* * *
Jon was on the bridge as his adopted older brother, Jeff, handled the short hop off course. It had been a day since their escape from Earth and everyone was beginning to calm down. Jon was still on edge, but getting a few light years off course would do a lot to ease his mind.
The Ninja could long hop around 12 light years, in between jumps they would wait around in interstellar space, taking readings, then calculate the next jump. It would be an hour or more between jumps while the computer pinpointed their location and plotted the next leg. No ship ever jumped exactly straight toward their target, there was always chaos and uncertainty in the equation.
Jeff was taking them 6 light years directly perpendicular to the direct jump line to Cao. As they neared Cao they’d get closer and closer to their original flight path, coming close to converging, but still be far enough off they’d be virtually undetectable. Space was truly vast, getting lost in it was easy.
Jeff triggered the jump and the Ninja instantly shifted 6 light years from its previous position. Jon felt a momentary bit of nausea but it passed in seconds. He was a veteran spacer, jump shock barely affected him anymore. Being in two places at once, however briefly, could play hell with the nervous system of the unaccustomed.
“So who’s the girl?” Jeff asked. “She hasn’t come out of her room since we took off.”
“Truth is, I have no idea who she is and I’m not sure I want to know,” Jon said. “I thought Sam would know, but he was wounded when we were attacked.”
That was a lie. Jon definitely did want to know who she was. He thought of a good excuse to go talk to her. Food. Everyone ate.
“I’ll go see if she’s hungry. Maybe ask her some questions.”
Jon left the bridge and walked back toward the crew compartments. There were 5 cabins, one with Jeff’s water bed, all identical sized. Young Rae’s was the last on the right. Jon knocked.
“Hey in there. You hungry?”
The door slid open and Young Rae was standing in the doorway. She’d cleaned up and washed the blood off of her clothes, but you could still see a few stains if you knew where to look. They’d both need to see about getting a change of clothes.
“What are we eating?” She asked.
“I dunno, let’s go see.” Jon walked with her to the kitchen area, further towards the rear of the ship, when Jeff came over the ship wide intercom.
“Jon, Weston, you should come see this. You’re not going to believe it.” His voice echoed in the relatively empty corridor.
Jon rushed to the bridge, Young Rae followed behind him. Weston was already there.
“No way,” Weston said.
“The sensors don’t lie. I’ve checked and double checked,” Jeff said.
Jon looked at the sensors to see for himself. A potential ‘T’ class planet, terrestrial, 7 light years from their position in a relatively unknown and unexplored binary star system. There were only a few dozen that had ever been discovered in centuries of space exploration.
“Holy shit.” Young Rae said, looking at the readout in disbelief.
“Agreed,” Jon said, suspicious.
* * *
The crew and passengers of the Ninja sat around the small dinner table bolted to the deck in the kitchen area. They were eating noodles. As the guest they’d let Young Rae choose. She’d been feeling queasy from jumping through space, and noodles were easy on the stomach.
Jon said around a mouthful of noodles, “There have been 12 habitable and roughly 27 terraformable planets found in the history of man. That’s 39 stable watery planets total. Ever. In centuries of space travel. The odds of us having found one like this are nearly zero.”
“The odds are always nearly zero,” Weston said. “Yet it has happened 39 times, as you’ve pointed out.”
“We’ve got to check it out,” Jeff said. “We could all retire on the rewards for discovery. Easy.”
Jon was prepared for the financial argument from Weston, but not from his brother Jeff. Spending all that time with Weston must have been rubbing off on him. Still, the money was a huge consideration. They stood to gain a fortune if they actually found a watery planet, even one that needed a lot of terraforming work to make it habitable. They could take bids for the location and sensor logs. Several polities would bid heavily for the rights for sure.
The problem was it was all too convenient. Too fishy. The star system was binary, and wasn’t well mapped. It had been visited by survey teams over the years without any indication of a ‘T’ class world. It was theoretically possible to miss it. Maybe. The sensors were saying it was a moon slow orbiting an enormous gas giant. Not a solitary planet in the water zone of the star, but further out.
