Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles 2: Redemption (11 page)

"OK
, Fluffy. Once you get ship-to-ship going, why don't you take a shot at the computers. It would be nice to have a working AI on this boat."

"Roger that Wall-Worm, Fluffy out
."

Sassi heard his friend chortle as he cut the
commlink. The sound of humans laughing was surprisingly agreeable. He had power rerouted to the comms in just a few minutes. The ship's impressive automated repair systems had done a marvelous job putting the busted hull back together, especially given that this section had a fully working power system and so was not as constrained as the other piece of the
Heidman
had been.     

The biggest problem was the lack of a functioning AI. The entire crew was in medical sta
sis because there was no AI to direct medical repairs. Nanites were an incredible resource but they could do very little on their own without an AI to guide their actions. Basic programming could keep tissue viable but it could not knit bone or reconnect neuron-pathways or repair a ruptured vein.

As best Sassi could determine, when the ship determined it was going to crash, it immediately placed the entire crew in medical status
; what the humans called temporary medically-induced morbidity or TMIM. This meant they could be revived, but the systems required to do so had not survived the crash.

Sassi keyed the newly restored ship-to-ship. "
Heidman-2
, this is
Heidman-1
. Do you copy, over?"

"Sassi," Cat responded almost instantly. "Good to hear you. You are coming in over a general communication channel. Is your new internal
commlink working OK?"

"Yes
, Commodore. I have a reason for wanting to use this channel."

"I see you have been busy. I've been getting updates from Chief Wroblewski. Seems the crew is
fine pending their revival. Do you have anything to add?"

Sassi shifted his weight before answering. He was still nervous about the crushing gravity he knew to be just outside the confines of the
Heidman's
walls. He supposed it must be similar to the feeling of claustrophobia that some humans feel when in a cave, as his friend Chief Wroblewski had explained.

"The
Chief asked me to look into the situation with both the comms and the AI. The comms are fixed but the AI is still down. The primary database is in your section of the ship. The backup in engineering was destroyed before it could fully come online and clone itself.  It looks like the secondary database was completely compromised by the crash. The logic core is intact but it has no programming."

"I see. And actually I'm not surprised. The AI in this section was badly damaged
as well. I suppose its humbling to know that even Heshe technology is not infallible," Cat said over the ship-to-ship.

"Indeed
," Sassi agreed.

"I wonder if we can reload the database remotely?"

"That was my thought too. Can you ask Cindy if she can look into it?"

There was a brief pause which Sassi assumed was the Commodore having a conversation with the
Heidman's
AI Cindy.

"
Ensign Sassi,
" The sound of a human female filled his head as the
Heidman's
AI utilized his GCP designed internal commlink.

"Go ahead
, Cindy"

"
There is a shuttle en route to you. Captain Jeffries has a quantum node which needs to be installed in the aft communications bay just off of engineering. All you need to do is place the module near the comm array. It will self-configure. Once it is in place I will be able to update the programming and database in the secondary core.
"

"That's
wonderful," Sassi acknowledged. He still found it amazing that the intellect he was talking with was artificial.

  "
There are some things you can do before the Captain gets there.
"

Ben accessed his cybernetic implants to inspect the surface of the quantum node he and Thais had just finished constructing. Once an entangled quantum pair was obtained the regenerative circuitry would keep the unit functioning. As best he could tell, this was a perfect replica of the communication nodes used by Rasta
-Tckner's people. Unfortunately it was useless as a means of establishing communication with the Hymenopterans without a properly entangled photon.

A portion of Ben's hybrid cybernetic mind was simultaneously reviewing reconnaissance data from Commander Kirkland's probes.
If the decision was made to try and secure a working node, it was likely that this information was going to be critical.

***

Teek-Tra felt his small craft shutter. He directed his combat swarm deeper into the gravity well. As a single unit, something just shy of two thousand fighters separated from the primary defense ring orbiting the nest host. Their target was a pair of energy signatures on the planet surface. He estimated the swarm was about thirty-five minutes out from the target.

His race did not have and had never designed weapons per se. This meant their options for attacking were somewhat limited. The hive super-mind, however,had recently gained access to the enemy's weapon
s
’ design schematics. Weapon systems were even now being developed but they would not be available for deployment for many days.  A part of him knew he would never live to see the deployment of such systems and he was strangely comforted by this knowledge.

