THREE
THE NEW ROUEN SYSTEM, VICTOR SECTOR
06/27/2354
They left hyperspace a long way from the star shown on the Federation’s maps as Victor 3A13, a dozen or so degrees beyond the ecliptic plane, at the edge of the calculated safety field. The Nomad’s captain preferred to enter the system at a neutral point, in order to fly to the distant Delta, keeping well away from any deep-space debris. Today, when state-of-the-art navigational systems could calculate jumps with the accuracy of the location of the departure point from subspace close to a billion miles per light-year, they could approach any system without the need of using wormholes and the risk of coming across the remains of battles waged ages ago, or flying straight into a trap set by long-dead defenders. All they needed was to travel down a traditional route to the neighboring planetary system and make the last jump using tachyonic hyperspace drive. There was a downside to this, though, and a serious one at that—the flight at subluminal speed had to be longer, because the points of departure were usually located very far from the destination.
On the third standard day after arriving in the system, Morrisey showed up on the upper deck and right away dropped into the worn-out commander’s chair. Annataly was still reading off data from distant reconnaissance probes, which had been shot off toward all the libration points in the system two days earlier. Iarrey was cataloguing the results, and Bourne and Nike were biding their time at the spare control panels, occasionally checking selected readings. The chaplain and the other cadets had still not been woken. Before the rest came out of hibernation, the Nomad’s automated systems had examined the entire planetary system. Now all that was left for people to do was to analyze the data and get to work.
“When will we have the full picture?” Morrisey asked, having fastened his seatbelt.
“In around five standard minutes,” Iarrey answered.
Morrisey nodded, stuck a lump of something olive green into his mouth and started to chew on it.
“I’m waiting, First Officer,” he said suddenly, and then spat into the grating beneath the main screen.
“It hasn’t even been a minute,” Iarrey replied, slightly ruffled.
“All depends on how you look at it,” the captain retorted enigmatically, activating the panoramicon.
The curved walls of the bridge changed color and in a few seconds became transparent. During so-called transparent flight close to a planet, disorientation affects a few percent of experienced astronauts, but in space it’s not a problem. Nothing disturbs the inner ear, particularly when the equipment on the bridge allows one to establish reference points, hypothetical vertical and horizontal planes.
The center of a planetary system with a single G4-type star was directly in front of the ship’s bow. The screens displayed the iridescent green orbits of all the planets and their satellites, and the routes of most heavenly bodies passing through the proximal space in their eternal trek through the Universe, which were marked in red. There was some deep-space debris, but not enough to spoil the impression of being out in a vacuum.
“We have the proper cluster in orbit of the system’s fourth planet,” Iarrey said. “The parameters agree with the baseline data. Most of the wreckage, around ninety-seven percent of predicted mass, remains in the zone. However, I have a few readings outside the L-point. Some of the scrap is already beginning to get out of the gravitational trap. Just a few more years, and—”
“Don’t get carried away, Iarrey,” the captain interrupted him. “What about the mines?”
“The probes were sent forty-seven hours ago, and we’ve localized traces of sixteen of the twenty fields mentioned in the intercepted reports of the colonists. The four remaining ones may not exist any longer.”
“As far as I know, no entire minefield has ever disappeared or been detonated,” the captain murmured, clawing his prosthesis. “I’m not moving my arse from here until you have all the obstacles located.”
Iarrey shrugged and continued to check the data on his control panel.
“What do we do with the fields we’ve located?” he asked a moment later.
“What do you think? Get rid of the shit.”
You can’t hear anything in a vacuum, but the views are gorgeous was how the Academy’s lecturers praised the system navigation. Now their words took on a new light. The myriads of nanoscouts accompanying the probes entered the nuclear minefields, which had been planted a hundred and thirty years earlier to prevent access. The inky-black void suddenly flashed with an explosion of colors. It wasn’t anything like a firework display, but it was nonetheless enchanting. Dozens of explosions merging with one another, slowly waning plasma, a halo with colors much more vivid than a rainbow’s. Had today’s technology existed a century before, strike team number one would have cut through the minefield like a laser beam through paper. Unfortunately, Admiral Tahomey could only rely on luck, which is why today some one hundred and eighty wrecks of various kinds were orbiting a planet whose original name no one remembered anymore.
