The Definitive SpaceFed Trilogy (SpaceFed StarShips Trilogy).: A thrilling, action-packed Sci-fi space adventure. (SpaceFed StarShips Series Book 8)

by Gerry A. Saunders

  If the transceivers aren’t activated yet, how am I able to sense Andromeda, he wondered as he passed his cabin and went into the control room.

  ‘You’ve taken a long time to ask that,’ he heard her voice say, inside his head.

  ‘What do you mean? Don’t we need the implant?’

  ‘Ordinarily, yes. But when you re-activated me before going to Delta Pavonis, I was so emotional as to be unstable.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I think some sort of connection was established then, and now I can sense you when your thoughts are mentally heightened. We may even be able to communicate without the transceivers most of the time now, but I’m not sure.’

  ‘It does seem possible. What about the rest of my crew?’

  ‘No, I can’t sense them without using the link.’

  ‘OK. Keep our newfound ‘ability’ between us.’

  ‘As you wish, but you’d better activate our transceiver link to log in and take command of the ship.’

  ‘Of course,’ he thought and moved over to the tactical screen. He tapped the screen and an image of an eye appeared. Looking directly at it and speaking in a calm voice, he gave his password, then said, “Activate now.”

  “Welcome home, Commander,” Andromeda said as his command link was established.

  ‘No speech,’ he ordered. ‘OK. How far out, distance wise, would we have been able to communicate with each other?’

  ‘About a thousand kilometres, space wise.’

  ‘So, you picked me up as we passed the spacedocks?’

  ‘Yes, that’s correct Frank.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘But you haven’t said why you asked.’

  ‘No. But think about it as a human, Andromeda. I’m sure you’ll work it out.’

  ‘Claro.’

  Frank couldn’t help admiring Andromeda. She had acquired twenty-four human connections in the space of 15 minutes, and all their confused signals were being sent to her as they settled in. But she didn’t seem phased out.

  “How are you coping, with the crew’s transceivers coming online,” he asked out loud.

  “I'm all right, and the other ships are getting used to it. I’ve also scanned Susanna and can see that she’s very fit. How’s the sprog doing?”

  He was taken aback. “How did you know what was said on the shuttle?”

  “Simple,” came her answer. “The shuttle has a sound monitor in the passenger cabin. I just checked to see if you were on board.”

  “And you heard Jenny say that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you will also have heard Susanna say that his name is Alex. So please use his name.”

  “Sorry Frank, I didn’t listen for long.”

  “Good. Now, down to business. When you’ve verified that the other ships captains have logged on, set up a video meeting and let me know when it will be.”

  “On it Frank.”

  He sat back and looked around the control room properly for the first time. Seeing that the two small ‘tactical’ screens were still there, one on each side of the main screen. But the control console in front of the main screen looked longer and had a row of six icons now, one for each ship.

  The front facing emergency window was also different. Now it had with three zero parallax atom glass sections, making it wider, and through them, he could just see the top of the forcefield emitters which protected the windows.

  ‘At last, I can see out,’ he thought.

  Then turning to the left, a movement caught his eye. He could see his reflection in the window and a shadow seemed to be behind him, and moving with him. Realizing it was an object shaped like an oversized man, he asked.

  “What, or who are you?”

  “Your emergency battle armour, sir,” came a voice in his transceiver. “Protection is my middle name.”

  “Another quirky thing to deal with,” he grumbled to himself.

  “And just how do you expect me to get inside you?”

  “Easy sir, just say ‘Protect’, and you’re in.”

  “I see. Are you going to follow me everywhere?”

  “No sir, just when a battle is detected as being imminent.”

  “Well, that’s a relief. Park yourself out of the way.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  The suit activated its magnetic repeller. Drifted around in a small circle, then glided back. Then dropped to the floor with a clunk and merged with the wall. With only the word ‘Commander’ written across its breast-plate indicating its presence.

  ‘Show-off,’ Frank thought as he sat down in front of the main screen.

