by Ben Winston
In a toe to toe fight, the Super Nova would blast through Star Dancer’s shields in less than twenty minutes. So, Ian would need to avoid a direct confrontation between the ships, Star Dancer would have to remain hidden if a Super Nova arrived at Earth.
The last reports Ian had read said that the Caldarians hadn’t yet found a way around the cloaking devices used by Talosian forces, however, once the Talosian cruiser had been destroyed, most Caldarian Captains rightly considered the fight over, and removed themselves and their ships before the surviving forces could do more damage to them.
Ian called Operations on his comm.
“Operations, Major Brighton here.”
“Hi Chloe, Could you come to my office and bring one of your brighter people with you?” Ian asked.
“Certainly Commander, I’ll grab one of the lads and be right up,” the petite English woman replied.
“Thanks, see ya in a few,” Ian replied and typed in a different command.
“Intelligence division, Lieutenant Wallace.”
“Good day, Ell-tee, this is Commander Williams. Is your boss around?”
“I’ll get him, Sir. Please hang on a minute,” the young sounding male voice replied.
A couple of moments later, a voice returned. “Major Eischens, what can I do for you, Commander?”
“I need your help with something, could you and one of your better helpers come to my office for a quick meeting?” Ian asked.
“Certainly, Sir. We’ll be up in five,” the man said.
“Thank you Major, I’ll look forward to it.” Ian replied before ending the call.
“Star? I’m going to need you too,” Ian said out loud, knowing the AI would hear him. His door chimed almost immediately.
“Come!” Ian called, and the door opened.
Star strode into the room, just as any other crewman would, and saluted when she got to Ian’s desk. “Reporting as ordered, Sir.”
“Thank you, is Janet Laskar still on board?” Ian asked.
Star looked over his head a moment. “No Sir, she returned to Talos yesterday.”
Ian nodded. “I was worried she had. I’ve a meeting coming together here, and I would like you to be a part of it, but while we wait, could you contact her and see if she has a few moments to give us? Please tell her it’s about the nightmare she told me about.”
Star nodded, and while she did that, Ian asked Jenny to join him in his office. She was technically still on maternity leave, but was chafing at getting back to work. She said she would be there, since Beth would cover for her at the child care center.
By the time he got off the comm with Jenny, Chloe and her aide had arrived for the meeting, Star let her in since Ian had told her he was getting a meeting together. Ian got her and her aide their drinks and Jenny showed up at the same time the intelligence people did.
Never being the type to skate around a subject, Ian got right to the point. “Okay folks, I asked all of you here because I have good reason to believe we are going to be attacked soon, and I would like to know what we can do about it. I have been making some plans of my own on the side, and I’ll fill everyone in on those.” He glanced at Star to see if she had gotten hold of Janet. Star nodded, and the big monitor came to life with a softly smiling Janet looking out, she was in one of the suites aboard a shuttle.
“Good Morning, Janet. Thank you for giving me some of your time on such short notice,” Ian said.
“No problem, Ian. I’m happy to help,” Janet replied.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, if any of you don’t know her, this is our head of recruiting, Janet Laskar.” Ian then went around the table introducing everyone.
“Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, you might be wondering why I have Mrs. Laskar here. The answer is simple, but hard to accept. Bluntly put, Janet is clairvoyant and has been proven accurate for ninety four percent of the time on visions of under two months. Whether you believe in such things or not, I do not feel we have the luxury of ignoring her advice or a warning of danger.
“A little over a week ago, she came to me with a nightmare vision she’d had. Since that time, I’ve been working to prevent it, but I don’t feel I’m doing enough. So I made the decision to bring the rest of you in on this,” Ian explained. “Janet, could you please tell them what you’ve told me?”
“Certainly Commander,” Janet replied and quickly filled the small group in on the vision she’d had, as well as the subtle ways in which it has changed since the original vision.
Major Brighton, who already knew about Janet’s ability, was shaken and looked a little scared. Major Eischens looked thoughtful but resolved, and the two younger aides looked completely stunned. Whether they were stunned that Ian would listen to a supposed psychic, or it was her prediction that had gotten to them, Ian couldn’t tell.
“Mrs. Laskar, I know you said it was fuzzy, but do you think there was enough clarity or the image that if I show you some pictures, you would be able to pick the type of ship it was?” Major Eischens asked.
Janet shrugged, “I don’t know, but I can certainly try. Like I told the Commander, I’ll do everything I can to help.”
While Eischens and his aide tried to get Janet to identify the big ship, Ian leaned over to Chloe and her aide. “I know Major Brighton already knew about Janet’s ability, but you didn’t seem too surprised by it, Ensign Thorn. May I ask why?” Ian asked the aide.
“With respect Sir, I think it’s probably one of the best known secrets on the ship. How does she know, and the other recruiters that work for her, how do they know who is safe to approach, and who isn’t?” the young man replied. “If you couple that with some of the things she’s said around other people, well, I think everyone at least suspects,” the ensign said. “I’m more concerned about her report. I mean, so do we know when these guys are going to attack?”
