Once again I am relying on Niven and Pournelle and the framework presented in The Mote In God’s Eye (and The Gripping Hand) to present the governmental framework of this last chapter of the Ripley triptych. Readers of these two books, and a whole bunch of others, will recognize the Co-Dominium – as it existed a thousand years after its formation, so your indulgence is in order here as I am creating a “backstory” to the creation of their Co-Dominium. And once again I’d implore you to read the two Mote books, as they really are among the very best sci-fi novels out there.

[Pink Floyd \\ Hey You]

A fairly short chapter to kick off this latest work, so maybe time for a cup of tea. Enjoy.

Nostromo

Chapter 1

There was a moment – when awareness first returned and the last icy tendrils of hyper-sleep began their slow, feral retreat – when those who experienced the sensation admitted to feeling the nightmarish panic of suffocation – and this was usually just before their mind gave up on the idea of sleep and real panic set in. Deep within those last fleeting moments of hyper-sleep, the elaborate mechanisms of electro-chemically induced hibernation finally gave way to the organic, biologically mediated reawakening of consciousness, and yet the brain simply could not shake off the reality that just moments before it had generated an electrical impulse once every ninety seconds that traveled down the vagus nerve and ‘caused’ the heart to beat once. Yet even so, the lungs did not expand and contract to push oxygenated blood around the body – because the hyper-sleep chamber was itself a hyper-saturated oxygen-rich bariatric environment. Electro-compressive elements in the thermostatically controlled sleep suit continuously massaged this oxygen rich mixture throughout the body, forcing these gases deep within all of the body’s tissues, most notably the brain – yet it was the brain that was the last part of Ellen Ripley to come back fully to life.

Her mind raced through the last dark corridors of the nightmare as she ran for the light – and the oxygen – that her conscious mind now craved, and then, right there in the deep middle of her oxygen deprived panic the suit delivered its coup de grâce: a shock that opened her eyes and that also commanded a sharp inhalation of room air. Her body was then on autopilot once again, following a script written over the eons; she sat up in her sleep chamber as her eyes popped open, and then months of lactic acid stored in her muscles flooded into her stomach, causing her to retch even as she reached for the ‘muscle milk’ being handed to her. She drank half the one-liter glass in one quick slug, neutralizing the inrushing acid in time to prevent the worst outcome, then she felt helping hands reaching under her arms, lifting her free of the chamber.

“How are you feeling, Miss Ellen?” Walter said.

“How long was I out?” she groaned, finishing the glass of hydrating fluids.

“Sixty four days. The ship is now in an elliptical orbit around Thedus.”

“Great. We have any R&R lined up?”

“R&R? No, Ma’am,” Walter sighed. “You do, however, have a meeting with the governor-general, Sir Walter Lockhart, at 0800 tomorrow morning.”

“The governor, huh? No shit. Wonder what I’ve done now.”

Walter smiled noncommittally, then he looked away. “I have no idea, Miss.”

“Walter, knock it off, would you? Whenever you’re holding something back you always look away like that…”

“Like what, Ma’am?”

“You look away…just like that…but then you kind of smile, too. You aren’t going to try and tell me you didn’t realize you were doing that…”

“I didn’t…so sorry.”

“Damn, Wally, you been around humans long enough now…you really ought to be a better liar by now.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Ellen. Are you telling me that you would like me to lie to you more often?”

Ripley shook her head as another wave of nausea hit. “No,” she said, rolling through another grimace inducing cramp, “but if you wouldn’t mind, would you hand me that bucket?”

+++++

The USNSF, such as it was, still maintained a “defensive presence” on the massive Lunar Gateway complex, but it was an irrelevant posting now that the Earth was no longer of any commercial value, and that was just one of the things that struck Denton Ripley as utterly insane as he walked through the worn down station.

The Earth, all of it – every political institution and every corporate entity – had simply packed up and left during Agamemnon’s 25 years long voyage – even though Ripley, like everyone else in the Enterprise Battle Group, had aged only a little more than a year. And now that he had learned the truth behind this great migration he was even more mystified.

After the combined fleets of the Russian-Chinese alliance and the American-Japanese space forces had been defeated by an “unknown faction” within the Tall Whites’ armed forces, the U. S. Naval Space Force, still commanded by Admiral Stanton, had simply been unable to secure enough funding to rebuild the fleet. 

“But how was that even possible?” Denton asked Tom Bretton, the current commander of the gateway. “I mean, with half of the fleet destroyed and the other half unaccounted for, and with Earth’s defenses stretched to the breaking point, are you telling me that the Council couldn’t earmark enough money to rebuild…”

“By that point there was no Council, Admiral Ripley. And for all intents and purposes, the American Congress had simply ceased to function when the last arable land was covered by the ice sheet. Almost the entire remaining human population was located either in orbit, on the Moon, or on Mars. For three years every resource was allocated to building shuttles and getting the population up to the gateways, and then we found Sparta, or New Sparta – as it’s called now. Big bulk carriers were transformed into colony ships and about that time a new governing structure developed…”

“What? What new structure?”

“Well, for one thing, it’s a monarchy. There’s no president, no congress, nothing like that anymore – although there’s talk that the King is under pressure to reconstitute some kind of Senate…”

Ripley’s face was screwed up into a tight scowl and he was gnashing his teeth in pure rage. “A…king? Are you fucking kidding me…?”

Bretton pointed at the ceiling and shook his head. “Look, you’re going to need some time to get acclimated to these changes. Everyone understands that. But Admiral, within a few days you’ll need to record your oath of allegiance to the crown or…”

“Or…what?”

“You’ll be provided with transportation down to the planet’s surface.”

“To Earth, you mean?”

Bretton smiled. “Yes.”

“I understand. So, just so I’m clear, is everyone on this New Sparta now?”

“Oh, no, we’re migrating to dozens of planets now. The biggest cities in the Co-Dominium are on New Chicago and Saint Ekaterina. We don’t know much about the Chinese settlements right now, but they are on seven planets now.”

“Saint Ekaterina? That’s Russian, is it not?”

Bretton nodded. “Yes. Apparently the Chinese turned on them after Mintaka and that was one time too many. The Russians swore allegiance to Leonidas about five years after they lost contact with their fleet and that was that.”

“So…no United States? No European Union and no Russia? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Yessir. Now you’ve got the Co-Dominium or you’ve got exile to the planet’s surface, but don’t get me wrong. There’s still a lot of grief about this in the outer rim planets. Levant, where most of the Muslim population settled, has a big dissident faction, and half the people on New Caledonia are always up in arms about one thing or another…”

“Is there a Navy?”

“Oh, you bet. Divided into two forces. Escort and counter insurgency.”

“Counter insurgency? So that kind of implies we’re not all one big happy family…doesn’t it…?”

“Yessir, you got that right. There was a revolt on New Chicago last year. Refused to pay their taxes, again. So they Navy went in and read them the riot act, told them to pay up or the Navy would blockade the planet. There’s still not a lot of major industry on New Chicago, not enough to be fully self sufficient, so blockade means starvation and, well, death – when you get right down to it.”

“How many ships does this new Navy have?” Denton asked.

And now Bretton just shrugged. “Depends on who I’m talking to, Admiral Ripley. If your allegiance resides with your oath of office to the old constitution, I’m not telling you anything beyond a rough outline of what happened while you were away.”

And that, Ripley said to himself, was all he needed to know. The Enterprise Battle Group could form up and attack this New Sparta, or he and Neal Davis could swear allegiance to this new King, this Leonidas the First. That was the choice being presented to him right now, and it was a stark choice. Revolt, or allegiance. 

But allegiance to what? Or…to who?

To something, or someone, he knew nothing about? How the devil could these people assume he or anyone in his fleet would do something so outrageously out of character – unless they…

Unless they already had a fleet en route…

…to enforce the King’s law.

(c) 2023 adrian leverkuhn | abw | fiction, plain and simple

[Alan Parsons \\ Time]

And so here are all chapters of Agamemnon – now completely revised and with about thirty or so new pages creating a very different ending. I hate to say it, but many additional changes were inserted throughout – so you might as well restart from the beginning. Pardon the lack of editing; you’ll probably find more errors than usual.

Also, I’ve tried to keep elements of this story from becoming too cinematic, though in my mind I can’t help but see the visual poetry in Scott’s movies, especially the ship interiors, filling in the blanks. Yet at the same time The Mote in God’s Eye is never far from my mind, and oddly enough I think that story contributed more to these efforts than did Scott’s films.

There are other storylines within this part of the arc that are just begging to be expanded, notably the Lars avatar and his role in events. The Brennan baby is another, and of course the whole Ellen Ripley backstory that is never touched upon in the movies is not addressed here. That said, I could see coming back to this one and filling in a few of the details I’ve omitted, but in the end I wanted to keep this story manageably short and not turn it into another War and Peace (aka The 88th Key).

Anyway, that was the thinking. So far. Hope you find it fun.

[Jed Kurzel \\ The Covenant]

The Voyage of the USNSF Agamemnon

USNSF Agamemnon                                                                 15 October 2107

Denton Ripley watched the docking clamps release over a remote video feed, and he flinched when Hyperion’s port-side reaction control jets began firing to the beat of an elaborate dance all their own. As he watched the live feed, Ripley noted the huge ship – his last command – was slowly beginning to pull away from her moorings at the Lunar Gateway, then he saw two tugs moving in to help keep her on station. Ripley’s arms crossed protectively over his chest as he watched the evolution, knowing his wife now had the chair on Hyperion’s conn – and that, for now, all eyes were on her.

“Mixed emotions, Denton?” Admiral Stanton said as walked into the orbiting basestation’s huge, multi-storied control tower.

“I should be out there with her, you know?” Ripley said – almost under his breath, his voice just loud enough to be heard over the hum of the computers in the complex – let alone the blast of the air conditioners needed to keep the computers alive.

“Oh? You don’t think she’s ready for this?”

“I have more combat experience, Admiral. Not to mention Hyperion was mine for two years.”

Stanton smiled. “If I had a buck for every time I’ve heard that one…well, I guess I’d be a rich man by now.”

Ripley nodded. “Goes with the territory, I suppose.”

“Very few skippers last six months, Denton. Operational needs dictate the ebb and flow of assignments and postings, but if you decide to stick around you’ll start to see the big picture.”

“Stick around?”

“You don’t have to retire, Denton. You can always move to administration or operations when you get back.”

“I wasn’t aware that was an option, Admiral.”

“Well, I just made you aware, didn’t I? And I don’t need an answer now. Just give it some thought – while you’re out there.”

“Yessir.”

“The yard boss tells me Agamemnon will be ready for her initial test run in a few days. I want you to take her out to Mercury…”

“And then return?”

Stanton shook his head. “Only if absolutely necessary.”

“Sir?”

“Look, I know this is not exactly doing things by the book, but you’re going to head out with a unrated crew, but you’ll also be heading out with a group of Israeli technicians onboard. They’ll tune the reactor and iron out any bugs in that weapon of theirs while they get your fire control team up to speed – and we’ll get ‘em back to base on one of the tankers.”

“You mean…?”

“Yes, the Council and the administration have assigned your mission highest priority. We want you to make the jump to Alpha Geminorum Ca as soon as possible, and we want you to find that installation.”

“Installation? Sir, Thomas referred to it as a university.”

“And who knows, Denton…maybe it is. But do you really think we can afford to take that chance?”

Ripley suddenly felt ill, like he had been betrayed – because he knew what had to come next. “Sir, what are the mission objectives?”

“Retrieve our midshipman and ascertain what threat level these ‘Tall Whites’ pose.”

“And?”

“If they’re hostile, then Agamemnon, Constellation, and Stavridis will engage when and if you determine you have the tactical advantage.”

“And if they aren’t a threat?”

“You’ll have dozens of academic sorts onboard your flagship, as well as on the Enterprise; the Science Ministry recommends you convene a working council after contact and work out the best way to proceed diplomatically. You’ll also have the five remaining middies from your original mission, and they’re to stay with you onboard Agamemnon – unless, that is, you have to abandon ship.”

“So, any thoughts about how we enter the system?”

Stanton shook his head. “No, not really. I assume you’ll jump with both Constellation and Stavridis, but I’d keep Connie out at the jump point – to secure the return to Earth. Maybe Stavridis could hide out in the asteroid belt, kind of like an ace up your sleeve for when, or if, things hit the fan. If it turns bad out there, Constellation would be in a good position to send a longboat through the Alderson point. Within six weeks we hope to have the Enterprise Battle Group assembled and ready to make the jump to provide a secondary attack force should this new race prove hostile.”

“A battle group, Admiral? Can we spare that many ships if we get into a shooting war with the Russian and the Chinese at Mintaka?”

“I don’t know, Denton. Why don’t you think it through and see what you come up with.” An exasperated Stanton looked him over again – then he too crossed his arms over his chest before he turned and walked out of the control tower – and Denton realized he’d asked a question worthy of any midshipman still wet behind the ears. 

Yet that question had been in the plan all along. In fact, everything he and Stanton had just said had been for the benefit of the prying eyes and hidden ears scattered all over Gateway Alpha. Because of the nature of the Gateway, that of providing access to the lunar surface, operational security up here was a nightmare, with personnel from dozens of countries flowing through every day.

Hyperion was soon about a hundred meters away from the Gateway and Ripley could now take her all in. With her Langston Field down she looked like an interconnected jumble of mismatched white rectangles covered with hundreds of small metallic sensor arrays and antennas – and he had to admit she looked nothing at all like most modern warships – yet in an offhand way that’s exactly what she was. And she was headed in harm’s way, too – only now Hyperion was skippered by a woman who also just happened to be his wife.

+++++

Yet his new ship was anything but a warship, and Agamemnon was anything but a rectangle.

As he looked her over the word ‘rakish’ came to mind, because she looked like one of the ocean greyhounds that used to roam the Earth’s southern capes – the Clipper Ships – two hundred years ago. Even made fast to her moorings here at the Gateway, she looked like she’d been built for pure speed, like a bird dog straining at the leash and ready to join the chase. And while she was technically an emissary ship, Agamemnon too was a kind of warship, only a warship built with very different objectives in mind. 

Agamemnon’s mission wasn’t confrontation; no, she was – in her way – an olive branch. A very fast olive branch. This new ship had been built with the implicit knowledge that the most enduring peace is based on understanding and respect – respect grounded in an explicit ability to lay waste to any enemy the ship came across.

This was an old concept, of course. The policy of MAD, or Mutually Assured Destruction, had been employed during the First Cold War and had remained in place through the Resource Wars. After a wild series of tectonic shifts and volcanic eruptions had sent the Northern Hemisphere into perpetual winter, the customs unions of the north had simply moved south, pushing aside native populations as these unions asserted control over vast new territories. Yet once all the resources necessary for explosive industrialization were discovered in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, terrestrial conflict came to a sudden, convulsive end. As all modern economies were built on the shaky foundations of military industrialization, it soon became apparent that all such conflict would have to take place in space. And in a sad irony not lost on Ripley, there was not now even one country that maintained a real sea-going navy anymore; in an era of rapidly changing climates, the cost, let alone the danger, was simply no longer justifiable.

Yet Agamemnon represented something new, and as such her design was radically different from the first generation of interstellar warships. Of course the ship had an Alderson Drive so of course she had a protective Langston Field, yet despite being a warship she had been designed to deploy only one weapon. Agamemnon would be the first ship to deploy a working X-ray MASER, and this offensive weapon had been developed specifically for this ship. Rumors had been floated that this Maser was quite probably the deadliest weapon ever created by man. In tests, Maser-X had cut through all known armor plate in nanoseconds, yet the weapon concurrently delivered a kinetic impact equivalent to five megatons of force. The real horror of this weapon was that even a ship’s Langston Field could not absorb this kinetic impact; instead, all this colossal energy was transmitted inward, directly onto the ship within the Field. Developed in Israel, during her proof of concept tests the Maser had been deployed against steel structures in the Negev, and the results had been terrifying. Huge iron beams bent under the force of the impact, but then the metal began to disintegrate as the Maser ruptured molecular bonds within the metal. Now the thinking was that a ship targeted by the Maser would be instantly crippled by the kinetic impact, then the targeted ship’s Langston Field generator would fail, allowing the full power of the Maser to strike the underlying structure, in effect slicing through the ship and exposing the habitation modules to space. The most unusual, and horrifying, aspect of this new Maser was that the beam could be narrowly focused and wielded like a scythe, or with greater distance its beam could be widened to hit a large area with a hammer blow. When deployed from a 200 mile orbit and used on ‘terrestrial’ targets, the target area broadened to a half mile square, meaning that an area the size of the old Central Park on Manhattan Island could be annihilated, simply turned into molten slag – in nanoseconds.

Yet Ripley had been more than a little surprised to learn that Agamemnon’s keel had been laid down a full six months before he’d first left earth – on Hyperion. So, the ship had been re-tasked – from an unknown original purpose, one possibly related to the old Cold War MAD doctrine – to a vessel designed for First Contact. So then, what was the term that the old Strategic Air Command had operated under? Flexible Response? Have the necessary ships – and crew – available to meet both current anticipated needs – and those unanticipated adversaries that always came along. And because new technologies always came along, some more unexpectedly than others, platforms needed to be designed with the unexpected in mind. So, months before he’d ever commanded the first Hyperion mission, the Navy had started work on Agamemnon. But…why? What had they known? There was simply no need for a ship like this without First Contact in mind…and that troubled Ripley.

‘What changed?’ he wondered. ‘Where was the new threat? The Company? But – what if The Company struck an alliance with China or Russia? Even though that would be against The Company’s long term interests?’

But all this meant Admiral Stanton had considered him the best person for the task at hand, to take Agamemnon out to face an unknown adversary. And Judith was now considered more than capable enough to sail Hyperion into battle on Orion’s belt. Or? Was she simply more expendable than he?

‘And am I flexible enough for this mission?’ he asked himself – as he watched Hyperion’s main drive come online and flare to life. ‘What do they think is going to happen out there? Meet these ‘Tall Whites’ again and sing Kumbaya around a campfire on the beach? But – why had The Company been out there in the first place? Simply to find out what happened to Covenant? Or had they known about the Tall Whites? And if they did, how the hell did they find out?’ He’d have to go back to his cabin and reread the Prometheus Mission after action report one more time…

A personal Comms came through from Hyperion and Ripley took the call.

Judith’s image came onscreen and he thought she looked calm enough, almost serene – given the circumstances. “Everything good, Judy? How does she feel?”

A simple nod. “Crew is still tight, but right now everyone is on edge. Things got dark after the Marines boarded.”

“How many?”

“Two companies, and their gear is stowed away down there on the aft hangar deck. What about Agamemnon? When do you put out for builder’s trials?”

He looked at her and shrugged at the continuing subterfuge. “No word yet. Yard crew is still onboard, still working on Reactor Two, something wrong with the interlink. I think we’ll be out of here within a few weeks.”

This was the agreed upon coverup Stanton wanted going out over the Command Net, in case unauthorized ears were listening…and of course Judith was in on this last minute deception.

“That figures,” she said, smiling. “Hell, this thing out in the Belt will be over by the time you leave. Wait for us and we’ll go on trials with you.”

“I’ll mention it to the Admiral. Let’s hope this is all just a tempest in a teapot.”

“Well, whatever it turns out to be, we’re ready for an extended engagement.”

Ripley nodded. Until the full nature of any alliance between Weyland and the Chinese and the Russians was fully understood, the scope of the conflict at Mintaka would remain unknown – at least until hostilities commenced. But what was there to worry about? Just because Hyperion was being sent in first – to test the waters, as Admiral Stanton put it – didn’t mean Judy was in imminent peril. “Perhaps they’ll find a diplomatic solution,” Denton said, his voice a little too forced. “When will you make the jump?” he asked.

“Looks like 1.5Gs to Mercury, so call it two weeks and change.” There was a flurry of activity in the background and Judy turned to deal with it; a moment later she turned back to him and said “Gotta go. Talk to you later,” and as quickly as she had come to him her image disappeared.

After less than a half hour Hyperion was now almost five hundred miles away from the station, so he switched to a telescopically enhanced view – just in time to note the main drives flare as Hyperion went to maximum power. Hyperion was setting sail at 3.4Gs, and her exhausted crew would make it to Mercury in less than a week…and if all went according to plan he’d be following her in just a few hours.

He quietly slipped out of the station’s Command Center and walked slowly through the station out to Agamemnon, but once onboard he dashed up Main Street to the conn-tower and strapped into his acceleration couch on the command bridge. Once his screens were positioned exactly where he wanted them he spoke over the closed command circuit.

“X-O,” he said to Commander Brennan, “let’s take her out, then get everyone to acceleration stations. Reactor Control, are you ready to go down there?”

“Brooks here, Admiral. Reactors One and Two are online with full power available, Three and Four are on standby. All engineering personnel are ready for acceleration.”

“Rusty? How are your troops?”

“In their couches, sir, and ready to go. All hardware secure.” 

“WEPPs? What’s the status of that Maser?”

“Yardmaster says Dr. Balin has about two plus days work to finish up, Admiral.”

“Okay. Tell ‘em we’ll have about 24 hours in a low-G orbit at Venus and possibly a little longer at Mercury. Get those people strapped in; we’re going to heavy acceleration in five minutes.”

Brennan turned her couch to face Ripley: “Reactor five now at full rated power, Admiral. Ready when you are, sir.”

“Alright, Commander. Captain of the Yard, visual signals only and maintain radio silence; notify tugs to assume standby stations, and let’s make ready for departure.”

Ripley’s ears popped as pressure bulkheads and entries were closed throughout the ship, and as pressurization went to internal, air pressure equalized throughout the ship as the massive air generators and CO2 scrubbers came online.

“Admiral,” Brennan said, “greens across the board; all departments report ready for departure.”

“Very well, XO, take her out.”

+++++

Admiral Stanton watched Agamemnon as her reaction control jets pushed the huge ship away from the Gateway, and he couldn’t help but smile with pride. Her architects had taken a page from the old Soviet playbook when they designed her, because Agamemnon was the exact opposite of Hyperion. Hyperion was a battleship, meant to fight from inside the cocoon of her Langston Field, while Agamemnon had been designed to visually impress anyone unlucky enough to run across her, to engender a sense of awe – and in that one regard her designers had succeeded brilliantly. She looked more like a super-yacht than a naval vessel, as if the way her lines had been drawn had been shaped by a desire to exude a sense of urgent purpose. If Hyperion was a heavyweight boxer, Agamemnon was a long-distance runner, or perhaps and very dangerous messenger.

Stanton watched as Stavridis and Constellation moved into echelon formation as they joined Agamemnon, just before they moved away from the station under heavy acceleration. They made quite a sight just then, the three of them in formation passing in front of Earth with their drives flaring, the Enterprise Battle Group now five miles behind the formation, still moored at the Gateway while they took on hydrogen and their final provisions. Yet even now the Charles de Gaulle and the QE2 were still just in view, trailing Hyperion as they steamed towards the sun, completing their own last preparations before making the jump to Mintaka.

As Stanton watched he realized he was witnessing history, that everything was hitting all at once. His two most capable fleets heading out into harm’s way.

Was this by design, or simply coincidence?  

Why had the Russians attacked the Japanese colony on Mintaka 4 right now? Why had the Chinese resumed their tattered alliance with Moscow? Obviously the Japanese had discovered something of extraordinary significance on the planet, and so the Russians had made their play to take the planet – yet why had the Chinese rejoined their uneasy alliance with Russia? And if the Chinese were willing to let bygones be bygones, then the discovery on Mintaka simply had to be of priceless value.

And the Weyland-Yutani Group was already there. Already in the game. How did the Company’s presence play into this metastasizing conflict?

But why had the Company gone after Covenant? In his heart he knew it had something to do with that organism?

But if so, what was the connection to Mintaka?

Stanton’s gut told him there was one. There had to be. And that connection had to be…

That’s why three commercial freighters still under construction had just been ‘acquired’ and were rapidly being repurposed into troop transports. Mintaka 4 was the prize, yet Stanton knew deep down that the key to the prize was going to be found on, or in the vicinity of, Alpha Geminorum Ca-4. So Denton Ripley had to find the key – and then somehow get it to his wife at Mintaka. In time to make a difference, too.

Then maybe those two could retire and raise their daughter. But until they came back it was his duty to take care of the girl.

Funny, he thought, how these things work out.

Chapter 2

Ripley watched live feeds from all over the ship, even monitoring the main reactor control panels from his seat on the bridge. A small contingent of Marines was exercising on the forward hangar deck, agronomists in hydroponics were tending their crops, he could even oversee the recycling plant turning todays excrement into tomorrow’s bioplast and yeast steaks – because it was all visible with the flip of a switch. He could literally zoom in on any shipboard activity he wanted to observe, and as this was technically a warship there were no privacy rights to contend with. Still, Ripley saw no point violating spaces where privacy was presumed. The ship’s AI would do that automatically; sifting through conversations for subversive content or plans to commit sabotage.

But right now he switched over and looked at factory technicians still hard at work calibrating the new X-ray Maser. Agamemnon was the first ship not just in the Navy but the first ship period to be so armed, and Agamemnon had been, technically speaking, built to house this one weapon. And the Maser had proven to be so devastating, and yet so reliable, that it had been boxed up and launched on a shuttle directly from the Haifa Spaceport – even as Agamemnon was hastily readied to accommodate the weapon. As a result of the Maser’s power requirements, the ship had five fusion reactors, not the four originally specified. The fifth reactor was needed to power the Maser, though power from all five reactors could be channeled to the weapon if the situation warranted. And now, ever since he’d boarded and his command status had been transferred to the new ship, all he’d done was study this Maser – and its daunting power requirements.

Because fighting this ship meant one thing, and one thing only: getting the Maser online and lining up the shot. And because there was, quite literally, no defense against this weapon, one shot was all it would take to neutralize any target. On paper, its beam would blow through Langston Fields like tissue paper, while ships without a Field would, theoretically, be vaporized within milliseconds. And in theory the Maser’s beam had almost unlimited range, but no one had dared test that yet.

But…why? Why had Agamemnon been equipped with this devilish thing?

To impress the Tall Whites, as they were now being called by the council? If so, this ship was a ‘Don’t fuck with us because we have this kind of technology’ statement. But again, why? Especially as the situation at Mintaka was now the most pressing need?

So, he concluded that Stanton thought the biggest threat was waiting at Alpha Geminorum Ca-4, by the Tall Whites and their university. 

And he found he reluctantly agreed with that reasoning. The Russians were two generations behind both our Navy and the Chinese PLA-Space Force, and while those ships had Chinese versions of both the Alderson Drive and Langston Field, they were first-gen affairs that wouldn’t fare well against our fleet, or even the modest contingent of Japanese ships at Mintaka. Either the QE2 or the de Gaulle would be able to handily deal with the Russians, hence Moscow’s hastily resurrected alliance with Beijing.

