The Raygin War

  The engineers were working with the Wasp’s crew on the battleship’s new plasma canon.

  “Nashta,” said Gynn. “I noticed your whole crew is wearing the same leather outfit. Is it a uniform, or some kind of popular clothing on your home world?”

  Nashta almost choked on the sweet cube he was sucking on. Ignoring the question, he said, “Do you have a sharp knife? I need to cut this joiner line.”

  Gynn grabbed her knife and held it out to Nashta.

  “Can you hold the knife while I run the wire across the blade?”

  “Yeah, but I have a joiner cutter. Let me get it,” said Gynn.

  “Nah, it’s okay, this will only take a second.”

  While Gynn held the knife, Nashta ran the joiner line across the blade with a lot of downward pressure. Gynn had to plant her feet to hold the blade steady. Nashta slipped the joiner off the blade, causing Gynn to stab him with a solid upward thrust to his chest. With a groan, Nashta fell to the ground face first.

  “No”, echoed off the metal walls. Gynn raced to flip Nashta over onto his back so she could see the wound. Smiling at her was the happy face of Nashta, still sucking on his sweet cube.

  “The leather looking suit is not made to make me look handsome. It’s a pliable armor suit using nano technology we developed.”

  Gynn released a deep breath and said, “You asshole! Why couldn’t you just tell me? I can’t believe you’re in the military.”

  “Please, don’t be mad at me. We are not so formal as you are. My people value a sense of humor.”

  “You mean all your people are like you?”

  “Oh no. Of course not.”

  “Thank God.”

  “I am considered much too serious on Nokomis. It is a reason why my people chose me to go to your schools.”

  Nashta finished the joiner splice. With his peripheral vision, he could see Gynn smack her head with her hand. He chuckled to himself, knowing she couldn’t tell if he was serious or kidding.

  “We have already supplied the method of creating nano bots to your military. We also gave them a schematic for armor suits. I suppose it may be years until you see them created for field use. I can send you the schematics and design layout if you’d like. You might be able to create them on the ship.”

  “Yes, it would be helpful. I feel bad because so far all we have done is take. I don’t know how we can ever repay you.”

  “We share an ancestry, at least, at one point in our past. Besides, we have found a method of compensation…”

  A wavering alarm sounded on the Constellation’s Internal Com system. It was a call to staff battle stations. All personnel had to report to their pre-assigned positions for battle readiness. Weapon systems would be charged and the new shields would be at full strength. General quarters meant the ship was entering a dangerous situation.

  “Nashta, I have to report to engineering. You better go to the Wasp,” said Gynn.

  *****

  Mahpee stood on the Constellation’s bridge. He watched as the magnified remains of Imperial Station came into view. Large segments of unrecognizable structures floated in space. He could see tens of thousands of bodies drifting within the debris field. The ship’s crew locked the viewer onto the lone surviving gravity wheel. The admiral deployed transport skiffs to search for survivors. This was senseless butchery. He ordered the cruisers to look for any trail left by the enemy. Parts of Imperial Station were still under construction. It had a human population of about sixty thousand.

  Within minutes a skiff arrived at the lone gravity wheel. After flying around the wheel, they chose the best spot to anchor the transport shuttle. They began to burn through the ring’s hull to allow the search team access to the passageway. The convoy watched the search and rescue on vid transmissions. Once inside, the team found hundreds of stiff, bloated, floating bodies. The search party split up into two groups. They began a systematic search in opposite directions.

  It was odd. A few bodies floating in the passageways were wearing spacesuits. It meant a few people survived the initial assault. Why would they be in the hallway? The chief watched a crewmember check the electronics on a dead person’s spacesuit. The display indicated the users depleted their oxygen weeks ago.

  Commander Tark, the search party’s lead officer said, “Alright, everyone look hard. These people in spacesuits died long after the attack, not during it. I’m sure they gave their lives for a reason. Let’s find out what they were up to.”

