“Or refute it. And by now it might be a reality. If it’s true, we’ll be surrounded on three sides by the G.A. If they lay claim to the open space on our last border that currently has no neighbors, we’ll be surrounded by the G.A.”
“We should lay claim to that space before anyone else does.”
“And do what with it? With the Denubbewa coming for us, we can’t afford to scatter our forces. And we can’t lay claim to space we’re unable to defend and protect.”
“We don’t know the Denubbewa are coming for us.”
“Neodeet, haven’t you been listening to your own warnings? You’ve as much as stated that we can’t defend ourselves against the Denubbewa. Nobody can— except perhaps the G.A.”
“We’re just a small nation compared to the G.A. and even the Ruwalchu Confederacy. Perhaps they’ll leave us alone.”
“We all know there’s little chance of that. I wish I could invite Admiral Carver to come here and talk to us. Perhaps we should send a representative to Quesann. I wish we had better communications with our neighbors. It takes far too long to contact them and get a reply. Our intelligence people have heard rumors that Space Command is working on a new communications system that will allow them to send messages across the length of the galaxy in seconds.
“More unsubstantiated rumors. There’s nothing faster than S-Band. Our physicists say we’ve reached the limits and we’ll never see anything faster. Faster communications are totally impossible, so Space Command can’t possibly have developed anything that sends messages across vast distances in seconds. Trust me.”
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Five
~ December 16th, 2292 ~
“Good Morning, Jen,” the image of Admiral Holt said from the large monitor on the wall facing Jenetta’s desk when she accepted the call.
“Good morning, Brian. What’s new?”
“Have you heard about the response to the Senate Council’s press release regarding the G.A. adding a Region Four?”
“I heard that some people like it and some don’t.”
“I’m talking about the latest poll in Galactic News Today.”
“No, I haven’t seen that one.”
“According to the pollsters, people in the G.A. are overwhelmingly in favor of it once they heard the Ruwalchu are going to pay for the entire fleet of Space Command ships required to patrol their territory in addition to the regular assessment all aligned planets pay to cover the costs of Space Command personnel, maintenance, and ordnance.”
“Wonderful. The Ruwalchu Confederacy figured that would ensure their annexation without delay.”
“That’s the good news for today. The bad news is that people in the G.A. are extremely upset regarding the situation on Husteus where thirteen and a half million people are missing.”
“Well, I wouldn’t expect anyone to be happy about that. I’m certainly not happy. Do they blame us?”
“No, that’s the interesting thing. They understand that Husteus is a very remote planet that chose to be non-aligned to avoid paying an assessment for Space Command protection costs. They know it couldn’t happen in Region One because there are few non-aligned planets, and we have a customs ship around every one of them to ensure that the non-aligned planet isn’t trading with aligned planets. If the Denubbewa attacked a non-aligned planet there, we would either be notified by the customs ship when the Denubbewa arrived or by the lack of the daily report required to be filed by the customs agents. But out here in Regions Two and Three, we haven’t had the funding to expand that program.”
“Yes, it would be great if we could afford that, but with more than two-thirds of the inhabited planets in Regions Two and Three being non-aligned, it’s just not possible.”
“That shouldn’t be the case for long. The news about what the Denubbewa did on Husteus has stirred up the population on every non-aligned planet. They’re all afraid they’re going to be next. I understand the Senate offices are filled with legal representatives hired by non-aligned planets to process the paperwork so their planet will be recognized as aligned immediately, and they’re trying to bribe clerks to get a higher place in line on the waiting list so they get their protection sooner.”
“No kidding?”
“No kidding. And the Senate has just this morning pushed through a resolution that once a planet is granted aligned status, they can’t alter that status for at least twenty annuals. I guess the Senators don’t want planets thinking they can change their status in order to be better protected every time there’s a situation like this and then cancel the aligned status to save money when the extra protection isn’t needed.”
