“You are relieved of duty,” Argon told Lieutenant Jones.
“No, sir,” Jones said. “I protest your order. Discovery needs at least one real navy officer on the bridge during battle.”
“You just witnessed the aliens’ ability with Tanaka,” Argon said. “It would be rational for them to attempt mind control on you next. You will go now or I will stun you and have you dragged off.”
Angrily, Jones unsnapped himself and floated out of the bridge module to a waiting monitor.
As the hatch closed, Cyrus asked, “Now what? I don’t really know what to do.”
“You did not pay attention earlier to their instructions?”
“Yeah, I listened, but…”
“Move to the weapons chair and pray to the Creator He helps you do your duty.”
As Cyrus slid over, he felt an alien mind reach out to him. It was an oily sensation and filled with hostility. “Someone is trying to make contact with me.”
“Resist!” Argon said.
“I am, but this isn’t good. What are they doing to others in our ship?”
“Now we know their plan, or we know part of the plan. Begin using the targeting computer. I will instruct the monitors to initiate a ship-wide lockdown.”
Cyrus’s gut clenched and his palms became sweaty. This was just great. He’d been watching and learning these last two days, but fighting for all their lives, for Sol as well, it was too much to place on a young man’s shoulders.
He checked controls and went over what Jones had shown him yesterday. They had gone over several simulations, and he’d gotten better each time he played. But this was for real.
“The alien vessel is two million kilometers from us,” Argon said.
Cyrus watched a chronometer. The alien warship moved nearly twelve thousand kilometers a second. In a little less than eighty-three seconds, the enemy would be in range—seconds, eighty-three seconds. What was he doing on the bridge module? This was insane.
“I’m readying the primary laser,” Cyrus said, and he was surprised how calm his voice sounded.
The seconds ticked by as the alien, tear-shaped warship neared the one million kilometer mark. It was big, Sol battleship-sized. How much armor plating did the alien possess? What kind of weapons did it use? This was the first battle between an alien warship and the Sol Navy.
“I never signed up for this,” Cyrus mumbled.
Argon didn’t respond.
Cyrus swiveled around. The chief monitor sat stiffly, with his hands clenched on the captain’s armrests. The big fingers were white, straining, as Argon likely battled for control of his mind. The man’s face was immobile and his eyes staring.
“Fight,” Argon whispered past unmoving lips.
Cyrus blinked sweat out of his eyes as he turned to his screens. This was just like before. He was alone, with an alien knocking on his mind. Well, he had suggested the right thing with Jones. If he’d had to fight the Navy officer now…
“Concentrate,” Cyrus muttered to himself.
He tapped the number one screen, engaging the targeting computer. They had worked out the situation and played it many times.
Here we go—it’s battle time.
Discovery’s fusion engines fully engaged. Cyrus felt the mighty thrum. This was different from the last time he did this. Now he knew what he was supposed to be doing. Now he understood the stakes better. This wasn’t just about him. This was about Sol, about Level 40 Milan and all his old friends. If he failed, there might not be an Earth and Milan, as he’d known them. There might be an interstellar war, with the aliens gaining the jump on Sol.
“Now,” he whispered.
The heavy laser aimed at the enemy, directed through the window in the gel and crystal field. Power from the fusion engines and stored battery power surged through the coils and beamed through the targeting mirrors. In a great ray of focused light, the laser shot out of the dome at three hundred thousand kilometers a second.
In 3.3333 seconds, the tip of the laser flashed across one million kilometers of space. The ultra-precise targeting computer had led the alien warship, calculating its exact position now.
With the powerful teleoptics in the probes, Cyrus had to wait the same amount of time for information to return at the speed of light. Thus, it took nearly seven seconds from the first shot for Cyrus to see the heavy laser halt at what would appear to be several hundred meters before the skin of the enemy warship.
“Good work!” Argon boomed.
Cyrus turned around in surprise. The chief monitor no longer clutched the armrests. The face was no longer stiff with immobility.
“I was right,” Cyrus said.
Argon raised an eyebrow.
