“Ma'am, incoming orders from Kalnai dispatcher.”
“Go ahead,” said Captain Katalin Kang, captain of the GMS Tethis, one of Mnemosyne's sister ships.
“It's a general order, Ma'am. No Galactic Mail ships are to depart the Kalnai system for the next twelve hours.”
“Well, we weren't going anywhere anyway. Curious order, though. I guess they'll let us know what is going on whenever they're ready. Maintain station.”
“Yes, Ma'am.”
Lintao Mendes, head of Ship Security on Tethis, was hurrying his subordinates to the mess hall.
“But he can't mean to leave the ready room unoccupied,” Paul Radic said.
“I'm not going to tell Kian Sitko what he means and what he doesn't mean. Come on, let's go. We're just going to be down the hall, and we can monitor everything in VR anyway. Move it,” Mendes said.
“Yes, Sir.”
Kian Sitko, as head of Port Security in Kalnai, was Mendes' ultimate superior in the region. Ship Security constituted deployed units of Port Security, and the promotion path to a cushy planet-side job ran through Kian Sitko's office.
They all filed into the mess hall, to “await an important live message from Kian Sitko.” Mendes ordered the mess hall crew out for the confidential meeting, as ordered, and all sixty Ship Security personnel on Tethis were present and accounted for at 12:15.
At 12:16, the bulkhead hatches to every Ship Security cabin and workspace on Tethis locked in brig protocol.
At 12:17, the bulkhead hatches to mess hall 2-14 on Tethis closed and locked. Fifteen seconds later, the fire valves for mess hall 2-14 dumped the air to space.
All across Kalnai system space, the scenario repeated itself. Ship Security personnel were locked in their ready rooms and quarters, or they were executed in their mess halls. Over two thousand died, and another thousand were locked up.
The big ship had shuddered when the fire valves had opened in the mess hall on 2-14, but Captain Kang was still trying to figure out what was going on when the lieutenant on communications interrupted.
“Ma'am, we have an emergency communication from Kalnai. It's Kali Micheli on a broadcast communication to all ship captains in Kalnai.”
“Put it on the display, Mr. Knutsen.”
Micheli's image appeared on the display. She waited a few seconds more before beginning.
“To all Galactic Mail captains in Kalnai space.
“Galactic Mail has new leadership. The new Board of Directors is all composed of descendants of Galactic Mail's original founders. The new Chairman of the Board is George Enfield, the seventh great-grandson of Jan Childers. The new president and CEO of Galactic Mail is Patricia Dawson, the seventh great-granddaughter of Jan Childers.
“I have checked their credentials, and personally verified their claim directly with Galactic Mail's central computer systems on Doma. This new leadership was triggered under Galactic Mail's by-laws in response to the unlawful and unauthorized attack on Wallachia. Our founders have reasserted control of Galactic Mail through their descendants.
“As we were about to announce this new leadership, Port Security here on Kalnai moved to arrest CEO Dawson and Chairman Enfield. Port Security was secretly monitoring my office. Ship Security was secretly monitoring your cabins, ready rooms, and communications as well. They reported directly to Security headquarters on Doma, around Galactic Mail's official leadership, directly to the prior CEO and his chief of staff. Call me naive, but this came as a shock to me.
“In response to Security's attempt to revolt against the lawful leadership of Galactic Mail, we have taken action to neutralize this insidious force within our company. The Port Security Building on Kalnai has been destroyed. Most Port Security personnel perished in that explosion, and the rest are being rounded up.
“On your ships, most Ship Security personnel have been locked in their quarters and ready rooms, or perished in their mess halls as we lured them in and then blew out the air with the fire control valves. These were lawful actions against them for their treason against Galactic Mail's charter and its leadership.
“On your ships, you should round up any of Ship Security who remain. They must either surrender or be destroyed. We are reasserting our leadership over Galactic Mail, and removing this dangerous personal police force of the former leadership.
“When all this is sorted out, I look forward to welcoming each of you to Kalnai to meet Galactic Mail's new leadership. Until then, let us rededicate ourselves to Galactic Mail's goals, and thank heaven for the wisdom of its founders, who saw this crisis centuries in advance and built in the mechanism to see us through it.
“Micheli out.”
“Wow.”
“You can say that again, Mr. Knutsen,” Captain Kang said.
Kang motioned her executive officer over.
“Tim, let's go ahead and re-pressurize the mess hall on 2-14 now we know it wasn't a fire. Get a body count. Let's see how many Ship Security people we have left to round up.”
“Yes, Ma'am.”
The attack on Ship Security wasn't perfect, though. Some Ship Security personnel slipped the net. On thirteen ships, they took over the ship by occupying the bridge and holding the captain and bridge crew hostage to their commands. Those ships attempted to leave Kalnai space at their orders.
In each case, a Board member took direct control of the ship through flag overrides, locked out the bridge controls, and directed the ship's computers to space to a holding area well clear of the planet. A hunting party of Mnemosyne's drones then dropped out of hyper around each ship.
