Encounters (The Spiral Slayers Book 1)

by Rusty Williamson

  “So what the hell is this?” Woodworth asked.

  Leewood turned to him, “I think we’re here—wherever here is. However, until Wicker gets two more people to sign off, we won’t get to see anything.” After a while, they drifted back to their seats and waited.

  Forty minutes later, everyone jumped when the Loud’s Tachyon com unit buzzed. Leewood yanked it up. “Yes.” He listened for a moment then worked the controls. The President’s face appeared on the screen at the front of the cabin.

  “Can you hear me? Oh, okay, I see that you can. I’m sorry to keep you in the dark so long, but I think you’ll find that it was worth the wait. I am now authorized to tell you a story.” The President was sitting at his desk. He clasped his hands together and leaned forward. “At the end of the last war, then President Bonnet did not ever want another war that lasted as long or cost so much. What he did to ensure this was called Project Hideaway. He also put stringent checks and balances in place to ensure Project Hideaway was never misused. Not even a President could, by himself, use or make known the details of the project. This is why it has taken me so much time to secure the proper authorizations needed to tell you about it. I sent you ahead hoping that when you arrived, all the red tape would be worked out and…the timing was almost perfect.”

  “As you know,” President Wicker continued, “the ten Leviathan Class Battleships, or Juggernauts as they were called, won the last war for us. The common belief is that the Bentley and Anderson shipyards built these ships in secret. That is not true. The shipyards that built them were constructed in secret—construction of these yards started almost as soon as the war started, and at first they were called the Leviathan Shipyards because they only built one kind of ship, the Leviathan Class Battleship. Eventually, due to popular demand, the name changed to the Hideaway Shipyard. You have just arrived at its location. Wanting to prevent another war that was so costly in lives as well as materials, Bonnet wanted an overpowering force to put down any future uprising. Construction of the Juggernauts did not stop after the first ten were commissioned, but continued in secret for thirty more years and was only shut down twenty years ago.” A great big smile appeared on the President’s face. “Enjoy the tour and we will talk later.”

  The screen went blank and everyone quickly made their way back to the viewing port.

  “I don’t see anything,” Harrington said.

  As if on cue, the lights came on.

  “Well fuck me,” Leewood exclaimed.

  Harrington could not make out what she was looking at. Whatever it was, there was a lot of it. “What am I looking at?”

  “The mass of lights and machinery in each of the—looks like five structures…” started Adamarus, but he was interrupted by a voice from behind.

  “Yes, there are five,” the ship’s Captain had come from the cockpit, “each one is almost as large as all of the Anderson Yards combined. Each rock can build one Juggernaut at a time.” He handed out folders to each of them. The folders were marked ‘Top-Secret – Red Raven Level’. “These contain complete specs and details on the yards. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go start the tour.”

  Everyone started looking through the material that had been handed out.

  At the hatch leading to the cockpit, the Captain paused and turned, “You’ll need to take your seats while we tour the yards—everything will be displayed on the large display up front and there are also the side view ports. After the tour is over, you may get up.”

  As soon as they took their seats, the thrusters fired and the craft moved forward. It flew outward so all five installations could be seen, then flew back in for a close pass of the first one. It was enormous and completely empty of workers and ships. As the shuttle dropped down the large splinter of rock, more and more of the shipyard came into view. Space docks, tanks, pipes, cranes and all manner of machinery were lit in stark contrast by the harsh lights.

  A huge hole that cut completely through the rock came into view—obviously this was where the colossal battleships were assembled. The shuttle smoothly turned and went into the cavity. Bathed in stark bluish white lights, so bright it almost hurt the eyes, dozens of gigantic cranes, extendable work platforms and view ported control stations passed by.

  Finally, they flew out the other side. In front of them several miles away was the next rock with its brightly lit construction area.

  The shuttle brought itself to a stop. It then rotated on its axis to the right, seemingly facing nothing. The group was wondering what was going on when Adamarus spotted something.

  “Look, can you see that?” he asked them, pointing out the view port. Several miles away, dark shapes could be seen blocking out the solar wind. Once again, almost on cue, the lights came on.

  The group went speechless. Some of them actually had tears in their eyes. Certainly pride swelled inside each one’s chest. No one could have talked without choking.

  Thirty brand new Leviathan Class Battleships faced them, arranged in three columns running left to right. It was utterly awe-inspiring. The power conveyed was overwhelming. With the ten birthed just off the Anderson Shipyard, it made a total of forty of the giant war ships.

  The shuttle surged forward and approached the ships. Their size was unbelievable—they dwarfed the largest currently commissioned ship which was the Carrier Class, like The Bet’ti that Adamarus had commanded. The Carrier Class was 1,337 feet in length—the Leviathan Class Battleships were 7,470 feet in length—1.41 miles—almost six times longer.

  The shuttle slowly circled one of the colossal ships in the center of the formation. The ship’s powerful lines, battle armor and communication arrays were huge. The shuttle could have flown down the barrel of any one of the ship’s eight double ion cannons.