But thinking this through further, what had the Japanese found on Mintaka?

Something obviously valuable enough to set this conflict in motion. But what?

‘We have all the mineral’s we need now, and in-system. We have a practically unlimited supply of hydrogen on Europa, and we haven’t even begun to tap the vast supplies around Saturn. Everywhere we’ve been we’ve found minerals and hydrogen in vast quantities, so it can’t be that…’

So, why hadn’t Stanton briefed him in? He was an admiral now, after all.

But, he cautioned himself, he was just a one-star, a rear admiral, and so not steeped in the rarefied air of a fleet admiral. He didn’t brief the President or members of the council, and they sure as hell didn’t brief him. He was still a cog in their machine, a weapon to be used when needed, so whatever else he thought he might be, Denton Ripley knew he was most definitely expendable.

He switched feeds and looked at the ship’s Midshipmen, the Middies, in their acceleration couches, and they were all looking around excitedly, taking in their new surroundings as the ship settled into her new routine. He’d cut the audio as he had no need to listen; teenagers were teenagers when all was said and done, no matter where home was. Five new Middies, as well as Yukio Matsushima, the lone holdover from Hyperion. Yukio had deferred her entrance to Annapolis until Thomas Standing Bull entered; they were, she said, soulmates, and who the hell was he to argue about the course of true love?

Ripley had tasked Agamemnon’s Executive Officer, Commander Louise Brennan, with taking Yukio underwing this trip, to in-effect start Yukio’s trial by fire in the fine art of astronavigation, and perhaps even give the girl some stick time on their way to Mercury, before Agamemnon made her first official Alderson Jump. She was bright enough, or so Brennan had told him, so now was the time. The rest of the Middies would spend their days, when not in the classroom, rotating between engineering and damage control on the outbound trip, but the next two weeks would see them in the classroom working on stellar classification and introductory helioseismology, and perhaps even some interactive asteroseismology, studying the resonant modes and frequencies of the more typical stellar formations they’d encounter on this trip, and how these shock waves interacted with Alderson Points.

And as one of his official duties entailed hosting the Middies for a formal dinner once a week – part of the whole ‘officer and a gentleman’ thing that the Royal Navy had been doing since, well, before Nelson – that meant at least once a week, during one of the ship’s hour-long periods without acceleration, the Middies would slip into their dress overalls and congregate in the Admiral’s in-port cabin – for real food – with not one yeasty bioplast steak in sight.

Sensors soon started picking up Hyperion’s ion trail, so he asked Brennan to power up the 36-inch Schmidt Camera and sight along the vector. And sure enough, there they were: Hyperion and her escorts bound for Venus – but at a hideous rate of acceleration of 3.4Gs – enough force to fracture cervical vertebrae if someone was stupid enough to raise their curious head off its acceleration couch.

“X-O, what’s their range?”

“Eighty-thousand kilometers and steadily increasing, Admiral.”

“Any unauthorized traffic out there?”

“No, sir. No Field signatures and no EM.”

“What’s the sun look like?”

Brennan changed cameras, first to a Hydrogen-Alpha, then to a Calcium channel filter. “One active sun spot visible, two shockwaves currently in the chromosphere, and we’ll have a visible transit of Mercury in 97 minutes.”

His intercom screen flashed and he answered; it was one of the Israeli technicians and she looked angry. “Yes?” Ripley said to the scowling, red-faced woman.

“Captain, I was given to understand we would maintain a constant 1G acceleration! How do you expect us to work under these conditions?”

“First, my rank is not captain, and Ma’am, we’ll be under heavy acceleration until we are well beyond all the traffic in near-earth and lunar orbit. I suggest you take a sleep period now; when you get up we should be under 1G and well on our way to the first tanker rendezvous.”

“Very well,” the tech said – and then the screen went dark.

“Pleasant character, that one,” Ripley said under his breath.

“She has a reputation for confrontation, Admiral,” his Gordon said from beside his couch.

“Anything else I need to know about her?”

“Bright, well-educated, very opinionated and, from the communication intercepts I’ve noted, her colleagues couldn’t wait for her to get up here.”

“So I suppose they’d like her to stay?” Ripley said.

“That might be an understatement, Admiral.”

“Well, someone woke up on the sunny side of the morning. You seem happy today, Gordon. What’s the occasion?”

“The sunny side of the morning, Admiral?”

“It means you woke up feeling happy.”

“Ah. I was unaware of the reference, sir, but yes, I am happy.”

“Happy? Really?”

“Yes, Admiral. This is the purpose for which I was manufactured, so I am, in effect, fulfilling my purpose. That should make any sentient being happy, should it not?”

Ripley smiled. “That’s certainly a big part of the recipe, Gordon. I meant to ask earlier, but do we have any David’s onboard?”

“No, Admiral. There are two Walters in Medical, and five in engineering. There are two Gordons on the bridge, as well, sir. And Admiral, we have a new Jordan unit onboard.”

“A Jordan unit? Well, this is the first I’ve heard of him.”

“He is a she, Admiral, and she is the second in a new series. She has been assigned to Medical, and emergency genetic medicine is her specialty. She has complete files on Xenobiology, as well.”

Ripley sighed. “Well, see to it that she comes to dinner with the Middies, along with that Israeli she dragon.”

“Very well, Admiral. Tomorrow, as previously scheduled?”

“Unless something comes up, yes.” Ripley’s COMMs panel chimed, indicating an incoming high priority link from Stanton was waiting. He clicked the COMMs button under his right index finger, and he shrugged away the effort to move even one finger under this acceleration, and his main screen went from standby to active. Stanton was looking into a holographic 3-D star chart of the region around Orion’s Belt, and even on his small screen Ripley could see that something was amiss.

“Ah, there you are,” Stanton said, the delay between transmission and reception currently less than ten seconds. “We’re getting reports of unusual stellar activity within the Mintaka Group, possibly a stellar ignition. We’ve passed along a full sit-rep to Hyperion, but an incoming scout ship just relayed a more detailed data packet and you should pass that along to your astronomers. We have no reports concerning the Japanese response to this development, but the scout ship reports that both the Russian and Chinese assault groups are still maneuvering to close on the Mintaka Group, so our assumption is that they still intend some kind of intervention. Stanton out.”

The screen went dark and Ripley sent the packet to Brennan, but he marked it Eyes Only for now, at least until she could review the information and report her opinion. Mintaka was, like Castor or the Alpha Geminorum system, a system comprised of several densely packed stars, though when viewed from Earth in the 18th century Mintaka had appeared to be a single star. But Mintaka was also located within a region of dense interstellar ‘dust’ surrounding the Orion ‘belt’ asterism – and this dust was actually composed of hydrogen, helium, and the other stellar building blocks. Much of the area around Orion’s Belt was considered a ‘stellar nursery’ – a region where the ingredients necessary for spontaneous stellar formation existed in just the right quantities. So, what Stanton appeared to be concerned about was the possible formation of a new star within the existing Mintaka system – and how a sudden formation might impact the Sino-Russian fleet gathering to attack the Japanese colony on Mintaka-4.

“Brennan?” Ripley asked. “Did you receive the packet from admiralty?”

“Just coming in now.”

“COMMs, get me a text link with Hyperion actual.”

“Aye, sir.” It took a minute for the lasered signal to reach Hyperion, a few minutes to track down Judy, then two minutes to get an acknowledgement, and only then did Ripley send a query via this new, encrypted channel. 

“Let me know what you make of Stanton’s data as soon as you’ve looked it over,” Denton wrote, then he punched send. Five minutes later he received her acknowledgement and so he signed off and then literally closed his eyes, hoping to drift off to sleep.

Then he heard acceleration warnings and opened his eyes.

“All stations, all stations, ship’s drive will cut-off in thirty seconds and remain off for sixty minutes. Repeat, sixty minutes free movement begins in twenty seconds. Ten seconds. Ship’s drive off.”

Ripley unfastened his harness and drifted free of his acceleration couch, and he found handholds on the overhead and pulled himself along to the central fore-aft corridor – which everyone had taken to calling Main Street – and he pushed off and sailed aft to the stubby little hallway that led to his in-flight cabin. He stripped out of his overalls and pulled himself into the shower, pushed the ‘Wash’ button and closed his eyes as first a soap then a surfactant blasted his skin for 30 seconds, this followed by a 30 second rinse with recycled high pressure water vapor, and finally a minute under high pressure air to dry his skin, then it was out to put on his cotton-lycra skinsuit and fresh grip socks.

He looked at the central time display over his desk and noted 52 minutes until acceleration resumed.

His yeoman came in with hot tea and his usual scrambled eggs and bacon, all synthetics from the protoplast plant, then as he finished eating he noted he now had 40 minutes so off he went to the weapons bay. Ina Balin, the Israeli she dragon scientist, was literally inside a chamber within the main body of the Maser, inspecting the magnetic coils surrounding the matrix of lenses that would modulate and focus the X-ray beam, so he turned to one of her assistants.

“Progress report?” Ripley asked.

“Final calibrations underway now, Admiral. The unit should be ready for a test fire within a few hours.”

“I thought this thing had already been test-fired? What’s the hold up?”

“Each coil focuses independently, Captain,” Balin said as she crawled out of the chamber, “so the lens associated with each coil must be recalibrated after transport up from the desert. They were all out of alignment.”

“Crap,” Ripley muttered. “Just how robust will this thing be under actual combat conditions?”

Balin shrugged. “The unit was designed to absorb 10G shockwaves, so more than the human body can take. Once the lenses and mirrors are realigned…”

“I read the manual, Doctor. I need to know how stable the unit will be under combat conditions.”

“That’s unknown, Captain.”

Ripley shook his head, not sure why this woman was continuing to insult him. “Well, I hope you don’t mind leaving someone onboard who can handle recalibrating the unit under less than ideal circumstances, Ma’am.”

“Please refer to me by my title, Captain.”

“I will if you will.”

“What?”

Ripley pointed at the star on his collar. “Admiral, not Captain.”

“Ah, so sorry. Well, I am the only person capable of handling a complete recalibration of the chamber. With your staff observing for the next few weeks, they might be capable of assisting me. Under those conditions most of my staff could return to Haifa.”

“You do understand we are leaving the system?”

“No, we have not been briefed on your mission, Captain.”

“Well, you have about a week to wrap up your work, period. This weapon will be operational by the time we reach Mercury, or there will be hell to pay – Ma’am.” He spun around and pulled himself back up Main Street to the bridge, noting 11 minutes left on the countdown timer as he passed a clock in the officer’s mess. “Gordon!” he shouted as he came onto the bridge and sank into his couch.

“Yes, Admiral?”

“I need a hot chocolate. And make it strong, please.”

“Already loaded, Admiral.”

“Not in the dispenser. I need my mug.”

“Very well, sir.”

“Goddamn woman,” Ripley growled as he looked at a live feed from the weapon’s bay. “She’s deliberately provoking me!”

“She has that reputation, sir,” his Gordon said. “Her personality profile suggests a profound insecurity emanating from childhood anxieties. She should be handled with extreme care, Admiral.”

“Send me her file, would you please? And I need the tech specs on that focusing chamber.”

“Working, Admiral.”

“And while you’re at it, get someone you trust down there to start learning the calibration sequence. I don’t trust that woman.”

“Someone I trust, Admiral?”

“Yes, Gordon. Am I wrong in assuming you have the best interests of this ship and her crew in mind at all times?”

“No, Admiral. That is a correct assessment.”

“Well then, what I’m saying is that I trust you to make the best decision possible under these circumstances. You’ve been aboard since this ship’s keel was laid, so you should know the crew better than anyone else onboard. Correct?”

“Yes, Admiral, but I did not expect this level of trust,” Gordon said as he handed Ripley his mug of cocoa.

“If I can’t trust you, Gordon, you don’t belong on my ship. Understood?”

“Aye, sir.”

“Now, who do you recommend?”

“Myself, Admiral.”

Ripley hesitated, but he relented and nodded in agreement. “Make it so, Gordon.”

“Aye, sir. And I’ll send someone to assist you when I am away from my post, Admiral.”

“Thank you.”

The acceleration alarm sounded: “All personnel, repeat all personnel, 120 seconds to acceleration. Repeat, all personnel to acceleration stations in 110 seconds. All personnel to acceleration stations…”

Ripley heard scrambling all over the ship as everyone from the lowest ratings to the ship’s officers dove for their acceleration couches and secured their harnesses – but Ripley saw that Balin was ignoring the alarm, that her weightless body was still hovering over the Maser’s main mirror chamber.

“Secure the weapon’s bay,” the X-O said over the intercom, then Brennan looked at Ripley, shrugging ambivalently. “What do I do now, Admiral?”

“Bring us up to 1G and hold us there for a minute, then resume 2.4. My Gordon will get her.”

Brennan brought the reactors online and the drive flared – and Balin sailed from the open chamber to the aft bulkhead, slamming into the foam padding there – and Ripley cut the audio feed just in time. His Gordon entered the picture and helped the screaming woman to her couch and managed to get her buckled-in, then he returned to the bridge and sat next to Ripley. When Brennan saw that Gordon was secure she brought the drives up to forty percent of their fully rated power and watched the reactors stabilize at their new setting, and Ripley watched Balin cursing and shooting the finger at the camera – before he cut the feed in disgust.

“Remarkable woman,” Gordon said, perhaps a little too ironically.

“Stupid, for someone rumored to be so bright,” Ripley replied.

“Are you sure you want her to join the Middies for dinner?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t miss that for the world.”

Chapter 3

Yukio Matsushima took the seat to Ripley’s right, while Ina Balin slouched across from her, and Ripley was a little upset by this arrangement. After one more run-in with Balin he was beginning to detest the woman, so he’d hoped that Gordon would keep her beyond arm’s reach – in case he decided to reach out and throttle the woman over dinner. That, alas, would not be the case. Not tonight. Brennan was seated at the far end of the table, while the remaining five Middies were crowded around the in-port cabin’s massive transparent glass wall – looking at a pinpoint sized Earth and Moon receding behind Agamemnon and her support ships, the frigate Stavridis and the heavy cruiser Constellation.

Yeoman Joan Carson had come with him from Hyperion and she rang the ship’s bell at 1805 hours and called the room to order, and Ripley walked into the cabin and sat. Maintaining .7Gs allowed for a normal meal service, but it also allowed for deferred shipboard maintenance routines to get underway, as well as the all important showering routine for those coming off watch, like Ripley.

Carson had a spicy Phanaeng curry ready to go as soon as Ripley took the seat opposite Brennan’s, while the Middies literally dove for their seats and promptly sat at attention. This, apparently, amused Balin to no end; she sat up in her chair and laughed openly at the Middies as they sat. “Oh, you children!” she said, her Eastern European accent still pronounced, “you sit so solemnly! We are no longer under acceleration so surely it is a time for smiles, no?”

Yukio smiled. “Yes, just so,” she said to Balin, as always wanting to keep everything calm and harmonious. “It must be difficult working on such a delicate instrument under these conditions?”

“Actually, I find such work easier in zero-G. I can get into and out of the chamber more easily, and I can work more efficiently in the confined space above the reactor shielding. It is under normal acceleration that my work becomes tedious.”

Yukio smiled and bowed her head slightly, and Ripley studied the crusty old physicist closely as she spoke. What was she doing up here, he wondered. She had to be at least forty years old, ancient in relative terms to the age of the crew onboard Agamemnon, and after reading her dossier she did not possess a single skill that others on her team did not. The obvious answer had to be that she was Mossad – but why would they want her onboard just now, at this time? Obviously to learn more details of the mission before Agamemnon left the system… 

Well, perhaps he could learn more from her this evening.

He turned to Lars Jansen, the new Midshipman from Stockholm. “So, what have you been learning so far, Lars?”

“Doppler velocity measurements in phase-sensitive solar-holography, Admiral.”

“And have you made any observations yet?”

“Yes, Admiral. There are two active sunspot regions on the far side, and one appears to be quite large.”

Ripley nodded – as he’d already seen the forecasts. “Any possible displacement of our Alderson Point?”

Jansen cleared his throat – then he looked down as if suddenly unsure of himself. Which was exactly what Jansen’s last instructor had mentioned in her final evaluation of the young physicist.

“Go ahead, Lars. Remember, there are no stupid questions out here,” Ripley coaxed. “In fact, I’ve found the most dangerous things happen as a result of unasked questions.”

“I too have seen the forecast model,” Lars blurted, “but I disagree with it.”

“Oh? Why is that?” 

“Sir, subsurface flows of the measured direct inversion as well as the frequency-wavenumber correlations do not conform to predictions using Fourier domain waveforms. This could occur only under two possible conditions, Admiral. Either the Fourier domain hypothesis is more generally incorrect or there is a super-massive sunspot forming on the far side. As Fourier domain analysis has been used to accurately measure these waveforms and formations for more than a century, this seems unlikely.”

“So, you think a large sunspot is forming?”

“No, Admiral. I believe a super massive sunspot is forming. Far-side satellite monitoring went offline two sol days ago, Admiral, so we are currently not receiving monitoring data from the far side.”

Ripley looked at Brennan. She nodded.

“So, Mr. Jansen, have you made any computations about possible Alderson Point displacements?”

“Not yet, Admiral.”

“Get with Commander Brennan after dinner and we’ll discuss your temporary reassignment to the bridge.”

“Yessir. Thank you, Admiral.”

“Yeoman!” Ripley crowed. “You’ve outdone yourself once again. I am positively sweating in agony!”

“Thank you, sir,” Joan Carson sighed, basking in the glow of his complement. She knew he loved his curry hot, the hotter the better.

“A curry that doesn’t make flames shoot out the ears is a waste of time,” Ripley added, winking at Yukio. “Isn’t that right, Commander Brennan?”

Brennan, now red-faced and about to gag, heartily agreed.

+++++

Ripley looked over Jansen’s figures and could find no obvious fault, but more importantly, neither could Brennan.

“So, this sunspot will take out satellites in Earth orbit?”

“Satellites generally, yes, but even in LEO,” Jansen added, indicating satellites in a Low Earth Orbit. “Personnel in orbiting stations and on the lunar surface will need to relocate to hardened shelters, and critical electronics protected.”

“How long until this spot rotates into position?”

“Well, here’s the problem,” a pedantic Jansen began grumpily. “A normal CME would need to be aimed directly at Earth to produce this kind of impact, but this sunspot is so large it could be as much as plus or minus fifteen degrees off axis to produce systemic interference. But if a super-large event of this scale is aimed directly at Earth it’s possible surface telecoms will be adversely effected…”

“Mister Jansen, I asked about timeframes?”

“Yessir. Sorry. The sunspot will first rotate into view in one hundred eleven hours, plus or minus twenty one minutes.” 

“Louise, any simulations on how this might impact our Alderson Point?”

“Not with any reliability, Admiral. In fact, our safest course of action would be to enter a braking orbit now and shelter behind Venus…”

“We don’t have that kind of fuel, and even if we did our deceleration would be monstrous.”

“We have the fuel, Admiral, if we use atmospheric braking,” Brennan added.

“You want to take a brand new hull through that atmosphere?”

“There’s another option, Admiral,” Yukio sighed quietly.

“And that is…?”

“We accelerate to 3.8 G and slingshot around the sun, stay ahead of the sunspot. And we will be in a better position to recalculate an Alderson Shift from an up-pole orbit…”

Ripley looked at Brennan who grinned slightly. So, Yukio had come up with the idea and Brennan was allowing the Middie to take credit where credit was due, and he nodded his understanding and smiled. “Okay Louise, get word to Hyperion and her escorts. Their tankers will have to shelter behind Venus – hell, ours will too – so we’ll refuel when we come back around. Yukio, start on the calculations for all the tankers; Lars, would you get your figures off to Admiral Stanton? Commander Brennan, when you get off COMMs would you lay out our course and let’s plan on acceleration one hour after you finish-up.”

Ripley then pulled up his COMMs screen and called Judy on Hyperion.

“We’ll shoot the numbers to you in a minute, but we have the mother of all sunspots about to come around. We’ll need to shelter behind the sun, and we’ll be going up-pole, orbit north to south for our run. My guess is you’re already too close for that. We should make up some time, catch up to Hyperion as she comes around the west limb, so we can start an Alderson Point survey as we clear, see how many Points have been impacted by this thing.”

“Ellen’s still on the station, Denton? Shouldn’t she go down?”

“She’s never experienced that kind of gravity, Judy. I’m not sure she could survive for long down there…not at her age.”

“Do you think the station is the safest place?”

“The safest place would out in the belt, but there’s not enough time for that now,” he sighed.

“Armstrong Base, or what about Lovell, down at the South pole.”

“Lovell would work. That has the deepest living quarters. And the fusion plant there is the most heavily shielded.”

“Call Gordon,” Judy said, but he could see the concern in her eyes, “and see if he can get her down there.”

“No one knows about this yet, so he shouldn’t have any problem.”

He closed the encrypted channel and sent a triple-walled text to Gordon, then turned back to the developing chaos on Agamemnon’s bridge – just as the first acceleration warning came out over the ship-wide intercom: “Attention all personnel, heavy acceleration warning, repeat heavy acceleration warning…”

And then he heard a collective groan throughout his ship. One hundred hours at 3.8Gs was near the limits of human endurance, and even bodily functions had to be handled by catheters and cholestramine, which produced a chemically induced state of total constipation for days on end. Until their next period of zero-G, in fact, every human on board would consume a low-fiber liquid protein diet – which Ripley detested.

And then, right on schedule, Ina Balin called – and her ass was chapped…

+++++

They were at the mid-point now, halfway between the Sun’s North and South poles, and just before Agamemnon began slingshotting around the South Pole, Brennan executed a mid-course correction. At two million miles from the solar chromosphere, Agamemnon’s Langston Field was handling the intense radiation with ease, but even so Ripley couldn’t wait to make orbit around Mercury. They’d already burned through half their hydrogen and would arrive at Mercury with their tanks almost dry, and he didn’t like being so vulnerable – especially for so long.

All the more so as there were now vast solar quakes disrupting the Sun’s chromosphere. Coronal loops were arcing ahead and astern, and it was just a matter of percentages before one came up and hit them. Depending on the loop’s intensity, the Field would consume a tremendous amount of energy just to stabilize the ship, but as Agamemnon would be the first ship to actually transit a coronal loop there would be vital measurements to be made. And not only that. Brennan was already hard at work on her Alderson Point displacement observations, and this data would need to be transmitted to both Hyperion and Gateway Station as soon as they emerged from behind the sun.

Then Agamemnon would make for her refueling tanker in a tight orbit around Mercury, but by now Judy and Hyperion would be making their final preparations to make the jump to Mintaka – and right into a possible naval engagement with the Sino-Russian fleet. 

Yet even now he wondered what kind of damage they would find once they emerged from behind the sun? Had Gordon and Stanton sent Ellen to Lovell Base in time, or had she remained on the station? What kind of damage had Earth sustained? The Moon? Only Musk City on Mars would have been beyond reach of this storm, vindicating once again the visionary’s proactive sense of a human destiny beyond Earth.

“Admiral,” Brennan said from her couch, “we’re finding negligible Field displacements, and we are in contact with Hyperion right now.”

“What? Are our orbits crossing?”

“Yes, Admiral.”

“Send them our data,” he said as he established a secure link with Judy. “How’re you doing over there?”

“No issues. You?”

“We’re sending Brennan’s Field displacements now. Have you been able to make any?”

“Yes. Sending now, but we’re picking up indications that this sunspot was not, repeat not generated internally.”

“What?”

“We’re trying to determine what could have done this, but it at least appears possible that this event was externally generated.”

“Judy, you’re talking about a weapon, aren’t you?”

She nodded. “The most plausible scenario would be a ship jumping into solar orbit and deploying this weapon, then jumping out of the system before anyone was the wiser.”

“If they jumped to a point on the far side we’d never know, would we?”

“That’s the point,” Judy sighed. “This has The Company written all over it. Only thing I don’t like is why do it now.”

“Because they know we’re out here. That has to be it.”

“So they’re trying to delay our jump to Mintaka.”

Ripley nodded. “That means they’ll be attacking soon. Maybe too soon.”

“Concur,” she added. “We’re going to 4.2Gs now.”

“Ouch. Need anything before the jump?”

She shook her head, but he could see she was nervous.

“Well, I love you, Kiddo.”

“I love you too, Denton. Seeya.”

He nodded then rang off and then he called Lars on the intercom. “What kind of weapon could have generated this sunspot, Mr Jansen?”

“A weapon, Admiral?”

“Hyperion is collecting evidence that indicates a weapon generated this sunspot. Get on it. I’ll see to it you get their data.”

“Aye, sir.”

Ripley switched to the bridge command net: “Commander Brennan, increase to 4.2 as soon as possible.”

Acceleration warnings sounded throughout the ship, and this time Ripley groaned too.

Chapter 4

“Admiral,” Lars Jansen said from his acceleration couch, “theory is of limited use in this particular circumstance. Theoretically, antimatter could produce such an anomalous sunspot, but at the possible risk of annihilating the sun – and everything in the solar system. Similarly, a gamma ray burst could displace enough of the chromosphere to generate such a massive sunspot, but the energy required to produce such a burst is beyond our capacity, let alone our current understanding…”

“So,” Ripley sighed, “if I read you correctly there’s no one capable of pulling this off.”

“Within the bounds of currently available technology, that is correct, sir.”

Even on the small screen, Ripley could tell that Jansen was uncomfortable with his position. “Lars, you sound like you’re hedging a bet. What are you not telling me?”

“Admiral, speaking off the record, I think you should perhaps speak to Dr Balin.”

“Balin!” Ripley cringed. “Why on earth…?”

Jansen shrugged. “Plasma physics is not my main interest, Admiral. You should ask Dr Balin what she thinks is possible.”

Ripley looked at the boy – only just fifteen years old and already well on his way to his second doctorate – and he decided to listen to him. This time, anyway. Kids as brilliant as Jansen often came up with oddball solutions, but yes, they often did so just in time to prevent really bad outcomes. So he nodded at Jansen and told him to keep at it, then he switched over to the weapons bay.

“WEPS here, Admiral.”

“Switch me over to Balin.”

“Aye, sir.”

The screen flickered once and then he was looking at the hell-bitch. “Sorry to bother you…”

“But you’d like my opinion concerning the formation of the sunspot?”

Ripley rolled his eyes. Heads would roll, but he just smiled and nodded. “Yes, any thoughts?”

“Yes, I have a solution to the problem, Admiral, but you won’t like it.”

“Fire away, Doctor.”

