HADRON Revelation

by Stephen Arseneault

  HADRON

  (Vol. 4)

  Revelation

  By: Stephen Arseneault

  “If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War.”

  George Washington

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  Copyright 2015-2016 Stephen Arseneault. All Rights Reserved

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  HADRON Revelation (Vol. 4)

  Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

  Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6

  Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9

  Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12

  Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15

  Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18

  Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21

  Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24

  Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27

  What’s Next Books

  Chapter 1

  *

  Mace sat in the dining hall, sipping on a beverage Tres had brought him.

  “Why don’t we just go in and demand his surrender?”

  Mace shook his head. “We don’t know where he is.”

  Tres said, “He has to be communicating, right? We should be able to detect that. Heck, we take out all the Mawga ships and those comms go away.”

  Mace set his cup on the table. “We take away the Mawga ships and the food goes away as well. Those people are all dependent on those nutrient bars… just like us. Besides, in another month they’ll be popping out all those babies. We have the means to take out every Mawga ship, and to rule the skies, but we can’t feed our people.”

  Tres tapped his fingers on the table. “You know, now that you mention it, what good would our alliance with the Dellus have done for us? We still would have had to deal with the Mawga or the Kaachi.”

  Mace nodded. “True. But both of them answer to the Dellus. Gar assured me he could keep things moving with the Mawga. This whole thing has just been a disaster. We start to get our hopes up only to have them dashed. We were without a planet before, but we suddenly had allies. Powerful allies. Now we’re back to nothing.”

  Tres stood. “Not true. We have this ship, and it’s much better than it was. And we have enough food to last us a couple years. And… we have the refiners needed to make more fuel. I’d say the best thing we have now that we didn’t have before is more time.”

  Johnny came in and sat.

  Tres pointed. “Second shift is here. I’ve got some work to do in the kitchen. I promised a new drink to try to break everyone out of their funk. I need to get working on it.”

  Johnny nodded. “Good talking to you.”

  Tres smiled as he walked away.

  Johnny looked over at Mace. “We need to break you out of your despair. You’re bringing everybody down. As our supposed leader, you need to be pulling us all together.”

  Mace chuckled. “Yeah, well, I think I missed the leadership class they taught that in.”

  Johnny smiled as he stood. “Don’t worry, I’ve got just the thing to cheer you up.”

  Jenny Taub walked around the corner. “Johnny? You wanted to see me?”

  Johnny gestured toward Mace with a wink as he walked out of the room.

  Jenny put her hands on her hips. “You leaving me in here with Sad-Sack?”

  “Yep!” could be heard from down the hall.

  Jenny sat. “Time for you to crawl out of that pity hole you dug for yourself, Mace. Aside from the benefit to yourself, you have a whole crew who are looking to you for leadership and guidance. The loss of the Petunia and her crew is a devastating blow to us all. But we don’t have the luxury of milling around feeling sorry for ourselves. We have a war to fight. We have a planet to liberate. You know, I lost my family in the great starvation. And now I have a new family. It’s called the Human race.”

  Mace rubbed his forehead. “I know. I just keep running that whole scenario through my head over and over. I haven’t slept in two days.”

  Jenny put her hand on his shoulder. “I think I know just what you need. You need a mini mission, something you can sink your teeth into to occupy your mind. We need to find you something that requires enough brain power that it breaks your chain of thought. And I think I might have just the thing for you. Come on, get up. Come with me.”

  Jenny took his hand, pulling him up from the table. “Follow me.”

  Mace asked, “Where we going?”

  Jenny waggled a finger. “Can’t say. Don’t want to spoil the surprise.”

  They rounded the corner into the reactor room, where Jeff was standing with his arms crossed, talking with David and Gnaga.

  Jenny said, “Jeff, I have a new worker for you. He’s very excited about your conduit enhancement project. Fill him in on what you’ve got so far.”

  Jeff said, “Mr. Hardy? I didn’t know you had an interest in this.”

  Mace shook his head. “I don’t.”

  Jenny grabbed him by the back of the neck and shook. “Come on, loosen up. Listen to what they’re doing. You might bring just the perspective they need to solve their problems.”

  Jenny let go. “Mr. Moskowitz, fill him in.”

  As Jenny turned to leave she received a half scowl from Mace.

  Jane stopped her as she walked into the hall. “Thanks for doing this. I’ll keep an eye on him and make sure he interacts.”

  Jeff turned back to the others, looking at the floor. “The conduit runs under here. The Freck had this plating up, so it’s easy to get to. Mace, if you’d grab that hex driver over there, we can pull these plates. Sometimes looking directly at a problem helps to stir thoughts about potential solutions.”

  Mace picked up the rotary tool. “What is it we’re trying to do here, Doc?”

