Penance (RN: Book 2) (5 page)

“I’ll deal with it immediately, sir,” Avery said with a compliant smile and nodded his departure. He really wanted to stay on the bridge to witness the conclusion to the Poirot mystery, but first he had some heads to crack together.

“Status!” Denz said as the relieved crew filed past him.

Canthouse snapped to his Olympian rigidness, his feet separated and hands clasped behind his back. “Crew change complete, commander. Ship at status two with all systems reporting nominal.”

“Good …” Denz made to issue orders to the crew only to remember Canthouse was the current duty officer. “Malcolm, if you’ll do the honours.”

“Ops, commence sweep. Navigation, execute gate procedure.” Canthouse said assuming his stance facing the main display.

Both crewmen responded in the affirmative and the distant honey-rust nebulae moved from to left to right as the ship swung about. Denz rested his face against his right fist as the blue star representing the Bristol crept along the chevron curve representing the search path. In all his years of service he had never seen such an unusual gate signature. Even when the Royal Navies first attempt at a carrier FTL transition resulted in the Ark Royal spread across an entire system like the jet from a roman candle, the gate portal had been barely a third of what they had witnessed.

Similar thoughts were running through the mind of Petty Officer Rachel Cummings as the Bristol’s icon approached the third way point on the rising leg of the search arc. A navy crewman for nine years and an operations specialist for two, she enjoyed the challenging position of operations officer, as it was one of the few posts on the ship that never stagnated. With this position being the first to encounter any and all sensor data, she knew exactly what was happening at any time when the rest of the crew were still whispering across corridors, and she wouldn’t swap it for the world.

Cummings liked to think she obtained the position purely on merit, but a quick glance at the man sitting in the center chair checked her immodest thoughts, with the realisation that even the talented occasionally needed the influence of others to get ahead in such a male dominated environment. The subtle request for favour of influence came with a price, but it was a price she did not mind paying as it brought many benefits, and kept her on the ship when so many others had been rotated off. And to be honest, she enjoyed the company with the age difference less of a factor than she initially imagined. Though a little hesitant at the preliminary advances, things had proceeded smoothly and in secret, oh so secret, with inhibitions disappearing as the person became more open, more trusting. With the secrets he revealed there could be no doubt that she had entered the circle of supreme confidence, a place that would keep her secure for an entire career.

The operations officer winced when a twinge cut across her lower abdomen, and she moved a hand to the affected area. The concern for the twinge vanished when a red icon flashed onto her ops screen well outside the Bristol’s search path. She moved the targeting reticule to highlight it, only for the blip to disappear before it got there. She stared at the location of the blip on the feather edge of the active sensor disc for several seconds but it never reappeared. Such sensor anomalies occurred from time to time when certain forms of hydrate reflected the sensor signal.

Cummings made to perform another cyclic sweep of the area between their position and the trade lanes leading to Trent quarter station when the anomaly reappeared and stayed visible. She quickly placed the reticule over the blip, which turned to a flashing red question mark as the computer analysed the sensor data.

The operations officer tapped her fingers on the console as she watched the undulating reticule. The computer was taking too long to consider the information, and she had almost finished typing in a priority consideration order to dump more CPU time into the anomaly when a small dark box filled with vertically flowing glyphs appeared next to the question mark. She stared with curious interest at the scrolling script only for it to blink off and be replaced by – C12 Uncategorised event!

Cummings stomach tingled as she stared at the screen. Despite her self assurances that she could do this job as well as any other person, and the occasional wine fuelled boasting of how only the talented were allowed in the operations position, her real capability lay with the mundane everyday procedures - the repetitive scanning for and analysing of known and familiar events. A long list of which she could quote from memory. Despite the pretences, she had no real talent for supposing the unknown and ably gave the impression of greater aptitude by delivering technically reworded versions of what the computer displayed on the screen. And relied on her 170 words per minute to quickly locate what she required from the extensive EDP and Koll data catalogues, to provide the snap to it answers that command had come to expect of her.

Answers anyone could supply if given access to the same libraries. Libraries that on this ship she alone issued access rights for. Rights she avoided issuing with any umbrage quashed by the use of implied favour with the senior command staff. She could not risk some other being able to manipulate the data quicker than her, which could undermine her comfortable position as they gained support with the upper echelons. This is why her abdomen twinged as it did. Prices had to be paid.

The flashing prompt on the display was new to her and she had no plausible idea on how to continue. Cummings felt a pang of nervous uncertainty and glanced at Canthouse who stood with his back to her, his finger moving about the navigator’s display as they discussed refinements to the search path. Then to Denz who sat motionless in the command chair, with his eyes fixed on the main screen and his chin on his right hand like The Thinker.

Her abdomen gave another uncomfortable twinge and she shifted in her seat to relieve the discomfort. Would it be a sign of inability if
Solve it Cummings
couldn’t resolve the mystery without the aid of a senior officer? Would Denz reconsider their private position if issues of doubt were raised and he were forced to re-evaluate the bridge crew structure?

Such considerations vanished when the energy signature next to the targeting reticule went from an intermittent flickering of the bottom bar to off the scale in the blink of an eye. Cummings almost jumped from her seat at the abruptness of the two tone alert that accompanied the sudden energy increase.

With the bridge crew’s attention on the ops station and the penetrating gaze of Denz on her alone, she became a hive of activity to prove to herself that she could deal with the problem.

“What is it, Cummings?” asked Canthouse.

“The computer has located an uncategorised energy event on the limit of the active sensor field.”

“Is it natural or artificial?”

“Unknown at this time as interrogation data has yet to arrive. But whatever it is, its energy output is off the scale.” Canthouse sidled over to the operations station and stared at the screen as Cummings made her explanation.

