The Trinity Sitch -Book 3: Blade of the Fury
Prologue
Author's note: As book 3, this story is a chapter in a continuing saga. There may be references here to the first two books, They Say Everyone Has a Twin and Soulmates of the Fury.
I have also started a forum and I'll welcome any questions you might have.
The Void.
Space, when you get far enough away from a star system is far more vast, far more dark and far more lonely than most people ever realized. This far out the only light came only from the distant, twinkling stars. That was all. Unless your starship was able to get close enough to one, you still could not see things like sparkling nebulae or the other sights many considered to be the most beautiful in the cosmos without powerful telescopes.
In the inky twilight of deep space, the only clue one had that a ship was near was the series of windows set into the hull. Otherwise it would only be a darkened shadow blotting out some of the stars.
Most people spent the majority of their lives on or near planets. With a local sun to shine on the multitude of interstellar vehicles anyone could make out the various shapes, details and colors that identified the tools man had created to carry them from shining orb to shining orb.
With the external sensors telling them they were truly alone in that part of the cosmos, the U.S.S. Reynolds had all of her running lights turned off. If another starship was in the vicinity, they would under normal conditions turn on a series of floodlights that would illuminate her name plate and her registry numbers. Considering the war with Arkonia was long over, that had become standard practice and was actually a legal protocol, even though the two ships would have long ago exchanged digital 'handshakes' between their artificial intelligences.
Despite her military name, the Reynolds was now a privately owned starship. At two-hundred fifty feet long, she was not a large ship as such things went. Long and lean, with a tapering oval shaped forward hull she was once a UFSA corvette, smaller than a standard destroyer but faster and more maneuverable, carrying weapons with a surprising punch. For her current owner's purposes, she had been fitted with three oversized ion ram scoops and two large, high performance engines utilizing the latest advances in ion-lock-in technology.
Doctor Susan Rokowski, captain of the ship and senior researcher for Marsh Industries sat in her swiveling command seat behind the pilot's positions on the small bridge. At the touch of a control on the arm of the complicated acceleration lounge, shutters on the five long, sloping windows rolled up into their housings, giving her a view of the distant pinpoints of light that originated from stars and other celestial objects. A holographic grid of fine, green lines was superimposed on the view, allowing her to call up a computerized description and detailed coordinates for any of those lights she chose.
"Ion drive is at one-hundred percent charge and is ready on stand-by" the copilot reported.
Rokowski, a striking woman in her late thirties checked off a few notes on the data screen mounted to her left. "Telewarp calculations have been laid into the navigation system." She said. Trying to fight down the butterflies in her stomach, she checked her harness for what must have been the tenth time since she secured it.
"Load master is reporting all cargo is secure for the test." The copilot relayed.
"Structural integrity at one-hundred percent." The science officer reported from his station off to the side.
"All on-board sensors are online and are recording." The pilot, a blonde woman with a severe haircut and the fine lines on her face that denoted an experience spacer said.
"We have received telemetry from the sensor buoy we deployed. The signal is in full operation and the data is being relayed back to Firestone." The communications officer said, referring to the nearest planetary system, where one of Earths older and best established colonies was located.
Now or never, Susan thought. "Okay, let's move to stage one. Initiate Hyperwarp jump."
At her order the ship began to move. The two engines flared to life, two points of light as bright as the sun, burning a brilliant yellow as the excited ions were converted to thrust. The scoops, two mounted above the engines, the third beneath the ship just behind the number two cargo elevator, glowed bluish white as they cast an invisible magnetic field to capture free-floating ion particles. The gray-silver exterior of the ship was briefly illuminated by their light as it started moving, slowly at first but gathering speed. In moments the ship was approaching relativistic speeds.
An number of devices deployed along the hull, casting their energies about the ship, creating a ghostly image of it just in front of the ship. As the Reynolds passed the speed of light, the image merged with it in a brilliant flash of energy and she was cast into the mysterious realm of hyperspace.
"We have achieved cruising speed of thirty plus Hyperwarp." The pilot reported, indicating the ship was now traveling at a speed that in relativistic terms would be six-hundred times the speed of light.
"Prepare for stage two." Rokowski ordered.
"Hyperwarp drive ready for stage two." The pilot responded.
"Telewarp matrix charged and ready." The science officer said.
"Telemetry is good." The communications officer reported.
"Implement stage two." Rokowski said, gripping the leather arms of her seat.
"Chronal damping change-over in five, four, three, two, one…"
The ship surged as more power coursed through the engines than ever before. They were pushed back in their seats as the acceleration overcame the ability of the artificial gravity field to compensate. There was a sudden sensation of being stretched, much like the feeling one had when passing the Hyperwarp barrier for the first time on an unshielded ship, only multiplied by a factor of one-hundred.
