by Marc Stevens
I took a deep breath and exhaled. Tria reached under the table and squeezed my leg. “If given the chance, I would gladly shoot the Hivemind again.” She whispered.
Tria said it with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. I did my best to stifle the laugh that got caught in my throat when I saw the look on Sael’s face.
“Are you all insane?” Sael shouted. “We are in a life or death situation, and you think what is happening is somehow funny? We need answers from the Hivemind now, so we can prepare ourselves for what is coming!”
I wiped the smile from my face and held my hands up to the Principal Investigator. “Calm down Sael, we have never had a Hivemind willingly talk to us. If they do say something without coercion, it is usually a threat of some kind or machinations that are meant to lead us to our deaths.”
Tria helped bail me out. “Principal Investigator, we have an alternate method to interrogate a Hivemind, and we did so for months. At no time did it reveal usable information that was not a ploy to end our lives. You saw the intel reports on the Prule base we turned over to you. It was a deathtrap that we were fortunate enough to survive.”
As Sael digested Tria’s statement, she walked to the beverage dispenser and got a container of water then sat down across from us. “The Overseer AI you have never briefed me on?”
Sael sat staring me in the eyes. Her demeanor was much calmer now that she had another subject to concentrate on. I decided to throw her a bone because there was always the possibility she, like the rest of us, may never leave our predetermined destination alive.
“The Overseer was the AI that was left to maintain Alpha Base when it was abandoned. I don’t want to make a long story any longer by trying to fill you in on all the details. I will just say that the hundreds of years of solitude the AI experienced, created some issues. It took interaction by Justice to correct them, and now the Overseer is an extension of Justice’s processing power.”
Sael consumed the information and I knew it would lead to an unknown number of questions I didn’t feel like answering right at the moment. While Sael was collating her list of inquiries, Tria was reading me like a book. She took me by the hand and stood up to leave. This elicited a frown from Sael, but she was a quick study and let it go.
Tria called to Justice. “Where are Coonts and Klutch?”
“In the crew quarters on deck two Tria.” The AI answered.
She turned to Sael. “We will be in the officer’s quarters on deck one.”
Tria pulled me along in case Sael decided she just had to know regardless of the time required to tell her the story. As we exited the galley she called after us. “Keeping the story a secret will be meaningless if we are all plugged into a Prule agent.”
We didn’t turn around and kept going. The name Sael had labeled the newly discovered Prule Bio-machine was appropriate, and I filed it for future reference.
We were awoken four and a half hours later to Justice calling to us. “Commander, my sensors are detecting fluctuations in the flow of the hyperspace surrounding the Fury. They were not present during our passage until four minutes ago. They are gradually increasing in frequency.”
“Have you determined what it means?”
“It would only be conjecture on my part Commander, but there is a eighty-six percent probability we are nearing our destination gateway.”
“Have you notified the others?”
“Negative Commander, they are taking a sleep period. Without knowing the exact nature of the observations, I thought it best to alert you first.”
“Do you have a recommended course of action if your suspicions prove correct?”
“Yes Commander, but it is based on the Fury’s limited offensive and defensive capabilities. I fully expect my predicted scenarios to change when we arrive at our destination. I will formulate new contingencies when I am able to determine the variables that are present upon exiting the gateway.”
“Is there any way the Hivemind might be able to establish a comms link once we exit the gateway?”
“Negative Commander. The Hivemind would have to escape captivity and make it to the outside of the hull for that to be a possibility.”
“Okay, alert Sael first and brief her, then give Coonts and Klutch a heads up. Let them know we are on our way to the bridge.”
We put our suit liners back on and Tria gave me a back popping hug and a kiss before we stepped back up into our armor. The pretty alien had made sure if I met my end, it would be with a smile on my face. Gathering up our weapons we checked to make sure they were properly secured to our armor and headed for the lifts. As we neared the tube we could hear Klutch’s braying laughter echoing out of it. The comments coming from Coonts had nothing to do with merriment. As the two floated by we saw that the Troop Master had somehow managed to perch himself on Coonts’s shoulders and was rapping on his helmet like a bongo drum. When he noticed Tria and me and our looks of disbelief, he pushed himself away from Coonts and disappeared up the tube with a less than happy Grawl close behind.
When we stepped out of the lift tube on the bridge deck, Coonts and Klutch were already in the control room. There was a very good chance they thought I might dress them down for their antics when in reality, I didn’t know what to say that Coonts hadn’t already covered. As we walked through the blast doors I noticed Justice had the large forward view screen activated. Sael was studying it closely as were Coonts and Klutch.
“Commander,” Justice said as Tria and I went to see what had everyone’s attention. “I have been scanning the hyperspace surrounding the Fury for an extended period. I now have some observations to report as well as newly discovered anomalies.”
Justice highlighted three small dots in the center of the screen then another that was just a speck but seemed to be slowly growing in size and taking on a better definition.
Sael squinted at the screen. What are the objects closest to us Justice?”
“I have concluded they are fragments of starships that were loaded into the gateway ahead of the Fury. I did not identify them earlier because they are not emitting telltale energy sources.”
