March 10th 3071
PX-4509
SS Lucretia
Robert Bannson could feel beading up under his jumpsuit, the damp patches under his armpits growing.
Things had taken a turn for the worst not ten hours ago when an Invader manifested itself not too far from where his ship was recharging.
The ship was emitting a World of Blake, but he’d have wagered their identity by the emergence wave alone.
He shook his head, those psychopaths had burnt out their KF core, that was obvious.
They wanted his ship so bad, they had embarked in a one way trip.
And, as much as it galled him, they just might get it.
While the JumpShip was as armed with a pair of 8cm lasers like most other Invaders to protect itself against debris and the like, the pair of DropShips that had detached from her were a very different matter.
A Model 97 Octopus Tug and a Leopard CV were far more than what the Lucretia’s limited armaments could handle, and that wasn’t even considering the ASFs carried within the Leopard.
But they were Interconnectedness Unlimited researchers, they were at the end of their rope, yes, but they still had options.
They always had options.
“Doctor, can you actually do it?” he asked, looking at Dr Analia Monroe in the eyes.
Dark skinned, dark haired, and relatively young for her position, Analia was looking a bit paler than usual, as she floated a few feet from him.
She had been in the bridge compartment when the invader’s Emergence wave was picked up, and had been quick to suggest using her enhanced charge device to expedite their departure.
Robert had doubts, the whole thing was still new and while they had been preparing to test it
But the initiator surge wave system was her baby, and if anybody could get them out of this one, it was her.
She nodded, slightly as not to enter a spin, “I know that we can do it, Captain”
“At a 30% charge?” he asked, slowly, eyebrows high
“Yes Sir, this isn’t just a quick charge modification, like we tested in May, this is a whole new way of creating a successful KF effect, it should work with even less.” her face was like granite, but Robert could see some twitching in her eyelids.
He took a deep breath.
The test in May had worked and maybe if he had gone for a retrofit then, they’d be in the clear now, but they hadn’t, and they weren’t. On the other hand, he’d seen her math, even understood it to some level, and the rest of the egghead brigade had agreed that her initiator should work.
The 30% charge bit was a different matter, though.
He studied her for a moment, her eyebrows were level, her mouth was a thin line, but her respiration was a tad fast.
It should work, she had said, and he’d believe her, but should was one of those words that one never liked to say about a KF core, especially if you were inside the testbed, but…
He stole a glance at the sensor scope and saw the accelerating blips, in the end? There was no other chance.
He sighed, visibly and grimaced, and then he looked Analia’s eyes and nodded
“Very well, you have the go ahead, Doctor,” she offered him a nod and then turned towards the bulkhead.
“And good luck to us all….,” Robert added under his breath, and then pushed himself towards his station
With the practiced ease of a lifelong spacer, he quickly secured himself in front of his command console and secured his harness.
He could feel the beating of his heart in his ears, and for a moment he felt faint. Then, he closed his eyes and counted mentally to five before opening them again.
“Captain?” Mika Fournier, the Lithe Taurian was looking at him with concern in her eyes.
“We aren’t done yet, Mika,” Robert’s fit hit his couch’s armrest. “We’re going to show the toasters who is the Lady Lucretia,” he let his lips form a toothy grin.
“I know we will, Captain,” she replied, with a grin of her own, “Orders?”
“Secure the grav deck, detach the sail and prepare to give us some speed,” Robert told him, “Strap yourself in people, this is going to be a bumpy ride.” he added towards the bridge crew as a whole.
He then grabbed the intercom, and set the dial to ship wide, “Attention all crew, attention all crew, we will engage the main drive in T minus 10, Secure yourselves immediately and switch all equipment to safety, this is your only warning.”
The Lucretia was far from being an ordinary Tramp class JumpShip. Interconnectedness had worked long on her and modified her plenty.
The Labs, obviously, those had come at the cost of two DropShip collars, the LF batteries had been easier to fit, in comparison, but the most interesting refit was the main drive.
Most standard core JumpShips had small drive assemblies, capable perhaps of a 0.1G of continuous thrust, and that was more than enough for the needs of most JumpShips.
