A few hours later, he decided to run something by Tim Watson in astrophysics.
“Tim,” he said, thinking of what Tompkin had told him. “Would it be possible to tag the alien ships on your independent scanning system?”
“I'm sure that's possible. Why?”
“Let’s say. I need to know if, or when, any other Crillon ships turn-up.”
“So, what you're actually saying is that you need to identify the ships already there. Then, if any others arrive, we’ll know they are extra. Yes?”
“Absolutely.”
“Why can't Andromeda do that?”
Frank had given the question careful thought before he replied. Uncomfortably aware that part of Andromeda was with him.
“Andromeda will be very busy, and I can't have too many distractions.”
“Fine. Consider it done.”
Then he talked to the data analysis department, asking for a word with Susanna.
“Sues, we’re going to monitor and hopefully pick up some communications on planet DPav4.
So, when we arrive at the Planet, I need you to work with Andromeda on this.
You might suspect, or have a gut feeling when something is wrong that Andromeda maybe won't.”
“Of course, anything for you Frankie,” she replied.
He felt a quick jab in his implant. And, aware that he might have offended Andromeda; thought back, ‘Sorry, but you know what I mean.’
“Susanna remember to concentrate on the words that you hear from them, darling. We know the Crillon language, but not necessarily the language of the inhabitants.”
“You're pretty sure this planet is inhabited, aren’t you?”
“Yes, both Andromeda and I agree. We also know that we need to have a basic understanding of their language before trying to speak to someone on the ground.”
“That's okay with me. I assume the other ships will be doing the same?”
“Yes, they will, but we’ll be directing things. Bye for now, I’ll talk to you later Sues.”
Later Frank went on a walkabout, seeing most of the crew, then ending up at stealth drone, Echo 23.
As the stealth drone sat in its cradle, it seemed alive and deadly.
At two and a half metres wide, and seven long. It also seemed larger than he remembered, and though the stealth drone had a streamlined form like Andromeda's, its shape was more rounded at the ends.
He couldn't see any external suggestion of audio or video. Not surprising, as the mass of sensors and scanners would all be inside, and protected.
But, he could just see the faint outlines of the doors in the two, nuclear-tipped, micro torpedo launchers.
Even though the drone was inactive, its skin seemed faintly mosaic and shimmering.
Active stealth, he knew, consisted of tiny outward facing mosaic-cameras, that could record the scene on the other side of the drone.
This would then be projected onto the reverse side, effectively cloaking the drone optically, to anyone or thing in the area.
Its design had been difficult to achieve but had proved to be very useful. Especially if you knew the direction, from which you didn't want the drone to be seen.
‘That’s most impressive,’ he thought.
Finally, the Andromeda, and the other four ships prepared for the exit into Normal-space, with the two-minute exit warning sounding in all their transceiver implants.
Then, the ten-second exit jump warning sounded.
Chapter 13
DPav4.
Andromeda exited hyperspace, with her screens fully up, and her weapons and systems on auto-alert.
She scanned the local space, but nothing registered.
Nothing at all.
Then suddenly, far away, three swirling rings with black centres appeared. The wormholes had formed, and three of her ships suddenly emerged into Normal-space.
A few seconds later, the last ship exited another wormhole.
“Wow! That was scary Andromeda, it almost gave me a heart attack,” Frank said.
“Then, I'm lucky I don’t have one,” she replied.
“You certainly are. Was that last ship the Javelin?”
“Yes, I’ll check why it was delayed.”
Comms noise and chatter flooded the sound system, as the Inter-ship comms became alive.
Frank thought, ‘Audio level down.’ Then aloud, said. “Geeze, what a racket. Give me captains broadcast now, Andromeda.”
The 3D images of the other four ships captains appeared along the bottom of Frank’s screen. The rest of his screen was showing the ships moving towards Andromeda's location, and closing together into their original formation.
“OK, guys. You've all got to kill that Inter-ship chatter the next time we exit. Especially Turpin and Javelin, or we'll have Crillon ships crawling all over us.”
“Sorry Frank,” said Harry Blacksmith, Turpin’s captain. “It's the first really dangerous exit my crew have made, so they're pleased to be in one piece.”
“You won’t be for long,” Derrick Patterson muttered.
“OK, but let’s make sure that we only use ‘tight beam’ ship-to-ship communication in the future.”
“How long will we have to wait here?” Tony Crisp asked.
“Well, it only takes about ten minutes for the warp generators to recharge. But we can safely stay for two hours.
After the next jump, it’ll be just fifteen minutes’ maximum. The risk of detection that close to our target area will be too high to stay longer.”
“What about the Javelin?” Andromeda reminded him.
“Oh, yes. Do you have a problem, Barry?”
“Hopefully, no. But something, is slowing us a fraction that's why we exited four seconds late.”
