The Resolute

by G. Weldon Tucker

  “Three bogeys, Captain. All behind us. I sense our Friend underneath us, again. There is another at the edge of our range, behind us, still fighting. These Friends do not seem too worried… ma’am.”

  ‘U R NO HELPLESS. IS GOOD.’

  “You are more than one, Friend?”

  ‘YES. WAIT… SEVERAL. WE HELP YOU. ZEPHROAN R … WAIT… WAIT… SINGLE MINDED. NO GIVE UP.’

  Over the weeks, the communication had gotten better, but still in text form. Friend could hear but had no provision for speech. Angela was still unwilling to let it take over their system’s audible capability, as they needed to hear the warning and reports without worrying about where they were coming from…

  CHAPTER 19

  Four days later, no other incidents, it happened.

  “Star system indicators, Captain,” Radar, a silky blonde, well-toned and nicely formed young woman of late twenties, named Nance, called out.

  Indicators were like looking through the best telescopes on earth, through atmosphere, and seeing what might be a smudge. From space telescopes, with no atmosphere, that might be a mass of distinct lights in a … smudge. Akin to looking at the star cluster Pleides from Earth with binoculars. One could almost see the individual units. It depended how close the telescope could get to the tangle of stars and planets. But that was for galaxies.

  Now, however, they were combing their own galaxy, and the heading optics focused in the direction Friend had pointed them.

  The optics were already up full, not that it would help Resolute if they came upon a black hole or a complete planet at seven plus times the speed of light! No one could see far enough ahead to prevent the crash. Or react fast enough.

  Except their Friend, who periodically blasted out that long death ray and ‘ate’ whatever it was. They still could not see anything that far out.

  The vidscreen showed that smudge only about an inch across. On the main, 600 x 800 inch vidscreen, that was not much. But in it were a couple of brighter spots, and a several smaller, less bright planets. Probably.

  “No idea of range, Radar?”

  “None, ma’am! Too far. But we are aligned to come in on the far right edge of it. The thing is growing on the vid about a tenth of an inch an hour, Captain.”

  “Friend, is this our destination ahead?”

  Almost immediately, the answer appeared on the bottom of the secondary vidscreen, ‘YES. PREPARE FOR DECELERATION NINETEEN HOURS YOUR TIME.’ That was it.

  “Friend, does it have a name?”

  ‘NAME? WAIT… WAIT… NO NAME. MUCH OUTSIDE ZEPHROAN SPACE. MUCH OUTSIDE TAL’KEN… MY SPACE.’

  ‘My,’ again. Angela wondered, one more time, if this was a single entity, even in a pack, and even if it was a computer of some kind. With awesome power.

  “Send out the warnings. Going from seven times light speed back to one is going to be painful. Prepare the ship, Commander.”

  Turning the Resolute ass end first was not hard, but it was big, it was a heavy mass, and it did its thing ponderously slow. It would take nearly an hour.

  ‘U R TURN. WHY?’

  Angela thought, Hell, we have turned one degree. Sharp equipment on that alien thing. “We must decelerate backwards for safety. All seats and restraints are made that way for humans.” Angela replied, carefully.

  ‘ODD. U R ODD CREATURES… WAIT… WAIT… HAHA.’

  “It was fishing in our speech bank for laughter. Even Spook has no sense of humor,” Rogers, standing duty, offered.

  “Friend, we are fragile creatures. You are mighty. We respect you for it!”

  Then, they were completely stunned. Came the reply, ‘FRAGILE… WAIT… WAIT… THANK YOU!’

  “Friend, please realize that you must do your turns, your deceleration gradually, or we die.”

  ‘FRAGILE. YES. UNRSTN.’

  -----

  It took less than one hour to get the Resolute, still traveling seven times the speed of light to swap ends. Everyone was anticipating a complete disintegration, but frankly, in space, unless they actually hit something, there was little chance of that.

  “Friend, we are prepared and in position for deceleration. Please give us one of our hour’s notification for deceleration so we can be safe! Slow us in increments of one tenth light years, no more than two minutes… Do you understand minutes?”

  ‘FRAGILE. ODD CREATURES. YES, OF COURSE… UNRSTN.’

