Survivor
Something about a dosage…a dosage of what?
Images floated around, infinitely clouding what might’ve been his bedroom. Oh, how he missed his bed. Not to mention the mountains! Montana was pretty like that. “Is he stable enough? He’s going to live right?”
What? Is who going to live?
Hot cocoa sounds really good right now. It’s not cold, really…but some hot cocoa sounds nice. But I never drink hot chocolate – in the summer…
“He should be stable enough to wake up…maybe now we can get some answers.”
Who? Who’s stable enough?
Cornellia bounded across the room into his arms, green eyes glowing with relief and joy. I can’t believe the war is over! The mountains became brilliantly white, with a fluorescent flavor to them. Cornellia spoke again, but this time in a more somber tone, “Wake up.”
“Who, me?”
“How many fingers am I holding up?” The doctor spoke slowly.
Suddenly, Hadley fell back into reality; all thoughts of Cornellia, hot chocolate and mountains left his mind. He counted the doctor’s fingers, despite how much it hurt to do so.
“Three.”
The doctor smiled faintly, just under a few seconds. “We have a winner.” Hadley was relieved that he had been right. He watched as the doctor turned around to grab a flexi off the desk. He was obviously from the inner planets, Indian-English colony. “I’m doctor Chadisher. Can you provide me with your name and rank, what branch you’re in, etc,” Dr. Chadisher inquired; his serious tone of voice returned just as quickly as his smile had left. Hadley took a few seconds to recall as he sat up on the medical table, pushing aside the fluorescent light that had been hovering over him.
“Chief Lieutenant Commander Ryan Patrick Hadley, Navy. I’m the chief flight officer on the UNS Albatross: a Griffon class destroyer of the Sol Navy.”
Dr. Chadisher nodded optimistically, tabbing notes on the flexi, but he cringed as if he knew something that Ryan Hadley didn’t. Hadley spoke again. “Where am I? This isn’t the Albatross.”
Dr. Chadisher looked up partially from his flexi and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “You’re on the medical frigate Halifax.” Dr. Chadisher hesitated for a moment. “The UNS Albatross doesn’t exist anymore.” He let Hadley absorb that for a few seconds and then asked him, “What’s the last thing that you remember?”
Hadley looked down at the steal, slate colored floor, as if to gather his thoughts. He then began to fiddle with a spare part that he found on the table next to him.
“Well, the last thing I really remember is 0900 Tuesday morning, standard Centauri time. Like any other morning, many crew members were in the mess hall…”
Lieutenant Hadley hunched over his mug of coffee. While the rest of the civilized galaxy argued over the moral implications of caffeine, Hadley welcomed the energy boost. It provided a nice touch in the cold esthetics and temperatures inherent to the federation ship smaller than a cruiser. Hadley watched several enlisted men glob around a table with a holographic projector set up on it.
“C’mon, my grandma can move faster than that!” Bellowed one of the larger men; bore the rank of a Marine Private. New guy. The others cheered for the opposing team. Hadley shifter slightly to get a clearer view; the hologram revealed a hollow, transparent sphere with several small figures frantically moving around along the inside of the sphere. Hadley figured they were the players, but wasn’t close enough to distinguish them. Hadley recalled a group of pilots talking about a game like this. So this is a game of Klazic! Klazic was a radical new sport that originated on Earth nearly a hundred years ago. The sport was quickly outlawed on Earth due to its inherent violence, but became more prevalent and popular among the colonies.
“Yes, I know what Klazic is,” Dr. Chadisher said irritably, “however, I still don’t know what happened to the Albatross. I understand that you’re memory’s still probably hazy, but can you please try to help?”
“Fair enough,” Hadley blinked. “We had picked up a distress call from somewhere near the Lyxam asteroid belt.”
Hadley had been observing the game of Klazic for a few minutes when the lights in the mess hall suddenly changed from a cool light blue to a somber red. Just a few seconds later, Captain Benson strolled into the mess hall. By mow everyone had completely forgotten about the game.
“Attention!” Captain Benson rallied. All the crewmen around the holoprojector formed into a line somewhat sloppily and stood at attention. Hadley took note of an empty popcorn bucket that rolled out from behind the line. Captain Benson ignored it and continued.
“As of 0325 hours today, we received a distress signal from the Lyxam asteroid belt mining colony. Soon there after, we lost all communications.” The captain walked over the table with the holoprojector. He took a small computer chip out of his breast pocket and plugged it into the holoprojector.
“These are the few images gathered by our ling range MI satellites in sector 7.” He gestured at the images that appeared in front of the line of men and women. The series of images were shown in chronological order form left to right from Hadley’s perspective. The first image showed a portion of the asteroid belt with the mining colony as it had appeared shortly before the distress call. The second image showed the same mining colony, but with a blinding flash of light masking most of it. It reminded Hadley of an atomic explosion in space with its spherical shape, except for the difference in color: it was an opaque aqua green. The third image showed the same area of the asteroid mining colony. However, in this image the bright flash of light was replaced by a dark void. Something about it struck Hadley as evil, but at the same time figured that it would’ve been captivating if it didn’t have such an ominous glow about it.
“Top brass has called on all ships within 3 AU’s to stop whatever they are doing and investigate,” Captain Benson informed them. “We might not be the closest ship, but we’re definitely the fastest. We’ll be the first on the scene, so I want everyone to be fully aware of the situation at hand.” Hadley could here mechanical sounds reverberating through the ship’s hull; the sounds of the missile bays being loaded, fighters being readied to launch, and countless other systems preparing the Albatross for battle.
“Does anyone have any questions?” Captain Benson asked gruffly.
“Why aren’t there any pics from closer MI satellites?” Hadley inquired.
“Ah, yes,” Benson replied in a somber tone, “all satellites within 5 AU’s seem to have disappeared. We still have our ship sensors and external lights, but for the most part we’re flying in blind, boys.”
Hadley was surprised that the women in the crew didn’t take offense to that last comment, they usually did. Instead a grim silence overcame the mess hall as the crew standing in line experienced an “ah-ha” moment, realizing that something serious was going on.
