Parker's Folly (37 page)

It was a quarter of an hour before noon, close to the end of forenoon watch. The ship was at general quarters, full combat alert, and had been for nearly four hours. Emergence from alter-space should come just after 12:00 and tension was beginning to rise among the crew. Suddenly the ship trembled and the klaxon sounded over the PA.

“Attention, the ship has emerged into 3-space,” announced the ship's computer. The bridge crew jumped to their stations, startled by the early transition.

“Clear the view ports. Sensors up, I want position and targeting data on the forward holographic overlay,” the Captain snapped. “Helm, acceleration to zero, maintain heading and attitude. Engineering, I need the forward rail gun battery at full charge and engines ready for combat maneuvers.”

A chorus of “Aye aye, Sir,” indicated his orders were received and understood. The ship's front section returned to its normal transparent state, revealing a yellow-orange star dead ahead.

“It looks just like home,” commented Lt. Curtis, who was standing beside the Captain's chair. “I was expecting something a bit more exotic.”

From the navigator's station JT, now wearing the deep burgundy of the science team, was taking hurried readings. “It may look like Sol but it is almost 10% bigger. It appears the same size because we are about 1.2 AU away, 30 million kilometers farther out than Earth's orbit. I'm starting the search for planets and trying to determine the local ecliptic plane.”

Also hovering about the sensor displays were Rajiv and Yuki. JT saw Rajiv surreptitiously pass something to the Japanese scientist. When he realized that it was a crumpled dollar bill, JT chuckled. The two physicists had independently run the alter-space transit time equations and evidently Yuki had won the bet over when the ship would emerge.

“Are we getting anything on the sensors, Mr. Taylor?” The Captain's question brought JT's attention back to the instrument readings.
This is really strange,
he thought,
I should have found the alien ship by now. We were right on its tail when we entered alter-space.
He widened the search cone and rechecked—there was no sign of the alien ship.

“Captain, I can't find a trace of the alien vessel,” JT reported with considerable uneasiness. “Sir, it's just not there.”

Parker's Folly had been in the Beta Comae system for just over ten minutes and its quarry was nowhere to be found. Traveling 1.4 million kph relative to the star's frame of reference, it had moved nearly 250,000 kilometers from its point of emergence.

“Captain, we are not detecting the presence of the alien ship,” Rajiv said, looking up from the radiation and particle detection readouts. “If it has its drive on we should be detecting the same radiation signature we saw before it disappeared into alter-space.”

“Optical, infra-red and microwave bands are also negative,” added the frustrated JT. Then a blip on his instruments caught his attention. “Sir! I think I've found a planet.”

“That's very good, Mr. Taylor. What is its location? Could the alien ship have taken refuge there?” The Captain leaned forward in his chair, concentrating on the annotations flashing into existence over the view forward, marking the planet's position in space.

“Sir, it registers as a terrestrial type planet about 80% a massive as Earth. Its orbit is approximately 1.15 AU and its position is a third of an orbit beyond our current position—roughly 150 million km. For the alien ship to travel that far at its last known velocity and acceleration, and assuming the need to decelerate to match orbit, call it 35 hours.”

“So either it beat us here by more than a day, or it has not arrived yet,” the Captain said, thinking out loud.

“Yes, Sir. If it was still on the way to the planet we would be able to detect it.”

“Captain!”  Rajiv shouted excitedly. “We have just picked up a burst of gamma radiation from the vicinity of the emergence point. I believe that the alien ship may have arrived behind us!”

“Yes. It is the alien,” added Yuki. “I am detecting the drive signature. Captain, the alien vessel seems to be altering its course. It appears to be heading for the planet JT discovered.”

So the computer's warning was correct,
Jack thought.
What else might it know deep within its quantum entangled guts?
“Helm, reverse course. Bring the ship to bear on the alien vessel.”

“Aye, Captain.”

The alien sun dropped from sight as the ship flipped end over end. The star field in front of the ship stabilized, with new holographic numbers and markings identifying the alien craft, invisible to the naked eye at this distance.

