With Our Dying Breath

by Unknown

  hallucinations?"

  "Nothing but wild guesses," Hines admitted nonchalantly. "Everyone

  reported seeing them though. Everyone that lived anyway. What they

  saw varied widely. But just almost everyone said they felt trapped or

  smothered in their suits. Like they'd been in them forever and just

  needed to get out."

  "Sounds like, and felt like, a bad case of spacer fever." Breen added

  sorrowfully. "Someone spaced themselves on my first flight. Just walked right out the airlock. Flight commander said it was spacer

  fever."

  "Just what I was thinking," Hines agreed. "But everyone got it at

  once. Obviously some effect of whatever that thing did to our jump. If

  Colonel Oswald hadn't ordered me to issue the sedation protocol to

  everyone when he did, I'm quite sure we'd all be dead. Some of our

  losses were people who managed to get their helmets off too quickly." "Burn me," Mathesse cursed. "As far as tactical, laser array two is

  done for. The whole tube came apart and I robbed it to fix tube one.

  Nothing short of a stop-off at a repair station is going to get it fixed. I

  think we can still use the sights, but that won't be zapping any bad guys

  again. We lost about half of our remotes, but fortunately none of the

  warheads went off." He took a breath then added, "Do we even know

  where all that heat came from? Did the LANTRn fire or the reactor go

  super-crit?"

  "Not that I could tell," Danner answered.

  "I don't think so." Oswald said. "I'm guessing here, but it looks like

  that UXA changed the rules of conservation of momentum. Or at least

  added to them as far as jump physics go. Our velocity on exit was close

  to what it was when we jumped. That energy supposedly gets dumped

  into the jump tunnel. And we did suffer the frozen second, or we might

  have a few more folks with us here today. My calculations put the

  acceleration spike on the juggler right at the time we exited the jump

  tunnel. Agreed, Breen?"

  "Yes, sir. Craziest thing."

  "I'm assuming the heat build-up was related to the jump. It just

  didn't sink into the tunnel as we are used to seeing. Anything else for

  now?" Oswald asked with a shrug. His back was getting sore again and

  the flight couch wasn't as comfortable as it had been. "Otherwise I'll

  keep this net up and you guys get back to work."

  "Sir," Breen asked tentatively. "Do you think we'll make it back to

  Earth?"

  Oswald's first reaction was to chide the man. Of course they'd make

  it back! They were Roland and Earth needed them. Those things were

  true but hope and bravado never won out over physics. He was too

  tired, to shook up, to come up with some poignant one-liner to calm

  and encourage his crew.

  "I hope so," was all he had to offer.

  Chapter 14 "What do you mean, you don't know?" Oswald knew exactly what Kirsk meant; he hadn't been able to figure it out either. "How can you not fix our position in Sol?"

  The relief Roland felt when they found that they were not hurtling immediately to their deaths was short lived. Sensors verified no nearby navigational or tactical hazards. But despite C'n D and Sensors diagnosing their systems over and over, no Earth Force beacons could be detected. No beacons could be found. If a beacon signal was out there, Roland should be picking it up.

  "Maybe they've gone to stealthier operations?"

  "We should still be seeing a signal from Sol-Sat One or Terra Nav Prime." Oswald had no explanations, found no fault in the diagnostics. "We'll have to go old school I guess. Get the big-eye to find some landmarks."

  At least they had found the heat sink flying alongside them. The engineering and flight teams managed to get the sink back in Roland's belly using little deltaV. Danner declared it in pretty good shape and just finished getting the thermal couplers back together. The outer panel that covered the heat sink compartment was not designed to be replaceable after an emergency jettison. It was a crumpled wreck twirling parallel to Roland's wake, but kilometers away. There was nothing for signature would be harder to mask.

  After a few hours of scanning the night, the big-eye had verified Sol and found at least three planets. One was definitely Saturn, but it was well out of position when triangulated with Sol and Uranus. Nothing matched the computer's planetary projections; not even close. Without a nav-beacon or another reference system it was proving difficult to pin down where they were.