“Briefing dismissed,” shouted Benson. The congregation dispersed, and every one marched towards their designated post. Hadley walked to the back of the mess hall and climbed up the ladder that would lead him to the grav chute (GC), which ran bow to stern along the ship’s spine. As he headed up the ladder, the captain’s voice blared over the COM system, “All hands to battle stations. Stand by for silent running. Interstellar ghost jump commence in 15 minutes, 28 seconds.”
As Hadley reached the top of the ladder where there was no gravity, he could hear the whine of the flux generators warming up; they were in the process of being filled with neutrinos. He quickly oriented himself in the null-gravity room to have his feet at the bow. He then turned to face two man-sized slots in the “wall” which was the ceiling just a moment ago. Hadley remembered the first time he had had to use a GC in his training. He also remembered vomiting while doing so, because of the sudden yet brief disorientation involved. Although he now was more used to the disorientation involved in transversing grav chutes, he still preferred elevators. Regardless, Hadley understood that on any warship – especially the Albatross, the small destroyer that she was – any unnecessary moving parts could jeopardize the ship’s precision in battle by a few thousandths of a degree. And in the vast depths of space, where a skirmish between two ships could span over 1,000km, that could be the difference between first and second place in the accuracy department…which usually equated to the difference between life and death.
Bringing himself back to the present, Hadley paid close heed to the horizontal slots, which led to the GC. Each slot had an arrow above it; one pointed to the bow, and the other pointed to the stern. Before entering the chute, Hadley pressed the button next to the word bridge on the panel to his right. In a fraction of a second, the computer scanned his bio-signature and allowed the vertical slot, which pointed towards the ship’s bow – where the bridge was located. After a brief moment of intense vertigo, Hadley felt the sensation of freefall.
His mind raced through scenarios of what they would be facing at Lyxam. It couldn’t be rebels; the war ended years ago, with a resounding victory on the Navy’s part. That is unless Intelligence had really slipped up again like it had done last time and there was a new rebellion in the making that they knew nothing about. This was highly unlikely. Pirates? No, they had no desire to attract the attention of every ship in the system. Pirates may be brunt, but they weren’t stupid. A new race? No, both the Zaichannans and Nan Kari had explored this sector before the Solarians. They would’ve known about any other races. DIOVA tended to stay out of the military’s hair; they kept in the shadows anyway. Any major attack on Solarian territory would be against their nature. What could it be then? The thoughts came streaming through his consciousness, as the padded tunnel of the GC sped by, not even a foot in front of his face.
About eight seconds after entering the GC, it spit him out onto the bridge. He flipped so he could see the other crewmembers. Everyone was either strapped into his or her seat, or free floating in the bridge’s null-grav environment.
Looking from the back, the bridge split into 2 sections above, and one below him, with rails and ladders leading up to a set of platforms. The front and side walls were dominated by the main view screens, which stretched three meters from the top to the bottom and curved towards the back to meet the starboard and portside bulkheads. Dead center in the view screen, the Alpha Centauri glowed with unmatched furry and sheer brilliance, even under the full protective tint of the view screen. Captain Benson hovered calmly just under the left of the command chair with hands clasped behind his back.
“Lieutenant DeSaxe, tactical update,” he demanded.
A spunky female voice came from the right half of the upper platform; “We will enter the sun’s corona in three minutes twelve seconds. The Grimm Patience and Dragonbear are approximately fine minutes behind us.” Benson nodded his approval; they would have backup from ships closer to the Lyxam belt, but the Albatross would be the first to arrive; her engines were designed for speed in ghost space. It was the jump that was the difficult part.
Time lapsed and Hadley moved to his post on the far right portion of the upper platform standing between Lieutenant DeSaxe and the new E4, Kippley. He quickly brought the lay-line tracking system on screen. Working quickly with Lieutenant DeSaxe’s star charts and the constant stream of data coming from Third Petty Officer Kippley’s flexi (hardwired to both his com and the main consol) his team was able to forwarded the information to the Army crew on the bottom platform working on the communication relays through existing k-lines in the ghost stream. Kippley took a secondary file to the Navy crew on the adjoining platform as Hadley’s team. This contained the necessary information about neutrino levels for this star to planet jump as well as a forward of the jump point coordinates.
“Now breaching the corona, sir,” DeSaxe announced.
“Crossing check point one,” Hadley spat shortly after DeSaxe.
“Neutrino reactors online, charging Ghost Drive.”
“Good,” Benson barked as jovially as he could, given the circumstance. “Get ‘em good and hot before we make the jump, Lieutenant Khram.” There was an echo of “aye sir.” “Seaman Berkley,” He was talking to the small blond girl with the weapons crew. Hadley had always been fond of her. Very polite, not the normal type you’d see in weapons. “Get your ass down to weapons on the double; I need an automatic relay and you have the only remote transmitter on this crew. We need you girl, now get!”
“Aye sir!” Hadley could only imagine her snapping into a sharp solute and booking it for the GC.
“Ghost Drive at 67% sir,” noted the crew to Hadley’s left.
“K-line communications open, captain. We should have a full emergency link to the Grimm Patience and Dragon Bear.”
“Pray to god we don’t run into a situation where we have to use them.” Once again Captain Benson’s words had an unexpected weight to them.
“Check point two cleared,” Hadley announced.
“Ghost Drive at 100%, sir.”
“Disengage conventional engines.”
“Aye.”
“We’re cleared for jump sir.”
“Acknowledged, Private Leing. Officer Hardtack, activate Ghost Drive. Hadley on screen.”
“Phantom opening in 3 seconds and counting, sir,” DeSaxe chimed.
The nose of the ship seemed to pass into the outer layers of the sun, like forcing a pencil through a balloon. There was a brilliant orange flash.
Hadley was overcome with emotion. He had to ask, “Did Hardtack make it?” Dr. Chadisher gravely shook his head.
“Did you know him well?” It was a question of concern that Hadley wasn’t expecting.
Hadley shrugged, continuing to fiddle with the small piece of equipment in his hand. “He was on the bridge crew, same as me. There were eight of us, not including the captain, three ensigns and a private. Hardtack was hardworking like the rest of us. He didn’t talk much, but when he did he mentioned his daughter.” Hadley almost cracked, holding back tears. Good soldiers don’t cry at loss of another good soldier. The mantra helped. “He had two boys too, didn’t he? All military? His wife was a medical officer in the Fleet, I know that much. But he always talked about Angie, and how she hated it when you called her that.” Hadley half chuckled. “She went by her middle name, Eli. Sweet girl, he always kept a picture of her in his pocket. E4, isn’t she? I think so…enlisted last year.” A lump caught in Hadley’s throat. Good soldiers don’t cry. “He asked me to make sure to make sure she made it through the academy and got her wings and an officer’s rank. That was on the bridge… just before jump exit.” When Hadley looked up, Dr. Chadisher was looking at him quizzically.
