Talosian Chronicles 2: Star Dancer (8 page)

“That would be great, Kyle. However, don’t hurt your own project to do it. If you can find the time, please let me know what you discover and who you get motivated. Maybe I can help get people going on it too,” Ian replied.

“We’ll be ready, Sir. Somehow, we will do this,” Kyle assured him.

“I hope so, Kyle. I really do, because if we don’t, Earth doesn’t stand a chance.”

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F
.S.S.
Star Dancer.

Selene Orbit, (Earth’s moon)

Earth, Sol Sector.

––––––––

“E
ngineering, Ensign Goldstein. How can I help you?”

“Good afternoon, Ensign. This is the XO. I have a favor to ask of you or one of the other Engineers,” Jenny said.

“I would be happy to help you if I can, Sir.” Goldstein replied.

“I was wondering, is there a way to configure a probe for underwater work?” Jenny asked.

“That shouldn’t be much of a problem, what did you have in mind, exactly?”

“Well, I’m going to need a probe to follow the trans-Atlantic pipeline looking for any anomalies,” Jenny asked.

“Ah, that’s going to be a little harder, but still do-able. If we put in a larger power unit, and replaced the thrusters with water jets... Yeah, I think I can do this, can you give me a couple of days?” the engineer asked.

“Certainly, Ensign! This is actually for a hobby investigation I’m doing. I wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t also semi-official. Please let me know when it’ll be ready, and I’ll see about getting it a ride to where I’m going to need it,” Jenny said.

“Will do, Colonel. I know you’ve probably heard it a thousand times, but congratulations on the new baby,” Goldstein added. “I just found out I’m going to be a father too.”

“Thank you! Congratulations to you too!” Jenny replied.

“I should be able to get on this later today; the new weapons systems are in final testing, so the Chief will probably be releasing a bunch of us,”

“Excellent, like I said, it is kind of an official project, but it isn’t a priority yet. Thanks for your time,” Jenny replied to the friendly engineer.

“Anytime, Sir. Engineering out.”

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I
an was just about to go off duty for the day when his door chimed a visitor.

“Come!”

Chief Dommer was, by nature, a very serious and dour man. Those who knew him would freely admit they had rarely, if ever seen him smile. Consistent with his appearance, his personality was very business-like and no-nonsense. When he entered Ian’s office, he actually had a small smile on his face. Ian was tempted to ask who he was and what he had done with the chief engineer, but thought better of it.

“By the look on your face, Chief, I assume you have some good news,” Ian said by way of greeting.

“Sir, I have to admit, when you called me to ask if I had time to speak to that weapons tech, I thought it was a waste of time, but, I was truly surprised,” Dommer said. “That weapon he designed is really neat.”

“Did you get it set up then?” Ian asked. “I thought there was some problem with it?”

“Well, there was at the beginning, but we got that handled as well as a couple of other issues that cropped up, and now I think anyone who attacks us is going to have a really nasty surprise,” the man said animatedly. “At first, I couldn’t think of a use for his weapons other than as a point defense cannon, but his design makes far more than that. Even though it’s a projectile weapon, it’ll do far more damage up close than our large lasers would.”

“How so?” Ian asked.

“The overall design was based on the Gatling-gun system used by the US Navy called CIWZ. (Pronounced see-whiz) but this little monster is far more devious. It uses a mass driver technology like a rail gun only without the rail. The projectile is accelerated by using rapidly cycling magnetic fields.

“Originally, I was only going to place a few mounts on the ship to be used as point defense, but I got to thinking about the design. Did you know that he designed it so the projectile size could be varied as well as the velocity it can be fired at?”

Ian did remember that, but chose not to interrupt the chief, so he nodded his head.

“Well, the problem with a hyper accelerated particle in space is that it’ll keep going until something stops it. Let’s say you fire one small round at an asteroid with a muzzle velocity of point five light. Even if the mass of the round is low, say around an ounce, and it hit the moon, the damage could be measured in the megatons!

