Chapter 1

The unexpected occurs as the AFS Neil Armstrong approaches the planet Gliese 581G.

Chapter 1

 

Deep space, Time 1600z, 2 November 2270 C.E.

 

“Captain, approaching the Gliese 581 system, sir,” the Navigator’s voice sounded over the low roar in the bridge. “ETA one-five minutes.”

“Very well, Navigator. Chief of the Watch, to maneuvering, power down the superluminal drive,” the Captain said calmly as he quickly moved from station to station on the bridge.

“To maneuvering, power down the superluminal drive, aye sir,” repeated the Chief. He thumbed the button on the mouthpiece of his headset, “Maneuvering, Bridge, power down the superluminal transit drive. Prepare to commence power braking on my mark.”

“Maneuvering, Bridge, aye. Superluminal transit drive powering down, sir,” the Chief of the Watch said after a short pause. Turning to the Captain, he announced, “Gravitational direction is being reversed for power braking.”

“Very well, Chief of the Watch, sound the rapid deceleration alarm,” replied the Captain who casually walked back to his chair and strapped in.

“Sound the rapid deceleration alarm, aye sir,” the Chief swiveled back to his console and grabbed the handset labeled 1MC. “Rig ship for rapid deceleration,” he stated and reached over to pull a blue handle labeled RAP DECEL. A klaxon blared and the Chief announced again, “Rig ship for rapid deceleration. Power braking will commence in two minutes. All hands find nearest safety seats and strap in.”

I watched the main view port as we approached the star Gliese 581. At first I couldn’t see anything, but the small pinprick of light in the center of the meter thick window slowly grew in size. So captivated by the speed at which we approached the star, I was startled when my seat rotated around to face the rear of the bridge. I quickly pulled my seat’s harness over my head and fastened it to the base of the seat between my legs like a roller coaster harness. When the padded device was secure, it squeezed inward and fitted itself to the form of my torso.

“Maneuvering, Bridge,” the Chief of the Watch called once the two minutes had expired, “Begin power brake sequence in three… two… one… mark!”

The ship shook violently as the gravitational field that was previously pulling the ship at such tremendous speeds reversed to initiate the power braking. My weight was thrown into the back of my seat and I tightly gripped the handles on my harness as the g-forces exerted during the power braking exceeded ten times the normal force of Earth’s gravity. Despite the backwards facing of my seat to lessen the effect of the deceleration, it still felt as if my chest would cave in at any moment. A few seconds later, the harness’ regulation system kicked in and the force I felt was but a fraction of what it was just a moment ago. The five-minute deceleration felt like hours, but it was necessary because of the incredible speed at which we had been traveling.

My ship, the AFS Neil Armstrong, was the first vessel in the Federal Navy to be built with a superluminal transit drive. Developed twenty years ago, this drive, aptly nicknamed the Gravity Well, created an artificial gravity field around the outside of the ship that pulled in any direction desired. The force of the singularity always started small at the beginning of each voyage and gradually increased as the ship traveled. This created a continuously increasing forward acceleration, allowing for speeds approximately one hundred times faster than the speed of light. The longer the voyage, the faster the ship traveled. Therefore, the trip to the Gliese 581 system that takes light 20.4 years to travel only took about 3 months, give or take a week, for the Neil Armstrong to complete with the Gravity Well. To counteract this extreme force of gravity, the inside of the ship had to be kept in a continuous stasis field, which negated the force towards the bow. This allowed a smaller artificial gravity generator to create earth-like gravity towards the floor of the ship.

When the power braking stopped, my harness released itself and my seat swiveled back around. I gazed out the main view port at the small red dwarf star. What appeared to be a small green and blue planetoid sat near the right side of the view port. In reality, the planet Gliese 581G was a little less than four times the size of the Earth. This planet was home to humanity’s first extrasolar colony, only recently established six years ago by the American Federation. Many thought the first colony outside our solar system would be led by a unified Earth government, but unfortunately negotiations between the major unions had taken much longer than expected.

The way things were going a unified Earth wouldn’t come to fruition in my generation. Since the African Union supported one of the largest populations, they demanded a larger representation in the proposed parliamentary system, but the European Union thought power within the government should be held by the most technologically advanced and economically stable unions like themselves and the American Federation, the coalition of what used to be the nations of North and South America. The conflict was further exacerbated by the Chinese Empire steadfastly opposing the parliamentary republic system and promoting a strict communist regime. Therefore, since the American Federation had the technology for interstellar travel, the American government took it upon itself to venture out to the nearest habitable star system and claim another historical milestone for themselves.

