Border Wars, page 10
part #8 of On Silver Wings Series
Master of Ships Perhilon was irritated by the apparent waste of time. They'd been scouting the outer system for only a few hours, but it would take a lot longer before regulations would permit him to call it and return to the planet so the Wind could continue the assigned mission.
"What have we found at the origin site?" He questioned wearily.
"Residual gravity anomalies, Master of Ships," His scanner specialist answered instantly. "The earlier scans have been confirmed. They were not some sort of sensor malfunction."
Perhilon grimaced, "That would be excellent confirmation, Specialist, if we did not already have independent confirmation from the human vessel."
"Apologies, Master of Ships."
Perhilon looked away, not wanting to show his frustrations with the situation. The wind was wasting time, however there is nothing he could do about it.
The scanners had confirmed the gravity event, which he supposed was something despite his words. At this point, they had to determine just what sort of gravity event it was. That was going to take time and work, unfortunately, time being one of the things they had very little of.
Under any other circumstance, Perhilon might well have been tempted to simply write the entire situation off as a scanner anomaly and be done with it. Unfortunately, with an active operation in the system, there was nothing he could do. Protocol was clear, he had to investigate to the fullness of his capabilities.
"Redirect primary and secondary scanners," he ordered firmly, "Determine the nature of the gravity anomaly. We are alone out here, so let's get this done as quickly as possible. We have a mission to facilitate back at the planet."
"As you order, Master of ships."
*****
The lifting wind shifted its stance, redirecting scanners from tactical use to advance research. They were analyzing the resonating aftereffects of the gravity anomaly, looking for what might have caused such an event. It had read as a dangerous close in-system jump, but without a ship to prove that theory out, the crew of the lifting wind were instead forced by regulations to look for alternative causes.
There were many possibilities, of course. Gravity waves sourced back to numerous origin points. Anything from a passing rogue world to a pulsar in another galaxy could potentially replicate the signature of a jump point in use, though those were all extremely rare interactions.
Any event that appeared to be something as security critical as a Jump signature had to be investigated, by Alliance doctrine, barring a critical immediate attention required situation.
Sadly, the current mission to the colony world in system didn't quite qualify, particularly since the Intelligence Master had shifted his command to the human ship for the duration of their investigation.
So, in the dark of space, eighty astronomical units away from the local star... so far out that the star was barely brighter than any of the others that dimly shone in the endless night, the Lifting Wind began the long process of hunting for a quarry that, in all likelihood, was no longer there.
*****
In the abyss, eyes were watching.
The ship was observed closely as it slipped into range at a crawl by the standards of deep space distances. The observers waited, watching, deliberating.
*****
VOA Allah's Word
"The beasts detected our entry. Why are they here?"
Captain Ishal Masu shrugged slightly as he watched the screen, not turning to the Imam who had spoken.
"Unknown, your holiness," He said, "There were no scheduled arrivals according to our spies."
The Imam, Quoral Shiman scowled, irritated by the answer he'd already known quite well despite having asked the question.
"What do we do now?" He asked finally.
"We stay quiet," Ishal said simply. "With luck, and the will of Allah, they will pass us by."
"I do not like this," Quoral grumbled. "The chosen of Allah should not cower in the face of Shaytan like this."
Ishal nodded in agreement, but he knew that the power disparity was far too high for them to be blatant at the moment.
"They're coming this way, Captain."
Ishal shifted, leaning over the uncomfortable alien repeater he was reading information from. The ship had been 'acquired' from some helpful traders who, unholy though they might be, seemed to have as much against the majority of the Shaytan as the People did. It was an impressive bit of engineering, he could freely admit, but everything left him feeling slightly wrong for using it.
The seats were just a hint too high, just a hint too narrow. The displays didn't show the color red for some irritating reason, and his engineers couldn't fix it. Apparently, it was inherent in the hardware.
They did display ultraviolet, which was even more annoying. They'd had to install filters to prevent minor radiation burns just from sitting in front of them for too long. Then it turned out that some vital display information was being projected in UV, so the software had to be rewritten.
Alien construction.
He longed for the day that the People would create their own ships, take the stars and to their place at Allah's right hand as they belonged.
That day was a long time off, however.
The display was irritating to read, but he had grown used to it, and so Ishal peered closely and mentally parsed the numbers and ranges he was reading into something he could grasp better in his mind.
"How close are they?"
"Still over an AU away," Ishal said, "however they are proceeding in this direction. Contact in twenty-three minutes at the current rate of closing."
"We must leave."
"We cannot," Ishal shook his head. "The very instant we lit our drives, they would have us."
The Imam slumped, "What do we do?"
"We wait. With the hand of Allah at our side, they will shift course and we will be secure," Ishal said.
"And if Allah wills otherwise?"
Ishal glanced around covertly, "That is what we have the special ordinance for, your holiness."
*****
Ishal made his way forward, to where the primary sensor repeater stations were located, and quietly leaned over the shoulder of the young man standing watch.
