Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles 2: Redemption (7 page)

***

Mike Jeffries reached his hand into the holographic display and rotated the field of view. Manipulator arms pinned the creature to an examination table. It looked to be some type of wingless wasp with a hard beetle-like shell.

"Cindy,
prepare a medical probe. I want to see how hard this shellis
.
”

“
Unable to comply, ethical overrides in place. This being is conscious
.
”

“
Cindy, on my authority as Captain, I authorize you to bypass ethical protocols
.
”

"
Protocol override acknowledged. Ethical safeguards disabled
."

"Proceed with previous instructions." Captain Jeffries indicated a
location midway down one of the rear legs. "Attempt penetration here. Go one centimeter deep, extract a biopsy, and seal the wound with surgical cement."

The creature strained against the restraints as the probe entered. The computer recorded the relative strength of each
limb as well as the force needed to penetrate the creature's exoskeleton. This information was added to the ever growin
g
– however gruesomely obtaine
d
– database on this species.

At some point
the captive stopped struggling. Jeffries assumed it passed out because sensors in the lab continued to show conversion of O
2
to CO
2
indicating some type of respiration was continuing to take place.

Jeffries had no idea how to communicate with it
, but he now knew a number of ways to kill it, and in his mind this was far better information to have.

Ken pulled at a piece of
bent metal that was blocking access to corridor B5. It shifted easily. This corridor was the last passable one before the devastation caused by the drone explosion limited access to the hangar deck. Automated repair systems were minutes from sealing the hull breeches, at which point the ship's primary AI, Cal, would open the intervening corridors.

Sixteen crew were killed in the blast. Fortunately
, medical nanites were able to save eleven of them. In some respects he was relieved that technology, which so often could be used to take life, was finally becoming as adept at saving life. But despite the truly unbelievable advances made because of the newly acquired access the GCP had to Heshe technologies, he would still be called on to perform his role as the ship's chaplain for five funerals. That they had died on his watch did nothing to help the situation.

To further
burden his soul was the knowledge that his friends, not to mention his wife, were stranded several parsecs away. He was more than eager to get the
Yorktown
underway as soon as possible.

He had been in
communication with Admiral Faragon. The Admiral was arriving by fast shuttle in an hour or so. He would take command of the
Yorktown
while Ken would assemble a combat ready team to go after the away team as well as any potential
Heidman
survivors.

He briefed Cat via a persistent entangled quantum link between her encounter unit and the
Yorktown's
Heshe AI. He was saddened to learn that the gregarious Ensign Matthews had been killed in an accident after Cat's shuttle had crash landed. Ken would stop by the galley as soon as he checked out the progress on the structural repairs. The ensign's fian
c
é was a second shift cook. She would be devastated by the news.

***

Admira
l‘
Bu
d
’ Faragonlooked out the port window of his admira
l’
s yacht. The flagship of the Coalition, the
GCP Yorktown
hung dead in space. He had the pilot do a top down spiral around the ship so he could see the effects of the attack on the
Yorktown
. He had to admit, he was surprised by what he didn't see. The exterior damage was, just two hours after the initial explosion, barely discernible. The advanced nanite repair systems had done their work.

The Admiral still found humanity's new technologies almost beyond comprehension. Ten years ago, the task of building a starship the size of the
Yorktown
would have taxed the combined fabrication capabilities of each of the worl
d’
s five superpowers. Even then the task would have been measured in decades, not weeks.  With the gift of core Heshe nanite fabrication technologies and good old human ingenuity starships like the
Yorktown
could be assembled almost as fast as the raw materials could be collected. It represented an unbelievable paradigm shift in the way humanity, and by extension, the Coalition, viewed technology. This paradigm shift was a big part of the current thoughts that ran through the Admiral's mind as he inspected the damage.

Had the Heshe not shared their technology at the beginning of the D'lralu war, humanity would have been wiped out just as they took their first steps towards the stars. Bud Faragon, the Admiral and military man, had been immediately taken by the thought of what the Heshe tech could mean for humanity's war machine. At the same time Bud Faragon, the man and father, was aware of the awesome responsibility the Heshe technology represented. That which could heal a body or repair a starship, could just as easily be used to do the reverse.

There was an inherent danger when integrating new technologies within a society. Just as a parent keeps matches away from children, the Heshe had kept certain technologies, technologies that humanity was not mature enough to handle, away from mankind. Humanity and the GCP recognized this discernment was a critical aspect of surviving the cultural shock such technological advancements represented.

The GCP existed in part to explore and exchange technologies with member races.  Cultural discernment was a part of that sharing process. The race that had attacked the
Yorktown
and stolen data had bypassed this discernment. This was concerning on many fronts. Irresponsible use of technology could damage a society and lead to war, death, and destruction. The Admiral had lost some of his own children in those first days of the D'lralu war, as humanity struggled to grasp and understand how to best use this gift the Heshe had given them. The father in him wanted no more sons and daughters lost because of what had been stolen today, and yet he knew such a hope was fleeting at best.

He turned from the window and spoke to the pilot. "Ensign, go ahead and take us in. I've seen enough."

***

Rasta-Tckner awoke still pinned to a table. Instinctively he reached for the hive mind. For a second he connected via his purely organic hive node. This node operated in what humans called a frequency modulation mode. That of course meant it was limited to the speed of radio waves. The hive mind was currently engaged in a much tighter synthetic quantum entangled link. By comparison, the latency of his radio link was slow and from the hive mind's perspective, his thoughts crawled at a similarly slow pace. His mind was expelled from the link without so much as a conscious thought by the hive mind.

