TSN: The Best Laid Plans (Terran Space Navy)

by Paul Phipps

  Evana sat carefully in the chair and although she tried very hard to not show any discomfort, it was difficult. And she knew that Rover’s monitoring sensors knew that she was really only up to eighty-five percent of her pre-operation normal. But still her pride insisted on her maintaining an outward show of competence and good health. Rover and through him; Ariadne the guiding A.I. of the Companion knew the real score.

  “Evana, I recommend that you go to the sensorium tank and activate your Telefactor now.” Rover told her.

  “You know, I had forgotten about that thing. I was getting caught up in flying with you and just put it out of my mind.” Evana told him a little sheepishly.

  “I thought so, but I really believe that you should go do that now. It’ll let your body heal even faster and you won’t feel the aches you are feeling right now.”

  “Oh, well…. I guess I can’t put it off any longer can I? Evana said moodily. “I know that Commander Webster has used his at least twice and he never had anything bad to say about the experience.”

  “It doesn’t hurt and you will find that you won’t even notice any differences. It’s still ‘YOU’ in control of your own body.” Ariadne’s voice came through her Comm implant.

  “Yes Ariadne, I’m going, I’m going. No need to nag.” Evana said with a smile as she got up from the Command seat and headed for the Trans-Portal at the rear of the bridge compartment.

  A few minutes later she re-appeared at the Trans-portal to the Bridge. She looked refreshed and walked with confidence and her normal fluidity of movement. She sat down in the Command Chair and had a look of bemused astonishment cross her face.

  “Rover, Ariadne you were quite right. This does feel like my own body and all of the aches are gone. She paused for a moment. “Thank you, for insisting that I get in the Sensorium now.”

  “You’re welcome Evana,” Rover replied, “We do care about you and your health. Now it’s time to get to work. We have an indication of two IUR J-17’s taking off from the IUR Air Base at Ashkanan. IGD IR-0356 is assigned to that area and reports that this appears to be a normal flight with no fixed weapons on the underwing pylons”.

  “Interesting, J-17’s aren’t training aircraft. If I remember correctly didn’t Pakistan buy these from China before they were assimilated into the IUR?” Evana asked.

  “Yes, they did. These appear to be of a later vintage though and may have been part of the follow-up purchase and indigenous manufacturing arrangement the IUR negotiated with the Chinese Government. The factories never did become operational though and the Chinese Government ended up providing all of the J-17’s plus spares.” Rover pontificated.

  “Thank you for that information,” Evana said politely, “Let me know if they do something that impacts us.”

  “Well, speaking of that.” Rover said mischievously, “It does appear that we are their focus of interest. They are now on an intercept course for us. And in addition several radar tracking vans have been placed along our most probable course from the Companion to the Niasar ‘Shaitan’s Breath’ contamination site.

  “Do they appear to be preparing to fire Surface to Air weaponry at us?” Evan asked as she mentally prepared for combat.

  “IGD IR-2792 reports that these radar vans are operating in a free-form tactical net but there are currently no active weapons in play.”

  “Solo, does that mean they are only gathering intelligence on us?” Evana asked.

  “Probably that’s all they can do at this time.” Rover replied.

  “Hmmm, if that’s true then let’s give them as little as possible then.” She mused, and then thought. “Rover, when we get to the fifty mile barrier stop right in front and then go straight up and over the top of the shield and then come down on the other side. Let’s not give them any potential data on a shield to shield inter-penetration.”

  “I’ll do that and have the ISO-Tube carrier follow us over.” He acknowledged the instruction.

  For the next hour they moved slowly across the IUR countryside going in a straight line for their destination. Along the way an IUR AWACS aircraft came close enough to use its sensors on the TSN Scout Ship and the ISO tube carrier. And they never realized that the stealthed IGD’s from the TSN were doing the same to them.

  Upon reaching the Blockade shield surrounding the contaminated zone Rover shot straight up and at an altitude of 50 miles hopped over the blockade shield and zipped back down to their previous altitude and stopped motionless above the ground.

  Evana then started to give her orders. “Ok Rover, deploy all of your IGD’s. As discussed earlier we are going to ‘tube’ any and all humans first and then all mammals that we can find.”

  “IGD’s are now being released.” Rover responded. “In addition, three more ISO-Tube Carriers from the Moon Base are now entering the atmosphere to assist in the effort.”

  “Excellent! Any estimate on how long it will take to do this first phase?” Evana asked.

  “Approximately two hours and 45 minutes.” Rover said after a few moments.

  “Thank you Rover.” Evana said with a smile. “Please contact Maude and Susannah for me. I have some questions I need to ask them.”

  A minute or so later Maude and Susannah were talking to Evana.

  “Rover tells us that you wanted to speak to us.” Susannah started off.

  “Yes, that’s correct.” Evana said briskly, “I have a few questions that I am hoping you can answer for me.”

