by Ryk Brown
“Ejecting,” Leta announced as the separation boosters kicked in, propelling the cockpit away from the doomed fighter and the drone cruising alongside it.
“Contact!” Kaylah announced from the Aurora’s sensor station. “Drone inbound! And a Nighthawk! It’s damaged!”
“The drone or the Nighthawk?” Cameron wondered.
“Both!” Kaylah replied. “The drone has no propulsion or maneuvering, and its main power is about to fail.”
“Drone is headed for the flak field,” Lieutenant Yuati announced.
“What about the Nighthawk?” Cameron asked her sensor officer.
“It’s badly damaged,” Kaylah replied. “It looks like it collided with… The Nighthawk’s reactor is going critical! The pilot is ejecting!”
A white flash appeared on the main view screen some distance away.
“Report!” Cameron demanded.
“The Nighthawk’s reactor went critical, taking out the back half of the drone. The warhead is still inbound… Adrift but inbound.”
“Target that warhead with everything you’ve got, Lieutenant,” Cameron insisted.
“Targeting warhead,” the tactical officer acknowledged. “Firing!”
Within seconds, there was another flash of light on the wrap-around view screen, this one a hundred times larger and significantly brighter.
“Warhead destroyed,” the lieutenant reported calmly.
“Threat estimate on the antimatter event?” Cameron asked Kaylah.
“The force of our weapons prevented the device’s antiprotons from completely mixing with protons in its reaction mass. There will be some additional gamma radiation filtering down to the surface, but not enough to do much damage. Maybe a few burnt out circuits and some interrupted comms. SilTek’s atmosphere is pretty thick.”
“What about us?” Cameron wondered.
“Our shields will protect us.”
“What about the Nighthawk’s cockpit module?” Cameron inquired.
“If her ejection thrusters worked properly, they should propel her far enough away.”
“Any sign of her?”
“Not through all of these gamma rays,” Kaylah explained. “We’re going to be blind for a few minutes.”
Cameron sighed. “Comms, let’s launch another SAR Reaper to look for her. Hopefully, she was as lucky this time as she was over Volon.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Nathan entered the Voss’s common room after squeezing in a nap during the first recharge layover. The last twenty-four hours had been just as tiring as the previous twenty-four, and the drain was beginning to catch up with him.
Nevertheless, he found it hard to sleep for more than a few hours aboard the Voss. His cabin was even smaller than it had been on the Seiiki, and the bed was uncomfortable. He wondered if the XK series had been staffed by Tekans of smaller stature, or if the population was generally of smaller size. Nathan himself was of average height, at least for Terrans. But he was starting to realize that on SilTek, most of the people he had met were a bit shorter than him. He wondered how Loki, who was the tallest among them, was able to sleep in the Voss’s racks.
“You didn’t get any sleep?” Nathan asked Jessica, who was sitting at the table talking to Loki.
“Loki and I have been swapping stories,” she replied. “Catching each other up.”
“It’s been mostly her catching me up,” Loki admitted. “I’ve been lying in bed for the last week or two while you people have been having all the fun.”
“You and I have very different ideas of fun,” Nathan joked. “Any word back from the Aurora?”
“About an hour ago,” she replied. “You’re not going to like the news,” Jessica warned, handing her data pad to Nathan.
“Why?” Nathan wondered, taking it from her.
“Apparently, Griogair decided to call your bluff.”
Nathan studied the reports on the data pad, his expression becoming more concerned as he read. “I guess it was to be expected,” Nathan sighed. “We’re going to have to retaliate, though.”
“Swipe ahead a few pages,” she suggested.
Nathan did so, and his expression changed again. “Nice.”
“Four Orochi with full loads,” Jessica summarized. “Took out every surface missile launcher they had left. Gunyoki took out two of his new ships as well. They’re down to four now, none of them Dusahn.”
“How much collateral damage was there?”
“By our brief recon scans, not much,” Jessica told him. “Telles is still waiting to hear from his operatives on Takara to confirm. Meanwhile, Griogair is playing it off as an unwarranted act of aggression by an alliance that would see the people of Takara perish as retribution for the revolution against the oppression of the Ta’Akar family.”
“Griogair and Galiardi should get together sometime,” Nathan commented. “They’d probably have a lot in common.”
Vladimir came bursting through the port hatch that led from the port forward bay with Dylan close on his heels. “Nathan!” he called, spotting his friends at the table. “Bozhe moi!”
“What’s wrong?” Nathan asked, a bit worried by his friend’s sense of excitement.
“We got the core from Loki’s ship working…or Dylan did…or at least the data chip,” Vladimir tried to explain.
“Calm down,” Nathan urged.
“We swapped the data chip from Loki’s flight recorder into one of our Lightnings and then uploaded it into a data pad,” Dylan explained. “There was a lot of lost data, but we got enough.”
“You are not going to believe what happened,” Vladimir insisted, taking a seat at the table next to Loki. “How are you feeling, my friend?” he asked Loki, looking him over.
“Uh, okay…I guess.”
“Vlad, what the hell is going on?” Nathan inquired.
