July 6th, 014 SDE; EFS Enterprise 1450 hours:
Countryman watched the situation plot as six more eddies erupted into normal space. The storm had been growing increasingly more volatile over the last few months. Since April they’d effectively been grounded at Anchorage. It was too risky to fly away from their port, and it was only getting worse. Trade with the Drifters had been cut off, several cruisers had been sunk from being caught out in the Storm. Thankfully, aside from some of his shuttles and fighter crews being roughed up, they’d escaped any damage themselves.
Ruri came up next to him, “I can’t be sure, but I think we are looking at a surfacing.”
“Really? I guess we can finally get out of here then. Any idea...”
Suddenly the room itself rippled, a strange charge rippling through his body, and with it the light seemed to change as well. Countryman blinked, “Make that certain.”
Countryman turned from the plot and ran to the comm, “Lab 14 to Bridge, Greyman pack everything aboard and set course for the perimeter, maximum warp!”
“Understood sir!”
With that he hurried out of the lab and made for the bridge. The last few years had seen the end of the war with the Raiders and the Drifters. It had redrawn some of the borders but none of that mattered now. They just needed to get to the border, and out of the storm before it went back into hyperspace. Everything he had told him they had anywhere from a few days to mere hours, so they were on the clock. Nothing short of maximum warp would get them there fast enough.
They’d had time to do some research, scans of the storm, and conversations with various powers had given them a great deal of reference materials. As such he knew historically the storm’s surfacings were semi random, this one was a little sooner than the average. It was hard to say how long they had before it dropped back into hyperspace. Based on the data they had acquired. It could be as little as three hours, or as much as three days. Countryman didn’t want to stick around to find out, but he just hoped it wasn’t three hours. They’d need at least that much time to reach the rim. In all honesty they should have already been packed and near the rim, but the storm had been far too violent lately. The Drifters had told him the storm always grew more active before a surfacing, but he hadn’t imagined hundreds of Hyperspatial Eddies erupting each day for months on end and growing progressively worse with each day no less.
With Ruri’s multispatial sensors they could see them before they erupted and over the last few months, they’d gained enough data to refine their algorithms for predicting an eruption. Now they could see one coming roughly a minute and a half in advance, but even that much time wasn’t enough in the face of the fury the storm had been presenting for the last few months. It was so bad that they’d lost most of the probes they’d been sending off into the storm for the last few years. Those probes had been invaluable for charting and studying the storm. The same data had been useful to their allies as well during the war. He was just glad that war was over, even if they’d basically been done with it after the Maiden sank. Following the battles of Anchorage and the Second Battle of the Lodge, they’d engaged in no real skirmishes or any battles. A few raider probes did enter the area, but those probing attacks had been easily repulsed. They still had a large amount of raider copper and fissile materials in storage.
Countryman had used some of it in trade but for the most part it was just reserve material. Still it did come in handy on occasion. Reaching the lift he set his destination and the tram sped for the bridge. Countryman felt every second of it, they were on the clock and he didn’t want to stay here for another cycle of the Storm. Robin still hadn’t solved their mutation problem, they were still slowly changing, but he’d figured enough out to curb it. Curb it wasn’t good enough, and being out of the storm would stop the entire problem.
His mind awhirl with thoughts like that, the lift arrived on deck one. Countryman hurried past the guards only stopping long enough to give a polite nod and hello before stepping past the blast doors and onto his command balcony.
Greyman greeted him at the door, “Just in time, sir. We are halfway through loading, and will able to depart inside the hour, sir. So far there haven’t been any hiccups and we are doing better than scheduled.”
He nodded and stepped to his chair, looking down on the bridge. Misaki was quite busy at operations, her swollen belly pressing against the console as she leaned into it. She wasn’t the only one pregnant on the bridge. Over the last few years they’d had a large spike in births, many of them twins. Robins had told him that they were trending towards maximum growth with almost every woman capable of bearing a child getting pregnant. There were any number of factors at play for this, but the long story short was that they were experiencing a baby boom. Something they saw no reason to discourage; if anything, it was welcome.
