Talosian Chronicles 2: Star Dancer

by Ben Winston

  After the tour, Ty led them back to his office on the surface. He then told Alan about the attacks. Alan’s ears perked up when Ty explained that two F-22’s had ‘attacked’ the town. He began to understand why Ty had asked him here. When Ty got to the latest attack, Alan stopped his friend.

  “Ty, I think I know where you’re going with this. Okay, the shit you’ve shown me is real. However, if you’re planning something against the United States, count me out. I may not like what I had to do for the assholes in charge, but I do still love my country.”

  Alan glanced at Janet who had been with them the whole time, but had yet to speak. I wonder who she is really. He mused to himself.

  “Ian, couldn’t be here himself right now to meet you, but Janet is our head of recruiting. It’s her job to tell you about what we are trying to do here. Janet, you’re on,” Ty said nodding to the woman.

  She smiled, “Alan, everything Ty has told you is true, but he did leave out a few details.” Then she told him the history of Star Dancer and the threat of the enemy.

  “So, what we would like you to do isn’t against the U.S. but it will probably be against her government. One of the first things we would like to find out is why two F-22’s attacked this town. It’s obvious that the government doesn’t know the truth about us, or the attack would have included more than two planes. We would like you to find out why. Ty told you what we are trying to do here; we want to help save the planet and hopefully improve the lives of people at the same time.”

  “I think that’ll be okay. But before I start this, I’ll need more information, and what resources I have available,” Alan said, grinning. “You do remember I am hiding from the government, right?”

  For the next couple of days, Alan and Ty went over the information Ty had on the attacks. Alan asked many questions, and got the answers he wanted. He finally agreed fully to work with them, and asked if it would perhaps be possible to alter his appearance. After all, the NSA did have his description as well as his prints on file.

  “Probably not anymore, my friend,” Ty told him. “Let me introduce your new best friend. Star, please come out.”

  Ty had, what looked to be one of those new high definition flat screen TV’s in his office. It was on this that Star chose to make her appearance.

  Alan didn’t quite know what to make of Star. At first, he just thought it was some really neat video conferencing thing. However, he soon learned that the beautiful woman on the screen was an Artificial Intelligence Construct, that is to say, she wasn’t a real person. She was a computer. Alan couldn’t help but chuckle to himself about the new meaning of virtual sex.

  As the interview progressed though, he learned that Star was certainly no toy. With a computer hacker like her working with him, he should have very few problems.

  He started working in Alamogordo, looking into the latest attacks on the small community. However, at every turn, he ran into a brick wall so tight he was beginning to wonder if the US Government was even aware of what was going on down here. Yes, White Sands was a government facility, but it was populated by private companies and corporations – each with their own small, private armies for ‘security’.

  The only leads he did find, pointed to the Washington D.C. area, and he would have headed out there right away, but he thought he’d stop by Colorado Springs first and check for information on the F-22’s

  Star had already found out that the Air Force had ‘officially’ labeled it a logistical error. That didn’t make sense to Alan; Ty had told him they scared the fighters off by locking on to them with a missile battery. That alone should have brought investigators by the score to the little town. Yet none had shown up. Which, in Alan’s mind, meant that the attack was intentional with an expected outcome.

  Nevertheless, how and why would the government choose to test the defenses of a little town like Talos? If it was, indeed the government, it would have been a much larger test, and there would now be thousands of ‘inspectors’ probing every orifice of every person living in the little town. The whole thing made no sense at all.

  Chapter 4

  F.S.S. Star Dancer.

  Selene Orbit, (Earth’s moon)

  Earth, Sol Sector.

  When the young Johnson family arrived at Ian’s office/ready room the next day, they found him sitting at his desk looking worried.

  “Reporting as ordered, Sir!” Kyle said and all three of them saluted.

  Ian grinned briefly, shook his head, and pointed to the chairs around his small conference table. “Take a seat, can I get any of you anything?”

  “I’ll get that, Sir,” Steph said and beat him to the replicator.

  “Thanks Steph. I’ll have a...

  “Dark chocolate cappuccino. I remember, Sir,” Steph said smiling at him.

  “We have a problem, and I need your help with it. Doctor Benson should be arriving shortly, as well as another young man I asked to join us,” Ian said sitting down.

  The door chimed a visitor, and Star entered after Ian said ‘come’.

  “Sir, the shuttle from the moon has just landed, and your guests will arrive in a few minutes,” Star said.

  “Ian, as a friend, are you doing okay? You looked really stressed when we got here,” Tara said.

  Ian smiled at the girl. “I appreciate it, Tara. I am really stressed. Some of that you should be able to help me with, but the other stuff, well, I’m sure you’ll hear about it anyway, so I might as well tell you.” He took a sip of the hot beverage Steph had placed before him before he continued.

  “Last night, Talos was attacked by a force claiming to be US military special operations soldiers. We have since learned that they weren’t, and that they in fact worked for a private corporation that primarily guards oil company’s over-seas interests. No one in the community itself was hurt, and Ty was able to repel the attack. However, before they retreated, shots were fired.”

