Sean Dalton - Operation StarHawks 03 - Beyond the Void (2 page)

 

The conference room of the
Jefferson
lacked enough chairs; its temperature thermostats were failing to kick on at a decent cycle, making the room too hot; and the science officer’s monotone made concentration difficult.

“After exhaustive analysis of the log recordings, we have been able to determine power utilization curves of the alien vessels. Our findings indicate that they—â€

 

Kelly had been in Nielson’s Void only once before, and that was long ago during his time as an ensign. Three days later the
Jefferson
slowed from TD 4 and flashed her security codes at the warning buoys. At a cautious sublight pace she entered the zone that was forbidden to all civilian spacecraft.

The main viewscreen on the narrow, equipment-crammed bridge showed very few stars, like a dim scattering of dust far away. On a whim the science officer was playing engine rumble over audio, giving them the illusion of listening to themselves against the infinite silence of space.

The void was truly empty. No asteroid belts, no nebulae, no cinderball remnants of planets spinning on a rogue course, no comets, no dust clouds, no young stars or old stars ... nothing to get in the way of whatever testing the military wanted to conduct. They didn’t even have the spectacular spectrum band of color caused by bending light waves to watch now that they were going at sublight.

Kelly stood and gazed into the darkness, feeling it suck at his vision. It was said that sailors of old used to become mesmerized by the wake of their vessels upon Earth’s seas until they fell overboard to their deaths. He had always found the glitter of stars and planets to be hypnotic. Now, their absence disturbed him. He shifted on his feet, frowning.

Ship’s sensors were scanning on maximum sweep. Nothing had registered. They were utterly, completely alone, a speck of dust in the cosmos. Vulnerable and tiny in the pressurized protection of a pyrillium hull with a few plasma cannons against whatever waited for them to venture closer.

A hand touched Kelly’s shoulder. “Commander?â€

 

Kelly stared at the screen in grim silence for several seconds. Then he said, “Find us a way in, Mr. Siggerson.â€

 

Holborn was working on the third generation of Type 4 cultures when a carrier entered his laboratory. His back was to the door, yet he recognized that stolid footstep pattern and heard the faint hiss of hydraulic levers that lifted and propelled the carrier’s legs. The sound never failed to inject a burst of fear into him.

Holborn straightened from his microscope and turned around too quickly, knocking off a petri dish as he did so. The glass shattered upon the floor. Fortunately that particular dish was empty. He had intended it to hold cell smears from the next mutation. Had he broken any of the three other dishes, the whole laboratory would have been contaminated with a deadly viral strain in seconds.

The carrier stopped and bent its head slightly to scan the breakage.

“I’ll have it cleaned up in a few minutes,â€