Chapter 14: Into the Void

January 15^th, 2279

He had a short dream, once more making little sense to him, and once more caused by the multitude of chemical fighting for his neural receptors like they were the last chopper out of Nam. In this particular sequence, Basil was having dinner with admiral Hays. The admiral – with a hole in his temple although that was not how he died ‒ was munching a Rubicon-shaped cake, telling Basil a story of his youth, when he was just a midshipman. They’d managed to get the access codes to some old shuttle and went blasting it through the canyons on Proxima B, the farmers shaking their hands at them. Hays took another huge bite out of the port hull and went on to explain that when the shuttle’s engines finally overheated, they brought it down near a reservoir, hoping to throw it in the water to cover their tracks. His friend, however, ran off into the desert, so Hays dug a ramp, Feterni helping him. Once the ramp was finished, Feterni told him repeatedly they were ready. Ready!

- Captain? I said we’re ready. Now or never!

Basil shot up, his mind and vision wobbling. He smelt the stale water from the reservoir still as he charged up a hard cocktail of stimulants and stumbled into the arch of his door. He paused and looked around, finding himself in his ready room. The door to the bridge opened. All of them were looking at him, slowly walking to his chair, requiring some sidewards steps to keep balance.

- All stations report.

- Helm ready.

- SenComm ready.

SenComm? Ah, Nocks.

- Science ready.

I wonder how Korolev is. But the old guy is awake at least.

- Cloak and mimic ready.

Perlas was now on the bridge, remotely monitoring the mimic system. He had again adapted the workspace to his size, using the free space underneath to provide some extra emergency medkits.

- Medbay ready.

- Security ready.

Ha, Mellir isn’t ready.

- Marines ready.

Both Mender and Mellir were on the top section of the bridge, flanking the entrances.

- Tactical?

- You’re tactical, Sir.

- That’s what I meant, Nocks. Tactical ready. Feterni?

- We’re ready. No jumpdrive, though.

- Perlas – activate mimic.

Perlas had already brought up everything he needed. As he hit CONFIRM, he also switched the viewscreen to the hangar’s feed. The Rubicon now blurred itself, changing shape and morphing into what soon resembled a Fellian freighter. This was the most suitable shape for the ship, as they were largely similar in their basic dimensions and radiation output, but it took a while for the illusion to stabilize, here and there still showing the dirty grey hull of the Rubicon under the brown Fellian hull, and where the illusion collided with physical objects, such as the walkways and the hangar clamps, it failed. They watched the battle of colors for a while until Perlas’ manipulations of the field yielded some success, straightening out the illusion.

- Good enough. Helm, get us out of here.

- Releasing clamps...

The four massive clamps attached to the ship opened and the simulated freighter bounced up and down slightly, holding position under its own power for the first time in a long time. As they were mimicking another ship, they were unaware that the ship had never gotten a fresh lick of paint under the clamps, now showing some HCC and the older, lighter grey the fleet had replaced a few years earlier in an attempt to look more serious.

- Send a ping to admiral Petumbio. JUST A PING.

The hangar door to the rear of the ship started opening almost the same moment the ping went out, proving that Petumbio was watching them closely, finger hovering over the button, likely breathing a sigh of relief that the annoying ship was leaving well before RND was slated to show up. Basil removed the unassuming box from his pocket, took out the 6^th stripe and added it to his collar, now finally feeling like some sort of captain.

- Move out. Helm?

- Reversing...

Slowly, the Fellian blob reversed out of the hangar. The illusion stabilized when the clamps were left behind, no longer cutting into the field. The ship was slow, very slow. Imminently, the maneuverability issues appeared, as it started nearing the outer hull of the station with its long tail fin. The station was designed to dock even heavy cruisers and long freighters, but Ka’al had to give the cantankerous ship a heavy burst of forward thrust to stop the backwards drift. Noone spoke a word, all of them peeling their eyes on the viewscreen. They had finally launched the Rubicon and those engineers who had bet on the ship never launching in time had lost some of their possessions, mostly to Feterni, who didn’t like socializing but came from a gatherer society.

The amble ship turned and ascended towards the opening main gate of Kappa 3 far above them. The whole station lay silent, the lockdown still in progress, the reason for the lockdown passing the dead windows. They passed deck after deck, went past the Frigate SFF Nelson, completely devoid of any movement, lights, or any other activity. It felt like a deep sea exploration robot diving a wreck so deep in the ocean, that not even marine life had found its way down there.

Ka’al now briefly gave the computer control of the ship. He was confident in some directions the ship could move in, but had little hope to correctly guess the distance their ascending path would continue once the upper thrusters fired against the superheavy ship. The computer calculated, fired the thrusters, and then recalculated, also being apparently unsure of how the ship would react.