“OK. Andromeda run the ships sync commands again, just in case.”
“Right. As agreed, next is the six-light-year jump. After that, the last short hop,” he paused.
“There’ll only be a short time to play around before the last jump, so we must ensure everything is set to ‘active’ before we make the next one.
That means stealth, weapons, comms, monitoring and drones. Everything, as if we were going straight on through.”
“We'll be ready,” replied Derrick Patterson. Taking it upon himself to speak on behalf of the rest.
“Is Director Mertoff right, about this Drone 23?” Harry asked.
“You know, landing the drone on retractable legs and everything?”
“Yes, absolutely,” Andromeda confirmed.
“It’s risky but possible. With the front section’s force-field set to its maximum repel level, the drone should silently drift down, and land gently on its legs.”
“And what about getting it off again?”
“The drone has been fitted with two swivelling lift-jets. So, it will use minimal power and gently lift off, with a slight hissing sound.
Then, as I expect you've already guessed, an experimental mini Skippa sub-light drive will get it back to the ship.”
“OK, let's get on with it,” Frank said.
“If we’re lucky with the Skippa drive, they shouldn't see the drone going down or coming back up again.”
He paused, looking serious. “One more thing gentlemen, all of you need to hear this latest message from Professor Tompkin.”
He tapped his messaging and relay icons and the system sent Tompkin’s voice message to the captains.
“Frank. We've only just received this information through the hyperlink and I’m afraid it’s something you won’t want to hear. It’s about the drone you left at Zeta One, in Zeta Reticuli.
Five days ago, it registered slight rippling and high flux gravimetric distortions. So, we think it's possible the natural wormhole may be trying to re-establish itself.
Be careful Frank, and be aware of the consequences. Oh. And good luck!”
The message ended, and everyone stayed silent.
“So, now you know another reason why we can't hang around at
the next jump point.
OK. We jump again in exactly one hour and forty-one minutes, so make good use of this time.”
The captain’s images disappeared off his screen, and he sat back thinking. Running over in his mind again, and again, how they could play the odds, to be in their favour. Andromeda broke in on his thoughts.
“Frank, the other four Captains, have changed their minds, they want themselves and all of their crews to have full ‘transceiver’ implants now.
They’re asking for your permission to allow their medical droids to insert the implants. And for the captains to activate the implants.”
“What,” he said in surprise. “A bit late in the day, isn’t it?
Is it safe to do it this close to the jump?”
“It's probably better to insert them now, rather than before the last Jump. That would certainly be too late. At least doing it now, they'll have twenty hours to become accustomed to using them.”
“All right,” he replied, “Send my permission and our recommendations.”
“Yes, Frank. Sending. Done.”
Ninety-eight minutes later, Frank looked at the chronometer's countdown on his screen. Just three minutes to go he thought. Tapped the comms icon, to contact his ships captains and said.
“Almost time now. Good luck captains. See you in twenty hours.”
Tapped the icon again, then lay back in his padded seat. And waited.
The two-minute jump warning sounded in all crew transceiver implants as Andromeda, and the other four ships prepared for it.
Then, the ten seconds warning sounded.
Zero and the warp field pulses from all five ships again twisted the fabric of space, forcing generation of their own wormholes. All five ships moved forward as one again and disappeared into their wormholes.
Andromeda7 was now hurtling through the wormhole, and as usual nothing could be changed until they exited, twenty hours later.
Once the feeling of giddiness passed, Frank said, “Andromeda. Status, please?”
“My sensors say our jumps were all in sync.”
“And you?”
“No problems detected.”
“Good, I guess I’ll have forty winks.”
“Forty winks! Isn’t that strenuous for your eyes?”
“No, I’m just saying. I’ll take a rest.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to just, say what you actually mean.”
He grinned, laid back closing his eyes, and went to sleep.
The twenty hours passed slowly. As usual, there was little of interest to do and Frank was glad to hear the two-minute exit signal as Andromeda and the other four ships prepared to come out of hyperspace.
Then came the ten-second exit-warning.
Andromeda exited jump, with her screens fully up and her weapons and systems on auto alert. She scanned the local space and received a contact signal as her sensors picked up the other four ships.
Seeing their formation on his screen, Frank said. “Excellent. Give me captains broadcast now,”
The 3D images of the other ships captains then appeared along the bottom of Frank’s screen.
With the rest displaying the scene outside. Where he could see, the ships moving slowly towards the Andromeda, almost in their original formation.
“Well done, our best jump yet.”
They all smiled with relief, happy to hear him praising them.
“Frank, did you notice? Just ‘tight beam’ comms ship to ship. It’s made a vast improvement. No unnecessary chatter,” Harry Blacksmith said.
“What do you think?”
“It certainly has,” Frank replied.
