Galactic War

by Gerry A Saunders

  Even so, Frank was uneasy. His mind was telling him that ten life forms were onboard, and he was sure that at least seven of the life-forms were Garoden Troopers. So, if this ship was a Pathfinder, then it must have undergone significant modifications. If it had, then it could probably jump much further than the original Pathfinders.

  Another thing Frank was uneasy about, was that since the closest Gaudian Weapon’s platform had already logged clearance for Andromeda’s passage to Jupiter. The Gaudian weapons platform wouldn’t turn on the intruder unless the intruder fired at Andromeda, first.

  And, knowing that Andromeda would be on its own for several more minutes and wasn’t a match for this Garoden ship, really worried him.

  “Maybe they are after Andromeda’s BEC cryo-preservation injector-replicator unit,” Susanna suggested.

  “If so, that’s got to mean Charlotte’s onboard,” Frank replied, seeing the Garoden intruder ship now almost within boarding distance.

  “Andromeda. Have the lock-release codes been changed since Charlotte’s Orb took you over?” Frank asked.

  “No. It wasn’t deemed necessary at the time,” Andromeda pointed out. “Sending new codes now.”

  “Too late,” Susanna gasped as Andromeda’s outer airlock door suddenly slid open, and she saw seven Garoden Troopers in full combat armor drift across from the intruder’s ship and enter Andromeda’s now open airlock.

  “Thomas, we’re being boarded,” Frank warned.

  “Reading the airlock's status, Captain,” came Thomas’s voice.

  “Thomas, I’m not sensing any enhanced brains. But I could have missed something,” Frank warned him.

  “No problem. Alex was very meticulous in his instructions on how we should protect ourselves and Andromeda, Captain.”

  “Good man,” Frank muttered as the inner-lock slid open.

  Both Frank and Susanna waited for the Garodens to pile out of the lock and into the corridor. But, nobody seemed to exit. However, Frank knew he had to restrain himself from making an in-depth mental scan of the Pathfinder’s interior, in case Charlotte was onboard and could sense his scan.

  “Thomas. What are they waiting for?” Frank queried, fearing he’d missed something, as Thomas remotely checked the Air-Lock.

  “That’s odd. The aliens seem to have disappeared, Captain.”

  “They are not registering on my sensors, either,” Andromeda added.

  “Stealth mode,” Sargent Masson yelled. “They’ve bloody well passed us.”

  “Damn, they must know how to get to the replicator unit,” Thomas muttered as he revised tactics with his Marines.

  “Andromeda, quick, check for air turbulence along the main and sub-corridors,” Thomas ordered.

  “My sensors aren’t registering any.” Andromeda immediately reported back.

  “Chuck and Appleton, to Junction three,” Thomas commanded. “Masson. Corridor wide-beam saturation. Let’s see if we can illuminate the sods.”

  The central corridor lit up as the wide-beam energy bolts, fired by the Marines, flashed through causing several points along it to flare as energy bolts encountered alien protective shields.

  “Damn,” Sargent Masson cursed, realizing that his weapons were going to be useless.

  By now, the main corridor had started to fog from the weapons discharges. With the vague shapes of the aliens, and the forcefield glow around their armor now visible.

  “Five Garodens stationary. Twenty-meters up,” Andromeda warned.

  “Diversion, Frank,” Susanna urged.

  “Agreed. Thomas, keep those five there even if you have to bump forcefields.”

  “Understood Captain.”

  “Andromeda. Smoke the sub-corridor where the replicator unit is situated.”

  Andromeda didn’t bother to reply, but as the sub-corridor fogged, two Garoden Troopers could clearly be seen approaching the replicator unit. With one of them holding his weapon out in front of him.

  “Oh, no!” Frank exclaimed, visualizing the end of Andromeda’s injector-replicator production program.

  “What.… Yes…, yes,” Susanna said, seemingly muttering to herself.

  “What is it, Susanna?” Frank asked.

