Trail of Evil - eARC (24 page)

Chapter 34

December 5, 2406 AD

61 Ursae Majoris

27 Light-years from the Sol System

Monday, 7:41 AM, Expeditionary Mission Standard Time

“Yes, sir,” the ships Science and Technical Officer USN Commander Monte Freeman nodded in agreement with the CHENG. Moore listened to their explanations but had to cut them short. The two of them were geeking out on the new physics and were enthusiastically getting over the general’s head. Throughout the conversation Alexander had to have Abigail explain what they were telling him. He finally had cut to the chase.

“Buckley, you agree with the STO that this cloaking switch will work for all of the ships in the fleet?”

“Well, uh, sir, yes sir. It appears to have worked on the shuttle, mecha, and AEMs on the last recon mission. I believe we have created a genuine quantum membrane cloaking field that works like the ones the Seppies and the bots have been using for decades. But ours is better, sir.” Buckley said puffing out his chest and tapping it with his finger.

“What do you mean better?” Alexander asked his chief engineer. He turned and looked at the STO who was also smiling and nodding in agreement. The two of them were more excited than a hamster on stims.

“You see, General, our system is more than just a hack and copy of the Seppy/bot system. We aren’t just sending out a code that tells the sensors to ignore that it is detecting something. Our system literally quantum connects with the sensor system and alters the quantum wavefunction in such a way as though whatever we are cloaking was never there. The quantum physics is such that the area around a cloaked mecha isn’t even there—or more like it is confused where it is.” Buckley said. Moore couldn’t understand the distinction. “If we hadn’t found these ships, sir, we’d have never figured this out. Fortunately, these things had the Seppy cloak systems on them and we were able to reverse engineer them.”

“Joe, I know this may sound simple to you, but I’m not seeing how what you just said is any different than how the Seppy system works.” Moore shrugged his shoulders.

“Let me have a shot at this, Joe,” Captain Freeman said.

“Right, your turn, sir.” Joe said anxiously.

“General, let me put this to you in very military terms,” the STO started. “If we take an AEM suit and turn the Seppy algorithm on and you are looking at that suit with your eyeballs and at the same time any other sensor you will see the suit with your eyes and not your sensors. If you shoot the suit and hit it damage will occur.”

“Okay, I get that,” Moore said. “And?”

“Well, sir, if you take the same AEM suit and turn our new switch algorithm on that isn’t what happens. You will still see it with your eyeballs, but not with any other sensor like the Seppy system. The key difference here is that the cloaking field also acts like a QM teleport field to high energy density fields interacting with it but with random spatial displacements. In other words, if you shoot at it with a high-energy projectile or a directed energy weapon the cloaking field redirects that shot away from the suit.”

“Are you telling me this thing will cause a weapon to miss or bounce off?” Moore asked.

“Yes,” Buckley interrupted. “That’s it, sir, but it is more like it makes the projectile turn a random curve away from the cloaking field.”

“So, we have shields like in the movies? Is that what you are telling me? Not structural integrity fields that hold material together, but actual barrier shields?” Moore thought this invention couldn’t have come at a better time.

“Yes sir. That is exactly what we are telling you. But the field transmitters can only redirect so much energy before they fail, sir,” The STO added.

“Okay, how much energy before they fail?”

“We haven’t fully tested that, but they could take many many direct hits. If we used the SIF generators to generate the fields for the fleet ships they could take many hits from DEGs or even a direct nuke, probably. Maybe even two if we were hit at the right place,” Captain Freeman finished.

“Hot damn!” Alexander clapped Joe and Monte on their backs and then shook their hands. “This is out-fucking-standing gentlemen! Make this happen on all the ships now. How long will it take?”

“Well, sir, the
Madira II
and the
Hillenkoetter
are already outfitted. We are working on the others. Vice Admiral Walker has her CHENG working on the five ships detailed to her,” Joe said.

“Good. How soon until we can have all forty-four ships in the fleet with these working cloaks?” Moore asked.

“With current staff, sir, a week at the soonest.” Buckley replied.

“Okay, focus on having the
Madira
ready for battle in the next hour. We QMT to 61 UM very soon. I’ll contact Vice Admiral Walker and have her start in on the rest of the fleet.”

“Sir!”

“All hands, all hands, battle stations. All hands, all hands, battle stations. Hold for message from the captain.”

