by Bill Nolan
The other major difference between Serena and other To’Ach’an ships had to do with how the To’Ach’an governed themselves. Each ship was like a city/state, and each elected a Tocal. The council of Tocals could enact laws that governed all To’Ach’an, but there weren’t very many of those laws, and any ship could vote to ignore any law they didn’t like. Because Serena often had a crew of only one person, it was in some ways more like a skipper based on Shanna. Serena would spend much of her time either docked with Shanna, or sometimes flying formation nearby.
Chapter 5, The Trip
Once Serena was ready, the first step was to hold a meeting of everyone in Shanna. Robert explained what he planned to try, and pointed out the obvious danger. Nobody had ever come back from a journey like the one they were planning, including at least one previous To’Ach’an ship, which was recorded as having tried to leave our galaxy about 1500 years before. He suggested that most of the people currently on board should wait planetside until he had tried it and evaluated the safety factor. Everyone refused. Chofma spoke for everyone on board when he said he wanted to be part of what might be the greatest adventure ever. He put it very tersely. “I don’t care whether I come back. I’m going.” Everyone – without exception – agreed.
That’s when the real planning began. It was decided that all five ships in Robert’s contingent would participate, plus Serena, of course. Shanna, Serena, and Robert would calculate a jump partway as best they could, and Serena would go. A single jump all the way was considered too dangerous, and they had no communications which could reach that far. Once Serena had jumped, and, with Jane’s help, had mapped where they were, she would jump back. Then she would return to the same, mapped point again, and again return. Only then would she take another ship with her. That ship would then map the point, jump back, and then return.
Once they had assurance that the first jump point was safe, Shanna would go back and bring the other four, who would repeat the process of mapping, jumping back, and returning. Then the process would be repeated to the next point calculated by Shanna, Serena, and Robert. The plan was to leave one ship at each mapped point so they could relay communications. Robert and Shanna were pretty sure that four intermediate points would allow them to reach the Large Magellanic Cloud.
The five ships, Shanna (with Serena docked), Morkalla, Bankor, Chola and Shiog, all moved together to the edge of our Milky Way galaxy. The next day, Serena jumped into the void. If she had been a person, she would have panicked. She had no idea exactly where she was, even though she could see the Milky Way on her screens. Jane’s talent wasn’t affected, however, and she soon got Serena squared away. Once the location was firmly in Serena’s memory, they jumped back without any problems. The plan was then followed, and by the evening of the next day, all the ships were at the first jump point. Chola drew the short straw, so she would be staying there as the rest pressed on.
It took about four weeks before they were ready for Serena to leave the last intermediate point and make the jump to the new galaxy. Near the close edge they could see a system which looked quite similar to Earth’s system, so it was decided to jump there. Bankor was the last ship to come ahead, and would be waiting at the final intermediate point with Shanna. Finally it was time. Serena and Jane jumped into an unknown galaxy – perhaps the first human ship to make it that far.
They came out of jump with the shields all the way up, and Serena began scanning the system at the same time she and Jane were doing the mapping. Within a half hour, she flashed a battle alert and reported an unknown ship approaching from the outer reaches of the system at a high speed, and clearly on an intercept course. By this time Jane was trying to establish communication with the local star. The moment she got the battle alert, Shanna jumped to the coordinates Serena had sent her, ignoring the carefully constructed protocol.
Shanna and Serena were about Earth’s distance from the star, and the unknown ship had first appeared about as far out as Neptune is in Earth’s system. A few hours later she was about three hours away, and opened fire on Shanna with lasers and missiles. Serena was directly behind Shanna and thus invisible to the attacker. Shanna said, “These weapons are no real threat, Robert, what do you want me to do?”
“Ignore the lasers and take out the missiles.”
