Preface - Part 1: With good intentions
[February 9th 2153 1221 SMT] [Kepler 9 hubsystem] [CA203 Anniversary]
Lieutenant Carl Wall was bored. For a day they were already waiting here doing nothing. It would be at least a week, maybe a whole month before the relay expedition made their way back here. Apart from constant watchkeeping shifts interrupted by drills, meals and some sleep there would be nothing to do. He looked at his assistant. Lieutenant junior-grade Erika Sorenson looked good. Even from behind. Her nordic heritage made her especially pale looking. They all looked pale. Naval personal was generally called zombies for a reason. Their enhancements, that they were in artificial environments most of the time and wearing skinsuits for days or weeks at a time left them all with unhealthy looking complexions. On her it looked good. What was he doing? He had to stop this line of thought before it got him into trouble. Again.
He turned his head towards Lieutenant-Commander Erdmann, the Executive Officer, sitting in the captain's chair in the center of the bridge. He was studying something on his console and looked at least as bored as himself.
"Boss." He turned back looking at his assistant. "Farseer five just picked up a transfer at relay two. Still counting," she said with a voice sounding as if she just woke up. "Time delay?" he asked back. The EVA, the computer gave an answer with its monotone and somehow distant female voice. "Comm delay to the Farseer five platform is six minutes 45 seconds." "Count?" He asked hoping his assistant would answer. Even half asleep her voice sounded better. "Sixteen point sources, unknown ship profiles and no reaction to the IFF challenge." Now she was fully awake and her voice sounded almost as distant as the EVA.
Erdmann suddenly appeared to his right. He must have realized something had happened. Not to hard with half the watch sleeping with open eyes and no word spoken for over an hour.
"XO, Farseer five picked up relay activity at number two," He heard himself saying, also sounding somewhat distant. The thousand hours of training took over. Erdmann was obviously thinking their relay expedition made their way back, asking if it was them. He answered, "preliminary count is sixteen point sources matching no known profile and no reaction to the IFF challenge. It's not them, sir. The comm delay..." Erdmann didn't let him finish. He pushed the intercom button on his wristpanel, calling, seemingly to the wall, "captain to the bridge" and then facing him "Carl, Anni run an analysis. The captain will be here soon. Put it on the board."
He didn't like it when someone called the computer with a name. Anni. Short for Anniversary the ships name. It reminded him that they were just the biological components of a giant weapon system, incapable of handling it without the computers help. He tended to simply utter his questions without addressing anyone in particular. If nobody knew the answer the computer would give it on its own. Calling the thing by a name just seemed wrong to him.
He continued where Erdmann interrupted him before "...the distance is five point six light-minutes. They came in slow at point 015 c. They are accelerating towards Bravo at 250 g and they are keeping a tight formation. Until Farseer three or nine get a look on the other side, they could be hiding more contacts in their shadow."
While he uttered all this information he was already piecing it together into a picture as it was his job as tactical officer. The unknowns were obviously very fast or in a hurry. While their own ships could accelerate with more than 500 gravities, doing so required the whole crew to go into liquid immersion tanks. And it used up their reaction mass within three weeks. Accelerating with more than 30 gravities was rarely done. So whoever they were, they were in a hurry. And behind their blindingly bright engine exhaust more of them could hide. They were alien so all this could be meaningless. The infrared pictures he was looking at clearly showed that they were using an antimatter drive just like their own ships. So they had to have fuel considerations. For the moment he was just guessing.
"How long till we know?" Erdmanns question snapped him back into the present, but he waited to long so the computer gave the answer in its usual manner.
"Three minutes 27 seconds ago plus six minutes and 43 seconds for Farseer three. One minute 32 seconds ago plus six minutes for Farseer nine." All this information about time delay due to light lag once made his head spin. Three years of naval academy had cured him of that.
He heard himself giving his tactical assessment almost as a reflex. "We are in the relative shadow of Charlie for another four hours, maybe longer if they change course, but they have a direct line towards Al and Sparta." There he had used the names the crews of the Alliance and the Thermopylae had given their respective EVA, but he, like almost everyone used them to refer to the ships as a whole. The Anniversary was currently in a 250000 kilometer orbit around the third planet in the Kepler hubsystem, Kepler 9-c or simply Charlie. The planet stood between them and their visitors. All the information they received came from surveillance satellites and drones scattered throughout the system and was relayed to them by a small fleet of communication satellites. The unknowns couldn't see them but they could see the other two ships. And they would probably react to their presence.
