by D. R. Rosier
The orders were to take them alive if possible, but return any fire with deadly force, or if it looked like they were going to escape. He turned on his night vision as the driver killed the headlights. As they turned into where the field was he caught a glimpse of tail lights taking the next turn.
The Lieutenant said, “They’re running! Stay sharp.”
He did his best to maintain balance as they went off road and into a canyon. They had eyes on the target now; he was maybe a quarter mile ahead. It looked like a dead end was coming up, and then there was a flash of light. The night vision cut off to protect his eyes and when it cut back in he could hardly believe his eyes.
“FIRE! Don’t just sit there!” the lieutenant screamed.
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Kris had figured the best defense was simply not being there. It had only taken a few moments for both of them to get into the truck and take off.
Kris said tensely, “I don’t see anyone coming.”
Aide replied, “Their headlights are turned off, they are using night vision.”
He cursed under his breath. Of course they were. Discharged for a couple of days and he was already thinking like a civilian. He was about to follow the road around and back down the mountain when Aide stopped him.
“Turn left here into that ravine and follow it to the end.”
He questioned his instant obedience when the truck started to bounce all over the place, he could barely keep a grip on the steering wheel. After about a mile a bright light lit up the sky.
“Stop underneath.”
His jaw dropped at what he saw, it looked like a… well a flying saucer. It was big, and it glowed white on the bottom. He only got a quick look at it, and then he hit the brakes and came to a stop.
He asked a little tensely, “What now?”
He started hearing gunshots.
“Don’t worry, we are within the shield.”
Then the last thing he ever expected happened, his truck started to rise from the ground and up into an opening on the bottom of the huge saucer. He rose into what looked like a flight deck of some kind. There were a handful of very small craft about the size of a car. They were moved over to an empty place and he could see the hatch closing.
He looked over at Stacey and felt better at the look of awe on her face rather than fear.
“Can you get us out of here, anywhere really.”
Aide replied, “Yes, one moment… … We are now cloaked and in low Earth orbit.”
He grunted, “That was fast.”
They got out of the truck and Stacey came over and dug into his side and leaned against him.
Aide asked, “Would you like a tour?”
Stacey replied in a weak voice, “Sure… Why not?”
Instead of her walking them around the ship, he felt his head start to tingle and everything he would need to know about the ship started to fill his mind. It was a lot less uncomfortable the second time around. He almost laughed at the idea the tour was virtual.
The ship was fairly large, much larger Aide informed them than the fighting vessels, although this command vessel would be very capable of fighting as well. There were three main levels in the saucer, as well as one smaller level above and below. The top level was basically crew quarters, meeting rooms, and a few labs. The bottom level encompassed labs, the flight deck, and various storage holds. The center level around the outer ring had additional storage, spare parts, a kitchen of sorts and ten executive suites for the command staff.
In the center ring was both the bridge and engineering, surrounded by secondary shields as well as extremely thick shielding. It wasn’t like in the movies, the two most important areas were the ones best protected.
He was curious about seeing the bridge, and engineering, though the latter was fully automated by both bots under Aide’s control as well as billions of nanites to maintain the ship in perfect order. But he had to admit he was exhausted. As for the dimensions the saucer had a circumference of a thousand feet and was just over a hundred feet tall at the center.
He asked Stacey, “Do you want to check out the bridge, or find us a room?”
Stacey smiled but raised an eyebrow, “Are we sharing when there are ten executive rooms? Are you asking me to move in with you?”
He was brought up short by that but saw her lips twitching and felt a little better. Actually he hadn’t even considered the idea that she wouldn’t be staying with him in a room.
He could play too, so he said in a strong military command voice, “We talked about this already, I’m taking you with me woman.”
Stacey hated overbearing men but the way he said that made her core tingle in desire. Yes… he could take her anywhere he wanted. She did her best to play it off though. She didn’t want him to know exactly how much she was under his power.
“I suppose that would be okay,” she tried for a teasing tone but it came out more than a little breathlessly.
She gasped when he slapped her butt playfully and took her hand. He led her to the lift and up a deck and straight to the Captain’s suite. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. The rest of the ship the walls were a metallic silver color with the floor and ceiling being a luminescent white. There were no light bulbs or fixtures, the entire floor and ceiling seemed to generate a soft uniform light that was easy on the eyes.
When they entered the suite they both stopped for a moment before walking through the place. The suite hadn’t been part of the download, and a part of him suspected Aide left it out on purpose to surprise him. They had walked into what looked like a living room. It had leather couches, a large screen television and what looked like a stereo.
There was a small nook in the corner with a sink and he saw what amounted to a replicator according to his new memories. It wasn’t immediate, but it could put out a meal in just a few minutes, or a cup of coffee in about thirty seconds.
The bathroom had multiple shower heads and a whirlpool tub. It was tiled and even had a throw rug in front of the double sinks. Another side room looked like a miniature board room with another large television. Lastly there was the bedroom.