The missiles were quickly blotted out by plasma beams, while Shanna ignored the lasers, which were not challenging her shields. When it became apparent that their attacks were having no effect, the unknown ship changed tactics. They accelerated toward Shanna at high speed, clearly attempting to ram her. Shanna backed away just as fast, keeping her distance, while Serena stayed behind her. Robert said, “Keep backing in until we’re close to the star, then we’ll jump free and they’ll be stuck. Unless they have my gizmo, too…” Robert had previously invented a device which created a spatial distortion and allowed a ship to initiate a jump from closer to a star or planet.
Shanna said, “Their tech isn’t so good, if those weapons are any indication. I doubt it.” She backed away, drawing them after her. Shanna even slowed a bit to make them think they were gaining.
Robert looked over to the screen, where he could see Jane, who was by herself on Serena, and had her eyes closed in concentration. “Did you get in touch with that star yet?”
“Working on it.”
When they were less than half Mercury’s distance from the sun, Robert told Shanna and Serena to jump clear, and they jumped out to about 50 million miles. The unknown ship immediately reversed and started to move away from the star, but it was clear that it was slowing.
Robert had a sudden, bad feeling about it. “Shanna, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know. They were faster than that.”
Suddenly Jane spoke up. “Shanna, their shields can’t handle the heat. It is overheating their ship. They won’t make it. Quick, shade them!!”
Without hesitation, Shanna jumped toward the star and then moved between the star and the unknown ship. By moving close she was able to put the entire unknown ship, which was smaller anyway, into her shadow. Then, ignoring the possibility of lasers and missiles, which couldn’t penetrate her shields anyway, she moved even closer. When she was close enough, she extended her jump field and took both ships to the outer part of the system, far from the star. Then she backed off a few hundred miles.
Chapter 6, The Nuste
Jane was now talking to the star. The delay had been for the star to learn a language from Jane. They had been mentally flashing images back and forth until he could understand well enough to read her memories and learn the rest. After assuring himself that the To’Ach’an were not hostile, he filled her in on the situation.
“The people in the ship are chemically different from your people. You are mainly H2O, while they are mainly NH3. NH3, which you call ammonia, is liquid at a much lower temperature than your water, so their preferred planets are much colder than your species likes. You would call their preferred temperature -70 C, or -100 F. Your home planet would be very hostile to them. They would see your oceans of water as boiling hot expanses of caustic poison.”
“Why did they attack us? We offered them no harm.”
“True, but they have been at war with ships arriving from another galaxy and attacking, so there is now a policy of not waiting. They thought that was what you were. By the way, they do not communicate with me at all. I don’t even believe they know I am sentient. I can monitor their communications, which is how I have learned about them. They don’t talk to any stars.”
Jane pondered this for a few minutes. Everyone back on Shanna, who couldn’t hear the conversation anyway, just waited.
Jane then continued. “Can you teach us to communicate with them?” She spoke out loud. “Serena, transmit toward the star in Galactic.” She then returned to her silent communication with the star. “My ship, Serena, is transmitting in Galactic. Can you hear her?”
“Give me a couple of minutes. I have to analyze her waves.”
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Jane turned back to the screen showing the others waiting in Shanna’s control room. “He and Serena are trying to learn to talk to each other. When they can, he will teach her to communicate with the people in the other ship.” She then continued to tell everyone what she had learned about the unknown people.
It was nearly an hour later when Serena announced that she now had the language and comm protocols, and should be able to speak to the unknown ship, including video if desired. She quickly shared this information with Shanna. Robert told Shanna to go ahead with voice only at first.
“Hailing the unknown ship. We are not hostile. We are sorry if you were damaged attacking us, but we took no actions against you. We helped you when we saw you were in trouble.” There were several minutes of silence.
“Who are you?”
“We come from the large galaxy in your sky. We have travelled far to reach this place, and we are reporting back on what we have found here.” This was true. Everything they had learned so far had been relayed back up the line.
“You must leave. We summoned help. Soon many ships will appear to destroy you. Flee while you can.”
