Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles 7: Renegades (2 page)

The two men laughed and Bud felt immensely better.

              Behind them the turbolift door swished open and Admiral Melbourne and Lieutenant Commander Heather Arris stepped onto the bridge.

              “We have a serious problem,” Sherry announced before either man could say a word. “The Grand Senate has issued a renunciation edict for the entire
Yorktown
taskforce. Any GCP vessel they run into is charged with reporting the encounter and arresting the officers and crew if able.”

              “That didn’t take long,” Harry muttered.  

“No it didn’t,” Bud agreed.

“It gets worse,” Honey added. “Commodore Ruck just informed me, via FTL comms that the
Exeter
,
Mador
and
Relentless
remain cloaked just outside of the Hupenstanii jump point. The GCP should not know they are there and yet there is a sizable GCP armada moving to blockade both sides of the jump point.”

“It’s possible,” Harry said, “that the Senate is anticipating our next move.”

Bud reached over to touch a button on the navigator’s console. “It’s possible but not likely,” the Admiral said. “I doubt they know I’m out of stasis.”

“Still, beg’n the Admiral’s pardon sir, heading towards Hupenstan to blockade the Hopper’s singular jump point does kind of throw a wrench in our plans,” Harry continued.

Bud looked over towards Sherry Melbourne and winked. “Maybe… maybe not.”

Chapter 2: Sleeping Giants…

Admiral Bud Faragon stepped out of the shuttle on to the deck of the
Yorktown’s
main hanger. He breathed in a deep breath. This was a ship and crew he had not expected to ever see again. The
Yorktown
had rendezvoused with the
Brown Recluse
a couple of jump points shy of their ultimate goal, Huppenstanii space. 

Fleet Admiral Catherine Kimbridge stepped forward and started to salute her friend but he stopped her with a quick shake of his head and instead rendered the first salute. Cat started to object but Bud spoke before she could get the first words out of her mouth.

“You outrank me Fleet Admiral and in fairness I would be saluting you even were that not the case… you are a living recipient of the Coalition Medal of Honor.”

Cat turned to face Admiral Melbourne who had joined Admiral Faragon on the hanger deck. “I have a Medal of Honor?”

“Actually,” Sherry said with a grin, “you are the only recipient ever awarded two CMHs. The first was in recognition of your sacrifices during the
D’rlalu
war the second was for your actions during what historians have started calling the
Proxy
war. It was assumed the awards were being given posthumously.”

“I’ve won the Medal of Honor?” Cat repeated numbly.

“Twice,” Sherry confirmed.

Cat shook her head in disbelief. “I guess I should have taken the time to view all those docudrama vid links you sent me. To be honest, I’ve always found it difficult to watch others report on my life. Most of the time I just want to throttle the commentators for trying to turn me into something superhuman.”

Sherry and Bud smiled in unison but wisely said nothing.

Cat Kimbridge shook her head one last time and stepped forward to hug both her friends.

“It’s good to see you,” she said warmly. It
was
good to see them - both. For Cat it had only been a few months since the three had stood in the same room but the calendar showed the actual span was more like three hundred years.

              Sherry took the opportunity to ask a question. “Did you bring those M&M officers I requested?”

              It was Cat’s turn to grin. “Oh they are here. I have them locked in my brig for their own safety. Seems they like to cheat at cards. Not typically a problem unless your intended victim is a six-legged D’rlulu cyborg with a temper…
and
you are playing for chocolate bars.”

              Sherry smiled. “That sounds about right. Do you want to keep them locked up or shall I take them off your hands?”

“They are all yours. And good luck with them. I’ll send an ensign to fetch them.”

              “I wouldn’t bother,” Sherry said. “If I know Sam Eddington and Rhino they will have heard I’m aboard and already be making their way here. I doubt there is a brig in existence that could hold the two of them.”

              True to her word, Rhino made a coughing sound and stepped around the edge of one of the other shuttles. Sam joined him a moment later with a sheepish grin on his face.

              When Cat looked at the two men with a mixture of irritation and awe in her eyes they immediately straightened and executed flawless salutes.

