The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles #4, Retribution Page 15

  “Good Lord, why would you want to do that?”

  “Because, sir, I’m going to use their own strength against them. I’ve rigged the Uruk systems to utilize the Modos power conduits rather than the ones dedicated for the Uruk systems. Because things are somewhat kludged together on this ship, there is a dedicated control center for doing this switch-over. I now control that engineering station.”

  Faragon nodded. He finally understood what she was suggesting. Once the Uruk tech was engaged, the ship would burn out most of its control systems.

  “Cat I like the plan but it seems to me it’s not going to be too healthy to be on that ship when the WhimPy begins its attack run. I’d hate like hell to get you back only to lose you again half an hour later.”

  Cat waved the android forward.“Don’t worry, sir… I have a plan for that.”

  ***

  As the newly reconstituted WhimPy platform materialized out of a hyperfield conduit near the bulk of the Modos fleet, the bridge of the MS Retribution exploded in a sudden flurry of activity. Captain Dry-Bait slammed his fist down on the comm button at his command station.

  “Engineering! Bring the enhanced systems online!”

  An android controlled not by the Modos that had previously owned it, but by a human female who was even now making her way covertly to the Retribution’s shuttle bay, answered with the expected acknowledgement.

  “Weapons! Target that Heshe abomination. Remove it from my sky! Now!”

  Uruk power systems, many orders of magnitude more powerful than anything either the GCP or Syndicate had available, began to energize. In an instant the systems had available to them an energetic output that could rival most suns: something on the order of 1026 Joules. The energy began to flow along conduits designed for twenty orders of magnitude less energy. The result was superheated plasma that rapidly ate away at adjacent systems. These too failed.

  The lights on the bridge of the Retribution flicked and went out. At the same time every console overloaded, filling the bridge with smoke and fire. It lasted only as long as it took superheated plasma to envelop the entire interior of the ship. Seconds later the exterior hull began to dissolve, and soon all that was left of the MS Retribution was a rapidly expanding ball of plasma and one lone shuttle making its way to the GCP planetary picket line.

  Chapter Twenty One–Loss Mitigation...

  Cat scanned the schematics in front of her. She, Commander Ben, and Commander Thais Figarero, the Yorktown’s power systems and Chief engineers respectively, were working on the new Suhtii shield technology in the main engineering fabrication lab.

  “Cal… rotate the model one hundred-eighty degrees. Let me see it from the other side,” Cat said to the ship’s ever-present AI.

  “There!” Thais pointed.“That node is the one causing us the problem. There is no way the geometry is going to allow this to work the way the Admiral wants.”

  Cat nodded. Admiral Faragon had given them six hours to figure out how to fix the fundamental problem with the new Suhtii temporal shields. They were orders of magnitude more effective than existing shield technology, except that they worked in reverse. They dissipated energy within the shield bubble rather than energies striking the exterior of the shield bubble. Cat had been trying with the others to find a way of reversing the polarity.

  They were running out of time. In less than ten hours the Modos fleet would be jumping into Naanac space. Only on arrival would the Chairman issue the destruct code that would trigger the so-called loss-mitigation systems that would destroy this world. This technology could be the key to stopping them, if only they could get it to work.

  The Admiral’s idea was to enshroud each of the devices in a permanent protective shield so powerful that the Modos no longer had access to them to trigger them. Existing shield technology would work, but the power requirements meant an external power source would be needed, which defeated the purpose, or a battery would have to be used, which would operate the shield for a week or two at the best. Neither option was viable. The efficiency of the new Suhtii shields, however, meant that a battery could operate the system for several years -- which would buy the Naan people all the time they needed to defeat their overlords.

  Ben reached a forward arm toward the display.“What if we didn’t try to fix the problem? What if we used the system just as it is?”

  Cat looked at her D’lralu friend.“What are you thinking Ben?”

  In answer the engineer wrapped all four arms around the display.“If we enveloped the attacking ships rather than the nukes on the planet surface we accomplish the same goal… don’t we?”

