by Lewis Dually
“Yes Sir. It’s always a pleasure to work with talented visionaries who know their arss from a whole in the wall.” Owens said with a grin directed at Warren. Apparently the two of them had been butting heads again.
We left engineering and Leland headed for the shuttle bay to retrieve Lloyd while I called Walters on her secure ear bud. “Walters, do you copy?”
“Yes Sir.” She replied.
“Good, now listen. We are going to separate Antwon and Joydeus for a while. I want you to tell the Croiddan we are setting them up in the guest suite and we will take them to their outpost. Then ask Antwon if he would like to contact his people to let them know his group is safe and that we are bringing them home. When he says yes, have Sprite bring him down to the engineering radio room. As soon as he leaves I will come in and speak with Joydeus alone. Be sure they understand that the guest suite is for honored guests and VIP’s. Got it?”
“Yes Sir.” She mumbled.
A few minutes later Antwon left the ready room with Sprite and I entered to find Joydeus eating a sandwich and drinking coffee. Walters had fixed me a sandwich as well so I sat down across from Joydeus and took a bite.
“This is good coffee.” Joydeus remarked.
“I’m glad you like it. How are the sandwiches?”
“OK. We’re not big on eating loaf bread. We prefer fry bread. Where is my ship?”
His question surprised me. “It’s on Earth at a PDA lab.
“Is it still in one piece or did they tear it apart?”
“It’s in one piece. I walked through it four days ago. I was impressed with the design.”
I watched Joydeus take a sip of his coffee and I felt like he was staring me down but it was hard to read anything in those eyes. Finally he continued.
“Do you have my car?”
“If you’re talking about the Dodge I don’t know. I was told about it but I don’t know where it’s being kept.”
“I would like to have it back.”
“The car or the ship?” I asked.
“Both. I want them both. My brothers and I built the ship and the car I bought after working all winter on a crab boat.”
I realized this was a great opportunity to build some trust with Joydeus. I also knew that getting the ship back would be near impossible. The PDA wasn’t just going to turn over their prized piece of Alien technology because I wanted to be friends with an Alien teenager.
“I’ll see what I can do. It’s not in my control but I may know someone who can help. Now I have a question for you. How many Croiddan are there?”
Joydeus swallow the last bite of his sandwich and thought for a second. “Do you want to know total or just one Earth?”
“Both.” I said.
“Well let’s see. There are two thousand at the outpost and probably about another thousand still on earth. Then there are two hundred thousand on Trito and we think about two and a half million enslaved on Croid. We can’t be sure about those numbers. Before the Krueg attacked we had a population of seven trillion. The old ones want to run and hide as we did before so that we can survive. We are just over two million now. We were seven trillion before the invasion. That’s not surviving, that’s dying. We must stand our ground. Take me with you when you fight the Krueg. I will fight.”
“I will.” I assured him. “I need more information about the Krueg. You said some of their weapons fire energy blasts. What kind of energy?”
“They have a gun that shoots an electromagnetic pulse at you. It pretty much destroys all your electrical systems. All of their scout ships have one and their carriers have four each. We’ve also heard recent reports of a gun that shoots a bright blue ball of energy. When it hits a ship it just burns a hole through it. It’s said to be the size of a man hatch so that’s a pretty big hole. That’s what we’ve heard but we don’t have any proof yet.”
“Do you know any other Croiddan who will help us?”
“Yes. There are many who feel as I do. They will fight. You need to speak with Ohven. He is a ship builder and he can tell you about the Krueg weapons. He went to school at MIT and he has a contact on Croid that he communicates with.”
“He went to MIT? No one there realized he was Alien?”
“No. It’s easy to blend in. We just wear our eye covers. No problem.”
“I’ve noticed that your English is excellent and you don’t have the accent that your father has. Why is that?”
Joydeus took a bite of his second sandwich before he answered. I was born in Alaska and we lived in the bush, off grid. When I was six I went to a boarding school set up by the missionaries. I lived there for five years while my father made a trip to Trito. I learned to talk like the missionaries. They were from South Carolina.”
“And the missionaries never noticed you were not human?”
“Oh they knew. We were all Croiddan accept for the missionaries. They said it didn’t matter to them because we were all God’s children.”
“I see. Where is Trito, What is it?”
“Trito is a moon that orbits the sixth plant around the first star of Orion’s belt. The planet is a super-giant and the gravity is too great to live there but the moon is nearly identical to earth in size and gravity. It has a large amount of water but it also has a very active core and is covered with volcanos. My father wants to relocate to Trito but it’s not as nice as Earth. Many of us don’t want to leave. Sometimes I think my father is happy the Krueg are coming so we will agree to go.”
That was an interesting observation. Just how desperate was his father to leave Earth? Desperate enough to give the Krueg reason to come to Earth and give the Croiddan a reason to go? One of the things Antwon said earlier hadn’t made sense to me. If the Krueg located us because of our warp jump signature, which didn’t leave our system, why was it they could not track the Croiddan subspace radio communications which did leave our system? By Antwon’s own admission they were in contact with spies on Croid. We could track their subspace signals and we didn’t even have the radio technology yet. It was a pretty safe bet our existence and location was not new news to the Krueg. One more reason I didn’t trust Antwon.”
