The Dastasji, uncertain coordinates in hostile space
Scava
Rarely in life is the sudden appearance of a tightly packed cluster of cosmic debris a welcome sight. Certainly, it was difficult to imagine any other scenario where nearly certain death brought with it a sigh of relief, but today was proving to be full of challenges and this was one they could deal with. Untrustworthy though it might be, the automated system controlling emergency evasion activated immediately, swinging the Dastasji around with enough force to send every crewman clutching for the nearest wall-grip. Yellow emergency lights flashed their warning just as quickly, although nobody had been under any illusions about how dire their situation had already been.
“First Officer,” the Shiplord called out, drawing Scava’s full attention to him. Jrasic was as stalwart and imperturbable as ever, so much that even the current disaster had failed to shake his resolve. Scava had served with three other Shiplords prior to his assignment on the Dastasji, but none of them could inspire the crew as Jrasic was somehow able. His absolute certainty was infectious. “Can I assume that we have exited the anomaly?”
Scava bobbed his head respectfully. “You can, Shiplord! There is no sign of the research facility.”
“Expected,” was Jrasic’s blunt reply. “Their predictions were optimistic, however I believe we have survived to discover something the scientific community could not.”
Scava kept one eye on his scanners while the other feigned attention to Jrasic. The field was densely packed with diverse forms of debris, ranging from simple broken-down asteroids, to chunks of planet or planetoid; there was also more than a passing number of artificial structures littering observable space. Two of those were moving under force, with neither presenting any recognised identity code.
“Two unknown ships,” came the report from across the command deck, and it was Officer Lazh who now held Jrasic’s gaze. “One… very large, with significant damage. I am detecting structural similarities to a long-range carrier design.”
“The other?” Jrasic asked.
“Unremarkable,” Lazh replied. “A vessel of that size presents no threat, even if it is armed.”
Jrasic bobbed his head thoughtfully, and moved on to the more important matter. “I want to know what this situation is. What is the larger vessel, some form of station, or is it truly a wreckage?”
“I can try to answer the former query, Shiplord,” said Artiz from the master sensor station. It was not typical of most Varga-class Destroyers to carry such an elaborate suite of scanner technology, nor for it to be manned by an actual blue-chip, instead of a specially trained red-chip like the rest of the crew, but the Dastasji had always been designed for the most dangerous intelligence gathering exercises, and it was this capacity that had seen them selected for remote observation of the experiment that had sent them to this place. That the scanners, and Artiz, were also the only reasons they’d even survived the experiment was not lost of Scava, and it seemed the Shiplord gave it equal consideration when he turned to the military scientist.
“You have an explanation?” Jrasic asked.
“An educated hypothesis, Shiplord,” Artiz conceded. “We already know the anomaly is a passage through space, and potentially even through time—although travel to the past is still considered mere speculation—but given that we just spent considerable time outside of both, it would not be outside the realm of possibility that everything else we see did the same. The composition is certainly varied enough to suggest many different sources.”
Jrasic turned an eye to Scava, who bobbed his head in agreement. “It is very unlikely this debris accumulated naturally, Shiplord.”
“If this is so,” Jrasic mused, “I suspect we have located many failed experiments, and those conducting them. Communications Officer, attempt to raise a communication with the larger ship.”
“Successful,” replied the nominated crewman, with a surprisingly fast turnaround time. “Communications are active when you deign to speak, Shiplord.”
Disregarding the way the Dastasji swayed to and fro, Jrasic rose to his full height and puffed out his chest boldly. Even in his advancing years, the old Shiplord cut an impressive figure that could give even a superior officer second thoughts. “This is Shiplord Jrasic of the Dastasji,” he announced. “Identify yourself.”
The respondent was certainly not of their kind. “This is the artificial intelligence of this scouting vessel,” came the hideous reply. “It is greatly unexpected to see a fully functional V’Straki warship in this era, but Adrian Saunders works in mysterious ways. What is your—”
Jrasic terminated the link before more could be said. Disturbed though Scava was, he found himself rattled by the ashen face the Shiplord now presented, and actively needed to refrain from rising to assist the old warrior. That would have been grossly disrespectful, and even this development could not allow for that kind of lapse in judgement.
