by T J Bryan
After three hours of endless hailing of De Volta, Sohail was about to give up when she responded. Convincing her that the hail was real and not a trap took time and the time lag of each round of questions and answers seemed to take forever.
De Volta became convinced and Farn asked that they join in the attack on the ships below as soon as the storm passed. De Volta agreed and at her best speed proceeded to join New Hildr and Mist. Farn now had to figure out exactly how she might use the De Volta as bait without killing off the last New Horizons Armada ship still in the system. You don't make good allies by sacrificing them in your attack.
De Volta managed to meet New Hildr in eleven hours, although Sohail said that the speed needed to complete the trip in that short time was most dangerous. Clearly De Volta was motivated, if not demanding, to join in the attack on the Megra.
Farn was thinking that if somehow she might convince the remaining Megra above Breaking Dawn that the De Volta was responsible for the destroyed ship, rather than some outside force like the OCN, that might give the remaining dumbbells the arrogant confidence she needed for them to step into her trap.
As the three ships rendezvoused De Volta agreed with the plan of attack below. However Farn detected too much enthusiasm in the voice and vid presence of De Volta's captain. He seemed bent on revenge rather than survival, and in Farn's mind revenge was fine, but only if you survived.
The plan was simple. After the storm both New Hildr and Mist would enter the second shell of dust and hang out at the lower boundary level in order to remain unseen. Probes would be placed in the clear zone between layers one and two. Then when all was in place De Vlota would descend down through layer one and show its' face. She might even fire a few rounds from her inadequate plasma cannons. Then when De Volta was sure she was seen she would rise as rapidly as possible and draw the two dumbbells up into the clear space between shells one and two. Then De Volta was instructed to run away and let New Hildr and Mist finish their appointment with the Megra. This last instruction to De Volta, had Farn concerned, since her captain lusted for retribution. However if De Volta did draw the Megra into the trap it was a risk worth taking.
Hours passed as did the storm and when Sohail said it was safe to descend De Volta began her slow slide down through level one.
"Mr. Dahl. At De Volta's descent speed how long till she clears the dust and gas?" asked Siggy Ivar.
"In 40 to 45 minutes," replied Siv Dahl.
Farn thought to herself how time files when your having fun. The wait seemed forever and communications with De Volta was simply impossible. She might well be destroyed below and never return and therefore never draw the dumbbells into the trap.
Farn calculated in her head. Forty minutes down, say ten to fifteen to get the dumbbells attention and then another forty minutes back. An hour and a half at the soonest.
Siggy looked at Farn and then ordered half watch for two fifteen minute intervals to give the crew a chance to grab something to eat or attend to pressing matters.
Just as the crew began the rotation Siv Dahl called out. "Dumbbell. Descended from immediately above. 120 kilometres above and 10 forward.
The crew immediately rushed back to their stations. Farn realized it was number four which they had somehow missed. Probably lurking in the dust.
Farn expected immediate fire from what they labelled M4 but the ship was slow to respond to the presence of New Hildr. Farn realized that the Megra were probably as surprised at the presence of the OCN as she was of M4.
"Ripple fire on M4 now!" called out Captain Ivar.
As the capacitors discharged and bathed M4 in a charged actinic glow, M4 returned fire and Farn felt the impact. The bridge lights flickered and as she looked up at the maintenance board three red lights began flashing.
Farn knew that M4 was too close in to use 'K's so they would rely on plasma cannons. The dumbbell Farn and Siggy noticed was accelerating its' descent. This close in both the plasma cannons on New Hildr and M4 would have a more damaging effect. A conduit close to Farn's foot overheated and burst in a flash of electrical discharge. Another red light appeared on the MS.
Farn looked out the vid screen and to her horror she saw a torpedo launch.
Before she could react Molly Motts fired two casters and within two seconds the entire sky above them turned white and the New Hildr staggered. The vid screen went blank, and Farn began to smell ozone and claxon was sounding as the ship began venting atmosphere.
