Twilight Serenade, page 20
part #6 of Earth Song Series
“But only for a few seconds,” Aaron added, to which Lilith nodded. He looked at his wife. “It’s enough force to allow an Eseel to make a nearly right angle turn at several thousand kilometers per second.” Minu whistled again.
“That’s nothing compared to what my tactical missiles are capable of,” Lilith said.
“I’ve always wondered why dodging missiles isn’t an option.” Minu said.
Aaron returned them to the subject. “So, these drives are all more powerful than the Kiile drives were. What’s the big deal?”
“They will cause considerable problems with the power system and navigation.”
“Problems that can be handled by programming,” Aaron countered. Lilith considered, then slowly nodded. “It’s got to be better than towing the damned things.”
“Immensely,” Lilith agreed.
“Come on,” Minu said and headed out of the CIC.
“Where are we going?” Aaron asked, following.
“Suit up. We’re going to use our escort Eseel and get that nearest one under tow. Hours count.”
* * * * *
Chapter 25
May 8th, 535 AE
Deep Space, The Frontier
Minu floated in the CIC with her family and marveled at the display. Lilith had set the interior to reflect near space, so it was like being outside in the void, looking in.
Space slid by at many thousands of times the speed of light. The Kaatan was near the front of a flotilla. Directly behind her was the Fiisk Alpha, controlled by the other Kaatan’s CI. Just behind it was the Fiisk Beta, operated by a mixed crew of human and Beezer. Two Kiile-class carriers, Alpha and Beta flanked it to either side. Ibeen Gamma and Zeta were just behind the Kiile, Beta having left a week ago. And finally, over forty Eseel gunboats surrounded them, out to a quarter of a light year, as pickets.
The only ship they couldn’t get underway was the Kaatan that was hulled through by a powerful energy beam. They had loaded it whole into one of the cargo balls on Ibeen Gamma.
“It’s a fleet,” Aaron said as he played with Mindy. The little girl was growing like a weed. She loved playing in microgravity, and Minu thought it was the best playpen ever. Lilith created little holographic things for the girl to grasp at and watched her with her intense green eyes. Lilith never seemed to get bored with Mindy.
“You’re damn right it is,” Minu agreed.
Mindy turned her head at her mother’s voice, the sudden motion inducing a slight spin. Amazingly she threw an arm out in the opposite direction and nearly succeeded in arresting the spin.
“This fleet is not much more than a collection of wrecks and half operational hulks,” Lilith pointed out. She gestured, and Mindy stopped spinning. The gentle caress of the force fields made her giggle wildly, as it always did. It was the feel of a force field against her skin that had made her laugh for the first time a few days earlier.
“It might be a bunch of wrecks,” Minu agreed, “but no one who saw us flying by would know that.”
“Still, I believe stealth is a better tactic.”
“I agree,” Minu said, “which is why the Eseel aren’t ranging out very far.” Lilith nodded, continuing to marshal the task force. Minu thought about having to use the Eseel as scout ships and about the day they could use the Tog scout ships. The electronics capabilities of the Tog ships were an order of magnitude greater than those of the Eseel.
The voice of the commander aboard Fiisk Beta announced over the room’s audio system, “Engine #2 heat gradient has stabilized.”
A few hours earlier, they’d begun having trouble with one of the Fiisk’s huge engines. Lilith had responded by slowing the entire fleet by a hundred times the speed of light which appeared to have fixed the problem.
The CIC’s main navigational display showed their progress toward the third ghost fleet. A stylized line in blue pulsed across the void from one deep space location to another. Around them, for light years in all directions, were nothing more than an occasional hydrogen atom every few cubic meters, and even more occasionally, other atoms.
