Far Space (27 page)

Ian tucked the precious data pad away and settled back in his seat in preparation for the imminent launch. He was not sure what to expect but Ian knew enough about special ops craft to know this thing would most likely take off like a bat out of hell.

Ghost positioned the Reaper at the base of the long tunnel leading from the hidden hanger to the moon’s surface and accelerated.

Ian’s suspicions concerning the small spacecraft’s capabilities were confirmed. The acceleration felt like a giant hand pressing against his chest. He tensed his legs and torso in an attempt to keep the blood from draining from his head and only partially succeeded. As the C-31R cleared the edge of the ice tunnel, blackness was creeping into the edge of Ian’s vision. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Thankfully, the acceleration eased off as they reached something closer to their cruising speed.

Opening his eyes, Ian found the entire three man crew looking back at him. They obviously had used this display on newbies before.

“You okay, Captain?” Ghost asked with a grin.

“Just like jumping out of an elevator,” Ian replied. He pointed out the bridge window. “You’re about to recreate my landing though.”

Ghost turned to find their ground-hugging flight path down a broad ice canyon was about to abruptly end as the canyon wall turned. The pilot calmly flicked the controls, rolling the Reaper to starboard so they turned to follow the canyon. After a few seconds, Ghost popped the Reaper up and away from Europa’s surface, heading more or less toward Jupiter hanging swollen in the dark sky.

Continuing as if nothing had happened, Ghost turned back to Ian and said. “You’ll have to fill me in on the elevator thing sometime. That sounds cool.”

Robin said, “Only you would think parachuting from orbit is cool.”

“Come on,” Ghost said, “think about the rush!”

Bridges snorted.

Ian nodded and said, “Well, I was kind of in a rush not to get blown up.”

“What’d I say?” Ghost said to Robin.

Robin just rolled her eyes. “Men.”

Ian pulled up the feed from a rear camera to watch Europa falling away. The exit from the SOF hanger had been in one of the nameless ice canyons which were found all over the moon’s icy surface. The secret exit point and Ghost’s piloting down the canyon for some ways before heading out into space explained how special forces was able to conduct many of their missions without alerting even those working on the COAC Ops Floor. Ian thought he knew about everything going on throughout the solar system while he pulled his shifts as a planner on the CAOC staff.

How wrong he had been.

From their covert hanger, SOCOM could launch missions out the side of a ridge located four clicks from the base proper. Timing their arrivals and departures carefully, covert missions could take place undetected; Ian noted the contours Ghost had followed allowed him to skirt the bases active sensors and other stay out of view of any other vessels using the spaceport. Once clear of Europa’s surface, the stealth capabilities of the Reaper ensured no one noticed the little ship unless the crew wanted them to.

Yates had been busy indeed.

“Captain Langdon,” Bridges said without looking over, “if you could tell Lieutenant Byrd where we are headed, we can get on with our initial jump.”

Ian checked the data pad. He scrolled through the icons on the opening screen and quickly found the list of wormholes they would follow as they traced Jennifer’s footsteps. He read off the wormhole designation here in the local Jovian Cluster. “Do you need the coordinates?”

Robin shook her head. “No sir, got it here in the directory. Ghost, the heading is on your heads up display.”

“Got it,” Ghost acknowledged. “It’s not too far. Go ahead and prep the jump drive.”

With the antimatter system powering the normal space drive and the jump drive, the little Reaper could go just about anywhere it wanted to go. Ian hoped they had counted on having an extra passenger on this trip. The main limfac with this ship would be consumables. Ian checked the list of wormholes they would have to traverse. It just would not do to run out of food or air sixteen jumps from home.

Another thought hit Ian. The Reaper might be nearly invisible to sensors, but opening a wormhole anywhere in the Solar System, especially close to the base on Europa, was bound to set off any number of alarms throughout the Jovian Cluster, the originating point of the last alien invasion of Near Space.

