“I don’t know,” said Calvin. “He hasn’t stopped talking long enough for us to find out anything about him.”
“Oh! Of course! We need to introduce everyone so that I can get on with my work,” said Lieutenant Finn. “I must confess to being a big fan of yours. I can’t imagine going to all of those places and doing all of those things. Of course, now I guess I will be going to new places and seeing new things, too. I just don’t know about all of those adventures. I’m not sure that my heart will be able to take it. I’m just...”
“What the hell are you talking about?” growled Night loudly. He had received a wound to his voice box earlier in his career that made his voice sound gruff at the best of times. When he was annoyed, it only got worse. Like now.
“Oh! I’m doing it again!” Lieutenant Finn said. “I just get so excited sometimes that I can’t help myself.” He turned to focus on Night. “Oh, my goodness! Lieutenant Paul Train! Now Captain Train! The man they call ‘Night.’ You singlehandedly killed 27 Ssselipsssiss onboard the Emperor’s Paw, giving you the all time record for extraterrestrials killed. The way you took down that dino-bear on Keppler-22 was nothing short of amazing, too. I just can’t imagine being in the same room with both of you.”
Night held up a hand. “Do you have a death wish?” he asked.
“No,” said Lieutenant Finn. “Why would you ask that? If anything, it would seem that you are the one that puts yourself into positions from which there is no escape, leading one to infer that—”
Night held up his hand again. “Then. Shut. Up.” Night said slowly. “Or. I. Will. Kill You. Myself.”
The threat worked; the lieutenant stopped talking.
Captain Sheppard used the pause to regain control. “I’m Captain Sheppard,” he said. “What was so important that we needed to wait for you?”
Lieutenant Finn blinked. “Didn’t anyone tell you?” he asked.
“No,” Captain Sheppard replied, “Until you got here, we didn’t even know you were coming.”
“Oh! I get it,” he said, looking around furtively. “It’s a military secret, of course. We wouldn’t want the word to get out that we’ve got it, now would we?” He looked around the room as if looking for spies.
“This ship is quite secure,” said Captain Sheppard. “Whatever it is that you’ve brought for us, you can talk about it here.”
“Really?” he asked. “Oh! OK. As promised, I’ve brought your stealth modules.”
CO’s Conference Room, TSS Vella Gulf, Earth Orbit, December 13, 2020
Realizing that it was going to take a while to get anything coherent from the lieutenant, Captain Sheppard called for the rest of his staff and seated everyone present at the conference table. While they were waiting for the rest of the officers to get there, they made small talk, and Lieutenant Finn explained his walk. He had been born with a tibial torsion, or twisted shin, and had dealt with it all of his life. Although the doctors thought they corrected it as a child, the twisted shin had been a recurring problem throughout his life. The doctors had no idea why.
When all of his officers were present, Captain Sheppard asked the newcomer, “Now, who are you, and who do you work for?” The lieutenant took a deep breath. “Slowly,” Captain Sheppard added.
“My name is Lieutenant Peter Finn,” he said, “and I am a systems engineer with the Development Section of the Office of Planning & Development (OPD).” As he looked around the table, he saw nothing but blank stares. “You haven’t ever heard of OPD?” he asked.
Everyone shook their heads. “We’ve been kind of busy,” said Captain Sheppard. “You know, fighting aliens and such. Trying to save the world.”
“Oh! Yeah, I forgot,” the lieutenant said. “It’s hard to keep up with fleet developments when you’re out of the system. Right.” He paused. “You know what Department X is, though, right?”
More blank stares. “Keep trying,” Captain Sheppard urged.
“Maybe I should start at the beginning?” the lieutenant asked.
Everyone nodded. “That would probably be helpful,” Captain Sheppard agreed.
“When the fleet was formed,” explained Lieutenant Finn, “Admiral Wright realized that we were going to need a unit that looked at the new alien technology and tried to figure out how it could be made to work for us, so he created Department X. Its main mission is to exploit all of the alien technology that we acquire.” He smiled. “On behalf of Department X, I would like to thank you for bringing back so many new toys for us to play with.” More blank stares.
