by Ryk Brown
Vladimir groaned and lowered his head. “I see very little sleep in my immediate future.”
“You’re assuming their comm-drones can travel one hundred times light, just like the Takaran comm-drones,” Cameron said.
“Precisely,” Nathan agreed, “and when that drone reaches the Centauri battle platform, they’ll know how we defeated the first battle platform.”
“And they’ll develop a defense against our tactics,” Cameron finished for him.
“Which is why we need to destroy that battle platform before the drone arrives.”
“What will the comm-drone do if there is no one in the Centauri system to receive the message?” Jessica wondered.
“Under such circumstances, a Takaran comm-drone would either continue on toward the closest appropriate destination, or to military command in the Takar system,” Lieutenant Telles said. “It would be reasonable to assume that the Jung comm-drones would be programmed in similar fashion.”
“Which is why I propose that after we destroy the Centauri battle platform, we systematically seek out and destroy all Jung military assets within twenty light years of Earth,” Nathan added.
“You’re declaring war?” Doctor Chen asked, somewhat surprised.
“The Jung already declared war,” Nathan said, “that much is obvious. I am simply responding in kind.”
“Why twenty light years?” Lieutenant Commander Kovacic asked.
“For now, we’re operating under the assumption that twenty light is their maximum FTL speed,” Nathan explained. “If we clear out a twenty light year sphere of space around Sol, that will buy the Earth at least one year to recover before the next attack.”
“The more likely result will be several years,” Lieutenant Telles corrected, “when you consider the additional time it will take for word of the destruction of those assets to reach Jung command, and for the responding ships to be dispatched and finally reach your world.”
“That could take decades,” Cameron realized.
“Doubtful,” Nathan disagreed.
“Agreed,” Lieutenant Telles said. “For the Jung to effectively rule over an area as large as the Sol sector, they would have to empower local commanders to make decisions without consulting Jung command. In addition, we may find far more Jung assets within that twenty light year sphere than one might imagine. If what Lieutenant Commander Nash said about spies on Earth is correct, the Jung have been planning the takeover of Earth since long before any of us were born. Possibly before any of our parents were born.”
“Then you agree that we must clear all Jung assets from the immediate area of Earth,” Nathan said, looking directly at the lieutenant.
“At the very least,” Lieutenant Telles agreed, “however, I would not stop at twenty light years, Captain.”
“Do not worry, Lieutenant,” Nathan answered. “I don’t intend to.”
* * *
“Captain?” Josh called from the entrance to the captain’s ready room.
“Josh,” Nathan called, looking up from his desktop view screen, “Loki, or should I say, Ensigns Hayes and Sheehan?”
“Not yet, sir,” Loki answered, “and thank you for that, by the way.”
“No thanks required, gentlemen. You two have certainly earned the positions. How was your trip to Tanna?”
“No problems,” Josh insisted.
“It went well, sir,” Loki added, knowing that the captain wanted more information than his friend had offered. “In fact, we were met by Doctor Sorenson.”
“Yeah, was she ever happy to see us. Hugged us and all.”
“I think it was more that seeing us meant that we, I mean, the Aurora, and probably the Earth as well, had not been destroyed,” Loki elaborated. “We spent a couple of hours filling her in on all that’s happened in the last four days. Apparently, ever since the evacuations stopped, no one knew whether or not the Earth had been destroyed.”
“She said it was the worst four days of her life,” Josh added.
“I’ll bet,” Nathan agreed. “What about the evacuees? Are they doing all right?”
“As far as I could tell,” Loki answered. “I mean, they’re mostly living in tents and such, using public showers, latrines, mess halls… it’s like a military encampment there. It is in a nice area, though. Next to a river and a small lake, about fifty kilometers outside of the city.”
“Did you meet with the Tannan leaders?” Nathan asked.
“Eventually, yes,” Loki continued. “We had to wait for a security detail to come out and escort us into the city.”
“We even had to go through a medical screening,” Josh said with obvious distaste. “Loads of fun, that was.”
“They’ve been keeping the Terran population separate from the Tannans,” Loki explained, “at least for the time being. Even the Tannan security forces assigned to keep an eye on the Terran camps are being kept from the main Tannan population. They’re awfully nervous about it.”
“Understandably,” Nathan commented, “but you were able to speak with them? The leaders?”
“Yes, sir. Right after we cleared medical. Even then, they made us wear masks,” Loki explained. “We delivered your request, as well as the briefing about what happened during the engagement with the Jung battle platform, according to the outline you gave us.”
“They were amazed that we weren’t all wiped out,” Josh added.
“He’s not exaggerating, Captain,” Loki agreed. “At first, I thought they didn’t believe us.”
“I’m still not sure they do,” Josh added.
“They got excited when we told them about the help arriving from the Pentaurus cluster,” Loki said.
“That’s exactly what I had hoped,” Nathan said. “I don’t suppose they gave you any idea of how much they might be able to help us out?”
“No, sir,” Loki answered. “They said they needed to hold some meetings to discuss the situation. They asked us to return tomorrow.”
