The Raygin War

  The humans discovered the bugs had added a filtration device into their armor. It filtered out the poison Ruth developed. Still, holding high hopes for using the poison, he created a team of chemists and biologists. Their goal, design a mechanism to defeat the Raygin filtration system in the armor.

  In the middle of it all, the planetary president tried to pull a fast one. He declared he needed to be the one to initiate the Planetary War Powers Act. He claimed he was still in charge. He was wrong and Mac proved it. Next, the president tried to take credit for the Lightning Brigade. Members of the Mac’s Lightning Brigade were interviewed and claimed the planetary president to be a liar.

  This is the reason I insisted on being a commodore. It is difficult enough to fight a war without having to fight politicians too. The next day the Planetary Parliament tried to usurp Mac’s power. The tachyon instant communications stopped their lies before they could take hold. Every day, the politicians tried a new trick or spread a new lie in an effort to regain control of the military. It was wearing Mac out.

  Looking up, he saw Ayashe standing next to him. He wondered how long she had been standing there.

  She placed her arm on his shoulder. “Mac, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, it is just these politicians are distracting me. It’s reminds me of when I was a sniper hiding in the middle of an enemy platoon and a wolf spider crawled down my back.”

  Ayashe shuddered at the insight into Mac’s past. “Don’t worry. I’ll get these jerks off your back. I’ll call Admiral Farragut and ask him to keep the troublemakers at bay. In fact, I’ll ask him to make examples of a few of them. It will make others think twice.”

  In an untypical move, which he didn’t even try to hide, he reached over, and kissed her in front of everyone on the bridge. “You know I love you, right?”

  She felt her face flush. She managed a smile as she batted her eyes at him.

  He felt a refreshed burst of energy. “What is it my beautiful wife needs from me?”

  Out of nowhere, Apeiron appeared. The robot made from a conglomeration of nanobots looked at Ayashe. “Have you told him yet? Remember the promise you made.”

  Ayashe gave the robot a look with both her eyes squinting at him. Apeiron recognized the human emotion and disappeared into atom size pieces.

  “What was that about?” Asked Mac.

  “I’ll tell you later.” She looked around. “This is not a good place to discuss it.”

  Now he was worried. She knows I’m busy. There isn’t a lot of time for the attention a normal relationship requires. I wont be able to think with this looming over my head. “Is it about us?” he asked. When Ayashe looked at him, she realized he was nervous.

  “Don’t worry. Things between us are great. In fact, it is becoming everything I ever dared to hope for in a joining. We need time to talk.”

  Mac looked at her while tilting his head.

  “About our future, silly. Our hopes, our dreams, our – ummm, call it wish list for what lies ahead. We can talk about it later. Now I need you to answer a few questions for me.”

  Mac felt the tension leave his body. “Okay, shoot.”

  “What do you think about your planetary president?”

  “He’s simplistic and a know nothing. He is a manipulating, scam supporting, liar, money grabbing, and corrupt Mecater turd. And let me tell you from personal experience, they can get pretty big.”

  Ayashe wrinkled her nose and laughed. “Stop right there. I don’t want to hear another of your disgusting stories. Save it for Tinker, he seems to like them. Do you think everyone else knows?”

  “About the Mecater turd I hid inside?”

  Laughing she said, “You had to find a way to work it into the conversation, didn’t you? No not about the Mecater thingy. Let me rephrase the question. Do you think most people know the planetary president is what you described him to be?

  “Yeah, sure. Most people don’t want to be leaders. They are happy letting someone else do it so long as no major harm occurs. Why? Where are you going with this?”

  “I’m working on a theory. I’ll let you know if anything comes of it. Would you mind if I worked with Tews as he interrogates Lt. Phlop?”

  “No, go ahead. The last six months is missing from the lieutenant’s memories. Tews is working on getting them back. The doctors think he took some kind of drug to block recent memories.”

