Beyond the Shroud of the Universe (14 page)

“Sir, Fleet Command is calling us again. They are ordering us to break off pursuit and return to Earth.”

“Understood,” Captain Sheppard replied. “Solomon, I would like you to transmit the following via standard radio. ‘Fleet Command, this is Captain Sheppard onboard the
Vella Gulf
. We are experiencing a communications failure and only have our standard radio operational. We are chasing down an intruder, but the ship has too big of a head start for us to catch it prior to the stargate. We intend to continue pursuit and capture the interloper. We will return once we have apprehended the fugitive.”

“If I send that via standard radio, rather than the faster-than-light communications set, it will be several hours before Fleet Command receives the message,” the ship’s AI said. “We will not receive an answer prior to making the jump into the Vulpecula 452 system.”

“Understood,” Captain Sheppard said. “Please transmit as requested.”

“Done,” Solomon replied.

“Well, we’re committed now,” Lieutenant O’Leary said.

“Yes we are,” the CO replied. “Now we just have to catch him.”

“The last thing I remember is visiting a friend of mine who was in the hospital,” Father Zuhlsdorf said. “I got into the elevator with a man I had never seen before, and I don’t remember getting back off. When I came to, I was in the cave where I have been ever since. During my time there, I only saw two creatures: the man who looked like an elf, and a creature that looked like a large walking salamander. My time there does not bear repeating as it was a mix of starvation and torture. I’m afraid I must confess to having had some very non-Christian thoughts about the elf from time to time.”

“The elf is a person who goes by a number of names,” Captain Sheppard said. “We know him most recently as Captain Nightsong; however, he has also been known as Wayland and Beowulf, among many other aliases.”

“I believe he called himself ‘Wayland’ while I was in captivity, but most of it is kind of a blur now.”

“Do you remember how you came to be outside where we found you?” Lieutenant O’Leary asked. “You had been shot with a laser.”

“Yes! It is all coming back,” the priest replied. “Calvin came in with Wayland…no, wait, Calvin was his prisoner too. Wayland said we had to leave and cut me loose from where I was tied, and Calvin helped carry me outside. I walked as far as I could, carrying my own cross, as it were, but when I stumbled, Wayland shot me and left me to die.”

“Did you see where they went after that?” Lieutenant O’Leary asked.

“No, I didn’t. I’m afraid I may have passed out for a while.”

“That’s okay,” Captain Sheppard said. “Go ahead and rest.” He looked up to Lieutenant O’Leary. “Well, if nothing else, I think that confirms Nightsong is our bad guy.”

“Yeah, now I have an even bigger score to settle with the bastard,” Lieutenant O’Leary said. “Not only did he abduct my CO and torture a priest, but he also blew up the cave, knowing I’d be the first person to jump into it. He obviously intended to kill me and Captain Train. Just let me get my hands on that murderous bastard. All I want is five minutes alone with him…”

“You do remember he is one of those Aesir Eco Warrior people, right? And he can manipulate fire and life-based nanobots?”

“You’re right,” O’Leary said, “better make it 10.”

“Sir, it looks like he’s heading for the Epsilon Eridani system,” Steropes said.

“Any change in his speed?” the CO asked. They had chased the unknown ship through four systems but had been unable to make up any ground. Strangely, they hadn’t lost any ground, either.

“No sir. He continues to maintain a two-hour lead on us. Whenever we speed up, he speeds up. Whenever we slow down, he slows down.”

“So he’s just toying with us?” the CO asked.

“Unknown,” Steropes replied. “He may be trying to lead us somewhere; it may also be he is slowing to maintain a more efficient speed to conserve fuel. There are a couple of things we could attempt to determine which is correct, like slowing down further to see if he does the same or running our engines at full thrust to see whose motors blow first.”

“No, I don’t think we’re quite ready for that yet,” Captain Sheppard said. “Maybe some time, but not now. We’ll continue to follow the ship to Epsilon Eridani, if that’s where it goes. Maybe the Domans will have a ship in position to capture him.”

“
Domus Control,
Vella Gulf,
checking in entering through Stargate One
.”

“
Good to see you,
Vella Gulf.
Did you bounce in and out? We thought another ship came in before you, but it disappeared immediately upon system entry.
”

“
That wasn’t us, Domus Control;
that was the ship we are chasing. Interrogative, do you have any ships available you can send to block the stargates?
”

“
We have one cruiser available.
”

“
We’ll stay here and guard this one; please send your cruiser to the other. We don’t know if the ship we were chasing jumped to the other universe or cloaked, but if we can trap them here, we can figure it out.
”

“
What do you mean, ‘jumped to the other universe?’
”

“
We will send a shuttle to the planet to meet with your leaders. We’ll explain everything.
”

“
Got it,
Vella Gulf
. Domus Control, out.
”

“Well, we’re here,” Nightsong said as he brought the courier ship in for a landing on the airfield in the center of the city. Chadnezzar covered the area within a ring of seven hills, with the outlying urban areas climbing well up onto the hills. A modern city would have housed several hundred thousand; however, as the tallest building was only three stories, Calvin doubted the city had even 100,000 inhabitants.

“You’re going to hide in the middle of the city?” Calvin asked. “Our forces will find you anyway and come for you.”

“You forget the ship following us is the
Vella Gulf
. It doesn’t have the ability to make the jump. They can stay in your universe while we stay here. When I’m ready to leave, I have the stargates plotted very accurately; I will stay in this universe and only jump back to yours at the last minute.”

