Solbidyum Wars Saga 5: Desolation

by Dale C. Musser

“Hopefully by tomorrow noon; I’m pretty sure that Kendrop and Gochian will accept the deal. You might want to get someone to start drawing up papers of agreement for everyone to sign.”

  On arrival at our suite, we discovered that Jenira had returned with the twins. I was still intrigued that while Jenira didn’t speak, the twins seemed to understand her and even tried to mimic some of her signs.

  “Have you noticed that both Lunnie and Reidecor try to mimic Jenira’s signs rather than trying to speak?” I asked.

  “I don’t think it’s that they don’t try to speak. I think it’s more likely that their ability to speak develops slower than their physical dexterity. Both Lunnie and Reidecor sign “No” but neither one of them says it even though they understand what it means. Besides, it’s still early for them to be learning to talk. The closest either of them gets to a word is Lunnie with her “bop” when she hits you on the nose. Reidecor just makes noises and laughs.”

  On seeing us, Jenira asked if Kala was home for the rest of the day or if she would be leaving again. Kala asked her if there was something Jenira needed to do and she nervously replied that she “sort of had plans, but that if needed” she would be able to stay. Kala looked at me and grinned and said to Jenira that she was pretty sure one of us would be home the rest of the day and that she was free to go. Jenira practically ran out of the room.

  “Do you think she has a date with Padaran?” I asked.

  “Judging by the nervousness, and look in her eye, when she ran out of here it must be something like that,” Kala chuckled.

  I looked down to find Reidecor standing at my feet holding two parts of a toy up to me. “What do you need, son,” I asked. “You want that put together?” I took the pieces and screwed them together in a locked position and handed them to Reidecor. He examined the pieces a minute and then unscrewed them and handed them back with a big smile. “Oh I see,” I said, “this is some sort of a game.” For the next couple of minutes, I put the toy together and Reidecor took it apart. I looked across the room to see Kala and Lunnie sitting on the floor and Kala playing with Lunnie with a small doll. It was the first doll I had seen since I had been in the federation or at least that I was aware of seeing. Kala was busy dressing the dolls and Lunnie would take them as soon as Kala finished and undress them again.

  “Mother said that when my sister was small she was always undressing her dolls like this.” Kala said casually. “I always wanted my dolls clothed. What were you like as a boy, Tib? Were you like Reidecor, taking things apart?”

  “I really don’t remember,” I said, “I do remember my grandmother once saying I took my grandfather’s lawn mower apart with tools I found in the garage. I was about 8 or 9 at the time. I honestly don’t remember it, and I don’t think I really took it all apart. I think I may have just removed a few parts. I doubt I would have been strong enough to take the whole thing apart.”

  While I was talking, Lunnie succeeded in undressing another of her dolls and held it up for me to see.

  “It certainly seems our children have developed the skill for taking things apart,” I said as I noticed Lunnie had now decapitated one of her dolls and was holding the two pieces up to me to put them together.

  The following day was the day I had scheduled to meet with the fleet commanders. Rather than have them come to the DUSTEN, I decided we should meet on Admiral Kophious’ flagship, the GRANHAUER, with the Third Fleet, as this would provide me an opportunity to see how prepared they were to deal with the Brotherhood in a major engagement. I was impressed with what I saw; Kophious was a by the book man, and everything was spotless and efficient. His crew was attentive to detail and performed their tasks with a skill and discipline that only came from a long and continued practice.

  Once we had settled in the conference room, and foccee had been set out for everyone, I asked for an update on activities in the sector.

  “Things have been abnormally quiet as far as detectable communications between the Brotherhood ships,” Kophious reported. ”However, our cloaked scout ships that we have doing recognizance in the old sector, that once was part of the Federation, are reporting a lot of ship activity. There are a number of troop transports and corvettes that have parked themselves at worlds under Brotherhood control along the border, and they just seem to be sitting there waiting.”

  “That would support our idea that this sector is in line for their next major offensive. We need to keep an eye on those ships, and once they start moving we need to be ready for action.

