General Burnwall, standing beside Radin, smiled and raised his hand in mock salute to the camera. Radin nodded his head, "Until then, Radin out.” The screen went dark.
"Well," Leewood said, "it sounds like they've certainly had their hands full."
Brandon rubbed his eyes – like the rest of them, he looked exhausted. "Well so have we, but it all seems to be coming together."
Evelyn put her hand on Brandon’s arm, "I can’t wait to see this instant com device…but look, we’ve only got four hours to get some shut eye and then it's back to work for all of us so..."
"Yes," said Leewood, "let's not waste any of it.”
Harrington’s eyes wandered over to Leewood, her expression neutral.
They all got up and Leewood and Harrington headed towards the hatch.
Harrington turned, "We'll see you in four hours or so,” she said with a little wave as they left.
Out in the corridor Harrington and Leewood walked in silence towards their quarters. Harrington's room was right next door to the Edens’, and Leewood's was right next door to hers. As they approached the hatch to her quarters, they slowed down and then paused for a minute, smiled at each other, then proceeded down the corridor.
Inside the Edens’ quarters, Evelyn said to Brandon, "Honey, catch Leewood and remind him that he has to meet with Flannery and Mac before the end of their shifts."
Brandon walked quickly to the hatch and opened it. He looked down the corridor just in time to see both Leewood and Harrington entering Leewood's quarters. He blinked and then stared blankly down the empty corridor for several seconds. Finally he retreated back inside and closed the hatch. He stood there wearing a befuddled expression for a moment. Evelyn peeked out of their sleeping area half-undressed and gave him a questioning look. "I...I just missed them…” Brandon motioned awkwardly at the hatch, “…er, him…ah, and her…missed…both,” he finished in a distracted manner, arms dropping to his side.
Evelyn gave him a look, then her eyes sparkled and she grinned as she quickly ducked back into their sleeping area. "No matter…just come to bed, my love."
Brandon had seen the smile grace Evelyn's lips as she had ducked back into their sleeping quarters. He wondered briefly if he should tell Evelyn what he had just seen. Then he smiled too, realizing what Evelyn’s departing smile had really meant and what he should have already known…that she, as always…already knew.
---
Though the sun shone brightly, a cold crisp wind blew from the North—the warm days of summer were passing, the season was changing. Large patches of crisp auburn leaves blew across the ground with a dry scratchy sound. They crunched underfoot as Adamarus and Bugs walked along what was now their standard walking path around the vacant lot. After their first walk almost a year ago, Adamarus had been stunned when, the next day, Bugs had insisted on going for a walk again. Ever since then, Bugs had been adamant on starting each of their meetings with a walk, and that’s what they’d done except twice when it had been overruled by Adamarus due to pouring rain which didn’t bother the robot one bit.
Today as they walked, Adamarus was lost in thought, thinking of how close he, Grace and Nero had become over the last year. The time had flown by and now the time was again upon them when he would have to leave. Adamarus and Bugs would depart for Hideaway for a high-level meeting the President had scheduled. Also, Bugs would get a chance to tour the Leviathan Class Battleships, the L-Class fighters, and review their current weapons systems. At least it would be a fast trip – they would be traveling on the Loud’s Umbrella Ship.
“Oh,” it said, “and congratulations on your promotion, Admiral.”
Adamarus smiled. The promotion had come through the day before without ceremony, fanfare or speeches – everyone was too busy. “It’s ‘Fleet’ Admiral, Bugs…not quite a full admiral yet.”
They entered and rode the elevator down to the underground situation room where Adamarus, Bugs, scientists, engineers and others had held meetings on the Loud’s new or improved weapons systems proposals.
Many times, Radin, Burnwall, Leewood, Harrington and the Edens as well as others would participate in these meetings, although this was done virtually. Today, however, the teleconferencing screens were dark and it would be just Adamarus and Bugs. This would be their last meeting before departing for Hideaway the next morning. They sat down at the table across from each other.
