The Search for Gram (10 page)

“What is the status of the strike?” asked Captain Sheppard.

“Nine fighters are approaching the unknown ship and are preparing to attack,” replied the OSO. “Lieutenant Commander Hobbs’ fighter is still attached to the
Gulf
. One of its motors has a problem that the maintenance technicians are working on.”

“Who’s leading the strike?”

“The squadron’s XO, Lieutenant Commander Brighton, in
Asp 02
,” replied the OSO.

Captain Sheppard turned to the duty engineer. “Do we have a casualty list yet of who we lost in the torpedo strike?”

“Yes, sir. We lost Lieutenants Danny Walling and Larry Albertson in
Asp 11
and Lieutenants Kenneth Miller and Ira Hensley in
Asp 12.
We also lost the assistant engineer and five other personnel in Engine Room Two.”

“Damn,” said the CO. “We absolutely can
not
take another one of those hits.” He turned to Steropes. “How are we doing, Steropes?”

“The unknown ship is gaining on us,” Steropes replied. “With only one engine operational, the enemy ship will catch us well before we get to the stargate.”

“Continue firing,” said Captain Sheppard; “maybe we’ll get lucky.” He turned to the duty engineer. “We need more power. When will they have the other engine back online?”

The duty engineer shook his head. “I’ve been listening over the damage control circuit. I’m sorry, sir, but I think this is the best you’re going to get. The damage control party said the engine bay is open to space, and everyone that was in it, including the assistant engineer, is missing. They appear to have been sucked overboard. We’re already running Number One harder than we’re supposed to, and the chief engineer doesn’t know how much longer it will last.”

“Tell them to do what they can,” replied Captain Sheppard.

“I will, sir, but from what they’re saying, most of the motor has disappeared. It’s just gone, sir, as in no longer there.”

“Solomon, can you confirm the actual motor is gone?” asked Captain Sheppard.

“I have one camera in the engine room,” replied the artificial intelligence, “and it appears a large portion of the motor has been physically removed from the ship.”

“Can you play back the video and see how that happened?”

“I have played it back 237 times, and I have not been able to determine the cause. In one frame the motor is there; in the next it is missing. Its disappearance corresponds to the detonation of the weapon fired at us by the unknown ship.”

“Sir, the mission logs have been downloaded to a message missile,” said the communications officer. “It is ready to be launched to Golirion.”

“Send it along with the video of the engine bay.”

“Aye, sir,” replied the communications officer. “Launching.”

“New contact!” The OSO and DSO both called moments later.

“Sir!” the DSO added. “The new ship destroyed the message missile.”

“What?” asked the CO. “Where is it?”

“It’s only 100,000 miles off our starboard beam,” said the OSO.

“Destroy the bastard!” ordered Captain Sheppard. “Fire all weapons!”

The OSO pushed a button. “Grasers firing,” he said. The crew could also feel the jolts of more ASMs launching. “Grasers effective,” added the OSO. “The new vessel is smaller than a frigate, and doesn’t appear to have any shields. The grasers are going right through it! Missiles will hit in three…two…one…”

“Formation looks good, XO,” said Guns. “All fighters are in a line abreast.”

“Coming up on firing range,” replied Lights. “It’s odd they haven’t tried to stop us yet…”

“Hey, I’m not complaining,” said Guns.

“
All ships
, Asp 02,” commed the XO. “
I just talked to the
Vella Gulf
. Whatever it was that hit the ship removed a large portion of one of the engine rooms. The
Gulf
cannot afford to be hit by another one of this ship’s weapons. We have
got
to take it out. We will launch missiles and then close to laser range. Stand by to fire on my mark. Three…two…one…FIRE!
” 45 missiles detached from the fighters and leapt forward, racing ahead of the fighters as they continued toward the unknown ship.

“Holy shit!” cried the OSO. “The new target didn’t defend itself. All the missiles hit, and it has been completely destroyed!”

“Captain Sheppard,” said Steropes, “I am getting increased power readings from the other ship, similar to the readings we saw just before it launched the weapon that hit us.”

