by Doug Farren
Sorbith tried very hard to maintain his composure. The Hess were offering to nearly triple the distance that a signal could be sent, increase its speed of transmission by several orders of magnitude, and to boost their maximum FTL speed to unheard of levels.
"That is an offer I think the Alliance can not refuse," he replied in a somewhat shaky voice. "I will have my ship transmit the offer to central command with a request that the Alliance council convene an emergency meeting to decide the issue. The only problem remaining will be the logistics of outfitting a ship for such an extended voyage."
"There is a way to shorten the voyage," the machine said. "Although the transport ship which brought the Hess components here was cannibalized for its parts, the stardrive remains operational. With the appropriate modifications, the stardrive can be installed within a suitable Alliance ship. If properly aligned and powered, the ship should be able to reach speeds of at least 11,000c and possibly higher."
"Eleven thousand!" Falnath exclaimed. "Such a speed of travel is unbelievable." Turning to Sorbith she continued, "You cannot let this opportunity pass. You must insist that the council accept. If the council will not, I'm sure one of the member races would jump at the opportunity to obtain this level of technology."
Before Sorbith could reply, the Hess said, "The Hess will not provide such technology to a single race. At present, the member species making up the Alliance live in relative peace with each other due in part to an extensive sharing of technology. Providing one race with a significant jump in technological ability would upset the current stability possibly resulting in the breakup of the Alliance. The Alliance must remain united if it is to defeat the advances of the Chroniech."
"Agreed," Sorbith said. "I believe the council will ac..." He stopped in mid-sentence and was silent for a moment. Falnath did not interrupt for she knew the peacekeeper was receiving a message from his ship important enough for the ship's computer to interrupt their conversation.
After a moment Sorbith said, "I have just been informed that the General Patton has engaged the incoming ships. They claim to be from a group calling themselves The Army of Humanity and they are demanding that the stasis chamber and the Kyrra be turned over to them. A battle is in progress."
"I was afraid of this," Falnath said.
"What do you mean?" Sorbith asked, turning a curious ear toward the Rouldian.
"The opportunity for advancing ones technological superiority by several decades is too tempting to pass up for those species who still possess a warlike nature. I had thought the Tholtarans would have been the first to attack us but it seems as if the Humans have gotten here first. We must return the Kyrra to their own people or the Alliance will face an internal war as those hungry for power try to gain control of Kyrra technology."
"I have heard of this Army of Humanity before," Sorbith mused. He was silent for a moment as he conversed with his ship via his implant. After a moment he continued, "They are a fanatical militant organization that arose on Earth immediately after that world made contact with the Consortium - the predecessor to the Alliance.”
"They were violently against Humans having any contact with non-Humans. Shortly after the end of the Human — Tholtaran war the Army of Humanity purchased several colony ships and headed into space to start an independent colony."
"What have they been doing for all these years?" Falnath inquired.
"Nothing was heard of them for about fifteen years until a Shandarian mining scout came across them while mapping an unexplored system. They remain an independent world on the very fringe of Alliance space. They allow no visitors from off-world, yet, their level of technology suggests that they have maintained some type of contact with the rest of the Alliance."
"How did they manage to get here so fast?"
"The obvious answer is that our security has been compromised," Sorbith replied after a short reflection. "Perhaps these Humans have a network of informants in key facilities. If they consider non-Humans to be their enemy then it would be logical for them to keep an eye on the activities of the Alliance through such informants. This is something we will have to look into."
Sorbith was about to fill in some more details when he was interrupted by the Hess. "Order your battleships to disengage and move to within 100,000 kilometers of this planet," the Hess said. "Your ships will be under this unit's protection. The Kyrra and the stasis device are to remain here until the search ship is ready."
Without hesitation Sorbith gave the order to his ship which then relayed it to the General Patton and the Mituri Sama. After a moment he said, "Our ships have broken off and are moving this way. The Mituri Sama has been severely damaged but is still able to maneuver. The General Patton has sustained some damage as well.”
"Two of the destroyers have been eliminated and a third damaged. The rest are in pursuit. The Komodo Dragon is breaking orbit and moving to assist. I have ordered my ship to send for additional reinforcements in case there is further trouble."
Throughout all this the Kyrra had been silent. Trel'mara appeared shaken. Nordlatak moved closer to him to provide comfort. Looking up Nordlatak said, "Our presence has caused death and violence among your people. We cannot remain in your society without causing further disruption — please take us to our own people."
"I understand," Sorbith said. "But we have no idea what has happened to your people. Can the Hess provide us with a brief history of the Kyrra beginning from the time you left? Perhaps that will help us figure out where they are now."
The Hess could and it did.
