by Jeff Sims
Chief: “Yes. They were the only two Solarians in the armada.”
Arean continued, “We have witnesses who saw them debark from their respective ships. In fact, Anna served aboard my cruiser, the Dandelion. I watched her leave the ship with everyone else.”
Chief: “Then somewhere in the confusion both Solarians disappeared. That seems odd.”
Dolen: “Well, there is little we can do with the information at the moment.”
Admiral Dolen checked his communication pad. He still couldn’t believe that the Hiriculans hadn’t confiscated it. Although his pad looked like everyone else’s, his pad contained a special feature. His pad had an extended range chip that would allow him to send and receive external signals. All that he had to was connect it to an antenna. Fortunately, the exterior hull of the station made a perfect signal enhancer.
Dolen debated trying to contact the two Solarians. If he did, what message would he send them? Further, once he activated the device, the Hiriculans would more than likely detect the signal and track it back to its source.
Dolen decided to wait for a more opportune time.
………………..
Jim Donovan’s anger had now turned to rock solid determination. He, Colin, and Paul walked through the entryway to the bridge. They noted the lone remaining force field snapped in place upon their entry. They crossed the now empty bridge and took the electro lift up one level to the conference room. Jim looked over at Paul; the marine looked ready to fight.
All five bridge crew were seated around the table. Captain Solear was seated at his normal spot and Clowy, Lexxi, and Putat were on the opposite side. Ella was in the seat facing the captain. She would have to move if they decided to use the monitor. The three seats closest to the door were unoccupied.
They entered and Jim acknowledged everyone by nodding and saying their name. He went in order, “Captain, Clowy, Lexxi.” He paused when he reached Putat and said, “I don’t believe we have met.”
Putat was sitting in his chair trying hard not to visibly shake. This was the first time that he had actually been close to the humans. They were far taller, stronger, and just bigger than he imagined. Putat wanted to push his chair away from the table.
Solear noted the silence and said, “This is Putat, our new communications officer.”
Jim bowed his head slightly and responded, “A pleasure. I have to admit though that you are the first non-talkative communications officer I have met.” The head bow was something he was trying in place of shaking hands. So far it had little effect.
Finally, Jim said, “Ella, I didn’t realize that you were back on the ship.”
Ella stood and shook hands with each of the humans. She again felt like a child when her tiny hand was engulfed by the massive paws of the three men. She responded, “Putat and I came on board when the Sunflower stopped at supply depot. My apologies that my duties prevented me from visiting you before you left for the Exemplar.”
Jim sat closest to Solear. Colin sat in the middle, leaving Paul on the far end near Ella. Jim showed the other two how to adjust their chairs. Each fiddled with the settings for a moment and finally sat down.
Jim recapped the mission to Influenla and the corresponding battle. He tried to be as objective as possible and keep his lingering anger out of his voice.
Solear concluded, “Well, we are thankful that you were not captured.” He continued, “I called everyone here for a meeting because, quite frankly, I am not sure how we should proceed.”
Putat was the first to respond. He said, “Captain, I think it prudent that we return immediately to Conron. The..” Putat stopped and restarted, “Although the crew did an excellent job repairing the ship, we desperately need to return to a space station and have a professional maintenance staff review all systems to ensure the ship is space-worthy.”
Solear already knew what the results of that inspection would be. The Navy technicians would take one look at the Sunflower’s hull, cobbled together wiring, crisscross flooring, and a Hiriculan power generator and determine it permanently out of commission. Possibly, Putat knew that as well, which was why he was suggesting it.
Jim stood up, slammed his hands on the desk, and shouted, “NO!”
Putat slid his chair back this time. Lexxi also slid back, ducked, and attempted to get behind Clowy. Solear stood and said, “Please, everyone sit back at the table. Jim, continue.”
Solear knew that he was close to losing control of the situation. He could tell that the humans seemed very upset. He briefly reconsidered the logic of having three of them present for this meeting. They could easily overwhelm them if they tried. However, both he and Clowy were armed with stun guns, so they should be okay if the humans became violent.