“Joydeus, there are a couple things I need before we confront the Krueg scout ships. First, we need as many of your subspace radios as we can get. We need to be able to communicate with all our ships instantaneously. Right now it takes my communications six hours to reach earth. Second, I need more information on their weapons systems. I need to know what they will be shooting at us so we can defend against it. Can Ohven help us with that?”
“Sure. Ohven knows all about the Krueg guns. He can tell you everything about them and the radios are easy. We have plenty. There is a storage container on United Earth One with fifty of them in it and there are a couple hundred at our outpost. I am a radio technician and if I can’t fix them then they can’t be fixed!”
“Is your father a radio technician also?” I asked.
“Father? Now that’s funny. He’s a politician. He knows how to operate the radio but not how to fix or install one.”
“A politician?”
“Sure. I heard him telling you about being the second of the circle and all that. He was puffing himself up is all. He is the second member because he sets in the second chair but he has no individual power because everything is majority rule. He’s up for reelection in eight months. He wasn’t doing very well before, but when we found out the Krueg are coming his numbers shot up. His opponent wants to stay on earth and father has been trying to get us to leave for many years. He was about to lose his campaign but the Krueg coming has saved his seat and helped convince the circle to vote for relocation.
I sat back in my chair. I was thinking hard and was unaware of my hand pulling the can of snuff from my pocket. Joydeus saw it and asked. “Is that wintergreen?”
“What?”
“Your dip. What flavor is it?”
I looked at the can of snuff my hand had involuntarily retrieved. “Oh, its natu
ral flavor, pouches. Do you want some?”
“No thanks. I was hoping it was winter green. I don’t like the natural.”
I was still thinking about Antwon. A Politian. No wonder I didn’t like him. A Politian who was losing his seat until the Krueg came knocking. What are the chances I thought?
“Joydeus could you help us with the radio? Your father is trying to help get it working but from what you tell me I think you should be the one doing that.”
Joydeus nearly choked on his coffee. “FATHER is working on your radio? He jumped to his feet. “Let’s go before he screws it up.”
We left my office and sprinted to the radio room where we found Antwon arguing with Warren while Sprite watched the two of them like a referee waiting for a low blow. Engineer Owens was at the other end of the room talking with a young seaman who was wearing the Shasta’s shoulder patch so I assumed he was Lloyd.
“No Sir.” Warren was saying. “I cannot let you do that. That’s not the right configuration.”
Antwon seemed adamant about something and was gesturing wildly at the radio unit.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Sir. This guy don’t know squat about this radio.” Warren insisted. “I’m not letting him near it!”
I looked at Joydeus. “Would you help Ensign Warren with the radio please?”
“Yes Sir.” Joydeus replied and walked over to Warren, shook his hand and introduced himself. Warren looked at me and I nodded for him to carry on.
“Commander Spite would you escort Antwon to the VIP quarters and assign a guard to him, please?”
The fact that I ordered a guard for Antwon was not lost on him. He hung his head and headed for the door, his demeanor totally changed. Before he reminded me of a monk, meek and humble. After seeing him in action and finding out he was a Politian I began to see the real Antwon. A smooth operator who almost played me. Almost, but I caught him. I knew it and he knew it. I stood there for a long time thinking about Antwon’s actions and wondering what his real intentions were with the radio. Finally I snapped out of it and walked over to the work bench where Warren and Joydeus were elbow deep in radio parts. Then I walked over to see what Owens and Lloyd were working on.
“Seaman Lloyd I presume?” I said as I walked up behind him.
Lloyd turned partially and then upon seeing me he snapped around to full attention.
“As you were son. Welcome aboard.”
“Thank you Sir. It’s a pleasure to be aboard.”
“Where is Commander Fox?” I asked.
“We missed each other. I was on my way over in shuttle A as he was coming back in shuttle B. He said to tell you he would stay on the Shasta for now. He doesn’t want them to be without a shuttle Sir”
“So what’s this idea you have about EM pulses?”
“Well Sir it’s very simple. I worked out the design some time ago. I just haven’t had the means to build or test it.”
I looked at Owens who was studying a set of drawings on a tablet.
“It’s pretty sharp Sir. I think it will work. We just need to build a prototype to test it. I think we can have one built in five hours. If you will allow us to use one of the shuttles and two spare capacitors from the railguns.”
“Just how does this thing work?” I asked.
Lloyd was waiting for that question and eagerly jumped into the explanation of the thing. “First Sir. We wrap the outside of the ship in a two inch thick nonconductive rubber mat. We then run several strands of heavy duty high voltage cable around the ship and bring it in through a dedicated hull port. It can’t share a port with any other electrical wiring. Then we spray the ship with a one foot thick layer of space foam mixed with a heavy concentration of Quartz dust and Metallic Hydrogen. We attach the cables to two of the railgun capacitors that are suspended in a tank of liquid nitrogen. The EMP will hit the ship and be slowed down by the Metallic Hydrogen and Quartz dust. It will slow enough to be transferred into the cables. The capacitors will act as super cold conductors and will suck up the EMP and store it before it has time to damage the systems. The rubber wrap will shield the ship from the EMP as long as the capacitors are sucking up the energy. If the capacitors get overloaded then the pulse will jump to other ship’s systems so the size of the EMP is a factor.”
