by Andrew Beery
The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles #6,
Insurrection
Copyright 2014 by Andrew Beery
Kindle Edition, v1
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank my wife Lori and my two daughters, CJ and Jackie, for putting up with me while I wrote this sixth book in the Kimbridge series. Any similarities between people in this book and my immediate family and friends is purely intentional. Of course, I wouldn’t be much of a pastor if I didn’t acknowledge God – to Him be all the glory!
NOTE from the author
This release of Kimbridge #6 is a lightly edited draft... A fully edited version will be released as soon as it is back from the editors. One of the advantages of KINDLE is the ability to update... It allows readers to get access to a book they have been waiting for sooner (and cheaper) than might otherwise be possible. Please help me control my production costs and my editors by posting any corrections, missing words, wrong words, etc. to my Facebook page setup for that purpose... The direct link is here...
BeerysBit Author's page
The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles is a serial adventure. It is highly recommended that the books be read in chronological order. For more information visit the Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles online. This is an excellent site for learning about upcoming books as well as the ongoing efforts by some well-funded fans to bring Cat Kimbridge to the big screen.
DEDICATION
This episode of the Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles is dedicated to my parents. Joan Vooght Beery was a wonderful woman who shared her creativity and compassion with her children. She left this world to join our Father in heaven in 1996. Arthur John Beery was a remarkable father who taught his children how to love others through the actions of his hands and heart. “Jack” as he liked to be called passed away as I was writing this novel. I would also like to dedicate this book to a man who was a seminal influence on my love of science and physics… this ‘sometimes’ Vulcan also passed away while this book was being written. Live long and prosper Leonard Nimoy… fellow Beloved of the Creator.
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The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles #6,
Insurrection
"There are then innumerable suns, and an infinite number of earths revolve around those suns, ... [These worlds are inhabited] if not exactly as our own, and if not more nobly, at least no less inhabited and no less nobly." De l'infinito, universo e mondi - Giordano Bruno, 1584 Sol System
Chapter 1: New Beginnings…
Personal Log: 2486 was the first year of my new life. It was a step 301 years further into my future. The vagaries of temporal quantization imposed by changes to the laws of space-time meant a return to my original timeline was not possible.
The GCP Yorktown taskforce which included the GCP Mador, the GCP Exeter and the GCP Relentless had traveled 3.5 billion years into the distant past in order to save the universe from a war that threatened its very existence. In the process we changed the very course of history. The world we returned to was barely recognizable. The Galactic Coalition still existed, but for the first time I began to question whether I could remain loyal to it.
Sam Eddington had a problem. It was not the type of problem he could share with his wife. It was not the type of problem he could share with his son. That left only one person – Rhino, the owner and barkeep of one of Asimov’s rougher establishments, the Midway Bar and Grill. It was still early enough in the day so that the bar would not be too full. Rhino was the last person most people would visit if they had a problem. But that made Rhino perfect for Sam. Rhino was an established expert when it came to trouble and anybody with an ounce of sense was aware of this. Luckily, he and Sam had a special relationship that had endured for longer than either of them cared to admit.
“Sammy my boy! How’s life been treating ya?” Rhino barked in a deep gravelly voice. He was about as big a man as they came and his voice reflected it. He weighed well over 200 kilograms and yet there was not an ounce of fat on him. He was a mountain of meat with a bi-polar disposition that could flip like a light switch from pleasant to positively dangerous. That said, he and Sam had always managed to work together.
“My life is getting complicated big guy,” Sam said in an excessively depressed voice.
Rhino placed a bitter beer on the counter. “Here drink this… a moist throat always helps a bad day.”
Sam downed the beer in a series of rapid gulps. Rhino raised a shaggy eyebrow.
“Sammy, my boy, these complications… would they be the type that might require some less-than-completely-legal armaments?”
“That they would,” Sam agreed. “Can I assume a trip to the back room might be in order?”
Rhino looked around the bar. The various patrons were engaged in private conversations or reading the daily news rags on their personal tablets. A few were catching up on the weekend’s football game. None were paying attention to them. Rhino waved Sandy over to the bar. She was Rhino’s wife and partner in the bar… as well as their secondary businesses.
“Babe I need ya to watch the front for a few minutes.”
Sandy nodded silently as she picked up a glass off the shelf and polished it with a cloth she was carrying. Rhino tapped Sam’s arm and motioned him to follow him into the back room. The bar was dark near the rear which suited their purposes just fine.
A small man with an exceptionally thin face and a hooked nose sat unnoticed in a dim booth in one corner of the bar. He appeared to be reading newzies on a tablet but in fact he was watching everybody and everything. He had seen Sam enter and had immediately flagged his superiors at the Bureau of Commerce Investigation. BCI was the Senate’s tax evasion watch dogs. As such, they had broad authority across the breadth of Coalition worlds… an authority they exercised with brutal abandon.
He watched the target and the establishment’s bartender head into a storeroom. He waited patiently, sipping his bitter. He was probably the only one not surprised when twenty black booted BCI shock troops came crashing through the front door.
