by M. D. Cooper
Their first stop would be Ayrea, 73 light-years distant, where the ship would skip along the rim of the system before reaching the jump point on its far side. From there it was a 15 light-year hop to Pavonis, and then, ironically, they would pass through New Eden, the very system the Intrepid had been destined to colonize all those millennia ago. There, they would likely stop for fuel and supplies.
Tanis would get an up-close view the world she should have lived and died on long ago.
Sera replied.
Sera nodded absently as she reviewed the data for the final leg of their journey, the 28 light-years to Bollam’s World, and then to the Intrepid. The entire trip would cross nearly 140 light-years, or roughly 1.3 quadrillion kilometers. With an average FTL factor of 579, and their entry speed of 0.70c, the trip would take roughly ninety days, a hundred if they stopped in New Eden for fuel and post cards.
BREAK A FEW EGGS
STELLAR DATE: 07.27.8927 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Andromeda’s Pinnace, Tsarina Refinery, EK Belt
REGION: Bollam’s World System, Bollam’s World Federation
“Do you think it will work?” Jessica asked, a look of concern filling her eyes.
“Back in Sol? Hell no. Out here, who knows, maybe?” Joe replied. “Either way, we can’t just sit out here watching forever.”
“OK, sending the docking request now.”
Jessica sent the sequence, and Joe prayed it would work. It had taken them two weeks to get this far into the Bollam’s World system; during that time they had watched thousands of ships drop out of space—appearing to come from nowhere—and then drift into the system.
Most were small, some not significantly larger than the pinnace in which they flew. It hadn’t taken long for them to have no other conclusion than FTL.
Over the past months, as data streams had been stripped from insystem beacons, the crew of the Intrepid had strongly suspected that faster than light travel was in use—Earnest had been practically giddy at the prospect.
Now they were certain.
It opened up a world of possibilities—and made their whole struggle pointless. Joe knew it also meant that there was little reason to expect Tanis to be in Bollams’s World anymore. She could be anywhere in the entire galaxy, and if she hadn’t made it back to the Intrepid by now, things were likely not going well for her.
Still, they had to start somewhere.
He was glad for Jessica. She was able to put her worry aside and follow her investigative training. There was a lead, they would follow it and it would bring them to a new lead. To her, it was that simple.
“Station’s responded,” Jessica said a few minutes later. “We have a berth on the refinery’s north docking ring.”
“External docking for a ship this small?” Joe shook his head. “I don’t know what to make of this time…are they more or less advanced?”
“Beats me,” Jessica shrugged.
Joe looked over the flight path the station provided and lined the pinnace up for the approach.
The refinery was not a large installation; less than fifteen kilometers across, but the amount of traffic it supported impressed Joe. Hundreds of ships were in varying stages of approach and departure.
“These grav drives they seem to have sure do help them manage a higher volume of traffic,’ Jessica said, apparently on the same train of thought.
“I think it’s the lack of engine wash. There’s no worry about ion streams and plasma melting other ships or the station. It keeps the space lanes open.”
Jessica nodded absently. “Let’s hope they don’t mind us coming in the old fashioned way.”
Joe bit his lip as he worked to stay on course. “No kidding, this is threading one hell of a needle. Good thing we matched v further out. There’s no room for corrective burns when we get closer.”
The next several hours passed slowly as Joe worked to keep the ship in the pocket, while Jessica established a connection with the station and began querying its concierge AI for information on any recently recovered escape pods, or other salvage.
“Oh shit, here it is,” Joe said as the station’s traffic control opened a comm link.
“Vessel Andromeda 3, what are you doing approaching this facility with your torch on? Kill your fusion drive immediately and switch to grav drives!”
Joe took a deep breath and responded in his best space jock voice. “Ah, that’s a negative station; we had a blow-out on our graviton emitters and can’t make our approach with them. I’m right down the middle and about to switch to thrusters; ion dispersion systems show no wash will hit the station or other ships.”
He glanced at Jessica and crossed his fingers while they waited for the approach.
“I don’t care if you have God himself piloting that piece of crap. You don’t approach a station on your torch, and I certainly can’t have you chewing up that lane for the next hour. Kill your engine. I’m sending a tug out to pull you in the rest of the way. You better have an account open when you dock, because there are going to be some fines waiting for you.”
