The Borrega Test

by James Vincett

  “What?” Beckenbaur said.

  Heather reached out and touched a DNA strand floating beside one of the stasis chambers. A bright blue holographic line appeared; it projected from the sitrep table and into the room. Heather followed the line, and the others followed her. The line branched out into at least a dozen strands, each ending at one of the biomedical observation chambers.

  Heather stood in front of one of the chambers. Floating inside, Beckenbaur saw a male Hominin, probably no more than ten years old. Heather touched the transparent cover, a tear rolling down her face. “They’re conducting experiments, combining Harbinger DNA with Hominins.”

  “This is a crime against Union law,” Bandele said. “It is illegal to purposefully modify the Hominin form, in any way.”

  “Fucking hypocrites,” of the twins said.

  “Why no security?” Talbot asked. “No station defenses, no security personnel, not even any sensors.”

  “I got a bad feeling about this,” Heather said.

  “We need some answers,” Beckenbaur said. “Through the door.”

  The twins took positions on either side of the door, rifles raised. One nodded at Jake, who touched the panel. The door slid open and the twins stepped through.

  Beckenbaur heard a strange sound. BRATATAT!

  “On the right!” one of the twins cried. The sound of blaster-fire echoed through the room. Beckenbaur saw light beams cutting through the dim light, and turned to see several figures pointing blaster rifles.

  “Drop ‘em!”

  Beckenbaur and the others dropped their weapons and held up their hands.

  “Through the door! Move!”

  Beckenbaur followed the others through the door into another room, the dimensions a mirror image of the previous, but in this chamber stood a large circular sitrep table surrounded by consoles. A dozen more figures pointed rifles at them. Beckenbaur looked to the left and saw the twins kneeling on the floor, their hands behind their heads. One of them had visible punctures in his armor, and he breathed heavily.

  “Welcome, Dr. Beckenbaur!” Beckenbaur looked up to see a tall, bald, broad-shouldered man. He wore a black pair of fatigues and held a large black rifle in one hand and a long, fat cigar in the other. “You might as well all take off your helmets. As you can see, it is quite safe to breathe.”

  “So who are you?” Beckenbaur asked, taking off his helmet. “We met Galomé back on Yokkaichi, but he didn’t make it.”

  “Galomé was a pup,” the man replied. “He was greedy and sloppy, and got what he deserved. I’m Kruger, and we’ve met before. I think you and I took the same ride off the Anuvi Artifact, but there were twenty crowded into that capsule, if I remember correctly.” He shouldered the rifle and walked toward Beckenbaur. “For a smart man, you’re entirely predictable. We knew you would come here once you got Cerilia’s location from those freaks in the Nano Mob.”

  Kruger stood toe-to-toe with the geologist. “I’ve always admired those who came before us, haven’t you? They well knew the hostility of the universe, and met it with ingenuity and pride. This rifle, for instance. This firearm was designed to kill Snirr, the high-velocity rounds able to pierce a Snirr carapace at two hundred meters.” He put the cigar in his mouth and pulled a pistol from his belt holster. “But this firearm is absolutely incredible. It throws a fifteen-gram eleven-millimeter diameter slug at a muzzle velocity of nine hundred twenty-five meters per second, with very little recoil. United Earth Marines carried this when exploring Snirr tunnel colonies. One shot to the head ...” He raised the pistol and shot Krenlar in the face.

  “NO!” Talbot screamed.

  “... and that Snirr would be a goner.”

  Beckenbaur felt nauseous, and then shock. His knees buckled and he knelt on the floor, his ears ringing with the sound of the shot.

  “Yessiree,” Kruger said as he lit his cigar, “they knew what to do with alien freaks back then, that’s for sure.”

  Beckenbaur raised his head and saw Jake, the young man’s face contorted with rage. “Don’t do it, Jake.”

  Jake collapsed on the floor, sobbing.

  Kruger puffed on his cigar. “Now, this wouldn’t have happened if you had just come to us, Dr. Beckenbaur. We’d have given you full funding, a full staff, your own ship, everything. No need to spend so much of your own money. But, no, you had to do it yourself, because of some silly reservations over murder and secrecy. But, I must admit, Bandele’s rescue on Akaisha was very exciting. Me and the boys here started a pool as to whether you’d get off the surface. I, of course, won.”

