Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles 2: Redemption (8 page)

She smiled at his expression. "Permission to come
onboard, Ensign?"

"Yes
, Sir, Ma'am... Sir." he stammered.

"At ease Ensign. I won't bite." She paused to look at him a moment. "You look familiar. What's your name Ensign?"

"Ma'am?"

"Your name? You have a name
, yes?"

"Ma'am, yes
, Ma'am. I'm Ensign Sanders. Pete Sanders." As he answered he felt his ears flush red. To her credit, Cat pretended not to notice.

"Ah..."
she said. "Are you, by chance, the same Peter Sanders who wrote a dissertation on '
New Strategies for Dense Wave Digital Multiplexing across a Null-Space Boundary Layer'
?"

Sanders grinned. "Yes
, Ma'am. How did you..."

Cat clapped him on the shoulder as she moved past the ensign to make room for the others exiting the airlock.
"I wouldn't be much of an engineer if I didn't keep track of some of the best work going on within the Corps. I thought I signed paperwork for a promotion?"

"Yes
, Ma'am... I mean I wouldn't know Ma'am... I mean..."

Ricky Valen put a fatherly hand on his shoulder
as well. "Relax son. She puts her britches on the same way as the rest of us. Although they are nice britches."

Cat hit the prospector playfully in the stomach for his trouble as he too pushed past the ensign. The lightness of the mood was enough to calm the young officer. Once everyone was out of the airlock and out of their encounter suits, the ensign led them down the hall towards the bridge.

***

The hive mother feebly struggled against the will of the super-mind. The hive consciousness had long ago won the battle for dominance and that fraction of her that had
its own distinct will was slowly being lost forever in the overpowering din of the gestalt hive mind. 

The invade
r’
s data files had been enlightening. Regrettably they were incomplete. Once the hive began to extract data from the weapo
n’
s systems the data channel had been forcibly disengaged by an artificial sentient that rivaled the hive mind.

What the hive had been able to access was damning. These invaders had the ability to produce super machines on the molecular level. Trillions of these machines could be deployed in vast clouds and used to disassemble adversaries while in flight.

The key to this technology was nano-machine fabrication. Unfortunately technology this advanced was currently beyond the capability of the hive. However, the certain knowledge that a technology was possible meant that the hive could develop the technology given enough time. Even more importantly, the hive could develop defensive and offensive strategies designed to counter this threat.

These humans, as they called themselves, had formed an alliance with other races
, presumably to enhance their ability to threaten peaceful races like the hive. After a lengthy period of contemplation lasting a good five to six seconds, the hive decided to accelerate its plans to preemptively strike this alien threat at its point of origin: a small world, barely larger than a nest moon, called Earth.

Cat entered the shattered bridge of the
Heidman
. It was immediately evident that something... actually
‘
many-thing
s
’ were very wrong. The
Heidman's
First Officer, Rudy McQuin, was beet red with fury. It was obvious that he and his Captain, Mike Jeffries, had been engaged in a heated discussion. Needless to say the conversation ended the moment the
Yorktown
contingent entered the bridge.

Cat's Heshe enhanced senses could have easily heard the conversation from the hallway before the door even swished open but she found such acoustic sensitivity overwhelming.
She habitually kept her enhanced hearing and vision dialed back to little more than 25 percent above normal. That said, she had another trick up her sleeve. Her enhanced senses automatically recorded what was going around her for later playback. She accessed the audio feed now.

"... Not for the love of God
, Sir!"

"Rudy... You know I'm right. There is no choice."

"Captain, there is always a choice. Everything we know tells us this one was trying to help."

"HELP! They destroyed the
Heidman
! They killed most of my crew. They killed Andy..."

"He was my friend too. As far as the rest of the crew
, we don't know that yet..."

"They need to pay for what they've done. We need to know why they attacked. This one can tell us all we need to know. I can drag it out of him.
By the time I'm finished it will be begging us to tell all it knows!"

"NO!"

Cat shut down the recording. She had heard enough.

"You have a captive." It was not a question but a statement.

Captain Mike Jeffries looked at her with bloodshot eyes that suddenly widened as he recognized his friend and superior officer. He stood straighter and saluted.

