“What I’m about to tell you is among the most guarded of all Craing secrets. In fact, I’m sure with this knowledge you could stop the Emperor’s Guard from reaching Earth. Understand, I do not wish for anything but the best for my people, but their hunger for conquest must stop. Things must return to the old ways. Honor must be restored.”
“I’m listening,” Jason said.
“You must agree to my terms, Captain. First, you will transport the three of us to the Craing settlement so we may speak face-to-face with our brethren. Second, if they agree and grant our people asylum, you will transport the remaining Craing here on Earth to the settlement.”
“I still don’t see why this is in our best interest.”
“Because what I’m about to tell you will alter the balance of power with the Craing. It won’t be easy. And you may decide you’re not up to the task. That will be up to you.”
Jason didn’t respond, but looked to Ricket. He’d learned to trust the mechanical being more than he’d thought possible. If what this overlord was saying was true, war could be averted. Earth could be saved. Jason and Ricket exchanged glances. As if reading his thoughts, Ricket nodded.
“We’ll trust you for now, Glenn. Cross us and you’ll be the first to die. Understood?”
“I will not cross you, Captain. You are making a wise decision.”
“Tell us this secret,” Jason said. “Tell us how to level the playing field with the Craing.”
Ricket interjected, “Here is what I’ve learned from Glenn and the overlords. The Craing worlds are a star system unique in the universe. The location of their home worlds are many thousands of light years travel from Earth. Even with FDL, it would take many lifetimes to traverse that distance. This kept the Alliance always on the defensive—never able to attack.
“How is that possible?” Jason asked.
Ricket continued on: “The Craing worlds—eight class M planets revolving around a single red giant sun. What is unique is that each of these planets shares the same orbit, and each of the planets is the same distance from their sun. Over many millennia, hundreds of black holes had formed. The gravitational anomalies that this created made space travel for the Craing precarious at best. Subsequently, many lives were lost attempting to leave their orbits. Needless to say, the Craing Empire was slow venturing into deep space.”
“So what happened?”
“The same anomaly that kept the Craing Empire close to home eventually became that which allowed for unparalleled travels to far-out reaches of the universe. Two hundred years ago a Craing scientist proposed a revolutionary, albeit controversial, idea. His plan was to instigate an artificial black hole—one powerful enough to negate the gravitational properties of the smaller black holes. Limited experiments were approved. Powerful lasers were constructed and positioned, one on the southern-most pole of each of the eight Craing home worlds. Then, corresponding mirror arrays were placed in space. For the experiment to be successful, the lasers needed to be perfectly aligned—toward a specific point thousands of miles out into space, and each needed to be energized at precisely the same instant.”
Glenn explained, “In one regard, the experiment didn’t work. It wasn’t a unifying black hole that was created, but a massive wormhole instead.
Jason saw where this was going. “Let me guess, they now had access to a wormhole that literally allowed them travel across the universe. To star systems hundreds, if not thousands, of light years away?”
“Yes. And by changing the power level, even minutely, of any one of the eight lasers, they found that properties of the wormhole also changed,” Ricket added. “Change the properties of the wormhole, change the outpoint. It’s taken time, hundreds of years, to map these outpoints. That is why the Loop is the Craing Empire’s most-guarded secret. With the destruction of one or maybe two of their home-world lasers, the imbalance would be sufficient enough to collapse the wormhole, the Loop itself, and send the Craing back into spatial isolation, and very far from Earth.”
Jason took in the information. If what Glenn was saying was true, this most certainly could be a game changer.
“We hope this information will be of use to you, Captain. With the exception of the Craing high priests and a select few scientists and overlords, few know the technical aspects of the Loop—and how easily it could be disrupted. Captain, if what you say is true, and this Emperor’s Guard, those three highly advanced alien ships, are in fact making preparations to come to Earth, you have little time to take action. I am not sure how you could reach the Craing worlds in time.”
“Who knows where these lasers are physically located?”
“The lasers are huge, out in the open. As far as the populous is concerned, their prime function is for inter-world communications,” Glenn replied. “Their connection to the Loop, that is a tightly held secret.”
“So what do you need?” Jason asked.
