Ringship Discretion (17 page)

Amelia interrupted. "We think some of them go on the front of the ship and some on the back to manipulate the fabric of space-time around the ship...but we just don't know exactly how it works."

Attie looked at her and then the crew. "We are hoping that we can find the rest of the information when we get to Oberon.  Then we can release it to the net."

Helen pulled out a pan at looked at the captain. "How are we going to do that with all the jamming? Even if they stop jamming us, the inner solar system is flooded with so much jamming that our signal would never get through."

Attie looked at Amelia. "Hmmm..that is a good question."

Amelia looked back at him. "We will have to think of something.  A thought I had is that we don't want to broadcast directly from our ship.  I think we would become target number one for everyone including the Oorters if we did that."

Attie nodded. "Hell, we pretty much are target number one now! But I agree.  We need to find a way to get this out without it being traceable to us."

Ben cleared his throat. "Can we have breakfast now?"

The captain turned his head to look at Ben, chuckled and turned around to Helen. "Yeah, what's for breakfast?!"

Helen gave him the evil eye.  "I am half tempted to say "Whatever you cook", but since we do have our galley table back and we are all here, I'll go ahead.... I believe we have some vacuum sealed eggs, so how about omelets?"

Everyone agreed excitedly. Doc got up to help his wife and steer himself clear of the 'dog house'.

As Amelia shoved the last piece of bacon in her mouth she said. "Well, it almost time to turn the ship around and begin our deceleration burn.  She looked down at her watch. "About 36 minutes now." 

AJ curiously asked "Why do you wear one of those? Don't you have internal time on your TC implant?"

Amelia's mouth opened, but she didn't say anything while she thought.

Attie answered. "She really doesn't like using the new tech.  The simple old things like watches make her feel more comfortable."

Amelia got up from the table. "Yeah, a watch is just going to tell the time. It isn't going to run some subroutine to steal your info or give away your position. I hate having that crap in my head, but these days you have to."

AJ responded. "But it makes life so much easier."

Amelia said as she turned and walked away towards the bridge. "Easier doesn't mean better."

AJ had a contemplative look on his face when the captain looked over and just smiled at him.  The captain then got up and followed Amelia out.

About 20 minutes later, Amelia came over the intercom. "Everyone strap themselves in and make sure everything is secure.  We are going to have a few minutes of weightlessness as we come about." 

Attie strapped himself in to the co-pilots seat, looked over at her and said "I'm ready."

She looked at him and smiled. 

He said with just his lips "I love you."

She reached over with her right hand and he with his left. Their hands met and held tight.  She looked back at the panel and hit the intercom once more with her left. "Everyone ready?" Then she initialized the grav plate shutdown.  The 30 second warning alarm went off.  She leaned back and turned her head back toward Attie expecting he would be looking at her.  But he was leaning forward against his straps.

He strained and pointed with his right hand. "Look, the BB ship has stopped jamming us and it's turned off its radar. 

They let go of each other's hands and both looked at the sensor panel. Amelia said "I can't even see it anymore."

Attie looked at her again. "They probably don't want to keep giving away their position and maybe they are thinking everyone will forget about them if they go quiet."

Amelia thought for a second. "Well, everyone pretty much has already forgotten about them, the Big Sis ships have turned for us.  They must know what we have now.  Either that or they are just guessing we are the valuable prize."

Attie responded. "Yeah, that makes sense..." He felt the sudden tickle in his stomach from weightlessness.

Amelia returned her attention to the flight controls. "Here we go. I am bringing her about."

Attie felt the slight pressure against the edge of the seat as the stars rotated across the cockpit window.  The sensation made him put his hands back on his chair.

Amelia pushed more buttons and the 30 second alarm activated again. 

Amelia looked back at the sensor panel. "Hey. I'm picking up gamma rays in the direction of the Big Sis ships."

Attie pushed off the seat and floated forward against his straps to get a closer look. "I guess those Oorter ships caught up to them.  Although, it really doesn't make much difference to us I guess.  They couldn't catch us anyway..." Then a gush of air came out his mouth as the return of the G-force load put him firmly back in his seat.

Amelia announced. "OK, that's it.  We are in the deceleration phase.  Next stop, Oberon." She glanced at Attie and raised her eyebrows while taking a deep breath."  He nodded back. "Yeah."

Just then, Ben appeared, with AJ right behind him. "Hey Captain.  I thought of a way to get the schematics back."

Attie and Amelia both turned to look at him with intense interest on their face.

Ben hesitated for a second and said "You know we have the 100 warp probes on board that we got off that BB ship."

Amelia and Attie both said "Yeah?"

Ben started to say "We could.." and Amelia finished his sentence "Upload the data to them and launch them."

Attie nodded in agreement, but said, "But who is going to receive it and put it on the net?"

AJ raised his hand. "What do these warp probes do?"

Amelia started to answer him, but Ben talked right over her. "Remember Rex, who got us that laser satellite repeater gig about a year back?"

The captain's eyes looked up as he thought. "Yeah, the ones we deployed on those Trojan asteroids."

Ben continued. "Well, he and the guys he works with, do nothing but hacker crap.  I'm sure they would be more than happy to upload this. I don't know where his buddies are, but he still lives with his parents near Peary Crater on the Moon."

Amelia spoke up. "What? Do we just fly the thing into his dome or something?"