Kali Micheli demanded the surrender of Ship Security on each of these ships. The holdouts on ten of the ships complied. The other three ships, all freighters, were blown out of space.
Research
Micheli arranged for Dawson and Enfield to have a briefing from Research that afternoon as she was dealing with the clean-up of the situation with the (former) Security personnel on Kalnai and the Galactic Mail ships in-system. She also had to take a somewhat frantic call from the chief executive officer of the Kalnai government, who was called simply the Chair.
“Perhaps you could tell me first what you are most interested in hearing about, Ms. Dawson,” said Austin Misra, the head of Research for Galactic Mail on Kalnai.
“Two things mostly, Dr. Misra,” Dawson said. “First, what is Galactic Mail on Doma likely to have that we do not have here, and second, what do we have here that is unavailable to Galactic Mail on Doma.”
“You expect to have a confrontation with Doma?”
“It's on my list of short-term expectations, yes.”
Misra nodded slowly at that. Micheli had included Dawson's and Enfield's current positions and how they had come by them in her introductions before she had scurried off.
“Let me tell you first, Ms. Dawson, that students of science are often students of history as well. We have become more and more concerned with the situation in Galactic Mail over the last twenty or so years, and I think I speak for most of us in Research when I say we're delighted you're here.”
Misra looked over the other three people he had brought with him to the briefing, and they all nodded.
“With that as a background, let me start with a comparison of our efforts to that of Research on Doma. We believe we are significantly ahead of them in our efforts here, and have been for a very long time. Partially that is because Galactic Mail's central organization has become complacent. The primary goal of a stable and successful organization over the long-term is to maintain the status quo, so aggressively researching additional capabilities, which, after all, might be destabilizing, is not a priority.
“One might expect there to be more than a little bias in my opinion on such matters, but in this case, I think it's correct. Unless they are hiding things from us, which is a possibility, they have little on the table in terms of undeployed new technology. I weigh the possibility they are hiding things from us against what I see of their attitude w
hen we get together for conferences. They seem, well, less than motivated.
“Indeed, most new deployed technology within Galactic Mail for the last fifty years or so has come from this facility, as well as our friends on Odla. We have a little bit of a technology competition going on with them.
“As for what we have in the shops, we are always working on longer-range beam weapons, smaller and cleaner nuclear devices, higher-speed drones, that sort of thing.
“But I suspect what you will be most interested in is our work on a higher-speed drone tender.”
“What is its acceleration?” Dawson asked.
“Five gravities is pretty routine.”
“Really.”
“Yes,” Misra said. “The standard drone tender acceleration has been just under three gravities for generations. There just was not a good way to make a human-occupied ship faster and still have the humans aboard remain, um, operational. We think we've solved that problem.”
“And that is how, exactly?”
“For the standard drone tender, the human crew already occupies flotation beds and runs the entire ship in VR. We've taken that passive mitigation system a step further by constructing an active system. The entire crew is maintained in water-filled tanks, and breathe through a scuba-type apparatus. We use a piston system to pressurize the tank to an effective depth of forty meters. Are you with me so far?”
“Yes. So sixty-five psi or so. Say 4.5 bar,” Dawson said.
“Excellent, Ms. Dawson. Exactly so. Now, the crew is in the tanks, and breathing through that scuba-type system, which we call COSS, for Crew Oxygenation and Scavenging System, and they are controlling the ship through the VR.”
“And five gravities?”
“As the engines are engaged, the pressure at the bottom of the tank increases due to the high apparent gravity. As it advances the engines, the ship's computer manipulates the piston system to maintain the pressure in the tank at a constant,” Misra said.
“So the body feels no effects of the acceleration at all.”
“Not quite, Ms. Dawson. For thirty minutes under a pressure that is the equivalent of a forty-meter dive, the body requires ninety minutes to decompress back to normal pressures. Now, the crew is still in control of the ship during that period, but the acceleration of the ship during that period will be limited to the current pressure in the tank plus a discomfort factor.”
“Or, you could sit doggo for a couple hours in hyper and de-pressurize,” Dawson said.
“Correct. But you also have to allow enough time between pressurizations, and you can't keep pressurizing and de-pressurizing. You need to allow time for the residual nitrogen to be processed out of the body, otherwise it becomes very dangerous. One gets a sort of nitrogen poisoning, which scuba divers call the bends.”
“But it does give the capability for five-gravity maneuvers when required.”
“Within the time constraints of what the body can stand as far as pressure, yes,” Misra said. “We're still working on the exact curves. We're currently testing operating at lower pressures, at around three bar, but there is some discomfort associated with higher accelerations. Alternatively, we could keep the pressure at 4.5 bar and operate the ship as high as seven gravities. The engines themselves are good for eight gravities at one hundred percent. We've actually done a couple of runs at seven gravities, and that's worked out so far. We're still doing test runs and analyzing data, but that's a possibility for you.
“And the atmosphere mix people are breathing makes a difference, too. We think we can get away from using nitrogen altogether, which might solve some of the depressurization problems.
“And of course you have accelerations of less than three g available pretty much all the time.”