Tria pointed at the viewscreen. “What is the object farthest out from our position.”
“That is the anomaly I detected. If my theory is correct, it is our exit point. At our current velocity, we will reach it in approximately seventy minutes. That time frame could be extended because we are slowing down. The fluctuations I previously discovered are increasing in magnitude, and they are degrading our forward velocity.”
“That’s a good thing isn’t it?” Klutch asked.
“In most cases when it comes to exiting hyperspace, I would say yes Troop Master. But in this instance, I, unfortunately, have to report it is not.”
“And why is that?” Sael called out.
“The fluctuations I have been studying, have revealed other instabilities that are now becoming obvious since our velocity is deteriorating. I have detected a background echo that is rapidly gaining in strength. The more our velocity declines the greater its intensity. After further analysis, I have determined the gateway in which we are traveling, is collapsing behind us. If the Fury continues to slow at its current rate, the hyperspace bubble we are traveling in will no longer exist before it reaches its termination point. That eventuality will occur in sixty-eight point nine minutes.”
Coonts suddenly turned to us wide-eyed. “Commander, when we destroyed the gateway generators during our escape, we unknowingly shut down the gateway. By the time their destruction was complete, we had built up a considerable lead on the collapsing gateway. Now that we are slowing it will catch us!”
“Engineer Coonts has arrived at the correct conclusion,” Justice stated.
My bladder was suddenly feeling weak. I tried to sound like it wasn’t an issue when I called out to Justice. I had a feeling I was failing miserably. “Please tell me you have an answer to our problems?”
I have been working on all conceivable scenarios since I d
iscovered my theories were indeed correct Commander. I have yet to process a successful outcome.”
I knew I was grasping at straws, and this was intelligence way above my simple-minded thinking, but I had to throw my two cents worth in as well. “Fire up the stardrives Justice, and let's put some distance between us and the trouble chasing us.”
“While that may seem like a viable option Commander, our velocity in hyperspace is not determined by the output of the stardrives. It is a factor that is determined by what level of hyperspace we are capable of achieving.”
I ventured another guess. “Is there any way to bring the jump drives online long enough to give us one last jump so you can jump us out of here?”
“Commander, jumping within hyperspace to another level of interdimensional space has never been accomplished as far as my processors are aware of. Even if it was possible and I could gather the energy required, the calculations would take months or possibly years without a perfect set of destination coordinates to the desired level of hyperspace.”
Out of desperation, my simple Earthman brain could only come up with things that sounded much easier than they actually were. “Hell Justice, don’t try to jump us out, just jump us ahead of those ship fragments!”
“Commander I… will give your suggestion an elevated level of processing time.”
Hearing the AI stop mid-sentence and change course made me think I had just come up with something the brilliant alien intelligence must have written off as excessive risk. The silence that followed, made us all look back and forth at each other wondering if my backward thinking could have hit on a possible solution to our current predicament. Tria took my hand and we stood in silence as fate crept ever closer to us.
After eleven minutes of excruciating taciturnity, Justice spoke. “Commander, your concept has merit, and the calculations while questionable, do conclude it is possible by a perilously narrow margin.”
I breathed a sigh of relief and gave Tria a big smile. It brought back a memory from my childhood. My grandfather was working on an old tractor that had electrical problems. I remember picking up his voltmeter and looking at it in awe, thinking the device would surely be able to fix the tractor and my grandpa’s language at the same time. He took it from me and proved it didn’t do either by throwing it back in the toolbox and selecting a hammer instead. He said the problem was corroded contacts in the voltage regulator. His answer to the problem was to swear a little more and hit it with the hammer. To my surprise, grandpa declared victory and said the battery was now charging. The morel of the story was forever etched in my brain, and even though my granddad cautioned me on numerous occasions against thinking that way, I just knew that sometimes all it takes is a hammer.
Coonts being of a high IQ and with significant engineering skills, was shaking his head negative. “Justice, I cannot arrive at a positive outcome. Even if you are able to collect the energy necessary to momentarily operate the Chaalt hyperdrive, how do you intend to slow the Fury before it reaches the exit gateway?”
Rather than answer the Grawl’s question, Justice decided to set his plan into motion. “Engineer Coonts. I will require you and the Troop Master to immediately go to the hangar. When you arrive, I need you to rig a power transfer cable from the shuttle’s auxiliary power outlet to the energy transfer junction box located on the hangar access doors.”
“Justice…,” Coonts started to say, but the AI cut him off.
“Engineer Coonts, the task must be completed within the next nineteen minutes or I can assure you that slowing the Fury will be the least of our problems.”
Coonts and Klutch ran off the bridge and boosted down the corridor at high speed.
Sael called to Justice. “Is there anything we can do to assist you?”
“Negative Principal Investigator, I have already made the necessary control settings. All I require now is the additional power from the shuttle. If my equations are correct, I should have enough energy to operate the Fury’s jump drive for zero point three seconds. While that is not the duration sufficient to elevate us to a higher level of hyperspace, it will however accelerate us to a velocity well above our current transition speed. When engineer Coonts and the Troop Master return, I advise all personnel to securely strap themselves in and secure your helmets. The next several minutes may prove to be a rough transit.”
