Meeting in the Stars (Marston Chronicles Book 3)

by D Patrick Wagner

  “Yes, well. See. Iggy, Igaklay, is speaking to us from Ballison. He’s actually an artificial moon orbiting Ballison.”

  “How is that possible? Ballison must be trillions of locts from Elonia.”

  “It turns out Iggy has special communicators which aren’t restricted by the speed of light. They communicate anywhere in the Universe instantaneously.”

  “We have one of these communicators here?”

  “Uh, yes. You see, when we fired up the jump drive, Iggy received its signal and sent out the Quant-Com. That’s what I call it, anyway. Short for Quantum Entanglement Communicator. Quant-Com. It arrived just before you picked us up. Anyway, it soaked into Griffin and Iggy has been monitoring us ever since.”

  “Then I am talking directly to the master artificial intelligence for all of Ballison?”

  “Sounds kind of majestic. But, ya, Princess. That’s Iggy.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Igaklay.” Princess Analyn stood, bowed and saluted to the Ballisonian hologram.”

  “And I am honored to meet you, Princess Analyn of the Clan Kaporine and second heir to the throne of Elonia.” The hologram performed the exact, same bow that Sam had performed upon his first meeting with King Kaporine.

  “Buster taught him that,” Mack announced.

  After retaking her seat, Princess Analyn, now with her tail higher and her eyes sharper, expectantly focused on Keiko.

  “We have gone over the logistics and we, by that I mean, Igaklay and Mack, believe that they can install one of these communication devices in the Royal throne. Then you will be able to communicate with your parents whenever you wish.”

  “Really? Throughout my travels?”

  “Well, as long as you are onboard Griffin,” Mack interrupted. “The quant-com in the throne would only communicate with Igaklay. Then he would pass the communiqué to Griffin’s quant-com. And easy-peasy. You’re talking to your folks.”

  “But we would need to keep it secret.”

  “So true, Ambassador Suzume. Especially from that brother of mine. No telling what kind of trouble he and his gang of thieves would make.”

  “And that is where Commander Tarunga comes in. Commander Tarunga, could we beseech you to carry out a secret mission for Princess Analyn?”

  “I am here to serve, Ambassador Suzume. If it helps My Princess through her time of plight, I am at your service.”

  “Mack?”

  “Turns out, Iggy is going to have another one of those quant-coms here. Around a day after we leave. All you need to do is get a private audience with the King in his throne room and simply set the unit on the metal lid of the communications box. That’s it. Iggy will do the rest. Right, Iggy?”

  “Yes, Sir Mack.”

  “It won’t damage anything or injure anyone?”

  “On my honor, as a judge of the Monarchal Legal Court and as a Counsellor for the Synthetic Administration, I give you my word. No harm or injury will be done.”

  “I thank you, Honorable Vidhee. I will deliver the device. The quant-com, you called it?”

  “Yeah. Quant-com.”

  “What do I tell Captain Kakkarna?”

  “That you carry a personal message from me.”

  “Could you put it under a royal seal? That would stop all questions.”

  “Yes. That is an excellent suggestion. Sir Mack, could you please create a container to hold the quant-com? With a lock? And a covering tab for my personal seal?”

  “On it as soon as we break up our little get-together.”

  “I will also supply you the storage requirements for transporting the quant-com. I like your name for the quantum entanglement communicator.”

  “My pleasure, Iggy.”

  “This works out very well! I will be able to update the King on Griffin’s progress and any wonders we find. He will be able to use it as a shield against the attacks he is sure to experience. Thank you all, including Master Igaklay, for helping me. I will never forget.”

  “And we will never forget your sacrifice while protecting us from impoundment and imprisonment.”

  Well. You have a box to make and ship to prepare. I will leave you to it. Oh, Captain Marston. In my sadness, I forgot to mention something. We have one more passenger.”

  “Doctor Ganakin.”

  “A very good guess. He is drooling to get to Ballison, see the ruins.”

  “Mack, would Master Varrini mind bunking with Gopai?”