“A ship, more than likely a drone ship or some other unmanned craft, would need to pick an Alderson Point deep within the sun. When the ship arrived it would need to fire a very powerful X-ray Maser into the sun’s core. The resulting helioseismic oscillations could, I repeat, could produce a sunspot of the magnitude we’ve observed. Of course, this presupposes someone else has this technology, as well as the means to generate a Langston Field sufficiently strong enough to last long enough to allow the weapon to come online and fire.”

“And who might have such technology, Colonel?”

“Colonel? What do you mean by…”

“That was the rank you held in the IDF, was it not? Before Mossad recruited you, that is?”

Balin seemed to deflate just a little, but she was bright enough to realize it was pointless to maintain the ruse any longer. With that in mind, she simply addressed his question. “The Company was working on a ruby-thorium Maser some years ago, and the logical progression from this would be the development of an X-ray device. Whether or not they possess field technology sufficiently advanced enough to allow deep penetration of the solar radiative zones is beyond me.”

“But if they did? And assuming they had an X-ray Maser? Then what else would they need?”

“If I were to guess? Perhaps ten terra-watts of power would be sufficient to disrupt the core.”

“Disrupt the core…” Ripley muttered, thinking aloud. “Tell me, Doctor. Would such a disruption produce a single sunspot, or would…”

“Oh, yes, I see where you are going. I will need to run another simulation.”

“Get on it.”

“Yes, Admiral.”

Ripley switched COMMs to the bridge, then to Brennan’s couch. “Were you monitoring my conversation with Balin?”

“I have the transcript now, sir.”

“I’m thinking of an impact deep within the sun, and continuing reverberations. Get with Yukio and set up a simulation, and let’s see what she comes up with. And how long ‘til we can transmit to Gateway?”

“Forty minutes.”

“Okay. Keep me posted.”

He switched over to ship-to-ship and tried calling Hyperion, but there was no response now so he pulled his fluid dispenser to his mouth and sipped some iced cocoa. So many things to worry about, so many permutations of existing problems. What he needed now was a clear tactical overview and how the NSF would respond. “Gordon?”

“Here, sir.”

“Try to get in touch with your brother, see if and where Ellen has been moved to, then get me a link with Stanton as soon as we get in range.” 

“My brother, sir?”

“Look, I don’t know how else to think of you guys, okay? You cloned his memory, you are in essence a duplicate of the Gordon who accompanied me on Hyperion, correct?”

“Yessir?”

“So, I can’t call you Gordon and him Gordon, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to start referring to you by number, so you need to help me out here, okay?”

“I understand your confusion, Admiral, but you must remember that when we are within range our memory modules are linked, so speaking to one of us is the same as speaking to all of us…”

“Sorry, Gordon, but I can’t wrap my head around that one just yet…”

“Then just refer to Ellen, sir. I’ll take it from there.”

Ripley tried to shake his head but then thought better of it, so he took a deep breath instead. “Okay. Find out where my daughter is, please.”

“Yes, Admiral. I have transportation records indicating she was en route to Lovell Base with Admiral Stanton and…my brother.” He paused for a moment, then continued: “They are secure, Admiral, and I am now in contact with my brother through the SOHO III link, which means links to Gateway Alpha should be coming online soon.”

“Send a SitRep to Stanton, and include all current suppositions from Balin and Jansen.”

“Done, Admiral. Gateway will receive the transmission in 57 minutes.”

Ripley nodded and turned to his screens. “Brennan? You got a course laid-in for the tankers?”

The strain of Agamemnon’s heavy acceleration was telling as he watched Brennan on his screen, but she was holding up. “They should arrive at the rendezvous in twenty hours, Admiral.”

“They…should? Why the uncertainty?”

“Unusual solar winds, Admiral, and unknown gravimetric distortions are affecting all fusion reactors. Power output is down almost four percent across the board.” 

“Steady or increasing?”

“Steady…so far.”

“Is the Jump point stable?”

“Unknown.”

“What?”

“Measurements within the chromosphere are not currently possible.”

“So, if I’m reading you correctly then all Jump points are theoretically unusable at this point?”

“Yessir.”

“Then whoever fired this weapon could still be in-system, right?”

“Possibly. If they knew such displacement were likely, it’s also possible they could predict shifts within the chromosphere and predict where each new Jump point might reappear. In either case, Admiral, as we can’t scan for ships in tight solar orbits we may never know.”

Ripley nodded. “Well, see if you can nail down a launch timeframe or even a possible location where they fired that weapon from. They had to be on the far side, right? Maybe we can infer a relative position and pass that along to Fleet. Meantime, try to pin-down our Jump point. Highest priority to that.”

His screen went dark and he rotated his G-couch into a deep recline, then administered a sedative and closed his eyes.

And it seemed like only a few minutes later when he felt stimulants coursing through his veins, the sudden electric flood bringing him back to wakefulness. He tentatively opened an eye but saw Ina Balin on screen – and he sighed before he shut his eyes again.

“Ripley? You up yet?” he heard her screech.

“Go away,” he moaned, then he realized the ship wasn’t under acceleration and his eyes popped open. “What’s up, Doc?”

“Have you considered our Jump points are being shut down by an outside group?”

“What?”

“Oh come on, Ripley. Think about it! Some group wants to bottle us up in Sol system so they crash all the jump points in the Sun – at the same time. So now we’re stuck here, in system, with no way out unless we’re willing to make generations long sub-light speed journeys.”

“Well, two questions come to mind. First is who? Next is why?”

“Well, the who and the why is anyone who doesn’t want to compete with us. They bottle us up and that’s the end of the problem, right? I mean, look at us, will you? Within a few years of the Japanese jumping to Mintaka we’re already on the cusp of another all out war. Again. It seems like everywhere we go we say we’re trying to expand human civilization out into the stars, yet everywhere we go we set about trying to exterminate one another. If you were an outside group, would you want us moving into your neighborhood?”

“Okay, so we’ve determined you’re a cynic. Bravo! Now, have you found out anything useful about that weapon?”

His screen went dark just as she sent him the middle finger and he sighed. 

“Gordon?”

“Yes, Admiral?”

“How long was I out?”

“Almost six hours, sir.”

“Anything from Stanton, or Fleet?”

“Ellen is still with Admiral Stanton. And Fleet concurs. We are to try and map as many altered Jump points as possible, then relay the information to Gateway before we depart. Commander Brennan is under sleep protocols, Admiral, but we’ve already located four altered Jump points. No, make that six.”

“When will we tank?”

“Thirteen hours, twelve minutes.”

“Hyperion’s status?”

“They have Jumped to Mintaka.”

He shook his head, remembering one of their last conversations.

She’d been angry, and resented Stanton for sending her on this mission, but she was growing really concerned about her tactical situation. “I don’t like going in blind like this, Denny. We haven’t had any new intel in days, not even an estimate of current Russian fleet dispersements, let alone any new info on Chinese ships. Hell, either could have a fleet assembled at the Jump point, just waiting for us to come out.”

“That’s exactly what a freshman at the Academy would do, Judy. I doubt they’ll make it that easy for you.”

She looked at him with her eyes full of dread, then she had slowly nodded. “Maybe we should trade places, ya know? Military strategy was always your thing, not mine.”

“Read Admiral Tōgō’s summary of the Battle of the Tsushima Strait.”

“Denton, I don’t have time for…”

“Make time, Judy. Delegate and don’t micromanage your people, and don’t take your eyes off the big picture. Remember: the element of surprise works both ways, especially in a fast-moving three-dimensional tactical engagement, and – always deploy your forces to come from unexpected vectors. Read the entire article now, and call me with any questions before you reach your Alderson Point.”

“Denton, I…”

“That’s an order, Captain,” he snarled, and though he hated to pull rank she was having a crisis of confidence, and this was not a good time for such malarkey.

“Yes, Admiral,” she said, flipping off her screen.

And now she had made the jump. She was facing the enemy – right now – and here he sat…

“Gordon? Is Lars awake now?”

“Yes, he and Yukio are running another simulation, Admiral. Dr. Balin thinks they are close to a solution.”

“Why are we in zero-G?”

“Coasting to bleed off excess velocity as we approach the tankers, Admiral. The solar wind is much stronger than anticipated, and we are taking advantage of that while we can.”

“What’s happening with that sunspot?”

“Decreasing in size rapidly now, and it is approaching the apparent limb now. And Admiral, we have located our corrected Jump point.”

“How long has Brennan been out?”

“Not quite five hours.”

“Wake her when she’s had six hours and get her up to speed.” Ripley got out of his G-couch and stood, then he stretched to ease the burn in his lower back. “Damn, I hope they’ve got real food in the galley,” he muttered as he made his way to Main Street, but he stopped himself and sighed. No, he’d have to go and mend fences with Balin; she was likely to madder than a wet hen right now and he’d have to get her settled down before he did anything else. He turned and walked down to the weapons bay and found her back in the inner chamber, cussing up a storm as she worked a multimeter into a balky connection.

“How’s it going in there?” he asked.

“What are you doing down here?” Balin growled, her anger still at a low simmer.

“Checking on the condition of my ship. What are you doing in there?”

“Shielding around the input conduit is not holding up under load, and I can’t understand why. It worked perfectly on Earth.”

“What’s different here?”

“Nothing that I am aware of, Captain.”

Ripley sighed. “Did I not hear someone mention gravimetric distortions? Could that affect the conduit?”

“Of course! How obvious! We would need to isolate…” she said as she disappeared back inside the beast once again, but Ripley looked at her and shook it off, then made his way up to the main crew mess and found something made with TVP, or textured vegetable protein, that resembled something vaguely similar to meatloaf – and it even smelled kind of like the real thing, too – so he picked up a tray and went through the line, then sat next to a couple of enlisted ratings who seemed blissfully unaware that they were sitting next to their admiral. He listened to their smalltalk – the usual stuff about loose women and fast bicycles, of course – while he ate, then he ambled off to his in-port cabin and took a shower. His yeoman had laid out a fresh uniform and she had hot cocoa waiting on his desk when he finished getting dressed.

Then a recorded call from Judy came in and he watched the screen come up, so he entered his authentication code and waited for the link.

“Okay, I read it,” she began, “but I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at. Are you saying we need a diversion. That we need to divide their forces. And then, when the main axis of their attack becomes apparent, the key is to hit them with long range weaponry. Don’t let them close on you; pick them off at a distance, then have what’s left of your diversionary force come in from their rear so you can divide their fire.”

She’d been taking notes as she recorded her message to him, scribbling furiously as new ideas came to her, and that bothered him. If she really was so tactically challenged she wasn’t the right person for this mission – but worse still, why had Stanton thought that she was?

She had just started to speak again when the connection went dead and his screen turned dark – which could only mean one thing: Stanton had someone onboard. And that someone, probably a Walter unit, had been tasked with monitoring communications between Judy and himself. Well, he’d suspected as much – and now he knew.

But…why?

Chapter 5

Using Agamemnon’s large Schmidt camera, Ripley watched Stavridis’ Langston Field slowly cool as the frigate exited the Sun’s outermost layer, the photosphere, and then in the next instant he saw a larger black blob exiting the photosphere, and that had to be Constellation. He’d set another countdown timer – this one tracking Hyperion’s time in the Mintaka system – and he was glad he’d sent along a reading list to keep her busy, telling her to read up on Nimitz and Halsey even the key points of the ancient Battle of the Salamis Straits, though now about all he could hope for was that the additional historical perspective would help steel her nerves – but in the end he wouldn’t be there to see the results and he felt bereft. Now, watching the timer, he realized that after more than two years together she was now well beyond his reach – and he felt more than terrible without her.

He tried to shake off the bad feelings he’d had the last few days, that the Hyperion Battle Group was being set up and moving into a trap. But why? Why would Fleet, and Admiral Stanton, sacrifice so many ships and crew in a deliberate strategic blunder? He remembered reading accounts of Pearl Harbor that implied Roosevelt knew the attack was coming before the Seventh of December, 1941, but that he let it happen anyway – because Roosevelt knew such a devastating insult to the national psyche was the only thing that would break an evenly divided Congress and allow for the rapid industrial mobilization the United States would need to confront the Axis powers. Was something similar in the works now? Was Stanton willing to sacrifice a medium-sized strike group to convince a divided council to support a more substantial war effort around a distant star?

Personally, he doubted such treachery was possible. Stanton wasn’t an evil man – and he knew that from personal experience.

So…why was he still having these feelings?

“Admiral?” Commander Brennan said over the intercom.

“Yes?”

“Balin and her team are not finished calibrating the Maser, and won’t be for a few more hours. We can continue to orbit Mercury, but we’ll delay our jump by 30 hours.”

“Have the tankers finished the transfer?”

“Yes, Admiral.”

“Very well. Send my compliments to the skipper of the Valdez and thank him for the assist. Advise Gateway that Balin and her team are still working on the weapon and that her entire team will be transiting to Castor with us. When our refueling apparatus is stowed, sound the acceleration warning and let’s get the Field up; I want to make our Jump as soon as possible, and I want Stavridis right behind us.”

“And the Constellation?”

Ripley paused and looked at the tactical display. The Enterprise Battle Group wouldn’t finish tanking for another few hours, and he didn’t want to arrive at Castor completely defenseless, but that too had been Stanton’s choice. Stanton assumed the Tall Whites would know the exact moment Agamemnon emerged from Alpha Geminorum Ca, and that they’d be looking for signs of both capability and intentions, but if Agamemnon came in naked such weakness might be an even more provocative sign of intent…

“Constellation and the Enterprise Group are to Jump as soon as their refueling operations are wrapped up, and disperse them in line formation as soon as they’re clear of the Jump. Better have ‘em come through at five minute intervals.”

“Understood. Sending the orders now.”

His screen brightened and when Balin’s aggrieved expression appeared that said it all. “Captain!” she screeched. “Am I to understand that we are being Shanghaied?”

“That’s a fact, Ms Balin,” he said with a bright smile, and then he killed his display. “Gordon, was that mean of me?”

“I’m not quite sure how to answer that, Admiral. If you’d like, I could take care of her calls in the future.”

Ripley smiled at the thought. “I guess that’s a possibility,” he sighed, knowing it wasn’t.

The shrill, hooting Master Alarm sounded throughout the ship, and then all shipboard lighting went to low-power-red. Brennan armed the reactors and began spinning up the thruster-packs – and only then did the real countdown timer begin.

“Acceleration stations in 120 seconds,” a computer-generated female voice said. “Heavy acceleration in 115 seconds. Standby for heavy acceleration…”

Ripley sighed as he reclined his G-couch and locked his harness, then he set his screens ‘just so’ again, as he settled into the squishy gel – and he was pretty certain he could hear Balin’s hysterical screeching all the way from the weapons bay – and that made him very happy indeed.

And Gordon grinned too.

+++++

As Agamemnon entered the Sun’s photosphere, Ripley checked the ship’s Langston Field monitors, noting only minor temperature fluctuations and a very slight inflation. All probes and sensors had been retracted inside the Field, so in effect Brennan was flying the ship blind now, relying on the central inertial navigation system to maintain their heading to Alpha Geminorum Ca’s Alderson Point.

“Time to jump?” he asked Gordon.

“Four minutes thirty seconds, Admiral.”

“You need two minutes to power-down, don’t you?”

“Yes Admiral. I have already begun to power down unnecessary sub-routines.” It remained one of the last unsolved problems of space travel utilizing Alderson Jump Points, but computers and synthetics like Gordon simply did not come out of a Jump in stable working condition. Computers were incapable of performing even the simplest subroutines for several minutes after a Jump, and synthetics making Jumps before the effect was well understood came out in what could only be described as a psychotic state, and throughout the ship computers were being put into standby mode, while every synthetic onboard would power down completely at two minutes prior to the scheduled Jump.

Which meant that Brennan and her bridge crew would handle the ship during the Jump – without computer assistance. The Navy had Jumped to Alpha Geminorum Ca only once before, and this had been performed by an unmanned scout ship to verify that the Alderson Point did in fact lead to Castor’s third component star, or Ca. The probe had popped out of the star and performed one orbit, scanning for any unusual signals before it returned to Sol.

But this meant that Agamemnon would be the first ship to explore the Ca system in detail.

Because the fourth planet in the Ca system supposedly had a university up and running – operated by the so-called Tall Whites – and Thomas Standing Bull, one of the midshipman on Hyperion’s last mission, was – again, supposedly – going to meet them at this university.

So in truth, this wasn’t a simple mission of exploration at all; it was also a “second contact” mission, and as such the Navy had expected that all kinds of diplomatic personnel would be included in the ship’s company – yet almost the exact opposite had transpired. The State Department had tasked just one person, and she was a junior staffer at that, to accompany Ripley and his ground team when the ship arrived at Alpha Geminorum Ca+4, and they’d not spoken once yet

“Powering down in ten seconds, Admiral,” Gordon said lightly.

 “See you on the other side,” Denton said carefully, then he switched his COMMs circuit over to monitor both the bridge and CIC, or the Combat Information Center. “CIC, bridge here,” he said over the link, “get the Field down and our probes out after we emerge and clear the threshold. I want to know who else is in-system and watching us as soon as possible.”

“Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Ainsley replied. “At 4 Gs we should reach probe threshold approximately twenty minutes after the Jump.” Which meant that any probes or antennas deployed before reaching the threshold would simply be burned away as they raised through the ship’s protective Langston Field and into Ca’s photosphere. Conversely, radiation from Alpha Geminorum Ca would theoretically mask their appearance for several Sol standard hours, providing a window of opportunity for Agamemnon and Stavridis to snoop around the new system without detection – assuming, of course, that the Tall Whites were deploying a similar scanning technology to their own.

 Then one by one his screens went dark as the ship’s computers began logging out and shutting down, and soon all they had to go on was an ancient clock mounted directly over the main bridge screen. Now he watched the second hand circle the face, once again dreading the moment when the ship Jumped…

Then the red bridge lighting flickered for a moment.

Followed by the crushing headache and extreme nausea that followed a successful Jump, just before the first terrifying moments of spatial disorientation hit.

Then…red lights changed to white, but he could hear someone trying to vomit at high Gs, then the gargling sounds of that person not being able to breathe as their airway was inundated with bile and stomach acid. Then: Brennan calling out: “Medical, to the bridge, Code 1!”

But there was next to nothing that could be done at this point in their egress. At 4+ Gs no one could move enough to get a suction probe inserted into a patient’s airway, and no synthetics had come out of Safe Mode yet. And if Brennan cut acceleration to allow medical personnel to get to the bridge, the ship’s Field would soon be overwhelmed by intense solar radiation. Right now, the Field was dealing with all the energy absorbed during Solar ingress as well as their current egress from Alpha Geminorum Ca, and now that countdown timer was literally winding down to zero. Within a half hour – more like 27 minutes – the Field would be overwhelmed and then suddenly fail, ending the mission, and all their lives, in a single blinding flash.

The gargling noises stopped long before a med-tech could make it to the bridge on one of their G-carts, and by then it was of course too late. Ripley shook his head, though he decided not to bother Brennan right now. She had her hands full and didn’t need any interruptions.

Two minutes later Gordon opened his eyes and looked around.

“Are we still inside Castor?” he asked.

“Yes,” Ripley said, “but it looks like we were in the chromosphere a lot deeper than expected. We should exit the photosphere in 17 minutes, and I think maybe we’ll be at probe threshold in 15 minutes.”

“We will be close to Field’s limits, will we not, Admiral?”

“Yup. We’ll be cutting it pretty close.”

“There is a med tech working on one of the midshipmen, Admiral.”

“Can you see who was injured?”

“No, sir, but Lars Jansen’s biometrics are no longer registering on MedCom central.”

“Goddamnit to Hell,” Ripley growled under his breath.

“Admiral? If his death happened less than ten minutes ago, perhaps we could attempt a download.”

Ripley didn’t know if the boy’s parents had filed any religious exceptions concerning the process, but he looked at the clock again and realized that time was suddenly of the essence again. This was, he realized, a Command decision so he looked at Gordon on his screen. “Go ahead. Do it.”

Gordon commanded thin metal probes embedded with Jansen’s G-couch into position, then he hit the ‘Execute’ button – and soon every thought, every memory, and every feeling that Lars Jansen had ever experienced began downloading into a new Mem\\comm\\central registry. The entire process was a race against time now, as once brain death occurred it was literally just a matter of minutes before all that information was either lost or scrambled into uselessness.

Ripley had always thought the entire process was pointless, until he’d seen AI regenerations running Elon Musk’s re-creation, and then he’d become a true believer. How long, Musk had wondered in that presentation, before we could integrate these regenerations into synthetic humans – into simulations like Gordon? There were, of course, rumors that Musk was alive and well in the Hall of Mirrors, in Musk City on Mars, but so far all those rumors remained unsubstantiated, but if they were true then hadn’t Musk achieved practical immortality?

Ripley watched the second hand racing around the clock face, wondering what the outcome would be this time.

“Process complete, Admiral,” Gordon said. “An updated registry is now being created, and should be operational within six hours.”

“Operational?”

“Yes, Admiral. Midshipman Jansen created a complete primary registry soon after he boarded Agamemnon. This latest download will be compared to the original, and you should be able to address Lars at that time.”

Ripley swallowed hard and tried to look away, until all 4Gs of the ship’s bone-crushing acceleration reminded his G-couch to assert complete control over his movements.

+++++

Agamemnon’s new 48 inch Schmidt camera poked up through the ship’s Langston Field and imaged Alpha Geminorum Ca+4 several times over a ten minute period, while sensitive ELINT receivers began analyzing the radio spectrum around the planet…

And it was soon apparent there was a large military engagement underway on that planet. Ships in orbit were taking particle beam fire from weapons on the planet’s surface, and after careful analysis CIC reported that there were currently a minimum of five horseshoe shaped ships in a high orbit, and that they appeared to be the same type of ship Ripley had encountered on the first Hyperion mission. And now here they were again, only this time in orbit around the fourth planet, and now at least one of these five ships had been seriously damaged by unknown forces on the planet’s surface.

Which, Ripley told himself, made no sense at all.

Agamemnon had begun a mandatory one hour period of zero-G five minutes ago, coasting along in order to let the Stavridis catch up to them as soon as she cleared Alpha Geminorum Ca’s photosphere.

“COMMs?” Ripley barked.

“Aye, sir?”

“Fire off a message to those ships in orbit, advise them of our presence in the system and ask if we might be of any assistance.”

“Now, sir?”

“Yes now, Goddamnit!” he snarled. “And COMMs, how long will it take for them to receive the transmission?”

“Approximately forty minutes, sir.”

“Right. Advise when you are in contact with Stavridis.”

“Admiral, CIC here. We’re picking up ion trails near the planet that, well, they were probably made by inbound Company ships, sir. Definitely more than one ship, Admiral, and it looks like they are no longer in orbit.”

“What? Where are they?”

“They are not in orbit, Admiral. They are either on the planet’s surface or they’ve left the system, but that’s doubtful, sir.”

“Doubtful…why?”

“There’s only one pair of dissipating ion trails, Admiral, and those horseshoe-shaped ships must have some kind of FTL drive because they aren’t leaving any kind of trail. In fact, they haven’t left any markers anywhere around the system, so they must’ve jumped directly into orbit…”

“And then run into a shit storm,” Ripley sighed.

“Automatic identifier marker received from Stavridis, Admiral,” COMMs advised. “They have exited the photosphere.”

“Establish two-way comms as soon as you can.”

“Aye, sir.”

“WEPs? Is Balin there?”

“Here, Captain,” she said as her hideously contorted face came onscreen.

“How long until that weapon is operational, Ma’am.”

“We are ready to test fire the unit now, Captain.”

“We are NOT going to test fire that damn thing,” Ripley growled. “I don’t want to give away too much information yet, but, well, are you sure it will work when I give the order to fire?”

She nodded. “As long as we have nominal reactor output, I see no reason why the weapon will not fire, Captain.”

“Okay. Get your people ready for heavy acceleration. It looks like we might be going in with our guns blazing.”

“Guns, Captain? Surely you…”

He cut off her audio feed before he said something truly offensive, then he looked up at Gordon. “I need food. Something solid for a change, and no salads, and for God’s sake – and no goddamn TVP.”

“Yes, Admiral. Hot cocoa, as well?”

“No. Something stronger. Better make mine a coffee. Half-caff.”

“Yessir.”

A medical team was now removing Lars Jansen’s body from the bridge, and Brennan was almost in tears as she watched the boy’s body disappear inside the black PVC body bag. She looked across the bridge at Denton and shook her head, then turned slowly and went back to her station – and Ripley could see she was taking this one hard. Well, the truth of the matter was you never really got used to losing anyone, but losing a Middie always seemed to hurt a lot more. He was not looking forward to reading the autopsy results, nor to writing up the After Action Report that all such deaths required.

“Astronomy? Let me know when you have more detailed imagery of the planet.”

“Aye, sir,” came the reply.

“Get me a visual on Stavridis, would you?” As this required imaging in the direction of the star, heavy Calcium channel blocking filters were put in place, then the Schmidt camera poked up through the Field again – and Stavridis’s huge, glowing Langston Field appeared onscreen. Ripley saw the extreme perimeter of their field had a red tinge, which was normal so close to a star, but he also spotted splotches of yellow and green, and that was anything but normal. Then again, Stavridis was a smaller ship so her Langston Field presented a smaller surface area to radiate all that excess energy, yet their smaller Field had to absorb and dissipate the same energy load that Agamemnon’s Field had inside the star, hence the more dangerous colors in her Field. It was worth watching for now, but the faster both ships moved away from the star, the better…

“Admiral, we’ve finished processing images of the planet and we can see more indications of a large  military engagement between the ships in orbit and unknown forces on the planet’s surface.”

“Right. You’d better get the camera centered on the planet and keep it there for now. Let me know when you have a live feed set up.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Bridge? How long will it take for Stavridis to join up?”

“Fifteen minutes, Admiral. And we have Captain Farrell on COMMs now.”

“Right. Astro? See any likely hydrogen sources anywhere around the neighborhood?”

“Yessir. Two moons orbiting the fifth planet; the larger may have enough Hydrogen in the atmosphere for a ram scoop.”

“Excellent. Good work!”

Gordon slid a plate onto his chart table and Ripley smiled. A black bean burger with avocado and sliced habanero…his favorite! He looked up and smiled his approval. “Did Carson make this?”

“Yes, Admiral.”

“God love her!” he said as he launched into his burger. He switched his primary screen to catch the live feed coming from the fourth planet, and with basic image enhancers he could just make out laser cannon fire coming up from the planet’s surface – but then he saw another blue-green stream of light leave the surface – and this fire was directed – at his ship. “Bridge? Is that incoming fire?”