“Shiplord,” Artiz said quietly, plainly as shocked as the rest of them, “that… thing… has a functioning Crucible.”
Now Jrasic spun in alarm. “You’re certain?!”
Artiz bobbed his head firmly. He was certain.
++++
++++
The Amber Radiance, debris field in vicinity of Agwar
Adrian Saunders
Two seconds. Adrian reckoned that was how long it would take for a human engineer to reject any plans to build a ship like the Amber Radiance. It wasn’t that it was particularly awful by Dominion standards—there was every sign that it had been constructed in accordance with such specifications—but the reliance on technology over good design was seen everywhere. This was, at least, a military vessel, and there were a handful of redundancies that would never be found in a civilian ship, but nothing that Adrian enjoyed staking his life on. Any engineer worth is salt should be gripped by the paranoid, yet far from inaccurate belief that everything would fail at the worst possible time. There was also the fact that it had, quite obviously, been courageously retrofitted for general purpose, having originally been built as a troop transport for the Dominion-Celzi war before being sold as excess stock.
Learning all this didn’t help alleviate his concerns; the ship groaned, creaked, and popped in protest as Trix fought to keep it away from the petatonnes of debris that were still bursting back into normal space. Those grim sounds told Adrian everything he needed to know: shit was fucked, and it was getting worse. It didn’t help that there was a pending request for a communications link he was studiously ignoring.
“Fuckin’ Jesus!” he exclaimed after a particularly loud and alarming groan. “I don’t like the way your ship is sounding!”
“My ship wasn’t built for this!” Laphor shot back angrily, gripping her seat tightly for support. “Especially not just after ramming into yours!”
True enough, he thought; he doubted any ship would be up to this kind of challenge after slamming into Spot’s reinforced hull, and it was now only a matter of time before something really important gave out. With the help of the sensors, Adrian could already tell where the structure would first fracture, and begin the rapidly accelerating process of tearing itself apart. Every sharp movement pushed them a little further towards annihilation.
Unfortunately there wasn’t much to be done about that. While the ship may have been creaking, groaning, and shuddering, his attention was fixed on the viewscreen where dark shapes sped, spun, and collided with each other. To human eyes they’d have been featureless silhouettes against the glow of the Ilrayen Band, but the sensors did an excellent job of picking out the details, and Adrian didn’t like what he saw; it was a wonder that they weren’t all dead already. Little wonder that Laphor was agitated, or that the mercenaries were holding on with all their might; the kinetics weren’t faring well, and although it was no worse than a fairly moderate rollercoaster they were finding the constant changes in gravity to be sickening, none of which served to fully distract them from a sense of impending doom.
Laphor continued a moment after another violent swerve to starboard. “Even if we—augh—even if we somehow survive this mess, there’s still some psychotic monster of a ship out there that, for reasons I cannot fathom, seems to think you’re some kind of all-powerful being. Do you have a plan for dealing with that?”
“I’ve always got a plan,” Adrian lied. Given what had just happened, he didn’t think the A.I. would be in the mood for a friendly chat. “I suppose I have to talk to it.”
“I’ve just run the numbers on that idea,” Trix interrupted. “Turns out it’s a bad idea. Why don’t we just get out of here and never look back?”
It was a nice idea in theory, but Adrian shook his head. “We tried that the first time we blew a fucking hole in space-time. Look where that got us!”
It also meant that they’d be abandoning the planet—or what was left of it—to a Cruezzir infestation, an asteroid swarm, and the radioactive fallout of multiple anti-matter bombs. Things weren’t looking good for Agwar, but the Agwarens didn’t deserve extinction and Adrian wasn’t about to let it happen after all the bullshit he’d already been through. Maybe there’d be nothing he could do, but he had enough on his conscience without adding extras.
“I can’t say I agree,” Laphor replied, “in my experience, retreat is always an option. Besides which, if we trust to your luck then we’ll end up in even worse trouble… if that’s somehow even possible! If we can leave, then we should leave.”