“What if Fleet Command sends the
Terra
or the
Spark
?”

“They won’t. They are more worried about the Iranians and the Efreet. You heard them trying to call the
Vella Gulf
back. I don’t believe the
Gulf’s
CO will still have a job when he returns to Terra.”

Calvin felt a surge of pride as he realized the CO of the
Gulf
was more worried about trying to rescue Calvin than his career. “So what do you intend to do here?” he asked.

“I don’t plan to be here long,” Nightsong replied. “I have some things to pick up, I need to refuel my ship and you have a date with a sword. After that, it is off to kill some Aesir and some Jotunn…but not necessarily in that order.”

“So we chased the ship to this system,” Lieutenant O’Leary said. “We have discussed it and we do not believe the courier ship had stealth modules on it, nor would it have had the capability to stealth without them. The ship isn’t anything more than an engine and a minimal shell around it. It is meant to get diplomatic messages and an ambassador or two from point to point as quickly as possible. If the ship didn’t have stealth, it must have jumped to the Jinn Universe.”

“Which would mean there is an Efreeti presence on this planet in the Jinn Universe,” the Kuji queen, Queen Risst, said. She turned to the humanoid queen. “I like this not.”

“Nor do I,” the humanoid queen, Queen Glina, replied. She turned to Captain Sheppard. “We know so little about the Efreeti society, and now you tell us they could jump to our planet at any moment and destroy our cities and everything we’ve worked so hard to achieve in the last few years. This is unacceptable.”

“I agree,” Queen Risst said. “You must jump through to the other universe and destroy their planet before they do the same to ours.”

“Just like that?” Captain Sheppard asked. “Destroy their planet without any warning? That would make us no better than they are.”

“It would also ensure that we are the ones who continue living,” Queen Glina replied. “My responsibility is to my people first, and then to the Republic of Terra, a republic which seems to have some problems lately recognizing who its friends and enemies are.”

“We have no such issues here,” Queen Risst added. “Everyone on the planet in
this
universe, I deem ‘friend.’ The creatures on the planet in the other universe? ‘Enemy.’ What do you do with implacable enemies who won’t talk or negotiate with you? You exterminate them like a nest of vigrebs.” Captain Sheppard’s implant brought up an image of a vigreb, a creature which lived in the swamps of Domus. The creature was five feet long and looked generally snakelike, but had four sets of small, razor-sharp claws to hold onto prey while delivering its poisonous bite. The vigreb was nearly impossible to detach without killing it.

“I understand that, ma’am, and can sympathize with you,” Lieutenant O’Leary said. “I’ve fought them on several planets and have yet to find any of them willing to negotiate. The problem I have with nuking their planet, or whatever it is you wish us to do, is that Lieutenant Commander Hobbs is probably on it, along with Nightsong. Unless the need is great, I’m generally not a fan of nuking my friends and, at the moment, that stupid elf is the only person we know of who might be able to tell us what is going on.”

“I want to be perfectly clear,” Queen Glina said. “If it is a choice between them and us, I choose us.”

“We have read the reports of the last war,” Queen Risst added. “We saw there was a device called a black hole generator. We would like you to go to the other universe and set one of those off on their planet. Then, we will not have to worry about them crossing over, ever again.”

Captain Sheppard rubbed his chin. “Umm…according to what the Mrowry told us,” he said, “using that bomb goes against the rules of war. Our society is already going to be looked down on for using one of them; I can’t imagine detonating a second one will win us any points on the international stage.”

Queen Risst smiled, showing a great number of very sharp teeth. “There are only seven of us here. Queen Glina and I aren’t going to say anything. Ambassador Flowers is a career politician; he knows how to keep his mouth closed when necessary. The rest of you are military. You can always say that we ordered you to do it, as the legitimate political rulers of this system.”

“That excuse hasn’t always worked well in our past,” Captain Sheppard said. “We also have another problem beyond my reluctance to kill an unknown number of unarmed civilians. We don’t have the ability to jump the
Vella Gulf
into the other universe. We don’t have jump modules for our engines.”

“They can’t be that big,” Queen Glina said. “We have a Class 5 replicator. We will make some for you.”

“It’s a slightly bigger problem than that,” Captain Sheppard said. “One of the components is a metal that only exists in the other universe; it is unstable here. We don’t have any of it with us, nor do I expect you have any, either. In order to replicate the jump modules needed to go to the other universe, a few people are going to have to go over first and bring back some of the metal.”

“How much do you need?” Queen Risst asked.

“Not much; we only need about a pound per module, and we only need four modules, so we only need about four pounds total. We can bring that back using a transportation rod. Going over ahead of time will also give us the ability to get the lay of the land there. We can find out what the planet’s like and what forces they have. Hopefully, we can even find out about their navy, so we don’t jump the
Vella Gulf
into a battle bigger than we can win.”

“What do you need from us to make this happen?” Queen Glina asked. “We would like this to be done quickly, before they can do something to one of our cities.”

“We would like to do it quickly too,” Captain Sheppard replied. “The longer we wait, the longer Nightsong has to plan. I would rather keep him reacting to what we do, rather than giving him time to act on his own accord.”

“My platoon is down quite a few men,” Lieutenant O’Leary said. “Would it be possible to borrow a squad from your armed forces? Perhaps one from the platoon Second Lieutenant Cristobal Contreras is in charge of?”

“The ‘Princess’ Own’ platoon?” Queen Risst asked. “I will see what can be done.”