Ion Trail 24: Secret Weapon

We had to make a few adjustments with Volcon, but fortunately, the Admiral’s request wasn’t going to take us too far out of our way. I found myself wondering about how convenient that was, but without having him in front of me to ask, I just shelved it for later. We made our preparations, loaded up the cargo, and got ready to leave Bekter’s Rim behind. I was frankly happy to go; while it had been nice to get off the ship for a while, the crowds and the frantic pace of everything always became exhausting very quickly. Even with dwindling entertainment options aboard-ship I was looking forward to the sedate pace of a medium-length jump. Not to mention the last time I’d seen Janice she’d been furtively carrying something aboard with a barely subdued excitement in her face that I’d never seen there. Hopefully she’d see fit to share whatever it was with the rest of us soon.

“Diaz!” I said with a mocking smile. “It’s good to see you decided to come back. After the second day of not seeing your face, I started to worry that you’d jumped ship.”

“Never, Captain,” he replied with a genuine smile of his own. “Did have fun, though.”

“Great, get your shit aboard. I want to be gone before noon.”

Omar and Clinton were next, chatting animatedly while Clinton maneuvered a box of some sort through the small walkway in the cargo bay. Omar still walked with a limp, but he’d recently gotten the cast off and seemed much happier for it. Those two had been pretty much inseparable since shortly after Omar had come aboard, always working on some project or other or cutting up during crew gatherings. Sister Estrada was the last aboard, another I’d barely seen since we’d arrived. Apparently there was a chapter of her church here on Bekter’s Rim, so she’d spent the whole visit there, in fellowship with her brothers and sisters.

“Did you have a good stay, Melva?” Despite that I still thought of her as ‘Sister Estrada’ and probably always would, she’d asked us all to call her Melva, said we were like family and family didn’t need to stand on titles. Still insisted on calling me Captain most of the time, though.

“I did,” she replied. “As much as I love all of you, it’s nice to be amongst my flock from time to time.”

“Baa,” I said playfully, as I reached over to close the ramp.

Our first stop was four days out, a mining operation in a deepspace asteroid field. They’d lost their primary power core so we were bringing them a new one, as well as a full set of replacement augurs. After that was a one-day jump to an uninhabited system where’d we’d drop off some survey drones before going on to our last delivery destination, which was one of Volcon’s major industrial and distribution hubs. We’d pick up some more jobs from there, but first we’d take a day to go check out another uninhabited system that the Admiral wanted us to investigate. His message had said there was no reason to believe that it would be anything dangerous, but he’d encouraged us to use the tools at hand to protect ourselves as necessary. The round-about way he’d worded things, as opposed to his normal no-nonsense manner, indicated that he didn’t entirely trust that the datastick wouldn’t fall into the wrong hands, but his meaning was clear enough.

It was two days into the trip that Janice finally came to find me. To say she was bubbling with excitement would be a vast overstatement, but her usual surliness was nowhere in evidence. She asked me to follow her so I did, trying to keep curiosity in check. Instead of the cargo bay or the engine room, she lead me to the room that had been set aside for her, which I’d never once seen her use before this moment. Inside, I saw something new: her belongings. Next to the bed was a ratty backpack of the sort you usually saw marketed for wilderness vacationers, but this one was obviously several years old and had been repaired by hand many times. On the small table next to the bed were several small items, including a comb with broken teeth and a thin gold necklace. I looked at her incredulously.

“You actually moved in?”

“Yes, yes,” she said with a trace of her normal attitude as she swatted that away. “That’s not why I brought you here.” She pointed to the table where there was a portable terminal; a step up from a datapad, but easier to carry than a stationary terminal. This one looked sleek; unlike almost everything else she owned, it was obviously brand new. Likely this was where the money she’d asked for had gone to. I took a closer look at the screen which was turned on and had lines of code rapidly scrolling across it.

“So, what am I looking at, aside from a very expensive terminal?” I glanced back at her, and she actually had the grace to blush a little bit, though it didn’t dampen her enthusiasm.

“That code is your local datasphere running through a filter,” she said, as if that explained everything. I schooled my features to a deliberately vapid expression, and blinked ostentatiously at her several times. She scowled and explained further. “It’s what StyxRatt sent. I’ve already run your entire datasphere through it three times; you had some minor viruses in some of the darker corners, by the way.”

“Um, okay? So this is… what, a virus scanner?”

“This is a virus scan in the same way that a capital ship has pop-guns,” she retorted scornfully. “This terminal, running StyxRatt’s software, will completely clear all known infections, and several unknown ones from our local datasphere several times a day.”

