From Out of the Dark

by Robert N Stephenson

Fading Light from a Dying Star

  Jason Andrew

  Mia Wells slept in the foetal position, in her bunk, with her uncovered feet pressed firmly against the metal bulkhead to feel the rhythmic hum of the Phoenix. The Captain’s old comfortable habit allowed herself to be lulled to sleep by the pulse of her ship. While the Phoenix travelled through hyperspace, the bulkheads maintained a consistent low-frequency vibration, indicating that all was well and the ship was safe.

  She usually found it difficult to sleep while transporting valuable cargo. Since the Sundering, every Colony with a proper Navy wanted their share of tariffs - official or otherwise. To avoid patrols and gravity interceptors, Mia had ordered Wang to plot a slipstream course, which gave the standard routes a wide berth.

  The direct route would have only taken a week, but Wang’s stealth route would take almost two months to circumnavigate most of the trouble spots. It left the Phoenix light-years away from civilization and any potential threats. The crew was anxious from the long trip, but secretly Mia felt like it was a vacation away from her worries.

  The sputtering disruption of the vibrations slowly woke her. The only thing that could change the rhythm was deceleration into normal space. Mia slowly pulled the blanket back and sat up on her bunk. She was rubbing her eyes when the comlink buzzed.

  “Captain! Sorry to wake you, but we have trouble.”

  Mia eased into her grey trousers. “What is it, Wang?”

  Her pilot answered quickly. “We’ve hit some sort of gravity disruption. We should have avoided all of the celestial bodies, so that means...”

  “Gravity interceptors,” Mia said, “We’re about to meet a colonial barricade or pirates. I don’t like either option, Wang.”

  “No one should have been able to follow my flight plan,” Wang said. “It’s not my fault.”

  Mia groaned as she wrapped her gun belt around her waist. Wang could be finicky at the best of times, but he was a solid pilot who always delivered. She just didn’t have time to soothe his ego at the moment. “I promise that there will be time enough to figure out what’s what when we’re safe. ETA?”

  “We should be folding into normal space in about five minutes, Captain.”

  Mia flipped a switch on the com-panel activating a general alarm klaxon. “This is the Captain. It looks like we’re five minutes from uninvited visitors on the path of our quiet little excursion. Likely we’ll be hung in the morning.”

  The ship’s engineer was the first to reply. Her voice high-pitched earned her the nickname Mouse. “Captain, I don’t want to be ‘hung.’”

  It pained Mia to hear the fear in Mouse’s voice. She used her calm, confident; everything is going to be alright, tone. “Well then, you’d best scurry to the engine room and see what you can do to help out with an easy re-entry.” The faint outline of a plan was already forming in the back of her mind. She toggled the com-link once more. “Styles, you have the port gun turret. Establish locks, but don’t fire until you get the OK from me. With a bit of luck, this might this might be a misunderstanding. Wang, as soon as we hit normal space, find some local colour to hide us as best you can.”

  A deep bravado voice replied over the com-link. “Last time you said that Captain, I ended up in jail for a month and almost married,” Styles grumbled.

  “You and Cletus were a beautiful couple,” Mouse interjected.

  “Didn’t he send you a postcard at our last mail stop?” Wang asked, smugly.

  “Cut the crap and do your jobs!” Mia barked, a bit more forceful than she intended. “We can always make fun of Styles later.”

  “I’ll do my best to find someplace to hide, Captain,” Wang promised. “There shouldn’t be anything out there, though. We were trying to give anyplace occupied a wide berth.”

  She had been afraid of that, but Mia knew she needed to keep the crew calm and confident if they were going to survive. “Do your best and we’ll get through it, same as always.”

  The Phoenix’s crew was sometimes a bit lax in discipline, but Mia was proud of them and her ship. She had more than her fill of military decorum during the Sundering Wars, and now she was content to run her ship and crew much like any other family, with a mixture of anarchy and authoritarian discipline in the right measure.

