by Bill Nolan
Glenora spoke up. “I can get there more easily. I can fly, remember.”
Jane shook her head. “No. I will go by myself. Porcalt will be upset and confused. It’s better if only a To’Ach’an is there when she wakes. Stay here, Glenora. I mean it.” Jane went through the dock and into the dark and silent ship. Serena immediately shut the dock behind her and then told her through her suit that Glenora hadn’t tried to follow her. Jane’s suit let her see in the dark passages, and the map Serena provided was easy to follow. It was a long route, but Serena was able to track her all the way. It took her about 40 minutes to reach the main power shunts. The gravity was off, which did make it a bit easier.
When Jane arrived at the central power supply room, it took her a minute to get it figured out. Things had changed in 1500 years. Her heads up display and sensors were feeding back to Serena, and between them they figured out the sequence to power the ship. There were 11 relays. Jane flipped them to on in the proper order. It was like she could feel the ship come back to life. She waited about 10 seconds, and then spoke out loud. “Hello. I am Jane Kjersti of the To’Ach’an, and you are Porcalt. Your power has been off for a long time. Take a few moments to find yourself, and then let me know.”
About 30 seconds later a speaker came to life. “I have pulled my memories out of storage. Everyone died when food was depleted. Then, after almost 200 years, the little people arrived. They shut down my power. How long ago was that?”
Jane said, “It was about 1300 years ago. My ship, Serena, is docked with you. She could send you a memory feed to bring you up to date. She is listening. Tell me when you are ready.”
There was a short pause. “OK, I’m ready.” Serena didn’t do a full memory dump, but she did send enough information so that Porcalt was brought up to speed. It was a lot of data, so the memory transfer took almost 45 seconds. “OK, and thank you Jane and Serena. Things have changed a lot. I guess we don’t hate the Empire as much anymore. I will need someone to teach me the math if I am going to be able to jump in these new dimensions. Serena says she jumps in 23, but I only know 17. Serena also says that you know where you are all the time, and in all 23 dimensions. That would have been handy when we were lost.”
Jane spent the next several hours touring the ship. Porcalt wanted to show herself off, and she was lonely. Jane had Serena open the dock so Glenora could join her. Porcalt recognized her from 1300 years before. As they toured, Porcalt was also running scans and making a list of everything which would have to be fixed before she was fully functional again. At the same time, and with Porcalt’s permission, Serena was running scans and making her own list of everything which would have to be changed or upgraded. That was also a long list.
Jane explained to Porcalt that she needed to make a quick trip to get some more people, but that two of the Pixies would stay to keep her company. Then she contacted Robert. “Robert, could I borrow Leida for a while, or maybe permanently. I can’t say why yet, but it is important. I could meet you halfway in between as soon as you can make it. She should bring her team.” Before Jane had moved to Serena, she had been part of Leida’s team, so she knew there were several decent ship engineers on the team. Leida’s team was currently 8 people. That would do for now.
Chapter 27, Giants and Surprises
Robert agreed, so Jane and Serena, with Glenora still inboard, jumped to a midpoint between the Clouds. Robert took 36 hours because he and Shanna couldn’t jump as often. Leida’s team was transferred in a skipper, and then Jane headed back. Now that more people were inboard, they had to take it slower. On the way back, Jane hit Leida with the question. “How would you like to be bonded with a ship?”
It took Leida a moment to answer, and then it came out as, “What?”
Jane laughed at the look on Leida’s face – and on the faces of her all-female team. “Well, it happens I have a spare, and it needs a crew. You interested?”
It took Leida a few seconds to recover a bit. “Of course I’m interested, but how? What do you mean a spare ship? Did you find one somebody left lying around?”
“Kind of, and I actually have four. Only one is a To’Ach’an ship, though. She is really big, by the way. Really, really big, like five times the volume of Shanna.”
