It had always struck Samson as arrogant that mankind had concluded they were alone in the universe. With over a septillion stars, it seemed unlikely to him that the only life to occur had been on Earth. Numbers with that many zeroes—twenty-four in total—made Samson dizzy. However, considering the vast distances involved—the universe extended for forty-seven billion light years in every direction, probably more—even with the convenience of the Nexus, it was unlikely that different races would ever encounter one another even if the universe were teeming with life.
Now, however, it seemed likely that humans had finally expanded into space that was inhabited by something else, or at least had been at some point in the past. It was exciting to think he was one of the first people to know about it; terrifying to think that lives had been lost in relation to it already.
He wondered how his superiors would react. He hadn’t been out on the Frontier long enough for his mind to have cracked, but he supposed they might see it as a ruse to ingratiate his way back to a decent posting in a Core System. His word wasn’t going to count for a whole lot, and now the only evidence he had was some scanner logs.
The potential discovery of an alien civilisation aside, there was more to consider. Who else might know enough about the artefacts to risk destroying a naval vessel to acquire them, if indeed that was the reason for Sidewinder’s destruction? If Arlen had been smuggling the artefacts, then someone was buying them. Where were they going? If there was a buyer, then they might lead to answers. Then again, perhaps this had been Arlen’s first, and failed, attempt at artefact smuggling.
He took a deep breath and realised he was overthinking things. The questions he was asking were well above his pay grade, and were problems that were far down his list of priorities. His only responsibility was to get the sailors under his command to safety and make his report to his senior officers. As soon as he did, the rest would be taken out of his hands. Still, there wasn’t much else to do while they were en route to the Nexus portal, and raking over it was as interesting a way to pass the time as any. Certainly better than cleaning up the Bounty.
He wondered if Harper was having any more luck than he was. ‘Have you been able to come up with anything else, Lieutenant?’
She hesitated. ‘Nothing concrete so far, sir. The sensors didn’t pick up enough for the computers to extrapolate anything else. I might be able to discern more with the computers at the depot, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up.’
‘You sound like you’re holding something back.’
‘No—well, maybe. I don’t have enough to be sure, but something seems odd about the attacker’s exhaust signature. The harmonics are… I don’t know. Maybe I’m imagining it. I have data on it. Maybe more processing power will turn something up. I’d rather not elaborate until I have more to go on.’
‘Understood,’ Samson said, wondering if that might confirm his suspicion that the ship was an alien one. ‘You can stand down for a while. Relax and get some rest.’
She visibly deflated at the order, and started to sob.
‘I’m sorry, sir. I was aboard the Sidewinder for three years. They were family.’
Samson had never been good at dealing with crying people. A pat on the back and a suggestion they’d get over it never seemed to be greeted in the way it was intended. Compassion was not one of his strong suits. ‘Take some time to yourself. Find somewhere quiet. Preferably not too dirty.’
She let out a laugh between sobs. ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘I’ve got things covered here, at least until we reach the portal. I’ll call you if I need anything.’
One of the greatest challenges of stellar space travel was boredom. Travel between systems was comparatively fast with the aid of the Nexus Current. It allowed a ship to traverse the swath of space between star systems in only hours, while moving between planets within a system using conventional drives took days, sometimes even weeks. In the Navy, that wasn’t so much of a problem. One of its basic tenets of discipline was to keep everyone as busy as they could. Every hour of every day was accounted for, and after a few years in the service, boredom became a concept you’d heard of but couldn’t quite remember. That was not the case on the Bounty.
Her nav computer wasn’t going to make life easier for them, either. The general approach to space travel was to get to a Nexus Point, fire the agitator—a large energy discharge from the device, which was essentially a capacitor with aiming ability—to open the Nexus, enter it, and then try to drop out of it as close to your intended destination as you could, not just somewhere in the target system. It took a huge amount of processor power to make the calculations needed to do it with any accuracy. A basic nav computer would get you to your intended system, but not much more. Ships of the line, with massive banks of computing power, had been known to drop out of the Nexus almost in the orbit of their target planet. With the Bounty’s computer, Samson would be delighted with appearing within a few days of Holmwood in Capsilan. Just arriving in the Capsilan system would do, though.
The agitator also had a second function as a shield generator. The Nexus Current was hard on objects entering into it. A ship could only spend a limited amount of time in the Current, something that was determined by its structural strength, its size, and whatever amount of shielding the agitator generated after it was fired—the combination of which made up a ship’s Nexus Integrity Rating. Samson knew the