  Wells discovered the Phoenix mothballed as a cargo merchant marine vessel in the surplus stockyards five years ago. She had survived the Sundering Wars, much like Mia had, damaged, mostly intact, and decommissioned. Mouse and the crew had made hundreds of minor alternations, legal and otherwise, but it was Mia who transformed it into a home.

  The Captain slid into the starboard gun turret station, seat-belted herself, and logged in. Wang’s steady voice provided running commentary on the ship’s status. “Entering real space in five. Four. Three. Two. One.”

  The transition from hyperspace always turned her stomach. She had heard the science lectures dozens of times, but the math never really settled properly in her brain; quantum this, entanglement that. Mia imagined it akin to a pebble skipping across a pond, as the ship bounced off the slipstream filament that lead them through the emptiness of hyperspace, and then quickly sinking as gravity took hold.

  Unconsciously, she grabbed at the arms of the gunnery station as she was hit with severe g-forces. Faint light from thousands of stars quickly dotted the darkness. Sensors caught three blips on the screen. Her targeting computer quickly locked onto the ships and started calculating firing solutions.

  Two of the fighters were waiting for the Phoenix in a classic crossfire. An old frigate, painted black with a white sigil bearing skull and crossbones, blocked the Phoenix’s flight path. None of the ships broadcast a Colonial ID, which was illegal, even out on the rim. She accessed the com-link and set it for a wide band ship-to-ship communication. “This is Captain Mia Wells of the Phoenix. Please be advised that we’re armed, we’re agitated, but we’re not looking for trouble.”

  “This is Captain Sergio from the Kalashnikov Fleet. Drop your cargo, Phoenix, and we’ll let you leave peacefully.”

  The Kalashnikov fleet was universally known for its savage piracy, distinct lack of mercy, and cowardice if it faced a fair fight.

  “Ed, you wall-eyed moron, is that you?”

  She could almost hear the groan across the void. If he paused long enough, she might be able to talk them out of a fight. Sergio’s voice crackled over the channel dripping with irritation. “Save yourself some time and heartache, Mia. Surrender the goods. Having a cute ass isn’t going to save you this time.”

  Mia’s voice turned to honey. “Ed, I just don’t understand where this hostility is coming from.”

  “You cut off my ear!”

  Mia grinned and tried not to laugh. “You had your hand on my ass, as I recall. I thought I was doing you a favour. A lonely guy like you needs your hand.”

  “If you don’t drop the goods I’m authorized to scuttle your ship.”

  “Ed, maybe you could turn your toy off and back away. Your fleet is spread out. You obviously didn’t expect a ship that could fight back.” The threat was implicit. The Phoenix had teeth, and taking her would be costly.

  “Mia, you can’t win,” Sergio replied with a bit of bravado. “We have you dead in a killbox. You can’t escape without us. We have gravity inductors.”

  “Then why are you scared, Ed?” Mia asked coyly. “I can smell the piss in your pants all the way in here.”

  The fighters fired across the Phoenix’s port. She had to admit that this was a solid trap. Who knew these clowns could be so smart? “You have one minute to dump the cargo,” Sergio stated, closing the channel.

  Mia switched to internal coms. “Mouse, how long until the fold engines recharge?”

  “I can cut the time down to fifteen minutes by charging the coils manually, Captain, but that’s dangerous if this end of the ship gets hit,” Mouse answered.

  It would be difficult to convince the pirates to shoot at the heavily shielded sections of the ship.
“Understood. Be careful. Wang, I’m not seeing anything on the scanner. Is there any place we can hide or anything we can put between us and them?”

  “There’s a huge comet about half a light-year away, that’s all that’s showing on my screens,” Wang reported.

  “That’s way too far to try to outrun them,” Mia muttered. “The fight will be over by then. How’s the scan of the frigate going?”

