Inman’s team knew Will and Evelyn wanted some space and elected to use the transportation provided them. Will and Evelyn opted to walk along one of the paths and explore the local flora.
Will took Evelyn’s hand as they started down the path of a stream flowing through the meadow next to the ornately decorated Indo compound. Evelyn was wearing traditional civilian clothing, a little more formal than normal because of the occasion. Her dark brown hair was up as usual pinned at the back by a simply decorated hairpin. Evelyn wore glasses befitting a decorated scientist; they complemented her slight form and covered her dark blue eyes.
Will was wearing his traditional military dress uniform without the hat. “His medium build made Will the perfect partner to hold hands with” thought Evelyn.
During the many years, she had worked with Will Inman she had grown fond of the way he handled himself. He knew who he was what he was fighting for and he was a fearless yet gentle warrior who she had come to respect. And now she was afraid, afraid that something might happen to him, fearful of losing the man she had her eyes on for all this time. For the first time in many years, Evelyn felt vulnerable, and she needed assurances.
“Is this just a short term thing for you, are you going to lose interest tomorrow, am I wasting my time or is this for real?” asked Evelyn.
“I don’t do short term, especially where you are concerned” flashed Will. “I am committed to seeing our relationship through; then we need to spend the time and effort to make sure we find out one way or the other.”
“I needed to hear you say that.”
Will spun her around and gently leaned her up against a tree, stared into her eyes as if to wait for permission, and then he kissed her. The passion rose in Will as he started to test the limits of where Evelyn was willing to go at this early stage of their relationship. Evelyn gently pushed his hands away as they seemed to roam just a little beyond what she was going to allow, for now.
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things,
not because they are easy, but because they are hard . . . ”
~ John F. Kennedy
Chapter Seven –
The Prometheus of Speed
C ommander” screamed Cerro in the comlink “I was just fired on by one of Roco’s goons, I sent him away with the TRay.” Should we return to the ship?”
“Wait a moment, Bennett; can you calibrate the TRay to transfer his men to the brig on the Eagle?”
“Yes” responded Bennett.
“Meet us at the west end of the complex after you have programmed each of the TRay’s, then let’s take some of the Indo’s with us and get some intelligence.”
“Cerro, get back to the fleet and ready us for departure, but make sure we are on red alert until we can get out of here clean” commanded Inman.
“Aye, sir.”
Will and Evelyn made the trek to the west end of the complex and awaited the arrival of the rest of the team. Within a few minutes, the other teams arrived at the rendezvous point. Bennett had completed resetting the TRays and Evelyn had reset both hers and Will’s.
“Let’s get in and transport at least two of them to the brig, on my command Port yourself back to the Connie for debriefing” instructed Inman.
Inman fired his TRay at the door to the complex, and it disappeared, immediately a hail of laser fire started hitting the teams’ body armor. At once the team started firing at the Indo’s and soon four of them were gone.
“Port back” commanded Inman and within seconds the team was on board the Connie.
“Cerro, how are our guests?” inquired Inman over the comlink.
“Confused, disarmed and compliant sir” responded Cerro.
“Let them cool their heels and get us out of here” commanded Inman.
Within seconds all three ships left the system headed toward deep space.
The executive team decided to complete and commission Inman’s new battleship before engaging the Parallel Displacement Drive which could take another six months.
The betrayal on Dulang had left the Executive team with a new sense of just how cautious they were going to have to be. Interrogations of the Indo prisoners was unfruitful until one of Cerro’s men showed the Indo soldier what it looks like to be turned inside out by one of the TRay weapons and he decided to spill it all.
Apparently, the Indo’s are a species dedicated to committing the highest levels of deception to lure their prey into captivity where they can subsequently confiscate anything they deem valuable.
Knowledge of the Indo’s cultural incompatibilities with humans convinced Inman and Cerro they could not trust their captives to be free among them. Cerro was convinced after the battle at Dulang with the Sliric, that the Sliric prisoners were not to be trusted. It was just too much of a coincidence that they were met by the Sliric at Dulang.
They decided their guests already knew too much, and somehow the Silirc were communicating with their people. “We should be able to find a planet within a few months which will support life. We can drop them off with supplies and homing beacons” thought Inman.
Titan
The UB had to have modifications made to her design to handle the enormous dimensions of the new class of ship construction. Originally the UB’s U-shaped interior would straddle the ship in her docking system. In the case of this new class of battleship, it was necessary to expand the width of the UB’s center section. Logan’s crew accomplished the task by changing out the fixed girder system with giant expanding girders every thousand feet to push each side of the U-shaped body apart in support of the additional width.
The older style fixed girders were smaller and served only as catwalks to get from one side of the UB to the other. The new girders were large enough to support engineers, programmers and robotic repair and maintenance efforts. From inside the girders, workers had a bird’s eye view of the work performed.
