Star Force: Nexus (SF57) (2 page)

Kerrie tapped a few keys on the holographic display on
her left and got a size grid, seeing that the thing was 800 miles wide on the
central stub, with each pinwheel having a diameter of 12,000 miles. The entire
length of the construct was over 34,000 miles long, making it 4 times the width
of Earth.

“Hold position until we’re contacted,” she ordered,
seeing the other two Ma’kri decelerating behind them and knowing it’d be
several hours before their H’kar escort caught up.

“Archon, we’re detecting stellar level magnetic fields
emanating from the…device. They’re directional off the arcs.”

“Mag…” Kerrie said reflexively, then her eyes went
wide as she realized what this was. “Holy shit, that’s how we’re getting out
there.”

“Care to share?” the Captain asked.

“Ever hear of a magnetic drive?”

“Pie in the sky rumors only. Highly inaccurate to the
point of stupidity.”

“Inaccurate why?” she asked, leading him as she kept
her eyes glued on the visual and
holo
displays as
more information was being detailed with the computer and analysts chewing on
the sensor feeds.

“Gravity is constant, but magnetic fields fluctuate.”

“Natural ones,” Kerrie said, pointing at the
planet-sized structure. “But I’d bet you a million credits that one is stable
and the endpoint of a
very
long
jumpline…correction, those two are stable. One in, one out I’d bet.”

“If I had the credits I’d take that bet. Even if you
could build something like that why would you given the black hole routes?”

“Magnetism is more powerful than gravity,” she
reminded him, still wide eyed like a kid in a candy store. The V’kit’no’sat had
never built mag drives, for they didn’t need to, but they were aware of the
technology and its potential…though nothing like this had ever been cataloged
in the database. “And I’m curious to see just how fast this slingshot can
fire.”

The Captain shook his head. “Can’t be mag drive. There’s
no way you could hit a target that small.”

“Combo with
grav
drives to
adjust course during drift,” Kerrie said, thinking out loud.

“Why two? Seems an awful waste to build something that
large in duplicate.”

The trailblazer inclined her head to the side,
granting that he had a point. When jumping into or out from a star there was
only one jumpline available, and the more you got off it the braking line would
veer and produce lateral movement. That meant ships coming and going had to
move through the same region of space, risking a collision. The threat of that
was minimized via beacon signals that traveled ahead and warned of ship’s
incoming so they could drift off the line and allow each other to pass.

Busy jumplines were dangerous because the final braking
maneuver had to occur in that tiny slice of space, but it was workable by
monitoring the incoming super-accelerated signals from ships in coast phase,
then the ships waiting to jump would wait for an opening, move into position,
then jump on the line for a few minutes before easing off it and into drift
mode.

The process would work the same, in theory, for a mag
jump…so why build two massive mag fields when one would do?

Before she could start listing off possibilities a
streak of a signal resolved itself in the clear area in front of the upper
‘dish’ that reminded Kerrie of the giant arms on the Ark from Halo, minus the
greenery of the natural environment.

“Son of a bitch,” the Captain muttered, seeing the
incoming ship, then he threw a glance at the Archon. “Doesn’t mean it’s a mag
drive,” he said stubbornly.

“If it’s not,” Kerrie said, seeing that the ship was
longer than a lizard assault pillar and considerably wider, “I want to know
what it is.”

The Archon turned to the
comm
officer. “See if you can find someone out there to talk to before it goes Death
Star and uses us for target practice.”

2

As it turned out the H’kar ship wasn’t necessary for
the next stage of their journey, though it arrived several hours later as
Kerrie’s three ships were left to wait for the next 3 days until their
transport was ready. During that time they got plenty of questions answered, as
well as were able to monitor a very high amount of traffic coming in through
the Nexus ‘grid point,’ which was a direct link to another similar massive
construct some 1,539 lightyears away.

The carrier vessel they were waiting for was one of a
number of large transports that operated like jumpships on the grid, carrying
other vessels back and forth exclusively. The thousands of other ships around
the grid point were a mix of those awaiting transit and a defense fleet, none
of which could travel on the grid themselves.

The massive vessel that the Star Force ships were
assigned to had room for all three plus an additional 23 other vessels, each of
which was tucked away inside what looked like a lagoon. The bulk of the ship
was pointed into a wide, four-
spined
arrow whose tips
circled around an empty, squashed sphere of space inside of which the ships
were berthed and held steady by an IDF. The three Ma’kri were not the largest
vessels being carried, with four being larger plus a myriad of smaller ships
made up of multiple designs.

There was no interlinking with the carrier ship, so
all the crews had to stay onboard their own ships and wait out the trip as if
they were traveling solo through the jump, which lasted only 8 days. In
comparison, had the Ma’kri attempted to travel that distance on their own,
going through one small jump after another between stars, it would have taken
them approximately 7 months to get that far, assuming they had fuel reserves to
sustain them through that many jumps.