“What’s the status of our fighters?” asked Captain Sheppard. “Will they be able to hit it before it launches again?”

“Torpedo launch!” called the DSO.

“No sir,” said Steropes. “The ship has launched another weapon. The fighters’ missiles will arrive in six seconds.”

“Damn it!” said the OSO. “The ship disappeared before any of the fighters’ missiles could hit. I was hoping we’d get lucky, and one would go for the torpedo, but that didn’t happen. All the fighters’ weapons missed, and the torpedo is still coming toward us.”

“Fire everything you’ve got!” ordered the CO. “Kill that torpedo.”

“I don’t understand,” said Steropes. “The smaller vessel didn’t defend itself; it just sat there and let us destroy it. It was almost like the enemy wanted us to destroy it.”

“Perhaps they were gathering information on our weapons systems,” Captain Sheppard replied. He turned to the communications officer. “Launch another message missile. If nothing else, we’ll at least get the word back to Golirion.”

“Yes, sir, launching another missile back to Golirion,” replied the communications officer.

“Defensive fire ineffective against the torpedo,” said the DSO. “When a missile gets to where the torpedo should be, it disappears, and the missile flies through the spot. The lasers seem to hit it, but do not have any effect.”

“Give me some options,” said Captain Sheppard. “What else haven’t we tried?”

“Lieutenant Commander Hobbs just launched, sir,” said the OSO. “I’m having him fire his missiles at the torpedo, but that’s all I can do.”

“Asp 01
is clear, proceeding on mission,
” commed Calvin.

“We just got retasked, sir,” said his WSO, Lieutenant Sasaki ‘Supidi’ Akio. “We are supposed to try to stop a torpedo headed toward the ship. I have the target on your screen. We must turn quickly; there is little time.”

Calvin pulled harder on the stick, yanking the fighter around in a tight turn.

“Stand by to fire,” said Supidi as the nose of the fighter came into line with the target. “Fire!”

Calvin pulled the trigger on his stick, and the missiles launched. The torpedo was already close, and it only took a few seconds before Supidi said, “They missed.”

“There’s no way we’re going to hit the torpedo with our laser,” said Calvin. “One last thing to try…” He pulled the fighter back to the right and into the path of the missile.

“It’s been nice flying with you, sir,” said Supidi.

There was a flash, and the fighter was gone.

“Shit,” said Guns, “We just lost
07
.” After the enemy ship launched the torpedo, a number of high energy lasers had opened up on the Asps as their crews raced to get within the range of their fighters’ lasers. The Terrans had already lost
Asp 03
and
Asp 06
in the first attack; the loss of
07,
with its crew of Lieutenants John McCarter and Vernon Shepherd, made three.

No time to dwell on it.

The victor of fighter battles on Earth and in space, Guns continued to jink the fighter back and forth, seeming to instinctively know where the next laser bolt would go. The rest of the pilots followed him, dodging back and forth.

“Five seconds,” said the XO, working the targeting solution. Sweat puddled in her suit as its environmental system strained to keep up. “Stand by…fire!”

Guns pulled the trigger, and laser fire splashed down the side of the alien destroyer. For the first time the vessel was hit. Although its armor withstood the majority of the laser fire, several jets of mist showed where holes had been opened in the hull, and atmosphere vented out.

Asp 05
followed, opening more small holes in the destroyer’s side.

“
Pour it on,
” commed the XO. “
If we can open enough holes in it, maybe we can get them to disengage.
”

Asp 08
and
Asp 09
followed
Asp 05
, with
08
going down the port side and
09
down the starboard. Without warning, the alien vessel disappeared, and the two space fighters vanished with it. When the enemy ship reappeared two seconds later,
Asp 04
was in the same space as the enemy ship. The speeding metal slug that had been a space fighter, along with its crew of Lieutenant William Santiago and Lieutenant Keith Dodd, tore lengthwise through the alien destroyer until it ran into something explosive, and both vessels detonated catastrophically. There were several large pieces of the alien ship remaining; of the fighter and its crew, there was nothing.

