“Rocketing all over the place, off the chart and then nothing, and then incredibly high again,” the sensors watch reported, her voice strained by disbelief. “The changes are happening instantaneously. A lot of what’s going on in that gate seems to be occurring in ways our instruments can’t measure.”
“Captain Geary, this is Diamond. What the hell is going on, sir?” The message was torn by some kind of static but still understandable.
Geary reached to push his controls without taking his eyes off the visual display. “Diamond, this is Geary. We’re trying to leash a monster before it destroys everything in this star system. Make sure your forward shields are set to maintain at maximum. Daring, that goes for you, too. Do not, repeat, do not interfere with the firing pattern of your weapons.”
A strange sort of humming seemed to be filling the air, a resonance traveling through everything near the gate. Geary felt it inside himself. He could hear someone whispering a prayer and didn’t call for silence. The vision through the gate had twisted some more, into something almost impossible to look at because of the way his brain reacted to the sight. The maw of the monster. The mythical beast that eats ships, leaving no trace of them in space. I’ve finally seen it. By the living stars, I pray I never see it again.
A very low voice sounded near him. Co-President Rione, her tone reflecting the same awe and terror that Geary and everyone else must be feeling. “Captain Geary. Thank you for trying.”
“We haven’t failed yet,” he managed to reply.
“Captain Desjani,” the weapons watch called, his voice sounding too loud and with an undertone of panic. “Hell-lance batteries two alpha, four alpha, and five beta report overheating from the constant firing.”
“Conduct emergency heat dumps,” Desjani replied, her voice steady. “We have Captain Geary aboard, ladies and gentlemen. We won’t fail him or the rest of the fleet counting on us.”
Even through his fear Geary felt a rush of gratification at her words and admiration for Desjani’s ability to project control even in the face of what was happening inside the gate.
The strange humming had grown to a moan running through and tearing at everything. Geary felt the sort of strange instability that came with being very drunk and realized his nervous system was being pummeled by whatever was happening inside the gate. He hoped that Dauntless’s electrical systems were better shielded than his own body was at the moment.
“Captain Geary, this is Diamond. Experiencing secondary system failures. Primary systems remain operational on backup circuits. We’ve lost one hell-lance battery to overheating. Holding position.”
“This is Daring. We’re suffering the same. Remaining on station and continuing to fire.”
“Captain Desjani, failures to secondary systems throughout the hull, hell-lance battery two alpha nonoperational due to overheating.”
“Very well,” Desjani replied in the same steady voice. “Hold station. Continue firing.”
Geary had been proud to command this fleet when he wasn’t feeling overwhelmed by the responsibility. But now he felt such a strong sense of honor in commanding ships and sailors like this that he had to fight back tears. “Damn, you’re all good,” he stated roughly. “May the living stars reward such courage.”
“This is Diamond. My weapons have stopped firing. All combat systems nonoperational. Request further instructions.”
Geary slammed his hand onto the control. “Withdraw, Diamond. Maximum acceleration. Keep your shields facing the gate as strong as possible.”
“Diamond, aye. Unable to comply. Inertial compensators are still working but main maneuvering controls have just failed. Looks like we’re staying at the mouth of hell with you.”
“I couldn’t ask for better company there than you, Daring and Dauntless,” Geary replied. “Captain Duellos, if Dauntless is destroyed, you are to assume command of the fleet by my order.”
It would be a while before Duellos heard that order, assuming the strange static emanating from the gate didn’t mask it completely at a distance. Geary took a deep breath. “How much longer can we hold out, Captain Desjani?”
“No telling, sir,” she stated in a soft but firm voice that left Geary marveling at Desjani’s self-control. “The ship is undergoing a unique set of stresses.”
The pace of firing from the hell-lance batteries had finally slowed, with pauses of varying length occurring before the firing program ordered new shots to blow apart more tethers at locations all around the gate. The hell mouth inside the gate was fluctuating wildly, one moment swelling as if to burst the bounds of the gate and the next dwindling to a point almost too small to see.
Geary felt his body pulsing in time, wondering how long humans could endure whatever was happening to the structure of reality in this part of space.
The hell mouth shrank into nothingness in the blink of an eye, vanishing from sight. “What—?”
Geary’s question was cut off as a shock wave hit the Dauntless, traveling so fast that there’d been no warning time this close to the gate. He’d seen time-lapse images of the shock wave from a nova, and this seemed like that, though happening in real time the event was so fast his senses didn’t really register it. Dauntless shuddered under the impact, the inertial compensators whining as they dampened the effects of the force.
“Forward shields being reinforced.” The lights overhead dimmed. “All nonessential power being diverted to forward shields.”
It ended as fast as it had come. Geary blinked at the visual display, which showed nothing but normal space. The remaining gate tethers had been vaporized by the energy release from the gate collapse. “Diamond! Daring! Report your status!”
“Sir, communications are down. Systems being restored now. You have communications, sir.”
Geary punched the control again. “Diamond and Daring, request your status.”
The delay was agonizing, but a reply finally came. “This is Daring. A lot of equipment is off-line, but we haven’t taken serious damage. Estimate we can restore full capability given time. We’ll have a time guesstimate for repairs for you as soon as possible.”
“This is Diamond. We should be able to get moving again, though it will take a minimum of several hours and possibly much longer. We’ve lost a lot of vital systems. Diamond is in nonoperational status for an indefinite period.”
Geary let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “Daring, remain with Diamond. Captain Tyrosian, designate one of your auxiliaries to close on Diamond and render assistance.” Geary checked the system display, stunned to realize that the shock wave they’d ridden out was only now hitting the next-closest Alliance ships. “How much was that? Not a nova.”
“We wouldn’t be here if it’d been nova strength,” the sensor watch agreed shakily. “It was sort of a minor fractional nova. Even then we couldn’t have survived that kind of energy bombardment for any length of time, but there was just the one shock wave.”
Geary collapsed into his seat, weak with reaction. There wasn’t any way to get a message to any of the Alliance ships before the shock wave reached them, but they should be already facing the gate with their shields ready, and the energy at any point in the shock wave would be weakening rapidly as it expanded away from the gate. Cresida’s program hadn’t managed to eliminate the energy discharge completely, but it had kept it to a level low enough that everything remaining in the Sancere Star System should be able to ride it out. “Very good job, Captain Desjani. You and your crew. Dauntless is a great ship.”