The Anvil of Dust and Stars (Dark Seas Series Book 1)

by Damon Alan

  “That's only increased since you showed up, at least among the marines.”

  “Of course. I'm delightful to be around,” he said, faking a serious face.

  Sarah laughed out loud, a sound heard far too seldom anymore. “Of course.”

  Gilbert was the exact opposite of Giarri. He was an officer who was very familiar with the crew he commanded. They loved him for it, but it was a new command style for Sarah's ship.

  Gilbert grinned, his infectious smile was wide, and the joy of his inner boy radiated outward. Sarah felt it strange, the dichotomy of mild attraction to her first officer and the knowledge that her life could be over within an hour.

  People respond to stress in funny ways.

  “The crews sign up for your ships because they want to fight and do their part, and then go home Captain. They don't want to be a statistic, or infected by the Hive,” Gilbert said. “You have a reputation for knowing when to strike and when to retreat.”

  “I've had a first officer who said something very similar to me in the past. On the first ship I commanded.”

  “Even now. You're retreating without permission from the command fleet officer. But you'll probably get a medal. If I did it, I'd be janitor on the freighter you found me on.”

  “A general who advances without coveting fame, who retreats without fearing disgrace, whose only thought is to protect his country and do good service for his sovereign, is the jewel of the kingdom,” Sarah said.

  “The Art of War?” Gilbert asked. “You are a surprise. That's going way back.”

  This chat is starting to feel too much like bragging, although the relationship feels like what I used to have with Kuo. “Stop embarrassing me in front of my bridge crew, Commander Gilbert, or I'll have you court-martialed.”

  Gilbert held up his hands in mock surrender. “Now I'm doubly sorry I tried to lighten things up. Being court-martialed makes me sad.”

  The conversation paused as Gilbert checked on ships inbound to the bubble. Sarah checked on damage control.

  “The Schein and Hinden are decelerating hard into jump formation. They'll be in the bubble in three minutes,” Gilbert said.

  “Good. Two fists of the Seventh Fleet,” Sarah said, pride in her voice.

  Gilbert continued talking as he checked on a different vessel. “Very true. Hard to believe they pack more of a punch than the Stennis.”

  “They're dedicated warships. We lose a lot of weapon space to the drive.”

  “That makes sense,” he said.

  “Mongol and Vixen are reporting in, Captain,” Seto interjected. “They're moving to intercept the Hive squadron.”

  “The other two fists,” Gilbert said. His tone echoed Sarah's feelings. She wanted to scream knowing she was sending both ships to their deaths. A death all the more real for her when she remembered her experience on the Chimera.

  “Brave men and women,” Sarah said, her jaw clenched. I'm sick of throwing my people on a fire that won't be put out. “Seto, send codes for full nuclear release and my gratitude to the crews of both ships.”

  The bridge crew was busy for a few minutes, grateful for the distraction from the impending fate of their peers. An unsettling miasma settled over the bridge.

  Sarah broke the deepening pall. “We will honor them when we arrive at the safety they are buying us. Until then, put it in the back of your minds and keep it there until we jump.”

  Normal events and a sense of duty will often postpone grief. Sarah wanted the junior officers to see that example. She turned her attention back to her first officer. “My turn, Commander Gilbert. We still have at least five minutes to live. How'd you get to be a bridge officer?”

  Gilbert grinned. “Other than you selecting me from a stack of dossiers because I'm damned pretty to look at?”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “Yes, other than that.” Sarah looked at Seto, wondering if the Lieutenant remembered her comment about Gilbert being cute. From the color of her face, it seemed she did.

  “I'm a marine. I drove tanks for a couple of decades. When the Hive war got hot in this sector, I was transferred to command a company of boarding shuttles. I must have pissed someone off, since we don't board Hive ships, and we don't fight Hive on the ground. I was staring at a war I had no part in. I asked for a transfer to fleet operations. Sooo, they put me on a freighter.”

  “You must have really pissed someone off. But those are the mechanics. Why are you here? No bullshitting allowed.”

