Far From Home: The Complete Second Series (Far From Home 13-15) (19 page)

9.

Cessqa monitored the
Amarax
's progress away from the conflict with satisfaction. She'd managed to hold Captain King's attention completely. The last of the Namar were headed for the Chimera Cluster. There they'd wait for her return before continuing with their mission . . . with what needed to be done.

The Third Quarter would also be waiting.

"Direct hits," Gelvin said.

"The humans are strong," Cessqa said. "But those who stand strongest, fall with more noise. They can't last forever."

"Bringing us back around," Gelvin said, turning the sphere to the right. The
Jandala
leaned to starboard in response.

*

"They're coming about for another pass!" Banks yelled.

"Captain this is the Chief,"
Gunn's brusque voice bellowed out of the overheads.
"We can't take a constant barrage like this."

"I'm aware of that Chief."

Banks glanced down at his readouts. "Jump Drive spooled. Ready to go on your command, Captain."

"Chief, just hold onto something down there. We're Jumping. Bridge out."

On the viewscreen, the grey dagger of the
Jandala
finished its turn and headed straight for them.

"Fire all guns at the
Jandala
," King ordered. "Hold off on our warheads. Just batteries for now."

"Aye," Jackson said. He manned the controls with vigour, the
Defiant
rumbling beneath them as their guns vibrated. Streams of artillery flew from the
Defiant
's exteriour, fizzling against the oncoming
Jandala
's shield.

"That'll hold their attention. Mister Banks, take us to Jump," King said.

"Yes Ma'am," Banks said with relief. He threw the Jump controls. The bridge seemed to stretch out momentarily before snapping back as they leapt away.

*

"Our shield
weakens
," Cessqa said with surprise close to disbelief.

It wasn't what the
Defiant
fired at them, but the sheer volume of it. More a case of bombardment, than the extent to which the human's weaponry packed a punch.

"Firing
–" Gelvin said, just as the
Defiant
disappeared from view.

The last of the Union ship's fire peppered the front of their energy shield, then all was still. Their quarry gone,
unexpected silence engulfed them.

Cessqa hurriedly accessed the ship's scanners to determine the
Defiant
's course. It took a mere handful of seconds.

"Pursuit course," Cessqa said.

It flashed up in front of Gelvin. He re-oriented the
Jandala
to suit, then activated the Jump.

The stars opened up, expanded to become long streaks of light. And past the wall of darkness into which the
Jandala
rushed, their prey raced ahead of them.

*

"Might I have a word?" Dr. Gentry asked her. Jessica turned to look up at him.

"Of course, doctor," she said. "Let's go to my quarters."

Gentry went on ahead of her. Jessica turned to Commander Greene and gave him instructions to inform her as soon as they neared the Formation.

"Aye," Greene said. He took the captain's chair.

"I won't be long," King said. She joined Dr. Gentry and left the bridge.

*

She showed him to a seat. "Drink, Doctor?"

He shook his head. "No thank you."

Jessica sat opposite him and unbuttoned the top of her uniform tunic so she could relax for a moment.

"You're not about to strip off, are you Captain?" Gentry asked nervously.

The man's fruity as a nut cake,
Jessica thought. What must go through his mind?
How can he seem so normal and on the level one minute, but act like a complete freak the next?

"Unfortunately not, Doctor. No possibility of that in here, I'm afraid," she said.

He visibly breathed a sigh of relief. "Ah. That's good."

"So, uh, what's it about?" she asked him.

Dr. Gentry shifted in his seat. "Have you ever heard of a writer from Earth's past called Isaac Asimov?"

She shook her head. "Sorry."

"It's quite all right. He and those of his time have since passed into the realm of myth. Their writings now would seem juvenile, compared with what we know about the galaxy. However, Asimov and his contemporaries were truly great minds. Unique for their time," he said.

"Is there a connection here, Doctor?"

"Yes. I am reminded of something Asimov said once. It's my favourite quote. It goes: 'It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.'"

The point of Gentry's reverie – if indeed there was one – was wasted on her.

Jessica rubbed her eyes. "I'm sorry, Doctor, again . . . I'm just not seeing the point."

"We are at a time of change, Captain. Do you not sense it? The war with the Draxx is ended. The Union is, for the first time in generations, without an ongoing conflict. It is lost," Gentry said.

"That's not true. We're going back to exploration. To charting the unknown," Jessica said. "Peacekeeping."

"No. You're wrong. With all due respect, Captain, the Terran Union finds itself with nothing to do. Twiddling its thumbs. And rightly so, eh? What else are we meant to do?"

"As I said –"

He waved his hands at her, agitated. "Whoever stole aboard the Enigma did so with the intention of furthering their own warmongering urges. Mark my words. There is a change coming, and I fear not for the better."

"You're going into the realms of conspiracy theories now," she said, getting worked up herself. Who was he to lecture her, his opinions based on wild assumptions as to what he viewed as the truth? "Frankly, I don't even see why we're having this conversation."

"Captain, listen to me. There's something much larger going on here. A high ranking official must have ordered the kidnap of those Namarian crew. Why? Where were they taken? For what purpose? What happened to them?"

"For now, that's beyond the scope of this mission," Jessica said.

"No! No! It is at the very heart of it!" Gentry yelled. He stood, fists clenched at his sides. He remained that way for a moment, then realized he had overreacted. His hands loosened, his face became less flushed and he calmed down. "Sorry."

