Changing of the Guard (A Galaxy Unknown - Book 11)

by Thomas DePrima

  "I don't think so, Captain. The cyborgs have lost the ability to think for themselves. They simply march in lockstep and do whatever their masters order them to do. They know that if they don't follow orders they might be disassembled."

  "Or have their brains destroyed."

  "Their brains have already been destroyed. That's why they're incapable of independent thought and march in lockstep."

  "I understand."

  "What will happen to me now?"

  "I imagine our SCI people will come to take custody of you and bring you to their headquarters for questioning. If you convince them that you only want to be free of the Denubbewa and are completely honest and open with all your responses, you'll eventually be released. When that happens, I'll work to help you and your countrymen become biologics again. Then you'll be freed, given a ship for your intergalactic trip, and escorted to the border to ensure nothing happens to you while you're in G.A. space."

  "I've been thinking, Captain— I've had nothing else to do. You once said you'd find us a suitable planet here in G.A. space. Is that offer still open?"

  "Yes, it is, if that's what you want."

  "I'm leaning in that direction. I've begun to think that your G.A. might actually have the ability to stop the advance of the Denubbewa. And there's no guarantee that if we go to another galaxy we won't encounter a race even worse than the Denubbewa. But I'll need to discuss it with my countrymen before I commit us. Would it be possible to see and talk with them?"

  "Of course. You'll have an opportunity to see and converse with your countrymen before you have to make a final decision."

  "I mean now, so they have time to think about it."

  "Right now they're still on the Denubbewa ship while you're on my ship. So I'm afraid there's no way you can communicate with them. Be patient. You'll all be back together again."

  "Can't we communicate by radio?"

  "The hull material of the Denubbewa ship blocks transmission signals. I'm afraid you'll have to wait."

  "Captain, I've been very patient until now. What are you hiding? Have you destroyed my countrymen?"

  "No, of course not. I'm just not going to halt this ship in space to make special arrangements for a radio communication."

  "I insist."

  "And I refuse." Christa took a deep breath and then released it. "I guess our discussion is over for today."

  She then turned and walked towards the door.

  "Wait, Captain. I'm sorry. I was wrong to accuse you of harming my countrymen."

  "I understand," Christa said as she opened the door and pulled it closed behind her.

  * * *

  Chapter Fourteen

  ~ February 5th, 2291 ~

  "Go right in," Admiral Holt's aide said. "He's expecting both of you."

  Commander Christa Carver and Commander Lori Ashraf entered the small corridor leading to the entrance doors of Admiral Holt's inner office and stopped. Before continuing further they took a moment to straighten their uniforms and make sure everything was impeccable. Satisfied, they continued on, the double doors sliding silently open as the duo stepped into the area where they would be recognized by the sensor.

  Both women entered the office at once and proceeded to the Admiral's desk, stopping two meters away and bracing to attention. Since Christa had received her promotion earlier than Lori, she was senior. She said, "Commander Christa Carver and Commander Lori Ashraf, reporting to the admiral as ordered."

  Holt, standing behind his desk, smiled and said, "At ease, ladies. Welcome back. Christa, congratulations on securing an intact Denubbewa warship for us to study. The scientists, engineers, and SCI are beside themselves. The yard manager was fighting to keep them all at bay while he was still trying to shoehorn that ship into an enclosed dock."

  "Thank you, sir," Christa said.

  "I have one question though. Why didn't you space those damn cyborgs? They're all brain-dead and never yield any useful information."

  "This batch is different, sir. I chose one of them to examine and he turned out to be talkative to the point of distraction. I let him talk."

  "A talkative Denubbewa? That's different."

  "He claims to have been from a race called Elobians until his brain was harvested from his original body and installed in a cyborg body."

  "Did you hear that, Jen?"

  "Yes, Brian. I did."

  Christa and Lori immediately turned in the direction of the voice. Admiral of the Fleet Jenetta Carver was seated in Holt's informal area, a large alcove containing several overstuffed chairs and a sofa.

