Chapter 3

One-hundred and thirty-seven minutes after we entered the system designated Katar/75-Hath (Eddie the AI insisted on Tuull designations, don’t ask), alarms sounded on the bridge. Eddie had detected some sort of technological activity in the system. “This is the first sign of technological activity we’ve seen on our cruise,” said Eddie, “Should I blow up now?”

“Since you can only blow up once,” I reasoned, “Let’s make sure that it’s called for.”

“Good call, Steward,” Eddie crowed, “That’s the kind of thinking that I like!”

Captain LeCroix and I examined the sensor logs. There were some kind of regular, possibly artificial, electrical emissions deeper in the system.

“It looks like some kind of power plant,” said Johns, the sensor tech, “But the signal kind of sucks. We should get clearer readings if this signal source is within this star system.”

“Johns,” I asked, “Is there any chance that this is some sort of natural phenomena? Like how the guys who discovered the first pulsars thought they were alien transmissions?”

“I won’t rule that out, Mister Steward,” he replied, “But this doesn’t look like any natural phenomena I’ve ever seen.”

“Eddie,” I asked, “Can you localize where this signal is coming from?”

“Well, it looks as if it’s coming from the gas giant that’s about 120 Earliats from the system primary.”

“Can you translate that into a human-familiar measurement system, Eddie?”

“Sure thing, Lieutenant. It’s 23.8 billion furlongs.”

NAV spoke up, “The signal origin is thirty-two AU’s from the primary, Sir. It’s source seems to be the system’s largest gas giant, designated “Thesius.” Thesius is on this side of the primary, one-point-three degrees below the plane of ecliptic.”

“How many light-minutes away from us is the gas giant?” LeCroix asked.

“Thirty-seven minutes,” said Johns and Eddie simultaneously. “Thirty-seven point five eight six,” Eddie added, needing to be more correct that a mere human.

“Let’s short-jump to within one million kilometers of the gas giant. That should be far enough away that they can’t pick up our hyperspace footprint. And that should drop us well outside the hyper limit for the system; we can creep up. Can you do that Eddie?” LeCroix asked.

“I can do it, but I get a bad feeling about this. Let’s just blow up right now.”

“NO, EDDIE,” said the whole bridge crew in unison.

After the short jump, we located the source of the anomalous sensor readings, and it was artificial. A large ship was in an eccentric orbit around a gas giant, and was apparently using an atmosphere scoop to refuel at perigee. The radiation maelstrom that surrounded Jovian-type planets was causing the hash on our sensor systems that accounted for the erratic readings. I felt the hair on the back of neck rise.

First contact, as humans had learned from researching Confederacy records was the most dangerous mission upon which sentient beings could embark, even when the race has been eavesdropped on and monitored for a thousand years. And there is to humans, (or to me, anyways) a strong sense of the uncanny in dealing with aliens. And these were unknown aliens.

I realized, now, why Commodore Roff sent an old Los Angeles-Class sub veteran to skipper this mission. Lesson learned and filed away for future reference. I was a combat veteran, and hoo-rah aggressive, but my experience encompassed patrols and insertions that lasted weeks. This was war of nerves that started after weeks of patient stalking.

Atmospheric scooping was not a known Sa’arm behavior. I felt a bit easier. A quick check of the records showed three Confederacy races that could be using the technique, but examination of the power plant emmisions showed that it wasn’t consistent with any of them. As the telescopic image the long, glowing streak of the ship dipping into the gas giant’s atmosphere was displayed, the bridge seemed to grow quiet.

Eddie said, “That’s good enough for me! Let’s hang up the “Mission Accomplished” banner! I’m ready to leave anytime, now.”

“I agree.” I couldn’t believe that the words that I had been thinking had slipped out of my mouth. Everyone on the bridge turned to look.

“Captain, I can’t believe that I am saying this, but I agree with Eddie that this information is so unprecedented that getting it back to the Confederacy should be our top priority.” So I was doubling down on timidity, on the record. I was so spooked by this long mission, the screwy AI, and the weirdness of the big honkin’ ship, that I was looking for an excuse to bug out.

Captain Le Croix, however saw the situation differently. He grabbed my arm and steered me over to a corner of the bridge. “Steward, we have no idea whose ship that is. It’s unlikely that it’s Sa’arm, but that’s not certain. With what we know so far, the Navy will want to send out another ship for a closer look. But by the time we get home and they send another ship, this ship will be finished refueling and be gone.”

