The conversation continued for several minutes before they closed the comm.
Tawn said, “He always seems calm, no matter what the news is.”
“I guess when you reach his age you have a different perspective on things. Anyway, where are Trish and Gandy? They started on that repair yet?”
“They were looking it over when I came back in.”
Tawn and Farker followed Harris out and behind the Bangor.
Gandy said, “Back up. She’s moving it over so we can get started.”
The group followed the ship to the shop. Trish hopped out and immediately headed for a piece of equipment that would identify and highlight the damage caused by the plasma strikes. Gandy followed, readying a welder.
Sharvie stood by Harris. “What are we gonna do, Mr. Gruberg?”
“Don’t know yet. We get the Bangor back together and I suppose we might head out to check the place over again.”
“I know Gandy wanted to steal an Earther ship. Would it be worth the risk for us to steal one of these Denzee ships?”
Harris glanced down. “You willing to storm aboard with a blaster?”
Sharvie returned a nervous reply. “If I have to.”
Harris chuckled. “Don’t worry, I don’t see that happening. If we decide to do something like that, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of volunteers to pick from at the Retreat.”
“Good. I don’t think I’d make a very good assault Marine.”
Harris smiled. “Actually, I think you’d do as well as any other regular. With a little training we could have you storming the decks of one of those Denzee ships.”
“I’d much prefer to work behind the scenes.”
Harris pointed. “Excellent idea. Head back to the bunker and see if Alex can work with you. Maybe even tap your friends at Domicile. Try to break into a Denzee ship or system.”
“Really?”
“That’s what you and your friends are good at. This fight needs to involve everyone. Maybe you can take control of a ship and fly it out to us where we have a boarding party ready?”
Sharvie grinned. “I will storm that deck, Mr. Gruberg.”
Sharvie turned, waddling off toward the bunker.
“She really respects you,” said Tawn. “Not sure why, but she does.”
“She’s a smart girl, that’s all. And of course she’s drawn to my good looks and charm.”
Tawn laughed. Harris chuckled.
“So when we get the Bangor back in the air, do we want to make a run back to Eden to talk to Bax? She might be able to give us some insight into the emperor’s plans.”
Harris shook his head. “The emperor’s plans are to build a fleet and to defeat the intruders. After that I have no doubt he will want to come after us. Not you and I, but Domers in general. And why wouldn’t he? If he goes headlong into this and starts to fail, he can always call on his Domer brothers and sisters.”
Tawn nodded. “Makes perfect sense. So how do we activate the politicians back home to get involved?”
“That info we sent should be enough. That was twenty thousand Domer citizens that got spaced. Pacifists. If that doesn’t rile them up we’re in trouble.”
“They are pacifists you know. They might end up spending six months trying to get the Denzee to talk to our diplomats, all the while with military cuts continuing.”
Harris shook for just over a second.
Tawn laughed. “What was that?”
“Don’t know. I guess just the thought of that happening is so revolting it sent a shiver up my spine.”
“You are one interesting character, Harris Gruberg. Just when I think I’ve peeled away the last layer of the onion and seen your core, there’s a new surprise. You must have some Human DNA in there after all.”
“Now you have me wondering if we should try to contact Bax.”
“Maybe. Or maybe we go take another look out there first and wait to get a response back from the DDI. Would really like to know where they stand before taking any action one way the another.”
“You know, Sharvie may have had a good idea. Stealing one of those rattles might be just the thing we need. If we determine they aren’t all that, we can turn our focus back to making sure the Earthers don’t come clobber us after dealing with the Denzee.”
Trish walked around the side of the ship. “Crack’s a lot shorter this time. Give us an hour and she’ll be ready to fight again.”
Tawn asked, “Anything we can do to prevent that? Twice now doesn’t give me a comfortable feeling about our survivability.”
“I could weld another plate on there. Would probably just blow right off the first time you took a hit, but at least that would be something.”
“Waste of time,” said Gandy. “I went over this with Alex last time. If we cut a plate into two centimeter strips and weld those on, it will be much stronger. You might lose part of a strip or two, but the crack, if you got one, would be limited to the short length between them. Not the long splits we have seen twice now.”
Trish frowned. “That’s two solid days of welding to do that right.”
Harris nodded. “Let’s go ahead with that. We aren’t going anywhere at the moment. If Tawn and I need to go back out to Rumanta to observe, we can take the shuttle. Won’t be able to go in as close, but we probably don’t need to.”
Gandy said, “I gave Alex the specs on our railgun update. He said he’d evaluate how we might be able to use the full-auto mode of the feeder. If he comes back with anything for us between now and when she’s finished welding, I can install it.”
Trish scoffed. “Me? Why am I doing the welding?”
Gandy replied, “Because you’re good at it. You called my welds crap last time and pushed me aside.”
“Well, they were.”
“Which is why you’ll be doing them.”
Tawn said, “If there’s an issue, I would prefer the better welder.”
“Fine. But at least make him cut the strips.”
Tawn nodded. “Fair enough.”