  Gilbert paused, then his voice turned serious. “I never had a family, Captain, so I don't know your loss. I suppose if I'm here, someone luckier in life can be with their family.” He paused to think. “Besides, I have experience. The Alliance doesn't suffer for lack of manpower, we suffer for lack of trained personnel and ships.”

  “And you have command experience, which is why I chose you,” Sarah said. “Even if it was in a ground pounder company.”

  “Everyone might get a chance to be first officers with ships being regularly vaporized,” Gilbert said.

  Sarah's smile faded. “No more vaporization for us today.”

  Gilbert looked at her, his omnipresent smile missing. “We both know we're losing this war, and today changes things in this sector.”

  “The war, Commander Gilbert, isn't over until the last of the Alliance fleets have been destroyed, and no more warriors stand between the wicked and the innocent. Until then, victory is just the discovery of a different tactic or new weapon away.”

  Gilbert's eyes widened a bit, as if that wasn't the answer he'd expected. “I've always heard that to make fleet captain you need to have enough stubbornness to bring an entire fleet to its knees.”

  Gilbert made it hard to remain too serious. “Yeah, that's true. Where did you hear it?”

  “Admiral Heyden, when I was asking him about you before I took a shuttle up to the Stennis.”

  The mention of Heyden twisted a knife in Sarah's gut. “Jerna was a good man. He was my benefactor and a great friend. I don't have a lot of them.”

  “He was a very good man. But your friends list hasn't run out yet,” Gilbert replied.

  Corriea interrupted their conversation. “Spin up complete, Captain. We can jump anytime.”

  Sarah nodded. “Save the Amalli.”

  I've made my decision to retreat, it's set in stone. Please let this be the right decision.

  “Captain, I just received a priority transmission from Third Fleet,” Seto said, her voice puzzled.

  Sarah arched an eyebrow. “That's irregular. What's it about?”

  “It's for Alliance HQ, Intel Division. We've been instructed to act as courier, Third Fleet's FTL drive is down, they're not going to make it out. It's an encrypted data package, and secret well above my grade, Captain.”

  “Send it to the AI in my quarters. I'll see it gets to—”

  Lieutenant Harmeen yelled, “Enemy warhead. Brace for detonation.”

  Sarah pointed at Corriea and yelled, “Jump!”

  Chapter 41 - The Long Jump

  22 ORS 15326

  Lieutenant Corriea punched the FTL drive.

  The Michael Stennis groaned as the twisting of space stressed the heavily damaged ship to its limits. Across the Stennis, lights went out, and the ship lurched violently as a nuclear weapon detonated in close proximity.

  For a moment the ship was engulfed in darkness, broken only by the occasional indicator light on equipment. Emergency lights snapped on, illuminating the bridge with flickering red light. Most of the electronics shut down, either to protect itself from electromagnetic pulse or as a result of it. A few ship systems started to reboot.

  Lieutenant Harmeen's disembodied voice called from the smoky darkness. “Gods save us. We didn't lose containment of the drive core.”

  Surprised to be alive, Sarah's voice sounded weak. “Get to work, Mr. Harmeen. Check the singularity first.”

  An alarm, damaged by EMP, croaked feebly from the officers ready room behind the bridge. />
  Sarah took a moment to recover her command presence. The Alliance didn't carry radiation badges like the Korvandi Navy had. Sarah wondered what dose they'd taken.

  Sarah looked at her officers. No blood. Nothing like the Chimera. “Lieutenant Seto, coordinate with Lieutenant Harmeen and section chiefs to get reports of what, if any, equipment is still working,” she ordered. “I need to know, and I mean right now. Inform the crew to conduct all checks visually, we can't trust any equipment at the moment. I want to know if we're going to abandon ship when we drop out of FTL, or if we can save him.”

  “On it, sir,” Seto replied. “I'll have runners sent to the bridge for sections with no comm.”

  No comms? Damn. Sarah tried to activate the ship intercom, but it didn't work. My crew is professional. They'll see to their duties without my comforting words.

  “Seto, tell Dr. Jannis I want a full report on radiation exposure for the crew ASAP. I need to know how many we're going to lose.”

