Lost Son

[Judge Logan]

Lost Son
by
Logan

Senior Cadet Fallon stood quietly before the teleceiver at Sandur Base. He had just sent the data stream to Tannhauser Gate an hour before but even at the mind numbing speed of a Dirac signal, Faroe was hell and gone from Tannhauser. Add to that the various invariables associated with transluminal communication there was no guarantee of even reception at such an extreme range. While Fallon was thinking this a red light began to blink in the lower right hand section of the screen. Reading it he read “Message receipted” telling him that Tannhauser had got the message.

As he turned from the unit three sets of very worried faces were waiting for him “Well?” Emmure asked from one of those sets of faces.

Fallon sighed as he replied “They got the message about the accident and the loss of Senior Cadet Smith. The message was auto receipted by the judicial teleceiver at Tannhauser. Till someone reads it, we are on our own?”

A somewhat older cadet looked pensive as he took this in. He was from Rheinland before joining the Judges and like all of his people had a strong aptitude for order and discipline. Leaving critical questions unanswered was for him uncomfortable as best. “When do you think a return message will be forthcoming?” von Goeben slowly asked?

“I have no idea Hans.” Fallon said “It could be in a few hours, or a few days. First they have to read it, process it and then answer it. Then this bloody Dirac system has to transmit it to us, assuming even that works.”

Senior Cadet Douglas also looked upset while he thought about the information. The fact that his own countrymen from Cambridge in fact built the test ship which had taken Smith away from them in the first place gave him misplaced sense of guilt. He felt responsible even though he knew that was foolish, and then felt anger at being foolish and then fear for what had happened, upset for his friend, and then back to that feeling of having caused it somehow. The circle of thought just kept spinning round and round in his head and was rapidly driving him insane. “We have to do something.” Douglas said “We just cannot leave John out there, where ever he is. We must find him…or his body.”

“You saw.” Emmure snapped back. “The test ship simply vanished from a simple pad engine test. There is no trace of it. The Cambridge scientists have gone over it and over it. The Pegasus was never suppose to Jump, let alone Jump from the launch pad. Where exactly do we look? He could be blown up in Jump space.

They all fell silent at that. The excitement of being sent to help with the first pure jump engine tests had been so recent. Ships that can jump anywhere, anytime, with no jump gates or jump holes required would revolutionize the entire Sirius cluster. Trips of weeks or months, today, would disappear in a single jump. It had all been such a great opportunity just a few weeks ago. Now, the tragedy of their loss weighed upon them all in a somber silence.

~~Beep…Beep~~

Fallon glanced at the teleceiver screen and saw a new signal was coming in. The screen showed a wreath intersected by a quill and sword, the sign of the Judges. “There is a video feed coming in on a compressed wave from Tannhauser Gate.” he said.

The four of them stood before the screen while the machine blooped and bleeped. After a few minutes it stopped and after sending a receipt message, the screen lit up. Slowly it formed the image of a man dressed in the jet black high collar uniform of the Judges. Pinned to that collar on either side was a small golden wreath intersected by a sword and a quill, the insignia of the Judges. The collar top was also trimmed in gold edging, a Senior Judge. Then slowly the face came into focus. It was an old face and the eyes looked like chipped ice in a face of weathered granite. Involuntarily the four of them snapped to attention before the face of the Commandant of the Academy, even though it was just a picture. A moment later a single line of text appeared below that imposing stare…just two words

“Find him.”

The next day the four cadets were gathered together in a large room filled with computers, printout, data analysis results and everything and anything the Cambridge scientists could provide them on the engine design, the ship design and forensics from the site. They were only too glad to give the Judges everything they could and thereby place the success or failure of the entire project with them. The fact that Bretonia had distanced itself from the entire affair and the JSS Magistrates battle group had moved to within three jumps of Faroe no doubt added to the eager flow of mass information to the cadets.

Douglas looked long and hard at computer screen showing micro-fracture indications on the pad under the landing gear of the Pegasus. He skewed them dimensionally and examined them under various frequencies again and again. The border for the energy bubble that had destroyed Pegasus had to have skimmed these points, yet there was little to no thermal deformation of any sort. It was when he inverted them 90 degrees that it jumped out at him. No thermal distortion at all, instead a sudden relaxation of stress lines, as if a large weight were suddenly removed. The Pegasus had not been destroyed during the engine test, it had jumped clean. “Guys you should see this.”

