by Doug Farren
Chyr seemed to accept his explanation and they proceeded to work on their assigned task. Three hours later, they completed a detailed but flexible plan to search the system and the surrounding space with any number of ships. As soon as they were done, Tom got up to leave but stopped when Chyr said, “I’ve learned how to play chess.”
The sudden change in subject caught Tom off guard. He was still feeling a bit out of sorts and not really in the mood to play. “Oh, I’m glad to hear that,” he replied sounding a bit colder than he really meant to.
Chyr leaned forward and looked at him with a critical eye. “I may not understand certain human emotions very well,” she finally said, “but I can tell when someone is upset. What is wrong? What have I done to offend you? Are you upset because I spent some time with someone else?”
Tom wasn’t used to someone coming right out and asking him such questions. “No!” he replied, shaking his head. “I’m not…well…maybe a little. But it’s a natural human response after being intimate with someone. I was feeling a little…" Tom interrupted himself because he suddenly realized there was a lot more going on than just simple jealousy.
Chyr seemed to understand that he needed a moment to think. She leaned back in the chair and waited. Tom stood up and wished he had some pockets to jam his hands into while he thought. He had always been popular with women. He was handsome, polite, and never became intoxicated. As a member of the space force, he had become accustomed to enjoying the benefits of spending time with the opposite sex without any emotional attachments. He had never really been in love and jealousy was as foreign to him as it was to a Shandarian. What he was feeling now was not jealousy; it was something deeper.
Sitting back down in his chair, Tom asked, “Before you became a Peacekeeper, did you have a close circle of friends; a select group of individuals whom you felt completely comfortable with?”
“I had many friends,” Chyr replied, not quite understanding the question.
“These would be more than just friends,” Tom explained. “When I was stationed aboard the Dragon, a small group of us became very close. We could talk about anything. We knew each other almost as well as we knew ourselves. We could joke around and no matter what was said nobody felt offended. All but one are still on the Dragon and earlier today we had a wonderful time together. To them, I’m not a Peacekeeper; I’m one of them; a friend; a member of the group. I didn’t realize how much I missed them.”
“And soon you’ll have to say goodbye again,” she said, when Tom stopped for a moment.
“Exactly. It’s like I’m leaving a part of myself behind—like I’m betraying them. We had breakfast this morning and I was still thinking about how hard it's going to be to say goodbye to them when I saw Juan leaving your stateroom. I guess my unconscious mind correlated the two events causing me to feel as if you had betrayed me. I know you didn’t. It’s not like…” Tom had to stop because he ran out of words.
He didn’t want to say, “…I don’t love you…” or “…we’re dating…” because such terms just didn’t apply to his relationship with Chyr. They had been physically intimate because it was enjoyable, not because of any emotional attachment they had for each other. But he had no way of explaining it to her. Chyr came to the rescue.
“Terrans are an emotionally tangled mess,” she said. “You become so attached to friends, wives, husbands, children, even pets, jobs, hobbies, and all sorts of inanimate objects that it’s a wonder you don’t go insane. A mating couple can be unbelievably close one moment and the next they can be fighting and wanting to go their separate ways.”
Smiling, Tom nodded his head. “Very true. But Shandarians have emotions. You’re not machines. What makes you so different?”
“We focus on what is important,” she said. “While our children are young, we cherish them and care for them until they can live on their own. Like you, we enjoy being intimate with others, but what sets us apart is that we focus on the intimacy and on the individual providing it at that moment in time. We care about all people but we never focus our affections on any one individual because doing so is the equivalent of putting all others in an inferior position. All are equal and all are deserving of our affections.”
“I understand,” Tom said. “Your emotions are more evenly distributed while ours are focused like a laser.”
“Shandarians and Terrans have much in common,” Chyr said, reaching under the table and pulling out a chess set. “It is the intensity of how we do things that defines our two species. Chess?”
“I think a game of chess is exactly what I need right now.”
Chapter 32
“We are approaching the target system,” the helm announced.
“Battle stations,” Doug ordered, as his hand came down on a large button.
The alarm klaxon began to sound as the Komodo Dragon prepared itself for action. Most of the crew was already at their assigned stations. The ship’s computer split the electrical grid into isolated sections and powered up all standby systems for instant readiness. Two minutes later, the tactical station announced the ship was ready.
“Dropping to normal,” the helm warned.
A second later, Tom felt the familiar sensation as the ship’s FTL drive fields collapsed allowing the Dragon to reappear in normal space. There was a brief flurry of activity.
“Shield is up and weapons are hot. Long range sensors show no hostiles,” the tactical station said, his hands continuing to dance across his console.
“Sublight drive is on line and responding,” the helm said.
“Are the probes programmed?” Doug asked.
“Yes Sir.”
“Launch probes.”
“Launch probes aye!”
Doug rotated the command chair so he could address his three guests. “Probes are launched. The shuttle is standing by to ferry you to your ships.”
“Very well Captain,” Sorbith said. “Follow the plan as we’ve laid it out and stay in touch.”