“I’m hoping there’s never a situation like this again, Bry.”
“Yeah, well, I concur with that hope, but I have no idea how we’re going to add all these newly-aligned planets to our patrol routes.”
“The new satellites will help a great deal. Since the planets will be aligned, we can have a tiny presence on or around the planet without requesting permission. A daily report will be all it takes to stay pretty much on top of things there. If we don’t receive a daily report, or even an hourly report, we send in the cavalry. Even so, the Senate will have no choice but to immediately approve a new construction effort and major funding for new ships.”
“I’m glad I don’t have to be the one to break the news to them.”
“I’m sure they know, and even if they don’t realize it yet, I doubt they can refuse or even give me a hard time. If all the requests for aligned status are approved, there’re going to be a lot of new senators coming to Quesann. The current Senate is going to need their votes to get anything passed, so they won’t be able to tell those planets that there just aren’t enough credits in the till to produce the necessary ships to protect their home planets.”
~ ~ ~
“We’ve now located every Personnel CJ Gate booth on the planet,” Christa said to Captain Critarian in her office aboard the battleship Artemis. “As the teams finish up their work of downloading all the send-code and receive-code data, the booth is deactivated. And as each booth is deactivated, the signal we were receiving twice a day that an update was being broadcast from that area ceases to show on our scans of the planet. Thankfully, we never experienced any more sudden appearances of cyborgs after that one incident.”
“Why do you think that one event occurred?”
“It’s possible they were coming from somewhere that hadn’t gotten the message about Husteus being restored to G.A. guardianship with Space Command standing by as we performed a cleanup operation.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s a possibility. Battlefields can be pretty disorganized at times.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“The Babbage has completed the work of loading as much of the three destroyed Denubbewa warships into their ship as possible, and they’ll be leaving shortly for Lorense-Four. Another ship-transporter, the Winston, should be arriving soon. We expect it’ll be able to clean up the remainder of the trash floating out there. The McHenry will continue to provide emergency food rations for the inhabitants of the planet until they can get their farms and food-processing operations going, although the ship is preparing to make a trip to the Ellask SCB to restock. We also expect that a number of freighters loaded with fresh food and replacement farm animals will be arriving here over the next year. The rest of the taskforce has received new orders and will be leaving orbit within the next twenty-four hours. You’ll be receiving orders shortly to proceed to your next assignment as soon as you’ve finished here.”
“Do you know where the Koshi is being sent, ma’am?”
“I haven’t been told, but I can tell you that the G.A. is in major turmoil right now. Most of the non-aligned planets suddenly want our presence on their planets and our ships in their space. Things are going to be positively crazy for a while. You’ve heard about the Ruwalchu Confederacy now being Region Four, haven’t you?”
“Yes ma’am. I knew they were a
sking for help with repelling the Denubbewa, but I admit that their petition for annexation wasn’t something I ever expected.”
“I think it caught all of us by surprise. My information was that they were definitely hostile to our presence and had refused establishing a diplomatic relationship.”
“That’s what I’d heard. But their appeal does make perfect sense. Their Space Fleet has been completely destroyed, so aligning themselves with us is their best chance for survival.”
“The next thing you know, the Hudeera and the Gondusans will be pleading for annexation.”
“I could see the Hudeera because we’ve had a close relationship with them, but the Gondusans? Not so much. For their part in the attempt to arrogate the Milori Empire, my sister made them give up their former territory that she’d allowed them to reclaim after the Milori were defeated.”
“Dangerous times make strange bedfellows. And we’ve never faced dangerous times like we’re facing now.”
“I’ve certainly felt that way, but we’ve kicked Denubbewa butt every time we’ve faced them.”
“For all we know they might also be fighting wars in a dozen other galaxies. I suspect that if they ever get their act together and come at us with a million warships, we might not fare so well. They’re damn smart and they might just be holding back while they develop new weapons that will negate our present advantage. Never underestimate them, Commander.”
