Starbound (4 page)

“How long will it take to hook this thing up?” asked Maclintock. Longer looked to me and all eyes were focused in my direction again.

“It's already hooked into the impeller drive, sir. Just waiting on your orders to activate it, sir,” I said.

“You hooked up something that dangerous to our propulsion systems without permission?” said Dobrina to me. Her tone was even and controlled, but underneath I could see she was fuming.

“Only for testing, XO,” I responded.

“Who gave you that authority?” she said, pressing.

“With respect, XO, I don't need your authority to implement process improvements to systems under my supervision. I only need permission to test those systems from the captain, and since we had no intention of using this device without proper testing, I've done nothing that I have to apologize for,” I replied.

Maclintock stepped in then. “Enough. The system is in place. We don't have time to test it,” he turned to the Historian. “Serosian, could you please review this thing before I light a firecracker under my own ship?”

“I can be ready in twenty minutes,” he replied.

“Good,” said Maclintock. “Then let's get to it. Mr. Cochrane, you'll either be on my report or getting a commendation from this.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. Maclintock waved us away and we went back to our stations. I followed Serosian to his. Once he had sat down he turned to me and smiled privately.

“I hope this works, Peter,” he said.

I leaned in close to him and whispered, “Me, too.”

Twenty minutes later my Historian friend reported to the captain that our hybrid drive was theoretically sound. He also reported that if we weren't out of the jump space tunnel in twenty-seven minutes we never would be. We had all gathered around the captain's chair for a final conference.

“So you're saying this hybrid drive will work?” asked Maclintock.

“I'm saying that
theoretical
ly
, it appears to be within functional safety margins,” replied Serosian. “But that doesn't insure it will operate as theorized.”

“And the possibility of a plasma mix burst?”

“Higher than twenty percent, sir. But with our Hoagland Field engaged, it should be nothing more than a rough ride,” concluded the Historian.

“XO?” asked the captain.

“I'm against it, sir, but it seems the performance of Commander Cochrane and Lieutenant Longer in this situation has left us no alternative,” said Dobrina. That hurt.

“Sir, I have every confidence—” Maclintock cut me off with a hand gesture.

“I know you do.” He turned to the fifth member of our group. “Lieutenant Longer, how long until we can fire this drive up?”

Longer shifted his feet but answered. “Seven minutes to power it up, sir. Any time after that we can be ready when you give the command.” Maclintock nodded.

“Start the engines, Mr. Longer,” commanded Maclintock. He turned back to Serosian.

“What will actually happen when we fire that engine?”

“Most likely the mix will result in a small bubble of HD space being created inside the jump tunnel, which will act as a medium for the mixed fuel. The resulting intermix will burst us out of the bubble, but also likely propel us more than far enough to clear the tunnel and end up back in normal space. It will be like making a mini-jump,” said Serosian.

“Let's do it,” replied the captain.

We all went to our stations and Maclintock ordered a lockdown of the ship. Duane Longer reported he was ready seven minutes and ten seconds after he had started his warm-up process.

“Reports,” demanded Maclintock.

“All go here, sir,” I reported. Dobrina likewise gave a qualified green light, and Serosian also chimed in that we were ready. Finally Maclintock turned his attention to his chief propulsion officer.

“On your mark, Lieutenant,” he said to Longer.

“On my mark,” called out Longer confidently. “Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . mark!” He hit the hybrid drive switch and the ship shook violently, lurching from side to side in a much more radical motion than the inertial dampers usually allowed. After a few uncomfortable seconds of this, things calmed again. I brought up the main analytical display to see where we were. The display flickered off for a few seconds, and we all anxiously waited for it to come back online. When it finally did, the data showed us at 2.2 AUs from our previous position and comfortably in normal space.

“All clear of the jump space tunnel, sir,” I reported. Maclintock unstrapped himself and stood.

“I can see that, Commander. Good work,” he said. Dobrina unstrapped and stood next to him, rubbing her neck.

