Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles 2: Redemption

by Andrew Beery

  Cat's first officer, Ken Kirkland took a sip of his Scotch. It seemed the Ashkelon shared humanity's love for distilled spirits. "Yes, well, many years ago, when our people still fought wars against ourselves, we had teams of women who calculated artillery azimuth charts by hand. We called them computers. But just as we have stopped fighting except in defense, manual calculations are rarely done anymore. AI's are just a lot faster," said Ken, who shared the larger couch with the D'lralu engineer Ben.

  The D'lralu stroked his muzzle. "Humans have always had a particular skill with AIs though. Would it surprise you to know I am actually a hybrid intellect? A part of me is truly D'lralu while another part is, in fact, a human AI."

  Sassi tweeted excitedly for a second in his own language. Captain Lastila gave him a stern look. The Ashkelon were much like the Hupenstanii in that they had a natural ability to learn other languages. As a matter of politeness, however, they tried to use their host's language.

  Cat laughed. All the members of her crew had access to AI-assisted instantaneous translations, so the young Ashkelon's response was not lost. Sassi had immediately seized on the idea of directly tying into a ships sensor net and flying free amongst the stars much like a fledgling flying in the open skies of home. This of course being possible with the direct man/machine integration implied by Ben's declaration.

  "Actually, when we found Ben he was doing just that as the cybernetic control unit for a D'lralu attack craft that had invaded our system," Cat added.

  "There was no pleasure in what I was forced to do for the Masters; but in rescuing me, my friend and now commanding officer introduced me to one of the greatest joys any sentient being has ever experienced."

  "And what would that be?" Captain Lastila asked.

  There was an unmistakable twinkle in Ben's eyes as he answered with a single word, "Chocolate."

  ***

  Captain Jeffries of the Galactic Coalition of Planets Starship Heidman stood looking out the port observation window as his ship approached what was for all intents and purposes a ternary planetary system in orbit around a binary star. It was as far from Earth normal as he had ever seen and yet the possibility of life on each of the planet-sized moons was intriguing.

  The GCP Heidman was a Bowman class exploration ship. Her mission was to help the Galactic Coalition of Planets develop a profile of the types of star systems that could support life. Currently the Heidman was evaluating several promising moons in a binary star system called Kepler-47.

  The Kepler-47 binary system was about five thousand light years away from Sol in the constellation Cygnus. The larger of the two stars in the system closely matched the Earth's sun in size and solar output. The second of the two stars was a much smaller M-class dwarf star.

  The two suns orbited a common gravitational center roughly every seven and a half days. Of the half dozen planets detected in the system only one, the largest, Kepler-47b had an orbit within the goldilocks zone where liquid water could theoretically exist. The planet's radius was 4.6 times that of Earth, roughly the size of Uranus, complete with well-formed rings. Its orbital period around the binary stars was 303 days.

  Jeffries turned to his first officer, an Irishman named Rudy McQuin. "What do we know about our big friend out there?"

  Rudy scanned his holographic display for a second and then with a flick of his hand threw a larger image on the main screen.

  "Our primary goldilocks probably does not directly support life. We're looking at four to five gravities on the surface, and that's only because the planet is much less dense than Earth.”

  “It has a liquid magnesium oxide core,”he continued.“As you know, magnesium oxide is a transparent ceramic under Earth-like conditions, but when subjected to the types of pressures and heat on a planet like 47b it turns to a metallic liquid state and is responsible for the substantial magnetic field surrounding the planet. The atmosphere is more like a combination of Neptune and Uranus with a thick hydrogen-helium upper layer followed by ammonium hydrosulfide closer to the rocky surface. Of specific interest to the GCP Heidman is the pair of massive moons orbiting the large planet. Both have thick nitrogen atmospheres with breathable levels of oxygen; and more importantly, liquid water on their surfaces. The larger of the two moons is 78 percent the mass of Earth, while the smaller is 62 percent."

  He paused with a puzzled look on his face as he turned back to his primary display. "We have something going on here..."