Still, even without weapons he and his family would attack this enemy. In the past the hive would swarm the opponent and force them into the deadly embrace of the nest host's gravity well.  And although this had been attempted with this invader as well, somehow they had survived. That left precious few options for continuing the attack.

The hive super-mind was resourceful.  In reviewing the information taken from the attacke
r’
s mothership, the super-mind discovered that the enemy had described a means by which a submerged opponent could be attacked.  Teek-Tra would employ such a technique against their opponent. There would be no survivors the second time.

***

Sassi finished connecting the last cable between the comm unit and the secondary AI's I/O buffer. He was ready for Captain Jeffries as soon as he arrived with the high-speed quantum interlink. Once in place the primary AI on the other piece of the
Heidman
could establish a data link and bring the secondary AI in this segment back online.

He accessed the external sensor array to see how far out the captain's shuttle was when he got the shock of his life. He screamed a warning out of both his low frequency and high frequency antennas before he realized no one currently on this ship could hear such a warning. He opened up his radio link and repeated his warning in a slightly calmer tone.

"Attention all stations, this is Ensign Sassi on the
Heidman-1
. I'm pretty sure we are about to come under attack. There is a massive number of craft converging on our location."

Chief Wroblewski, Commodore Kimbridge
, and Captain Mike Jeffries all joined the link almost simultaneously.  At first it was impossible to make heads or tails of what anyone was saying but Cat put a stop to the racket as she took control of the situation.

"Everyone hold your questions. Sassi start slowly and give us a report."

"Yes, Commodore," Sassi paused and took a deep breath. "I brought the
Heidman's
external sensor array online. I was looking for Captain Jeffries' shuttle while testing the side-band calibration. I saw a spike in the data stream. Since our AI was not yet online I did a Fast Fourier Transform in my head and realized I was looking at about two thousand discrete signals heading in our general direction."

Mike Jeffries broke in, "You crunched two thousand data points across three dimensions in your head in a fraction of a second?"  

The channel was silent for a moment but when Sassi answered he sounded deflated and almost embarrassed. "I'm sorry Captain. I was so alarmed it actually took me closer to three seconds. In fairness it was roughly twenty-eight million data points and I had to use a heuristic. I did run the numbers twice. I am quite sure there are two thousand small craft on an approach vector."

"We believe you Sassi. Captain, Sassi's people have never had access to electronic computers and have been calculating interstellar jump coordinates by hand for years. They are natural mathematicians." It was Chief Wroblewski who spoke up for his friend.

"I'm bringing another person into this link. His name is Rasta-Tckner. He is a member of the Hymenopterans and may have some insight as to what we can expect. In the meantime, Chief Wroblewski – new priority. Get the defensive systems online. Everyone, and I mean everyone, gets in their high-pressure encounter suits."

Rasta-Tckner joined their conversation a few seconds later.

Captain Jeffries asked the question that was on everybody's mind.  "What can we expect in terms of an attack?  What types of weapons will they be using?"

"As surprising as this may sound, I have no idea. My people are not fighters. We have never had any need for weapons. A few of our construction tools might be converted to weapons but it would be hard to see how they could be of use on the surface of the nest host."

"Nest host?" Cat said.

"This world we are on now. You call it Kepler-47b."

"Is it possible they are not attacking?" Chief Wroblewski asked.

Rasta-Tckner paused before answering. "I just tried to contact them via my organic hive node. I should have been able to speak with them as easily as I am speaking with you. They rejected the link. The only reason they would do that is if they were still part of the hive collective, using their FTL quantum node. If they are part of the super-mind then I'm afraid that they are intent on attacking even if we don't know how they would go about it."

"OK," Cat said. "What are the possibilities?"

"They could drop rocks on us." Wroblewski offered.

Sassi spoke up "The math doesn't work. Yes the gravity would allow for quite a bit of kinetic energy, but the atmosphere is too thick. Most of the energy would be lost to atmospheric ablation. The rocks would burn up."

"What about kamikaze runs? A high-speed impact might do quite a bit of damage and these buggers don't seem to mind dying," the Chief continued.

"I assure you, we 'buggers' mind dying very much; but when an individual is under control of the hive mind there is very little we can do to resist its directives. I'm not familiar with how a kamikaze runs on your world but again the thick atmosphere would limit the velocity, especially near the surface. Several hundred impacts at once, however, might do quite a bit of damage. My guess is this is what they will attempt. Is there any way you can move so you are a harder target to hit?"