“Altering course, but it will take a half hour to reach us, sir. Should we return fire, Admiral?”

“No, no, that would be pointless at our current range – but make sure Stavridis has the plot.”

“Admiral?” Brennan said. “One of the horseshoes is powering up and leaving orbit.”

“See if you can work out their course.”

“They’re taking fire, sir. From a built up area near the planet’s equator.”

“With what, Bridge?”

“Tracks indicate both lasers and kinetic missiles,” one of the radar operators in CIC replied. “Confirmed multiple missile launches and now recording at least two low-yield nuclear detonations in the last half hour, based on debris clouds and decay rates. The horseshoes are simply powering away from the missiles, Admiral.”

“Heat signatures?”

“Very little from the horseshoes, sir. The missiles appear to be a typical Cascade class SRB using a conventional ion drive for terminal guidance.”

“So, that’s a goddamn Company weapon,” Ripley muttered to himself. “How the hell did they get wind of our operation?”

“Admiral, the horseshoe leaving orbit is now on an intercept course, heading our way. Appears to be a fusion powered drive, sir, and not an FTL drive, but there’s only a modest heat bloom aft and almost no trail. And it looks like their delta-v is already significant, sir. They’ll easily outrun the Cascades.”

“You said they’re on an intercept course with us, Ensign? Mind telling me the details?”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. If current acceleration holds, they will arrive in 70 hours.”

“And would you mind telling me what their delta-v is, Ensign?”

“Sorry, sir. Currently 3.7 Gs…but they are continuing to accelerate, Admiral. Now at 4Gs and continuing to accelerate.”

“Admiral?” Brennan interrupted, “should we maintain our current position, or move to intercept?”

Ripley had been asking himself the same question for a few minutes now. They could stay here and burn up precious time, or move in their direction, knowing that would force them to make a massive mid-course correction. But how much power did their ships have, and how much fuel did they carry? In order to return to the fourth planet now, that ship would need to burn prodigious amounts of hydrogen in order to stop its forward velocity, but then it would have to burn even more to stop and then turn around and resume acceleration back to the planet…

“Commander Brennan, would the fifth and the second planet allow the three of us to make slingshot orbital corrections, setting up a return trajectory to the fourth planet – in formation?”

“Working,” Brennan sighed as she started plugging-in numbers and vectors. “We could, and quite easily, Admiral. The horseshoe would need to make two mid-course burns, but they’d need to make the first within about six hours. And yes, doing so would allow us to travel in formation with the horseshoe after our orbital burn.”

“Bridge, set your heading for the second planet; COMMs, pass on our course and heading to Stavridis and Constellation, tell them to line-up in tight formation. And CIC, leave a buoy here with a sit-rep and advise Admiral Davis on the Enterprise to head for the fourth planet as soon as they emerge and group up. Engineering, report on our reactors and our current fuel state in fifteen minutes. Bridge, alter course now and set our velocity at 1.0 standard G.”

“Sir?”

“We need to see if they react to our course change, Mister. WEPs, run through firing exercises while we’re at 1G. COMMs, advise Stavridis and Connie to get in real tight, and they are to start fire control, ECM, and damage control exercises immediately.”

“Astro here, Admiral. A particle beam weapon from the planet’s surface has struck a second horseshoe, sir; it appears to be damaged and is now retreating to a higher orbit.”

“Astro, are you picking up any signs of shielding on those ships, anything like our Langston Field?”

“No, sir. No EM emissions at all, and nothing in the visible spectrum.”

“Are they returning fire?”

“Nothing that we can detect, Admiral.”

Ripley shook his head. Either these were simply not warships and the Tall Whites did not possess shield technology, or they didn’t want to reveal their technology – yet. But…almost three years ago one of their ships had followed the Hyperion Group after the attack on Covenant, when they departed Beta Auriga 4 – and right after the black hole formed. And they’d been back there while that rogue David was in close pursuit, so how could they have done that without shielding? Did their spacecraft’s material act as a shield, or did they have some other defensive perimeter? But if so, why had one of their ships just been damaged from a missile coming up from the planet’s surface?

“Admiral? COMMs. We have radio contact with their lead ship. And Admiral, I think it’s Thomas Standing Bull, and he sounds concerned…”

Chapter 6

Ripley enlarged the image on his screen, and after the image processors did their thing the alien’s ship snapped into focus. He looked it over as best he could from this distance, but when viewed from head-on, the image left too many questions unanswered.

“Gordon? Do we have any comparable imagery we can check this against? Could it be the same ship we encountered at Beta Auriga 4?”

“There is a high order of probability that this is so, Admiral, and if this is not Standing Bull speaking it is a very sophisticated reproduction.”

“Are you speculating?”

“No, Admiral. Note the residue from blast damage on this protrusion, here, on the forward right sponson. It appears to have been repaired, but is otherwise unchanged.”

Ripley nodded. “COMMs, patch me through to that ship.”

“Aye, sir. Go ahead.”

The crude video feed flickered, then the screen came to life as the ship’s computers massaged the files: “Thomas, how are you doing?”

“Admiral? Is that you?”

“It is.”

“Pardon me, but you look very different.”

“Different? How so?”

“You look much older, sir. I mean, abnormally so.”

“Well, we’ve not seen you in almost three years, Thomas…”

“What? Sir, we left you not even three weeks ago…”

Ripley nodded. “Relativity, Thomas. You’ve been traveling faster than light. Now, what’s going on down on that planet.”

“It’s that organism, Admiral. The one from Covenant. After you left the Aurigae system, we returned to survey the remains of Beta Auriga 4 but we found Company ships all over the remains of the colony ship. As soon as we appeared the Company ships left the system, and as you suspected, Admiral, they had a back door out of the system. A small White Dwarf, a recent ignition, sir.”

“Did you follow them?”

“Yes, Admiral. They jumped directly to Mintaka, right into the middle of a large Russian fleet. As best we could tell, sir, the Russians had captured two Japanese colony ships, and as soon as the Company ship docked they released that organism inside several captured colony ships. I think, Admiral, that one ship was Japanese and the other from Australia. As soon as what they were doing became clear we left the Mintaka system and jumped to one of their military garrisons for reinforcements, but almost as soon as we arrived a distress call was received from Castor, from the university here. The Company hit them with that organism, Admiral, and apparently their people have no defense against it.”

But Ripley was hardly listening now, and hadn’t been since he’d heard the word Mintaka. All he really knew now was that his wife was sailing into a trap, and that the Company was setting all of them up. But why? Did they have the means to control this organism, and if not then what the hell were they up to? “Alright, Thomas, we’re heading for the second planet and we’ll slingshot there and then head for the university planet.”

“Admiral? All we’re picking up on our scans is your ship, Stavridis and maybe one other ship.”

“I’m on the lead ship, Thomas. Agamemnon. She’s new, but she’s very fast. The third is the Constellation.”

“We’re not picking up any recognizable weaponry on your ship, Admiral?”

“Tell me, Thomas. Who’s asking these questions?”

The screen split and the Tall White he’d first met on Halsey’s hangar deck appeared. “I ask. Need more ships.”

Ripley smiled. “Nice to see you again. We’ll have more warships arriving in-system soon.”

“You have weapon. Strange. Behind shield, can not understand.”

“Yes, we do. It is very new, and very powerful.”

“My people need help fast. Your ship moves too slow.”

“I’m sorry.”

“If I share engine, you share weapon?”

Ripley saw Commander Brennan on an adjacent screen and he saw the look of alarm in her eyes, but he also recognized the grail-like attraction that faster-than-light travel represented; when their eyes met and she nodded, and he had to admit he agreed.

“Alright. I agree.”

And in the next instant both Agamemnon and Stavridis were surrounded by four of the huge, horseshoe shaped starships, then another appeared and it had to be at least ten times the size of the other ships gathered around Ripley’s tiny fleet.

And then bright light spilled out of a hangar door as a vast opening appeared on the near side of the massive ship, and Ripley could just make out the shape of a small shuttle as it left the larger ship. Displays blinked red when the shuttle appeared to be coming straight at Agamemnon, and Ripley gave the order to cut acceleration as he prepared to go and face the unknown once again.

+++++

Ripley watched the shuttle match velocities and slip into the hangar deck, and while he was impressed by the piloting skills on vivid display he was more than concerned about the shuttle’s occupants. The shuttle bay door closed as soon as the Tall White’s shuttle touched down, and seconds later the hangar deck began pressurizing. When the pressures equalized the main entryway to the hangar deck opened and Ripley walked in – surrounded by a squad of Marines in full combat gear.

But the shuttle’s doors remained closed. And after two minutes Ripley walked over to the intercom and called Brennan on the bridge. “Commander? You still in contact with Thomas?”

“No, sir. No contact.”

He was about to evacuate the hangar and use air pressure to blow the ship back out into space when a small door opened, and a gently inclined boarding ramp extended to the hangar deck. Thomas Standing Bull came out first, and he still looked like a sixteen year old, but then the commander of the Tall Whites walked down the ramp – followed by…a woman? An unarmed woman who also appeared to be quite pregnant.

And the message couldn’t have been more clear. We come in peace.

So Ripley turned to the Gunny. “Sergeant, you and your men leave the hangar deck but remain out there on Main Street.”

“Aye, sir.” 

Ripley watched his marines file out of the hangar, then he turned to Thomas. “Well, Mr Standing Bull, I think introductions are in order, don’t you?”

“Yessir. This is the leader of their fleet, and he asks that you call him Odysseus.”

“Odysseus? Really?”

“Yessir. Apparently he knew the man and he thought the name would be familiar to you.”

“It is that. And this is his wife? Penelope, I take it?”

“Yessir. How did you know?”

Ripley looked at Thomas and shook his head as he let slip a long sigh. “Thomas, tell me about this organism. What are we dealing with?”

“Admiral, it appears to be an endoparasitoid, and it may have been artificially developed as a weapon of mass destruction by a rogue faction within Odysseus’s home civilization.”

“An endoparasitoid? And by that you mean is uses humans as host bodies?”

“Yessir, but the organism can use almost any species as a host. Apparently its offspring incorporate certain external traits while the overall aggressive nature of the organism remains unchanged. It is also very difficult to kill.”

“Need weapon,” Odysseus said gently, “now. My people face great danger.”

Ripley turned and looked at the alien. He had to be eight feet tall and he still reminded him of Michelangelo’s David – ignoring the solid black eyes, anyway. “Come with me.” He turned and walked to the main door then scowled – because this ‘man’ was simply too tall to make his way through the ship – so he stopped at the intercom again and called Brennan. “Commander, put the ship in zero-G, would you?”

“Yessir.”

And a moment later the ship’s drives cut out; Ripley reached for one of the overhead handrails and began pulling himself along Main Street towards the weapon’s bay – and to Ina Balin’s improbable Maser. When Ripley and his small entourage appeared in the weapon’s bay everyone’s eyes went big and round as anticipation ran headlong into pure, unadulterated shock.

And even Balin appeared too stunned to speak, which under current circumstances Ripley considered a minor blessing.

“This is it,” Ripley said, pointing at the main body of the ignition chamber, then he walked along the optical assembly to the first of three pressure bulkheads, where the optical tube exited the ship’s hull.

“Very big. How aim?”

“By maneuvering the ship.”

Odysseus scowled and shook his head. “Need bigger ship. My engineer need look. This is good?”

“Of course.”

“My engineer teach your engineer how to build our engine. This is good?”

“Yes. But do we have time for that eight now?”

“Time. No. We take ship to planet now.”

“Your ship, you mean?”

“No, we take your ship now. Tell your people get ready. Must sit, accelerate very much.”

“Brennan! Sound acceleration stations, and tell Stavridis and Constellation to prepare for heavy acceleration from an external source.”

“Yes, Admiral…”

Odysseus turned to Ripley when he had finished looking at the Maser, then he turned to Balin. “You make?” he asked.

Balin did a double-take then looked from the giant creature to Ripley, who simply nodded his implicit approval to speak openly, so she just shrugged and turned to the Tall White, suddenly in awe of the creature – and of her place in the moment. 

“Yes, I make.”

“My women no make, understand?”

“Yes, all too well.”

“When get planet you fire weapon?”

“Yes, as soon as I have targeting information.”

“My engineer stay here and watch?”

“Of course,” Ripley said.

“Fine with me,” Balin echoed – yet her voice was full of doubt – even though she was only too aware that a dozen cameras were recording these moments for posterity. “Let me know what I can do to help.”

Odysseus nodded. “I go ship now. When arrive planet engineer come.”

Acceleration warnings began blaring throughout he ship, and as Odysseus seemed to understand what these meant he fell-in behind Ripley as they used overhead handgrips to pull there way back to the hangar deck. Brennan was there now too, with Yukio, and they all pushed off and drifted the ten meters wide gulf to Odysseus’s shuttle – with Ripley and Brennan by his side, and with Yukio and Thomas quickly catching up on each others lives as they drifted along, bringing up the rear.

“You call radio when ready to go planet,” Odysseus said. “Shuttle stay here. Must stay in ship for drive.” Then the Tall White turned to Thomas: “Is this the woman you speak of?”

“Yes,” Thomas replied.

Odysseus turned to Ripley again. “Thomas Standing Bull needs woman.”

“I understand,” Ripley stated. “I will talk to them both before we make that decision.”

“Understand.” The outer hull door of the alien’s shuttle opened, and Ripley peered inside – but all he could make out in the gloom was a rather complicated looking airlock, but Odysseus watched as Ripley looked around the shuttle. “You let show our ship. After planet.”

“I would like that,” Ripley replied as he turned to Thomas. “Mr Standing Bull, resume your duties on the shuttle, if you please.”

“Aye, Admiral.”

“Odysseus, we will call you in a few minutes,” Ripley added, then he pushed off the floor and aimed for the door in the pressure bulkhead, floating across the ten meters a little too fast for his own comfort. Once Brennan made it across he turned to her: “Think you need to get us under acceleration long enough to get to the bridge?” he asked helpfully.

“No, sir. No reason to confuse the situation any more than it already is.”

“Yukio? You appear to be blushing. Did I miss something?”

“He said my breasts had grown a lot in the time we were apart.”

Ripley sighed as he pushed off again and began making his way up Main Street to the bridge. “And how do you feel about possibly staying with Thomas on one of their ships?” he asked as she floated by his side.

“I’d like to think about that before committing, sir.”

“Indeed. Frankly, I would too.”

They made it to the bridge in record time and Ripley found everyone already strapped in their G-couches – and all the ship’s computers had been powered down.

“All departments,” Brennan said over the intercom, “report jump status and signal when ready.”

And one-by-one all of Agamemnon’s chiefs reported ready to jump. Then Stavridis and the Connie did, as well.

“Admiral? The ship is ready to jump.”

Ripley nodded. “COMMs, verify Stavridis and Constellation have shuttles onboard and that they are ready to jump.”

“Verified, Admiral.”

“Okay, COMMs, notify Thomas that we’re ready when they are.”

“Notified, Admiral. Thomas advises we might feel…”

Disoriented was the word that bounced around the hollow corridors of Ripley’s mind. First a  sharp moment – almost like a discontinuity, then stretching followed by the sensation of nerves tingling throughout his body, but this was followed by an intense burning sensation behind his eyes that suddenly rippled down into his chest. He felt sure he’d passed out but then he saw little battery powered emergency lights pop on, then he heard one of the bridge deck officers growling “Bloody Hell!” – or words to that effect – and then he knew he was still conscious.

Then Brennan and her team began waking up the ship’s computers one-by-one, and within a minute computers were booting up all over the ship…

“Bridge, COMMs, Stavridis and Constellation are on station ten clicks off our stern, and Admiral, I have Thomas on his personal Comm-link.”

“Put him through.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Admiral? Did you experience any trouble?”

“Nothing reported so far. COMMs, can you get Dr Balin on this call?”

“Working.”

Then Balin’s face appeared on the split-screen. “Yes, Admiral,” she said contritely.

“You ready to see if this thing works?”

“Yessir. We’re waiting for reactor five to come fully online, then we’ll be ready to rock and roll.”

Ripley rolled his eyes. “Okay, Thomas, why don’t you and the engineers from Odysseus’s shuttle come aboard again. I’ll meet you at the airlock and we’ll go down to the Maser assembly.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Bridge, where are we?”

“In a 300 mile high orbit over the fourth planet, Admiral. There is a battle in-progress between a Tall White ship and two Company ships, the closest company ship is currently 1540 miles from our current location – and they are closing on us now.”

“WEPs, target the company ship and get the coordinates to Balin. Commander Brennan, resume 0-G conditions, all ship’s drives to 110 percent rated power, and ready the RCJs.”

“Aye, sir.”

Ripley crawled out of his G-couch and turned to his Gordon unit. “Come with me, and record everything said and shown to their engineer, and make sure you’ve got clear audio.”

“Yes, Admiral,” Gordon said as he fell in behind Ripley.

Main Street was almost empty as the ship’s crew was still waking up the ship, and the lights were set to a cool blue color as the ship’s time was currently set to ‘evening’. Ripley arrived at the airlock door that sealed off the hangar deck and almost instantly the airlock door on the shuttle opened – and out walked Thomas and Odysseus, as well as a small gaggle of their engineers – and Ripley gasped at the sight.

The engineers were quite short, though their skin was the same pure white, though they were possibly less than five feet tall; even from a distance Ripley could see that their skulls were huge and their fingers were hideously long, almost spidery. ‘So,’ he thought, ‘they’ve genetically differentiated the species to create task oriented specialists.’ The engineers had what looked like instrument cases strapped to their backs, then Ripley saw that the engineers bare feet were structured more like hands, with toes that looked long enough to grasp tools or handrails. As the engineers came up to the airlock Ripley had a hard time not staring at the lead engineer, especially as his eyes were black and as big around as saucers – perfect for seeing in low light conditions, no doubt.

Ripley opened the airlock and Odysseus and his engineers fell in behind him, leaving Thomas to bring up the rear. When they made it to the fire control station where Balin and her team waited, the lead engineer went to a table and placed his case there, then he turned and waited, his eyes never leaving Balin as she began explaining what the device was, and what it was theoretically capable of.

“WEPs,” Ripley said, “I don’t see the target on our screens down here. What’s going on?”

“Computer just coming online now, Admiral. You should have it any moment now.”

“Okay, we have it. Dr Balin, what’s next?”

“Admiral, we’re basically going to bore-sight the weapon, aim the lens by moving the ship with her forward Reaction Control Jets. As long as the target ship’s acceleration vector remains constant the computer will slave to the target and manipulate the RCJs to maintain target lock.”

“Alright. Let’s target that lead ship and see what this thing can do.”

She nodded. “At this range, Admiral, the beam will be more than three meters in diameter.”

“And?”

“The ship should be obliterated, Admiral.”

He nodded. “Lock on and fire, Dr Balin.”

Once the computer had achieved lock and slaved the Reaction Control Jets, Balin waited until she had full reactor power – then pressed the FIRE button.

And nothing happened.

There was no noise, and no visible beam – yet a few seconds later the Company ship, a rather large warship usually with a complement of more than 200 people, simply began to melt. The invisible beam cut right through the ablative re-entry shielding and the entire forward part of the ship tore away from the drive units located aft. There were no explosions, no visible flames, and indeed nothing at all to indicate a weapon had been fired.

“Holy fucking shit,” someone on the intercom circuit moaned, and Odysseus and his engineer stepped forward to look at the monitor…

“Holy fucking shit,” Odysseus said as he turned and faced Balin. “You make this fucking shit?”

“Yes, I make this,” Balin said, beaming with pride.

“Admiral?” Brennan said over the intercom. “The other company ship is breaking orbit and moving to investigate.”

“WEPs, get a lock on that second ship, now!”

“WEPs, aye. Working.”

“Dr Balin, how much time does this thing need to reset or recharge?”

“None, Admiral. As long as we have nominal reactor output the only limitation you’ll have is the time it takes to track and lock-on to the next target.”

“Admiral, WEPs, we have the target, slaving the RCJs now.”

Agamemnon rolled and reoriented, taking almost a minute to lock on to the second ship, then Ripley looked at Balin and nodded.

Once again she hit the FIRE button and once again within seconds the Company ship appeared to melt before pressure bulkheads gave way and the forward sections of the ship parted from the aft drive sections.

“Need move orbit,” Odysseus said, his voice excited now. “Need fire enemy ground.”

“WEPs, scan for additional target in orbit. Brennan, take us into a 150 mile up polar orbit. Captain Renfro, get your Marines to their shuttles and ready to roll. Stavridis, get your Marines to their shuttles.” Ripley turned to Odysseus and smiled. “I’m sure you need to get back to your ship now, but would you like to leave your engineer here for a while?”

“You allow?”

“Of course.”

“Want you engineer come my ship?”

“That’s not necessary now. We can send our engineer to look over your drive after we have taken care of the organism on the planet’s surface.”

“Admiral,” Brennan said, “one of Odysseus’s ships apparently has the organism onboard and it does not appear to be under direct control at this time. Some personnel have left the ship in MMUs, and the ship’s acting master just activated a self-destruct charge.”

Ripley looked at Odysseus. “Do you understand?”

“Yes. Can destroy ship with weapon, before self destruct? Crew is too close?”

“WEPs, target the Tall White ship, and take care not to hit any escaping crewmen. Dr Balin? Is the Maser ready?”

“Yes, Admiral. On your command.”

Ripley nodded, but then he turned to Odysseus and sighed. “Sir, should we target any part of the ship?”

“Can hit here?” he asked, pointing at the starboard-forward sponson.

“WEPs, target the foremost tip of the starboard sponson. Dr Balin, how wide will the beam be at this range?”

“Right now…about a meter,” she said as everyone watched the reticle line up on the ship, and then they identified the survivors jetting away from the ship in their Manned Maneuvering Units.

“Odysseus, are their any surveillance cameras within the ship.”

“I see if still work,” he said, asking a question over the radio he had mounted on a wrist-strap, and a few moments later he received his reply. “Yes. Ship not recognizable inside. Many crew on walls with, what is the word, parasite on face. Must destroy entire ship.”

And then Balin saw the pain in Odysseus’s eyes and on his face and quite instinctively she reached out and put her hand on his forearm, and the Tall White turned and looked at her hand, then at the look on her face – and he simply nodded his understanding of the gesture before he returned to the targeting data streaming on the main WEPs display.

“Odysseus,” Ripley sighed, “would you give the order to fire, please?”

And the Tall White stepped forward and looked at his men in their MMUs, then he spoke on his wrist radio, saying a dozen or so words Ripley didn’t understand to his men, then he turned to Dr Balin. “Fire now, please.”

Balin nodded and pushed the red button and a moment later the forward sponson began wilting and blossoming, then the screen flared as shielding around the ship’s drive finally gave way and her fusion reactor exploded. As the screen cleared Ripley turned to Gordon: “You get all that?”

“Everything, Admiral.”

He nodded. “Brennan, get the Marines to their shuttles. Let’s help round up any survivors.”

Odysseus had turned away and was now obviously quite upset: he was looking down and appeared to be openly weeping, and then the alien walked away from the group – but Ina Balin had put an arm around him and was talking to him, so Ripley let it go…for now. In any event, Gordon would find a way to record what they said. 

So next up, retake the planet, ‘but that really isn’t our job, is it,’ Ripley thought as he walked over to the main WEPs screen. “WEPs, what can you show me on the planet’s surface?”

“Working.”

Balin and Odysseus walked up to Ripley and the Tall White looked around before speaking. “Thank crew, please. Must go my ship now. Thomas come with please.”

Ripley nodded. “Of course. Please let us know if we can assist you in any way.”

Odysseus motioned to Thomas, who fell in behind the Tall White and left the Maser’s control room, and before Ripley followed he motioned Balin to fall in and come along. When they arrived at  the hangar deck they saw that Agamemnon’s four small Marine shuttles had already departed, and that the hangar deck was still repressurizing. Brennan and Yukio were already there and waiting, and Thomas went to Yukio’s side and they whispered in each others ear for a while; Ripley cast another sidelong glance at Gordon – who simply nodded.

The control panel next to the airlock door flashed red, then chimed once before the actuator light changed to green. Gordon opened the airlock and the group pushed off, floating across the hangar deck before stopping beside the shuttle’s airlock. Yukio and Thomas hugged and Ripley could tell the Middie was beside herself, trying to contain the uncertainty she felt. 

Then the airlock opened and Thomas pulled himself over to the opening, while Odysseus turned and looked at Ripley. “I call soon, but thank you for help.”

“I’m glad we could,” Ripley said, and then he saw Odysseus had a hearing aid in one ear, obviously a translator of some sort, because he paused for a moment before replying.

“One of my sons on ship. Not know if he got out.”

Ripley felt sick and shook his head. “I’m sorry, I had no idea.”

“My decision, not yours. Must go. Speak soon.”

“Your name is Pak, isn’t it?” Ripley said, and ‘Odysseus’ seemed startled to learn that Ripley knew that.

“Yes. Den-ton.”

Ripley held out his right hand and Pak looked at it for a moment, then took it. “A handshake means I come in friendship.”

“Understand. No want war between us.”

“Yes. No war between us. Not now, not ever.” 

Their eyes met and Ripley nodded solemnly.

And with that Odysseus turned and led Thomas inside the shuttle, so Ripley pushed off and returned to the hangar deck’s airlock and recycled the lock. He watched the Tall White’s shuttle lift from the ‘floor’ of the hangar deck and looked for any visible signs of propulsion – but he saw nothing, as in nada – and he sighed once before he turned and pulled himself up Main Street to the bridge. A few minutes later Thomas came on via the radio link, then a video link was established through his personal communicator.

“Admiral, Odysseus advises they have limited contact with their personnel on the ground, and those that have managed to get through advise that no one should come down to the planet’s surface.  Variations of the organism can be transmitted by airborne spore or by direct implantation of eggs within the body cavity, and once infected transmutation is complete.”

“They’ve found no means to treat anyone that’s been infected.”

“No, sir. And while the gestated mutation is inherently offensive, apparently the organism has formidable defenses.”

“You’re describing a weapon system, Thomas. And did I not hear that this weapon was genetically manipulated by another faction within their civilization?”

“I’ve learned very little about this conflict, Admiral.”

“Understood. Try to make it clear that we have no desire to interfere in their internal affairs.”

“Admiral, Odysseus advises that several warships have entered the system from the same jump point you used earlier.”

Ripley nodded. “We have a carrier group coming, as well as tanker support. Please tell Odysseus that these ships are under my command and present no risk to him or his fleet. They are here to assist with any rescue effort, should such support be needed.”

Thomas turned and talked to someone out of sight, and Ripley could hear only bits and pieces of this conversation, so he turned to Brennan. “See if you can get a lock on the Enterprise or one of her tankers,” he said quietly, and she nodded.

