Seconds later, Jordan again yelled: “Five seconds and you hit the gas! Airlock is… closed!”
Five plasma rounds impacted the top of the Rogers as she lifted from the dirt.
Hans Mueller fired off three plasma bolts at the closest of the ships. Two broke off their pursuit. Three new plasma rounds pounded the inertial dampener fields of the Rogers as she shot up through the pale blue sky. Another three rounds from Hans had the other ships backing away.
Mace let out a sigh. “That was intense. Mueller? I thought I said no firing on our people!”
Hans nodded. “Each of those was only a quarter charge. Would have done minimal damage at best. Just enough to spook them.”
Jordan entered the bridge with Jeff in tow. “Jasper’s regained consciousness. Gonna have a nasty knot on his head, but he should be fine.”
Mace asked, “Why wasn’t he in his battle suit?”
Jordan laughed. “He was in the showers when we turned. Only had time for his skivvies and the exosuit.”
Johnny walked onto the bridge. “Can’t believe we were pulled out of a jam by an old man in his undies. How embarrassing is that?”
Mace shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m starting to think it’s classic Jasper. Where were your exosuits?”
Jordan replied, “Weren’t sure we had time to get them and put them on. Thought it would be an in and out run. Guess we lived and learned today.”
Jane hugged her husband and smiled. “You are all heroes to me.”
Jeff nodded. “Hear, hear!”
Chapter 14
*
Mace glanced over at Liam. “Mr. Hobbs, please take us to the coordinates I’m sending you. We have foodstocks and other supplies to move.”
Jane stood behind Johnny with her hand on his shoulder. “You ever think we’d not only be homeless but without a home world?”
Johnny turned. “You know, you put the tragedy of the events that have transpired aside, and I don’t think I could have lived as much as we have in the last year. We could have spent the rest of our lives happily going to gun shows and tagging up with Mace at the bar, but look at all we’ve done, what we’ve accomplished. Look at the fantastic people we have surrounding us. Frankly, I don’t know that I’d want to go back. Of course, I have yet to face starvation in space, so my idea of what constitutes living might change.”
Mace said, “We do have a few options before us. First, in a couple days, Mr. Montak says there should be a Mawga supply ship coming in that’s loaded with hydrogen refiners. We capture that ship and we’re set for fuel from here on out.”
Johnny grinned. “So we be pirates! Arrgghh!”
Mace nodded. “And when the Kaachi make contact with us again, if the Australians, with Mr. Daughtry, are ready, we will have the manpower to take back Earth. It would involve making war on our own people though, something I’m not yet convinced is good for us. After that Kaachi meeting, I don’t have a clue yet as to what path we choose. Montak claims the supplies we’re about to move should last us for over twenty-four months. So … at least that gives us time.”
An hour later, the Rogers floated just above the surface of Enceladus, where a supply ship was waiting. Two hydrogen refiners were brought aboard, along with as much food as could be moved in a single flight. Proteus, the second largest moon orbiting Neptune, was selected as their new base.
Johnny stood on the surface of Enceladus, looking up at the bright, massive, mother planet and her rings. Jasper came over to stand by his side. “What a fantastic sight. I’ve got goose bumps all over right now.”
Jasper nodded. “I couldn’t have dreamed of standing in a place like this. See that tiny speck up there, to the left of the sun? Shield the sun with your hand. That’s Earth. Thinking about that from this distance is what gives me chills. We’re out here doing what a million scientists before us have only dreamed of.”
Jane came to stand beside them, the gravity boots on her battlesuit barely keeping her on the surface. “The last of the containers we can fit is aboard. Breathtaking, isn’t it?”
Johnny looked around at the ice-covered, rocky surface surrounding them. “I expected David to be out here. Astronomy is his thing and this is definitely astronomical.”
Jane laughed. “Yeah, poor David. He stepped out onto the surface, looked up at Saturn, and fainted. He was too overcome. Had to take him back aboard to let him calm down. You spend your whole life dreaming about something, then one day, bam! it’s a reality right there in front of you. Too much of a shock for his psyche, I guess.”
