Zephyr, in transit, 200 kiloseconds out of Tau Ceti

27 megaseconds since the catastrophe

Chapter 1, part 1, was posted 6 November 2023, so this marks the third anniversary of this version of the story, and roughly four years since I started writing it as part of NaNoWriMo 2022, before the eponymous organization became untenably tainted and ultimately (and rightfully) collapsed. As I've said before, older variations of this story go back an entire decade—a point I feel I need to make occasionally lest someone compare some of the elements of the story to, say, Star Trek: Discovery.

Anyway, happy anniversary!

It was dark.

It was impossibly dark.

Starships are, hardly ever, actually dark. There are redundant main and auxiliary power systems, local capacitors and batteries to drive emergency lighting, computer panels that should always be glowing.

Commander Elyah Singer found herself saying, "Oh no, not again!" before she could stop herself. For no reason she could immediately fathom, she was thinking about petunias.

Twenty-seven megaseconds ago, the catastrophe had begun for the crew of Bellerophon with a moment very like this one. Unlike that time, however, after a beat, a klaxon began to sound, followed by Chef's voice in the most authoritative tones she'd ever heard him speak.

"Zephyr has experienced an engineering casualty in Fusion Two. Fusion Two has been ejected. There is no physical damage to the ship. Remain calm. Systems will be restored momentarily."

This is more or less what should have happened last time, except that the network aboard Bellerophon had been so physically fried and fragmented that the surviving AIs couldn't get control of enough systems to do it.

Gravity and lights both started to come back at about the same time, gradually to avoid damage to human bodies or their eyeballs. Consoles began to light up again.

She gave it a beat and then said, "Chef, report!"

"One moment, please, Captain." There was no disrespect in his tone, but the note of authority-in-emergency was still present. Singer wasn't entirely sure she liked it, but that was a conversation for later.

So she said instead, "Everyone all right?" as she saw her bridge crew settling to their feet or, in the case of Cordé, actually somehow settle back into her chair as if she'd been levitating on purpose. To Singer's inappropriate amusement, Cordé seemed aware of this and somehow put on an air that said, "I meant to do that."

There were nods and murmurs of assent all around. Cadotte said aloud, "No concussion this time, at least."

"Small favors," Wasserman replied. Singer saw him flex the leg he'd broken, probably without thinking about it.

Finally, Chef said, "Captain, I have that report."

"Go ahead," she said, aware she was a little abrupt. She was having trouble fending off not only her own anxiety and PTSD, but that of every single member of her crew.

"Fusion Two was ejected by an automatic routine installed some weeks ago by Commander Alexander, when we were unable to identify the reason for glitches in that power plant. The routine was a reflex and keyed to the possibility of catastrophic failure of the mag bottle. It operated with time to spare, and I surmise, but cannot prove, that the core exploded in hyperspace.

"The routine did not allow enough time to re-balance power distribution however, to have Fusion One and Three shoulder the burden. As such, we crashed out rather than surfacing back into normal space. The crash transition was the cause of the EMP effect and disruption of ship's systems."

Cadotte frowned, "Aren't we hardened against that kind of thing?"

Despite the fact that he was not displaying a face right now, Singer could here chagrin in his voice. "Yes and no. Ships dating back to the Jump era are fully hardened against it because crashing out of hyperspace is their normal transition. Bellerophon would not have been affected by this, for example, and only had the problems it had because its Fusion Two was never ejected, but blew up in-ship.

"Ships built for time compression from the get-go skimp on the hardening and only protect enough systems for AIs to keep running and then restore from there, which is what we're doing now."

Singer had a lot of questions, but the foremost one now was, "Any casualties?"

There was a pause, and then Pollux interjected solemnly, "Regretfully, Captain, Midshipman Zhang was not able to clear the power room in time."

The port-side doors parted, and Alexander walked—well, bounced, since gravity was still coming back—in. Zir face was like a thundercloud and ze appeared to be muttering to zirself. As ze came closer, Singer could hear that ze was swearing sulfurously under zir breath.

Singer just looked steadily at zir and said, "You saved the ship."

"The ship shouldn't have needed saving, and Zhang should still be here. I should have been able to find—"

Singer held up a hand. "Save it, Exec. You saved the ship. That's enough for now. Take a damage control team and crawl the ship to make sure we're not missing anything. Balance speed and thoroughness; we need to get moving again as soon as we can, but I'm not going anywhere until we do that survey."

