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

by Thomas DePrima

  "And how were you supposed to bring these invasion forces here?"

  "Eons ago, the Denubbewa conquered a people called the Locculo, who'd developed the ability to travel through what your people call wormholes. The Locculo called it Droux Parchur. Roughly translated that means Cosmic Jump. Captain Carver told me you have the ability to locate naturally occurring Cosmic Jump Gates, so you know what I'm talking about. She calls them Einstein-Rosen bridges."

  "You told my sister that the Denubbewa had determined that wormholes are a myth, and that there is no such thing."

  "I— wanted to shield you from the truth. I did— lie— about that."

  "Even after my sister told you we already had such travel capability using naturally occurring wormholes?"

  "It's complicated, Admiral. Wormholes are the most dangerous form of travel ever discovered. The Denubbewa believe it will allow them to establish complete domination of this galaxy in a matter of years. But although the Denubbewa gained access to the technology when subjugating the Locculo, they were never able to make it work the way they wanted it to work. By the time they understood what a momentous discovery they'd stumbled upon, they'd already wiped the minds of the scientists who had developed it, along with everyone who had ever worked on the project. That's why our brains were never wiped. They needed scientists who were able to think and reason, unlike the majority of cyborgs, which are mindless drones that perform endlessly repetitive tasks.

  "The Cosmic Jump technology the Denubbewa acquired was fully functional from the first day, but it only permitted a few individuals to travel through the gate that was established by the equipment. To send more, you had to open a new gate, which is time consuming. The Denubbewa wanted the capability to send their largest ships through. So they forced my people to learn the secrets of the Cosmic Jump technology and build the equipment that would allow them to send motherships through. With an expanded Cosmic Jump Gate system, they'll be able to send battle groups anywhere in the universe in the blink of an eye. I'm sure you understand the danger that presents."

  "You said the process has to be re-initiated for each jump. How much time are we talking about?"

  "Not a great deal. I'd say about ten of your seconds. But the Denubbewa wanted to create a gate that would remain open for as long as they wanted. So we were forced to slave for dozens of years to learn and understand the technology that opens Cosmic Jump Gates between any two points the operators choose, and then make modifications so the gates could accommodate enormous ships. Now, once the expanded Cosmic Jump Gate is open, ships can pour through for as long as the power remains stable."

  "How do you open your Cosmic Jump Gates?"

  "We need to have a ship or satellite station at each end. Once the initiating signal is sent, the Cosmic Jump Gate begins to form and grow. It expands relative to the amount of power devoted to the gate. The size of the Jump Gate we can create is more than enough for a Denubbewa mothership filled with warships. After we arrived here via the original Cosmic Jump Gates of the Locculo, the ships that had come ahead told us about the metal you call Dakinium. They had acquired a small sample and had been working for many annuals to produce it in significant quantities."

  "How did the first ships get here if you need a ship or satellite at each end?"

  "Centuries ago, the Denubbewa sent ships out in every direction and at least one in each group had the original Locculo equipment that allows a few people at a time to go through. Key supervisors are required to travel back periodically to report their progress. Once the new technology was perfected, my countrymen and I were sent here to build the equipment that would allow the fleets to come here via the new Cosmic Jump Gate. For the first test, they sent three motherships fully loaded with warships."

  "They sent ships out centuries ago?"

  "Yes. Normal space travel is the only way to get anywhere if you don't have a Cosmic Jump Gate network already established or you don't know how to locate naturally occurring Cosmic Jump Gates, as you've done."

  "And G.A. space was selected as the first target. Why?"

  "The Denubbewa see you as the greatest threat to their plans they've ever encountered. Your Dakinium alone made it imperative they come here first because they want to stop you before you grow too powerful for them to overcome. The Denubbewa plan is to eventually rule the universe. After the first invasion force arrived here, we were supposed to return and then travel to a new location and build another Cosmic Jump Gate emitter somewhere else. But we stole the ship that contained the unit we'd built here so no more motherships could be sent until they built a new emitter."

