Far Space (14 page)

“The HMS Stratford picked up two survivors yesterday after homing in on a weak signal,” O’Brian said. “It was all over the news.”

Jennifer lightly punched O’Brian on the shoulder. “You know Ian’s been spending all his time learning to fly this thing,” she said while making a gesture that took in the whole of Cheyenne.

“Of course,” O’Brian said.

Trying to bring the discussion back to Jennifer’s topic, Ian concentrated on the new display and asked, “So where did they come from?”

“Here.” Jennifer leaned in close to Ian and pointed at a gathering of distortions in the gravity lines swirling around Jupiter and her moons.

Ian stared at the map for a moment.

“Amazing,” O’Brian said. “Right out of thin air.”

“I can’t imagine what technology they must possess to do that,” Jennifer breathed.

Ian studied the distortion patterns. He’d seen something like this before.

“Did anybody get a good reading of the gravity displacement of the alien ships while they were en route or in Earth orbit?” Ian looked into Jennifer’s green eyes. God they were beautiful.

“Nothing that small would have much of a signature,” O’Brian said.

“SunSat should have caught something,” Jennifer said. She turned to another computer display and accessed the orbital information net.

O’Brian sniffed again. “SunSat is a NASA mission flying above the ecliptic plane. It’s supposed to measure gravitational fields on a planetary scale. It probably…”

“Here it is,” Jennifer said, getting excited. She was scrolling down a list of the last few weeks of readings. She clicked on the report from the day of the alien attack. “Marsha, can you make sense of this and tell me if SunSat detected ships in Earth orbit?”

Marsha, Cheyenne’s Automated Core Equipment, ACE for short, was designed to help run and keep tabs on the myriad onboard systems. She was also a pretty good personal assistant to the crew and scientists.

Marsha’s feminine voice came back a few seconds later. “I’m displaying the results of my data analysis on monitors six and seven. I took the liberty of creating a visual model along with a list of the objects SunSat detected in this timeframe.”

Jennifer looked at the screen on the wall in front her. “Run 24 hour period at 20x, please Marsha.”

Marsh complied. The objects in earth orbit whizzed around the planet.

“As you can see, SunSat detected and tracked more than one thousand and sixty objects in Earth orbit,” Marsha narrated.

Ian noticed O’Brian did not retract his statement concerning the sensitivity of SunSat’s sensors.

“There!” Jennifer jabbed the screen. Six objects zoomed into Earth orbit then zoomed away again. “Marsha, stop. Rewind last twenty minute interval and replay.”

The screen froze and reset.

“Play, 4x speed,” Jennifer said.

The objects around Earth could still be seen to move, but much slower. The six objects showed up after two minutes.

“Freeze frame!” Jennifer said. “That’s them.”

Ian studied the image.

“Uh, Marsha,” Ian said tentatively, “highlight USS Schriever and USS LeMay, please.”

Blue circles appeared around the gravity readings of the two patrol craft.

Ian leaned close and looked from the gravity readings of the US ships to those of the alien craft. “They’re nearly the same.”

“There’s some variation,” Jennifer said. “But that is probably due to the differences in mass.”

“What has this got to do with the alien’s showing up around Jupiter?” O’Brian asked.

Emboldened, Ian said, “Marsha, can you take the anomalous gravity readings from here,” he used a light pen to circle the area of interest on the large display showing the gravity fields of Jupiter and its moons, “and compare it to these.” Using the light pen again, Ian circled the alien grav signatures from the display of Earth’s orbit.

“One moment please,” Marsha replied. The display with the list of readings disappeared and was replaced by a side-by-side comparison of the two sets of gravity readings.

“They don’t match,” Jennifer said after a moment of study. “Shouldn’t the ships have the same reading?”

“Maybe this,” O’Brian thumbed the Jupiter display, “is not a picture of the ships entering Jupiter Space after all. Maybe the Chinese sensors were not working correctly.”

“The report said the officer who sent this data saw the ships approach with his own eyes,” Jennifer replied. “What else could it be?”

“Black hole,” Ian said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” O’Brian nearly shouted.