The three came over while Douglas shifted the image to the large screen at one end of the room. They all were well schooled in material science and instantly caught what Douglas had found. All three contact points of the pad showed the same sudden relaxation of stress and no trace of a thermal signature.

“I’ll be damned.” mutter Fallon “From the vidcam shots it looked like an explosion into jump space…it was so bright.”

“And now” von Goeben echoed “It would appear instead that the ship simply jumped, from within an atmosphere? Is there any history of such an event?”

While he asked, Emmure was busy at another terminal asking that exact question. A moment later the answer came out “No record of a successful atmospheric jump. There are several records of unsuccessful attempts, usually ending in the ship trying it blowing up. No stable jump bubble can exist inside an atmosphere.”

“Until today” Douglas softy said. All eyes went to him as he continued “This was an experimental engine designed to create its own jump hole and enter it. There is no data for such a thing as it is unique. At some point during the engine test, Pegasus jumped.

Fallon shook his head at the notion saying “Jumps of any sort require complex computational manipulations. The Pegasus Nav systems were not even turned on during the test. Defiance was aboard and would have told us if anything were amiss.”

The use of John’s call sign rather than his name caught them all for a second. Of the five of them he was the most adamant about being called by his call sign and over time they had more or less gotten use to it.

“Suppose though” von Goeben slowly said “The navigational data had already been processed elsewhere and placed in the Pegasus’ computer. Then when the engine fired, a preset destination was ready and waiting. The ship would then do what it was designed to do, and jump.”

Emmure looked startled as he stood up from the terminal he had been at and moved to join the rest “There was no accident. The ship did not blow up. It was hijacked.”

Douglas nodded, “The data presently support that hypothesis. Known: Pegasus jumped. Known: To even enter jump space let alone navigate it requires a lot of Nav Computer time. Known: The Pegasus Nav computer was shut off. Known: Cadet Defiance was on board Pegasus at the time, in continuous communication with us, and reported no problems. Sub-Conclusion: Nav data had to have been inserted at some time before the jump for this ship to have jumped. It could have been hours before or weeks before. The firing of the engines was the activator. Conclusion: The Pegasus was stolen and an agent or agents of that event were or are here at Sandur Base.”

Fallon picked up a communicator at the end of this “This is Senior Cadet Fallon. Lock down the base. No one is to enter or leave. All people entering or leaving for the last 30 days are to be located and questioned. No vessel traffic is allowed at all. From this time forward, the Faroe system is under quarantine. This is by order of the Sirius Judiciary.

Von Goeben steepled his hands as he thought more intently on this latest development. Almost involuntarily he heard his own mouth saying “There is another possibility.”

Three sets of eyes turned to him as he very slowly said “There was one person present for the test who could have fed in the prepared Nav data in perfect secrecy.”

Equally quietly Fallon asked “Who Hans?”

Von Goeben looked troubled as he turned the data about in head again and again, and kept coming to the simplest solution that fit all the information they had “Senior Cadet Defiance.”

The room was large by any standard and palatial would in fact apply. Tapestries of fine silks and satins as well as heavy brocades adorned bare stone walls broken every few feet by bay windows. At one end of the room a massive chair occupied by an equally massive man stood a good five feet above the floor of the room on the solid granite base it was built upon. The entire effect would have seem right at home for some ancient King Arthur with the minor differences of electric lights instead of torches and an armored guard every few feet along the walls with an extremely modern looking blast rifle in his hands.

Defiance looked about as he slowly powered down the various systems of the ship. The jump homing beacon had worked flawlessly and he was now inside some sort of very large hanger, or perhaps docking bay. Near as he could tell his weight felt about normal so he defaulted to the very large hanger idea as he threw a switch on the control panel and then opened the hatch and stepped out.

“You are late Mr. Defiance” a voice roared out as several blast rifles leveled at him.

“There was no time table on the test. It happened when it happened and I arrived here as soon as it did.” Defiance quietly said as the blast rifles urged him towards the man in the massive chair.

In the ensuring silence a small army of technicians swarmed over the ship taking readings and measurements. They were as yet forbidden from disassembling anything, but that would come later. The man in the massive chair stood up and stepped down the short flight of steps to the hanger floor. As Defiance approached, the man slowly smiled at him “No matter lad. The ship is here as promised and that is all that matters. Congratulations. Is there any chance your confederates followed or tracked you?”

“No” Defiance said “This jump was far beyond anything the Judges have and no tracker could follow it for the distance involved. I triggered a power surge with the jump, making it appear that the ship simply exploded into Jump space. As far as they are concerned, I am dead.”

