by Andrew Beery
“One of the things Yarin said when he re-enabled our tech was that our Heshe technology would remain fully functional. It didn’t make any sense at the time because we weren’t aware of the restrictions facing the rest of you.”
“You mean your medical and construction nanites are not restricted?”
Cat reached forward and touched Sherry’s empty coffee cup. A silver sheen flowed from her fingertip and enveloped the cup. In a few seconds, it transformed into a small metal horse that pranced around in a circle.
Sherry picked up the little horse. It stopped dancing and looked at her.
“Do you want me to re-enable your Heshe augmentations?”
“If you can then absolutely!” Sherry answered without hesitation.
“It should be a good test,” Cat answered. “My medical nanites were transferable before our little trip into Earth’s distance past. They should be now as well.” The little horse dissolved in her friend’s hand.
Sherry looked at her hand and shook her head. “I don’t feel any different.”
“Try to recreate the horse,” Cat suggested.
Sherry laughed. “You forget my friend and Admiral, I don’t have your Heshe encounter unit. I’ve never had that degree of control.”
Cat paused to think for a minute. “Give me your hand for a moment.”
Sherry reached over and Cat grabbed her outstretched arm.
Cat concentrated and flowed some additional nanites from her body into Sherry’s.
“I’ve just implanted a specially crafted set of construction nanites. They are going to build a limited Heshe encounter unit for you. It won’t be as powerful as mine. I’m afraid that’s beyond my ability but if we can contact a WhimPy or even Honey then we can do better.”
“Honey and Admiral Valen are on assignment. Honey’s abilities were also limited by the Heshe but she insisted that her regenerative abilities – especially as they could be applied to Ricky --remain intact. I think even the Heshe were afraid of crossing her on that point.”
Cat smiled. It was good to hear that her friends were doing well.
“You’ll need to fill me in on the nature of that assignment sometime. I assume it’s part of your covert program?”
Sherry smiled but said nothing.
“Well, that encounter unit you’ve received should be enough to give you finer control of your Heshe nanites. At the very least, it should be enough for you to interface with the Yorktown’s AI which can program your construction nanites for operations outside your body. It will probably require several hours for the unit to self-assemble.”
“So what’s the plan of action? Where do we go from here?”
“Now,” Cat said, “we need to go to find ourselves a pirate.”
***
Nakita adjusted a gravitational constant in the program that calculated the orbital path of the fuel pods that each of the accelerators launched on a precise fifteen minute schedule. If her math was correct, and she was sure it was… then the next series of launches would place the fuel pods in an orbit that would impact with the Deep Space FTL relay that was the target of their operation.
She checked her watch and looked up at Captain McCarthy, Nac Nac and the Mardarian called Munch. “In twenty-three minutes the communications relay will be hit with the first of three fuel pods. The kinetic energy in each one should be enough to disable it. Three hits should be enough to deorbit it and cause it to completely burnup in the atmosphere.”
Nac Nac hopped from side to side. Captain McCarthy pulled a secure FTL link from inside his coat and flipped it on. “The Condor’s fledglings have left the roost. The nest will be burning in twenty-three mikes. Recommend engagement in twenty-five mikes. Condor out.”
Elsewhere across GCP controlled space similar scenes were unfolding. Tensions which had been building up for decades were suddenly unleashed. They didn’t know it yet… In point of fact, it would take the Grand Senate many months to connect the dots, but the GCP was once again at war – civil war.
Chapter 8: Decoy…
The GCP Yorktown broke orbit and headed towards the first Epsilon Reticuli jump point. Unable to use microjumps, the trip was entirely sub-light using the Yorktown’s newly enhanced VASIMER engines that each of the ships in the Yorktown taskforce had retrofitted into their design. Fortunately each of Cat’s ships had fully functional Heshe technology available to them. However, after learning that such Heshe technology was no longer ubiquitous within the GCP (apparently limited by-in-large to her taskforce), Cat chose to avoid flashy displays of their access to Heshe tech. There was simply no way to know how reintroducing it would affect the social dynamic of this time and place. The bulk of the retrofits were conducted in a manner that minimized the externally visible changes to the ships in question.
