Griffin withdrew from the neural link. “You are not going to believe this,” he said, not yet fully come to terms with the outcome of his discussion with the battleship.
He gave an outline to his crew and to Conway. When he was finished, Griffin waited for the reaction.
“Same as it ever was,” said Conway with a shrug.
“It seems kinda sad,” said Shelton. “Imagine flying through space for all that time, compelled by your dead creators to fight for an eternity.”
“And now we get to help each other out,” said Dominguez. “The Hantisar are gone, but we can benefit from their hardware.”
“Yeah, I feel good about this,” said Kenyon.
“This is a positive development,” said Isental. “The Nullifier is not organic, but the motives of its creators are clearly expressed in its programming. They are motives I can understand.”
While Griffin was reassured enough that he was willing to trust this alien computer, he’d expected more questions and skepticism from his crew. Yet here they were, content to accept the situation and see what would come from it.
“I guess some things are easier to believe than others,” he said.
“You’re not convinced, sir?” asked Dominguez.
He nodded. “I am, but I was the one speaking to the Nullifier. I thought maybe you all wouldn’t be so sure.”
“This is a chance worth taking,” said Conway. The man’s acceptance surprised Griffin more than anything else.
“And we’re going to take it.” Griffin smiled widely. “Some new areas of the neural framework unlocked.”
“A star chart!” said Shelton at once. “This one is about a thousand times more detailed than the previous version.” She gave a low whistle. “I can access the Nullifier’s flight log. It’s come a long way.”
“This version of the chart encompasses human and Fangrin territory as well,” said Dominguez.
“Does it give details of our populated worlds?”
“No, sir. I think the data was gathered maybe centuries ago. Perhaps the Hantisar plotted the charts from afar. They would never have known about humanity.”
“The flight log goes back a long way, sir,” said Shelton, her eyes wide. “The Nullifier is old.”
“Yet more advanced than our newest spaceships. What does the log say about recent flights, Lieutenant?”
“There’s nothing for the last ninety years, sir. The Nullifier has been offline all that time.”
“Lieutenant Kroll, can you access everything you require?”
“Yes, sir – I can view the logs as well as the live data. The main drive is a hundred years or more in advance of our own technology. It’s a game-changer.”
“Is it something we can replicate?”
“I’ve got a lot of reading to do, sir. However, I’ve found the vantrium drive schematics, which will give us a real head start on replication. Not only that, the Nullifier’s databanks contain details on the vantrium production process used by the Hantisar. They use tharniol as a base and then they…”
Kroll’s voice was high with excitement and he spoke too fast. Griffin raised a hand to stop him.
“I understand the criticality of this discovery, Lieutenant, and I share your enthusiasm for it. We’ll deal with it later.”
“We must get this back to the Unity League and the Fangrin, sir!”
“The spaceship will not permit us to leave before we have completed the task upon which the agreement was made,” said Isental. “We must assist the Nullifier.”
“Yes, of course,” said Kroll. “I’d just hate to lose all this stuff before our scientists got a chance to look at it.”
“We won’t lose it, Lieutenant,” said Kenyon. “I’ve located the files and I can send them to Earth’s main orbital comms station.”
“How can you do that without a receptor?” asked Shelton.
Kenyon tapped the side of his helmet with the tip of one finger. “I’ve got the coordinates and the receiver codes up here.”
“That’s like five thousand digits in your brain.”
“4926 digits. Each one committed to memory.”
“You’re shitting me?”
“Yes, I am shitting you – I keep a copy stored in my suit computer.”
“I knew that.”
“How long will the data take to reach Earth?” asked Jackson doubtfully.
“I can use the comms amplifier,” said Kenyon. “It boosts the signal speed through a lightspeed tunnel similar to the way our existing kit does it – except this is much faster.”
“Because of the vantrium.”
“I don’t understand the intricacies of it,” said Kenyon. “I’ve packaged up the technical data and placed it in the comms system. The messaging system reports an expected arrival time of eighteen hours.”
“Send it,” said Griffin. “And do the same for anything else we find. Also make sure you update base on what’s going on out here.”
“Yes, sir. The return message won’t be at the same speed. In fact, the receiving station might not even be able to respond to our comms.”
“I don’t intend sticking around here forever, so it shouldn’t be an issue,” said Griffin.
“Close rift, fly home,” said Shelton innocently.
“Exactly that.” Griffin took a deep breath. “Listen folks – we’ve been given access to lots of new tech that could bring enormous changes to how the alliance deals with not only the Sekar but the Raggers as well. We can’t be distracted by it – this is the time to focus on what is directly in front of us.”
“What is directly in front of us, sir?” asked Dominguez.
“A journey to planet six.”
“That one’s called Planet Ass,” said Shelton.
“It’s called Dominion, Lieutenant. Or perhaps that’s the name of the place where they keep the spaceships.”
“I can’t locate any data on that name, sir,” said Dominguez. “No, hang on, something just appeared.”