Adamarus leaned forward in his chair, “In this meeting I’d like to initiate getting the Loud’s assistance in constructing a new weapon…” he paused searching for a nicer name for it, but couldn’t come up with one, “…a bomb.”
Bugs stared at him for a moment, then leaned forward as well, “What kind of bomb?”
Adamarus replied, “We don’t really care.”
Bugs drew his head back, “You…don’t care what kind?”
Adamarus considered what he’d just said and decided he didn’t blame the alien for its reaction. He gathered his thoughts for a moment, then continued, “No, we don’t care ‘what kind,’ only that it be…” again there was only one way to put it, “the biggest…most powerful bomb that you can come up with.”
“The biggest, most powerful bomb we can come up with,” Bugs repeated.
Adamarus smiled and nodded, “Exactly.”
---
That night Adamarus, Grace and Nero had a special dinner and spent time together allowing Nero to stay up an hour past his bed time. Later Adamarus and Grace made love slowly and purposely. It might be a long time before they could do it again.
The next morning, everyone was racing around getting ready for work, school, and Adamarus’ departure. Finally the time came. "Well, thank God…Nero and I are so in need of a break!” Grace teased as she pushed Adamarus towards the door. They were all close to tears as well as laughing at her joking around, glad for the levity she had injected into the always awkward sorrowful goodbyes. "Now..." she patted down his uniform and straightened his tie, "you take care of yourself ‘Admiral.’ Promise me!"
Adamarus brushed his finger across her cheek, "I'm going to be with Bugs! If anything happens…well, I’ll just come back…”
“…even younger,” Grace said in unison with Adamarus and they all laughed again.
He picked up Nero and hugged him, “You’re going to be a good boy and help mother like we talked about?”
“Yes,” Nero said.
“Okay,” he kissed him on the forehead, hugged him tight and then put him down. “Goodbye, son, but remember, with the Loud’s new com device we’ll be able to talk in real time no matter where I am.”
Grace composed herself and then pushed him out the door, "Alright, Mister…oh, I mean, ‘Admiral’ Maximus, go…go on…you’re going to be late. Off you go. Goodbye, my love. I love you.” He started to turn, but she pulled him back for a final kiss, released him and watched him walk away.
Adamarus, carrying only a small suitcase, walked out toward the limo. Steam rose from the exhaust pipes in the early morning chill. The driver hurried forward and took Adamarus’ bag and placed it in the trunk. Adamarus got in the back and the limo drove off as Grace and Nero continued to watch from the doorway.
Some minutes later the limo pulled to a stop at the guarded gate of the compound that had long ago formed around the Loud ship and the listening chamber. Adamarus glanced out the dark gray window knowing what he’d see—just outside the gate, half a dozen civilian men and women were marching around in a circle blocking the gate and holding signs. They parted to let the limousine through without resistance. As they passed by, Adamarus was able to read one of the signs. It said, “Prepare 4 Peace, Not 4 War.”
When the protesters had first appeared a few weeks ago, the realization of what he was seeing was like a slap in the face. It seemed only a few months before people had been leaving flowers at the gate. Adamarus’ mouth had fallen open and he had been dumbfounded! He had seen this type of thing at the start of the Asteroid Harvest project and it always cau
ght him off guard.
When he pulled up to the entrance of the listening chamber, Woodworth, Jan, Lenny and Trevor were out front waiting for him. Adamarus had not yet met Jan, Lenny or Trevor, and introductions were made.
The sun had barely lifted off the horizon and a chill wind blew around the group. Adamarus gestured back toward the gates, "I think the numbers are falling off."
Woodworth laughed, "I saw a new sign this morning, 'Make Bongs, Not Bombs'!”
“Make…Bongs…” Adamarus’ expression went blank. He blinked and shook his head.
Jan held her hand up to block the sun and studied the distant protestors, "Woodworth predicted this, but it happened a lot faster than any of us expected."