“Fuck,” said the DSO under his breath. In a more normal tone he said, “The enemy vessel disappeared and then came back. When it reappeared,
Asp 04
was in the same space it occupied. Both
Asp 04
and the enemy vessel have been destroyed.”

“Call back our fighters,” said Captain Sheppard. His tone was muted; he could scarcely believe the devastation which had just overtaken his air wing. “How many do we have remaining?”

“Three, sir,” replied the OSO. “The XO in
Asp 02
,
Asp 05
and
Asp 10
. The rest have all been destroyed or are missing.”

“7
5
percent of the air wing gone in a single engagement,” said Sheppard, shaking his head.

“Captain Sheppard, the Jotunn vessel has begun moving,” said Steropes. “It appears to be heading in our direction.”

“Helmsman, keep heading for the stargate. OSO, have the fighters join with us enroute.”

“New contact!” called the DSO. “It’s a little ways behind us…small ship…it’s
Asp 01
, sir.
Asp 01
just reappeared!”

“Get them aboard ASAP,” ordered the Captain, a little bit of hope seeping into his voice. “Have the other two fighters reappeared?”

“No, sir,” replied the DSO.

“Keep an eye out for them,” said the Captain. “If they show up, call them back.” He turned to Steropes. “Is there any chance of the Jotunn vessel catching us or getting within weapons range?”

“No, sir,” replied Steropes. “As long as we don’t slow down, we have a large enough lead to easily beat the Jotunn ship to the stargate.”

“Good,” said Captain Sheppard. “While we’re recovering the fighters, try to figure out what the hell just happened. There will be a staff meeting in my conference room once the fighters are back aboard.”

The aviators filed into the conference room, heads down and feet dragging. Most were covered in sweat; all looked like they had been crying.

Calvin and Lieutenant Commander Brighton took seats at the table, the remaining flyers sat down in chairs behind them. There were a lot of empty chairs.

Captain Sheppard could see Calvin and his XO looked particularly distraught. Charged with keeping the men and women under them safe, they felt the loss more than anyone else. Sheppard knew how they felt. He was ultimately responsible for the lives of everyone on the
Vella Gulf
. The entire fiasco was his fault. He had two choices: wrap himself in grief or learn from it and make sure they were ready the next time they met the aliens.

He intended to be ready.

Still…“Calvin…XO…I just want you to know how sorry I am for your losses.”

Calvin nodded, not trusting his voice to say anything.

“I’m sorry…and I intend to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” continued Captain Sheppard in a firm tone. “The purpose of this meeting is to try to figure out what happened, so we’ll be ready the next time we meet them.”

“Bu
t—
” said a voice from the back row.

The CO tried to identify who had spoken, but couldn’t. “Yes,” he said, “I know we destroyed their ship, but I doubt that was the only one they had. I don’t know how many they have or how close they may be, but we need to get back to Golirion and report. We need to rearm ourselves, and we need to replace our losses. And
then
, we need to come back here and kick their asses! I intend to negotiate for peace with them…but only once I have knives to their throats and knees in their balls!”

Captain Sheppard saw the aviators were nodding their heads. They looked like they were back in the game. “All right,” he said. “Before we can do that, we need to figure out what the hell happened. First, does anyone have any ideas on what it was that they hit us with? How was it able to destroy a large portion of our ship, yet still be survivable by Calvin’s fighter?”

“Lieutenant Bradford and I have been discussing it,” said Steropes. “We have come to a tentative conclusion, but it is one which will be hard to accept.”

“Why is that?” asked Captain Sheppard.

“I’ll get to that in a second, sir, but I need to give you a little background information first,” replied the lieutenant from Department X. “When we started looking at the weapon, we realized this was the most important question, because we need to know what the weapon is in order to counter it. I searched the entire data banks of the TSS
Terra’s
replicator and came up with precisely nothing. So, whatever that weapon is, I can confirm that it doesn’t exist in alliance technology.”