***
Admiral Cat Kimbridge wiped the sweat from her brow. This trip through the temporal vortex had been far quicker but far rougher than the first time they had traveled it. To her great relief, none of the ships in her taskforce had been lost -- although it would take several weeks in a space dock to fix some of the holes the Modos Syndicate had managed to punch in their armor.
Captain Ken Kirkland looked every bit as relieved as Cat to have successfully exited the vortex. The careful balancing act the Yorktown and other ships had engaged in to stabilize the oscillating transdimensional hyperfield conduit had taken every ounce of stamina he and his crew had been able to muster.
“Ziggy… launch three probes towards the other ships. Let’s reestablish our QUEC network. Even if we can’t talk to the GCP via FTL comms yet, at least we’ll be able to talk to one another.” FTL quantum entangled communications (QUEC) was the glue that held the GCP together. That said, it depended on entangled pairs of photons. For some reason the entanglement did not survive the Agur’s version of a temporal vortex. That meant new entangled pairs had to be exchanged between ships in order to reestablish communication links.
Cat stood up and walked from her Admiral’s chair to Ken. “It might be a good idea to have astrometrics confirm where ‘here and now’ is.”
Ken nodded.
Before he could say anything a proximity alarm began to blare. In the forward viewscreen a single small alien
ship materialized. Cat recognized it immediately. A holographic image floated in the center of the Yorktown’s bridge.
“Greetings Blessed of the Creator”
Cat smiled. “Hello Yarin… how are the Heshe these days?”
***
The conference room was full but quiet. Representatives from each of the ships in the Yorktown’s taskforce were seated about the table. The news from astrometrics, as well as from the Heshe, had been alarming. It seemed that the worlds and universe they had known… and had expected to return to, were --at best-- a distant memory buried some three hundred years in the past. The Agur’s temporal hyperfield conduit had returned them some three centuries further into their future. The universe had evolved. On top of that, it seemed the very laws of nature that had governed the universe had changed.
The harmonics that stabilized the ruptured Brane Barrier between what had been the alpha and betaverses had added an unexpected twist to hyperfield dynamics. It was no longer possible to jump from one arbitrary point to another. Not only was the math far more complex but the energy requirements prohibited all but a handful of specific destinations from any given point in space. The Yorktown had confirmed this when they had been unable to form a hyperfield conduit to the Sol system from their current location near Epsilon Reticuli 23.
“That’s a hell of a note,” Captain Jason Ruck said finally. “We travel back three and a half billion years and we miss our target by three hundred.”
Cat smiled wanly. “I suspect not. Yarin’s visit confirms that we are here at this time and location because this is where we are needed.”
“’Needed’ by the Heshe,” Commander Ben said. Still in his human android form, he looked around the room. “Doesn’t that little detail raise some red flags of its own? Needed for what?”
“I suspect,” Captain Hikaro Takei said from his seat at the other end of the table, “that this will become clear in the next few days. Epsilon Reticuli will very likely have our answers.”
“I agree with Hikaro,” Ken said from nearer Cat’s position. “Our puppet masters could have dropped us anywhere. They chose to drop us here. The best we can do is assume the worst and try to be ready for it.”
Cat nodded. “I would have liked to have some time to lick our wounds after the pounding we each took defending Earth’s distant past, but that may not be in the cards. I know you have each prioritized your repair requests. Coordinate them with the Yorktown. If we can get any time in a space dock we will act on them but for the moment assume we will be jumping from the kettle into the fire… at least until we can determine otherwise.”
She looked down the table, pausing a brief second on each of their faces. “You have all done a fantastic job and I could not be prouder of any of you. That said, I need to ask you and your crews to push on a little longer. We have no idea what we are looking at. Your crews will be facing the potential loss of everything and everyone they have ever known. I know from personal experience just how devastating that will be for some of them. Keep them busy. Keep them focused. For the moment, we will make the best sublight speed for Epsilon Reticuli 23 and the Asimov colony.”
***
Three days later Cat stood on the bridge of the GCP Yorktown and watched the orange-red star known as Epsilon Reticuli swell in the forward viewscreen. At 60% c the Yorktown taskforce was making good time. The Exeter, Mador and Yorktown were fully decloaked and making no attempt to hide their presence. The Relentless, at Cat’s request, had gone dark and cloaked two days earlier. A review of the Agur historical archives – a gift from the Heshe, had seemed to suggest a need for caution. The universe had become a very dark and dangerous place in the last several hundred years. Not that it had been especially safe during the various wars the GCP had been involved in during its first few years.
Cat checked with her internal AI, a Heshe encounter unit called Cal. ‘How far out are we?’
A warm presence filled her mind and she felt almost more than heard a soft response. ‘Roughly ten light minutes until we enter orbit, Admiral.’
