******
Julius awoke from his slumber to the sound of beeping. He rubbed his eyes and retracted the seat from its prone position. He saw Murdock stir awake in the other seat. Julius the alarm on the navigation computer.
He half-expected to experience another dream, perhaps something from his days at CSOW. But his sleep was not invaded with any such dreams this time. On the forward display, he could see the beginning of the junk field approach. He opened the conference channel.
“Wake up, pilots,” he said. “It’s time to earn your pay. Everyone report in.”
He waited for the groggy bunch to acknowledge.
“Ahead is a debris field that we must navigate. It is not an ordinary debris field. Inside this field is a gravitational anomaly that will wreak havoc on your navigation controls. You will not be able to navigate through it unless you do exactly as I say. What lies beyond is our home base. There is no turning back now.”
“We’re with you, Captain,” Reece said.
“Good,” Julius said. “Because, like I said, there is no turning back. If you do not survive this, it will be because of one of two reasons: you did not follow my orders precisely or you attempted to turn back. The gravitational anomaly inside the field is composed of complex gravity streams.
“These streams will propel you deeper into the chasm. Once we penetrate the field, the only navigation you do will be the jumps onto the adjoining gravity streams that I instruct you to take. If you do not follow my instructions exactly, you will lose control of your ship and become a permanent part of the debris.
“If you attempt to turn back and flee, you will be blown apart. I want you to divert your attention to the aft section of your ships. Attached to each of you are explosives that I can detonate remotely.”
“Damn it, Julius,” Reece growled. “We gave our word! This is bullshit!”
“Nevertheless,” Julius said. “You have seen our home base. Nobody gets to fly home with that secret.”
Julius closed the link and turned to Murdock.
“Is the link-up ready?” he asked.
Murdock nodded.
Julius reopened the conference channel.
“Your navigation computer is now linked up with ours and sharing telemetry. My ship will give you advance notice of the jumps so that you can prepare. It will also give you guidance on proper thrust velocity and course vectors for changing streams. Follow my lead; we will be hitting the outer ring of debris in thirty seconds.”
The group of ships followed Merciless Errands as it headed into the anomaly. As they approached it, they could see the debris seemingly rattle against an invisible barrier.
“The insertion is relatively easy,” Julius said. “Just follow my lead and match my moves precisely, no matter how unusual they may seem.”
Julius grabbed the controls firmly and prepared himself.
“Don’t worry,” Reece said. “Just don’t fly backwards and we’ll be shadowing your six.”
“Five seconds,” Murdock said.
“Get ready, pilots,” Julius said.
Merciless Errands shot ahead, leaving a hazy trail of blue plasma in its wake. The ship maneuvered into an open area in between larger pieces of debris. The others followed closely behind, in a straight-line formation.
The lead ship, without slowing, made a sudden climb, traversing closely against a stationary debris wall; the other ships followed, accurately matching his maneuver. The group hugged the debris wall, skidding and adjusting their trajectories to avoid other transient pieces of debris in their path.
Julius timed the next maneuver in his mind—he was so well practiced in it that he did not even need the computer’s guidance anymore. He made a sudden, aggressive skid to the right—just missing a collision with another debris wall in their path. The other ships appeared to have made it—well, at least no explosions registered on his tactical.
“How are they?” Julius asked Murdock.
“Good so far,” he said. “They’re matching your moves accurately. Not bad considering they’re probably hungover.”
“How did you know they were drunk?”
“I can smell the alcohol on you from here. Figured that’s why you were gone so long.”
“Sorry I couldn’t bring you along. Next time.”
“Yeah, the least you could have done is bring me some fresh alcohol. The stuff that comes out of the dispenser on the Sea Wolf tastes like it was filtered through someone’s ass.”
Julius smiled. “You’re not getting top shelf on a pirate ship.”
“Ha! I bet Laina has top shelf,” Murdock said with a snort. “Coming up on the first stream.”
The squadron slowed, their thrusters breaking their inertia until they came to a halt in front of another debris barrier. This time, the debris was moving rapidly in a straight, uniform line across their horizon.
“Gentlemen, you have done well,” Julius said.
“Yeah, for a bunch of rookies,” Murdock chided.
Julius shot him a silencing look—Murdock could get away with a lot more than most, but even he would back down from that stare. Julius needed the pilots focused, and angering them would be a distraction.
“What you went through so far was the easy part, now comes the real challenge,” Julius said. “This place has several thousand different gravity streams, each carrying debris in unique patterns. It has taken me years to map them—and I have only been able to learn a mere fraction of what is out here. Fortunately, you will only need to learn how to navigate three streams to get to where we’re going. What you see before you now is what we call Stream 1; beyond it are Streams 2 and 3. Each stream has two polarities operating in tandem. One part of the stream flows in one direction, the other in the exact opposite direction—essentially, two-way traffic. We will insert ourselves into Stream 1 and cut power. The gravity anomaly will take us to the next stream, along with the rest of the junk. You cannot maneuver inside the stream. Do not attempt to fly it, it will fly you.”
Julius heard one of the pilots snort.
“Sounds easy you think?” Julius said. “I will tell you that the only thing that’s easy out here is a trip to the Milky Way Farm. Look around pilots, some of what floats out here was once a hotshot pilot like you. They decided not to listen to their captain, so now when Wolf Squadron flies out here, they wave at the rookie remains. So go ahead and wave now, pay your respects to the former members of Wolf Squadron. Do it now while you are still the one doing the waving, instead of the one being waved at.”