But when they arrived they were not at their ultimate
destination, rather another grid point. It was identical to the other, each
with two giant emitters creating the magnetic fields that the carriers
amplified and repulsed off from. One for one direction of travel and the other
for the reverse…but also to act as backups in case one had to be taken down for
maintenance or was damaged. Kerrie also learned that unmanned probe ships were
continuously sent through the grid, with them seeing 6 come in and immediately
leave on the other emitter during their short wait.

The probes were unmanned and intended to inform one
end of the link if the other was no longer viable, for a ship that made the
jump couldn’t slow down without the other grid point being active and would
either slam into the construct or miss it and shoot off into the galactic void
unable to stop and essentially be lost in space. If a probe didn’t come through
on schedule all outgoing traffic was halted until another came in, so as to
minimize losses if a grid point was taken down.

If one of the emitters went offline the other could be
used for double duty, but typical procedure had an ‘in’ and an ‘out,’ with
Kerrie’s carrier coming in on the top segment of the opposite grid point, after
which the Ma’kri exited the ship and waited for instructions as where to go
next, for there were three additional grid points within 2 million kilometers,
all situated in deep space outside of any system, keeping the transit grid a
private one for Nexus use.

It took another 4 days of waiting before another
carrier became available for their use, with the Star Force warships loading up
and shooting off through another linkage, for unlike a gravity well the grid
point’s emitters were
monodirectional
and could only
fire and receive ships from one destination point. It seemed like an enormous
waste of material to build four different constructs in one location, but the
speed boost was very beneficial for transit once you had them up and running.

The amount of ships at this location was even larger,
with additional stations spread out in clusters between the grid points,
indicating that the one they had originally started this journey from was on
the edge of the Nexus’s territory. This point was much more robust with
facilities, for the constructs themselves were not housing or commerce units.
Almost all of their interior space was devoted to the sole function of producing
the magnetic fields and self-defense, leaving these other large facilities,
though tiny in comparison, to service the ships coming through the grid.

It was hard to comprehend, but there were more
stations and ships in this location than there were in the entire Solar System,
and she didn’t doubt that the local population might be the same. There were no
planets or natural objects of any kind to colonize, but there were so many bits
of floating infrastructure and ships that it was truly mind blowing. Fortunately
the Nexus was very organized and the traffic controllers had Kerrie’s fleet
stationed where necessary until their ride was ready, then they loaded up and
were taken on another link in their journey out to the next galactic arm.

The further they went the bigger the grid points got,
with their final point containing 19 different constructs and a sea of
infrastructure, all floating in deep space away from the prying eyes of anyone
else. There they picked up an escort by a Sety ship that was half their size
which led them through a series of
grav
jumps through
the nearby star systems until they arrived at the capitol of the Nexus.

It wasn’t the Sety homeworld, but a system built
specifically for the interracial community…and like the grid points it was
choked with activity.

Kerrie had never seen anything even remotely like it
before. It was a binary system, with a main central star and a small outer one
in very high orbit. Worked into a complicated set of odd orbits were 39 planets
and 193 moons, all of which were inhabited with layers of infrastructure. There
were no natural environments visible, they’d all been erased in favor of
cityscape, but the various planetoids were colonized by different races with
different architecture, though it looked like approximately the same level of
tech…all higher than what Star Force currently had.

In addition to the planets there were millions of
installations situated in orbit or null space between the planets, but once
again each and every one was neatly arranged with traffic flows moving through
a
very
scripted routine. The three Star Force ships
followed their escort closely, matching microjumps and other lesser maneuvers
until they arrived at a particular planet and were given a parking orbit.

Though she couldn’t be certain, she suspected that
this one system contained more infrastructure and population than the entire
ADZ…which was mindboggling. Talk about big fish in the little pond. Seeing it
all she wondered what the hell the Nexus had to worry about from the lizards,
because they were truly the superior, like
Asgard
superior to Earth in
Stargate
, only bigger and more
impressive, for some of the ‘stations’ were the size of moons themselves.

Once getting parked, arrangements were quickly made to
get her down to the planet with a dropship being escorted by fighter-like craft
from orbit all the way down to a city made of angular pillars that reminded her
of Superman’s fortress of solitude. They even looked like ice, though more
blue, and were sticking up at all kinds of angles that belied any visible motif
other than sheer randomness. It wasn’t until the dropship came in closer did
she realize just how big each of the spike/columns were, with most reaching up
some 7-12 miles, with the largest oddballs climbing as high as 20.

The escorts led the tiny Star Force dropship to one of
the ‘tall’ ones, with the mountain-sized structure having nearly invisible
cutouts until you got close enough to see them, one of which was a landing pad
recessed into the otherwise smooth, crystal-like exterior…though that pad alone
could have held more than 1000 dropships, with several larger Nexus craft
sitting on the deck along with a steady stream of smaller ones coming and going
as Kerrie’s ship landed.

