The Resolute

by G. Weldon Tucker

  So, though it was messy and embarrassing, the little one, a boy, was safely stored with five thousand others. There were medical teams on duty day and night, drawn from three dozen very skilled doctors and nurses within the medical center. To them, this was very commonplace. In fact, the storage and growth of the fetus was so commonplace that, for the most part, the work was easy, even with so many in stock.

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  The trade off on the new engines was speed. True, in all the tests without atmosphere, there was no discernible flame, visibly, of any kind, and water was collected at an efficiency that astounded even the engineers. Energy without light meant the back of the fliers, big and small, suddenly were invisible.

  Technically, they would run out of methane before they ran out of water, and all they carried was a forty gallon barrel. But it shaved a little more than one half a percent off acceleration and final speed. No one cared. The difference between three point two light speed and three point one eight four was simply not even noticeable on the fighters. They could overrun their detectors and radar in either case.

  The rescued carbon, recovered as a wet sludge, then dried, found a home as filters spread throughout the ship, and became an easy supply to allow changing the filters more often. Fresher air, better efficiency, a win-win for all.

  Now they had to finish the upgrades in masking the laser. That weakness was one the Zephroan had zeroed in on.

  Resolute’s nuclear engines were rebuilt, all of them, and two more added. This provided so many billions of extra horsepower that when Angela wanted full speed ahead, everyone better be hanging on, because it was a racehorse, headed from a standstill, almost, to five point one light speed in less than six minutes.

  They now had much faster acceleration, but more concentrated mass. The bigger thrusters aft were heavier. The redone nuclear engines were also heavier, and with two more, but they all relocated far forward, allowing the particle acclerators the length of the ship to spew neutrons out of the back of the ship at a renewed, furious rate. This balanced the mass as before. And still, no light, no emissions to detect.

  However, since the manufacturing process used materials on board, total mass did not change because of its own engine construction. But every fighter that went out the door lowered total mass a great deal. Well, on paper. Against the hundreds of millions of tons in Resolute’s mass, they were hardly noticeable. Except in a slight uptick in acceleration and final speed.

  None of this affected steering, a very important concept to someone who knew exactly what to expect in a hard driven monster like Resolute.

  So, life was becoming more fun, more exciting and just a little bit more normal. Imagine, me, a mommy, after all. With a wonderful, loving partner. I could not be happier.

  But she did not let go of her bridge or her command. That would take a hell of a fight, and there was no one at all with courage to take her on…

  CHAPTER 7

  At precisely four twenty in the morning, several months later, Angela and Jack were awakened by an urgent call. “It is time. Report to the clinic!”

  The baby had decided when to take up real life, as almost all of them do, at the most inappropriate time. Angela sent a quick message to Commander Rogers, who stood the bridge, waiting for his relief, and told him to hold place until Commander Willits relieved him. Also, not to expect her in.

  They hustled.

  They were met by a squall of anger, as one of the women doctors was cleaning him up. Brandon Jack Calmone had arrived.

  Angela was hurried into a spill and leak proof gown over her fatigues, and a nurse helped Jack get into his. They took a comfortable position on the sofa and Brandon, named after Jack’s deceased father, and, of course, Jack himself, was passed into Angela’s arms. Childbirth had come a long, long way.

  Brandon settled almost immediately. Jack was not exactly ecstatic about his son, for after all, he looked much like all newborns look, too much red, too wrinkled… too small. But then, the nurse gave him vitals, “Twelve pounds, six ounces, twenty six inches long.”

  Angela looked shocked, and blurted, “Good God, that would have… killed me!”

  “Oh, in natural childbirth we never let them get that big. But outside the womb, they get all the advantages. Little Brandon will be a strapping young man before you know it,” the kindly young doctor told her.

  Jack had his doubts, but he held them in. He was no expert in child rearing, preferring to be several million miles out there protecting his family.

  For the first several hours, Angela and Jack bonded with little Brandon, learning how to bottle feed, even how to change the baby. This was fun for Angela, but let’s face it, the paternal instinct is more like, “Let’s make another.” Far different from the maternal instinct.

  Now, it was scheduled visiting times, with Angela assigned the greatest amount, every few hours, coming to feed the baby by bottle. She had refused the shots to cause lactation, deciding that she could not be under anyone or anything’s control should an emergency arise. The baby was apparently happy with that, too, a lusty eater.