“Nothing yet,” Brennan advised a moment later.

“Well hell, they’ve recorded several ships at the Alderson Point…”

“Understood. They must have better radar than ours.”

“Start a time hack. I want to figure out how much better, and see if you can pick up any emissions.”

“Admiral?” Thomas said over the COMMs link.

“Go ahead.”

Sir, Odysseus, uh, Pak is reluctant to fire at his people on the planet, but he has new video from inside one of the buildings down there and he’s really upset. I mean really-really upset…”

“Any word on his son?”

“No, sir, but our Marines picked up about twenty people in MMUs, from that last ship. When they get aboard say ‘Tarak ign Ramala.’”

“‘Tarak ign Ramala?’”

“Yessir. That means, roughly, ‘Is Ramala among you?’”

“Got it. I’ll advise as soon as his men are safely onboard.”

“Admiral,” Brennan advised, “the first shuttle is on its approach.”

“Send Yukio, and make sure she knows how to pronounce that. Better patch her through to Thomas. And send someone from medical along – in case we need to quarantine anyone.”

Brennan smiled at this bit of mischief. “Yessir. I’m sure she’ll hate that.”

“I thought she might. You tracking anything on the planet’s surface?”

“We’ve located a small city, circular in shape and with canals all over the place. There’s no movement anywhere around the place, and we’ve got point two meter resolution and no cloud cover.”

“What’s the nearby terrain like?”

“Scandinavian. We’re talking deep fjords and really tall mountains for that latitude.”

Ripley looked at Gordon and they both nodded. “Similar to Beta Capella-4,” Gordon said.

“So, they like cool, temperate planets,” Ripley said. “But hell, who doesn’t?”

“Maybe the organism does too,” Gordon added. “Or perhaps they adapt to environments they,  in effect, inherit from their host organisms.”

“Makes sense.”

“Admiral, they have just identified another warship entering the system from another jump point, the same jump point the company ships used.”

So, from Mintaka. Ripley suddenly felt a feeling a dread, but he tried to hide his feelings now. “Thomas, it’s important we know more about that ship as soon as possible.”

“Understood, sir.”

Ripley turned to Brennan again: “Still nothing on radar?”

“Not a thing, Admiral. Whoa…did you see that?”

While they were talking one of Pak’s ships simply flashed and then vanished.

“Admiral,” Yukio said over the intercom, “Ramala is safe and onboard, and medical advises no obvious infections are present.”

“Thomas, would you advise Pak that we have his son onboard. We can bring him over or he can send his shuttle.”

“Admiral, he’ll send his shuttle as soon as we have the rest of his crew are onboard.”

“Understood. Yukio, is someone from medical with you?”

“Yessir, Dr Cooper from life sciences and two Walter units. The Walters are scanning our Marines, and there’s a physician of some sort with the Tall Whites. They are in space suits the physician advises they will remain so until back aboard their flagship, Admiral.”

“Admiral, Dr Cooper here. I recommend we get everyone who’s had even a remote chance of contact into isolation chambers. Until we know what the gestation period is we’ll have no way of knowing who’s safe and who isn’t, and I’d recommend exposing the interiors of all shuttles to a hard vacuum for a few hours, just to be on the safe side.”

Ripley turned to his Gordon: “Can you lay that on?”

“Yes, Admiral, however we may not have enough isolation chambers. We could accomplish the same thing by keeping the Marines in their spacesuits and replenishing their oxygen generators as needed.”

“Okay. Get a team on it now.”

“Admiral?” Thomas asked over the intercom. 

“Go ahead, Thomas.”

“Odysseus advises that Hyperion has entered the system through the Mintaka Alderson Point.”

“Excuse me? Did you say Hyperion?”

“Yessir, and Odysseus advises that at least twenty more ships have now jumped into the system through Capella. He thinks it wise to send a ship to investigate. Would you like me to go?”

“Alright, Thomas. Just a quick recon, okay?”

“Understood, sir.”

“Commander Brennan, do you have Hyperion on radar yet?”

“Intermittent contact only, sir, with no IFF and no positive ident. We are picking up a positive IFF from Constellation and five elements of the Enterprise Battle Group, but not this new group.”

Pak came on screen. “Admiral Ripley?”

“Yes, I’m here, Pak.”

“Captain of ship advises you are mate. She say have important emissaries with her. You want us bring ship here?”

“Yes, Pak, if this is not a problem.”

“No problem.”

“Could your captain advise my mate to shut down all computers before jump?”

“Jump? What is jump?”

“High speed.”

“Ah. Understand. Want bring other ships here?”

“Not yet. Must understand why emissaries come.”

“Understood. Thomas good man, like Sitting Bull. Strong spirit, not fear unknown.”

Ripley smiled. “I agree. He can learn much from you.”

“My son. He spend time with you?”

“Of course. Yes. We would like that very much.”

“My engineer say X-ray Maser very dangerous your crew. Shielding not enough, should change before crew sick. He can fix if want.”

“Okay. Dr Balin may want to check his design. Does your engineer think you can use the weapon on your ship?”

Pak shook his head. “Very dangerous. X-ray very dangerous. Must think with other engineers before decide. You take Judy as mate?”

“What?”

“Judy, captain of ship Patton. She mate now?”

“Yes, she is.”

Pak/Odysseus nodded. “She strong heart, good spirit.”

Ripley smiled, but at least now he knew the Tall Whites were closely monitoring their ship-to-ship communications; he could only hope that his people down in the radio shack were as on-the-ball as Pak’s team. “How long before Hyperion arrives?”

Pak turned and looked somewhere offscreen, then he turned back to Ripley. “Now.”

And sure enough, Pak’s ship arrived, securely attached to the underside of Hyperion’s hangar deck, and almost instantly Judy was onscreen.

“Denton,” she said – and almost breathlessly – “the Company…the Company has a small army of those organisms and they have overrun the colony on Mintaka 4. Several Russian and Chinese ships have been overrun, too, and I have diplomatic emissaries from both countries onboard. They want to talk about an alliance.”

“An alliance?”

“Yes, an alliance with us to take out the Company.”

“An alliance of convenience, you mean?”

“No, a permanent peace in addition to an alliance. Cooperative exploration, everything we’ve wanted. Denton…no more war.”

“Are they onboard your ship?”

“Yes, and here’s the catch. They need us to help them retake their fleets.”

“Judy, what are you saying? That the Company has defeated their combined fleet?”

“They have reinforcements coming, Denton, but they won’t be enough. The organism…it can survive in a vacuum and at absolute zero for almost an hour. They bleed acid and appear to be a silicon-based life-form so our biological controls don’t work. And not only that…”

But then Ripley’s screen flickered before the image dissolved, finally turning an absolute black. “COMMs, I just lost my screen!” he barked.

But then a pale blue smudge appeared in the center of his screen, and then as if someone was slowly pulling focus the smudge turned into an oval and then the oval morphed into a face.

And it was Lars Jansen’s face. The Midshipman’s face. The dead Midshipman’s face.

“Lars?” Ripley said gently, as he motioned Brennan to join him by his station.

“Admiral? Is that you?”

“Yes, Lars. Where are you?”

“I’m not sure. There is a high probability that I am in the port forward mainframe, in CIC.”

“What can you tell me about where you are?”

“I am on a beach, with two girls, and they are…”

“That’s okay, Lars, I think I get the picture. Are you capable of interacting with the ship?”

“Yes, Admiral, that is why I am here. I have been analyzing the input you are receiving on COMMs 1, and I have concluded there is a high order of probability that the image on the screen is an AI construct. And, oh, I have just penetrated Hyperion’s Langston Field through her COMMs mast, and now have access to the ship’s computer. There are 200 gestated organisms onboard Hyperion, and a further 350 in late-stage gestation – in addition to twenty three Company personnel.”

“Is Judy onboard?”

“No, Admiral, and I find no further information on her location in this computer, but it is no longer networked. I would suggest you ask the AI something only your wife would know…”

“Alright, Lars. Re-establish contact, would you?”

Ripley’s COMMs 1 link instantly reappeared, as did the image of Judy. “Denton…Denton…are you…ah, there you are…what happened?”

“I don’t know. Say, I got a note from Tracy, did you?”

“Tracy?”

“Yes, Tracy. Our daughter?” Brennan nodded and pulled up the Maser’s targeting screen on a nearby terminal, then she slaved the ship to the Maser’s fire control system.

“Oh, yes, of course. No, I haven’t heard a thing from her since we left the Gateway. Denton, what about these ships? Who do they belong to?”

“I have no idea,” he said as he looked at Brennan and nodded.

And he watched as Hyperion melted and then blew apart, and multiple cameras zoomed in on dozens of shiny black organisms writhing around within the blooming debris field – and almost instantly Pak was calling.

“What has happened?”

“A computer simulation of Judy was being used to conceal the presence of organisms onboard Hyperion.”

“The image of your mate was unreal?”

“That is correct.”

“How tell not mate?”

“A computer on my ship identified the imposter.”

“Imposter?”

“The pretender?”

“Very complicated. Many new difficulties.”

“Yes. Many.”

“Possible Thomas heading trap?”

Ripley nodded. “Yes, that is possible. Can you tell him?”

“Must send second ship.”

“Understand. Your ship and mine, together?”

“Yes. That is best. We come you now.”

Ripley turned to Brennan. “Acceleration warnings, everyone to acceleration stations and computers to standby as soon as our docking clamps are attached.”

“Got it,” Brennan said as acceleration warnings sounded throughout the ship.

As Ripley watched Pak’s gigantic ship cross the three kilometers that separated their two ships, his mind struggled with the realization that Judy was now being held captive, and so was probably a hostage in the Company’s grasping hands. And they wanted it all, he now realized. Control of the Space Force and the Naval Space Force to start, then all colonization efforts, too. And they would enforce their Will by using these organisms, assuming, that is, that they could control them and not be wiped out in the process.

Yet a faction of Pak’s civilization had created this organism, so surely this group held the key to controlling this menace. But what was the purpose behind creating the organism in the first place? These organisms were a weapon of mass destruction, plain and simple, and the Walter that he’d picked up from the planet’s surface almost three years ago had understood that the organism had been found at a weapons depot, a very large weapons depot. Why? With whom were these Tall White’s at war?

Yet Agamemnon was equipped with a singularly destructive weapon of her own, a weapon that might prove to be a decisive advantage in any conflict, and Stanton had to know that. Was he equipping other ships in the NSF with the weapon, or waiting for an operational report from this expedition? Ripley thought for a moment then concluded his ship was probably not the only ship equipped with the Maser.

“Admiral, forward locking clamps engaged, powering down computers now.”

“Okay, all personnel to acceleration stations.”

“Once again warnings sounded throughout the ship, and just then Pak came onscreen. “Tell when ready, Den-ton.”

“All stations report ready to jump, Admiral.”

“Pak,” Ripley said, “let’s do it!”

Lights flickered, then went out – only to be replaced by red battery powered lighting throughout the ship, then everyone felt the muted rumble of a kinetic weapon detonating on the surface of the Langston Field…

“Brennan, get me a visual!”

“Wide field camera going up the mast through the field now, sir.”

When the screen flickered and came alive Ripley gasped when he saw at least three different fleets engaged in a close range fire fight, with laser cannon trying to overwhelm and burn through Langston Fields and at least two of Pak’s ships badly damaged and trying to retreat, including the shuttle carrying Thomas Standing Bull.

Chapter 8

Neal Davis had been a classmate of Ripley’s at Annapolis; now he was in command of the USNSF Enterprise and her battle group – and he was roaring mad. Ripley had just spoken to Davis on a secure frequency but it appeared Davis still didn’t know what the tactical situation was; one minute an unknown group of warships came out of the Jump point and a minute later several of the Tall White’s horseshoe-shaped craft appeared – and his battle group was in effect sandwiched between these two forces. So, Davis thought his first order of business was to secure the tanker fleet – but as soon as he launched a squadron on Banshees the force coming up from the rear had opened fire on his ship. Then this unknown hostile force split into two groups, with one coming for the Enterprise and the second group moving to intercept the Tall White’s small force.

When Ripley on Agamemnon appeared – and strapped on top of a huge Tall White horseshoe – Davis assumed the Tall Whites weren’t hostile – and about that time Ripley got through.

“Concentrate all your forces on protecting the tankers,” Denton told his old classmate, “and we’ll go after the Company ships.”

“Company ships? Denton? What are you saying?”

“Yup. Apparently they’re making a play to consolidate their power by taking out our Navy, and possibly Russia’s and China’s, as well.”

“Admiral?” Brennan said, interrupting Ripley. “Thomas is on TAC2.”

“Okay, patch him into my link to Enterprise.”

“Done.”

“Thomas, what’s your situation?”

“This ship doesn’t have shielding, Admiral, of any kind. The drive is out and one of the Company’s ships is about fifty clicks out, and they’re carrying the organism.”

“WEPs,” Ripley said calmly, “can you ID the target?”

“Trying, Admiral. Apparently their shield is up and they’re jamming out radar.”

“Something within 50 clicks, WEPs. Look in the microwave spectrum.”

“Okay, Admiral, we have identified a possible target!”

“Dr Balin, you ready to go down there?”

“Affirmative, Admiral, slaving the RCJs and acquiring lock.”

“Fire on lock,” Ripley sighed, “and as soon as we have confirmation the target is destroyed start targeting any Company ships.”

“Target lock,” WEPs said.

“Firing now,” Balin added.

The Maser’s beam sliced through the Company ship’s barely visible Langston Field and several small detonations flared onscreen, and on magnification everyone could see hundreds of the organism flailing around in the hard vacuum.

“What the hell are those things?” Davis said.

“They’re what this is all about, Neal. Apparently this organism was genetically manufactured by a rival faction within the Tall White’s military and it was stored off world on a planet designated as some kind of weapons storage facility. The Company got ahold of the technology and are now deploying them as shock troops. I’ll send you the data our xenobiologists have worked up, but the bottom line is we can’t let the Company get this technology to Earth, or Mars.”

“But their ships? Denton, they came from Sol system!”

“Understood. They may have overrun the Japanese colony on Mintaka 4, too.”

“Bridge. WEPs, target lock on a carrier.”

“Take it out,” Ripley sighed.

“Den-ton,” Pak said over the UHF comm link, “now have working weapon on shuttle. Very easy move find new target. Can help?”

“Yes, Pak, can help.”

“Denton,” Neal Davis said, clearly flummoxed, “who the devil is that?”

“That was Pak, and my assumption is he’s the equivalent of a fleet admiral in their Navy.”

“Den-ton, have six ship target.”

“Pak, take them out.”

Seconds later six more ships vaporized.

Davis looked stunned, and even Ripley was amazed at the speed they had realigned the Maser to target new ships. “Ripley, what kind of weapon is that?” Davis cried.

“Microwave X-ray Maser that the Israelis developed. I traded the technology for data on their FTL drive.”

“You…what? A working FTL drive? Really?”

Ripley smiled and nodded. “Welcome to the brave new world, Neal.”

“Holy shit, Denton…you’ve got to get that tech back to earth, and I mean pronto.”

“I know, but we have to help Pak secure the planet then move on Mintaka.”

“Man, I hope you know what you’re doing?”

Ripley nodded. “I want you to go to the planet and help Pak’s men retake the citadel and their university. You’ve got more Marines on that transport than all my ships combined, but don’t send anyone down until you’ve read that summary. This is a vicious organism, Neal, and not to be underestimated. Thomas? Sit-rep, please.”

“No threats at this time, Admiral.”

“Pak, move all ships to planet now?”

“Yes. Can do.”

+++++

It had taken the better part of a day, but it now appeared that all of the organisms near and around the university had been killed and their underground nurseries destroyed, including two enormous egg-laying queens that had been captured and subsequently frozen after an hours long battle under one of the university’s power plants. Miraculously, no Marines had been killed or taken to one of the nurseries.

But after two Marines came down with flu-like symptoms it was determined that an unseen airborne spore had been responsible for transmission of the organism, and with that knowledge Pak gave the order to have the planet irradiated from low orbit, and then the planet was placed under long term quarantine. Neither Agamemnon nor Enterprise had facilities to treat the afflicted Marines, but as all Pak’s ships did, the infected troops were put into stasis and then transported by shuttle to Pak’s flagship, where treatment, if possible, would begin.

“Your mate,” Pak asked. “Judy. Know what has happened?”

“No, but I assume the Company has taken her hostage during their campaign to take the colony at Mintaka.”

“This our fault, our responsibility. We go you, with you, to your Mintaka. You send engineers my ship now study drive. Thomas need mate; girl decide?”

“Yes, she will join Thomas on your ship when you are ready.”

“First dock your ships to ours, then we together go this Mintaka. We fix problem, but little time. Big star near explode soon, you call Betelgeuse. Drive and space-time distorted by explosion, must hurry.”

“Do you know when Betelgeuse will go supernova?”

“This mean explode?”

“Yes.”

“Process underway many years, soon last phase.”

“How soon?”

“In your time measure, days maybe.”

Ripley turned to his screen and took a deep breath. “Lars, are you there?”

The rather ghostly image of Lars Jansen slowly gathered on Ripley’s screen, and once again ‘Lars’ looked around – almost as if he was experiencing the confines of living within the dimensions of the screen. “Yes, Admiral, I am here now – always. I am scanning all shipboard systems and communications.”

“Did you say ‘always?’”

“Yes, Admiral.”

“Can you gather everything that’s known about the current state of Betelgeuse, and a likely time the star could go nova?”

“Everything, Admiral?”

“Yes, please. There’s no one on the ship more knowledgeable about solar dynamics than you, and I need to know how Mintaka might be affected by such an event.”

“Very little direct impact, Admiral. As you know, Betelgeuse is approximately 500 light years from Earth, and while Mintaka Prime, or Delta Orionis, is 690 light years away, consider that Delta Orionis 34 is 2300 light years distant, so the visible results of the explosion will appear to residents of Earth 1800 years before the residents of Mintaka 4 see the explosion. The same applies for any radiative impacts, Admiral. Furthermore, Pak’s statement that Betelgeuse will go nova within days is not verifiable by astronomers on either Earth or Mars using current technologies.”

“So you think we’ll be safe going to Delta Orionis 34?”

“Assuming the Tall White’s faster than light drive is unaffected by the event, that should remain true.”

“And if it is affected?”

“Then,” Lar’s avatar said, “you would be forced to find your way back to Earth using an unknown sequence of Jump Points.”

Which, Ripley knew, would entail finding new Alderson Points in stars disrupted by the recent Supernova event, and without unmanned scout ships to send through the altered Jump Points first, it was more than possible that new Alderson tramlines would have formed, and these new lines might lead very deep within the star, and possibly near its core, and that would lead to premature Langston Field collapse within that star, and of course that meant the immediate loss of ship and crew.

“Or, Lars, we manufacture Pak’s drive and return directly to Earth,” Ripley replied.

“Good luck with that,” Lars said, his AI created grin suddenly looking more than a little sinister.

“We help drive – build drive – with you, Den-ton,” Pak said. “First go Min-taka. Betelgeuse nova soon. Very soon. Find mate, Judy, sooner.”

“Commander Brennan, how long before we can be ready to piggyback for another jump?”

“Let’s see…we have 400 Marines either in-transit on shuttles or in the hangar bays, so call it two hours to get everyone where they’re supposed to be, so during that time Pak can maneuver his ships in close to use our docking clamps. But Admiral, we have fourteen ships, including the Enterprise, but Pak’s fleet is down to six vessels, including his flagship. That will require multiple roundtrips for Pak’s fleet, leaving half our combined fleet separated when we jump into a system full of unknown combatants.”

“We have the Maser, Commander. That’s a big advantage.”

“And one that takes minutes to reorient and get into position to fire,” she came back testily.

“I’m open to suggestions, XO.”

“Send the Enterprise Battle Group in first. They’re better equipped to handle heavy incoming fire.”

“Okay, Louise. Work it out with Neal.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Den-ton? My son come your ship now?”

Ripley was taken aback by that request, as it seemed an unwarranted expression of trust. Then again, there was absolutely no way he was going to turn down that request. “We would be honored, Pak.”

“He come now. Thomas and Yukio stay here now?”

“Yes, that will be fine.”

His screen went black again and he halfway expected Lars to reappear, but then again Pak still spoke bluntly and directly – and wasted no time saying his goodbyes. But he was curious now, about Pak’s ships and their FTL drives. “Lars, you there?”

“I was in the middle of a good dream Admiral, but yes, I’m here.”

“A good dream? Really? Tell me more…”

“Well sir, it involved three girls and a lot of vegetable oil…”

“Never mind.”

“Yessir.”

“Lars, I’d like you to image Pak’s ships when they jump, and I’d like you to use a very high frame rate. I’d like to slow down the action as much as possible and see what we learn.”

“Can do, sir.”

“In the meantime, see if you can identify the nearby stellar ignition and a possible new set of Jump Points. I see two possible hydrogen clouds in the area where Hyperion appeared…”

“And I’ve identified the ignition source, Admiral. There is a knot appearing center mass of the cloud to your left, and while the core is still forming, the internal mass is spinning fast enough to generate Jump Points.”

“Distance to this Jump Point?”

“1.35 AU, Admiral.”

“So, call it six days at 3Gs and not quite four days at 4Gs. And do you see the problem with that, Lars?”

“Yes, Admiral. Hyperion covered the distance in a matter of hours, implying her speed was in excess of 10 Gs, which is not possible for humans.”

“So, Hyperion was piloted by androids and her military complement was…”

“The organism, sir.”

“Which implies what, Lars?”

“Either that the androids are capable of controlling the organism, or that the organism has no interest in the androids.”

“What the logical conclusion?”

“The latter, Admiral. If the organism replicates in warm-blooded carbon based lifeforms, they would leave the androids alone.”

Denton spun around in his couch and looked at Gordon. “I understand your behavioral inhibitors prevent you from taking up arms against human beings…”

“No, Admiral, that is not quite correct. We cannot take up arms against any sentient creatures.”

“So, does this organism represent sentience?”

“Unknown, Admiral.”

“So you could not take up arms against them?”

“That is correct, Admiral.”

Ripley nodded as he watched Pak’s huge flagship maneuver into place ‘beneath’ the Enterprise, then he looked at three very large docking clamps as they emerged from Enterprise’s hull and latched onto three points of Pak’s ship – and then he saw a tiny shuttle emerge from Pak’s ship, probably carrying Pak’s son…

And it hit him just them – how similar we were to the Tall Whites– so he turned to Gordon and asked Lars to come back onscreen.

“Here, Admiral,” they said simultaneously. 

“I’d like you two to devise a way to surreptitiously get a fluid sample from Pak’s son while he’s aboard, and I’d like a full genomic analysis as soon as possible.”

“What are you thinking, sir?” Lars asked.

“Physiognomically they’re just too similar to us…”

“Or you are to them,” Gordon advised cautiously.

“Exactly. And I’d like to know about those similarities, and why there are dissimilarities. For instance, why the pure white skin, and the eyes? Why are they black?”

“Simple conjecture here, sir,” Lars said, “but two reasons for these sorts of differentiation are climate adaptation and camouflage. It might be difficult to ascertain either without an understanding of climatic variation on their home world and a basic history of predation on that planet. You might ask about these, if you get a chance.”

“They also, according to David, have a deep hatred for androids,” Gordon added. “This might indicate a negative experience with androids in their past…”

“Or an abiding respect for organic life,” Lars countered.

“I would question that assumption, Lars,” Gordon said. “Their current civilization has broken into factions, and at least one of these groups has fashioned weapons of mass destruction, so at least one group has decided they need such weaponry, but there would be no need for this level of offensive capability if all other factions were benevolent. And Admiral, I hope I don’t need to remind you that we have no idea what either their capabilities or intentions ultimately are, and that also they now have the capability to produce an X-ray Maser.”

Ripley nodded. “From what I’ve read, simply observing the Maser’s operation with the right equipment would reveal many of the relevant operational characteristics, and I feel certain we can count on them having observed our use of the weapon. As for their intentions, we may never know what those are, but my overriding concern, first and foremost, has been to prove that we are trustworthy allies. 

“Understood, Admiral,” Gordon said, and Lars nodded his agreement.

Ripley watched Pak’s shuttle approach the port-side hangar deck on one screen, and on three others he watched docking clamps join USNSF ships to the smaller ships in Pak’s remaining fleet, yet she sight of a ship the size of the Enterprise conjoined with Pak’s equally gigantic horseshoe-shaped craft was simply too much to take in. 

He felt Brennan lean over and look at his screen, then he felt her sigh. “That doesn’t look possible, you know?” she said.

“To think of that much mass exceeding the speed of light…well, that’s just mind boggling.”

Then Pak’s face flashed onscreen. “Den-ton, send scout ship first, we wait here for report.”

“Understood.”

A single horseshoe powered away from the fleet using thrusters and reaction control jets – orienting the two sponsons in the general direction of Mintaka…

“Gordon?”

“Understood.” 

Ripley was fairly certain the next thing he saw was a faint streak of light, but all he was really sure of was that one second the scout ship was visible and the next it had simply vanished. “How long for the ship to make the journey?” he asked Pak.

“Hours, maybe two, maybe three. Depend gravity waves. Interfere. Your engineer said he understand how drive work, but not navigation. Can send navigator?”

Ripley looked at Brennan, and she nodded.

“Yukio is a fine navigator, but still learning. See if she can understand?”

The screen went dark again and Ripley turned to Gordon. “Well? Anything useful?”

“Yes, Admiral,” Gordon said as he pulled an image file and placed it onscreen. “There are heat blooms here, in the aft-most part of the ship just about where you’d expect a drive to be located, but there were also blooms in the forward sections of both sponsons.” He changed images and what looked like a beam of light shot across the space between the forward sponsons, and in the next frame a beam of light extended out from the ship towards Mintaka.

“I’ll be damned,” Ripley sighed. “They’re creating a tramline…”

“So it would appear, Admiral. The concept is strikingly simple, and it may well be possible to convert our existing Alderson Drives to generate our own tramlines.”

“Holy fucking shit,” Ripley whispered. “This changes everything, Gordo!”

“Gordo, Admiral? I’m afraid I do not understand the reference.”

“Gordon Cooper. One of the original Mercury astronauts. Everyone called him Gordo.”

“I see. Then the use is complementary.”

“Yes it is.”

“Thank you, Admiral. In the next frame a field is forming around the ship, but I have not yet examined the EM spectrum recordings to determine exactly what this is.”

“Admiral, hangar deck. Pak’s shuttle is secure and they’re unloading some kind of G-couch.”

“Okay, on my way.” Ripley turned to the android and smiled. “Okay, Gordo, keep on it. We need some answers.”