Sharvie waddled out of the bunker, joining the others. “My friends are in. They said they would do it. Only thing is I would have to provide them a comm bridge between Domicile and Rumanta. If we use our current ship it would leave Alex’s systems open to intrusion should one of them get the notion to do so. And once they were in we might never get them out.”
Harris rubbed his forehead. “How well do you trust them?”
“Mildly. But this may be different considering what it is we’re dealing with. Most of them didn’t believe it was even real. One wouldn’t stop laughing until I showed him a piece of the video you took when you were out there. Now he’s all for it.”
“Farker, connect us with Alex please,” said Harris.
An image appeared, floating above the dog. “Good afternoon, Harris. Do you have a need?”
“I have a lot of needs. The immediate one is a comm bridge going from Domicile to Rumanta. Sharvie’s friends want to attempt a hack of the Denzee systems. Any way you can provide that link without compromising your own systems?”
“If my services are used I would indeed be vulnerable. Since we are using a ship just in free space as our comm link, might I suggest one of you travel there to authorize their use of that ship? It would allow me to block all access attempts from there should any of Sharvie’s friends want into my systems.”
Harris nodded. “Let’s go with that, then. Sharvie, we’ll take you up and drop you off. Give us a comm when you’re ready to be picked up.”
The image of Alex slowly shook its head. “That would be unwise. Any contact would open your own vessel to unauthorized entry.”
“Fine then. We’ll drop you off and come back in a half day to pick you up.”
Alex smiled. “That would prevent an intrusion.”
Sharvie shrugged. “OK. I’m ready whenever you are.”
The shuttle was powered up and Sharvie taken to the comm shuttle parked in free space near Midelon. A case
of MREs were left as a contingency if longer than half a day would be required.
The Gooch, with Tawn aboard, jumped out to the Rumanta System.
Chapter 23
_______________________
Harris said, “There’s more here than there was last time.”
“And we have two of the warships. Those are intimidating.”
Tawn sighed. “And they’re coming this way. That tells me their sensors are at least as good as ours.”
Harris returned a frown. “Take us home then.”
“Should we dump out one of the recorders?”
“I have to think they would come out and find it. How about we jump further out, then come back at a different location to drop one?”
“Sounds reasonable. Wait, several of those warships are jumping.”
“So they do have jump technology. At least we know how they’re getting around now.”
Tawn looked over the sensor data. “I have a location. The Barrier colony.”
“Let’s go see what’s happening.”
A jump to Barrier colony space was followed by a half hour ride to come within sensor range. Four of the Denzee warships were engaged in a firefight with a dozen New Earth destroyers. The Denzee weapons appeared to have a slight power advantage while their shields held firm against the New Earth plasma cannons. Debris fields for two other New Earth destroyers were spreading out in high orbit.
Harris shook his head. “This doesn’t look good. The Earthers’ hits aren’t doing significant damage.”
Tawn said, “Look at that. All the lights coming from that Denzee ship just shut off. You think they lost power?”
A disc on the front of the warship glowed blue-white, followed by an explosion on a New Earth destroyer, a strike that penetrated several bulkheads.
Tawn shook her head. “Not coming back from that. Looks like the Denzee have a superweapon.”
Harris nodded. “We need to take this info back immediately.”
A jump was made to the Retreat.
Tawn said, “The DDI see us out here and we have to leave right away. They still have warrants out for us. And if we get caught, I don’t think it would go well.”
“The colonel needs this data. We’ll leave immediately after.”
An hour passed before the shuttle was within comm range of the colony of Retreat.
“We have a DDI ship here in the area,” said the colonel.
Harris replied, “We have important news. The Denzee are attacking the Earther colony at Barrier. A dozen NE destroyers are engaged with four of the Denzee warships. The attackers have some kind of superweapon. I’m sending you the data we have. See to it the DDI get this as soon as possible.”
“This is bad news, Mr. Gruberg. It seems they are on the move, which shortens the time we have to react. I just got word this morning that the President’s advisers have told him to not take action, as the Earther ambassador felt they had the situation under control.”
Tawn said, “We can confirm that is not the case. The Earthers’ plasma cannons are exacting minimal damage. Two destroyers were nothing more than debris fields. We watched as a third took a devastating hit from one of those weapons.”
“I have the data. Let’s have a look,” Harris said. “Jump about two minutes into the recording.”
Nearly a minute passed before the colonel replied. “I see.”
Tawn added. “And they have jump drives. We confirmed a wormhole opening. Looked just like one of ours on the sensors.”
“Could be they’re adopting our technology. Do we have any indication of how long they’ve been on Rumanta?”
Harris replied, “We think a month or so, but we don’t know the timeline leading up to that. The emperor could have kept this quiet for however long he wanted to. Could be they showed up a year ago and have been in negotiations since then. We don’t know.”
Tawn nodded. “But we may be able to find out. We could go back to Eden and try to contact Baxter Rumford. She indicated before she was mostly in the dark, but that may have changed.”
The colonel took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “You won’t find her there. She’s been taken to New Earth under escort. The emperor was not fond of her giving you information about the Denzee. I just received that intel from the DDI this morning.”