  Adamarus couldn’t remember the number of missile tubes the battleship had and tried to count them as they flew by the middle section. He only got to 40 before the middle section slid by. He figured 100 to a side and was right.

  After circling the ship, the shuttle went in close to the front and turned to face the ship. It drifted up the bow. Each armor plate was at least ten times the size of the shuttle.

  Finally, the shuttle lined up with the three large bridge view ports. Inside they could see the large multi-leveled bridge with its force field and inertia buffering arches towering over the numerous command stations. Adamarus easily found the elevated captain’s chair.

  No one he knew had ever commanded one of these battleships and he wondered what it would be like. Long ago, he had had the standard tour of one of the 10 at Anderson. The ships that had won the last war had been over 40 years old, and at the time, despite the awe he had felt at their size and fire power, he had thought of them as old war relics.

  There had been advancements in almost every area from computers to the artificial gravity systems—the only possible exception being the weapons systems. With no war, research in those areas had stopped. He wondered what it would take to get them up to date.

  The shuttle slowly backed up allowing the rest of the armada to slowly come into view again. Now, about where it had started from, the shuttle came once again to a halt.

  Finally Leewood found his voice, “Holy mother.”

  Adamarus had a somewhat silly grin on his face. He said slowly, “Things are definitely looking up!”

  Harrington said, “Let Bugs tell us we don’t have a chance now!”

  Leewood jumped on that, “Yeah, really!”

  Adamarus felt very confident looking at the armada, but when he remembered that the alien ship was controlling and using a black hole as its power source, doubts formed sending cracks through that confidence. He decided against voicing this now—let everyone have this moment. They certainly needed it.

  Woodworth wiped his watery eyes and still looking at the ships, called forth a few historical facts, “As I recall, each Juggernaut took a minimum crew of about fifteen hundred trained officers and enlisted, and that’s not counting the pilots and su
pport crews for the 112 L-Class fighters each carried.” Woodworth felt everyone looking at him and tore his eyes from the beautiful sight before them. “We have a lot of recruiting and training to do.”

  Leewood looked back at the ships—the empty ships. “We have forty ships and about two hundred years,” he muttered.

  Adamarus looked at him, “We need to get started.”

  Leewood nodded solemnly, “Right!” then turned and walked from the hatch to the cockpit and activated an intercom beside it. “Pilot, take us back, best speed.”

  ---

  In their mid-nineties, Brandon Eden and his wife, Evelyn Angela Eden, had lived in a quaint secluded cottage perched on the edge of an 80-foot cliff overlooking the windswept ocean off of Sunset Point. As the waves broke on the rocks below, they spent their time primarily just enjoying each other in the sunset of their lives.

  Fondly remembered was Evelyn’s father, Donald Ryan Rafferty, who had designed the Leviathan Class Battleships and managed the construction of the secret Hideaway Shipyards as well as the battleships at the beginning of the war.

  After her mother had died, Evelyn was taken by her father to live with him at the shipyards. At that time, there was nowhere in the star system that was safer. She had been twelve then. As she grew up, she trained under him as he perfected both the shipyards and the Leviathan’s design.

  In her early twenties, she had met a young engineer working under her father named Brandon. They’d fallen in love and married. When her father passed on, she and her husband took over the shipyards and finished the last of the first 10 Leviathans.

  For all the design effort, the years of work and the billions of credits, the 10 great battleships had seen only two brief engagements. Only one of their ships had fired its weapons at an enemy. But they had accomplished their objective and any number less than 10 might not have.

  The war had been at its height, both sides seemingly more or less matched, both sides posed to strike at the heart of their enemy. A fleet of seven enemy battleships and assorted support vessels had been en route to attack defense installations on Amular’s larger moon—a precursor to attacking Amular itself. They were intercepted by all 10 of the new never before seen Leviathan battleships. The sight of the new ships must have shocked the enemy fleet, but nonetheless, they had launched 800 missiles at the new ships. The advanced counter measures of the new ships had shot down all of the missiles. Then the lead Leviathan Battleship had fired two shots from its enormous forward ion cannons—a weapon that was also completely new and unknown. It tore through the battle armor of the two lead enemy battleships like a hot knife through butter, the powerful beams exiting the rear and nearly hitting several other ships. As the two enemy ships disintegrated in secondary explosions, the same lead ship then fired 10 salvos of its new Mach 22 nuclear tipped missiles from its 200 silos at the remaining enemy fleet—all in under a minute—then demanded immediate and unconditional surrender.

  The enemy watched the expanding plumes of their two lead battleships and tracked the 2,000 nuclear missiles arc outward at Mach 22, then turn in towards their ships. The number of missiles was clearly overwhelming and certain doom. They contemplated the fact that all this had come from only one of the ten Battleships. They surrendered immediately. They had been transmitting this battle back to the enemy capital located on the largest moon of the 2nd gas giant, so when the new Amular fleet approached with all of its 1,200 L-Class fighters deployed like angry hornets around it, the capital of rebelling mining settlements that called themselves the USIMD, or United Settlements of the Independent Mining Consortium, transmitted their unconditional surrender after a brief coup and the assignation of their military leader. Thus, the hopes and dreams of the new rebelling government faded into the chapters of history.