“We’re staying,” Adrian decided with greater confidence, and shot a hard look at Laphor that ended the discussion. “And that means I have to talk to that fucking thing again. Trix… accept the link.”
To the right of the view screen a small orange light flashed briefly before turning a solid green, indicating that the connection was now active, and it brought with it a heavy sense of responsibility to accompany the usual mortal danger.
“Link established, Divine Ruler,” Trix reported in her most obsequious manner. It wasn’t strictly necessary, and nor had it been discussed, but it was exactly the sort of thing that would really sell their story. No doubt he’d cop some serious shit about all this later down the line. “The connection is open for your magnificence.”
Some really serious shit.
Swaying slightly to the left as the Amber Radiance made a sudden swerve to starboard, Adrian did an excellent job of looking like the motion wasn’t bothering him in the slightest. Perching one leg on the seat so that he could lean into the turn, he did his best to present a completely unwarranted amount of confidence and self-importance. “So you’ve survived my little test,” he said, trying to sound as aloof as all good deities were. “I am pleased, although this only means you’ve met my expectations.”
“Great God of Strife!” the A.I. began, no doubt taking its lead from Trix’s over-the-top introduction. “Would I be right in thinking that all this chaos was intended to test my command of space-hole technology, or was it—”
“Yes,” Adrian lied, interrupting. “That was it.”
“I understand, Divine One,” it replied. “Unfortunately, I regret to inform you that I cannot allow that technology to fall into the hands of those who would threaten the Empire. I apologise, but this is amongst my core protocols.”
There were, to Adrian’s mind, exactly three ways this conversation was likely to progress. First, was that the ship would attempt to kill him to hold onto its secrets, although he deemed this least probable due to its current belief in his Divinity. Second, it would simply run away. Third, and most simple, it would destroy itself. Every path led to the destruction of Agwar and everything on it.
It was best not to go down any of those pathways; you don’t fight a battle knowing you’re going to lose. “I don’t want your space-holes; I already have my own. I have something far more important in mind—a true test of your abilities.”
He let off with a dramatic pause, intending to use the brief moment of silence to pull together a truly amazing delivery. His future, and the future of the entire Agwaren people, hinged upon this single moment, and it’d be almost impossible not to fuck it all up. It was a hell of a burden for one man, and the link light switching to a suspended state did nothing to help his confidence.
“Trix,” he said tersely, his imperious façade giving way to confusion and annoyance, “why the actual fuck are we on hold?”
“I thought it was a good time to interrupt with bad news,” she replied curtly. “Unless you wanted to remain ignorant, Divine One?”
Adrian glared at the nearest camera, although he felt more sick than angry. Whatever required Trix to interrupt their current predicament wasn’t something he was looking forward to knowing about. Careening around a tightly-packed debris field in a busted-as-fuck ship with a crew full of brain-eating monsters was already enough crap to deal with, even before adding in the overwhelming, impossible-to-destroy, computer-monster he was tricking into good behaviour. He revised his tone to one of greater civility, though it was hard to avoid feeling annoyed at the messenger. “What is it now?”
“Disclaimer up front,” she said, “this debris field is full of all kinds of stuff, and these sensors aren’t what we had on Spot, but there’s another ship out there, and it’s laying down a more disruptive Gravity Spike than I’ve ever previously detected.”
“I’m guessing we’re not lucky enough for that to be the good guys?” he asked.
“You actually think you’re the good guys?” Laphor asked incredulously, though she went quiet at the very meaningful look that Adrian shot her way.
“I don’t know who they are,” Trix admitted, “although they’ve definitely got a far more powerful ship than we do. This is speculation, but… I think they may have been stuck in the anomaly. Able to survive it, but not able to escape it. We’d have been the same, if it hadn’t been for your most zealous believer.”
“So we let it out,” Adrian summarised.
“They ought to be grateful then,” Laphor interjected.
Adrian snorted at the naivety of a self-proclaimed mercenary, turning his eyes to the scanner reports Trix had pieced together. Whatever was out there, it was less powerful that the Zhadersil had once been, but it still had them trapped in constant mortal danger. Gravity Spikes meant no warp drive, and no warp drive meant they weren’t going anywhere. “They might not be our enemies, but we shouldn’t assume they’re not. Seems like everyone wants to kill us right now.”
