by Joshua James
“So I guess we’re not jumping out of here anytime soon,” Olsen said.
On the viewscreen, the other three ships were coming into weapons range. Without working shields, they’d sear the roof off the CIC, sucking out all the crew in the room. After that, they’d board to grab the cargo, and have to deal with the Marines. But the Tapper only had a single five-man squad, and who knew how many they had on those ships?
“Sir,” Schmidt said. “The lasers are ready to fire.”
“Good,” Olsen said. “How about the coilguns?”
“They’ll be charged in just under three minutes.”
“Subtract fifteen seconds for the left one,” Chang said over the intercom. “And an extra ten seconds for the right. I managed to reroute some of the power.”
“Okay,” Olsen said. “Target each ship with one laser cannon.”
“Aye, sir. Which ship shall I target with the coilguns?”
“None of them yet. Actually”—a thought hit him like a punch in the gut. Highly explosive, Olsen remembered. He really didn’t have much time—“target the asteroid with the left coil cannon.”
“Yes, uh,” Schmidt faltered. “Yes, sir.”
“Sir, if I may interject,” Rob said, shifting to focus his blue eyes on Olsen. “We have no way of knowing the volatility of the explosive inside the asteroid. It might cause no explosion, or it might be massive enough to annihilate all ships in the vicinity.”
“We’re better hardened against any blast than those rickety incoming ships,” Schmidt interjected.
“Assuming there is an explosion,” Rob insisted.
Under normal circumstances, Olsen would have been happy to debate the merits of this decision, but time was short. They couldn’t jump away, and only good fortune would have them disable all four incoming ships before they took lethal damage.
“If there’s no blast, then we’re right back where we started,” Olsen said. “It’s time to gamble, Rob.”
Before Rob could reply—no doubt to note that they’d be back where they started without a charged coilgun—Olsen turned away. “Schmidt, are the targets set?”
“Yes, sir,” Schmidt said.
“Hit it.”
No sooner had he spoken than the lasers came to life. Green and yellow streaks of energy shot through space, and they hit their targets true. A pulse of blue shot out of the impact points in the distant shield barriers, and then the lasers broke through to the ships’ hulls before the cannons ran out of juice.
“Enemy shields breached,” Schmidt said. “Not sure if they’re completely down, but they’re severely weakened.”
Olsen nodded. He’d been right to assume these ships had invested heavily in weaponry, but not shields. They relied on surprise attacks, taking down their prey before they had time to respond.
On the other hand, the Tapper would now have to charge weapons again, and the ships probably felt emboldened that they’d survived the initial attack. It was their move in this slow-motion game of chess, and their ion cannons would surely penetrate the Tapper’s weakened shield and hull with their next volley.
“Kota,” Olsen called over the intercom. “Are you anywhere near the escape hatch?”
“Yes sir,” Sergeant Elise Kota, the leader of the mining ship’s Marine squad, replied. “Following standard procedures.”
“Good. Pull out the pod and fill the hatch up with ore. You have a minute.” He didn’t wait for a reply. “Cadinouche, turn the ship starboard forty-five degrees, and edge her down a little.”
“Aye, Captain.” The ship began to turn. “Smart move, by the way.”
“Glad you approve, Lieutenant,” Olsen said to his outspoken pilot. “I just hope it works.”
Olsen also hoped that his Marines were strong enough to fill up an escape pod with ore in a minute flat. Otherwise, they were toast.
5
Marine Sergeant Elise Kota increased the intensity of her mag-boots to jerk her to a halt just outside the shuttle bay’s escape hatch. It was always disorientating entering from zero-G into an artificial gravity field, but she shook off the confusion and focused on the task at hand.
Lieutenant Edward Nathan, her boyfriend and the shuttle’s loyal pilot, had already dumped the ore out of the shuttle bay right next to the pod, which he’d just finished pulling out when they arrived. He picked up a shovel, and Kota turned to the rest of the squad: Riley, Connery, Singh, and Turgin, all male and built like girders. Kota wasn’t as strong as them, but she made up for it in physical toughness and endurance.
“Boys, we have forty seconds,” she said. “Establish a system, don’t clash shovels, and get to work.”
The four Marines surrounded the pile.
Kota pushed Nathan out of the way. “Don’t get cocky, babe,” she said. “We need maximum strength for this operation. Time is slipping.”
Nathan huffed, then swung his hands down by his sides and walked back to the ship. He stared up at the screen in the center of the launch bay and lit a cigarette. If that man was to go down, he would do so smoking.
Meanwhile, the Marines had already gotten rid of half the pile, attacking it like they were possessed. They moved with a speed regular humans wouldn’t usually be capable of, but these guys worked out in the gym four hours a day.
“Ten seconds, boys,” Kota said, glancing at the display on her wrist computer. “Let’s put in as much as we have.”
She took hold of her shovel, too, and joined in getting that ore into the hatch. Soon, the captain’s voice came over the intercom, as Kota had expected.
“Kota, I hope you’ve filled that hatch. Release the ballast.”