  The Heidman was just entering into orbit around the smaller of the two moons when the rings around Kepler-47b began to shift. The bridge staff barely had time to sound general quarters before the Heidman was overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands of truly minuscule vessels that seemed intent on attaching to the Heidman's hull.

  They rapidly enveloped the starship in a meters-thick mass that effectively tripled the weight of the ship.

  Blind and out of control, the GCP Heidman plummeted into the thick and turbulent atmosphere of 47b. At two miles above ground level, the atmospheric pressure was such that the nanite infused structural integrity systems of the Heidman's hull were overwhelmed, and in the following 328 milliseconds much of the ship was crushed into a mass of twisted metal. A single quantum entangled message was received by Earth's Lunar One outpost. "They're alive..."

  ***

  Admiral Faragon leaned across the table to face the holo-projector on his desk. He was speaking via a secure entangled quantum communications link to his most senior officer,Commodore Catherine‘Cat’ Kimbridge of the GCP Yorktown.

  "We have precious little to go on. All indications are the Heidman arrived in the system with no issues. They were proceeding with a standard survey of a planet in the Goldilocks zone when we lost all communication. The assumption is a catastrophic systems failure. The only transmission we received indicated they found something, but they were cut off moments later."

  The holograph of Cat leaned to the side and picked up a small tablet. With the advent of embedded cybernetic AIs the use of PDAs and tablets had declined over the years, but just as some people continued to read books printed on paper, some people preferred to think about problems by looking at a display screen.

  "Sir," Cat said while looking at her handheld PDA, "Was the Heidman equipped with internal Heshe fabrication systems?"

  The Admiral quickly checked with his personal AI before answering. "She was part of the second upgrade cycle. What are you thinking?"

  "If the Heidman was part of the second upgrade cycle, then she was fitted with adaptive nanite regenerative fabricators..." Cat started to say.

  "There aren't a lot of scenarios in which that ship could not repair itself. Even if the crew did not survive, the ship probably did," the Admiral acknowledged.

  "Correct Sir, but it goes beyond that. If the ship's AI thought that a system failure was imminent, it would have looked for a way to protect the crew with some form of stasis. My point is, if there was enough time the ship would have found a way to protect the crew."

  "How much time are we talking about?"

  "That's hard to say Sir, but twenty to thirty seconds at a minimum."

  "With the way the last transmission was cut off I'm not sure they would have had that much time." The Admiral, who had started to sound cautiously optimistic, now sounded deflated.

  "Perhaps not Sir, but our newer Heshe enhanced AI's are extraordinarily creative and highly motivated to save lives. I'd like to assume the best until proven otherwise."

  "Cat, if there is one thing I've learned in the short time I've known you, it's to not bet against you. Take the Yorktown and investigate. If there are survivors, find them!"

  "Yes, Sir!" Cat paused for a fraction of a second. "Sir, I'm going to invite the Ashkelon delegation to accompany us. It might be good for them to see our rescue efforts."

  ***

  Captain Jeffries woke to a painful throbbing in his right leg. He remembered falling across the length of the bridge as the hyperfield inertial dampeners went offline.
The bridge was dark, and there was the smell of charred plastic in the air.

  "Cindy, lights" he said in a voice that sounded coarse and dry in his ears. There was no response. He tried his internal CommLink. The ship's AI responded this time.

  "Unable to comply at this time." the vaguely female persona that was the Heidman's AI responded. "All critical systems except stasis chamber life support are currently offline. Emergency power reserves are at 12 percent and falling."

  "What's the status of the crew?"

  "All surviving members of the crew are in an induced‘medical morbidity’to reduce environmental power requirements. Their neural pathways and brains, however, are being maintained by medical nanites."

  "Can they be revived?"

  "Certainly Captain, but ongoing deterioration of their biological systems will require substantial resources to repair."

  A sudden painful thought occurred to him. "You said 'all surviving crew'... how many did we lose?"

