The LongBow

ALLIANCE GUNBOAT “LONGBOW” CLASS: T-MINUS 29 HOURS
  Sub-commander Merlin Marshall chaffed at the presence of all the imperial technicians that were aboard his ship. Like maggots burrowing through rotting bread, they’d burrowed into panels and sub-systems in his ship replacing components and apparently haphazardly adding things until it barely looked like the polished and spit-shine clean machine he strove to have. Now, like moldy bread, the consoles had data bundles running from behind loosely connected panels. Every section of the ship had been affected. They’d also removed his communication antenna array and replaced it with a hodgepodge collection of antennas and components he couldn’t identify.
  That they’d made a mess of his ship bothered him. That much of what they’d done, he didn’t understand troubled him greatly. For the umpteenth time he called up the mission orders on his comm display and read the orders about this. He gritted his teeth and let the technicians continue to work on his ship.
  “I can’t wait for them to be gone, either,” said his commander, Ha-Shin. The woman’s gravely voice caught him by surprise and he jerked around to look at her where she sat in her acceleration couch next to him. As commander, she sat in the left seat.
  He nodded his head. “Must be reading my mind.”
  She snickered. The brief smile split her lined and weathered fact into a million lines. The crows feet around her eyes made her jade green eyes sparkle.
  “You young pups are too easy to read. Plus, you’re reading those tasking orders again.”
  She reached across the console in front of him and tapped the display with her gloved hand. The orders vanished.
  “Look, Marshall,” she paused to get his full attention.
  He regarded her for an instant as she paused to continue. She was easily into her second century. While her face showed the years, her figure, even clad in a full pressure suit, as was required when combat was imminent, was as trim and athletic as his. Her hair which was just beginning to streak with strands of silver was flaming red. While she kept it cut short to fit in the skull cap their helmets required, there was always a curl of her bangs showing under the cap. No matter what she did, it was always there. It had gotten her, her call sign, ‘Curls’.
  She continued softly, almost whispering, “These technicians come directly from the Imperium.”
  That explains, he thought to himself, why the females among these technicians were the hottest things he’d ever seen in a jumpsuit and at the same time were totally oblivious to him.
  “Marshall,” she rasped, “pay attention. Don’t let your gonads get in front of your thinking. I’m trying to tell you these people have access and visibility that you don’t want to mess with. This test has visibility you don’t want to mess with.”
  “What do you mean, Ma’am?” he asked.
  “While you were stewing in your juices, I got an update to our orders.”
  “Oh?”
She turned away long enough to look around the cramped flight deck and through the open hatch that led to the rest of the ship’s interior where the other technicians were working. She turned back to him.
  “Yeah, we and the Seven, move pretty soon.”
  “Our sister ship?”
  She nodded, “Yes, could leave any moment. When we do, the telemetry from the mission will be relayed via sub-link directly back to the Imperium itself.”
  “You mean the Emperor himself will see this?”
  She rolled her eyes and nodded.
  “The Jackal too?”
  She cut him off with a harsh shush, “Shush you fool! Yes, people disappear for less than what you just said!”
  He gulped.
  “Now, get your eyeballs caged and focused on our mission. Got it?”
  “Yes, Mam,” he said as he turned back to his console to review the ship’s status and to go over the list of issues the technicians still wanted them to address.
  As he did, she muttered softly, “Those ground pounders can’t roll like a real spacer anyway.”
  The comment caught him off guard and he cringed as he thought of his commander in that activity. The next thing he felt was her slugging him in the arm.
  “Get to work.”
  He glanced back at her. There was a trace of a grin in her face as she ignored him and turned to her list of things to do.
  One by one, they finished tasks. Finally the lead technician, an alabaster colored woman with the most amazing electric blue hair Marshall had ever seen, stepped to the back of the flight deck. Marshall had been too busy to see her come, but she wore a perfume that was like her personal signature. It strong but not overpowering and like nothing he’d ever smelled on anyone else. She tapped on the bulkhead.
  “Lead Technician Alvarando, requesting permission to enter the flight deck, Ma’am.”
  Marshall kept concentrating on his list of tasks. There had to be a pheromone in her perfume because as she got closer he could feel himself reacting to her proximity. He could feel a wave of desire wash over him.