Johnny reached down and pried loose an icy rock from the moon’s surface with his boot. “I bet I can throw this over the horizon.”
A quick jerk of his arm sent the rock forward and Johnny flipping backward.
Jasper let out a howl as the three hundred pound Human clumsily reached out for the surface during each rotation. “Hahaha! Mrs. Tretcher? Does your trained space monkey know any other tricks?”
Jane shook her head as she laughed along. “Like that’s not entertaining enough?”
Mace came over the comm. “Let’s button it up down there. We have an sixteen hour ride to Proteus and back for a drop. Gonna take three trips.”
Jane replied, “Give us a sec to collect Johnny.”
Jasper slowly turned toward the Rogers. “Race you back? Loser buys lunch!”
Jane smiled. “Help me collect my husband first. Then you’re on.”
Jasper scowled. “We could just leave him. He’d still be here when we got back.”
Johnny crossed his arms as he continued to flip. “Just give me a hand, old man. You’ve had your fun.”
Hours later, the view of Neptune from Proteus was equally as stunning. The soft blue hue of frozen methane filled the peripheral view of a rising Neptune. An hour was taken so each of the crew could spend a few minutes down on the surface.
Mace stood within a gravity field on a short balcony, looking down at the others as Jeff stood beside him. “Not sure I could ever get tired of that view.”
Jeff nodded. “I can already see our travels out here becoming a difficult thing.”
Mace asked, “What makes you say that?”
Jeff laughed. “Look at them down there, all just staring. Will we be doing this every time we see something spectacular? I’m sure the Milky Way alone has millions if not billions of views just like this. Will man survive and spread to the stars? Or will it take us too long because we’re stopping to gawk at everything?”
Mace chuckled. “I guess I can take that as we should get back to the business of moving our supplies?”
Jeff nodded. “After that, I imagine we’ll have nothing but time to gawk. Have you given any thought to what we might do when we go after the other refiners?”
Mace took a deep breath. “I have. We need more supplies than just food and fuel. We’ll have to board the ship and force the crew into a shuttle. We’ll want that whole cargo ship intact. We can park it down there on the surface as a sort of base.”
Jeff scrunched up a skeptical smile. “Mmm. Don’t know if that’s such a good idea. We take a ship, they’ll come looking for it. Even though space out here is vast, a big ship would be a lot easier to find than a handful of refiners. Those are small enough that we could actually keep them all here on the Rogers with us.”
Mace crossed his arms. “I would only want the cargo ship as a temporary place. Maybe we park it, drill into Proteus and make ourselves an underground lair. Once that’s done we strip what we want from the ship and discard the rest.”
Jeff half frowned. “We’re talking about a lot of work to carve us a base out of that frozen rock.”
Mace nodded. “It would be. But I think we need a place to call home that’s at least semi-permanent. Would take years of dedicated searching to find something like that. And as far as that goes, when it’s complete we go build another one somewhere else. If a hideout gets discovered, wouldn’t hurt to have a couple more lined up. And if we get the Austra
lians back from the Kaachi portal, we’re gonna want multiple bases. Besides, this will give everyone goals to achieve rather than just contemplating our dilemma.”
“Keep their minds busy?” Jeff asked.
Mace rested his forearms on the balcony rail. “Exactly. I finally understand our commanders during my tours of duty in the Middle East, why they were so set on keeping us busy with menial tasks during our off hours. I hated it at the time. Now I see its wisdom.”
Johnny called up from the surface. “Last container is on the ground. Taking a headcount now. And… oh look, Jasper is outside and the airlock door is closed.”
Jasper pounded on the see-through portal. “Open the door, ape-man!”
Johnny laughed. “Now, you’re gonna have to ask a lot nicer than that.”
Jasper scowled. “OK. Please open the door, ape-man!”
Johnny nodded as he pressed the release. “Was that so hard?”
Johnny turned to look at the airlock camera as the outer door sealed shut. “All heads accounted for.”
Mace walked onto the bridge. “Mr. Hobbs, take us back to Enceladus.”
