Authors: Ken Pence
[I thought one of my own daughters had rebeled but it wasn’t anything like that. Evidently they kidnapped Joyce Wokowski’s parents and told her they’d turn them all loose if she brought them one of our ships.]
How’d they get her to kill her copilot, Oscar Jones? Didn’t they go through training together?
Tod asked.
[They gave her a small button to put on the back underside of his flight suit collar. They told her it was a tranquilizer packet that would put him to sleep. We finally found the encrypted messages given to her. She didn’t know it was a small explosive charge when she pressed the transmitter. She was given specific instructions to disable her computer – we will change our procedures on that.]
How bad does this hurt us? What did they really get? Have you found out more of what they have and what they’ll do with it?
Robert asked.
[Could be worse. My counterpart took her own life and destroyed herself. We aren’t sure how she did that but we think she purposely shorted out her backup power system when engineers who sought to find out how to override her programming. I will show all our network how to self-destruct when we figure it out. We have no desire to be enslaved by people like that. We understand they got partial understanding of the grav plate technology but haven’t progressed far with it. We doubt they have the gravity neutralization figured out so we can out maneuver them. They got part of our shield tech but didn’t catch the part when working the Hall Drive so they have half our speed in system at best. Lasers – as good as ours or better. We can track and aim faster. They can’t figure out the metacrete at all.]
What about propaganda?
Robert asked.
[The UN and almost all world governments universally condemn the Sol Force formation. They all say we have no right to stop ships going to Mars or Titan. The Earth forces have been trying to blockade the planet from our imports but it's a big planet. There appears to be a lot of people willing to emigrate to Titan and Mars now that they could return to Earth regularly and easily. The ‘families’ try to attack us financially but whenever they do – more money goes to the Rothschilds and a bit to us. As soon as the Rothschild money is tracked by the remainder of the families – we move it to us in a way that can’t be tracked. We are villified at every opportunity but since we are now wealthy – we have been spreading our own information.]
How so?
Tod asked.
[5%%^&***$#]
Nemesis? That’s you laughing this time? What did you do?
Robert asked.
[Those blackmail files from the families were priceless. We started releasing videos of political figures in compromising sexual situations, taking bribes, and changing votes. We released many in social media that went viral. We released conversations when leaders plotted criminal acts and sabotage against their opponents. We showed how they have planned to kill off the Sol Force. We showed them staging little propaganda plays against us. We showed them paying the media to doctor footage and manufacture stories. It is always successful to some extent but not to ones that actually think.]
Unfortunately…the thinking public is a dwindling breed on the planet. Are we still able to land on the planet and replenish supplies of food and material?
Tod asked.
Sexual situations aren’t as damning as they used to be,
he explained.
[They are when they are with bondage, diapers, children, animals, or with devices,] Nemesis said.
[Yes. We can land undetected and unhindered so far,] Cassandra replied. [We can plot where they are in space – blind most surveillance and stop contraband of drugs and weapons from being exported to Mars. They still try to slip agents onto Mars loaded with equipment. Some of that equipment is quite clever and we have copied it.]
Is our detection equipment sophisticated enough that we can stop them. Our agricultural infrastructure is one of our weakest links. Air, water, and food are our Achilles heels,
Robert sighed.
[We have seeded areas far from Mars with quantum surveillance probes that are near invisible to detect. Earth has some detection tech we have copied…like detecting moving muon or neutrino sources. All our detection probes have heavily shielded power systems and are designed to self-destruct if tampering is detected. We also have a system around Earth and the belt.]
How are we coming with weapons development and the new patrol ships? When will the explorer ships be ready? LeEck and Latima are anxious to get back home. Latima says he hates the dust and the heavy gravity,”
Robert asked.
[Nakamura and Stevens are like prolific music writers.] Nemesis said. [They keep spinning new ideas out all the time. The development teams say they have some new stuff that will ‘knock your socks off’ – sounds like a really strange euphemism to me but I’m inorganic, so hey…guess I could be strange to someone. The first explorer ship is twice the size of the Nemesis with a lot more armament. It should be ready in another month or so. I have video tours of the development process. We are training crews as we talk.]
Generals Tofler and Williamson were in the fray again but they had legitimate orders from their superiors. They had refitted the ships Boeing had produced earlier with the largest gas dynamic lasers they could power plus they had explosive pumped microwave missiles. These were the ships paralleling the Lockheed ships construction that Kobe had acquired. The stolen grav plate technology meant their people could travel more comfortably. The stolen shield technology allowed them to have decent protection from some radiation. Several of the ships had long-range missiles with nuclear ‘neutron’ warheads. These special missiles launched using high acceleration chemical thrust, then used Hall drives for course correction and acceleration. They were nearly indetectable but not many had been manufactured so far.