They stayed silent for a moment.
Murdock turned to him. “I think they must have shit themselves, boss.”
“Just follow my direction and instruction,” he continued. “We do this one at a time. I will go first.”
Julius activated his propulsion and aimed the ship toward the debris stream. He put the ship under an empty patch of the stream, matching its speed with the debris flying overhead.
He cut off power, his inertia kept him moving. The influence of the gravity stream pulled him in gradually and merged Merciless Errands into the empty patch within it, dragging it along like a leaf floating on water.
“Reece, you’re next,” Julius said.
“Okay, mates,” Reece said. “I’ll see you all in hell.”
Reece’s ship shot out toward the stream. He carefully maneuvered himself under the debris stream, following its speed and course. Instead of easing himself up into the field, he did a quick burst from his ventral thrusters, and then countered with opposing thrusters once he was in.
“Beat that mates,” Reece said. “I’m still the best pilot of the bunch, even when my ship has the maneuverability of a space tug.”
“We’ll see about that,” one of the pilots said. “I’m next right?”
“Yes,” Julius said. “But no showing off, this is more dangerous than it looks.”
“Yeah, listen to the man, Tash,” Reece said. “Besides, you can’t
top my flying anyway, so don’t bother trying.”
“Can that!” Julius said. “You will have plenty of other opportunity to prove yourselves.”
“We’ll see about that one, Reece,” Tash said, ignoring Julius.
Tash thrustered ahead. He maneuvered under and then into the field, pushing the thrusters harder than necessary just to beat Reece’s time.
“See?” Tash said. “I can out fly you any day, Reece. I should be the one commanding this group.”
“Turn your stabilizer propulsion off!” Julius growled.
Tash’s ship began to spin and bounce inside the debris field uncontrollably.
“It’s… I can’t control it,” Tash said, his voice rising.
The ship began to wobble wildly, drifting close to the surrounding rock debris.
“Turn your auto-stabilizers off” Julius said. “Do not try to fight it or you will plunge into the debris. Shut it all off!”
“Do what he said, mate!” Reece said.
Tash’s cut power and the ship began to stabilize. The influence of the gravity stream took his ship in with the rest of the debris and pushed it along.
“I hope that reckless act of stupidity illustrates my point,” Julius said. “I trust I don’t have to repeat myself now.”
A grunt of acknowledgement answered him back. The rest of the pilots carefully inserted themselves. The gravity stream carried the whole group through the immense field safely.
“This is almost like public transportation,” Reece said. “It’s remarkable.”
The group made it into Stream 2 without incident, letting it pull it along to the final leg of the journey. They soon reached the juncture for the next stream.
“All right,” Julius said. “At the end of this stream, we will need to make an aggressive maneuver. Stream Two and Three plunge directly into each other, so if we stay on it we’ll be showered by debris from Stream Three—and you will be destroyed in seconds.”
“The gravity in this stream is powerful; the slightest resistance to it will cause you to bounce madly. We cannot maneuver in the field until the moment that we begin to intersect with the opposing stream; that is where the gravity is its weakest.”
“When we reach the end of the stream, follow my moves as closely as possible. Once we clear the stream, we will be away from the debris fields and the influence of the gravity fields.”
“Wait a second,” Reece said. “Can we use our propulsion to adjust our trajectory now? We might not even be facing the debris in the right direction when we get there.”
“No,” Julius said. “You can’t. Use your instruments to adjust your trajectory when we hit the end of the stream. If you try to now, you will spin out of control.”
“Understood,” Reece said.
“Use dynamic imaging,” Julius said. “That way you can see the image your trajectory is facing.”
“Oh, uh, yeah,” Reece said.
Julius frowned. They should have been using a self-correcting image so that they could always look at their trajectory no matter what their rotation.
Looking ahead, Julius saw that they neared the end of their stream. Beyond it, the opposing stream’s debris showered into their stream. The boulders of rock from the conflicting streams smashed into each other at full force. Particle fragments bloomed out from the constant collisions, spewing variable amounts of debris outward in all directions.
Any ejected matter that drifted under Stream 2 would be grabbed by a reversed gravity influence, taking it back along the stream’s path to its insertion point.
“Get ready, pilots,” Julius said.
Merciless Errands reached the end of the stream. Julius kicked in his engines. Julius bounced his ship on all its axises using the dynamic imaging in his cockpit to adjust his course out of the field. He soon broke free from the deadly debris and was out of the gravitational anomaly’s influence. The ship sped out into the emptier space ahead.
“How are they doing?” Julius said to Murdock.
“They’re managing,” Murdock said. He paused. “Not bad. They’re out.”
“Congratulations, pilots,” Julius said. “You made it.”
The other ships took up positions flanking Merciless Errands on both sides. They flew gracefully in a delta formation, following the lead ship into the darkness ahead.
“What the?” Reece said. “I’m seeing something big and nasty ahead. It looks like a capital ship—be ready to pull out of here!”
Julius looked ahead and smiled. The only thing on the horizon was the Sea Wolf. He only hoped that he could get the same reaction from his enemies.
Chapter 5: Eruptions From The Past
“You have to remember, they were difficult times. There was overpopulation, environmental disasters, economic disasters, distrust among worlds, just to name a few of the problems of the time. Sometimes insane times call for insane solutions, and that’s when Majesty came through.”
Excerpt from the personal memoirs of Richard Denkin, former first President of the United Earth Parliament