  Ha-Shin answered, “State your purpose? Is it urgent?”
  “We have new requirements, commander. It is not otherwise urgent,” said the woman.
  “I see…,” there was a pause before she continued, “Ms. Alvarando what perfume are you wearing?”
  “Morning Fantasy, commander. Do you like it?”
  “No, in fact, while you are on my ship you are to immediately shower and get that off of you.”
  “Commander, it is authorized in the Imperium. Even desired,” she answered.
  “Ms. Alvarando,” Ha-Shin’s speaking slowed.
  At this point Marshall dared to turn and look to see what was happening. Ha-Shin was turning in her couch to face the other woman who still stood outside the flight deck. Alvarando was tall, nearly six feet. In her mid-twenties Marshall thought. She had dark aquamarine eyes that went well with her blue hair. She wore her hair pulled back in a braided pony-tail. Marshall could tell that undone, it would have covered her shoulders and dropped probably to her waist. Despite the bagginess of the flight suit, her figure along with the effects of the perfume were nearly overpowering.
  Ha-Shin continued, “In the Imperium you’re welcome to wear whatever the regulations allow. But out here, in my ship, especially in a combat zone, the last thing my crew needs is some dim-witted technician walking around smelling like a two-bit whore who’s in heat. Plus, get your uniform in compliance with fleet regulations. Do you understand?”
  Marshall wondered at that and then noticed that Alvarando’s flight suit, instead of being zipped to the top and snapped shut it was unsnapped and unzipped.
  “And in case your fellow technicians haven’t gotten the word, they are to dress the same way,” she was almost roaring now.
  Alvarando glared back at her, saluted and then left, stepping so heavily it was almost stomping.
  Once the woman was gone, Ha-Shin continued softly, “That was way overdue.”
  Marshall raised his eyebrows at the comment.
  “We have work to do, sub-commander.”
  Before he could respond, a comm chime sounded. It was an intercom call from the communications station beneath them.
  “Flight deck, Comms,” the voice was that of Specialist Derling who acted as corpsman and communications officer.
  Marshall answered, “Flight deck.”
  “Tasking order from the fleet, sir, priority blue.”
  “Read it.”
  “Message begins: ‘Initiate mission by 0745 standard time. ROE is Victor-Bravo.’”
  Marshall knew without looking at a clock that meant they had less than 10 minutes to get underway and make the transition to null-space. Alvarando’s shower would have to wait. He actually didn’t mind that.
  Ha-Shin spoke, “Plot me a course to the nearest transition point we can reach with a five minute burn. I’ll coordinate with Seven.”
  “Aye, sir,” he answered.
  His ship, a LongBow class gunboat, number 305 or simply, “Five” in their squadron of four ships was directly orbiting Epsilon indi about fifty-million miles from the star. The nearest planet, a gas giant, was 20 million miles further out and directly ahead of them. The task force had been on station for several days waiting for this moment. After the planning had been done, the ships, Seven and Five began accelerating away from the fleet. Unlike the rest of the fleet which used electric drives, the two ships began moving as their drives began amplifying the gravitational attraction between the two ships, the star and the planet that lay actually some 86 million miles away.
  Ha-Shin by now had donned her skull cap and helmet. The rest of the crew was fully suited. The technicians sat in the acceleration couches and waited for transition to occur. It took five minutes to accelerate to ten percent light, transition speed. Then, in the blink of an eye, the two ships simply disappeared from this universe as they transitioned into the null-time universe.
  The transition effect onboard the ship was nothing more than a fleeting instant of vertigo.
  “Ok, Marshall, how do we look?” asked Ha-Shin.
  “Sir, we’re safely into null-time space. Ship status is nominal.”
  “OK, I’ll run the post-transition checklist here. Get down to the stasis chambers and get everyone tucked away. We’re eleven point two light years from Sol, it’s going to be a 112 year trip.”
  Marshall nodded as he released his harness and clambered out of the couch. He worked his way down to the stasis chamber where the rest of the crew and technicians were gathering.
  Familiar with the process, the crew went about their business of changing out of their pressure suits and into stasis suits. The technicians huddled in a knot away from the crew waiting to be told what to do. The stasis suits looked like wet-suits used for sea diving, but they had additional wires and tubes attached to them.
