Flagship (A Captain's Crucible #1) (20 page)

"I've been trying," Barrick said. "But it's like there are these giant, monolithic barriers surrounding its mind."

"All right," Jonathan said, taking on the role of the doubter for the sake of Connie, who was probably listening in with Maxwell's help. "Let's say you get through. How will you even communicate with it?"

"Various means," Barrick said. "I'll attempt images. Sounds. Feelings. I'll throw the gamut of human senses at it."

"Yes," Jonathan said. "And that's the key word.
Human
senses. This alien may use faculties we're entirely unaware of to communicate. We have no idea how its sensory inputs interpret the universe, none whatsoever. Maybe to this alien, light is treated as hearing, touch is sight, and sound is smell. Or to give you another more concrete example, look at the sperm whales of Earth. They communicate using three-dimensional holographic images transmitted via sound waves. I don't need to tell you how long it took us to figure that out. You propose to communicate with this alien via thought. But how can you do that when you think in human words, pictures, and sounds, and not whatever sensory inputs the alien uses?"

Barrick regarded him calmly. He seemed hesitant, as if afraid the captain wouldn't like the answer he had in mind. Finally, the telepath spoke.

"There is a theory, Captain, that every being in the universe is linked to a higher dimension. Call it a soul, call it an invisible cord leading away from every living thing that travels up the dimensions to a shared plane. Human, alien, it doesn't matter. We're all linked to that collective dimension from which all life originates. The Wellspring. And just because we can't see that shared world, or hear it, or touch it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I believe telepaths have access to this higher, communal consciousness. To this Wellspring. It is through that realm I will reach the alien."

Jonathan smiled wearily. He suddenly understood very well what Connie meant when she spoke of telepathy as mumbo jumbo.

"All right." Jonathan stood. "Keep me posted on your findings."

Jonathan shifted in his seat and crossed his legs. He was seated in the office of the chief weapons engineer.

"So what do you have for me today, Harv?" Jonathan asked the man.

"I think I can upgrade the external firing sensors," Harv said. "To enable our mag-rails to better target the enemy fighters."

"How?" Jonathan hoped he didn't regret the question. Harv was known to spout complex engineerese.

"Well, as you know by now, we lost our entire starboard bank of Vipers in the last battle."

Jonathan nodded. In an earlier update the lieutenant had mentioned how the power system for that bank of lasers was completely melted and likely couldn't be repaired until dry dock. A "regrettable loss," in his words.

"But there is a silver lining," Harv continued. "Because the processors tied to the Vipers themselves are still intact. We can transfer some of those processors away from the damaged heavy beams, and I can upgrade the main targeting system so it can more quickly acquire the enemy fighters when they come into range of the point defenses. It won't be much, but it will shave a few microseconds off the acquisition subroutine."

"Microseconds?"

"Like I said, it's not much, but at the speeds most space combat occurs, it could mean the difference between a hit or a miss. When the enemy fighters are harassing us in waves, I'm sure you'd rather have a hit more often than a miss."

"How long will the upgrades take?" Jonathan asked.

"Two days."

"Do it," Jonathan instructed Harv. "And send the specs for these upgrades to your counterparts throughout the task group. Have the warships transfer processors from damaged Vipers to the targeting system, and if no Vipers are damaged, instruct your counterparts to take a few offline. I want every ship in possession of upgraded point defenses when the next attack comes."

The weapons engineer grinned slyly. "Already done."

Jonathan cocked his head. "I don't know whether to chew you out for undermining my authority or to congratulate you for taking the initiative."

"I would prefer the latter," Harv said. "I don't think I could take a chewing out with a straight face. I laughed my ass off through boot camp, you know."

Jonathan had to grin at that. "The latter it is."

* * *

The task group finished collecting the survivors from the wreckages of the
Linea, Selene
,
Devastator
and
Halberd,
then set a course for Achilles with the goal of using the gas giant as a gravitational slingshot. The maneuver would cut three days from their travel time to the 1-Vega Slipstream.

Jonathan ordered the
Aurelia
to stay behind with the
Marley
to protect it while that ship affected major repairs. The
Grimm
, as the second most vulnerable ship in the task group, also remained behind. Most of the engineering crew and 3D-printing robots from both ships were temporarily transferred over to the
Marley
to aid in repairs.

Jonathan had allowed the only survivor from Task Unit One, the
Salvador,
to come along with them, despite the fact Captain Rail had been so deeply entrenched in the admiral's camp. The
Salvador's
communications had proven readily repairable, with the damage to her engines and weapons systems minimal; because of her extensive firepower, he decided to give the captain a chance to redeem herself.

Jonathan had the vessels under his command launch one nuke each toward the uncharted 2-Vega Slipstream. The weapons were programmed to drift most of the way, using minimal propellant for course corrections, with instructions to form a hexagonal pattern right in front of the Slipstream boundary, effectively mining the entrance. If any more reinforcements arrived, the enemy would be in for a little surprise. 

Jonathan had his communications officer transmit a continuous message in all known languages to the remaining enemy ships, offering to exchange the alien prisoner for their human hostages. So far no response had come. That likely ruled out a diplomatic resolution to the conflict.

Without the
Marley
and
Grimm
to slow them down, the task group made good progress. Robert's coordinated offensive must have inflicted more damage on the capital ship than previously believed, because the human ships were slowly gaining on the alien targets. The task group was scheduled to overtake the targets in five days, roughly two days from the exit Slipstream.

Meanwhile, the sentry ship had abandoned its guard position of 1-Vega, and was well on its way to rendezvousing with the other two. When a comm drone appeared from the Slipstream a day later, the sentry ship simply fired its directional EMP weapon at the distant object, frying the drone's electronics to prevent any transmissions.