As if the rest of the Earth didn’t hate America enough after the former United States of America’s annexation of the Central and South American nations as well as the hostile takeover of the oil producing nations of the Middle East and the blatant genocide of the Arabian people, the establishment of the colony on Gliese 581G only served to further instill hatred for the Federation's imperialistic ways.

Thus it came as no small surprise that a group of Arabian loyalists planted a spy in the lab facility that was home to the Gravity Well. This spy was able to hack into the lab’s computer mainframe and steal all the data relevant to the superluminal transit drive. This group of insurgents secretly built a warship capable of faster than light travel using the stolen technology and sent it to the Gliese 581G colony under orders to hold it ransom until the American Federation granted the Arabs freedom and gave their land back. If the Americans did not heed their demands, they had access to several thermonuclear warheads and would destroy the colony and its inhabitants.

And that’s the reason why I’m here aboard the Armstrong. Our mission is to hunt down and kill the insurgents at any cost. I just hope their propaganda hasn’t rallied the entire colony against us.

“Power braking complete, Maneuvering, Bridge, aye. Captain, sir, ship is secured from power braking.”

“Very well, Chief of the Watch. Navigator, report ship's speed and ETA to Gliese 581G?” the Captain asked.

“Cruising at ten thousand kilometers per hour. Approximately nine-zero minutes to Gliese 581G, sir,” the Navigator, Lieutenant Ashburn replied.

“Good.” Captain Nicholas Maxwell stood up from his seat and strolled over to me. He was a bear of a man, built like a football linebacker. But his intelligence defied his appearance. The man was a tactical genius, worked his way from enlistment as an electrician to be a divisional leading Petty Officer, got picked up as an officer candidate, and after many long years of service became one of the most respected ship commanders in the Federal Navy. He had won many of the Navy’s finest awards during his long career, including a Medal of Honor after leading a squadron of seven frigates in the defense of the Galilean moons from a fleet of twenty Imperial Chinese ships five years earlier, which ended in the destruction of all attacking vessels at no cost of American lives due to the Captain’s brilliance, and ended the Jovian War. And so it is only natural that he command this groundbreaking vessel. His wide shoulders and bristly stubble from the long tiring hours at the ship’s conn made him seem more like a lumberjack than one of the most decorated of the Navy’s elite personnel. He firmly clasped a meaty hand on my shoulder. It stung a little.

“Remember, Foster, we need to hit them fast. Snuff out the insurgency before they know what hit ‘em,” he said quietly. "We shouldn't need your boys today, but I want them standing by just in case."

I stood up and turned to face the Captain as he released my shoulder from his grip. “Do you expect much resistance, Captain?”

“It all depends on if they know we’re coming,” he answered. “We have to be prepared for anything once we breach the atmosphere.”

“Yes, sir,” I nodded as Captain Maxwell turned back to his chair. "The Phantoms are always ready for action."

"Excellent. Radio, Captain, hail our planet side contact,” he ordered.

“Captain, Radio, aye. Contact has been hailed, sir. Awaiting response,” came the reply over the loudspeaker in the bridge.

A few moments later, a man’s face appeared on the communication screen above the main view port. A mole from the Federation’s Agency Nine was our contact for the worst-case scenario, like total hostile control of the planet, which was highly probable. His hair was unkempt and his eyes heavy, like he had just woken from sleep. Just like the Captain, dark stubble covered his jaw as if he hadn’t shaved in a few days. I involuntarily checked my watched, but quickly realized that zulu time on Earth meant nothing on Gliese 581G. A day here was approximately fifteen hours, so sleep schedules of inhabitants of the planet tended to be different from earth’s inhabitants.

“Greetings Captain!” the false sense of enthusiasm in his voice was disheartening. “You’re early. I wasn’t expecting you for at least three more days.”

“High speed space travel tends to be unreliable,” Captain Maxwell replied.

“So I see.”

“How is the situation planetside now? What kind of resistance should we expect?”

“Heavy resistance. The insurgents are practically running this place now. They control the capitol as well as the Vanguard space dock and several other major objectives.”

Maxwell cursed under his breath before responding, “What would you suggest is our best course of action?”

“Recapture the Vanguard. It’s heavily defended, but it will give you a foothold. Controlling the orbital dock will give you some flexibility and a point of extraction if things get too hot down below.”

“Very well,” I could tell the Captain wasn’t pleased. It was never good when the worst-case scenario became reality. “Thank you for the update. We will contact you again in approximately two hours. We should be ready to launch our invasion by then. Maxwell out.”

