1.
The long-haul destroyer Goliath probed the vast emptiness of space, floating in the endless
dark like a speck of sand adrift in the ocean. Its armored hull and bristling weapons offered mute testimony to
the legacy of violence and conflict which had forged its purpose. This was a
special ship, with special capabilities. But out here near the Cluster’s rim,
where even the stars scarcely dared to venture, the vessel’s imposing mass might
as well have been a few atoms of frozen hydrogen scattered against the backdrop
of infinity.
The warship was currently running in stealth
mode, with lighting muted and nonessential systems on standby, to reduce its
energy signature to the bare minimum. Goliath’s
bridge was a twilit landscape, brightened here and there by the multihued glows
of work station data screens. The hushed stillness of the room belied the intense
work of the officers seated at those stations.
The expansive chamber measured roughly circular.
Its vaulted ceiling formed a huge hemispheric dome upon which was projected a
panoramic view of the cosmos, fed by input from dozens of sensor arrays on the
ship’s hull. From here one could look in any direction except down, and even
that view could be provided with the push of a button. With lighting minimized,
the illusion of floating unprotected in open space was disturbingly realistic.
To the ship’s stern spread a vast glowing
panorama, the giant globular cluster that humanity had colonized centuries ago,
comprised of hundreds of thousands of stars with uncounted habitable worlds,
floating just outside the rim of the Milky Way galaxy. Its glory filled the sky
behind them. But ahead of the ship there awaited…nothing.
Captain Taramay Dent felt the pull of the void as
she stood staring out the fore viewscreen. Beyond the ship’s bow the stars
thinned and vanished, leaving only the scattered embers of distant galaxies. The
dimensions of intergalactic space were incomprehensible, tempting one to
madness if contemplated too long. She was a woman of strong will and determination,
a career space officer, but out here she felt fragile, insignificant, and she
knew that her tiny spark of existence could vanish into that abyss and the
universe wouldn’t blink.
She fought down a pang of anxiety, her secret
fear of imperfect technology and her utter dependence on it. Only a few layers
of steel separated the ship’s crew from the deathly cold of interstellar space.
It enveloped them like a tangible entity, inimical, lifeless—except for that one
small blip on the scanners. Somewhere not far, hidden among the asteroid field
that they were currently exploring, was a tiny island of life. The elusive
energy trace of organic beings emanated from there, and the instrument telltales
identified the signatures as human. But where were they?
Her mood as black as the void, Taramay turned her
gaze to the bridge crew, sighing in exasperation.
“C’mon, people, give me something!” she implored
her subordinates. “It’s been five days since we cycled out of hyperspace. We
should have found our target by now.” She looked down from her command dais and
to her right, where crouched the main scanner control station. “Talk to me, Mr.
Cotton.”
The tech officer, a young auburn-haired man in a sky
blue Service uniform, glanced up from the screens in front of him. His grimace
mirrored his commander’s impatience as he replied, “These accursed asteroids
are continuing to play havoc with our readouts. I’ve never seen a star system
with so much debris.”
The captain scowled. “The unmanned probe that
came through this sector picked up life emanations easily. We have far better
equipment, lieutenant, so why can’t we find that alien ship? It’s supposedly a
harvest pyramid, full of thousands of human prisoners. The damned things are
huge, and the life signs should be off the scale.”
The young man shook his head and said, “It’s not
that easy. Detecting an energy source briefly is one thing. Pinpointing its
exact location within an area millions of cubic klicks in size is entirely
another.” He waved his hand in disgust at his instrument panel. “The
nickel-iron composition of the rocks is causing heavy scanner ricochet and
echoes. It’s nearly impossible to triangulate the origin of the life readings
we’re chasing. The signals are weak and sporadic, which isn’t helping.”
Taramay turned back to contemplate the viewscreen,
tapping her foot as she said, “I don’t like us sitting here naked in normal
space, so far from reinforcements. The Cluster’s edge is unknown territory. The
enemy could be anywhere out here.”
She glanced to the first officer’s station
directly to her left. “Mr. Caine, have you found any additional data on this
region?”