The silence after that statement stretched on and on. Only the small instrument noises of the technicians at the ship made any noise at all. Defiance noted at this moment that Pegasus was the only ship inside the huge hanger facility which clearly was designed for a couple of squadrons at least. The man standing before Defiance seemed in no hurry to continue, so after the silence dragged on a bit more Defiance said “I have kept my part of the bargain Don Vancious.”

The Don smiled grimly “Yes you have Mr. Defiance.”

He then gestured to the guards saying “Put him in with his sister.”

“Hey” Defiance shouted as the guards were hustling him off “That was not the agreement.”

Vancious just laughed as he strolled over to have a first-hand look at his new ship.

“Honest, it just went “Gleep” said Emmure to the other cadets.

“Is there some sort of signal coming in then?” asked Fallon as he tossed aside another useless stack of paper on the desk in front of him.

“Hmm…..doesn’t look so. The power phase readings are dancing all over the place, but no signal is present.

Douglas looked up from the screen he was studying and listened to the conversation. While the machinations of Dirac transmissions were of less than even minor interest to him, power flow and regulation was. “Let me see the power readings please?”

Emmure sent them to Douglas’s screen and went back to reading his own stack of data. Douglas simply stared at the screen, until he suddenly saw a pattern emerge. Over and over the pattern repeated with a precision beyond any an accidental power surge could do. At his shoulder von Goeben studied the pattern also when he suddenly said “It’s in code.”

Douglas slowly nodded as he made some adjustments to the computer. Emmure and Fallon drifted over also to see what was up. Douglas worked the key board the way a maestro works an orchestra and then suddenly stopped as the printed message came into focus “Pegasus…Omicron-90...OC”

“Did I ask for your help? Do I even want your help? I had everything moving along nicely thank you very much when you bashed into here like a bull in a china shop and tossed weeks of planning on its EAR!!!”

Defiance nodded slowly as he waited for Anna to spin down from whatever pinnacle she was on. When first thrown into the room she had kissed his cheek, and then gave him a round house left hook that still left his jaw sore. Since then was a non-stop tirade which she showed no signs of tiring of.

“And where exactly did you get the idea that your older sister is somehow helpless out in the big bad world? I remind you baby brother that I saved your dead butt more times than I could count prior to your even graduating high school, which I also helped you in. How you could even conceive that I was in trouble and needed your help just….eludes me!

In the silence of the moment as she caught her breath Defiance quietly spoke “Before father left he told me to protect you and mother.”

This shut her up at once. Anna had always been “Daddy’s girl” since she was born and the leaving of their father years before was shattering for her. To hear her brother tell her his words was so unexpected that she was at a loss. Slowly she moved across the room and sat down beside him.

“John” she said “Look, I really did have a plan in place and an escape ready to go. There was no need to give him the jump ship. The message I sent you said this. Why did you give up the Academy and everything?

John “Defiance” Smith looked into her eyes as he slowly said “I promised father to protect you. Don Vancious kidnapped you right in Manhattan space and dragged you out here without a soul lifting a finger to stop him. I did what I had to do.”

Anna sighed as she picked up one of his hands in hers “Oh John, what am I going to do with you?”

Far across the cluster four Eagles dove into a jump hole. Four light years later they emerged and fired their cruise engines to maximum speed for the next jump hole.

“This is going to take a while” Douglas said over the secure comms.

The four ships were under maximum stealth and all sensors were turned off. Even the secure comms had a range of only a couple of miles and worked in the ancient radio wavelengths no one used today. Add to that they were way off normal transit lanes and it all combined to make them as invisible as possible. The only real risk was at the jump holes. If they were guarded, there was no way to slip past undetected, and the next hole was definitely guarded.

“I hear they keep a squadron of Sabers there and a couple of gun platforms.”

“I heard that also” Fallon replied “But to go around them would add weeks to the trip and then take us through Nomad space. Given the choice, I would rather face the Outcasts.”

Von Goeben’s voice came over the speaker next “Perhaps we should formulate a plan of attack before we get there?”

Douglas jumped in next “I got one that will do half the job. We stay high, above the ecliptic plane. Then we come straight down to the hole and jump it as a group under cruise. They will not expect a detect from such an angle and by the time they can correct we will be through. The down side is we will emerge in the plane and in full view of the guns on the other side.”

They all quietly digested this idea while tearing through space with no sensors. The upside for getting them through was very good, but the down side plain sucked. Even if they were half asleep the OC guns would pulverize them while at all stop after the jump. The guarding squadron certainly would.