  “We’re being jammed, Captain, like you’d expect,” Wang explained. She could hear the sounds of keys being pressed quickly. “The thing is I served aboard a frigate of that class. Gravity inductors are fairly large and cumbersome. They must have gutted her to be able to carry them, much less power them. I’m seeing rail-gun ports, but I can’t tell if they are charged or not.”

  That was the first bit of good news since she woke. “That dumbass would have killed us by now if they were. If they had weapons, they wouldn’t be jamming us.”

  “You sure, Captain?”

  “I paid for this ship by beating that fool in cards. He still can’t bluff worth a damn.” Mia thought for a moment. “Styles, what about the fighters?”

  “Those are Starhawks, Captain. Cheap, but effective at short range. Not strictly military; mostly used in Corp Security. They’ll fall apart pretty easy if we can hit them, but that’s going to be a trick. Those suckers are fast and manoeuvrable. Both of them are on different axis than we are. We can’t escape one without making ourselves vulnerable to the other.”

  “OK, Wang, we’re going to go for an inverse deep loop around the frigate and then head for the comet,” Mia ordered. “That will protect our backside and only give one of the fighters a place to attack.”

  “I thought the comet was too far,” Styles said, surprise heavy in his tone.

  “If it looks like we have a destination, maybe they’ll chase us while Mouse is manually charging the coils. Otherwise, they might just decide to use us for target practice on account of feeling annoyed.”

  “Captain, I don’t know that the engines will take that loop when I’m doing a manual charge,” Mouse warned. “Internal gravity inducers will be pushed hard.”

  “I don’t see that we have a lot of choice in the matter, Mouse. I don’t expect that they will let us live, even if we do dump the cargo.” Mia thumbed through her screen. Mouse was right, but the risk was their only hope. “We can do this if everyone concentrates on their job and trust everyone else to do the same. Wang, punch it!”

  Wang set the thrusters for full. The Phoenix groaned as it moved forward on a collision course for the Kalashnikov frigate. As Mia expected, the Kalashnikov remained still. “The gravity inductor is taking up too much of their power, Captain. They can’t fire their railguns unless they shut it down,” Wang said. The screen showed their vector and she hoped Sergio wasn’t suicidal today.

  “I imagine they spread their fleet out hoping to get lucky,” Mia said. “He didn’t expect us to fight back. Speaking of which, Styles, once those solutions are through open up.”

  As the Phoenix began to turn in a slow arc towards the frigate, the port gun turret slowly locked onto one of the Starhawks. The small ship made a rapid strafing run towards the Phoenix, firing its twin auto-cannons into the topside hull. The ship was moving too fast for the firing solutions.

  The other Starhawk engaged its engines and began to follow the Phoenix. As Mia hoped, it needed to move around the frigate before it fired. The Phoenix passed over the Kalashnikov and its powerless railguns. Mia accepted the first solution for the frigate and fired, pounding it unmercifully with her cannon. A line of brief fiery explosions dotted the frigate.

  The Starhawk trailing the Phoenix seemed content to follow her over the frigate, but at the apex of its arc, it turned ninety degrees and raced under the frigate instead. “I lost Starhawk Two. It’s not showing on my scanner,” Mia announced.

  Styles continued allowing the computer to adjust and fire at will. The small ship maneuverer parallel to the Phoenix. The trap locked the fighter into the firing arcs of both cannons! Style’s weapons began a rapid series of controlled bursts forcing the Starhawk to weave and dodge, but it couldn’t escape the sheer magnitude of the volleys in time. Style’s computer managed to tag the Starhawk with several bursts before it sputtered completely out of his attack arc. “Starhawk One’s hit and dropping right to you.”

  “I knew there was a reason I kept you around, Styles, besides your cooking.

  Starhawk One turned under the belly of the Phoenix, hoping to lock into a strafing run. As the fighter turned towards the Phoenix, the Phoenix began to rotate starboard. Starhawk One unknowingly zoomed into the dead centre of Mia’s cannon range. The Phoenix’s Captain watched as the system locked onto the fighter and blasted it continuously until it exploded into a dazzling yellow and blue ball of fire and metal. As the oxygen dissipated, the flames snapped away leaving a floating field of debris.

