The ambassador brushed past the security man without stopping, using a brush of his arm. He did not want to create an opportunity for the UEG Government to use the deaths of their security men as a distraction to the information he was revealing of the vulnerability of Earth since the destruction of the base.
It was an odd way to expose the government’s secret, but after studying the humans for as long as he had, the ambassador was certain revealing the secret in such a way as to create a massive blowup of the news cycle the humans use to keep the population partially informed and easily manipulated was the best way to get the population to demand a full mobilization to a war economy on their own. The initial mobilization was a start, but the governments of Earth were too accustomed to appeasing the masses with baubles and handouts to maintain the effort to transition to a full military focused economy. The ambassador decided, after seeing three months of inaction, elected officials were cowards and unwilling to give their voters the news their easy lives of plenty were changing as resources would be diverted from making butter, to making guns. He borrowed the rather limited economic theory originated by William Jennings Bryan for its simplicity. It seemed a fitting match to the simple minded thinking of Earth’s politicians.
The two security officers moved to follow and catch up to the ambassador as he continued in an all too loud voice to reveal the threat to Earth the UEG decided to ignore, “What is going to stop Chzek-kin scout ships from finding Earth? I am surprised at the lack of urgency to create the defenses necessary to protect Earth from annihilation.” The ambassador’s last comment had risen another five decibels and he was pleased to see at least two news cameras were pointed in his direction along with a host of personal recording devices. His success was only dampened when one of the security agents grabbed his arm and pulled him around.
Using the energy of the agent’s pull to spin him around, the ambassador accelerated the motion and grabbed the agent by the neck, lifting him so his feet left the floor, “Mark Eegen, your training record shows you were trained in the proper conduct toward a Vrene Ambassador, was that not the case?” the ambassador asked in a low voice, tightening his grip and turning to look at the second agent while he spoke, “Dennis Montgomery, were you not also the recipient of this training?”
The agent dangling in the air responded with, “Ach khe, gzzt,” while the second agent looked back and forth between his quickly turning purple partner and the ambassador. His hand was up under his jacket in the back, “Please put the agent down, Mr. Ambassador,” he said. There was no quaver in his voice.
The ambassador did not expect any fear from the two men; they were both well decorated former Special Forces. Dropping the agent back on his feet while retaining his grip enough to keep the agent from falling to his knees, the ambassador spoke to Agent Montgomery, “Dennis, if you pull your weapon, you will die. If you succeed in killing my avatar, everyone in this building will die. You know this.”
With a slight widening of his eyes, the agent made his request a second time while ignoring the ambassador’s threat, “Release the agent, Ambassador,” he said, steel in his voice.
The ambassador’s eyebrows rose fractionally as he raised his assessment of the agents another notch. These men were warriors and were a big part of the reason Humans were selected by the Vrene. The ambassador released the agent’s neck and placed his hand on his shoulder, holding him in place. The strength of the ambassador was undeniable, “I like you, Dennis. You too, Mark. You are soldiers of the highest caliber and humanity needs you to win this war,” he told them. His familiarity with their names was meant to throw them off mentally as the ambassador had never before met either of the two men and it was disconcerting the ambassador would know who they were.
Moving his arms back to his sides, Agent Montgomery stepped closer to the ambassador so he could lower his voice, “Ambassador, I have to ask you to please not discuss highly classified information in public. It could start a panic.”
“Agent Montgomery, a ‘panic’ is precisely what is needed. Earth needs to fully mobilize for war and the people need to support it.”
“I understand, Ambassador, but that’s not my decision,” the agent replied.
“But it is mine, Agent. Your record shows you have had full training in the agreement between the Vrene and Humanity. You risk a great deal in interfering with any action I choose to take, including revealing secrets or even taking over complete control of the war effort.”
“Like I said, Ambassador, that’s not my decision.”
“Well, it is your decision to not die today. And it is your decision to not kill everyone in this building with a poorly considered act. So, I expect you to make those decisions and stand aside. I intend to continue out to the front steps and speak with the press. I will not tolerate any more interference and suggest you make it a point not to be seen by me for the next few years.”
Finally showing doubt, the agent and his no-longer-purple-in-the-face companion stepped back from the ambassador.
Satisfied they were not going to continue their assault, the ambassador walked out of the building and onto the steps of the UEG Capital where he took up position on the top step and waited for the flock of reporters that were flowing out of the building behind him and coming up the steps from news vans in front. Berating the council in their chambers seemed to be pointless, and killing them would just bring in new politicians just as publicity conscious, and even more incompetent, to run the war effort. It was time to bring the People into the decision making since their leaders were too self-serving to do what was needed.
Chapter 28: XSS Nautilus, Deep in Chzek-kin Controlled Space
The virtual bridge of the XSS Nautilus had a quiet hum of equipment, people moving around, and whispered conversation. Only the whispered conversation was real. The rest of it was to provide a more realistic stimulus simulating a natural environment to the crew on their virtual bridge for their mental health. The human mind was not meant to be deprived of stimulus, even background noise was important. For long patrols, especially with deep penetrations into enemy space and under constant stress, the regular stimulus was paramount.
