Slipspace: Harbinger Read online

  CAPTAIN CODY AMADO strode through the ship, taking in the environment around him. Although the corridors were a bit wider than he would have expected, they were by no means luxurious. As a warship, the Mjöllnir’s internal designs remained efficient and raw. Painted in the familiar shades of battleship gray and navy blue, the corridors were crowded with crew. He moved through the crowd with ease until he found a wall mounted computer panel. Activating it, he retrieved a schematic of the deck, hoping to find his destination.

  Ten minutes later, he stood in a bustling engineering section. Lieutenant Melor stood over her console and holographic display, focused on her work. He’d met with her several times in the past, but her imposing physique still caught him off-guard. Perhaps it was how her four arms moved in coordination with one another as she did her work or how she had to shuffle her feet in order to move thanks to her race’s wishbone-like shins. It might have been how the high gravity of her home world stunted her natural growth, while at the same time forcing her race to develop a stronger musculature. Regardless of how she might compare to her comrades on her home world, her build in one standard alliance G, made her much stronger than anyone else on board except maybe for Timin Aler.

  “Lieutenant,” Cody called.

  Melor turned from her console and snapped to attention. “Sir.”

  Cody approached her terminal. “As you were, Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” she said, as she returned to her work. “Welcome aboard by the way, Captain. I apologize for missing your arrival, the engines and power grid needed my attention.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Lieutenant. I know you have a lot on your plate.” He paused. “But it is the engines and the power system I want to talk about. I hear there was some excitement earlier.”

  “You might say that, Captain.” Melor grabbed her tools and motioned in invitation for Amado to walk with her. As they walked down the corridor, Amado found himself having to slow his own pace so as not to leave her behind.

  “During the final engine test, we experienced a computer glitch. It caused the regulators within the power generators to feed more energy into the engines than could be safely sustained.”

  “I thought the purpose was to power the engines up?” Amado asked.

  “It was, Captain. But we’ve got enough power generation capability on board to simultaneously run every single shipboard system. We’ve got enormous power requirements. The engines have a limit in terms of how much power input it can take, even if that limit is very high.”

  Amado shook his head. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant, I’ve had quite a busy few days and not a lot of sleep. I’m not following.”

  “Okay, let’s try it this way, Captain. Imagine pouring water into a funnel. The water swirls around until it drains through the middle. If you add into the funnel at the same rate that the funnel can drain it, the level of standing water within the funnel never increases. With me so far?”

  “Yes. Go on.”

  “Now the funnel is our engine, and the water is power under normal circumstances. Power flows into the engine; the engine uses that power to function. The energy that’s put in is expended. Now, Captain,” she said as they arrived at door to the power plant, “take that same funnel, and instead of pouring just one glass in, pour four glasses in at the same time, and pour each glass at a faster rate than you did with the one alone. What happens now?”

  “The funnel collects more and more water until it overflows and spills.”

  “Yes, sir, it does. But when it comes to our engines, finding a mop would be the least of our problems if that kind of power overflows.” Melor pressed her thumb to the hatch access. The door slid open and they stepped inside.

  “I see your point,” Cody trailed off. His voice left him as he took it in. Twenty-five fusion generators sat arranged in a grid, each as big as a small house. Cables and conduits sprouted from each unit like branches. Some served to interconnect the units, while others disappeared behind bulkhead. His throat tightened and he returned his attention to the matter at hand.

  “According to your report, you replaced a GX-7 power regulator with one with a higher capacity, a GC-10 I believe. Could that have been the source of the problem?”

  “No, Captain, I replaced that regulator in the engine. The malfunction was in a regulator attached to the power grid.”

  “Why didn’t the GC-10 regulator lock down on the engine?”

  “The computers never registered the overload and never sent the crash command,” Melor responded. “As I said before, it was a computer glitch. But I’ll get there.” She pulled a panel off one of the generators and set to her work.

  “Going back to what I was saying, with the power building in the engines, I shunted the excess energy into main grid hoping to stem the tide. It didn’t work and we were forced to redirect the power out of the system through the heavy cannons.”

  “Speaking of which,” Cody interrupted, “what did we hit when those cannons fired?”

  “Not a thing, Captain. At the time of the discharge, the dock yard’s orbit of the Lryos gas giant put the planet directly down range. According to telemetry from satellites in orbit, the weapons fire entered the gas giant and never exited so we presume that it was dissipated in the atmosphere.

  “Lucky break. Still, it shut down the yard for the better part of an hour.”

  “I apologize for delaying you, but we didn’t have any other option.”

  Melor finished her work on the generator and closed the panel down. She gathered her tools, moved to another, and began again.

  “You did well, Lieutenant. No apology needed. What about this computer glitch?”

  “Somewhere in the middle of the test, the computers experienced a software glitch. The power plant thought it received a command to increase power output, and the computers in engineering slipped into a test input mode. We use it for various hands-on scenario training. That’s why my attempt to crash the power system from engineering failed: the computer thought it was running a simulation. Further, it thought that the data it was displaying was a part of the simulation and assumed that all my inputs were the same.”

