by Doug Farren
The screens of the Chroniech missiles flared and, amazingly, held. The Alliance computers quickly digested the new data, analyzed the results of the first attack, and switched tactics. Now, instead of one beam per missile, three were used. Under this assault, the missile's defense screen flared white then blinked into failure. Bright actinic flashes indicated the destruction of each enemy missile. Soon space was filled with artificial stars as the missiles were intercepted and destroyed. But, since the Alliance had to use three beams per missile, some of them were bound to get through.
The missiles were not the only threat the Alliance had to contend with. Beams of hyper-accelerated particles and pure coherent energy spat out from each Chroniech warship to strike the defense screens of the Alliance ships. The incredible power of the Chroniech weapons was dissipated in great blinding flares of raw energy.
The Chroniech were a well-organized attacking force. Acting in unison, the five ships would direct a concentrated attack upon a chosen target all the while using secondary weapons and missiles to keep the other Alliance ships busy.
Stricklen watched the first few seconds of the battle before uttering a single comment. There was little he could actually do at this point since his ship had managed to put a considerable distance between the two waring fleets. Even if he had been at the forefront, most of the combat decisions were being made by the ship's weapons control computers.
"They carry considerably more firepower than we do," Ken remarked to Doug over the open channel to CIC.
"Logistics place their weapons at about 35% more capable than ours and their shielding is rated even better. They made a tactical error though in attacking since we still have them out-gunned," Doug replied.
Stricklen was about to make another comment when an odd sensation seemed to pass through him. The feeling lasted less than a half second and felt almost as if a wave of compression had rolled through the room. At the same instant a computer screen flashed a warning and displayed a trouble-map. Simultaneously, several other stations around the bridge began to flash danger signs indicating something catastrophic had just occurred.
"Captain!" the woman sitting at the engineering station yelled out. Her hands flew over the console as she attempted to isolate and define the problem. "Indications of some sort of damage to the primary hanger bay area. Hull integrity has not been compromised. Power has been lost to several sections. A large area surrounding the hanger appears to have been damaged although no fires have been detected. There's no indication of an explosion or a weapons hit although internal sensors have picked up a large EMP of unknown origin."
Before Stricklen could reply, another voice spoke up, "Gravitational interference has terminated. We are stardrive capable," said the helm.
Ken's mind put two and two together and came up with the only obvious conclusion. He turned to face Doug's image on one of his monitors and said, "They must have tried to shutdown the stasis field and something went wrong. Doug, send a damage control team to survey the damage."
Doug's reply was masked by another report. The face of Commander Kovalesky appeared on a monitor. Without preamble he said, "Captain, the stasis chamber appears to have emitted some sort of strong EM pulse that has affected several systems. Some sort of gravitational wave also swept through the area causing some localized damage. I have one injured marine who was knocked into a bulkhead."
Stricklen took this new information and merged it with the other data he had received. He issued a rapid-fire string of orders. "Commander Kovalesky, I want as many men as you can spare to surround the hanger bay. Keep everyone clear of the area and don't allow anyone in or out. Coms, inform Fleet Commander Trisk that we are FTL capable and are setting course for Almaranus at max. CIC, drop a monitor probe — right now. Helm, bring the stardrive on-line and engage for Almaranus at all possible speed."
A chorus of acknowledgments followed and the orders were carried out. Stricklen punched a button on his console and the ship-wide address system carried his next words. "All hands, prepare for emergency transition to stardrive."
Under normal circumstances, a ship's matrix field was allowed to build up slowly, taking around 20 seconds to reach full strength. The main stardrive fields were then ramped up to power over a three second period. These times could be shortened in an emergency but the effect was quite unsettling on the crew.
Seconds later, Stricklen felt the dizziness hit him and the room spun around for a moment as the ship made the transition to stardrive. Although the dizziness quickly passed, it left behind a bad headache as a reminder of what had just happened. As the Komodo Dragon raced toward Alliance space, the rest of the fleet fought for their lives. Through the eyes and sensors of the monitor probe, Stricklen watched the battle as it progressed.
The Chroniech tactic appeared to be working to their advantage. Two Alliance ships had been destroyed and a third was being targeted while only a single Chroniech ship had been put out of commission. The enemy's screens were blazing with tortured energy but did not show any signs of weakness.
The Tholtaran master dreadnought had not yet entered the battle as it had placed itself between the smaller ships and the Komodo Dragon in order to shield Stricklen's ship from any Chroniech weapons. Now that the Dragon was gone, the dreadnought was free to engage the enemy.
As soon as it was within range, the Mobius opened fire with devastating results. Five brilliant spheres of coruscating, sparkling, spitting energy emerged from the side of the dreadnought along with hundreds of beams of pure destruction.
The spheres were a Human invention which the Tholtarans had improved upon. The technical term for the weapon was a particle-pumped soliton energy vortex. Its common name was the sledgehammer and it was one of the most destructive weapons known to Alliance science.
The secret to the sledgehammer's power resided in its unique makeup. The external shell consisted of an incredibly stable, extremely powerful rotating electromagnetic field called a soliton. Inside this soliton two counter-rotating streams of accelerated particles whirled around in closed loops. One stream consisted of protons and the other anti-protons. The spheres were accelerated and launched at relativistic speed making them virtually impossible to intercept.
