Solfleet: The Call of Duty (40 page)

Erickson
checked himself. The latest scuttlebutt to trickle down through the Command
grapevine was that the Coalition’s continued existence—hell, its member races’
very chances of survival—depended on the survival of the Tor’Kana. The fact
that there might really be only one more ship full of them out there was not at
all something to be thankful for.

“Captain, I’ve
got some kind of ping on the sensors,” O’Connor reported.

Erickson
immediately punched the ‘all-call’ button on his command board. “Lieutenant
Bellinger, report back to the bridge on the double.” He closed the channel as
he spun his chair around to face O’Connor. “Can you be more specific, Ensign?”

“Sorry, sir.
I’m...I don’t think I can,” the ensign explained regretfully. “It’s really big,
whatever it is, and I think it’s metallic, but I’m not familiar enough with
these sensor systems to give you much more than that.”

“That’s all
right, Ensign. That’s not your job. Return to your station.”

“Sorry, sir,”
O’Connor repeated as he got up.

As O’Connor
returned to his station, the main doors parted and Bellinger hurried back onto
the bridge. “Lieutenant Bell...”

“Check your
sensors, Lieutenant,” Erickson ordered, brushing the reporting formalities
aside. “Mister O’Connor reports seeing a large, possibly metallic object out
there somewhere.”

“Aye, sir.”
Bellinger took his station and played his board like an accomplished concert
pianist performing an elaborate concerto. Then he reported, “The readings are
varying with every pass, sir, and are getting consistently weaker. Switching
over to active scanners.” After another moment he added, “Object is moving away
from us at approximately eleven thousand kilometers per hour, Captain. We’ll
need to get a lot closer and match its velocity for a good scan.”

“Close on
it, Helm,” the captain ordered. “Cautiously.”

“Aye, sir,”
the young woman affirmed. “Thrusters ahead. Now closing relative distance at...”
She checked her board to be sure. “...ten kilometers per second.”

“Recorders
on.”

Bellinger
took a half second and snapped the recorders on, then turned all of his
attention right back to his scanners. “Bridge recorders on, Captain,” he confirmed.
“Putting the object up on the screen.”

The object
appeared in the center of the viewscreen as something not much larger, and
substantially dimmer in luminance, than the thousands of stars that surrounded
it—just like the Tor’Kana vessel from the other day. But unlike that vessel,
this object seemed to grow and shrink at short, regular intervals, as if it
were breathing, or pulsating like a beating heart.

As the
Rapier
slowly drew closer to the object, Bellinger’s scanners were able to provide
more precise information. “It’s them, sir!” he shouted with excitement. “It’s
the last Tor’Kana battleship!”

“Magnification
ten, Lieutenant,” Erickson ordered with his own sense of urgency.

“Aye, sir,”
Bellinger replied. A second later an image of the last Tor’Kana vessel known to
have escaped filled the screen, rolling and spinning, tumbling slowly end over
end. Despite its magnified size, its lines appeared a little hazy due to its
relative distance, but Erickson could still discern enough detail to determine
that the pearlescent-white main structure was, or at least appeared to be,
virtually unscathed. Then the keel, or rather what little was left of it rolled
into view, and he and everyone else saw that the giant main gun that had once
been mounted to the forward two-thirds of the vessel’s underbelly was gone.
Only a scorched, gaping gash and at least three exposed decks remained.

Erickson
stood up and took two slow steps toward the screen. “Mister Bellinger?” he quietly
prodded without taking his eyes off the vessel’s gaping wound.

“Judging by
the pattern of the scoring on what’s left,” the lieutenant offered, “it looks
like the hull took a proton beam hit from well below the port quarter aft,
probably right behind the main gun’s energy transfer casing. If that beam was
strong enough to cut into the conduit and ignite the plasma, it will have produced
an explosion large enough to blow the entire gun and most of the hull away from
the ass end forward. My guess is that’s exactly what happened, and that’s most
likely what sent them tumbling out of control.”

“How long
ago?”

“I’m not
reading any residual surface heat or atmospheric particles in the area, so it’s
been several hours at least, but for all I know it might have been several
weeks, sir. Without some left over effect, there’s just no way to tell.”

