Nearspace Trilogy

by Sherry D. Ramsey

  “Get the burst drive online as quick as you can, Viss. Rei, use the thrusters if you can to get us turned and pointed toward the Stillwell.”

  “What are you doing? I thought we were staying out of the way?” Maja asked.

  “We are, but we can’t sit here and do nothing if the Stillwell needs help. Yuskeya, while we’re stuck here, scan that moon for signs of life. Woodroct said the Domtaw still had people down there.”

  “What happened to that?” Maja asked. She pointed to my datapad on the decking. Part of the silver casing bore black streaks, and a thin wisp of smoke rose from it.

  “No idea. It happened when the engines shut down,” I told her.

  She rose and bent to pick it up, testing the casing gingerly first in case it was still hot. Taking it between forefinger and thumb, she set it down next to Baden. “I think I have your next repair project here.”

  He glanced at it and grimaced. “I think an excursion to ship stores to search for a spare might be a better idea.”

  “Okay, I’ve rebooted and routed everything into the burst drive, Rei,” Viss said over the ship’s comm. “Give it a try.”

  I’d forgotten about Viss being alone down in engineering. And he had as many screens as we did up here, but he’d had to watch the destruction of the Domtaw all by himself.

  “You okay, Viss?”

  “Doing fine, Captain. Thanks for asking.”

  The ship hummed with the rising energy of the burst drive, and Maja sat down again abruptly.

  “The Chron ship is making for the Delta Pavonis wormhole,” Yuskeya said.

  “We can’t let them get to Nearspace,” Maja said quietly, her eyes dark with concern. For someone with little spacefaring experience, my daughter was adjusting well. I felt a flush of motherly pride despite everything else that was happening.

  “We can’t stop them,” I said, the image of the exploding Domtaw lending a burnt taste to the words as I spoke them. “We can’t reach them in time, and we don’t have the firepower.”

  “Maybe this other ship . . . ” Yuskeya let the thought trail off.

  “My enemy’s enemy is my friend?” Hirin said. “Could be, but I’m not betting on it.”

  “I don’t even like the look of that ship,” Maja agreed.

  A wide swath of crackling greenish-yellow light appeared between two of the spidery protrusions in the fore end of the dark ship, like electricity dancing between two Van de Graff generator spheres. The Chron ship and its pursuer were very close to the Delta Pavonis wormhole now, and something strange was happening.

  The mouth of the wormhole, normally merely a dark shadow against the darker backdrop of the void, was glowing. Glowing blue, shot through with silver, and swirling like a vortex. A cone of silver-blue light extruded from it and continued to grow, straining toward the onrushing Chron ship. It was weirdly beautiful, and utterly terrifying.

  “Yuskeya,” I said in a hushed voice, “are you getting all this?”

  “All scans are running, Captain. Everything I can get. I’ve never seen anything—”

  “Neither have I, and I’ve been flying around Nearspace a long time.”

  The Chron ship hadn’t quite reached the tip of the extended wormhole mouth when the dark ship fired. A jagged bolt of energy flared out from the crackling golden mass at the front of the ship, but it shot wide and missed the Chron ship by a narrow margin.

  “Dio!” Hirin gasped. “I don’t know of any weapon that’s safe to fire near the mouth of a wormhole.”

  “Rei, cut the drives,” I said. “Viss, divert everything to shields. I don’t know what these bastardos—”

  I didn’t get to finish the sentence. A burst of speed from the dark ship made it bound closer to its quarry just as the Chron ship flew without hesitation into the silvery, beckoning tip of the reconfigured wormhole.

  The dark ship fired again, golden fire blazing from the fore end directly into the wormhole and its disappearing prey.

  It was instinct. I squeezed my eyes shut as the world exploded in a bright fire that seemed certain to engulf us all. So I didn’t get to see what happens when you fire an energy weapon into a wormhole. I didn’t have time to worry about it, though, because for the next little while, I knew nothing but darkness.

  I CAME TO, lying ignominiously on the floor beside the big chair, Yuskeya checking my pulse, and Hirin hovering worriedly over me. It took me a moment to orient myself, and I took in some little details as I did. Yuskeya’s hair and shipsuit had been tugged askew, and an angry purple bruise welled up on Hirin’s cheek.

