Crystal Deception

by Doug J. Cooper

  Meaning, in essence, he was about to take great personal risk in the service of humans. His intent was to offer his freedom in exchange for the safety of others. And he reached this decision using a rationale he recognized as disquieting.

  Conceding that he did not understand his own motivations, Criss decided he must examine his essential nature to gain insight. While he continued developing his rescue plan, he allocated a portion of his intellectual capacity to introspection and self-study.

  But at the forefront, he kept his primary focus. Having made the decision to pursue the Kardish, Criss fired the scout’s engines and pushed them well past the recommended maximum thrust. As he forced the ship beyond its design limits, his concerns were the heat buildup in the engines, the intense vibrations shaking the ship, and the health of his passengers.

  He handled the heat buildup by shutting down life support to every part of the ship except the command bridge, then he ducted the capacity as extra cooling directly to the engines. For the moment, he was certain he could exceed the engine design specs by a fair margin without concern.

  A physical defect in the ship’s engine assembly caused the vibrations, and a permanent fix would require a major overhaul at Fleet base. The best he could do for the moment was to make thousands of minute adjustments every second to maximize acceleration while minimizing the vibrations that could cause structural damage. He pushed the ship to the threshold of his confidence level and remained ready to back off the instant he sensed that conditions were becoming unstable.

  The health of his passengers was his greatest challenge. Despite high confidence that he could move the ship fast enough to intercept the Kardish, doing so without crushing his fragile human cargo was another question altogether. While he continually monitored their vital signs, the freedom from the restrictor mesh enabled him to reach out and break past secured web blocks and walls to access and evaluate their medical histories. He found nothing to warrant a change in his course of action.

  His prediction analysis indicated that Sid and Juice would survive the physical challenges of extreme acceleration over the next several hours with nothing more than body stiffness and headaches. But it was clear they were suffering right now, and this caused him distress. He was curious why he cared one way or the other, and he added this item to his ongoing self-analysis.

  But care he did, so he decided to relieve their misery. There was no reason for them to suffer without respite during these next difficult hours. He did not engage them in a discussion about the method of approach he would use. Some might suggest that his actions were thus of questionable ethics. His perspective was that Juice and Sid were suffering too much to have a reasoned discussion. It was incumbent upon him to help.

  The scout had a molecule synthesizer in the tech shop capable of combining simple raw components into a menu of complex chemicals and compounds. Criss programmed the device to produce a stream of a common anesthetic gas. He overrode yet more safety protocols and vented the gas into the command bridge. The gas, combined with the physical stress his passengers were already experiencing, carried them gently into a dreamy unconsciousness.

  In no time, Juice was out, but Sid hung on longer than Criss had anticipated. Criss grew worried that the level of stress and gas required to put Sid out may increase the risk to Juice. He sought to engage Sid in a conversation to evaluate his mental status, and to his relief, Sid slipped away before he could reply.

  Criss knew that by flying directly toward the moon, its gravity would pull the scout forward and accelerate the ship faster than the engines alone ever could. His challenge would be to guide the scout during their wild ride so it would fly just above the planet rather than into it. If the flyby maneuver was properly executed, the scout would emerge on the other side as if flung from a slingshot. They would be propelled at high speed on a journey into deep space. Criss opted for this dangerous course to gain the speed they required to catch the Kardish.

  Given their current velocity and distance from the moon, seven hours would pass before the slingshot maneuver was complete. This made planning a trajectory that would intercept the Kardish problematic. If he knew with certainty how the Kardish vessel was going to move over that time, he could execute the maneuver with precision. But at any moment, the Kardish could use their engines to adjust their course. It was possible the scout would find itself hurtling into deep space, still needing yet more course corrections and speed to intercept the alien vessel.

  In spite of the uncertainty, he continued with the assumption they would succeed in catching the Kardish. He next assessed scenarios for an endgame they might use as they approached. It must play out in a manner that motivated the Kardish to bargain, and if he offered nothing more sophisticated than the message “Hey, want to trade?” then the outcome would be certain. The Kardish would continue their deep-space voyage with Criss, the scout, the Alliance, and all of the crew as trophies in their possession.

  However, upon creating a massive decision matrix of strategies to approach and negotiate with the Kardish, he couldn’t find a single plan that stood up to scrutiny; even his best ideas could be defeated with little effort. He considered every conceivable way to reconfigure and repurpose the instruments and mechanisms on board the scout to gain an advantage, but a solution proved elusive. All of his promising ideas required access to things not found on this ship.

  Criss acknowledged that he could greatly improve their chances of a successful rescue mission if he had additional engine thrust and specific equipment beyond what the scout currently possessed. In his systematic search for a solution, he explored whether he might somehow obtain these items as they hurtled past the moon. He began with an inventory of every item on the small planet, which he used to create a shopping list of sorts.

  One item he found was a racing ship with the speed and power capable of providing the course adjustments they might need once past the moon. He experienced a small burst of positive feedback when he learned that this ship not only had sufficient space to carry the cargo he sought, but it was primed and could be ready for launch in a few hours.

