by Doug Farren
* * * * *
“We cannot allow a total UAN oil embargo against us,” the President announced to his cabinet in an emergency session. “Despite our advances, we are still very dependent upon foreign oil.”
“I really don’t see this becoming a major problem Mr. President,” the Secretary of Defense calmly replied.
“Are you serious?” the Commerce Secretary blurted out, flabbergasted that the Secretary of Defense could even suggest that an oil embargo would not be a problem. “An embargo would cripple our economy.”
The Secretary of Defense turned in his seat to face the Commerce Secretary and replied, “Why? We have been reducing our reliance upon foreign oil for years. Most of our cars are electric or ethanol powered. Lubricating oils are virtually all synthetic. It would not be difficult to cut back to the point where we could subsist totally on only American oil.”
The Vice President cleared her throat and all eyes turned in her direction. She was a soft spoken but very influential and hard-nosed politician. Her opinions carried a lot of weight with the public and within the government. “I tend to agree with the Secretary of Defense,” she said, not bothering to raise her voice. “It is time we seriously consider making this country completely independent of foreign oil. We are not as dependent upon it as many investors seem to think. I think it’s a carryover from the oil wars of the twenties.”
“The cost to the economy will be catastrophic,” the Secretary of Commerce argued. “We rely on fuel oil to heat our homes, jet fuel to power our fighters and ships, and petroleum byproducts to supply much of our industry. An embargo would kill us!”
“Are you sure of that?” the Vice President shot back. “We are replacing our outdated fighters with craft based upon far more advanced technologies. Fuel oil ship propulsion plants are fast being replaced with compact fusion reactors and electric drive. I’ve read some recent reports showing that fuel oil use in homes is dropping so fast that it will be statistically close to zero in another ten years.
“Granted, there will be problems at first, but in the end we will be a much stronger nation. I say let the UAN bring on their embargo. The loss of revenue from oil sales will hurt them much more than the loss of oil will hurt us.”
“I will not take any action at this time without all the facts,” the President took over control of the meeting. “We will adjourn until Wednesday. On Tuesday I want to see written arguments from everyone concerning why we should or should not allow the embargo to proceed. I will make my decision on Wednesday. We are adjourned.”
A few days later, the President announced America’s intention to free itself once and for all from the bonds of foreign oil. The announcement stunned the American people and the world. For decades, America had been the largest consumer of crude oil on Earth. The American economy had roared along at an unbelievable rate because of this reliance on oil. Now, America was declaring itself self-sufficient of foreign oil imports.
At first the stock market panicked and the SEC was forced once again to halt all trading for several days. However, once the American people learned the facts and discovered that America no longer used as much oil as it had in the past, the stock market recovered and then climbed.
For several months there were problems as the American economy and infrastructure adjusted to the change in oil prices. But, a year after the announcement, the American economy was once again traveling at full steam ahead. The threatened oil embargo took place but, because of the President’s preemptive strike, it had no teeth and went practically unnoticed. The UAN was furious.
26
Discovery
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===== August 16, 2063 (Terran calendar) =====
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“There it is again,” the tactical operator said pointing to his long-range screen. A blip had momentarily appeared at the edge of the sensor web but had just as quickly vanished.
The base commander paced back and forth a few times thinking. His pipe emitting a steady stream of sweet smelling smoke as he puffed away. His pacing brought him to the communications section of the base’s operations center. He tapped an operator on the shoulder and said, “Get me Captain Beahon aboard the Tulsa. Pipe it to my console and send him the coordinates of that bogey.”
Admiral Seymore Kraus, Olympus base commander, returned to his command console to find the face of Captain Beahon staring back at him. The admiral took his seat and activated his end of the connection. “Captain, we are picking up an intermittent bogey near your area. Coms is sending you the coordinates now. Check it out and report back to me.”
“Understood admiral. Tulsa out.” The screen went dark and the admiral was left to sit in his chair and puff furiously on his pipe.
The ES Tulsa was an Olympus built Exeter class heavy cruiser assigned to patrol the space surrounding the base. She had been launched only four weeks ago and the crew was still trying to get themselves acclimated to their new ship. Captain Beahon ordered a short FTL run to the coordinates transmitted to him by Olympus base. As soon as they were back in normal space he ordered a complete long-range scan. Nothing was found.
“Continue your scans Mr. Rush,” Captain Beahon ordered. “We may be dealing with a Consortium ship that can cloak itself from our scans. There have been rumors that some races possess this ability. If you see something, anything at all, concentrate your scans in that area.”
For nearly thirty minutes nothing appeared on the Tulsa’s far flung sensor web. Then, for a brief fraction of second, something tickled the sensitive fields. A yellow dot appeared on the screen in front of Petty Officer First Class Rush. As the momentary contact faded away his hands flew over the tactical console. Several highly directional, powerful active sensor beams sprang into action and began systematically probing the area surrounding the last known position of the unknown contact.
