by Saxon Andrew
Lani pursed her lips, “You’re just looking at them now. You obviously don’t remember when they were small rambunctious screaming children.” Lani moved her head back, “I heard a definition of children when they were eight and seven years old that I’ve never forgot.”
“What is it?”
“That you wouldn’t take two million dollars for them but someone couldn’t pay you two million to take two just like them.”
Steve laughed as Lani put the book down, came over to his chair and sat down beside him, “It’s really been some great years.”
“My family is what’s kept me alive, Lani. With all the death and wars we’ve had to avoid and fight, I don’t think I could have made it without you.”
She leaned down to kiss him and Steve’s wrist unit vibrated. She stopped her lips an inch from his and said, “Don’t answer it.” She put her lips on his but knew she had lost him. She pulled back and Steve said, “I’m sorry. I told Carol not to call me unless the planet was about to be attacked.”
Lani’s head went back slightly and she said, “Then by all means, you need to save us immediately.”
“Lani…”
“I do understand, Steve. Answer the call.”
Steve pressed the wrist unit and Carol appeared on the display, “I’m sorry, Sir. I know you said no calls but George Luge has completed his analysis of the Alien Warship and says he needs to see you.” Steve stared at her and Carol quickly added, “He says it’s very important.”
Lani heard the conversation, “You need to go. If George says it’s serious, it is.”
“I’ll be right in, Carol. Schedule a meeting in one hour.”
He ended the call and Lani said, “You can be there in ten minutes.”
Steve smiled and pulled her in his arms, “That gives us fifty minutes.” He kissed her and she started giggling.
After a few minutes passed, Steve sat up. Lani looked at him, “That was a fast fifty minutes!”
“Lani, come with me.”
“What?”
“Come with me. You resigned from the service to raise our children. They’re out on their own and there’s no reason for you not to come with me.”
Lani immediately started shaking her head, “No, Steve, I’ve been gone so long this has to be wrong. Hey, that’s a good rhyme. Anyway, I’m so out of date I’m irrelevant.”
Steve pulled her back in his arms, “Do you remember when we fell in love?” Lani nodded. “It was when we were on the same ship tracking the Traugh. Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy serving in the Navy.”
“I loved it, Steve, but that was so long ago.”
“Then do it because I miss you when I’m gone. Do it because you’re curious about everything that’s happening. I don’t care what reason you choose…” He stared into her eyes, “Come with me.”
Lani looked into his eyes and then said, “You need to delay the meeting another hour.”
“Why?”
“I’m not going with my hair looking like this! I need some time to get ready.” Steve smiled and lifted his wrist unit.
• • •
Steve and Lani sat with George Luge in his conference room. George pulled up the recording of the millions of warring small ships and said, “What I’ve been able to determine is that this species has mastered the use of gravity as a weapon.”
“Gravity?”
“Yes, Admiral. Gravity is the great master of physical matter. You need look no further than a neutron star or a black hole to know that too much of it can be extremely dangerous. Let’s take for example the force field around that giant warship your scout recorded.”
“George, I’m not clear on what you’re saying.”
George sat back in his chair and thought for a moment. He leaned forward and looked Steve in the eyes, “Have you ever learned anything about the surface of a neutron star?”
“I know it’s extremely dense.”
“A bucket of it would weigh as much as one of our major battleships. It’s so dense that you could explode thousands of nuclear bombs on it and it wouldn’t faze it in any way. It’s just too dense.”
“Are you saying that the force field they use around that giant warship is as dense as a neutron star?”
“No, but it’s close and uses the same principle. They’ve discovered some way to warp gravity waves around each other such that the force field is too dense for anything to go through it.”
Steve nodded toward the monitor with the small warships destroying each other, “That beam they use appears to be able to penetrate the force field around those small ships rather effectively.”
George nodded, “That beam is also a form of gravity so it isn’t like an energy beam. However, it takes more than one hit for those beams to penetrate their force field, which unfortunately, is not the same case with our force fields.”
“How so?”
“Our force fields are energy driven and the gravity beam just passes through it and collapses whatever it hits.”
Steve looked at the monitor and turned back to George, “I suspect that is why that species is worried about the Darkness as well as us. The Darkness used those gravity towers to defend themselves.”
George nodded, “I suspect the gravity tower could disrupt their force fields enough to get a shot through.”
“You don’t think the tower could destroy the ship?”
George lifted his left shoulder and eyebrows, “I’m not sure, I think it would cause a disruption in the force field around the giant ship but would not make it through.”
“George, are you telling me our current warships could not survive against that ship?”
“As they’re currently constructed, they could not, Admiral.”
Steve looked at Lani and she saw the disappointment in his expression. She turned to George, “Is there anything you’ve thought of that might offer some hope against them?”
“Lani, we’re just out of our league here. The technology they’re using is far beyond us.”
Lani firmly said, “No technology is invincible!”
