Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles 2: Redemption (3 page)

"How long will the emergency reserves last?"

"58.4 minutes,"
the cold impersonal voice responded.

***

Cat walked onto the bridge of the
GCP Yorktown
. She signaled Ken to join her in the adjoining ready room. On ocean-going aircraft carriers, the ready room was a briefing room off the flight deck used by pilots, but in the Space Corps the term had evolved to include the captain's briefing room. Her first officer slid into the room just as the door swished shut.

"Can I assume the conversation with the
Admiral wasn't social?"

Cat smiled at her friend but shook her head. "Mike Jeffries has gone missing. We've been ordered to investigate and
mount a rescue if possible."

"He's got one of the newer Bowman's doesn't he?" Ken asked as he sat on the edge of the table.

Cat poured a cup of coffee and offered it to Ken, but he waved it off. She sipped the cup before answering. "That's part of my concern. The
Heidman
had a full set of retrofits. That ship should have been able to recover from just about anything given enough time for its nanite systems to implement repairs. The bottom line is, even if the crew were killed the ship's AI should have been able to respond to our queries. And we have heard nothing."

"Is there any reason to expect foul play?"

Cat shook her head. "Not yet, but I want to be prepared anyway. Have the Chief run his entire team through a few drills and make sure the shield emitters are online when we enter that system. I'd rather find
a‘
nothin
g
’ fully prepared then find
a‘
somethin
g
’ while unprepared."

"We'll be
ready, Captain. I know Chief Wroblewski runs a pretty tight department. My guess is his team is fully prepared already, but I'll have him run a few more drills just so they know the situation is serious."

"Thanks Ken. We'll
break orbit at 1900 hours. That will give me time to brief our visitors and give them a chance to depart if they choose to."

Rasta-Tckner felt the compulsion of the hive mind end. He felt sick in his soul. He had been part of the swarm that had doomed the alien craft. It was clear from the onset that the craft in question was not from the same race that had attacked the nest worlds in the past. No weapon systems were active; they didn't even have shielding in place.

Heedless of their personal safety, the hive-compulsion forced many of his fellows to sacrifice themselves in their rush to
destroy this 'enemy.' Rasta-Tckner had taken personal damage as his tiny craft impacted with the exterior hull of the silver vessel. Rather than grappling onto the ship as others had done, his vessel had been jostled just prior to latching on and, as a result, had bounced off.

In the process,
his cybernetic hive biolink had been crushed. He could still link with the hive queen but only through his purely organic hive organ which, unlike the instantaneous synthetic quantum link his race now used, was limited to a few hundred kilometers and to the speed of radio waves. He was nowhere near the queen at the moment, so his personal intellect had thankfully reasserted itself.

In his considerable thirteen years, Rasta-Tckner had only linked with his queen a handful of times prior to the current emergency. His nest father
had lived to the ripe old age of fifteen and had only been invited to link once. Usually this honor was reserved for the best of the best and was used to facilitate the advancement of science or art. Normally only a few million Hymenopterans linked at any given time, but when the 'others' came and started destroying entire nest worlds, the queen, for the first time in countless generations, had forced a link with every last member of the hive.

The resulting super-mind was a force unto itself. Even the queen was powerless to
disengage the super-mind. Its mandate: to protect the hive from all threats. Rasta-Tckner shuddered at the thought of what his people might do if they were to encounter other innocents.

The silver
vessel the hive had just attacked plummeted into the thick atmosphere of the nest.  Rasta-Tckner altered the course of his attack pod to follow. He had no illusions about the fate of the alien. His nest mates would force the craft down until the crushing pressures destroyed the intruder. He had no idea what he would do, but he had to know their fate; and even if the chance to help was small, he would render what aid he could.

***

Three lousy minutes,
Captain Mike Jeffries thought. He was going to have to find three lousy minutes. This was the first time he seriously regretted taking command of the
Heidman
. The power being used by the ship to maintain even minimal life support and structural integrity for the remaining crew was bleeding the reserves faster than the ship could get the new power systems online.

