******
En route to the bridge, Julius dispatched some repair crew to begin working on Laina’s quarters. He left Laina there cursing about the stench.
Julius entered the bridge and began inspecting the damaged areas. It appeared that the majority of the bridge had been repaired. The main viewscreen was functioning again, and he even had a command chair.
Satisfied with his inspection, he went over, sat in his newly replaced command chair—and was immediately disappointed. It was an old spare that bore an ugly yellow color that painted it with the clumpy consistency of dark mustard. The irritation of the color paled in comparison with the uncomfortable thump he would feel all the way up his spine from the aging antigravity motors as they sputtered in their death throes trying to keep him elevated above the floor. Further contributing to his discomfort, the chair occasional drifted off axis causing it to give an occasional bump as it rebalanced itself.
He heard the bridge doors open and saw Laina enter. She came over silently and stood to his side. Julius could see a disappointed look on her face as she took notice that there was nowhere for her to sit; her command chair module had not yet been replaced from their elevator breakout incident.
Laina paced the bridge looking at displays, watching over the shoulders of annoyed officers as they tried to ignore her.
“You sure you want to be here?” Julius said finally. “The bridge is no place to loiter about and the stellar jump is likely to upset your equilibrium.”
“I’m not staying in my quarters; the stench in there is putrid!” Laina barked. “This ship is half mine, and if I wish to loiter anywhere on it, I will do so at my own authority and discretion.”
The last she said loudly enough to turn a few heads.
“Of course, Laina,” Julius said, raising an eyebrow. “I’m just trying to look after your safety.”
“I don’t need anyone to look after my safety,” Laina snapped. “Just get on with the mission—you’re wasting time.”
Julius turned his head with a sneer. “Of course, my queen. Jessen, are we ready to jump?”
“Yes, Captain. I have the coordinates that Von Haufsberg gave us and the gravity amps are fully powered and ready to go.”
“Take us out, but keep us in the stealth shroud.”
“Yes, sir.”
The bridge lights went green and he felt the sensation of being in freefall. A tingling ran down his arms and legs, and for a moment, he thought was going to fall out of his chair; instinctively, he gripped on the armrests tightly.
At that moment, he felt a hard shudder and the lights in the bridge went dark. He could hear the whine of the gravity generators pitch up uncomfortably, piercing through the ambient sounds of the bridge. The lights around him came back on, but they remained dimly lit. Another shudder reverberated, and Julius could see the bridge actually buckle around him as he floated above, safely avoiding the sudden vibrations. The main viewscreen showed them out of the asteroid field but in deep space somewhere.
Julius glanced over at Laina, and to his surprise, he found her still standing on her feet despite the episode, holding on to a handrail for support.
“Report?” Julius shouted over the annoying sound of the generators.
“Our jump was interrupted, sir,” Jessen said.
“Obviously, Lieutenant. What’s wrong?”
Jessen’s hands operated his console. “Some kind of gravity well—I think.”
“Is it natural or man-made?”
“Captain, I am picking up something on the scope,” Ramey interrupted. “Hostiles in the shroud.”
“Jessen?” Julius said.
“Our stealth is not compromised, sir,” he assured. “But the well appears to be artificial. It is causing some stress on the gravity generators, but no damage to the ship so far.”
“The well is emanating from the hostiles,” Ramey said. “I can identify some of them—UEP forces. And some Martian Confed. Mostly capital ships. A lot of them.”
Julius looked at the viewscreen and could see reticles overlaying the positions of the invisible ships as they patrolled this section of space. The ships of the two old enemies circled each other’s paths slowly, apparently playing the military game of cat and mouse.
“That doesn’t look like a friendly joint task force,” Julius mused aloud.
“Captain, I’m picking up something unusual on the waves,” Jared said. “I’m able to detect what appears to be some activity emanating from some of the larger ships.”
“Why is that unusual?” Julius said.
“Because I’m not picking up any activity from the smaller ones; as if the stealth of the larger ones are intentionally flawed—they’re too loud.”
Julius rubbed his chin in thought. There was something strangely familiar to him about this scenario, from back in his military career days—but he could not remember what it was; it was so long ago.
“Can’t we just get out of here?” Laina said. “We have business to take care of.”
“The only business we will be partaking in will be the business of war if we try to jump now,” Julius spat. “We have to sneak out of here until we are clear of the well and then jump.”
Julius spoke into the communication link of his chair. “Murdock, how is the ship holding up?”
“The bitch is obviously whining,” Murdock’s voice came back. “But as long as we don’t push her too much more, we should be able to stay hidden and limp along.”
“Let me know if something changes,” Julius said. “Jared, overlay a marker on the nearest ship with the loud signature. Jessen, I want you to plot a course that puts us within twenty kilometers of that ship. Make it a slow flyby. I want to get a close scan of it.”
“Uh… What are you doing?” Laina asked.
“Sneaking out, but not before learning a little bit about what is going on here.”
“Why is that important?” Laina said. “This is not our fight.”
“Laina,” Julius began to say with gritted teeth. “Stop asking me questions on the bridge.”
Laina stepped away, raising her arms in the air. “I’m only asking.”
“Captain,” Jessen interrupted. “I have our plot computed. We’re ready to sail.”