“Was his wife’s name Rose?”
Hadley blinked. “Yeah… I think so.”
Once again Dr. Chadisher nodded gravely. “Dr. Rose Hardtack was assigned to this ship ten months ago. Her daughter, Angela, is here on leave: Third Petty Officer Angela Eli Hardtack. If you like I can arrange to have you meet them when you’re ready.”
Hadley nodded. “Sounds like a plan. But for now, I think a remember what happened.”
A myriad of swirls and colors danced across the main view screen as the Albatross entered the ghost stream; after a matter of seconds, the colors died down into whispers of blue, and then disappeared altogether, revealing a shroud of blackness. They were running silent, and upstream to the smaller gravity source. No glitches, that’s how she flew. There was nothing in ghost space, not when running on silent. Well, nothing in the visible spectrum of light anyway.
Despite the uneasiness about the rest of the crew, Hadley tried to sit back and relax himself. The silence on the bridge helped his efforts. The quiet was one of the things he liked about ghost space, for there was also nothing to hear in the stream. No friction, or at least nothing like the friction in physics within normal space. It seemed quieter even than just traveling through space. This was because there was no engine burn; no space dust; no nothing; only the invisible walls of the stream surrounding them and ghost particles.
The captain ordered a full-battle-ready checkup on all systems, and Hadley did his part to check navigation along with DeSaxe and Kippley. They sent a copy to the other crews on the bridge. Immediately afterwards they received the read out from the other crews. Something caught his eye from propulsion. Hadley was surprised that no one had commended on it, so he read the displaying read out. “Ghost Drive nominal, conventional engines at 93% and hot, but with a course deviation of 1.035%.” The number was almost twice as high as it should’ve been, even if it was within established safety parameters – barely. There was no response, not even from the team to their left. After a moment of consideration, he added, “Captain, recommend we have all e-break-thrusters on standby when we exit ghost space.” The captain dually nodded his agreement and gave the order. Some of the crew exchanged nervous looks. They were well justified for their apprehension. Going into a potential combat situation with all breaking thrusters on full standby was like an armored tank of the old battlefields charging into a battle with a huge fuel-tank strapped to the front of it. The separate fuel components for the thrusters were harmless on their woe; but when actually combined, the result was…explosive to say the least. A few missiles in the right spot and half the ship would be on fire. Of course, that chance was preferable to the idea of being slingshot towards a planet and unable to do anything about it.
A half an hour of anxious chattering and finger drumming and nail biting passed by. DeSaxe was helping Kippley track exit vectors based on gravitational pulls of other planets on phantom stream; she was explaining how it was like a river delta. Hadley figured that Kippley didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, seeing as how he was a station brat, raised off planet. Hadley moved around the upper platforms, biding his time.
“Ryan, Could you come here for a minute?” Hardtack was waving him over. Hadley kicked off from the wall, and was caught by Hardtack’s strong arm. He was a big man, big and jovial.
“What is it Anton?”
“Do you have family? What am I saying? I’ve met your family.” Something was eating the guy. “If…if we don’t…well, you’re one of the guys here I trust.” Man, her was getting really worked up about this. “Take care of my little girl. Angie disserves a good post. Rose needs to know that she’s taken care of. My boys will be fine.”
Hadley nodded grimly, “On one condition Anton, if I don’t… take care of Cornellia.”
Anton nodded, “Yeah, we’ll take care of Nelly for you.”
Hadley happened to glance over Anton’s shoulder at the countdown timer: 1 minute 12 seconds until they reached the exit vector. Hadley pushed off Anton’s chair and caught hold of the consol: 58 seconds. Then suddenly, a blinding light flashed across the view screens, and a sickening metallic groan sounded from bow to stern. That was not a good sign. Something flashed through Hadley’s mind about traveling in ghost space that he learned in flight school: quiet = good, noise = bad…very, VERY bad!
“All hands brace for impact,” Captain Benson ordered over the intercom. He had barely switched off the intercom when another bright flash of light flooded the view screens and the ship shook violently, throwing half the bridge (the half not strapped in) from their stations, including Hadley. He flipped over the consol and hit the rubberized deck below him with full force. It momentarily stunned him. After struggling back to his post, he found all of the monitors and displays to be either blacked our, or displaying numbers and calculations so preposterous that they couldn’t possibly have been working. Kippley’s interfaced flexi was the only thing working.
It went calm again. “Damage report!” demanded Benson.
“All primary electronic systems completely fried, switching to secondary systems now. Structural integrity at 72%, and dropping 2% per second.” Khram rattled off the information almost in a drone, and yet his own astonishment was obvious. “Neutrino polarity is completely haywire!”
Just then multiple klaxons started blaring simultaneously. Benson turned to Hadley. “Hadley, do you have any idea why the proximity alert is sounding while we are shill in ghost space?!”
Hadley didn’t have an answer. “My best guess is that this could be the work of whatever attacked those mining colonies, sir, but we can’t know unless we go off silent.”
He had no idea if it was even possible to mess with lay-lines and the phantom streams that traveled on them, but the captain accepted the explanation for the moment. No sooner had Benson turned to the other side of the bridge then the ship completely blew its way out of the phantom – sooner than it was suppose to – and the view screens exploded into brilliant swirls of color. Just then Hadley was overcome by nausea, his nerves wracked with pain – normal symptoms of a hyper-jump. It only lasted a few seconds as his neural implant injected him with a solution of chemicals that blocked the adverse effects of the jump.
“Kippley, Heing, get to work reestablishing our systems, on the double,” Benson barked.