Ian nodded to himself. If SOCOM had been conducting covert missions through the wormholes, it would explain many strange occurrences he had witnessed on the CAOC Ops Floor. There had been a few instances when the crew on duty had noted gravity fluctuations around Jupiter, indicating a possible wormhole opening. When this happened, the pucker factor sky-rocketed. Each time, the COAC Watch Officer, a Colonel with obviously more clearance than Ian possessed would simply turn the alarm off. Everyone would pretend nothing had happened and go on about their business. The Commander mush have been getting info on these types of missions being directed from behind the green door of the SOF Cell.

Ian shrugged, he’d have to ask Yates what SOCOM was doing in Far Space someday. He ran a finger down the list of wormholes Jennifer had followed.
As an expert in extra-solar navigation, she would have been the one to choose each and every jump. His path had been laid out for him. Now all he had to do was follow the bread crumbs Jennifer had left.

“Coming up on our first jump point,” Robin reported.

“We’re in line for the threshold,” Ghost added.

“Accelerators?” Bridges asked.

Robin tapped a few icons on her control board. “Ramping up – full power in fifteen seconds.”

Ian tried to appear relaxed as massive amounts of energy were poured into the circular accelerators located further back in the spacecraft. On their Reaper, the ring was tilted to lower the cross-section of the spacecraft. It also gave the ship a distinctive bulge on either side of the hull. He knew the accelerators were the key piece of hardware making wormhole travel possible. Powered by the same AM system used for the normal drive system which thrust the Reaper between planets and the jump drive which sucked in raw power for the accelerators and made travel between other star systems possible.

Some tech back on Europa had tried to explain the intricacies of the wormhole drive to Ian. The quantum physics were lost on him, but he did understand the basics. The accelerators took very, very small amounts of matter and tossed them around a magnetically guided tour of the ring at the back of the ship. The matter was accelerated until it approached the speed of light. At that point, the laws of relativity took over. As the matter approached the magic speed of light, it began to have an infinite mass. This was important since only a near infinite mass could attract a wormhole entry point and allow it to line up precisely with the spacecraft approaching it. If even the smallest error occurred at this point of a jump; the ship and everyone on board would simply cease to exist.

Ian watched the gravimetric readings. They were overlaid on the camera imager from the front of the Reaper and displayed on the main monitor at the front of the bridge. The gravity field lines warped into a recognizable pattern Ian had seen from other missions.

“Ten seconds,” Ghost reported.

“Full auto,” Bridges ordered.

“Hands off,” Robin. “Threshold in three, two, one…”

Ian was pressed back into his seat as the wormhole’s gravitational distortions encountered the Reaper’s near infinite mass. With computer controlled accuracy, the masses moving near the speed of light were stopped cold.

Due to the conservation of energy and matter, all that energy had to go somewhere. That somewhere was the wormhole. The rip in space-time hungrily accepted the surge of energy, shuttling the massive ingest down its interstellar throat.

The Reaper, with Ian strapped inside, was caught in the wake of the energy transfer and pulled along for the ride to the far end of the wormhole.

It was a wild ride.

With all the bucking and rattling going on inside the spacecraft, Ian was sure the Reaper was about to break up.

Above the noise, Robin called out, “Acclerators back on-line for exit.”

Ian closed his eyes and wondered if a ship entering a wormhole had ever failed to bring up its accelerators again. It was necessary not only to supply the energy from the AM plant at the beginning of the journey but also to terminate the wormhole travel. Crossing the far threshold, the jump drive would release yet another burst of energy to close the wormhole. Clutching the arms of his chair, Ian wondered what happened to a ship if the jump drive only worked on the inbound threshold.

Deciding it was probably not wise to dwell on the possibilities of failed jump drives, Ian pushed the thought from his mind. He figured if something broke, he would not live long enough to know about it.

In twenty-seven seconds Ian’s first wormhole transit was over.

Ian and the rest of the Reaper crew were thrown forward against their restraints as the spacecraft exited the wormhole.

“Successful jump,” Robin called out.

To Ian, the statement seemed a little redundant after their obvious survival of the journey. He loosened his grip on the seat and took in the view.