Adamarus muttered almost to himself, "By now you’d think I’d be used to it…” a little anger crept into his voice, “but it always catches me by surprise,” he finished in a resigned tone. “We saw it at the beginning of the harvesting project.” He continued staring thoughtfully back toward the gates, “But this is unbelievable. Don’t they know what’s going on? What choices do they think we have? What…” his hands made a helpless gesture and he just went silent not knowing what to say. His head shook briefly as if he was shaking off an unwanted annoyance, then he turned away and motioned everyone inside the entrance.
They took the moving walk up and then walked down the windowed tunnel to the soundproof door and the two guards who were expecting them.
The door opened, but instead of the listening chamber, it opened up to a large rectangular compartment with a dozen comfortable looking seats. The seats were arranged around three oval art deco tables with subtle lights near their bases. Viewers and cup holders were arranged on top. At the far end, a stylish bar sat opposite to male and female restrooms. The group entered looking around with expressions of approval.
It looked very familiar to Adamarus, but at first he could not place it. Then it came to him. “It’s the Presidential shuttle – but without the view ports!” he said to no one in particular. It was a copy of the cabin in the Presidential shuttle they had first taken out to Hideaway. “At least this time the trip won’t last as long.”
Woodworth sat down in one of the seats. “More time will be spent making orbit and docking with the Umbrella Ship than the actual trip to Hideaway itself…only minutes, according to Bugs.”
Lenny said, “Alright!”
Jan walked past him whopping him in the stomach as she did and he doubled over with an “Oof.” “Lenny, if I hear that word one more time, I’ll…” but Jan was interrupted by a racket at the end of the cabin.
Everyone quickly looked that way just as Bugs’ avatar sprung up from behind the bar exclaiming, “Drinks are on the house!”
This sudden appearance startled the hell out of everyone. The inactive avatar had been laid out behind the bar where it had inadvertently remained hidden.
Bugs’ head swiveled from side to side looking at the startled group. “What?” it asked.
Chapter Eighteen – Council of War
“What can we say about infinite density -- if we could somehow peek inside some -- what would we see; what characteristics would it have? Well, not much. Everywhere you look is the same. Uniformity rules. There are no atoms, so there is no temperature; no motion, so no events, and therefore time does not exist. There would be only a single state or a unistate and the first cosmic law says this cannot exist -- within a universe. Singularities define the edge of the universe, the actual unistate lying just beyond outside the universe. Now, do the characteristics of infinite density happen to fit or describe anything else? As a matter of fact, they do. They also describe...an absolute vacuum which is supposed to be the exact opposite of infinite density. However, if they have the exact same characteristics...then...they are the same. Both are unistates. Both produce gravity as all things seek the lowest number of states. Once it is realized that both matter and the lack of matter produce this attraction called ‘gravity,’ everything falls into place, startling new vistas open up and ‘dark matter’ is eliminated."
The Loud Named Bugs
Opening Speech, 23rd Amular Symposium on Quantum Physics
Source: The Archive
Space Dock One had a large battle-hardened room called “the atrium.” Originally, due to the war, this room had held the central command center and other vital functions to protect these from attack. The room resided within a 4200-foot square cavern that the engineers had carved out of the asteroid’s solid rock near the top of Space Dock One—the asteroid itself providing solid rock walls 1000 feet thick.
Within the cavern, the engineers had constructed a huge circular domed room from the strongest battle armor of the day and suspended it between six dozen 200-foot steel springs. The armored room measured 3000 feet in diameter—the dome rose to a height of 1000 feet. It was estimated that the room could survive anything short of a direct nuclear hit. Here, the shipyard’s central control center and other vital functions resided in relative safety. However, this seemingly logical arrangement did not last long.
During the war, the enemy – the United Settlements of the Independent Mining Consortium (USIMC) – had a good spy network and their intelligence gathering capabilities were sometimes frightening. They had learned the name “Hideaway” and then discovered that it was some kind of a secret facility. So far, that was all…but it was enough. If the USIMC ever discovered the location of Hideaway, they would send everything they had to destroy it. This caused extreme difficulty in shipping supplies and materials to Hideaway.