  ‘Andromeda bring up the schematics on the Argonaut.’

  ‘Yes, Frank.’ There was a moment of silence. ‘One moment, the science vessel’s stats are classified. Right, I’m over-riding them.’

  ‘No rush,’ Frank thought.

  ‘Here we are,’ she thought back, and the Argonaut’s specs came up on his main screen.

  ‘What do you say, Andromeda?’

  ‘It’s not just a science vessel. Let me show you why.’

  The display changed to a pictorial representation, which had a point of light that followed Andromeda’s references.

  ‘Look at the force field emitters. The Argonaut has at least twice as many emitters as I have, almost doubling the ships force-field protection.

  Then, next to the emitters are the new disrupter spheres, which are like ours, but larger.

  Argonaut’s fusion reactors have twice as much output, and the ship has a warp pulse that provides an almost instantaneous jump.

  Yes, it’s a science vessel, but it’s also a battleship with some additional weapons that we don’t have.’

  ‘I see,’ Frank replied, thinking a while.

  ‘Can we get the specifications of these weapons? Can we replicate them, surreptitiously?’

  ‘Yes, Frank. But I’ll have to be careful.’

  ‘Fine, do it in your own time.’

  ‘Just a minute Frank,’ Andromeda said, sounding as if she was in the middle of several calls.

  ‘So, that’s the block!’

  ‘What block?’

  ‘Ah… I have it now.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look,’ she exclaimed as an internal view appeared on the screen. It showed the Argonaut’s central computer, which was pretty much the same as Andromeda’s.

  With one notable exception; the presence of an oval shaped, orange coloured ‘bug’ like ‘thing,’ with a connecting rod between itself and the computer’s service port.

  The oval shaped ‘thing’ was some three metres in diameter, with its surface colours constantly changing between bright orange and grey in random, almost hypnotic movements.

  Above the object, hung a jet-black ring with a milky edge.

  ‘Good grief,’ thought Frank, feeling sick. ‘It’s the Solverons, they’re here! They probably know our route plans, everything.’

  ‘Yes, Frank. But we’ve found this now, and just in time by the look of it. So they won’t be able to track our ships while we’re travelling through a wormhole.’

  ‘H’m, are you sure?’ Frank replied.

  ‘Yes, unless they’ve already managed to get more of these on board,’ Andromeda paused momentarily, checking things.

  ‘First we need to make sure that they haven’t got more orange bugs here. So, what do you want to do, Frank?’

  ‘Get rid of it of course, and scan all ships, especially around their central computer areas. Report back to me immediately we know the score.’ he replied.

  Then, thinking through the problem quickly decided what he had to do, and he had to make sure that it was done fast.

  ‘Set up a captain’s conference to start in 30 minutes, Andromeda. With all of us meeting here.’

  He knew he needed others to be involved now. ‘I also want Ned, Mark and Susanna. With Jenny, representing the Marines. Who’s the Marine captain on the Argonaut?’

  ‘Someone called T
-Rex. Do you still want Captain Serrell to come?’

  ‘Yes, and this T-Rex. It won’t look out of place if they come together. Make sure all transceivers are forced off as the force-crafts approach us.’

  ‘It’s being done. Thirty minutes is a bit tight for the captains furthest away. Forty minutes would be better.’

  ‘Better for ‘Orangey,’ not for us.’

  ‘Then we’ll call the conference as an Inter-ship drill.’

  ‘Good that’s sorted. Now try running that camera’s visual recording backwards, and you may be able to determine when this ‘orange bug thing’ arrived in the Argonaut.’

  ‘On it.’ Andromeda said, with a hint of human stress in her voice.

  ‘Why does Hector’s icon keep disappearing from my screen?’

  ‘It’s probably a poor comms link. I’ll look into it.’

  ‘OK, and move the conference wall back a little, please?’

  The wall, separating the control room from his cabin, then moved slowly outwards until the control room was a third larger. With extra seats rising from the floor, unfolding as they rose.

