Where We Go One, We Go All

by Robert Boren

  “That’s what I’m thinking, and remember that we can share this with Simone. The Razor ships are large enough.”

  I’m liking that idea.

  Thanks, junior.

  Hey!

  Just kidding. I like the idea you and the Captain are working on as well. Brilliant. We ought to weaponize them while we’re at it. A nice nuclear explosion at their plant would be a good thing.

  Be still my heart. Capitol idea.

  “See, they can get along,” JJ said. “When they want to.”

  It’ll pass.

  Izzy and Tim came back on the bridge.

  “Your relief is here,” Tim quipped.

  “Nolan’s coming in a sec,” Izzy said. “He stopped for a bite to eat on the way. Go sleep. We’ve got this.”

  I looked at JJ and she nodded back at me.

  “Great, thanks,” I said. “We’re beat, but if anything breaks, wake us up. No hesitation, okay?”

  “You got it, Captain,” Tim said.

  JJ and I left the bridge, walking to our stateroom. Deacon met us in the hallway.

  “What are we doing, Cappy?”

  “Waiting and watching,” I said. “Two Clan Razors are heading for Boroclize. They’ll be there in about twenty-four hours.”

  “Curley has been keeping me up to date on some of it,” he said. “Sounds like we won’t be going to the Clan Zone, which suits me fine if it’s true.”

  “It’s probably true,” I said, “at least for now.”

  “Going to get some shuteye?”

  “Yep, Deacon, and make sure your crew is well rested as well.”

  “Aye, Cappy.”

  We finished the walk, going into the stateroom and hitting the sack.

  My PA buzzed me after six hours. JJ wasn’t in the bed, so I got up, finding her sitting at the table.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Couldn’t sleep the whole time, so I got back to my task.”

  “Good,” I said. “Sleeping on this problem helped me. I need another meeting with Vermillion and Drake, but I need some calculations before I do that.”

  “Care to elaborate?”

  I chuckled. “How much does your refinery weigh?”

  She froze, eyeing me. “Just under two hundred metric tons. Why?”

  “Flight tubes weigh just under one metric ton. We could put 200 in the cargo bay if we moved the refinery onto the New Jersey.”

  JJ eyed me again. “Okay, I think I know where you’re going here. We need to chat with Deacon. The shielding he put into the cargo bay weighs many times more than the refinery.”

  “Butch, wake up please.”

  Good morning Trey. My, but you’ve been busy.

  “You know what I need. Please get with Deacon.”

  Right away. This will take some time, you know. I’ve reviewed the procedure for duplicating the shielding. We’d have to go back to the New Jersey to do the job, too.

  “Don’t get ahead of me. I need to know how much the shielding weighs.”

  A little over two-thousand metric tons. Don’t forget that we still have a lot of cargo capability even with the shielding and the refinery on board. I’ll work with Curley to get a full workup.

  “Thank you.”

  “What are you thinking?” JJ asked.

  “There will be Clan Razor traffic through the Free Zone to the Clan Zone. I want to stuff this ship as full as possible with modified flight tubes and scan for the traffic in the Free Zone, perhaps even in the Clan Zone.”

  “So you’re thinking the modified flight tubes will follow the Clan Razors back to their base? Then what? Blow them up? They’ll just rebuild, and we’ll be destroying a lot of very expensive hardware in the process.”

  “Who said anything about blowing them up?” I asked.

  “You just lost me.”

  I’ve got that workup. If we choose not to remove the refinery and its shielding, we can carry fifty-three hundred flight tubes on the Zephyrus. That means we can’t shuttle fuel from Amberis to the New Jersey, of course, since most of the shielding will be removed.

  “I didn’t give you those parameters.”

  You’re talking about operating in the Free Zone and the Clan Zone while cloaked, for an extended period. We need the refinery.

  “Thank you,” JJ said. “I’m still not getting this. What are you going to do with them, if you aren’t destroying them in the process? Are they going to drop bombs or something?”

  Oh. That’s brutal.

  JJ eyed me. “Dammit, what?”

  Don’t ask.

  “I’m going after their human capital,” I said. “They can rebuild plants.”

  “Emerald?”

  He plans to modify Variant Four Nanos and release them at all the bases and plants we can find.

  JJ eyed me. “Modify them how?”

  “I want to extend their lives and their reproduction capability so they can take out the entire installation. We’ll have to find a number of targets and do as much damage as possible in the first few attacks, because there are counter-measures they could use after they do analysis.”

  “Like what? Make all of their employees wear vacuum suits 24/7?”

  “Well, in some areas they’d do that, in others they’d simply harden the facilities, although they’d have their work cut out for them.”

  You’ll be hunted to the ends of the universe if you pull something like this.

  We’re already being hunted to the ends of the universe. This might allow us to survive.

  JJ sat silently for a moment, then looked over at me. “Do it. We don’t have a choice. That’s the only weapon we have in sufficient numbers to win.”

  My PA buzzed. Deacon’s face showed up in my visual cortex.

  “Cappy, are we really going to remove the shielding from the cargo bay? That’s a big job, you know.”

  “I know. My idea will probably get struck down by the Chairman, but I have to propose it.”