“Kill you,” Laphor corrected. “You’re the only one here in the habit of antagonising entire galaxies.”
“Should I try to contact them?” Trix asked.
Adrian gave the idea serious consideration. Under normal circumstances there would be no need to think about it, but he had to think about what the A.I. might do. Eventually he came to a resolution. “We can’t do it. They’re a danger to us, yeah, but cluing old mate in on that fact isn’t going to look good when he reckons I’m a god.”
“Gods don’t get concerned?” Laphor asked. “Ignoring a threat because of what a computer might think… this plan seems like suicide with extra steps.”
“Every day seems like that when you’re around Adrian Saunders,” Trix quipped. “You get used to it.”
Laphor narrowed her eyes into what Adrian guessed was a scowl. “I’ve decided I do not like travelling with you!”
Adrian ignored her. “Trix, get that link back up.”
The link-light returned to green in an instant, and as expected it was the A.I. who spoke first. “Divine One… you mentioned a test? Does it have something to do with the V’Straki warship?”
Adrian blinked; for a moment his mind went to the Zhadersil, but the A.I. was not referring to the vessel it now mimicked. The other ship, the one whose powerful Gravity Spike held them prisoner in normal space, was no contemporary arrival, but was a relic of a forgotten age.
“Not exactly,” he said in order to fill the silence. “I have a job for you, a Divine Mandate, if you like: protect that world.”
Now it was the A.I.’s turn for thoughtful silence. “Protect it? Weren’t you trying to destroy it? Why else would you bring such ruin to it? Intergalactic war, radiation and fire, a biological infestation of some form, and now this world-ending debris cluster.”
“I like to keep things interesting,” Adrian answered, biting back any further retort. He knew that he was responsible, either directly or otherwise, for the problems now facing the Agwaren homeworld, and it was unlikely that the planet could ever fully recover. As the old saying went: you can’t unring a bell.
The challenge of cleaning up Adrian’s mess was evidently not something the A.I. had a great interest in, for another period of dreadful silence passed before it spoke again. “Something is amiss,” the A.I. finally replied warily. “There has been a miscalculation…”
That was bad, and Adrian switched gears to salvage the situation. “Everything is—” he began, trailing off as the link-light terminated in a hard disconnect. “—fucked. Everything is fucked.”
“That’s not a good sign,” one of the mercenaries remarked.
“Did it just hang up on me?” Adrian asked Trix after a moment. Their sole saving grace was the fact that a V’Straki warship was currently preventing the A.I. from launching an immediate attack with its field manipulators, and that they were too obscured by the debris field for conventional weapons, but that was the silver lining to a very dark cloud.
“I think—” Trix started, but whatever she intended to say was interrupted by the appearance of a newly formed sun. The sensors were going absolutely haywire as incredible forces poured across the debris field, and it took several moments before anyone did anything but stare.
“What just happened?” Laphor asked, her voice tinged by panic.
“Is that… a new star?!” one mercenary asked another.
The other mercenary shook his head in ignorance. “Star or not, it’s a bad sign. A very bad sign.”
“It’s not a star,” Trix informed them. “It’s… it’s impossible!”
Adrian watched the scanners fail to make sense of their results. To the eye it appeared as a rapidly expanding orb of light, filled with glowing veins of energy that swept aside everything around them. It was a terrifying kind of beauty, one that would have been very pretty from a safe distance, but the scanners revealed the truth of the matter.
“Get us moving in the other fucking direction!” Adrian ordered, kicking Trix into action. She didn’t know what they were seeing, and while Adrian only understood the raw basics, he knew enough to identify shit hitting the fan. The core technology of the V’Straki Devastator Cannon was a Creation Engine, a self-annihilating universe contained within a carefully managed multi-layered warp field. It was incredibly sophisticated technology that was far beyond anything the V’Straki had built for themselves, and was hardwired to shut down in the event that anything went wrong. Even the Zhadersil’s radiation blast wasn’t a true override, but it was just one way in which the V’Straki engineers had bodged it in pursuit of new and exciting ways to make explosions. This seemed like the sort of thing they’d have really liked, and he didn’t need to guess who was responsible.
