The Duke spoke. “Mr. Grange. I find your attitude towards androids a bit disconcerting. I assure you that I am every bit as sentient as you. However, I would say that at this point it does not really matter. It is time for your species to surrender. As I said before, we will treat you well, although there will be a trial and, I am sure, a length of servitude for your race because of your transgressions. The Empire has much work to be done, and I am sure that Humans will one day make a fine addition.”
I replied, “Well, Duke, why don’t you just come in and get us? We are right here, waiting.”
The Duke smiled. “Mr. Grange. I am in no hurry to rush in against those guns. I will tell you what I think. I think you expended much of your fuel getting here and are in need of replenishment. If your Grid functions anything like the Verna, you are only self-sustaining for so long. You need resources to continue. So, it seems I have the one thing you do not, Mr. Grange. I have time. The supply lines for my fleet are already coming online.”
I spoke. “Go ahead and just sit there, Duke. We have a few aces up our sleeves, and when it comes time to bring them into the game, you will wish you had acted sooner.”
The Duke laughed. “Mr. Grange. You do not even have any sleeves in this game we play! I will sit here and enjoy the luxuries that my Empire affords me while your life becomes increasingly more difficult. I have business to attend to, Mr. Grange. We will talk again when you come to your senses.”
The comm channel to the Duke’s ship went silent. As we continued to discuss our options, the Duke’s fleet began to fire rail gun rounds at the Grid. The exterior armor plating of our home station absorbed the rounds without effort; that is, until a round found an area of previous damage that we had repaired.
The Admiral spoke. “Give me a damage report from that section! I want maintenance crews heading that way, and I want all personnel moved out of there!”
The Admiral turned to face me. “Don. That section and several other repairs are vulnerable. If they continue with those strikes, Fango section may have to be sealed off.”
I replied, “We have room on the station to move everyone. So we lose one section. It won’t affect our defenses.”
The Admiral shook his head. “No, it won’t, but it will affect our food supply. Fango is largely a nursery area. If we lose that section, we lose nearly a quarter of our food production! That was just a random shot; let’s hope they don’t realize that it actually did real damage, or they will hit that section hard.”
I began to pace back and forth on the deck in front of the Admiral. “Admiral, do we know how far out the Yacabucci will reach? If we set up a generator here, how far can we project that wave?”
The Admiral replied, “If we have the power, which we certainly do here, I believe we could reach those ships. But we need a second point to reflect that wave out so that the web covers that whole fleet.”
I stopped and spoke. “Are we in contact with the Granger?”
The Admiral replied, “They are sitting cloaked, just to the right of the Duke’s fleet. I will round up the right people to see if this is something we can do.”
The Admiral moved off to gather information. I met up with Ashley and paid a visit to Jon Touchstone in the science labs.
I spoke. “Hey, Jon. How is the work with the Colossun bots coming?”
Jon replied, “Welcome back, Mr. Grange, Ashley. I tell you, Mr. Grange, these people know their androids. I was watching the Duke on a video feed. His reasoning and reactions were flawless. These Colossuns we have—they are not as advanced as the Duke appears to be. Of course, these were constructed as soldiers whose purpose is to follow orders.”
I turned as I heard a heavy footstep behind me. “Whoa! What the…”
A Colossun stood over me with a towel hanging over his arm.
Jon spoke. “Meet my butler, Jeeves, Mr. Grange. We have full control of all of his programming. It’s really quite ingenious, and efficient. I will have a coffee, Jeeves, and you, Mr. Grange? Ashley?”
I replied, “Uh, yeah, sure, coffee. Dr. Touchstone, Jon, what do you know about the Yacabucci generator?”
Jon thought, then spoke. “I suppose I know it well enough. The science behind it is still sketchy, but it functions as Mr. Yacabucci says. Why do you ask?”
“I want to know, if we built one here on the Grid and hooked it to our power, could we capture those ships out there in a web? They are sitting at about five hundred thousand kilometers.”
