Sentient (20 page)

She knew there would be major problems if most of the population was not exposed when the time came to activate the DNA update.  She returned to the ship and started out for her next destination.  So far she hadn’t been questioned at all, she believed the trend would continue but had a cover story prepared just in case.

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Over the next nine days another three thousand seventy two ships were added to those looking for Sthellan worlds.  Aide believed the search was over as they had found one hundred and eighty four solar systems spanning approximately six thousand light years occupied by the aggressive race in one form or another.

Most of the worlds had between three and five thousand ships.  Only their home world had more than that at twenty thousand.  She already had enough ships to overwhelm their defenses simultaneously across the empire.  At over six thousand ships, that was thirty plus she could send to each world.  Still, she considered sending five to the weakest planets, fifteen to the stronger ones, and sixty to their home world.

She had more than enough to continue the explorations and look for other civilizations.  Once the enemy was grounded, most of those ships could be freed up to do the same.  Though it wasn’t time to move yet, she was still searching for any she might have missed.

She heard the door open and turned.  Olivia was practically skipping as she walked over and kissed Aide.

She asked, “What’s the good news?”

Olivia grinned, “I found the probe.”

She considered accessing the appropriate files, but didn’t want to ruin Olivia’s excitement and decided to check later, after.

“How?”

Olivia smiled, “The range is limited, maybe thirty light minutes.  So we won’t be finding stealth ships or probes from far away, but in the same solar system they’re toast.  I actually didn’t find a way to directly scan them.  What I figured out is…  One sec…”

Olivia brought up a scan of the solar system out to the ort cloud.  Then she brought up a secondary blank scan.

Olivia continued, “What I did was send out a graviton pulse sphere.  Basically just a bubble of gravity that expands in all directions.  Then, I follow it with the normal sensors.  The sensors detect the minute changes to the pulse as it passes through any mass.”

The second scan filled up slowly over several minutes, the gravity pulse did not exceed the speed of light which was probably the reason for its limited distance.  The first and second scan looked pretty much the same.  Aide managed to see the minute difference in the millions of objects, but waited patiently for Olivia to finish.

She didn’t want to steal the girl’s thunder after all.

Olivia smiled and said, “Then I ran a simple comparison and removed all the objects that are included in both scans,” she pointed at the one object left close to Pluto, “That’s the only thing different, our normal scans don’t pick that up, but there is mass there.”

She hugged Olivia and called for Kris to join them.  She was impressed, she wouldn’t have thought to use a non-scanning wave and measure the changes to it with the sensors.  It was a good approach.  She built and initiated a program that would run every thirty seconds to scan for stealth objects.

When Kris came in they explained it all to him. 

When they were done Aide asked, “Should we destroy the probe?”

He shook his head, “No, leave it.  It might be an advantage if they don’t know we can see them yet.  If we start doing anything new I’ll reevaluate that decision, but the damage is already done.”

She nodded and also filled him in on the stats for the currently known Sthellan systems.

He replied, “Good, search for another week?  If it all looks good still we can remove their access to space and quarantine the planets.”

“Sounds good, that will give me enough time to be thorough, make sure I didn’t miss anything.  Also, if we are going to simultaneously attack them all, you may want to take the time to create attack plans I can follow.  Then during the action you’ll only have to worry about the unexpected.”

He blew out a breath, “I can do that.  Thank you both, that stealth cruiser has been giving me nightmares.”

Olivia said, “My pleasure, we should do another beach night to celebrate.”

He smiled slightly, “I’d love to, but Stacey wasn’t feeling well this morning.  So… maybe?”

Aide nodded politely but kept her lips zipped.  She suppressed a smile, she knew what the problem was of course, but thought it would be better for them to figure it out for themselves…

It wasn’t a week later, only a couple of days, but Aide was 97.2 percent sure they had found all the Sthellan worlds.  She had found thirty two planets scattered around the Sthellan’s sphere of space that could support life, eight of which held intelligent life.  None of these worlds were advanced, only one of those eight had approached a technological level comparable to Earth’s industrial revolution.

She was sure the Sthellan wouldn’t have left any of these planets alone had they known of them.

She left eight of the carriers at all those worlds and informed Kris of her early findings.  She knew he was still in the midst of creating all the generalized attack plans for her to follow.  So far another Sthellan wave had not been launched, but there were indications of increased ship building efforts in four of their systems.

It was her, Kris, Olivia, and Stacey on the bridge.

When she finished her report Kris said, “I’ll try and have the plans done by tomorrow.  Also I want at least three ships at the FTL line in all those systems, just in case they do the unexpected and run for it when we arrive.”

Aide replied thoughtfully, “I suppose that’s necessary, I’ll see to it.”

She didn’t really need him to explain, with ships outside the FTL line it would be easy to intercept any ships by using FTL to intercept their vector, no matter which way the enemy ran.  She didn’t think they would run anyway, they were too aggressive.

A warning flag went off in the sensor computers and she took a look.  What appeared to be ninety stealth ships just dropped out of FTL by Neptune and looked to be moving their way.

