by Doug Farren
He also knew that the Tholtaran representative was no friend of Terrans. He had served in the Tholtaran space force during the war with the Terrans and still harbored ill feelings toward them. It didn’t take much to swing his vote. Because the Terran representative was banned from voting, the recommendation easily passed. The only dissenting vote was from the Rouldian representative.
Greed had caused Talmich to set aside his oath to serve the Alliance with integrity. He was charged with corruption and would most likely be imprisoned for the rest of his life. What Tom found even more interesting was that the Council had reversed its decision and had confirmed that Safa would remain an independent world. The Council then immediately passed a resolution declaring the AOH battle fleet to be a menace to Alliance security. Orders were transmitted giving all Alliance ships the authority to destroy any AOH warship they happened to encounter.
The Purist fleet fled back to Safa, pursued by the Shandarian as well as the Tholtaran fleets. As soon as they entered the system, the Purists transmitted their intent to abandon their vessels and destroy them. The Alliance fleets monitored the process to ensure the Purists followed through with their promise. As soon as the last warship was destroyed, a portion of the fleet moved off towards the Purist shipyard.
* * * * *
“Target destroyed,” the Dragon’s weapon officer calmly announced.
“That’s all of them,” the tactical officer added. “Sensors show the station is now completely defenseless.”
Scarboro looked into the monitor at his right and said, “All defense stations have been destroyed Group Commander. My sensors show the station is harmless.”
“Good job Captain,” Group Commander Molta said. “Your services are no longer required but you are more than welcome to remain in the area.”
“Thank you Commander,” Scarboro replied. “I’d like to stick around for a little while. Komodo Dragon out.”
As the image of the Tholtaran Commander vanished, Scarboro turned to his bridge crew and said, “Good job to all. Place weapons in standby and stand down from battle stations.”
The Alliance desperately wanted to know how the Purists had managed to build so many ships from a single shipyard. Instead of attacking the shipyard with the entire fleet, the long-range, Hess-built weapons of the Komodo Dragon were utilized to surgically remove each and every defense station protecting the asteroid. The process had taken the better part of an entire day, but in the end, the asteroid inside of which the yard had been built was undamaged and defenseless. A contingent of Tholtaran marines landed to secure the helpless station. Three hours later, a group of engineers began the process of analyzing the operation of the shipyard. What they found amazed them.
The shipyard was a marvel of engineering. Its designer, one of the prisoners captured by the Tholtarans, was thrilled to show the stunned group of engineers around his masterpiece. The asteroid had been hollowed out and turned into a three-dimensional, almost fully automated starship assembly line. It built the ships from the inside out using components manufactured in other areas of the asteroid. Everything down to the smallest component had been standardized. Even though the standard motor or valve or pump might be over-sized for the application, it was used. If it was undersized, more were added. This greatly reduced the number of different components the manufacturing side of the shipyard needed to produce. Complex components that could not be manufactured by the asteroid’s machines were installed after the ship was moved to the orbital yards above the Mowry homeworld.
Using Mowry labor, the Purists had built several sprawling factories on the Mowry homeworld. In return for making them incredibly wealthy and helping them maintain a position of power, the Mowry Kings gladly supplied the Purists with all the material and labor they needed to run their factories. Utilizing Alliance technology, the highly automated factories produced all the complex components the asteroid could not build. It wasn’t until years later, after the accountants finally managed to sort through the mess created by CAIN’s ability to manipulate financial transactions, it was learned that all of the equipment necessary to run the factories had been bought and paid for by the governments of the Alliance planets where the equipment had been purchased—mainly, Earth.
Chapter 48
“That’s a ship?” Cassandra asked, staring at the monitor. “It looks more like a Christmas ornament!”
“It’s a Tholtaran juggernaut,” Tom explained. “And it’s a lot bigger than you might think. The Tholtarans were kind enough to park it here until Earth’s defense network could be rebuilt.”