He looked me in the eye. “We are the stealthiest ship in the whole damned Navy. That ship is here and we are here. So we are going to find out everything we can about this ship and bring that intelligence back home. Am I clear?”

Shit. Now I felt like an idiot. “Absolutely clear, Captain. I fully concur with your plans.”

Eddie said, “I don’t. But what do I know? I was programmed to negotiate trade relationships and contract compliance, not stick my ship where it isn’t wanted.”

LeCroix gave commands to wait until the big ship had passed behind the gas giant, then short-jumped to a location outside the hyper limit in a cometary-type orbit that in a week or two would pass near Thesius. We jumped.

Days passed as we slowly approached the gas giant under emission control, or EMCON. No changes in course, no changes in ship’s attitude, all unnecessary electronics shut off, all necessary ship’s systems dialed way back, hiding behind that cloak and holding our collective breath. Everyone’s nerves were getting raw. My gut started to hurt all the time, as though I was getting an ulcer. Captain LaCroix seemed to be ice-cool, but I noticed that, when standing on the bridge, he started to spin his Academy ring with his thumb. He would duck down to his cabin for a couple of hours’ nap and shower, and then be back on the bridge, looking cool, but spinning his ring.

Using the passive sensors that peeked over the edge of the cloak, we observed the ship make five refueling scoops. The ship wasn’t transmitting any signals, which was Sa’armish behavior (or lack of behavior), but then again, a ship alone in a system would have no one to transmit to, so it’s wasn’t conclusive. We drifted closer, crossing the system’s hyper limit during the dogwatch, my bridge watch.

Suddenly, the General Quarters alarm started sounding, startling the bridge crew, including Captain LeCroix. It must have been Eddie’s nerves snapping...

Johns, the sensor tech yelled, “Hyper footprint forming!”

LeCroix yelled, “Where away? Give me a bearing!”

NAV announced, “Dead aft! Range 980 Kilometers!”

The incoming ship was a Sa’arm Venti, and it had entered the system less than a thousand kilometers behind us. Eddie was almost incoherent. We were built to be stealthy and we had been on EMCON watch ever since we had detected the big ship orbiting Thesius. But now LeCroix had everybody shut down anything that wasn’t critical to the next few minutes of our survival, spin the cloak to shield our heat emissions from the Venti, and pray that we hadn’t been seen.

So we acted as an invisible hole in space.

And the Venti acted as though we were an invisible hole in space ... almost.

Its automatic navigational collision deflectors brushed us out of the way.

Then the world slammed sideways and tumbled.

On board the Georgia, chaos reigned. The inertial compensators had been turned down to minimize emissions and so we were all tossed around the cabins like peas in a gourd. Orange-red emergency lights lit the bridge. Eddie announced, “I can’t feel my legs!”

The Venti swept past, on its way to a rendezvous with the giant ship that, if it was Sa’arm, was at least as large as a Virtus class. Damage Control responded, stability was restored, and I called a medic to the bridge.

Five crewmen were injured seriously in the event, and the worst injury was LeCroix.

“He’s got to go into the can,” said the medic, “He’s awake and lucid, but if he doesn’t get into the can soon, his own nanites can’t keep up with his internal bleeding. Even in the can his cranial bleeding is gonna require him to be in stasis while the repairs are made.”

“How long in the can?” I asked.

The medic shrugged. “If he were dependent on how much medicine humans know, he’d be dead in an hour.”

“Captain, how are you doing?” I asked.

“Fuck me,” LeCroix growled, “How’s my boat?”

“Everything’s stable. We’re still running under EMCON and we haven’t been picked up by the Sa’arm.”

He looked hard at me. “Getting ready to bug out?”

I looked him in the eye. “What are your orders, Captain?”

He relaxed. “We got the intelligence that we came for. They’re Sa’arm. Get my ship home.”

“Aye Aye, Captain.”

LeCroix closed his eyes with a smile and the medtube lid closed down.

“What’s our status, NAV?” I asked.

“Drifting sir. Engines are off line. In our current orbit we will intersect Thesius in 207 hours.”

I looked at him blankly.

“Eight and a half days, sir.”