  Meanwhile, the star system, two bright stars orbiting one another, and several visible planets, now, was getting bigger and bigger on the vidscreen. It was almost two inches across, and still a bit fuzzy, but it seemed close to what they needed.

  More, and they would discern color, looking for blue water. Then, to their amazement, a shadow crept across it, and blocked it out entirely in just seconds.

  Here came that fantastic green light, now showing in the aft vid, and instantly, the galaxy was back in view.

  Rogers, looking a bit pale, again, just could not seem to adjust to this relationship, and he managed, finally, “I am just glad Friend found us first!”

  Captain Washington, just headed off the bridge for dinner in her quarters, had stopped to see the shadow, and its removal. “Amen to that, Commander.”

  Rogers offered, quietly, “Captain, we are seventeen hours, forty minutes from deceleration. I will go off duty at midnight. Commander Willits will summon you one hour in advance. Ma’am?”

  “Yes, Commander, that will be fine. The bridge is yours, Commander!” and she left, tossing quick salutes to those she passed. It had been a long day. Hell, a long month… for that matter, she found she was still very excited. They might actually find a new home before she became an old, old woman!

  -----

  Before dinner, she slipped into the workout deck and spent a couple of hours in heavy labor, running, weights, stretch bands, everything, intense and hurried. Soon, this would certainly pay off. And the stronger the gravity, the more important it became.

  She was pleased to see more than a thousand people scattered all over the workout room, military and police, though the regular Navy tended to stay to the front third. Everyone was hoping for that new home.

  During her return to her quarters, she put her body in automatic and tried to imagine what being on a planet would be like. She had, of course, been born on this ship. So had her parents, and so on back at least six generations. Planet was called ‘dirt side,’ or ‘on the rock.’ But it was all movies, rumor, promise, and not yet reality.

  She shook herself out of it. It was far too early to get her hopes too high. ‘Friend,’ the Tal’Ken, seemed confident, but if it was outside its ‘space,’ how did it know?

  She ordered up dinner, disrobing in her quarters, stretching to loosen up the tired muscles. Then, shaking her short hair to loosen it, she headed for the shower, wearing her magnetic flip-flops. Any lack of magnetic footwear asked for danger.

  Dinner always took a half an hour to arrive, hand prepared for Commanders and above, and an onboard shower was restricted to five minutes. She had yet to take a bath. She knew where the water came from. Recycled, regardless of how fresh it was ‘considered,’ was not truly fresh water. Drinking water, yes, because of special treatment. Shower, toilet and bath? Not so much… Meanwhile, the math worked, easily. If she started now, she would be dressed, essentially, for dinner. A bathrobe would suffice, but her uniform must be laid out and ready.

  Plenty of time…

  CHAPTER 20

  And so, Captain Angela Washington found her naked body tossed right out through the heavy plastic door of the shower, to bounce off the wall! In her wild grab for stability, she found herself on her bottom on the tile floor with complete disregard for her dignity!

  The entire ship was shaken, hard, not forward or back, but down hard and then up just as hard as if a giant held Resolute in his fist and gave it an upside down hard, single shake. The alarms were belatedly screaming ‘COLLISON ALERT,’ but the damage was done.

  She coul
d only imagine the number of injuries. Hell, she had almost been one herself. But she was bruised, not battered.

  Quickly, she was up and dressed, reasonably, in less than a minute. The shaking had not repeated. Everything was as before, calm, quiet, peaceful.

  “System, report!”

  “Resolute has received a depleted bolt from a laser at what might be maximum range, Commander. One hundred forty-two degrees off our bow line, forty-four degrees above our plane. Damage, cosmetic, is minimal.”

  The angle was nearly behind them, which, in the position they were in, was twenty degrees off their nose bow line. They had received a blow to the forehead, basically, while retreating at seven times the speed of light. From well out of range, the bolt had lost power before it got to them… or they would all be dust.

  “FULL STEALTH!” and then realized she did not code it right. “SYSTEM, FULL STEALTH!” How the hell does something shake a ship this size and not create damage? she wondered, hurrying upstairs to the bridge.