  Thais bit her lip.“That might be tough to accomplish. How would you get them inside the shield?”

  Cat smiled.“We don’t have to. A normal shield repels energy and matter striking its exterior. Trying to expand a shield through an object would push the object away… but these shields operate in reverse. We should have no trouble using a shield generator to remotely envelop any target we choose. Ben, Thais… how long would it take to modify a missile to deploy the Suhtii technology?”

  Ben looked at the schematic one more time.“It’s certainly small enough…”

  Thais spoke up.“Meia hora… half an hour.”

  “Get busy, then,” Cat ordered.“I want as many as your teams can fabricate, as fast as possible. I’m going to go brief the Admiral.”

  ***

  General Moss stood next to Captain Breakwater on the planet’s surface.“This will soon be over, Captain. The Chairman is coming to clean up our mess. Once this planet is sterilized, we can look forward to long and illustrious careers behind desks in the darkest, coldest, and most remote hole he can find for us… and that will be if we are truly fortunate.”

  “Begging the General’s pardon, but the situation here is hardly our fault…,” Captain Breakwater began.

  General Moss laughed.“So little you know about the art of business. Fault always is laid on those least able to refute it. Dead men have very little say in the grand scheme of things. If the Chairman wants to lay the blame for this at our feet, the only thing you and I can do if we want to continue breathing is to say‘Yes, sir, we certainly did screw up.’ Anything else will get you dead before you can piss in a puddle.”

  ***

  The MS Typhoon and her escort of seven additional Dreadnaughts plus a myriad lessor vessels emerged from the hyperfield conduit near the planet Naanac and into a fire storm. The GCP fleet was waiting for them.

  The Typhoon’s Captain started barking orders to his bridge crew.

  “Shields to maximum! Weapons! Fire on those ships. HELM, get me some maneuvering room.”

  The Chairman watched the scene with a sense of serene detachment. They were still too far out to transmit the loss-mitigation codes but that would change soon enough. Several of the ships in the Syndicate contingent were live-streaming the battle to each of the major worlds in Syndicate space. The Chairman wanted the masses to see what happens to a world when the Syndicate is defied.

  “Captain… if you would be so kind as to move us closer to the primary target. I’m anxious to be done with this unpleasant business.”

  “At once, sir!” the captain answered crisply.

  “Helm… break away from the fighting. Best possible speed for the planet Naanac”

  ***

  “There he goes!” Jason Ruck yelled from the bridge of the Mador.“Helm, plot his course… who’s going to be closest?”

  “It’s the Yorktown, sir. She’s already moving to engage.”

  “Very good. Weapons, let’s distract the Chairman, shall we? We can’t have his point defense systems spoiling our surprise.”

  “Firing rail guns and missiles, sir.”

  “Very good, Lieutenant. Keep them busy.”

  ***

  Admiral Cat Kimbridge watched as Captain Kirkland expertly guided the Yorktown through the chaos of the unfolding battle to position the ship in a prime position to intercept the Typho
on as she made a run for the planet. She sighed. She still thought of the Yorktown as her ship, but in reality its command had passed to another. Still, Ken, was a good man and a good friend.

  “Admiral, the Typhoonis beginning its run. Moving to engage.”

  “Very good, Captain,” Cat said, as she opened a channel to Engineering.“Thais… is our little surprise ready?”

  “Sim, Admiral! Just give the word.”

  “The word is given.”

  A seemingly ordinary pair of missiles streaked out of the Yorktown’s forward launch tubes, traveling at a sizeable fraction of the speed of light. As they made their way toward the MS Typhoon, point defense systems attempted to engage. The first missile was hit and instantly vaporized. The second missile, however, reached its target.

