by C. M. Kane
Loki frowned and looked back at the sensor readings, ‘Mmmmm, that will be because of the gravitational pull of the planetoid seven hundred thousand kilometers off our port side, it would screw with any drones orbit. They probably thought a small gap here and there wouldn’t hurt – and they were right,’ he sighed in frustration.
He turned back to Tae. ‘Do you or Brightmoon have any ideas? We’re strapped for time as it is; it’s at least fourteen days flying at full thrust from here to Gaia. We can’t afford to be just sitting here twiddling our thumbs; we’re cutting it fine as it is.’
Tae shook her head. ‘I’m sorry but I can’t see a way out of this. I’ve absolutely no idea what to do, but I’ll ask Brightmoon if she has any ideas.’
She immediately closed her eyes and let herself join with the Dreadnaught, who, as it turned out, had quite a suggestion. Tae listened intently to all Brightmoon told her, she was both shocked and surprised, not to mention concerned. If Loki wanted options, she was about to give him a doozy. She opened her eyes and looked around; she was astonished to find that Vulcan was now on the bridge. She had thought that he was leaving; still, it was a welcome surprise to find someone here who could understand what Brightmoon was planning. He and Loki were going over the scans talking quietly between themselves as Tae stood and went over to them.
‘Well, you wanted an option, and Brightmoon has one for you, you mightn’t like it though.’
Loki and Vulcan turned to stare at her. ‘Anything is better than nothing, Tae, what has she come up with?’ Loki asked.
Tae took a deep breath. ‘We attempt to create a stable wormhole and then we fly through Hyperspace to the co-ordinates you give me.’
Both Loki and Vulcan stared at Tae gob-smacked. ‘We don’t have that technology, are you saying that Brightmoon has? More importantly, why the hell haven’t you told us this before?’ said Loki angrily.
‘Well obviously I didn’t know about it before,’ snapped Tae. ‘Do you honestly think I wouldn’t have mentioned something so important to you?’ she asked in exasperation.
Vulcan interrupted their little squabble. ‘You said we mightn’t like it, why?’
‘Because all of this is theory,’ said Tae. ‘Brightmoon likes to watch a lot of Terran science fiction shows, especially shows like Stargate and Babylon Five, they are what gave her the idea originally. From what I can gather she has been working on this for a long time. She says that it should work… theoretically.’
Loki turned to a frowning Vulcan. ‘Is this even possible?’
‘Well anything is possible, theoretically, but just the math alone involved in this… I mean, you’re dealing highly sophisticated Combinatorics, Algebraic topology and Hyperbolic geometry, not to mention taking theoretical physics into previously uncharted waters.’ He stared at the main view-screen as if lost in thought. ‘I actually think it’s possible though, remember, Brightmoon is more than a simple ship, she’s also a very curious life-form. A life form with a brain that makes even the best of us look like drooling Neanderthals; besides, what choice do we have? And just think,’ he said with mounting enthusiasm, ‘if this works she will have solved a riddle that has been beyond our best scientists for an eternity. Better still, it will give us extra time to seed the area with the bombs.’
‘And if it doesn’t?’ asked Loki.
‘Then I should imagine we’ll all die as soon as we jump,’ said Vulcan.
Loki turned back to Tae. ‘I hope she knows what the hell she’s doing because it looks like we’re out of options,’ he turned and pressed several buttons before looking back at her. ‘I’ve just transferred Rushla’s co-ordinates to Brightmoon, drop a high-speed transmission buoy near the portal then let’s do this.’
Tae hurried back to her seat and sat down, she was absolutely terrified. They were about to entrust their lives to a theory Brightmoon had gotten on “Hyper space travel” from an old television show from Earth. What can possibly go wrong? She thought, and almost started laughing hysterically at her own question. Pulling herself firmly back to her job, she quickly dropped the transmission buoy, and then asked Brightmoon to get underway. Then she waited, their lives were now in the ships hands.
