by Chris Burton
“Enson Carter. Please take a seat.” He cleared his chest twice, before looking up and frowning.
“Your situation in this matter is the most perplexing Mister Carter. You were not under the influence of the Kryl and your psyche tests results rate you as a model student. Yet, not only did you take unauthorized leave of absence, you stole a Jump Ship and had the audacity to take it through a bloody wormhole!” He was shouting now.
“Now I understand that your antics in the Kryl system were heroic and the CO of the ship you’re attached to is singing your praises, but this in no way compensates for your previous actions. You need to decide now how best to respond to these actions. Believe me, my mind is not made up.”
“Sir, I can understand your anxieties. My actions were totally reckless and I apologize profusely. I don’t feel that a long-winded explanation is of benefit, unless of course, you would prefer if I did explain.”
“Is that your best shot, Mister Carter? You have misjudged me if you feel a simple apology is sufficient. I need to know why you acted as you did and I need to be convinced that you will not repeat these acts given the same set of circumstances.”
The Chancellor was quite calm now. The pressure was all on Jake.
“I did it for Carla, Sir. It was obvious she had fallen under the influence of Professor Winterburn and I had no choice but to rescue her.”
“Acts of compassion out of friendship are acceptable but not to the extent that you jeopardize your life, others lives and a state of the art Jump Ship! Your judgment was totally misplaced. What happens in five years time if you are forced to make a decision to save a loved one or your crew? Would you make the same decision again?”
“Of course not, Sir. I would not have put my Alpha colleagues at risk. I do recognize that I was insular in my actions, but this was a matter of life or death.”
Jake spent the next few minutes outlining the events leading to his enforced absence from the academy and those that followed. When he finished, The Chancellor stayed silent for a few moments before responding.
“Are you in love with Miss Stephenson?”
Jake hesitated. This was not the kind of question he expected to answer.
“Yes, I think I am, Sir.”
“That is unfortunate. Alpha Command has no place for relationships of that kind. They should be avoided. Very well, you have explained your actions but could I trust you not to do it again? Officers, who graduate from top five Academies with a nine plus grade, usually make it to the top. There is no room for mediocre careers following a high-grade result. If you are allowed to graduate, you will score very highly and within a few years, you will be commanding Star ships. Can I justify the potential risk to the crew of a Star ship, by allowing you to graduate?”
“Of course, Sir. This was a one-off and I recognize the point you are making. I will ensure that I maintain control over my emotions in future.”
“There is nothing wrong with emotion. Indeed, it is a necessary part of command, as your human side is often more attuned to a situation than your rational side. You need to keep your pants zipped up Mister Carter—that is the essence of this discussion. I wanted you to recognize that your emotional decisions have implications and in this case could have resulted in a very different outcome. You will be allowed to return to the academy to complete your finals, with the caveat that your progress will be monitored closely by your tutor, especially in terms of catching up on academic work that you have missed. Your tutor will be empowered to remove you from the academy without recourse to the disciplinary panel or me, if you step out of line. You will need to work very hard to get back on track, but assuming you keep within the rules and you work hard, you will still graduate with a high nine grade. I am also releasing a restriction placed on you as TG runner-up. You will be allowed to compete in the Alpha TG finals next month.”
Jake forced back the smile. The relief was palpable.
“Thank you, Sir. I am very grateful. I will not let you down.”
“See that you don’t Mister Carter. This is a final warning but I still expect very big things from you.”
Jake left the Chancellor office in an ebullient mood. He was back in the academy and the TG and all was well.
Chapter Five
The Mauritius
The journey to the Jandas system was faster than anticipated and within seven days, the Alpha Battle Cruiser powered down its stellar drive and began the search for the missing Alpha vessels and the Kryl Cruiser.
Commander Ted Buchanan was old school, nearing retirement, but had lost none of his ‘edge’. He was well-respected within senior Alpha ranks and most were surprised he had not been promoted to Admiral. Most rationalized his failure was his lack of good fortune. His vessels were always in the wrong place at the right time. Being overshadowed by his colleague’s successes became a contentious issue for Ted over the years and early retirement was his preferred option. He had so many other things he could be doing.
“Anything yet?”
“Nothing Commander. The two patrol ships and the Alpha cruiser should all be showing on our short range scanners, but there is nothing.”
Wisdom taught Ted Buchanan that ‘nothing’ quite often meant something.
“Let’s theorize. The Kryl vessel has laid a trap and taken the Alpha vessels alongside. They are trying to drawer us in so they can attack us at close quarters.”
His first officer, Shen Knui was a Cartholodite—a half-human, half-reptilian female from a system on the edge of Alpha’s expansive domain. The Cartholidite’s were loaners and took no interest in intergalactic politics. They were members of the Allied Planet Federation (APF), but played no active part. Shen Knui had come to Earth when she had reached maturity as she was intrigued, by what the Cartholidite’s sarcastically referred to as the Center of the Universe. Her intrigue became fascination and she elected to stay, enrolling to Alpha and quickly establishing herself as a worthy officer, post graduation.
“I’ll run a barium scan. If they are trying to block our scanners that should show something.”