Vladimir looked at Nathan, taking a deep breath. “Loki was in the jump for five days.”
“What are you talking about?” Nathan asked.
“Is that even possible?” Jessica wondered.
“An hour ago, I would have said no,” Vladimir admitted. “The flight data from Loki’s P-Seventy-Two is chronologically exact up to the moment that he jumped through the mountain. The very next entry, which notes the moment that he came out of that jump, every data point’s time stamp is one hundred and thirty seven hours and eighteen minutes off. He was stuck in that jump the entire time.”
“Wait, you said he jumped through the mountain,” Nathan realized. “I thought he just grazed the top of it.”
“No, he jumped through it,” Vladimir insisted. “His navigation logs show that he struck the mountain at least fifty meters below its summit, and he struck it at the precise moment of his jump.”
“That’s not possible,” Jessica argued. “You can’t jump through solid matter.”
“That’s not entirely correct,” Vladimir pointed out. “We jump through matter every time we jump. It’s just that the mass of that matter is insignificant compared to our own mass.”
“I’m no physicist, but that doesn’t make sense to me,” Loki argued. “That mountain had a lot more mass than my Lightning.”
“Your jump drive was going in and out of about six different failure modes just before your jump,” Vladimir explained. “That could have something to do with it.”
“How could a failing jump drive make it able to jump through a mountain?” Nathan wondered.
“I don’t know,” Vladimir admitted. “Truth be told, I don’t really understand how the jump drive actually works; at least, not from a physics standpoint. Just don’t tell Abby I said that. It could have something to do with when the jump fields actually formed around Loki’s ship. Perhaps they interacted with the mass of the mountain in some way. Maybe some of the mountain was included within his fields.”
“Would
n’t some of the mountain come out of the jump with me, then?” Loki theorized. “There was no debris around me that I remember.”
“I don’t know.”
“If you don’t know, then how can you be sure of anything?” Jessica postulated. “How do we even know the time stamps on that log are correct?”
“Could the jump have screwed up his ship’s chronometer?” Nathan suggested.
“Time isn’t kept by a chronometer,” Vladimir replied. “It’s calculated by the ship’s computers. If something affected his fighter’s computers enough to put it that far out of time-sync, all kinds of other problems would have been occurring.”
Nathan sighed. “It just seems far more likely that Loki was out longer than he thought.”
“I know how long I was out,” Loki insisted. “Udo told me.”
“He could’ve been lying,” Jessica suggested.
“He could have, but to what end?” Loki challenged.
“You aren’t understanding what I’m saying here,” Vladimir insisted. “The time stamps are accurate. If they weren’t, we’d be able to tell.”
“He’s right, Captain,” Dylan agreed.
“How can you be sure?” Jessica challenged.
“It’s a computer thing,” Dylan explained. “Trust me on this.”
“So, not only did Loki jump through a mountain, but he also traveled forward in time,” Nathan surmised.
Vladimir became excited again, his friend finally realizing what he was trying to tell him. “Precisely!”
Nathan still wasn’t as excited as Vladimir. “We’ll forward all of this to Abby and see what she makes of it,” Nathan decided.
Vladimir rolled his eyes. “At least Abby will be properly excited.”
“Oh, I’m properly excited,” Loki assured him.
“Why?” Jessica wondered.
“Are you kidding?” Loki chuckled. “I finally did something more impossible than Josh. I can’t wait to rub it in his face.”
* * *
“I take it you’ve read Nathan’s latest communiqué,” Cameron said as General Telles entered her ready room.
“I have,” he replied, closing the hatch behind him. “Excellent news about Mister Sheehan.”
“Yes, it is,” Cameron agreed. “What did you think of Mister Rusayev’s idea?”
“It is an ambitious plan.”
“Then you don’t think it’s a good idea?”
“The Ghatazhak can seize control of the network hubs, and we can hold them long enough to get the message out. The real question is how the people of Earth will react. If our current intelligence is correct, and the population is split, this may not solve anything.”
“Heir-to-office has never been challenged since it was instituted over a century ago,” Cameron insisted. “I can’t imagine it would be now.”
“There are many variables at play at the moment, none of which were ever in play before,” the general explained. “The lingering hatred of the Jung being the most influential.”
“As powerful as hatred and vengeance can be, I believe that most people prefer peace and security over violence and uncertainty.”
“While I certainly hope you are correct,” the general assured her, “in my experience, humanity is more often ruled by emotion than by intellect.”
Cameron sighed, thinking for a moment. “If Miri steps up to claim heir-to-office rights, Galiardi will undoubtedly challenge her, and he’ll tell any lie possible to avoid having to hand over power.”
“Which is why her claim must be backed up by threat of force,” the general replied.
Cameron was caught off guard. “What force?”
“We must bring everything we have to back her,” he explained. “Then, if Admiral Galiardi chooses to risk the very forces that the Earth would need to defend itself against the Jung rather than step down while the courts decide, he will be committing a criminal act himself. Under Sol Alliance fleet regulations, his own officers would be forced to arrest him.”