  The system dutifully reported that the ship had gone on full stealth and shields up the moment of the attack. But, more cryptically.

  Odd, she thought, but had no time to check it. Too busy, too concerned… too, shaken.

  On the bridge, too, were injuries, one of which was Commander Willits, on his back on the floor, the Radar girl, Nance, tending to him. He appeared to be unconscious.

  “Captain on the bridge!” yelled a Lieutenant, bringing all to their feet, but Angela waved them down.

  “As you were, people! What happened?” She knew the basics, why had they not seen it coming?

  Radar looked up, pain in her eyes, and suddenly, it hit Angela like a ton of rocks. She was sweet on the Commander! Did he even know?

  No time for that, damn it! “Radar, report! Get ahold of yourself!”

  “Yes, ma’am. The laser bolt came in from our blindside, above and to the starboard side, calculated, I think, to also come from an angle that prevented our Friend from sensing it. There was nothing on the screen, and the shot appears to have been nearly two million miles out, ma’am. Of course, as we are backward, the damage is on the true Port side, top, front.”

  “Friend, do you have information?”

  ‘WAIT… HUNTING…’

  Suddenly on the aft vidscreen, shown lower left to the forward screen, there occurred a flurry of laser bolts, blue and green a long, long ways out. It was not unlike watching a fireworks show from forty miles away. And more than one source for both. They might be out of these bad guy’s space, but they were being trailed. Or led. By both.

  The medical team hurried in and shooed Nance back to her station. “Minor concussion. It appears he hit his head, Captain. We will know more in an hour or so. Load him up, Lieutenant!”

  Radar, now in her chair as the medical team put Dale on a stretcher and hurried out, reported, “Two explosions, Captain. Better than nine hundred fifty thousand miles, I cannot quite read them! They are gaining on us, though! We are facing them, but sailing backward… ma’am.”

  “Goddamit, we need technical to do more than experiment! We are in the big leagues, out here. I want eyes that can see forever!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the hapless Radar woman almost whispered. She had never seen Captain Washington angry. She certainly did not want it directed her way.

  Angela willed herself to calm down. Maybe it was the big darkening bruise on her rather ivory bottom that pushed her over the edge. But, it did no good for the crew to see her lose control. More evenly, she said, “Thank you, Nance. Please summon the head engineers to the bridge, immediately. And I want a complete damage report!”

  Going direct through the poor Radar girl was almost painful to see, for Nance was in no way used to dealing at the top. A Lieutenant JG, herself, on the bridge, she was the lowest on the totem pole except when an Ensign was in. There were no Ensigns at the moment. But she got right on it. “ETA seven minutes, Captain!”

  “Thank you. As you were. Keep a sharp eye out. If we get a shot, take it!”

  Silence on the bridge, then every two minutes, Nance reported all clear. But, then, with the stealth these aliens carried, that was surely suicidal to think it was, indeed, all clear.

  -----

  A ding from the system, and letters formed across the screen, ‘WARNING… ALARM… ZEPHROAN ABOVE… WAIT… EIGHTY DEGREES ABOVE UR PLANE, TWO DEGREES OFF … WAIT… BEARING… STEALTH. NO NOISE. ONE UNIT… WAIT… ONE… WAIT… NO UNRSTN … MILE? RANGE ONE MILE.’

  One fucking mile!? And they never saw it or suspected it? But, Angela kept her cool, whispering into her wrist, where the system read her microphone watch, “Weapons standby for hot, topside. aft line. Fire at initial threat!” Aft, because the position indicated the Zephroan was leading them, but they were, indeed, flying backwards.

  ‘OUT OF… POSITION. WAIT.’

  Friend was out of position. Probably cannot shoot without hitting us, she thought.

  “Radar, vidscreen vertical, wide,” Angela whispered, a bit louder.

  The Tal’Ken stealth was perfect, it was like looking right through it. Hopefully, not so for the Zephroan. But then, if they thought of visual, they could kill Resolute quickly.

  It is them or us, thought Angela, as the shadowy shape of something huge moved slowly by, slightly off their bearing. It was traveling a tiny bit faster than they were in the direction of the star system, remaining off the bearing, and going over the top and out from the aft end of Resolute, because of her status, flying backward.