  “We’ll do our best to do so.” Maude told her.

  “Commander Webster has told us about the terrible aftermath of the Bio-War weapon on the two analogues of earth that the Gho L’Gamesh discovered.”

  “Go on, you do know that we weren’t there. We are actually fairly new AI’s.” Susannah told her.

  “No, I didn’t know that. How old are you?” Evana asked with a slightly bemused tone of voice.

  Susannah said with a laugh. “I am a cloned copy of Invincible Destiny who is a cloned copy of Victory who is a cloned copy of Decider who was an original Engramed A.I. of one of the Gho L’Gamesh’s original crew. I am only six earth years old.”

  Maude piped up then, “And I am a copy of Susannah. We are each slightly different though and become more so as we gain real-time experiences. I am less than three days old as I was cloned for the Moon Base M1.”

  “I see, or at least I think I see.” Evana said slowly. “In any case then here we go. In the records that Seeker brought with her from the Gho L’Gamesh, did any of the extinct human civilizations come up with an automated diagnostic tool that we can use or adapt to screen for the ‘Shaitan’s Breath’ Bio weapon?”

  “A very good question Evana. Currently we are using the Trans-Portal system and the ISO-Tubes to do that. But those are a bit un-wieldy for a quick check aren’t they?” Then after answering her own question Maude continued. “What we need is something that is non-threatening in appearance yet will scan the occupant and determine its current medical status. It should also scan clothing and carried items too.”

  “I think that we should not make it purpose built for Shaitan’s Breath.” Susannah interjected, “And it should be self-contained with no external power required. Maybe some sort of immobilizer or temporary ISO-tube capacity and a call for assistance capability too?”

  Evana grinned and said, “Well ladies that’s a good starting point. Think you can do it or find something that’s been done before?”

  “Well! We certainly will try.” Maude and Susannah chorused together.

  “Very good then, I’ll talk more with you later. It looks like we are about to pick up our first human. Bye now.” Evana said as she leaned forward to examine the viewscreen intently.

  “I believe this young man is a goat herder.” Rover stated. And they both watched as he was brought up into the ISO-Tube carrier with his flock following close behind.

  Evana sat back and looked pensive, “I hope this isn’t too traumatic for him. If he’s still awake let me s
peak to him.”

  “-nicating lovers of goats, let me go!”

  “Attention!” Evana snapped, reverting back to her Navy training. And the voice went silent. She then continued in Farsi as she used Rover to do an instantaneous translation for her. “You have been picked up by a vessel of the Terran Space Navy. This has been done so as to save your life. You are in a potentially contaminated zone of the Shaitan’s Breath Bio-Weapon. Once it has been determined that you are clean you will be released into refugee camp with other citizens of the Iranian Unified Republic.”

  The man’s voice came back, “I don’t understand! Leave me alone! All I am is poor goat herder. In Allah’s name release me!”

  Evana sat back and sighed. “Rover, I think it is going to be more merciful to just knock these people out and leave the explanations to someone more suitable than myself.”

  “I believe I understand, Evana. He is now unconscious and is being placed in an ISO-tube. A preliminary indication is that he personally is clean. Unfortunately two of his goats are not. They personally don’t seem to be infected but there are some spores in their hairs. This indicates an even larger dispersal area of the Bio-weapon.” Rover said somberly.

  “Oh dear lord…” Evana whispered then rallied quickly, “How close are we to the inner Blockade shield and the inner contamination zone?”

  “We are three point four miles from the inner shield at this point.” Rover stated.

  Evana was thinking furiously, “Rover, have all of your IGD’s stop searching for humans and Mammals. Have them position themselves in an arc using this location as the center point and facing the inner shield. Start searching for spores or infected mammals. We need to find out how far this has spread. Once we determine that, we need to extend the inner shield to go beyond the farthest point where the spores have been detected.”

  Rover was quiet for minute or so. “Evana, your instructions have been issued to the IGD’s. I have also called for an additional two thousand to be sent here.”

  “How long will that take?” Evana asked.

  “Scouts from Companion, Lucky, Susannah, Sacajawea, Daniel Boone and Carson are now on the way. The first to arrive will be in fifteen minutes.”

  “Good! Now let’s find out how bad it really is.” Evana said sitting back in the Command Chair.

  Three hours later they had their answer. Not all that bad after all, their herder was one of those anomalous things that happened in crisis situations. It appeared that the herder had actually been nearer to the inner barrier than they had thought initially.

  Then there had been the plume that started at the Shaitan’s Breath Bunker and ended just over the line of the inner barrier. The question was, how had the dispersal been so broad when there was so little wind at the time of the initial release? The only theory that they had is that the dispersal had occurred earlier than they had thought or there had been more than one vial opened. The answers to those questions would have to wait until the bio-warfare team was on the scene.