“I’ll need access, right now, tonight, to a Craing ship to initiate an FDL communication to the Craing worlds,” Glenn said.
“Why?”
“Once on Halimar, you’ll need help. Revolution is brewing. There is much dissent among the Craing—especially among the youth. I’ll set up a rendezvous with my people there—with luck they’ll have a ship available. I’ll tell you how to contact them, how to provide them your landing coordinates. It will take me a few days to hear back. We’ll need to talk again, Captain. At that point I can give you more specifics.”
* * *
"Twice! I've been thrown in those disgusting damn cages twice now! And don't get me started on the jeopardy Mollie was placed in. Who the hell lives like this?" Nan stopped yelling when she realized she wasn't getting any argument from Jason. He let her get it all out. Hell, he didn't blame her.
They were back in her suite on
The Lilly
, Mollie put to bed an hour earlier, as Jason sat next to her on the edge of her bed. She'd showered and had her hair wrapped-up in a towel the way women do.
"I'm sorry. It's my fault. If you knew how terrified I was when I saw you and Mollie sitting there at gunpoint ...”
"Oh, just shut up," Nan replied, rolling her eyes. “I'm venting. So you really don't need to say anything. Actually, it’s probably best if you don't. And yes, I signed up for the outpost's damn Envoy position—what was I thinking? And yes, I remember you tried to talk me out of it."
This was classic Nan. Same as when they’d been married—she would get upset and Jason would back off. With her innate ability to debate just about anything, law school had been the perfect choice. And later, as a defense attorney, she rarely, if ever, lost a case. Jason also knew Nan would continue to argue aloud both sides until she came to some kind of resolution. That was her process of dealing with things. Jason smiled inwardly; he didn't mind her chatter one bit.
She now looked at him with brows raised. "Are you even listening to me?" She shook her head in disbelief.
"Yes. Well, actually ... no, not really. I was thinking how familiar this seems, what we're doing, to when we were married."
She looked at him for a while. Eventually the anger or frustration fell away and she smiled.
"Yeah, I guess it is." She pulled the towel away from around her head and let her long hair fall free. She looked into his eyes and then slowly pulled him closer. They kissed. Eventually, she pulled away and took a breath.
"You better go before I do something I might regret." Jason kissed her cheek and reluctantly stood up. As he turned to leave, she grabbed his hand.
"Oh, and if I ever get thrown in one of those damn cages again I will hunt you down and ... well, you don't want to know what I'll do to you."
* * *
Jason, aware that time was of the essence, called for an immediate emergency meeting. The captain’s ready room was filled to capacity. Those who couldn’t find a seat found an open area on the bulkhead to lean against. Jason stood and let Mollie have his seat at the head of the table, bringing smiles from around the room.
“We’re right back where we were a month ago, with Craing warships en route to Earth. Even if we could repair the Craing vessels that are in our possession and even if we had enough trained pilots—”
“We could still lose,” Ricket interjected.
Jason nodded, letting the point sink in. All eyes turned towards the small alien cyborg.
Jason continued. “We need time to ready our fleet—bolster Earth’s defenses. Hell, we need a year, maybe two.”
“So this plan the Craing overlord is proposing, can we believe it?” Nan asked. “Sounds a little self-serving, if you ask me. I mean, I’m certainly no military tactician like you guys, but it seems like we’d be putting a lot of faith, not to mention resources, hinged on one Craing’s obscure promises.”
“Maybe. But if what he says
is
true, and we can—if not bring down, at least greatly hinder—the Craing’s ability to traverse the universe, maybe we need to risk it.
“You really think there’s a way—?” the XO started to ask.
Chief Horris interjected: “First of all, even with
The Lilly
's advanced FDL drives, there's no way we could make it to the Craing worlds days or even hours before the Emperor's Guard gets under way.”
XO Perkins shrugged. “So that still leaves the problem of getting there under seven days. And do we even know where these Craing worlds are located?”
“We have a good idea where Terplin, their home planet, is located. Unfortunately, no one in the Alliance, perhaps other than my son, Brian, has ever been there,” the admiral replied.
