Honor Thy Enemy

by Doug Farren

  So far the Captain had heard nothing to indicate why the passengers were being taken to Tepchok instead of a civilian planet. In fact, the more he thought about it the more he wondered how anyone had survived at all. Without an emergency beacon and without any power the survivors would have either frozen to death or been asphyxiated within a relatively short period of time.

  The Captain mentioned his concerns then added, “But they obviously survived. They were incredibly lucky that the rescue ship found them so quickly.”

  The look on the Commander’s face told the Captain there was another explanation. Reaching down in front of the Captain, the Commander slid the memory chip toward the him. While doing so Aruthra said, “This is a copy of a video taken by one of the passengers. Very few people know of its existence. My brother thought you should see it.”

  The Captain picked up the memory chip and examined it. It was a standard chip used in many civilian and military recording devices. He placed it in front of his computer keyboard and spoke a command to the ship’s computer. The computer accessed the memory chip’s contents and displayed a list of available files.

  “Computer, display the last video file,” the Commander said.

  The video swirled for a second then the face of an elderly male appeared. “It has now been fifteen hours since the accident. The temperature is continuing to drop and it is getting very cold in here. I have given everyone the opportunity to record their final farewells as we do not expect to survive much longer. Whoever finds this please… wait a minute, there are some very bright lights outside the ship.”

  The scene swung wildly as the videographer retrieved the camera and pointed it out the window. At first only stars and the blackness of space could be seen then a bright point of light rapidly crossed the camera’s field of view. The source of the light could not be determined.

  The passenger kept recording and maintained a running commentary as he watched the probes investigate the ship. At one point in the video one of the searchlights ran across another probe. The Captain paused the video and ran it back until he could clearly see the probe. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before.

  “I don’t recognize this style probe,” he said.

  “Keep watching,” was Aruthra‘s only response.

  After several more minutes of watching the probes move about the commentator’s voice became excited. “There is some type of large ship approaching. It’s too dark to see any details but whatever it is it’s large.”

  A large object came sliding into view. A moment later the probes began heading toward it and in doing so their spotlights illuminated the ship. Captain Zatch slowed the playback and watched until something he had been looking for appeared. He stopped the video and enlarged a section of the screen.

  The Captain’s claws involuntarily extended themselves and anger started to cloud his vision. Standing up he pointed an accusing finger at the screen and through clenched teeth said, “That is an Alliance warship! What kind of joke is this?”

  The Commander had expected this reaction and had remained calm. “I have confirmed with my brother that a single Alliance ship had crossed over into our space when the Kyrra momentarily dropped the barrier. Apparently, it came across the disabled passenger liner.”

  “They must have been responsible for its destruction,” the Captain hissed. “I will personally hunt them down and destroy them for what they have done.” Turning on the Commander, the Captain grabbed him by the shoulders and demanded, “What did they do to the passengers? What have they done to my wife and children?”

  The Commander calmly forced the Captain to sit back down. “Watch the rest of the video and you will see for yourself. As I said before, your family is fine.”

  The Captain took a deep breath and steeled himself for the worst. Restarting the video, he watched with growing confusion as the robot repair drones from the Komodo Dragon sealed the small air leaks and attached the life-saving devices to the hull of the disabled passenger ship. He watched in utter amazement as the Alliance ship vanished back into deep space.

  “I do not know who they were,” the voice of the person making the video continued his dialog, “but they have saved us. The device attached to the outside is blowing warm air in to us. I can only guess that they have done so in order to give them time to return with a rescue ship. Whoever it was, our thanks go out to you.”

  The video ended and left Captain Zatch with nothing to say. The Commander filled in some of the remaining details. “They attached air purifiers and heaters to all three sections of the ship containing survivors. Just before leaving, they sent a signal to the nearest planet describing what they had found. They also left behind a signal beacon which allowed us to quickly find and rescue all the survivors.”

  The Captain’s mind was numb. “Why did this have to happen to me?” he thought. “What am I going to do about this?”

  As if reading his thoughts the Commander leaned back in his chair and said, “They are not Chroniech. Honor has no meaning for them. What are you going to do?”

  The Captain shook his head. “I don’t know. Please leave me. I need to think.”

  Commander Aruthra stood up and reached for the memory chip. The Captain’s hand beat him to it. “Leave it.”

  The Commander shrugged his shoulders and left the Captain to ponder the problem he now had hanging over him. He did not envy him.

  Over the eons, Chroniech society had been remarkably stable. Despite the violence of their home planet, the Chroniech people had remained coherent with clashes between clans virtually unknown. In the beginning, this had been necessary to preserve their race. Cooperating with each other was the only way they could survive.

  For thousands of years the Chroniech society had been knit together by a complex honor system. Violating this honor system, for any reason, was unthinkable. It had become so ingrained into Chroniech morals and beliefs that laws and contracts were written to include them. In the extremely rare cases where someone had knowingly flaunted this honor system and had been discovered, that person became an outcast from society and in many instances was sentenced to prison. Nobody would sell them food, offer them assistance, or acknowledge their existence. Such individuals usually ended their own lives.

