Marie stood less than an arm’s length away. Her eyes went wide, and she took a step closer. “Did you say something about ECCO?”
Scott cast a quick frown at Anton to silence him, and turned to Marie. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
Anton blushed and moved away to strike up a conversation with Ariela.
With the festivities at an end, Wimund sidled up to Scott. “Would you care to join me by the fountain? We can discuss your diplomatic mission.”
Scott nodded. “Certainly, it’s as good a place as any.”
The two sat down on a bench on the far side of the fountain. The air smelled of hyacinth, and they were far enough from the others that none could overhear them above the soft babble of the water.
The proconsul rotated to face Scott. “Now, what has your Panhelion to propose to us?”
Scott returned Wimund’s expressionless gaze. “They’ve sent me instructions to convey a few straightforward proposals to you.” He extended an up-turned hand. “If you wish to be relocated to Earth, or one of our settlements in the solar system, they would provide you transport and help your people find new homes.”
The proconsul offered a bemused smile. “That’s very generous of them, but I’m sure I speak for all Niobe when I say we are happy here. We have no wish to return to Earth or any of her settlements in the solar system.”
He studied Wimund’s face for a tell. “They offer a second choice as well, one that you may find more palatable.” He dropped his hands to his lap. “They’re willing to arrange Niobe’s status as a colony of Earth. You would have advantages, such as free trade and travel to all Panhelion territories. In addition, they would protect you against any danger from outside.”
“Another generous offer, and we are grateful. Acceptance by our people is unlikely, but I’ll take it up with the Ekklesia. Are these the only offers your Senate proposes?”
Scott swallowed hard. “There is another arrangement acceptable to the Senate. The Panhelion would agree to a policy of non-interference. Essentially, they would accept your independence, although you may wish to accommodate a small Panhelion diplomatic legation, a consulate perhaps. It would certainly be in our mutual interest.”
“A much more palatable offer and very likely acceptable to us. I’m sure arrangements for your diplomatic facilities here on Niobe can also be negotiated.”
In a moment of hesitation, Scott chewed on his lip. “There is a condition to the last two of these proffers.” He wiggled forward until he sat on the edge of the bench.
Wimund’s eyes narrowed. “Conditions? Please tell me about them.”
Scott tugged at his collar, using the delay to mentally compose his statement. “The Panhelion Senate needs positive assurances that you pose no military threat. They require, in any case, that you allow our military to conduct an inspection of Niobe to ensure them of your peaceful intent.”
The proconsul stifled a laugh. “Niobe? A military threat?” He remained silent as his smile faded. He took a deep breath and in a deadpan voice, continued. “They have utterly failed to comprehend who we are. I’m afraid this doesn’t bode well for our future dealings with Earth.”
“The more militant elements of the Panhelion are skeptical of my report regarding your Tradition and non-dominant nature,” Scott countered. “They choose to believe the statistics that predict an ever-increasing chance that our ships will encounter belligerent aliens. The safe path for them is to treat you as part of that probability.”
After a deep breath, Proconsul said, “We aren’t aliens, so their concern makes no sense to me.”
Scott stood and paced before Wimund. “Of course, I know that and have reported it to Earth, but they seem to harbor suspicions that you may not be what you appear to be.”
Wimund reacted with a slow shake of his head. “Your people on Earth must be made to understand, we are a sovereign planet with our own elected government. We pose no danger to them whatsoever.” With a piercing stare, Wimund stood and gripped Scott’s arm. “We wish only to be left alone. Our tradition of eschewing dominance does not mean we would passively accept a foreign interference in our affairs.”
He paused, clearly considering his next words carefully. “If a foreign power appeared in your skies and demanded that Earth submit to inspection, would they allow it?”
Scott hesitated and locked his gaze on the older man. “They would not.”
Proconsul crossed his arms. “Then you have Niobe’s answer to the offer.”
