CHAPTER 36 - INTERSECTION
DATE POINT: MAY 11th, 7 A.U. (AFTER UNIFICATION)
LOCATION: SOL SYSTEM, ABOARD UTRN INDOMITABLE WILL
CAPTAIN HENRY O’TOOLE
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“Hard to port!” Their helmsman yelled out right before the ship lurched.
The CIC was a flurry of controlled chaos below Henry as they navigated their way though a particularly nasty antimatter patch.
“We lost power to starboard point defense battery seven! Damage control inbound to inspect!”
“Perfect, get me an ETA on repairs as soon as you can!” Henry called back as he gripped the railing.
“Aye, Captain!”
“Fist of the Argonauts reports they have broken through, ninety seconds and we’ll be clear!”
“Thanks for the update! Navigation, how close are we to the midpoint?” Henry replied.
“Three minutes sir!”
“Helm, be ready to flip and decelerate when we hit the midpoint!” Henry called out before he activated the FleetNet interface.
“Fleetwide directive; All hands prepare to flip and decelerate, you have two minutes, I repeat, prepared to flip and decelerate in two minutes.”
“Getting a report from the hospital, they are requesting an additional thirty seconds to stabilize a new patient! Broken arm from a falling crate, they’re applying a splint now.”
“Tell them they have it, but no more! We can’t afford to miss our window, or we risk overshooting Jupiter.” Henry replied, running his fingers through his hair.
In system FTL travel was significantly shorter in duration, which only seemed to raise the stress and danger levels. The face that there was denser antimatter concentrations of many smaller particles to deal with only made things worse. At least there were no random power fluctuations this time.
“Updated antimatter report is in! We have a clean window of opportunity for just three minutes. Fist of the Argonauts requesting permission to flip and decelerate now.”
“Give the order to do so in ninety seconds, and us in two and a half minutes. Comms, update the hospital and let them know.”
Henry sensed a presence behind him through his focus, causing him to turn around. Octa Silvar’Esh stood mutely behind him with his huge eyes and largely expressionless face focused upon him. Even now, knowing they were nominally friends and allies, they gave Henry the creeps and sent shivers down his spine.
“This is quite thrilling, Captain. We have gotten used to our more sterile, safe method of FTL. Traveling in a warp field wrapped in a fully enclosed gravity bubble is much calmer than this method. I can’t tell you how glad I am that we are only having to suffer through this for a mere half hour.”
“You and me both. We dealt with these issues for months when we were initially traveling to the Oort cloud. It’s wild to think of the distances involved. It takes light two years to reach the outer edges of the solar system where you found us, yet it needs a mere forty minutes to travel between Saturn and Jupiter. Using our Inversion drive we were able to cut the trip down to less than a year by accelerating up to seven C and back. The only reason we are even bothering to accelerate or decelerate into this stream is simply to keep the feeling of gravity going in the ship from the inertia.” Henry replied.
“I find myself curious. I noticed a change in gee forces when I came down from my cabin to join you in the CIC. I noticed that the sensation felt stronger down here.” Dr. Silvar’Esh replied.
“Thirty seconds! Fist of the Argonauts reports their maneuver was successful! They're coasting on inertia and will begin deceleration once we do.”
“Hospital reports they are ready! Damage control has reached point defense cannon seven and are standing by for deceleration!” Their comms officer reported.
Henry nodded and reached out for the FleetNet interface to speak to all the saddled ship’s crews at once.
“Fleetwide directive; All hands, prepare to flip and decelerate, fifteen second warning! Helm, proceed when ready!”
“You might want to hold on, Doctor.” Henry said. The grey stumbled forward and gripped the railing alongside Henry.
“Flipping now!” Henry felt the familiar feeling in his stomach of a change in gee forces as the ship flipped about on its axis. They then felt a jerk as the Indomitable Will activated its primary TK drive behind their direction of travel. With their changed orientation, they still felt gee forces pulling them into the deck as they decelerated slowly towards the baseline speed of the river of flowing null matter at the heart of the gravitational superhighway.
