Gabriel's Redemption (11 page)

“Watch it, or I’ll knock you out, cover you with a rug and throw you in there with them,” she said, only half-jokingly, and pulled the cart to the door on the other side of the room, the wheels bumping over stray cables.

Chapter 11

Gabriel was awake several hours before they arrived at the wormhole, and spent the time during the slightly-uncomfortable deceleration phase reading through the colony’s history and Naval Intelligence’s estimates of its capabilities and defenses. With the exception of standard status transmissions back to Earth, as required by world charter regulations, no one had been in contact with anyone on Poliahu since the first year it was colonized. No actual visits were required as long as status reports were received on time, and because its climate was so inhospitable, no one wanted to volunteer for an optional ambassadorial trip.

The colony was unremarkable in both size and appearance, he saw by the photos. Low buildings, buried in snow and ice. The only lights came from the nuke generator near one of the ridges it sat between, the generator unit itself a quarter mile from the other buildings. Essentially, the colony buildings were devoid of any color, lighting, and to all outwards appearances, any life whatsoever. They had been told the colony name, Diji, was Australian aboriginal for sun. Someone had a sense of irony, he supposed.

According to the original charter information, the colony was not permitted any weapons larger than a defensive sidearm. No lasers, particle beams, missiles, or heavy kinetic weapons. They had six microsatellites in orbit providing GPS and surveying radar, although looking at the size of the colony and the impassable terrain surrounding it, Gabriel was hard-pressed to see any need for either of those capabilities. One standard Nokia NK-24 communications satellite was in geostationary orbit above the colony, providing a data link with 46 Scorpii’s wormhole station, and then beyond into other systems. No defensive perimeter systems, no force fields or magnetic shields other than weather resistant EM fields.

All in all, although he hated to say it, it certainly did look like a piece of cake. However he was well aware that what was listed in the original colony charter, and what was sent back in status reports, could be vastly different from what they’d be running into. Especially considering the people running the place - the reason behind the mission in the first place. An illegal drug production facility was likely to have something more on hand than just semi-automatic pistols.

He closed the neuretics file just as Takahashi came into the lounge, walking gingerly in the .6G of the rotating ring. “Commander, we’re approaching the T-gate. We’re all assembled in the mess, care to join us?”

Gabriel stood up, stretching his back. “As long as it’s in the ring. I’m not up for transit while in zero-G,” he replied.

“Yes sir, two sections over. I didn’t realize you hadn’t been in the mess,” Takahashi said.

“No, not yet. Crashed out for a few hours, then did some reading.” He rubbed his eyes, the gritty residue of the sandman’s visit earlier still present.
 
“Lead on,” he said, waving to the hatchway.

“Aye aye, sir.” Takahashi turned on his heel and walked through the hatchway into the next section.

The rotating ring, which wasn’t actually a perfect circle inside, contained twelve sections, each the same size and layout of the lounge Gabriel just left. They were laid out end to end, each one connected by a short triangle of a threshold. The threshold’s floor was six feet long while the ceiling tapered to a point, indicative of a 30 degree angle change between each section. The ‘floor’ of each section was the outer part of the ring, with the rotation of the ring giving the occupants an artificial gravity in an outwards direction. Thankfully the designers of the
Ventura
-class had decided against installing windows on the floor. Gabriel had been fortunate enough to have once traveled in an Earth-Ganymede luxury yacht whose builders had done just that, and although it offered a spectacular view, it also made for very disorienting (and nauseating) walks.
 

Each section rose up from the previous section on a 30 degree incline, so when one walked from one section to another, they were going uphill. He considered trying a jog one morning around the ring, but he didn’t want to disappoint himself by running out of steam with a perpetual uphill run. Especially not in front of these kids.

Two uphills later, Takahashi led Gabriel into the mess hall, which for a black-ops military ship such as the
Marcinko
was very well appointed. Fourteen chairs with thick cushioning surrounded the main table, six of them occupied by the other members of the team. Lamber, Sabra, Brevik, and Sowers were playing cards (Brevik having the largest stack of chips, Gabriel noted), while St. Laurent sat reading her flexscreen, and Jimenez plucked idly at his guitar.

