This Corner of the Universe
Read This Corner of the Universe Online
Authors: Britt Ringel
This Corner of the Universe
By Britt Ringel
This
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the
product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events
or locales is entirely coincidental.
THIS
CORNER OF THE UNIVERSE
Copyright
© 2013 by Britt Ringel
All
rights reserved.
No
part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or
electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage
piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase
only authorized editions.
K—My
Love, Always
Author’s
Acknowledgments
Several
people put a great deal of effort into this book. Without their help, the
product you hold in your hands would be seriously different and I owe each of
them my gratitude for their time and insight. First, to my wife, to whom I owe
everything and without her support, this book would not have been possible.
Additionally, my deepest thanks go to my mother, Sharon, my mother-in-law,
Carol, and finally my best friend, Lawrence, who revealed a disturbing
characteristic of a main character over a glass (or two) of beer. Each of you
volunteered to read this story and provide me with invaluable proofreading and
insight as to the story and characters. I hope this product is worthy of the
time you selflessly dedicated.
Oh, by
the way, you guys are on the hook for Book Two as well…
For
more maps, layouts and information regarding TCOTU and future books, please
visit http://www.thiscorneroftheuniverse.com.
Brevic
Republic Fast Ship - 776 Anelace
Tonnage:
3,540 tonnes
Length:
106 meters (350 feet)
Beam:
18.6 meters (61 feet)
Draft:
17 meters (56 feet)
Crew
Complement: 50 (7 Officers, 43 Enlisted)
Armament:
1 Kruger Mk 237 mass driver, 4 Lyle Dual General Purpose (GP) pulse lasers
Drive:
6 Allison-Turner Type-22 drives powered by Kanata Split power plant
Sensors:
Standard Naka-Fujita sensor suite, APG-85B BigEye Array
Defenses:
Duralloy armor, Turner AIPS Screen
The
door slid closed behind Garrett Heskan, not with the smooth, quiet efficiency
one would expect from a rear admiral’s office but with a sharp, loud clunk.
The civilian secretary’s face popped up from her deskwork with a surprised
expression that softened quickly to a puzzled look. “Are you lost, Lieutenant?”
she said as the line of her mouth began to turn upward.
“No,
ma’am. I believe I have an appointment with Admiral McMurray.” Heskan closed
the distance to the secretary’s desk. “I’m Lieutenant Heskan. I’ll be
assuming command of BRS Anelace… FS Seven Seventy-six.”
I hope
, he
added to himself.
The
secretary leaned back as she checked her datapad. “Oh yes, now I see it. We
don’t get too many lieutenants in this part of the building… unless they’re
bringing us coffee. Still, Admiral McMurray likes to meet with all his new
ship captains. It’s sort of a tradition with him.” The secretary then paused
and frowned slightly as her eyes scanned her datapad. “Unfortunately, Admiral
McMurray is busy. You’ll have to meet with one of his staffers instead.” She
pointed to a door and added, “Commander Treemont will see you.”
Heskan
nodded and walked past the faux-oak double doors of, presumably, the admiral’s office
to a simpler door with the stenciled words of CDR TREEMONT centered squarely on
its front. Looking down at his uniform, he quickly ensured everything was in
its proper place before knocking firmly once. An equally firm voice responded,
“Enter.”
Opening
the door carefully, Heskan stepped through and let the door close behind him.
It took only three paces to stand in front of the commander’s desk and, after a
precise salute, Heskan stated formally, “Lieutenant Heskan reports as ordered,
sir.”
The
commander returned the salute from his chair and then gestured to a nearby
chair. “Please sit, Lieutenant, and welcome to Anthe.”
“Thank
you, sir.”
Pretty small office for a commander
, thought Heskan as he
seated himself. He unbuttoned his service dress coat to keep it from bunching
up.
Let’s get on with it, Commander. I see my file on your desk so just go
ahead and ask.
“Academy
graduate, I see. Two years in the weapons section on Fearless, split four
years on Archer with weapons and operations, then two years on Derringer as the
first officer. Nasty business, Derringer…” Treemont trailed off.
Nope,
you don’t get a response unless you ask me the question
. Heskan kept his posture
straight and his look as calm as he could maintain.
The
commander sighed and after a brief pause, continued reading from Heskan’s file.
“Two more years planet-side and now you are to assume command of Fast Ship Seven
Seventy-six on or about stan-date 0325.995. I hope you understand while Anelace
may only be a corvette, there are no unimportant ships here in Third Fleet, Lieutenant.”
He paused to let his pearl of wisdom sink in. “We don’t get many ships since
Second Fleet takes most of the tonnage to secure the border with the Hollaran Commonwealth
combined with the need to keep the Home Fleet strong against the Solies.”