  “That’s got to be nerve-wracking. Do we know why they did it?” Kyle asked.

  “No, but Ty said he’s got a friend that could really help us with this. He’s already got Janet on the case, so with any luck, this guy will be able to get us some answers. No one was hurt in the attack except for some of the attackers. Ty reported that there were some broken bones as well as a lot of cuts and bruises. They also lost several land rails, uh, armed dune buggies, and one Bloodhawk assault variant took heavy damage,” Ian finished.

  Kyle nodded and looked at his girls. “We’ll can call our folks to make sure their alright as soon as we have time.”

  Ian nodded. “Good Plan.”

  “Sir, your guests have arrived,” Star said as she stood and gestured to the opening door.

  “Thank you, Major.” Ian replied as he welcomed Brittany Benson and a nervous looking young man named Wade Kemp, and then made introductions to those that didn’t know one another. “Please, be seated. Stephanie has volunteered to play hostess for us, so if you would like anything before we get started, please just as her.”

  Orders were given, and Steph quickly got them and returned to the table. Everyone looked expectantly at Ian.

  “Okay, I guess it’s time to get to the heart of the matter. This information is classified, and is not to be discussed freely. Two days ago, I was given advanced warning of an impending attack on Earth by Caldarians. There wasn’t very much detail, and a timeframe wasn’t given, but I have to assume time is an issue. If we aren’t ready when this happens, we will die, and Earth will fall to the Caldarians.” He took a sip of his coffee before continuing.

  “Just before I was given this warning, I was reading your initial reports on your designs. I know that Dr. Benson’s and Kyle’s teams have already gotten together and designed a pretty impressive new fighter craft. However, I also read another report on an amazing new weapons system that might be able to be incorporated, not only onto the ship here, but on this new fighter as well.”

  “With respect, Sir, ‘The Hammer’ was designed for the sh
ip, not a fighter. It takes far too much energy to be used on such a small craft, it could easily overload the reactor on a Hornet,” Wade said.

  Ian grinned. “I think you’ll be surprised at what these folks have designed, Wade. As I understand it, they are having an issue with excess power anyway. Kyle, why don’t you and Doctor Benson give us a briefing on the new fighter?”

  “Just for the record, I’m not actually a ‘doctor’ yet, Commander. But I am working on it!” Brittany replied.

  Ian smiled, “I’m sure you’ll get there soon. Please proceed.”

  Brittany looked at Kyle who stood and moved by the large display on Ian’s wall. “Being pilots, the three of us; Tara, Stephanie and myself, felt that our current fighter, while pretty awesome, was a bit understrength in the weapons department. So we set out to see what we could think of on our own.

  “We have classified this as a heavy fighter, because it has just under twice the mass of a Hornet. It will also have more firepower. Currently, a Hornet light fighter has two IFF missiles, and four small, fixed point, pulse laser weapons.

  “The Shadow, which is what we’ve decided to call this for the time being, will carry four fixed point medium lasers, two turrets, one above and one below, will have dual mounted small lasers, and the dual missile bays will carry six IFF missiles in each bay.

  “She has twin mounted gravimetric-plasma turbine engines for power, and a small, short-range jump engine. We have multi-phased shields planned for her, and a new experimental armor developed by Brittany.” He nodded toward the young woman. “Currently, this is a two man system, a pilot, and a weapons officer/navigator.”

  “What about the fly-by-thought system you had planned?” Ian asked.

  “I’m having trouble with it, Sir,” Stephanie admitted. “It’s not working the way I wanted it to.”

  “It’s a completely new technology, the Talosian data base has nothing like it,” Star reported. “It’s fascinating, really.”

  “With all those systems on it, how can you have a surplus power issue?” Wade asked. “If anything, it should be underpowered, especially if you put armor on it as well. I don’t even understand where you’d get the power for the jump drive!”

  “It comes from the armor,” Brittany said breaking into the conversation. “With the help of Alba Punjab and a few others, we’ve been able to create a form of armor that actually generates power simply by travelling through space. Any particles that impact the armor generates energy, including photons.” Brittany said and began explaining how the armor worked. However, it quickly got too technical for Ian, and he had to interrupt her.

  “Excuse me, Brittany, I’m really sorry for interrupting you. I wanted to bring all of you together to see if you could combine your efforts and get this fighter built. We will need it and everything else we can get in order to survive what’s coming. This has a high priority, and I’m willing to release Kyle, Stephanie and Tara from flight duty to get it finished. So, what do you say, do you think you five can get this thing out of the theoretical and into the possible? Do you need any other resources? If you need anything, just ask, and I’ll see what we can do about it,” Ian said.

  “I think we can, Sir. I don’t know how quickly we can do it, but I’m sure we can do something,” Kyle said.

  Wade nodded his head. “I think I might be able to adapt the Hammer to the fighter, Sir. But what do you want me to do with the designs I had for the ship?”

  “Are they finished?” Ian asked.

  “Pretty close, Sir.” Wade replied.