  The Constellation’s bridge crew monitored the search parties. Everyone watched as they made their way through the ship. They could see the view from each team member’s vid cam.

  “Commander Tark, this is team two. We found something. A weld is on the outside the pool door.”

  “Commander Tark, this is Admiral Harding. A skiff pilot reported she is getting a strong electrical reading near your location. The engineers tell me there is no power supply they can find in the station’s schematics. Nothing justifies the electrical signal we are receiving.”

  “Thanks admiral. We will proceed with caution. Mari, bring the sound transducer and place it on this welded door.”

  Mari plugged the instrument into her helmet. She placed the tiny transducer against the door. She shifted the component around, and she heard: “Mark, I know heard something.” It was the high pitch of a child’s voice.

  “Alright, alright. Everyone, stay still and shut up for once,” said a different voice.

  It sounded like someone in control. BANG, BANG, BANG. Everyone on the bridge jumped. Mahpee was sure the noise must have broken Mari’s eardrum. The screen showed her hands scrambling to turn down the signal strength.

  “Someone, get me a pipe or piece of metal, hurry.”

  A crewmember handed her a metal bar. Mari banged the bar against the door. BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG. She listened again, but this time with the self-adjusting volume turned on.

  She heard, “See, I told you.”

  “Good boy, you were right Teddy. I hit three times and someone responded with four. If it were the bugs, they would have gotten us by now. Everyone, this is important, be quiet.” Mark hit the metal pipes. He banged three times in a quick string followed by three bangs with a two second interval between strikes. He ended with final three bangs in rapid succession.

  Mari clapped her hands, “SOS, he banged out SOS. They are using the old Morse code. Computer, what is Morse code for ‘help comes’?” A series of dots and dashes appeared on Mari’s faceplate. She pounded out the sequence, and listened.

  “It’s help, everyone. Help is here.”

  Mari heard what sounded like a whole bunch of kids cheering.

  “Admiral, this is Commander Tark. We are going to set up an air interlock, so we can burn the weld holding the door. It will keep the oxygen in the room when the door opens. It may take a while, but we can do it.”

  “Admiral,” said Mahpee, “we have a chemical plasma welder on the Wasp. We designed it from Raygin technology. It can burn through all of our metals in seconds. You’re welcome to use it.”

  “Did you hear that commander?”

  “Yes sir, send it over. By the time you get it here, we’ll have a make shift air interlock built.”

  While team two built an interlock onto the pool door, team one proceeded with its search around the wheel. Most compartments had plasma holes in the exterior walls as big as a Catari fishing trawler. It was a miracle the wheel had stayed intact. A skiff arrived and piggybacked onto the search party’s transport ship. A crewman arrived carrying the new cutting tool.

  “I hope you know how to use it,” said Commander Tark, “because I don’t.”

  Nashta read the name on the commander’s chest label. “Hello commander Tark. I am Nashta, from the People’s Nation. I am a Wasp crewmember. I helped design this cutter, but I never used it in zero gravity. This chemical reaction generates a lot of heat and sparks. I have a shield for the cutter, but I’d like someone watching me over my shoulder
. All I ask is you make sure I don’t burn a hole in my suit. My chief would kill me.”

  Everyone laughed, except Nashta. It got quiet when the Constellation’s search and rescue team didn’t hear Nashta laugh. They thought it was a joke. The chief smiled. Nashta played them like people sitting in the front row of a comedy club. He let them stew for a few seconds, thinking he may have been serious.

  Nashta started laughing. “I’m kidding, lighten up. The chief doesn’t care, but it is my favorite suit.”

  The commander smiled, and shook his head. He pointed to the door. The team members closed themselves inside the interlock. They left their helmets on in case something went wrong with the cutter. Nashta started the plasma cutter, placed the tip onto the new weld, and started the chemical flow. Sparks flew, like he said they would.