“Don’t you know what you’ve done for Terra?” Lieutenant Finn asked, disbelief in his voice.
“Well, let’s see,” said Calvin. “We’ve brought back a couple of ships and a couple of replicators. I guess the ships have new weapons and systems, stuff like that?”
“No,” said Lieutenant Finn. “No, no, no, no, no. That’s not it at all. Let’s take the replicator on the moon. What does it do?”
“It makes our space fighters and shuttles,” said Calvin. “I know Replicator Command also uses it to make some of our stuff if it’s too big to be made in the replicator onboard. But it’s only good for making things that it has a blueprint for in its data banks; you can’t just think of things and get it to make them.”
Lieutenant Finn was aghast. “Oh! Has no one ever told you...” he wondered. Finally, he slapped his forehead with his palm. “Sorry, I forgot, military security again. I’m still new to all of this military stuff. I only completed MIT a couple of months ago.” He paused and pursed his lips. “Do any of you know how many blueprints the Class 2 replicator has in its data banks? Anyone?”
“A couple hundred?” Calvin asked.
Lieutenant Finn shook his head. “A couple of hundred million, maybe. We’re still counting and categorizing. It may be a billion. It may be more. The bigger replicator, the one that can make a battleship, has billions of blueprints inside, and they are all state-of-the-art. It has the blueprints for all of the pieces to make a super dreadnought, if you wanted to take the time to assemble something three miles long. It would probably be easier to make the pieces for a Class 8 replicator, put the replicator together, and then have it make the super dreadnought. At least that way, you could make more super dreadnoughts if you wanted...and if you had all of the materials required. The Planning Section of OPD is working on how to do that; you’d have to ask them about it.” He stopped talking, having lost his original point.
“So, we brought back lots of things for you to play with?” Calvin prompted.
“Oh! Absolutely,” Lieutenant Finn said. “We have been going through the data banks trying to find things that we need or could use. When I read your last mission report, I got interested in the stealth fighters that took out the Ssselipsssiss battleship. Cool stuff, right? I wanted to be the person to figure that out, and they normally let the smart ones pick out their own projects to run with.”
Lieutenant Finn did seem smart, thought Calvin, even if he didn’t appear to have the common sense of most farm animals. “So, did you figure out the whole stealth thing?” Calvin prompted.
“Well, sort of, mostly,” said Lieutenant Finn. “It involved a lot of new concepts and technology that our science had never come up with, and probably wouldn’t have for some time. It’s going to be really hard to explain. I barely understand it, so I’m pretty sure that you won’t. Sorry. No offense. I’ll try, though. Do you all understand the concepts of matter and energy?”
Everyone’s heads nodded. At a basic level, that information was simple physics that had been downloaded to everyone as part of their basic implant package.
“Ok, so matter is the stuff that everything is made of, right?” Lieutenant Finn asked. Seeing heads nodding he continued, “Energy, however, is a property that matter has. The same amount of matter can have different amounts of energy, which lets it exist in different states. Water vapor, water and ice are the same matter, just with different amounts of energy. Are you with me
so far?”
Heads nodded again. So far, pretty basic stuff.
“OK,” said Lieutenant Finn, “here’s where it gets complicated. Energy is more of a relative concept, and scientists always speak of energy values as being ‘positive’ in nature. In the past, they have always eliminated solutions that gave rise to negative energies as unphysical. Even though there is antimatter, no one ever thought that the existence of antimatter implied the existence of anti-energy. But it’s there and it exists, even if it shouldn’t.”
“I’m not saying that I understand that,” Calvin said, “because my brain doesn’t understand how you can create anti-energy, but what I’d like to know is what happens when you get energy and anti-energy together. Matter and antimatter don’t mix well together.”