  “Do you think it’s close enough that Chief Dommer could move forward with it?” Ian asked.

  Wade looked thoughtful. “I’d have to speak to him first, Sir, but it might be.”

  Ian touched his comm. “Chief Dommer, please.”

  “Dommer here, what can I do for you, Commander?” the man asked.

  Ian smiled. “Do you have a few moments to spare for a weapons designer? He has worked up something for the ship and wanted to know if you could make it work.”

  “If he doesn’t mind coming down here, I can make time for him,” Dommer replied.

  “Thank you Chief, I’ll send him down,” Ian replied. “Command out.”

  Ian grinned at Wade. “There you go, He’ll see you as soon as you can get down there. I recommend you go see him before your shuttle returns you to the moon base. Johnsons, I know you just got off a patrol, but I need you all to grab your gear and get on that shuttle. I’m assigning all of you to the moon base for the duration of this project, at least, permanently at the worst.”

  “Yes Sir!” the three of them said in unison, making Brittany grin.

  “Okay, get moving. Call if you need anything, or if you need something dealt with. Remember, I’ll need trainers for the pilots as well,” Ian said.

  Everyone thanked him and filed out the door, in good spirits. Wade to go to Engineering, the Johnsons to go pack, and Miss Benson following them. Ian sighed; on to the next project.

  Red Lion Inn,

  Norfolk, Virginia.

  It took him about two weeks to find out what really happened. There had been some first class rug sweeping going on here. The orders for the fighters had been signed by the commanding general, but all such orders were. The actual instructions for the flight and the authorization of the weaponry had been handled by a Captain Smith in the fighter wing’s intel branch. By the time Alan found this out, Captain Smith had long since gone AWOL.

  Colonel Jennifer Williams sent him her findings on an investigation she had stumbled into. Actually the initial work had been done by another young woman in the ship’s flight operations department as a hobby. However, the whole 'missing crude’ idea really got his curiosity going, and he couldn’t wait to get started on it. Deep in his gut, he couldn’t help but wonder if all of these items weren’t related.

  He made an initial report to Ty and headed out for Norfolk, VA. That was the U.S. end of the trans-Atlantic pipeline. Once there, he began to dig. He loved this part of his job; he had always preferred the analytical side of his duties when he worked for the NSA. Now, working for Ty and Ian, he was relieved that he wasn’t required to kill anyone. He was, of course, able to defend himself and he could always ask if he came across something that really needed 'special handling'. He honestly believed he would never be asking for that type of assistance.

  It didn’t take long before his leads led him into the labyrinth that was the United States intelligence community. It was a tangled quagmire of false leads and dead-ends, but it was obvious to Alan that it had been intentionally made so by someone.

  Progress on the moon base was coming along quickly, and that created a lot of excitement in the growing community. However, for Ian, the most exciting thing that happened was the births of two more children. Both Jenny and Beth went into labor at almost the same time, being only a couple of hours apart.

  Jenny gave birth to a little boy she named Sean after Ian’s late father, and Beth, who had a little girl, named her Renee after her best friend, and Ian’s late mother. Both children were perfectly healthy, and registered an unusually high compatibility with Talosian gene sequences. Star commented that all four of the Williams’ children could very well be considered Talosian based on their DNA.

  Moon Base

  Selene, (Earth’s moon)

  Brittany Benson, with the help of her new team of Kyle and the girls, quickly submitted a refit kit for equipping the existing fleet of Hornet fighters with the new ‘Enigma’ armor she had developed. She included a warning that using the standard magnetic launching method for Hornets may have a loading effect on the armor, and therefore, be dangerous. She cautioned that more testing must be done to determine the amount of energy created and how to dispose of it.

  The latest report from Kyle on the progress of the new fighter indicated two major flaws in the current design. One had to do with the amount of energy created by the armor, and the other was still the issues Stephanie was having
with the neurological interface.

  The report was a little vague about both issues, so Ian decided to call them for a clarification. Stephanie answered the comm.

  “Hello Commander! What can we do for you?” she asked.

  “Well, I just got the latest report from Kyle, and I was wondering about a couple of the items in there, so I thought I’d call and ask about them,” Ian said. “And you were one of the folks I wanted to talk to. Maybe I could come up with a suggestion or two you didn’t think of to help you out. What exactly are you having trouble with?”

  “Well, I did manage to get the interface to work, but I’m having a hard time indexing the profiles,” Steph said.

  “What do you mean by indexing the profiles? What are the profiles?” Ian asked.

  “Well, I can use a neuro-interface to create a profile for a specific pilot, in a specific ship. However, if that Pilot moves to another ship, a completely new profile has to be made, the computers won’t accept the profile created in the other ship,” she explained.

  “Okay, so what’s the problem?” Ian asked.

  “Well, it takes about an hour or so to record enough information for a profile to be made. Some people it works fast on, others it takes longer,” Stephanie said. “Each of the fighters would have to be assigned to specific pilots for this to work.”

  “I don’t have a big issue with that. But what exactly are the benefits of having this system?” Ian asked. “What exactly does it do?”