Nathan rubbed his chin. “I guess that’s to be expected.”
“Why wouldn’t they help us?” Josh wondered. “I mean, it’s either us or the Jung, and I’m pretty sure the Jung would just erase them all.”
“It’s not always that simple,” Nathan told him. “People, especially political leaders, have to balance long-term goals against the immediate needs of their people. The two don’t always agree.”
“In this case, I’m pretty sure it’s either fight with us now or die an ugly death later,” Josh insisted.
“You left out the third possibility, Josh,” Nathan said. “Both of the above.”
* * *
Deckhands, technicians, and general staffers alike all crowded into the Karuzara’s number four hangar bay. Word of the return of one of their four zero twos had spread throughout the asteroid base with alarming speed. The arriving interceptor could barely make it out of the transfer airlock without running over someone.
The spacecraft rolled to a stop, its canopy opening. The pilot waved a single time at the crowd of people packed into the bay. The ground crew rolled the boarding ladder up to the side of the ship and climbed up to assist the flight crew as the ship’s systems powered down to rest.
“Welcome home, sir!” an eager flight technician greeted as he took the pilot’s helmet from him. “Did you make it? Did you make it back to Earth? Did you find the Aurora?”
“Hold on,” the pilot exclaimed as he climbed out of the cockpit.
“I don’t think they can wait, sir.”
The pilot stood at the top of the ladder, looking out at the crowd of people. “We made contact with the Aurora! She is alive and well, as is the Earth!”
The crowd erupted in cheer.
“More or less,” the copilot said to the flight technician as he climbed out of the back seat.
“We need to speak with Commander Dumar immediately,” the pilot told the flight technician.
“Yes, sir.”
“Get this ship ready to depart,” th
e copilot added. “We takeoff as soon as we finish with the commander.”
* * *
“They agreed to provide whatever assistance they could,” Loki said as he, Josh, and Abby walked across the hard-packed ground toward their Falcon jump-fighter.
“That’s not surprising,” Abby said. “The Tannans may be keeping us separate from the main population, but they have been providing us with whatever we need. They are good people.”
“I think they just want to be sure the Alliance will be here to protect them when the Jung return,” Josh said.
“Can you blame them?” Loki asked.
“You know, many of the refugees are already talking about returning to Earth,” Abby told them.
“If they saw the videos streaming up from the surface, they wouldn’t be,” Josh commented. “The place is messed up right now. Makes Haven look like paradise.”
“Surely it’s not that bad everywhere,” Abby commented.
“It’s not,” Loki insisted. “He’s exaggerating, as usual.”
“The hell I am.”
“A lot of it has been turned into wasteland,” Loki admitted, “but many large cities remain untouched by the fallout.”
“Until the winds shift,” Josh added.
“If the winds shift,” Loki corrected. “Still, though, the unaffected cities are rapidly turning into chaos themselves as refugees from the devastated areas migrate to them.”
“Seriously, Doc, you should tell anyone who says they want to go home to wait awhile,” Josh said.
“That much he is right about,” Loki agreed.
“It won’t be easy,” Abby told them. “People want to go home. They want to help rebuild their world.”
“Then tell them to stay here and help the Tannans gather resources to send back to Earth. No need to put more people on a world that can’t even support the ones already there.”
“We’re only talking about a few thousand people at the most,” Abby said.
“I’ll let the captain know,” Loki told her, “but I wouldn’t count on anything soon. He has enough to think about these days… Like how to get Tannan aid back to Earth. Besides, he still has to deal with the battle platform in the Centauri system.”
“Of course.” Abby stopped. “Well, I guess I’ll see you guys sometime.”
“We’ll be back,” Josh told her.
“The Tannan leaders asked us to bring them a list of resources the Earth needs most.”
“And we seem to be the captain’s favorite messengers,” Josh added as he climbed up the steps in the side of their Falcon’s nose.
Loki rolled his eyes and smiled, then he too turned to climb up into the back seat of the jump ship’s cockpit.
“Be safe.”
“You’re forgetting who my pilot is,” Loki said as he took his seat.
“Hey, I’m Mister Safety, I am.” Josh waved at Abby. “See you later, Doc.”
Abby turned and walked away as the Falcon’s turbines began to spin up. Once she had reached a safe distance, she turned back around to watch the ship lift off. The Falcon’s canopy closed, sealing her flight crew inside the nose of the jump ship, just as its engines began to increase in intensity and pitch. Dust swirled about, forcing Abby to look away as the Falcon began to rise off the packed dirt landing pad. It ascended slowly, rotating to starboard and drifting away from her until it finally pitched its nose upward and began to accelerate into the sky. Within seconds, the ship was nearly too small for Abby to see. Finally, it disappeared in a flash of white light barely visible against the pale lavender evening skies of Tanna. Her eyes fell back down to the ground as she remembered the words of her father just before their first jump test. If only he knew just how much his invention had already changed everything… even the lives of his own family.