The Anomaly
-
Aurora
~~~
Poland Tanner, Captain commanding the Aldebaran class strike cruiser Aurora, surveyed the expansive bank of display screens on the combat deck of his warship. Munitions filled her magazines, and with the most modern weapons in the Panhelion arsenal, he was keenly aware that he commanded the most powerful ship in the fleet.
Forty-one years old, with close-cropped blond hair, his angular face had the look of chiseled granite, as his muscular build stemmed from an exercise routine that bordered on religious zeal. A protégé of Admiral Andre Camus, Tanner distrusted his superior but had come to a rapprochement with him. He never contradicted his superior outright. Instead, he engaged in polite but assertive disagreement.
His ship projected the power and influence of the Panhelion into the deepest reaches of space. Driven by the newest hadron engine technology and armed with heavy hadron and light ion-beam weapons, as well as modern fusion weapons, Tanner had confidence that his ship could handle any threat the Niobians, or any alien force, for that matter, might raise against him.
He lingered at the engineering station, his eyes roaming over every detail on the soft, glowing numbers and icons on the displays. When he got to the fuel status indicators, he hesitated. They confirmed his expectation, showing a bit less than they had read twelve hours before. With over half his fuel consumed by their six-month journey through warp-space, across the vast distance from the solar system to the Hyades Cluster, the remainder would not last the forty-seven parsec voyage back to Earth. Command HQ’s promise of a resupply tanker did not calm his concern.
“Commander, how far to the anomaly?” His terse request caused his First Officer to pivot in his direction. The combat deck epitomized his authority... authority limited only by the Panhelion Manual of Military Arms.
Blyds Gatura angled his vision to the range counter. “Captain, we reach anomaly standoff distance in twenty minutes.”
“All right then, let’s see how this gradient, or whatever it is, responds to our weapons. The boss wants to know if we can blast our way through if we have to. Pass the word to the weapons department. We test both directed energy and nuclear weapons on the anomaly, starting with the hadron-beam weapons.”
Tanner shifted his gaze from the fuel indicators to the weapons screen. One by one, the status bars on the weapons division extended to full, and changed from a soft yellow to a bright green. “Blyds, distance please.”
“Standoff distance in ninety seconds. Beam weapons at the ready and waiting on your command.” Blyds rotated his pod back to center and unconsciously braced himself. The annunciator gave three short blasts alerting the below-decks crew.
On the heels of Blyds’ action, Tanner followed suit and dropped into his command pod. The all-decks-ready icon went to green. “Commander Gatura, commence fire.”
Blyds relayed the order.
A high pitch warble surged through the ship, and the main forward display painted a slender, deep-red beam reaching out across the darkness ahead of the ship. In an instant, the intersection of the beam and the anomaly surface glowed dull, bluish-white, until the beam ceased.
Blyds stared at the display for a several seconds. “My guess is it didn’t affect the surface. The spot we hit has returned to the same shade of black as before.”
Tanner got to his feet and marched to Blyds’ station. “Have the Combat Center ping that spot for any kind of void on the surface.”
> Blyds reached for the input key-space and sent the order. He tilted his head as his comm implant responded. “CC says no detectable change in the surface.”
Tanner frowned at the news and shook his head. “Put Commander Kurtz through to my personal implant.”
A voice he recognized sounded in his implant. “Captain, this is Kurtz. You wanted to speak with me?”
“Yes, what’s the maximum ion-beam energy you can bring to bear?”
“Deliverable mass is building in the tubes now. In five seconds, I can give you one hundred and eight percent, but at that rate, ten seconds is all I can give you before the tubes empty again.”
“Do it. I’ll stand by for your ready signal.” Tanner folded his arms. “If the ion-beam doesn’t penetrate the surface, we go to the fusion weapons.”
He held his breath as the ion stream arrowed across space again, painting a red line brighter than before, as the ions burned through an occasional dust particle floating in the vacuum of space.
Tanner guessed the result, confirmed when Blyds announced, “Results same as the first attempt.”
