Misjump Read online

  The next day, Gregor went over the data again, working on a tablet in the mess hall. The rest of the crew drifted in before the official start. They were curious and there was not much else to do during a jump. He ignored them until everyone was there but relented and started early. “So, Fumi did bang-up number one job on capturing sensors after we arrived in Ironstone and for that I thank her. Now, the sensors on Sarafina are not so great but also not so bad. Fumi, first slide please.” All of the monitors changed to a complex line graph. “So, zero point here is when we drop into Ironstone system, travelling fast relative to jump point. There is a little noise during transfer to normal space and then stable readings. The top line is a projection of our position over time. Second graph is the position of the SDB. Next slide.” The slide flicked to a new set of plots. “This is just the first few seconds of our time in Ironstone. The gap here between us coming in and the SDB starting to change course is eight seconds. Not a long time. Fumi, what is normal comms protocol, please?”

  The voice came from multiple speakers at once. It was warmer and more human than it had been the first time that they heard it. “On entering a system, the standard protocol is for system traffic control, or the SBD if there is one, to contact the incoming ship to ask for a status and check their flight plan. The IFF transponder will identify the ship, but the controller may ask for the ship’s name as well since sometimes the name used by the owner may be additional to the standard registration number. If there are problems with the ship or passengers, then control is required to assist. They will also ask for passenger and crew details so that they can check immigration status, police warrants and so on.”

  Gregor nodded. “And this takes some minutes, yes?”

  “Yes,” agreed Fumi. “If we have a full passenger deck then it can take over an hour even if there are no immigration issues. However, we were not hailed and our IFF was not triggered. The SDB made no attempt to communicate at all.”

  Gregor nodded again. “So, eight seconds is not a long time. Pilot would have to be sitting ready to react that fast or maybe an AI in control of SDB. Firing on a civilian ship without warning? Doesn’t happen around here. This is nice peaceful volume of space.”

  Jax looked at the charts. “Could the SDB be unmanned and run by an AI?” he asked.

  “Possible but not likely,” said Fumi. “The infrared imaging of the SBD is fuzzy, but the ship was bleeding heat in a typical pattern before it started accelerating. The acceleration was right for a ship of that type.” The screen changed again, showing two graphs. “The top one is the library copy of flight envelopes for that model of SDB. From the temperature and mass, it looks like a manned ship. That doesn’t mean that the people on board are alive, but it was wasting a lot of power on life support if they weren’t.”

  Jax looked puzzled. “We have flight envelopes for SDBs in our library?” he asked.

  “Yes,” replied Fumi. “Storage is cheap and so the standard ship’s records contain anything that might be of use and a lot that isn’t. Anyway, the ship didn’t challenge us, attacked us immediately, and it apparently had a crew standing by and ready.”

  Gregor spoke next. “Is not a normal thing to be ready for trouble to such a degree. High alerts wear out crew and a peaceful system like this? Normally you are doing well if the comms officer is still awake.”

  Jax nodded. “Well, they were expecting a hostile ship and that tells us something. It is not unknown for someone to jump in and make trouble.”

  Lori cleared her throat. “Was there any radio traffic from Ironstone? I would like to know if there was anyone alive there.”

  Gregor shook his head. “Nothing picked up, but there are people there. An SDB can remain on station for about a month before resupply. More often, they will be relieved by a second ship, maybe pair of ships if prosperous or dangerous system. The ship that attacked us would need support from somewhere in-system. Maybe support ship could jump in and re-supply, but that is expensive and no-one does it. Last time I was here, were twin defence boats waiting. This time, only one.”

  Jax looked thoughtful and spoke more slowly than usual. “So, either they can’t afford two ships to man the jump point, or they are not facing enough of a threat to justify two. Also, if they don’t scan IFF beacons, why assume that we are hostile? They wouldn’t know our ship from their supply ships or expected traders.”

  Ivo spoke for the first time in the meeting. “Did the system defence boat have an IFF? Did we ping it?”

  “Yes and yes,” replied Fumi. Text appeared on the screens.

