by Don Koch
King Estes responded, "General, I sincerely appreciate your candor. We do have an open society and I do happen to agree with you that my people should be informed. I welcome General Schmidt's assistance in how to accomplish this without causing a panic. I also welcome a continued relationship with your fleet. Prince Kar, would you like to be our first emissary to the Antoran Fleet?"
"Indeed, it would be my great pleasure Father."
"My son, I think this would be a great experience for you. Please be sure you survive the experience for I feel these people will go in harms way for our protection and that of others. I am proud of you my son. General Stone, this is my son and this planet's emissary to your fleet, please take good care of him. Can he have an hour to prepare those things he will need to take with him and say goodbye to his mother?"
"Certainly your majesty. Prince Kar, please just let Akira know when you are ready to transport to the station."
"May I ask who is Danica and who is Akira?"
"Akira is the AI on Station 8 and Danica is the AI on Station 114. They are both self-aware super computers. Each Station has one and each selects her own name when they become self-aware." He then addressed King Estes, "Your majesty, I am honored that you would entrust your son with us. We will do our absolute best to assure his safety. I must leave you now but General Schmidt will remain to continue answering any questions that remain. He too will need to return to his station shortly, but if you do not mind a suggestion, you might want to consider a tour of station 114, I think you will be surprised. Goodbye you majesty. I will be back." With that he vanished back to the station. Fifty minutes later Akira announced that the Prince was on board with about 80 pounds of gear that all appeared practical. "Akira, please set course for Gella and ask Prince Kar if he would like a short tour of the station."
"Thanks Akira, transport him here when he is ready."
Two minutes later Prince Kar appeared in his office and asked if he could discuss a concern before they started the tour. Hank agreed. The Prince said, "It occurs to me that my being a Prince is going to cause some difficulties for you and some potential conditions that could be awkward. You can't be calling me Prince or using traditional honorifics like "your highness" or "your majesty" without potentially undermining your authority. Being an emissary is one thing but royalty, quite another. On a personal level, I would appreciate a vacation from being royalty for a while, incognito, if you will. Is it possible to do this?"
"You have no idea how relieved I am to hear you say that for exactly the reasons you describe. We will need at least a minimal cover story. What will we call you? There is at least one who will need to know and that is President Fador. Obviously the AIs on the various stations you are on will know. Akira can give you a shield so that our telepaths can't read you. It occurs to me you should have some of the enhancements we take for granted while you are with us, Akira will explain all of that to you later today."
"That is good. Why not call me by my real name. That will make it easier to avoid mistakes. My name is Kar Lenard. I can be described as a minor functionary for the police department with a varied area of interest that our sovereign thought would be a good mix for this mission, also true."
"Then that is how we will do this. Now, I would like you to meet my wife, Sam." At that, Sam appeared before the startled Prince.
"How did you…ah, you did say that you have telepaths on board, that explains much. Including how you knew it was not my father speaking to you initially. Of course, but that does not explain how you knew specifically who was talking. Ah, that must have been the AI, Danica."
"Then you are familiar with this talent?" said Sam.
"Indeed, it is a talent that also runs in the royal line on Frote. At this point, I am a minor talent because I have not yet met my mate."
"Kar you are full of pleasant surprises and I am pleased to see you are so quick on the uptake. I think this relationship will be of great advantage for both our interests. Sam will be with us for the tour. I will be establishing you in an office quite near mine. We use an open structure here so you will be exposed to much that might seem a bit curious to you, but this is based on the fact that we are going to trust you based on what we have learned of you in this short time. For now, why don't we get started." The three plus Akira went first to the military training areas and then deck-by-deck through the flight decks. Hank explained that this station currently had about 90 million persons on board and that all stations were fully manned. Kar was particularly impressed at the number and size of the commercial vessels. The capability of the warships had a sobering effect. The quantity of shuttles was also a bit of a surprise. Hank told Kar that they would start his command level enhancements that evening and explained how the training machines were also available to him. Next they toured the storage area and then the farms. Hank asked Akira to dress them each in parkas and transport them to the lookout deck on Mt. Smokeless. From that location, the housing units could clearly be seen on both walls of the sector. Hank explained that the learning machines had a program that would provide a full orientation concerning the station. He also explained in more detail the purpose of the current mission and what was next. Hank asked about the suitability of Prince Kar's quarters.
Kar responded, that the quarters were actually larger and more efficient than his own at home. He was further surprised to learn that there were no VIP quarters on the station and that his were typical of those found on all stations. They then returned to the command center where Hank introduced Kar as the emissary from Frote who would have access to the center. With that Hank excused himself noting that they were approaching their next destination and wanted some time to prepare.
