by Ira Tabankin
The ship shook and rang like a Kalteck was inside a giant bell. The AI said, “You were correct, their weapon’s power was increased 40%, if they’d continued firing, they would have taken down our shields.”
“Hit them back, target the lower section again, we know it’s loaded with fighters, weapons, and fuel.”
“The ship has started to spin to dissipate our energy weapons. They’ve ejected something which is surrounding the ship. It must be some sort of decoy system.”
“Increase power to the main weapons by 125% and fire again.”
“Kalteck, whatever they rejected is breaking up our beams. We’re not reaching their hull. They are launching fighters.”
“Keep firing targeted on the same spot, maybe whatever they use as a decoy can be weakened under continued fire. Do we have any more of the net weapons?”
“No. We had only a couple, I do have another idea which is, as the General says, ‘out of the box.’ Would you like to hear it?”
“Yes.”
“I can use our tractor to collect small rocks from the rings, I can crush them into a fine sand and load them into a missile, then launch them towards the fighters at the combined closure speed the sand will be like running into a thick atmosphere.”
“I like it, do it. How’s the net working?”
“Twenty fighters ran into our net, only two survived. They’ve launched small missiles. The missiles are accelerating to .85c.”
“How in the Creator of All’s name can missiles so small accelerate that quickly?”
“Unknown.”
“I can try firing in a fan pattern.”
“Execute.”
“Kalteck, the missiles are spreading out and taking evasive action, and some are speeding up while others are slowing down. A very unusual missile design.”
“How?”
“I have no idea. One other issue, some of the missiles are splitting open, they are disgorging thousands of small warheads. Wait, some are exploding. They are spitting out reflective material which is dissipating our weapon.”
“Where did they come from? Where did the technology come from?”
“Unknown.”
“What percent of them will make it to us?”
“Unknown. Every time I calculate, they change course and eject more small warheads which are continuing towards us.”
“Execute evasive course and continue firing at those ships. Try not to completely destroy them, I want to examine them to see if we can get information from their AI where they came from and why they were here.”
“Kalteck look at your monitors, the undamaged ship just did something, not in my memory. The ship is forming a huge glowing bubble around itself and the damaged ship’s upper saucer section.”
“Can your sensors see through the bubble? Can you determine what they’re doing inside of it?”
“I can’t breach their bubble. They are starting to move as a single ship. The bubble must be something like a tractor that enables the undamaged ship to drag the other with it.”
“ Are our weapons penetrating the bubble?”
“No. The bubble is absorbing and dissipating our energy weapons. I calculate it would take more than one hundred times our power to overload the bubble. I’ve never seen anything like it. No matter where I target or how I change the frequency, the bubble glows where we strike it. It shimmers and vibrates as it sheds the energy. Should I continue to fire at them?”
“No, ceasefire at their main ships. Continue firing at the fighters and the warheads. Place our point defense on automatic. Is it possible to launch one of the anti-matter pumped X-ray mines to strike them before they leave?”
“I can expel it with enough force it should reach them before they generate enough energy to jump.”
“Launch it.”
“Kalteck, the mine got close, but they were able to avoid it. They opened a wormhole and jumped into it. I want to report the mine was sucked into the wormhole with the ships. Wherever they’re going, our mine is going with them. If they’re going to be met by other ships, they’re going to get a huge surprise.”
“Kalteck, the sand trick caught 97% of the warheads and most of the fighters. We caught them by complete surprise. There are still 300 warheads headed in our direction, orders?”
“I hate to risk this, but we’re running out of options. Jump us one light minute behind the warheads.”
“Please provide override authority to jump inside the system.”
“Provided, JUMP.”
The missiles, warheads, and fighters arrived in blank space where Kalteck’s ship had been. “Jump completed, orders?”
“Hit the fighters in their rumps!”
“Firing, they appear to have only minor shields, we are destroying them and the small warheads.”
“Leave none behind. I don’t want us or anyone to run into one of their warheads.”
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The undamaged Neanderthal ship opened a large wormhole after covering both with a productive cocoon, which shimmered a rainbow of colors. The opened wormhole looked like a huge rotating circle of colors and bursting energy. Enormous levels of energy shot from the wormhole. Neither of the Neanderthal ships was aware of the small mine which got sucked into the wormhole with them.
The captain of the damaged ship was dismayed. His damaged AI informed him they’d never encountered a single ship which could cause such a high level of damage before. He was discussing the issue with the ship’s master AI, “Explain how this could have happened?”
