Voyage of the Hayden (The Adventures of Christopher Slone Book 1) Read online

  Voyage of the Hayden

  The Adventures of Christopher Slone – Book I

  By Donald Nicklas

  Copyright © 2016 Donald A. Nicklas

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without written permission from the author.

  Cover Art by John Justice – Black Knight Art

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1 - Distress

  Chapter 2 - The Battle of Bickle’s Star

  Chapter 3 - The Scout

  Chapter 4 - The Battle of Purgatory

  Chapter 5 - The Methane Moon

  Chapter 6 - Scout’s Honor

  Chapter 7 - In the Maw of the Beast

  Chapter 8 – Hive Mother

  Chapter 9 – Revelation

  Chapter 1 - Distress

  Christopher Slone was a happy man. He had just received his promotion to captain and now had his own ship. True he was stationed at a distant, insignificant post, but in time that would change. Seniority was all that mattered in a peacetime fleet. There had not been any active fighting since the end of the 30th century and all was calm in the front half of the 32nd. Christopher had an abiding interest in history and he knew every milestone of man’s progress into space, from the colonies of the Sol system to that glorious day humanity discovered that streams of energy connected all of the stars in the galaxy. By the 22nd century, man had learned to tap into this power and travel to the stars. The name slipstream was applied to these bands of energy, and humankind has never looked back. Now here he was, at the edge of the Milky Way galaxy, as far from earth, which he has never seen, as it was possible to get. All great fleet leaders seemed to have started in these isolated areas and that gave him hope that the future was still bright.

  There was a beep in the com implant in his right ear. “Captain Slone, report to operations please.”

  “Be right there,” he said as if to no one.

  Slone got out of the bunk in which he was catching up on some rest. Even though this was his normal rest period, a captain is always on call. He quickly put on his uniform and walked rapidly to operations. The base was located on the moon of a gas giant surrounding a binary star system that lit up the surface of the moon most of the time. This was a lifeless moon that had no name; only a long 10-digit number that no one could recall. The people stationed here nicknamed it Purgatory, a name that eventually stuck and it was expanded to mean the entire system in which the mine was located. Historically, this is a religious reference to a place of the dead. Those who served at the fringes of the Galaxy often thought of themselves as dead to the rest of humanity. They were convinced that it was only the automated ore haulers moving into the more inhabited areas of the galaxy that gave proof of their continued existence.

  As Slone walked down the corridors of the base, he returned the salute of those he passed. Only one person ranked higher than he did and that was Commander Albright, the base commander, but Albright’s authority was only higher on the ground and not on Slone’s ship, the Star Cruiser Hayden. Star Cruisers were the workhorses of the navy. There were smaller support vessels and the large and very expensive dreadnoughts, but the cruisers were the ships most often used when it came to protecting assets, such as a mining base. The Hayden was a fine ship with a complement of 10 officers, 250 crewmembers, and a marine detachment of 100. In 3116, most of the enlisted personnel had never seen combat. The last battle of any substance was against a pirate fleet more than three decades ago. The first 16 years of the new millennium had passed peacefully, other than the occasional pirate raid. Purgatory was a sprawling community with an attached mining base and the recreational facilities that went along with a desolate mining outpost at the edge of the galaxy. There were a few surface structures, but almost the entire habitat extended nine stories underground. It was home to close to three thousand souls. Thousands of people were born, lived and died in facilities like this and their presence and passing remained unknown. The only law was the Star Cruisers stationed to protect against the occasional pirate raid. In absence of pirates, Star Cruisers and their crews were used for maintenance and policing. It is no secret that the crews of the Star Cruisers took every opportunity to do a space run. Each mining system had a complement of two Cruisers, one of which stayed on post at all times. The San Juan, the Hayden’s sister ship, had just returned from visiting an exploration and survey base a little further in from the outer rim of the galaxy and Slone hoped this call to the operations room meant he could turn policing over to the San Juan and get out of the system for a short time. Any excuse will do, to get away from the humdrum of playing sheriff.

  It was a short trip from the Captains’ apartments to the operations room. When Slone entered, he immediately realized there was a tenseness he was not accustomed to in the usual, laid-back atmosphere of the base. Slone saw the base commander leaning over a communications console and went over to him. He stood at attention and waited for the base commander to recognize him. Commander Albright recognized Slone and returned his salute. The formalities over Slone said, “What’s the situation, sir?”

  Albright looked back at the numbers on the console and said, “We’ve picked up a distress beacon coming in from just past the rim of the galaxy in sector 265, 1187.”

  “That’s in the middle of nowhere, not that we’re actually somewhere. What kind of ship is out there?” Slone asked.

  “According to the registry, it is a private yacht.”

  Slone had just picked up a cup of synthetic coffee to get some stimulants into his blood and almost choked when he heard this. “A yacht? What’s a yacht doing way out there?”

  “I’d like to know that myself. According to the registry it’s one of ours, registered to the Sinclair Corporation.

