On to Tau Ceti

by David McCahan

  “Not gone you fool, just not quite as stupid as it seemed. They’ve detected the Conqueror and are running dark now. So you want to lure us out do you? Careful what you wish for. Send the Merciless to meet them as well.” Baktul ordered.

  Glory tapped Jeff on the shoulder and pointed at the plot where she has a second Basel Confederation ship highlighted. “Got another fish on the hook. Looks like going dark got their interest.”

  “Going to give this one to Andrew?” Jeff looked over to Glory and saw the wink confirming his thought.

  Just then “General, a second Basel ship is breaking orbit and heading our way.”

  “Excellent work Tactical.” Jeff congratulated his tactical specialist. Glory did her best to contain a snicker. “Any indication of the first slowing to allow the second to catch up or are they racing to get to us first?”

  After a moment’s hesitation as he had not thought to look for that scenario “Yes Sir, the first ship is slowing slightly and judging by the course they are taking it looks like they mean to flank us.”

  “Nav, once they’ve joined up and resumed full speed please set a countdown clock to intercept in the plot.”

  “Yes Sir, I’ll put it up now with best guess from past behavior and then update if they do something different.”

  Turning back to Glory “So now the questions are; do they have any surprises sitting out here that we might run into, should we mess with them with course changes and how close do we let them get before inviting them to chase us out of the system?”

  “Wow Sir, you ask really good questions. Their Tactical thinking is very good but with their arrogance I don’t know that they would think it necessary to plant any devices or mines out this far. They do have mines but they are more for planet interdiction than solar system ambush. That being said we are watching with the expectation of finding some so hopefully we don’t miss any just in case. I think a course change would be appropriate to test their sensors and see how they redeploy in response. Also if we can get an angle that gets planets and asteroids out of the line of fire then we can start to pull on them as we turn for interstellar space. Make it look like we’re dragging them out. We should be able to start to do that once we’re inside of an hour of intercept.”

  “I like it. Making them chase us around a bit will give the Collective more time to get there and start planting the Phantom soul suckers in their minds.” Jeff was thinking out loud. “Saoi how far are the Collective from the Basel ships?”

  “General we can move faster than the Columbia but not as fast as light so they are about ¾ of the gap between us and the Basel ships.”

  Jeff keyed his com again “Eva, can you join us at the plot please?”

  “Yes Sir, be right there.” Eva responded. She turned Nav operations over to one of her Navigation Officers and joined her commanders at the 3d plot.

  “Eva, what we’d like to do is try to get outside of their flanking maneuver. One side or the other. We’ll need to hold here until they get within one light hour so that they can track us though.” Jeff said while tracing the general idea of Glory’s plan on the plot. “This is to see how well they detect our movements and how they react strategically while giving the Collective more time to get into their minds. Also once we do get within an hour of intercept we are also looking to have an angle on them that does not have planets or asteroids in the line of fire so we can lock Grav Focus on them and try to pull them out of system to reinforce the Phantoms.”

  Eva looked over the plot thinking through how she might accomplish it. “Wouldn’t that be a surprise to a species that has no idea what Gravity Focus is? We should be able to work over to this side to get outside of the first bogy and then duck under to get the angle we need while still keeping an easy escape vector. Nothing behind them but empty space if we can get to here.” Eva played out her route on the plot as she spoke.

  “That’s what we had in mind Eva. Go ahead and plot it and we’ll initiate when they get at one light hour distance.” Jeff replied.

  “Yes Sir, I’d like to push our velocity up to .8 C though to make getting outside of them easier. It’ll give a little margin for error considering we are not sure of their best emergency speed.”

  “Good point. Glo would you bring Javier up in conference on the plot?”

  In the lower portion of the plot an image of the Chief of Engineering appeared. “Yes Sir, what can I do for you?” he asked.