  Seto's jaw dropped before she answered. She seemed shocked at the idea they might have escaped Hamor only to die of radiation poisoning. “Uhhh, aye Captain.”

  Sarah didn't have time to discuss it now. “Commander Gilbert, did we get the Amalli?”

  “I can't say, Captain. She was just coming in range as we jumped.” Gilbert's voice, jovial moments before, now dripped with agitation. “If the electronics come back up, I'll have a look. Until then, we're blind.”

  Sarah paused to look at him and saw anger on his face. She was impressed with his performance prior to Hamor during training, but this was his first battle as a fleet officer.

  He's okay, just pissed. So am I.

  It wouldn't hurt to calm his nerves a bit though. “There's a lot of uncertainty in our line of work, Commander Gilbert. You've handled your transition to my bridge well. Either we got them or we didn't, don't dwell on it.”

  Gilbert seemed to realize he was being judged. He stifled a sigh and gave Sarah a thumbs up. “Not used to this type of fighting, Captain. I'll get it.”

  Three of Sarah's holographic displays came to life simultaneously at her command station, although one display blinked on and off erratically. Sarah flipped through her command windows. Most reported no information available. She scanned everything, hoping to glean enough data to make a plan. She froze when she flipped to the FTL drive status display. The drive core sensors were reporting what had to be erroneous data.

  That can't be right. Cores don't spin up that far.

  “Harmeen, Corriea, untether and get over here,” Sarah said.

  Concerned, the bridge officers untethered from their stations and floated over to Sarah. They moved slowly in near darkness and zero G, testing Sarah's already stretched patience.

  Corriea grabbed her station and stabilized himself. “Holy shit,” he let slip as he looked at the display.

  Sarah frowned. “I'm hoping for more productive input, Mr. Corriea. What do you two make of this?”

  The display indicated that the Stennis would be in the bubble for one hundred twenty-six days. The planned jump was fifty-one days.

  “I don't know Captain. We only had enough fuel left for two jumps away from Hamor,” Corriea said. “This ship can't hold enough fuel to jump this long. No ship can.”

  Sarah's jaw clenched. “What the hell is going on here? You two are my experts, and I expect an explanation pronto.”

  Corriea looked at her, his expression desperate. “There isn't one,” he asserted. “If we burned all of our fuel we wouldn't have reached a fifty-five day jump.”

  “Harmeen?”

  “Bad data, damage to the core sensors,” Harmeen replied calmly. He paged through the data on Sarah's screen.

  “Okay, until we know otherwise it's bad data,” she said.

  It had better be, or we're out of the fight. That won't do.

  Harmeen fidgeted, Sarah watched as sweat ran down his forehead. He hesitated, then spoke. “Wait.”

  “What?” Sarah asked.

  Harmeen wiped his forehead with his uniform sleeve. “I'm not so sure it is bad data, Captain. It's way outside the norms, but the data matches across all measurements from several sensors. The sensors don't indicate wildly different results, and I think if they were damaged, that's what we'd see.”

  “Shit,” Sarah growled. She didn't need more bad news on top of what they'd already gone through today. “Do you think you're right, Lieutenant? Is this real?”

  “I hope I'm not, ma'am,” Harmeen replied.

  Sarah struggled internally to slow her breathing. Anger and fear cloyed at her. “Find out for me as soon as you can, go down there yourself and take measurements if you need to. I think Engineering will have their hands full, they'd appreciate your help. Also tell them to get the air circulating, it's getting hot in here.”

  “Sure, Captain, I'm on it,” Harmeen answered as he pushed back toward his station.

  Sarah tapped Corriea on the shoulder as he started to leave. “Mr. Corriea, hang on.”

  Corriea spun around and stabilized himself.

  “Do the math for me,” she said. “Our planned jump would carry us a few hundred light years to the rendezvous point.” She paused as he nodded his agreement. “The longer the jump takes, the faster we're traveling. So we have two factors working against us if this data is correct.”

  Corriea frowned. “Well, yes sir, that's basically right. Not only are we in the jump longer, but we're bending space more efficiently. Exponentially in fact.”

