Theogony 3: Terra Stands Alone (18 page)

“We missed something,” Admiral Wright noted. “No one ever asked whether our terrestrial computers and fire control systems can talk to the advanced missiles. Does anyone know if they can?”

“Yes, they can,” replied Captain Sarkozy. “We looked at arming our air-breathing fighters with advanced missiles for the last-ditch defense of Earth. There were some coding changes involved, but one of our smart guys figured out how to make it work.”

“What about space fighter engines?” asked Admiral Wright. “How are we set for making them?”

“Those I can make a dime a dozen,” answered Andrew Brown. “The helium-3 engines don’t use anything fancy in their construction, and there are now enough miners and mining equipment on the moon that we are getting a steady supply of helium-3. I think we have so much of it, in fact, that we just sent down enough to fuel the first couple of power plants on Earth.”

“So we have missiles?” asked Admiral Wright.

“Yes, sir,” replied Andrew Brown

“Engines?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Terrestrial computers and fire control systems?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It sounds like we just need some airframes, then,” noted Admiral Wright.

“Yes, sir,” agreed Andrew Brown. “Do you happen to have a couple hundred of those lying around?”

“
I do, actually,” replied Admiral Wright, “In fact, I have thousands.”

“They want
this aircraft
out?” asked the assistant director, Major General (Ret.) Tom Bates, gazing up at the giant plane. “They know the bomber’s way back here, and it’s going to take several days for us to get it out and then get everything put back in again, right?”

“Yeah,” said the director, L
ieutenant General (Ret.) Bob Thompson, “they know that. Believe it or not, apparently the old girl is going to fly again, if what I hear is true.”

“Really?” asked the assistant director. “They have a lot of things that they’ll have to put back into her to get her to fly again.”

“If they’re really doing what I heard they’re doing,” said the director, “they’re going to put a lot more into her than you’d ever believe.”

“They’re going to do
what
with this?” asked Airman Kinsler as he hooked up the tow bar to the nose gear of Bureau Number 152591.

“I heard they’re going
to carry it up to the moon and turn it into a space fighter,” replied Senior Airman Charles from the seat of the tow tractor.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” said Kinsler, gazing up at the metal monstrosity. He had only been at t
he boneyard for a few weeks and had a feeling that the senior airman was having a joke at his expense. An aircraft storage and maintenance facility, the AMARG was home to more than 4,400 aircraft that had reached the end of their combat lives but were still deemed too valuable to be sold for scrap. Like a giant auto junkyard, some were used as parts lockers for aircraft that continued to fly, saving the services the money they didn’t have to pay for new parts to be made. Others were in various phases of preservation, ready to be called back to action if their nation ever needed them.

Their planet
needed them now.

* * * * *

“Holy Word,
this is the
Vella Gulf,
we are beginning our transit
,” transmitted the communications officer. Having made that announcement, the
Vella Gulf
began its run to the stargate. Calvin had decided to hit the stargate at about half the speed of light, or 335 million miles an hour. The
Vella Gulf
would take well over 11 hours to accelerate to that velocity at 375 G, and they would cover almost two
billion
miles during that time. The last three days had been busy, but they were finally ready. Everything was set and in place. Now the Terrans just had to thread the needle of the stargate at half the speed of light, turn before they ran into the star and, oh yeah, try to do it without being noticed. No problem.

But the plan was in place, and
it was a good one, Calvin thought. The plan would work. It was too crazy not to. He glanced down at Steropes who stood next to him. “So, how am I doing?” Calvin asked.

“What do you mean?” Steropes asked.

“Well, I would bet money that you’re still observing me as one of your hero souls or hero ghosts, or whatever it was,” said Calvin. “Tell me you’re not.”

“
The term was ‘hero spirit,’” Steropes replied. “And it is hard to not evaluate your performance as such when you continue to be central to the events unfolding around you. For example, are you not the person who suggested flying through a stargate at half the speed of light, or do we have someone else to thank for the idea?”

“No, it was my idea,” Calvin said. He p
aused, thinking. “Does that mean that this is going to work?” he asked finally.

“
I don’t know,” Steropes said, “but the odds are good that it will not. Studies have shown that over half the time hero spirits fail to accomplish their mission. They risk much, which makes the consequences of failure that much larger.”