  Marshall walked over to the technicians. For the first time since they’d been on the ship, they weren’t as smug as they’d been earlier.
  Marshall started speaking, “May I have your attention?”
  There were nods and grunts from the group. He avoided eye contact with Alvarando. She still had the perfume on and the other two female technicians were also wearing perfumes that had a similar effect.
  He focused on the men and continued, “These are standard fleet stasis tubes. You used them to get here. You’ll use them to get back to the Imperium. Everyone else in the fleet uses them, unless you want to hang around in the ship by yourself for more than a century. Unless you have any questions, you’ve heard the lecture before. Remember, wear no jewelry and no implants of any type. I’m assuming since you’re all here, none of you have an internal implant. Right?”
  He let the question hang. No one answered.
  “Fine. You can change here or in a dressing room over there.” He pointed at an open arch into a side room. “If you haven’t already, go to the bath room. You don’t want a mess on your hands when you wake up. Take your clothes off and put on the stasis suit. There’s a chamber for each of you. You’ll find your suit in your chamber. Once you are dressed in the suit, check with me and I’ll make certain you have it on correctly. Any questions?”
  Again there were none.
  “Then get going. Power lasts only another two hours before everything is shut down.”
  He didn’t wait around, but went to get into his own suit. As he did, he noticed most of the men simply began to strip and change in the chamber as the rest of the crew had done. Two of the women went into the dressing room. Alvarando didn’t. He didn’t need the distraction so he turned away to concentrate on getting into his suit.
  After several minutes, he turned back to face them. All of them were in the suits. A couple of the men, those who were standing closest to Alvarando, had problems with their suits. He guessed it was because they were too busy watching her change rather than pay attention to what they were doing. He fixed the issues fairly quickly, then took them one at a time to their chamber. He left Alvarando for last.
  By the time he was ready to put her in her chamber, the rest of the crew were in their chambers. They appeared to be sleeping.
  “So, ready to put me into bed?” she asked coyly.
  He sighed, “Chamber, yes. Bed, no.”
  Undeterred, she continued, “Is everything in place?” She shimmied sensuously in front of him.
  He glanced at her figure, which was much more clearly revealed in the stasis suit than the jump suits. It was by force of will that he concentrated on the connections and placement of the tubes rather than the body beneath them.
  He finally answered, “Yes, ma’am everything is in place. Now, take this pill.”
  He handed her a small blue tablet in a plastic wrapper.
  “Just swallow? I need a glass of water.”
  “No ma’am, just put it under your tongue. It’ll dissolve in place.”
  He held out the tablet again.
  “You want to place it?” she cooed.
  “I don’t have time for this, ma’am.”
  “But we have more than a hundred years?”
  “No, ma’am we don’t.”
  She harrumphed and snatched the tablet from his hand. Ripped it out of the wrapper and placed it under her tongue in one fluid movement.
  “Now, please get in the chamber and lay down on the pad.”
  This she did, pouting at him all the while. Once she was down, the tabled took effect quickly and before he’d finished making the connections, she was sound asleep. In a couple of minutes, she was in the stasis state. He touched the controls at the head of the chamber that rotated the clear containment wall in place. When it finished, she was sleeping inside a clear glass cylinder. He stood up and patted the glass softly. He heard someone approach him from behind.
  “She was a handful wasn’t she,” said Ha-Shin behind him. Marshall turned to face her. She was already in her stasis suit. Unlike everyone else’s suits which were grey colored crew suits, her’s like his, was a gold colored command suit. Unlike his, her’s had a white band around each sleeve indicating her status as ship commander.
  “No kidding! What a tart! She didn’t stop.”
  “You handled yourself well. I admire an officer who doesn’t go rutting around with anyone who makes a play like she did.”
  Marshall looked down at the sleeping woman. He had to admit, even without the presence of the pheromone laden perfume, she was very attractive. The suits were so tight, there was nothing left to the imagination about the body inside. They also helped hold things in place. Even Ha-Shin’s figure looked pretty good in her suit. He looked back at Ha-Shin. She recognized the appraising look in his eyes.
  Before she could say anything, a computerized male voice came over the PA. “Life support and ancillary systems now in cruise mode. Ship is in deep sleep mode. Oxygen levels in this room will not be replenished until pre-emergence sequence begins.”
