Fractured Command: Alliance Cadets, #2

Chapter One

With sweat beading on her temples, Ensign Cassiopeia Requin searched the vast cold sea of space for a hostile spacecraft.

At her control station, she focused her attention on the massive debris field expanding outward from behind the freighter that she and the crew of the AEFS Persistence were supposed to be protecting. That freighter carried a payload worth more than the gross domestic product of a small colony world.

Around her, astronaut officers and their teams relayed messages, steered the Persistence around the debris, and powered up the old ion cannons. As a junior engineer, Cassi’s job was to maintain the systems on her own spacecraft, but she also took on whatever special assignments the captain required of her. Right now, priority one was finding the spacecraft that blew out the freighter’s zipper drives.

So far, she and everyone else were only detecting empty space.

Where are you? Captain Carrideon grumbled. The old space dog cracked his knuckles. The muscles in his jaw tightened. Are there any signs of a recent jump out of the system? He looked straight at Cassi with hawkish eyes.

She called up the data on the local space-time topology. The Persistence’s artificial intelligence, ULYSSES, analyzed it, searching for traces of a warp signature. All Cassi could find was the wake from the Persistence’s own arrival in the system. There was no evidence of an exit jump. Negative, sir.

The senior engineer, Lieutenant Commander Mantha, leaned over Cassi’s shoulder. He checked the readout and nodded to the captain. Cassi understood the oversight, but that didn’t make his constant hovering feel any less grating. It’s clean, Captain.

Carrideon grunted. Sankova, any report yet on the extent of the damage?

They’ve lost all zipper drives, Captain, Sankova replied. They barely have basic maneuvering. And they’re reporting casualties.

Cassi held her breath. Her closest friend, Emica, was serving on that freighter.

There was an engineering team in the tail section when they were hit, Sankova said. Eight of them were killed. They have more injured, but so far, their own medics can handle those.

Cassi swallowed. Emica was in flight control. She felt a little relief that her friend was okay, but as a junior engineering officer herself, the people they lost could have been Cassi’s own crew. Wrong place. Wrong time. And now they were just... gone.

Whatever hit them was still out there.

Beside her, Sub-lieutenant Duschene shifted uneasily at the weapons station. He rubbed his mustache and spoke to Cassi directly. We should have seen them by now.

Mantha’s breath irritated the back of Cassi’s neck. It smelled of stale coffee. He tapped the infrared map on her left, indicating that was where her eyes should be.

ULYSSES was monitoring the optical, radio and infrared feeds. And she had checked them all, multiple times. Nothing was coming up.

Any spacecraft has to show up on the infrared, Mantha reasoned. Do you know why, Ensign?

Black body radiation, she answered. The map updated. But there’s only background on the display, sir.

Correct, Mantha said. So, you have to be missing something.

But she wasn’t missing anything, at least, not on the infrared. She leaned in and studied the map, and then flipped though the various monitoring programs. Still nothing.

Before Mantha could order it, she ran diagnostic scans to ensure the programs were operating properly. Each one came back clean.

They had to think broader.

Captain Carrideon scratched at his gray beard. Ms. Sankova, ask them for details on the attack. What were they even hit by? An ion cannon?

The ensign at the communications station nodded and sent the inquiry. It only took her a few heartbeats to get a response. They’re saying it was a... rail gun, sir.

A rail gun? Mantha asked. Who’s using kinetic rounds these days? Electromagnetic rail guns weren’t standard weaponry on modern Alliance spacecraft.

Sankova pointed to Mantha. Records of the assault are coming in now.

Cassi studied the data alongside her senior officer.

The freighter had been alone in the Wayward system when they lost a plasma coupling manifold. Cassi didn’t know why, possibly sabotage, but probably just bad luck. Sometimes things just broke. They quenched their main reactor, turning off their power while they fabricated a new one. That was when they sent the call out to the Persistence. An armored freighter was still a formidable threat on battery power, but without their reactor, their mobility and defenses were limited. They needed support. A callout for assistance was standard protocol.

Midway through the repair, the freighter’s AI detected a kinetic projectile heading straight for them.

Their shields should have stopped that, Mantha said with a perplexed frown on his face. He checked the video, squinting, reading telemetry data.