  Jack was scheduled to keep his hand in, and the bonding secure, but even the doctor knew that men have a tendency to avoid these kind of chores, no matter how much they love their kids. This was kind of like playing with dolls, and fearless Jack was doing his best to, well, put up with it…

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  Meanwhile, work continued on the refitting, borrowing much from the experiments and lessons learned with Hope. Longer range detectors to find an object before it became a killer.

  If they managed to reach seven times light speed, every second ate up a million and a third, or 1.3 million miles. So, to have ten seconds of warning, now with the new turning quickness, the ship needed thirteen million miles warning. A second to identify, a second to determine speed, range and predict the exact coordinates of the object, and eight seconds to miss the damned thing.

  All calculations and adjustments were to be handled by Chips, the only one fast enough on Resolute to deal with it. But, at that distance, as long as they did not turn into the object, even a few thousandths of a degree was enough.

  Unfortunately, they could not quite figure out how to stretch the optics. Some of the best minds available were stumped. The best the system upgrades could do was see six million, much more clearly. Beyond that to almost nine million was hazy, but Chips could extrapolate shadows and movement from essentially what is called ‘near objects’ in time to prevent damage. Mostly. Hopefully.

  No one wanted to test it.

  The best minds in the massive ship, from all disciplines, put their heads together and tried to come up with a way to see that magic extra five million miles…

  CHAPTER 8

  Time flies. Well, Resolute sails, and the days, weeks and months rolled by. The speed of the flotilla had increased to five times light speed, so as to get to the Tal’Ken as quickly as possible. The fighters could slip past an extra few points, but maintaining the sphere was far more important. They traveled as a cocoon about the monster Resolute.

  Now, as Brandon grew enough to toddle and demand more time, both Angela and Jack were truly worried about what they would encounter with the Tal’Ken, and seriously hoping they would meet Friend, first, and not the Zephroan. The time was near. They had come far enough. Had the Zephroan eliminated the Tal’Ken?

  Patrols flew wide and deep, seeking trouble, but finding none for service duty after service duty on end. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath. The flights kept their hard x-band radar off, preferring not to fry Friend, if he got in the way. And they waited…

  The answer came on Brandon’s second birthday, during the party. There were many officers and friends attending. And lots of toddlers, all around the same age. It was, as expected, a messy endeavor. Jack and Angela had chosen to have one child, only, the fear of bringing more into such a dangerous existence too difficult to bear with the one, let alone more…

  “ATTENTION!! INTRUDER ALE
RT! BATTLE STATIONS!” This was repeated in threes, the klaxons doing their thing.

  Everyone scrambled, and aides raced in to take the children to relative safety. Relative, because, should Resolute go to dust, there was no such thing.

  Jack was hustling to the nearest open spaceport and already issuing orders as he ran, accompanied by six other fresh pilots he summoned on the way. On his command, they were all at the transfer point to assume pilot duties on the fly by. Relieving tired pilots might just save lives.

  Angela was on the bridge in half a second, using the wrist comm to teleport from fifty decks down and near the mid-ship, hearing, “Captain on the bridge!” as she materialized.

  She waved them back, calling out, “As you were. What do we have, Commander?”

  Among six other bridge crew, Willits and Nance were working every device they had, trying to see what Chips had seen. So far, nothing showed. Then, a flicker of light across the bottom few inches of the secondary vid screen, and those familiar letters showed up, to everyone’s immediate relief.

  ‘U R IN DANGER. GO BACK!’

  Immediately, Angela called aloud, “Friend? Can you hear me?” She was relieved to find that it had not forgotten how to communicate with her.

  ‘I HEAR… RESOLUTE? CAPTAIN… Washington?’

  “Yes, Friend. We come back for help!”

  ‘HELP? HOW?’

  “The Zephroan followed us and attacked our planet. Killed almost all! We are the last vessel. We are fragile!” She remembered the word, would he…it?

  ‘ZEPHROAN FOLLOW U. NO GIVE UP… YES... EVER. FRAGILE… YES. WHAT I DO TO HELP U?’

  “We are now much better at radar and seeing, but we lack speed and weapons.”