The bastard had committed suicide in order to kill New Hildr Farn realized.
Chapter One Hundred
Jamon System - Naval Dock - Year 3248 March 5 ET 10:12
Abel rose early and he found himself deeply disturbed by the revelations of the Theans as to the source of the badly needed engines for OCN missile development. The idea of exchanging food for the personal consumption of a monster for those critical engines had cost Abel a good nights sleep.
However Abel wanted to examine the Theans' gifts and consignments as they were unloaded from the Iceland. The first items were from those the Theans had given the OCN for safe keeping. Hundreds of crates, boxes large and small, and various containers were brought out onto the dock and compared with the inventory lists provided by the Theans.
Abel had obtained a copy of the manifest and had instructed the dock crews to separate out several categories of items for immediate examination. This included any items of Greayson, Qualoo, and Hitti origin. In addition he wanted anything carrying a technical description to be set aside as well.
The hold of the Iceland was enormous, but so to was the cargo she carried and although there were 42 dock workers with sliders unloading the ship the whole process was taking time. The greatest bottleneck Abel realized was checking the offloaded crates against the manifest to ensure receipt as well as sorting the collection into the groups Abel had asked for.
At about noon Abel was going to break for lunch at the Navy Club when he saw Nomi and her ever present companion Aelia approach. As usual Nomi paid no attention to Abel, or any of the dock workers, but simply quickly walked to the crates and containers which held technology. Then Nomi simply walked very slowly to each container or box, of which there were hundreds of all sizes, and read the labels which described the contents of each box. She held in her hand an inter-tab which Abel assumed was the cargo manifest, however she did not look at the inter-tab once.
Aelia stepped forward and greeted Abel. "Hello Admiral. This is really amazing. Nomi got your copy of the manifest this morning and immediately insisted we visit to take a look. Well more like an examination rather than a look."
Abel was about to reply when Nomi shouted and pointed to one rather large crate. "Open," she shouted in her thin almost hollow voice.
Three dockworkers looked to Abel who nodded. Soon they were unlatching the connectors and removing the sides of the crate. Nomi simply stood and stared at the contents. Moments later she shook her head and moved on down the line of crates.
Abel shouted to the dock workers. "Follow Nomi. Open anything she wants to see, unless the label says dangerous. In that case call me."
Nomi continued down the line as both Abel and Aelia silently watched.
Aelia spoke, "I'm sorry Admiral but I really need to be near Nomi."
Abel responded that he understood, but as Aelia went to follow Nomi, Abel also followed. After two hours Nomi had opened twenty three crates, but when opened she seemed to have no interest and simply walked to the next one.
One small box was the next object of her interest and the dockworkers quickly opened the box. Inside was a fragment of a machine of some kind and all Abel saw was a complicated array of tubes, wires, and electrocene circuits. The fragment was about the size of a watermelon and tinged with a green almost watermelon like patina.
Nomi stared and did not move. Then she turned to Aelia and shouted, "Chair."
There was no chair so the dock workers brought a small box for Nomi to sit on as she simply sat and s
tared at the broken fragment of machinery. Abel looked at the manifest for the object and it read 'Greayson, GWP engine fragment'.
Nomi stared for about six minutes. Aelia spoke, "She will probably sit there for hours and then ask that that thing be rotated so she can see another side."
However Nomi immediately stood and almost ran back to one of the larger crates which had been opened earlier and in which she had expressed no interest. Abel quickly looked down at the manifest for the crate. 'Greayson tech. Unknown,' read the description.
Abel could not remember a time he had ever seen Nomi smile, but smile she did. She put her hands on her small hips and turned to Aelia. The smile was almost one of defiance mixed with joy.
"Take both. Lab." she said.