“I’ll give you what I’ve got, which isn’t much.” Her
second-in-command tapped his control board, the glow from his screen highlighting
his face and blonde hair against the shadows around him. His green eyes darted
rapidly across the data readouts. After a pause he replied, “I’ve been
searching the archives since we arrived. We’re well beyond the grid usually
patrolled by SpaceForce, so the information on this sector is sparse. Star
systems are mostly unexplored, but the reconnaissance data on record suggests
that the Knackers may have colonized planets out here. Survey drones have
picked up energy readings and snippets of alien transmissions in this region. The
drones stayed in passive mode at a safe distance to avoid detection, so they
weren’t able to collect more detailed data.”
“Wonderful. We can’t pinpoint the location of enemy
bases, but there could easily be one in our area.”
“Essentially,” the first officer said. “Especially
when you consider that the loaded harvest pyramid we’re searching for was
headed this way.”
Yes, that would make sense, Taramay mused grimly.
Knackers invaded worlds, Knackers captured the inhabitants, and Knackers took people
away in giant pyramid ships, never to be seen again. Over the course of the
war, humanity had learned that the hulking crustacean-like creatures ferried
their captives to distant factory-planets, where their prey were “processed”
into convenient foodstuffs for later consumption. The horror of that discovery
had emphatically silenced the peacemakers, unifying the human worlds in a desperate
fight against their approaching doom.
Not that it would matter in the end, she feared.
No species had stopped the Crabs (as humanity had nicknamed them) in their
entire nomadic history, which supposedly spanned tens of millennia, maybe
longer.
And in the process of resisting this menace, what
would humankind become? It took violence to fight violence; this warship she commanded
was testament to that. The entire destroyer was death incarnate, a machine designed
with one purpose: to take the lives of their enemies. It might even do its job
well, for a time, but Taramay felt in her gut that someday the Goliath would be defeated by the enemy’s
superior firepower. When that happened, this ship would bring death to its own crew
as well, becoming an icy tomb drifting silently between the stars.
Her morbid train of thought was cut short as the tech
officer spoke up again. His voice held an edge of tension.
“Captain, there’s something coming into range of
our scanners. At first I thought it was another asteroid fragment, but the
readings are odd. I’m not sure yet; there’s too much interference.”
Her sour mood boiled over, and she rounded on the
unfortunate junior officer, glaring.
“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve heard
those words over the past few days? And where are we? Still chasing false leads
and ghost images with our butt exposed to the enemy, inviting them to come shoot
it off. Do me a favor, and wait until you have something concrete before you
announce it.”
The lieutenant’s eyes widened, and he stammered,
“My apologies, Captain. I’ll keep on it.” He lowered his head, making a show of
studying his data screens, but he couldn’t hide the deep flush creeping across
his youthful features.
Taramay regretted the words as soon as they had left
her mouth. Glancing around the bridge, she caught expressions of dismay from
several senior officers. Dammit, she couldn’t lose control like that. She had
always believed it was the captain’s responsibility to present an image of
strength and stability. Well, it was time she lived up to her own standards.
Fuming, the captain took a couple of deep breaths
and steadied herself. Hands on her hips, she cleared her throat and said, “The
apology should be mine, Mr. Cotton.”
The younger man stared up at her, surprised.
Taramay met his gaze steadily and continued. “I don’t want my staff censoring
themselves. You’ve only been aboard a short time, but I need you to speak up
whenever you might have something to contribute. I’m competent enough to filter
the information for myself. Okay?”
The tech officer grinned and nodded. “Yes,
ma’am.”
She smiled back at him, saying, “Keep on your
scanners, and let me know the instant the readings are clear.”
Her subordinate nodded, rubbing his tired eyes as
he turned back to squint at his glowing console. The captain’s brow creased
slightly, her smile fading as she watched him work. She wasn’t the only one
riding the edge; the crew members were all showing signs of strain. They had
been on constant alert and pulling double shifts since arriving in this sector.