  “Not sure, Cap.”

  “Well, Princess Analyn, since this is your voyage, would you mind informing Master Varrini that he is bunking with Gopai? Also, I was thinking. Instead of the maids’ quarters in the Cargo bay, and since we now have the two doctors, why not switch them? Have the maids closer to your quarters.”

  “You are the Captain, Captain. It will be done.”

  “Then it is time to sail!”

  Onboard Heimdallr

  Six people onboard made Heimdallr very crowded. All standing in the small galley/exercise/wardroom took up most of the space. Hank took out his tablet placed it on the four-seat table, pushed a few icons and brought up a holographic image of the small scout ship.

  “I like that. Where can we get tablets with a built-in holo projector?’

  “This is one of a kind, Lieutenant Brooks. I worked it up myself.”

  “It would be nice. After the war, you should patent it. Sell it.”

  “It’s just a tool, nothing important. Back to the schematics. I think we can mount the fission generator on the hull, between the engines, like Dean recommended.” Hank smiled at his protégé. “We changed the shape. Made it more aerodynamic.”

  Working a small remote, Doctor McCauley moved a red dot to the ship’s stern portion of the hull. Clicking another button, half of a cone appeared.

  “As you can see, we’ve worked with the design, made it more aerodynamic. Also, we will cover it with plating very close to the plating of your ship.”

  Moving the red dot to just behind the bridge, Hank clicked again.

  “Here is where we mount the X-cannon. Single barrel. Ten second cycle time. All fiber-optic cabling and electrical connections will also be external. The only interior work is routing the control cables to the bridge. Connect them to the sensor pod. I assume Lieutenant Torres will be manning the weapon?”

  “Yes. She will be our weapons officer.”

  “That’s it. Straightforward. Simple. We can have you armed within the week. What do you think?’

  “It’s clean. Could you send me the numbers on drag and force requirement variances for atmospheric and gravity well flying?”

  “Of course. Dean. Would you collect that data? Along with the full specs. Send it to Heimdallr.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What happens if the generator goes critical? Or if we get hit?”

  “Excellent question, Lieutenant. Explosive bolts. The entire rig, cannon, cabling and generator, are anchored with explosive bolts. With enough force to generate a fairly fast separation distance almost instantaneously.”

  “Weight?”

  “Within tolerances, Captain. They are all in the specs.”

  “You’re confident this will work. Won’t limit our performance?”

  “In space, no. You have about a seven percent increase in mass. Your fuel usage rate will increase. And you will be running a steeper thrust curve. But, no performance degradation.”

  “With Number Three giving the order, I guess we’re stuck with it. When do you start?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Fine. Tomorrow it is. Where do you want Heimdallr?”

  “We have a small ship bay on the other side. We can house her there. Bring her by in the morning.”

  “Zero eight hundred?”

  “That will be fine.”

  Trotzig Cave System

  The next morning found the same group as the previous day standing at the entrance to the newly-discovered tunnel. Keller wore a sidearm. The four miners all carried rifles,
pistols and ammunition.

  Harriet stood out in her jeans, plaid shirt, boots and a mining helmet. She also had a western style holster buckled to her waist and tied to her thigh

  “Very western, Mz. Gregor. Are you weapons trained?”

  “Of a sorts, Mr. Keller. Who do you think dug this tunnel?”

  “I have no idea. I know Brandt Minerals didn’t. I checked with Galactic Mining. They didn’t. Don’t know of anyone else on Tolimar with the equipment to do anything we saw yesterday. The only way to find out is to take a look.”

  Sean Miller dressed in office clothes.

  “You’re not coming with us, Sean?”

  “With my boss climbing around in tunnels, someone needs to keep everything running. I volunteered. Caving just isn’t my thing.”

  “Probably the only sensible one in the bunch.”

  The group saw Gregor’s second-in-command leave and Keller turned his attention to Lanzo.

  He saw that Lanzo had dressed in heavier clothing, rather than the office attire he had worn yesterday. “Lanzo. You coming?”