Jon replied, “The distance that wave travels is a function of the power applied. I suppose we could use a power feed from the Grid. As just a quick guess, I would think we could reach out that far. We do have one problem, Mr. Grange. Rob Yacabucci is the only one who has put one of those generators together.”
I spoke. “Yeah, I know, he’s back on the Suppressor with Frig and the others. We have examples of the generator here. Do you think you could build one?”
Jon Touchstone clapped his hands together, and three more Colossun androids entered the room. “Boys, download the Yacabucci designs from my storage area and do your best to construct a generator about one meter cubed in size. That will be all.”
The three Colossuns turned and left the room.
I spoke with a look of amazement. “Wait, they are going to go build one of those generators? You have that much control over them?”
Jon smiled. “I’m sorry, Mr. Grange. That was for my own amusement. No, they do not have the ability to follow such high-level commands. At least, I don’t believe they do. It was an experiment on my part to see what they could accomplish. Let’s go talk to my lab team, and we will get started on building a Yacabucci generator.”
As we walked, Ashley grabbed my arm and smiled. “I don’t know why people feel the need to screw with you so much, Don. You just seem to draw them in!”
I replied, “I sometimes think Frig is in secret communications with them all. He hasn’t been talking to you too, has he?”
Ashley smiled. “Not as far as you know!”
With Jon Touchstone now hard at work with a mission, we made our way back to the council room, where the Colonel was waiting. “Colonel, have we come up with anything new?”
The Colonel leaned in and replied with his usual thundering voice. “We are currently running through plans for boarding parties if the Yacabucci plan works out. You never saw any of those sentinels in action, did you? Would be nice to know what we will be up against.”
I shook off the effects of the Colonel’s voice and replied, “No. We only got a look at those big Colossun androids in action. The sentinels, we don’t know much of anything about other than that they are supposedly centuries more advanced than the giants. If they are anything like the Duke in their level of reasoning, we are going to have a fierce fight on our hands. Human tricks will be easily countered.”
I continued, “You have info about the hit on the Fango section?”
The Colonel replied, “I do; Admiral Chaulk is coordinating the moves of the farming equipment there while Michael Felix works on the evacuations. Both believe they can have that section isolated within about forty-eight hours.”
I sat in a chair and rubbed my temples. “We just can’t catch a break, can we, Colonel. Practically everybody in this galaxy wants us dead or, at a minimum, wants control of this station. Did you see the video feeds I loaded of the Verna? If those stations are real, what do you think it means for us?”
The Colonel took a chair of his own. “I think it means we at least have a clue as to our origins. I’ve always found it interesting, and frustrating, that we have all this knowledge in the archives, and not a single mention of where we are from. If those Verna are real, we might just have our first big clue. That is one of the reasons that I am working out plans for boarding parties. I want to take the Duke so that we can question him about the Verna. If the Colossuns started out in this galaxy the same as us, that means someone put us here on purpose.”
I replied, “Well, if i
t was someone who did this to us on purpose, we must have really done something to piss them off. I mean, they dropped us in where there seems to be continuous war. Every time we come across a species that is friendly, it is right before they are about to get crushed by some massive force.”
I leaned back in my chair. “I wish we could have filled those hydrogen tanks with enough juice for a jump out of here. Even one or two hundred light-years away could make a huge difference. Instead we now have a couple hundred very large ships out there planning for our demise.”
The Colonel stood. “You have just given me an idea, Grange. Let me go hit my tacticians with it and see if it is at all workable.”
As the Colonel walked towards the door, I replied, “What, you’re just walking out without giving me a clue? Thanks, Colonel! It’s always nice talking to you!”
With time on my hands, I made my way down to the gun range. As usual, Jeb’s cousin Maracus was working the counter.
Maracus spoke. “Hey, Mr. Grange! Welcome back! What can I set you up with today?”