Another two tone twitter came from the ops console.

“Interrogation data coming in now commander, it’s ...” Cummings stalled in her consideration of the data as Canthouse leaned close to her to view the screen.

“It’s what operations officer,” Denz said in a questioning tone.

“The computer’s showing it as both natural and artificial,” Canthouse said. “And now it’s just saying uncategorised. This is very odd!” He shook his head in wonder as he stared.

“Could it be what caused the unusual gate signature?” asked Denz. He gazed at Cummings who remained evasive, refusing to meet his stare with her apparent concentration on the display.

Canthouse sensed her discomfort at his proximity and backed away to ease the pressure. It worked. “Unconfirmed at this distance, commander. But with the inherent energy of this signature, I’d say it’s easily capable of causing the splash damage as witnessed in the other residual gate event.” Cummings peeked at Denz over her console as she finished talking.

Denz noticed her flustered look and turned away. “That’ll do me,” he said gripping the arms of his chair and sitting back. “Navigation! Time to new target?”

“Time to target, twenty four minutes, commander,” the navigator responded.

“Take us there. Maximum sub-light,” Canthouse said.

Even though intersecting fields of the stability dampers enveloped the entire ship, rendering all inertia based movement undetectable, Denz could swear he felt the slight surge as the ship powered forward. Apparently, he was not the only one as he witnessed Canthouse gripping the ops console to steady himself, but it was all just a sensory illusion based on perceived reactions to what his memory told him an accelerating ship felt like.

Twenty minutes later a beep came from the operations console. “Sir, I believe I can get you a visual,” the Cummings said.

The view flickered from the belted rust of the nebulae to an identical view of the belted rust of nebulae, with this one containing a dark spot that transformed into a dense algae mist as the ship approached. Denz observed the navigator slowing the ship as they neared, and again swore he felt the slight lurch of a decelerating vehicle, so he concentrated on the screen to keep from becoming distracted.

As they approached the bloom expanded to become a boiling marine green thunderhead that had exceeded the view screen’s capacity to zoom out and now filled the display.

“Distance?” asked Denz.

“Six thousand kilometres,” the navigator responded.

“Ops!” Denz glanced at Cummings who worked as if possessed with the light of her flickering display illuminating a face that had returned to its intense professionalism.

“Computers chewing on it, sir,” Cummings responded. After a few seconds a dual tone twitter game from the operations console. “Sir, the computer reports that the cloud is composed of a mixture of heavy ferrites with no distinct point of origin, and though it’s clearly in a fluidic state, it’s registering as solid. It’s essentially an enormous cloud of rust.”

“Size?”

“I’m unsure, commander, as everything but the e-band sensors are being reflected back, and they can’t penetrate more than a few hundred meters. But it’s expanding at a rate of three thousand cubic kilometres per second and increasing.”

“Is it a danger to the ship?” asked Canthouse with command concern.

“I don’t think so, sir, as it’s a volumetric increase. If its expansion remains consis –“

“What was that?” The slim red haired navigator said jumping forward in his seat to point at the screen.

“What was what?” asked Denz staring at the boiling green cloud that filled the display.

“I saw it too!” Weps said.

“Saw what? Speak up man!” Denz snapped looking between the pale skinned navigator and dark skinned weapons specialist.

The weapons officer pointed to the left of the screen, “Something moved just beneath the sur –“

“There!“ cried the helmsman half-standing and an excited finger stabbing toward the screen.

A dual tone twitter came from the ops console at the exact moment Denz witnessed the object partially break the surface of the mist. He found himself awed and stood slowly, using the rear of the two seats in front of the command podium to support himself as he leaned forward to watch the back of some great scaled creature broke the surface of the marine green cloud, and cut along like a reptile through stagnant water. He couldn’t recognise any features, but whatever it maybe it was at least three times the size of the Bristol, possibly larger. The bridge was tomb silent as the crew watched the creature glide along the surface until it entered a rolling band of mist and vanished from sight.

Denz stood upright. “Ops.” he snapped.

“I’ve no idea commander. The computer’s still spinning its hour glass.” Cummings said without looking up from her console.

“What’s the problem?” Canthouse asked leaning to look at the operation officer’s tactical screen.

“It’s just too much information, sir. The data is unprecedented and it’s pouring in faster than the computer can categorize it. The ship’s military CPU is just not configured for so much science cataloguing.”

Canthouse pointed a finger toward the system affinity settings, “Maybe if you disable some of the lesser services it’ll –“

“Jesus!”cried the navigator pushing himself deeper into his chair.

Denz instantly made a mental note to reprimand the navigator for his un-officer like exclamations, only for the thought to slip from his mind the moment he too saw what was on the screen.

Something monstrous had emerged from the cloud. The creature had one large and numerous smaller opaque eyes each side of the triangular reptile head, with a flat lower jaw that drooped open to reveal rows of slim curving teeth, each larger than the ships turrets. The creature’s mid-section tapered off to a thick eel like tail that allowed it to move in an easy alligator glide on a tangent away from the ship. It looked like something that haunted the Marianas Trench sixty million years ago, not an object that should be gliding about in the vacuum of interstellar space

Denz paid no attention to the crew’s concerned murmurs as he stared in disbelief. “My god. Malcolm, have you ever ....”

“Never, sir.” Canthouse replied with a bewildered shake of the head as he too watched the form moving parallel to the cloud. Despite the creature’s size, there was nothing ponderous about its movements, with the long slim body undulating with the lazy unhurried motion of a Moray eel. Every few kilometres the creature’s mouth gaped open and the great lizard like head swept from side to side as if tasting this new environment.