‘Crap, crap and crappity crap,’ shouted Andy, stabbing at the icons on his holodisplay.
‘I take it it’s not showing up anywhere?’ said Phil, opening his eyes and glancing across at Andy.
‘No – I mean, it’s the size of a small planet – where the fuck can it have gone?’ cried Andy, the frustration boiling over.
‘Have you got the arrays at maximum?’ asked Phil.
‘Yes,’ Rayl and Andy shouted in tandem.
‘Perhaps the ship is designed to automatically jump behind large obstacles to foil any pursuit?’
‘Or perhaps it’s still here and just cloaked,’ said Rayl.
‘If that’s the case then we’re royally screwed,’ said Andy, sitting back and crossing his arms angrily.
‘Not necessarily,’ said Phil. ‘You remember what Ed did when Linda was on that PCP ship in Andromeda?’
‘He set up a five-hundred-light-year grid and worked it methodically,’ said Andy.
‘I admit we did have the edge of the galaxy behind us then, that cut the possible directions down by half,’ said Phil, looking rueful. ‘But we could adopt a similar method in this scenario. It would be better than flying around randomly and shouting at each other.’
Andy glanced across at Rayl and got a shrug in reply.
‘Yeah – sorry, Phil,’ said Andy. ‘Cleo, can you show a grid on the holo––’
It appeared before he finished the sentence. A faint grid of boxes covering this side of the Milky Way materialised within the holomap.
‘Would a range of a hundred thousand light years suffice, Andrew?’ said Cleo.
‘Absolutely,’ he said, glancing at the other two. ‘This could take a while and only really needs two of us on duty at any one time, Rayl. You go and get some sleep. Phil and I will cover the first few hours.’
‘Okay, if you’re sure,’ she said, giving Andy a kiss on the forehead and disappearing down on the tube lift.
‘Right,’ said Andy, once she was gone. ‘Let’s find this stupid ship again – it’s not as if it’s small.’
‘We only need to glimpse it once to get a guide on its course,’ said Phil. ‘It obviously didn’t come from here and was en route to somewhere else. I think we can discount the cloaking hypothesis, because it didn’t cloak all the time it was flying around the Traxx system sucking in energy.’
‘No,’ said Andy. ‘That’s right – it charged its systems sufficiently to jump to its next waypoint. We just need to find out how far that thing’s technology could possibly send it.’
‘Cleo,’ said Phil, ‘do we have any actual video footage of that ship jumping?’
‘Er – yeah,’ she said. ‘I’ll see if I can get a closer image.’
A holo image of the alien ship shown from their position from behind, materialised in the centre of the bridge. Cleo panned in to get a close-up. It made the image slightly blurred but still showed the multitude of absorbent panels hanging off the ship, constantly updating their orientation to maximise efficiency.
‘They’ve utilised every scrap of hull space to those panels, haven’t they?’ said Phil.
‘It’s certainly a thing of beauty,’ said Andy. ‘I’d have been proud to design that – it almost looks like the panels are feathers ruffling in the wind.’
They watched in awe as the mega ship circled the system’s star, gathering vast quantities of energy to top up its depleted reserves.
Suddenly, all the panels folded back flush with the hull.
‘Must be getting ready to jump,’ said Phil.
A strange grey swirling cloud appeared around the needle-sharp prow, expanding quickly until it was as wide as the ship.
‘What the fuck is that?’ said Andy. ‘Why didn’t we see this before?’
The vessel slipped inside and the mist swirl disappeared down to a pinprick and vanished, like an old TV set shutting down.
Andy and Phil looked at each other in bewilderment.
‘That wasn’t any jump initiation I’ve ever seen,’ said Andy. ‘You’ve been out here with this technology for several millennia, Phil – have you seen a jump drive that causes that weird effect before?’
Phil sat staring at the empty holo space image for a few moments, his mouth agape.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ he said finally. ‘That didn’t look anything like any jump drive at all.’