The beams, which traveled at the speed of light, struck the already heavily loaded defense shields of the Chroniech ships. The shields burst into a spectacular display of deflected raw power. The three closest enemy ships took the brunt of the attack. Under the incredible power of the combined Alliance weapons, the shields of the three ships weakened and began to leak enough energy to cause the armor plating to begin to glow in spots.
The five glowing spheres reached their targets a half second later. The sledgehammers impacted the shields which disrupted the structure of their electromagnetic skeletons. The fields collapsed allowing the protons and anti-protons to combine spilling torrents of energy into and through the now over-stressed shields. Armor briefly glowed white-hot then exploded into space. As the air rushed out into the vacuum of space it carried with it the charred remains of Chroniech and other debris.
On three Chroniech ships, bulkhead after bulkhead failed to stop the relentless destruction caused by the ravening beams of focused energy. Sensing that the ship was lost, three Chroniech computers followed their heartless instructions and detonated a 200 megaton thermonuclear device built into the exact center of each ship. The result was the complete and total destruction of all but one Chroniech ship.
The last ship attempted to run but it too was destroyed as the Alliance combat computers trained their weapons on the only remaining target. It joined its companions as it became an ever-expanding cloud of debris. The entire battle, from the first shot to the final destruction, had lasted barely five minutes.
Stricklen picked up on a communication between the Mobius and one of the cruisers. "Tor-Al this is Mobius, what is your status?"
As the link was completed, Stricklen looked onto a scene of utter chaos. A Tholtaran officer could be see
n floating near what appeared to be a control console. The artificial gravity was obviously not working. Behind him small flames erupted from several panels. Two other Tholtaran's were drifting near the floor with dark red blobs floating around them. The picture was unsteady and filled with static. The entire room had a hazy, smoky appearance.
"We sustained a near hit from a missile," the officer said not really looking into the video pickup. His hands were busy working the controls on a console. "Stardrive damaged beyond repair. Main and most auxiliary reactors off-line. We have a runaway accumulator fault which I am … NO!" he said turning toward somebody out of the range of the visual pickup. "Do not cross-tie CM-eight with the main. It's not stable yet. I need you to bleed … "
The link snapped and Stricklen shifted his eyes to the visual feed from the probe. The stricken Tholtaran cruiser had a serious problem on their hands. An accumulator was a power storage device capable of absorbing tremendous amounts of energy which could then be delivered almost instantly upon demand. These devices provided the peaking power on all modern starships.
The runaway condition the officer had described told Stricklen that the accumulator was failing and could spontaneously discharge its entire complement of stored energy in a single burst. This would be the equivalent of setting off a small nuclear bomb within the ship.
Ken could see the cruiser was drifting without power. It slowly spun end-for-end. An enormous gash was visible at one location on the aft section of the ship. Gaseous vapor and bits of debris were streaming out of the hole. Several areas of armor plate still glowed a soft orange indicating spots where the Chroniech had hit them with energy beams.
As Ken watched, the entire back one-third of the ship seemed to expand. Cracks appeared in the hull and flames briefly erupted from the gaps then quickly vanished in the vacuum of space. A moment later, the entire ship exploded in a brief flash of light.
The final tally was three Alliance cruisers destroyed and two destroyers damaged verses five Chroniech warships destroyed. Sorbith ordered the Mobius to escort the Dragon back to Almaranus. What was left of the Alliance fleet would remain near the scene of the battle to conduct repairs and to salvage some of the Chroniech debris for later analysis.
Stricklen canceled battle stations and, after attending to a few items, turned over control of the bridge then made his way to the hanger bay. On his way he received a call from the bridge. "Some sort of force field has just gone up around the stasis chamber. It's very localized and has caused minimal damage." Stricklen quickened his pace; he had a long way to go since the Dragon's hanger bay was located in the aft section of the ship.
The first thing he noticed as he approached, was a marine in full combat armor standing guard near the doorway. The marine snapped to attention while maintaining a firm grip on his assault rifle. "As you were," Stricklen said. "What is your status?"
The marine settled back into a relaxed stance as he replied, "Peacekeeper Sorbith along with two others are inside. I have no information other than that."
"Very well," Stricklen replied then reached for the hatch's operating handle. As he entered the room Stricklen's eyes were drawn to the force field. It looked like a giant silver wall reflecting all incident light creating a strange, disorienting effect. Sorbith was standing with the Dragon's engineer and another individual whom he could not make out near one area of the force field.
The peacekeeper broke away and met Stricklen halfway. "So far we have been unable to analyze the force field," Sorbith said gesturing toward the silver wall. "The field structure is very complex. I have instructed your chief engineer to bring as much equipment as they need here to conduct a complete analysis of the field. What's our status?"
Stricklen looked all around the room taking in the size of the field. As he craned his neck to look at the upper portion of the force field he said, "The EMP damaged several minor systems and caused a trip of aux reactor two. Internal ship diagnostics show the force field passes through three of the ship's bulkheads. One on the deck below, one on the port side and the other just forward of the hanger. A minor power outage in an isolated area of the ship has resulted. Major systems are unaffected and we are currently on course for Almaranus at 2.8Kc. ETA — 6 days."