“Sail Detached,” Mika stated as her hands danced over her controls, “Drives primed for overthrust, activating directional thrusters.”
Even as Mika spoke, Robert could feel the ship’s movement pattern change, as she rotated away from her pursuers.
The Lucretia was different there as well.
Mika turned towards Robert, her eyebrows high.
Robert nodded and took a deep breath, “Helm, take her to Emergency Overthrust.”
“Aye aye, Captain,” she replied as she turned her head back towards her station
A moment latter, Robert felt being pressed against his command couch.
Point one, Point Five, One G, and then the layout marked 1.23 Gs of acceleration.
It was a ludicrous acceleration for a Tramp, and quite impossible for any standard core JumpShip, even with tugs running side by side, but the Lucretia wasn’t, and hadn’t been one for a long time.
And not only she have the space for a much more powerful drive and fuel bunkerage to match, she had the structural reinforcement needed to make sure her spaceframe wouldn’t collapse under the strain.
Still, there was no outrunning their pursuit, those DropShips were moving at close 3Gs of acceleration, and had been gaining momentum since they detached from the Invader, and that didn’t take into account what ASFs were stowed in the LeopardCV.
But now, this wasn’t how they escaped the Word of Blake, this was just their way of gaining time
“ETA for intercept?” Robert asked the Manny Reyes, over at the Sensor station
The Outback native turned towards Robert, with a slight frown, “About two, maybe three hours captain, maybe two hundred minutes, tops, if we can maintain this acceleration.”
Mika shot a glare at Manny but refrained from saying anything and turned back to her screens.
Truth was, the drives' endurance was a moot point.
There had been compromises on that design, necessary ones, mostly because sourcing Capital grade thrusters was, frankly, beyond even IU’s clout.
They had done what they could, using heavy duty DropShip rated Thrusters, tinkered to hell and back, but the result was underperforming, thirstier and bigger.
The drives might have passed all their test with flying colors, but some things they hadn’t tested, and the max thrust endurance was one of them.
It might have sound like oversight on their part, and it might very well be that. On the other hand, at 1.23Gs there were few vessels they could outrun from a cold start.
And, ultimately, the drive capability had been there for their exploratory work rather than to escape ambush.
“Don’t worry,” Robert replied, with a grin, “She’ll take it, she hasn’t let us down before, and the Lady won’t start now,” internally he was frowning and crossing his fingers there.
Now, it was in Analia’s hands.
.o0O0o.
The KF control room was right next to the bridge,
It was a relatively small room, compared to the Compact Core control areas she knew, it had a similar layout in about half the space.
The key difference was made by the new control systems they had pioneered years ago. A next generation control computer that dominated the center of the room. Supposedly they were based off a recovered Nirasaki computing system the Count’s father had found before the turn of the century, but that was scuttlebutt.
The side walls were thick with exposed conduits for both power and cooling, as part of the cooling system used to keep the KF core from turning into mush were also used to keep the Control system at an optimal operational temperature.
And, on the far wall was the outer cowling of the KF core and the main access point to the core proper.
With practiced ease, she moved to one of the Damage Control Exos that were on racks by the door and secured herself into the nearest one, painted blue on red in a striped pattern.
Each of the Lucretia’s DC exo was painted in different colors, as unique as could be made, to make recognizing the wearer easier and simpler, even under the red glare of emergency lights.
Admittedly, in those cases it was less the coloration and more on the patterns themselves.
After a quick check of the suit, she removed the magloc and moved in free fall towards the far all and the open hatchway to the core.
The KF Core Room was the beating heart of any FTL capable ship, doubly so for the Lucretia.
The Core had an oblong shape, occupying most of the room and tethered to the cowling by both structural elements, thick heavy-duty wires and the tubing of the cooling system that ran all over the core itself. On the near end of the core, there was a spherical outgrowth of the core that was the Jump initiator.
The latter was open today, she could easily see three Damage Control Exos standing by, secured to the outer wall, not far from the exposed component.
Moving by the railings, Analia bridged the distance between the bulkhead and the initiator. As she neared, the three exos turned towards her. One in a green on white polka dot pattern, a Blue on yellow half-and-half and finally a Pink and black in a diagonal pattern.