Lieutenant Finn clapped his hands happily. “See! That’s just it. You’ve given me some wonderful toys! No one knows what happens. The stealth modules generate some sort of anti-energy that absorbs energy directed at it. The combination of energy and anti-energy ought to blow up, or react, or do something, but all we’ve been able to determine is that the two just vanish. Perhaps they blow up in an anti-universe? I don’t know. All I know is that the stealth module works.”
“We’re happy to have made your life a little better,” interrupted Night. “Are you getting to the point where I give a shit about theoretical physics? How does this help me kill Drakuls?”
“Oh! Help you kill Drakuls?” asked Lieutenant Finn, looking puzzled. “It doesn’t help you kill anything.”
“Then please tell me,” growled Night even more dangerously, “why the fuck are you wasting my time?”
“I’m here to help you get where you need to go,” said Lieutenant Finn.
“How are you going to do that?” asked Captain Sheppard.
“I figured out how to adapt the fighter stealth modules to work for a cruiser-sized ship. I’m going to make you invisible.”
Bridge, TSS Vella Gulf, Earth Orbit, December 16, 2020
Captain Sheppard looked at the black Bengal tiger’s face on the view screen. “We’re finally ready to go,” he said. “How are things coming over there?”
“We are just finishing up,” replied Captain Yerrow. “We are sending your Lieutenant Finn back over in a shuttle. Although he was very helpful, I have to ask, does he ever stop talking?”
“Very rarely,” Captain Sheppard replied with a grin.
“We will be ready to go in a few minutes,” said Captain Yerrow. “Before we go, we had an idea that we wanted to discuss with you.”
“What is it?” Captain Sheppard asked.
“We were looking at the star charts,” Captain Yerrow replied, “and there are two ways to go after we reach Epsilon Eridani. One way is longer but safe; the other way is shorter, but it goes through Ssselipsssiss space. We were originally going to go the long way around to get to Grrrnow, but it is much quicker if we go the other way. We didn’t think it worth mentioning previously because of the danger of running the Ssselipsssiss blockade. With the new stealth modules, though, we think that going through Ssselipsssiss space is the better option.”
“Why’s that?” Captain Sheppard asked.
“Well, not only is that way much shorter and faster,” explained Captain Yerrow, “but going that way also allows us to find out what forces the Ssselipsssiss have on the other side of the stargate from the system that the Mrowry control. The intelligence gained could be extremely valuable in planning our nation’s strategy. It may be that this info could permit my father to send ships to your aid.”
“If that’s the case,” Captain Sheppard replied after a few seconds of thought, “then we need to try it.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” Captain Yerrow agreed. “We can discuss it further as we go. Emperor’s Paw, out.” The front screen went black and then changed to show the Earth.
Captain Sheppard stared at the picture on the screen. It would be a while until he saw that view again, he thought while he digested what he had just heard...if ever.
Captain Sheppard turned to Calvin. “Do you have all of your folks aboard?”
Calvin nodded. “I do,” he said. “Our newest member, Lieutenant Jiang Fang, shuttled up about an hour ago, along with the rest of the replacements. We’ll have to get him his implants while we’re underway, but I checked, and we have the supplies available.”
“How did you get the Chinese to join the world government?” asked Captain Sheppard. “How did you even get a meeting with their president? I thought they withdrew from the world’s politics. Did you just take a shuttle down and land in Beijing?”
“Umm, I’d really rather not talk about that, sir,” Calvin replied. “Let’s just say I made a few calls and leave it at that.”
“And you’re sure about bringing Steropes?”
“No, I’m not,” said Calvin. “He’s changed since he found out about the Drakuls capturing his home world. He seems angry, and yet he’s worried about making things right. Those two things are a dangerous combination.”
“You think he wants to go kill Drakuls?” asked Captain Sheppard.
“Without a doubt,” said Calvin. “Wouldn’t you? What I’m more worried about is that he wants to get himself killed in the process. I don’t mind him dying that much; I’m more worried about having someone with a death wish in my platoon. When they go, they usually take out the people around them.”