“Sir, you realize that we are now ahead of the alien, traveling away from the target at 350,000 kph. We need to shrink that delta-v, Sir, or our rail gun slugs will never reach the target.”

“I am aware of that, Mr. Taylor. Engineering, we are about to find out what flank speed, or rather, flank acceleration really is. Mr. Vincent, all ahead flank, let's go catch us an alien.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” Billy Ray responded enthusiastically.

“Sir, we are topping out at 30 Gs,” reported the new Chief Engineer. “The reactor and engines are stable, the shields are up and the forward rail guns fully charged.”

“Excellent, Mr. Medina,” the Captain said, easing back in his chair. “Mr. Vincent, time to intercept.”

“Sir, we will take 5.6 minutes to achieve zero delta-v with the target, and another 5.6 to reestablish our original closing velocity. If we maintain this acceleration we will intercept in 23.8 minutes.”

“I sense a
‘
but,
’
Mr. Vincent.”

“Sir, we will be closing at 1.8 million kph when we overtake the alien ship, accurately targeting the vessel will be difficult.”

The Captain nodded, did some math in his head and amended his orders. “Helm, once we have reversed our course vector reduce acceleration to match the target. That should give us how long to intercept, Mr. Vincent?”

“Total time from the initial turn will be 53.7 minutes. That will keep our closing velocity around 350,000 kph. We should have a workable targeting solution in about 40 minutes.”

“Very good, Mr. Vincent. Alright people, let's go do what we came to do.”

* * * * *

The minutes passed slowly as the crew anticipated drawing within firing range of the alien ship. While everyone on board referred to the main battery as consisting of a pair of rail guns, those guns were only distantly related to the small arms carried by the ship's Marines. Those weapons generate thousands of Gs to accelerate their projectiles while the main battery produced accelerations in the tens of thousands of gravities along its 100 meter length.

Such acceleration would be problematic if the motive force was applied using electromagnetism. No reasonable projectile could withstand the strain of firing—the rounds would just disintegrate into a cloud of plasma.

But Folly's main battery was based on gravitonics, which allowed projectiles to be launched using incredible accelerations without destroying their payloads. Even so, the relative velocity of the ship with respect to its target was more important than the velocity the rail guns could impart to their projectiles.

“Sir, we are coming into firing range,” reported JT.

“Captain, I have a lock on the target,” added Billy Ray.

“Main battery, six round salvo. You may fire when ready Mr. Vincent.”

“Aye aye, Captain, six round salvo,” Billy Ray replied, the ship shook three times in quick succession. The forward holographic overlay showed three pairs of glowing streaks headed toward the invisible target, shrinking to the point of invisibility themselves due to distance and perspective. “Salvo away sir, time to impact 131 seconds.”

The next two minutes unfolded with glacial slowness, no one dared break the silence. Under his breath, Bobby quietly counted down, “three, two, one...”

After a slight delay to account for the tardiness of light, a brilliant flair blossomed in front of them, a blinding white ball of destruction that vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

“That was a direct hit, Sir,” JT reported. The navigation sensors had a better view of the impact than the naked eyes of the bridge crew.

“Awesome!” Bobby exclaimed, as the helmsmen bumped fists, “we totality pwnd him.”

“Shift maximum power to the forward shields, Mr. Medina.” the Captain ordered. “Helm, prepare for possible evasive maneuvers. Mr. Taylor, are there any sizable pieces of wreckage?”

JT consulted radar and LIDAR readouts. “That's a negative, Captain. It looks like the ship was mostly vaporized. Did we really hit it that hard?”

“I expected to cause major damage,” the Captain replied, “but there should not have been enough energy in those projectiles to totally vaporize the target.”

“I believe you are correct, Captain,” said Rajiv from his bank of sensors. “The kinetic energy of each of the 10 kg projectiles was equivalent to approximately 15 tons of TNT. It is improbable that all of the rounds struck the vessel—one, maybe two at the most. I believe that the explosion we just witnessed was caused primarily by matter-antimatter annihilation. The radiation signature is quite distinct.”