That stopped Leida for a moment. Her team started trying to ask questions, but Leida just held up her hand and they stopped. “OK, time to tell me more. I mean, I know you own a whole galaxy, but this is getting silly. Four starships? I hope this one you are talking about is the biggest.”
“Nope, she’s actually the smallest. Her name is Porcalt. The To’Ach’an built her about 1500 years ago to travel to another galaxy. She didn’t make it. They got lost. Everyone eventually died when they ran out of food, and then the Pixies found her and stored her. Then Glenora gave her to me, along with the three giant Empire ships which met the same fate. So, no people or other life on any of them, but they all work. They all need some fixing, though.”
Leida had tears on her cheeks. “That poor thing. She must be so lonely. I hope she likes me. How do you give a huge ship a hug?”
A new voice said, “You just did. Serena patched me in. She thought I should hear when you were told about me. I am Porcalt, and I can’t wait until you arrive!” Leida and Porcalt talked nonstop for the next three hours, and they were bonded two full days before Leida stepped one foot inside. When she did arrive, it was an instant fit. Leida and her new team had found a new and very large home.
The first thing they did after arriving back at Porcalt was to jump to a nearby Earthlike planet. It wasn’t just people who were missing on the ship. All of her pools and gardens were empty and devoid of life. They were met at the planet by several teams of Pixies. They are top notch ecologists. Porcalt lowered to a very large lake on the planet and refreshed her water supplies, allowing her to refill her tanks and ponds. Then the Pixies did their gardening magic and in a week, everything was replanted. Meanwhile, Leida’s team was busy upgrading the shields and integrating the new cloaking device into the ship’s systems so Porcalt could operate it. Using spare parts and software from Serena, they also installed the spatial distortion generator so Porcalt could jump from much closer to large objects.
Serena transferred the math so Porcalt could navigate in 23 dimensions, and also transferred the knowledge of all the jump points so Porcalt wouldn’t get lost moving between galaxies. Food had to be brought onboard as well, and that required a trip to the Milky Way and several Empire planets with the starship equivalent of chandlers to replenish stores. In about two weeks, she may have had a crew of only 8, but was otherwise squared away. She had 20 Pixies onboard helping out, though, and Leida wasn’t sure if they were going to be part of the permanent crew or not. Since they had been prepared to plant a colony of 300, Porcalt did have a lot of valuable cargo already on board. Their next stop was New Hope, where Jane had arranged to meet Robert, who still knew nothing about this new/old ship.
Robert was already at New Hope when Serena and Porcalt arrived. Serena looked like a dot next to the almost 5500’ diameter of Porcalt. He was invited to meet Jane on the new ship, so he quickly took a skipper over. First they had to tell him the story of how this ship came to be. Then he had to have a tour. The sheer size of the ship was impressive, and the tiny crew had done a good job of getting it cleaned and set up. The gardens were coming along nicely, and the mechanical upgrades were pretty much complete. Still, Robert’s first impression was that they needed a lot more people. Jonu still had a lot of people in his organization who were on planets but wanted to be on a ship. He started contacting a bunch of them. Naturally Leida’s people would have to meet with them and approve them. Jonu asked how many. Leida told him there was easily room for a thousand, but that she wanted to go with about 150 to start. They did need healers and had to reset the tank facilities.
While Jonu was making contacts anyway, Jane mentioned that she needed crews for three freighters which she had also acquired. That stopped conversatio
n for a moment, but it quickly started again when she mentioned that all three were bigger than Porcalt. They also had a lot of cargo already in board that could be sold. They hadn’t done more than check over the other three ships, so they would have to be outfitted before being used. Jane was thinking she could start a real freight operation between the Milky Way and the Clouds. Now that they had several suitable ships, they could start processing a lot more applications from potential settlers, too, and not just on Earth. The four ships presented to Jane had, after all, been designed for that purpose.
Robert said, “Have you spoken to Nante about crew? I like the idea of To’Ach’an officers and Empire crew. They know the Empire ships. Well, maybe not these. I gather they are pretty old.”