She reported, “Kris, we have ninety of those invisible cruisers coming our way.  They should be here late tomorrow.  If I had to guess, they sent three for every one of our carriers.”

He frowned, “Can we target them while they are in stealth mode?”

She shook her head, “We could estimate, but these aren’t FTL sensors, so the data would be suspect unless we were very close.”

He grunted thoughtfully, and then said, “But when they start charging weapons, we have half a second before they can fire right?”

She shrugged, “Yes, but we have to assume the instant beams won’t do us any good, we need that half a second as well, unless we tip our hand.  They’ll see it if we charge weapons right before they get here.”

He asked, “How many of our fighters would have to attack at once to destroy one of the cruisers?”

She replied, “With the light blue plasma triple shot…  fifteen to be sure.”

He nodded, “But we have twelve thousand fighters with thirty ships, that’s…”

She smiled, “One hundred thirty three.”

He grinned, “Thanks, so with that many per enemy ship…” he trailed off.

She waited patiently while he worked through it.

He shook his head, “It takes five seconds to launch the ships, too long to launch and charge weapons.  It’s too dangerous to try and sucker them in.  We have to assume they’ll open fire as soon as they get in weapons range.  Are there any ships that will be completed before the battle?”

She shook her head, “No, I just started a new batch.”

He frowned, “What if you halted work on two thirds of them, we don’t need a thousand, just concentrate on building three hundred.  You can have them done before they get here right?”

She blushed, “Of course.”

She was embarrassed for not thinking it through and just spitting out the data like a computer program.  Then again, it was a very human mistake…

He nodded and looked satisfied, “Okay, once they get close to Mars, launch ten thousand fighters from thirty of the new ships and start following the ninety in, at the same time, we’ll launch our fighters and move out toward them.  Also at the same time, send the additional two hundred seventy ships toward the FTL line. 

“We can catch them between our fighters away from any of our carriers.  If they cut a right angle and try to vector out and run, it will be too late anyway, our ships will reach the FTL line first and can intercept.  Although I’m not sure about that last part yet.  If they leave I might let them go.”

He asked, “Anyone see any flaws or have a suggestion?”

Olivia asked, “What if they don’t drop their stealth field when they figure out they’re in a trap?”

He answered, “Well, they will do one of two things, panic and believe the stealth is not effective at all, and attack anyway in desperation, or they could figure out what we’re doing won’t give us a good target lock and try and make a run for it.  In that case, we will wait until we are at point blank range, which for space I guess is within a few thousand miles, and then fire off the sensor data results.  Light speed at that range should be good enough for a pinpoint accurate lock, especially if we are attacking from a hundred different vectors.  Someone is bound to hit at that point even if they change direction fast enough, which is doubtful.”

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That night Stacey lay in bed thinking.  She knew they couldn’t go back to the Earth and live there, it would be too dangerous.  Not necessarily for them, with their internal shields, more for any friends and neighbors.  Not to mention the U. S. Government when foreign agents are deployed on their soil.  But she missed her family.

She was more happy than she’d ever dreamed being with Kris.  She’d also been making great progress in gaining understanding to Alion science.  Thanks to the implant and nanites, she never needed to relearn anything, so it went fast.  She was sure she would have a satisfying and productive life, even if she couldn’t share her discoveries beyond a handful of people.

She was also pretty sure she was pregnant.  She’d missed her period.  She frowned, she’d told Kris it didn’t matter, but she wasn’t so sure of that now.

She blurted, “Love, I changed my mind.”

He looked up at her with a questioning look and she blushed.

She said, “I know we can’t live on Earth anymore, but I miss my family, and I do want to get married.  I want to share that moment with my family and our friends, and have everyone know that we chose each other.  Oh, and I’m pregnant.”

She looked unsure and asked, “What do you think?”

She sighed with relief and melted against him when he gathered her up in his arms.

He said softly, “Whatever you want love.  Where do you want to get married?  You’re pregnant?  Tell your dad to leave the shotgun at home, I’ll marry you even if you’re reputation is sullied,” he added in a humorous voice.

She snickered, “You’re taking this better than I thought you would.”

He kissed her neck and she sighed in contentment as he whispered, “I’d already gotten used to the idea of you being pregnant, plus when I mentioned you felt sick Aide had nothing to say, it made me suspicious.  As far as the marriage part, how could I not want to make you happy?”

She said softly with tears of joy in her eyes, “In our meadow, between our ranches.  Just a small one.  My parents and our friends from your ranch, and of course, Aide, Olivia, Nate, and Paula”

He nodded, “We can do that.”

They could plan the rest out later she decided and drew him into a deep passionate but gentle kiss.  They made love for hours that night before they feel into a restful and satisfied slumber.

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The next day Kris finished up the attack plans for the concurrent invasion of one hundred eighty four solar systems.  He only needed to create eighteen plans, most of the solar systems were similar after all with few exceptions the plans only deviated based on the number of defense ships and platforms.

