“I already thought of that,” said Eastwood. “Even if I put in a way-out value like a month, the simulator continues to return a non-zero value.”
“The Meklon believed the Galactar could detect a lightspeed trail effectively indefinitely?” asked Aston in horror.
“I’m not sure, Commander. More likely, the Meklon simply didn’t know the answer themselves, so they erred on the side of caution.”
“The more I hear, the more I think this simulator is a double-edged sword,” said Recker.
“It’s definitely that, sir. I’m sure after a few more lightspeed jumps we’ll have a better idea of which type of journey increases our distance from the Galactar. After that, we can try stringing a few of those together and see what comes from it.”
“At some point we’ve got to find a way home,” said Recker. “And we’ve got to do so in a way that leaves no chance whatsoever that the enemy can follow.”
“Which is going to be difficult when we’re on our own, sir,” said Aston.
The words were the prompt which sent an idea thundering into Recker’s head. He considered it for a moment before speaking.
“Lieutenant Burner - the Fulcrum is running silent, right?”
“Yes, sir. The moment we detected the Galactar’s arrival at Kemis-5, I stopped all outward broadcasts and closed our receptors in case the enemy had a way of detecting our transmissions. As far as comms go, we’re invisible.”
“Maybe we don’t want to be invisible,” said Recker. The admission filled him with nervous energy.
Aston understood. “You want to contact the Meklon?”
“If any are alive to receive a transmission.” Recker began pacing between the comms and engine consoles. “We’re lost and with little hope of returning home – not without help. What if the Meklon have a receiving station we can contact? What if they are still resisting the Lavorix in this sphere of their conflict?”
“What if they pretend to be friendly and then blow the crap out of us when we show our faces?” asked Burner.
“Quiet,” said Recker, still thinking. “Any comms will be FTL and with a significant travel time, so we’ll be in no immediate danger.”
“Unless this hypothetical Meklon station has a higher security tier and decides to send us a shut-down code,” said Eastwood.
“The order for quiet applies to you as well, Lieutenant,” Recker admonished him. “The alternative is that we fly from place to place, hoping we can stay ahead of the Galactar long enough to learn how to fight it.”
“While the Meklon could offer us the answers up front and with a lower level of risk,” said Aston. She was usually the first member of the crew to see the positives.
“Let’s say we open up the comms system and send a distress broadcast to the closest receiving station and the Meklon respond, who’s to say the price of assistance won’t be higher than we’re willing to pay?” asked Fraser. “They might want us to promise fleets of HPA warships and if they know about more of our planets than just Fortune, they might encourage us with threats.”
“If that were the case, they’d have asked the HPA for assistance long before now, Lieutenant.”
“I think the Meklon are the good guys,” said Larson firmly. “I think they’ve purposefully avoided contacting the HPA or the Daklan, knowing that we couldn’t turn the tide and also knowing that our involvement would have seen us wiped out by the Lavorix.”
Eastwood was a born cynic. “It’s got to be more complicated than that. I reckon it’s more likely the Meklon didn’t want to risk opening up new wars with the humanity and the Daklan.”
“I’d like to agree with you, Lieutenant Larson,” Recker admitted. “But the realist in me sides with Lieutenant Eastwood. However, everything I’ve learned about the Meklon makes me think they’re reluctant fighters. If they were interested in war, they’ve surely had the opportunity to demonstrate it against the HPA.”
“In which case, we should contact the Meklon,” said Aston. “If we can.”
Recker nodded slowly, still working it through in his head. “I think my mind is made up,” he said. “I don’t rate our chances if we go it alone. Not against the Galactar.”
“If we’re ever to return home we’ll probably have to make it to another Gateway generator and that means Oracon-1. It would be for the best if we’d spoken to the Meklon beforehand,” said Burner. “If their civilisation is on the brink, I’m sure they’re jumpy.”
“We’re going to do it,” said Recker. “Now we’ve got to think about the best way to approach the task.”