Rasta-Tckner never felt so alone.
All he had wanted to do was help. It had been said by the famous Hymenopteran philosopher Yrogerg-Eriuqam in the time before technology that '
No good deed goes unpunished.
' It seemed this was sometimes still true. Never the less, the optimist that was Rasta-Tckner refused to give in to pessimism. His captors were only responding in kind to the treatment they had received at the hands of hive.

He noted the wound to his leg had been patched with some type of chemical adhesive. It was effective
but the smell was atrocious. It smelled like the scent plants gave off when they were allowed to ferment, producing hydroxylated sugars. The only good news was that such compounds were often used by medical personnel to sterilize surfaces, so he knew his injury was disinfected.

With a soft click
his restraints were retracted and he was able to right himself on the table. A basin was visible in the corner of the small white-walled room. He noted the temperature, air pressure, humidity, and oxygen levels seemed to be ideal for his species. He guessed the biopsy taken earlier had been used to determine the specific needs of his physiology.

The basin, when he inspected it
, was divided into two sections. One side held water while the other held a slightly sweet synthetic nectar. It seemed his captor wanted him to survive a bit longer.

***

Commodore Cat Kimbridge surveyed the scene from the edge of a platform mounted on their improvised dirigible.  The
Heidman
, or at least a piece of it, was just ahead. Lieutenant Scott and Ricky Valen were both swinging their rope 'toss and pull' anchors. One after the other. They weren't making great speed but they were making steady progress. On the positive side, the piece of the
Heidman
they were approaching seemed to be located just high enough on the surface terrain that the atmospheric pressure was reduced to a mere seventy-six bars. This had profound implications for visibility.

"The mud soup is clearing up some more
," Ricky said as the servos in his encounter suit helped him toss the pull anchor yet again.

"I've got a good view of the bridge and environmental decks of the
Heidman,
" Cat confirmed. "It looks like i
t’
s got power and is actively reconfiguring itself. This may be a good sign for survivors."

Rebecca Kirkland pulled her way over to where Cat was standing. "I can see it now
, too. What's that silver and copper colored thing off to the right side?"

"I think it's one of the attack drones
, but it looks intact. And if I'm not mistaken," Cat said while instructing her nanites to enhance her vision with an optical zoom, "it's attached to the
Heidman
."

***

  Ensign Pete Sanders stood by the makeshift airlock. He felt surprisingly well for a man who had been all but dead fifteen minutes ago. Most of the survivors in this smaller section of the
Heidman
had been awake now for about that long. Sanders was a new engineering officer who was taking a training rotation on the bridge, which was why he was not lost with the rest of the engineering team who had been on the lower decks when the
Heidman
broke in two.

He had awoken with six others, including the
First Officer, in a small room just off the captai
n’
s galley. When they had gotten to the bridge they discovered their captain totally engrossed in some activity by one of the science stations. He was using a holographic interface to control what looked to be remotely actuated medical equipment. Sanders couldn't see who the patient was because the more senior officers were blocking his view.

Before he could move to take a closer look, the
First Officer had cleared the bridge, apparently so that he could have a private conversation with the captain. Sanders was not an expert on reading people, but he sensed a tightly controlled anger within the First Officer. He supposed it might be in response to what had happened to their ship. Moments after leaving the bridge he had received an order via his internal commlink to report to the airlock. The ships AI Cindy had detected a human presence just outside the ship and established a direct low-band radio link.  It seemed a rescue party from the
Yorktown
was just outside.

Ensign Sanders was glad they were going to have help. He was still in shock from seeing the level of devastation on the ship. The
GCP Heidman
had been virtually destroyed in the crash. Most of the crew, including himself, would have been killed if it had not been for the ship's advanced automated systems. Ensign Sanders took great pleasure in this. Not that they had almost died, but that the systems had responded so well... His systems.

After graduating from the Naval Space Academy, he had been permitted to defer his entry into active service so he could pursue an advanced degree at Notre Dame. He had his
Masters in Systems Integration with a special focus on Heshe technology. He had worked day and night once he got on board the
Heidman,
to more tightly integrate the two disparate technology bases.

There had been little need for
this a year or so ago, when humanity was first introduced to Heshe technology. This introduction had occurred via a massive data and programming dump into humanity's fourth generation self-aware Internet system. The Heshe tech was very adaptive and could easily accommodate a wide variety of communication protocols. 

Soon humanity's Internet, which was already deeply tied into Earth's industrial base, became even more so.
The Heshe's self-aware gift served as an expert guide to advance humanity's capabilities to the point where they could successfully defend against the D'lralu invaders. This process occurred literally overnight, accomplishing in days and weeks what should have taken decades or longer.

The result
, however, was a mishmash of human and Heshe technologies. Communication between these two technologies was only really possible because the Heshe tech was adept at protocol conversion.

But the conversion process introduced needless latencies. Sanders had discovered how Heshe tech communicated within
its own systems. While human technology was not at the point where it could directly mimic these interface protocols, but there were a number of things human tech could do that made the protocol conversions easier and thus cleaner and faster.

Many of his advancements were being adopted fleet wide.
In fact, he was up for a promotion and a commendation once the
Heidman
returned to Sol from this mission. Given their current predicament, he supposed the promotion was going to have to wait.

"Cindy, what is the status of the air lock?"  He said into the open air.

"
Cycling now Ensign. There are five people in the airlock.
"

"Very good. Let them know I'm here and ready to take them to the bridge." As he said this
, the airlock cycled open and he thought to himself:
Never mind
.

At first he didn't know what to make of what he was seeing. Four of the visitors were in high pressure encounter suits. Three were military
and one was clearly civilian. The fifth person was the one that caught his attention. She, and she definitely was a she, appeared to be in a skin-tight, form-fitting, metallic shell that flowed with her every movement. As he stood gawking, the silver covering over her face and head, as well as the rest of her body, dissolved to reveal Commodore Catherine Kimbridge in full battle fatigues.