  "Eighty-six percent of the ship was lost when the Heidman broke apart on collision with the surface of Kepler-47b. I am currently unable to communicate with systems in those portions of the ship. Of the remaining forty-seven personnel, three are confirmed too irreparably damaged to be saved by available nanite regeneration techniques."

  "OK, so we are in pretty bad shape. I'm assuming I'm awake because you revived me?"

  "Your assumption is correct Captain. My cognitive and database systems were severely damaged. I am operating at 9 percent normal efficiency and have lost access to 98 percent of my online database. Redundant backups are currently inaccessible. Onboard fabrication units are assembling a forty-three megajoule fusion reactor. It will come online in sixty-one minutes. You will be required to determine power utilization priorities."

  "How long will the emergency reserves last?"

  "58.4 minutes," the cold impersonal voice responded.

  ***

  Cat walked onto the bridge of the GCP Yorktown. She signaled Ken to join her in the adjoining ready room. On ocean-going aircraft carriers, the ready room was a briefing room off the flight deck used by pilots, but in the Space Corps the term had evolved to include the captain's briefing room. Her first officer slid into the room just as the door swished shut.

  "Can I assume the conversation with the Admiral wasn't social?"

  Cat smiled at her friend but shook her head. "Mike Jeffries has gone missing. We've been ordered to investigate and mount a rescue if possible."

  "He's got one of the newer Bowman's doesn't he?" Ken asked as he sat on the edge of the table.

  Cat poured a cup of coffee and offered it to Ken, but he waved it off. She sipped the cup before answering. "That's part of my concern. The Heidman had a full set of retrofits. That ship should have been able to recover from just about anything given enough time for its nanite systems to implement repairs. The bottom line is, even if the crew were killed the ship's AI should have been able to respond to our queries. And we have heard nothing."

  "Is there any reason to expect foul play?"

  Cat shook her head. "Not yet, but I want to be prepared anyway. Have the Chief run his entire team through a few drills and make sure the shield emitters are online when we enter that system. I'd rather finda‘nothing’ fully prepared then find a‘something’ while unprepared."

  "We'll be ready, Captain. I know Chief Wroblewski runs a pretty tight department. My guess is his team is fully prepared already, but I'll have him run a few more drills just so they know the situation is serious."

  "Thanks Ken. We'll break orbit at 1900 hours. That will give me time to brief our visitors and give them a chance to depart if they choose to."

  Chapter Three - Encounter at Kepler-47...

  Rasta-Tckner felt the compulsion of the hive mind end. He felt sick in his soul. He had been part of the swarm that had doomed the alien craft. It was clear from the onset that the craft in question was not from the same race that had attacked the nest worlds in the past. No weapon systems were active; they didn't even have shielding in place.

  Heedless of their personal safety, the hive-compulsion forced many of his fellows to sacrifice themselves in their rush to destroy this 'enemy.' Rasta-Tckner had taken personal damage as his tiny craft impacted with the exterior hull of the silver vessel. Rather than grappling onto the ship as others had done, his vessel had been jostled just prior to latching on and, as a result, had bounced off.

  In the process, his cybernetic hive biolink had been crushed. He could still link with the hive queen but only through his purely organic hive organ which, unlike the instantaneous synthetic quantum link his race now used, was limited to a few hundred kilometers and to the speed of radio waves. He was nowhere near the queen at the moment, so his personal intellect had thankfully reasserted itself.

  In his considerable thirteen years, Rasta-Tckner had only linked with his queen a handful of times prior to the current emergency. His nest father had lived to the ripe old age of fifteen and had only been invited to link once. Usually this honor was reserved for the best of the best and was used to facilitate the advancement of science or art. Normally only a few million Hymenopterans linked at any given time, but when the 'others' came and started destroying entire nest worlds, the queen, for the first time in countless generations, had forced a link with every last member of the hive.

  The resulting super-mind was a force unto itself. Even the queen was powerless to disengage the super-mind. Its mandate: to protect the hive from all threats. Rasta-Tckner shuddered at the thought of what his people might do if they were to encounter other innocents.