Liam Hobbs replied, “Yes sir, Mr. Hardy. We have an ETA of eight hours, four minutes.”
The second run was uneventful, with the food cargo deposited in the bottom of a small crater on Proteus. As the Rogers approached Enceladus for the third time, alarms went off on the sensor display.
Mace sat forward. “What do we have, Mr. Mallot?”
Humphrey replied. “Twenty Mawga cruisers are parked just above our remaining supplies. And if we’ve seen them, they’ve seen us.”
Mace scowled. “Crap. Mr. Hobbs, take us back to Proteus. We’ll have to grab whatever we can carry. If they’ve seen us, they know the direction we’ve come from.”
Liam replied, “I think the Proteus drop is safe, Mr. Hardy. I plotted a course that brings us in from a different angle. If they head for where we’ve just come from, they’ll be going toward Jupiter.”
Mace eased back in his chair. “Bring us to a stop, Mr. Hobbs.”
Liam nodded. “Already slowing.”
Johnny said, “They’re hailing us.”
Mace stood and paced in front of his chair. “Patch them through. Might as well see who it is they have commanding.”
A darkened silhouette came on the main wall display. “Mr. Hardy, I hope you weren’t planning on having lunch with any of this?”
Mace replied, “We’ve got a hundred such stashes placed all over this system. We can dine wherever we please.”
The silhouette replied, “Good, then you won’t mind our confiscation of this stolen property.”
Mace crossed his arms. “Who are you and what do you want?”
The silhouette leaned forward, still in the dark shadow. “The king has seen to it that his commanders no longer go by their names. Our identities have been concealed to protect our families from our enemies. This goes for you, Mr. Hardy, as well as for the Mawga, or any spies that either may have in our camps. My name is Admiral 4. This vessel is piloted by Captain 27. Lieutenant 1016 is currently operating this comm channel.”
Mace shook his head. “Sounds like a big waste of time, Mr. 4. I prefer to call my officers by the names given to them by their parents, not designations by some two-bit wannabe dictator who’s proclaimed himself king.”
Admiral 4 replied, “Such a shame, Mr. Hardy. A man of your obvious leadership skills, a crew who appears to be both confident and motivated … the king would have done well to have you in his fleets. Instead, you are hunted by your own kind. And soon to be hungry I might add. We already know the names of everyone on your ship. And we know who back on Earth are members of their families.”
Mace sat forward. “Is that a threat?”
The admiral was silent for several seconds. “More of a warning, Mr. Hardy. All that we wish is for you to stay out of our business. Leave this system or stay, we really don’t care, so long as you do not interfere with either us or our allies.”
Mace said, “The way I see it, it’s you who have interfered in our business. Twice now you’ve fired on us first, without so much as an attempt to talk.”
The admiral huffed. “You were given your opportunity to talk, Mr. Hardy. An opportunity given by the king himself. You chose the path you’ve taken. And I hope you now realize that we can find you whenever we want. Perhaps it is best that you leave this system altogether.
“Others have suggested that we give you a ship full of nutrient bars and then send you on your way. The Mawga say there is a planet that may be habitable in the Epsilon system. It’s a ten light year journey, meaning you could probably make it there in about thirty years, given your apparent speed advantage. However, the king thought otherwise. He believes you present a continued threat wherever you are.”
Mace replied, “I’d say the king knows what he’s talking about in this instance. And you can tell him from me personally, that if it’s war he wants, we will give him war. I’ll give you this warning right now, Admiral. If any of your ships come within range of us, at best they’ll be limping home.”
The admiral sighed. “Very well, Mr. Hardy. I had hoped to speak with a man of reason and not a radical. Lieutenant 1442, initiate the destruction of the containers.”
“Yes, sir.”
The admiral’s image faded to complete black. “You and your crew have chosen your fates, Mr. Hardy. Stay away from Earth if you wish to live.”
The comm closed.
Humphrey Mallot pushed his sensor data to the main display. “I show fifteen plasma rounds impacting the remaining containers. They’ve been vaporized, Mr. Hardy.”