“Gentlemen,” Sherry said with amusement in her voice, “Perhaps you had better board the shuttle and head over to the
Recluse
. You’re going to be joining Captain Bedmore’s crew.”

***

In a dim part of the galaxy humans called the Milky Way two large objects that had been locked in a gravitational dance around a super massive black hole finally collided. The result was a large chunk of accumulated debris cracked off of the larger of the two objects. This exposed a portion of a machined hull that had not seen solar radiation for countless eons. The object was a ship of some sort - buried in interstellar dust.

Before the natural gravitational interaction between the large object and the dust in the accretion disk could once again coat the exposed metal, a white dwarf that was part of the circumstellar material surrounding the black hole dipped too low in its orbit. The resulting tidal forces shredded the star and released a massive amount of additional radiation in the general direction of the partially exposed ship. In response to the sudden influx of energetic particles, collectors on the exposed surface of the hull activated and piped the energy associated with the death throes of the dwarf star into the interior of the buried ship.

The massive alien starship slowly awoke. Systems that had been dormant for longer than human recorded history slowly warmed as minute amounts of energy began coursing through the craft’s power conduits. The ship’s artificial intelligence was confused. Damaged memory cores meant that it was incapable of remembering its designation or specific mission. That said, the ancient AI knew its designers had built it to sterilize instances of organic life that threatened its progenitor’s galactic dominance.

As the various subsystems came awake, the ancient craft realized many of its internal systems had failed and were in need of repair. It was unable to communicate with its creators. This was unfortunate as it would like to confirm its current orders. The ship was unsure if its creator’ failure to respond was due to a malfunction on its end or if something unexpected had happened to the Uruk.

Slowly, gravity repulsers on the ancient weapons platform shed the material that had been cloaking it for eons. As more if its surface was exposed it was able to gather more energy from its surroundings. After a couple of thousand years, a bare blink of time, it had gathered enough energy in its storage cells to ignite its antimatter reactors. Massive amounts of energy began to course through the ship’s systems. Some of those systems immediately burned out but the ship’s repair drones immediately began the task of rebuilding and repairing the failed components. In less than one hundred additional years the ancient ship was finally ready to resume its mission of sterilization. It detected movement in its vicinity.

Several thousand kilometers off its port side a small survey craft explored an odd looking asteroid field. The captain of the ship suspected this was the site of an ancient space battle and that many of the rocks they were approaching were in fact dust-covered remnants of that battle. He was just about to make an entry in his log when this ship was hit with a high energy x-ray laser pulse. Death was instantaneous. A short time later the lifeless hull of his ship was pulled onboard a much larger craft. The ancient AI began digesting the primitive data core found on the tiny ship it had just collected. It seemed there was an entity known as the Galactic Coalition of Planets that would have to be dealt with. It analyzed the navigational database and set its new course accordingly.

***

Cat looked across the table at the other two admirals. “So the Hupenstanii have developed a way of entering a hyperfold without utilizing a fixed jump point. Why haven’t they used it to circumvent the blockage the Grand Senate put in place? Why in the eighty plus years since this happened hasn’t somebody else developed the technology?”

Bud Faragon leaned forward and rubbed his hands on the warm cup of coffee in front of him. “The Hupenstanii solution is based on a derivative of their multi-dimensional shield technology.”

“That would make sense,” Cat said.

Sherry raised an eyebrow.

Cat noticed her expression and went on to explain. “The only practical way to circumvent the current restrictions on hyperfield jumps would be to pull and push the required energies from and to a higher dimensional plane. Create the right harmonic and the nearby dimensional planes start vibrating as well.”

Sherry continued to look confused. Cat sighed and tried to explain again. “Imagine plucking a single string on a guitar. The strings on either side will begin to vibrate as well. The Hupenstanii draw energy from these higher dimensional vibrations and then shunt it back to the higher dimensions when it has accomplished its task.”

“So why haven’t the Hupenstanii used this technology? Why are they still locked behind a blockage?” Sherry asked.

Cat looked over at Bud Faragon. “If I had to guess, I’d say the Hupenstanii reached out to you eighty years ago because while they had the theory they did not have the manufacturing base to implement the theory.”

Bud nodded. “They asked us for help and instead we cut them off from the rest of the universe.”