“Can’t tell you how bad this is, Trix,” he told her in a lowered voice. “If you can go to warp, do it.”
“We can’t!” she hissed back. “That thing is growing faster and faster… do you know what we’re dealing with?”
“The power source on that ship was a self-annihilating universe in a bubble,” he outlined, steering clear of specifics. “Somehow, our V’Straki friends have just popped it. That wall of force is eating fucking everything in its way, and with all this space rock we’ve given it a really big dinner.”
Trix was quiet for a long moment, and the ship was felt to put on even more speed. They were well-past safe limits now, which seemed about right for their current problem. “That’s… incredibly bad, Adrian!”
“What are our chances?” he asked. “Slim to none?”
“Closer to none,” Trix replied. “Now that I know what we’re dealing with. The gravity spike has dropped, but there are gravity wells shifting all over the place. If we had a clear path, or even some room, maybe we’d have a shot.”
They’d been speaking quietly, but by the sudden commotion behind them there was no doubt that the mercenaries had overheard some of what had been said. There was almost some relief to be found in the certainty of death; at least the endless parade of bullshit would be over, but he was too stubborn to feel anything but frustration. “This is a really shitty way to go out, Trix.”
“It’s been… extremely exciting knowing you,” she replied. “Never thought I’d see the Human Disaster giving up, though.”
“Optimism hasn’t done me any favours recently,” he replied. “How long do we have before it hits us?”
“Roughly [one hour],” she replied. “That’s enough time for anything to happen.”
He nodded, although it was hard to think of what they might do. If they found a wide, open space for the warp field, maybe they could escape. If the V’Straki ship was close by, they might try and get in contact, but the waves of energy would permit no such communication. If they’d been on Spot, he might have figured out… something. If wishes were fishes, the world would be an ocean.
“You can’t give up,” Laphor told him, and Adrian turned to find her staring at him intently, her eyes fixed on his with profound defiance. “The idea… is just absurd. Adrian Saunders burns fleets. Adrian Saunders is a nightmare who crushes other nightmares under boot. Adrian Saunders tears the stars from the void and cuts through space and time like a creature of myth. You, Adrian Saunders, are the most terrifying thing I have ever seen! Compared to you, this is just a very big bang!”
It was the kind of speech that separated leaders from followers, and wasn’t something that Adrian had particularly expected to receive from Laphor regardless of her rank. It had been strangely inspiring set of backhanded compliments, but it was the final two words that had set his mind racing. “An hour is a lot of time… Trix, I’ve got a plan.”
“A plan?” Trix asked, sceptically.
“I’ve got the start of a plan,” he revised. “Fuck, Laffy, I reckon I could kiss you!”
Laphor winced as though in physical distress. “Please do not call me that…”
Trix switched back to her private comm-link with Adrian. “I think you’d better give me the details. Your plans usually start out terrifying and… end up more terrifying.”
“Yeah,” Adrian admitted. “Not going to deny that. I’ve still got the warp drives from Spot, and they’re still set up for Operation Light-Show. I just need to tweak some settings for this ship.”
“Your plan is to cancel out one explosion with another explosion?” she surmised. She sounded justifiably sceptical about the idea. “You do understand all this mess is a direct result of your last plan to ‘solve it with explosions’?”
“Look, it’s just like burning the forest to prevent bushfires,” he told her.
“Logic error,” was her blunt reply.
He sighed. “Putting it another way, that thing is going to keep going for as long as there’s matter within reach, but we can just blow all that shit up. I know it’s a bad plan, so if you’ve got a better one then I’m happy to hear it.”
“I don’t have a better one,” she begrudgingly admitted. “Are we going back through the anomaly? I’m reasonably certain our way out was just destroyed.”
“No,” he told her. “We’d be screwed if that happens. We’ll need to aim for the planet. Ideally the gravity well will provide some protection from what’s going to happen.”