“It’s not a black hole,” Ian said, holding his ground. He pointed at the comparison. “But it mimics one. Look, the gravity reading shows there is nearly infinite mass at each of these six anomalies. Marsha, what do the readings look like after the ships are underway close to Ganymede in the timeframe before they attacked the Chinese base?”

“I will need to access other sensor data and correlate…” Marsha began.

“Take your time,” O’Brian huffed.

“The comparison you requested has been updated,” Marsha said.

“Way to go, girl!” Jennifer exclaimed.

“Thank you,” Marsha replied.

The display now showed three sections for easy comparison.

“The ships leaving Jupiter have the same readings as the ships attacking Earth,” Jennifer said quietly. “They had to have come out of the gravitational anomalies in Jupiter’s orbit.”

“That’s not possible,” O’Brian stated.

“Obviously, it is,” Ian said.

O’Brian’s left eye twitched. He checked his watch. “I’m due to meet with the L5 techs.” He pushed off and left the lab without another word.

“So what do you think?” Jennifer said.

“I think he’s a little annoying,” Ian said.

Jennifer took her eyes off the screen and looked over at Ian with sultry eyes. “You’re so cute when you’re jealous. But I’m talking about this.” She pointed at the display with the comparisons.

“Non-attribution?” Ian asked, sure he was about to make a fool of himself.

“Nothing else goes in the lab,” Jennifer assured him.

“Okay, I did this paper in college about antimatter engines. I came across a lot of stuff on wormhole theory while doing the research. Anyway, wormholes would have a gravity reading just like that,” Ian said and poked the screen with the Jupiter gravity anomalies.

“But those aren’t black holes,” Jennifer said. “They would have devoured Jupiter right along with the rest of the solar system.”

Ian glanced toward the door before replying, “I think the aliens used wormholes.”

“That’s not possible,” Jennifer said.

“Now you sound like him,” Ian said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder toward the door where O’Brian had exited.

“You know what?” Jennifer laughed as she took Ian’s chin between her hands.

Ian shrugged his shoulders. “You’re really cute when you sulk. It’s even better than the jealous look.”

Ian met Jennifer’s gaze. He shrugged and smiled. “Well, I do practice in front of the mirror a lot.”

“Sure you do,” Jennifer said. She leaned close to the displays. “You know what else? I think you might be right.”

L5 – Vehicle Assembly Station

Earth Space

Colonel Yates pinched the bridge of his nose, wishing his headache would go away. He looked back at the images of General Hatterus, Space Corps Operations Chief and Colonel Ware. He was going to need more powerful medicine than wishful thinking.

“What if we run into any trouble?” Yates asked, addressing the holograms at the far end of the VAS video conference room.

“Intel tells us the ship is dead,” Hatterus said.

Yates had to force himself to keep from rolling his eyes.

“Should be a quick run out to Saturn and back,” Ware added.

Yates leaned forward. He took a moment to phrase his words very carefully. “With all due respect, sir,” Yates was looking directly at Hatterus, “When has a plan ever survived contact with the enemy?”

“Don’t go Space War College on me, Yates,” Hatterus said. “The enemy ship is dead, has to be or they’d have left by now.”

“If it’s dead, General,” Yates said. “If it’s not and there are still crew members on board, I don’t think seven Special Ops troops are going to be enough.” The Special Operations Forces, or SOF for short, were good, but would there be enough of them?

Hatterus leaned back and crossed his arms. Ware jumped in. “Yates, six of these guys will have combat armor. If they can’t handle a few aliens nobody can.”

Yates nodded. Yes, the new space combat armor provided significant protection and an impressive weapons load. But there were still so many things they did not know. So many things could just plain go wrong.

“The three Marines from Recon Strike will be at your location tomorrow,” Ware continued. “They were doing survival training on the moon at Mare Australe. The three Corps Forward Aerospace Controllers will arrive later today with the drop ship and pilot.” Ware’s hologram looked at Yates. “It’s all we can pull together on such short notice. Anybody else won’t be able to get to L5 for at least a week.”

“I need you out of dock and underway as soon as you have the SOF troops on board,” Hatterus said, “Ware, wrap this up.” Hatterus cut his connection leaving only Ware and Yates in their video conference.

“Guess that takes care of that,” Yates said. “What do you think, Ware?”