  Cody held back a moment before asking his next question. The explanation seemed plausible, but all too convenient. It did not strike him that a simple software glitch could destroy the ship, especially when it took such an unorthodox solution to stop.

  “But the computers let you fire off the main cannons?”

  “That’s what’s got me, Captain. My only guess was that the parameters of the ‘simulation’ were restricted to the power systems only.”

  Amado sighed. This did not sit easy with him. The glitch was too well put together to be a true accident. “Have you investigated the possibility of sabotage, Lieutenant?”

  Melor looked at him, and did not respond. Instead she motioned for him to follow. He fell into silent step behind her as she led him into a nearby maintenance locker and secured the door behind her.

  “I’m sorry, Captain, this isn’t exactly protocol. But we can’t risk being heard on surveillance. I’ve already looked into the possibility. The problem was far too specific. I’ve gone through every log entry and every piece of record to which I have access. There is nothing in the system. I’ve gone through the software language, and the glitch is gone. It’s as if it never existed. I have absolutely no evidence whatsoever of sabotage other than a very, very strong instinct. I’ve been over it a dozen times. I helped design and build this ship, but I have no clue and no further avenue to pursue without alarming the crew.”

  He allowed himself a moment to consider the situation.

  “All right. Then it’s time to stop asking questions about it. I want you to end your formal investigation.”

  “Captain,” Melor interrupted, “we can’t...”

  “...can’t prove anything.” Amado said, cutting her off in return. “There is nothing other than a convergence of events to even imply it was sabotage. No evidence, no
proof, no suspects. Just, by your own admission, instinct.”

  Melor started to say something, but Amado raised his hand to stop her.

  “But I’m going to trust your instinct. Keep digging, but keep it off the books. This stays between us. Report your findings to me and to me alone. All right?”

  Melor nodded silently.

  “Is the ‘glitch’ purged?”

  “Yes. We reinstalled the software and re-ran the simulation. No problems. We can launch.”

  “Good. I’ll let you get back to work,” he said as he let himself out.

  He returned to the corridors and was immediately intercepted by Nira sporting a glare on her face, her arms folded across her chest. “Have you been to our quarters yet?”

  Cody looked at her, confused. “Yes...something wrong?”

  Nira cleared her throat, leaving Cody to wonder what was going through her mind. “They’re small,” she said.

  Cody did a double take. “Honey, they’re the Captain’s quarters. They’re biggest cabin aboard ship. If you think those are small, you should see the enlisted barracks. They’ve got barely a bunk. Our quarters are practically an apartment.”

  “An apartment with no windows, sweetie,” she said, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. She let her arms fall to her sides. “Do you know how claustrophobic it feels without windows?”

  “Nira.” He paused. “This is a battleship. It’s not a luxury liner. Besides, our quarters are an inner compartment. Even if there were windows on this ship, our quarters still wouldn’t have them.”

  “So, what am I supposed to do?” Nira growled.

  Cody shook his head. This was not the conversation he wanted to have right now. There were much more important things that he could actually do something about. If she was going to pick a fight with every inconvenience, this was going to be a very long command tour. “Nira, you knew this before we left Lumo. There’s nothing I can do short of cutting into the hull and gutting parts of the ship for re-modeling. I’m sorry to be this blunt, but you’re just going to have to get used to it.”

  Her eyes narrowed but instead of reply, she scoffed and stormed away.

  “Nira,” he called after her.

  She stopped, saying nothing.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To get Med-Deck squared away!” She turned down a junction and disappeared from sight.

  Cody did not pursue, but chose the wiser course and gave her space. He understood her concerns and had them once or twice before when he was posted to his first ship. He had been a midshipman and hadn’t even had a bunk to call his own. No sooner would he roll out, but someone else would roll right in. On top of that, the compartment had nine other bunks with the same arrangement. Even when he had the bunk and pulled the so-called privacy curtain, he had barely one quarter of a meter of clearance above him. Hell, the only thing that had kept him from going insane with claustrophobia was the officers’ lounge. Then, in an instant as he thought back to the officers’ lounge aboard the Triton, he remembered exactly. It was then he caught sight of Melor standing just outside the door to the power plant. She shuffled to his side.

  “I see you’ve met Doctor Fen,” she said.

  “I should hope so. She is my wife...”

  Melor’s eyes widened. “Sir, I’m sorry. I had no idea. I knew you were married, but I didn’t realize it was to her.”

  Melor winced as the words hit with more judgment in their tone than she must have intended. He let it go. The mistake had been an honest one. They had agreed that Nira would keep her maiden name to avoid professional confusion. But that meant that often their marriage remained unknown until explicitly stated.

  “Don’t worry about it. It happens more often than you think,” he said.

  “I see, sir.” She paused as though waiting for a reply. He gave her none. “Well then. If there’s nothing else, I should get back to work.”

  “Actually Lieutenant, there is. When you’re not busy with the engines and other side projects, I was wondering if I could ask a personal favor.”