Captain Kree sat in her command chair on the Nautilus and went through the profiles of her crew; she was checking each of their current brainwave patterns and psych profiles over the last several weeks, looking for trends. Each profile had a continuous monitor history of the crewmember displayed side-by-side with their activities on the ship. When they were entering a new system, when they had free time, when they were on watch; at all times the crew was monitored by the ship’s systems and only the captain could freely access the files. Even when Navigation Tech, Becky Vitahl and Engineering Tech, Eddie Hanks were engaged in intimate relations in a post-apocalyptic virtual world, the ship’s systems indicated where they were, what they were doing, and their mental state while they were doing it.
Captain Kree considered relationships aboard ship to be inevitable and made no effort to interfere so long as they were discreet. The main reason was the beneficial mental condition a good love affair could provide. Techs Vitah and Hanks were so close to their baselines they could have been in port. Good for them. The only thing the captain was curious about was the race their characters were playing. During their intimate encounter, she played the post-apocalyptic character from one game, while he played an orc warrior from another. Considering the near perfect and realistic rendering of game worlds in VR games, it was a bit shocking for the captain to see it in their timelines.
Interrupting the captain’s voyeuristic review of her crew, Sensors Tech, Stanis shouted a report, “Contact! Negative 8 degrees at 172. Range four point two million miles.”
“Very well. Do you have an ID on the contact yet?” asked the captain.
“I believe it’s the Charlie Drone, Sir. It’s coming from the correct bearing and in the proper time window,” he replied.
“You believe, Stanis? Verify the target and set general quarters,
” Captain Kree ordered. Guesses, even informed guesses as the tech’s making, are a good way to die, she thought, keeping her promise to remain diligent.
It took less than twenty seconds for the crew to report to their general quarters stations. After eight months deployed, the Nautilus’ crew was a well-oiled machine. Looking at the bridge’s crew, the captain was still thrilled with her new ship. Compared to the Cousteau, the Nautilus was decades ahead in design and capabilities. Four sensors technicians kept watch, with each one working their own set of sensors, unlike the Cousteau which only had two stations for sensors, a quarter of the sensors, and a tenth of the detection capability. At weapons sat two technicians in front of a full array of offensive and defensive weaponry. The Cousteau had one weapons station and it was an afterthought. Even navigation had an extra station. The only thing that remained the same between the bridges of the two ships was the helm.
“Contact is confirmed, Captain. It’s Charlie,” reported the sensors tech a few minutes later.
“Prepare to retrieve the drone and begin data transfer via laserlink,” ordered the captain, not wanting to wait until the drone was aboard to review its logs. This was the last of the three drones sent through the system. The other two were already retrieved and each showed ships moving within the system. There were no planets in the life zone, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a significant presence. There may be a major presence in the system and the captain was anxious for something worthwhile to report back to the fleet.
Activating her communications channel, the captain contacted the XO on the secondary bridge, a pre-virtual setup still in use for its psychological effect on the crew more than any practical need, “Milton,” she called, using some familiarity since LCDR Fox was still showing signs of mental distress. To keep his mental health from sliding any further, she was forced to adjust his schedule and get him as much personal and social time as was possible. It wasn’t easy when the XO did everything he could to avoid people and wanted to crawl into his shell.
“Yes, Captain,” he answered, sounding rested and relaxed; it was a good sign not seen in months.
“I want you analyzing the data from Drone Charlie with Trent and Vitahl as soon as the quantum computer has it decoded. I think we may have what we’ve been looking for here.” The captain sounded excited to her XO, something she rarely showed in her voice, although you would never see it in her emotional status.
“Aye, Captain. We’ll get right on it as soon as we secure from GQ.”
“Call me if you find anything,” she finished just before switching back to the ship-wide intercom, “Secure from general quarters and set the mid-watch,” she announced.
Two hours later, the captain finished her OOD watch. It was 4 AM and the relieved watch standers were making their way to their bunks for a few more hours sleep or the commons to start their day. The captain began standing watch as a relief to the regular rotation since the XO was pulled from watch duty, ostensibly to work on the captain’s “special projects.” It was also nice to have something else to do. When she left the bridge she transitioned into the main passageway of the virtual reality rendering of the ship and entered the Commons. Several members of the ship’s crew were in the space and a few were organizing a night out in a New York City VR instance where there was sure to be plenty of “intimate” contact between the game’s NPC population and the three engineers who were just relieved from their watch. The captain noted who they were and recalled each was handling the long patrol with a relatively healthy mental state. She considered there may be something to the NYC instance she should check out for her own wellbeing. David gave her an avatar profile of him that she could load into any VR sim, but so far she was resisting the urge to see an AI copy of him when she was actually missing the real thing. It may be time to change that, however, as everyone needs intimacy in their life and a release from the drone of a shipboard existence.
