Star Resistance

by D. R. Rosier

  Vik snorted and stood up, and said in mock severity, “Greedy woman, get back to work.”

  I stood up, saluted, “Yes sir,” and then on a wild whim, I dropped to my knees and started to unzip his suit.

  His eyes widened, “That’s not what I…”

  His voice cut off with a moan as I got my mouth on him. I hummed in satisfaction as he grew quickly and filled my mouth.

  I pulled back off of him, and stroked him teasingly as I looked up at him and winked, “I know that, lucky for you.”

  Despite what I’d just implied, I was fairly sure it would turn me on if he ordered me to my knees, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him that.

  He shook his head in bemused pleasure, and then groaned as I took him back in…

  Chapter Nineteen

  It took a direct order to every personal assistant before they would break regulations and turn off the gravity around the reactors, but he got it done. The core was a little harder. The hardware was easy enough, but the control software for the core and element injections were completely different. So, while I designed the core in just a few hours and it could be fabricated, it took a couple of days to rewrite the control software, and that was with Jillintara’s assistance, which was considerable. It would have taken me a couple of months on my own, not days.

  If I could have, I’d have shared credit on the design so she got half the royalty, but as an artificial assistant she couldn’t own anything. I figured out a way around that though, assistants were allowed to manage finances for who they served, and I could open up a second account to get half the credits on each sale, and put her on there as a manager. It would be her money, credits I wouldn’t touch, but only informally between us. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best I could do. I hadn’t done it yet either, it would have to wait until all my designs became available and registered.

  Only one of the ships in the next batch would be getting the larger two reactor scheme with the older size cores redesigned for gravity containment. Despite the virtual testing going perfectly, and the matureness of the science, it was still a radically new design. If the new ship proved out we’d change the destroyer template for the rest of the ships. I was sure it would work, and I estimated with the cleaner design we’d get another one or two percent efficiency out of it.

  All the ships already built and in the current batch with the fifteen reactors would get a redesigned core as well, if it worked, but there was no point in consolidating to two reactors. They would just get fifteen smaller cores of the new gravity containment design. After all, those resources were already wasted, there was no point in not using them now until they’d reached end of life. We just wouldn’t be making any more that way.

  I was both excited I’d cracked the problem, and annoyingly embarrassed that it took me so long to figure that out. If it wasn’t for the moons lower gravity, I never would have figured it out.

  Of course, now I had a lot of free time, which I had no idea what to do with. There were only so many simulations I could run, and I had nothing I needed to design or invent. That didn’t last very long, only about four hours. Just a few minutes before I was about to give in and play solitaire or mine sweeper on the internet.

  Vik frowned, “We might be in trouble.”

  Rilok grunted, “Define, in trouble.”

  Vik said, “With the exception of the shipyards they have in that hidden system my brother doesn’t know about, the Stolavii have consolidated all their ships in their home system.”

  Telidur asked, “Think they’re preparing for war?”

  Vik snorted, “Yes, but that isn’t our immediate problem. According to the newest scan reports my brother put a fifty-ship fleet around their system, no doubt some kind of blockade. Apparently, that was the measure before he put other things into motion. The probes have detected three fleets of fifty ships in FTL. The fleets are heading toward Suatera, Gionus, and Earth. The idiot must be trying to gain iron control over empire space.”

  Rilok said, “Won’t it be hard to pick up the humans next month, and hide a fleet, with fifty of Denik’s ships there?”

  Vik looked at him incredulously.

  I don’t know how he did it, but Rilok held a straight face and didn’t crack.

  “Yes, that’s why we’re in trouble,” Vik snarled.

  I interjected, “Over half the fleet is done now. How long until they get to Sol?”

  Jillintara said, “Thirty-two hours. It took us four hours to realize where the fleet was going when it left Isyth.”

  “We can be in Earth orbit in sixteen hours, if we use the wormhole drive. That gives them sixteen more hours to load the ship. We can take the cruiser into atmosphere, load the food and people into the bays with outer airlocks, then get back into space to cloak. The problem is, Earth thinks they have another month, we need to call them now and tell them we have thirty-two hours to get the people and supplies to the base and ready to be loaded up.”

  Jillintara said, “Why not send all the destroyers.”

  I shrugged, “It’s still a secret on Earth, it will be hard enough getting one ship down without the world finding out. We can’t use the stealth system in the atmosphere. Try landing two hundred and fifty alien destroyers on a military base, and there’s no chance to keep it a secret. We can transfer food and people to each of the ships when we get back.”

  Vik scowled, “We weren’t going to let them know about Tau Ceti.”

  I nodded, “True, but we can send the ships somewhere else under cloak if you want, and meet them in another system? We just can’t use Earth anymore, doesn’t mean we have to do it here. It just doubles the chances we’ll be stumbled across by accident. Wait, no it doesn’t, if they show up where the ships are we just cloak, only Tau Ceti would be a giveaway. How about Alpha Centauri?”

  Vik nodded, “Start us out of system now, send two hundred fifty of the destroyers to Alpha Centauri. Do we have the health nanites aboard?”

  Rilok said, “Course plotted.”