“Doctor?” cracked into her ear the voice of Emily Chardin, her senior assistant, who was in the polka dot green Exo.
Her eyes quickly darted over to the Blue on yellow and the Pink on black, IDing her other two assistants, Hakim Al Rashid, in the Blue and yellow and Louios Bluth in the Pink and black one
“People, we have the go ahead,” she stated as she came to a stop near them.
“We have?” Emily asked, wide-eyed.
“Yes, The Captain has agreed and now it‘s up to us to deliver,” she said with a smirk.
“OF course, Doctor,” Louis interjected, with a nod.
“Good. We’re on a deadline of the most literal kind. So, Louis, you and Hakim start double-checking the coolant lines, one port, one Starboard,” she then turned to Emily, “We are going to shorten the checklist, so you’re with me as I work the Initiator,” she pointed at the part in question.
Their replies were all measured, a simple “Yes, Doctor,” their expressions were anything but. However, they were all on the clock and time was running out.
As Hakim and Louis started moving towards their assigned entry points of the cooling system, she and Emily moved towards the initiator itself.
Analia turned a recessed lever and the inner casing of the initiator opened itself, not unlike a blooming flower.
The KF field initiation was a multistage process and, likewise, the device responsible for the task was separated in several segments. To the untrained eye, it looked not unlike like a cluster of grapes if each grape was the size of a Watermelon and out of shiny silver with a numerical identifier stamped on them. With each ‘grape’ interconnected by thick, heavy-duty wiring to one another and to other elements on the initiator proper and towards the core itself.
She gave the exposed innards a one over and then offered Emily a wink, “Ok, so, let's start on step 37,” she said and moved the work arm of the exo into its position and had the arm interact with the closest ‘grape’.
Twenty-seven minutes later, as Analia closed the ‘grape’ labeled 3sc-1, her intercom crackled to life.
“Doctor,” the captain’s voice echoed in her earpiece, “We have a problem”
“Captain?” she asked, as she started work on the next node.
“The ASF carrier has just disgorged four ASFs, they should be on us within the hour,” he stated
“I see,” she replied in a detached like manner
“Can you be ready before that?” Robert’s voice filled her ears once more.
“I…” she paused for a moment, tilting her head, “yes, I can.”
“Ma’am?” Emily asked, her eyebrows high.
“We are going to improvise a bit Emily,” she offered her a smirk, “we’re skipping all the intermediate steps from now on.”
“I…” she seemed to pause as her expression morphed from insecurity to doubt
“It’ll be fine,” Analia said, placing her hand on Emily’s shoulder, “Now come here and start on node 3-4, ok?”
“Yes, Doctor, I…” Emily paused, then nodded, “Yes Doctor,” she added with more vehemence.
Analia offered her a smile and then turned back to work
“Louis, Kalid, captain just came in,” she said as she started digging into the controlling mechanism for the node, “deadline is now under 40 minutes.”
It was a tighter deadline than the Captain’s, but they’d still need to spool up and warm the core, and it should be more than enough time.
Possibly.
Their acknowledgments followed soon thereafter, but she paid that no heed. She trusted her people, and also she trusted her work.
This was going to work.
Even if it was going to be a bit tighter than she’d wish.
.o0O0o.
Robert Bannson could smell the sweat on the bridge’s air. They were all doing their part but things weren’t looking very bright at the moment.
“Manny?” he asked as he focused on the sensor readout, “We have positive ID on the bogeys?”
“Mostly, captain,” he replied without looking up from his scopes, “they still don’t make sense but I think I got past their EW screen.”
“Oh?”
“I am positive on the Hellcats, they’re moving a bit under thrust, but…” he trailed off
“...They’re keeping formation with the other two,” Completed Robert
“Yes Sir, the issue is with the other two” he shook his head, “looks like a mixed Stingray-Ironsides flight, but they are moving much too fast.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Robert nodded, moving at over 5gs, close to five and a half gravities than to five, was well beyond what any variant of either Stingray or Ironsides he knew of could pull. Then again, WoB might have gotten creative there.
