(BSN Shadowdancer,
Desolace System)
“Target locked.”
“Fire!”
“Ship destroyed.”
Captain Thelynn watched as her crew performed admirably,
allowing her first officer to take the lead in this little skirmish against the
Kolkar pirates. Desolace was aptly named, being a system with only a small star
and a plentiful array of asteroids. In fact, it is quite likely that no one
would ever come here, if it weren’t for the Gateway that had been found here,
likely placed before whatever cataclysm had wrecked the solar system.
The Kolkar, Gelkis, Magram, and Maraudine pirate clans
maintained a presence in this system, however, as the plentiful asteroids made
this an excellent place to repair their ships away from complications like
local law enforcement. The kind of rough ships the pirates used, however, were
no match for the Shadowdancer, which
had been blooded in war against the best of the Imperial Navy. What Nyna was
thinking of as a skirmish was actually a full-fledged battle between the Black
Star Fleet and the combined pirate forces. All ten (well, seven now) ships of
their combined ‘fleets’. For Assassins and Gunboats, this was child’s play.
Well, that was why only the Shadowdancer and the ten gunboats assigned to First Group were
conducting this ‘police action’, wiping out the pirates while the rest of First
Group and Third Group (centered around the Nightforge),
watched on. All in all, it was an acceptable training exercise for the new
crews, since the ‘battle’ at Booty Bay two months prior was practically over as
soon as it had begun.
Of course, letting her XO get some time commanding the ship
in battle wasn’t her only reason for sitting back. As the commander of this
assault, she was responsible for the battle as a whole. That meant her eyes
were focused on the tactical track, watching the gunboats in action.
The gunboats were small, fast, agile, and stealthy, when
they weren’t zipping around. Current ‘doctrine’ had them fly in pairs, like
fighters with their wingmen, to give them better defense, and to help them time
their attacks better when doing runs on enemy ships. Keying her commlink, she
said, “Chekhov, you and Dixie, keep your heads in the game.
That pirate is trying to lead you into a crossfire. Echo, take Falcon and
support them.”
This was a scrimmage, but that was no reason to get sloppy.
The pirates knew the asteroid field they were flying through like the back of
their hands, so thinking they wouldn’t be able to turn the tables on the Black
Star ships just because they had crap ships and crap crews was foolish. The
cornered beast always fights hardest, trying to get any damage in that it can.
Half an hour after the first shots were fired, the ‘battle’
was over. All ten pirate ships destroyed. The Black Star Fleet suffered no
casualties, though Captain Thelynn was going to recommend that Dixie’s crew got some more simulator
time so they could learn how not to fly into enemy fire. Their shields were
barely holding at the end, which was just pathetic against these foes.
“Captain, incoming transmission from the Shinokage.”
“On screen.”
On the central viewscreen appeared an image of the bridge of
the Shinokage. It was set up in the
same basic fashion as Shadowdancer’s,
though it was larger, accounting for the fact that twice as many people crewed
the Shinokage’s bridge than the
smaller corvette. And that was without counting the two extra figures standing
next to Captain Inatumal.
Nyna straightened a little more in her chair as she saw one
of those figures looking at her. “Master! Shadowdancer
reports that the pirates have been eliminated. No casualties to the squadron.
Full report is transmitting now.”
“Yes, we were watching
your work from here. The squadron performed admirably, for the most part.
Hopefully getting blooded this way will cause their crews to snap into shape.
What is your opinion of the Wingman doctrine?”
“Certainly effective, Master. Several cohorts were able to
set up attack runs on their targets, using one ship’s cannon to drive the
target ship into the other’s fire. Falcon’s
cohort even managed to get simultaneous strikes on one of their targets.”
“Good. We hope to make
good use of the gunboats in the future for small-scale engagements, or in
harrying larger forces.” Her master paused, and then said, “Now, the primary reason for this
communication, other than congratulating your squadron on its work, is because
I have a mission for Shadowdancer.”
Nyna ran through the options in her head quickly, but she’d
been part of the crew back when they found the information that they’d based
this whole expedition on, so she knew there really was only one mission that he
could be asking of her, and her ship. And she would be lying if she said it
didn’t scare her.
“You wish for us to scout the gate coordinates the original
ship recorded, Master?”
“Correct. We need a
ship quick and quiet enough that they can get away from trouble if they can
break contact, and tough enough that they can survive a couple moments or force
a breakthrough if they’re attacked on the other side. We also have no way of
knowing what the conditions on the other side of the gate are like. However, we
have some reason to believe that it is not something that will be instantly
threatening to your ship.”
That tidbit was new. “Have we received additional
intelligence about where the Ponce de
Leon ended up, Master?”
Instead of her master, the drone that was the ‘face’ of his
best helper, the sentient AI Raven, said, “No,
but we have been able to track down the pirates who were initially responsible
for finding the ‘black box’ of the Ponce de Leon all that time ago. Of the crew that survived capture, half were
sentenced to execution, while others were received prison terms or summary
enslavement. Most of the survivors were on Jagloth when it fell to the Legion,
but one of the enslaved pirates, one Erna Trollope, had been purchased by a
mining ship which helped harvest resources in Jagloth’s asteroid belt.”
Her Master picked up the tale, “We purchased the pirate from the mining ship when their business
failed due to the sudden lack of demand in Jagloth’s system. She’s currently
the pilot for Sybyll, one of Third
Group’s gunboats. Once we found that connection, we questioned her, and found
out that the data recorder didn’t come through on its own. A scratch-built
shuttle came through with it, but the systems aboard were primitive, compared
to us. It was barely able to make it to the Gateway and dial the gate. The
pirates ambushed it on the other side, and the sole pilot was enslaved and
forced to join the crew.”