  “ISR #176002, The Covering wing, Wu Tsian shipyard, System Defence Boat model J2, manufactured 931. Registered Ironstone Port Authority.”

  “An older ship. Is that unusual?” asked Ivo.

  Gregor thought for a moment. “No, not really. WT-J2s are still around. Not a cheap thing and so not replaced often. Odd though, yes? They loaded for bear, expecting trouble. If they are having trouble, how come an old ship is in service? If is a war, turnover of ships is high.”

  “Mothballed and pulled back into service because they didn’t have anything better still in one piece, perhaps?” suggested Jax.

  Gregor shook his head. “Missiles not cheap either and they opened with them. Only something that you do if you know that resupply is no problem.”

  Meilin rarely spoke until she had thought about the problem for a while. “I understand that there is a good reason to think that the ship that attacked us had a crew and that the system is occupied, but do we have any reason to think that the crew were human?”

  “Human built ship,” said Jax, bluntly.

  “Doesn’t mean it was full of humans though. We haven’t had problems with other races anywhere near here though, and there are not so many that could use human ships without a lot of modifications. What are you thinking, Meilin?” asked Gregor.

  Meilin blushed but her voice was steady. “They seemed very sure that we were enemies and not a resupply vessel or expected traders. There must be something that marked us out as different if they could be certain so quickly. We are missing something.”

  “Son of a b—” Fumi cut off suddenly mid-syllable. Everyone waited, concerned.

  Ivo tried to use a nearby terminal but it was unresponsive. Fumi came back on the intercom a few seconds later. “Okay, I saw this but I had no idea what it was at the time and it was busy, okay? We had a burst of very short-wave radiation just after we jumped in. It was low power and I assumed that it was just noise but look here.” The display changed to a false 3D view with a broken line being traced through it. “What I have done is filtered for just that frequency. We don’t always pick it up and it is much lower level than when we first jumped in, but it is there and it follows the course of the SDB.”

  Gregor rubbed his forehead before speaking. “Okay, so radiation is from SDB but so what? Maybe is bad shielding or something.”

  “No, not this time, big guy. If we look at the signal, it is super tight band, centred around eight point six nanometres and we got a decent capture when we had the initial burst. Look at the form.” The screen changed to show repeated pulses in clusters.

  Meilin was the first to comment. “It is not completely regular, but it is certainly not random. It looks like it might be a signal of some sort, but perhaps the sender is damaged. Pulses but not digital, I think.”

  Lori looked at the screen, her dark skin paling. “Fumi, can you zoom in on of those clusters for me please?” The screen changed to show more detail. “That looks very familiar. That looks a lot like neural activity.” A second graph appeared on screen, quickly rescaling to be comparable. The pulses were in different places, but the overall pattern was reasonably similar, complex and apparently operating in parallel.

  “Woah,” said Jax. “Mechanical telepathy? Does that even make sense?”

  Lori shook her head. “Not in the X-ray band it doesn’t. I don’t know of anything that could tolerate that sort of radiation in the long term.
If it is biological, it is something very different to humans.”

  “Was it coming from the planet as well?” asked Lori.

  “No way to tell,” replied Fumi. “Too far away to get a signal. It was only high intensity for a few seconds.”

  “Only non-humans around here are the Quagga and the Soomi. Quagga don’t have space flight and like to be in large groups. I have seen Soomi sign on to small ships, but they don’t have independent spaceflight,” said Gregor.

  Jax looked over. “Little guys, hairy, snouts, smell like a wet dog, yes?” he asked. “They could operate human ships.”

  “Da, just about. Need special suits and tools, but they can do it. Not communicate by X-rays though. Normally sign on as cleaners or similar,” said Gregor.

  “Dumb then,” commented Jax.

  “No!” snapped Meilin, clearly offended. “I served with one. He was nice but ... very different. They are philosophers and travel to experience new places. The ones that I have met were smarter than you.”

  There was a tense silence spoiled by Ivo’s grin. Finally, Lori spoke. “I can find out what we have on Soomi biology, but I can’t imagine that they tolerate radiation better than we do. I think we may be on the wrong track here.”

