by S. H. Jucha
The commodore immediately cut the link, and Hector observed the Tridents scatter in arcs above and below the ecliptic where the travelers might eventually run out of power.
However, these Méridiens had never trained with Omnians or Harakens, who were much more aggressive versions of humankind. The Haraken fighter pilots weren’t fazed by the prospect of running their power cells empty and drifting into the dark. Their fighters contained the latest iterations of emergency beacons, comms, and cockpit preservation equipment. They were confident they’d be rescued. Right now, they were anxious to score hits on the enemy — the five Tridents.
The Haraken pilots had seen escape vectors executed by Tridents in their own training games. They divided up the targets and cut the arcs that the Tridents scribed, attempting to escape. Within less than a quarter hour, each Trident had been intercepted by at least two fighters, which scored hits on the warship’s engines, according to the controllers. Essentially, the Méridien Tridents had been reduced to flying metal hulks, without the loss of a single Haraken traveler.
Afterwards, Hector contacted the Méridien commander.
Hector waited for the lieutenants, as they exited a row of bays in the lower level of the city-ship. They were joyous, celebrating raucously, and Hector’s emotions were divided. He loved witnessing their vibrancy, but he feared for their future. I could be delivering you to your deaths, he thought, which made him determined to prepare them, as best he could.
The lieutenants snapped to attention and saluted when they saw Hector.
“Mission accomplished, with no losses, Captain,” a first lieutenant announced triumphantly, and her companions cheered.
“You caught them off guard,” Hector replied. “Next time, they’ll be more prepared.”
“There’ll be a next time?” a newly graduated lieutenant asked. He’d won the right to join the fleet simply because he was considered a natural in the cockpit.
“Be prepared to dine early or later than usual,” Hector said. “According to the Tridents’ controllers, the crews take evening meal precisely at seventeen point seventy-five hours by our timetable,” he added, displaying a smile.
The lieutenants returned fierce grins.
“We jump them during mealtime,” a pilot commented, rubbing her hands together in anticipation.
“Pilots, I’ve a goal for you,” Hector announced, borrowing Alex’s intonation when the Omnian leader wanted to make a point. He was pleased to see the lieutenants assume erect postures. “You’re challenging these Méridien Tridents, that’s true. However, the goal is to survive to fight another day. The expedition will surely be outnumbered in most, if not all, of its encounters with the alien federation. The idea is to win by disrupting or destroying the enemy vessels, but the fleet can ill afford to be attenuated by losses of its own ships. Don’t engage in one-to-one sacrifices. Fight smart. Am I understood?”
Hector received a rousing assent of “Yes, Captain.” They saluted him, and he said, “Launch your fighters a quarter hour after their meal begins. Best catch them with their mouths full.” He heard the laughter and chuckles of the young pilots behind him, as he returned to the bridge.
While Hector was tempted to help the traveler pilots plan their attack, he chose to demur. As a SADE, he knew a great deal about many things, and he also knew when he didn’t know about something. Battle strategy was one of the latter items.
“Welcome to New Terra, Captain,” Harold Grumley, the president, said. “I understand congratulations are in order.” His voice was being transmitted by Oliver, who was also delivering Hector’s words to Harold.
Maria Gonzalez sat beside Harold and Oliver with a bemused smile on her face. Her abilities with the implant she’d received, as a gift from Alex, had transformed her world, and she wondered why New Terrans resisted the technology. Her communication with Oliver was seamless. When she participated in routine meetings with Harold or his cabinet ministers, it seemed conversation dragged to a near standstill.
Maria quizzed Oliver privately, but the SADE replied he had no information for her. It was an item that had been marked as private by Oliver until after Hector met with Maria.
A meeting time was set up based on when Hector would achieve orbit over New Terra, and everyone returned to their schedules.
During the passage inward, the fighter pilots jumped the Tridents again. Two captains escaped the attack unscathed. They’d kept their officers on duty, during meal time, with strict orders to keep their eyes on the bay doors of the Our People. The other three warships, including that of the commodore, were eliminated before they could escape. One of the three captains attempted to turn and fight, but the more maneuverable travelers evaded his beam positions and raked his ship in passing.
As Hector approached New Terra, he located three Tridents and pulled data from their controllers.
“Hello, Captain Hector, it’s good to hear from you again. How goes the expedition?” Bart Fillister replied. He had been placed in charge of training Trident officers and crews in Omnian battle tactics by Maria Gonzalez.
“Always, Captain, what did you have in mind?”
