A Sword Into Darkness (25 page)

Kris rose up on one elbow and turned toward him, making it difficult for him to concentrate suddenly.  “Eyes up here, fearless leader.”  He locked gazes with her and they both smiled.  She nodded.  “Tell me, is what Sykes doing the right thing or not?  Is this mission delay and crew swap a better plan in the end, objectively?  Or do you stand by the crew you picked out, the mission you’ve been planning?”

There was no hesitation on his part.  “Getting out to the Deltans sooner rather than later is a better plan.  Going out there with the people we trust and who we’ve worked with for so long is the right plan.”  Nathan sighed.  “But it’s out of our hands now.  Why ask?

She leaned in to him, her lips brushing his earlobe, whispering, “Because if we only get one chance to be on that ship, we’d better make it count for something.”

11:  “TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS”

March 6, 2045; USS Sword of Liberty (DA-1), aboard RLV Cauldron; Pacific Ocean, 400 nautical miles off the California coast

Miles
and miles from any shipping lane, and barren of any unauthorized traffic, a very unusual naval exercise was underway.  The carriers, cruisers, and destroyers of the US Pacific Fleet had scoured the waves for days, working in concert with satellites, aircraft, towed-array sonar surveillance ships, and submarines to ensure not one person was within weapons or sensory range of that particular spot in the ocean.

Having cleared the seas, the naval assets withdrew to a safe distance of 100 nautical miles and formed a defensive ring, allowing no man, boat, sub, plane, or leviathan to cross their barrier.

At the center of this ring, a very unusual ship sat alone, doing a very unusual thing.

The Reconfigurable Launch Vessel
Cauldron
had served as the womb of mankind’s first true spaceship.  Within this strange, boxy vessel, the ship that would change the world had been assembled, in pieces, under the shadowy oversight of the US government at the innocuous Ingmar Rammstahl Shipbuilding Company in Santa Clara, California.

For the last two and a half years, the
Cauldron
had floated high in the water, with her vast, enclosed bay’s floor well above the ocean’s surface.  But as the child of the future grew in her belly, her draft had slowly grown deeper.  This mothership was more of floating drydock than a ship in her own right, but she could do things that no respectable drydock would ever be caught doing.

Now, alone at the center of the US Navy’s costly ring of solitude, the
Cauldron
appeared to be sinking.  Over the span of hours, her bow lifted into the air while her stern dipped below the waves.  Yet, she was not the victim of some random, tragic casualty.  This was by design, through the careful pumping of ballast from one tank to another.

The angle of her hull increased steadily as her bow lifted up and up into the salt-laden sea air.  Eventually, the drydock vessel became less of a ship and more of a tower—a tall, stable, enclosed gantry, floating isolated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  And once the tower was finally erected, the bow blossomed open to reveal another, very different bow hidden inside.

For a brief moment, the wind and the sea gave pause, becoming calm and glassy, as if the sight of this strange ship/tower about to give birth to another ship were enough to shock nature itself into stillness.  Then, silence and calm vanished as the
Cauldron
exploded in light and sound.  Here, a new force of nature was unleashed upon the planet.

Blue-white energy stabbed down into the ocean, instantly boiling tons of seawater, producing superheated clouds of steam that pushed outward with the force and the speed of a nuclear detonation.  The hollow bulkheads and frame of the
Cauldron
came apart like kindling and the
Sword of Liberty
was revealed for the first time, balanced upon her hexagonal stern, riding atop a lance of pure energy in the center of an expanding crater in the ocean.

The enormous, wedge-topped tower of the spacecraft fell slightly as her thrust built—but then the fall reversed itself and she began to rise, faster and faster, driven by a force equivalent to firecracker strings of nuke, after nuke, after nuke.  The ship rocketed upwards at ever climbing Mach values, wind tearing at the thin aeroshells that protected her bow, antennas, and radiator panels.

The drive effect pulled away from the surface of the ocean and floods of seawater rushed in to fill the steamy, conical depression carved out in the ocean by the launch.  Water geysered up hundreds of feet into the air, a final, petulant slap at the ship from Mother Earth, for having stricken her so deeply.

