Relentless: Book One of the Union Warship Saga Read online

  The violent wake of the FTL jump would fling them through space disorienting the trainee. Then there they were. Alone in the chilling darkness of interstellar space with four hours of oxygen, if they controlled their breathing. They would endure this three times at irregular intervals before passing.

  Zero gravity was disorienting enough. No up, no down, but the ship jumping away was awful. It quickly jumped away leaving you tumbling through the abyss in its wake. Stopping your spin with suit thrusters would be the first order of business. He had been trained for that. By the time you can canceled the spin you had no orientation.

  His EVA suit was a high albedo replica of the Razor insertion suit. It reflected light at a point seventy five making it easy for search and rescue operations to find trainees. The torso was composed of armored chest plates and overlapping armored scales below the ribs. These of course provided micrometeoroid protection and ballistic as the original. The suit was lightweight and flexible, a must for space borne insertion teams who would be wearing the same suit in a pressurized gravity environment.

  “Raptor two one, we have a malfunction in the FTL drive, unable to return for retrieval as scheduled. ETA,” there was a long pause, “thirty minutes,” came over the subspace radio.

  He could not reply. His short range radio would not reach the ship where ever it had jumped to.

  “Warning. Nine minutes of oxygen remaining.”

  The suits auto countdown of remaining oxygen was programmed to inform him every ten minutes until it reached ten minutes remaining. At that point it would change the interval to every minute and at one minute it would count down the seconds.

  “Put oxygen timer on the HUD and discontinue audible warnings.”

  His suit started to feel tight around him and uncomfortably moist with sweat. He was going to die out here. He stared out of his helmet at the infinite space around him and felt small. He knew the stinging bite of space, the acrid stench of stellar medium. That had been part of the training too. There was no way he could last thirty minutes on the nine minutes of air he had remaining. If panic set in his remaining air would be used in half the time.

  Could it be part of the training he wondered? He decided not after he remembered several other malfunctions in the drive systems during the last week or so. They had been out a long time and the Ragnarok was in need of maintenance only a stardock could provide.

  No matter what, he had to remain calm. Whether it was true or not his best chance of survival was to control his breathing. So he drifted concentrating only on slowing the rhythm.

  The view was spectacular at least. He had located the constellation of Orion and the Orion nebula. It was much closer and therefore much larger and the stars farther apart. That meant he was somewhere near in line between there and Earth, not that he had ever seen it from Earth. It had always been a popular star formation throughout history, even so, humans had not ventured that far into space to visit.

  Space was not unlike floating in water, he imagined an ocean. He cleared his mind, closed his eyes, relaxed his body and simply floated. He felt the waves gently lift and lower his body, the sound of his breath in his ears.

  His thoughts drifted back to his days at the academy. Thinking back to when he was with Kara.

  They had met during orientation. The Great Hall at the academy had been packed with people but she stood out in the crowd. To him she seemed the only one around. She was an exotic looking Bvaltari female. Spots like that of a leopard framed her face following her hairline and down the sides her neck spilling over her shoulders before disappearing under her clothes. Something in the way the light reflected on her beautiful dark hair and luminous brown eyes as she turned his way. It was like the flash of a pulsar and from then on she reminded him of the stars. The way her hair framed her face was alluring in a way he could not resist. Her eyes and lips smiled at him as they locked gazes momentarily when she turned to walk away from the registration table. Her doe like innocence captivated him and he often found, from then on, he would be powerless against it.

  Sean introduced himself feigning stupidity about where to go and what to do and asked for her assistance. She giggled as she nodded her response. From that day forward they were inseparable. They spent every day together and because they were both following the same career path, they had all the same classes.

  He was so in love with her and she seemed to feel the same. As a couple they spent all four years of the academy together. The night of graduation he planned a special evening and asked her to marry him.

  His was nervous and his heart sank as she paused a few moments before answering. She said yes. They spent the rest of the night lying under the stars dreaming about their future together.