“Obviously, we can’t broadcast anything while we’re at lightspeed,” said Burner. “But if I take us out of silent running once we enter local space, the Fulcrum will automatically send a handshake to the closest known base and I’ll be able to follow that with a voice transmission. Unfortunately, there are problems.”
“The travel time of an FTL comm and, more importantly, the likelihood of the Lavorix monitoring some of the Meklon comms,” said Recker, having already identified the issues.
“Yes, sir. For the first problem, we can’t send the handshake and then stick around waiting for a response which might take hours to reach us. If we’re not within a few billion klicks of the return transmission point our comms unit won’t pick up the reply.”
“Once the Fulcrum sends its handshake, you’ll be able to pinpoint the destination location on the star charts,” said Recker. “When that happens, we’ll lightspeed travel to a place that’s near enough for us to communicate, without bringing the Galactar to the receiving station.”
“It’s not that straightforward, sir,” said Larson. “If the Fulcrum’s handshake goes to a dead station, we won’t receive the failure response if we leave the transmission point. That means we’ll waste time heading for a location that’s been destroyed or is monitored by Lavorix spaceships. Then, if the dead station isn’t guarded, the Fulcrum will send a second automatic handshake to the next closest receiver.”
“And off we go again,” said Burner. “On and on until we eventually find somewhere with living Meklon or the Fulcrum is destroyed by Lavorix warships.”
“I get the message,” said Recker. “There’s got to be a better way.” He had a thought. “Could the Fulcrum’s comms be set to fire off a handshake to every known receiver at the same time?”
“I’m not sure, sir.” Burner lowered his head briefly in thought. “Yes, we could do that.”
“If we sent a handshake to every base it would not only save you time identifying their locations on the star charts, but we could follow up with a voice transmission stating when we’ll be in a certain place to receive the response.”
“That would get around the first problem,” said Burner. “Except we might arrive at our pre-arranged location and find it’s swarming with Lavorix who intercepted our comms message and decided to come and say hello.”
“Even worse,” said Eastwood. “We might draw Lavorix and Meklon to the same place. Then they’ll fight and we’ll get the blame for causing it to happen.”
Recker grimaced as he confronted the difficulties of making his plan work. “If we abandon the idea of contacting the Meklon we’re back to square one.”
“The Meklon comms have to be more robust than we’re imagining them,” said Burner, with the look of a man who was thinking furiously. “Otherwise the Lavorix would only need to capture one comms station to have easy access to all the Meklon comms.”
“Maybe the Meklon lost the war precisely because they didn’t have a viable comms network,” said Aston.
“We’re pretty sure the Lavorix and Meklon have been fighting for decades, Commander,” Burner replied. “If the Meklon comms system was exploited so easily, they’d have lost in a few years.”
“Unless they were so numerically superior to the Lavorix they held out anyway,” said Eastwood.
“We don’t have the answers,” said Recker. “Lieutenants Burner and Larson – I’d like you to figure o
ut how the Meklon adapted to Lavorix infiltration of their comms. If you can do that, we might find a way to contact them without bringing a hostile fleet and a Galactar down upon us.” He took a deep breath. “In three hours we’ll be at the mid-point of this journey. I’d like to hear some ideas within that time.”
“No promises, sir.”
“I’ve got faith in you, Lieutenant Burner. And you, Lieutenant Larson.”
That faith was rewarded less than ten minutes after Recker returned to his seat.
“I think we’ve come up with something, sir,” said Burner.
“I’m all ears.”
“At first I asked myself if the Meklon might simply rely on a constantly-changing high-level encryption to keep their comms safe. However, any encryption can be broken given time, so the method would become steadily less effective as the Lavorix number cruncher hardware began to identify the flaws in the encryption procedure.”
“And when we communicated with the Excon-1 AI from the Axiom, the Lavorix were aware of the content if not in real time, then near as damnit,” said Larson.
