Terran Fleet Command Saga 4: TFS Fugitive

by Tori L. Harris

  “C-Jump complete, Captain. Pausing for comm beacon deployment … beacon stabilized and transmitting … transition complete,” Fisher reported, immediately advancing the destroyer’s sublight engines to full power and beginning a series of evasive maneuvers in case they found themselves in the middle of a hostile situation. “All systems in the green. C-Jump range 12.8 light years and increasing rapidly.”

  “Very well. Tactical, I see two ships,” Prescott said, staring at the tactical plot display on the starboard view screen. “Both are currently classified as ‘unknowns.’ I need to know what they are and whether they’re hostile as quickly as possible.”

  “Aye, sir,” Schmidt responded immediately. “I’ve got ‘em both, Captain. They appear to be of identical configuration, but the AI is giving me an inaccurate ID on them so far. I should be able to get a good visual though. Stand by.”

  “Inaccurate how? Is it identifying them or not?”

  “It is, sir, but it’s only giving the identification a three four percent reliability, and what it’s telling me can’t possibly be correct. At the moment, it still has their origin as unknown, but for the type, it’s saying they’re both —”

  “Ingenuity-class frigates,” Reynolds interrupted, easily recognizing the light and thermally enhanced image of the two warships now displayed in the center of the view screen. “Designating as Foxtrot 1 and Foxtrot 2.”

  Every member of the bridge crew looked up to confirm the seemingly impossible identification for themselves, only to be instantly recalled to their duties by a series of urgent-sounding warning tones issuing from both the Tactical and the Science and Engineering consoles.

  “They’re firing, Captain,” Lieutenant Lau reported. “Railguns only at the moment. From what I can tell, they’re going after the station’s reactors.”

  “Confirmed,” Lieutenant Lee reported. “Right before they opened fire, there was a power surge centered roughly on the area the two ships are now targeting. It looks like the reactors are buried well beneath the surface.”

  “Most of the facility is shielded too, Captain,” Lau added, “but the two frigates’ kinetic energy rounds are still making it to the surface.”

  “Comm, hail the ships and offer our assistance in evacuating the station. Let’s see if we can get them to back off and at least allow us to get the Wek personnel out of there.”

  “Aye, sir, hailing.”

  Before Dubashi could complete her transmission, Theseus’ AI expanded the field of view on the bridge view screen to show both of the presumably Krayleck ships, instantly superimposing a flashing red triangle over an area of space adjacent to the more distant of the two. “Warning!” it announced in an urgent tone. “Gravimetric disturbance detected. Emergency hyperspace transition unavailable. Executing evasive action. All personnel initiate Anti-G Straining Maneuver to prevent G-induced loss of consciousness.”

  “Fisher, you got this?” Prescott grunted, tightening the muscles in his legs and abdomen under the rapidly increasing G-forces generated by the AI’s maximum performance turn. Even several years after his last operational mission in a fighter, remaining conscious under high G loads was still second nature to the captain. Unfortunately, the same was not true for his young helmsman, whose arms now hung uselessly by his sides while his head rolled involuntarily about his shoulders from one side to the other.

  It had taken several seconds for Prescott to realize that the edges of his peripheral vision had been “grayed-out” for a time. And now that the ship’s inertial dampening systems had begun to catch up with the AI’s maneuvers, he also realized that he was the only fully conscious member of the bridge crew.

  “Fisher!” he yelled.

  The ensign’s convulsive head movements (still universally referred to as the “funky chicken” by Human fighter pilots) had finally stopped, which was a good indication that he should regain consciousness momentarily.

  “Any day now, Ensign. Tactical, I need you two back with me as well,” Prescott said, glancing back up at the tactical plot but still struggling a bit himself to refocus his mind and fully assess the situation.

  “Yes … uh … yes, sir, I’m good. Sorry about that, sir,” Fisher mumbled.

  “Deep breaths, everyone. We didn’t take any damage and appear to be out of danger for the moment, so don’t start pushing buttons and make things worse. Give yourselves a few seconds and you’ll come back around.”