“No, ma’am. You’re absolutely correct. And they might have something new that we’re not expecting. We must never become too complacent.”
~ ~ ~
“Do you know what those engineering officers are doing, Jeff?” PFC Shonora Gullstile asked.
“They’re examining the Denubbewa transfer booth,” PFC Jeffrey Stilcox said.
“No, I mean specifically,” Gullstile said.
“Uh, I don’t understand all that alien technology stuff. If I did, I’d probably be an officer.”
“I asked the lieutenant working at the control panel on the outside of the booth. He showed me how they’re downloading all the codes from the booth so they know the addresses of the booths where the Cyborgs came from and where they went to.”
“So?”
“So— if we have that information we’ll know where they went.”
“So?”
“Don’t you see? We can go there also.”
“Go there? Why would we want to go there? There are probably millions of those metal-heads there.”
“Exactly.”
“What? Are you nuts?”
“Look, those machines are coming for us. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but it won’t be long. So if we can show them that we’re not the pushovers the Husteans were, maybe it’ll slow their advance down enough for the G.A. to find a way to destroy them.”
“Hey, wait a minute. Are you suggesting we go there on our own— without approval from Command?”
“Yeah.”
“You are nuts.”
“I don’t mean just us. I mean the whole platoon. Hey, I just don’t want to sit around waiting for attacks from cyborgs while our officers collect data that will probably never be used.”
“Command knows what it’s doing. If they say go, we go. If they say wait, we wait. If they say jump, we jump, just as high as we can, and never ask how high.”
“We can’t just wait around until the cyborgs come for us.”
“We’re not just waiting around. We’re protecting the engineers so they can concentrate on collecting the data Command needs for the G.A. defense, and we’re also protecting the engineers as they deactivate the booths so the cyborgs can’t suddenly show up and start blasting away.”
“I think we’re missing an opportunity here.”
“What would happen if you did manage to go wherever the target booth is and you discover it’s been crushed flat but is still operational after having been in one of the ships the Miami destroyed? Or how about the control pad doesn’t work so you can’t enter a return address and you’re stuck in some other galaxy?”
“Uh—I haven’t worked out all the details yet.”
“Then you’d better work on them if you hope to have a chance to get back from your mission. But don’t look to me to join you if the operation isn’t supported by Command.”
~ ~ ~
“We’ve received a report from my sister Christa regarding the collection of data from the Denubbewa CJ Gate booths,” Jenetta said at the closed session of the A.B. meeting in her office. “I should say that Brian received the report and sent me a copy so there’s no suggestion that Christa isn’t following the proper chain of command. They’ve completed their work and have forwarded all the data to Brian, who will no doubt send it all to Loretta.”
“Already sent,” Admiral Holt said. “I sent it to her at the same time I sent you the cover report.”
“Good. Thank you, Brian. I hope the effort helps us identify the location of the base they came from.”
“I’m afraid not, Jen,” Admiral Plimley said. “The data proves what we had suspected. The address to each Personnel CJ Gate booth is completely unique and probably assigned at the time of construction so the traveler must know the address of the booth before they can travel. It’s the same system we’ve established for our Personnel CJ Gate system so someone can’t simply travel to a Personnel CJ Gate without advance knowledge of its location.”
“That’s a shame. I guess we’ll have to find a new idea for tracking them back to their base. Roger, how are you making out with the supervisor cyborg we got from the Ruwalchu?”
“We’ve gotten a great deal of detailed information from it concerning the construction and operation of a Denubbewa warship. My people are still parsing it. So far, they haven’t found anything ground-shaking, anything that identifies a base location, or anything that gives us a history of the Denubbewa. But we remain hopeful.”
“Okay. Thank you, Roger. Perhaps something will turn up, but it’s beginning to look like we haven’t made much headway. Loretta, how are we making out with the manufacture of the new CJ Gate satellites?”