Maybe it had an onboard disrupter field, Cassi suggested.

Mantha’s forehead wrinkled into a furrow. Don’t be ridiculous, Ensign. That kind of technology is too expensive to waste on a kinetic missile.

What have you got, Eng? Carrideon demanded.

Mantha watched the video of the incoming missile again, squinting, scratching the back of his neck.

I need an assessment, the captain said.

Uh... he glanced at Cassi. It looks like they were hit with a kinetic round, but with... some kind of onboard disrupter field, sir.

Avoiding an eyeroll, Cassi kept focused on her task.

The optical sensors only caught the projectile a second or so before impact. It slid through the shield like it wasn’t there, and then WHAM! The tail exploded.

And no attack since, Carrideon said. He took some time to processes the problem. They’re circling.

Sir? Mantha asked.

Like a shark, the captain explained. Rather than closing in for the kill all at once, they circle and nip, injuring and tiring the prey. When the final attack comes, it won’t be able to fight.

The captain wiped sweat from his face with the palm of his hand. He studied the main hologram projected in the center of the bridge. It depicted both spacecraft, the debris field, the star and several of the closer planets and moons. He tugged at his collar. We need eyes on that hostile, now.

In the video record, the freighter fired back quickly, an ion cannon spread back along the initial trajectory. But it was reactionary, a non-targeted return of fire. Cassi studied the data, looking for some hint of an impact, a deflection off a shield, something... but the particle beams just shot off into deep space, linear and unperturbed.

It couldn’t have just come from nowhere, Mantha said. He was young for a lieutenant commander, with a soft midriff and a wiry black beard. The captain looked at Mantha like he was expecting the senior engineering officer to come up with a better answer, an explanation, something.

I have an idea, Cassi whispered.

Keep searching the infrared, Ensign.

Following orders, Cassi set up an algorithm to comb through the data and alert at any signal standing out from the background. It would be a lot more reliable than her own eyes. It crunched through the numbers, but other than the occasional, statistical fluctuations, it gave her nothing. She even followed up on the fluctuations, but none were reproducible. It was just noise.

As the computers worked, Cassi ran the recording of the attack backward. Using differences in the frames, she calculated the incoming projectile velocity, as precise a vector as she could extract from the data.

Mantha caught her. What are you doing, Ensign?

When they returned fire, their ion cannon volley didn’t hit anything, she explained. That missile must have been fired from a moving platform. Working backward I should be able to estimate its relative velocity.

The kinetic round didn’t just fly in a straight path. The trajectory curved because it was fired from a moving spacecraft. From the shape of the curve, she could calculate how fast the spacecraft was traveling. Using that, she predicted where it was now.

Sir, Cassi said directly to Captain Carrideon, I’ve got an approximate position on the hostile.

She added a mask to the operations hologram. It projected a green cloud that outlined the most probable location of the hostile vessel. It was a large bubble, a few hundred kilometers in diameter. But relative to the vastness of the star system, it was a pinpoint solution.

Carrideon nodded, though his expression remained stoic. The captain showed every one of his sixty-four standard years of age... gray hair, gray beard, deeply set lines around his eyes, chaotic, scraggly eyebrows. But there was a ferocity in his glare. He looked ready to step inside a steel cage with a hungry lion.

Helm, maintain current heading, he said. Weapons, prepare the ion cannon battery.

Sir, I don’t have anything to lock onto, Duschene complained.

Just charge the capacitor array for now, the captain ordered. Use the center of Requin’s cloud as a target. Be ready to adjust to precise coordinates when we get them.

Sir, should we close the distance on them? the helm officer asked.

Carrideon leaned back in his chair, the metal squeaking with the shift in weight. We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet, Helm. The distance gives us a buffer. I don’t want to give that up just yet. And I don’t want them knowing we have a guess.

Aye, sir.

Now that Cassi had an approximate location, she focused the sensory arrays on that position. Mantha’s question about black body radiation stood front and center in her mind. There were ways to mask a thermal signature. You could hide behind an asteroid, or a moon or planet. You could overwhelm sensors with counter measures. If you were far enough away, you could use the limiting scanner resolution to make yourself look like a star... but the hostile spacecraft was close, and there wasn’t anything for it to hide behind.