“Sorry, I didn’t really answer the question behind your statement, doc. We have a dedicated telekinetic drive generator that together with a number of smaller embedded foci generates a patchwork of shallow TK fields ls to simulate artificial gravity for the lowest decks. We do this because those decks are where we house reactor control and the hospital, which both need a constant sensation of gravity and also benefit most from having the inertial dampening effects. We can feel it slightly weaker here in the CIC because we're directly overhead, as will each deck in above us, with gradually diminishing returns.”
“Ah, that makes sense, the old tyranny of the inverse square by distance law rears its ugly head once more. Layered, weak, shallow fields for artificial gravity and inertial dampening is quite the ingenious solution. Was this an innovation of your own design or did you copy it from the Nephaeli’im? In understand hey use a similar system in some of their non fusion-core based warships.”
“Unfortunately, we cannot really claim to have come up with the idea whole cloth. The technology was being worked on in secret by Quan-Tech industries shortly before the war, but the best they had accomplished was to create an amplifier that a natural telekinetic could use to fly a smaller ship around in micro gravity. The ability to mass produce generating and focusing structures for telekinetic and null barrier systems came straight over from studying the wrecks of the invader's ships and cannibalizing parts from the smaller captured ones.” Henry replied.
“Fist of the Argonauts reports they have entered another antimatter field! Prepare for rapid maneuvering!” Their comms officer called out.
“Got it, sensors are lighting up like a Christmas tree, I’ll get us through, hang on!” Their pilot reported in from the helm.
“Hold on a moment, doc.” Henry said before he reopened the FleetNet comms interface. “All hands prepare for rapid maneuvers; we're entering another antimatter storm.”
“Fist of the Argonauts reports we should be through the worst of it in about three minutes!”
“Good, thank you comms, go ahead and check in with damage control for me.” Henry replied back.
“Aye. Sir!”
“Is it always this active up here?” Octa Silvar’Esh asked.
“It depends, if we were in combat it would be even more active than it is now, and with respect, I would have to ask that you leave or stay silent. It is actually fairly tamed down, all things considered. There are only a few things I have to keep track of right now, which is why I can even have this side conversation with you. How often were you on the bridge of your previous ship?” Henry asked, as he gripped the railing while the ship dodged hard to starboard.
“I was almost never on the bridge; I usually was far too busy working in my lab. I found myself curious as to what was happening down here, and by extension about your technology. Then again, we were never forced into a fight the entire time I was aboard. I will remember to give you your space when and if we come into contact with the enemy. I wouldn’t want to be a distraction.”
“Thank you, having you here as a source of intel would probably be valuable. Having the neural computer upgrade makes it easy for me to keep multiple threads of thought active without distraction. The issue will be the limited time in which I will have to react to situations and give orders. That’s what I mean by having no time for extraneous conversation in combat conditions. I suppose the main exception is if you feel like you have critical intel to give I would like to hear it.” Henry replied. The ship lurched under their feet, forcing them to hold on to the railing.
“That sounds perfectly reasonable, Captain. I can assure you I will be no trouble. I will simply observe then, and only provide input if it is of immediate importance.” Doctor Octa replied as the ship dodged once more, staggering the Alderei.
“Good, I can live with that, I simply ask that you remember to keep your wording concise if you do.” Henry replied, chuckling.
“Yes…. Captain. I will be sure to self-censor my commentary. I will be the very image of brevity. After all the CIC is a veritable whirlwind of constant activity I would truly hate to act as a hindrance to its successful operations, especially in the dangerous environment of comb...” The long winded Alderei was cut off mid-sentence by their comms officer’s shouting, which seemed to help him realize he had been rambling again.
“Damage control reported back! The problem seems to be a burnt out conduit, they’re splicing in a new section now. Twenty minutes estimate to have that MSL cannon tested and functioning. Oh, also the Fist of the Argonauts reports thirty seconds ‘til we’re clear of the antimatter patch.”
“Good, thanks for the update! Navigation, how long until we reach our exit window?” Henry asked, switching back to his duties.
“Ten minutes, sir!”
“Excellent, thank you.” Henry replied.