The attending ships, their crews gawking in awe at the spectacular launch, were unfortunately forced to turn away from the show by the simple need to survive.  Atmospheric shockwaves from the continuous torch of energy were bad enough, throwing out hurricane-level gust fronts to set the ships heeling over, but the tidal wave was worse.

The transition of that much water to steam, and the accompanying inrushing flood and geyser were enough to set the whole ocean ringing like a bell.  Solid bands of physical force expanded out from the launch point at the speed of sound through water, many times that of sound through air.  The height of the ring fell steadily, but the energy remained, undissipated.  The surface shockwave crossed the safety buffer of 100 kilometers in a few short moments and struck the warships with the abruptness of a hammer-fall.

Smaller ships were nearly tossed out of the water, lifted up high by the front of the wave and then left hanging as its sharp tail receded in a flash.  Steel frames warped and cracked to such a degree that it would be years before all the ships would have a chance to go to drydock for repairs.  Then the tidal wave vanished over the horizon to spread its influence around the globe, leaving the dazed sailors behind.

It would strike the California coast with the greatest ferocity, crunching a few seaside homes which had long staved off the creep of the Pacific, “safe” upon stilts.  Wrecked too were several ocean-view roads, and an older pier or two, but no one died, having been mysteriously pre-warned by NOAA and the USGS who had uncannily predicted the likelihood of a small tidal wave in the immediate future.  Elsewhere, the wave would strike limply, causing no real damage.  It simply spread out, distributing its energy uniformly, bouncing and rebounding off of coastlines and seamounts, passing back through the ocean over and over, becoming less and less pronounced, until its presence was indistinguishable from the normal ebb and flow of the seas.

High above, and becoming higher still, the
Sword of Liberty
pierced the atmosphere and left the confines of the Earth.  The blue skies of the western hemisphere faded to black, and the roar of air molecules rushing by the hull faded away, leaving the ship to pass on in silence.  The drive effect made no real sound when it was not burning air or water to plasma.  However, if it could have been possible, an observer pressed against the hull might still have heard one thing—a singular voice crying out into the darkness.

“
Yeeeeeeeee Haaaaaaaaaaa!!!
”

Lying on his acceleration couch in the bridge/control room of the
Sword of Liberty
, Colonel Calvin Henson, USAF, NASA, winced and keyed his microphone.  “Ms. Muñoz, can you please refrain from doing that?”

Her emphatic cry cut off in mid-
Haaaaa
and she cleared her throat.  Kris smiled despite the two gravities of acceleration pushing her down in her own couch in Engineering and answered in her most demure and respectful tone.  “I’m sorry, Colonel, I really don’t think I can.  If I only get one ride on this tub, I plan to make the most of it.  Now then,
Wooooooooo Hooo
—”

Her voice vanished as the new Commanding Officer of the United States’ first space destroyer cut off the intercom circuit to Engineering.  He muttered to himself and tried to keep up with the massive streams of data inundating him from his displays and automated status boards.  Nathan risked turning his head to look at the frustrated veteran astronaut seated next to him and tried not to smile too broadly.

Henson made some adjustments to the data he frantically monitored on his personal screen, and mirrored on the main screen.  He keyed into the now silent command circuit again.  “Pilot—I mean XO, standby to cut thrust.  Stable orbit in five, four, three, two, one, and shutdown.”

Before the Executive Officer, Commander Daniel Torrance, USN, could touch the control to cut off the drive, the computer did it for him, having completed its programmed launch flawlessly.  All sense of weight disappeared and the XO jumped slightly as he began to feel like he was falling.  The former submariner stayed his hand from the superfluous shutoff command and keyed into the command circuit instead.  “Captain,” he said, feeling unnatural addressing a non-Navy officer as such, “shutdown completed on schedule, stable orbit … achieved.”  As he finished, another unnatural feeling began to overwhelm him.

Henson recognized the XO’s hesitation for what it was and keyed into the general announcing circuit, overriding all of the other comms circuits.  “All personnel, this is your CO.  We have reached orbit and are en route to rendezvous with the International Space Station.  We’re finished with the scary, exciting part, so all we have to look forward to at the moment is the hard part, the actual work of space.  There’s a lot to be tested and verified  before we move on to the tactical phase, so I urge you to focus on your task list and try not to spend all your time doing somersaults and bouncing off the bulkheads.