The man gave a brief nod and the screen went black. The Captain quickly walked back to his chair, grabbed his mic and switched it to 1MC. “All hands, man battlestations strike. Ready missile pods one through six. All Marine strike teams to starboard umbilicals now. This is the Captain. This is not a drill.”

I quickly followed the Captain. He handed me the mic and I repeated his order. “This is the XO,” I added. “This is not a drill.”

Sailors scrambled about the bridge to get to their assigned battlestations as the repeating gong of the general alarm echoed throughout the ship.

“Navigator, all ahead full, steer course zero-two-zero,” Captain Maxwell ordered.

“All ahead full, steer course zero-two-zero, aye, sir,” she replied. She went over to the young Seaman at the ship’s helm repeated the order to him, and placed a hand on his shoulder as he deftly tapped the bearings in on his monitor to rotate the ship towards the space dock. She reached forward and turned the Engine Order Telegraph to A-Full and watched the little red needle follow the black needle she had just repositioned. “Maneuvering acknowledges all ahead full, sir.”

Lieutenant Victoria Ashburn was one of the few female officers on the Armstrong, and as such, the petite Lieutenant held her position as the Navigation department head, or "Nav," with respect. The light blonde hair she kept up in a ponytail was a few inches longer than regulation, but her expertise and sense of professionalism kept her on the Captain’s good side so he never mentioned anything. Vicki and I grew up together in the Northeastern Mass, which was the colloquial name for the urban sprawl that covered most of the land between Baltimore, New York City, and Boston. We lived in the same apartment building, right across the hall from each other. She had always been mischievous, but managed to stay out of trouble through manipulation. She was good at that. Being three years apart, Vicki was like the younger sister I never had, and she looked up to me like a brother. Therefore, it came to no surprise when she joined the Naval Academy three years after I did, nor when she learned how to manipulate where she was stationed so she’d always be under my command. She knew it was borderline fraternization, but she never gave any hint that we had such a close relationship and neither did I, so the brass was never able to catch on.

She was certainly top notch though, and I knew she was the right person for the job. However, something kept nagging at my conscience that, considering the nature of this ship and its mission, there had to be more than just a sibling connection for her to feel compelled to manipulate her way onto this ship with me.

Moments later, I was tightly gripping the armrest of the Chief of the Watch’s chair as the Armstrong suddenly listed to starboard. The Captain and I scrambled to get back in our seats and fasten our safety harnesses.

“Report!” Maxwell shouted.

“We’re drifting off course, sir,” Vicki replied. “Speed to starboard is two-three-zero kilometers per hour and accelerating rapidly. Forward velocity slowing.”

“Maneuvering, Captain, report status of the Gravity Well,” the Captain fumbled with his mic switching it to 7MC, a direct loudspeaker to control center of the engine room, no longer bothering with the redundant orders through the Chief of the Watch.

“Captain, Maneuvering, all systems are green, no irregularities. Superluminal transit drive is offline. Routing power to starboard evasive thrusters to compensate.” Came the reply over the 7MC speaker on the Bridge.

“Starboard acceleration decreasing, sir,” Vicki announced, “but something is still pulling us with sixteen gees. Starboard speed is now one-three hundred kilometers per hour and rising. Forward deceleration continuing.”

“Bridge, Sensors,” a voice crackled from another loudspeaker, “Anomaly detected approximately twenty thousand kilometers to starboard, bearing one-one-seven. Unknown size, speed, and classification.”

I felt the ship begin to vibrate through my shoes. I looked over to Captain Maxwell, his knuckles visibly white as he clenched his harness. “Sensors, Captain, find out what that thing is!”

“Captain, sir, collision with anomaly in three minutes at current rate of acceleration,” came another update from Vicki.

“Face us away from that thing, all ahead flank, now!”

“Aye, sir.”

I was almost thrown over the right arm of my chair as the ship quickly rotated around. A loud rumble started as the Armstrong’s thrusters were pushed to full power. I pulled up my personal data pad and linked to the aft cameras. Dead center on the screen was a strange swirling ball. Tendrils of what looked like light meandered out from the center and flapped around like whips. It was a myriad of colors; red, blue, green, ever changing and mixing. It grew in size much faster than it should have, as if it was accelerating towards us while pulling on the ship.

“Captain, take a look at this,” I shouted above the noise of the engines. I tapped open a link to Maxwell’s data pad and transferred the video.

“What the hell is that?” I heard the Captain mumble. He grabbed his mic again, “Maneuvering, Captain, perform an emergency rapid startup of the secondary reactor and take the operational mode switch to Battleshort! I need maximum power, everything you can get me.”