Jim collected himself and said as softly and slowly as possible, “We have a ship, here, now. We are here, now. We are the only ones that can save them. In our culture, we don’t leave people behind.”
Paul stood up and said, “I would rather die trying to rescue them then live with the knowledge that I left them behind!”
Colin forced Paul to sit back down, but now he was standing. Colin said, “Captain, this ship is intact and ready for battle. “We must go save them.”
Solear thought that perhaps he was now seeing another side to humanity. Apparently they value more than just victory. They clearly wanted to risk their lives in a hopeless cause to save their fellow military members. However, the humans didn’t seem irrational, well any more so than normal.
Solear responded, “We have one ship. They have a frigate and a command carrier, two new ships that we have never heard of before. Plus, they have a lethal asteroid. Further, we have no way of getting on the station. Then, if our rescue attempt takes longer than 70 minutes, they have a fleet ready to come to their aid.”
Colin said, “We have the element of surprise. They certainly won’t be expecting us.”
Solear desperately tried to stifle a laugh until he noticed that both Jim and Paul were laughing. Solear and the others had a brief chuckle, then he said, “Well, we certainly have that. Suppose that we decide to rescue them, how do you suggest we do it?”
Clowy said, “We should have a plan.”
Solear looked strangely at Clowy. She smiled back brightly at him. Solear said, “I agree, we should indeed have a plan. Does anyone have one?”
Jim said, “We need to solve one problem at a time. How do we get rid of the asteroid?”
Paul suggested, “Let’s blow it up.”
“A solid plan. How do we do that?” asked Solear.
Paul said, “Well, let’s smash it with an even bigger asteroid.”
Solear laughed and said, “Actually, you don’t need a very big asteroid. A small one will do just as well if it is moving fast enough. Oddly enough, I have experience smashing asteroids together. However, there aren’t any spare asteroids near our target.”
Jim replied, “Fine, we will just bring one with us.”
Clowy said, “Great. We still have the asteroid from Waylon. Let’s just use that one.”
Solear again looked at Clowy and received a smile in return. Chucking that tiny rock at the asteroid would be like launching a handful sea moss at the side of a building. You might hit it, but you wouldn’t hurt it.
Solear remembered his diversity training and said, “Good idea. However, the top of that one was cut off by the marines. We need a different one.”
Colin said, “Next problem. How do we get past the frigate guarding the entrance? We can’t launch fighters before they can target us.”
Jim said, “Can the fighters fly through hyperspace?”
Solear looked around the room and said, “Computer, answer question.”
…Theoretically yes, provided a stable hyperspace window is created and the fighter remains in a perfectly straight line course…
Lexxi asked, “How about the command carrier?
Colin replied, “Simple, we will just destroy it with missiles.”
Solear said, “I doubt we can fire enough missiles to destroy it. We would have to use the guided fighter maneuver, and even then it may not work.”
Colin said, “Well then, at least we could annoy it with missiles and hopefully keep it out of the fight.”
Lexxi replied, “That won’t work. We have been in two recent battles. Our missile stockpile is nearly depleted.” Lexxi suddenly realized that she should have ordered replacements when they were docked with the supply ship.
Jim said, “Not a problem.” Jim paused for effect and continued, “We already have the missile making machines on board. We took enough raw materials from the supply ship to build 1,000 missiles. In a few hours we will have more than enough missiles for this endeavor.”
Solear said, “That is good, but we can only fire 10 missiles a minute. The command carrier can fire 72 every 3 minutes, or 24 a minute. We will be overwhelmed.”
Colin said, “We can fire every 30 seconds; 20 total missiles a minute.”
Solear looked at Colin in disbelief, but didn’t challenge him.
Putat said, “Okay, assuming that the missiles, fighters, and asteroid work; how are we going to get on the station and actually rescue them?”
