Jessica said, “If anyone cares, they changed course to just kiss our space boundary.”
I grinned, “Thanks, Jess. Send the ships back to their posts, after the Chinese have rounded the moon.”
Jessica said, “You know that was a bluff. If they were really going to attack us, they’d have just jumped within a light second and opened fire.”
I nodded, “It was the backdrop for Abe. That’s why I was so angry about it once that became self-evident. Enlarge the station’s pulse beacon out to a light second, just in case someone does decide to try that. We need to take stronger precautious and close up our security holes, now that we’re not ahead of the game for the moment. I’m also surer than ever we’re not selling more upgrades, at least not until we’re a few generations ahead, then we can sell what won’t harm us.”
Jessica nodded, “Done, and I agree.”
If they called us paranoid, well tough.
Cassie sighed, “You’re right, it’s self-defense, but that doesn’t mean I like it. I’ve known most of them for centuries, but if they don’t back off and wind up endangering the peace again, I’ll help you do it.”
Diana cleared her throat, “It’s a little crazy, but I think I have a solution, for the reason you called me in here.”
I raised an eyebrow, “Really?” I had no idea how to save that Earth, so much so I’d been considering calling the whole thing off. I’d lose my soul if I traded seven billion people to remove the threat, especially since they didn’t know where we were, yet.
She nodded, and then told us her idea.
I laughed, “Really? I’ve got to see that.”
She smirked, “You will, tomorrow. Right now I’ve got a lot of calculations to do, if we’re going to pull it off.”
Right, there was always that.
“Dinner tonight?”
She nodded, “I’d love to.”
Darrell said, “I will make two more copies, to protect you when you’re out. You’re fairly safe in the center of the station, but a vampire intent on killing you in public will remove that fifteen second response time the large station gives you as they run for the core.
I said, “Thanks, Darrell.”
It tweaked my pride a bit, but he wasn’t wrong, and I wouldn’t be risking Diana’s life for anything.
Chapter Fifteen
Diana looked lovely in a long curve-hugging red dress with a slit up the side of the tight skirt, and a nice pair of sandals. She also had on a pair of matching earrings and a necklace with diamonds and sapphires.
“You look fantastic, love. You sure about tonight?”
She grinned, “Yes. Let’s get out of here.”
I laughed.
Cassie wasn’t available that night to babysit, since she’d donned one of my newly designed combat suits and headed for the surface. Not for war, but she’d been determined to make the council see reason and back off. The suit was mainly so they couldn’t gang up on her and kill her. It was quite destructive, but she was wearing it for the shield systems.
Point being, tonight’s parental date night was the first night our daughter would play babysitter and be home alone for a few hours. Which was normal, thirteen years old was old enough, and my sister promised to check in on her too. I think I was more nervous about it than Diana was, though.
Of course, two Darrells would be there as well.
“Alright, let’s go.”
We headed down and said our goodbyes and gave hugs before we headed out the door. I wasn’t quite used to the escort of our new Darrells, but he was surprisingly circumspect, and I’d forgotten his presence more than once the last few hours. We’d also pick up a couple of visible guards from our service on the way over. Not much had changed that way, my people generally left us alone when we were on a night out on the station.
The transport booth brought us to the city on the top levels quickly, and towards the edge of the station. We were going to a Jazz place that had a Cajun restaurant and dance floor, as well as a live band, that was in one of the resorts. The place had a romantic atmosphere, a little upscale as well as the hostess met us with a smile and escorted us to a semi-private table.
The tables were bedecked with white tablecloths and red candles. The walls were a subdued peach. There was a four-person band on the stage in the back of the restaurant, where there was a dance floor.
“Did I mention you look amazing? You’re more beautiful than the day we met.”
She grinned, “Thanks. You fill out that suit well yourself. I also am younger looking than the day we met,” she pointed out playfully.
“True, but you know what I mean.”
She nodded, “You’ve been different the last few days. More focused and excited about life.”
“Also, more nervous.”
She snickered, “That will pass, once the newness of your new mission wears off. I noticed the same thing last year, during the war against the Vrok.”
I nodded, “So, you’re saying… what exactly? That I enjoy danger and violence?”
She winked, and the conversation paused as we ordered. We both got the gumbo, topped with crawfish etouffee.
She shook her head, “No, I mean we’ve all teased you about the hero complex. That’s what you enjoy, you’re a warrior and protector, if with technological geekiness. Now that you’re doing it again there’s a vigor and excitement in you that I haven’t seen in a while.”
I tilted my head.
She shrugged, “Don’t get me wrong. You’ve been a wonderful husband and amazing father, always have been, I’m talking about your work. You enjoy designing ships and coming up with new inventions for our current technology, but protecting people is what your truly passionate about. The twelve years after securing Earth’s future against the Grays you were enjoying your life but just marking time at work, if that makes sense?”
I said, “That’s a good thing?”
