Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles 2: Redemption (5 page)

Slowly, inexorably
, the mass of little ships advanced towards the rapidly descending shuttle. Cat's AI did all it could to shake them but the combination of the driving winds and the seemingly endless supply of pursuers meant that it was only a matter of time. Cat had no idea what would happen if they caught up to the shuttle but she was going to assume it would not be good.

"How long before we make planetfall?"
she asked her AI while handing Rebeca her helmet with her free hand.

Cal responded with a high speed vertical
drop that threatened to overwhelm the gravitational compensators. The maneuver caused three of their pursuers to miss ramming the shuttle by scant inches.

"
I estimate we will be engaged by the pursuing craft approximately one minute before we can make planetfall. It is impossible to determine what will occur after that point as I will no longer have undisputed control of this vehicle
."

With her helmet now on
, Rebeca sat down and strapped herself in next to Doctor Riley and two of the 'red shirts' who had been brought along for security. "Cat, shouldn't you suit up?"

Cat smiled back at her.
With her hand still in contact with the navigation console she really couldn't don a suit; but then because of the Heshe, she really didn't have too. "Ricky, you'll forgive me if I borrow a part of your ship?"

She reached her free hand towards the metal bulkhead.
When her hand touched it she began a startling transformation. Incredibly advanced Nanites in her skin began to disassemble the metal in the bulkhead and transfer it to her as a second, completely flexible metallic skin. In a matter of less than thirty seconds the Commodore was transformed into a silver goddess.  As she moved her limbs the nanite systems automatically reconfigured her metallic exoskeleton to allow the movement. At the same time the nanites moved CO
2
out of her system and O
2
in. Small microscopic sensors on the surface of her new skin fed data directly to her brain allowing her to see and feel with amazing depth and clarity.

Rebeca, Doc Riley
, and Ricky all stared at her. They all knew of her advanced nanites and special abilities, but knowing a thing and actually seeing it were two different things.

"Damn if she
don't make a gorgeous C3PO," Ricky said in his best southern twang.

Ken sat forward in the command chair on the bridge of the
GCP Yorktown
and absently stroked his short red beard. The bulge in the asteroid belt surrounding Kepler-47 had split into two spiraling streams. One stream was headed toward the planetary system the away team was exploring, while the second stream headed straight towards the
Yorktown
.

Any hope the
Yorktown
had to divert attention from the team on the planet vanished when the swarm split. Sensors had determined the swarm was composed of billions of separate, very small, spacecraft; probably single person or automated craft.

"Helm, jump us so that we are between the 47b and the group heading towards the planet."

A young Lieutenant named Roberto Sanroma was manning navigation. "Aye sir. How close to the planet do you want me to drop us?"

The
First Officer thought for a moment. "Put us as close as you can; but in an orbit that keeps us between them and the planet. The away team may need to beat a quick retreat if things begin to heat up."

Chief Wroblewski spoke up. "Recommend we raise shields
, sir."

"Stand by Chief
, keep your finger on the button. I don't want to escalate things before we have a chance to try and talk."

Ken turned in his command chair to face Lt.
Zimmerman. "Ziggy, do you and Cal have an update on our little communication project?"

"We have located
sixteen damaged ships on courses heading away from 47b.  They seem to match the configuration of our friends out there. Cal thinks they may be flotsam from the attack on the
Heidman
."

"How long before we can recover one?"

Ziggy checked his board. "Automated probes have two snagged and are on their way back to the main hangar. Commander Ben and the Chief Engineer will start dissecting them to locate their quantum links in about five minutes. Once they have them Cal should be able to interface in a fraction of a second."

In the corner of the bridge
, Captain Lastila of the Silver Fledgling spoke up. "Commander, I know that I am here as an observer only, but please explain. I understand that you believe this race to be the Hymenopterans and that they have radio communication capabilities. Why are you not using this information to communicate with them?"

"Actually
, i
t’
s a great question Captain. The short answer is, we tried. Our Heshe AI thinks they are currently engaged in a collective hive consciousness via their quantum links. Radio communication is limited by speed of light considerations. We can interact with a small number of individuals but not enough to get the hive mind's attention. We are hoping that by interfacing via an entangled quantum link we can talk to the collective hive mind."

"I
understand," the Ashkelon responded. "And once you can talk to the hive; what are your plans?"

Ken looked at the oddly bird shaped moth. "We just want to get in
, get our people, and get out. We don't want to fight and we are more than willing to leave these people in peace."

Lastila fluttered her
low frequency antenna. "And If they are not interested in peace?"

Ken swiveled his chair to face forward before answering.
His voice, when it finally came was, deathly quiet. "My orders are quite clear. We will leave this system."

***

Chief Engineer Commander Thais Figarero stood next to Commander Ben on the gantry that dominated the
Yorktown's
main hangar. Ben was sitting on his rear legs, standing on his mid legs and holding the rail with one of his forward legs. He held a Hersey's chocolate bar in the gripping appendage of his second forward leg.

The Commander looked for all intents and purposes like a big six-legged dog. Thais had to fight the urge to reach out and scratch behind his ear.

"Here it comes," Ben said. He took a quick bite of the chocolate bar and placed the remainder in a belt pouch.

A robotic cart brought what appeared to be a badly mangled car into the bay. The 'car' was in fact the twisted wreckage of an alien space craft that had apparently attacked the
GCP Heidman
.