Cat sighed. Yarin Prime’s visit, brief though it was, was for more than just briefing the GCP Taskforce about their new realities. The Heshe left a gift. The three hundred year history of the GCP, as documented by the Agur, had been stored in the Yorktown’s computer library. Copies had already been transferred to each of the other ships. Cat had teams of researchers sifting through the records… looking for any information to help them understand their current situation.
As valuable as this information was for the taskforce, for Cat it was only the second of two gifts. Yarin Prime had re-enabled her complete complement of Heshe technology. Her senses were once again highly acute and completely tunable. Her AI, a constant companion and dear friend, was once again sharing her thoughts. Her ultra-advanced Heshe nanites were once again purging organic toxins from her blood and repairing randomly damaged strands of DNA as well as a host of other activities that kept her body in pristine shape.
The sense of fatigue that had slowly crept up on her over the past several weeks was gone. In a way, she missed it. It had reconnected her with what it meant to be human. Still, Cat had to admit, although she liked the feeling of being tired… of utter and complete physical exhaustion after a hard day’s work… she also knew that those feelings were a luxury she had rarely been able to afford. She had a feeling this would not be one of those rare times where she could.
“Captain!” Lieutenant Zimmerman said from his communications station. “We have an incoming RF transmission from Asimov colony. It’s some type of challenge-response code.”
“Let me hear it,” Ken said from his command chair.
“Unidentified starships, this is Asimov Approach. Your routing beacon is off. You are in violation of our airspace. Identify yourself and your intentions or we will be forced to deploy defensive measures.”
Ken looked over to Cat. She nodded.
“Ziggy, open up a channel – same frequency,” Ken said in a soft but firm voice.
“Asimov Approach, this is Captain Ken Kirkland onboard the GCP Yorktown. Our taskforce is returning from maneuvers. Over.”
There was the briefest of pauses and then a different male voice responded. “Yorktown this is Lieutenant Langly. You are ordered to terminate your approach and power up your routing beacons or we will consider you a hostile force and take appropriate action. You have five seconds to comply. Asimov Approach out.”
“Helm, Cancel forward momentum and engage station-keeping thrusters!” Ken barked. “Mr. Kelsy, watch the sensors and stand by the shields. If you see so much as a hint they are about to fire I want our defenses up.”
“Aye sir. Should I raise our shields now?”
Ken looked at Cat. She shook her head. “Negative Ensign,” Ken answered before going on to explain... “They might take that as a sign of hostile intent. Just keep your finger by the button for now.”
“Yes sir,” the young officer responded. “Finger by the button.”
Cat stepped forward. “Asimov Approach this is Admiral Catherine Kimbridge. We have terminated our approach per your request however our ships are not equipped with routing beacons. We have taken damage and require shipyard facilities. May we approach?”
“Did you say Admiral Catherine Kimbridge? Cat Kimbridge?”
Cat looked at Ken who simply raised an eyebrow. “I did Lieutenant. Again I ask ‘May we approach?’”
“Negative Yorktown. Next you’re going to be telling me you have Faragon’s ghost up there too. You will hold fast while we send an escort. Our orbital defense platforms have a firm lock on your ships. If you so much as twitch, they will open fire.”
“Acknowledge their instructions Ziggy,” Ken ordered.
“A bit jumpy I would say,” Ben commented dryly from his First Officers station.
Ken nodded. “Makes you wonder what type of universe we have come back to that such aggressive measures are taken to protect orbital space.” He turned in his sea
t to face Ensign Kelsy. “Ensign, do full active sensor sweep… they can’t expect to threaten us without knowing we would want to verify the threat. Find me those guns they have pointed at us and let me know what we are facing.”
Cat toggled her internal comms. “Yorky, search the Agur database. What are these ‘routing beacons’ they keep referring to?”
The ship’s AI paused briefly and then answered. Given the speed that the ship’s AI operated, especially now that the Heshe components were re-integrated, Cat suspected the pause was engineered to make the organic crew members feel more comfortable.
“In 2190 Admiral Bud Faragon instituted a series of initiatives to map out hyperfield jump points. The idea was to create a map of potential routes that the GCP and her allies could use to move from star system to star system. Since entangled quantum FTL communications was still functioning it was possible to disseminate this information broadly.
“As part of this initiative all ships were required to automatically record and disseminate their entry and exit points from hyperfield corridors. Not only did this serve to continuously update the number of tested routes but it also served to document who was traveling where and when.”
“Pirate ships would obviously not want to be part of this system,” Cat said.
“And given the much more limited set of options for traveling between star systems,” Ken added, “the universe became a much more inviting environment for criminal elements wishing to engage in piracy.”
Chapter 2: Asimov Colony…
Sam Eddington smelled as bad as he looked. The three kilometer saunter through the sewer system had done nothing to improve his mood. His cover as a tailor had been thoroughly destroyed by the prying attentions of the BCI.
Rhino was barely five feet in front of him marching through the same filth. The tunnels were pitch black in the visible light spectrums that most humans used to see but Sam’s eyes were enhanced to see well into the infrared. It was this enhancement which allowed him to see Rhino stop and hold up a single clenched fist as a signal to freeze in place.