by Korza, Jay
Chapter 36
Still Deep Inside Enemy Territory
Surgeon laid in his course towards the leader of the enemy cruisers and then engaged his maneuvering thrusters for his third “attack” on the ship in the last five hours. At the end of his run, Seth reviewed the sensor readings before giving his report.
“Again nothing.” Seth spoke with a mixture of disappointment and relief. The waiting was getting to be nerve-racking. “I don’t think that they can see us at all. We’ve been moving around all their ships for almost two days now and nothing.”
“I’m not sure that I agree with you.” Surgeon was almost on Seth’s side but something told him that all of their maneuvers hadn’t gone unnoticed. “I do, of course, hope that you’re right but wishful thinking won’t win this fight.”
“Three to one.” Blaze keyed his comlink to Surgeon’s. “We’ve got an analysis of their patrol pattern. I’m sending it to all our ships now. The computer recommends that we implement our attack when their ships are in this position.” Everyone’s display in their visors showed a hologram of the enemy forces as they would appear in seven hours. “So as long as they’re on schedule as precisely as they have been, that will be our best shot.”
Transmissions between Surgeon’s ships were encrypted using a method that had become known as the “debris” code. Before each mission, each ship’s comlink was programmed using a random set of algorithms that five separate computers put together. After each algorithm was entered into the lead ship, its central computer would arrange the equations into an order in which the second algorithm would use the solution from the first one as the variable in its equation. Then the third algorithm used the answer produced by the second one as its variable, and so on.
Then the lead ship was hooked up to the other scout ships via cables and the code sequence was transferred to them. This ensured that the only ships with the whole encryption code were the scout ships.
The second part of the encryption code used space debris to send the signal to each ship. Gasses and other elements that were floating near each ship were gathered into collectors all along the hull. They were then dispersed in a pattern according to their atomic weight. The receiving ship’s sensors would analyze the debris from the sender and use the element’s atomic weight as the variables in the algorithms and then decode the transmissions.
To the unknowing onlooker, their sensors would just pick up a random scattering of elements that were common in that particular sector. Unless the onlooker had their sensors trained on a minute portion of space, they would never realize that the elements were in any sort of pattern. And even if they did, they would never be able to break the code.
Surgeon ran through the computer-generated simulation a few times before he said anything. “Unless anyone has any objections, we’ll go ahead with the plan as it stands now.” No one objected. “Continue with your prearranged flight plans.”
Seth keyed in what he wanted for dinner and turned to the dispenser to get his meal. “You want me to get something for you?”
“No, I’ll eat a little bit later. I need to look over some schematics first. I’ve been going over our scans of the alien hulls and I think that I found something.”
“Send it over to me”, Seth said through a mouthful of his dinner. “I’d like to take a look while I’m eating.”
Surgeon sent the transmission from his visor to Seth’s view screen on the bulkhead. “There.” He zoomed in on a portion of the hull. “See that scoring on the side that has new plating over it? The ship, along with all the others, has similar shitty patch work all over the hull.”
“I honestly don’t know where you’re going with this”, Seth commented after taking a sip of water and studying the view for a moment.
“These ships are works of art. The detailing, the craftsmanship, and the technology used to put them together are outstanding. Yet they can’t even patch a simple meteorite scoring on their hull? I don’t think so. I don’t think that they have the means to.”
“So then where did the ships come from? Who made them?”
“I don’t know. Maybe their ancestors did and they lost the technology somehow. Or maybe they conquered a species and took the ships for themselves. Either way, I think that these ships are at least a thousand years old. The scanners say that the designs are exactly the same as the ones we found in the alien database from a thousand years ago. You would guess that something would have changed in all that time.”
Six hours had passed before the warning light on Blaze’s console came to life. “Oh shit! We’ve got company, everyone. Look alive!”
Everyone in the scout team stared, shell shocked, at their screens as sixty more battle cruisers entered the immediate area from high warp.
“Surgeon to all units. Abort all flight plans and regroup at rendezvous point Delta.” Turning to Seth, he said, “The general is going to have to wait just a little bit longer. We can’t go ahead with our plan in the middle of all those giants.”
Just then Seth noticed something. “Wait a minute. They’re all lining up on the same trajectory.” And then they were gone. All of the ships jumped into warp in a single-file order and suddenly the space around them was empty.
“Surgeon,” Blaze came on the link, “I’m already recalculating an attack vector. I think we can slip in past their planetary defense grid at this point.” A red flashing arrow came on in everyone’s visor. “It is the weakest part of their sensors and in three hours it will be facing the sun in such a way that solar radiation and debris that moves along the solar currents will mask our entry into their atmosphere. Then we just need to do a little hunting.”
“Good. Beast, I want you to lead assault team two with everyone from units three, four, and five. Units one and two are with me. We’re going to stick to our original assault plan by homing in on the crew’s beacon implants. There aren’t any ships in the area, so we’ll have to hope that we will be able to find one on the ground. Otherwise we go with plan B.”