Steve heard Lani and smiled. He turned to George, “Then give me your best effort in coming up with something. Failing that, we’re going to be forced to hide and hope they don’t discover our colonies.”
George’s panel buzzed and he lifted the handset, “I told you I am not to be interrupted.” Steve and Lani watched George listening and looked at each other. Whoever was on the other end was doing all the talking. Five minutes later, he said, “Come in here now.” Steve’s eyes narrowed and George shrugged, “Talk about coincidences, something has come up.”
“What is that?”
“I’ll let them explain it.”
“Who?”
“Ali and Gabby Goldwin.”
Steve looked at Lani and shrugged. This should prove interesting.
Chapter Eighteen
Steve called Essay to come in and attend the meeting. He learned that his son had a better understanding of tactics than he did and wanted his input. Essay arrived with Erica in tow. Lani immediately noticed they were holding hands until they came through the door. She looked at Essay and saw he missed it; he was distracted talking with George. Essay looked at his mother and she shrugged. Lani looked at Erica and saw she looked a little bit frightened.
Steve saw Essay and smiled, “I’m glad you could come. You know George don’t you?”
Essay smiled, “I’ve known Mr. Luge since the Academy. It’s good to see you, Sir.”
“And you as well, Essay. And here’s my favorite student. How are you, Olivia?”
“I’m fine Doctor.”
The door opened and Ali and Gabby stepped through it, Gabby saw Erica and ran forward to hug her, “I’ve missed you.”
“I came by but you weren’t home.”
“Oh, we’ve been working on something.”
Steve said, “Why don’t you sit down and tell us what that is, Mrs. Goldwin.”
“Oh, lighten up, Steve
. It’s not like you have anything going on right now.”
Steve’s mouth opened and he started to let Gabby have an earful but realized she was right. He started laughing and said, “I guess you’ll never change.”
Ali smiled, “I hope not.” He turned to the small gathering and said, “A few months ago, Gabby said something that started me thinking. This was immediately after John Hart died and we discovered that our Carriers couldn’t go toe-to-toe with the Azura Motherships. She told me that it was really all wasted effort in the long run. The universe would ultimately perish due to expanding space. If I remember, her exact words were, ‘if dark energy continues to expand in the universe, it will ultimately cause all the atoms that make up matter and dark matter to fly apart and move away from each other at light speed. Then there will be nothing but an ever expanding universe with nothing in it.”’
Gabby looked at him, “That is exactly what I said.” Ali touched his temple and nodded.
George leaned forward, “What does that have to do with our current situation? That won’t happen for trillions of years at the current rate of expansion.”
Ali turned to him, “I told her as much, Doctor. But it started me thinking. If dark energy, which is really just a name for empty space, can cause all matter and dark matter to fly apart, well…that sounds like a really cool weapon.”
George sat back, “Ali, we’re barely able to collect enough dark matter to power a force field to hide behind. It doesn’t produce nearly enough power to be effective as a weapon. Matter and gravity are much more powerful than dark energy.”
“That depends.”
George’s head went back as he asked, “On what?”
“Well, the reason dark energy will ultimately win in our universe is because eventually the increasing expansion of space will overcome the superior force that gravity exerts now. It will become the most powerful force in the universe and, as a result, all the atoms in every bit of matter will be blown apart at the speed of light as dark energy repels them. Some galaxies are moving away from the Milky Way as we speak faster than the speed of light.”
George pursed his lips and lowered his eyes, “So?”
“Well, we decided that the only way this idea of ours could be used required collecting enough dark energy to power it.”
“Ali, the amount of dark energy needed to affect even a small bit of matter is larger than several light years.”
“I know that, George. But where does dark energy come from?”
“What?”
“I asked you where dark energy comes from. Space is expanding with it so where does it come from? There’s more dark energy in our universe every second so where is it coming from?”
George stared at Ali and Steve asked, “Do you know?”
George turned to Steve, “No one knows, Admiral. Dark energy seems to be made of ever changing particles that are present for a short moment and then disappear.”
Steve’s eyes narrowed, “Well if they’re disappearing, how is there more of it every second as Ali says?”
George sighed, “That is something we know nothing about. Even containing dark energy is difficult at best. It doesn’t interact with matter.”
Steve looked at Ali, “If it doesn’t react with matter, how could it be used as a weapon.”
“Doctor Luge is right about it not reacting with matter but that is because its force is so weak. The particles pass through matter without making any changes.” Ali thought for a moment and said, “I could put some electrodes on your hand and turn on an electric current of a hundredth of a volt; what do you think you would feel, Admiral?”
“Probably nothing.”
“You’re absolutely right. But if I increased the voltage to two hundred volts…”
“I’d get the crap shocked out of me.”
“So the real issue is the power of the thing, not the thing itself. Dark energy doesn’t affect matter because its force is so low. But taken as a whole, all of the empty space in this universe represents seventy percent of everything in it and that cumulative amount is forcing the galaxies to fly away from each other at an ever increasing speed.”