When the city-ship decelerated to make orbit over New Terra, its bay doors opened and the travelers erupted into space. The Méridien Tridents formed a wedge to blunt the fighters’ coordinated attack, and they launched their own travelers. The twenty Méridien fighters in tandem with the Tridents’ defensive wedge presented a tremendous deterrent against the outnumbered Haraken ships.
The commodore was learning but not fast enough. He’d left the back door open. The New Terran Tridents shot from behind a trio of massive freighters and attacked his rear. In the mêlée that followed, all five Méridien Tridents were lost, as were most of their travelers.
However, unlike the previous skirmishes, the Confederation warships acquitted themselves well. One New Terran Trident was recorded as disabled, and seven Haraken travelers were reported as destroyed.
When Hector visited the fighter pilots later, their jubilation was gone. Instead, they were engrossed in studying a holo-vid projection of the battle and dissecting it. Hector listened to the discussion for a while and quietly exited the conference room. That’s better, he thought.
Hector’s traveler landed on the front grounds of Government House, which was near the center of Prima, New Terra’s capital. When he disembarked, he received a less than cordial greeting from Government House’s chief of security.
“Your pardon, Ser,” Hector replied respectfully. “I merely borrowed the coordinates left in my ship from Alex Racine’s trips to visit your presidents. This was the location he used.”
“Then you should be informed that your leader was violating this air space. In the future, land at the main shuttle port and take transportation here,” the chief replied hotly.
“I do hope that Alex Racine is successful in stopping the advance of the alien federation, Ser. In that fortunate event, I’ll be able to experience an alternate route to this beautiful building, when I next visit your planet,” Hector said. He left the statement
hanging in the air, while the security chief’s face indicated he was reconsidering priorities.
“Yes, well … um … we all wish for that,” the chief stuttered. “The president is waiting for you inside,” he added, gesturing to the wide steps, leading up to the broad veranda.
Hector nodded his appreciation and made his way inside. Unexpectedly, the president and the minister waited for him in the impressive rotunda next to the oversized statue of Captain Lem Ulan. Hector quickly recorded imagery of the famous captain, who had led the New Terra’s shuttle fleet, containing a select few Earth colonists, to a secondary target planet, after a meteor storm severely damaged the ship.
New Terrans revered Captain Ulan, but it was reported that the man endured a tortured life. He blamed himself for the failure to deliver the 50,000 colonists and crew members safely to their target planet. And much worse, in an effort to prove he wasn’t playing favorites in the selection process of who would occupy the shuttles, Lem Ulan left his family in stasis aboard the colony ship.
Hector’s greeting was more than cordial, especially from Maria Gonzalez, and he got an inkling of how Alex’s personality developed among people like this. The subsequent meeting was routine by now for Hector, although not as plentiful in its results. He updated Harold and Maria on the message from Alex, and he could sense the interplay between Maria and Oliver. The minister’s eyes betrayed her, when she used her implant.
“Captain, our travelers have been employed in shuttle duty, except those aboard our Tridents,” Harold said. “Those pilots aren’t trained as fighters. We haven’t had the funds to build excess travelers.”
That response quickly eliminated Hector’s gambit to gain more fighters, and he dutifully offered the opportunity to license traveler shell fabrication, which the president was thrilled to accept.
“We do have two well-trained Trident warships for you, Captain,” Maria said. “They’re ready to accompany you to wherever the expedition fleet waits.”
“Something occurs to me, Minister,” Hector said. “The Méridien Tridents are short on crew. Would you have some to spare?”
“Actually, we do, Captain,” replied Maria, happy to provide additional support. “I’ll have Captain Fillister check with your Méridien commodore as to what type of crew he needs.”
“I’m empowered to supply implants and cell-gen injections to your people,” Hector announced. “I presume these officers and crew are prepared to accept them.”
Hector’s offer wasn’t entirely true. While he possessed the capabilities to deliver the medical technology, he didn’t have Alex’s specific approval. Nonetheless, he expected Alex would forgive him. However, he knew his medical team didn’t have the resources to supply as many implants as the New Terrans would require. It would have to be taken care of at Omnia.
Harold bit back his comment to Hector’s offer. Maria and he had exchanged some strong, even angry, comments, when he heard about Alex’s offer to the New Terran crews and their acceptance of the Méridien medical technology. Her retort had been that there was no law restricting New Terrans from adopting the tech.