The only
solution the ship could suggest was to reduce the number of systems being maintained. The problem was, this translated directly into lives lost. When the damn AI had sai
d‘
You will be required to determine power utilization priorities
,
’ it was reallysayin
g‘
you will be required to choose who will live and who will die
.
’ 

He had the AI calculate the last possible moment power could be cut to the isolated section of the ship he had painfully chosen. These were his friends and
crew. They had put their faith in him as a commander. His choice had ultimately come down to the logic of a simple set of questions. What sacrifice would preserve the most lives and give the remaining crew the greatest likelihood of surviving.

"Cindy, how long before the minimum power threshold is reached?"

"Three minutes and forty two seconds."

"In two minutes reduce the
structural integrity power to section twelve in 2 percent intervals as slowly as possible."
Maybe it will hold until we get the new mains back online
Mike thought without conviction. His best friend from West Point was in section twelve. They had known each other since those early days in New York. Unfortunately section twelve held only three people and while all of them were highly skilled, losing them was the only thing that gave the other forty one people a chance.

He had even asked Cindy to calculate the impact of sacrificing himself,
but there was no scenario in which it improved the odds of saving the rest of the crew. The best he could do was instruct the few remaining uncommitted nanite systems to do the best they could to reinforce the scaffolding in section twelve. It was a slim hope, but something was better than nothing. And it was all he had.

His leg still hurt.
He suspected the effective gravity was approaching 2G but he dare not ask Cindy to bleed more power from the reserves. He dragged a power cable down the corridor separating the bridge from what was going to be the makeshift engineering room.  When he finished pulling the cable, he gritted his teeth and instructed the computer to reduce power to the gravity compensators by another 10 percent.

The two minutes crawled by
, but ultimately the moment arrived. The ship's AI slowly began to reduce power to the designated section. With each creak and groan of his decimated ship a dagger stabbed at his heart. Come what may, live or die, the man who had been Captain Mike Jeffries would be forever changed by the next several minutes.

***

Rasta-Tckner edged his ship closer to the smaller of the two pieces of the alien craft. The larger still had a stable power source but his onboard sensors showed the power systems on this section were moments from failing. If they went then so would any chance for rescuing the solitary lifesign his computer had detected.

His small craft was designed for
deep atmosphere penetration. Its hull was constructed of a woven graphene mesh cage that actually got stronger the higher the external pressure became. He instructed the harvesting boom to deploy. When it made contact with the outer hull of the alien craft he began to feed power through the boom. He had no idea if the craft could utilize this unusual energy source but it was the only option he had to help.

Much to his surprise the other ship responded like a pupa being fed royal jelly.
It formed a metallic lip that tightly gripped the harvesting boom and the electrical impedance between his ship and the alien vessel was reduced to near zero. The technology of this race was certainly impressive.

His systems were able to
feed about fourteen megajoules of energy to the alien vessel. Apparently it was going to be able to use the influxto good advantage. Rasta-Tckner noted the other vesse
l’
s hull's structural integrity was beginning to be shored up. In fact he could hardly believe his sensors. It appeared that the craft was literally harvesting materials out of the atmosphere and soil to thicken and repair its hull. He had no idea who these people were but he was absolutely sure the hive did not want them as an enemy.

***

Lieutenant Rebecca Ann Kirkland slowly ladled her Yorkshire batter into the hot pudding tins. Yorkshire pudding with synthetic Kobe beef and gravy had become a signature dish on the Coalitions' flagship. It might be because of the similarity between the names but the Lieutenant suspected the real reason was her fleet wide reputation as a consummate chef. Of course being the first active military vessel to receive a Michelin star earlier in the year didn't hurt.

She had just closed the door to the oven when emergency lights flashed on and the alert klaxons began to blare throughout the ship. Per protocol she immediately signaled the oven's AI to flash incinerate the contents and headed towards environmental which was where her emergency duty station was.

As she exited the captain's galley she bumped into her husband, the ships first officer. "What's going on Kenny?"

"I'm not all together sure," he answered as he entered the turbolift with her. "I was just getting out of a small group study session in Engineering when we went to red alert. From what the Captain tells me we have a suspicious ionization trail on our Goldilocks.  We were scanning the planetary system looking for the
Heidman
when the sensors detected a shift in one of the inter system asteroid belts."