Samaranite, Mantha mumbled.

Sir?

The senior engineer scratched his chin and thought out loud. Samarium nickel oxide... it’s a material that can mask infrared emissions... at least to a point.

Cassi had heard of that. But could it hide an entire spacecraft?

One of my father’s companies has been researching and refining a meta-material based on the concept for years. They call it Samaranite, informally.

I thought that was a myth, sir, Duschene said.

Oh, it’s real, but no one has developed anything commercially viable yet, certainly nothing that could hide a spacecraft.

Do you think we’re looking at some kind of new technology, sir? Cassi asked.

Mantha stared at the hologram, avoiding a direct answer. Instead, he checked her analysis and came up with same probability cloud. They both highlighted what seemed like a region of empty space.

At least he’d come up with the same answer she had.

Do you think there might be any other clues to the hostile’s location, sir? she asked.

He shook his head. I doubt it, Ensign. Why?

Space is never a pure vacuum, she reasoned. If there’s a spacecraft moving out there, it has to be pushing stuff out of the way.

The local space around the gas giant was peppered with micro asteroids. There weren’t a lot of them, but they were there. And if there was a spacecraft out there with any kind of speed, its navigational shields would push them out of its way.

Mantha shook his head with a frown. It’s not dense enough for us to detect.

But it’s charged. And it’s accelerating. That produces radiation, doesn’t it, sir?

Well, uh... he cleared his throat, I suppose.

Those emissions would be generated outside a Samaranite shell. It couldn’t hide them, she said. The real question was whether those emissions would be intense enough to be detectable against the background, given the detectors they had. Cassi wasn’t sure. She did some preliminary calculations and reconfigured some radio sensory arrays.

Hit. ULYSSES pinpointed the spacecraft.

Contact! she shouted. Bearing three four zero mark one one, true. Range three thousand kilometers. She tried to keep her voice calm and collected, as was expected of an astronaut officer. But the contact was right in the center of her bubble. Her voice cracked.

I’ve got a weapons lock, Duschene reported.

Cassi’s infrared display lit up like a solar flare. Having detected the lock, the hostile spacecraft executed a maneuvering burn. It looked like a light cruiser, about the same size as the Persistence. They still couldn’t see the spacecraft itself, just the radiation from its zipper drives. But from that, ULYSSES had all the information it needed.

Hail them, Carrideon ordered. Open mic.

The captain cleared his throat. "Unidentified cruiser, this is the Alliance Expeditionary Fleet Spacecraft Persistence, Actual. You have fired on an Alliance vessel. Maintain your current vector and prepare to be boarded."

The microphone closed with a squelch. Only static followed.

The vessel is maintaining its current trajectory, Captain, the navigation officer reported.

Cassi wiped her brow and studied the infrared. The flare from its drives was gone, but ULYSSES plotted its position by dead reckoning.

Are they preparing to engage again? Duschene asked.

Carrideon stared at the hologram in the center of the bridge, as if trying to read the thoughts of the other captain. That’s not a logical move.

Cassi knew what he meant. Unlike the freighter, the Persistence was at its core, a warship, heavily armored, with powerful shields and a full array of weapons. Even though it had been due for retirement twelve standard years ago, it was still formidable. The Persistence should win any toe-to-toe slug fest against a modern civilian spacecraft. And now, together with the freighter, they had a numbers advantage, even if the freighter had lost most of its maneuverability.

But Cassi’s gut instinct prickled with warnings. That spacecraft’s stealth technology was well beyond any technology the Alliance had. What other cards were they hiding?

Maybe they’re hoping we’ll lose track of them, the navigation officer suggested. You know, if they don’t make any more adjustments or boosts... if they run silent.

Mantha shook his head. They would have to believe that we’re incapable of performing simple math.

The spacecraft’s vector pointed away from the planet, out into the stars.

Cassi brought up the navigation application on her terminal.

Hey Ensign, what are you doing? the navigation officer asked, his tone sharp.

Though she was stepping on his turf, Cassi didn’t stop to apologize. She raced through the maps and lined up the current trajectory with the center of mass of the current system’s sun and then extrapolated.

