Free Knight's Move by Christopher Nuttall Page A

wouldn't have gone unnoticed. 
     
    He pushed the thought aside and smiled.  “Helm, you may open the portal at will,” he said.  “Take us out of here.”
     
    The hum grew deeper as the generator came online, drawing power from two entire fusion cores into its heart.  Few starships could open a portal for more than a few seconds; only superdreadnaughts and fleet carriers could hold one open long enough to allow an entire fleet to enter or exit hyperspace.  Dauntless’s convoy would open their own portals and join the cruiser in hyperspace.  There were projects to open fixed gates into hyperspace, but the energy levels required to do it on a regular basis were staggering.  So far, they had never worked as designed.
     
    He smiled as he linked into the sensors and watched as the portal blossomed into life in front of them.  It looked deceptively simple – the naked eye only saw a spinning wheel of light – but the starship’s sensors showed its true complexity.  Dauntless rocked as gravity waves struck her hull, then yanked her forward and into hyperspace.  As always, Glen felt slightly queasy when crossing the boundary into the alternate dimension.  There were civilians who never grew accustomed to hyperspace; it was petty, but he couldn't help hoping that some of the Governor’s staff would be forced to remain in their beds or a stasis pod.  It had been a day since she had come onboard and too many of her staff had had to be warned to stay in their quarters, rather than getting in the way.
     
    Hyperspace was a roaring maelstrom of shimmering multicoloured light.  Glen stared at it for a long moment, then delinked himself from the sensors before the sight could overwhelm him.  Even experienced navigators had problems in hyperspace; it was easy to believe that a starship was right on the edge of an energy storm if one looked with the naked eye.  There were stories of starships that had somehow navigated home without sensors or access to the beacon network, but spacers knew that such stories were largely nonsense.  It was far too easy to become lost forever without proper sensors.
     
    “The convoy has completed transit,” Danielle informed him.  “They’re standing by.”
     
    “No encroachments detected,” Cooke added.  The tactical officer sounded disgruntled, unsurprisingly.  Hyperspace was so chaotic that an entire enemy fleet could be right on top of them and they’d never know about it until it was too late.  Few tactical officers dared relax in hyperspace.  “No starships within trustworthy sensor range.”
     
    Glen nodded.  He’d been a tactical officer himself and he knew just how nightmarish hyperspace could be.  Sensor ghosts popped up with disturbing regularity; hell, there were people who claimed that there were entire alien races living in hyperspace.  It was unlikely, he had decided when he’d first heard the stories, but it was easy to see how they might have spread.  Hyperspace was just plain weird.
     
    “Set course for the Bottleneck,” he ordered, as if Helena hadn't already worked out the course when they’d planned the voyage.  “Estimated ETA?”
     
    “Seven weeks, unless one of the storms clears,” Helena reported.  The hyperspace monitoring network tracked storms, but their behaviour was still largely unpredictable.  One might die away ... or spring up right in front of them, forcing the convoy to detour.  Glen wasn't inclined to take chances by skimming the edge of a storm.  “Course laid in.”
     
    Glen smiled.  “Take us out,” he ordered.
     
    He settled back in his command chair as Dauntless headed away from Sol, towards the Bottleneck.  Whatever else happened, he was now completely free, unable to ask for orders from Luna HQ.  If they ran into trouble, he would have to take care of it himself.  It was, he knew, the joy and terror of being a starship commander.  The buck definitely stopped with him.
     
    The voyage would be boring,