  “Javier, we’re going to run some maneuvers on our Basel friends out there and we’d like to push some extra speed out of the Ion drives to help get around and outside of them. How much reserve velocity do we have? This would be over several hours duration.” Jeff asked.

  “I think we can get to .8 or even .81 C for several hours Sir and maybe .83 to .85 C for a short burst. The Collective have been listening real hard on our propulsion out of curiosity and gave us some suggestions that resulted in nice improvements in Ion Drive efficiency.”

  “Thank you Javier. Eva take it to .8 C and then if all goes well after about 30 minutes try for .81. Javier will let us know if the Ion Drives are having problems keeping up. Can’t risk pushing them too hard and then having drive issues if we’re working in close.” Jeff looked at Eva and then Javier and saw nods of agreement in both. “Thank you both.”

  Eva went back to her Navigation station and began to input the course changes. Once the system acknowledged the changes she opened her com to command group. “Evasive courses plotted and laid in. Ready to initiate once the Basel close to within one light hour Sir.

  Jeff answered “Thank you Nav.”

  “General, the Collective have reached the Basel confederation ships that are pursuing us. The same as those that crippled the Invincible are among the Collective there and are implanting the Phantom in their minds. Soon they will start suggesting Columbia is a Phantom ship.” Saoi reported.

  Glory queried the ship’s systems for time for the Basel ships to close to one light hour “That’s makes just about five hours until we start our maneuver.”

  “Excellent, that’ll will give them hours to really mess with their minds.” Jeff commented.

  “The Basel ships are now one light hour from our position.” Eva reported.

  “Nav initiate your course.” Jeff replied.

  Columbia made a sudden turn at .8 C perpendicular, with a slight angle away as well, to their approaching craft to get outside of their flanking course. How long would it take them to spot the change? Over two hours passed and now the intercept clock updated and started counting up instead of down as Columbia was now passing outside the projected courses. They had passed almost too far outside of the Basel ships path and Jeff was about to order lighting the ship up again when a course change from the hostile battle cruisers was spotted.

  “Nav, we have hostiles finally correcting course to chase us. Do you need to alter your projected course?” Jeff asked Eva.

  “Actually Sir, with them being slow to pick up our change that gave us a better position than I’d dare hope for. I’ll bring us back to .75 C and then swing around to get that nice clear Grav Focus angle.”

  “Execute at your discretion Nav.” Jeff commented and then focused back on the 3d plot to watch the results. The entire maneuver so far had moved the intercept area close to an hour later and was slowly moving the engagement closer to the Heliopause. Eva’s current course was circling around the outside of the Basel ships and lining them up so that they could put Grav Focus on them without accidently pulling on a planet or asteroid field. This whole cat and mouse game was taking hours but the positioning was clearly in Columbia’s favor.

  A look at the clock showed under four hours to intercept so about three hours until they will be in range to begin to pull at them.

  “Looks like we have a while to wait for our next move.” Jeff commented and realized how tense he was and leaned back in his chair for a minute.

  “Yep no rest for the weary at this point.” Glory said seeing Jeff str
etch and feeling the same as him. A break would be great but now it was too close to show time.

  “I see you two could use a good masseuse right about now.” Eva had walked over to the plot and was now standing beside them. “General, I just wanted to let you know we have a good clear line for Gravity Focus on our bogies now. If we just run for the Heliopause then we’ll lose them at current speed. Should I slowly reduce our velocity so that eventually they’ll start to catch up?”

  “Glo, let’s bring Javier into this conversation please.” Seeing Javier’s face in the 3d plot Jeff then continued. “We’re discussing how to close the gap now and then next steps. We have our preferred line for a Grav Focus and we want to keep that but close the gap. I take it that the Basel ships are maintaining .6 C so let’s reduce to .5 C over the next 15 minutes or so. That might look like we’re having a drive failure. Once they close the gap to 30 million miles we’ll lock focus on both ships and then see if we can get back up to .75 C with them in tow. Whatever speed we can get and keeping them outside of missile range is fine with me though. Javier once we lock on we’ll need you to monitor the strength of the focus to keep them with us and not pull them in. Any comments?”