“All hands, this is General Moore. We are going into a system unlike anything we’ve ever encountered before. There are likely to be things we’ll see there that no human has ever seen. I’m sure we will all have many questions. Log the questions with your AICs and then put them aside. First and foremost is to do our duty. Whatever your position aboard the fleet might be, whatever your job is, do it. First and foremost do your job. Our mission must succeed. We’ll answer questions later. Also note that it is likely the things you are about to see are above your security clearance levels. Treat every thing we see here today as Above Top Secret. There will be a debriefing following the mission. Good luck to everyone and Godspeed. Moore out.”

“All hands, all hands, battle stations. Prepare for QMT in ten seconds. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. QMT in progress.”

* * *

Sehera stood behind the General’s chair in her personal armor suit. She looked down at her husband who was in his AEM armor in the oversized captain’s chair. Alexander had issued a new protocol that all soldiers who could be armored would be armored during combat engagements. Sehera had been no exception. All of the bridge crew were wearing light Navy armor suits except for Firestorm who was a Marine and was wearing an AEM outfit, and Hailstorm, the ground boss, who was wearing Army gear.

“The Buckley-Freeman Switch is operational, General. Shields are up.” the STO announced.

“Good.” Sehera watched as the large flash of light and circular event horizon opened in front of them. The
Hillenkoeter
entered the QMT disk of uncertainty first.

“The Hillenkoeter is through, sir,” the Nav officer announced. Sehera stood still but held on firmly to her husband’s chair.

“Take us in, Penny,” Alexander said.

Sehera felt the buzzing and popping feel of static electricity even through her armor suit. The sounds of crackling and sizzling filled the bridge briefly. Once the flash of white light subsided the view out the bridge viewport was much different. They were very near a yellow star, and just out in front of them was a blue-green planet only slightly smaller than Earth and covered with oceans. It even had a small moon orbiting it. The most interesting thing about the view to Sehera was how busy it all looked. There didn’t seem to be a place on the surface of either the planet or the moon that wasn’t covered with signs of advanced civilization and technology. There were lights covering the night sides of both.

“We’re here, sir,” The STO said. “According to the readings from the recon team we are in the same system and that is the planet they visited.”

“Roger that, STO.” Alexander turned to his wife and smiled. “Looks busy doesn’t it?”

“What do we do now, Alexander?” Sehera asked. “Does she know we’re here?”

“If they detected our entrance, they certainly can’t see us now with their sensors. They’d actually have to look at us with a direct visual,” Alexander said. “Okay, Lieutenant Brown,” Alexander said to the Com Officer. “My AIC has just given you coordinates. I want a direct line of sight communication beam directed to that point on the surface of the planet. There is a message attached to the coordinates package. Have that message play on repeat until further notice.”

“Aye sir,” the young lieutenant replied.

“Nav, move us any random direction a good hundred thousand kilometers or so from this position. If they did detect the QMT, we shouldn’t stay put waiting to get shot at. And relay the same orders to Captain Penzington on the
Hillenkoetter
.”

“Aye sir,” the nav officer replied.

Moore turned to his wife. “Okay, dear,” Sehera returned a business as usual look. “We wait and see.”

Sehera paced nervously. Could it be that somehow her mother was still alive? If the Sienna Madira out here was actually her mother, then how had she watched her mother shoot herself in the head with a railpistol after the Battle of Ares. And even more, all those years she was growing up, was the Copernicus AIC in her mother’s head really an alien or was there more to that?

Sehera didn’t really know if she cared. What excited her mostly, and at the same time scared her and made her sad, was the possibility that her mother was a good guy while at the same time was the most horrific and bloody character in human history. Sehera was going through a serious moral dilemma. She had personally been spared the gruesomeness of her mother torturing, maming, and killing countless humans as she was growing up. She was tormented and horrified by the fact that her childhood was very loving and normal. Her mother and father, whom her mother later murdered, had never once been anything more than absolutely loving toward her. Her life had seemed so normal—until she had reached her late teens and then her early twenties when the veil of her mother’s humanity was lifted.

She happened to stumble into the wrong place at the wrong time and discovered that her mother was Elle Ahmi, a ruthless terrorist killer. Once Sehera had reached fifteen years old her mother could no longer hide the fact from her that she was plotting to take over the Sol system and all of humanity. The wars on Mars started, and Sehera watched her mother be ruthless and, by any definitions of the word, evil. And then there was the Martian Desert Campaigns and the attack on the Separatists by the Marines.

