Frontier's Reach: A Space Opera Adventure (Frontiers Book 1) Read online

  The power of the Argo fought back, her hull clanging and screeching against the force of the giant anomaly. But it was of no use; the hold at the center of the vortex got greater and greater. The ship turned on its axis and spun towards it.

  The shuddering was unbearable. Jason’s teeth jangled. He clutched at the helm and covered his eyes. The brightness of the purple and red energy tendrils nearly blinded him.

  “Brace for impact!” Tyler roared.

  But the impact never came.

  Only darkness.

  Twenty-Seven

  Jason’s stomach grumbled, and a searing pain shot up his neck.

  He opened his eyes to the view of the helm console before him.

  The vortex…

  The bridge was concealed in darkness with the odd flicker of light emanating from the display monitors. From the shadows, everyone appeared to be unconscious. Tyler, Althaus, and Petit, were slumped in their seats, while behind the captain’s chair Marquez lay on the deck.

  Jason activated his commband. “Jason to Aly. Can you hear me? Kevin, come in. Is anyone on the ship receiving?”

  Nothing.

  He stood and walked over to Tyler to check his pulse. He was alive. As was everyone else he examined. He returned to the helm to establish their position, but found it difficult with the scanners down. The rotating starfield out the viewport however told him the Argo was spinning through space.

  He put his hands on the controls and punched the maneuvering thrusters. He fired them one by one. It took a few minutes, but he set the Argo back on its normal axis.

  A groan made him jump and he turned to Captain Marquez picking himself off the deck.

  “You okay? Jason asked him.

  “Yeah,” The captain said, groggily. “What about everyone else?”

  “Still unconscious.”

  “What happened to us?”

  “Well, I don’t know about you, but the last thing I remember was the Argo being pulled into the vortex. I must’ve blacked out after that.”

  “Me, too.” Marquez approached the helm. “So, where are we?”

  Jason got another fright as the lights on the bridge flickered on. He glanced toward the hatchway where Aly stood with her hands inside an open terminal.

  “A little warning would’ve been nice,” he said to her.

  “You’ll live.” Aly walked over to the systems station.

  “What’s the damage down in the engine room?”

  “That’s a good question.” Aly surveyed the monitors as they blinked to life. “I haven’t been there yet. The last thing I remember was finding quarters for the Marines before waking up with my head smashed against the deck plating.”

  She got a fright of her own when Althaus regained consciousness on the chair in front of her. His eyes were like daggers for Jason.

  “What the hell did you do to this ship!” Althaus wailed.

  “I don’t know what you were watching, but it was that vortex—”

  Before he finished his sentence, Tyler’s head lifted from the arm of his chair. “I ordered you to pull away from that vortex,” he said groggily.

  I was too late to push the button.

  He’d frozen.

  But I never freeze.

  He went to say something, but Kevin cut him off over the speakers.

  “Infirmary to bridge.”

  “Tyler here.” His brother activated the intercom from his console, still very much incensed. “What’s going on down there?”

  “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

  Tyler stood and helped Petit who was also coming around. “We’re all fine up here.”

  “Okay, I’ve got the Marines coming into the infirmary now. I’ll see how they’ve fared.”

  “Bridge out.” Tyler turned to Aly. “Have we got scanners?”

  “Coming back online now.” She studied the readings. “Well, we’re certainly not in the Orion system anymore. You might want to rotate the ship one hundred and seventy degrees to port.”

  Jason fired the starboard thrusters and a beautiful green sphere lay before them. On it were three large continental land masses and vast blue oceans in between. Outside of Earth, he’d never seen a planet so spectacular.

  “Stunning,” Aly said.

  “What about the Seeker ship?” Jason asked.

  Petit shook his head. “There’s no other ships on the scanners.”

  “Could this planet be their homeworld?”

  “There doesn’t appear to be any structures on the surface or space stations in orbit.”

  “Then it’s uninhabited?”

  “More than likely. The planet itself has just the one natural satellite. Going over the numbers, it’s about three quarters the size of Earth, and the moon about twice the size of Luna.”

  Jason checked the helm, but it was the chronometer that caught his attention. “Has anyone else had a look at the time?”

  Everyone stared at him blankly.

  “Seventy-nine hours have passed since we entered that vortex.”

  “We were out cold for over three days?” Marquez said, rubbing his face. He had stubble all over it. As did Althaus, Tyler, and Petit.

  The operations station beeped.

  “The navigation computer has calculated our position based on the surrounding stars and constellations.” Petit’s eyes widened at his readings. “In that time, we’ve traveled three hundred light-years.”

  “That’s impossible,” Althaus scoffed. “It’d take the Argo fifteen years to make a trip of that length.”

  “While I don’t dispute that, we are where we are. In three days we’ve traveled at twenty-seven thousand times the speed of light.”

  “It’s a far cry from the Argo’s top speed of twenty times the speed of light,” Aly said.

  “Indeed.”

  “So where exactly are we?” Marquez asked.

  “The star maps have it designated as the Psi-Aion system. We’ve well and truly journeyed beyond Frontier’s Reach.”

