Harvest End

by Max Dane

  “What?” She looked confused.

  “Well, I can’t do any more here tonight,” he said looking over the results on his screen. “Come on, it’s late, I’ll walk you to your quarters.”

  He switched off the navigation console and helped her stand up. Together they made their way back through the ship, headed to the crew’s quarters.

  “If you want to have another drink, I could help you with your nav problem.”

  “Thanks, Sarah, maybe tomorrow.”

  They arrived at her quarters. He helped her inside and laid her carefully on the bed.

  As she began to drift off, she mumbled, “It’s the math. It’s always the math.”

  “Thanks, Sarah.”

  He closed her door and went to his cabin, believing very much that she was right. ‘Could it be the acceleration that is inconsistent?’ Maybe Lukas was running some new efficiency routine on the Juliet’s main drive engines. It might explain a lot.

  Before he went to sleep, he called Lukas in engineering.

  In moments the engineer’s face appeared on his screen. He looked like he’d fallen asleep down there.

  “Sorry to wake you, Mr. Beck, I know it’s late. I have a question and took a chance you might still be in engineering.”

  With a big yawn, the man wiped his eyes and said, “Yes, sir, what can I do for you?”

  “Lukas, is there anything going on, maybe something new with the engines?”

  “What? I don’t understand; what do you mean exactly?”

  “Have you done anything that might make them more efficient, faster, that sort of thing?”

  “No, sir. They are due for a routine maintenance check in about three months, but nothing more than that. I believe they’re running within the standard parameters right now.”

  “Okay, Lukas, thanks. Sorry to have bothered you.” Bowman hit the kill switch and the screen went black. It simply confirmed what the diagnostics had already said, namely that the engines were operating as they should. Frustrated, he laid down in his bunk. Tomorrow, he would go over this with Dr. Stiles.

  Adare System, The Ajax

  “Good evening, Doctor, it’s a pleasure to have you here for dinner.”

  Dr. Layton sat down, and nodded down the long table in the captain’s personal dining room. Three other officers were dining as well.

  “Thank you for meeting with me, Captain Holt.”

  “Yes, of course, please let me introduce my first officer, Micha Alwin and my pilot and navigator, Daniel Keating, and Mathis Eton. And this is Dr. Janos Layton, regional director for the system Science Council, and the science advisor for the duration of this mission.” They rose and one-by-one shook the doctor’s hand.

  Dr. Layton noticed the decor around the room, lots of brass and dark wood, antiques he guessed from a bygone age. “This is quite the dining room you have, Captain.”

  “It’s not quite what they have in the big capital ships, but for the Ajax, it will do I think.”

  Finn smiled, he decorated the room himself, mostly a lot of things that belonged to his father. It made him feel closer to home, even when they were working out on the fringe like today.

  “Doctor, I estimate we have another six days before we arrive at the jump to the Canis system.”

  “Yes, Captain. Will you be stopping at the colony there?”

  “New Brazil? No, I want to finish our mission as quickly as possible, and return home.”

  “Where is home, Captain?”

  “I have family on Earth, Dr. Layton. But we’ve spent so much time on duty around the colonies in Barnard’s Star that I’m coming to feel at home there as well.”

  The kitchen staff entered and brought the main course, moving quickly to and from each place setting.

  “I hope you like fish, Doctor, I can have the cook put something else together for you, if you prefer.”

  “No, this is fine. Thank you, Captain Holt.”

  “My crew and I were surprised at the drills you requested, Captain.”

  Finn smiled, the good doctor was very outspoken. It was a good thing; it meant that they would understand each other quickly.

  “Yes, Doctor, the drills will serve to build a relationship between our crews. And they might just keep us alive if we encounter problems around the Lester Colony. Entering an unknown situation can be dangerous.”

  “Have you been in combat before, Captain Holt?”

  “Yes, actually.” Finn filled his wine glass, and passed the bottle down the table. “We have been part of several campaigns to put down piracy threats around the edges of the colonies. We were also there when the Red Sun Hegemony tried to break from the empire.”

  “Really? I understood that to be a very short skirmish,” said the doctor dryly.

  Finn wiped his mouth and set the napkin down. “Short perhaps, Doctor, but it was a very bloody coup coordinated across three colonies. The fleet engaged and destroyed a fair number of dissident ships in that conflict. A lot of people died. It was not quick nor pleasant.”

  “Yes, of course, Captain. I meant no disrespect.”

  Finn earned his captain’s rank in that battle. After several strikes to the midsection of the battle cruiser, Long Stride, the captain had suffered a concussion and wounds effectively putting his first officer, a very young and very green, Finn Holt in command. Finn had taken control of the situation and put down four dissident ships attempting to flank the fleet. It was his first real command; a lot of people died that day. He wasn’t happy about the outcome, but he did what was necessary. His father had been proud.

  Afterward, he was recognized for his part, promoted to captain and given a ship of his own. The last two years since had been a blur of pirate skirmishes, one after the next. They were fast and decisive, perfect for a destroyer like the Ajax. At last count they had put down some thirty-seven pirate vessels ranging from the mid-sized marauder class to the very, very small black-market privateers.