“Yes, this reinforces what we suspected about the alien vessel's drive and power source,” Yuki added, backing his fellow physicist's conjecture. “From the explosion on the Moon and the radiation signature of the vessel's drive we suspected this to be so.”

“Are these science dweebs dissing your gunnery?” Bobby asked Billy Ray in a low whisper. “Naw, pardner,” the lanky Texan replied, “I shot it, I hit it, it blew up. 'Nuf said.”

The Captain ignored his helmsmen's side conversation, instead questioning the scientists. “You're saying we ruptured its fuel storage, which contained enough antimatter to vaporize the entire ship?”

“Yes, Captain. We believe that to be the most likely explanation,” Rajiv concluded.

“I'm glad we didn't come along side and use the X-ray laser batteries.” Jack exhaled slowly,
I wish they would tell me these things ahead of time.

“Yes, indeed, Captain.”

* * * * *

The crew continued scanning for any large chunks of their vanquished prey, finding nothing.
True to the science team's prediction, as the ship's trajectory took it through the area where the alien vessel detonated, no significant pieces of debris were encountered. The shields did register increased gas density and swarms of dust, which at such high relative velocities required a significant amount of energy to deflect.

 “Captain,” called JT. “About five minutes before we fired on the alien, we picked up a radio signal from the vessel. A burst transmission of some form. We only picked it up faintly, I'm guessing that it was highly directional.”

“A directional signal aimed at what, Mr. Taylor?”

“At the planet, Sir. I didn't think it all that important at the time, but I'm picking up another signal and this one is coming from the planet.”

“You're sure, this is a reply to the probe ship's signal?”

“Fairly sure, Sir. The frequency and encoding are the same, and if you figure out the transmission time to the planet and back—about 8.2 minutes each way—the timing is right.”

“Do we know what they said to each other?”

“No idea, Sir.”

Damn, and I thought we were done here,
Jack thought furiously.
I need advice about what this might mean.
“Lt. Curtis, would you and the science team join me in my sea cabin. Mr. Medina, you have the Conn.”

“Aye, Sir.” replied Jo Jo, moving to take the command chair as the Captain headed for his cabin.

The Captain and his advisers all packed snugly into the cabin and shut the door. Jack looked around the room, framing his next remarks carefully. “It would appear that our efforts to prevent the alien probe from reporting to its masters may have failed. I need your best information and speculation regarding our current position before deciding what actions we take next. Let's start with you JT.”

It is a common practice for commanders to ask for advice starting with the most junior member of their staff. That way the younger officers are not swayed by the opinions of their superiors. Having been in the Army JT knew this but he still felt the pressure of going first.

“Captain, that planet could be habitable. During the pursuit, I continued scanning the planet for signs of life and found that the atmosphere is somewhat similar to Earth's. It's thinner, primarily nitrogen with about 12% oxygen but there's significantly more CO
2
and traces of methane. Just how much I can't tell from this far out.”

“Are you saying people could live there?” asked Gretchen.

“Not comfortably, not enough oxygen. And despite being in the middle of the habitable zone the temperatures are 4-5
º colder than Earth. It's a lot nicer place than Mars, but definitely not a garden spot. That's not to say that some other species wouldn't find it comfortable.”

“Do you think that the planet is inhabited? Could the probe have delivered its information in that radio burst?” the Captain asked, focusing on the crux of the matter.

“Yes and no, Sir. Though it's possible that the transmission contained a report about Earth, I don't think that it was meant for the inhabitants of the planet.”

“And why not?”

“Because I don't think there are any.”

This remark caused the others present to pepper JT with demands for an explanation. The Captain patiently signaled for order and said, “explain.”

“Well, I've been monitoring all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum since we entered the system. Back home, Earth sends out signals on all sorts of frequencies—radio, TV, microwaves, radar, cellphones, millions of sources. Any advanced inhabited planet would probably do the same, transmit like crazy. Since we've been here, the only transmission I've heard from the planet was the reply to the probe's signal.” JT paused for breath, looking around to check the others' reactions. The Captain made a motion for him to continue.