Impulse (25 page)

Ten minutes later, we were back on the yacht. Serosian stored the Relic in his chambers while we began a retreat from the station using the impellers. The HuK had a good start on us though, and was making her attack run at us at flank speed.

“Take us away from the station, Mr. Cochrane,” ordered the captain. “But try and keep it between us and the HuK.” She turned to Marker. “Full-on with the impellers, Mr. Marker. Mr. Layton, plot us an evasive course out of here and back to Levant, and prepare to use the HD drive on a moment's notice.” Switching to the HD drive and running off of its plasma rather than the chemical impellers when we were outside of jump point space would allow us to accelerate our way out of any potential losing confrontation with the HuK, but it would leave the station defenseless. To me it seemed as though the station was a potential treasure trove of technology, but now that we had the Relic, it wasn't clear whether or not the captain still cared about saving the station.

“It's still using chemical impellers,” reported Serosian from his central console. “No sign of an HD signature, but I am picking up some other energy pulses that I can't identify yet.”

“Keep working,” said the captain, her tone indicating she was totally in charge. “I want to know what we're up against. What's our status, Cochrane?”

I perused my board. “We're maintaining distance, although it doesn't look like the HuK is targeting us. It's bearing almost directly for the station,” I said.

“Do we defend the station?” asked Serosian of the captain. Dobrina debated this a second.

“No doubt any Founder station will have invaluable secrets to reveal. But my orders are clear in this matter, Mr. Serosian: protect the Relic at all costs. Keep our distance, Mr. Cochrane. Close enough to stay engaged, but not close enough to put us in danger,” she said.

“Close being relative to what we know of their weapons. This vessel could have something very nasty up its sleeve,” said Serosian.

“But I took its arm off already,” I chimed in. The Historian chuckled.

“I think we both know there's more to it than that,” he said. “They could have any number of dangerous weapons systems aboard.”

“Which is why we'll stay cautious. What's the range, Mr. Cochrane?” said the captain.

“We're ten thousand clicks out, Captain. The HuK is closing to within the same distance from the station.”

“Then we should know soon what she's planning,” said Dobrina.

“Detecting an energy surge from the HuK,” said Serosian in a hauntingly calm voice. “It's an unusual pattern, not one I'm familiar with. I suggest—”

“Power up the HD drive, Mr. Marker, and set our course for Levant, Mr. Layton,” said the captain, interrupting. “Engage the Hoagland Field, Mr. Cochrane.”

I did as ordered then turned to the captain, who started to speak.

“I don't want to take any chances—”

She never finished the sentence. I couldn't tell what had happened or where I was for many seconds. My thinking was fuzzy and my eyes were blurred. I struggled to move any part of my body but could feel nothing, and everything was dark. I wondered, just for a moment, if I might be dead.

Then the pain started. At first it was cold and numbing, then it turned to a stinging that fired from every nerve ending in my body. Finally, after what seemed an eternity of timeless suffering, the pain began to subside. I opened my eyes. I was on the floor of the yacht, emergency lights glowing blue above me. I tried to roll over onto my stomach. That was a mistake, as I quickly became nauseated and vomited onto the floor. I tried to regain my bearings, crawling up to all fours and making my way about the deck. I found Dobrina on the floor, twisted in an awkward pile where she had fallen. I rolled her on to her back and tapped her face gently, trying to rouse her. She coughed and choked, not opening her eyes, then suddenly grabbed me by the shoulders and tried to pull herself up.

“Station,” she croaked out. I took it as an order to get back to my 'scope, not as one to determine the status of the Founder station. I laid her back down on the floor and then crawled to my chair, pulling myself up to my display, my head pounding. Behind me Serosian was starting to rise, as was Marker. Layton was retching beneath his nav station. My board was a mass of red lights, with one or two amber and one green: the Hoagland Field. I watched the board begin to turn from red to amber, then slowly to all green, system by system.

“Ship's systems are recovering, we're still operational,” I blurted out. As my head spun less and less and my vision and balance steadied I went back to the captain and raised her to her seat, where she rewarded me by vomiting onto my boots.

“Sorry,” she said in a heavy voice, wiping her mouth. I wiped my boots on the deck carpet and watched as it got absorbed instantly. I looked to the spot where I had lost it and saw that it was also clear.

