“Exactly,” Urania said. “She’s done. Brace yourselves. Here we go.” Urania went from a stand-still to full thrust in under three seconds. The inertial compensator screamed like a living creature in mortal agony. The instant before Urania’s bow touched the planet’s surface, with none of the thoroughly confused pirates even trying to get a target-lock on her, the twin primaries kicked in, firing a fifty-six-millisecond burst, boring a twenty-four-foot-wide passage several miles long, deep into the solid rock. She restored all shields to full power immediately, pulling them in tight.
There wasn’t any rubble to contend with. The primaries never left any debris, gas, or radiation. They fully annihilated everything they hit. Lexi was the only one of the team who understood how that was even possible. She tried to explain it to the others, but even Urania couldn’t follow the math. The instant they passed through the tunnel entrance, Lexi’s program detonated the missile. The warheads were designed to direct the released energy forward. The force of the blast was therefore largely directed outward into space but on wide dispersion, it blasted into the sides of the tunnel also. It shook the ship as violently as a horrible hyperspace passage. Urania immediately flipped on the hyper-generator, dumping her velocity and coming to a full stop.
Lexi turned in her seat and grinned at the shell-shocked crew on the bridge. “Anyone want a beer? I could use one.” Ron thought she looked more pleased with herself than usual. Or maybe that was stunned relief, he couldn’t tell. From his perspective, both were appropriate.
As she got up to fetch four beers, they all heard Urania mutter, “I wish I could have a beer but I’m the designated driver. Why am I always the designated driver, guys?”
Taking a deep sip, Geena very calmly said, as though they did this every day, “So, it seems your anti-geriatrics are proof against heart failure. Good to know, don’t you think, Lexi darling? I’ll tell you something. You might find this interesting. Around thirty years ago, when I took piloting classes, one of the things they emphasized over and over was hitting a planet with the drives on is always a bad idea. They illustrated it with cute little cartoon characters. It was all very colorful, especially the resulting explosion. I guess you never took that class, did you, Lexi?” She sighed, had another sip of her beer, and asked, “Why did you put us inside a planet?”
Lexi smiled. “We’re doing what we were hired to do, just like you explained to me that time on Naragene Nine. We’re investigating. It will look to the pirates like we hit the surface and self-destructed. The missile sealed our tunnel and left a big crater. They won’t know we’re down here. I’d love to know what they come up with to explain why we crashed into their planet.”
Geena frowned, her eyes on the rocky holographic display on the forward screens. “This is absolutely in no way like what we did on Naragene, darling.” Glancing down at the display panel in front of her, she added, “We lost over half the shield nodes.”
Ron had been strangely quiet. Now he said, “No one shields the bottom of a surface-mounted base, Mom. There’s no reason to bother. You just make sure it’s air-tight. How sure were you that we’d survive this, kiddo?”
“I had no doubts,” Lexi said, still smiling.
“Urania?” Ron asked, not entirely trusting Lexi’s response.
“The probabilities were good, Ron. Certainly better than standing and facing that many ships. I’m more powerful than any two of them, but they were bringing the equivalent of an entire battle fleet online. We wouldn’t have survived that. We had to get out of there fast. Remember, I can shut her out of the controls if I have to. Of course, she can override my shutout. Then you guys would have to get physical. Best to just let her do what she thinks best.”
Looking simultaneously puzzled and thoughtful, Kalia asked, “Urania is your ship, right? This whole time it sounds like you’re talking with another person. I don’t understand.”
A chuckle came over the cabin speakers.
“Allow me to introduce you to the fourth member of our team,” Lexi said. “Yes, Urania is the name of our ship. True enough. Urania is also the name of the command computer of this starship. She is a sentient being. We’ve been keeping her existence a secret. When we get you home, we’d appreciate you not putting that in any of your reports.”
“So your ship’s AI,” Kalia said, “which can’t possibly be sentient, decided to allow you to calculate and enter a program, in under two minutes, using impossibly powerful primary beams, to carve a tunnel through solid rock. Do I have that correct?”
Ron sighed heavily. “Yes, Kalia. That about covers it. Lexi, I’m pretty sure you’re going to turn my hair gray. Again. So what are we doing now, other than drinking beer in a cave a half-mile below a monster of a pirate base, that is?”
“I’m rifling through their datanets and mining their data cores,” Urania said.
“I’m thinking we need to be able to fire our beams through our shields,” Lexi said. “I really wish I knew how to do that. That’s going to have to be near the top of the to-do list after this.”
Ignoring Lexi’s response, Geena asked, “I know you’ve only been at it a few minutes, but getting anything interesting, Urania?”
“Interesting? Yes, I’d say so,” Urania replied. “Want to take a guess at who has the most powerful fleet in Accord space? I’ll give you a hint. It’s not the Vankovians. We’re sitting under what can only be a tiny fraction of it.”
Chapter 13
The News Isn’t Good
The next morning, as he handed Lexi a mug of strong, black coffee, Ron asked, “Did you get any sleep at all last night, kiddo?” He didn’t need to put a lid on the mug. It was always nice being in a gravity field after a stint in hyperspace.
