Exploration

by Beery, Andrew

  "I concur, Sir. We are go across all systems. The ship's AI is reporting the atmosphere to the primary bridge has just been restored and it will be back up to temperature in the next few minutes. We are free to return there at your convenience."

  "Even better!" Jason said while standing. He pressed the comm button on his chair to address the entire crew.

  "This is the captain to all hands. The Mador took some serious damage and we lost some friends in the process. But this is a strong ship and a strong crew. I am proud of the work you have done in the last few hours.

  "Normally a ship that has gone through what this ship has would be pulled from the front lines. Unfortunately that is not going to be possible. There are lives at stake and we must draw a line in the sand and say NO MORE.

  "No more will you take our citizens and enslave them. No more will you take fathers from sons. No more will you take mothers from daughters. No more will you take families from families. The Mador and ships like her ARE that 'line in the sand!'

  "In a few minutes my command staff and I will be returning to the main bridge. I want the backup staff to report to the battle bridge ASAP. Admiral Faragon, in command of the Yorktown, has informed me that we expect the main thrust of the Modos beachhead expansion force to arrive in under thirty minutes. We are ready. You are ready. This is what you trained for. I'm counting on each of you to continue to make me proud. The name MADOR will stand for something enduring this day! Ruck out."

  ***

  Honey winked at Ricky and sat down on the couch she had added to their greatly expanded shuttle. Ricky was sitting on the same couch so she scooted next to him and laid her head on his lap. He ran a hand through her honey brown hair. Their nanites had long since finished returning them to normal human appearance.

  Since they had moved back into the Honey Dipper their ship had nearly doubled in size. Ricky had wanted to make sure they had sufficiently powerful engines, shields, and weapons to facilitate an escape should that become necessary. Of course there was no reason to limit the remodeling to the purely functional aspects of the ship.

  The raw materials for the enlargement had been harvested by construction nanites from items in the Vengeance's hold. These items mysteriously disappeared from the larger ship's inventory. The Honey Dipper now had a lounge, a kitchenette, and a small captain's suite that included a full shower. The shuttle even boasted a small science lab that could double as a wet bar! All-in-all, the once small prospecting shuttle was now the size of a large pinnace.

  "The show is about to begin," Honey said with a lazy yawn.

  Ricky brought up a holographic display which floated in the middle of the small lounge. A side view of a large number of ships in a column formation appeared in the air in front of him. The MS Vengeance was part of a massive battle group. She was, in fact, part of the second such group and from what he and Honey had been able tell there were over a dozen such groups. Each of these battle groups contained ten squadrons of twenty ships each. That meant that, unless something happened to beat the odds, the GCP would be facing over a thousand potential invaders and their associated combat fighters. Fortunately for the GCP, Ricky Valen had a long and tested history of being the odds.

  "It looks like the first few ships have already emerged. We should be entering the alpha-verse in fifteen seconds," Ricky commented, while using his hands to rotate the display. "Do me a favor Honey..."

  "Your every desire is my desire," she said with a wicked smile.

  "Focus."

  "You're no fun!"

  "I need you to prepare to shake things up. Do you think you can add a sensor echo to a handful of our friends out there?"

  "Why good sir, I'd be delighted," Honey answered cheerfully.

  "And if those echo's looked threatening...well, that would NOT be a bad thing," Ricky grinned.

  Honey hopped off the couch and did a pirouette in the middle of the holographic display. She bowed when Ricky provided the requisite applause.

  "We are emerging from the hyperfold conduit...Now!"

  "Send the echoes!"

  "Sending. WOW WEE...will you look at that!" Honey cooed in a southern drawl.

  The column of ships that had exited in a neat column that could protect each other suddenly split and headed in different directions as various ships struggled to get out of firing range of adversaries that weren't really there. Several of the ships were firing wildly at fake targets. In the process they began to inflict friendly fire on their compatriots.

  "Send a collision alert of all ships in the battle group," Ricked added while reaching to grab his morning coffee.

  Honey sent the message and then turned to face this man she loved. She had an impish grin on her face.

  "Message from Admiral Faragon—Welcome home."

  ***

  Captain Jason Ruck yelled over the sound of the battle. "Weapons! Get a bead on those two lead ships. Fire railguns 5 thru 9. As soon as the plasma beams are recharged light them up with those as well. We need to keep them busy until the Yorktown and the Intrepid can bracket them from the other side."

  Command Martinescu's hands flew over the controls. If he were a pianist the Modos invasion fleet would be hearing his finest concerto. The Mador's powerful kinetic weapons cycled continuously. As fast as one bank of railguns fired, the next bank would recharge.

  The GCP Mador had been engaged in this latest battle for the better part of an hour. For the most part, her shields were holding. The Mador was being hit from so many sides at once, however, that the inertial compensators were bleeding just enough energy that the ship was being filled with a deep drumming sound.

