by Don Koch
"This is something that we need to develop for all telepaths. We will also have to adjust our shields to block out unwanted intrusions. Almost like what one would do with caller ID on a phone. I think it might be a good idea to pull together everyone that has used this part of the talent for a little skull session. Would you please contact everyone that has used mind-to-mind for a meeting at the one of our sports venues in an hour. This could be interesting. "
# An hour later #
There were a lot of familiar faces gathered at the basketball court. The usual meeting location at the lodge was not large enough to accommodate the numbers at this meeting. That facility could only accommodate up to 350 persons. Hank started the meeting with repeat of the discussion with Sam, Fador and Barana. Most were surprised at this revelation and were looking thoughtful. Sass spoke first, "I am impressed with the fact that you have recognized the low utilization of this node and I agree that we need to explore this more carefully. A thought that occurs to me is that this could, if we do not proceed carefully, lead to a destruction of privacy. It seems to me that this of necessity will call for a revamping of our personal shields. What would happen if ten persons were to attempt communication at the same time. We will have to develop protocols similar to those we might use in a meeting."
Ben Pine then noted, "The first time Mary and I used mind-to-mind was when we went out to meet the Glarin for the first time. We also trained a few others on our T-Raptor teams at that time how to go about it. It floors me that others are not using it. I would suggest that the first step would be to use the process we used back then. At the very least get all of the soul mates using mind-to-mind. It never occurred to me that this wasn't the case."
Hank asked, "Is there anyone here who has used mind-to-mind with other than family?"
Vassim and Villa Forg, a Glarin couple raised their hands along with all of the rest of the Glarin present. Vassim said, "Yes, we have done so, always with other Glarin. We are surprised at this discussion because we thought it was widely used. It is not so difficult to manage. You are also aware that we are relatively new to use of this talent having been using it for only 14 months. We can share with you how we do it and how we have modified our shields to make it manageable."
Sam added, "With so many new telepaths now identified this may be a critical consideration. We are going from 5,700 telepaths on Station One to about 41 million. Now is the time to develop the necessary protocols before this gets to be something we cannot handle."
"Ok then, here is what we need to do.
Determine how the Glarin shields differ from ours to accommodate mind-to-mind communication. We need to determine if their solution will work for the rest of us.
Train all new and old telepathic couples how to go mind-to-mind with their spouses and with their families.
Determine what parameters are needed for a broader application of mind-to-mind."
"I can see that this would be extremely useful for a combat team. They would not have to worry about mechanical or electronic communications. Lets ponder this today and get back together tomorrow to discuss this further."
Chapter 5: Don't Mess with a Raven
Aboard Malone Cruiser Destiny
March 2 – C Day 550
The Executive Officer commented, "Captain, that is indeed a Rotagilla dreadnaught ahead of us at 53.5 miles, but all systems are powered down including weapons. We detect three Rotan life forms aboard and while they appear to be alive, they are not moving about and appear to be injured. We have also determined that the ship's self destruct sequence has been activated. I would sure like to know what went on here. It looks like there is about 75 minutes left in the countdown sequence."
"I would dearly like to know that as well XO, so that makes two of us. That vessel should have at least 550 to 600 individuals aboard and none of their life pods appear to be missing. So what has become of its crew?"
"Captain, we are being hailed."
"What, by the dreadnaught?"
"No sir, the signal is coming from about 100 feet off our hull and the scans indicate human but with anomalies. He states he is Ranger Colonel James Raven and is requesting permission to come aboard. Sir, isn't that the person we were sent to look for."
"He is indeed, permission granted. I am heading to the airlock nearest his location. Have a four-man security detail meet me there on the double. I want him on board quickly so we can move away from the coming explosion. When he is aboard, I want full shields and move us back 10,000 miles. I'd like a some distance between us when that thing blows. You have the bridge XO."
"Aye, aye sir."
As he headed for the airlock, Captain Foster thought, this just gets stranger and stranger. First this open-ended mission with sealed orders and little information. Now we are faced with one of the most formidable warships in the known galaxy and it is about to blow its top. The Ranger we are sent to find is the one that finds us and close to an enemy dreadnaught. I hope he can tell us something. As he arrived at the airlock, the outer hatch was cycling closed. He peered through the hatch window and was amazed to see the Ranger without a spacesuit wearing black service utilities and a small facemask that retreated into a holder at his neck as the air pressure equalized in the airlock.
The inner door opened and the Ranger stepped through and saluted the flag at the hatch and then the Captain stating, "permission to come aboard sir."
The Captain returned the salute stating, "Permission granted, welcome aboard Ranger Raven."