It wasn’t so bad when travelling through
hyperspace; the voyages were usually quick, and you could see constant motion
and know you were heading somewhere. But out here in normal space, without a
planet underfoot, there was no visible measure of movement, no signal to the
primitive animal brain that they were doing anything more than floating forever
in the black. A hundred thousand klicks could pass by, yet the distant
background of stars and galaxies looked unchanged to the naked eye. And behind
that dreary sameness loomed the constant threat of attack, as they sat here alone
and exposed. Monotony and stress made a lethal combination, steadily wearing
down a ship’s crew. With fatigue came human error, and out here mistakes were potentially
as deadly as their enemy.
“Captain.”
The navigation officer’s voice drew her gaze forward to the starboard side of
the bridge. Leofric DeBartolo was a seasoned pilot who had been in SpaceForce
since before the arrival of the Crabs. His light brown hair was brushed with
gray at the temples, and lines around his eyes hinted at decades lived and
conflicts endured. He had served with her on the Goliath for the past two years. Over time they had built a
comfortable interaction borne of long familiarity.
As their
eyes met he continued, “When we were outbound, I asked for mission details. You
said it was classified, but that you’d reveal our orders once we arrived at our
target location. Well, it seems that we’re getting pretty damned close. It might
be a good time to brief us before the iron is in the fire, yes?”
Taramay nodded with a weary smile. “You’re right,
Lef. The officers should be brought up to speed.” She raised her voice for all
to hear. “Attention, everyone.”
The handful of bridge crew swiveled their faces
toward their commander. Clasping her hands behind her back, Taramay swept the
room slowly with her eyes as she began, “It’s time to reveal our mission
orders. You already know that we’re searching for an alien vessel which may be
carrying human captives. Officially this is a rescue operation, but we have
other directives as well. First, headquarters wants technical data on the Knacker
ship, if we find her. We desperately need to learn as much as we can about the
enemy.
“Secondly, we’re in outland territory. We are
instructed to chart and log as much information as possible on the star systems
we encounter, especially those any with evidence of alien activity.”
“You think HQ wants to attempt a repeat of our
Xenopus offensive?” Leofric asked, catching her gaze with his.
Taramay smiled thinly and said, “Very possibly.
Hitting the Crabs where they roost may be our best hope for victory.”
“What about Xenopus?” the tech officer asked,
glancing from the navigator to the captain. “Do you mean the recent battle
fought there?”
“Yes,” Taramay answered. “What do you know about
that campaign, Mr. Cotton?”
“Not much,” the lieutenant confessed, shrugging.
“I was stationed out in G-sector at the time, and news was sparse. I also
didn’t have the clearance to be privy to the details when it happened.”
“Well, you’ve come up in the galaxy since then,”
the captain replied. “Let me fill you in. You know about the factory-planets
where the Knackers bring prisoners for processing.” It was a statement more
than a question, and the smoldering fire in the young man’s eyes was answer
enough. Taramay continued, “Xenopus III was such a planet. SpaceForce discovered
a Knacker stronghold there, via tracking a harvest vessel to its destination. With
a fixed target in hand, we were able to turn the tables on our foe, taking the
attack to the aliens. The Goliath
took part in the assault, so I saw it firsthand.”
“Wow! What happened?” Bruce asked, his boyish
face alight with curiosity. “I never heard more than the basic news hype, you
know, SpaceForce winning a glorious victory and so on, but no details. What was
it like?”
Meeting his gaze, Taramay had to suppress a grin.
Lieutenant Cotton was a sharp officer, and she had been impressed with his
service record when he had been assigned to the Goliath at their last port of call. Nonetheless this was his first
tour on a destroyer-class vessel, and he was still green. Sometimes it really
showed.
“What happened is we caught the Knackers completely
off guard,” the captain told her subordinate. “Their confidence in their own
superiority was their downfall. They didn’t even have any ship patrols or
sensor grids arrayed around the planet to warn them of our approach.”
“And we stomped their butts into the ground,”
Alena Stepanovich added from her com chair.
