McCollum - GIBRALTAR STARS Read online

  He was once again strapped into Amethyst’s Auxiliary Control Center. The last time he’d been here, he’d been Amy’s Executive Officer.

  Not this time.

  That billet had gone to an officer being groomed for his first command. However, his replacement was in engineering, supervising the gaggle of technicians who would record every aspect of the coming jump. The mission plan called for the recordings in case something went awry. Assuming the ship wasn’t vaporized or flung off somewhere in the trackless reaches of space, the recorded data might show the scientists what had gone wrong.

  With so many scientific types onboard, Captain Borsman was short of trained officers to supervise them and assigned Mark his old duty station.

  Mark and Lisa joined Amethyst at High Station. The ship and three others were there taking on consumables. Two of the other ships were fleet freighters. Each carried a disassembled human-designed stargate in its hold. The fourth ship was the cruiser Saladin. Once Amethyst jumped, it would be Saladin’s job to make sure nothing unexpected popped out of their new stargate, headed in the opposite direction.

  “Going back to Brinks so soon, Captain?” Lisa joked as she floated out of the mouth of the transport tube connecting Amethyst to High Station. She was surprised he had come down to the suiting chamber to meet them.

  “Amy is too new for overhaul,” Borsman replied, “and I didn’t want to take a chance on being assigned to the intra-system customs patrol. So I volunteered to make the return jump. We are, after all, the pioneers of this particular technology. What about you two? I didn’t expect to see you back this quickly.”

  “We got tired of beautiful sunsets, soft beds, good food, and showers with as much hot water as we liked,” Mark answered. “It’s back to the Spartan life for us.”

  “Don’t torture me, Commander,” Borsman groaned, “especially about the shower. You know where your cabin is. Get settled in and then report to me in my cabin.”

  Shortly afterward, they’d departed High Station with their small flotilla. In addition to their cargo, each freighter carried a team of scientists and technicians to assemble and calibrate the gates. If all went as planned, the second freighter would follow Amethyst through the gate and offload its cargo on the other side. The twin gates would be the first of dozens that would become humanity’s superhighway into the heart of the Sovereignty.

  Amy arrived at New Eden ten days after departing High Station. It took another ten to unpack the stargate, reassemble it, and get it calibrated. Finally, however, they were ready. Amethyst slid forward to enter the focus of the gate.

  Mark watched as the gate’s ring expanded until it flowed off the edges of the viewscreen, leaving only a black firmament and the bright glowing ball of New Eden’s sun. He, like everyone else onboard, was encased in his vacuum suit... just in case.

  The new gate was larger in diameter but thinner in cross-section than a Broan model. The difference tended to make it look spindly.

  “Prepare for jump!” The astrogator’s words echoed in Mark’s earphones, along with breathing sounds of the rest of the crew.

  “Generators online,” came the response from engineering. “Stargate is responding. The field is building in strength… We have reached critical curvature. Ready to jump now.”

  “We are ready to jump, Captain.”

  “You have the conn, Astrogator.”

  “Aye aye, sir. All Hands, final jump warning! Thirty seconds. Twenty… Ten… five, four, three, two, one, Jump!”

  There was a strange sensation, a momentary tug at the innards. Mark had never experienced anything like it using a Broan gate. It distracted him for an instant. When he looked up, the spindly ring was gone, as was New Eden’s star.

  In their place, neatly bisecting the forward viewscreen, were the decorated hull plates of a Broan stargate.

  #

  Chapter Nineteen

  Admiral Dan Landon sat at his desk. He lounged in a spindly wrought iron chair that should have been uncomfortable (but wasn’t) as he watched the morning report scroll up his workscreen. His right hand rested lightly on the controller to regulate the speed. It was part of his standard morning routine.