“Okay, that sounds nice, I guess,” I said, apparently missing something.

“You guess?” she looked incredulous. “After everyone’s been bitching and moaning for the last week about updates, you guess?”

“Wait,” I said, finally catching on. “Are you saying this will clear out whatever viruses the black ships have infecting the datasphere?”

“Yeah,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Why else would it even matter?”

“So we can sync and get updates?” I said, excited. “Finally!”

“Are you sure you should be Captain?” she said. “You’re a little slow on the uptake.”

“Oh shut up,” I replied, not even mad. “Not everyone speaks datasphere as a second language.” I sat down on the edge of the bed, thinking it through. We wouldn’t be able to update until we got to our final stop, since the mining station had a datasphere that was likely about as up-to-date as ours was; likely they’d want us to update them instead of the other way around. But this was huge, not just from a crew satisfaction angle. Updated navdata and system configurations for the ship and subsystems would probably grant small performance upgrades across the board. I could almost hug her, if I didn’t think she’d likely shank me for my troubles. I glanced at her and noticed that her earlier excitement seemed to have evaporated; I was missing something again, but I didn’t think asking straight out was the best tactic.

“So what made you finally move in?” I asked, looking around the small room. “I thought you said you liked the maintenance tubes.”

“I needed the room to work on this,” she said, looking around as well, anywhere but at me. “I couldn’t build this terminal in such tight spaces.” I looked at her, skeptical; while it was probably easier with the room, I doubted that she couldn’t manage it if she’d wanted to. She caught my look and scowled. “What?” she demanded.

“Is that really the reason?” I asked, making my tone as gentle as I could.

“Yes!” she snapped, then looked down. I waited a minute in silence, and she finally spoke again. “I’m not a freeloader, alright? I earn my way.” I sat back, eyes wide at the vehemence in her tone.

“I never said you were,” I replied, keeping my voice even. “You’ve been a big help, ever since we were first contacted by StyxRatt.”

“Not like you, or Clinton or Lorna. Julio and Shanna are always working, making things happen, and even Melva cooks and makes everyone feel better.” She dropped her head again at this admission, which confirmed my suspicion that Sister Estrada knew quite a bit more about Janice than she let on. “All I’ve done is decode a few messages and eat your food, live in your ship and take up your air.”

“Hey,” I said, scooting over next to the girl. “Listen, you’re part of my crew. If all you ever did was stalk around and glare at me, that’d be enough. But you’ve helped out with a lot more than decoding a few of StyxRatt’s bullshit ciphers and I value your contributions as much as anyone else’s.”

“Whatever,” she said, refusing to look at me, her hair falling down around her face and muffling her voice. “But now I did this. I got you and everyone the datasphere again. I got it working, and you didn’t even seem to appreciate it at first.” I sighed in order to keep from laughing. I remembered being this young and unsure of myself, though it seemed a lot longer than a decade ago.

“I didn’t appreciate it at first because I didn’t understand what it meant,” I explained. “You’re a very smart kid, and this stuff seems simple to you, even when it’s not. All I ever really wanted to do was fly away. My understanding of the datasphere, except where it specifically applies to ships, is about as complex as basic queries and watching my shows.” I punched her shoulder lightly. “Doesn’t mean I’m slow on the uptake, though. I’d like to see you plot our next jump and see how long it takes you.”

“I’d probably do it in half the time,” she muttered, but I could hear the smile she had hidden behind the curtain of her hair.

“You know what, maybe we’ll just have to see about that,” I warned her, then stood up. “Come on, let’s go tell the crew. It’ll be a few days before we can make use of it, but having something to look forward to will put everyone in a good mood.”

=+=

The mining station job had gone as smooth as butter, as had the survey drone drop-off, and we were now coasting in to our final delivery destination. Volcon had definitely come through with some good jobs, and I was entirely happy with keeping a steady working relationship with them, so long as there were no open-ended commitments. I liked nice, tidy jobs where we could fuck off to a vacation planet for a week if we wanted to without having to check with anyone else; not that vacation was on the agenda any time soon. As soon as we were done with this delivery, we’d be heading out to do the Admiral’s job; hopefully that would be as uneventful as he’d indicated, but he wouldn’t have sent us unless it had something to do with the war against the black ships.