  The effect was somewhat unusual. The missile’s onboard AI deployed a small hyperfield, and matched the Typhoon’sforward momentum. It latched onto the exterior of the ship and engaged a magnetic grapple. Within an instant the Modos warship was engulfed in a lightly shimmering nimbus… and then it turned jet black, as all reflected light from the surface of the Typhoon was captured and dissipated by the Suhtii shielding. For the next seventeen point eight years the MS Typhoon would be effectively cut off from the rest of the universe.

  Cheers broke out on the bridge of the Yorktown. Ken put his hand up to quiet them down.“Focus people! We still have active fighters in theatre.”

  Cat smiled. Ken was a good captain.“Ziggy,” she said,“open a channel to Admiral Faragon. Let him know that Operation Isolate is a go.”

  “Aye-aye, Admiral”

  In a few seconds Admiral Faragon acknowledged their transmission and followed it up with one of his own.

  “Attention, fleet. This is Fleet Admiral Bud Faragon. I’m pleased to tell you the primary target has been neutralized. Please proceed with the plan to neutralize all remaining Dreadnaughts. Any other ship attempting to get within six AU of the planet Naanac is to be warned away or blown away if they refuse to heed the warning. I don’t need to tell you that it’s critically important that we succeed in this mission. God be with you all. Admiral Faragon out.”

  The battle raged on for several more minutes but as soon as two of the larger Dreadnaughts were cocooned in perfectly round black spheres the others lost interest in the fight and began to withdraw. The Mador and Yorktown each managed to catch an additional Dreadnaught before they could establish hyperfield corridors and escape.

  “We got five of the seven big boys,” Ken said out loud on the bridge of the Yorktown.

  Cat stepped down to the command deck and rested a hand casually on the back of his chair.“That we did Captain… that we did.”

  Ken looked back over his shoulder.“The real question, Admiral, is will it be enough? Will the Modos stand down?”

  Cat shook her head.“I doubt it. They have too many years as slavers to back down after one bloody nose. Besides, at the end of the day they are puppets dancing to the jig of the Uruk,”

  Cat didn’t say it out loud, but she wondered silently whether the GCP wasn’t dancing the same jig under the control of the Heshe.

  ***

  “Damn!” General Moss swore.“If you want a job done, you have to do yourself. The cowards have fled. If word of this gets out, the Syndicate is going to have decades of war on their hands. Come on, soldier.”

  Captain Breakwater looked at his commander.“Sir?”

  “We’re going to have to set off the bombs on our own.”

  Chapter Twenty Two–Salvation...

  “Captain!” Lieutenant Zimmerman yelled.“We have an incoming transmission from the planet. Professor Debbu is reporting that the planetary destruct sequence had been activated!”

  “What?” Cat and Ken said in unison.

  Cat immediately hailed the WhimPy in orbit above the planet.“101, can you confirm? Has the loss-mitigation system been activated?”

  “It is confirmed, Admiral. The initiation sequence was manually entered three minutes ago from a ground station.”

  Cat spun toward the communication station.“Ziggy… get the Mador, the Victory, and the Resoluteonline ASAP.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the lieutenant answered.

  Cat looked at Ken and caught his attention. He had gotten up to personally inspect the sensor console. His look was grim.

  “Ken, how many of the Suhtii weapons do we have left?”

  “Six, Admiral. What are you thinking?”

  She held up a hand to pause his question.“That’s not enough… Ziggy are the others online yet?”

  “We’re here, Cat,” Admiral Faragon said.

  “Sir, I need to know how many of the Suhtii shield weapons you each have available for immediate deployment.”

  Once they all responded there were an additional six missiles. All told they had twelve.

  “101, how long before the detonations begin?”

  “One minute, thirty eight seconds.”

  “If we were to launch now… how long before our missiles could reach the farthest of the detonation sites?”

  “One minute twelve seconds, Admiral.”

  “101, on my authority override the command and control systems on each of our ships and immediately launch all missiles at optimum targets. Do it now!” Admiral Faragon barked.

