“Aoibhe, before we leave, could you check one more-“

“Still no applicants,” Aoibhe interrupted, cutting Miliam off. The captain sighed at that, nervous about leaving West Gate with no barriermaster. Initially she’d been unaware of how crucial the job was, since one wasn’t necessary to activate the corvette’s barriers, but she’d finally gotten to the point in her studies where she discovered what a barriermaster did.

In short, they adjusted the ship’s barriers. That didn’t sound like much, but it was crucial. By default barriers could resist most attacks, usually in the form of a solid wall of force or a repulsive field. But every form of attack had its own weaknesses, and having someone operating the barriers manually allowed for targeting those. A barriermaster could destabilize the magnetic containment on a plasma torpedo, bend space to redirect lasers, sap the kinetic energy from projectiles, and more by altering the barriers around their ship.

Skilled barriermasters were able to significantly reduce the strain on their ship’s barriers by doing this. In a one-on-one fight, this could greatly extend how long a ship can fight for, or even determine the course of the battle. The applications even stretched outside of combat; a barrier with the correct settings could allow a ship to enter the stormy atmosphere of a gas giant or move closer to a star without melting.

Which was all somewhat moot given that the Astrum Vitae did not have a barriermaster. Since they were so useful, every ship in space wanted one. Every station wanted one. They were even desired by ground forces, as they were just as capable of defending troops as ships.

“I guess I’ll just have to be happy we at least have such a skilled operator for the point defenses…” Miliam muttered, leaning back in her command chair.

“Aye, and I’m happy we’re on a corvette with no space on the bridge for a weapons officer,” Aoibhe tossed back, already entirely done with Tessa’s talkativeness. The elf was isolated in the torpedo bay right now, much to Aoibhe’s relief, though there was really no need for it since they were still just departing from West Gate. Speaking of…

“Engineer, how’s the reactor looking?” Miliam asked through the comms.

“Operational. Ready. To go,” the dragonewt replied. They’d done a full workover on it the moment they came on board without even being asked, apparently having determined on their own that the ancient machine was in need of a tune-up.

“Perfect. Aoibhe?”

“Thrusters are topped up. Docking clamps can be released at any time. Wave drive is ready.”

“Eun-ji, go ahead and submit our flight plan to West Gate, please.”

“Me? Did you mean Min-ji?” asked the dokkaebi woman at the sensor station. Miliam chuckled uncomfortably, still unable to tell the two apart. They didn’t always wear the green and purple color schemes they’d interviewed in, which just made it harder.

“Right, sorry. Min-ji?”

“On it! West Gate Station, this is Astrum Vitae requesting permission to depart. Transmitting our flight plan…now,” the other dokkaebi said, unbothered by the mix up.

“Astrum Vitae, flight plan received. You’re clear to leave, but make it quick. You’ve got a short window before a freighter needs that lane.”

“Acknowledged, West Gate.”

“Take us out, please, Aoibhe,” Miliam ordered, a bit hesitantly.

“Aye. Releasing docking clamps…done. Firing thrusters. Looking good.” The ship vibrated a bit as its reaction-based propulsion activated, but there was no feeling of acceleration. Outside the bridge windows Miliam watched as the station’s docking arm fell away, the Astrum Vitae rising up and then slowly spinning to face open space. The corvette continued to drift until the station was safely outside its wave drive’s range, then slowed as the opposing thrusters fired, bringing it to a stop.

“Activating wave drive,” Aoibhe announced. The change was invisible and unfelt, but Miliam saw on her chair mounted readouts that West Gate was receding into the distance behind them at a rapid pace. There was no danger to activating the translocation drive close to another object, but activating it in a gravity well was another story. Fail safes built into the drive wouldn’t even allow it, and for good reason.

Large masses warped the space around them- often likened to placing something heavy on a trampoline. It wasn’t an inaccurate comparison, especially when applied to teleportation. If a ship moved between two points in open space, its coordinates were swapped exactly, with every single atom maintaining its position relative to the matter around it. But if a ship tried to teleport into a gravity well, the x- and y-coordinates remained the same, while the z-coordinates, mapped onto warped space, would leave the ship and everything on it sliced into infinitesimally thin wafers, offset just a bit more vertically the further they were into the gravity well.