Taramay chuckled despite herself. “Yes, we did
indeed,” she agreed. “Our destroyers and dreadnaughts emerged from hyperspace
and encircled the Knacker world. From near space we rained down a firestorm of
plasma bolts, heavy missiles and even meteorites thrown from mass launchers. The
result was devastating. Target areas up to fifty klicks in diameter were vaporized.
When the smoke had cleared, the major Knacker ground installations were gone,
and the world had ceased to be a military threat in that sector. All that
remained was to eventually land and engage the surviving aliens with ground
forces.”
“Didn’t the Crabs fight back?” Bruce asked
incredulously.
“Well, yes, they did attempt to launch fighters
into space to counter our attack. Most were shot down before leaving the
atmosphere. A few larger ships cleared the gravity well and disappeared into
hyperspace, with human destroyers close on their heels. A few other Knacker vessels
got clean away during the heat of battle. Which leads us to our present
mission.”
“How’s that?” Leofric interjected.
Taramay glanced toward the navigator. “Space Command
tells me the human fleet encountered harvest pyramids over Xenopus III. Their
size makes them lumbering and slow, so normally they would have little chance
of eluding pursuit. However, several loaded pyramids chanced to emerge from hyperspace
near the planet while the battle raged. Before the human fleet could close with
them, they had vanished once again.
“After the planet was subdued, unmanned probes were
launched to track the energy trails left by the alien vessels. One of these eventually
beamed back data suggesting that a harvest pyramid, or part of one, had been located.”
“The ship we’re after,” Leofric concluded for
her.
“Yes,” Taramay confirmed. “We know a loaded
harvester can contain thousands of human lives, worthy of a rescue mission. Along
with SpaceForce’s desire for intel on the enemy, it was enough reason to send
us out here. And as you noted, if we happen to find the harvester’s intended
destination, we may also be able to give SpaceForce another Crab planet to
target.”
The captain paused, her eyes scanning the bridge
crewmembers. “One last thing, and this is strictly classified, for your ears
only, people. Our stealth probes picked up bits of alien transmissions that
hinted of a new weapon the Crabs were developing, perhaps in response to our
recent successes. We have no idea what it might be, but we’re tasked with
gathering any data possible, and capturing one of the weapons for study if the
opportunity presents itself.”
She paused and spread her hands, saying, “That’s
all I’ve got. Now you know as much as I do. Any questions?”
Silence met her as the crew on deck mulled what
they had been told, each person lost in contemplation of the war and their
place in it. Taramay let her gaze roam slowly upward once again, wishing the
tension inside her could bleed away into the depths of space-time.
Such moments of quiet are a luxury during periods
of conflict, and duty inevitably intrudes. It was only a short interval later
that the tech officer spoke up again, and this time the urgency in his voice was
unmistakable. “I’ve got something!”
The rest of the bridge crew swiveled their heads
to look toward the young man. The captain kept her voice steady as she folded
her arms and asked, “What do you see, Mr. Cotton?”
“There’s a large mass of metal, refined metal, about ten thousand klicks
to starboard and slightly behind us. The signals are clear now. It’s definitely
not an asteroid; scans indicate a pyramidal shape consistent with a Knacker
harvest ship. It seems to be dead in space. I’m getting no emissions to suggest
an active propulsion system or defensive screens.”
“Do you read any power output at all?” she asked,
squinting at the viewscreen as if she could make their quarry visible by force
of will.
“Just a faint energy pulse, but I suspect that environmental
support is still on line,” the tech officer replied.
“How can you tell that?” the captain asked.
“Because this object appears to be the source of
the life signals we’ve been chasing,” the younger man said.
Taramay stood motionless for a moment, her
thoughts racing. Then she swiveled and rapped out orders to her crew. “Ms.
Stepanovich, send a tight beam transmission to Space Command. Summarize our
activities to date, and inform them that we’re moving to investigate a probable
Knacker vessel.”
“On it, Captain,” Alena replied, tapping in commands
on her console.
Next Taramay looked to her navigator. As his furrowed
gaze met hers, she cocked her head and said, “What do you think, Lef? Can we
approach safely, or are the Crabs up to something?”