  “No one has ever come this far before,” Tyler said.

  “Tritonium-fueled engines,” Jason mumbled.

  Tyler raised his eyebrows. “Jason?”

  He met his brother’s eyes. “We travel interstellar distances by using engines that require a tritonium-plasma reaction to reach faster-than-light speeds. Without it, we’d be confined to our own star system. The Iota particles have been wherever the Seekers ships have been. They obviously have something to do with the vortexes, so it stands to reason that the Seekers don’t use tritonium to travel at FTL, they traverse space through these corridors. And by doing that they cover space farther and quicker than we can.”

  “Trans-space.”

  Everyone looked at Petit while he pondered. “About fifty years ago, a scientist by the name of Walter Ransom came up with a far-flung theory that beneath normal space there was another plane of space. One that undulated with currents that moved faster than that of the normal vacuum of space. He called it transient-space, or trans-space for short. He theorized we’d never again need to use FTL engines and instead ride currents to our interstellar destinations.”

  “It sounds fantastical,” Tyler said.

  “Doctor Ransom’s theory made him a pariah. It was one among several very different concepts he’d come up with. For the rest of his career, he was perceived as nothing more than a crackpot. But with all things fantastical, they have a way of coming true.”

  “What about the blackouts?” Marquez asked.

  “When humanity broke the FTL barrier, we needed to develop gravity stabilization technology on our vessels so our bodies wouldn’t liquify whenever we jumped. Trans-space is something different. The speeds we’re dealing with are monumentally faster. At twenty-seven thousand times the speed of light and six hundred and fifty times faster than that of our newest Mark V engine, I would assume our bodies struggled with the stress.”

  “Can we replicate these conditions to take us back into trans-space
?” Tyler asked.

  Petit shook his head. “From what I can tell, the vortex is gone, but for a small concentration of Iota particles, which are continuing to dissipate. This technology is centuries if not millennia ahead of our own. I simply don’t have the expertise. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to make the trip home the old-fashioned way.”

  A hush went around the bridge. Jason let it sink in. Fifteen years aboard the Argo. That was if the old cargo ship could handle a journey of that length and if they’d be able to continue to replenish their supplies and tritonium. He figured it could’ve been worse. They could be dead.

  Or be Nash.

  The operations station beeped again and Petit studied it, curiously.

  “What is it, Professor?” Tyler asked.

  He ran his hands over it, and noises played from the speakers. It was a series of loud and soft beeps. Jason knew what it was straight away.

  “That’s an automated Defense Force distress beacon,” Marquez said.

  “All the way out here?” Tyler asked. “What’s its location?”

  Petit checked the readings. “It’s coming from the surface of Psi-Aion. The western continent.”

  “What do we know about the planet?”

  “Mostly subtropical in nature. Heavy concentrations of vegetation and several freshwater bodies. It is viable for human life.”

  “Can you pinpoint the signal within five kilometers?”

  “I believe so.”

  Marquez walked to Tyler’s side. “We’ve already asked a hell of a lot from your ship and crew, Captain, but if there is someone down there, we have to investigate.”

  Tyler glanced at Jason and nodded. “We’ll help in any way we can.”

  Twenty-Eight

  The Marines armed themselves with the remaining rifles from the Argo’s weapon locker. They weren’t the top-of-the-line G-74s they’d been stripped of on Orion V, but they’d be better than nothing.

  Susan stood back as Nicolas spoke to them. It’d been the first time he’d been able to since the death of Major Ripken. After passing out his condolences for their fallen comrades, Nicolas put Corporal Higgs in command of the four-man team. He was the obvious choice over Corporal Burns, who’d only recently been promoted, and the two privates, Dalton and Utkin. With an understanding of their new orders, the Marines filed off and walked into the Maybelle through the side airlock.

  Nicolas’s eyes had heavy bags beneath them, despite the fact everyone had been asleep for over three days. Susan understood the pain he was obviously bottling up inside with the loss of the Vanguard and its crew. While fighting for survival on Orion V, they hadn’t had time to think about it. Since coming aboard the Argo, it’d been different. Especially with everything that’d happened. And now to be so far from home on a strange cargo ship, she couldn’t blame him for feeling the way he did.

  Her thoughts turned to Kione. She’d been the lead project coordinator on his studies at TIAS for four years. He’d become like family. She could only hope that he survived whatever the Seekers were going to do to him.

  Nicolas led her inside the Maybelle and sat in the rear cabin of the craft. She sat opposite him and went to say something, but stopped, a ruckus getting nearer from outside the pod.

  Tyler Cassidy stepped through the airlock. “It’s not happening, Jason.”

  His brother walked in after him. “There’s a commonwealth distress beacon coming from the surface of that planet, and you’re not taking me?”

  Tyler gestured inside the pod, specifically at Nicolas and the Marines. “I’ve got enough people here. Luckily for me they’re actually in the Defense Force.”

  Susan had the sudden suspicion they’d got caught up in the middle of a family squabble. She glanced at Nicolas who appeared to do his best not to chuckle. There was a least some humor still left inside him.

  “I need you here helping with the repairs,” Tyler continued.

