Darklight Pirates
Chapter Eighteen

“Is that wise, sir? You need a crew on the panels to execute a safe Lift.” Bridget Sullivan shifted her weight from foot to foot, looking anxiously at the empty stations around the bridge.

“It’s necessary, Captain.” Donal Tomlins settled the control helmet on his head, fit himself into the dreadnought’s neural network managing every facet aboard the vessel, then reached out to wipe away layer after layer of the HUD until only the one used by the captain to calculate entry into a StringSpaceLift remained floating in front of him. The blank numbers mocked him, taunted him to make a mistake, but he had done this before, pushing both the vessel and himself to the limits.

A slight shimmer building in the HUD caused Donal to frown. Eyes half shut, brain lost in the neural jungle that remained of the Shillelagh, he reached out to the virtual controls on the HUD with his haptic gloved hands. The holographic knobs and sliders felt sticky; that was Sullivan’s choice. He altered the virtual feel to one of hardness. Some knobs turned into knurled cylinders, others vibrated and finally he brought up a virtual warmth on the most important one. A large button hung in midair, white and warm and impossible to ignore. Satisfied the faux touch gave him the instant recognition he needed, often without actually looking at the knobs, he worked through settings and brought everything into crystal clear focus.

The white button predominated. He changed the readout on the Lift calculator to red and floated it next to one in green. When the two displays matched readings the helmet fed him from a third computer, he took a deep breath to steady himself. All three had to agree exactly or the ship might be lost in space and time beyond all rescue. For a Lift of such duration, any slight mistake would doom them.

Other than the digital readouts on the display, only two other controls shone with equal intensity. Touching one would launch the Shillelagh into StringSpaceLift and the other would sound an emergency alarm. To the best of his knowledge, there had never been an alarm sounded on any LiftShip.

“At least let me double check your work, sir.” Captain Sullivan chewed her lower lip as she stared into the HUD for some hint as to his accuracy.

“No one can know our destination.”

“It has to be in the ship’s computer, sir.”

Donal said nothing. He had worked diligently as Programmer General to be certain the coordinates of their destination never recorded anywhere. To chase the will-o’-the-wisp numbers would prove a futile effort because of his safeguards. The calculations would erase instantly upon entering StringSpaceLift. He carried the spatial coordinates in his own memory and protected that with a special permanent k-chip. Most knowledge chips imparted detailed information. This one would erase his mind, or at least the section in the prefrontal cortex with the coordinates. If anyone tried to scan his brain, the k-chip would expand the erasure throughout his brain’s holographic memory ferreting out for destruction details of the most peculiar solar system ever discovered by human explorers.

He ran a new Lift simulation. Again the result came out true.

“If you don’t trust me, let your son check your work.”

“I understand your concern, Captain. Please leave the bridge, secure the door and wait for my approval to enter again.”

“Commander in Chief Tomlins can--”

“Now, Captain Sullivan, now.” Donal closed his eyes, ranged mentally throughout the inputs from all over the ship, then returned to a hundredth check for the Lift. All three computers returned identical results, to the thousandth decimal place. Even such precision might not be enough, but he had made the Lift before. Everything he saw and felt and sensed matched exactly those prior Lifts.

Donal’s attention flashed to the bridge hatch controls and saw that Sullivan had left the bridge and secured the portal as instructed. He turned complete attention to the panel floating in front of him.

The brilliant white button never varied in the HUD. He reached out. The virtual display turned substantial at his touch. His finger brushed over the warm button. Doubt hit him. He knew the Lift protocol, had followed it, attended to every detail. Still, the hesitation came from doubt. If he had missed a single step or botched a calculation, he sent them all into an unknown hell for all eternity.

He stabbed down on the heated button. The white shifted to eye-searing red, then turned white again. The chronometer showed only a fraction of a second had elapsed in their base universe.

Donal sagged in the captain’s chair. The Lift had been successful, followed by an equally successful Drop. He straightened and started an automatic scan of the solar system to be certain that he had remembered the coordinates. The chance of a successful Drop into another system was slight, but so much had gone wrong that he blamed himself for that he had to be certain.

Two Jupiter-class gas planets. Evidence of atmospheric mining with scoopships diving from orbit at the nearer one, skimming the outer layers and then retreating to transfer their load into cargo ships. He quickly moved the sensors toward the red giant star in the center of the system. Radiation levels soared. He quickly used dampers on the Shillelagh’s prow and meters dropped into acceptable levels. For the moment. He knew this was a peculiar system and that reaching the main settlement on the third planet was paramount.

His mind skipped across protocols and ignored others until he found the large ellipsoid planet tidal locked to the red star. One blunt end always faced the primary star. The other end held a domed city for more than a hundred thousand hearty souls, protected from solar radiation by the bulk of the planet’s major axis.

A quick motion brought up a different panel. His hands passed over the controls releasing the locked hatch onto the bridge. Not only Sullivan but Cletus and Leanne boiled in, all demanding at once to know what had happened.

“As you were,” Cletus snapped to silence both the captain and the envoy from Far Kingdom. “What were you thinking, Father? You’re not an astrogator. If you wouldn’t let Captain Sullivan keep the helm, I could have. I’m qualified.”

