percent comes from.”
They all just stared at her.
“The Swarm ship came from their universe. Their universe must have a slightly different fine structure constant. It’s only off ours by one part in ten to the fifteenth, but it’s enough to make every single atom of theirs be off in mass by just the right amount to account for this isotopic discrepancy, but only if you increase the total mass.”
Some of them nodded, some not. But all their faces were blank, it seemed. She’d have to hold their hands through it.
“Which means,” she said, sighing like a mother trying to potty-train her child, “that something else from their universe is appearing in the data. Look,” she waved through several more columns of data and threw it up on the screen. “Look at the meta-space scans too. Usually it wouldn’t be all that notable that they’re off by this amount. The meta-space signature of that cloud out there mostly matches the aggregated meta-space signature of Britannia itself when it was alive, factoring in the recent arrival of Titan, which had just q-jumped in, throwing off the meta-space waves everywhere in the vicinity. But not by quite this much. No. Something happened here. Right before the collision of Titan with Britannia.”
More blank stares. My God, Shelby, what have you done to me? “Somehow, the total mass of material here that originated from the Swarm universe increased by eleven percent, at almost the precise moment that Titan collided with Britannia.”
“You’re sure about that, ma’am?” said the XO.
“Sure? No. Confident? Yes. And it’s our job to figure out what it was.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Poincaré Sector
World IXF-459
Surface
“Rice, this is Granger. Get your ass here now. We’ve got potential incoming.”
“Nearly there, sir. Just a moment.”
Granger turned back to Ensign Shin. “How fast? How far away?”
Shin shook his head. “Hard to tell exactly. But fast. Several hundred meters per second. And several dozen kilometers away. I think.”
“So we’ve got a few minutes.”
“Maybe.” Shin shrugged. “Hard to get a firm distance without triangulating.”
A sharp noise behind them nearly made Granger jump, and PFC Alba swung his assault rifle toward the ruined wall where the sound had come from. But all that came from behind it was Rice, his breath huffing, holding what looked like a very heavy piece of equipment. The sonic excavator.
“Get busy, boys,” said Granger.
Ensign Shin pointed toward the spot on the ground and Rice set the excavator there with a thud and flipped the power on. He tapped a few commands onto the indicator screen and it whirred to life.
“Stand clear. I set the depth at six feet, radius of about three feet, so that thing is going to be spewing dirt everywhere.”
They all retreated safely behind one of the ruined walls and listened as the machine ramped up. Even with the safety noise dampeners the thing screeched like the devil in heat. Granger had to plug his ears.
Finally, the noise subsided. Granger cautiously unplugged his ears. “Well, if there’s something here that didn’t already know we were here, now they do.”
Shin nodded. “It’s almost upon us, sir.”
Granger tapped his commlink. “Lieutenant Sanchez, we’re going to need emergency extraction.”
The commlink scratched open with the pilot’s surprised voice. “Aye, sir. When?”
“Now.”
“Oh. Coming, sir.”
Rice was already standing over the hole waving the dust away when Granger got there. He peered inside.
“A coffin. Damn. These aliens. Almost human, huh?” But a gnawing pit was growing in his stomach. Something was off. Wrong.
Rice jumped into the hole on one side of the coffin and reached for the latch on the lid. Excess dirt slid off as it opened. Rice gasped.
“Looks human to me, sir.”
Inside was a man. Desiccated, almost mummified, as if he’d been preserved and then painstakingly dried. And he was unmistakably human.
That’s what felt off. It was not an alien coffin.
A rectangular box lie under the corpse’s bone-thin arms which were crossed on top of it, like it was clutching onto a prized possession. Shin waved his sensor package back and forth. “I think the source of the meta-space signal is in that box, sir.”
Granger waved at Rice. “Grab it and go.” He tapped his commlink again. “Sanchez? Now would be nice.”
“Coming, sir! But heads up, there’s an object heading your way. It’ll be there before—”
The wall behind them exploded with shrapnel and fire. PFC Alba tackled Granger and wrapped his arms around his torso, laying on top of his head and upper body. When the last few chunks of debris fell, the marine lifted him up with a single fist bunching the front of Granger’s uniform. “Run, sir!” He pointed to another wall.