“Alright,” she said, “I suppose it’s this or certain death. Can I help in any other way?”
“Set gravity to twice galactic standard outside this room,” he told her. “That’ll mean I don’t have to worry about a ship full of brain-eating space monsters, and it won’t be enough to slow me down much, even though I am still a bit fucked up.”
“Done,” she replied, displaying the logs. “Anything else?”
“Keep moving as fast as you can,” he told her. “The more distance we have in front of that thing, the better our chances. We need to make a very sudden turn towards the planet when it all happens. And stay in touch.”
“Always,” she promised.
Switching back to his external comms, Adrian addressed the mercenaries. “I won’t lie, things are about to get worse. Stay in here and protect this room from anything that isn’t me. Shipmaster, you need to make sure that happens at all costs. I’ve cranked up the gravity outside this room, so you shouldn’t see anything, but if you do—”
“I’ve been on boarding actions before,” she interrupted. “I know how to go about defending a room. What’s your plan?”
He grinned at her, an expression that made her subordinates flinch, but which seemed to have no outward effect on her. One more chance of survival, another chance to thumb his nose at the afterlife, had his blood racing. “Something bat-shit crazy.”
Whatever he’d expected Laphor’s response to be, it wasn’t mild irritation. “I’d assumed that much. Is it going to destroy my ship?”
He shook his head. “Not if we do it right.”
Primal instincts always went to high alert at sudden changes in gravity, even if they were expected. It was what made rollercoasters thrilling, and made elevators slightly enjoyable. At one time this experience had made Adrian want to vomit, but now it was just a minor annoyance as that primitive part of his brain recognised it as more of the same old shit. Now, maintaining equilibrium merely forced Adrian to keep one hand to the wall for a few minutes while his body got things figured out.
As impressive as it sounded, twice Galactic Standard wasn’t all that much by Earth standards. It wasn’t much different to the extra weight felt during take-off on an airplane, and was just enough to draw a sweat without needing serious exercise. It was more of a struggle for Adrian than he had expected; not long ago this wouldn’t have even slowed him down, but his body was injured, and was making its troubles known with a series of aches and pains, and an altogether steamy sweat. All that aside, it was still better than trying to fight his way through enemy lines in his usual explosive style, especially when he was working with a time limit.
He was breathing heavily from the effort, and felt slick with sweat, but he was glad to have kept his vacuum suit sealed since leaving Spot. Even if it struggled to process the sea of carbon dioxide his labours produced, it could still maintain a more comfortable air pressure than remained in the rest of the ship. Galactic standards of atmospheric pressure were thinner than a human preferred, but the hull breaches had thinned it even further and relying on it would have made the trip feel like twice the work.
He was pleased to see that the plan was working. What crew remained was probably infested with the plot of a B-grade horror movie, and those he came across were either motionless or incapable of making any serious movements. They cried out weakly, in incomprehensible anger and anguish as he passed, their voices distorted by the failing atmosphere, and often overshadowed by the metallic creaks and groans that emanated from the structure that surrounded them. Now that he could consider the situation, he could see how truly fucked up this whole situation really was.
“Why the fuck does the weird shit always come my way? he asked himself upon skirting a small pile of wriggling bodies.
It had been rhetorical, but Trix answered anyway. “I think it’s because you’re more of a story than an actual person at this point. There’s even performances written specifically about you.”
That really shouldn’t have been surprising, given the kind of crap he got up to on a daily basis, but Adrian was still intrigued. It was also nice to have something else to think about; it made him feel equal parts self-conscious and flattered, and a goofy grin slowly spread across his face. “So they’re making movies about me?”
“Well…” she replied, hesitating, and that brief pause was enough to tell him he was slightly off the mark. “If by about you, you mean starring you as the villain…”
The goofy grin faded. “I’m not a villain.”
“I know…” she replied. “Although you did spend a lot of time committing crimes for that Corti.”
“Against the Hierarchy,” he reminded her. “It wasn’t just crimes for no reason at all.”
“All I’m saying is that fighting a secret war that nobody knows about isn’t helpful to your public image,” she assured him. “As for the last hundred days… I mean, I barely believe it, and I’m living it.”