  “That’s our cue Marshall.”
  He nodded and sat on his stasis chamber. Unlike the others, he could make the connections between his suit and the chamber while sitting. Once he did, he swung his legs up on the bed and popped the tablet in his mouth. As he laid his head on the bed, he was barely aware of the glass sliding quietly into place as he faded off to sleep.
  A couple minutes later, the lights in the room faded to black as the commander too, sunk into a deep, coma-like sleep.
  The ship continued on into the void. It was a 300 foot long, 70 foot diameter cylinder. Each end tapered to a point like an armor piercing bullet. Half-way between the ends of the cylinder, the hull bulged out another fifteen feet to enclose part of the gravity drive. After the transition, a long spike extended from the forward tip of the ship. It then expanded out, like a flower blooming to become a 100 foot diameter disk. Water was pumped from tanks inside the ship out through small openings in the disk which built up a layer of ice a foot thick. As collisions with dust in interstellar space, eroded the disk, more water would be pumped forward to fill and replace the lost ice. A thousand mile long filament spooled out behind the ship. As the ship travelled through the star’s and the galaxy’s magnetic fields, a small current of electricity was induced in the filament which would power the ship for the trip.
  For one-hundred twelve years it coasted through the void towards the Sol system. A year before the cruise ended, the computers on board began the involved process of awakening the ship and crew. A week before the scheduled transition event, the stasis chambers for Marshall and Ha-Shin began awakening them.
  The next thing, Marshall was aware of, the glass cylinder rotated away into the side of the chamber. When he opened his eyes, he saw Ha-Shin looking down at him.
  “Get the rest of the crew awake first. Save the techie’s until we’re all awake.”
  He nodded. They spent the week waking the rest of the crew and checking the ship to make certain it had made the trip without any problems. Once the ship was checked out, it was time to revive the technicians. Marshall revived Alvarando first since she was the lead technician. He walked up to the cylinder and looked in at her. She still had the same little pouting expression. He punched the revive button at the head of the chamber. With a quiet click, latches released and the glass rotated back into the chamber.
  He indulged himself and allowed himself to watch her intently as she began to revive. It was regulation anyway. In a few moments she blinked her eyes. For a second there was panic in her face. She started to sit up.
  “Whoa there,” Marshall said as he gently held her down with his right hand.
  She laid back down and turned to face him. The pout disappeared from her face. “Wanted to wake me first is that it?” she winked and smiled.
  The moment for him vanished. Her shoulder was warm though he noticed. He imagined what the softness of her lips and skin would be like, but he caught himself before those thoughts got any further. He was grateful the chemicals in the perfume hadn’t lasted the trip. She had the smell of a woman who’d been in a stasis chamber. It wasn’t exactly nice, it was more pungent like week old socks. He watched her face as she detected the scent.
  “Oh, yuck, what is that smell?”
  “You ma’am,”
  She glared at him,“Really?”
  He nodded.
  “I need a shower.”
  “Just remember, no more perfume.”
  “Has it really been a hundred years? I fell asleep just a minute ago it seems.”
  “Marvels of technology and the laws of chaotic relativity,” he answered. He continued when he saw the puzzled look in her face. “Think of the universe as a two dimensional thing. Then think of another universe like it but different and next to it.”
  “Like two sheets of graphene?” she asked.
  Marshall thought a moment about her answer, then nodded, “Yeah, that works really well. What do you know about graphene?”
  “It’s used a lot in the molecular motors and components we use for actuators and the like. It’s a lattice of carbon atoms one atom thick with the atoms sharing electrons.”
  He nodded and she smiled.
  “Very good! These two universes, share a common structure, with stars forming the nodes of the lattice rather than carbon atoms.”
  “Which is why we transition close to stars?”
  Marshall nodded, “Yes, the closer we get to the star or the more massive it is, the easier it is for us to transition between universes.”
  “But,” she continued, cutting him off, “because they are two different universes, they are not joined by time. So the time flow in one doesn’t affect time flow in the other.”
  She got smarter and cuter as she went he concluded. “Yes, so when we re-enter our universe we do so at the same time we left it.”
