Relative Gravity / Chapter 04 (Text)

CASSANDRA

Velocity Junkie | Tartarus Sector 

After they burned through the gate, Vel had only seconds to identify their position and angle the ship for insertion into orbit. At the speed they were moving, even a tiny miscalculation would be a disaster, either flinging them off into space or swinging them into the black hole. 

Tartarus filled the main screen. The blurred black dot crushed the background light from the nearby Xibalba nebula’s orange and pink and blue glow into a radiant ring, then the distortion thickened, compressed to white, and the dot widened to a yawning void in space, directly below.

"Entering the ergosphere," Vel announced. "Y’all hold onto your butts."

The black hole was rotating at a significant portion of the speed of light, dragging spacetime with it, and the ship groaned as Vel fought to navigate the gravitational eddies. 

Cassandra grabbed her armrests, bracing herself as the ship shuddered in the frame-drag. Her skin prickled. Gooseflesh rose on her arms. She’d never been so close to a black hole before—few humans had. She could feel its presence. The endless hunger, devouring anything that got too close. But also radiating an ominous beauty. 

The rumbling stopped. A moment later Vel put the Velocity Junkie just ahead of the ISCO-1 timespace mining platform and cut thrust. Cassandra's head swam as her body went from leaden to weightless in an instant. The mission had only just begun, and she was already exhausted.

Amari was still watching Tartarus, silenced by the sheer magnitude of what they were doing. Below was an infinite crushing dark, and above the smeared streaks of starlight bent double. They were circling Tartarus twice a minute, moving at nearly 145,000 kilometers per second, and circling only 700 klicks above the event horizon, the point of no return. Where even light had no chance to escape. She was happy they didn't have to get any closer.

Vel had put two clocks up on the display, one showing Human Standard Time, the other what they were experiencing in the ship. They'd only been in orbit two minutes, but already an extra minute had passed everywhere else. They weren't in any real hurry, but Cassandra didn't want to accumulate any more dilation than necessary.

She didn't expect Collective opposition, not for hours at least. The station would have registered the skip-gate opening, and the automated mining platform would have seen them fly past. General al-Jarrah would be scrambling his ships to intercept, but realistically there wasn't anything he could do to stop them.

The mining station was unarmed, not much more than a gravity lance, a platform to support it, and long cables dangling underneath—oblong Penrose engines stealing power from the ergosphere's angular momentum. The nearest ship was more than three mega-klicks away. Too far to pose an immediate threat. 

Cass gathered the strength to shake her head clear and forced her eyes from the gaping void. "Vel, launch the containment drive and get it up to speed. I want it ready the moment we knock ourselves off a chunk of timespace."

"On it," Vel answered.

"Look at that beautiful bastard," Amari muttered.

Cass allowed herself another glance at the black hole. "Part of me wants to get away from it as fast as possible—"

"—while another part wants to dive straight in," Amari finished.

"How weird is that?"

"It's like a siren," Amari said, still unable to look away, "singing sailors to shipwreck."

"A what?"

"An Old Earth story. Beautiful women who would appear on the rocks and sing songs so alluring the sailors crashed their ships trying to get close—then ate the survivors."

"Promise me if I steer us any closer, you'll stop me?"

Amari patted the pistol strapped to her thigh. Even though it was just the four of them on the ship, she was rarely unarmed. "I've got you covered."

Cass rolled her eyes. "I knew I could count on you."

Locking clamps on the hull released with a thunk that echoed through the plating, then the spherical containment drive blinked across the screen, thrusters burning purple. 

It accelerated away, spiraling down toward the event horizon.

"If we’re done enjoying the scenery," Cass said, "Vel, angle us for the shot."

They pressed against their harnesses as Vel nudged the ship so its nose pointed straight at Tartarus. The void filled the screens like the dark eye of a cosmic leviathan.

“Targeting locked," Vel announced.

Cass turned her head to Amari. "We clear?"

Firing the gravity lance required a massive surge of energy, drawn all at once, far beyond what the Velocity Junkie's engines could produce. Amari had installed banks of capacitors that had trickle charged during the trip. They had enough power for two shots. If something went wrong or they didn't capture the timespace before Tartarus sucked it back up, they'd get one more try. But Cassandra didn't intend on needing it.

