Exploration (7 page)

Ken relayed sensor data that showed the big ship had jumped into their region of space a good .25 parsecs father away. Clearly the level of tech was not as advanced as the GCP. That having been said, the beast still packed one hell of a wallop. 

Cat looked at her available sensors on the
Bluefin
navigation board. Surely there would be some way of detecting a hyperfold event in the mass of sensors available on this board. Most, unfortunately, seemed to be geared toward detecting gravity waves. Cat supposed this was critical for a ship that used supermassive black holes to travel between parallel universes.

Captain Modos saw her searching frantically over her board. "Is there a problem, Commander?"

"I'm looking for the hyperfield perturbation array."

"I'm not familiar with such a devic
e…
at least not one we call that. What does it do and perhaps I can help."

"It detects and locates nearby hyperfold events. If that big bully jumps after us I want to know where it is."

Captain Modos looked at her for a few seconds before he did something completely unexpected. He laughed, rocking back and forth in a purely Bearephant manner as he chortled.

"I knew you were what we needed! Tell me Commander, how does one detect a hyperfold?"

"Well," Cat considered the question. "It's not terribly dissimilar to detecting a gravity wave but the angle of incursion is ninety degrees out of phase. I suppose I could modify your gravimetric sensors to do something similar but you would not be able to use them for dimensional transits until they are restored."

"And this will tell us the terminus of a vessel that hyperjumps in our vicinity?"

"Negative, Sir. It will tell us how far away they are but not the direction. We would need three observations points to accomplish that."

Captain Running Stream hit his comm. "Engineering. Prepare two gravimetric sensor probes. Commander Kimbridge will give you instructions for modifying them."

Cat smiled. She loved it when a plan came together. She and her companions would do their level best to help this captain and honor their pledges, but at the same time they were gathering incredible intel for the GCP.

'
…
if they could ever report it,
' she mused.

The newly minted Modos officer Lieutenant Ben stood in the
Bluefin's
fabrication bay. Four gravimetric probes lay on tables. Their guts where splayed out. Ben was working with an old friend of his. Yhsif it turned out was a reasonably competent junior engineer.

"See if you can't get that solder joint a little cleaner. We need to be able to get all of this stuff back inside when we are done."

Ben had decided to modify four of the probes rather than the two requested. This would give them two spares in case they could not recover a set between jumps. He was just closing up the second of the four when the ship shuddered. Emergency klaxons resumed their wailing.

"I guess our friends have found us again" he muttered.

"They're no friends of mine," Yhsif grunted as he folded the modified circuit board back into the third probe.

"So..." Ben started to say. The ship rocked again, a bit stronger this time. He opened a direct link to Cat.
"
Cat try rolling the ship to disperse the energy across the shields. We just got these bad boys working again. I would hate to burn them out.
"

"
Not my first dance, Commander... er... I mean Lieutenant,
"
Cat shot back.

"
Yeah about that...,
"
Ben thought back. He was interrupted by Yhsif who was completely unaware of the silent exchange between the GCP officers.

"So?" The Bearephant echoed.

"Sorry... I became distracted by the bad driving upstairs."

Yhsif grunted.

"So why do you suppose are we being attacked?" Ben continued.

Yhsif looked decidedly uncomfortable. "I best not answer that. It's something that the Captain should probably address."

"That bad?"

***

Yhsif carefully and covertly made his way to a storage locker on a lower level. The ship's manifest listed its contents as defective electronic hardware. The type that accumulates over time in any ship as complex as a star ship.   What Yhsif was after, however, was not a piece of defective hardware.

His fingers felt around the side of the door to the locker and he pulled free a small remote control. He hated what he was doing but he had no choice. The Modos syndicate had his wife and children.

Quickly he typed in a few commands and a series of coordinates. He pressed the send button and replaced the small remote. Silently a small probe, one of several dozen stuck randomly about the hull, detached from the side of the
Bluefin
. It looked like a piece of dirty ice or rock. It remained passive. Its message would be transmitted only in response to a specially coded signal. 

***

Cat's finger hovered above the button that would flood the hyperjump nodes scattered about the exterior hull with exotic matter. The influx of these particles would begin a cascade of events that would ultimately result in hyperfold occurring in time-space. Captain Running Stream had instructed her to be ready. As soon as word came from Engineering that two of the modified probes were ready to launch they would jump.

The ship was in no immediate danger. The Dreadnaught had apparently jumped considerably further out and so their beam weapons were far less effective than they had been during their first encounter. In addition, Ricky had used another of the Sandy's to create a dust cloud between the two ships. To be sure, the
Bluefin
was being hit, but it was nothing that her shields could not handle for a few minutes. The transit shield that had been their main defense earlier was essentially gone... worn away.

Finally the word from engineering came that all was ready and the Captain ordered the jump. As soon as normal space reappeared the sensor officer launched two of the probes.

"Probes away," Cat confirmed.

Sensor data began to stream in. The sensor officer, a young female judging by the color of her fur, whistled. Cat had not heard any of their former captors make that sound so she looked up with a start.