Sehera had lost the love for her mother or rather had decided her mother no longer truly existed and was totally insane once she saw how she treated the prisoners of war in the deserts of Mars. It had twisted her insides and her humanity to the point that she had grown a decade in a few days. At first, she had felt like committing suicide. Then she had felt like running away. Then she saw U.S. Marine Major Alexander Moore and how the man fought for life so strongly and with every fiber of his being. It was then that Sehera had completely cut her mother free and knew she had to stop her and save the Marine.

Now Sehera was feeling all of that again, but with the strange twist that her mother might have been doing all of this for a much bolder purpose than mere conquest and bloodlust. Sehera was actually warming to the idea that perhaps her mother really was doing what had to be done to save humanity. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to that much forgiveness so easily. Hundreds of thousands had died at her hand due to her plans within plans. There must have been a better way to achieve the same goal. So much death and destruction was an evil means even if it were to a good end.

“Alexander?” she whispered lightly. The general turned to her and rolled his head to the right a bit.

“I don’t know, dear. We’ll just have to wait.” He leaned back into the oversized chair. Sehera let out a light sigh. She hoped something would happen soon.

Chapter 35

December 6, 2406 AD

61 Ursae Majoris

31 Light-years from the Sol System

Tuesday, 11:41 AM, Expeditionary Mission Standard Time

Sienna Madira sat at the desk in the center of her penthouse office. The dignified proportions of the room relaxed her and reminded her of a time when she was revered by billions. It reminded her of a time long before the horrible years had begun. The horrible years that had to happen in order for humanity to survive.

The former president turned, military leader and terrorist, studied the data that Copernicus had uploaded to her AIC. Her original AIC Copernicus from so long ago had been taken over by the alien entity who had built the transmitter and who had fed her information and technology for years. She had come to call that entity Copernicus. The two of them were in constant communication if they needed to be. But her current AIC was a state-of-the-art model that had been upgraded by the alien technology and as far as Sienna could figure was more advanced than any that existed. It had taken her some time to get adjusted to calling her AIC something other than Copernicus as she had done for almost two centuries, but after more than eight years she had managed to break the habit.

Scotty,
she thought.
All of these locations are densely populated, areas. Is there any information that suggests some of them are of specific logistic or military or political importance to the Chiata?

There is a lot of information, Madam President. It will take me a while longer to collate and filter the information into bins that will enable elimination of target choices.
She had named her AIC after her daughter’s father.

I suspected as much. Copernicus never makes it easy for me
. She thought.
We just have to keep at it and be thorough. There is time.

Yes, ma’am.

Sienna Madira continued to study the details of the overwhelming amount of data floating around in her direct to mind view. The data could take years to fully understand. But she knew that humanity didn’t have years. Only two or three at best.

She decided to filter through the data for information on the alien technologies of the Chiata. Copernicus had given her a general encyclopedia on the species and hoped that there would be something in there that would be useful to her in designing some sort of attack plan.

Madam President,
Scotty interrupted her.

Yes, Scotty?

Ma’am, the chief of staff says she needs to speak with you immediately and the Secret Service is with her.

Okay, send them in.

A woman and three men entered her Oval Office. The men were wearing standard body armor suits and carrying firearms. The woman was dressed in business attire.

“What can I do for you, Maria?” Sienna asked her Chief of Staff. The damned clones were all so emotionless and robotic. Sometimes, Sienna had wished she had just built mechanical hosts for the AICs, but Copernicus had insisted they be humanoid due to the more susceptible and compatible quantum “wet” brain characteristics.

“Madam President, good day. We are receiving an unencrypted signal from approximately six hundred thousand kilometers in space radially outward from the sun. The beam is so tightly controlled that it is only incident on the White House. It is addressed to you.” The chief of staff spoke completely devoid of any emotion whatsoever.

“Is that right?” Madira asked. “Then let us hear it.”

“As you wish, ma’am.” Maria nodded her head slightly to the guards and looked back to Madira. “Do you wish to hear it in private?”

“No need, dear. I’ve got nothing to hide from you.”

Hell, I can control their thoughts if I need to. I certainly don’t have to hide from them.

Yes, ma’am.
Her AIC agreed.

“Let’s hear it now.”

“Very well, Madam President,” Maria said. Then an audio message started playing over the room’s sound system.