Robert massaged his forehead, “Assume they’re toaster specials,” he said, massaging his chin, “so expect that both they and the Hellcats aren’t accelerating at their max.”
While neither ASF were what could be called suicide sleds, few ASFs would undergo that sort of sustained accelerations, not for over an hour and expect anything from the pilots.
But they were Blakists, so the pilots might be heavily cybered or drugged up the wazoo, or more likely both.
“Maybe they thinned out the reactor shielding? Shaved a few tons here and there?” he mused aloud, “The Blakists aren’t big believers in occupational health or in safety standards, after all.”
“Almost for sure, sir,” Replied Mika, “those crazy assholes are all too willing to cut all sort of corners, and if their folks keel over after a few missions? Meh, they got spares.”
He nodded a reply, “Yeah, no shortage of nutcases and psychos willing to sign in with the cultists,” he replied
“You think they only recruit the psychos? Or it is their training and augmentations that turns them into monsters” Ada Brown, the Lucretia’s senior comms officer asked with a deep frown.
She was the one crew member with the least to do at the moment, the Blakists had issued a stand down and die order after they jumped, but hadn’t talked to them since.
Not that they’d consider it, because Blakists, and also because they’d already issued a stand down and die challenge, so they weren’t even bothering with pretending.
“Well, they do cyber up a lot,” interjected Manny, “but I am iffy about that being the cause by itself.”
“Yeah, Cyber psychosis is an overstated phenomenon,” Ada replied, one raised eyebrow, “Maybe their sawbones aren’t just incompetent and are turning their volunteers into monsters on purpose”
Robert blinked, “Wouldn’t put it past them.” he stole a glance at the sensor screen again, and watched the nearing sensor blips
He grabbed the comm mike from the rack, “Doctor, please tell me you have good news,” he spoke into it.
“We’re wrapping up now,” Analia’s replied through the speaker, matter-of-factly, “five to ten minutes, tops”
Bannson glanced at Manny, who grimaced and shook his head, and then offered him an open hand as a response.
“Doctor, ten won’t do, five is our deadline,” Robert replied into the mike.
A few heartbeats latter the speaker crackled up again, “I see, five it is then.”
.o0O0o.
March 10th 3071
PX-4509
WBJS Hearts of the Pure
Precentor Ali Ahmad Kassed’s day had started most auspiciously, as they had successfully caught the Lucretia during its recharge cycle.
It had come at a cost, as it was for all things, his ship would never jump again, not only had the KF drive been damaged beyond repair, it had twisted and bent even the structural elements around it.
Only Blake’s will had kept the ship from breaking apart, and allowed them the opportunity to complete their most holy mission.
Of course, he had been most surprised when their target had discarded its solar sail. For a moment he had feared the worst, that the ship had enough of a charge and that their sacrifice would be insufficient, but in a strange twist, the ship had reoriented itself and began accelerating away from his deployed DropShips.
Over 1G in what looked like a standard core ship, that had left many of his command flabbergasted, but even then it was further proof of the danger those scientists represented to the Master and Blake’s holy vision.
He flared his nose and shook his head.
The command center of the Hearts was bathed in the red glare of the emergency lighting. Power relays had been damaged or, possibly even melted and fused into the structure of the hull.
It was of no concern, they had enough air and power to oversee their mission and, Blake willing, they would be returning to the Master aboard the Lucretia herself.
“Brother, Stigmata wing is about to enter range of the abomination,” demi-precentor Luis Noghtches stated from the sensor station.
“Good, have them prepare to fire warning shots,” he replied with a grin, “that might be enough to cow the heretics.”
He seriously doubted but, under the circumstances, he’d take the extra risk, the research banks of the ship were precious enough, he frowned, and turned towards his coms officer, “Order the Stable of the Worthy to deploy their boarding ship”
It had been a rather intriguing modification that let a LeopardCV carry a boarding shuttle in a specially modified hangar bay, at the cost of two of the fighter cubicles and some structural modifications, but it was the right vehicle for this mission
“Precentor! I am reading a KF event around the Abomination,” Noghtches warned, his eyes wide.