“That brings me to the second issue,” Jason said. “Somewhere along the line I’ve heard both Mollie and Jack talk about a habitat in the Zoo—something about one with Serapin-Terplins—did you bring the information I asked for?” Jason looked toward Jack, the Zoo caretaker.
“Yes, Captain. That would be HAB 12.” Jack had handwritten some notes on several small index cards. “The Serapin-Terplins—
weird,
the Craing use the word Terplins a lot throughout their language—inhabit a world called Halimar. Halimar is within the Craing eight-world solar system. According to the meta-data information tied to that habitat, both the Terplin and Halimar planets are in a shared orbit around a shared sun—which is a red supergiant.”
Jason turned his attention back towards Ricket. “Would it be possible to access Halimar via HAB 12?”
Ricket looked uncomfortable with the question. “First of all, you need to understand that habitats, such as HAB 12, do in fact reside on other planets, such as Halimar—not here on board
The Lilly
. They can be hundreds of square miles in size. Also note that habitats exist in a completely different reality—one that is slightly
out of phase
with our perspective. For instance, if you were to travel to Halimar, you would not see the animals and terrain of HAB 12 …although they are there, occupying time and space, it’s a time and space slightly
out of phase
with our own.”
“And accessing those habitats could be accomplished via the same technology we utilize with our DeckPorts and phase-shift capabilities, correct?” Jason asked.
“Theoretically, that is correct,” Ricket replied.
“And just as we have port access to each of the habitats via
The Lilly
’s Zoo, it makes sense that there would be a secondary port, within the habitats themselves, to access these corresponding planets, yes?” Jason asked, now looking around the room to make sure everyone was following along.
“Yes, each habitat has a minimum of one, often more than one, portal to their originating home world reality. This information is already provided within the accompanying habitat meta data—although not the exact locations,” Ricket explained. “The Caldurians, original designers of the Zoo and habitats system, not to mention
The Lilly
itself, built in security safeguards for this very reason. The habitats were never intended for subversive use, for the very same reason we wouldn’t want inhabitants of other planets infiltrating
The Lilly
’s Zoo.”
“I’m sure you already know what my next question will be,” Jason said.
“You want to know if I can bypass the safeguards,” Ricket replied flatly.
“Yes. Jailbreak the thing—not only get us into HAB 12 but eventually onto Halimar itself.”
“Whoa, whoa … hold your horses, everybody,” Jack exclaimed, wide-eyed and looking around the room. “HAB 12 is one of the most dangerous, if not
THE
most dangerous habitat. It’s an environment that makes Earth’s own Jurassic period look like a trip to Disneyland in comparison. Not just carnivores inhabit the place—we’re talking killing and eating machines. Feeding drones are never idle—meat supplies never stop. Hell, I’ve seen Serapins even try to eat the drones.”
Fidgety, Admiral Reynolds got to his feet. He gestured for Nan to sit. “Even if Ricket can get us access to HAB 12, and we deal with the environment and wildlife situation, and, let’s suppose, we also navigate to where the alternate portals are located, and after we do all those
impossible
things, what then? What’s the end game?” the admiral asked, looking at Jason.
“Simple. We locate and destroy the Craing’s ability to move about the universe. Somewhere on each of the eight planets in their solar system is a powerful laser. Those lasers work in conjunction with each other in forming a massive wormhole. They call this system the Loop—for the last two hundred years the Loop has enabled the Craing to conquer and subjugate any society they’ve come into contact with—even those thousands of light-years away.”
“Wait a minute,” Orion said confused. “So why are we going to the Craing worlds?”
“We need to bring down the Loop. Destroy the Craing’s ability to quickly move around the universe. But, primarily, we have less than seven days to stop the Craing from deploying those three warships—warships that may be as advanced, or even more advanced, than
The Lilly
. They call them the Emperor’s Guard.”
“Why don’t we just take a ship into HAB 12?” Orion asked.
“We thought of that. Even our fighters have a larger wingspan than the portal openings. According to Ricket, if you can’t enter directly through the portal window, there’s no way to enter the habitat. Phase-shifting into a habitat is not an option,” Jason said, looking to Ricket for confirmation.