  "Helm, come about. New course...z-45 by two thousand meters, x-axis positive best speed. Find the sweet spot between those two ships. It’s time we end this."

  "Aye sir, z-45, 2000 meters, best possible on x."

  "Roll us as we go through. Keep the shields balanced."

  "Roger that, rolling now."

  "Sir," Commander James yelled. "The Intrepid is in position. The Yorktown was delayed by a Dreadnaught that wanted to play tag. The Admiral has dealt with it and is on its way."

  "Give me an ETA."

  "Thirty seconds," James yelled back.

  "Mr. Martinescu...I need you to get me thirty seconds. Can do?"

  "Can do, Sir. Our SJ flash-bang is ready as soon as the Yorktown is in position."

  "Very good. Everybody stay sharp. Timing is going to be critical."

  No sooner were the words out of his mouth then the ship bucked wildly. An anti-proton beam had finally breached their shields. The lights flickered as emergency bypass circuits immediately rerouted severed power conduits.

  Commander James slapped the comm button on his console. "This is the First Officer, medical and damage control teams report to astrometrics, ASAP!"

  Jason nodded his thanks as he continued to scan the tactical display. He knew people had probably been hurt but there was nothing he could do at the moment to help. His first priority was taking out those two lead ships. Ricky Valen and his AI, Honey, had identified them as the managing directors of this battle group. Other teams were actively pursuing the leaders of the other battle groups. Modos corporate policy required a CEO level appointment for battle group leaders. That meant a minimum twenty-two hour delay should the GCP be successful in neutralizing the current leaders. The fact that the two Dreadnaughts were operating in close support of each other was both a curse and a blessing. They were harder to defeat but once one was defeated the other was immediately vulnerable.

  "The Yorktown reports she is in position," Lieutenant Zimmerman reported from communications.

  Jason signaled the Mador's AI to synchronize with the other ships.

  "On my mark, engage the SJ...three, two, one...MARK!"

  Commander Martinescu pressed the detonation button on his console. Immediately a series of closely synchronized events occurred. The active shielding on all three GCP starships extended and briefly overlapped. The shie
lds were tuned to reverse momentum. In addition, secondary cloaking shields nearer the individual ships were energized. These shields were designed to route radiant energy around a vessel to hide it. This had a second advantage in that it rendered weapons like Lasers and the radiant component of SJ rounds ineffective.

  At the same time, a cloaked SJ round opened a hyperfold conduit to a space just outside the galactic core. Like all supermassive black holes the rotational axis were points where matter streams were ejected at near relativistic velocities. The hyperfold conduit opened near one of the streams. The energetic backwash through the conduit enviably destroyed the probe; thus the name "Suicide Jumper," or SJ. Anything near the original entry point to the hyperfold conduit would be bathed in massive amounts of radiation and proto-plasma. The first time such a weapon had been used by the GCP against the D'lralu, Pluto and it's moons had nearly been destroyed. The beam lasted for mere milliseconds but that was typically enough.

  The SJ round opened the conduit and immediately a massive wash of energetic subatomic particles and radiation flooded out of the hyperfold. The wash struck the shields of the two Modos Dreadnaughts. The shields crumpled, but before the ships could be destroyed the particle wash hit the intertwined shields of the GCP ships. Set as they were to invert the momentum of anything hitting them, they reflected the beams back to hit the Modos ships a second time.

  In 34.6 milliseconds the atomic cohesion of their hulls was completely disrupted and the ships were utterly and spectacularly destroyed. The highly extended and linked shields of the three GCP ships collapsed. They had done their work. The SJ round would have done untold friendly fire damage to the GCP fleet in and around SgA had the technique of linking the shields not been developed.

  The bridge of the Mador broke out in cheering. The GCP had already lost six capital ships, due in large part to the overwhelming number of Modos ships entering GCP space. This was the first significant victory in the counter offensive.

  Over the next several hours the feat was duplicated more than a dozen times by various ships within the fleet. Each time, because of critical intel provided by Ricky Valen and Honey, the targets were the ships containing Modos Managing Directors. The result was a large number of ships exiting GCP space and heading back to the Beta-verse.

  Jason was pleased with his ships performance. Unfortunately his gut was telling him they were not going to be able to spend much time enjoying it. As was typically the case, his gut was correct.

  Sixteen hyperfold conduits opened in the space near SgA. At the same time every Modos ship in and around SgA engaged in a microjump that effectively phased them out of local time-space for a few milliseconds. The sixteen trans-dimensional hyperfold conduits bathed the surrounding area in massive amounts of radiation as sixteen more battle groups composed of well over three thousand Modos ships and fighters emerged to join the fray.

  Chapter Twenty Four: Salvation...

  Cat suddenly stood up with an alarmed look on her face. The effect on the people gathered in the conference room onboard the Final-Freedom defense platform was pronounced. Commanders Ken Kirkland and Ben leaned back with similarly alarmed and glazed looks in their eyes.