Alexander looked like ze wanted to say more, but took the time constraint to heart and said, "Yes'm. On my way. Chef, have a DC team meet me in the boat bay. We'll start ventral and work our way up."

"Yes, Commander."

Singer watched Alexander go, then touched the call button for engineering, and was rewarded with, "Espinoza!" Somehow, Singer felt like she'd cut him off in the middle of a similar swearing fit to Alexander's.

"Report."

There was no hesitation, so if he had been swearing, he'd been doing it while assessing the situation. "Power distribution between Fusion One and Three stable. As an aside, I am really glad we had Fusion Three operational before this happened, because I would not want to proceed with only one plant if we didn't have to. Time compression drive took no damage from the sudden transition. We could be underway at your word."

"Understood. I've got Alexander doing a DC sweep first. Call me paranoid."

"Paranoid. But on the other hand, someone was clearly out to get us."

"We understand each other perfectly. You need help back there?"

"No, Captain. I think we're good."

"Sing out if that changes. Don't be shy. Singer clear."

"Espinoza clear."

She took a breath, centered herself. Then another, deliberately trying to convince her heart it could slow down a touch. Then, "Wayra?"

"Captain?"

"I need you to take a deep dive. We need to know how and why. I know Robin was already investigating that. I also know we've all been pulled a dozen different ways, and that by itself is probably part of the 'how'. Now, it's your only job until you've either found it, or exhausted every avenue you can imagine and a dozen you can't. You're detached from all other duty."

"Will it weird you out if I do it from here?"

It took Singer a moment to realize what they meant. They were going to use their implants, of course, which meant they'd appear completely zoned out, but be able to work far faster and dive much deeper. "A bit, but why?"

"Honest answer? I'm a bit freaked out and not ready to be alone. I'd rather have people guarding my sleep, as it were."

Singer allowed herself a ghost of a smile. "Understood. If it gets too weird, you and I will move to the briefing room or my office."

"Thank you, ma'am. On it."

They leaned back in their chair and Singer felt them slip into another state of mind.

There was quiet. Enough time for Singer to notice gravity was almost normal. She sat through it, listening to the normal noises of the bridge come back as systems came back up. It was oddly layered. She would think it was over and everything sounded normal and then something else would come back online. She spent the time trying to calm down.

She could tell everyone else was doing the same, which was good, because she was never going to be able to get her own system regulated otherwise. In a situation like this, it was too late to try to get her shielding up after the fact. Everything was too intense. Not for the first time, she was glad she was not a projective empath as well. The feedback loop would have destroyed everyone within a light-megasecond.

It felt like a long time, but it was probably two kiloseconds, tops, from incident to relative normality. Singer realized she had been remiss. "Ensign Cordé?"

"Captain?"

"TC radio working?"

"Five by nine, ma'am. Still in range of the Ernestine at Tau Ceti."

"Record for transmission, eyes-only for Admiral Karenski."

A pause, then, "Ready."

Singer thought another moment, then said, "TCTFS Zephyr reports the catastrophic failure of Fusion Two. Core was ejected with one casualty, Midshipman Zhang. Ship suffered EMP from crash transition, recovering now. Investigation underway. Ship will resume transit to Sol after DC assessment. Singer for Zephyr, clear."

Another pause, then, "Encrypted and sent. Ack should take about three hundred seconds at this distance."

Singer faced a dilemma, then. She really wanted to put some distance between herself and the bridge, even if it was just across the hall in her office, to reorder herself. She didn't have much to actually do right now, with the ship coasting in normal space waiting for Alexander's DC survey. She was on the edge of asking Wasserman to at least start nudging the ship forward in normal space toward their destination, knowing it was silly.

Instead, she threw a ship status display up on her console and pretended to study it. Everything about it was green, although various numbers fluctuated in their normal ranges. It just gave her something to stare at, something to pretend to be doing, while she pulled her nervous system back from panic. She realized she probably presented an aspect not too dissimilar to Cadotte's right now—physically present but not really engaged. Nobody seemed to mind, giving her space.

Still, she started a bit when Cordé said, about a kilosecond later, "Inbound from Karenski, ma'am."