  Telidur announced, “Engaging course. I’ll cloak and open a wormhole to Sol as soon as we can. Estimated Earth orbit is closer to fifteen and a half hours.”

  Jillintara said, “I’ve let the other assistants know, and they’ll get their ships there. The nanites were done last month, and are loaded on the ships. Eight on each of the two fifty. They’ve also fabricated the needed base stations for two thousand ship suits, to cut down on the fabrication time once they have the measurements of the human crews. They’re heading out now toward Alpha Centauri.”

  Vik said, “Admiral? We have a problem… You won’t be getting another month, there’s a force of ships coming to blockade your system at the least, which means I’m on my way. I’ll be there in less than sixteen hours, and we’ll have another sixteen to get your people and resources loaded on my ship. It’ll be a little rough, they’ll have to endure being in a cargo bay for almost a full day before I can start to transfer them to their ships where they’ll have quarters. I know it’s short notice, but we had no idea Denik was planning this move. He’s also moving to blockade two other independent worlds; the jackass is going to be at war with everyone. I can promise you, as soon as the fleet’s ready, well make freeing Sol of my brother’s fleet the highest priority. Hopefully, that’s all they’re doing, but if they contact you with demands, I’d suggest going along with them for the next four months until we’re ready.”

  There was a long pause, presumably while the Admiral spoke.

  Vik replied, “I understand, but we only have a little more than half the fleet, and right now your people have no experience, which would mean much larger losses. We can’t afford to start early with too few resources and untrained crews. I don’t think you have much to worry about, he’s not going to invade the Earth, or put boots on the ground, most likely you won’t even know his ships are there, blockading the system.”

  Another pause.

  “I understand, and you have a lot of work to do, just
send me the coordinates for the pickup point when you have them.”

  He looked up.

  “He’s calling the president, and getting things rolling. It won’t be pretty. He said they already have most of the food, the dry stuff that keeps, and can get the frozen meats in time. They have that too, just not on the base where we’re picking everyone up. The people are another issue, it’s going to be a major operation to move two thousand people, more than half of them on disability benefits, in the next thirty-two hours. Less really, since we need to be done loading, back in orbit, and activate our stealth systems, before Denik’s fleet comes out of FTL and can see us. He also said they’d have to make a lot of last minute selections, at last count they only had sixteen hundred individuals vetted and briefed.”

  Vik shook his head, “Janson also said to check the news, whatever that means.”

  Oh hell, that couldn’t be good, please oh please tell me there wasn’t a leak already. I connected to the Earth’s internet through the connection we’d set up when at Earth, for the soldier’s entertainment, and brought up CNN.com… Right, of course there was a leak. I gave them the bad news.

  Vik said, “So let me get this straight, the other countries are furious, and afraid what will happen if the U.S. gets to reverse engineer technology and gets a jump on everyone else? To the point that they’re threatening violence?”

  I nodded, “Pretty much. Balance of power and mutual assured destruction are important concepts for peace between the most powerful countries.”

  Vik said, “What are they doing about it?”

  “The president offered to make the reverse engineering a joint effort between countries, but they don’t trust it. It will be American soldiers in charge of the ships, and some believe any appearance of sharing will merely be a ruse.”

  Rilok sighed in disgust, “Humans.”

  I cleaned out the corner of my eye, with my middle finger.

  Telidur snickered.

  Vik said, “That’s insane, we’ll let them deal with it. Will it affect us?”

  I shrugged, “I doubt it. We expected something like this, or at least I did. That’s what the reverse engineering time is for, to get over this kind of thing.”

  Vik asked, “Will the Americans share?”

  I laughed, “Maybe? Not with all, I could think of a few countries I’d hold some of it back from, but others will get it. I mean the most dangerous technology, not the nanites or fabricators. We won’t be affected by it.”

  At least I hoped not. If security was tight enough, we wouldn’t get any spies or saboteurs, and the food would be safe. At least, short of an outright attack while we were there, but that was almost unthinkable. Even if it did happen, our shields would stop anything Earth had to offer, as long as we had time to lift off, assuming they could even track us, and know where we landed within sixteen hours. It was doubtful, since Jillintara was doing the same thing she’d done for the shuttle, changing the shield angles to at least defeat radar. Someone would have to see us with their eyes or with a camera to find out where we were. Or… a base leak, or spy satellites.

  Damn, we’d have to keep a close eye on it.

  Chapter Twenty

  Less than sixteen hours later we were approaching Earth, the Isyth fleet was just over sixteen hours away in subspace. I’d just gotten up out of bed, after sleeping for the trip in system to Earth. I had a feeling I wouldn’t be sleeping again until we got out of the system in twenty-four hours or so.

  The wormhole drive while still more expensive than the new FTL was still much cheaper now than the old FTL under the horribly inefficient reactors. It was also much faster, it’d taken us less than fifteen seconds to get from the edge of the Tau Ceti system to the edge of Sol.

  Rilok said, “Captain, the shields are configured to defeat radar, and I’ve sent the coordinates for landing to the helm. Wright Patterson air force base.”