### Gella – January 10 – C Day 133 ###
On arrival at Gella, Hank was invited to meet with General Ichiro Yamada and AI Mbali aboard Station 174. General Yamada's briefing was similar to his reports and his recommendations were in accord with what Hank had in mind. The two stations were positioned so that they could be seen from all four capitals on the planet. Once in position, the two stations were uncloaked and 2 groups of Warships were launched. AI Mbali broadcast a request for a meeting aboard the station with all four of the leaders in three hours time. It was also announced that the meeting would be broadcast to every device on the planet capable of receiving a communication. Mbali informed the leaders that if they did not agree to the meeting then that leader could watch the meeting on their communication devices like the rest of their population. This ploy worked and all agreed to the meeting. As the meeting began, Hank introduced himself and announced that the stations came in peace and that a station had been in orbit of their planet for the last 400 years. The reason for their presence was explained and each leader was provided with the means for contacting the station. Hank explained the pending threat and the fact that station 174 would remain in orbit in cloaked mode for the protection of the planet. He explained that it was not permissible for them to use space for their conflicts including the use of ICBM's that entered space as part of their trajectory. Hank noted that following the meeting, they would return to cloaked mode. Hank noted that they would not intervene in local affairs unless it involved WMDs in which case those weapons would be removed. He then answered their questions and following that he returned them to their offices. The warships were then recovered and the stations again went to cloaked mode.
### Blint – January 11 – C Day 134 ###
A short while later Station 8 departed for their last stop, the planet Blint. Having reviewed General Alexander Zharkoff's reports and recommendations, He decided on an identical approach to that used on Gella. Blint has 25 geopolitical divisions. When General Zharkoff heard the proposed approach, he smiled and agreed that it suited him fine. Hank suggested the launch of a full wing of warships and just to make the presence more convincing, also launched 100 of the largest commercial vessels, knowing that th
e people on the planet would not know the difference between a warship and a commercial ship. When all ships were in position, he then ordered all vessels to uncloaked mode. The sudden appearance of so many vessels had the desired effect on the planet. Hank again suggested a meeting on station using the same conditions as those on Gella with essentially the same results. After the meeting and return of the ships to their stations, the ships returned to cloaked mode. During the departure brief, General Zharkoff asked Hank to give his regards to General Baranof. He also told Hank that he was extremely thankful for Hank's persistence in regard to his efforts in encouraging Baranof to join the fleet. After that Station 8 set course for Earth.
Chapter 28: T Raptors
Station 1 in Earth Orbit –
January 13 – C Day 136
After arriving back from the tour of inhabited planets protected by the fleet, Hank updated his staff, Fador and his staff as well as Vassim on what he had encountered. It was clear that the correct path had been taken in drawing most of the fleet personnel resources from Earth. Hank and Sam then had a meeting with Josh, Rose and Barana to discuss the progress of their project to explore the potential uses of the telepathic rapport talent. Josh started the meeting with obvious excitement, "Boss, you are not going to believe what this project has discovered or uncovered in the past week. The use of telepathic rapport teams is going to save a lot of lives. We started exploring what was possible the day you left. By the following day we had teams formed and functioning. We found that our AI's can boost the range of our teams. With Barana providing a boost, my team has a range up to about 1000 light years. However as a practical matter our best operating distance with a team of two humans, two Glarin and an AI is about 400 light years. Range without an AI is about 25 light years. Not only can we communicate but we can also manipulate objects at that distance. We can appear as ghosts, solid figures or remain invisible. We can operate devices at that distance. We can wander about an enemy warship undetected and more. The really cool thing is that our teams cannot be penetrated by the Gar. There is no two way street with this capability. When we realized this, I prepared ten teams and had them report to General Dresser for his Operation Buster that left two hours ago. We are calling the teams, T Raptor teams."
"Oho, Josh, that's cute," said Hank, "T Raptor indeed. There is nothing little about the bite such teams can take. This is a new element to warfare. Good thinking on sending teams on Operation Buster. I suppose that we will be seeing unit patches with a T Raptor head on it,"
Josh looked embarrassed and said, "Well, yes, they are already out there."
Hank laughed and said, "Relax Josh, I was pulling your chain. Patches contribute to unit morale and this is too good to pass up. Good thinking."
Josh went on, "It gets better, individual team members are essentially invulnerable while in projection mode. They can have a squad of troops beating and firing on them and nothing harmful happens. It is tiring when that happens so stamina and duration of activity are hampered but with Barana or an AI boosting the condition is neutralized. I think this will be the way we deactivate the self-destruct devices on those ships and the Gar will not have a clue that the devices will no longer operate. Plus, we do not expose our troops to a potentially fatal result. I think that will come as a bit of a surprise the first time the Gar try to use it. I admit to a temptation to put some sound effects in there like what we saw as kids in the Saturday morning cartoons."