  “Any idea what a private yacht is doing out here?”

  “Sir there is a priority transmission coming in from the sector commander.” The communications tech interrupted.

  “I’ll take it in my room. Slone you had better come with me, I have a feeling this has to do with our Yacht out there. I sent a message to the sector commander as soon as we got the registry. The message went in a priority capsule. Maybe we’ll get some answers”

  Slone and Albright walked through a door near the main bank of monitors and were suddenly in the private quarters of the base commander. Commander Albright went over to the communications console and pressed a key. “Send the message over, I’m ready to receive it.”

  “Opening the capsule now, message incoming.”

  Across the vast distances of space, communications become a major difficulty. Once humans left the Sol system, two-way communications became virtually impossible. It was discovered, however, that if the message was placed in a capsule that was build to ride the energy streams between stars, a one-way transmission could travel as fast as the ships that spanned the distances. As the capsule improved over time, it became possible to come close to two-way communication. A message was recorded, encapsulated, and then sent into the correct stream. It could span 10 light years per hour, when normal ships could only do a maximum of two light years per hour if all conditions were right. As a result, a capsule could be sent, and, when it reached the system it was sent to, it would drop out of the energy stream and start transmitting a header to identify the recipient. The notificati
on of the sector commander and his answer took approximately 4 hours round trip.

  The seal of the sector commander appeared on the screen followed by the video image of the commander. “Greetings Captain Albright, this message is for your eyes only and those of anyone you feel must know its contents. The dissemination of this information should be limited only to those who need to know it. The yacht you received the distress signal from is named the Omega Queen and is registered to the Sinclair Corporation. The yacht is taking Horatio Sinclair’s daughter, Alaya, on a honeymoon tour of the outer worlds of Sinclair space. Besides her and her new husband, Charles, there is a crew of fifteen and various servants to the family aboard. All other activities are to be suspended pending the retrieval and verification of what happened to the yacht and Mr. Sinclair’s daughter. She is his youngest child, and the possibility of foul play cannot be ruled out. Secrecy is critical, incase this is some kind of kidnapping for ransom. You have your orders. Bring me results. Out.”

  There followed a computer voice announcing, “Transmission ended, would you like to have it repeated or saved?”

  Commander Albright pressed the save button and turned to Slone. “Well captain, it looks like you will have a chance to get off this rock for a bit. The distress beacon entered the slipstream from Bickle’s star; that will be the start of your search. Don’t come back until you know something. Keep me informed on your progress. Any questions?”

  “No sir. Seems straight forward enough. Let’s hope they just lost their engines.”

  “Not likely, Captain. The distress beacon was automated. No personal message attached. They could all be dead and it would have still gone off.”

  “Bad for all of us, if that’s the case. Sinclair Corp signs our checks around here.”

  “You have your orders. Leave as soon as possible. I have already sent orders to give your ship a priority resupply and have her ready in two hours.”

  Slone gave a crisp salute. “Thank you sir. I won’t let you down.”

  “See that you don’t.”

  Slone left the commander’s quarters and headed to his room to pick up a few personal things before heading to the shuttle bay. Star Cruisers cannot land, so crews must be shuttled to their ships in orbit. Shuttles and cutters were the only military ships small enough to land on a planet or moon. Slone went to the shuttle bay where three shuttles from the Hayden stood ready to receive passengers. He could see his chief engineer standing near the command shuttle awaiting him. Members of the crew were already loading into the other two shuttles and as he was watching, one took off and was replaced by a new shuttle just come down from the Hayden.

  Slone returned the salute of his chief engineer who opened the airlock for his captain and said, “We received word to be ready for immediate departure, so commander Stueber cancelled shore leave and began prepping the ship. Supplies have been arriving for the past half hour, nonstop. We figured something big must be going on.”

  Horst Stravinsky was chief engineer of the Hayden. He is a short, stocky man with a ruddy face and red hair, a tint that has been a rarity among the human race for centuries. Countries no longer existed on Earth, but family names still suggested origins and the Stravinsky name came from an area historically know as Prussia in the old area once called Europe. The nuclear wars of the 22nd century changed the landscapes a great deal and made earth uninhabitable and unrecognizable from space. When the radiation finally cleared off the planet, humans rebuilt it the way it had been and it became a museum planet with less than a billion inhabitants. Fortunately, by the time of the nuclear wars, a large human population was already too far from earth to be affected.

  “We have a VIP lost near the rim, so this is a rescue mission.”

  “Must be quite the VIP to put everything on hold.”

  “The daughter of Sinclair himself. He rules our part of the galaxy. What he wants is law to us. When we joined the Sinclair navy, he became our boss. Basically, Horst, when he says jump, we ask how high.”

  “Aye Captain, the way of the world. Will you fly or ride as a passenger?”

  “I think I’ll fly. I still love to feel the ship in my hands.”