“Hello, mother,” the voice started. “It is me, Sehera. I have been searching the stars with my husband, General Alexander Moore, and my daughter, Major Deanna Moore, and many of our friends for remains of the Separatist movement. Along the way we have found clues that have led us here and to you. While I have no way of knowing if you are the Sienna Madira of Earth and my mother, the evidence does point in the direction that you are at least some how connected to my mother even if you are not her.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. Moore found me,” Madira said out loud.

“Ma’am?” Maria asked.

“Oh hush, dear, and let me listen.” Madira waved her hand at the clone and continued to listen to the message.

“We are here with a fairly substantial force, but we wish to talk, not to fight. We have also been watching you for some time now. We know about the alien Copernicus and the impending invasion from the Chiata Expanse. Mother, please come to us at the coordinates imbedded in this signal and discuss in detail what our next steps either together or apart will be. We would very much like to speak with you in private.”

The message paused briefly and then started to repeat.

“Okay, turn it off.” Sienna stood and looked around the room. “Maria, get me the SecDef in here now.”

“Yes, ma’am. He is waiting outside presently.”

“Well, don’t just sit there girl. Send him in.” Madira felt antsy. What should she do? She could always just teleport out to them, but she would be unprotected. Of course, she could always snap-back too. That is, unless Moore used a dampening field to keep her there.

“Madam President?” her secretary of defense entered the office. They all spoke so damned emotionlessly. It had taken her years to get used to that. “I gather you have heard the signal and are contemplating your next move?”

“Your thoughts, Sam?” she asked the clone.

“Well, ma’am, my biggest concern is that they claim to have been watching us for some time now and we have had no knowledge of this. Also, our sensors are not picking up any ships in the system that are unaccounted for. That said, this signal is coming from exactly where they say it is.”

“Alright, then, it is settled. Prepare my shuttle. I want to be wheels up in less than ten minutes.” Sienna thought for a moment. “Wait, make that twenty. I want to change my attire.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the clones said in unison as they flurried out the door.

The Archangels sat in their mecha in the hangar bay. Each mecha was neatly stored in its own maintenance alcove. The invention of the mecha QMT system had forever changed the combat deployment procedures for pilots. DeathRay used to love the way the fighters would systematically hover out to the catapult and be thrown like mad projectile’s out the back of the carrier into the shit. DeathRay had long developed his own ritual with mission deployment. But those days were no more. Nowadays, mecha jocks sat in their planes ready to go and when the mission time was right for them to be deployed, they would be QMTed directly from the ship into the shit or some tactically and strategically advantageous position near the shit.

At the moment, every pilot in the
Madira II’s
flight wing was sitting tight and ready to fight.

“Alright Archangels, all is quiet right now, but we’ve got no idea when that might change. Keep your standard attack playbooks loaded and listen for my audibles if we need to change them.” DeathRay obsessively checked that his Universal Data Port cable between his suit and the Gnat-T’s computer console were locked in. Then he checked it again. He ran through the wireless connectivity and then he doublechecked his weapon’s list. Then he brought up the playbook in his DTM battlescape view. All the Archangels showed up as stationary blue dots. Jack was beginning to wonder if they were ever going to get the show on the road and then the call came.

“Archangels this is QMT tower,” came the operator AIC over the tac-net.

“Archangel One, go tower.” DeathRay responded. He adjusted his weight in the flight couch and gripped the HOTAS stick with his right hand and gently placed his fingers on the throttle on the left.

“DeathRay, the Archangels are go for rapid calm, repeat, rapid calm, deployment in five, four, three, two, one,” the tower AIC announced. And then the world flashed and buzzed and sizzled and DeathRay and the rest of his squadron were deployed in a tight vee formation about him. “Rapid calm” meant there were no immediate hostiles in the area and his DTM mindview backed that up.

“Moore to DeathRay.”

“DeathRay here. Go, General.” DeathRay checked his right three-nine line to make certain Apple1 was right where she was supposed to be. Of course she was.

“DeathRay, we have a dignitary guest approaching our current vector,” Moore’s voice said. “You and your wingman are to escort the shuttle to the aft hangar bay and then accompany the dignitary to the captain’s lounge. Copy?”

“Roger that, General Moore. I’ve got the shuttle on the tracker now.” DeathRay could see the red dot approaching their location in his mindview. He looked out in the general direction for a glint but with the star at the shuttle’s back he couldn’t make it out yet.

“Moore out.”

“Alright, Archangels, we are on escort duty. Lock on to the red dot and let’s follow the bouncing ball.” He told his squad. “Apple One stay on me and we’ll take the lead.”