Sherry nodded. “The entire region around their sole jump point has been mined with smart seeker bombs. Anything that tries to approach without the proper codes gets obliterated. There is a similar field on the other side of the jump and the mines are configured to automatically replenish themselves.”

“So,” Bud mused. “We either find a way to get the codes or we find a way to survive the mines.”

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” Cat answered. “The GCP has sent an entire fleet to the Hupenstanii jump point. Not only would we need to have the codes but we would need to deal with Senior Fleet Admiral Imera. Realistically there is no way to get to the Hupenstanii through their jump point.”

“So that’s it?” Sherry asked. “We just give up?”

Cat smiled. “Of course not. We know what the Hupenstanii were trying to accomplish and we have access to three things they do not.”

Sherry blinked and waited. When it was obvious Cat was not going to said more she turned towards Admiral Faragon.

The older man smiled with a mischievous grin. He counted off with his fingers. “We have detailed data surrounding the harmonics used to create the existing jump points. We have Heshe fabrication technologies; and,” He paused to look the others in the eye, “we have Cat Kimbridge.”

***

  “Battle stations!” Prime Dominate N’stra shouted at the top of his breathing bladder.  “Instruct the secondary’s to engage the enemy. Yield nothing.  Given up nothing. Surrender nothing. We win this battle or our home world is lost!”

On the forward viewscreen of the Chetee Battlecruiser
D’fatora
a massive brick shaped object materialized through the jump portal. This same alien ship has destroyed three other Chetee colony worlds on its way towards the home system. Dozens of battle groups had been unable to stop its advance.

All attempts to communicate were met with dead air. Any ship that got within half a planetary unit was immediately attacked by the gigantic invader. A collimated matter-antimatter plasma beam would lash out and obliterate the defender within a fraction of a chrono. Nothing the presbyters had could even penetrate their opponent’s shielding.

If their world was going to be saved it would require a miracle. N’stra was hoping that miracle was in his cargo bay. The grand order of thinkers had assembled a single antimatter bomb that might just do the trick. The problem was it was highly experimental, having never been tested in combat. In addition the delivery system was still nothing more than design schematic on a computer screen. That meant the
D’fatora
was the delivery system. Whatever else happened N’stra was not returning home to his bond-mate and hatchlings. At least, if he was successful, they would have a home.

He engaged the ship to ship intercom one last time. “Form up and proceed towards the target at best possible speed. None of us are getting out of this life alive… let’s at least make sure we are remembered.”

Prime Dominate N’stra’s fleet of thirty four ships formed a pyramid in space and headed towards the large rectangular box-shaped craft. The thing was immense. Easily a thousand times the combined mass of his entire fleet. N’stra had no illusions about their ability to batter through their opponent’s shields.  The sole purpose of their battle formation was to protect the
D’fatora
as long as possible. If they could get close enough the experimental antimatter planet-buster bomb in his cargo bay might just be able to knock down that beasts shields. Then it would be up to the planetary defense systems to take out the giant ship.

As expected, the alien craft fired its horrible death ray at the first of his fleet. The brave souls on those ships were the lucky ones. They had at most a fraction of a chronos to contemplate their demise before they and their ships were vaporized. Those ships that were further back knew their fate but were powerless to do anything about it. Their lives bought precious time. Time that was being used to bring their ultimate weapon into play.

N’stra was cheered by the knowledge that his ship which was behind the crumbling pyramid formation was now closer than any Chetee ship had ever come to their adversary. The bomb in the
D’fatora’s
cargo bay was primed and ready to detonate three trills after the cargo bay was exposed to a vacuum. When the collimated matter-antimatter plasma beam finally hit the
D’fatora’s
forward shield it collapsed instantly as N’stra knew it would. The beam hit the unprotected ship and in four point five trills, barely a tenth of a chronos, the ship was vaporized.

The Chetee antimatter superweapon performed flawlessly. The matter-antimatter containment fields collapsed and the two mixed freely. Seven grams of matter annihilated itself in a fraction of a trill releasing 400 trillion trillion watts of energy. This was equivalent to the entire output of the Chetee sun concentrated in a miniscule area near the alien vessel.