She laughed, “Yes. I think what you’re doing is a good thing, you fight to protect and not for recognition or self-aggrandizement or power. It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with you. It’ll also be a constant reminder to me to keep pushing the edges of technology in my labs.”
“That is pretty amazing, I couldn’t do it without you, nor would I want to.”
She smiled.
“Dance?” I asked.
She nodded, “I’d like that.”
We got up to dance a couple of songs while we waited for the food to come. It also gave me the opportunity to hold her in my arms, and after fourteen years it was still one of my very favorite things in life. I didn’t feel as selfless as she made me out to be, but I did gain enormous satisfaction in helping those other Earths and preserving lives. Of course, I had to take lives to do so, and there was a danger in it, it wasn’t perfect, but what in this life was?
Besides a romantic night out with my Diana that is, not to even mention what would take place later on in the privacy of our room.
We returned to the table a little flush, and enjoyed a sip of wine as they served dinner, before we dug in. It was a wonderful night.
The command center had the usual suspects plus Jayna as I poured myself my second coffee of the day and sat at the command table.
“What’s up, Jayna?”
Sometimes my sister dropped in to say hi and hang out for a bit, but more often than not she only showed up when there was a concern about her job.
Jayna said, “Nothing too serious, but there’s been a lot of chatter in social media and on the news reports, regarding that little stand-off yesterday.”
Cassie said, “I don’t believe that will happen again. At least, my people won’t be involved in it.”
“What happened?”
Cassie sighed, “I found the members of the council who were corrupted by power. That had forgotten the council was a joining of purpose between equals, ancient vampires come together in one single purpose. Instead they saw it as a position of influence they could wield even over other
council members. It was… distasteful, but necessary. I don’t believe there’ll be any more demands.”
Jayna asked, “You killed them?”
Cassie’s eyes widened, “No. I pulled their teeth,” when Jessica’s eyes widened Cassie continued, “Proverbially speaking,” and rolled her eyes.
I laughed, and the cute ancient vampire glared at me.
Cassie muttered something about bloodthirsty mortals.
Jayna nodded, “That’s good news. Everyone’s eyes are on us and China, because we’re leading the pack on technology and the tensions. It’s a perception thing though, I don’t think war is even on the table. The only reason to fight is paranoia in this new age, and they aren’t that.”
“I agree, but we’ve taken some security precautions anyway. No jumping within a light second of the station, for anyone else. Better to be safe than sorry.”
Ironically, it was most likely the ones trailing behind in technology that would start trouble. It was only the council that had caused the mistrust between China and Astraeus to spike further.
I shook my head, “How do you think they’ll take it when I don’t sell the next round of upgrades, at least not until we’re a couple of rounds further along.”
Jayna shrugged, “That’s pretty normal for a country, most won’t care, other countries will try harder to infiltrate and gain the technology through espionage. The kind of games that usually happen under the radar, and away from public perception.”
“Alright, let’s take care of the biggest empire we ever faced in space, and then get to the rest of our day.”
Jessica snickered.
I shrugged in mock innocence, “What, I have two custom ship builds to get to.”
Cassie giggled.
I took a deep breath, I wasn’t nearly so sanguine about it, and took it seriously. Billions of lives were on the line, and we were betting on something that had never been done before to save them. It was almost too much responsibility. How many other Earths would be endangered from this universe’s jumping Keldet empire’s actions?
The stakes were damned high, but worth it, I thought.
“Ready, Darrell?”
As far as plans went, it was pretty much basic. They had nine trillion sixteen million warships, we’d jump in ten times that and destroy them. Then go after the infrastructure in space and ground bases where they had the technology. If that worked, the Keldet would be confined to millions of planets and have to reinvent the jump drive before they could attempt anything.
Of course, Darrell would be watching them to frustrate those efforts.
Darrell made that typical basic plan work because he could take care of all the subtleties, every one of our ships could fight and think independently, as well as our stealth probes could investigate independently. They didn’t just gather data anymore. They were an active spy force.
Darrell replied, “I believe I’ve located all of their assets, including quantum technology knowledge that will be removed from the planets.”
“Let’s do it.”
The first step was protecting Earth, from millions of ships holding it hostage in their universe. My wife’s plan had been shocking and audacious, and I had to see it, so I brought up a hologram of the Earth and the surrounding ships with weapons hot. It was startling when it happened.
My daughter’s moon ship that was made up of a trillion ships was extremely powerful. Sure, it’d been built for the processing power, of detecting mass in all the voids around us and between the galaxies. But it also had a hell of a lot of power, which it used in that moment.
One moment, Earth was surrounded by millions of ships willing to destroy it. The next there was nothing there but empty void, as that Earth was jumped to a dead solar system in our universe with a similar G type star as ours. The calculations my wife had to run was to put it in a stable orbit.
Then fire lit up space, as ten times as many ships jumped in and opened fire against the enemy. Most of the enemy ships fought, the few that tried to open up wormholes were suppressed and destroyed anyway.