  After rising at 05:00, he exercised for half an hour before a quick sponge bath and the usual early morning maintenance routines. He donned shipsuit and boots, checked to make sure everything was correct, and left his quarters promptly at 06:00. With Marine guard in tow, he stopped by the commissary for a steaming bulb of coffee; then entered the rough-hewn cave that was his office at 06:10. The bulb went on the cast iron desk next to the hologram of Cara and the kids. After a few sips of hot black elixir, the bulb went back to its resting place and he brought up the morning report.

  The ritual had been the same for so long that he could barely remember a time when he’d begun his day differently. Running a war, it turned out, was far more routine than commanding a starship. He envied those officers he ordered into the deep black.

  The morning report was a compendium of the previous 24 hours, items his staff thought it important for the boss to know. His aide added to it throughout the day. It was edited and finalized by the Officer of the Watch on midwatch. The format was as stylized as one of the long-dead newspapers of legend.

  The first section was devoted to comings and goings. Congress, one of the Q-ships, had departed Sutton-orbit last evening at 24:00 hours, en route to the Sovereignty. She was accompanied by the Cruiser Atalanta, which would provide overwatch protection. Congress was the first of the ersatz Broan craft equipped with the new simulacrum software.

  Next, Landon turned to the list of new arrivals. A quartet of freighters dropped out of superlight at 03:50 and announced their presence via comm laser. It would be two weeks before they reached Brinks. Their journey was extended by the fact that the big world was currently on the opposite side of Hideout from the breakout point.

  He anxiously scanned the summary of their cargo. The freighters were crammed to the hull plates with all manner of things Brinks Base needed, but it was their load of foodstuffs that caught his eye. Most were standard rations, of course. However, each ship carried an allotment of luxury goods. Scanning the list, Landon noted that the commissary would be expanding its menu for awhile. That was the best news he’d had in weeks. Even a minor increase in selection would cause an uptick in morale.

  Nor were the freighters the only new arrivals. Two hours ago, a cruiser with a familiar name made Sutton orbit. The ground-to-orbit tugs had wasted no time beginning the offloading process. The first of these was probably grounding even as he read.

  After Comings and Goings came the Personnel Status Report. The welfare rating was down again today. The cause was concern by the medical staff over an outbreak of the common cold aboard Crispin, a newly commissioned cruiser that had completed the Long Jump the week before. Somehow a petty officer had managed to come down with the disease after a year in vacuum. The doctors were still trying to figure out how he had been exposed, and had quarantined the ship.

  The first thing on Landon’s list was their request to extend the quarantine another seventy-two hours. He checked the action block without hesitation. Respiratory illnesses were especially worrisome in a closed space habitat and any officer willing to overrule his doctors’ recommendations ought not be in command.

  Next was a gratifyingly short list of disciplinary actions. Most were minor infractions. One storekeeper had been discovered operating a vacuum still. He would have thirty days of waste reclamation duty to reconsider his actions. A couple of vacuum monkeys fought over a woman in their section. They were confined to the brig until their section leader convened article hearings. They would both likely lose one stripe.

  Finally, Landon came to the most important, if also most mundane, part of the report. This one was devoted to statistics. A series of columns related the name, catalog number, quantity on hand, and number of days’ supply of the most critical needs of the fleet. The list went on for several pages and usual
ly required twenty minutes or so of his time to give it proper attention. He was halfway through when the annunciator on his desk buzzed.

  “Yes?” he asked without taking his eyes from the workscreen.

  “Commander Rykand to see you, sir,” the Marine guarding his door announced.

  “Which one?”

  “Both of them, Admiral.”

  “Send them in.”

  He rose from behind his desk, taking care not to launch himself in Sutton’s low gravity. The door opened and two familiar figures skated through.

  “Mark, Lisa, welcome back! I didn’t expect to see you again so quickly, or at all for that matter.”

  “We got lonely for the monastery,” Lisa said, reaching out to take the Admiral’s outstretched hand. “The rich living was getting to our waistlines.”