I replied, “I don’t know, Maracus; surprise me. I just know I want to shoot something, that’s all.”
Maracus laughed. “I get a lot of days like that, Mr. Grange. Sometimes the Ghouls come in here and just go on a rampage. Oh, they leave plenty of money behind, but they leave an awful mess too. Can’t say how many wads of that Omega root I’ve had to mop up over the past year. I put out cans for ‘em, but they don’t use ‘em. Here, try out this one, it’s new.”
I replied, “It looks like a modified AK. What’s special or new about it?”
Maracus smiled. “It is a modified AK. The chamber was made slightly longer to accommodate a new explosive round we came up with. You know how you had to sometimes pump three or four rounds into whoever you were fighting? Well, this one round packs a punch, so you only need one hit. It explodes on impact. If it hits an arm or a leg, or a head for that matter, it will blow it clean off. Anywhere in the torso is gonna be a kill. The ammo is only slightly bigger, but we managed to keep the weight down.”
I nodded as I replied, “Explosive, huh? I would like to give that a try.”
I turned to walk towards the range door as Maracus followed. “It would be nice to have a more effective round, as you can go through a lot of ammo if you are having to spray someone. How does it do against the hardened targets?”
Maracus replied, “It won’t penetrate our new battle suits, but it will give you a nasty wallop. The kinetic energy delivered from that is about a fivefold increase over a standard round. We have also run a few tests on objects, Sir. It will take out a standard apartment door here on the Grid. If you are unprotected, the concussion will knock you out from almost two meters. It really is a nasty little shell, Sir.”
I set up in a firing lane on the otherwise empty range. Maracus carried several targets out for me to practice on: a rubberized mannequin torso and a metal chest. Both were obliterated with a single round. The hour of stress relief I had planned on soon turned into three. When I left the range, I had a new gun along with five hundred rounds of the explosive ammo. I would be sure to take it with me on my next off-Grid excursion.
Several days passed, with the Duke’s fleet continuing their slow barrage of rail gun rounds. Two additional masses had made contact with the Fango section, causing severe damage. Luck had been on our side, and the rounds had penetrated the outer wall with a small hole, while the damage was done inside the Grid. From the perspective of the Duke’s ships, the rounds had done no damage.
I was sitting in the command room with Admiral Zimmerman when word came in from Touchstone and the engineers. A sizable Yacabucci generator would be ready for use in two days. Construction was taking place in Alpha Bay, where the generator would have a direct line out to the Duke’s fleet. Orders had been given to the Granger to move slightly behind the fleet and to the right side.
A powerful straight-line Yacabucci wave could be produced and then spread quickly across the Duke’s fleet. If the strategy worked, it would be the Duke who was being held captive, if only until more Colossun ships arrived.
Chapter 22
The Colonel and the Ghouls had been practicing their boarding drills almost nonstop. During our time on the Duke’s ship, I had taken the initiative to record structures, halls, and rooms, with the hope that one day that information would come in useful. If the other Colossun ships were similar to the Duke’s, the Colonel’s men would be well prepared. When the generator construction was complete, I stood in the command room with Ashley, the Colonel, and the two Admirals.
Jon Touchstone walked into the room and spoke. “Mr. Grange. I think we have a generator up and ready to test.”
I replied, “How are we able to test it? Will the Duke be able to detect it?”
Jon shook his head. “I don’t think so. We can start with a low-power wave out to the Granger and then ramp up the intensity without it emitting any detectable signal. They will not see it coming until it is upon them. I sized the generator so that it will overtake the fleet in under a minute. So long as a few on one end don’t get spooked and move away, we should be able to grab and hold them all. I designed the generator with a 25 percent overhead margin, so if it works we should be able to sustain the wave field as long as we can provide power.”
Jon continued, “There is one item of concern, Mr. Grange. To create and sustain a field this large takes a tremendous amount of power. The Grid’s reactors can supply that power, so long as we have enough fuel to feed them.”
