“Gents, we’re going to depart in two days so make sure that anyone who wants to go down to the surface goes today or tomorrow morning at the latest.”
All the captain’s icons blinked once, in acknowledgement.
He tapped Argonaut’s icon.
“Are your shuttles ready to go down and collect the ships requirements, Hector?”
“Yes, Frank. Well, they will be in half an hour. A few of the crew also want to go down and look around.”
“I don’t blame them. Give me the nod when you’re going to separate. I want to record it.”
“I would like a copy for myself then, please? I’ve never seen it done before.”
“Don’t worry Hector, I’m sure it will be fine.”
He tapped Hector’s icon off and sat back again.
A half hour passed before Hector’s icon lit again.
“We’re about to separate.”
“Thanks, Hector,” he replied. Then moved over to the main viewer screen, and using the touch sensor control, moved Argonaut’s image to the centre of the screen, then tapped the recorder icon.
He knew Andromeda’s sensors would also record it all, but this was something special.
The Argonaut was larger than any of the other ships. It was gold looking in colour, and oval in cross-section, but had blunt looking curved ends.
It was also distinctive, in that it incorporated two detachable transport shuttles.
The shuttles were each attached to the outer longitudinal edges of the Argonaut, making the ship almost two and a half times wider than its height.
Frank watched the two Shuttle sections, one on each side of the ship, as they separated from the main body and moved slowly outwards.
Leaving the almost square section of the main hull looking naked without its curved edges.
The two shuttles moved until they were 400 metres out and away from the ship. Then rolled slowly over until each shuttle’s curved section was at the top.
Both shuttles hung motionlessly for at least a minute. Then delta shaped wings extended, one from each side of the bottom edge of their hulls.
Once the wings were fully extended, the shuttles both surged forward in almost undetectable jumps.
‘Ah, sublight Skippa drives,’ Frank thought.
“Andromeda, does Argonaut have any field emitters protecting the hull areas where the shuttles were?”
“My schematics show a few emitters, but not enough to provide full protection.”
That worried Frank. The Argonaut was just sitting there, with everyone feeling happy, not realising its vulnerability. Obviously, this was something that would have to be addressed.
“Send a signal to all ships computers, upping security by one level, just-in-case, Andromeda.
Oh, and have you picked anything up from our drone at Zeta Reticuli?”
“OK, that’s done, the signal has gone. And, no, we haven’t picked up anything from the drone.”
“So, is the hyperlink to our drone working?”
“As far as I can tell, yes. But something seems to be reducing its sensitivity.”
“OK, let’s transfer the hyperlink connection to Argonaut, she has a larger sensor array.”
“Doing it now. Lily’s working on it as we speak.”
“Lily! Who’s Lily?”
“Argonaut’s computer, of course.”
“Geeze, are you giving names to the computers in all of the ships now?”
“Well, they’re all like me, so I thought, why not. You all have names, don’t you?”
“Of course, but you aren’t human.”
Andromeda gasped.
“Sorry, Andromeda. You know I didn’t mean it like that. But we’re flesh and blood, and no offence meant, but you aren’t human, and that’s a fact.
You’ll outlive me ten times over, though,” he added.
“Well, I’m afraid some offence is taken Frank. Anyway, you’ve wandered from the question.”
Ignoring this comment, Frank continued.
“Well, look at it this way, take the Argonaut. Now, it has three elements to talk to. Argonaut, the ship. Captain Hector Serrell, the captain. Now, Lily the computer.
Don’t you think with six ships in our group, 18 different designates will be far too complicated?”
“I see what you mean. Yes, too complicated for humans. Very well, I’ll leave out the computer names when talking to them.”
“Probably for the best, at least for now.”
“I haven’t forgotten Jenny,” Andromeda added, warningly.
“You’ve still got the hump I see. Drop it, now.”
“Hector’s calling.”
He hit Hector’s icon.
“Yes, Hector?”
“Hello, Frank. That went well, didn’t it?”
“Certainly did, when are they returning?”
“Let’s see, twelve hours, plus another hour or so, to distribute the goodies and half an hour to reconfigure. Say in about fifteen hours.”
“Excellent.”
“By the way, my computer has made contact with the drone at Zeta Reticuli. I thought Andromeda was making the contact?”
“We were, but the pick-up quality’s poor. Andromeda thinks something’s reducing its sensitivity.
Anyway, your array is more sensitive than ours.”
“Well, we picked up the drone’s signal on the hyperlink. And I’ll bet you can’t tell me what’s causing the disturbance?”
“The natural wormhole? It’s back, yes?”
“Absolutely right. Your drone almost got sucked in when it re-established. Luckily Susanna’s programme saved it.
Susanna gave us the security protocol password, and we’ve instructed the drone to move five kilometres away from the wormhole.”
“Good, Andromeda can sync with Lily and piggy-back the info.”
“Yes… Err, who is Lily?”
“Ask your computer,” Frank said, feeling a tingling sensation through his implant.