When teleporting from point to point on a planet the effect was unnoticeable, and when teleporting from orbit to surface, it could be accounted for, so long as careful preparations were made and the orbital node was in a geosynchronous position. But when going into or out of a gravity well entirely, one would essentially need an entire translocation array built from the ground up for both the originating and destination coordinates. To do otherwise was to risk being spread across space as an atomic mist.

Miliam hadn’t enjoyed reading about that particular phenomenon given the number of jumps they would be making on their way to Delta Boötis.

“We’ve reached a safe distance. Teleportation in three…two…one…now.”

Once again Miliam’s vision doubled, the moment so brief it could be dismissed as imagined, and then she was somewhere else, lightyears away from Kappa Ceti. About ten, in fact, although they wouldn’t be making such long jumps for the entire trip. Aoibhe’s previous ship had been ravaged by pirates for making exactly that mistake, and Miliam was far too cautious a person not to learn a lesson from that.

That only applied to space outside Gaian Collective borders, though. As long as they were travelling inside that region pirate attacks were essentially unheard of, given that every system was in range of a GC fleet and monitored by a scout ship or a monitoring station. If an attack did occur, it would be literally seconds before the perpetrator found a battlegroup appearing around them.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

“Now I…right, Eun-ji, are we all clear?” Miliam asked her sensor officer after a moment of thought. She could see the readouts for herself but not make sense of them- the only reason she’d been able to identify West Gate Station previously was that it was too honking big to miss.

“There’s some ships, but a few of them are GCNS, so I think we’re good,” the sensor officer reported. That only accounted for what was within a handful of light seconds of their current position, but that was fine. This first jump was taking them through a colonized system and they were fairly close to the colony. Miliam was going through the motions as practice, not because they were expecting trouble.

“Captain, we’re receiving a hail from GCNS Mule Kick,” Min-ji informed her, not making it a question because there was only one valid response to a call like that. It was probably a formality by the local defense force, but Miliam couldn’t help the chill that ran down her spine at the thought of speaking directly to the person in charge of a genuine warship. Logic said their presence here was legitimate, but she feared what could happen if she said the wrong thing.

“Um, yes, put them on, please.”

A moment later an image of a swarthy man in uniform popped up on one of Miliam’s screens. It was a close up, making it difficult to identify his species, but he looked middle-aged, and his green and blue naval uniform had several decorations on it. Miliam was struck by how similar it was to such outfits from her own time, but when the officer reached up to adjust his tie, she realized there was a skinsuit below his clothes, and upon a closer look, she spotted the collar with which a helmet could form an airtight seal.

“GCS Astrum Vitae, this is Captain Ardyanto of GCNS Mule Kick. Please state your business,” the man said in a bored tone. As Miliam thought, it seemed to be routine, but she couldn’t stop her voice from wavering with a bit of fear when she replied.

“Just passing through, sir. We’re, uh, on our way…galactic north, I think. To Delta Boötis,” she replied awkwardly. She couldn’t help but think that she sounded suspicious as hell, even though she had nothing to hide.

“Mm, that so?” he asked, a disinterested look on his face. “Might want to rethink that, captain. Been some tensions with the mirazar recently over an independent colony- Jethroe’s Landing, I think it was.”

Despite the warning, the man clearly didn’t care much whether Miliam heeded it or not. He seemed satisfied just having done his job by notifying her.

“Thanks for the warning, sir, we’ll talk it over. Are we…good?”

“You’re clear, Astrum Vitae. Good luck out there.”

With that, the screen cut out and Miliam slumped in her chair, glad the brief interaction was done with. She was concerned about what he’d said, though. When she agreed to this job it was under the impression the worst they’d have to deal with is pirates, which everyone seemed to think were exceptionally rare. As much as she ragged on Aoibhe about it, she wasn’t entirely convinced such an encounter would be guaranteed, but her thinking had very much been that this job was no more dangerous than running cargo if the fay truly was a bad luck charm.

“Aoibhe, should we be worried about that?” Miliam asked her pilot, not feeling the need to specify. It was obvious.

