“I know I’m gonna regret this,” Spectre said. “But it does sound interesting from a scientific perspective and that is part of why we are out here. Senators will be impressed with pretty pictures and give us tons of money. So, pilot set a course for the observation point to the right of the center of mass between the two stars. Coordinates at your discretion, Mr. Weaver.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Normal space drive,” the CO said as soon as the first gravitational ripple hit. “I don’t see much, Commander Weaver.”
“It’s there, sir,” Bill replied. “I’m getting some really interesting particle readings already—”
“What the hell was that!” the XO exclaimed at the bright white flash of light a few thousand kilometers or so to port.
“Don’t know, sir. I’ll zoom the big scope in on it.” Weaver typed in the telescope sensor commands and then zoomed in on the region the flash had come from. “Sir, I’ve got some images of the region. You want them on the big screen?”
“Let me get a forward view,” Spectre said pompously, then grinned. “God, I love this job!” When the image came up on the screen, though, the captain whistled at the whirling and flickering debris cloud on the flat screen just right of the window. “What the hell?”
“I think I’ve got it figured out, sir,” Weaver said, musingly. “Basically, we’re out in a region where the Oort clouds overlap.”
“The what?” the XO asked.
Weaver closed his eyes for a moment and tried not to sigh. The XO was a great submariner but getting basic cosmology into his head was a pain in the…
“The Oort cloud is a big spherical cloud that surrounds solar systems,” Bill said. “Ours stretches about three light-years out from Sol and starts about a light-year out.”
“Shiny,” the XO said. “Oort cloud. What’s it got to do with here?”
“The stars are so close their Oort clouds overlap. The comets from both stars are probably getting zipped around like crazy from the disturbance zone. We might have even seen a comet from YZ Ceti smashing into one from Tau Ceti. Hell of a lot of energy in that. The odds of us being here at the right moment to see a collision must be, well… astronomical. Hey! That means…” Weaver looked back at his screen for a moment then bit his lip as he thought. “Oh, maulk.”
“All hands! All hands! Artificial gravity anomalies are occurring due to unusual local disturbances. Report to stations and wait for systems to reset and normalize. Further orders will follow.”
“What the flying grapp does that mean? Artificial gravity anomalies hell, we’re up-grappin’-side down!” Drago barked over the net.
“There is no up or down in space.” Two-Gun laughed as he writhed against the restraints in his rack. He thumbed at the control on his game system and considered asking if anybody was interested in a game of Dreen War. But… probably not.
“Two-Gun,” Jaen barked. “If there is no up or down in space then why…”
“… Am I lying on the God damned ceiling of the bridge?” The XO stood while rubbing the bump on his forehead. The other members of the bridge crew had had the foresight to fasten their seatbelts before entering into the disturbance zone, but their full weight pulling them against their restraints was probably as uncomfortable as the XO’s bruised forehead and ego.
“Mr. Weaver?” Spectre asked calmly. He was hanging from his restraints with his hands peacefully folded on his lap.
“Okay, now that was unusual,” the COB admitted, taking a sip of coffee. He was standing on the ceiling as well, but had somehow managed to land on his feet.
“Uh, COB?” the pilot said, gesturing with his chin.
The COB looked down and frowned. There was a spot of coffee on his tunic.
“Well, lemme tell you, pilot,” the COB said, frowning at the spot on his dignity. “That wasn’t nothing to the typhoon we got into off Fiji one time. I was in a fast boat and…”
“I’d suggest that for future reference, sir, seat restraints are mandatory during trans grav disturbance travel,” Weaver said with a smile, droning out the COB’s long story. “I think the system is confused because the gravity outside the ship is so confused. Think of a pond and what happens when you drop two rocks in the water about a meter or so from each other. When the ripples collide with each other you get destructive and constructive interference zones. We’re in a destructive one.”
“Mr. Weaver…” Spectre was not quite losing his patience. After all, he had been a fighter pilot most his career and hanging upside down was child’s play. But most systems in the ship had not been designed for that particular configuration and he hoped that he wouldn’t start getting reports of equipment ripping from the floor and walls on a mass scale throughout the ship. The flashing yellow warning lights were distracting enough as it was; at least they had turned off the damned klaxons.
“Right, sir. Tchar says the ball is working properly, so it has to be the region’s gravity. We must be upside down in a gravity well and for some reason the artificial gravity can’t compensate for it. It must be a hell of a gravity well. This is just a speculation mind you.” Weaver scanned data from all the ship’s sensors in front of him and was having a hard time making heads or tails out of their situation.
“As soon as you can, Mr. Weaver…”
“Right, sir. Hmm… Working on it,” he said under his breath.
“CO, ship’s getting hot,” the XO said, holding onto a stanchion but still managing to keep an eye on his job.
“Commander Weaver?” the CO asked. “What happens if we turn off the drive?”
“Unknown, sir,” Bill replied. “Weird gravitational effects, that’s for sure.”
“Weirder than this?” the XO asked incredulously.
“Gravity different in different parts of the ship, sir,” Weaver replied. “Maybe. Just a guess, really.”
“Will it kill us?” Spectre ground out carefully.
“The gravity shouldn’t be that high,” Bill said. “Hopefully. Or tidal effects. And, sir, with all due respect, heat will kill us for sure. We’ve got to chill.”
“All hands! Stand by for chill! Stand by for gravitational anomalies! All damage personnel, suit and strap in!”
“Now this is more like it,” the COB said, swaying slightly, refilled coffee cup grafted to his hand. “Reminds me of a storm we got into off Iceland one time…”
“Fascinating,” Dr. Beach breathed, watching the play of data on his screen.
To his inner ear, he was, apparently, in a rocking boat. One that was rocking randomly. But he really wasn’t paying attention to that. The data streaming from the hull-mounted collectors was too extraordinary.
“Conn, astronomy. Is Dr. Weaver available?”
“Holy cow,” Bill muttered, looking at the take from the cosmology department. “Sir, this is a really weird place!”
“Do tell,” Spectre said as the boat seemed to gently roll over.
“You bet it is,” the XO said sourly, hanging onto a stanchion. “We just had a pipe bend and blow out in engineering. Nobody knows why. It just bent. And we’re not chilling as fast as normal.”
“The temperature in this region is way over deep space, sir,” Bill said, off-hand. “That’s why. Forget this being a soup. It’s more like… a sieve. We’re getting particle readings like you’d get off of a bunch of runaway accelerators! Hell, rad count is way up. There’s got to be every odd astrophysics anomaly in the galaxy running around in this region!”