“We’re in a system so secret I cannot divulge its location. By making the Lift myself, none of you can give the coordinates if you are ever captured.”

“A few minutes work with the positioning computer will reveal our location to anyone curious enough to ask where we are,” Leanne said.

“It will take more than a few minutes. I have locked the equipment. Any attempt to determine coordinates will alert me immediately.” He knew the safeguards went beyond that. The numbers no longer existed, but he wanted to know if Leanne would make the effort to replace out. Or Cletus. Or Sullivan.

“And?” Cletus gritted his teeth.

Donal had never seen him so angry.

“I will throw anyone trying out the airlock without a suit.” He pulled off the control helmet and settled it into its cradle. Sullivan immediately took the helm and settled into the captain’s chair. “Even with a suit, you wouldn’t survive long. The entire system is awash in radiation.”

“The warbot armor would protect me.” Cletus stood with his arms crossed. The dark look he shot his father was almost comical, a petulant child denied a special treat.

“No, it won’t.” Donal stood and motioned for the captain to take command once more. “Bring us into the port on the dark side of the planet. Try not to expose us directly to the red star and its companion more than necessary.”

“What companion?” Sullivan shifted the control helmet, brought up new panels and finally looked at him. The solar image blazed holographically in the middle of the bridge as she scanned the system. “There’s only the red giant.”

“You’re missing the neutron star, but get us down and the research staff on-planet can explain better than I ever could.”

“Land? You want me to land the Shillelagh on the planet? That’s dangerous. It’s better if we go into an orbit, though it would be an eccentric one since the planet is elongated. The major and minor axes are--”

“The exposure would fry most of our electronics. The research post is equipped for a vessel this size. It routinely docks cargo ships filled with methane, ammonia and whatever else they mine on the outer gas giants.”

“There isn’t much atmosphere,” Sullivan said, working her panels to get what information she could. “Some sort of structure has been built in a ring around the planet. I’m detecting small steering jets holding it in precise orbit. Is that a space-borne cyclotron?”

“Avoid getting within a thousand kilometers of the accelerator ring. You have no idea what that cost to build,” Donal said.

When the captain cocked her head to one side and began barking orders to the other officers trailing onto the bridge without further questions, Donal knew she had been contacted by the approach coordinator on Scrutiny. He reached to the HUD and entered the authorization code. When the indicator blinked green, he stripped off his gloves and dropped them in the cradle behind the captain’s chair.

Donal motioned to his son. He hesitated when Leanne trailed behind, alert to whatever might be said. For a moment, he considered ordering her away, then saw the glances between them. Whatever he told Cletus, even in confidence, would be shared with Leanne Chang. Donal wondered when that bond had been forged since it hadn’t been as obvious prior to leaving the Ballymore system. They had fought together and had saved each other from serious injury--even death. That was one bond, but he felt that a more amorous one had developed from the way they brushed shoulders and tried to appear nonchalant about it. Even the set to their bodies told him a great deal. If he had the ship’s computer analyze the body language, it would not give him any more information than he gathered through his own observations.

In the com room adjoining the bridge, he sank into the com officer’s chair and let the others stand. The tiredness that filled him was more intense than anything he had ever experienced, even when he had participated in iron man competitions three decades earlier. He had won his share of those, and he had certainly won again today, getting them away from Weir’s interceptors.

“I deserve to know where we are. I am Commander in Chief Armed Forces. Either trust me or remove me.” Cletus looked more belligerent than usual. Donal thought part of the aggressively fierce attitude was intended to impress Leanne. If so, his son had a great deal to learn about what sparked her emotions.

Donal saw more than bluster would be necessary to accomplish that. He had never encountered anyone quite like Leanne before. The closest he had come was Kori. The two shared a banked fire that could scorch worlds if brought out. He closed his eyes for a moment, tried not to think of his wife and daughters back in Burran, and failed. In spite of Cletus’ report on the abortive prison compound raid, he refused to believe Kori was dead or even a prisoner.

“Cool down,” Donal said. He was exhausted physically and mentally, and his patience wore thin. “If it becomes necessary to give you the coordinates, I will do so, with all the proper checks to be sure you cannot reveal them should you be interrogated.”

“An interesting development,” mused Leanne. “A reverse k-chip? Your brain will be erased if undue coercion is applied?”

Donal ignored her. She cut to the heart of every matter with seeming ease. With such insights, she might be using Cletus as a stepping stone to more than information for her Supreme Leader. After all, she had been included in a briefing he would rather not give even to his own son. For the first time, he wished he had learned more of her background before leaving Far Kingdom. Out here, hundreds of thousands of parsecs away from both Far Kingdom and Ballymore, he had no way of accessing a database with that information.

“What’s she mean, Father? Your memory will be erased if anyone tries to replace about this system?”

“It’s called Scrutiny. The planet, at least. There is a star catalog designation for the red giant and its companion.”

“There is no sign of a second star. You mentioned a neutron star. Such a gravitational field would have become apparent the instant we Dropped.”

“Comrade Chang, be quiet.”

“I won’t have you talking to her like that, Father!”