“Effective cleaning crew,” I said, then returned to my station. The yacht's systems were still in the process of rebooting and repairing from whatever had attacked us. “Systems at forty-three percent and rising rapidly,” I reported.

“What hit us?” asked Dobrina, collapsing back into her chair.

“Unknown,” said Serosian from his console. I turned as Marker helped Layton back into his seat.

“Think I can get a visual,” I said, manipulating my 'scope as the main display flickered several times and then came back on. What we saw stunned us.

Half the Founder station was gone, perhaps more than half. It spun in space at a rate much faster than normal around a gravitational nexus that was no longer there. Her orbit was also changing rapidly due to more than half her mass having been disintegrated.

“What the hell . . .” was all I could muster. The captain was at my shoulder in a second.

“Explain,” she demanded of our Historian.

“I can't. More analysis is needed,” he said flatly. She turned to me.

“Where's our bogey?” I scanned my board, whipping through my displays as fast as I could.

“Not in our visual or tactical scanning range. They must have activated their HD drive,” I said.

“Marker, how long until
our
HD drive is operational?” she demanded.

“Twenty minutes,” he replied.

“Make it ten.” She turned her attention back to me.

“Play back the visual record on the main display. Back it up to the attack,” she said. I did, speeding through the record until the last few moments before the attack.

“According to this reading we were out for almost eleven minutes,” I reported. Dobrina motioned for Serosian to come forward.

“I'd like your observations, Historian,” she said. He came up just as I activated the playback. We watched as the HuK, a distant dot ten thousand clicks out, unleashed some sort of enveloping plasma. It closed on the station at a rapid pace, so fast that I had to slow the playback down. When the glowing silver plasma hit the station it turned the rock, metal, and crystal infrastructure to glittering dust instantaneously. I played it back several times just to be sure of what I was seeing. The recording continued on to the point where the plasma enveloped our ship, then stopped for several seconds before returning.

“The Hoagland Field saved us,” said the captain.

“Yes,” agreed Serosian.

“But from what?”

“Only one thing possible, Captain. An anti-graviton field.”

“Anti-
graviton?
” I said. “You mean—”

Serosian cut me off before I could ask my next question. “Theoretically, a weapon of this type nullifies the effects of gravity within the field's range, separating matter at the subatomic level.”

“Effectively, instantaneous disintegration, in the purest sense of the word,” said the captain. Serosian continued.

“We have to assume the range is at least twenty thousand kilometers since it took us out. Activating our Hoagland Field, as we did just seconds before the attack, quite by chance I might add, dispersed the energy just enough to save us,” he said.

“That weapon was pretty effective for being theoretical,” said the captain.

“Historian research theorizes that such weapons are possible. We had no idea that the First Empire could have had them centuries ago,” Serosian said.

“If indeed the HuK is in fact that old. Could it be that it was captured and modified for use by a present-day enemy, not one from the ancient past?” she asked him. He nodded reluctantly.

“I have to admit that's a possibility,” he said. She crossed her arms and went back to her chair.

“Get that HD drive running, Mr. Marker. Your next promotion depends on it.”

W
e were thirty light-minutes behind the HuK all the way, less than two hours now from the inner Levant system of Levant Prime and its two moons. Thirty million souls were at risk. We watched as the Levant Navy rose to meet the aggressor, a mission that was suicide for them and for Prince Katara aboard their flagship. We tried several times to make contact with the Levant fleet to no avail, the HuK blocking our longscope transmissions with heavy electronic interference.

Serosian stayed in his chambers for most of the voyage, working on the Relic. Dobrina and I met with him there as we closed on the scene, Levant and its two moons hanging in space on our main display.

“No change in the HuK's track,” I reported. “Still on course for Levant Prime.”

“But why are they going there?” the captain asked. “We have the Relic.”

“Likely the HuK's assigned mission included varying parameters, changeable as conditions warranted,” Serosian said. “It knows the Relic is safe for now behind our Hoagland Field, thus it has moved on to a different priority.”

“Which would be?”

“Destroy the base,” I interjected. I'd spent much of my time while tracking the HuK going over different tactical scenarios in my mind. “Close the gate behind them. If they destroy the jump gate generator on Levant B then we can't follow
Impulse
, can't find our way directly into Imperial space. Then it will turn and attack us again, to try and get the Relic.”

“A very interesting tactical analysis. And most likely correct. Well done, Peter,” said the Historian.

