Authors: Dave O'Connor

Tags: #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Space Opera, #Book 4 of Warner’s World, #space, #Military, #Romance, #Adventure, #World, #opera, #sci-fi, #Warner's

Retribution (45 page)

That was what had been agreed before Yomoto had shanghaied her to temporarily command the Mailon until the permanent commander arrived. Dave wanted her in a safer role. But she was having mixed feelings now. They had been trying to conceive for months now but so far with no luck. The doctors had assured her that her previous miscarriage on Klaster when it was nuked had not caused her any permanent problems. But she wasn’t so sure.

‘Bastards’ she mouthed silently. Part of her mind, though, cut in and she dropped the animosity. ‘I’m better than that now’ she reminded herself.

She glanced over at the dark shape beside her. ‘Yes I will be safe but what of you my love? What does the Admiral have in store for you once the Kiev is here to secure Chelora?’

She thought of her good friend Commander Aubrey Bellard and how her ship, the Phantom, would be arriving soon in rogan space. ‘That could have been my command.’ But she didn’t begrudge Aubrey her appointment. Part of her did not envy Aubrey at all. Her mission to support the rogan resistance overthrow the Imperialists was incredibly challenging and highly dangerous even with the latest stealth ship in the fleet.

She recalled the look of resolve on Aubrey’s face just before she departed. The English rose had become the steeled hunter. Aubrey was all serious business. ‘No Aubrey was the right choice’ thought Rihan. She smiled. She had seen that look on her good friend in battle before. Over Alpha Phi, when she was in a lather of anxiety herself, it had been Aubrey who stepped up to the plate and took control of the battle. ‘No Aubrey will do just fine. We can count on her.’

Chapter 8. Phantom to Sturam 0200, 2 August

“What the …” exclaimed Aubrey as she was rolled out of bed. The ship was turning and rolling. She stuck out her hand instinctively to arrest the impact. “Aagh” she cried out as her hand jarred against the ceiling of her cabin. She felt like a piece of clothing inside a tumble dryer. Her body was sliding down now. Thankfully her cabin was small. She extended her legs and then cursed as she was again being rolled. She fell onto the top of her desk and managed to grab hold. She thanked that it was bolted down to the floor.

Her communicator was bouncing off the floor along with her console. It hit her in the forehead on the next roll. She knew she would have a big bruise there real soon. She didn’t dare let go to try and grab the communicator. Around again and she forced her mind to focus on the predicament. “Cabin, lights” she commanded and the lights came on. “Officer of the watch” she barked.

The motion was still playing havoc with her sense of balance. She hung on for dear life as the ship was effectively inverted. The gravity well had obviously failed.

“Watch” she barked again.

“Maam” came the reply into the cabin comms channel.

“Is that you Alice?” asked Aubrey.

“Yes Maam” replied 2
^ndLt Alice Wu who had scored the dog watch. “Somehow we’ve come out of warp.” Alice was strapped into her chair in the Command Centre, trying to maintain a focus on the screen in front despite the rolling motion of the craft.

“Has the gravity well malfunctioned?”

Alice interrogated the system status on the workstation in front of her. “Not according to the system but it has been turned off. Should I turn it back on?”

“Do it and engage the autopilot. That should stabilise us” said Aubrey still clutching onto the top of her desk.

Alice was being hailed by just about everyone now. She ignored them all and focused on the workstation controls. She activated the autopilot first. This had the immediate effect of stabilising the craft as the autopilot engaged the required thrusters. Alice issued a ‘holding racetrack’ for the autopilot to follow.

“Thank god for that” exclaimed Aubrey back in her cabin as the rolling stopped. She let go of the desk but began to float. She grabbed the desk with her hands and swung her feet down to the floor which was now in the usual position below the ceiling. Then she felt the gravity well come into force. She felt for her forehead and felt the sliminess of her own blood. Her T shirt was covered in a series of blood stains like someone had splashed her with a paint brush at different angles.

“Well done Alice” she hailed. “SITREP?”

Alice checked the sensors and determined that there were no threats. She then focussed on the holo in the centre of the command centre in which was displayed the surrounding star map. They were near a big gas giant in a star system called Qwantum but she didn’t recognise it. But that was to be expected given that they were traversing into rogan space where no human had ventured before.

“SITREP Alice?”

“Yes Maam” replied Alice. “We’ve come out of warp in the Qwantum star system, near a gas giant, no threats, we’re in a holding pattern, no damage alerts. I’ll do a pers check now.”

“All right. Keep us on an even keel. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Aubrey made her way to her ensuite and winced as she pulled away her hand. It would need a deep cut patch (DCP). She splashed some water onto her face, bowed her head and watched as the blood stained rivulets flowed into the sink. She reached for the hand towel and with it applied pressure to her forehead. It was already hurting. She came back into the main cabin, found her pants on the floor. With one hand she pulled them on while sitting on the edge of her bed.

“Alice” she hailed “Casualties?”

“Still determining, Maam…mostly cuts and abrasions. The worst so far is Cpl Felix with a fractured arm. The doc is with him now.”