“Now, for many of you, this is your first time in microgravity, so this sensation of weightlessness might be new to you.  I caution you:  don’t try to tough it out!  If you feel the need, use the osmotic meds you’re carrying.  It happens to a lot of us and it’s no reflection upon you if you need them.  You can’t do your job if you’re getting sick everywhere.  All right, all stations report in and commence space-worthiness checks per your checklists.”

Nathan released his harness and gave himself a short push, floating off the couch and into thin air.  Despite the changes that had occurred, the setbacks they had all endured, and despite Gordon not being there, they had made it.

He looked around at the semicircle of acceleration couches and maneuvering coffins mounted to the deck, one for each bridge watchstander.  The couches were each coupled with a set of flat touch screens and a communications panel, from which most operations of the ship could be controlled.  Larger displays covered the padded, cable-strewn bulkheads, lighting up the bright white and navy blue bridge with information, while speakers and ducting crowded the overhead, setting up a background buzz of voices and noise that defined a ship underway.

Nathan grinned wide and foolishly as he tried to take it all in at once, unable and unwilling to put up a stoic front.  He was here, in space, weightless, aboard his own ship.  It almost made up for not being in command any longer.  His was a jumble of emotions:  excitement, anger, joy, nervousness, and even a touch of guilt.

The new commanding officer looked at him, bemused.  “And how do you find it, Mr. Kelley?”

He turned to Henson.  “Captain, Superfluous Civilian Consultant reporting in with nothing to do, sir!”

Colonel Henson frowned for a moment, considering, then pushed off of his own couch, directly at Nathan.  He touched, grabbed hold of Nathan, and carried them over to a corner of the bridge, stopping them both much more adroitly than Nathan would have ever managed alone.  Nathan briefly envied his experience, but Henson cut off his thoughts with a sharp whisper.

“Mr. Kelley, I need to know now if the two of you are going to continue to be willfully difficult for the rest of these space trials.  If you are, I may be forced to have you confined to quarters until we can use the SSTOS to take you back down.  Is that what you want?”

Nathan stared at the officer’s eyes, trying to gauge whether he was serious or not.  What he saw failed to comfort him.  “No, it’s not what I want.”

“Good.  I don’t want that either, but I will do whatever is necessary to make these trials a success.  Our launch is going to cause enough problems down on Earth, that I don’t need another set up here.  Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

Henson smiled tightly, forcing himself to be somewhat more pleasant.  “I really thought we had gotten past our … circumstances, Nathan.  You and Kris have been nothing but helpful this past week, giving us a crash course on the
Sword of Liberty
.”

Nathan nodded.  “We both want you guys to be successful.  It’s in everyone’s best interests.  I guess it’s just a little different being up here and knowing we’re not going all the way.  But, that’s not your fault and we shouldn’t be taking it out on you.”

He blew out a long, slow breath.  “All right, we’ll be good.  I’ll have a word with Kris and we’ll stop pushing your buttons.”

“Thank you.  Because while your instruction on the ground was excellent, I’ll admit that most of us are still too new to not be nervous pushing this bird’s buttons.  We’re glad to have you along.”

The military skeleton crew and their two civilian consultants went to work, verifying the
Sword of Liberty
was safe and ready to continue with her trials.  Coverall adorned crew flitted about the ship through bright white passageways festooned with handholds, cables, ducts and padding.  The decks of the ship were all aligned perpendicular to the centerline running from bow to stern, set up for either weightless operations or for the pseudogravity that existed when the ship was under a standard one g of thrust, turning “forward” to “up” and aft to “down”.

Kris darted around the corridors and access trunks like a fairy on too much caffeine, excitedly checking every internal seam and pressure boundary, each accessible valve and indicator, ensuring her ship was safe and ready for the stars.  A trail of Navy and Air Force engineers, both astronauts and non, struggled to keep up, taking notes on everything she touched.  After verifying no air was leaking out and that everything had survived the launch intact, they proceeded to reconfigure the ship for actual operation.