Before she could ask a followup question her CommLink beeped for her attention.

"
Lt. Kirkland here,
" she responded sub vocally.

"
Rebecca this is Cat,
" somehow normal military protocol never truly existed between the ship's chief cook and her captain.

"
How can I help Captain?
"

"
I need someone with a doctorate level understanding of environmental systems to accompany my away team.
"

"Gee, Captain it's been a while since I was invited to a party. I'd love to come!" This last was said out loud as she winked at her husband. For his part the First Officer simply raised an eyebrow.

The door to the elevator opened and both Kirklands exited onto the bridge. The Klaxon had been killed moments before although the alert lighting remained active. Cat swiveled her command chair to face them before getting up.

"Ken, you have the bridge. Doc Riley, Rebecca, and I are going to take a little side trip with an old friend of mine, a civilian mining specialist named Ricky Valen. I need you to take the
Yorktown
and run interference for us."

"Very good, Captain. What's our status?"

Cat stood beside the husband and wife pair and beckoned to Commander Trifa. "Commander, put a schematic of Kepler-47 up on the main screen. Show our current position and then overlay sensor grid 12."

"Aye, Captain," the Hupenstanii responded. Immediately the requested visual appeared on the forward screens.

Kepler-47b dominated the middle of the display along with its pair of oversized moons and its own thin ring. A red dot was highlighted on the surface of the primary planet. A secondary display in the upper right quadrant showed the asteroid belt that was .4AU closer to the sun. The belt was definitely deforming with a large portion of the mass now actively moving in their general direction. The
Yorktown
, for its part, appeared as a yellow dot higher in the plane of the ecliptic about equidistant from the planet and the deforming belt.

"Scanners are showing alloys that may be what's left of the
Heidman
on the larger planet's surface. There is so much electrical activity in its atmosphere that it's hard to get an exact reading. With Captain Valen's help we are going to take a look up close. The planet is not that much different than Uranus and Ricky has spent more time setting up mining operations on Uranus than just about anyone in the fleet."

Ken nodded
understanding. "Any speculation as to what we are looking at here?" he said, pointing to the rapidly deforming asteroid belt.

"If I had to guess,
I’
d say they are somehow involved with what happened to the
Heidman
." Cat said. "I have no desire to get involved in a conflict with whomever or whatever this is. My planis to check out the wreckag
e
– if that is indeedwhat it i
s–
and rescue anybody who needs rescue. Once that is done then I'm more than happy to leave this system in peace. Your job is to give me the time I need; but let me be clear. If it is a choice between the safety of the landing party and the survival of the crew, at your discretion you save the ship."

Ken's eyes
met those of his wife's before he responded to Cat with a simple, understated, "understood."

Everyone, includ
ing the Captain, knew that Ken as the First Officer would ultimately do whatever was necessary; but at the same time, Ken as a husband and friend would move heaven and earth to avoid stranding the landing party. 

***

The hive mother stirred in her royal nest den. A part of her knew something was wrong. Her body was being flooded with addictive endorphins. The hive mind which was normally under her control kept telling her all was well. She need not be concerned. She felt a heady rush of understanding. The core intelligence of the hive mind was a function of the number members. Linked as she was to several billion Hymenopterans her current understandingo
f‘
everythin
g
’ was beyond anything she had ever experienced.

Her's was
a peaceful people. Hymenopterans had never known war. They only killed in self-defense. Even their primary food, the sweet and flavorful sap and nectar from a wide variety of flowering plants, was harvested without harming the plants themselves.

Her inner-self knew that the current defensive rampage against all other lifeforms was out of control
, but the allure of the super-mind was too much to resist. The super-mind had reasoned that alien life was a threat to the hive and that threat had to be eliminated at its source. The Hymenopterans did not have interstellar space travel capabilities but it was clear these invaders did. The logical solution was to learn the technology the invaders employed and then destroy their home nests. The hive mother fought against this compulsion but ultimately she was powerless to stop it.