I replied, “What is it you are trying to tell me, Jon?”
Jon shuffled for a moment. “We can hold those ships for eighteen days, Mr. Grange. After that, we will only have enough fuel to keep the lights on here for another six months.”
I nodded and spoke. “Well, that doesn’t cut too deeply, Jon. We only have about nine months’ worth of fuel as it is.”
Jon replied, “You have to keep in mind, Mr. Grange, that is six months if we don’t fire those ion cannons that are protecting this place. With an all-out assault, that number may drop down to as few as forty-five days. That is well below any level that we have previously hit. We are already near our all-time low. This generator will use a significant amount of our fuel once it comes online.”
I sighed. “Dr. Touchstone, it is always something with us. Thank you for letting us know.”
I turned to the Colonel, who was standing beside me. “What do you think, Colonel? How long will it take you to board and take down that fleet?”
The Colonel replied, “Three, maybe five days, depending on the resistance those sentinels offer. Of course, since that is a big unknown, we may not be able to take a single ship.”
I replied, “Well, knowing you, Colonel, you have a backup plan. Care to enlighten me on that?”
The Colonel spit on the floor beside me. “If we can’t take ‘em, we destroy ‘em. We will be taking enough charges to set off their hydrogen stores.”
Ashley grabbed my arm. “Don, Colonel Harper, would it be possible—instead of destroying those ships, could we tap and siphon off their hydrogen? Is that something that could be done with our harvesters?”
The Colonel thought for a moment and replied, “Grange, this is why she’s a keeper!”
The Colonel turned and stormed out of the room while barking commands into his comm. He would have a fast answer to Ashley’s question: could we steal fuel from the Duke’s fleet?
Jon Touchstone did a quick calculation based on the size of the Duke’s fleet and what we knew about his capital ship. “Mr. Grange. If we were able to take 80 percent of the fuel I just estimated is out there, it would allow us to make a small jump away from this location. A quick guess would be one hundred to one hundred fifty light-years’ distance. That would place us easily out of reach of the Duke and his ships.”
Admiral Zimmerman turned to the lieutenant working the nav console. “Pearson, bring up a star map back along the path we came in. I want to see every s
tar system between fifty and two hundred light-years along that path!”
I spoke. “Admiral, much of that path is still through the dense section of this galaxy arm. How far out do our mappings go along that path? Can we head to a location along where we would have originally gone? Before the sabotage? That would make it much easier for Frig to find us when he arrives.”
The Admiral turned back to the lieutenant. “You heard the man, Pearson; bring up a line of our original path and show us where we would be if we traveled fifty to one hundred fifty light-years. I want a star with few or no planets, and few nearby stars!”
Several minutes later the lieutenant responded, “Sir, we have five candidates. Three have four or less planets, with one of them having two gas giants. One has no planets at all, and one has debris disks, Sir.”
Jon Touchstone spoke. “The star with the debris disks—is it a yellow star? Red giant? Blue?”
The lieutenant answered, “Yellow, Sir; scan logs show an abundance of hydrogen. One moment, Sir… spectrum analysis shows the debris to have an adequate amount of the other resources we are in need of, Sir, except for iron. One planet shows a high percentage of iron.”
Jon spoke. “The yellow star, Lieutenant—what is the distance from here?”
The lieutenant replied, “Eighty-seven light-years, Sir!”
The Admiral spoke. “Make preparations for a jump to that location. Should we get the fuel we need, we will be wanting to jump immediately!”
The lieutenant replied, “Yes, Sir!”
In one fell swoop, we had gone from an impossible situation to one with real possibilities of survival. The Colonel soon returned to the command center and slapped me hard on the shoulder as he stepped up beside me.
The Colonel spoke. “Grange, your little lady there is a genius. Those harvesters have a laser drill that should allow penetration of the outer armor of those ships. We drill a hole, poke through a suction pipe right into their tanks, and take what we want.”
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