Over the many years, the fleet had been in space engineers had improved on the robotic construction design to the point where construction was a lights-out operation, completely automated and unmanned. The building of a ship was now more about design and programming of the construction equipment than the actual construction itself.
As the construction robots completed a section, the UB’s rail system which ran the length of the UB would move the completed work to the rear, building the ship from stern to bow. Each of the girders was used to feed components and completed assemblies to the manufacturing robots. As each section of the new ship was able to support life, the tradesmen and engineers boarded the ship to complete installation of equipment and systems. The highly modified robots (originally built on earth to help construct the orbiters) provided the heavy lifting outside the UB where they completed assembly of the ship by locking the pre-manufactured components into place and securing them with self-welding strips developed to speed up the process of shipbuilding.
The UB was truly a ship building machine, complete with ore processing facilities, 3D structural printing systems and synthesizing equipment to reproduce sophisticated electronics and smaller parts used in the delicate machinery needed to support navigation, shell, warp and weapons systems.
When the new ship rolled off of the assembly line, the executive team decided to name the fully operational battleship the “Titan.”
The Titan was an engineering marvel. Her underbelly included launch bays where most of the shuttle fleet (re-engineered and equipped with more sophisticated weaponry and armor) docked. From the outside, the Titan did not have the same shimmering metal sheeting as the other ships. Her hull was made up of a new shielding system called a “Dissipater.” The shield is a dull tan color with a texture resembling honeycomb set on edge.
The bridge and command center are located toward the front and on top of the ship. Portals providing 360-degree views of surrounding space were Ultra High-Resolution monitors closely resembling glass viewing windows are integrated to the voice of the ship activated navigati
on and command and control computers.
The TRay weapon systems were now complete banks or arrays with the ability to automatically target the enemy’s weapon systems and turn the fire back on them.
The Titan was now the largest, most sophisticated and heavily armed ship in the fleet; little did they know her day of testing would come so soon.
“Executive team to the conference room please” Inman requested.
Inman was in the room when Logan, Bo, and Cerro appeared suddenly.
“Is it safe to Port into a small space like this?” asked Inman.
“Bennett and Reeder worked out the bugs; they have some wizardry in the Porters which protects us from landing inside of something!”
Evelyn walked in, smiled at Will “you guys used the Porters. Nice!”
Bennett walked in and made small talk about the great breakfast he had in Terry’s Diner with a couple of the young shuttle pilots.
“Ok, guys; we have dropped off our prisoners on a nice friendly planet, the flagship is complete, and we are ready for our next mission, are we ready to test the Displacement Drive?” Inman asked.
“We are ready, everything checked out fine with the test equipment retrieved at Gulang” explained Bennett “and we have installed the drives in every ship in the fleet and integrated them all into the command and control system so they can be operated as one unit or separate if needed.”
“Ok, let’s go over a couple of things before we engage this new drive. Are we all set on all three ships?” queried Inman.
“Yes sir” Logan replied.
“By the way, Logan, have you spoken to Cal Brittan about taking over as Captain of the Connie when we commission our new flagship next month?”
“Yes sir, he is honored.”
“What is this all about,” asked Bo.
“The new battleship is ready, and I will be moving the command center to her bridge as we transition the Connie into a civilian living space. She took quite a beating at Dulang, and I do not want her in battle again. She needs to hang out of sight when we engage an enemy, back where civilians can be safe.”
“So when were you going to let us know, is this an executive team or are we now under military control?” queried Bennett.
Inman instantly knew he messed up, this kind of rookie mistake made him feel like an amateur. Will glanced at Evelyn and knew he was in trouble. “This is a military decision needed for both safety and security, it’s not such a big deal” explained Inman.
“This is not a small detail Will” Evelyn persisted.
“Ok, you all have a right to be upset; I should have talked this out with all of you. So let’s talk about it, you heard the plan, what do you think?” Inman pressed.
“Smart,” said a reluctant Bennett to the agreement of everyone except Evelyn.
“I suppose the science team stays aboard the Connie” Evelyn asked.
“Of course, all the labs and test equipment are over here, and we need to hide these valuable assets. The population has exploded, and we need to get out of here to give people some room.”
Evelyn was not happy knowing Will would be moving himself and his entire staff, including many of her friends to the new ship.
“Will movement between the ships be restricted?” queried Bo.
“All we need is a security card and anyone can Port to the arrival deck of any ship in the fleet. Civilians can even get passes; we just have to have them pass a security check” explained Cerro.
“Sounds like back on Earth, security everywhere, so much you cannot even get around” complained Evelyn.
“This is uncharacteristic for Evelyn” Will began to think, “how am I going to smooth this over with Evelyn” Will contemplated.”
“Let’s get to the bridge of our new ship” Inman commanded.
The Prometheus of Speed
Prometheus (prə-mee-thee-əs; Greek: meaning "forethought") is a Titan In Greek mythology, best known as the benefactor who brought fire to humanity.