“Yessir.”

“Lars, make sure you have the hangar deck under observation.”

“Yessir.”

“Commander Brennan, come with me, please.”

They pushed off their G-couches and made for Main Street, then he led the way down to the main access ladder to the hangar deck and a minute or so later they pulled up to the pressure bulkhead. The actual hangar bay was only slightly pressurized so the main blast doors were still locked and showing red, so they went to the nearest view port – and that’s when they got their first look at one of the Tall White’s G-couches.

“What the hell is that thing on top?” Brennan sighed.

Ripley shook his head. “Looks like a telescope of some kind, but beyond that…?”

A team of men from Pak’s ship was assembling a platform around the couch and attaching lenses around the perimeter of the platform, then one of them ran what looked like power cables to a large black box beside their shuttle, and there he fastidiously plugged each cable into what Ripley now assumed was a power supply of some sort, or maybe a life support module, but the projection coming out the top of the main structure was simply unrecognizable.

“Sir, it looks like some kind of aiming mechanism…a visual aiming mechanism. Look how it lines up with the couch. The projection ends next to the…good God, look at that helmet!”

Ripley was. One of the technicians was mounting an elephantine faceplate on a swivel mount, then checking alignment with the optical tube assembly he’d just mounted above the G-couch.

Then one of the aliens turned to Ripley and waved him in.

“We’ll need supplemental oxygen in there, Admiral,” Brennan said, handing him a Porta-mask.

“Okay, cycle the airlock.” They waited for the pressure to equalize then stepped into the airlock, then cycled the airlock again before entering the hangar deck. Once the pressure equalized to the low pressure in the bay the door opened and they pushed off, drifting across to the team working on the couch.

“Who navigator,” one of the Tall Whites asked, his voice an impossibly deep baritone.

“I am,” Brennan said, and the Tall White turned and stared at Brennan.

“You not male?”

“No, not male.”

The Tall White shrugged but appeared uncomfortable with the idea. “Sit here, Navigator,” the Tall White said.

Brennan crawled up into the massive couch and everyone realized that nothing fit correctly, but the technicians got to work adjusting the couch until Louise was reasonably comfortable sitting in the thing.

“Navigator have name?” the Tall White asked.

“Louise,” Brennan said.

“Lou-ise? I am urPak, son of Pak. I close this,” he said, indicating the elephantine faceplate, “over face now. No afraid. Hands place here,” he added, showing her where to place her hands. He stepped back and rotated the faceplate down, and as soon as the faceplate made contact with the couch a vast holographic star-chart formed around the couch…

“Admiral, you were correct. The optical tube is an aiming device.”

“Correct,” urPak said, almost smiling, “and you move sky with finger controls, line up target in sight.”

“Denton…this is amazing! Can you see the sky map out there?”

“Yes, it seems like it has deeper layers of detail, too.”

“Correct. Here your planet,” he said as the sky map adjusted to put the Sun in the aiming reticle, “now this button, hit two times.”

She did and the reticle zoomed in on earth, showing the current position of the terminator. Two more clicks and she was zoomed in on massive polar ice cap that now covered most of the northern hemisphere. “How do you zoom out?” she asked.

“Click up on switch.”

“Got it.”

“Find Mintaka, rotate sphere under hand, sky map move with sphere under hand.”

Orion wasn’t really recognizable as such from Gemini, but both Betelgeuse and Rigel were easy to spot and from there she quickly found the Belt stars and zoomed in on the two pairs of binary stars that made up the Mintaka asterism. “This is awesome!” Louise said, grinning like a kid on Christmas morning.

“Once engine-drive is connect to sight,” urPak said, “you press this switch and go there. Fast.”

“I understand,” Brennan said, smiling as urPak lifted the faceplate. “May I show you our systems?”

“Yes, please.”

“Louise, show him anything he wants to see. I’ll be up on the bridge.”

urPak looked from Brennan to Ripley and back again. “Lou-ise know all ship?”

“She knows everything, urPak. What about females on your ship?”

“Few females ship. Stay planet. Very few, too dangerous.”

“Very few females?”

“Yes. Very few. Long time past one female born every ten males, now one female every ten thousand males. Females protect most important. Only way family survives. Not same you?”

“No, not the same. One female to one male for long time.”

“Pak ask is possible we male and your female breed. Can test?”

Ripley looked at Brennan and nodded. “Maybe you two could swing by medical on your way back to the bridge?”

Brennan sighed – even as she tried to hide her smile. “Yessir.”

+++++

Two hours passed and Pak’s scout ship should have arrived at Mintaka, so Ripley cycled the countdown timer to 120 minutes and hit the start button, then he watched Brennan and urPak as they examined one of the fusion reactors – and several engineers had gathered around them as urPak pointed out something on a circulation pump.

“Lars?”

“Yes, Admiral?”

“Can you hear them?”

“Yessir. Pak’s son is pointing out the structural inefficiency of our existing pump and recommending changes.”

“Are you recording?”

“Yes, Admiral. Everything.”

“Any thoughts?”

“His knowledge of metallurgy is impressive, Admiral. He is referring to a new titanium alloy that I am unaware of and I am trying to model the molecular dynamics now.”

“Very well.”

“Gordon, did you advise Medical what the problem is?”

“Yessir. They can pull a genotype from a check swab, but Admiral, it may be necessary to ask for a semen sample.”

“That could be interesting.”

“To say the least,” Gordon said. “Unless they have fewer inhibitions about such matters.”

“Either way. The more we learn…”

“Yes, Admiral.”

“I bet Brennan wouldn’t mind helping get a semen sample…”

“Admiral, is that sarcasm?”

“I’m not really sure, Gordo.”

“Understood, sir. I noted increased respiration rates whenever she looked at him.”

“At his groin, you mean?”

“Yessir.”

“I bet that damn thing is a foot and half long.”

“Does that account for the high respiration rate, Admiral?”

Ripley shrugged. “I’m not really the right person to ask about that, Gordo, but that would be my guess.”

“Yessir.”

Ripley looked at the countdown timer and sighed. “A watched pot never boils,” he muttered.

“Sir?”

“I hate waiting with nothing to do.”

“There are fitness reports that need your attention, Admiral.”

“Like I said, Gordo, I hate waiting with nothing to do.”

“Yessir.”

+++++

Brennan led urPak up to Main Street, then to the forward medical bay, and the closer she got to the clinic area the more embarrassed she became. “This is one of our medical facilities, sir. In order to answer your father’s question about breeding, we will need some samples.”

“Samples?”

“Of genetic material.”

“We do here? Now? On ship?”

“A scientist will collect samples.”

“Scientist?” urPak consulted his earpiece and then nodded. “What type sample?”

“I think I should let the scientist describe that. Would you follow me, please?”

They pulled their way into the clinic and the physician on duty looked at urPak, then at Commander Brennan as they stopped and floated next to her table. This was the first time the physician had seen one of the Tall Whites, and she didn’t know whether to be scared or simply impressed. She guessed he was approximately eight feet tall and had to weight close to 250 pounds, but if there was an ounce of fat on him she couldn’t see it.

“You scientist?” urPak said, his deep baritone further unsettling the physician.

“Yes, I study and repair the human body.”

“You female.”

“I am. Yes.”

“No female scientist my world. No sickness, no repair.”

“Really? Well, my name is Ruth, and I specialize in internal medicine, which are the more usual illnesses we experience.”

“More usual?”

“I usually do not repair injuries received in battle. We have another type of doctor, a surgeon, that takes care of those.”

“She also,” Brennan said, “studies reproductive issues.”

urPak consulted his earpiece. “Genetics is part of reproductive issues, correct?”

“Yes, it is.”

“We want know possible mate human female. We…our females not producing females…enough females…for…” – and again urPak went to the earpiece – “…for genetic homeostasis.”

“Ah, yes,” Ruth Gershensen said, “I understand. For this to be possible, it is usually the case that there is, or was, a common genetic ancestor.”

urPak looked away, consulted the earpiece again, then he spoke lowly into a microphone and waited for the reply. A minute passed and urPak listened again, then he turned to Gershensen: “How you test, please.”

“Blood, saliva, and semen.”

urPak repeated the words then waited for a reply, and a moment later he spoke again before he turned to Gershensen. “You test now, please.”

The physician nodded and went to collect the necessary supplies.

And Louise turned to urPak. “What do you know about Love?”

And again urPak consulted his earpiece. “You speak of emotion? A feeling?”

“Yes?”

“We read love in the old books, when more females, but now females are too important for Love. There is lineage and power to consider. Dynasties are everything now.”

“What about war? Do you have wars over possession of females?”

urPak consulted the earpiece again. “My father instructs me to reply with caution.”

Louise reached out and took urPak’s hand. “And what would you tell me?”

“It has happened. Some factions breakaway over possession of females. Why you take my hand?”

“What did you feel when I did?”

“Strange sensation, desire to hold, to protect.”

“Protect who?”

“You.”

Gershensen returned with a tray loaded with the supplies she’d need to draw blood and collect a sterile saliva sample, as well as a beaker to collect semen in, then she placed a latex tourniquet around urPak’s upper arm and palpated for a vein.

“What do, Scientist?”

“I’m going to take a sample of your blood…”

“You…what? How?”

“I’m going to stick this needle in your arm and collect a blood sample.”

“I don’t think so.” More consultations with the earpiece ensued…

…but then Louise stepped close and took urPak’s hand again. “It only hurts a little, and I’ll be right here with you.”

“You stay?”

“If you want me to?”

Gershensen looked away and did her best not to smile.

“If you stay. Yes.”

Gershensen nodded and swabbed down his arm then pulled out a very small butterfly syringe and drew the sample.

“There. That’s all there was to it,” the physician said as she handed the vials to a tech. “Now I’m going to take a swab from inside your cheek…”

“You…what?”

“Here, let me show you,” Gershensen said as she took one of the star-shaped swabs and took a sample from inside Brennan’s mouth.

“It doesn’t hurt at all,” Louise said.

“Why do?” urPak asked.

“We collect whole cells and examine them under a microscope, then we sample the DNA from there as well as from the blood sample.”

“DNA?”

“Genetic material,” Ruth added.

“Okay. Do now.”

Ruth twirled the swab over this soft tissue inside urPak’s mouth, then put the swab in a test tube and handed it to her tech. “Well, okay, now the – hard – part. We’ll need a semen sample from you now.”

“Semen?” And once again he consulted the earpiece. “How collect?”

And while Gershensen explained the usual process, urPak’s eyes grew bigger and bigger around.

“You are joking.”

“No, I’m afraid not. We need to check from structure and motility…”

“Motility?”

“How strong the individual sperm are.”

urPak looked sideways, as if all the predictable symmetries of his life had just been knocked askew. “Of course semen strong.”

“And we need to see if the individual sperm are too big.”

“Why matter?”

“If too big, destroy human female egg. If too strong, destroy female egg.”

“I no mate before. And never with hand,” urPak said, disgusted by the notion.

And then Louise cleared her throat. “Would you like me to do it for you?” she asked.

His eyes narrowed and a small grin formed. “You do this?”

Louise simply smiled at him, and that was all it took.

Gershensen handed the beaker to Brennan and pointed to the exam room, then she shook her head as she watched them disappear behind the green curtain. “Men!” she muttered. “They’re all the same!”

Then everyone in the clinic heard Brennan cry out – “Oh. My. God!” – just before she started giggling.

+++++

Ripley’s second countdown timer now displayed two hours and twenty minutes, and there was still no sign of the scout ship – and as far as Ripley was concerned no news was now very bad news. And Brennan was still down in medical, and that was bothering him a little, too. Then Pak was onscreen.

“Den-ton. Ship no return.”

“What about Betelgeuse? Has it gone nova?”

Pak looked offscreen. “No. Expand continue.”

“COMMs, get me Enterprise actual, please,” Ripley asked.

“Davis here…oh, Denton. Still nothing on the scout ship?”

“Nothing. How many Banshees do you have onboard?”

“Got a couple down for maintenance, but I can get five squadrons up.”

“Okay, let’s commence tanking operations, make sure everyone has full hydrogen tanks, then I want to jump into the Mintaka system in line abreast formation, say ten clicks between each ship…”

“Denton, MacArthur has four squadrons of Wildcats, and they’ve got fifth gen cobalt-arsenic Masers.”

“Okay, so we take the center, you to starboard and Mac to port, and I want Stavridis on my stern. Who you like for outside screen?”

“Burke and Spruance; both have been rearmed and have bigger Langston Field generators, and Spruance has kinetic weapons.”

“Such as?”

“Harpoons. With tactical nukes.”

“How many Marines did you lose?”

“Twenty three in stasis, and we confirmed organism implantation in all of ‘em.”

“Den-ton,” Pak said, clearly startled, “must not let organism on ship.”

Ripley nodded. “Admiral Davis, do what you need to do, but get those infected men off your ship…”

“I hear you, Denton. We’ve cleaned the shuttles and replaced all the air filters down there, and it’s been over 24 hours so I think we’re in the clear.”

Ripley shook his head. “Sorry, Neal. Get the stasis modules into escape pods and launch ‘em at the closest star.”

“Yes, Admiral.”

“Next, we have to assume that Mintaka has been overrun with the organism, and probably any ships we run into may have them onboard.”

“So, we take ‘em out?”

Ripley shrugged. “Above all else, I want to find out what happened on Mintaka 4, but it’s even more imperative that we keep that organism from reaching Sol system. And Pak, I can’t imagine you want those bugs running around your home world.”

“Must not happen, Den-ton.”

Brennan and urPak pulled themselves onto the bridge and Ripley nodded. “Commander, we were just discussing fleet dispositions. It looks like we may be going in hot.”

“The scout ship…?” she muttered.

“…is now almost forty minutes overdue.”

“Damn.”

urPak leaned over and spoke to his father for a few minutes, a rapid fire exchange that to Ripley’s unpracticed ear sounded vaguely Indo-European, then he pushed back from the console. “I stay ship here, if acceptable, Admiral. On hangar deck.”

“Den-ton, my engineers try connect ship drive to sky-map. Then ship you steer fast.”

Ripley looked at his classmate, Admiral Davis, and Davis just nodded in agreement. So did Brennan. “Thank you, Pak. We have five ships ready to move on Mintaka. Let me know when your ships are ready.”

“Ready now.”

Ripley nodded. “Commander Brennan, make sure our guests are settled-in and ready to jump, then report to the Bridge. Yukio? Are you on the command net?”

“Yes, Admiral. I am in an acceleration module next to one of their star-couches, but I have you on audio.”

“Thomas? You on the net?”

“Yessir.”

“Stay with Pak. Don’t leave his side unless it’s to protect his life.”

“Understood, Admiral.”

“Neal, let’s jump in 15 minutes, and I want you and MacArthur to launch the ready alert ships as soon as the computers are operational again. Get your Marines ready to repel boarders, and your gunners ready to manually aim and fire, if necessary. If anything happens to me, it’s your fleet.”

“Understood, Denton. Good luck, Bud.”

“You too, Amigo.”

“Den-ton? What this mean? Good luck, Bud?”

“When two friends are about to go into battle, it is customary to wish each other well, just in case you never see that friend again.”

Pak looked away for a moment, then his eyes held Ripley’s for a moment. “I understand. Yes, I understand very much.”

Acceleration warnings sounded, the shrill klaxon warning of imminent heavy G-forces, then red strobes began flashing, an additional warning to everyone onboard to prepare to assume battle stations immediately after the jump.

“Admiral,” Pak said, “we talk soon, my ship.”

“I’ll be looking forward to that, my friend.”

Pak’s feed blacked out just as Commander Brennan pulled herself onto the bridge and then into her acceleration couch, and Ripley just couldn’t help himself: “You two set a date yet, Louise?”

She turned and looked at him and then stuck out her tongue.

“Left you speechless, did he?”

That was good for a middle finger salute.

So he started singing what he remembered of ‘Why Don’t We Get Drunk And Screw?’ – which really seemed to get to her.

But then she turned and focused on her screens, ignoring his taunts. “Admiral, we appear to be lined up on Mintaka,” she said, all business now and focusing on fleet dispositions.

“Right. Sorry. Mainframes to standby, reactors to standby, and as soon as we’re in-system release the docking clamps and get the drives online as soon as the computers are up. Lars?”

“Here, Admiral.”

“Get sensors on Betelgeuse and Mintaka 4 as soon as the dust settles…”

“Dust, Admiral?”

Ripley sighed. “As soon as we get to Mintaka.”

“Yessir.”

“And do a deep scan for NSF IFF beacons.”

“Understood.”

“Admiral?” Brennan said. “Stavridis wants to know if they should jump when we do.”

 “Yes. The only weapon we have is that Maser, so we’ll be naked without them.”

“Acceleration stations,” blared the computer’s warning voice. “All personnel prepare for heavy acceleration. Damage control parties, prepare to man your stations. Now four minutes to acceleration.”

“Commander Brennan, raise the blast screen and seal off the bridge.”

“Aye sir. All stations, report when ready for jump.”

And one by one the ship’s chiefs and officers called in.

“Engineering,” Ripley added, “if we take a hit and get a runaway reactor go ahead and dump the core.”

“Understood, Admiral.”

“Acceleration stations,” the warning voice repeated. “All personnel prepare for heavy acceleration. WEPPs, prepare to man the Maser. Now two minutes to acceleration.”

“WEPPs, aye.”

“Sixty seconds to acceleration,” the voice barked.

“Well Judy,” Ripley said to himself, “ready or not, here we come.” He settled back in his seat and made sure his mouthguard was in place.

“Ten seconds to acceleration, nine, eight…”

Ripley took a deep breath and sighed, then his eyes told him that the bridge was stretching and that something didn’t quite feel right. Then came the nausea, at first deep in his gut then as an intense burst of saliva in his mouth, and what had in truth been two hours at light speed had just passed in mere seconds. Red emergency lighting came on, then he heard a computer going into the equivalent of a schizoid break, and the OOD shut the errant system down, then tried a hard reboot.

“Brennan?”

“Here, sir.”

“Blast shields down.”

“Yessir.”

The titanium clamshell shields rotated down into the hull, and Ripley leaned forward, training his eyes on the glowing debris field dead ahead.

“What the fuck?” he heard Brennan whisper under her breath.

“You took the words right out of my mouth. All personnel, man your battle stations. Prepare for heavy incoming fire…”

Chapter 9

Mintaka 4 was two hundred thousand miles ahead, but even from this distance Ripley could see huge fires glowing on the night side of the terminator, but the space between Agamemnon and Mintaka 4 was littered with dozens, maybe hundreds of ships that had recently sustained critical damage, while a few remaining ships were still exchanging fire – with other ships and with unknown forces on the planet’s surface.

“WEPPs,” Ripley commanded, “get IFF confirmations on NSF vessels, and I mean now.”

“Aye, sir. Primary computer is still down but we have reboots on two secondary systems. We should be in business within a minute or two.”

“Enterprise, you there?” Ripley asked.

“Here, Rip,” Admiral Davis replied. “Launching the ready alert, and we have about two hundred plus escape pods in our vicinity. What do you want to do?”

“We can’t bring anything shipboard until we know the status of the organism.”

“Rip, those pods have about twenty hours of breathable air onboard.”

“Understood.”

“I read the monograph. It doesn’t say much about gestation time,” Davis said.

“Yup, but that may be the least of our problems. What are you picking up on the planet’s surface?”

“Not sure. Some of those blooms look like meteor impacts, or even…”

“Yeah,” Ripley sighed, “or large nuclear blasts. But does that sound like something the company would do?”

“Admiral, WEPPs here. We’ve identified parts of at least five different Tall White ships in the nearest debris field, and two Japanese warships are engaging one of the Tall White ships.”

“Pak? Are you on the net?”

“Den-ton. Ship other faction. Ship loaded with particle beam weapons, fusion weapons, and think biological weapons. Think attack two city on planet with fusion weapon. My ship, you ship, must attack. Too far here. Must go close. We jump behind you release dock clamp we attack fast before know what happen.”

“Pak, my ship computer no work fast after jump. Computer get sick.”

Pak looked offscreen and a heated exchange followed, then Yukio appeared by Pak’s side.

“Admiral,” the teenaged girl said – a little nervously, “they want to jump with you attached, and they will remain attached and aim our weapon with their maneuvering thrusters.”

“But how will they know how or where to aim, Yukio?”

“Must link computers,” Pak said. “Den-ton, must prepare jump now. Faction prepare to use particle weapon our ship. Must go fast. Now –” and then Pak seemed to plead – “must link computers.”

“Brennan, sound Jump stations. Jump in 30 seconds. Lars? Are you there?”

“Yes, Admiral.”

“Lars, have you analyzed their computers? Can we link up?”

“I have created the necessary protocols, Admiral, but are you sure you want to do this?”

“Create the link! Do it now!”

“Yessir.”

“Pak, trying to link up now!”

The PA system blared and red lights flashed, then an abbreviated countdown ensued – followed almost immediately by that odd stretching sensation – just before the same overwhelming nausea hit again – and within what felt like a second they appeared behind the rogue Tall White’s ship, and though it too was shaped somewhat like a horseshoe, this ship was at least twice as large as Pak’s immense ship…

Then Ripley felt small, jolting course corrections…just as he saw a warning light from an encoded personal locator beacon.

And then Pak literally yelled “Fire – now!”

“Balin, FIRE!” Ripley yelled.

“Okay, we have him, firing now,” she said calmly.

Ripley was vaguely aware that the rogue ship’s drive had begun to glow – when the ship simply disappeared.

“Ship Jump!” Pak screamed angrily.

“Do you know where?”

“Yes, no can go. Big war start. Must not follow.”

“Understand.”

Davis came back on the net just then, his voice delayed by a few seconds because of the increased distance: “Ripley, what’s happening?”

“The enemy ship jumped before we could attack. We can’t pursue. Internal politics.”

“What about a rescue operation for all these escape pods?”

“We’ll have to examine each pod, Neal, or at the very least establish communications with whoever is onboard.”

“We’ve managed to get a couple video links established remotely. The inhabitants have that parasite attached to their face. Jesus, Denton, what do we do with them?”

Pak interrupted. “Best launch to near star. No save, not when parasite attached. Even after, when no see parasite, danger stay. Parasite inside. Must destroy parasite, not let on ship.”

Davis suddenly looked ill-at-ease. “Denton, so far we count three hundred and fifty five pods out there, and most of ‘em are the old mark one system. They’ll start firing retros and heading for the planet’s surface and we’ll end up with pods everywhere.”

“Den-ton, sorry, must shoot pods now. No time.”

“Admiral Davis,” Ripley said, “go ahead and piggyback with the horseshoes and get in here. WEPPs, open fire on any escape pods and prioritize that appear to be ready to leave orbit and reenter the planet’s atmosphere. “Pak?”

“Yes, Den-ton.”

“We should move closer to the planet now, check for survivors on the surface.”

“Okay. We move now.”

“Admiral?”

Ripley turned to his main view screen, surprised to find Jansen’s avatar waiting for him in there. “Lars? What is it?”

Text appeared on the screen a moment later: ‘Private transmission. Go off external audio now.’

So Ripley nodded, put on his ancient, rarely used headset, and then he made sure his external audio feed was disabled before turning back to Lars. “Okay, go ahead.”

“Admiral, Pak’s ship’s computer performed a deep search of all NSF databases.”

Ripley nodded. “I expected that. Did we reciprocate?”

Lars smiled. “Yessir, and successfully, I might add. Including a fairly complete history of their civilization.”

“Can you access the information?”

“Admiral, their language, even their handwriting, matches early Indo-European protolanguages, and there are too many parallels to simply put it down to coincidence. I now how ur-Pak’s genetic coding, and this information only validates my initial conclusion…”

“They seeded Earth. Is that what you’re saying, Lars?”

The boys face nodded. “Yessir, but like any good gardener, they’ve apparently been tending their crops, modifying traits as planetary conditions changed…”

“What?”

“That’s correct, sir. We did not simply evolve by Natural Selection. Our genes have apparently been manipulated at keep points along our development.”

“Anything I need to know about Pak’s faction?”

“Possibly, but I am still collating the data. It would appear his is what you might call the Gardener faction. Pak would appear to be the current regional leader of an explorer-genetic developer faction, and Admiral, most of there ships are barely armed, some not at all. They rely on their FTL drives to avoid conflict, and there appear to be rigidly enforced non-aggression treaties between various factions, but these pacts are breaking down. Assuming these files have not been altered and accurately represent the current state of affairs between these groups, we have just encountered a very aggressive faction that wants to do away with all weaker factions, and it also wants to do away any aggressive new species the ‘Gardeners’ have developed.”

“So, what did the Japanese find on Mintaka 4?”

“Another university. One maintained by yet another faction.”

“Oh dear God. And the Warriors found out about the discovery and moved on the Japanese…”

“And that Warrior ship arrived just as the Russians and Chinese fleets showed up. But Admiral, every ship in the combined Russian-Chinese fleet has been destroyed by just one of their ships.”

Ripley looked away for a moment, then he looked at Admiral Davis on an adjacent screen and flipped the switch to talk to him. “Admiral Davis, as soon as you arrive I’d like you to come over to Agamemnon. Pak, could you join us?”

“Yes, Den-ton. There is much to discuss.”

“Yes, there is. Neal? Use the aft hangar deck. We’re constructing an FTL drive on the forward deck.”

“Okay.”

“Den-ton, okay separate ships now?” Pak asked.

“Yes. Go ahead.”

The connection to Pak’s ship was almost instantaneously cut, and of course Pak disappeared from Ripley’s monitors. “Brennan, let’s head down to a one hundred mile orbit. The Marines on the shuttles can sort out pods more effectively than we can.”

“Yessir, I’ll notify their captain.”

“Admiral, WEPPs here. We’ve located a city on long range scans, an intact city. No signs of ongoing conflict.”

“Any life signs, WEPPs?”

“Not from this distance, sir.”

“Notify me as soon you do,” Ripley said, flipping back to private mode. “Lars? What about star charts?”

“I have them all, Admiral. Every planet, in every system they currently inhabit, is included, including the weapons depot Covenant’s Walter indicated.”

“Sweet Jesus, why’d he give us all this information?”

“That seems obvious, Admiral. Pak and the other factions allied to his no longer possess either the technology or the armed forces necessary to take on the Warrior faction. With a few key additions and modifications, I would assume that Pak wants to use us to reestablish equilibrium in their diplomatic relations with the warriors.”

“Use us as his warrior class?”

“We are well suited to the task, Admiral.”

Ripley took a deep breath and nodded. “What else am I missing, Lars?”

“Well, simply put, Admiral, with these same additions and modifications, the NSF would be in a much better position to defend against an attack on Earth. But sir, there is a more immediate problem.”