Abel looked at Aelia, but Aelia was already moving toward the dock workers to instruct them on moving the two objects, one of which was rather large and would take several sliders and perhaps ten men. The dock workers foreman looked to Abel and Abel nodded. Then they began the difficult hard work of moving the large crate. The smaller object was carried in the arms of Aelia herself as Nomi turned away and walked swiftly back toward the Habitat and her makeshift lab at the Collegium.
Abel knew there was nothing he could do to assist Nomi and Aelia so he went to the Navy Club and a quick lunch and returned to the dock.
It was obvious that the dock was too small to hold all the items from Iceland and another eight men had arrived and began moving many of the non technical items into deep storage at the back of the dock. Abel thought to himself, thank god for the manifest, I would hate to loose something and have the Theans upset with our handling of their precious collection. And Abel knew how precious it was.
Abel soon gave up examining the technology section and wandered among the other items which he realized were mostly cultural artefacts uncovered from dozens of now dead worlds and systems. He came upon a group of statues made of stone which took his breath away with their beauty. Abel was not a connoisseur of art, but even he knew these statues were beautiful and very, very old and in fact very, very ancient. He paused to read one label. 'Athens, Greece. Pre Historic Earth.' Another collection of metal statues, probably bronze, were labelled 'Rome, Circa 2800 PD' or pre-diaspora. Abel could only stand in wonderment.
Abel continued walking among the crates, boxes, and containers. The contents of many of the crates was visible beneath their plasticene clear covers and Abel was amazed at the many worlds and dead civilizations were represented in the collection. Some items he almost recognized and others were simply so strange he might never really know what they were. Perhaps 10% of the boxes had labels that indicated that while ancient, the origins of the item in the box was unknown although the system in which it had been found was noted along with detailed descriptions of its' recovery.
Abel was a bit overwhelmed and decided to return to his office but as he turned he saw Emmitt Wong approach.
"Abel, I heard you were unloading the Theans' collection and thought I'd take a moment to peek at what we have."
"Yes. It's all rather overwhelming I must say," was all Abel could think of to say.
Emmitt looked down the line of technology items which now extended the entire length of the Navy Dock. "I have a bunch of grad students on the way to take a quick survey, but I really wish we had Helen here. But the grad students should be here in a moment. I ran into Nomi and Aelia on the way over. Actually Nomi almost ran into me she was in such a hurry. I wanted to talk to Aelia but she rushed past as well. Did they find something of interest?"
"Apparently," replied Abel. "Something to do with GWP. A fragment of an engine and some other machine. Its' function I cannot fathom but Nomi was quite excited."
"Excited?"
"Yes that's the best description."
Emmitt thought a moment. "I have never seen Nomi excited. Angry, frustrated, ill tempered perhaps, but never excited."
Emmitt and Abel continued talking as they walked down the long line of tech crates. Emmitt was venting his frustration again with the construction of the 'apparatus.' Emmitt was almost ranting in his annoyance at the repeated failures his fabricators faced. Many failures were their own fault, but most were simply that they were playing with forces they did not even begin to understand.
As they walked Abel let Emmitt rant. Abel knew that Emmitt would not express his frustration to the workers and engineers on the project, yet he needed someone to tell his worries to.
Suddenly Emmitt stopped at one medium sized crate. He had been glancing at the labels of each crate as they passed although he continued to rant. Now he stopped in silence.
Emmitt was staring at the label on one crate. Abel stepped closer. The label read, 'Neutron Guns. Epigoni Culture. Functioning. Dangerous.'
Emmitt let our a breath. "Well I'll be. They really do exist. I thought these things were a myth."
...
New Horizons - Destructor New Hildr - Year 3248 January 3 ET 10:55
New Hildr badly damaged sought refuge in the gas and dust shell immediately above the battle zone. Mist followed. In her damaged condition New Hildr dare not take on the two dumbbells that were in all probability rising from below enticed to battle by the appearance of De Volta. Farn feared for the fate of New Volta as she rose into the clear zone expecting an ambush by New Hildr and Mist who were now busy licking their wounds high above in the obscurity of the second shell of gas and dust. There was nothing Farn could do to assist New Volta. The clever battle plan had turned to disaster with the unexpected arrival of M4.