“What? No!” he cursed, “Stigmata is weapons free, they must ensure the Abomination can’t escape.”
A part of his mind was awhirl, it was impossible, they were caught, well and truly caught, early in their recharge cycle.
They mustn’t escape, the Master, I can’t let down the Master, he muttered to himself, his nose flaring, and eyes narrowing.
“I... yes Precentor, relaying your orders now,” Adept IV Natrali replied
As he watched the screens, the four triangles that represented stigmata wing started moving considerably faster as they started increasing their acceleration.
“Have them redline their engines,” he shouted at Adept Natrali, who nodded in reply, “Blake demands the sacrifice,” he added, with a deep frown.
He then turned towards demi-precentor Noghtches, “how much time before they jump?”
“I am unsure, Precentor, the KF wave is most unusual,” Luis Noghtches replied, with a deep frown, “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Their heresy knows no bounds,” Ali snarled in disgust.
“I… they jumped,” wide-eyed demiprecentor Noghtches replied.
“What?” inwardly, Ali was cursing up a storm, they had filed the Master, this couldn’t be happening, Blake couldn’t let it happen
“Blessed Blake,” Noghtches cried in surprise, “a massive solar flare, this, oh, Blessed Blake!”
“Demi Precentor, make sense!” Ali shouted at Noghtches.
“I, they must have jumped into the star, its, yes, this is what happened,” Noughtches replied, white as a sheet.
Ali blinked, “Are you sure?” he asked, eyebrows high.
“Yes, Precentor, they're gone,” he said with a thin smile.
“Blake be praised,” Ali exclaimed, raising his hands above his head, failing to fall to his knees only because they were at ZeroG, “We have succeeded, my brothers and sisters, the heretics are no more.”
It wasn’t his preferred victory, but this was how Blake had ordained things to be. He had a message to his superiors to draft and then, then they’d be able to rest.
.o0O0o.
Time unknown
Place Unknown
SS Lucretia
Robert Bannson was an old spacehand, he had lived through thousand of KF Jumps, most of those on the Lucretia, but he had never felt a jump like the last one. He had felt as if an ice-cold had grabbed him from his guts and shook him like an overly cliché’d martini.
Specially since everybody knows it should be stirred, not shaken, he grumbled. The how and why, however, were lost to the mist of time, but that never mattered.
There was an acrid smell in the bridge and the red light of the emergency lighting tinted the room with its glare.
He could hear faint groans coming from the other stations and saw a fast movement from Mika Fournier over at the Nav console, as she went over one of the zeroG Barf bags and proceeded to be very sick into it.
“Anybody alive,” he asked after Mika stopped her retching.
“I think so, Boss,” Mika said half-heartedly, as she wiped her mouth clean, “Death wouldn’t feel this bad.”
“I’m here, Cap,” Manny Reyes said from behind the sensor console. Even under the red light, the Outworld’s native was looking rather pale.
“Ada, you alive there?” Robert asked towards the comms station
There was a soft groan, “Yes,” she said in a hoarse tone, “My head is killing me”
“So, we survived that?” Asked Mika.
“Scopes are clear,” Manny interjected, “I’d say… yeah?”
“Plus, no legion of cyberfiends ready to tear us a new one,” added Ada, with a groan.
“Always the brightest possibility with you, Ada,” Mika grumbled
“Now, now,” interrupted Robert, waving his hand, “This isn’t the time, we are still on the clock, everybody do a diagnostic of your stations and start the post jump checklists, I’ll see about getting us proper lights.”
After he heard the aye ayes, Robert lifted the intercom and set the dial to Engineering, “Paul, how are things down there?”
A heartbeat later came the reply, “Bit of a mess Rob, jump tripped a lot of breakers here,” Paul Renner, the Lucretia’s chief engineer, replied in his outback accent.
“I see,” he frowned, “Can we get normal lighting over here?”
“Yeah, sure, gimme five,” came Paul’s reply.
“Five minutes?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
And then the red glare was replaced by the normal lighting, Robert had to close his eyes for a few moments and Ada’s groan was plain as day.