  The saving of a life was regarded as one of the most honorable acts a Chroniech could perform. The honor system demanded that the act be recognized. The type of recognition varied depending upon the exact circumstances involved. It served as an acknowledgment that all Chroniech were vital to society and the preservation of even a single life was to be rewarded.

  In this instance, however, the unthinkable had happened. An alien race had saved the lives of the Captain’s entire family. To even entertain thoughts that one species would save the life of another was flirting with insanity. There must be another explanation and the Captain was determined to find out what it was. He started by replaying the video.

  Invasion

  Instead of returning to his stateroom, Stricklen decided to take a walk about the ship. The quiet hum of operating machinery allowed him to gather his thoughts and calm his mind. He was still very upset but although he wasn't exactly sure why. He still missed Tasha and there would always be a hole in his heart which had once been filled with her love. But, with Elizabeth’s help, he had slowly been putting his grief aside and he was now able to look back at the life they had enjoyed together without fear of falling back into depression. It had to be something else.

  The trigger had been Norgoola’s innocent question. Somehow, it had opened up a floodgate of emotions catching him by surprise. It may have been the presence of the Chroniech in the room, or the stress of the entire evening. He was not a psychologist but even if he had been, the intricacies of the mind were such that even the professionals were baffled at times. As he walked, he regained control and resolved to apologize to Norgoola for his outburst.

  He briefly considered dropping in on the councilor but then remembered that she was one of
the individuals who had been assigned to work with the Kyrra. She would be in the conference room right now trying to figure out how to open up a dialog with the Chroniech. Curious about her reactions to the presence of a Chroniech on the Kyrra worldship he decided to visit her at a later time.

  As he aimlessly wandered the passageways of the Dragon Stricklen’s mind pondered everything that had been discussed during the meeting. There had been a tremendous amount of new information that needed to be processed: A group of Chroniech had taken it upon themselves to contact the Kyrra; An instantaneous communications system that worked through the barrier had been developed; The Kyrra had decided to keep their worldship out of harms way; And, an impending invasion by a superior force.

  The invasion worried him the most. The Chroniech had been building and arming ships non-stop for fifteen years. After the Kyrra had erected the barrier, the Alliance had reverted back to a peace-time economy. Even though they were being given some pretty advanced weapons it would take time to get them built and deployed. It didn’t look like they would be given that time.

  The key to winning the war, therefore, would be to buy the Alliance some time. That was assuming, of course, that the peace treaty with the Chroniech didn’t happen. Stricklen wondered what peace with the Chroniech would be like, then immediately dismissed that idea as being impossible. So, what could be done to buy them some time? Lost in thought, Ken continued to wander.

  * * * * *

  Eight hundred light years away, a colossal field generator reached beyond our familiar three dimensional space into the realm of transdimensional space. Invisible streams of energy powered by eighteen massive matter/antimatter reactors flowed along previously created transdimensional conduits. An area of space, along with the hyperdimensional field generated by the Kyrra worldship, slowly started to unzip.

  Trying to describe in three dimensional terms what was happening in the realm of higher dimensions was virtually impossible. The mathematics were incredibly complex and understood by only a very few. To an observer in the area of space under attack nothing out of the ordinary could be seen by the naked eye. Instruments, however, were detecting massive energy surges as space was slowly peeled open.

  The field generator was not a single machine but, instead, consisted of eighteen massive components that functioned as a single device arranged in a circle just barely large enough for a breach ship to pass through. For three hours an invisible battle raged across multi-dimensional space. In the end, the superior power of the Chroniech field generator won and a hole was punched through the Kyrra field. The second the hole appeared, a fully charged breach ship passed into one end of a hyperdimensional tube.

  Distance has no meaning when dealing with hyperdimensional space. In the blink of an eye, the breach ship was transported from Chroniech to Alliance space. The mass of the passage of the ship caused the hyperdimensional tube to collapse. The energy contained within the artificially generated field spilled back into the generator causing it to overload.

  Two of the modules exploded with the force of a 500 megaton bomb destroying two other modules and damaging the rest. This, however, was an expected event and the Chroniech had kept all other ships far away from the generators. Their destruction was a minor consequence because they had served their purpose in getting the second breach ship into Alliance space.

  * * * * *

  Sensors on the Kyrra worldship’s equally colossal field generator detected the strain placed upon it by the Chroniech equipment and triggered an alert on an operator’s panel. The operator silenced the alarm and passed the information on to another. Since it had already been decided what actions were to be taken in response to this event the second person entered a command into her computer console.

  Forty-eight seconds after the Chroniech breach ship had passed through the barrier the barrier went down. A warning of the event along with some additional information was immediately transmitted to all Kyrra ships currently away from the worldship. This included the Kyrra on Mintaka.