“The alien psi-master isn’t trying to control you anymore,” Cyrus said. “I no longer feel him either. The obvious conclusion is they’re using their powers to shield their ship from our beam.”
“Agreed,” Argon declared.
Cyrus returned to his screens. He activated more lasers, readying them for firing. The alien ship bored toward them at nearly twelve thousand kilometers a second, or seven hundred thousand kilometers a minute. The warship would be in range of the secondary lasers in 42.85 seconds.
The fusion engines continued to thrum with fantastic power, pumping the heavy laser. The beam kept on target, the intense ray inching closer and closer toward the alien’s armor plating.
At six hundred thousand kilometers distance between the ships, an alien laser began to burn into the P-Field.
“We know their range!” Cyrus shouted.
Prismatic crystals reflected the hellish beam for microseconds, dissipating its strength. Then the laser heated the crystal, melting it and robbing it of the reflective power. In less than a second, the alien beam burned through the first layer of the P-Field, boring in toward Discovery.
Cyrus tapped the firing screen. More domes on the surface of the Teleship opened. The secondary lasers poked out. At five hundred thousand kilometers, more lasers beamed across the closing distance, striking the alien psi-shield.
“Pump more crystals into place,” Argon said.
“I’m trying,” Cyrus said. “I’m not quite sure how do it. But I should be able to figure it out soon.” He continued tapping.
“No,” Argon said. “Leave it. In your ignorance, you might accidently stop us from doing a good thing.” The chief monitor slapped a comm button on his chair. “Get me Jones. Bring him back onto the bridge.”
Cyrus was too focused to worry about Jones now.
Alien lasers burned through the P-Field and sliced through the gel cloud. In another two seconds, the enemy beams burned onto the surface of the Teleship. The hottest immediately began burning down into the asteroidal rock, boring in toward Discovery’s vitals.
“Tell Jones to hurry!” Argon shouted into the comm.
Cyrus watched helplessly. This was terrible. Then he spied secondary alien beams lancing into the darkness.
“What are they doing?” Argon said. He must have spotted the same thing. “Why aren’t those lasers striking at us?”
“Ah! They must be hunting down our missiles. Hopefully, the decoy emitters are working.”
“Right, the Prometheus missiles,” Argon said. “We need something to work for us.”
The seconds brought swift change to the battle. The alien warship’s terrific velocity and the rather short range of the lasers mandated it.
“Rotate the Teleship,” Argon said. “Point the unused asteroid mass at their lasers.”
Cyrus swiveled around and shook his head. “We’re operating on the simplest level with the targeting computer. If we begin moving our ship, we’ll have to recalculate and reconfigure our firing strategies. I say we hold on with what we’re doing and hope the missiles make the difference.”
Argon stared at him. For the first time, Cyrus saw indecision on the man’s face. “We’ll take damage if we do it your way. We might lose lives, particularly among the sleeping colonist
s.”
“I grew up in the slums, Chief Monitor. Sometimes there aren’t any good decisions. It’s then you have to stick with what you know and hope for the best.”
“By the Creator, you’re a steely one,” Argon said.
Cyrus waited for the chief monitor to say more. The man didn’t. He watched the screens. Turning back to his, Cyrus got a better picture of what was happening to the alien vessel. The Teleship’s lasers were close to the surface of the alien warship, to the armored skin.
More enemy lasers punched through the chewed up P-Field and gel cloud. More beams turned asteroidal rock into slag, molten slurry, and then burned it completely away, drilling in deeply.
Klaxons began to wail in the Teleship.
“Do we have any missiles left out there?” Argon asked.
With the heel of his hand, Cyrus slapped his forehead. He could have been checking. He shifted to the number three screen and checked. Yes, three Prometheus missiles were left and almost in range of the nearing enemy.
“We have a breach in the third stasis area,” Argon said in a bitter voice. “The backup AI is taking damage.
