by S. H. Jucha
Julien grinned at Alex. He signaled two engineers and three techs, launching them from their bunks with orders to collect various pieces of equipment and tools. Then he ran from the bridge at a speed that shocked Ellie. He planned to meet the engineering team near the warship’s aft end where the main lines emerged from the comm equipment.
“That’s quite the growing reception party,” Ellie commented, nodding at the holo-vid.
Alex eyed the image. The ships were rapidly increasing in number and size.
“Captain, with Julien absorbed in my request, I want additional bridge crew woken up and searching our telemetry net. This main party is tucked much too tightly together out there. I believe they want us to think that’s everyone that’s coming, and I don’t like that.”
“Understood, Alex,” Ellie replied tersely, waking most of the first watch, including Yumi.
No sooner had the new watch group arrived than other crew members hurried in carrying extra bridge chairs for them. Nanites in the seat bases were signaled, attaching them to the decking. Soon, another group arrived with pots of thé to refresh the third watch and waken the first.
On deck two of the Trident, techs were busy spreading a nanites paste to release a section of the bulkhead. This allowed the engineering team to access a tertiary memory bank, which was available to the controller, but had never been used.
Julien isolated the memory core from the controller. Then, when an engineer signaled Julien that they had access to the comm cabling, the SADE shut down the power to the comm station.
Immediately, the techs accessed a junction line and rerouted the main comm signal to a convertor box that they had brought with them. The device was needed to interface between the comm station and the memory bank. Finally, they connected the output of the convertor to the memory bank’s input.
When Julien received a tech’s acknowledgment that the crew were ready, he returned power to the comm station and requested the crew reseal the bulkhead cutout.
“Captain,” a bridge crew member called out, attracting Alex’s attention away from Julien. “I have a large vessel on our horizon. The ship is located 90 degrees to port. It’s about the same distance out as the main group.”
“Captain, another ship. It’s also on the horizontal plane but 90 degrees to starboard,” a second crew member announced.
“Just the one ship in each location?” Ellie asked and received affirmatives.
During the next several hours, more of the enormous ships appeared, dividing the quadrants of space and surrounding the Trident warship.
“Captain, I don’t get this,” Yumi said, standing close to Ellie so that she could whisper. “The Nua’ll can’t be so foolish as to think they can cut off our escape by positioning single ships every 45 degrees of arc around us like this.”
“That’s because they aren’t single ships, as you imagine them,” Alex said, coming from behind Yumi.
“No?” Yumi queried.
“More than likely, Lieutenant, they’re carriers,” Ellie said.
“Captain, the timing of our exit is now in your hands,” Alex said. “One condition and one request. The condition is that you can’t launch the fighters. The request is that you allow our memory core to record the Nua’ll transmissions, as long as possible, without jeopardizing our opportunity for escape.”
“Did I ever tell you, Alex, that your captains and senior commanders, including myself, are often particularly annoyed by your convoluted directives?”
“Seriously?” Alex asked, grinning at Ellie, who ignored him, as she tapped her third watch pilot on the shoulder.
“Yumi, take a seat. I want options for exit, and I want them fast. Plan for those capital ships dumping out some sort of fighters and spreading a wide net,” Ellie ordered.
Alex linked to the controller to watch Yumi sort through her escape scenarios. It appeared she’d planned for enemy strategies Alex hadn’t considered. A brilliant mind, he thought.
Yumi selected the few scenarios that responded to a wide arc of coverage by the Nua’ll. She was about to speak to Ellie, but several crew members on telemetry watch interrupted her, as they sang out, “Fighters launched.”
The holo-vid display lit up, detecting hundreds and hundreds of fighters dumping out of the enormous ships that sought to enclose them.
“One thousand, three hundred, fifteen fighters and counting,” Julien announced.
“Time to go, Yumi,” Ellie said quietly but with authority. “Don’t be afraid to take a radical approach.”
The one thing that Edouard and Miko constantly said about their daughter was that she had an uncanny means of seeing to the heart of a problem. Now, more than ever, Yumi wanted to call on that ability. Observing the three-quarter sphere of fighters that blocked their escape in Omnia’s direction, Yumi selected a vector and accelerated the Trident at full power.
Ellie, Alex, and Julien observed their warship rush toward the central greeting party. They exchanged glances, and Alex cocked an eyebrow at Ellie.
“Interesting choice, Lieutenant,” Ellie said. “Care to explain your tactic.”
“Yes, Captain,” Yumi replied, concentrating on her board display and her link with the controller. “I realized that the enemy assumed we would only choose to flee away from that massive fleet in front of us. That’s why they didn’t bother to completely surround us with fighters.”
“The size and number of those ships in front of us would seem to indicate that they’re not worried about a single ship charging them,” Ellie commented.
“And I thought about that too, Captain,” Yumi replied. “I took a few moments to review the arrival of the main party. What was interesting was that as the larger vessels arrived, they formed a hollow ball, which I thought was strange. Then the last ship arrived. I was surprised to see that it was a small sphere. Interestingly, Captain, that sphere stationed itself in the center of that formation. It’s about 25 meters in diameter and doesn’t appear to have any armament.”
“Curious,” Ellie commented.
“That’s what I thought, Captain,” Yumi replied, “which led me to wonder: Is that fleet in front of us designed to intimidate us or to protect those aboard the sphere.”
“Those ships could be doing both, Lieutenant,” Ellie purposed.
“I agree, Captain, but I decided a rearward exit had little chance of success. The number of fighters dumping out of those carriers limits our avenues of escape, and we have no idea of the armament they possess. Worse, we’d be targeting small ships, one by one, with our beams, while the vast majority of them would be targeting us from all directions.”
