by Andrew Beery
***
“Lady’s Man, bank hard right!” AG yelled from the cockpit of his scorpion.
“Roger that, Rubble Maker. Banking right,” JJ Hammond replied.
AG took the opportunity to draw a bead on the surprisingly capable Nester drone mine that had been chasing his best friend. The Nesters didn’t make heavy use of fighters but they were very adept at using mobile mines that could evade passive sensor sweeps. The mobile mines had small but powerful thrusters designed to get them close to their targets. They could do some serious damage when they exploded. AG had already lost two of his men to the nasty little devices.
The Nesters weren’t the only ones capable of leaving surprise packages. AG was running a strafing maneuver that was designed to distract the attention of the three defender-class warships that were moving to intercept the Yorktown.
Other ships in squadron were busy placing dormant nanite sandies in the path of the oncoming ships. In point of fact, another set of similar mines had already been left behind the Yorktown. It was all part of an elaborate charade orchestrated by the Glory and Yorktown.
Shorty before being led into final orbit around Nebi Prime by the NE Glory, the Yorktown fired a low yield plasma beam at the Nester ship. It was enough to make a nice light show but little else. She-Who-Would-Sing immediately called for help… The Yorktown was an oath-breaker and must be punished!
Pretending to be disabled, the Glory’s Prime Captain pleaded with the ships in orbit around the Nester home world to assist in retaking the fleeing ship. Five of the six vessels broke orbit and began the chase.
The Yorktown, meanwhile, made a beeline towards the other ring-gate and its three incoming ships. To the casual observer, it seemed as if they Yorktown had decided it wanted to take on three ships rather than six and a weapons platform. In point of fact, the Yorktown was laying a trap for the eight of the nine defender-class Nester warships that had been willing to take the bait.
“OK, boys and girls… time to lead the lambs to the slaughter,” Lieutenant Commander Hiller yelled as he and his team placed the last of the fully cloaked mines.
“Roger that, Mountain Man,” AG acknowledged. “My team, launch your full spread of missiles and then beat a hasty retreat to the launch bay… and guys… you won’t hear me say this often so enjoy the experience… make your retreat as disorderly as possible. We want these guys thinking they have us right where they want us.”
Chapter 18: Sacrifice…
There were days when Cat wondered why she ever got out of bed. This was not one of those days. Today, she had a clarity of purpose that defied reason. She suspected very strongly that she was going to die… and yet, she was OK with that.
Thanks to her Heshe benefactors, death, for her, was not a permanent franchise. She had experienced her own special form of resurrection several times. She had come to terms with it. So long as the Creator deemed her continued existence to have value in the universe, she was willing to face death again and again. But this day, her death might very well save an entire generation of intelligent beings. That was worth a single life, wasn’t it?
As the power cells supporting the Nester nursery slowly depleted, she was forced to supplement their energy using the only available source… herself. Her nanites had the ability to convert her tissues into a variety of trace elements, carbon dioxide, water and energy. She could become, in essence, an organic battery for a short period of time. Her hope was that it would be long enough.
Moments after the others had made good their escape a group of five Nesters entered the chamber. Two immediately moved to place themselves between Cat and a female Nestor who was obviously their leader. The other two went and inspected the pools containing the infants.
“You came to attack my children?” The Nester female asked in perfect English. A device similar to what She-Who-Would-Sing wore when speaking to the Yorktown crew was clipped on her fur near her mouth parts. “Does your species value life so little that you would endanger the young?”
Cat sat down. Her hand was still connected to the control panel by a silver nanite infused thread. Already her leg muscles were atrophying.
“On the contrary. We hold all life in the highest regard. Even now, I am working hard to save your younglings,” Cat answered directly in the Nester speech.
“Did not your compatriots destroy our power distribution center? Are you not, even now, seeking to disable the power systems feeding life-giving waters to my last eggs?”
“I’m not sure what happened. The plan was to avoid the taking of life. Unfortunately, men driven by desperation do desperate things. The others may very well have disobeyed me and destroyed your systems. They were from a separate group stranded here many years ago. Their values and ideals are tainted by the hard life they have lived here. Forgive me for saying this; but none of that matters now. The redundant systems that supplied power to these pools ran out several minutes ago. I am powering the systems with my own life energy. That supply is not inexhaustible.”
“My Queen, what this lower caste creature is saying is true,” one of the male Nesters said. He had been one of the ones inspecting the pools. “The secondary reserve was only rated for ten minutes. It has been well past twenty since the sabotage… and yet the pools still circulate warm water.”
“How is this possible,” the leader asked.
Cat smiled wanly. Her strength was fading fast.
“My name is Catherine Kimbridge. I am an Admiral in the Galactic Coalition of Planets. I am the leader of a small group of us that have found ourselves accidently stranded in your space. The worlds in our Galactic Coalition share much of our technological advancements with each other. As a result, our technology is considerably more advanced than most of yours. I am using some of that technology now to harvest energy from my body.”
“How long can you do this?”
“Perhaps another ten minutes before I die. I’ve instructed my medical nanites to abort their original programming and continue to feed power into your systems even after my body expires,” Cat gasped with effort.