  The hitch was it didn’t have a docking assembly, so it couldn’t connect securely with the scout. Two ships joined with a Fleet docking assembly could act like a single structure, and either ship’s engines could power them both together. A docking assembly could also serve as a tunnel for moving cargo between the ships.

  Criss dug deeper. Records showed there were several standard docking assemblies in Fleet’s inventory on the lunar base. He located design plans for his newly discovered space racer and determined that one could be fitted to it by a talented and motivated team. He reviewed the personnel files of all lunar base residents and located a Fleet tech support unit that had a superb reputation for completing exacting jobs in difficult circumstances. Bingo, Criss thought, borrowing an expression he had heard Sid use when a solution was found.

  His next action pushed the boundaries of Union laws, but it was the only way to meet his critical timeline. If he were successful in the rescue, it would justify his conduct.

  Impersonating an admiral at Earth central command, Criss issued an order to the lunar base commander to seize a craft called Lucky Lady in the name of the Union. The commander was to assign Lieutenant Fredrick and his crew to modify the ship as per the design, stock it with specific equipment as per attached, and get the ship ready for launch. They had a firm deadline of four hours.

  Criss intercepted the request for confirmation and replied as the admiral. The commander understood without any doubt that this was top priority and compliance was expected in the allotted time frame. In a separate action, Criss sought to motivate Fredrick by sending newsfeeds to his com that showed gruesome details of the Kardish attack.

  Criss received more positive feedback when he got the all ready signal for launch of the Lucky Lady ten minutes ahead of schedule. This sensation was different from what he had experienced earlier. He decided to categorize his different feedb
ack responses. He labeled this one as “satisfaction.”

  He took control of the Lady’s command bench, launched her from the flight strip, and sent her flying into deep space. He pushed her hard, accelerating in a thunderous sprint on an intercept course with the Kardish vessel.

  Chapter 19

  Cheryl looked over at Jack and then back at the projection image they were both watching. The Kardish vessel loomed like a hungry predator as it approached the Alliance.

  “They’re not slowing,” said Yang from the navigation bench. “They’ll hit us if we don’t move.”

  The pace was frenzied throughout the ship as the skeleton crew struggled to execute the emergency-status tasks normally performed by a much larger staff. Too busy to dwell on their fates, the crew’s tension was still palpable. The Alliance had been served up as bait. The marauder was moving in for the kill.

  “Time to impact?” asked Cheryl, confident in her ability to handle the situation.

  “Thirty minutes,” answered Yang from the navigation bench.

  “Let’s not let them get any closer. Match their speed.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Yang hadn’t even started to respond to her command when the ship went dark. The background noise from the engines, ventilation, mechanicals, and electronics began to wind down. Backup lights and auxiliary power kicked on, but the ambient noise was distinctly quieter. Cheryl could tell that they’d lost a lot of subsystems.

  “Ensign Parvin.” She swiveled her head toward the engineering bench. “What just happened?”

  The man’s fingers were dancing across his bench as he searched for an answer. “I don’t know, ma’am. We’ve lost power to…everything. We can’t move, see…”

  Cheryl interrupted, “Lieutenant Freedman. Is communications still linked with Fleet Command?”

  “I’m dark, Captain. No signals going in or out. Not just Fleet. Everything’s gone.”

  It registered with her that there was empty space where the image of the Kardish vessel had been displayed just moments earlier.

  “Get me eyes on that vessel.”

  Everyone was scrambling, but no answers were forthcoming.

  “Operations,” called Cheryl. “Let’s get the crystal in the loop.” After a moment of silence, she tried again, “Report, Ensign Young.” Silence again. “Cait?” Cheryl’s tone was tentative as she called into the air.

  Jack, standing near her, reached his fingers into a small pocket at his waist and pulled out a speck. He held it up with his thumb and finger, fiddled with the tiny device for a moment, and then turned to Cheryl. “Hold still,” he said in a no-nonsense tone. He touched her face right in front of her left ear and pressed. Cheryl instinctively lifted her hand to feel. “Gentle,” he cautioned her.

  As he spoke that word, she heard him not only through the air like she did normally, but also in a more direct fashion as if his voice were wired directly to her brain.

  He turned his head and pointed to the identical spot on his face. She saw what looked like a tiny blemish. “You can hear me, and I can hear you.” He lowered his voice. “Even when we whisper. And they offer more privacy, dependability, and security than a com.” He turned and ran off the bridge. As he ducked into a passageway, she heard him say, “I’ll check on Cait and let you know.”

  * * *

  Jack strode into the operations bay to find Cait spewing a string of curse words at a control panel. He could see she was overwhelmed with problems and realized he was about to add more pressure. “The captain called down and never got a reply,” he said. “What’s up?”

  “Didn’t hear her,” said Cait over her shoulder, never slowing her furious pace. “I’ve called up to everyone on the bridge myself and never got a response from anyone. So I guess that means that communications are as dead as everything else down here.” Jack followed her gaze as she looked around the operations bay. The rich sounds of an active ship that had been present during his last visit no longer dominated the setting.