It was solid reasoning, but it did little to placate Adrian’s sense of how unfair it all was. There was no surprise there—life wasn’t fair to begin with—but it would be nice if everyone didn’t think he was some near-mythological villain. Hell, even the A.I. had thought he was the god of strife, for as long as that lasted. “Maybe one day they’ll all know the truth.”
“Maybe they will,” Trix replied, then switched back to business. “You’re coming up on engineering now. You’ll see the door on your left in just a moment… now.”
“Got it,” Adrian confirmed. It was a big door, and hard to miss with the adequate signage and scattering of broken corpses strewn around. He gave the nearest a light kick, noting that it rolled to the side without resistance, and revealed a scorch mark in the back; the tell-tale sign of a fusion blade.
“Found some dead crew here,” he reported, popping the helmet off to confirm his suspicions. The flesh was cool, and there was no sign of anything inhabiting the skull. A brief examination of the others revealed much the same. “All of them killed from behind. I don’t think they were infected.”
“If that’s true, then it’d suggest the infected used the attack on us to make their move,” Trix surmised. “Laphor is lucky to have survived both their plot and your reprisal.”
“Yeah, I’m sure she feels real lucky,” he said with a sigh. “You better let her know what happened. I’ve got to get to work.”
“I’ve powered down the existing drive for you already,” she told him, having started the process for him. It was something that he’d overlooked, and normally took several minutes to safely manage, so he was glad that she’d taken care of it while he’d been on the move. While activating them without navigational input could be dangerous, FTL drives were often primed early to allow for speedy escapes, and that kind of power needed to be discharged before it could be swapped. Adrian had damned near killed himself the first time he’d messed with one, back aboard the Zhadersil, and had resolved to never repeat the mistake.
“Thanks,” he said, entering the room and giving it a cursory glance to ensure there weren’t any nasty surprises lying in wait for him. Satisfied that, with the exception of several corpses, he was completely alone, he sealed the door so that he could stay that way. Better to keep his focus where it needed to be, rather than looking over his shoulder every five seconds, and even if it didn’t actually stop the enemy it’d be damned hard to open the door without him noticing.
A more studious inspection of the engineering section revealed it to conform to Dominion standards, having the same optimised layout that was ubiquitous across all vessels, and which was merely scaled to size for the ship in question. Even the Celzi ships had appeared to adopt the same standards, although they had clearly tried to revise other, less functional areas of their ships.
The key landmarks in the room were as expected: a reactor bay set into a bank of blinking lights and data screens between the twin reactor chambers; the central field manipulator for the kinetic drives; the FTL unit and the far larger warp-field generators needed to expand the field to contain the Amber Radiance in her entirety. This wasn’t something that Adrian had ever dealt with aboard Spot, for that ship had been small enough to run on the FTL module’s own field generator. Under normal circumstances the surrounding consoles would have been bright with a multitude of indicator lights and data screens, but none were lit, with the exception of the small control screen, which managed the drive access panel, the entire unit was in darkness.
Adrian’s eyes were on the warp-field generators, and he found himself licking his lips in anticipation. What he’d managed aboard Spot was a fraction of what he could attempt here, so much so that there may very well be more unintended consequences, but that was all the more reason to stay focused on the work at hand. Three buttons was all it took to request drive ejection, and seconds later the small panel slid open to produce the Amber Radiance’s original FTL drive. It beeped in apparent satisfaction of a job well done.
Adrian removed it, placing it carefully in his bag of ammunition and other necessities, and drew out his own Frankensteined creation. It was a haphazard integration of a stasis-field controller and the Corti Black Box drive, both with wiring exposed, connected through the jury-rigged interface of a standard Dominion FTL Drive. It was an obvious hack job that could pass for a piece of scrap, and had needed extensive reprogramming to prevent error-checks from shutting it down for everyone’s safety, and it had taken his engineering and Trix’s computer talent to break it until it worked.