The Nester turned to one of the others. “Tell the engineers to hurry. There is yet time to run a direct power cable.
The female brushed her guards aside and approached Cat who was now struggling to remain in a seated position.
“I am She-Who-Has-Sung. I am… I was… the Prime of the Prime. My days of providing progeny have come to an end with these last little ones. What you do here will be remembered by my people for generations to come. But I must know why you are doing it. Would it not be easier to simply let the little ones die? They are not your children and they would be part of a system you seem intent on destroying.”
Cat coughed and a bit of blood dribbled from her lip. “It would be easier,” she gasped weakly. “But easy and right are not the same things. My people, and those I represent, value life and freedom above all things. Your inflexible caste system stifles that freedom. We base our…” Cat coughed more blood. It was a struggle to continue speaking.
“…we… caste… based on merit… not birth,” she finished with great effort.
“You who are not us… would give up your life to save another?”
Cat forced a smile. It would be her last and so she wanted to make it a good one. “We believe… that the greatest… truest… love is to be willing…” Cat paused to draw a ragged breath. “to be willing to lay down… life for another.”
“You have given me much to think about. My Prime Daughter would undoubtedly agree with you. She has long held to the believe that merit castes are superior to birth castes. It is a strange concept but it may have advantages.”
“…have daughter?”
“She is the Prime Captain of a starship. I am quite proud of her,” She-Who-Has-Sung said.
Catherine Kimbridge gasped one final time as her heart faltered and then stopped. The words just spoken by a mother about her daughter fell on ears that could no longer hear. The nanites, which were even
now continuing to harvest her empty shell for residual energy, would self-destruct in about five minutes when their work was done. When that happened, all that would be left of Admiral Cat Kimbridge would be a set of permanently stored and updated memory engrams located on a distant Heshe AI platform known as WhimPy-101.
***
In a remote corner of the GCP Yorktown; in a section known only to Captain Ken Kirkland and Admiral Kimbridge; a light turned on.
Captain Kirkland, himself was unaware of the light. In point of fact, had he known it was on, it would have distracted him from a much more important task.
“Ahead full on the sublight engines, Navigator. Give us some distance between us and the Nesters. We don’t want them to stop short of our little surprise.”
“Aye aye, Captain,” Lieutenant Smith said from his navigation console. “Accelerating at two point two gravities. Starting to open up a gap between both sets of ships. They are accelerating to intercept.”
“Mister Martinescu… how long before our friends out there discover they are in trouble?”
Commander Andrew Martinescu was watching the holographic display in front of him. “The five in bound from Nebi Prime are in range now. The mines are decloaking and gently releasing their cargo. There is a good chance they will not be spotted until it is too late. The second group is fifteen seconds out.”
Ken hit his comm. “Commander Stone, that was some fine work your marines did. Our guests are coming to their respective parties at darn near the same time. Well done AG.”
“Thank you, Sir. We set the little buggers to do their work for three minutes and then disable themselves. That should be long enough to do some serious damage without necessarily killing the crews outright. Our SARs are ready to advance and seal any atmosphere breaches with nanofoam the minute you give the all-clear.”
“Captain, I’m receiving a distress call from two of the first ships. Correction three… now all five, Sir!” Ziggy reported from the communications station.
“Sir,” Commander Martinescu interrupted, “Beta group is attempting to veer off.”
“Blow the mines… emergency dispersal,” Ken barked.
“Emergency dispersal complete. It looks like we nailed all three with sandies before they could get out of range.”
On the holographic display, a sudden explosion filled a corner of the display.
“What happened?” Ken asked.
“Analyzing the data now, Captain,” the First Officer said. “It looks like the Alpha group took their damage on their forward hulls… as we planned. The Beta group, however, attempted to veer away. One of those ships apparently got struck by the sandies too close to their reactor core. The nanites chewed through their hull like they were designed to. Unfortunately they were too close to the reactor. There was a breach and the ship exploded.”
“Survivors?”
Commander Martinescu shook his head. “It happened too fast, Sir.”
Ken activated his comms again. “AG, release the SARs for rescue operations. We lost one ship. I don’t want to waste any more lives if we can avoid it. Kirkland out.”
***
She-Who-Would-Sing watched the events unfolding in the three-dimensional holographic display unit that the Yorktown had installed on the Glory’s bridge. The light emitters had been adjusted to slightly favor the blue bands which made the entire system better suited to Nester eyes.
The Glory’s Prime Captain was sad that the NE Deep Dive had been lost with all shells onboard. Her Captain had been a classmate of hers. Still, She-Who-Would-Sing knew that the GCP ship had gone to great lengths to avoid casualties. Had the fight been one fought with conventional missiles and plasma beams… the shell count would have been much higher.
She turned a couple of eyestalks to look at her intended mate, Left Captain Hero. “My love, you should be getting down to Engineering. I have a feeling we will need your considerable skills in the next few minutes.
The two touched claws in an atypical sign of affection. Adversity had drawn the two who were already close by Nester standards even closer.
She opened a channel to both the orbiting defense platform and the sole remaining battleship.