"Are they running a search grid?"
The young officer looked over his shoulder, glancing back past the Captain to where the Imam was focusing on something else before he nodded softly.
"Allah forfend," Ishal breathed out softly, letting the words flow from him. "Very well, continue tracking, passive scanners only. Do not, under any circumstances, engage active scanners with my express orders."
"Yes, My Captain."
Ishal pushed away from the station and calmly crossed the room to the tactical station, where the weapons officers were awaiting orders. He'd really prefer not to engage an Alliance ship, Shaytan though they might be. It was, in the long run, a losing proposition for the limited resources they had available in space.
If the Alliance ship was on a search grid, however, there was almost no chance that they would not eventually come across the position of the Word, and once that happened it would be a rather bad day indeed for the crew of the Word.
He stopped by the chief weapons officer, leaning in close so no one else would overhear.
"I am going to require that prepare the special weapons."
The man's eyes widened, "Captain, are you quite certain? We've never used one of those, and what we were told..."
"I know, but the conventional weapons on the Word will not put a scratch in that battlecruiser's armor, we both are aware of that."
The Tactical man grimaced but couldn't deny that fact.
"So, prepare the weapons."
"Yes, My Captain. They will be ready on your order."
Ishal smiled tightly, "No doubts existed in my mind."
With his orders dispatched, Ishal made his way back to the central command area where he could physically observe every officer standing watch... and be observed by the Imam in turn.
*****
Alliance Battlecruiser Lifting Wind
"Master of Ships?"
Perhilon glanced up from what he was working on, "What is it?"
"We are detecting something... unusual."
The blue skinned Parithalian shifted slightly in his station, gaze focusing on the speaker.
"Young one," He said firmly, "If you have nothing more than that, we will be having words about what is acceptable to bring to the Master of Ships and what is not."
"Apologies, Master... I... It's just that it does not fit anything in our records, but there is something here."
That was enough for Perhilon to assign his attention to the young officer.
"Very well," He said, getting up. "Show me."
"Yes, Master of Ships."
Perhilon made his way over, eyes falling on the display as he sought out what had piqued the young officer's attention. It didn't actually take him long to see. There were huge anomalous scans that the computer had no idea how to deal with.
"What in the floating abyss is that mess?" He demanded wearily.
"That is what I've been trying to determine, Master of Ships," the youth said miserably.
Perhilon glared, past the youth and with focus on the display, because he wasn't surprised that the young officer couldn't make anything of the mess on the screens. The anomalies were clearly not in the system's database, which caused the computer to guess at what to display.
The result was an unholy mess of scanner reflections that could be interpreted as a small fleet, if not for the countless holes in the feed that made it clear that there was nothing actually there.
"It's a gravity anomaly," He growled, leaning in as he started tapping in commands. "Space time has been twisted, drawing in local materials, creating false echoes as the scanner is bent and reflected."
"Yes, Master of Ships," The youth said, before asking helplessly, "What caused it?"
"Unknown. If we knew that, it wouldn't be an anomaly," Perhilon admitted unhappily. "The last time I saw something this badly mangled..."
He took a breath, "It was at the location we lost contact with the fleet sent against the Terrans."
The youth looked at him, shock in his expression. "Do you believe they..."
"No, unlikely," Perhilon said, cutting him off. "It was the result of massive expenditure of Ross gravity weapons, mixed with debris and weapons fire from the Terran fleet. Besides, that was a much larger event. This is almost... contained."
He called up several more scans, examining them each in turn before overlaying them.
None of this makes sense.
Perhilon grimaced, "Helm!"
"Yes, Master of Ships?"
"Change course to new heading, as follows," He said, rattling off a series of numbers.
"At your command."
The Wind vibrated slightly as it began to fight its own momentum, shifting to approach the anomaly. Perhilon wanted to properly catalog the phenomenon in addition to just finding out what the hell it was in the here and now. That would cut down on false alarms in the future, which might make this waste of time worth something at the very least.
*****
Allah's Word
Ishal watched unhappily as the Shaytan vessel turned in their direction and steadied onto the course. It was clear that they had detected something, he just wasn't certain what. It didn't matter all that much, not in the short term, of course. Whatever they had detected was leading them directly to the Word.
"Make ready the special munition," He ordered his man at the tactical controls.
"Yes, my Captain."
Order given, Ishal made his way back to the uncomfortable command station at the center of the bridge and carefully took his seat.
The Shaytan vessel would find them shortly... unless it found something else first.
"Launch the weapon."
*****
Chapter 10
God is Great
The team was sifting through the take from the raid, mostly digital data being run through recognition systems, filtered by computers before any actual people laid eyes on it. Aida was resting on the top of the APC as the group sprawled easily around, waiting for the chance to get back to work.
She had her implants running, eyes flicking over the feed as the computer grabbed bits and bobs of interest, when Sorilla suddenly froze. She killed her feeds automatically, jumping to her feet and staring up.