  There was a half-hearted chorus of “aye, sirs” in response, but it would clearly still be a while before they were all back to anything approaching their best.

  “Where’d the ships go?” Reynolds asked, reasonably aware of her surroundings once again.

  “I don’t know yet,” Prescott answered honestly. “There was an explosion of some sort and there’s some debris out there that wasn’t there before … it doesn’t look large enough to be even one of those ships, though, let alone both of them.”

  “I see it … but I don’t see anything I can positively identify as being part of a frigate. AI, Reynolds, replay footage of the two unidentified ships starting with the detection of the gravimetric disturbance.”

  A window immediately opened on the bridge view screen, once again displaying two ships strikingly similar to the Ingenuity. Once again, the AI superimposed a red triangle near the more distant ship. A few seconds later, the closer of the two executed a hard turn to port, roughly in the direction of the Theseus, and Reynolds wondered if the aggressive maneuver had been ordered by the ship’s AI, just as theirs had been.

  “There’s no way they stayed conscious during that turn unless their dampeners are significantly better than ours,” Prescott commented.

  “Ours are pushing the theoretical limits, Captain, so it’s doubtful they handled it any better than we did,” Lieutenant Lee chimed in with a somewhat embarrassed tone.

  “Welcome back, Lieutenant,” Prescott replied with a consoling smile.

  The more distant of the two ships seemed to accelerate rapidly in the direction of the disturbance itself. Then, inexplicably, the forward half of the ship’s hull was cleaved away from its stern as cleanly as if it had been sliced by a surgical scalpel. The stern, apparently still responding to forces generated by both the invisible disturbance as well as its own sublight engines, initially arced up and away from its former bow.

  “What the hell?” Reynolds gasped in astonishment.

  Before anyone else could comment on what they were seeing, the situation grew even more strange and terrifying to behold. The frigate’s bow continued momentarily along roughly the same flight path as before, then simply imploded. What they witnessed was not the uneven, convulsive crushing like a metal can smashed by uneven air pressure in a science fair experiment. Instead, roughly half of the entire structure collapsed on itself, appearing from Theseus’ point of view to be almost completely flattened.

  Various forces acting on the object caused it to rotate more rapidly, and, as it did so, one section at a time seemed to pass some unseen line of demarcation — allowing it to be instantly crushed and folded in on itself along the same axis each time. Within seconds, there was very little left of the forward half of the ship other than a flattened, superheated mass of debris that both Prescott and Reynolds now recognized as what they had seen before beginning the playback.

  For clarity, the AI had now divided the footage into three separate windows. In the second window, the still-intact frigate had now achieved sufficient distance from the gravimetric disturbance to allow its hyperdrive to function once again. Whether it was under its crew’s control or still being commanded by its AI was unclear. After noting what had happened to its sister ship, however, someone aboard had the presence of mind to transition to hyperspace — departing the area in a flash of grayish-white light.

  “Okay, we know the stern is gone now, so something else is about to —” Reynolds began, only to be interrupted by activity in the third and final window.

  What happened next to the fr
igate’s aft section was difficult to describe, but for the first split second the entire structure was lit by what looked like thousands of expanding pools of bright white light that instantly bloomed into a single, massive explosion.

  “AI, on window three show us a slow-motion detail of the explosion,” she commanded.

  Instantly interpreting what its Human XO wished to see, Theseus’ AI indexed the footage back to three hundred milliseconds prior to the first signs that a high-energy event was taking place, then began slowly advancing the video once again.

  Reynolds, for her part, had her initial impression verified. On the screen, it looked as if the frigate’s hull had entered a sudden downpour on a summer’s day. But rather than simply impacting the hull’s surface, these “raindrops” had every appearance of literally converting the hull into expanding pools of light. The spectacle was as terrifying as it was beautiful, but lasted only an instant before the entire image was once again washed out by such an energetic explosion that absolutely nothing remained of the ship’s stern.

