Part 6

The bridge climbed onto deck with ease, all over the ship the same was happening. The crew emerging ready for action.

The captain turned to Ko-on
“I'm taking a stroll over to see the ex-admiral”
“Very good sir, I'll just get the Chance ready”
“Thank you Ko-on - “

He never finished a dull tone reverberated through the bridge, a deep, deathly rip cage shaker of a noise. A single voice piped up it was Cotolo – running the ships eyes

“We have an object along our course. Time to intercept 4 minutes 47 seconds; countdown initiated; identification procedures are running. Passing view onto primary tactical”

Above the biggest table on the bridge a view opened up, it was the Chance, the convoy and the mystery object. Highlighted, hanging in space were reports – all that was known regarding the newcomer. The crew started reading.

Cotolo – again with an updated

“Object verified as globular, diameter 1km and growing”

Captain Freddie reviewed what they knew, but even then he and all the crew and deck knew what it was.

“Togatho – keep the ex admiral updated, give him a free flow line on this. Make sure he holds formation”
“Yes Captain” came the default reply.

The captain looked at Ko-on

“Sound batle stations. Then get a detailed view around us, map into the scan arrays on the convoy. See if you can find what dropped this thing”

“Doing it now”

The alarm rang true around the ship

It was Cotolo again

“Diameter up to 4Km, “

“Jolo, work with navigation and the convoy. I want last minute evasion solutions that keep the convoy tight in formation.”

“On it Captain”

“Diameter is now 8km”

Captain Freddie stared at the display. Diameter rising, and inside it was a mass of surging messed up space. Being yanked this way and that. Probably with a very big bomb in the middle. Spatial Distortion mines. He hated them.

Countdown: Four minutes till impact

“Diameter is now 16km”

The question was – what had put it there and were was it. Was this just a mine, softening them up for later, a trap laid for immediate assault of something else?

"Ko-on, any news yet?"
"Nothing sir, all quiet out there at all"
"Ok keep looking" The captain looked up to the steadily descending countdown. He made a decision, not one that he liked.
"Fire Control, formalise this order. Get the duster up to full power, 1km radius , high density, no object target place centre of dust area in centre of mine's anomaly field"
"Yes sir, please confirm ok to dust order"
"Yes, dust order is confirmed"
"Thank you sir"

The bridge went quiet. The duster was an almost random weapon. Deadly, at close range often wiping out the firing ship, at long range hard to control and in a fleet action likely to ruin both sides tactics. Firing it was a grave risk.

"Diameter up to 32km"

Countdown: Three minutes till impact.

"Togatho", said the Captain, "link me to the admiral"
Togatho nodded, "he's on your line now sir"
This time it was the captain who immediately took the reins of the conversation; he took them hard and formally
"Captain Van Gehan, this is Captain Deban. You are aware of the mine ahead of us. I've just given the order to us an high intensity anti-matter dusting to clear the area. Please arrange the convoy straight behind you, all shields to full. The Golden Chance will attempt to shield your ship".
"Thank you Captain Deban, consider it done. Thank you Freddie and be careful.".
"Thanks Admiral. you be careful too, we still don't know where the drop ship is"
"Understood Freddie"

The line closed.

"Diameter is 64km"

Countdown: Two minutes till impact.

The Captain picked up his performance mike and breathed heavily once, shallow once and spoke
"This is the Captain. We are about to fire the duster. All crew brace for impact". He put the mike down and looked at the bridge cockpits. "Get in lads" he said.

All on bridge jumped for their seats, the only sound of the bridge was that of doors sealing tight.

Countdown: One minute till impact.

Even before the bridge closed the Captain surveyed the situation. The convoy was all engines blazing; spiralling down into formation. Their own shields were high, the shields on Smokeless Fire were too high for a commercial ship. Not a surprise from the Admiral that. Time for the the order.
"This is the captain to fire control. Discharge the duster when ready"
"This is fire control. Duster program starting in 3, 2, 1, dusting program on"

Captain Freddie held his breath.

No noise, and no vibration. That was the duster. The quiet one to watch out for.

And wait for. The result was not immediate. They had to wait for the first clusters of antimatter to find something to annihilate.