* * *
Prince Casimir sat back as the attendant refilled his glass. He looked across the table at his daughters, both impeccably dressed with their hair perfectly coiffed. It had been more than half a Takaran year since he had brought them both to their true home. His oldest, Deliza, had made the transition with ease, taking advantage of the technical and educational opportunities her new home had offered. His youngest, however, Nalaya, was having a more difficult time. She had grown quite attached to the Montrose family back on Corinair, despite the relatively brief time she had spent with them. She had grown somewhat more introverted than before. The loss of her mother, and all that she had known on Haven, had been much for a child of such a young age to endure. She said little these days, speaking only when spoken to, and even then saying only what was required of her. Casimir knew it would take time. He missed the carefree little girl she had once been, covered with dust, playing in the molo patches on their farm on Haven.
“Did you hear me, father?” Deliza inquired from the other end of the dining table.
Casimir snapped out of his thoughts. “Apologies, Deliza. My mind drifted for a moment.”
“I was saying that the data copy is ahead of schedule,” she repeated for him.
“That is good news,” Casimir commended.
“Your daughter has been of great assistance,” Yanni added. “She has a unique ability to understand ancient Earth algorithms. Most of the senior computer programmers of Takara seem unable to understand them.”
“It’s because they are too stuck in their ways,” Deliza explained. “They look at code from a static perspective, one formed by years of rigid thinking and processes.”
“Yes,” Casimir agreed, “my oldest daughter has never been accused of ‘rigid’ thinking.”
“There is a wealth of technological information within those cores, Father,” Deliza said. “Things that we have only dreamed of in theory. Once we have completed the translations, we could literally feed specifications into our fabricators and begin producing much of what is described.”
“I thought we were more advanced than the Terrans?” Casimir wondered.
“More so than the Terrans of today, yes,” Deliza explained, “but not those from before the great plague.”
“Our people left the core worlds during the initial onset of the great plague, Deliza. How is it that we did not already have this information in our own data banks?”
“As I understand it, much of the technology was either classified by various governments, or was under patents at the time of the plague,” Yanni explained. “Even the Terrans of today do not have access to those files, as they are all encrypted.”
“Luckily, our security and encryption systems are far more advanced,” Deliza added. “It has been easy to bypass the security algorithms and access the protected files.”
“So, all the technologies are more advanced than ours?”
“Not all, but many,” Deliza stated. “Anything that was open knowledge at the time of the plague our founders brought with them and have further developed over the centuries. Even some of the classified technologies of old Earth are now obsolete to us, as they have already been developed by Takaran scientists.”
“What about military technologies?” Casimir asked. “Weapons, space propulsion systems, shields… Surely if they were able to develop the jump drive…”
“The jump drive was an accident,” Deliza interrupted. “They didn’t even know they had discovered it at the time. They were trying to develop multi-layered shielding to reduce the wear imposed on the hulls of ships traveling faster than light in the hopes of prolonging their time between overhauls. A reactor accident occurred during a prototype test flight. It caused the outer shield to collapse, and at the same moment that the outer shield made contact with the inner shield, the reactor dumped a tremendous amount of energy into the emitter arrays. The micro-jump that it caused was considered to be a sensor anomaly at the time. It wasn’t until Abby’s father, Doctor Karlsen, discovered the inconsistency in the telemetry data from the test a thousand years earlier that the jump drive was even theorized. Even then, it took another twenty years to develop. Had it not been for t
he Jung threat, he probably would never have received funding. It was that far beyond anything the current people of Earth had ever dreamed possible.”
“You did not learn of this from the Ark,” Casimir said.
“I asked Abby many questions during my time on the Aurora,” Deliza admitted sheepishly.
“Of that I have no doubt.”
A tall man in military uniform entered the dining room from behind Deliza. Casimir immediately noticed the officer and gestured for him to approach.
“Forgive the intrusion, sir,” the officer begged as he approached. “I thought this of sufficient urgency,” he added as he handed the small tablet to the prince.
Casimir looked over the tablet, his brow furrowing, obvious concern on his face. “They have landed?” he asked the officer.
“Yes, sir. They will clear medical shortly.”
“Bring them to my office once they do,” Casimir ordered as he handed the tablet back to the officer. “I wish to speak with them directly.”
“Yes, sir,” the officer answered as he took the tablet and stepped back to depart.
Deliza and Yanni both watched the officer depart, then looked at one another.
“Something wrong?” Deliza asked.
“It seems we have received an update from the Aurora.”
Deliza became concerned. “How are they? Is everything alright? Did they manage to escape with the Celestia?”
“It seems that things have become more complicated than expected,” Casimir said as he patted his lips with his napkin. “I’m afraid I must cut our dinner short,” he added as he rose. “I trust you will see to Nalaya?”
“Of course, Father.”
“Thank you for joining us, Yanni,” Casimir said.
“It was my pleasure, sir. Thank you for inviting me.”
“I trust you will keep me informed of your progress?”
“Of course,” Yanni promised.
“Please, all of you, take your time and finish your meal,” Casimir insisted as he headed for the exit. “We shall do this again soon.”
* * *
“I have the president on comms now, sir,” Naralena said over the intercom.