“Confirm on course to the event horizon,” Commander Jameson ordered.
“Course confirmed. Time to gravity well: one minute. Time crossing event horizon: three minutes.”
“Increase power to plasma drive. Full speed ahead!” Jed ordered.
“Aye, Sir, full power to plasma drives. Fifteen seconds now from gravity well.”
“Full power to armor plating and shielding, we’re going in!” Jameson shouted.
“Aye, Sir,” Lieutenant Collins answered, “Armor plating charged, and shields one-hundred percent!”
“Helm: course correction. Pitch Z minus point five degrees, turn port point zero three five degrees.”
“Course correcting pitch Z minus point five degrees, turn port point zero three five degrees, affirmative.”
“Time to event horizon: one minute...fifty-five seconds......fifty seconds...”
Lieutenant Foster continued to count the seconds, “thirty-seconds...Helm, Rotate aft Z plus ninety degrees...MARK...twenty seconds...fifteen...”
“Rotation Z plus ninety degree...confirmed. The Event Horizon is right on us, Captain!”
“...five... four... three... two... one... crossing Event Horizon.”
The Rocinante shuddered, but held steady through the entrance to the black hole. The light of the stars ripped across their view as white-blueish streaks.
“Position confirmation!” The first officer ordered.
“Sirs,” Foster turned toward the CSC pit, “We’re in!”
Another round of cheers rang in the air as the over twenty crewmen, working in unison for the very first time in their lives, accomplish yet another milestone in human technological development; crossing the galaxy expanse that would lead them to the Betelgeuse corridor exit.
Artemis stood after removing the restraints and approached Jed, “On behalf of all Eridonians, I congratulate you on a job well done. We may have telepathically transferred the required knowledge. It was your human resolve to follow the instructions and build these vessels.”
“Thank you Artemis,” Jed bowed, “Now! Are we all done with these festivities? Don’t we have some work to do?”
“You heard the man! Stand down action stations!” Jameson yelled. “Return to normal operations.”
“What is our current ETA to exit this corridor?”
“Sir, our ETA to cross the conduit is fifty-two hours.”
The Eridonian shook its head, “My, my...We are impressed.”
Jed turned to Artemis, “Impressed? Why?”
“You’re trip through the conduit will take you twenty hours less. We have never seen cross times such as these.”
“It took you seventy-two hours to cross? Maybe it was your size, or mass?”
“Doubtful. Although, the mass is a possible assumption as to the cause. However, your ship’s mass is larger than our saucer’s mass, so it should take you longer if mass was the answer.”
“Then maybe it was the two ships combined?” Commander Jameson interposed.
Artemis nodded, “Yes, I do think your commander here is on to something.”
“Smart ass,” Jed winked.
“At any rate,” Artemis said, motioning with its hand, “we will be exiting the conduit sooner than the Antarians think. This gives you an edge in our current situation.”
“He’s right, Captain,” Jameson nodded, “we have a huge advantage. Twenty hours is a lot of time off our mission clock.”
“I agree,” Jed answered, his brow furrowed, “So we need to have a plan and a few alternates. You know, just like calling audibles in football.”
Jameson returned a smile, “Yeah. The more options we have in our playbook, the better chance we’ll have for a touchdown.”
“The way I see it,” Jed pointed with his finger. The table top illuminated as he drew his finger on the glass, “we have two scenarios. Either we meet the Antarians when we exit, or we don’t.”
Lieutenant Collins joined the others in the pit, “If we do, I’ll have my men at the ready. We can send Marine boarding parties on transports to take control. There’s ten of them down there, we might as well utilize what resources we have.”
“Lieutenant,” Jed said, turning to the tactical officer, “I want the launch bay prepped and ready as soon as we exit. We’ll use two fighter squadrons, split into four fighter groups, to cover four support ships as our recon force. Those fighters can get in close, detect enemy ships, and can cover a wider area than a solitary support ship.
“If they find an Antarian ship, we send two Marine transports to board and take control of it,” Collins added.