  Oswald was bothered greatly by the fact that not a single Earth Force beacon could be detected. Even if the Centauri rolled over what now nearly one-hundred it, but the Roland's heat was left of Earth's defenses, at least something should be transmitting. But not even the trash-sats constant stream of so-called entertainment could be detected. The right planets were in the wrong places, especially Earth.

  "Sir," Flight Sergeant Norris had floated up next to Oswald, who was too busy puzzling things out to have noticed her. "Can I speak with you?"

  Oswald eyed her curiously. She'd been doing more of the pilot's duty watch since Chun died and had been inundating him all day with status reports.

  "Is there a problem, Norris?"

  "Not really, Colonel. But while C'n D and Sensors have been calibrating and recalibrating, I've been doing my own work on figuring where we are." She let out a sudden sob and dabbed at the tears pooling in her eye with a sleeve. "I just want you tell me I'm wrong."

  Oswald had done a bit of crying himself recently. "I'm not sure I get your meaning, Norris. What'cha got?"

  She held her tablet in one hand and sent the display to Oswald's. He saw it was a top down view of the solar system. The four planets the big-eye had gotten a fix on matched on the display, triangulated with an icon for Roland. He pulled up the recent positioning figures from navigation; they matched almost perfectly.

  "What did you do here, Norris?" He figured the triangulation himself, but the planets were not supposed to be there at all. They had only been gone a few weeks so... he suddenly looked at the timestamp on the map projection.

  05NOV2618

  "Oh, God. This can't be right. Surely not." Oswald verified Roland's master clock, compared it with his watch: 21JUL2195.

  The planetary positions given were for four-hundred and twentythree years after Roland had jumped from Delta Pavonis.

  "Tell me they aren't, Colonel."

  "They can't be."

  "Prove it to me. Please." With a final pleading sob, Flight Sergeant Norris returned to her seat.

  Oswald played the map forward and back, decades skipping through time like a stop motion camera. The date she had shown him seemed to be the closest match despite a minor variance between projected and measured positions. But the values were in tolerance for a combat ship's scope, especially one that had been put through the ringer.

  The inviting blue marble of Earth on the display stood on the far side of Sol. It could explain, for now, why the Earth sats couldn't be detected. But it couldn't explain the rest of the dead silence. The fourhundred and twenty-three years would explain a lot. Everything but the how.

  "Norris," Oswald accessed her secure channel to her headset. "You will tell no one else of this. Understood?" Amidst the sob wracked shoulders, he thought he saw her nod.

  Chapter 15 The deltaV expended to dock with Saturn Station was not insignificant. The station was one of Earth Force's command centers, heavily armed, armored, and used as a staging point for many EF defense missions out past Mars. The big-eye showed it looked intact but it registered no thermal readings and was sending out no transponder signal.

  Oswald needed to verify Norris' theory. He put the idea to Hashi, who agreed it might be possible but was dubious. Bree
n and Trese had also pulled their flight commander aside afterwards to whisper about their crazy idea, daring him to prove them wrong. He explained Roland was on the way to do just that. The whole idea was ludicrous—but that didn't make it untrue.

  The only way to really prove it was to find a trustworthy EF asset or to find a functioning atomic master clock. Since Earth was still ostensibly hiding behind the sun and Sol-Sat One was still stubbornly incommunicado, they needed to find a large station. When big-eye found Saturn Station, Oswald ordered the burn.

  The station hovered dead and cold beneath Oswald, so ice rimed that it looked like it belonged in the rings. The main docking station was too damaged for Roland to attach. But the lack of accompanying battle damage and the slight wobble of the station had Oswald thinking that the damage had been accidental. Perhaps docking gone bad that had not been repaired.

  Oswald led two crew members from Corporal Tadashi Gaho, had served on Saturn Station only two years ago by Roland's reckoning. Oswald almost had to send him back as he continually spewed panicked questions, allowing no time in between for answers. The tone was one of disbelief—Gaho simply couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Oswald was having a hard time of it himself, but found such histrionics distracting. Part of Gaho believed Oswald had answers, even though it seemed he didn't want to hear an asteroid strike or a

  Flight Engineering. One, them. It took a direct threat of being sent back to Roland to get him to shut-up.