Countryman sat down. “Well, with any luck we are saying good bye to the storm, today.”
Some time later, the Enterprise departed Anchorage and for the first time in nearly a decade engaged her warp engines. Countryman watched the plots, the bridge was filled with tension. They’d taken everything they could and everyone was aboard the Enterprise, every ship docked as they rushed to make it out of the storm.
Eri broke the silence, “Warp field stable, no sign of any eddies, minor turbulence, speed warp factor five point two, estimate six hours to storm’s edge.”
Ruri who’d entered the bridge moments ago looked up from the sensor console she was sitting at. “Storm’s quiet, feels strange.”
Countryman had to agree, it did feel strange given the noise it had been making for months, only to suddenly be silent like this. Yet it was raging in normal space now. With it surfacing they now had a chance to leave, only he couldn’t help feeling a ticking clock. If they didn’t leave the perimeter in time they....
The ship suddenly bucked. “What the hell was that!?”
“Turbulence increasing, adjusting field to compensate interjected Eri.
Countryman turned to Ruri, “What was that?”
“Unknown, some kind of unexpected spatial turbulence. Give me a second to review the logs and adjust the sensors.”
More seconds ticked by, the bridge rocked twice as the minutes seemed to stretch on into eternity. Answers were short, uncertainty was high, and if he had a knife it would be so thick he could cut the air. Like something out of those ancient cartoons from before his time.
Silence filled the air once more before Ruri said, “Looks like the storm isn’t entirely quiet, we are still seeing bursts of energy coming up from the deeper layers, and they manifest as regions of spatial turbulence. Based on these readings however, those bursts are decreasing rapidly.”
“How rapidly?”
“Hard to say, we lost most of our probes, but based on the parts of the storm we can still see? Very.”
Countryman didn’t think them decreasing rapidly was a good thing. Sure it shook them up a bit, but he couldn’t help thinking that turbulence was the storm venting whatever energy caused it to leave hyperspace and without that, it would sink back into hyperspace dragging them with it. Consigning them to another cycle in the storm.
The ship hit a turbulent patch just then, the deck plates under his feet seemed to roll as the ship veered off course. Only Eri’s quick actions kept them from losing time. Minutes ticked by, the clock counting down as the crew seemed to hold their collective breath. He just wished they’d been able to leave earlier but until this moment, it had been too risky, too many eddies to dodge them all. The ship would have been torn asunder, no questions asked. He had every confidence in his crew but not even Eri could keep them from striking an eddy forever, and they’d had no way to know for sure when the storm would surface.
On the screen the swirling gasses of the swarm roiled, energy discharging as they passed by at lightning speed. Every second, they grew worse as the turbulent outer rim came into view. With little time to waste, Countryman gave the order to proceed into the rim.
Almost instantly, every alarm on the ship went off. The ship shuddered as they slammed into the turbulent outer rim. “Forward hull plating buckling!”
“Compensating!” declared Richards at Engineering.
Another wave hit them, nearly knocking them off course. Eri quickly compensated, just before a second hit them.
“Hull breach! Deck 124!” said someone just as something screeched. More alarms blared, and an energy discharge struck the hull, followed by a second, then a third. “Hull breach! Decks 12, 13, and 17!”
Countryman shouted, “Divert additional power to the hull plating!”
Another discharge hit the hull. The ship shuddered and Countryman glanced at the plot, they were halfway through the rim. Then Ruri suddenly shouted, “The storm!...”
She didn’t finish before space itself distorted a weird charge passed through the air. The ship shook as the warp field collapsed and they were thrown back into the storm. Countryman cursed, they had been so close and now they were back where they started for another decade.
For several moments Countryman said nothing. No one did, but finally he gave the order, “Set course for Anchorage and I want a full damage report on my desk by the end of the day.”
It seemed they were not leaving the storm just yet. He knew the other factions would be out recruiting, but he had other priorities. Already his mind was working on how they would survive another decade here, but at least they had a port and friends.