  “The Collective continue to push the Phantoms in their minds and some of the Basel are beginning to wonder if we are Phantoms. We are now also on the ship that stayed in orbit and are working on that crew and also have joined with the other Collective on the planet. Soon they will travel up to the ship in orbit and have many planting Phantoms in their minds.” Saoi added.

  “Once we start pulling on the Basel Cruisers out here the Collective will start blowing plasma conduits and create other failures as they did with the Invincible. Some of the first items will be to disable their missile launchers and lasers. Once all offensive weaponry is gone then work their way in to the command centers. By the time we start using FTL jumps on them they hopefully will be about ready to turn tail for their home system.” Glory had a bit too wicked of a grin just thinking about those sadistic warriors reduced to timid infantile fears.

  Jeff noticed the grin and felt a bit of a chill run down his spine. “Remind me not to piss you off after this is over.” And added a wink to be sure she caught the levity. “Javier?”

  “Sounds like a solid plan General. We’ll keep on the Grav Focus and will keep them right at 30 million miles.

  Jeff then looked up at Eva.

  “Hey all I gotta do is steer straight and keep at the speed limit. Works for me.”

  “Then let’s be about it. Hopefully we get these taken care of in the next few hours and can take a break while we go back in system to deal with their flag ship.” Jeff acknowledged.

  Eva went back to her station, entered her plan into the Navigation system and then opened her com “Reducing velocity to .5 C now.”

  Jeff leaned over to Glory and Saoi “Glo that should take over 3 hours for them to close on us. Let’s get some quick crew rotations in during that time so we won’t be so tired and stressed when the action starts. You two go get something to eat and a quick power nap if you can and meet me back in 2.5 hours. I’m going to have some food sent up and grab a quick nap in my office. Saoi I’m trusting you to keep her in the here and now and back here in body on time.”

  Glory thought to come up with a funny retort but seeing the circumstances and her history Jeff was being correct and fair. Together they replied “Yes Sir.”

  Jeff just dropped his chin to his chest and shook his head. “Now you don’t bother finishing each other’s sentences, now you just speak in unison. Ok, off with you two. Glo get crew rotations going on your way out.”

  A meal and shower made Glory feel so much better. While her body needed to ‘sleep’ to refresh Glory and Saoi merely slipped out of body and joined up to listen with the Collective.

  “We should listen but not merge. We could lose sense of time and not be back in body on time.” Saoi thought to Glory.

  “Yes and we should definitely not merge between the two of us right now either. Have you been able to listen with the Collective on that?” Glory thought of how much she would love to figure out how to make that join again and not lose complete track of the physical world and time while merged.

  “I’m sorry but it is still a mystery why that is so different and no idea how to control it yet. After this is all over we should merge while the Collective monitors in order to understand it.” Saoi was thinking of how to solve the problem.

  Glory could not blush while in spirit form but if she could she would be crimson from head to toe. “I don’t know why I find that embarrassing but I do. For some reason I feel the same way about that as I would if I were making love to someone and being watched. Why is that?”

  “I don’t know but hopefully we can listen on this and understand.”

  They spent an hour listening in on the Collective and getting impressions of what was happening on the Basel ships. The anxiety levels among the Basel crew were growing and so at least the seeds of doubt were planted. The Collective would blow the laser batteries and missile launch controls as soon as Columbia locked on with Grav Focus. It would look like they hit them with some totally unknown weapon and were dragging the defenseless crews out to interstellar space to devour their souls.

  Glory could feel Saoi urging her to return to her body. “Time to return.”

  “I wish we could stay … but I know you are right. Let’s go.” Glory and Saoi returned to their bodies and met up on the way back to C&C. “Why haven’t we put you in quarters closer to mine? I’ll have to talk to the quartermaster about that. We’re always together so it would seem practical to live closer to each other.” Glory thought as she walked.