The moon could have been behind the gas giant or obscured by rings while the survey teams did their work. Also, watery planets in a binary system were exceedingly rare. Until Darius was found, 23 years before, the theory had been that binary systems were too chaotic for a watery planet to form.
So maybe the survey teams hadn’t been looking hard enough?
Still. It was highly unlikely. A watery planet less than 60 light years from Earth. Undiscovered all this time? Just off the direct line route from Sol to Cao?
“I think it’s a trap,” Jon said. “They know we are coming this way, someone has spoofed a signature to draw us in. It’s far too convenient. I say we continue on to Cao, drop off Miss Young Rae and check it out on the way back.”
“By that time we could be scooped,” Weston said. “Someone else might find it, we’d miss out on millions. I’m not taking that chance. Besides, I’ve never even heard of anyone being able to spoof something like that. We are over 7 light years out. It would take a hyperwave emitter that reads like standard light speed sensor data. Unless they somehow planted the trap 7 years ago.”
“Have you ever heard of technology like that?” Weston asked Jon.
Jon shook his head. Weston had a point. There was no known tech that could punch a signal out several light years and not obviously read as a man made hyperwave.
“Jeff, set a course to take us in.”
Jon started to object but technically Weston was the captain of the ship and Jon had run out of arguments.
Jon finished his noodles in silence, worried. Young Rae looked at his face, smiling, then frowned. She also finished her noodles in silence, face wrinkled in worry.
Chapter Five
Jeff jumped the Ninja to within 3 light hours of the gas giant, more or less. Far enough out for safety but close enough to get a good read on the possible ‘T’ class planet. The area was quiet enough. That far out from the primary meant little gravity or radiation interference. They could use the jump drive to get closer with a second micro jump, if needed.
The close distance gave them a solid reading on the moon. Definitely a watery planet, with good mass as well. Jon was eyeing the readouts from the visual scopes and EM sensors. He may have had reservations, but discovering a new major world had him excited.
The EM sensors looked wrong. Something was off. He checked and double checked.
Dammit. Sensor buoys. Sensors that could detect, and given the right angles, triangulate a ship’s jump footprint. When a ship jumped in it released stray hyperwaves, faster than light particles. The signature could be read for several light hours depending on the energy of the jump. Having buoys and hypercom relays at intervals could extend a near real time sensor network over an entire system.
Great.
“Jeff, full thrust now. We’ve likely been spotted already. We need to put as much distance as we can between us and this location. Weston, we need to plot another jump out. Now.”
“What do you mean? I don’t see anything on the sensors.” Weston was flipping through the data screens, not seeing it.
Jon pointed to a data spike made by starlight bouncing off of metal alloy and anomalous hyperwave readings, of which there were several at regular intervals, and said, “Unless there are small metal asteroids in
this system, someone set up a sensor net using buoys and relays. It’s expensive but doable. There is a delay in relaying data to whatever home base they are using, but spotting our jump footprint is instantaneous.”
While Jeff was warming up the sublight engines a ship jumped in. A battlecruiser, bristling with cannons. Jon sighed. So much for the excitement of discovery.
Weston turned to Jeff. “Jeff, get us out of here, I’ll work on the jump calc and start spinning up the coil...”
Jon cut him off, gripping his shoulder. “Don’t bother Weston.”
The cruiser fired 4 warheads from its forward tubes. They traveled at a significant fraction of light speed. They weren’t fired directly at the Ninja but rather in a pattern half a light second around the Ninja. Jeff was rolling the ship in an evasive maneuver, bringing up the shields, when the warheads detonated.
They were rad-heads. Hard radiation washed over the Ninja and a volume of space around the ship for several light seconds. The lights in the Ninja flickered, the shields went red and blinked, but came back to full strength.