  “Guess it could explain how we got away then. I thought that a system defence boat was supposed to be able to take down a cargo ship like us without breaking a sweat. If those little guys were piloting it, maybe they ain’t so good at it,” said Jax.

  Meilin started to speak but Gregor cut her off with a hand. “SDB was flown well. We got away because we had a lot of vector coming out of jump and because Fumi saved everyone’s ass back there.”

  “Still think that we should be dust if they knew what they were doin’.” said Jax.

  Gregor nodded. “Yes, and a couple of minutes more and the lasers would have had us. A couple of seconds more and the missile would have. Is bad mistake to think that they couldn’t take us. We were lucky, we had surprise and we were good. Not likely to happen again.”

  Ivo asked, “Do we have any reason to think that there won’t be another hostile ship at the end of this jump? We will be flat broke for jump fuel, so if we have to run, then we will have to keep running in normal space.”

  Gregor paused before answering. “System we are jumping to has no habitable worlds. Large primary and some gas giants and two dense asteroid rings. Independent mining colony last time I was there. Would have been certain that it still was, but Ironstone was surprise so who knows? They didn’t have defence boats before. Didn’t need them. Use magnetic linear guns to move asteroid fragments for processing. One of those hits you then you become more metal to be harvested, yes?”

  “I am not sure that sounds better than a missile, my friend,” said Ivo.

  “Da, yes, fair point. They were not happy to send away business though. They made good money from selling refined metals and fuel from gas giants. Your trade goods may be welcome there,” said Gregor.

  “You’re welcome!” said Jax loudly. Everyone ignored him.

  “This doesn’t make sense yet,” said Meilin. “Is what happened at Neuholme related to whatever happened to Ironstone? One crazy thing seems possible but two separate ones? I am struggling with that.”

  “What she said,” agreed Fumi.

  Gregor held out his hands and shrugged. “You tell me.”

  “Could it be a biological agent at Neuholme and the defence boat was enforcing a quarantine?” asked Meilin, again looking to Gregor for an answer. He shrugged again.

  “A biological agent doesn’t make a lot of sense,” said Lori. “There would be bodies. There would be more vehicles unless there was time to evacuate. There were very few of either and something too sudden for an evacuation. Biological agents don’t do that. Whatever happened there, we are not looking at a virus.”

  Gregor spoke next. “Also, viruses do not leave craters where should be spaceport.”

  “Only human bones that we saw. If you wanted to seal a world, destroying their own starport does make sense,” said Jax.

  Meilin nodded. “So, Ironstone is concerned about humans or human-crewed ships. That would make sense, but would a single defence boat be enough? It didn’t stop us and we are not much of a force. I know we were lucky but still … I can’t imagine them facing up to a naval ship. If there is a resistance, it is not that powerful. I can’t think that they would still be expecting plague carriers from Neuholme after a hundred years. They must know it is empty by now.”

  “Wait a second there, sister,” said Fumi. “We are basing a lot of supposition on very little. You generally like more facts before you make any decision.”

  Meilin nodded. “True, I would like to know a lot more, but sometimes we must do what we can with the information available. I would like to know what we are likely to encounter at the mining colony. We can plan if we know what we can expect. The limits of our plans are those of what we know and what capability we have.”

  Gregor rubbed his forehead. “We can be pretty damn sure that we will be outgunned. No guns on a trader. We can expect anyone there to have magnetic rail gun. Perhaps worst, we cannot be sure that they will be anyone there. The jump point to this system was not guarded. Ironstone was not expecting a threat from there. Whatever, we can’t jump away.”

  “Because we have no fuel,” said Ivo.

  “Because we have no fuel,” agreed Gregor.

  “We have a fair bit of velocity. Does that help at all?” asked Ivo.

  Gregor shook his head. “Not much. Better than to be a sitting target, but we can’t jump again. If there is anyone there, it would only be matter of time. We lose. Running means that we lose later, I think.”

