The Navigator (The Apollo Stone Trilogy Book 1)

by P. M. Johnson

  “And then a week ago she called you and said she needed you to rescue yours truly out of the back of an SPD patrol car,” said Cap. “I was just about to spring my trap on those SPD guys when you came along, you know.” He held out his hand, then made a fist. “I had ‘em right where I wanted ‘em.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” she said, suppressing a smile. “Attika had received the message to get Logan out of there, and we needed to know where he was.”

  “A likely excuse,” said Cap with a grin.

  “Why’d you do it, Lena?” asked Logan.

  “I just told you,” she answered.

  “No. Why’d you help me?” asked Logan. “It was a big step up from what you’d been doing. You got directly involved in a dangerous operation. One with a low chance for success.”

  Lena shrugged. “I guess I was ready to do more.”

  “Well, I’m glad you did it,” said Logan. “If you hadn’t, I’d be slaving away in one of those coal mines by now.”

  “And they’d have the Apollo Stone,” added Cap.

  “Do you think it’s true?” asked Lena. “All that stuff Ravenwood told us?”

  “Sounds pretty crazy to me,” said Cap. “It’s convincing when he’s saying it, but when I think about it later I just shake my head. Can’t be true.”

  “Yeah,” said Logan. “We know the Apollo Stone is important because my grandfather risked his life getting it out of the lab. But what is it really? And all of that stuff about an alien helping the PRA with advanced technology? Pretty hard to believe.”

  “I don’t know,” said Lena. “Colonel Linsky really wants the Apollo Stone back. And what about that strange seizure Logan had?”

  Logan took a deep breath. “Maybe it was just a wild, sleep-deprived, stress-induced hallucination.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Lena. “I think you saw something different, something remarkable.”

  “It sure was different,” Logan admitted. “I know it’s hard to understand. I think it started as a seizure but it became something else. When I have a seizure, I blank out and I don’t remember a thing afterward. This time my mind was racing. It was more vivid than any dream I’ve ever experienced, and I still remember every little detail like it just happened.”

  They were silent as each person considered the situation. Then Lena spoke up. “I have to admit Ravenwood’s story kind of makes sense to me. I’ve seen enough manufacturing and production data to know how inefficient our government is at doing things. The tank assembly line we opened in Detroit is using one hundred-year old-designs. And look at the technology used to power our shields. Those design concepts are a thousand years ahead of our other energy-production methods. We can’t even keep the lights on for more than a week without experiencing a couple blackouts. Something is giving us a massive development boost in some areas but not others.”

  “You believe the Sahiradin is real?” asked Cap.

  “Maybe,” said Lena.

  “Well,” said Logan. “Ravenwood and Kane went to a lot of trouble to get us out of the PRA, and they believe it’s true. Maybe we should give them the benefit of the doubt.”

  “Can’t hurt, might help,” said Cap. He cast his eyes upon Logan’s plate and said, “You gonna eat your pasta?”

  Logan looked at his plate for a moment, then slid it toward Cap.

  Chapter 47

  KB923 came back on line when the lights along the khâl pillars started glowing blue. The droid checked the gate’s major systems to ensure they were functioning properly. The ten-meter gap that spanned the pillars shimmered slightly. Fifty thousand kilometers away from the khâl, the starlight passing through a small spot in the vacuum of space began to bend. The area of distorted light grew and soon it was a bright sphere of swirling distorted light one kilometer in diameter. The blue lights of the khâl pillars pulsed ever faster until they were a solid blue. Suddenly, four small spacecraft emerged from the sphere, which then burst in a great flash of light, leaving behind no trace of its existence.

  One of the craft shot out a dozen small discs in various directions. A disc flew past KB923 and attempted but failed to retrieve the ancient droid’s data logs going back as far as when the droid’s mothership exploded in the asteroid belt. The disc continued on toward Jupiter and her other moons to take readings and relay the data to the ships. Other discs raced toward the other planets, their moons, and the asteroid belt with the same mission to collect and transmit data.

