by Ken Pence
Desiree said. “I’ll go with him if it’s okay with you, Captain. I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” she said.
Xilatoi was quick on the uptake even though Desiree had spoken in English. He looked at her and said, “I would be honored to be accompanied by you. I heard you called Desiree. What do you wish to be called? I certainly feel safe with you after seeing your battle prowess.”
Desiree stared at him with her mouth hanging open since Xilatoi had spoken in fluent English.
He nodded, his equivalent of a smile, and said – again, in English, “I was given the task of researching your planet and species by the Allung. We had contact with traders from the star you call Bellatrix. I got the information and language training from them.”
Desiree shut her mouth with an audible snap and laughed. “Which way should we go?”
***
The Nestor and the Hawk were the first two Earth ships on the scene of the battle. Admiral Brad Kyger was with them. His shuttle linked to the captured ship, the Sesstra, after a short video exchange with Captain Williams.
“Have we found them all?” was the first thing Admiral Kyger asked.
“We seem to have found all the uninjured. There are a few that are still being used as food sources for the VicVic males,” Andrew said.
“That’s creepy and revolting,” Kyger said, “but I suppose it is necessary.”
“It was and is. How many men can you spare?” Andrew asked.
“Men for what?” Kyger responded.
“We have that huge ship to take back to Earth and refit. We don’t have the manpower to spare anyone. It had a crew of 250 plus 135 support staff – slaves I should say. Most of their crew are dead or lunch. Those Allung were tough. Our ship was no match for that ship. We need to see what we can learn from their technology and tactics. We have an incredible resource with Xilatoi.”
“Who?” Brad asked.
“Admiral. He is the one here, maybe more, who speaks English.”
“What? How did that happen?”
“These Allung have been studying us. They almost had enough horsepower to kill us all or enslave a whole crew. We have to ratchet up our game a lot.”
“Like I told you, Andrew, this is why I lose sleep at night. How long do we have ‘til more of these folks come our way?”
“We probably have months here but they got a lot of their information at Bellatrix. We have an embassy there. We will not have much to counter their forces if they attack there. Okay Brad. Our best bet is to negotiate salaries for all the released slaves, get this captured ship back to Earth, and reverse engineer any weapons and tech. Luckily, the slaves are the ones that understand the technologies involved.”
“I will transfer a component over to liaison with the released slaves and start interviewing the Allung prisoners. They are dangerous as hell and I want them all to have those explosive collars on. I really don’t have much of a problem with how they are treated. We would be held as slaves or killed – it would have been bad. When can you leave?” Brad asked.
“I think I can get everyone going here in another three hours – that will give everyone a chance to cycle through an accelerated sleep cycle of 8 to 10 hours. We’ll start that right away. I should have started that already – everyone has been awake for twenty hours or more right now.
Tod and Steve had to be ordered to sleep, as did most of the crew. They slept soundly as soon as they stopped moving and closed their eyes for a second. They carefully kept knowledge of the accelerated time differential rooms away from the Toi or Allung. Shiv was still rummaging through the Allung ship after Andrew had slept an accelerated ten hours.
Andrew approached Shiv. “How are you? What is the status of your brood?”
“I am fatigued. Many of my offspring were killed. That was expected. The Allung were very appealing to my progeny as they were similar to a predator on my home planet. We used to attach ourselves to its skin, hatch and then eat our way though the body ‘til they grew and the host died.” Shiv stopped talking for a few seconds and continued. “You want to know how they will react as they grow larger. They will attain about half my size but I designed them to have extremely short lifespan. They will live only about one of your years and since they are all males – they can not reproduce. They will help navigate this ship for you back to Earth.”
“Thank you, Shiv. That was much of what I wanted to know. Why do you not get some sleep?”
“I must keep my offspring from eating things they are not supposed to eat. I will rest in a day or two,” Shiv said.
“Good idea,” Andrew said. “I will leave you alone.”
***
It took the better part of a day to get the Sesstra ready to travel to Earth. There had been two escape attempts by the Allung where five more of their number had been killed. It appeared that their code of honor required them to never be taken alive. The shock of the VicVic and the powered suits of the humans had given them a brief culture shock. The Brotherhood lived by their reputation for ruthlessness and these Earthers had not been intimidated or submissive. They knew their fleet would come and resolve the situation so they decided to learn what they could of the humans and their technology. They looked forward to the time when they could add these humans as their chattel. The prisoners didn’t know what to make of LeiLei. They had never met her species before but they were absolutely terrified of Shiv and her kin. The VicVic offspring who were living on the dying Allung scared them into acquiescence.
It was determined on the return flight that their ship’s top speed was just a bit less than the Junior but they had more powerful lasers. They also had a weapon that projected a concentrated field similar to what the Earth ship used as a tractor field but it switched on and off rapidly and was intended to cause a fatigue shear through a ship’s drives or defense shields. It was a closely guarded secret as only a few of the released prisoners had any knowledge of its function or capabilities.
Xilatoi knew of it and explained it to Andrew. He had chosen released prisoners who were knowledgeable about different Brotherhood technologies. They helped train LeiLei, Joel, and Shiv on their voyage back to Earth.