  “So how do objects in the two universes stay in the same relative position? If they’re not bound by time?”
  “They’re bound by gravity. Beyond that, the math to explain chaotic relativity goes like this.”
  He waved a hand over his head. She laughed. He thought it sounded like the tinkling of a wind chime. She was hot! He disconnected the tubing and sensor leads of her suit from the chamber.
  “Now, I need to wake the rest of your team. Our mission briefing is in two hours.”
  She smiled then got up off the bed and went to change. This time, he noted, she changed in the dressing room.
  Two hours later the entire crew was assembled in the ship’s small wardroom. The commander stood at the commander’s table. Behind her was a display that filled the entire wall. On it was a map of the inner five planets of a star system. Marshall darkened the room’s lights as she began speaking. This time, the crew and technicians were all wearing pressure suits. Everyone already had their skull caps on to control their hair. Aside from the faces, the easiest way to tell them apart was the crew chatted amongst each other while the technicians were quiet and glanced around the room.
  “This is the latest intel we have. A Republic convoy, consisting of about twenty freighters bound for Beta Hydri VI has jumped into the Sol system.”
  A blinking light appeared on the far left edge of the screen. On the far right was a yellow circle indicating the star. The orbital paths of five planets and an asteroid belt was visible on the screen.
  She continued, “It’s being guarded by one Adventurer class escort ship and an attached Dragon class interceptor. As near as we can tell, they jumped into the system here,” she pointed at the blinking light, “which is a point approximately one point five astronomical units above the system ecliptic. We will transition into the same system near Venus in about six hours.”
  A green “x” appeared on the edge of the second orbital path.
  ”It will be 0745 standard time when we transition. Our mission is to lure the Adventurer in close enough for us to test a new system designed to disable Republic warships. Our role is to jam it’s ability to communicate with its headquarters, then disable it. Once disabled, our sister ship, ‘Seven’ will destroy the ship with an upgraded laser.”
  “Our plan is to deploy out to where the convoy will turn around Jupiter here,” she pointed at the fifth planet’s orbital track. On the track was a smaller grey disk representing the planet.
  “They will have to engage us. If they don’t we can and have been ordered to destroy the convoy. This mission is not without risk. If the test fails, we will certainly be engaged in a pitched fight with a capable opponent.  The ‘Five’ has served the Alliance well in the past. We will again today. I wish to remind you that the Adventurer is every bit as capable a warship, even superior in some ways than our ship. Don’t be careless. Do your duty and we will prevail.”
  “Now, a recorded message from the Emperor,” she said as she turned to Marshall who held a controller for a hidden projector.
  The display of the star system faded to black. Then an image of the Emperor appeared. There were some whispers and comments as people recognized the time of the recording from a clock displayed behind the emperor. It was less than an hour old.
  “To the gallant crews of the 'Five’ and ‘Seven’. This war between the freedom loving peoples of the Alliance and the power hungry rulers of the Republic of planets began decades ago to right the injustices perpetrated upon us centuries earlier when our two colonies were established and continue on to our day.”
  The fleet’s anthem began to play quietly in the background behind the emperor’s voice.
  The Emperor continued, “Through tireless hours of selfless effort, scientists of the Alliance have developed a weapon that will disable the warships of the Republic. This new weapon, once brought into full service in the fleet, will significantly weaken the warships of the Republic and bring to a quick conclusion, the end of this very costly war. Many of your countrymen’s lives will be saved by what you test today. It has already been tested extensively in our laboratories, but needs this final test in actual combat circumstances before we can deploy it widely throughout the fleet. I thank you for your courage and your gallantry.”
  The image faded to a waving flag of the Alliance and the volume of the music increased. When the anthem ended, the lights came back up.
  Ha-Shin walked to the center again and spoke, “You know your orders and your duties. We transition in less than six hours. Seven hours after that, we will engage the Adventurer. Good hunting.”
  With that she left the room and everyone else returned to their duty station or bunks.
  On time, the two ships transitioned into normal space near Venus. The planet was a rocky world buried under a thick atmosphere of Carbon monoxide. As soon as they did, “Five” began jamming the Republic fleet’s communication channels. The two ships immediately began cruising out towards the fifth planet. Forty-four minutes into their trip, they detected the dropping of the convoy into the system.

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