“Yes Sir.”
The three Peacekeepers made their way to the shuttle while the Dragon began the task of searching for a hidden base. The plan was relatively simple. Starting close to the star, the ships and probes would follow carefully laid out spiral trajectories allowing them to scan the entire system. As they moved farther away from the star, the additional ships scheduled to arrive later would be used to cover the increased volume of space.
Tom spent the first few hours in his command center observing the progress of the search as it began. It didn’t take long though before he became bored. He went back to his quarters, watched a couple of movies, and then went to bed.
The next morning, Tom spent a few hours in the command center deciding the ship didn’t need his help. Since the Orion was more than capable of performing the search by itself, he decided to spend some time working on a carving. He had progressed to the point where he now felt confident in trying his hand at producing a model of the Komodo Dragon. He selected an appropriately sized piece of wood and began.
“I really don’t think we’re going to find anything in this system,” he said, shaving a sliver of wood from an edge with a razor knife.
“The evidence seems to support the belief that the AOH base of operations is located in this system,” the Orion replied.
“If it is, then all their ships must be cloaked and the base hidden under several meters of rock. We haven’t picked up any signs of ships or sentinel stations. If there’s a fleet here we would have found it by now.”
“Perhaps there are no ships,” the AI reasoned. “Their primary command and control center could be located here, buried within one of the tens of thousands of asteroids making up the debris disk. Their ships could be stationed elsewhere or perhaps scattered across a wide area.”
Tom paused, his razor knife hovering over the model. “Now that’s a possibility. The big question though is where are they building their ships? Those ships have to be built in orbit and you need a considerable
industry to support their construction. We’ve seen nothing.”
“Then the only conclusion I can come to is that their shipyard is not in this system.”
“Hopefully, we can find something here that will lead us in the right direction.”
Tom worked on the model for several hours before setting it aside. After making himself a sandwich he made his way to the command center. “Give Chyr’s ship a call and see if she’s up for a long-distance game of chess,” Tom asked after settling into the chair.
There was a brief delay before Chyr’s voice came over the speaker, “I would love to play another game of chess. I am beginning to enjoy this game.”
The Orion created a chessboard on one of the monitors and the two Peacekeepers started their game. They had only gotten to the third move when a voice said, “This is the Chiznift. We have detected a small energy source and are moving to investigate.”
The main tactical viewer instantly identified the sender’s location as well as all available data associated with the energy source. “Looks like it might be coming from a fusion reactor,” Tom remarked.
“This is Sorbith. Chiznift, hold your current position and launch a probe. Provide us with the telemetry data. All other ships continue to follow your assigned search trajectories.”
“Orion, put the probe’s telemetry data up on my monitor as soon as you can,” Tom ordered.
A moment later, a series of charts and rolling readouts appeared. There was a definite energy source coming from one of the larger asteroids located near the edge of the center of the debris disk. The probe, traveling at low FTL speeds, rapidly approached the asteroid. At a distance of 20,000 kilometers, it unexpectedly dropped out of stardrive as a large gravitational field suddenly appeared. There was a brief, high-energy spike followed by the termination of all telemetry.
“Sorbith to all vessels, this may be a decoy. Continue as previously instructed. Komodo Dragon, alter course and investigate. Keep this channel open.”
“The Dragon acknowledges.”
* * * * *
“Helm, you heard the man,” Doug said. “Set your course for that asteroid. Tactical, battle stations!”
The Dragon had been running on high alert and it didn’t take long before the ship was ready for combat. In less than an hour, they were closing in on the target.
“Distance, 180 kilo-klics,” the helm intoned. “Dropping to normal space.”
“Tactical, what can you tell me?” Doug asked.
The tactical station busied himself at his console for a moment then replied, “The asteroid is roughly spherical with an average diameter of 11.6 kilometers. It appears to have been artificially stabilized and is not spinning. There are 15 active shields on the surface but at this distance I cannot determine if they’re protecting surface installations or weapon systems. I am also detecting 38, poorly cloaked objects scattered throughout space in this area—possibly small defense stations.”
“How many are in range?” the Captain asked.
“Twenty-six.”
“That’s what took out the probe,” Doug remarked. “Can we target them?”
“Yes Sir!” the tactical station smiled.
“Sorbith, are you listening?”
“I am. Permission granted to engage their outer defenses. Leave the asteroid alone for the moment.”
“Weapons, primaries only, take out those defense stations!”
“With pleasure Sir.”
The Dragon opened fire with her two primary batteries. Beams of incredible power reached out and introduced themselves to the cloaked stations. The shields barely had time to react as they were instantly overwhelmed by the warship’s far superior weapons. The beams burned their way through the thick armor creating a spray of superheated plasma as it punched through to the station’s interior. Power accumulators exploded, missiles detonated in their launch tubes, and fuel tanks ruptured. Twelve seconds after being targeted, the station exploded.