  But the war had been devastating in both the loss of life and property, surpassing all the previous wars before it combined. Then President Bonnet decided that Amular would never be caught off guard and subjected to such a horrible war again. So at the request of President Bonnet, both Brandon and his wife had stayed on at the secret shipyards after the war and constructed thirty more ships.

  The Edens had never had time for children—at the time they had kind of felt that they had had 30 of them. If they tried, they could remember the day they and all the workers had left, closing the great shipyards—remember the last lights going out, shrouding everything in total darkness. Evelyn had cried. But those days, as well as the shipyards and the 30 great ships that still floated out there in the deep dark coldness of space, never came to mind anymore—it was ancient history and they just never thought of it.

  And then the Loud had come, and with them, the wonderful incredible miracle: restored youth and a second chance at life. Unending life! Now they were both in their late twenties again. Brandon was his old tall, lanky, handsome clean-cut self. And Evelyn…the incredibly beautiful woman that had turned every head was turning them again. She had a round face with rich full lips, the most perfect little nose, stunning brown eyes and a high forehead. She was of medium height and had a perfect figure. They were both enrolled in the prestigious Brentwood University, taking classes, trying to catch up in the engineering fields they had once been on the cutting edge of.

  Then came the day when Brandon and Evelyn were both called out of their classrooms. Serious men in gray suits requested that they please come with them—that it was ”very important.” For a brief moment neither had the faintest idea what was going on. Then, suddenly, they looked at each other, knowing what it had to be.

  In a mild state of shock, they had been taken to the airport where they were put on a jet plane and flown to the capital. There, they were taken to an unmarked building and left alone in an expensive looking conference room.

  Twenty minutes later, they were completely shocked when President Wicker, the Secretary of Defense, and several other aids walked in. President Wicker had first sincerely apologized to them—both for interrupting their classes and also for all the mystery. He told them it was of the utmost importance and asked them to be patient; they were needed, and soon he would be able to tell them why. But of course they knew it had to be related to the shipyards and the thirty ships. And that was very exciting!

  They had no idea if the Hideaway Shipyards that they had left all those years ago had been left alone all this time or reactivated, or really, if any of it was still there.

  But all of this had to mean something else too—that there was danger, that all was not as it seemed, and that was very worrisome. They wondered if there was trouble developing with the Loud; was someone worried that they might attack us? As terrifying as this was, the thought that their government might be the aggressor, planning a move against the Loud, was far worse.

  Eventually they were taken to a hotel room, courtesy of the government, and asked to remain there until further notice. They didn’t have to wait long.

  ---

  Leewood, Adamarus, Harrington, Woodworth and the recently added Commander Radin had become the small group who had taken charge of “the crisis,” reporting directly to the President. Adamarus had lobbied for Radin, his longtime friend and former second in command, to come aboard as their primary point of contact with the military. Radin was from the Far North region where the first name was the family name, so he was officially Commander Radin, although his name tag read “Radin Talvin.”

  As new elements of the crisis came to light, the team had had the authority to pull in anyone and anything they needed. And, as the usual red tape and bureaucracy got in their way, they cut right through it with the Presidential authority each carried. And if that didn’t do it, they called the President and he dealt with it.

  They had all just returned to the situation room at Hillcrest, and although they had slept a lot on the long flight back from the Hideaway Shipyards, they had come straight from the Presidential Yacht where they had been cooped up for the last 12 weeks. They were travel weary to say the least, but you just
didn’t tell the President something like that.

  The situation room’s main screen came to life and President Wicker’s face appeared. He looked as tired as they did. “Ah, good, you’re all there.” He took a deep breath and leaned forward, “I suppose I could have just told you about the Hideaway yards and the ships. But I remember when I was taken out there…the impact when the lights went on…I felt you all needed to see it in person. Besides, feeling the reality of Hideaway tends to provide a morale boost I felt you all could use.” They couldn’t argue with that.

  Wicker leaned back, gathering his thoughts. “As I’ve said, I’m going to depend on the five of you to figure out what needs to be done and make it happen. You are in charge of this effort and rarely will I butt in and tell you how to do your jobs. However, I have just hit you with a lot that you did not know about, plus I’ve taken the initiative in kicking off some related activities, so I’m going to go over these and what I think we need to do right away.” He waited for everyone to indicate agreement. “If you know of something that needs to be done…before the items on my list, just jump in and tell me. If you think there is a better way to do it, tell me.”

  “I have put a few of my aides on contacting all the people still around who worked at Hideaway twenty years ago. Luckily, the two people—husband and wife by the way—who managed the Hideaway yards as well as the Battleship’s design and construction are still with us and have been…collected. I have both of them on ice in a hotel room here at the capital. I met with both of them briefly, but I didn’t have time to tell them anything so…they know nothing, though I suspect that they’ve reasoned it involves Hideaway.”