Talosian Chronicles 3: Talosian Alliance (29 page)

“We will.” Lissa replied as Cindy was refastening the cover.

She nodded to Ben who was standing beside her and he nodded. She smoothly rose off the wing and settled to the ground behind the Raptor.

“I’ll wait up here for them to finish, Major. By the way, when’s dinner?”

“You keep confusing me for your mother. You know how to feed yourself.” Cindy replied.

“Well the mistake is easy to make, she is beautiful too.” Ben replied.

“Yes she is, and Sam tells me she's damn good in bed too!” Cindy replied grinning.

“Oh, Ouch!” Ben answered to the chuckles on the comm.

Cindy cycled through the airlock, and headed for the main cabin. She stopped by the replicator to get an energy bar and continued on to the bridge. She entered the bridge to see the hatch to the holographic weapons chamber open. Cindy stuck her head down through the hatch, and saw that Sasha was replaying the last few seconds before the Raptor was hit.

“Whatcha doin’ Sash?” Cindy asked.

Sasha jumped. “Major! You startled me! I am reviewing the last few moments before we were hit. I don’t think the Imperial ship actually saw us. See here; the Imperial ship didn’t actually fire until the first rounds from our guns hit it. There! You see this? Our rounds hit the bridge! Where the weapons control would be. I think the jump point was targeted, but the weapon wasn’t fired on purpose.”

“That would mean the Imperials can’t detect us. But how sure can we be? If you’re wrong, we’re all dead,” Cindy replied.

“Major, at this point if they can see us, we are dead anyway. Once we leave the surface of this rock, they’ll have us on their scanners.”

“You’re right. Do you think we should just stay here then?”

“I do not know. I think our chances are about the same either way. But if we stay here, and play dead, we may have a better chance if we need to surprise them. I also feel that we should at least report in. Command will think we are destroyed,” Sasha replied.

"Did the boys get the transmitter fixed?" Cindy asked.

"Da, Sam replaced the antenna array before going out to help Lissa with the Sensor Pod. Jerry had to replace the amplifiers and attenuator circuits. The self-tests show it as fixed," Sasha replied. "However, the IFF system is completely fried. It'll have to be replaced."

“If we call anyone, it’d be like sending up a flare,” Cindy said. “I wonder... Hurry, come up out of there! We don’t have much time!”

“Huh? Okay, what are you planning?” Sasha asked. But Cindy had already hurried back to the main cabin.

Mumbling to herself about crazy women, Sasha hurried after her. Cindy was already calling up images and asking the computer for data.

“Sasha, what’s the E.T.A. on our visitors?”

“About nine minutes, Major. Whatever you do, it better be fast,” the woman said after checking the clock on the bulkhead.

“Okay. Computer: Record the following and compile with ships logs for burst transmission to Star Dancer. Notify when ready. Okay folks listen up: Sam, Jerry, You two unpack that class 6 nuke, set it outside, and get it armed. The rest of you, battle stations, and strap in tight, once I send this transmission we will be blasting out of here as fast as this buggy can go. Move!” Cindy said.

“Transmission ready.” The computer announced.

“Stand by.” Cindy said as her crew scrambled to carry out her orders. She followed Sasha and Lissa to the cockpit.

Three minutes later the men reported ready.

“Damocles; emergency acceleration on my mark. Transmit message now!” as she launched from the surface under full throttle. The Raptor shook and shuddered but quickly broke free of the gravitational pull of the planetoid.

“Transmission complete.” Reported the computer.

“Enemy is changing course to intercept. E.T.A. now one minute!” Lissa called out.

“Full emergency acceleration - NOW!” Cindy ordered.

––––––––

––––––––

"C
ommunications, try to hail the Damocles. Operations, let's get the search craft launched," Jenny ordered. "John, please contact the Summer Dawn, let them know we have arrived, and will be beside them shortly. I'm sure Chief Dommer would appreciate a situation report too. Yellow alert!"

Ian walked out on the bridge as she had been giving orders, and Jenny stood to offer him her chair. He waved her back to it. "Time to see what happened to our lost sheep!"