“Thank you NAV.”

“Guns, where is the Venti?”

“Approximately 20,000 kilometers in-system, Captain, on course for Thesius,” Guns replied, “They will arrive in 17 hours.”

I corrected her so that the entire bridge crew would hear, “I’m not the Captain, Guns. The Captain is in Medbay. I’m just warming his seat until he gets out.”

“Yes, Mister Steward!”

“NAV, can we course-correct using thrusters to miss Thesius until repairs to the drives are effected?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Er, pardon me, Acting Captain,” came a voice from the overhead.

“Yes, Eddie?”

“Using attitude thrusters will make us non-ballistic. It will be obvious to anyone looking that we are a guided ship.”

I pondered. “Do we think that either of them are looking, Eddie?”

Eddie replied, “Do you take the chance that they are not, Lieutenant Steward?”

So we were screwed if we let ourselves drift. And we were maybe screwed if we took action. I thought about what LeCroix would do. He would be a shark, not a minnow. And there was my first command decision.

“NAV, how long until the Vertus passes behind Thesius?”

“15 minutes, sir.”

“Guns, how long until the Venti passes out of missile range?”

“35 minutes, Sir.”

“Guns, ready a shipkiller. Your target is the Venti. We shoot in 17 minutes, when the Vertus passes below the Thessian horizon.”

Guns looked at me like I was nuts. I didn’t blame her. We hadn’t been identified by the Sa’arm. We had almost eight days before our situation would be critical. But things weren’t going to get better, and we couldn’t survive a stand-up fight. I looked back at Guns, until she ducked her head and started working on a shooting solution.

I hit the intercom for engineering. “Engineering, I want you to rig one of our FTL torpedoes to drift...”

If we couldn’t survive a stand-up fight, we were going to have a bug-hunt.

“Vertus passing beyond Thessian horizon, Sir,” NAV called out.

“Shipkiller, hot and tracking on passive sensors, Sir,” called Guns, “Crybaby torpedo ready.”

I took a deep breath. From here on in, events were going to happen quickly and they were going to happen on our enemy’s timetable. What we needed to do was throw a stick in their spokes.

“Helm, rotate us to clear cloak,” I said.

“Rotate boat, aye,” said Helm.

“Guns, launch missile!”

“Missile away!” Guns sang out.

The Dickheads almost certainly had a moment or two of confusion as a missile appeared out of nowhere. They may have even have started to initiate a response. But they didn’t swerve or dodge as the shipkiller flew right into their engine exhaust.

“Guns, launch Crybaby! Helm! Maneuvering thrusters, plan Roger Sierra!”

“Crybaby launched!” Guns reported.

“Roger Sierra, aye!” Helm responded.

Georgia altered Georgia’s course with thrusters, giving us enough sideways vector to avoid crashing into the damn planet, and then spun the cloak to hide us and returned to her invisible ways. Shoot and scoot.

We hunkered down, figuratively. If the big ship orbiting Thesius was anything but a Sa’arm, it would take it two hours on its current orbit to crest the Thessian horizon, see what had happened to the Venti, and decide whether or not to come and investigate. If it reacted faster than that, it could have only known about the Venti’s loss due to a telepathic connection.

One hour later, NAV announced that the big ship had crested the Thessian horizon and was charging full speed toward the last plotted position of the Venti. So the Venti had been in telepathic communication with the big ship, ergo, they were Sa’arm. Fuck.

“Guns, load another missile.”

“Aye aye, Sir, missile loaded and ready! Waiting for target range to close.”

Now came my least favorite part of the hunt. Waiting in the blinds.

After 17 hours, the pseudo-Virtus decelerated, closing on the central locus of the cloud of Venti wreckage. We, of course, had been shifting our cloak to cover ourselves.

Eddie confirmed the big ship’s configuration, “It looks as big as a Virtus and close up I detect many Sa’arm emissions characteristics, but there is no record of a ship of that configuration in any of our record of the Sa’arm.”

“I want every passive sensor recording every damn thing about that ship. Download everything we have onto an FTL torpedo.”

I turned on the ‘All Hands’ circuit, “Well, kids, here it is. We have just confirmed the existence of a Sa’arm ship variant heretofore unknown. So when we get back to Persephone, I’m buying!” I could hear cheers on the bridge and through the com system, around the ship.