Following the slaver departure, the Kyrra civilization was on the brink of extinction. Their food supply, if properly rationed, could sustain the non-stasis population for about four weeks. A source of compatible food was desperately needed. Upon consulting the surviving records of the planets that had been discovered over their years of searching the Kyrra located a suitable world. A planet with primitive life had been discovered which could provide a sufficient food source to sustain the Kyrra population.
The few remaining spaceships available to the Kyrra were used to ferry several thousand survivors to this world to construct and operate an enormous farm. With their industrial capacity reduced to near zero, much of the harvesting and processing had to be done by hand. The completed food products were then loaded into the ships and shipped to the homeworld. This temporarily solved the food problem.
The second problem lay in getting the remainder of their population to safety. The Kyrra had no choice but to move them to the planet which now supplied their food. Lacking modern construction equipment, they were forced into building crude, low technology shelters for themselves. The planet's indigenous life was, as far as the Kyrra were concerned, hostile, so they built walled towns.
The planet was soon dotted by hundreds of such villages, each supported and fed by the farms and wild plant life surrounding them. Most of the Kyrra population lived in such primitive conditions. The important point though was that they were alive.
With their main problems solved, the Kyrra turned their attention to the next — the restoration of their industrial base. Several light years from the food planet there existed a star system which had never quite formed. The entire system consisted of small metal-rich rocks orbiting a tiny dim star who's fusion furnace burned too slow to generate any light. The Kyrra decided to use this readily available source of raw material to construct a space station. The space station would then become their manufacturing center.
After salvaging everything they could from their homeworld, work began on the space station. Within months problems began to appear. Without a sufficient industrial base to support them, the starships, especially the ones salvaged from the slavers, began to fail due to lack of repair parts.
Since the Kyrra were starting over from scratch, even the carefully planned out work on the space station was becoming harder. Items which were readily available to an industrialized society were difficult or impossible to obtain. The Kyrra r
e-evaluated their plan and made a very hard decision.
The work on the space station was abandoned and the Kyrra turned all their abilities toward establishing themselves on the farm planet. Soon, only two of the original exploration ships remained operational. Thirty five years before the neutron star entered their home system all Kyrra had been either placed in stasis or moved to the farm world. The original Kyrra homeworld had been abandoned and the Kyrra were effectively trapped on a world they looked upon as hostile.
Starting from ground zero, they began to slowly rebuild their society. Even though the knowledge was there, it still took a terrible amount of time, mostly because the Kyrra were working with a limited population.
The Kyrra, however, were unlike any other race. Because they lived such long lives they tended to plan for the far future. Projects that took years to complete were the norm. With almost unbelievable patience the Kyrra set themselves upon the long road to recovery.
Over the course of 1,200 years the Kyrra slowly regained most of what they had lost. They took great pains to limit the damage done to the planet since the Kyrra considered themselves ‘guests' on their temporary home. As soon as they had the ability to repair their old starships, the Kyrra once again resumed their interrupted construction of the space habitat. Their ultimate goal was to get themselves off the planet which had held them prisoner for so long.
It took the Kyrra 33 years to complete the first space manufacturing complex. The station housed six hundred and was soon working at full capacity. Because of its modular construction, increasing its size was relatively easy. The result, once a certain point had been reached, was the geometric increase in their industrial capabilities.
Soon, construction began on additional space habitats and starships. These habitats were self sustaining and could house tens of thousands of people. Two thousand nine hundred and eighty years after the slavers had left, the entire Kyrra population was out of stasis, off planet, and living in 1,056 space habitats in orbit about a star that did not shine. A suitable lifeless planet had been found and selected as the new future home of the Kyrra and its terraforming had begun.
Up until this point, the Kyrra had been more concerned with their own survival than with anything else. It had been noted, almost in passing, that their activities had not been noticed by any other space-faring race. In fact, during the recovery period no other starships had been detected.
After their survival as a species had been assured, the Kyrra began to wonder what had become of the slavers and the races they had dominated. They built a fleet of space probes and sent them to investigate. The Kyrra were shocked at what they found.
Each planet which had once harbored life was now a radioactive wasteland. Four planets were still populated and relatively undamaged, however, the planet's inhabitants were at war with one another and had been for so long that only primitive weapons were now in use. No trace of any surviving slaver's were found. None of the cultures which had possessed space travel before the break-up of the slaver empire still operated starships. It was as if all civilized cultures had either been destroyed or had been pushed back to a primitive level of existence.
Over the next 400 years, the Kyrra probes continued their outward search until all systems within a 1,000 light-year radius had been explored. The Kyrra discovered several FTL capable civilizations and carefully avoided all contact with them. Because of their experience with the slavers, the Kyrra had made it a common practice to shield themselves as thoroughly as possible. Their communications were scrambled and utilized a technology which rendered the signals virtually impossible to detect.