  Wang continued to keep one eye on the scanners and the other on piloting the ship. “Starhawk Two is coming up under us!”

  “Turn into him! Protect our ass!”

  Mia’s order came too late. Wang tried to turn the Phoenix away from the frigate and towards the second Starhawk, but the big ship was too slow. Starhawk Two used manoeuvring thrusters to level itself and fired into the rear of the ship. The Phoenix bucked wildly as a section of the hull exploded. Lights and power flickered throughout the entire ship. “Wang, bring us about! Mouse, you OK?”

  Wang replied affirmative and Mia could feel the subtle shift of the Pheonix’s. Mouse’s line was silent. “Mouse? Mouse?”

  “Internal scanners are down, but it looks like we have a couple of hull breeches. Looks like the engine room’s been sealed,” Wang reported.

  “Captain, you want me to go get her?” Styles asked.

  “Stay where you are, or we’ll all be dead,” Mia barked. “Run those cannons manually if you have to, but get that fighter.”

  “Starhawk Two is coming around,” Wang said.

  “Turn to face that son of bitch!” Mia ordered. “Get him inside of both our arcs!”

  “The gravity inductor has stopped broadcasting. The frigate is likely powering up her railguns,” Wang reported. “We need to get out of here.”

  “Ignore the frigate for the moment. It needs to turn to get a lock on us. Get us into position on that Starhawk.”

  The Phoenix rolled towards the Starhawk. The Phoenix’s long, narrow nose pointed directly down at the fighter. Mia and Styles pumped the load levers so the cannon could continuously fire. The fighter was reduced to fragments. A large section of metal hull slammed directly into the view port of Mia’s gunnery pit, creating a long serpentine crack.

  “Railguns are charging.”

  “Dealing with a crack. Styles, target the rail gun ports. I’ll join you as soon as I can.” Mia flipped the lid on the emergency locker.

  She pulled a roll of thick hull seal tape from the box and started to patch the crack, trying to keep it from expanding. As Wang flew the Phoenix into an attack position, the frigate quickly rotated into view. Oxygen and water vented from the previous attack. It froze and scattered into a low orbit around the frigate. The Phoenix had managed to knock out its communication dish and port thrusters during the previous volley.

  Styles began firing upon the frigate’s starboard thrusters after there were no sure solutions for the ports, hoping to hobble the ship and leave it without manoeuvrability. Mia lost a full rotation in vision and had to allow the systems to do the bulk of the work. She dropped the tape, checked her screen and joined Styles, pouring fire into the Kalishnikov’s engines. Explosions pocked the frigate.

  “Captain, the frigate’s showing an energy cascade. I think we’re about to get a fireworks display.”

  “Get us out of here, Wang!”

  Slowly, the Phoenix pulled away from the frigate. “I’m having trouble getting a response from the main engines!”

  “Styles, meet me in the engine room!” Mia said,
knowing what would happen if they were too close to the frigate’s explosion.

  Mia unlocked her safety harness, slipped out of the egg-shaped station, and raced down the hall. She was joined by a tall, thin man with dark skin and a short afro. He stood in front of the engine room’s sealed door while pulling on a sleek black EVA suit with exo skeleton. It reminded her of a natural beetle she once saw on New Earth shortly after she enlisted.

  She pulled another suit out of the locker near the airlock. Once she was dressed, Styles cranked the giant crusty wheel, slowly unlocking the sealed door. Mia and Styles stepped inside the airlock and closed the door behind them.

  “Wang, we’re going to try to access the engine room. Do your best to get us out of here. Get us to that comet.” She slapped her hand on Styles’ back; he turned and looked at her though the helmet shield. “Can you cycle us through?” He shook his head.