  Jeff replied, “We want to increase the size of those conduits. Gnaga thinks we might be able to integrate two of those cannons together to make a single, more powerful one. For starters, we’ll want to bring more energy from the well to the weapon head.”

  Mace gave him a confused look. “This conduit isn’t even going to a cannon.”

  Jeff pulled back. Hmm ��� you���re right. Gnaga? We should start with one of the cannon feeds, don’t you think?”

  Gnaga Klept took hold of his chin. “I think you may be right. Good call, Mr. Hardy.”

  Mace frowned. “Really? You expect me to buy into your poorly acted charade? As if I don’t know what you’re doing.”

  Jeff held up his hands. “What are we doing, Mr. Hardy?”

  Mace replied, “We’re playing ‘Let’s get Mace out of his funk by making him think he’s contributing.��� Sorry, Doc, I’ve been around the three of you enough to know you wou
ldn’t be starting with conduit in the reactor room.”

  Jeff smiled. “Good then. We have an understanding. You, Mr. Hardy, are going to help us solve our problem. And you’re going to help us because it’s our problem. So, are you on board with us?”

  Mace gestured toward the nearest cannon turret. “Sure, why not. Maybe I do need something else to focus on.”

  Jane grinned as Jeff and Mace left the room.

  Three floor plates had been removed when Jasper poked his head into the gun turret. “Mace, may I have a word?”

  Mace stepped over the holes in the floor, moving to the doorway. “What is it?”

  “Well, I’ve been thinking about those two shuttles we converted. They’re just sitting in the bays. What if we took one of them and made it a scout ship. With those reactors on there, we could pipe that energy to the gravity drive, making it into a fast ship. We don’t need all the transducers powered for that.

  “I just think it might do us good to have a ship that can go park and watch the comings and goings from Earth. It’s small, too, so it might not even get noticed. We could maybe even fly in from behind the Moon and then park on its surface.”

  “That’s a great idea, Mr. Collins. Get with Mr. Montak and have the Mawga give you whatever assistance you need. And do that to both shuttles. We might want to put them on a rotation of sorts. Come see me again when you have them ready.”

  Jasper nodded. “What you got going on here?”

  Mace looked back at the disheveled turret room. “Jeff has some ideas about increasing the power output of our cannons. Step one is to see that they can draw more power from the well. We’re attempting to add conduit to the feed circuit. If that works, we’ll focus on some updates to the cannon. We’ll have to disassemble the other one to get the parts we need.”

  Jasper frowned. “So we’ll be without both main cannons while this is going on?”

  Mace shrugged. “Not like we have anyone we need to fight right now. We could take out Stark’s ships with the old cannons if needed.”

  Jasper took a deep breath. “I guess. I just don’t like us not having an offense up and ready. One of those big ships could come jumping through a wormhole at any time.”

  Mace patted Jasper on the shoulder. “We still have the faster ship. We could run away.”

  Jasper crossed his arms. “And lose all our food supplies in the process.”

  Mace laughed. “OK. Point taken. We’ll try to minimize our time with these guns down. In the meantime, see what you can do with those shuttles. Having some eyes out there would only be good for us.”

  Over the day that followed, the extra conduit was laid and integrated with the cannon feeds. A moderate level of testing confirmed the needed power levels would be available to the weapon. Disassembly of the second powerful cannon was begun.

  Mace shook his head. “My hands are too big to get in there. The Fleck assembled this thing with their tiny hands, not these big clod-busters.”

  Gnaga stood behind Mace. “Step aside, Mr. Hardy. I can reach it.”

  The bolt in question was removed, allowing the power converter head to be exposed.

  “That’s the mechanism we’re looking for,” said Jeff. “It takes the plasma energy and somehow encapsulates it into a gravity wave. That gets passed directly to the emitter.”

  Mace asked, “And what are we planning to do with it, Doc?”

  Jeff inspected the unit. “We’re going to pull it and take it to the other turret. Then we’ll have to mount it in parallel with the other head. Gnaga has worked out a timing circuit that we believe will allow the two heads to release their plasma rounds at the exact same instant.

  “If that happens, we’re hoping the resulting round will carry twice the punch. It all seems to work out in our computer models. Reality, however, may prove different. Now, we just need to figure out how to pull this.”

  Mace flipped two latches. Reaching up, he yanked the unit from its housing.

  Jeff held up his hands. “Please, Mr. Hardy, be careful. We don’t want to damage it.”

  “I’m good, Mr. Moskowitz. Just tell me where you want it.”

  “Take it to our lab. Gnaga is constructing a frame to hold it. And as I said, please be careful. We can’t risk damage to something we have no way of repairing.”

  The power head was dropped off at the lab. Mace walked the halls to the gravity drives, where Jenny Taub was sitting watching the monitors.

  “Miss Taub, I just wanted to come in to say thanks. Having a project was a great idea. I feel like the vise that was squeezing my brain has been loosened.”