  Vik ordered, “Telidur, take us down, quickly but don’t break the sound barrier.”

  Telidur acknowledged the order, and we dove into the Earth’s atmosphere. I thought Ohio was a good choice, away from any major cities. Not that Dayton was tiny, but it was better than a coastal base if we wanted any chance of being unnoticed long enough to get in and out.

  Not that we were subtle, at a quarter mile long, we took up a good portion of the runway as we came to a stop and hovered a few feet above the ground. There were already palettes of food, enough for two thousand people for six months. It was a lot of food, so I supposed it was just as well the Isyth military were also merchants and had a ton of cargo space, we were going to need a good portion of it to make it all fit. We also needed enough cargo bay room for two thousand people to be relatively comfortable for twenty-four hours or more. Only Jillintara and I would be able to speak to them until we got to our destinations and got their implants installed.

  I had a sudden craving for a cheeseburger. I liked Isyth food well enough, but sometimes I missed human food. From greasy burgers and fries, to steaks and seafood.

  Telidur said, “We’re down and stable Captain.”

  “Start loading the food.”

  Jillintara said, “Yes captain. I should have it all aboard in less than two hours.”

  I said, “I’m keeping an eye on the news stations.”

  Vik snorted, “Alright. How many people are out there?”

  Rilok said, “Only about two hundred, and several of them are taking pictures with small rectangular devices. Admiral Hiller is yelling at them.”

  I groaned, cell phones. Hopefully they were doing it for themselves, and not posting them to Twitter or Facebook for goodness sake. They were military after all, and I was sure they were under orders. We’d see how much that helped. There was usually always at least one idiot in every group.

  The food went on, and then we waited, and waited some more as the hours passed and more people showed up, more than one of those in a wheelchair. We could have started loading them immediately, but we didn’t want them loaded and cramped in a landing bay for sixteen hours before we even left the ground. It would take us eight hours to get out of the system, and then a few hours more to transfer them to their ships. The long ship could dock ten shuttles at once, but with two hundred and fifty ships that will still take a while.

  Still, the longer we waited, the larger the risk. We’d been on the ground for over ten hours before a thousand people were present. Only half, and we were down to six hours before we needed to be in orbit and cloaked.

  So far so good, no media storm about an alien ship on the ground at a U.S. base at any rate.

  We started to load the ship about two hours later, and Janson joined us on the bridge after seeing to his peoples’ comfort.

  “Welcome aboard Admiral.”

  “Thanks captain.”

  Vik said, “Status? Will all the people assigned get here in time?”

  Janson said, “It’s going to be close. All sixteen hundred of the selections should be here with an hour to spare. It’s the four hundred last minute selections that are in doubt. Some of them have been impossible to reach, and transportation arrangements have been problematic. How’s it going on this end?”

  Vik replied, “Well enough admiral. The fleet will meet us on the edge of Alpha Centauri to transfer your people to their ships. Once aboard they’ll need to go to the med bay and get their nanites and implants installed, then they can get some sleep while we do food transfers. Should be all done for them to get breakfast the next morning out of the food synthesizers.”

  Janson tilted his head, “Will there be communication problems?”

  Vik shook his head, “For us to talk we need translators, but the artificial assistants are the translators, so the ships will be able to give instructions and answer questions in English.”

  Janson nodded and rolled his eyes, “Of course, stupid question. Any idea what this fleet coming in might do?”

  Vik answered, “No, all we know is it’s there, and there are thr
ee of them, each headed toward different worlds. I’d like to say they won’t do anything but monitor traffic, but I have no idea what Denik’s plans are. All I know for certain is it can’t be a full-scale invasion.”

  Janson frowned, “That isn’t comforting.”

  No, I didn’t imagine it was.

  Janson said, “Before I forget, one of the coffee pallets stays on this ship.”

  I grinned, “You know we don’t need it.”

  Janson shrugged, “I’ve been drinking it every morning for over forty years, too late to give it up now. Although I will admit it’s nice to wake up alert every morning.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Janson said, “Necessity.”

  “Damn.”

  Vik looked over at me, “What is it?”

  “Everyone smile, we’re on CNN.”

  I put up a hologram of it, and it showed the ship hovering right over the tarmac. I frowned and accessed the ship’s sensors, and put up a second hologram. The damned news helicopter had to be a mile away, and using a special lens for a close up like that.

  “How much trouble will this cause?” I asked.

  It wasn’t my fault, or my responsibility, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t worried we’d leave the world behind to a meltdown.

  Janson said, “I think it will be fine, things are tense right now, but the president is doing a good job handling it. There may be incidents, but I think we can stop short of world war three.”

  I nodded. Some countries didn’t trust America or the deal the president was making to put together a team of international scientists and share discoveries, but that wasn’t all that surprising. There were always some. Not that I fully trusted her either, but I trusted the assistants.

  The last two hours dragged, and only brought half the four hundred. We were two hundred short, which meant two fifths of the fleet would be working with three instead of four on the bridge. It was more than possible, this ship had worked with just three, and Jillintara on weapons before I came along while she handled engineering. But at a reduced efficiency in battle.