“We’ve got coordinates for the remains of the four minefields, which were entered by strike team number one,” announced Annataly, who had also begun processing the data. “Actually they don’t exist. The wrecks detonated most of the mines left after the first pass, and the ones that didn’t explode then are sure not to go off now.”
“You can never be sure, honey bunny,” Morrisey muttered. “Do you have any readings for active mines left inside the junk belt?”
“No more than ten,” Annataly replied.
“Do we have visuals?”
“Sure.”
On the panoramicon appeared images showing the distribution of hypothetically undetonated mines. All the representations were calibrated so as not to disorientate the viewers. Suddenly, the Delta grew much bigger, as though in a fraction of a second they had traveled millions of miles. Then they “moved” quickly around the globe, switching to the frequencies used by different probes.
“Mr. Bourne?”
The short question was enough for the officer to treat everyone to a brief lecture on how to neutralize each mine. It was packed full of technical terminology and mathematical formulae, but the point was straightforward and could have been expressed in a few words: they couldn’t use the collapsars for remote gathering in of all the wreckage without running the risk of random explosions and spreading the remains outside the zone.
“When will the H-probes be in place?” Morrisey asked.
“The first wave is already in orbit, the mapping of the libration point was finished fifteen minutes ago,” Iarrey answered calmly as usual.
The microprobes of the holovisualization network allowed them to create a 3D map of the whole zone and to assess the situation.
“Let’s have a look.” The first officer switched the panoramicon over to the view transmitted by the probes’ synchronized cameras.
In the blink of an eye they were right in the center of the junk belt. The wrecked ships and flotsam created a dense field spreading out over an area of thousands of cubic miles around the Lagrangian point, in the form of an amazing—and quite solid—metal and plastic structure. Only shreds remained of the majority of the vessels, particularly the smaller ones; destruction initiated by the enemy’s lasers had been completed by Nature itself. Endless collisions with neighboring wrecks had transformed the once proud ships into a scrap heap. The crew members of the Nomad watched a series of similar images in silence. From time to time they could make out the torn-open and disemboweled hulls of corvettes and destroyers. Too damaged, however, to be worth taking a closer look.
“Welcome to Monsieur Lagrange’s hell,” Morrisey commented sarcastically. “Here the treasures of the past await their discoverers, and death—losers.”
While the probes were transmitting almost identical images of the field of a long-forgotten battle that had been fought a hundred and thirty years earlier, Iarrey was localizing further mines and preparing to remotely detonate the ones which didn’t have bulks of scrap in their vicinity.
They scoured the zone systematically, but it was fifteen minutes before anything caught their eye. The plump hull of an ancient battleship sailed majestically out of the planet’s shadow cone. Morrisey, who was just entering the activation codes for more nanoscouts, immediately ordered the image to be projected onto the main screen and had less important information removed from it. The nearest probes were only a few miles from the well-preserved bow of the battleship, which meant that Nike could easily read off the clearly visible number and even part of the name, which for many people was still a symbol of the victorious fight for unification. The huge battleship seemed untouched. Even the impact of the heavy fragments of other vessels couldn’t damage such a powerful sheathing—and they hadn’t yet seen any wrecks bigger than the flagship’s in this part of the libration point. The battleship, revolving slowly around its axis, soon filled the entire screen. It seemed to be sailing right under the Nomad’s bridge, although in reality over a billion miles still separated the two ships.
Morrisey sprawled in his chair, smiling imperiously.
“Mr. Stachursky, what do we have here?” he asked.
“FSS Odin, pennant number BS 61, Admiral Tahomey’s flagship,” Nike recited from memory. “One million one hundred sixty thousand tons of displacement mass, actual hull length eight hundred ten yards, diameter at its widest point seventy-two yards, weaponry …”
“That’s enough,” Morrisey interrupted, still grinning. “To put it briefly, this is our El Dorado! Timeworn, but not exhausted.”
The captain’s prosthesis pointed at the screen.
Right then they saw the darkened, jagged edges of just one of many immense holes in the sheathing, which extended from amidships to the narrowing of the propulsion section.