  In the meantime they had picked up and tubed an additional 75 humans and several thousand mammals ranging from Camels down to a small rodent similar to a hamster. There had been a number of mammals that had picked up spores that were physically close to the inner barrier. With that in mind the barrier was moved out an additional five miles.

  As Evana was eating a quick lunch in the Wardroom Susannah and Maude contacted her.

  “Evana! We have a solution to your question. On Earth E01016 which was the first analogue that we had found that was killed by a Bio-War weapon the Medical Scientists had created a device for rapid analysis of the population for any that were infected by the weapon. It worked just fine, but it came too late as by that time there wasn’t a large enough population left that was uninfected to begin the human race again.

  They did leave examples and blueprints for the device with their historical records though. So now we have it and it just might save the people of this analogue if utilized soon enough.” Maude told her with a note of triumph in her voice.

  “Excellent, what is it called and how soon can you have it fabricated and brought here?” Evan asked.

  “We are calling it a Scanner-Arch, it looks like a short tunnel maybe 12 feet long and 8 feet wide. It was designed for fairly large numbers of people to walk or ride through. A nice feature is that it scans the whole body as well as anything else put through it. It can also do rapid analysis and diagnosis for any diseases or medical conditions that are known at this time.

  By the time someone walking at a normal pace made it through the length of the Arch it would have done its entire scan and all without subjecting the person going through it to a physical inspection.”

  “I like the sound of this, now when can I get one or more of them here?” Evana pressed.

  Susannah replied, “I’m building twenty right now and I should have them to you within ninety minutes. Maude has built two of them and has had volunteers from the refugees at M1 testing them out to insure their workability and accuracy. The Doctors among the refugees are raving about them so I believe that they will be well received here on Earth.”

  Evana laughed softly, “They probably will be, but I’m sure the FDA will be miffed that we didn’t follow their process.”

  “Well, yes, you are probably right. Our study of the history of bureaucracies bears out what you have said. We tend to work quickly to bring something to the problem and then fine tune it if there is a need.” Maude told her soberly.

  “And most of us Humans prefer your methods. Governments in general relish power and the exercise of it. And a certain type of person is drawn to that environment.” Evana commented while eating a BLT on toast.

  “But you were a professional Naval Officer. Doesn’t that position also utilize power over other humans in its daily operations?” Maude asked.

  “Yes I was, and yes that position does exercise power over the other humans in the same service or the other associated ones like the Marines and Air Force. The difference is that the people in those services volunteered to be there.

  Hmmmm, let me think here for a bit.” She said as she continued to eat her lunch.

  “Ok, it’s like this. Human society can be portrayed in broad strokes like this. The general populace are Sheep. The politicians and other social leaders like religious priests and ministers are the Sheepherders. The military, local police forces and Firefighters are Sheep-dogs. The wolves are anyone or anything that would attack and eat or destroy the sheep.

  We sheep-dogs have volunteered to defend the sheep. Most of us used to be sheep and just grew up and took on more responsibilities. Now we are always on the look-out for the wolves and coyotes who would go for our charges. But sometimes a wolf can slip through our guard, the proverbial Wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing. They are difficult to detect at times and they get in and become part of the flock. The Sheep-herders accept them and therefore the rest of the flock does too.

  What the flock and the Sheep-herders don’t realize until it’s too late is that they are still wolves who want to eat the sheep. They are just sneakier about it. They only eat one or two at a time until the flock is destroyed. And we sheep-dogs weren’t allowed to stop them because the sheep-herders said that it was ok for them to be there.

  “We have heard similar things said before,” Maude said, “but what does that have to do with Government and Politicians?”

  “Ahhhh, you see that is where most of the wolves in sheep clothing eventually end up hiding. You see it’s so much easier to be a predator on the populace when the populace trusts the Government because they are “Our Civil Servants”.

  Hmmmph!” She said with a twisted face, “Civil Masters is more like it. At least it was that way before the Second Civil War. Civil Servants today are restricted by law to only one-half of one percent of the total voting populace. And they have to ‘enlist’ in a similar manner to the Armed Forces. Their Civil Rights under the constitution are also voluntarily restricted just lik
e the Military.

  The end result is that to be a Civil Servant today is much like a ‘calling’ to the military or a religious ministry. The Duties and Responsibilities far outweigh the Rights and Benefits. It’s another way of keeping Government small and weak. Hopefully our descendants will learn from our mistakes and not repeat them.” She ended up fervently.

  “Thank you for discussing this with us.” Susannah told her.

  “Yes, it was interesting!” Maude added.

  “That’s good to hear.” Evana said as she pushed back from the table and headed for the Trans-portal. “It’s time to get to back to work. We’re heading to Ramsheh now. I’m hoping that these Scanner-Arches’ of yours will allow us to keep the populace there. Otherwise we are going to be doing mass ISO-tubing of the town and surrounding countryside.”