by Tori Harris
"What do you propose, Admiral?"
"If we assume they are aware of the information I intend to deliver, it seems likely they would move to execute their attack on Earth before I can do so."
"Do you believe they have the required forces in place? What about the Pelaran Guardian spacecraft? Won’t it simply destroy their ships as it did before?"
"The incursion to which you refer was part of a program to develop tactics for decoying the Guardian spacecraft. Our goal was always to find a way to exploit its weaknesses and ultimately destroy the spacecraft. In the hands of these criminals, however, I fear this knowledge will be used to distract the craft while they execute an attack on Earth from multiple directions. The Guardian is a potent weapon system, but, like any other, it has its limitations."
"I doubt it’s capable of being in several locations at one time," Reynolds remarked.
"Indeed not, Commander, and that fact will form the basis of their plan. As to whether they have sufficient forces available to proceed with their attack, I lack the current intelligence data to say for sure. The fact that their commanders had the confidence to detach the two ships we just destroyed from their task force, however, leads me to believe that they do."
"Are you saying we may already be too late?" Prescott asked.
"Possibly, but I think not. If I were to venture a guess, I would say we have one to two weeks based on the last known location of several ships we can safely assume they will require. Unfortunately, at Gresav’s maximum speed, we are still over a week from the Sol system." Naftur paused meaningfully, his piercing, golden eyes scrutinizing the Humans for any sort of reaction.
Prescott and his XO resisted the urge to look at each other and instinctively donned their best poker faces. "I see," Prescott said. "Do you believe your presence might deter the attack?"
"Before today, I would have said yes, assuming we could locate some of the Resistance ships prior to the attack. Now, I am less certain. As I said before, I believe the strike force will seek to decoy the Guardian spacecraft, then launch a series of missile strikes from as close range as possible to reduce the likelihood that they will be intercepted. The key will be locating the ships in their staging areas before the attack actually begins. I have a few ideas where we should begin our search, but the sooner we arrive, the better chance we will have of locating them."
"So you propose to transfer to Ingenuity and accompany us back to Earth then," Prescott stated, his mind running through the litany of capital offenses he would be committing if he allowed such a flagrant breach of security. "Admiral, I’m sure you understand that we are prohibited from disclosing Terran technological and military capabilities without specific orders to do so from our Leadership Council."
"Well then, young Captain, I would say you have a decision to make. If I may, however, many of your ship’s capabilities were openly revealed during our battle with the Resistance ships – as were those of the Gresav. Your vessel is truly a remarkable achievement, especially given her size. Perhaps it will ease your conscience if I tell you that I have suspected this to be true for some time. Indeed, your very presence in this system leads me to believe that your ship is significantly more capable than Sajeth Collective intelligence assessments have indicated. Our evaluation of Human technology has assumed too much based on data from other cultivated civilizations, it seems."
Prescott stifled a sigh and shifted his gaze upward while collecting his thoughts. After a moment, he continued. "If you don’t mind, sir, I’d like to discuss this matter privately with Commander Reynolds for a moment. If I’m going to openly disobey Admiral Sexton’s orders and commit treason in the bargain, I think I’d better have my ducks in a row."
Naftur furrowed his brow and stared for a moment as his ship’s AI made its best attempt at translating Prescott’s figure of speech. "I believe we may have had a translation problem of some sort. Some day when we have the opportunity to dine and drink together, I’ll tell you what our system thought you just said," he laughed. "Yes, of course you may discuss this matter in private. This is entirely your decision to make, Captain. I regret that I must once again put you in this position, but such is the burden of command. I look forward to hearing from you shortly. Naftur out."
The admiral’s image abruptly disappeared from the view screen and was replaced by a breathtaking view of Gliese 667 Cc, now off their starboard bow. Both Prescott and Reynolds continued to stare at the screen for a few seconds until Reynolds finally broke the silence.
"We both already know what you’re going to do. I don’t even know why you told him we need to discuss it."
"Is that what you would do, Commander?"
"I don’t see how there is much of a choice, really. Ingenuity will be back in the Sol system tonight. We don’t have a week or more to wait for the Gresav to make the trip. Naftur didn’t come right out and say it, but I’m not certain he plans to give us all of his intelligence information unless we allow him to come with us."
"So you think his selection of Gliese 667 for our rendezvous might have been all about forcing us to tip our hand?"
"I don’t know … maybe. Honestly, I’m not sure it even matters that much. He was absolutely right that you can’t expect to use military assets without putting their capabilities on public display, so is there really much difference between that and giving him a ride back to Earth? It’s not like we’re planning to hand him a set of C-Drive plans or anything."
"True enough," Prescott smiled. "From what Kip said, the C-Drive technology is so obscure that we could probably hand over a set of plans without too much worry they would figure it out anytime soon. Remember, we had a working example and it still took us three hundred years and an accident to even start to understand how it works."
"Right, so what’s the problem? Is it just what Sexton said in the Flash message?"
"Well, that’s certainly part of it."
