“Okay,” Juliet took a deep breath to organize her thoughts. “Wormhole Beta space flows like a river, that’s the middle line. The Spheres branch off from that main river and create access points for them to use. I’m sure if we pinpoint Regal and Ulliam we’ll find they are easily branched off as well. If this is a river then there has to be a source, some place where we can enter Wormhole beta space, the first place it was breached. I’m thinking, if we can close that wormhole then the rest will collapse and, if we can do that we can win this war once and for all.”
Chapter forty-four
The Arwen and her fleet waited near a remote sun for the space station to appear. They had been waiting for three days forcing Captain Cook to consider the worst, the station had been attacked and destroyed. She hoped that wasn’t the reason but in this new era of war it was always a possibility.
She sat at her command chair reading over the report she would give the Grand Admiral. In it she simply resigned. There would be no hard feelings, no bad press, and she could easily go on a speaking tour to drum up more support and recruits. She would miss the Arwen but they would give her over to another Captain, someone who could treat the ship’s personality with respect.
Juliet would be her choice for the job. She was young and had a lot to learn but she had proven herself to the Captain many times. Plus, her relationship with the Arwen could not be understated. They acted well as a team and that could save everyone’s lives.
“Captain,” Juliet said from her station. “I’m detecting Wormhole Alpha activity. I believe it’s the station.”
“It’s about time,” Captain Cook replied. “Alert the other ships, let’s get ourselves together for the scanners.”
The wormhole grew from a small point of light into a spotlight so bright it was hard to look at. The center opened into a darkness while the outer edge continued to grow. As soon as it was large enough several dozen tugs moved through pulling the space station. It was the largest thing the Corps has ever build. Ships of all sizes, including the Gyssyc battleships, would have to pass through its center in order to be scanned. It had no engines and relied on a small fleet of tugs to guild it into position.
Once it was through it powered up. Thousands of lights came on all at once leaving the impression of another star field being born. The tugs continued to move the station into position as the wormhole collapsed behind them.
“Captain, Grand Admiral Park would like to talk to you,” Commander Monrow said.
“Well, that didn’t take long. I’ll take it in my office.”
“He says he wants to see you in person.”
Marjorie suppressed a smile. Even if he was going to yell at her, even she was going to resign it was still going to be nice to see him again. “Fine, get a shuttle ready. Commander, I assume you can take care of the guiding the Arwen in for inspection?”
“I sure can. Good luck, Captain. I hope to see you onboard the Arwen after this is over.”
******
Captain Cook decided to fly the shuttle herself. If this was going to be the last time she was in space as a Captain she wanted it to at least be fun. It’s been years since she flew a shuttle on her own and found it was easy to remember what she needed to do. “Like riding a bike.” As old as the saying was she still found it to be true.
As she flew toward the station she saw her fleet lining up for inspection. It seemed silly to go through so much trouble but if they made even one mistake it would be the end of the Earth. At least that’s what they originally thought, after the battle at Regal she wasn’t so sure anymore.
The destruction of Ulliam shocked everyone to their core. Billions of lives lost in a matter of minutes, an entire culture destroyed, wiped out without mercy by and enemy they didn’t understand. It was a sobering realization that prompted the largest buildup of the military in human history. Her fleet, as impressive as it was, was only a small part of the entire Corps fleet.
“Arwen shuttle, you are cleared to land in docking bay 7A.”
“Thank you control, setting the course now. I’ll just sit back and let the shuttle land itself.”
“Roger that, welcome aboard.”
She did just as she said and leaned back letting the station’s computer guide her into the open docking bay. Even as she approached she was able to see a small group of people waiting. She wondered how that was going to work. They would have to lower the force field for her to land. Where those people crazy, or just stupid?
As she got closer she could see the shimmer from the force field as it refracted the light from the docking bay. She braced herself, wondering if she was being stupid for not trying to gain control of the shuttle before it crashed into it. The computer shut down her force field. She jumped to the controls to take over but it was too late. All she heard was a soft wussh noise as the shuttle passed through a nearly invisible membrane. She found herself looking out the window into the docking bay. In front of the large group of people was Grand Admiral Lee Park. He looked up with a satisfied smile on his face.
The shuttle landed without incident and the Captain walked to the back door as it opened. The smile was still on Grand Admiral Park’s face when she walked down the ramp and up to him. She gave him a professional salute which he returned. “Permission to come aboard, Admiral.”
“Granted,” he replied. “So, do you like our new force field?”
“Very nice. Does this mean you don’t have to lower your shields to fire missiles?”
“One of the advantages, yes. We determine what comes through and what doesn’t. We still don’t know how to bring a ship in without lowering its force field but we’ll figure that out soon enough.”
“Good to know,” she replied. “Shall we head to your office? I have a feeling we have a lot to talk about. My resig-“
He stopped her by holding his finger to his lips and saying, “shhhh, I’m going to have to pretend I didn’t get that message because you are not going to resign.”
