would happen if we transited the wormhole with our Eysselink field engaged?”
“I couldn’t tell you precisely without running some experiments, sir,” the officer told him deadpan, “but my assumption would be: bad things.”
“Don’t try dazzling me with your technical terms, young man,” Patel replied dryly. “All right… on the chance that our computers recover from the transition faster than we do, create a subroutine that activates the drive as soon as we’ve exited the hole.”
“On it, sir,” Sweeny said, then began mumbling to the computer input as his hands traced commands on the ViR board projected in front of him.
“If they have those damned rams on the other side waiting for us,” Vinnie said to McKay, Jock and Villanueva, “it won’t matter if our drives are activated or not.”
“That’s why we’re on the shuttle, Vinnie,” McKay reminded him impassively, doing his best to project confidence despite not feeling it.
The minutes passed by insufferably slow, with the Protectorate ships growing ever closer until smaller icons split off from the larger ones, speeding forward just ahead of them.
“The Protectorate ships have launched Shipbuster missiles,” Pirelli announced. “Accelerating at ten G’s. We should be able to beat them to the gate still, but it’s going to be close.”
“Increase to one and a half G acceleration,” Patel ordered.
McKay’s chest ached as he was pushed back into his acceleration couch, but the ship began to inch slightly ahead of the oncoming missiles.
“We’re approaching turnover,” Sweeny warned. “We need to start decelerating.”
“Negative,” Patel snapped. “Open the gate, then cut the field… we’re going through at speed!”
“Aye, sir,” Sweeny acknowledged, doubt in his voice. “Preparing to open the gate.”
“Well, that’s one way to avoid an ambush,” Vinnie grunted. “We’re going to be at relativistic speeds when we come out of the gate.”
“Prepare for high-g deceleration once we’re through the gate,” Patel warned.
“Cause there’s nothing we love more than negative G’s,” Jock said cheerfully inside the shuttle.
“Activating the emitters,” Sweeny announced.
“The gate is opening,” Pirelli said. “Transition in ten seconds.”
Another slide down the rabbit hole of unreality ended with a brain-bending jerk light years away and when McKay returned to coherence, the viewscreen was a sea of white and alarms were sounding.
“…were fusion mines,” Pirelli was saying. “We just shot through a minefield around the gate exit at about a quarter lightspeed! The computer activated the drive field in time… we’re okay!”
“Emergency high-G deceleration,” Patel ordered. “Then get us to the last gate!”
The emergency boost alarm sounded and McKay pulled his straps tighter as the ship flipped end for end under maneuvering thrusters in preparation for deceleration.
“We have at least four bogies around the gate area,” Pirelli reported. “We’re out of range for more details until we get closer.”
McKay was just noticing the details filling in on the viewscreen: a red dwarf primary surrounded by layers of asteroids, with what looked to be a cold gas giant beyond the fields; when the boost hit and he was crushed into his seat and nearly into unconsciousness by five gravities worth of deceleration analog-the Eysselink stardrive expanding space behind them like a cosmic boat propeller and the energy building up in the gravito-inertial spectrum until it was forced to feed back into four-dimensional space as gravity analogous to the acceleration or deceleration.
The Eysselink drive made star travel possible, but the damn feedback made the g-tanks necessary for long journeys and made tactical maneuvering a nightmare. McKay had heard they were working on a neural interface to make it possible to control the ship while in the g-tanks, but the prospect of being awake while breathing liquid scared the shit out of him.
Then again, he reflected dimly, from some far distant part of his mind that somehow retained consciousness during the brutal deceleration, breathing liquid didn’t seem as bad as
Finally, after what seemed like hours of torture, the boost ended and his vision returned along with an agonizing pounding in his head and he could hear a collective gasp both in the shuttle and on the bridge as two dozen people took a deep breath simultaneously.
“Executing turnover,” Sweeny reported. “Preparing for acceleration back to the next gate. Should take about five minutes at one and a half g’s.”
“Tactical,” Patel ordered, “once we hit turnover, I want three spreads of Area Denial missiles launched and detonated just short of the gate in intervals of a thousand kilometers. And launch them quickly… I want our drive field back up with as little delay as possible.”
“Aye sir, preparing to launch now.”
“Area Denial missiles?” Jock murmured a question to Vinnie that McKay barely overheard. Vinnie shot him a baleful glance and Jock shrugged apologetically. “Ay, Captain sir, I’m busy enough keeping track of new infantry weapons!”
“They’re small,” Vinnie told him, sighing like a teacher lecturing a slow student, “launched out of the Gauss cannon coils and then they have a quick burnout solid-core fission drive to take them the rest of the way. They have a small fusion warhead surrounded by lasing rods; when the warhead goes, the rods blast the immediate area with gamma-ray lasers. Takes out any mines, smaller blockade ships, etc… He’s trying to clear the mines before we head through the gate.”
“Launching ADM’s,” Pirelli announced, and a section of the main viewscreen showed dozens of small missiles shooting from the weapons pods so fast they could barely be seen. “That’s the last of them, Admiral.”
“Helm, take us to the wormhole at one point five g’s,” Patel instructed.
One and a half gravities seemed gentle compared to the high gravity deceleration they’d just experienced and McKay was able to keep his attention on the screen display. Six enemy ships were insystem, four of them arrayed around the gate that should lead them to
“Admiral,” Pirelli said sharply, “one of the ships heading for us is a rammer. He’s trailing the lighter… same tactic they used with the
“Are the AD missiles going to hit them before they reach us?’
“The first two waves are past their position…” Pirelli reported, checking a sensor readout. “The third… is in range and detonating now.”
A series of flashes on the screen simulated the warheads exploding less than a light-second from the
“Looks like positive hits on the two ships,” Pirelli said. “Not sure of the damage yet.”
Then without warning, the lead ship, a pirated and converted freighter, was consumed in a huge fusion explosion that expanded into a glowing spherical cloud of gas and debris. A brief cheer erupted on the bridge. “Got her!” Pirelli exclaimed. “The grasers must have ignited her hydrogen fuel stores!”
“What about the rammer?” Patel demanded.
“Can’t tell yet, sir,” Pirelli shook her head. “The explosion is masking her… no, wait! I’m getting her Eysselink signature now… she’s activated her drive field.”
“Come on, Admiral, earn your pay,” Vinnie hissed. McKay glanced at him; he’d never known Vinnie to show nerves in the face of danger, but the man seemed rattled. McKay could sympathize: it was one thing to keep your head and your nerves in check when the bullets were flying and the adrenaline was flowing, it was another thing entirely to sit and wait while simulated icons on a screen decided whether you lived or died from thousands of kilometers away.
“No one has any experience fighting one Eysselink drive ship against another,” Villanueva mused from the pilot’s seat. She turned to Vinnie. “What would you do?”
“Long term,” he said after a moment’s consideration, “I’d develop a Shipbuster missile with an Eysselink drive. Short term… I’d try to use the gravimetic sensor emitters to destabilize her drive field.” He shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt.” McKay’s head snapped around and his mouth nearly fell open.
