Patterson then felt a shudder as the Skipper drive engaged, and his ship moved rapidly away from the collapsing wormhole.
“Nuke away. Detonation, twenty-one seconds,” Lieutenant Carn confirmed.
“What the? … You’re not going to believe this Captain,” Lieutenant Jameson gasped, disbelief sounding in his voice. “The two WEPs are with us.”
Captain Patterson checked his science officer’s statement on his own tactical display. And sure enough, it showed the two WEPs clinging to the side of Illustrious, courtesy of their suction tethers.
“You can’t tell me they were prepared to be destroyed, now. Can you?” Lieutenant Jameson asked. But Patterson didn’t reply.
“Well, perhaps they’re not insensitive to life and death after all,” Ensign Maria Lopez ventured. And everyone on the bridge turned and looked at her.
“What?” She asked.
Ensign Anderson smiled at her.
“You look different now, somehow, Lopez.”
“Drop dead,” she snapped. Then turned back to her Comms desk, with a brief smile on her face, and a twinkle in her eyes.
“Back to work,” Captain Patterson calmly ordered, pleased to see that Lopez had taken the comment in good humor.
“Nuke’s detonated, Captain,” Lieutenant Carn confirmed.
Then, almost instantly, the mouth of the collapsed wormhole flared, and space rippled around it for a few seconds, before the wormhole vanished altogether.
“Thread’s gone Captain,” the ship’s AI confirmed. “Anything within the wormhole will be stranded out there.”
“Ok. Trish, get those two WEPs inside. Then, prepare to jump to the original rendezvous point.”
“On it, Captain.”
The Garoden Star-Destroyer, Z187, was still following its subspace tracker, believing it was attached to a Solveron ship that was on route to the Solveron’s home planet, Solvera.
The Garodens were also oblivious to the fact that Cindy, a Temporal operator from Delta, was on board their ship. And, that Cindy was about to cause an entire ship’s warp and weapons systems to fail.
By 2725, advances in Delta’s technology had not only seen the development of a small number of reliable Time-Ships but, also body-worn Stealth and Force-Shields, for the protection of its field operators. However, these had only become viable after the miniaturization of Nuclear Power Generators had enabled the production of NPG’s that could sit comfortably in the palm of a hand.
Cindy, protected by her personal Force shield, stood looking at her wrist monitor as she watched the progress of the first orb’s temporal countdown. After which, would come the detonation and destruction of the two largest power conduits, by both orbs.
She had already located the critical junction in these conduits that would ensure the disruption of all the ship’s life-support systems. So, Cindy placed a small, mentally triggered, gas container in the system’s air inlet circulator.
Then stopped for a moment to think through Plato’s instructions again.
He had warned her that, ‘the Garoden ship must be forced to drop out of warp at exactly the point we’ve predicted. It must be completely intact. But, without weapons, protective shield power, and without any other military opposition.’
Once satisfied that she had done everything necessary to comply with Platos’s order. Cindy turned her mind to thinking about the, what if factors. Then decided that, if any of the Garoden’s managed to survive the Gas that was going to be pumped into the damaged conduits, she would use her mental ability to render them unconscious, instead.
Then Cindy thought back to her first mission with Charlotte, she remembered it well.
They had been dropped off close to their target. A semi-conscious, thirteen-year-old girl. Then, using their stealth cloaks, they had gone up to the girl and given her a brain cell enhancing injection. The girl was called Judith Morante, and would apparently be the part of the solution in preventing the settler ship Acarea’s demise.
Thinking on Cindy had to admit that both she and Charlotte knew that they weren’t alone out there. There were other operators like them, who had been further Downtime than that era.
That first mission had been easy, Cindy thought to herself. But, since then, their missions with Frank Richardson and Susanna, although more difficult, had been more fulfilling.
Of course, even those missions had been simpler than this operation, Cindy decided. Because, having to carry active Orbs, meant that she’d had to wait for an airlock to be opened on this Garoden Star Destroyer.
In contrast, Charlotte and herself had found it easy to get on the Andromeda. All they’d had to do was wait until the Time Ship synced and stretched time with Andromeda.
A simple phase-time-portal had then established. And, Cindy and Charlotte had both just walked straight through it, to Frank and Susanna.
It had only seemed a second to Andromeda, but for us, it had been ten minutes.
Cindy, realizing time was passing, looked at her wrist display which was monitoring the temporal countdown by the two orbs. She checked the screen and saw that it had reached zero. But nothing happened for two seconds, as the orbs corrected the slight deviation caused by the extended time in the Garoden wormhole.
Then, Cindy felt the ship shudder as both orbs exploded. Causing the Garoden ship to lose all power, then to be violently thrown out of Hyperspace, and into normal space, close to the planet Solvera.
Cindy concentrated her mind, straining to pick up any Solveron minds. Then, shouted out, “Yes.” While mentally triggering the disruptor located at the critical junction of the life-support system.
Cindy, sensed her device explode, just as two Garodens, who had been heading in the direction of the ruptured power conduits, collided with her.
