Honor Bound

but it’s a good ways off. Looks like a couple terrestrial planets closer in and that’s about all we’re gonna get on optical, since we don’t have gravimetics.” He waited as more sensors came online, filling in the gaps. “We aren’t reading any active scans, no obvious signs of habitation yet. According to spectrometry, the terrestrials aren’t habitable, at least not by us.”

“Helm, how far are we from the next gate?” Minishimi asked.

“This one’s close-less than 50,000 kilometers, Captain,” Lt. Witten said, seemingly fully recovered from the transition. Some people, Minishimi mused, appeared to have no problem with it at all, while others needed as much as a half hour to get their heads straight. Witten seemed imperturbable, all square jaw and blonde buzz cut. “Permission to set course for it?”

“By all means, Mr. Witten,” she replied. They’d only left the Sheridan a few days before, but they’d transited three of the wormholes already, a slow and tedious process with only their plasma drive for propulsion. At least they’d figured a way to use the electromagnetic launch system for the missiles to place the warhead to open the gate: that was much faster than having a lander place the bomb.

There was a faint push as Witten fired the maneuvering thrusters, swinging the ship’s nose around ninety degrees.

“Accelerating at one half g,” Witten announced.

Minishimi felt pressed into her seat by the plasma drives as the ship moved ponderously forward. She found the sensation frustrating: without her Eysselink drive, the Decatur felt as responsive as a slug. She had been hoping that one of the jumps would take them through a Republic colony system where they could pick up more antimatter, but so far they’d all been strange to her and foreign to the ship’s computers, and not one had contained a single habitable world.

“Loading the fusion trigger into the launchers,” Gianeto told her. “We can launch it right before turnover.”

“Your call, Commander.”

“Turnover in ten seconds,” Witten informed him. “Plasma drive shutdown.”

“Launching the trigger device,” Gianeto said as the acceleration faded and they all floated up against their restraints. “Detonation in ten minutes.”

“Executing turnover.” Witten sketched a command and the maneuvering thrusters spun the ship around to face its massive engine bell towards the still-closed wormhole. “Deceleration commencing.”

“Ma’am,” Gianeto frowned as the half-g burn once again gifted them with the illusion of gravity. “I’m picking up something.”

“What is it, Mr. Gianeto?”

“Not sure, ma’am, but I got a lidar blip on one of the moons of that gas giant. Something was more reflective than the background, for just a second.”

“Is it a bogie, Commander?” She leaned forward in her command chair, concerned.

“Can’t say for sure,” he admitted. “There’s a possibility of a volcanic eruption or other outgassing. We’re too far away for a definitive visual.”

“Keep an eye on it with the rear sensors even after we do the turnover,” she cautioned him. “I wouldn’t put it past Antonov to have someone out here.”

“Deceleration complete, executing turnover. Transition in five minutes at this velocity.”

“Trigger device ignition in three minutes,” Gianeto piped up. “Still nothing from the sensors.”

“Nothing to be done about it then,” Minishimi mused. “We don’t have the fuel to be burning around this system waiting to see if she reveals herself.”

“Fusion trigger has ignited.” The announcement was accompanied by a blank white space on the viewscreen that faded into a shrinking white sphere of light ahead of them. “Sensors indicate that the wormhole is open and stable.”

“Half g burn for ten seconds,” Minishimi ordered.

“Half g burn, aye,” Witten confirmed. “Revised transition time is thirty seconds.”

Joyce Minishimi didn’t feel like waiting around in this system a minute longer than necessary. Something about that sensor contact was making the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

Gianeto’s eyes darted to a readout and then widened. “Captain, there’s…” His declaration was interrupted by the temporary cessation of the universe.

“Shit!” Gianeto swore when he could talk again. “Ma’am, it was a spaceship… I saw it just before we jumped!”

“Understood, Commander Gianeto,” she acknowledged. “Report.”

“Aye, ma’am,” he said, calming down and glancing up at the viewscreen, where the optical sensors were putting together a picture for them. “We got a dual star system… holy crap! Ma’am, we’re in the Sirius system, I’m sure of it!”

“Damn,” Minishimi muttered. “So close to home, yet so far.” Sirius was only eight and a half light years from Earth, but it had no habitable planets, nothing worth mining for the money and no Republic presence.

“No bogies on radar, lidar or visual,” Gianeto said. “No active scans detected.”

“Helm?”

“We are one light second from the gate home, ma’am,” Witten reported. “Set course?”

“Do it, Mr. Witten,” she told him. “One g acceleration. Mr. Gianeto, keep an eye on our entrance gate… I don’t want whatever ship you saw taking us by surprise. If he pops his nose out of that gate, you need to be launching a Shipbuster at him before you bother to tell me he’s there.”

“Aye, ma’am.”

“Four hours to the gate at one g, Captain,” Witten reported, “including deceleration.”

“Don’t spare the horses, Mr. Witten,” Minishimi admonished him. “I know we’re pushing it on reactor fuel, but once we get into the Solar System, we can get refueled at leisure.”

“Captain, this is Commander Duncan,” the voice of the ship’s First Officer came over the ear bud of her ‘link. Minishimi raised an eyebrow. Her first officer was posted in the auxiliary control room-a backup bridge in case the main bridge was destroyed-and she couldn’t imagine why he would be contacting her privately via her ‘link rather than over the ship’s intercom system.

“Yes?” she responded, purposely not using his name in case there was a reason for the private contact.

“Ma’am, there’s a problem… I’d like to speak to you here in auxiliary control as soon as possible.”

She frowned. “I’ll be right there.” This had better be important went unsaid but understood by her tone. She ended the call and unstrapped from her seat, looking over to Gianeto. “Commander Gianeto, you have the bridge.”

“I have the bridge, aye, ma’am,” he acknowledged formally.

Minishimi briskly exited the bridge, the thick vacuum doors sealing shut behind her with a sibilant hiss and a muffled thump, and then made for the lift station. She actually preferred the access tubes when they were in zero gravity, but under one g acceleration they weren’t an option.

The auxiliary control room was at the opposite end of the habitable section of the ship, just ahead of engineering, and it took Minishimi a good ten minutes to reach it. She passed very few people along the way-nearly everyone was at their posts, at battle stations-and it seemed eerily like a ghost ship to her as she walked the silent corridors, the gentle tap of her soft-soled ship boots on the padded floor and the barely-audible hum of the ventilators the only sounds.

The vacuum hatch to the auxiliary bridge was closed, but a palm to the plate beside it opened it and she stepped inside. The auxiliary bridge was a bit smaller than the main one and somehow felt more insular to her, its screens smaller and darker. Commander Phillip Duncan was alone in the room, standing behind the communications station, a troubled look on his gaunt, pale face.

“Where’s the rest of the crew?” Minishimi asked sharply, glancing at the empty stations that should have been filled by the junior Communications, Tactical and Helm officers.

“Confined to their quarters for the moment,” he said grimly. “Eventually, one of them is going to be in the brig.”

“What’s going on, Commander?” She asked, having to remind herself not to call him “Jack.” Jack Durant was her usual XO and it was strange not having him on the cruise.

“Before we made the transition,” he said, anger in his voice, “I was running a diagnostic on the