  In thirty seconds the cutter broke through the weld. The team sniffed the gas levels from inside the room with their high tech equipment. It was 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, and one percent other gasses. Perfect. The search party put the temporary interlock door into place. The helmets came off, and everyone walked into the pool area.

  The bridge watched twenty-one children cheer when they saw the human adults. The children ran to get hugs from their human rescuers.

  Mari walked up to the boy holding a pipe. “Are you Mark?”

  “Yeah, how’d you know?”

  “We used a sound transducer to hear inside the welded door. We could hear you directing activities. Using Morse code was smart of you.”

  “Since I’m the oldest child, the parents put me in charge when the bugs attacked. My dad is a fighter pilot in the Fleet Command. He taught me survival techniques as I grew up, so I knew Morse code.”

  Nashta walked up to Mari and Mark and said, “Why didn’t the bugs come in and get you?”

  “We don’t understand what stopped them from coming into the pool area. Every time they opened the door, they’d act goofy, like they were drunk. They always turned around, made loud clicking noises, and left.”

  “How did you survive without air?” Asked Nashta.

  “After the bugs blew up the station, a few adults in spacesuits found us in the pool area. The pool has its own batteries to maintain a graviton field. They used spare batteries to set up a powered oxygen generator using pool water. They created what they called an air scrubbing system.” Mark started crying. “The air kept leaking out the door. They couldn’t weld from inside without creating poisonous gases. They had to weld the door from the outside. They sealed us in and them out.”

  Mari grabbed Mark and hugged him. “What they did was brave. They saved all of your lives.”

  “I’m going to get even with those bugs. I’ll kill them, I’ll kill everyone of them.”

  Mari didn’t know how to respond to Mark’s anger. She let him vent until he started to slow down. “Mark, what the bugs did is horrible. We aren’t going to let them get away with this, but for now we need to focus on helping the children. Okay?”

  “Yeah, right. I need to make sure the kids are safe. It’s my job.”

  The UFC ships sent their smallest space suits to the search team. The children needed them to move from the poolroom to a transport skiff. The children were comfortable with Mark, so Mari let him help suit them up. In the meantime the engineers sampled everything. They wanted to know what kept the bugs from entering the swimming pool area. The crew took lots of poolroom vids. Mahpee hoped the answer could be a game changer in a war with the bugs.

  United Federation ships of war have limited accommodations for children. The admiral decided to send a cruiser to drop the children off at Finder’s Station. They would also initiate notification of next of kin. The children would be transported to a safe location. The admiral had two children himself and told Mahpee he wanted to ensure these kids were well taken care of.

  With Mahpee’s approval the cruiser would carry some vids back to the United Federation of Planets. They would see the shipyards at Orenda and the Peoples Nation ships of war. The Admiral also included schematics and specs of new technologies. Once everyone saw the devastation at Imperial Station and the thousands of dead bodies floating in space the wheels of war would begin to turn. He hoped the humans were up for it.

  The children’s recue took six standard hours. During the evolution the computer analyzed the number of bodies in space and determined thousands were still unaccounted for. The cruiser found traces of six alien ships, but could not tell where they went. Mahpee volunteered the use of his new technology onboard the Wasp. His engineers found clear disturbance paths in the gravitational fields of space left by all six alien ships.

  The Wasp had to search for the alien trail each time they completed a jump. Most ships travel in a geodesic line. In curved space it is the shortest distance between two points. This made hunting the Raygin ships a little easier. Computers always picked a route with the least changes in direction unless evasive maneuvers are implemented.

  The Wasp led the convoy because of her advanced tracking capabilities. Bodaway dictated the jump timing, direction, and inclination. Mahpee rode on the Wasp in the hopes he would be the first to engage the Raygin. He still owed them for what they had taken from him. After days of jumping, the computer was taking an abnormal amount of time in locating the alien trail.

  “Mahpee, the computer says the alien ships split up here. Five stuck together on the same direction. One split off going a new direction,” said Bodaway. “What do you want to do?”