Robert considered this and discussed it with those around him, while Jane talked to the star. It didn’t appear to be a credible threat. The star was pretty sure this was a representative ship.
Robert replied. “That would be a tragedy. Our ship has powerful weapons and much stronger shields than yours, and we are not bothered by the heat near your star. Several hundred ships like yours would still be no threat to us. Let’s be friends, instead. What use are you making of the second planet out from this star?” The planet Robert was referring to seemed quite Earthlike, although a bit larger and with land masses more scattered.
“It is useless, as you can see. Even our probes last only hours. What interest do you have in it?”
Robert laughed. “Actually, that planet is very welcoming to our people. It looks like home. Since we don’t like the same planets, we aren’t competitors. Why should we be enemies? When your friends arrive, ask them to consider it. Nobody needs to die today, and I offer my sincere hope that everyone on your ship is OK after the trouble you got into trying to kill us.”
“When our friends arrive, we will ask them to consider before we attack.”
It was nearly a week later when the “fleet” arrived. There were less than 30 ships, and none were more imposing than the first. Clearly this species didn’t have the force to threaten even Shanna or Serena, much less a collection of To’Ach’an ships. Further conversations had established that the Nuste, as they called themselves, were the only intelligent, spacefaring race in their galaxy, and they knew of no other intelligent species still on planets, either. They had never picked up any radio waves from an Earthlike planet. Robert took that with a grain of salt, since they didn’t really explore Earthlike planets, but since they had never detected any communications from any of them, it was at least likely that none contained civilizations with any level of technology.
Speaking of technology, there were huge gaps between the To’Ach’an and the Nuste. Their ships were small and underpowered compared to Shanna, and could only jump when far from stars. The lasers and missiles weren’t even intended as weapons, but were used in mining operations on asteroids. Their shields were fine in the outer reaches of a planetary system, but not sufficient to go closer to a star than about Mars’ orbit. It was like a freighter against a battleship. No contest. Trouble was, the To’Ach’an were not the first visitors. They had been attacked before, and fairly often. From the location of the attacks, Robert thought they were probably originating in the Small Magellanic Cloud, which is another satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.
It turned out that there was no real central government in this galaxy. Each planet was independent, and some even had the sort of multiple governments characteristic of primitive worlds. They had been spacefaring for only a couple of millennia, and mostly were miners seeking resources, although they did colonize suitable planets when they discovered them. The To’Ach’an began setting up a base on the Earthlike world in the first system they had entered while they prepared to aid their new friends.
Chapter 7, The Suram
The Nuste had told them that the attacks had started only about 100 years before, and the invaders now held several systems on the edge of the Large Magellanic Cloud, where they had occupied several Nuste planets. They said the invader’s ships were invincible. Shanna doubted that from the descriptions of the weapons the invaders were using, and so they decided to go have a look for themselves.
Shanna and Serena spent almost three weeks mapping jump points to provide a known route to the systems held by the invaders. Finally Serena made the jump to one of the systems they held. She deliberately came out of jump and then jumped again to position herself very near the star, and Jane immediately began trying to communicate. It was getting faster, and in only a couple of hours she was able to speak with the local sun. He was quite upset at the situation, as he had been observing and trying to communicate with the Nuste since their arrival in his system about 1,000 years before, and he had begun to consider them his people. Jane quickly filled him in on their plans to drive the invaders out.
By the time four hours had passed since Serena’s arrival in the system, the invaders, who Jane now knew called themselves the Suram, had put together a small fleet of seven ships and were approaching at moderate speed. Their attack followed what the Nuste said they had observed. They stopped about 150 million miles from Serena, who was still near the star, and only one ship continued closer. At about 75 million miles it stopped. Then, without warning, Jane felt something take over her mind, and moments later she was plotting a jump into the star itself. The Nuste had said several ships had been observed to destroy themselves in that way, but they didn’t know how or why.