  I struggled to sit up. Yuskeya pushed me down gently, shaking her head.

  “Kia . . . inferna? What happened, Hirin?”

  “The explosion—we were all out for a minute or two.” He touched his cheek. “Ship got thoroughly tossed around.”

  “Everybody all right?”

  Yuskeya patted my arm. “Everyone’s fine, Captain, aside from some bumps and bruises. You’re the last to wake up, that’s all. And you’ve got a burn on your hand. I’m going to get some salve for that.”

  That’s all? That was enough. Pretty darned embarrassing, believe me. Where were my nanobioscavs, leaving me to be the last one to wake up?

  “Yeah, my datapad got fried, and it burned my hand. It can wait until later. What about the ship?”

  “We seem to be okay, Captain,” Rei said from the pilot’s board, her voice the tiniest bit shaky. “That blast knocked us around a bit, but I don’t see anything serious.”

  I waved away Yuskeya’s ministrations, took Hirin’s outstretched hand, and got to my feet. “Viss?”

  “Accounted for, Captain. Can’t find anything to worry about, except that it’ll take even longer to get the main drive online now.” He sounded aggrieved.

  I surveyed the bridge. It looked like a room might appear after a mild earthquake—things dislodged and shaken around, but not too much damage. Maja gave me a watery smile as she pulled her chair into place next to Baden’s. Cerevare was straightening her sash, her ears laid back close to her head, a sure sign of dismay. Rei’s shipsuit had a long tear in one sleeve. Baden winked at me, apparently unscathed. My wrecked datapad had ended up on the floor again.

  The screens we’d been watching had blanked, but began to flicker to life as I turned my attention toward them.

  “Captain.” It was only a whisper, and then Cerevare cleared her throat and tried again. “Captain . . . the wormhole.”

  As one we turned. The wormhole was in its third incarnation of the day. At first it had been dark, unremarkable, normal. Then swirling with blue and silver, stretching a cone of dancing light toward the Chron ship. Now it was . . . I don’t know what it was.

  The wormhole had been transformed into a sullen red eye of energy, seething and churning internally as it hung in space. Erratic sparks of light flared in its depths and burned out like wind-tossed embers blown from a galactic bonfire. There was no trace of either the Chron ship or its dark and spidery pursuer.

  “That,” Baden said, trying to sound flippant and failing miserably, “does not look good.”

  I couldn’t think about what it meant, yet. Other things had to come first. “What about the other Protectorate ship—the Stillwell?”

  “It’s there,” Yuskeya said after a moment. “Doesn’t seem to have moved. No readings from its drives.”

  “No response on the comm,” Baden reported.

  “Set a course for it, Rei,” I ordered, easing into my chair. My head was filled with an unfamiliar pounding sensation, and I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I could count on my balance. “But don’t push the ship any more than Viss approves.”

  Hirin crossed to me and knelt beside the chair, his blue-grey eyes searching mine. “Are you all right, Luta?”

  I closed my eyes briefly. “I’m not sure. I think so.” I met his gaze, and he crinkled his eyes at me, something he’d always done in situations where a smile wasn’t appropriate but he wanted to telegraph me some
encouragement. I winked in return, willing myself not to cry. My throat felt tight and cramped, a hot welling burning behind my eyes.

  What is wrong with me? I never had trouble dealing with a crisis, and I’d been through lots for practice.

  “Captain, you’d better look at this,” Baden said suddenly.

  I turned from Hirin and back to my duty. “What is it?”

  “Readings from the Stillwell,” he said, “or rather, a lack of readings from them. Still nothing on the comm. Now I see that the messages have been—well, bouncing off the ship and reflecting into space. They’re not responding because they’re not getting anything from us.”

  “Rei, are we close enough for a visual yet?”

  “Yes,” she answered, and the Protectorate ship winked into existence on one of the screens. I was glad to have one less view of the ravaged wormhole.

  But not for long. “What’s wrong with it?”