  “Let me check with the admiral. My gut says follow the single ship.”

  “Com, open a line to the Constellation.”

  “Go ahead Mahpee, the line’s open.”

  “Constellation, this is Mahpee. The Raygin have split up. Five ships are continuing in the original direction. The sixth is heading somewhere else. I’d like to follow the single ship. We sent you the tracking data, ask the Admiral what he’d like to do.”

  “Mahpee, Admiral Harding here. I have some limited star charts for the area we are in. Based on your computer projection the lone ship is heading towards Rayne. Let’s follow the single ship.”

  “Okay admiral, let’s catch some bugs.”

  “If we can’t catch them, we need to exterminate them.”

  “I’m with you. I have an old score to settle. Admiral, can you send the star charts you have of this area?”

  “I’ll have them to you in a moment.”

  Mahpee thought about the new computer system installed on the Constellation. The admiral told him Fleet Command put their newest combat computer in his ship. They isolated it from the ship’s main computer. Every femtosecond of calculation goes toward engagement strategies, maneuvers, and firing sequences. It seemed like a clever idea. Mahpee would talk to the university about the idea.

  The People’s Nation enhanced their systems too. According to Mongwau they were on the verge of another huge break through. The problem was the convoy needed computing speed now. He wondered if the Constellation’s computer would be a match for the alien bio based computer system the university seemed to love so much.

  After the star charts arrived, they got underway again. Mahpee excused himself from the bridge. He wanted to take a closer look at what the admiral sent. He was sure there was going to be a battle, and he wanted to be ready. He walked down the main passageway toward midship. He could hear the singularity drive in the engineering compartment. Mahpee counted off seven seconds between pops. Instead of turning into the small conference room he decided to make sure Nashta was ready.

  Engineering was the last compartment in the ship. When Mahpee arrived he caught the tail end of a conversation. “… I don’t understand. What do you mean not efficient?”

  Mahpee stuck his head through the door to see whom Nashta was conversing with. He looked left, and right, no one was in engineering other than Nashta. Worried about his young chief engineer Mahpee said, “Nashta. Is everything okay?”

  “I don’t know.”

 
; “What do you mean, you don’t know? What’s wrong?”

  “I was running some tests to ensure everything is operating at peak performance. When I ran my computer system diagnostic, the artificial intelligence said the computer is not efficient. Enhancement underway.”

  “Good job, Nashta,” said Mahpee.

  “You don’t understand. I was using direct input, not voice mode. It talked to me. It should not have been able to use voice mode. It is improving the computer without my direction. Something’s wrong, and right now I have no idea what. I don’t even know what it’s changing or doing to improve the computer! I need time to figure this out.”

  “Whether the computer is working or not, we will be in the battle. Make sure we’re ready.”

  Nashta shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t. I don’t know what the computer is doing. If we go into battle without the computer we all need to prepare our death songs.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT: The Vents

  Spaz entered the opening first. He jumped up grabbed the vent’s edge and hoisted himself into the ventilation shaft. The fit was tight, but there was enough room for them to crawl on their hands and knees, one behind the other. He figured by leading the way, he would have the advantage of seeing possible danger first.

  Spaz could see Tews frown as he looked at the distance from the floor to the opening.

  “Come on Tews, I have a date later.”

  Tews jumped up, grabbed the vent, and tried to pull himself up. Smitty watched the entomologist’s feet kick for a few seconds and decided to give him a boost. Tews’s thin arms didn’t have enough strength to jerk his frame into the vent. Smitty positioned himself between Tews’s legs and pushed upward.

  “Phrrrrrt”

  “What the fuck,” said Smitty, “You farted on my head! I should have let you dangle there.”

  Spaz started laughing so hard tears came out of his eyes. In return Smitty squinted at him.

  “Sorry Smitty, I didn’t do it on purpose. The bugs are giving us some kind of milk mix in our food. I’m lactose intolerant, and I don’t have my meds.”