“And good work on my neck as well, Commander,” she said.

“Injury reports?” Maclintock asked of his XO.

“Minor, sir. We broke clear with minimal damage as well,” Dobrina said.

“Lieutenant,” called the captain. Duane Longer turned to face his commanding officer. “Well done. You and Cochrane will get a commendation for getting us out of the tunnel, but I'm afraid you'll be buying dinner on our next stop at Candle.”

Longer smiled. “Yes, sir,” he said, then looked to me. I nodded. I'm sure the smile was because he knew I would cover more than my share of the dinner bill. It wasn't something that a spacer on lieutenant's pay could normally afford.

“Request permission to dismantle the hybrid drive, Captain,” said Dobrina.

“Sir, I respectfully disagree,” I chimed in. “That drive just saved us from a very uncertain destiny.” I was right about that. As clunky as it may have been, the hybrid drive had saved our collective asses.

Maclintock looked to Serosian, who smiled and merely shrugged from his Historian's station.

“It did indeed save us, Commander,” Maclintock said to me. “But I think it needs some proving out yet. Shut the hybrid drive down and disconnect it from the main propulsion units, Mr. Cochrane. But keep it handy in case we need to hook it up again in the future.”

“Sir, I have to protest—” started in Dobrina. This time Maclintock cut her off.

“I hear you, XO. But for now let's see what we can do about improving this thing, rather than just scrapping it because it
mi
ght
be dangerous,” he said.

“Understood, sir,” she said, accepting her captain's decision. I could tell she didn't agree, but she was too professional to let that show.

“Carry on.”

I gave Duane Longer his marching orders for the hybrid drive, then turned my attention to our original destination. The station orbiting Jenarus 4 was about 53.2 AUs inbound from our present position, which was nearly equidistant between the fourth and fifth outer gas giants of the system, planets J-12 and J-13 on the system survey. I asked George Layton for an ETA.

“I make it about nineteen hours at point four-oh light, sir,” he came back with. The chemical impellers topped out at about .25 light for any 24-hour time frame, due to their limited acceleration curve. We'd have to use the sub-light HD impeller system, which should be operating normally despite our little side adventure. I took that recommendation to the captain. He pulled an old-fashioned pocket watch from his jacket pocket. It was a completely archaic instrument,
but one that accompanied any captain's commission in either the Quantar or Union Navy.

“That puts us in at about 1440 hours tomorrow, ship time,” Maclintock said, then repocketed the watch. “Make it happen, Commander,” he finished.

And so I did.

At the Jenarus 4 Station

A
fter
a day spent oversee
ing the mothballing
of the hybrid drive
and a series of main
tenance issues cause
d by our rough exit
from the jump space
tunnel, I found myse
lf soaking under a h
ot shower in the eve
ning. I had begged o
ff dinner with the c
ommand staff due to
the heavy maintenanc
e schedule, and by t
he time I had arrive
d back at my statero
om my knee and back
were aching. I had a
pparently taken more
personal damage tha
n I had first though
t from our little ad
venture.

After showering I sat on my sofa with a towel draped over me, rubbing ointment into my sore right knee. I had injured it a couple of times during my soccer apprenticeship with New Briz Blues, but never hurt it enough to require surgery. I probably should have iced it, but the warmth from the ointment felt good. I tried to get to my sore midback with the same treatment, but found I couldn't quite reach the spot. Then I got an idea.

Dobrina answered her com bell on the third ring.

“You weren't at dinner,” she said by way of a greeting.

“I had a long maintenance list,” I replied.

“No doubt,” she said in her always professional manner, “after that unnecessary shaking you gave the ship this morning.”

“Are you still mad at me about the hybrid drive? I did save the ship, you know,” I said, only half joking. There was another moment of silence, then:

“I am still mad, Peter. We probably would have found another solution to the crisis, but this going around my authority, it's got to stop.”