  “Care to share the plan?”

  “Not yet, old friend. How much time are we talking about?”

  “Five days with my whole crew, and we’d have to do it on the New Jersey. It’ll be harder to remove than it was to install.”

  “Okay. Don’t worry just yet.”

  Deacon chuckled. “I’m not worried, and I’m willing to do it. Just wanted to make sure you understood what you’re asking for.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Talk to you later, Cappy.”

  “You want to call Vermillion?” JJ asked.

  “No, I want to chat about this with you and Nolan first, and I want to hear all the reasons why this is a stupid idea.”

  Shall I get with Dojo?

  “Please. We’ll meet in the conference room off the bridge.”

  Sent.

  We made our way down to the small conference room, Nolan joining us as we got to the door.

  “Nolan, thanks for coming. I want to run some ideas past you and JJ, and I want honest thoughts about them. Don’t hold back.”

  Nolan chuckled. “When have you known me to hold back?”

  I opened the door and led him and JJ inside, locking the door behind us.

  “Okay, what’s on your mind?” Nolan asked.

  I told him the idea. Nolan was silent for several minutes as he absorbed it. JJ watched him nervously.

  “Well, Captain, doing something like this will put a huge target on our backs, but we’ve already got that.”

  “Do you think it’s a good enough idea to run past the Chairman and Drake?” I asked.

  “We should bring Estes into the conversation as well,” Nolan said. “Nobody knows the capabilities of the flight suits and the difficulty to make changes better than he does. He’d shoot it down quickly if there are insurmountable technical problems.”

  I thought about it f
or a moment. “Okay, I think you’re right, but I still want to breach it with the Chairman first. I don’t understand where Estes falls in the organization.”

  “Of course,” Nolan replied.

  “Let’s go to the stateroom and get on the communicator,” JJ said.

  “We aren’t in a jump,” Nolan said.

  I shook my head. “True, but this is top secret, and that’s the most secure communications device we have.”

  We went to the stateroom, and I started the holographic communicator, paging Chairman Vermillion. He showed up after a moment.

  “Captain, what’s on your mind?”

  “Might want to bring Drake in.”

  I’m here, and I got a preview. Please describe your idea to the Chairman and we’ll talk.

  “Okay, here goes.” I took a deep breath, and laid out my plan. Vermillion’s brow furrowed.

  Given our current situation, this idea makes a lot of sense, and it could be enough for a long-term win.

  Vermillion sighed. “I know, but it could also get us locked up for war crimes. We’d be killing many non-combatants.”

  Do you think we’d be treated better by the Clan if they take over this zone?

  “No. It would be much, much worse, because the Clan would have their way with all of the people of the Central Authority Zone. Those that survive, that is.”

  We should discuss this further. I suggest we bring Estes in.

  “Nolan suggested that as well,” I said. “We can bring him into this call, correct?”

  “I don’t think we have a choice,” Vermillion said. “Shall I page him?”

  Please do.

  We waited for a few moments, and Estes face showed up next to Vermillion’s in the frame.

  “Hello,” he said. “For what do I owe this honor?”

  Vermillion chuckled. “This won’t be a fun talk.”

  “Uh oh, what happened?”

  “Captain, why don’t you tell the story, and then state your idea. Estes doesn’t yet know about the Clan ships.”

  “Clan ships?” Estes asked, his face showing concern.

  I filled him in on the status and the idea.

  Estes shook his head. “I hate this idea, but it’s the only thing we can do at the moment. Hopefully it’ll be enough.”

  “Is it technically feasible?” JJ asked.

  “Very much so, and with less modification than you’d think. You’ll still have to move a ship at least to the far side of the Free Zone to deliver the flight suits, though.”

  “How about extending the lives of the Variant Four Nanos?” Nolan asked.

  “That’s merely a setting,” Estes said. “I could broadcast that change to thousands of flight suits at once. We might run into problems later, though. We’ll be opening pandora’s box. Someone with evil intent could kill all the humans on a planet with this technology.”

  “It’s possible to extend the life of the Variant Four Nanos for that long?” JJ asked.

  “Yes.”

  He’s right. We’d want to send Variant Three Nanos in set to full power as well. That would destroy all their equipment using any kind of electronics. If we don’t do that, they could mop up the mess from the Variant Four Nanos and restart the plant.

  JJ was looking down at her lap, thinking.

  “What’s on your mind?” I asked her.

  “If we do this, will the Clan be able to reverse-engineer our Nano technology?”

  “Nothing will survive to reverse-engineer,” Estes said.

  “You’re sure about that?” I asked.

  “Completely. We’ll want to set up self-destruct on any flight suits that don’t make it back to base, though. Easy to do.”

  “How about the logistics?” Nolan asked. “Would we have to send ships to Earth to pick these up?”

  “I suggest we fly them to another location,” Estes said.

  “Wouldn’t that take a big bite out of the fuel?” JJ asked.

  Estes shook his head. “If we’re not holding humans in the flight tubes, it’s easy to extend their range. The size and weight of the shielding was the limiting problem.”

  “We won’t bleed enough radiation to show up in scans without the shielding, I hope,” Nolan said.

