Phillip Peterson: The Dark Ship

Jeff’s eyes were still glued to the clock. Thirty more seconds. Time simply did not want to move forward. Why the hell had he volunteered for the military? He could have stayed on Luna and taken over his parents’ business. But that hadn’t been good enough for him. He’d wanted bigger and better things than supervising the production of subsystems in the factories of the space fleet. But now he probably had no future ahead of him at all. On the other hand, who could have predicted that a war of this scale would break out?

At least Jeff had a chance of avenging his father’s death. Finally, those muttonheads from the Alliance would have to pay for their war crimes.

“Ten seconds,” Major Irons spoke into his mic.

Jeff put his hands on the console so he could reach all switches quickly if necessary.

“Five.”

Jeff took one last deep breath.

“Four.”

Blood rushed into his ears like the waterfalls of New Paris.

“Three.”

If he was going to die, then hopefully it would be quick.

“Two.”

He didn’t want to spiral toward eternity trapped in a beat-up wreck with a diminishing supply of oxygen.

“One.”

Please God, let me live!

There was a jolt as the Charon’s Casimir fields collapsed and Jeff squinted as Acheron’s blue sun appeared in the window before him. He tensed up, waiting for the explosion of a gravity mine.

“Captain Austin!” Major Iron spoke in a subdued but firm voice.

He had to get a grip. He had a job to do. “Positioning, come in!” he said hoarsely.

“Close range free of contacts. Positioning system running!” Finni replied.

No mines, at least!

“Navigation?” Jeff asked.

“First estimate reporting exit point within the tolerance range. I have Acheron-4 on the screen, and it’s about where it ought to be,” Joanne said.

“Is the computer giving you a navigation solution for the perihelion maneuver?”

“It’s working on it.”

“Report to me immediately when you have a solution!”

“Yes, Sir,” said the blond navigator, who was also the ship’s paramedic.

“Weapon system officer?”

“Sir?” Castle responded.

“Prepare the Quagma bomb.”

“Yes, Sir. I’ll initiate the firing sequence.”

Jeff nodded and looked at the blue sun, which was growing in size as they approached it at almost the speed of light.

The procedure was standard and they had trained for it in hundreds of simulations. As executive officer, Jeff was responsible for freeing his commander to concentrate on overall strategy.

“I have the navigation solution,” Joanne reported. “Four minutes, ten seconds to the central star. Perihelion maneuver with eight-g acceleration lasts three minutes and eighteen seconds. Deviation of four point five degrees. Time to target following maneuver: six minutes and twenty seconds.”

This corresponded to the values calculated in advance of the mission. They had planned their hyperspace flight precisely and had entered the system very close to the planned entry point.

“What about the other bombers?” Major Irons asked. There was a hint of impatience in his voice.

“Radio operator, come in.”

“I’m receiving signals from three ships,” Owl said hesitantly. The data was probably only just coming in. The other bombers were entering the system on different courses and they would only form a formation with the Charon after the perihelion maneuver. “I’m receiving the Boston, the Spider, and the Neptune.”

“What about the Atlantic?” Iron asked.

Owl paused. “Not in the tolerance range of its entry point.”

Jeff pursed his lips. Either the Atlantic hadn’t planned its maneuver correctly, or there was now another ship whose drive system had failed at the critical moment and would race toward infinity for all eternity in hyperspace. This damned war didn’t leave enough time to carry out proper checks of the Casimir converters.

“We’ll continue our approach as planned,” the Major said firmly. Not that Jeff had expected any other decision.

“The Quagma core has been inserted in the missile,” Castle reported.

“Good, open the bomb hatch and release the bomb!” Jeff commanded.

“Understood.”

“I’m receiving a strong tachyon pulse!” Finni’s voice came in, his words tumbling over each other.

“OK, they’ve located us,” Irons said. “A little earlier than I’d hoped, but nothing we didn’t expect. They’re trying to predict our flight path. After the perihelion maneuver, we can expect to come up against strong defenses.”

Jeff had hoped they would escape undetected, but he knew he’d been kidding himself. He looked at the location hologram in front of him, which showed a scaled map of the Acheron system. A sweeping, green flight path led from their entry point to the sun, where it curved sharply and veered toward a small blue ball. He waited for red dots to appear: rockets racing toward them. Nothing so far. But he noticed that the blue sun outside the windows was growing rapidly in size. Not long now till the perihelion maneuver.

“Quagma bomb released. Magnetic mount ready to eject,” Castle said.

Irons grunted in satisfaction.

“Confirmed. Bomb ready to be ejected. Wait for my command,” Jeff said.

“Positioning here!” Finni came in. “I’ve got a lot of small objects leaving the orbit of Acheron-4. Accelerating very fast.”

“Those are rockets,” Irons said grimly. “How many?”

“Can’t say exactly. I’m getting conflicting signals. They’re flying very close together. At least four dozen. They’re moving toward the sun.”

Of course they were! The missiles would intercept them after the perihelion maneuver as they headed for the target.

“Four dozen,” Joanne whispered. “That’s a hell of a lot. If they have Artemis target devices, we’ve had it!” She couldn’t disguise the panic in her voice.

“According to recon, no Artemis positioning systems have been registered in the Acheron system,” the major said tersely. “Now please stay calm and concentrate!”

“Yes, Sir!”

“The contacts have disappeared from the screen,” Finni reported.

Irons grunted. “That was to be expected,” he said. “The missiles have stopped accelerating and the engines have shut down. Check again as soon as we’ve set course for the target. When the engines restart, they’ll be on us in a few seconds.”

Jeff looked up at the holoscreen. “One more minute until the perihelion maneuver!”

“Where are the other bombers?” Irons asked.

“The Spider and the Neptune are right on target for the meeting point in the perihelion,” Finni said. “Boston has fallen behind a bit.”

“What do you mean by a bit ?” Jeff asked.

“About seven million miles. They’ll reach the perihelion around twenty-five seconds after us.”

Irons groaned. “That’s too late to balance out the maneuver.”

Jeff swallowed hard. Of course, the Boston would follow the same flight path as the other bombers. So the enemy would know exactly where to strike. They had only one chance.

“Shall I order the Boston to change course?” Jeff asked.

Irons hesitated. “We need the Boston’s bomb. We have to destroy the base on Acheron-4, otherwise we can’t continue the offensive in the Lambda Sector.”

Jeff sucked his teeth. Irons had turned the Boston into a suicide squad. But Jeff knew the Major was right. If they failed to destroy even one of the bases in the Lambda Sector, their infantry would be in danger of being killed by Alliance bombers. Jeff was sure Irons would have made the same decision if it had been his own ship that had fallen behind. “Radio operator, order the Boston to continue its approach to Acheron-4 as planned.”