At first nothing seemed to be happening, and then slowly Tae felt vibrations as the Brightmoons massive engines started building power rapidly. Tae opened her eyes and looked over at Loki and Vulcan; both were staring at the giant view screen. They weren’t moving, yet the engines continued to build power, pretty soon it felt like the whole ship was vibrating to Tae. She closed her eyes and tapped into the outer sensors. The sections at the front of Brightmoons two enormous wings were moving aside exposing a strange assortment of what appeared to be enormous glowing rods; she also saw that the two strange wing type projections near the stern were beginning to glow. Then it happened; just as she thought Brightmoon might be about to overload her star drive engines, beams of power shot out from the four projection sites, they joined at the prow of Brightmoon just outside of her force field. A shimmering haze, darker than the space that surrounded them, started to form in front of them, as it grew Brightmoon started to move forward. Tae’s heart rate accelerated as they entered the haze, this was it.
At first it felt a little like going through a normal portal. There was that initial feeling of having your molecules both crushed and scattered simultaneously, unlike the portal though, all the unpleasant feelings didn’t leave immediately. Tae’s entire body felt “wrong”, she had a heavy, unpleasant feeling, in her lower abdomen, and her teeth and bones were aching, it was as if her entire body had a dull toothache. She focused back on Brightmoon, she was totally unaffected by what had just occurred, she calmly informed Tae it would take them twenty three minutes to reach the designated co-ordinates.
Tae opened her eyes and stood up, she thought she’d better leave Brightmoon to concentrate on what she was doing rather than run the risk of doing something inadvertently that could distract her.
‘Brightmoon says our ETA is twenty three minutes at this current course and speed, My Lord,’ she said.
She turned to look at the view-screen that everyone seemed to be fixated on, it was frightening. To Tae it looked like everything had vanished. There were no stars, no asteroids, nothing, just a vast black void. Tae didn’t know how Brightmoon knew where she was going, but she was glad she did. This place felt wrong, the lack of anything normal that her senses had come to rely on was highly disturbing. She looked around the bridge and thought she wasn’t the only one to feel like this, only Vulcan seemed unperturbed. Tae told herself not to worry, if the giant god wasn’t concerned then she wouldn’t be either, after all, he and Brightmoon were the brains here.
Vulcan turned to Loki, his eyes wide, ‘This is incredible, although I don’t like the feeling that goes along with it, still, it could be worse, at least we’re alive.’
‘There is that,’ said Loki dryly. Privately he thought he’d be doing as little of this wormhole travel as possible, it was… unsettling.
Vulcan’s eyes widened. ‘I need to get back and start shifting the asteroid bombs to the torpedo tubes. I didn’t expect us to be ready so soon and now I’m behind schedule.’ Loki nodded and he quickly left to attend to his duties.
After watching the view-screen with Loki for a further five minutes Tae went back to the chair, they would be coming out of hyperspace soon and she needed to be ready. It happened quickly, one minute they were in a black void, the next everything was normal; except that Brightmoon had somehow picked up speed in Hyperspace and she now had to engage her emergency breaking thrusters. Tae immediately scanned the area; there was one small sensor buoy near them. Luckily she’d began jamming all signals as soon as they had returned to normal space, she now destroyed buoy with a short range plasma cannon, hoping it wouldn’t be missed in the short term.
‘I’ve just destroyed a sensor buoy that was stationed near Rushla, My Lord, but I managed to jam its transmissions before it could send out any information
on us to anyone,’ said Tae.
Loki nodded. ‘Good, I want everyone to keep a close eye on the sensors; if they remain clear then we’ll start to seed the bombs as soon as Vulcan signals he’s ready.’ He looked at the view screen and its view of Rushla and the large brown planet that it was orbiting. His mood dropped, if anything things had deteriorated since their escape, the once green world of Gaia looked dead. He snapped out of his reverie, he had a job to do.
‘We’ve decided to lay the bombs over the planets northern most pole area. This is where both Cronus and Hyperion’s mother was born, and it was where Cronus always gathered his ships in the past,’ he said. ‘We’re pretty sure that he’ll continue the tradition, their mother was the war leader Theia and she was idolized by both of her sons.’ He snorted derisively as he looked back at the planet. ‘Apparently it’s just one of the many things Hyperion had in common with Cronus.’