Farn remained seated. There was little for a Commodore to do but sit back and watch the captain and the crew deal with damage control. The atmospheric venting had quickly been contained by droids but the maintenance station had a good dozen blinking red lights.
Earlier as they rose to the safety and obscurity of the clouds above Captain Ivar had launched a beacon with a message to inform De Volta of their change in plan. Knowing that the Megra might be listening he avoided mentioning damage but did inform De Volta of the destruction of M4 and provided advice to De Volta to seek refuge in the shell of dust and gas above and later to rendezvous at the pre-arranged location. Given the speed of De Volta and her ineffective weapons they hoped that De Volta might just make it, but the odds were not on her side.
Siggy had been enormously busy dealing with the damage and after entering the dust and gas cloud they had a full assessment of the damage.
Fatima Lynn, the daughter of professor Hazma Lynn, was on maintenance and began to call out the damage assessment.
"Engines 8, 14, 16, offline and not repairable in flight. Engines 2, 3, 5, and 6 are at half power and can be repaired in 12 hours. Plasma cannons 3,4,6,8 inoperable. Capacitors intact. Shielding section D23, E23, F22, and F18 separated but intact. Hull is holding pressure and is intact. Tubes A2, A4, A5, A6, A7, A9 are inoperable and cannot be repaired in flight. We have numerous control conduits shorted and breached, but the redundancies are undamaged..."
Farn listened as Fatima continued listing the needed repairs, but the most critical damaged items were first on her list and most of what remained could be repaired in flight or could wait until they returned to Jamon. None of the damage was severe enough to disable the ship. Although she was in no condition for a sustained battle either.
Before the attack all three ships had agreed to a rendezvous point after the attack should there be a need. Now there was a need, but Siggy was reluctant to leave the gas clouds until he had a full assessment of the damage as well as completing some critical repairs. The loss of seven fusion engines out of sixteen would not effect New Hildr's ability to fly at speed, but they would effect her ability to charge her remaining plasma cannons' capacitors. At worst if forced into battle they could only fly at half speed on reaction engines and charge half the capacitors at the same time. This would give the dumbbells a real advantage against New Hildr in a slugfest. Further the Megra had demonstrated a willingness to suicide themselves in order to dam
age New Hildr with an anti-matter torpedo fired and intercepted far too close to the Megra, but close enough to damage New Hildr.
Siggy turned to Farn. "Commodore Mayer. We cannot leave the safety of this cloud until the droids have examined the shielding and tacked on plating restraints. That will take at least nine hours perhaps longer. In addition we need our engines that are running at half power brought up to full power and that will take about ten hours. I want to make sure the tubes are safe and I will need to personally inspect the weapons bay which appears to be vacd. I'm only concerned for safety in the weapons bay, and if it is safe, as our maintenance board indicates, the existence of a vacuum there should present no problems. That will leave us with 18 tubes assuming the auto loaders are functioning. I estimate that in about 16 hours we should be able to fight. Gently fight, but fight. We still have Mist to assist and once we are ready we can, if you wish, take on the two remaining dumbbells.
Fifteen hours later, the temporary repairs completed New Hildr set out for the rendezvous point above the sixth gas and dust shell. The ship though still limping was ready for a fight. Nine hours of careful navigation and flight brought them to the rendezvous site. Mist was waiting for them. De Volta was nowhere to be seen.
Siggy had urged that many of the minor repairs be completed before Farn ordered an attack, but assured her that if needed the New Hildr was ready now.
Farn considered her options. She wanted to give Siggy a bit more time for repairs, but she knew that the moonless night above Breaking Dawn was only 52 hours away.
Farn spoke, "Mr. Einarsson. At our best speed how long will it take for us to approach the entry portal from Larissa?"