The delivery location was an industrial station, called The Forge, situated in a system with a lot of rocky planets which were the site for multiple dedicated mining operations, and the whole lot was essentially owned outright by Volcon. The Forge’s primary purpose was refining the raw materials from the various mining operations for shipment elsewhere to be manufactured into useful commodities, tools and machines. It was a big operation, and there were ships constantly coming and going; aside from producing materials, it also served as one of several centralized warehouses for Volcon’s commodities. As such, it was heavily defended for being a relatively small station and we were made aware of that upon jumping into the system, when we were hailed almost instantly.

But with legitimate credentials and the one-time passcode from Kristina, we were able to get docked in short order. The factor was waiting for us when I dropped the ramp.

“Evening Captain Rickard,” the short man said cheerfully. “Sorry about the abrupt welcome, but we’ve our share of pirates out here.”

“Not a problem,” I said. “We were prepared for it ahead of time.”

“Yes, the notification we received also said that you’d likely want to take on cargo here as well.”

“We will, though not yet,” I hedged. “I have a quick survey job in TDG-14526-D, then I’ll be coming back to take on cargo.”

“Understood,” he said. “Volcon is naturally the biggest customer here, but we do have several smaller businesses which have set up shop aboard station who might be interested in your services. Most of the ships that dock here are Volcon freighters or bonded contractors so they may be willing to pay a premium for delivery, although Volcon will always make it worth your while.”

“You’re… surprisingly fair for a Volcon employee,” I said, impressed.

“Well, I have to use the services those businesses offer,” he admitted. “So it’s worthwhile to stay on their good side. Plus my wife owns the local brewery, so if you’re looking for recommendations…” He trailed off hopefully and I laughed.

“We will certainly check out the brewery and see what she has to offer,” I agreed. “For now though, we’d like to offload and get out to our survey job as quickly as possible.”

“Certainly,” he said, then gestured the porters and their loading machines forward.

The unloading and inventory was quick and efficient and within the hour I was back on board, bank account significantly fatter, getting set to plot the course. We did run into a bit of a delay, however, once we’d synced the datasphere and navdata; Janice reported that the Volcon datasphere was riddled with the viruses planted by the black ships, and that it would likely take an hour or more before it would be clear enough to plot the navdata without giving anything away. Once that delay was past, I got to work, and we were away soon after.

Once we got to TDG-14526-D, if there was no threat present, the Admiral wanted us to plant four passive probes at polar orbits, so that the star system could be constantly monitored without the planets or the star itself screening any possible activity. If a threat was present, we were to remain unobserved, record what we could and get out of there as soon as possible. TDG-14526-D was only about six hours away via hyperspace, so with luck we’d be back in less than two days with most of that time spent flying around in-system to plant the probes. An hour before the drop, I asked Diaz, Omar and Clinton to report to their stations for a dry run.

“Alright boys,” I said, “we’re about to deliberately drop into what may be hostile territory. I want you to do a final system check on weapons, shields and drones. Then we’re going to talk about the Secret Weapon.”

“Do you really have to call it that?” Omar complained. “If you’re not going to tell us what it is, at least don’t use corny nicknames.”

“I dunno, I kinda like it,” Clinton argued. “Does kind of suck that you wanted me to hook it up to the power grid, but wouldn’t tell me what the hell it is, though.”

“Muahahah,” I replied. “Stop your bitching and let me know once you’ve completed your checks.” It took five to ten minutes before they all reported back in, eager to find out what Admiral Clarke had given us.

“Alright, that’s everyone,” Diaz said. “Spill it, Suze!”

“Hey, it’s Captain at the moment,” I corrected him with mock sternness. “Alright, so I need all non-essential systems to shut down. According to what I’m told, this thing draws some serious juice.”

“Yeah, hopefully it’s worth it. Non-essential systems includes shields, while this thing is running.” I’d given Clinton enough information to know its power requirements, so he knew what he was talking about.

“Now listen,” I told them. “My keeping you all in the dark was mostly just for my own amusement, but this is actually pretty serious. Admiral Clarke tells me that he could probably be court-martialed for giving this to us.” I waited until they’d all acknowledged the seriousness of what I was saying. “Our Secret Weapon is a signal stealth device, much like the black ships use. The TU had been researching something like it for a while, but only figured out the technology after their first contact with the black ships.”

“Holy shit,” Omar’s voice came across the commlink as a whisper.

“We’re gonna be invisible?” Diaz asked.

“No, we won’t be invisible any more than the black ships are,” I replied. “And I’m sure as shit not going to paint my ship black, since that’d be a good way to get blown out of the sky by a nervous TU frigate. We’re just going to have to be careful and rely on being a small ship in a big, dark universe until we can until we’re sure there’s nothing there to worry about.”

“Understood.”