“Attention Nebi Defense forces. This is Prime Captain She-Who-Would-Sing. You are ordered to stand down and surrender.”
“Prime Captain, the defense platform is locking on to us with its main plasma turrets,” a junior signal officer announced.
“Activate the Yorktown shield modifications,” she ordered. The Glory had been fitted with a hyperfield nanite skin that could be set to reverse momentum. It would not be especially effective against lasers or neutrino weapons but it would easily handle the types of plasma beams, kinetic rounds and missiles that would be used by the Nester fleet.
“Incoming message, Prime Captain,” the communications officer reported.
“On screen.”
A pair of blue-grey Nesters appeared on the flat-panel display that served as the Nester Battleship’s original main viewscreen.
“Glory, have you taken leave of your senses? By what right do you order us to surrender?” The older of the two said.
“To who am I speaking?” She-Who-Would-Sing asked politely.
“I am Prime Captain Reliant. Commander of Alpha Platform.”
“Well Prime Captain Reliant, Commander of Alpha Platform. I have been defeated fairly in battle and have given my name oath to the commander of the Galactic Coalition of Planets starship Yorktown. The Yorktown just defeated eight of our best battleships… nine in fact, if you count mine. Do you really want to risk taking her on?”
“You gave your name oath! This is unheard of! You are the daughter of the Prime of the Prime. You are to be… may even already be… She-Who-Sings!”
“Prime Captain,” the signal officer whispered. “They are powering up their weapons.”
She-Who-Would-Sing tapped her claws together in what for the Nesters was a smile. “Let them fire. Maybe it will convince them that surrender offers a better road forward.”
“I repeat my demand,” She said again over the comms. “All forces currently in orbit around Nebi Prime are to stand down and surrender. This will be your final warning.”
By way of answer the defense platform and battleship fired in unison.
GABOOM! The deck of the bridge shuddered as sixteen massive plasma beams raked over its surface. Twelve of the beams were fired from the platform while the remain four, somewhat weaker beams emanated from the battleship.
The beams hit the enhanced shielding on the Glory and washed back on themselves. Because the Glory was in a parking orbit next to both the platform and the battleship, the backwash struck both orbiting structures. The backwash was not powerful enough to do serious damage but it would most certainly have gotten their attention.
“Weapons, arm forward railguns.”
Chapter 19: She-Who-Sings…
“Bridge, this is Doctor Pulaski. Captain Kirkland you are needed in the med bay.”
Ken looked up from his data screen. The Yorktown was on a least time course to Nebi Prime. The NE Glory had acquitted herself well in dealing with the remaining defenses. Ken had been worried that giving the Nester ship access to Coalition defensive technologies was a mistake… but Admiral Kimbridge, who had been in constant communication with the Yorktown via her embedded quantum link, had overruled him. As per normal, she was right.
“Go ahead Doctor,” Ken said into the bridge’s open comm channel.
“Captain, I have somebody down here who would like to meet you.”
“Doctor, as much as I love these little games we sometimes play, I’m really quite busy right now.”
“Sir, I mean no disrespect but I think you really want to come down here.”
Ken sighed. “OK Doctor. I’m on my way, Kirkland out.”
Two turbolifts and a short walk down a corridor later and Captain Ken Kirkland was entering the Med bay.
“OK, Doctor. There were no additional ca
sualties in our last engagement. What was so important that it couldn’t wait…”
Janice Pulaski was beaming. Her smile caught the Captain completely off guard. Sitting on a diagnostic bed was Admiral Catherine Kimbridge.
“How the hell… bio-generation chamber?” Ken asked.
Cat nodded. “The enhanced one WhimPy-101 insisted we install near the central core.”
“So, Lady Lazarus rises again. What is this… your fifth time?”
“It’s only been four. That time on Aldara IV didn’t count. I didn’t actually die. Came damn close… I’ll admit it… I didn’t actually die.”
“And close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades,” Ken laughed. “Can you fill me in on the nature of your demise?”
***
She-Who-Sang stood next to her daughter, the new Prime of the Prime… She-Who-Sings and her consort, Left Captain Hero. In Nester society, only one breeding pair produced progeny for the upper castes at a time. In point of fact, the birth of a female was exceedingly rare. A female designated to continue the line was referred to as ‘She-Who-Would-Sing’ while the current queen was ‘She-Who-Sings’ and the former queen adopted the title ‘She-Who-Sang’.
The former Prime Captain of the NE Glory was now, by virtue of genetics and fertility, the sole leader of her Nester people. In most societies, this would have been a disaster waiting to happen; but the vagaries of Nester biology insured that only the most potentially capable individuals reached this lofty position. Sadly, just because a person had the genetic potential to be extraordinary… that did not mean that environmental factors would allow them to be so. This was why identical twins sometimes looked and acted slightly different.
She-Who-Sang had her front pincers tapped together. A creature she had never expected to see again had just walked into the room. Admiral Catherine Kimbridge had entered the throne room with a small contingent of her officers. The coalition’s technology was really quite impressive. She had been told that the GCP Admiral had been brought back to life but it was hard to believe without actually seeing it.