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“Captain, I got a strange shadow in our interferometer readings. Could be just a ghost contact like an antimatter collision, or it could be we picked up a bogey on our tail. Permission to send a LIDAR ping?" Their sensor tech called out.
“Negative, sensors, keep feeding max power to our passive sensors and keep a sharp eye out. If we do have a tail then we don’t want to let them know we’ve seen them any more than we want to give away our exact position. Good catch!” Henry replied, trying to sound as confident and in control as he could while goosebumps prickled on his skin.
Could be nothing, should be nothing. Jovian space seemed clear and clean of all contacts before we activated the Inversion drive… Still…. Better safe than sorry.
“Get reactor control on the line, let’s bring number four online just in case we need to come out of FTL shooting.” Henry said.
“Aye, aye, Captain!”
“Fire control, load tubes one through eight. Four conventional, two scrambler, two nuclear, stand by for target acquisition. Sensors, anything anomalous?”
“Yes, Sir!” Comms said before their sensor tech replied. “Nothing to report, Captain. I’ll report in the second I see anything.”
“Good.” Henry said before he opened a channel to C.L.A.P.P.E.R control.
“Chantal, do you copy?” Nothing.
“Chantal, Pierre, come in.”
“Captain! Sorry, Chantal and I have our hands full pulling apart drone two to sort out the barrier resonance malfunction. What can I do for you, sir?”
“Listen, Pierre, I need you to start filling our capacitors. Nothing to be overly worried about, just being cautious. We had an anomalous interferometer reading from just outside passive detection range in our wake. It’s probably nothing, but make sure that system is ready for me just in case. Reactor four should be hot enough for power generation any moment now.”
“Damnit, we just cracked her open too... No rest for the wicked I suppose.” Pierre grumbled. Henry chose to ignore the gripe.
“Port or Starboard I don’t care which unit you prepare first, I want at least one ready to go. We’re leaving FTL in five minutes, get it done.” Henry replied sternly.
“You can count on me; we’ll have her ready for you sir!” Pierre replied.
“Hey was that Henry?! Hi sweetie!!” Henry heard come through the background before the feed was cut, causing him to crack a smile. He then opened a channel to drone control.
“Comms, get on the line with drone control, I need a status report.” Henry called out, splitting his efforts to get the ship ready in time. He began to draft a message to recall Alvarez to join him in the CIC before he was interrupted.
“Captain, we got another sensor shadow, clearer this time! There’s definitely something there hanging just outside of detection range. I can’t get a good read on its size or shape though without an active sensor sweep. Best I can do is catch another waveform pattern from it dodging more antimatter. If I had to guess we’re being followed by something moving with intelligent purpose, something huge.”
“Thank you sensors. Once is a coincidence twice is certainty, thrice is enemy action, not that we’re waiting for that. They may have tipped their hand but that doesn't mean we need to give up the element of surprise. Right now they don't know we know they're there.”
Henry turned to Octa Silvar’Esh.
“Any chance one of your guys or any other uncontacted species is the source for that sensor reading?” Henry asked.
“No. We don’t use this method of FTL, and there are no other advanced species anywhere in this region of space even remotely close to being advanced enough to have access either. If its real t’s Nephaeli’im, and if they’ve been following us since Saturn there’s a good chance they know of our alliance. I warned them they should have brought you to Neptune instead!”
Henry nodded grimly and then reached for the FleetNet controls.
“Fleetwide directive, all hands to general quarters, I repeat. All hands report to general quarters! Stow all nonessential items and prepare for combat maneuvering! We leave FTL in tee minus two minutes at which point we will launch all RRF shield and sword drone squadrons as well as all screening frigates immediately. Marines, prepare for boarding and counter boarding action on my order. We have a unidentified sensor contact trailing behind us in our FTL stream wake. Right now, they don’t know we know and that gives us the element of surprise. Be ready to strike fast and without mercy. We have the tactics, technology, and the willpower to win the day with ruthless efficiency. You all know your jobs and are ready for this, perform them well today and they’ll never know what hit them. Once we break FTL, the hunt begins!”