  “Didn’t you hear it?”

  “No.”

  “Then, you weren’t supposed to, Frank,” Susanna stated, as she quickly took her antique weapons belt off the wall and clipped it around her waist. Removed both pistols from their holsters in one sweeping movement, then loaded six of the new rounds into each pistol’s chamber, before dropping the guns back into their holsters.

  “What on earth are you doing, Sues?”

  “Not me, us. We’re going out because the Marines fire can’t penetrate the Garoden’s body armor.”

  “But we’ve no protection.”

  “You have me,” she stated as she opened the cabin door, then paused momentarily to pull herself together, before stepping into the corridor.

  “Bloody hell, Sues,” Frank grumbled as he followed her out. “Why not shoot the bloody pistols, now?”

  “Timing Frank. I’ve practiced quick-draw a thousand times in Andromeda’s simulator. Don’t worry, I will know exactly where the particle beam’s head will be at any time, by listening to the Garoden’s mental trigger.”

  Then Frank realized precisely what Susanna was attempting to do.

  So, as the protective section around the muzzle of the Garoden’s beam weapon dropped, to allow its particle-beam to pass through, Susanna’s bullets must be there. At that exact moment, one behind the other.

  Once outside, Susanna stood still for a moment. One gun hanging on each side of her, as if she was in one of those old quick-draw western movies.

  Frank was momently distracted by her attractive, and still curvy body, standing in front of him.

  “Keep your mind on the job,” she snapped.

  “I am,” he jokingly replied.

  “I’ll do my bit, Frank. You break Charlotte’s control over the other Garoden’s brain,” she ordered. “While I deal with the one with the weapon.

  Then Susanna stepped forward into the secondary corridor where the two Garoden Troopers, who had turned off their stealth mode by now, could be seen entering the cell-replicator area.

  Frank found, and mentally dived into the mind of the targeted Garoden Trooper. By this time, the Trooper was so intent on unscrewing the injector-replicator from its mount that he ignored Frank’s mental attempt at unscrambling the tangle of miss-directed filaments and blocks in the Garoden’s mind, that had been expertly crafted by Charlotte.

  Susanna sensed Frank’s struggle but ignored it as she concentrated on the Garoden who had now turned to face them, with his beam weapon at the ready.

  Susanna had to find and monitor the Garoden’s trigger thought command. While at the same time, intently watching his trigger-finger’s pressure on the weapon’s firing stud.

  Both came in an instant, and Susanna’s hands immediately caught her pistol butts swinging them out and up in one fluid motion. Then, as she squeezed the triggers, both pistols thundered at virtually the same time, sending their rounds straight at the opening force-field, and the muzzle of the Garoden’s weapon.

  Time seemed to stand still as her first round hit the exiting particle beam and exploded, diverting the beam and leaving the forcefield open for the second round to pass through.

  Susanna didn’t flinch as the diverted particle beam singed her hair as it passed.

  The Garoden gave a croaking sound as the second round smashed into his body armor and exploded. He looked slowly down and saw a large hole where his stomach had been. Then coughed and fell forward.

  Frank automatically jerked his mind out of the second Garoden’s mind, when he realized that Susanna was firing again, this time at his Garoden target.

  Then he yelled in disbelief, as Susanna’s bullet missed the Garoden Trooper, and struck the injector-replicator unit, which exploded on impact, sending a shower of debris through the
corridor, and all three participants crashing to the floor.

  “Damn,” Susanna muttered, struggling to stand up, then slumped back down on the floor again, her head still ringing.

  “Andromeda, where’s that Garoden Trooper?” Frank managed to ask.

  “Legged it! The six remaining Troopers have their stealth modes turned off now, and are heading back to the airlock,” Andromeda informed him.

  “Thomas. If you’re not in danger, let them go.” Frank ordered.

  “No problem, Captain,” Thomas replied over their transceiver link. “It was a stalemate situation anyway.”

