by Dietmar Wehr
“If she fought and won against several warships then she’s no ordinary freighter,” said Carew. “It’s so nice of the HRCN destroyers to broadcast data on all ship movements within this system for the last two months. Check back to see when Diamond K entered that wormhole.” Carew saw the Helm Officer’s expression suddenly turn to one of surprise.
“There’s no record that she was anywhere in this system during the last sixty days, Skipper.”
“Then how…I wonder…is it possible she found a different route to get to the super-giant at the other end of the wormhole she just came out of?”
“That would certainly explain the lack of data, but it could also be as simple an explanation as having entered that wormhole more than sixty days ago. There’s a way to check that too.”
Carew knew what the HO was getting at. This was not the first time Crystal Stardust had transited AG47, and their current data dump from the destroyers wasn’t the only time they’d gotten that kind of data. By looking at older versions, they could check further back in time beyond the last 60 days. It didn’t take long to check all the data.
“We have data going back a hundred forty-four days with no gaps, and that ship doesn’t show up at all until now. I think you’re right, Skipper. She’s not returning the way she came.”
“Which means she’s found another wormhole connection that starts somewhere else inside human space. Yes, I think Head Office is going to be very interested to hear that.” Carew returned to his Command Station chair and smiled as he rechecked the tactical display. Not only would Head Office be interested but so would his contact with Paradyne Interstellar and P.I. was willing to pay a nice bonus for this kind of information.
Eleven days later:
Steele sat quietly while Admiral DeChastelain reviewed Steele’s report. The Admiral sighed, put down the data tablet, and leaned back in his impressive chair.
“I’ve read your report three times, but I wanted to make sure I remembered the highlights. You do realize that you’ve just written your next assignment. The kind of forensic, detailed inspection and salvage effort that you’ve described is going to need specialized equipment and supplies that a warship can’t carry but Diamond K could. If you were thinking that you and your crew were going to have a month off, think again, Captain. Because it’s going to take time to get the personnel and equipment assembled and installed, especially the decontamination gear, the best that you can hope for is a couple of weeks.”
Steele nodded glumly. He was actually surprised that the Admiral was willing to wait as much as two weeks given how tantalizing that derelict must be to the Chief of Space Operations for the HRC Navy, but two weeks was better than nothing.
“What about my request for installation of the long-range detection system, Admiral?”
“If the engineers can install it without causing additional delay, you can have it although I don’t see why you think you might need it. It’s unlikely that another ship from the same alien race will arrive during the short time Diamond K will be in the black hole system.”
“Short time? I don’t see—”
The Admiral cut him off with a wave of a hand. “The plan is to bring that derelict all the way back here, if possible, while the inspection team continues their work on board. I know that’s not what your report recommends, but my staff does, and I’ll breathe a lot easier if that derelict is in some other system.”
“How is my ship supposed to do that exactly?”
“Using missile boats as tugs the same way you used them at the New Troy super-giant. Only this time, Diamond K will carry four of them, and they’ll be configured for remote control. Your ship will also carry additional Bravo drones to leave behind.”
Steele got over his surprise quickly. He could see the benefits of bringing it back to the Caledonian system and with four missile boats operating 24 hours a day, moving the derelict to a wormhole shouldn’t be a problem but what about the final leg of the trip from a super-giant to here?
“How is the FTL leg of the trip going to work, Admiral?”
DeChastelain nodded. “Good question. My staff hasn’t quite figured that out yet, and there may not be a solution. We may have to leave in a super-giant system. The next one over from the black hole that leads to AG47 might be close enough. It at least has some planets that can be used for system navigation and it’s not all that much farther from Caledonia by FTL than AG47 is. AG47 has too much merchant traffic. It’d be hard to keep the derelict a secret with freighters constantly moving between wormholes. They’re bound to notice our ships coming and going even if we’re not transmitting IDs.”
“That intermediate super-giant would work. There are a couple of gas giant planets with lots of moons where the derelict could be put into stable parking orbits,” said Steele.
“Exactly. This recovery and salvage project is going to be a long-term thing. If the engineers can justify it, we might even build a shipyard there to take that derelict apart.”
Steele thought for a bit before speaking. “Are we going to tell anyone else about the derelict?”
“That hasn’t been determined yet. The Navy’s opinion and recommendation to the government is no, at least not yet. Some of the civilian advisers are saying we should at least tell neighboring star nations that could potentially come into contact with the race that built that ship to get them prepared in case that happens. I’m of the opinion that telling them about the aliens could motivate people like King Pierre to go out and actively look for them! And if we tell Socorro, the Imperium and others, how long do you think it’ll be before the secret leaks to the Alliance?”