Ken and Cat worked together and designed a change to the hyperfield emitters that encapsulated the exterior of the ship to allow them to reduce Higgs field interactions. This essentially allowed the Yorktown to change its effective mass. Reducing the ship’s mass to near zero meant the sub-light thrusters could rapidly accelerate the ship to a sizeable fraction of the speed of light. At the same time another set of emitters reversed the momentum of microscopic dust impacting the forward surface of the Yorktown’s shields. At the speeds they would now be traveling even a grain of sand would severely ablate the ship’s passive shielding should it be allowed to interact via a collision event.
Cat had noted that many of the ships traveling in the Epsilon Reticuli system seemed to be using similar technologies but unlike the Yorktown and her sister ships, their design had been informed by these technologies from their initial concept phases. In theory Cat’s ships should not be able to perform as well… In Theory.
The Yorktown and the ships in her taskforce had a technological advantage buried in the GCP’s past and was an offshoot of technology developed during their war with the Modos Syndicate. Each of her ships featured a special singularity power source. A stable microscopic hyperfield conduit was periodically opened near the accretion disk of a black hole. The resulting energy flow was channeled into a repulsive hyperfield containment vessel and stored for later use. The system was a fraction of the size of a fusion reactor but could provide orders of magnitude more power. Each of the ships in her taskforce housed three such power cores. The technology had been abandoned after the Great Disruption because of the difficulty in creating hyperfield conduits. Cat’s team on the other hand was committed to making them work as they were the only power sources available to her ships. They had quickly learned to replenish their energy stores while near naturally occurring jump points. This meant her ships had a tremendous amount of power available to their VASIMER sub-light systems. This allowed them to accelerate to near relativistic speeds in hours rather than days.
The disadvantage to traveling at relativistic speeds was the time dilation and the impact this had on communications. The old-style intersystem Hyperfield microjump voyages rarely involved relativistic speeds and so FTL communications were not impacted. The situation was entirely different now. The Yorktown and her sister ships traveling at similar speeds could communicate with relative ease but conversations with others at significantly different inertial frames of reference were hampered to the point of being non-interactive one way messaging. What seemed like a quick interchange of ideas for the ships traveling at relativistic speeds, was in fact a conversation spanning hours or even days for ground-based participants.
This meant that the Yorktown was unaware of events taking place on a small moon in the Mardarius system some three jump point’s distance.
***
“Admiral, we are approaching our first jump point,” Ken announced to Cat from his command station on the bridge via his commlink. Cat was in her quarters reading. “What are your orders Admiral?”
Cat looked up from her desk where she had been studying a text on GCP history since the Great Disruption some three hundred plus years ago.
“Admira
l Melbourne should have jump coordinates for a Pirate gathering site called Prime Meet. It’s in a no-mans-zone that normal traffic tends to avoid. That will be our starting point. Advise the fleet to go to maximum shields the moment we enter the system. I can’t imagine the denizens of that particular star system will be all together pleased to see four GCP naval ships suddenly appear in their space… even if we appear antiquated by their standards.”
“Acknowledged Admiral. Commander Ben recommended we deploy a squadron of support fighters prior to our jump. My inclination is to present a defensive profile only. Weapons warm but not hot; Combat pilots standing by in their fighters; Fighters in launch tubes, ready to launch on a moment’s notice but launch doors closed.”
“I agree with your recommendation. As strange as it might seem on the surface, the person we are looking for is an ally. We want to avoid a fight that will make conversation more difficult in the future.”
“Very good Admiral. Bridge out.”
Ken swiveled in his command chair. “Mister Tibane, open a channel to the taskforce.”
“Channel open Captain,” the young man answered from his communications console. He was new to this post but so far he had acquitted himself quite well.