Now it was Jessica's turn to stand up. "Finished?"

"Sorry," he said again. He licked his top lip. "Only, you must see reason. You must see sense. This is the start of something, I feel it. War is in the Union's best interests, Captain. Without one, you are lost. Just one big organisation, united against nothing. As a race, we have to have something to fight for. That means fighting against something."

"So what are you saying? This has been done to start a war?"

"That is precisely what I am saying. Whoever is behind this has, most likely, already decided on who will take the place of the Draxx," Gentry said.

Jessica nodded. "And that would be illegal."

"So the big question will be, Captain, whether you're on one side or the other."

10.

The Mobius Formation is a hurricane of pulsar winds. It is held together, contained – prevented from dispersing by the gravitational pull of the pulsars at its core; highly magnetized, rotating neutron stars that emit wave after wave of electromagnetic radiation.

They beat like multiple hearts, pulsing in turn, making the Formation shimmer. One of the most beautiful, yet deadly, nebulas in known space. From afar, the Mobius Formation looks like a stormy sea, the gases themselves shining like mercury. The pulsar wind, powered by injection of magnetic fields and particles from the central pulsars makes for a thing of beauty on nature's part.

But upon closer inspection,
its true self is revealed. This is no ocean of silver. Lightning arcs from one side to the other, causing massive amounts of neutron radiation and eddies within the gases themselves and the pulsars at its centre strobe, making visual navigation of the Formation torture on the eyes of a wayward traveller.

In a way, the stars at
its heart killed each other. Formed pulsars. Now they leak their poison into space, into the dense nebula by which they are smothered.

In the earliest days of humanity's star watching, such regions had announced their presence in the form of clicks detected by ground-based astronomers. But now, here it is
: an immense obstruction in the pathways of space; a great, hulking cloud of almost fluidic material, powered by fallen suns.

And into this devastating brew of material fly two starships, one in pursuit of the other. The Mobius Formation is no longer confined to being the staging ground of nature's titanic conflicts
. . . but humanity's, too.

11.

"Exiting the Jump in five
. . . four . . . three . . . two . . ." Banks decelerated from the Jump, easing them back into normal space. What they emerged into was no mere empty canvas of void and stars. The Mobius Formation dominated the immediate area, filling the viewscreen left to right. It had been described as both a silver ocean and a giant storm. Both could be seen as true.

"Wow," Rayne remarked. Then she scowled at the rush of noise in her earpiece. the screaming of stars among radio waves. She pulled it free from her ear. "That hurt."

"There is unprecedented radiation in there, just as the doctor said," Chang reported. "I've never had the chance to record so much in person before. It's deadly."

"You're telling me," Commander Greene said. "Nobody goes in
to the Mobius Formation without having to."

"Apart from us," King said.

*

"I see them already," Cessqa said as Gelvin prepared to exit the Jump directly behind the
Defiant
. "And I know where they're going."

"It's not advisable," Gelvin said. "It's not a rational plan."

Cessqa looked up from the holographic display. "They're not a rational species. Primitive in almost every way. They'll go to their deaths. And we'll push them there."

She did not have to explain to Gelvin, or Risa, that the same radiation that would slowly cook the humans within the
Defiant
wouldn't affect the Namarians the same way. They could withstand the excessive energies of the Formation far more than the humans with their soft, pink bodies.

"Returning to normal space," Gelvin said.

"Good. Prepare to continue our assault."

*

Commander Greene leaned in close. "Captain, you do know we can't stay in there forever. The radiation levels . . ."

She held up a hand to stop him. "I know, Del. I know. Believe me, I don't plan on hanging around any longer than necessary."

"The
Jandala
is approaching to aft," Chang reported. "Bringing weapons to bear."

"Banks, how long until we reach the Formation?" Greene asked.

The helmsman checked. "Thirty seconds, Commander. I'm pushing her hard as I can. Shame you can't just Jump in there . . ."

"Not unless you want to demolecularise," Chang remarked.

"Full power to aft hull plating," King ordered. "Ensign, contact the Chief and ask her to give our engines a little boost. Whatever she can do."

"Aye," Rayne said.

"They are firing," Chang said.

"Brace for impact," Greene advised as the
Defiant
took the hits to its aft section.

The Formation loomed ever closer, a deep mixture of greys and silvers illuminated from within by powerful bursts of electric blue. The afterglow of each one rippled out
ward, through the surrounding gases. It looked completely alien in there, a cosmic brew of toxic material that any artist would have gave his right arm to study and paint.

Jessica remembered that it had nearly been assigned the name The
Medusa
Formation for just that reason. Beautiful to look at but, in reality, inherently dangerous.

"The Chief said she'll do what she can," Rayne said.

"It is a shame we couldn't risk a short Jump burst," Greene said echoing Banks's sentiment although he too was fully aware of the fact that what stopped them Jumping
inside
the Formation also stopped them travelling at such speed in close proximity
to
it.

"Ten seconds," Banks said. "We'll have to slow down once we're inside."

"Not until you've breached a million kilometres," Jessica said.

Banks looked over his shoulder in surprise. "Cap
. . ."

"Not until. You have your order," she warned him. "We need to gain some distance. She can take it."

"Hope you're right," Greene muttered so only she could hear.

So do I,
Jessica didn't say aloud as the
Defiant
ploughed straight into the Mobius Formation head first, the dense clouds of matter smashing into the forward hull.

Hear me old girl? Do me proud and hold together
. . .