  Saturn loomed large and majestic in the distance. Below the station the icy rings spread out to infinity. It was beautiful—and deadly. While not as dangerous as the Jovian radiation belts, Saturn was no place to take a stroll. There were also countless pieces of debris, natural and manmade, spinning around, eagerly waiting to open up some hapless human's space suit.

  "Alright," Oswald said, flipping down the full faceplate on his helmet. "Enough stargazing. Let's get inside."

  An EVA drone had preceded them, attaching a cable to the nearest airlock. It floated lazily above them in case one should slip. Oswald pulled himself along slowly, constantly scanning for obstacles that might try to let his air out. The EVA suits were tough, but not like the combat vacc-suits.

  They made good speed to the central maintenance airlock. There was no power so the two engineers set up the emergency recovery kit. It was designed to be compatible with all standard Earth Force airlocks. Gaho attached four clips from the box and pulled a lever. A long gear extended into a slot labelled RECOVERY in bright yellow letters. It began slowly spinning for a second then stopped. The other tech, Flight Sergeant Prackzowkzi, fitted the feet of a long slide hammer to the edges of the hatch and began silently slamming it. He moved to three different spots and finally the gear in the recovery slot began again. The airlock opened slowly into darkness, a clockwork mouth screaming noiselessly at its violators.

  There was no residual pressure from within the station as the three cycled through the airlock. Opening and closing the hatches required the slow process of detaching and attaching the recovery box but no more hammering was needed.

  Ice crystals mixed with dust floated everywhere, lighting up like motes in sunlight as the astronauts' lights swept through the darkness. There were no signs of battle damage inside; no charring, no emergency repairs, no floating bodies grasping towards the intruders with accusing fingers.

  Oswald's bright lights cast dark shadows, but despite being one of the largest EF battle stations, it was just as cramped as Roland. He led the team towards the central hub. The Earth Force logo was displayed proudly on the wall, the dates of the station's commissioning and changes of command listed on a neat plaque. At the very bottom someone had written as neatly as possible with a maintenance marker:

  Surrendered to Centauri Forces. 18FEB2207 Colonel Linda Cornin commanding. R.I.P.

  "What the..." Oswald stared slack-jawed before the sign. He held himself close in front of it to block the view from the others. He'd never heard of a Colonel Linda Cornin—and 2207 was more than ten years in the future.

  But how long ago had it been written?

  "Sir," Gaho asked cautiously. "How can this place be so empty? Even if they all jumped out the second we left..." His question was squelched by a mind unwilling to accept an answer.

  "I don't know, Corporal. It's been a while. The command capsule is down three levels, yes?"

  Gaho nodded slowly.

  "I can't see your head from here if you're nodding, Gaho."

  "Sorry, Colonel. Yes. The hatches are over there."

  "Right," Oswald pointed towards the hatches. "Let's get them open."

  Dark slashes had been cut into the thin sheen of frost from their passage. The only illumination was from the lights on their helmets. Even the auxiliary lights stared at them with lifeless eyes. They were designed to run on batteries that lasted for decades, not to mention being recharged from the station’s solar arrays. They at least should be glowing dimly.

  The internal hatches required only a few strikes of the hammer to knock loose. Oswald pulled through the hatch and saw nothing but more darkness and dust down the passage. On the way towards the control center he saw the sign that read POWER PLANT.

  "Let's take a quick look here." Oswald tugged the latches and spun the wheel and the hatch swung open. The two crewmen followed. There was no hint concerning when they were, but the answer to the total lack of power was found.

  "Sir." Prackzowkzi reached out and gently spun Oswald around and pointed to a nearby power station. "Look at that."

  The station's main breakers were all pulled open and the spaces that held the primary batteries were empty. Even if the solar arrays were still working, there was no way for them to charge the lights or anything else.