“Hmm…” Jim said. “That is certainly a conundrum.”
Paul said, “I know. The marines will fly one of our confiscated Hiriculan transports to the station, pretend we are Hiriculans, and ask for permission to land. Do you think we will need a secret code?”
Jim sighed and said, “Really, our best idea is to use a stolen transport to fool Hiriculan traffic control into giving us access to the facility. Does this sound familiar to anyone?”
The 3 Advranki and 1 Altian shook their heads no. Ella looked thoughtful for a moment and said, “It’s from a human movie, isn’t it? I just watched it.” Ella put her hands together and swung them around a couple of times while saying, “Zoom.”
Jim said, “Yes. Everyone knows the plot. It will never work.”
Ella replied, “Perhaps the Hiriculans haven’t seen it.”
Jim argued, “Besides, how can we fool them. We can’t speak Hiriculan. They will immediately know it is a ruse.”
Ella replied, “Actually, I can speak Hiriculan fluently. I will pilot the shuttle.”
Everyone looked at her in astonishment. Ella simply shrugged.
Jim said, “We need a plan B just in case.”
Ella responded, “We have one. The mini-freighter Jackal is still docked to the station. The back-up plan will be to dock with that ship and convince the captain, Jack Dogbarks, to let us pass through his ship and onto the station.
The meeting ended. Colin reviewed the mechanics of increasing the firing rate from one a minute to one every 30 seconds. Jim created a simulation of a frigate and squadrons started practicing for the attack. Lexxi programmed the missile launch. Ella created a detailed flight plan for the Sunflower, Paul reviewed the station schematics and planned the invasion, and the remaining bridge officers began scanning the Opron system for large rocks.
In just under two hours everyone reported that they were ready to go. Solear checked the overhead monitor showing a countdown clock. They were almost out of time. If they didn’t leave in the next 3 hours, the prisoners would be transferred off the station and they would miss their window to rescue them.
Solear briefly reviewed every plan. It looked good, absolutely crazy on every level, but good. Solear smiled as he recalled Colin’s remark – the Hiriculans certainly won’t be expecting this attack plan.
Solear shook his head; he could delay no longer. It was time. He opened a broadcast channel to everyone on the Sunflower and said, “All hands, initiate Operation Repo.”
It was time to get their people and ships back.
Chapter 19
Captain Solear said, “Steady, steady, wait for the correct spot in the planet’s rotation.” A second later he said, “Fire.”
Lexxi palmed the fire button and fired two missiles at a moon circling Opo, the farthest gas planet from Opron’s sun, which also happened to be the nearest astronomical body to their current location. They managed to blow a small chunk off of the moon.
Putat said, “Now scanning. The asteroid chunk we created has a diameter of 11 meters.”
Solear figured that someone somewhere had created a law against senselessly attacking an uninhabited moon in a neutral system, but he wasn’t aware of it. In fact, he had intentionally avoided asking the computer for said verification.
Solear said, “That should do nicely. Please enact shield configuration 612Z5, focus it on area 000.12, and use full emergency power.”
This shield configuration was specifically created for deflecting asteroids. The shield output was centered at the front of the cruiser. The shields were very strong just off the bow, and grew weaker as they extended away from the ship. Visually, the configuration looked like a giant funnel. This was the configuration used by the fighter pilots to perform an emergency landing on the ship during the battle in Hepitila.
Ella replied, “Shields are active.” She made fine maneuvers to the ship and also adjusted the shield output and location. After several minutes she announced, “We have the asteroid captured in front of our bow.”
The computer interspersed:
…Technically, it should now be called a meteoroid instead of an asteroid...
Ella asked, “Computer, what’s the difference?”
…An asteroid rotates around an object like a sun or even a solar system. A meteoroid is an asteroid or a comet that physically impacts a planetary body…
Solear said, “Engage sub-light engines. Accelerate to .14 light. Remember to go nice and easy.” Solear really wanted Ace to do the maneuver, but Ella assured him she could do it.