"I am not detecting their IFF module, however, I am detecting an active AI unit," Star replied. "I am continuing to scan."

"Thank you Major," Ian said nodding to her. "From the information we got, the IFF module could be burned out."

It was a little known side effect of the powerful computer systems that they could always detect if one of their own was near-by, but could not get direction or distance.

"AI connection is being blocked, which is in accordance to Raptor protocols," Star replied. "It is possible that the transmitters on the ship are damaged as well,"

"If it didn't outright destroy the ship, which we know it didn't, what would be the type of damage it would take from direct hits by ion weaponry?" Ian asked.

The Engineering officer, turned to answer Ian. "Sir, we are still learning the nuances of the Enigma armor developed by Dr. Benson. However, from what we do know, ion weaponry would severely load the armor, potentially to the point of overload. However, since we know that did not happen, a near overload condition is the next, most likely outcome. That could, and should, have an adverse effect on every system connected to the armor as a secondary power supply.

"The list of unaffected systems would be shorter; basically just life support and core power for the AI. However, with no way to control the life support, it would be undamaged, but taken offline. The AI core would retain integrity, but also would be put in stand-by mode. It would be like it was knocked unconscious.

"On a Raptor, virtually every other system has the armor as a redundant or tertiary power system. Damage would range from complete destruction of the system in question, to simple fried circuit boards. Provided the replicator system was undamaged, the crew should be able to make most repairs, given enough time to do so," the man finished.

Star agreed with him. "Lieutenant Joslin is correct, Admiral. Currently, Imperial ion weaponry is the most damaging weapon that can be used against a craft equipped with the Enigma armor. Laser weapons are higher energy, however, it is 'deflectable' by the armor. Ion weapons, which are little more than a lower power, unfocused, energy beam, are not as easily deflected."

"According to my briefing on Imperial tactics, they tend to use ion weapons extensively. Has there been any research done to counter this effect?" Ian asked.

"Research is being done into various types of energy sinks and supplemental storage units. However, the armor was originally designed to be used on larger ships that would have the ability to absorb and use the extra influx of power. On the smaller craft, there is simply no place for the energy to go that will burn it off quickly enough. It is quite possible that had a shadow fighter been hit by these beams, it would have been destroyed instantly," Star replied.

Ian opened a channel to his aide. "Mel, issue a general grounding order for all Raptors effective on the completion of their current missions. All currently unassigned craft equipped with Enigma armor are to be placed on hold until there is an acceptable counter to the overload issues derived from Imperial ion weaponry. I'll have to think up a way to get the deployed Shadow fighters taken care of, but for right now, we need them to be deployed."

"Understood, Sir, Do you want me to issue a stop work order to Pleiades and Mars where they are installing the armor?" Mel asked.

"Good idea, yes, do that, please. I'll get back with you on this as soon as we get out of here," Ian replied.

"Ten minutes to rendezvous, Commander," Chekhov said, making minor corrections to their course. "Do you want to dock, or just come along side?"

Before Jenny could answer, Ian did. "Just alongside, Chekhov, I want us to be able to break away and fight if we need to."

"Aye Admiral, alongside it is." Chekhov replied, while Ian winked at Jenny in apology for stepping on her toes.

"Message received from Damocles! Damocles located!" one of the tracking officers reported excitedly. "Her IFF is offline!"

"You want to check out the message while I call her?" Ian asked.

"Sure, but let me know she's safe and okay?" Jenny asked.

Ian nodded, and moved over to an extra console. Bringing up the Raptor command channel, he couldn't help but smile in relief. "Guardian to Damocles, we see you! What's your condition?"

"Star Dancer??" Cindy called. "Oh fuck! Sasha! Disarm that nuke! Star Dancer, recall your ships! Hurry!"

Ian quickly changed channels. "All ships, this is Guardian, emergency recall! Get back to the ship now! I repeat, emergency recall!"

No acknowledgment of the order was needed, or expected. It was simple, each fighters computer knew where 'home' was at all times and maintained a jump plot for it. All a pilot had to do was tell it to jump, which all of them did. It was an emergency protocol in the event a fighter had to get back to the ship in the shortest possible time. The Centurions turned around, but would have to plot a jump before it could return. They were close enough that by the time the plot was finished, it would be useless to jump.

