“What the hell is that?” Missy swore. The piercing alarm hit her like a bucket of ice-cold water as she tumbled out of her bed. She blinked a couple of times as her room slowly turned from complete darkness to gentle low pulsing light. The tiny room was five metres by three metres and that was a luxury on this war vessel. Reality kicked in as she remembered exactly where she was, on the attack sub Resolute. “Shit.” She sat on the floor in her underwear, she must have been so tired she had fallen asleep before she closed the capsule. A rookie mistake, she cursed herself. In a low gravity or no gravity warship, the crew slept in a capsule bed, the bed was almost like a long clamshell, two gel beds. The top bed closed over the bottom bed encapsulating the crew member against any movement in space or sudden acceleration. She struggled to sit up in the sub’s 0.25 gravity as she continued to gather her thoughts with the alarm screaming away.

  “Bridge, what the hell is going on?” Missy mentally activated her com as she rubbed her eyes. Any alarm in space was a significant concern. She was on deep space trials and was expecting half the frontier fleet to be on her tail, but this alarm was a ship distress alarm, not general quarters. She struggled against the fog of her sleepiness and momentarily thought about giving herself a chem boost but decided against it.

  “We have readings coming from the hole ma’am. It is developing a density well.” The reply came back through the receiver implanted in her skull, just behind her right ear. It always made her teeth tingle when she was waking up and somewhat muffled. She had been meaning to get it re-implanted. A black bar ran down the left side of her face, a reminder of a critical damage she had received six years ago and the likely cause of the current implant rejection. As if a reminder she looked down at her left hand with its black and grey cyberonics, the disintegration of her hand had saved most of her face and her life.

  As coming back into the present she swore again, “Shit.” Missy glanced her wall as it became active with information. One hour of sleep. “Shit,” She continued to swear as her frustration built. She had only that one-hour of sleep in the last twenty-two hours, no wonder she couldn’t get her thoughts together. She reached over and pulled out her one-piece suit and forced herself into its tight grip. At first glance it looked like she was wearing a wet suit. The suit was a nanographene polymer weave, densely woven to block the dangerous radiation levels outside her room. The stealth ship had no shielding from the free elements of deep space outside of sleeping cabin.

  The Karajini class attack subs where officially experimental and although classed as stealth ships, were in fact ‘cloak’ capable using the oscillating crystal technology drive derived from hyper drive technology. This was earth’s own technology, radio and microwaves were the easiest to deflect or ‘allowed’ to flow past the infrastructure and this was achieved due in part by the super absorbent material the ship was constructed from. The down side was the harmful radiation of space simply flowed right through the hull. The crew were forced to wear the special suits which allowed the radiation to past around them. Resoluteresembled a smooth black shimmering rectangular block with round edges, nose and tail. In glide mode, as she was now, it was impossible to tell the front form the rear and all but undetectable.

  The Karajini class sub Resolute was twenty hours into the testing with two hundred vessels trying to locate her, she had been cloaked now for nearly thirteen hours. During this time the crew went about their duties and at set intervals, running firing simulations. As yet they had not been targeted and had ‘tagged’ 60% of the searching vessels. Missy had settled behind an old Classical class frigate, clearly set out to bait her but Missy had other ideas.

  Missy reached across and pulled on her hood before finally putting on her Oakley mask. The mask was made of Clearesium alloy, a mixture of particle re-bonded aluminium, silicone and zircon. Each mask was a custom fit that was pressed into the hood. The mask’s shade could be varied from her thoughts. Ship’s policy in the bridge was that all masks be clear at all times. At time of critical operation, facial expressions communicated as much as words.

  She could see the ships sensors displaying the condition of the experimental vessel in a layout form on her ever changing wall. She frowned, this was wrong, their acceleration was far too slow. She looked at one the walls of her room as the outlay of a door slowly emerged as she slipped on her soft-soled boots. The soft soled boots allowed much better contact with the subs special non slip glass floor, particularly at times when the floor was suddenly the roof. In combat the gravity generator was often turned off to reduce their signature.

  Missy waved her hand as a door slowly formed on the wall in her quarters and she walked through. Using the rails, she made her way the ten meters to the command centre. The low gravity made walking difficult without the rail support although once you adjusted it made moving quite quick.

  The command centre was a black glass cube, each wall was alive with colour on the black background as the fifteen control personal moved seamlessly around the small area.

  “What the hell is going on Carver?” Missy shot a glance at her XO. The whole sub was now being secured, everywhere from the kitchen to engineering, items were been stowed and the crew readying for lockdown. The Resolute carried a crew of 112, including twenty special armed forces. This was a full live trial, she was stocked with a full compliment of supplies and weaponry.

  “The probe spiked and then just disappeared.” Carver explained as he moved from the command chair. They could now feel the vibration through the ships haul.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Carver had spent six months training with Captain Ryan on the stealth sub Revenge, he and the crew had only first seen the Resolute six weeks ago. Carver had passed up his own command of a new destroyer to be part of the Karajini project. A seventh generation British naval officer, he carried a great deal of expectations and a great deal of knowledge. Carver knew there was more to this ship and the program then was being let on. From his understanding Missy had selected Ryan’s crew for this mission, Ryan was merely the proxy.