  The tachyon speaker squealed. The bridge went silent as the crew looked at the com officer. She checked the com unit and associated gauges. She looked at Mac, “The noise was a sinusoidal waveform. It’s a type of carrier wave containing a data transmission. It looks like someone sent a video file.” She typed in a few commands on the screen. “The files are from the Wasp sir.”

  “Great,” said Mac, “this will make things much easier.”

  “Wait,” said the com officer. “The carrier wave also contains a condensed voice transmission. They used the same frequency instead of separating them.”

  “Let me hear and see what they sent.”

  “Aye sir. Synching video and audio.”

  Mahpee appeared on the bridge’s main viewer yelling at someone. “Uzumati, can’t you be quiet for once.” He faced the viewer on his ship and said, “Mac, grandfather has assured me the tachyon com system is working now. A book is longer than a vid.”

  “Stop the video,” said Mac. He looked at Ayashe. “Is that code for something?”

  “No. It is father trying to use your colloquialisms again. He meant a picture is worth a thousand words.”

  The translation got giggles from the Constellation’s bridge crew.

  “Continue with the video,” said Mac.

  “This is a transmission we received from Osa, our ocean planet. It is the farthest out of our colonized planets.” As Mahpee talked, all eyes were on the screen. “You can see the planet’s defense system firing in a sector of space. The explosions are from large planetary lasers. We hid them on asteroids. We tried to get the people of Osa to relocate twenty-five years ago.” The crew heard Mahpee’s voice quiver. “It’s too late. Too few of them left for the safety of Nokomis. Osa had a limited defense system.”

  “Zoom in on the weapons fire,” said Mac.

  The crew watched as a few more Raygin ships exploded. But there were hundreds of them. Mac thought the Raygin fleet was big, but at least it was manageable. Several large ships maneuvered into distinct geometrical clusters. A shimmering shield appeared blocking the energy from the gigantic laser canons. In response the People’s Nation launched drones from both moons of Osa. The computer piloted vehicles headed straight to the Raygin ships. They focused on the ones creating the moving shield. The enemy reacted by launching thousands of fighters. The pilotless drones were faster. They attempted to evade the fighters and focus on the battleships. In the end the sheer number of enemy fighters were too much for the drones.

  The Constellation’s crew watched as the Raygin fighters destroyed the drones. None got close enough to damage the alien battleships. The dark shadow of bug looking ships moved closer toward the small planet. Micro satellites orbiting Osa captured the whole attack on vids. The planet fired a barrage of laser canons as soon as the Raygin were in range. They were the largest laser canons Mac had ever seen. The combined laser fire broke through the cluster shield. The lead Raygin ship exploded in a sudden flash. Another black ship took its place. The armada moved closer to the planet while the lasers recharged.

  “Watch,” said Mahpee, “the weapons launched from the planet are new technology. They have named them bemoss. You would translate it to walkers. They use gravitational distortions of certain sizes in space to track their target.”

  The walkers fanned out as they flew toward their individual targets. Many of them exploded against the large shield. Everyone’s eyes focused on the few making it past the energy blockade. Explosions were immediate as the walkers found their targets. Several Raygin ships sustained what looked to be considerable damage. One walke
r appeared to miss everything as it accelerated into deep space. It made an abrupt ninety-degree turn. Everyone saw a flash from an explosion. A sleek bird looking ship became visible in the bright blaze.

  A cloaked ship had been hiding well away from the action. The ship’s nose looked like a predator bird head. It had swept back wings like a bird of prey diving on its victim. Mac could see the flicker on the ships surface as the shields shorted out. The ship diverted its power as it tried to protect itself from battle debris. A large chunk of a destroyed Raygin ship hit the graceful and now fragile looking ship. The weakened shields didn’t hold. Mac knew the advanced design had to be Ogarii. It burst into several pieces and tumbled into space.

  The Raygin ships started firing at the planet again.

  “They took out the large laser canon sites before they could recharge,” said Mahpee. “Next they destroyed transportation and communication hubs. When it was safe they landed with troop transports. These are the few vids we have from Osa’s surface.”