George nodded, “Exactly my point. You can’t collect enough of it to do much more than produce an invisible force field.”
Ali nodded, “Which brings me back to the original question, Doctor, where does dark energy come from?”
George stared at Ali and Steve said, “I’ll ask you again, do you know where it comes from, Ali?”
Ali turned to Steve and smiled, “As a matter of fact, I do.”
Gabby elbowed him in the ribs, “We do!”
Ali jerked and looked at her and then said, “I stand corrected, we do.”
The room was silent and Steve could see George shaking his head. Erica said, “Mom, where does it come from?”
Gabby looked at Erica, “Subspace.”
Ali saw George prepare to protest and quickly said, “We had to ask the question that if dark energy is increasing then it must come from somewhere other than our universe. What other place is there that we know of outside our universe?” George stopped shaking his head and his forehead furrowed. Ali smiled, “The only other space we know of that is in contact with our universe is subspace and that small band between it and normal space we call Other Space. Dark energy must be leaking into our universe from there.”
Steve looked at George only to see him shrug as he talked through the theory out loud, “We do know that dark matter exists in subspace. It’s not outside the realm of possibilities that dark energy could be there as well but I don’t see how that would change things.”
Gabby smiled, “Why does other space exist, George?” George’s head jerked around toward her and he was silent as he thought about it. The entire room was silent and he finally said, “I really don’t know.”
Ali turned to him, “Our normal space resists the intrusion of dark energy. Sort of like our skin keeps out germs and other harmful things that could possibly kill us if they managed to get into our bodies. That band between subspace and normal space is the barrier produced to keep additional dark energy out.”
“But dark energy is not staying out. It’s entering normal space at a high rate.”
Ali nodded, “That’s right George and right at the edge of normal space and other space, dark energy is so dense that it’s almost a solid. It forms a, for lack of a better term, plaque on the inside edge of Other Space and gets thicker and denser until it forces its way through Other Space into normal space when the density of the dark energy becomes too great.”
George’s eyes went wide, “Are you serious?” Ali nodded. “How dense?”
Ali lowered his eyes as he said, “It’s as dense as uranium.”
“You’ve collected some and brought it into normal space.”
“We have.”
What happened?”
“Well, the first time the container we built was blown apart faster than I can describe. After all, dark energy is a repelling force.”
Steve quickly asked, “What was the container made of?”
“The superconductive metal.” Steve nodded for him to continue. “So, we decided to take another route. We knew that the container didn’t explode when we collected dark energy in other space so we left the container in other space and ran a conduit from it to one of the blaster barrels we’re currently using on our warships that was located in normal space.”
Steve stared at Ali and smiled slightly, “With what results?”
“We destroyed a fifteen mile long asteroid that was made of rock and iron.”
“That’s not right,” Gabby abruptly interrupted.
Ali looked at Gabby, “What’s not right?”
“We didn’t destroy it, we used it to create one of the largest nuclear explosions ever witnessed.” Gabby looked at the group, “We called it nuclear because all the atoms that made that asteroid flew away at light speed as the dark energy beam blew them away.”
Stev
e stared at them and looked at George who was showing some real doubt about what they were saying. “Did you happen to record it?’
“As a matter of fact, we did.” Ali inserted a chip into George’s control panel and the monitor came on. They heard, “…three, two, one, fire!” The asteroid on the monitor went up so fast it was impossible to see it in detail.
George looked at Ali and Gabby, “You could have killed yourselves doing this.”
Ali shrugged, “We know.” He looked at Gabby and smiled, “But we thought it was worth the risk to stir things up a little and give our forces something to help them survive.”
George sighed, “Trust an engineer to do what a scientist can’t see.”
“Thank you, George. That’s nice of you to say.”
Steve looked at George, “Can we use this?”
George smiled, “I need a Carrier and a Hart Warship to work with.”
“You’ve got them.”
“I’ll let you know.”
Steve looked at Lani and she raised her eyebrows, “Are all your meetings like this?”
“Not all of them.”
“Well, count me in. This was the most interesting discussion I’ve heard in years.”
Steve smiled and squeezed her hand, “Let’s take every one out to eat. It’ll be good to see Essay.” Lani smiled. She wondered if Steve would pick up on Essay’s new attraction. It didn’t surprise her that he didn’t.
• • •
Three days later the Prophet’s Eyes was back in Andromeda. Kamela sat on her chair with her eyes closed. Poul had completed his modifications and they went to see what was happening in Andromeda. Essay stared at the wall monitor and saw hundreds of vessels entering the huge Builder World in orbit above the Darkness’s main planet. What were they doing? He looked at Kamela and she continued to keep her eyes closed and he didn’t want to disrupt her thoughts. He looked at Erica and she raised her eyebrows, “Essay, I can’t see what those ships are doing once they pass through the force field around the World.”