  “Doctor, would you mind going over the details of our mission again for my officers?”

  Layton sipped his wine and nodded, “Yes, of course.”

  “Dr. Layton, I understand that communications have ceased with Lester’s Colony. Is that correct?” It was the ship’s pilot, Daniel Keating. Keating had been with Finn since command school back on Earth. Curious now, he was the most imaginative of the group.

  “That’s right, Mr. Keating. A few weeks ago, a merchant ship called the Juliet, filed an incident report with the port authority in New Dublin. They claim that during their stay, the entire colony collapsed into sand.”

  “Sand?”

  “Yes, well, technically their science officer, a Dr. Alex Stiles, said it was more of a powdery residue.”

  “What about the colonists there, what did they say?”

  “Well, there are none, Mr. Keating. According to the crew of the Juliet, everything was changed, the buildings, the electronics, vehicles, ships… and the people. Everything.”

  “Do you think it was a new weapon of some kind, Doctor? Maybe something being tested by the dissidents?”

  Finn had read the report compiled by the Science Council. It was interesting, but it still had a lot of holes. “Actually Daniel, that’s the reason we’re on this mission. We will escort the Science Council vessel to the colony so that they may assess the nature of the incident. In the event of conflict with dissident ships, we will weigh the probability of victory against the value of the scientific evidence gathered by Dr. Layton’s crew. Priority will be given to returning with answers, any conflict will be secondary.”

  “If indeed, it is a weapon at all,” said Dr. Layton.

  “What do you mean, Doctor?” Keating said.

  “We don’t have enough facts to know what happened at Lester’s Colony. But the Science Council is unaware of any Earth Fleet weapon design that could leave such an effect. If we discover that this is a prototype of some new weapon, it would have to be from the dissident arsenal, and that would be quit
e a surprise.”

  “Then what do you think happened, Doctor?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. This is an interesting case.” He finished his wine, and stood up. “Thank you, Captain, it was a wonderful dinner and a pleasure to visit with your officers. I believe I shall return to my ship and wait for the next jump. Perhaps we can do this again before we get to Cetus.”

  “Yes, very good, Doctor. Safe voyage to all of us.”

  Finn and the officers stood at attention as the doctor made his way out.

  Finn sat back down and finished his dessert. “Thanks, everyone, it was good to introduce you to our science advisor for the mission, Dr. Layton. Please feel free to contact him if you have additional questions.”

  “Captain, what do you think is happening out there?”

  Finn leaned back in his chair, and let out a long sigh. “I think someone did something terrible to a level three colony. I hope we can discern who did it and why. And then I want to get the hell out.”

  Hours later, Finn was in his cabin looking at the science report again. Maybe they would get lucky and this would all be a mistake. Hopefully the colonists were recovering from some natural catastrophe, an earthquake or an equatorial storm-head, that sort of thing. Even now, they might be in shelters underground, or on another land mass, or even in orbit. Hopefully.

  Rigel Star System, New Rome

  The company owner, Mr. Salice, was angry.

  He reached into the box and pulled out another circuit board, identical to the first five they had just examined. He held it up and ran his finger across the surface. The circuits, chips and solder dissolved into a sandy powder under his touch. He looked across the factory floor at a hundred other workstations, all of them with the same boards. And all of them ruined.

  “You’re telling me that yesterday, these boards were in pristine condition?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He dropped the board back in the box. “Well, I’ve been doing business here for nearly fifteen years and I’ve never seen anything like this before. Not once, not ever.”

  He looked at the faces of the men standing around him. His personal staff, trusted employees every one. The condition of the boards screamed industrial espionage.

  ‘But, why now? And why these boards?’

  The cost of replacing the defective circuit boards would rob him of any profits for the next two, maybe three months, painful yes, but he would hardly be hurt by it. Why then would someone want to ruin his supply of common electronics supplies?

  It didn’t add up.

  “Call the colony Security Office, tell them to send someone over. Show them the boards and then bring them to my office.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He turned to leave, when suddenly he could hear someone cursing across the floor. He looked around to see a woman waving at her station supervisor and pointing at her monitor. Curious, he walked over to her workstation. As he approached, he could see that her terminal display was intermittently failing. Rolling white lines sweeping left to right across a blackened display with numbers and characters appearing in blocky bits only to vanish again instantly. And then it powered off with an audible popping sound. “Pardon me, may I take a look?” he said.

  She nodded and stepped back, away from her station.

  On a hunch, he reached under the display and opened the front panel on the terminal chassis. Reaching inside, he took hold of the main circuit board and pulled it free. He shook it roughly and dropped it on her desktop. The components all across the board collapsed into the same sandy powder.

  It was unbelievable.

