Aeolus Investigations Set 2: Too Cool To Lose: The Continuing Evolution of Lexi Stevens

by Robert E Colfax

  ***

  Earth Governor Charles Stevens opened the meeting. Today, it would be broadcast, unedited, not only to world leaders on Earth but to most of the population.

  “Good afternoon. Before I turn this meeting over to Admiral Dalen Kuznetsov, I want to take a moment to thank all of our off-world friends for your patience and tolerance in your dealings with the people of Earth. Although Marshal Stevens has brought us into the Accord as a member world, we all know to a certain extent that is a fiction. Yes, we have star-flight now. You gifted it to us. We have a few starships. You gave them to us. We are grateful and will do our utmost to live up to your trust.” He paused as his audience unexpectedly applauded. With a nod, he said, “Admiral.”

  Admiral Kuznetsov stood. “I see more of that cooperation than you do, Governor. We’ve experienced more friction among the Earth-humans from different countries than we have from any of the off-worlders. That being said, the friction I just mentioned never exceeded the point where it could not be tolerated and, in fact, has now settled down almost completely. Having a common language helps. Everyone, down to our newest recruit, understands the gravity of the situation we find ourselves in.”

  He glanced toward the other military leaders who were nodding in agreement. “Whether it is due to a true desire to defend our planet or simply a lust to serve on a starship, military recruitment is at an all-time high across the globe. In fact, we have waiting lists.” That got a small, appreciative chuckle from the other military members of the audience.

  “I am pleased to report, Marshal,” he continued, “that you now have a fleet. Much of my report will be a recap of what many of you are already aware of, but I believe that is the purpose of this meeting. At this point, we have eleven battleships and six cruisers in near-Earth space.”

  He wasn’t sure the applause was appropriate, but had to wait it out nonetheless. “I am pleased to announce that the first battleship constructed by the Earth shipyard is to launch in three weeks. As soon as a ship is produced by any of the Accord shipyards, it is fully crewed and sent here. At that point, we follow the Marshal’s orders and rotate the crew among the other mixed-race ships, taking Ackalonian sensibilities into consideration. We currently have more than thirteen thousand off-worlders in-system. At any given time, we have around three hundred of them on Earth as tourists. That has caused far fewer incidents than I would have expected.”

  From his seat, Charlie said, “I have an entire division of WASP security dedicated to ensuring there are no incidents.”

  “Ah, I wasn’t aware of that,” Kuznetsov remarked.

  He continued. “It takes three times as long to build a battleship as a cruiser. We intend to continue production at the current ratio for at least the next two years. At that point, we’ll be switching to battleships only. Most of our worlds, Earth included, are constructing additional shipyards. We are hopeful that by the end of four years we will have in the neighborhood of one hundred twelve battleships and as many as eighty cruisers.”

  He paused as there was a smattering of applause. They should all have realized that they would not be able to stop the Kreesh with so few ships. He did note that it was mostly the engineers doing the applauding. They were justified. Their efforts had been and continued to be outstanding.

  When the fleet launched, they would basically be sending all of his men and women to certain death. He knew that. His officers knew that. But they had to try. They had to do what they could. They couldn’t evacuate the planet. Nor could they build a decoy. That thought had occurred to him several times. While he wouldn’t be surprised if Marshal Stevens could indeed build a decoy, nothing about her surprised him anymore, he doubted it would buy them more than a few extra days.

  Still, they were making real progress and this was supposed to be an upbeat meeting. Based on everything he had heard about her, the Marshal had a knack for facing impossible situations and coming out on top. That was why, when you got right down to it, every damn world in the Accord had placed their fates into the hands of a young woman from Earth.

  Chapter 59

  Problem Solving

  The Marshal already solved one of the major problems the fleet faced — its line of supply. They wanted to meet the Kreesh as far from the planet as possible. Stocking food for such a large mixed-race crew, with little hope of resupply, and no idea of how long the fleet would be on its own was a logistical nightmare.

  Food-replicators solved that problem quite neatly. Take energy, then convert it to matter in a device programmed to assemble the new atoms into food. When she was first presented with the problem, Lexi nodded and simply asked if that was the extent of it. The next afternoon they had food-replicators. Kuznetsov had been there. It took her less than twenty-four hours. Most of her off-world engineers were either skeptical or enthusiastic about them. Apparently, no one out there had even thought of such a device despite having eight thousand years to do so. Yet, for most of those years, they routinely assembled non-organic matter in devices called fabricators. True, the fabricators used matter-to-matter conversion technology. The food replicators were converting energy to matter. He supposed it probably wasn’t the same thing.

  Lexi confided that she got the idea from Star Trek, making running old TV episodes and movies a popular off-shift past-time, especially for the off-worlders. The replicators were now standard equipment on all of the newly constructed ships and were in the process of being retrofit on the ships already in the solar system.

  That led to another thought he wanted to mention at the end of this meeting. “High Admiral Seekateeki, would you fill us in on the Vankovian efforts?”