“Yes, sir.” Kota thumped the button on the side of the hatch, and she knocked Riley’s shovel away before it got caught in the shutting doors. Inside, Kota heard the rock clank around before the racket was replaced by a soft hissing sound.
Riley gave his sergeant a cocky smile. “You said not to clash shovels, sir.”
Kota winked back at him.
Then she turned to see Nathan fling his cigarette onto the floor and storm out of the shuttle bay, without saying a word. She’d hear about this one later, how she’d shown up a Navy officer in front of the Marines and made him look a fool, and he’d probably accuse Kota of flirting with her own squaddies. He could be such a snob sometimes.
She turned back to her troops and high-fived them. Then there came a rumbling from beneath the ship.
6
Captain Olsen watched the display eagerly as the ship turned around, making space and the asteroid belt seem to spin around them. The seconds were ticking, and his chest thumped with adrenaline.
“Schmidt, don’t lose sight of that asteroid. How long we got?”
“One minute until we can fire,” Schmidt said.
“And around ten seconds until the ships fire their ion-cannons,” Rob said.
“Kota, I hope you’ve filled that hatch. Release the ballast.”
“Yes, sir,” Kota said.
Ion-cannons worked by discharging negatively charged super-heated and magnetized matter towards a target. The aim didn’t need to be too accurate, as the beam would automatically seek out anything containing iron in range. A beam could curve to home in on a ship taking evasive measures.
Generally, it went for the closest target. The fact that the particles were electrolyzed also meant the weapon worked against shields and could short-circuit electrical equipment. Luckily for Olsen, just about all the rocks out here contained significant amounts of iron. Until this very moment, it had been a daily source of annoyance with every load they picked up. Now it might save their lives. “Santiago, switch us to starboard view.”
The display on the screen changed so that they were looking down the side hull of the ship. All of a sudden, the hatch on the side opened, and it ejected a whole load of heavy rock into space. At the same time, massive beams of white light shot out from the distant ships. But the timing had been perfect, and the rocks were still huddled t
ight together. The beam curved upwards and most of the ion energy dissipated into the rock, which disintegrated into a swirling cloud of dust. A little energy reflected off onto the ship, but not enough to do any major damage.
“Kota, give your squad each a cigar tonight. Schmidt, coilgun?”
“What the—” The weapons officer sounded surprised. “It’s ready, sir, but the right gun needs another thirty seconds.”
“I found a little more power,” Chang said.
“Get out of there,” Olsen said. “Schmidt, fire on five.”
He had no idea how long the ships would take to fire up their cannons again, and he didn’t want to take any chances. Soon, the ship ejected a massive hulk of blue molten lead into the asteroid, propelled at intense speed from a fission explosion. Once upon a time, nuclear weaponry was the most powerful humans had, but now it was just a regular part of the arsenal.
For a moment, nothing happened, and Olsen worried that they’d shot a dud.
But then, the asteroid began to glow red and a massive explosion blossomed out of it. It engulfed the enemy ships and then continued onwards towards the Tapper.
Olsen closed his eyes and waited for the worst.
But before it could destroy the hull, he heard the satisfying double beep from Schmidt’s computer, indicating the shield systems had come back online.
“Sometimes, sir,” Chang said over the intercom, “all you need to do is flick a switch.”
Of course. The backup shield that Chang had hardwired in. Olsen had forgotten all about it, and the captain had neglected to announce the development to the crew.
The explosion dissipated, and all went silent on the bridge for a brief moment.
Then Olsen let out a breath, not realizing he’d been holding it so long. He looked around the CIC and saw the shoulders of his officers relax.
“Any life forms in range, Santiago?” If there were survivors, they were obligated to render assistance.
“Negative, sir.”
“Debris, anything dangerous?”
“Nothing dangerous, sir.”
“Very well—”
“Except,” Santiago interrupted him. She frowned down at her controls.
Olsen waited for her to continue, sharing a glance with his XO as he did so. He could feel the tension that had just started to ebb out of the bridge crew come flooding back. “Except, Lieutenant?”
Santiago cleared her throat. “There’s something … something out there, though I’m not sure what it is.”
“Visual,” Olsen said as Santiago shifted the viewscreen image. He frowned up at what he saw. “What the hell is that?”
7
In the center of the screen, surrounded by rocky debris and yet seemingly undamaged, an object floated where the center of the asteroid had been: a slowly spinning cube that looked as large as the Extractor shuttle.
“Magnify it.”
The image grew in size, but only got softer in focus, as if the edges were undefined.
Olsen turned around to his XO, who he knew was already scanning the object. “Is this what’s hitting us with those waves?”
“It would appear so,” Rob said after a moment. “It’s emitting high radiation levels. Other than that, I’ve cross-referenced the object against the ship’s database, and I cannot find a single match.”
Olsen looked up at the viewport. “Can you give me sharper magnification, Santiago?”
“I can,” she said, “if I incorporate energy beyond the visible range.” Her hands danced over her controls as the display zoomed in on the cube, overlaying it with false color, making all its intricacies visible — a web of grooves and ridges in layers all over the surface. The object must have been the size of a shuttle, but no larger than that, and it would have needed some kind of defensive energy shielding to have survived that blast. But who, in the entire galaxy, would go to all that effort to protect a cube? And it must have been housed inside one of these asteroids to be so well concealed, but again, why bother?