  A few minutes later, the pillars began to pulse with blue light again. A bright sphere of distorted light formed, but this time it was much closer to the khâl than the first one had been, just two thousand kilometers away. When the pillars turned a solid blue, the prow of a large ship pushed its way through the sphere. KB923 scanned the emerging ship and compared it to records of known ships. It conformed with basic Sahiradin design principles, but KB923 had no record of anything this massive or so heavily armed. When the ship had passed through it, the sphere burst in a brilliant flash just as the prior one had done.

  The newly arrived ship signaled KB923 to come to one of its landing bays, but the repair droid had difficulty complying with the command because of differences in communications protocols. After a few moments, the ship’s systems identified the correct protocols from its historical files and successfully transmitted the recall code to KB923, which immediately started to traverse the distance to the ship.

  As it made its way to the beckoning ship, KB923 reviewed the data the ship had transmitted to it as well as the data the droid had gathered from its own scans. The Devastator Class Battleship, Dominion, was twice as large as the battleships in KB923 records. It was black with heavy borelium-plated armor running the length of its upper and lower sides, and it bristled with a variety of weapons, including ten massive particle-beam blasters, hundreds of ballistic guns, and an array of smaller energy weapons. Dozens of small portals on each side were capable of launching deadly guided missiles, and there were two massive ion cannons, ship killers, mounted on rotating turrets in the middle of the ship, one above and one below.

  KB923 headed toward one of the four landing bays. As it approached, a sortie of V-shaped Codex all-purpose fighter craft flew out of the landing bay and took up positions under the khâl.

  The droid’s propulsion mechanism was not sufficiently strong to catch up with the accelerating Dominion, so a small utility craft launched from the nearest landing bay and retrieved it. Just as the utility craft locked KB923 into a small external droid portal, KB923 recorded the khâl begin to generate another wormhole gate roughly ten thousand kilometers away. The Sahiradin fighters raced toward the growing sphere of light. Five oval single-pilot ships burst through the sphere, followed by a ship about one-fifth the size of Dominion. KB923 recognized the ship as Lycian; most likely a patrol frigate. The Sahiradin fighters blasted two of the small Lycian ships into a thousand pieces, but the others evaded the Sahiradin trap and returned fire. Dominion issued an encrypted order to the fighters. KB923 then observed them turn toward the Lycian frigate.

  KB923 plugged into Dominion’s interface and began downloading its entire data set into the ship’s main systems, but it continued to observe the battle against the Lycian frigate, which KB923 learned was called Challenger.

  The Codex fighters were joined by a dozen more, plus several fighter-bombers, and they immediately engaged Challenger and her fighter support. Challenger returned fire from a hundred automated ballistic and energy batteries. More oval shaped fighters shot out from her only landing bay to defend their mothership. Two Sahiradin torpedo fighter-bombers attempted to lock and fire their missiles, but oval fighters destroyed them before they could launch their ordnance.

  After surviving the threat of the fighter-bombers, Challenger and her support fighters quickly cleared the nearby space of Codex fighters and began to turn in the direction of Dominion. But before they could launch their assault, Dominion fired one of its ion cannons. The bright red ball of energy
struck the Challenger’s starboard side and caused a series of critical systems failures on the Lycian frigate, leaving her dangerously exposed.

  Severely wounded, Challenger altered course to retreat toward Ganymede, firing its ion defense pods as it banked away. A second ion blast was somewhat dissipated as it passed through the defense pod screen, but it succeeded in striking the stern of the fleeing frigate, causing further systems failures. A third blast, though dissipated by the distance it traveled to its target, hit its mark and left Challenger all but dead in space, her shields down and engines offline. She drifted toward Jupiter’s gravity well as a new wave of Codex fighters raced toward her.