There was a king size bed, oak dresser, and oak bed frame. He saw an open wooden door that looked like a closet. About the only thing that didn’t make it look like a normal human bedroom were the luminescent lights on the ceiling, although the floor looked like hardwood.
It was lacking the personal touches of a bedroom, but it didn’t look like a hotel room either.
Aide asked a little nervously, “Do you like it?”
He was speechless but Stacey said, “It’s wonderful Aide, thank you. What about the lights though? Why no lamps?”
They both felt a mental shrug followed by, “It has to do with health. The luminescence is as good as sun light, it takes more than just artificial gravity and radiation shielding to keep a human well in both mind and body. These lights will serve the same purpose as the light of the sun, without the harmful UV rays of course.”
He said softly, “Thanks Aide, it’s all great, and the rest of the ships are on schedule?”
Aide replied, “Yes Captain.”
He asked, “Captain?”
Aide said, “It is appropriate, now that you have taken command of the command ship.”
He frowned, he understood the need for military discipline, but his only subordinate was Aide and he didn’t see the point in this case. She felt more like a friend to him than anything else; he wondered if that was a foolish thought.
Regardless he said, “Please continue calling me Kris.”
Aide replied, “Okay.”
He asked, “How about those three people, have you chosen them yet?”
Aide replied, “Yes, I have three top candidates.”
One of the walls turned into a monitor and it showed three pictures. One was a woman his age who was quite attractive, the second was a few years older than him, and if anything even more exotically beautiful. The last was a seventy year old man.
If it wasn’t for the latter, he’d have thought she picked the most attractive females she could find.
He noticed Stacey didn’t appear very happy looking at the women on the screen. While a primitive part of him preened at the jealousy she showed he knew that could be a problem. Besides, she had nothing to worry about, he was hers.
He said slowly, “Umm, Aide, how did you select these people?”
Aide replied, “Using the parameters for what we require. First, we needed someone intelligent and educated enough to get a grip on the current technology, one for shields, one for weapons, and one for power generation. I came up with many possibilities and added additional parameters. The first I added was no family, we can’t afford to take a husband and wife away from a family, and I am not prepared to bring families aboard.
“Two, I read their doctoral thesis looking for certain qualities. After that I still had too many, so I looked for those that the academic community does not take very seriously and are working outside the field they love despite their brilliance, in the assumption they would be easier to recruit. Does that answer your questions?”
He nodded. He understood the two beautiful women now; no man would take them seriously in the scientific community. They looked more like naughty librarians than intellectual geniuses. He just hoped that wouldn’t cause a problem, he obviously thought they were attractive, but he really wasn’t interested in that. He was relieved to see Stacey didn’t look all that jealous anymore, if anything she looked angry on their behalf. I was sure she ran into similar problems, she was gorgeous.
Stacey asked, “So when will we start recruiting? We only have what, little less than twelve days?”
Aide replied, “That is true, but at the same time not. We probably have close to a month, I am on target for building our fleet and barring unforeseen circumstances it should be sufficient for the first thirty scouts. It is the follow up waves that will become an issue.”
He frowned, “So dumb it down for me Aide, how does this technology work exactly.”
Aide was silent for a few seconds, “You understand nuclear reactions? It creates heavy particles and frees massive amounts of energy. Also, we have quantum connections, much like the spooky action at a distance your current understanding of quantum physics employs, except we know how to bridge a connection.”
A picture of the sun appeared on the screen.
Aide continued, “This is our reactor. Your sun. In layman’s terms what we do is open multiple quantum connections into the sun itself. This connection, or many connections, actually streams plasma through millions of small conduits on the ship, and then ejects it back to the sun through a reverse quantum connection. These quantum connections are limitless in range, we could be across the known universe and the power from your sun would still be at the same strength.
“Some of our systems directly tap into the plasma, such as our reaction engines which generates movement through gravity. Our weapons systems also directly tap the plasma and in essence eject it toward the enemy. The plasma balls are protected inside a shield that resonates and is attracted to enemy shields and ships, so it can change course even after being fired.
“Obviously it is much more involved than that, but I don’t believe you could fully understand it, not without years of schooling to explain the knowledge download. Humans are just as intelligent as Alions on the scale; you just lack teaching, not smarts.
“Some of our systems use coils to collect energy from the many plasma streams circling the outside bulkheads of the ship. Plasma streams generate strong magnetic fields. The shields are one such system, where the plasma is just incompatible to what we want, but the magnetic field isn’t. Our FTL drive runs that way as well. Even the luminescent lighting of the floor and ceiling are just elements mixed with the metal that reacts with a magnetic field and produce the light.”
He grunted kind of following, but mostly not.
Stacey asked curiously, “Is there a reason the ship is saucer shaped?”