The klaxons were still blaring, louder than ever. Looking up at the view screen, Hadley’s blood ran cold, and some of the nausea returned on its own accord. They had exited the phantom the normal way, passing through the center of gravity and reversing direction to face the same gravity center. Of courts that left them with the gas giant Gathilet staring them down – off course and a few thousand kilometers closer than they would’ve liked. That, and they were hurtling towards the giant at enormous speed. Hadley’s fingers danced across his consol, checking and rechecking calculations, feeding them to DeSaxe and Kippley, who rerouted their answers back to him.
“Impact with Gathilet’s upper atmo in 28 second-” Hadley announced.
The captain gave the order to fire all breaking thrusters almost before Hadley could finish. He then continued with, “Once we’re clear, scan the area at full ping and bring us into a low orbit, bearing 094 mark 301.”
“Sir!” DeSaxe was almost choking on the words.
“What is it Lieutenant?”
Hadley finished for her, “Half of Gathilet’s mass is missing!”
Benson did a double take. “Are you sure?”
“Sir, yes sir.”
“Then belay that order and set a courts for the nearest moon.”
All the bridge officers obeyed and went about their individual tasks with great fervor. After a second of rolling the situation over in his mind, a somber look played across Benson’s face.
“Hadley, if half of a planet’s mass were to be destroyed, chopped in half, whatever, what…what do you think would happen?”
The breaking thrusters fired, putting everyone on the ship under near-unbearable gravitational pressures. The view of Gathilet slowly fell away from the front view screen. Then the ship stopped, turned in a direction away from the planet and began accelerating. Hadley already knew what Benson was going to ask. A phantom’s stability depended on the lay-line – a tie almost like string, formed from strong gravitational points on both ends. He knew what happened when calculations from a jump were off by the slightest hair; he couldn’t fathom what might happen if half the gravity well at one end were to disappear.
“Wait,” Dr. Chadisher was paying close attention now, like a kid listening to a good bedtime story. He furrowed his eyebrows, removed his spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “So what you’re saying is that this…this…thing that annihilated a mining colony…that it also magically removed half the mass of a gas giant, thereby throwing off the lay-line you were following?”
Hadley was looking the doctor straight in the eyes. He was sitting on the edge of the table now, stern faced, hurt.
“That sounds a little far fetched,” then Dr. Chadisher looked up, “that is if I hadn’t been on the bridge when we arrived in system. Do you know what did this?”
“Yes.”
“Sir,” Hadley looked the captain square in the eye. “I believe that our own getting here in one piece was by pure luck, or providence.”
“By the stars.” The captain understood. “The Dragonbear, the Grimm Defiance. 1st Sergeant Johnson, get those ships on a k-line, all frequencies, double-time!”
“Aye sir!” the girl below Hadley echoed.
Seconds slipped by.
“Sir, no response from either ship. It’s likely they’ve already made the jump.”
The captain stood on bated breath. Over two thousand men and women serving on the Dragonbear might have to pay the ultimate price – he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
“Sir, receiving distress calls form the Javelin, through a secured k-line.”
Benson almost snapped, “Then answer it! Open the line!” Johnson complied.
A face popped on screen. Female, black braided hair. Hadley recognized her instantly as Commander Patricia Ahlstrome. He had served his first post under her. She started speaking. “Captain Benson, we have been thrown half way across the sector. We will not be able to assist for another 2.5 hours. We were behind the Grimm Defiance. We lost their tracer when we exited. She and the Dragonbear are still missing. Have they exited?”
Benson shook his head. “You’re alright, what’s the distress signal for?”
“I’m recalling the medical team here. We’re at Gidoni. Words from top brass: if all hell breaks loose, this is home base.”
“Acknowledged.”
“God speed Benson, Ahlstrome out.”
The view screens returned to normal. Countless bits of information and numbers scrolled across the screens, showing everything and anything picked up by the radar sweep that was in progress. So far, with the exception of a few odd asteroids and a gas giant now shaped like the litter “C”, there was nothing worth noting. That didn’t make anyone less uneasy though. Were it possible, the space around them felt even more empty to Hadley – too empty in fact. Maybe it was just the fact that their chance of having reinforcements like they thought they were was now narrowed down to close to none. Or maybe the space really was emptier than it was supposed to be.
“Sergeant Major Thearin,” said Benson, “tactical status.” He still had an intent eye on the radar display, watching for any signs of the Dragonbear.
“All missile pods armed and ready, sir,” Thearin replied. “ATOM gun hot and ready at 100%. Draining neutrino reserves at a rate of 1% per 9 seconds. Point defense on standby.” Benson nodded. As a side note Thearin added, “Kippley and Heing had the system up and running in no time, sir. Berkley has been feeding schematics for the past ten minutes straight.”
“Good,” Benson said in an almost agitated tone. This was not the time for optimism… at least not for the captain. “I’ll recommend them all for a promotion.”
Hadley’s thoughts drifted to the power that Thearin briefly mentioned; the ATOM gun was by far the ship’s most powerful weapon. Running almost the whole length of the ship, the ATOM gun took what was, in essence, a modernized, oversized cannonball, completely soaked it in neutrinos, and hurled it at the enemy at about 10,000 Km/second. It was typically fatal weapon against most ships after two rounds. Its only weakness was that the shop had to turn in the direction of the enemy it was shooting, facing them head on – which normally wasn’t a problem…when you knew where your enemy was.
Beep the radar alert buzzed. “Sir,” said Hadley, “radar contact top port. The signature is the Dragonbear’s. But the ship isn’t moving at all. She appears to be dead in the water.”
“Johnson, hail them on all frequencies. Hadley, change course and take us to the Dragonbear.”
Hadley adjusted the course, and once again the stars on the view screen swiveled by. The Dragonbear slid into view…but only half of it. The front end of the ship was completely unscathed, until it met with where the midsection of the ship was supposed to be. It looked as if someone had cut clean through the middle of the ship like a block of butter. Hadley could see the inner structure and workings of the ship; many open compartments were venting atmosphere, plasma, gasses…people. The edges of the ship where the ship had been cut off glowed a hot white.
“Channel with Dragonbear open,” Johnson announced, “audio only.”
The Russian captain’s voice was nearly inaudible from all the static, but the computer did its best to clean it up.
“Albatross, keep clear… … containment…reach critical levels…escape pods! All hands…” The transmission cut off. There was brilliant flash as blue flames engulfed the Dragonbear. The explosion showered the Albatross with debris and plasma.
Something about a dosage…a dosage of what?
