by Don Foxe
Everyone aboard every ship watched monitors. No one talked. Few breathed.
The Fairchild hit a crop field and plowed a good one-hundred-foot depth into the surface layer, surging forward at 1,000mph. The ship plowed through one field after another until it came to rest with a three-mile long furrow behind it.
Cuthbert on coms reported, “Engines shut down. Master Chief Turner is requesting as many docs, nurses, and med personnel as available be dispatched. Reports of people injured and dead on every deck, every level. They took one hell of a ride. The Fleet Ranger commander on board is pulling his people together and headed for exterior exits. Rear hangar doors are above the floor of that furrow the ship created. They will be able to dispatch vehicles and equipment for ground forces. Spirits 1, 3, and 4 are touch-down and crews assisting people exiting the ship. No report of enemy forces nearby.”
“Show’s over,” Elie said to her bridge team. “Have Dr. Singh and techs report to the LBJ with as much medical supplies as they can carry and get them to the Fairchild,” she ordered. “Have Sam do the same with his meds on the 99. When Duval is finished using the Pegasus’ shuttles to transport the Marines and Rangers, have them ready to provide supplies and personnel to the Fairchild based on whatever Dr. Singh requires.”
Elena Casalobos stepped into the role of commander easily. Until someone confirmed Hawks death, or found him alive, she would shoulder the responsibility for those left breathing.
“Michael, tell Noa she commands Spirit in support of surface Marines as she sees fit. Inform Covane and Nan that Major Duval is now ground commander for any and all actions on AF3. If they want us to stay and help, they do what he says or we pick our people up and leave. Sindy, picket the ships to face the vortex and prepare to engage the in-coming destroyers and the armada behind them.”
“That last bit isn’t necessary,” Genna said. “The four destroyers changed course and are headed back to the AF3-AF2 corridor. The Prophet and escort cruiser are also making way for the same corridor. I believe they intend to leave the system and gate to wherever they came from.”
“The small mix-matched ships?” Elie asked.
“Still headed this way,” Genna replied. “They are ten to twelve hours out, and from Nadia’s system scans made during the hack, each one is equipped with a single laser cannon. I don’t mean to sound overconfident, but any one of our ships, even hurt, could take out all of them while they are still two hours away from the range needed to use a laser cannon on us.”
“The Prophet is sending them to make sure we remain here to keep them away from the planet,” Elie said. “He knows now we are free of the vortex. We can outrace his ships to the wormhole gates. We can break up the convoy to send ships after him, or we let him go.”
“Are we going to let him escape?” Lesego Ndaba asked. “After all of this, he gets to go home and make plans to do it all again somewhere else.”
“We’re hurt and we have a lot of dead and injured people,” Elie responded. “We need to get AF3 under control and make sure the rest of the system is free of Zenge and Prophet followers. We also need to re-open communications with Space Fleet and Earth, and I do not think that will be pretty. So we let him go.”
“What about Captain Cooper?” Casey Adams asked from Navs.
“It might be close, but I don’t think Coop, Hiro, and Mags will arrive before the Prophet gates out,” Elie said. “Sindy, send our thanks to Fell and tell them they can stand down. We’re going to get busy, but nothing they will be able to help with.”
“Should we contact Coop directly?” Senait asked.
“Cassandra will monitor communications and know what’s going on,” Elie said. “Coop is on mission. Unless he breaks silence, don’t make contact. I don’t think the Prophet’s people can eavesdrop on tachyon transmissions, but I don’t see a reason to test that theory.”
“Will do,” Kebede answered. “Elie, you’ve done a fantastic job. If you had not been in that chair, I’m not sure we would have survived. Ladies and gentlemen, respects.”
Col. Senait Kebede stood, faced her commanding officer, snapped to attention and delivered a salute. Everyone on the bridge did the same, holding the position until Elie rose and return the salute, tears in her eyes, pride in her heart.
When she sat down she whispered, but knew she was heard, “Kennedy, I love you. The PT-109 is the finest ship I have ever served on. Good job, girl. Great job.”