  Jax spoke quietly. “Putting off losing is just another way to say that we are still alive.”

  Several of the crew nodded. Meilin was the first to speak. “We can’t fight. There isn’t much point in running. I think that the time has come to talk and hope that they will talk to us. Perhaps we have something that they want.”

  “They can pretty much help themselves no matter what we do,” commented Jax.

  “Da,” said Gregor. “No harm in offering though.”

  “What do we do if there is no one there?” asked Lori.

  Gregor nodded. “Then we see what is there and decide. There was fuel mining operation, scoops to go down to gas giant, refinery, you know. Maybe is still there and operational. Worth a try.”

  “I may have missed this with the whole being dead or frozen thing, but do we have any idea at all how things have changed so much in a couple of weeks?” asked Fumi.

  “No,” said Jax.

  “Not so much,” said Gregor. “We misjumped after some sort of failure in power distribution systems. Or maybe not. Maybe misjump caused the power systems to be fried. No way to know. It is a thing that happens, and sometimes ships go into jump and come out in the wrong place. Some don’t ever seem to come out and we have always assumed they had catastrophic failure during jump or jumped so far away that we never heard from them again. This, you know. Was explained when you signed up. Is why we have rescue beacon in the first place.” He looked around at each of the crew as they nodded, from a screen in Fumi’s case. “In cases we studied in flight school, they were all jumps that had gone too far or too short. All of them took a week or more in jump just like normal. Some crews didn’t know that they had misjumped until dropped into normal space. Others, headache and sickness. What we had was different. Near as I can tell, was no time in jump. Distance of jump was short, yes, but not so short that it should take no time. I think we jumped sideways.”

  “Sideways relative to what though?” asked Fumi.

  Gregor waved a hand vaguely. “Relative to everything. We went parallel to universe, maybe more like diagonally since we moved in space too. This universe is not ours. It can’t be because we saw Neuholme, dead for many years and yet we had been there not a month before. Wherever here is, is not where we came from. Things are
different here.”

  “A different universe? That sounds … well, it doesn’t sound likely. Are you sure?” asked Ivo.

  “No,” replied Gregor. “If you have better idea, happy to hear.”

  The silence stretched as each of them thought about this. They were travellers with few links to people dirtside, but it would still be a wrench to know that they might never see them again.

  “Do we know how different things might be?” asked Meilin.

  Gregor shook his head. “Ace number one pilot I may be but physicist not so much. Many universes probably not so different, maybe just placement of atom different. Others, basic laws maybe don’t apply. Here, perhaps things much the same until a hundred years ago or so. No way to know, but looks that way. Also, no way to get back unless we find someone who understands this better than we do.”

  “So, in short, we are fucked and we won’t know how fucked we are until we come out of jump and maybe not even then,” said Jax.

  There was an uncomfortable silence. Gregor broke it. “Da, that is pretty much it.”

  #

  Ivo looked at the spot on the wall that he had decided represented Mecca. There could be no true way to face the holy city when the ship was in Tau space. They were not even in the same set of dimensions. An Imam had told him long ago that what was in his heart and head mattered far more than which way he was actually facing, and he hoped that this was true. He washed his hands quickly, right then left, and whispered Bismillah under his breath, the meaning of the words long forgotten and now just rote. He had come a long way from the faith of his childhood and the massed prayers in the house of the boys. The keepers of the house had been harsh men that policed the children for any sign of wickedness or impurity of faith. They were to be warriors of God, to bring the way to the heathens. No imperfection was to be allowed. Ivo had left many of their beliefs behind when he had escaped to the starport and found a berth on a tramp trader but his faith in the almighty had remained through harsh masters, decadent shore leaves and exposure to many beliefs and none. He knew that he was an imperfect vessel but was also fairly sure that his faith was closer to Allah than that of his tutors. He knelt facing the spot and pressed his head to the floor and prayed for the souls of the dead from Neuholme and asked mercy for himself and his shipmates. The ritual always calmed him, and he was willing to take any help that he could get. It had not been a good few weeks.