Images floated around, infinitely clouding what might’ve been his bedroom. Oh, how he missed his bed. Not to mention the mountains! Montana was pretty like that. “Is he stable enough? He’s going to live right?”
What? Is who going to live?
Hot cocoa sounds really good right now. It’s not cold, really…but some hot cocoa sounds nice. But I never drink hot chocolate – in the summer…
“He should be stable enough to wake up…maybe now we can get some answers.”
Who? Who’s stable enough?
Cornellia bounded across the room into his arms, green eyes glowing with relief and joy. I can’t believe the war is over! The mountains became brilliantly white, with a fluorescent flavor to them. Cornellia spoke again, but this time in a more somber tone, “Wake up.”
“Who, me?”
“How many fingers am I holding up?” The doctor spoke slowly.
Suddenly, Hadley fell back into reality; all thoughts of Cornellia, hot chocolate and mountains left his mind. He counted the doctor’s fingers, despite how much it hurt to do so.
“Three.”
The doctor smiled faintly, just under a few seconds. “We have a winner.” Hadley was relieved that he had been right. He watched as the doctor turned around to grab a flexi off the desk. He was obviously from the inner planets, Indian-English colony. “I’m doctor Chadisher. Can you provide me with your name and rank, what branch you’re in, etc,” Dr. Chadisher inquired; his serious tone of voice returned just as quickly as his smile had left. Hadley took a few seconds to recall as he sat up on the medical table, pushing aside the fluorescent light that had been hovering over him.
“Chief Lieutenant Commander Ryan Patrick Hadley, Navy. I’m the chief flight officer on the UNS Albatross: a Griffon class destroyer of the Sol Navy.”
Dr. Chadisher nodded optimistically, tabbing notes on the flexi, but he cringed as if he knew something that Ryan Hadley didn’t. Hadley spoke again. “Where am I? This isn’t the Albatross.”
Dr. Chadisher looked up partially from his flexi and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “You’re on the medical frigate Halifax.” Dr. Chadisher hesitated for a moment. “The UNS Albatross doesn’t exist anymore.” He let Hadley absorb that for a few seconds and then asked him, “What’s the last thing that you remember?”
Hadley looked down at the steal, slate colored floor, as if to gather his thoughts. He then began to fiddle with a spare part that he found on the table next to him.
“Well, the last thing I really remember is 0900 Tuesday morning, standard Centauri time. Like any other morning, many crew members were in the mess hall…”
Lieutenant Hadley hunched over his mug of coffee. While the rest of the civilized galaxy argued over the moral implications of caffeine, Hadley welcomed the energy boost. It provided a nice touch in the cold esthetics and temperatures inherent to the federation ship smaller than a cruiser. Hadley watched several enlisted men glob around a table with a holographic projector set up on it.
“C’mon, my grandma can move faster than that!” Bellowed one of the larger men; bore the rank of a Marine Private. New guy. The others cheered for the opposing team. Hadley shifter slightly to get a clearer view; the hologram revealed a hollow, transparent sphere with several small figures frantically moving around along the inside of the sphere. Hadley figured they were the players, but wasn’t close enough to distinguish them. Hadley recalled a group of pilots talking about a game like this. So this is a game of Klazic! Klazic was a radical new sport that originated on Earth nearly a hundred years ago. The sport was quickly outlawed on Earth due to its inherent violence, but became more prevalent and popular among the colonies.
“Yes, I know what Klazic is,” Dr. Chadisher said irritably, “however, I still don’t know what happened to the Albatross. I understand that you’re memory’s still probably hazy, but can you please try to help?”
“Fair enough,” Hadley blinked. “We had picked up a distress call from somewhere near the Lyxam asteroid belt.”
Hadley had been observing the game of Klazic for a few minutes when the lights in the mess hall suddenly changed from a cool light blue to a somber red. Just a few seconds later, Captain Benson strolled into the mess hall. By mow everyone had completely forgotten about the game.
“Attention!” Captain Benson rallied. All the crewmen around the holoprojector formed into a line somewhat sloppily and stood at attention. Hadley took note of an empty popcorn bucket that rolled out from behind the line. Captain Benson ignored it and continued.
“As of 0325 hours today, we received a distress signal from the Lyxam asteroid belt mining colony. Soon there after, we lost all communications.” The captain walked over the table with the holoprojector. He took a small computer chip out of his breast pocket and plugged it into the holoprojector.
“These are the few images gathered by our ling range MI satellites in sector 7.” He gestured at the images that appeared in front of the line of men and women. The series of images were shown in chronological order form left to right from Hadley’s perspective. The first image showed a portion of the asteroid belt with the mining colony as it had appeared shortly before the distress call. The second image showed the same mining colony, but with a blinding flash of light masking most of it. It reminded Hadley of an atomic explosion in space with its spherical shape, except for the difference in color: it was an opaque aqua green. The third image showed the same area of the asteroid mining colony. However, in this image the bright flash of light was replaced by a dark void. Something about it struck Hadley as evil, but at the same time figured that it would’ve been captivating if it didn’t have such an ominous glow about it.
“Top brass has called on all ships within 3 AU’s to stop whatever they are doing and investigate,” Captain Benson informed them. “We might not be the closest ship, but we’re definitely the fastest. We’ll be the first on the scene, so I want everyone to be fully aware of the situation at hand.” Hadley could here mechanical sounds reverberating through the ship’s hull; the sounds of the missile bays being loaded, fighters being readied to launch, and countless other systems preparing the Albatross for battle.
“Does anyone have any questions?” Captain Benson asked gruffly.
“Why aren’t there any pics from closer MI satellites?” Hadley inquired.
“Ah, yes,” Benson replied in a somber tone, “all satellites within 5 AU’s seem to have disappeared. We still have our ship sensors and external lights, but for the most part we’re flying in blind, boys.”
Hadley was surprised that the women in the crew didn’t take offense to that last comment, they usually did. Instead a grim silence overcame the mess hall as the crew standing in line experienced an “ah-ha” moment, realizing that something serious was going on.
“Briefing dismissed,” shouted Benson. The congregation dispersed, and every one marched towards their designated post. Hadley walked to the back of the mess hall and climbed up the ladder that would lead him to the grav chute (GC), which ran bow to stern along the ship’s spine. As he headed up the ladder, the captain’s voice blared over the COM system, “All hands to battle stations. Stand by for silent running. Interstellar ghost jump commence in 15 minutes, 28 seconds.”