  “Well,” Reynolds said after a brief silence, “I suppose I would normally say, ‘I guess we cleared that up.’ But I have absolutely no idea what we just saw. AI, theorize as to the cause of the explosion we just reviewed in frame three.”

  “Various sensor readings are consistent with a large-scale antimatter annihilation event,” the synthetic voice answered in a matter-of-fact tone. “A diffuse cloud containing approximately three hundred grams of antihydrogen coming into physical contact with the remaining section of the subject ship’s hull could cause such an effect.”

  “Lieutenant Lee?” Reynolds said, implying her obvious question.

  “There’s no way that’s naturally occurring in such a small volume of space, Commander, particularly this close to the planet. It’s possible, sure, but to say that it’s unlikely is an understatement in the extreme. I’d say we just stumbled on the purpose of the Herrera mine.”

  “Captain, we’re being hailed by the mining facility,” Lieutenant Dubashi reported from the Comm/Nav console.

  “Well then … maybe they’ll be willing to shed some additional light on what we just saw. On-screen, please,” Prescott replied.

  “Welcome, Terrans,” the youngish-looking Wek female began, “I am Commander Moya Gara of the Wek Unified Fleet. I am the commanding officer here at the Herrera station. Please let me say from the outset how sorry I am for putting your vessel in danger. As I am sure you saw, we were under attack from two Krayleck warships, but I would not have initiated a phase transition had I known you were about to arrive. Did you suffer any damage?”

  “Hello, Commander. I am Captain Tom Prescott of the Terran Fleet Command starship Theseus. I’m happy to report that we are undamaged, but we did witness what happened to one of the two Krayleck ships. A ‘phase transition,’ you said … is that some sort of gravitic weapon?”

  “Not under normal circumstances, no,” she said with the hint of a smile forming at the corners of her mouth. “What you witnessed was an act of desperation on my part. Herrera is an unarmed research facility. Fortunately for us, some of that research involves experiments in high energy physics … sufficient to damage or even destroy a vessel if it happens to find itself in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “I see,” Prescott replied — though clearly he did not. “That was quick, resourceful thinking on your part, Commander. You almost certainly saved your entire crew. I’m guessing the Krayleck will return with reinforcements, however, so perhaps we should evacuate the facility until elements of the Wek Fleet arrive. Do you have anyone in need of medical assistance?”

  “Not as far as I know, Captain, I thank you,” she replied, then paused momentarily before resuming in a more reserved tone. “I am sure you are correct that we should evacuate immediately, and there are perhaps twelve out of our crew of twenty-seven that I can spare. Unfortunately, everyone else will be needed to secure the reactors as well as other sensitive materials on site that we cannot allow the Krayleck to capture.”

  Prescott stared back at the Wek commander for a long moment, wondering precisely what their new allies were doing out here that could not only generate the effects they had witnessed, but also be worth risking many lives to protect.

  “Very well, Commander,” he continued reluctantly. “You are obviously in a better position to gauge the importance of your work here than we are. But you need to understand that I cannot guarantee your safety unless I bring you aboard my ship.”

  “I do understand, sir, and I appreciate your concern. Based on when your ship arrived, however, we must assume that the Krayleck believe it was you who destroyed their warship. And even if they do not, they will likely see your vessel as the primary threat when they return.”

  “That’s a prudent observation, Commander Gara, thank you. We will have one of our shuttles down to you shortly. Prescott out.”

  “So, did we or did we not just inadvertently commit an act of war against another Pelaran-cultivated civilization?” Reynolds asked, incredulous.

  “That, Commander, like so many other things out here, is a matter of perspective. Either way, I think we had best get ourselves prepared for a more determined attack.”

  Chapter 11

  Earth, Terran Fleet Command Headquarters

  (16 hours later - Leadership Council Meeting Chamber)

  “Madame Chairwoman,” the representative from the Middle Eastern Union interrupted for the third time, “I believe at this point we are all in agreement that some sort of formalized relations — perhaps even an alliance at some point — with the Wek … excuse me, with the Crowned Republic of Graca … is in our long-term best interest. Indeed, none of us would have agreed to sign the preliminary memorandum of cooperation with them otherwise. Yet here we are, barely six months after being attacked by the Resistance, and this Council is being asked to endorse a course of action that could easily lead us down a path towards war against another member of the Pelaran Alliance. For that is what you are asking us to do, is it not?”