The Wraith passed over AF3 and into the vortex unnoticed. The combination of stealth, small size, the Lisza Kaugh’s new forcefield, and traveling within space-fold meant no one in the system, including their own people, knew Cassandra was minutes from reaching its final destination.
The three aboard monitored all the action over the past few hours. Mags quite entertaining with her on-going commentary regarding everything that happened, good and bad.
As Coop passed within a couple of minutes of his former ship and crew, friends, and fellow soldiers, he said, “Good job.”
Now time for him to do his job.
PART 4
Conclusion
Consequences
Rivers eventually end. All the water from all the different origins empty into a larger body. The mouth of a river is often the location civilizations select to build major trading centers. A place of transitions and transportation heading in all directions.
As a consequence, civilization come into contact with other civilizations.
CHAPTER 37
The geniuses at Trent Industries, notably Nathan Trent himself, designed the two-person Wraith for ultimate stealth. No one yet discovered how to truly cloak a vessel, but this ship came damn close.
United Earth Council starships of Space Fleet utilized toned-down space-fold speeds to go from a planet to the outer rim of a system where, once free of the gravity bubble exerted by the system’s star and orbital object, could engage full space-fold to journey to another system. The ship reentered natural space before reengaging space-fold at the lower levels to make quick time to the final destination. This often meant it could take as much time traveling from a planet to the system’s rim, and the reverse at the other end of the trip, as it took to travel between entire solar systems.
Except for one ship. Cassandra now came equipped with the only force field emitter created by newly discovered and specially cut black diamond crystals. The crystal array enveloped the fighter in a force field nothing could penetrate (and nothing could escape).
On a hunch and a prayer, Daniel Marcel Cooper, employed the force field above the planet Fell and engaged the space-fold array at maximum thrust. The result: a ship able to exit a system without the adverse effects of gravity wells surrounding orbital bodies or the system’s star.
Now he and his companions, Hiroshi Kimura (Hiro), and Mary Margaret Moore (Mags) were going to learn if the reverse held true.
Instead of exiting at the Aster system rim and taking the six to eight hours to reach Aster Farum 3 a normal space-fold in-system trek would take, they planned on exiting into natural space three-million-miles beyond AF3. Not only the first test of the combination of force field and space-fold used to exit into natural space inside a solar system, they would be exiting into a gravitational vortex. They would drop into a region producing distortions and disruptions of space and time, and gravity waves capable of moving a small planet or crushing a ship the size of a Wraith.
Mags sat shotgun while Coop piloted the ship from the left seat. Hiro sat at the Communications and Tactical (Com-Tac) console directly behind the cockpit.
“If this doesn’t work and we die, I am going to be seriously pissed,” she said, watching the navigational heads-up display counting down until exit into natural space.
“Think positive,” Coop replied. “It could work perfectly and we could still die from the gravity disruptions in the vortex.”
“Or it could work perfectly, we are able to survive the vortex, and the two battlecruisers we are attempting to sneak up on s
ee us and destroy us,” Hiro said, checking the location of said battlecruisers relative to their exit point.
“Bite me, both of you,” Mags responded, but smiling. “I do have to say I love this ship.”
“Thank you, Mags,” came a voice with no body attached. The ship’s Artificial Intelligence came with an avatar who could materialize through virtual-hologram technology.
Cassie had not yet materialized before Hiro. Coop did not want the distraction of explaining the overtly sexy female form Cassie chose when solid.
“All systems at peak efficiency,” Cassie reported. “I loaded the data from the Mischene buoys in the vortex. It should provide sufficient information to allow us to navigate the field’s gravitational oddities when we exit.”
“Updates on the CVBG?” Coop asked the AI.
“The Carrier is on the surface acting as a shelter and staging area. Spirit Squadron is operating sorties in support of ground forces, or protecting local military and civilian assets. The three remaining ships orbit over AF3. Various levels of damage following the battle. The SFPT-99 reports the most destruction. The destroyer-class Pegasus is in the best shape, and the SFPT-109 somewhere in between.”