Thais accessed her internal commlink to query the ship's AI. "
Cal, is anything alive in that mess?
"

"
Scans show organic residue but no life signs.
"  

"I wouldn't even begin to know where to start looking for a cybernetic communication node in all of that," Ben added as he walked down the ramp to get a closer look at the wreckage.

"How would the D'lralu generate quantum entanglement?" Thais asked.

Ben grinned, which on large a six-legged D'lralu was typically a cause for concern, except that Thais knew Ben could programmatically switch interaction protocol between human and D'lralu cultural norms – and at this moment in time, her cybernetic friend was in 'human' mode.

"We wouldn't. Our physics teaches that energy, matter, nor information can travel faster than light. It's a fundamental law."

"It must have come as quite a shock when you discovered that a pair of humans named Haroche and Wineland figured out how to do it."

"Not really," Ben said as he examined the exterior of the wreckage. "We've always known that humans were a lawless people."

Thais hit his mid-shoulder softly with a fist while grinning broadly. "You're just angry because of that chess game last night. It's not my fault you never heard of castling."

"I still think you made that up," he said as he ran a forward paw along the exterior surface of the craft.

"You checked the online help file yourself."

"It wouldn't be the first time someone tampered with a database..." He stopped to look at her. "Why did you want to know how the D'lralu generate quantum entanglement?"

Thais stopped examining the wreckage to look at her friend. "It occurred to me that the laws of physics don't really respect racial boundaries. In the early twenty-first century on Earth our scientists learned how to mass produce entangled photons using solid state electronics based on indium arsenide semi-conductors. Maybe these people use the same technology."

"It's worth a try," Ben said. "Cal, scan the wreckage. Are there any signs of indium arsenide?"

Before the AI could answer, robotic porters deposited a second alien fighter onto the hangar floor. Nanite infused tethers snaked up from the floor to secure the craft much like they had for the first. The second craft was structurally in much better shape than the first, but again there were no life signs. A piece of shrapnel appeared to have penetrated the cockpit and the resulting explosive decompression probably caught the pilot offguard.

"
There is a network of organic polymers running through the deceased occupants of both vehicles. A nodal cluster of this polymer has traces of indium, gallium, and arsenic  which may serve an analogous function.
"

"Now we are getting somewhere!" Ben said while stepping back to examine the second craft. "Cal, see if you can extract the core components from this first ship."

***

"Commander! I'm getting a distress signal from the Away Team," Ziggy reported.

Ken spun in his chair, stood and took two steps toward the communication console. "Patch it through!" He yelled.

"
Yorktown
, this is Captain Valen and the Away Team. We really stepped in it, and let me tell ya... I
t’
s pretty deep!"

"Away team, this is the
Yorktown
. What's your situation, and where is Commodore Kimbridge?"

"She and her AI are flying this
bucket right now. Unfortunately we are becoming very popular. It looks like a couple thousand little gnats are really intent on becoming our best buds. And frankly, I don't know that we can stand that much lov'n for long."

"Can you
make orbit? We can do a precision snatch and grab." Ken, switched to his internal CommLink. "Thais, Ben... Drop what you're doing. I need you on the bridge, ASAP!"

"Negative
,
Yorktown
," Valen answered.  "Every time one of these little buggers latches on we gain several thousand pounds of dead weight. We are going down about fifteen clicks from the larger of the two
Heidman
pieces."

"Roger that Away Team.  Hold out as best you can. We will get
help to you as fast as possible."

"Commander?"
Lt Zimmerman interrupted.

"Go ahead
, Ziggy," Ken knew the Lieutenant would never interrupt unless it was critical.

"Sir, we are being hailed by an entity calling itself 'The Collective
.'"

***

The several billion Hymenopterans that comprised the hive mind collective saw the large space craft take a pair of disabled drones onboard. It was not overly concerned as to why. The hive super-mind was calculating and goal oriented. These invaders had a technology that allowed them to travel the stars. That meant they were a threat. That meant they were an infestation that must be eliminated at the source. That meant the collective must obtain this technology.

The massive ship suddenly changed position. One moment it was millions of
ferels from the planet around which the nest-worlds orbited. The next it was within striking distance of the nest. The hive was even now dealing with a small contingent of invaders. This new threat had to be dealt with quickly.

The hive mind accessed
its stored record of these invaders communication attempts as well as their ship to ship transmissions. It was not familiar with the language but, with a cumulative intellect that almost defied calculation, the hive mind deduced probable meanings and syntax for the language this new species was using.

Apparently they used acoustic sounds rather than radio waves and chemical pheromones. It would be painfully slow to communicate with these invaders but, since buying time was the objective of the conversation, this worked to the hive's advantage.

The super-mind sent a series of commands to the sole functional drone in the
Yorktown's
hangar. The drone, acting as a remote proxy, began to explore the internal computer network of the alien craft. There were numerous firewalls, encryption mechanisms, and security protocols in place to protect their data. Apparently this race was accustomed to this form of attack; but most of these barriers were easy for the hive mind to circumvent.

Surprisingly, there was a second class of technology in place that was far more sophisticated.
In the three hundred milliseconds the hive explored its defenses it determined it was from a different technological base and that it would not be able to breach its defenses anytime soon. Even worse, this second set of systems appeared to be artificially sentient and was aware of the intrusion. The hive super-mind redirected its efforts to securing the design specifications from this ship.