“This wormhole re-establishing makes everything more urgent Frank, we could have Crillons pouring through it any time now.”
“Urgent? Yes, maybe. But if I were them I’d send a ship through first to see where the wormhole ends.”
“Of course, then if they send a ship, the drone should spot it.”
“I hope so Hector. The trouble is, we’ve never been through a natural wormhole. The Crillons have, and know how it operates.
“It must be similar to man-made ones, surely?”
“I think I can remember Commander Bovonivo saying it was faster than man-made wormholes, and that it would only take about two Crillon weeks to travel from Kepler to Zeta Reticuli.”
“Wow! That is quick.”
“Hector, while you’re in prime contact with the drone get it to check the wormhole’s diameter as well.”
“OK.” He turned and spoke to the comms man at another console. Then replied. “The connection’s working well, Frank. It’ll be about ten minutes before our drone gets the instruction.”
“OK, so about an hour, and we should have all the information we need.”
“That’s about right, and Andromeda will get the information at the same time as we do.”
“Thanks, Hector. Oh, and thank Lily for me.”
Hector looked puzzled for a bit. Then a dawning smile crossed his face. “Yeah-yeah,” he said and closed the contact.
Frank couldn’t help smiling to himself as he sat back and picked up his tactical pad.
Chapter 15
Mapping Ship.
Meanwhile, at Kepler, the newly established natural wormhole was now two kilometres in diameter and stable.
The Crillon mapping ship hung for a moment, then vanished into the wormhole.
The mapping ship’s memory banks held full data on the original natural wormhole. This included the wormhole’s diameter and variations in the diameter right through to the exit point. Plus the time it had taken to traverse the wormhole, together with
a detailed star map showing the original exit point.
At the heart of the mapping ship, was an intuitive computer. It was able to assess any dangers that might be encountered at each end of the wormhole and the protocols for any actions to be taken by the ship.
The ship was also protected by an array of particle-beam weapons. Hopefully, sufficient weapons to enable it to escape back through the wormhole to Kepler, if necessary.
Although the ship was automated, it also had a few small droids who flitted around carrying out routine maintenance as and when required.
Days passed by quickly as the mapping went on. There was a gentle curving of the wormhole, here and there, as gravimetric forces from other stars influenced its path slightly.
The memory banks finally informed the ship that it would be exiting the wormhole in three minutes; the ship relied on its sensors but had kept the old exit time as a reference.
The three minutes came and went, and mapping still continued.
At zero plus ten, exit occurred into normal space.
At the same time, a contact alarm registered, and the droids shot into their secure parking holders. While the ship’s weapons sensors tried to lock onto an object, but couldn’t.
Mapping recorders still carried on regardless, surveying the area around the wormhole and creating many images.
The intuitive computer had realised that whatever the contact was, though hostile, it wasn’t firing at the ship.
Within five minutes, the mapping ship had completed its mission at this end of the wormhole.
So the ship turned, and randomly fired several particle beams to deter whatever it was that was pursuing it. Then dived back into the wormhole, on its two-week journey back to Kepler.
Tripicac had returned to Kepler, four weeks later to the day, and was waiting patiently for the mapping ship to come back to normal space. He wasn’t disappointed.
As the mapping ship arrived at Kepler, the regular flashing beacon of the Crillon mapping ship guided Tripicac’s group of Battlecruisers towards it.
The mapping ship hung before them, and Tripicac waited patiently for the electrical charge that had built up on the hull to drain away. After ten, long minutes, it was safe to board.
“Vendron, dock,” he ordered his pilot.
“We need the access codes again Commander.”
He tapped them into the pilot’s panel.
Then Tripicac’s battle cruiser CS13 came alongside the mapping ship, and he felt a bump as the automatic air-locks coupled both ships then re-pressurised.
“Trenma, you have command. Tell Cazer to meet me at the lock.”
“Yes, sir.”
The locks opened just as he and Cazer reached them, and both then entered the mapping ship.
Cazer sat down at a control desk. His fingers flew across the screen as he activated the playback sequence.
“I’ve put it on this display, so we’ll do a quick play-through, and check everything in more detail later.”
“Good. Play it.”
The screen showed the star field at Kepler’s end of the wormhole. Then, there was a sudden forward motion as the mapping ship leapt into the wormhole.
As the vessel travelled on. The top of the screen showed the wormhole’s diameter; the distance covered in light years and the drag factor, with drag reading zero.
The images whizzed by on the screen, as the mapping ship passed through the wormhole, with days of mapping flashing by in minutes.
Then suddenly, normal space crashed into view, and Cazer quickly reduced the playback speed to real-time.
A silent alarm warning indicated on the screen, as something shimmered then was gone.
“That’s a human drone,” Tripicac remarked.
A string of star maps cascaded in front of them. The mapping ship fired its particle beams in a random burst; then the ship plunged back into the wormhole.
“Damn!” Tripicac exclaimed, cursing under his breath.
“What’s the problem?” Cazer asked.
“The humans might think that’s a warning to them. Damn!”