“Then I remembered something from the Vengeance,” said Burner. “Its hull contained a tiny broadcasting unit that kept sending pings off to Excon-18. Checking in was what the technicians believed.”
Recker had a glimmering idea of where this was heading. “The Excon-18 base was compromised.”
“Yes, sir. And the Lavorix didn’t pay a visit to Lustre, despite all the pings which were sent to Excon-18.”
“Which means the enemy either can’t read those data packets or they can’t back trace them,” said Recker.
“I’m sure it’s the former, sir,” said Burner, becoming more animated as he talked. “The Fulcrum is carrying the same type of transmitter as the Vengeance and when I checked its capabilities, I found it can only send the same tiny data packets.”
“I know this already,” said Recker.
Burner smiled thinly as he revealed his discovery. “Aside from a warship’s identifying codes, it can also send an accompanying one or zero.”
“A true or false.”
“Yes, sir. I believe we can send a transmission using the main comms, along with a true/false from the backup broadcasting unit.”
“So the Meklon would have made possibly hundreds of false transmissions for every true one,” said Larson. “A trained operator would know how to check for that single one or zero amongst the traffic, while the Lavorix would have almost no hope.”
“Why wouldn’t the Lavorix read the contents of these accompanying data packets?” asked Recker.
“That’s where we’re reduced to guesswork, sir,” said Burner. “I wonder if the receiver for these pings is held separate to the Meklon main comms. The hardware itself is basic, so maybe the Lavorix haven’t recognized the significance.”
“How confident are you in your assessment?” asked Recker. “Our lives are riding on this.”
Burner straightened. “I’m confident enough, sir. Once we exit lightspeed, I recommend we broadcast the same message but with a thousand different sets of coordinates. I’ll add the true marker to the place we’re heading. When we arrive, we should hopefully receive a comms message from a confirmed Meklon station.”
“If any are left,” added Larson.
“Is this the best we’re going to get?” wondered Recker. He made up his mind. “We’ll do it.”
“We should decide on a destination location, sir,” said Burner.
“Pick one and provide Lieutenant Eastwood with the details.”
“Yes, sir.”
With the decision made, Recker sat once more. He was sure this was the right course of action given the array of unpalatable choices. His main concern was the Galactar, which he had no doubt still pursued the Fulcrum. Recker knew he had to learn enough about the weaknesses of this terrible warship that he could escape safely to HPA territory. For once, he had no realistic thoughts that he might destroy his foe.
The lightspeed timer counted down and the Fulcrum approached its destination.
Chapter Five
“Ten minutes and I’ll take us into local space!” yelled Lieutenant Eastwood. “The simulator shows a fifteen percent chance the Galactar will compensate within thirty minutes of our arrival.”
“The comms broadcasts are ready to go,” said Burner. “Eight hundred messages and only one of them true. We’re telling the Meklon we’re being pursued by the Galactar and asking for whatever assistance they can offer.”
Recker felt completely recovered from both tiredness and injury, and he was filled with energy seeking an outlet. His eyes darted across the instrumentation on his console and his hands gripped the controls tightly.
“The moment we’ve transmitted, I’ll warm up the ternium drive for another jump,” said Eastwood. “We’ll be heading for the first waypoint of six on our journey to the place we hope to receive a response from the Meklon.”
One part of Recker’s mind hadn’t wanted to rely entirely on receiving intelligence data from the Meklon – if the aliens were all dead, they’d have nothing to say and precious time would be spent on a long voyage that might be wasted. This part of Recker wanted to take the risk of targeting one of the Meklon facilities in the Fulcrum’s star charts and enacting a lightning raid for data. The Lavorix may well be numerous, but he doubted their fleet was large enough guard every single Meklon base. Even if they did have enough ships, it was unlikely they’d leave anything at a minor facility that could challenge the Fulcrum.
Recker also wanted real proof – not just a hunch - that the Galactar was in pursuit. Now, the enemy craft may as well have been a phantom – ephemeral and imagined, but just perhaps capable of manifesting itself at the worst possible moment. If the huge warship was no longer interested in the Fulcrum, Recker knew this mission would become infinitely easier. Finding out one way or another was going to involve an element of risk.
