2954-01-28 – Tales from the Service: A Cloud in the Dark
Now that Nojus’s spate of text feed brigandage has run its course, it’s time for the submission I had initially intended to publish for the last episode of last year. Intervening weeks have given me a chance to check with Naval Intelligence in an attempt to verify the story further, but I regret that this has been rather inconclusive. One of my contacts thinks it’s ridiculous on its face, but another thinks it may be genuine. I am not able to access any official reports to back up or disprove the account, nor am I able to confirm the identity of the sender is in fact the helmsman of the vessel named (though as far as I can tell all names are those of personnel posted to the ship).
[N.T.B.] - One man’s brigandage is another’s livening the feed. Reader feedback suggests a rather positive reaction to Miss Swan’s account, in any case.
As Georgi Rye went through the startup checklist for his little ship’s Himura drive, a flutter of the readout values on one side of the console caught his eye. He paused and watched that panel for a few seconds, but the fluctuation didn’t repeat.
“Strange.” He muttered, resuming the procedure.
The skipper stirred in her command chair. “Problem, Mr. Rye?” Lieutenant Anastasia Kato, Raywhite’s commander, rarely paid attention during mundane non-combat routines, preferring instead to work on her backlog of forms and approvals from the screen in her station’s arm-rest. Apparently this time, she was actually focused on the jump, though it was one of many deep-space point to point transits they’d need to make before they had any hope of finding enemy ships.
“I don’t think so, Skipper.” Georgi turned around in his chair. “Thought we were going into gravitic flux for a minute, but that wouldn’t make any sense.”
“It wouldn’t.” Kato nodded, but a frown creased her thin face. “Still, it’s not impossible. This area of Sagittarius isn’t charted, and we’re only two ly from the nearest star. Mr. Sokol, run an active sweep, just to be sure.”
“Aye.” Will Sokol tapped a few buttons on the sensor control console.
The chances of running into anything more than a few light-hours from a star were astronomically remote, even in uncharted space, but Georgi agreed with his skipper in not wanting to win the bad luck lottery. Any significant gravitic flux would drastically reduce the accuracy of their Himura jump, and if a little ship like Raywhite managed to get off course and suffer an equipment problem, they’d be dead for sure; the fleet would never be able to find them.
While Sokol ran the sweep, Georgi continued his drive startup procedure, computing the jump in their mission plan as he’d previously started to. Most likely, the sensors would find nothing, and the ship would make another uneventful jump. If Sokol did find anything that would throw those computations into question, he’d have plenty of time to recalculate.
“Sweep complete.” Sokol didn’t sound surprised. "There’s nothing- wait.”
Five pairs of eyes fixed the sensor operator in an instant.
The skipper’s scowl, which hadn’t faded in the intervening minute, deepened. “Please elaborate.”
“Not sure, Skipper. Seeing some anomalous infrared readings. It’s almost like it started after the sweep. Whatever it is, it’s low grade, and big. It’s at least a hundred klicks out, and still covers about thirty degrees of arc to starboard.”
Kato sat back in her chair, as if thinking. “Nothing on visual scopes?”
“Nothing. Not even star occlusion. Got to be a gas cloud of some kind, something that absorbs radio bands.”
“Ah, Skipper.” Georgi held up his hand. “If there’s a cloud out there that absorbs our active sensor signal, there could be nearly anything inside or behind it.”
“But nothing blocks gravitic flux.” Sokol shook his head. “And that’s right at local baseline. Means if there is anything out there, it’s not heavy enough or close enough to interfere with the star drive.”
“Still, it is prudent to gain some distance before we bring the Himura online.” The skipper turned to Georgi. “Bring the mains online. Come about to port and give us eight gees. And Mr. Sokol, keep our instruments aimed at this cloud, or whatever it is.”
“Aye, Skipper. Eight gees.” Georgi switched his console over to maneuvering control and laid in a course away from the anomaly. Eight gees being less than half of the maximum acceleration of an assault cutter like Raywhite, there was no indication of the change except for the twirling of various holographic situation plots.
“I wonder what it’s made of.” Sokol muttered as the distance to the cloud grew. “There aren’t many simple compounds that absorb radio that completely. Almost has to be organic. And nearly uniform.”
“We aren’t here on a research trip.” Kato reminded him. “Mark its coordinates in the navcomputer. If Fleet is half as curious as you, they’ll send someone to have a look.”
Georgi was about to turn away from the console, but once again the gravitic flux readings fluttered up above nominal for just a moment. This time, he was looking at it, and saw the maximum reading before it subsided – Point nine Mahans. It wasn’t much – enough to cause minor jump error, perhaps – but it was a hundred times higher than should have been possible, in the current environs.
“Flux reading came back for a moment.” Georgi turned to the Lieutenant. “I think... I think there’s something out there.”