Tanner paced from weapons displays to his command pod and back. “I don’t hold much hope, but tell the weapons division to bring the hadron-beam to bear.”
A powerful stream of heavy hadrons assailed the gradient. When measured, the result was no change.
He rose to his feet and approached his Second-in-Command. “Have the weapons department commander meet me in the briefing room, and tell him to bring both the beam and fusion weapons officers as well. And Blyds, turn your watch over to Greyson. I want you there too.”
The five officers fidgeted while they waited in the briefing room, but snapped to attention when Tanner stepped into the room followed by Gatura.
Tanner took his place at the end of the table. “Take your seats, gentlemen. Tell me what we’ve learned so far.”
The officers stared at each other.
Lieutenant Commander Kurtz sat at attention in his chair and briefed his Captain. “Neither our ion-beam nor our hadron weapons have any effect on the damn thing. If it’s a time gradient, as reported by Pegasus, the beams simply convert to heat and broad spectrum radiation at the surface.”
Aurora’s captain frowned, concentrating on the responses from his crew. “And if we go with nuclear missiles? What then?”
“Hard to say, Skipper.” The nuclear weapons officer turned his gaze to the captain. “When it goes off, the nuclear fusion energy will generate a large Electro-Magnetic Pulse. It’ll also produce gamma radiation along with just about every wavelength from infrared to visible and beyond. If we attempt it, we’ll need sufficient distance from the point of the detonation to allow the EMP and radiation to dissipate before it gets to us.”
“What do you think, Blyds?”
“There’s really no material in the barrier to destroy. The barrier is a sharp change in time and apparently unchangeable, at least not with the energy of our weapons.”
“If we hit it with a fusion weapon, is there any danger to us?” Tanner folded his arms and put his elbows on the table.
The nuke officer leaned back in his pod. “Not as long as we keep sufficient distance from the detonation point. Protocol dictates we calculate the safe distance for fusion weapons with the inverse square law. I’ve checked, and with the maximum yield weapon, we need ten thousand kilometers between us and the det point.”
Tanner brushed his lips with his fingertips and studied the officer. “For HQ’s sake, we’ll try nukes, but add another five thousand kilometers to the standoff distance. Meeting adjourned.”
He stood and left the room with his officers trailing behind him.
On the combat deck, Blyds rotated his pod and faced Tanner. “We’re fifteen thousand kilometers from the det point, and the nuclear launch officer reports ready.” He sat back in his station.
Tanner scowled and took to his pod as well. “All right, tell Kurtz to send in the fusion weapon.”
Two short and one long blast from the annunciator warned the crew.
The dark-skinned executive officer keyed his implant and gave the order. The ship was quiet except for a brief whine from the rail launcher. “Weapon away, Captain.”
Both officers concentrated on the display. The image of the cylindrical missile, trailing a blue wake, grew small as it sped away from the Aurora and disappeared. On the overhead display space, the glowing numbers on the range display counted down the time and distance to detonation.
“Zero, and detonation,” Blyds barked out.
In nanoseconds, a blinding white filled the several displays and brightened the entire deck. Aurora lurched to the side. The displays flickered for several minutes before turning deep black. Only the deep read of the emergency lighting filled the deck.
Tanner broke out in a cold sweat as adrenaline flooded his body. “This isn’t quite what the nuke commander predicted.”
Blyds stabbed his fingers at the control icons and then threw up his hands. “That was one hell of an EMP, Captain. The watch officer reports the ship’s not answering the helm.”
Second by agonizing second, the system icons winked back to life, and the deck thankfully was again bathed in the glow of the displays.
Blyds jammed his hands back into the key-space. His voice wavered, “Captain, the EMP surge took some of the non-critical systems off line. Helm reports sluggish but improving.”
“Blyds, I want that nuke officer to my deck now!” Tanner fumed, and raked his hand through his hair.