First a spark, then another, and another. Then a new sun rained dawn and destruction upon the Golden Chance. Space caught fire and turned from black to searing white. In half a second the shields of the chance flashed through all colours of the rainbow before becoming star bright. A bright glow shot behind the Chance the Smokeless Fire lit bright. Every detail illuminated. Then the light subsided and all that was left was the music of alarms and the groaning of the ship as the last vesitages of distorted space bucked her about. The captains cockpit space glowed orange with warnings, but no reds, no criticals.

Cotolo broke in with the first report. "Space ahead is clear and normal"

The ship seemed to cheer.

Captain Freddie spoke into his chromed performance mike. "Thank you all, a great performance. Let's here it for Sandro in Fire Control for a first class duster solution". Then he breathed again. Knowing the Sandro would be the toast tonight.

Open Source Space Opera

As I've been kicking off Fleeting Moments an idea has come to me. The way that I'm writing this - ad - hoc with notes on some underlying ideas; struck that perhaps this is a very shareable experience. If something can be shared why see what opens when sharing is taken to a logical end. So I've come up with the idea of Open Source Space Opera. The idea being that various writers, artists and commentators all create and share a common pool of material from which individual stories and lines of stories can be written based on what I would become a rich pool of mythos. In some ways this is not unlike the shared universe anthologies that has been published in the past. The difference here is that everything is community developed.

To kick start this process I've created a discussion forum over at http://thespaceopera.17.freebb.com/ where those interest can start to share ideas and stories

Of course the subject of copyright will rear it's head, and some sort of license will be needed. Possibly one of the common copyright licences, for the moment I'm saying this. All material remains the copyright of it's creator. Materials marked as being for the common good can be reused by any member of the community

I don't know how this will work - let's hope it does and it is interesting

Part 5

The course change did go well. It was as the Captain had hinted a series of high acceleration moves, followed by periods of just waiting. Like all space travel for millenia before the ship accelerated itself onto a heading and then waited for an opportune moment to change that heading. Nothing had really changed since the dawn of interplanetary or even suborbital rocketry.

Except that the speeds and energies involved were higher than back in the way back time of myths. It took the Golden Chance less than eight hours to steer a course half way accross a solar system.

As Captain Freddie had promised in that time - he made sure the crew were rested and fed. Anyone he caught working was kicked to recreation and food. Anyone monitoring his cockpit would have that in between dozing and in all liklihood snoring he was monitoring everything, making sure that he had was up to date on his ship in all it's aspects.

The crew forced to come together and talk were battle expectant. Confidant that the battle was theirs for the taking. Made so by the fact that they had in command the famous Freddie Deban survivor of Midtreanas and killer of fleets. The crew kept recounting the arrival from the battle of the bruised and ruined battle cruiser Richter arrived and Hajamke and forever changed it's history.

Then they were out of their last spatial compression move and coming up on the fleet. The captain ordered his crew to remain in safe position until the rendezous was made. Just in case.

He also got a line to the Ex Admiral. As he approached smiling at the formation the freighters were flying in.

The admiral answered the line.

"Hello again Freddie. I see you've reached us."
"We have that. Nice formation you're flying in."
"Well at it took a lot of shouting but at least in an eight point star with me at the centre we can all cover for each other."
"You're seperation distance seems quite low."
"It is Freddie - that's the bit that took all the shouting."
"So any signs of trouble yet?"
"Nothing at all. We still can't see them and haven't located anything passing near us either"
"Well that's a start. Ok, I'm going to come aboard by 'gate. We'll move the Chance in quite close to you to keep the energy drain down. I'm assuming you have a very small reception area?"
"How did you guess?"
"How else can you hope to keep the gate even a little bit quiet. Ok, after me will be coming some ordanance so please make sure it's your ex fleet guys who receive it"
"I wouldn't have anyone else touch it. What's coming over?"
"A few spatial mortars with mounts for your service pods. "
The ex admiral was quiet
"I know it sounds a lot but I know what I'm doing sir"
"Sorry Freddie I know. Ok come on over I think you already know me 'gate code"
"I was hoping that It was the old one. I'll never forget that"
"None of us ever will Freddie. "

The connection closed and Captain Freddie passed transfer gate codes and orders to his gate operators and made the equipment order from the ships arsenal. Jolo at helm gave the call that they were in position and then the captain ordered his crew out of their cock pits and into position.

He could hear the drums rolling. For the moment the song was quiet.