“I didn't ‘go around your authority,' Dobrina. I was innovating.”

“Your innovation almost cost this ship dearly,” she said. Now I let things hang in silence for a moment.

“You're being very Carinthian right now,” I said.

“It's part of who I am, Peter, you know that. But, yes, I do believe in going by the book when in doubt. And I am still your superior officer.”

“You are,” I admitted, “and I respect that. But I need flexibility to do my job properly.” She sighed audibly at this over the com line, then silence.

“Your flexibility—”

“I embarrassed you,” I said, by way of confession.

“Yes.”

I let the air hang open a bit more. “It won't happen again. You are my ally, I know that. From now on I will clear all my ‘innovations' through you before I start the projects.”

She still stayed silent for another moment but it eventually seemed to satisfy her. “That would be acceptable,” she finally said.

“And . . . I apologize for embarrassing you.”

“Also accepted. Now was there anything else? I'm still nursing a sore neck from your little experiment today,” she said. I hesitated a moment, but decided to press on.

“Actually, I was hoping to trade you a bit of massage on your neck for some of the same treatment on my back.”

“Ahh . . . now we get down to it,” she said. Again the silence as she was considering her options.

“I could just go down to sickbay,” she said.

“And they'd never be done with you. Probably insist on a brain scan,” I replied.

“True.”

“Plus there's the added benefit of my personal touch.”

“Not sure how much of a benefit that is.”

“Now, now,” I said. It took me five more minutes of back and forth to convince her to come over for mutual “treatment.” Our joint session lasted for over two hours, and when we were finished, all of our aches and pains had been massaged clean away.

I drilled the marines under my command for two hours in the morning until I was satisfied they were ready, as were John Marker and Lena Babayan. We went over our proposed station ingress procedures, but they were really irrelevant until we actually got to the station.
V
aliant
had surveyed it, but they had not sent down any teams or probes to fully map the layout. We would be going in blind, basically, and that made us all uncomfortable. I broke off one hour before our arrival in orbit around Jenarus 4 to join Maclintock's final sitrep staff review at 1300. Colonel Babayan joined me.

Inside the Command Briefing Room all senior staff and lower department heads were present. Maclintock looked up and down the table and then started in by asking for status reports. Each system's chief gave their report until it eventually came down to the senior members at the head of the table. Maclintock turned to me for a report on the plans for exploring the station.

“We'll take both shuttles over. I've located what looks to be a landing bay, based on what the
Valiant
survey showed, but they never
went inside. After that we have about three hours to do our exploration, determine what's running, what's not, and why the lights are still on,” I said. Maclintock turned to Colonel Babayan.

“Do you concur, Colonel?”

“I do, sir. This is an excellent opportunity for our teams to practice this kind of operation. And we need the practice,” she said. Maclintock turned next to Serosian.

“Any insight, Historian?” he said. The tall man nodded.

“Just that the configuration of this station is unusual. It doesn't follow standard First Empire designs for any known function, especially mining. There are parts of it that seem to be additions to the original configuration. If it's First Empire, it could be . . . uh, many centuries old,” he said, hesitating.

“As always, caution is the buzzword for the day, gentlemen,” finished the captain. “We'll go in as soon as we reach an optimal safe distance.”

“Which is?” asked Dobrina. Maclintock looked to Layton.

“One thousand kilometers recommended, sir,” said Layton. The captain nodded.

“Off you go then. Senior staff, please stay,” he said.

We waited as the room cleared, leaving only the captain, myself, Dobrina, and Serosian. Once the door was shut, Maclintock turned to our Historian again.

“So what's with the ‘could be many centuries old' statement?” he asked.

Serosian leaned forward. “My initial longscope readings indicate parts of the station could be much older than that, sir. Most of it almost certainly dates from the Early Empire period, between three and four hundred years ago. But the other data I'm getting on my scans indicate carbon readings that could be in the multiple thousands of years,” he said.