‘Envasto,” one of the Garoden’s yelled as both drew their sidearms.
Cindy mentally raised her personal shield strength up to maximum protection, knowing full well that the Garoden had shouted an ‘Intruder’ warning.
Nevertheless, knowing that the sleeping Gas now entering the life-support system would rapidly overcome the Garodens. She just stood still in her protected sphere, and calmly waited as the Garoden’s hand blaster beams hit her force-field.
This blinded her for a few seconds as the beams of energy flared and swirled around the protective screen, which absorbed and reflected the energy of the deadly beam away from her.
Both Garodens then slumped to the floor, gasping for air, while breathing in gas instead. Both jerked for a few seconds. Then stopped moving altogether.
Cindy mentally swept the ship for signs of any active Garoden personnel. But found none. She waited until her monitor showed that the gas had reduced to a safe level. Then dropped her protective screen level down two to three notches, and headed for the ship’s bridge.
Chapter 12
A message
Savron’s Solveron BattleSphere dropped out of its hyperspace wormhole, exactly twenty light-minutes out from Solvera, the Solverons home planet.
Then, contact alarms sounded throughout the ship.
“They are friendly, Commander,” Savron’s female science officer, Carina quickly confirmed, relief sounding in her voice, as their ship's sensors uploaded new information to both her and Commander Savron’s tactical displays.
“Eight Battle-Spheres in orbit,” Carina informed.
“Commander, there’s panic on the comms band,” Savron’s comms officer, Satra, called out.
“What are they panicking about? Search further out for any hostiles, Carina,” Savron ordered. Then to comms, “Just play Senate broadcasts, while they search.”
But, even before they had selected a transmission, Satra came on line again.
“Got it, Commander. It’s a Garoden Star Destroyer. At forty light-minutes out.”
“What? How could they have found us so quickly?” A shocked Savron asked.
Savron felt a shiver run down his spine. He knew only too well that his Bat
tleSpheres would be useless against that ship.
“Detailed scans coming in,” Carina announced.
“Commander, I don’t understand why, but Prime-councillor, Senator Kasosko is calling you.”
“Who?”
“Senator Kasosko. Apparently, he’s the Crillon’s prime high Councillor.”
Savron had met this senator before, when the Human, Richardson, had managed to end the Crillon, Solveron war.
But, even so, he knew that the unexpected presence of the Garoden ship must take precedence.
“Apologise, and tell him he’ll have to wait,” he ordered comms.
“Carina, what’s science’s analysis showing us?”
“That’s the strange thing, sir. The ship appears dead.”
“A trick, perhaps?” the comms officer remarked almost to himself.
Then Satra spoke up, sounding puzzled. “Commander, I have a message from an unknown sender. It’s addressed to you. How it got into the system, and what triggered it, I have no idea...Oh… I…I can’t stop it, its over-riding the main screen’s protocols,” he uttered.
Then the recorded video message started to auto-play.
“Facial recognition,” Savron quietly ordered his science officer.
“Hello, Savron…No doubt you’re about to use facial recognition on me. But, you already know me. I’m just a little older perhaps.”
“It’s a female. One of the two strange girls that were on Richardson’s ship,” Carina informed her commander, having quickly found a match.
“You know me as Cindy,” her message continued. “The Garoden ship out there is a gift. We’ve seen to it that it hasn’t got any power and that there aren’t any Active weapons. And, its crew is incapacitated for another seventy-two hours.”
Then Savron saw Cindy pause as if checking something out of view.
“It is safe for you to enter the ship. And, I will manually set the airlock to open for you… But, take note Savron, I’ll be gone by the time you enter…
This gift should enable your scientists to counteract the Garoden disruptor field which they stole from you in the first place.
And, this gift, will set your part in the temporal correction.” Cindy told him then paused, again.
Savron could see that her face had reddened slightly as if she had said more than she was supposed to. But then she carried on.
“Act fast Savron or your race will surely die.”
With that, the message ended.
Chapter 13
Andromeda
Garoden Star Destroyer Z231 was nearing the second Jump out from the Garoden’s home world.
Charlotte knew that the Crillon fleet five’s Commander, Procard, had taken a significant risk. But had waited too long after the Solveron gatherer’s prompt, to be able to reach the Andromeda, and his friend Frank Richardson, in time.
Nevertheless, although he had arrived too late to save Andromeda, Procard had managed to rescue both the Andromeda and Neutron’s stranded crews. And, he had rescued them, from right under the Garoden’s noses. Afterward, taking them all back to Earth, via Crilla.
Charlotte also knew, from Delta’s temporal overlay, that the ship of the Solveron Captain Sitrea, had been destroyed as it exited the Garoden’s first jump point, one hundred light years from the Garoden’s home planet.
The Temporal predictors at Delta had been very specific that Andromeda’s location had to be at the Garoden First fleet’s, second Jump point. But, believed it was more likely that Captain Richardson’s body would be located on Garoden itself.
However, the whereabouts of the Cruiser Neutron was less predictable. Even so, Charlotte had been given instructions to use the assets as part of the Delta’s master plan.