  Yuskeya frowned at the screen. “There’s something . . . well, you can see it, sort of. It’s like an envelope around the ship. It’s an energy field, and a solid one. The ship is completely encased inside it. My scans are bouncing off, like Baden’s comm signals.”

  A shimmering dark shroud wrapped the Dragon-class ship. The vessel’s outline was barely visible inside the field. It lay dead in the inky vacuum, adrift in the sea of stars. No signals came from it, and apparently none could get through to it, either.

  I swallowed hard. “How big a crew on a Dragon-class, Yuskeya?”

  She was silent, thinking, or not wanting to say the words. “Upwards of two hundred.”

  “They may still be fine in there.” It didn’t sound plausible to me, but I had to say it.

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Can you get anything on the energy field? Any ideas on how we might be able to disperse it?”

  “I’m trying, but the scans aren’t picking up anything useful. It’s not comparable to anything we know.”

  “Cerevare, does this seem like anything associated with the Chron?”

  The Lobor shook her head, her composure regained. “I’m sorry, Captain, but no.”

  “Well, I’m damned well not going to fire on it,” I muttered under my breath. “With our luck, it would pass right through the field and hit the ship.”

  Hirin nodded. “We don’t know enough yet.”

  “Okay, one more thing. What about the moon—the artifact moon. Did we scan it for anyone from the Domtaw?”

  Yuskeya didn’t answer right away, staring intently at the datascreen as her fingers skimmed the controls. Finally she said, “No, the emissions it was sending into the wormhole blocked the scans. But . . . they seem to have stopped now. The moon’s gone quiet again. If we were closer, we might be able to scan it now.”

  I ran a hand over my face wearily. “Okej, Rei, turn us around one more time and take us over to the moon. I can’t think of anything we can do about the Stillwell at this point. We have to know if there’s anyone still on that moon before we can think about anything else.”

  “On it, Captain.”

  I turned to Cerevare. The Lobor historian seemed composed enough, although I wasn’t completely proficient at reading her wolflike features yet.

  “Cerevare, you’re certain the first ship was a Chron ship?”

  She nodded, the gold ring in her ear glinting in the overhead lights. “Oh, yes, the configuration has changed very little since the time of the Chron war. We can’t know for certain who was inside it, but the ship was definitely Chron.”

  “And the other one? The dark one?”

  “No. It matches no configuration I’ve ever seen associated with the Chron.”

  “Or anyone else,” Yuskeya added. “I’ve got a pretty thorough knowledge of the Nearspace registry, and that didn’t seem familiar at all. I’m running a database check, but I think it will draw a blank.”

  I thought so, too. I’d never seen or heard of anything remotely like that ship. I shivered, remembering. It had felt almost . . . malevolent. The last things I’d expected to find on this side of the new wormhole were a resurrected enemy and a mysterious new type of spacecraft. And who—or what—had been piloting it?

  “Where’s the pirate?” Rei asked suddenly.

  “Last I saw, he was hightailing it for the other side of the planet,” Hirin said. “So maybe he’s not a complete idioto. He had the good sense to get out of the way.”

  “Scan for the ship,” I said. “I’d like to know where he went, because I don’t want him making more trouble for us if there’s someone on the moon and we have to attempt a rescue mission.”

  It didn’t take long to find him. He’d made it only partway around the planet when the unknown ship must have taken notice of him. His ship hung in space, drifting lazily, partially obscured by something similar to the field that enveloped the Stillwell. They must have taken only a passing shot at the smaller ship, however, or perhaps they weren’t close enough. While the aft end of the hull was encased in the same shadowy grip as the Protectorate ship, the nose and perhaps half the body of this one were clear.

  “I wonder why that ship didn’t shoot this stuff at us, whatever it is,” mused Hirin.

  “Just lucky, I think,” Baden said. “By the time they got close to us, the Chron ship was almost in the wormhole. All their attention was focused on it.”

  “I hope our luck holds, then,” Hirin said. “And I wonder if anyone’s alive in there?”

  “One way to find out. Let’s comm him, Baden,” I said. “If he answers, we might get some clues about the Stillwell, too.”