Driven at faster than light speeds, the detection fields could reach out and scan an area of space hundreds of thousands of kilometers from the Tulsa nearly instantaneously. Following a preprogrammed search pattern, the beams probed space until suddenly something appeared. The Tulsa’s tactical computer locked the scanners onto the new target and performed a quick analysis of what it had discovered. A new dot and some accompanying information appeared on the tactical screen.
“Contact!” Petty Officer Rush announced loud enough for the entire bridge crew to hear. “Object bearing zero eight six mark zero nine distance 134,000 kilometers. Contact appears to be a cloaked vessel measuring 115 meters in length and massing approximately 68,000 tons.”
Captain Beahon punched down on a button and the ship’s alarm klaxon sounded the call to battle stations. As the ship readied itself for action the captain issued orders. “Helm, come to course zero eight six mark zero nine ahead maximum acceleration. Decelerate to match velocities with the unknown at a distance of ten kilometers. Coms, attempt to hail the unknown.”
There was a flurry of activity on the bridge as each station carried out the captain’s orders and continued their preparations for possible combat. “Captain—They’re running”
“Coms, put my channel one on the hail.”
The communications operator made some adjustments on his console then replied, “Your channel one is on hail captain.”
Captain Beahon depressed a button on his console allowing him to transmit on the standard Consortium hailing frequency. “Unknown ship, this is Captain Beahon of the Earth ship ES Tulsa. You are in restricted space. Hold your position and identify yourself immediately or you will be fired upon.”
The captain removed his finger from the button, turned to his tactical station, and asked, “Any change in the unknown’s trajectory?”
“No change. Their acceleration is considerably better than ours. Estimate ten minutes until they are out of sensor range.”
Captain Beahon considered his options. The unknown was beyond normal weapons range and the dis
tance was continuing to grow. If he used the FTL drive to close the distance he would most likely lose his sensor lock on the intruder while the drive fields were forming. If that happened it would be very difficult if not impossible to reacquire the target. “Mr. Ramirez, get Olympus base on the line—priority channel. Helm, override the safeties and push this boat to the limit. Mr. Rush, maintain that sensor lock no matter what.”
A moment later the image of one of the Olympus base communications operators appeared on Beahon’s screen. Without preamble the captain said, “I am in pursuit of an unknown vessel that appears to have some type of cloaking technology. We have a hard sensor lock on them at the moment but will lose it if I go FTL to catch up to them. They are currently running under high acceleration and we are falling behind. I suspect they won’t go FTL as long as we have a sensor lock on them as the drive wake would give away their point of origin. I will be able to maintain contact for another ten minutes. I need several ships immediately scrambled to this area. Have them contact me as soon as they are FTL.”
While he talked, the helm poured on more acceleration. The ship creaked and groaned under the unaccustomed load and the captain heard several items hit the floor. One sounded like a ceramic coffee mug. Beahon felt himself being forced back into his chair as his weight more than doubled.
The person on the other end of the link turned away from the screen for a few seconds. When his eyes once again faced the video pickup he said, “Acknowledged Tulsa. Six ships are being dispatched to your location. ETA—Less than four minutes.”
The captain had no time to waste with a reply. He closed the channel, turned to his bridge crew and quickly explained what he had in mind. “Olympus is sending us six ships. Tactical and Coms, work together to vector them toward the unknown. As soon as one gets close enough have them open fire. Aim to disable if possible.”
The plan was a sound one. The Tulsa, because it had a solid sensor lock on the fleeing ship, would coordinate the actions of the other ships. As each ship came within range, the Tulsa would provide them with an intercept vector. Eventually, one of the ships would be able to get close enough to engage.
The chase went on for another two minutes. The quiet voices of the bridge crew could be heard as they directed the incoming ships toward the unknown vessel they themselves could not see. “Captain! I’m picking up a change in the unknown…Stardrive activation underway…Unknown has gone FTL. Course three one one mark nine four speed eight one six and accelerating.”
“Helm, emergency transition to FTL. Maximum possible speed. Set course to intercept.”
There was a few seconds of intense activity throughout the ship and then they were in pursuit. “Tactical, do you have an analysis of their drive wake?”
A drive wake was a unique energy signature caused by the drive fields used to push a ship to faster than light speeds. Even though a ship under faster than light drive was technically not part of normal space, the drive fields interfaced with the fields of normal space. This interface created a small but detectable energy signature. Because each species had developed its own unique type of stardrive, the drive wake could usually be used to identify the culture that had built it.
“Yes sir,” the tactical operator reported. “Drive wake indicates that the ship was of Tholtaran origin.”
“Tholtaran? Are you certain?”
“Probability is 83 percent. There were some minor discrepancies but the computer believes them to be due to the effect of the ship’s cloak.”