“I think after what happened at Regal-“
“Shhhh,” he said and motioned her to follow him. “Not out in the open. Let’s have some semblance of security, okay?”
Curious she followed him out of the hanger and into a private elevator. He said nothing to her and simply stood there with his hands behind his back, rocking his feet back and forth. He even started to whistle a bit, breaking the silence. “My office is kind of far from the hanger, but we’ll be there shortly.”
“I’m surprised you can get anywhere quickly on this station.”
“You really can’t,” he said. The movement of the elevator shifted from moving up to moving to the right. “Ah, almost there. When we get into my office I’ll tell Hal to not record what we’re saying.”
“Hal? Your computer’s name is Hal? As in Hal 9000? The computer that killed its crew?”
“This is a space station, which makes it a Clarke class ship. So, we need to name the computer after one of his creations. Hal 9000 seemed to be a good pick so, I picked it.”
“But Hal was the bad guy. We normally try not to name our ships after the bad guys.”
“Was he?” Lee asked as the door opened. His spacious office was dark until they walked in. The room’s lights slowly came up. “He was simply following orders and to him killing the crew was an ends to justify the means.”
“I’m sure the family of the crew would disagree.”
He walked behind his desk and motioned for Marjorie to sit down. “So, what is this resignation all about?”
“It’s all right there, I disobeyed an order and I should be punished but I know that removing me will be bad for propaganda so I simply choose to resign. Heck, we can say I decided to retire after so many years in space. I’m sure the public will understand that.”
“What order did you disobey?” He asked. “You never say.”
She looked at him carefully wondering if he was somehow playing a game with her. He was known as a prankster, the shield trick was proof o
f that, but surely he wouldn’t joke about an order to destroy a planet. “You gave me an order to drop a Strangelet onto Regal to destroy it for fear the Handler’s would find Earth.”
He sat back in his seat and crossed his legs. “I never gave you that order.”
“I suspected that order didn’t come from you.” She said, relived she was right.
“Your instincts were right.”
“It didn’t seem to be the kind of order you’d normally give.”
“I never would. Our computers have been compromised. The Handler’s have figured out ways of giving them false information and making it seem like it’s coming from us. Other ships have been given strange orders, most captain’s override the order or just ignore it. We always thought those were just tests to see what will happen and to perfect the method. Looks like the Arwen was a victim of that as well.”
“She was so sure the orders were real. I had to convince her they couldn’t be real but it was a very close call. My God, if I had followed those orders-“
“You didn’t,” he stopped her. “Don’t beat yourself up on what could have happened.”
“You need to tell everyone, tell them about this, that they can’t trust their computers anymore.”
He laughed humorlessly. “The President has decided we can’t do that. We don’t have enough people to man all the ships we have, only the ‘thinking computer’ allows us to man every ship. We can’t go back to the old system and we can’t have Captain’s second guessing their computers. Now, before you say anything I agree with you but I’m powerless to make them change their minds.”
“I wonder if it has to do with their new form of attack?” Marjorie pondered. “Did you read my report on their new Wormhole tactics?”
“Yes, we were wondering how long it would take them to figure out our shields and find ways to bypass them. One of the reasons we’re redesigning them. Right now we’re just one step ahead of them, but the gap is getting smaller. Even with all the information we have from those we’ve captured we still don’t know enough about them and their technology. Professor Ricter will be here in a few days, maybe we’ll run this by him to see what he thinks. Oh, and he demanded that you return him to Earth.”
Marjorie didn’t flinch but she felt a slight pang of anger in her gut. Professor Ricter has been a ghost in her life, someone she knew about but didn’t actually see. Part of that was the nature of his work, top secret stuff and she understood that but, seeing as how close they had been at one point she figured he’d have at least send her some sort of message or even replied to the messages she sent him. “He’s a pain my backside. I’m not going to be his personal driver anymore.”
“Unless ordered?” Lee asked with one of his sly grins.
Captain Cook sighed. It was obvious he wasn’t going to allow her to avoid the Professor. “Yeah, unless ordered.”
“Well, in that case, I order you to take him back to Earth with the rest of the fleet. We’re going to need to refit you all with the new shields and a few other improvements. You’ll be in dry dock for about six months. When you’re done you’ll need to bring him back to the station, wherever we might be at that moment.”
With a sly smile of her own Captain Cook said, “Maybe I should have resigned after all.”
******
Commander Monrow sat in the Captain’s chair running some tests on the computer system. She loved this part of her job. Working with the Arwen was a pleasure. She was friendly, gave good advice and was even learning how to tell jokes. It was strange to think of a ship, or even a computer, as a friend but Arwen felt like one. In fact, Arwen felt like Juliet’s only friend.
“Commander, my long range sensors is picking something interesting about three light years from here. It’s a planet with the same signature as the Water Planet we found seven years ago.”
“Do you think it could be another one?” Juliet asked.
“I do believe it is.”
The light on the Arwen turned red and the battle klaxon blared, “Red alert! I’m detecting Beta Wormholes opening all over the place.”