Henry then sent over a maneuvering plan to the Fist of the Argonauts and the rest of his frigates as the cheers in the CIC gave way to cool readiness and necessary cross chatter. In millisecond-perfect synchronicity, the Fist of the Argonauts reverted back to the third dimension followed immediately afterwards by the Indomitable Will. Both ships coasted on their excess momentum left over from their speed differential above that of the null matter stream.
"Drop the barrier, and prepare for launch procedures!" Henry called out. Moments later the stars came back into view along with Jupiter looming in the background, visible through the external camera feeds.
The ship shuddered three times in quick succession as its three screening frigates fired from their electromagnetic rails to get into position to protect the Indomitable Will. A series of smaller thumps could be felt rhythmically through the superstructure as their combat space patrol drones launched first followed by the first of the sword squadrons. Signal saturation satellites shot from the ship as well, laying down a thick web of bandwidth for their pilots to ensure they would remain in control of their drone flights from the safety of their VR suspension rigs.
“We have a reversion stitch! Null barrier detected, five hundred thousand klicks out! Christ… it’s huge! At least a four klick diameter!”
“C.L.A.P.P.E.R control, fire when ready! Standby mode, follow the flight plan I’ve plotted.”
The ship lurched hard, and the lights dimmed for a moment while the C.L.A.P.P.E.R system fired a plasma packet down the magnetic barrel straight into the waiting embrace of a drone-generated null barrier. Henry plotted a course that curved the drone out of the line of battle and in position to flank the enemy ship when the time was ripe.
“Fleetwide directive, sword squadrons fan out and begin hammer and anvil maneuver. Shield squadrons, diamond formation, prepare to face hostile interceptors. The Indomitable Will is going to fall back at one gee to gain some extra distance and see their intentions, screening frigates, keep pace, delta formation. Hold your fire until I give the order!”
Status lights across his board winked showing the orders had been acknowledged. Henry busied himself by plotting courses on the system map interface as the battlespace became ever more saturated with his ships and drones.
“Oh, this is getting exciting!” Dr. Silvar’Esh said from behind him. Henry had almost forgotten he was there.
“Captain, they dropped their barrier and have begun accelerating to one point five gees towards us!”
“Match acceleration for now and hail them on all channels! Hit them with active full spectrum scans, I want to know everything we can find out about them, full tactical analysis!” Henry replied.
Henry felt himself get sucked just a little harder into the deck as they began accelerating away at one and a half gees to keep spreading the distance. Data began flowing into his console as the scans came through. The ship was shaped into the form of two outspread wings framing a large molten hot sphere of some kind of unidentified metal. A pair of snakes wrapped themselves around a superstructure in the back that was stabbed into the central molten metallic core.
“That’s Ur-Uatchti, which is Horus’ flagship. Be careful with this one, as the ship is a smaller version of Nii’Baruu. That central core is a molten electrium jacket around a small artificial star giving them access to far more power output than your ship as well as directed plasma weaponry from a direct coronal plasma tap. I advise you keep your distance, that ship is incredibly dangerous.” Dr. Silvar’Esh stated with a hint of fear evident in his tone.
“Thanks for the heads up.”
“Captain, we’re being hailed back!” Their comms officer shouted.
“Send it to my console.” Henry replied.
An image appeared on his vid screen of a humanoid giant sitting upon a throne of gold shaped like a winged scarab inset with lapis lazuli and other precious stones. His skin was a dark caramel color with well-kempt reddish brown hair obscuring an elongated skull. It was clear from his heavily muscled form and the intelligent, calculating look in his eyes that he was a being both dangerous and powerful in great measure. Horus’ composure broke for a mere moment when the visuals activated before a slow smile spread across his features, showcasing a wicked set of almost vampiric fangs.
“What a curious surprise we have here. An Adamu in command of an advanced starship, a most unexpected impossibility which reeks of outside interference. No slave race has access to such technologies, such a tale would be unbelievable were it not plainly evident before our very eyes. Whats worse, we caught you conspiring with the Watchers around [Saturn]; such an alliance is a grave crime against our divine order. Now you array your forces for battle after we caught you conspiring with our enemies. Time is short and our patience thin, you have one choice to make should you value your lives. Repent of your heresy now, reveal your secrets to us, and join your forces to ours to restore the proper order, or face the fire of our divine wrath!” Horus snarled.