It was honestly shocking, a universe hopping empire composed of millions of living Keldet worlds, with quadrillions of citizens and over nine trillion ships scattered throughout hundreds of galaxies spanning eighty-five million light years. And we took it down in less than a minute.
Terrifying really.
The last step was returning the other Earth to their universe. I wondered if they’d noticed, probably their space agencies and astronomers, but all their satellites had gone with them so their citizens shouldn’t have noticed a thing.
The rest of the plan took a couple of minutes, as all the other Keldet ships, space stations, and infrastructure in space was taken down. All while other ships bombarded millions of planets with kinetic strikes to take out government and military bases. Lastly, we recalled all the ships but sixteen million, which took the four borders around their massive space.
It was all over in less than five minutes.
Terrifying, because if I could do it to them, someone else could do it to us. We were much smaller after all, a mere three hundred planets. For all I knew, another universe hopping race already had us under surveillance with a stealth network, and they were now busy building a force large enough to take down the pesky humans.
Of course, it was worth the risk of doing what we were doing, better to meet other universe hoppers in their space, rather than ours. My magic, and the nanites, also gave us an advantage over others, but no technology was absolute.
That’s why I spent the next two hours planning out a way to ensure what we’d just done to the Keldet empire, couldn’t be done to us. The custom ship builds could wait for later.
Chapter Sixteen
The conference room was quiet, and they were all looking at me wondering what the meeting I called was about. Diana, Jayna, Jessica, and Cassie were in the room, as well as Darrell.
“So, I’m a little worried about another race doing to us what we just did to the Keldet. Their empire was so much larger than ours. Over three hundred thousand times larger. I wondered if what we were doing was worth it, but it is, and it’s better to be out there. The more empires with this technology we catch on their turf, is one less that can chance upon our universe.
“Still. It seemed prudent to me to come up with a plan to prevent someone else doing to us what we just did to them. After the battle, we have seventy-two trillion ships left give or take a few million. I plan to double fifty trillion of them, and then jump them to another universe where we have a lasting presence and border fleet. In two days, we’ll double them again, and put them in the other two universes we have active fleets in. We have four now, but in four days I imagine we’ll have one or two more, and I’ll put fifty trillion ships there as well.
“Basically, in every universe we guard borders in. The station will also be set to jump to another universe should we be blitz attacked, while the ships we have in other universes will jump in should the battle be decided by mere odds. If we’re completely outclassed, we’ll have to reassess and grow before taking our universe back.”
Jessica asked, “Why spread the ships out, if you’re afraid we’ll be attacked here?”
I nodded, and explained, “Bait, threat, and a trick all in one. Say there’s another universe hopping race like ours, with a stealth net. We were able to defeat the Keldet because we knew their exact numbers. A race that’s mucking about in other universes will see all our ships and worlds in this universe if they have similar technology.
“So, fifty trillion visible ships here. A lot of races will write off this universe as unassailable and just move on, they won’t be able to match those ship counts. But it’s also bait for those that can, because those enemy ships will suddenly be facing two hundred trillion ships when they jump in on fifty trillion. Or when we have twenty universes where we hold territory against other empires, they’ll be facing one quadrillion ships, instead of fifty trillion.
“The p
oint is, we use the other universes to hide our assets, so an enemy that scouts and attacks us won’t know our true strength.”
Cassie smirked, “That’s paranoid, and total overkill.”
Darrell interjected, “I agree, and heartily approve the measures.”
Jessica giggled.
Cassie nodded, “Deception is important, in war. But what other races could possibly match our numbers?”
I replied, “Another evil me. Or the Atans who have A.I. warriors like Darrell assists us. And that’s just on our local space, there are probably others out there. Any other ideas?”
Diana said, “Cloak half of them.”
I raised an eyebrow.
She explained, “What if a race more advanced than us finds us, and scouts out all our universes and assets, somehow. If you cloak half the ships, and only use them if absolutely necessary, they’ll remain a hidden just in case asset. Of course, such a race may be able to see through cloaks, an ability we still lack, and I haven’t been able to crack, but it wouldn’t hurt.”
I nodded, “Alright, good idea. Anyone else?”
There was silence for a few moments.
Diana said, “I have a report on the new technology, I might as well give it here.”
I took a seat and sipped my coffee, “We’re all yours.”
Diana brought up a hologram of the test system over the table.
“First, we figured out the better shields and subspace beams. The two ships in the hologram have the upgrades. We also figured out a new weapon and defense through Melody’s research results, that make those stronger beams and shields a joke. First the weapon, it’s dependent on our enemy not having a quantum pulse resonator.
“Basically what we did was we create a quantum field at the target ship that opens up a very large connection to lower subspace. It acts as an energy dampener literally draining the enemy ship’s shields. This would also have an adverse effect on normal and subspace energy beams, so it needs to be used in conjunction with anti-matter beams or disintegration beams.”
Infinite Exploration Page 11