“Such a crude shuttle wouldn’t be capable of interstellar
flight, surely. That means they had to have launched from somewhere in the
system, then?”
“Indeed. So we know
that, at least five years ago, there were people living in that system, with
some kind of industrial base, and they were trying to reach out to someone.”
“Did the pirate say anything about the pilot they enslaved?
Did they have anything to say about the system or why they were reaching out,
or how they knew what coordinates to dial on the Gate?”
Her Master smiled grimly at that question. “Apparently he was an explorer. Found more
than he wanted to, no doubt. Since we haven’t had any further contact from them
since that prototype shuttle was launched, we can probably assume that there
weren’t too many other explorers in their group.”
“But as for how they
found out which Gate coordinates to dial? Apparently, they found an index to
the gates, like the one found in the Valoys system that allowed the Ihm to be
the first to activate the Gates. Well, the first to activate them on purpose.
Anyways, while Valoys only had sixteen gates in its index, since the rest of it
had been destroyed in an ancient battle of some sort, these people may have
found a complete index.”
Captain Nyna Thelynn slumped back in her chair in shock. A
complete Gate Index? That would be the largest advance in, well, since the
first gates were unlocked! It was known that there were gates outside Known
Space, since the X’thari used their strange Anchor drives to jump directly from
place to or from a Gateway, but since no one had ever found the X’thari
homeworld, it made sense that they were at an Unknown Gate. The problem with
Unknown Gates was that no one knew the addresses, which meant that to find them
one would have to resort to random dialing, and that was incredibly dangerous.
But a complete gate index would have only the gates that actually were used,
eliminating many of the random possibilities.
You still might run into the X’thari, but that was, at
least, a known quantity, even if it meant death. Much better than just…
disappearing, or whatever happened when you dialed a ‘wrong number’ on a device
you didn’t understand which was capable of sending you across the galaxy in an
instant. The very thought of it sent a chill running down her spine.
“Very well, Master. Shadowdancer
will make for the Gateway immediately. With permission, I would like to
take a cohort of gunboats to dial the gate for us, so we can hit the gate at
full combat speed, just in case. It may be nothing, but moving at speed will
allow us to better avoid any surprises on the other side.”
“Good thinking,
Captain Thelynn. Take Able and her
cohort to dial the Gate. The rest of the expedition fleet will move out three
hours after you. We’ll wait another three hours, and if we don’t have contact
by then, we’ll try a more forceful probe of the system, though that will
increase the risk substantially.”
“We won’t let you down, Master.”
“I know you won’t. Shinokage
out.” And with that, the viewscreen
went dark.
Looking at the rest of her bridge crew, she said, “All
right, comms, get Able and Barbara on the horn, and have them form
up and move ahead of us to the Gateway. Navigation, I want to line us up for a
straight run on the ‘exit’ side of the Gate, so we can do a full sprint through
it. We’ll be going full speed on the sublight engines, because I don’t want to
even guess what trying to hit the Gate while in FTL will do to us. Helm, be
ready to execute the run when Able’s
cohort is in position. On the other side, you may need to do some high speed
maneuvers if there are obstacles in the way. Don’t ask permission, as soon as
we’re through adjust course and speed as you need to in order to give us the
best chance of not hitting something solid. Sensors, I want your eyes peeled on
your scope, the moment we get through the gate. If there are X’thari, I want to
know it before they start shooting at us. Have the computer prioritize
identification of X’thari energy signatures. Weapons, we’re going in hot and
ready, but I want you to hold fire until I give the word. If there aren’t
X’thari on that end, they’ll be twitchy with the gate opening, and they might
shoot at us. We can chalk one up to a misunderstanding, but if they keep
firing, I want us ready to return the favor. Understood?”
She took a breath, and opened a comm line to the entire ship.
“Crew of the Shadowdancer. You’ve
been with the Company since the Fall of Jagloth. You’ve been blooded in action
against pirates, and you proved yourselves the equal of any crew in the
Imperial Navy during the Civil War. Now our Master calls on this ship, his
first warship, to venture into the unknown.”
“I am sure by now you’ve heard the rumors about this
expedition. Now let me confirm what you’ve heard. Before the Fall of Jagloth, I
was part of the team that recovered a Data Recorder from an old Earth colony
ship, the Juan Ponce de Leon. That
recorder was in a vault on one of the orbitals around Jagloth, but originally
it had been found here, in this system, having been sent through the Gateway.
The ship that recovered it recorded the coordinates the Gateway connected to.
This means we have the coordinates to a 17th Gateway!”
“We do not know what is on the other side, but our Master
has charged us with venturing into the unknown, because he knows that we are
the best that Black Star has to offer. He is counting on us to scout the system
and report back. Because it is unknown, we will be conducting a combat run on
the Gate, at full military power. We may need to maneuver quickly on the other
side, and the inertial dampeners may not be able to keep up. Secure all loose
materials, and prepare for possible combat operations. All ship suits must be
worn and sealed in case of hull breaches.”
“We will not fail the Master. Let’s make history, Shadowdancer.”
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Be sure to read my published works!
Frozen Soul series (Sci-Fi Supervillain story):
Frozen Soul https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071R125QT
Tales of the Void Traveler https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZZ52G37
Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy GameLit):
Volume 1 - Tutorial https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VPRNDB
Omnibus 1 - Volumes 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0774T354X
Into the Black (Sci-Fi GameLit):
Book I - Game Start https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071LT5WGL
Omnibus I - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077X2KR7Y
City of Champions Online (Superhero GameLit):
Issue I - Origin Stories https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075SHXQS1
Lewd Dungeon (Dungeon Core GameLit):
Book 1 - Welcome to the Apocalypse https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BB34DHF
The Kalipshae Affair (A First Contact Short Story): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0739V6R6T
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