by Jeff Sims
The second decision was easy. If he was about to get caught, then he needed to deflect the blame to someone else. Fortunately, the news just presented the perfect scapegoat. The traitor wrote a few more emails on Senator Figur’s behalf. His clearance was high enough that he was fairly certain that they would not be detected as forgeries before being released to the press.
Once the commission found them, Senator Figur’s complicity would be proven. He hoped that Admiral Dolen would not bother to complete his own investigation. There would be no need because the evidence would overwhelmingly point to the Senator as the cause of the breach.
………………..
Frank walked into the Senate chamber and sat in his usual seat. He was a few minutes early and patiently waited for the others to join him. Once everyone was present, the Ceremonial Master approached the podium and said, “Respects, gentle beings. The Senate is now in session. The first order of business is deciding who should replace Senator Figur.”
The Ceremonial Master said, “We have a legal expert with us today to discuss our options for filling Senator Figur’s chair.”
Legal Expert: “Senator Figur had almost 3 years left on his term. The Senate is well within its legal rights to appoint someone to complete his term. There are a couple of stipulations. The being has to be from Advranki Prime since that was the district that Figur represented.”
The Expert continued, “The second option is to have an impromptu election. This requires at least two candidates to be nominated and requires a period of no less than five months for campaigning.”
Frank waited for Figur to interrupt. He didn’t because he was dead and not in attendance. Frank recovered and said, “So, it could take as long as seven months to have a replacement. I don’t think the Senate in good conscious can allow the seat to remain unfulfilled for that long a period of time.
There was very little debate. The Senate voted 7 -0 to appoint someone to fill the vacancy.
Frank said, “I just thought of a candidate that would do an excellent job filling in until the next election. He is smart, well liked, and already a local leader. I would like to nominate Nudrek.”
Nudrek was the senior leader in the Advranki Prime Senate. He was a well-respected politician and known for his easy-going manner. Further, he was good friends with the other two Advranki on the Alliance Senate. Frank respected him, but had never befriended him.
Again, there was very little debate. The Altians and the Solarian just wanted the situation resolved quickly. They probably would have voted for a step-stool. The other two Advranki clearly approved of Frank’s choice. The Senate voted 7 -0 to appoint Nudrek to fill the vacancy.
Frank smiled to himself. He had just set in motion a huge ripple effect. First, he permanently removed his annoying rival. Next, he replaced him with someone respected, but really not that interested in global politics. He knew that Nudrek would not seek reelection to the Alliance Senate.
Meanwhile, the next planetary Senate election would occur while Nudrek was still filling in for Figur’s vacated seat. Therefore, he would not be eligible for the next election. Then, he should be able to maneuver Colok into position to capture the planetary Senate seat.
Colok was Lexxi’s father and owed him a very large debt. Then, if all went well during the following election cycle, perhaps he could get both Colok and Baxter Bunnyhop into the Alliance Senate. Frank smiled again as he imagined having a block of 3 Senators that voted exactly how he wanted them to vote.
…………….
“Amy, Ms. Weisman,” the engineer hesitantly said after he poked his head into her office. He was standing in the doorway, ready to enter if it was safe or retreat if it was not.
Amy looked up from her computer and said, “Please come in and tell me that you have some good news.”
She still didn’t know where her missing people were, but she was now certain that they weren’t in France, or in a jungle, or milking cacti.
The engineer led someone into her office that she didn’t recognize. When Victor first started Victory Games, there were only 30 or so employees and she had known everyone. Now, there were so many people working there that she no longer had the ability to meet everyone.
The man looked scared to enter her office. She wondered when she became so intimidating that people were scared of her. She grimaced and thought that it probably corresponded with losing 16 employees.
She tried smiling. It seemed to work. Both fully entered her office and sat in chairs near her desk. The engineer said, “Go, ahead, tell her what you told me.”
The man hesitated for a moment and finally said, “Hello, I work in 1A-15 on platform software applications for the heater.”
He paused and the engineer waved him to continue. Clearly he wasn’t here to tell Amy about his job function. The man continued, “I live next to the parents of one of the women that disappeared.”
He again paused. The engineer again waved him to continue. The man said, “I was talking to the woman’s mother last night and I said some platitude like I hope she is okay.”
Amy realized that it must be relevant or the engineer wouldn’t have brought the man to her office. Amy responded, “What did her mother say?”
The man replied, “She said that according to the last email her daughter is doing great. She is having fun at her new assignment and really learning a lot. Further, she doubted that she would home for Thanksgiving.”
“Email.?!” Amy said it as a statement, a question, and an exclamation.
The engineer set a piece of paper on her desk and replied, “Apparently the mother sends and receives weekly responses from her daughter.”
The engineer saw Amy’s facial expression and continued, “And yes, I’m in the process of verifying whether the other 15 family members are in email contact with the missing employees.”
Amy looked at the paper and said, “first name dot last name at secretmission.gov.”
She looked at the engineer and said, “It’s worth a try, let’s send 16 of them.”
…………………
“Let’s check this one,” Prued’mo said to the two dock workers standing beside her.