"I don’t know what to tell you there, Captain, other than to point out that the situation has changed quite a bit since he sent that message."
"You’re right, of course, I really have made up my mind. I just wanted to see if you might have some good reason to try and talk me out if it."
"Sorry, but no. This is one of those occasions where I’m happy that you’re the one sitting in the big chair, sir."
"Enjoy it while you can, Commander. If we live through the next few weeks, I’m betting you’ll get your chance," he smiled. "Please make arrangements for the admiral’s accommodations. I’d say pretty much the same thing we did with Nenir, including the Marine guard."
"Aye, sir."
"And I expect you to come visit me in prison."
"Sure thing. I’ll even bake you a cake," Reynolds laughed as Prescott reopened the vidcon channel.
Naftur appeared once again on the view screen, still apparently sitting at his office desk. "Greetings once again, friends. I am gratified to see that you were able to quickly come to a decision."
"I apologize for the delay, Admiral. I primarily needed to discuss a few logistical items with Commander Reynolds. We would be honored if you would come aboard Ingenuity as our guest for the trip back to the Sol system."
"I am most happy to do so, Captain Prescott. I will, of course, come alone in order to cause as little disruption as possible. I will be carrying the same device as Nenir Turlaka to mask my presence onboard your ship. Our XO will coordinate the details, but I believe I can be shuttled over within the hour if that is acceptable."
"One hour from now should work well for us, sir. We are required to make a quick hyperspace transition within the system before we depart for Sol, so please don’t be alarmed when we do so. In spite of the military situation, Ingenuity is still a new ship with a great many systems still requiring calibration."
"I understand. Thank you for the warning. I will inform Flag Captain Jelani. Once we depart, he will proceed at Gresav’s best possible speed for Sol, but will be under orders to avoid contact until he hears from u
s. I assume we will arrive well before he does." Naftur stated the implied question as a matter of fact.
"We will indeed, sir," Prescott smiled. "We look forward to meeting you in person in one hour. Prescott out."
"Well, for better or worse, that’s done," Prescott remarked. "Maybe Fleet will be willing to trade the C-Drive design to the Wek for shield technology if they also throw in their bio signature masking device."
"Hah! I don’t think Fleet would trade the C-Drive design for all seven of their planets and everything on them. I think it’s safe to say that the C-Drive is a game changing technology – as in, we own the game as long as we’re the only ones who have it."
Chapter 15
TFS Navajo, Earth Orbit
"Admiral on deck!" the Marine sentry announced as Vice Admiral Patterson strode onto the Navajo’s bridge for the first time.
"As you were. I appreciate the courtesy, folks," he announced in a voice loud enough for all twelve members of the bridge crew to hear, "but now that we are on an operational footing, it won’t be necessary to announce senior officers unless Admiral Sexton or some other high-ranking civilian from Fleet shows up. Understood?"
"Aye sir," everyone in the room responded in unison.
With Terran Fleet Command assets rapidly ascending to orbit from shipyards around the globe, Patterson had taken personal command of the assembling task force. Just minutes before, the cruiser’s encrypted data stream began announcing the presence of the admiral’s flag to the rest of the fleet. His orders from Admiral Sexton were simple enough – deploy all available Fleet resources as required to defend Earth from imminent attack.
"Let me see a tactical plot of all Fleet assets within five hundred thousand kilometers, please, and let’s keep that displayed on the starboard side of the view screen until further notice."
A window immediately opened, displaying the Earth itself surrounded by standard icons representing the various starships now in orbit. At the moment, each ship was displayed with an accompanying small block of text to provide additional data such as the ship’s name and operational status.
Until he had more than a handful of fully operational ships at his disposal, Patterson had decided on a simple defensive deployment strategy. He placed his first four available cruisers in geosynchronous orbit, each of which remained roughly equidistant from the other three ships. He did have to admit that it was gratifying to see each capital ship dutifully maintaining their position on the tactical plot – Navajo, Shoshone, Chickasaw, and Shawnee. In the event of attack from any single direction, he could likely count on overlapping fire support from three of his four cruisers at any given time. That, in addition to their complement of nearly two hundred RPSVs, plus F-373 aerospace superiority fighters launched from their bases on Earth, might at least give them a fighting chance of blunting an enemy attack.
Patterson was keenly aware, however, that he had absolutely no idea what he was defending against. Would this be an invasion force, or a group of ships equipped with "planet-killing" weaponry of some sort? The fact that he knew so little about his potential adversary made him feel anxious and vaguely nauseous, not to mention angry. Humanity was facing an unprovoked, existential threat, and this angered the admiral at a primal, visceral level the likes of which he had never experienced before. One way or another, we’ll make these bastards pay if they attack us, he thought, and it won’t end here.
"I’ll be in the Combat Information Center," the CNO growled as he abruptly left the bridge.