Steele chuckled. “Not long. And when the Alliance learns about the derelict, they’re going to insist on having access to it and maybe even control over it.”
DeChastelain nodded; his expression grim. “Damn right they will and those bastards are just arrogant enough to send in a task force to take control, leaving us with the difficult decision to either let them have it or draw a line in the sand and dare them to step over it with all the chaos a war with the SAN would mean!”
Steele waited to make sure the Admiral was finished speaking and then said in a calm tone, “On the other hand, it might be good to have a unified response if, or should I say when, contact with that alien race is established. If they should prove to be hostile, I don’t think the HRCN will be able to stand up to them by itself. Do you, Admiral?”
DeChastelain took his time answering. When he did, his voice was low, and he spoke slowly. “If it looks like they’re hostile, then I’ll recommend bringing the SAN into the picture but not before then. Since you and your crew aren’t on the active Navy duty roster, you might think our security measures don’t apply to you. But believe me when I say that if any of your crew or you leak information about the derelict to the Alliance, you and they will regret it and you can then kiss good-bye to any chance of getting a warship command. Are we clear on that, Captain Steele?”
Steele was a little taken aback by the threatening tone of the Admiral’s response. Had his question touched a nerve?
“Yes, Admiral. That’s very clear.”
“Fine. Then you’re dismissed.”
It was three days later when Steele was informed that the new detection system would be installed on Diamond K.
Chapter Eighteen
Paradyne Interstellar Chairman Calvetti listened to the recording from the Crystal Stardust Captain and looked at the Executive Director who had replaced Brody Morganon who had managed to get himself killed at the battle of New Tory’s super-giant.
“That ship has been a goddamned pain in the neck for Paradyne, and I’d like nothing more than to turn that abomination of a ship into a wreck, but I don’t see how this piece of information helps us. So, they’ve found a new wormhole route. Why should I care about that?”
Mercer Chopra leaned forward to add emphasis to what he was about to say. “When I received this report, I had my staff do some checking. There a
re persistent rumors on Caledonia that the Diamond K was either involved in or happened to be nearby when the HRCN and the RSN clashed in AG38, which is on the other side of Caledonia from AG47. From the timing of those rumors, it appears as though that ship didn’t just find another route, it found a massive detour around that entire sector. AG38 seems to still be in a state of flux with an HRCN task force under Vice-Admiral Akane Hara retaining control for the moment. That begs the question of why Diamond K would take what has to be a long way around if AG38 is in friendly hands? My staff and I think the answer is that Captain Steele found something on the other side of one of the AG38 wormholes and Hara ordered him to take the long way home to prevent the RSN from suspecting anything. Now if it was just astrogational information about other super-giants, how would King Pierre’s ships suspect anything by Steele’s ship transiting AG38, especially if his ship travels stealthily? If the clash between those two navies in that system revolved around that particular wormhole, then the RSN might already suspect that there’s something unusual about it. I think it’s worth our effort to send some ships to explore the other side of the wormhole that Steele’s ship was seen emerging from and see if we can find that same route. After all, anyone can explore new systems. The HRCN aren’t preventing anyone from using that wormhole.”
“Which suggests they don’t care about it and therefore there’s nothing to find,” responded Calvetti.
“Ah, but that same logic can be used the other way around. If they did station a warship near that wormhole, people would wonder why. The other possibility is that Steele may have just found that alternate route and the HRCN hasn’t had time to deploy a warship there. If we get some ships through there first…”
“Hm. If we did try to find that route, we’d need more than one ship. How many would you estimate we’d need?” asked Calvetti.
“At least five and I think they should be armed. We have five surplus destroyers that we bought off the SAN for use in collecting transit fees. Now that that idea is pretty much dead in the water, they’re just sitting in parking orbits waiting for us to figure out what to do with them. I can arrange to divert some missile production from the customer queue to those ships, Chairman.”
“I’ll have to get Board approval for that but go ahead and get started while I get those approvals.”
As Chopra started to leave the Chairman’s inner office, Calvetti cleared his throat to get the Executive Director’s attention.
“Yes, Sir?”
“If we go ahead with this, and those destroyers come across Captain Steele and his damned Q-ship, and if they can deal with him without anyone knowing who they belong to…”
Chopra smiled. “I understand you perfectly, sir. I’ll see to it that the destroyer captains know what you expect of them.”
“Very good, Mercer.”