“So the fix for that was a timed explosive based on time. None of the rounds fired will last longer than a set amount of time. So, think about this, what would happen to a fighter that was attacking the ship if just one of the rounds hit it doing two-thirds of light? It would blow right through the shield and just vaporize the ship!” Dommer said excitedly. “Even if it misses, it’ll cause massive confusion simply from the rounds popping! Like the old flak cannons from World War II!”

“I didn’t realize that, will there be a danger to our fighters flying around out there?” Ian asked.

“Not any more than they would be from the laser cannons we already use. The velocity we’re talking about here will only be slightly slower than that of the lasers. Honestly Sir, while I did mount a few extra, larger versions, the lasers are still the main weapons. I did put one of the nasty bastards right at the end of the landing bays, that way if the enemy tried to pull a fast one by going for the bays, they’ll have to get through those guns first!” Dommer said proudly.

Ian chuckled at the Chief’s enthusiasm. “I take it you finished them up then?”

Dommer nodded. “The only thing remaining is a live fire test. So, there you go, Sir, your new cannons are ready now.”

Ian chuckled. “Thank you, Chief. I’ll have to give the test firing some thought. Would you like me to notify you so you can watch?”

“I would really appreciate it, Sir. I’m dying to see what these things can do!” Dommer said, and rose from his chair. “By the way, Sir. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone that I smiled; I have a reputation to maintain after all.”

“I didn’t see a thing, Chief!” Ian replied. “But it does look good on you.”

“Thanks, have a good evening, Sir,” Chief Dommer said as he left the room, once again frowning and appearing deep in thought.

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F
.S.S.
Star Dancer.

Selene Orbit, (Earth’s moon)

Earth, Sol Sector.

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O
ne of the items completed at the moon base was the small craft building and assembly area. It was semi-automated, in that there were no humans out on the assembly floor, but the various drones and bots were operated remotely by people. However, since personnel on the base was still low, most assembly was slow going as operators had to do more than one job.

Even with that delay, the modified shuttle Ian had ordered built for Stellar Cartography had gotten finished, and from the report he was reading, it was performing its test flights. The survey drones it would carry had already been built and tested, and were currently on board the unmanned craft as it performed final runs.

Ian notified Stellar Cartography and suggested they contact Navigation to get an optimal course plotted for it. Ian knew that everyone in the small department had been working on the programming for the probes ever since Ian had ordered the shuttle.

Ian’s sense of foreboding was beginning to get to him. He thought that perhaps it was time he called a full staff meeting and let them in on what Janet had seen. She had stepped up recruiting quite a bit since she’d talked to him, and the ship was nearing its full complement, but there were still many positions elsewhere that needed to be filled, such as the afore mentioned assembly workers.

Star Dancer
, Ian mused, was more like a heavily armed carrier than it was a cruiser. Most of the big ship’s offensive capability was tied up in her fighters and the Centurions, although she had quite a number of other weapons as well.

In the wet navies of the Earth, a cruiser was more mission specific than
Star Dancer
was. The old star ship was more of a hybrid between a carrier and a battleship. Her missile batteries could be used in either ship to ship or space to ground roles. The same could be said for the large forty-centimeter lasers, and plasma cannons, but the small anti-fighter and point-defense lasers were strictly short-ranged weapons. With the addition of the mass drivers Mr. Kemp had designed, the ships offensive as well as defensive arsenal should be enough to give any enemy pause.

But Ian had seen enough of the old records to know that there were some ships against which
Star Dancer
stood little to no chance in a stand-up fight. One of those ships had been built by the Caldarian Empire for the specific purpose of hunting down and destroying the Talosian heavy cruisers. A Caldarian Super Nova class battleship.

The Caldarian was almost twice as large as
Star Dancer
. Being twice as wide, and one and a half times as long. The monster ship carried a ridicules amount of fire power. The first time he read about it, Ian wondered where they housed the crew it would need just to operate it. However, they must have had the room because it was very effective at its job.

It carried fighters in a strange dual-parasitic method. The big ship docked up to ten smaller fighter-carriers, with six to ten fighters externally on its hull. It was assumed that the pilots and carrier crews lived aboard these smaller ships. It held no more than twenty of its own fighters internally along with ground assault craft, troops, and all of their equipment. So as far as fighters went, it matched Star Dancer in offensive capabilities, unfortunately, that’s where the similarities stopped.