As Hadley reached the top of the ladder where there was no gravity, he could hear the whine of the flux generators warming up; they were in the process of being filled with neutrinos. He quickly oriented himself in the null-gravity room to have his feet at the bow. He then turned to face two man-sized slots in the “wall” which was the ceiling just a moment ago. Hadley remembered the first time he had had to use a GC in his training. He also remembered vomiting while doing so, because of the sudden yet brief disorientation involved. Although he now was more used to the disorientation involved in transversing grav chutes, he still preferred elevators. Regardless, Hadley understood that on any warship – especially the Albatross, the small destroyer that she was – any unnecessary moving parts could jeopardize the ship’s precision in battle by a few thousandths of a degree. And in the vast depths of space, where a skirmish between two ships could span over 1,000km, that could be the difference between first and second place in the accuracy department…which usually equated to the difference between life and death.
Bringing himself back to the present, Hadley paid close heed to the horizontal slots, which led to the GC. Each slot had an arrow above it; one pointed to the bow, and the other pointed to the stern. Before entering the chute, Hadley pressed the button next to the word bridge on the panel to his right. In a fraction of a second, the computer scanned his bio-signature and allowed the vertical slot, which pointed towards the ship’s bow – where the bridge was located. After a brief moment of intense vertigo, Hadley felt the sensation of freefall.
His mind raced through scenarios of what they would be facing at Lyxam. It couldn’t be rebels; the war ended years ago, with a resounding victory on the Navy’s part. That is unless Intelligence had really slipped up again like it had done last time and there was a new rebellion in the making that they knew nothing about. This was highly unlikely. Pirates? No, they had no desire to attract the attention of every ship in the system. Pirates may be brunt, but they weren’t stupid. A new race? No, both the Zaichannans and Nan Kari had explored this sector before the Solarians. They would’ve known about any other races. DIOVA tended to stay out of the military’s hair; they kept in the shadows anyway. Any major attack on Solarian territory would be against their nature. What could it be then? The thoughts came streaming through his consciousness, as the padded tunnel of the GC sped by, not even a foot in front of his face.
About eight seconds after entering the GC, it spit him out onto the bridge. He flipped so he could see the other crewmembers. Everyone was either strapped into his or her seat, or free floating in the bridge’s null-grav environment.
Looking from the back, the bridge split into 2 sections above, and one below him, with rails and ladders leading up to a set of platforms. The front and side walls were dominated by the main view screens, which stretched three meters from the top to the bottom and curved towards the back to meet the starboard and portside bulkheads. Dead center in the view screen, the Alpha Centauri glowed with unmatched furry and sheer brilliance, even under the full protective tint of the view screen. Captain Benson hovered calmly just under the left of the command chair with hands clasped behind his back.
“Lieutenant DeSaxe, tactical update,” he demanded.
A spunky female voice came from the right half of the upper platform; “We will enter the sun’s corona in three minutes twelve seconds. The Grimm Patience and Dragonbear are approximately fine minutes behind us.” Benson nodded his approval; they would have backup from ships closer to the Lyxam belt, but the Albatross would be the first to arrive; her engines were designed for speed in ghost space. It was the jump that was the difficult part.
Time lapsed and Hadley moved to his post on the far right portion of the upper platform standing between Lieutenant DeSaxe and the new E4, Kippley. He quickly brought the lay-line tracking system on screen. Working quickly with Lieutenant DeSaxe’s star charts and the constant stream of data coming from Third Petty Officer Kippley’s flexi (hardwired to both his com and the main consol) his team was able to forwarded the information to the Army crew on the bottom platform working on the communication relays through existing k-lines in the ghost stream. Kippley took a secondary file to the Navy crew on the adjoining platform as Hadley’s team. This contained the necessary information about neutrino levels for this star to planet jump as well as a forward of the jump point coordinates.
“Now breaching the corona, sir,” DeSaxe announced.
“Crossing check point one,” Hadley spat shortly after DeSaxe.
“Neutrino reactors online, charging Ghost Drive.”
“Good,” Benson barked as jovially as he could, given the circumstance. “Get ‘em good and hot before we make the jump, Lieutenant Khram.” There was an echo of “aye sir.” “Seaman Berkley,” He was talking to the small blond girl with the weapons crew. Hadley had always been fond of her. Very polite, not the normal type you’d see in weapons. “Get your ass down to weapons on the double; I need an automatic relay and you have the only remote transmitter on this crew. We need you girl, now get!”
“Aye sir!” Hadley could only imagine her snapping into a sharp solute and booking it for the GC.
“Ghost Drive at 67% sir,” noted the crew to Hadley’s left.
“K-line communications open, captain. We should have a full emergency link to the Grimm Patience and Dragon Bear.”
“Pray to god we don’t run into a situation where we have to use them.” Once again Captain Benson’s words had an unexpected weight to them.
“Check point two cleared,” Hadley announced.
“Ghost Drive at 100%, sir.”
“Disengage conventional engines.”
“Aye.”
“We’re cleared for jump sir.”
“Acknowledged, Private Leing. Officer Hardtack, activate Ghost Drive. Hadley on screen.”
“Phantom opening in 3 seconds and counting, sir,” DeSaxe chimed.
The nose of the ship seemed to pass into the outer layers of the sun, like forcing a pencil through a balloon. There was a brilliant orange flash.
Hadley was overcome with emotion. He had to ask, “Did Hardtack make it?” Dr. Chadisher gravely shook his head.
“Did you know him well?” It was a question of concern that Hadley wasn’t expecting.
Hadley shrugged, continuing to fiddle with the small piece of equipment in his hand. “He was on the bridge crew, same as me. There were eight of us, not including the captain, three ensigns and a private. Hardtack was hardworking like the rest of us. He didn’t talk much, but when he did he mentioned his daughter.” Hadley almost cracked, holding back tears. Good soldiers don’t cry at loss of another good soldier. The mantra helped. “He had two boys too, didn’t he? All military? His wife was a medical officer in the Fleet, I know that much. But he always talked about Angie, and how she hated it when you called her that.” Hadley half chuckled. “She went by her middle name, Eli. Sweet girl, he always kept a picture of her in his pocket. E4, isn’t she? I think so…enlisted last year.” A lump caught in Hadley’s throat. Good soldiers don’t cry. “He asked me to make sure to make sure she made it through the academy and got her wings and an officer’s rank. That was on the bridge… just before jump exit.” When Hadley looked up, Dr. Chadisher was looking at him quizzically.