  "How long did it take you to build the emitter once you had arrived here?"

  "We worked on it for about an annual because we didn't always have the right materials. When we needed something we couldn't get here, it would be sent though the Cosmic Jump Gate conduit from the Denubbewa home world, provided it was small enough."

  "So the Denubbewa will need a year to replace the one we now have?"

  "Yes. But possibly quite a bit more because they no longer have us to build it for them. They'll have to find new scientists somewhere and teach them the science and technology. But where we were building something that didn't previously exist, they now have complete plans and documentation for the construction."

  "How difficult will it be for them to find new scientists?"

  "I really have no idea. The Denubbewa leaders like to quickly subjugate the most intelligent members of any society they conquer because they know the more intelligent members are more likely to lead a rebellion. But they control so many thousands of worlds, they might have some they've held in reserve for just such a situation as this."

  "If you only brought three motherships here, where did the other nine come from?"

  "The Denubbewa who came here by normal space travel had orders to immediately begin building new motherships and warships whenever they entered a new part of space where materials were available. Then, after the Denubbewa leader here learned about your Dakinium, he summoned all ships in G.A. space to come to a rendezvous location and have a new skin layer applied. That's why you were able to find so many Denubbewa ships gathered in one place.

  "Admiral, the Denubbewa want your territory, and more importantly, your technology. Your G.A. is next on their conquest schedule. And once they arrive here in force, you won't be able to stop them. All sentient life here will be crushed or turned into cyborg drones. And if you defeat the first wave, they will send another, and then another, each larger than the last— until there are only cyborgs left in this part of space."

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ~ September 20th, 2291 ~

  "I had a most interesting conversation with the cyborg named Sywasock this morning," Jenetta said in the afternoon's private executive session of the A.B. held in her office.

  "Did you go as Christa?" Admiral Plimley asked.

  "No, I went as myself."

  "You probably would have gotten more information if you'd gone as Christa."

  "Any more information and I would've needed medics to carry me out."

  "Medics?" Admiral Plimley echoed.

  "Because I would've been suffering from shock. Listen to this," Jenetta said as she placed a data ring on the small spindle of the keyboard on her desk. There was no image, but the sound played through the wall monitor's speakers.

  When the other admirals had heard the replay of the full conversation, there was complete silence in the room.

  Finally, Admiral Bradlee said, "Oh my God. Many, many thousands of motherships, and many, many hundreds of thousands of warships, plus a sextillion cyborgs to do their bidding."

  "Exactly," Jenetta said. "But we know we can still kick their butts in a fair fight. At least until they learn about the double-envelope capability that allows us to be out of sync with space/time."

  "Sywasock said at the end of the conversation that he will work with us and cooperate completely. Do you trust him
to keep his word, Jen?"

  "We'll see. You heard me tell him that if he wants us to honor the promises made to him by my sister, he'll have to be one hundred percent open and honest from this point forward. No more lies and no more silence games. He must think of us as his brothers and sisters just as he did of the people on his home world before it was invaded and everyone was turned into cyborgs.

  "The first thing we should require of him is to explain to our best experts the use of the Cosmic Jump Gate emitter device he claims to have constructed here with the other cyborgs. Next, we have him or the other cyborgs—or all of them together—explain in minute detail the science and technology behind the Cosmic Jump Gate. If he has any drawings or schematics in his brain or the electronic storage devices in his body, he must make copies for us. When they're done explaining it, our people must understand it as well as he does, if not better. The Denubbewa allegedly got the original device from an alien race called the Locculo , and this group of Elobians were able to piece together enough of the science to create stable Cosmic Jump Gates that allow ships as large as Denubbewa motherships to cross any distance in the universe. We need to have that knowledge now if we're to have a chance of defeating the Denubbewa because one thing seems fairly certain. The Denubbewa will never stop trying to turn us into their slaves. Does anyone disagree with that?"

  The other admirals in the room were silent, but as she looked around the room and made eye contact, all shook their heads in response.

  "Do we have to call them Cosmic Jump Gates?" Admiral Plimley asked. "I've only called them wormholes all my life."