Granger ran toward it, feeling a sharp
pain in his calf but not even risking a moment to look at it. He dove behind it just as another wall adjacent to them exploded. This time, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the source of the destruction. It gleamed metallic, floating in the air just a few dozen meters away.
And it fired again. A brilliant blue directed energy beam leapt out of a barrel aimed directly at Ensign Shin, who had hunkered down behind the now-destroyed wall.
“Ensign! Get your ass out—”
But Granger couldn’t even finish the words before another blue beam lanced out and punched a hole right through Shin’s head.
“Fuck!” Granger flattened out as low as he could when he saw the barrel of the weapon swivel his way.
But instead of the piercing whine of the weapon being fired, he heard what sounded like the violent stutter of conventional gunfire. He risked a glance behind the edge of the wall and saw Alba unloading his magazine into the floating menace. “Run, Captain!”
Granger picked himself up as fast as he could, noting the blood on his hand after he reached down to feel his calf. No time. He could patch wounds later. Running toward the next wall, he was relieved to see Commander Rice already there, still clutching the box.
The piercing whine of the devastating beam lanced out again, and Granger was sure it had taken out their marine. But a moment later the sound of bullets rang out again. He’d never felt so happy to hear gunfire.
“Go!” shouted Rice, pointing at the next ruined wall. Just beyond it Granger saw that Sanchez had parked the shuttle and its hatch was descending. He bolted toward it, not looking back. Gunfire rang out, and another piercing whine.
He dove onto the ramp, Rice just behind him.
“Buckle in!” shouted Sanchez.
“We’re waiting for Alba!” Granger yelled back.
“We’re doing a hot extraction, sir!” And without waiting for further argument from him, she jolted the shuttle back up into the air. Luckily, he’d just fastened the restraining belt on his seat, and even so he nearly flew out of it.
The entry hatch was still open, and the shuttle circled above the battlefield just a dozen meters in the air. Granger watched the floating death cannon zoom around a half-fallen wall, perhaps expecting to find Alba there, but when it circled the corner it got pelted with another dozen rounds from another direction. Damn, he’s good.
Alba retreated around the corner of the wall he’d been hiding behind and, still crouching low, ran with unbelievable speed around the other corner and dove through the opening of what may once have been a doorway. He rolled, somehow managing to not get tangled up with his assault rifle, all while the floating cannon was still occupied with flushing him out from his previous location.
“Hang on!” Sanchez shouted, and gunned the engines. The shuttle soared through a tight curve that nearly made Granger pass out, swung low, and slowed with a sudden jerk just a few meters from Alba. He sprung upward, landing on the hatch’s extended door at a sprint, and smashed down on the mechanism to close it.
“Go!” he shouted. And none too soon. Right as Sanchez gunned the engine again, the wall behind where the shuttle had hovered exploded in a cloud of debris and fire.
“It’s gonna get bumpy here!” Sanchez, bless her heart, was still yelling out warnings as she performed a series of evasive maneuvers to avoid the inevitable fire from the cannon.
“Just drive, Lieutenant!” yelled Granger.
Out the tiny circular window next to him he saw several blue beams lance past the shuttle, one of them just missing by a meter. The acceleration thrust him back into his seat at what he guessed was over five g’s. Any more and he felt he’d pass out.
A dozen agonizing seconds crept past. Soon, the force pushing him into his seat lessened to what he guessed was more like two g’s, and he could breathe again.
“Are we clear?” he yelled.
“I . . . I think so,” said Sanchez.
He tapped on his commlink. “Defiance, Granger. Be ready to receive us, and then let’s q-jump the hell out of here. Any heading.” Something told him that the single floating cannon was not going to be the only danger they’d face.
Another memory? Or just a hunch? That floating canon—it felt . . . familiar, after a fashion. Like he should have felt comfort looking at it, but instead felt the visceral terror as he watched Ensign Shin get his brain blown out.
“Already on it, sir,” came Ensign Nagin’s voice. “But I advise you to not dawdle. We’re detecting a collection of small satellites converging on our location. No idea where they came from—they weren’t on our sensors before.”
“Well shit,” he murmured. “Step on it, Sanchez.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Veracruz Sector
Chantana III
ISS Tyler S. Volz
XO’s quarters
“Dad! Have you actually talked to them?” The little boy practically squealed the question, and Shin-Wentworth, just for a moment, thought that maybe he could actually see his son and not the CGI representation of the boy’s excited face.