That the drive bay was unsuited to house this adventurous configuration went without saying. Adrian removed the casing of the panel to expose the inner sections, and forced his way through to the protected area that normally contained the drive. Here he installed the replacement against the protests of the mechanical feeds, and initiated the diagnostic process that would ultimately lie and tell him everything was fine. One successful health-check later, and the whole console began to power up again.
“I can see the drive is completely functional,” Trix noted with amusement. “Everything’s going well down there? I put more energy into the inertial dampeners for that room, if you didn’t notice.”
Adrian hadn’t, but it explained why the job had gone so smoothly. “Thanks. That was just the easy bit, now we just have to tweak the numbers so we don’t erase ourselves along with everything else.”
“That can be done from the command deck,” Trix told him. “I think it’s best if—”
“I’m not leaving this unguarded,” he interrupted. “And anyway, I need to reconnect the original FTL drive once we get power back up.”
“Understood,” Trix replied with audible resignation. “I’ll tell Laphor that she’ll need to keep the command deck under control for a while longer.”
He nodded. “Thanks.”
Turning to the screen in front of him, he saw it had now entered the standard interface that had been expanded with additional options. Here was where the parameters were adjusted in the drive itself, to account for the size and shape of the vessel, and where additional warp field values could be configured. Some of that was automatic, some of it needed to be done manually, but it all had to be done just right.
Hard-won experience combined with V’Straki field theory to give Adrian the understanding that the very edge of a warp field, be it for stasis or faster-than-light travel, were incredibly unstable when allowed to exceed a certain thickness. This was made obvious in standard practice whenever a field disintegrated unexpectedly, especially when the drive had no chance for the emergency shutdown, and resulted in the contents being partially annihilated and otherwise scattered across a cubic parsec. It was generally a very bad idea, but it was also so destructive that the ancient Saurians had naturally attempted to weaponise the process. Producing an inherently unstable warp field was easy enough, but nesting a stable area within had been the greater challenge. Ultimately it was the use of a stasis field, rather than a standard warpfield, that made the feat possible. Ultimately the problem came down to a question of powering the thing; no issue aboard Spot, but that had been a much smaller ship with far more reactor capacity than was actually warranted, while the Amber Radiance was optimised as a troop transport and was therefore underpowered for the general purposes to which it was assigned.
“Quick question, Trix,” he said after mulling the problem over a while without coming to a conclusion, “if you shut down fucking everything that’s not needed to run the ship, how much power can you shove into the FTL?”
“That’s not a question that inspires confidence,” she replied, “but… I think it should be sufficient for our purposes. Will the conduits take that much energy, though?”
The answer to that was ‘probably not’, and he’d seen what had happened aboard the Zhadersil when conduits started to melt down; there was no way known that standard conduits would hold up under that kind of load. “We only need them to last a few moments… then we can try to patch the damage. Odds are good it’ll cook ‘em, though.”
“I’ll figure it out,” she promised. “And not that I want to remind you of our time limit, but…”
“Nearly there,” he assured her. “It’s just maths from here on in.”
Easy to say that, but there was nothing easy about field technology, and tweaking the numbers had a larger impact than was obvious. It wasn’t enough to simply increase the necessary figures in proportion with the size of the ship—that would have been far too simple—because the difference would be greatly exponential. The V’Straki memories were, unfortunately, lacking in detail on this point, which was why he’d taken so much care in the first display. There he’d had days to prepare, to double-check and reconsider, and results had markedly exceeded his expectations. Now he had less than an hour, and he had to hope that God, if he existed, was feeling kind.
He finished with time to spare, feeling that there was nothing more that he could do with what remained. He relayed as much with little confidence. “I’m done.”
“You’re sure?” Trix asked uncertainly. “We still have a little time left, if you need to double-check.”
He shook his head. “If I made a mistake, I haven’t found it yet, and I’m not sure I’d ever find it with the time we have left. We’ve just got to hope I’ve done it fucking right this time.”
“I see,” she said. “What’s next?”
He headed for the door, figuring he’d prefer being outside the room when the conduits all went to hell. “Get us next to a big chunk of matter, point us in the direction of the planet, and hit the go button. Get off as many coil bolts as you can before you black out, and let them soak up some space-lightning for us.”