  Seekateeki stood. “Certainly. None of us expect to come out of this fight unscathed. My people will largely be serving as damage control. Our sincerest hope is that damage won’t be total. Vankovia has for centuries owned the only dreadnought-class ship in Accord space. Of course, its technology is suddenly seriously outdated. Last year, it was still state-of-the-art.”

  He smiled wryly. Vankovian facial expressions were absurdly similar to those made by humans. “Although somewhat embarrassing to admit, just one of the new battleships could fairly easily reduce it to cinders. However, since we built a dreadnought, we are experienced with and have a shipyard equipped to build large ships. We won’t be upgrading the dreadnought due to time constraints, but we are upgrading the shipyard facilities. In another year and a half, it will be launching a mobile shipyard.”

  He held out his upper left arm to Jadkim E’Kret in the audience. “That idea was presented by Da E’Kret of Borgol. The shipyard will be slightly smaller than our existing dreadnought but built with completely modern technology. It is intended to go into battle with us. Carrying a crew of three thousand, its purpose is to repair damaged ships. Until we join the battle formation, it will be tasked with building additional battleships. The Empire is constructing a second ship of identical size; one that will be an infirmary with nine thousand beds which we hope go unused. Its armament, like that of the mobile shipyard, though substantial, is purely defensive.”

  A member of the audience asked, “Will something that big be able to keep up with the fleet? And what does ‘purely defensive’ mean?”

  Kuznetsov again stood and with a smile said, “Size doesn’t matter. No, these new Vankovian ships are not as fast as the rest of the fleet. Our battleships are not as fast as our cruisers. We don’t plan on meeting the Kreesh at top speed. Ideally, we find a defensible position and let them come to us.”

  Seekateeki added, “The two ships will have neither primary beams nor missile tubes. They will have smaller beam weapons to discourage boarders. They will also each host a substantial Marine contingent as a precaution.”

  Looking at the audience, Kuznetsov asked, “Does anyone have any questions for the Admiral? Does anyone have anything to add?” After a moment with no response, he nodded and looked at Lexi. “Marshal?”

  Over the last year, Lexi and the rest of her team had come
to terms with their new positions. Before this all started, they spent most of a year as global administrators on Ostrieachia. That experience served them well now. And like on Ostrieachia, they had experienced people working for them.

  Faced with the eventual extermination of all life larger than microbes in Accord space and beyond, they had no choice but to stop the Kreesh here and now. Earth would be the first victim but the other worlds would be gone within no more than a century or two. They weren’t sure how long it took for a world to be eaten by the Kreesh but calculated it should be no more than five to ten years. Nor did they have intel on how fast Kreesh ships were in hyper. The Wraix hadn’t known that either but the indications Wraix observed were that Kreesh were relatively slow. Still, she doubted it would take more than three or four months after leaving Earth for them to reach Ackalon.

  Lexi was now the leader of the Accord; her job was to protect her people. She knew that the fleet wouldn’t be enough, but if it came down to it she would sacrifice them all and Earth along with them to buy the other worlds more time to prepare. She estimated if she had ten thousand ships they would stand a good chance of stopping the incursion and destroying the Kreesh. They wouldn’t have ten thousand ships in time. That was why she had freely given all of the Accord her technology. That was why a massive mining and refining operation now existed on Rathca, the hull-metal rich world near Ostrieachia. No one else had access to the quantity needed. The superior material Glaurang’s hull was made of was time-consuming to fabricate. If they failed here, if they continued to cooperate with each other, the more distant Accord worlds might have time to field a sufficiently large fleet.

  She stood and looked around the gathering. The silence was absolute and respectful. “Thank you, Admirals, Governor, for your updates. I am very pleased with the progress we’re making across the board. I have no more to add at this time. Admiral Kuznetsov, did you have something else to bring up?”

  “Yes, yes I do.” He hadn’t expected her to realize that. “The biggest problem we face at the moment, as I see it, is that communications are too slow. It is going to be next to impossible to coordinate a fleet being constructed across this volume of space when we can get there faster than we can get a response to a message sent via a courier. The message drone with the food-replicator technology reached Xeas no more than a few weeks ago, for instance. Cardin’s Paradise, being relatively nearby, presumably has already received the updated specs and incorporated replicator technology into their ships.”

  “He’s right, Marshal,” Seekateeki confirmed. “Communication has always been an issue. When we send our exploration ships out, there is always the concern that the first we will hear of them is when an inimical alien civilization pops out at our hyper-limit.”

  Lexi nodded, “I might have a solution for that. Let me think about it some.” Kuznetsov smiled. That was pretty much what she said about the line of supply concern.

  Chapter 60

  Tricks of the Trade

  The next morning Lexi and Jis shuttled from Glaurang over to one of the new cruisers in Earth orbit. This one had been built at the Ackalonian shipyards and still had an eighty-seven percent Ackalonian crew. The other thirteen percent were Earthmen being trained on-the-job. The two women sat with the command deck officers while the ship headed out-system. An hour later, they were beyond the orbit of Mars, well inside the asteroid belt. Movies aside, there is a lot of room in there. Chunks of rock are few and far apart.