Erickson
considered the ramifications of both scenarios. Several hours or several weeks.
If the vessel had taken that damage weeks ago, then the passengers and crew
were probably long dead. But if, on the other hand, the damage had been
inflicted only hours ago, or maybe a few days at most, there might very well
still be survivors on board. The Veshtonn were the only enemy the Tor’Kana had
who would have dared fire on that ship, and they wouldn’t have done so unless
they’d detected life signs aboard.

“Are you
detecting any other ships in the area?” he asked.

“Nothing,
sir,” Bellinger answered. “Except for the Tor’Kana and our own corvettes, short
range sensors show nothing out there. Long range sensors show completely clear.”

“All right.
Maintain visual scanning as well. I don’t want any of those damned bolamide
torpedoes flying up my ass.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Mister O’Connor,”
Erickson called as he returned to his chair. “Signal stand-by alert.”

“Stand-by
alert, aye, sir,” O’Connor confirmed. He pressed the appropriate alert switch,
but the only evidence of the change in ship’s status they heard was a single,
short tone. Erickson had insisted long ago that the three-pitch klaxon that would
be sounding all over the rest of the ship for the next sixty seconds be
disconnected on the bridge. Few things annoyed him more than irritating noises
in the background when he was trying to issue orders.

“Helm,
continue to close on that ship. Mister Bellinger, give me all you can as soon
as you can. You know the drill.”

“Aye, sir.
Continuing scans. As you can see, the vessel’s relative attitude is changing
erratically. It’s spinning on all three axis—negative pitch and yaw, positive
roll. If anyone’s alive over there, sir, it’s a good bet there’s nothing left
in their stomachs.”

“Can the
commentary, Mister Bellinger. Just give me the facts.”

“Aye, sir.
Jump nacelles are intact but cold. Fusion engines and maneuvering thrusters are
off-line as well. Aft-most surface gun emplacements have been destroyed. Port
and starboard emplacements appear to be intact along the forward two-thirds.
Looks like they kept the enemy to their rear. Must have been fighting on the
run.”

“Facts,
Mister Bellinger,” Erickson reminded him.

“Sorry, sir.
Aft torpedo tubes are open, banks completely exhausted. Forward tubes are
closed. The rest of the hull appears to be intact. No signs of venting
atmosphere, as I said earlier. Radiation levels are well within safety limits
as deep in as our scanners can penetrate. Energy output readings continue to
fluctuate, but it appears they have at least some internal power.” In a much
more somber tone he added, “The escape pods are all in place, Captain. I don’t
know about the shuttles, but the bay doors are closed up tight.”

Just like
the last one. “Life signs?” Erickson asked tentatively.

“Stand by
for that, sir. We’re not close enough yet.”

“Get us
closer, Helm,” Erickson ordered. “I want to be able to wave to their captain if
I have to.”

“Aye, sir.”
The young woman’s fingers danced over her board. Suddenly, the Tor’Kana vessel
filled the screen, appearing as if it were tumbling directly toward them.
Erickson and everyone else who happened to be looking the main screen at that
moment instinctively drew back, pressing themselves into the backs of their
seats.

“Reduce
magnification, please,” Erickson requested.

“Factor one,
sir,” Bellinger confirmed. The alien vessel instantly shrank to a much less
stomach-churning size. Then, somewhat baffled, the lieutenant reported, “I’m
not reading
any
bio signs, Captain...” He turned and added, “...living
or dead.”

Erickson stood
up again and took another few steps toward the screen. “Try to hail them,
Mister O’Connor.”

“Hailing,
sir.” The young man tried three times, per standard procedure, then reported, “There’s
no response, sir.”

“Keep
trying.”

“Sir, their
comm tower is down,” Bellinger reported. “They probably can’t receive us.”

“If they’re
even onboard,” Erickson added, giving a voice to what everyone else was
probably thinking. “Belay my last, Mister O’Connor. Try the signal light.”

“Won’t do
any good while they’re spinning like that, sir,” the ensign advised him.