"Green across the board," Amari said, glancing at the diagnostics. "Clear to fire."

"Do it," Cass ordered.

The ship hummed and the lights flickered as the lance launched a pulse of focused gravity at Tartarus. Then they waited.

Timespace had been discovered more than 200 years earlier at Hades, the first naked black hole found by the Collective. Most black holes were surrounded by accretion disks, orbiting matter radiating at millions of degrees Celsius. It made them easy to spot, but getting close was impossible. Without a shield of plasma protecting its secrets, researchers could get as near to Hades as they dared. 

Eventually, after decades of study, a science team was attempting to probe past the event horizon using focused gravity waves—did it contain an infinitely dense singularity ring or a dark star or some other form of Planck-scale exotic matter? 

They weren’t having much luck, until they confined the beam down to a point and poured an entire charge into a pin-point instant of extreme gravitational energy. 

While the beam was still unable to reveal anything about the inside of the event horizon, the punch of gravity knocked something loose from the other side: a subatomic speck of condensed matter radiating nearly unlimited energy. Over time, they learned to capture these cores and harness their massive output. 

Timespace now powered Collective stations and long range skip-gates. Controlling it became a military imperative. 

The tight supply only made it more valuable, this was their one chance, and after everything they’d done to get there, waiting to see if they’d succeeded was unbearable. 

Given the way time slows near the event horizon, the core didn’t appear instantly, and Cass was worried they’d need to fire again, but only a few moments later a blazing ball of fire crossed the darkness below them, moving far faster than they were, skimming just above the event horizon.

"Yes!" Amari cheered with a pump of her fist. She pulled her mindset from her breast pocket, dialed it in, and took a hit. "We're in business." 

White mist billowed from her lips as she spoke, and her eyes went glassy. She must have amped her natural dopamine reaction with that hit. Reward for a job well done.

But Cass wasn't ready to open the goldberry vodka just yet.

"How long until it's secure?" Cass asked.

"The containment drive is still getting up to speed," Vel said. "Two-hours and twenty minutes until capture. Then another three until we can dock with it."

"And still no activity from the Collective?"

"None so far—" Vel started, then corrected itself. "Wait. I've got a ship on scopes. It's a few million kilometers from us, but it appears to be heading our way."

"A patrol frigate?"

"No, I don't recognize its silhouette. It doesn't match any Collective ship I've ever seen."

That was odd. Tthe Collective hadn't introduced a new ship in decades.

"ETA?"

"Not enough data yet, though not likely until well after we're gone, even if they push it."

"Good enough for me." She turned to Amari. "Make sure the propulsion system interface is ready to receive the timespace drive. I want to be heading towards the exit gate the moment we've got it secured."

With a timespace core installed, the containment drive was self-propelling, harnessing the massive levels of radiation and converting it to thrust. With their fuel reserves low, the drive was their only way back to the flotilla.

Amari reached down to undo her straps, but Vel’s voice stopped her.

"Just hold on a second," Vel said, a strange uncertainty in its tone. "There's something—" Its words cut off. It wasn't like Vel to be so dramatic.

"Quit playing," Cass said. "This isn't the time for—"

"Just give me a moment," Vel said, and the way her usual confidence had gone shaky sent a bitter wash across Cass' tongue. 

"Out with it."

The ship was silent for another long second. "I had to double check to make sure I wasn't experiencing a fault," Vel finally said. "But it looks like I'm actually seeing what it looks like I'm seeing."

"What the strak are you on about," Amari slurred.

"The ship closing on us is moving faster than I anticipated. Much, much faster."

"How long do we have?" Cass asked, thinking they might only have a half day to prepare.

"Twenty seconds," Vel announced. "Give or take."

That didn't make sense. It was three million klicks away. 

Amari coughed through a cloud of mindset. "Twenty seconds?!" 

"Give or take," Vel clarified.

“You’re certain?” Cass asked.

“Wish I wasn’t,” Vel said.

Amari shook her head. "It’s impossible. Nothing can move that fast."

"Our own eyes be damned?" Cass said. 

Yesterday she would have agreed with Amari, but they didn't have the luxury of worrying about what was true yesterday. 

A ship that ignored the laws of physics was closing on them—that was the new normal. At this point the 'how' of it wasn't important. 

All that mattered now was what she intended to do about it.