Tae nodded as she, too, looked out at the ugly brown planet that was partially hidden from them by Rushla. She could feel the tension in Loki and wondered at the thoughts that might be running through his mind at being back here.
Whatever they are, she thought, they’re obviously troubling, because he certainly doesn’t look happy. Not happy at all.
After another three hours they were ready. Loki instructed Tae to have Brightmoon lay out the buzz bombs in a scattered manner, he reasoned that all those who saw them would simply think they were remnants of a small meteor storm. Vulcan had made sure that the bombs were programmed to home in on dreadnaughts only, one to a ship unless there was any left over, then any spares would divide themselves up and take another ship apiece until they were all deployed.
Brightmoon had come up with the clever idea to link them to a hive like program, so that each bomb knew where every other bomb was at all times. They were to be controlled by a small low powered sensor drone which Vulcan had also camouflaged as space rubble; it was currently sitting on the far side of Rushla in a low orbit, ready to transmit co-ordinates. By deploying the bombs so haphazardly they were hoping no-one would notice when they started to target one or two rocks per ship.
When they were finished Tae moved Brightmoon off to the dark side of Rushla and bought her in to land on the surface, she then asked Brightmoon to power down everything non vital. If someone passed by this side of the moon on their way to the gathering, then they had to be invisible. Brightmoon had complied, powering down everything she could, as well as setting up a small cloak over herself to disguise any power readings that someone might pick up on. When she had finished Tae opened her eyes and looked up at Loki, who was now standing over her, watching her intently.
‘It’s done,’ she said. ‘We’re as invisible as we’re going to get.’
Loki nodded in satisfaction. ‘Go get something to eat as well as some sleep, I’ll call you if anything happens. I want you fully rested for when they arrive.’
Tae nodded and left the bridge for some food and a quick sleep. All that was left was to wait, and then to see if their carefully laid trap worked.
Chapter 31
It took another three days before ships started to arrive, in that time Tae and the others had settled into a routine of watching and waiting. They had sent two narrow beam messages back to Zeus and the others to report that the trap was now set, but they were still awaiting the Titans arrival. So far everything was going according to their plan. It was at the end of their third day on Rushla that the first of the ships started arriving. As if on cue they started arriving at a rapid pace. Tae was the first to notice that the incoming Dreadnaughts had separated themselves into a smaller group, away from the normal Orion and Khopesh class destroyers. When she pointed this out to Loki and Vulcan - who now seemed to be on the bridge permanently- he smiled, noting that this made things much easier. He immediately ordered the asteroid bombs to begin to slowly edge over to the desired area of space whilst they waited for everyone to show up. Soon the sheer amount of ships at the gathering blotted out Tae’s view of the planet - as seen through the tiny sensor buoy they’d deployed – when it finally seemed that they had stopped arriving they all simply sat there, waiting.
Strangely Tae picked up no communication of any kind between the two groups. Confused, she turned to Loki and Vulcan and told them of her observations.
Vulcan snorted with contempt. ‘Hyperion will have his most loyal forces in the Dreadnaughts. He will have those he knows he can’t trust lumped together with those he’s not totally sure of in the inferior ships. This way he can feel safe in his superiority over them, as well as keep those who support him reasonably loyal. A word of advice, Tae; never underestimate him, he may be an insane bully, but he’s also extremely brutal and cunning. He is one of the coldest, most ruthless Commanders in battle I have ever seen. He’s quick, clever, and so coldly logical that he makes the Vampire look frivolous.’
Something tugged at Tae’s mind but she pushed it away to concentrate on the present, it would come to her later if it was important. In the meantime she was glad Vulcan and Brightmoon had the forethought to program the buzz bombs to only move on the Dreadnaughts, otherwise this could turn into an absolute disaster given the sheer amount of ships in their fleet.
On the bright side Tae could see that the immense size of this gathering should work to their advantage. She had quickly realized that if Loki was right in his assessment of the Titans, then none of the Dreadnaughts would fire on the buzz bomb rocks in front of mere Orion or Khopesh class ships for fear of being thought of as weak, or unworthy.