  Elder Farnin and Captain Running Stream, who were also at the table, looked at each other in confusion. Clearly something had happened but neither could fathom what was going on. It was not always easy for them to read the expressions on the faces of humans and the D'lralu.

  The representatives of both the GCP and the Modos rebels had been meeting with the ancient Suhtian delegation for several hours. It had taken that long for He-Who-Speaks, the Suhtii host that carried Running Stream, to convince his Suhtian relatives that he was no longer a slave but a partner. Running Stream had detached while his friend made his case. He-Who-Speaks made his case that, while he was among the brightest of his generation, he was as a child compared to his Suhtian brothers. He wanted his people to be smart again.

  Elder Farnin leaned forward. "Something was said that causes our cousins from the Galactic Coalition distress?"

  Cat glanced at the elder Bearephant with a quizzical look on her face before recognition dawned on her.

  "Please accept my apologies, Elder Farnin. I have a communication device embedded in my body that uses entangled quantum qubits to communicate at FTL speeds with members of the GCP. It has been of little use since we traveled to what we are calling the beta-verse.

  That said, I had suspected we had transitioned back to our universe during the escape from your original home world. That suspicion has been confirmed. My officers and I have just received a general distress signal from our fleet. They are battling the Modos Syndicate, who is striving to enslave members of the GCP."

  "Then by all means, let us discuss this common enemy," Farnin said in a stern voice.

  ***

  Ricky Valen was sweating bullets. The Honey Dipper was once again free in space. That was the good news. The bad news was how she got there. Honey and he had spent the last several hours throwing every monkey wrench they could think of into the inner-workings of the battle group that the Vengeance was a part of. This had worked well until Ricky had the brilliant idea to mess with the internal chronometers.

  The initial result had been quite satisfying as attempts to engage in highly coordinated maneuvers instead resulted in utter chaos. One such maneuver turned out to be problematic. The MS Vengeance and her entire battle group did a preprogramed microjump a full two minutes early. When they emerged they found themselves caught with the GCP fleet in a massive trans-dimensional hyperfold backwash. The Modos shields were far less effective than those used by the GCP. The Honey Dipper survived only by virtue of the fact that the Vengeance had become a very large and very expensive ablative shield. Once the Honey Dipper had cleared the wreckage that had been her home for the last several weeks she was faced with another problem. She now looked like a GCP ship in a time and place where there were a lot of people shooting at GCP ships.

  "I don't suppose we can cloak yet?"

  Honey shook her head. "The blast pretty well saturated local space with dust. Just traveling through it leaves a wake. Cloaking wouldn't help."

  "We don't have to hide, we just need to look like something a little less threatening."

  Honey continued to shake her head. "Any ship we look like will be fired on by one side or the other."

  "Ah," Ricky said, "but will they fire on a big dumb rock?"

  ***

  Yhsif stood alone in his cabin on the 4400. A view-screen mounted on the wall and made to look like a window gave him an impressive view of the planet below. These were the Suhtii or rather the Suhtian. The true Suhtian, not the genetically tampered-with and dumbed-down creatures that he was familiar with. His life had been a lie. He had believed the corporate propaganda that had said the rebels were playing fast and loose with history. His family was his bond for service. If he failed in his mission to supply data on rebel activities, the Syndicate Security Forces could and would take action against his mate and his children.

  Now that he knew the rebels had been right all along, now that he knew there were Suhtians every bit as intelligent as a Modos, he was faced with a moral dilemma. Did he continue to support a company who was lying to him and everyone else; or did he 'do the right thing'?

  If he 'did the right thing' by admitting his role as a spy to Captain Running Stream and the GCP Admiral, then his family would pay for his betrayal to the Syndicate. If he failed to 'do the right thing' the entire Suhtian race would pay for his betrayal of their most basic civil rights.

  In the end, he knew what he had to do. He hoped his wife and kids would someday be able to forgive him.

  ***

  The Chairman was hypoxic he was so angry. Battle group after battle group had returned to Syndicate space. Their managing directors dead. The first battle group coming back had been viewed as an unlucky break for that battle group and the Syndicate's board of directors had quickly appointed new managing directors. By th
e time six groups had come back it was obvious that there was a mole leaking sensitive information to the opposition forces.

  The board had started asking some hard questions. How had the chairman let this happen? Was he not in charge of overall corporate oversight? As the saying goes; 'At the end of the day he eats the last minnow.'

  The board had made it abundantly clear. He fixed the situation or they would. Ancient tradition held that a new chairman was to dine on the corpse of the old chairman. Thankfully that was a tradition that had fallen by the wayside. That said, being replaced would be, at best, exceedingly unpleasant.

  He looked at the chronometer mounted on his desk. Operation 'flood-gate' should be underway. That would secure his future. He was sure of it.