“Yorktown taskforce, this is Captain Kirkland. We are jumping in five minutes. The specific coordinates should be coming through to your boards as I speak.” He looked over at Commander Ben who nodded his confirmation. “All ships are to go to yellow alert. Shields up, weapons warm, fighters on ready-standby. Acknowledge receipt of instructions. Kirkland out.”
“All ships have acknowledged instructions,” Ensign Tibane reported a moment later.
“Very good, take us to yellow alert and prepare to jump.”
“Yellow Alert!” Ben echoed. “Navigator, prepare to jump.”
Ken smiled and leaned back in his chair. The turbolift swished open and Cat entered the bridge. At the sound he swiveled his chair.
“Admiral on the Bridge!” Ben announced.
“Your timing is impeccable Admiral,” Ken said by way of acknowledgement. “We are just about to jump to the Prime Meet coordinates that Admiral Melbourne provided. Is she ready with her message?”
“I believe so Captain,” Cat answered while taking her seat in the Admiral’s chair. “She and Commander Thais are in main engineering installing it in a message buoy. It should be ready to launch within moments of our arrival.”
“Any additions or changes to my orders?”
“You’re doing great Ken. Keep sharp and carry on.”
“Aye Admiral.” Ken swiveled he command chair to face the main view screen. “Mister Martinescu, give me a weapons status update.”
“All warm and toasty Sir. Storage condensers at capacity. Power generation systems are at one hundred percent. Shield emitters are energized. Fighters are manned and ready. Launch tubes are shuttered but hot. We are as ready for action as we can be.”
“Very good. Helm synchronize jump computers with the fleet. On my mark… JUMP!”
Ben checked his sensors briefly and then announced in a loud voice. “Taskforce is jumping!”
A hyperfield conduit spun into existence just ahead of the GCP Yorktown. As the massive ship inched forward it merged with the spectral vortex and shimmered out of existence only to reappear some sixteen point four light years distance near a Sol-like star called Iota Horologii.
On the bridge of the Yorktown the star patterns shifted as the ship translocated through the fabric of space-time.
Ken leaned forward in his seat. “Helm, confirm location. Weapons, run an active LIDAR scan of the area… I want to know if we are going to have company anytime soon. Communications, contact the rest of the fleet. Confirm we all made it.”
“Location confirmed.”
“All ships in the taskforce accounted for as well,” Ensign Tibane reported.
Lt. Commander Andrew Martinescu scanned his board. “LIDAR is coming back clean capt… WAIT! Multiple contacts! Contacts vectoring in from 24.2-10 at 0.4 sub-light.”
“Raise Shields!” Ben barked from the First Officer’s station.
Ken hit his ship-to-ship transmitter. “Taskforce, we have unknown bogies approaching our position. Keep your heads on a swivel. Avoid engagement if possible.”
Ken turned to his communications officer. “Ensign Tibane, broadcast standard ‘Friend’ message on all channels. Let me know the moment they respond.”
“Aye Captain.”
Cat stood up and stepped down to Ken’s command chair. His First Officer joined them.
“We have six minutes until they are in probable weapons range,” Ben reported.
Ken nodded. “How do you want me to play this Admiral? Try talking until the bitter end; Let them have the first shot, then fire back; Bug out before engagement?”
“We need time to launch Sherry’s message probe. Once that’s away we have no need to remain in the area.”
Ken turned to face his First Officer. “Ben, get ready to deploy the message buoy. The faster we can get it away the faster we can beat a strategic withdrawal.”
“Captain,” Cat said softly. “I don’t think we need the entire taskforce here. Signal the fleet to jump to our next way-point, Zeta2 Reticuli.”
Ken nodded. “Make it so First Officer.”
“Aye Captain,” Ben said as he moved back to his station. In a moment he reported, “The taskforce is making ready to jump to Zeta2. Also, Commander Thais is reporting the buoy is ready to launch.”
“Very good Commander. Launch immediately and engage the unit’s cloak as soon as it is clear of the Yorktown.”