Ware looked down at his hands on the table before answering. “Well, you’re heading out deep into the solar system with a new spacecraft with brand new engines. You have a crew which has just been thrown together and you have to retrieve an alien ship which may or may not have hostile crew aboard. What could possibly go wrong?”

“Well, since you put it that way…”

“Look, Yates,” Ware said. “You’re the man on the scene and you’ve seen these guys in action. We need you to get that ship and get it back here. If the aliens attack again we are basically defenseless. The U.S., heck, the Earth is counting on you to find something we can use against these guys.”

“Thanks, Ware,” Yates said.

“Hey, no pressure.”

“No pressure,” Yates said.

As Yates stood to end the conference, Ware’s hologram did the same.

“One more thing, Yates,” Ware said.

Yates eyed the hologram

“Good hunting.”

USS Cheyenne Flight Deck

L5 VAS

Yates floated into the spacious command module and pulled himself into the commander’s chair. He looked down at the six stations and multiple view screens mounted below the overhead window. It was a real, honest-to-God spacecraft bridge.

Combat ships, like Schriever, were armored all around out of necessity, leaving room for nothing but a few portals. A large view port like that on the Cheyenne’s flight deck was a luxury no warship could afford to have. The window was just the beginning. While still crowded with consoles and stations, the Cheyenne’s flight deck was basically a standard three-meter diameter hab module outfitted with command and control gear. This offered much more space than the Schriever’s bridge which had been designed to save mass and also was compact since it was meant to be used as a life boat – a function with which Yates was quite familiar.

From his raised console station, Yates looked down an aisle at four stations stepped down below him. Due to the constant acceleration the Cheyenne would experience throughout its flight the module had been tilted at a forty-five degree angle to the center line of the ship. Between the inclination of the module and the reclining acceleration couches at each station, the crew could easily look up and forward out the multi-pane carbon nano-tube reinforced transparent laminate. The window, running from one end of the module to the other, offered a great view. Other, smaller, windows were set at strategic positions next to each station to allow the crew members to also see out the side of the command module as well.

Directly in front of Yates, Lieutenant Reeves manned the combined navigation and communications station on one side. Captain Mitchell sat at the reconfigured cargo master station, now the weapons station tied to the hastily added munitions hanging off Cheyenne’s hull. A step lower and in front of the nav/com and weapons stations, Captain Maytree and Lieutenant Langdon sat in the pilot and co-pilot stations respectively.

Yates could also turn at his seat to address the final two stations occupying the rest of the module on either side of the rear hatch. Steve Pearl had
commandeered the engineering station, sending the L5 tech assigned to the mission to sit in the auxiliary station in a module located twenty meters behind the bridge. The other rear station had been turned into a tactical station to help Mitchell if the Cheyenne got into a fight and also to coordinate any SOF troop activities. Major James Taylor, Marine Reconnaissance Strike and senior special operations troop on board, occupied the seat.

Yates looked down at his display board. Everything was in the green. “Okay people, let’s do the poll. I need to know if we’re ready to take this beast out to Saturn. Mitchell, call the roll.”

Mitchell pulled up the departure checklist. “Navigation.”

“Nav, go,” Reeves replied.

“Communications.”

“Comm, go,” Reeves chimed.

“Propulsion,” Mitchell continued.

“Hell yes,” Pearl said.

Mitchell looked back at the civilian.

“Propulsion is green,” Pearl sighed.

“Tactical.”

“Tactical. go,” Taylor replied.

“Attitude Control.”

“ACS, go,” Langdon said.

“Helm.”

“Helm, go,” Maytree replied.

“And weapons station reads green,” Mitchell said completing the list. “That’s a ‘go’.”

“All stations have reported in,” Reeves added. “All personnel are strapped in and ready for maneuvering.”

“Tell VAS Control to pull their lines. USS Cheyenne requesting clearance for departure,” Yates said.

Reeves relayed the request.

A face appeared on the monitor hanging below the view port. The VAS Controller was surrounded by more people than her tiny control room was meant to hold. With all the senior VAS management, technicians and engineers
looking on, the young woman said, “VAS Control to USS Cheyenne, you are cleared for departure. All lines are free.”