His long-time friend and one-time living companion, Captain Elena Casalobos, commanded the PT-109. She acted as flag officer for the CVBG. Admiral Stephen Hawks dead, body found pinned within the Fairchild’s devastated command bridge.
Hiro reported from com-tac. “The four enemy destroyers that turned away after the battlecruisers orbiting AF3 were destroyed or surrendered continue to make way for a wormhole gate on the AF3-AF2 corridor. They are two-million-miles away and present no danger. The Prophet’s battlecruiser and escort are headed toward the same gate location. The fleet of smaller ships remain on course for AF3. Apparently to cover the Prophet’s escape.”
The Prophet, Atticus Soren, a Mischene racial supremacist and religious zealot believed himself the Sacred Voice of the Tahbita. The religious text of the Mischene race predicted a manifest destiny in which the Mischene ruled the galaxy. The Mischene, in turn, ruled by The Prophet.
Coop faced and fought radical religious extremists in the aftermath of the pandemic on Earth that wiped out half the population. He had first-hand experience with men like the Prophet. People who cared about nothing but personal glory. He decided Soren could not be allowed to leave the Aster system, to return somewhere else later, intent on continuing his war to subjugate the galaxy.
Soren’s father initiated the gambit to gain ultimate power by setting his son up as a proxy. Together they were responsible for the death of billions of innocents across multiple worlds.
Atticus Soren ordered his father’s execution in his opening salvo to take over the Aster system.
Coop was not going to allow him to escape.
“Five minutes to exit,” Mags said. “If these readings are correct, and between that damn force field and the vortex, I cannot guarantee they are, we will exit less than one-hundred-miles behind and below the Prophet’s ship. In space distances we call that pretty fucking tight.”
Coop and Hiro donned the METS skintight battle suit. The woven kevlar-steel-alloy fit like lycra, but could stop a blade and prevent a laser burst from cutting into them. Of course, the burst would put them on their butts, but better than being dead. They covered the METS in EVA suits with re-breathers, helmets, and mini-hover jets.
The plan called for Mags to pilot Cassandra and place the small ship beneath the Mischene battlecruiser and between the double shafts containing the ship’s power plants, weapons armory, and assorted machinery. The site where the vents shunted unwanted gases into space.
A ship, even this specially designed one-of-a-kind might not risk its own destruction by flying into an obviously dangerous, probably insane position. Mags would not think twice about such a maneuver.
Coop and Hiro would transfer from Cassandra to the battlecruiser by crossing open space.
Coop received a cruiser diagram from Admiral Nan, currently the military commander of the loyalists on AF3. When Coop contacted Nan with a plan to stop the Prophet, he had two requests. The second part included ship diagrams and codes for access points.
The shovel-head craft had an exterior maintenance hatch Coop and Hiro would use to enter the vessel. Nan provided a universal access code they hoped none of the Prophet’s people thought to deactivate and recode.
“What happens if the code doesn’t work?” Mags asked. “When we discussed the entry and recon, you kind of skipped right by that possibility.”
“I send Hiro to the front door to ask who ordered Japanese take-out,” Coop replied straight-faced.
“And when they open the fortune cookie, knock-out gas will explode and take out everyone on board,” Mags quipped.
“Fortune cookies are not Japanese,” the former Japanese Imperial Guardsman said.
“Actually, fortune cookies were invented by a Japanese-American in San Francisco,” Coop said. “We could always spike their saki.”
“If the codes don’t work, you’ll make it up as you go,” she said more seriously.
“Prepare,” Cassie called from embedded speakers. “Exit into natural space in thirty-seconds.”
Dr. Nathan Trent was an aeronautics and history buff. When he decided he wanted his own personal fighter-spaceship, he looked back in time and decided to use the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor as his design platform.