As the mapping ship hurtled back through the wormhole on its return journey towards Kepler, they could see the grey, black inside of the wormhole on the screen.
They fast-forwarded the recording again, and now the wormhole transit days passed quickly.
Then the screen showed a five-minutes to exit warning, and they slowed the playback again, with their ‘return’ mapping continuing and watched as the ship exited into normal space, one minute early.
“That was some ride Commander.”
“It certainly was.” Tripicac thought for a moment. “Double check where the fork was originally located, Cazer.”
Cazer replayed the recording back and passed where the memory banks had initially marked the fork. He moved three light years either side of the original location but saw nothing.
“It’s definitely gone, Commander.”
“Good. I can see that. At last everything is changing. Let’s hope it’s for the better. Take a copy of the quick review you’ve just played.”
“Hopefully, there’s a big enough copy-tube here.”
Cazer went through several small enclosures and finally found one. He placed the copy-tube into a slot and tapped the record tab.
“Done Commander,” he said. A moment later he handed a copy to Tripicac.
“Good, let’s go.”
They quickly made their way back to the linked air-locks and re-entered Tripicac’s ship, with the lock closing behind them.
“Vendron,” he called, from the lock’s comms pad. “Get us all away from here, and back to our home planet slot.”
He heard a clunk as the two ships separated and fought to hold himself steady as his accelerated away from the area.
Then Tripicac hurried to his control room while Cazer returned to his own workplace, both with a lot to think about.
Tripicac sat in his chair considering their options, then made two security encoded calls. One call to Arans and Tarcan and the other to Senator Kasosko, both arranging a meeting between them for the next morning at nine o’clock.
The next day, they met with Kasosko in his private chamber. Now that there was a chance of the humans coming to their sector, most of their discussions were about Marshal Trendor and his warring naval co-officers.
Trendor hadn’t wanted his fellow Crillons to change their ways. In his eyes, humans were not to be trusted, and he had put many obstacles in the way of progress.
They had all agreed that they couldn’t risk another assassination attempt by Marshal Trendor and his naval buddies. The primary focus of this meeting, therefore, was to sort this problem, and for Kasosko to update the Senate.
Tripicac wanted his men to protect their Senate, so after discussion, they agreed to appoint him and his men, as the senate’s security detachment.
Additionally, some of the fifteen Battlecruisers that were controlled by Arans, Tarcan and himself, would also be allocated to protect the Senate. This ruling meant that they would still have control of more ships than Marshall Trendor, who could only count on twelve ships now.
But Kasosko then warned them that Trendor’s long-term friend and ally, Commander Ventar, was returning in the next couple of days with twelve more ships, one of which was probably a battleship.
That wasn’t good news. Tripicac couldn’t stand the man.
‘How Trendor had become a Fleet Commander he never really understood. But then, when he thought about it, Trendor had been naturally ruthless right from the very start of his career.
Trendor’s forced assassination of the Solveron’s delegation, and then his extermination plan, which was forced on the Senate, had made him stronger than all of them.’
Thinking on, Tripicac decided that they would have to deal with the situation as it developed.
Chapter 16
Stay Over.
An hour passed, and the information that had been recorded by the drone at Zeta Re
ticuli was transmitted simultaneously to both the Andromeda and Argonaut via the hyperlink.
Frank watched his screen carefully, as it showed their drone started to map and analyse the natural wormhole’s characteristics.
Suddenly, they saw a ship shoot out of the wormhole almost colliding with the drone.
The ship had obviously also been mapping the wormhole. Now it was mapping the area around the exit and continued mapping for another five minutes.
Then the ship, having completed its mission suddenly turned and fired several particle beams, presumably to stop whatever the ship thought was pursuing it, then dived back into the wormhole.
‘Phew, that was a lucky escape for our drone,’ he thought.
Frank sat and ran through the drone’s information again. Then sent a copy to the other four ships captains.
Frank was sure the Crillons knew the dynamics that formed the Rift, and how a wormhole bridged it.
‘That special Crillon ship proves that they are more advanced than we are,’ he thought.
But now that they had been able to chart the natural wormhole. They could see that it was like an artificially generated wormhole, in that it had a milky white, swirling multi-faceted ring, with a jet-black centre.
But this natural wormhole looked larger than he remembered the original wormhole being.
From the information gathered, he could see that the new wormhole’s diameter was about two kilometres across, and big enough to accommodate all their ships.
An image of Savron, suddenly popped into his mind, startling him. He felt a sense of urgency for a moment. Then the feeling went as fast as it had come.
The Solveron’s, he thought. Savron, my sense of urgency, it was his message.
There was nothing he could do now. So, he pondered the situation for a while.
If it takes two weeks each way through the wormhole. At least, that’s what Commander Tripicac had said. Then that ship will be back at Kepler, within a few days.
The Definitive SpaceFed Trilogy (SpaceFed StarShips Trilogy).: A thrilling, action-packed Sci-fi space adventure. (SpaceFed StarShips Series Book 8) Page 53