  “What can you tell me about the large Cantolla gate that is being set up here in your sector, Admiral?” I asked.

  Kophious smiled, “My crew just finished it up last night, and we’re all ready to test it. I had them hold off until you arrived so you could see the results for yourself.”

  “I think it would be good if Cantolla were here on this end and A’Lappe on the other to witness this and to make sure all is in order,” I said.

  “We’ve already seen to that. Cantolla is down in our lab waiting my signal to turn the unit on at this end and then A’Lappe will give orders to the patrol ship at his end to move through the gate,” Kophious replied.

  “Well, what are we waiting for then? Let’s see if this thing works.”

  Kophious activated a vid screen and then called to Cantolla via his com link and told her to go ahead and activate the system. On the screen, we could see the three patrol ships that each formed the nodes for the Cantolla gate. Suddenly, the stars inside the invisible frame formed by the three ships changed, and we could see a fourth patrol ship nearly centered inside the frame. The ship moved slowly in our direction until it was obvious that it was past the node ships, when a message came through from Cantolla in the lab. “Admiral, the ship is through the gate and now is in Sector 3. The transition was a success.” A round of cheers went up around the table, but it was soon cut short by Cantolla’s voice coming over the com. “Sir, we have a problem. The patrol ship’s navigation system seems to have been damaged in the transition, as it is unable to orient itself and is lost.”

  “Excuse me, Cantolla,” I interrupted, “but I seem to recall that when we first used the RMFF on the NEW ORLEANS that it knocked out the navigation system, and I recall Kerabac and A’Lappe explaining to me how the system operated on the detection of gravity signatures and other signals from stars to position itself. As a ship flies, the computer tracks and adjusts based on these star signatures to determine location, when you move through a gate, wouldn’t that change abruptly and confuse the computer? I mean, all its reference points are gone, and now it has to start searching through its data bases to find several stars it recognizes and then recalculate where it is.”

  “You’re right, Tibby,” Cantolla said, “if I have the crew on the patrol ships identify the nearest star for the computer, it should be able to almost instantly find other nearby known stars and re-establish its location. Hold on a moment.” There was a pause of about five minutes and then Cantolla came back, “It worked. Once they identified the nearest star for the computer, it instantly reset itself and now is functioning properly. I’ll get with A’Lappe and see if we can’t figure out some way to automate that so the ships' computers will do it automatically in the future.”

  “How soon can we start bringing more ships through?” I asked Cantolla.

  “A’Lappe and I would like to have about a day to check everything out and make sure there are no problems we’ve missed, but after that I think you should be able to start moving ships through it right away.”

  “Good! Gentlemen,” I said, addressing everyone in the room, “I think we may just be able to give the Brotherhood a huge and shocking surprise when they arrive here.”

  Over the next three days, hundreds of ships were sent through the Cantolla gates from Sector 1 and situated in strategic locations in Sector 3 near where we anticipated the Brotherhood offensive would begin. Back at Kendrop and Gochian an agreement had been reached, and advisers from Nibari
a were on hand to assist them in setting up a repair facility to refurbish and repair the HAPRIN. The NEW ORLEANS was still speeding its way toward Mars to set up Cantolla gates there for the androids to make their transition, and I had given orders to Kerabac that as soon as the gates were set up, he was to go to Earth’s Moon and set up Cantolla gates there for the transfer of prisoners.

  I was just about to believe we had misjudged Ming’s intent to attack in Sector 3, when the word came in from one of the patrol ships that enemy ships were assembling near one of the planets currently under Brotherhood control. A few hours later a second patrol ship in yet another area reported Brotherhood ships assembling there as well, and then to our shock, a third patrol ship called in reporting a third collection of ships assembling at yet another location. A quick check of the star charts indicated that the spot in the middle of all their assembly points was the planet Spellhes, a rich and densely populated world located in a keystone position in Sector 3. If the Brotherhood were to gain control of this world, they would have a strong grip on over half that sector, and it could ultimately result in the Federation having to abandon the entire sector. From where most of our ships were currently located in that area, it would take us about the same amount of time as the Brotherhood to reach Splelhes. Our advantage would be that they didn’t know we were in the area.