“Eighty three percent is not bad but I…”
“Sir,” tactical interrupted as he checked some readings on his console. “The unknown vessel has exceeded our maximum possible speed.”
“Very well. Helm, break off pursuit and return to our normal patrol route. Coms, get me a channel to the admiral and have all other pursuit ships return to normal duty.”
A moment later the face of Admiral Rush appeared on the monitor. “Yes captain?”
Captain Beahon brought the admiral up-to-date and concluded with, “The unknown ship is faster than we are and we have broken off pursuit. Drive wake analysis gives an 83 percent probability that the ship was of Tholtaran origin.”
The admiral kept his face neutral. “Very well. Captain, return to your normal patrol route. I want a complete transcript of your encounter including all sensor logs sent to Olympus ASAP.”
“Aye sir, Tulsa out.”
* * * * *
“Emergency communication from NHY-5,” the communications officer reported.
Commander Mernaga took his eyes away from his main screen long enough for him to enter a command sequence into his terminal. The engineering report he had been reviewing was replaced with the face of Captain Untialla commanding one of the four ultra-secret cloak-capable ships now assigned to his fleet.
“You have something to report Captain Untialla?”
“Yes Commander. A short time ago we encountered an area of space heavily seeded with Human sensor buoys. We were about to attempt to penetrate the sensor field when a Human ship discovered our presence and achieved a sensor lock on our position. We attempted to outrun them until our long-range sensors picked up multiple reinforcements. In order to prevent discovery I ordered the helm to engage the stardrive and we quickly exited the area. The Human ship never approached close enough to obtain a scan of our ship.”
The Commander’s face hardened into a block of stone. “Are you certain of that captain? How did the Humans detect your presence?”
“The cloak was active. I believe the Human ship may have accidentally discovered us.”
“I do not believe in accidents. Did the Humans have a scan lock on your ship when you engaged your stardrive?”
The moment he asked the question, Commander Mernaga knew the answer. Captain Untialla’s face drained of blood and his eyes dropped from the screen. “Yes sir. The Humans did have a sensor lock on us at the time we engaged our stardrive.”
“You have committed a rather serious error captain. If the Human sensors have improved beyond what our current intelligence has been telling us then they may well have been able to analyze your drive wake. If so, our presence in their space will be difficult to explain.”
“I am sorry sir.”
“I will consider your punishment later. Transmit the coordinates of this sensor field and all available data to me immediately and return to the staging area. Mernaga out.” The commander did not wait to witness the ritual half-bow but instead instantly severed the connection. Mernaga stared at the blank screen for a moment gathering his thoughts. The bridge was silent. The quiet whisper of the ventilation system and the noises of the bridge consoles were all that could be heard.
Mernaga took a very deep breath and let it out slowly. He turned to his bridge crew and quietly said, “Tactical, let me know the moment the scan data from NHY-5 has been received. Communications, recall all recon vessels.”
A few minutes later, the still seething commander reviewed the sensor logs of the encounter with the Human ship. It soon became quite clear that the Humans had been alerted to the presence of the cloaked ship. But how? After some more careful digging, Commander Mernaga thought he might have a possible answer, and the implications disturbed him.
The cloak developed by the Tholtarans did not actually render a ship invisible. But it was capable of significantly decreasing its sensor footprint. A cloaked ship could usually be expected to get much closer to a given target before it was detected than an uncloaked vessel. Apparently, the Humans had managed to extend the sensitivity and range of their long-range sensory devices significantly beyond what Tholtaran intelligence had estimated.
The good news though, was that it was fairly clear that the long sought after secret Human shipyard had most likely been discovered. Given the fact that the reinforcements had all been following the same incoming trajectory, it could be assumed that the base most likely lay along that line. All that was left now was to determine its exact location and capabilit
ies. With the Humans alerted to their presence it would be considerably more difficult to achieve these objectives. Careful planning would be required before they could proceed.
Mernaga sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. A moment later he reopened them, leaned forward and keyed a command into his console. The screen in front of him indicated that the computer was ready to record. Slowly, carefully, the commander detailed the recent events and documented his conclusions. A few minutes later the message was complete, compressed, encoded, and sent on its journey to the Tholtaran military command via a boosted FTL communications signal. The signal would eventually be picked up by one of the thousands of relay stations scattered throughout the Consortium and routed to the proper destination. Even at extremely high faster than light speeds, communications across the vastness of the Consortium took a measurable amount of time.
27
Conflict
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===== September 5, 2063 (Terran calendar) =====
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Two ships dropped out of stardrive within a microsecond of each other. The ES Columbus, an unarmed survey vessel designed to explore and map new star systems, and her escort the ES Vanguard, an Enterprise class light cruiser, quickly and efficiently settled into what had now become a routine evolution.
“Nothing on my sensors,” the Vanguard’s tactical operator reported directly to the captain of the Columbus.
“Roger that. Commencing scan. Our computer will keep you apprised of our planned survey route.”