Developing The Ylee Drive
Xilatoi told them the history of the Brotherhood for hours. He had lived almost 100 years with them. Their race was known as the Phlemm and they were a race who had been hunted by many species on their home world and had to develop intelligence to escape their adversaries. They had no qualms about capturing other species and placing them into servitude. They had no compassion at all for other species and thought they were better than all others. They were intensely competitive and loved to gamble and drink. They could eat any food, were hard to kill and never backed up from a fight.
None of the Brotherhood had even begun to cooperate with questioning except one small Allung. None would give their names. It wasn’t until later that they learned the Allung gave up their family names when they dedicated their lives to the Brotherhood. Even the small Allung said he was waiting until the rest of the Brotherhood arrived when they could retake their ship. LeiLei and Joel happened to be watching the prisoners with a hidden camera when they saw a commotion and heard a small explosion. LeiLei grabbed the collar controller and detonated all the prisoners’ collars. They ran to the detention room and found Seaman Clythe struggling to his feet with a wound in the neck.
One of the prisoners had somehow wrested the disruptor from his grasp and Petty Officer 3rd Class Lee was still unconscious. All the Allung were dead but the small one, the one who had spoken on the bridge, had her collar almost removed from her neck. There was an odd tool in the edge of the collar. Another Allung had a hand stuck in its stomach under a type of skin flap. It was now obvious that the Allung were prepared to fight or escape. A cursory examination of all the bodies revealed secret pouches at various places over their torso. The Allung evidently acquired pouches like humans acquired tattoos. They stocked these pouches with weapons and tools. LeiLei was lucky t
o have caught them all with the explosive slave collars still on. Any future Allung would require terahertz or background x-ray scanning. No wonder the Brotherhood was contemptuous of attempts to take them prisoner.
***
The Junior arrived at Earth and moved to the Enclosure. There was not room within the Enclosure for the Sesstra so it was grounded nearby. Admiral Kyger ordered an immediate autopsy of the Allung corpses. He wanted to know their physiology with all their strengths and weaknesses. It looked like Earth would be fighting them soon and we would need every advantage we could get.
Admiral Kyger was not the only one surprised by the hidden skin pouches. Even Xilatoi had never heard of these pouches and he had lived with these beings for a century. It was obviously a secret the Allung had been intent on keeping. Admiral Kyger, Brad, had crews of techs swarming over the Allung vessel for any scraps of technology that we could reverse engineer. The first tech piece to be teased out was their communication procedures and codes. The Sesstra had been captured with computers fully operational. It must have been so long since an Allung vessel had been captured that they were complacent.
Their lasers had elements that created intense plasma with a tremendous output but the weapon took three seconds to reset between shots. It used lamlee in the control interface. The drives, sensors, and navigation were not as easily deciphered. Much of the computer system was moved into the Enclosure so it could be studied in accelerated time. The Enclosure had been reset to the sixty-to-one time rate. The waste removal, supplies, energy, air barely kept up with the needs of personnel within.
Shiv had requested an audience with Andrew and Tod. Tod was getting to know her moods after the years they had spent together, many in the Enclosure.
Shiv got to the point right away. “We detected an anomaly in the readings even at 750 light speed.”
“Is this what you wanted to tell us? We thought you were working to decipher the Allung drives. They can cover a much larger area than ours and still travel as fast,” Andrew said.
“Tell us about the anomaly. We did not mean to cut you off. Go ahead,” Tod said.
Shiv looked from Andrew to Tod. “The anomaly happened right when we went to 750 lights. It happened each time at one point when we were going from stationary to faster than 700 lights. There was a longer transient event when going under 750 lights than over 750. The event at 1,000 lights was still there but it was much lower intensity. There was barely a ripple at 1,250 lights and at 1,500, it was only recognizable as a brief blip. We duplicated the effects on the way back except there was no event at all under 700 lights.”
“Okay, Shiv,” Tod said. “How does this help us?”
Shiv practically shivered with delight, which was pretty scary. “It was the research into the Allung sensor that we noticed something else. They can detect ships at a range in excess of ours – out to eight parsecs or so we believe whether they are moving or not.”
“How did you discover that?” Andrew asked.
“We tested it on the way here with the Sesstra and with tracking trade ships that were traveling to other systems beyond Earth. We have been able to duplicate the system and can use less lamlee than the Allung with better resolution.”
“That is great, Shiv, but what does the navigation system have to do with the transition anomaly?” Tod asked.
“I did not see the connection until Xilatoi mentioned that there was a point when starting from a resting position when the sensors would pick up a brief flash of erroneous data. I asked him to explain and he told me that they first introduced the system on Allung ships almost sixty of your years ago. Now, he explained that they briefly cut out the sensor when traveling at speeds over 700 lights,” Shiv said.
“That is interesting so they are sensor blind for a few seconds as they get to speed. That is useful,” Tod said.