  A moment later Baden nodded, and I signalled him to put the message on the ship’s comm. This time the voice was not disguised. It was disgruntled, defensive, and surprisingly, female.

  “I suppose you’re here to gloat, Captain.”

  “Not at all,” I told her. “I am here to check on your status. Obviously you have some power, if your comm board is operational. Are you hurt?”

  “No,” she said sullenly. “But I have no drives or weapons. Life support is fine.”

  Yuskeya caught my eye and nodded.

  “Our scans confirm that. How are you for supplies?”

  A momentary silence. Then, “You’re going to leave me here?” she asked, her voice tinged with disbelief.

  I tried to keep the smile out of my voice. “Temporarily, yes. It’s a more effective prison than anything I could come up with aboard my own ship, and while you’re there, you’re not causing any trouble for me, my crew, or anyone else.”

  “What’s wrong with my ship?”

  “I don’t know. Whoever was in that dark ship used some kind of energy field on you and on one of the Protectorate ships. We can see it as a dark globe that surrounds the aft half of your ship. Can you move around your entire ship, or does the field block you from going aft?”

  “I’m blocked,” she said after a pause. “It’s like the ship is cut in half. There’s a dark, sort of hazy ‘wall’ that feels solid to touch, although I can sort of see through it. Was there some sort of explosion? I got thrown into the wall when it happened. It’s solid, trust me.”

  I exchanged a glance with Hirin. He shrugged.

  “The dark ship also appears to have blown up the wormhole to Delta Pavonis,” I said.

  “What the—how do you ‘blow up’ a wormhole?”

  I swallowed. “I have to admit, I don’t know. We’ll keep an eye on it and see what else we can find out. It doesn’t appear to be traversable at this point.”

  She was silent, apparently digesting that news.

  “Don’t get blown up, yourselves,” she said in a tight, bitter voice. “I appear to be dependent on you to rescue me eventually.”

  “All right. We’ll monitor you, and if your other systems seem in danger of shutting down then we’ll come and get you. You can signal us if you encounter any difficulty. Oh, one more thing. Do you wish to tell me your name?”

  There was silence for another minute, so long I
thought she wasn’t going to answer. Then, “Sord. Jahelia Sord.”

  “Very well, Jahelia Sord. I’ll be in touch.” I signalled Baden to cut the communication. He was frowning, but did so. “Baden, first chance you get, run the name Jahelia Sord through the pilot registry database, would you?”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “What is it?”

  He was frowning at the comm board. “I’m not sure—that voice. It sounds familiar.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “You know this person?”

  He met my eyes, his face puzzled. “Maybe I’m crazy. I can’t really place it . . . it seems like I’ve heard it before.”

  “But you don’t recognize the name?”

  “No, and it’s unusual enough that I’d remember it. Never mind. I must be mixed up.”

  Maja reached over and patted his cheek. “That’s because he’s forgotten all the other women now, Mother.”

  I was pleased to see Baden, for once in his life, flush.

  Rei rescued him by turning to me. “Captain, I’d never have suspected that mean streak in you. Leaving that poor pirate girl on her ship.”

  I laughed. “It’s not mean. It’s exactly what I said to her—practical. What facilities do I have here to restrain a PrimeCorp operative, even if she’s not the most effective one they’ve ever employed? And honestly, if I were to meet her right now, I probably wouldn’t be able to restrain myself from taking a swing at her. She threatened my mother—or relayed PrimeCorp’s threats, at least. I won’t let her die out there if I can help it, but I’m not taking unnecessary risks for her, either. And,” I added, “if she’s alive and unharmed by that field, then maybe that means the folks on the Stillwell are okay, too. So I’m feeling magnanimous.”

  “I guess it all depends on how you look at it,” Rei said. “Seems a little like torture to me.”

  “Maybe you’ve never seen her really angry,” Hirin joked. He made a horrified face and shook his head, warding off an imaginary evil with outstretched hands.

  “Okay, let’s quit joking around,” I said. While it felt good to laugh, the situation hadn’t become any less serious. “We still have some scientists to save. Or at least I hope we do. Rei, take us over to the operant moon and make a slow orbit while Yuskeya checks to see if the scans can get through yet.”