“Was his wife’s name Rose?”
Hadley blinked. “Yeah… I think so.”
Once again Dr. Chadisher nodded gravely. “Dr. Rose Hardtack was assigned to this ship ten months ago. Her daughter, Angela, is here on leave: Third Petty Officer Angela Eli Hardtack. If you like I can arrange to have you meet them when you’re ready.”
Hadley nodded. “Sounds like a plan. But for now, I think a remember what happened.”
A myriad of swirls and colors danced across the main view screen as the Albatross entered the ghost stream; after a matter of seconds, the colors died down into whispers of blue, and then disappeared altogether, revealing a shroud of blackness. They were running silent, and upstream to the smaller gravity source. No glitches, that’s how she flew. There was nothing in ghost space, not when running on silent. Well, nothing in the visible spectrum of light anyway.
Despite the uneasiness about the rest of the crew, Hadley tried to sit back and relax himself. The silence on the bridge helped his efforts. The quiet was one of the things he liked about ghost space, for there was also nothing to hear in the stream. No friction, or at least nothing like the friction in physics within normal space. It seemed quieter even than just traveling through space. This was because there was no engine burn; no space dust; no nothing; only the invisible walls of the stream surrounding them and ghost particles.
The captain ordered a full-battle-ready checkup on all systems, and Hadley did his part to check navigation along with DeSaxe and Kippley. They sent a copy to the other crews on the bridge. Immediately afterwards they received the read out from the other crews. Something caught his eye from propulsion. Hadley was surprised that no one had commended on it, so he read the displaying read out. “Ghost Drive nominal, conventional engines at 93% and hot, but with a course deviation of 1.035%.” The number was almost twice as high as it should’ve been, even if it was within established safety parameters – barely. There was no response, not even from the team to their left. After a moment of consideration, he added, “Captain, recommend we have all e-break-thrusters on standby when we exit ghost space.” The captain dually nodded his agreement and gave the order. Some of the crew exchanged nervous looks. They were well justified for their apprehension. Going into a potential combat situation with all breaking thrusters on full standby was like an armored tank of the old battlefields charging into a battle with a huge fuel-tank strapped to the front of it. The separate fuel components for the thrusters were harmless on their woe; but when actually combined, the result was…explosive to say the least. A few missiles in the right spot and half the ship would be on fire. Of course, that chance was preferable to the idea of being slingshot towards a planet and unable to do anything about it.
A half an hour of anxious chattering and finger drumming and nail biting passed by. DeSaxe was helping Kippley track exit vectors based on gravitational pulls of other planets on phantom stream; she was explaining how it was like a river delta. Hadley figured that Kippley didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, seeing as how he was a station brat, raised off planet. Hadley moved around the upper platforms, biding his time.
“Ryan, Could you come here for a minute?” Hardtack was waving him over. Hadley kicked off from the wall, and was caught by Hardtack’s strong arm. He was a big man, big and jovial.
“What is it Anton?”
“Do you have family? What am I saying? I’ve met your family.” Something was eating the guy. “If…if we don’t…well, you’re one of the guys here I trust.” Man, her was getting really worked up about this. “Take care of my little girl. Angie disserves a good post. Rose needs to know that she’s taken care of. My boys will be fine.”
Hadley nodded grimly, “On one condition Anton, if I don’t… take care of Cornellia.”
Anton nodded, “Yeah, we’ll take care of Nelly for you.”
Hadley happened to glance over Anton’s shoulder at the countdown timer: 1 minute 12 seconds until they reached the exit vector. Hadley pushed off Anton’s chair and caught hold of the consol: 58 seconds. Then suddenly, a blinding light flashed across the view screens, and a sickening metallic groan sounded from bow to stern. That was not a good sign. Something flashed through Hadley’s mind about traveling in ghost space that he learned in flight school: quiet = good, noise = bad…very, VERY bad!
“All hands brace for impact,” Captain Benson ordered over the intercom. He had barely switched off the intercom when another bright flash of light flooded the view screens and the ship shook violently, throwing half the bridge (the half not strapped in) from their stations, including Hadley. He flipped over the consol and hit the rubberized deck below him with full force. It momentarily stunned him. After struggling back to his post, he found all of the monitors and displays to be either blacked our, or displaying numbers and calculations so preposterous that they couldn’t possibly have been working. Kippley’s interfaced flexi was the only thing working.
It went calm again. “Damage report!” demanded Benson.
“All primary electronic systems completely fried, switching to secondary systems now. Structural integrity at 72%, and dropping 2% per second.” Khram rattled off the information almost in a drone, and yet his own astonishment was obvious. “Neutrino polarity is completely haywire!”
Just then multiple klaxons started blaring simultaneously. Benson turned to Hadley. “Hadley, do you have any idea why the proximity alert is sounding while we are shill in ghost space?!”
Hadley didn’t have an answer. “My best guess is that this could be the work of whatever attacked those mining colonies, sir, but we can’t know unless we go off silent.”
He had no idea if it was even possible to mess with lay-lines and the phantom streams that traveled on them, but the captain accepted the explanation for the moment. No sooner had Benson turned to the other side of the bridge then the ship completely blew its way out of the phantom – sooner than it was suppose to – and the view screens exploded into brilliant swirls of color. Just then Hadley was overcome by nausea, his nerves wracked with pain – normal symptoms of a hyper-jump. It only lasted a few seconds as his neural implant injected him with a solution of chemicals that blocked the adverse effects of the jump.
“Kippley, Heing, get to work reestablishing our systems, on the double,” Benson barked.
The klaxons were still blaring, louder than ever. Looking up at the view screen, Hadley’s blood ran cold, and some of the nausea returned on its own accord. They had exited the phantom the normal way, passing through the center of gravity and reversing direction to face the same gravity center. Of courts that left them with the gas giant Gathilet staring them down – off course and a few thousand kilometers closer than they would’ve liked. That, and they were hurtling towards the giant at enormous speed. Hadley’s fingers danced across his consol, checking and rechecking calculations, feeding them to DeSaxe and Kippley, who rerouted their answers back to him.