“Sure!”
“What are they like?”
“Well, Edward, they’re short, they have three fingers on each hand, and they almost sing as they talk. And guess what?”
“What?”
“They bring their kids everywhere with them. And I mean everywhere! When they visited earlier today, their kids came out of the shuttle first and started playing hide-and-seek in the shuttle bay!”
“No fair! I want to come play in the shuttle bay!”
Shin-Wentworth chuckled and winked at the woman holding the boy. He hoped the CGI representation of him on the other end would pass that facial expression along, and sure enough, a moment later, his wife winked back.
“Is Molly there?” he asked.
“She’s at a friend’s house,” she replied, with a shrug. “Apparently twelve-year-olds think they’re too cool to talk to Dad.”
“Aw, give her a break. We just moved to Paradiso a month ago. And for her to have friends already that she feels she can go hang out with? More than we could have hoped for.”
“I suppose. Still, I think I’d rather actually be there with you. This momma biologist misses her plants, Harry. Tell me about the crust—have you figured out how it’s held up yet?”
He shook his head. “Nope. The entire crust. Just floating there, over about three kilometers of air. We think the crust is at just the right thickness such that, given the planet’s low gravity, it’s just enough to keep the air underneath pressurized sufficiently for the Trits to breathe it.”
“So it’s just floating on the air pocket?” she asked.
“Not sure. Probably not. Surely parts of the crust would collapse, which would release the pressure, leading to the collapse of the rest of the crust. No, we’re detecting a massive energy signature. Huge numbers of polarized gravitons. Hell, it might even be coupled into the background dark energy field—that’s what my chief scientist surmised last night at dinner. Whatever it is, the energy required to hold the whole thing up? Any guesses?”
His wife closed her eyes, performing some mental mathematics. “A petawatt?”
“Try an exawatt. A million terawatts. I mean, we can’t measure that yet, but that’s just based on the mass of the crust and the planet’s gravity and spin. This thing is amazing, Megan. It’ll take years to study. I bet I can get you a spot on the research team, eventually, studying Itharan ecology. They’re going to need thousands of scientists and engineers to work this thing.”
She smiled. “That will be wonderful, darling. Just imagine. Finally all back together again. The kids can see their dad more than once every few months. I can see my husband more than once every few months. I could have a job in science again.” She almost started tearing up. “Let’s just get through the next few months, okay? I’ve almost got us settled from the move. Kids are adjusting to their new schools.”
“Of course, honey. One day at a time.” Shin-Wentworth saw a prio
rity message light up on his screen. “Sorry, dear, gotta run. Talk in a few days?”
“Of course.” She squeezed Edward’s shoulders. “Say bye bye to daddy, Edward!”
“Bye bye! Bye bye!” At that, his son wiggled out of his mom’s lap and ran out of view of the holo-camera.
“Goodbye, Harry. Love you.”
He noticed the priority message was addressed from something called FMAD. He frowned. That’s odd. He tried to hide the look of concern from his face. “Love you too, sweetie. Talk to you soon.” He shut the transmission down before she could ask what was up.
FMAD. Fleet Memorial Affairs Division. He opened it.
Commander Harry Shin-Wentworth. We regret to inform you that Robert Shin has deceased in the line of duty. We are gathering more information surrounding the circumstances of his passing, and will reach out to you when we learn more. Please feel free to contact our office if . . .
He couldn’t read more.
“Robert,” he said, and swallowed hard. His brother had just lost his little family on Britannia two months ago. And now Robert was gone too.
It was too unreal for tears yet. He reread the message, over and over, and still, the tears wouldn’t come. It was impossible. It wasn’t real. It was a mistake, surely. Why would the universe take a man’s wife, his children, and then after two months of unimaginable grief, take the man himself?
And now he, his brother and only family left alive, was probably the sole recipient of this message.
He waved his screen over to navigate to the IDF handbook and searched for Military funeral planning. He read a few lines, and then waved it off.
He turned to his other screen. The one open to the data from the latest scans of Chantana Three. And he resumed his work.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Poincaré Sector
World IXF-459
ISS Defiance
Shuttle Bay
The shuttle came in so hot that Granger thought he could see sparks fly as it came to a sudden halt on the surface of the flight deck. And no sooner had his feet hit the deck at a run did he hear—and feel—an explosion, several decks away.