“Okay, Commander Shen Knui. Be aware though.”
Two hours later and with no sign of either the Alpha or Kryl vessels: the two commanders met again in Buchanan’s ready room.
“Shall I widen our scan range? The B-scan revealed nothing obvious.”
“No. There is something here. I can sense it. Let’s have a manual view of the B-scan results. We are looking for fractional changes, yes, but if there is some kind of pattern?”
“There, look three small peaks, a gap and then another three. They are very small, but look—another batch of three. Let’s go in a little closer, get the B-scanner to analyze these fields at a closer range and ramp up security a little, discretely, just in case they are watching us too.”
The barium scanner began its new sweep of the more defined coordinates, before they analyzed again a few minutes later.
“Yes look. The pattern is more obvious. There is no other logical explanation to this. I think we need to show our intent. Set up an isotope calibration field within the aft plasma cannon filter and then fire off two or three short plasma cannon bursts. If there is something there, that will make it visible.”
The isotope field would change the physical properties of the plasma cannon bursts. If they hit a shield or cloaked system, the outline of that shield would show up on an isotope reader.
“Firing now.”
The effect was instant. The Kryl cruiser and the three empty Alpha vessels were gathered together under a clear space umbrella. A Kryl shield system, which pulled the visible effects of the surrounding space into a cover, disguising the actual view of the ships. The Kryl Ship dropped its shields immediately and fired three long bursts of plasma fire each hitting different sections of the Mauritius fuselage. The shields held.
“Shields to maximum and return fire, with everything we’ve got. I want that ship disabled, not destroyed.” Buchanan was in his element and soon, the
Kryl vessel would be there his for the taking.
* * * *
Shen Knui was concerned. She could see that far from winning the battle, the Mauritius was in trouble. The Kryl vessel continued to bombard the Alpha ship with plasma fire and nothing penetrated the obviously adaptable Kryl shields. After forty-five minutes of battle, three quarters of the Mauritius’ Teutonic missiles, together with twenty-five Rapiers and eight Sabre Jump Ships and their crew were lost. We are losing this battle and Buchanan does not see it. The damage is irreversible and we are about to go down.
It was time to act but not in defense of the ship or its crew. She had to save herself to transmit the battle and Kryl ship analysis to Alpha command. This is not a selfish act, she reasoned. Any transmission sent now would be blocked by the Kryl ship.
She could not download the analysis from here. She needed to find an access-portal away from the bridge, download and then head to a Jump Ship bay as soon as possible. She must act quickly and decisively. She had to act now.
* * * *
Buchanan had not noticed his first officer’s departure from the command bridge. Far too much was going on and even he acknowledged after nearly an hour of fighting: their position was hopeless. Neither he nor is crew, noticed the unauthorized download of critical ships data or the launch of one of the three Sabre’s from the forward launch bay. They were too occupied with saving the ship, but it was too late. The shields had failed completely and each plasma burst pummeling the fuselage weakened the ship’s internal structure. It was only a matter of time, before a bulkhead failed. The question was, which one?
Less than a minute later the ship split into three sections, each cascading into the other, before the whole mass exploded and the Mauritius and her eight hundred crew were no more.
* * * *
Shen Knui knew she was safe. She downloaded the information and boarded the Sabre five minutes earlier. Opting for the forward launch bay rather than the aft; this gave her a critical timing advantage, allowing her to get clear of the fracas before either the Kryl ship or Commander Buchanan could do anything to prevent her escape. She had already jumped to stellar speed, when the Mauritius disintegrated.
Her first objective was to obtain safe comm. link distance, which at current velocity, she would achieve within twenty minutes.
Something was not right though. The Sabre felt sluggish and a glance at her stellar drive monitor on her visor display revealed why. She had obviously taken a hit or two and the central SD conduit, where the accelerant channeled through to the drive mechanism was badly damaged. The Sabre was venting fluid ever since the stellar drive engaged, which meant two things. One, the drive would shortly fail, with the possibility of a core implosion: result instant death and two, the fluid trail would leave a pathway, for the Kryl ship to follow as clear as a woodland trail of bread crumbs. Probable result: instant death. She had no choice but to take the stellar drive off line and rely on her conventional ion drives to get her to safe distance.
Shen Knui made the necessary adjustments, powered down the stellar drive and shut off the fluid channel, to prevent further venting. She was still, two to three hours away from safety and by now, the Kryl ship would have picked up her signal on their scanners. Very much a sitting duck.
She checked her armaments. She did have a compliment of Teutonic missiles and a full plasma cannon array, so at least the Sabre was battle ready. She looked around. She was in open space with no planetary or gaseous clouding to use as cover. The Sabre did have limited cloaking capability, but this was a last resort and was operational only at standstill. It’s effectiveness against the advanced Kryl scanning capability was questionable. She just had to keep going—it was that simple.
Shen Knui carried out a long-range scan and was relieved to see that the Kryl vessel had not yet commenced her chase. It had probably been damaged during the Mauritius assault and would need to effect repairs before they pursued her. That did not stop them sending a squadron of fighters though. She just had to keep going and hope that nothing else went wrong.
