by Jeff Sims
She was heartened when she saw that after the horrific carnage, both sides acted civilly toward one another. They worked together to rescue any survivors and there was no further retaliation or demand for restitution from the Hiriculans.
Shole couldn’t believe how deadly the battle had been. She did a quick calculation and figured that at least a thousand beings had died on each side. She stared at the image of the Alliance fleet slowly plotting a course to the naval shipyard. She couldn’t fathom why the fleet had inexplicably stayed and fought instead of leaving.
Since the battle was over, she switched from the recording back to active and passive scanners. All of the ships were gone from the current scan save two – the damaged destroyer and a Hiriculan battleship slowly towing it across the system toward the Conron Naval Supply Depot.
She checked the time. Three hours and 39 minutes had passed since they received the warning and the ships disappeared from the Conron – Opron hyperspace lane. That meant that the ships should be reappearing from hyperspace at any minute. It also meant the Kolvak’s conservative estimate about the amount of time that they had left was correct.
Ten minutes later the ships finally reappeared. Well, most of the ships anyway. She began counting and trying to understand what she was seeing.
She said, “Okay, there were 56 enemy warships at the beginning of the battle. They lost 13, so there are 43 left. The Alliance fleet started with 21 and lost 10, leaving 11. The destroyer is being towed by a battleship, so 43 + 11 – 2 equals 52 warships and another 4 supply ships that should have jumped.”
The passive scan updated and Shole was finally able to see exactly what she wanted to see. There were 15 ships, two complete sub-fleets plus one supply ship, at the entryway to the Conron – Uselon hyperspace lane. There were 24 warships and 2 supply ships that exited near the Conron Naval Supply Depot and Shipyard and were now flying toward the station.
That left exactly 15 ships unaccounted for. She knew that she was rapidly running out of time, but she continued to watch anyway. With only 20 minutes left until the Hiriculans would reach the station, she finally spotted the missing ships. They reappeared at the entryway to the Conron – Solaria hyperspace lane.
She now had all of the information that she had wanted to obtain. This fleet was clearly splitting into three separate task forces – one to hold Conron, one to conquer Solaria, and one to capture Waylon – and the Sunflower.
She recorded a message to the humans. She said, “Humans, the Hiriculans have conquered the Alliance. All members of the Navy were forced to resign. They are sending 2 full fleets to Waylon. You need to leave the system immediately.”
However, the message just didn’t sound right. She tried two more times. Suddenly she realized what she missing – the navigational beacon. The navigational beacon in Waylon would record the direction that the humans fled; even if they didn’t use the hyperspace lane. The Hiriculans would easily be able to track them.
She started over. This time she included the warning about the beacon. However, halfway through Kolvak surprised her. He was standing directly behind her. She turned around and Kolvak started waving his hands. He said, “We need to leave right now. Also, mention to the Humans that we left them some carbonated water in the giant laser ball.”
She turned back to the camera, finished recording the message, included Kolvak’s strange message, and sent it to Waylon. Well, she thought, with luck the humans will get the message and will be able to escape. It was a small act of rebellion, but she considered it a victory.
They walked out of the control room. Shole ordered the computer to delete the message and any record of them being in the control room from its memory. She then ordered the computer to reseal the blast doors. She chuckled at the thought. The locked door wouldn’t keep the Hiriculans out of the control room for long, but it should inconvenience them for several hours.
Fortunately, the electro lift was only a few steps from the control room. The walked the eight paces to the electro lift and rode it down to the hangar level. Shole smiled, Kolvak had parked the last remaining transport very close to electro lift so that they didn’t have to waste time walking across the hangar.
They entered the transport. Kolvak took the pilot seat and Shole sat in the seat beside him. The transport was already prepped for flight, so Kolvak lifted off and slowly began flying the small craft towards the hangar bay exit.
Kolvak said, “There is one final thing that we need to do before we leave.”
Shole sighed and said, “I resign from the Alliance Navy effective immediately.”
Kolvak replied, “I resign from the Alliance Navy effective immediately.”
The transport cleared the hangar bay and Kolvak could see that a Hiriculan battleship was on final approach to the station. Kolvak angled well away from the large vessel and set a course to the nearest civilian space station.
Chapter 10
Jim Donovan ran down the main corridor that led from traffic control (CTC) to the hangar. He reached the hangar and turned left, heading toward the space station’s restaurant section. He reached the food preparation area, slowed down for a moment, and looked around. None of the restaurants were open at this early hour.
That was to be expected though, since they had only bothered to staff and operate two of the many restaurants on the promenade. With only 80 crew members on a space station designed to house 10,000, many things like shops and restaurants were left unopened.
Jim reached the halfway point of his jogging course and looked down at his communication pad. He was meeting his target heart rate and target time. He turned right and kept running at as steady a pace as possible. He generally did very good during the first kilometer, but often lagged behind his target time during the second.
Not bad for an old guy, he thought. Jim turned right again and kept running.