“Great. Now let’s fire this thing up and make sure it’s not going to overload anything before we put it to the test against a real threat.” I watched as the power draw dropped dramatically as shields, guns, drones and other less important sub-systems went offline.

“Prepared to activate the Secret Weapon,” said Clinton, none of his former jocularity evident in his tone. “At your order, Captain.”

“Do it.” Do it? I thought. I should have said ‘engage’ or ‘execute’ or something. The power draw suddenly jumped to nearly full capacity and a warning flashed up on the center console.

“How are we looking?” I asked expectantly.

“There’s definitely some serious draw for a single system,” Clinton replied “but we’re good. We could probably bring some of the lesser subsystems back online.”

“So, it’s working?”

“Well, it’s on.” I heard him fiddle with some stuff. “How would we know if it’s working?”

“Um.” I considered. “I guess if no one shoots at us?”

“I guess that’d be a good indication,” Clinton agreed.

“Am I the only one who expected something a little more dramatic?” Diaz spoke up, and I laughed.

“No, you’re definitely not the only one,” I told him, then sighed. “Alright, shut it down for now. I’ll have you bring it back up right before we drop out in…” I looked at the timer. “Twenty minutes. Take a break if you need to, but be back in place in ten minutes. Got it?”

“Copy,” Clinton said, and I heard Omar’s voice echo a half a second later.

“Sure thing, Captain,” Diaz added. I signed off and slipped out of my seat. Maybe if Melva was still psychic, I’d have time for a cup of coffee.

Sure enough, when I got to the galley she was leaning against the counter enjoying a cup of her own. When she saw me, she grabbed my cup from the cabinet and poured it full.

“What would it take to get you declared a saint?” I asked her as I prepped my cup. “Seriously, Saint Java of the Spacelanes, or something.”

“Well, I’d have to perform a miracle for starters,” she answered. I took a long drink of my coffee, gasping as I swallowed it down a little too quickly.

“Sister, you perform miracles every day.”

“Well, perhaps something a bit more dramatic, then.” I laughed quietly and focused on my coffee. I wanted it gone before I had to get back to my seat. Sister Estrada, unusually, took advantage of my silence to talk.

“It seems that her accomplishment with the datasphere has done something for Janice,” she said in a conversational tone. I grunted since I’d just taken a mouthful of coffee and she continued. “Not only has she finally moved into her room, but she was in here visiting earlier; not grumping and scowling at everyone and everything, but actually making conversation, with Lorna.” I nodded; I’d also noticed the difference, ever since our brief talk in her room. I wondered if the priestess had talked to her about it.

“What a difference feeling valued can make,” she commented a little too casually, then smiled at me in such a way as to make it clear that it was anything but. “Well, I’ll let you finish your coffee. I know you’ve got work to do.” Without another word she left the galley, leaving me by myself wondering what she was trying to say. I didn’t have long to ponder; I gulped the last of my coffee and returned to the cockpit for the drop out.

We returned to normal space with the sensor stealth field active, but none of our other defenses. I felt naked knowing that there was no shield between us and any potential hostiles, especially when we had no way of knowing if the stealth field was even working. Tensely I ran a system scan, though it wouldn’t likely pick anything up if the black ships were around; only proximity scans seemed to do anything, and they’d have to be right on top of you for that to work. The telemetry came back as I’d expected, so I plotted the first coordinate for the probe.

“Clinton, I want you to keep visual scans toward the star,” I told him. “Diaz, do the same with the nearby planets.”

“Copy,” came Clinton’s reply, shortly followed by Diaz’ acknowledgement. Half an hour passed and nothing had shot at us; my shoulders started to relax, and I told Omar to get ready to deploy the probe. Since we didn’t have enough power remaining to operate the drone console, he’d just have to space it from the airlock, but it was designed to right itself into a stable orbit before going into passive mode, so that was alright.

“Alright Captain, it’s away” Omar said, once the probe had been spaced.

“Good,” I replied. “Prep the second one, then go take a break. I’ll want you to spell Clinton in a while, since this next flight’s going to be a few hours.” I’d also ask Lorna or Shanna to relieve Diaz after a bit; since we weren’t using the gun, all I needed were eyes on the visual displays. Meanwhile, I worked on the plotting the course back to The Forge once we were done.

“Captain, there’s something,” Clinton paused. “Something, near the star. I can’t make out what.”

“Kick it over to my display?” I told him.

“You got it, now.” The image popped up on my console, and I peered at it. Definitely something.

“Try to zoom in? Apply digital enhancement?”