One large wallscreen dominated the wall opposite the ultra-modern food dispenser, the image showing a view from the
Marcinko’s
forward video feed. Jupiter was visible just on the edge of the screen, with its moon Callisto closer to the center, the entire scene sprinkled with stars. In the very center of the image sat two vertical structures, parallel to each other, with several blinking lights. The Takahashi Gate.

The T-gates, as they were more commonly referred to, were first built in 2091 by the Japanese Space Administration to more easily control the unpredictable nature of the wormholes. The first wormhole was discovered four years earlier by Masahiro Takahashi of the research vessel
Hakudo Maru
.

The
Hakudo Maru
had stumbled on the first wormhole, located just inside Jupiter’s orbital path around the sun, completely by chance. The ship was en route to study the atmosphere of the gas giant for possible use as fusion fuel when a probe sent in advance of its route suddenly disappeared. Captain Takahashi ordered the ship in closer to the point where they lost the probe, and detected highly unusual gravitometric readings. Not wanting to endanger his ship or her crew, he ordered another probe sent. When it too disappeared, this time right in front of their eyes, he took it upon himself (a hunch he later explained to have come from his boyhood science fiction reading) to have another probe reconfigured to automatically return on a direct reverse course thirty seconds after it passed the point in space where the previous two had vanished.

The probe was launched, and again disappeared at the same gravity fluctuation. However, after sixty seconds, this probe returned, appearing at the same location, on an opposite return course, completely intact. Takahashi and his crew brought it back on board, and over the next three days all gas research on the ship ceased while the crew excitedly pored over the data. It was conclusive - based on star data, the probe had instantly jumped over 150 light years into a completely different star system, determined to be Nu Ophiuchi, a binary system with no planets, only a seven million mile wide asteroid belt drifting around two early-phase stars.

Within a month, dozens of JSA ships arrived at the ‘wormhole’, as the
Hakudo Maru
crew was calling the gravity fluctuation; again a nod to Takahashi’s reading habits. Exuberant scientists sent more and more probes through, military leaders fretted over possible wartime scenarios, and young crewmembers unhappy with their current positions in life dreamed about limitless futures in another star system.

Over the next year, thousands of probes were sent to scan every corner of the solar system, by every Earthbound government and private corporation, but no other wormholes were found. Hundreds of probes sent through the Jupiter wormhole did the same, and reported back with one additional wormhole point. The scientists posited, correctly as it turned out later, that the number of wormholes in a particular system were based on gravity fluctuations caused by the star itself, with single star systems like Sol having one, binary systems having two, and so on. The home solar system had one wormhole, and Nu Ophiuchi, named
Ryokou
by Captain Takahashi after the Japanese word for journey, had two, matching the number of stars.

The decision was made to send a manned ship through, and although the JSA vociferously objected, it was Masahiro Takahashi who rode the first shuttle through. The crew of the
Hakudo Maru
, now considered heroes back home, wouldn’t allow anyone but their revered captain to have the honor. He returned safely from the four minute ride, though horribly nauseous as he explained later, and went down in history with other pioneers like Gagarin, Armstrong, and Chiang Le.
 

The gates were created to not only mark the location of the wormholes, but also to stabilize the fluctuations. With a combination of electromagnetic fields and particle beam generators, they created a safe corridor down the gullet of the wormhole, allowing ships up to a mile and a half wide to pass through. Smaller ships, such as the
Marcinko
, were outfitted with special EM field generators which meshed with the T-gate fields and provided a smoother transit.

Gabriel watched the T-gate get closer on the wallscreen and turned to Takahashi, who had dragged one of the chairs closer to the screen, away from the others at the table. “Not a bad namesake you have, Ensign.”

“No sir, not bad at all,” he replied as he took a sip from a water bulb in one hand. His other hand clutched a spacesickness bag.

