The computer screen turned green and flashed another message; Practice Session One - Complete.
Mark tried to disengage the seat belt so he could climb out of the cradle, but it was tilted so far back he couldn’t get out. “How do I get out of this thing?” he asked as Gary leaned into the turret, touched an icon in the lower right corner of the screen, causing the cradle to resume its starting position.
“That was wild,” said Mark as he climbed out of the cradle. “Were you able to tweak your settings?” he asked.
Hank checked his computer screen. “Looks like I got everything I needed. You said you’ve never operated one of these gun turrets before?”
“I’ve never seen one before. Why?”
“Usually, when a first-timer climbs in, the hull sounds like it’s being bombarded by a hail storm. More often than not, that program launches eleven projectiles and they usually end up showering the hull with shrapnel. Nine out of eleven is a good score. You might make a good gunner, Mark.”
“Beginner’s luck I think.”
“I guess we should finish our tour and head back to our rooms,” said Gary. “Thanks Hank, and try to stay out of trouble.”
“I will if you will,” he said as Gary and Mark turned down the hallway.
“You two remind me of Blackie and me.”
“There’s nothing better than a crazy brother. Trouble is, we can’t agree on which one of us is the crazy one,” laughed Gary. “Hank is the best technician in the fleet. It’s his specialty. There’s no one else I would want on a ship during a firefight. He can fix anything.”
“What’s your specialty, Gary?”
“My specialty is that piece of equipment you climbed out of. I’m head of the ship’s gunnery group, and I’m told we have the best team in the galaxy. Honestly, anyone that makes the mistake of attacking this ship is committing suicide. The design team put turrets in all the right places, and we have gunners that are marksman, not just shooters.”
“Anyone can pull a trigger, but it takes lots of practice to be proficient. The odd thing is, none of us are itching to blow someone up, but it’s our job to protect this ship and everyone on it, and we do it better than anyone. I strongly suspect if a hostile were aware of our kill ratio, they would think long and hard about attacking this ship.”
“Where are we headed now?” asked Mark.
“The command deck. Let’s see if we can get permission to take a peek before we retire to our quarters. That’s it, there.”
Gary approached a double wide metal door and entered a series of keystrokes on the keypad. Then, he leaned forward and spoke, “Captain Remlap requesting permission to escort a visitor to the com deck.”
“Formalities, formalities,” he said, turning to Mark. “When the doors are closed, it means they’re testing the facial recognition software. We secure all vital sections of the ship in the event we’re boarded by hostiles. If that were to happen, no one enters or leaves until their identity is validated. The keypad checked my fingerprints and collected a DNA sample. This shouldn’t take long. Last time I checked, I was still who I think I am.”
Mark laughed and said, “It’s always more convenient to be who you think you are, but it might not always be expedient.”
Gary pondered what Mark had said, but before he could offer a retort, the metal doors to the command deck slid open.
“Wondered where you had gotten off to,” Bert said to them as he turned his attention back to a computer screen. An officer standing in front of him was conducting long range visual scans of the space quadrant ahead.
“I hear you’re rather good with a turret cannon, Mark. That might come in handy.”
Turning back to the officer seated in front of him Bert looked over his shoulder and scrutinized the computer screen. The lines across his forehead turned into deep furrows while he squinted at the image.
“Transfer that signal to the big screen.”
Bert turned back to Gary and Mark. “Before we left Centoria, we sent a request for information, through our deep space communication system on the status of planets in the Sote-kiliet. Once we were underway we also pinged certain sectors with the new long-range laser-focused sensors aboard the ship. The images from our long range visual monitoring verify the deep space communication data we received about one hour ago.”
“That’s the situation,” he said, nodding toward the screen. A trail of dust and debris that looked like an inverted tornado could be seen rising from a small planet and into a gigantic dark gash in the sky.
“What’s the dark area?” asked the officer monitoring the long rage visual scans. “It looks like the sky was ripped apart.”
“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” offered another officer.
When the image changed, Bert barked, “Freeze that image.”
The officer at the visual imaging screen complied immediately.
“Can we zoom on that?” asked Bert.
“Yes, but it starts to be grainy after fifty-times resolution,” said the officer.
“Give me an overlay with a 16-part grid. Okay, select grid five and go to 4X.”
“What do you suppose that is?” asked Gary.
“I think that may be our visitor. Give me a 9-part grid on that screen and increase the resolution by 3X. Now, give me the 24-part grid,” he said to the officer. When the grid lines came up he surveyed the image and said, “Okay, select grid 10 and give me another 4X on the resolution.”
The other five officers in the command center were now also watching the main screen as the resolution changed and a strange image of an alien craft became visible. The hull of the ship looked like it was made of ice crystals and it resembled a space station more than a gunship. Three major components of the ship were visible on the screen. A central cylinder had two elliptical discs mounted near its ends that appeared to be rotating in opposite directions.
“What is the scale on that image?” asked Gary.
“George, give us a measurement. How big is that thing?” asked Bert.