This kid didn’t just have some crazy idea in his head. He had it all worked out. Blue prints, calculations of charge dispersion rates, conductor loads, flow rates and estimated temperature extremes. I thought about all the ramifications of modifying the Dawn Rising and had a couple questions I wanted answered.
“What about our heat shields? You’re talking about covering them with a foot of space foam.”
“Yes Sir, but space foam is heat rated at just over four thousand degrees. The only time we need more than that is when we’re doing an uncontrolled decent into heavy atmosphere. At that point we won’t need the EMP shielding. It can just burn off.”
“Yep.” I agreed. “EMP will definitely be the least of our worries when we’re spiraling in for a crash landing. What about our sensor array’s?”
“There’s no way to protect them Sir. We can disconnect them if we think an EMP is eminent so it doesn’t come through the sensors and fry everything else, but the array itself will be a loss.”
Owens interrupted. “Sir, the sensor array will be lost but the new subspace radio will use the AM transceiver antenna. They won’t be affected by an EMP. We just need to disconnect the radio before the pulse hits to stop it from coming in on the power grid. We could use the remote disconnects for the external repair bot station. Set it up on the sensor array to auto disconnect just before an EMP hits. We just need to set the parameters for determining an EMP impact.”
I looked at the two of them. One, a forty seven year old fifth generation sea dog on his fifth space deployment and the other a nineteen year old egg head on his first. They looked like a father and son working on a school science project.
“You can use the shuttle we recovered from the Wade. Get a few of its systems fixed so we can see how good this works. What are you going to use to make the EMP?”
“We thought we’d detonate a GUTM-A warhead.” Owens answered.
I looked at him in disbelief. “A war head? Where are you planning to get that?”
GUTM-A warheads were so dangerous and so powerful that the United Nations and later the United Space Alliance had banned their production. Only two existed and they were stored unassembled in five different pieces in five different countries because just one of the bastards would kill every living thing on Earth. They were held in reserve for a planetary emergency such as an asteroid or comet impact. Maybe we should add Alien invasion to that list but that decision was way above my paygrade.
“We’ll build one.” Owens answered.
“You can do that?”
“I can.” Lloyd replied. “It’s easy. I studied GUT fission at MIT. We have all the necessary parts on board.”
“NO!” I said. “That’s not going to happen. First off it’s a violation of treaty. Second, I don’t know if you’re as good as you think. I’m not taking the chance of you blowing us up. Third, we have a time crunch here. The Krueg are six days from earth and we can’t waste any time. We are four hours from the Neptune observation satellites and they all have GUTM reactors. Those satellites are not important to military operations anymore so we’ll force a reactor breach on one of them and that should produce a sizeable EMP.”
I expected to get an argument from at least one of them but they both replied. “Yes Sir.”
“Ok then. Get to it. I want this test ready in six hours. Use whoever you need from both ships.”
I left them to do their thing and checked on Warren and Joydeus who was talking on the radio. It was working perfectly as he carried on a conversation for about three minutes. There was no lag time in the two way conversation and the replies were coming instantaneously. Looking at Warren I asked. “How far is that transmission going?”
“He’s talking to their outpost in sector six, so about one point four billion miles.”
“Nice. It would take two hours for our coms to transmit that far and another two hours to receive a reply. Do you think you can operate this thing? I see he has translated the writing for you.”
“Yes Sir. Nothing to it.”
“Good. Get that one installed on the bridge. Get a detailed installation and operation manual made up for the Shasta to take to U E One. Have it done it two hours so they can get underway.”
“Yes Sir.” Warren replied.
As I started to leave I noticed the familiar round ring in Warren’s pocket. The round ring left by the constant presence of a snuff can.
“What kind of snuff do you dip?”
Caught off guard by the sudden change of topic Warren stammered for a second.
“Well….uh….I mean….I use DeepSpace, long cut Sir, wintergreen.”
“That’s what I thought. Can you spare a can?”
“Yes Sir, I guess.” He reached in his tool box and pulled out an unopened can and handed it to me.
“Not for me. It’s for Joydeus. Call it a gesture of inner species relations. Would you give it to him for me? I’d appreciate it. I’ll pay you back.”
“Yes Sir. Glad to do it. I never thought of Aliens dipping snuff before Sir.”
I left engineering to the wintergreen lovers and slowly walked to the bridge as I took a brief mental revue of our situation. We had been in radio silence for five hours and had made contact with the Black who we now know as the Croiddan. We had acquired a subspace radio and made it operational with the help of Joydeus. We were about to test an EMP defense system thought up by a nineteen year old kid and was about to test it by destroying a planetary observation satellite. And then we were going to return the Croiddan to their outpost in sector six. And we learned that we were on the brink of an invasion by the Krueg. It was probably a good time to give an update to Admiral Albright.
CHAPTER 11: The Space Turd.
“Get me the Shasta.” I ordered Lieutenant Barnes as I entered the bridge.