  “I wondered about that when I saw your names on Amethyst’s roster. Congratulations on your promotion, Lisa. It must feel good not having to salute this ape.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good to see you as well, Mark.”

  “Good to see you, Admiral.”

  He ushered them to the two visitor chairs in front of his desk. They were more wrought-iron products from the local solar smelter. When the three of them were settled, Landon said, “I’ve read Captain Borsman’s report about the jump to New Eden, and back again. It seems to have gone surprisingly well. Tell me about your trip. How was Earth?”

  Mark and Lisa took turns recounting the events of their visit home, and of the return through the human-produced stargate. They finished with, “The second gate is being assembled at Grand Central as we speak.”

  Landon’s puzzlement was evident in his expression.

  “Grand Central Terminus,” Lisa explained. “Someone started calling The Void that and it caught on.”

  “How soon to go operational?”

  “They said three weeks. That was ten days ago.”

  “Hallelujah!” The Admiral exclaimed. “I’m not sure we could have kept this base running much longer via the Long Jump. Most people don’t realize how tight we are on supplies here.”

  Mark gave Lisa a concerned look before turning back. “Is the war going badly?”

  Landon shrugged. “Actually, it is going as well as can be expected. It will go a lot better when we get our own stargate link. The survey is on schedule, although we still haven’t found the Broan home world. We are kicking off a new effort to map the Sovereignty. Lisa, I want to talk to you about that. But first, we may have a problem…”

  #

  Captain Vance Harcourt, of the Q-Ship Xavier, sat in his command chair and observed the quiet beehive of activity that consumed his bridge crew. They were 60 days out of Brinks Base and on the seventh and penultimate leg of their current spy mission. So far, everything had gone precisely as planned, which was one reason for the tension around him. The Space Navy believed in the ancient axiom, If everything is going all right, you have obviously overlooked something!

  Outwardly, Xavier was a Type 12 bulk carrier, basically a series of spherical tanks for the transport of high value liquids and gasses. Inside, of course, his ship was a sham. Most tanks were mere empty shells and not even vacuum tight. Others contained the surveillance gear that constituted the ship’s eyes and ears in enemy space. Had the designers left it at that, Xavier would have possessed a thrust-to-weight ratio that would have been the envy of any ship in the fleet.

  Of course, it would also have made her useless as a spy craft.

  While stargates avoid the problem of Einstein’s Universal Speed Limit, they are not immune to the Law of Conservation of Energy. One vital parameter in making a jump is the mass of the ship.

  It was important for Xavier to at least simulate the mass of a loaded bulk tanker, and not merely its outward appearance. The Q-Ship’s designers solved the problem by ballasting the ship with lead blocks. Thus, the nickname: Lead Sled.

  “We are cleared to approach the stargate, Captain,” his astrogator announced.

  “Do so, Mr. Phovanavong.”

  “Powering up now.”

  On the forward viewscreen, the tiny ring began to grow perceptibly larger. When Xavier arrived in the vicinity of the gate, they’d found a convoy of ships queued up to make the jump to the next system before them. Ships in convoy usually meant Broan business of some sort. While waiting three hours for his turn, Harcourt resolved to watch them on the other side to see where they were headed. The information might prove useful sometime in the future.

  As the stargate grew larger, he listened to the intercom as various departments prepared for jump. Phovanavong’s excited voice broke into the chatter.

  “Captain, something’s wrong here.”

  “What?”

  “The gate, sir. It’s talking to me.”

  “Say again!”

  “The gate just sent me an order in Broan.”

  “What order?”

  “It wants to establish visual contact.”

  “It’s manned?” Harcourt asked. The Broa weren’t supposed to have enough manpower to rule all of the worlds they’d sucked up, let alone put someone at every stargate.

  “No, sir. It’s some sort of automated message being transmitted by the gate computer. It is directing us to send it a live picture of the bridge before it will clear us for jump.”

  Harcourt swore under his breath and thought fast. It was too late to make a break for the deep black.

  “What should I tell it, sir?”