“A juggernaut!” she exclaimed. “I’ve heard they’re the biggest ships ever built.”
“They are. She’s nearly 20 kilometers from tip to tip.”
“Really! Damn, that’s big,” she said. Forcing herself to turn away from the screen, she looked at Tom and added, “Thank you so much for letting me have a ride in your ship. All my friends were jealous when Lashpa brought me home in hers. They're going to be floored when they hear I've been to space in another Peacekeeper ship.”
“Orion,” Tom said into the air, “Take us around the moon and then head back to Earth.”
“Acknowledged,” the ship replied.
“Where are you going next?” Cassandra asked, her eyes returning to the main monitor.
“Sydney,” Tom replied. “I have to pick up a couple of friends. We have reservations at a little place in Vienna.”
“Huh?” Cassandra said.
Tom chuckled. “He lost a bet and I plan to collect.”
Cassandra put her hand on Tom’s and smiled. “The kids really like you. So does John. Try to visit more often…that is…if you want to.”
Tom put his other hand on top of his sister’s. “You can count on it sis. The past is behind us and all is forgiven.”
Cassandra squeezed his hand but said nothing. There were tears in her eyes.
Later that evening, seated at a private table in Restaurant Steirereck, Tom said, “You’re right John; the steak here is the best I’ve ever had.”
“I’m glad you agree,” John replied, through a mouthful of his own.
Tom was relieved to hear that John had not been at the Tanami hub when it was destroyed. He had been many miles away attending his brother’s funeral at the time.
“So,” John said, after clearing his mouth. “Can you tell me anything about the Purist fleet or is it all classified?”
“I’ve been wanting to ask that same question all night,” Dennis said. “Come on Tom, what can you tell us?”
“The Purists found a way to almost completely automate the construction of their ships. They hollowed out an asteroid and built a gigantic assembly line inside it. It’s a marvel of engineering. The walls inside are filled with machines that build the ship from the inside out. They used the same high degree of automation for their ships. The entire destroyer could be operated by a crew of only fourteen.”
“Fourteen! So that’s how they were able to man so many ships,” John said. “Sounds like we could learn something from that.”
“Not really,” Tom replied, setting his fork down. “After each ship was built and outfitted, it was moved to a hidden location and put into storage along with all the other ships. Except for a few that were modified after being built, they weren’t designed for long-term use. All ships require routine maintenance, which is why they carry a large crew. The Purist ships were not designed to be maintained. They were single-use vessels built specifically to be used against Earth. There’s no way they could have been used in a long campaign which is why the Purists went to such extremes to eliminate the bulk of the Earth defense force prior to their attack."
"Your ship requires only a single person to operate," Dennis said. "What makes your vessel so different, or is that a secret?"
"My ship has a small army of robots that do the maintenance for me. Even so, it must still periodically visit a shipyard to be maintained."
“Still,” Dennis argued
, cutting a piece off his steak. “You have to admit they had a good idea.”
“No doubt about that,” Tom admitted, using a piece of bread to soak up the rest of the juices on his plate. “I’m sure we’ll be able to use some of what they developed in the design of our future warships.”
“Speaking of the future,” John said, leaning back in his chair and patting his stomach. “We found a way to disable all the code that CAIN left running in our systems.”
“You have? I didn’t think it was possible.”
“It took a lot of research,” Dennis explained, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Turns out, CAIN put a self-destruct routine into every one of its programs. Apparently, it went off-line before it was able to transmit the activation code. As soon as we’re done archiving the code, we’ll be triggering the destruct sequence.”
“You’re archiving the code—why?”
“Because it’s an incredible piece of work,” Dennis said. “I’ve never seen code like it before. We’re learning all sorts of things by examining it. I’m not about to throw away the opportunity to learn more.”
“Just make sure it’s contained and doesn’t jump to another system,” Tom warned, “I certainly don’t want to be doing this all over again.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Dennis said. “We’ve set up a completely isolated system to house it.”
