Void Hounds Chapter 32
"Captain Harrison, you are required on the bridge immediately," Shelton's voice issued from the comm panel. Harrison looked up in surprise, distracted from the paperwork on his screen. He had spent the last shift in his quarters, dealing with the endless filing that came with running a ship. Reports and shift rotas, repair estimates, deuterium reserves, medical certificates, a food processor on deck six glitching and only producing banana soup. Harrison was heartily glad of an excuse to leave this task for a time.
"On my way," Harrison called then took off. It was a short walk to the bridge, though slowed by the bustling crew tending to the ship's guts. They were tired and grim, working round the clock to make good the ship's wounds. Harrison had kept them working hard for days, too busy to dwell on their building resentment. After the riot in the mess hall it was best not to leave them any idle time. Sweeps by Troopers had broken up several fistfights in the lower decks and department chiefs had bawled out troublemakers repeatedly. Even with all these measures the crew was barely keeping it together. Harrison hoped a new development would provide some distraction, they desperately needed it.
"Captain on bridge!" Shelton announced as he entered and slipped into his command chair.
"What's the emergency?" Harrison asked as he checked the Holoviewer.
"Not an emergency," Shelton replied, "But the next wormhole is forming three and half hours ahead of schedule."
Harrison saw it as an icon in the Holoviewer, an orange smudge of contorting gravitic eddies. The system the crew had taken to calling Northying was barren, lacking planetary bodies, the red giant having long since eaten all the matter in its orbit. Consequently wormholes were rare in this system, infrequent and brief in their openings. The positive was the Guild hadn't been able to follow them, if the Jackals even knew where they had gone. The downside was they had waited nearly a week for a distant star to interact with the red giant's gravity well and generate an exit.
"Yadav said it would be three hours," Harrison mused.
Yadav looked less than pleased, "This system is uncharted, I have incomplete data-points to work with."
"Or maybe your math was wrong," Meyer grinned cheekily.
"My data-models are never wrong," Yadav growled, "But our grav-instruments cannot chart every fluctuation in a stellar system in only a few days."
Darvis looked worried, "Is there a chance the wormhole won't go where we want?"
Yadav sounded offended, "My calculations show this wormhole will take us towards Entente space. I am certain of it."
"You were certain it would be three more hours," Darvis muttered sullenly.
Shelton pursed her lips, "How many more jumps till we cross the border?"
"No way to know," Yadava sighed, "Not until I can study the next system's gravitic eddies."
The icon in the Holoviewer flashed green and Harrison ordered, "There it is. Meyer, take us in. Jump when ready." Swiftsure moved forward, coasting smoothly on her Propulsors into the aperture. Harrison kept a sharp eye on the chronometers, and yet he was still surprised when the transit came. Seconds lost, memories stolen, and the faint pulse of a headache behind his eyes. Once more they had crossed lightyears in seconds, without remembering having done so.
"Situation report!" Harrison barked.
"No objects within five lightminutes, no enemies detected," Shelton stated.
"No radiation spikes or gravity sinks," Sato declared, "We are in no danger."
"Picking up a planetary body nearby," Yadav informed everybody, "We have transited in the starward Lagrange point of a gas giant."
"That's promising," Harrison mused, "Any other signs of planets?"
"Stand by," Yadav demurred, "Computers are compiling grav-readings. We have arrived in a system dominated by a main-sequence star. Reading seven planetary masses, with over a hundred moons and an asteroid belt. One gas giant, the furthest out, the remaining planets are either too close or too far from the star to support life."
Harrison accepted this, life-bearing worlds were supremely rare, less than one percent of charted planets. Unless there were exotic resources in-system it was doubtful the Guild would maintain a presence here, if they had even discovered this system. Swiftsure might be the first human ship to visit this star.
Harrison relaxed, sure danger was absent, but then Darvis' hands stirred over her controls, "I'm picking up signal traffic!"
Harrison blinked, "Radio noise, from whom?"
"Unknown, I can't make out the encryption."
Meyer shot bolt upright in his chair, "Aliens! Gods, it's aliens!"
"Stop watching cheap Holovids," Sato spat, "It's probably a Guild mining outpost."
Darvis however shook her head, "These sounds are human in origin, but not a language I recognise. Some form of encrypted syntax. It's familiar, but I can't break it without more data. The signal noise is dense, radiating from several planetary bodies. Too much for an outpost, this is civilisation-level noise. Altogether the noise equals a Core planet. Running analysis… the computers are parsing the sources… Estimate is… Sir, this amount of noise could only be generated by a civilisation of two or three billion people."