  “Bending space, moving faster, semantics… whatever. The result is the same. We're not only going much faster than should be possible, we're going to travel much faster for much longer. Right?”

  “Yes, sir. I'll do the math, if I can borrow a display.”

  Sarah swiveled a display to face him, and he opened up a navigation calculator. She watched as he punched in the numbers, then shook his head, cleared the data, and punched in the numbers again. Finished, he slowly turned the display back to her.

  Gilbert untethered from his station and floated over. “What does it say?”

  Sarah stared at the data silently for a moment, and then looked at her first officer. “It says we're going to come out nineteen thousand eight hundred light years from our entry point.”

  “W--What?” Gilbert sputtered.

  From across the bridge Lieutenant Harmeen laughed a high pitched laugh Sarah had never heard from him before. “Forget what I said. Bad sensors in the core. It has to be.”

  “Our top priority is verifying this data,” Sarah said. “If it's correct, I need to know what it means for us. Mr. Corriea, that's your job. I want you to plot an approximation of where we will drop to real space if this data is accurate. I'm not sure we'll even be in human colonized space anymore.”

  Over the next several minutes the lights came back on and holographic displays at other bridge stations regained power. The smell of ozone and burnt electrical insulation hung faintly in the air, and thin wisps of smoke trailed along the ceiling.

  Sarah glanced at the smoke and quickly looked back to her work.

  That's far too reminiscent of the Binogi.

  She pushed fear from her mind.

  Harmeen handed Sarah a data pad. “Partial ship power restored, Captain, at least to the working sections. Life support is up, and the air handlers are back on. Crew quarters are still dark, but estimation on those repairs are only a few hours. Fires are out, but we still have quite a few compartments in vacuum. Nothing critical, though.”

  Sarah face lit up with the good news. “Well done, Mr. Harmeen. The rest will come, tell the crews not to let up. Let's drop out of this jump as battle ready as possible.”

  Sarah felt she had a thousand priorities, each of which should be first on her list. “Gilbert, the Amalli?”

  Gilbert fidgeted with his station holodisplay, and the Amalli appeared on the main view screen. With her electronic warfare dishes and antennas scattered across her hull, she was unmistakable. “Th
ere she is Captain. She's in the bubble with us.”

  Sarah breathed a sigh of relief. “More good news. I'll take all I can get.”

  Gilbert grinned, and Sarah noticed him relax a bit. “Yes, sir, it is. We haven't had much good news recently.”

  “We're alive, and at this point anything that isn't lethal is good news.”

  Gilbert nodded his agreement. “Good point, Captain. I'll get to work on damage reports from the other vessels.”

  Sarah untethered from her station and floated to the main screen. She rotated to face her bridge officers. “Listen up.” She waited for everyone to give their attention to her. “I know we're dealing with the unknown, but that's when the known becomes comforting. Push the crews hard, keep their minds occupied. I want to be able to get the fleet status from any of you any time you're on duty. I don't care where I am when we find out if the singularity numbers are valid or not, I want to be notified right away. We are going to keep a minimal bridge, and everyone will pull extra shifts with the damage control crews. Eight hours on normal duty, eight on damage control, eight crew rest. No days off. This is ship wide, all uninjured crew. Any questions?”

  “No questions, ma'am. We'll get the Stennis back in fighting shape,” Harmeen said.

  “In that case, I'm going to go see what we've got to work with. Commander Gilbert, you have the bridge.”

  “I have the conn,” Gilbert replied automatically.

  Grim faced, the bridge crew attacked their duties.

  Sarah dropped through the floor hatch to go fix her ship.

  Chapter 42 - Nanite Hound

  Bn74x00 orbited above Hamor. The small scout moved into a slightly higher orbit with each revolution around the planet. It tasted space with sensors extended in a woven web of nanites a dozen kilometers in diameter. Within the sensory net nanites configured themselves to detect individual elements or compounds. Alliance ships were each different, each left its own distinct trail of chemical detritus for 00 to catalog and, if need be, follow. It tasted ship after ship. Often if found sufficient debris to label one ship or another destroyed.