After a bit of thinking von Goeben’s voice came over the speaker “Suppose, a ship went through before us and its hydrogen bottle failed immediately after jump. What would happen?”

“Are you crazy” Fallon asked “That would set off a Hydrogen bomb of at least 1 megaton. The back blast though the hole would vaporize anything behind it.”

“Well now” von Goeben went on “Let’s think on this. Only selective quantum states would be allowed to back blast through the hole, so the entire explosion cannot back blast. All we have to do is ride out the quantum leakage that does back feed, and then emerge in an area cleared of immediate threat by the EMP wave the bomb generates. We could be on our way before they even have sensors.”

“How much quantum leakage are we talking about and can we survive it?” Emmure asked.

“I have no idea” von Goeben said, “But I know someone who might, at Freeport 10.”

Dead silence followed that. They were in Tau-37, but under stealth. No one had tracked them the last five jumps and no one knew they were in system. To go to a Freeport would negate all of that, and the jump to Omicron Alpha was from Tau-37.

“I got an idea.” said Douglas as he aimed a highly directional signal at Falklands Base.

Kyle sat quietly at his desk and watched the interplay of the nebula outside the window of his office. The window took up an entire wall and the view was spectacular, except for a decrepit rust bucket recently arrived from Falklands carrying a load of compost for the biodomes. He was thinking about ordering it removed when the intercom at his desk beeped at him.

“A Mr. von Goeben and three associates to see you Mr. Kyle. They said their business was of a private and personal nature sir.”

He hit a toggle on the panel “Send them in.”

A moment later the automatic doors slid open and in came four men dressed in flat gray. No decoration or ornamentation of any sort was seen and their empty hands clearly placed where they could be seen. One of them had a face he vaguely recognized.

“Mr. Kyle, I am Senior Cadet Hans von Goeben of the Sirius Judiciary. My colleagues are Senior Cadets Douglas, Fallon and Emmure. We are here because we need your help sir.”

Kyle sat there a moment taking in the scene. The four faces in front of him were very serious and something else. He studied them a moment more before it came to him. They were upset, highly upset but hiding it. “Ah yes…I have dealt with your father Mr. von Goeben and I seem to recall something about a son becoming a cadet. I assume that was you. How did you get here unannounced? My people are not normally that incompetent as to miss a judicial ship arrival?”

Douglas spoke up “A friend at Falklands allowed us to moor within the compost barge you see outside the window there. He then brought it to the Freeport so that we may talk to you privately.”

Kyle nodded slightly at the revelation as he turned back to von Goeben “And why do you seek to speak to me privately?”

As the cadets explained the plan Kyle nodded quietly and listened. The part about back blast and quantum energy levels he fully understood. It was a good plan and workable if the timing was exact. After going through all the details and specifics he had only one question “And where are you going to get a star ship to navigate the worm hole and then self destruct?”

Fallon for the first time smiled his best boyish charm smile and said “Well sir, we were kind of hoping that you might help us out there.”

Five ships flew well above the ecliptic and then dove straight down at maximum velocity. Their cruise engines added continual acceleration to their already frightful velocity. The lead ship flew several kilometers ahead of the four ship main body and was the first to detect the quantum hum of a jump hole. The ship automatically re-vectored onto it and sent a signal back to the other four ships. Minutes ticked by as they drew closer to the hole. Long range sensors were useless in the nebula they flew through so they were almost upon the hole when its defenders detected them. Guns were just powering up when the lead ship hit the hole and jumped. A split second later the jump hole glowed blue and a massive column of energy spat out from its center. While the defenders were still trying to figure out what was happening four other ships dove into the energy column and jumped. It was all over in a matter of seconds and the gun platforms fired off into open space.

When Fallon emerged from the jump he was in a maelstrom of energy and his Eagle was tossed about like a dust ball in a hurricane. He fought the controls while trying to find his friends. A few seconds passed and it was all done. His scanners came back on and his ship quieted down.

Outside he saw a half a dozen ruined gun platforms and maybe five Sabers is various states of wholeness, the best one having nearly one engine still attached.

Douglas voice came over the comms “All units secure comms., stealth mode. Set course for the Omicron-90 jump hole, formation Victor 2.”

Fallon slewed his ship around to the proper formation and then burned off into the black. He wondered for a moment at the drone ship Kyle had given them to get through the hole. Electronics normally are scrambled by a jump, yet the drone had detonated perfectly and long before its electronics could reset. When he had asked Kyle about this before leaving Freeport 10 the man had simply smiled saying “A 12 inch fuse could care less about Jump Holes” and let it go at that. Curious!