Minutes later, the battle hatch opened, and the weapons division commander stepped onto the deck followed by the hapless nuclear weapons officer.
“You asked for me, sir?”
“Damn right. You will oblige me by giving me a full explanation of what the hell just happened. And for the sake of your career it better be a good one.” Tanner’s jaw muscles flexed as he gritted his teeth.
The chagrined officers stood at attention.
The nuke officer grimaced and with a slight tremble answered, “Sir, I’m not finished reviewing the data, but indications are that the anomaly surface buckled just enough to form a curved, mirror-like surface—one that focused the radiation from the blast back at us. All the calculations for safe distance assume the radiation and EMP density from the weapon expands and decreases as a sphere. It didn’t happen that way.”
“Clearly not.” Tanner glowered at his department commander. “Both of you get back to your stations and continue with your analysis. We’ll deal with your lack of foresight later.”
After the nuke commander left, Blyds pulled himself to his feet and approached Tanner. “Captain, he was only going by the book. We’re dealing with an unknown. None of us foresaw this.”
“Fair enough, Blyds. Continue scanning the anomaly surface. I’d like to send a physical probe to check for any permanent change in the surface.”
Blyds ordered the Combat Center to release the probe. Upon launch, the small, round sphere streaked away from the ship. On impact, the bright flash in the displays left no doubt.
“Skipper, Center says no permanent change. The anomaly surface has sprung back to its previous position.”
Fists clenched, Tanner swallowed hard to stifle his building frustration. “All we have now is half-empty fuel chambers and the knowledge that we can’t blast our way through the gradient. Send an ECCO message to Defense Command reporting our status and the result of our attempts to penetrate the gradient. And Blyds, make sure it goes directly to Admiral Camus. If we’re on a one way mission, I want him to be the first to know.”
Earth
-
Entangled Communications Center, Operations
~~~
Repeated flashes from the ECCO system caught the eye of the technician. He glanced around to make sure he was alone, then he strolled over to the receiver station and checked the screen. The screen indicated a message from one of Exploration Command’s ships. He scanned the text.
FROM
: KASIMIR
TO: DIV 788
ENTRY COORDINATES FOR TIME BARRIER: ZETA TAU – 09-32-38 - 78452 ** +51-08-33.1588
The technician recognized the ‘788’ code entry and forwarded the file to Defense Command Headquarters. Then he promptly deleted the file and reset the message counter. No record of the message existed, and no trace of it would ever be found.
Five kilometers away, Commander Joesph Schwartz received a message over his comm implant. Within seconds, he sat before his secure workstation. Three icon strokes later, the screen displayed a report from Pegasus, and a broad smile broke out on his face.
He shot up from his chair and hurried to Admiral Camus’ office, where he asked the e-secretary to convey his urgent request to meet with Admiral Camus.
Permission granted, he crossed the threshold of the admiral’s office in four quick steps. “Admiral, we got it.”
“Got what, Schwartz? Wipe that grin off your face and tell me what you mean by ‘we got it’?
“The gradient entry coordinates. Kasimir came through for us. Here it is.” Schwartz opened the message from his e-projector in front of the admiral.
Camus leaned back in his chair. “Excellent. Get them off to Aurora immediately. They’ve wasted enough fuel. I want them in orbit around Niobe as soon as they can transit the opening.”
Schwartz stammered, “Their remaining fuel is less than half. Shouldn’t they wait for the Beluga before making their way through the opening?”
“Absolutely not,” Camus barked. “We must be in a position to influence events on Niobe before they move beyond our control. Tanner will have to get in and back out with what fuel he has. Only then will I authorize him to meet up with the Beluga.”
Niobe
~~~
“I’ve received further instructions from Earth.” Scott reclined in the large guest chair across from Proconsul Wimund’s desk. He steeled himself for the discussion, concerned that his diplomatic skills were about to be tested.
Shroud of Eden (Panhelion Chronicles Book 1) Page 17