Nullifier (Fire and Rust Book 6) by Anthony James

Author:Anthony James [James, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-12-08T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

The vantrium drive hummed at an increasing volume and Griffin prepared himself for an assault on his eardrums. After about fifteen seconds, the humming got no louder and remained at a level which was more soothing than uncomfortable. A moment later, Griffin felt a slight bump and the bulkhead screens went offline.

“It’s done, sir,” said Kroll in tones of disbelief. “We’re at lightspeed.”

“That was unexpectedly smooth,” said Shelton.

“Please confirm. Check everything,” Griffin ordered.

“Everything seems fine,” said Kroll. “Wait a moment, what’s this?”

“Tell me.”

“It might be nothing, sir. On a ULAF spaceship I’d be able to view the propulsion readings and those would give me an early warning of potential issues.”

“You can’t see the readings?”

“No, sir. I don’t know if that’s intentional or not.”

“Another unexpected feature of the Nullifier,” said Griffin. “How are our passengers?”

“Captain Conway reports no injuries. He sounded grudgingly impressed, sir.”

“I’m impressed too,” said Griffin. “That transition was monumentally better than anything I’ve experienced before.”

“Look at this!” said Shelton excitedly. “Our sensors are obtaining a feed, sir.”

Griffin caught sight of the bulkhead screens flickering into life once more. He detected dark shapes and movement, like the spaceship was heading through a straight tunnel with irregular walls.

“What exactly are we seeing?” he asked.

“I don’t know, sir,” said Dominguez. “It’ll take time to analyze.”

“Captain Conway, can you take a look at this?” said Griffin on the comms.

“What is it, sir?” asked Conway, appearing in the doorway.

“You experienced lightspeed on the Ravok spaceship Zemilius. Do these sensor feeds remind you of what you saw during your time onboard?”

“Yes, sir,” said Conway with a nod. “It’s been a while, but that looks exactly like what I saw.”

“Thank you. This makes two different species which can gather visual data when travelling at lightspeed.”

“How does it help us, sir?”

“I don’t know.”

Conway left the bridge, leaving Griffin and his sensor team staring at the feeds.

“No turbulence either,” said Shelton suddenly. “I wonder why that is.”

“It suggests the ULAF has an underlying problem with its lightspeed drive tech if you ask me. The Fangrin as well.” said Kroll. “Otherwise the turbulence would affect the Nullifier too.”

“We can’t dwell on the technical details now, Lieutenant. Not unless they have a direct, practical bearing on our mission to get the Nullifier into friendly space.”

“It’s interesting, sir. I like to speculate.”

“It’s interesting to all of us, Lieutenant. Maybe once this situation is resolved we can talk.”

“We’ve got nearly seven days ahead of us,” said Jackson. “Seven days living on suit nourishment.”

The sensor feeds fascinated Griffin and he reluctantly drew his eyes back to his console. He saw no alarms and nothing to indicate imminent faults. The status screen which was meant to provide a real time view on the propulsion system output was blank. Griffin reloaded the backend software and got the same result – a blank screen which had been working perfectly before the transition to lightspeed. He did his best to downplay the possible significance. After all, Lieutenant Kroll was the expert and he didn’t seem too concerned.

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