  “This has nothing to do with repairing the ship. You’ve already got Aly, Kevin, and Althaus up here. Not to mention Professor Petit.”

  “Okay, you’re right, I don’t need you here to do the repairs. Do you want to know why you’re not going?”

  Jason couldn’t speak before he got his answer.

  “You stuffed up!”

  Now this is really awkward.

  “If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be here in the first place!”

  As the Cassidys continued their slanging match, Susan thought back to the incident at Nebula TPA-338. She’d heard about the task force that was sent to find the remaining Centauri war criminals. Benjamin Tyrell’s inclusion on the list had always concerned her. When she’d been brought in to take over his role, the unofficial story at TIAS was that he’d planned to reveal the details of Kione and the project to the remaining leaders of the Centauri rebellion, to use it against Earth. Kione hadn’t been convinced, and she’d never been certain herself.

  “You’re not going.” Tyler put his foot down, and the two stared coldly at each other.

  “All right, fine,” Jason finally relented. “Just watch that port thruster, it was a little sluggish when we came back up from Orion V.”

  Tyler nodded in appreciation, and Jason turned, sealing the airlock behind him. Tyler took the helm and fired up the Maybelle. It rumbled to life beneath them and detached from the Argo, maneuvering toward the newly discovered world below.

  Kevin was hunched under the helm console working inside the small maintenance panel when Jason strolled onto the bridge. He glanced up momentarily before returning to his work.

  “Where’s Petit?” Jason asked.

  A spark flew from the panel. Kevin quickly pulled his hand away to avoid any shock. “He’s down in the engine room. Alyssa hyperventilated when the professor agreed to help her.”

  “So, you’re relegated to getting the bridge controls up to spec again?”

  “Well, I figured it was this or clean up the mess down in the cargo bay. I thought I’d leave that to Althaus.”

  Jason smirked, stepping closer to the helm.

  “Can you pass me those circuit cutters?” Kevin asked.

  Jason took the small tool from the box on top of the helm console and passed it to him.

  “So, what happened up here when I was down in the infirmary? Seems like I missed all the fun.”

  Jason took a seat. “Well, there was this hole and—”

  “Yeah, I got the rundown on that,” Kevin said. “Why’d we get sucked in?”

  “We got too close.”

  “We got too close?”

  “I got too close.”

  Kevin cut the faulty circuits from the main monitor to the key pads. “Hand me those connectors.”

  Jason gave Kevin another small tool to reconnect the console’s vital components.

  “Could we have got away from the vortex?”

  Jason seemed unsure. “If I was quick enough. Yeah, I guess.”

  “I never taught you to be slow. You’re the best lever jockey I’ve ever seen. What really happened?”

  The helm controls lit up.

  “Is it working?”

  Jason ran his hands over the console. “Seems good.”

  Kevin pulled himself up from deck and brushed himself off. “So?”

  Jason turned away. “I guess I just froze.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you either.”

  “A lot has changed since I was here last.”

  “I realize that.” Kevin closed up the toolbox and took a seat at the operations station. “It’s not a crime to admit that you froze because of everything that’s happened. To believe your friend had been dead for so many years and then—”

  “Yeah.”

  Kevin knew him too well. Jason hadn’t really changed that much.

  “What is a crime is I’ve let everybody down. I could’ve got everyone killed. And now we’re stuck three hundred light-years from home.”

  “Well, everyone didn’t get killed, and even if it d
oes take us fifteen years, we’ll get back eventually.”

  The systems console beeped, and Kevin stared at the scanners. “A blip.” He checked again. “It’s gone.”

  “A blip? Where?” Jason stood and peered over Kevin’s shoulder.

  “Let’s see.” Kevin replayed the scans.

  “There!” Jason pointed.

  Kevin froze the image. “Whatever it is, it appeared from the dark side of the moon, before slinking back behind it.”

  “The Seekers. That would explain why we haven’t seen them since being spat out of the other side of the trans-space corridor. They’ve been hiding.”

  “Hiding? From us?”

  “Unlikely. But they’re obviously here for a reason.” Jason began to ponder.

  Kevin narrowed his eyes. “I’ve seen that look before. What are you planning?”

  Jason smirked.

  “You’re not seriously considering going out there, are you?”

  “It’s worth checking out. I’ll take the Julieanne,” Jason said, speaking of the Argo’s second pod.

  “I would much rather you didn’t. You don’t need to piss off your brother any more at the moment.”

  “Tyler’s already pissed with me. This won’t make it any worse.”

  “It won’t make it any better either.”

  “Nash’s still out there. If there’s any chance—”

  “What do you plan on doing?”

  Jason shrugged. “I’ll figure that as I go along.”

  Kevin shook his head. He didn’t want to see Jason get himself killed. “I don’t like this. We were lucky to get away with our lives at Orion V. I can’t see the Seekers taking too kindly to people snooping around into their business.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  Kevin relented. He’d learned it wasn’t possible to talk him out of anything. “You better be. If you don’t come back alive, I’ll kill you myself.”

  Jason slapped Kevin on the back before heading toward the hatchway. “Don’t wait up.”

  Twenty-Nine