Still, at thousands of times the speed of light, they encountered a million of those atoms each second. A large part of the drive was a shield projector that created a gravity lance, which forcefully shunted aside anything it encountered, as long as it had less mass than the drive, itself. Seen from the outside, a starship traveling at that speed seemed to shimmer as it deflected atoms aside. The deflection happened faster than the speed of light. The result was akin to what Earth scientists looked for in positron colliders many ages earlier. The subatomic reaction produced some unusual side effects, including tachyons. Tachyon flux, as Lilith called it, was the principal way of detecting a starship approaching at supraluminal speed. While neutrinos didn’t ‘really’ travel faster than light, they propagated faster than the event wave which created them.
The problem was that tachyon flux was a double-edged sword. Not only did it allow Minu and her crew to detect rapidly approaching ships, it allowed them to be detected as they moved through space. It was a game of cat and howler.
As Minu examined the map, she noticed something forming between them and their destination.
“What is that?” she asked.
“It’s a minor nebula,” Lilith said. “The next ghost fleet appears to have begun at one end and has been transiting it slowly over the intervening years.”
“How dense is it?” Aaron asked.
“On the order of five hundred particles per cubic meter.”
“Is that a lot?” Minu asked.
Lilith shrugged. “If you walked through a cloud that dense, you would not notice it. However, it is dense enough to considerably limit our speed.”
“How much?”
“We’ll have to decrease our speed to 200 times the speed of light and we’ll have to go in single file to minimize the strain on the salvaged ships. Fiisk Alpha will lead, it has the most powerful drive. Moving at higher speed risks overloading the drives or initiating fusion along the bow shockwave.”
Minu considered. “Only 200 times the speed of light. How far into the nebula is it?”
“Three light years. At the current drift rate, the ghost fleet won’t leave the nebula for another 42,000 years because the nebula is moving relative to the fleet, in a similar direction.”
Mindy giggled as she watched a holographic butterfly Lilith created fly around her head. “So, it’s going to take about six days to transit into the nebula and reach the fleet?” asked Minu.
Lilith nodded.
“Are you sure it’s there?”
“No,” Lilith admitted. “While the density of the nebula is almost intangible from our point of view, it’s more than enough to shield passive sensors.” She gestured, and a new display came online showing a massive cloud of intricate patterns and swirling colors. Stars were visible in places, pulsating eerily. “There is a magnetar on the side of the nebula we are going toward. It appears to have been part of the natural structure which created the nebula.”
“A magnetar is a kind of neutron star, isn’t it?” Aaron asked.
“Yes,” Lilith confirmed, “but it has a much slower rate of rotation and a much more powerful magnetic field.”
On the display, one of the stars flashed in a very slow rhythm. Every time it flared, the nebula around it gave off an iridescent lightshow.
“I don’t have a record of a magnetar in this stellar quadrant,” Lilith told them. “Since they don’t form quickly, I can only assume it was once much deeper in the nebula and not identified by the People’s stellar cartographers.”
“Science later,” Minu said. “Right now, we have to decide whether it’s worth wasting twelve days going in and out of that thing and possibly finding nothing.”
“We could bypass it,” Aaron suggested.
“I don’t advise that,” Lilith said immediately. “During our days of travel from the previous ghost fleet, I noticed a number of modifications needed to fine-tune the newly installed drives on Fiisk Beta. And, entering the nebula has secondary benefits.” Minu gestured for her to continue. “Within hours of entering the nebula, we will be all be undetectable. We will need to monitor our speed and the massive magnetic flux from the magnetar while navigating the nebula, but these are quantifiable risks.”
“While a possible pursuing enemy fleet is not,” Minu said. “What happens if we’re attacked inside the nebula?”
“They couldn’t find us,” Lilith said.
“Indulge me,” Minu replied.
“Combat would be extremely challenging for both sides. Because of the density of the nebula, shield effectiveness would be limited, as would sensor locks for weapons fire. Particle weapons and lasers would be useless beyond pointblank range, and missiles would have to be reprogrammed for slower speeds.”
Minu thought for a few moments before deciding.