The crew may have spoken, but there was no way to hear them as they crossed into a realm of theoretical space only guessed at mere years before. Space and time bent as the U.S.S. Reynolds existed for a split moment in all of space and time. The continuum resolved itself until the ship was stretched from the point where it entered hyperspace to it's target on the far side of the spiral arm. They felt for a moment like a rubber band stretched too far suddenly released on one end, hurling toward the other as the pent up energy stored in it unfurled.
The sense of acceleration was gone as quickly as it began. Susan Rokowski looked around the bridge of her ship and hit the release of her harness in a moment of panic. She rolled to the side and emptied the contents of her stomach on the clean deck, noting with detached interest that two other crew members were doing the exact same thing.
Slowly and weakly she pulled herself back into her seat. She was expecting this, but the reality of it was stronger than she expected. There were well documented reports of early space explorers doing the very same thing the first time they entered 'normal' hyperspace.
"Report." She said, wiping her mouth with a cloth she produced from a pocket on her jumpsuit. "Lt. Casman? Morgan?"
"Um. Yeah, I'm okay Doctor Rokowski." She said, a little more shaken than she thought she would be. Regaining some of her composure, she punched a few keys on her computer console. "We are precisely at the target coordinates." She turned toward the scientist. "The computer performed exactly as programmed, we have dropped out of hyperspace and are now stationary. Susan! We did it!"
Doctor Rokowski allowed herself a small smile. Three years of work and they had done it! In the space of a moment they had crossed more distance than any ship in history!
"Something is wrong." The science officer said, concern in his voice.
"What is it? Have we sustained a loss of structural integrity?"
"No ma'am. We have some minor stress on the secondary frame but that is still within design parameters. What I'm detecting is a local gravity well. I'm initiating a full sensor sweep."
A gravity well? That wasn't possible. The target region had been selected mainly because there was nothing there. Less than nothing. They had deliberately traveled away from the galactic plane, on the outside chance their calculations had been off in order to prevent them dropping out inside a mass."
"I am activating control thrusters to maintain our position." Lt. Casman said, responding to the pull of the unknown source of gravity.
"That's not right!" the science officer said.
"What isn't right?" Doctor Rokowski asked, getting up from her seat. "Get somebody up here to clean this up." She groused as she barely missed stepping in her own sick.
The science officer, Timothy Peterson, punched up a new holographic schematic. A globe resolved itself in the air above them.
"It's a planet! That's what I can't figure. We're nowhere near a star. There is literally nothing for it to orbit out here."
"A rogue planet? All of our precautions and we Tele-warp right to an uncharted rogue?"
"So it would seem, except all documented rogues are actually in a wide orbit around a larger center of gravity. If my readings are correct, this one is stationary in relation to the galactic center. That's what I'm so confused about. That's a theoretical impossibility."
"I'm glad you put it that way, Teep. Unless there's something we're not seeing, here's proof that theory is incorrect." She looked at the hologram again, then out the large windows. Even the stars were not visible out here. All they could see was the hazy, indistinct disk of the Milky Way dominating half the cosmos, from their perspective. The planet was hidden against the impenetrable black of the great void. Still, somehow her imagination formed a picture of a lightless blot against the heavens.
Intense curiosity surged in Susan Rokowski, but she knew she had a job to do. While the U.S.S. Reynolds could land on the planet, their ship was a dedicated test-bed for the new Tele-warp drive, not an exploration vessel. "Okay, Teep. Record the coordinates. Lt. Casman, we're not in any danger of being pulled into the gravity well, are we?"
"No ma'am. The AI reports we're at stable station-keeping. We are twenty-two point five planetary diameters out and the pull at this distance is negligible. We can insert for a standard orbit, but that is not currently necessary."
"Maintain station-keeping. Teep, start our calculations for a return jump. Once that is complete, run a standard examination protocol for the rogue. Our time-table will allow about two hours to study it from this position."
"Yes ma'am." He said, not even trying to hide the disappointment in his voice, his own curiosity surging. Still, like her, he was a professional. This far out there was no way to communicate with home and they had an otherwise smashing success to report.
With little more to do than watch and enter some note into her computer, Doctor Susan Rokowski wondered if they would name the mysterious body Rokowski's world. She touched her screen to make her official report.
"Senior Researcher's log, Twenty-four, November, Twenty-four Seventy-nine…"
Doctor James T. Possible had reached a point in his study of the mysterious starship named the X.S.S. Trinity that left him severely nervous. After two years of intense study he had learned all it was possible to learn about it without actually taking it apart. Every measurement, every test they could think of had been run. They even had several operating Ion engines based upon his work, but they remained crude copies of the advanced drive the ship contained. They could put one of his earlier rockets into orbit with ease, but they were years away from being able to propel a craft past the speed of light. Yet, here was a ship that could not only break that barrier, but travel at speeds great enough to reach further than most Earth-bound telescopes could see.