Incoming gravitational wake! Duschene shouted. In three... two... one...

The Persistence shook as it passed through the subtle warp in space time generated by the hostile vessel’s superluminal warp field.

What happened? Carrideon demanded.

Transit, sir. The unknown vessel was aligned along a transit line to the... Hedaak System, Cassi explained.

Carrideon dropped a fist on his command station, teeth clenched.

"Shouldn’t we go after it, sir? Duschene asked.

Negative, the captain said. Return to the freighter.

As their spacecraft came about, Sankova re-established a link with the Intrepid. I have Captain Kosugi on the line, sir.

While the two captains talked, Cassi checked the communication link. Sankova had it open for personal communications, so she sent a quick text message to Emica. You okay?

Emica: Nothing a truffle wouldn’t fix.

Cassi: No trouble too tough for truffles.

Emica had been her roommate at the AEF Cadet Corps Academy. Whenever things got tough for one of them, a missed qualification, an exam that would have to be repeated, a disappointing exercise... the other was there, usually with chocolate.

... but why are you still here? the freighter captain asked across the video link. We’re the third Fleet freighter that ghost cruiser’s hit. They have looted enough NTPX to power an armada. NTPX—negative triphasic xenon—it was the exotic negative mass that enabled a spacecraft to generate a superluminal warp field, the fuel that allowed faster-than-light travel. When pirates attacked, they were usually after NTPX.

We can’t leave you right after an attack, Carrideon said.

"Intrepid is fine. Our zipper drives are offline, but we’ll be up and running in a few hours. This is a chance to bag that bastard. I just lost eight astronauts. Go. Vaporize those pirates. See that my crew didn’t die for nothing. Godspeed Ben."

Carrideon hesitated, but then nodded. "Godspeed. Persistence Actual, out."

Everyone on the bridge looked at the captain. The freighter captain was the senior officer between them. They’d just been given orders to hunt down that pirate vessel.

Helm, set a pursuit course, Carrideon ordered. Prepare for superluminal transit.

Aye, sir.

Warning klaxons chimed. ULYSSES announced in a calm, eight-bit computerized voice, All personnel, prepare for superluminal transit. All personnel, prepare for superluminal transit.

Carrideon looked around at his command staff. Does anyone on the bridge object to some prize money?

Duschene’s eyes lit up. No, sir!

They all responded similarly.

Prize money. If an Alliance spacecraft captured a pirate vessel, the entire spacecraft was legally forfeit. The spacecraft and its cargo became de facto property of the Alliance Expeditionary Fleet. It would be sold at auction or stripped down for parts. Half the money went back into Alliance coffers, and forty percent back to the home colony of the capturing ship. The remaining ten percent was divided up among the astronaut crew, from the captain all the way down to each enlisted astronaut. If this spacecraft really was covered with some kind of armor that could mask its infrared emissions, it would fetch a hefty price.

Cassi had to admit some prize money would be a nice boost to her starving bank account. Still, giving chase grated against her instincts. Abandoning the wounded freighter felt like abandoning family. She didn’t want to leave Emica. And she suspected the captain was just as reluctant.

But Kosugi outranked Carrideon. The decision was made. It was Cassi’s job, and the job of everyone else on board the Persistence, to make it fly.

Alright then, Carrideon announced. Helm, bring us about. Heading, onto the transit line to the Hedaak System.

The Persistence rolled and yawed, turning to line up on the straight-line vector between the Wayward system’s sun and the Hedaak system.

The klaxons increased in pitch and frequency.

Initiate the ping, Carrideon said.

Aye, sir. The navigation officer sent out a superluminal signal along the line, a radar ping that checked the line was clear, that they wouldn’t slam into a rogue asteroid or another spacecraft or something. And when the signal didn’t reflect, that was evidence the line was safe. Clear line established.

Very good. Helm, on your own time, execute superluminal transit.

The helm officer flipped open the covered plunger button. Superluminal transit in three... two... one...

Chapter Two

For a fraction of a second Cassi slid into that semi-euphoric state on the edge of sleep.

Then she slammed against her restraints. The jolt slapped her back into full alertness.