Of course it
wouldn’t, Erickson realized. If anyone over there
did
happen to see the
signal light flash, assuming there
was
anyone over there, they’d tumble
and spin out of view before they could see it flash more than one or two more
times, let alone enough times to actually understand any part of their message.
Damn. That fact couldn’t have been more obvious. He needed rest. He was in
worse shape than he thought.

“That leaves
us no other choice,” he concluded, thinking aloud. “We’re going to have to
bring that ship under control ourselves.”

Both
Bellinger and the young woman at the Engineering station turned in their chairs
and stared at the captain as if he’d just proclaimed himself emperor of the
known universe.

“Sensors,
Mister Bellinger,” the captain reminded the tactical officer, glaring back at
him.

“Aye, sir,”
Bellinger responded as he turned quickly back to his instruments. “Sorry, sir.”

Erickson
threw the engineer a similar look and got the same result, then turned back to
Bellinger again and asked, “How fast is that thing tumbling?”

“Taking its
yaw rate into account, the vessel completes one revolution of pitch about every
sixty-five seconds. The yaw rate itself is much slower, about one revolution
every hundred and seventy-three seconds. However, she’s only rolling at...”

“Spare me
the arithmetic, Lieutenant. What kind of G-forces would someone working on the
exterior of the bow or stern have to deal with?”

“I’ll call
up their specifications, sir, but I suggest you get a physicist up here for
that one. The answer is going to be a variable in both value and exact direction,
depending on exactly where on the bow or stern that ‘someone’ is working.”

Erickson
turned briefly to the communications officer. “Mister O’Connor.”

“I’m on it,
sir.”

“Engineer,
take over sensor monitoring at your station. If you see
anything
that’s
not there right now, speak up.”

“Will do,
sir,” the young woman responded.

Moments
later, a tall, lanky, dark haired gentleman whose uniform sleeves were too
short for his arms stepped onto the bridge. “Lieutenant J-G Donmoyer reporting
from Astrophysics, Captain,” he said as he gazed at the tumbling vessel on the
screen.

That was
fast. “Take the Sciences station, Lieutenant,” Erickson told him, pointing the
station out to him. “Mister Bellinger is uploading some information on that
ship out there. I want to know what the G-forces are at the bow and stern.”

“Yes, sir.”

The man’s
long strides weren’t too unlike those of a giraffe in Erickson’s eyes, and the
captain couldn’t help but grin as he recalled the last time he’d taken his now
adult son to the San Diego Zoo. Then just nine years old, the boy had had the
time of his life.

The
astrophysicist sat down and powered up the console, then accepted the data from
Bellinger. “All right, Captain,” he began, “I’ve got the data now.” His
practiced fingers danced over the console as he checked the specs and ran the
figures, talking out loud to himself the whole time. “Let’s see now. The alien
vessel is approximately six-hundred fifty meters in length. That’s about seven
hundred and four yards, or two-thousand one-hundred and twelve feet...”

Erickson drew
a breath and sighed. Several decades ago most of the nations of Earth had come
together in peace and formed an international military space force. So why
couldn’t they agree on one system of measure?

“Its mass is
distributed almost equally fore and aft for the most part,” the astrophysicist
was saying, “so the ship is tumbling and spinning on an axis virtually at its
exact center. Very smart design on their part. Circumference of the danger
sphere is approximately...six thousand, six hundred and thirty-six feet. One
revolution of pitch every sixty-four point eight seconds equals...one hundred
two point four feet per second, equals...three point two gravities. One
revolution of yaw every one hundred seventy-two point eight seconds equals...thirty-eight
point four feet per second, equals...one point two gravities. Three point two
gravities of pitch combined with one point two gravities of yaw equals...just
under three and a half G’s. Factor in the ship’s slow roll, and...”

“Hold that
thought, Lieutenant,” Erickson said. He doubted his brain could stand to hear
anymore without suddenly hemorrhaging.

“Three and a
half G’s, Captain,” the young engineer interjected.

Erickson looked
over at her, inviting more.

“That’s damn
near impossible to work in for very long, sir,” she continued. “Even for
someone very strong.”

“Fighter
pilots pull more than that all the time,” someone interjected from somewhere
behind Erickson.

“Not the
same thing,” Erickson replied. Then he asked the engineer, “What if they use an
exoskeleton?”