“Seconds,” came Paul’s reply. The cocky grin was invisible over the intercom, but Robert was all completely certain it was there.
“Excellent,” he said with a thin smile on his face, “let me know if there are any problems.”
“Will do,” and then the line went dead.
Shaking his head, Robert moved the dial back to Dr. Monroe’s circuit,
“Analia, you ok?” he asked, softly.
He could hear panting over the line, “I… yes Captain,” her voice sounded uneven, but all told wasn’t unexpected.
“Thank you, you saved us,” he said after a few moments
“I had my doubts, Rob,” she said in a low tone, “I was afraid, but…”
“Don’t worry,” he started to reassure her, “I know, you made a call, you had to.”
“Captain!” Mika said in alarm, “come here, you’ve gotta see this.”
“Mika?” he replied, placing a hand over the intercom mike.
“Captain, you have to see this,” he said, in an urgent and insistent tone.
“Very well,” he replied and then removed the hand off the intercom, “Analia, stand down, Mika needs my input, but I’ll see you shortly.”
“Sure, Rob.” she replied, “Thanks for trusting me.”
After that, Robert undid his harness and moved towards Mika’s
“What’s the problem, Mika?” he asked as he reached the handhold by the nav station
“This can’t be right, Captain,” she said, a bit frantic.
“Mika, what can’t be right?” he asked as he looked into her screen
This is our current location,” she said pointing at her screen
He looked at the astrogation data on the screen, the Star was wholly unremarkable, no planetary bodies, just a bit of space dust here and there, it was like a billion other stars in the Milky Way. But then he looked at the bottom of the screen, the navigation tools… no…
He blinked, the screen showed PX-4509, but that had to be an error.
He took a deep breath.
“I assume you ran the diagnostic?” he asked her.
She nodded vehemently.
“Manny,” Robert said turning towards the sensor tech, “Your scopes are clear?” he asked with some anxiety leaking into his voice
“Boss, I don’t think that is a problem,” Mika interrupted.
“You mean we jumped into an identical neighborhood?” he asked, his eyebrows high.
“No, I mean it isn’t impossible, but the odds?” she shook her head, “the initial nav sweep had turned up nothing, so I switched over to the reference stars and used them to triangulate, PX-4509 was the result.”
Robert took a deep breath and looker at her scope, nodding, and motioned at her to continue.
While there probably was some other place within the Orion arm that could match the local area, The reference stars were as close a constant as there could be. Names asides, they weren’t stars but Quasars, and far from the Milky Way.
If triangulation said this was PX-4509, and a system error had been ruled out, then it had to be PX-4509.
It was as simple as that.
“So then, I started looking at our neighborhood, and well,” she pointed at her screen, “that binary had to be PX-4549 and that white dwarf over there could only be PT-10105, and so on,” her tone was more openly frantic now, “but they aren’t where they should be.”
So, given that the triangulation couldn’t be wrong, the only other explanation for the stars' location was stellar drift.
As impossible as it might sound to the layman, everything in the universe moved, planet, stars, galaxies, each had their own rate of movement and while navigation systems could compensate for that, and there were few possibilities for the scenario that Mika’s screens were showing.
It could be a maintenance issue, or a software error, she had discarded those, that left one possibility.
“Manassas?” he asked, trying and failing to keep the growing dread out of his voice.
The SLS Manassas had been a Star League WarShip, one that carried a modified KF drive, all new and shiny, that had been part of Kerensky’s exodus but had vanished from one jump to the next.
Except the Manassas hadn’t been destroyed as Kerensky’s people assumed. She had even arrived at her destination, some two hundred and seventy-five years later give or take a few years.
He felt himself faint, “How much time forward did we…” he trailed off
“I’m working on that, Boss,” she said with a frantic smile, a moment later, her eyes widened, and she pointed at her screen, “That’s impossible,” she said in an almost whisper.
He looked at her finger and blinked, and then blinked again, as his eyes widened, “Oh, my god.”
Mika was right, it was impossible, but there it was in bold letters in her screen. It was only a partial date, there was no day and no month, their systems weren’t precise enough for that, and even the year was an estimate of about a plus minus a decade: 2780.