“Roger that, DeathRay,” Apple1 replied.

“DeathRay to Fish.”

“Fish. Go DeathRay!”

“Fish, Apple1 and I are going to take this bird on into the hangar bay. We’ll be there for a while. You’ll have the angels at that point. Copy?”

“Copy that, DeathRay.”

“Alright, Archangels, I don’t see any signs of trouble, but that don’t mean there ain’t any coming. Stay frosty and keep your eyeballs open.” Jack laid out an intercept track to the incoming shuttle. The QMs and radar picked up the shuttle just fine. He pitched his snub-nosed fighter over about fifteen degrees and banked left and made a bee-line for their target. “Apple One stay loose on me just in case there is a shakeup, I don’t want us bumping into one another.”

“Roger that, DeathRay.” DeathRay could see her blue dot giving him a little space.

Candis, you got anything out of the ordinary?
Jack thought to his AIC.

Negative, Captain.
The AIC replied.

Private channel to Nancy.
DeathRay thought he’d check in with her and see if her super AIC had come up with anything to worry about. It was nice to have such contacts to fall back on.

Channel is open.

“Nancy, you getting any weirdness out there?”

“Well, nothing other than a system full of deadpan faces and rampant activity. No. The entire system reminds me of an ant colony,” Nancy replied.

“Let me know if you get anything.”

“Will do. Jack. Be careful,” his wife told him.

“DeathRay, you seeing the shuttle yet?” Apple1 said on the pilot tac-net. “I’ve got multiple glints surrounding the location of the red dot, but only one dot. We’re being jammed.”

“Roger that, Apple One. I say right back at ’em.” DeathRay had suspected that even though they had the Buckley-Freeman Switch that they would still be jammed by the bots and the equipment in this system. They had been jammed for years by the random quantum field generators Elle Ahmi had been implementing. Why would he expect anything different now? At least now, they could jam the enemy right back.

“Tit for tat is what I always say,” Dee replied.

“When have you ever said that in your life, Apple One,” USN Lieutenant Commander Song “TigerLady” Davis laughed.

“DeathRay,
Madira
!”

“DeathRay here. Go
Madira
.”

“Be advised of multiple bogies verified eyeball not on sensors. Copy?” the Air Boss’ voice warned him.

“Roger that,
Madira
.” DeathRay could barely make out some definition on the glints now. But they clearly had wings and tails. The shuttle had a mecha escort.

Jack, by the inertial movements of the six glints I calculate a very high probability that they are Seppy Stingers,
Candis informed him.

I was guessing that,
Jack replied.

“Be alert but stay frosty, Archangels. Those are likely Stingers out there. We’re not here to engage. We are here to escort them to the
Madira
.”

* * *

Deanna stayed loose on DeathRay’s wing as they led the shuttle and the six Stingers to the aft hangar bay of the Madira. She scanned the fighters with every sensor she could think of but could not detect them other than with her eyeballs. Jack had warned her that the same thing had happened on several different engagements. It usually took a few minutes for the AICs to link to the visual information coming into the pilot’s brains to create a DTM red force detection and tracking algorithm. Fortunately for them, the Seppies, and later the bots, had never learned how to jam the human eyeball and brain combination.

Dee ventured as close to the enemy Stingers as she could and noticed that they had human pilots. Well, at least they looked human. The enemy mecha looked just like the mecha they had found aboard the fleet. The Stingers out here looked just like the Stingers on deck on the fleet ships. Dee guessed that there were Gnats with similar paint jobs as well. The only difference in paint jobs were the pilot designations painted near the cockpits, which the enemy didn’t have. And the fleet’s Flight Wing squadrons each had their own symbols painted on the tailfins.

“Tower Madira, Apple One on final approach,” Dee called over the landing net.

“Roger that, Apple One. Clear for final. Call the ball.”

“Apple1. Affirmative. The ball is green.” The tracking and alignment target in her DTM turned from a red to a yellow then a green ball in her directional gyroscope. She brought the mecha in softly along side the shuttle. DeathRay and the other six mecha were scattered about in a loose formation. They all touched down and were taken over by the taxi hoverfield.

“Apple One is in taxi.”

Dee toggled the canopy and it started to rise slowly as she taxied into the aft hangar parking zone along side the other vehicles. She disconnected the UDP cable and the other harnesses. Before the vehicle came to a complete stop she stood and crawled out of the pilot’s couch and then lept from the empennage to the deck with a thud.