Battlecruiser Alamo: Shadows in the Sky Read online

   Abruptly, sirens blared, overriding the music, and all hands instantly stood to, Salazar racing to a wall communicator. Before he could speak, the ship rocked, and Clarke felt sick to his stomach, the familiar sign of a bad dimensional transition. He glanced across at Mortimer, shared panic on their faces. They weren't due to leave hendecaspace for two days, but something seemed to be dragging them into normal space immediately.

   “Salazar here,” the Captain said, slamming into the wall by the communicator, Harper instantly up and by his side. “What's going on?”

   “Don't know, sir,” Santiago reported. “We're in the early stages of a dimensional transition, but we didn't do anything up here. First checks suggest that our velocity through hendecaspace has increased by a factor of twenty. I've never seen anything like it.” She paused, then added, “I've locked down all space-tight doors, other than those permitting you and the senior staff access to the bridge, sir.”

   With a regretful look at the couple, clutching each other as though it might be their last moment, he replied, “I'm on my way. All hands to battle stations. I repeat, all hands to battle stations.” Looking at the crowd, he continued, “We'll have to continue this another time. Get to your posts. Clarke, you're with me.”

   “Aye, sir,” he replied, sliding out of his aisle seat and racing to the elevator, slipping in the shifting gravity field as the ship began to tumble, threatening to dive out of control. More sirens sounded, this time stress alarms from the outer hull, the ship taking more pressure than it had ever been designed to handle, struggling under the burden of the unusually severe transition.

   Clarke held the door for Salazar, Harper and Francis, then released the control to send them hurtling to the bridge. He looked at the frowning officers, only to be thrown against Harper by a sudden shock that sent them all sprawling to the wall.

   “Sorry, ma'am,” he replied. “What's happening?”

   “I honestly don't know, John,” Salazar replied. “We can't take a lot more of this, though. That much I do know.”

   The doors opened, and the quartet raced out onto the bridge. Midshipman Petrova was holding the helm, and looked with terror in her eyes at the newly arrived officers. At a glance from Salazar, Clarke raced forward to take the controls, smoothly relieving her and logging into the helm. The irony that she was four years older than him, that she'd completed the Academy where he had not, only caught him as he was firing up the stabilization program.

   Maybe Mortimer was right. Maybe his main problem was that he spent more time thinking and not enough time doing, and that if he simply allowed himself to trust his instincts, everything would work out for the best. Though no instincts could prepare him for what he was facing now. None of his training had even remotely covered a situation like this, with the computers flashing waves of garbage data at him, meaningless text that could have no resemblance to reality.

   Even after a century of interstellar travel, humanity only barely understood the nature of hendecaspace, struggled to comprehend the alternate dimension through which they traveled. The discovery of the drive that accessed it had been a historical accident, the records lost in the fire of nuclear war, and even now, there were only a handful of top-level scientists that even approached a rudimentary understanding of the technology involved.

   Anything could be out there. Sometimes ships disappeared, even following the known rules of the road. It was rare, very rare, but the stories still passed from crewmen to crewmen, hushed whispers late at night of strange ships, odd sensor ghosts picked up at extreme range, even flashing glimpses of planets and stars lost out here in the darkness.

   “Report, Clarke,” Salazar barked.

   “Chaos, sir,” he replied. “None of this makes any sense, but our velocity has jumped off the scale. We're suffering serious damage, Captain, and we need to shut down as soon as we can.” Glancing at a control, he added, “If I'm reading this right, we've got the potential for emergence in two minutes, but it's going to be the roughest transition we've ever experienced.”

   “Ride it through, Sub-Lieutenant. You have the call.”

   “Aye, sir,” he replied. “I have the call.”