The silence that settled was interrupted by the chief engineer who had grown tired of being ignored and had walked over to where Stricklen and Sorbith were talking. "This is incredible!" he exclaimed. "The field structure is much finer than anything we can generate."
"Can we penetrate it?" Stricklen asked.
"Not without vaporizing a good portion of the ship," the engineer replied through a smile. "I'm not sure any of our main weapons would do the job either." Gesturing toward the silver wall he continued, "That force field is unlike anything I've ever seen before. We are dealing with a very advanced culture."
At that moment, Commander Kovalesky approached and said, "Excuse me sir, the perimeter of the force field has been secured. There are sixteen marines in full combat armor on standby at the far end of the hanger bay. Do you have any further orders?"
"No commander, well done," Stricklen replied. Turning back to Sorbith, he said, "What do we do now? Do we really know what this thing is? Are you sure we should take it all the way to Almaranus?"
Sorbith considered Stricklen's question. Almaranus was not only a strategically located planet, but it also possessed the largest spacecraft construction docks in the Alliance. The Alliance would suffer a great loss if the space-docks of Almaranus were damaged or, worse yet, destroyed.
"You have a good point," he replied. "Divert to Masfuta. During the transit I would like your crew to make all possible attempts at cracking that force field."
Stricklen was only vaguely familiar with Masfuta. He seemed to recall it was nothing more than a barren rock in space near the border between the Tholtar republic and the Rouldian sphere. He contacted the bridge and ordered the course change. The new time of arrival was now just under five days away. Stricklen then spoke to his chief engineer before retiring to his quarters.
In the privacy of his quarters, Ken pulled out an old-fashioned paper notebook and turned to the next blank page. Ever since he had been a child he had kept a hand-written personal diary. Over the years he had accumulated thousands of pages written in hundreds of books most of which were kept on a shelf in his home back on Earth. He found it enlightening to occasionally pull a book from the shelf and read it.
Pulling a pen from his desk he wrote:
5/14/22: First encounter with the Chroniech. They appear very aggressive and are a threat to the peace which the Alliance has achieved. Their ships are more advanced than ours. I fear the Alliance is in trouble and war is on the horizon. What is even more surprising is that the Chroniech know our language. This tells me they have been monitoring our communications for some time. The stasis chamber (if that is what it really is) is now in the Dragon's hanger bay surrounded by an impenetrable force field. I am worried about the fate of the those trapped inside. I have great concern about what this object is and what it contains. Why was it set adrift in space? What is in stasis? Are we about to unleash a force that can destroy us all?
Stricklen returned the diary to its place and poured himself a double rum. He took a sip and let the liquor sit on his tongue for a few seconds savoring the taste and the burning sensation. He swallowed and felt the burning move down his throat. The rum, however, did not help him shake the feeling of doom that had settled on him. He felt as if the weight of the future of the Alliance had been thrust upon his shoulders.
7 - Kyrra
The first thing the researchers had noticed once an atmosphere had been established around the stasis chamber was the deep, low frequency, undulating sound which permeated the entire chamber. The instant McCallister felt a slight click from the button under his finger this sound shifted and became a little higher in frequency — not much, but enough to be noticed.
The second thing that changed was the appearance of the spherical
shell of force. Instead of a steady, scintillating, glowing ball of energy, it now pulsed. Falnath had stopped dead in her tracks and was staring at the stasis field. A fine network of silvery, spiderweb-like filaments had formed across the surface. This network crawled like ghostly electrical sparks along the entire surface of the sphere. The pulsing sound increased until it sounded more like a hum.
Several things suddenly happened at once. The surface of the sphere wavered then seemed to expand slightly. Several lights appeared on the main control console and a low pitched alarm emanated from a hidden speaker. The field then rapidly returned to its original size. In that instant Falnath was violently pushed backward and hit the wall with considerable force. She let out a loud hiss as a shooting pain traveled up her right rear leg.
Through the pain of the impact she glanced over and saw McCallister laying in a heap against an instrument rack, a trickle of blood running down his forehead. The analyzer he had been using earlier was slowly rolling across the floor, its display blank. Keefer, who had been leaning against the side of the power converter, had slumped over but appeared to be breathing.
Falnath tested her damaged leg and found that it hurt but would carrey her weight. She ignored the pain and made her way over to McCallister, ripped the sleeve off his shirt, and used it as a makeshift bandage. While doing so she kept an eye on the stasis field.
As she watched, the intensity of the glow began to fade. The actual surface of the stasis field generator could be seen as if through a hazy tangled filamentary web. The intensity of the sound began to drop and, at the same time, the web-work began to fade. In less than a minute, only the quiescent dull gray surface of the stasis device was visible.
Falnath carefully placed a clawed finger over McCallister's juggler and felt for a pulse. Her limited knowledge of Human physiology told her that he was alive, but nothing more. Satisfied that she had done all she could for him she quickly checked her own condition.