  October 11, 2832

  02:10

  Slipspace - Mjöllnir

  SILENCE. Darkness. Nothing. Schrider floated in the void with no beacon to lock onto. Prime had gone silent. Its will had been directed elsewhere. Schrider had instructions, had objectives, and had been left to carry them out. Fingers rapped against the console. Fingers proved to be an interesting sensation, even after all of this time. The use of appendages- arms and legs, —allowed so much to be done. Was this how the warrior and worker minions felt? Did they appreciate the use of the limbs given to them? Could they even feel at all? Perhaps not. They were little more than drones, after all. Not like Schrider. Prime would never leave the minions. But Prime had left Schrider. Now there was nothing.

  The fingers did as instructed and as the computer on the desk opened the communication’s audio channel, Schrider instructed the mouth to speak.

  “I am aboard. All is well.”

  It was awkward to speak. But there was little choice. Schrider had to blend in. Even when reporting to the other.

  “Good,” came the reply. “We have intercepted civilian reports that Mjöllnir experienced problems during final power up. Can you confirm?”

  “I can confirm. The virus functioned as expected and the security systems crashed allowing the program to write its protocols into the ship’s key systems. The virus established the back doors and destroyed itself.”

  “What of Amado?”

  Schrider allowed a breath to escape from the lungs and nose. Aerobic respiration proved yet another challenging task. So much energy wasted in the process. Not efficient.

  “Amado is reacting exactly in the way we predicted. The personality profile was uncanny in its accuracy. However, I am concerned that we did not anticipate the sibling or the spouse.”

  “New models are factoring them in now. Regardless, the objectives remain the same. Prime is about to make its move and begin the primary initiative. When it does, you will need to be ready.”

  “I understand,” Schrider replied. “I will not fail.”

  “See that you do not. Because you are aboard, I have seen to it the Mjöllnir will be called. They cannot be allowed to discover the true nature of the primary initiative until the broods are ready. They are entering a critical phase and if they are destroyed, we will not be able to survive.”

  “They will survive, as will we all.”

  The audio line remained silent for a moment.

  “Prime has allocated Ares for your use. I will bring it to you when we meet at Artez. Until then, maintain communications silence.”

  “Understood.”

  The communications line cut off. Again, Schrider manipulated the fingers, ensuring no logs had been created and that the carrier wave blended well enough with the engine output so as not to be detecteed. Pulling the extraneous data chip from the console, Schrider placed it in the desk drawer and locked it.

  At first, coordinating leg movement had been almost as difficult as coordinating fingers and remembering to breathe. But over the years, Schrider had gotten very good at walking. The observation deck was empty. Schrider moved over to the wide bay windows, one of the few aboard ship, and gazed outward. Shades of blue streaked by the windows as the Mjöllnir moved through Slipspace. Schrider narrowed the eyes. Prime would make its move and soon the peaceful vista outside would vanish.

  CHAPTER THREE

  October 12, 2832

  11:00

  Slipspace - Mjöllnir

  CODY AMADO WATCHED the displays as the ship slid through the slip-lines, the supply convoy trailing just behind the Mjöllnir.

  “Entering Lumo approach pattern,” Cassie reported. “Strong ping on the guide buoy.”

  The speakers activated, allowing all to hear the incoming communication: “Lumo control to Mjöllnir, we have you on approach, standby for clearance and vectors.”

  Cody moved around the central display, weaving
his way around the reporters. He thought he caught a recording device in the hand of one of the correspondents, but as he moved closer, he saw it was only her ring reflecting the deck’s light. He pulled the glass off his console and took a drink of water, clearing his throat before he started speaking.

  “As you have just heard,” he explained to the press gaggle as they started writing notes, “we are approaching the Lumo gate traffic pattern. We will now begin a controlled deceleration as we approach the oasis and transition event.” Cody motioned to his pilot. His pilot began the deceleration process and from around the deck, the sound of the engines wound down.

  “Lumo control to Mjöllnir, you’re clear to the grid. We are uploading vectors to you now. You and your charges are clear to exit, the lane is clear.”

  Cassie’s grabbed the hand unit. “Roger that, control. We’ll see you in a moment.”

  The deck remained quiet as the crew performed their duties. The engines continued to wind down and the deck gave an almost imperceptible shudder as the ship transitioned from Slipspace to normal space. Despite the inertial dampening system, Cody swore he could feel the deceleration. He watched the central display as the ship slid through the cylindrical lane, its rings spinning up a deceleration field intended to assist in bringing the ship back to sub-light speeds. The dozen cargo ships followed in turn and as the Mjöllnir passed out of the ring tunnel that was the gate, her engines powered back up for maneuvers.

  “Transition and deceleration completed successfully. We are free and clear to navigate.”

  The deck erupted in a cacophony of applause and jubilation over the success of the ship’s first foray into Slipspace while on active duty. Amado raised his hand, quelling the noise as he activated the inter-ship comm.

  “Attention all hands, this is the Captain. The Mjöllnir has just successfully completed its transition back to normal space, marking the successful completion of our final test flight. Well done, people.”

  The deck erupted once again and when order returned to the ship’s command center, Cody made his way through the crowd of reporters and press, leading them out and into the press room down the hall. There the recording equipment sat waiting for them under the watchful eye of a pair of Entry Control Point Guards. These men snapped to attention and saluted as the Captain approached. Cody returned the salute, setting them at ease.