"Sir!" The young officer said perhaps a little too loudly. "If I am reading this correctly I am reading two hyperjump termini forming."

"Two?"

"Yes, Sir... but..."

"But what, Ensign
?
”

"Sir, I can only confirm one ship with optical scanners."

Running Stream stepped out of his command chair and walked over to the sensor station. He ordered the two probes to be recovered now that they had accomplished their intended function. He looked over the Ensign's shoulder at the displays on her station.

"It would indeed appear like there were two hyperfold events but only one ship appeared. Any thoughts, Commander?"

"It's hard to say, Sir," Cat answered. "It's makeshift technology and we don't have a fully working computer to filter anomalies. It is probably an artifact that we can mathematically suppress once we can crunch a few numbers and understand what we are looking at."

"Perhaps you are right," Running Stream said, but to Cat's ears he did not seem convinced. Cat of course knew the second blip on the sensors was the
Honey Dipper
.

"How far out is the ship that we have a visual confirmation of?"

"Four light minutes," Sassi answered. "Also, I have the primary AI back online, although most of its navigation database is toast."

"I'm not sure I understand the reference. What is 'toast'?"

"I'm sorry, Sir... most of the database was damaged and must be rebuilt from incremental backups. That's going to take several days, I'm afraid."

"So we can jump more quickly as long as we are not picky where we go?"

Sassi fluttered his low frequency antenna. "That is essentially correct, Sir."

"Very good, Lieutenant. Calculate a series of quick jumps. I want to jump in quick succession before that brute out there can track us. If we can lose him for a few days we can get that database rebuilt and jump someplace significantly safer."

"Sir, I already have such a solution set available. We can jump in three minute
s…
as soon as the ultra-capacitors are charged."

"Jump when ready," Running Stream said with a wink at Cat. This set of officers from the GCP were remarkably capable.

"Sir!" an Ensign at the sensor station yelled. "The Dreadnaught is changing course! They are targeting the dust cloud between us and them with low-yield nukes!"

Cat straightened in her seat. "Captain, I would suggest evasive maneuvers until we jump.  The only reason I can think they would clear the dust cloud is because they plan on changing tactics."

As if to emphasize her point the bridge shook violently. If Cat hadn't already been rolling the ship along its primary axis to protect the shields, the vessel would have been holed when three powerful laser beams raked across her hull. The beams themselves weren't responsible for the violent shaking on the
Bluefin
. As the energetic rays hit the shields, a fractional percentage of the energy got through and hit the hull. Small amounts of the hull plating vaporized. It was the superheated material of her hull, ejecting at tremendous velocity from where the lasers were striking her shielding, that was responsible for the
Bluefin's
shaking.

Cat noted that both Ken and Ricky's remote sensors were showing a high-power burn of the Dreadnaughts reaction mass thrusters. They were attempting to close the gap and using a plasma beam, in addition to the nukes, to open a hole in the dust cloud for their massively powerful lasers to fire through.

"Sassi, estimate how long until our shields fail?" the Captain asked.

"Two minutes and fifteen seconds, Sir."

"How long before we can jump?"

"About two and a half minutes. We are in trouble unless..."

"Unless what?"

"Unless we turn the ship to expose our cargo bay. They'll chew it up pretty bad but there are no critical systems in the bay."

Cat caught Captain Running Stream's eye. "It will buy us the fifteen seconds we need."

"Keep rolling the ship as long as you can. When it looks like we are about to lose the lateral shields go ahead and position us to sacrifice the cargo bay."

Running Stream toggled his ship-wide comm.

"Attention crew of the
Bluefin
. We are moments from executing a jump that should grant us a reprieve from the relentless barrage we are suffering. Unfortunately our best estimates indicate our shields will fail before we can complete the jump. I need all personnel to evacuate decks six through eight and immediately forward of the aft promenade. Basically, anything near the cargo bay or its surrounding structures. Seal all airtight doors and prepare for fire suppression. You have..." He paused to look at Sassi.

"A minute and a half, Sir... tops."

"You have sixty seconds, so get a move on. Running Stream, out."

'
Cat?
'  Ken Kirkland's voice intruded gently in Cat's consciousness. Normally her Heshe encounter unit simply processed incoming communication data and provided an auditory or visual facsimile. It was, however, capable of much more. Ken did not want the Admiral to react visibly to his communication so he encoded his conversation to represent itself as a stream-of-consciousness thought.

'
What is it?
' Cat thought back.

'
I can extend my shields to protect the
Bluefin
. It would unfortunately give away my presence.'

'
I've been thinking along those same lines and I may have a potential solution
.'

'
Let me guess'
Ken thought. '
Detune my shields so that they are only partially effective.
'

'
The primary structural material seems to be a titanium ceramic alloy. Tune your shields to selectively block transmission frequencies that  have absorption bands near the danger zones.
'

'
That will leave my ship vulnerable...
' Ken started to say.

'
Understood
' Cat thought back. '
Have Ricky microjump the
Honey Dipper
into a position to selectively shield the
Esperance
.
'