The captain said "No. The probe can send him a short message once it reaches the moon telling him its location and he can retrieve it.  Assuming any of them actually make it."

AJ's mouth was open and he kept partially raising his hand. The captain finally looked at him and said "Warp probes are what the military uses for almost instant communications.  You load them with a message and program in a destination.  When they arrive, it will send a coded message as to its location, to whatever ship you are trying to communicate with. The big problem with them, is like any warp ship, the warp drive is totally unstable and most of them don't make it.  They usually send 20 or 30 of them to make sure one makes it.  That's expensive and why no one else really uses them.  Its much cheaper just to wait an hour or two to get the message by radio."

Amelia turned back to the control panel. "Let me see if I can estimate how many we will lose on a 2 and a half light hour trip."

AJ asked "Why don't we use laser communication?"

Amelia responded. "We are too far out of range for our laser system.  No one would be able to pickup the signal, unless they were specifically looking for one from us."

AJ said "Oh."

The captain looked back at Ben. "Do we still have the communication code and frequency from last time we dealt with him?"

Amelia said "Yes.  It should be in the archives from the data backup.  I uploaded all the old files that I had backed up from our last ship."

The captain smacked his hands together. "Sounds like a plan to me!  Let's make it happen."

Amelia asked. "Do we want to launch it now? Before we have all the information about how to install them?"

Attie thought on it for a short while. "I'm thinking we should.  We have no idea what kind of situation we are going to be in as we get to Oberon.  Maybe someone back there can figure out the rest, if we just give them the plans.  I would think someone on the Internet could."

Two hours later, Helen walked into the galley and saw the table covered with electronics again. "We didn't even get to use the table for one whole day!". 

Ben, AJ and the captain looked up at her.  The captain smiled and put up his hands. "We only need it for a few hours.  Promise."

She came and leaned over the table. "What are those?"

AJ eagerly said "Warp probes! We are going to use them to send a message back."

The captain looked back at his tablet. "OK, that's another one done. Hand me the next one."

Amelia walked in and said "Well, it looks like they should have a 5% chance of making it that far. So you need to at least send 20 of them."

Attie said "No, we are sending all of them."

Amelia nodded. "Well, yeah, I didn't mean you shouldn't send more.  Just, that's the minimum." She gave him a short smile.

That evening Helen walked into the galley again. "It's time for dinner and you guys still have this crap on the table." 

The captain looked up at her, waited for his eyes to focus, from looking closely at tiny parts for hours. "I'm just finishing up the last one." He looked at Ben and AJ while whispering, "Go ahead and put this stuff by the airlock...I'll finish this one up."

They began clearing everything off and putting the few probes that were still on the table back in their cases.  Helen smiled, turned to the food locker and said "Well, let's see.  How about some ham like meat and stuffing?" She looked back at them.  They all nodded in agreement.

After dinner the captain asked "OK. Let's see if we can't get these probes launched.  Ben and I will suit up and release them.  Amelia, you pilot. Helen, assist her and monitor the comms."  He looked at Doc and AJ. "I guess that leaves dishes for you two." At that everyone scattered to their assigned tasks, leaving Doc and AJ.

Ben and the captain stood in the airlock waiting for it to finish depressurizing.

Amelia said over the comm "Everything looks good.  Just don't 'fall' out of the airlock or we will have to stop the ship's deceleration to come get your ass!"

With that, both Ben and the captain attached their suits to two ring points. "Of course not! We're not newbies here!" Then they looked at each other with mutual grins.

When the pressure hit zero, Ben opened the outer hatch.  The captain grabbed one of the probes and handed it to Ben. "OK, we are ready to start releasing them.  Ben, since we don't have a launcher, just break the tabs on the side and throw them out."  Ben broke the tabs and threw the probe out the door. The probe rapidly moved out of view towards Uranus as the Discretion continued to decelerate.

Attie asked "Amelia, did it go?"

She responded. "I believe so. It was on the sensors few seconds and then it was gone."

Attie said "Good. We will release the rest." The captain handed them to Ben one at a time and he threw them out until all 100 were gone."

Attie told Amelia "Well, that's that. They are all gone."

Amelia said. "Well, not all.  One didn't go.  It's still out there, falling away from us."

Attie said. "Well, that's not a good sign. One failure already?  Well, nothing we can do about that. We are shutting the hatch and coming back in."

Later on that night, Amelia was cuddled up tightly against Attie's back.  Attie was nearly asleep when she kissed his neck.  She then nibbled on his ear.  Attie rolled over to face her.  He could barely see the loving smile she had for him.  She kissed him and before she tried a second time, he cleared his throat. "Amelia, I love you more than anything in this life and I don't want to spend one second of it without you. I know its quick...maybe too soon, but with all that's happening..and I know with every fiber of my being that I want you to be my wife.  Would you ma.." She put her finger against his lips.

"I'm not ready Attie.  I love you. I'm sorry but I....I just can't yet.  Please understand.  I don't want to hurt you, but I am still hurting inside. I feel so guilty and..."

Attie hugged her tightly. "Shhh..It's alright...I understand. I'm sorry for asking. I didn't mean to upset you. I love you." He hugged her for a long time until he rolled over and she was at his backside again. She put her hand on his belly and hugged him tightly. She whispered. "I'm sorry...I love you."

CHAPTER 10:
The Oberon Approach