“Our mission and our technology is our own. We come from an alternate future timeline where we rule ourselves in freedom and self-determination. We find ourselves trapped in this universe by twist of cruel fate after testing a faster than light drive on an interstellar voyage. We dispute your claim to have broken your laws and we desire no conflict with you, but we will defend ourselves and our freedoms with everything we have. We have your one ship outnumbered and outgunned, if you choose the path of violence you choose your doom. We offer a chance to speak and find common purpose. Power down your weapons and cease your aggression and we can talk further; this is your only warning.” Henry replied.
“Hah! A finely crafted lie, yet one easily disproven! You understand the divine tongue and you have been caught in the presence of the Watchers. These facts speak against your claims; thus we see through your falsehood. A more treacherous proposition we could scarcely imagine. This solar system is ours by divine right of conquest, your species is our vassal race, by duty are we honor bound to defend both from outside threats. Prepare yourselves for battle and to face the afterlife in some semblance of honor, or still your lying tongues and beg upon our mercy. Surrender or die, the choice is yours.”
Horus cut the feed.
“Arrogant bastard!” Henry shouted. “Fleetwide directive, all ships execute the plan and begin staggered bombardment! Watch FleetNet for updates and be ready to deflect incoming fire! Sword squadrons, protect your bombers and rain hell upon them! We show them no mercy, we cover each other, we do this and we all make it to the next battle! You know your roles, we have trained extensively for this, now go give em hell!”
A cheer arose from across the CIC as his crew typed furiously and settled into focus on their jobs.
“Sword one through seven have released payloads, falling back to rearm. Eight through fourteen reaching optimum firing range in thirty seconds. Enemy ship using laser point defense batteries with high efficiency. We'll need to increase salvo size to break through!”
“Have sword squadrons eight through fourteen fire their anti fighter missiles first to screen the anti ship missiles with the next salvo and report results back to me.” Henry replied.
“Captain! Major heat buildup in the wing sections!”
“Fleetwide directive; Brace for incoming fire!” Henry managed to get out before twin beams of violet plasma fire raked across the front lines of his fighters, utterly decimating them. Four more bolts of plasma then punctured through the line of exploding ships and ordnance tracking and curving in flight heading for the Indomitable Will.
“We lost most of Sword eight through fourteen and half of fifteen through twenty one!”
“Rotate Shield forward, order all drones pilots to spread out their formations! They have to get those salvos off!” Henry called back, trying to hide his frustration.
Henry watched as the first salvo from his frigate’s main spinal accelerator cannons arrived on target. They struck the huge molten ball at the center mass of the huge ship, only to simply be absorbed to no apparent effect. The impact zones simply reformed back into place moments after as if they had never been struck at all.
“Fleetwide directive; adjust firing solutions to aim for the wings!” Henry called out right as the first guided plasma torpedoes made it into range of his fleet. Each of his three screening frigates bravely moved to block by raising their null barriers. Three of the four rounds were successfully dissipated and deflected by the powerful barriers, but the fourth slipped through the net.
“Raise barriers now!” Henry shouted as their helmsman pulled the ship hard to starboard in a desperate attempt to dodge. The exterior cameras went dark as the barrier activated right as the ship shuddered and damage control alarms blared. Henry was knocked forward, hitting his head on the railing. They had missed their timing by a fraction of a second. Henry pulled himself back to his feet with blood running down his forehead and forcing his left eye closed.
“Damage report!” He managed to croak out as he looked over the status readout of the ship. The port side drone bay was flashing red as he felt a horrid ball forming in the pit of his stomach.
Henry refused to succumb to the fear as his anger rose to replace it.
"Get me a full damage report! We need to increase the pressure on this bastard!"
This isn't over yet! Henry thought as he wiped the slow trickle of coagulating blood from his eye. Henry then pulled up FleetNet as a plan began to form and a grin began to spread on his face.