Jim was in the process of ‘celebrating’ his 31st birthday – his second in outer space. He was celebrating this one just like his previous one, by not discussing it or even acknowledging it. It wasn’t that he hated his birthday or that he didn’t want to celebrate it.
It was just… it was just that he really didn’t want anyone to know that he was a year older. Everyone already knew that he was the oldest person in the group by a fair margin, but somehow remaining 29 indefinitely seemed preferable to admitting that he was 31.
He, and the other members of First Squadron, had been gone from Earth for a total of 18 months now. He supposed that the silver lining to being in outer space was the 10 – 1 time dilation they experienced when they jumped through hyperspace. So, even though 18 months had passed on Earth, he had technically only aged about 16 ½ months.
He briefly considered delaying his birthday celebration for another month since he technically was still 30. However, he knew that he would have to revert back to his birth age when they reached Earth. “Admit it” he said to an empty wall as he jogged by, “You’re now 31 years old.”
Jim finished his exercise routine, sonic showered, and went to CTC, the nerve center of the space station. He entered and saw both Russ and Colin were present.
Russ said, “Captain on deck.” Both stood and saluted.
Jim returned the salute and took a seat near one of the control panels. He logged into the panel and checked many of the station’s functions and sensors. He could have asked Russ for a status update, but he felt like doing it himself. He wanted to stay technically adept and not have to rely on others for information.
Colin stood up and walked over to the kitchenette area. He grabbed a coffee mug and filled it with hot water. He then grabbed a square of Advranki sea moss and returned to his work area. Once seated, he began dunking the sea moss into the water.
Jim stopped reviewing the status updates and watched Colin dunk the sea moss into the water. Finally, he said, “What are doing?”
Colin replied, “Oh, Shole showed me this. It tastes just like green tea.”
Jim walked over and
took a sniff. It didn’t have any type of smell. Russ told him to try a sip. Jim obliged and took a small sip. He didn’t quite get enough into his mouth to form an opinion, so he took a bigger sip. He thought that it tasted like green colored hot water.
Colin said, “Judging by your reaction I take that you are not a fan of green sea moss tea.”
“No,” Jim replied. “I think I will stick to coffee.”
Colin said, “It’s an acquired taste.”
Russ used the interruption to tell Jim some news that he would have learned for himself a few minutes later. He said, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we have reached the edge of the system and have cleared the gravity field. We are in the correct location at the start of the newly discovered Waylon – Earth hyperspace lane.”
Jim looked up, suddenly interested. He had already verified that they were in the correct place. They had spent the last 10 days traversing the solar system to reach this particular set of coordinates. That news wasn’t particularly new and certainly didn’t qualify as bad.
Jim replied, “And the bad news?”
Both Russ and Colin said, “We can’t jump.”
“What? Jim replied, “I thought we had positive confirmation that we found Earth with the gravity seeking missiles.”
Colin held up his hands in mock defense and said, “Yes. The gravity missiles were a huge success. Several of them traveled exactly 11 hours and were knocked out of hyperspace by a large gravity field matching the size of our Solar System. We have definitively found Earth.”
Russ continued, “We know the coordinates and the Sunflower could jump home at any time.”
Jim immediately noted that Russ had specified that the Sunflower could jump home instead of using the more generic term ‘we’ to cover the space station and the drilling platform. He answered, “Why can’t everything jump?”
Colin said, “It can, just not at the same time.”
Russ continued, “Colin and I ran several simulations. The bottom line is that one tug cannot create a big enough hyperspace window to move a large structure. We need two tugs to create a window big enough to move either the drill or the control platform. We need all 4 tugs to move the space station.”
Jim asked, “Can we modify the tugs like the Sunflower? We could create a huge hyperspace window and just push everything through. The system’s gravity should kick them back into real space.”
Colin responded, “The external hyperspace window works okay for something small like a missile or a fighter. However, it doesn’t work for something as big as a space station.” He paused for a moment and continued, “Besides, even if it could work, we don’t know how to modify the field generators.”
Russ finished, “Lorano didn’t document what he did or how he did it.”
“Okay,” Jim replied. “If that won’t work then we will have to think of something else.”
He did some quick math. It was an 11 hour jump one way from their present location in Waylon to Earth. If the tugs hooked up one of the space stations and jumped to Earth it would take 110 real time hours to get there. The tugs would then have to unhook and jump 110 hours back. That was 220 hours in total, or a touch over 9 days for the round trip.
Further, during the 9 days the tugs were gone, they wouldn’t be able to move the remaining station(s). Jim shook his head. That wasn’t going to work. He had no intention of leaving anything behind if they suddenly had to evacuate the system.
Jim replied, “We are going to have to change our timeline. We are leaving today.”
“How?” Russ asked.
Jim replied, “Well, there is only one solution. We are going to have to hide the mining drill and corresponding control station along the hyperspace corridor. We will just have to hope that nothing happens to us while they are gone.”
Colin said, “That seems pretty safe. We have been out here for 7 months now and the only thing we have seen is cosmic space dust.”