  And then suddenly he began to understand; slowly turning in a full circle, looking carefully across the factory floor, it became clear. Everywhere there were signs of failure, in the terminals, the robotic assembly units, the quality control hardware, everywhere. At first glance, it all seemed unrelated. It wasn’t uncommon to have hardware failures in the factory, especially during peak times like this, when they were producing electronics at nearly full capacity. He began to wonder if this wasn’t something more. If this was indeed some attack from a competitor, now it made more sense. This wasn’t just a ploy to destroy his inventory; it was an attempt to destroy his factory.

  He turned to his facility manager, “Bartolo, listen to me carefully. Put a team together, and observe each and every one of the factory hardware failures today. I need to know if this… imperfection, is the problem.”

  The man nodded, “Yes, sir.”

  “And Bartolo, work fast. I need to know what’s happening here.”

  “Yes, sir.” The man ran off, shouting orders and directing others across the floor.

  He returned to his office and sat down at his desk. His eye grew wide, and his hands turned involuntarily into fists. In front of him, his display was black with the same white lines and number gibberish flashing across his screen.

  Now he was worried.

  The Deneb Star System, the Juliet

  Their reverie finally at an end, the Juliet had broken orbit and was on its way to the Deneb system, jump point. On the bridge, Captain Cervenko listened while Alex and Bowman argued about the ship’s navigation system. Apparently, Bowman had found some sort of computer glitch that was producing incorrect calculations.

  “I understand your point, Bowman,” said Alex, “I’m just trying to ascertain the quality of your tests.”

  Bowman sighed and pushed his hair back out of his eyes. “Okay, Doctor, let's start over. Here, this will help.” He adjusted the display of the main screen so that his calculations were now running in real time for them all to see.

  “Okay, the top equation is static. It shows the time estimated for the Juliet to reach the jump point, starting at our orbital position over the Lester Colony. It reads six hours, seven minutes and twenty-four seconds. Now under it you can see the calculation running in real time, based on our actual trip, and it is clearly running faster than that. The third equation simply shows the difference between the two above it. Right now it reads eight minutes, and you can see that it is growing.”

  The doctor stepped closer and watched the numbers changing on the main screen. Without looking away, he frowned and said, “So, it appears we will arrive sooner than originally calculated.”

  Cervenko interrupted them, “But we always want to go faster, so that is a good thing, yes?”

  “Actually no, Captain, Bowman has found something interesting. Assuming the equations are accurate, and yet the calculations are off, it means something on the ship is malfunctioning. If it is a navigation issue and we should experience it during a jump, it might prove fatal.”

  Bowman leaned back and smiled; finally they were getting it.

  “Bowman,” said Alex, “have you run diagnostic checks on the systems relaying that data?”

  “Yes, Doctor, twenty-one times over the last two days.”

  “Then we are apparently moving faster than we should be, and apparently our speed is increasing. Could it be a problem with the engines?”

  Bowman nodded, “That’s been my feeling all along, but every diagnostic I run says they are working at 100% of normal efficiency. I also checked with Mr. Beck in engineering to confirm that nothing has been done to alter the efficiency of the main drives.”

  Alex crossed his arms and rubbed his chin.

  “This is interesting.”

  Sarah was sitting at the station next to Bowman. Still trying to put last night’s hangover behind her, she drank slowly from the coffee she cradled in her hands. Still not following the concern Bowman and the Doctor were expressing, but understanding the calculations on the big screen, she thought they were missing the obvious.

  “Gentlemen, if the engine thrust is stable, then the problem is either with the distance or the ship’s mass.”

  “Well, I doubt the distance to the jump point is changing,” said Bowman.

  Alex frowned, “Sarah’s right, maybe it is the ship’s mass.”

  Her head s
till ringing, not entirely sure but feeling triumphant, she looked at Bowman and stuck her tongue out.

  “What?” said Bowman as he looked from her to Alex, “That’s a constant just like distance in the equation.”

  “If the velocity is increasing, it could suggest that the engines are constant, but that the mass of the ship is decreasing. Same force, less mass means greater velocity.”

  Bowman looked at his options for diagnostics, “I’m not sure I know how to test the mass of the ship.”

  Sarah set her cup down and began typing, “Hold on, I have a routine that compares the mass of the ship relative to the cargo we’re carrying. Fully loaded, we have to adjust our velocity to arrive on schedule during our trips.”

  Alex smiled, “Very good, Sarah. Let’s see it on the big screen with the rest of the numbers.”

  Moments later, a fourth calculation began running under Bowman’s first three. It indicated a mass of just less than 98,000 long tons.

  Bowman said, “I told you, Doctor, without something like an asteroid plowing into us, the mass of the Juliet is constant.”

  Alex said, “Sarah, can you refine your equation to four decimal places.”

  “Sure, hold on.” She adjusted her calculation and sent it to the screen.

  Bowman sat back, stunned.

  The numbers were changing. At a rate so small it failed to show in the usual routines, but it was there. Alex lightly squeezed Sarah’s shoulder, “Well done. Would anyone like to take a guess at why we seem to be shedding mass?”

  Cervenko was confused, “Alex, I don’t understand, what does it mean?”