The Bright And Hollow Sky

[Nik]

Oooh !!

FTL+ Big Mass = Yikes, they've mega-flared the star ?? Even my Convention are not going to try that. Their Exponent Drive won't work that deep in a gravity field. True, further out, you may dare strobe it, but ..

I'd offer my world to play in if you weren't doing so very well with yours....

More, please ?

FWIW, ordinance = local law, ordnance is the stuff you meant...

[pyan]

Originally Posted by Nik

Oooh !!

FTL+ Big Mass = Yikes, they've mega-flared the star ?? Even my Convention are not going to try that. Their Exponent Drive won't work that deep in a gravity field. .

Funnily enough, mine will - but it has the unfortunate side-effect of suppressing the charge on the atoms that make up the ship...

I rather thought that the mass of the star being so much greater, any effect would be on the ship and its immediate environs rather than the star itself...

[reiver33]

Teaser: who said the solar eruption was accidental?

[dustinzgirl]

Reiver, I really like this. I like the abstract feel of it. I love the title, its just perfect.

[reiver33]

Right then, this is the revised section three; mostly just tweaking in the first part but the last third is new, displacing the original narrative into the new section four.

In terms of the title it's an unashamed lift from a line in an Iggy Pop song "The Passenger" - the phrase just stuck in my head.


Three

The Human Anarchist League, as they now called themselves since the Dream appeared in known space, and they were a right royal pain in the a***. They’d been top of the Admiralty hit-list for years; stirring up trouble on those worlds which required strict government, supporting secessionists amongst the richer colonies and generally making a nuisance of themselves.

These rag-tag revolutionaries were based on a handful of pirated freighters and obsolete support craft, nothing that would pose any significant military threat. However, their continued ability to evade capture or confrontation indicated some degree of covert support from those corporations opposed to Heimat regulation, although the irony was probably lost on them.

They had declared themselves ‘co-belligerents’ in the war against the Dream, their haphazard assistance ranging from vaguely useful to outright annoying, and I didn’t have time to mollycoddle them in the face of a major attack.

“Shut off that babble, Mr Jenkins, and ignore all further transmissions from those vessels. It’s the HAL, ladies and gentlemen, so count your blessings we’re not depending on them. Miss Hughes, any change in the enemy deployments?”

“Still tracking ninety-four closing on our location and one hundred plus heading towards Magdalene Station. That, ah, choir, sir, is right on top of the main enemy formation and shows no sign of…wait, just a moment. I’m detecting FTL signatures from all seven HAL scouts, although I wouldn’t expect ships that small to be jump-capable. Surely they can’t carry enough shielding to protect the crew?”

I’d thought the HAL had simply planned to ram an equal number of Dream strike craft, as they’d developed a taste for suicide bombings prior to the war, but this was altogether more inventive. An unshielded FTL drive would kill the crew, just as surely as a high-impact collision, but attempting to jump in close proximity to a large mass was really going to spread the grief around.

“Sir, the enemy are firing on the HAL but I detect four, no, five jump events.”

“What effect has this had? Quickly now!”

“Sorry sir, just waiting for the distortion wave to clear…I estimate forty to fifty enemy craft have been destroyed or disabled. The remainder are still closing with the station. There’s no sign of the HAL scouts amongst the debris field.”

Mad bastards, but I’d raise a glass to them the next chance I got. Although that wouldn’t necessarily be in this lifetime the way things were looking.

“Mr Vought, status?”

“Unchanged from a few moments ago, Captain. Still no sign the enemy have detected our missiles, either that or they simply don’t-“

“Enemy movement, sir! Fifty to sixty strike craft from the formation headed our way have broken off and are vectoring towards our missiles.”

Vought laughed, although there was little humour in his voice.

“Me and my big mouth! Based on the estimated position, course and speed of our ordinance I’d say the Dream will intercept in approximately four minutes ten seconds. Still way outside the effective range of a strike on the carrier. Orders?”