Weston looked around confused, turning to Jon. “What was that?”
“Anti-matter warheads. Nice yield too,” Jon said, impressed despite the danger. “They’ve created an ion field in this area of space. It’ll disrupt any attempt to jump out.”
“Jeff get us out of here,” Weston said. “We’ll clear the field and then jump.”
“Or they’ll shoot us first,” Jon said. “They are in particle cannon range already.”
The com chime sounded. A transmission coming in. Weston looked to Jon.
“You’re the captain, Weston, it’s your decision if you want to talk to them,” Jon said.
Weston was getting frustrated, pacing around the small bridge. The chime kept sounding. Jeff had the engines warmed up and ready for max thrust, if needed. Weston kept pacing.
“Well I don’t know,” Weston half yelled. “This isn’t my area of expertise. I just own the ship and buy cargo. I’ve never been held at gunpoint with warheads and cannons and rad fields and freakin’ detection grids…” Weston trailed off.
He looked to Jon, desperate. “What would you do?”
That was exactly what Jon was waiting for. “Put me in charge, and I’ll handle it.”
Weston hesitated. “In charge? Like you are the captain. No way. My ship, my rules.”
Jon could tell Weston didn’t mean what he was saying, he was just being stubborn. A little push. That’s all he needed.
“Remember whose bad decision it was to jump in here. To follow this trail into ambush. Promote me to captain,” Jon said. “I’ll get us through this and whatever else we encounter, and maybe you won’t get your ship blown out of space.”
Weston mulled it over. Hand on his forehead. Frustrated. He really wasn’t built for these types of situations. Get him in a contract negotiation and he was a shark. Here, in a combat situation, his nerves were failing him badly.
The com chimed again. It felt like it was getting louder each time.
“Tell you what,” Jon said. “I’ll do it free of charge.”
There. That got him.
“Okay fine. ‘Captain’ Aichele,” Weston said. “Don’t screw up.”
“Don’t worry Weston. I won’t,” Jon said with false confidence.
* * *
Jon sat down in front of the com station. There were 4 stations on the bridge. Pilot, coms, sensors and a catch all operations station. The com station was angled away from the others, so that any video transmission would not include shots of the entire bridge and crew.
Excellent.
Jon used the internal com system to call Young Rae to the bridge. It was a small ship, so it didn’t take her long to arrive. Still, she made it in record time. Out of breath from running. She must have heard the yelling on the bridge.
“What is it?” She asked. “Pirates?”
“Unknown,” Jon said. “I need you to sit at sensors. I’ll pipe the vid feed to you while I talk to this cruiser that has us locked down.”
Young Rae looked down at the sensor station, and back up at Jon in wide eyed alarm. The sensor screen was tinted red, flashing warnings. The cruiser had them painted with targeting lasers.
“It’s okay,” Jon said to Young Rae. “I just want you to see if you know this person. You only need to sit there. Don’t move or speak, and watch the monitor.”
Young Rae nodded and sat down.
Jon opened up the video connection to the hailing battlecruiser.
“This is Jonathan Aichele of the IMS Ninja. How may I help you?”
“IMS Ninja, this is Captain Cann of the Candian space navy. State your business here.” Captain Cann was a dark haired man wearing thick eye goggles. His accent was nondistinct. He could have been an educated man from any of a dozen worlds.
Jon responded, “We were on our way past and decided to explore this system. See if there might be anything interesting.”
Captain Cann huffed, maybe in amusement, maybe not.
“I’d say you have found something,” Cann said. “Now how about you tell me exactly what you’ve found.”
Jon hesitated, looking to Young Rae. She shook her head. She didn’t know who this was. That might not mean anything though. Whoever was after her could have any number of hired hit men, mercenary fleets, you name it. Jon had no idea.
Well, they weren’t blowing him out of space yet. That was a good sign this captain wanted to talk. He could have disabled their ship and boarded them by now if he’d wanted.