Squadron CO’s Office, TSS Vella Gulf, Stargate #2, December 16, 2020
“Knock, knock,” said a female voice from the door. Calvin looked up to see a Royal Air Force (RAF) Lieutenant Commander that he didn’t know standing at the door. He looked at her uniform and saw that the woman was a Weapons Systems Officer (WSO).
“Can I help you?” Calvin asked.
“Actually, I’m here to help you,” said the officer, her voice full of quiet competence. “My name is Lieutenant Commander Sarah Brighton. I’m your new XO.”
Calvin stood up and offered his hand. Calvin found himself looking nearly eye-to-eye with her; she nearly matched his six feet. “Good to have you here,” he said, “the circumstances notwithstanding. I’ve heard lots of good things about you.”
“They’re all lies,” said the newcomer with a smile. “The truth is far worse.”
“Well it is good to have you,” said Calvin. “I didn’t think you’d make it in time.”
“I was lucky enough to catch the last shuttle up,” the officer replied. “I also brought the last of the replacements with me.” She indicated several people standing in the passageway outside Calvin’s office. The first two people he could see looked identical.
“Aw, crap,” Calvin said looking at the pair of flight-suited officers. “I’ve already got one set of twins in the platoon that drives me crazy. Please tell me we didn’t get another set.”
“OK,” replied Lieutenant Commander Brighton. “We didn’t get another set of twins. Those two are cousins; they just look alike. They do have the same name, though, Paul Mees. One of them goes by “Rob” to keep things simple.”
“Which one is that?” asked Calvin.
“Damned if I know,” replied the XO. “There are two others,” she added. “The first is Lieutenant Brett Dylan Fox, our last WSO. He’s RAF, too. He started out his career in admin and ended up on the staff of an aviator. The general got him a shot at taking the aviation test, and he aced it. He’s never looked back, having been a test pilot in both jets and helicopters. The other person is Lieutenant Matthew Kamins, our last pilot. I don’t know a lot about him, other than he’s from the German Navy.”
“We’re all set then,” replied Calvin. “The squadron’s got all of the personnel that it is supposed to. With the addition of the extra days, Replicator Command was even able to make us a replacement Asp fighter to take the spot of the one the Drakuls blew up. I don’t know how they did it, but we’re deploying with a full squadron.”
Bridge, TSS Vella Gulf, Stargate #2, December 16, 2020
; The stargate loomed in front of the ship, a giant mass of nothingness. Made from two black holes that had been linked together by an ancient civilization, it transferred a ship from one place to another instantly...or as close to instantly as anyone had ever been able to prove. No one knew how they worked, and only one person had ever been close to figuring them out. He wasn’t telling; he had died when Drakuls came through the semi-functioning gate that he had created.
Captain Sheppard looked at the gate on the view screen. Terra stood alone against a tide of Drakuls, and its only hope was for him to find and bring back aid. No pressure there.
Captain Sheppard was first and foremost a naval officer, and the U.S. Navy had a long tradition of getting the mission done...somehow. It wasn’t always pretty, but naval officers always figured out a way in the end. From everything he had heard as mission prep, though, it looked like this mission had more riding on it than any other mission in naval history...as well as the smallest chance for success. Terra needed aid from the Mrowry, but even their crown prince thought it unlikely they would get any. They might get aid from the Archons...but they were an unknown race that owed them nothing. That seemed like a long shot, too. According to both the Mrowry and Steropes, there wasn’t anyone else close by to ask. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. They’d find a way. They had to.
Time to get the show on the road. “Sound General Quarters!” he ordered. Also called “battle stations,” the General Quarters announcement was made to signal that battle or the threat of damage was imminent. When the call was made, the crew would report to their combat stations and would close the ship’s airtight and fireproof doors to keep any potential damage from spreading. Since the first stargate transit the Vella Gulf made under Captain Deutch, it had become standard practice to set General Quarters prior to transit, as well as to man up all of the space fighters. You never knew what was waiting for you on the other side of the gate.
Theogony 3: Terra Stands Alone Page 6