A moment later, maneuvering made their response, “Captain, Maneuvering, the secondary reactor is critical. Battleshort mode is active. Automatic protective features for both reactors are bypassed. Recommended maximum op-lim to avoid core damage is one-five-zero percent, sir.”

“Very well, Maneuvering, cross-connect propulsion lines from both reactors in parallel and push the main engines to maximum thrust.”

“Captain, Maneuvering, aye sir.”

I buckled myself in as I felt myself being pulled into the back of my chair from the additional thrust. Sweat began to trickle down my forehead and I wiped it away with my sleeve. Not only did we have to worry about the anomaly behind us sucking the ship in, but the Captain was risking complete core meltdown on both reactors. The Engineer had once discussed the theoretical math with me and I did some quick calculations on my data pad. What the Captain was doing would bring both reactors to over one hundred eighty percent in five minutes. Fuel cell failure would occur at one-sixty percent, and core meltdown would occur at one-seventy-five percent. If the core started melting, we wouldn’t be able to scram the reactors and shut them down. So if we got away from this thing behind us we would still be in a lot of trouble.

“Captain, ship’s speed is eight hundred kilometers per hour and slowing!” Vicki exclaimed with a smile. “Escape velocity achievable in nine minutes.”

“Captain, what are you doing?” I asked over the din of reports and alarms as various systems started to fail.

“Buying us time!” Max shouted back.

“Bridge, Maneuvering,” the 7MC was barely audible over the roar of the engines. “Reactor power is at one-two-five percent on the main reactor, one-two-two percent on the secondary reactor. Recommend reducing propulsion demand to prevent exceeding one-five-zero percent power.”

“Time for what?” I knew it was wrong to question the Captain in front of the crew, but this was no ordinary situation. “Both reactors will meltdown before we can get to escape velocity.”

“I know. The crew can still get off the ship in that time,” the Captain replied as he thumbed his mic back to 1MC, “All hands, abandon ship, abandon"”

But the Captain was cut off as the swirling ball of light suddenly emitted a bright flash, and the ship went dead. The feeling of weightlessness came over me as the artificial gravity died. The emergency lights flickered momentarily, but did not stay lit and shut off within seconds. It was pitch black, but I heard the Captain fumbling for the mic that dropped out of his hands.

“Captain,” I said quietly, “that flash must have been an EMP blast. All our electronics are most likely dead.”

I heard him click the mic once, twice, and again, no luck. The bridge went silent for what seemed like hours, and then the Captain finally spoke up, “Very well. It looks like we have no choice. Everyone stay seated and calm and hope for the best. The lifeboats need electricity to fire, so they’ll be of no use.”

Staying calm was the hardest thing to do at that point. An electromagnetic pulse was the worst fate for a space faring vessel. It made the ship a sitting duck, disabling power to everything, the engines, navigation, communications, and worst of all, life support. If we weren’t killed by the anomaly, we would die within a day without power to the life support systems. Without propulsion, our acceleration into the anomaly would continue again with no way to counteract it. There was nothing we could do. This kind of situation normally would have instilled panic, but that was the last thing we wanted.

The vibrations I felt through my shoes earlier grew to a rumbling shake rather quickly.

“Everyone strap in and brace for impact,” the Captain ordered, still trying to keep his voice calm.

Within moments, a bright white light filled my vision that quickly dimmed and the ship shook so violently that anyone still standing would have been thrown to the floor, ceiling, or walls. The sound of straining metal echoed in the bridge.

As the shuddering slowed, the bridge filled with a red glow. The emergency power systems activated all the necessary systems. The Armstrong slowly came back to life. The blast that hit us must not have been an EMP, otherwise the ship would still be in darkness. Many questions began to surface in my mind, but I squelched them and focused on the situation at hand.

“Chief of the Watch, I need a damage report,” the Captain ordered.

After the announcement went out, I listened closely as each department reported in. Other than supplies strewn all over from the trembling, there seemed to be no damage to the ship, internal and external. Both reactors had scrammed and would take a minute or two for the engineering crew to perform a fast recovery on the main, and that was the worst of it. The navigation software was online, but was not registering our position. There was no sign of Gliese 581 or the planets surrounding it. Either the computer was still trying to figure out where we were, or we were in uncharted territory. That partially answered one of my questions. That anomaly must have been some sort of wormhole, teleporting the ship to a location far away. Until now, I had thought they were all theory and urban legend, told in science fiction stories and preached by the nuttiest scientists.