  The following day all graduates were to be assigned to duty stations and they had made arrangements to be assigned together. As life often does, it threw them a curve. During the night an all-out Telarian assault had begun and they were assigned separate duty stations. He was reassigned to the Ragnarok, a warship and she would continue to Korolin, a stardock facility were they had planned on continuing their lives together.

  We were at war and they understood their duty but Sean protested he could not accept being separated. He was taken in to custody when he refused to go to his duty station without her. During wartime failure to follow orders could be considered treasonous, Kara would not allow him to throw his life away for her, and so she accepted their fate and went to see him. She told him it was over, took his ring off her finger and dropped it on the ground. The last words he ever heard her say was goodbye as she turned around and walked away. He never forgot that look in her eyes as she turned away from him. Later that day he was released to go to his duty station.

  He still loved her, but he buried it deep inside. As soon as it became available he signed up for Special Forces training and the rest was history.

  Something grabbed his arm startling him, shaking him from his trance. He felt a snap near his waist. There was a bright light, he raised his arm to shield his eyes.

  “Come with me sir,” said the light.

  He had heard of a light at the end of the tunnel but he didn’t think it talked. He slowly came back to reality. The Ragnarok dominated his view. His heads up display was in red counting down his remaining oxygen, two minutes fifty-six seconds.

  He was tethered to a search and rescue tech being towed back to the ship. The SAR suits had powerful thrusters for operating in free space. The ocean waves he thought he was imagining were the ships jump wake as it returned to retrieve him.

  They reached the airlock with a little over a minute of air remaining. It took sixty seconds to cycle the airlock and equalize pressure. They were cutting it close. As the doors closed and the cycle began he anchored himself and prepared to take off the helmet as soon as the light turned green. His heel nervously tapped the deck involuntarily as he waited for the announcement.

  “Airlock secure,” the computer said as the light turned green.

  He unlocked his helmet, removed it and pulled off the balaclava style moisture cap. His hair was short and spiked from sweating profusely. He took a long slow breath. He looked at the helmet in his hands and he could see in big numbers on the HUD, two seconds remaining, they were cutting it close.

  The SAR tech next to him slapped him on the back.

  “Shake it off. They always time the last one down to the second.”

  They had lied about the broken FTL he realized. Only pilots who passed the training were allowed to discuss specifics amongst themselves so no one really knew what to expect. He was done now. He earned his wings. He was now one of the elite few, a minority of a minority, he was Special Forces trained in every terrain known to mankind and now he earned his wings as a Raptor pilot. Raptors were the fastest most maneuverable fighters in the known systems and the only ships in the Union with stealth technology. Only ten Raptor class fighters existed and one would have his name on it.

  “Lieutenant Sean Connor,”
he heard over the airlock intercom, “Report to the Admiral’s quarters.”

  ***

  Five years later Commander Connor took over as second in command of the Solaria which was a small experimental capital ship designed to test new FTL drive technologies. She was a flat ship with a wide aft section tapering down along the sides and a rounded nose. Across the mid-section was a rectangular removable section that allowed for interchangeable experiment platforms.

  A year into his tour they were preparing to test a variant on jump drive technology using two stars. The idea was to use the power of one star to jump to another, essentially jumping through the star. The jump worked. The ship traveled from one star to another, just not the intended star. The Solaria dropped out of the jump in what appeared to be one of the Telarian systems.

  “Captain, we have jumped into an uncharted star system. Sensors are reading a Juggernaut class Telarian vessel in the area and it appears it has changed course to intercept,” Ensign Latorre informed Captain Tanner.

  “Prepare the jump drive, we need to hot shot out of here,” the captain replied.

  “The jump drive won’t initialize sir, we are getting a flood of variable information, and the computer can’t calculate a jump.” Ensign Latorre said, the fear was evident in his voice. “The Telarian ship will intercept in ten minutes.”