  Oswald toyed for a moment with the idea of trying to see what would power up. But he pictured electrocuting himself or causing an explosion as some system that had been powered down for who knows how long suddenly got juice. Roland's luck of late hadn't left him feeling like taking chances.

  "Let's go."

  Oswald continually swept his light up and down the dark passage. His breath was becoming loud in his helmet and he could feel sweat building on his brow. A quick check of the suit and the readings convinced him there was nothing wrong, though he was not quite as trusting of his instruments as he once was. They continued their slow glide to the command center.

  An aqua-marine colored sign had been plastered across the hatch labelled OPERATIONS. It was made of some manner of poly-paper and strange glyphs were written across it. Much of the adhesive had failed and it was held on only by a corner.

  "Centauri." Oswald turned his body slowly to scan for an ambush or some manner of alien booby-trap. The idea seemed crazy, but crazy was the word of the day lately. Satisfied that nothing more diabolical awaited, he pulled the Centauri sticker off the rest of the way and gave it a good scan with his camera.

  "Aux, run that through the translator." Oswald recognized the script but only knew enough of the alien language to fire off insults.

  "Sir, I am on it. That is," McFarran paused and took a breath, "disturbing to say the least. I'll get that for you shortly."

  "Discretely."

  "Sir," the Aux replied disapprovingly. "I am always discrete."

  "Well, except for that time on Mars where—"

  "And I have always appreciated your discretion in that matter, sir. Greatly."

  Oswald grinned despite his growing dread. They floated patiently in the dark, sweeping their lights more often as time wore on.

  "Printing out to your visor, sir."

  Oswald watched the letters form in holographic traces.

  Conquered by Zon-Bri-Kon, Bellick War Group. No Admittance "Sir, there is a date given. The computer translated it to match what we saw on the other board." McFarran sniffed. "It is a pretentious tongue, sir."

  "Received, Aux." Oswald crumpled the Centauri notice and tossed it, watching it drift into the darkness of the far end of the passage. He po
pped the hatch open himself, still half-expecting some alien nastiness. He got some.

  The hatch revealed three desiccated corpses, their faces drawn in ancient death. Their hands and feet lashed together and tied to the compartment walls so they were stretched out like skeletons in a medieval dungeon.

  Prackzowkzi screamed and sent himself flying back into the passage trying to escape with a comical, panicked swimming motion.

  "Prackz!" Oswald screamed. "Get hold of yourself!" He and Gaho turned from the corpses and grabbed Prackzowkzi, pulling him back into the command center. They pressed him against the wall, their feet braced on nearby structures, until Prackzowkzi wore himself out. He struggled once or twice, breathing heavily, until he swallowed hard and nodded at Oswald.

  "Sorry, sir. I don't know what... I just wasn't expecting that. It's just so... quiet." He slowly pulled his arms away, showing that he was now calm. "And dark."

  Oswald nodded, feeling the need to say nothing. He patted Prackz on the shoulder and turned his attention back to the corpses. Their blue and gold uniforms were split and peeling. One flight suit wore the bars of an EF colonel. He tentatively pulled on it to expose the name tag. It came off in a cloud of crumbling fiber.

  L. Cornin.

  The motion set the strung up-corpse to spin, revealing the back of the withered skull. Between the strings of the remaining hair, a ragged burn hole was clearly visible. The other two corpses showed the same laser wounds. Oswald turned to face the other two.

  "Executed." Gaho stared wide-eyed. "I've never heard of a Colonel Cornin. Colonel Haynes was commander when we left. I just don't get it."

  Oswald hovered, considering the grisly scene. He agreed with the assessment. Possibly the rest of the crew was dead and frozen in another compartment, but Saturn Station looked like it had been taken without a shot. Whether that decision was made by Cornin or Earth, he'd probably never know. He doubted that a crew would allow themselves to be taken peacefully once mass executions started and there would be signs of that. But only if they knew they were going on. Or perhaps the Centauri only executed the senior staff. Either way, Oswald was not inclined to search Saturn Station deck by deck. They had come for another reason, which he had nearly forgotten.