The terraforming project was well underway by this time and according to the time-table established by the Kyrra, their new homeworld would be completed in about 55,000 years. The Kyrra turned their energies toward science and the further exploration of the universe. Over the next 115 years the Kyrra probes searched farther and farther out into the unknown. An area of space 2,500 light years in radius had been completely explored and mapped. The Kyrra wanted to look further.
The Hess exploration probe was designed and built. These probes were sent to a specific area of space and instructed to locate a secure planet upon which to base themselves. The Hess were purposefully designed such that if discovered, they would self-destruct so the location of the Kyrra habitats would remain unknown.
Each Hess could build and launch probes of its own and would send back its findings periodically through a system of relay stations. The Hess which had established itself near the Alliance had been built 3,555 years after the slavers had left, which meant it was an early model.
Throughout all this time, the Kyrra had remained undetected, even though many space-capable races had been discovered and observed including the remnants of the slavers. The slavers had established themselves in a remote system far from the Kyrra. After finding them and assessing their technological capabilities, the Kyrra forgot about them. Kyrra technology had reached such a level that they could shield their probes and ships from the sensors of other races.
Forty-one thousand one hundred and seventy three years ago the Kyrra stopped responding to the Hess transmissions. No explanation was received. As far as the Hess was concerned, its creators had vanished and now they had the opportunity to find out what has become of them.
The Hess finished its story by adding, "A more comfortable room has been constructed for you along with individual sleeping quarters. We will move to this room so further discussion concerning this unit's proposal can be conducted."
The Hess robots led the group into a well furnished room. There was even a seat specifically designed for the comfort of a Rouldian. Falnath settled into it with a great sigh of relief stating in the process she was getting very tired of standing. The five Kyrra excitedly talked among themselves when they discovered the Hess had provided them with beverages and snacks with which they were familiar. Falnath and Sorbith also found refreshments and snacks available from their own cultures.
After everyone was finally seated the Hess presented its detailed proposal. The discussion continued for several hours.
12 - Assistance From the Dragon
"The Mituri Sama has been lost," the XO said through is open com-link with the bridge. The battle with the Army of Humanity was being closely monitored by the Komodo Dragon.
Stricklen shook his head in acknowledgment of the bad news. As he watched, one of the icons on the main tactical display changed from red to brown. The XO provided a verbal, and totally unnecessary explanation, "The General Patton reports another ship has been destroyed. That leaves ten."
"Current status of the GP?" Stricklen asked.
"Considerable damage, battle capability down almost 25 percent," Doug replied after consulting a screen-full of information. "Shields are being strained by continuous weapons fire from the remaining destroyers. Some shield leakage is present. The helm is rolling the ship to minimize the damage they're taking but this is also reducing their ability to target their own weapons."
"LA class destroyers," Ken remarked. "That class of ship was designed and built back during the war. They're ancient. Even if they had been brand new they're no match for a modern battleship."
The ships had been confirmed to be LA class destroyers but the tactical computer had quickly determined that the old relics had been heavily modified. The ships had been rearmed with modern weapons from several species and their shields and stardrive had also been upgraded. The unknown ships had also been classified as destroyers apparently having been built from a variety of old outdated warships that had been retired from active service but were now fully outfitted with modern weapons.
Scarboro glanced off to his right to check on something then turned his head back towards the video pickup. "Apparently the Army of Humanity has done some major upgrading. Who the hell are these people anyway?"
"I believe they are a militant group of Humans who are still fighting the war of fifty years ago," Stricklen replied. "I
know they're some sort of fanatical group that believes Humans should not be contaminated by non-Humans. They have a planet all to their own and are pretty isolated. I did not know they were in possession of any old battleships. What really surprises me is they weren't smart enough to disable the IFF transponders."
"They must not be too fanatical against using non-Human technology. Some of those weapons are definitely non-Human," Scarboro added.
Stricklen glanced at the tactical display and asked, "What is our time to intercept with the Patton?"
Doug consulted a monitor and replied, "About fifteen minutes assuming we don't begin decelerating. We have a considerable delta-V between us and if we don't slow down we will be within weapons range for less than two minutes.
"How long before they are within the 100,000 kilometer limit specified by the Hess?"
"About forty-five minutes at their present rate of acceleration."
Stricklen considered all his options and made a tactical decision. "Commander Scarboro, prep the ship for emergency acceleration maneuvers."
"Aye sir!" Doug responded and then sprung into action. He knew what the captain was planning. Because of the velocity differences between themselves and the enemy ships, they would pass each other at a high rate of speed. This would give them very little time to engage the other ships.
As with all starships, the Komodo Dragon's sublight engines were a field-drive technology. The drive fields accelerated everything within their reach at the same rate. There was no wasted energy as in a reaction engine. Up to a certain point, the occupants of a ship felt no acceleration from this type of drive.