   Which meant that the lives of everyone on board now rested in his hands. It was pointless attempting to slow the ship. Petrova had tried the usual techniques, and none of them had proven effective. He had to use the momentum they were gathering to their advantage, making pinpoint adjustments to their track in a desperate bid to guide them to safety, to reach that microscopic spot of hendecaspace that would allow their return to reality. If he missed, if he failed, then they were dead. Even if they lived through the growing acceleration, there was nowhere else for them to emerge, and they'd be lost for ever in an endless sea of chaos.

   “Ninety seconds,” he said, throwing a control. “Helm to all personnel. Stand by for violent shock upon transition. Brace for severe turbulence.”

   “Damage control teams on standby at critical areas,” Fitzroy added. “Chief Santiago reports that no significant damage has been sustained yet, but she can't make any guarantees if we remain in hendecaspace for much longer.”

   “Seventy seconds,” Clarke said, his hands dancing across the controls, the limits of his universe confined to a handful of switches and the trajectory track, slowly sliding into their target position. They were eating up space at a rate never before known, had crossed a light-year in a matter of minutes. The thought did not escape him that they might have found a way home, if they were able to harness this technology. The Holy Grail they had been looking for, and at last, there was a chance that they had located it.

   “Thirty seconds,” he said, almost to himself. The ship itself seemed to be fighting him, dragging him to the side, and he was struggling to keep even a vestige of stability. They were going to emerge with more velocity than anyone had ever managed before, and he reached down to his seat restraints with a free hand, tugging them into position.

   “Hang on, everyone!” Salazar yelled, as Clarke worked the controls to rip a hole in reality, allowing Alamo to slide through with as much grace as possible. A wild flash blazed on the screen, and the battlecruiser swam through a sea of bitter Cerenkov radiation as it dived into normal space, the stars wildly dancing as the ship spun end over end, thrusters firing in semi-random patterns in a desperate attempt to restore a measure of stability.

   From behind him, he heard a thud, someone falling to the deck, but he couldn't worry about that, not now. A dozen stress warnings echoed throughout the ship, the hull battered from the transition, and he carefully played the thrusters against each other, gradually restoring a trim, bringing the ship under control. He fired the forward engines, killing the thrust, then fired a longer pulse, gravity waves rippling across the sensor display, throwing their trajectory into a wild tangent.

   “Stable, sir,” he replied, only then looking up. Salazar walked towards the viewscreen, glancing down at him before returning his view to the sight on display, something unlike anything he'd ever before encountered. The anomaly was a structure, the largest structure ever designed, so large that they could only see a small fraction of it on the viewscreen, even at minimum magnification. A barely-perceptible curve of metal, intricate patterns of light dancing across the perimeter, only a quarter of a million miles distant.

   “Spaceman,” Salazar said, turning back to the sensor console while Clarke continued to stare at the viewscreen, transfixed by the image on display. “Is that what I think it is?”

   “A sphere with a diameter of thirty million miles,” Ballard said in awe. “I'm picking up some heat readings, looks like radiators at the poles.” Shaking her head, she continued, “Radiators a hundred million miles long.” Tapping a control, she added, “Alloy doesn't read as anything we know, and I'm getting periodic gravity waves from the structure.”

   “A Dyson Sphere,” Harper said, a smile on her face. “Someone really built one.”
/>    “I've never heard of anything like that,” Petrova said.

   “You should read more science-fiction, Midshipman,” Salazar said. “During the early days of spaceflight, a scientist-philosopher named Freeman Dyson came up with the concept that at some point, a civilization would need to harness the total output of its sun, by completely enclosing it, surrounding it in a shell. Naturally, the design would be ferociously complicated, requiring a technology orders of magnitude greater than our own, but it would appear that someone has actually built one.” Looking at Francis, he added, “As I recall, the concept requires controlled gravity.”

   “That's impossible,” Francis replied. “I mean...”

   “Someone's found a way to do it,” Harper said. “And we get to be the first to see it. Any outgassing, Spaceman?”

   “Not a trace, ma'am, but that could just mean it's below the threshold of detection.” She paused, then said, “Wait a minute, that thing could have an atmosphere?”