“Well that sucks balls,” Jessica said as the station cut the connection. “I don’t suppose they’ll take Sol credits.”
“Any chance you can see if we can get an account opened with a local bank with some credit?” Joe asked as he killed the fusion engine, switching attitude control to chemical thrusters.
“Whew,” Jessica said after a few minutes. “I guess they’re used to getting ships from all over. They have procedures for ships with no local accounts or registration to get credit. Granted, we have to put the pinnace up as collateral.”
Joe grinned. “We better not lose it; Corsia wouldn’t like it if we sold her best pinnace.”
The tug arrived, made grapple and half an hour later they were walking through their hatch onto the station’s docking ring.
Right into an irate station worker.
“Are you the morons that came in on their torch? What were you thinking?” she demanded.
Joe began to speak, but Jessica put her hand on the woman’s arm. “We’re terribly sorry about that. Things aren’t this busy or…as grand, where we’re from. Coming in on a torch is OK if you need to. We didn’t mean to cause trouble.”
The dockworker’s expression softened as she looked into Jessica’s batting eyes.
“Yeah, well, you’re core-side now. None of your fringe nonsense will fly here. You’ve got to sign this.”
The dockworker handed a sheet of plas to Jessica and she looked it over. “This is half our credit!” she gasped. “How are we going to refuel?”
“You better have some good cargo to trade on that little tub,” the dockworker shrugged. “You’re getting off with a wrist-slap. Usually you’d be impounded for what you did.”
Joe and Jessica exchanged glances, and Jessica passed her auth token to the plas before handing it back.
“I sure hope we do,” Jessica said with a nod. “Thank you.”
The woman cast them a curious look before tucking the plas under her arm and rushing down the dock, already yelling at a cargo
hauler at the next berth.
“Damn, we better have something of value here,” Jessica said. “Or we’re going to be calling Corisa for pickup real soon.”
A day later, and more drinks than either Joe or Jessica cared to recall, they had no leads on Tanis whatsoever. Returning to the pinnace, they strode out of a lift onto the docking ring to see two soldiers in powered armor standing outside their berth.
“Well that doesn’t loo—.” Jessica was interrupted by a rough voice to their left.
“Come with us.”
Joe turned to see several more soldiers. Their faces were invisible behind mirrored visors, but the tone of their leader’s voice brooked no argument. He looked back at Jessica who shrugged.
“Sure, where’re we going?” Joe asked as the leader—a corporal by her stripes—gestured for them to step back into the lift.
“Questioning.” Was the only response.
When the lift stopped, the corporal and his unit led them through a series of corridors, to another lift. Another squad of soldiers, also in powered armor, guarded this one. They directed Joe and Jessica to step through an auth scanner.
The scanner must have seen something it didn’t like and called the corporal over to confer with another soldier. Their faces were obscured by their helmets, but Joe had no doubt who was the subject of conversation.
After a few minutes, the corporal walked back to them.
“Your cellular structure is…abnormal,” he said to Joe. “It doesn’t appear to be dangerous, but don’t even think of trying anything.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Joe replied.
The corporal nodded and directed them into the open lift door.
Joe and Tanis stepped in, and the rest of the squad filed in after them. When the doors opened again, they revealed a bustling corridor filled with personnel in what Joe assumed were the Bollam’s World military uniforms.
“Wait here,” the corporal directed before moving down the corridor and knocking on a door. The remainder of his squad directed Joe and Jessica away from the lift entrance, their stances alert and wary.
“You can relax a little bit, guys,” Jessica said. “We may look tough, but we’re really quite nice.”
None of the soldiers replied and Jessica sighed. “Real bunch of hard cases here.”
“You’d behave the same way in their shoes,” Joe replied.
“No, I’d probably behave worse; these guys haven’t made fun of us once.”
Down the corridor, the corporal stepped back into view, this time with her helmet tucked under her arm. A uniformed woman wearing a major’s insignia accompanied her.
The woman approached, her expression steely as she eyed them over. Joe noticed that the squad guarding them stiffened as the major drew closer.
“So you’re who all this is about, then?” she asked.
“Glad to meet you,” Joe extended his hand. “I’m Joe and this is Jessica.”