Jon decided to come clean. “Our sensors picked up a water planet here. In fact, they are confirming as much right now. Thought we’d come take a look.”
“It’s as I feared,” Captain Cann said. “I knew it wouldn’t take long before someone came sniffing around. I thank you for your honesty, and regret what I’m about to do. Cooperate and we won’t have to fire on you.”
Captain Cann cut the connection.
At Young Rae’s motion Jon looked over at the sensor read out. Two shuttles had detached from the battlecruiser and were on their way. Jon checked the scopes. Boarding shuttles. They might try to outrun them but Jon had little doubt Captain Cann would fire upon them if they ran.
“He’s not trying to hurt us,” Young Rae said. “He just wants to detain us and keep this planet secret.”
“How can you know that?” Weston asked.
“It’s written all over his face.” Young Rae replied.
Jon silenced them with a slashing motion of his hand and started barking orders.
“Jeff, I need you in your water bed, silent as death. Stop off in my quarters and grab all of my stuff, it should only be my two pistols and all of the ammo. Make it look like no one has been staying there. Take everything into your room with you. Scatter it around like I’ve been staying in there. Take your hand com with you into your water tank. And wait.”
Jon looked at Young Rae. “You are our new crew member, we just picked you up on Earth, you had some local trouble there. Tell the truth about everything else as needed. Fewer lies means less chance of getting caught.”
“Weston.” Weston was sitting silently in the ops chair, not moving. He didn’t respond when Jon called his name.
“Weston!” Jon yelled.
Weston looked over, blinking.
“Don’t panic.” Jon said.
Weston nodded his head. He wasn’t speaking. He was panicking.
The ship lurched with a crunching sound, the shuttles had docked. Jeff had already left the bridge and Jon could hear him getting into his water bed.
The boarding marines were real professionals. They’d forced the air lock and were approaching the bridge before Jon had a chance to say anything else. Six men, in groups of two, in full battle armor.
The second boarding shuttle stood off a ways. Ready to send over reinforcements, or nukes, as needed.
The lead trooper spoke. “Is this the entire crew. Just you three?”
“Yes,” Jon answered.
The lead trooper motioned his men to spread out and search. It was a small ship. Their search was brief and yielded nothing. Jeff had made it to his water bed, he would give off little to no heat signature and the troopers weren’t likely to check a dirty bath for crewmen.
At a motion from the lead trooper one trooper detached and headed aft toward the small engineering section.
He came back with a piece of conduit. Jon wasn’t positive what it was for but he guessed that removing it would disable the jump coil. He glanced over at Weston, he recognized the component and was none too happy. Probably expensive. To his credit he stayed silent.
“So, you’ve taken over the ship and disabled the coil. Now what?” Jon asked.
“Now you will sit along the wall and shut your mouths. If you move, we tie you up. If you talk, we gag you.”
Jon, Weston and Young Rae sat down along the back wall of the bridge while two unarmored men sat down at the sensor and ops stations. Jon watched as they expertly scrubbed navigation and sensor data from the Ninja’s computers. Erasing any trace of data pertaining to the watery planet.
* * *
Captain Adam Cann paced back and forth on the bridge of his battlecruiser, the Toronto. He took off his goggles and rubbed his eyes. His goggles magnified and filtered light so that he could see. Sort of. With his cataract ravaged eyes even the most sophisticated eyewear wasn’t going to help him see perfectly.
His visual world consisted mostly of blurs and outlines. The goggles recognized any text he was looking at and read it into his integrated earbud. An auto mapping feature helped him avoid getting lost on his own ship. Giant red arrows appeared in his vision leading him towards where ever he needed to go.
He couldn’t wait for the Candia project to start taking colonists. The money his stake in the project would be worth was enough for him to afford complete ocular replacement. Black market cloned organs too, the good stuff. None of that cheap artificial wetware condoned by the Church of Humanity.
Moral High Ground: Crew of the Ninja #1 Page 4