“Wait a minute,” Tom said. “I thought you said that CAIN’s code only recognized the Mojave link as a control point. If that’s true, how are you going to trigger the master abort?”
“It’s a cascade command,” Dennis replied. “Once triggered, each system will forward the command to the other systems it is aware of before erasing itself from memory. It’s a beautifully crafted piece of code that restores the affected system as if CAIN’s code had never existed. All we have to do is to get the process started.”
The waiter arrived and handed John the check. He opened the leather flap and groaned. John looked at Tom as if he expected a reprieve. “A bet’s a bet,” Tom said. “Time to pay up.”
John groaned again as he touched his identicard to the miniature terminal inside the case.
“I still have one question,” Dennis said. “The Purists took a big risk by stealing Alliance weapons. A single mistake by anyone over all those decades could have blown the entire operation. If they could build starships, why didn’t they build the missiles to arm them?”
“Simple,” Tom replied. “Nuclear warheads require highly enriched plutonium which takes a considerable infrastructure to produce. It was far easier for them to siphon off a few weapons here and there than to build their own. It also allowed them to modify those weapons to support their attack on Earth. By the way,” Tom said, turning to John. “Make sure your entire team’s calendar is clear on June 14th, 15th, and 16th.”
“That’s four months from now,” John said. “Why?”
“We have dinner reservations on the S. S. King Richard,” Tom calmly replied.
“How the hell did you manage that!” John exclaimed.
“It’s amazing how accommodating people can be when a Peacekeeper wants to make a reservation. The Richard will be making a special cruise just for us. Consider it as my personal way of thanking you and your team.”
“I take it you’re staying in Sydney then?” John asked.
“I’m not sure,” Tom replied. “I’ll have to ask Sorbith what his plans are when I get back. I’ve a promise to fulfill. There’s a certain retired Tholtaran veteran who needs an answer to a long-standing question. After that I’m heading for Glish.”
“The porn planet!” Dennis exclaimed. “God it must be great to be a Peacekeeper!”
“Lashpa’s stationed there,” Tom said. “She and I are gragrakch and it’s time I learned exactly what that entails.”
“You’re what?” John asked.
“It would be a lot easier if you just read about it yourself,” Tom replied. “My ship will send you a detailed explanation.”
“The porn planet,” Dennis quietly said. “How can you say you’re not going to have any fun while you’re there? Did the academy cut off—”
“No,” Tom quickly interrupted. “I said I was going there to see Lashpa but I didn’t say I wouldn’t have any fun.”
Dennis’s eyes lit up. Looking at John, he said, “You know, I’ve got some vacation coming and if Tom doesn’t mind me hitching—”
“No!” Tom and John simultaneously interrupted.
“I had to ask,” Dennis said.
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This book is also available in both electronic and print formats.
Cover design by Heather Zak.
Author photo by John Gilbey
Other books by Doug Farren
The Galactic Alliance Series
Book 1 – Translight!
Book 2 – Chroniech!
Book 3 – Honor Thy Enemy
Book 4 – Peacekeeper
Book 5 – Peacekeeper 2
The Dragonverse Series
Book 1 – The Adventure Begins
Book 2 – Ishnef’s Revenge
Singles
Off Course
When Ships Mutiny
I can be reached at: [email protected]
You can find me on Twitter at: @author_farren
My web page is at: http://dougfarren.com/
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Doug Farren is a self-published author who published his first book in 2009. He is a proud member of SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America). He mainly writes space-opera style military science fiction as well as science fiction fantasy. Doug is a U.S. Navy veteran having spent 11 years in the Navy as a nuclear electronics technician. He sat on several panels during the 2015 World Science Fiction Convention which was held in Spokane, Washington. His blog focuses on providing helpful tips for new and existing self-published authors. At the time of this publication, he was working at a nuclear power plant as a Database Administrator in the Work Management department.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7Centralis
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30Komodo Dragon:
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
This book is also available in both electronic and print formats.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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