The woman gazed at his extended hand and then replied brusquely, “I’m Major Akido.” Without another word, she turned and strode down the hall, gesturing for them to follow.
Joe looked down at his outstretched hand and shrugged. “Maybe it’s not a greeting here.”
“Oh it is,” one of the soldiers gave a low chuckle. “She just doesn’t extend pleasantries to much of anyone, least of all, folks like you.”
“Who are folks like us?” Joe asked.
The corporal shot a look at the soldier and the man clammed up.
A minute later, they reached their destination, a non-descript conference room. The major took a seat on one side and gestured for Joe and Jessica to sit across from her.
Major Akido leaned back in her chair and stared each of them in the eyes for several minutes. Eventually she let out a long sigh.
“So where is it?” she finally asked.
“Where is what?” Joe replied.
“Your ship, where is it?” the major’s tone was terse and brooked no evasion.
“It’s in the dock, we were on our way there when your guys brought us here,” Jessica replied with a frown.
The major leaned forward. “Cut the shit you two. Your colony ship, where is it?”
Joe couldn’t hide his surprise. He glanced at Jessica who also appeared rather shocked.
“It’s outsystem, we’re just here to find someone who went missing.”
Major Akido’s brow furrowed into a deep frown. “Missing? How did someone on your colony ship go missing here?”
“We had an accident,” Joe replied. “She had to eject in an escape pod, and by the time we got to her reported position, she was gone.”
The major didn’t respond immediately, and Jessica jumped in with a question of her own.
“How did you know that we’re from a colony ship? Why would you even look for that?”
“Your ship, for starters. Your graviton emitters aren’t broken, they’re not present—neither is your grav drive. No grav drive means no FTL. If that’s the case, then your shuttle didn’t just jump in outside the system, you came in a different ship. Only two types of ships lurk out there sending in small shuttles. Enemy militaries and lost colony ships. But no military would do such a crap job sending in spies, so it was pretty simple.”
Joe whistled. “So this happens a lot? Colony ships just wind up on your doorstep?”
“Not a lot, but often enough,” Major Akido said with a shrug. “Isotope analysis of your shuttle confirmed that it is of Sol manufacture, sometime in the early fifth millennium. That sealed it.”
“So what next?” Joe asked.
“We’re going to want to speak to your captain,” the major leaned back and smiled.
NEW EDEN
STELLAR DATE: 10.06.8927 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sabrina, Scattered Disk
REGION: New Eden System, Eden Alliance
Sabrina transitioned out of the dark layer into the New Eden system at the precise location Cheeky planned.
“Nailed it!” Cheeky shouted as the system nav buoy confirmed their location. “Pay up, Cargo.”
Cargo sighed and flipped her a Silstrand token. “I can’t believe you pulled that off. Your vector looked totally out of whack back at Ayrea.
“Or so you thought,” Cheeky chuckled.
Tanis only half-heard their banter as she reviewed the local scan data.
New Eden was a booming system. Tens of thousands of ships plied its space lanes; it boasted three terraformed worlds, up from the original two, which the FGT had left for the Intrepid. It took conscious effort to keep herself from becoming morose at the thought.
er mind.
Tanis nodded absently. Sabrina’s captain was a frequent topic of conversation between her and Angela. They both harbored doubts that Sera could live up to her end of the deal.
Angela stopped as both she and Tanis saw the same scan data roll in.
“There are eleven AST dreadnaughts passing through the system!” Tanis called out.
“There are what?” Sera said, half out of her chair as Tanis brought the scan data up on the bridge’s main holo.
“That’s rather usual,” Cargo said calmly.
“Understatement of the year,” Cheeky tossed a scowl his way. “New Eden and the AST aren’t exactly on the friendliest of terms, not since that little war they had a few decades ago.”
Tanis remembered reading about that conflict. New Eden lay on the spin-ward edge of AST space, and was under constant pressure from the core worlds to join their alliance. New Eden preferred its independence and maintained a sizeable space force to ensure they retained it. They would lose to a full assault from the AST’s military, but they were capable of making the effort too costly for any aggressor.
“They must have pulled some sort of serious diplomatic shit to be here right now,” Sera said in awe.
“Doesn’t look like the locals are too trusting either,” Tanis said. “Almost half their fleet is shadowing those dreadnaughts.”