“
Take this attempt, for example,” he continued. “If you destroy the asteroid, you will not win the war for the Archons. You will simply allow the status quo which existed beforehand to continue. The consequences of failure, however, are catastrophic. If we get caught before we destroy the asteroid, we will show the Drakuls that we know about the battle station and will make it nearly impossible for the Archons to save themselves from it. No,” he said, shaking his head, “we cannot win the war with this attempt, but we can very possibly lose it.”

“Then why didn’t you say something to the Archons?” Calvin asked. “Why didn’t you warn them that this is likely to fail?”

Steropes laughed. “You think that they don’t know this is a huge gamble? That they don’t realize this could cost them the war? The Archons know it as well as I do, and far better than you do, obviously. The only reason that they are going along with the plan is that having a hero spirit on their side gives them a chance, even if it is a small one. Their support of your plan is an indication of just how desperate they are.”

“I didn’t realize they went along with
the plan,” Calvin replied. “They wouldn’t give us a battlecruiser; we had to have Lieutenant Rrower requisition it.”

“
Like I said, the fact they are letting us attempt this at all speaks volumes about how bad their situation is,” Steropes said. “Maybe they didn’t do everything for you that you wanted, but they agreed to let you try, even knowing what the consequences of failure would be. You couldn’t do this without their help, remember? They
did
promise to move the asteroids in front of the stargate, didn’t they? Hitting an asteroid at half the speed of light would really ruin our day, wouldn’t it?”

“Uh, yeah,
it would,” said Calvin.

“So, to answer your original question,” Steropes continued, “yes, I am still watching you. How could I not? It is the best show in town, as your people say.
And it will continue to be so, right up until you make the mistake that kills us all.”

Calvin had plenty of time to
rest prior to their attempt at transiting the stargate, but he doubted that sleep would come very easily.

“This is kind of like landing on the aircraft carrier,” commented Calvin to Sara and Steropes at the science station. “
The carrier looks really tiny for the entire approach and then only expands for you to land on during the last few seconds.” He looked at the front view screen. They were only 10 minutes out from the stargate but couldn’t see it yet, even at the
Vella Gulf’s
highest magnification. Probably because they were going
half the freaking speed of light
, Calvin thought.

“We’re on course for the stargate,” noted the helmsman.
“10 minutes out.”

“Understood,” said Captain Sheppard. “Sound General Quarters.”

“Sounding General Quarters,” said the duty engineer, seated next to the helmsman. The alarm began sounding.

“I just hope that they moved the asteroid
s out of the way,” said Calvin, “or things are going to get really rocky.”

“Another
pun like that,” Captain Sheppard announced, “and you’ll be confined to your quarters.” He then smiled at Calvin to show that he appreciated the attempt to lighten the mood.

Time seemed to stretch to infinity as they continued toward the stargate.

This has got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, thought Calvin. This is worse than landing on the aircraft carrier at night in a storm. Dumb, dumb, dumb. This is even worse because it was my stupid idea.

“Penny for your thoughts,” said Captain Sheppard.

“Umm, I was just thinking that I’d like to go back to landing on the aircraft carrier at night and in bad weather,” Calvin replied. “Where it’s safer.”

Calvin looked at the countdown timer above the view screen. One minute to go. The stargate
still couldn’t be seen on the screen. He also couldn’t see whether the asteroids had been moved or if they were still in place. He decided he didn’t want to know.

“How are we doing Solomon?” asked Captain Sheppard.

“We are nominal to profile,” said the ship’s artificial intelligence. “I estimate an 83.6% chance that we will pass safely through the stargate.”

8
3.6% seemed like pretty good odds, thought Calvin, as long as you didn’t play them too long. Eventually you were going to hit that 16.4% and crap out. Hopefully, this wouldn’t be the time that he made his fatal error.

As the timer reached two seconds, the stargate seemed to leap
forward at them, its black maw expanding to engulf them. The
Vella Gulf
hit the stargate at half the speed of light and made the jump.

The
Vella Gulf
emerged from the stargate going faster than any ship had ever jumped previously. Before even the Drakuls’ automated systems could react, the
Vella Gulf
was past the minefield, and the forces arrayed to stop it. Thankfully, none of the defenses were directly in front of the ship. What
was
directly in front of the ship was 54 Piscium, an orange dwarf star which already covered almost the entire view screen. In the five seconds that it took for the people and systems to recover from transit, the star grew beyond the edges of the screen.

“Stealth on!
Both ships!” ordered Captain Sheppard. “Separate ships! Evasive maneuvers!”