No one wanted plan B. It called for all the scout ships to be remotely brought in above the rescue site and then their fusion reactors would be overloaded in order to sanitize the area. It wouldn’t destroy the planet but it wouldn’t be a vacation spot for at least a few hundred years.
Chapter 37
One thousand years ago - Primary Site of the Advance Exploration Colony
The Day of the Cleansing
The emperor stood in chambers as reports of the sick and dying flooded his communications console. “Minister D’Bath. Do you know what is causing this?” He was reading from a script in his mind that had been memorized and then incinerated immediately. The plan required that all formalities be taken, otherwise someone might get suspicious.
“No, Your Highness. I cannot tell you for sure. Some of my colleagues think that it might be the vegetation and some think that it might be the radiation in this sector of space. No one knows for certain.” At that moment, a victim of the plague was wheeled to D’Bath for help. The other doctors were trying to resuscitate the patient but couldn’t. D’Bath fought desperately to clear the froth and blood from the victim’s mouth but it was coming up too quickly.
With a final series of convulsions, the young child died. D’Bath turned back to the screen. “As minister of health, I declare a quarantine on this sector of space until we can figure out what is going on. No more colonies will come in and none of the current colonists will leave. I am sorry, Your Highness, but I must order you to stay as well.”
“I agree fully, my friend. I would not want to infect the rest of our empire, even to save myself. How long will this quarantine be in place?” The emperor had a tear in his eye from the death of the child. But many others would have died if they had tried to secede from the empire any other way, he tried to console himself. But it wasn’t working.
“At the moment, I’d have to say indefinitely, sire. I suggest that you issue a royal order forbidding any other members of our empi
re to come to this sector until this disease is taken care of. I must go now, sire; there are many others who need my help.” The screen went blank and was quickly replaced with the royal seal.
The emperor tapped in a few commands and quickly got the office of Supreme Command back in the heart of the empire. The warrior who stood on the other end of the transmission quickly knelt to the floor and put his four arms out in submission to his emperor. “Master, what do I owe this great honor to?”
“Please stand, warrior. I have some grave news about our future.” The warrior stood. “We have had a terrible outbreak of some virus here on the new colonies. It is killing almost everyone. It has already killed all of your warrior brothers; it seems as though they were more susceptible to it than everyone else.”
“Master, we will send a rescue ship for you and the war council immediately to bring you home.”
“No, that is the last thing you will do. Minister of Health D’Bath has declared a state of quarantine for this sector. I give you now a royal order that no one will disobey. This sector is completely off limits to all of my subjects forever if we cannot find a cure for this disease. I have unknowingly destroyed a large portion of my empire by bringing them here and I will not destroy the other.
“Until such time as this crisis is over, Supreme Command will be in charge of the core worlds and empire. I am sending complete documentation on what has happened here so that you may see for yourself what devastation this sector holds for our empire.”
“I will notify Supreme Command at once. They will, of course, want confirmation from General N’thoth”, the warrior said without looking up.
Emperor T’Leh tapped a few keys on the panel. “The general is very ill with the plague and most of the war council has already died.” The warrior was so stunned he actually looked directly at the emperor. “I will, however, patch this transmission over to the hospital where you can confer with General N’thoth as he is cared for. I fear his time to venture forward into the next existence is near.” The emperor knew N’thoth was dead and he hoped that the General’s stand-in would be able to fool the warrior on the other end of the transmission.
After completing the transfer, the screen went blank. The emperor sat in his chair in front of his favorite desk and contemplated what he had done. He knew that it was right but he still couldn’t get the image of that dying child out of his mind. “May the gods forgive me”, he whispered to himself.
Chapter 38
Dig Site One
In the hanger bay, the team found the most impressive ship any of them had ever seen. Jockey was the first to approach it. “God, am I glad that I’m the only pilot here. I’d hate to have to fight someone just to be the first to fly her. She’s beautiful.” Had the rest of the team not been there, Daria was sure that Jockey would have started caressing the hull with his own body.
“Jockey, Cannon, and Bloom, take a look through her and find out how to get her off the ground. I want weapons systems to be the second priority after flight controls.” Wilks turned to Emily. “Hey, el-tee, after Doc gets finished checking my ankle, how about the three of us going over some of the data we’ve collected so far?”
Emily looked for Davies, who was getting some lunch from his pack. “Davies, how about you join us?”
Davies’ stomach began to sour and he put down his lunch. “If it’s all the same with you, ma’am, I’d like to help secure the perimeter and then take a look inside the ship.”
“Sure, but if you get bored we’d appreciate any input you might have.” Emily couldn’t put her finger on it but something had been off with Davies lately. Well, she’d have a talk with him later.
Inside the ship, Bloom was looking for a link-up that he could connect to on the bridge. “If I can access their main computer, we may be able to fly this thing with VR.”