  “Yes, sir. I don’t think controlling the drones from a distance will work. Not enough signal strength. Oh, and I’ve brought cameras for everyone.”

  So saying, Lanzo passed out the small cameras and watched as everyone clipped them to their helmets. Then he worked his tablet and brought up the feeds. Six frames appeared. Lanzo next launched the drone and checked its feed. A seventh, larger frame appeared on his tablet.

  “All set, Mr. Keller.”

  “Then, I guess it’s time. Telly, you’re in charge. Take us in.”

  “Thank you, Sir. Hagen, you’re on point. Then Lanzo, me, Mz. Gregor, Merle. Then Mr. Keller. Bernie, trails.”

  Hagen entered the tunnel. The rest following in their assigned order. The first section of the downward direction mirrored the upward direction. The explorers found the tunnel barren with multiple caverns branching off. The group repeated the same procedures from the previous day. One man entered with the drone following. Everything got scanned. Then they would move on to the next room.

  “If this were a military base or a ship, I would say that these are personal quarters.”

  “My thought exactly, Telly. Any ideas on who dug this?”

  “I don’t think humans dug this, Mr. Keller.”

  “That’s a strange thought, Hagen. Why not?”

  “Too smooth. We don’t have the equipment for this. The walls appear formed. Like the rock was melted and smoothed. No. we don’t have anything that can do this.”

  “The race that built the gates?”

  “Not sure. If I had to guess, then I’d say ‘yes’.”

  “Well, let’s keep going. Lanzo, still getting a good map?”

  “Yes, Mr. Keller. Down to the centimeter.”

  “Keep it up.”

  An hour passed, a kilometer of tunnel covered. A second hour and a second kilometer. Then the seven explorers entered a short side tunnel to their left and walked into a cavern so large that their headlamps barely reflected off of the far wall or ceiling.

  “Finally something new.”

  “Yeah, Merle. It was getting pretty boring there.”

  “Spread out. Let’s see if we can find something other than smooth walls.”

  They spent the next hour combing the cave and finding nothing but the same. Using their personal coms, Evert called the group back to the center of the cave.

  “More nothing. Lots of space though.”

  “How hard would it be to build housing in here?”

  “Pretty hard, Harriet. Those tunnels aren’t big enough to move heavy equipment here. Same with an industrial printer. It would all be by hand.”

  “Could we widen the tunnel? Would that be easier?”

  “We don’t know what kind of pressure is on those tunnels. Also, did you notice how the ceiling is curved? It’s a parabolic arch. A trait of an arch like that is that it uniformly disperses the pressure from the mountain. Change the curvature and you could bring down the whole mountain. Not a good idea.”

  “Another tunnel?”

  “Lanzo, where are we?”

  Lanzo worked his tablet.

  “This is interesting. The tunnel angles across the rear of our secondary cavern. Although we’ve come roughly two kilometers, we are less than a kilometer from the back wall. At a downward angle. If we finish the secondary cave, we will be less than half a kilometer from that wall. Well, higher up. If we dig a tunnel straight to our cave, it would be at a seventeen degree angle.”

  Lanzo pointed roughly three-quarters of the way up the wall.

  “That’s the answer. Telly, once we get the secondary cave dug, we need to put a team together and start tunneling into here.”

  “Give me the plans, I’ll get it done, Mr. Keller.”

  “I’ll get with the engineers. This afternoon. Lanzo, I want you to create a combined map. With both our cavern and this one. Mock in the tunnel.”

  “I’ll have it done this evening.”

  “Oh, and get precise measurements on the tunnel leading into here. Our previous builders gave us a workable design. We might as well use it.”

  “I already have the tunnel measurements, Mr. Keller. I’ll include them with the map.”

  “Then push our map to the Trotzig server?”

  “Will do, Mr. Keller.”

  “Thank you. Now, I think we need to keep exploring. But not today. This has been a good start. Back here tomorrow? Harriet? Any plans?”