“Proceed at tactical speed,” Julius commanded. “Mind the scope. I want to know of any change in their behavior.”
The Sea Wolf slowly began to move toward the section of apparent empty space where the hostile ship patrolled. Several minutes passed quietly until Julius noticed two of the hidden ships, marked by reticles on the viewscreen, appeared to be on a collision course.
“Woah!” Ramey gasped. “They’re going to collide.”
“Jared, are you sure about the overlay positions?” Julius said.
Jared scanned his instruments again and then nodded. “Absolutely, sir. The positions are within no more than a few meters variance.”
At that moment, the two ship reticles made sharp turns to avoid their collision.
“That was close,” Ramey said.
Julius’ eyes went beady with suspicion. “Replay—a few seconds prior to their changing course.”
He studied the scene carefully as the viewscreen played back the moment before they avoided their collision.
“Ramey,” Julius said, “pull up what we have in the database on the type and class of those two ships.”
The viewscreen lit up with schematics and statistics on the two ships. On one side, the UEP vessel was a Courageous class battleship; on the other side of the screen was the Martian Confederacy ship, a Dreadnought class battleship cruiser. Julius noticed that the latter ship was a behemoth in physical dimensions and a slug to maneuver; on the other hand, the Courageous class was a nimble ship for its size.
“Jared, create a graphical overlay of the ships in their apparent courses on the screen, I want to see what it would have looked like if they were not stealthed.”
Jar
ed ran his hands across his panel, tapping and sliding away at the panels’ animated surfaces as he created the necessary computer program to reconstruct the event.
“Sir,” Jessen said. “We’re about two minutes away from our flyby.”
“Noted,” Julius said. “Jared?”
“Almost, sir, another moment.”
After a brief delay, the screen came on with a visible image of the two ships in their apparent positions.
“Now play it back again,” Julius said.
Julius watched the two ships slowly move toward each other, in a game of interstellar chicken. The momentum of the Courageous class ship seemed to slow down slightly before it made its turn to veer away. However, the Dreadnought did not slow down and only turned slightly.
“Replay it again,” Julius said. “I want a close-up of the hulls on their bow.”
The scene played again, this time showing the bows of the two ships as they did a near miss of each other.
“Is that the best shot we have?” Julius asked. “Can you give me a top-down perspective?”
Jared ran his hands across his console. “I can guess some of it from our sensor data, but it will only be 60 percent accurate from our angle. I’ll try.”
The screen changed to show a top-down view of the two vessels, with portions of the replay blacked out from incomplete data. Again, the two made their pass at each other, but from this angle, Julius could see their bows touching just prior to completing their turn.
“That can’t be right,” Ramey said.
“The data on the bows is pretty accurate,” Jared said. “We were in a good position to witness it.”
“But there was no explosion. It can’t be correct,” Ramey said.
“That’s because one of those ships is not real,” Julius said. “It’s a hologram.”
“How do you know that?” Laina asked.
“I don’t exactly remember all the details,” Julius said. “But I remember a technology being talked about, during the war with the A.I., using holographic projectors to simulate signatures of ships as a decoy.”
“But that was in the UEP, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. But many scientists defected to the Confed during the big scientific rebellion before the A.I. War erupted. They probably took the knowledge with them to the Confed.”
“But for what purpose?” Ramey jumped in. “What good is a decoy in a straight-up war?”
“It could have many applications for smaller operations,” Julius said. “But this force looks awfully big.”
“Perhaps they’re just field testing it to see if it can fool the UEP Navy,” Laina suggested.
“That’s a possibility,” Julius said. “Jared, based on our position at the time of this incident, and the positions of the other hostiles, would they have been able to see the same thing?”
Jared looked over the data on his console and shrugged. “I’m not sure, sir. I don’t know what kind of sensors those ships carry. But there is no doubt that the—”
At that moment, a brilliant explosion lit up the screen. Several Martian Confederacy ships materialized and a heavy volley of fire erupted from them. Julius could see several of the UEP ships began to materialize and return fire, but they were outnumbered by ten to one.
“Battle alert!” Julius yelled.
“We can’t, sir,” Jessen said. “We only have one generator.”
Julius cursed. For that brief moment, he had forgotten how crippled they really were.
“We’re not being fired at, sir,” Ramey assured. “It is being directed at the UEP vessels.”
“Full stop!” Julius commanded.
“Answering full stop, sir,” Jessen said. “The ship with the loud signature has moved behind the battle line with the other Martian Confed ships.”
Julius noticed that the UEP Courageous Cruiser they were scrutinizing earlier was the first one completely decimated. Julius counted a half dozen torpedoes launched at the remaining vessels. After a few moments, the battle was over and only two UEP vessels managed to escape, leaving a space filled with the carcasses of dozens of ships and undoubtedly thousands of lives lost. The bridge was completely silent, and it took Julius a moment to realize that the whining of the gravity generators had subsided.
“We are clear of the well, sir,” Jessen reported into the silence.
“What were you going to say, Jared?” Julius asked. “Before the attack?”
“I was… I was going to say there was no doubt that the Courageous class ship would have seen what we saw.”
Julius nodded. “Get us out of here, Lieutenant.”
Sighing, Julius knew that what they just witnessed would have galactic significance; it seemed no matter how hard he tried to avoid it, everywhere he went, war loomed in his future.