Suddenly he realized what was happening. This was another first contact. The last time, long before he was born, when humans still lived on earth, such an event marked the beginning of a new era. An era of large deprivations. They lost earth but at the end of it humanity as a whole fared very good. What would happen this time. Could this lead to another golden age.
Erdmann just made the same connection when he asked with a bit of tension in his voice if the unknowns matched Scrin signatures. He tipped the back of his assistant, indicating her to give an answer. She promptly did. "Not even close, sir. Scrin didn't use AM engines. The spectral pattern indicates metallic hulls not crystal. The only analogy is the obvious use of a cloud cooler." Just hearing her say it made him remember the pictures from school. The crystalline spaceships appearing out of white clouds in deep space. Today he knew that those clouds were probably the coolant from their droplet cooler. If one could look at the Anniversary from outside it would look just the same.
The information that it wasn't Scrin seemed to have eased Erdmann. His next question sounded calm again and was obviously meant for the computer. "How long until the others know?" The answer came prompt. "21 seconds till the signal from Farseer five reaches the Alliance, 22 seconds for the Thermopylae." This reminded him that just four minutes had passed since they first got the information. It felt almost like twenty minutes but the clock on top of his console didn't lie. Suddenly the small specialist sitting at the navigation console to his left jumped up and shouted "CAPTAIN ON DECK." That woke up everyone who wasn't already concentrating at the unrest at his station. He turned to his right, looking past Erdmann who did the same.
In she came. Captain Fateme Rahimi. Being among the few dark-skinned persons aboard she did not look like a ghost like the rest of them. She stopped next to her chair near the center of the bridge and addressed Erdmann with her deep, easily identifiable voice, "Jonas, sitrep."
"Nine minutes ago approximately sixteen unknowns entered the system through relay two. Probably not Scrin. They will see Al and Sparta any minute, but we have Charlie between us and them." Erdmann summed everything up. If the revelation fazed her in any way her voice didn't betray her. "Very well. I have the conn."
The EVA immediately reacted. "Logged. CO Rahimi has the conn. XO Erdmann stands relieved." Making it clear for everyone on the bridge who was giving the orders. Her next one came prompt. Addressing Alex Munns, a fellow Lieutenant who had the communications watch.
"Alex, contact Al and Sparta. Tell them to run the standard contact drill as if we were not here. Al takes the lead. Sparta should launch one insight as obviously as possible towards the newcomers for use as a comm buoy." Munns acknowledged and his assistant reread the message, which was written in a more clear-cut form.
"Alliance and Thermopylae are to initiate standard first contact procedures with Alliance leading and Thermopylae backing. Anniversaries presence is to be kept secret. Thermopylae is to launch one insight in an obvious manner towards the unknowns vector and Alliance should use it as comm buoy." The message would reach the two ships almost two minutes later. Standard first contact procedures, while never used before, were the brainchild of someone who survived the first contact with the Scrin over a hundred years ago. Al would try to initiate contact while Sparta would run away to inform the rest of SDI, the rest of humanity that they were not alone, again.
Now he was asked for an update on their guests. Those guests did not sleep. He summed up what he was just seeing on his console. "Yes. They have probably seen Al and Sparta and are changing course. They are now on a direct vector towards Kepler 9-3 and are accelerating at 560 g." Which was impressive. 10 gravities above Anniversaries safety limit. Still 40 gravities short of the design limit but impressive nonetheless. At a distance of over six lightminutes, the "guests" could hardly identify Al or Sparta, since both ships were just sitting next to the inactive Kepler 9-3 mass relay with deactivated engines. And they just started to run towards them as if they threatened to blow up the systems primary. Erdmann summed up what everyone was thinking with a simple "Wow!" which in turn got him a friendly reprimand from the captain.
"Very professional Jonas. Timeframe?"
The EVA voice reminded him of the problem at hand. "Two hours and 30 minutes for a zero-zero intercept against Alliance, one hour and 50 minutes for a straight run." It described the outer limits for the unknowns attempt to reach the other ships. A zero-zero intercept meant they came to a full stop relative to their targets by reversing their acceleration halfway and a full run meant constant acceleration the whole way. That would mean passing by Al and Sparta with a velocity of 12% of the speed of light. He wouldn't know for sure until they passed the halfway mark in one hour and 15 minutes.