"Thank you Captain, I believe you are Captain Paul Foster, at least that was who I was told to expect."
The puzzled Captain nodded, "that is correct."
"Captain, I have a lot to tell you, but first, would you please pull Order 4747 Papa and authenticate the order. Can I meet with you and your XO, Commander Zack Johnson in private once you have read that order. I know that you must have a kazillion questions and you will be happy to know that I can and will respond to as many of them as I can once you have read that order. In the meantime, I will be content to accompany these four gentlemen where you wish them to take me until you digest that order. I do recognize a security detail when I see one and my arrival is unusual to say the least. I would also ask that they be ordered to not discuss what they have seen and heard for now. You might wish to put a lit
tle more distance between you and that dreadnaught than you may have allowed for. She has a planet-buster on board and I have wired it into the ships self-destruct sequence. My recommendation would be a minimum of 20,000 miles and you may want to record the event. Anyone watching will need eye protection."
"Ranger, that is a reasonable request and I will so order. Gentlemen, please escort Ranger Raven to Wardroom 4 and see that he has beverage and food, whatever he needs. I will be there with the XO shortly."
The captain went back to the bridge and told the XO to move them back to a 100,000 mile separation and ordered Watch Command 2 to the bridge to replace the XO and himself. He and the XO then pulled Order 4747 Papa and authenticated the order. They then proceeded to read the order. It was not exceptionally long. He had only seen an order with as high a secret rating as this on one occasion and that was the one that started the current voyage. On reading the order, the XO turned blanched, "Good Grief Paul, this essentially gives him command of the ship."
Captain Johnson grimaced, "I was halfway expecting this. It is what it is. Lets go find out what it really is. Besides I want to see that dreadnaught blow and I suspect that the Ranger does too."
The pair proceeded to Wardroom 4 and dismissed the security detail but told them to standby in Wardroom 1 until he or the Ranger relieved them. He then instructed the bridge to start the recording of the dreadnaught with filters up to provide protection from any harmful emanations from the pending explosion. They still had about twenty minutes to go before the blast. They had the shields full up and even so, when the blast finally came, the Captain and XO were stunned at the force of it. "What the hell was that?"
Ranger Raven laconically, "And that Captain is a very good question. Am I correct in assuming that recorders in this room are off and no one can eavesdrop, not even Chief Hastings who I understand is part of your crew."
The Captain laughed and the XO grinned stating, "not even. You know our good Chief?"
Raven went on with a matching grin, "Oh yes I do, but let's make it easy on him, please invite him in." In a louder voice he went on, "Oh, and Chief, please make sure that no one else can use your gear."
A few minutes later, Chief Hastings arrived looking a bit chagrined. He gave Raven a bear hug and said, "Ah Jimmy, how am I going to maintain my appearance of infallibility if you keep giving away me trade secrets lad."
Raven retorted, "Billy boy, this will slow you down not one little bit. But, you need to know what is going on and I am about to brief the Captain and XO. They also need to know who you really are. They have been fully vetted. Captain Foster, Commander Johnson, you are about to hear more top secret information than most admirals know about and you can not speak of it to any one except another Ranger Raven."
"Good Grief, you mean there are more of you" exclaimed the Captain.
"Indeed, there are ten of us, one of whom you already know. I would like to introduce to you, my brother, Ranger Colonel William Hastings Raven. There are also our father, John and our mother, Mae. They are both Generals. Then there are Mary, Janet, Henry, Anna, Thomas and Susan. All ten of us are Rangers. It is kind of the family business."
Johnson, still a bit shocked commented, "that's incredible, I have never heard of so many family members in service let alone in an elite branch."
"Well, we try not to advertise the fact and very few know about it. I am sure you scanned me before bringing me on board and saw some anomalies. Each of us Ravens has been substantially modified and enhanced. Essentially, each of us is a walking tank. We are far stronger, faster than anyone might suspect from appearances. We are bullet proof, knife-proof and even laser-proof and have enhanced vision and hearing. We also have personal cloaking devices built in, so we can be invisible for extended periods of time. The list of enhancements is lengthy and includes a communication package that allowed me to hail you and to let brother Billy know exactly where I was located. That is a very handy enhancement. I had doubts that I could have survived the blast from that exploding dreadnaught otherwise. We have personal body shields similar to those of a starship but that has its limitations. We can survive about a week in space without a spacesuit after which we are toast, or more accurately, a corpsesicle."
Captain Foster interjected, "what happened to the crew of that Rotagillan cruiser out there, normally there are about 500 to 600 Rotans aboard but we could only detect three?"