Loki nodded to Tae. ‘I think we should start the program, we run the risk of them being discovered the longer they just sit there. We will just have to deal with Hyperion and any late comers by ourselves.’ He looked at Tae questioningly. ‘Do you agree?’
Tae was both surprised and pleased he had asked for her opinion, she had been mulling over the same thoughts exactly. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘we have a good window now, we’re better off to take it while we still can.
‘Do it,’ said Loki.
Tae issued the order, and slowly the little buzz bombs began to drift to individual ships. They watched, holding their breaths as one by one each of the innocuous little rocks made their way through the force field’s of the surrounding dreadnaughts. There were no explosions to alert any of the ships as each one hit its target, and the Titans never fired on them; just as Loki had predicted when he had explained about using the their own warrior code against them. When each rock made contact with a dreadnaught, instead of explosions, a small hole caused by the Beastie appeared in each one, no other reaction was noted. The holes were soon repaired by the automated repair systems just as the second wave of rocks made their way slowly to their targets, and hit successfully. Brightmoon reported that her nanites had breached the veins on all ships and were now beginning to multiply.
Tae couldn’t help but let out a small, ‘Yes! ‘When Brightmoon relayed the news to her. She immediately reported it to Loki and Vulcan, both of whom smiled in relief. So far everything was going according to plan. They settled back to wait, happy that their plan seemed to be working better than expected. It wasn’t until just over three hours later that Tae felt Brightmoon give an internal start. As she began to feel Brightmoons surprise and fear wash over her, she checked what sensor reading they were getting from the small buoy. Something else was arriving; something immense, something even bigger than Brightmoon.
Tae swore colorfully, getting everyone’s attention immediately. She quickly transferred what she was witnessing onto the largest view screen so everyone could see. A massive warship, at least a full eighth bigger than Brightmoon, and far more heavily armored, was slowly coming to a stop before the other assembled ships.
Hyperion had arrived!
‘Holy mother, Gaia!’ said Vulcan in shock. ‘That ship looks more like a heavily armored space station than a damn spacecraft!’
‘Well, I guess the gangs all here,’ she said Loki softly into the ensuing silence.
Tae closed her eyes again to check what was left in the way of weapons. ‘We only have one asteroid left; it’s heading through Hyperion’s shields as we speak,’ she said. Everyone watched as Brightmoon focused on the small rock drifting towards the colossal ship. Once again it was ignored, but the problem they had now was they wouldn’t have any control over the new ship until long after the others. Not only had the others had been infected around three hours sooner, and by two asteroids apiece, but also because Hyperion’s ship was so much larger than the rest.
One problem at a time, Tae thought, just like on the Island, just one problem at a time.
Chapter 32
Hyperion watched the assembled fleet with a feeling of intense satisfaction; soon he would have his revenge. This was something that should have happened long ago, and might have, if it wasn’t for his brother Cronus being foolish and letting his temper get the better of him. Driving the Ouranos through the closing portal was obviously a huge mistake. They had waited for his return of course, but after a few weeks they had realized he was either dead or hopelessly lost- Hyperion had sincerely hoped it was the former.
It had taken the remaining Titans millennia to get over the defection of Zeus and his rag tag fleet. The bombing on Titan, which he now knew had been set by Hera- Cronus’s own daughter-, had set them back eons. Their best scientists, along with all of their knowledge and work had been obliterated in a nanosecond. She had even set a virus into the science centers computer system. The virus had not only wiped its memory clean, but it had crippled the rest of the computers linked to it, which was over ninety percent of their entire computing system. It had even affected the remaining fleet before they could isolate it.
They had been crippled! Humiliated! BEATEN! Still, these traitorous events had also proven his boon. He had acted quickly and seized control of the remaining fleet, and then he had set about the agonizingly slow process of rebuilding his race. Things would have gone a lot more smoothly if everything had of gone according to his plan. He had thought to commandeer the small scientific community that he had noticed ensconced on one of their many moons. Unfortunately, when he went to retrieve them he had found he was too late; they were already gone, taken by a decidedly clever young Titan warrior named Loki. Yet another one he would be repaying in kind; first Zeus and his brothers, then Hera and Loki, and finally Vulcan.