  * * * * *

  Supreme Fleet Commander Aruthra was in a meeting when he received word that the Kyrra barrier had gone down. Without hesitation he ordered all ships to proceed into Alliance space at maximum speed. He then sent out a second order putting all Chroniech planets on maximum alert in the event the Kyrra decided to retaliate.

  * * * * *

  Stricklen had just stepped into engineering when his wristcom buzzed for attention. “Stricklen,” he replied holding the device up to his mouth.

  “Captain,” a voice said in his earpiece, “we have just been informed by the Kyrra that the Chroniech have successfully penetrated the barrier. In response to this event the barrier has been dropped. The invasion has begun.”

  Time had run out. Ken turned to retrace his steps and suddenly, like a hammer blow out of nowhere, a solution popped into his head. Fumbling with his wristcom Stricklen found the call button and pressed it putting him in contact with the bridge.

  “Petty officer McKnight here sir, how can I… ”

  Stricklen had no time for pleasantries. Interrupting, he practically shouted, “I need to get in touch with Cha’nacha. Pipe me into the speaker of whatever room he’s in if you have to but I’ve got to talk to him right now.”

  “Yes sir!” There was a moment of silence then, “Cha’nacha is online sir.”

  “Cha’nacha, Ken – listen, is it possible for you to expand the size of the barrier?”

  “The field generator was designed to produce a field with a specific diameter. The diameter can be expanded but not by much. Making it bigger would re… ”

  “How long would it take?”

  Not used to being interrupted by an impatient Human Cha’nacha replied, “Um… as I was saying… it would require the individual field generators to be adjusted to create a larger field. The process is time consuming and could take several days.”

  “How much larger can the field be made?”

  “Forty-five, perhaps fifty light years. I don’t see the relevance though.”

  Ken ran the numbers in his head then said, “If you expand the field it might enclose the breach ships. This would force the Chroniech to move them back to the planet where the breach generator is located. They would then have to send them back through the barrier. All this will take time and time is what the Alliance needs right now.”

  There was silence on the other end of the connection for a moment then, “There are a large number of ships moving toward Alliance space at the moment. But, your idea is sound and it should work. I will contact the worldship immediately and have them do as you ask.”

  Stricklen called Scarboro and told him what the Kyrra were going to do. “I think we should ask the Kyrra to forward a message to the Alliance so they can be warned,” he concluded after bringing the Commodore up to date.

  “I agree,” Doug replied. “Good idea.”

  Stricklen headed for CIC. He needed to know how many Alliance planets would be included in the newly expanded field. These would be prime targets for the Chroniech to vent their anger against once the barrier went back up.

  * * * * *

  Fleet Commander Chomach had just turned out the lights in preparation for a good night’s sleep when the com panel buzzed. Returning the lights to normal he keyed the acknowledge button and said, “Chomach.”

  “An emergency communication from Alliance Fleet Command has just been received.”

  “Acknowledged,” Chomach replied. As he walked over to the computer terminal he said, “Computer, show me the emergency communications from Fleet Command.”

  The screen came to life and the face of Fleet Admiral Gortanith Brin, a portly Shandarian who was the current sector Fleet Commander on Almaranus, appeared. “We have just received word from the Kyrra that the barrier is down. A large number of Chroniech ships have been detected heading into Alliance space. As of this moment a state of emergency has been declared and all ships are being mobilized. Individual ships will be
receiving their orders within the hour. Alliance Fleet Command out.”

  Chomach swore under his breath then connected to the bridge. “Bridge, Chomach – orders will shortly be arriving from Fleet Command. Carry them out immediately and then inform me. Place the ship at alert status. I will be in the fleet operations center.”

  It took Chomach twenty minutes to get dressed and make the long trip to the fleet operations center via the juggernaut's internal transport system. Once there he donned the command helmet and immersed himself in the world of hyper-reality. As he was configuring the holographic display a message window appeared on his right. It was from the bridge.

  “Orders have been received for us to proceed at best possible speed to Batenek. We will take over command of the fleet being assembled there. We may then proceed as you see fit.”

  Chomach nodded and dismissed the window. His hands flew over the virtual keyboard causing the virtual world he was in to alter itself. Batenek appeared at the upper left corner along the information associated with it. The planet was located thirteen light years from their current position. The Rin-Bak’s top speed was 3,880c meaning their ETA was roughly 29 hours. The other ships assigned to his fleet would be there before him.

  Chomach’s hands continued to work the keyboard. He made an assumption that the closest Chroniech fleets would be stationed one light year from the barrier and they had a top speed of 4,880c. A slowly expanding red sphere appeared showing the possible location of any Chroniech invaders.

  A red flashing alert icon indicated that one of the probes he had dropped had spotted something. Reaching out with his hand Chomach touched it and the data presented itself. Fifty three large Chroniech ships had been detected heading into Alliance space. The time lag from the probe was 9.6 minutes

  Another icon flashed indicating a message from Fleet Command had just arrived. Chomach activated it and watched as Doug Scarboro’s face resolved itself.