“Right, we've only fifteen minutes before we jump again, then six hours forty minutes in jump space.”
“We'll all be fine Frank,” Derrick assured him. “We've got used to the implants already.”
“Most of the crews wonder what they were worried about,” Tony joked. “They didn't understand the benefits of letting the ship's computer do more for them.”
The next jump occurred without any problems.
Six hours, thirty-eight minutes later. The two minute. Then ten-second exit warnings sounded in the crew’s transceiver implants again, and they prepared for the exit into Normal- space.
All five Earth ships exited jump into Normal-space, together. With their screens, fully up. Weapons and systems on full alert and stealth mode fully engaged, as they swung to hunt for the fifth planet, DPav5.
They couldn't believe their luck. DPav5 was right in front of them.
Within minutes, using the ‘Skippa sub-light’ drives, they were hidden behind DPav5, and on the Crillon’s blindside.
Then all ships moved slowly outwards, and away from the planet, until they started picking up the communication’s chatter from the target planet, DPav4.
In moments, the seven Crillon ships were also located and tagged by the Astro department. Astro immediately sent the info to all their computer targeting systems.
Soon, comms-chatter came flooding in from DPav4. A delay in reception of the chatter made it easy to separate the Crillon language from the locals, and the language dictionary built up fast, as more traffic was intercepted.
Then atmospheric reports came into Astro, which showed that the planet’s environment was suitable for both the inhabitants and the Crillons.
The atmosphere was slightly different from Earth’s, but the reports indicated that humans could tolerate it without the need to wear a life support system.
Chapter 14
Meeting a Phantom.
Brendereen and Acarea arrived back at their cabin just as it was getting dark. Acarea pressed their door lock sensor, opened the door and went in, leaving Bren to move the skimma around the back.
Bren covered the skimma after de-activating it. Then joined Acarea in the cabin, placing his blaster next to hers. Then set the transceiver on the table.
“What now Bren?” she asked, running the radiation-level detector over their outer clothing.
“I think we should find out if the other three cities are still there, and if their processing and manufacturing facilities are intact,” he said as he turned the computer on.
Acarea, undressing as she spoke, said. “The radiation levels are too high, take your clothes off. I'll put our clothes in for decontamination while you shower.”
Bren showered then dried himself, Acarea having followed him through the process, swept both of them again. The radiation level was fine, so they both dressed in fresh clothes.
“I'll rustle up something while you think about it all,” she said as she disappeared into the kitchen.
He watched her go, thinking as he did so that this crisis had actually brought them close together again.
‘Just like at the start of their relationship, when he was almost overwhelmed by her presence,’ he thought.
After eating, they sat in front of the computer and got down to business.
Using the mapping facility, Acarea searched for each city’s location but saw that only three showed on the map.
“Well, that at least means they must be alright. Their responders wouldn't have registered otherwise, would they?”
“No. It looks right. See, ours isn't there, and Hero City obviously wouldn’t be.
Now check for their processing and manufacturing facilities.”
“OK.”
This time, four came up. “So, though our city, Atreen, has been wiped out, all the other four and their processing and manufacturing facilities are untouched,” she said.
“Check the military bases, see what you get.”
She did, but nothing came up.
“So, they’ve taken them all out. We've nothing to fight them with,” he said, looking grim.
“It looks like they can wipe us out whenever they want,” Acarea replied. Looking at Bren, with fear in her eyes.
“Seems that way.”
Acarea knew that City Marca hadn’t been very helpful. ‘Although maybe th
ey couldn’t help us,’ she thought. And, bearing this in mind, she tapped to bring up City Velcray.
A woman came online via the video relay, with her image appearing in the corner of the computer screen.
“I can't really help you Acarea,” she said, recognising her. “All our production plants have been re-configured by these aliens. Crillons I think they’re called. They want to use them for growing crystals or something.”
“Crystals,” Acarea exclaimed. “Why do ‘jump engines’ come to mind?”
“What's that, you said?” Brendereen asked. Looking at her in astonishment.
“I don't know. The words just came to me, out of nowhere.”
The woman on the screen stared at Acarea’s image.
“Jump engines, that's exactly what our boffins are thinking.”
She looked at something or someone off camera, then said,
“I must go; there’s a ship over us. We’re being monitored. Let us know if you find anything to help.” Her video image disappeared.
Acarea picked up her blaster and stuffed it back in her belt.
“Are you that nervous then?” Bren asked.
“Yes, remember when we had that batch of settlers from City Hero when a volcano had destroyed their city?”
“Yes, of course, I do, that’s when we still had five cities.”
“Well, I could sense their coming, remember?”
“Yes, we both did.”
The Definitive SpaceFed Trilogy (SpaceFed StarShips Trilogy).: A thrilling, action-packed Sci-fi space adventure. (SpaceFed StarShips Series Book 8) Page 27