“You mentioned thirty minutes under pressure, Dr. Misra. How far can a five-gravity ship travel in thirty minutes in hyperspace?”
“The ships are hyperspace-7 capable, Ms. Dawson. At five gravities, you can go anywhere in the galaxy in thirty minutes.”
“Wait a minute,” Dawson said. “You said 'the ships are?'“
“Yes. We have four of them.”
“You have a whole division of these?”
“Yes, of course,” Misra said. “Did I not mention that? After all, we have to be experimenting with something to get any reliable results.”
“And they're operational now? And have crews?”
“Yes. That's right. Ready when you are, as they say.”
Dawson flopped back in her chair and thought furiously about how to use the new capabilities. Primarily as surprise, she expected. And you only had thirty minutes. Still....
“Does Doma know you have this capability?” Dawson asked.
“Well, I think we may have forgotten to mention it to them somehow.”
Dawson raised an eyebrow.
“As I say, Ms. Dawson, many of us are students of history as well. It just seemed, ah, prudent to have some capabilities Doma did not know about.”
“Indeed. Anything else I should know about?”
“One more thing you might find interesting, Ms. Dawson. We have the ability to find and track ships in hyperspace, but it has very short range.”
“How short a range?” Dawson asked.
“Not more than four light-months or so.”
“Four light-months?”
“Yes,” Misra said. “You can't use it to, say, find someone a light-year away. But gravitational signatures are magnified in hyperspace. A ship in hyperspace-6, we can see four light-months away, in hyperspace-5, four light-days away, in hyperspace-4, three light-hours away, in hyperspace-3, six light-minutes away, in hyperspace-2, twelve light-seconds away, and in hyperspace-1, only about point-four light-seconds away.”
“OK, so the range to a ship you can see goes as the hyperspace constant.”
“Yes. Correct again.” Misra looked to his colleagues, who were all smiles, and back. “I must say, it's much more pleasant to brief someone who is so well studied, Ms. Dawson, as opposed to the more bureaucratic types.”
Dawson waved a hand in a gesture of dismissal.
“I read a lot,” Dawson said.
“Indeed. And now my colleagues can give you a detailed briefing on each of these areas of our capabilities, in which they are the project leaders.”
Preparation
The Board and their spouses and dependents moved down to the planet that first afternoon, and were staying in VIP accommodations contained within a wing of the main administrative building. Captain Bowers returned to the Mnemosyne.
The next morning, Dawson, Enfield, Turner, Micheli, Micheli's second, Rada Sato, her head of Tactical, Otto Sokolov, and her chief of staff, Dev MacConnel were meeting in Micheli's conference room. Several other Board members who had trained up on strategy and tactics were also present, including Bob Graham, Mary Dragic, Gretel Gadhavi, and Natasha Sanna.
“Why don't we start with a summary of Galactic Mail's field organization, Kali? We need to know a bit more about the lay of the land,” Dawson said.
“Certainly, Pat,” Micheli said. “The way the regions are organized, each of the eight small regional centers are loosely administered by one of the four large regional centers, like Kalnai. The other forty-five headquarters, the divisions, report to one of the regional centers. So I have loose authority over Bugaro and Cartref, but really each regional commander is his own boss reporting to Doma. The three of us each have three or four divisions reporting to us, as well as running division-level operations out of our own regional base.
“So the map of Galactic Mail is actually fifty-seven separate territories, over five of which I have administrative control and over another nine of which I have some oversight. The other three large regional centers, including Doma, are set up the same way.
“As for the other three regional centers, I know the managers of each of those. We coordinate a lot. On Doma, there is a regional manager below Galactic Mail's central administration, who has the same au
thority as I and runs her own region as independently as any of us do. I know her as well as the others.
“It's not necessarily the way anyone would set it up from scratch, but Galactic Mail sometimes grew really quickly, in lurches, and during that process, that's how it ended up.”
“Ok, let me see if I've got this,” Dawson said. “You have your five divisions, including one based here, plus you have two small regional headquarters and their total of nine divisions, including two that are co-located with them, under your more-or-less control. And you know the other three large regional managers personally, and each of them has the same span of control as you.”
“That's right.”
“So you could order your five divisions to do something, recommend it to your small region managers for their nine divisions, and suggest it to your peers at the other large regional headquarters.”
“That's basically it. I normally wouldn't take direct action in any of the other fifty-two divisions on my own initiative,” Micheli said. “You could, though. Everybody reports to you, through one channel or another.”
“What does everybody think? Jack?” Dawson asked.
“So there's two paths, right? You can send drones and messages and command routines to all fifty-seven divisions directly, neutralizing the Port Security and Ship Security forces the way we did here, or you could work through channels. If you work through channels, we could miss divisions, maybe a large number of divisions, in clearing out Security.”
“And if you act directly in all fifty-seven divisions without working through local managers, you could turn a large number of them against you,” Enfield said. “That wouldn't be good either.”
“No, it wouldn't. There may be a better first step, though. We need to prepare to be attacked here by Security forces loyal to Padma Kosar,” Dawson said.
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