“Already looking it up,” the fay called back from the pilot seat. A moment later she glanced back over her shoulder. “Same general direction but not terribly close. Doubt they’d care much about a single civilian corvette like us anyway, but it’ll probably keep their attention elsewhere if anything.”

“Hmmm…if you say so. What do you think, Eun-ji, Min-ji?”

“As long as it takes us further away from Magoseong, we’re happy,” Min-ji answered to Eun-ji’s enthusiastic nodding. Miliam considered whether she should call Tessa and Engineer to ask them the same question, but then she realized she’d have to explain what they’d been told over the comms too, and it wasn’t like she needed their answer right this second. It would be nearly an entire day before they could transit to the next system anyway, so she may as well ask in person.

“Alright, then, I guess I’ll talk to the others about it and decide before we make the next jump. I’m sure I can guess what Abigail thinks, but maybe Tessa has an opinion.” Miliam noticed Aoibhe giving her a dubious look. “I know I’ll probably get her opinion on at least a dozen things, but one of them will be on this…probably.”

“If you say so, cap’n.”

Miliam stood up and was about to leave, but then she realized no one else had moved and remembered she was supposed to dismiss them first. And announce who was on watch first. She scraped her memory for which station had first watch on a ship like this according to the book, recalling quickly that it was sensors, since someone needed to be on hand to gather the data as it came in.

“Right. Eun-ji, the bridge is yours. Call me if anything comes up. Aoibhe and Min-ji, you two are dismissed,” Miliam said with feigned confidence. Aoibhe stood, but Min-ji stayed put, and Miliam thought for a moment that she’d gotten them confused again before the twin on comms spoke up.

“I’ll keep Eun-ji company and take the second watch, captain.”

Miliam thought about insisting that the woman take her break and make sure she was rested for her own watch, but…well, as long as she was just sitting around and not doing anything, did it really matter where she did it?

“Alright, just make sure to take it easy, and get yourself a snack if you need it. Your shift will be in four hours,” Miliam told her before heading out.

----------------------------------------

Codex Entry: Void Combat: Barriers

A ship's first line of defense is the humble barrier spell. Usable at every level from personal right on up to the grandest space station, barriers protect against both the environment and hostile attacks. A basic barrier is typically active at all times, fed by the ship's generators and protecting against cosmic radiation and space debris both, but it is when a barriermaster operates them that barriers gain their true worth.

Anyone can use a barrier spell, but a barriermaster specializes in it, and is capable of producing barriers that will halt starship-grade weapons in their tracks. The skill of the barriermaster is what truly determines the strength of a ship's defenses, and the best of them are typically stationed on the largest ships and stations, providing an unparalleled level of defense. Barriermasters can manipulate their barriers to focus strength in a specific location or alter them to defend against a specific form of attack. Larger ships will have several of them on board, either to work in shifts or to cover specific sectors of the defenses.

What type of barriers are deployed depends on a star navy's doctrine. One method is to produce a single, exceptionally strong layer that covers the ship from all directions. These barriers are difficult to penetrate and their entire strength can be focused on a single point, allowing them to stop even the most powerful weapons. On the other hand, once these barriers are down, they're down. The feedback from their failure prevents redundant systems from replacing them for at least several minutes, leaving the ship vulnerable to follow up attacks.

Another type of barrier employs multiple smaller fields that can be moved at will. Like single layer barriers, these can be moved to cover a single point to counter stronger attacks, but each individual barrier remains at its usual strength. This flexibility is both a boon and a curse- the barriers can be moved wherever they are most needed and regenerate individually, but every barrier that falls leaves more of the ship vulnerable, making them particularly weak to saturation fire.

Other, smaller barriers are also employed within ships, such as atmospheric barriers that cover hull breaches or hangar bays and radiation barriers that protect the crew from their own ship's reactors. As these barriers are simple and do not require much power or tuning, they tend to be installed locally as magic circles engraved into the hull itself, activating on their own when their conditions are met. As most mages can use barriers to some degree, ad-hoc barriers are often used in damage control to maintain atmosphere or snuff out fires.