"I guess you could say that I happened to them. As big and strong as they are, they are not a match for an enhanced Ranger. We Ravens can be as tricky as our namesake. About six months ago Dad acquired some intelligence to the effect that Rotagilla had in its possession a planet buster and were preparing to use it on us. This was not something that we could ignore so we decided that three of us would each board an enemy dreadnaught to determine the veracity of the intelligence, backed up by a brother or sister. The other two teams hit blanks. This one did not. This was a somewhat risky effort since we could not allow the Rotans to realize and report that there were enhanced humans out there or that we suspected the reality and deployment of a planet-buster. This meant that we each had to either capture or destroy the ship we were on. Janet, backed up by Tom, was able to dispose of the crew on her target and prevent the activation of their destruct sequence. However, Mary, backed up by Henry, was not able to prevent activation of the destruct sequence but Mary was able to escape with Henry's assistance."
Commander Johnson reacted, "Are you saying that female operatives took out a Rotagilla dreadnaught singlehandedly?"
"Yep, they are a regular chip off the old block, and probably more devious. But it gets better, Janet captured her ship intact and left no survivors. That in itself is a massive intelligence coup. The ship is fully operational, except that the communications antenna is down."
"The first step in this kind of action is to eliminate their communications capability. This proved to be pretty easy to do. The Rotagilla vessels utilize an external antenna that is fairly easy to destroy and to make it appear as though the antenna was disabled by space debris. They carry spares but those take hours to put back in service. By that time we expected to have destroyed or disabled the transmitting equipment inside the ship. Entry into the vessel was accomplished by joining the work crew sent out to repair the antenna. This was also easy to accomplish since they did not expect that they were under attack at the time. Each of our entry plans were similar. Dispose of the work crew without attracting attention and board the vessel using the airlock they came out of. For whatever reason, they are not particularly security conscious. They do not use security cameras or detection devices. They prefer to rely on brute force and constant roving patrols of two armed guards each. Normally their strength and their faster than human reflexes are sufficient to the task. I was able to get to their communication gear and fry that and a few other things so they would still not understand that they were under attack. I made it look like a major short in adjacent equipment. Then I had to start dismantling the crew and ship. There were 584 on board when I arrived. There were three including their captain when I left. I do not like this kind of combat but that ship and crew had to disappear without any possibility of their making contact with their own people and they are too dangerous to hold as captives."
"I borrowed a page from Janet's play book. She realized that the Rotans dislike internal use of electronics and tend to rely on mechanical devices along with their own powers of observation and reaction. She noticed that they adhere to their schedule and clocks with surprising precision. She wondered what would be the impact if someone tampered with something as simple as their clocks. She proceeded to reset their clocks by varying increments. The clocks were changed to put them out of sync with each other. Some clocks were reset by 7 or 11 minutes. Other clocks were reset by 13 or 19 minutes and so on. So she went around changing clocks and the results were bizarre. Patrols were not where they were supposed to be. Shifts were starting or ending at the wrong times. The crew became irritable and then violent
. I was able to get them to do some of the dirty work for me and the disruptions disguised a great deal of my efforts. Crew members were blamed for other missing crew members. Some were not reporting for duty because they could not. Janet had observed the same condition. I added to the confusion by moving personal effects. In some cases making it look like another crew member had stolen the targeted items."
"Finally their Captain figured out that they had an intruder aboard. It was my own fault. I could not always get to an airlock to dispose of a body so I put some of them into an empty storage room and turned down the temperature in that room. Unfortunately someone noticed the smell anyway and they found the room with about 60 bodies in it. By this point, more than half of the crew was gone. Most went out one airlock or another. The first thing their Captain did was to put the destruct sequence on standby. That was a bit annoying so I disabled their drive and started systematically eliminating the crew. I then linked the planet buster to the self-destruct mechanism. The last ten were on the bridge, where I made short work of all but three of them. During the fracas their Captain engaged the self destruct mechanism but did not have time to reset the timer so that gave me two hours to get away. I disabled the Captain and his two remaining cronies. I locked them in a wardroom and fixed the entry so that it could not be opened. They were not going to be moving much anyway since I did not leave them in very good condition. I did not kill the Captain because I was worried that his vital signs might have been linked to the self-destruct mechanism and I wanted to delay that as long as I could. I hit the shutdown on all systems. I quickly grabbed the copies of the computer storage I had created during the previous week and got off the ship. I could not use one of their scouts because that would have caused the self destruct to fire prematurely, so I grabbed a couple of gas bottles to use like rockets and get me away from the ship. Meanwhile I was hollering to Billy here to come get me."