Jim opened a channel to Kip Armstrong, the leader of Alpha squadron and the acting commander of the space station and Gus Swanson, the leader of First squadron. He said, “Kip, Gus, we are in position and can jump. However, we have a small problem, we can’t move all of the stations at the same time.”
Both nodded in understanding and Jim continued, “Gus, assign 8 pilots from First squadron and 8 engineers to the tugs. I want them to attach two tugs to the drill and two tugs to the platform within the hour. They will jump both structures 30 minutes toward Earth. They then need to mark the location and return here.”
Gus responded, “So, 10 hour round trip. It sounds like a joyride. Don’t worry Captain, we will have both of them hidden and be back by the end of your shift.”
Jim continued, “Kip, Alpha squadron gets a double active shift today.”
Two tugs attached to the mining drill and the other two tugs attached to the control station. The mining drill disappeared. A moment later the mining control station disappeared.
Jim waited most of the day in CTC. Despite Gus’ reassurances, he actually was worried. He wasn’t sure why though. Actually, worried wasn’t quite the correct term. He felt an unusual sense of urgency and a general sense of unease. They had been in this system for a long time and this was the first time that he felt this way.
No, he corrected himself; he had started feeling uneasy about two weeks ago, right about the time they started moving the stations to the other side of the system. The feeling had been temporarily suspended though when the gravity missiles found Earth. However, it seemed to be getting worse the last couple of days and as previously mentioned, was particularly bad today.
He mentally marked his uneasiness down to months of isolation and possibly his birthday. No, he thought, that wasn’t correct. The isolation and/or his birthday didn’t seem to be the problem.
He mentally changed his mind and marked it down to anticipation about returning to Earth. He didn’t know how the planet would respond to information that they weren’t alone in the galaxy and that all of the other intelligent races feared and reviled them.
No, he thought, it didn’t matter. Humans were resilient. They could deal with the information. The Sunflower would return home, Jim would tell Earth the news, and they would be welcomed – as heroes or heels was perhaps yet to be determined.
There was more though. He had reviewed the reports of what the Hiriculans had done to the Neto – mass genocide of the old, sick and feeble, genetic sorting, etc. He believed that if the Hiriculans came to Earth they would do the same thing – they would take the humans they needed and discard the ones they didn’t.
The Hiriculans were also worrying him; or rather the lack of the Hiriculans. After he resoundingly defeated them in Opron, the Hiriculan Navy seemed to have disappeared. For the last 7 months there had been no new incidents, no further provocations, nothing. Some news commentators said that the Hiriculans were no longer interested in war. Jim doubted it. He figured that they were simply regrouping after the devastating loss.
There was still something else. He laughed at the thought that it would actually bother him. He was technically an officer in the Alliance Navy and was assigned to guard Waylon against enemy incursion.
If he were to abandon his post he would be violating his orders, but more importantly he would allow the Hiriculans to take the system unopposed. Further, if they chose to invade through this corridor it would go unnoticed by the Alliance military.
Jim changed his mind. He walked over to the kitchenette and grabbed a cup of hot water and a sea moss square. He needed something to take his mind off of his present situation and hoped the tea would help.
A few hours into their long wait they received a message from Amy Weisman. Even though they had established a direct route to Earth, the communication satellite was still pointed to Solaria so the communication still took 21 days. Jim had the computer load the message on the main monitor and play it:
…Greetings everyone. We received the second set of codes
and were able to unlock all of the hidden information. I have organized our engineers and researchers into four teams. Each team is trying to build a prototype using the plans. However, the early assessment is that it could take months or even a couple of years to duplicate the technology...
The information did little to settle his uneasiness. However, the rest of the shift passed without incident and Gus and the tugs returned to Waylon right on time.
Gus reported, “Both the drill and control platform have been successfully hidden. The tugs are safely reattached to the space station. We can jump the station at a moment’s notice.
“Thank you, well done,” Jim replied and closed the connection.
Russ suddenly yelled, “Captain, we have a message from Conron. It was sent by Shole using a civilian channel. It is marked emergency.”
Jim said, “Play it on the main monitor.”
…Humans, the Hiriculans have invaded with an overwhelming force. By the time you receive this message the entire Alliance will have fallen. All Alliance naval personnel were forced to resign. There are 23 active warships guarding Conron and 14 in Solaria. They are sending 14 warships to Waylon. You need to destroy the navigational beacon in Waylon and leave the system immediately. Do not engage, just jump somewhere safe and hide…
There was a distinct pause in the recording. They watched as Shole turned away from the screen and talked to someone behind her. They couldn’t hear anything; she must have muted the sound, but kept recording. A moment later she turned back and said:
…Also, if you visit Conron you will find some carbonated water in the giant laser ball…
The message ended abruptly.
Russ said, “One cruiser and 3 fighter squadrons against 14 capital ships. That is only 416 enemy fighters. We have faced worse odds.”
Jim replied, “No we haven’t; not and lived anyway. Maybe under perfect circumstances a few of us would survive, but not enough to make a difference. Besides, I have a feeling that this group of Hiriculans will not separate their fleet into manageable buckets.”