"Colonel? You alright?"
Sorilla didn't answer, eyes focused on the skies for a moment, then she dropped her gaze sharply to the south west of their position.
Strickland killed his own implants, rising to his feet, "Colonel?"
Sorilla held up a hand.
"Something just happened," Was all she said for the moment.
"What do you mean?" Kris demanded gruffly, as he too shifted to his feet.
"Something," Her eyes flicked up again, "Up there. Something big."
Strickland looked up, shaking his head, "I don't see anything, Colonel... Shoot me your readings, I'll double check..."
"I don't have any," Sorilla said, eyes dropping again to the South West. She made a decision, "Everyone, mount up."
It was a testament to their discipline that most everyone started moving without thinking about it.
"Where are we going?" Strickland asked.
"Novasalem," She said, looking to the Southwest again.
"Colonel, there's nothing on any of the scanners to show something happening in the..."
Strickland flinched as the sky suddenly lit up, a new star forming in the section of the sky Sorilla had been staring at. "What the f-?"
"Gravity induced fission." Sorilla said, voice dully. "Haven't felt that in a while. A ship just died out there, Major. Mount up, we're going to Novasalem."
Kris looked instantly concerned, "That sounds like Ross weapons."
She nodded, "No question. I'd recognize that feeling anywhere."
"How did you feel it before the blast wave reached us?" Strickland asked, moving now to get everything packed. "It would be a lightspeed propagation."
"Mostly," Sorilla corrected, "There's a leading edge that outpaces light, it propagates in the quantum field. We used it to dodge attacks during the war, our ships did anyway."
"Over my head," Strickland admitted, "Didn't think I'd need to study quantum physics for this job."
"Well think again," Sorilla told him firmly. "Trust me, even basic understanding of Ross weapons requires a comprehension of quantum mechanics beyond many PHD candidates, and understanding their weapons is the difference between running around alive and having your component atoms split by having them slammed together at a couple thousand gravities until something gives."
Kris, who had been following the conversation as he finished packing up and getting his Sentinels into the human vehicle, gestured in agreement.
"It is a requirement for Sentinal forces," He said, "basic calculation of Ross weapon's and their effective areas of affect necessitate such knowledge."
"Ugh," Strickland sighed, "Alright, it's on the list."
He looked around, noting some smirks aimed his way, "For Everyone."
That ended the smirking, at least, and the groans were a salve to his soul, but it still left him with another question.
"Why are we going to Novasalem?" He asked, using the English variation of the city's name.
"Because when I felt the leading edge of the pulse," Sorilla said, dropping into the commo seat within the APC, "I felt a response pulse, much weaker, but the direction of the city. Ran the numbers, and I'm pretty certain it came from Novasalem."
"Response pulse?"
"A gravity core will interact with a large enough pulse, reflecting some of the energy," Kris said, his tone serious as he looked over at Sorilla, "Are you certain?"
She just nodded.
"That would mean that there is a significant piece of Ross technology on this world," Kris scowled, "That should not be."
"Tell me about it," Sorilla linked into the encrypted communication terminal. "Roll out when we're packed."
She flipped a switch and dropped off the public network.
"SOL, Go for Aida."
"Roger Aida, SOL Actual and the General are on the line."
"I'm assuming you monitored that blast," She asked dryly.
"I should ask you how you detected it, but I've given up being surprised at you, little sister," General Mattan said grimly. "The Lifting Wind went out to investigate an anomaly yesterday. They transferred some of the Alliance brass over to us, but we haven't heard from them since."
"They encountered someone using Ross weapons, clearly," She responded. "I monitored a responsive pulse from the planet's surface. Am detailing my unit to investigate. Current operations are suspended pending the outcome."
"Excuse me, you monitored what? And how?" The Captain of the SOL cut in, voice perplexed.
"Classified, Capatin." Admiral Ruger's voice stepped on the question instantly. "Colonel, are you certain? You are likely to be without backup, if things go bad up here."
"Understood, Admiral. We're running recon primarily," She said, "if we have to run and gun, we'll try to limit contact until backup is available or we can be extracted."
"It's your call, Sister," Mattan said gruffly. "I can't say I like it, though."
"What's to like, General?" She asked scoffingly. "I'm on an alien planet, colonized by some of the most radical elements Earth ever produced.... And they're the good news. Liking this stopped being an option a long time past."
Ruger snorted, "She's not wrong, General."
"Don't I know it," Mattan conceded. "Alright, do what you've got to do, just remember the rule, Sister."
"Don't worry, Sir, I've already made my plans."
"Good to hear. Go get em."
The signal ended and Sorilla dropped out of the communications environment, noting that they'd begun moving while she was distracted.
Good. We're finally getting somewhere.
*****
SOL
"What rule is that, General?" Ruger asked, curiously as the pair shifted back from the terminal.
"Old saying, popularized by another General in another war," Mattan said, before quoting, "Be polite, be professional... and have a plan to kill everyone you meet."