Aide replied, “Yes, the magnetic fields need to be as uniform as possible in the ship. The plasma running in millions of perfect circles ensure a stable and uniform magnetic field. If the ship was shaped more square, the magnetic field would be… snarled at the corners.”
Aide giggled at her comparison, “Although other shapes are possible, this one is the most efficient. The fighters for example are smaller, so we make them tubes. The equations and specs are tighter, but we can run the plasma in many small circles, like millions of springs embedded next to each other spiraling along the length. If done correctly the irregularities cancel out.”
Aide continued, “There is a more mundane reason as well, in battle there are plasma turret ports in all directions, any side can be the front, and we can even spin to make it harder for the enemy to hit the shields in the same place over and over while constantly alternating turrets to allow cool down time. But back to the original question Stacey asked, we will start recruiting tomorrow. You should both try and get some sleep.”
This still felt a little unreal to him, despite being in perfect health and aboard this amazing ship. Having Stacey by his side didn’t exactly help and he knew he was becoming quite smitten. She was extremely distracting and took up a lot of his thoughts, he knew he would have to buckle down over the next twelve days and learn the bridge systems.
It would be embarrassing if the Earth died because he couldn’t keep it in his pants for five minutes.
But right now it was time for bed. He turned and couldn’t help but stare as Stacey stripped and slid under the covers completely naked. Being in the military, then in a hospital he hadn’t slept that way in a long time, but strange to him or not he followed her lead. By the time he was in bed his reaction was apparent.
Stacey smiled and kissed him, and it wasn’t a good night kiss, it was hot, hard, and promised pleasurable delights. He realized sleep might take a little while longer as he felt her small soft fingers grip him as she slid on top…
Chapter 9
“Come on Olivia darling, make love to the camera,” the photographer said with way too much energy.
Dr. Olivia Sands, PHD in physics did her best to make love to the camera. It would have helped if it was a female photographer; she had no interest in men at all. Not that it would have mattered in this photographer’s case anyway. She imagined he was one of the other models and put on a flirty expression as she did her best.
She absolutely hated herself.
She had long wavy light blonde hair down the small of her back, deep clear blue eyes, and a face that brought to mind angels. Her body however was still perfect despite being twenty six. Her breasts were still firm and stood up proudly as if she was in her teens with her model perfect figure. She didn’t have the largest breasts but they were more than prominent enough on her petite curvy body.
She had been drawing looks from men for as long as she could remember. Even at fourteen she would catch not only the boys in her class but the older male teachers giving her a hungry look over. Unfortunately, she’d always had her eyes on the other girls, none of which seemed to swing her way.
It had made high school hard. On top of that, she had been valedictorian and the head of her class, even skipped a grade. This seemed to set her apart even more from her peers, although it did help drive away the more shallow people in her class. Oh, she’d had a couple of close friends, but despite her looks she was not very popular. The cheerleaders had seen to that out of jealousy.
College was different; she had even found a steady girlfriend in her junior year. Most of the times before that, it had been women just experimenting with same sex encounters, which was okay for them, but she usually wound up hurt in the end. Unfortunately that relationship broke up over the summer before senior year, and she hadn’t had a serious relationship since.
Just a few friends, and she never had problems finding some other woman now to scratch that itch. She knew she wanted more, but it was just impossible. W
henever they found out how smart she was, and that she was modeling because no one would take her seriously, things just fell apart. They say men hate their woman being smarter than them, but woman aren’t much better in that way.
Possibly worse even.
She could be in her field of course, if she was willing to sleep around with a few guys, but she wasn’t willing to do that. Not only because guys did absolutely nothing for her libido, but because she shouldn’t have to. It didn’t help that she was smarter than most of the men running labs that interviewed her, she could see it in their eyes when they realized it. Every single time they shutdown at that realization.
She’d stopped even bothering to try.
“That’s it, wonderful session ladies!”
She sighed and rolled her eyes, more at herself than him. Was being a model really any better? Of course it was, but not by much. She went in the change room and took off the bikini and threw on a tight skirt, loose blouse to try and downplay those assets. She put on her shoes and tied her hair back in a pony tail. It was hot outside and she wanted it off her neck.
She put on her glasses and looked in the mirror. She couldn’t wear contacts because of allergies, and she hadn’t gotten the guts up to have some quack put a laser in her eyes. Besides, she knew she looked really good in the glasses. Kristy a woman she’d slept with for a couple of months last year was on this shoot, so she snuck out the back to avoid her and took the stairs down to the lobby.
She walked out into what felt like a sauna, Los Angeles was hot this time of year, and started toward a taxi.
“Dr. Sands?”
She frowned and turned, now what?
“Yes?” she asked, trying not to sound annoyed, the guy had actually called her doctor after all.
She took him in; she supposed he would be handsome if she swung that way. He was built but not bulky and had a raptor’s gaze in his hazel eyes. He had short brown hair, a chiseled jaw, and looked a little stiff. She thought he had to be military.