"Stow that
," she said crisply. "Rebecca, when we are done here I want you to work with the First Officer on environmental. Ricky, coordinate with Ensign Peters and whoever else they have for engineering to get the engines back online. Doctor, you can join me with our guest. Everyone else, make yourself useful..." Turning back to the captain, she continued.  "Walk with me. Where is your visitor?"

"The bug is in the medical wing. I'm conducting a biometric investigation
." Jeffries answered in a defensive tone.

"You're torturing it
, Sir." McQuin said in a whisper.

"Well, that stops now." Cat responded. "Captain, until further notice our 'guest' is under the control of
Yorktown
personnel. Has it said anything?"

"We have no way of knowing. Our AI was severely compromised when it attacked us
." the
Heidman's
captain said sullenly. 

"This individual was part of the
attack force?" Cat asked.

The
Heidman's
first officer looked at his captain for a second and then decided to answer. "Commodore, we have no idea. Sensor logs are somewhat iffy given the damage we took. It appears as if this particular individual was flying the same type of craft that attacked us en masse. The thing is, we were seconds from a complete structural failure when it started feeding energy directly into our grid. It very likely saved our lives."

"More likely
," Captain Jeffries interjected, "it was preserving an intelligence asset. We have no idea how these bugs think. That's why what I was doing was necessary."

Cat sighed. "We'll discuss what you were doing at another time.
For the moment we need to talk with our visitor."

"I told
you we can't. Our AI lost most of its linguistic database."

Cat reached a hand towards a communication console and touched it. Immediately the tip of her fingers turned silver.

Out loud she said, "Cal, link up with the
Heidman's
AI. Archive any data since the ship entered this system and effect repairs on the AI itself."    

"
Archive complete. Repairs complete.
" was the near instantaneous response.

***

Lieutenant Commander Sherry Melbourne adjusted the trim on the combat incursion shuttle, the
GCP Dante
. The craft, which was a recent addition to the
GCP Yorktown,
was built for stealth and robustness.

The entire exterior of the shuttle was studded with Hyperfield nubs. These nubs were tied into one of the GCP's most capable AIs. Some of these nubs warped space in an overlapping field of meter-sized spheres. Another set of nubs detected minute perturbations in this field. Anything smaller than a few grains of sand, down to a single photon,that impacted the surface of the field would b
e‘
folde
d
’ through space to the other side of the shuttle, its momentum and vector intact.

Larger objects would signal the shuttles' systems to instantaneously phase the shuttle out of space-time and allow the object to pass. If any object succeeded in breaching the field, a third set of nubs were set to reverse the momentum of the offending object.

The result was a nearly invisible and undetectable craft that was also impervious to most forms of attack. The greatest vulnerability of the
GCP Dante
was during atmosphere travel when its invisibility cloak was rendered useless and it was solely dependent on its momentum shields.

Commander Ken Kirkland sat in the copilot's seat next to his friend. He rubbed his hand across the small bronze plate mounted on the wall next to his control panel.  It read: "
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate."
He softly muttered the translation, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

Sherry smiled as she tweaked a control. "The Admiral's sense of humor at work again."

"I suspected as much
," Ken confirmed.

"He had hoped we would never have to build the
Dante
. That war and fighting had finally become a thing of the past for us. I guess he views its construction and use as entering the nine circles of hell."

"Well, he may be right
, but I prefer to think of this as simply a step along the path towards
paradiso
in the creator's ow
n‘
Divine Comedy
,’
" Ken mused. "How long until we reach orbit?"

In response
Sherry activated the internal comms. "Attention crew. We are jumping into planetary orbit in sixty seconds. Once we arrive we will deploy our full complement of stealth probes in orbit around Kepler-47b. Be prepared for debarkation fifteen minutes after that. Melbourne out."

The
Dante
currently held two landing skiffs with fifteen fully-armored, combat-ready soldiers each. Ken would lead both teams from the skiff designate
d‘
Gol
d
’ while Chief Wroblewski would handle th
e‘
Re
d
’ team from his skiff.

Ken keyed his internal
comm unit. "Chief, you ready?"

"Born ready
, Sir!" Wroblewski answered. "You give the order and my guys and gals will go on a bug hunt."