Ian shook his head. “No, we don’t even know why they are coming here now. We know the enemy is here, on this planet. We also know that they had to have seen us flying around the system. The question that gets me is why now? We’ve been doing this for months. Why have they waited so long to come here and put us down?”
“There is no simple answer to that, Sir.” Eischens replied. “We simply don’t have enough information to know with certainty. However, Mrs. Laskar believes we will most likely be facing a Super Nova.”
Ian wondered how the man could say that without shuddering, or breaking down in tears. Maybe he had a plan on how to deal with the space-going monster.
“Okay, so does anyone care to speculate?” Ian said. “It stands to reason to send a Super Nova to check on the status of this ship, but what about the rest of Janet’s vision? Why would they suddenly decide to take over the planet after all these years?”
“Perhaps they finally decided to do so because we have the ship repaired, and they see us as becoming a threat to them in the future. Either way, we’re going to be hosting a hostile alien warship.” Chloe turned to the screen, “Mrs. Laskar, have you gotten any sense of a time frame for this?”
Janet frowned. “Normally, I can tell by the clarity and frequency of the visions. In this case, however, while I’ve been having it on a daily basis, it seems to be constantly changing. All that being said, I don’t think we have more than two weeks left to us. The feeling of urgency is increasing all the time.”
“Now, I’ve had a few reports of a new fighter being designed on the moon, and I’ve been doing what I can to help the team designing it to get it into production. Brittany Benson, one of the young people working on this, has also managed to design a refit for our existing Hornets to increase their available power and armor. She did mention there was a problem with it, though, and the last time I talked to her, which was just a little bit ago, she hadn’t gotten it fixed yet.
“Also, we’ve added a few new weapons to Star Dancer’s arsenal. We now have what Chief Dommer calls mass drivers as part of our weapons compliment. He seems to think it will ruin anyone’s day that
is foolish enough to get close to the ship. Currently, these new weapons are untested except in simulation.
“I called all of you together, because we need ideas and we need a plan of action to not only beat that big bitch when she gets here, but kick those blue fuckers off our planet,” Ian said, referencing the description of the Caldarians he had seen in the history archive.
“Sir, according to everything we’ve learned from the old Talosian database, there is no way we can actually win against that.” Eischen’s aide, a Lieutenant Wills said.
“I don’t accept that, Lieutenant,” Ian said, shaking his head. “I understand what you’ve learned may have said that, but there has to be a way, and we will find it. If you really believe that, then you won’t be of any help at all.”
The young man blushed. “I’m sorry, Sir, I just meant that...” Wills started to explain. Ian cut him off.
“Wills, I’ve read the same reports you have, and even had most of the same lessons. The one thing I’ve learned from all of that is that, in the Talosian experience, there is no way to beat one of those ships, however, that doesn’t mean that it can’t be done. We may be part Talosian, but that doesn’t mean we need to stick to their playbook. We’re going to write one of our own.
“I know as well as you do that this ship cannot take on a Super Nova and survive. So, we’re not going to, not directly anyway.” Ian finished.
“What did you have in mind, Commander?” Chloe asked.
“Okay, we know that there is no way that the Caldarians can know, for certain, that Star Dancer is alive and fully functional. We would have detected any scans like that, and at no time has this ship been visible to Earth. So, one of the first things they will have to do is verify the status of this ship.
“Since we are obviously functional, the longer we can keep them wondering, the better off we’ll be. So I want holographic projectors installed around the base to cover the base, projecting an image of this ship as she was before we fixed her, still crashed on the moon. I want our cloaking systems verified and tested to make sure they are flawless,” Ian explained. Both Chloe and Eischens were taking notes.
“So, how are they going to explain the fighters and other ships that have been flying around the system?” Wills asked.
“I’m not sure. There is nothing we can do to hide that from them at this point. They know there have been ships flying around in this system. They’ve seen them and no doubt have sensor recordings of them. There is nothing we can do about that except not fly anything uncloaked while they’re here. They’ll still wonder where they came from, but they won’t know,” Ian explained.
“Do you have any thoughts about the attack on the planet?” Eischens asked.
“That’s where it’s gonna get tricky. Once we launch fighters, they’ll know exactly where we are, and the fight will be on. We need to keep that from happening as long as we can, or when we do need to launch fighters, make them appear to come from somewhere else.
“We need to use sleight of hand, subterfuge and misdirection to keep them guessing as long as possible. If you can think of a way to make them attack another planet and waste resources, great, it will also buy us time. Maybe get them to attack something else thinking it’s us...”
“Perhaps engineering could come up with something that could emulate the ship’s sensor profile?” Chloe asked.
Ian nodded. “Exactly! Or maybe a bunch of them! We can use them to really confuse the Caldarians when they get here. That’s the kind of thinking I need! We need more idea’s like that to keep the Caldarians off balance and guessing. The more confusion we can cause, the more likely they are to make mistakes we can exploit.”
“We could also re-arm a few hyper missiles to carry antimatter or enhanced nuclear payloads. It might not destroy that monster, but it would certainly give them something to think about!” Chloe offered.
“Exactly! Now that you know what we’re up against, do you think you could have some ideas ready for a full staff meeting tomorrow? We need to get all this rolling as fast as we can,” Ian replied.
