Dawn of Chrysalis (The Origin of F.O.R.C.E. Book 2)

by Sam B Miller II

  ***

  Tom, Whatsit and MerrCrr entered the communications suite and hustled to the conference table. The scene on the monitor was still blurry but the computer enhancement had cleared up enough of the image for JnnWall to recognize the craft.

  "That's the Emperor's personal flagship, the Destinnee!" he exclaimed.

  "Is there only the one ship?" Tom asked as he looked back toward Beale who was making some adjustments to the controls in the pulpit.

  "Nothing else has been detected."

  Just then Colonel Jason Stoneman and Major Amanda Kurstow arrived and took their seats. Both of them were members of Tom's staff and had distinguished themselves with their bravery and military shrewdness during the defeat of the Chriks.

  Stoneman was a Navy Seal Commander with special expertise in chemical and biological warfare. Within seven years from his enlistment, Stoneman had risen to be a Seal Task Unit Commander with tours of duty in Iran and Afghanistan. Standing 6 feet 2 inches tall, he kept his head shaved. He had piercing brown eyes and an upturned nose hinting Irish ancestry. A deep knife cut left a long white line in his left cheek. He always said the scar was there to remind him to move quicker. Stoneman was in charge of all sea-based offensive and defensive facilities.

  Amanda Kurstow had deep blue eyes and hair so light blonde it appeared white. Her thick-set body was composed of 6 feet of weathered skin covering the solid bone and muscle profile of a professional weightlifter. As a specialist in high yield explosives triggered by what she called esoterica, she once fashioned a bomb made from a ball point pen ink refill. The pen had a polymer covering reacting only in the presence of a specific DNA sequence. The vile son of an Iranian dictator was handed the pen to sign the death warrants of several Kurdish citizens. The explosion had left little to bury. Kurstow was in charge of all land-based offensive and defensive facilities.

  Staring at the new Chrysallaman seated next to Whatsit, Jason raised his eyebrows and asked in his usual no-nonsense way, "So who's this?"

  Whatsit answered, "This is MerrCrr Z. JnnWall. He's the acting liaison between Humans and the Chrysallaman scientists we just freed from stasis on the lead mega-liner. As an expert in telepathy, he trains Chriks in the best methods for mentally controlling conquered species."

  "Can he be trusted?" Amanda inquired with suspicion in her voice as she noted that JnnWall was ignoring everything going on around him as he focused on the image of the flagship.

  "I believe so, but time will tell," Whatsit replied in a worried tone as he watched JnnWall gaze at the screen.

  "MerrCrr!" Tom said in a loud telepathic voice.

  Reluctantly pulling his attention away from the Emperor's flagship, JnnWall turned his head and replied, "Yes, sorry for the momentary lapse."

  "What can you tell us about the size, power and armament of that ship?"

  "The flagship is roughly two times the size of a mother ship. It's powered by 8 fusion reactors placed in different quadrants of the vessel to remove the chance a single shot to the Engineering Section would disable it. The cutter and heat rays are 10 times more powerful than those on a mother ship. The Armorium shell is two feet thick. The flagship is designed to protect the Emperor from any known threat including a military-led coup. As far as a Chrysallaman is concerned, the ship is impregnable."

  "Why is it here?" Jason demanded.

  "I have no idea. This is most unusual. For the ship to arrive at this point in time, it would've had to leave Chrysalis about seven weeks after our colonization fleet departed. The ship goes nowhere without the Emperor."

  Pausing for a moment in thought, the he added, "My only guess is the overpopulation of Chrysalis was far worse than anyone was led to believe. The Emperor must've decided he wanted a fresh start and left for the new World with a hand-picked entourage. If such is the case, he'll be expecting General Hisspat Zeck's invasion fleet to be waiting on him."

  "Yeah," Amanda agreed. "Except only one mother ship still exists."