  “Admiral Kophious, get your ships to Spellhes at maximum speed. I want all ships to remain cloaked and ready for action. I’m going to bring the DUSTEN over from Sector 2. I want Admiral Stonbersa to stay in Sector 1, but I am asking him to order the starship SALNA from Sector 1 to join us here. Cantolla and A’Lappe just managed to get their large gate up and operating today. I want to deploy as many of our mirage fighters and patrol ships out there as we can. We’ll wait until the Brotherhood has dispatched most of their patrol ships, transports and what mirage fighters they have before we open fire. When we do, we need to focus on the hangars; their shields will be down while they launch, and if we hit them hard from several ships firing at once we can do severe damage to their hangars before they can get their RMFF’s up. After that, they won’t be capable of launching any more ships, and they won’t be able to retrieve any, either.

  We'll need the starships to block fire from their starships against the planet, but that means we will be close enough to concentrate fire on their hangar areas. I do not believe all of their smaller ships have cloaking devices yet, so we’ll focus our fighters and patrol ships targeting those. They don't have fusion reactors powerful enough to power their RMFF’s, so any ship they haven’t acquired from the Federation will not have shielding. We need to do as much damage to them as we can.”

  “Shouldn’t we alert the people on Spellhes what is going on?” Kophious asked?

  “I wish we could,” I answered, “but I’m pretty sure the Brotherhood has operatives on Spellhes, who would alert them of the trap before they ever got close to the planet. No, I’m afraid we need to keep this as quiet as possible, as long as we can. I want Ming and his cohorts to get burned really hard on this attack. Maybe it will scare them off for a while. We need to wreak as much havoc on them as we can, and then all at once reveal our ships for just about 15 seconds, long enough so they can see the extent of ships we have here and then quickly cloak again and rip back into them. Who knows, maybe we’ll scare them enough that they will mutiny and hang Ming and Roritat.”

  After the meeting adjourned I returned to the DUSTEN and sat down with Kala to have a talk. “Kala, I think you and the twins should transfer over to the NEW ORLEANS until after this battle at Spellhes is over. While the DUSTEN should be safe with the RMFF, there is no telling what might happen, and I know the NEW ORLEANS is safely on its way to Mars right now. We can still conveniently pass through the Cantolla gates to see each other, so it’s almost the same as being on the same ship, but should something go wrong I want to know you and the twins are safe.”

  “Tib, what could go wrong?” Kala asked, “the DUSTEN has an RMFF and a cloaking device. It’s about as safe as one can get.”

  “The HAPRIN had a cloaking device and an RMFF as well, and look at it now,” I said.

  “That’s different, Tibby. You tricked them.”

  “And before that the Brotherhood tricked them, which is how they got the ship in the first place. What makes you think they can’t trick us? Look at what happened to the NEW ORLEANS on the way back from Earth when we had a Brotherhood ship explode in our hangar. We may have good defenses on these ships, Kala, but we are not fool proof. I want; no, I need, to know you and the twins are safe when we go into this conflict. This is probably going to be the biggest battle the Federation has fought in 600 years, so for the sake of the kids, please take them to the NEW ORLEANS, at least until the battle is over.”

  Kala thought a minute and then said, “I’ll agree on one condition. You must come over every day and spend just a few minutes with the twins, and so I can see you.”

  “Agreed,” I said, and I kissed her.

  I awakened early the next morning by my com link buzzing, “Tibby here,” I mumbled, still half asleep.

  “Admiral,” I recognized Marranalis’s voice, “A’Lappe says he needs to see you immediately. He claims he has something that will help the Federation immensely in future battles with the Brotherhood. He wants you to meet him on the bridge of the NEW ORLEANS in 30 minutes. What do you want me to tell him?”

  “Tell him I’ll be there,” I answered. “Meet me at the Cantolla gate in about 25 minutes; I want you there, too. Hopefully, what he has planned won’t take that long, because I am hungry. That reminds me, tell Piesew that Kala and the twins will be moving back to the NEW ORLEANS today. Oh, and see if he can prepare something for us to eat when we finish with A’Lappe.”