I badly wanted to drum my fingers on the arm of my seat but the armoured gauntlets made that too laboured and awkward. Instead I took a deep breath and scanned the tactical overlay.

“What’s the enemy approach aspect?”

Vought paused, obviously running a scenario projection through tactical analysis.

“They’ll approach our missiles from dead astern, Captain, as what secondary armament their strike craft carry is forward-firing, clustered round the nose. The prediction is for an initial concentrated attack followed by dispersal to avoid damage from our warhead detonations, then a series of standard strike-and-withdraw manoeuvres by squadron. I estimate less than fifteen percent of our missiles will reach the enemy carrier. However, of a more immediate concern is the remaining enemy force, which will be within firing range in under two minutes.”

“Sir, the Solstice is signalling ‘Time to put up the umbrella’. Do you wish me to acknowledge?”

Right on cue.

“No need, Mr Jenkins. Helm, make sure we keep the Solstice between us and the enemy. That’s the shield in place, Mr Vought, now, how’s our sword?”

“All batteries stand ready, sir. I estimate the Solstice can maintain its flak barrage for no more than six minutes at maximum rate.”

“Very well, open fire once it’s fully formed. I don’t know how long we can depend upon telemetry from other sources and without it we’ll be as blind as the enemy.”

I called up a visual in time to see the Solstice open up, rolling slowly as she fired to spread the load and increase gun cooling time. It looked good though; a wall of continuous detonations from explosive rounds designed to frag incoming missiles and blind sensors. About as much use as a wet paper bag against the hyper-velocity kinetic crap the Dream favoured but at least now they wouldn’t see us coming.

An old friend in Fleet Logistics had secured me a half-load of cluster munitions, the only effective counter to a swarm attack and as such about as rare as hen’s teeth. Given that we were now facing only some thirty-odd enemy I started to feel cautiously optimistic about surviving their initial attack, as long as they didn’t get a clean shot at us. As we still had line-of-sight to Magdalene, and they had a powerful enough radar setup to accurately track the Dream, even at this range, we could guide our missiles in without recourse to their on-board sensors. No point in advertising their presence plus I’d been informed that Dream jamming technology had been improving with each encounter.

The universe drew breath.

“All batteries firing, sir.”

“Thank you, Mr Vought. Miss Hughes, give me an effectiveness estimate as and when you have any data. Now…sh*t.“

I still had a visual on the Solstice and saw her take four, five rounds in quick succession; direct hits straight through the flak barrage of which three were through-and-throughs. Her forward guns abruptly ceased fire and main engines plus all attitude jets began jetting spasmodically, sending her off in a lazy, tumbling spiral.

“How the hell are they so accurate? Mr Vought, Miss Hughes, anything to indicate we’ve got a watcher this side of the barrage?”

“No Captain, nothing registering.”

“Sorry sir, I’m not picking up any unknown transmissions. Maybe they have some means of tapping into Magdalene Station and are using its radar tracking, as we are.”

I didn’t have time to pursue this further as the cloaking effect of the barrage would start to dissipate immediately – not that it had done the Solstice much good – and our own point defence was based on gatling guns; capable of engaging an incoming missile but sod-all use in the current circumstances.

However I sill had an Ace up my sleeve. Well, if not exactly an Ace then definitely a Joker – a brand-new weapon, fresh out of the R&D labs on Tigris, which was a polite way of saying they’d be pleasantly surprised if the damn thing worked under battlefield conditions. Furthermore it wasn’t something I’d wanted to use if I could avoid it; it’s one thing to set an attack dog on someone, quite another to unleash a slavering, rabid beast.

My mouth was suddenly dry.

“Mr Vought, prepare and load Hellhound missile.”

“Sir, I’ve gone over the specs and the initiation sequence will take at least ten minutes to charge the on-board capacitors.”

“We simply don’t have ten minutes…reactor to one-hundred-ten percent! Divert all available power in a micro-surge on my command.”

I’d expected some comment, some warning from him, but he took it all in his stride, probably with a slight smile on his lips. He may not have been fazed by the prospect of staring oblivion in the face but I could see a couple of quizzical heads turned in our direction as the rest of the bridge crew had no idea what the hell we were on about.