He did change the pointed nose to a wider, meaner looking front he stole from the Shelby Cobra automobile. The ship sported a sleek profile, delta wings, a raised cockpit, and retractible horizontal and vertical stabilizers in the rear to allow the craft ultimate maneuverability within an atmosphere. Made from next-gen alloys and materials discovered inside the Martian hangar, the components and her low-profile made the ship undetectable by scans and radars.
On a whim, Trent installed an antiquated entrance and egress. The whim about to play a major role in the mission.
Mags handled controls inside the cockpit, sealed off from the rear of the ship. She slipped Cassandra beneath the Mischene battlecruiser and the flagship for the Prophet. Coop and Hiro wore their EVA suits and carried hard-shell carriers holding clothes and equipment they would need once they invaded the enemy vessel. Mags piloted the Wraith, keeping her steady and true in spite of the turbulence from both the vortex in space and the battlecruiser coursing above her. Within feet of the massive cruiser’s keel, she opened the hatch.
Coop went up the ladder, his upper body extending into space.
“Mags, I need two-feet forward” he called. She heard and the ship inched forward.
The access door appeared. The alien keypad symbols meant nothing to the human, but Nan instructed him on the sequence, which he entered and waited.
The door popped. Coop’s fingers found the edges and slid the cover back to provide an opening large enough for a body. “Keep it steady, Mags. We’re about to transfer.”
Coop’s lean six-one frame flew from the fighter to the cruiser in the weightlessness of space. The access tunnel provided more than enough room, allowing him to turn, take the two cases handed up by Hiro, and then offer his friend a hand. Once Hiro was inside, he said, “We’re in Mags. Closing the hatch. Stay close, and stay safe. Coop, out.”
Mags placed Cassandra in the rocking chair, matching the cruiser’s speed and direction, making sure she maintained clearance on all quarters.
“Cassie,” she said. “I’ll leave it up to you to warn me of drift.”
“Will do,” came the reply. “It is impossible to scan the interior of the battlecruiser undetected, but I do have a lock on Captain Cooper and Dr. Kimura’s com-trans signals. I imposed them on the schematics for the ship provided by Admiral Nan. I can display on monitors or by hologram.”
“I’ll just watch the monitors for now, Cassie. If anything important comes across the communications channels, let me know.” With that, she sat back in her seat, turned, and propped her feet on the pilot’s seat. Th
e wait the hard part now.
Coop and Hiro opened the cases, set out everything on the floor of the maintenance shaft, got out of their EVA suits, and packed them.
Coop strapped two diamond-powered laser pistols onto each thigh using modified latest-generation BlackHawk Tactical Serpa Holsters redesigned on Fell to carry them. He sheathed his rubber-gripped Army Ranger issued Fallkniven A1 knife on the back of his belt.
Hiro wore one laser pistol in a Y-strap holster and carried his katana across his back. Improper for a draw, but easier to transport.
“While the Prophet orbited AF3, the military performed deep penetration scans of the ships,” Coop said. “According to Admiral Nan, the Prophet’s ship was modified for a space two decks high and several cabins long. We assume this change is a combination throne room and personal chambers. Nan’s diagrams indicated we need to climb up six decks and make our way forward a couple of hundred feet.”
“Coop, Mags. Can you copy?” Her voice came inside his head via the trans-com.
“Mags, Coop. Keep it short. We don’t know if they might detect communications.”
“It’s important,” she replied. “Cassie has been monitoring activity and communications on AF3. Besides the armada of ships heading their way, the sheer number of Zenge soldiers on the surface is too much for them. Even if the Mischene military comes out of hiding, they have been depleted for so long, no one thinks they can put up much of a fight.”
“I realize they need help, but we are not currently in a position to do a hell of a lot,” Coop responded.
“Maybe we are. A communication between the 109 and AF3 command center says the Zenge still wear their shock collars. If they could get the codes, the computer people could take control. They could shock the Zenge senseless, or even kill them. The only ones in the system with those command codes are the Prophet, and his top general, Trewellan. Both are on board this ship.”