“You do not understand. We have been working on duplicating their system for two full days in normal time but 120 days in the Enclosure. We were able to add this sensor system to a ship taking trade supplies to Bellatrix. Admiral Kyger had that ship perform brief trips at 750 and 1,000 lights while running the newly installed Allung sensor system without the cutout. He then transmitted the high definition images of the flashes when the ship reached the transient threshold. Here are the raw flashes,” Shiv said and displayed the flashes on the nearby wall view.
“I don’t see anything but a flash,” Andrew said.
“Did you try displaying the flash at slowed down speed?” Tod asked.
Shiv raised and lowered her whole upper torso to show she meant yes. “You are correct. We displayed the flash in ultra high speed and it showed the stars between here and past Bellatrix. It showed everything in line with the ships heading between Earth and Bellatrix and far beyond. The flash was composed of stellar images, superimposed one on top of the other for about 500 light years from Earth. The only way we could discern any particular systems was because the ship was not exactly directed at Bellatrix and the image did not flare as much as when it went through the center of a stellar mass.”
“Do you have any idea what the Ylee ship rings would do to allow a ship to transition? Those images must be in real time. We could see what was happening at distant locations if we could separate those images if nothing else,” Tod said.
“What was the transient event you recorded? Was it radiation? What was recorded? Was it at a specific location on the ship?” Andrew asked.
“Did it happen to be a specific frequency at different velocities?” Tod asked. “We have recently learned to discern near Planck wavelength frequencies when we were developing our entangled communication system.
“Yes,” Shiv said. “There is a specific frequency event for each velocity. I think, but I am alone in this, that the Ylee rings were designed to superimpose a field of standing waves that matched the specific frequency event and allowed the ship to enter the event horizon. I do not know how a ship will react once it transitions.”
“I will contact Admiral Kyger about your progress. I did not expect you to enter the Enclosure since your species does not have as long a lifespan as humans since our longevity treatments,” Andrew told Shiv.
“VicVic die from lack of stimulation as much from old age. I have never suffered from that since I met you humans. My species are not communal creatures like you humans,” she said.
“What is the status of upgrades to the ERF fleet?” Andrew asked trying to shift the topic from old age and dying.
Tod answered because he had been doing the lion’s share of work reverse engineering the Allung technology. “We have designs that can be incorporated into our ships in about two weeks. We can retrofit the older, smaller ships one by one in the Enclosure next to the Junior. We can do one every six hours accelerated or so that way. Brad should get them scheduled for that. The larger, newer ships can be done concurrently in about two or three weeks if we start on them right away. We’ll need the Admiral to convey the threat to the Council. Luckily, the administration is flush with funding right now. This will gobble up the ERF annual budget.”
“Shiv, Kyger says you can have anything you need to make us a functioning Ylee drive,” Andrew said with sigh thinking of the tasks at hand. “Tod. What will the upgrades give us? Will we be able to defend ourselves from the Allung?”
“We’ll have long distance communication and we can read their communications until they realize and change it. We have several of their language training cylinders. I have made copies of those and we will have a couple of personnel on each ship in the fleet that understands their language. We, of course, will only communicate with them in Trade. We also will have others who learn Toi, in case they have the slaves do any of the talking.”
“What about weapons and defenses?” Andrew asked.
“We now have more powerful lasers and their shearing weapon can be neutralized if we can determine what frequencies they use – we can overload them and burn them out. We also developed some torpedoes that navigate
to the enemy shield and then engage a field neutralizer that matches field frequencies. The torpedo then passes right through the shield and explodes. That is the design we came up with before Bellatrix but never built. There is a few seconds pause to pass through their field when the torpedoes are vulnerable. That’s about it,” Tod said.
“Get to it folks,” Andrew said and Shiv tilted her head a bit in consternation at the idiom.
“He means we should now get back to work with his stalwart approval of what we have done so far,” Tod said.
Shiv moved her torso up and down in acknowledgement.
***
LeiLei and Joel were going over the Sesstra one more time. “I think we have mapped their entire ship,” LeiLei said and turned to her MemDex. “Computer. Display schematics of the Allung ship.”
The Brotherhood ship was displayed. “Computer. Display in red, any areas not recorded visually.”
She zoomed in on three areas of the ship that were displayed in red. There were two small areas near the front of the hull on the starboard and port sides. There was one larger area near the Captain’s cabin.
“What are those?” Joel asked.
“I just thought that these beings liked secret places on their persons. They might also like secret places on their ships as well,” LeiLei said.
“Ah. Let us get some support and check those places out,” Joel said and called Andrew and Steve.
Andrew called Brad and the Admiral sent a squad of heavily armed soldiers to support the search.
The Sesstra was quiet as the troops sent by Admiral Kyger encircled the three hidden areas of the ship. There was a bomb disposal team with each of the three teams just in case. They approached their area and quietly looked for hidden mechanisms. They then, jointly, dematerialized a portion of the walls to each section. The teams by the outer sections, near the hull, both signaled they were clear when they discovered some type of weapon installation. The third, larger compartment held three cryogenic capsules with two sleeping Allung in them. The third capsule was empty and it wasn’t clear whether it had been occupied or not. The room was a warehouse of clandestine weapons and communications gear. All the gear was removed first before they tried moving or reviving the sleepers.