  Styles indicated the internal hatch. The control panel had been burned out, and the 02 meter on the bulkhead showed that all of the oxygen had been vented. Mia spun the locking wheel and the inner door swung outwards into the bay. She scanned the room. The breech and subsequent explosion had disabled the primary engines. The engines appeared intact, but a variety of metal and plastic-covers had been strewn throughout the compartment. It looked like someone had taken sledgehammers to everything else of value in the compartment. It would take Mouse weeks to put everything back in order.

  “Mouse,” she called over the suits system. Did she have time to get into an EVA suit? Or was she locked in a secure cabin somewhere.

  “She could have been sucked out the hole,” Style said, indicating the rent in the hull.

  “Let’s not panic just yet. There are two life hutches in the back. She’s a clever girl.”

  Styles checked the starboard life hutch, but it was empty. Mia discovered the other hutch sealed closed. She wiped away the condensation and peered through the tiny view port to see a short mop of blue hair shivering. Mia toggled her suit com to connect with the hutch. “Mouse, you OK?”

  A thin, Eurasian, girlish face popped up to porthole, and waved slowly. Her face was bloodied and bruised, but she smiled at the sight of Mia. She covered her mouth and nodded. Mia nodded in return. There wasn’t a suit in the hutch so Mouse was trapped until they could fix the breech.

  “Wang, are we out of the blast zone?” Mia asked.

  A small rattle vibrated throughout the ship. She knew from battle experience that it was the debris field from a massive explosion. Wang answered the com sheepishly. “We managed to clear the most of the trouble, Captain.” Mia waited, there was more, she could hear it in his voice. “Got a few small holes to deal with though.”

  “Mouse is alive. We’re going to patch the holes down here and then let her out of the hutch.”

  His audible sigh of relief carried over the comlink. Wang wasn’t alone with the sentiment. They nearly lost Mouse and as she thought more about the situation, they had nearly lost the ship as well.

  Mia and Styles diligently worked to patch the various holes flexbond plates and two spare metal hull plates. Mouse would complain and redo the jobs later once they made a space dock, but it would get them on their way and free Mouse. Once air was pumped back into the engine compartment and some smaller leaks repaired with pressure goo, Mia cycled the hutch’s door and let Mouse out.

  Crying, bruised, and bloody, the thin woman hugged Mia. Mouse was technically an adult, but at times she looked twelve. “Captain, I couldn’t control it. I heard the explosions and got in the hutch!”

  “You did the right thing,” Mia said, checking her wounds.

  Mouse’s right arm had been badly cut and burned by the explosion. Wang had a smidge of medic training from the Academy, so he cleaned the wound as best he could and then used a quick skin to repair the burns.

  Mia hated to ask her mechanic for anything in this state, but they needed the primary engines online otherwise it was going to be a very slow journey home. “Mouse, I need you to take a look around the engine room and tell me what’s what, Styles and I will get to work while you rest up for a while.” She turned to the others. “Wang, once we reach the comet scan it to see if it has anything we can use. Styles do a run through of our supplies and see if you can work up something to eat. I’ll restock the weapon loaders and help Mouse until you get back.”

  They separated, each leaving to complete their individual tasks. Mia checked the ammunition, they’d wasted a lot and there wasn’t much to put in the reloaders. Chavez had offered her enough credits to pay off what she owed on the Phoenix, restock all the weapons and actually pay the crew on time. This was a run she couldn’t refuse, but what could be in the cargo that was worth the Kalashnikov risking trouble with Chavez? Surely he would have known what she was carrying to risk so much.

  The four of them sat in the galley, sipping coffee and glancing at datapads. Mia was the first to speak. “OK, I could use some good news about now.”

  “We’re at the ass-end of space, Captain. Nothing out there, except a comet. If Mouse can repair the engine, it would take us ten years to get someplace civilized in normal space. Sensors are limited and communications are dead,” Wang reported grimly.