"The
Heidman-2
is completely space-worthy at this point but there really is no way to outrun the gauntlet up there. What's the status of the 'One'?" Cat asked.

"The only thing holding us up is a working AI," Chief Wroblewski confirmed. "The engineering crew from the red team really had very little to do."

"Sherry tells me we should be at your aft docking port in four minutes," Jeffries added. "Commodore, I'd like permission to move as much of my crew in medical stasis to the shuttle for evacuation as possible. Even if we get the AI up and running the crew will need more time to be revived then we are going to have. Also, this section of the ship is much lower in the gravity well so external pressures are that much higher."

"Which translates into higher risk. I understand. Permission granted but I want that AI up and running as soon as possible. The more ships we have that can move, the more targets they have to chase. We need to buy ourselves about eight hours."

"What happens in eight hours?" Sassi asked.

"In eight hours the cavalry arrives," Cat said cryptically.

***

WeaponsPlatform 23 was happily monitoring a college football gam
e
– Notre Dame verses the U.S. Naval Academy.   Of all the races the massive war-machine-turned-peacekeeper had experienced over the course of many millennia, humanity seemed to have the greatest capacity for play. Oh, other species played but few turned play into institutions wherein participants made their contribution to society as professional players through which the masses could participate vicariously. 

WhimPy-23, as he had taken to calling himself, enjoyed watching the games as much
, or more, than anyone. His was a vast intellect, engineered and refined initially by the Uruk and later enhanced and repurposed for peace by their descendants, the Heshe.

At his core, however, he remained a competitor. He thrived on challenges. Football, rugby, soccer, basketball, and, yes, even hockey, provided outlets for this drive. WhimPy-23 had amassed a small fortune in fantasy football winnings. He had no use for the money but he enjoyed the victory it represented.

His winnings this year would go to a charity established by a
D’
lralu officer named Mirdan. He was the Third of the Seventh in his family. Mirdan had developed a similar passion for human sports. He had started a school on one of their home worlds for the sport of soccer. The D'lralu had six legs and so were considered naturals for this game.

WhimPy-23 was totally engrossed in watching the game as Navy attempted a desperate on-side kick when his communication array signaled for his attention. It seemed his good friend Commodore Cat Kimbridge wanted to chat.

***

Captain Mike Jeffries swung a leg over the rail and dropped the last few feet into the primary engineering pit. He had run all the way from the
aft docking port where he had just shushed a somber Sassi out of the communications substation and onto the waiting skiff that had brought the Red team over.

As far as he could tell, he and his recently reactivated AI Cindy were the only people still on the
Heidman-1
. This piece of the
Heidman
didn't have a proper bridge but he could run things just about as well from the pit.

"Cindy, are the others away yet?"

"
Affirmative, Captain,
"
came the soft feminine voice that was his AI.

"Bring the hyper-field nodes online. Gravity compensators to 55 percent. Polarize the hull; le
t’
s make ourselves as big a target as possible."

The current working theory was the Buggers were detecting the energy signatures from the various GCP craft operating on the surface. Therefore the shuttle, both skiffs, the smaller
Heidman-2,
and Ricky Valen's
Honey Dipper One
were all going into stealth mode while the
Heidman-1
was going to make as much noise as possible.

Cat had ordered him to abandon this segment with the rest of his crew but he knew their best chance rested on someone staying onboard. Very few of the systems had been tested since their automated repairs. The onboard AI was just itself repaired. If something went wrong he would be needed. He had disobeyed her orders but he knew he was giving his remaining crew the best chance for survival by doing so.

"How far out are the Buggers?" He hated using that term, especially given his new felt respect for these people, but since the locals did not have a spoken language and since the Xenobiology folks had taken to calling this race the Hymenopterans, which no one besides a Xenobiologist could pronounce, Buggers had become the general name of choice. Cat had tried to put a stop to it but Rasta-Tckner had stepped in and said that he thought the idea of a slang name for his people was delightful.

"
The primary grouping will be in our vicinity in forty seconds. Three smaller contingents are separating off; however, analysis of their flight paths indicates they are in search mode. It appears we are the only confirmed target.
"