"We don't know why we were attacked yet.
Until we do and until I determine a defensive  need, we do this a quietly as possible. Remember, non-lethal force unless we have no choice. Clear?"

"Roger that
Sir... bug repellent only."

***

Sassi, the Ashkelon communications officer from the Silver Fledgling wondered what he had gotten himself into. He was embedded as an observer in Chief Wroblewski's Red team.  There had been some question about whether or not it was even possible for him to join the expedition. The Ashkelon physiology was considerably more fragile than that of the other races they had met. A heavy world like 47b would quickly crush his internal organs.

The issue had been resolved by a specially designed encounter suit that incorporated a Higgs Field dampener. Since interaction with a Higgs field was what gave rise to mass, dampening this interaction effectively reduced his mass so that even in the presence of a massive gravitational field he was perfectly safe.

In addition, the Galactic Coalition had granted a technology transfer waiver. Even though the Ashkelon were not officially a part of the GCP, the GCP had decided to share some limited technology with them, to include specially programmed medical nanites that once injected into Sassi would quickly shore up his delicate internal organs should the encounter suit's systems fail.

He knew he had multiple redundant systems protecting him, but the deeply ingrained fear his people had for strong gravity was hard to overcome. He was having a hard time keeping his low frequency antenna from nervously vibrating.

The Chief rapped a knuckle on the exterior shell of his bulbous encounter suit. Sassi activated the exterior audio pickups just in time to hear what the Chief was saying.

"You OK in there, Fluffy?"

"I'm fine," he tweeted back. For some reason the Chief was captivated by the extensive amount of fluffy white fur his species exhibited. He had started calling Sassi by this nickname shortly after the Ashkelon had joined the Red team. At first he had been concerned until he consulted the human cultural database his people had been given and learned that pet names were a sign of affection. He had taken to calling the nearly hairless human chie
f‘
Wall-Wor
m
’ which had earned him a rare sight... A Chief Warrant Officer laughing uncontrollably.

***

Rasta-Tckner felt the deck plating vibrate. Someone was coming. Considering this was the first time he
had met anyone since entering this vessel he was filled with a certain sense of trepidation. He moved to the farthest corner of the room and prepared himself.

The door swished open
and an unusual creature walked in on two of its four legs. It had some type of red plumage around what Rasta-Tckner took to be its head. The body was silver but he suspected it was some type of form-fitting artificial exoskeleton or covering. There were small areas near the ends of the upper appendages that were pink and appeared to be manipulators of some type. The pink was also present on the head near the red plumage.

This creature appeared to have a single pair of ocular organs with an extremely limited field of view
, as well as two symmetrically placed flaps of tissue on either side of the head structure. He had no idea what their function might be. Its feeding proboscis was extremely small; little more than a slit that appeared to be lined with sharp cutting plates. All in all, this was an extremely ugly creature.

The strangely dwarfed proboscis structure opened and closed repeatedly in some type of pattern. Rasta-Tckner wondered if this race used some type of visual communication mechanism. He reached out with his organic hive node
but he had little hope of a response.

***

Cat looked at the creature huddled in the corner of the room. There was a distinct smell of cinnamon in the room. It appeared to be similar to some type of massive wasp-beetle-praying mantis hybrid.

She held her hands out wide in a gesture of friendship
, trying to demonstrate that she held no weapons. The instant her hands went up, however, the creature scampered further into the corner and the smell of cinnamon intensified.

She put her hands back down
and the creature inched forward about half a foot. She raised her hands and it backed up again. It wasn't much but at least they had a limited means of communication.

"Cal, are you sure that you have no record of this race?"

"
Beloved of the creator, why would my answer be any different now than it was twenty minutes ago?
"

"Hey, a girl can hope. Can't she?"

"
Indeed. If I had to speculate, I would suspect this race never established communication with whoever the Heshe proxy was that sought to eradicate them."

"In other words, the current champion came in shooting and asked questions later
, only afterwards there was no one left to answer." Cat mused.

"
Regrettably, yes. It would help to explain why these people were so quick to attack anybody entering their system. Their recent history with other species cannot have been pleasant.
"

Squatting on the ground in front of the creature Cat tried to assume as small a profile as possible. Her efforts were rewarded by a visible relaxation on the part of the other occupant in the room.