  “Congratulations,” Beckenbaur said. He stood, his knees still weak.

  “Thank you. Now, you must know, we do have most of Dr. Batista’s research. The only thing we’re missing is the map template.” He stepped toward Heather. “You, Dr. Beckenbaur, are a thief, and I demand you give the template to me. Now.” He pointed the pistol at Heather’s head.

  Beckenbaur pulled out the slender pockcomp the Nano Mob had given him and held it up. Kruger holstered his pistol and plucked the pockcomp from Beckenbaur’s hand with two fingers. “Thanks!”

  He strode to the sitrep table and tapped a few keys. “It was my idea to search the moons of this gas giant for another Harbinger artifact,” he said while tapping keys and making gestures above the sitrep table. “Quite a find really, the only one we know of since the third moon of Anuvi III plunged into the atmosphere of that gas giant. But, I suspect there are many more.” He tapped a few more keys and the image of a winged creature appeared above the sitrep table, a DNA strand below it. Next to the image of the creature a swirling mass of stars appeared, star-filled arms curving out from the center. Using a gesture, Kruger dragged the DNA strand to the mass of stars. The image zoomed into one arm, and a bright red cursor framed one of the stars.

  “The template image doesn’t look like much, does it?” Kruger said. “There’s no frame of reference for the coordinates embedded in the DNA strand. Can you figure it out?”

  Beckenbaur and the others said nothing.

  “Oh, c’mon! Just a guess, please!”

  “Fuck off,” Bandele said.

  “Touchy, touchy. Well, the Harbingers existed hundreds of thousands of years ago, right?” Kruger tapped a few keys and used a gesture to summon another image of a swirling mass of stars. “So, using what we know about the velocity and course of stars around the center of the Milky Way, we can project our map of known stars back in time.”

  The stars in the star map moved for several moments. The two images flashed. The map imposed itself on the template image; it was an almost perfect match. Kruger made another gesture. “Now we move time forward to the present.” The stars in the composite image moved in the opposite direction and the familiar borders and other reference points reappeared.

  The bright red cursor flashed around a star on the other side of the Neutral Zone.

  “Well, well, well!” Kruger puffed on his cigar. “That Harbinger artifact you’re tracking down? It’s in the Naati Hegemony.” He tapped a few keys. “Now, we’ll run our entire database of DNA from the life on Cerilia IV through the template.” Kruger tapped a key with a flourish, and the image of the flying creature above the sitrep table changed to a crawling animal. The DNA strand moved over the map and another red cursor appeared. The process sped up, and the image and DNA strands of thousands of creatures flashed above the sitrep table. Every few seconds another red cursor appeared on the map.

  “As I thought. Looks like there are scores of Harbinger artifacts scattered over this region of the galaxy. This process is imperfect, of course, given the number of mutations that have occurred in the DNA over the course of a few hundred thousand years. Wouldn’t that be the case, Dr. Ferrel?”

  Heather said nothing.

  “But, at least it’ll give us a few places to start looking. Or should I say, you.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Beckenbaur said. “I’ve fucked up and now you have it all. You can take
it from here; I’m not working for the General Intelligence Directorate.”

  “Oh, yes you are, Doctor. You can take your pick of either the Trieste or the Molly Mae, but you will work with the rabble you’ve associated with over the last several months. The only person not going along is former Captain of the Imperial Exploration Service Caroline Talbot.”

  “What?” Bandele cried. “A hostage?”

  “If you succeed in finding the Harbinger artifact in the Naati Hegemony, Talbot will not be prosecuted for the crimes she has committed against the Union.”

  “How do we know you’ll honor your promise?”

  “You don’t.”

  “You speak of crimes. What about the crime against Union law you are committing right here?”

  “Sometimes we must sacrifice Humanity to save Humanity,” Kruger said. “The beings we are creating here may well mean the difference between survival and extinction.”

  The fear and anxiety ate at Beckenbaur’s mind like an acid, but his anger grew with every breath. “Fuck you.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Fuck you! Talbot comes with us or I’m not doing it. You can just kill me now.”