  "Why don't we all find seats in the alcove and you two can tell Jenetta and me all about your adventure?"

  As they sat down, Commander Ashraf said, "I'm afraid I won't be able to tell you very much. I arrived a week after I learned Christa had found the warship."

  "Christa, why don't you tell us your story?" Admiral Holt said.

  "I prepared a complete written report, Admiral."

  "I read reports all day. I occasionally like to hear firsthand accounts because I can ask questions afterward."

  "Yes, sir."

  About an hour later, Christa wrapped up her report with, "That's about it, sir."

  "Do you believe this Denubbewa?"

  "Uh, I'd like to. I have to admit he isn't what I was expecting. But at the same time— well— I don't really trust him. I'm sure part of that is based on his appearance. I just don't know, sir. That's why I purposely misled him and lied about the wormholes and the ordnance teleportation. If he is lying and he manages to get a message back to his base, I want them to be running in circles looking for— or trying to create— wormhole entrances while another group works on teleportation methods."

  Admiral Holt laughed and said, "That would be something. I'd almost be willing to set him free to see that happen. But we have a major problem. Our scientists have confirmed what your engineers speculated. The hull material of that Denubbewa ship is Dakinium."

  "I expected that determination. It makes their ships invisible to all of our sensors. I wonder…"

  "Wonder what?" Holt said when Christa failed to complete her sentence after ten seconds had passed.

  "Oh— sorry, sir. I was just wondering if the Denubbewa have found a way to detect the presence of other ships sheathed in Dakinium. In all of the reports I've read regarding their normal operations, they travel in large groups. They must have some way of recognizing the presence of other ships in close proximity so they don't constantly crash into one another."

  "Perhaps they use a system like the one developed by Space Command to protect our ships from friendly fire," Jenetta said. "But since the signal is on the standard RF band and can only travel at the speed of light, by the time it's detected by someone else, the transmission source is long gone. We must accept that we've lost the edge we had over the Denubbewa."

  "So what do we do now, Admiral Carver?" Commander Ashraf asked.

  "Obviously we have to develop a new strategy. Perhaps a direction will emerge from the Denubbewa interviews being conducted by SCI or the detailed examination of the ship being conducted by our scientists and engineers. It's really too early to speculate. Thank you for your work, Commanders. You're excused."

  As the two officers stood up to leave, Christa asked, "Dinner tonight?"

  "Of course. You're welcome also, Lori, if you're free."

  "Thank you, Admiral. I'd love to come."

  "Wonderful. I'll see you both tonight."

  After the two women left, Admiral Holt said, "Executive session in twenty minutes."

  "Right, we'd better get going."

  ~ ~

  "That's the situation," Jenetta said as she wrapped up the oral report. The A.B. was meeting in private executive session in her large office.

  "So it's as bad as you indicated at the last executive session," Admiral Hillaire said.

  "Yes. The Denubbewa have Dakinium and they're sheathing all of their ships with it. We will no longer be able
to detect them with our sensors, even when we're parked right next to them, unless they turn on their running lights or exterior lights, or open an airlock or something. Essentially, from a strategic point of view, we're worse off than we were three decades ago. At least back then we could see the enemy coming."

  "Weren't our scientists working on something that allowed us to detect Dakinium-sheathed ships?" Admiral Burke asked.

  "We've been working on that since we first began covering our ships with Dakinium and we learned our sensors can't detect our own ships, not even when we're in close proximity," Admiral Plimley said. "So far, we've been unsuccessful. That's why the standard practice is to retract the covers over our running lights whenever we're close to another GSC ship or any ship we want to see us. Even if the bulbs aren't lit, the sensor signal bounces back from the lamp surface rather than being absorbed when it encounters Dakinium."

  "And nothing has worked?"