Two hours past, and Shen Knui nervously counted off the minutes as they past. She was best on her own; a trait of the Cartholidite’s, that she was happy to portray. She had though become very Earthly in her six years at Alpha. She did not understand her peoples reticence to join in and become part of the whole. No matter. She counted off another five minutes. There was still no sign of intent from the Kryl. She only needed to get past safe distance then she could download her critical Intel and send a call for assistance.
Another forty minutes past, before she noted a change on her scans. The Kryl had dispatched five smaller vessels. They were a way off, probably at least ten minutes away. At least she could download her Intel before they intercepted her. Then she would have the fight of her life. Five against one, not good odds.
* * * *
Seven minutes later, she began the download and powered up her shields and weaponry systems. The download completed and she opened up her automated distress call. Calmly she turned her ship to face the forthcoming enemy and waited. They were coming, still not visible.
* * * *
She could see something now. She would fire first.
A single blast from Shen Knui’s plasma cannon started the engagement. Within seconds, she was surrounded, but with a quick fire of her thrusters, the Sabre was below all five Kryl ships and firing. The devastating pace and maneuverability of the Sabre was too much for the less agile Kryl fighters and while they outgunned her, she was always one step ahead. The odds improved as she forced two of the Kryl ships to collide. The Kryl fighters overwhelming firepower was beginning to weaken her shields. She had to find a way to take out one of the others to redress the balance. Dipping downwards, Shen Knui came up close underneath one of the fighters. She then dipped down again, firing her afterburners as she descended. This sent both the Sabre and the Kryl fighter spiraling away from each other, before the Sabres dampers corrected and allowed the Alpha Jump Ship to recover quickly and tail behind the still spinning Kryl fighter. Shen Knui then peppered the fighter with plasma cannon, before firing the last of her Teutonic missiles for good measure. The Fighter was destroyed, but the Sabres shields had failed and she had no missiles left. She had to try to outrun them...unless she could get the two to collide.
They were trying to get a fix on the Sabres aft shields. Another forced spin by Shen Knui took her away from immediate danger, but she was getting tired now, the physical effort was enormous. Just one last push she told herself, taking a defensive position and turning it against the Kryl fighters, she drew the two together in front and fired off everything she had left. Somehow, it was enough, as one of the fighters took a direct hit and collided with the rear of the other. The front ship veered up and smashed into the cockpit of the trailing vessel. It was all over.
Shen Knui put her head in her hands in disbelief as her comm. link opened and the voice of Alpha 17 command came through clearly. They had a fix and an escorted recovery vessel was on route. She had avoided death but she had to face the wrath of Alpha. Desertion was a severe and punishable crime.
Chapter Six
An Escalating Problem
Koenig sat at his desk, staring out over the perfectly manicured lawns of Alpha’s Admiralty building. It was a beautiful spring day, warm, not yet hot, with the trees already in bud, with blossom aplenty.
The scenery, did not match Koenig’s mood. He was angry. Just about everything that could go wrong in the Tri-star and Jandas systems had gone wrong and people in high places were beginning to ask questions. The Admiralty bench was screaming for blood, because he had not kept them up to date on either of these issues and President Roslyn had twice tried to contact him, demanding an audience to discuss the deteriorating position in the Tri-star System.
A knock on the door, followed by the entrance of one of his aides did little to brighten his mood and when his comm. link went for the umpteenth time, he answered without looking at his screen
“Yes, what do you want!”
“I was rather hoping for an update Admiral. You are ignoring my calls!”
Koenig, sighed as he realized who he was talking to.
“Mister President. I can assure you I have not been ignoring you and I am sorry for my bluntness. It has been a typical Monday morning.”
“I think we need to talk urgently. The wormhole is apparently re-opening!”
“Only possibly. We have not received any finite evidence to confirm that it is. We have all the necessary resources in place, including military ones and if there is something to report on this, I will let you know. We are still meeting next week at your Villa in Lugano?”
President Roslyn was not taken in by Admiral Koenig’s attempt to block the conversation. He pushed a little further.
“Yes. But we may have to meet a little sooner. A reliable source, tells me that the wormhole is reopening. I hope you are not going to try to keep me out of this one.”
Koenig exhaled and realized that a fuller disclosure was appropriate.
“While it is likely that the wormhole is undergoing a change, which could result in a partial re-opening. My people are looking at ways to stop the process before it escalates. We have a task force in place, the main fleet on standby. At present there is very little to report.”
“And what of the goings on in the Jandas system?”
Koenig was livid. How did that leak out? He was damned if he was going to take this one any further. “We have lost some ships in the system and this is being investigated. This is small scale and not something I would normally bring to your attention. Perhaps I need to remind you that our discussions should be strategic in context. Next, week, I will report on the wormhole situation and beyond that there is nothing else to discuss!”
“Again and I am sorry to push, my sources are telling me that a Kryl ship has so far destroyed four of your ships, including two cruisers. This is nothing, Admiral? How in the hell did a Kryl ship get clear of the Tri-star System or did they get to our galaxy some other way? These matters both need to be discussed urgently.”