Against all the odds, Charlotte was still confident in her own mind, that Frank had been drugged, but was still alive somewhere on Garoden itself. The downside for her was the fact that if Frank had been sedated for some reason, then it was going to be difficult to pick up his mind signature, as he would probably be unable to use his Delta enhanced mental powers.
She had initially managed to attach the stealth micro-miniature brain enhancing cell injector to the Garoden Trooper Breba’s suit when they were on the Scimitar, and she was posing as Marine Sergeant Angie Smith.
But, Charlotte had now managed to retrieve Delta’s brain cell enhancing injector. She had found the unit, otherwise known as a BEC cryopreservation injector, in Garoden Trooper Breba’s body armor in his habitation cell.
Now, her part of Delta’s temporal correction plan was on track, and in a few minutes, the Garoden Star Destroyer Z231 would drop out of hyperspace, at the original location of the Garoden First fleet’s jump two.
And, at the predicted location of the Andromeda.
She had mentally persuaded her guard, Trooper Breba, to let her leave her cell and roam the ship. But, it hadn’t been easy at first to mentally manipulate the crew to ignore her.
However, she had managed to place the desire in the mind of the ship’s captain, to exit at jump two instead of jump one. Then to wait five minutes, before continuing to Garoden itself.
Charlotte knew she had to be careful not to attract the attention of any of the bridge’s crew members who had companion brains.
This unplanned stop was important to her. But, she knew that it was a no-no, under Delta’s specific instructions.
She also had to make sure that the Garoden ship didn’t just blast Andromeda out of existence, on sight.
Then, to carry out her own plan, Charlotte would have to mentally persuade the Garoden captain to forget, and leave without knowing why he’d stopped at Jump two, in the first place.
Charlotte was thankful that she had unlawfully injected more brain-enhancing cells into her own body before leaving Delta. Noticing it was easier now, to manipulate the relevant Garoden crew members. But she knew, of course, that the ship’s sensors would still register everything and save it all in the ship’s log. Including the illegal Jump Two exit, and the contact with Andromeda.
She smiled, thinking the Captain would have a lot of explaining to do when he reached Garoden.
Charlotte had seated herself at the rear of the ship’s bridge. Where she could keep an eye on things and still carry out her plan. She readied herself for action, as she watched the main screen that, right now, just showed a small white dot at its center.
The image on the screen suddenly flared, and her body felt the wrenching effect of the Garoden ship’s wormhole exit. Making her feel sick until her body got used to the reality of normal space.
No one seemed to notice the cold and dead looking Andromeda, hanging at a strange angle just off the Garoden ship’s bow, and no more than two kilometers away.
Charlotte quickly searched Andromeda mentally, looking for Delta’s multi-function stealth Orb that had been placed on board the Andromeda in 2301, and which was connected to Andromeda’s central brain.
As she mentally searched, vague images of the frost covered equipment and corridors, felt depressing to her, as they occasionally registered in Charlotte’s mind.
She knew, that although the Delta multi-function orb’s micro-nuclear cell would have shut itself down, long ago. The secondary restart cell should still be active, and emitting a detectable signature.
Got-yah, Charlotte thought, as she mentally probed the stealth Orb, which immediately responded to her mental key’s pattern.
Charlotte could see by checking the Orb’s stored data that Andromeda’s remote-backup memory units, still had the emergency power that would ensure their information and programs could bring Andromeda fully back online.
She mentally instructed the stealth orb to follow her new directives. Thereby guaranteeing that her exact plan of events, for Andromeda, would be met.
Once done, she waited for the orb’s confirmation that her instructions had been implemented.
The orb’s confirmation came just in time, as the Garoden Star Destroyer Z231, warped space, then
left on its final leg to Garoden.
Meanwhile, on board Andromeda, Delta’s multi-function Orb’s micro-nuclear cell spiked, as the secondary restart cell kicked in. In moments, the orb began to glow as its primary microreactor restarted.
Then, Andromeda’s brain stirred as it received a boot-up signal from Delta’s connected orb. At a point during the boot-up sequence, one of Andromeda’s two fusion reactors received the command to commence its re-start.
A short time later, the frost covering everything both inside, and on the outside of Andromeda, began to slowly thaw.
Chapter 14
Delta
The twenty-seventh century Time Ship arrived at Delta’s Temporal Anchor. Entered the Anchor’s forward handling hangar, then slowly became visible as it solidified, before easing itself into its docking cradle and shutting down.
The time-ship was ninety-eight meters long, and Dumbell shaped.
Moments later, Platos and his team disembarked carrying their own portable temporal monitors. Leaving the pilot, Acron, and his Flight technician, Robert, to their task of preparing the Time-ship for its next mission.
Platos was surprised to see Supervisor Javon waiting for him.
The Garoden War. (SpaceFed StarShips Series) Book 7. An exciting, action-packed SpaceFed Series finale that also concludes the Garoden War.: ‘Military Gamble.’ Page 7