  “Solaria. Engineering. Lokae, get my Markov back online we have to jump now.” The captain said to Chief Engineer Lieutenant Commander Lokae over the commlink in his ear.

  The commlink could reach anyone on the starship. By stating the ships name it understood the following commands would be directed to the ships synthetic intelligence or by specifying a crew member or section would be directed as such.

  “We are trying sir. It appears we have created a temporary instability in the stars gravity. We would have to move out of range for the computer to calculate a jump. Solaria can’t do it if the gravitational field keeps changing. We can blind jump if we override the safety protocols but Solaria has locked down the FTL drives.”

  “Ensign, plot a course away from the Telarian ship, maximum sublight, skirt the corona of the star it might buy us more time. I need options commander,” the captain said as he turned to Connor.

  A Telarian juggernaut was a formidable foe for Union battleships. The Solaria was not a warship and would not be able to withstand an assault. She had insufficient armor, limited weapons and her corona shielding was designed to withstand the heat from a star not weapons fire. Commander Connor filled in as an impromptu tactical officer when needed. He had run simulations pitting the Solaria against such a cruiser, she lost everyone quite spectacularly. Those were computer generated he knew, comparing statistics and could lack compensation for crew skills and abilities. Even so he doubted she would survive with the best of crews.

  “Diplomacy is the most viable option. Hail them and inform them of our situation, inform them we are science vessel and do not wish to engage in a conflict, that we only wish to repair our broken FTL drive and leave peacefully. We cannot defend against a direct assault from that ship and as you know we cannot allow Solaria to be captured. Solaria. What is the time to intercept of the Telarian ship?”

  “Twenty-one minutes until we are in weapons range,” Solaria replied.

  “Solaria. Can you disable the safety protocols on the Markov to allow blind jump?” asked the captain.

  “No Captain Tanner. Disabling the safety protocols could result in injury to the crew. My programming forbids me to take any action that can jeopardize human life,” she replied, the standard response when an SI was asked to override safety protocols.

  “Solaria. If you don’t disable the safety protocols it will result in the death of all crew members and the destruction of the ship,” Connor said trying to reason with her, a little sarcasm in his voice.

  “Point taken,” Solaria said,” I will run simulations on this scenario with survival probabilities and will inform you in the time allotted Captain.”

  “With your permission Captain I will confer with Solaria during her simulations,” Connor said respectfully, “I have some ideas.”

  Captain Richard Tanner had been selected for this assignment based more on his scientific background than his command capabilities. He excelled with the experiments and managing departments but he knew next to nothing about running a starship. He was friendly and honest with his crew but command demanded more than people skills. Assigning him Connor and Lokae filled the considerable gaps in his abilities. He often left the day to day operations of the Solaria to them while he focused on the mission at hand.

  The captain had come to trust his commander, more than himself at times. Connor was a battle hardened veteran of this war trained to think outside the box. He was typically creative and found solutions that seemed unorthodox. He felt comforted that Connor would be his point man on a solution while he handled the political struggle of pleading with this Telarian captain. If diplomacy failed he was confident his commander would have a plan B. He would likely have a plan C and D as well.

  “Permission granted commander,” the captain told him as Connor stood to leave. Now it was time for him to plead for his ships survival. It was an uncomfortable position for a captain. This was not a battleship and his crew were not soldiers, for the most part. They shouldn’t even be here. Tanner understood he shouldn’t be in charge but he was. Time to earn his pay. As the automated doors closed behind Connor the captain told the Ensign, “Mr. Latorre, hail the Telarian ship.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” the ensign said as he tapped the necessary controls to contact the alien ship. After a momentary pause the light flashed acknowledging a response. “Audio only Captain but they are responding. Opening the channel sir.”

  “This is Captain Tomac of the Telarian Juggernaut Parthess. You have entered Telarian space. We are at war with the faction you represent. Shut down your engines and surrender. If you do not comply you will be destroyed,” the voice said over the intercom in surprisingly good English.