“The Nullifier is listening to us,” said Isental.
“Can you speak?” asked Griffin, wondering if the spaceship would respond.
The control entity didn’t answer and he didn’t know if it was through choice or because it was incapable.
“What details do we have about the planet?” Griffin asked.
“Checking. There are thousands of files. Some of the documents are dated more than seven hundred years ago.”
“One day we might have a chance to study the history of these other species,” said Griffin.
“We’ve got to understand our own first, sir,” said Shelton.
“Shouldn’t you be scanning the planet, Lieutenant? I don’t care that it’s too far away for a detailed image.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It seems like Dominion is the name of the planet, sir,” said Dominguez. “Apparently it was a significant military outpost in the same solar system as another planet called Serenity.”
“Planet five,” said Griffin. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what was coming next.
“Serenity is where the Hantisar lived, sir,” Dominguez continued.
“It’s close enough to its sun to support life,” said Shelton, her eyes darting across the information on her screen.
“There’s no life there now, is there?”
“No, sir. No sign of an atmosphere – nothing.”
“I’m not sure I want to see firsthand what’s there,” said Griffin. “I’ve had my fill of cataclysmic life loss and I don’t need to see any more of it. We’ve been asked to head to Dominion.”
“When are we setting off, sir?” asked Kroll.
“As soon as I’ve got a better idea what we’re heading into.”
“Won’t the Nullifier take over if we delay too long?”
“I don’t think so,” said Griffin, feeling sure of the answer. “I think this spaceship was always meant to have a crew. If we don’t deviate too far from the agreement, the control entity
will sit back and watch.”
“I hope so, sir,” said Jackson.
“It’s waited a long time already. I don’t believe another few minutes will be too much.”
Griffin returned to his seat and located the files which Dominguez was in the process of reading. Like she said, there was a lot to go through and most of it was unimportant. However advanced the Hantisar were technologically speaking, they didn’t know how to keep their data trimmed to a reasonable size. Then Griffin realized why that might be.
“This ship contains everything required to build the Hantisar civilization from zero,” he said. “They knew the war against the Sekar was a lost cause.”
“The Nullifier’s an insurance policy?” asked Shelton.
“Every species we encounter had a good idea how their fight against the Sekar was going to turn out,” said Kroll. “Now they’ve found us.”
“We’re still in the phase where we believe victory is possible,” said Dominguez.
“Victory is always possible,” said Isental with a growl. “We will benefit from the technology of both Ravok and Hantisar, as well as our own. It will be enough.”
“I agree,” said Griffin. “We can’t talk about defeat as if it’s inevitable. I won’t accept the outcome is predetermined.”
The words were defiant, but he couldn’t help feeling the doubts creeping up. With an effort, Griffin replaced fear with anger, and resumed his search through the documentation.
It took longer than expected. Two hours later, Griffin was ready to pilot the Nullifier towards Dominion. Unfortunately, the four hour break he’d given his crew earlier wasn’t enough and they needed more time asleep in order to be completely alert. Griffin was torn between ordering them to inject stimulants and offering them another break.
He chose to wait. The stims might come in handy later and it seemed unwise to take them before the encounter had even begun. Dominion could wait a little longer.
Minutes later, half of Griffin’s crew were readying themselves for four hours’ uncomfortable sleep, while the other half prepared for an extended shift combing through countless alien documents in the hunt for something which might benefit the mission.
Once the crew was rested, Griffin felt confident he’d made the right choice in putting the start on a temporary hold. They likely all needed an extended period of uninterrupted downtime, but for now this would be enough – he could see the alertness in their eyes and could hear it in the way they talked.
“You’ve seen the image files of Dominion,” he said. “Now we’re going in for a closer look. Let’s close that rift and take those spaceships. What we do here is going to benefit the entire alliance.”
“We will succeed,” said Isental.
Griffin nodded in response and took his seat. Steady hands clicked his harness into place and he wrapped his fingers around the interface bar.
NULLIFIER> It begins.
GRIFFIN> Yes.
NULLIFIER> Be wary, human. I failed once and my databanks contain no memory of the happening.
GRIFFIN> The Sekar-Major is gone. You said so.
NULLIFIER> Nevertheless…
GRIFFIN> A computer with doubts. For us it’s ingrained.
The control entity didn’t speak further and Griffin requested more power from the vantrium drive. The propulsion hummed and the spaceship accelerated. The moment he had the Nullifier aimed at Dominion, he gave it everything.
Chapter Eighteen
The Nullifier was an incredibly fast warship, but two hundred million klicks was a long enough journey on the sublight engines to give the sensor team an opportunity to scan the planet.
“The bad news is, there’s no sign of the military base on the visible side,” said Dominguez. “We’re still a long way out and maybe we’ll resolve some more details once we’re closer.”
“What sort of range before you can get a clear image?”
“A few million klicks, sir. Maybe ten million with some fuzzy edges.”