Coonts and Klutch returned in seventeen minutes. When they saw that we were strapped into our seats they wasted no time doing the same. I wanted to hold onto Tria’s hand in case it was the last thing I would ever do, but she just blew me a kiss and pointed at a chair close by.
Justice gave us a countdown. “Energizing in three… two… one.”
The bridge and every light on all the control consoles went dark. There was a flashbulb-like flare of brilliant white and then the Fury started shaking violently as the lights came back on. The forward viewscreen reset and we could see the once distant black dot of the anomaly, was now filling the entire screen.
A warning from Justice blared over our comms. “Transferring power to forward shields. Brace for impact!”
My eyes almost bugged out of my head as a starfield suddenly appeared on the viewscreen. It was not the reason my eyes were trying to escape my skull. The forward screen showed we were plowing headlong into a massive debris field littered with small vessels and large fragments of starships. The bridge went black again and we were thrown against our restraints. An unbelievable loud grinding noise was coming from the Fury’s port side and was accompanied by a violent shaking that threatened to tear our chairs from the deck. The deafening din stopped as suddenly as it started, and a chilling silence took its place.
The lights flickered back on and there was light smoke present in the atmosphere. Justice’s subsystem gave us several warnings.
“Warning! Hull breach on deck two and deck three. Shuttle hangar door is damaged and venting atmosphere. Portside weapons are inoperable. Portside shield emitters inoperable. Warning! Hostile vessels detected. Shutting down all detectable power sources.”
The only warning I didn’t hear was from my battlesuit. It should have been rightly screaming about its overtaxed sanitation systems. The bridge was dark except for the forward viewscreen. The sight of the debris field was surreal, but what was really shocking was the view in the background. What wasn’t blocked by the remains of ships, was taken up in its entirety by a dense star-filled spiral arm. Justice zoomed the screen out as far as possible, but it was still filled with stars and clouds of gas that spiraled out from a blindingly bright center point. We were looking in awe at the galaxy of our birth. The gateway had transported us to somewhere outside of the Milkyway. The viewscreen took a wild roll as Justice turned the Fury back toward the gateway to avoid another collision. The viewscreen was still zoomed out and we could now see the giant ring of the gateway. The shimmering glow from its center flickered and disappeared, leaving only the blackness of the void surrounding us. Justice’s timing could not have been any closer.
“Commander, the portal to our destination no longer exists and I am tracking seventy-two Prule vessels known to us as Resource Gathering Platforms. They are converging on the gateway ring.”
“Get us out of here Justice!”
“Commander, I am attempting to maneuver away from the ring with minimal usage of our gravity drives. I am using the debris field to mask us from detection. If I bring our remaining stardrive online that tactic will no longer be feasible.”
The bridge was dark and only lit by the faint light of the viewscreen. I looked over at Tria and she threw her arm up and gestured at the screen. “What is that!”
I turned my head back to the screen and saw what had her attention. There was a gigantic globe that had small pinpoints of light flickering from multiple locations.
“Tria,” Justice called. “It is an artificial construct that fits the dimensions and description of a Prule Supercarrier. It is tethered to the rogue planet that the debris field is orbiting.�
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I had heard theories that such planets existed outside of galaxies. The way things were currently going, I was beginning to think I would never get the chance to tell anyone back on Earth the scientists were correct.
Justice highlighted the pitch-black planet with a ring matching its circumference. It was roughly three times the size of the Supercarrier. He then added the three massive cables connecting the construct to its surface. As our path through the debris took us closer to the planet, the Fury’s passive scanners sharpened the image. The Supercarrier was missing several large sections on its exterior surface. The monstrous spacecraft was either being built or repaired. The screen started populating with red boxes. Thousands of spacecraft appeared in and around the carrier. There were two well-defined lanes of ship traffic coming and going from the planet’s surface to the Supercarrier. Justice magnified the point where the tethers made contact with the planet. The AI outlined a massive complex surrounding the tethers. Prule support ships laden with ship parts and pieces were making their way to that location. The viewscreen took another roll and a large ship fragment appeared directly in front of us. We braced for another collision but the Fury came to a full stop just inside of the edge of the hull fragment.
Justice called out a warning. “Commander, the seventy-two Prule ships that were salvaging the debris field are now closing with the gateway. Several will pass very close to our location. I have transferred power to the negation systems and shut down all the machinery and devices that might be detectable to the Prule’s sensors. I will attempt to make this vessel appear to be one of the many pieces of salvage that exited the portal before it shut down.”
“Roger that, but what if that doesn’t work?”
“With the Principal Investigators' consent, I will attempt to battle our way down to the planet and hide among the many canyons, crevasses, and valleys that dominate its surface.”
I didn’t think any of us liked the sound of that premise. Sael called to the AI. “Can you send an IST message to my strike fleet or the Legacy?”