Treemont
used the informal reference to the citizens of the Solarian Federation, the
birthplace of humanity. The Hollaran Commonwealth, along with Heskan’s own Brevic
Republic, had formed separate, sovereign entities when the Federation
splintered less than a century ago. During the Secession Wars, the Federation
had also shed several other, much smaller, entities consisting of just a
handful of star systems dominated by powerful corporations. While the Hollaran
and Brevic governments had fought for their independence, the corporate controlled
systems had essentially purchased theirs. A now weakened Solarian Federation
that was also busy eyeing the Chetellx Empire, the first and only non-Terran
race humanity had encountered, resulted in the Hollaran Commonwealth being free
to assert its claims of ownership over several border systems inside the
disputed zone between itself and Bree. Thus, the Brevic Second Fleet, the “War
Fleet” as it liked to call itself, received the lion’s share of the new ship
construction from the Republic’s primary systems. Even the core star system of
Titan, home to Third Fleet’s headquarters, sent nearly as much tonnage to the
War Fleet as it did its own.
As
much as Third Fleet resented the “poaching” of its ships, every Brevic citizen
knew it was necessary because of the increasingly aggressive behavior of the
Hollaran government. Most recently, the Hollaran Commonwealth declared Brevic
commercial shipping in its systems “an affront to Hollaran commerce.” Worse
still, the Hollaran navy had now effectively blockaded the disputed system of Anesidora
to all Brevic traffic, prompting Brevic leadership to order its own navy to dispatch
a “sufficient show of force to compel the Hollaran government to reconsider its
position on the matter.” The disputed zone was becoming a tinderbox with the
Hollaran and Brevic navies positioned to strike a match.
Treemont’s
droning voice continued, “…in spite of this ‘show of force,’ or rather because
of it, every ship is important to Admiral McMurray right down to the
corvettes. Do you understand, Lieutenant?”
My
God, has he been speaking this whole time? What the hell did he say?
“Of course, sir. Very clear.”
The
commander closed Heskan’s personnel file and looked up. “Good, now let’s get
down to brass tacks. Anelace is currently stationed in the Narvi system.
She’s on patrol and commerce detail along with five other corvettes, although
not all of them are Dagger class corvettes like Anelace. The planet-side
commander is Lieutenant Durmont, an excellent officer who has done a fine job
regulating the system.”
“However,”
he continued, “Durmont has reported increased disturbances in the neighboring system
of Skathi. It’s a minor system just one tunnel point down the chain from
Narvi. Only a mining company that’s working the system’s two rich asteroid
belts currently inhabits Skathi. The miners have lost a few ore extractors in
the last three months.”
Treemont
swept his desktop clean of particles of dust that Heskan did not see. He
looked up at Heskan to ensure he had the lieutenant’s attention before resuming.
“Just last week, an ore freighter making the run from the mining station to the
tunnel point leading to Narvi went ELTI.” Treemont pronounced it “EL-TEE,” the
commonly used expression when a starship launched its emergency locator
transmitter implement, usually only launched when facing impending
destruction. “The ELTI was recovered and analysis showed a massive
decompression indicative of a major hull breach. Consequently, you will take
Anelace and another Narvi corvette, FS Three Eighty-three, to Skathi and
conduct routine patrol and commerce regulation operations in that system for no
less than six months. That will stretch our assets in Narvi pretty thin but
Durmont can handle it.”
Heskan’s
brow furrowed. “Since corvettes don’t have tunnel drives to make the dive from
Narvi to Skathi, how will Anelace and the other ‘vette be getting there, sir?”
Treemont nodded and replied, “Quite so. Renard Mining Enterprises just towed a
mining station into the Skathi system with one of their tugs. She’s a flatbed
tug, a civilian type, but something as small as two corvettes will easily fit
on her. The tug is currently in transit from Skathi to Narvi.”
The
commander resumed his mission to eliminate all traces of micro-particles from
his desk as he continued, “Renard says the tug was heading back to Titan but
they’ve agreed to let us lease her to dive back to Skathi with your flotilla
loaded on her. I suspect that by the time you reach Narvi, they’ll have the
ships all secured and ready to make way back to Skathi. At the end of your
patrol, Admiral McMurray will have arranged for one of Third Fleet’s tugs to
carry you back.”
“Sounds
good, sir.” Inwardly, Heskan groaned.
Damn, I’m
going to be in the deep
black for some time. Third Fleet has a grand total of two tugs and our
corvettes are going to be pretty low on the priority list for them. I’d better
become fast friends with that mining station manager and maybe he can convince
Renard to give us a ride home.
“We’re going to be unsupported for a while,
aren’t we, sir?”