“And we’d run the power crystals empty against a multitude of little targets and be swamped by the others,” Ellie finished for Yumi.
“Exactly, Captain,” Yumi replied. “A rearward exit wasn’t a viable option. That left the front. I’m betting on those aboard that small sphere worrying that we’re coming for them. And, maybe, just maybe, they’re thinking that we’re capable of doing the same thing as their sphere did when we cornered it.”
“Meaning we don’t have to fight our way through to that orb. We only have to get close and detonate our ship,” Ellie supplied.
Time ticked down, as the Trident raced forward. Nerves tightened further. A crew member, who was estimating the distance the warship had covered to the waiting fleet, said, “Thirty-five percent.”
“Movement, Captain,” Julien said quietly. “The ships in front of us are retreating. What’s of note is that they’re not breaking formation, and the sphere remains in the center of the protective shield.”
“Excellent analysis, Lieutenant,” Alex said. “It appears those ships were there primarily to protect the orb.”
Telemetry detected the main party continuing to accelerate. They were in full retreat. Yumi waited until her warship had closed the distance to approximately 50 percent of the way. This ensured that the enemy retreat was well underway, and she’d cleared the fighters’ partial sphere. Then Yumi arced the Trident up, taking a line between the main party and the carrier-fighter forces.
Yumi continued to drive the Trident at full power, monitoring the engines’ statuses. She needn’t have worried on that score. Nearly every bridge crew member, not occupied with monitoring telemetry for more enemy ships, was eyeing those readouts.
“Well done, everyone,” Alex said, applauding the bridge crew and Julien. The holo-vid indicated that Yumi’s continuing arc would eventually allow the Liberator to make a complete course reversal far overtop of the fighter shield. Better yet, none of the enemy ships were pursuing them.
Turning to Julien, Alex asked, “How did we do on the comm memory?”
“Nearly three-fifths full, Alex,” Julien replied, smiling, and displaying his trademark fedora.
-32-
Return Home
When the Liberator exited into Omnian space, Alex chose to stay off the comm, while the crew taxed the warship’s bandwidth with a mountain of messages and comm links.
After the Liberator had left the Nua’ll fleet far behind, Julien and the engineering team had reversed their surgery on the comm station linkage. At one point, Julien had suggested to Alex that he investigate what the memory crystals had stored.
“Absolutely not,” Alex had replied, horrified. “Didn’t you tell me that the Nua’ll could produce deviant signals, which would be a primary concern for the ship’s controller?”
“Yes, but I’m much more sophisticated than a ship’s controller,” Julien had replied.
“Granted,” Alex replied. “But that might not be enough.”
“Your concern for me is touching,” Julien said, with a lift of his eyebrows.
“It’s no such thing,” Alex replied offhand. “I’m concerned that we’ve come all this way to observe the Nua’ll reaction to our presence and capture their broadcasts, and, if you go tinkering about with the information, we might lose it.”
Julien had laughed at Alex’s excuse and decided to leave well enough alone.
When Alex pinged the warship’s comm bandwidth and found it at less than half capacity, he linked to the Freedom.
Alex dropped the secondary link to Mickey and retained it with the Freedom.
Cordelia had copious communications from the three individuals who Alex requested. The smallest group originated from Terese, and she summarized those for Alex, while she worked on the next group.
Alex mulled over that one. He could imagine the individuals, who participated in the SIF plan to restore Bellamonde to a healthy planet, experiencing emotionally cathartic events.
Alex checked his calendar app. The length of time that the Rêveur had been gone from Omnia, minus the initial travel time, said that there should have been a fourth report. In fact, a fifth would be due within little more than a month.
* * *
The Liberator’s crew was more than happy to decamp the warship and enjoy time off aboard the Freedom. Only a few individuals remained aboard, when Mickey and his team arri
ved. Julien led them to the temporary bulkhead access, which had been opened again.
“I recommend taking this convertor with you, Mickey,” Julien said. “It handled the flow of the Nua’ll broadcast without interruption.”
“Why do you think that was?” Mickey asked.
“Simplicity, Mickey. There was little programming for the broadcast to corrupt, if that was the intention of the Nua’ll. It merely relays signals at a rudimentary level.”
Mickey grunted and indicated the device to a tech, who set to work removing it.
“Did you sample the stream, Julien?” Mickey asked.
“I was forbidden to touch the data,” Julien replied.
Mickey lifted his head away from examining the tech’s work to stare at Julien, several thoughts rushing through his mind. “That scared of its potency, was he?” Mickey asked.
Julien shrugged his shoulders in reply.
“It’s difficult to put close friends in harm’s way,” Mickey murmured.
When Mickey signaled Miriam that she was free to begin the transfer, the SADE carefully attached leads to the memory bank from a secondary power supply that resided in a large shipping crate. The Liberator’s power supply was disconnected, and the memory bank was released from its containment facility. Carefully and slowly, Miriam transferred the crystals and their support parts to the crate. Two SADEs sealed it and carried it to the waiting traveler.
Miriam could have carried the crate herself, without much challenge. However, when the SADEs heard Mickey, who knew them well, repeat their instructions three times, they knew their operations must carry as close to zero risk as possible. They were taking all precautions to act accordingly.
The traveler transferring the crate made planetfall, landing at one of Mickey’s engineering labs outside Omnia city. It was a fairly isolated building. More important, Mickey and his team had the space to prepare a special lab. It was protected against every transmission that they could conceive. Furthermore, there were no cable connections or power from the lab to the outer rooms. The work lab was entirely self-contained, as far as any signal transmission was concerned.