  "I've always hated the term wormhole. An American theoretical physicist named John Wheeler is credited with the term, but I find it a bit repulsive. I'm going to call them Cosmic Jump Gates in all of my official reports to honor the forgotten race of Locculo who defined the science and developed the technology, but you can continue to use wormhole if you prefer."

  ~ ~ ~

  Twenty-five days later, Christa received a long Priority-One message from Jenetta. It contained a briefing of the situation at Quesann and Jenetta's discussion with Sywasock.

  When the message was over, Christa stood up and paced around her office, thinking. She'd known the situation was bad, but she hadn't realized just how bad. But at the same time, there was hope. Forewarned is forearmed, and they now knew the basic history of the Denubbewa and the breadth of their plans. She'd had very little compunction about killing the Denubbewa drones before, and now she had none. For the most part, they were, as previously believed, mindless drones with no will of their own. They were no better than robots, doing what they were programmed to do. Some might actually consider it a mercy to destroy them. One thing was certain— the Denubbewa would never hesitate to kill any member of a sentient species and use their brain to create another mindless cyborg for slavery or free labor.

  The Koshi was still operating in an area roughly twenty-five days away from Quesann for communications and roughly forty-eight days' travel time at Marc-One speed, so Christa realized the message from Jenetta had been sent before she learned of the second battle in this sector. If they'd been substantially closer, Christa would have ordered the ship to Quesann immediately. They hadn't had any more luck finding Denubbewa battle groups since the last encounter so the tally still stood at five motherships and well over a thousand warships destroyed. Any day now she expected to hear that the first of the reclamation vessels had arrived at the first battle site. When that happened, the reclamation ships would become responsible for guarding the scrap from scavengers and her four CPS-16s would return to the hunt. Once Quesann had learned of the second battle, they would have hopefully begun preparations to send reclamation vessels to that second location.

  ~ ~ ~

  "Message from the Seeker, Captain," Christa heard via her CT from the watch officer on the bridge. They've located another Denubbewa battle group."

  "How large?"

  "Four motherships. No warships in sight."

  "Have navigation plot a course and engage at Marc-One as soon as it's ready. Send a confirmation message to the Seeker and inform me when an arrival time estimate is available."

  "Aye, Captain. Edmunds out."

  "Carver out."

  No warships visible was a new twist, Christa thought as she rose from her bed and walked around her quarters. Two possibilities came immediately to mind. Either the Denubbewa were performing all sheathing operations inside the motherships, which had to be pretty inefficient because of the lack of work space, or they were simply keeping all warships hidden elsewhere while the ships were sheathed in order to provide a smaller footprint for the ships searching for them. A third possibility then occurred to Christa. Perhaps the warships that had already been sheathed had also been sent somewhere else as a way of distributing their resources. If so, it was going to make their effort to locate the Denubbewa three times more difficult.

  "Time to the RP is estimated as seven hours, twenty-six minutes, Captain. Edmunds out," she heard via her CT. She hadn't activated a carrier to respond so she didn't have to sign off. Edmunds would know she received the message. She glanced up at the chronometer on the wall and decided to return to bed. It was 0429 so she would already be on duty when they reached the RP.

  ~ ~

  "I understand the Cosmic Jump instruction is going very well, Loretta," Jenetta said when she arrived at Lorense-Three and stopped by Admiral Plimley's office.

  "Yes, but who told you? Sywasock?"

  "You mentioned it to Roger. He mentioned it to me."

  "Ah, yes. Yes, it's going quite well. Sywasock is glad to finally be unchained from the table, and he's an excellent instructor. He started with the basics of Cosmic Jump theory and progressed quickly on to the finer points when he got a feel for the level of scientific knowledge his students possessed on the subject."

  "You've explained to everyone that they're not to discuss envelope travel?"