“Sounds like we won’t be talking to her.”
“Not necessarily. We do have contacts on New Earth. It’s possible the DDI could arrange a meeting if it was determined to be a priority.”
Harris chuckled. “The only thing the DDI want to arrange for us is a prison cell. We have Midelon. They want to know about it. We aren’t telling.”
“I’ll talk to my contact and see what I can find out. The DDI may already have full information with regards to what’s known about the Denzee.”
Tawn shook her head. “Don’t stick your neck out, Colonel. You get too involved and they’ll put you in a compromised position just to get to us. Let’s just keep our contact at a low level. If we learn anything we feel is critical, we’ll bring it to you.”
Harris asked, “You have any word from the shipyard out here?”
“I do. Two days until flight testing of the first freighter. You’d have to talk to Mr. Morgan about any issues it may have. I understand the rail cannons are not functional.”
“Thanks for that, Colonel. Say, you wouldn’t happen to have a spare shuttle we could take, would you? We’ve had to repurpose our comm shuttle and are in need of a new one.”
The colonel frowned. “Hmm. I just took possession of a personal craft yesterday. Haven’t even taken it out yet. I’ll have someone bring it out to your current coordinates. And don’t worry about returning the pilot. I’ll have the shuttle follow to collect him from the drop point.”
Harris gave a single nod. “We’ll be here… unless the DDI chase us off.”
The new ship was collected and returned to Midelon space. As an added security precaution, it was parked at a location just out of comm range of the other comm shuttle currently in use. Harris and Tawn returned to the planet’s surface.
“The welds are going faster than expected,” said Gandy. “Alex gave us a design for a jig that allows a faster and more accurate weld. The crack has been repaired and the plate strips are going on now.”
Harris nodded. “Well, that’s at least good news.”
“Has something happened?” Gandy asked.
“The Denzee are assaulting the Barrier colony. We need to get the Bangor flying again.”
“Are you thinking about engaging with the Denzee?”
“Possibly. Would like to have that option if I feel the need to take action. Oh, and we discovered they have sensors at least as good as ours. They spotted the shuttle from maximum range. Gandy stepped over to a console and typed. “Estimates place that colony at thirty thousand inhabitants.”
Tawn said, “First, I think there’s way more than that. And second, where’d you get that info?”
“Alex has been compiling a database of all the information he’s been able to retrieve from Domicile and New Earth. It may not be the most up to date, but it does give us something.”
“The sensors showed three cities of what would be fifty thousand colonists each. I bet we’re looking at close to a quarter million.”
Gandy typed away on the console. “Could be. That data was from a twelve-year-old report. Those thirty thousand were primarily from a military outpost.”
“Good to know we have that kind of data available, even if it’s old.”
“Is anyone going up to get Sharvie?”
Harris nodded. “I’ll go. She should be done with whatever she’s doing.”
Forty minutes later, the Gooch arrived at the comm ship.
Harris walked through the docking tube. “Were you able to make a connection?”
Sharvie nodded. “And then some. The translator and firewall structures Alex provided almost made it easy. Their systems are not to unlike our own. Digital,
I mean.
“Once in we crashed four of those rattle ships into the atmosphere of Rumanta and all the way to the ground. During the chaos that followed, we managed to guide away a fifth. We have it parked about an hour outside their sensor range and have complete control of the ship’s systems. It has a crew of about five hundred on there right now. We believe the normal contingent of workers are down on the planet.”
“What are your plans for it?”
“My friends aren’t sure what to do with it. The front runner at the moment is to shut down the environmental systems until the crew is dead or incapacitated. We’re getting pushback from a couple members who don’t want to go to that extreme.”
“They do realize these things have already attacked and killed Humans, right? The entire Rumanta colony of Earthers. And our pacifist friends on Jebwa.”
Sharvie nodded. “They understand. And unfortunately we need them and their skills on the team.”
“How about this: see if you can convince them to lower life support to a level that makes it difficult to survive, but doesn’t kill them.”
“You aren’t thinking of attacking it, are you?”
Harris nodded. “If I can convince the colonel to give us a dozen Bios. If you fully control that ship, and do that with the environmentals, I feel confident I could take control of it with a large squad. We do that and we can fly it back here to study.”
“I think I can convince them of that.”
“Can you do it now?”
Sharvie hopped on a comm. After a five minute discussion, the effort Harris had suggested was made. The Denzee crewman would soon find life aboard their ship a struggle.
“Are you OK up here? Want to come back down?”
Sharvie shook her head. “Would rather stay here to oversee the team and make suggestions. I finally feel like I’m making a contribution.”
“Any hint at a counter effort by the Denzee?”
“To break into our comm?”
“Yeah, anything that would give them access to our systems or networks.”
“Not a chance. I don’t think they have the personnel with the experience for that. At least not on this particular ship. These are your standard crewmen.”
Harris half smiled. “Good to know. Just keep doing what you’re doing. And look for us coming into your connection from the other end. We’ll show you how a Biomarine squad storms a ship.”
ARMS Jebwa Atrocity Page 21