Jockey was eyeing the instrumentation and trying to decipher the layout. “This is going to be tougher than I thought. Because they have four arms, the controls are set at very wide and different placements than I’m used to. Each control panel is divided into four key elements so they can be used simultaneously.
“Having only two hands, our instruments are laid out horizontally in front of us for our hands to roam back and forth on.”
“Hello. That’s why I suggested VR.” Bloom was shaking his head at the pilot. “I can interface our VR visors with the ship’s controls. You’ll see a standard flight layout in front of you and work the controls as you would normally. The VR computer will then send your input to the ship’s computer as a translation of what you want. It will only be delayed by micro-seconds.”
Jockey frowned. “Sometimes a micro-second is enough to get you killed. Besides, I can’t get a feel for the ship if I can’t touch her directly.”
“Think of it as phone sex then. I’ve seen your vid bills—I know it won’t be too hard of a stretch for you.” Bloom couldn’t help but to laugh at his own joke. A cold stare from the pilot brought him back, though. “All right, try to fly her manually if you want but I’m still going to hook up the VR in case we need it.”
“We won’t. I just need a little time to get the feel for her.” Jockey sat at the helm, going over the keys repeatedly, running through mock scenarios in his head, and reliving battles he had been through before so he could learn the control placement.
After a couple of hours, Jockey decided to go through a pre-flight check. Bloom had already switched on the main power grid and had tested every relay, circuit, light, and all the other gizmos the ship had on board.
“All right, Bloom, I’m ready to go through pre-flight.” Jockey then tapped his comlink. “All hands, stand clear of the ship. We’re going through pre-flight in sixty seconds. Either get on board or get in the control booth at the end of the hanger bay. We don’t want any accidents now.”
Everyone cleared the hanger bay and filed into the control booth to watch the pre-flight. Those who were watching keyed their comlinks so that they would be able to listen in to the conversation going on inside the ship.
“All right, pilot,” Bloom said from the operations seat, “I have your VR display set up to point to the controls if you need the help. Just say ‘find’ and then the control you’re looking for and the visor will highlight that control in your field of view. Give it a try.”
Jockey looked straight forward and spoke to no one in particular, “Find weapons.” In the lower right of his visor, he saw a green arrow pointing downwards. As he shifted his field of view, the arrow shifted with him until he was looking at the weapons control panel, which was now highlighted. When he reached for the panel, his VR visor knew that he had found the control so the highlight marking disappeared.
“It might take an extra second to do something but if you forget where the control is, this should help in a pinch.” Bloom was running through his own set of pre-flight diagnostics.
“Good job, buddy. I hope that we don’t need it, though. Smooth sailing is definitely preferred on this flight.
“All right, let’s get started. Begin pre-flight. Maneuvering thrusters, check. Inertia dampers, check.”
“Whoa”, Bloom said from his console. “Check out the settings for the inertia dampers. Those alien bodies must be able to take a lot. I’ll reset them to human standards. Now we don’t have to worry about being stains on the seats once we hit warp.”
A few minutes later, pre-flight was complete and Jockey began to test the lift thrusters. She shook a little but then lifted cleanly off the deck. At ten meters, she performed a three-sixty in the huge landing bay before she set back down.
Bloom and Jockey looked at each other, smiled and then tapped in the commands for the next test. After they had finished, they headed for the gangplank, where the rest of the team was waiting for them.
“So what do you think, pilot?” Emily asked.
Through a toothy smile he said, “Great! I don’t think that we’ll have any problems.”
“So we can load up and get t
he hell out of here, right?” Scan spoke from his seat on a cargo crate nearby. He was rewrapping his stump. The wrist was almost done regenerating and the palm would come next.
Bloom stepped forward. “No, sorry but not yet. We just set her to go through an atmosphere diagnostic.” Almost on cue, the gangplank closed itself tightly into the ship. “She’s going to seal herself up tight and run through a series of different atmospheric pressures to make sure that she can survive in space. It’ll take at least one full day just to be safe. And barring any problems with her hull integrity, we should be ready to lift off. Oh, except one thing...”
All eyes were locked on Bloom now but it was Jockey who spoke up. “Bloom and I both figured that we would find a hanger bay control on the conn station in the ship. And well, we didn’t. We think that maybe they didn’t want anyone outside the structure to have access, even one of their own ships.”
“Yeah,” Bloom continued. “You know, just in case someone hijacked one of their ships they wouldn’t be able to get in or out with it.”
“Well, the control has got to be in the hanger bay, right?” Wilks piped in.
“Yes and no”, Bloom began. “There is a control in here but as a safety measure, after a long period of system shutdown, the controls are locked out and the mainframe in the sub-levels has to be accessed. They were very paranoid people.”
“That’s just fuckin’ great!” Wilks was not happy. “This place is already two kilometers below the ground and now we find out that it has sub-levels! How much more sub can you get?!”
“All right, Wilks, calm down.” Emily stepped in. “Now I’m assuming that because you’re not more cheerful about this, Bloom, that it’s not as easy as just going down there and flipping a switch.”