  Frank sat up and stared at the remains of the injector-replicator. “I can’t believe you missed him, Sues,” Frank said, feeling annoyed and as if his whole world had ended.

  “Neither can I,” Susanna grumbled.

  “We’ve sealed and separated from the Garoden ship,” Andromeda then informed them.

  ‘Well, Frank, you and Susanna were a surprise,’ came Charlotte’s mental contact.

  ‘Charlotte! We thought it had to be you.’ Susanna sent back. ‘I guess we’ll both have to do without brain enhancers.’

  ‘Pity. You’d better hang on, my ship’s practically far enough apart for us to warp out of here.’

  ‘Wait, Charlotte. We need to talk,’ Frank almost pleaded.

  ‘Sorry, Frank… Don’t try to track me. No?’

  With that, Charlotte’s ship warped space and vanished into its wormhole.

  Andromeda swayed like a ship in rough seas for a time, then calm returned as the warp field from Charlotte’s vessel dissipated.

  “What did she mean, by saying No?” Susanna wondered.

  But, Frank knew exactly what Charlotte had really meant, and he was sure she had deliberately made a very short jump.

  “Track Charlotte’s wormhole-thread,” Frank ordered Andromeda. “Then Jump straight to its end.”

  “Would you like me to miss Charlotte’s ship?” Andromeda queried, a hint of humor in her voice.

  “Just do it,” Frank snapped.

  “On it, Frank.”

  Frank thought about Susanna’s botched shot for a moment. His mind had been telling him that he’d missed something.

  “What?” Susanna asked as she picked up his thoughts.

  “I hadn’t noticed how little Andromeda had been speaking to me, until now. And who were you talking to before we stepped out into the corridor, Sues?

  You sounded surprised by someone when you muttered: What.… Yes, yes.”

  “Well, you said you hadn’t heard it,” Susanna pointed out while smiling at Frank’s attempt at imitating her voice.

  “I know I did, Sues. But….”

  “Then you weren’t supposed to hear it, Frank,” she reiterated.

  “Okay, but what was it I wasn’t supposed to hear?”

  Chapter 14

  Covert Maneuvers

  Stardate, 2330.05

  Location:

  Antares. 190 parsecs, or 619 light-years out from Sol.

  The heavy cruiser, Intrepid, surged forward towards the predicted intercept point for the Solveron vessel that was also taking part in this session. Intrepid’s forward HP particle-beam weapon’s power-exciter had been set to run at fifty percent power, as directed by the Operations Regulator.

  Captain John Adams’ enhanced brain-cells activated, as he studied his ship’s weapons status, that was showing on the left side of his tactical display and was continuously updated by the weapons AI.

  Adams primary concern was the lack of contacts being received from the ship’s long-range sensor grids

  “Lieutenant Carter. Do a full sensor-grid diagnostic and run a scan for yourself just to be sure we’re not missing a contact.” Adams called out to his science officer.

  “On it Captain.”

  A tracking worm-hole suddenly formed two kilometers to the front left of the Intrepid. One second later, a Solveron vessel exited. And, Intrepid’s main screen and weapons immediately locked onto the Solveron ship. Then both rapidly came to a halt as their respective AI’s executed a recognition handshake.

  “Is that Captain Adams?” the Solveron ship’s commander enquired as his image appeared on the Intrepid’s main screen.

  Adams had just missed the Garoden wars and hadn’t seen a Solveron close-up before. So, he took a moment to study his image on the screen.

  “Yes. And you are…?”

  “Captain Sitrea the 7th,” the Solveron returned.

  Sitrea’s face looked very much like a Crillon’s, but his head was smaller. While his thin-lipped mouth and creamy skin made him look almost babyish. However, Adams knew, from the war reports, that the Solverons certainly weren’t a push-over.

  “So, are you the son of Captain Sitrea who died tracking the Garodens back to their home planet?”