  Frank sat, quietly running scenarios on his tactical pad for a while then stopped, realizing that now was the time for action or they would surely die without achieving anything.

  Less than thirty minutes later, the control room door annunciator bleeped. ‘Andromeda, the transceivers are all off, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes.’

  “Open,” he said aloud.

  His door slid open and the five officers, together with Ned, Mark, Jenny, T-Rex and Susanna, all entered.

  “Welcome,” he greeted. “Take a seat, anywhere.”

  “Andromeda, suppression field on now, please.”

  “Suppression field established,” Andromeda announced, a little louder than normal.

  Suddenly, everyone looked worried as they realised there was no sound whatsoever.

  Captain Serrell said, “I can’t hear my ship at all?”

  “That’s correct. As you approached Andromeda, we turned down the sensitivity of all your implants. But now you’re on board, we have total blanking.”

  “It must be serious, Frank,” Captain Crisp voiced.

  “Very Tony. Everything depends on us, and what we do now. Believe me,” Frank replied.

  “Right. Some of you have seen these videos that we received on our last mission. One was recorded by a droid that was found in the wreck of the Acarea on Delta Pavonis. The other from the drone that was following a Crillon ship at the time,” Frank explained as he started playback.

  As the two videos played on the main screen, he looked around and saw that everyone was watching intently as the scenes unfolded. Susanna was next to him, then Jenny and T-Rex. Both Marines were in body armour with their headpieces retracted into the armour's rear storage space.

  Next to T-Rex, was captain Serrell, then Derrick. While Harry, Tony Crisp and Barry all sat on the other side, with Ned and Mark, sitting on the end. All of them entirely absorbed by the images they were seeing.

  Not having seen the marine’s body armour close-up before, Frank found it interesting to see that it followed the basic curve of the human body.

  ‘Quite pleasant, but not enough shape to know if the person inside is male or female,’ he thought as his eyes drifted to the gender crest on the top rim of Jenny’s body armour.

  Seeing Jenny’s cleavage, Frank was reminded that Marines were always naked inside their armour. He knew that this was to ensure their bodies could make direct contact with the sixty or so sensors that enabled them to control their armour as if it was their own skin.

  ‘I wonder what Jenny’s naked body looks like,’ he thought. As a voice sounded in his ear, bringing him abruptly back to reality.

  “Think about her like that again, and I’ll make sure you end up as dog meat,” Susanna said, leaning over and speaking quietly, but coldly.

  ‘Then maybe you two shouldn’t take the mickey out of me,’ he thought back.

  ‘Darling, please don’t take it so seriously,’ she, ‘thought’ back, smiling sweetly.

  He shrugged his head at Susanna, in mock frustration, then asked.

  ‘Andromeda, do we have we a communication’s leak?’

  ‘No Frank, we are secure.’

  ‘Then why is Susanna still linked?’

  ‘Why not ask me?’ Susanna thought, throwing the question into the mix.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I have no idea. But I can’t sense anyone else, just you Frank, but only when we’re close.’

  Having run the first two recordings, the images on the screen then changed to show the scene that Andromeda had recorded on the Argonaut, earlier.

  “Oh. No!” exclaimed Captain Serrell. With the despair that he felt, clearly showing in his voice.

  “Not on my ship.”

  Chapter 5

  Death in Blue.

  “I’m afraid so Captain Serrell. Sorry, for the secrecy and cloak and dagger stuff, but we need to take this Solveron ‘bug’ out without alerting it and without destroying the Argonaut. However, this is going to be tough. At the moment, we don’t know how to get rid of this ‘bug.’ And, in the garbled message that we received from the Crillon’s, Commander Tripicac stated that they hadn’t been able to find a way to kill it.”

  “But there must be a way?”

  “I hope there is Mark. We believe that it’s watching everything and keeping its mother ship informed of our location to enable the Solverons to intercept us.”

  “Orangey’s escape route must be through its own wormhole,” Jenny remarked.