Gabriel pulled up a chair near the ensign and sat down, watching the screen idly.
Not my first transit
, he thought,
but the first I’ve done in several years. Didn’t really think I’d ever be back out here again.
He idly scratched at his scarred leg.

The
Marcinko’s
chief of the watch called over the intercom, “Crew, prepare for transit. T-gate entry in two minutes, mark.”

Gabriel noticed the rest of the team had gotten quiet and had turned their attention to the wallscreen as well. The blinking towers grew larger, and he felt more than heard the ship’s EM field generators spin up. The fine hairs on the back of his neck and arms tingled and stood on end as the static electricity increased, and the overhead light dimmed slightly.

“Transit in five, four, three, two, one…mark,” the intercom intoned, and Gabriel’s world went blue.

Transit through a wormhole was a totally unique experience, depending on whom one asked. Some people felt nothing, some people blacked out, some people had visions of past events, some claimed to have visions of future events, some claimed to see their god (and in fact, an entire industry was built around religious wormhole cruises), some got violently ill, and in three instances in human history, died. In Gabriel’s case, as it had been years before when he regularly transited, everything turned an electric blue, like he was in a room illuminated by intense cobalt spotlights.
 

In seconds it ended, and his blue wash went away, fading back into the normal white walls and red chairs. The wallscreen showed the Ryokou Twins, the adjacent system to Sol which was the second step on every interstellar journey. He heard retching next to him and looked over to see Takahashi’s face buried in the bag, his water bulb at the ready for when he finished.

He turned back to the rest of the team, five of whom were getting back into their previous activity, the only exception being Jimenez, who was passed out on the floor.
 

“He okay?” Gabriel asked, looking down at the prone figure.

“Happens every time to Arturo,” Sowers answered as he picked up his cards to continue the game. “At least it gives us a few minutes without that damned guitar.”

“Broke his nose during his first transit,” Takahashi chimed in, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “And his second one, before he finally learned his lesson.”

Gabriel heard soft snoring from the petty officer on the floor and gave a small smile. “Understood.”
 

He rose from his chair, checking his neuretics for the time. Seventeen hundred hours. “I’m going to chat with the captain. I’ll meet you guys for dinner in an hour,” he said, and headed out of the mess, giving Takahashi a pat on the back on the way.

Chapter 12

Ignacio Cáceres whistled as he walked along the Plaza de Maya in downtown Buenos Aires. The warm December wind blew in off the Rio de la Plata as he passed by the General Manuel Belgrano Monument, the Argentinian flag held high by the general on horseback. At the base of the monument he saw several homeless people, wrapped in blankets and lying on cardboard. Some held battered plastic cups aloft begging for pesos, some just stared in stim-induced stupor. His earlier high spirits were dampened by the sight, incongruously at the foot of a war hero who had designed the original Argentinean flag. He passed by the group, eyes averted, and made his way across the Plaza.

After a few hundred feet, the Casa Rosada, the capitol building of the South American Republic, stood before him. Its pink stone was a reminder of a time long past when the most important domestic issue was the opposing red and white colors of two political parties, which President Sarmiento had creatively, and some said spitefully, solved by having the building painted pink. He climbed the steps, his good mood now completely vanished as he began to dread the upcoming meeting, at which he’d be discussing something far more important than opposing colors.

He passed through the metal detector quickly, having not brought anything larger than his wedding ring to this meeting. The guard scanned his neuretics to confirm identity, then asked Cáceres to walk through the chemical sniffer. After a few short puffs of air, the glass door on the far side of the small chamber opened, and he was granted entry into the seat of the South American Republic’s government.

He walked up two flights of stairs, bypassing the elevator as part of his promise to his wife to lose 10 pounds by Christmas, and down the hall to an inconspicuous door. The name in gold on the dark oak surface read, “Juan Martin Tevez, Minister of Finance.” He rapped lightly, and with a soft buzz the door lock disengaged and opened inwards.