  ‘U NOT HELPLESS. YOU KILL MANY ZEPHROAN. NOW THEY HUNT YOU. NO STOP U DEAD.’

  How did it know the humans killed the Zephroan attack formation? “Yes, we fought back. We kill many. But we cannot win!”

  ‘ZEPHROAN NEVER STOP. THEY KILL PLANET IF THEY FIND U. U HAVE FIVE LIGHT SPEED. U SYSTEM IS POWERFUL NOW. HOW I HELP?’

  “You can see inside our system. What can we change to have more laser power? More speed.”

  Commander Willits looked at Angela in confusion. Was she inviting him or it inside?

  She winked. He about fell out of his chair. Captain Ice Queen never winked. She smiled and waved him down.

  ‘YOU NO NEED SPEED. U NEED MAN… WAIT…’ a delay, and Angela remembered how he was fishing inside Chips database for the right words… ‘WAIT… MANUEVERS… ABLE. YOU FAST NOW TO KILL ZEPHROAN. NEED CRY… CRYS… WAIT… LENS. CRYSTAL… YES… CRYSTAL LENS… WAIT… LASER… SYSTEM.’

  Angela already knew Resolute used a special kind of crystal to focus the beam of the laser bolts. The photons were a very different process. But she was willing to learn. “Good, Friend. What kind of crystal?”

  ‘I AM CHECK UR SPEC… WAIT… SPECIFIES…WAIT… SPECIFICATIONS… YES. WAIT… …’ Dead silence for nearly ten minutes. Helplessly fidgeting, impatient, so unlike her, Angela was about to speak up when it came again.

  ‘DO NOT CHANGE COURSE. WAIT… TELL MAN…MEN… HUMANS, YES… CLEAR FROM LASER … WAIT… YES. CONTROL ROOMS. FOUR UNITS. DELIVE... WAIT… DELIVERING IN FORTY MINUTES UR TIME.’

  “Commander, clear all laser access rooms, in exactly twenty minutes.” Of course, the system relayed it much faster, but there was, after all, a protocol to follow.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Dead silence for nearly forty minutes. Angela reminded everyone to be out of the cubicles, just in case. Then, at each of the four main lasers, inside the access cubicle, roughly a ten by ten by ten foot sealed room, a pair of nine cubic foot packages arrived. Three foot on a side. No one touched them, even got near them, waiting for instructions. It was encased in a kind of foil.

  ‘INSTALL NOW!’

  “Commander, access the rooms. All safety measures. Describe what they find!”

  Of course, they approached cautiously, with bio and chemical testers, radiation detectors, the works. This was, after all, right from the alien. It could be a trap.

  The foil was silky smooth, something none had ever seen. The engineers unwrapped the nicely packaged container and put the wrapping to one side to study later. They were not surprised to see it unfold itself into a single sheet, twelve feet on a side. Like their titanium repair sheets. If nothing else, that told the engineers they were headed in the right direction with the ship’s inner skin technology.

  Inside each package was a pair of thick, green lenses, separated by an odd excelsior no one could identify, but registered harmless on all detectors. The largest was about two and a half feet across, two inches thick. The other of each pair smaller at two feet, but still two inches thick. Where the engineers expected perfect glass, as their own were designed, each of these lenses seemed to have a million tiny reflectors embedded in it. It was not random, but in a carefully laid out pattern that matched. Focusing, perhaps? The edges were hot to the touch. Had Tal’Ken reshaped it to fit their specs? That quickly?

  “What is it, Angela?” Jack asked from some many miles distant. He was both listening on the system channel, and watching his system vid screen, the letters forming for his as they did for Resolute’s. The engineers relayed what they found.

  “Lens for each main laser set. Green, big. We need to install them!”

  “Call Applewhite, he installed the last sets, and he can make them fit.”

  She knew Applewhite was already on it, but she sent him a message, anyway, “Hurry!”

  He agreed.

  “LENS MUST BE THE MATCH PATTERN INSIDE. UR SPECS. CONTROL POWER AND DISTANCE. ALIGN… WAIT… WAIT… YES. CAREFULLY.”

  Angela dutifully passed on the instructions to the engineers. She took a breath, in for a penny, in for a pound. Yes, it still held true five hundred years later. She asked, “Thank you, Friend. But, lens systems are not enough. Friend, how do we make the light?”