  The silver vessel the hive had just attacked plummeted into the thick atmosphere of the nest. Rasta-Tckner altered the course of his attack pod to follow. He had no illusions about the fate of the alien. His nest mates would force the craft down until the crushing pressures destroyed the intruder. He had no idea what he would do, but he had to know their fate; and even if the chance to help was small, he would render what aid he could.

  ***

  Three lousy minutes, Captain Mike Jeffries thought. He was going to have to find three lousy minutes. This was the first time he seriously regretted taking command of the Heidman. The power being used by the ship to maintain even minimal life support and structural integrity for the remaining crew was bleeding the reserves faster than the ship could get the new power systems online.

  The only solution the ship could suggest was to reduce the number of systems being maintained. The problem was, this translated directly into lives lost. When the damn AI had said‘You will be required to determine power utilization priorities,’ it was reallysaying‘you will be required to choose who will live and who will die.’

  He had the AI calculate the last possible moment power could be cut to the isolated section of the ship he had painfully chosen. These were his friends and crew. They had put their faith in him as a commander. His choice had ultimately come down to the logic of a simple set of questions. What sacrifice would preserve the most lives and give the remaining crew the greatest likelihood of surviving.

  "Cindy, how long before the minimum power threshold is reached?"

  "Three minutes and forty two seconds."

  "In two minutes reduce the structural integrity power to section twelve in 2 percent intervals as slowly as possible." Maybe it will hold until we get the new mains back online Mike thought without conviction. His best friend from West Point was in section twelve. They had known each other since those early days in New York. Unfortunately section twelve held only three people and while all of them were highly skilled, losing them was the only thing that gave the other forty one people a chance.

  He had even asked Cindy to calculate the impact of sacrificing himself, but there was no scenario in which it improved the odds of saving the rest of the crew. The best he could do was instruct the few remaining uncommitted nanite systems to do the best they could to reinforce the scaffolding in section twelve. It was a slim hope, but something was better th
an nothing. And it was all he had.

  His leg still hurt. He suspected the effective gravity was approaching 2G but he dare not ask Cindy to bleed more power from the reserves. He dragged a power cable down the corridor separating the bridge from what was going to be the makeshift engineering room. When he finished pulling the cable, he gritted his teeth and instructed the computer to reduce power to the gravity compensators by another 10 percent.

  The two minutes crawled by, but ultimately the moment arrived. The ship's AI slowly began to reduce power to the designated section. With each creak and groan of his decimated ship a dagger stabbed at his heart. Come what may, live or die, the man who had been Captain Mike Jeffries would be forever changed by the next several minutes.

  ***

  Rasta-Tckner edged his ship closer to the smaller of the two pieces of the alien craft. The larger still had a stable power source but his onboard sensors showed the power systems on this section were moments from failing. If they went then so would any chance for rescuing the solitary lifesign his computer had detected.

  His small craft was designed for deep atmosphere penetration. Its hull was constructed of a woven graphene mesh cage that actually got stronger the higher the external pressure became. He instructed the harvesting boom to deploy. When it made contact with the outer hull of the alien craft he began to feed power through the boom. He had no idea if the craft could utilize this unusual energy source but it was the only option he had to help.

  Much to his surprise the other ship responded like a pupa being fed royal jelly. It formed a metallic lip that tightly gripped the harvesting boom and the electrical impedance between his ship and the alien vessel was reduced to near zero. The technology of this race was certainly impressive.

  His systems were able to feed about fourteen megajoules of energy to the alien vessel. Apparently it was going to be able to use the influxto good advantage. Rasta-Tckner noted the other vessel’s hull's structural integrity was beginning to be shored up. In fact he could hardly believe his sensors. It appeared that the craft was literally harvesting materials out of the atmosphere and soil to thicken and repair its hull. He had no idea who these people were but he was absolutely sure the hive did not want them as an enemy.