“Can we survive another attack of that plasma weapon?” asked the captain.

“Our ship can survive it. Whether
we
can is another question. You saw what it did to us, even through the Hoagland Field. I would think another assault could cripple the yacht, shut off our environmental systems. Taking the Relic would be easy then. The bigger question is Levant,” he said.

“I'm listening,” said Dobrina.

“If they use the anti-graviton plasma on Levant B, it could endanger the entire planet,” he said.

“I calculated the effective range of the plasma weapon while you were working on the Relic,” I said. “It's at least one hundred thousand kilometers for any unshielded natural object. I tracked that much residual energy from the plasma that hit us. The Hoagland Field will protect us unless we get inside ten thousand kilometers. Inside that range, all bets are off.”

“And B is only sixty thousand kilometers from Levant,” said Dobrina. “There's thirty million people living there.”

“The planet would be devastated,” I said. Serosian said nothing. I thought of Janaan. “We have to stop it.”

Serosian looked thoughtful. “Perhaps it's time you see what I've discovered in my chambers,” he said, looking to Marker and Layton.

Dobrina nodded. “Perhaps it is.”

We walked back to his chambers, Dobrina leaving Layton in charge. When we entered, I could see the Relic casing on the floor, disassembled, with a small device sitting on a table. It looked like metal, but I decided it could be some kind of artificial material. It had a rough-hewn trapezoidal base of a deep black material, with a central raised area of silver metallic ridges, almost like pewter, that curved into and out of the base.

“That's it?” I commented. “That's our Relic?” Serosian nodded.

“That's it,” he said.

“What is it?” asked the captain. Serosian crossed his arms.

“As near as I can tell, based on the specification, it's an artificial jump point generator,” he said.

“Wait, did you say there was a spec?” I asked. He nodded again.

“Relics usually contain a data crystal with some sort of guide in them. This one came with a star map.”

“A star map?” asked the captain. “Seriously?”

“Affirmative. It shows the locations of several local stars within about a twenty-light-year radius of Levant. My assumption is that these systems are the ones within range of the device. Now, adjusting for the motion of stars over the millennia, my analysis indicates this object was placed here approximately two hundred forty thousand years ago. That would put it in what we call the ‘Late Period' of the Founder civilization, when we believe they were fighting for survival against forces unknown.”

“So this is a weapon?” the captain asked. Serosian looked pensive.

“Its intent is unclear. But it can be used to move objects from one star system to another without the necessity of navigating to a natural jump point,” he said.

“Objects? You mean like a ship?” the captain asked. He nodded again.

“Or, quite possibly, something like the station we found it on,” he said. I looked at the small box.

“You mean this thing could move that asteroid from star system to star system?” I said. His eyes bore down on me.

“With a properly functioning HD power source, I would say clearly, yes, that was what it was designed to do,” he said.

“If only it was working,” I commented.

“It is,” said Serosian. Dobrina looked to me and then back to the Historian.

“You activated it without my approval?” she said.

“I don't need your approval on my own vessel, Commander,” he said, slipping back to her formal rank rather than her active rank, by intent, I presumed. “But the question is irrelevant. The device was active when I opened it, and I suspect it has been so for the entire duration of its existence. I've already integrated it into my console. Just by tapping into even a small hyperdimensional power source it adapted instantaneously to our systems.”

“You mean we can use it?” she asked.

“Affirmative,” he said again.

“But for what?” I asked. “To escape? So we can fight the HuK up until the last second and then before they use their anti-graviton field we jump out, leaving Levant to her fate?”

“That,” said Serosian, “may be our only option.”

“Unacceptable,” said the captain. “We'll just have to find another option. In fact, I demand we do.” And with that she left the room, heading for the command console.

Back on the command deck, just twenty light-minutes out from firing range on Levant B, or Tyre as the natives called it, I watched as the HuK slowed in a maneuver that seemed designed to maximize its potential for destruction with the anti-graviton plasma weapon. From what I could calculate it was taking a vector that would place it squarely between the two moons and Levant Prime, with enough range to completely envelop B, clip A, and cause massive destruction on Levant itself. And that's if I was correct on the range being close to one hundred thousand kilometers. If it was more, the devastation would likely be total.

For my part I'd been trying to punch through the flak the HuK was sending out to block our longwave signal. As we all watched the main display helplessly, I turned to my commander, finally with some good news to report.