  At the last moment, one of her engines came alive again and she continued her retreat, though at one-third her maximum speed. As it fled the engagement, the Lycian frigate dropped mines and launched missiles from its aft weapons array while pushing its one functioning engine to the limit. Fortunately for Challenger, the Sahiradin battleship did not give chase. Instead, Dominion recalled her Codex fighters and continued to accelerate toward the center of the system.

  As Dominion’s engines rapidly increased their thrust, a general utility droid retrieved KB923 from its exterior docking station and brought it into one of Dominion’s four massive landing bays. The utility droid placed it on a hovering engineering platform and brought it into the main diagnostic and repair facility, where engineers uploaded all remaining data from the droid’s systems.

  A tall being with white hair reaching to his shoulders and tiny scales covering his pale skin entered the repair facility. He wore a captain’s silver and red insignia on the left breast of his black uniform. He approached the group of engineers surrounding the hovering workstation, and in the concise language of his species he asked, “Any information about the Kaiytáva?”

  The engineers snapped to attention. “Captain Vilna,” said one of them, “we are reviewing the data now.” He indicated a three-dimensional schematic of the droid at the head of the workstation. “We have not discovered anything about the orb thus far, but much of the data appears to be corrupted. It will take time to finish our analysis. In fact, given the droid’s poor condition and ancient design, we may need to manufacture replacement parts and repair it before we can retrieve everything from its systems.”

  “Do whatever is necessary, but do it quickly,” said the captain. “The Kaiytáva aside, have you learned anything of use?”

  “Sir, our preliminary analysis indicates that, as we had long suspected, Vanquisher was attacked and severely damaged before shifting to this solar system. Upon arrival, the captain determined Vanquisher was beyond repair, so he ordered four repair droids, including this one, KB923, and a manufacturing module to undertake repairing the khâl for others to follow.”

  “Just four droids? That would explain why it took so long for the khâl to open. Still, it is remarkable the repairs were completed at all. Why did the Vanquisher captain assign so few droids to the task?” asked Vilna.

  “It appears Vanquisher’s engineering bay was badly damaged in the attack and only a few could be dispatched. KB923’s logs were periodically updated by Vanquisher for later transmission to any Sahiradin ships arriving through the khâl after it was repaired. These logs indicate Vanquisher made its way at best possible speed to S10122-P3. However, it soon discovered that, contrary to expectations, the colony was not abandoned. In fact, P3 had an estimated population of three billion inhabitants.”

  “Interesting,” said the captain. “What else?”

  “We’ve loaded Vanquisher’s transmissions into Dominion’s systems for further analysis. Much of it is corrupted, but the droid did record Vanquisher’s destruction.”

  “Where did that occur?” asked Captain Vilna.

  “A ring of asteroids between S10122-P4 and P5.”

  Captain Vilna walked around KB923. “With Vanquisher’s destruction, the Kaiytáva could have been blown in any direction, perhaps even into this system’s sun.”

  “Possibly,” said the engineer. “However, KB923 may have recorded something important after explosion.”

  “What is that?”

  “An escape pod beacon,” said the engineer. “We’re still working to confirm that, but it came from the region near P3.”

  Vilna looked up from KB923 and said, “I want you to learn as much as you can about that beacon. Map its trajectory and send me your best estimate of its current location.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  “And keep looking for any information regarding the Kaiytáva,” said the captain as he started walking toward the exit. “It’s your top priority.”

  Captain Vilna entered the corridor outside of the engineering department. Other Sahiradin he encountered in the passage stood at attention as he passed. They all had a similar tall lean build and pale skin of fine scales. Most of them had shoulder-length white hair and pale blue eyes, but a few had black hair and dark eyes. He stepped into an elevator encased in a transparent material, which quickly ascended to the bridge level.

  “Captain on the bridge,” said the duty watch officer from his station near the entrance

  Dominion’s bridge was large but dimly lit. The blue and red light from view screens and three dimensional projections illuminated the faces of the Sahiradin attending to various stations around the room. Vilna walked across the bridge to the chair located toward the back on a two-step high platform. He stood at the bottom of the steps at attention until the Sahiradin sitting in the high-backed chair acknowledged him.