  “Captain Tomac, this is the Union science vessel Solaria.” Solaria had been register as a public science vessel for this very situation, if they checked the Union registry somehow it would corroborate the story. “Our FTL drive malfunctioned and we dropped out of our jump here on accident. We do not wish to engage your ship in conflict. We have few offensive or defensive capabilities and are not a warship. Please allow us to repair our FTL capability and return to our home system. Your graciousness in this matter would be appreciated.”

  “Your ship is no science vessel and your spying will not be tolerated. Your will stand down your engines, weapons and shields and prepare to be boarded. Parthess out,” responded Tomac.

  So much for a diplomatic solution, but the captain could not say he would not have responded the same in a similar situation in a home system. Spying was a genuine possibility during war and you can’t take chances. He could not begrudge the captain of the enemy ship for his decision. Unfortunately he could not stand down and surrender this particular ship, while not a spy ship, the Solaria was carrying top secret projects and information vital to the war effort. If she were not, he would surrender.

  Years ago the Telarians and the Union had signed a war agreement on the treatment of prisoners. In the agreement both sides agreed to return prisoners of war at specified intervals and to provide the basics necessities to the prisoners. The agreement also specified that once someone surrendered they would not be harmed extraordinarily. Exchanges so far had gone well and prisoners on both sides were treated quite well except the interrogating and soft torture methods allowed by the agreement. The Solaria and her crew would from this point forward be branded as spies because not stopping was the same as admitting guilt.

  “Mr. Latorre, inform all hands to make preparations for battle and possible boarding but do not charge weapons. I do not want to show any signs of aggression unless fired upon.”

  The captain hoped it wouldn’t come to that.


  ***

  Sean Connor reached the Avatar Chamber. He placed his left hand on a pad on the wall and with the other typed his access code on a pad on the opposite side of the door. The door slid open and he entered the room. As he walked past the threshold the door closed behind him and the white walls and ceiling of the cylindrical room lit up with a blue octagonal grid pattern.

  A holographic representation of Solaria appeared in the center of the room. The ships architect was a brilliant lady and as was tradition the ship was named by her and its avatar would be in her image. Not just in a visual sense either, detailed neurological scans of her brain were made and her synapse mapped to create a virtual representation. This was transferred to a digital format and uploaded to the CPU. In the process certain more computer like protocols would be put in place for the safety of the ship and crew and primary directives would be given based on the role the ship was created for.

  Solaria was an attractive dark haired avatar with piercing hazel eyes. Sean often wondered if the architect really looked as attractive.

  “Solaria activate my Combat Information Center program.”

  Solaria walked to the side of the room and turned to face him as the room changed around them. In the center appeared a large grey table with a dark colored, reflective top. The walls changed into floor to ceiling screens with several diagrams of the Solaria representing different power distribution systems and various other pertinent systems down to the plumbing.

  On opposite sides of the rectangular table were interface panels like keyboards. On the table top was a screen that showed the local area of the system they were in including the sun, themselves, the Parthess and several planets and moons. It depicted the scene in three dimensional space in what looked like real ships, one chasing the other. It appeared to be inside the table but in reality was a flat screen. It had a red line from the Parthess to the Solaria with a timer above it. The line pulsed indicating the direction of travel of the enemy ship. If the line were green it would have meant a friendly ship, yellow would have been undetermined, red was declared hostile. If a ship were anywhere on the screen it would have shown its flight path in the corresponding color. The timer was counting down to weapons range in this case. Tons of other information, mainly ship information, including masses, velocities, weapons, and shields were just a few of the many available. Everything was strategically placed to perform a function and with just a glance give the user a sense of the battlefield. From the table top one could touch the screen to zoom in or out or to move x, y, z axis. The table also could project the image, or parts of the image, above itself in real three dimensions if the user desired. Solaria walked to one of the interface pads on the side of the table and began tapping commands.