He grimaced as he glanced at the viewscreen,
saying slowly, “I don’t like it, but then I feel that way about anything
Knacker. I have no concrete reason to suspect a ruse here. If that ship was
under power, we’d know it, and it’s not like the Crabs to shut down their
primary systems just to lure us in. They know that SpaceForce tends to shoot
first and inspect the remains after. I don’t think they’d leave themselves
vulnerable on the slim chance that they’d catch someone off guard. Especially
not out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“Agreed,” Taramay replied. “Pyramids have minimal
weapons systems in any case, unless this one was specially modified. As you
say, a trap seems far-fetched. But something is bothering you.”
“Well,” Leofric mused, “if the ship is a
derelict, what wrecked it? SpaceForce hasn’t fought any engagements way out
here. And it’s odd that a vessel of that size has been stranded this long, without
having been rescued. That’s a big chunk of hardware to abandon. Not to mention the
captive humans supposedly on board; the Crabs would value that commodity
highly. So why is it just sitting there?”
“Perhaps the asteroid field has scrambled the Knackers’
scanners as well as ours,” the captain answered. “Maybe whatever disabled the harvest
ship also knocked out their communications. Regardless, we’ll need to take a
closer look. Turn us about and set in a course to approach the vessel. Mr.
Cotton, monitor your readouts closely. I want to know if someone so much as breaks
wind on that ship.”
Over the next two hours the navigator cautiously brought
the Goliath in to their target. As
they approached, the bridge crew stared at the image growing on the main
screen. Straight ahead of them a roughly triangular area of stars was obliterated
by the outline of something substantial. The lightless area kept growing until
it seemed that they must be right on top of the object, but still they
continued to creep forward. There was no sense of perspective in the depths of
space, and Taramay was forced to reassess the alien ship’s bulk several times as
they closed with it. Against her will she found herself in awe at the size of
the structure. It was obvious that the pyramid far out-massed any ship
SpaceForce had ever built.
Finally the navigator sat back in his chair and said,
“That’s it. We’re at a full stop, approximately a half klick from the vessel.”
The captain gazed out the viewscreen,
contemplating the dark mass which now filled their forward view. In the years
since the Knackers had first appeared, harvest pyramids had become a symbol for
all the loathing and horror that the aliens elicited in their human prey. As
she faced one up close for the first time, Taramay felt a chill slither down
her spine like the touch of a scurrying insect.
Not a single light showed on the flat face of the
pyramid; the silent vessel appeared devoid of life. Even at close range the
vast structure was barely visible, just a murky jumble of shadows blotting out
the starlit sky. Out here in the lonely reaches of the asteroid belt, the solar
system’s red dwarf sun lay far behind them. At this distance its weak light was
so attenuated as to be almost undetectable. The alien ship remained shrouded in
mystery.
Taramay kept her gaze fixed on their quarry as
she said, “Anything on the scanners, Mr. Cotton?”
“Low level energy output, as before,” he replied.
“No sign of a response to our presence. Lots of human life emanations inside.
This is definitely our target. And I’m picking up…some Crabs as well.”
This last statement sounded puzzled, and the
captain glanced over at him, asking, “Are you surprised? It is a Knacker vessel.”
The young officer looked pensive. “Well, I’m only
getting a scattering of alien life readings. A ship this large should have
thousands, probably tens of thousands. I know they can shield their life signs
from scans to some degree, but I’d be able to tell if there were a lot of them.
It appears that there are only a few, and that doesn’t make sense.”
The junior officer might be inexperienced, but he
was not stupid. Taramay exchanged glances with the navigator; his unease with
the situation was plainly written on his weathered face.
“It seems odd that only a fraction of the alien
complement would be on board,” she agreed, rubbing her chin. “If they’d been
rescued, the entire crew and human captives would have been offloaded as well.
We need more information about what happened here. Mr. Cotton, bring up
spotlights on the pyramid. Let’s see what she looks like.”
The navigator punched his controls, and dazzling
beams of white light lanced out from the prow of the human destroyer. The alien
ship suddenly flared into stark clarity, every detail of its hull exposed to
the observers aboard the Goliath. A
chorus of gasps swept through the bridge, and Taramay heard Leofric muttering
dryly, “I can hazard a guess as to why the ship’s marooned.”