“Come on,” Cyrus said. He felt so helpless. This was a matter of ranges, velocities, masses, and fusion power. Once you made the decisions, there wasn’t much more you could do. This wasn’t anything like a knife fight. This wasn’t like a first-person shooter game. This was long-range plans coming to fruition in seconds.
“We’re in!” Argon shouted.
Cyrus glanced at the number two screen. One of the secondary lasers had burned into the alien warship.
“Yeah!” Cyrus shouted, pumping a fist in the air. They’d broken through the enemy psi-shield.
Now, in space—as the aliens destroyed yet another Prometheus missile—the last two performed their functions. Rods poked out of the nose cones, pointing at the enemy warship. A thermonuclear explosion ignited on each missile. X-rays and gamma rays traveled faster than the annihilating heat. Those rays pumped the one-shot tubes, which concentrated them even as they were heated by the blast. The coherent X-rays and gamma rays beamed at the speed of light at the enemy vessel. Then the nuclear explosion destroyed the rods as the destruction obliterated all shreds of the Prometheus missiles.
The X-rays and gamma rays struck the alien vessel, solid rods of radiation. What it did to the living biological beings inside the ship showed a moment later. The mind shield collapsed, and all of Discovery’s lasers began to bore into the steel plating, burning through as the alien warship closed with the Teleship.
“We have a coil breach,” Argon informed him.
Cyrus heard muffled explosions from inside the Teleship, and the entire bridge module shook. Am I about to die? Is Argon right? Is there a Creator? Will I meet Him?
On-screen, the enemy beams stopped. Cyrus watched in amazement. Secondary explosions racked Discovery, but it was much worse for the alien warship. Lasers bored through alien armor and ignited coils or other devices within the vessel. Explosions caused the alien warship to splinter and crack. Still Discovery’s beams pumped death and destruction into the enemy. Now fuel, water, stores, and even bodies ejected from the alien warship. Then a fusion fireball devoured the vessel.
As Cyrus stared in shock and disbelief at the screens, the bridge hatch opened. It brought the harsh sound of klaxons to Cyrus and he heard more internal explosions in the Teleship.
“Get out of my way!” Lieutenant Jones shouted.
Cyrus shoved off from the console, letting the man sit down.
Jones took his place, and the weapons officer’s fingers began to blur over the screens and controls.
“I’m taking the fusion cores offline and sealing them behind emergency bulkheads,” Jones said. “We’re hit, but I don’t think critically. We’re going to lose people. Don’t kid yourself there. Most of our lasers are overheating. Didn’t you think to cycle them?”
“I guess not,” Cyrus said.
Jones shook his head. “You had beginner’s luck. That’s all I can say. I’m amazed our ship didn’t blow.”
“The Creator aided us,” Argon said.
Jones threw him a glance. “Sure, whatever you say, Chief Monitor. We won. I guess that’s all that counts.” He glanced at Cyrus. “You did it, kid. You beat the freaking aliens. Good job.”
Cyrus wore a loopy smile. “We did it,” he told Argon. “We’re alive and the alien is gone.”
“Yes. We passed the first test. Now we have to see if we can repair the tele-chamber in time to leave this system before the second ship reaches us.”
8
Six hours after the alien warship’s destruction, Chief Monitor Argon called a meeting in the officer’s lounge. He recorded it as “Discovery Meeting #14.” The roster included Wexx, Cyrus, and Lieutenant Jones.
ARGON: Premier Lang, I have solemn tidings. We have faced an alien warship today and survived the fight. Unfortunately, we took losses, particularly to the colonists in stasis. A quick survey shows an estimated seventeen thousand deaths, a little over one-third of the sleepers. We also sustained heavy damage to the secondary AI of the Kierkegaard class. In terms of our future survival, the bitterest blow was impairment to the tele-ring circling Discovery.
This impairment is critical, as I have sent several of the ablest techs outside the ship to effect repairs. This lessens the number of workers fixing the tele-chamber and lengthens our wait to shift out of danger.
An alien warship, larger than the first, accelerates toward us even now. Its estimated time of arrival—and I use the one million kilometer mark of our primary laser as the gauge—is three and a half days from now, or eighty-four hours.