Prued’mo waited for them to pull the crate out of its storage location and set it down on the floor of the cargo hold. Once down, a worker activated the open button and the front of the crate slid apart. She put on gloves and grabbed a piece of fruit. She visually inspected it for any discoloration or any other defect that might be a sign of contamination.
Satisfied, she dropped it into a bioanalyzer. She waited a minute for the computer to display the results. She read the report as it was scrolling across her screen. The fruit was okay. Prued’mo displayed the ship’s cargo hold on her communication pad. She circled three more random crates.
She said, “That one is good, you can reseal it and put it back. Let’s check three more crates before we approve this shipment.”
Prued’mo felt that she had adjusted to her new life fairly well over the last month. Actually, she had been on the station longer than that. Tomorrow was her two-month anniversary on the station. So far, the Hiriculan mother had kept her infant away from palm pads, but she knew that she was running out of time.
Plus, she missed being a doctor. With one exception though, she certainly did not miss that one particular surgery. Also, she was getting tired of living in an enclosed area. Watching the stars in the observation room was pretty neat, but it wasn’t the same as walking outside and feeling the warmth of the sun.
A couple of weeks earlier she had watched the fireworks display that signified the end of the Solarian celebration on her apartment monitor. She often daydreamed about living on Solaria; so much so that it had now become her destination of choice.
Solaria now had the largest population of Hiriculans on any planet outside of Neto, and well obviously Hiricula. She firmly believed that if she could somehow get to Solaria, she could reestablish herself as a doctor using her real name and cre
dentials. She might have to explain how she arrived at Solaria, but since she would be in Alliance territory, the Hiriculan embassy would not be able to force her to return.
Prued’mo read the bioanalyzer report on the next three pieces of fruit. She said, “Okay, these are all clean. The load has been cleared.”
She walked off of the freighter and checked the status monitor that showed all incoming and outgoing ships. Most were scheduled days or even months in advance, but occasionally an unscheduled ship arrived.
She couldn’t believe it. The monitor had just updated and now showed an unscheduled arrival.
She said, “It looks like we have a small window between ships. I am going to take a break. I will see you two when u-8B arrives.”
They nodded in response.
Prued’mo raced back to her apartment and started packing. She was leaving today.
Chapter 17
Jim Donovan watched the final seconds tick by. Three, two, one, zero.
Russ Brand said, “Transitioning back to real space now.”
Jim opened his mouth to say well done, but couldn’t. The ship began shaking violently back-and-forth and up-and-down. The shaking was so violent that it felt like the ship was going to explode. Jim felt like he was in a tilt-a-whirl spinning over a minefield.
The safety straps dug into Jim’s chest and kept him pinned in his seat. However, the straps did little to dampen the absolute jarring he experienced. Jim could barely breathe. Fortunately, the shaking stopped almost as suddenly as it began.
Jim yelled, “Damage report!” He meant to ask it as a question, but it came out like a command.
Russ replied, “Unknown. The ship appears to be able to fly, but the hyperdrive is off-line.”
Jim calmed a bit and said, “Kolvak, Shole, are you okay.”
Jim waited for a pair of yesses and continued, “Kolvak, figure out what’s wrong with the hyperdrive. Shole, activate the scanners.”
Shole noted that Jim hadn’t specified whether he wanted passive or active scanners. She interpreted the command to mean both, so she activated both. A moment later she reported, “I am putting the scan results on the primary monitor now.
Colin had the best angle at the monitor and shouted, “We’re surrounded. We just jumped into the middle of an entire Hiriculan fleet!”
Jim, and everyone else in the bridge, stopped what they were doing and looked at the monitor. Jim wanted to walk over and inspect it closely, but he was still strapped to his chair. Besides, there wasn’t time.
Even at this distance he could see that they were indeed surrounded by 6 Hiriculan vessels. No, now a 7th ship appeared. Colin was correct; they were surrounded by an entire Hiriculan fleet.
Shole was still busy updating the scanners, so Jim pushed the sequence of buttons to allow him to address everyone in the ship. He said, “All hands, this is not a drill. We are surrounded by a Hiriculan fleet and are under attack. I repeat, under attack. Launch all fighters. Load the missile launchers, pattern S4P2.”
Jim left the all hands channel open and said, “Gus, split your squadron and attack the two cruisers on the right. Kip, do the same to two cruisers on the left.” Jim then closed the channel.
Colin unbuckled the straps and left the bridge. He saw Becky in the hallway. Together, they ran to missile launcher number 1.
The active scanners completed an initial scan of the area. Shole said, “The enemy warships are situated in a typical surround and trap pattern. Using our right hangar bay as 0 degrees, the first cruiser is located at a 330 degree angle, or negative 30 degrees, and a distance of 4,500,000 kilometers (2.8 million miles).”
Jim wanted to yell “Negative 30 degrees off our starboard’, but refrained. He doubted that she knew the word starboard. Right worked just fine he supposed.
Shole continued as if she hadn’t been mentally interrupted, “The second cruiser is situated at a 30 degree angle and also at a distance of 4.5 million kilometers. Further, there are two cruisers on the left. One is 150 degrees and the other is at 210 degrees. They are also 4.5 million kilometers away.”