  "Nothing. The Dakinium absorbs any photons that come into contact with it. It's really an incredible material. Its best feature can also be our biggest problem."

  "There must be something we've overlooked," Admiral Woo said. "There's always something."

  "Well…" Admiral Plimley started to say and then stopped.

  "Well what, Loretta?" Jenetta said.

  "Well, there was something we pursued for a while. In theory it sounded great, but we couldn't make any progress with it."

  "What was it?" Jenetta asked.

  "It involved neutrinos."

  "Neutrinos?" Admiral Ressler echoed. "It's been a lot of years since I was at the academy. Refresh my memory."

  "Neutrinos are fermions that interact only via the weak subatomic force and gravity."

  Admiral Ressler chuckled and said, "You've lost me already."

  "It's pretty complex. Basically, we were interested in using neutrinos because they're electrically neutral."

  "Ah, I begin to see," Admiral Ressler said. "Since they're electrically neutral, the Dakinium wouldn't absorb them."

  "Correct. But even so, if you were to aim a neutrino beam at something, the neutrinos won't bounce back. They simply pass through whatever they come into contact with. So our approach was to see if we could measure the neutrinos that have passed through a Dakinium-sheathed ship."

  "Now you've lost me again."

  "Okay, think of it this way. You have a large net suspended a meter above the floor. The openings in the net are six centimeters. Onto that net you drop a bushel of ping-pong balls and a bushel of softballs. Do you see?"

  "Uh, not yet."

  "Okay, if you evaluate what's on the floor after you pour everything into the net, you see what?"

  "A lot of ping-pong balls."

  "Exactly. How many softballs do you see on the floor?"

  "None."

  "Exactly."

  "I'm still not clear on what that means."

  "Okay, if you would normally see a mix of ping-ping balls and softballs on the floor without the net, but you see only ping-pong balls, you know that a net was used to block the softballs. So knowing that a Dakinium-sheathed ship blocks everything except neutrinos and all you were sensing in a certain direction were neutrinos, what would you assume?"

  "That a Dakinium-sheathed ship was present in that direction?"

  "Exactly."

  "Excellent," Admiral Hillaire said, "That's perfect, Loretta."

  "You would think so, which is why we pursued it for a while. Basically, we're not looking for something to be bounced back at us but for something that's missing altogether from the picture of the surrounding space, such as when a Dakinium-sheathed ship blocks the light photons from distant stars. However, we found that we were severely limited with the distance the detection was accurate."

  "What was the distance?"

  "Only about ten kilometers."

  "Ten kilometers is great," Admiral Ressler said. "I expected you to say something like ten meters."

  "Ten kilometers may seem like a lot in this room, but in space it's nothing."

  "It wouldn't be useful for locating Denubbewa ships at great distances," Jenetta said, "but it would be perfect in situations where fleet ships are operating in close proximity to other ships in stealth situations. It would mean we could stop giving away our positions to everyone by uncovering running lights. Only fleet ships would be able see other fleet ships."

  "Yes, in that situation it would be effective. But everyone must understand the limitations and not depend on it to reveal the presence of ships beyond the ten-kilometer range."

  "You're quite sure it wouldn't be possible to increase the sensitivity distance?" Admiral Burke asked.

  "At the time we were working it, we had exhausted every avenue we could think of. But science is always making new breakthroughs, which is why we periodically revisit ideas we had dropped because all avenues were believed to have been expended during the previous research effort."

  "How soon can we begin installing this new device in our ships?" Admiral Holt asked.

  "Oh, about six months, I would say."

  "Okay. All in favor?" Jenetta said.

  Everyone agreed by raising their hands.

  "Let's try to make it sooner if possible. And perhaps we can reopen that line of research to see if there have been any new breakthroughs that might help us increase the useful range."

  ~ ~ ~

  "Were there any suggestions put forth at the A.B. meeting today for how we should proceed?" Christa asked Jenetta after they had sat down to eat dinner.