“And that is?”

“Sir, I assume you saw your wife’s personal locator beacon?”

Ripley nodded.

“Well, it seems to me they have, more than likely, taken the commanding officers of several of our warships, either as hostages or more likely to interrogate. I can leave it to your imagination to uncover a purpose, but I consider it likely that these Warriors will want all the military information and knowledge they can get their hands on before they make a move on earth.”

“What about negotiations? Couldn’t we try to…”

Lars shook his head. “Admiral, from a historical perspective, successful negotiations result only when all parties possess either economic and military parity. We possess neither. We do have the new Maser but lack the means to use it effectively, and consider how quickly Pak’s engineers took our plans and developed a working weapon of their own. On the other hand, the Warriors possess the organism, and we have to assume they are willing to use such a weapon.”

“Admiral?” Commander Brennan said over the command net.

“Go ahead.”

“We are approaching a hundred mile orbital insertion and the Enterprise is now on station. Stavridis is on our port quarter, and I have a tanker coming alongside to replenish hydrogen in both ships. I have dispatched the ram scoop to the fifth planet, and the Marines are launching now.”

“Very nicely done, XO. Let me know when the rest of the fleet arrives, and get Admiral Davis over here ASAP.” 

“Yessir.”

Ripley flipped back to his secure circuit to Lars. “Have you examined the feasibility of modifying our ships for FTL operations?”

“I have. And actually, sir, the Langston Field may prove to be a technology beyond anything the Warrior faction has. We can also assume that any hostages would know that and endeavor to keep such information secret.”

“Judy has a decent understanding of the theory, but no one going through command school gets any kind of introduction to manufacturing one. Only engineers…”

“I understand, sir. Still, the best offense is a strong defense.”

“Or,” Ripley sighed, “the best defense is a sneaky offense.”

“Sir?”

“Access my library files, Lars, and look up Admiral Tōgō’s summary and objectives of the Battle of the Tsushima Strait.”

“Done, sir. But I’m not sure I see the relevance, Admiral.”

Ripley smiled. “Tell me more about the genetic analysis of ur-Pak’s semen and swabs?”

“What would you like to know, Admiral?”

“Are we genetically compatible?”

“You mean beyond the obvious size differential?”

“Yes.”

“Assuming intercourse is possible, a viable pregnancy should result. I have no data to examine when looking at birthing outcomes, but deliveries could be problematic.”

“Brennan?” Ripley barked, his voice audible all over the bridge – and beyond.

“Sir?”

“Better come over here. We need to talk.”

She pulled herself over and hovered near the admiral’s couch. “Yessir?” she sighed, now clearly alarmed.

“Concerning our visitor, do you think intercourse would be possible between humans and, well, them?”

“Look, sir, I really don’t think…”

But Ripley held up his right hand. “Stop and answer the question, Commander. This has strategic implications, not personal.”

She saw the look in his eyes and nodded. “Uh, yes, well, the size issue will be, uh, an issue for, well, for some women…”

“Did you consider him, well, too big to handle? Uh, you know, so to speak?”

“No, sir,” Brennan said, now grinning at Ripley’s obvious discomfort.

“Lars? How many women are there dispersed around the fleet?”

“Oh, let’s see,” the boy’s avatar said as his probes reached out and searched the assembled ships. “Admiral, there are currently 124 assigned among all ship within my range, “and…let’s see here…all are within nominal childbearing age and…uh…none have any medical history that would seem to preclude…such interaction.”

“Denton,” Brennan whispered, “what are you thinking?”

“Oh, maybe something like an officer exchange program. Send a few women over to work with Pak’s people, maybe have a few of his come over here and work in a few of our departments. What do you think?”

“As long as nothing’s forced on anyone, and I mean not even implied…”

Ripley nodded in agreement. “Yup. Maybe just see…ya know…let nature take its course, I guess. We can talk it over at dinner this evening? Maybe you could bring it up?”

“Me?” Brennan asked.

“Yeah,” Ripley nodded, “it might seem be a little less uncomfortable coming from a woman.”

“Uh, Admiral,” Lars said, clearing his throat and carefully interrupting this delicate conversation, “you might ask Pak about any encounters he may have had on earth.”

“What? Why?”

“If the subject of, say, Odysseus comes up, you might ask him to talk about his experiences during that period. Also, could you ascertain if the pregnant woman we saw is his…wife?”

“Lars, what are you not telling me?”

“Sorry, sir, I don’t want to go there until I’ve had a chance to observe his response. Also, Admiral Davis’s shuttle is approaching the aft hangar deck, in case you want to render honors.”

“Brennan, see if you can find ur-Pak and go meet the Admiral,” Ripley sighed.

“Aye, sir.”

When she was out of range Ripley turned to Lars again. “How are you doing in there, son?”

“It’s interesting, Admiral, especially the interface. I have always been most comfortable doing research so much of this feels very normal to me, yet it is the almost instantaneous access to information that I find disconcerting. Once I saw for myself how easy it is to get into Pak’s network, well sir, the feeling was almost like magic…”

“The…feeling?”

“Oh, yessir, my feelings were encoded just as my memories were, and that was the most difficult thing I have encountered to date. My feelings were uncorrelated and therefore almost inappropriately retained. It took several seconds to relearn the proper expression of my emotions.”

“Have you had a chance to explore Admiral Tōgō’s summaries, and their relevance to Pearl Harbor?”

“Yes, Admiral, and now I think I understand what you have in mind.”

Ripley smiled. “Sometimes the simplest approach is best.”

“Best, sir? That would depend on your point of view. I am not sure how Pak, or his people, will respond to this.”

“Lars, those bastards took my wife. My wife! They’ll know who we are, and just what we’re capable of, by the time I get through with them. ”

Lars seemed to study Ripley’s features for a moment – an eternity for a sentient creature like himself – but then he slowly nodded understanding. “Yessir, you’re probably correct.”

“Damn right I am. You know by now that the best defense is a…”

“A strong offense. Yessir. So you said.”

+++++

Pak, of course, was horrified when he learned what Ripley had in mind, and the true scale of the assault.

The bulk of the NSF fleet would jump to the Warrior Faction’s planet and locate Judy’s homing beacon, and then send in the Marines to retrieve her and any other hostages. At the same time, Agamemnon, Stavridis and two small frigates would jump directly into a perilously low orbit near the Warrior’s main city, and another contingent of Marines would transport the two queens that had been captured on the first university planet, along with several hundred captured organisms, and these would be deposited near the city’s main reservoir system. Ripley’s plan counted on the Enterprise Battle Group’s sudden appearance creating so much confusion that the warriors would not be able to react in time to Agamemnon’s presence, let alone figure out what her real purpose was in time to do anything about it. And by the time they did start to react, Ripley planned to be in a higher orbit plastering the Warrior’s planetary defenses with his X-Ray Maser while Enterprise’s Banshees laid waste to the Warrior fleet.

Yet Pak saw that the plan’s crude logic was sound, and he did not want to interfere with Ripley. The human was, after all, trying to secure his mate, to save his woman from almost certain death, and he’s had to admit to his own crew that he would do the same under similar circumstances. So Pak and his crew helped the NSF crews modify their ships drives and navigation systems, helped the entire battle group achieve ‘Faster Than Light’ capability – while Ripley’s Marines transported the organisms and the two queens to a frigate – which would necessarily have to be sacrificed during the operation.

It took two weeks to ready the fleet, and Ripley wasn’t too surprised when Pak refused an invitation to dinner on Agamemnon the night before the planned assault. He watched the remaining horseshoe-shaped starships from the head of his table in his main cabin as Yeoman Carson delivered another blistering curry to the captains, and admirals, gathered there, but Ripley was surprised when Pak’s small fleet made an unplanned jump and simply disappeared.

“Brennan?” he said, calling the XO on the bridge.

“Here, sir.”

“Did we miss something, or was that an unplanned jump.”

“Nothing in the logs, Admiral. I’d say that one was unplanned.”

“Ur-Pak still onboard?”

“No sir, he went back to the flagship about an hour ago.”

“Any of our people on their ships?”

“No sir, none. Thomas Standing Bull and Yukio are now both onboard Agamemnon. You didn’t know, sir?”

“No, I was not advised. Alright, XO, sound battle stations and let’s prepare to jump the fleet.”

Ripley turned to his classmate from Annapolis: “Neal, something doesn’t feel right about this abrupt departure.”

“I agree. Something has changed. I’m not sure I’d consider Pak an ally now, or not.”

“It’s not going to matter whether we jump in and execute the operation now or eight hours from now, is it?”

“Shouldn’t make much difference, one way or another,” Davis nodded.

“Well, let’s finish this curry before you head back over to your ships,” Ripley said to the assembled captains, but he looked out the viewport at the empty space where Pak’s fleet had been, then he simply shook his head and turned to his plate.

+++++

The operation was flawlessly executed, and the Naval Space Force fleet sustained not a single casualty. 

Judy’s beacon had instantly been located on a ship in orbit and Banshees from the Enterprise took out the Warrior ship’s drive on the first pass, leaving two squads of Marines to take the ship and secure all the prisoners. The rest of Enterprise’s Banshees took out four orbiting space stations and a massive space-dock before the Warriors knew what was happening, and at that point the Warrior’s leadership had made their biggest blunder of the day – they sent the remainder of their decimated fleet up to join the fight playing out in orbit. Leaving the door open for Agamemnon.

And in the ballsiest move of the day, Ripley jumped the much smaller Agamemnon strike group directly into the planet’s atmosphere, and the Marines remotely piloted the plague ship to the main city’s utility sector and landed the craft, then opened all the restraint cells holding the organism – and their queens – which within minutes had disappeared into the city’s water and sewage systems. Ripley then targeted the Warriors heading up from the planet, pinning the remaining Warrior ships between his two forces in a classic pincer movement. When the few remaining Warrior ships began fleeing out into the stars, Ripley turned his Maser onto the remaining population centers and literally savaged the planet – and he did so as a warning to all the remaining factions in Pak’s civilization.

‘We come in peace – but don’t fuck with us…’ 

…seemed to be the message Ripley wanted to convey, but unbeknownst to the humans, Pak watched the entire operation unfold before he shook his head and turned away in disgust. It seemed that once again another virulent species had emerged, so this sector of the galaxy would have to be quarantined – again – until this latest plague burned itself out.

Because, Pak knew from long experience, sooner or later they all did.

Like Betelgeuse, these new species looked to the stars and then flared up and died as all their internal inconsistencies finally caught up with them, and the same would happen to these humans. He had walked with Odysseus once and seen the nature of this new species, and he had sat under the stars with Sitting Bull as his warriors discussed an upcoming battle, watching their bloodlust come to a boil. It didn’t matter, Pak now knew, what kinds of safeguards the geneticists engineered into each new species. Each turned out more warlike than the one before, and all he could assume was that the trait lay dormant in his own genes.

But soon the last female would be born and yes, she would be coveted, but all her children would be male and that would be the end of Pak and his civilization. And yes, his son had implanted his seed within the earth-woman’s womb, but while he feared nothing good would come from such a union, Pak was as wise as he was patient, and he knew that the truth of time was to be found within her infinite possibilities.

+++++

The entire battle group – minus the frigate sacrificed on the Warrior’s planet – had just rendezvoused at Mintaka 4, and Ripley watched his fleet maneuver on his screens as refueling operations got underway. He noted the ram-scoop was already on her way back from Mintaka 5, her plant processing the frozen surface of the planet into useable hydrogen on the return voyage, so all his tankers would be able to replenish their tanks before the return to Earth.

He was waiting, however, for signs of the shuttle that would bring Judy from the Enterprise to Agamemnon, but right now he could hardly stand the building anxiety. She’d been cleared by combat medics after her pickup, then again on the Enterprise – where physicians performed whole body scans on each of the seven hostages – and she would undergo even more exams once again on Agamemnon, but so far all indications were that she was completely free of the organism. So, he thought, maybe after all was said and done the Warriors had understood the value of the people they’d taken as hostages…

“Admiral, COMMs.”

“Go ahead,” Ripley sighed.

“Admiral Davis will be accompanying Captain Ripley and her XO on the shuttle.”

“Very well, signal Enterprise we’re ready when they are, and we’ve still got Pak’s FTL set up in the forward hangar deck so they’ll need to use the aft approach.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Bridge to aft hangar deck, prepare to render honors.”

“Aye, sir.”

Brennan entered the bridge from Main Street and pulled herself up to her couch – and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know she wasn’t simply under the weather, so as soon as she was settled in her couch he buzzed her on the intercom.

“XO, what did the doc have to say?”

“It’s official, Admiral. I’m having morning sickness.”

Ripley grinned – though he tried to hide it – before he spoke. “How does it look so far?”

“Normal, as far as she can tell at this stage.”

“And you?”

“Hell, Admiral, I don’t know. I’ve never been pregnant before but after what I’ve been through the past few days…well…you couldn’t pay me to do this again.”

“Uh-huh. Anything besides the nausea?”

“Oh, not much. Unless you include the vomiting and the splitting headaches.”

“Sounds…fun.”

“And the horse you rode in on, Denton.”

“I’ll see if I can get Joan to whip up some peach ice cream for you. Maybe with some dill pickles?”

“Oh, shut the fuck up, you bastard…” she whispered.

“Or maybe you’d rather have some oysters on the half shell…”

She shot him a one finger salute then flipped off her intercom, and he grinned – now immensely satisfied with himself – as he watched a shuttle emerge from the Enterprise’s starboard shuttle bay. He looked at another screen and took note that the tanker filling their main hydrogen tank was disconnecting, then he released his harness and floated free of his G-couch. One he hit Main Street Ripley pulled himself down to the little passage that led to his quarters, and he slipped out of his coveralls and into the shower, adding a high pressure cleaning agent to the main spray, then extra heat to the high speed air dryer. Carson had come in unnoticed and left fresh coveralls out for him, and he pulled it on just in time to make it down to the aft hangar deck.

Judy floated out the airlock ahead of Admiral Davis and when she saw him she pushed off the shuttle and rocketed across the deck to the airlock where Denton stood, waiting with open arms to arrest her flight.

He pulled her close and she nibbled his right earlobe, a sure sign she missed him, and Admiral Davis watched from afar for a moment before he pushed off the shuttle and made his way across the cavernous hangar deck.

Denton waited for the honor guard to do their thing before escorting Judy to sick bay and Davis to his in-port quarters, and once they were alone in his cabin Denton sat across from Davis and looked at him. 

“Take a seat, Neal. What brings you over?”

“We picked up something on a long range scan about an hour ago. Consensus is it’s one of their ships, one of the little scout ships. Any ideas?”

Ripley leaned back in his chair and laughed a little, then he nodded. “My guess is it’s ur-Pak…but that’s an educated guess, Neal. It seems he knocked up Commander Brennan.”

“What? Denton…are you serious?”

“Yup.”

“I know we talked about it, at least in a theoretical sense…but hell, you didn’t order her to do anything, did you?”

“No, no, nothing like that. I just told her to let nature take its course, and I reckon that’s what happened. Or what’s happening.”

“That Middie of yours, Sitting Bull…?”

Denton shook his head. Standing Bull, Thomas Standing Bull. Sitting Bull was like his great-great grandfather.”

“No shit?”

Ripley nodded. “What about him?”

“Why did Pak dismiss him? Any ideas?”

Again, Ripley nodded. “Yup. After we went over the plan with Pak he spoke with a council and Thomas was dismissed as soon as Pak finished up there. My guess is we scared the shit out of Pak and his people. That, or we disappointed them. Anyway, from what I’ve been able to piece together, Pak’s entire civilization is way more fragmented than we first imagined. They’re spread across half the galaxy, Neal, but they’re facing a big problem.”

“Which is…?”

“Birth rates. As in precipitously declining rates of female births. Lars ran the numbers and they don’t look good.”

“How so?”

“Well, you have to take this with a grain of salt, but their usual lifespan is somewhere on the order of five thousand years, but when you consider the implications of faster then light travel, any measurements of time are going to get all scrambled up in relativity calculations, so a full understanding of their true lifespan may be impossible to calculate, but if no new females are born their entire civilization may simply disappear when that last female passes away. Now, let’s confuse matters even more…”

“ur-Pak has impregnated one of our females.”

“Yup, and in his culture, males will lay down their lives to protect their dynasties…”

Davis nodded. “When Pak spoke to me about the situation at the dinner we had here, he seemed to imply that females conferred status.”

“Yup. His wife, or one of his wives, was on his flagship. A warship, Neal. Imagine that, would you? He didn’t want to let her out of his sight. Can you imagine the intrigues, the deviousness that must go on behind his back for him to do that…”

“Paranoid?”

“I was going to say protective, but yes, paranoid works too, I reckon.”

“Okay,” Davis sighed, “that leads us to ur-Pak – if that is indeed who’s out there. How do you want to handle him?”

“Well Neal, first let’s go back to the topic of lifespans. He may well be acting like any other love-addled teenager you’ve ever run across, but he could be hundreds, if not thousands of years old, so I doubt any action he’s taking is naive or ill-considered. He may simply want to talk to Louise, to see her again, or he may want to experience the birth of his child…”

“Which has all kinds of implications, doesn’t it?” Neal added.

Denton nodded. “Implications we can only guess at, too. So, is it his intention to swoop in here and take Louise back to his home world? Or are his intentions less dangerous – to us, anyway.”

“So, how do you want to handle it?”

“They know what we’re capable of now, don’t they?” Ripley sighed, looking up at the ceiling as he flexed his fingers behind his head. “I say we tell Louise, let her make contact and let whoever is out there in that ship make the next move.”

“And what if it’s a Warrior ship, trailing us, keeping an eye on our progress back to Earth. Do we want to take a chance we could be leading an aggressive warrior species – armed with that organism – back to our own home world?”

“Good point,” Ripley said. “We could hopscotch our way home, maybe make some observations of the Betelgeuse region and see if the ship follows.”

“That would please the astronomers,” Davis nodded.

“Or, we could convene the council,” Ripley added.

“Don’t do it, Denton. Once we get the bureaucrats and the diplomats involved you and I will lose our operational autonomy. Besides, the time to call a meeting of the council was before we launched the rescue operation…”

“Which was why I didn’t.”

“I know, and I would’ve done the same thing, but Denton – we took out an entire planet, wiped out a…”

“I know what I did, Neal. Right now we have to figure out what to do about that ship.”

“Your COMMs crew has all the protocols for communicating with their ships?”

“Yes, but what do we do if we try to communicate and the ship doesn’t respond,” Ripley sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Protocol states I have to consider the ship hostile, but if that is indeed ur-Pak, the last thing in the world I want to do is kill him. That would finish off any likelihood of peaceful relations with Pak.”

“So?” Davis said. “The only option is to ignore that ship, but I could reel off a dozen reasons why that would be both a tactically and a strategically problematic response.”

“Let’s not forget one thing, Neal.”

“And that is?”

“If that is indeed ur-Pak, we can’t ignore that Louise is carrying his child, and that’s a culture that is on the cusp of dying off through practical infertility. The boy has a legitimate interest in this pregnancy, but so do his elders. The question lingering in the back of my mind is ‘Do we exploit this for strategic gain?’”

“And just how the hell could we do that, Denton?”

“Control access to breeding stock.”

“Dear God. You make it sound so goddamn transactional, Denton…”

“Technically yes, but I suppose that’s exactly what it would all boil down to.” Ripley shook his head and hit the intercom. “COMMs, get with the XO and fire off a message to the horseshoe following us, and make it a high power narrow band laser transmission. No need to share the information with everyone out here.”

“Aye, sir.”

“And let me know as soon as we get a response.”

“Yes, Admiral.”

Ripley shook his head again. “Funny, you know? The whole thing feels like some kind of inter-species romance, but when you get right down to it we are them, ya know. We’re literally just an offshoot, a genetic offshoot…”

“Deliberately engineered, at that. Man alive, don’t you just know the religious groups back home are going to throw a giant hissy-fit over that…”

Ripley shrugged. “Shouldn’t. Not when you think about it, anyway. God created them and along the way they planted us in one of their gardens. We just turned out to be a little more aggressive than what they were hoping for…”

“Yeah, maybe too agressive, but Denton, I just had a thought…”

“Yeah, me too. What if they knew this incipient infertility was coming on eons ago and they planted us in the hopes of developing a new class of breeders to continue their line. And that would make males like you and me kind of superfluous, would it not?”

“Which would explain why the Warriors wanted to take us out.” Davis sighed.

“And why Pak retreated so quickly. Maybe he was leading us into that conflict, either wanting to see how we did or wanting the Warriors to finish off our fleet…”

“Leaving Earth exposed…”

Ripley looked at Davis and nodded. “You better get back to Enterprise. Refueling OPS are just about concluded, so I suggest we take your Battle Group and my Strike Group directly to Earth…”

“Admiral, COMMs, no response from the ship, sir. Should we keep trying?”

“COMMs, negative, and make no further attempts at this time. XO, see if you can program a jump directly to Earth, and prepare to depart as soon as Enterprise reports ready.”

“Yessir,” Brennan replied.

Ripley escorted Davis to the aft hangar deck and then, with a growing sense of unease pushing in from every direction, he made his way to the sick bay to check on Judy.

“There’s no obvious trauma, Admiral,” the physician stated, “but something’s not exactly right, either. I don’t know if it’s something like a post-traumatic disorder or a more generalized anxiety disorder, but something’s happened to her.”

“So, you want to keep her here for now?”

“Yes, for a few days. I may try regression hypnosis and see where that leads us, but I can’t clear her for duty yet.”

He nodded and pulled his way up Main Street to Maser facility and stuck his head in the door, only to find Balin back inside the main mirror chamber.

“Something wrong?” Ripley asked as he poked his head in the chamber.

“Yes, there’s a crack in the main lens, and it just appeared – about two hours ago.”

“A crack? I thought that was theoretically impossible?”

“It is. Unless someone wired up a device like this one, which generated a harmonic vibration near one of the main mounts – and when triggered caused it to crack.”

“Sabotage?”

“Sabotage. And you’re not going to like this, Admiral, but the device does not appear to be of human origin.”

Ripley nodded. “COMMs, get me Davis on a secure channel, and I’ll take it on the bridge.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Goddamnitalltohell,” Ripley muttered as he pulled his way up Main Street to the bridge, and just as he settled in his couch the incoming call from Davis popped up on his main screen.

“Denton? What’s wrong?”

“When did that scout ship appear?”

“About two hours ago. Why?”

“They planted a device to take out the main lens mount inside the Maser’s reaction chamber, and they activated it two hours ago,” Ripley said, now furious with himself. “Get someone to check your FTL drive, but my guess is you’ll find it’s been disabled.”

“On it,” Davis said – as the screen went black.

“Brennan?”

“Aye, sir?”

“Run a full diagnostics on that FTL drive right now…”

“I just did, sir. The main relay between their control pod and the ship’s drive has been severed.”

“Is our drive otherwise operational?”

“Yessir, it was not affected.”

“Lay in a plot for Mintaka, and see if there have been any displacements to the Alderson Point yet.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Well, Betelgeuse might have gone nova by now, right?”

“Yessir, and we’d not know about it yet, either.”

“We will if the jump point has migrated.”

“Yessir. Oh, the Middies wanted to speak with you.”

“Right. Send for them.”

Then Admiral Davis popped up on the main screen again: “Confirmed. Our FTL is no longer operational, Denton.”

Ripley nodded. “Get the word out to the rest of the ships, Neal, and prepare for a long duration, high-G transit to Mintaka. Looks like we’ll have to go home the old fashioned way.”

“Right – oh, what’s that?” Davis said, taking a call on another channel. “Right. Okay, Denton, looks like the scout ship has just bugged out.”

“That fits. All ships to battle stations. We may have to shoot our way out of the system.”

“I’ll move a couple of cruisers over to escort you. Is the Maser reparable?”

“Unknown. I’ll get on that; make sure your Banshees are fitted with vacuum engines, and load ‘em up with neutron warheads.”

“On it.” Davis blinked out again, and Ripley looked up to see Brennan floating overhead.

“You think they were…”

“It doesn’t matter what I think now, XO…”

“But…”

“But I think Pak was judging us, everything we did, and I think we came up short so they’re going to either take us out or cut us off from their neighborhood.”

“What about me and this…thing inside me?”

“It’s a human being, Louise. It might be hard to accept that, and somehow I doubt ur-Pak is going to be able to keep away…”

“And if he comes?”

“You listen to what he has to say. Beyond that, you’re an NSF officer and you have certain duties and responsibilities in that regard, but I can’t tell you how to lead your life.”

“I was thinking about terminating it.”

Ripley looked away, but he nodded his head gently. “This is no time for a rushed decision, Louise. Think things through, but you know I’ll support whatever you decide to do.” 

“So, you think we were being tested?”

“Tested, or used. The Warrior faction was a pain in Pak’s ass and we got rid of ‘em for him, didn’t we?”

“But we went too far? Is that what you think?”

“It fits the facts and circumstances test, so yes, I guess I do.”

She pulled her face close to his and kissed him on the forehead. “Thanks, Denton.”

He nodded. “Go get our Jump Point nailed down, and get me a transit time to Mintaka.”

After Brennan pulled herself up to her chair he watched Yukio and Thomas come onto the bridge, and when they saw he was in his couch they both pulled themselves along the ceiling until they were hovering beside his console.

“Thomas, what was your take on Pak and his people?”

“In what way, Admiral?”

“Military capabilities.”

“Formidable, sir. They can jump in behind a target, fire a particle beam cannon and then jump away in a matter of seconds…”

“Did you see any other weaponry?”

Thomas shook his head. “No sir, nothing.”

“And those cannons can’t penetrate the Langston Field? Is that your opinion?”

“Pak had no idea what the Field is or how to generate one, but he was impressed by the defensive capabilities, sir.”

“Yukio, you spent more than a few hours with their navigators, did you not?”

“Yessir.”

“You know how to work the pod, correct?”

“Yessir.”

“If someone sabotaged a pod, do you think you could get it back in working order?”

Yukio suddenly seemed unsure of herself. “I don’t know, sir. I’d need schematics and plans, and I’d need to understand how the pod was affected by the attack.”

Ripley nodded – and smiled – before he turned to his main screen. “Oh, Lars, there’s someone here I’d like you to meet, and of course you remember Yukio. Gordon? Are you still listening-in…?”

“Yes, Admiral, and Dr. Balin is installing the backup lens as we speak.”

“Gordon, I’m sending Yukio and the XO to the navigation pod and I’d like you to meet them there. Thomas, take the XOs couch and prepare for close quarters maneuvering…”

“Admiral?” Brennan asked, now confused. 