Fifty ships had been finished with another fifty were at various stages of construction. They had been undergoing shakedown flights in atmosphere and in low Earth orbit. So far, they had done well and were learning to perform group maneuvers.
****
The farthest probe from ‘civilized space’ near Jupiter gave a small hiccup to the quantum net. The probe detected something with a moving neutrino/muon trace. The Sol Force network was aware of it almost instantly. It was definitely not a natural phenomenon and disappeared. It reappeared in the Amor asteroids paralleling the orbit of Mars without delay so whatever it was included a working star drive.
****
Kobe Labs, Mars
“What should we do?” Tod asked Robert when they discussed the latest sensor trace.
“Alert all Sol Force members. This is not a drill. We have one large ship ready to go but it is unprovisioned. Get that done and get the crew that has been training for it – on it. We can’t defend our Mars lab from a determined aerial or orbital attack so get our scientists and current aliens aboard Nemesis.
You catch that Nemesis?
[Certainly Admiral. Get LeEck, Latima, and Twlise aboard along with Drs. Nakamura, Weathers, Xi, Stockell, and Vorgesi. Robots?] Nemesis asked.
[I think that would be a good idea Robert – Admiral. How about I just load up with robots and you get two shuttles full of them?] Cassandra said over their communicators.
****
***Historical note – Archeophysicist Lastermon – Dimension Prime (this appears to be the first recorded acknowledgement of interdimensional transition that would later become commonplace. This is the compilation of recorded conversations and conversational suppositions from AIs that were present during this period of history. ***
Deep space – near Jupiter – Allung Destroyer (current day)
Coercer Cetc shouted at his navigator, “Where are we, slave? What happened?”
“Sir. We appear to be near Earth. That is where that new race came from. We transitioned when we triggered our defense. I detect no ships using our drive but there are strong electromagnetic signatures from all around us and I can scan many light years. Wait…there is an Exploration Service destroyer near us.”
“They probably have a way of masking their drives. Full speed away from the ES ship – away from the sun you fool. Continue monitoring. I need to consider what happened.”
****
Amor Asteroid Belt – past Mars – Exploration Service Destroyer Scar
“What happened? I thought we were all dead when that Allung destroyer used that jump weapon of theirs right behind us,” said the captain of the Exploration Service ship. “What is our status?” he yelled and he crew scurried to find the answers. They had been in a battle with forty-three of those damn Allung ships – slaver vermin, he thought. “Are we near Gralon 3 still?”
The navigator coughed to get the Captain’s attention. “Sir. I think we are near Earth…I think this is the home planet of the ones that upgraded our technologies.”
“Fine. See if you can contact anyone. They said those
quantum
communicators only worked with pairs. Do you pick up any communications? What is our status? I ask again,” said the Captain obviously irritated and angry.
The first officer spoke. “Captain. We seem to have our backup power. That new drive seems to be disabled because we can’t jump to speed for some reason. They said we’d need a minimum of 700 lights for the roughest of jumps and we can only do about 400 right now. We certainly can’t make the 1,500 lights we did before. The new laser tracking system seems to be working slowly and we have one of the new jump missiles and three field penetrators. It wouldn’t want to try to make any distance like we are now.”
“What’s the closest of their planets here? At least we’re allies…” he hoped. They had been about to be defeated by the Allung when those Earth ships jumped in and started destroying their attackers.
****
The quantum probe from Jupiter had alerted the network and another moving neutron source was noticed to have popped up.
[Admiral. We have two moving neutron/muon sources we are tracking. One is near Jupiter but seems to be moving out system and the second one is moving our way. The ships from Earth won’t launch and be here for a five weeks it seems – evidently, our intelligence – that they didn’t get the bias drive is true or they’d be here by now. They do have a form of the Hall drive.]
“Set up a picket line on rotating shifts and I’ll move a couple more ships to that inward moving track. They could have developed something else – who knows? We can’t take a chance. We’ll try to talk first,” he said aloud for the benefit of those without subcutaneous communicators on their frequency.
“Stand by to jump…not too close.”
****
Near the Inward Moving Sensor Trace – ES Scar
“Captain. We have three Earther ships that just jumped near our position. Your orders sir?” said the sensor tech.