Alena the com officer simply leaned forward and murmured,
“Would you look at that!”
Look, indeed. What had prompted her exclamation
wasn’t the gigantic perfection of the alien ship. Instead, the crew’s gazes
were drawn inexorably to the one flaw in that symmetry. The lower right corner
of the pyramid had been completely blown away, leaving a raw gaping wound in
its place. The crater extended deep into the metallic hull; Taramay could have
easily parked her entire destroyer inside the mangled cavity.
Lt. Cotton shook his head, saying, “What could
have caused that kind of damage? Did they hit an asteroid?”
The gunnery officer, a hard-jawed blonde named Greta
Já½¹nsson, replied from her port-side console, “I don’t think so. The metal looks
melted and fused. It would take a high speed impact to generate that much heat.
If that had happened, the forces would likely have torn the pyramid apart. This
appears to be a heavy weapons hit, not a collision with something solid.”
“But what sort of weapon?” Lt. Cotton asked.
“I’ve never seen anything in SpaceForce that could maim a pyramid like this.”
“I have,” Taramay replied, eyes narrowed. The
others looked at her quizzically. She nodded and continued, “A railgun round
from a Lamprey could do that, and worse.”
The young tech officer exclaimed, “A
super-dreadnaught? Are those things real? I thought they were still in
development!”
“Oh, they’re real, all right, though they’re new
and very few in number. And they’re the one spacecraft we have that can strike
fear in the Crabs. The whole damned ship is a weapon, a half kilometer long. I’ve
seen a single round from a Lamprey’s main gun take out an enemy destroyer, and
I mean obliterate it. SpaceForce had super-dreadnaughts deployed at Xenopus
III, where this pyramid briefly appeared during the battle. I’ll bet that a Lamprey
got off a shot before the Crabs fled back into hyperspace. What do you think, Ms.
Já½¹nsson?”
The weapons officer nodded.
“That makes as much sense as anything.” She gestured at the viewscreen and
added, “The extent of the damage explains why the ship is stranded. The propulsion
system is probably dead, and their communications would obviously be suspect as
well.”
“How would they have gotten this far if the ship
was disabled?” Alena asked, looking confused.
The gunner grunted, and said, “The weapon impact
would have generated tremendous heat, especially if it were caused by a railgun.
The rounds fired by those weapons contain a depleted uranium core which vaporizes
and ignites on impact. The end result is a major fireball. I suspect the ship’s
hyper drive failed en route, due to ongoing burn damage in sections of the hull
which still had an atmosphere.”
“Could the weapon hit have killed off the Knacker
crew?” Taramay asked, eyeing the pyramid thoughtfully.
“Perhaps,” the first officer spoke up. “The intel
people think that Crab soldiers occupy the basal portions of the pyramids, to
allow for quick deployment when they harvest a planet. Sensor scans of loaded
harvesters have suggested that the human captives are moved up into the higher
portions of the ships.”
“That would make sense,” Taramay said, nodding.
“It keeps prisoners sequestered and makes escape difficult. They would have to
fight past the Knacker soldiers to get to the exits along the base.”
“The upper portion of this pyramid appears
intact,” Lt. Cotton pointed out. “There could be quite a few humans trapped in
there.”
“Any idea how many?” Taramay asked him.
The tech officer shook his head. “A fair number,
but I can’t get exact figures. The density of the aliens’ hull is interfering
with more detailed scans.”
“We’ll have to board that ship,” the captain
decided. “Have two shuttles made ready with full troop complements. In the
meantime we’ll need to find a way in.”
“The doorways along the pyramid’s base would be
the best bet,” the first officer suggested. “I’d stay away from the damaged
section; it’s likely to be a fused mess.”
“I agree,” Taramay replied. “The challenge will
be getting a portal to open, given that the ship is mostly without power.”
“The real
challenge might not be getting in, but rather getting back out again in one
piece,” the navigator said. No one disagreed.