  Mac watched as the Raygin destroyed everything. Most people on the planet didn’t have weapons. They were sitting ducks. What resistance did manage to form became priority targets. The Raygin didn’t bother with prisoners. Mac knew what they were doing. Teaching the humans a lesson. Destroying morale. It was a dangerous tactic to use. It could backfire and strengthen a resistance movement. The Raygin didn’t bother with sending troops to rural or agricultural areas. They went for large population zones.

  Everyone watched as atmospheric ships sprayed the countryside. “They are spraying a crop killing poison, said Mahpee. “The planet will be useless until we find a way to neutralize it. The loss of life will be horrendous. We estimate the death total will be near three point eight billion of our people.”

  “We have lost all communication with the planet. The last transmission we received is from a deep space micro probe.”

  The bridge became silent as the vid played. It showed a fleet of Raygin ships numbering in the thousands. This was the main body of the enemy fleet, not what they had been watching. Mac remembered the words of Mahpee’s grandfather. It’s true. The Raygin fleet does blot out galaxies. This is not manageable.

  “We believe Osa was attacked because the Raygin probes detected human life on the planet. We are in communication with Nokomis and will soon arrive. From what we could see, several hundred Raygin ships flank the main fleet. They must fear a concentrated attack on the side of their fleet. I know I have given you a lot to think about. I await your call. Please tell my little princess I send my love. You take care of her. Mahpee out.”

  The anger Mac felt during his youthful sniper days returned with a vengeance. There would be hell to pay by the Ogarii if he had any say in it. He began to slow his heart rate. Experience trained him not to let anger rage. He began to channel his energy and thoughts towards a multi-pronged solution.

  “Engineering. I want to know how the enemy was able to project their shields into near space. Taking advantage of quark confinement requires dense material to create shields without gaps. The average hydrogen density in space is one atom per cubic centimeter. They must be spraying a source of atoms from their ships. I need some quick answers.”

  Mac looked at Smitty.

  “Now commodore, before you say anything else. I know quark confinement and shield theory. In fact, I know it better than I know myself. I’m your man.”

  “Great, it’s all yours. I also want to know how to defeat their shield system. How can we modify the walkers to search only cloaked ships first. Search for undiscovered enemy weaknesses. Find a way to make the big laser canons fire faster. Work with Tinker. I’ll have him get in touch with you.”

  “Aye sir. But before I go, may I make a suggestion?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I know Tinker is one hell of a trooper. I owe him my life, but don’t you think we should have a few more experienced engineers for this project?”

  “Smitty, to be honest I’m more worried about you than him. Tinker holds multiple engineering degrees. He’s what you would call a natural. It’s why I gave him his nickname. He developed the antigrav skidder bombs during the mining wars. He helped develop long range acoustic weapons, laser mines, medusa projectors, bremsstrahlung particle weapons, and a list of other inventions and improvement recommendations.”

  Smitty smiled. “Sorry? I didn’t know. Nobody ever said anything.”

  Mac patted Smitty on the back. “You couldn’t have known. Tinker could have joined the federation as an officer. He’s top notch. For his own reasons he chose to start from the bottom as a ground pounder. He asked me to keep his tinkering ability private. I gave him what he wanted until now. Things have changed. We are at war. I need every bit of talent I can squeeze out of everyone.”

  “I’m looking forward to this. Don’t you worry. I’ll get hold of Tinker. You focus on what you need to be doing.” Smitty turned and walked toward the elevator.

  Mac smiled when he heard him mumble something about getting out of here before his list of things to do grew.

  “Mac. May I speak to my father? It’s important.”

  “Yeah. Go ahead. I need to talk to him too. You first.”

  The com officer told Ayashe to go ahead and speak.

  “Father. It is I, Ayashe.”

  “I am not deaf grandfather. I know it’s my daughter.” Mahpee appeared on the viewer. “Ayashe. I miss you. Is all well?”

  “Yes. All is fine. I am sorry about Osa. It is horrible what they did.”