* * *
The fleet slowed to 10 times the speed of light and moved into a tight, single-file formation. Fiisk Alpha led, Lilith’s Kaatan right in its wake. Arrayed behind were the Kiile and Ibeen Gamma. All but ten of the Eseel were aboard the carriers.
“We’re approaching the edge of the nebula,” Lilith told them.
Aaron held Mindy and watched. The little girl seemed to be awake whenever anything exciting was about to happen.
A minute later, they encountered the leading edge.
Whether they were performing incredibly powerful maneuvers or flying at inconceivable speeds, Minu could never remember feeling motion while she was in the ship. The ship’s internal force fields and gravitic control system kept the ride smooth. It had to. At the speeds the ship operated, if the inertial compensation system failed, even partly, the fragile, living occupants would be turned to strawberry jam.
When they hit the edge, the sudden slowing disoriented Minu. It was only for a second, but it was still disconcerting.
“We’ve entered the nebula,” Lilith told them, unnecessarily.
For the next several hours, it was a rollercoaster ride as Lilith fought the ship’s navigational and inertial control system. The generally vacant look she got when she piloted turned to one of concentration.
“Is there anything we can do?” Minu asked as Lilith’s look of concentration further morphed into one of mild anger and sweat broke out on her forehead. It was something Minu hadn’t seen before.
“Silence would help,” Lilith growled. Instantly, everyone quieted. Even Mindy, who’d been cooing and blowing bubbles, fell silent and looked around. “I was not prepared for the layers of variable density in the nebula.”
Two tense hours later, the ride smoothed, and they could no longer feel the motion. Lilith took a deep breath and slowly let it out in a long sigh.
“Is the fleet okay?” Minu asked.
“Fiisk Alpha reports some minor damage to the gravitic drive. It took far more abuse than we did.”
Minu pursed her lips thinking about their wild ride and how it must have been on the other ships. But the Fiisk was currently unmanned, except for the Kaatan CI.
“The Eseel suffered the least effects,” Lilith finished. “The Ibeen are robust, so I was less concerned about their getting buffeted.”
“Can we expect it to be this bad throughout the nebula?” Aaron asked.
“I’m uncertain,” Lilith admitted. “I’ve gathered some baseline data that will help greatly in predicting the effects ahead of us, allowing me to slow the fleet as necessary. I may even be able to maneuver around the worst of it. I’ll send the Eseel ahead to us help feel our way through.”
As the fleet settled into a more comfortable cruise, and Lilith gradually increased their speed, Minu fell into a contemplative silence. Aaron kept Mindy amused, but he glanced at his wife. She was watching the navigational map of the nebula fill in bit by bit, her eyes narrowed, and her head cocked slightly in that way he found so adorable.
He’d been her friend first, watching as she came into her own as a Chosen, then struggling with herself as she realized her abilities to lead men into combat and deal out death and destruction. Minu liked science and was a natural study. She was a kind person at heart, and the fact that she was so good at killing troubled her on a fundamental level.
Then, she’d found her reason for being—to make humanity safe in the face of the endless dangers of the Concordia. Way back during the Trials, as she was leading them through by the sheer force of her will, he’d told Gregg he knew Minu would be First one day. Gregg had laughed it off. A female First? Hilarious. No one was laughing now.
The look on her face spoke volumes. As her husband, he’d learned to allow her those quiet moments when she was 100 billion kilometers away, wrapped in the tenuous feelings of a growing idea. Just as he knew she would, she reached up and began stroking the brilliant blue sapphire hanging on the dualloy chain she always wore around her neck. A tiny smile broke his face. Minu had an idea.
* * * * *
Chapter 26
May 23th, 535 AE
Aether Nebula, The Frontier
The fleet had reached the area where the ghost fleet should have been almost a week earlier, only to find nothing, not even a piece of charred hull plating. Lilith sent almost all the Eseel out in a search pattern. Not finding the fleet where it should have been disquieted her.