A look at his console told Griffin that the Nullifier was eighty million klicks from target. The vantrium drive was able to push the spaceship almost to lightspeed and while the Nullifier didn’t transition automatically in the way the Ravok ship Zemilius was able to, it held steady at maximum velocity with the engines humming like they felt no stress whatsoever.
“I’ll slow us down,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense to head straight in without a full surface scan.”
Griffin reduced the power flowing through the vantrium drive and the velocity gauge fell rapidly.
“What’s the rotation time on the planet?” he asked.
“Twenty-nine hours, sir,” said Shelton. “If the military installation is blind side, we’ll potentially have a long wait.”
“We’ve done our waiting, Lieutenant. You slept like a baby through it.”
“Only through half of it, sir.”
“If the name Dominion refers to both the installation and the planet, that suggests to me we’re looking out for something big,” Griffin mused.
“The planet has a surface which is approximately 480 million square kilometers, sir. There’s no facility which is going to cover more than a tiny fraction of that.”
“I’m detecting something which might be rocks, sir,” said Dominguez.
A few rocks weren’t normally worth mentioning, so this got Griffin’s attention.
“What do you mean, Lieutenant?”
“I can’t be sure just yet, sir. It’s like there’s a far greater density of debris near to the planet than I’d expect.”
“Stuff like this happens.”
“It does sometimes. I’ll keep watching.”
At twenty million kilometers away, Griffin slowed the Nullifier to a low speed. He remembered Isental’s words about how two hundred million klicks was the battleship’s chosen safety margin. At some point they were going to have to ignore safe limits and take a few risks, but while everything was going so smoothly, Griffin was happy to take it carefully.
“There is nothing on the facing side, sir,” said Shelton. “We know the facility isn’t subsurface, so we’ll need to change course to find it. Or sit and wait for it to come to us.”
“We’ll go looking. Show me the planet.”
The sensor image wasn’t fully resolved, but it contained a high level of detail. This side of Dominion was a mixture of unusually light greys, mingled with dusky yellows and dark reds. It made Griffin think of mixed clays packed together and formed into a sphere. Other than the color, the planet was mountainous and with an extensively cracked surface. Some of the wider chasms were several kilometers across and probably just as deep.
“No atmosphere,” Griffin said, reading the data which accompanied the feed.
“None whatsoever, sir.”
“Is this appearance natural or is it tied in with the Sekar?”
“I don’t know, sir,” said Dominguez. “I can’t remember seeing anything quite like it, but I haven’t visited every planet in the universe.”
“What about those rocks?”
“I’m trying to get an enhancement on the image.” Dominguez blew out her breath noisily. “Got it. Here you are, sir.”
One of the nearer bulkhead screens updated with the view and Griffin stared at it. He could see grey dots representing chunks of stone drifting away from the planet. Some travelled fast and some slow and the sensor feed captured thousands upon thousands of them.
“Where are they coming from?”
“We can’t see the source yet, sir. Either the planet was in the path of a bunch of space rocks or something else.”
“Theories?”
“From their trajectory, those rocks are being thrown up from the surface,” said Shelton. “Some of them must weigh billions of tons.”
“A far scan indicates the presence of other rocks drifting away from the planet,” added Dominguez. “They’re not all coming from the same place. When Dominion turns, parts of its surface are being scattered i
nto space.”
“It’s an unknown, therefore I don’t like it,” said Griffin. “Captain Isental have you seen anything similar before?”
“I have seen many things. Not this. Not before.”
“Let’s not get any closer than ten million klicks. Set me a course and I’ll fly around the planet.”
“I’ve plotted you the most efficient trajectory,” said Dominguez. “It’s on your console.”
A blue line appeared on Griffin’s navigational screen and he followed it. More of the surface was revealed and he watched intently. He saw variations of the same greys, yellows and reds. One feature caught his eye – a particularly large chasm snaked across the surface, widening as it went. The far end was hidden by the planet’s curvature and Griffin was curious to see how far it extended.
“We’re flying through an area that’s dense with rocks,” said Dominguez. “We won’t hit any, just making you aware, sir.”
“We’re travelling fast, but it would take a mighty big impact to knock out our energy shield,” said Kroll.
“Best not test the theory,” said Griffin. “Have you finished your evaluation of the emitter weapon?”
“Almost, sir. I can tell you how it works.”
“Point and fire I hope?”
“Not so easy. The emitter draws from the vantrium drive and releases a pulse of energy – a new type of energy that I haven’t come across before.”
“The Nullifier says it closes down Sekar rifts, so that’s what we’re going to use it for.”
“Here’s the kicker, sir. The emitter’s range decreases in proportion to the size of the target. The only reason I can think of for such behavior is that larger rifts take a lot more power to shut down, thereby cutting the weapon’s maximum range.”
“It’s not ideal, Lieutenant. Are you certain that’s how it functions?”
Nullifier (Fire and Rust Book 6) Page 14