Quantum Surge
~~~ Book I - Jankin Decatur Series ~~~
Chapter 3: Kraken Approach
2178 C.E.
Approach B28.2.33
Astral Service Lagrange-2 Port
Colony World Kraken
Kraken and its heavy-metal moon form a natural gravitic lens directing the chaotic waves of their stellar-system into a small channel where the bedlam of universe, planet, and satellite cancel. Here lies a region of calm gravitational flow and an interstellar military port known as Lagrange-2 or more simply ‘L2’, the colony’s largest harbor. A major military and commercial port as well as a ship-building center housing over twenty-three thousand workers and their families.
On this day, all eyes within the port focused on the arrival of the commercial containership limping into port. Some expressed amazement, wondering under what laws of physics it managed to link, much less navigate home through the great gravitic chaos of the surrounding universe. Slipdrive Ships are known for beautiful, gracefully flowing lines, loveliness derived not from artistic expression but demanded by the need to minimize link-wave turbulence and simplify field uniformity calculations during flight.
Those in the port watched the apparition-like ship limp into the close confines of the port. It risked spreading its repellant-field far ahead in a bid to stabilize the craft and reach dock without discredit. The resulting iridescence flared beautifully to the casual observer but what a pitiful show their effort made to experienced spacer’s eyes.
The ship’s outer shell had been savaged. A three-deck section of her rim gone with a great tear rending it so badly that even now it vented a faint stream of air, its particles fluorescing within its spindizzy field as they swirled about a jagged framing girder ripped out and projecting from her wound into raw vacuum like a defiant, uplifted finger.
The gravitic forces of the universe transformed the normally soft-blue iridescence of a healthy slipdrive field into a churning maelstrom of colors, sparkling as they swirled about the wound, draining life-giving atmosphere and power into the interstellar vacuum. Many a professional eye wondered what magic enabled the pitiful, ravaged ship to approach the docks and maneuver, safely avoiding the crowded outer docks and automated ion cannons designed to defend against meteor threat to the installation.
An archaic Identification Friend or Foe (IFF), pulse burst out from the damaged vessel on an even more ancient, sliding frequency photon-laser packet. The station’s automatics didn’t blink an electron but accepted the archaic ID and shunted the freighter to an off-station dock, safely distant from busy port traffic. The ship pulled in with a rugged smoothness, nestling into the docking bay and no sooner had it settled than a captain’s gig emerged, taking a direct path to commercial fleet offices as Astral Service arrival protocol demanded.
Captain Jankin Decatur sat in the outer lounge of the Astral Service Fleet Offices, vainly attempting to suppress tensions brought on by the attack on his ship and bringing an injured vessel to dock at homeport. A welcome cup of strong, black coffee ready at one hand and a draft of highland single malt scotch in the other, neat of course, he waited for the Chief Operating Officer’s call. A summons that might not arrive for hours. Decatur spent these precious free moments reviewing ship’s logs and refamiliarizing himself with the critical segments of documentation highlighted by his AI logistician. Anything to keep his mind occupied and push-back the torrent of self-recrimination for those who lost their lives were his responsibility. He’d failed them, just as he’d failed at so many others in life. A fitting end for a man who, try as hard as he could, seemed to fail at every task given him for once again people, his own crewmates, had lost their freedom. Some had even lost their lives because of his incompetence. The call came early, directly into his HiveTab, a device he’d grown to love and hate since his arrival on Kraken when it was first installed as a small patch behind his ear, linking him instantly to the resources of Kraken society, the service, and his ship. A device that incessantly threatened the user’s peace of mind even as it brought social solidarity.
Personal isolation was a concept forever relegated to the history books.
A meeting notice flipped onto his calendar, tagged with an unheard of seventeen-minute window during which the COO was available. He’d received a priority slot and this reeked of bad news. In Seventeen minutes, he would most likely see a court subpoena leading to an end to his career. This was his life, the only he’d ever known. As captain, Decatur was responsible for ship, crew, and cargo. His cargo was mostly gone or destroyed, along with three-quarters of his crew. He’d nearly lost the entire ship.
His soul withered under the knowledge that most of his crewed spacers, those now on the NAU ship and still alive, had been forced into signing papers that would forevermore seal their fate as spacers bound to the NAU. Those more stubborn and able to resist the brutal coercion of an NAU boarding party would be shipped to detention facilities retaining little hope of ever returning. To make matters worse, his ship was damaged when he managed to break the NAU tractor beam and blow the physical tie-downs. Miraculously, he avoided the torpedoes they’d let fly. Avoided most of them, he thought with a shudder, one more strike and I would not be here to enjoy what comes next.
Jankin Decatur went directly to the nearest lift and took it up a hundred and fifty-seven floors to the Astral Administrative Offices, gave one last longing look at the beauty of the blue-green world they orbited and the elusive freedom promised by Kraken. All gone.
He knew all hope was lost the moment he entered the COO’s darkened suite.
.....
End Novelette --