  One of Lisbeth Kistler’s first acts after taking over as Chairwoman had been to remove the enormous dais and lectern from the front of the meeting chamber. The message she had intended to convey was clear — there were fifteen members on the Leadership Council, and each representative’s vote carried precisely the same weight as any other. In stark contrast to her tyrannical predecessor, Kistler fully embraced the position of Chair as specifically defined in TFC’s charter. In her opinion, it had never been intended as a governing role so much as that of a chief facilitator, maintaining the group’s focus and, whenever possible, preventing their discussions from becoming mired in political gridlock. She remained, nonetheless, a skilled politician in her own right and was not above using certain … tactics, both subtle and otherwise, to guide the course of the debate in the direction she preferred. Before answering the gentleman — an astonishingly handsome man from the United Arab Emirates — she had positioned herself immediately adjacent to his workspace, working the center aisle between the representatives like a professor proctoring a final exam.

  “Representative Shadid,” she began again after allowing a long pause to ensure that he had actually finished speaking this time, “not to put too fine a point on it, but I don’t think that is a fair characterization of what Admiral Sexton is asking us to consider. You saw the same briefing I did,” she said (it was not entirely true, but close enough under the circumstances). “The Wek mining facility at Herrera was attacked without provocation by forces from a neighboring Pelaran-cultivated civilization known as the Krayleck. As chance would have it, TFS Theseus, which Admiral Patterson dispatched at the request of Crown Prince Naftur in hopes of stabilizing the situation, arrived just as the station itself managed to destroy one of the Krayleck ships.”

  “Which, remarkably enough, looked virtually identical to one of our own Ingenuity-class frigates.”

  “I certainly agree with you that it’s remarkable, sir, but per
haps not so surprising. We have known for some time that the Pelarans have applied their cultivation program a great many times. It stands to reason, in my mind at least, that the information they provide to prospective Alliance members — including plans for ships and weapons — would be similar.”

  “It is of relatively little consequence at this time,” he replied with a dismissive, backhanded gesture. “The truth is that we still know very little about the Wek and the other members of the Sajeth Collective, let alone these Krayleck.”

  “We do know that the Wek managed to swat a frigate from the skies above their supposedly unarmed mining station as if it were a mere annoyance … perhaps also succeeding in making it look as if the attack originated from our ship,” another representative chimed in from one of the large view screens mounted around the perimeter of the room.

  “A valid point, my friend,” Shadid continued. “Our new friends, the Wek, it seems, have been less than forthcoming regarding the true nature of the Herrera mine. Therefore, the idea of sending in even more of our ships to protect their secret facility — and in so doing risk further escalation of the incident that has already taken place with the Krayleck Empire — seems both irresponsible and foolish in the extreme to me.”

  “If you will forgive me, colleague, I don’t think it’s reasonable for us to assume that the Wek have laid bare all of their secrets for us any more than we have for them,” Kistler said, sensing that the argument was by no means leaning in her favor at the moment. “Surely, if the past year has taught us nothing else, it is the need for our world to actively pursue both diplomatic and even military alliances with other civilizations. The threats to our security — to our very survival — are far more sweeping than any of us could have imagined until very recently.”

  “I agree with you, Chairwoman Kistler,” Shadid said magnanimously. “But it is also clear that we must be very cautious and deliberate about both whom we ally ourselves with as well as the particulars of how we structure those alliances. We currently have no quarrel with the Krayleck, and until we know more about them, we must avoid taking any actions that might well be seen as hostile. Accordingly, I would like to make a motion that we allow Theseus alone to remain at Herrera to assist its Wek crew as necessary until their forces arrive. They are to take no provocative actions against Krayleck vessels.”