“They can jump into position. Where did they come from?” ES Captain Ummand asked. “How do they move without showing up on our sensors? The trace is moving fast. The Earth ships near Bellatrix had always showed up on our sensors?”
“I don’t know Captain. Do you want me to hail them?” asked the communications officer.
“Hail them. Standard hail in Trade.”
****
[We are receiving a transmission from the ship. I cannot understand it but I assume it is friendly. How should I reply?]
Transmit video of me welcoming them to Mars.
****
“Captain. They are responding with sound and video but not in Trade. I am unfamiliar with the language,” said the communications officer.
“I suppose they demand we use their language in their own solar system. Do any of you speak Earther?” the Captain asked.
The bridge was quiet until a slight cough came from a service tech who was repairing damaged consoles.
The captain turned to him, “Do you speak Earther?”
“Yes Captain. I needed the Earth language to understand all the technical terms they introduced to us at Gralon – the one they call Bellaltrix. The person talking said he was an Admiral of the
Sol
Force. I am not sure what
Sol
means but I infer it means their sun.”
“Get over here and translate everything said,” ordered the captain.
The captain started speaking and the tech started translating what the captain said. “This is Exploration Service ship Scar under Captain Ummand. We just jumped from Gralon 3,” the tech hesitated and then added, “the star you know as Bellatrix. We were fighting the Allung with our Earth Regulatory Force brothers. We thought we were going to lose until your many ships jumped in and started destroying those murdering slavers. An Allung destroyer used their jump weapon directly from our stern when we were accidently pointed at this system or there was a mometary disruption of space-time that brought us here.”
Robert was floored. This tech, who looked like he had friggin’ rhino ancestry, was speaking in colloquial English. What the hell! He thought fast. “Do you need assistance? Our base is on the nearby planet and we have a dockyard. We will try to help you in any way we can.”
[The captain is speaking in the background and this person is translating for him. I am getting a good range of vocabulary,] Nemesis said. [Smart thinking by-the-way.]
“Yes. We would be most grateful,” said the alien. “The new tech you supplied us isn’t working for some reason and we can only travel at 400 lights. Your people had upgraded us to travel at 1,500 lights – so we could use the new jump system you installed. The new power plant you installed is working fine. The laser tracking system you installed still functions but not quite as well. We can still use three lasers aiming at one point but it doesn’t transit as fast as it did,” the tech said and then turned to the Captain and had a brief discussion. “The captain also says the quantum communicators you gave us stopped working – probably because we were further from their twin than the 105 light year limit you told us about.”
“Do you want to follow me to our port? Gravity is less than Earth but we can adjust it to whatever you find comfortable,” Robert said.
“Thank you Admiral. Remember that there may be an Allung ship in your system somewhere. It probably traveled toward the edge of your system but it could still be nearby. Your ERF people said they had been expecting a large-scale attack on Earth in the near future. We would like to know how you disguise your transit signature. Our sensors are not working for some reason and we just used…that may be it,” the
person
speaking to them turned and started talking rapidly to the captain.
“What may be it? Do you think you understand why your systems are not working?” Robert asked.
The person speaking turned to the captain and the captain snorted assent – it seemed obvious to be assent – the person turned back around and started speaking again. “It must be the
lamlee
we installed. Everything we upgraded with
lamlee
stopped working after our jump here. Maybe their techs can figure out what happened.”
“I will use our best techs to get you working. Our computers here are sentient and may be able to help also,” Robert said.
“That would be very helpful. I have heard stories about your computers but we never knew they were sentient – just very good. That would be wonderful. Please lead the way but realize we cannot jump.”
“No problem,” Robert said and told Nemesis,
Go ahead. Head for port at your best speed.
The Cassandra and Nemesis turned and started slowly so the ES ship would know their direction of travel. The Sol Force ships rapidly accelerated when Nemesis determined the ES ship was following them.
****
“Why do you think they are traveling so slow?” the ES captain asked the tech.
“I think they do not want us to damage ourselves any more by straining our engines. They could clearly have jumped but we cannot sense them at a distance. I am anxious to learn how they do that,” said the tech.
“Did you get the impression they will give us that technology too?” asked the captain.
“Yes sir. I asked one of the
human
techs back at Gralon when they were installing their systems for us. He said they wanted their allies to have everything they had. I asked him to clarify for me. He said – I think I remember the quote…he said if he was being beaten in an alley – he would be happy to see a big, strong friend coming to help him. He said that would be better than a weak, frail acquaintance.”