  Kruger pointed his pistol at Beckenbaur.

  “Wait,” Bandele said. “I’ll stay.”

  “What did you say?” Kruger said.

  “I’ll stay. You’ll need Talbot if you want to succeed; she’s one of the best explorers in the Union.”

  “You’ll probably be shipped back to Akaisha if they don’t succeed.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “No, William,” Talbot said. She took his hands in hers. “You can’t go back there.”

  “Caroline Talbot, you and Cord Kessler were two of my greatest students. If he were here, he would be so proud of you. I’m just an old man; I would only get in the way. Use what I taught you to find this thing.”

  Beckenbaur stood and stared at Bandele, feeling like someone kicked him in the gut. He looked at Kruger. “You’re an animal, no better than a spiney.”

  Kruger stepped close to him, face-to-face. Beckenbaur saw every blackhead and pore on the man’s face. “When fighting a war,” Kruger said in a low voice, “one must be willing to do anything to win. At least the Naati have that figured out.”

  Cortez

  One of the first classes any ensign enrolled in at the Imperial Naval Academy was Basic Fleet Dynamics. Managing the location and heading of spacecraft within a fleet was a complicated endeavor. Ancient mariners sailing ships on the oceans of Earth dealt with two dimensions, but the modern Navy lived in three.

  Basic Fleet Dynamics was one of Cortez’ favorite classes.

  The formation most used by the Imperial Navy was the Spherical Formation. Defensively, the Spherical Formation served as an ablative obstacle to any attacking fleet. The weakest elements of the formation, the fighters, destroyers, and frigates, gathered information and tested the enemy’s capabilities, and screened the stronger elements. The stronger elements of the formation, the cruisers, used that information to defend the strongest elements. The strongest elements, the battleships and carriers, could then defend themselves against a weakened attacker with the knowledge gained from weaker elements.

  Offensively, the weakest elements, the fighters, destroyers, and frigates, probed enemy defenses, looking for any advantage, which they communicated to the stronger elements, the cruisers. The strongest elements, the battleships and carriers, command could keep in reserve to bolster any failing attack by the cruisers.

  Admiral Gao split the Battle Fleet of the Borrega Test Task Force into four Operational Groups, each group named after its lead vessel, and each commanded by an Admiral. The lead vessel served as a point of reference. Cortez’ ship, HSS Michiel de Reyter, a Montmorency class heavy cruiser, was part of the Tethys Operational Group. The HSS Tethys was a Titan class battleship; the other ships of the group flew in a spherical formation around it. The HSS Truk, a Midway class light carrier, flew fifty kilometers to Tethys’ starboard.

  The Tethys Operational group consisted of twenty vessels in a spherical formation two thousand kilometers in diameter.

  The eleven light and heavy cruisers, including the Reyter, flew out to a range of a thousand kilometers from the Tethys, their positions shifting in that sphere according to complex navigational algorithms. The defensive purpose of these cruisers was to screen the Tethys and the Truk using their electronic countermeasures, and move to intercept any incoming enemy vessels. These cruisers comprised the main attack in any offensive operation.

  The seven quick and agile destroyers and frigates flew at a distance of up to two thousand kilometers from the Tethys. Defensively, they served as scouts, scanning surrounding space for any threats, and moved to intercept any incoming fighters. Offensively, they screened the attacking cruisers. The Truk’s fighters were the long distance strike force, meant to punch through enemy fleet defense, creating a hole for the cruisers to exploit.

  During offensive operations, the life expectancy of a fighter pilot was hours.

  In theory, in a fleet with more than one operational group, one or two groups could lead the attack, with the Fleet Admiral allocating the remaining groups to bolster the attacking groups at key points.

  The Borrega Test Task Force’s Battle Fleet, composed of four operational groups, occupied a rough sphere of space over four thousand kilometers in diameter, and consisted of eighty ships.

  “Two minutes to shunt,” the navigator said.

  Cortez stood at the Reyter’s sitrep table beside his executive officer, Commander Cisoto. The Reyter’s command deck was located on the top of the aft superstructure; it was a rectangle twenty meters in length and ten wide, with ports set into one of the long walls, looking out onto the vessel. A sitrep table three meters in diameter was located in the middle of the deck, surrounded by twenty command stations. Other terminals and stations lined the walls.