After a time they came upon the Omicron 90 jump hole. Unlike the one to Tau-37, this hole was unguarded and they jumped it with no problem. Still in stealth mode they came up to a large asteroid appearing on no chart. It was nearly 800 kilometers across and orbited by gun platforms and a squadron of Sabers. The cadets gently came to a slow drift 12,000 kilos distant.

Von Goeben said quietly into his mike “I detect a half a dozen structures, one of them very large, at the upper quadrant of the asteroid. Almost no ground defenses at all. The signature of the Pegasus ship comes from the large structure.

Douglas replied “Roger. Fallon, you attack the large building. We other three will take out the Sabers and gun platforms. When it is safe, we land by the large structure. Questions?

In the silence that followed the four ships drifted towards the asteroid. Each one used thrusters to get a speed of around 15 kilometers/second…..about standard velocity for a meteor. A scan went over them, and a few seconds later another. Meteors were common in O-90 and these four were not even worth alerting the sentry ships of. The computer churned a bit and set up a firing solution with a secondary battery. Were it human it would have been surprised at the energy bolt having no effect and the “meteors” suddenly returning fire with far more lethal weapons. The gun platform and the computer on it vanished in a flash of debris.

Fallon swung left and set up on the large structure just as an alert swept the system. Gun platforms went active and powered up while the saber pilots came out of Alpha sleep to defend the base. Four of them vanished in crimson explosions before they could shake off the sleep. The remaining fighters turned and engaged

Fallon dove down from high orbit and the large structure actually turned out to be a hanger. He registered this as he opened fire. A shield had started to come up, but his debilitators prevented it from closing. The mini-razor on his ship did terrible damage to the unprotected building and he pulled up just in time to release a mine, which knowing no better, decided the building was a target and detonated on it in thermonuclear splendor.

Emmure side slipped hard over as he fired at the Saber who a moment before was behind him. His guns hammered the heavy ship until it exploded in a ball of fire “Alpha Mike Foxtrot” he muttered as he sought a new target.

Defiance went wide awake as he heard the first impacts. “Anna, wake up. Someone is shooting.”

Anna came awake just as Fallon’s mine hit the hanger. The resulting explosion threw them all across the room. Through the dust Defiance could see the door had sprung open. “Come on” he yelled as he ran for it snagging a blaster from the floor as he ran.

The hanger was a shambles with huge sections of the roof collapsed. A fire was burning at the far end and Don Vancious’ throne set up was now a broken pile of stone. The Pegasus by some miracle was still intact. He headed for it “Anna, our ticket out, come on”

He heard the blast rifle and turned to see Anna falling and a guard taking aim for a second shot. Without a thought he snapshot from the hip and the guards face plate disintegrated into a shower of red. He ran to Anna filled dread. She lay very still. “Anna….please….Anna??”

While he softly called to her he slapped a medpatch over the hole in her side. He then picked her up and ran towards the Pegasus as the shattered hanger filled with more and more guards seeking to take their revenge. As he got to the ship he poured her inside the one seat it had. Given time and care he might have fit two people into it, but he had neither. He set the auto pilot and jumped back as the hatch closed. The Pegasus hummed and then roared up and out the hole in the roof. Defiance smiled at the departure and turned towards the horde of approaching guards

“Damn” Defiance muttered, “Now I will never get invested.”

Drawing his weapon, his face went into a lopsided grin as he asked, “Alright, who’s first?”

Supreme Judge Logan sat still while the four young men and one young woman before him finished their report. They had gotten the Pegasus as soon as it made orbit and the five ships then headed best speed back to Tannhauser Gate. The autodoc on Pegasus had kept Anna alive and the base medics had finished the healing when she arrived at the base.

“He is alive. I know he is alive.” Anna said into the silence.

“Senior Cadet Douglas?” Logan asked.

“After the Pegasus recovery, some ships were seen escaping. Whether they were from orbit or from the planet was indeterminate. Self destruct charges leveled all structures shortly after we broke orbit. Investigation by the JSS Magistrates Battle Group revealed no survivors and no sign of Senior Cadet Defiance.”

“I see.” Logan sat a long time before looking up with troubled eyes “We shall add the name of Senior Cadet John “Defiance” Smith to the rolls as Missing in Action.

“NO!!!” Anna fairly shrieked as she ran from the room.

“May is exsisto memor pro suus res” Logan softly said as he turned and left the room.

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