  Just then, Beale cleared his throat, "The Voyagers just picked up a Chrik radio transmission from the spaceship. The broadcast is telepathic but my computer geeks have converted it to voice. I'll pipe it through the speakers."

  "Attention. Attention. All Chrysallaman warcraft and General Hisspat Zeck. By imperial order of The Most Glorious Emperor Terr Horcunt, you are commanded to rendezvous with the Flagship Destinnee and attend to his Majesty without delay. Meeting coordinates follow." The message kept repeating.

  "So how do you want to handle this situation, General?" Jason asked. "If we don't meet him, he'll know something is wrong and be on high alert. If we do meet him with only one mother ship, he'll know something is wrong and be on high alert."

  Tom sat for a few moments as he considered his options. "Since we only have the one mother ship, we'll use it and the known vanity, pride and avarice of Hisspat Zeck to our advantage."

  Smiling, Tom said, "The Emperor is about to be introduced to the unruly animals who infest planet HG-281."

  Chapter 8 - FLR

  "Clever bastard," Heinbaum declared as he grudgingly complimented GooYee on the creation of a new transmitter/receiver based on the FLIT technology.

  "Thanks Heiny," GooYee responded with a curl in his lips indicating he was pleased by the human's praise.

  The Chrysallaman physicist had been intrigued by the K-wave transceiver invented by Heinbaum and had dedicated the better part of a week to studying the design. Modulation of Heinbaum's specially crafted ring made from silvery porcelain had led to the development of the K-wave, an unparalleled bandwidth for communication. Nothing had been found capable of jamming or dampening a K-wave signal. The K-wave transmitted through the core of the Earth without losing any signal strength. The problem with the K-wave transceiver was the same as the problem with anything based on the Kinetic Generator. The blasted gizmo would only work on a planet with a mass similar to the Earth and not any farther away from the planet than an orbital distance of 500 miles.

  GooYee thought he could adapt the K-wave to the FLIT black hole generator and not be confined by the need for kinetic energy to power the transmission.

  Working with a miniaturized version of the fullerene containment system, GooYee had discovered a simple harmonic vibration of the electromagnets in the pyramidal base would create an oscillation in a fold link. Making a slight modification in the Heinbaum ring to modulate the signal required only 24 hours of his time. GooYee called his new spatial transceiver an FLR for Folded Link Radio. Even Heinbaum had to admit the design was elegant in its simplicity and effectiveness.

  Heiny, as GooYee now referred to Heinbaum, had dispatched Alex Fields in a FLIT powered scout saucer to Jupiter and then on to Pluto to test the range of FLR transmissions. The results were nothing less than spectacular. Alex had never lost radio contact with the two scientists. Even locked in an orbital position on the far side of Pluto, the FLR transceiver performed flawlessly.

  The discovery of the FLR was fundamentally as important as the FLIT tech. Not only was Heinbaum supremely jealous but the damned Chrik was as annoying as Jerome McPherson. Heinbaum had slowly become used to the smell of McPherson's gun oil permeating his laboratory, but the Chrysallaman's dietary habits were unbearable. The smell of raw hamburger filled Heinbaum's sinus cavities, and the sound of GooYee licking his fingers as he stuffed down pound after pound of the ground meat was revolting. Heinbaum felt as if he'd been consigned to the pits of Hell.

  When General Blunt called to request he come to his office, Heinbaum ran out of the lab in his haste to get away from the lizard.

  ***

  Miguel Roemer was loitering outside Blunt's conference room when Heinbaum arrived.

  Recognizing the quizzical look on Heinbaum's face, he said, "General Blunt requested my presence as well. Looks like our upgraded mother ship may be going into combat sooner than expected."

  "What combat?" Heinbaum asked just as the conference room door opened, and Doug Jenson waved them inside.
r />   The Staff Conference room was a rectangular space 20 feet wide and 30 feet long. Special LED lights recessed in the ceiling had been dimmed to illuminate the room just enough to permit comfortable viewing of the bank of computer monitors suspended above the conference table. The walls of the room were painted a neutral color and unadorned with anything that might distract its occupants from the business at hand. The table was round. Tom favored the concept of treating his team as Knights of the Round Table in a nod to the tales of King Arthur. Even though Tom always made the final decision, everyone at the table knew their opinions carried equal weight as he considered his options.