  “Commodore Lansu,” he said. “I’ve spoken with the lead engineering technician and he informed me Vanquisher exploded in the solar system’s asteroid ring. Also, as suspected, it had been damaged prior to shifting to this system.”

  “So it made it as far as the asteroid belt before exploding,” said Lansu. “Anything about the Kaiytáva?”

  “No sir, but we are still scanning for its signature and the repair droid’s data has not been fully assessed,” answered Vilna. “Furthermore, there is a possibility that an escape pod survived the explosion. We are continuing to investigate that.”

  “What else?” asked Lansu.

  “The droid had another piece of interesting information. The estimated population of P3 is far less now than when Vanquisher arrived. Something happened to dramatically reduce it.”

  “What do you think caused that?” asked Lansu. “Disease? War?”

  “Perhaps. It is also possible that Vanquisher, though heavily damaged, was able to initiate an assault using asteroids from the ring beyond P4.”

  “Hmm,” said Lansu, nodding his head. “An extinction event like that may have made the world uninhabitable for us as well, but only for a short time if done properly. Given his options, a dying ship and a heavily populated target world, it could have been the most reasonable course to take.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Commodore Lansu thought for a moment. “And what about the current inhabitants of P3? Are they a threat to us?”

  “Uncertain at this point sir,” replied Captain Vilna. “Vanquisher transmitted data to the repair droid we recovered which may help answer that question. We have uploaded the information but the droid is in very poor condition due to its unusually long deployment. It will take time to repair it and complete our analysis.”

  “Very well,” said Lansu. “And what about the Lycian frigate? What is its status?”

  “Our ion cannon damaged it but we were unable to finish it off,” replied the captain, placing subtle emphasis on the word unable.

  Lansu fixed his pale blue eyes on the captain’s. “Your tone suggests disagreement with my order to proceed with all haste to P3.”

  “No, sir,” said Vilna. “I do not question your orders.”

  Commodore Lansu looked over his first officer’s shoulder at the bridge’s main view screen. Then he said, “We could have destroyed the frigate like we have so many others, but we would have lost valuable time chasing it down. Other Lycian ships w
ill soon follow. Had we followed the frigate we could easily have become embroiled in a full-scale battle. That is not our goal. We must find the Kaiytáva. Everything else is of secondary importance.”

  He looked into Vilna’s eyes and shook his head, disappointed at what he saw. “It is easy to always attack, but if you wish to be a Commodore when your generation becomes eligible and command a major war vessel such as Dominion, you must learn restraint when it is in the interests of complete victory.”

  Vilna nodded his head. “Yes, Commodore Lansu. Thank you for your guidance.”

  “Captain,” said a Sahiradin standing next to one of the bridge stations. “We have discovered something you should see.

  Vilna walked to the waiting officer. “It’s an old hailing code, but it’s unmistakably one of our own.”

  “Am I reading this correctly? Is it coming from P3?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Lock onto it and monitor,” said Vilna. “Send an acknowledgement, but nothing more. Inform me if anything changes.”

  He turned and looked at the Commodore, who had heard the report and nodded his head.

  Chapter 48

  “Let’s go,” said one of the two guards standing outside their room. “All of you.”

  “What now?” asked Logan, annoyed. He’d just spent yet another three-hour session with two military intelligence officers and couldn’t possibly think of anything else he hadn’t already told them, twice.

  Cap had been dozing when the guards entered. He stretched and yawned. “I hope there’s coffee and food wherever we’re going,” he said.

  “You’ve been stuffing your face for the last thirty-six hours,” said Lena. “I’m surprised there’s any room left in your stomach.”

  The guards directed the three of them down a corridor to a locked door. One of them ran a card through an electronic reader and entered a code. The light above the reader flashed green and he opened the door into a short hallway. They walked a few meters down the hall and stopped in front of a clear partition with an opening large enough for one person to pass through.