"Okay, we cleared the ships, Damocles, care to tell me why?" Ian asked. 

"We explained it in the data burst, Guardian. But we thought you to be hostile, and looking for us, we left a present for you on that little planetoid," Cindy explained.

Ian thought about it, an explosion of sufficient size would have been devastating to the fighters 'chasing' the Damocles.

"Good plan. I hope you understand when I tell you I'm thankful it wasn't needed," Ian replied.

"Me too, now I don't have to fill out the paperwork justifying the use of a nuke!" Cindy replied.

"What's your status, Damocles?" Ian asked.

"Moderately fucked up, Guardian. Sasha took some eye damage, but the autodoc got her fixed up. Lissa was knocked unconscious, but has since recovered. The Raptor took damage to almost every system. We managed to get enough repaired to get our asses back in space, but we can't jump. We managed to replace the laser generators, but the replication/reload system for the mass drivers is completely destroyed. We had to patch the engines, but they seem to be working pretty well. Care to give a girl a ride home?" Cindy reported.

"We sure will, Damocles. We are currently assisting the Summer Dawn to complete repairs and can't leave yet. Can you make it to us?" Ian asked.

"I think so, we've already adjusted course. We should be there in just over an hour," Cindy replied.

"That should work, see you then, Damocles," Ian replied. "We'll set a place for you at dinner."

"Thanks Guardian, I'm looking forward to it. Damocles, out."

––––––––

––––––––

"T
he Summer Dawn should be repaired enough to make the jump home in about twenty minutes," Jenny reported as she entered Ian's ready room. "The Damocles will be landing in about ten minutes."

Ian nodded, "Excellent. We should be able to get out of here shortly after the Benesian's jump."

"Good, I'm getting a bad feeling the longer we stay here," Jenny replied.

Knowing that she shared Janet's precognitive ability, that got Ian's attention. "How so?"

Jenny shook her head in frustration. "It's not a vision, or anything like that, just a feeling that something bad is about to happen."

"Do you think a heightened defensive posture is warranted?" Ian asked.

"I would if I had any idea where the threat is coming from," Jenny said. "It's frustrating as hell, knowing something bad is going to happen, but not knowing what or where!"

Ian could only nod in agreement, since he had no idea what she was feeling. "Let's stay on Yellow alert then. Have operations arm the Centurions for ship to ship combat and send them out to monitor the system. Swap out the Wasps for Shadows, but warn the incoming pilots that they might be called back."

Jenny nodded and left the room. Ian knew better than to dismiss what Jenny told him, but he made damn sure she didn't see how much her admission had bothered him. Of course, she had not been with him when Admiral Goya called him back and they discussed the current situation and the possible reasons for the Imperial ship to have been in the system to begin with.

Goya agreed with Ian's belief that the Summer Dawn had not been that ship's primary mission, but could not believe that the Empire was up to anything major in that system. But Ian knew they had been. Why would they even care about Alliance troop movements this far from the fight?

Twenty minutes later, Star Dancer was escorting the Summer Dawn to her jump point when Ian's fears were realized.

"Sir! Multiple inbound jump points forming in the inner system! Computer is still calculating it, but we're looking at an enhanced fleet in size, probably larger," the operation's officer monitoring the scanner reported. Ian knew the message was for the bridge, but they had included him so he knew what was going on.

Ian opened a channel to the Summer Dawn. "Captain, we have a lot of company arriving, and I don't think their friendly. You need to leave, now."

The Benesian Captain looked surprised, and then scared as what Ian told her registered. "At once Admiral! Thank you again for your assistance. Summer Dawn is jumping in ten seconds."

"Safe journey Summer Dawn, Star Dancer out," Ian said. Jenny had called red alert and all of the great ship's battle systems came online.

He gave her a quick call. "Jen, I'm going to call ARC and see if they want to do something about this. I'll be out in a minute!" ARC stood for Alliance of Races Command. Since this was happening in Benesian Space, ARC had responsibility for protecting this sector.