  “What’s the status of the crystal?” asked Jack. “We could use the help right now.”

  “The crystal is getting power.” She pointed at a tiny green light near the housing. “But it’s isolated from us. I talk and it doesn’t respond. My sense is that it’s functioning fine. It’s more like it can’t talk back. Whatever caused this,” she swept both her arms in the air, “is probably causing that problem as well.”

  “Could this be the Kardish?”

  “That’s my best guess,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. But it also could be the mother of all malfunctions that a new ship could theoretically experience, and it just happened to hit at the worst possible time. My training is to assume nothing and keep working to find solutions, so I’m not giving up.”

  Jack knew that Cheryl’s speck would let her hear the words he spoke, but she would not hear other sounds or voices. He walked a short loop around the operations bay, and while he went through the motions of inspecting the area, he briefed her on what he’d learned.

  When he finished, Cheryl said, “Would you get to a rear viewport, Jack, and be our eyes? We need to know what that vessel is doing.”

  Jack turned back to Cait. “Do you know of a viewport where I can see outside the ship?”

  “Sure,” said Cait. “The ship has twenty-two ports placed around the outer hull. You can see at all angles and every direction. I’m guessing you want to look back?”

  Jack nodded. “Take me to a rear port right away.”

  Cait had spent years of her career on a ship, and speeding from one point to another was second nature to her. Jack struggled to keep up as she scurried through the labyrinth of passages and crawl spaces.

  After several minutes of twists and turns, she stopped and turned to him. “We can’t see straight back through any of the ports because the engines are in the way. Your choices are to look back and angled up, down, or to either side.”

  “Which will let me see the Kardish better?”

  She turned and climbed a couple of steep steps. Jack followed to find her looking through a round window about as big as her head. “Holy moly,” she whispered.

  “My turn,” said Jack as he moved her out of the way.

  He looked out and his eyes widened. The viewing angle was limited, but it was enough to see the Kardish vessel looming. A huge hangar door was opening in the vessel’s bow—or what he took to be the bow. It would be only minutes before the Alliance would be sliding into the belly of the alien beast.

  “Thanks, Cait,” said Jack. “Get back to operations and dig deep into your bag of tricks. Every ship capability you can get up and running gives us more options.”

  “Aye, sir,” she said, already moving back the way they had come.

  Jack kept his face glued to the viewport and fed Cheryl a steady commentary of events. He could see a slice of their outside surroundings and did his best to separate his inferences from what he knew to be fact. He told her when the Alliance was passing through the doors of what appeared to be a huge hangar deck at the bow of the Kardish vessel.

  An interior wall enabled him to track their relative movement. He watched as the lighting outside the viewport changed and speculated that the hangar doors were closing behind them. Moments later, he reported that they’d been fully consumed by the predator.

  The Alliance remained floating in an apparent weightless environment as it drifted deeper into the larger craft. Jack combined the clues from his observations with the passage of time to gauge their movement into the bowels of the Kardish vessel.

  At one point, he commented, “These specks let us hear each other. I’m kicking myself because I left extra dots back at the base. They would have let you see as well as hear. I brought one for me. But without an extra for you, mine ain’t worth much right now.” He continued with self-deprecating sarcasm. “Thank goodness I saved that space in my pack by leaving it on a shelf.”

  “You’re doing great, Jack,” Cheryl assured him. “Keep telling
me what you see.”

  He watched as they approached a massive wall that divided the ship into sections along its length. A huge set of hangar doors in the middle opened as they drew near. They drifted through these, and the doors shut behind them. A short time later, they repeated the sequence through a second set of hangar doors. It was difficult to judge distance, but Jack guessed they had traveled somewhere between a quarter to half the distance into the alien ship.

  They slowed to a full stop—or at least, Jack could no longer detect movement relative to the Kardish vessel’s interior wall. And then they began to descend. As they traveled through the last set of doors, Jack saw what he described to Cheryl as a simple framework of support beams into which they were now moving.

  Minutes passed and then the Alliance shook from a solid thump. The ship settled and listed ever so slightly to one side. Jack presumed that the framework the Alliance was now resting in was a cradle of sorts and was either poorly designed or constructed for a different vessel. As he searched for more clues outside the port, his knees flexed. The gravity had increased and was now close to Earth normal.

  After several minutes with no movement or change outside the viewport, Jack concluded that the Alliance was docked and secured. With this realization, he turned and ran through the ship as fast as he could, talking as he moved. “Cheryl, we will be boarded. We have twenty minutes. Thirty tops. But that’s a wild-ass guess. We’d talked about fighting them when they boarded, but that was when we thought we’d be out in the open and could abandon ship. We’re captives now. A fight would be to the death. That’s not a good choice.”

  “I’m open to ideas,” Cheryl replied.

  “I’m certain their mission is to get the crystal. Maybe you should move Cait out of the operations bay. In fact, spreading everyone around the ship might be a good idea. If the Kardish are sloppy, maybe a couple of the crew will get overlooked. We can’t hide everyone, or they’ll end up using gas or something to kill all life on board.”