‘It had no jump signature either,’ said Cleo. ‘I’ve scoured both mine and Gabriel’s data bases for anything that resembles this and for once I’ve come up empty. The energy release from whatever that was is colossal, almost as if it’s using the power of the star to create a hole in space.’
‘What, like a wormhole?’ said Andy.
‘That’s never been made workable,’ said Cleo. ‘Many have tried in ages gone by, but the power required was just too vast, and the working theories estimated the travel times were always going to be slower than a fold drive anyway.’
‘Well, perhaps this race from wherever they came from, succeeded,’ said Andy. ‘And those panels were collecting a lot of power just before it went.’
‘If it was a wormhole drive as you call it,’ said Phil, still staring at the holo image, ‘then that ship could be travelling relatively slowly between systems and only stopping to recharge from a star as and when they reach one or need one.’
‘That’s right,’ said Andy. ‘The range may be restricted to a few light years at a time and the route to wherever they’re going isn’t in a straight line. They have to zig-zag from system to system, keeping under their maximum defined number of light years.’
‘So we haven’t lost them,’ said Phil, becoming a little more animated. ‘They could actually be quite close, but invisible within their little wormhole.’
‘Well, it didn’t look like a little wormhole, but if you can call travelling away from here at several times the speed of light as close, then yes,’ said Andy.
Phil glanced up at the ceiling.
‘Cleo, what did the theories estimate the speeds within a wormhole to be?’
‘Anywhere from ten to a hundred times light,’ she replied.
‘And projected range?’
‘Anywhere from one to five hundred light years.’
‘Hmm,’ said Andy. ‘You can see why no one bothered with it after fold drives were invented. Even if you took the fastest estimate and the longest distance, it would still take five years to travel five hundred light years, something a fold takes less than a second to initiate.’
‘So we’re looking in the wrong place,’ said Phil. ‘Going out five hundred light years and scanning around is pointless.’
‘Yeah,’ said Andy, thinking hard. ‘We need to concentrate on the nearest systems and wait.’
‘And hope whoever designed that worm drive couldn’t achieve too much range,’ added Phil, grinning for the first time in ages.
‘Correct. Cleo, can you––’
The holomap suddenly expanded in all directions, with the nearest systems flashing in red.
‘This what you wanted, Andrew?’ she said, appearing in person, today choosing a skimpy black goth-style outfit with laced leather boots up to her thighs, purple eyeshadow and black lipstick.
‘Bloody hell, Cleo,’ said Andy. ‘You do know I’m a married man now?’
‘I’m not,’ said Phil, winking at Cleo.
‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘Just trying to cheer you two up.’
‘I think you’ve succeeded,’ said Andy.
‘And the other thing I’ve succeeded in, is a possible way to detect a vehicle suspended within your wormhole.’
‘You have – really?’ asked Phil.
‘Experimental at the moment,’ she said. ‘I noticed when the hole formed around the bow of the giant ship, it created a kind of deep echo, a resonance I can still faintly detect even now, but the range isn’t good. As soon as I get more than about five hundred thousand kilometres away, it just fades into the background hum of the galaxy.’
‘So you’re saying if we travel between here and some of these closer systems, you might be able to detect the wormhole as it cuts through interstellar space?’ asked Andy.
‘I can’t promise anything and it’s still a needle and all that,’ she said, looking hopeful. ‘But it’s all we’ve got at the moment.’
‘And if we do detect them,’ said Phil, ‘we’ll know the destination and, by how far they’ve got, know the estimated time of arrival?’
‘Spot on, Philip,’ said Cleo. ‘I’ll leave the actual choice of systems to visit up to you, as that really is down to pure luck.’
She disappeared again, leaving Andy and Phil staring at the holomap.
‘Where to, Batman?’ said Andy. ‘You’re piloting, you get first choice.’
‘Well, working on the assumption a wormhole travels in a reasonable straight line and in the direction the ship was going when it entered, then perhaps this system here at five point two light years is as good as any to start with.’
Andy pointed towards the flashing red star in the holomap and grinned.
‘Engage.’