“What’s its N-number?” Olsen asked.
“Off the scale,” Rob replied. “We don’t have the technology to detect that.”
“Can’t you even hazard a guess? We need to know what we’re looking at, Rob.”
“Sir, without a previous reference, I don’t even know where to start.”
Olsen clenched his teeth. This was the problem with Fleet Command’s new robotic second-in-command devices. Cyborgs were all well and good until they were asked to think for themselves. But after the Grashorn incident, Earth’s politicians had deemed it safer for AIs to keep their superiors in check, rather than a human commander. Rob was a level beneath Captain Olsen, but he interfaced with a network of quantum computers, called Admiralty AI, that had replaced the lower levels of the Admiralty. The AI was constantly analyzing his tactics, something he was very well aware of. It could, in theory, overrule him.
But that hadn’t happened to Olsen—yet. Out here, in the far reaches of space on a lowly mining mission, Admiralty AI didn’t seem to care what he did.
Olsen stood up, folded his hands behind his back, and peered even further at the viewscreen. “Chang, come up to CIC a minute, I need you to look at something.”
“With all due respect, sir, I’m busy repairing the shield generator.”
“It won’t take a minute.”
“Okay, I’m on my way.”
A few moments later there came a clanking of boots from the corridor and Olsen had to marvel at the ensign’s ability to move fast in mag boots. Then Chang rushed in the room, sweat across his brow and his yellow uniform streaked with grease. “At your service,” he said with a salute.
Olsen pointed to the screen. “We could do with some insight on what this might be,” he said. “Did they ever show you anything like this at MISE?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it, sir. What’re its readouts?”
“Incredibly high radiation and an off-the-scale N-number.”
Chang bit his lower lip. “Which means it’s made of incredibly dense material, and I’m guessing it was our source of radiation in the asteroid.”
“That’s what Rob worked out. But it would’ve had to have shielding to—”
Olsen was interrupted by Santiago. “Sir, we’ve detected another object coming in at warp speed.”
Olsen swallowed a curse and kept his face neutral. “Aren’t we popular today,” he murmured.
He could just imagine his brother sitting across from him, shaking his head as he drew cards. What Olsen needed—what they all needed—was a second to think. Unprovoked attacks and unexplained objects didn’t just happen. Not out here, and not after months of nothing.
But the universe wasn’t going to be that accommodating. “Put it on screen,” he said.
“That’s the thing, Captain. There’s no visual sign of anything.”
Olsen swallowed hard. This was the second impossible thing he’d encountered in the last ten minutes. “Then focus on where the FTL-warp signal’s coming from.”
“Aye, sir,” Santiago replied, and the screen went almost black, with only a few asteroids floating by, lit by the sun.
At least, for a second.
Because Olsen blinked, and then he saw it: a ship with two large side engines, connected by a thin curved hull to a massive central sphere. Its shell was semi-transparent for a moment before uncloaking into solid form. The design looked more like a post-modern statue you’d see in an art gallery than something that could fly. Yet here it was, a remarkable feat of engineering, unlike anything Olsen had ever seen before.
It had no visible ordnance, but Olsen guessed that if the ship could cloak its body, it could also cloak its weapons.
“Hail it,” Olsen said. “And let’s hope they’re friendlier than our last visitors.”
8
If the ship was strange to Olsen, the alien he saw on his screen was even more bizarre. Humans, since discovering they weren’t alone in this galaxy, had gotten used to
bipedal crocodiles, and wraith-like creatures with laminated pools of mercury inset into their skin. But neither of those two intelligent races tended to glow in the dark.
The creature that appeared on screen was of naked humanoid build, surrounded by darkness save for a line of flashing green lights on its left-hand side and another line of flashing red on its right. It had a small torso and a large head. Other than two completely dark streaks down each side, its skin glowed like one of those fancy therapeutic lightbulbs that changed color to soothe your mood. The creature also had no face.
“Greetings, human,” it said rather unnervingly, since without a mouth it was impossible to tell where it spoke from. The voice had such a neutral cadence that it was impossible to detect whether it was male or female. Clearly, it was speaking through a translator.
“On behalf of the United Republic Space Association, I welcome you,” Captain Olsen said. “Who are you, and what brings you to a human-controlled sector?”
“Ah yes, introductions. You can call me Ambassador Oort, and I come on behalf of the Tauian race to help protect your galaxy.”
Dammit. This was a first-contact situation, and surely it should be managed by something more than an on-the-fringes mining vessel. Olsen considered opening a channel to connect the Tauian to Fleet Admiral Brownstone, but then he thought he’d rather see how this panned out.
“That’s very kind of you, Ambassador. May I ask from what?”
Oort tilted his featureless head. “The object will determine that.”
The object. Olsen didn’t need a translator to know he was talking about the cube.
“It’s certainly making us popular,” Olsen said. “Maybe you can shed a little light on what it is?”
“It is a technology far more advanced than anything your civilization has encountered, and I’ve come here merely to warn you of its dangers.”