The officer sitting at the long range visual scanner made a few keystrokes. “I loaded a scale at the top of the image, Captain. The central cylinder is approximately 15,500 feet long and 9,000 feet in diameter. Those rotating blades are about 9,800 feet across the major axis and 8,000 feet across the minor axis of each ellipse. That’s a huge ship, Captain.”
“That cylinder is darn near two-and-a-half times our size.” Bert turned to another officer behind him who was working feverishly at a control console. “Ellen, are we close enough to scan that thing and get reasonably accurate data?”
“Yes, and very accurate data, Sir.” Anticipating the captain’s question, she had started the setup for a scan before he and George began manipulating the visual scanner image.
“Let’s run the scan.”
Scanning commenced captain.” Several minutes passed as she operated the instruments on her console and began to acquire scan data.
“What do you think El, is it metal?”
“Not any metal we’re familiar with. I can run some additional scans for matrix analysis, but if I do, they’ll know we’re here and they’ll know they’re being scanned.”
“Odds are if we saw them, they’ve seen us. I want a complete scan on that entire ship.” Turning to another crew member he said, “Notify the section leaders for engineering and ordnance when we have the final scan results, and tell them to report to a meeting in the officer’s con. How long on the data, El?”
She checked the scan progress and said, “Probably fifteen to twenty minutes, there’s a lot of space between us and them.”
“Sooner is better. We’re less than an hour away and I want to know everything about that ship I can know, before we get there.”
Bert invited Mark to sit in on the data briefing meeting since he was with Gary, who was going to be present as head of the ship’s gunnery group. When the meeting started, Bert greeted his staff and introduced Mark as a perso
nal friend of Sly’s and the first space traveler from Earth to ever visit Centoria.
“If you have a chance to talk to Mark before we reach the Sote-kiliet or after our mission, ask him about the circumstances of his journey, and the ship he and his friends have been traveling in. I dare say you will find it both amusing and amazing.”
All eyes in the room were staring at Mark. Most of them had never met Sly, let alone be introduced as his friend. With the exception of Bert, they only knew of him because of his position as Chairman of the Centorian Council, or from the famous stories of his exploits. And, they had never met anyone from Earth.
One of the officers in the room commented to the person sitting next to them, “I didn’t think Earth had a space program.”
Bert sensed Mark was a little uneasy with the unsolicited attention and didn’t let the moment continue for long. “We have results from our long-range scans of spacecraft in Sote-kiliet we believe are involved with the disappearing planets. Take a gander at this image from our long range visual monitoring system.”
He pressed a button on his controller and an image of the spacecraft appeared on the conference room monitor. Most of the people in the room were startled. They had never seen a spaceship like it.
“Let’s me be perfectly clear everyone, we’ve never encountered a ship like this,” commented Bert, who turned back toward the projection screen. “As of now, we have no idea what their defensive or offensive capabilities are.” He waited for a moment, then pressed his controller again and the image of an inverted tornado appeared, with a trail of dust and debris rising from the small planet into the sky.
“This is what’s happening in Sote-kiliet. Feed-back from our ships in that sector indicate this is the first stage of processing. After this stage, planets reportedly start to break up. Chunks of soil and debris are siphoned from the planets as they fracture and all of it is pulled into space and through some type of rift.”
“Where is it going?” asked one of the officers.
“We don’t know. Our ships haven’t been close enough to the rift to scan it with deep space sensors. At this point, we have no idea where it’s going. Planets in our universe are disappearing and that’s where they are going. Some of them were inhabited, and we believe those planets suffered a tremendous loss of life. Our job is simple – intervene and stop the slaughter. We are tasked with stopping the processing of planets in Sote-kiliet by any means possible, with primary emphasis on planets that are populated. That’s the background. Now let’s review the data from our matrix analysis. Ellen, you have the floor.”
Officer Chanan walked to the front of the room and picked up the controller Bert had left at the end of the conference table. Turning toward Bert, she said, “Thank you, Captain.” Then, turning toward the room she took a deep breath and began.
“After we received the visual image of the ship you saw earlier, Captain Warrington authorized the use of a long-range scan to collect additional information. Data analysis and verification were completed only a short time ago. Our current information about the ship indicates the hull is made of an exotic silicon carbide/ceramic matrix. That’s why the ship’s hull looks like ice.”
“That hull has a complex crystalline structure unlike anything we have ever seen before. It has high strength, owing to its high flexural rigidity and shear modulus, yet it appears to be lightweight, and it maintains its properties at extremely high temperatures. Incendiary ordnance will have no impact on the hull of that ship.”
“Having said that, our Silencer Missiles would be effective due to their massive payload. Not that we will need them, our scans indicate the ship doesn’t have any kind of defensive or offensive capabilities. There are no ordnance on board, at least any kind we’re familiar with.”
“No weapons of any kind?” asked Gary. “How sure are we of that?”
“The ship’s hull was the only material our scanners didn’t recognize. All of the other materials and combinations of materials detected are common or at least their uses are known to us, and none are associated with ordnance,” interjected Bert. “Please continue Officer Chanan.”
“Regarding personnel, our scans indicate organic life forms aboard the ship are not so different from us. I should point out they are aware we are here. Our sensors indicate they traced our scanner signal, then scanned our ship in-return. Assuming they have capabilities similar to ours, they probably have complete information on our hull structure, our defensive and offensive ordnance, and they know we are carbon-based life forms.”