He had a little time before the enemy hit Mars orbit, so he called Tony and Terry.  They talked for a while, but eventually he got to the point and asked Tony to be his best man.  He wasn’t sure how they would work out a bachelor party, but he had faith his friend would take care of it and have him at the wedding in time.

He’d been a little surprised at Stacey’s choice of maid of honor.  He’d expected her to pick Terry, but she’d asked Aide earlier this morning.  He hadn’t realized how close the two had grown, but he realized it was a good thing, it wasn’t like they would have a surfeit of friends for the rest of their lives.  They were kind of stuck as the six of them.

I did concern him a little, they would be fine with it all, but what happened when their children grew up?  How could he raise a child in virtual isolation and still be a good father?  Not that he had to worry about it for a while, but it was an active concern in the back of his mind.

The time came and the ships were launched.  The enemy had some time now to make decisions before the inevitable happened, he patiently waited to see what they would do.

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War Councilor Reina, acting captain of the flag ship, thought this mission was distasteful, but would follow her orders to the letter.  She was aware of the risks of another civilization with their technology, but she also knew they needed help against the Sthellan.  It seemed a gamble either way and she wasn’t sure why the high Minister was so adamant this race needed to be destroyed.

As far as she knew, this race had not fired one shot at her people except in defense.

If she didn’t know better, she would think he was afraid.  Perhaps he simply had information he had not divulged to her.  Though, more than likely it was simply the same scorched earth policy they seemed to be following lately.

The sensor officer disrupted her musings, “Captain, the thirty carriers have launched all their fighters and they are moving toward us on an intercept course.  At current speed we will be in weapons range in thirty minutes.  There are also ten thousand fighters following in our wake, though at speed they are not gaining on us.”

Her first thought was there must be another reason for their launch.  Even their own sensors can’t see a stealth ship.  They only know where each of the ships are because of quantum connections for direct, fully secure, and constant positional updates.

After reviewing the scans however, it was obvious the enemy was somehow seeing through the stealth field.  She considered this for a brief time.  The mission parameters were to destroy the ships, but a surprise attack was essential for success.  There was no way her ninety ships could take all those fighters.  She considered contacting the high Minister for orders, but decided against it.

She thought there was a good chance he would make them attempt it anyway.  She would probably be censured, perhaps even killed.  But at least her fleet would be intact.

“Send out orders, I want thirty escape vectors to FTL calculated so neither group of fighters can overcome us, then send the ships in threes.”

Her first officer stood up and pulled his weapon, “Belay that order.”

She raised an eyebrow, “Explain.”

He replied, “I was given orders to stop you if you attempted to abort this mission.”

She nodded slowly, “So what would you have me do?  They can detect us, the mission has already failed.”

He was silent for a moment.  She sent a mental message to the ships AI.  It was nowhere near as sophisticated as their first contact AI’s, but it could get the job done.

“
Disable my first officer, charge is mutiny.
”

They first officer stiffened and fell to the floor, knocked unconscious by his own control implant.

She asked curiously, “Does anyone else want to be charged with mutiny?”

There was silence on the bridge.  She knew she would probably be executed, but her command would live.

“Execute my orders.  Now.”

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Aide reported, “Kris, they’ve broken up into thirty groups of three and are heading for the FTL line.”

Chris nodded, “Have our fighters split into groups of three hundred and set a circular course around our carriers to maintain coverage.  We don’t want them changing their minds and slipping by.  Have the other fighters do the same for the ships waiting for them in the asteroid belt.”

Aide said in her perpetual bedroom voice, “Done, what of our ships outside the FTL line, should I set up intercepts so they can’t escape?”

He frowned.  “I’m tempted to do so, otherwise they may threaten us again in the future.  But no, if they leave let them.  I’ll gamble that Kiara will complete her mission before they come back.  It’s a risk but it will save their lives.”

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Olivia was reading through their latest black hole testing report.  They hadn’t been able to harness a black hole for energy, but they did discover a few things.  For a black hole to exist, it takes both intense gravity, and they need to be fed matter.

In the latest experiment, they created a high gravity field as far from the scout vessel as possible, and then shot it with a low level plasma burst.  This created a micro black hole for a few milli-seconds.  As soon as the plasma burst stopped feeding the black hole, it shrunk quickly and dissipated.

The most surprising thing, is none of that energy was released when the black hole dissipated.  Since matter and energy can’t be destroyed, only transformed, she theorized either the black hole itself sped up entropy and used that matter and energy to in essence power itself.

Another theory she had, was the forces were so powerful it opened a passage to another dimension and literally ejected the matter and energy of the plasma from the universe.

She grinned.  The second part could have interesting applications.

The next experiment it tried was creating the black hole, and constantly feeding it a small stream of plasma.  That kept it open.  Then they moved the ship to determine if the black hole was still tied to generated gravity field, or if it was independent.  To see if it would move with the ship.

The former was confirmed in those results.

She tried two more experiments; she fired plasma from a second ship at the one generating the black hole, with the black hole directly between them.

The results were what she expected.  The field containing the plasma was disrupted, eaten, by the black hole, as well as the plasma.  The black hole increased slightly in size for a moment, but then shrunk back down.