Fiction River: Moonscapes (15 page)

Three

Captain Saber looked around at his command crew, then shook his head. “Looks like we got seven hours to figure this out. Marion, make sure to get that report to the people on board who understand Trans-Galactic drive physics.”

Marion nodded, her fingers moving quickly over the controls as Brian turned his big chair around so he could face Kip on his right and Marion on his left.

“Done,” she said.

Brian knew that meant the other 40-some members of his crew all knew the score and were working on solutions as well. When you got that many experienced people working hard on something, results tended to happen.

And Brian knew that everyone on the other ships was doing the same. That was a lot of years experience focused on the same problem.

“Let me kind of think out loud here,” he said.

Both Marion and Kip nodded.

“I assume TG space will power the thing once the moon reaches Trans-Galactic speed. But what’s powering it now?”

Both Kip and Marion had the report at their fingertips and it was Marion that spoke first. “The moon has a hot core, so the engines spaced around the moon are feeding off the internal core of the moon itself.”

“All TG engines,” Kip said. “All shielded as would be expected. Nothing we have will knock them out.”

Brian knew that and he nodded. He’d been in a lot of fights with Dog warships and knocking their engines out was never an option, just as Dogs knocking out a TG EPL engine wasn’t possible either. It was the nature of Trans-Galactic engines and the shields that built up around them.

“Can we dig the engines out of the moon’s surface outside the shields?” Brian asked.

Again both his command crew worked on the report, then both shook their heads at the exact same time. “Engines are buried thirty miles deep inside the moon. No dislodging them.”

Brian looked at the big screen near Kip with the report and wondered how the EPL got all the information. More than likely a number of people had died for it.

“And I assume no blowing the thing apart before it enters Trans-Galactic speed?” Brian asked.

“They found the most stable hunk of rock I’ve ever seen,” Kip said, and Marion nodded.

“It would take an entire fleet of ships,” Kip said, sounding disgusted, “pounding it with all weapons, and I doubt that even that much would make more than a dent.”

They all three sat there in silence.

Brian just kept looking around, looking at his young body, at his command crew’s young bodies. Somehow they had made it out here, to this exact location in space.

He looked at Kip. “Who is driving the moon?”

“No one will be on the moon,” Kip said.

“So who drives us when we come out here,” Brian asked. “to exact coordinates, with our Trans-Galactic drives?”

Marion frowned and turned back to her board.

Kip did the same thing.

You don’t just send a ship hurtling through more miles of space than Brian wanted to think about without something or someone driving. Even with top shields, you didn’t want to plow holes through things along the way that didn’t need holes in them.

So that transport ship from Earth had someone driving it, controlling it, from somewhere.

And that moon would have someone driving all the way to Earth. One planet that far away was far, far too small a target to hit from this distance without a number of course corrections along the way.

“Computers,” Marion finally said. “Each transport we take out here is run by a computer to do course corrections.”

“Through sensors, the computer is able to see the route ahead,” Kip said, “and make corrections to avoid the transport putting a hole in a planet or moon or anything else along the way.”

“So there is a computer on that moon somewhere?” Brian asked. “We know where?”

“Buried with the Trans-Galactic drive engines,” Marion said.

“Damn,” Kip said, clearly getting angry. “They thought of everything.”

“Not everything,” Brian said, smiling. “Is the moon rotating in any fashion?”

Kip and Marion both looked puzzled at him, then quickly checked.

“No,” Marion said. “It couldn’t rotate and maintain its TG drive thrust.”

“So we blind it,” Brian said. “Tough to hit anything without being able to see.”

“The computer sensors,” Kip said, laughing. “Of course, they would have to be hidden on the front side of the moon to feed the computer.”

“And I’ll wager those sensors are not hardwired into that computer,” Brian said. “Not through that much rock.”

Marion laughed, the first time Brian had heard that for some time. “What are you thinking, Captain?”

Brian sat back, his hands behind his head.

“How about we feed those computers in that moon some bad targeting information, something simple such as the location of a Dog military base.”

“Oh, that will annoy them something awful,” Kip said, laughing so hard tears were coming to his eyes.

Marion informed all the other ships of the idea and then all three of them set to work on exactly where on that moon those sensors would be planted and how to intercept the signal from the surface sensors to the moon’s targeting computer.

Four

The moon was fast approaching the EPL border when Command gave the clearance to try their plan. It had been a scientist on Dot’s ship who had finally cracked the Dog computer code between the moon targeting computer and the sensors.

And it had been a scientist on yet another warship who had figured out how to intercept the signals from the sensors.

They would need to have a ship in tight over each of the six sensors on the moon and the intercept signal would have to be sent at exactly the same moment to all sensors.

In essence, the control of the moon was going to be transferred to Brian. He and Kip and Marion were going to turn the moon just before it started into Trans-Galactic drive and fire it at a Dog military base.

And then destroy the targeting computer by feeding it a very nasty virus.

That moon would wipe out that Dog base and then head out into deep space at full TG drive. The engines would have to fail before that moon dropped back into normal space a very, very long ways away from this entire galaxy.

At least that was the plan.