Star Dancer
mounted forty-six multi-role missile tubes total, not counting hyper-missiles launched from her fighter bays. Fourteen large lasers turrets, eight phased plasma cannons, and various small lasers for point defense.

The Super Nova on the other hand, carried much more. Unconfirmed reports said she had over a hundred missile launchers and forty-eight plasma/laser turrets. They also had huge tractor/presser emitters mounted on the sides so they could literally pull a smaller ship apart.

In a toe to toe fight, the Super Nova would blast through
Star Dancer’s
shields in less than twenty minutes. So, Ian would need to avoid a direct confrontation between the ships,
Star Dancer
would have to remain hidden if a Super Nova arrived at Earth.

The last reports Ian had read said that the Caldarians hadn’t yet found a way around the cloaking devices used by Talosian forces, however, once the Talosian cruiser had been destroyed, most Caldarian Captains rightly considered the fight over, and removed themselves and their ships before the surviving forces could do more damage to them.

Ian called Operations on his comm.

“Operations, Major Brighton here.”

“Hi Chloe, Could you come to my office and bring one of your brighter people with you?” Ian asked.

“Certainly Commander, I’ll grab one of the lads and be right up,” the petite English woman replied.

“Thanks, see ya in a few,” Ian replied and typed in a different command.

“Intelligence division, Lieutenant Wallace.”

“Good day, Ell-tee, this is Commander Williams. Is your boss around?”

“I’ll get him, Sir. Please hang on a minute,” the young sounding male voice replied.

A couple of moments later, a voice returned. “Major Eischens, what can I do for you, Commander?”

“I need your help with something, could you and one of your better helpers come to my office for a quick meeting?” Ian asked.

“Certainly, Sir. We’ll be up in five,” the man said.

“Thank you Major, I’ll look forward to it.” Ian replied before ending the call.

“Star? I’m going to need you too,” Ian said out loud, knowing the AI would hear him. His door chimed almost immediately.

“Come!” Ian called, and the door opened.

Star strode into the room, just as any other crewman would, and saluted when she got to Ian’s desk. “Reporting as ordered, Sir.”

“Thank you, is Janet Laskar still on board?” Ian asked.

Star looked over his head a moment. “No Sir, she returned to Talos yesterday.”

Ian nodded. “I was worried she had. I’ve a meeting coming together here, and I would like you to be a part of it, but while we wait, could you contact her and see if she has a few moments to give us? Please tell her it’s about the nightmare she told me about.”

Star nodded, and while she did that, Ian asked Jenny to join him in his office. She was technically still on maternity leave, but was chafing at getting back to work. She said she would be there, since Beth would cover for her at the child care center.

By the time he got off the comm with Jenny, Chloe and her aide had arrived for the meeting, Star let her in since Ian had told her he was getting a meeting together. Ian got her and her aide their drinks and Jenny showed up at the same time the intelligence people did.

Never being the type to skate around a subject, Ian got right to the point. “Okay folks, I asked all of you here because I have good reason to believe we are going to be attacked soon, and I would like to know what we can do about it. I have been making some plans of my own on the side, and I’ll fill everyone in on those.” He glanced at Star to see if she had gotten hold of Janet. Star nodded, and the big monitor came to life with a softly smiling Janet looking out, she was in one of the suites aboard a shuttle.

“Good Morning, Janet. Thank you for giving me some of your time on such short notice,” Ian said.

“No problem, Ian. I’m happy to help,” Janet replied.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, if any of you don’t know her, this is our head of recruiting, Janet Laskar.” Ian then went around the table introducing everyone.

“Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, you might be wondering why I have Mrs. Laskar here. The answer is simple, but hard to accept. Bluntly put, Janet is clairvoyant and has been proven accurate for ninety four percent of the time on visions of under two months. Whether you believe in such things or not, I do not feel we have the luxury of ignoring her advice or a warning of danger.