Meanwhile the captain was looking through the surveillance pictures taken by Farseer five. "That looks like a very dense formation. Can you render a model and show their actual spacing?" Of course it did. Maybe they tried to hide something or maybe their hull construction could stand the immense heat of their engines better. If they were using thermographic sensors, the close proximity had to decrease sensor resolution. Thoughts went through his mind at incredible speed while he tried to complete his picture of the visitors. He summed up his recent line of thought.
"Already working on it. Their new course brings them close to Farseer eight and later on Farseer fifteen. Probably under thousand clicks for the latter. Also our time in hiding went up to five hours." If they just waited the unknowns would run by the lifeless planet below them without knowing they were there until they were right behind them in a perfect intercept position. If the captain wanted to attack the unknowns they could accelerate on an intercept vector for over three hours before revealing themselves. In that very second a message from another observation satellite arrived.
"We have the reading from Farseer three. There are indeed sixteen unknowns. Nine corvette-sized, four frigate-sized three destroyer-sized. Also very strong localized mass distortions indicating mass altering equipment. Their real drive output should be around 33..35g so they are running light by factor 18."
Whoever they were, their motive system was far superior to everything SDI scientists had ever thought of. If they had a mass effect core as efficient as the visitors, they could easily reach 400 gravities without using the tanks. With the tanks they could go over a thousand gravities. The thought was troubling. It meant the visitors could potentially outrun their missiles, could force them into a close range engagement where acceleration and numerical superiority meant certain victory for them. His longing for peaceful contact with them increased.
"Unknown formation model ready. Distance between unknown ships between six and fourteen clicks." Yet again the EVA pulled him back into the here and now. The captain looked at Erdmann for a few seconds then she said: "Jonas, wake up all technicians and have them run checks on the equipment. Speed up the repairs on auxpower four, organize parties to clean the lenses and mirrors and secure everything for a full run. Combat readiness no later than 1400. Meal at 1420, general quarters at 1500. Relieve me at 1400. Got it?"
Now everyone on the bridge knew what was coming. Combat readiness in three hours. If the visitors didn't make peaceful contact they could be at war with them in two hours, even less if they used missiles. He was still hoping for the best. The captain was preparing for the worst.
In the background he heart the communication exchange between the three ships of their unit. He was concentrating on the constantly updated image of their visitors trying to understand their capabilities a little better. During the next two hours almost nothing changed. They were clearly running towards Al and relay three. By now they were moving with 10% of the speed of light. Sparta was moving away towards the Kepler 9-1 relay with an acceleration of 250 gravities. He knew that their crew had nothing to laugh right now. Suddenly they changed their mind. His assistant told the captain.
"Unknowns have split their formation. Unknown one, five ships, ceased deceleration and is drifting with point 10 c towards Al. Unknown two, the other eleven, are accelerating at 500 g on an intercept vector towards Sparta." The EVA added: "Unknown two will overtake Thermopylae two point two seconds short of the relay with point 61 c at their point 46 c in four hours assuming they go for a running intercept." The captain spoke out loud what he was thinking "Anni, will Sparta get away if they run?"
"Thermopylae can push the point of intercept one point one six seconds towards the relay and the speed differential down to point 12 c. That would mean a high velocity crash transfer into the relay. Their chances of survival are point 07 percent. Assuming unknown two let them get that far."
That was not soothing. Not even a little. Relay travel was always a little tricky. The velocity during relay transfer had a safety limit around 3% of the speed of light. Everything above was called a crash transfer and meant a heightened chance of ripping the ship apart during the transfer. Initiating the transfer with half the speed of light meant certain death. Well a 99.93% percent chance to die according to the EVA. Almost certain.
The reaction of the captain was prompt "Comm, message to Sparta: don't panic. We have your back." That meant war. And they would have to fire the first shot. He barely registered Erdmann coming back onto the bridge. His eyes were fixed on the console before him. He could hardly believe what he was just seeing. At least now they wouldn't be the ones to shoot first.
"Oh shit" was all he was thinking and the captains reaction meant he let it out loud.
"Watch your tongue lieutenant." Before he could explain himself the EVA in its monotone voice told everyone what just happened.
"Emergency dump file AG252 Alliance received. Ship presumed lost with all hands. Confirmed. Uncontrolled antimatter annihilation at last known position detected. The time is 1434 SMT. Last known position logged."
For two seconds no word was spoken. A loud siren interrupted the silence. He could hear Erdmanns voice simultaneously from behind him and over the intercom, as could everyone else aboard the Anniversary.
"This is not a drill. All hands. General quarters. Department heads report in."