  “The outer shells of the Flight Suits will contain that just fine. Remember it has to shield humans from radiation in space.”

  “All right, I’ve heard enough,” Vermillion said. “I vote for going forward with this plan.”

  I agree, but we need to do it quickly. There are enough Clan ships in our Zone to start a costly war.

  Vermillion nodded. “Captain, work with your team and Estes to get this off the ground as quickly as possible. Let the Zephyrus crew know, but tell them it’s classified. Oh, and head back to the New Jersey for removal of the shielding.”

  “Yes sir, Mr. Chairman.”

  { 11 }

  Zone Map

  T he Zephyrus took off for Amberis. Tim, Izzy, and Deacon accepted our plan without pushing back. Nobody was happy about having to do it, including me. Such is life during wartime.

  Nolan, JJ, Estes, and I worked out details about our mission on the way via the holographic communicator, which we moved from my stateroom to the bridge. Chairman Vermillion joined us while we were talking, to let us know that another twenty-two discrete Clan battleships showed up in the scans of the Central Authority Zone. He didn’t stick around, though, preferring to let our sub team work the details.

  “Why do you guys want so many flight suits?” Estes asked. “One can release enough Nanos of both variants to take care of an entire facility, given our alterations. It would save you from having to remove your shielding.”

  “If we don’t have to do that, all the better,” I said. “It’s possible we won’t see more than one facility. Finding them will be the hardest part.”

  It might not be as hard as you think. I’ve been focusing on traffic to and from the free zone. I’ve seen ten moving towards the Clan Zone and six coming in this direction so far.

  “Does that mean the total number of Clan ships is still increasing?” JJ asked.

  Nope, the ships that we’ve seen coming and going at the Free Zone border had already been identified in prior scans. There’s a lot of traffic. Oh, and thanks for giving me credit, Junior.

  Sorry, that was a mistake on my part.

  Private. Thanks for not taking the bait.

  I didn’t think you wanted to hear that kind of stuff right now.

  “We’ll have to guess how many we need, then,” Nolan said. “Or maybe we err on the side of caution and stuff as many onto the Zephyrus as we can without taking out the shielding.”

  “What was that number again?” Estes asked.

  Roughly thirty-three hundred. That’s more than we need, of course.

  “I want to have some redundancy,” I said. “Maybe not that much redundancy, though. I’d be surprised if we find ten targets. Maybe we should just go with five-hundred for now. If we see a reason to have more, they can be sent, brought over by one of the other ships.”

  “We’ll have to find a place to stage, right?” JJ asked. “A planet?”

  “To pick them up, yes,” Estes said. “For the delivery to the targets, you could shove them out the airlock.”

  “You mean just shove the disks out there?” Nolan asked.

  “Yes. They fit through the airlock door on the Zephyrus. I just checked.”

  “We’d be doing more than one at each location, remember,” I said.

  “I’ve instructed my team to design and fabricate a launcher,” Estes said. “It’ll be quite simple. We load disks onto it, and the launcher will fling them out the door in rapid succession.”

  “What about our cloaking? Will we be seen?”

  “No,” Nolan said. “We’d be shoving cloaked devices out of a cloaked ship, and we aren’t making a big opening that will rele
ase visible light, either. This will be a piece of cake.”

  “I agree,” Estes said. “Maybe we should load more than we planned. I just remembered something.”

  “What’s that?” Nolan asked.

  I smiled. “Bet I know. This will be our complement of fighters.”

  Estes smiled. “Precisely. They had a maneuverability problem due to the G-force issue. No humans, no problem.”

  “Can the AIs fly them well enough?” JJ asked.

  Hey! We’ve got this.

  Yes, this is well within our capability.

  I concur.

  “This solves another problem I’ve been thinking about,” I said.

  “What’s that?” Nolan asked.

  “We might not find any facilities other than space docks. We know the Nanos won’t work in a complete vacuum. I’ll bet we could punch a hole and release Nanos inside.”

  Estes’s face lit up. “Wow, you’re right. It wouldn’t take much of a hole. The railgun might be able to break through with a series of shots. I’ll give you the thirty-three hundred flight suits, and increase the number of projectiles on board for the railgun. Since we won’t have to deal with life support, I can re-route power to the weapons systems. That will help with the rail gun and the plasma gun.”

  “We need to back that number down by the number of normal flight suits we have onboard,” I said. “We might need those. Hell, they might save our lives.”

  “I have the quantity you took for the rescue mission,” Estes said. “I’ll back down the total.”

  “We should equip other Zephyrus-class ships with this capability,” Nolan said.

  I chuckled. “Hell, when you think about it, having forty-thousand of these with a nice speed launcher on the New Jersey would be helpful as well.”

  “We’ll have to talk to the Chairman about that,” Estes said. “Remember how expensive these are.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “How long will it take to ready the thirty-three hundred?”

  “Worst case, a couple weeks,” Estes said. “I’ll try to get it done in one week. We’ll have to back the total off a little for the launchers, though. Those will be beefy pieces of equipment, and they’ll weigh several tons each.”

  “Each?” I asked. “We need more than one?”