Responding to the attack, the other defense stations opened fire. Powerful lasers tested the strength of the Dragon’s shield causing it to blaze with deflected energy. Although it was heavily loaded, the Dragon's Hess-built shield held firm. Realizing that the intruder was no ordinary heavy cruiser, the tactical computers controlling the defense stations called for additional firepower. Swarms of missiles carrying nuclear death raced through space toward the cruiser.
After destroying the closest target, the Dragon's tactical computer selected the next closest defense station and opened fire. A little over ten seconds later, it was no longer a threat. One by one, the Dragon systematically targeted and destroyed five defense stations. Before the sixth station could be targeted, the tactical station shouted, “Incoming missiles! I count 418, first impact in 20 seconds.”
“Emergency FTL!” Doug ordered.
As powerful as the Dragon’s shield was, there was no doubting it would fail under the impact of so many missiles. The ship’s CIWS would be able to stop most of them but too many would make it through. Their only hope of escape was to make an emergency transition to FTL. A normal transition required a little over 20 seconds as the matrix field built up to full strength before the main stardrive fields were turned on. In an emergency, the matrix field could be ramped to full power in less than 10 seconds. This was not only hard on equipment, but also very unpleasant for the crew.
The helm glanced at his board, punched in a course and slammed the heel of his hand down on the emergency initiate button. A loud screeching sound blared from the ship’s speakers warning the crew of what was to come. The next instant, Doug felt as if his insides were being twisted as a wave of dizziness hit him.
“Transition complete,” the helm reported, his words slurred.
“Bring us back around so we can take out the rest of those stations,” Doug ordered. “But keep us out near the edge so they can’t attack us all at once. Now that we know about those missiles, our CIWS should be able to deal with them." He rubbed his temples with his thumbs but the headache he now had refused to go away. “Tactical, analysis of those missiles.”
“They were traveling at high speed with their propulsion systems inactive, heavily cloaked, and almost impossible to detect. The closest missiles were spotted when they fired a chemical engine and powered a weak shield. The tactical computer has identified them as SM-17s. They can be detected by a high-powered, focused active sensor.”
Doug started to nod his head but stopped when he discovered it made his headache even worse. “How the hell did the AOH get their hands on SM-17s?” he asked.
“Dropping to normal in 30 seconds,” the helm announced.
“Weapons, get rid of the rest of those stations. Tactical, no more surprises—okay?”
While the Dragon’s crew carried out their orders, Doug decided to have a talk with Sorbith. “Sorbith, are you still on this channel?” he asked.
“I am,” came the instant reply. “Smart move taking your ship to FTL like that.”
“Thanks. Can you tell me how the AOH acquired several hundred Alliance missiles—SM-17s to be exact? Is someone letting them shop at one of our arsenals?”
“We have been investigating a serious breach of our weapons security,” Sorbith calmly replied. “I’m afraid the details are still classified.”
“It would have been nice to know that!” Doug said, getting angry. “Those bastards are hard as hell to detect unless you’re expecting them. Are you holding back on any other classified information that might help us in the future?”
“The AOH may very well be using a lot of Alliance technology. Plan your strategy based on that information.”
Doug had to force himself to calm back down. “Will do,” he said, fighting the urge to ask for more details. “So what do you think we’ve found here? This certainly isn’t a shipyard or a major base.”
“Based on what we know at the moment, I would say we’ve found an important communications relay.”
“I agree. Their shipyard m
ust be in another system.”
Before Sorbith had a chance to reply, Chyr said, “Then why did the Naruma head straight here? Why not go directly to their main base?”
“Typical AOH strategy,” Tom joined the conversation. “Never take a chance on revealing the location of an important resource. That’s why the cargo ship was met outside the system by those warships. Even though they were sure the ship was not being followed it was thoroughly scanned.”
“Then why bother to come here?” Chyr asked. “If they had chosen another system we wouldn't have found this relay station.”
There was a protracted silence in response to Chyr’s question. During the conversation, Doug had been keeping a close eye on the destruction of the remaining defense stations. “Has anyone given consideration to the possibility that what we’ve found was specifically built to throw us off track?”
“What makes you think that?” Sorbith asked.
“For one, the defense stations are modified versions of ones that have been obsolete for almost 25 years. They’re not mobile and they lack heavy ablative armor. Then there’s Chyr’s comment—why else would they lead us here if not to make us believe we’ve found something important? Picking up that energy leakage wasn’t luck, it was planned.”
“Your ship was almost destroyed by those obsolete stations,” Sorbith said.
“If they had made this an easy target, we would certainly have been suspicious,” Doug defended both himself and his ship.
“So what now?” Chyr asked.
“I have a suggestion,” Tom said after a moment.
“Proceed,” Sorbith said, sounding as if he had just wasted a lot of resources for no reason.
“We know they have a shipyard. We know a shipyard requires a large industrial infrastructure to support the construction of advanced warships. Hiding it is impossible making it relatively easy to detect. We also know their system must be somewhere nearby; somewhere within range of that communications relay. We start here and work our way out looking at every system in the area.”