Just as well.

“Reactor failsafe disengaged; power at one-one-two percent and climbing.”

Either this worked perfectly or we were all dead, but unless there was an afterlife I’d never know just how badly I’d screwed up.

“Initiate power transfer…now!”

All systems across the board flickered, but reality didn’t come to an end. When Vought spoke there was a hint of relief in his voice.

“Initiation successful and containment is holding steady. We have an estimated three minutes fifteen seconds before magnetic dissipation.”

“Immediate launch.”

One and two and three and…

“Missile away, sir. Designation is H-one.”

“Cease fire. Helm, bring us about, reciprocal course to the missile, all ahead full.”

“All ahead full, aye. Captain, we’re heading directly into the gas giant.”

“Thank you Mr Kurtz, I’m well aware of that.”

Normally I would have chewed him out for questioning an order on the bridge – Vought was the only one afforded that privilege – but I was concentrating on watching the Hellhound as it powered towards the Dream, their ships now showing as small specs through the remaining flak.

“H-one closing on target. Time to optimal deployment thirty-five seconds.”

Come on, don’t ignore it. You don’t want to swerve round it as that delays setting up the kill shot on us. Go on, shoot it down; you know you want to…

The Dream obliged. Reality vanished.

An artificial micro singularity, a mini black hole.

The heart of the Hellhound.

[reiver33]

The amended and section four. The old four (now five) follows straight after, with only a few tweaks.


Four

I stared into the abyss.

The Pandora shuddered.

“Sir, all forward movement has ceased. We’re being drawn backwards!”

I snapped out of my ghastly revere.

“Emergency power, all ahead flank. Miss Hughes, what’s happening out there?”

“We’ve lost all external telemetry, sir. Gravitational distortion makes it impossible to tell what effect this is having on the enemy.”

“Captain! We’re still moving backwards but forward sensors indicate we’re also closing on the gas giant.”

I was gripping my chair arms and could feel the ship trembling beneath me.

“Mr Vought! Anything left in the engines?”

“Currently at one-two-one percent of safe operational maximum. There won’t be anything left of the engines in about two minutes.”

I could see ring material streaming into the vortex and if this went on much longer it would be followed by the gas giant’s upper atmosphere. God knows what long term effect that would have on orbital stability but at the time it was the least of my concerns.

Miss Hughes spoke, her voice almost a squeak.

“Captain! The singularity event horizon is collapsing!”

“Helm, prepare to cut engines on my command.”

“Cut engines, sir?”

“Yes, cut engines on my command, Mr Kurtz, we won’t be needing them much longer.”

One way or the other.

“Captain, energy output from the singularity is increasing exponentially.”

Black hole, white hole.

The visual flared white and then cut off as light intensity overloaded the external sensors.

“Cut engines! In fact, full reverse!”

It was like a chain holding us back had snapped and Pandora leapt forward, the acceleration pressing me back into my chair.

“Shock wave approaching! All hands, brace for impact!”

I felt the ship twist and warp almost and someone cried out ‘Autopilot’, but I couldn’t tell you if it was me or Kurtz or the Archangel Gabriel himself. Then it was like a wind blowing past me, making my skin tingle, and my head was filled with a jumble of images; places, people – some long gone, some I didn’t remember. The disorientation was like that my last birthday when Vought and Kellerman slipped me a mild hallucinogenic in that bar on Rigel; not so much a distortion of reality but more a case of fixating on commonplace events and finding them endlessly funny.

I giggled, I laughed, I roared until my jaws ached, I screamed.

I blinked.

We were intact, the crew at their posts, stirring or already checking systems. The external visual had returned and was again white, but not the searing maw of a singularity inversion, more a swirling milky mist. From that I guessed me were in the gas giant’s atmosphere; I hadn’t flown this blind since the Dream warship and I hunted each other through the Great Nebula.

I blinked again, confused; that hadn’t happened.

Yet?