“Captain, it appears the ship hit us at just the right spot and at just the right moment. The other ship’s AI must have been blessed with the best luck. We were launching our fighters with our portal open. Our hanger deck was loaded with ready weapons and we’d moved the fueling and oxygen refilling equipment to their ready positions when their weapon struck. Our shields had to be down in order to launch the fighters. It was as I said a very lucky shot. They hit one of our fighters as it was in the launch portal, the explosion caused the fighter's weapons to explode. They quickly followed up with another shot that entered our portal. That beam hit our ready missiles with their warheads mounted. We survived because the warheads on the missiles weren’t armed yet. Had they been armed; we would have lost the entire ship and not just the lower section and 71% of the central connecting section. Sir, we were very lucky. If the ship hadn’t been designed as three modules connected together, the explosion would have cost us the entire ship and crew.”
“How can we ensure this doesn’t happen again?”
“Captain, we have to drop our shields to launch fighters, we open a small window in our shields to allow the fighters to launch. There’s no way to launch fighters with our shields up. As I said, the enemy got a very lucky shot in. Somehow, they managed to target the only spot that could hurt us. The only thing we could have done differently is to open both portals and launch fighters from two portals and not just one.”
The Neanderthal captain stood in front of a 3D virtual model of his ship. The entire lower section was missing, and his central section was flashing red and yellow warnings. The upper saucer showed 48% damage. He used his fingers to expand different sections while shaking his head at the level of damage two energy beams caused. “AI, is this model accurate? If it is, we’ve all but lost the upper section too. What level of power do we have left?”
“We lost the main reactor and the main drive, which were located in the lower section. We’re being towed by our second ship. We have no weapons, we’re venting atmosphere from the holes in the hull, and the nanites and repair androids are trying to repair the damage. However, I calculate they will not be able to seal the hull without further loss of life. Our life support is falling. I suggest all of the race be placed in the following sections I am highlighting and turn off the life support in the other sections, most have already been damaged. We lost three thousand fifty-two crew and four hundred androids. Sir, we also lost our android repair shop and our primar
y medical facility. Our primary generators were destroyed. We also lost four replicators and our main generators. If the enemy ship manages to follow us, we won’t be able to defend ourselves.”
The captain shook his head while mentally attempting to calculate how he was going to explain the damage his ship had suffered to the commander and then to the Admiral when they returned home. “By all of the gods! All that from two lucky hits?”
“Remember they hit our fighters as they exited the ship. The explosion entered the hanger and their second beam attack was able to enter our unshielded hanger. Their weapon cut through our decks and bulkheads as if they weren’t there. Their beam was able to cut through engineering, which is when we lost the main drive and generators. The resulting explosions tore the lower section apart. Many crewmembers were blown out of the ship and into space.”
“Thank the gods the sub-commander’s ship was with us or we wouldn’t have been able to generate a wormhole and return home. We’ll have to return and pay that ship back for their attack. Were you able to determine where that ship came from?”
“Captain, I am picking up an object closing on us. We must have sucked up some of our own debris when we entered the wormhole. I am measuring the largest of the objects. It doesn’t appear to be large enough to damage us. It is racing toward us. Our local shields should be able to keep it away from striking our hull.”
“Keep me informed. I need to send a report to the sub-commander. I know he’s not going to be pleased. I’ll need your report to attach to mine.”
“Captain that small object is speeding up. I don’t understand it. It’s a round object covered in what looks like spikes. It doesn’t match anything in my war book. It does not appear to be debris from our ship. It appears to have sensors because it’s locked onto us.”
“Do we have any point defense systems online which can destroy it before it gets any closer? Could it be a weapon launched by the enemy ship that he got lucky enough to shoot into the wormhole before it closed?”
The AI replied in a worried voice, “The point defense systems are offline due to the loss of our main generator and the breaches in our hull. I am not familiar with the enemy’s weapons to know if it’s something they launched at us. I didn’t record any launching of a missile. Nor did I register any missile drives engaging. Frankly, I have no idea what it is.”
A moment later, there was a brilliant flash of light and a massive dose of hard radiation that cut through the two ships. The AI’s main processing cores were damaged. They attempted to reboot but couldn’t. Too much of their memory had been corrupted. Most of the crew, including the captain, first and second officers of the damaged ship, were killed by the flash of hard radiation.
The ship’s androids were either killed when the radiation scrambled their processors and memory, or they began operating in unusual mays. One attempted to engage the damaged main drive, which exploded, destroying the remains of the damaged ship.
The sub-commander’s ship, which had been within four hundred meters of the damaged ship when the mine exploded, also received a fatal dose of radiation. Her AI was damaged, the androids were also scrambled, and over 95% of the crew died or were very ill from the high dose of radiation. The androids also attempted to engage the main drive while they were still inside the wormhole. The main drive wasn’t supposed to be engaged when inside a wormhole. The combination of the two main drive explosions and the mine destroyed both ships and collapsed the wormhole in a previously unknown system. Kalteck didn’t know he’d succeeded in defeating the Neanderthal ships.