Unfortunately, that argument didn’t stop the New Terran representatives from demanding an explanation from Harold, as to why he allowed it. It seemed beside the point that he wasn’t offered a choice in the matter.
Hector wound up the meeting, boarded his traveler, and returned to the city-ship. During the flight, he surveyed his accomplishments. Much of the final tally depended on Terese Lechaux’s conversation with Gino Diamanté. Some portion of the outcome would require the Leader’s generosity, but more depended on the person Alex referred to as the fiery redhead. Hector’s credits were on the redhead.
His mission to New Terra complete, Hector’s fleet comprising a city-ship, seven fully crewed Tridents, complete with travelers, and twelve additional fighters in the Our People’s bays, set sail for Omnia.
-27-
Omnia
Hector’s nascent fleet arrived at Omnia before the potential Méridien–Haraken resources appeared. As a SADE, he had quickly calculated the travel and communication timeline differences between his path and those arriving from Bellamonde, acknowledging that he had expected to make Omnia first.
Still, Hector was left with a certain vague emptiness. In a digital entity, it might be considered the lack of data, the lack of a definitive answer to a query, but that would be a misunderstanding of Hector and SADEs in general. More than anything, Hector didn’t want to disappoint Alex. So much of the joy in his life was due to Alex’s influence.
Speaking of joy, Hector linked to Trixie the moment his fleet completed its transit. The two SADEs exchanged pleasantries before Trixie began questioning Hector’s circumstances.
Trixie sent.
Hector said.
Hector sent Trixie a link to the Our People’s database. It led her to the city-ship’s engineering plans. In it, he’d highlighted an entire deck.
There was a pause of a few ticks of time, a telling note of the extent to which Trixie was stunned. Hundreds of questions occurred to her, but she chose to focus on her partner’s needs.
Within a few moments, a second pause occurred in Trixie’s contemplations.
Trixie closed the comm and focused on the list of humans who inhabited the Omnian system. It was simple to eliminate the professions of miners, shipbuilders, engineers, techs, and many others. Quickly, she had an extremely short list, and a group of names stood out. She requested a traveler and met it outside Omnia’s Assembly Hall.
En route, Trixie contacted the ex-Earthers who had designed and ran the Dischnya training center. They were also responsible for creating and implementing Omnia’s first university, which quickly filled as families emigrated from other worlds and the Omnian population’s children reached the age to enroll.
The Earthers were great proponents of the SADEs as educators. They were fascinated by the SADEs’ incredible access to information, and they found the digital sentients always considerate and helpful to students. More important, the SADEs took pleasure in nurturing the young, humans and Dischnya.
As Alex had once told Trixie, “The SADEs are enjoying the opportunity to inculcate the next generations with the concept of working hand-in-hand with them.”
Trixie pinged the Omnians and located them in a meeting with their staff at the Dischnya center. She requested the opportunity to meet with Yoram Penzi
g, who had temporarily taken the administrative lead from Olawale Wombo.
Olawale had been Omnia’s senior professor, but Alex had requested he return to Sol to help with the upgrading of Earther technology. It rested on the senior administrator’s shoulders to judge how the Earthers incorporated the technology into their culture. If the preliminary uses proved to undermine their societal values, he was to cease the technology dissemination and return to Omnia.
Trixie waited patiently for the professors’ staff meeting to end, and Yoram signaled her when they were finished.
“Sers, I’ve a most unusual request,” Trixie announced at the beginning of her presentation. “I’ve a challenge for you with a broad scope and few details.”
“Wonderful,” white-haired Nema exclaimed.
“A new challenge,” Storen, the xenobiologist, added. “It’s about time. I thought Alex was losing his touch.”
“What my colleagues are trying to say is that we’re anxious to hear your proposal,” Yoram said, quietly eyeing the others.
Trixie related the information she’d received from Hector. She’d expected some kind of exchange with the professors, but they promptly ignored her and were engrossed in an internal dialog. She sat quietly, fascinated by their conjectures and reasoning.
“That far out, and yet human. In all probability, it means an alien language,” Priita Ranta mused.
“Agreed,” Boris Gorenko, the medical expert, said. “I don’t know how they got there, but they must exist within an alien culture.”
“An alien language and an alien culture,” Yoram mused. “Not much different than the transition of the Dischnya young to Omnian culture.
“Separation will be absolutely paramount until a certain amount of reeducation is accomplished,” Nema added.
“Trixie, could you estimate the amount of time these children would have had under the expedition’s care before the Our People arrives there?” Yoram asked.