Disassembling even a simple system on the ship presented a serious problem. Many of the tools used to construct the craft simply had not been invented yet. That meant two things: first, they had to recruit the best minds in order to create devices that would not damage the delicate interior. That also meant involving more and more people in what could be considered one of the biggest secrets in the world. Security at the center was at an all-time high.
It didn't help that some of the greatest scientific minds in the world had, shall we say, a rather tenuous hold on sanity.
Like he would trust Drew Lipski to assist with the Trinity Project. No, his old college friend may have had the technical genius to reverse-engineer the technology, but he would always have, in the back of his mind, some plot to use what they had learned to take over the world.
Two of his assistants he was able to bring in with no fear. For one, they both had seen the ship in action. For another, one of them he would trust with his life. The other, a young woman named Liz Evans he didn't know quite as well, but in the last two years he had grown to trust her well enough. She had an intellect that actually rivaled the first, finishing her degree in advanced aerospace physics at Middleton University in only the greater part of those intervening years.
The first, a largish African-American boy, wasn't even old enough to drive, yet now held a doctorate in computer cybernetics.
Wade Load could not legally operate a car, but he had mastered piloting the Trinity manually already.
The work was slow-going. They had identified several areas they wanted to gain access to first. One of those was the internal workings of the Ion Ram. They were essentially Broussard collectors, magnetic projectors that would create a force-field that would gather free-floating ions that powered the engines. There was a powerful fusion reactor buried inside the ship, but it only provided enough power for lift-off, acting as a primer for ion-reaction that propelled the craft.
"I wish it were as simple as unbolting the access panels." Wade was saying, "but it seems the individuals cowling pieces were joined by some process we can only currently guess at."
"It's looking more and more like we are going to have to cut something." Dr. Possible said with a frown.
"I hope not. We don't know what we might damage if we start doing that. Somehow I don't think welding the plates back together will be good enough."
"I agree, Wade, but we may have no choice if we want to get into it. What does the AI say?"
"Not much that's useful." He answered, frowning. "It's like she doesn't want people cutting into her. She knows we really don't know what we're doing."
"You make it sound like the ship doesn't trust us."
"Well, part of the problem is the AI is immature. The original one was lost when the computer core crashed, so this one was loaded as a template from another ship, and it's not entirely compatible with the Trinity yet."
"So it's a matter of getting it…"
"Her. The Trinity has a female personality." Wade corrected.
"It's a matter of getting her to trust us?" Dr. Possible's eyebrows flattened out in frustration. If there was one thing his powerful intellect couldn't fully comprehend, it was the female mind.
"Essentially, yes. Then there's the problem of whether the tools we need are actually recorded in her memory. A modern computer doesn't always have the plans for a screwdriver in it."
Liz piped up. "Maybe I could get Max to use his powers. He could cut through one of those panels, then put it back like it had never been removed." Dr. Possible and Wade were two of the few people that knew Liz' husband, Max Evans, was a genetically engineered human clone containing the essence of an alien king. The creators of his body had included special powers that allowed him to manipulate the molecular structure of non-organic objects.
"That's a pretty good idea, but for right now it's one we may have to forego. Getting him security clearance these days would involve bringing more people into his secret than he may be comfortable with. Keep that in mind in case we don't make any more progress."
A technician entered their lab, carrying something gingerly in a clean cloth. "Dr. Possible, we found something interesting in the engine room." He held the object at arms length, gently passing it to the older scientist.
It looked like it was made of brass, but it was lighter than and object that size would be if it was made of the ancient metal.
"How did you get this loose?" he asked.
"We didn't have to. We took an access panel off that was secured with ordinary bolts. That was sitting inside loose, just outside one of the internal engine cowlings."
Dr. Possible examined the plate. It was crusted with grime, but he could tell it had some kind of writing on it. He carefully carried it to a table and started wiping it with the rag. The grease slowly gave way, revealing the script.
"Keel laid August Fifteenth, twenty-four sixty. That's interesting, so if this is the builder's plate for the ship, we now know when it was actually built" he said for his colleague's benefit. He scrubbed more of the black away. "Hendrickson Class Corvette, huh, a military ship after all. I would have thought it was built as a yacht, considering the lack of weapons."
"What else does it say?" Wade asked, looking over his shoulder.
He wiped the last of the grease away, revealing the name the ship had been first christened with. "U.S.S. Reynolds…"