   “And almost certainly does,” Salazar replied. “Living space for trillions of beings. More land area than on every world and moon in a dozen systems.” He paused, then said, “What about the black hole?”

   “I've got it, sir,” Ballard replied. “About a hundred million miles away.” Her eyes widened again, and she added, “I've found the debris, as well. Chains billions of miles long, and it looks as though they're using the black hole as a slingshot, to guide it into a parking orbit. There's an outer belt of debris a couple of billion miles away, and a trio of superjovians. This whole system has been engineered, sir. They're using gas giants ten times the size of Jupiter as shepherds!”

   Nodding, Salazar said, “And if we go out there, I'd bet we'll find refineries processing the debris into materials. Even the best system degrades over time, and they're supplying the largest technological civilization ever dreamed of in there. Must be. Bowman, any signals, any contact?”

   “Nothing, sir. I've been listening out since our arrival, but there's no sign of anything.”

   Clarke looked up at the screen, still in reverent awe, and said, “We've got to find a way to get inside, sir. To get boots on the ground.”

   “Wait a minute, Sub-Lieutenant,” Francis protested. “That sphere is the product of a technology infinitely more advanced than our own, and...”

   “All we've seen so far are automatic systems, sir,” Clarke said. “How old is that structure?”

   “Impossible to calculate,” Ballard replied. “If we had some samples from the surface, we might be able to make a guess.” She paused, then added, “Old, though. And some of incoming debris is from stars far enough away that they must have been in flight for hundreds of thousands of years.” She looked up at the viewscreen with reverent awe, and added, “There's no sign of any other planet in the system. Just the outer ring.”

   “Any hendecaspace points out there?” Salazar asked.

   “Dozens, sir,” she replied. “Lots of places to hide.”

   “Request permission to take a scouting team to the surface, sir,” Clarke said. “We can keep it tight, just four people, and be ready to pull out at a moment's notice.” Looking back at Salazar, he added, “Anyone for a light-year will have seen us leaving hendecaspace, Captain. Like it or not, the inhabitants of that sphere already know that we're here. Assuming there is anyone down there at all. I think we can risk a visit.”

   “Besides,” Harper replied, “If we aren't going to take a look at the surface, then there probably wasn't much point in us coming here in the first place.” She paused, then added, “Nevertheless, I would recommend against moving too quickly. Let's hang back and get some good sensor readings for a while, launch a few probes, see what we can find out before putting boots on the ground.” With a smile, she added, “Though for the record, I'm as eager to get inside that place as anyone else.”

   “I'm with you on that,” Salazar replied.

   “Ask permission, sir,” Clarke suggested. Turning from the helm, he added, “They know we're here, and they might be waiting for us to contact them.”

   Nodding, Francis said, “It's probably worth a try, Captain.”

   “Very well,” Salazar said. “Bowman, I want to transmit on as many frequencies as possible, and have Carpenter translate my message into Proto-Indo. Get someone to use a Neander dialect as well. We might as well try as many tricks as we can.”

   After a moment, Bowman replied, “You're on, sir.”

   “This is Lieutenant-Captain Pavel Salazar of the Triplanetary Battlecruiser Alamo. We come in peace, on a mission of exploration, and seek contact with the inhabitants of the sphere in this system.” Turning to Bowman, he added, “Put that on a loop, Spaceman.”

   “Done, sir,” he said. After a moment, he added, “We're getting a reply, sir!” Everyone on the bridge held their breath, as the technician worked his controls, a frown spreading across his face. “Triplanetary distress beacon, Captain.” Looking up at Salazar, Bowman said, “Monitor, sir.”

   “My God,” Harper replied. “We've found them.”

   “Ballard?”

   “Got her, sir,” she said. “Space-cold, and drifting a couple of million miles from our position. Too small to show up on initial scans. She's in pieces, sir. At least a dozen fragments, but some of them are large enough that compartments could have survived.”

   “Sir…,” Clarke said, but Salazar shook his head.