The planet itself was larger than normal, with 1.27
gravity and a mix of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere. Ironically the Sety
breathed the nitrogen, while most of the other races in the Nexus respired
using oxygen. The binary atmosphere worked for both races, which meant that Kerrie
wasn’t going to have to wear special breathing gear, though she did choose to
wear her brown padawan armor, minus the weapons, and blew out a deep breath as
the boarding ramp lowered and she walked down to the deck, feeling the gravity
thicken as she left the dropship’s IDF.

Outside the ship there was a delegation waiting, made
up of six individuals from two different races. Five of them were what Kerrie
recognized from the files the H’kar had given them to be Gfatt. They had huge
arms and one leg, which was more of a tail that fell directly beneath them.
These were wearing an anti-
grav
harness and floating
above the ground, but she knew they could walk as a tripod with their ape-like
arms doubling as legs if they leaned forward slightly. Their skin was silver
and slick, without so much as a hair or blemish, reminding Kerrie of dolphins
save for the face…which was made of harder spikes jutting out at odd angles.

The other individual was
a
H’kar, with its exoskeleton clashing with the smooth motif of the Gfatt. It was
a dark green almost to the point of being black and looked very intimidating,
though from their previous experience she knew they were more turtle than
warrior, though the natural armor meant they’d be a beast to tackle hand to
hand.

“Welcome to
Nexvt’ya
,” the
H’kar said in passable English. “We are pleased you were able to make the
journey.”

“Thank you,” she said, looking at the Gfatt and making
a modification inside her helmet. “
Can
you understand me?
”

Her external speaker created a series of words that
were unintelligible by Human standards, and ones that Kerrie had yet been able
to even
minorly
master with her own vocal chords,
which replicated the Nexus’s basic language.

The Gfatt exchanged glances, then one looked at her
with its three eyes and clasped its hands together. “
We did not expect you to be able to speak our language
.”

“
Computer
translation
.”

“
Well, it seems
I’m not going to be needed here after all
,” the H’kar said, who had spent a
considerable amount of time learning the Human language in order to act as
translator.

“
No, stay. There
may be other issues that arise
,” the Gfatt said in a tone that indicated
that they were definitely higher up in the pecking order.

“
As you wish
.”

“
Please come
inside, there is much we have to discuss
,” the Gfatt said, pointing Kerrie
towards the far interior of the landing bay as more ships continued to come and
go around them, though none in the immediate area. “
Do you have any environmental considerations we need to take into
account?
”

“
The armor is
precautionary and designed for combat. I can breathe the air
,” she said,
trying to keep any and all sarcasm out of her voice. The translation program
was new and the simpler she spoke, the less likelihood of it messing up.

The Gfatt exchanged looks. “
Are you carrying weapons?
”

“
No
,” she
said, suppressing the urge to declare herself a weapon.

“
Weapons are not
permitted on the planet aside from those in the possession of the security
forces, which is why I ask. Your bodily protection is permissible, but
unnecessary
.
Follow me
.”

Kerrie fell into step behind the Gfatt, looking up at
its shoulders as the others formed up into flanking positions with the H’kar
following behind as a tagalong. They walked across the deck and into a large,
cave-like entrance that split into hallways traveling in all directions. They
took one angling down and to the right, with it twisting and turning at various
angles with the segments always being straight and angled at the joints.
Instead of stairs they had
grippy
, yet shallow ramps
covered in traction nubs that kept wanting to trip Kerrie up.

The Gfatt simply floated over them, with the H’kar
working his way down by ‘foot’ noisily behind her. The clicks of his footfalls
were the only sound other than her light footsteps, with the rest of the
pedestrians they passed by being eerily silent as they floated about. There was
no talking, only a calm tranquility that gave Kerrie the urge to yell just to
break up the monotony, making the clunky H’kar stand out amongst the silent crowd.

Eventually they came to their destination and a large
table that was more of a raised symbol coming out of the floor. It was twisted
and curved, with what would have been chair positions in a mess of different
angles but there were none. All the Gfatt in the room simply floated beside the
work station, with what looked like a giant sandbox on part of the tabletop.

That ‘sand’ was mutable, with it forming into various
shapes and sizes of objects while other positions worked with recognizable
holograms, not unlike what Star Force used. The ‘sand’ was what drew her
attention, for it was shaped into a landscape with tiny moving structures that
looked like army men…but whom she recognized as lizard mauler variants.

“
Stand here
please
,” the Gfatt said, pointing to a spot alongside one of the edges of
the sandbox.

“
You’re
obviously studying the lizards
,” she said, with the translation program
using their proper name, which she didn’t care to pronounce.