  But to Resolute and her cameras, it was merely a huge, dark platform, for the wide angle could cover from the near side to the halfway point, roughly, but not yet find an endpoint.

  Considering they were all still going seven times the speed of light, this was almost magical. The slow motion target took forever to pass overhead, kind of like a Navy destroyer searching for a submarine. Everyone held their breath. If there was a shot, there were ninety-one pairs of laser photon lens along the backbone of the Resolute, fore to aft. Any three sets would kill almost anything. Almost.

  Just as the aft end of the big alien craft, perhaps twenty-five or thirty miles long, passed above Resolute, the vessel, showing no propulsion at all, suddenly stopped. Well, in relation to the Resolute it stopped. It simply slowed to seven times light speed. In so doing, its odd stealth capability briefly flashed to reset.

  The system recognized trouble instantly, far faster than the human decision process, and nine pairs of photon pulsed bolts went out into the back third of the big thing in a tenth of a second.

  Space explosions lack fire, usually, especially when there is no oxygen or combustible chemicals to provide it, and this was a good example of it. The ship glowed, briefly, then from the near aft end up toward the midpoint, it went to dust. Half a ship was left, but it was open to space. If there were sentient beings, they were gone.

  If they were robotic, Resolute was still in grave danger. But again, the system took care of the problem, and with that, the Zephroan vessel, all thirty some miles of it, was history.

  ‘GOOD!’ Friend sent. But from where, no one had a clue.

  Oddly, Angela glowed. She was proud of her ship…

  CHAPTER 21

  Several hours later, having received the one hour notification, the tone sounded from the front vid screen, and the letters stood bright, white on black: ‘DECELERATION PROCESS IN FIVE OF YOUR MINUTES. PLEASE TAKE… WAIT… WAIT… ACTION!’

  The alert sounded, and all through the massive ship, the people, civilian or military hit their assigned chairs. This was a highly practiced drill, well known to save lives, and within two minutes or less, all were secure.

  With Resolute going backwards, the deceleration would shove them hard against the backrests for many moments. Some might even black out. It would depend on the number of g’s.

  “Friend, our speed is seven point two two times the speed of light. What is the final speed to be, and in how long?” Dammit, a compound question. H
ow fast had Friend learned English? She got her answer immediately.

  ‘GOAL ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-TWO THOUSAND MILES PER SECOND. TIME TO GOAL THIRTY MINUTES, YOUR TIMINGS…’

  “Friend, thank you. Please do this in less than two minute stages, so we can breathe. We are fragile. We are ready.” Good God, thirty minutes? It had taken us months to get to light speed on our own.

  ‘DECELERATION ONE MINUTES.’

  Now was not the time to quibble over grammar. Angela took several deep breaths, as did everyone else on the bridge, and hopefully all of the fragile humans were following suit.

  Somehow, as before, the Tal’Ken vessel locked on to Resolute from below. Almost immediately after that subtle touch, it happened.

  Angela found herself squashed back in her seat for nearly a minute as speed was bled off in a hurry. But it did not let up, and she managed, “Friend… Fragile humans. Not so quickly!” Good grief, if they kept this up, Resolute would be a big can full of jelly. It suddenly eased, and everyone gulped air and tried to get their senses back.

  ‘STAGE ONE… COMPLETING…NOW. BREAK FOR FIVE YOUR MINUTES.’

  No one she could see left their seat. “System check, report!’

  “All systems in the green. No injuries, Commander!” Spook dutifully reported.

  “Radar, speed?”

  “Still above my equipment, Captain.”

  “System, speed?” Angela ordered.

  “Six point six light speed, Commander.”

  Radar did a scan in all directions, still seeing nothing out there. She was careful to keep the radar scan on their plane or above to avoid harming their helper.

  ‘DECELERATION IN ONE MINUTE. PREPARE NOW.’

  How did it know we prepared for it? Angela wondered, but then, all too quickly, they did it again. She hoped to God that Friend remembered fragile!

  It lasted almost two minutes, and not nearly as dreadful, though they were still dealing with light speed multiples.

  Radar reported, as soon as she got her breath, “Four plus times light speed, Captain!”