  “Even if we could call for help, the pirates could track us down, and this trip would end quickly,” Mia said. “Not much ammo and I think we lost some of the weapons computer, it fuzzes when I ask for solution to simple problems.”

  “The good news is that I think I can repair the engines,” Mouse said, her little voice the only brightness in the room. “We should have enough power to run up the main drive. The bad news is that the fold coils are broken. I might be able to jerry-rig something to help us limp back to a port, but we need a dense metal filament to contain the jump,” Mouse said, defeated, losing the small light that had shone.

  “What about salvaging the remains of those Kalashnikov turds? Or making our own?” Styles asked hopefully.

  “We could look, but I wouldn’t expect much,” Mouse answered. “The engine room had a containment leak. Anything that survived would be so hot with radiation that we’d burn alive just trying to take it on board.”

  “Well, I had better luck with provisions. Enough for six months if we go light, but only a month’s worth of water,” Styles said.

  Mia sipped her coffee a bit and considered her options. “How far away is that comet?”

  Wang tapped his pad and did the math. “About six hours, Captain.”

  “How large is it?”

  “Big,” Wang admitted. “It looks about the size of a very small moon, and there appears to be a shell of ice covering and trailing it.”

  “Is this comet on the charts?” Mia asked, getting an idea.

  Wang scowled. He liked to impress and didn’t like admitting not knowing something. “I haven’t found it yet, but I’d imagine that something like this would be listed on the nav charts.”

  Mia patted her pilot on the shoulder. “We survived. That counts for something. Styles made us a proper meal. Let’s celebrate.” She turned towards her mechanic. “Styles and I will be your hands, and we’ll get the engine room fixed as best we can. Never know we might find something on the hunk of ice.”

  “Won’t the Kalashnikov Fleet find us?” Mouse asked, fearful.

  “They had to stay radio silent so they wouldn’t alert us. So I’m hoping the failed welcoming party won’t be missed for a couple of days. I’m guessing they didn’t know exactly the who’s, what’s, or when’s of the situation and just tried to take advantage. By the time they figure out, we might be able to find us some cover.”

  They ate slowly, savouring the food and grateful to be alive. When they were finished, Styles helped Mouse into the engine room. Mia and Styles took turns following Mouse's vague directions to fix the engines and reboot the power systems. Three hours later, the main engines were spiralling unevenly, but running. Mouse swore that she would right the ship as soon as possible, but Mia was just glad they ha
d proper power again.

  Once the engines were running, Wang rechecked their intercept course for the comet and engaged the main drive, it would shorten the time having more power to burn. While Styles cooked dinner and Mouse tinkered in the engine room, Mia and Wang sat in the command cabin, staring at the unfamiliar stars. “You don’t look too happy, Captain.”

  Mia shrugged at her petite pilot. Wang was a short, boyishly handsome man who could almost always get her to smile. It was difficult to believe that this pretty face had been a deadly fighter pilot during the war. “I can’t explain it, Johnny. There’s something odd gnawing at my insides that I just can’t explain.”

  Wang dropped his smile. “That weird gut of yours saved us more than once. I’ll keep on guard.”

  Mia waved away his concern. “There’s no one out there. It’s just nerves. If we’re lucky, we might not starve to death getting home.”

  “Speaking of home, I’ve figured out our exact position. We’re really far past the rim of known space.” Wang pointed to a bright star in the distance. “That’s Sol 1.”

  “Really? Are you sure?” It was like seeing a ghost of a murdered friend. “I remember looking in the sky as a little girl. My father used to point to the light in the sky to remind me where we came from. The light faded a few years after he died.”

  Talking about the stars was the only time when the sarcasm dropped from Wang’s voice. “It could be; I am grasping for ideas at the moment, Captain. We all are.”

  She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. “I hate to break up the philosophy lesson, but my stomach is feeling awfully neglected. Let’s check on what Styles is cooking and then look tomorrow.”