“I think we can do that, Sir,” Eischens replied.
“May I talk to my wife about this? She’s an engineer, and she can be downright devious when it comes to making little surprise packages,” Thorn said. “She and her siblings were constantly doing it to each other and other people.”
Ian nodded. “Okay, but please make sure she understands this is a secret, and I would prefer that she didn’t let the word get out. I mean, the cat will be out of the bag after the meeting tomorrow, but until then, I would prefer to keep this this just between us.”
The four intelligence and operations folks nodded their heads in agreement and headed for the door to get busy working on solution to the problems they were facing. Jenny remained behind, Janet was still on the comm as well.
“Thank you for taking the time to be here for this, Janet. I know you’re probably very busy,” Ian said.
“Ian, no matter how busy I am, this is my priority. If we don’t get this taken care of, all the recruiting in the world will do us no good,” the woman replied.
Ian cocked his head to one side. “So what are you doing, if you don’t mind me asking?”
She grinned. “Recruiting of course! You’re going to be getting over strength on Marines and pilots very soon. I’ve also gotten some pretty good officers lined up. However, after the get our butts through this, we are going to have some questions to answer with the government. We have gotten their attention, but not ‘officially’ yet. We have time before it will become an issue.”
“Well, I think one emergency at a time is enough to deal with, but just to make sure, there is no way to avoid the government guys, huh?” Ian asked, hopefully.
“No, not with what’s going to happen. Talos will be exposed no matter how this turns out,” Janet said. “Is there something bothering you, Jenny?”
“Well, sort of. Why haven’t I been seeing this? Is my ability on vacation or something?” Jenny asked, concerned.
“I doubt it,” Janet replied. “It could simply be a natural defense to protect you and the baby. New Minds are the most fragile and vulnerable. I wouldn’t start worrying about it until our little man is a couple of months older.”
“You, Mom, and Dad are going to spoil him, you know,” Jenny replied. “How is that spy you recruited doing?”
“Ty said he’s doing great, but I haven’t seen him in a while, why?” Janet asked.
“I have some more information for him. I think I’m to the point where I can hand this off to him completely. I think I’ve gotten about as much information as I can get,” Jenny replied. Looking at Ian, she added. “I’ll have a report ready for you and the rest of the chiefs at the meeting tomorrow, if that’s okay?”
Ian chuckled. “You do remember you’re still on Maternity leave, right?”
Jenny smiled softly. “Yes I do, and I love the time I’ve been able to spend with our children, but I’m also getting an itch to get back to work. It’s almost to the point of obsession.”
“Maybe that’s your ability trying to nudge you into action, dear,” Janet replied. “We just don’t have that much information on these abilities yet.”
“If it’s becoming that much of an issue for you, maybe you should talk to Beth and see if she’ll let you get back to work,” Ian suggested.
Jenny nodded and rose. “I’ll do that, thanks Ian, thanks Janet.” She walked to the door and left.
“Okay, so you’re hanging about to tell me something; something you didn’t want to say in front of the rest,” Ian said.
“You’re getting to know me all too well, Ian.” Janet smiled at him. “Yes, there is getting to be more to this nightmare, only, I don’t know if it’s going to be bad or good, all I know is it’s going to be important.”
“How important?”
Janet swallowed. “Ian, in the first version of the nightmare I told you about, I died. I haven’t had any visions or even an
y minor feelings about anything past a few days. Now, I don’t know if that’s because I’m still going to die or what, but last night, this... whatever its going to be, was added to the vision. I gives me a little hope that I’ll survive the coming battle, however, I still haven’t had any long term visions. So I still don’t know.”
“I don’t understand how your visions work, so forgive me if my questions are off color, but if you were really going to die, don’t you think you would have seen that?” Ian asked. “I mean, that’s a pretty important event in your life.”
Janet shrugged. “I just don’t know, Ian. If I wasn’t going to die, then why can’t I see anything past this point?”
“Maybe you can’t see it because there are simply too many things influencing the future at this point. You just told me something major is going to happen, but you had no idea what. That sounds pretty damn vague to me. Why would anything past that point be any clearer?” Ian said reasonably.
“I don’t know,” Janet said in resignation. “You could very well be right. It’s just that I’m so used to seeing something that it’s really unnerving when it isn’t there anymore.”
“You know, you can come back to the ship any time you want. You have enough people working for you now that you can take a break if you need to,” Ian suggested. “Trying to work with frazzled nerves won’t help anyone.”
Janet nodded. “Maybe you’re right. I’ll just finish off these appointments I have and I’ll come back up. I’ll bring the liaison officer for the moon base with me so you can meet him and give him his marching orders.”
“I look forward to it. Remember, I’ll have that staff meeting in the morning, so if you can both be here for that, it’d be great,” Ian said.
Again Janet nodded. “Okay, we’ll be there tonight. What time is the meeting in the morning?”
“I haven’t officially called for it yet, but how does oh-nine hundred sound?” Ian asked, grinning.
Janet snorted. “Too damn early in the morning, that’s how it sounds, but we’ll be there. Take care, Ian.”
“You too, Janet. Be safe,” Ian said as her image faded from the screen.