Force is equal to mass times acceleration. An 11 meter (12 yard) diameter asteroid accelerated to a speed of .14 light has a tremendous amount of kinetic energy. The energy is roughly 100 million times more powerful than the largest nuclear bomb ever created.
Solear’s rough calculations predicted that the 7 hour trip through hyperspace should slow the meteoroid down significantly. The primary reason was that the rock has sharp, jagged edges and wasn’t designed interstellar travel. They briefly discussed trying to chisel the rock into a better form, but they simply didn’t have the time.
Even though it should slow down significantly during hyperspace, Solear estimated that it will still be traveling at .07 light and have a diameter of at least 9 meters. If so, it will only be 58 million times as powerful as the aforementioned bomb. That should be strong enough to knock out an ion cannon installation.
The Sunflower made a gradual turn in a wide arc and aligned itself perfectly with the Opron – Influenla hyperspace lane. They slowly accelerated the ship and the captured asteroid to a speed of .14 light.
Clowy said, “We should name the meteoroid. How about Meteoroid Kaleidoscope? The light that it is giving off is beautiful.”
Putat announced, “Some of the edges are shearing off of Meteoroid Collider.”
Solear asked, “Is it in danger of breaking up?”
Putat: “No. The core is still intact.”
Ella had timed the maneuver perfectly. They obtained the required speed of .14 light just before they reached the start of the hyperspace lane. Ella lowered the shields, stopped accelerating the ship, and activated the hyper drive.
She created a hyper window 400 kilometers in front of the ship. Then she slowed the ship a tiny amount and allowed the meteoroid to pass through the hyper window. After it passed through she quickly reset the hyper drive to produce a field around the ship, entered the coordinates for a 6 hour 50 minute hyper flight to Influenla, and jumped.
Solear said, “Put the name of the meteoroid to a ship wide vote – Kaleidoscope, Collider, and of course Lexxi’s favorite Buzzkill.”
The crew stared making missiles almost as soon as the raw materials were brought on board and continued making them during the nearly 7 hour jump. Th
ey were able to speed up the production line and make 60 an hour. They were able to produce 540 missiles in total.
These new missiles, combined with the 20 remaining in inventory, gave the ship a total of 560 missiles – 280 defensive missiles and 280 offensive missiles. They could fire at a rate of 20 missiles per minute for 28 minutes before exhausting their inventory. If all goes according to plan, this would be more than enough.
They dropped out of hyperspace 10 minutes from Influenla. Time was of the essence at this point. The fighters had to follow the asteroid as quickly as possible because they couldn’t allow the frigate to react to the missile impact and move away or interfere with their plan. Therefore, it had to be killed immediately after the asteroid impact.
The problem was that they needed to launch 40 fighters as quickly as possible from a ship designed to safely (translate slowly) launch 20. The fighters were typically stored in an elevator. There were four sets of elevators in a row in the exact center of the hangar. Normally, each row of in the elevator has two fighters facing port and two facing starboard. This allows the fighters to use both hangar bay exits.
Each elevator had five slots and would go down all the way to the floor, meaning when the fighters were completely put away, the top of the elevators were even with the hangar floor. The hangar was tall enough to expose three rows of fighters above the hangar floor. When the bottom two rows of the elevator were above the floor the top two spots extended into the ceiling.
When they were ready to launch, a plate would appear behind the fighter. This plate serves two functions; first it is a temporary shield protecting the back half of the bay and second it creates gravity. The plate creates a strong gravity field that repulses the fighter. The fighter is pushed forward hard enough to give it an initial velocity of .02 light.
They solved the problem by loading all 20 fighters in the storage elevator in the one direction – facing port. This loading method would double the launch time. However, because the remaining 20 fighters were parked on the starboard side of the gravity plate, they would be safe from the launch. The downside to the plan was that only 20 fighters could be launched in time to attack the frigate.