“Looks like I need a DCP. I’m going to the med bay. Hold the fort. Oh and get Bob to find out what happened.”

1
^stLt Bob Ditmar was not surprised when Alice passed on the commander’s request. He left Cpl Chester Felix in the hands of the ship doctor, 1
^stLt James Dunstan. He sat down at his workstation in the engineering section of the ship. His first guess had been that the gravity well had failed like it had on the Resolute on its first mission. But he was now puzzled. The system was saying that the gravity well was functioning perfectly.

“Mmm…something caused you to shut down though” he said out loud but to no one in particular.

Sgt Tanya Shilton came over and stood behind her boss as he interrogated the data. “Well if it’s not our gravity well then some other gravity anomaly brought us out of warp” she contributed.

“Probably….but what?” Bob’s first guess was the nearby star but the initial system analysis said all was OK. He worked his way through the five planets. “Got it!” exclaimed Bob.

“What?” asked Tanya.

“There” said Bob pointing to the third and fourth planets. The third was a huge ice world, known imaginatively as Q3 and the fourth an even bigger gas giant, known as Q4. “Look at the variance in the magnetic fields between these two.”

“And look at the size of this gas giant. It must be 30% less than what it should be.”

“It’s mass has increased and it’s sucking the ice world in” added Bob.

“And us too if we hang around here!”

“Maam” hailed Bob.

“Bob” responded Aubrey as the medic applied the deep cut patch to her forehead. He was pinching the skin on either side of the cut as he applied the patch, much to Aubrey’s annoyance. She knew it was necessary to prevent scarring but the bruised area complained the only way it knew how. The result was pain for Aubrey and that pain manifested in her voice.

“Are you alright Maam” asked Bob.

“I’ll be fine. What have you got?”

The nearby gas giant has gained mass and shrunk 30% according to the star chart. Its gravity has increased correspondingly but it’s erratic causing an oscillation. It’s also pulling the next closest planet towards it.”

“So why has this forced us out of warp?”

“It’s a really significant shift in the gravitational field, well over what was expected when the warp route was calculated. If it had been a constant the warp drive would have compensated but the oscillation has triggered its fail safe to cut in.”

“But these charts are from the Mailon, and can’t be more than a month out of date” queried Aubrey.

“That’s right Maam. So either the charts are wrong or this phenomenon has occurred in the last month.”

“You can’t be serious. There is no reason to believe that these charts would have been wrong and gas giants don’t degrade that fast. Well not any we know” she added.

“That’s for sure and I would bet that the characteristics of gas giants are the same in this part of the galaxy as in ours. So my best guess is that something ‘external’ has happened here.”

“What do you mean?” Aubrey sighed with relief as the medic released his grip on her head. She turned to the medic and asked “Are we done?”

“Maam?” asked Bob.

“No not you Bob. I’m just trying to get the medic here to leave me be.” The medic took the hint. He was a bit put out but had plenty of other patients to attend to. He simply waved his open hand to indicate she could go. Aubrey nodded. She realised her temper had let her down. She tried to make up by mouthing ‘thank you’ to the medic but his attention was now on the injured knee of the next patient. Aubrey sighed as she got to her feet and walked out of the med bay.

“Sorry Bob. So what are you saying - that some event in the last thirty days has caused this gas giant to shrink?”

“Exactly and I’ll lay odds it’s been manufactured. How, I don’t know for sure. Most likely a PME device.”

“A what?”

“A Pulman Mass Exchanger. They were outlawed under Geneva 2403 remember?”

“No, I’m not that old Bob – though I’m feeling older by the minute right now.”

Bob ignored her remark. “Suffice to say that PME devices were originally proposed to reduce the cost of resource extraction from gas giants. But after the first two tests caused both star systems to become unstable they were banned.”

“But the rogan don’t subscribe to Geneva conventions do they?”

“No Maam.”

“Why here? Why now?”

“I don’t know. Maybe this is a test.”

“Leave it with me Bob. Good work. Are we OK to resume warp?”

Bob looked up to Tanya who was shaking her head. “Not advised from our current location. We will need to use our impulse engines to get clear of this gravitational anomaly.”

“And how far is that?”

Bob was looking across to the other workstation where Tanya was doing some calculations. She turned to him and held up three fingers. “Hours?” he asked.

She shook her head and responded “Days!”

“About three days Maam.”

“Oh that’s terrific. Alright pass on the vector you reckon we should take to Alice. I’m on my way to the command centre right now. Thanks Bob.”

Back in the command centre Alice scanned again for threats. She again found none. There was very little traffic of any kind near the gas giant Q4. The Konkorda Pod 2 registered only as an inert piece of space junk that now, like so many other objects, was being sucked into the gravity well of the gas giant.

Its occupant was completely unaware of the Phantom for its cloaking had been automatically turned on when the ship was forced out of warp. Retna had in truth become quite depressed. He had pondered only a few hours earlier whether to go into cryo now and be done with it. But something in his character refused to give in. No he still hoped for some miracle.

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The story continues.

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Table of Contents

Part 1 Aftermath