“Stealth is on!” replied the
DSO. “Both ships!”

The duty engineer pushed a button.
“Ships separated!” he replied as the
Vella Gulf’s
clamps released the Mrowry battlecruiser that the
Vella Gulf
had been attached to when it entered the system. The Terrans immediately lost sight of the battlecruiser as they left the ship’s stealth bubble, and they were left to hope that the ship’s pre-programmed navigational system would function as programmed.

“Evasive maneuvers, aye!” replied the helmsman. In a softer voice he said, “Here goes nothing.”

Clear of the battlecruiser, the
Vella Gulf
went to emergency power. Mounted backward in relation to the battlecruiser, the
Vella Gulf
was already pointed away from the star. Slowly the ship began to change its thrust vector. It was going to be close. The helmsman pressed a button and their expected impact point on the surface of the star was displayed on the view screen. Although only 76% of the Sun’s mass and 46% of its luminosity, 54 Piscium was still hot enough to fry the
Vella Gulf
if the ship got too close. Steropes thought that the shields might protect them for a short while in the corona. Maybe. Slowly....ever so slowly, the impact point on the view screen began to change, moving outward from the center of the star toward the star’s corona.

Steropes began a countdown, “Three, two, one, impact!” As he said
“impact,” there was a giant eruption from the center of the star as the battlecruiser ran into it with its engines set to full power, creating a massive solar flare that covered over 5% of the surface of the star. The flare reached out to the Terrans, but the
Vella Gulf
was already out of the way, and the flare did no damage.

“Geryon is
on the other side of the star,” Steropes noted. Geryon was the planet closest to 54 Piscium. The size of Saturn, the planet orbited closer to the star than Mercury orbited the Sun. Running into it at the speed they were traveling would have been just as bad, and just as fatal, as running into the star. Thankfully, the ephemeris information the Archons had given them was correct; the planet was currently on the other side of the star.

As Calvin watched, he saw the ship’s projected impact
point clear the corona. That was important, because the whole mission was based on stealth, and everything they had done was with the intention of fooling the Drakuls. He knew that the Drakuls would be aware that a ship had transited the stargate, and that they would have had about five seconds to see them. Calvin had hoped that by coming through so quickly, the Drakuls wouldn’t have gotten a good look at them; their sensors wouldn’t have been prepared for a ship coming through so fast.

Calvin
gave them something to see by attaching the much smaller
Vella Gulf
to the former Mrowry battlecruiser
Halcyon
, requisitioned by Lieutenant Rrower when the Archons refused to provide a ship. Lieutenant Rrower had some sort of writ or decree from the emperor; Calvin wasn’t sure how it worked, but all of the royal family was able to command any non-royal officer in the event of an emergency. Lieutenant Rrower determined that this was an emergency, and used his writ to take charge of the
Halcyon
, which had been passing through the system. Its commanding officer had
not
been happy to lose his ship, but gave it up after seeing Lieutenant Rrower’s black pelt. The captain and crew of the
Halcyon
were on a transport back to Grrrnow that Terra would have to pay for at some point in the future.

About twice as long as the
Vella Gulf
, the purpose of the
Halcyon
was to hide the
Vella Gulf
. From the angles that the
Vella Gulf
could be seen, the Terrans painted both ships black, making the
Gulf
more difficult to distinguish by optical systems. The ships stayed attached to each other until the stealth systems came on; after that, the
Halcyon
was detached so that it could accelerate on its death flight into the star. Calvin figured the Drakuls would get a reading on the mass of the combined ships; the
Halcyon
accelerated so that its impact would have the same momentum as the combined ships would have at their original speed. Hopefully, the Drakuls wouldn’t notice that the ship hit the star sooner than it should have, but there was only so much he could do. Although the Drakuls would probably have noticed if the
Gulf
had gone through the corona of the star, the
Vella Gulf
had avoided the corona and now...hopefully...they would be safe.

“
Somebody talk to me about the forces at the stargate,” said Captain Sheppard. “Are they coming toward us?”

“
It doesn’t appear so,” said Steropes. “They appear to be resetting around the stargate.”

“That’s what I’m seeing, too,” said the DSO, who
had a number of passive systems at his disposal. “The Drakul ships are slowing down and moving back toward the stargate.” He paused and then said. “I think they bought it, Skipper.”

“Good,” said Captain Sheppard. “Let’s get a survey going of the system. Make sure that we stay well away from all Drakul ships and
any stellar outposts.”