“Impact with Gathilet’s upper atmo in 28 second-” Hadley announced.
The captain gave the order to fire all breaking thrusters almost before Hadley could finish. He then continued with, “Once we’re clear, scan the area at full ping and bring us into a low orbit, bearing 094 mark 301.”
“Sir!” DeSaxe was almost choking on the words.
“What is it Lieutenant?”
Hadley finished for her, “Half of Gathilet’s mass is missing!”
Benson did a double take. “Are you sure?”
“Sir, yes sir.”
“Then belay that order and set a courts for the nearest moon.”
All the bridge officers obeyed and went about their individual tasks with great fervor. After a second of rolling the situation over in his mind, a somber look played across Benson’s face.
“Hadley, if half of a planet’s mass were to be destroyed, chopped in half, whatever, what…what do you think would happen?”
The breaking thrusters fired, putting everyone on the ship under near-unbearable gravitational pressures. The view of Gathilet slowly fell away from the front view screen. Then the ship stopped, turned in a direction away from the planet and began accelerating. Hadley already knew what Benson was going to ask. A phantom’s stability depended on the lay-line – a tie almost like string, formed from strong gravitational points on both ends. He knew what happened when calculations from a jump were off by the slightest hair; he couldn’t fathom what might happen if half the gravity well at one end were to disappear.
“Wait,” Dr. Chadisher was paying close attention now, like a kid listening to a good bedtime story. He furrowed his eyebrows, removed his spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “So what you’re saying is that this…this…thing that annihilated a mining colony…that it also magically removed half the mass of a gas giant, thereby throwing off the lay-line you were following?”
Hadley was looking the doctor straight in the eyes. He was sitting on the edge of the table now, stern faced, hurt.
“That sounds a little far fetched,” then Dr. Chadisher looked up, “that is if I hadn’t been on the bridge when we arrived in system. Do you know what did this?”
“Yes.”
“Sir,” Hadley looked the captain square in the eye. “I believe that our own getting here in one piece was by pure luck, or providence.”
“By the stars.” The captain understood. “The Dragonbear, the Grimm Defiance. 1st Sergeant Johnson, get those ships on a k-line, all frequencies, double-time!”
“Aye sir!” the girl below Hadley echoed.
Seconds slipped by.
“Sir, no response from either ship. It’s likely they’ve already made the jump.”
The captain stood on bated breath. Over two thousand men and women serving on the Dragonbear might have to pay the ultimate price – he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
“Sir, receiving distress calls form the Javelin, through a secured k-line.”
Benson almost snapped, “Then answer it! Open the line!” Johnson complied.
A face popped on screen. Female, black braided hair. Hadley recognized her instantly as Commander Patricia Ahlstrome. He had served his first post under her. She started speaking. “Captain Benson, we have been thrown half way across the sector. We will not be able to assist for another 2.5 hours. We were behind the Grimm Defiance. We lost their tracer when we exited. She and the Dragonbear are still missing. Have they exited?”
Benson shook his head. “You’re alright, what’s the distress signal for?”
“I’m recalling the medical team here. We’re at Gidoni. Words from top brass: if all hell breaks loose, this is home base.”
“Acknowledged.”
“God speed Benson, Ahlstrome out.”
The view screens returned to normal. Countless bits of information and numbers scrolled across the screens, showing everything and anything picked up by the radar sweep that was in progress. So far, with the exception of a few odd asteroids and a gas giant now shaped like the litter “C”, there was nothing worth noting. That didn’t make anyone less uneasy though. Were it possible, the space around them felt even more empty to Hadley – too empty in fact. Maybe it was just the fact that their chance of having reinforcements like they thought they were was now narrowed down to close to none. Or maybe the space really was emptier than it was supposed to be.
“Sergeant Major Thearin,” said Benson, “tactical status.” He still had an intent eye on the radar display, watching for any signs of the Dragonbear.
“All missile pods armed and ready, sir,” Thearin replied. “ATOM gun hot and ready at 100%. Draining neutrino reserves at a rate of 1% per 9 seconds. Point defense on standby.” Benson nodded. As a side note Thearin added, “Kippley and Heing had the system up and running in no time, sir. Berkley has been feeding schematics for the past ten minutes straight.”
“Good,” Benson said in an almost agitated tone. This was not the time for optimism… at least not for the captain. “I’ll recommend them all for a promotion.”
Hadley’s thoughts drifted to the power that Thearin briefly mentioned; the ATOM gun was by far the ship’s most powerful weapon. Running almost the whole length of the ship, the ATOM gun took what was, in essence, a modernized, oversized cannonball, completely soaked it in neutrinos, and hurled it at the enemy at about 10,000 Km/second. It was typically fatal weapon against most ships after two rounds. Its only weakness was that the shop had to turn in the direction of the enemy it was shooting, facing them head on – which normally wasn’t a problem…when you knew where your enemy was.
Beep the radar alert buzzed. “Sir,” said Hadley, “radar contact top port. The signature is the Dragonbear’s. But the ship isn’t moving at all. She appears to be dead in the water.”
“Johnson, hail them on all frequencies. Hadley, change course and take us to the Dragonbear.”
Hadley adjusted the course, and once again the stars on the view screen swiveled by. The Dragonbear slid into view…but only half of it. The front end of the ship was completely unscathed, until it met with where the midsection of the ship was supposed to be. It looked as if someone had cut clean through the middle of the ship like a block of butter. Hadley could see the inner structure and workings of the ship; many open compartments were venting atmosphere, plasma, gasses…people. The edges of the ship where the ship had been cut off glowed a hot white.
“Channel with Dragonbear open,” Johnson announced, “audio only.”
The Russian captain’s voice was nearly inaudible from all the static, but the computer did its best to clean it up.
“Albatross, keep clear… … containment…reach critical levels…escape pods! All hands…” The transmission cut off. There was brilliant flash as blue flames engulfed the Dragonbear. The explosion showered the Albatross with debris and plasma.
WOW!!!! Frenchy, that was something else! It's really intricate, well done!!!!
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