Captain Teresa Hardesty relaxed a bit when her squadron emerged into the blue super-giant star system at the other end of the AG47 wormhole. The star didn’t have an official designation yet, and the local layout of planets was unfamiliar, but at least the initial scan by her destroyer’s systems wasn’t showing anything unusual. She wiped some sweat off her brow and made a mental note to switch command to one of the other four destroyers when her squadron got back to base. After three weeks on board Iroquois, it was now painfully obvious why the Stellar Alliance Navy had declared her to be surplus and sold her off. Her life support needed a significant overhaul to keep all parts of the ship supplied with clean air at a comfortable temperature. The higher than average temperature was bad enough, but the metallic taste in her mouth and smell in her nose made her wonder if the old air treatment plant was malfunctioning and poisoning them all. The sooner she accomplished her mission, the sooner she could leave this stinking ship and spend the lucrative compensation that Paradyne had offered for her skill, ruthlessness, and discretion. She had studied every bit of available information on Captain Damascus Steele and his Q-ship. Her five destroyers should be able to cripple his Diamond K if she didn’t make any stupid mistakes. But first things first.
“Com. Pass the word to the squadron to deploy the search pattern.”
Within minutes each destroyer was headed for a different section of the star system looking for wormholes. Thirty-seven hours later they were back in a tight formation near the wormhole that AstroComp had decided was the one of the three they’d discovered that was most likely to connect with a super-giant that would also connect with AG38.
Hardesty has just finished holding a conference call with her other four captains. As much as they would have preferred otherwise, all five were agreed that entering this wormhole with low velocity in order to minimize transit turbulence was the wise choice in spite of the resulting long transit time. They’d been able to transit the wormhole from AG47 faster because Commodore Trajan had mapped it with his heavy cruiser before being destroyed by Steele and Diamond K. But this new wormhole was unexplored territory as far as she was concerned, and her five old destroyers were liable to shake themselves apart if the turbulence was too violent. She gave the order for the squadron to move into the wormhole.
Steele was eating lunch in the small but comfortable Officers’ Lounge on Diamond K when Hara’s reply to his initial message arrived. The ship was almost halfway to the wormhole leading from AG38 to the black hole system, and her answer had been relayed by Conquistador.
“Read the message to me, Lieutenant,” said Steele to the Com Officer over the ship’s intercom.
“Yes, sir. Hara to Mac. Did you have a nice vacation? Thanks for carrying the CSO’s message and for bringing Intrepid, Dauntless and Fearless. Nothing exciting has happened here since we tangled with those RSN battlecruisers. I’m surprised that no other RSN ship has arrived so far. Isn’t King Pierre curious as to why he hasn’t heard from his battlecruisers yet? I’m looking forward to hearing what your forensic and salvage teams come up with. End of message.”
“Nothing from Captain Lavrov yet?” asked Steele.
“No, Skipper. No chess move.”
“All right, thank you, Com.”
Steele returned his attention to his meal and his thoughts on how the mission would proceed. The ship carried eight Bravo drones this time. All would be used to mark the location of new wormholes as they were discovered. Since the black hole system didn’t have any planets, stationary transmitters on board the drones would act not only to mark the location of a wormhole but also serve as reference points to make navigating around the black hole easier. The two Bravo drones he’d left behind were a start, but more were needed. Diamond K would deploy its bravos while it made its way carefully to rendezvous with the derelict. NavComp had an approximate idea of where the derelict should be when the K arrived at that system, but they had so little data on how stable the derelict’s orbit really was that it might not be where NavComp thought it should be. The transmitter magnetically attached to the derelict’s hull during the last visit would help find it as would the newly installed detection system. He checked his chronometer and decided he had enough time for another cup of coffee before heading for the Bridge.
Hara watched with a strange sense of unease as Diamond K’s transponder ID disappeared from her tactical display, confirming that the ship had entered the black hole wormhole. She understood that because of the light speed lag and the five and a half minutes it took for the transponder’s signal to reach her that Diamond K had left this system almost six minutes ago, but it was the tactical display that made the event real for her. Good luck, Mac. She took a deep breath and turned her attention to other matters.
Chapter Nineteen
Hardesty blinked furiously as she tried to make sense of what the tactical display was telling her in the first few seconds after Iroquois emerged from the wormhole. Where was the goddamned super-giant star?
“Switch to visual,” she ordered. The visual display ahead of the ship made no sense either. Instead of a visible blue or red super-giant, there was nothing except what appeared
to be a tiny blurry circle of light with a black center. If it was a stellar object of some kind, it was either very far away or very small. Was that the something that Steele’s ship had discovered?
“Ah, Captain, either the wormhole we just came out of is accelerating away from us, or we’re being pulled away from it and damned fast too.”
She thought fast. “Helm. Reverse thrust but leave room for the rest of the squadron. I don’t want them slamming into us when they emerge. When you’ve done that, check with AstroComp as to what could be pulling us forward like this.” She turned to the Com Station.