“Assuming he hasn’t got them all in his back pocket by now.”
“Was it not you who expressed faith in your fellow Terrans?” the general stated.
“We may not have enough firepower to challenge the Sol Alliance,” Cameron told him. “And Nathan is not going to want to fight our own people.”
“If Nathan truly believes in what we are trying to achieve, he will find it within himself to do whatever is needed. Even if that means killing fellow Terrans.”
Cameron sighed again. “That’s an order I hope I never have to give.”
* * *
Shortly after the Voss touched down on SilTek, at what was now being referred to as the ‘XK yards’, Nathan, Jessica, and Loki disembarked.
“Welcome back, Cap…” Del stopped mid-sentence, disbelief on his face at the sight of Loki coming down the Voss’s ramp. “I thought…”
“Long story,” Nathan told him. He turned to Jessica. “I’ve been saying that a lot lately, haven’t I?”
“Well I’m glad to see you’re not dead after all, Loki,” Del congratulated.
“Can you arrange transport to your nearest medical center?” Nathan asked Del. “I’d like Loki to get examined and treated.”
“Of course,” Del assured him, turning to one of his assistants. “Jader, get Mister Sheehan to the health center.”
“Right away,” Del’s assistant promised. “Mister Sheehan, welcome back. Follow me.”
“Don’t leave without me,” Loki told Nathan.
“Not a chance,” Nathan promised. “Get back as soon as you can.” Nathan looked about the yard, noticing that the second XK was gone. “You already launched the second XK?”
“She launched four days ago. Captain Nash has been conducting training maneuvers. He should be back later today. He named his ship the Ancot.”
“Wasn’t that ahead of schedule?”
“Like I said the last time you were here, we’ve got volunteers showing up by the dozens. Captain Roselle’s XK should be ready in three days. He plans to name her the Ellison. Captain Kainan’s ship, the Lawrence, will be ready by the end of next week. With the number of volunteers we have now, we should be able to put out one XK per week.”
“That may present a problem,” Nathan admitted. “We may not be able to come up with qualified crews that quickly, let alone train them.”
“I may be able to help you with that,” Del replied. “Just about every person working in this yard is willing to serve as crew on these ships. Many of them know every system in the XK like the backs of their hands. There’s really only one crew position that we lack qualified people to fill: commanding officers.”
“Those I can provide,” Nathan assured him, smiling. “What about pilots? Can your people fly these things?”
“The XKs’ AI’s can fly the ships as well as any human, probably better. So they can learn as they go.”
“Don’t say that around Josh,” Jessica warned.
“How are we going to get everyone trained so quickly though?” Nathan wondered.
“We used our AIs to adapt the Night Runner game sim into a training sim. Roselle’s crew is using it as we speak. It’s about as real as you can get. We’ve got the bugs in the P-Seventy-Two sim hammered out as well. We just needed help programming combat tactics for the simulated opponents.”
“Needed?” Nathan wondered.
“I contacted Captain Taylor, and she loaned us Commander Verbeek for a couple of days. Now we have realistic simulations for Dusahn, Jung, EDF, you name it. He also helped us set up training regimens to teach our Lightning pilots basic combat tactics.”
“That was good thinking,” Nathan complimented.
“We’ve even started installing sim hubs in all the bunks, so that crew members can train as much as they want.”
; Nathan shook his head in disbelief. “You’re constantly surprising me, Mister Shelton, and in a good way.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Del replied. “I’m just excited to be doing something positive to protect my world. We’ve been harassed by the Benicasi and their like for far too long. Just being able to do something…I can’t even describe how good that feels. If you hadn’t come to our world, I don’t know if we ever would have gotten that bitch Batista to take action.”
Nathan put his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Hopefully, someday, such concerns will be long forgotten…by everyone.”
* * *
Commander Jexx was afraid to speak. He had never seen such anger on his leader’s face. He had just murdered one of his servants with his bare hands upon hearing of the failure to destroy SilTek, and he looked as if he was ready to do it again.
The commander stood silently as Lord Dusahn slowly regained his composure. His leader looked down at the servant’s lifeless corpse without a single glimmer of remorse. It was as if killing someone had brought him balance; as if he needed it in the same way as one needs air, water, and food. Such was the way of the Dusahn. A warrior caste where killing was life and death held honor.
The commander had never understood the Dusahn philosophy. It was so different from that of his Truunian mother. She, like all Truunians, was a devout pacifist. Life was all that mattered to them, and no crime, no matter how heinous, warranted death. Truunians would rather die than take the life of another.
Of course, their devotion to non-violence had been their undoing. The Dusahn had swept through the Truunian’s non-lethal defenses in minutes, extracting resources from their world for years before moving on. It was their way. The strong took all that they needed from the weak, without regard to life.
Commander Jexx had been taken from his mother by his Dusahn father at an early age, before his mother’s Truunian beliefs could take permanent hold. But his father had little interest in raising a child, even a male child. In fact, the only reason he had been taken was because Lord Dusahn ordered it. All the half-breed sons of Dusahn fathers were taken and raised by pure-blooded Dusahn women.