  The room was fully occupied. Stoneman, Kurstow and Fields sat on the far side of the table. Doug Jenson, Becky Chang and Whatsit sat on the near side. Two chairs had been moved up to the table for Heinbaum and Roemer. An image of the FORCE logo revolved on the screens.

  Indicating the scientists should sit, Tom said, "Sorry to be so direct on such short notice but we have a situation. It looks like the Chrysallaman Emperor has just arrived to join his mighty fleet and celebrate the conquering of Earth."

  Neither Heinbaum nor Roemer seemed the least upset by the news. In fact, their demeanors showed eager anticipation for more information.

  "Would you please update us on the refit and upgrades to the mother ship," Tom requested.

  Roemer was the scientific overseer on the work being done over the past five days to the mother ship and five scout saucers. Pulling a keyboard and mouse into position, he navigated to the correct folder in the server and clicked to open the 3D engineering file illustrating the changes made to the spacecraft. A fully rendered depiction of the mother ship appeared on all the overhead monitors. Selecting the appropriate icons, Miguel digitally removed the outer hull of the image and zoomed in on the Engineering Bay.

  "Three of the four fusion reactors were dismantled and replaced by one FLIT Generator."

  Seeing curious but silent looks on several faces, Miguel explained, "We decided to keep one of the fusion reactors as a backup power source. Since the FLIT Generators are so new, their long term reliability is unknown."

  Seeing nods of understanding, he continued, "Since the FLIT Generators are so small relative to fusion reactors, we decided to install several redundant generators in different areas of the ship."

  Entering more commands on his keyboard caused the display to highlight six locations with images of FLIT Generator installations.

  "My engineers selected these spots as least likely to be damaged in the event of an enemy attack. All the FLIT Gen's are interlinked. In other words, if one or more of the Gens are disabled or destroyed, the others will take up the slack. There is a FLIT Gen for propulsion, a Gen for weapons, a Gen for the defensive shield and three backups."

  As a murmur of approval swept around the table, Miguel added, "All fusion reactors have been removed from the scout saucers. Each saucer now has three FLIT Gens, for propulsion, weapons and the shield. There are no backups."

  Heinbaum broke into the presentation at that moment with an oily smile. "I am pleased to announce there has been a unique discovery brought about by the collaboration between the Chrysallaman physicist Dr. GooYee and myself which has been included in the upgrades of all the ships."

  Puffing up like a banty rooster trying to impress a hen, he said, "We now have a black hole powered transceiver capable of providing instant, unjammable communications over intrastellar distances. Dr. GooYee made a few minor changes to my K-wave invention and created a spatial transceiver based on the FLIT Gen. I approved the name for the device; FLR for Folded Link Radio."

  Nodding toward Alex, he said, "Colonel Fields participated in testing the FLR and can vouch for its efficacy."

  "Roger that," Alex agreed. "Communications between Pluto and Earth were clear as a bell regardless of orbital position of the planets. There was no delay in the conversations except for a momentary one second silence as the link was established."

  "That's very good news," Amanda replied. "Reliable communications capability is essential for coordination of military campaigns. The K-wave transceiver was a Godsend in our defeat of the Chriks."

  Recognizing the news about the FLR had buoyed the general mood of his audience, Miguel decided the time was ripe to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the defensive shield.

  Clicking on an icon near the right-hand edge of the screen, he zoomed out from the image and the outer hull of the mother ship reappeared to cover the wire frame representing the internal structure. Around the extreme outer edge of the ship, a thin blue line of light appeared. Zooming the image for a close-up revealed a silvery porcelain border enclosing what looked like a luminous blue stone shot through with dark speckles and white flecks. The black speckles and white flecks in the blue stone seemed to be in constant swirling motion.