"General David intends to analyze the missiles, and then destroy them all. There are a total of 900 missiles in the three groups. He intends to make this a simultaneous event to see if the Gar can detect it. At the same time he will surreptitiously extract the Glarin telepaths, Gambel, Hanser, Abgar and Dinan. If that is not detected he then intends to 'haunt' the Gar fleet using the T Raptor teams in invisible mode to gather as much intelligence as we can and try to spook the Gar while we are at it. It will be interesting to see how badly we can shake them up in this way or not. If this works, and I am convinced it will, we will not only have an incredible intelligence gathering tool but an additional offensive tool in our armory. The enemy cannot hurt us in this mode. Since you and Sam are our strongest telepaths, Barana has set up a special training regimen for you. I think you are both going to enjoy this."
"Vassim was a bit surprised to learn that he and his mate, Villa, are telepaths. It turns out he is fairly strong and has been pairing with Rose and I. I asked him if he would be willing to partner with the two of you during your training. Hank, you and Sam are our strongest telepaths. He said he would be honored and is ready when you are. I suspect that you will find capabilities to this that we have not yet found or suspected. Some of that may be something others can be taught to do with Barana's aid. We also found that we can expand the size of any one team making the resultant team even stronger. I would like to suggest several phases to your exploration of this capability. The first is to acclimate you to the experience and that would be with you and Sam joining a basic team, in this instance, Barana, Vassim, Villa, Rose and I. Next would be with you leading a basic team followed by an expanded team. When would you like to start?"
Hank looked at Sam and she raised her eyebrows to indicate readiness and he said, "How about now."
"Outstanding, Barana we are ready when you are. We are going to do this the same place you demonstrated the enhancement package six months ago."
A few seconds latter, they were all at RM 3 on deck 22 in the Military Sector. A number of comfortable recliners in a circle were the only furnishings in sight. Josh invited Hank and Sam to the recliners and then Josh, Rose, Vassim and Villa joined them. Josh then invited the entire group to join him in rapport indicating that it was the same as when Hank and Sam had done so previously, and they did.
Hank's first reaction was
Barana noted that their range was more than triple that previously encountered. Josh then demonstrated the things they had discovered and explored the various capabilities. Josh explained that usually the telepath posing the invitation led the effort and determined when to terminate the event. That leader also provided the destination for the group. Invisibly they visited a number of locations on Earth and in the solar system including Jupiter without experiencing the gravity there. It was clear that the T Raptor teams would be an important element in general exploration as well as the military capabilities they were now reviewing. They then projected to another section of the military sector where combat scenarios were underway. The troops there were instructed to attack the team to see if they could do any damage. This was done with firearms, clubs, swords, etc. In each case it was as though they were not there. Bullets, clubs, swords merely passed through them. Hank decided to try an experiment and willed that his projection become an impenetrable solid. A soldier wielding a club took a swing at Hank and on contact, the club shattered into hundreds of pieces. Hank then willed all of the pieces back together and handed the club back to the soldier saying, "take this club back to your commander and have it analyzed along with another of like manufacture and have the findings reported to me."
Josh then terminated the exercise and said, "Well boss, I expected that you would find some new wrinkles in this capability, but honestly, not that quickly. What did you do?"
"Well, I was thinking that we might be looking at this with too narrow a focus so I started thinking about what we were playing with. It reminded me of one of my favorite comic book characters when I was growing up who had this thing about green. His powers were based on will power and determination and powered by a ring and a lantern. It occurred to me that this situation was strikingly similar. I thought, what if there is a relationship and I decided to test it. It is not exactly the same but there are similarities that we should set about exploring. I think it would have eventually become apparent. The capability is so new that we will be in discovery mode for some time."
Hank then started to laugh and Sam asked what was so funny
. Hank replied, "I was just thinking that the last thing I wanted to see is all of us dressed in some kind of superhero outfit. Don't even think about it Josh." And they all joined in the laughter. Hank went on, I would like to explore this some more from a lead position in a basic team structure and see where that takes us. Lets postpone phase 3 for a bit until Sam and I are fully satisfied that we have mastered this much. I think we need to find some way to measure energy depletion so we don't get caught having to terminate an operation in the middle for lack of energy."
" Works for me, you have certainly given me some more to work with."
"Josh, once again you have come through with a super response to a difficult assignment given and in a very short time frame. No wonder you were on the fast track for General in the Marines. You have again confirmed my choice. Thanks for a job well done."
### January 14 – C Day 137 with Sgt. Major Wall ###
"Well Top how is it shaping up from your end."
"Really well, thanks in no small part to Staff Sergeant Pine."
"Funny you should say that, it is part of the reason I am here. He impressed me when I met him as he did General Joe. I took a peek at his evaluations for his telepathic abilities and he is head and shoulders above the rest. I want to brevet him to Lieutenant and put him in charge of one of our T Raptor teams. I think he would be a natural but I wanted to talk to you first."
"As much as I hate to lose him, I think you are right on the green with this one. But, I would also suggest you brevet him to Captain because he has been taking OCS courses on his own since he got here and is ready for the responsibility. He is a natural leader and has organized my staff so that he has built in his own replacements. He won't stay long at the Captain rank, mark my words. My one request is that you do it now and here so I can give him his first salute from an enlisted."