Supply convoys bound for Hideaway had to go through elaborate procedures to avoid giving away Hideaway’s position. First, the convoys had to depart as individual ships, in secret, at different times, each headed in different random directions. As soon as any freighter departed Amular's planetary system, they picked up a USIMC spy ship that would attempt to follow them covertly and learn their destination. So first, Hideaway’s supply freighters had to find the Consortium’s spy ship they knew was there, and then they had to lose it. They had a lot of help finding it from the military; however, losing it -- that is, breaking the lock the spy ship had on them -- was not an easy task.
They only had to break the spy ship’s lock for a brief period – five or more minutes were all they needed. This was because as soon as the freighters broke the lock, they immediately shutdown all power and went dead in space. This made them almost impossible to detect. Then the freighter had to drift through space—sometimes for months – while Amular security indirectly confirmed that no enemy ships were still in the freighter’s area looking for them. Only then could they power up and resume their long, independent journeys to Hideaway.
As time went on, however, the Consortium’s spy ships got more determined and persistent. Soon, in too many cases, the freighters simply could not lose the spy ships, or once they did and had gone dead in space, the spy ships just made it a waiting game, staying in the area waiting for the freighters to power up. As long as they did this, the freighters could never be given the “go ahead” from Amular to proceed. This situation soon resulted in critical supply shortages at the secret shipyard.
At the same time, other factors were coming into play. Hideaway’s location had thus far remained a complete secret, one that would continue until present day, and this being the case, its apparent safety reduced the need for battle-hardened locations for control functions.
On top of this, an independent study revealed that if an enemy did discover Hideaway’s location and the facility was attacked, while the battle-hardened areas might survive, the shipyard itself would likely be destroyed, making any protected vital functions irrelevant anyway.
Due to shortages, mainly the depletion of battle armor for ship hulls, Hideaway faced a shutdown of production. As the impending shutdown drew near, the Edens themselves came to the realization that the tons of battle armor and steel that had been used in the construction of the battle-hardened area all around them could be used to keep product
ion going.
This lead to what seemed a completely rational decision at that time: They decided to move the control areas and cannibalize the battle-hardened structure for its armor and steel.
So all of the vital functions were moved to new locations and the gigantic domed room was stripped bare. Then, however, as so often happens in the ever-changing chaos of war, the tide turned, dozens of freighters got through to Hideaway and the supply shortage abruptly ended. Everyone’s full attention immediately returned to the construction of the Leviathan Class Battleships, and the vast domed room, now a useless hollow shell, was all but forgotten.
With the coming high level meeting, it was decided that the atrium was the ideal place to host the gathering so it was reopened and construction began on the facilities that would be needed.
---
Radin and Burnwall would arrive at Hideaway with the ten battleships within hours, and the Loud umbrella ship bringing Adamarus and others from Amular would arrive within minutes.
Aboard Hideaway's Space Dock One, half a dozen engineers and scientists had commandeered the central control center’s largest viewing room. Now they were busy at over a dozen consoles that they had set up, making final adjustments on the instruments and sensors aimed toward the spot where the Loud had said their Umbrella ship would appear.
The scientists of Amular had monitored the disappearance and reappearance of the Loud Umbrella Ships dozens of times in an attempt to gain an understanding of how the alien ship did this. They had, of course, come right out and asked the Loud about the principles behind their Grav-Drive and the Phased Velocity Shifting and Speed Stepping technologies, and the Loud had done their best to explain. However, their attempted explanations referred to too many principles and technologies that stood upon other unknown principles and technologies. It was like trying to explain the workings of a computer to a culture that did not yet have electricity.
Evelyn and Harrington peeked in for a second on their way down to the main shuttle bay where they would meet their arriving guests. "Do you think they have enough equipment?” Evelyn deadpanned.
Encounters 1: The Spiral Slayers Page 28