  Both the Revenge and the Resolute were in theory Karajini class subs. Although Carver knew the Resolute was different, it was slightly bigger and the lay out had been subtly changed, something was hidden in the central core. He suspected there were other reasons for why they were out here in the Resolute as opposed to the Revenge. To add further intrigue, he had heard through his contacts that the Resolute was the most expensive vessel ever created, that figure alone would mean it had to be ten times the cost of its sister ships. Carver thought that was unlikely but there were enough oddities about this ship that he wanted to be apart of it.

  As for Missy, he had only met her five weeks ago when she came on board as the ships CO, ironically she was also the ships designer. This also intrigued the Brit further. There was no doubt that Missy lacked the required operational experience to command the vessel, her rank was reflection of her technical skill and project ability. She clearly had her own agenda. That aside, she had shown that she was more then capable and was certainly used to giving orders. He glanced at her now, despite the chaos she seem to know what to do, she treated the worm hole as just another enemy that needed defeating. He had no idea how she was still operating on limited amount of sleep she had managed, he had at least twice as much and was feeling shattered.

  The integrated bar on the left side of her face compensated for the nerve and structural damage she had suffered during a field mission, he knew little beyond that. It was a comfort she had been in combat, probably more then most here. She certainly didn’t act like an naval commander he knew. Her language was different, she swore, she was raw emotion but one thing she did share in common was, like most naval commanders, she was serious to a fault.

  “Disappeared? It’s a dead worm hole.” Missy leaned over and looked at the main wall as it morphed into a screen. In a softer voice she looked towards second navigator, barely hiding her steel like gaze. “What have you got over there Wan?” Missy would almost always refer to her crew by their names as oppose to their rank, Carver thought this was due to her research background whereby relationships could more personal. In saying that, it was difficult to think of Missy being close or personal to anyone, she was one cold fish.

  “Same thing ma’am.” The young Chinese ensign nervously glanced back. Missy could be hell when she was in a mood. Wan would have preferred to have calm and predicable Ryan back.

  “Shit.” Missy swore again as slammed down her fist. “Carver get us the hell away from here, distance 10,000 kilometres, I don’t want to be sucked into any worm hole. Disengage stealth mode, run drives hot and send out our decoder beacon, let us light this tub up, this exercise is over.” She then waved her hand across her body as if to wipe away and imaginary chessboard.

  “Already doing so, engines at 80%, have sent alert com’s to five other vessels.” Carver reported. He his calm exterior was barely holding together against the sleep deposition and the actual fear that was developing beyond the ships limits. But if Missy could hold it together with less experience and certainly less sleep, then so would he. The Resolute’s rear opened up as the huge ion reactor engines fired into life expelling tens of thousands of tonnes worth of thrust.

  “Spike of density being picked up by forward sensors.” Wan called out. Small beads of sweat were forming on her brow.

  “Get Scott up here now.” Missy could feel uneasiness creeping over her. “Who else is out here with us?”

  “The frigate Sparta is still in front of us.” Carver answered, “She is 2000 kilometres out, the others are beyond the event horizon.”

  “Send her our distress signal.” Missy order as the ship started to vibrate. “Max out those engines mister Carver, over ride the safeties.” Her voice was now cool and calm as she took in the situation. “Prepare the hyper drive.” Her mind had nearly caught up with the rest of her body, sleep was but a distance memory.

  “Distress sent fleet wide.” Carver yelled. “Engines rising to 130%. Hyper drives system coming on line.” He could now see the walls vibrating

  “Density at 6.5!” Wan called out as she furiously worked her panel.

  Missy could see their speed rapidly falling despite sudden surge in engine power. She seemed to think for a moment and after briefly closing her eyes she spoke into her com.

  “Command protocol protection zero zero seven one nine, Apha Charlie Golf Tango.” Missy flexed her fingers.

  “Welcome Melissa Vitelli.” The female smooth sounding voice responded.

  “Activate protocol zero one Recovery.” Missy answered.

  “Zero one Recovery activated.” The calm voiced responded.

  “Carver.” Missy did take her eyes off the screen.

  “Engines at full. We are running hot, 162 megawatts on each engine.” The normally unflappable Carver felt the blood drain from his face as he raised his voice, “We are going in, we are not going to be able pull away.” He did not miss the verbal command Missy gave to the computer, he had not heard of that command, nor had he heard that simulated female voice before but he was pretty sure what it meant – self destruct. If they were not going to be crushed into nothingness it would have intrigued him further, another piece of the puzzle.

  “Fire hyper drive engines.” Missy ordered. “Disengaged safeties for emergency jump.” This was turning into the training run from hell. She only had once chance, her mind was still not fully awake and she struggled to comprehend everything thing that was happening. A worm whole? Now?

  “Safety’s off, hyper drive running up. Hyper drive set to activate on auto.” Carver returned.

  “Level one alert and brace for impact.” Missy flipped up a yellow flap on the centre command console and pushed the red button. A low siren ran throughout the ship as Missy strapped herself into her command chair, the last thing she heard was the click of her belt. “Screw you universe.” Then there was only black.