“Good plan, Collins. We’ll bring the Rock into position on the flank of any enemy vessel we find. The ship’s strong point is our broadside point defense system. If anything crosses our area defense perimeter, a warning will sound. Lieutenant Collins will be responsible for activating the PDS once a positive ID has been identified as a hostel.”
“Understood, Sir,” Collins answered.
“The fighters will have IFF clearance for their departure and approach vectoring. Collins, you’ll also be responsible for communications to the flight deck. Delegate at your discretion, but understand that it’s your responsibility.
“Aye, Sir. I have a great rapport with Chief Kelly. We’ll have it together, Sir.”
“Remember, any Antarian ships we encounter may be the one containing our guys.”
“That means,” Commander Jameson said, pointing to Lieutenant Collins, “make sure the flight deck, the CAG, or our head pilot...”
“...Major Phillips, Sir.”
“Yes, Major Phillips, will be responsible for ensuring his pilots know not to destroy their target unless I authorize it.”
“Yes, Sir. The Major and I have some face time, Sir.”
“If there are no Antarian ships present when we exit,” Jed continued, “we’ll fly the recon to ensure they’re not just out of our current scanning range.”
“Yes, Sir. How long do you want the recon to fly before we recall them?”
“We should patrol in shifts of three hours. We have twenty extra hours. We need to use them wisely, and not all at once.”
“Agreed,” Jameson nodded, “We should only fly three recons. We’ll still be more than ten hours ahead once our ships are all in.”
“While the fighters and our ‘ACE in-the-hole’ ships are on recon, we’ll plot the course to Antares. Once all recon forces have been retrieved, and we can confirm there is no immediate Antarian threat, we’ll leave a programmed drone behind with our status. Then we’ll jump to Antares.”
The Eridonian motioned with its hands again, “We will have to wait until we exit the conduit to fully know which course of action to take. However, I will attempt to reach Malcom and inform him we are on our way. He can communicate to the others so they may prepare.”
“I would suggest the same goes for plotting any jumps to Antares,” Jameson added.
“You are quite correct, Commander,” Artemis smiled, “Typically, their ships can jump in and out of Antares up to approximately forty light years. We should have about the same range.”
“In other words,” Jed added, “we’ll be on them in an instant. We might want to identify a way to mask our ship’s signature from their scanners. That could buy us a little more time.”
“Vital time to assess our situation, that’s for sure,” Collins agreed.
“Artemis,” Jed asked, “Can you bring up a map of the Antares system. I’d like to see the system layout and where their home world is located.”
“Certainly,” Artemis stepped to the console and began typing commands. A few short keystrokes resulted in a holographic image of the Antares star and a graph of each planetoid at the precise and updated orbit.
“Far out!” Collins grinned.
“Technically speaking,” Artemis argued, “the Antarian home world is not a remarkably long distance from the star Antares.”
Jed laughed, “No, Artie, I think wh
at the Lieutenant means is that this display is pretty cool...you know, neat-o.”
“Ahhh,” Artemis nodded, “It is an expression of approval! And please, call me Artemis. Artie? Really? That’s a male name. I am female.”
“Oh, well, umm, I’m so sorry. I meant no disrespect. I just, you know,” Jed gulped, “I couldn’t tell if you were male or female, uh, umm, you didn’t seem to have any of the usual female parts,” Jed finished leaning closer and whispering.
Artemis roared with laughter, “Yes, I suppose you would not understand. Our species is really neither male nor female. We’re androgynous, that is until we choose a mate and decide to birth. We then decide between each of us, who will take the role of mothering the child. The mate chooses to remain or change to whatever they decide.”
“So, you are a mother?”
“Yes, I have children on Epsilon.”
Artemis pointed to the center of the hologram with her short arm and long finger, “This is Antares. In orbit around this star are six gas giants,” She motioned with her hands and zoomed the hologram closer to one of the planets, “The Antarians reside on the third moon of the fourth gas giant.” Pointing with is finger again, “The forth planet is called Lebencha. This planet has three moons; Delema, Gornash, and Serintin. The latter being their home world.”