Two other crewmembers were playing a game of cribbage and it reminded the captain they were likely playing the final match of the ship’s tournament in the game. Grabbing her datapad, the captain sat down and brought up the book she was currently reading. She knew it would not be long before the XO contacted her with his report on the drone’s transit through the system.
After several chapters, the captain looked up and made a sweep of the Commons. Several crewmembers had wandered in and were engaged in various activities. The captain decided the XO had all the time he needed and called up the instance they were using to review the sensor data from Drone Charlie and entered. She couldn’t wait for them to report any longer.
“Captain! We were just about to call you,” the XO said. “You were right,”
Looking at the huge rendering of the star system without comment on the XO’s failure to inform her earlier they found something, the captain immediately noted the enemy contacts moving within the system. Most of them were very large ships and could only be transport or cargo ships; she hoped they were transport or cargo ships when they were that big. Six major asteroids were also identified as having activity with three of them labeled as “mining” and a fourth as “manufacturing.”
“They’re building ships here,” the captain said, feeling a rush after so many systems of finding nothing. Unless another ship found something since their deployment, which was a real possibility, this was the most significant find of the war in tracking down the Chzek-kin and bringing the war to them.
“Are there any signs their ships are using traffic patterns?” she asked.
“Yes, Sir,” responded Navigation Tech, Vitahl, “The traffic from each of the asteroids, we believe they are all mining operations, are going to and from this asteroid.”
“Excellent. What about traffic in and out of the system?”
The XO grinned, “Yes, Sir. Five ships,” he reported, stepping into the 3D virtual display and pointing to each of the ships, “Three other ships entered the system using the same course. It looks like they all came from the same place, but were not traveling together. Two ships were also outbound. They came from the manufacturing facility and are heading on a reciprocal course to the inbound ships.”
“Do you have a profile on the outbound ships?”
“Destroyer sized. They were interesting as they ramped up their acceleration over several hours to sixty-five gees,” the XO said, “Not sure why they would do that.”
“If they’re new ships, they could be testing the engines,” concluded the captain, now with a half-smile on her face that was more predatory than happy by the prospects of having a ship to track back to an inhabited Chzek-kin planet.
“Lt. Trent, plot a course to intercept those outbound ships when they leave the system. They should be accelerating most of the time, so we should not have a problem following them,” ordered the captain, pausing for a moment to consider whether Chzek-kin ships were faster than human ships. If these were new ships the crews would not want to stress the engines during a transit run, she hoped.
“XO, have Drone Delta prepped for launch with a full data dump. We need to send this in. Mike,” she continued, looking back to her navigation officer, “Set a course for the drone to pass behind us as we begin our pursuit. I don’t want someone sneaking up on our tail. I want the drone set to go to Rendezvous Blue. It’s the closest one to Black Rock Three. No, wait. Send it to Rheas. That’ll shave off a couple weeks of transit time.”
“Aye, aye, Sir,” the officer and tech replied as Vitahl realized her free time between watches was about to be spent working on a NavPlot. The captain noticed the flicker of annoyance in Vitahl’s emotional state and was pleased to see she quickly suppressed it with a dark blue of relaxed concentration. Good for her, she’s handling it, the captain thought.
After following the two outbound ships for two weeks, the captain began to question where they were going. There was not a star system within twenty light years that lined up with the course the ships were taking. The reasonable answer was the ships were go
ing to make a course correction, but they were well past the optimal points for making a dog-leg course change for any star system within their cone of travel.
“Tracking, what do you have for a most likely destination on our rabbits?” asked the captain, using for the first time the nickname Weapons Tech, Finn Garry gave the Chzek-kin ships, which made the Nautilus the “Fox” in this hunt.
“The only rational destination, without a major course correction and losing a lot of energy in a turn, is 48498,” responded the navigation tech on watch, Beck, “But that’s nine lightyears out from their current position. That would be a nineteen lightyear run from where they started.” It was obvious Beck was skeptical of the possibility.
“Do you consider that likely?”
“Not in friendly space. I expect we’ll do it when we head back to Black Rock Three, but it’s asking for trouble for routine operations,” Beck theorized. All of the navigation techs on board the ship were senior with more than a decade in service and the captain respected their opinions.
“Then give me another reason they’re on this course. Something is not right here,” insisted the captain. Traveling through deep space without a friendly system aligned meant there would be no one to spot their ship if it lost power and was unable to make engine repairs. Scout ships did it regularly, but it was uncommon for non-combat ships, or even warships, unless they were on a mission.
The two Chzek-kin ships didn’t give the captain the feeling they were on a mission so much as on a delivery of the newly constructed ships. Over the last week the ships were varying their thrust in what she could only guess was a shakedown of the engines.
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