  ‘U MAKE GOOD LIGHT NOW. STRONG LIGHT. LENS CHANGE POWER AND RESULT. ENEMY GO AWAY. U ABSORB ENERGY.’

  “Commander, keep tabs on the process and get it done,” Angela said, quietly.

  Rogers was on it.

  A moment later, Michael Applewhite advised that with his team divided, it would take maybe a half hour for all…

  Friend spoke up as if he heard everything on the comm channels. ‘TOO LONG UR TIME. ZEPHROAN COMING NOW!’

  “Then we hurry!” Michael called over the system.

  Silence. Everyone had their fingers crossed. It was a race between Applewhite’s engineers and the Zephroan. And Applewhite was an engineer. They have no hurry up bones. But, apparently, they found some.

  Soon, ten minutes early, Applewhite informed her that the lenses had fit perfectly, even self aligned on the slight flat spots along the edges. They could only mount one way, so no error. Friend had followed their specs to a ‘T.’

  The vid system filled with letters, ‘U HAVE FOUR UNITS END AND END. BE U SURE ALT… WAIT… ALT… YES … ALTERNATE USE TO NOT BREAK LENS. WAIT FIFTEEN UR SECONDS FOR LASER RECHARGE. ALTERNATE. YOUR POWER… WAIT… HEAVY POWER WILL HANDLE NO… WAIT… NO PROBLEM!’

  Jack called in before she could reply, “He is saying they overheat, honey. Remind your weapons officers.” She knew that, but now was not the time to quibble over it. She reminded those weapons people, all of them.

  But to be sure, she quizzed Chip. In most battles, he would run the show. “Yes, Commander, I know what alternate means.” That was rather sarcastic for Spook. Maybe Chip was less subservient… Maybe, dear God, he was becoming… sentient.

  CHAPTER 9

  As soon as Angela had delivered the message, she asked, “Friend, how far are the Zephroan?”

  ‘I SEE AT SIXTEEN MILLION OF UR MILES, U NOT SEE?’

  “We can see six million of our miles, but not clearly. They will be in view in moments, err, minutes of our time. Radar, all stealth, shields standby!” She was increasing speed to three times light spe
ed, just for the ability to dart and dodge. Everyone was in their safety chairs.

  Applewhite checked in, “They fit perfectly. Can we test them…”

  “No time, Michael. Are they ready?”

  Engineers are a stubborn lot, sometimes. An untested unit is hardly ‘ready.’ “Well, they are untested, so as ready as they can be…”

  “Good, clear the rooms,” Angela commanded. “Fight coming!”

  “Yes, ma’am.” No argument there, more hurry up bones to clear the laser rooms.

  ‘TWO FLIGHTS, ONE UNDER U, FOUR DEGREES DOWN UR PLANE… ONE ABOVE, FOURTEEN DEGREES ABOVE UR PLANE AT FOURTEEN POINT SEVEN MILLION MILES. U IN DANGER. SPREAD SMALL UNITS AT HALF… YES… HALF MILLION… MILES.’

  “Friend, move away. You are too close and you will be in danger, too!”

  ‘I HELP U. I BE… AM… ONE MILLION SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND POINT FIVE FOUR UR MILES OVER U. U FIGHTERS GO IN THEM, STEALTH GOOD… CONFUSE THEM… U FIGHT.’

  Jack translated Friend’s suggestion to mean to mingle, disturb the formation, and pick off any stragglers, apparently a common galaxy wide tactic.

  “Flight, ninety degrees up on the bow, full acceleration for five minutes and we level off along the course and heading of Resolute!”

  Among the “Yes, Sir!” calls, he headed straight up with his flight of six, from nearly four hundred thousand miles back, then under the bottom of Friend, though it was more of a hunch, not a reading, and shot out over the oncoming Zephroan.

  On the far side of Resolute, Lena was taking the second wing up the same way.

  Jack called, quickly, “I see them, Angela. Are you safe?”

  “We cannot see them… We are losing you at four million. Be careful!”

  “Going to go through them, now. They are not under stealth, they may not see us. I cannot see you, Angela, maybe they won’t. Good stealth!”

  A huge green wave lanced out of space above Resolute, and far away, too far to see with their limitations, four Zephroan ships went to dust.