  Cortez looked at the men and women on the command deck. They’re so fragile. He sniffed the air and smelled anxiety and fear, and he noticed none of them would look him in the face. Cowardly, pant-pissing fools. My skills and capabilities got us promoted to the vanguard of the fleet.

  Before the Task Force flew to Borrega, the Fleet Admiral commanded the Battle Fleet to set a course to Borrega’s hyperdrive limit. The Assault and Support Fleets would jump to the outer reaches of the system, as planned.

  Cortez felt the momentary disorientation of the shunt, and then began giving orders. “Give me a three hundred and sixty degree active scan and a fleet integrity status.”

  “Sensors are active,” a crewmember replied. Color flooded the gray image of Borrega above the sitrep table, data flickering in the margins. “All ships have shunted from hyperspace.” Over the next few minutes, other data points appeared above the sitrep table, two groups of signals, one near the hyperspace limit, and one in a lower orbit. The outermost signals were most certainly the Task Force Battle Fleet. With a gesture, Cortez zoomed into the other: Union and Naati vessels locked in combat.

  “That’s the Union Ambassador’s Fleet,” Cortez said. It consisted of the battleship Crius, the light carrier Coral Sea, the heavy cruiser Montcalm, and four Gladius light cruisers. The Naati fleet consisted of a Bellicose class battlecarrier, an Orca class heavy cruiser, twelve Wolf class cruisers, and one Camel class transport. Both fleets occupied the same orbit, about fifteen thousand kilometers from Borrega, but were jumbled up together. Scores of other signals surrounded both fleets like a cloud of gnats.

  “Those are fighters,” Cortez said. “They’re engaging.”

  “The Tethys is hailing us,” Cisoto said. “Admiral Idowu is requesting a communications link.” She tapped a few keys.

  “This is Admiral Idowu. Fleet Admiral Gao has commanded the Tethys OG to engage the Naati fleet.” The image on the sitrep table zoomed out to show all three fleets. “I want a two-pronged attack. The Reyter will lead the Pulisto, Haut, Khanjali and Vitelli and attack the Naati fl
eet on their flank. Forward elements will be 1st and 3rd Wings from the Truk, the Wuhan, the Corinth, the Marseille, and the Libreville.” The images of each ship appeared as she spoke their names, and a line appeared from the Task Fleet straight to the Naati Fleet. “The Togo will lead the second wave to mop up, joined by the Komatsu, Halle, Misericorde, Ida, and Scala, with forward elements comprised of 2nd Wing, the Harare, the Lilongwe, and the Malabo.” A second line appeared, curving from the Battle Fleet to behind the Naati Fleet.

  The first will punch through, and the second will sweep up. Nice!

  As commanding officer of the Reyter, Cortez commanded the first strike.

  “Let’s get this done,” Idowu said.

  “Set up coordinating comms with the assigned ships and wing commanders,” Cortez ordered Cisoto. He used gestures to arrange the ships of the strike force. “The Pulisto and Haut will flank the Reyter and a hundred klicks. The Khanjali and Vitelli will be aft above and aft below the Reyter at the same spacing. The Wuhan, the Corinth, the Marseille, and the Libreville will fly a thousand klicks ahead in wedge formation at the same spacing. 1st and 3rd wings will fly above and below them at two hundred klicks.”

  “Yes, sir.” She tapped a key and transmitted the schematic.

  “Once we are assembled, we’ll go full bore right through them, then slingshot around Borrega and rendezvous with the Fleet.”

  With the Battle Fleet just crossing Borrega’s hyperspace limit, it would take at least fifty minutes to reach the Ambassador’s fleet at full acceleration.

  Over the next several minutes, the strike group assembled as it flew toward the Naati fleet.

  He hit a key to activate the strike force comms. “This is Captain Cortez of the Reyter. In about twenty-four minutes, we’ll be within effective missile range. Ready ECM to purge any dampening fields. Once that is complete, acquire target lock on the Bellicose and fire a volley of missiles.” Text appearing over the sitrep table noted the acknowledgement from the other ship commanders. “On my mark.”