Mace asked, “Where does that leave us. How much was left?”
Johnny replied, “We managed to take 86 percent on those two runs. That gives us about twenty-one months of supply left. I’m sure we can stretch that if needed. I do have a question though. What’s this do to our run on the refiner ship tomorrow?”
Mace raised his eyebrows. “Oh, you can count on that raid happening. Have Mr. Montak assemble in the conference room with the other Mawga. I have a few questions for his team.”
Mace stood. “Mr Hobbs, set us on a course for somewhere other than Proteus.”
The shadow of Mars was selected and the waypoints entered. The Rogers was soon out of range of the Mawga sensors.
Chapter 15
*
Mace walked into the room. “Mr. Montak, I need some info.”
Bontu replied, “Please ask.”
Mace sat. “We’ll be hitting the refiner cargo tomorrow. I’m sure you know your people, or Stark’s crews, will be defending that shipment. They would have to realize it’s importance to us.”
Bontu nodded. “It would seem apparent.”
Mace tapped his fingers on the table. “What vulnerabilities of those cruisers might we take advantage of? And I’m not talking about destroying them, just disabling them if possible. How can we knock out their drives, or maybe their weapons? Even taking out their dampener transducers might do the trick. Basically, how do we take them out of the fight without killing them?”
One of the Mawga crewmen timidly raised his hand.
Mace said, “Say what you like. We’re all equals here.”
The crewman said, “It might be possible to disable the ships without firing a shot.”
Mace nodded. “OK. First your name, then how would we do this?”
“Jelog Hooba, sir. I was a maintenance technician on our ship. The dampeners run on a feedback loop. The feedback happens at a specific frequency. We could broadcast a signal at that frequency, interfering with that feedback. An in-phase signal would cause the transducers to overload, causing a shutdown. An out-of-phase signal would cancel the feedback, rendering the transducers useless.”
Mace sat forward. “Do we have the ability to broadcast such a signal with enough power to make either of those scenarios happen?”
One of the scientists answered. “Our comm system shou
ld be capable of doing that, given the frequency is within its broadcast range.”
Mace tapped his knuckles on the table. “Excellent suggestion, Mr. Hooba. Is this something you’ve done before?”
The Mawga crewman cowered in his chair. “Goodness no, Mr. Hardy. That would be against the rules to even speak of. I’m hesitant to speak of it here.”
Mace laughed. “You can safely speak your mind here, Mr. Hooba. There are no rules other than to be respectful of each other. OK, that’s one possibility. We can test out Mr. Hooba’s idea on one of our shuttles. Now I’d like a backup plan. We have an out from this fight given our speed capability, so I’d like to ensure mission success. What other bending or breaking of the rules could be done in this regard?”
Maala Heeb held up his hand.
Mace said, “Go ahead, Mr. Heeb.”
“We may have a similar method we could use against the cannons on those cruisers. Each has a sensor that prevents the cannon from firing if an object is so close that the blast might cause damage to the weapon or the ship firing the weapon. I believe that distance to be three meters. If we intercept the emitter frequency for that sensor, we might be able to send a return that tells the weapon not to fire.”
Hooba asked, “Wouldn’t each cannon have one of those sensors, Mr. Heeb?”
The scientist smiled. “They would. But each would also have a slightly different frequency in use, so that no one would interfere with another.”
The crewman nodded in approval.
Mace said, “Any way we can test this theory?”
Maala Heeb scratched his head in thought. “This is a Kaachi vessel. I would see no way of testing that theory out.”
Bontu spoke up. “I may have a solution. What was once my diplomatic vessel has cannons, as does the shuttlecraft aboard it. I have the comm and control codes for both. If you can get us within comm range of Earth, we could send directions to one of the shuttles to leave and rendezvous with us.”
Mace thought for a moment. “The other ships would give chase.”
Bontu added. “If one could reach the atmosphere, we could bring it aboard. Perhaps using the transducer feedback to stop any pursuit.”
HADRON Incursion Page 13