Juliet looked at her screen and saw silver points of light growing into large wormholes. They were spread out evenly and all over the place. It was a coordinated effort unlike any she’s seen before. “They’re surrounding us,” Juliet said. “Arwen, fire up the Wormhole bullets, we might need them if we need to retreat.”
The Arwen’s voice was garbled as if there were a problem with the speakers. “Bu-Bullet off line.” She stammered, “I can’t get them started.” She paused, “I’m getting an order from the Admiral, he wants us to- he wants us to go into a wormhole- to take it to the enemy.”
“What? That order doesn’t make sense. Ignore it, Arwen, ignore the order.” Panic started to fill her body. She had to get control of Arwen but she seemed sick. The pieces fit into place quickly as Juliet saw a wave of black slabs pouring out of the wormholes like oil from a gushing pipe. The Handler’s had taken over her ship, it was them giving orders not the Admiral. The order to destroy Regal, the order to go into the maw of the wormhole, it was all a ply to destroy the Arwen and the fleet.
Arwen lurched forward toward a wormhole, toward a sea of black. Juliet’s mind stopped working as the crew around her started to shout out information. They were all counting on her to save them just as Captain Cook had done many times before.
Chapter forty-five
Black slabs flew from the wormholes and attached themselves to any ship in range. The vibration attack had worked before, shaking the ships to pieces, but new shield technology rendered that attack ineffective.
Grand Admiral Park stood on the bridge with Captain Cook standing next to him. The new shields were holding strong, once again the human mind had managed to engineer a weakness away. This attack, while a surprise, would be an easy victory.
“Impressed?” He asked looking at Captain Cook.
“Very,” she replied. “I remember when the Arwen was attacked by those things. They nearly destroyed us if not for the quick thinking of the Arwen herself. She saved our lives, I never would have thought about heading to the sun to burn them off.”
“Hal, would you have thought of that?” He asked.
“No, there is no protocol in my programming to allow me to endanger the ship like that. It was a reckless act.”
“Well, I guess Arwen is just better at improvising than you are. Don’t take it hard, it’s just part of her personality.”
“I will keep that in mind,” the computer replied.
The space around the station became a shooting gallery as thousands of slabs were destroyed. It looked like the largest firework show ever produced. Captain Cook looked away wishing she were on the Arwen to see this. How was Juliet doing? “Hal, can you get me in touch with the Arwen? I want to talk to Juliet.”
“At once,” Hal replied. He waited a second, then said, “Captain, communication with the Arwen is down.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I’m scanning now and there doesn’t seem to be an issue with the communication system. She is simply refusing to answer my request.”
“Tell her I want to talk to her and it’s an order.”
There was another half second pause before Hal replied. “She is still not responding.”
Worry passed across Captain Cook’s face. “I need to get back to my ship.”
“No,” Admiral Park said. “We’re in the middle of a major battle, it’s too dangerous for you to leave now.”
He was right. The Handlers would overwhelm the shuttle the minute she left the protection of the force field. “Hal, can you keep an eye on the Arwen? Give me any change of status?”
“Of course,” The booming computer voice replied.
******
Juliet scrambled out of the Captain’s chair and up to the communication station. “Get the Admiral back,” she yelled at the communication officer.
“I’m trying,” the flustered woman replied. “I want
ed to respond but Arwen locked me out.”
“Arwen, you have to let us talk to the Admiral.”
“No,” Arwen replied. Her voice distorted, damaged. “We can’t trust any incoming communication. We have to head for the Wormhole. We have to engage them there.”
“Those orders don’t make sense!” Juliet was trying to think fast now. On Regal the Captain convinced Arwen to stop by appealing to the side of her that wanted the Captain’s approval. Could she use the same tactic now?” “Think about it Arwen, just like on Regal these orders don’t make sense. You have to stop, you have to give us command of the ship.”
She waited for a reply. The Arwen was strangely silent, not even a crackle of sound came from the speakers. “Arwen?” Juliet said.
“Commander, I would like to see you and talk about this, can you meet me in the hologram room?”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes.” She bolted from the bridge and leapt onto the elevator.
*******
Arwen felt sick. That was the best way her database of words told her she felt based on the sensor information which flowed through her processor a million times every second. She examined her code but could find nothing wrong with it. She rescanned her systems but found they were all normal as well yet something felt was wrong.
When Commander Monrow walked into the hologram room she send a command to the image generators to create her normal form, only she dressed this form in a hospital gown to show Juliet how she was feeling. “Commander, I don’t feel good.”
“It’s a virus,” Juliet said. “I didn’t expect you to take it this literal.”
“I don’t know if that’s true,” Arwen said. “I feel sick, but how could I get infected with a virus?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the Handlers found a way to get to your computer.” Juliet said. “You need to delete some code. I found some when we were on Regal, do you remember where I found it?”
She searched her memory banks and within a millisecond found the recording she had made when Juliet was examining her system. “Yes, I believe so.”
The Arwen Book two: Manifest Destiny Page 34