Steropes took up the story. “So, having ruled out what it
wasn’t
, we tried to determine the nature of the weapon to figure out what it
was
. What could cause a clean cut like we saw in the engine room? We ruled out explosives; they would have left the metal jagged, not smooth. Similarly, it couldn’t have been some sort of laser weapon, or the damage would have penetrated further into the ship and not been localized to a single spot. The weapon appears to have affected a spherical area; if you were within that area, you disappeared. If you were outside the area, you weren’t affected.”

“So what the hell can do that?” asked Captain Sheppard.

“Nothing we know of,” replied Steropes, “and if the engine room strike was all the evidence we had on the weapon’s performance, we would probably never have figured it out. However, we also had the effects of the weapon that hit
Asp 01
to analyze, and that gave us the clues we needed.”

“Well, how about telling us, then,” said Calvin. “I have no idea what happened, and I was there. I thought I was dead.”

“Had it been a conventional warhead, you most certainly would have been,” agreed Steropes. “Even if it were just a solid piece of metal, you would have died from the impact. It was neither of those things, though; instead, it was a time bomb.”

“A time bomb?” asked Captain Sheppard. “What the hell do you mean?”

“I mean that when the weapon detonated, its effect was to send everything within its vicinity back to where it had been about 10 seconds prior; however, everything was thrown 10 seconds into the future from when the torpedo activated.”

“I see why you said we wouldn’t believe it,” replied Sheppard. “A bomb that sends things back to where they were 10 seconds prior, but then into the future? I don’t see how that is possible.”

“It’s actually about 10.37 seconds in both directions,” said Steropes. “The effect is impossible to measure more precisely than that.”

Lieutenant Bradford took over. “We didn’t believe it, either, and would never have figured it out if we didn’t have the data from the weapon that struck Calv…I mean, Lieutenant Commander Hobb’s fighter.”

“It does not seem possible, but the data indicates that when Lieutenant Commander Hobbs’ fighter detonated the weapon, the ship went back to where it was 10.37 seconds prior, although the fighter didn’t appear there until 10.37 seconds
after
the weapon detonated. Once we came up with the idea that the weapon generated some sort of time distortion, I looked back at where we were when the first weapon hit us, and then extrapolated back 10.37 seconds along our route of travel. There was a debris field there of the same mass as is currently missing from the
Vella Gulf,
along with the mass of the two fighters that were caught in the weapon’s area of effect. Despite the impossibility of its existence, I am all but certain the
Vella Gulf
and Lieutenant Commander Hobbs’ fighter were both hit by some sort of time bomb.”

“If I survived the weapon, maybe the crews of
Asps 11
and
12
did too,” exclaimed Calvin. “We’ve got to go back and get them!”

“Even if the Jotunn allowed us to return,” said Lieutenant Bradford, “which doesn’t appear likely, I’m sorry, but there is no need. Both of the ships were cut in half by the weapon, right at the center of the cockpit; I’m positive both crews were also cut in half.”

“So what you are saying,” said Captain Nightsong, “is there is no explosive, at all, on the weapon? It just creates a bubble wherein everything goes back in time 10 seconds?”

“That it correct,” agreed Steropes. “It would not be an efficient weapon to use on small targets, like fighters, that would be completely caught in its field. But for destroyer-sized or larger spaceships–”

“–its effect is fairly devastating,” finished Lieutenant Bradford, “as it takes a bite out of the ship nearly 300 feet in diameter. If the ship or target is moving, like it would be if it was in combat, the resulting hole will be open to space.”

“Okay, say for a minute that I buy the fact their weapon is some kind of time bomb,” said Captain Sheppard. “How were they able to avoid our missiles? How were their ship and weapons able to disappear when our missiles should have hit them?”

“Unfortunately, that is something I don’t have any information on,” replied Steropes. “It wasn’t a cloaking effect; that much we know. I analyzed the video from our fighters, and I can categorically state that their missiles went right through where the ship should have been. If it were only cloaked, the missiles would still have hit it.”

“So what was it?”

“I don’t know,” said Steropes. “I have only seen one other being able to disappear in the middle of a fight. It was a couple of missions ago when we fought the–”

“Efreet,” said Calvin and Captain Nightsong simultaneously.