  “You are right it does seem a bit impractical to have quarters so far apart. Maybe we should share quarters, that would be most efficient.”

  That stopped Glory dead in her tracks. Saoi seeing that she was now behind him stopped and looked back at her in confusion.

  She regained her composure remembering that there were times, few and far between they may be, that he didn’t quite get human mores and hang-ups. She took his arm and headed for her station in the C&C. “We’ll listen on this later but we need to concentrate on the task at hand first.”

  “We can listen on what upset you then but you are right we first must deal with the Basel Confederation. Living arrangements can wait until then.”

  Glory had connected to the Navigation systems and was up to date before they arrived. Currently the Basel ships had closed to 55 million miles with a closing rate of .1 C. Glory sat at her station with Saoi beside her and Jeff came over and took a seat next to her.

  “Good timing although I expect you were already monitoring the situation?” Jeff asked although it was more rhetorical than an actual question so he didn’t wait for a reply. “They’ll be within range in about 25 minutes. As they get close to 30 million miles Eva is going to begin to match their velocity so that when they hit 30 million we’ll be matched.”

  Having regained her composure and having reviewed ship systems and tactical she then reported on the Collective. “We spent most of our nap time listening with the Collective, not merged just listening.” Jeff noted that and then nodded for her to continue. “Body got a nice power nap and we got to catch up on current events, pretty cool. At any rate they have planted the Phantoms in the crew and are planning a stunning show of our weaponry when we lock Grav Focus on them.”

  Glory paused for a second but Jeff knew she was teasing him. “Ok Glo, you got my attention so what weaponry are we talking about?”

  “Well it appears that our Grav Focus is going to immediately blow all their lasers and also all of the missile launch systems. That will then have a cascade effect on plasma conduits and other systems working their way to their command center. I know if I was them it would scare the crap out of me.”

  Jeff started laughing quietly trying not to be noticed by everyone and disrupt their concentration. “Oh that’s perfect. Saoi, pleas
e send my compliments to the Collective. One little tug on their big bad battle cruiser and all offensive weaponry gone. In the words of our good Marine Captain, that would make me piss my pants if that happened to me. Wow. Glo, please message the senior staff on this plan so they can be aware of it.”

  “Yes Sir. My pleasure.”

  In a few moments Glory could tell Eva had just read the message because there was near hysterical laughter coming from the direction of the Navigation Station. Jeff looked at Eva and then a thought occurred to him and leaned in close to Glory. “Please tell me you didn’t mention anything about my ‘pissing my pants comment’ in your memo.”

  “Now Jeff do you really think that I would do something like that.” He raised a finger at her and opened his mouth to speak. “Ok, you’re right I probably would but not under these circumstances. Promise.” Glory said while looking as innocent as she could and crossing her heart.

  Jeff looked at Glory then over to Eva and back to Glory and then relaxed. “Ok, but there’ll be hell to pay if I find out differently later. Now back to the task at hand.” While they both watched the 3d plot update they could see that Columbia was beginning to increase velocity to slow the approach and eventually stop the Basel Confederation ships from getting closer than 30 million miles. The minutes passed slowly until the distance closed to under 31 million miles.

  “General, 5 minutes until target distance.” Eva announced.

  “Thank you Nav. Engineering ready on the Grav Focus?” Jeff replied.

  “Yes Sir, Focus ready and on standby awaiting your orders.”

  “Acknowledged Engineering.” Jeff then turned to Saoi. “Is the Collective ready on their end?”

  “Yes General, we are ready and standing by.”

  Nothing to do now but wait and then finally Eva announced “30 million miles, matching velocity, distance holding steady.”

  “Thank you Nav. Engineering Grav Focus attract now!” Jeff watched the plot update and indicate a lock on both vessels. “Nav, we have Grav Focus on both vessels, you may increase velocity to .75 C.”