“Buoy away,” Ben reported.
“Captain!” Commander Martinescu interrupted. “The bogies are firing on the buoy.”
“Did it cloak in time?”
Ben checked his board before answering. “Negative Captain… or more to the point, it was cloaked but they calculated its course and hit it any way. Looks like the first shot was lucky but they followed it up with sixteen high power laser beams. The message buoy was hit several times and is disabled.”
Ken smiled. “It worked.”
Cat toggled her internal commlink and keyed it to feed through the bridge loudspeaker. “Sherry are you clear?”
“Affirmative Admiral. They were so focused on the buoy they completely missed me. I’m fully cloaked and shielded. It would take a miracle for them to detect me. Go ahead and bug out. I’ll contact you in a few days. Melbourne out.”
Ben raised an eyebrow.
Cat winked at him. “It was Admiral Melbourne’s idea. There was no way to arrive in the system undetected. The pirates operating in this sector don’t seem to be afraid of the GCP and they seem to very much value their privacy. Popping in and making a brief show of trying to drop what might appear to be surveillance probes in system seemed a good way to divert their attention from our real goal of delivering the admiral in a superbly cloaked combat shuttle so she can carefully make contact with her double agent.”
“Appears to have worked. They are not looking for any other targets,” Ben acknowledged.
Ken straightened up in his chair. “Mister Martinescu, how long until they are in missile range?”
“About two minutes. They’ve ranged us with their lasers several times but they seem to know our shields aren’t going to have any problem handling their energy weapons… nukes on the other hand may be another issue.”
“I share your concern Commander,” Ken acknowledged. “Drop another two probes… random evasive courses… no cloaking this time. Let’s give them something else to shoot at.”
“Aye Captain,” the weapons officer replied.
Ken looked over at his First Officer. “Ben, once the probes are deployed, go ahead and jump us to Zeta2 Reticuli.”
Chapter 9: Talus IV…
Admiral Melbourne adjusted the trim on her shuttle. Her course had her on a trajectory that took her small ship near the solitary gas giant in the star system, a planet o
fficially named Iota Horologii b by the scientists that discovered it in the Iota Horologii system. Unofficially it was called Talus.
The planet had numerous small moons, the largest of which was called Talus IV. At almost twice the mass of Earth’s moon, Talus IV was big enough to retain a wispy nitrogen atmosphere. In some of the lowest valleys and trenches it was thick enough to allow surface water ice to exist. The orbit of the moon was close enough to its host planet that tidal forces heated the moon’s mantle and permitted some of this ice to melt. It was near one such area that Sherry directed her fully cloaked ship.
She activated her internal Heshe AI that had been a gift from Cat. The unit had self-identified as a female and had chosen the name Nikki. “Are we broadcasting the proper hail sequence?”
A soft oriental voice answered over the small ship’s bridge loudspeakers. “Affirmative Admiral. So far there has been no response.”
“I would have been concerned if there was,” Sherry mumbled. “Let’s let them know we are here. Lower the cloak.”
Nikki complied and the teardrop shape of the shuttle shimmered into existence. At the same time a series of alarms immediately began blaring as numerous active targeting systems located on the moon locked onto the small craft.
“We are receiving a hail… ‘Queen to queen’s level three’.”
“Answer it with ‘Queen to Kings level one’,” Sherry replied calmly. “We’re all friends here.”
“They have acknowledged the challenge response. The chief administrator is asking for a declaration of intent.”
“Tell him we are looking for the AM Brown Recluse.”
Nikki paused for a brief second. “Admiral, the chief administrator is sending us the coordinates for the Recluse now. They are parked in a repair bay in Lagrange Point 2.
***
Captain Harry Bedmore, a.k.a Admiral Ricky Valen, leaned back in his command chair and whistled at the imagine in the Recluse’s forward view screen. It had been the better part of two years since he had seen the woman on the other side of that screen. They had been talking for the last fifteen minutes… catching up and briefing each other on developments.