“I've bored a longwave tunnel through hyperdimensional space and managed to raise the Levant fleet, Captain,” I said simply. “But I don't know how long it will last.” Dobrina sprang immediately into action, activating the com link to the Levant fleet.

“General Salibi, this is Captain Kierkopf, can you hear me?” she said, raising her voice as if that would help clear the line.

“Prince Katara here, Captain,” came the voice over the com. It was scratchy and slightly distorted, but since it was traveling through multiple unknown higher dimensions to make the connection, I thought it sounded pretty good. “Glad to finally hear from you.”

“I wish we had better news, Prince Katara,” said the captain. “I don't know how long this connection will last, so I'll cut straight to the chase. Your world is in grave danger. The HuK has a weapon we weren't prepared for, a weapon that puts your entire world in imminent danger. They used it on us at the Relic station, caught us off guard and nearly destroyed us.”

“What's the nature of this weapon?” came the prince's reply. The captain looked to Serosian, who stepped up to the com.

“The weapon is an anti-graviton plasma field, Prince. Basically, it separates matter at the subatomic level, breaking down any matter it encounters to microscopic dust. We saw it used at the Relic station. It disintegrated half the asteroid. Fortunately we were able to recover the Relic before the station was destroyed,” he said.

“Well, I'm glad for that,” said the prince, I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not. “What can we do to stop it?”

“There's very little we can do, Prince Katara,” said Dobrina. “If the HuK activates this weapon, and we think it will soon, your world will be in grave peril. We're asking you to take your fleet and retreat to the far side of Levant, and order an evacuation of your world, to whatever extent possible,” she said. The line stayed quiet, the silence hanging on for long enough that the captain gave me a hand signal to ask if we still had a connection. I nodded yes.

“You're talking about saving a few thousand people, out of more than thirty million,” came his response finally.

“I'm aware of that, Prince Katara,” she said. Again the silence. I thought I could hear conversations in the background, but it could have been interference.

“Evacuation ordered, Captain. But it will be a tiny drop in the vast ocean if this weapon is as powerful as you say that it is. And I'm not prepared to abandon defense of my world. Our fleet is accelerating toward the HuK,” he said.

“Prince Katara, your ships cannot help us with the HuK, and they certainly can't survive the anti-graviton weapon without a working Hoagland Field. It's suicide,” said the captain.

“Then suicide it will be,” the prince replied. Dobrina moved away from the com and Serosian stepped up, not looking hopeful.

“Prince Katara, if this weapon is activated, it will devastate your world and its people, a people that will be left leaderless if you sacrifice yourself,” he said.

“I'm aware of my responsibilities, Historian,” the prince replied. The line went silent again. Serosian tried one last time.

“Prince Katara, please, if you are in range when this weapon goes off, it will not matter that you died a hero . . .” he trailed off at this, then continued. “Half your world will disintegrate, Prince Katara, as if it were never there.” The line crackled and popped in silence for several seconds and I feared I had lost the longwave. Then another voice came on.

“This is General Salibi. The prince has put me in military command of this mission. I am ordering our flagship to be withdrawn to the far side of Levant, to rendezvous with the evacuation fleet. Two ships will accompany us. The remaining vessels and their commanders insist on defending their world. They will not withdraw.”

Dobrina stepped up to the com again. “Good luck, General. And Godspeed to your ships.” At that, the signal was cut from the other end of the line. We watched as the Levant flagship and its escorts withdrew from the main body of the fleet. The other ships pressed on, their impellers on full burn.

“I'm not sure the general will be in command of the Levant Navy tomorrow, but he made the right decision today,” said Dobrina.

“Agreed,” said Serosian.

“Tactical report, Mr. Cochrane?” said the captain. I went back to my board and scanned the readouts.

“The HuK is slowing even more than anticipated,” I reported. “I don't understand. There's no tactical reason for them to do this.”

“They're trying to draw us into the range of the weapon,” said Dobrina. She turned to Serosian. “They want the Relic.”

“I agree. And in my opinion we have no choice but to put it at risk,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“The only card we have to play is the Relic. The HuK is programmed to recover it. If we risk going inside the plasma weapon's firing range, it's possible we might delay activation of the weapon if it perceives that it can recover the Relic as well. Remember, it was much closer than its full range when it fired on the station,” he said.