“What about planetary defenses and satellites?”
“At each moon, there are large energy collectors. These use gravity beams to siphon off large amounts of gasses from the gas giant. The gasses are sent on to the refineries on the nearby moons. That’s how they fund and fuel their war machine. Every gas giant has collectors based on the number of moons and how rich the composition of the gas giant is. The lower quality fuel production is sold to other species that the Antarians do not see as vulnerable to them at the moment. That gives the Anterians resources to build larger and more deadly war ships. These warships are then used on less technically evolved species. Then more resources are taken and it just goes on, and on. This is why we decided to help your race. We tire of seeing the evil they sow among the stars.”
“Why aren’t you able to use your mind powers on them? How did they detect your ships? I thought you were blocking yourselves from them?”
“We do not fully understand this either. The only thing we can agree on is that the Antarians have discovered a way to block our minds in the proximity of their vessels.”
“This is Henderson, Sir,” the Comm officer reported, “I’ll be setting my instruments to detect any unusual signatures if we encounter any Antarian. This is some pretty sophisticated equipment, so we should be able to detect any odd radiations or emissions.”
“Sadly, I am unable to read Malcom,” Artemis said, “But I do understand that he is alive. I can feel that much, but no more.”
“What’s this?” Jed pointed to a stream of energy pulling gasses from the gas giant to a collector orbiting Serintin.
“That is the energy stream from the planet.”
“Could we hide our ship in there?”
Artemis held her head in thought, “Hmmm, perhaps if we augment the ship’s shielding capability, we could hide within that energy stream. But there may be consequences.”
“What kind of consequences?” Commander Jameson asked.
“Radiation sickness. If we stay too long in that energy stream, it could be lethal.”
Jed turned to his first officer, “Nice.”
“So, how long could we stay?”
“Only a few minutes.”
“A few minutes is all we need.”
“What are you thinking, Captain?”
“How’s this. We jump in. Launch a Area Combat ship, and jump back out. Far enough where we can sit undetected yet close enough for the assault team to get a signal to us. An ACE ship should be small enough where they might not be detected. They get planet side, find our guys and recover them. They take-off and fly back to the stream. We jump in and pick them up. Then we go back to form up with the fleet.”
“That depends on how long you expect your men to last on their home world undetected.”
“My guys are good, Sir,” Lieutenant Collins smiled. “These Marines are the toughest, most hard-core the Corps has to offer.”
“And with our advancement in weapons, they’ll be pretty tough.”
“Stealth mode first. Remember to keep your men’s testosterone in check,” Jed grinned.
“Does anyone have any better idea?” Jameson asked.
“The plan sounds good, but let’s keep our options open,” Jed nodded. “Get Kelly on the horn. I have some instructions for him.”
Aye, Sir,” Henderson acknowledged.
~
“Okay! Listen up, boys and girls!” Chief Kelly’s bellow echoed throughout the hanger. “Here is our order of battle.
“When we come out of the corridor, we’re going to launch the first recon. That’s forty fighters in four minutes, one bird every six seconds. The quicker we get those fighters launched, the better chance they’ll have of overpowering any hostiles prowlin’ around out there.
“The first ships out of my hanger will be twenty fighters followed by the four Area Combat ships, then twenty more fighters. That’s two ACE ships per side. I want those birds in the air and scanning the area ASAP.
“They will link securely to each group of ten fighters as they launch. The ACE ships are the backbone of each recon. They are the eyes and ears for dispatching and controlling the fighter groups, sort of like portable control towers. They’ll be relaying specific instructions to the CAG, who in turn will dispatch his fighters for maximum effectiveness.
“Once a hostile is located, we will launch our transports. Two transports to each hostile identified. That will put four hundred Mean Marines in the alien’s lap to ‘negotiate’ getting our people back.