The sentry joined its brethren two days later, and together the convoy proceeded toward the Slipstream at the pace of the damaged capital ship.

At that point the human task group was only two days away. Tensions were high throughout the
Callaway
. When Jonathan walked the passageways to visit one department head or another in person, the nods of the crew were often stiff, their eyes weary and lined with worry. Yet there was also pride in those eyes, and determined purpose. They were battle-hardened men and women by that point, crew members who had journeyed to the brink, looked over it, and lived.

Jonathan hoped they would all survive in the days to come.

If he had anything to do with it, they would.

I won't let you down
, Jonathan mentally promised his crew as he strode those passageways.
I swear it.

* * *

Barrick floated in the mind world. He was surrounded by points of light, as if he resided in deep space. Sometimes square planes of pure darkness soared past him, alternately appearing above, below, to his right, or to his left. Occasionally multiple planes passed by simultaneously, momentarily forming an open-ended cube around him.

Those planes were the barriers the alien mind put up whenever he tried to reach out to one of those points of light.

So far, those barriers proved impenetrable, like the minds of Presidents and CEOs who were trained to fight off telepathic probing attempts. He had placed similar ramparts around his own mind, of course: the last thing he needed was an alien presence messing with his consciousness.

He had been at it for what seemed like weeks so far. But time behaved differently in the mind world... weeks there would be mere minutes in reality.

There. A change. When he tried to touch a certain point of light, the plane that intercepted him felt slippery, somehow. He tried again. Yes. He thought he could slide past if he applied more of himself.

Gathering his reserves, he reached out. Once again a dark plane soared past, blocking his attempt. He almost touched the light that time, but not quite.

He moved some of his concentration away from his own mental barriers, weakening them very slightly, then reached for the star again. The dark plane intercepted him once again but he didn't bounce off that time. The plane remained in place, and with effort, he was able to slide across its surface.

It was working.

He was slipping past.

And then he was through, past the darkness, hovering beside the light.

Something was wrong.

He was being pulled toward the light.

He struggled to increase his mental barriers, but it was no use.

The light had become a vast, whirling vortex. A maelstrom of stars from which there was no escape.

As he was sucked inside, he tried to shout. Tried to call for help.

But he had no voice.

The light consumed him.

* * *

Jonathan stared at the telepath. Barrick sat cross-legged and unresponsive outside the larger container the scientists had transferred the alien into.

Earlier, the chief scientist had told him Barrick had failed to rouse from his scheduled "deep dive" session. When he finally did open his eyes an hour later, she found Barrick in his current state and alerted the captain. Jonathan had promptly come down to cargo bay seven.

He snapped his fingers in front of the man's face. Barrick didn't blink.

"Have you tried shining light into his eyes?" Jonathan asked.

"His pupils dilate," Connie said.

"So he's not a vegetable."

"We can move him out of here now?" Connie asked hopefully. "To sick bay?"

"I want him here," Jonathan said. "He might be in contact with the alien at this very moment. I don't want to sever that connection by moving him somewhere."

"Fine."

Jonathan regarded the new container Connie's team had placed the alien inside. It was subdivided into two sections by a glass partition. One compartment contained a firing frame that various weapons could be mounted to. It currently held an M1170 laser pulse gun. The other section contained the dark mass of the alien. A shutter in the partition moved aside at nano speeds to allow the weapon to fire; the shutter was needed, even for the laser, because the inside of the container was coated with a special substance that absorbed laser fire—a necessary precaution to prevent the alien from shooting its own weapon at them.

"Any update on my previous order?" Jonathan asked her.

"Your 'tell me how to kill these things' order?"

"That's the one."

"I've set up a high speed camera with a shutter speed of two thousand frames per second and taken footage of the alien. That darkness around it seems to flicker off occasionally—for a few nanoseconds—revealing a more compact darkness underneath. I haven't found the pattern yet, but we've been experimenting with the laser pulse gun, shooting at an inconspicuous portion of the amorphous body and varying the frequency of the pulses. With luck, we'll find the perfect modulation to allow the beams to pass through."

Jonathan noticed the grid-like plates that had been setup on the far side of the glass compartment containing the alien—those were probably there to record if any of the photons from the weapon passed through.

"Frequency modulation," he said doubtfully. "It sounds like your experiment is based more on conjecture than solid science."

She shrugged. "As most experiments are."

"Well, keep me updated on your progress. And notify me if there's any change in Barrick."

A few hours later Connie contacted him on the bridge: "Your telepath started moving his hands about ten minutes ago. We realized he was using a drawing program on his aReal. I had one of our cyber specialists tap in, and we downloaded the picture. Would you like to see it?"

"Send it my way," Jonathan told her.

A few moments later a rough three-dimensional picture hovered in front of him, depicting a naked human with several wires connected to his body. Jonathan interpreted it to mean Barrick was in contact with the alien.

"All right," Jonathan told Connie. "I want you to have an artist draw a picture of a human hand extended in friendship toward a dark mass. Print it out and put it in front of Barrick. Give him a charcoal so that he can add to the picture."

About an hour later Connie relayed what happened. "When we gave him the picture, the telepath grabbed the charcoal and began drawing over it. Would you like to see the edits?"

"Please, Lieutenant."

When she sent the updated drawing, Jonathan felt disturbed by what he saw. The telepath had extended the darkness to cover the human hand entirely, and on the rest of the arm gashes had been drawn into the skin. Dark drops representing blood dripped from the wounds.

"We can't be sure the actual alien is communicating with us," Connie sent over the comm. "What we're looking at could be a figment of the telepath's own damaged mind. The aftereffects of the contact attempt on his psyche."

"Has he said a word, yet?"

"Negative."

"Keep me updated on his condition," Jonathan said. "Captain out."