Carefully accepting the mug, Lexi wrapped both her hands around it while smelling the aroma. She was convinced Ron possessed a magical talent for consistently making the best coffee in the galaxy. So much of the world was obvious to her; she found she actually liked having that little bit of mystery. It would be nice if firing the primaries through the ship’s shields was obvious. The five attacking raiders wouldn’t have stood a chance yesterday if her team had the ability to do that.
The standard science fiction approach of tuning the frequency of the beams to that of the shields would only work if both the shield and the beam had frequencies to be tuned. Which they did not. Too bad. That was kind of a classic. They even used it on Star Trek. Then again, there was the ion drive to consider. It was composed of high-energy particles, which cheerfully pierced through both layers of shielding. Maybe she could do something with that technology to make an ion-beam weapon. She didn’t see how she could make it as powerful as even standard primaries, far less her Zappers. It wouldn’t have done any good boring into the planet as they only had seconds to bore their tunnel.
Sure, the strength of the shield could be adjusted, allowing her weapons to pass through with only minor scattering. There was a problem with that as well. The e-shields weren’t one-way. If she could shoot through them, she would be allowing the enemy’s energy-beams to penetrate, also with only minor scattering. That’s just not a viable solution. Urania could have easily taken out all five of the Raiders yesterday if she could have fired the primaries. On the other hand, the data we’re garnering while being stuck under the base is, well, useful. Disturbing in oh so many ways, but definitely useful. I doubt if I would have thought of tunneling under the base if we hadn’t needed to get away from those ships.
“No, I stayed up, going over the data as Urania brought it in. We’re going to need to increase the capacity of her data cores at some point soon. We co-opted some of the excess capacity on the base for the time being.”
Ron laughed at that. “That’s clever. I can start the fabricators building our own,” Ron said. “What’s the story on the base?”
“Do you mind if we wait until Geena gets up? I lost track of the time. I want to go take a quick shower. We may as well have the Ostrieachians up as well. It con
cerns them too.”
“Are you OK, Lexi?” Ron asked, concern in his voice. “You sound tired.” He knew full well that she could shrug off a night without sleep and never miss it. The woman barely slept as it was. That concerned him some in the early days of their relationship. Now he just realized it was normal for her.
She just nodded and headed for the shower. The shower could be set for anything from steam, to a gentle cool mist to needles that felt like they were removing skin. The newly installed grav-pad below the floor was set, as were the other mini-pads on the ship, to the strength of gravity on Cardin’s Paradise, Ron’s and Geena’s homeworld. It was only slightly stronger than Earth’s field and Lexi adapted to it easily. She supposed she should dial it back for the Ostrieachians. They might be here a while. She closed her eyes and let the hot water sluice over her like a heavy tropical rain while she leaned against the wall.
We’re under their freakin’ base. They don’t know we’re down here. They don’t know they’re vulnerable. It would be so easy to kill them all. We could bore an exit hole up to the surface and open up with the primaries a few feet above ground, while we’re inside their shields and below their point-defense horizon. We could even easily slice them into pieces from down here. Instead of using the primaries, we could blast out through the shields, flushing all of our missiles as we go. We can’t do any of that. I feel so helpless.
When she emerged from her cabin, she was dressed in short, worn denim shorts and a plaid button-down shirt with the tails tied at her midriff. She knew Ron found the outfit sexy, but that hadn’t been on her mind this morning. It was just simple to get into. She found Ron, Geena, and Kalia sitting in the console chairs on the bridge. Kalia had the courtesy to sit in the same one she already punctured the armrests on. The other Ostrieachians were all up. Three were seated at the small kitchenette table eating breakfast bars and drinking some variety of tea. Denem was leaning against the tactical panel. As she joined the group, she noticed Geena watching her closely. “How bad is it?” the older woman asked.
“Urania, would you fill them in, please?” Lexi asked. “All of them. Tell them everything.”
Before Urania began, Geena said, “Most of our guests don’t know. Urania is a machine-intelligence and our fourth crew member. Go ahead, Urania, darling.”
“We’re currently parked,” Urania began. She was curious about Lexi making an executive decision to expose her sentience to all of the Ostrieachians but didn’t object. They hadn’t exactly discussed it. Continuing, she said, “A half-mile below a pirate base that was established on this planet, which they call Rathca, roughly sixty-seven years ago. The pirates refer to their parent organization as the Unity. They have been raiding commerce in this area since well before that time, extending their reach as far as Xeas, Cardin’s Paradise and Helga. Ostrieachia, of course, has recently been experiencing the brunt of that attention. It has escalated to the extent that none of the merchants based on other Accord worlds are willing to risk sending ships here. Activity has been stepped up to the point where Ostrieachia can’t shrug it off anymore.”