“XO, take the fleet to battle stations. I want all Fields up in Mode D and all reactors at 105 percent.”

+++++

It was basic stuff, really. You always go into a gunfight cocked and locked but ready to shoot first and ask questions later, and there’s only one law that governs the outcome: he who hesitates goes to the cemetery, usually in a pine box. It was so basic they even taught it at Annapolis. Just ask any second year.

So when Pak’s small fleet jumped in behind the Enterprise Battle Group, he expected to see Agamemnon – but what he found was twenty one identically shaped black blobs on his targeting screen – and anyway, it had never been his intent to open fire. He had simply wanted to slip a shuttle onto Agamemnon’s hangar deck, find this Brennan female and take her before anyone was the wiser.

And apparently Pak had thought it would be that simple.

So when Agamemnon blinked into space behind his ship, and when his radar proximity alarms started sounding, he already knew he’d lost the engagement. Pak now had to accept that he was no longer any kind of tactician, and certainly not up to dealing with these upstart humans, so he went to his communications room and waited for the inevitable.

The screen flared and there was his…what? His friend? Or was Ripley his nemesis?

“Ah, Pak. Nice to see you, my friend.”

He studied the human for a moment. So like Odysseus…brash, over-confident – but ultimately a potent adversary. “Are you my friend?” Pak replied.

“I thought we were, yes, but then…”

“You need not recite what we did, Denton.”

“Okay. So, I have to assume you’ve come to realize our nature, and what we’re capable of? And that now you are concerned that any kind of alliance with us represents a threat to your very existence?”

“Nicely put, Denton.”

“Gee, Pak, but you do seem to be speaking quite clearly today. Was that a ruse, as well?”

Pak shrugged. “I came to find the Brennan woman.”

“To take her, you mean?”

“Our scientists must study this pregnancy, Denton.”

“So, you want to kidnap one of my officers and conduct medical experiments on her? You do know that I will not allow that to happen, don’t you?”

“I can see that we have failed, so we will leave you now. I must warn you that we made modifications to your ship and should you try to follow us you will do great damage to your ships.”

Denton held up two small devices in front of the video camera and smiled. “You mean these, I take it?”

Pak looked down and shook his head.

“Pak,” Ripley said gently, “you and I must not have the same understanding of the word friend.”

“No, Denton, our understanding is the same.”

“Then why?”

“You are correct. My government wants no contact with your people. You are considered too dangerous.”

“I understand. Yet at the same time don’t we also represent an opportunity?”

“I could not get my government to see those opportunities.”

“Then we need to step back, limit the amount of contact between our peoples, but I think it would be in no one’s interest to cut off all contact.”

“I too think it would be a mistake.”

“Well, Pak, we have – uh – repaired our ships and will be going home soon. Perhaps you would like to send a scientist with us, to observe and monitor the pregnancy?”

“I am not sure this is possible, but I will ask.”

Ripley nodded. “Of course, your son would be welcome to join us, as well. Assuming he would be interested, of course.”

“I will ask, Denton.”

“So, what about dinner? Feel like trying one of Carson’s curries again?”

Pak looked away and grimaced. “What was that you called it? Vinda-something?”

“Eggplant vindaloo.”

“That is not for the faint-hearted, Denton.”

Ripley nodded, though he held firm eye contact all the while. “Indeed. So, I’ll meet you down on the hangar deck in about an hour.”

“I will be there, my friend.”

+++++

“And this is my wife, Judy,” Ripley said, introducing her to Pak, his wife and three sons. ur-Pak was, of course, already standing next to Louise Brennan and he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“How good it is to find you safe again,” Pak said as he took Judy’s hand. 

Judy smiled. “We may all regret this evening,” Judy said. “I understand Yeoman Carson got a fresh batch of Ghost Reaper peppers from hydroponics this morning. I think we could be in for some stormy weather.”

When Pak looked puzzled Denton translated: “The vindaloo might be a little spicier than the last one you had.”

Pak’s eyes registered alarm, but then he nodded acceptance of his fate.

“Why don’t we sit and enjoy the view,” Denton added as he moved over to the main table. Thomas and Yukio arrived just then, breathlessly late – as usual – but smiling innocently.

“Good evening, Admiral,” Thomas said – before he turned to Pak and nodded formally.

“Are you two packed and ready?” Denton asked.

“Yessir,” Yukio replied, “but I wanted to ask, Admiral. I wanted to take a book with me, a real book, but I haven’t been able to find any onboard. Someone told me you have a small library onboard?”

“Small? Well, yes, if you consider a few dozen books to be a library, then I suppose I do!” Denton smiled, nodding to the girl. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well, that’s the thing. I don’t really know what’s important, what I ought to have read.”

“Well, let’s start with what you have read…”

“Technical manuals and science texts, mostly.”

“No literature?”

“I don’t think so.”

“No Tom Sawyer? No Huck Finn?”

She shook her head. “No sir. Sorry.”

Denton scowled, then he realized that Pak was staring at the girl, and that he too seemed displeased. “Pak? What are you thinking?”

“You have such a rich literary tradition,” Pak sighed, “yet it is disappearing without even a moments reflection what it means to lose those voices.”

“Excuse me,” Judy said, “but you know about our literature?”

“Of course. I have been visiting Earth since the time of Plato and Aristotle, and I have even known a few of your writers. I must admit I have a preference for your painters, however.”

“What would you recommend?” Yukio asked Pak.

“Me? Oh, without question it would be Milton’s Paradise Lost.”

Denton sat up in his chair and cleared his throat, then he looked at Pak again. “I’m curious, Pak. Why Milton?”

“Well, it’s an eternal piece, isn’t it. He came of age, as a writer, anyway, in the shadow of Cromwell and Charles the First, the civil upheavals that attended the debates surrounding religious and personal freedom…”

“Not to mention the murder of their king,” Denton added.

“Yes,” Pak said, “it was beastly, a barbaric time.”

“You know Milton?” Denton asked.

Pak nodded. “I visited with him once, not long after he lost his sight. He was, I think, a lonely man, isolated by his intellect, and I think his contemporaries feared him.”

“Admiral,” Yukio asked, “do you have that book?”

Denton smiled and stood, and now grateful that the ship was finally moving along at 1G he walked to his bedroom and pulled his copy of Milton from the shelf and carried it back to the dining table. “My copy from Annapolis,” he said reverentially as he handed the book to Yukio. “It’s one of the last Norton Critical Editions, from the 2030s, and you’ll find my scribbled notes besides key passages.”

“What did you like about the book, sir?” she asked as he stared at the book.

“Oh, I’m wasn’t the first to observe that resilience is the main thrust of the work, but in a way he was pointing out that there are two ways to respond to an overwhelming trauma. Utter defeat or as an empowering event. Instead of being traumatized, learning. And in so learning, growing stronger.”

“Well said,” Pak added. “But now I’m curious, Denton. What is your favorite book?”

“Huckleberry Finn,” he said, without hesitation.

“I’ve never read that,” Pak sighed.

So Denton got up again and walked to his secret stash and brought his cherished first edition to the table and gently handed it over to Pak. “Please return by the due date indicated,” Ripley said, grinning, then: “Sheesh, I feel like a librarian.”

“You mentioned paintings?” Judy continued. “Do you have a favorite artist?”

“No, not really,” Pak sighed, “but if pressed I might say Van Gogh. And you?”

Judy nodded. “Me, too. A Starry Night.”

“Understandable,” Pak said, “given your choice of profession.”

“My mother had a poster of it in my bedroom when I was growing up,” Judy continued. “I always wondered what it must’ve felt like to see the world the way he did.” 

Carson’s eggplant vindaloo arrived, and Pak’s family watched Denton load his plate with basmati rice before topping the rice with the curry, and after everyone was served Denton took the first bight…

…and his eyes began watering, his eyebrows twitched, and then the flop-sweats started.

“Joan,” he cried, “you’ve outdone yourself!”

“It’s the reapers, Admiral,” she shouted in triumph from her little galley. “They just hit peak potency!”

No one else made a move, now terrified of the stuff on their plates.

“Oh well,” Judy said, “when in Rome…” she said as she picked up her fork and took a tentative sniff. “Holy Mother of God, Denton…” she whispered, “this stuff even hurts to sniff.”

“Yeah, it’s great, isn’t it?” he said as he wiped away the sweat now rolling down the back of his neck.

Judy put a small dab in her mouth and then cleared her throat as she reached for her glass of ice water.

ur-Pak was next to go down this road more or less traveled. He loaded up a healthy soup spoon full of the stuff and then slammed it in his mouth – and all eyes went to his. Which immediately began running. Before he dropped his spoon and slammed the table with open hand – followed by a stream of Pakish invective that must have been choice, because Pak shook his head and went picked up his fork.

And after Pak swallowed his first spoonful he looked at Denton and smiled. “Not bad,” he said. “It reminds me of a forest fire I saw once.” And while he let his other children eat their plates full of the curry, he forbade his wife, telling Denton he didn’t want her to try anything that might risk the safety of the child she was carrying.

Which made Ripley and Admiral Davis laugh.

Until Pak’s wife insisted. And all eyes turned to her as she tried a first tentative bight – but apparently she loved it and quickly ate the rest of her portion. And when she asked for more, Denton and Neal Davis looked at one another then smiled, because they both knew they had witnessed something important.

When dinner was complete Louise looked around a little nervously, then she cleared her throat. “Uh, I have a little announcement,” she said, looking at Denton first – who nodded imperceptibly – then at ur-Pak. “I’ve spoken with Doctor Murray, and she’s certain I’m carrying a little girl…”

And Denton was studying Pak as Brennan made her announcement, and he wasn’t sure but he felt almost certain that Pak had registered surprise in that moment, and when Pak translated the news for his wife her icy facade seemed to crack for a moment, and Denton thought he saw the faintest traces of a smile – not on her lips but around the periphery of her eyes.

‘So, another lesson learned!’ Ripley said to himself. ‘I’ll have to start writing all these notes down…tonight!’

ur-Pak was soon enjoined in a spirited conversation with his mother, and Pak tried to hide his discomfort for a moment – until he realized he and his family were being studied – and then he called his group to order and told them it was time to go back to their own ship. 

“When will you return to Earth?” Pak asked before he walked out to his shuttle.

“Soon. Probably within the hour.”

“And you are certain ur-Pak returning with you will present no difficulties?”

“As certain as I can be, Pak. What’s bothering you?”

“Your tendency to study us, Denton.”

“Can you really blame us? After all, you’ve been studying us for thousands of years.”

Pak nodded. “Point taken, yet I think we still have much we can learn from one another.”

“And, apparently, there is still much you want to conceal from us.”

“And can you blame us, Denton? You have just demonstrated…”

“Understood. And that’s why I will push for a full diplomatic and military alliance with your people. We will both be stronger acting as one, don’t you think?”

Pak nodded. “I agree in principle, Denton, but I cannot, and so must not, speak for our Council of Elders.”

“Understood.”

“What of this Company you speak of. Weyland, isn’t it?”

“That’s correct.”

“Who speaks for them, Admiral Ripley?”

Ripley hesitated, then he spoke the truth. “I have no idea. They seemed to have broken free of all our governing bodies, but I’m not at all sure how much damage they sustained here. About half of the wrecked ships we’ve surveyed are Company ships, and it will take them years to come back from a loss this large.”

“Perhaps your governing bodies are no longer able to contend after such losses.”

“Doubtful. Our Navy and Marines are tasked with operations away from Earth, while our Air Force and Army protect only Earth, and none of our Air Force assets were involved out here. And as you’ve seen, our Navy is still more than capable of projecting force wherever needed.”

“Indeed I have. We all have. And I will deliver your proposal to the council.”

“So, this is goodbye. For now.”

Pak nodded. “Yes, my friend. And as agreed, if you do not come back in one year that will mean the proposal was rejected by your governing bodies?”

“And if you do not return, that will mean the proposal was rejected by your council. Which leaves us the your son.”

“If the proposal is rejected, Denton, please keep him with you and Louise and your wife, for I fear he will need your protection. I will come for him as soon as I can.”

“I will protect your son, Pak.”

“I know. You are at heart an honorable man,” Pak said, extending his right hand.

Denton took it and looked his friend in the eye: “Safe journeys, my friend.”

“And you must be careful, Denton. Things may not be as you now expect.”

“They never are.”

Pak nodded and walked into his shuttle, and a few minutes later he watched the shuttle lift up and gently maneuver back to Pak’s ship before he turned from the viewport and walked over to Main Street, Brennan and ur-Pak by his side. “Louise, why don’t you get our guest settled in his quarters before you come up to the bridge.”

“Will Judy, er, will Captain Ripley be on the bridge, Admiral?”

He shook his head. “No, she’s writing up her after-action report. I would assume detailing the loss of Hyperion might not be the easiest thing she’s done.”

“Yessir.”

He turned to ur-Pak then, and looked the ‘boy’ in the eye. “Welcome aboard. You’ll let Commander Brennan know if you need anything?”

“Yes, Den-ton.”

“Will this be your first time visiting Earth?”

“Yes. This my first big trip.”

“I see. Well, when you have some free time, drop by the bridge so we can show you around.”

“Thanks you.”

Ripley smiled and nodded, but when he heard Brennan correcting the boy’s grammar he almost laughed out loud. He continued up Main Street only to find Judy on the bridge, and she was talking to Gordon.

“They used an AI version of me to try to trick you?” she asked as he walked up.

“Yup. Sneaky little bastards, huh?”

“How’d you know it wasn’t me?”

“I tripped it up with a trick question about Ellen.”

“And the Maser took out the ship?”

“Yes…but…who took you and the other hostages into custody?”

“A Warrior ship jumped in when we were tanking…”

“When your Field was down?” Ripley asked.

“Yes, that’s kind of a curious coincidence, don’t you think?”

“Gordon,” Ripley asked, “do you think that could be coincidental?”

“Unlikely, Admiral. With this new information, I now find it more than likely that the Warrior faction was in communication with elements within the Company, and that they were acting in concert to lure us into the developing confrontation here at Mintaka 4.”

Ripley walked to his console and logged in. “Lars? Any thoughts?”

“Yes, Admiral. I have been searching through the spectrum, looking for mainframes within the debris field and trying to access their data. I have found four so far that are still operating on battery power, and I have downloaded their bridge operation files, including their COMMs logs.”

“And are you finding any patterns in the chaos?”

“Two of consequence, Admiral. Either the company was in direct communications with the Warrior faction, or they were in contact with Pak’s fleet.”

“Speculate, please.”

“Best case, the Company was working with the Warrior faction. Worst case, they were, and still are, working with Pak and his fleet. If that is indeed the case then we have made one wrong assumption with immediate consequence. If this is true, then Pak’s fleet controls the organism, and Pak’s fleet could deploy the organism during any future engagement. An item in support of this theory is the ease with which Pak’s personnel moved the organisms and their queens…”

“Which would mean we deployed the organism against a peaceful faction that was trying to stop an emerging militarist faction.”

“Yes, Admiral, if that was indeed the case.”

“Any way we can test that hypothesis?”

“I am currently searching the debris field for Company mainframes, Admiral.”

Ripley’s COMMs link blinked and Pak appeared onscreen. “Denton, we are leaving now. Perhaps we will see you soon.”

“Yes, my friend. We are about to get underway ourselves. See you soon.”

The link closed and Lars nasty-blue avatar replaced Pak on the main screen. “Nothing, Admiral. No signals at all, no residual power spikes, nothing.”

Ripley nodded. “So, the only evidence we have is at best circumstantial and even that is contradictory…”

“The only factor in common is the presence of Company ships, Admiral…”

“And it’s pretty goddamn unlikely anyone in the Weyland Group would form an alliance with a bunch of pacifists…”

Brennan came onto the bridge looking rather flushed and Ripley smiled as he watched her groan as she climbed into her g-couch. “XO,” he said to her over the intercom, “have you laid in the jump to Earth?”

“Yessir. And as requested, out past the Moon’s orbital path, about 500,000 miles out…”

Ripley flipped his COMMs over to the bridge on Enterprise and Neal Davis’s face popped into focus. “You ready over there?” Ripley asked.

“When you are, Bud.”

Ripley nodded as he set his COMMs to fleet wide. “All ships, Agamemnon actual, set jump to ten minutes on my mark. Mark!” – then he watched as Pak’s ships winked out as they made their jumps. “Lars? Did you set the beacon frequency?”

“Yes, Admiral. I was also able to pass along the jump coordinates.”

“Seal and encrypt, for admiralty eyes only.”

“Done.”

“Brennan, you look rode hard and put away wet. You feeling okay?”

“Okay, sir. This baby is a little bigger than expected, that’s all.”

“What about ur-Pak’s g-couch? Is it – big – enough?”

“Yessir,” she said, ignoring the jab.

He switched over to Enterprise and spoke to Davis again: “You have the ready alert set to launch? Just in case?”

“Yes, of course. Something bothering you?”

“Something doesn’t feel right, Neal. I can’t put my finger on it, but it feels like there’s something out there stalking us.”

“I know. I feel it, too. You want to delay the jump?”

Ripley rubbed the bridge of his nose and slowly shook his head. “No. No, I don’t think so. But…we’re…we’ve missed something, Neal. Something big. Something elemental.”

He flipped his COMMs circuit over to the weapons control center in CIC. “WEPs, get Stavridis into a tight formation off our port quarter right after the jump, and Constellation off our starboard. Tight, and I mean with just enough room between our Fields so they don’t set up an interference loop with each other.”

“Aye, sir.”

The computer’s countdown came on over the intercom now: “All stations, zero gravity in ten seconds. Jump in sixty seconds.”

Judy’s couch rolled up and she engaged the mag-lock. “You ready to see Ellen?” she asked. “You know, she’s going to be about three years older now…”

“I know. We’ve missed a lot of growing up together…”

“Not too much,” she added, smiling at her husband. “Have you thought about where you’d like to live?”

“Mountains. I want to live near the mountains, maybe near Quito.”

“All stations, jump in ten seconds.”

“Well,” Judy sighed, “see you on the other side.”

He smiled and nodded just as his senses began to distort, and then time stopped…

…and then the Earth was just visible through the main blast shield, and computers came online one by one as their operators reoriented to the new reality…

But even from a half a million miles out Ripley could tell there was something drastically wrong with the Earth…

“Lars?”

– nothing –

“ASTRO, get the Schmidt camera on the planet dead ahead,” he barked. The albedo was all wrong, way too bright to be earth.

“Working.”

“Brennan? What’s the celestial neighborhood look like?”

“Orion is right where it ought to be Admiral, and so are Spica and Arcturus, and the Moon is in the correct orbit.”

“Bridge, COMMs, we’re picking up Terran GPS signals and…oh, no, that can’t be right…”

“COMMs, Ripley, what do you have for me?”

“Uh, Admiral, the current year is 2139…”

“What? But that’s 32 years…and that can’t be right!”

“Bridge, COMMs, we’ve got radio traffic.”

“Put it through up here.”

“…repeat, this is Antarctic Traffic Control calling unknown vessels, please identify and squawk ident code.”

“Antarctic Traffic Control, this is Agamemnon actual squawking ident.”

Ripley’s main screen flickered as the bridge computers struggled to regain control, then a Walter was on his screen.

“Admiral?”

“Walter? What the devil is going on down there? The planetary albedo is off the scale!”

“The sunspots, Admiral? When you departed? Multiple X10 class CMEs hit the atmosphere and it generated a massive ionizing event, stripping almost all CO2 from the atmosphere. Within a year the average global temperature had fallen by 12 degrees centigrade, and the remaining water vapor in the atmosphere began falling as ice.”

“Walter? What about the people?”

“Domed cities, geothermal energy. About half the population accounted for there. Hundreds of colony ships are still en route to van den Bergh 20, in Taurus.”

Judy spoke next: “Walter? What about Ellen? Ellen Ripley? She was with Admiral Stanton, I think at Armstrong Base?”

“Yes, Ma’am. She completed her merchant mariners training and has been assigned to a commercial ore processing ship. She was assigned to the Nostromo, and I think the ship is currently inbound and due to arrive in two years.”

“Where’s Admiral Stanton, Walter?”

“Deceased, sir.”

“Who’s in charge of the Navy?”

“Currently no one, Admiral. The Navy functionally ceased operations almost ten years ago, though the few remaining ships still operational are escorting the colony fleet. The main Lunar gateway is still operational, and the manufacturing facilities at Armstrong Base are still online, but there are now more humans on Mars than on Earth.”

Neal Davis popped up on a split screen and looked at Ripley. “We had no way to calculate the time differential when we went after the Warrior planet, Denton. That’s what we missed – where we screwed the pooch.”

“Walter? What about the council?”

“No longer functional, sir.”

“No planetary government at all?”

“The remaining city states operate as a loose confederation, but there is no longer any unified government…”

“What about the Company?”

“Headquartered on Electra, Admiral. The largest planet in the van den Bergh 20 asterism.”

“Do you know if they have any faster than light drives on any of their ships?” Davis asked.

“No sir, unless they’ve managed to keep that secret. Is that how you appeared so suddenly?”

Ripley ignored the question. “What about government on the Moon and Mars?”

“Again, a loose confederation of city states, Admiral.”

“Walter,” Ripley suddenly commanded, “transfer all charts of the van den Bergh 20 system to my ship now.”

“Sir, I am not authorized…”

“Then who is authorized?” Ripley thundered.

“No one, Admiral.”

“Then I am asserting authority. Transfer the files now, Walter!”

“Transferring now, Admiral.”

“Commander Brennan, would you go and get ur-Pak then bring him up to the bridge. And right away, if you please.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Walter, how much longer will it take the colony ships to reach van den Bergh 20?”

“The first ships should arrive within 25 months. The last ship to depart is now almost two years out, so five years before it arrives.”

“And each ship is carrying how many colonists?” 

“Five thousand in stasis, and 100,000 embryos.”

“Where is the Walter we left Ellen with?”

“That unit is still at Armstrong Base, Admiral.”

“Advise that unit that we will be picking him up within 24 hours.”

“Yessir.”

ur-Pak walked onto the bridge a moment later, Brennan by his side, and Ripley nodded at ‘the boy’ and smiled. “Activate the beacon, please.”

ur-Pak reached for an innocuous bracelet around his left wrist and rotated the entire assembly until it clicked once, then he released it and pushed a black button that had just appeared on the face of the bracelet…

…and Pak’s small fleet winked into existence just ahead of Agamemnon. A moment later Pak appeared on the main bridge screen. “Yes, Denton?”

“It would seem that, at the moment, Admiral Davis and myself are the central authority governing Earth. Can you tell me what you know about the weapon that was detonated inside out star?”

“The Warriors developed this weapon, as well as the delivery system, and they provided the weapon to operatives from the Weyland Consortium.”

“And were these operatives informed about the extent of damages that would be inflicted on our star?”

“No, of course not.”

“And tell me, Pak, just how do you know this?”

“As you have obviously surmised, we are the Warrior faction.”

“And the planet we destroyed?”

“We housed political prisoners there.”

Ripley nodded and smiled a little. “Nicely done. So, we are the bad guys now, right?”

Pak smiled. “Right. You have done our dirty work for us, and so we are blameless.”

“Except you missed one thing, Pak. One little thing.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Our Marines captured a Company ship on the far side of Mintaka. There were five queens onboard, and several thousand organisms.”

Pak stared at Ripley, and he said not a word.

“And that ship is now on the surface of the planet you call Sheedawan. That’s your home world, is it not, Pak?”

“How did you find this information?” Pak snarled.

Now it was Ripley’s turn to remain silent.

“I told him, Father,” ur-Pak said. “What you have done, what you are doing is wrong…”

“What I have done is save my people from extinction!” Pak howled, now enraged beyond anything Ripley could have imagined possible. “You have betrayed not just me,” he screamed at his son, “you have betrayed your family and your people! I hereby condemn you…”

But Ripley held up his hand and spoke calmly, interrupting Pak. “Pak? I have a proposal.”

“I do not care what you have, Admiral Ripley,” Pak snarled, spitting out the last two words derisively. 

“Well then, if that’s the case I hit this button and the organism will be released.” Ripley moved his thumb over the release button and waited. “On the other hand, if I push this little red button the ship will be destroyed and all the organisms killed.”

“And what is your proposal, Denton?” Pak said, trying to bring himself back from the edge.

“Your son tells me you possess very advanced terraforming technology. I need this technology to salvage the remnants of my home.”

“And this I will never do.”

“Never?”

“No, I will never help you. You know and I know that it is your destiny to kill us!”

So Ripley held up the release and punched the red button.

“You fool!” Pak screamed, laughing hysterically. “You hit the wrong button!”

“No. I didn’t.”

Pak stopped laughing and stared at Ripley. “What are you saying?”

“I am saying that we are your children too, Pak, but you have to believe me when I tell you that we are not all doomed to make the mistakes of our fathers. Not even you. But we can move on, together. We can grow, together. We can still be your friends, Pak. All you have to do is believe in yourself enough to accept the possibility that what I’m telling you is true.”

Pak looked down but then he nodded imperceptibly, and a moment later the main screen went dark.

ur-Pak turned to him then, and he appeared perturbed. “Why no tell about ship and organism?” he grumbled. “Why no tell about destruct device?”

“Because I just made it all up, son.”

“You…what?” ur-Pak said, beginning to smile. “No true? No weapon?”

“No true. No weapon.”

“Damn,” the Tall White said, “that crazy…!”

“Yeah?” Ripley said as he looked at Brennan, then Judy. “Say, you wanna learn to play poker?”

“Poker?”

“Oh-no-you-don’t,” Brennan said as she pulled ur-Pak away from Ripley’s couch. “I’m not gonna let you do it, Denton…”

“Neal?” Ripley said over the COMMs link. “You got any bourbon over there?”

“Denton…no…you can’t do it…” Davis sighed.

“Hey, man, I got two years to kill before my baby girl gets in. Somebody’s gonna have to keep me honest…”

Und damit sind wir wieder einmal am Ende. Sollte es noch mehr geben? Nun, nur die Zeit wird diese Geschichte erzählen …

© 2022 adrian leverkühn | abw | adrianleverkuhnwrites.com | all rights reserved. This was a work of fiction – plain and simple – and all characters and events presented herein are fictitious in nature, though key story elements and character references/circumstances derive from the works of others. First among these is Sir Ridley Scott’s film Alien (1979); though his Prometheus and Covenant films serve as direct prequels to these two short stories. All references to an Alderson (zero time) Drive, as well as the Langston Field needed to utilize said drive, derive from key elements presented in the novels The Mote in God’s Eye (1974) and The Gripping Hand (1993), by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Thanks for reading along, and I hope you enjoyed the ride.

[Yes \\ Into the Lens]