“If any of our support ships are taken out, one will be launched to take its place. Pilots! Do NOT get into the ship’s kill zone! Our point defense guns make no friends on either side. So, you WILL take care of my new fancy equipment and avoid the kill zone! Launch decks will run drills in three shifts for the next forty hours until we get it right! Our launch doors will remain closed and sealed to protect us from the hostile environment within the conduit. These drills will include the entire launch sequence with the sole exception of the ships flying down the launch rails. You have all received your training through the Eridonian thought transfer process. Trust your instincts, and do not do anything stupid out there! Now get this deck ready! MOVE IT!”
Major Phillips walked up to Kelly as he dismissed the assembly, “Can I have a word with ya, Chief?”
“Yeah, sure, Major. What’s up?”
“Chief, my pilots are telling me that some of your deckhands are not treating them with the respect they deserve.”
“Major, I assure you that my men would not say or do anything other than their jobs out on the flight deck. Where’s this coming from, Sir?”
“Could it be happening outside the flight deck, Chief Petty Officer, Kelly?”
“Now wait just a minute, Major. There’s no need to call out ranks here. We’re all one team.”
“Kelly, just make sure you keep your men in line.”
“That is my intention, Major Phillips,” Kelly said, snapping a salute. Then he turned and walked away with clenched teeth.
Captain Jones walked up to the Major, “What was that all about, Major?”
“Oh, hey Rene. What, that?” Phillips pointed back to the Chief still walking from them.
“Yeah that. The Chiefs doing a great job, Kurt.”
“Yeah, I know he is. I just wanted to make the Navy guy sweat a little. It’s good for the soul.”
“Uh huh, right. Kurt, just be careful. You don’t want to throw accusations around that aren’t true.”
“I never said they weren’t true, Rene. You just worry about flying that bird. Come on,” Phillips motioned. “Let’s get ready for the drills.”
~
Captain Fitz left the CSC with the intention of retiring to his quarters. It was easy traveling through the ship as every corridor was color-coded using directional arrows. The crew could follow red outlined arrows to the CSC, or yellow for the flight deck. Green solid arrows would bring the crew to their berths. Dashed arrows led to the mess hall, and if the crewman wanted recreation, they would follow a green plus arrow symbol. Blue lines showed the way to engineering.
Jed stopped before his cabin door. He had to think about how to access his stateroom, as he’d never been here before. He thought it was strange that he simply knew how to do these things. It was like he had always done them. He felt confidant, and for the first time since the accident five years ago, he felt at peace.
He reached up and entered his access code on the keypad and the door slid open. After he entered the room, the door automatically closed with a swoosh. Looking around his cabin, on his left side was a computer console on a wall. Straight ahead was his officer’s desk, complete with a screen inlayed on the surface that was similar to the CSC’s screen down in the pit. To his right was a sofa with a coffee table and two chairs. The right wall was a liquor cabinet. The Captain’s bunk and lavatory, or head as they called it on a vessel, was situated straight back behind his office desk.
“All the comforts of home,” he whispered to himself.
He removed his jacket, walked over to the sofa, laying it across the back of one of the chairs before plunking down.
Landing with a thud, “Whew, what a day.”
Jed leaned forward on the leather sofa and dropped his face into his hands. He rubbed his closed eyes, and then ran his hands over his head and down the back to his neck. Jed squeezed his hands, massaging his stiff neck, and then opened his eyes.
“What’s this?” Jed reached out for a box on the coffee table. “A card,” he said, snatching the item taped to the brown wrapped box. “Hey Cap’n’,” it read, “I know we didn’t have time to properly pack everything we wanted, so here’s a little somthin’ for old time sake. Enjoy, Race.”
Jed tore the paper off the box and opened it as quickly as he could, “Race, you shouldn’t have,” he exclaimed, holding a bottle of fine scotch whiskey. “Bastard had this imported and sent to the ship...Race! Why’d you have to get yourself captured? Man, you drive me nuts sometimes. You know that? Don’t you worry, my friend, I’ll get ya back...mark my words...I’ll get ya back!”
Warlords Saga Page 9