  The massive Heshe AI broke into each of the starship’s systems and took control of the missile launch subsystems. Faster than a human could blink twelve missiles launched and headed toward their designated targets. A little over a minute later they reached their respective destinations.

  The systems treated their target zones as if they were starships and erected perfectly spherical black domes over each site. Within those domes thermonuclear devices exploded with unimaginable force. The Suhtii shields responded by folding the energies back through time into Naanac’s distant past.

  Cat stared at the planet below. Three of the black domes were visible from the Yorktown’s current orbit... including the one that now covered the capital city of Harramog.

  “Ziggy… Where was Professor Debbu when he contacted you?” She had a horrible feeling she already knew the answer.

  “Harramog… Admiral”

  Epilog...

  Nitup of the Uruk could afford to be patient. He had lived for tens of thousands of years, and he would live for tens of thousands more. His proxies, however, had failed him this time. That was a failure he could not abide. Oh, he wasn’t concerned about the loss of a world. After all, he controlled entire galaxies. What was one planet more or less? No, he was more concerned that their ancient adversary had been apprised of their presence in this particular corner of this particular universe.

  Nitup sent a message to his brothers. He was sure he would need their help before the coming war was over.

  *** This Ends Book Four of the Catherine Kimbridge Series ***

  Watch for Book Five – Liberation (2014)

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  The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles, # 5– Liberation

  Chapter One - Memorial...

  Personal Log

  2125 was the year the Proxy war began in earnest. The Heshe and Uruk, each with drastically different views of right and wrong, met in open conflict with disastrous results for the known universes. At the same time this was the finest year for the Galactic Coalition...

  Admiral Catherine Jackie Kimbridge,‘Cat’ to her friends… sat in the newly installed Admiral’s chair on the Bridge of the GCP Yorktown. From this chair she could monitor, and to a limited extent, control the disposition of forces under her command. It had been two months since the battle at Naanac and although the GCP and the freedom fighters they were aiding had won that battle; the war went on and the cost continued to be high. She had lost friends… a Naan Professor named Debbu, two GCP officers named Lieutenant Andy McKinney and Lt. Commander Pete LeAnder as well as a host of others tra
pped in the cities of Harramog, Napoli, Darmog, Glispen and Surdom.

  Cat had been forced to utilize an imperfect Suhtian technology that encapsulated a handful of the Naanac cities in protective energy containment domes. Their world had been saved from a ruthless sterilization by the Modos Syndicate but the cost has been thousands of lives extinguished. Cat had given the order. It was the right order. That didn’t make it any easier to sleep at night.

  “Admiral, we have a signal coming in from the Mador task force” Lieutenant Zimmerman said from the communication station.

  “Route it to my display Ziggy” Cat ordered.

  A holographic screen materialized in front of Cat. Commodore Jason Ruck appeared to float in front of her.

  “Greetings Admiral”

  “Jason” Cat nodded.“Any word from Agur Alliance?”

  Jason’s holographic imagine smiled.“Given the current situation, they were most willing and even eager to talk.”

  The current situation was a Modos taskforce consisting of twenty dreadnaughts setting up camp in a star system a mere thirty light years from the Agur home world. The Agur were a curious people. If Cat had to categorize them she would call them the Milky Way’s historians. They had an insatiable appetite for the history of other races. More interesting was the archive they maintained which cataloged the major achievements of the countless civilizations. Many of these civilizations were now extinct… victims of the Uruk doctrine of intelligent species suppression.

  Unfortunately for the Agur the Modos Syndicate had become aware of this archive. The war with the Modos Syndicate had evolved into a skirmish war fought on two fronts. One front was a series of revolts in the Modos home Betaverse. The other front was in the Alphaverse. The Syndicate had a series of harassment fleets operating in GCP space.

  The science available in the archive maintained by the Agur was a potential goldmine for any force looking for a strategic advantage in a conflict that was rapidly looking to be a protracted stalemate. The Agur were religiously apolitical and refused to grant others access to this information in the belief that the information could lead to the demise of other races.