Evelyn Reeder stepped onto the bridge of the newly commissioned flagship Titan. The bridge was obviously not built with a woman’s touch; the entire space had a mechanical feel to it.
“Ensign, back us off to warp one” commanded Reeder.
“Yes, mam” Newman replied.
“Your control console now has several options. You can run at a multiple of indicated warp. But notice the options on your control panel where you can couple the fleet, uncouple the fleet, engage or disengage the displacement drive manually or automatically and a way to set the frequency. Frequency refers to the number of times the displacement drive fires and the interval set whether the frequency is in hours, minutes or seconds.”
“Yes, I have been briefed on the use of the new controls mam.”
“Perfect, turn on analytics and let’s set the drive to fire in manual mode and engage it on my command please.”
“Commander, you should alert all personnel, we do not know what to expect, we should go to yellow alert” suggested Reeder.
“This is Commander Inman; we are about to make history with the new displacement drive. We are not exactly sure what to expect, so I want to give you a couple of minutes to get to yellow alert status.”
The yellow alert tells crews aboard all four ships to expect a rough ride and to prepare accordingly.
“Cerro, make all weapons systems hot and launch the shuttle fleet and put them in support mode around the fleet with a concentration of ten of them for support around the Connie.”
“Are we expecting company?” Cerro replied.
“Not sure, but every time we do something new hostile forces meet us. I just want to be ready in case we do.”
“Newman, I want to be ready to depart the area in a hurry if we run into trouble so pre-set a position we can jump to if we engage a hostile enemy.”
“Aye, sir.”
“All ships report yellow alert status commander” reported Newman.
“The fleet is your’s, Evelyn.”
“Engage the displacement drive” commanded Evelyn Reeder.
For an instant, everything seemed to stand still then just as suddenly the entire fleet dropped out of warp to a standstill surrounded by the Silirc and Indo fleets.
Immediately the fleet started receiving fire from all sides.
“Red alert” commanded Inman.
“Cerro, position us around the Connie, so she is not taking direct fire” commanded Inman.
“Set all weapons arrays to automatic and turn them loose” commanded Inman.
Instantly the sky lit up with bright flashes as the Titans weapons took out the smaller ships with great precision. The larger ships kept up the barrage focused on the Titan and her weapons arrays.
“Can you get us out of here Newman?”
“I am trying sir, the warp drive is offline.”
“I am on it” exclaimed Reeder from her console across the room.
“We are receiving massive fire from everywhere sir, the shell on the Titan is starting to collapse” reported Cerro.
“Fire control, what kind of impact are we having on them,” asked Inman
“There are too many of them, sir, we are destroying or damaging them rapidly, but we are barely making a dent in their numbers” reported the young fire control officer.
“Engage the thruster controls” Inman commanded.
“Aye sir” responded Newman.
The thrusters moved them far enough away from their attackers to stop the barrage and buy Reeder and her team time to get the warp drives back online.
“They are following us, sir, ETA about five minutes” reported Newman.
“Damage report, how are our shell’s holding up?”
“Shells on the Connie almost collapsed when we took off, the UB’s primary shell went down completely, and she took some major hits. The Titan took the brunt of the fire, our shells went down briefly but the new Dissipater armor handled the incoming fire without allowing any breaches, in fact, it wo
rked so well we did not even feel an impact. The Eagle took a ferocious bombardment as they moved into position to protect the Connie, she suffered a hull breach, and they have casualties. The shuttles did very well, no immediate damage reports. The shells will not be up to full strength by the time they catch up to us” reported Cerro.
“Evelyn, how far away can a shuttle be and still enter warp with us?”
“Only a couple of miles” she responded under her breath.
“Cerro, deploy the shuttles to the rear to try and slow them down long enough for us to get things back online. Don’t let them get out of range; we need to make sure they can jump with us, then get over the Eagle and ready her for the next wave of attacks.”
“Aye, Sir”
To the rear of the bridge, Inman watched as the quick little shuttles weaved in and out of the armada following them. They were having quite an impact as explosion after explosion registered on the rear monitors of the bridge.
“Shuttle five has been disabled sir” reported Lester Wilson the fire control officer.
“Port them out and destroy the shuttle before one of our enemy’s gets hold of it” commanded Inman.
“Already done sir” reported Wilson.
“Evelyn now is a good time!” pleaded Inman.
“Working on it Will” came her reply.
Ten minutes passed, and the valiant efforts of the shuttle crews bought them enough time to get the shell generators back online in full force but even with thrusters fully engaged they could not pull away.
The shuttles maintained their assault as the fleet once again came under fire.
“Concentrate the fleet’s fire on all lead ships and destroy each one as they take the lead” commanded Inman.
“Aye sir” replied Wilson. I have trained the focus of our arrays into a tight beam sir; it is having a major impact on targets as they instantly pierce their force fields.”
Battle Group Titan: Beyond Warp ((Battle Group Titan Series Vol 1)) Page 9