"Any special marker on it?"

"Urgent, but not private or secret."

"Play it."

Karenski's voice came through with a bit more gruffness than usual. The old man was usually a bit rough-voiced, but Singer, being attuned to listen for such things, could hear his relief and his anger. "Zephyr, Karenski. My deepest regrets on the loss of Ensign Zhang." He emphasized the rank, and she saw everyone in the room sit up a bit straighter for it. "I should have graduated the whole class while you were here, and I got distracted. I'll be transmitting the necessary paperwork shortly, but your entire cadre will rank as graduated as of your arrival at Tau Ceti. Meanwhile Mifune Gō is taking all three of her plants offline and running on auxiliaries while at station-keeping here until you figure it out."

Singer hadn't thought of that, but then, that's why she had an admiral to report to.

"Report when you have news. Karenski clear."

It was strange. Nothing had really changed, but somehow, knowing that someone somewhere had their back, and had recognized the merit of not just their lost messmate but his whole class, changed the mood. Shoulders lowered from ears, jaws unclenched just a bit. The emotional temperature dropped to the high end of normal.

Unit pride, Singer thought, was strong medicine.

Singer felt able to shift her attention to something more meaningful than the status display. She brought up the precis on Neptune Anchorage and Jove Junction that O'Halloran had left her. She had intended to read it in her office later, but now was as good a time as any, and it's not like there would be anything spicy in there. This was an official report from the Ambassador at Large, not a love note.

That was in her personal inbox, waiting for later.

Neptune had been the prototype of a pattern followed in diaspora systems with deeper wells than David's Star. There, the well was more of a puddle, anyway, so the fact that Newer York remained the main traffic hub was no real impediment. Elsewhere, the desire to have a station as close as possible to the astropause had led to the establishment of "port cities" at the most convenient outer orbit of either the star itself or the outmost planet.

It had been built by Arctic Union, originally a very modest refueling base for the Skip Ships they were about to send out. Once one of those ships stumbled upon the established community at David's Star, the Anchorage began to build out a proper city-station of its own. For a long time it remained the nominal territory of Arctic Union. Then, acknowledging the reality on the ground, as it were, it became a kind of joint project between AU and David's Star. By the time the Great Flare scoured Earth clean, the Anchorage was de facto independent and far more a part of David's Star's cultural orbit than Earth's. Travel time between the Anchorage and David's Star was five or six megaseconds depending on how nimble a ship was in normal space to achieve the Skip boundary. By contrast, it was a thirty-to-forty-five megasecond trip—more time than had already passed since the catastrophe from Earth up to the Anchorage even if one went direct. Most ships actually went to Jove Junction and then people and cargo bound for Neptune or David's Star transferred there.

By the time of Earth's collapse, Jove Junction was already a thriving community of its own, a cluster of stations amongst the Galilean Moons. It took a while for them and the Anchorage to find equilibrium, but they did so, which was just as well. Earth's death caused David's Star to re-discover the fragility of human survival in space. The diaspora that resulted left the Sol-based stations a backwater.

Only now, somebody had invaded and apparently conquered Jove Junction. Ships were on their way upwell to do the same to Neptune Anchorage. Nobody knew whose ships.

The whole thing might well have gone unnoticed and unreacted to, except that everybody was on alert for anything that smacked of "enemy action". Even if that enemy remained unknown.

This was where Singer had reached in the document when Alexander returned to the bridge. Ze was tired, and still angry, but had zirself under control. "Sweep complete. Chef's been doing the same on the network, and tells me Cadotte is doing a dive?"

This last came out as just a bit of a question. Alexander did not often allow ego to get involved in zir job, but Singer had anticipated this. "They can go deeper than you can, or anyone else on the ship. Also, I detached them from all other duty, which we can afford right now. We can't detach the Exec."

Singer watched Alexander absorb this, and then nod. "Granted." Then, wryly but quietly. "Still stings a bit."

Equally quietly, "I appreciate that. I knew it would, but it was still necessary, just like your DC sweep was necessary. None of us have had time to pay close attention to the things that needed it. I have a hunch that's about to become a theme when Cadotte surfaces, and then we're going to have to figure out how to solve for it."

As if on cue, Cadotte said, muzzy but triumphant, "Found it!"