Jane was fighting against the control as hard as she could, and failing. She was actually trying to enter the jump which would have destroyed Serena. The Suram had made just one miscalculation. Serena was, like Shanna, independent. She ignored Jane completely and executed her own attack. It was a simple attack. She jumped right next to the Suram ship, extended her jump field, and then jumped both ships back to within a quarter million miles of the star. Then she contracted her field and jumped away, but not in the direction of the other ships.
The Suram ship couldn’t jump from that close to the star, and it was immediately clear that it was in trouble. Like the Nuste, the ammonia based Suram couldn’t take the heat, and their ship wasn’t shielded well enough to resist the immense flood of energy pouring into it. It was fast. In just a few seconds the ship was vaporizing. As that happened, Jane recovered. Serena jumped again to attack the remaining ships, and, clearly overmatched, they fled. Only one escaped.
Serena then returned to the last jump point, where Shanna was waiting, and reported on the battle. The ability to take over a mind at that range was worrisome. They had never encountered anything like that. Even a star couldn’t do that from so far away, although they could aid a human to do it from closer in. That wasn’t the case here, though, as the star was not on the side of the invaders. While Serena and Shanna were independent, no other ships known were, so this ability was a huge threat. If Serena had been unable to ignore Jane she would have been destroyed, and very quickly. The jump into the star was calculated and entered in a few seconds, and if Serena had been a regular ship, that would have ended it. There was some concern even there, as ships had some telepathic ability and were able to communicate with their bonded human. At this point they didn’t know whether it would be possible for one of their ships to be controlled directly.
Robert called a meeting of the five Tocals in his band of ships, along with their teams. The one ship who had escaped would take news of the battle to the rest of the Suram. As a result, there might be no element of surprise the next time. The Suram knew their usual battle tactics had failed. Podara said, “Yes, but they may not know why. The ship tha
t was controlling Jane Kjersti was destroyed. We don’t know what was transmitted from them to the others before they were vaporized, if anything. They were all pretty busy. The one was melting and the others were fighting for their lives. Only the one who ran immediately got away. Serena, how long did that battle take?”
The meeting was being held with each group on their own ship, with all comms linked together – video and audio. Serena answered. “From the time the Suram ship stopped and controlled Jane it was 4.3 seconds before I realized what was happening. I will be much faster next time. The three jumps to dump their ship near the star and then for us to leave took another 6.7 seconds. The ship near the sun vaporized 3.8 seconds after our second jump, but the Suram inside were probably dead before then. That Sun shot a flare at them, by the way. I destroyed the rest of the ships, except the one that fled, in 38.1 seconds. Their shields are useless against our weapons, and their reactions were way too slow. I was in full autonomous attack mode, and I think they were trying to operate their ships themselves. On our side, Jane was just a spectator. No way can an organic computer like them match my speed.”
Jane answered. “What about them controlling you? Is that possible?”
“They didn’t try as far as I know. I have scanned myself several times and found no signs of it. As a result, I don’t have enough data to answer your question.”
Shanna spoke up. “We are at war with the Suram. This won’t be the last battle, and we may have to take the fight to their galaxy before we are finished. We need that question answered, and we also need to develop a shield. Serena, Morkalla, and I are the only independent ships out of these five. That’s not nearly enough to fight a real war, even if we are immune from their control. Miko’s ship, Morkalla, is very capable but isn’t really designed to be a warship.”
“I know,” Robert answered. “Plus, it is unlikely the Empire or even the other To’Ach’an will want a lot more independent ships. What we really need is a shield, and we also need to know just what we are up against. We think they came from the Small Magellanic Cloud, but we aren’t sure. We know some of their ships have been coming here for only 100 years or so, but we don’t know why. Are they overpopulated in their own galaxy? Are all of their planets under a single government? This could be a major invasion or just one or two planets trying something on their own. It could even be a group who fled their own galaxy. They could be basically pirates. We have no way of knowing.”