  “Yes. I have a lot to live up to, Captain,” Sitrea solemnly stated. “And, I have to admit that I can’t see the necessity of using an Earth vessel to carry out a simple scientific experiment,” Sitrea added.

  “Neither can I, Captain…. Empire co-operation, I guess.”

  “Empire. Huh…. We’d better get set-up, Captain,” Sitrea said, deciding they needed to push on.

  Captain Sitrea’s image then vanished from the main screen, leaving Captain Adams thinking that it was all a waste of time. Unless of course, he’d missed a chunk of physics.

  So, why were the Solverons even bothering with this so-called, experiment? He wondered.

  After all, they already had Molecular destructor weapons that created an almost impenetrable field around their globe ships. Then realized that he’d used the word, almost, without thinking.

  So, perhaps, the Solveron Molecular destructor isn’t as impenetrable as they thought.

  Ten minutes later, both ships were ready to begin the experiment.

  “Countermeasure released,” Intrepid’s weapons A1 warned.

  “Analyze,” Adams forcefully ordered.

  The Solveron ship’s Countermeasure was in the form of a sparkling bubble. As it passed through the ship’s defensive field, it separated into a thousand tiny crystals that formed a cloud directly between Intrepid and the Solveron ship.

  “They are simply Ice-crystals,” the weapons AI reported.

  “Send to my pad,” Adams ordered the AI.

  Science officer Lieutenant Carter then rechecked the weapon’s AI’s assessment.

  “Structure and composition, normal. Your AI’s right, they certainly are ice-crystals, Captain.”

  Captain Adams studied the new data but couldn’t see any benefit from using the Countermeasure. Even if it were of some little value, you’d never be able to move the source bubble around the ship fast enough. And, the crystals themselves would naturally drift outward due to their released forward motion.

  No, he thought. This is not why we’re here.

  “Target locked,” weapons informed.

  “Fire,” Adams ordered. Then felt a slight shudder as the Intrepid released a single salvo at the Ice-crystal patch.

  In the blink of an eye, the particle-beam flared as it hit the edge of the crystal patch. And the Patch virtually boiled, with its remnants dissolving into nothingness as it touched the Solveron’s Molecular Destructor field.

  “Only a six percent reduction in our particle beam,” Intrepid’s weapons A1 stated.

  “A fat lot of good that’s done. So, if our beam had been running at a hundred percent, it might have damaged the Solveron ship, as well,” Lieutenant Carter commented.

  “Agreed,” Adams said.

  The image of the Solveron ship’s commander reappeared again on the Intrepid’s main screen.

  “Well Captain, that was pretty poor,” Sitrea said, stating the obvious.

  “Couldn’t agree more, and that’s being generous,” Adams replied. Then suddenly sensed hyperactivity in his enhanced brain-cell.

  “Worm-hole generation,” the system’s AI warned.

  Then Adams felt i
t. Something big. Something black was just about to drop in on them.

  Chapter 15

  Plan B

  Captain Adams felt nauseous as his weapon systems shut down, and he could see by Captain Sitrea’s change in expression, that Sitrea’s ship had just suffered the same shut down as Intrepid had.

  “It’s on us!” Lieutenant Carter yelled. “But nothing’s registered as exiting the wormhole.”

  “Where the hell is it?” Adams shouted while checking the time difference from when the worm-hole generated, until now.

  “Stealth,” Lieutenant Carter stated, convinced that the ship must have exited the worm-hole in stealth mode.

  Eighteen seconds later, a shimmering shape appeared on the screen.

  Then, as they watched, a sleek black and pear-shaped ship slowly became visible. The ship was stationary and sitting directly between their two vessels.

  Captain Adams studied his tactical pad as it displayed the flow of data coming in from his ship’s sensor grids and interrogation probes.

  “No match in our ship’s registry,” the primary AI stated.

  By now, the unknown, and menacing looking ship had almost filled Intrepid’s main screen. It was difficult to visibly see the outline of it against the darkness of space, except by the lack of stars that were obscured by the ship itself.