TFS Ingenuity, Near Gliese 667 Cc
(24 light years from Earth)
"Doctor Chen reports three fatalities," Reynolds said quietly as Prescott returned to his command chair on the bridge. "The two in Engineering that Commander Logan reported earlier and one in the adjacent corridor. We also had four crewmen with broken bones and numerous other minor injuries. It makes me uncomfortable calling that ‘lucky,’ but …"
"But it could have been a lot worse," Prescott nodded.
"Yeah, I think so. In fact, I think if we hadn’t been launching missiles from the vertical launch cells right before impact, that nuke would have made direct contact with the hull. I really don’t think we would have survived that."
"We’re going to need shields of some sort. Otherwise, we’re going to have to find a way to build starships and train crew much faster than we can now. The last I heard, Fleet is getting pretty close to a deployable design. If nothing else, now that we have all that Sajeth Collective debris out near Jupiter, maybe there will be enough to salvage a working model or two."
"I hadn’t even considered that. Things have just been happening so fast."
"There’s also the cruiser we just took out. She’s much more intact than the Sajeth ships destroyed by the Guardian. If we can get people out here to go through it before they can, we might find some pretty valuable tech."
"I wouldn’t want to take on one of our Navajo-class cruisers loaded up with C-Drive missiles and equipped with shields."
"Well, if we can get the bad guys thinking that way, hopefully we won’t ever again find ourselves facing the situation we’re in right now."
"Captain, Engineering reports they have a hyperspace comm beacon ready for launch." Lieutenant Commander Schmidt announced. "Once we transition, it will be released from the starboard plasma torpedo tube. It’s designed to stabilize itself after release and then provide us with an indication that everything is working properly. The entire process should only take a few seconds."
"Very good. How long until the beacon will actually be usable for data traffic back to the Sol system?"
"The most distant beacon deployed to date was released from a transition point near the TFC Live Fire Training Range. That’s only about two light years from home, and it took about an hour to synch up with the rest of the NRD network. Science and Engineering thinks this one may take quite a bit longer."
"Well, with any luck, we’ll be home today before this one comes online, but I suspect we’ll be back here very soon. Doing the deployment shouldn’t delay our return trip by more than a few minutes, so we might as well get it done while we’re here."
"Lieutenant Dubashi, what’s our status?"
"We’re ready to go, Captain. Sublight engines offline, pending the transition. Both standard and C-Drive transitions are available. C-Jump range now 18.2 light years and increasing. The deployment profile has been transferred to the Helm console."
"Thank you, Dubashi. Would you please remind everyone how this process works?"
"Of course, sir. We will make a standard hyperspace transition, just as we have done many times. The only difference is that our destination transition point will be set to the same coordinates as our point of origin. Once we transition, we will have already arrived at our destination, so it’s really just a matter of keeping our hyperdrive engaged while we deploy the comm beacon. Once that’s done, we disengage the engines and allow the ship to transition back into normal space right where we started."
"I couldn’t have said it better myself. Any questions?" Prescott paused for a moment to look around the room. What he saw was a bridge crew getting perilously close to their physical and mental limits following the stress of this morning’s battle. "Alright, let’s get this done. After we C-Jump back to Sol, I want all of you off duty and in your quarters for rest ASAP."
There were several "aye, sir" responses from around the room, accompanied by a rather loud yawn from Ensign Fisher.
"Ensign Fisher, if you feel you’re up to it, you may execute a standard transition when ready," Prescott said, shaking his head.
"Sorry, sir. Executing now."
The ship AI’s synthetic voice began a ship-wide countdown. "Standard hyperdrive engaged, transition in 3 … 2 … 1 …"
Unlike during a C-Jump, where the bridge view screen maintained a partially simulated view of normal space, standard hyperspace transitions were displayed on the screen in real-time. As the ship transitioned out of normal space, the ne
arby planet and surrounding starfield instantly disappeared from view. Normally, the starfield would have been replaced by a white glow in front of the ship that appeared to increase in intensity until it reached a bright pinpoint of light directly ahead. This phenomena was caused by cosmic background radiation being shifted into the visible spectrum while regular starlight was shifted into the X-ray range, rendering it invisible. The view was interesting and certainly beautiful when seen for the first time, but not particularly exciting since it always looked exactly the same. Today, however, Ingenuity had transitioned into hyperspace already at her destination, so the view screen displayed nothing but an inky, black void.
"Releasing comm beacon," Lieutenant Commander Schmidt announced.
There was an uncomfortable pause where nothing could be heard other than the distant hum of the ship’s reactors. It was as if they had transitioned to an actual place that fit the definition of the word "nowhere."
"Well, that view is a little unsettling," Reynolds commented to break the silence.
"Nothing to see here," Prescott said, smiling. "Maybe we should have the AI automatically show us some cat videos or something when we do this."
Reynolds narrowed her eyes at the implied jab. "I’d be fine with that, actually."
"Beacon stabilized and transmitting, Captain. Ready for transition back to normal space," Schmidt reported.
"Thank you, Schmidt. Ensign Fisher, execute your transition."