“Working on it,” he replied. The image got a bit sharper, then the light filtration kicked up, making the shape  considerably more visible. “Shit.”

“Shit is right,” I said, looking at it. It was hard to describe, but it was definitely something that appeared to be mostly black, silhouetted against the bottom edge of the star, nearly into the corona. There was also an odd reflective distortion that made the outline of the object difficult to discern. All the same, I would be willing to bet that it was a black ship. I slowly brought the ‘Hostile Witness’ to a stop, even though we hadn’t reached the next probe drop point. “Stealth field is up, right?” The power drain told me it was, but I was happier when I heard him confirm it.

“What’s the plan, Captain?” Diaz asked.

“We’re going to sit right here, not make any sudden moves, while I finish plotting the navdata. You’re both going to keep an eye on that. Then as soon as we can we’re getting the hell out of here.” I turned my attention to the navcomputer and prayed that the stealth field was actually doing more than just drawing power. I kept glancing at the display of the ship expecting it to move any moment, but after about ten minutes of nervous rechecking, I was able to focus on the navdata. Just a little more luck, and we’d be gone. Maybe ten minutes, tops.

“Shit,” Diaz’ voice came over the commlink. He didn’t cuss basically ever, so my attention snapped back to the visual display. The black ship was retracting whatever the reflectors were, and it was definitely moving. “Captain, it’s getting closer.” He was right, I realized.

“On it,” I muttered, swinging the ship around with the maneuvering thrusters, before kicking the throttle up. The ship was far enough out that we could probably make it if I could get the last few calculations done. The new navcomputer was a big help, but it wasn’t enough of an upgrade to manage the calculations by itself. Maybe the black ship’smovement was coincidence; it hadn’t opened f-

“Captain, it’s firing missiles!” Omar’s voice cut threw my thoughts. When will I learn not to jinx things! I slammed throttle to full and the lights flickered before the ion drive stabilized. There was no way we were going to outrun missiles, but I definitely didn’t want to let it get in range for kinetics or beam weapons; it definitely looked big enough for beam weapons. I kept talking while I pummeled my brain to build the last equation in the navcomputer.

“Clinton, Omar, kick off that useless-ass stealth field, and get the shields online. Diaz-“

“Wait, Captain,” Omar cut in again.

“Wait? No, get the shields up! Now!”

“Wait, Captain!” Omar insisted. “The missiles, they’re completely off trajectory!” Cursing, I checked the display and saw that he was correct; the ship itself had picked up speed, but the missiles were scattering as if completely unguided.

“Why would they do that?” I demanded, doing my best to divide my attention between the last calculation and the display. Evasive maneuvers would be counterproductive until the ship got close enough to use its other weaponry; until then, straight away was the best option we had. I wondered if it had an interdiction field, too; it was larger than the scout we’d encountered last time, so I considered it likely.

“I think it’s the stealth field,” Clinton’s voice returned to the conversation. “It can see us plainly enough, but you can’t blind-fire a missile at that range. They need guidance and guidance systems need to be able to lock onto something.” It made sense. Now I just wished I could make this equation make sense. Focus. Focus!

“I’m trying to get us to jump, but be prepared to fight,” I said. “That will mean shields, so be ready to swap.” Fuck, don’t forget to carry the seven, I told myself. Okay, that looked right. I didn’t have time to recheck it, though. I hit Enter and watched the navcomputer resolve the equation. I glanced at the visual display, and the black ship was still gaining on us, quickly. If it wasn’t in range yet, it would be soon. Time to roll the dice. As soon as the jump solution displayed, I confirmed it and reached up to slap the jump button.

“Go!” I yelled, expecting the flash of hyperspace and the viewscreen cover to close, but the star field ahead stayed steady; I looked back at the navcomputer and saw the displayed error: Invalid Navdata.

“Captain! It’s charging some sort of cannon!” I jerked the yoke blindly to the side, and keyed navcomputer back to the last equation I’d entered.

“It’s firing!” I jerked the yoke back the other way, not taking my eyes off the equation. If we didn’t jump soon, it wouldn’t matter anyway; we weren’t sufficiently armed to deal with a ship of this size. The lights flickered and audible warnings began to blare, then the ship shuddered with impact. I heard Diaz shouting, followed by a ripping buzz from underneath the ship.

Then I saw it, a rounding error two steps back. I corrected the equation and made the resultant changes in the latter steps before scanning my work one last time. This was probably our last chance. I slapped the Enter key again, waited for it to resolve, then confirmed and hit Jump as soon as I could.

A blinding flash of light, a small lurch and we were away.