  “No. None. The work in town is running smoothly. Sean can handle it. My focus was going to be on constructing housing and warehouses in the cave, anyway. Let’s explore in the morning and do our administrative work in the afternoon.”

  “I like that, Mz. Gregor. I need to keep tabs on my miners, anyway. That gives me the afternoon to check their work and lay out the next day’s. And I still get to play spelunker.”

  “You got Telly’s vote, Harriet. Mine too. Tomorrow, seven a.m. Agreed?”

  Oishi Scout Team

  The boulders and the mountain stopped the sun’s morning rays from penetrating the hidden cave. Only reflected light pushed away the darkness close to the entrance. With the heavy metal door open, just enough light reached the front of the cave for Juro to raid the cache stores and prepare another large meal.

  “Juro, too much.”

  “We burned through too many reserve calories, Sousui. We need to rebuild our stamina.”

  “Yes. But after last night, I don’t think I could eat for a week.”

  “You’ll see. You’ll eat.”

  “While you are cooking, I am going to dig out the cache’s radio gear. Contact Headquarters.”

  “Hai.”

  Taketa made his way to the command van sitting dormant at the rear of the cave. Using more of the supplied key codes, he unlocked the sliding door, slid it open and climbed in. finding and flicking a light toggle, he was gratified to see that the batteries still held their charge. Taking the seat at the communications console, he flipped more toggles and again was gratified that the electronics came to life.

  “N-S One contacting O-F One.” Taketa repeated the call twice more.

  “O-F One, reading you. When will the sun rise?”

  “When the flag waves.”

  “Welcome, N-S One. I have been ordered to contact Command upon your contact. Will return contact within thirty minutes.”

  Taketa broke the connection, left everything running and returned to Juro and a breakfast fit for a squad. Twenty minutes later, Taketa patted his belly.

  “At this rate, you will start calling me ‘Buddha’, Mappai.”

  “Once we leave this cave, we’ll run it all off, Sousui. Those aliens are never going to give up.”

  “Maybe we can give them a little incentive to take their efforts somewhere else. I must return to the communications van.”

  “I will clean up.”

  Once back in the coms chair, Taketa waited. The communica
tions equipment crackled for a moment then a voice came over the air.

  “N-S One, O-F one.”

  “O-F One, when will the sun set?”

  “N-S One, when the moon rises.”

  “Greetings, O-F One.”

  “Hello, son.”

  “Father?” Taketa asked in surprise.

  “Yes. You found the Cache. I am proud of you.”

  “Doing my duty. How are the other teams?”

  “Counting you and Juro, only nine left. Sixteen lost. Eighteen Nightshades remain. A sad time.”

  “A sad time. I hope they died well. Died with honor.”

  “Of course they did. They are Nightshades.”

  A mournful silence permeated the coms link. After a moment, Taketa’s father, Shuhan Oishi continued.

  “Sousui Oishi. The Emperor has a task for you to perform.”

  “Hai, Shuhan.” The time of father/son passed. It became commander and subordinate.

  “We will be contacting the other nine teams and have them rendezvous with you at the cache. You are to remain at the cache and establish a forward position. You are to insure that all equipment is operational.”

  “Wakarimashita, Shuhan.”

  “Further, you are to infiltrate and collect information, defining possible targets of opportunity.”

  “Hai.”

  “Have you discovered the combat androids, yet?”

  “No, Shuhan. Where did we get combat androids? I thought the Federacy banned all worlds from possessing them.”

  “Nyu Nippon always looks towards tomorrow. They are in the last three Supply carriers. Activate the Command Android. Set it as a sentry while you activate the other sixteen. Once we find a suitable target, we will launch an attack.”

  “Hai, Shuhan.”

  “I have transmitted the activation codes for the combat androids. Go with the Gods, my son.”

  “I see them. Thank you, Father. Keep our family and Emperor safe.”

  “As always.”

  Onboard Griffin

  The night found Krag and Keiko relieving physical tension through what men and women do, discussing their predicament and attempting to solve their unknowable problems. For the two worried lovers, the sleepless night made morning a long time coming.