Jane said, “Yes, they are old. We will need to upgrade the power, shields, and drives. We will also have to fit them with cloaking devices and distortion generators, and we will have to upgrade the computers, but the hulls and interiors are sound. I want to take some ship engineering types over there in the next week or so and have them make full lists. We will also want to upgrade the crew living quarters. They are really, really big, though. They range from about 6,000’ to 7,000’ in diameter. They have huge cargo bays, standard docks, and they seem, if anything, overbuilt. Oh, and we will need much better sensors and some weapons. I don’t care much for unarmed ships.”
Robert replied, “OK, Shanna, round up some people to go look over these ships. They can’t take enough people on Serena, so we will run them over. I kind of want to see these ships anyway. Leida, you will be heading back to the Milky Way to pick up more crew. After our people look at these ships, they can send you a shopping list. In fact, maybe Jonu can arrange the purchases and all you will need to do is pick the stuff up and bring it back. If we find some crew for them, maybe you can bring them, too.”
Everyone agreed they had a plan, and so the meeting broke up.
The next morning Leida and Porcalt left for the Milky Way. Serena headed back to the Small Magellanic Cloud, and Shanna waited for a couple of days for the ships Chola and Shiog to drop off more engineer teams. Then Shanna and Robert left for the Small Magellanic Cloud to meet up with Jane and the big freight hulls. That trip took seven days. Robert split the people he had brought into three groups, and each group took a skipper and went to one of the giant ships.
Entering the big ships was a bit spooky. They were dark and very quiet. Plus, they didn’t have maps. They were hoping to find some on board. In all three cases it took almost a full day just to find the power controls so they could power up the ships. As each group moved around the ships, the sensors they carried reported back to Shanna, so by the end of the day they were getting some general maps of at least the areas they had entered. Once they had power, of course, it got easier. On the second day all three groups located the control room. Then they started tracing out wiring and looking through cabinets. One team figured out how to get the computers working on their ship and were able to pull up complete maps. That gave them a big head start, and they were quickly able to locate and inspect the power center, the computer banks, the shield generators, and the drives. They weren’t happy with what they found.
They were used to To’Ach’an ships, which were the class of the galaxy. These were way below their standards and old to boot. In their opinions, everything needed to be replaced. Still, the hulls and interiors were fine and solid, and, especially with ships this big, that was 90% of the cost. So, they made lists which included all new power, drives, shields, computers, sensors, gravity generators, and weapons. They also wanted new life support and some major mods to the living quarters. They wanted gardens. They wanted a real infirmary with decent tanks and other equipment, and that was just a start. Basically, they wanted to refit these freighters as real To’Ach’an ships, right up to armament. Jane, Jonu, and Robert talked it over. They approved all of it. They had the money, so why not?
This, of course, meant that they would have to forget about Empire people as crew. What it did not mean was that they were going to change their plan. These would still be freighters, but they would be able to take plenty care of themselves if that ability was ever needed. Jonu got on the communications and spoke with some suppliers he had used before. With about two hours work, he had several very happy suppliers and everything was ordered. He then got hold of Leida and gave her a rundown on where everything was located. It turned out she had already ordered some additional equipment along the same lines and from the same suppliers for Porcalt. Once she got back with it, they could really get to work.
It was about three weeks later when Leida and Porcalt got back with the equipment. Her crew was now up to almost 200, and she was officially a Tocal. Her people had installed all the new equipment on Porcalt whenever they were stopped, waiting for people to recover from jump. This operation had turned into a big job, and so Chola and Shiog had been called to the scene. All four of the big ships basically emptied out and went to work. With hundreds of skilled people working on each of the three former Empire ships, it went pretty fast. In about three weeks, they had everything physical installed and were installing software. They didn’t even bother to install the flawed software which was supposed to keep the ships from being independent, but didn’t work. The software install came from the other ships. They also sent over a lot of other information, so when they were done, the three big freighters had most of the knowledge shared by the other ships in Robert’s group.