The wormhole opened into a system of eleven planets. The fourth was inhabited and they had just started their industrial revolution period when the wormhole opened with a blinding flash of light and radiation. The beings on the fourth planet didn’t understand what they saw, nor did they know that millions of tons of debris had been ejected into their system, including the damaged hulls from the two massive alien ships that were drifting towards their planet. Since the wormhole opened in the outer area of the system, the debris and damaged ships were going to take years to make their way to the fourth planet.
The damaged AIs continued to attempt to reboot and rebuild their damaged memories. They also attempted to control their androids which were walking around the ship causing additional damage. Any crew members not outright killed by the radiation soon died from radiation sickness which destroyed their organs which led to their deaths within four of the ship’s days. The AI on the previously damaged ship shorted out and caught fire. Its core had lost the critical cooling which kept the core at a temperature of minus 100C. Once the cooling system failed and the fires raised the temperature, the core exploded destroying the remains of the already heavily damaged upper saucer section.
Chapter 13
Everett read a report in the morning about a series of strange flashes low on the horizon in space. One of the new radio telescopes reported the flashes were from a series of large explosions that Everett thought might be Kalteck’s doing. He told his CoS, (Chief of Staff) one of the few people on Earth who knew about Kalteck, “I want to know everything possible about these strange flashes in space. I think our friend fought a battle out there.”
“Sir, do you believe Kalteck won? Do you think he might have run into one of the enemy’s bases? I wonder how many bases they have here. Do you think the enemy is coming sooner than he projected?”
“I don’t know. The report came from the new National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) located at Mount Kitt in Arizona. They’re one of our newest observatories, so I trust they recorded something of interest. My gut tells me that something major happened out near Saturn and Neptune. What concerns me is Kalteck told me he’d discovered a base on Pluto built by one of the enemy’s allies, which he destroyed. If he found another, it wouldn’t have been a series of flashes, just one large one when he destroyed the base. This report reminds me of the space battles I witnessed in the shrine on Mars. I think we’re in for some serious problems much sooner than our friend thought. Hence, I want to know everything there is to know about those flashes of light out there. Could the NRAO tell from the light what the source of light? Was it nuclear or something else? I’m sure they wouldn’t know if they’d seen an antimatter explosion, so they’d mark it as an unknown source.”
“Sir, they couldn’t identify the source of the light, which leads me to believe it’s something they haven’t seen before, such as antimatter. I still have issues trying to understand how there can be antimatter.”
“It must have been related to something Kalteck is doing out there. I thought he was having his ship upgraded on Mars. These latest lights mean either his ship was upgraded sooner than he thought, or he had to cut it short due to a sighting of another ship in the system.”
“Sir, are you concerned?”
Everett was quickly deep in thought. His CoS stood in front of the general’s desk, waiting for Everett to come back to reality. The CoS was used to his boss deeply reviewing some small detail while closing everything around them out. An outsider would think the General was in a trance or sleeping, but he was so deeply in thought he’d tuned out the outside world until he’d worked thought the problem that consumed him.
Everett’s eyes snapped open, his chair snapped forward, and he smiled. “Send the signal to our friend. Ask him if he could stop by to chat.”
“Is there anything else I should add to the message?”
“Yes, tell him the Bible says the waters are rising and don’t look back.”
“Yes, sir. I will send it right away. Should I log the communication in the base’s black book?”
“What do you think?”
“Sir. I think I should log it into the base’s TS book but not any of the normal comms books.”
“Good decision. Let me know what he says when he responds.”
“Sir, isn’t it possible he died out there?”
“Anything is possible, but I don’t believe for one moment anything
happened to our friend. If anything, he destroyed someone else’s ship.”
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Kalteck’s AI broke his meditation, “Kalteck, I have completed my analysis of the battle…”
“You’ve determined where they came from? What can you tell me?”
“No, I haven’t been able to accomplish their home system yet. I’m still working on tracing the minerals in the ship’s hulls to the star systems we’ve categorized. I can tell you their atmosphere is almost a copy of Earth’s and their internal gravity was set to 1.03 of Earth's.”
“It sounds like there is a high probability these are the ancient Neanderthals from Earth.”
“Based on the limited information I have collected; I would have to agree with you. The probability of them coming from the third planet is increasing. I do have additional information. It appears our mine got sucked into their wormhole with them, thus improving our chances we’ve either damaged or destroyed them either before they arrived at their destination or when they exited their wormhole. I would give better odds that our mine exploded while they were in the wormhole, which most likely dumped them into an unknown system. If it exploded in a wormhole, it would be the first time we will have recorded such an explosion within an artificial wormhole.”