I took another stimulant as a guard against unhelpful thoughts and tried to speak, but my throat was so dry all I could manage was an inarticulate croak. I drank from my suit until the ‘refilling’ light came on and the world seemed a more manageable place.

“Mr Vought, status?”

“Captain. The ship is answering ‘all stop’, engines on standby. Our current position is some two hundred metres inside the atmospheric boundary but nothing our hull can’t handle. Most primary systems are functioning, although we sustained damage to our rear targeting array and attitude jets, in fact the whole stern took quite a beating from impacts with ring matter. Still, it could have been a lot worse.”

He straightened up and almost came to attention.

“I declare the ship fit for active duty and we await our command.”

“Thank you. Helm, take us up. Ready weapons.”

There was no discernable movement; the atmosphere simply thinned like fog on the breeze and suddenly we were in clear space again.

“Miss Hughes, kindly re-establish our data links. Mr Vought, do we have company?”

“I have the Solstice, sir, down range maybe twenty klicks. I’m not detecting any survivors of the force that engaged us.”

Thank you, Mr Vought. Miss Hughes, do you have an update?”

“Ah, yes sir. The most obvious thing is a massive energy build-up on the larger of the two HAL freighters, but it doesn’t have an FTL signature, nor is it like a reactor over-load. Sorry sir, but I can’t – what the f*** was that?”

I let the outburst go.

“Miss Hughes, if you please?”

“Ah, ah, sorry sir. Won’t happen again. There was an energy discharge, I mean an energy weapon, a coherent beam. From the freighter and directed at the enemy formation nearest to Magdalene Station. I mean, I’ve never seen anything like it, the sheer power of it was off the effing scale!”

“Casualties?”

“Ah, yes sir, just a moment. It looks like-“

A section of bulkhead behind her vanished, as did her head, and a section on the far side of the bridge.

There was light.

There was dark.

[reiver33]

Five

It only lasted a moment as far as I was concerned but when I blinked and refocused it was not a sight to gladden the heart. Vought was, from my perspective, walking on the ceiling, checking critical systems; ship first, crew second – even its captain. I realised I was floating free of my seat, still tethered by the umbilical although my suit was telling me it had switched to internal power. There was a small constellation of frozen blood floating about, so I didn’t bother checking on Miss Hughes and concentrated on pulling myself down the umbilical until my boots clamped to the decking.

“Mr Vought, status!”

No reply, indicating that the internal comms were out and I’d have to rely on suit-to-suit systems.

“Mr Vought?”

“Captain, I know it’s my job to be officially optimistic but I’m afraid the situation doesn’t warrant it. The reactor scrammed but the core remains stable, although we’re venting coolant, plus oxygen from the port tank. We’ve lost attitude control, radar, probably the aft dorsal battery in its entirety, plus the forward targeting array.”

He paused and drew breath.

“Internal comms are down but I’ve been able to daisy-chain from suit to suit and contact engineering; the port sub-light engine is ‘history’ according to Konev but FTL is operational. Restoring main power shouldn’t be a problem but I suggest we play dead for now until all damage reports are in. Things may look bad in here but I’m betting they look a damn sight worst from outside, and that’s why the Dream called off the attack. That had better be the case as at present I can’t even tell how many we’re up against.”

It didn’t really register at first, but I could see from the number of warning lights that the ship was barely hanging together in places, and I was thankful there were no accompanying audio alarms.

“What hit us? Did they ram?”

“No sir, it was just three rounds; two through-and-through and a third lodged in the reactor casing. About the size of a football, according to Konev, who’s decidedly chatty at present. Manic, almost. Sorry Captain, but I don’t know where they came from. Maybe a couple of survivors followed us into the gas giant and hid until we left, maybe they did have another ship out there on surveillance duty – I simply can’t tell.”

“Hardly matters now. Konev? What happened to Chief Verner?”

“MIA pending formal identification of remaining body parts.”