But there was one major problem with the plan that Brian didn’t much like. Six EPL ships would have to basically hover in close over the moon to intercept the signal from each sensor and relay the signal to his ship and then, in turn, take the new instructions and feed them back into the sensors.

Dot and her ship would be one of those in close.

And they would have to stay in close during the moon’s turn and then somehow get a safe distance away when the moon jumped to Trans-Galactic drive.

It was going to take exact timing. Just a second or two of delay and a warship would be lost.

And if one warship didn’t stay in close enough, all six sensors wouldn’t feed the computer the right data and there was no telling what might happen.

Brian sat back in his chair, trying to keep his nerves under control as they waited the last ten minutes. He knew everyone was busy checking and double-checking the plan. He had talked with Dot privately thirty minutes before, telling her to be careful and that he loved her.

She just laughed that wonderful, young laugh of hers, and said, “Trust me, I’m not missing the dancing tonight for anything.”

Dot loved to dance, more than anything in life it seemed at times.

And he loved to dance with her.

“Moon crossing the border now, Captain,” Marion said.

Brain nodded to Kip who opened a fleet-wide communications link.

“Move into positions now.”

On the screen in front of him, Brian could see the six other EPL warships with their sleek noses and wing-like appearance move as one, turning toward the large moon and matching speed with it. EPL warships had been designed to look like birds not only to allow them atmospheric flight if needed, but because in so many of the cultures the EPL fought against, birds were feared.

Including with the Dogs.

Brain kept the
Bad Business
outside and above the group, moving with them to match the speed of the moon.

Then, almost as a practiced dance in space, the six ships broke away from each other and moved in over an area of the large moon.

The closer the moon got, Brian could see that it did look a great deal like their moon at home. It had no atmosphere and was covered with impact craters. And it was just about the same size.

Brian took the
Bad Business
in right over the center of the moon and matched its speed and acceleration to stay in position.

“Thirty seconds,” Marion said.

“Signal when in position,” Brian ordered the other ships.

Each ship had to hover no more than a football field length above the surface where the sensor was, and match the increasing speed of the moon at the same time.

Very, very tricky flying and a slight miss and the EPL warship would crash into the moon’s surface, or be too far away to intercept the signal.

Brian could see the
Blooming Rose
turn and settle into its assigned position above the moon surface. Dot would be flying it. She had one of the steadiest hands at the helm of a ship that he had ever seen.

Three other warships signaled ready.

Then Dot signaled
The Blooming Rose
was in position and steady.

“Ready here,” Brian said, checking to make sure his people were ready with the computer download and new signal into the moon’s computer.

At the same moment the other two ships reported they were in position and stable.

“Hold and be ready to turn with the moon,” Brian said.

“Intercept signal,” Brian ordered the other ships.

As one all turned green that they had the sensor signal.

Then he turned to Marion. “Feed it.”

Her fingers flew over the panel and the new programming for the Dog’s computer was fed through all six sensors.

An instant later the moon started to turn off its course for Earth.

“Stay with it, everyone,” Brian commanded to the other ships as he moved the
Bad Business
to maintain position and keep the feed to the other ships constant.

The moon kept turning and somehow the EPL warships held their positions.

“We got some swearing and close calls,” Kip said, “but everyone’s holding.

“Ten more seconds,” Marion said. “And the virus will be loaded.”

At five seconds Brian counted it down for the other captains.

“Five. Four. Three. Two. One.”

Marion signaled cut.

“Get out of there now!” Brian shouted to the other pilots.

As one, the other pilots moved their ships up and away from the rough surface of the moon.

Brian had the
Bad Business
moving with them, pushing the ship as fast as he could to try to reach a safe distance.

Twenty seconds later the moon vanished into Trans-Galactic drive space, headed back into the Dog’s territory and right for a large military base.

“Clear,” Kip said. “All ships made it out of the wash zone from the drive.”

Brian slumped in his chair, just smiling as both Kip and Marion applauded and laughed.

Somehow, Earth had dodged that moon.

Barely.

Five

Captain Brain Saber looked down into the wonderful brown eyes of Captain Dorothy Dot Leeds and smiled. “One more dance?”

She laughed, the sound high and wonderful and something he needed to remember in the long days and nights at the nursing home. “Our bus back to the home is going to leave without us.”

“Let it,” he said, pulling her close and enjoying the feel of her against him. Since they had turned the moon weapon back on the Dogs, the general had allowed all seven EPL warships to dock at Stevens Base for some well-deserved time off while in younger bodies.

Brian and Dot had spent the first night dancing, then in his room on the base. The next day they had spent in meetings with the general and others, then dancing more that evening, then back to her room for the night.

The General had approved their application to move to Stevens in a very short time, be married, and work front-line there with their ships and any crew that wanted to join them, based out of Stevens.

As the General said, it was about time they had a staffed base full of front line defenders. He wanted Brian to lead the wing of fighters. The EPL would still bring many in from Earth when needed, but a number based out on the edge of the frontier would be a good idea.

But until that was fully approved, Brian and Dot now had to go back to Earth and the Shady Hills Nursing Home.