   “No, Sub-Lieutenant. This time I've got to go. Kris, you're with me. Just the two of us.” Before Francis could protest, he added, “This has to be, Max, so make peace with it. Continue scanning. And Clarke, prepare your landing team. Just in case we find something over there to give us a lead. I want to be ready.” Looking around the bridge, he added, “I guess we found what we came for.”

   “And her crew?”

   “There's only one place they can be,” Clarke said, “assuming they survived. Down there. Inside the sphere. We've got to go get them.”

   “We will,” Salazar said. “If they're still alive, we'll find them. Somehow.”

  Chapter 5

   Salazar worked the controls of the transfer shuttle, gently nudging the craft towards the drifting remains of Monitor. Months ago, when they had left Mars for the last time, he'd learned at the last minute that Alamo's secret mission had been to track down the missing starship, one of the most advanced in the Fleet. Now its shattered remnants drifted around the Dyson Sphere, likely destined to remain there forever, or until one of the scavengers they'd met before tore it apart for the raw materials it held.

   Harper turned to him, and said, “I suppose that ship still being here is some evidence that all isn't well inside. Surely someone would have taken a look at it before this, or cleared it from the system. Sooner or later, the orbit will degrade, and that could present a problem.”

   Shaking his head, Salazar replied, “More likely it'll end up in the black hole at some point. Besides, if the civilization down there has mastered some sort of gravity control, as impossible as that seems, setting something up to ensure that collisions are impossible would be child's play.” He looked up at the sphere again, wonder still in his eyes, and added, “It would take thousands of years to explore the interior, even from the air. Uncounted generations to walk around it. Room for civilizations to rise and fall, never knowing what lies on the far side of the map.”

   “And yet, still no response to our signals,” Harper replied. “Maybe they're all dead in there. Some sort of catastrophe. Maybe it was never even used at all, or the interior wasn't finished. Hell, we're dealing with a culture so far ahead of us...”

   “They built the wormholes,” Salazar said. “They must have done. No other explanation makes sense. And probably are the source of most of the ruins that we've found out here. Surveying expeditions, something like that.” He paused, then added, “Though that doesn't even make complete sense, not with the terraforming we've found.”
/>
   “There's a mystery here, Pavel,” Harper replied, “and I can't help but think that we won't find a way back to our own galaxy until we've uncovered it.” Gesturing at Monitor, she added, “We should think about sending in a full salvage team, once we've completed our survey. Given the circumstances, I think any concerns about security restrictions are meaningless.” Glancing at Salazar, she added, “Though I know that isn't why you came.”

   “It isn't that I don't trust Clarke. Hell, I'm planning to give him command of the first surface team, and yes, there is going to be a surface team. It just feels like this is something I've got to do for myself, and I'm not even sure why.”

   “I can tell you,” Harper said with a smile. “You were always going to end up commanding a starship sooner or later. Monitor was scheduled to go back in for more work, another eighteen months in the shipyard, based on the results of the trials Maggie was putting her through.”

   “Wait a minute,” Salazar replied. “That was meant to be my ship?”

   With a shrug, she said, “Not many command-track officers of suitable rank with the right security clearance. Though it would have been two years. After Alamo returned from whatever her original mission was meant to be.” She paused, then added, “Odd. I'm not thinking of home any more. I wonder what happened back there. For all we know, a full-scale war between the Confederation and the United Nations started when we and Waldheim failed to return.”

   “The diplomats would have kept them talking for far longer than that,” Salazar said. “Though I know what you mean.” Looking back at the slender lines of Alamo, just visible in the distance, he continued, “I'm luckier than almost everyone. Most of my friends are out here with me, and Alamo's the nearest thing to a home I've ever known.” He paused, then added, “Wedding's rescheduled for this evening, by the way. Smaller, this time. Lower key. Just a dozen or so of us. I offered to wait until we could put on more of a show, but I think the two of them just want it over with.”