“Anything else, Ellen?” asked Bert.
“Just a hunch Captain.”
“And what is that?”
“That might not be the only type of ship they brought with them.”
“Your point is noted, and I agree.” Bert hailed the command deck with the ship’s com unit. “This is Captain Warrington, sound general quarters and announce Readiness Condition four. I’ll be there shortly.”
“Any more questions? No? Fine, then proceed to your stations and ready your staff. We should arrive in thirty minutes.”
Everyone filed out of the room quickly and Bert followed his officers to the com deck. As soon as he arrived, one of the staff informed him they had detected a small ship in a subsector near their destination coordinates.
“It’s not an alien craft, Captain,” said the staff member, as Bert approached. “But it has no business being out here. A Bolan Dually is a small corporate cruiser. The engines are offline, Captain. How that ship reached those coordinates is a mystery. That ship isn’t configured to reach sub-deep space.”
“Plot that location and send it to fleet support. Then, tell our boys to get a stealth cruiser to check it out ASAP. I want to know what they’re doing way out here in that toy, and if they’ve encountered the invaders they need to share everything they’ve learned.”
Two minutes later the com received a call from Captain Don Mason. His stealth cruiser was ready to launch and he requested permission to have his pilot proceed.
“You have clearance for immediate departure at launch bay 26, Captain Mason; Godspeed.”
Mark and Gary were on the flight deck when a stealth cruiser fired up its engines and rolled across the hanger from one yellow-shirt to the next until it reached the entrance of the launch bay. Gary motioned for Mark to follow him. After retrieving two headsets with noise cancelling earphones from a nearby supply cabinet, he turned them on, set them to channel seven and handed a pair to Mark.
“Put these on, then we can watch the launch up-close-and-personal,” said Gary. “I love fighter launches. Let’s go before we miss the show,” and he raced across the hanger with Mark sprinting behind him.
When they reached the bay opening, they entered and followed a walkway down its right side opposite the deck crew. Along the left side of their walkway was a broad red stripe that separated the pedestrian walk from the launch chute. “Stay on this side of the red line and we’re safe,” said Gary as he adjusted his headset microphone and then sped up the walkway until they were even with the cockpit. “By the way, noise cancelling headphones may be a bit of an overstatement. You’re going to hear the spin up before they launch.”
Mark gave him a thumbs-up sign and nodded as he turned toward the stealth cruiser. In comparison to the gunship it was tiny, but seeing it up-close in the launch bay made him realize it was incredibly huge. Mark had seen fighters, bombers, and cargo planes at the U.S. Air Force base back home, but none of them were this big. It made him remember the last time he saw a Centorian Stealth Cruiser this close.
Arton had picked them up in his stealth fighter after they raided the Zin Char’s warehouse on Numeria. Mark’s gaze followed the sleek image of the ship until he was looking at the tail section. It reminded him of how Blackie, Wayne, Amelia and Joules had climbed in the Nomad and jumped from the aft cargo bay of Arton’s ship to keep it from being tracked and blasted out of the sky.
He was jogged back to the present when Gary tappe
d his shoulder, and said, “Follow me. We’ll get a better view from up there.”
Mark followed him forward in the launch bay, inside the airlock shield. Captain Mason watched them as they walked, then, a yellow-shirt motioned for the cruiser to move forward. The pilot eased off the brake and rolled forward until the yellow-shirt signaled him to stop. Captain Mason looked out his front window at Gary and Mark and gave them a salute. Without thinking, Mark returned the salute, squatted and touched the deck with the palm of his left hand, then pointed forward toward the launch bay exit.
As he dropped his arm, the pilot got the go-signal from his red-shirt, and the engines in the cruiser responded violently as the pilot rammed his throttle forward. The cruiser rocketed out of the launch bay and Gary and Mark moved to the center of the deck to watch it go. It grew smaller and smaller and when they engaged their translocation drive, it disappeared.
It didn’t take long for Captain Mason’s cruiser to reach their destination. They dropped out of translocation drive within visual range of the small ship.
“Monitor the civil emergency frequencies and determine if they’re transmitting,” requested Captain Mason.
“Captain, our sensors indicate their engines came online.”
“I’ll try to hail them on the universal frequency. Continue your transmissions and if you reach them, tell them we are here to provide assistance.”
“This is the Captain Mason of the Centorian Cruiser, Magnus, we’re here to offer assistance.”
Captain Mason repeated his message again, and within seconds received a reply.
“Captain Mason, this is Captain Millard Wilson, we would appreciate your assistance. Circumstances on Gengish Alludia required our immediate departure, and our flight has put us far beyond this ship’s limited capabilities. We have another smaller ship in our bay, and one of their passengers affected the repair of our engines. With your permission, we will initiate an approach.”
“Captain Wilson, we have space for your vessel in our rear cargo bay. Please provide your guidance system security codes. Once we input those in our system we will notify you, and you may begin your approach. At 200 meters, our system will take control of your vessel and guide it into our rear bay. Please stand by.”
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