  "That's not proper conversation at the dinner table," Jenetta replied. She was holding Kyle and feeding him while Celona fed Kaycee. The Jumakas were eating nearby, and a server was entering and leaving the room as needs arose at the table.

  "You're right. Sorry."

  "How did your first ship command go, Lori?" Jenetta asked.

  "Wonderful. I have a great crew and everything went smoothly. We encountered no problems on this cruise so I don't know for sure how everyone will react under pressure, but I think they'll do great."

  "I'm sure they will," Jenetta said.

  Following dinner, as they all sat in the family living room, Christa said, "Tayna, Cayla, how are you doing with the sentience testing?"

  "We think they might be done with the testing," Cayla replied.

  "At least we hope they're done," Tayna said. "It seems like it's taking forever."

  "We think they just can't believe their own eyes," Cayla said, "because our outward appearance too closely resembles that of animals with limited intelligence on their home worlds. If we walked upright on our rear legs, we probably would have been declared sentient months ago."

  "That's very possible," Lori said. "But you think the testing is over?"

  "They haven't scheduled any more tests in two months," Tayna said. "We believe they're locked in debate over presenting their conclusions to the G.A. Senate for a resolution vote."

  "But they can't possibly declare you to be non-sentient," Christa said.

  "Why not?" Tayna asked.

  "Because it's so obvious that you're sentient. Several worlds have already declared you to be sentient, including the planet where Jumakas originated."

  "Only three planets out of the dozens represented in the Senate," Jenetta said.

  "Has any planet officially declared that Jumakas are not sentient?" Lori asked.

  "None," Cayla said, "as far as we know."

  "So the score is three and oh," Christa said. "That's a pretty good indication how the vote will go when they actually get around to voting."

  "As I've stated in the past," Jenetta said, "governments move ponderously slow at times. It doesn't mean they disagree with the proposal I put forth; it's simply the way political business is conducted in a free and open society. Lori and Christa, join me in my study."

  ~ ~

  Christa, the last to enter the study, closed the door and then selected one of the overstuffed chairs for the conference. Once all three
women were settled, Jenetta said, "You'll both be receiving orders from Admiral Holt in the morning to return to your search areas and resume your task. Commander Fareman has continued searching his assigned area and Commander Kalborne will soon leave to begin his efforts with the fourth squadron in their assigned territory."

  "We're going to continue looking for Denubbewa, even knowing we can't sense their presence?" Commander Ashraf asked.

  "Yes, Lori, because we don't know for certain that all Denubbewa ships have been sheathed in Dakinium. For all we know, the actual number of ships already clad may be small. So you're going hunting again. There's also the secondary objective of locating bases inside asteroids, and third, identifying derelict ships and documenting their locations. And if you do happen across a Denubbewa ship that isn't Dakinium-sheathed, don't destroy it. At least not right away. Try to follow it. It might lead you to a mothership."

  "What will happen to the Elobian prisoners?" Christa asked.

  "First, we have to establish that they're sincere in their desire to separate from the Denubbewa cyborg population and that they're being completely honest and open with us. Once we establish their mindset, we'll make decisions regarding their futures and not before. However, if we believe their stories, we'll do everything we can to help them. We have your reports and a copy of every recording you made when you spoke with the cyborg you took aboard your ship. SCI has been studying them and piecing together a history of the race. Once that's complete, they'll interview all of the others separately and try to corroborate the story and the desires of the others to be free from the Denubbewa. All of the cyborgs have been placed into special Dakinium-sheathed holding areas where they're unable to communicate electronically with the others or pick up information from our communications. So they won't be comparing notes or learning new information regarding our military strength and operations."

  "What about the cyborgs in the packing cases?" Christa asked.

  "Once we've completed our work with the ones that were on tables, we'll start opening the cases and waking them so we can corroborate their stories as well. Don't worry, we'll treat them properly as long as they don't resist and we know they're not a threat."