Double stars of a new system hung before them.

“We’ve entered the system in orbit around the second planet,” Robin continued. “There are two other gas giants, both further out. There is one rocky planet closer to the primary star.”

Ian took in the banded gas giant hanging overhead. He checked his data pad. Jennifer’s notes coincided exactly with Robin’s observations. Their next wormhole entry point was located further out in the system near the third planet. Ian did some quick figuring and realized with the new AM engines and inertial dampeners, the trip would take just over twelve hours.

Bridges said, “Ghost, give us a one hour quiet time then head out for our next jump.”

Ian looked up. As far as he knew, the current regulations for ships traveling through wormholes called out a twenty-four hour observation time with no eminations in order to ensure there were no enemy vessels in the area. “Is one hour long enough?” Ian asked.

“Twenty-four hours is the guidance not the law,” Bridges replied. “Don’t worry, Captain. Our sensors are a tad more advanced than the average search party gets out here.”

Ian nodded. He wondered if the ship carrying Jennifer had obeyed the guidance or not. Quietly, he breathed, “Where are you now Jennifer Langdon?”

Star System 4576B

Far Space

Jennifer sat strapped in to her acceleration couch off to the side of the navigation plot table. She watched as Captain Merck’s crew guided their transport down to the surface. The feat of landing a spacecraft and taking off again without massive amounts of fuel had been solved by the AM propulsion system. She wondered, not for the first time, who actually owned the ship. One did not just come across a spare stealth ship with an anti-matter power system and wormhole capabilities.

From what she knew of spacecraft design, the ship she found herself on-board was most likely one of the first production models incorporating the critical technologies of the AM power plant, engine, wormhole drive, and inertial dampeners. Without each, the whole concept of wormhole travel unraveled. There was no easy or fast way to get the near-infinite mass needed for the wormhole drive without using AM. There was no quick way to get the ship between wormhole thresholds without the AM propulsion system. And the AM propulsion system was useless without the inertial dampeners. Fortunately, humanity had understood at least the basics of each of these designs, in theory if not in practice, when the alien ship Six had been recovered. The examination of Six and of each of the key systems led to the breakthroughs needed for humans to build their own wormhole ships. With the ships, all you needed were the crews willing to take them to the far space beyond the wormholes.

Jennifer let her eyes rove from one member of the bridge crew to another. The way they had interacted since day one, she was sure this had been a hastily pulled together mission. Someone with a lot of pull had managed to get hold of this ship and gathered this mismatched crew. All to come through sixteen jumps? What was the real purpose of this trip? Surely it was more than the reconnaissance mission she had been sold when she had been brought on board.

Should have asked a few more questions, Jennifer thought to herself.

Atmospheric entry was a little bumpy, but not bad. She thought of Ian and their little fall back to Earth more than a year ago. After that, any reentry seemed smooth. As they leveled out over the globe-spanning ocean, she tapped
into the long range sensors. The only break in the waves was a long string of rocky islands rising from the sea nearly forty kilometers away. The pilot saw the same thing and adjusted course for one of the larger outcroppings.

Jennifer studied the images coming in from the ships exterior cameras. The complete lack of structures came as no surprise to her. After her time studying the captured alien vessel, she knew the Soosuri were underwater creatures. They would have little need to build on land. But what about under the waves? What was their civilization like?

Growing excited, Jennifer found herself looking out over the wave-topped ocean even as her spacecraft landed. She was happy to see they were near the water, having landed on a relatively flat shelf of rock. The shelf jutted out into a cove surrounded by an unspoiled black beach. She wondered if she would actually have the chance to meet any of the alien creatures. Would they be able to communicate? She had so many questions: How had they achieved such a high technological state without fire? How did they discover the secrets of space travel? How many other intelligent species had they come across in their travels? When…

Jennifer’s thoughts were interrupted as Captain Merck cleared his throat. She looked up to find the Navy Captain standing beside his command chair. Mr. Monroe unfolded from his acceleration couch nearby to stand beside the mission commander.