Screw it.
“Change of plan, folks,” he said. “We’re sending the broadcasts as agreed, but we’re going to delay our lightspeed re-entry. I’ll fly us directly away from the arrival place and we’ll watch for the Galactar to find out if it comes and, if it does, how many minutes behind it is.”
“Do you need me to spell out the dangers, sir?” said Aston.
“I’ve already considered them, Commander.”
She nodded. “I’d prefer to find out for certain if we’re being hunted.”
“That’s why we’re doing this.”
At the agreed moment, Lieutenant Eastwood switched once again to the sub light engines and the battleship exited lightspeed. Recker didn’t wait for the sensors to come online and he pushed the Fulcrum towards its maximum velocity.
“Let’s try out mode 2,” he said.
He activated the secondary engine setting, placing the ternium modules into a controlled overstress. The propulsion attained a note of near perfect harmony and Recker felt himself pushed into the firm padding of his seat. Then, the life support system caught up and the stresses against his body lessened.
“Sensors up,” said Burner. “Oh shit.”
Recker’s eyes went to the portside feed, which was filled with greys, browns and dirty creams of a nearby planet.
“Gas giant – thirty thousand klicks off our flank,” said Burner. “It’s a real big one.”
The Fulcrum’s punishing and sustained acceleration took it past the unnamed planet, which was soon little more than a diminishing disk on one of the rear feeds.
“I don’t think you need me to tell you how close that was,” Burner continued.
“No, Lieutenant – I understand that we were both exceptionally lucky and unlucky at the same time.”
“A few more quadrillion tons of mass and that gas giant would have been a star not a planet,” said Larson. “Then we might have burned up.”
“Maybe the Galactar will appear right in the middle of it,” said Burner. “Not that I’m laying any bets.”
“Just
keep your eyes on the sensors, Lieutenant,” said Recker.
The Fulcrum attained its maximum mode 2 velocity of 3800 kilometres per second and Recker switched back to mode 1 to let the warship coast. Minutes passed and Burner kept the gas giant in focus using the sensor zoom. Meanwhile, Larson called up the known data on this solar system from the Fulcrum’s databanks.
“Eight known planets, one sun,” she summarised. “The Meklon evidently weren’t interested enough to perform anything more than a cursory long-range scan in order to add the place to their star charts.”
“The gas giant is planet four and we’re about a billion klicks from planet three, which is currently a quarter of the way around its star,” said Burner.
“I wasn’t expecting there to be anything here for us,” said Recker.
“Are you planning to keep on going in a straight line, sir?” asked Eastwood.
“You’ll pick up the Galactar’s inbound ternium cloud regardless?”
“Not necessarily, sir. If the enemy exit lightspeed at a significant distance from our arrival place, we might not detect the particle wave if we’re also a long way off. I’ve been studying the sensor data of the gas giant and its core is dense enough that it’ll make it tough to read anything that exits lightspeed in an arc directly behind the planet.”
“Planets don’t normally have that effect,” said Recker.
“As Lieutenant Larson said, this one is borderline massive enough to become a star. The atoms in its core are compressed enough that they’ll block a ternium reading.”
“It’s the same with an actual star,” said Fraser.
Recker knew that well enough, though stars interfered with ternium readings for several reasons that weren’t only down to their mass. Once or twice, he’d used that to his benefit, but generally his missions didn’t call for him to play hiding games around stars.
“The Galactar might already be here,” said Recker.
“There’s anything from a five to an eight percent chance of it, sir.”
“If we can’t see them, they can’t see us,” said Burner.
“I’m not prepared to agree with that, Lieutenant.” Recker felt a surge of anger, which reminded him how much on edge he was. “We’re two million klicks from the planet and I’m not ready to stop yet.”
Fulcrum Gun (Savage Stars Book 4) Page 4