  “That we will comply, Astrogator. Set up a visual link and send it to my workscreen.”

  “Aye aye.”

  A few seconds later, what appeared to be an actual Broa stared out of the screen at him. For a moment, he thought his astrogator wrong about the gate being manned. Then he realized that it was a recording.

  “This is Bulk Freighter, Cansawan Sky, out of Posledinal with a cargo of serums, en route to Voskedol. Commander Sasstandival. How may I help you?”

  “What species, Commander?” a very realistic voice asked in Broan.

  “Batan,” he said, reeling off a long registry number in the Broan base-12 numbering system. The species in question were bipeds, with a slight physical resemblance to humanity… although you wouldn’t want to meet one alone in an alley on a dark night.

  There was a short pause, after which the figure spoke again. “You may proceed with your jump, Commander.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  The transmission cut off abruptly. Harcourt sat and stared at the suddenly blank screen. What was it that had just happened? It seemed innocuous enough, except that it was a change in procedure, one that must be reported back to H.Q.

  Something wasn’t right!

  #

  “Xavier reported back three weeks ago,” Landon said. “They were the first. We’ve heard from two other craft since then. Both were challenged and forced to leave a visual record before the gate computer would authorize the jump.”

  Mark frowned. “Do you suppose it has something to do with us, sir?”

  “Not known,” Landon replied. “Still, one explanation that fits the facts is that the Broa are gathering visual records because they have awakened to the fact that strangers are using their gates.”

  “What are we going to do about it?” Mark asked.

  “We’ve already done it.”

  “Done what, sir?” Lisa asked.

  “As soon as Xavier reported, I put together a team of specialists and they wrote a software program. The next time a gate computer challenges one of our ships, they will get a visual of whatever species we are pretending to be.”

  “A computer simulation? Will that fool them?”

  “The development team says it will. That is one thing Congress will be doing when she reaches her area of operations next week. So far as the Broa are concerned, that ship will be crewed by lizards.”

  “And if the Broa decide to board?” Mark asked.

  “It could get a little exciting.”

&nbs
p; #

  Chapter Twenty

  “Which brings me to you two,” Landon said. It’s damned good to see you back, and not only because of all we’ve been through together. I need competent people and you are two of the most competent people I know.”

  Mark felt a chill go up his spine, and not one of quiet pride at having been complimented by the boss. The Navy wasn’t his career, or hadn’t been until the arrival of a certain silly-looking monster. Still, he’d worn the uniform long enough to recognize that when a superior began buttering you up, bad news was in the offing.

  The Admiral continued. “The first task in any war is to establish a robust logistics chain capable of supporting future combat operations. The new stargates will do that. Now we need to work on the next couple of problems in our rather long list.”

  “What is that, sir?” Lisa asked.

  “It was Mark’s idea to use Earth’s anonymity as a shield against attack. Unfortunately, it would appear that the Broa thought up the idea long before we did.”

  “Sir?”

  “Despite the fact that we’ve sent spies through a couple of hundred Broan-controlled systems, we have, as yet, no clue as to where to find their home star. It isn’t in the Pastol database. It’s not on any stargate network diagram we’ve seen. There is no mention of it in any of our intercepts.”

  Lisa frowned. “Something wrong with our approach, Admiral?”

  “You tell me. It was originally your idea to send ships through the stargates and have them eavesdrop in transit. Is there something else we should be doing?”

  “Nothing comes immediately to mind.”

  “It hasn’t been that our Q-Ship efforts have been in vain,” Landon continued. “Perhaps they’ve been too productive. We sit here awash in comm intercepts, most of which are in languages we don’t understand. It’s the classic information overload problem.

  “We’re reaching the point of diminishing returns. That is, we are learning more and more that we already know while our ships are ranging farther and farther afield. This new stargate protocol is worrisome. And even if it has nothing to do with us, each successive mission carries with it the risk that one of our ships will be captured.”