  “Yes. Ned, how is it possible for it to be so accurate in the first place,” Susanna queried.

  “Only one way that I know of. The mother ship has to be close by.”

  “Don’t forget Sir,” Jenny added. “It could pick up the conversations on our implants then use the information against us.”

  “Yes. That’s my reason for a blackout. We…,” he started to say, then stopped as Andromeda interrupted him.

  “One moment Frank. I’ve just finished back-tracking and can confirm that the ‘bug’ arrived three hours ago. Luckily, there are four cameras in that area. Look at the screen.”

  Everyone looked and saw an image of the Argonaut’s computer area. As they looked, a one-metre diameter wormhole suddenly appeared, close to the ceiling. Then they saw an object that ‘stretched’ itself out of the wormhole and expanded into a bright orange coloured sphere, about three metres in diameter.

  Seconds later, part of the orange sphere dissolved and three small ovoid shaped droids floated out. They were about one metre high and almost transparent.

  The ovoid shaped droids then swung round to face the computer’s service terminal. A thin rod came out of one droid and connected itself between the computer terminal and the sphere.

  The second droid remained near the connection. While the third ‘floated’ back inside the sphere which immediately sealed itself.

  “Nothing has changed since then,” Andromeda told them.

  “Did anyone on Pavonis see any droids outside that sphere?” Tony asked.

  “No,” Susanna said. “But they’re virtually invisible, so we may not have noticed them.”

  “OK,” Frank said thoughtfully. “It doesn’t change much. Just that we have to take them out as well.”

  “What do you want our ships to do Frank?” Barry asked.

  “We need all four of you to make up a protective shield around the Argonaut and Andromeda. With weapons hot. In case, the mother ship is around.

  When you return to your ships, we need visual records of everything around you.”

  All of them nodded their acceptance.

  “What about the Argonaut Frank?” Captain Serrell asked.

  “What’s your first name Captain, I haven’t seen it on your stats?”

  “Hector, nobody ever uses it.”

  “Then Hector it is. We’ll be coming to the Argonaut. Androm
eda, do we have a hand-held nuclear launcher?”

  “No, but I believe the Argonaut has. Is that correct Hector?”

  “Yes, the Marines have them.”

  “OK. So, T-Rex. Sorry, I don’t know your first name either?” Thinking to himself, ‘Bad preparation.’

  “Thomas Henry Reece, sir.”

  “Well, Thomas?”

  “Yes, we have six hand-held nuclear launchers, all ready to go.”

  “Excellent,” Frank said. “But you must make sure that your transceiver implants remain switched off. Andromeda has already forced them off here so you won’t be able to think them back on.

  Then, when you return with Hector to Argonaut you’ll find that the Argonaut has auto-reinstated them, so you’ll need to switch them off again.

  Later, when we’re ready to do so, we’ll give you a secure code to enable you to ‘think’ the implants on again.”

  “How will we know when to reactivate?” Thomas asked.

  “Andromeda will tell all the other ships exactly when to reactivate. Then Hector will bleep you twice on the comms system OK?”

  “Yes, that’s fine Frank.”

  “Thomas?”

  “Am I right in thinking you want something else, sir?”

  Frank was pleased with everyone’s thinking.

  “Yes. There’s no time for formalities, change to the plan view,” he ordered.

  The screen’s image changed to show a plan view of the area.

  “Zoom in on this spot, here,” Frank said as he pointed to a bend in the corridor, just before the left-hand entrance to the Argonaut’s computer area.

  “Get a hand-held nuclear launcher and place it just here. Make sure it’s fully armed, there’ll be no time to set it up later. We need it ready to aim and pull the trigger.”

  “Yes, understood.”

  “Good. Now, put your marines on a battle simulation exercise or something. But make sure you tell them nothing of this, just in case their implant commentary gives us away.

  Make sure everyone is in full body armour. End up close to the computer, and be ready for Hector’s comms signal.