  I showered quickly and got into a fresh uniform. Marranalis was waiting at the Cantolla gate when I arrived with my parade of guards. If ever there was an incentive to end a war early, getting rid of the ever present guards was on the top of my list.

  “Any idea what A’Lappe has for us that is so urgent?” I asked as we passed through the Cantolla gate over into the NEW ORLEANS.

  “No, sir,” Marranalis responded, “he wouldn’t say.”

  Moments later, we arrived at the bridge of the NEW ORLEANS and entered, to be greeted by Captain Kerabac, A’Lappe, Cantolla and Padaran.

  Once greetings had been made, I said, “All right, what’s this all about?”

  Captain Kerabac looked at A’Lappe, who then stepped forward and began. “First Citizen, as you are aware of the technology of the cloaking device, and the RMFF has fallen into the hands of the Brotherhood. So far, they have not been able to master implementing RMFF technology on their ships and have it only on starships they gained from the Federation. Most likely their inability to replicate the RMFF’s for their other ships are due to their lack of adequate power sources, however, they have managed to replicate cloaking for most of their ships. Which means in a battle you don’t know where they are to target them. For our purposes, we have implemented coded beacons for our own ships and crews, so we can see and track them on screen and avoid colliding with or shooting down our own ships, but we’re blind as far as seeing cloaked enemy ships. That is, until now,” he said with a grin.

  “Captain Kerabac, if you would please, tell the patrol ship that we see on the vid screen to cloak.” Moments later, the ship vanished from view, only to be replaced on the screen by a red blip with a coded number by it. “What you see there is our typical beacon to let us know the ship is there, and that it is one of ours. Now, Captain, if you would be so kind, ask the patrol ship to turn off their beacon. A moment later, the red blip and code vanished from the screen leaving only a blank view of space on the screen. “Now, watch this,” A’Lappe said with a huge grin. He entered a few commands into the control console and suddenly a green colored image of the ship appeared on the screen. It was a bit fuzzy on the edges, but you could clearly see it was a patrol ship.

  “Wh
at the?” Kerabac muttered.

  “How’d you do that, A’Lappe?” I asked in amazement.

  “A’Lappe grinned and blinked his eyes. “I realized that while the cloaking device blocks every sort of radiation we know of, it doesn’t block gravity. What you are seeing is the ship's mass in terms of gravity. The cloaking device can’t mask that. All I had to do was rewrite the software for the ship's gravity sensors that are used for the navigation system, and you can see the results. If we turn the identification beacon on again; Captain Kerabac, if you would kindly ask them to turn it back on please, you will see that you now both see the ship and its identification marker. By this means we can see all cloaked ships and still identify ours from the enemy.”

  “That’s incredible, A’Lappe!” I exclaimed, “is there any way we can keep the enemy from getting this technology if they manage to capture one of our ships with it?”

  A’Lappe’s chin dropped and he looked crestfallen, “I’m afraid not, Tibby. The first time they manage to capture one of our ships with this software, they will be able to use it.”

  “So it’s only a short term technical advantage for us,” I said.

  “I fear so,’ A’Lappe responded, “but the Brotherhood will be completely at your mercy with any unshielded cloaked ships they have out there. A software update can be performed on all your Federation ships very quickly, and if the intel from the FSO is correct, merely about one-quarter of the Brotherhood ships once belonged to the Federation and then only the star ships had RMFF’s. In your upcoming battle that means that at least 75% of the enemy ships are vulnerable while the Federations ships are untouchable, invisible, or both.”

  “A’Lappe, if you are right this could be a major turning point in this war with the Brotherhood,” I said, and A’Lappe beamed.

  When Marranalis and I arrived at my suite aboard the NEW ORLEANS, Kala and the twins were already back aboard. Lunnie was fascinated by the glass-enclosed atrium in the middle of it and had managed to smudge the glass at numerous locations as she pressed her nose and hands against it looking at the plants inside. “She absolutely loves the plants,” Kala said, “she must take after my mother in her love for botany.”