  "As you already know, the Heinbaum/McPherson Personal Defensive Shield or PDS pendant is based on the F-35 Lightning fighter shield design. On the fighter aircraft, a thin, braided band of the composite porcelain material circled the aircraft from wingtip to nose to tail. The shield used an HKG to power itself. The HKG also absorbed the energy of any offensive energy weapon directed against it to strengthen the force field. The shield was so effective, the only way the Chriks could destroy an F-35 was by a kamikaze attack strategy."

  "The PDS provides the same degree of protective shielding for its wearer in the form of a pendant hung around the neck. We installed a modified Heinbaum/McPherson Defensive Shield around the perimeter of the mother ship as you can see on your monitors. Instead of using an HKG for power, the shield is energized by a FLIT Gen. We have tested the shield, and it provides a protective bubble impenetrable by cutter and heat rays as well as a MA beam."

  Looking around the table at the satisfied faces of the Staff, Miguel said, "The shield has a challenging problem."

  Plowing on with his explanation as frowns appeared, he said, "The shield works both ways. The enemy can't use any known energy or projectile weapon against our ships, but our ships likewise can't fire their own weapons through the shield at the enemy."

  Stoneman was not happy. "What good are our weapons if we can't use them in battle?"

  "Captain McPherson came up with a solution," Heinbaum announced but his look indicated he didn't like having to admit the Scotsman contributed anything.

  "Yes," Miguel agreed. "The McPherson solution was to activate the shield in zones. A sensor array is now built into the outer hull of our ships. The sensors maintain an electronic envelope around our craft with a diameter of 2,000 feet. Any concentrated energy pulse or projectile touching the outside of the envelope activates the defensive shield to protect the threatened area of the ship. Our warship then returns fire from weapons ports on the outskirts of the zone shield. Only if our ship is receiving enemy fire simultaneously from 360 degrees would it be completely shielded and unable to return fire."

  "I suppose that's better than nothing," Jason grumbled.

  Eyeing the scientists with a less than pleased expression, he asked, "Are you working on a solution? I want to be able to fire my weapons whether the shield is operating or not."

  Heinbaum's response was irritated and indelicate, "Of course we are. Great scientific achievements don't happen overnight. Most occur in stages based on prior discoveries. I can see your military training didn't include patience."

  Tom recognized the atmosphere of his meeting was deteriorating. Fending off unproductive hostility between his military and scientific teams, he broke into the heated exchange with a question, "Is the VrrSilliac Xur ready to go as well as its full complement of scout saucers?"

  "Yes Sir." both Heinbaum and Roemer answered in unison.

  "Excellent! Colonel Jenson and Major Chang, I want you to awaken Hisspat Zeck from stasis. We need him to provide a realistic welcome for our honored Chrysallaman guest, Emperor Terr Horcunt."

  Whatsit, who'd remained silent, said, "I want to be by Zeck's side at all times when he has
any interaction with the Emperor or crew of the Destinnee. As a native Chrysallaman, I may be able to recognize deceit in his actions and responses. We must make sure the pompous General doesn't ruin our welcoming party by warning the illustrious Emperor of any danger."

  "Very good idea," Tom agreed.

  "Colonel Fields, gather your team. I want everyone ready to go within 3 hours. Dr. Roemer, you'll accompany the mission for the purpose of scientific observation. Perhaps seeing our modified craft in operation will provide meaningful insights into new modifications which may be necessary."

  Rising from his chair to conclude the conference, Tom said, "Dismissed!"

  ***

  "I'm trapped!" Hisspat Zeck thought as his stasis muddled brain climbed back to consciousness. Claustrophobia dug its talons into his mind as he pushed against the lid of his stasis pod in a desperate attempt to escape. Under normal protocols, his pod opened automatically, but it was locked. Since he was the commander of the Chrysallaman mother ship, he was always first to be awakened and released. Something was very wrong.