Three alien warships of the larger type accelerate from AS 412 V, the fifth and outer planet of the system. Their estimated time of arrival is three weeks.
WEXX: How long do you estimate the combined repairs to take?
ARGON: That will depend on the damage to the tele-ring.
WEXX: If the ring is beyond repair, what is your plan?
ARGON: We will make our peace with the Creator and self-destruct the Teleship. We cannot allow the aliens to capture our shift technology, as that might imperil humanity’s continued existence.
WEXX: Your solution strikes me as too radical. We should first attempt communication with the aliens and see if we can come to an agreement or understanding.
ARGON: Each time the aliens have communicated with us, they attempted mind control of everyone. No. We will not communicate with the enemy. It is too dangerous because of the possible harm to the solar system.
WEXX: Maybe it’s time to wake Jasper. According to Cyrus, they’ve already communicated with him.
ARGON: There are two possibilities. Either the aliens tricked him or he was in collusion with them. If they beguiled Jasper, we do not know to what extent. In neither case is waking him likely to bring advantage. I submit that it is too dangerous to wake our telepath for the obvious reason that we have few to no controls over him. Clearly, the inhibitors no longer work on Jasper or Cyrus.
CYRUS: You’re right, of course. They never should have been put in us in the first place.
ARGON: You saw how Jasper manipulated the crew. We need the controls for our own safety.
WEXX: I’m more concerned right now about this self-destruct idea. Chief Monitor, I understand and appreciate your patriotism. You are a true servant of the state. With that said, I am in no hurry to self-destruct the ship or myself. We have defeated the aliens twice. In my opinion, they should finally be willing to listen to reason. Perhaps they wish to make peace with us.
ARGON: You’re not being rational. They have displayed nothing but aggression. Their actions show that they view us as an alien infestation that they must capture or annihilate. Our weakness will not cause them to turn into pacifists but finally allow them to achieve their goal.
WEXX: Self-destruction is rational?
ARGON: If we have the greater goal of protecting our home system, yes.
&n
bsp; WEXX: I’m as patriotic as the next person. That doesn’t mean I’m willing to kill myself for a concept. Your conclusion that they’ll attack Sol with Teleships is nothing but a supposition.
ARGON: The aliens have shown themselves as hostile. It is a reasonable conclusion to think they’ll want to eradicate our home system. It is at least a probability. Given that, we cannot gamble with humanity’s future. That means there is nothing to indicate that we will improve our situation by contacting them.
WEXX: They must believe we’re invaders. To use your own phraseology: given that, they’re merely trying to protect their system. Imagine Sol fifty years ago. How would we have reacted if a strange ship simply appeared in our system? I submit we would act as they’ve been doing.
ARGON: I find your analysis difficult to accept for several reasons. The most critical is that they have psi-masters and were in contact with Special Jasper for some time. That would imply they knew our intentions and still decided on hostility.
WEXX: Exactly! The aliens discovered that we had a ship full of colonists and intended to take over their system. That sounds like a full-blown invasion to me. How can we expect them to have done anything differently than they did?
ARGON: We journeyed here because we believed the system was empty. This was never an invasion as you suggest and these psi-masters would have seen as much.
WEXX: You’re shooting in the dark with your suppositions. What surprises me is that you have the ability to discover exactly what the psi-masters learned, yet you do not want to find out. We could wake Jasper and ask him. That’s better than simply destroying our own ship and lives. Yes, waking Jasper is a risk, but surely, we can figure out a way to do it safely. I’m beginning to wonder if you have a secret death wish.
JONES: I don’t know about the rest of you, but if this is a voting committee, I’m with the Doctor. Let’s wake our most powerful Special and see if we can out psi the aliens.
ARGON: This is not a voting committee.
JONES: So who’s in charge? You? While I appreciate all you’ve done, Chief Monitor, I’d like to know when you legally acquired this status.
ARGON: I am the chief representative for Premier Lang. Do you dispute that?
Alien Honor (A Fenris Novel) Page 17