“A Founder station?” I asked. He nodded.

“Possibly. Or it could be a Founder station that was abandoned
and then taken over by the First Empire and used for their own purposes, modified to suit their needs. Either way, it looks to be an intriguing place.”

“Or a dangerous place,” said Dobrina. She turned to Maclintock. “Captain, given the likelihood that this station is active as well as of dubious origins, I recommend we move much closer than a thousand clicks. More like ten, in case we have to conduct rescue operations.”

“We'll be able to handle ourselves on that station,” I said. “Rescue will not be necessary.”

“This is an unknown scenario,” said Maclintock, turning to Dobrina. “One hundred clicks, XO. I want us close enough to act but far enough away to stay safe if something bad goes down. We'll come in for you if you get in trouble, Mr. Cochrane, but I won't be foolhardy with my ship either. Agreed?” he asked.

We all nodded assent, even Serosian. “Recommend longwave coms for Mr. Cochrane and Colonel Babayan, Captain. I can keep in touch with them if conventional communications are knocked out or blocked,” he said.

“Agreed. It seems we have a plan. I want to make it clear, Mr. Cochrane, if you encounter operating First Empire or Founder technology, your orders are to survey and catalog. Don't touch a damn thing. Let's just find out what this station is and what it does. Then we can determine if it's an obstacle to First Contact with Jenarus, which is still our primary mission. Understood?” Maclintock said.

“Understood, sir,” I replied.

“Then let's get to it.”

I outfitted both units with hip-mounted cone jets just in case. The marines didn't like them, as they added bulk, but I felt they might be essential if we encountered any zero-G areas on the station.

We were wrapped up in our shuttles fifteen minutes prior to Layton's signal that we had obtained a geostationary harmony with the station orbiting Jenarus 4 at a distance of one hundred kilometers. I checked my standard com links with Dobrina on the bridge and then with Marker and Babayan in the second shuttle, then switched to the longwave channel and confirmed the link with Serosian. The longwave link used a lot of EVA suit power to operate. I hoped we wouldn't need it.

Right on the dot I gave the signal, and both of the marine heavy bulwark shuttles started to move, each carrying sixteen marines, a commander, and a pilot: thirty-seven personnel in all, including me. We made our way out of
Starbound
's landing deck and into space, making for the mystery station. Twenty minutes later and we were approaching close to what we
thought
was the station's massive landing bay.

The station seemed dark and abandoned from the exterior as we approached. I ran several scans with the limited longscope technology available aboard the shuttle but got back no readings of power anywhere. I posited that this could be because of an energy-signature dampening field as a possible defense mechanism, or it could be that
Valiant
was simply wrong and the station was dead. But I doubted that
Val
iant
and her Historian could miss something that important.

“Send out a probe,” I ordered our female shuttle pilot, Lieutenant Page. We all watched on the monitors as the probe ran over the face of the station, bouncing blue light waves off the surface both to map it and to take telemetry readings. A second later, John Marker, my marine commander, stuck his head into the cramped pilot's nest.

“Are we going in or not?” he asked in his usual gruff way. I turned to my friend, the descendant of fearsome Maori warriors.

“Not just yet, Sergeant,” I said. “We're going to let the probe do its job first.”

“My marines are getting bored, Commander. Best hurry it up before they start chewing on the bulkheads.”

I smiled at him just a bit. He was a comrade as well as a friend, but I wouldn't let that sway me. “Station please, Sergeant,” I said back.

“Sir!” he said and popped his helmet back on, disappearing back into the hold. I smiled and turned back to my shuttle pilot.

“What have we got, Page?”

“The probe has penetrated the landing bay's environmental field and made it inside, sir, holding position there. Scans indicate the deck material itself is a metal alloy in some places and an indeterminate material in others, something like ceramic. The deck has gravity, but there's no air or heat inside the bay. It's a vacuum, sir,” she said.