  Slone returned the salute of the engineer who then went over to the newly arrived shuttle to oversee its loading. Slone walked over to the Captain’s shuttle and made sure his passengers and cargo were secure. He then climbed into the elevated bridge that sat a little higher than the body of the shuttle to give a full view in all directions through the synthetic glass that surrounded the pilot, copilot and flight engineer. The shuttle was short range and did not need a navigator.”

  “Captain on deck,” said the copilot as Slone entered the vessel and climbed into the bridge. Slone acknowledged the traditional exclamation and eased into the pilot’s seat. He and the flight crew went over the checklists and then reversed the hatch releases, causing the side door on the shuttle to swing down from above and lock into place.

  Slone started the repulsors and the shuttle lifted off to a height of 10 feet. He slowly engaged the forward thrusters after receiving clearance from the hangar control. The opening to the surface of the moon from the hangar was sealed with a force field that allowed ships to pass through but did not allow atmosphere to exit into the vacuum of the surface. The shuttle pushed through the force field and began to gain altitude as soon as it was clear of the hangar. Slone guided the small ship into orbit and towards a large, cylindrical ship with a rounded front end and a slightly tapered rear reducing from mid-ship to a stern half the diameter of the bow. No matter how often Slone saw the great starships of his generation; he could not help thinking they reminded him of a teardrop with the pointed end cut across. Attached to the ship body, three quarters of the way to the stern were four large ion propulsion units for movement through gravity wells and in areas requiring less than faster than light speeds. There were three gun ports forward of the sail collar and three aft of the sail collar. Slone aimed the shuttle to the starboard side landing bay, which was a square opening along the side, above the aft gun ports. The closer the shuttle got to the Hayden, the more the starship dwarfed the smaller vessel. The 350 inhabitants of the Hayden had ample room to prevent claustrophobic feelings on long voyages. The Hayden was over a century old and one of the early ships of the new class of roomy vessels designed for military, civilian and scientific purposes. By combining all three functions in one vessel, it was felt that economy of construction would save money. Unfortunately, what it did was create a ship that had to be all things to all people and that resulted in it never satisfying anyone.

  The shuttle pushed through the force field of the hangar bay and Slone landed at the direction of the docking guidance crewmember, into the slot awaiting it. Slone nodded to the flight crew as he left the flight deck and returned the salutes of those he passed as he walked through the hangar deck. At the door leading from the hangar deck to the access corridor, his security officer, Cora Sardac, met him.

  “Commander, do you have something to report to me?” Slone asked.

  “Yes sir.” His chief of security replied. She was an attractive brunette with regulation, shoulder length hair and a tight fitting body suit that left little to the imagination. Sometimes Slone wished the security people, both male and female, would wear less tight fitting uniforms, but they swore that loose clothing made it riskier to engage in hand to hand combat. Slone was not so sure about that but accepted the explanation, since it was a fleet issue and not part of his responsibilities.

  “The last shore leave groups are about to shuttle up and all supplies are now aboard. We should be ready for departure on your command within the hour.”

  “Thank you, Major Sardac. I will be in my quarters. Send the crew chief up for a final report.”

  “Yes sir.” Major Sardac saluted smartly as Slone walked towards the elevator to the captain’s deck. Slone’s quarters were directly behind the bridge at the highest deck forward in the ship. His rooms were separated from the bridge itself by
an intervening conference room. Directly behind his quarters and at the core of the ship was the Combat Information Center, called CIC for short. This was the heart of the ship during combat operations or other intense situations. Slone entered his quarters and changed into his bridge uniform from the fatigues he had worn while down on the surface. Fleet uniforms were red, with gold chevrons on the collars for bridge officers. As captain, he had four chevrons. All personnel had the stylized S for Sinclair over their left breast. Personnel uniforms were blue with silver trim for ship crew and black with gold trim for the marines. Rank insignias were on the collars and the upper arms with epaulettes for officers wearing dress uniforms. Slone sat at his table with a drink from the food dispenser when the access tone on the door rang, indicating someone wanted to enter.

  “Enter” said Slone. The door responded to his voice and opened to reveal the crew chief, Salima Halac, a slender, olive complexioned female wearing the rank insignia of a chief petty officer, first grade. She was the chief of the vessel and responsible for all of the operational logistics that allowed the Hayden to fulfill its duties. “Good day, chief. Are we up and running for departure?”

  “Yes sir, Captain.” The chief reported as she saluted and entered the office of the Captain’s suite. “All supplies are aboard and all weapons and ammunition have been checked and cleared by the weapon’s teams. We are ready to depart on your orders.”

  “Very well. Consider the order given.”

  The chief saluted crisply again and departed down to the lower decks. Slone passed through his ready room and entered the bridge.

  “Captain on the bridge.” Said the guard standing at the other side of the bridge door and all on the bridge snapped to attention. The bridge of the Hayden was a spacious room with a synthetic glass dome allowing an unparalleled view of the heavens. The transparency extending down the lateral walls allowed a view forward and to the sides of the vessel. Only the rear view from the bridge, where it leads to the officer’s deck, was obstructed.