Jonu bonded with the largest of the three ships, which was named Thorcal. The middle ship, named Vorstad, bonded with Shaban, a woman from Chola, while the smallest of the freighters, Korste, which was still huge, bonded with Krasal, a woman who had been on Shanna since the beginning. A few people went with each ship to provide an initial crew, and they promptly elected Jonu, Krasal, and Shaban as Tocals. Jonu was now regretting all the people he had sent to Porcalt. All of these ships needed more people. They were freighters, not warships, and the crew requirements were less, but they still needed 200 or so, enough to form a real community. Temporarily they were staffed with 10 people and a few Pixies. The Pixies had come on board to work on the gardens and then decided to stay. Then they all got word they were going to war.
Chapter 29, Blitzkrieg
Nante finally came through with the list of people who had been traitors to her. It was a long list. They had discussed whether they could confront some of these people and let them repent their actions, but they decided against it. They might forgive these people for their disloyal and traitorous actions, but the people would never really be able to forgive themselves. To forgive them would be an act of charity, but people don’t often respond to charity by being grateful. They respond with resentment. That resentment would fester, and then all of this trouble would repeat. No, they needed to take them all the way out, once and for all. The To’Ach’an had already cleaned house. Now it was the Empire’s turn. Everyone was in place. It was time.
When they had been making the plan, Robert had thought about what code word to use to tell everyone to begin. He had seriously considered using the phrase “climb Mount Niitaka,” which was the phrase used by Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto to tell his forces to proceed with the attack on Pearl Harbor, which had brought the United States into World War II. He decided not to do that because Japan eventually lost, and he thought it was a bad precedent. Instead he had Shanna connect him to the proper channel and spoke the words, “new dawn.” It began almost instantly.
In several hundred places across the Milky Way Galaxy, cloaked ships fired on Empire ships from very close range. They fired not to destroy, but just to disable. Nearly every one was disabled before they could get their shields up. In any case, they didn’t know where the shots had come from, as the attacking ships stayed cloaked. Then messages were sent to the disabled ships. Each had a list of names. They were told to put the people on the list into an aircar and leave them in space. If they didn’t do that within a one hour deadline, they would
be destroyed.
Most complied quickly, but some tried to fight instead, firing wildly in all directions in the hope of hitting the hidden ships they knew had to be there. A few, including the ones who had avoided being disabled because they had their shields fully up when the attack came, chose to run instead. They jumped clear, and in many cases jumped another two or more times to avoid being followed. Robert had planned for this. In a dozen locations, ships were allowed to escape because instead of totally disabling them, the To’Ach’an ships had planted beacons instead.
Meanwhile, on hundreds of planets, agents struck. Some were Empire people loyal to their Empress. Some were To’Ach’an operating under cover. Many were Pixie “observers” who finally had a chance to avenge their friends. There was no chance to send out a warning. All struck at almost the same instant, and the success rate on planets was very nearly 100%. Except for the ships which ran, it was a total wipeout.
As planned, Nante opened a galaxy-wide broadcast. It appeared on every screen in the Empire, preempting everything else. “Good morning. I am Empress Nante, and I am saddened to have to speak with you this morning. Some weeks ago, numerous powerful people in the Empire, including starship commanders, planetary governors, and many others, even including rogue elements in the To’Ach’an, attempted to commit theft on a literally intergalactic scale. They failed, but in the attempt a number of people were killed, including members of this evil conspiracy and others totally innocent of wrongdoing. The To’Ach’an quickly discovered which of their people were involved and took positive action to eliminate them. We commend them for this action, and we felt that we could not, in good conscience, do less. Thus, we today acted to clean our own house. You will soon hear of many people we have had put to death. The few conspirators who escaped will soon be dealt with as well. Once again the Empire is safe for those who respect its laws. We will provide more detailed information through the usual news outlets. In the meantime, understand that helping or concealing any remaining conspirators is a capital offence. If you know of any, please turn them in. There is a large reward.”