  Ayashe began to speak, but no one understood. Phonetically it sounded something like: “Ah-say ga-wan-nees-gav oh-knee-ya-gay-sdow-da u-leese-ga-dav aye-yav wee-lee oh-ya-nav-dav, ew-see-li-da.”

  “I understand,” said Mahpee. “May I talk to Mac?”

  “I love you father. Mac is here. Speak as you will.”

  Odd. Something big is up. I recognized one word, u-tse-li-da. She taught it to me and knows I know the word. Hell, she even over pronounced it so I wouldn’t miss it. It is when something is private and not for all ears. I’ll wait and talk to her later. “I’m here Mahpee.”

  The two leaders brought each other up to date and promised the sharing of a few new discoveries.

  “I have a couple requests,” said Mac.

  “You shall receive nothing from me Mac. I have not heard the words.”

  A red-faced Ayashe moved forward to translate.

  “It’s okay. I got it. He meant if you don’t ask, you don’t receive.”

  One day we can teach each other the finer points of our languages. “First, can you have your engineers put top priority on developing the new light-based computer system? Second, I need a delivery system. It has to be fast as hell, small, maneuverable and have a strong shield system. You can design it for a one-person crew. It must be capable of carrying a payload designed into its nose. I’ll send you the specs.”

  An involuntary twitch moved Mahpee’s shoulders. He asked in a whisper, “Is a storm coming?”

  Does the chief somehow know my plan? He regretted talking to him about this particular weapon system. I can’t ask someone else to take the risk. I’ll do it myself and with any luck make the enemy realize they are also vulnerable.

  “A storm is coming unlike any other, Mahpee my friend. The Ogarii are the universe’s bullies. We have to bloody their noses to stop their bad behavior.”

  Ayashe experienced an involuntary shiver at the words. That’s it, where is the storm’s center? I have to talk to Lieutenant Phlop.

  “I understand, but we must talk when I arrive,” said Mahpee.

  “I look forward to seeing you in person again. Mac out.” The face of Mahpee faded as the com officer broke the connection.

  Mac formulated a new plan. He started making calls and scheduling meetings.

  *****

  Slipping away while Mac was distracted, Ayashe headed for the medical department. She needed to find out if what she suspected was true or not. Lieutenant Phlop had the answ
ers, but he refused to talk to anyone. He certainly wasn’t going to talk to her about Mac.

  When she arrived in the med wing she searched out Tews. It scared her but she had to find out if what she suspected was true. She found Tews in an office with the staff working on a holographic display of a brain.

  “Hi, Ayashe. Come in,” said Tews. “Mac called and said you would be coming soon and to help you however we can.”

  She smiled. Mac noticed her departure from the bridge even with everything going on. How does he do it?

  “What do you need from Lieutenant Phlop?” asked Tews.

  “First, tell me how hypnosis works and how do I know I’m getting the truth?”

  “I learned hypnosis from an old rebellious expert. It’s an outdated practice no longer taught. The planetary government banned it thousands of years ago. My guess is with time, and dedication, anyone could learn how to do it. The government wanted no part of people experimenting with such powerful science. Today we use expensive chemicals and hardware to affect someone’s memories. The cost is prohibitive.”

  “Encoding a memory occurs when a protein stimulates our brain cells. It creates a connection within the brain’s neocortical region. The hippocampal activity -” Tews stopped mid-sentence when he saw Ayashe waving her hands.

  “Hold on Tews. I appreciate your level of detail. But, is there a simple way you can explain it to me? We are kind of pressed for time.”

  “Sorry. I can get carried away. Let me put it to you like this, chemicals can block a memory connection, but the memory is still there. It takes away the pathway. Using hypnosis, I force the brain to make a new pathway to access the old memory. The chemical does not block the new connection. During questioning we will monitor the lieutenant’s brain waves. I can tell if he is faking it, or if I am in his subconscious thoughts. How’s that?”

  “Great. Can I question him?”

  “No, you can’t. Not without a lot of work. I have his mind trained to focus on my voice. It might take him days to get used to you. If time is important, I’ll question him for you. You can be there while I do it. Is that acceptable?”