  Both of them were empaths, Jis because she was Ackalonian and it was part of her genetics, Lexi because she had a copy of the Rose of Light in her head. Based on recent revelations about Violet, it may have been part of her genetics as well. After exposure to the Grammin Barossa Channel, both Lexi and Ron were mildly telepathic. Unexpectedly, apparently due to no more than spending time with Lexi, Jis was developing a small degree of telepathic ability and Ron was showing signs of those abilities native to Ackalonians and associated with the Rose.

  Lexi and Jis retired to their cabin with a shared look. What they intended to attempt had never been done before. The Grammin, the only telepathic race they knew of, couldn’t do it. Yet in both their minds was the realization that during the time Lexi was in a coma, fighting to absorb the Wraixain knowledge she took from Meat, they were somehow in communication with each other across interstellar distances. The two shared a special bond due to the Rose of Light. What they didn’t know was whether or not that was what made it work. Facing each other, they sat cross-legged on the bed. Jis looked at Lexi and said, “I’m ready when you are.”

  Lexi nodded and closed her eyes. What she was about to do was similar to what Jis taught her three years ago when she was training Lexi how to meditate and access the areas of the brain the Rose stimulated. That was during the Borgol mission. Lexi still practiced from time to time, sometimes alone, sometimes with Ron, and on occasion with Geena before she moved in with Charlie.

  She cleared her mind and focused on the pattern of the Rose of Light. The last time she tried this with Jis the Rose was largely dormant in Lexi’s mind. Her interaction with the computer intelligence she named Meat fully activated it. She wasn’t sure what about that triggered it. Maybe it was just time. Maybe the stress of that situation was responsible. It could have been the Klaavaanit field. She didn’t think it really mattered.

  From where she sat, she sensed Jis, likewise entering into a meditative state. Lexi wasn’t sure exactly how she did it, but she unfolded the Rose to encompass Jis. Without having the rose engraved in her neural pathways as Lexi did, it wasn’t something Jis could quite do on her own. Reaching through the Rose, Lexi brought the areas of their brains associated with telepathy into contact.

  I’m impressed, Jis thought. I wasn’t sure we could do this.

  I wasn’t either, Lexi admitted. Especially since you were never exposed to the Barossa Channel. If we wind up sending Ron to get it, we’ll give you a chance to play with it. I’m going to try to reach Ron now.

  I’ve been exposed to you, love. I’m ready, Jis said.

  Lexi wasn’t sure how to go about what she wanted to do. Just think of him, Jis suggested. They were practically the same mind. Lexi’s thoughts were hers and hers were Lexi’s.

  Intimacy on a level no one has ever previously experienced. Neither was sure which of them thought that.

  Together they built an image of Ron in their conjoined mind. Ron was waiting for them on Glaurang in Earth orbit. He knew what they would be attempting and was sitting in a quiet room, by himself, doing nothing other than waiting, despite the multitude of other things he needed to be working on. This was more important. Several times he imagined he heard Lexi in his mind. After all, they had experienced telepathy between themselves off and on ever since they both came into contact with the Barossa Channel. That being the case, he knew the schedule and knew it was too early to expect any attempt at contact.

  Ron?

  Lexi? Are you really there? Where’s Jis?

  I’m here too, Ron.

  At the moment, love, it’s hard for us to separate ourselves. So yes, we’re both here. I’m just the one driving. Time check, please.

  Ron looked up at the readout on his wall. I have 10:43:12.

  Jis opened her eyes momentarily. Confirmed. Our time is 10:42:47. Minor time-dilation as expected. She waited ten seconds, then, Mark.

  Almost instantly, Ron’s thought came back. Mark. 10:43:22. Exactly 10 seconds.

  Agreed. That’s encouraging. At this distance, thought seems to be instant. We’re disconnecting now, Ron, Lexi thought. We’ll try again in three hours.

  As the three disconnected from each other, Lexi took a moment to comm the captain to initiate phase two of the mission, before leaning forward and carrying Jis down onto the mattress as their lips met.

  Three hours out on the n-space drive took them beyond the Sol system’s hyper-limit and significantly beyond Pluto’s orbit. The cruiser activated its hyper-generator, taking them out of normal-s
pace. The connection between Lexi and Jis formed much easier this time. Together, they sent, Ron, we’ve got 13:50:19.

  When they got no response, Jis thought, Maybe we’re beyond the effective limit?

  Maybe, Lexi replied. I’m going to up the volume. Ron! she yelled with her/their mind.

  A few seconds later, his mental voice came back to them. Sorry, ladies. I’m sitting in a silent, dark room. I’m pretty sure you guys were being naughty and I was daydreaming about that. Then I fell asleep. Time check, 13:53:07.

  We’ve got 13:52:19. Reply in ten seconds.

  Ten seconds to the dot, Ron’s thought came back. 13:53:17. The clock on Lexi’s ship indicated 13:52:29.

  To the dot, Ron. Jis sent. Being in hyper isn’t affecting the connection. Congratulations, Lexi, if this works over interstellar distances, you’ve come up with the Accord’s first faster-than-light communications.

  Lexi was already thinking furiously.