They’d had a strategy meeting with the senior staff two days earlier, then Minu held a brief meeting with her Rangers to evaluate their training before turning her attention back to the current task.
“There has to be a logical reason,” Lilith insisted.
“Or an illogical one,” Cherise said, garnering a sidelong look from Lilith. Cherise always considered the impossible, which tended to annoy Lilith.
“Like what?” Minu asked her old friend.
“Maybe something caused them to change their course through the Aether Nebula.”
“I detest that name,” Lilith grumbled, making everyone else smile. Minu had looked up the name after Aaron used it one day and liked it. The Chosen liked using old Earth names for things; it was human nature, she supposed.
Cherise continued without interruption. “Or, someone beat us to the fleet. Or, it was never there, and the data from the CI was incorrect.”
“Lilith?” Minu asked, wanting her take on it.
“While it is possible the data was incorrect, I find it unlikely. The stability of the CI is not in question. It is also possible that someone beat us to the fleet. However, that is also unlikely. If the People used this location on purpose, once secreted inside the nebula—”
“The Aether Nebula,” Aaron corrected.
Lilith’s face twitched, and Aaron grinned. Minu smiled a little, hoping he didn’t push her too far someday. Who knew what Lilith was truly capable of?
Lilith continued. “Once secreted inside the nebula, the ghost fleet would have been all but invisible. The two fleets we found were simply drifting through deep space, untouched, so it is likely no real efforts were made to locate them.”
“What if it was moved?” Cherise asked.
“I don’t see any logical reason for that,” Lilith said.
“There may be no logical reason,” Cherise countered. Lilith’s eyes narrowed. “Sometimes life is illogical.”
“I only find people illogical,” Lilith said.
“Maybe we’re missing a possibility,” a new voice suggested. Everyone turned to look at Kal’at who’d been mostly silent until now. He was gazing at the huge holographic 3D map of the Aether Nebula.
“What do you mean?” Of all of them, Lilith had spent the most time with the Rasa scientist.
“While the People’s ships are composed of all kinds of material, a lot of it is metal, right?”
“Yes.”
“Have you had to adjust our course through the nebula in response to that magnetar?” He pointed a claw at the star, several light years away, which rotated once every twenty-two minutes and cast a scintillating lightshow through the nebula.
“Very minimally,” Lilith said. “Not enough that a human would notice.”
“But that minimal difference would add up over hundreds of thousands of years?”
Everyone’s eyes widened, and they looked at Lilith who, after a moment, began to look uncomfortable.
“Yes,” she admitted. “I am sorry, I was foolish.”
“No,” Minu said quickly, “no one expects you to think of everything.”
“That’s why you have friends,” Cherise said. Lilith looked at her, and Cherise winked and gave her a huge smile.
“I cannot tell when you are being serious,” Lilith complained. Everyone chuckled, and Lilith looked around suspiciously. She’d come far in both human and alien interaction, but humor was something she struggled with and probably always would. Bakook watched it all with disinterest.
“Can you extrapolate based on the magnetar’s influence?” Minu asked, getting them back on track.
“Yes,” Lilith said. A second later, the swarm of distant Eseel began to change course. “It will take a day or more to reposition the search and correlate the results.”
* * *
It took two days. They’d found the fleet just hours earlier. Minu, Aaron, Cherise, Bran, the head of the scientific team, Bakook, Kal’at, and Captain Pape gathered in the CIC as Lilith worked with the displays in the circular space.
Now they were close enough to the magnetar that the ships had to use shields to avoid damage to their sensitive systems when its frighteningly powerful magnetic field and gamma ray shockwave passed by. The flashes lit up space all around them, creating the effect of floating in a rainbow kaleidoscope of milky fireworks every twenty-two minutes.
“I found a cloud of accreted debris first,” Lilith told them, then nodded to Cherise. “It was highly magnetic, making it clump together. I reviewed the course it must have taken, did a baseline extrapolation, and recalculated. And here we are.”