She paused. “Above us is what is basically a full fleet base with a permanent complement of twenty-six warships and fifty-two hyper-capable one-man fighters. I have specs on the fighters now. Each is armed with a single primary beam having an energy equivalent of those on the larger Raider-class ships. At the moment, there are nine other armed Raiders and four armed transports on the flight deck. I wasn’t too nosy at Ackalon, but I believe the fire power above us exceeds what Jis has available. With the advanced shields the Unity is using they could easily take out anything less than a combined fleet from at least two Accord worlds. Even then, the outcome is debatable. The use of fighters is somewhat of a wild card. Accord fleets have never fought against anything that small and maneuverable.”
Denem stated, “If those numbers are right, their tonnage exceeds ours more than ten times over.” He hesitated, reluctant to say what he knew had to be admitted. “We know that overall their military technology is more advanced than ours. Everybody’s tech is more advanced than ours.”
Kalia said, her voice very soft, “Ostrieachia is doomed, isn’t it?”
Ron shook his head. “We’ll see. When we met you guys in Jis Boc Seckan’s office Denem asked what just three people can do. You might get to find out. We don’t believe in losing. We’re inside of their defenses. We are most certainly not defenseless.”
“There are over four thousand people upstairs,” Urania continued. “Approximately six hundred of them are slaves, mostly working at expanding the base further, mining and food preparation.”
As Urania paused, Lexi interjected, “It gets worse.”
“Yes, it gets worse,” Urania agreed. “We know why they’re here. Fifteen years ago, Unity made a decision to try an experiment to see if they could take over an Accord member world. Since that time, taking Ostrieachia has been the goal of this base. Within a few years, they will have complete control. It’s not just a question of whether or not they can squash you militarily. That’s a given. They have infiltrated most of your political organizations. They’re funding terrorist groups. They seem to find it inconceivable that the Accord won’t retaliate when they make their move.”
Urania paused. “If Jis hadn’t asked us to check it out, no one would have been the wiser. Ostrieachia would have gone under and no one in the rest of the Accord would have noticed.” She paused. “Lexi and I discussed our findings last night. We believe what we’re looking at is a prelude to interstellar war, with Ostrieachia becoming their forward base.”
In the silence that followed, Lexi got up and refilled the coffee mugs.
Ron said, “You called this a fleet base? You’re implying as large as it is, this isn’t their main base. We already suspected the pirates are more organized than generally believed.”
“No, Rathca isn’t their main base,” Lexi said. “We now know they already have control of an entire solar system. As of yet, we don’t have a location. It doesn’t seem to be recorded in any of the cores in the base’s datanet. These guys are as large as any of the Accord worlds, possibly larger. Unity has been quietly building and growing for centuries. I don’t know how to stop them.”
Chapter 14
Defining the Problem
“Lexi,” Geena asked, concern in her voice, “Why do you think it falls on you, or rather on us, to stop them?”
Lexi was standing near the coffee machine, the mug she held in her hands barely touched. “Somebody needs to, don’t you think, Geena?” She paused and actually sipped at her coffee. She and Geena had developed a really good relationship during the Borgol job. She hoped that wasn’t about to change.
“The Accord can’t do it,” Lexi continued. “There’s no way they’ll be able to get their act together to the extent that would be required, even with Jis pushing it. She told us the response she got when she tried to warn them. Handling this situation requires more than the simple police actions the Accord has pursued against pirates in the past. These guys have a solar system, Geena, an entire solar system.”
She walked into the main room and took a seat. “Assuming we can find where they come from, and that’s a big assumption, the Accord would need to combine the fleets of all the member worlds to even stand a chance against them. I’m not even sure that would be enough to handle this one base alone. We would see something the Accord has never in eight-thousand-years seen, a full-blown interstellar war.”
She put down her mug, and continued, “Indications are these guys are going to move on Ostrieachia within the next year at the outside. It’s going to be quick and it’s going to be bloody. Then they’re going to sit back, watch, and wait to see if the Accord even notices. Frankly, they might not but suppose they do? Better still, what if we go back and report our findings to Jis before it happens? We have friends on Borgol, Cardin, Naragene and a few of the other worlds thanks to the hostages we rescued from Hepca. Most of them will believe us. Va
nkovia sounds like it’s prepared to be reasonable. What do you think the Accord will do?”
“They’ll do nothing,” Ron stated flatly. “An autonomous world is responsible for itself. That’s a basic tenet of the Accord. It would be the Ostrieachians’ problem to deal with. I don’t even know if the Accord could revoke Ostrieachia’s member status. A pirate takeover would probably just be viewed as a legitimate change of government, officially at least. Even if they decided to do something, it would take years for the Accord to put together a combined fleet and a command structure acceptable to all of them, just to liberate Ostrieachia.” He shrugged. “I imagine most of the Accord worlds would begin taking Jis more seriously and beefing up their home fleets.”
“I hate to admit it,” Denem said, “but while our naval personnel are fearless, as I’ve already said, our hardware is inferior to standard Accord-tech. We can’t fight these guys without help from other Accord planets.” He shook his head. “I still don’t understand how we wound up inside a planet instead of, well, dead.”
Aeolus Investigations Set 2: Too Cool To Lose: The Continuing Evolution of Lexi Stevens Page 7