The
commander nodded sympathetically. “Narvi won’t be much good to you since
Lieutenant Durmont will only have corvettes that can’t tunnel to you. However,
he could send word back down the system chain to Tarvos where there’s a
destroyer and frigate stationed.” Treemont looked upward as he did some mental
calculations. “Figure four days to tunnel from Tarvos to Narvi, a day to
transit across the Narvi system to the actual Skathi tunnel point and dive in,
then four more days tunneling to Skathi… that puts help in-system nine days
after they get word. It’s a bit of a wait but that’s why you’ll have another
corvette under you at Skathi.”
He
tapped the screen of his datapad and he read the relevant information. “Fast Ship
Three Eighty-three is a Chaperone class corvette, BRS Whip. She doesn’t have sensors
as good as yours but she has long legs and is almost as fast. I’d recommend
you patrol near the mining station and let Whip escort the ore freighters to
and fro.”
Treemont
waved in the air dismissively with his free hand. “Nothing is going to happen
anyway, Lieutenant.” He leaned closer to Heskan as if revealing a state secret.
“Off the record, Durmont has already said that these incidents are the result
of Renard’s poor safety practices combined with the inherent danger of frontier
mining.”
His
chair noiselessly swiveled as Treemont turned to look at the wall screen behind
him. On the two-meter wide screen was a stellar map of Third Fleet’s area of
operations, the Brevic Republic’s so called “northern” border. Treemont entered
a command on his datapad and one of the points of light on the edge of known
space pulsed brightly. “As you can see, Skathi is right on the frontier… it
literally
is
the frontier. We’ve barely sent a scout ship through its
other tunnel point.” He looked up and paused while consulting the star chart
before regarding Heskan again. “Skoll, that’s the assigned name of the next
system past Skathi.”
There
were more consultations with his datapad before he continued, “Skoll’s a dead
system with nothing of value and just two tunnel points, one to Skathi and one
to who knows where. It’s been scheduled for exploration later in the year.”
He turned back to face Heskan and tapped his desk as if to draw attention back
to the matter at hand. “From what I understand, Renard Mining Enterprises paid
through the nose to get the mining rights to Skathi and these incidents are
just a simple case of rushing to get the ore flowing from the system. You’re
bound to have accidents and mishaps even in the best cases under those types of
circumstances.” Treemont carefully placed his datapad on his desk. He aligned
the bottom of the datapad with the edge of his desktop as he spoke, “Just
follow your patrol orders, shepherd the ore freighters and send reports back to
Lieutenant Durmont through those freighters. He’s in charge since he’s the planet-side
commander. He’s also one of the admiral’s rising stars as he’s proven quite
effective. Any questions?”
Let’s see, you’re sending two
tunnel drive incapable ‘vettes out to the edge of known space whose sole means
of calling for help is through the occasional freighter that transits the
system? Do I have any questions? How about, ‘Did you have a relative on board
Derringer?’ Is that why I’m being banished?
“Nothing comes to mind, sir.
Sounds like a good mission and I’m happy to be a part of it.”
* * *
The
trip beginning from Commander Treemont’s office at Anthe and ending in
Lieutenant Durmont’s office at Narvi took nearly two weeks. The distance
between those two offices equated to roughly 8
ly
(light-years) or forty-eight
trillion miles. Even though Heskan was a full lieutenant in the Brevic navy,
he rode aboard a civilian passenger liner during his long trip from the
provincial star system of Anthe to the outlying systems of Tarvos and finally
Narvi. More often than not, Brevic military members took passage on civilian
carriers as the scarcity of military transports made limiting military
personnel to strictly military transports impractical.
The voyage
was possible only due to a loophole in Einsteinian laws and the discovery of
the tunnel point nearly seven hundred years ago. Hypothesized for centuries
before discovery, the existence of tunnel points allowed man to travel certain vast
distances of space in a fraction of the time normally required. Terran
scientists found that these “tunnels” in space had, at most, two points of
entry and rarely just one. The most common tunnel, classified as Type A,
connected two star systems and ruthlessly violated the laws of physics between its
entry points by compressing the normal distance between the systems to mere
light-hours. The normal space (n-space) outside of the tunnel points between
the Anthe and Tarvos star systems measured approximately 2
ly
or twelve trillion
miles. Inside the tunnel (t-space), the distance was reduced to 4.8
lh
(light-hours) or about twenty-two million miles. Since Terran scientists were still
unable to break through the .1
c
(one-tenth the speed of light) speed
barrier inside a tunnel, a trip between those systems took two days.
Transiting the actual Tarvos system, with its red sun and four planets, to the
Narvi tunnel point took another twenty-four hours of Heskan’s life.