Shole continued, “There are two destroyers in front of us. Each is 4.5 million kilometers away. The first is angled at 80 degrees, or 10 degrees to the right of our forward position. The second is angled at 100 degrees or 10 degrees to the left of our forward position.”
Jim mentally translated – two ships off port, one 30 degrees negative and the other 30 degrees positive. Again, he understood where the ships were – two were on his left, two ships were on his right, and two were directly ahead.
Shole finished, “There is a battleship located at a 250 degree angle and a distance of 9 million kilometers (5.6 million miles).”
Jim realized that the location of the enemy ships was not random. The 4 cruisers and 2 destroyers formed a top heavy circle with a radius of 4.5 million kilometers. Further, the Sunflower was in the exact center of the circle. The battleship was almost directly behind them, but twice as far away as the other ships.
The alignment made perfect sense. The battleship was offset to ensure that the Sunflower didn’t bang into it in hyperspace. The big gaps in the coverage were behind them because they had to exit hyperspace with forward motion.
They still had a residual motion of .05 light going forward. To shoot the gap behind them would require either stopping the ship and reversing course or turning in a large arc that would carry them dangerously close to two of the cruisers. Neither option sounded good.
In essence, they were trapped. However, Jim had little intention of doing what the enemy wanted him to do or going where the enemy wanted him to go.
Kolvak said, “I believe I may have an answer to the hyperspace dilemma.”
Jim replied, “That was quick. What’s wrong with it?”
Kolvak answered, “Nothing, per se. The entire area was bombarded by gravity missiles immediately after we arrived. The missiles have created a temporary artificial gravity source.”
“So we can’t jump,” Jim said.
“The field is so large that none of us can jump,” Kolvak corrected.
Jim asked, “Was that why we were bumped around so badly when we reentered normal space?”
Kolvak: “Yes, but the gravity missiles weren’t the only thing that rocked the ship. Recall that we arrived 3 seconds early. The gravity missiles hadn’t activated yet. We were initially caught in the near miss of an ion cannon strike.”
“From where?” Jim asked.
Kolvak: “The battleship. If we had exited hyperspace in the location specified in our flight plan, we would have been struck by it.”
“Were you able to estimate the power rating?” Jim asked.
Kolvak: “It appears the ion cannon shot was at 75% power. The blast would have pulverized the ship. The bridge may survived, but only if the blast door had properly been closed and sealed and the bridge shields had been activated.”
Jim noted Kolvak’s admonition of his open door policy. However, now was not the time to debate whether or not the bridge door should be sealed.
Kolvak continued, “The gravity missiles exploded 3 seconds later. That was enough time for the light of the ion cannon miss to reach one of the destroyers and a fire command to return.”
Jim decided that he wasn’t going to stop or turn around. There was no point. The only course that gave them any chance of success was forward.
He said, “Russ, program a flight path directly toward one of the destroyers. Set a collision course.” He quickly mapped out the course that he wanted the ship to take.
Jim then released his straps and ran to the weapons console. He waited another few seconds for the missile status board to show green. Nine launchers were armed and ready to fire. He pressed the fire button; launching the missiles.
His nail slid off of the button and hit the metal ring lining it. He found it strange that nearly every other control was touchscreen, but the fire mechanism was an actual button. He inspected his finger. The nail was sligh
tly torn.
Jim used his security code to override the manual missile fire button. He set it to fire automatically every 25 seconds. That was a very short time between shots, but the crew had been practicing and he felt confident that they could handle the pace.
Plus, they wouldn’t have to wait for what missile to load – they were only going to fire offensive missiles in a defined manner during this battle. During the last battle in Influenla, the crew’s efficiency had suffered from frequent missile changes. Knowing what missile was supposed to come next was the key to maintaining a 25 second fire rate.
Therefore, he had created a very simple sequence to correct the issue. The code was the first letter of the name of the missile followed by the number of times to fire it. Since both shield and ship started with the letter S, they used the P for ship. He had requested a fire pattern S4P2, or 4 rounds of shield buster missiles followed by 2 rounds of ship buster missiles.
The shots were programmed to alternate between the two cruisers on each side. Therefore, over the course of the next 1 minute and 15 seconds each of the 4 enemy cruisers would be targeted by 10 shield buster missiles and 5 ship busters.
As he was doing that he yelled, “Russ, status?”
Russ responded, “Course set, speed steady at .05 light. We will collide with the enemy destroyer in about 5 minutes. Specifically, I set time zero to be the time that we entered the Opron system. So, we will make contract at time zero mark 318 seconds.”
Jim said, “Kolvak, how long does it take to arm … I mean how much time is required to prepare the ion cannon to be fired. Can you pre-set it to fire at time now mark 315 seconds?”
A moment later Kolvak said, “When the activation sequence is initiated, it takes about 20 seconds for the mass converter to ionize the atoms. Manual activation cannot be overridden.”
Jim turned to leave and Kolvak said, “Where are you going?”
Jim stopped and turned back around with a guilty look on his face. He had actually been heading toward his fighter. His training had temporarily overridden his thoughts. He tried to think of lie to cover his mistake, but couldn’t.