  "Yes. Repeatedly. And I've told them that if they slip up, they shouldn't try to cover their mistake. I've told them to just shut up and not try to talk their way out of it. They should just change the subject if possible. I've also told them that Sywasock believes we already use Cosmic Jump travel in naturally occurring Cosmic Jump Gates, but they may not discuss it with him at all. I told them he may try to compare his method with ours, but they were to say they weren't permitted to discuss our system."

  "Very good. Did you also tell them that if they did, I would hang them up by their thumbs and let them stay like that for a full day?"

  Admiral Plimley grinned before saying, "Roger told you about that also?"

  "Of course. He found it quite amusing."

  "I just wanted to impress upon them how important it was not to say anything."

  "I understand. I've threatened worse over the decades. But I've developed a sort of paper-lion reputation because I've actually never done anything like that."

  "Yes, that's the danger. I guess you just don't have enough Captain Bligh in you."

  "No, I guess not. More's the pity," Jenetta said, the remark being punctuated with a wide smile. "So what's your evaluation of everything so far? Are we going to be able to use this technology?"

  "I don't see why not. The only real problem is setting up emitters at both ends."

  "Is it possible to use the emitters the Denubbewa have set up?"

  "Sywasock says yes, but— there's only one pair right now that's capable of creating a Cosmic Jump Gate large enough for a ship."

  "Okay. Later on, when there are more, how do you know which destination you'll reach?"

  "Each emitter has an identification number. You key in the ID for the location you want and you go."

  "So if the Denubbewa change the identification, you won't be able to perform a Cosmic Jump to their gate."

  "Exactly. And vice-versa."

  "Okay. That's very useful information. Make sure your students know how to do that. We'll want to change our ID numbers periodicall
y so the Denubbewa can't use our gates."

  "Of course. Uh, our gates?"

  "I'm thinking ahead. I know you're just getting started and that there's bound to be a significant learning curve, but do you have any idea how long it will take for our people to learn everything Sywasock can teach them?"

  "About the technology of the Cosmic Jump Gate emitters and the science? I'd guess, based on what Sywasock says, not more than another six months for just that part."

  "What else is there?"

  "While his scientific and practical knowledge of Cosmic Jump physics is extensive, there's a great deal more he can teach us. He has extensive knowledge of every piece of equipment aboard the Denubbewa warships and knowledge of other areas the Denubbewa were investigating. And— there are a number of his associates with practical knowledge we could use. But they're still locked up— by your order."

  "Yes, I had to make sure Sywasock was being truthful before I let others loose. Do you believe they can be trusted to roam around this part of the shipyard?"

  "I don't know, Jen. It's impossible to read them. And I admit that their ability to communicate with each other while never verbalizing a thing makes them highly suspicious."

  "It's not only that fact that bothers me. It's that every other cyborg within range hears their thoughts."

  "Sywasock says that's what makes them work so efficiently. They're able to perform work as a single entity with hundreds of eyes and arms controlled by one brain because they don't have to stop and discuss everything."

  "He sounds like a recruiting agent," Jenetta said with a grin.

  "Well— he also said that the peace and solitude he's had over the past months has been the first time he's been alone with his own thoughts for many years, and once he finally got used to it again, he enjoyed it. He speculated that if he has to remain as a cyborg, he'd like to install an off switch to his communication system so he can be alone at times."

  "I can appreciate that. I certainly wouldn't want dozens or hundreds of others hearing my every thought. I guess it would be like on Earth centuries ago where cell phones and social sites combined to evolve into groupthink systems. And then colleges started to use the technology in classrooms to teach students because they said it was a more efficient way of learning, but some schools severely abused the system in the early twenty-first century. Instead of turning out young people who were better prepared to take on the challenges of leading in a world in crisis, groupthink actually turned many students into people who lost the ability to think on their own and who became forever dependent on others to tell them what to do and when to do it. Eventually, people outside the educational system realized what was going on and decided that enough was enough. Those methods were made illegal, but not before a few schools were actually burned to the ground by the student body they'd been trying to control like— mindless drones. At some point people really need a little privacy and don't want every thought in their head coming from someone else's brain or having their own thoughts being broadcast to the world."