Shelton started upright, "That's equal to the population of Jaipur!"
"Spread over several planets but it's still a lot," Harrison mused.
"How could the Guild maintain a colony this big without us knowing about it?!"
"Let's ask," Harrison concluded, "Sergeant Cooper, please escort Artur Kivenen to the bridge."
Minutes crawled by as they waited, Swiftsure drinking up data all the while. Starships were small and cold objects in the void, but planets were big, easily spotted by their mass-shadows and signal noise. From what they could see this star system boasted many colonies, on worlds ranging from Class C to D on the Seager scale. The planet nearest the star was Class E, a toxic pressure cooker of a planet with acid for air, but the rest could sustain sealed human colonies. Nobody would be walking anywhere without protection, but with atmo-domes and environmental suits one could survive.
Artur soon arrived and was informed of what they'd found. The exiled Director frowned, "There's no Guild colony in this system, I'm sure of it."
"Maybe Omeran didn't tell you?" Shelton mused.
"He couldn't hide this," Artur corrected, "Why would he, when this colony is a treasure trove of resources?"
Harrison accepted this, "A Dark Colony then: Isolationists and religious fanatics, seeking to break ties with Entente and Guild alike. Whoever settled here wanted to drop out of sight and never come back."
"They're certainly making a lot of noise for someone wanting to hide," Shelton remarked.
"That is odd," Harrison accepted, "Anyone within a dozen lightyears must be able to hear them. Not typical behaviour at all."
Yadav broke in, "Energy flare! We're picking up a hot object moving towards the gas giant. There's a ship out there, twelve lightminutes away."
"That's beyond sensor range," Meyer gasped, "How can we see that far?!"
"Propulsors radiate no heat," Yadav stated, "This ship is radiating energy, it's very hot against the cold background of space. But I don't understand why it's wasting so much energy."
"Let's find out, steer course 130 mark 090, best speed," Harrison ordered. Swiftsure came about, pushing her Propulsors to one-eighth lightspeed. At this velocity it would take them forty-two minutes to reach the edge of sensor range, but they could track the object by the heat it was radiating. Harrison spent the time wondering if it was a ship in distress, with beached reactors or otherwise damaged. He could think of no other reason a ship would be spilling energy so wastefully, and neither could Artur when pressed. The mystery of this system waited to be explored, and despite the lingering prospect of conflict with the Guild he found himself intrigued.
"Coming into sensor range," Shelton said half an hour later.
"Give me a close look," Harrison ordered, then his jaw fell in shock.
Presented in the Holoviewer was an elongated craft made of spars and bulbous containment chambers. At one end was a cluster of cylinders and outriggers, hanging around a bulky deuterium tank. They clung to its flanks like baby Narvals clinging to a mother, held fast by reinforced rods. From the fuel tank extended a long boom, thrice the length of the rest of the ship put together. At the end of this scaffold was a cluster of reaction chambers and bulging exhausts, which spewed radioactive particles in a long stream. Barely half Swiftsure's length, and a hundredth her mass, the entire craft was sailing backwards, expelling thrust towards the gas giant as she manoeuvred into orbit.
"That's a Torch-ship!" Harrison exclaimed, "That's a Fusion-torch ship!"
"I thought they were extinct," Shelton asserted.
"They are, they were outmoded the day the first Propulsor was invented. Nobody in the Entente uses them."
"Neither does the Guild," Artur interjected, "They are unbelievably slow and cost-inefficient. Look how much energy she's venting, you could run a Propulsor-ship for a year on the deuterium that barge is wasting."
"Why's she sailing backwards?" Meyer wondered.
"Because she has to," Shelton explained, "She can only thrust in one direction. If they're moving into orbit around that gas giant then she needs to decelerate. Our sensors judge that fusion-drive is producing 0.1g thrust, it must take them weeks to get up to speed, and then to slow down again. No Propulsors, no G-dampeners, no shields… hell, no artificial gravity. What must life be like on a ship like that?"
"We should initiate contact," Harrison ordered, "Take us into real-time communication range. Sound ready alert."
Swiftsure moved closer as her defences were brought to readiness. Harrison wondered why they weren't hailing the newcomer, then he realised the Torch-ship probably couldn't see them. Whoever built that barge probably calibrated its sensors to look for similar craft, ships that radiated energy like a beacon-fire. Propulsors were cold and efficient, almost invisible against the background of space. The Battlecarrier was sleek as velvet and smooth as silk, in comparison to that obsolete barge.