The bridge of the Persistence was quiet. Dark.

Her gut tumbled. The faster-than-light transition sequence never quite agreed with her. Bile sloshed up the back of her throat. At least she wasn’t stuck in a pressure suit the way they had to be back in the training spacecraft when she’d been a cadet. She closed her eyes and took deep centering breaths as the Persistence’s systems came back to life around her.

Someone coughed.

Report, Carrideon ordered, his gruff voice certain, calming, stoic.

Life support is... go.

ULYSSES—go.

Signals are go.

The bridge stations went around in sequence reporting their status.

Mantha tapped at one of his panels, taking his time when it was his turn to report. It looks like dorsal sensory array two is offline. One is go. All other arrays are go. Compensating... main engineering is go.

Cassi ran through her own checklist. The primary reactor core temperature was high, pushing its tolerance, but still short of the trigger level that would require any mitigating action. But otherwise, the zipper drives had full power and their support systems were all online, maneuvering thrusters were good, weapons had power, capacitor arrays were in shape... it all looked good.

She turned her attention to the problem sensory array, which, at its most basic level was a camera that didn’t turn back on after a system reboot. The array was mounted on a stubby fin-like structure along the spacecraft spine that gave the Persistence a shark-like profile. With another array right beside it, all they had really lost at this point was redundancy, but a loss in redundancy meant something different to an astronaut engineer than to most people—to Cassi, it meant they were one step away from blind.

She called Raddock.

What now? the master astronaut mechanic said over the private channel. After a couple of breaths, he added an obligatory, ma’am.

Troy Raddock was fifteen years older than Cassi and had spent the better part of his adult life working on Alliance Expeditionary Fleet spacecraft. A career enlisted mechanic, the cynicism oozed from his pores like sweat. He was good at what he did, maybe even great, but somewhere along the line, the guy seemed to have forgotten why he was out there. To Raddock, the universe was one giant conspiracy to make his life miserable. Cassi was just the latest in a long line of junior engineering officers who enjoyed power and privilege beyond what they’d earned. Casual conversation was cold and unwelcome. Orders were challenged in a passive aggressive way that found a sweet spot just shy of insubordination.

Talking to him was like running her soul over a cheese grater. But she couldn’t fix that array herself.

As well as she could, Cassi explained the problem. Raddock, I need you to take a team up to the dorsal sensory array to assess and repair.

Are we in combat ma’am? he asked.

We’re at action stations.

He spoke slow and loudly, as if speaking to a child. Do you think it’s safe to dispatch a mechanical team to attempt this repair while we’re at action stations? Ma’am.

Was she missing something? Normally Cassi had a lot of confidence in her decisions, but Raddock had a way of getting under her skin, making even the simplest thing uncomfortable.

She swallowed. It is right now. I’ll update you if that changes.

He hesitated and she heard him speaking quietly, like he had a hand over the microphone. ...sending us up the fin. I don’t know. Hold on. His voice got louder. Any idea what we should be looking for? Ma’am?

Cassi checked the error readouts. I’ve lost signal at multiple points, that would suggest a lost power source.

Yeah.

She checked the low voltage in the cell that fed the fin. The power supply is good. None of the fuses are tripped. It’s likely a cable came loose. You’ll have to run up the main fin conduit, or at least check there first.

He sighed. Yeah. You’re probably right. Ma’am. We’re on it.

Meanwhile reports came back across the bridge.

I can’t see anything on the targeting system, Duschene reported. He gave his terminal a slap, as if that might knock some information onto the screen.

Sankova turned to the captain. Hedaak has a small lunar colony, she said. They would have picket buoys. We can check them to see if there’s any record of an arrival before us, sir.

Do it, Carrideon ordered. He sat back in his chair, his fingers interlaced, index fingers extended, his chin resting on them, staring at the main hologram.

The closest Hedaak sentry buoys were about ten light minutes back from where they’d arrived. That meant it would take ten minutes to request an information packet, and another ten minutes for the response to be sent back, plus any processing time. That gave them at least twenty minutes before they could verify the pirate vessel was in the system and get a reasonable guess on its position.

Carrideon turned to Cassi. "Engineering, charge up our shielding batteries with as much power as