“Radio, Captain, try to hail our contact,” Captain Maxwell ordered.

A few seconds passed and a response came, “Captain, Radio, nothing but static, sir. No response on all frequencies.”

Maxwell pinched the bridge of his nose and thought for a second. “Get our main screen up. Let’s see where we are.”

The video screen in the front of the bridge fizzled to life and showed the void of space like a large black piece of paper with small holes punched in it. “Rotate the camera.”

As the view turned, a large orange planet came into view. It dominated the screen as the camera turned fully aft. We were a little too close for comfort.

“Estimated distance to planet is ten thousand kilometers, sir,” Vicki exclaimed. Her eyes wide as she glanced over the numbers. “Current ship's speed is three hundred thousand kilometers per hour. Impact in approximately two minutes.”

“Bridge, Maneuvering, the main reactor is critical. Current op-lim is nine-zero percent,” announced a voice over the 7MC.

“Navigator, all ahead flank. Slow us down as much as possible. Chief of the Watch, sound the collision alarm!”

“Sound the collision alarm, aye sir!” klaxons blared again as the Chief pulled the alarm lever and snatched his 1MC handset from the bulkhead. “Rig ship for impact!”

Muffled pops began to sound after the announcement. I linked my data pad to the port and starboard cams and saw small pods being ejected from the ship. The crew was escaping in the lifeboats. After hearing the Captain's earlier announcement to abandon ship, I didn’t blame them.

“The ship is decelerating, sir,” Vicki said as she wiped sweat from her brow. “Impact in eight-zero seconds. Insufficient thrust to negate current speed and the planet’s gravitational field.”

I heard the Captain curse under his breath. “Maneuvering, Captain, activate the Gravity Well,” he ordered. There was no time to deal with formalities anymore. The Chief of the Watch was now out of a job.

“Captain…” I started.

“You got any better ideas, XO?” The Captain snapped, then paused, waiting for an answer.

Activating the Gravity Well that close to a planet was dangerous. Nobody knew what would happen if the drive were to be activated inside another major gravitational field. The two fields might have extremely adverse effects on each other and potentially pull the planet out of orbit, or alter the rotation, completely devastating any life that possibly lived on it. But there was no other choice. It was either that or lose the ship and crew in a high-speed crash.

“No, sir,” I backed down, realizing it was our only real option at that point.

“Captain, Maneuvering, Gravity Well coming online. Rapid acceleration in one-five seconds.”

There wasn’t enough time. The Well might slow the ship down significantly, but we would still crash. Moments later, the ship lurched and I was forced into the back of my seat as the drive kicked in.

The main view screen was still pointed at the planet behind us. It filled the screen now and geographical features started to appear. Patches of blue and green appeared, strange alien flora, and mountains rose into view. The colors, especially the orange soil, were like nothing I had ever seen before.

“Impact in four-two seconds. Current acceleration is still insufficient to reach escape velocity. Impact estimated at four hundred kilometers per hour. Crew survival is plausible at that speed, sir.”

The Captain grabbed his mic once again and thumbed 1MC, “All hands, brace for shock!”

I stared at the view screen, captivated by the landscape. Suddenly the view was blurred by streaks of blue and yellow. Fire. That meant there was oxygen in the atmosphere of the planet. Whether there were other gasses that were potentially poisonous, preventing the air from being breathable, was a completely different story.

I glanced around the bridge. Everyone was sweating and fidgeting under the anxiety. The crash was imminent, and there was no denying the fact that it frightened everyone. I felt the sudden urge to hold Vicki in my arms to make sure she was safe. A brotherly instinct for the sister I never had, or was it more than just a platonic urge? I quickly shook the thought from my mind. There were regs against fraternization I had to continually remind myself of.

A loud explosion interrupted my thoughts and I was pressed against the back of my seat by a crushing force. The lights flickered wildly and a section of the railing to the lower section of the bridge buckled, broke free from the floor and tumbled backwards towards me. Before I could react, the pipe connected with my right shoulder and shattered it. The blow bent the support of my chair and forced it backwards so I was lying on my back. The combination of pain from my shoulder and the rush of blood to my head disoriented me, and my vision blurred.

The pitch and volume of the screaming klaxons fell, and the lights faded to darkness as consciousness passed from me. Though there was a possibility to survive the crash, it was very unlikely. My last thought was how kind God was to let me pass unconsciously.

Author's Note

I apologize if some of this chapter is confusing at times. I'm in the US Navy so I tried to get this chapter as close to real Naval operations as possible.