They were practically on top of the strange conveyance before she reacted. Energy spikes and radio-alerts blaring like a supernova betrayed their alarm. It must have been a shock for the foreign crew, seeing a ship thrice their length and a hundred times their mass appearing from nowhere. Decelerating without any visible means of altering speed. Harrison imagined the strangers must feel like ancient mariners seeing a leviathan bursting through the surface of an ocean swell.
"I think we scared them," Shelton commented.
"Let's try to make contact," Harrison agreed, "Hail them."
"Greetings unknown craft, this is the CPEA ship Swiftsure, please respond," Darvis signalled.
"They're not responding," Artur pointed out.
"Unknown vessel, this is Swiftsure, we mean you no harm, please respond."
"That got a response," Meyer said, "Aspect change, they're altering course."
The Holoviewer showed chemical thrusters firing, bringing the torch-ship's bow away from Swiftsure. The trailing wash of radiation slewed about and the barge began to move off, still decelerating but inching away from the Void Hounds. Harrison watched in amazement, he'd never considered a Battlecarrier agile before, but compared to this barge Swiftsure was a sleek racer, able to pivot on the spot and accelerate at a rate the strangers couldn't dream of. Swiftsure could run rings around that Torch-ship, despite outmassing them a hundred times over.
"Give me a direct channel," Harrison commanded, "Unknown vessel; we are travellers from a distant star. We have crossed many lightyears to meet you. This ship represents a league of human colonies, similar to your own. We mean you no harm. Please establish a visual link, so we may extend the hand of friendship."
A voice through the open channel, "Blackguard! No esprit yonder our terrenes there be. Thee art an Ascendency cozenage. True souls deny truckle to imperiousness. The Rebel Congruity shall ever deny forfeit!"
"What the Frig did he just say?" Meyer blinked.
"I have no idea," Sato groaned.
Harrison tried again, "Unknown vessel, we are not targeting you. There is no need for alarm."
But the reply came, "Giveth us lybertie or giveth us deathe!"
"Wait!" Artur yelped, "I recognise that phrase… that's an Old Earth saying."
"Anglish!" Harrison exclaimed in shock, "They're speaking Anglish!"
Darvis' hands flew over her controls, "Gods! I thought it was a Shibboleth code, but it's actually linguistic drift. They're not talking Anglish, but a derivation of it. Syntax and nouns have drifted off true, that's why I couldn't make it out."
Meyer frowned, "Wait, they don't even speak the common tongue?"
"They must have been isolated for a long time," Harrison frowned, "Maybe even from the first days of the Entente Pact."
Shelton leaned forward, "Interesting as that is, what are we going to do about that ship?"
Yadav checked his readings, "They're diverging course wildly, desperate to get away. Even if they course correct immediately they are adding weeks to their journey. If they continue they may lose any chance of making orbit."
Sato frowned, "I don't like their stress-tolerances, if they push that drive any harder their ship will break apart. They must be red-lining their engines to get away."
Harrison sighed, "They clearly don't want to talk to us. Maybe we will have more luck with their destination. Meyer, take us to course 090 mark 000, let's leave these people in peace."
Swiftsure curved about and accelerated to one-eighth lightspeed, with rapidity any Torch-ship could never have dreamed of. To the strangers it must have seemed the Battlecarrier danced in space, graceful and swift beyond their comprehension. Their barge would have ripped itself apart with a manoeuvre like that. Swiftsure tore away at a rate that would leave them gasping, left only with a tale of a ghost ship in the night, a story that would resound around drinking dens and seedy haunts for generations to come.
Swiftsure left them to the strangers to their ignorance as she sailed for the gas giant. The planet loomed ahead and Harrison commanded intense scrutiny as they approached, using the long minutes it took to close the distance to seek signs of habitation. A dozen moons orbited the planet, and intense study revealed many of them were Class-D, able to support mining colonies. Signal leakage betrayed many atmo-domes and outposts, three hundred million workers going about their lives, blissfully unaware of the greater universe beyond their star.
As Swiftsure closed orbital stations and shipyards betrayed their locations, innocently bleating radio signals without a care. But as the Battlecarrier rounded the angle of a large moon something much more interesting was discovered. A dozen Torch-ships, moving around each other in a complex dance of thrust and mass. Weapons fired, missiles streaked from outriggers and escape pods tumbled away, bleating cries of distress. Harrison's jaw fell as he beheld a battle playing out, a conflict in the void as vicious as any he'd ever seen.
"What is happening?!" Artur gulped.
"Those ships are firing at each other," Shelton explained.
"I can see that, but why?!"
Harrison gripped his armrest tight as he determined, "It seems we've stumbled onto a conflict between the inhabitants of this system. Swiftsure has just blundered into someone else's war."