“When I established our production schedule, I allowed for considerable downtime since this was a brand new product. But so far the assembly process hasn’t broken down, and it’s moving along even faster than predicted. We have a warehouse full of the satellites SCI uses for monitoring situations in space, so I took that assembly process down temporarily and dedicated the line to producing wormhole communication satellites. The internal components of the satellites are different, but the retooling was minor. So, as a result, we’re far ahead of schedule. But it’s still going to take six weeks of travel to get the new satellites out to the farthest points of Region Three and twelve weeks to reach the farthest areas of Region Four.”
“I’ve learned that we’ve very recently acquired a significant quantity of personnel CJ Gate booths in amazingly pristine condition,” Jenetta said with a grin, “and they just happen to already be way out in Region Three. Since the satellites are so small, can’t we use the Gate booths here to get them out to where we need them? You could probably fit a half a dozen satellites in a booth at once.”
“Actually, we could probably send a dozen at once if we removed them from the packing cases. But it’ll still take a week to ten days to get the satellites to the Region Three border area and seven additional weeks to the farthest areas of Region Four.”
“But we’d be shaving five weeks off the transportation time. Since we could send a batch every three minutes, there’s no need to remove the packing materials. Do you foresee any problems with forwarding them that way?”
“Well, eight of the booths in one of the new bases, Highcap SCB, were reported to have been damaged when they were improperly disconnected, and three of their booths were riddled with laser fire when the cyborgs tried to take control of the base, so I wouldn’t count on any of them at all. Booths at the other six bases were also powered down improperly to prevent use by the Denubbewa, altho
ugh the damage might be minor. We’ve developed full schematics for the booths and would like the engineers in each base to attempt to restore power and run a series of diagnostic tests on each one. If they have at least one booth working, we can send them any parts they need to fix the malfunctioning booths.”
“I thought the Gates lost their ability to function once they were turned off,” Admiral Burke said. “Didn’t you recently tell us that the data in the booths we have here was no longer available?”
“I was referring to the log record of transfers. The booth retains its own identity data, so all you need is the ID of the booth you’re sending someone or something to.”
“All the booths on Husteus have been loaded aboard the McHenry,” Admiral Ahmed said. “I can have her swing by Highcap, drop off eleven replacements, and pick up the damaged booths on her way back here.”
“That would be great,” Jenetta said. “Thanks, Raihana.”
“As long as those recovered booths are already out in Region Three, we might as well store all of them at Highcap,” Admiral Plimley said. “The booths we’ve designed for our new system have very different internal circuitry and operating systems that will prevent the Denubbewa from accessing them, but there was no sense discarding the booths we’d collected. If we leave the booths out there, they can be upgraded to work with our system in the future simply by replacing the internal components. That will prevent them for being accessed by the Denubbewa.”
“Okay, we’ll do that. Raihana, please unload all the booths at Highcap, but pick up the eleven that were damaged.”
“Will do, Jen.”
“Loretta, if we install one or two of the Husteus booths in a ship centrally located in Region Four, we can cut out another five weeks of travel time when transporting the satellites.”
“Jen, I thought we wanted to keep use of the Denubbewa system to a minimum to reduce the chance of them learning we’re piggybacking our signals on their system?” Admiral Plimley said.
“We did, Loretta, but we also expected the satellites wouldn’t be available until months from now. You and your people have done such an amazing job that we can advance the schedule. Now, if we can get these satellites out to where we need them most and activate them, it doesn’t matter if the Denubbewa learn we’ve been using their system and take steps to deny us access. We’ll have the beginnings of our own wormhole communication system in place in weeks instead of months, with satellites in the most remote areas of G.A. space. These expanses are among the most important locations because the new system enables us to be informed immediately of any problems or incursions rather than learning about them months after the fact.” Jenetta took a deep breath and released it quickly. “I feel like celebrating. Anyone want a refill of their coffee or tea?”
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