  Jenny smiled. “If you ever find yourself stressing over something that you have no control over, having a tough project to work on is almost a requirement. You and I have both seen combat. We both know the stress that comes from trying to get unwound after a mission. Having something to keep your mind occupied is where it’s at. And please, call me Jenny.”

  Mace nodded. “OK, Jenny. Anyway, thanks again for the assist.”

  Jenny said, “You know, if you’re ever feeling out of sorts, or down or blue, I’m here to talk… 24/7.”

  Mace tapped his knuckles on the doorframe as he returned a smile. “Thanks, Jenny. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Another long walk had the former Army Ranger walking onto the bridge. “Gentlemen, tell me what you know.”

  Johnny asked, “Does this mean you finally have your head screwed back on straight?”

  Mace nodded. “It’s better. Sorry for dragging everyone down with me. Mr. Mallot, anything on the sensors?”

  Humphrey replied, “Nothing but stars and that big methane planet out there, Mr. Hardy. All is quiet.”

  Hans turned from his station. “When might my cannons be returned?”

  Mace replied, “There’s a power converter head that has to be mounted and then some sort of synchronization circuits connected. After that they can begin testing. If all goes as expected, you’ll either have a cannon with twice the power or nothing but those old cannons. As to when exactly they will have it ready to test, I can’t say. Anyone here talked to Jasper?”

  Johnny laughed. “Old coot has some secret project he’s working on with Bontu in bay one. I tried to sneak Derwood in there with a camera, just to be nosy, but we got caught. He’s overridden the video monitors so we can’t see what he’s doing. What’s so secret that it has to be hidden?”

  Mace shook his head. “No big secret. He’s just having some fun with you. He’s switching the reactors on the shuttles to power the drives instead of all those transducers. He wants fast shuttles that we can start using as scout ships to monitor the comings and goings on Earth.”

  Johnny nodded. “Not a bad idea. Speaking of that, we’re just sitting out here doing nothing. Why don’t we go park this bucket where we can observe? If they spot us, so what? We just back up and move to a new location.”

  Hans said, “I don’t have my cannons.”

  Johnny replied, “If we’re just going to observe, we don’t need them.”

  Mace stroked his beard in thought. “How are we set for rations?”

  Jordan Crawford replied, “We just topped them off this morning. At regular consumption rates, we now have food to last us for ninety-six days. That’s up from eighty-nine. My goal is for one hundred twenty.”

  “How are you managing to stretch that out?”

  Jordan shrugged. “Mostly it’s just cramming boxes of those bars into every available space. If it’s not in use, I’m making use of it.”

  “Wise moves, Mr. Crawford. Mr. Hobbs, please set a course for Earth space. Find us a spot where we can sit and watch. And Mr. Mallot, in your spare time, assemble a team and take on the task of figuring out how to minimize our signature.

  “If you can make us stealthy we might just be able to sit and watch Earth without them knowing we’re there. And see what you can do for the shuttles in that regard. If we want them as scouts we don’t want them to be noticed, either.”
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  Mace glanced over at Johnny, who had a wry smile on his face. “What?”

  “Just glad to have you back in the game. We have a war to fight, and our odds of winning go up tremendously if we have a leader who’s engaged.”

  Mace gave a half laugh. “You people need to get better at picking your leaders. Maybe next time pick someone who doesn’t lose your whole planet.”

  The Rogers lifted from the surface of Proteus. Hours later, it was parked at maximum sensor range from Earth. Six of the eight damaged Mawga cruisers remained where they had been disabled. One was having repairs done in the massive repair bay the Mawga had delivered. Another was parked beside it.

  Johnny said, “Three days and they’re still working on the first ship. I have to wonder how efficient that repair bay is.”

  Humphrey replied, “They have the port drive removed completely. And they are working on the same drive on that second ship.”

  Mace asked, “You think we destroyed the drive and they’re salvaging one from the other ship?”

  Humphrey nodded. “Sure looks like it.”

  Johnny leaned back in his chair, looking over his shoulder. “You know, we could make a run in there and take out that repair dock. It could take them months to restore those other ships without it. Especially if more have damaged drives.”

  Hans said, “Still don’t have my main cannons, Mr. Tretcher.”

  Johnny shrugged. “Well, what could we do with the cannons we have? That repair dock isn’t heavily shielded.”

  Mace said, “Part of our strategy is to not kill Humans.”

  Humphrey turned his chair. “Scans say there’s nobody on that facility over four feet tall.”

  Mace replied, “You can see that from this distance?”

  Humphrey pushed the data to the wall display. “The dock is broadcasting status feeds down to the planet. I just tapped into one of those. It has standard Mawga encryption, something Admiral Gar gave me the keys for. We can decode and listen to any Mawga transmission now.”

  “When did this happen?”