“I can order you both put in the brig.” Donal took a deep breath. He let their attitudes annoy him. Cletus was angry and defensive about Leanne, and she retained an analytical detachment that any scientist would be pleased with. He thought her more as a spy now than a scientist, though she made no effort to hide how she soaked up data from all around her.

“I’m sorry,” Donal went on. “You’re right about the difficulty of a Lift and how it wears you down.”

“Doing it without a crew to back you up is especially exhausting,” Leanne said.

“Captain Sullivan will have us docked soon enough. There is only a slight atmosphere on Scrutiny, and it is toxic, more plasma than gas. The research station itself is mostly underground, though the domed part above looks grand. The buildings poking up, towers and array dishes, all feed into the accelerator ring orbiting Scrutiny. As to the neutron star, it’s lodged in the middle of the red giant. This is a double star system of the most peculiar kind.”

“A TZO system,” Leanne said. “I have heard of such a thing, but no Far Kingdom astronomer or explorer has found one.”

“What’s that? TZO?” Cletus looked confounded by what he heard.

“It’s a Thorne-Zytko Object, though some astronomers seem to refer to the O as the red giant’s classification. I’m not an expert.” Donal tried to remain calm. As in so many things, Leanne appeared a lap ahead of him. Had she overloaded her brain with k-chips or was this preternatural knowledge of her ... natural? He watched her closely, trying to fathom what went on inside her head. That she moved a little closer to his son gave Donal a new factor to use. Cletus was drawn to her as much as she was to him.

“It is O-star then?” Leanne pursed her lips as she processed the information.

“The theoretical basis for such a system goes back to earth almost five hundred years. There might be a dozen in the entire Milky Way, but none was ever found there.” Donal paused for effect. “We aren’t in our galaxy any longer. We’re in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud.”

“The theoretical limit for a StringSpaceLift,” she said, nodding. “Or have you pushed that farther? No, the Shillelagh is not a specially equipped exploration vessel. The theory is shaky, though all the probes Far Kingdom has sent out to this limit never returned.”

“How many were there?” Donal saw her start to answer, then bite back information that would give away the extent of her home world’s ambitions among the stars. “It’s possible your ships were more interested in discovering alien races instead of basic research--and disturbed them.”

“Hostile aliens?” Cletus perked up, replaceing a topic of more interest. “The only ones we’ve discovered were planet-bound, and they were not overtly antagonistic.”

“Six,” Leanne said.

“Five.” Cletus looked hard at her. “We’ve only found five alien cultures.”

Donal wondered if this was an inadvertent slip on Leanne’s part or if she dangled bait to gain more information. All five of the races known to Ballymore had been discovered over the past fifty years. In her quest for ever more information, she might have dropped an untruth to see what response it provoked.

“I mean that we have encountered six hostile alien races. Taken with the five known to your world, that equals eleven.” Leanne glanced around the com room, as if the screens would light up with data about a twelfth.

“There’s no native life on Scrutiny,” Donal said. “The conditions so close to such a massive star prevented any intelligent life, at least. We came here to set up a basic research outpost.”

“The neutron star once circled the red giant?” Leanne looked upset. “That does not square with any planetary dynamics I have learned.”

“This system is atypical in many ways. If you like, the researchers can tell you what you want to know.” Donal reached out to the comlink and worked to tap in a long coded sequence. “That warns them I’m aboard and to get suitable quarters prepared. They have quite a base here, but it is Spartan compared to what I’m used to, even aboard the Shillelagh.” He chuckled. “And it lets them know we’re not a pirate ship.”

“Pirates out here? I’m not even sure where here is,” Cletus said. He face broke into a smile as he understood the precautions. “You gave them acknowledgment we didn’t steal the coordinates or forced the ship to come here.”

“This is a top secret facility. The people here volunteered for a one-way trip. All are dedicated scientists in many fields ...”

“And their children? Or is it possible with the radiation that floods this world for healthy births to occur?” Leanne glanced at Cletus and then back. She forced her face into a neutral mask, but Donal understood her concern.

“The bulk of the planet shields everyone from the worst of the radiation, and those born on this world are normal.” He chuckled at that. “As normal as possible being raised surrounded by the top scientists in a hundred areas of cutting edge science.”

“How did you get them away from Burran without causing an uproar?”

“Scrutiny originally was settled over a span of two decades. And I am quite capable as Programmer General. The yearly census is a minor subroutine. Those who came here either never existed as far as Burran is concerned or, if they were well known, officially they died of natural causes or in terrible accidents.”

“But the ships necessary to ferry so many here,” protested Cletus. “I would have noticed.”

“Most of the transfer of such intellect happened before you began your training. Some suspected. I think Weir did, but his inclination was more toward traitors being executed than scientists hidden away for the purpose of advancing our knowledge. Or maybe he thinks I am a gigantic fraud and stole the money for my own use.”

“Your secret knowledge. What have they found?”

Donal received the return ping.

“We’re docking in a few minutes. Quite a reception committee will be there to greet us. I think you’ll replace notable discoveries have been made.” He herded Cletus and Leanne from the com room onto the bridge. Under his breath he said, “Truly extraordinary discoveries.”