I did a quick 360 turn, checking on the other bridge crew, although being able to look straight out into space did give me pause, and other than the unfortunate Miss Hughes everyone was at their post. I blinked and flexed my fingers, seized by the sudden desire for a strawberry milkshake to take away the taste of bile in my mouth.

“Weapons status?”

Vought shook his head, although his bulky helmet rendered the gesture barely noticeable.

“We’re down to passive infra-red and visual tracking only, so unless they fly right past us, preferably with running lights, it’s a no-go.”

I clumped over to the master display workstation where Vought joined me.

“Can the Solstice render any assistance?”

“We’re picking up her emergency distress beacon, Captain, but there’s been no other contact.”

“Scratch that idea then. Status of our missile strike?”

“Hard to tell. Best guess is the Dream interception force will catch up sooner rather than later. We’re still tracking them but the telemetry from Magdalene Station is spasmodic at best, and we’ve lost input from source Alpha, whatever it was.”

There was blood in my mouth but I resisted the temptation to spit in case the suit couldn’t aspirate it. I felt cold and tired, the backs of my eyes itchy, my back slick with sweat.

I straightened up.

“Mr Vought, bring N-one to a halt and set it to proximity detonation, maximum sensitivity.”

And stand well back.

He hesitated for a moment, but then I think he realised what I was trying and didn’t demure.

“Confirmed.”

I really, really wanted to rub my eyes and down a double espresso in lieu of sleep, but reality has this unpleasant habit of running things to its own timetable. I frowned, if only for my own benefit.

“What happened to the HAL ships and their wonder weapon?”

“No longer on our screen, so I guessed they’ve jumped clear of the system. Whatever they used it tore the ar*e out of the Dream formation, to use a colloquial expression, but there’s still about twenty left – more than enough to pound the station into scrap in short order.

A warning light pulsed on the console in front of us.

“Nuclear detonation confirmed, Captain. Analysis of the blast indicates it’s in the anticipated four hundred megaton range. “

It probably didn’t take out that many directly, but the accompanying electro-magnetic pulse should have fried a fair number, while hopefully leaving our inert ordnance unscathed.

“Prepare to launch a second…”

“Sir?”

I trailed off, distracted. If Hughes had still been at her console, intact, I would never have noticed, but now I had line of sight to a new flashing alert. Vought turned and followed my gaze.

“It’s a stellar event notification, sir, from one of the in-system surveillance drones. We couldn’t secure a full complement of intelligence hardware and had to make do with some generic survey kit, so I placed them in less sensitive areas. Probably just a solar flare. Nothing to worry about and in any event its stopped now.”

Probably just a solar flare, but I could feel the apprehension crawling up my spine.

“Mr Vought, be so kind as to indicate the positions of our probes on the main display.”

The Magdalene system sprang into 3-D view, with small pulsing green dots indicating the network of drones scattered in a rough sphere centred on the station.

“Look, the two, three, nearest the sun have gone black, indicating a loss of signal.”

“Well, it could be some form of enemy attack on our intelligence grid, I suppose. It’s too widespread to be the result of a solar flare…”

But I could hear the doubt in his voice, even through the tinny helmet headphones.

Four, five.

“That’s no electronic attack, that’s a solar wave front spreading out through the system! Mr Vought, prepare to jump the ship! Helm! Bring us about, heading, heading zero-zero-zero, relative.”

I could almost feel the ripple of hesitation run round the bridge and Vought tried to keep his voice low.

“Captain, we’re far too close! Too deep in the gravity well, we don’t stand a chance-“

“HELM!”

“Helm answering, sir. Course laid in.”

Still Vought hesitated, indecision plain in his body language, even under the vac suit.

“MR VOUGHT!”

“FTL hardspin, aye, sir! Single jump, Sol system.”

Six, seven, eight.

“Now, Mr Vought!”

The distortion wave washed over us and reality side-slipped, revealing a universe of mass and magic; the gas giant a yawning pit beneath us, the stars black coals in a sea of shimmering light.

We jumped.

We flew.

We soared across the bright and hollow sky.

We twisted.

We tumbled.

We fell.